Thirst No. 3 (42 page)

But I’m not willing to accept he’s dead. He’s Yaksha’s son, and the child of the most ancient Telar. The clothes on his body could be burned to ash and he would survive. Even if his
helicopter exploded all around him, he could take it. I must assume he’s alive and that he’s heading for 1244 Pine Street, Evanston.

I walk back in the cave. Teri and Seymour are both unconscious. I’m not worried about my old friend, but Teri continues to lose blood. She’s going into shock.

I explain to Charlie and Shanti about Evanston, how it is twenty miles due east of our current position. I tell them to hike in that direction as fast as they can. I tell Charlie he can carry Shanti part of the way, if it speeds things up. Or if they run into campers, they can ask for help to reach the town. But I assure them that Matt will be waiting for them in a house there.

“What do we tell Matt?” Shanti asks.

“Describe Teri’s condition. Tell him to get help and come here. Or, if he thinks it’s safe, to get hold of another helicopter and fly it here.” I turn to Charlie. “You haven’t known us long, but I think you realize all the stories you’ve heard about us are lies.”

He nods. “You seem like good people.”

“You can call Haru when you locate Matt and be the big hero to the Telar. But as a group the Telar are sick, and I think you know that too. I need to hear it straight out, and I will know if you’re telling the truth or not. Are you with us, or are you with them?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I’m with you.”

I pat his back. “I’m proud of you, Charlie. Take good care of Shanti.”

“I will, Sita. I promise.”

Again, Shanti corners me before she leaves.

“Charlie can go without me. I’ll just slow him down.”

I shake my head. “Charlie likes you, I can tell. He’s convinced he should help us, but if we leave him to wander alone in the night, he might change his mind. Your company gives him moral strength.”

Shanti leans closer. “What if you’re attacked?”

“I have to risk it.”

“You keep risking it. Is that smart?”

“I have to be alone with Teri. I can do more if we’re alone.”

“But Seymour—”

“Go, Shanti. It’s for the best.”

She’s doubtful. She has her own intuition. I sense it in her, and she has confidence in her own ability. What worries me is that it might be more accurate than my own, particularly in this case. Yet she obeys me, as usual, and leaves with Charlie.

I turn my attention back to Teri. I cannot leave the tourniquets in place forever, at least not this tight. They are cutting off the blood flow to her leg and the pressure on her artery, but her leg will eventually begin to die without enough blood. I’m caught in a catch-22. Whatever I do to help her can also hurt her.

I loosen the tourniquets, I do not remove them. But I take off the two bandages and again slip my fingertips inside to feel how the femoral artery is doing. The original tear has healed, but
another has formed at the base of the balloon. That’s terrible, it’s absolutely the worst thing that could happen. It means the artery is going to burst and she is going to die.

“Teri,” I cry. “What should I do?”

To my amazement, she opens her eyes. She is groggy, but she heard me, and she seems to understand my dilemma. “It doesn’t matter,” she says so softly even I have to lean closer to hear. She’s so near death, the words could be thoughts.

“What doesn’t matter, Teri?” I ask.

“What I saw . . . London.”

“You mean at the motel. It doesn’t matter what you saw there?”

“You’re good . . . You strive for goodness.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

“But I cannot be you . . . like you.”

I frown. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Dying . . . Let me die.”

“No. I won’t let you die.”

“Let me go. . . . I can’t be like you. . . . The blood . . . No. . . . Never.”

Those are her last words. She passes out, and I watch as tremors shake the length of her body. The fire is strong, but she has lost too much blood to get warm. Her pulse is ragged. Her heart doesn’t have enough liquid to pump. Even if the artery doesn’t burst, she’ll die. Her breathing has switched back to a painful pant. Her organs are shutting down.

I tear the top of my fingers and slip them back around her artery. It’s strange—before the trials, before the Olympics, her body gladly drank up my blood. But now it’s as if her system is wary of me. As if her blood knows what she saw in London, and it recoils from the idea of being contaminated by a vampire. That’s how the balloon in her artery reacts to my help. It pounds madly, likes it’s threatening to pop.

