Her Fugitive Heart

by Adi Tantimedh

  She was on her way, and our work was done. Julia and I packed our bags and said our good-byes. Karen thanked us for our help without a hint of sentimentality. Hamid paid us handsomely for coming up with the solution to save his sister.

  “I knew you had the right touch,” he said. “It takes a certain kind of madness to come up with your solutions. Truly top service there.”

  We drove away leaving Interzone in charge of Karen’s protection.

  “Do you think we’ll meet her again?” Julia asked.

  “I hope not,” I said. “And anyway, she’s got Interzone as her bodyguards. All we did was witness all that weirdness. She doesn’t need us anymore.”

  “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself about that,” she said.

  “Well done, my son,” Shiva said. “You have created a god.”

  “We always knew you had it in you,” Kali said, beaming with maternal pride.

  “Your own transformation is now complete,” Ganesha said. “There’s no going back now.”

  “Best shaman we ever had,” Bagalamukhi said.

  “You’re really good at this stuff,” Louise said. “Stop denying it.”

  “Ravi?” Julia said. “Is something wrong? You look like the world just exploded underneath your feet.”

  SIXTEEN

  Once upon a time, there lived a princess in a faraway kingdom. Her father the king was an evil tyrant who ruled with an iron fist of terror. Her two older brothers, the princes, were even worse than their father. They tormented and terrorized the people for pleasure. The princess and her third brother were not like that at all, and took the opportunity to spend as much time away from the kingdom as possible, going to the best schools and learning the ways of the world.

  The princess burned with a righteous anger at the evil her father and brothers caused, and she refused the custom of being married off as chattel to cement relationships with neighboring princes.

  So she ran away.

  She knew there were people who opposed her father’s rule and were secretly planning to overthrow him, so she found them and taught them all the innermost secrets of the castle her father thought himself safe in as he plundered the kingdom and reveled in his subjects’ suffering. In time, the princess became one of the leaders of the rebellion and led the uprising that deposed her father, and captured her two brothers. She did not hesitate to oversee the execution of her father and brothers to ensure they would never rise to take control again.

  Unfortunately, with her father gone, the kingdom did not settle down into peace. The deep divisions amongst rival factions that had been present for hundreds of years erupted, and chaos ensued as they all fought over ultimate control. Her surviving brother, a gentle soul with no desire for power, had fled abroad years before. When she heard that plotters were trying to make him the new king so they could continue the kingdom’s old status, she sent assassins and tried to have him killed. He escaped these attempts on his life, and announced he would not try to take power. The princess soon found herself in danger from assassins herself. Even though she had no great desire to take the throne, the warring factions in the kingdom believed she posed a threat to their bids for power. Her brother, who still loved his sister, arranged for her to escape to the country where he was living freely.

  When she arrived in this new land, her brother told her she was still in danger from assassins and she would need to change. He kept her hidden in a castle and arranged to give her a new name so she could start a new life. He introduced her to a wizard who weaved a spell to prepare her. The wizard altered her face so no one from her old life would recognize her.

  But the princess wanted more than just to live a normal life. She wanted revolution. She wanted to fight in opposition to the war that was being waged against all women and girls, and she could still command armies in secret, the way she had when she led the revolution that overthrew her father. She still wanted to change the world.

  The wizard listened to her wishes and weaved a spell that turned her into a goddess. She would be celebrated and worshipped as a goddess of light, bringing joy and hope to children, but she was also a goddess of justice. She would still send out armies in the night, this time to destroy the men who would hurt women. Thus reborn, she had found a new purpose, and henceforth, she would fulfill her new role.

  His work done, the wizard bid her farewell, for he, too, had battles to fight and a war to win. His war was deep in the underworld, and whether he survived victorious or not, the goddess would never know.

  “Is this how you’re writing it up?” I said as I read Julia’s notebook.

  “Just a bit of fun,” Julia said.

  “One day you’re going to have to write a proper book,” I said.

  “Of course I will,” Julia said. “I’m not your manic pixie dream girl.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “Come off it, Ravi, I know the way you’ve always looked at me. You keep calling me an English Rose as if that was my defining characteristic.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I know that’s all people think I am, the better to trap them. That’s why Roger hired me, after all. I’m not going to be an investigator forever.”

  “When you took the job, I was worried you did it to get involved in risky situations as a substitute for your addiction,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “It’s a job with flexible hours, Ravi. I still have my degree to finish. And it gives me time to think. And bear witness.”

  “What for?”

  “What for? Everything. Ever since I got in recovery, I’ve been wondering what to do with my life. When Louise died, I didn’t know how I was going to carry on without her. She was my rock, and now she was gone. I don’t want you to be my rock, Ravi. You’re my husband now. I want you to be my partner.”

  “Well, I’m here for that,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.

