My Fearful Symmetry

by Denise Verrico

His lips curled. “It’s a surprise, Beauty.”

  “Is it silver, shiny, and very fast?”

  “Let us say, it will surpass your wildest dreams.”

  Since my wildest dreams involved Kali Maa wading through a sea of severed limbs and blood, I doubted it. Beeshom drove us to a slum on the outskirts of the city made up of rundown shacks with what appeared to be open sewers running between them. Piles of stinking refuse lay in mountains. Filthy, half-clothed kids clambered over them, digging. Why did Raj want to visit this spot? Beeshom pulled into the shadow of some trees, some yards away from the shacks and parked. The small figures stopped their activities and looked in our direction. Raj leaned forward and knocked on the glass. Beeshom slid the panel aside.

  “Liu’s man Wang said they nest here in the dozens. Burn them out. Every last one of them, understand?”

  Beeshom made a disappointed frown. “No spoils?”

  “Fine, take a few—but only for the night.”

  The dog’s wide face cracked into a grin. “Of course, Master.”

  “I want these vermin exterminated.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Even the little kids?”

  “Those aren’t mortal children. They at least have some value to us as a food source. These are parasites, competing for our resources and hampering our progress. We’re not going to allow what is happening in New York to happen here.”

  Beeshom got out of the car. He took a weapon from the boot and shouldered it. Raj lowered the window. Shrill whistles went up all around us. The figures winked out of sight behind the mounds of trash. A lorry pulled up, and several dogs I recognized from Kalidasa’s compound piled out. All were armed exactly like Beeshom.

  The men fanned out and systematically fired on the shacks—not with bullets—with flame. Screams erupted. Flimsy shelters blazed and collapsed as if they were made of toothpicks and newsprint. Shrieking boys and girls poured out, scrambling over the heaps of trash like the rodents they were named for. The dogs turned the flamethrowers on these kids.

  “Raj, make them stop!” I turned to him. “This is terrible!”

  He shoved me back against my seat. “Kalidasa’s orders. They must be taught a lesson.”

  One emaciated boy ran in front of the car. Beeshom pointed his weapon and flamed the kid. The boy screamed and ran faster, his rags burning bright. Two more dogs closed in on him. One doused him in petrol. The other torched him. Thin, eerie whining arose from the flames and then died. A blackened scarecrow toppled and fell, charred skin sloughing away from cooked meat and bone. The dogs clapped one another on the back. I opened the car door and vomited blood onto the ground.

  Wiping my mouth, I sank against the upholstery. Kids ran every which way but couldn’t escape the fires all around them. The men moved on them and drew pistols. They bragged to one another and laughed as they picked the kids off, like it was a video game they played and the burning figures not living, thinking creatures.

  Raj sat there smoking, taking it all in with the same calm expression that he wore at the opera in London. Was this all just a show to him? Speech deserted me. I wanted to protest, but my voice no longer obeyed my brain. I sat there mumbling and incoherent. No one could be this cold. His heartbeat didn’t even increase. It kept up the same steady rhythm it always did.

  A girl, who looked about fourteen or fifteen, streaked past the car, her wide eyes like a deer’s in the headlamps. Beeshom caught her up in his arms. She buried her fangs into his arm. He cursed and threw her on the ground. The girl scuttled aside crab-like. He didn’t burn her. The dog seized and tossed her over his shoulder, heaving the struggling girl into the back of the lorry. Other dogs hefted their own prizes in with her and locked them up inside the vehicle. I knew from personal experience what fate awaited those kids.

  I lunged for the door. Someone had to help them. Raj grabbed me by the back of my shirt and slammed me back into the seat, hitting me across the mouth. His cobra ring tore my skin. A warm stream of blood ran down my cheek. His face pushed into mine. “They got wind that Liu was moving out and set fire to one of Kalidasa’s factories here last night. We can’t do business with this rabble causing trouble. This is what happens when vermin think themselves equal to their betters. I could have left you home to spare your sensitive, artistic soul, but you need to understand their agenda. If they ever got hold of you, they would make you their example. An adept is a symbol of oppression to them. They hate everything that is beautiful and sacred in Immortyl culture. Remember this whenever you have thoughts of leaving me.”

