The dark path leads to light, but the sun is not yet up when I exit the underground passageway and stand on the edge of the cliff and look out at the vast panorama. A large section of the south shore of Sicily is indeed visible. The sea is purple and there are few clouds. The closest beach--far below and perhaps three miles distant--is occupied by a large contingent of soldiers. I can see the color of their skin, their black and green flags that wave in the morning breeze.
Arabs. Moslems.
They could not be so near without Lord Landulf s consent.
The duke is not far away, off to my left, down about five hundred feet. As Dante warned, he sits in the center of a circle of stones--defined by the shape of the ledge and the pointed rocks that enclose it--in another pentagram. This five-pointed star appears to have been drawn by blood, and there is something red and slimy in his hands. He sits on his knees with his back to the cliff and I do not know what thoughts run through his corrupt mind. I only know he will be dead in a few minutes.
I start down the cliff.
Venus shines bright in the eastern sky.
I take her white light as a good omen.
I come within fifty feet of the stone circle before I pause. There is a young woman chained to the cliff just below me, and I see Landulf has the Spear of Longinus with him at the center of the pentagram. I find it odd that I did not see it at first since I have not let him out of my sight on the hike down the cliff. But the fact does not concern me; the girl does. She is the one who assisted me when I rescued her and her friends from the cage. Like her friend, who was sacrificed at the black mass, she wears a white robe and looks terrified. Yet except for the three of us, I sense no one else in the vicinity. I descend another thirty feet, silently, staring at Landulf s back. I know it is him. The girl sees me and I motion for her to remain silent. Her eyes are suddenly wide with hope, and I have to wonder if that is good. This all seems too easy.
Then I pause again. Something makes me sick.
Lady Cia lies not far from the chained girl.
Her heart has been cut from her chest.
Now I know what Lord Landulf holds in his hands.
He continues to sit with his back to me. Defense?less.
"It was necessary, Sita," he says softly.
That he knows I am here stuns me.
"Why?" I ask.
He glances over his shoulder.
"The sacrifice demanded the ultimate sacrifice," he says.
"To achieve what aim?" I ask.
"To bring you here, to this spot."
I snort. "I brought myself here, thank you. None of your demons assisted me."
He stands and stares at me. His wife's heart contin?ues to drip in his open palm. His eyes are so dark "That's what you think," he says quietly.
I gesture to the girl. "Why is she here?"
"For you. For the next step in your initiation."
I point to my ears. "I have sensitive hearing. The three of us are alone on this cliff. Not that it matters. You would need an army to protect you from what I am going to do to you now."
He gestures to the circle, using the heart. "You say your ears are sensitive. What about your eyes? Can you not see what you are up against?"
Now that he mentions it, I do notice a peculiar vibration in the air. It's as if we're surrounded by a swarm of insects, yet there is no sound. The sensation of the swarm is psychological. Now I feel as if something foul picks at my skin. I start to brush it away, but stop myself. I fear to show weakness in front of him. Yet a faint thread of fear has already entered my mind, and slowly begun to wrap around the center of my brain. However, I still feel I have the upper hand. I am an ancient vampire of incredible strength. He is just a man. Why, he doesn't even have his spear in his hand to protect himself.
I step toward the stone circle and bump into a barrier.
It is invisible but palpable. A wall.
Or a magnetic force that resists physical contact.
I pound on it with my fist to no effect.
Landulf grins at me from inside the circle.
"To enter," he says. "You will have to sacrifice an innocent."
The girl cries behind me. I silence her with a gesture.
"That will never happen," I say as I slowly probe the perimeter of the stone circle, seeking for a weak spot. But the force field is uniform, and I am amazed that it even exists. My memories of the future are back again, clearer than ever. I have to wonder if the shield is of extraterrestrial origin. The last time I confronted Landulf on this spot, I defeated him by using his wife as a shield. This is the first event that is being played out differently from the last time. So I know I must have come back in time for this final moment.
Yet I do not know what to do.
