Thirst No. 5 (39 page)

As I do so the mercury in the glass pipes accelerates.

A wave of dizziness steals over me and I reach for the stairway. I manage to climb back to the second level but have to stop and rest. My arms and legs feel disconnected from my brain. I know I should get outside, at least close the portal that leads to the lower level, but lack the strength. My vision blurs. I can see the door that leads to the outside but it looks a mile away. If I close my eyes and rest for a minute, I think, I should be strong enough to escape.

That’s all I remember until I awaken to find Yaksha kneeling beside me. His expression is puzzling. Clearly he has come to kill me. Krishna made him swear to destroy all the vampires. But his face is grim.

“Sita,” he says. “What have they done to you?”

“Are you here to kill me?” I mumble.

“I’m here to rescue you. How do you feel?”

“I’ll be all right.” I try to stand, with his help, but suddenly bend over and vomit. The urge to vomit is strange—it won’t stop, not even when the last scrap of food has been expelled from my body.

Then I see my hands, my arms. My skin has turned black and begun to peel off. “Yaksha,” I gasp.

“We’re leaving,” Yaksha says as he suddenly sweeps me off
my feet. He turns toward the door and it opens, but Duryodhana and the man with the metal box block our way. In the woods behind them I see Karna.

“You will stay aboard,” Duryodhana commands, brandishing his sword in Yaksha’s direction.

“Sita is sick,” Yaksha says. “I have to get her out of here.”

“We’ll need one of them if we’re to use the weapons,” the man with the box says to his king. Duryodhana nods and speaks to Yaksha.

“I’ll release both of you when we’re finished with this ship.”

“I don’t take orders from you!” Yaksha swears. Setting me down, he rushes the king. A sudden piercing sound fills the ship, the same sound I heard when they came for me earlier. Only this time it’s louder and I black out.

When I awaken Yaksha and I are chained to the central staircase. The metal is strong—I can’t bend it. However, I’m relieved to see my hands and arms have healed. I know why I have recovered.

“You gave me your blood,” I say.

“You were dying.”

“Isn’t that your goal now? To destroy the last of the vampires?”

Yaksha shakes his head, annoyed. “Not now, Sita.”

I hear steps overhead, count three people. “Has Karna come aboard?”

“Yes. He has taken control of the
vimana
. We’re high above
the battlefield. They’re preparing to drop a weapon of some kind.”

“We have to stop them. The way Duryodhana described it—the weapon can destroy all the Pandavas and their army at once.”

“We can do nothing as long as that man can create that sound.”

Above us, through the opening in the ceiling that leads to the control room, I see glimpses of blue sky and green forest. We must be miles above the ground. I can see the two armies moving into position to fight. This will be the fourth and probably the last day of battle. I struggle with the chains to no avail.

“Can you break us free?” I ask.

“Yes. But I told you, the man with the box . . .”

“He can’t deal with the two of us at once. Break us free and rush the man with the box and Duryodhana. Spare Karna, he’s a good man. While you’re busy with them, I’ll destroy the weapons.”

“It was the weapons that almost killed you.”

“Better I die than the Pandavas and Krishna. Come, we have to hurry.”

Yaksha has to focus all his strength to break our chains. He’s close to exhaustion by the time we’re free. But there’s no time to recover. He runs up the stairs while I head back down.

A light flashes green beside the pit where I stored the
weapons. But it turns red as I approach. I hear the weapons shift beneath the floor and know they are seconds away from being released. I don’t know what to do. I fear I’m too late to save Krishna.

I lash out at the glass pipes with my hands and feet. Boiling mercury pours over the floor. Overhead, the awful screech sound from the metal box begins and then suddenly cuts off. Before the mercury can touch me, I leap onto the stairs and rush back to the second level. I slam the portal shut behind me.

A blinding ball of fire explodes over the battlefield. It swells in size until it appears to cover both armies. But as the light begins to dim I see the weapon has burned more Kauravas than Pandavas.

I hear a loud popping sound and an invisible fist smashes me to the floor. Suddenly I weigh a hundred times my weight. Above me the blue sky turns black.

Once more, for the third time, I lose consciousness.

When I awaken I’m sitting near Yaksha on the upper level. Countless stars drift by. In the distance I see an extremely bright star. Yaksha tells me it is the sun.

“It can’t be the sun. It’s too small,” I say.

“Its size has not changed. It is farther away.”

“How did we get here? Who is flying the ship?”

“No one. Karna is dead. Duryodhana is dead. So is the man with the box. I put their bodies below. They died when the ship flew above the sky.”

“Why?” I ask, sad to hear Karna is gone and with him his dream of visiting the stars.

“You must have felt the pressure. It was too much for the others. Every bone in their bodies snapped. They died instantly.”

I stare out at the black sky and the bright stars.

“How are we to get home?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” Yaksha says.

• • •

“That’s it?” Himmler yells at me as Harrah sobs in the corner. They put out the flames when I began to talk but they have done nothing to soothe her burns. Himmler continues to rant, “All you recall is you and your lover floating away to the stars?”

“I never said we reached the stars,” I say. “I told you what happened. What else can I do? You should be satisfied.”

Himmler slaps me with the back of his hand. “Don’t tell me what is satisfactory! How did you get back to earth?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you land the
vimana
?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did the rotating mercury create the force that lifted the ship?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were the glass pipes surrounded with magnets?”

“I don’t remember any magnets.”

“How hot was the mercury?”

“Boiling.”

“Boiling!” Himmler cries at me, hysterical. “Do you want to see what that word means? Tell me what I want to know or I put your friend’s hands back in the flames.”

