“They look great together. But something doesn’t add up.”
“His age sure as hell doesn’t. Going by what you said, he looks even younger than Brutran.”
“That’s one point.”
“Are you worried that he’s a true psychic?”
“A little. He gave me a few funny looks. I wonder if he could read my mind.”
“Could you read his?” Seymour asks.
“No. I doubt the old Sita could, either. But that’s not what’s bothering me.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s the two of them together. It’s the way they took us into their home. To a certain extent, I felt the same around Professor Sharp, but I could understand his desire to talk. He’s old, he lives alone. He wants people to know about his discoveries before he dies.”
“He’s afraid of the IIC. I don’t think he wants too much publicity.”
“Sure. But you know what I’m saying. Sharp doesn’t want to go to his death bed without being acknowledged. I can understand his desire for company. Freddy and Mary are not the same kind of animal.”
“Why link them? They’re together now, sure, but she doesn’t have his history.”
“I just have this feeling . . . I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
I sigh. “I’ve had it before.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“Everything with you was a long time ago. When?”
“When Krishna was on earth,” I reply, and I don’t realize the words are true until I speak them aloud.
“You might be feeling that way because you spoke to John.”
“It didn’t come over me until . . . tonight.”
“You’re not making much sense.” Seymour keeps scratching. “You can get that medicine if you’re dying to take a late-night stroll.”
I jump up. “You poor dear. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Try not to get mugged.”
I reach for the door. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’m more worried about the mugger.”
I point a finger at him. “You. I should let you suffer.”
“I’d stop suffering if you made me a vampire.”
“You don’t want Teri’s blood. You don’t want to go through this awful thirst every night.” I open the door. “I’ll be back.”
The medicine is in the trunk. I have no trouble locating the vial of vaccine but I have to search for the package of syringes. The bright moon helps, the white beams peering over my shoulder. In the end, I find the needles under a book. A big fat book with a thick leather cover. I can hardly believe it. My hands tremble as I lift it clear.
It seems impossible but it’s Yaksha’s book. The original.
I hurry back to the guesthouse and show Seymour what I’ve found. He’s interested but he’s even more interested in the vaccine. I give him a high dose. I have suspected for some time that Charlie was being stingy with his injections. I shoot the blue liquid directly into the vein on Seymour’s left arm and he feels immediate relief. The black blisters on his hands begin to recede.
“Better?” I say.
“Yeah. I think Shanti and I both need the higher dose.”
“I wonder if I should wake her and give her a shot.”
“Not if she’s already asleep. I don’t think she’s suffering as much as I am.”
“I noticed that. I think the girl’s tougher than you.”
He ignores the dig and gestures to the book. “What did you find in the book that was so exciting?”
I stare at him. “You’ve seen this book before?”
“When I picked Shanti up at JFK. Isn’t this Yaksha’s book?”
“Yes,” I say feeling a slight overlapping of Teri’s memories with my own. The phenomena is happening less and less but it has not gone away. “I haven’t found anything new in it. I was just about to start looking. But I got this interesting idea today. It was when we were in the car. No, it might have been tonight. It doesn’t matter. I got the idea that there’s more to this book than meets the eye.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“There are parts where Yaksha goes into great detail. Like when he traveled to the New World and found Jamune and the Aztecs, and fought the bulk of the remaining vampires to the death. He narrates those battles blow by blow. But when he comes to other important matters, he skips over them quickly. Like the section where Krishna tells him the story of the Hydra and how to kill the Telar. It’s like important parts are missing. And he never writes about meeting his wife, Umara.”
“You must have skipped that section. It is there. I remember when Shanti’s uncle was translating portions of the book, when you were being held captive by the Telar. He told us about Umara back then.”
“I’m not saying Yaksha doesn’t mention her in the book. He doesn’t describe the day they met. He just starts talking about her like she’s always been a part of his life.”
“Maybe he met her earlier than you think.”
“He shouldn’t have met her until he reached Egypt. But even if they did meet before then, he should have written about it. After all, she was the love of his life.”
Seymour hears the change in my voice. I can’t hide anything from him. “You were the love of his life,” he says.
“It’s not like we were in competition. I hardly saw him.”
Seymour strokes my head. “Sita. He loved you and you loved him. You can’t measure that love by how many days you spent together.”
I’m moved by his concern for my feelings. The truth is, I haven’t accepted the fact that Yaksha had a wife. Five thousand years of daydreams don’t wash away overnight.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He kisses my cheek. “Besides, I’m the one who should be jealous. You’re my dream girl and I’ve never gotten to have sex with you.”
“You know, I’m not myself these days. And if Matt ever found out, the only question would be which one of us he would kill first.”
Seymour drapes his arms around me. “Matt’s not here and you’re not his girlfriend.”
“I’m not really Sita, either. You’d be making love to a ghost.”
“As long as you’re a friendly spirit, I don’t mind.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Look at you, Seymour. You don’t care if I’m Sita or Teri. You’d sleep with either of us. True?”
He shakes his head. “You’re the love of my life. That’s never going to change.”
“I know.” I give him a quick kiss on the lips. “Thank you.”
He points to Yaksha’s tome. “Tell me more about your idea about the book.”
“I’ve been trying to put myself inside Yaksha’s mind. He knew that the Telar were interested in the story of his life. He knew they were anxious to study it. Eventually, he must have realized, they would get their hands on it. How could he protect its deepest secrets from them?”
“He could have placed a hidden code within the pages.”
“Clever. Unfortunately, Yaksha knew how smart the Telar were. No matter how brilliant his code, he must have figured they would eventually break it. But that wouldn’t have stopped Yaksha. When it came to the parts of his life he was anxious to keep secret, he must have written it in such a way that only a vampire could retrieve it.”
“Logical. But how did he do it?”
I hold up a portable sprayer that either Mary or Freddy uses to water their plants. I spotted it on the porch while walking back to the house from the car.
“Watch this,” I say to Seymour, and squeeze the handle on the sprayer. A mist fills the air between us.
“It’s just plain water, isn’t it?” he asks.
“Yes. Now let’s try an experiment.” Unscrewing the sprayer cap, I set it down and open a vein in my wrist with my nails. As my blood drips out, I hold my wrist above the lid of the sprayer. I don’t put too much blood in it; I don’t think it will be necessary. A minute later I replace the cap and shake it a few times. Then turn the sprayer toward the book. “I hope this works,” I mutter.
“If it does it’s ingenious,” Seymour replies, quickly grasping the principle. Once more, I squeeze the handle, and a fine mist, tinged slightly red, fills the air and settles over the open pages.
Instantly a series of words appears between the sentences.
Seymour claps. “Bravo, Yaksha! He designed it so that his secret notes could only be retrieved by a vampire. And since you were the last vampire, besides him, he wrote those sections for your eyes only.” He pauses, impressed. “How the hell did you figure that out?”
“It always bugged me that Yaksha wrote his autobiography in the heart of enemy territory. Now I realize he did it to throw them off. He conned them into thinking they have all his secrets.”