Landulf follows my movements and does nothing to thwart me. I complete my inspection of the circle and pause to consider the possibility of jumping into the circle from the side of the cliff. Landulf reads my mind, or perhaps he logically figures out what my next move must be.
"You can try it," he says. "I would enjoy watching you bounce off the edge of the cliff."
"You cannot stay in there forever," I reply.
"Dante cannot stay in the underground passageway forever."
I freeze. "You bluff. You cannot stop him from here."
In response Landulf raises the heart toward the sky and to my amazement it starts beating. The blood squirts on his face and he licks it. Then he lets out a high-pitched cackle, and I hear a loud shifting of stone far above. Glancing up the way I came, I see that the exit to the cliff has been closed over with a fallen boulder. Landulf lowers the heart.
"That is one end," he warns. "I can close the other end the same way. If..."
He doesn't finish. He wants me to.
"If I don't come get you," I say.
"Exactly." He gestures to the chained girl, who is not enjoying the display of the duke's powers. "The life of your friend for the life of a stranger."
I glance at the girl and she shakes her head slightly.
"Don't worry," I snap at her.
"You need to rip out her heart," Landulf explains. "Quickly. While it still beats, you will be able to penetrate the circle."
"I do not barter in human lives." But sudden doubt plagues me. If I do not kill him, he will kill the girl anyway. And I will not be able to take her with me down the side of the sheer cliff. Dante's innocent face haunts me, as do Landulf s hypnotic eyes. I just want to get to the duke and scratch his face off to put an end to his circus. He moves to the edge of the circle, comes within five feet of where I stand. Once more I pound on the barrier but my fists rebound against my chest. His dead wife's heart continues to beat and now the sound is in my ears. I do not understand how his palm can animate it. How a wizard, no matter how powerful, can infuse life into what should be dead.
"You will barter," he promises. "Fool! There is no part of you I cannot touch. No aspect of you I cannot defile." He stops. "Hear something, Sita?"
The beating of the heart grows louder in my ears.
In my head. Even when I cover my ears it doesn't help.
He shoves the heart toward me and I am forced to stare at it.
This is madness--I cannot even close my eyes.
"Kill her and it will stop," he says.
"No!" I cry.
"Kill her and your friend will live! Kill her and you can kill me!"
The blood of the pounding heart splashes through the barrier and catches my face. I taste the waste of Cia's perverted life on my lips and the pounding in my head increases ten-fold. Surely I will go mad if I do not stop it in the next few seconds. Whirling toward the chained girl, I do not know what she hears except that she suddenly screams. Maybe the sight of my crazed expression makes her scream. What is one human life, I think? In four thousand years I have murdered thousands, ripped the lives from a parade of innocents. I need her heart, just for a second. Her sacrifice is necessary to spare the torment of billions in the future. She should be happy to die for such a noble cause. God should see that I have no choice in the matter.
But he will not see that and I know it.
Because I am five--not four--thousand years old.
I know to murder innocents is to murder my own soul.
But the pounding grows louder.
It is a miracle Landulf's voice can be heard above it.
"You can rip out my heart when you are done with me," he says. "And then you will finally be at peace. Peace, Sita!"
My body balls up in pain.
I squeeze my ears between my knees.
The beat of the dead heart. Nothing can stop it.
Tears run over my face. Bloody tears.
The girl swims in my red vision.
My head will explode, I know.
"Kill her, Sita!" Landulf implores.
My mission will fail. Billions will burn.
"Rip out her heart!"
In my head. The pain. The pounding. Please.
"Do it!"
I do it. Finally, just this once, I listen to him.
Leaping toward her, giving her almost no time to react, I thrust my left hand into her chest, smashing through her white gown and her pale ribs. Yet for a fraction of a second, she knows what I am going to do. She feels the absolute horror of the ritual execution. That is what Landulf wants, what he needs, to acti?vate his black sorcery. The battery of the bastard is tied to perversity and pain. The girl's heart is in my hand. I feel its life, and still I yank it from her chest and leap toward the circle. Out the corner of my eye I see her staring at me, and understand the betrayal she is feeling deep in my soul. Her eyes are as blue as mine. Even in death, they could be mine.
