"He's dead."

"That was his corpse at the lecture last night?"

I sigh. "He's fine, no thanks to you."

"See. I can be merciful. I am a mother as well, you know."

"You called Paula. You faked my voice, and even so she did not call you back."

"That is true," Kalika says. "But Suzama would know how to set up a meeting with Paula. She might have spelled that out in her book. You knew her, didn't you?"

I hesitate. "Yes."

"And you still think fondly of her. But to this day you do not know what destroyed her."

"She was destroyed in the big earthquake, along with the Setians. Her death is no mystery to me."

"But who were those Setians? You stared them straight in the eye and did not recognize them."

"I knew they were evil, in the end."

She mocks me. "But too late to save Suzama."

"Why do you talk about them? Or are you just up to your old tricks? The master manipulator trying to confuse the issue. If you want to come for me, fine. Come now, I tire of your games. You don't scare me."

Kalika is a long time answering. While I wait for her next words, I listen closely and hear in the background, not far from where Kalika is, the splash of water. My daughter must be near an open window, standing on a balcony perhaps. There is definitely a swimming pool in her vicinity. It is far below her I believe. There are many people in it, children playing with a ball, laughing and shouting, and more serious athletes swimming serious laps. I hear the latter turn in the water as they finish each lap and push off the walls. I count the strokes, and there are many of them. It is a large pool. There are not many such large pools in the Los Angeles area. I should be able to get a list of them.

Kalika finally speaks.

"I do not want to harm you, Mother. I am here for the child. But if you stand in my way, I cannot promise you that you or your darling Seymour will survive." She adds, "That is not a threat, merely an observation."

"Thank you. I feel much better. Why did you call?"

"To hear your voice. For some reason your voice carries special meaning to me."

"I don't believe that," I say.

"It is true."

"And the other reason for your call?"

"If I tell you that it will spoil all the fun." A pause. "Is there anything I can do for you, Mother?"

"Leave Dr. Seter and his people alone. Leave the child alone."

Kalika hesitates. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Is there anything else you want?"

I slump against the wall, exhausted. "You know, Kalika, the night you were born was hard for me.

The delivery was agonizing and I lost a lot of blood. I almost died, and even when I held you in my arms and looked into your eyes I was scared. Even then I knew you were not normal, not even by vampire standards. But despite all that a part of me was happy, happier than I had ever been in my life. I didn't realize this until later. I had wanted a daughter and now I had one. G.o.d gave you to me, I thought, and I thanked him for you." I have to take a breath. "Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yes."

"You are what you are. Your nature is to kill, and I understand that because I'm a killer as well. But over the centuries I have learned to control that instinct. Now I only kill when it is necessary. You can learn to do the same." I pause. "That is what I ask of you. Only that."

She considers. When she speaks next, her voice is particularly soft. It is almost as if she is speaking inside my brain. And I find her words strangely moving.

"I can do that for you, Mother. But my list of who can live and who must die is vastly different from yours. The phantom, Ray, was one of your illusions, one of your mayas. Your desire to have your child Lalita reborn is still a maya for you. You refuse to let it go. That is why you were given me as your daughter-one of the reasons. But anyone who sees through the veil of maya cannot fathom the divine will. The veil is stained and the absolute is without flaw. One cannot reveal the other. In the same way, I am your own daughter but you cannot fathom me."

I have to shake myself to resist her subtle spell.

My memory reminds me that she is using me.

"Was torturing Eric to death part of G.o.d's will?" I ask.

She speaks matter-of-factly. "I did what I did to Eric to inspire you to tell me the location of the child." A pause. "Besides, he was not well. He was going to die anyway. His next birth will be more auspicious."

I snort. "Of course he was not well! You had been drinking his blood night and day! He died in horrible pain, in your hands!"

"So he did, and he stained my dress." She laughs again. "Goodbye, Mother. Don't think about what I have told you. It will only confuse you more. Just have faith in your darling daughter. It is the only thing now that can save you from suffering much greater pain."Kalika hangs up the phone.

6.

As Seymour comes down for his breakfast, I am sitting at the kitchen table. I have made him bacon and eggs and toast, his favorite high-cholesterol meal. He has on a brown robe and is fresh from a warm shower. He smiles at me as I pour his hand-squeezed orange juice from the other side of the table.

"One day you're going to make somebody a great wife," he says.

