Kalika grabs Seymour by the left arm.
His mouth goes wide in shock.
"I will not ask you again what I want to know," she says.
I try to stand straight. Insolence enters my tone. "You know what bugs me most about you? You always hide behind a human shield. I'm here and you're there. Why don't we just settle this between us? That is, if youve got the guts, girl."
Kalika seems to approve of my challenge. She smiles and this particular smile seems genuine. But I'm not sure if it is good to push her into too happy a mood for she suddenly readies over, picks Seymour up with one hand by grabbing his shirt, and throws him over the side of the pier. The move is so unexpected that I stand stunned for a second. I hurry to the railing in time to see Seymour strike the water. She threw him hard and highhe takes a long time to return to the surface. He coughs as he does so and flays about in the dark but he seems to be all right I hope he is not like Joel who couldn't swim.
"Seymour!" I call.
He responds with something unintelligible, but sounds OK.
Kalika stands beside me. "He has a sense of humor," she says.
"Thank you for sparing him." The pier is long and the water is cold. I hope he is able to make it to shore. I add, "Thanks for giving him a chance."
"Gratitude means nothing to me," she says.
I am curious. "What does have meaning to you?"
"The essence of all things. The essence does not judge. It is not impressed by actions, nor does it reward inaction." She shrugs. "It just is, as I am."
"I can't tell you where the baby is. I deliberately told Paula not to tell me where she was going. They could be in Canada by now or in Mexico."
Kalika is not disturbed by my revelations. "I know there is something you are not telling me. It relates to future contact with the child. You told Paula one other thing besides what you just said. What was it?"
"There was nothing else."
"You are lying," she says.
"So I lie? What are you going to about it? I'm not going to tell you anything. And if you kill me you still won't get the information you want." I pause. "But I can't believe that even you would kill your own mother."
She reaches out and touches my long blond hair with her bloody hand. "You are beautiful, Sita. You have lived through an entire age. You have out-smarted men and women of all nationalities, in all countries and times. You even tricked your creator into releasing you from his vow to Krishna."
"I did not trick Yaksha. I saved him."
She continues to play with my hair. "As you say, Mother. You have faith in what you know and what you remember. But my memory is older, far older, and death or the threat of death is not the only means of persuasion I have at my disposal." She tugs lightly on my hair. "You must know by now that I am not simply a vampire."
"What are you then?"
She takes my chin in her hand. "Look into my eyes and you will see."
"No. Wait!"
"Look, Mother." She twists my head around and catches my eyes. There is no question of my looking away. It is not an option. The blue-black of her eyes have the pull of a black hole, the grip of the primordial seed that gave birth to the universe. The power that emanates from them is cosmic. They shine with colors the spectrum has forgotten. Yet they are such beautiful eyes, really, those of an innocent girl, and I fall in love with them all over again. From far away I hear my daughter's voice, and it is the voice of thunder echoing and also the mere whisper of a baby falling asleep in my lap in the middle of the night. "Behold your child," she says.
I look; I must look.
There are planets, stars, galaxies, and they are seemingly endless. Yet beyond them all, beyond the backbone of the sky, as the Vedas say, is the funeral pyre. There sits Mother Kali with her Lord Kala, who destroys time itself. As each of the planets slowly dies and each sun gradually expands into a red dwarf, the flames that signal the end of creation begin to burn. They lick the frozen asteroids and melt the lost comets. And there in that absolute space Kali collects the ash of the dead creation and the skulls of forgotten souls. She saves them for another time, when the worlds will breathe again, and people will once again look up at the sky and wonder what lies beyond the stars. But none of these people will know that it was Kali who remembered them when they were ash. None of them will know who buried them when there was no one left to cover their graves. Even if they did remember, none of them would worship the great Kali because they would be too afraid of her.
I feel afraid as I remember her.
As she asks me to remember.
There is another voice in the sky.
I think it is my own. The shock breaks the vision.
I stumble back from my daughter. "You are Kali!" I gasp.
She just looks at me. "You have told me the phone number Paula will call in one month." She turns away. "That's all I wanted to know."
It is hard to throw off the power of the vision.
"Wait. Please? Kalika!"
She glances over her shoulder. "Yes, Mother?"
"Who was the child?"
"Do you really need to know?"
"Yes."
"The knowledge will cost you."
"I need to know!" I cry.
In response Kalika steps to the end of the pier. There she kneels and pulls a board free. It is an old board, long and narrow, but as she works it in her powerful fingers it begins to resemble something I know all too well from more superstitious eras. Too late I realize she has fashioned a stake. She raises the tiny spear over her head and lets fly with it.
The stake goes into the water.
Into Seymour's back. He cries out and sinks.
"No!" I scream.
Kalika stares at me a moment. "I told you it would cost you." She turns away. "I don't lie, Mother."
My ankle is not fully recovered but I am still a strong vampire. Leaping over the side of the pier, I hit the cold salt water not far from where Seymour flounders two feet below the surface. Pulling him up for air, I hear him gasp in pain. My eyes see as well in the dark as in the daylight. The stake has pierced his lower spine. The tip protrudes from where his belly button should be. His blood flows like water from a broken faucet.
"This hurts," he says.
"Seymour," I cry as I struggle to keep him afloat, "you have to stay with me. If I can get you to shore, I can save you."