I land inside the circle, at the tip of a point on the pentagram.
The pounding stops. The agony in my head.
The dead girl's heart seems to melt in my hand.
Landulf has picked up the mystical spear.
"They are always hungry," he explains as he nods toward the heart vaporizing in my left palm. In moments it is entirely gone. There is not even a stain of blood left on my hand. Landulf raises the spear and takes a step toward me. He is pleased with me. "You have passed the second step," he says.
I ready myself for his attack. I shift to the right side.
My foot touches fire.
I whip my foot back. There are no visible flames.
"You are now in hell," Landulf says. "You are required to stay inside the lines of the pentagram. But I am free to roam where I wish, all over the circle."
He lunges at me with the spear. He is fast.
I leap over to the adjacent star point.
He barely misses me. He flashes me a smile.
"Isn't this fun?" he asks.
"Delightful," I say.
"There is one other rule you should know. Don't jump or walk through the center of the pentagram. There is an invisible being waiting there that might consume you alive."
"You expect me to believe you?" I ask.
"You don't have to. But then, I will lose you forever, and you will be trapped in a dark place forever." He raises the spear once more. "But do what you want. You may even try to escape from the circle, but you won't be able to. Once you are in here with me, you will stay in here."
He makes another stab at me. I leap to the next point on the star. He misses, but I realize that I cannot keep on like this forever. His freedom of movement gives him a devastating advantage. His speed and strength are a mystery to me. But perhaps they come from the sum total of all the demons he carries in his heart. He is not necessarily as strong as I am, but his strength is close. I can tell by the power in his physical bursts. And he has the mystical spear, and I have to wonder if Christ's dried blood is an advantage or disadvantage in this cursed place.
"The spear is neither negative or positive," he says, maybe reading my mind, maybe guessing. "The tip is simply a point around which destiny turns. In the hands of a saint, it could be used for great healing. In my hands, it is merely a tool for my immortality."
"You are not immortal," I snap.
"But I will be, Sita. In a few moments. As soon as I pierce your side with this spear and channel your blood into my body."
"You could have done that when I was uncon?scious."
"No. To get the full benefit of your blood it is necessary that I drain you in my place of power. And you had to enter here of your own free will, after executing an innocent. Everything that has happened to you has been planned to bring you to this precise point." He pauses. "You see, Sita, I know you are from the future."
He continues to shock me.
"How do you know?" I gasp.
"Because I am from the same future."
"Did I know you?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Linda's boyfriend. I was the one who sent you into the desert."
"That fat slob?"
He is not offended. "I was in disguise."
I nod in admiration. "You are clever. More clever than any foe I have ever encountered."
My remark pleases him. He lowers the spear.
"Thank you. You have also been a worthy adver?sary. Why don't you let this end with dignity? I will give you that if you stop resisting me."
I sigh. "What do you want me to do?"
"Stand still for a moment. I do not need a lot of time."
"What will you do to me?" I ask.
"I will take your blood. I need your blood. But you will not have to suffer. You have my promise on that."
I consider. "All right. I will surrender on two conditions."
"What are they?"
"I want to open my own veins. And I want to use the nail that was on the cross, the one now tied to the tip of your spear."
"Why the nail?" he asks.
"Because you say it was pounded into the hand or foot of Jesus. If I am to die, I want that nail to pierce my own flesh." I add, "It will make me feel closer to him as I die."
Landulf is thoughtful. "That will not save you from what is to follow. You are already in my circle. No works of Christ function here. I am not lying to you."
"Perhaps. But those are my conditions." I shrug. "I don't ask much."
He is wary. "You could try to use the nail as a weapon. You could throw it at me."
"Would you be able to block such a throw?"
"Yes."
"Then what do you have to fear by tossing me the nail?"
"Nothing. I fear nothing in my place."
"Then toss me the nail, O Fearless One."
"You mock me?" he demands.
"Well, in the future it might be called flirting."
