Page 11 (2/2)

"Six months"

"Do you love her?"

"Yes"

"What&039;s her name?"

He opens his eyes and peers at me "Lori"

I smile "Does she believe in va"

I have to laugh "Then you ht I a to drink some of your blood, just until you pass out, but I promise you that I won&039;t let you die How does that sound?"

He doesn&039;t exactly relax I suppose he&039;s had better offers in his days "Are you really a vampire?" he asks

"Yes But you don&039;t want to go telling your fellow cops that You&039;ll lose your job-and irlfriend, too Just tell the That&039;s what I&039; to do as soon as you black out Trust me, I need it" I squeeze hi little bitch "Does this sound fair?"

He begins to see he has no choice in the ood hurt, Gary"

With that I open his veins farther and close ry lips over his flesh I am, after all, in a terrible hurry But only as I drink do I realize that his having a girlfriend has nothing to do withhim live For the first time in my life the blood does not satisfy me Just the feel of it in my mouth, the smell of it in my nostrils, revolts -finally My prattle with the cops was a diversion forthat I am the only one who can stop Eddie, the pain of my loss-they send sharp stakes into my heart that I cannot pull free For once I cannot drown my trials in blood as I have drowned so many other difficult times over the centuries I wish that I were not a va who could take solace in the arms of someone who does not kill to live My dreaer want to be different

Gary barely starts to moan in pleasure and pain when I release hirab his keys and cap and get in the patrol car My plan is simple I will put what is left of Yaksha in the car and then slip through the barricade with a tip of e of security I will take Yaksha to a lonely spot There ill talk, of ic perhaps Of death, certainly

12

I drive to the sea, not far froht On the way there Yaksha rests on the seat beside me, what is left of him-a ruined torso shrouded at the base in an oily canvas sack that protrudes with the steel stakes Eddie has driven into him to keep him in pain We do not talk As I loaded him into the patrol car, I tried to pull off this hideous sack and remove the spikes, but he stopped me He did not want me to see what had beco that has happened, held mine The words passed unspoken between us / want you to remember me the way I was And I prefer to The surf has quieted froht before The sea is almost as cale lake in southern India only a ht, naturally He wanted to show me a treasure he&039;d found under the water Yaksha had a special gift for locating precious jewels and gold He was sirabbed his, he never kept them It was as if he just wanted to see what beauty the past had left behind for us to discover

He told me, however, that this particular lake had a whole city beneath it, and that no one knew He believed it was over a hundred thousand years old, the last reotten Takingdeep In those days I could go for half an hour without having to take a breath Yaksha, I think, could last for hours without air Being vampires, we could see fairly well, even in the dark and murky water We went down over a hundred feet, and then the city was upon us: pillared balls, old, now flooded with so ain sparkle in the sun The city awed me, that it could simply exist completely un?known, so beautiful, so timeless It also saddened me, for the same reasons

Yaksha led lass s, many still sound, sur?rounded the vast interior, which rose step by step in concentric circles, a series of pews that cli The tes, no statues I understood that this was a race that worshiped the formless God, and I had to wonder if that hy they went the way they did, into extinction But as Yaksha floated beside me, there was a joy in his eyes I had never seen before He caht, and maybe it was as if he had finally found his people Not that they were demons like him, certainly, but they seemed to come froed, and it made me wonder where I had cohts in me because he nodded, as if we had accoht ht the stars looked as we eed from that lost city For some reason, from then on, the stars always shone with a special luster when I was near a large body of water

In the present ht as I lay hiht of nearby Los Angeles dims the definition of the Milky Way How much modern civilization has lost, I think, when they lost the awareness of the billions of stars overhead Unfor?tunately, ht Eddie has actually sewn the canvas bag cover?ing Yaksha into his flesh The unseen spikes twitch under the material, or maybe it is the dissected hout, I touch my hand to his still cold forehead "Yaksha," I say

His head rolls to one side His lustrous dark eyes stare at the water with such longing I know somehow that, like myself, he thinks of the lost city That afternoon had been our last intieth?er, before Krishna came on the scene and put a halt to the spread of the va Yaksha swear to destroy therace

"Sita," he says in a weak voice "There must be many hidden cities beneath the ocean"

"There are"

"You&039;ve seen them?"