To stop me from changing her.

She knows she’s dying. She told me to let her die.

All who are born die. All who die will be reborn.

The wise do not grieve over the inevitable.

Krishna taught me that. Why can’t I listen?

“Because I love her,” I tell myself.

No. That’s only part of it. The minor part.

“Because it doesn’t have to be this way.”

If I wait, if the artery pops, I won’t have time to change her. She’ll bleed out. She’ll die in my arms. Teri, my daughter, will be dead, gone, finished. I can’t imagine it, and maybe because my mind refuses to accept the possibility, I refuse to let it happen.

“But she asked you to let her be,” I tell myself.

Those are my last words for the night. I can no longer speak, I can no longer think. My grief is too great. All I know is that if she dies, I’ll never love again, and I’ll have no reason to live.

The fire burns low. The night grows cold.

Seymour Dorsten hated funerals. He tried to avoid them whenever he could. He always said he wouldn’t go to his own. Not that anyone ever laughed at the tired joke. The last funeral he had gone to had been his mother’s. Before that had been his father’s. Both had been sad affairs, but at least with them they had been sick and were looking forward to some peace.

But today’s funeral, he knew, was going to be pure agony.

He had hoped that it would help to have Paula and John come. On Santorini, when he had been alone with the boy, he had been very moved. That afternoon they had done nothing more than play a computer game for an hour or so, but John had gotten to him. The weird thing was, he hadn’t said more than a dozen words, certainly nothing profound.

But sitting in his company, Seymour had felt like
everything was all right, and everything was going to be all right. That the final summation of this strange thing called life was peace and joy. At the time, Seymour hadn’t been able to figure out how John invoked such a feeling. Actually, on that island, he hadn’t cared how the kid did it. All Seymour had wanted to do was enjoy John’s company. He still felt grateful to Sita for taking him to meet the boy.

Of course, he had felt like a jerk when Sita had tried to call Paula after her nasty trip to Arosa and she hadn’t been able to get through because their number was disconnected. The truth was, John had given Seymour a private number to call him on if he ever needed help. He had kept it from Sita simply because John had asked him to. But he had still felt like he was betraying the love of his life.

Paula and John had arrived in Denver last night, in time for today’s funeral. Seymour had tried to spend some time with John, hoping the boy could lift his spirits, but the stream of bliss had run dry. John could have been any other kid who was more interested in playing computer games than in the fact that someone had died.

Seymour heard a knock at his hotel room door.

He answered it. Shanti, it was always good to see Shanti. On the surface, you’d have to say she was a much brighter drop of sunshine than good old John. Then again, Shanti had hardly stopped crying the last two days.

She sniffled when she asked how he was doing.

“I’m okay. You want to come in? I just ordered breakfast.”

“I’ll come in, but I don’t think I can eat,” she said.

“You should have something. You’re too skinny.”

She forced a smile as she entered his suite. “I’ve read some of your books. Didn’t you say a girl could never be too skinny?”

“Too skinny, too stupid, or too sexy. But it was a character of mine who said that, and the guy doesn’t reflect my own personal view of the entire female species.” He paused. “At least have some yogurt. I ordered three different flavors.”

“For yourself?” she asked.

“I hate the stuff. But I was kind of hoping you’d stop by.” There was another knock at the door, and Seymour answered it. “Here’s our food. Don’t you just love room service? You just pick up your phone and fifteen minutes later there’s hot food at your door. The only reason I still write is so I have enough money to stay in nice hotels and order room service.”

“Sita said you often drive to another city just so you can stay in a fancy hotel and watch TV all day and order room service.”

“That’s true.” Seymour accepted the tray on the rolling cart, tipped the waiter handsomely, and closed the door. He pushed the food over to Shanti. She looked stunned at how much he had ordered: scrambled eggs, sausage, wheat toast, bacon, pancakes, yogurt, pastries, a pitcher of coffee, and a glass of orange juice. It was his usual order, not that he ever ate everything. On the contrary, he was not a big eater—he just
liked to eat one of everything. One strip of bacon, one egg, one pancake, and so on. He explained his system to Shanti as she got comfortable beside him.