  Blood dripped onto my clothes from my gashed face. Tears mixed with the red drops. My master got out of the car and strolled around with Beeshom to examine the desolation. Dogs gathered up black mannequins that had been the sewer rats and piled them up, pouring gallons of petrol over them. Raj tossed his cigarette onto the heap. Flames roared up, belching stinking, black smoke into the sky. I turned my face away, sickened beyond belief. Forcing me to witness this carnage was my punishment for taunting him with Liu’s offer. I kept telling myself that they probably weren’t actual kids, and they had destroyed the Chief Elder’s property. This massacre could be justified in time of war. But it didn’t make it any easier to stomach.

  A year ago, I’d been the cast-off of mortal society, infected and living hand to mouth. I’d been at the bottom rung, just like them. Maybe I’d risen as far as an Immortyl slave could, but the fact remained that I was no better off than these rats. It could just as easily be me on that pile of smoldering meat. Only Raj’s whim lay between my fate and theirs. For the first time, I saw things from the rat’s point of view. Someone like me deserved to be made into an example. I slept with the one who’d ordered their extermination without a thought. What kind of man was I?

  I didn’t bring up Liu’s offer to Raj again. The jade dragon languished in a secret compartment of my adept’s chest. I took it out once in a while when I needed a reminder that someone thought me worthy of the love and respect I craved from my master. To Raj, I’d never be anything more than another beautiful possession like his cars or statuary. What he’d done to those rats confirmed what I’d always known in my heart of hearts. Raj was a monster. Every time I thought of this slaughter, rage bubbled inside me. Up until now, my anger had been a personal thing, but now the injustice of the entire system preyed upon me. I returned to India with a new perspective.

  TEN

  The palace hummed with preparations for Gaius’ emissary. Sandhya informed me that as the shiniest bargaining chip in the ashram I’d be called upon to entertain Diego. She set about teaching me a ballet that she and I would perform together. We were rehearsing together in the hall, when the chief’s mistress arrived in a flurry of blue silk and blonde hair, followed by the two little girls who waited upon her.

  Giulietta huffed and stamped her foot. “What is this nonsense?”

  Sandhya, although much shorter than the other woman, drew herself up and gathered all her adept glamour and dignity over herself. “A sacred dance to honor the union of Shakti and Shiva, Lady.”

  Giulietta’s nose wrinkled up. “Our guest isn’t interested in that. He likes boys dancing sexy dances. Marco will dance naked with Redhead Boy.” That was her name for me. It was worse than Shardul. “You, Redhead Boy, talk with me. You, Little Fat One, go away.”

  Sandhya’s face flushed as she recited a prayer to master her anger. Next to rail thin Juliet, my guru was what I’d call nice and juicy, but by some standards she might be termed a tad overweight.

  Our mistress glared at her. “Stop your jabbering and go, so I may instruct this one in peace.”

  Sandhya bowed. “The blessings of our Mother onto you, my lady.” Rich subtext bubbled under my teacher’s invocation. Oh, she was right miffed. I wiped my face with a towel and gawked in anticipation of a catfight, but Sandhya just flipped her sari over her shoulder and glided away. No, Sandhya had too much class to stoop to the blonde bitch’s level.

  Giulietta’s tiny nose w
rinkled as if the smell of my sweat offended her. “I want this dance to be the height of sensuality, understand? Diego must be mad for you. The Exalted Father has ordered you to entertain our guest and specially asked me to confer with you. There is much at stake in Gaius’ war with these rats, and the Exalted Father is desirous to maintain good relations with his house. It is of the utmost importance that our guest is well cared for.”

  The famous adepts’ smile slid over my mouth.

  “No worries, my Lady. I’m devilishly good at what I do.”

  She examined me with a critical gaze, as if looking for flaws in the workmanship. “I really don’t understand what they all see in you. Too thin, too refined for a proper man…yet you are exactly to Diego’s taste. You will do everything he requests, everything, and be discreet about it.”

  “The ceremony of the bedchamber is both sacred and secret, my lady.”

