Thirst No. 4 (37 page)

“That goddamn ferryman,” I mutter.

Propping my torch up against the opposite wall, I sit on the floor and stretch out my legs and pray for help. Even though all the books I read on near-death experiences were turning out to be wrong, I was hoping they were right when it came to the power of prayer. For they said that no matter how lousy a place you ended up in when you died, you could always pray your way out of it.

I recite every prayer I know and nothing happens.

“At least send someone to ask me a riddle!” I yell.

Maybe the prayers work, after all.

A few minutes later something happens.

A figure appears at the end of the tunnel, across the way. She isn’t carrying a torch but I can see her clearly, maybe because she glows with a greenish light. Her eyes are also green, her hair long and black, and her skin is so white it looks as if
she only bathes outside when the moon is full. Her beauty is undeniable. She has sharp features and not a single wrinkle. To top it off, her long white gown has been cut from a fairy tale. She smiles and waves to me and I wave back.

Privately, I hope she’s not into riddles.

“Hello!” she calls. “Do you want to come across?”

I stand. “Do you have a rope?”

She laughs at my question, like I’m being silly, and then steps over the edge. Inside, I cringe, expecting a catastrophic fall, but she doesn’t go anywhere. Rather, her bare feet appear to step onto an invisible bridge that responds ever so faintly to the pressure of her pale skin. Wherever she puts her toes, for an instant, a bunch of green sparks flash. It takes her only a few seconds to cross the chasm.

“Do you want to come across?” she repeats shyly, and I expect a blush but her skin remains as white as snow. I feel the coolness of her breath, and her eyes are no ordinary green. They could have been cut from the coral of a tropical lagoon. Staring into them, I feel my thoughts begin to swim. . . .

“Yes,” I reply, shaking my head to clear it. I gesture to the invisible bridge, if that’s what it is. “I just have to walk across like you?”

She comes near, lightly brushing my right arm with her green nails. “For you, that won’t work, you’ll fall. I’ll have to lead you across.”

“Okay.”

She comes closer, until I feel the soft pressure of her breasts on my chest. Tilting her head to the side, she closes her eyes and says in a husky whisper, “Give me a kiss.”

I pull back. “I’m sorry?”

Her eyes spring open. “Don’t you find me attractive?”

“I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are.”

She grins mischievously. “You’re a woman and I’m a woman. What does it matter? There are no rules here.”

“Why don’t we talk about it on the other side?”

She giggles and shakes her head. “First a kiss, then we’ll talk.”

“Just one kiss? Then you’ll help me across?”

“Yes.” She puts her palm over my heart and bats her dark lashes. “Then you’ll be safe with me.”

The way she says “safe” makes me cringe.

Her touch feels . . . moldy.

The woman senses my reluctance. With a sweeping motion, she gestures to the gorge. “I’m the only one who can rescue you. Otherwise, you’ll be trapped here forever.”

“But why the kiss?”

She laughs like I’m being foolish. “There is no why. Not here, not now.”

I hesitate. She’s an attractive woman, and although I’m primarily heterosexual, I have no inhibitions about swinging the other way. Humans make too big a deal about sex, how it should be performed, whereas to me sex is the one area of life that should be free of rules.

But there’s something about her that disturbs me. For example, her mocking demeanor makes me feel nothing she says or does is genuine. I’m just a pawn for her to play with for a while and then discard. Also, she’s got that Emerald City green-glow thing going. It reminds me too much of Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she
was
a witch.

“I don’t believe you,” I say.

My remark doesn’t offend her. Licking her lips, she stares at me as if I were the best thing to come along since Hansel and Gretel. Her grin swells.

“Belief doesn’t matter, either,” she says, trying to lick my face. I take a step back and feel the wall of the tunnel on my shoulder blades. The edge of the precipice is three feet to my left, she’s two feet in front, her white dress scraping the floor of the tunnel, her green eyes as cold as ice carved from a Neptunian glacier.

