Thirst No. 5 (25 page)

“Please!” I cry.

Major Klein throws his head back and laughs. He turns the dial a third time and the torture seems to squeeze my very soul out of the top of my head and deposit me in a forsaken realm of phantoms and nightmares. I lose consciousness but it brings no relief. Far off I hear Major Klein exult.

“Now it begins,” he says.

I
t’s while we cross over the Midwest, at an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet, that I tell Seymour and Matt the second chapter of my World War II tale. Seymour is frustrated when I stop. He insists I plow through to the end. But digging up such foul memories is taxing, and it doesn’t help that I have a good idea what comes next. It’s not like the story has a happy ending.

“It sounds like Major Klein used Telar technology on you,” Matt says after I explain how I was taken captive in Harrah and Ralph’s flat. “But it’s hard to imagine they would have given the Nazis such knowledge.”

“The box didn’t come from the Telar,” I say.

“Are you sure?” Seymour asks. “Klein’s metal box sounds a lot like that Pulse device the Telar used on you in Arosa, Switzerland. Both induced rising waves of pain.”

I hold up a hand. “The boxes only sound similar. The Telar’s device had electrodes that attached directly to my brain. The Nazis’ box used sound that only a vampire could hear to induce pain and unconsciousness. Trust me, the German scientists had their own brand of toys.”

“Are we talking about the same scientists who joined NASA after the war?” Seymour asks.

“There was no NASA right after the war,” Matt says.

“Right,” Seymour says sarcastically. “America didn’t even have a space program until they recruited a few dozen Nazis.”

Matt brushes aside the remark. “Let’s not get carried away with conspiracy theories. Most NASA employees—then and now—are good people who want nothing more than to explore the solar system.”

“Sounds reasonable. Except we just found out that NASA’s nothing but a front for this country’s real space program.” Seymour stops to snort. “If that’s not a conspiracy, I don’t know what is.”

“I was referring to the NASA-Nazi connection,” Matt says. “Why make a big deal out of it?”

Seymour studies me. “If only our dear Sita would answer all our questions, then maybe we’d know if the connection is genuine.”

“I promised to tell you everything I remember,” I say. “But you’ve got to give me time.”

“Not too much time,” Matt says as he stands and stretches from his position in the pilot’s chair. “I’d like to take a break. Sita, can you take over? I’ve put us on autopilot. I doubt there will be a lot for you to do.”

I take his seat. “No problem.”

Matt heads for the door to the main cabin. “Come get me when it’s time to start our descent. This jet’s landing gear has a few quirks—I want to be the one to put us down. And try not to run into any Fastwalkers.”

“Take a nap,” I suggest. “Once we’re on the ground, we don’t know when we’ll have another chance to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Matt replies, meaning he’s going to do what he wants to do and to hell with my advice. I know he’s going to play the game. He’s like a heroin addict anxious for his next fix. He can’t stay away from the thing.

Matt leaves Seymour and me alone in the cockpit.

“I don’t understand you,” Seymour says.

“You wrote my biographies. You understand me better than anyone.”

“Then why are you so reluctant to finish your war story? You keep taunting us about the big revelation to come, but you never tell us what it is.”

“Like I explained, you need to know the backstory first.”

“So now we’ve got the backstory. Now you’ve run out of excuses. Admit it, Sita, you’re stalling.”

“I’m not stalling. I’m . . . trying to organize my thoughts.”

Seymour is concerned. “Are you saying you can’t remember what happened?”

“Don’t look so surprised. It was a long time ago.”

“Bullshit! Seventy years or seven hundred means nothing to you. Or have you forgotten that you have perfect recall?”

“You’re beginning to sound like Matt.” I turn and look away, out the window, at the endless cornfields of Iowa swooping far below. The state is mostly farmland. It’s amazing how dark it is after sunset. I add, “And like Paula.”

Seymour is instantly alert. “What did Paula say the last time you two spoke?”

“Nothing important.”

“Sita.”

“She told me that all the good I have done for mankind since World War Two was of little value.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Then she told me that if I hadn’t screwed up during the war, all the good deeds I have done since those days wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“You know I rarely disagree with Paula. But everything you’ve told us so far about your war days tells me you were as heroic as ever.”

“Heroic? What about the fact that I left Harrah and Ralph alone for Major Klein to grab? What about my befriending General Hans Straffer just long enough to get his brains blown out?”

“You didn’t know Major Klein was stalking you.”

“I suspected it. I should have taken precautions.”

Seymour shakes his head. “Paula wasn’t referring to what you did in Paris and London. She was talking about what happened at Auschwitz.”

“How do you know? I haven’t said a word about Auschwitz.”

“That’s my point. You’ve done everything you can to avoid the topic. Admit it—whatever they did to you in that camp so messed with your mind that you can’t remember half of what went on.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

Seymour stares at me and waits. I stare back. The dark cornfields and dried-out scarecrows stare up at us as we soar over them through the moonlit sky.

“All right, there are a few points I’m having trouble remembering,” I say.

Seymour nods like he’s suspected all along. “Tell me what happened after Major Klein zapped you with that high-pitched noise.”

“I remember the train ride to the camp. How I was chained inside an isolated railcar with ankle and leg cuffs made of a strange alloy I couldn’t break. I remember arriving at the camp. The tall smokestacks pumping burnt flesh into the air night and day. Hordes of children screaming at the tracks when they were torn away from their parents. The
hood that was tied over my head. The underground dungeon I was led to, where I was cuffed to a metal pole and tortured for ages by Major Klein. With a strange woman always hovering in the background with eyes like a cobra. The SS guards were terrified of her. They never looked her straight in the face or addressed her as anything except Frau Cia.” I stop. “You can see, I remember a lot.”

