But Krishna stood then and set his flute aside. He clapped his hands, and the snakes hurried off Yaksha's body. He climbed out of the pit and motioned to Arjuna. His best friend entered the deep hole and carried out Yaksha's body and dumped it on the ground not far from me. He was breathing, I could see that, but barely, soaked head to foot with black venom; it oozed out of the many wounds on his body.
I let Radha go. She hugged me before leaving. But she did not run to Krishna, but to the other women. Behind me I could hear the main body of the vampires shifting toward the woods, as if they planned to flee. Yet they waited still; they felt compelled to, I think, to see what Krishna would do next. Krishna ignored them. He gestured to me and came and knelt beside Yaksha. My feeling then was so peculiar. As I knelt beside Krishna, this being that would in all probability wipe me from the face of the earth, I felt as if I was under the umbrella of his protection. I watched as he put one of his beautiful hands on Yaksha's head.
"Will he live?" I asked.
Krishna surprised me with his question. "Do you want him to?"
My eyes strayed over the ruin of my old enemy and friend. "I want what you want," I whispered.
Krishna smiled, so serene. "The age is to change when I leave this world. Kali Yuga will begin. It will be a time of strife and short years for humanity. Your kind is for the most part tamasicnegative. Kali Yuga will be challenge enough for people without you on earth. Do you agree??
"Yes. We cause only suffering."
"Then why do you go on, Sita?"
At his saying my name I felt so touched. "I just want to live, Lord."
He nodded. "I will let you live if you obey my command. If you never make another of your kind, you will have my grace, my protection,"
I lowered my head. "Thank you, my Lord."
He gestured toward the other vampires. "Go stand with them. I must talk to your leader. His days are not over. They will not be over for a long time." I moved to leave, but Krishna stopped me. "Sita?"
I turned to look into his face one last time. It was as if I could see the whole universe in his eyes. Maybe he was God, maybe he was simply enlightened. I didn't care right then, in that blessed moment, I just loved him. Later, though, the love was to turn to hate, to fear. They seemed so opposite, the feelings, yet they were all one note on his flute. Truly he had stolen my heart.
"Yes, Lord?" I said.
He bid me lean close to his lips. "Where there is love, there is my grace," he whispered. "Remember that."
"I will try, my Lord."
I went and stood with the others. Krishna revived Yaksha and spoke softly in his ear. When Krishna was done, Yaksha nodded. Krishna bade him climb to his feet, and we saw that Yaksha's wounds were gone. Yaksha walked toward us.
"Krishna says we can go," he said.
"What did he tell you?" I asked.
"I cannot say. What did he tell you?"
"I cannot say."
Yet it was not long before I learned part of what Krishna had told Yaksha. Yaksha secretly began to execute each of the vampires. His acts did not stay secret long. I fled, we all did. But he hunted down the others, over the long years, even after Krishna was gone and Kali Yuga reigned. Yaksha chased them to the ends of the earth over the many centimes until there were none left that I knew of, except me. Yet he never came for me, and in the Middle Ages, as the Black Plague swept Europe, I heard that he was accused of being a witch, and also hunted down, by an entire army, and burned to ash in an old castle. I cried when the news came to me because even though he had stolen what I loved, he had in a sense created what I was. He was my lord as Krishna was my lord. I served both masters, light and darkness, both of which I had seen in Krishna's eyes. Even the devil does God's will.
I never made another vampire, but I never stopped killing.
10
Ray stirs as the sun descends toward the western horizon. I sit by the fax machine on the small table at the end of my living room sofa, with the numbers Riley and Slim have provided for me. But I do not send Yaksha a message. It is not necessary. He is coming, I can feel him coming.
"Ray," I say. "It's time to get up and enjoy the night."
Ray sits up and yawns. He wipes the sleep from his eyes like a little boy. He checks the time and is amazed. "I slept away the entire day?" he asks.
"Yes," I say. "And now you have to go. I have decided. It is not safe for you here. Go to Pat. She loves you."
He throws aside the blankets and pulls on his pants. He comes and sits beside me and touches my arm. "I am not going to leave you."
"You cannot protect me. You can only get yourself killed."
"If I get killed, then I get killed. At least I will have tried."
"Brave words, foolish words. I can make you leave. I can tell you things about myself that will make you run out of here cursing my name."
He smiles. "I do not believe that."
I harden my tone, though it breaks my heart to treat him cruelly. But I have decided that my reasons for bringing him to my home are selfish. I must have him. go, whatever it costs.
"Then listen to me," I say. "I lied to you last night even when I supposedly opened my heart to you. The first thing you must know is that your father is dead and that it was I, not Yaksha, who killed him."
Ray sits back, stunned. "You're not serious."
"I can show you where his body is buried."
"But you couldn't have killed him. Why? How?"
"I will answer your questions. I killed him because he called me into his office and tried to blackmail me with information he had dug up on me. He threatened to make it public. I killed him by crushing the bones of his chest."
"You couldn't do that."
"But you know that I can. You know what I am." I reach over and pick up a small miniature of the Pyramid of Giza that stands on my living room table. "This piece was made for me out of solid marble by an artist in Egypt two hundred years ago. It is very heavy. "You can feel it if you don't believe me,"
Ray's eyes are dark. "I believe you,"
"You should." I hold the piece in my right hand. I squeeze tight and it shatters to dust. Ray jumps back. "You should believe everything I tell you."
He takes a moment to collect himself. '"You are a vampire."