I took her by the shoulders. “He never did. We’re going to run away together—to the rebels in New York. My path is clear to me now.”
Her mouth dropped open. “They will hunt you down and do to you what they planned for Marco. Have you lost your mind?”
I released her and sank to the edge of the pool, dangling my feet into the water. Thoughts tumbled in my brain and out of my mouth in no coherent order. “I think I lost my mind completely while locked up in that hole. All this time I’ve denied the Mother’s power…but now… She showed me things in there, visions of war and destruction. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do until Marco killed himself. I…had an epiphany, you might say. The Mother hates the way her message has been twisted by Kalidasa. It sounds silly, but she needs me to fight for her. Sandhya, I love you—really love you—heart, soul, and body. The Mother has shown that I’m supposed to take you away from here. What do I have to do to prove it to you?”
She settled beside me and dipped her feet in the spring as well. Her fingers crept around mine. “My duty is here. Someone must hold things together in the ashram. Avijit is my brother, but he is weak and certainly in no state of mind to lead at present. Sita and Padma have not even reached the sixth degree. Perhaps if I put it in terms you might understand… Serving the mother is my salvation. If you really love me, you will leave and allow me to atone for my sins.”
I took her into my arms. “You’re coming with me. We’re going to be free. Kali Maa is prompting this. I’m going to fight for Kurt to avenge all the wrongs done in her name. You and I will restore the Mother to the place of respect and reverence she deserves.” Sandhya’s expression wavered. I didn’t want to tell my love what exactly I’d seen in seclusion, but I decided maybe fear would motivate her. “You have to come with me. The Mother sent me a vision…of you…as a corpse. Death waits for you here.”
A flash of fear widened her eyes, and then a look of resignation came over her, as if Kali Maa had given her some foresight denied to me. She sighed and nodded. “Of course, my love, I will go with you, anywhere you say.”
SIXTEEN
We decided to take very little, only a few changes of clothing and enough jewelry to pay our way to New York. Sandhya expressed trepidation, having spent very little time on the outside, only occasionally shuttled from private plane to automobile to elder’s bed. For the vast part of one hundred and seventy years she’d dwelled in the compound. The modern world would be a great shock at first.
Sandhya found some clothing, a pair of jeans, T-shirt and sneakers discarded when Kirsten joined Raj’s personal harem. I still had western clothes in my wardrobe. The next evening we rose early and dressed, shouldering knapsacks so we would pass as students at the airport in Calcutta. She’d nicked our passports from a locked cabinet in Raj’s bedroom. These we hid in the packs with our cache of jewels.
Slipping out of the ashram before the dogs stirred from their beds, we crept down into the tunnels to the underground garage where Kalidasa’s vehicles and Raj’s sports cars were parked. We stowed away in the back of a lorry that every night went into Calcutta to fetch fresh supplies of food and human blood. Large wooden crates stood inside, open and waiting. We climbed in and hid under blankets that reeked of urine from the pathetic doomed creatures the dogs bought from traffickers. Sandhya huddled beside me, resolute, as if she’d decided to accept her fate no matter what. A maddeningly Eastern way of looking at things, I thought.
Soon voices and footsteps of dogs came toward the garage. The door of the cab opened and closed. The engine coughed and sputtered to life, and the lorry pulled out of the garage onto the steep road down the mountainside through the jungle. Sandhya and I clung together, silent in the back. The vehicle bounced over the uneven pavement. I breathed a sigh of relief when it leveled out onto smoother terrain. We’d reached the village at the foot of the mountain and turned onto the road toward Calcutta. The tires hummed as they picked up speed.
I snogged Sandhya on the mouth. No kiss ever tasted so sweet. “Soon, we’ll be free.”
“Hush! They will hear us.”
“Not over the engine, they won’t.” I kissed her again, wanting to do so much more.
We rode on in silence. I clutched Sandhya around the shoulders, trying very hard to be the big, brave man, but in truth I was terrified as she. My fingers felt again for my dagger. I prayed I wouldn’t need to use it.
“How do we get out when they stop?” she asked, after a bit.