"Thank you. One day you're going to make a girl have a nervous breakdown."

"You worry about me too much. I just went to the movies. G.o.d knows where you were." He picks up his fork and tests his eggs. "Did you get me the morning paper? You know I can't enjoy my food unless I'm fully informed on current events," he jokes.

I speak seriously. "I am your morning paper."

He b.u.t.ters his toast. "What's the matter? Did Suzama predict that I am the next messiah?"

"The scripture is authentic."

"You saw it?"

"A piece of it. Suzama wrote it."

He puts down his b.u.t.ter knife. "But how come you never saw her working on it?"

"I was with her most of the time, but not every second. She could have written it on any number of days."

"But she didn't talk to you about it? And you were her best friend?"

"She never talked about it to me. But Suzama kept her own counsel. I doubt if she spoke to anyone about the scripture. But she left it in a place where it could be found-at a time she wished it to be found."

Seymour considers. "How did you talk Dr. Seter into letting you see it?"

There is an edge to his question.

"Are you asking if I slept with his son?"

"I noticed you were talking to him after you told me to get lost."

"I didn't tell you to get lost. I told you to go have fun." I pause. "I convinced both son and father that I have a similar scripture. They want to see it soon."

"Great. We can make one up this afternoon. We can make papyrus and age it in the sun, then you can give me a lesson in drawing hieroglyphics." He pauses. "It wasn't a very inventive lie."

"It served its purpose." I frown. "I will have to give them something substantial to make them let me see the remainder of the scripture."

"Why don't you just give them me to use as a human sacrifice?"

"Stop that. They are not such a bad bunch." Then I have to smile. "But they are busy practicing with automatic weapons in the desert."

"They sound like a nice all-American cult."

"No, I don't think they're that, but they really do have guns. I heard the Seters talk about them when they didn't think I was listening." I pause. "But those guns might come in handy."

"Why?"

"Kalika called."

This shocks him. "When?"

"A half hour ago."

"Did she call here?"

"Yes."

He has lost his appet.i.te for his breakfast and sits, staring out the window, his face pale. In the distance is the blue Pacific. Only he and I know how red the water can run when it is diluted with blood.

Yet I remind myself that Seymour doesn't remember exactly what Kalika did to him. The time has come, I know, to tell him. Many things.

"How did she get our number?" he mutters.

"Who knows? She gets what she wants."

"If she has our number she has our address. She could be on her way here now."

I shake my head. "If she just wanted to kill us, I don't think she would have called first."

"Why did she call then?"

"She said she wanted to hear my voice."

"Like Hitler used to call home to talk to mom?" he asks.

"She hasn't found the child. She wants me to help her find him."

"But you don't know where the kid is."

"She knows that. Still, she seems to feel I can lead her to the Paula and the baby."

Seymour is puzzled. I can see the question coming.

"You must have some idea what is so special about this child?"

I pour myself a gla.s.s of orange juice. I have drunk blood only three times since my rebirth as a vampire, and none of my snacks were any the worse for wear in the morning. I suspect, toward the end of his life, that Yaksha did not need blood at all to survive. Still, it tasted good to me, the warm red elixir, better than the orange juice I now sip.

"This child could be the one spoken of in the Suzama scriptures," I say softly.

Seymour stares at me. "You've got to be kidding?"

"No."

He is annoyed. "That's ridiculous. All right, I believe in vampires. I believe in you. I even believe in your bad-tempered daughter. But I don't believe that Jesus was just born in a hospital in Los Angeles. I'm sorry but I can't. It's too weird."

"Do you remember what happened to you after Kalika threw you off the pier?"

He hesitates. "Yeah. The water was freezing and I got hypothermia and pa.s.sed out and you came to my rescue."

"Where did you regain consciousness?"

"Up in the mountains. The next morning."

"You were unconscious for a long time, don't you think?"

"So? What does this have to do with this kid?"

I speak carefully. "Seymour, you did not simply pa.s.s out in the cold water. Kalika did not let you go so easily. She threw something at you, a sharp stake. It was shaped like a spear." I pause. "She threw it so hard it stabbed through your spine and out through your stomach."

Seymour stands. "That's not true."

"It is true. I jumped off the pier and helped you to sh.o.r.e, as I told you. But you were on the beach less than a minute when you finally lost consciousness."

He is agitated. "Then how did the wound disappear? You told me you didn't give me any of your vampire blood."