It might be my imagination but in the blink of an eye her face changes. I had thought her features flawless but now I see scarring on her right cheek, stretching from her mouth to her eye, and I realize at some point in her past she was severely burned. Ordinarily the sight would evoke pity in me, yet the way she keeps staring at me, the smacking sound her lips keep making, leads me to believe her lust for me is actually closer to hunger.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” I say.

She keeps her grin but it looks stiff and artificial.

“Why not?”

“Like you said, there is no why. Not here, not now.”

She doesn’t get angry, at least she doesn’t show it. From the folds of her white gown, though, she draws a silver needle and holds it up for me to see. The metal glitters in the light of the torch I left propped up against the wall and I see the tip is stained with blood. She brings it near my right eye.

“Do you know what this is?” she asks.

“No.”

“Your destiny.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s your last and future sin.”

“How can it be my last sin if I haven’t committed it yet?”

“Because your course is set and you’re caught in a circle. With this needle you’ll damn your soul for eternity.”

Finally, she seems to be telling the truth. But I refuse to admit that, even to myself. “You’re lying.”

“No,” she gloats, lowering the needle and letting its tip play across my neck, scratching the skin above my jugular. “You know what you put in this needle, and who you chose to give it to.”

I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about.

“If it hasn’t happened yet, I can change it,” I say.

The witch, and I’m now certain that’s what she is, presses her face so close to mine I feel her breath. With every inhalation
and exhalation, I see the wounds on her face deepening. Her breath is like acid, her own saliva burns her from the inside out. Her tongue stretches out and she licks the tip of my nose and I feel its sting.

“Your only hope is to kiss me and let me lead you across the bridge,” she says, and the words appear in my mind before she speaks them. “Then when you reach the Scale, you’ll be under my protection.”

“What Scale are you talking about?” I ask.

“The Scale of right and wrong. Of good and bad.”

“Are you talking about my karma?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “Your karma! You’ve lived so long you have mountains of karma. No, I’m talking about now, and what follows it.”

“You mean, tomorrow?”

The witch ignores my question. “There’s poison in these needles.” Her needle comes to rest above my jugular and I fear she’s going to push it in. Even without a heart, I’m afraid.

“I didn’t put it there,” I say.

“Not yet. But you will.”

“I’m not going to do anything anymore! I’m dead!”

“Try telling that to the Scale.”

“That’s what will judge me?” The way she says the word, I just know it’s a really big deal, like God or something.

“The Scale is both judge and jury. It pronounces your . . . doom.” Her choice of words amuses her and she laughs loudly,

“Shut up!” I snap.

Except for a soft sick chuckle, she falls silent.

“If I kiss you and go with you, I can avoid this doom?”

“That’s right,” she says.

She lies now. She is the worst of liars because she mixes in so much truth. “How do I know I can trust you?” I ask.

Her green eyes sparkle with an eerie light. “Oh, Sita, that was the second question. Don’t you remember? You failed that one.”

“The second question?” I don’t need her to respond. Suddenly I know she’s referring to the ferryman’s second riddle. It comes back to me.

“What’s the greatest quality a human can possess? The one quality that can be the most dangerous?”

Since this witch knows my name, I suspect she knows the answer to the riddle. The wise woman had warned me that the ferryman would only ask what I needed to know . . . later.

“What does it mean?” I whisper.

“A kiss,” she says as she licks the left side of my face. “And we’ll cross the bridge together and I’ll whisper the answer in your ear.”

I hear the falsehood in her words. Worse, I smell it in her saliva.

“No!” I shout, and suddenly push her back. “You’re a liar!”

Fury grips her face and tears her wounds wide open so that I can see her sharp teeth waiting inside. The change in her is breathtaking.

“You dare to defy me? You who are already damned.”

“Maybe I am.” I pause as the answer to the riddle comes to me. “But I’d be a fool to put my faith in you.”

Faith was the answer to the riddle. Faith was the greatest human quality. It could move mountains. It allowed me to trust Krishna. It gave me the courage to trust my friends, and to seek out John and listen to his words.

But faith could also be dangerous. Faith in the wrong person. And blind faith in a sect or creed could often lead to dogma and bondage.