“They always stop at a bar first to meet up with the traffickers. I’ve heard them talk about it plenty of times. They usually sample the selection before they buy. We’ll slip out then.”
Sound rose above the steady thrumming of rubber on the road. A car whined down the road toward us, some sort of high performance vehicle built for speed, not utility. The noise got closer and closer as it gained on us. Sandhya pulled away from me with a cry. “It is Raj!”
My heart thudded in my chest. The lorry rumbled to a stop. Doors opened and slammed shut. My master’s voice cried out, “Don’t shoot unless they have guns! I want them alive!”
The back of the lorry flew up. Heavy feet scraped on metal. I clutched my knife, ready to use it. A dog tore off the blankets covering us. I flew out and drove the dagger into his throat. He bellowed and grabbed at it, wrenching it free from my hand, his blood squirting out over me. Beeshom and two others seized me. Another dog grabbed Sandhya. He dragged her out from the crate as Beeshom and the others wrestled me away from their wounded comrade. They took us to a clearing off the roadside. Tall trees formed a circle around us. The usual animals and insects shrieked in the canopy.
Raj waited there. He removed a cigarette from his case and lit up. The ash glowed red at the end as he took a drag, looking us up and down. His full lips blew a stream of smoke into my face. “Trying to rob me of millions in gold and disgrace the Exalted Father?”
I spit on him. “We’re not your bloody property!”
He backhanded me across the mouth. “You are, and you, Shardul, are going to make me a very rich man. I’d flay you myself if Liu weren’t arriving to fetch you tomorrow night, but I don’t want to damage the goods anymore than necessary.” He motioned to the dogs. “Deal with the bitch.”
Two dogs dragged Sandhya away to a broken tree and began to wrap chain around her. I lunged in their direction. How dare they touch her with their filthy hands? I lashed out with my feet, making a desperate attempt to break free of my trio of captors, but was unable to escape. While the others restrained me, Beeshom walloped me and secured lengths of clanking metal around my arms and legs until I was rendered completely immobile. I jerked my head around to Raj, who directed the guards as if this were just another dreary task assigned him in the office. The dogs gathered fallen branches into a pile. I realized why. “No! Dear God, you can’t do this.”
“The slut must be punished,” Raj said.
“She’s your wife, for pity’s sake!”
He raised an eyebrow. “She dishonored me.”
“You dishonored her when you forced her to have sex with other men. With her own brother as well, you sick fuck.”
“That was Kalidasa’s doing.” He turned to one of the dogs. “Fetch the petrol.”
Sandhya made no protest. She remained eerily calm, not struggling against her bonds. My arms and legs pushed outward, but the chains held fast. I stood there, impotent. No matter how hard I strained the bonds wouldn’t budge.
“I persuaded her to come with me. She didn’t want to. Let her go!”
“I should have done so long ago.” He took another puff and said to the dogs, “Hurry, this is taking too long.”
Sandhya’s eyes closed and lips moved in prayer. Beeshom and the others dumped cans of petrol over her feet.
“Raj—you can’t!”
Raj hit me in the mouth again. “Shut up, you pathetic whore. Always going on about something, as if you had an original thought in that empty red head of yours.”
/> The dogs chortled at that. Raj snarled at them to finish their task. He looked away from Sandhya, glancing at his watch as if he had an appointment. Sandhya went on praying. I wondered if Kalidasa sanctioned this. Sandhya had said the ashram needed her.
“What will Kalidasa say, Raj?” He ignored me. “How is he going to react at the loss of yet another adept?” The argument bounced off of him, without making a dent. I appealed to my love to say something. “You can’t let him do this!” In my desperation to save her, I grasped at ever-thinner straws. “Call on the Mother! She’ll listen to you!”
She opened her eyes and turned her head my way. Her voice flowed out soft and warm, but detached from the proceedings. “It doesn’t work that way, Cedric. She is not like the gods in those Greek plays we read together. Karma will catch up with him as it does with us all.”
“I’ll avenge you.” Tears streamed down my face. “I won’t rest until he pays for this.”
Her eyes looked toward me, but were focused in the distance, like she didn’t really see me anymore. “Do not weep for me. You and I will meet again…when we are released from the cycle of rebirth and death.”