  Her eyes narrowed to violet slits. “I know you and Marco compare notes back in that little sanctuary of yours. Our guest is not a figure of fun for silly boys.” She turned to leave, but as an afterthought looked over her shoulder and added with her tight little smile, “Gaius branded such as you.”

  I made a deep bow and then flipped the bird at her retreating figure. Marco entered the hall. He laughed at my gesture. “I’m told we’re to dance together.”

  I glanced round to see who was listening, but the others had left. “Someone’s been telling tales out of school.”

  “About what?”

  “Our little jokes in the Ashram.”

  “Could be Avijit. You know she’s commandeered his services.”

  “Get out.”

  “As her personal lackey, I’m in charge in Kalidasa’s chamber now.”

  “Good for you. So, can the little wanker be trusted anymore?”

  “He’s not very happy about it, trust me. What about this dance?”

  I grinned and flicked my towel at him. “The mistress says we’re to be naked and hot.”

  He chuckled, slipping off his peacock blue choga. “Let’s not disappoint her then.”

  Stripping down, we devised a perfectly wicked pas de deux and were in the throes of it, when Avijit came in bearing an armload of flowers. His mouth dropped open. “What on earth are you doing?”

  I gazed into Marco’s smoldering eyes as I lowered myself over him. “As your mistress commands—what do you think?”

  “It is perfectly vulgar.”

  “It’s what our guest likes, trust me. Why don’t you join us, caro mio?” Marco held out his hand. “Three is so much nicer than two.”

  Avijit’s dark eyes went very wide. “I am to arrange these flowers and report back to her.” He turned away and started plunging flowers into urns.

  Marco got to his feet and spun Avijit around by the shoulders. “I never took you for a snitch.”

  Avijit looked about the hall. “She threatens to hurt my sister if I don’t spy for her,” he whispered. “I make up harmless things to tell her. Just go on as if I wasn’t here.”

  Marco resumed his place on the floor. Avijit arranged the white roses and lilies Giulietta preferred, not the sacred red hibiscus. She would have her way, even to the selection of flowers. After Marco and I’d finished our rehearsal, Avijit ran off to report to the mistress. Marco and I slipped off to the ashram to bring our rehearsal to its inevitable conclusion in the bathroom with our favorite female attendants.

  I lay there in the hot tub, resting my head in the hollow of Mirabel’s buoyant breasts. “There’s been a raid on their compound in Florida by some rats, apparently. That’s why Diego is coming. They say your former master, Gaius, abducted someone called Kurt and that he got away and retaliated. You know him?”

  “Kurt?“ Marco shifted the girl named Lakshmi in his lap. “Seen him, once or twice.”

  “Does he have the stones to be behind something like this?”

  Marco gave one of those Italian shrugs, tossing his long hair back. “He’s supposedly a genius, but it takes serious balls to go up against Gaius. If you ask me, that’s how Brovik, Kurt’s master, died. Gaius wants to be the first.”

  “With the forbidden science, you mean?”

  Marco glanced around as if the walls had ears. The girls didn’t speak much English, but he dropped his voice nevertheless. “He’s been experimenting on both sewer rats and mortals since the fifties. Dogs kept these guinea pigs in old dungeons beneath his palazzo, until they took them up to the lab. Gaius and Diego cut them up or transfused blood back and forth between them and then killed the evidence.”

  “Christ, that’s sick, that is.”

  “They lobotomized some—to create the perfect Immortyl slave. They used to geld them. The organs don’t grow back. Diego’s a repulsive, sadistic bastard. Gets off on pain.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “Don’t worry. Kalidasa forbids any real torture on us. We’re too valuable to him.”

  The door burst open. Sandhya stood there fuming. Her body trembled from head to toe, and her eyes snapped. She looked incredible when she got angry, like all the power of the Goddess burst out through her emotions.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Marco said.

  “Look at the two of you!”

  Marco held his hand out to her. “It’s called fun, bambina. You want to have fun with us, maybe?”

  She let loose a Bengali tirade at the two girls. They scrambled from the tub and pulled on their clothes. Then Sandhya turned on me. “Cedric, go and pray to the Mother for forgiveness. Do as I say.” I hoisted myself from the tub and slipped on a robe. “Marco, you should know better. The ashram is not a place for indulging with slave girls.”

