"You are with me," I say. "You are the same as me. When you met me, did you think I was alive?"
"Yes."
"Then you are alive. How do you feel?"
"Powerful. Overwhelmed. My eyes, my earsare yours this way?"
"Mine are more sensitive. They become more and more sensitive with time. Are you scared?"
"Yes. Is he coming back?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At dawn."
"Will he kill us?"
"He wants to."
"Why?"
"Because he feels we are evil. He feels an obligation to destroy us before he leaves the planet."
Ray frowns, testing his new body, its vibrancy. "Are we evil?"
I take his hands and sit him down. "We don't have to be. Soon you will begin to crave blood, and the blood will give you strength. But to get blood you don't need to kill. I will show you how."
"You said he wants to leave this planet. He wants to die?"
"Yes. He is tired of life. It happensour lives have been so long. But life does not tire me." I am so emotional around Ray, it amazes me. "I have you to inspire me."
He smiles, but it is a sad smile. "It was a sacrifice for you to save me."
He takes my breath away. "How did you know?"
"When I was dying, I could see you were afraid to give me your blood. What happens when you do? Does it make you weak?"
I hug him, glad that I can squeeze his body with all my strength and not break his bones. "Don't worry about me. I saved you because I wanted to save you."
"Is my father really dead?"
I let go of him, look into his eyes. "Yes."
He has trouble looking at me. Even though he is a vampire now, a predator. Even though his thought processes have begun to alter. He didn't protest when I told him about the blood-drinking. But his love for his father goes deeper than blood.
"Was it necessary?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Did he suffer?"
"No, less than a minute," I add gently. "I am sorry."
He finally raises his eyes. "You gave me your blood out of guilt as well."
I nod. "I had to give something back after what I had taken."
He puts a hand to his head. He doesn't completely forgive me but he understands, and for that I am grateful. He still misses his father. "We won't talk about it," he says.
"That is fine." I stand. "We have much to do. Yaksha is returning at dawn. We cannot destroy him with brute force, even with our combined strengths. But we might be able to trick him. We will talk as we work."
He stands. "You have a plan?"
"I have more than a plan. I have a rocket ship."
Welding the sheets of metal together so that we have six inches of protection does not take long. I work outside with the arc gun so that Yaksha will not notice the smell when he enters the house. He will have to come into the house since I won't go out to him. Cutting a huge rectangle in the floor to accommodate the metal plate, however, takes a lot of time. I fret as the hours slip by. Ray is not much help because he has not acquired my expertise in everything yet. Finally I tell him to sit and watch. He doesn't mind. His eyes are everywhere, staring at common objects, seeing in them things he never imagined before. A vampire on acid, I call him. He laughs. It is good to hear laughter.
As I work, I do not feel Yaksha in the area.
It is fortunate.
My speed picks up when I bolt the two chairs to the plate and recover the plate with carpet. Here I do not have to work so carefully; the skirts of the chairs cover much. When I am done, the living room appears normal. I plan to use an end table to hide the detonator to the bomb I will strap beneath the steel plate. I bore a long hole through the table and slip in a metal rod that goes through to the metal plate. I hide the tip of the rod under a lamp base. I place a blasting cap at the bottom end of it. When the time comes, I will hit the top of the small table, the rod will crush the blasting cap, and the first bomb will go off, sending us flying.
The other bomb should go off as well, almost immediately. I keep coming back to that point in my mind because it is the central weakness in my plan. I hope we will be high enough to take the shock from the second bomb from below so the plate will protect us.
Attaching the bomb beneath the plate takes only minutes. I use twenty sticks of dynamite, tightly bound. I place fifty sticks, a whole crate, beside the fireplace in the living room, next to the most comfortable chair in the house. That seat I will offer Yaksha. We will live or die depending on how accurate my calculations are, and how well we play our parts in front of Yaksha. That is the other serious weakness in my plan; that Yaksha will sense something amiss. For that reason I have instructed Ray to say little, or nothing at all. But I am confident I can lie to Yaksha. I lie as effortlessly as I tell the truth, perhaps more easily.
Ray and I sit in our special flight chairs and talk. The bomb in the crate sits thirty feet away, directly in front of us. Above us I have opened the skylights. The cold night air feels good for once. Even with them open, we will still strike glass as we rocket by. I warn Ray, but he is not worried.
"I have already died once today," he says.
"You must have had your nose pressed against the glass to fall with it."
"I didn't until just before he raised his flute."
I nod. "He glanced at the house then. He must have pulled you forward with the power of his eyes. He can do that. He can do many things."
"He has more power than you?"
"Yes."
"Why is that?"
"'He's the original vampire." I glance at the time an hour to dawn. "Would you like to hear the story of his birth?"
"I would like to hear all your stories."
I smile. "You sound like Seymour. I visited him tonight while you slept. I gave him a present. I will tell you about it another time."
I pause and take a breath. I need it for strength. The simple work of a terrorist has exhausted me. Where to begin the tale? Where will I end it? It doesn't seem right that it could all be over in an hour. Right what a word choice for a vampire to make. I who have violated every injunction of the Vedas and the Bible and every other holy book on earth. Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.