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2. The Last Vampire(Last Vampire, book 1)

"Can you do me a big favor?" I ask.

He glances at my fingertips on his bare arm. My touch is warm. Wait till he feels it hot. "Sure," he says.

"My parents are gone for a few days, and I need some help moving some things into my house. They're in the garage." I add, "I could pay you for your help."

"You don't have to pay me. I'd be glad to help this weekend."

"Actually, one of these things is my bed. I had to sleep on the floor last night."

"What a drag." Ray takes a breath and thinks. My hand continues to rest on his arm, and surely the soft texture of my skin must be a part of his thought processes. "I have to work after school today."

"Till what time?"

"Nine. But then I'm supposed to go over and see Pat."

"She's a lovely girl." My eyes rest on his eyes. It is as if they say, yes, lovely, but there are other things in life besides love. At least that is my intention. Yet as I stare into Ray's eyes, I can't help but feel that he is one of those rare mortals I could love. This is another startling revelation for me, and already, even beforenoon, it seems the day is to be filled with them. I have not loved a man—or a woman for that matter—in centuries. And none have I ever loved as much as my husband, Rama, before I was made into a vampire.

Yet Rama comes to mind as I stare at Ray, and at last I know why Ray looks familiar. He has Rama's eyes.

Ray blinks. "We've been going out for a year."

I sigh unintentionally. Even after fifty centuries I still miss Rama. "A year can pass quickly," I say softly.

But not five thousand—the long years stand behind me like so many ghosts, weary, but also wary. Time sharpens caution, destroys playfulness. I think how nice it would be to go for a walk in the park with Ray, in the dark. I could kiss him, I could bite him— gently. I sigh because this poor boy doesn't know he is sitting beside his father's murderer.

"Maybe I can help you," Ray says clearly. My eyes do not daunt him as much as I would expect, and I do not know if that is because of his own internal strength or because my glance is softened by my affection for him. "But I'll have to check with Pat."

I finally take my hand back. "If you check with Pat, she'll say it is fine to help me as long as she gets to come along." I shrug. "Any girl would."

"Can she come over, too?"

"No."

My answer startles him. But he is too shrewd to ask me why. He simply nods. "I'll talk to her. Maybe I can come a little later. What time do you go to bed?"

"Late."

The lecture in biology is about photosynthesis. How the sun's energy is changed into chemical energy through the presence of green chlorophyll, and how this green pigment in turn supports the entire food chain. The teacher makes a comment I find interesting—chlorophyll and red blood cells are practically

identical. Except in chlorophyll the iron atom is replaced by a magnesium atom. I look over at Ray and think that in the evolutionary chain, only one atom separates us.

Of course, I know that evolution would never have created a vampire. We were an accident, a horrible mistake. It occurs to me that if Ray does help me examine his father's files, I should probably kill him afterward. He smiles at me as I look at him. I can tell he likes me already. But I don't smile back. My thoughts are too dark.

The class ends. I give Ray my address, but not my phone number. He will not call and cancel on me. It is the address of a new house that was rented for me that morning. Mr. Riley will have my other address in his files, and I don't want Ray to draw the connection when and if we go into his computer. Ray promises to come over as soon as he is able. He does not have sex on his mind, but something else I cannot fathom. Still, I will give him sex if he wants it. I will give him more than he bargains for.

I go to my new home, a plain suburban affair. It is furnished. Quickly, not breaking a sweat, I move most of the furniture into the garage. Then I retire to the master bedroom, draw all the shades, and lie down on the hard wooden floor and close my eyes. The sun has drained my strength, I tell myself. But as I doze off I know it is also the people I have met this day that have cut deep into me, where my iron blood flows like a black river over the cold dust of forgotten ages, dripping onto this green world, onto the present, like the curse of the Lord himself. I hope to dream ofKrishnaas I fall asleep, but I do not. The devil is there instead.

Yaksha, the first of the vampires.

As I am the last.

3

We were the original Aryans—blond and blue eyed. We invadedIndia, before there were calendars, like a swarm of hornets in search of warmer climates. We brought sharp swords and spilled much blood. But in 3000 b.c., when I was born, we were still there, no longer enemies, but part of a culture that was capable of absorbing every invader and making him a brother. I came into the world named Sita, in a small village in Rajastan, where the desert had already begun to blow in sand from the dead lands to the west. I was there at the beginning, and had as a friend the mother of all vampires. Amba, which meant mother in my language. She was a good woman. Amba was seven years older than my seven years when the disease came to our village. Although separated by seven years, we were good friends. I was tall for my age, she was short, and we both loved to sing, bajans mainly, holy songs from the sacred Vedas, which we chanted by the river after dark. My skin was brown from the harsh sun; Amba's dark from a grandfather who was of original Indian stock. We did not look alike, but when we sang our voices were one and I was happy. Life was simple in Rajastan.

Until the disease came. It did not strike everyone, only half. I do not know why I was spared, since I drank from the polluted river as much as Amba and the rest. Amba was one of the first to fall ill. She Vomited blood the last two days of her life, and all I could do was sit by her side and watch her die. My sorrow was particularly great because Amba was eight months pregnant at the time. Even though I was her best friend, she never did tell me who the father was. She never told anyone.

When she died, it should have ended there. Her body should have been taken to the cremation ground and offered to Vishnu, her ashes thrown in the river. But recently an Aghoran priest had entered our village. He had other ideas for her body. Aghora was the left-handed path, the dark path, and no one would have listened to what the priest had to say if the panic over the plague hadn't been in the air. The priest brought his blasphemous ideas, but many listened to him because of their fears for the plague. He said the plague was the result of an evil rakshasa or demon that had taken offense at our worship of the great God Vishnu. He said the only way to free our village of the rakshasa was to call forth an even greater being, a yakshini, and implore the yakshini to eat the rakshasa.