Landulf is thoughtful. "That will not save you from what is to follow. You are already in my circle. No works of Christ function here. I am not lying to you."
"Perhaps. But those are my conditions." I shrug. "I don't ask much."
He is wary. "You could try to use the nail as a weapon. You could throw it at me."
"Would you be able to block such a throw?"
"Yes."
"Then what do you have to fear by tossing me the nail?"
"Nothing. I fear nothing in my place."
"Then toss me the nail, O Fearless One."
"You mock me?" he demands.
"Well, in the future it might be called flirting."
He hesitates. "I don't haveto do this. I will get you eventually."
"Probably. But you never know."
"You believe the talisman will protect you? Despite what I say?"
"No. You are wrong there."
"Then you lie to me. You will not keep your side of the bargain."
I laugh. "You call me a fool? You have nothing to lose by trusting me." This time I catch his eye, and put all my will behind the gaze. "You will never be successful as an immortal if you live in such fear, LordL andulf."
I have pushed the right button.
Perhaps his only button.
He hates to be called a coward.
He begin to undo the wire holding the nail in place.
"When you have the nail, you open your veins immediately," he says. "I will tolerate no delay."
"I will not waste your time," I promise.
The nail is free. He tosses it to me.
"Christian paraphernalia," he says bitterly.
I place the nail in my right palm, the tip pointed toward Landulf, and stare at it. Neither Yaksha's nor the child's nor my daughter's blood is in this present form of mine. I am strong but still only a shadow of what I will be in the future. Since returning to Sicily I have felt no power of psychokinesis, the ability to move objects with my mind. It wasK alika's blood alone that gave me that ability, and my daughter hasn't even been born yet. Still, my daughter gave her life to save the child, paid for his life with her own. And the child's blood, in an earlier reincarnation, was once on this nail. There is a connection that can reasonably be made here, or else mystically contrived. No doubt a particle of Christ's blood still remains on the metal, deep in the folds of the atoms that bind it together.
It is on this invisible blood I focus. I still believe in the miracle of this blood. My belief is born of experience. I have seen it bring a friend back to life. My belief is stronger than evil incantations spoken to cruel spirits, and bloody pentagrams drawn on forsaken cliffs. I made a serious mistake by stealing the girl's heart, but now I will give my own heart in exchange for hers. And in exchange for my life, for just a second of time, I ask for the power that my daughter already gave to me. I ask it out of favor toK alika, whom I am sure would not want her mother to go down without a final chance of victory. Yes, I have the nerve to remind God that he owes me for my daughter's sacrifice. But I also have the faith to believe he hears me.
And my faith is stronger than stone.
Landulf lifts the spear. "You had better hurry."
I feel my mind touch the nail.
"Yes," I whisper. "Hurry."
I feel my heart touch it. Caress it.
And I know beyond all doubt it once touched Christ.
Landulf shoulders the spear. "You die now, Sita."
The nail trembles. My hand remains firm. My gaze.
Power sweeps over me from way beyond the circle.
"No," I say. "Evil one, you die."
Landulf starts to let the spear fly.
The nail flies out of my palm and is impaled in his forehead.
Between his eyebrows. He stares at me through a red river.
"You," he says, and drops the spear.
I leap to his side and catch the spear before it lands.
The nail has plunged all the way in.
"I take back what I said a moment ago," I say. "You are not so clever."
I stick the spear in his heart, and his blood spurts out, even into the center of the pentagram, where it is mysteriously consumed in midair. He tries to speak one last time, probably to curse my soul for all of time, but he is staggering blindly with a long spear thrust through him and a nail in his brain. He makes the serious mistake of stumbling into the center region of the five-pointed star he has drawn with his wife's blood, and there something truly awful happens. In a sickeningly wet sound, his clothes and flesh are simultaneously ripped from his body. For a moment he is a carved cadaver risen from an autopsy table. Then invisible claws go around his head, and he is pulled down and backward, into a pit of nothingness. He just vanishes and I am so grateful that I fall to my knees and weep for a long time.
The spear and nail remain where they have fallen from his body. Theyl ie in the center of the circle. And I know the power of the circle has been broken.
Eventually I climb down the cliff, and walk toward the ocean. I swim away from the hordes of Moslems, who only stare at me as I step onto the beach covered with blood from their dead benefactor. Perhaps they are afraid to touch me, I don't know. But they must have heard stories about Landulf s castle.
The place where magic was performed.
I swim through the waves beyond the invading army.
Beyond reason. The water is clean and stretches forever.
Yet I feel as if I will never be clean again.
16
When I reach the clear pool of water that same evening, Dante is not there. His absence hits me like a wall. It was too much to hope, I know. But as I sit exhausted beside the pond and stare at the reflection of the vanishing sunlight and the slow emergence of the stars, I ponder the unfairness of life. Here was Dante, a simple man who would give his life for a just cause, killed out of love for me. And here am I, a monster, who will easily kill, and I am still alive. God had granted me a miracle that very morning, yet I feel I would trade all of his grace just to see my friend for a few minutes.
But the night grows darker and still Dante does not come.
He is dead, I know. Death is all I know.
There is blood on my left hand.
The hand that stole the girl's life.
Funny I hadn't noticed it before. Leaning over the pond, I place my hand in the water and try to wash offthe dark red stain.
But it does not come off. I wonder why.