Thirst No. 4 (28 page)

“It was a search for the divine that led to your damnation.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Our goal was great. Our path was dark.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Horror upon horror. Now that the Familiars were our protectors, they began to make demands. They insisted on human sacrifices. At this my father finally said no. He would never do that. In his heart, he wasn’t a bad man, although he had clearly lost his way. But he wasn’t given a chance to redeem himself. A member of the Link named Hatram poisoned him and declared himself king. It wasn’t long after that we were slowly burning to death a dozen people in honor of every full moon. The victims were chosen at random. They could be mothers, children, it didn’t matter. The Familiars had to be fed. After all, they were going to show us the great white light.”

“Surely even Hatram didn’t believe that,” I said.

Umara looked out the window. When she spoke next, there was pain in her voice. “I was never to know what Hatram believed. Even when he raped me and ordered me slain.”

“The rest of the Link allowed this?” I asked, shocked.

“This was a thousand years after my father had been killed. Half the Link banded together to kill Hatram. There was no other way to stop him. But he became aware of our plan and plotted a horrible vengeance. The Familiars supported him and soon there were not many of us left. It was right after this I was raped.”

“How did you escape the death sentence?”

“Friends came to my aid and hid me. After Hatram completed his vengeance he discovered he could no longer link
with anyone. He had sunk too low, he could no longer invoke even the Familiars. Eventually, I was able to catch him alone and I killed him with a knife.”

“But you had his child.”

Umara whirled. “How did you know?”

“I hear it in your voice. That child was Haru. He was never your brother or half brother. He’s your son, like Matt.”

Umara lowered her head. “Haru is nothing like Matt.”

I nodded to the road in front of us. We had exited the redwood forest and were staring down at the cliff’s rocky shore and the crashing waves.

“If everything goes according to plan,” I said, “I’m going to kill Haru in the next week or two. Are you sure you’re all right with that?”

Umara stared straight ahead and nodded. “It’s like when I slit his father’s throat. It’s necessary.”

There’s a knock at my door.

“Come in!” I call out.

Brutran opens the door. She has a FedEx box in her hands.

“This just came for you,” she says.

I nod to my desk. “Put it there.”

Brutran sets the package down. “I hope it’s not more of the virus.”

“Your problems with the virus are almost over. I have sent word for the permanent vaccine to be sent here, along with
the man who invented it. He’s Telar but I want your people to show him every courtesy.”

“Of course. What do you want in exchange?”

“For your people to manufacture as much of the vaccine as possible, as quickly as possible. We’ll begin to strike the Telar this evening. Chances are they’ll strike back.”

“Our intelligence indicates the Telar are producing vast quantities of the virus in Rio and Tokyo. But they have yet to distribute it to other cities, at least not on a large scale. They may have operatives working on a small scale that are unknown to us.”

“We must assume Haru already has the virus out there. Does the IIC have connections to the Red Cross?”

“The president of the organization works for us. We are their largest donor. If an outbreak occurs, we can move fast.”

“Excellent. Anything else?” I ask.

“I wanted to know how your initiation into the Cradle went.”

“Is this room secure?”

“You asked me that yesterday.”

“Yesterday was yesterday.”

“You can talk freely. No one is listening except me.”

“It was amazing. Like a descent into hell. The whole experience left me with a splitting headache. Your Cradle is a piece of work. You should be proud of yourself.”

Brutran looks too tired to defend herself. But she tries anyway.

“I told you, I have almost nothing to do with it nowadays.”

“I heard you the first time. What are the kids doing right now?”

“What they usually do in their spare time. They’re feeding lines of code into a computer file they keep secret from the rest of us.”

I sit up with a start. “Do these lines of code have any relationship to the computer game one of your subsidiaries puts out? A game called CII or Cosmic Intuitive Illusion?”

Brutran hesitates. “How do you know about that game?”

“Let’s just say I have a friend who’s obsessed with it.”