  “I watch you go about worrying that you’re losing your mind. I watch everyone at the firm secretly chasing their own agendas, and I think about my own agenda all the time. I collect everyone’s stories, including yours, and I keep them to myself. I keep to the background so I can watch everything. When Ariel and Interzone come into our lives, I wonder if they’ll be the death of us this time. Then I’m not an observer, I’m waiting. I’m waiting to see if I might have to kill her to save both of us. And no matter how frightened I might be, I never show it because I learned to detach long ago. When you’re in trouble, I’ll back you up and do what’s needed to save you. If you ever betray me, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “What’s brought this on?” I asked. “Are you thinking about getting out? Of investigating? Or this crazy life? If you are, I’ll support you.”

  “You’re still not hearing me, Ravi. I’m telling you that I’m here and I’m not going away. I have my story and you’re part of it. But one day I might decide not to play anymore. And when that day comes, you may not be as big a part of it. It’ll be mine and mine alone, and perhaps I’ll tell it. That’s when I’ll write a ‘proper book,’ as you call it.”

  I looked at Julia and couldn’t read her face. I was at a loss. She could see that.

  “I’ve been having the time of my life,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade what we’ve been through for anything in the world. All I’m asking, Ravi, is that you not take me for granted.”

  “Never,” I said, and hoped I wasn’t lying.

  We were on a flight back to London. Cheryl had given us the all clear. Golden Sentinels was no longer under scrutiny. The government was in so much chaos that they’d quietly dropped the case against Roger and he was going to be released from house arrest.

  Julia and I had witnessed how a person could become a god. This wasn’t a light show with magic and special effects like a fantasy novel or TV series, this was the real thing. Kareena Mafouz had given up her old life, her name, her face, to become someone new and mythical. She became a celebrity, and her fame
made her a myth. Fame was the religion in Hollywood, after all. The public would never know who she really was, only the pretty, cheery children’s TV star. They would never know she used her resources and connections to outsource hit squads against the sexual predators of the world. And the gods would claim her as a living embodiment of one of their own—Lakshmi for her wealth, Rudra for her unending wrath and vengeance, Shiva for her ruling her world, Bagalamukhi for her turning her entire life into an origami of deception, and Kali for her orchestrating a whole cycle of chaos and destruction, with her own life a rebirth from the old one. Even Louise was impressed with her effortless masquerade and role-play as a harmless and friendly children’s TV star.

  “When you think about it,” I said, “Kareena, in becoming Karen Radley, has become every bit a god as any we might create for our myths. That she did it all for the sake of survival just adds to her mystique. It isn’t money or resources that make her a god. Anyone could get a new face or identity if they set their mind to it. It’s intent and will. Kareena, now Karen, has a mission that she’s intent on fulfilling, to influence hearts and minds, and to exact justice on the patriarchy. Magic is the focus of intent and will, and that is what defines a god.”

  Forgive me if I keep repeating all this. I’d had a few glasses of wine down me during the flight and couldn’t help rambling.

  “You’ve done a shaman’s work, my son,” Kali said proudly. Of course she presided over this case. She was the goddess of death and rebirth, after all.

  After helping Kareena’s rebirth to this new life and identity, Julia and I were gratefully dismissed to go back to our lives. The pay we got was a clean parting of the ways. We had no more obligation to Karen Radley, newly minted goddess. This was probably the most metaphysical case I ever had as an investigator.

  “She might just change the world,” Julia said.

  “If she does, it’ll be our fault.”

  “She’s every bit as mad as Vanessa van Hooten, and just as dangerous.”

  “Vanessa was obsessed with her lover, and everything she did was to serve him,” I said. “That’s how she came a cropper. Kareena served a cause she believed was greater than her and devoted her life to it. She had the will, the intent, and the drive, and you could say that was what enabled her to transform into a god. As an atheist, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I believe we create heaven and hell here on Earth, and we pretty much create gods from living people. They become ideas that transcend their lives.”

  “Whereas Laird Collins wants to destroy the world to create paradise in its wake,” Julia said.

  “I think that is where Collins fails,” I said. “For all his striving for power in his twisted notion of serving divinity, he fell well short. He lacked the vision or imagination to become truly mythical. Instead, he chose to pursue a perverse dogma in the most literal way. And he didn’t see God in his nightmarish trip that weekend in Alfie Beam’s mansion because deep down, he really didn’t believe in the God he so fervently insisted he was doing everything for.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t see himself as a god,” Julia said.

  “He wouldn’t even admit he had a God Complex,” I said. “That night in the mansion where he nearly shot me exposed his failing. His bad trip held up a mirror to his emptiness. Being forced to face that might be what broke him. His hubris had come to naught, just as Roger’s hubris brought him down. Collins’s and Roger’s fates ran in ironic parallel paths.”

  “You know you’ve unleashed Kareena—sorry, Karen—on the world, right?” Julia said.