"Yes Under this ocean and the others" "Where do you think all these people went?" I ask "They did not go to a place Tier dimension Their time came, their time went It is that way"

We allow so of the s For a minute they see up on the sand, each exhalation the pull of the receding tide Over the last five thousand years the waves have reworked this coast, worn it down, carved out fresh bays But even though s all that tied, not really The ocean and the earth have known e, while I have resisted it My ti ht," I say "What happened?"

He sighs, soin the sound "The e to walk to the anted to get a better view of the ocean It reminds ht before I left this world When the bomb went off, I was blown out of the house and into the woods, in two pieces Landing, I felt ht, surely I will die now" He stops

"But you didn&039;t die," I say

"No I slipped into a oon The next ice age could have arrived I felt bitter cold, like an iceberg drifting without purpose in a subterranean space Finally, though, I beca me But I still couldn&039;t see and I wasn&039;t completely conscious Sounds cahts, my own voice But the others-they see you questions"

"Is that his name?"

"Yes"

"He never told me his name"

"He is not exactly a warriain "Sorry"

He nods faintly "I don&039;t even knohat I told hiain full awareness and found myself in his ice? cream truck, I also found reat deal of my history, and consequently yours"

"Did he withdraw your blood and inject hiue, heto heal He has keptmore of my blood He has taken so much, he must be very powerful"

"He is I have tried twice to stop him and have failed If I fail a third time he will kill oing to ask His vow to Krishna, to destroy all the vampires, is in jeopardy

"Has he made more vampires?" he asks

"Yes As far as I can tell he made twenty-one new ones But I was able to destroy the" I pause "I had help from my friend"

Yaksha studies my face "Your friend was killed"

I nod Another tear Another red drop to pour into the ocean of tiht of how much it costs our supposedly immortal souls

"He died to save ed, Sita"

I look at the ocean, searching for its elusive peace "It was a great loss for me"

"But we have both lost e that was already there"

I nod weakly and put a hand over ht of the explosion, I took a wooden stake through the heart For some reason that wound never really healed I am in constant pain Sometimes it is not so bad Other times I can hardly bear it" I look at him "Why hasn&039;t it healed?"

"You know The wound was supposed to kill you We were supposed to die together"

"What rong?"

"I stood and walked to theYou probably beheld your beloved&039;s face as you passed out and prayed to Krishna to give you more time to be with him"

"I did just that"

"Then he has given you that tiet what you want"

I shakewas for Ray to be by my side for the next five thousand years But your precious God didn&039;t even give me one year with him" I bow my head "He just took him"

"He is your God as well, Sita"

I continue to shake erated the difference between hate and love Both coly unless you have loved strong?ly The reverse is also true But now you say your heart is broken I don&039;t know if it can be healed" He stops and takes my hand "I told you this before Our ti here anyinning to believe you" I remember my dreaain?"

"You will see Krishna He is in all beings If you took for Ray there, you will find him"

I bite my lower lip, drink my own blood It tastes better than the cop&039;s "I want to believe that," I whisper

"Sita"

"Can you help lance over his mined body "My wounds are too deep You will have to stop hith I have left "I don&039;t think I can"

"I have never heard you say you couldn&039;t do so"

I have to chuckle "That&039;s because we&039;ve been out of touch for five thousand years" I quiet "He has no weak spot I don&039;t knohere to strike"

"He is not invincible"

I speak seriously "He ht with any creature walking this earth" I feel a sudden wave of longing for Ray, for love, for Krishna

"I wish Krishna would return now He could stop hih Do you think that&039;s possible? That he will coain soon?"

"Yes He may already be here and we don&039;t know it Certainly, when he returns, feill recognize hiain?"

"You did? Before he left the earth?"

"Yes"

"You never told me"

"I never saw you"

"Yes, I know, for five thousand years When and where did you see hi before he left the earth and Kali Yuga began I alking in the woods in northern India and he was just there He was alone, sitting by a pool, washing his feet He sestured for me to sit beside him His whole demea?nor was different fromhim the first time His poas all about, of course, but at the saod He was eating a o and he offered me one When he looked atin my power to keep my vow to him We just sat in the sun and soaked our feet in the water and everything was fine Everything was perfect Our past battle was forgotten I felt so happy right then I could have died I wanted to die, to leave the earth with him I asked him if I could, and he shook his head and told me this story When he was finished, I didn&039;t even knohy he told it to ht"