“Enough!” Raj snatched the last can of petrol from Beeshom and dumped it all over her. She sputtered and coughed. Recovering, she prayed aloud. I joined her, my throat catching with sobs. My master took the cigarette from his lips and threw it at her feet. Flames licked along the streams of petrol, catching on Sandhya’s jeans. A blaze roared up and engulfed her. High-pitched wails emitted from the black smoke. Raj just looked calmly on, a smile playing on his lips. I closed my eyes.
The horrifying screams ended. Her consciousness had departed. All the light in my miserable life extinguished in that moment. A cry ripped out of my chest, leaving it raw. I sagged in the chains, whispering prayers for her unbound soul’s passage.
One of the dogs handed Raj my knapsack. He looked inside and then nodded to Beeshom. “Take him back in the lorry and lock him up. No whipping, it will spoil his skin. I can’t deliver a mass of cuts and bruises to Liu tomorrow night. In fact, drug him when you lock him up, I don’t want him doing anything stupid until Liu takes him off my hands.”
Beeshom dragged my chained body into the lorry. I clamped my fangs down on his arm. He slammed me against the wall. “Piece of shit!” The dog’s pistol cracked me on the back of the head, leaving me dazed. He tied a gag around my mouth. “You’ll regret that, Plaything.”
The lorry pulled out onto the road. I jostled against Beeshom. He shoved me aside. Searching around, he came up with my dagger from the straw on the floor and turned it about in his hands, admiring the design. He chuckled. “A little souvenir to remember this night, Shardul.” Taking a bigger knife from a sheath around his waist, he replaced it with mine. I wished I could get my hands on it somehow and cut his throat.
The vehicle bumped along for what seemed hours. Too numb with sorrow to care, I lay there, listening to Beeshom outline all the things he planned to do to me once he had me to himself. The horror of Sandhya’s murder played again and again in my mind. Finally the lorry pulled into the garage. Beeshom opened the back and dragged me out, struggling against my bonds, to whistles and catcalls of other dogs working there.
“Can you handle that tiger cub, Beeshom?”
“I’ll take care of him for you.”
Beeshom ignored their jeers and carried me to a door, setting me down to unlock it. Cursing, the dog fumbled at the keys on his belt. I strained against the chains to no avail. My captor unlocked the door and slung me over his shoulder again. The other dogs made rude noises.
“Fucking morons,” Beeshom muttered.
He bore me down a corridor. The air grew damp, smelling of mildew. Beeshom halted in front of a doorway and dropped me abruptly onto the floor. Unlocking the door, he dragged me inside a cubicle furnished with a bed, a rough table, and chairs. His quarters. The dog chuckled in a way that left me queasy. This situation was about to take a turn for the worse.
I willed my voice to remain calm. Perhaps I could bargain my way out. “Beeshom, help get me out of here, and I’ll give you all my jewels.”
He shoved me facedown over the table and started to unlock my chains. “My life would be worth shit.”
“Go with me to Kurt. They need soldiers. Kurt pays very well, I hear. The future is there.”
He leaned over to press his mouth to my ear. “When the Chinaman comes to fetch you, I’m going to get a nice bonus—and I’m going to do as I want with you until then.”
The fifteen-year-old mortal boy inside of me bubbled with suppressed rage. I did my best not to explode, lowering my voice to bedchamber tone. “C’mon Beeshom, not like this. Don’t you want the full adept treatment?”
“You must think me a fool.” Beeshom pressed the dagger against me. All my muscles tensed. He was twice my girth, but my training as a dancer made me much faster and more agile. Gathering all of my strength together, I scrambled from beneath him and spun on one foot, kicking him as hard as I could in the groin.
He gasped and doubled over. Before he could recover, I kicked him in the head. My dagger flew from his hand to the floor. I dove for it. Beeshom grabbed my arm. I sunk my fangs in and freed myself, springing to my feet. Beeshom lumbered to his. The dagger lay on the stones between us.