  He lounged in the tub, an indolent grin on his face, splashing water in front of himself. “I’m not your novice. I’m Kalidasa’s chief servant now, and you can’t order me around. I don’t give a fuck about what your heathen goddess says, anymore than I give a fuck for Santa Maria. Get out, unless you intend to join me.”

  “You dare scoff in her temple?”

  Marco snorted. “This isn’t a temple. It’s a seraglio.”

  “Do as you wish. I am not responsible for her wrath.”

  Marco burst out laughing. “Sure, whatever you say. So, I’ll break out in boils or something?”

  She seized my arm, dragging me out the door and through the garden like a naughty child. “Shame on you.” She hauled off to smack me again on the back of the head.

  I made an evasive maneuver. “Christ, don’t take it out on me because that blond monster called you fat.”

  Sandhya’s eyes flared. “When the finest sculptors have carved my likeness? Skinny anemic bitch.”

  So, Sandhya was like any bird when another said something catty to her. I rushed to smooth her feathers, knowing full well this was just the thing to do to get back into her good graces. “I think you’re a goddess.” It was the truth. No woman had ever moved me like her. I’d fancied hundreds of girls since I was old enough to notice them, but she made them all fade from memory. “Honestly.”

  She couldn’t hide the blush on her cheeks. “You? As if I should care what a silly boy thinks, when the most powerful of elders have offered suit to me?”

  “Admit it, you’re as vain as me.”

  “Unlike you, I pray to Kali Maa to master my vanity.”

  “You’ve been praying a long time.”

  She scowled at me. “I know I am not perfect.”

  “Ah Sandhya, none of us are, but you’re just about as close to perfect as can be.”

  Her face and bosom flushed again. My body reacted as expected. Sexual tension had been building since I’d danced with her and not yet relieved with Mirabel. Sandhya outclassed her in every way. I laid it on thick in hopes of finally getting round her. “You’re really devout, a true servant to the Mother.” I took the liberty of stroking her cheek. That was a mistake. She slapped my face. I rubbed my face. “Ouch.”

  “You westerners have no respect for her or for anything
sacred, for that matter. You live only to please yourselves.”

  “It’s not a sin to seek happiness through pleasure. Isn’t that what we’re all about, to bring kama to our master’s household? Why can’t we enjoy ourselves too?”

  “We have sacred duties to perform. It is our place to serve.”

  All that passion had to expend itself somewhere. “Sod that,” I said and swept her into my arms. To my delight, she went limp against me for a moment. Just as quick, she tore away and burst into tears.

  “You don’t understand anything.” She ran toward her room.

  Women. She was correct. If I lived to be a thousand years old, I’d never understand them. Men just took what they wanted when offered, but with women there were all sorts of conditions attached. Now Mirabel was a good sport. Our trysts were just a bit of fun. We both understood that. Why couldn’t Sandhya just lighten up and enjoy herself?

  * * * *

  The following evening, we adepts assembled in the banquet hall to prepare for Diego’s arrival. Lesser servants bustled about, setting down platters of fruits and delicacies. Six dogs in ceremonial armor stood in strategic positions around the room. The two little girls attended on Giulietta, both brightly clad as Kalidasa’s peacocks. The mistress wore midnight blue that clung to her svelte figure like glossy paint. She stalked up and down before us and lectured on the evening’s protocol. “Redhead Boy will wait behind the curtain with Marco, until I give the signal for the dance.”

  Normally I’d serve the guest of honor at the table. I raised my hand a little. “Excuse me, Lady Giulietta, but who’ll wait on our guest?”

  “Avijit will serve Diego during the banquet.”

  He didn’t look too happy about it, but took a diplomatic tone when he addressed her. “Begging your pardon my lady, it is against our custom. Shardul is assigned to the guest of honor and should care for him.”

  She snapped her head in Avijit’s direction. “I am mistress here. Do I need to remind you?”

  He bowed low. “No, my lady. Forgive my disrespect. I will do as you command.”