“Except how it ended,” Seymour says.

I want to protest, to lie, but he has me cornered.

“Not how it ended,” I agree.

He sighs. “Can you remember another time you can’t remember?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“I wish it were. You know we have a telepathic bond. It’s what allowed me to write about your life before I met you. But that bond began to fail me when I reached what I called the sixth chapter of your tale. I didn’t know what to write next. Suddenly the images were scattered in my head. I tried to stay with the flow of what was coming to me out of the ether—like I had from the start of your story—but I knew a lot of what I was typing was nonsense.”

“It wasn’t all nonsense.”

“It wasn’t gospel, either. I wrote that you changed me into a vampire. That we got attacked by a weird alien chick with a ray gun. That you killed her and fled into the desert, where you confronted more evil aliens. As if all that weren’t wild enough,
the next thing I wrote about was your rendezvous with a spaceship in the desert. On board the ship were some kind of aliens or angels. I was never sure who they were, but I think there were two of them. Anyway, they flew you up into outer space and explained that once they achieved light speed, the ship would be free of time and space. Not only that, they said you’d be able to send your mind back in time to an earlier version of yourself. That was why they took you into space in the first place. They said you had to go back a thousand years and fix a mistake you made when you accidentally gave your blood to an evil creature. A man from the Middle Ages that the peasants and nobles of Sicily believed to be a necromancer.”

“Landulf of Capua,” I whisper. The name is as painful to say aloud as Tarana’s.

“Yes, Landulf. Who first appeared to be the lord of an evil castle on the southern tip of Sicily, but who later turned out to be your seemingly innocent traveling companion, Dante. The leprous eunuch.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

“Are you sure? I’ve tried talking to you about this time before and you’ve always changed the subject. Is it because you can’t remember those days?”

“I remember them when you talk about them,” I say.

“When we’re together they’re clearer?”

“Yes.”

“But when you’re alone they’re more foggy?”

“Actually, when I’m alone, I never think about that time at all.”

“Just like you never think about what happened in Auschwitz.”

“What are you getting at?” I say.

“What happened with Landulf and what went on in the concentration camp are the only two periods in your life you have trouble remembering. That can’t be a coincidence.”

I go to protest but stop. He’s right.

Seymour continues. “In my version of your life story it’s like your guardian angels or whatever sent you back to the eleventh century to fix a mistake. Now Paula is saying you have to go back to Auschwitz and fix another mistake.”

“Paula never said anything about me going back in time.”

“Probably because we don’t have a time machine. Look, I phrased it that way to make a point. These two periods in time are linked, not just in your head but in history. According to experts on that period, Landulf drew most of his power from a Christian talisman called the Spear of Longinus. The spear that pierced Christ’s side while he was dying on the cross. A spear that, by chance, still has Christ’s blood on it. Now, jump forward a thousand years and what do you happen to come across but the Veil of Veronica, a second Christian talisman that has Christ’s blood on it.” He pauses. “Now tell me that’s a coincidence.”

“What you say is fascinating. But I still don’t see how the two time periods are related.”

“They’re related through
you
. Through your inability to remember clearly what happened during both periods. And through Christ’s blood.”

“I don’t know. You’re speculating.”

Seymour shakes his head. “If you need cold hard facts, let me give you a big one. Landulf of Capua—what was his wife’s name?”

“I hardly remember his wife. But I know he cut out her heart . . .” I suddenly stop. “God. It was Lady Cia.”

“Which just happens to be the name of the woman who helped torture you at Auschwitz,” Seymour says.

The link hits me like a body blow. “I never thought of that.”

Seymour stands and pats me on the back. “We have to figure out a way to punch through your mental block. I have an idea that might work, but I want to talk to Matt about it before I discuss it with you.”

“Why tell him first?”

“The less you know about what it is, the better it might work. I’m talking about keeping you innocent, free of any preconceived ideas. Trust me on this, Sita.”

“There’s no one I trust more,” I say.

My words please him. He smiles as he opens the door to the main cabin. “I’m glad. For a while there I thought you were more in love with Mr. Grey.”

“I care about him. He’s trying to help us.”

“But you still have no idea where he came from?”

I hesitate. “Not really.”

“That’s not a small thing to keep hidden. But if you trust him, I do too.” Seymour stops halfway through the door. “Can I get you anything from the kitchen?”

“A quart of warm Gestapo blood.”

“You still hate them, don’t you?”

“Never to forgive, never to forget. That’s what the Jews who escaped Auschwitz swore to each other.” I shake my head. “Never mind me, I think a part of my brain has become unhinged in time. I need a dose of reality. I need food. Get me a cup of coffee and a roast beef sandwich.”

“It’s on its way,” Seymour says.

• • •

By the time we land in Las Vegas it’s evening and Mr. Grey is slipping in and out of consciousness. I put my foot down. I tell the others I’m taking him to the hospital.

“We can’t get near Nellis Air Force Base without his computer skills,” I say just before we climb out of the plane. Mr. Grey continues to doze in a rear seat, snoring softly.

“What about Sarah Goodwin?” Matt asks.

“She’s going to have to hang on,” I say. “Please, Matt, take the gang into town and check into a hotel. Give me a call and let me know where you are. It’s better if I go alone with Mr. Grey to the hospital.”

“Why?” Brutran wants to know.