I feel I will be seeing him soon.
"You know what I don't like about you?" he asks. "It's your cockiness. I had a cocky girlfriend in high school once. Her name was Sally and she was so sure of herself." He pauses. "Until she lost her nose and her lips. A girl with only half a face is never a smart mouth."
I wisely keep my mouth shut.
There is a knock at the front door.
Billy pulls the knife higher, still inside my nose, forcing my head back. "Don't make a sound," he whispers. "There is dying all at once and there is dying piece by piece. Believe me, I can take a week to kill you if you try to get their attention."
My eyelashes flash up and down. Yes, I understand and agree.
I know who is at the door. The person knocks again.
Billy is sweating. Clearly he fears some noise has escaped his soundproof spider's lair and that a neighbor has called the police. All he can do is wait and worry. But he is not kept in suspense long. The door slowly opens and a beautiful five-year-old girl with stunning dark hair and large black-blue eyes pokes her head inside.
"Mother," Kalika says. "Are you OK?"
Billy is astounded and immensely relieved. He lowers his switchblade. "Is that your daughter?" he asks.
"Yes."
"What is she doing here?"
"She came with me. She was sleeping in the car."
"Well, I'll be goddamned. I didn't know you had a daughter."
"There are a few things about me you don't know." I glance at Kalika, wondering what I should do: be a good mother, warn her to get away, or remain silent and try to get out of this hell hole alive. Honestly, I don't know how quick Kalika is, exactly how strong she is. But a vampire her size and her age could take Billy. I speak carefully, "I am not OK, darling."
"I told you," she replies.
Billy withdraws his knife and stands in front of me. He is bleeding as well, and he has plenty of my blood on him. He holds his messy knife in his right hand and he has his shiny revolver tucked in his belt. Plus the light in his eyes is radioactive. He looks as trustworthy as Jack the Ripper on a PCP high. Yet he gestures to Kalika to come closer, as if he were Santa Claus anxious to hear her wish list.
"Come here, darling," he says in a sweet voice.
And she comes, slowly, observing every blessed detail: the composition of the floor, how Billy stands, the height of the ceiling, the arrangement of the furnituremoving precisely the way an experienced vampire would move while closing in for the kill. Her arms hang loose by her sides, her legs slightly apart, well-balanced, and she is up on her toes so that she can move either way fast. Billy senses there is something odd about her. When she is ten feet from him, he drops his smile. For my apart, I watch in wonder and terror. Only then do I realize the full extent of my love for my daughter. I would rather die a dozen times over than have anything happen to her.
"What's your name, sweetie?" Billy asks when she stops directly in front of him. His voice is uneasy, perhaps as a result of the power of her stare, which is now locked on his face. Kalika tilts her head slightly to one side, ignoring me for the moment.
"Kalika," she says.
He frowns. "What kind of name is that, child?"
"It's a Vedic name. It's who I am."
"What does it mean?" he asks.
"It has many meanings. Most of them are secret." She finally gestures to me. "You've hurt my mother. She's bleeding."
Billy gives an exaggerated sigh. "I know that Kalika, and I'm sorry. But it was your mother who hurt me first. I only hurt her back to defend myself."
Kalika doesn't blink. "You are lying. You are not a good man. But your blood is good. I will drink it in a moment." She pauses. "You can put your knife and your gun down now. You will not need them."
Billy is having a night of amazement. His face breaks into a wolfish grin and he looks down at me. "What kind of nonsense have you been teaching this child, Sita?"
I shrug. "She watches too much TV."
Billy snorts. "God, I can't believe this family." He takes a step toward my daughter, his knife still in his right hand. "Come here, girl. I'm putting you in the other room. I have business with your mother that can't wait. But I'll let you out in a little while, if you behave yourself." Billy holds out his free hand. "Come, give me your hand."
Kalika innocently reaches up and takes his hand. She even allows his fingers to close around her tiny digits. But then, in a move too swift for human eyes to properly follow, she grabs his other hand, twists his wrist at an impossible angle, and rams the knife into his stomach. Literally the blade is sunk up to the hilt. An expression of surprise and grief swallows Billy's face as he stares down at what she has done to him. Slowly, as if in a dream, he lets go of the knife. It is obvious his right wrist is broken. Blood gushes over his pants and Kalika stares at it with her first sign of pleasure.
"I am hungry," she says.
Billy gasps for air but finally he is getting the idea that he is in mortal danger, that he might be, in fact, already screwed. Summoning his failing strength, he makes a swipe for Kalika's head. But she is not standing where she was an instant before, and he misses. She is her mother's daughter. Twice she kicks with her right foot, with her shiny black shoes that I bought for her at the mall, and the cartilage in both his joints explodes. Falling to his shattered knees, he lets out a pitiful scream.
"How can you do this to me?" he cries.
Kalika steps over and grabs him by his hair and pulls his head back, exposing his throat. The calm on her face is eerie even for me to see.
"If you understood the full meaning of my name," she says, "you would have no need to ask."
Billy dies piece by piece, drop by drop.
Kalika satisfies herself before she releases me.
Even I, Sita the Damned, cannot bear to watch.
14
The following week Kalika attains full maturity, approximately twenty years of age, about the same age I was when I was changed into a vampire. At this point her growth seems to halt. I am not surprised. It is a fact that a human being is at his or her greatest strength, mentally and physically, just out of his or her teens. Certainly Kalika is very powerful, but how powerful I'm not sure. Except for the incident with Billy, she never demonstrates her abilities in front of me. One thing is sure, thoughshe no longer needs me to bring her lunch. Now she leaves the house for long stretches of timeon foot and at night. When she returns, I don't ask where she's been or who she's been with. I don't want to know.