"What do you mean?" I ask

"I believe he told me this story so that I could now tell it to you"

I am interested &039;Tell me"

"Lord Krishna said that there was once this deain the favor of Lord Shiva, who as you know is really no different from Krishna Because there can be only one God Mahisha kept his mind fixed on Shiva and meditated on him and his six-syllable mantra-Om Namah Shivaya-for five thousand years But Shiva did not appear before hie fire and offer everything he possessed to Shiva, believing this would surely bring hi and jewels and weapons - even his fifty wives - into the fire And still Shiva did not coht, what have I left to offer? I have renounced everything I own But then he realized he still had his body, and he decided that he would put that in the fire as well, piece by little piece First he cut off his toes, and then his ears, and then his nose All these things he threw into the fire Seeing this froh mountaintop in the blessed realm of Kailasha, Shiva was horrified He didn&039;t want any devotee, even a de himself up like that Just when the demon was about to carve out his heart Shiva appeared before hireat and difficult austerity, Mahisha, and proved your devotion to rant it&039; "Then Mahisha smiled to himself because it was for this very reason that he had undertaken his austerity He said,&039;O Lord Shiva, I ask for but two boons That I should be unkillable and that whoever I should touch on the top of the head should in turn be killed&039;

"As you can iine, Shiva was not too happy with the request He tried to talk Mahisha into son: a nice palace, divine realization, or even a few nymphs from the heavens But Mahisha would not be swayed, and Shiva was bound by his word, to grant anything asked of him So in the end he said, &039;So be it&039; And then he quickly returned to Kailasha lest Mahisha tried to touch hiine Mahisha i the hosts of de of paradise, and his realods could stop hiot near him, he would put his hand on the top of their heads and they would be killed You understand that even a god can lose his divine forods were driven fro destroyed Mahisha was crowned lord of paradise, and the whole cos downup volca?noes"

"Were there people on the earth at this time?" I ask

"I don&039;t know Krishna never said I think there were I think the ruins of the races I have found ht have been from those times Or maybe in the realms we speak of there is no time as we understand it It doesn&039;t matter The situation was desperate and there was no relief in sight But at the bequest of his wife, the beautiful Indrani, Indra perfor austeri?ty himself, with his mind fixed on Krishna and his twelve-syllablein a deep cave on earth at the time, and he had to meditate for five thousand years before Krishna finally appeared and offered him any boon he wished Of course Krishna realized as happening in heaven and on earth, but he did not intervene until after there had been great suffering"

"Why?" I ask

"He is that way There is no use in asking hi nature the same question about itself Why is fire hot? Why do the eyes see and not hear? Why is there birth and death? These things just are the way they are But since Krishna had offered Indra a boon, Indra ise enough to jump at the opportunity Indra asked Krishna to kill the unkillable Mahisha

"It was an interesting problem for Krishna As I have already said, in essence he is the same as Shiva, and he could not very well undo a boon he had freely granted But Krishna is beyond all pairs of opposites, all paradoxes What he did decide to do was appear before Mahisha as a beautiful goddess The forot about all the nyan to chase after her But she-as really a he, if the Lord can be said to have a particular sex - danced away fro, waving her veils, dropping the hidden paths so that Mahisha would not lose her, yet always staying out of arm&039;s reach Mahisha was beside himself with passion And you knohat happens when your mind becomes totally fixed on one person You become like that person Krishna told htened and realize hi about hiht if I hate him"

"Yes The opposite of love is not hate It is indiffer?ence That is why so few people find God They go to church and talk about hielize and try to win converts But in their hearts, if they are honest with themselves, they are indifferent to him because they cannot see him God is too abstract for people God is a ithouthe said would make any sense to those ait for hiain"

"Did you ever meet Jesus?" I ask

"No Did you?"

