Thirst No. 5 (44 page)

“But they took off unchallenged this morning,” Seymour says.

“Not true. Even as we speak, this ship is hot on their tail.”

“I don’t understand,” Seymour says.

“You intend to destroy them,” Matt says suddenly.

“Yes,” Mr. Grey says. “With this ship we can easily destroy them.”

“I still don’t understand why you had to enter our time,” Seymour says.

“When I originally viewed Sita’s past, I saw her panic on top of the hill and refuse to go with Frau Cia into her
vimana
. The prospect of eternal damnation was too much for her, even if facing it meant she could save your life. In a sense she failed a major moral challenge.”

“A challenge any sane person would have failed,” Seymour says in my defense.

“True. But Sita is unique to your world. Besides living an endless life, she has come in contact with a being that many in your past considered a god. I’m speaking of Krishna. Her relationship with him linked her to the supernatural, to both angels and demons. In a sense it has been Krishna’s grace that has made her life so magical. But it has exacted a terrible toll on her as well. Sita has faced and passed an incredible number of painful moral tests.”

“But why does she keep getting tested?” Matt asks. “And what is this force that distorted your time in the first place?”

“I’m glad you asked the two questions together,” Mr. Grey says. “The answers are linked, I believe, although I have to admit I’m still not sure what exactly this force is that altered mankind’s timeline. For lack of a better word I would have to call it evil. I say that because in order to defeat it Sita had to
choose what was right or good.” Mr. Grey pauses. “Forgive me for being so vague. Remember, I come from a world where the concepts of good and evil don’t exist.”

“I understand,” Matt says thoughtfully.

“I don’t,” Seymour nearly explodes. “Are you saying that because Sita was willing to sacrifice her soul to save me that mankind’s future has been fixed?”

“It has been corrected,” Mr. Grey says. “It will now be the way it was supposed to be. In a practical sense—if I can use such a word while discussing such matters—it was Sita’s sacrifice that caused the Vishnu
vimana
to manifest on top of the hill this morning. And with this
vimana
we’ll be able to catch and destroy Frau Cia’s
vimana
. Once she and her partner have been removed from this present time, the connection this unseen force has to earth will be greatly weakened.”

“Why didn’t you just return to our time in one of your fancy spaceships and destroy them?” Seymour asks. “Why all the song and dance?”

“We can send our minds back in time. We cannot send physical objects back.”

Matt interrupts and there is pain in his voice. “So even aboard a ship such as this it’s not possible to go back in time and visit with, say, a deceased parent?”

“Yes and no. You can send your mind back to when you were an earlier age. You can send your mind back to the body
of your father at an earlier age. But you cannot send your present-day body back in time.”

“Let’s stay on point,” Seymour insists. “You still haven’t explained why you returned to help Sita.”

Mr. Grey replies. “My purpose in returning was to give Sita the moral courage to face down Frau Cia’s challenge.”

“But
how
did you do that?” Seymour demands.

“By translating
The Story of Veronica
for her,” Mr. Grey says.

“I don’t understand,” Seymour says.

I hear Mr. Grey kneel by my side. I feel him; he touches my hand.

“Sita understands,” he says, shaking my hand gently. “You have stopped bleeding. You’re almost healed. Time to open your eyes.”

I do as he commands, but as I stare up at him I’m forced to blink. Mr. Grey leans over me, I see him, and yet I see another figure as well, a ghost of a man, overlaying his face. This man is hairless, the dome of his skull is larger than normal, and his eyes are emerald green, so bright they would make him stand out in any crowded room. I realize I’m seeing him as he looks in the future, the real Mr. Grey who came back in time to save us and the rest of mankind.

“Thank you,” I say.

The ghost image smiles. So does his human body.

“I should thank you,” he says. “I expect my home will be a lot different when I return.”

“Will they believe in fairies and unicorns?” I tease.

“Anything is possible.”

I suddenly realize the full implications of what we’re doing.

“Wait a second,” I say. “Will you even exist in your future?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

He is trying to let me down gently. With a change in the timeline as big as this, the chances of him being born a hundred centuries in the future must be incredibly small.

“Do you have to leave so soon?” I ask, feeling crushed that he probably only has minutes of life left. I loved him from the instant I met him, and never understood why until now. If ever there were guardian angels, Mr. Grey was mine. He did not just save me from death, he saved my soul.

He nods. “It’s time.”

“But the other
vimana
 . . .”

“It was destroyed while I was speaking. And I’ve programmed the ship to take you and your friends home.” Mr. Grey pauses. “That is, if you want to go home.”

I close my eyes and let my mind wander through the past. Of course, right now, aboard this ship, traveling faster than light, I can do far more than wander. . . .

“You know me too well,” I say.

I
stand near my hut in India. Inside, my daughter, Lalita, and my husband, Rama, sleep peacefully. Although it is late at night and the forest is silent, a faint noise has awoken me and brought me outside to investigate.