“So you waste most of the food,” she said.

“I don’t waste it. I usually bag it and give it away to the first homeless person I meet. But if the hotels would just let me order tiny portions, I’d do that instead.”

“You know I grew up in India.”

“Please don’t tell me any starving kid stories.”

“A meal this size could feed a family of four for a week.”

Seymour poured his coffee and reached for a bear claw. “That may have been true in the past, but not now. The last time I was in India, I never saw so many fat men in dhotis and fat women in saris. Did you know that India exports more food than it consumes? When I read that, I decided to never donate another rupee to their starving children programs.”

“Sita told me you donate most of your money to charity. That you like to act cheap, but behind everyone’s back you give away your royalties.”

“Another lie. You can’t believe anything Sita told you.”

Shanti’s lower lip trembled. “I believe everything she told me.”

Seymour saw he had upset her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Say whatever you like. I love listening to you talk. You make me laugh. I’m just overly sensitive.”

“Any girl who looks as beautiful as you has no right to be sensitive, shy, or even that bright.”

Shanti giggled. “I heard you like your women stupid.”

“All men do. They’re just too smart to admit it.”

The compliment worked wonders on Shanti. She fairly glowed.

“Do you really think I’m pretty?”

“Ask me when you turn eighteen and I’ll prove it to you.”

“You! You’re a scoundrel.”

“Eat your yogurt. You’re gorgeous, but you need to gain weight.”

It was while she was eating that Seymour noticed a few dark blisters on her face where the skin had been expertly grafted on. He had the same blisters on the back of his calves. They were smaller than the ones they had sprouted in the mine, and not truly black, but they were a bad sign. He tried not to think about what they meant. . . .

Like maybe the end of the world.

He had the vial of T-11 in his bag. Sita had given it to him.

It would have been nice to have a long breakfast and talk to Shanti for hours, but Seymour checked his watch and saw it was time to get out to the cemetery. He didn’t know why most funerals were early in the morning. It was like people had this weird sense of etiquette where they felt it was impolite to leave a dead person sitting around all day—or lying around, as the case may be—while the living did other stuff. Personally, Seymour thought all funerals should be at midnight.

Shanti wept softly when the cemetery came into view.
Seymour felt his own throat constrict. He was not a big weeper by nature, but he knew he was going to have trouble keeping it together this morning. He was grateful there was to be no service at a chapel, no minister, and no open casket.

God, whoever invented the open-casket ritual should have been shot and put on display. It was no joke. How did it help people gain closure when they refused to close the goddamn box?

There was no minister and no chapel service because Seymour had paid for the funeral himself. He had even chosen the plot. It was nice, except for the fact it was surrounded by a bunch of dead people. The plot was at the top of a grassy bluff that looked out at the mountains.

Paula and John were already present, as was Charlie. Seymour was surprised to see the Telar was wearing a brand-new Armani suit. Seymour just had on an old suit off the rack, which he hated. Charlie was obviously taking the occasion seriously. In fact, he was doing everything he could to be accepted into their small family.

Lisa Fetch was also present. She stood beside Matt and a certain blond woman everyone knew but no one was talking to. It was kind of strange to be carrying a prejudice to a funeral. However, Seymour had to remind himself it was not really a prejudice—it was more a fear. He sought to throw off his own confused emotions by walking straight to Matt and his companion. But he stumbled when he saw the hole in the
ground, the pile of fresh dirt, and the closed coffin.

It hit him then. It was no longer a story.

It was like that moment in Central Park.

It was too real. Too much.

Shanti hugged him close to her side. They kept each other upright.

Matt turned and looked at them, hiding every last trace of emotion. “Hi, Seymour. Hi, Shanti,” he said.

“Hi,” Shanti said quietly.

Seymour couldn’t reply. Not even when Matt’s blond and blue-eyed partner looked at him and sadly nodded her head. She looked more alert today, less dazed, and he supposed that was a good thing.

“Hello,” Teri said to Seymour.