He held both palms out and beckoned with his fingers. “Here kitty, kitty…”
I crouched down and then leapt upward, letting loose a kick that shattered his nose. Blood poured out of his nostrils. He fell back, howling in pain. Heart pumping, I retrieved my dagger and poised to attack. Beeshom snarled and drew a curved sword from under his garments. Bugger. I hoped he didn’t have a gun under there as well. He brandished the weapon over his head, as he had when he fought Li Cheng’s man. The memory of the fight flooded into my brain. The Chinese had erred in trying to meet him blow for blow. I’d never match Beeshom in brute strength. My agility and skilled feet would have to evade his blade until he tired.
He struck out first, as I reckoned he would, with a downward motion. I jumped aside and waited for the next. The dog hacked at me again. I took to the air and landed well clear of his weapon.
Beeshom’s face twisted into a grin. “This isn’t the royal ballet, Nancy Boy, fight like a man.”
He surprised me with a series of rapid slashes. I twisted and turned, predicting where each would fall. The dog jumped up and drove the sword toward my chest. My body whirled away, but not fast enough. The blade glanced off my shoulder. Blood streamed out. My head swam a moment, but I managed to keep enough concentration to duck another slice intended for my neck. Scrambling away, I bent my knees and pointed the dagger toward him.
Beeshom puffed and stood his ground. Blood flowed from his nose. He grunted and swung the sword over his shoulders. “Stop playing hard to get.”
The blade came at me. I pivoted away and taunted him. “C’mon Beeshom, is that all you got?”
He bellowed and rushed me with the sword held above his head. First mistake. I jumped clear and he crashed into the stone wall. Taking the opportunity, I drove my knife deep into his sword shoulder. Beeshom screamed in pain. I wrenched the knife free and fell back. An arterial spurt bathed my face. The dog swung around to face me. He slipped on his own blood, but quickly recovered. A crimson wake trailed him as he advanced with another succession of blows. Each time, I maneuvered out of harm’s way.
Beeshom paled and wavered on his feet. Fatigue and blood loss had caught up with him. My reach with the dagger couldn’t equal that of his sword, but my feet were faster than his arm, and I could jump higher. He made another pass. Every time, my footwork outpaced his. When he stumbled, I saw my chance. Springing into the air, I snap-kicked him in the jaw. His head flew back on his neck. With every ounce of power I could muster, I landed on his chest, knocking him to the ground. The sword fell from his hand. My blade rammed into his eye socket, twisting deep into his brain.
Beeshom’s arms batted futilely and then fell. I buried
my fangs into his neck and drank all I could hold. The body slipped from my grasp and into a heap on the floor. Goo and blood seeped from the hole where his eye had been.
I snatched the electric torch, keys, and other knife from Beeshom’s belt. Somehow, I had to sneak past the guards into Raj’s quarters, get some clothes and my passport, and then slip out again before anyone missed me. One thought possessed me: kill my master. Until then, I wouldn’t rest.
But no matter how I reckoned it, the odds on my survival didn’t look good.
I unlocked the cell door and clicked on the torch, directing its beam up the narrow passage until I came to the door leading into the garage. If I opened it, it would make a terrible racket that would alert the dogs. I cast the light around for another way. To my left, an even narrower passage led uphill. It was worth a try. I didn’t really have another option.
The steep path led to a barred gate. A sharp scent wafted through the bars. In the distance, tigers huffed and growled. An encounter with the cats could prove problematical. I tried Beeshom’s keys until I found one that opened the gate, hoping it had been recently oiled. Of course, it hadn’t and creaked as I wedged it open. Motes of rust fell into my eyes. “Bloody hell.” Blinking the metal from my eyes, I peered beyond the doorway. The passage looked unused, but as I turned the corner into an open chamber, I realized why. The torch revealed a pair of big glowing eyes.
“Brilliant,” I muttered.
The cat lowered its massive head and sniffed around my legs and feet. Raj had told me they scented fear on a victim just like we did. He’d thought it great fun to see them take down slaves who’d tried to escape in the past. As an adept, I’d been trained not to let my nerves get the best of me. Taking a cleansing breath, I repeated the mantra inside of my head. The cat rubbed past my legs, grunting. My feet took one slow step after another across the enclosure. The dagger stood ready in case the tiger decided to have me for dinner after all.
My Fearful Symmetry Page 27