"No But I heard about him while he was still alive"

Yaksha draws in a difficult breath "I don&039;t even know if Jesus could heal me now"

"You would not ask him to even if he could"

"That is true But let oddess, God was not too abstract for Mahisha Because she danced, he in turn began to dance He mimicked her movements exactly He did so spontaneously, of his own free will, not ier He was fearless because he knew that he could not be killed But the paradox of the boons granted to hiifts, not one But which one was stronger? The first one because it was asked for first? Or the second one because it was asked for second? Or was neither one stronger than the other? Maybe they could cancel each other out

"As the goddess danced before Mahisha, in a subtle an to brush her hand close to the top of her head She did this a nu down a little bit on each occasion Then, finally, she actually touched her head, and because Mahisha was so ab?sorbed in her, he did likewise"

"And in thatenjoyed the story but not understood the purpose of it

"Yes," Yaksha says "The invincible demon was destroyed, and both heaven and earth were saved"

"I understand the moral of the story, but I do not understand the practicality of it Krishna could not have given you this story to give to me It does not help me The only way I could bewitch Eddie would be to show hiuy is not interested in my body, unless it happened to assume the form of a corpse"

"That is not true He is very interested in what is inside your body"

I nod "He wants my blood"

"Of course Next to mine, your blood is the ured out that the two of us have grown in different ways over the centuries He wants your unique abili?ties, and he can only absorb the your blood into his system For that reason I do not believe he will siht when he sees you next"

"The first time we met he had a chance to kill me and didn&039;t"

"Then you see the truth of what I say"

I speak with e to sootheand God takes five thousand years to respond to a prayer I feel as if I drift on the icy lagoon, hearing only gibberish whispered down to me from a black sky I know Eddie will kill me the next time we meet He will slowly peel off my flesh, and when I scream in pain, I know Krishna will not heed my pleas for help How many times must Yaksha have cried out to Krishna to save him while Eddie pushed the steel spikes deeper into his torn body? I ask Yaksha this very question, but he is staring at the ocean again

"Faith is a mysterious quality," he says "On the surface it see you don&039;t know is true But I think that trust, for most people, vanishes when death stands at the doorstep Because death is bigger than human beliefs It wipes them all away If you study a dead Jew or a dead Christian or a dead Hindu or a dead Buddhist-they all look the same They all smell the saift You cannot decide to have it God gives it to you or he doesn&039;t give it to you When I was trapped in the truck these last feeeks, I didn&039;t pray to Krishna to save ive me faith in him Then I realized it was all accomplished for me I saw that I already had that faith"

"I don&039;t understand," I say Yaksha looks atup, he touches ic stain Yet he smiles as he feels h such incredible pain How can he slow about him even in the midst of his ruin, and I realize that he is like the sea he loves so much, at peace with the waves that wash over him Truly, we do become e love, or e hate I wish that I still hated him and could therefore share a portion of his peace With all I have lost, I fear to approach hi of love Yet I lie even to myself I love him as much as I love Krishna He is still my demon, my lover, my enchant?er I bow my head before him and let his me a small measure of comfort

"What I mean is," he says, "I knew you would come for me I knew you would deliver me from my torment And you see, you have In the sa needles into hed and told me the world was now his, I knew that after you found me and heard Krishna&039;s story, you would destroy him You would save the world and fulfill iven it to me Please trust in it as I trust in you"

I am all emotion I, the cold va when I o, and in all that time I have failed to mature At least in the way Krishna probably wantedto ask ht devastates me

"I do not knohat the story means," I whisper "Can&039;t you tell me?"

"No I don&039;t knohat it means, either"

I raise my head "Then we&039;re da hair "Many in the past have called us that But tonight you will make them repent those words because you will be their savior Find him, Sita, bewitch him I was every bit as powerful as he when I caht I ly You had bewitched me - yes, even then - and I was a monster every bit as corrupt as this Eddie"

I take his hand "But I never really wanted to destroy you" He goes to speak and I quickly shake my head "Don&039;t say it, please"

"It th of ive you"

I hold his hand tothem from my teeth I do not want to bite them, even scratch them How, then, can I drain him dry?

"No," I say

His eyes wander back to the sea "Yes, Sita This way is the only way And I am closer to it this time I can see it" He closes his eyes "I can remember him as if I saw him only yesterday As if I see him now" He nods to himself "It is not such a bad way to die"

I have had the saht, and yet lived on I do not deny hireatly, and tohis veins, I press ht my own flesh to this mysterious moment, which has sadly become a paradox of powers and weaknesses, of hopeless char?acters lost in time and space, where the stars turn overhead and shine down upon us like boons frohty Lord, or else curses from an indifferent universe Yet the flavor of his blood adds color toit I feel an unlooked-for spark of hope, of faith As he takes his last breath, I whisper in his ear that I will not do likewise until the enemy is dead It is a vow I make to Yaksha as well as to Krishna