He hesitates. "I don't have to do this. I will get you eventually."
"Probably. But you never know."
"You believe the talisman will protect you? Despite what I say?"
"No. You are wrong there."
"Then you lie to me. You will not keep your side of the bargain."
I laugh. "You call me a fool? You have nothing to lose by trusting me." This time I catch his eye, and put all my will behind the gaze. "You will never be successful as an immortal if you live in such fear, Lord Landulf."
I have pushed the right button.
Perhaps his only button.
He hates to be called a coward.
He begin to undo the wire holding the nail in place.
"When you have the nail, you open your veins immediately," he says. "I will tolerate no delay."
"I will not waste your time," I promise.
The nail is free. He tosses it to me.
"Christian paraphernalia," he says bitterly.
I place the nail in my right palm, the tip pointed toward Landulf, and stare at it. Neither Yaksha's nor the child's nor my daughter's blood is in this present form of mine. I am strong but still only a shadow of what I will be in the future. Since returning to Sicily I have felt no power of psychokinesis, the ability to move objects with my mind. It was Kalika's blood alone that gave me that ability, and my daughter hasn't even been born yet. Still, my daughter gave her life to save the child, paid for his life with her own. And the child's blood, in an earlier reincarnation, was once on this nail. There is a connection that can reasonably be made here, or else mystically contrived. No doubt a particle of Christ's blood still remains on the metal, deep in the folds of the atoms that bind it together.
It is on this invisible blood I focus. I still believe in the miracle of this blood. My belief is born of experi?ence. I have seen it bring a friend back to life. My belief is stronger than evil incantations spoken to cruel spirits, and bloody pentagrams drawn on forsak?en cliffs. I made a serious mistake by stealing the girl's heart, but now I will give my own heart in exchange for hers. And in exchange for my life, for just a second of time, I ask for the power that my daughter already gave to me. I ask it out of favor to Kalika, whom I am sure would not want her mother to go down without a final chance of victory. Yes, I have the nerve to remind God that he owes me for my daughter's sacrifice. But I also have the faith to believe he hears me.
And my faith is stronger than stone.
Landulf lifts the spear. "You had better hurry."
I feel my mind touch the nail.
"Yes," I whisper. "Hurry."
I feel my heart touch it. Caress it.
And I know beyond all doubt it once touched Christ.
Landulf shoulders the spear. "You die now, Sita."
The nail trembles. My hand remains firm. My gaze.
Power sweeps over me from way beyond the circle.
"No," I say. "Evil one, you die."
Landulf starts to let the spear fly.
The nail flies out of my palm and is impaled in his forehead.
Between his eyebrows. He stares at me through a red river.
"You," he says, and drops the spear.
I leap to his side and catch the spear before it lands.
The nail has plunged all the way in.
"I take back what I said a moment ago," I say. "You are not so clever."
I stick the spear in his heart, and his blood spurts out, even into the center of the pentagram, where it is mysteriously consumed in midair. He tries to speak one last time, probably to curse my soul for all of time, but he is staggering blindly with a long spear thrust through him and a nail in his brain. He makes the serious mistake of stumbling into the center region of the five-pointed star he has drawn with his wife's blood, and there something truly awful hap?pens. In a sickeningly wet sound, his clothes and flesh are simultaneously ripped from his body. For a mo?ment he is a carved cadaver risen from an autopsy table. Then invisible claws go around his head, and he is pulled down and backward, into a pit of nothing?ness. He just vanishes and I am so grateful that I fall to my knees and weep for a long time.
The spear and nail remain where they have fallen from his body. They lie in the center of the circle. And I know the power of the circle has been broken.
Eventually I climb down the cliff, and walk toward the ocean. I swim away from the hordes of Moslems, who only stare at me as I step onto the beach covered with blood from their dead benefactor. Perhaps they are afraid to touch me, I don't know. But they must have heard stories about Landulf s castle.
The place where magic was performed.
I swim through the waves beyond the invading army.
Beyond reason. The water is clean and stretches forever.
Yet I feel as if I will never be clean again.