It is Yaksha who made the noise.

He has come for me. Holding me in his powerful hands, he makes a terrible offer. I can come with him and become like him. A monster who feeds on the blood of the living. A creature as strong as him, one who even time cannot destroy. All I have to do is leave my family and promise to stay with him.

If I refuse, Yaksha will kill Lalita and Rama.

I have no choice.

Or I should say I
had
no choice.

Unknown to Yaksha I hold a sharp wooden stake in my right hand. I wear a loose-fitting white sari and keep the dagger
hidden behind the folds of silk. Even with his great strength and reflexes, he can still be killed. He is not expecting an attack. And he stands so near. . . .

If I thrust upward beneath the tip of his sternum, drive the stake into his heart, he will die and my life will go on as it should.

The stake—I picked it up before leaving my home.

I knew he was coming for me . . . this time.

Yaksha stares at me in the dark, waiting for my answer. I don’t know why I delay. I won’t have a better chance. Perhaps I’m afraid. If my aim is off by a fraction of an inch, or if I hesitate as I stab, he’ll snap my neck. It doesn’t matter that he loves me and feels he needs me. He’s a yakshini, a demon by birth, and, at this point in his life, he’s cruel. If I allow him to change me, I’ll be no different from him.

Yet there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. He appears uncertain, and he’s giving me more time than he should to decide. I don’t understand why he’s the one who is hesitating.

“You can do it, you know. I won’t stop you,” he says.

Damn,
I think. He must have seen the stake.

Yet I’m missing something. This isn’t the Yaksha I used to know.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

He brings his head close to my ear. His warm breath brushes my skin, and I’m puzzled because he’s always felt so cold before. Plus there is an inexplicable sorrow in his voice.

“I suspected you would try this. Even though it means I’ll never be born, that I’ll never exist.”

I realize in an instant what is happening.

I’m not talking to Yaksha!

“How did you know?” I blurt out, accidentally exposing the stake in the process. He stares down at it with disappointment in his eyes.

“Sita,” he says, and I’ve never heard so much pain in my own name.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Can you tell me why? Just that—why?”

“I’m so tired. I feel I can’t live all those years over again.”

“But you’ve already lived them. Return to the present with me and your whole life will be just like a memory.”

“You don’t understand. I want to remain in this time. I want my husband back. I want to hold my daughter again. I
need
my family.” I pause. “I tried to tell you that night in the hotel when I told you that Yaksha was given a chance to have a family.”

“Ah.” He nods in understanding. “And you’ll lose your family if we leave tonight alone.”

“Yes.”

He hesitates. “You love Rama that much?”

He is really asking why I don’t love him as much.

“Yes,” I say.

The word seems to strike him like a stake. Yet he drops his hands and spreads his arms, leaving his chest vulnerable. “Then do it,” he says.

I nervously fiddle with the stake, touching the sharp tip, drawing a drop of blood. My eyes burn. “No, it’s not fair.”

“Life is not fair.” He chuckles at the irony in his remark. “Of course I won’t have to worry about my life if you do it.” He pauses. “Go ahead, Sita. Be honest with yourself. This is what you have always wanted.”

A terrible fear grips me. If I kill him while he’s in his father’s body, I’ll still be killing his father. And without Yaksha, I’ll never live to touch all the people I have. Matt will never be born. Seymour and I will never meet, even though I’m stealing a page from one of his stories by returning to this time. All of history will be altered.

“The legend is vague on this point. I don’t know what it means. But the legend does say that the Abomination will destroy our history for the love of a witch.”

I can’t worry about the Telar’s legend of the Abomination. It was a bunch of nonsense, it has to be. In their story Matt had to meet a witch to destroy history and I’m not that witch.

I’m just a young woman who wants a normal life.

I raise the stake but have to stop to wipe away a tear. “You can stop me. It’s up to you. It’s your choice,” I say.

“I’m not going to stop you.”

He waits, as does the night, and the future.

It’s tragic but I have dreamed of this moment all my life.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do next.

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ONCE I BELIEVED THAT I WANTED NOTHING MORE THAN
love. Someone who would care for me more than he cared for himself. A guy who would never betray me, never lie to me, and most of all never leave me. Yeah, that was what I desired most, what people usually call true love.

I don’t know if that has really changed.

Yet I have to wonder now if I want something else just as badly.

What is it? You must wonder . . .

Magic. I want my life filled with the mystery of magic.

Silly, huh? Most people would say there’s no such thing.

Then again, most people are not witches.

Not like me.

I discovered what I was when I was eighteen years old, two days after I graduated high school. Before then I was your typical teenager. I got up in the morning, went to school, stared at my
ex-boyfriend across the campus courtyard and imagined what it would be like to have him back in my life, went to the local library and sorted books for four hours, went home, watched TV, read a little, lay in bed and thought some more about Jimmy Kelter, then fell asleep and dreamed.