Faith is indeed a coin with two sides.

To know what side is right, I have to trust my heart.

She stares at me, her needle held ready. She can read my mind, she knows she has lost me. But she still wants a piece of me. I have to laugh.

“What’s the matter, witch? Black cat bite your tongue?”

She stabs at me, she’s fast. I barely escape her thrust. Yet that’s the crux of my dilemma—I have nowhere to go. But maybe life has taught me a thing or two. As she strikes again, I dodge to the left, close to the edge. A dumb move, on the surface, but I’ve finally decided that it’s time for a leap of faith.

“You’re mine!” she screams, approaching for what she’s sure will be the decisive blow.

“You’re so full of shit,” I say.

My heart, and my head, tell me a dead person can’t die.

I jump over the side of the cliff.

I don’t scream as I fall.

I don’t want to give the witch the satisfaction.

I fall a long way, in utter darkness.

Before I strike something hard and black out.

When I come to, I’m lying on my back on large gray marble tiles, staring up at the night sky between the edges of two very close-together cliffs. The stars are faint and far off and they confuse me because I wasn’t able to see any stars when I stood at the end of the tunnel. I don’t see how, in this underworld, I am able to catch even a glimpse of the heavens.

As I lie there, I hear the clink of metal hitting stone. Looking over, I’m pleased to see it’s the witch’s silver needle. For some reason the blood is gone from the tip. I wonder if it wiped off on my clothes when she tried to stab me that last time and missed. Rolling over, I sit up and grab the needle and slip it in my pocket. I might need it later.

I’m surrounded by torches. They burn in twin lines away from where I sit, held in place by gigantic metal sculptures that writhe in the flickering shadows like snakes in passion. Standing, I can make out a distant structure that bears a vague resemblance to the Greek Parthenon. It could be miles away but it’s not as if I have any other place to go. Feeling good about my escape from the witch, I set off at a brisk pace.

It takes me an hour to reach the white building.

On the steps of the structure, there’s a bustle of activity.
I’m glad to discover this crowd is not brain-dead like the one back at the river. At the same time it’s not a major social scene. As I get in line, I notice how orderly the group is. The line leads straight up the steps toward the dimly lit interior but no one pushes to get to the front.

Maybe they have their reasons. I can’t see what’s going on inside but every now and then I hear two loud sounds reverberate from the heart of the Parthenon’s cousin. A beautiful melody of chimes blowing in a breeze and a despairing wailing noise.

The second sound worries me.

The wait is long. There’s no table with magazines to read and the people around me, although polite, all seem to be caught up in their own thoughts. I get the impression most have heard about the Scale. To be frank, it’s hard to imagine a more heavy place. It’s not an evil spot, but it is a crossroads of immense significance. For we’re about to be judged, our souls are, and the Scale will determine where we spend the rest of eternity.

I pick up that much from listening to the others.

Everyone seems to know it’s the Scale that makes the sounds.

The sweet chimes mean you’re going to heaven.

The screeching wail means you’re going to hell.

I look for the women I crossed over the river with but don’t see them. I wish at least one was nearby. I’m anxious; I long
for companionship. Just meeting them, I could tell they were kindhearted. For sure, they didn’t have the blood of thousands on their hands.

I wish Yaksha had never turned me into a vampire.

I would have been in and out of this place centuries ago.

No sweat. I had been a good mother and wife.

I feel as if I stand there for hours. It’s difficult to gauge the passage of time. Overhead, the stars remain fixed in place. Either the earth has stopped rotating or else we’re no longer on it. I try without success to find a familiar constellation. I keep thinking about my friends and how much I love them.

I pray Matt learns to accept Teri as a vampire.

I hope he’s able to find his mother.

Umara. I would have loved to have met her.

Finally, the slow-moving line leads me inside. Two groups of characters—one in white-hooded robes, the other red—direct the traffic. Someone refers to them as
Caretakers
. The Caretakers in white are the good guys. The ones in red . . . I hear you don’t want to get too close to them. Both move about silently, their faces largely covered, without making a fuss.