Thirst No. 2 Read Free

voice.
    We check into a Sheraton hotel by the beach. My new name is Candice Hall. Seymour is just a friend helping me with my bags. I don't put his name down on the register. I will not stay Candice long. I have other ID that I can change my hair style and color to match, as well as other small features. Yet I feel safe as I close the door of the hotel room behind me. Since Las Vegas, I have kept an eye on the rearview mirror. I don't believe we've been followed. Seymour sets my bag on the floor as I plop down on the bed and sigh.
    "I haven't felt this exhausted in a long time," I say.
    Seymour sits beside me. "We humans are always tired."
    "I am going to enjoy being human. I don't care what you say."
    He stares at me in the dimly lit room. "Sita?"
    I close my eyes and yawn. "Yes?"
    "I am sorry what I said. If this makes you happy, then it makes me happy."
    "Thank you."
    "I just worry, you know, that there's no going back."
    I sit up and touch his leg. "The decision would have been meaningless if I could have gone back."
    He understands my subtle meaning. "You didn't do this because of what Krishna said to you about vampires?" he asks.
    I nod. "I think partly. I don't think Krishna approved of vampires. I think he just allowed me to live out of his deep compassion for all living things."
    "Maybe there was another reason."
    "Perhaps." I touch his face. "Did I ever tell you how dear you are to me?"
    He smiles. "No. You were always too busy threatening to kill me."
    I feel a stab of pain. It is in my chest, where a short time ago a stake pierced my heart. For a moment the area is raw with an agonizing burning, as if I am bleeding to death. But it is a brief spasm. I draw in a shuddering breath and speak in a sad voice.
    "I always kill the ones I love."
    He takes my hand. "That was before. It can be different now that you're not a monster."
    I have to laugh, although it is still not easy to take a deep breath. "Is that a line you use to get a girl to go to bed with you?"
    He leans closer. "I already have you in bed."
    I roll onto my side. "I need to take a shower. We both need to rest."
    He draws back, disappointed. "You haven't changed that much."
    I stand and fluff up his hair, trying to cheer him up. "But I have. I'm a nineteen-year-old

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) girl again. You just forget what monsters teenage girls can be."
    He is suddenly moved. "I never knew the exact age you were when Yaksha changed you."
    I pause and think of Rama, my long dead husband, and Lalita, my daughter, cremated fifty centuries ago in a place I was never to know.
    "Yes," I say softly. "I was almost twenty when Yaksha came for me." And because I was suspended so long between the ages, I add again, "Almost."
    An hour later Seymour is fast asleep beside me on the king-size bed. But despite my physical exhaustion, my mind refuses to shut down. I can't be free of the images of Joel's and Arturo's faces from two nights earlier when I suddenly began to turn to light, to dissolve, to leave them just before the bomb was detonated. At the time I knew I was dead. It was a certainty. Yet one last miracle occurred and I lived on. Perhaps there was a reason.
    I climb out of bed and dress. Before leaving the hotel room, I load my pistol and tuck it in my belt, at the back, pulling my sweatshirt over it.
    The hotel is located on Ocean Ave. I cross over it, and the Coast Highway that separates me from the ocean. Soon I am walking along the dark and foggy Santa Monica Beach, not the safest place to be in the early morning hours before the sun rises. Yet I walk briskly, heading south, paying little attention to my surroundings. What work it is to make my legs move over the sand! It is as if I walk with weights strapped around my ankles. Sweat drips in my eyes and I pant audibly. But I feel good as well. Finally, after thirty minutes of toil, my mind begins to relax, and I contemplate returning to