“Paula Ramirez’s child?”

“Answer my question.”

“Yes. Our best hackers have determined that the Cradle is building up a massive online program that’s capable of moving in and out of almost any computer system. Each day, this program makes brief contact with the online game CII and adds lines of code to it, making it even more difficult to beat.”

“Have any of your hackers defeated the game?”

“No. They’re not even sure what the game represents. But we have noticed that hackers who spend a long time playing it begin to suffer from paranoia and delusions. Rumors about it have spread among my staff and I’m having trouble finding men or women who are willing to study it. The game is considered poison.”

“How can a computer game cause mental illness?”

“I have no idea,” Brutran says.

“How come you didn’t tell me about this earlier?”

“I knew you were joining the Cradle. I figured you had enough on your plate.”

“Don’t tell me you were trying to protect me.”

“I was,” she replies, and she’s telling the truth.

“Have you asked Lark or your daughter what’s the purpose of the program?”

“I tried broaching the subject and was warned to back off.”

“Can’t your hackers figure out a way to delete the program?”

“They’ve tried. It’s heavily protected and very sophisticated. I have heard several of my best people describe it as extraterrestrial.”

“That’s silly.”

“I’m surprised someone who just got a close look at the Cradle would have trouble believing in that possibility.”

“Contrary to what you may have been told, I didn’t see any aliens in that room.”

“Yet you refuse to describe what you did see.”

I wave my hand. “I don’t want to talk about it, not now. Tell the children I want to reassemble in six hours.”

“I’ll politely suggest that’s a good time for you.” Brutran retreats to the door.

“Cindy?” I call.

She stops. “Yes, Alisa?”

“I do understand how you lost control of all this.”

“Thank you.”

“But you should never have opened the door in the first place.”

She leaves and I quickly unwrap my package. Yaksha’s book. I called Shanti yesterday to send it down. I did not worry they would lose it, nor was I afraid Brutran would open the package behind my back.

While staying with Umara and Freddy in Santa Cruz, I sprayed a lot of its pages with my blood and uncovered several hidden messages from Yaksha. But the most important ones, I assume, the ones that deal with the Telar, I was unable to find.

Then it occurred to me that the book starts and finishes with blank pages. Picking up a bottle the staff uses to refresh plants, I bite the tip of my finger and allow a few drops of my blood to fall in the water, before I replace the cap.

I spray a faint mist over the first blank page. Nothing.

I spray it over the back of the last blank page.

A quote of Krishna describing the Hydra appears.

“The Hydra was the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. His mother, Echidna, had the head of a beautiful maiden and the body of a serpent. Typhon, his father, had a hundred horrible heads that could touch the stars and change their courses in the heavens.

“The Hydra lived in the swamps near the ancient city of Lerna, in Argolis. Like his mother, he had the
body of a serpent, and like his father, he had many heads, nine, one of which could never be harmed by any weapon. If any of his other heads were severed, another would grow in its place. The stench from the Hydra’s breath was strong enough to kill any man or beast.

“The Hydra terrorized large sections of the earth for many years until man appealed to the gods for help. It was Hercules, the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, who volunteered to slay it. Hercules journeyed to Lerna in a chariot, and took with him his nephew and charioteer, Iolaus.

“When they finally reached the Hydra’s hiding place, Hercules told Iolaus to stay with the horses while he drew the monster from its hole with repeated shots of his flaming arrows. This stirred the monster’s wrath and Hercules boldly attacked. But he quickly realized that as soon as one of the Hydra’s heads was severed, another immediately grew in its place.

“Unsure what to do, Hercules called for Iolaus’s help, and Iolaus brought forth a flaming torch. This time, as Hercules cut off the Hydra’s heads, Iolaus quickly cauterized the open wounds with his fire. This stopped them from growing back.

