man. I do not shake his hand from my arm. Instead, I stare into his eyes, but without the intention of manipulation, the desire to control. I stare at him so that he can stare at me. Without Ray, for the first time in a long time, I feel so lonely. So human. He sees my pain.
"What would you like me to call you?" he asks gently.
I make a face. Without the mirror I don't know if it is very pleasant. "You may call me Sita if you wish ... Joel."
"I want to help you, Sita."
"You cannot help me. I've explained to you why, and now you've seen why." I add, "I don't want you to get killed."
He is anxious. It must mean he likes me, this bloody thing. "I don't want you to get killed. I may not have your special attributes, but I am an experienced law enforcement officer. We should go after him to?gether."
"A gun won't stop him."
"I have more to offer than a gun."
I smile faintly and reach up to touch his cheek. Once again I think what a fine man he is. Consumed with doubts and questions, he still wants to do his duty. He still wants to be with me.
"I can make you forget," I say to him. "You saw how I affected the mother's mind. I can do that kind of thing. But I don't want to do it to you, even now. I want you just to get away from here, get away from me. And forget any of this ever happened." I take my hand back. "That is the most human thing I can tell you, Joel."
He finally lets go of my arm. "Will I see you again?" he asks.
I am sad. "I hope not. And I don't mean that cruelly. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
I walk out the door and close it behind me. The night is not as warm as I like it, nor is it cold, as I hate. It is cool and dark, a fine time for a vampire to go hunting. Later, I tell myself, I will grieve for Ray. Now there is too much to do.
Chapter 11
On foot I return to the vicinity of the warehouse. But as Joel said, the entire area is cordoned off by numer?ous police officers. From several blocks away I study the remains of the warehouse with my acute vision, perhaps subconsciously searching for the remains of Ray. The investigative crew, however, is working the ruins. Whatever was lying around outside has already been picked up and deposited into plastic bags with white labels on them. With the many flashing red lights, the mounds of ash, and the ruined bodies, the scene depresses me. Still, I do not turn away from it. I am thinking. "But what he did do was tie Heather up in his bedroom closet, standing up and wearing his high school letter jacket-and nothing else-and force her to suck on Popsicles all night."
The night I met the newborn vampires, I heard an ice-cream truck in the vicinity, its repetitive jingle playing loudly. In the middle of December in the middle of the night. Then, when 1 visited Mrs. Fender, I learned she had a large freezer in her house. Finally, after parking my tanker outside the warehouse, I saw out of the corner of my eye an ice-cream truck. From where I stand now, I cannot see that same spot to tell if the truck is still there. But with the security in the area I think that it might be there, and I believe that it might be important.
What kind of thing did Eddie have about Popsicles?
What kind of fetish did he have about frozen corpses?
Were the fetishes related?
If Eddie did get his hands on Yaksha's remains and Yaksha was still alive, Eddie would have been forced to keep Yaksha in a weakened state to control him. There are two ways to do that-at least, only two that I know of. One is to keep Yaksha impaled with a number of sharp objects that his skin cannot heal around. The other is more subtle and deals with the nature of vampires themselves. Yaksha was the incar?nation of a yakshini, a demonic serpent being. Snakes are cold-blooded and do not like the cold. In the same way vampires hate the cold, although we can with?stand it. Yet ice thwarts us as much as the sun, slowing down our mental processes, hampering our ability to recover from serious wounds. Going by