“I hate you!” I swear, putting so much hate in my voice I’m surprised the walls don’t crack. Yet Himmler drinks up my bitterness as if it were a caress. He enjoys it! He brings his face close to mine. His eyes are nothing but swollen pupils. They are holes; there is no bottom to his madness.

“At last you understand,” he says softly.

I spit in his face, the saliva hitting his lips. He wipes away most of it with his tongue. “Burn the Jew,” he orders Major Klein.

“No!” I yell. Arching my back, I strain with every fiber of my being to reach the top of the pole. The handcuffs refuse to break but this time the metal stretches slightly. Just enough to let me touch the key.

I knock it into my palm and clasp it tightly.

Himmler takes a step back, his expression puzzled.

I move too fast for a human to follow. Inserting the key in the lock, I twist it clockwise and the lock snaps open. Kneeling, I slip it into the ankle cuffs and twist the key again. I hear a second snap and step away from the pole.

Himmler turns for the door. I grab his arm and pull him back. But before I can reach up and snap his neck, the soul-piercing noise of the box fills the room. Major Klein holds it at eye level and twists the black knob all the way around. A
wave of agony strikes from every angle. Knowing I’m close to blacking out, I drop to my knees. But I realize if I allow myself to lose consciousness, the nightmare will never end, for me or my friends.

Himmler runs out the room. The scientists chase after him. I crawl toward Major Klein, and he makes my task easier by taking a step toward me. He wants to shove the box down my throat. I see his wolfish grin.

I refuse to scream. Reaching up, through a shower of agony, I grab his arm and snap the bone in two. He drops the box, and with my free hand I slap it out the door, where it strikes a wall and falls silent. Standing, I grab ahold of his other arm and snap that bone. I smile as he begs for mercy.

“Like you know what the word means,” I say just before I break his neck. How satisfying it is to kill him.

But how foolish it is to take my eyes off Frau Cia.

Besides myself and Harrah, she’s the only one left in the room. The Puppet Lady, I have called her in my thoughts. Yet it’s clear I’ve underestimated the woman. For she is the only one who stays behind to fight me. At first I think her a fool, a brave woman but an idiot nevertheless. Then I realize she’s holding the bottle of gasoline, the one from the table, and the box of matches. It’s no reason to panic. I’m a vampire, I think, I can easily disarm her. . . .

In a blinding move she throws the entire bottle of gasoline over me, taking me totally off guard, soaking me from head
to toe. Before I can respond she lights a match. Such a small flame, it shouldn’t threaten me. Even if she tries to throw it at me, I can easily knock it away. . . .

Holding the match out as if it were a steel blade, Cia dives straight toward me. I’m not only soaked in gasoline, I’m surrounded by a cloud of fumes. It’s the fumes that ignite first—they require only a spark. She is three feet away and still coming when my combustible aura meets her flame and I’m transformed into a human torch.

I’ve been burned before, of course; even in this very room. But to be engulfed in flames is not the same thing. No, to become one with the fire is like embracing an eternity of punishment—all condensed in a few seconds of infinite horror.

I dance around the room like a wounded animal. I try to scream but the flames burn away my voice. Laughing, Frau Cia runs from the room—I see her leave through a blistering red haze—and slams the door shut. I don’t care. All I know is pain.

I feel I’ve become one with the fire. I feel damned.

Harrah throws a cloth over me and somehow wrestles me to the floor. I hear her whispering, I hear her prayers. I even hear steam rising from my blackened skin. The fire is out. How can the fire be out? It doesn’t matter, I’m in too much pain for it to matter.

For a long time, forever it seems, I pray to die.

But then slowly, I return to life, to the world.

I open my eyes and see Harrah smiling at me.

“You’re going to be all right,” she says.

“How?” I ask, my voice shaky.

“You have on the veil. It healed me, now it’s healing you.”

“No. You mustn’t let it get dirty.”

Harrah chuckles. “You’re not dirty, child.”

Slowly, the pain begins to recede and I’m able to stand. I hug the veil tightly, afraid to let it go, afraid I’ll catch fire again. I have been to hell and back, and I pray to Christ I never return. At this moment, I believe in him. I believe he is every bit as great as Krishna.

When I can think, I step to the door. It’s locked.

“Shit,” I whisper. “We’re trapped.”

“Are we?”

I point to the special alloy. “This metal, I can’t break it.”

“Try.”

“What? I have done nothing but try.”

“Try now,” Harrah says.

She’s telling me that because I wear the veil, nothing can stop me.

I leap in the air and lash at the door with both feet.

It convulses. It breaks. The door falls to the ground.

“Where is Ralph?” I ask.

“In the factory, making uniforms. I’ll lead you to him.”

We find Ralph and I take him and his wife and rush the SS soldiers who guard the camp’s north corner. I kill a dozen
in seconds before I rip apart the wire fence and lead my friends outside. I hide them in a cluster of bushes.

“Stay here. I have to find Anton,” I say, giving Harrah the veil. She pushes it back.

“Keep it,” she says.

“I’m healed now, I’ll be all right.”

I return to the camp. I feel strong. I’m surprised how good I feel. The fire . . . well, I don’t want to think about the fire. But I feel confident I can rescue Anton and get the four of us out of Poland alive.

I remember Himmler’s words.

“Anton is three stories up. Locked in a room with twenty other dying men. . . .”

I’m grateful the fool gave me such precise directions. All I have to do is return to the building where I was being held and find the floor he spoke of and break down the right door. No problem.

Yet as I enter the building I fled moments before, I see Frau Cia. She stands outside the door of a cell, and even from this distance I can hear my lover’s moans mingling with the cries of the other prisoners. He’s in pain, and every now and then he whispers my name, praying that I’ll save him a second time.