  “More chaos on the world.” I sighed. “Perhaps I should feel guilty, but I don’t really feel bad about being complicit in ridding the world of some rapists and sexual predators.”

  Did the gods know all along that I was the one who would provide the last detail to complete Kareena’s transformation into this new entity? Was this what they were waiting for? I didn’t want to think about it.

  I asked the flight attendant for a top-up on my wine.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sunday dinner with my parents.

  It was as if Julia and I hadn’t spent a month on the run abroad and the world wasn’t falling apart. That past month had fallen away from us as if it were just a strange dream, a funny story to be told at supper.

  I told them the story about Kareena, but left out the part about her overthrowing her father, running a rebel army, putting a hit out on her brother, and sending hit squads to kill sexual predators, of course. Instead Julia and I just recounted our overseeing the plastic surgery and forging of a new identity for a client who wanted a new life. She was a celebrity, and you could say that celebs were living and breathing demigods and demons of our material world, after all. Their lives became serialized modern myths and morality plays that we followed in the media.

  Vivek was riveted by it all, as usual. My sister only shrugged, since she was quite used to my life being surreal. She just wiped drool off her baby’s lips. My mother cooed about all the famous people I met on the job. She was especially tickled by the part about Julia and me posing as Kareena’s managers as she made the rounds and finalized her contract to star on the variety show.

  Later, while Julia and my mother were cooing over my niece with Vivek and Anji, my father and I commiserated in the garden.

  “You’ve acted like a shaman as much as a babysitter,” my father said. “You helped a woman become a goddess. That’s part of your calling.”

  “Certainly makes for a good story to tell the grandkids,” I said.

  “This is looking at your situation from a certain mythical perspective,” Dad said. “Or we could say you watched over a woman while she was in hiding and helped her assume a new identity to leave behind her old life.”

  “That’s how I prefer to look at it, but I can’t ignore the metaphysical angle given who I am and my relationship to the gods.”

  “You were doing what they asked all along,” Dad said. “You seem less anxious about it all now. You used to be a bundle of nerves. Your mother and I wondered if we might have to get you sectioned.”

  “I thought I was headed for an insane asylum myself,” I said.

  “It happened to your uncle and that was how we lost him,” Dad said. “He could never accept his unusual way of seeing the world. You seem to be almost at peace now. Not quite yet but I sense you’re accepting it.”

  “I suppose I am. Better than going mad, really.”

  “You have no idea how relieved we are. And I think Julia has helped give you a sense of stability. You seem to calm each other down.”

  “Who’s to say the gods didn’t send her my way?” I said.

  “Who indeed,” Dad said, wistfully. “But what next for you? Your boss is in the middle of a scandal. Are you out of a job now?”

  “Actually, I think that’s resolved,” I said. “The government is scrambling from all those files that got leaked. Roger has done a deal to get his charges dropped. They knew the files belonged to him, and he can help undo the damage by keeping more from leaking. In return, they’ll say he was fitted up and was just the wrong man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. All those people owed him a favor, now he’s calling them in by force.”

  “He is a slippery man, your boss.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to be my boss for much longer,” I said.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Didn’t think we’d see this office again,” I said as Julia and I walked into Golden Sentinels in Farringdon.

  The place had been given a makeover. New computers, new workstations, but otherwise the same space we worked out of for the last few years.

  “Wa-hey! Looks who’s back!” Benjamin said.

  Hugs all around. Everyone was home.

  “So how was your workin’ holiday, then?” Benjamin asked.

  “Surprisingly profitable,” Julia said.

  “And we turned someone into a god,” I said.

  “Jolly good,” Mark said. “You’ll have to tell us
all about it.”

  “Look, love,” Julia said. “Ken and Clive tied the knot.”

  They held up their hands to display their wedding rings.

  “When Roger got arrested, we went down the registry,” Ken said. “Got Mark to witness. Bob’s yer uncle.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Reckon we ought to be safe than sorry,” Clive said. “If we had to go to court over Roger’s fuckup, spouses can’t testify against each other.”

  “That was practical, yes,” Julia said.

  “And we’ve got just the wedding gift for you,” I said. “Fancy a sixty-five-inch telly?”

  “That the one we bought you?” Ken asked.

  “The same,” Julia said. “We can re-gift it to you. It’s nice and everything, but a bit too big for our tiny living room.”

  “Yeah, that’s brilliant, love,” Clive said. “We were thinkin’ of buyin’ the same model for our gaff. You’ll be savin’ us the trouble.”

  “Consider it done,” Julia said. “You’ll get it by tonight.”

  They gave us the thumbs-up. Ken and Clive were surprisingly easy to please.

  “Ravi, can I have a word in private?” David said.

  We went to the kitchen area.

  “I’m sorry I got you tangled in all this, mate,” David said.