“As Hercules fought the monster, he was almost killed by its deadly breath, but eventually he severed all but one of the Hydra’s heads. The last one could
not be destroyed by any man-made tool, so, picking up his club, Hercules crushed it and tore it off with his bare hands. With Iolaus’s help, he wisely buried it deep in the ground and placed a huge boulder over it lest it be disturbed by the future races of man.”

“Fascinating,” I whisper as I finish reading. Since discovering that Krishna told Yaksha a parable about the Hydra, I had searched Yaksha’s biography, as well as the Internet, for any clues that might help me wipe out the Telar’s Source and the IIC’s Array. The many-headed theme obviously connected the Greek myth to my enemies.

Yet there were so many versions of the Hydra myth online, and Krishna’s brief comments on the story that originally appeared in Yaksha’s book didn’t say much. I find this longer version much more satisfying.

For one thing, here Hercules and Iolaus are dead ringers for Arjuna and Krishna. There are numerous parallels. Iolaus was Hercules’ nephew. Arjuna was Krishna’s cousin.

At the start of the battle with the monster, Hercules came dashing in with his fiery arrows. Arjuna, of course, was known as the greatest archer of his time.

Iolaus was Hercules’ charioteer. Krishna was Arjuna’s charioteer. And even though Hercules appeared to be the big hero, it was actually Iolaus who figured out how to destroy the Hydra. It was the same with Krishna and Arjuna’s relationship.
Arjuna was supposed to be the supreme warrior of his time, but Krishna had to kick his butt to get him to fight at the Battle of Kurukshetra.

It was clear to me that Krishna was trying to tell Yaksha that he was Iolaus, and that Yaksha was destined to fulfill the role of Hercules. Just as Hercules is able to imprison the Hydra but cannot truly kill it, Krishna clearly knew that Yaksha would contain the Telar but not actually destroy them.

But what about this head that can’t be killed.

Who does that belong to?

A
ll my planning has led to this moment. Finally, I am going to use the IIC’s thorn to remove the Telar’s thorn. I’m about to walk the ultimate thin line, and if I’m unable to separate my weapon from my target, the world will die.

At last I have the perfect tool to go destroy the Telar. I have provided each kid in the Cradle with a vial containing a diluted mixture of Ruth and Hurley Marherr’s blood—two high members of the Source. The blood will act as a form of energetic radar and allow us to lock onto the Marherrs.

I’m back in the room where the Lens meets. The kids are forming their circle, with Lark on my left, Jolie on my right. Below us, through the one-way glass, I watch as the rest of the Cradle creates their spiral. I don’t know if the shape is significant and don’t care.

Along with samples of their blood, Umara has given me a photograph and a brief biography of our first victims. Marherr is not their real name but a pseudonym they’ve been using for the last fifty years. The couple live in Geneva, Switzerland. Hurley is a member of the United Nations. Ruth works for WHO, the World Health Organization. Both work to feed starving children in Africa. In all probability it’s a front.

The Cradle has killed Telar before but never at a distance. Certainly, the kids have never successfully attacked members of the Source. The blood should give them a big advantage. The same with my mind. Some of them may be as psychic as I am but none has my willpower, and unlike the attack on Lisa, this time I’m 100 percent behind them.

The candle that protrudes from the central vase is lit, the lights are dimmed. We join hands and close our eyes. Our vials of blood rub together in our palms. Lark begins to chant the strange hymn. Today all the kids join him, on both floors.

“ALL WHO GATHER TODAY

ARE SERVANTS OF THE ONE . . .”

The pressure at the back of my skull returns. The spot feels delicate from the last session. I suspect this kind of psychic work is not good for the brain. None of the kids in the Cradle are going to live very long if they keep it up.

Once again the pain of the pressure is blunted by the separation
the joining brings about. A part of me feels as if I’m being torn from my body. Yet a portion of my spirit remains bound in this accursed room. I listen as the group falls silent and Lark repeats the three lines that seem to be the key to the demonic invocation.

“ENTER US NOW AND FOREVER

     SO THAT WE MAY DO THY WILL.