The Apsara Chronicles Boxed Set

by T. G. Ayer

  Vee cleared her throat. “So…I’m not sure how to approach this exactly but here goes.” Vee sat up and shifted to face her mother. “Was Radhima unhappy in her marriage?”

  Devi’s face paled as she stared at Vee. It only took a second for her to shake her head. “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

  Vee had never known she’d be able to tell off the bat when her mother was lying to her. But, Devi had this tiny little eye-twitch thing she did when she was being evasive or outright lying.

  When had Vee gotten so good at reading her mother?

  Vee let out a soft controlled breath. “Mom, you don’t have to lie to me, okay? I can take the truth. If they were unhappy, or if he was abusing her in any way, I can take it. I didn’t know Babaji, so you’re not going to be destroying any of my loving preconceived notions about the man.”

  Devi’s eyes widened for a moment, and she played for time, reaching for her glass, sipping and wiping a droplet of condensation from the side of it carefully.

  Then she sighed. “I think something happened that she wouldn’t speak of.”

  “Liar,” said a voice beside Vee. Though the word was harsh, the tone was somewhat amused. Vee had to force herself not to turn and give Radhima’s ghost a warning glare.

  She wasn’t sure she could talk to her mother about the issue if the ghost was sitting there listening to every word she said. A voice in Vee’s head reminded her that at least she’d made Vee aware she was there. She could just as easily not have manifested physically, and instead remained a silent voyeur—which would be all the more uncomfortable.

  So she chose to ignore her grandmother and focus on her mother. “I don’t believe that, Mom. I know she told you at some point.”

  Devi tilted her head and stared suspiciously at Vee. “So how do you know this?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vee waved her hand, then paused as she considered her reasons for not telling her mother the truth. It seemed strange that she was dealing with her own mother as if she were interrogating a suspect. She let out a sigh. “Okay. You do need to know the truth. Radhima told me.”

  “What?” Devi’s jaw dropped as she stared at her daughter, amusement catching the corners of her eyes.

  “I’m not joking, Mom.”

  Devi’s amusement fled then and then she sighed and got to her feet. She went to stand at the picture window, the light from beyond her revealing only her profile to Vee.

  Her sigh was long and painful, her shoulders hunching over as she stared into a past filled with what Vee could only suspect were terrible memories.

  “It’s not what you think. He didn’t beat her. At least not with his hands.”

  Vee’s stomach tightened as her mother’s words drove a shard of horror into her heart.

  “His words were his weapons, the insults, the demeaning way he spoke to her as if she wasn’t worth a damn, as if she had no rights, deserved nothing. I used to listen to him when he’d speak to her. He always used this almost-kind voice, as if he were disciplining a young child. ‘I’m only doing what’s good for you’.”

  Devi let out a pained laugh that sounded a lot like a sob. Taking a shuddering breath, she continued, “She had no authority over anything. Not even my upbringing. My aunts—his sisters—were allowed more control over what I wore, where I went, and what my daily choices were. We’d always had that disconnect, and I think as a child I blamed her for not standing up to him.”

  “Did he do that to you too?”

  Devi nodded, her spine stiff. “To him, we were woman, chattels, things to control, to barter. And because I refused to bow to his will, he disowned me.”

  “Oh. I had no idea.”

  Devi shook her head and turned to look at Vee. “We never told anyone what happened. Mom and I left him and went into hiding with the Guild.”

  “The guild?” Guild possibly meant there were many more apsaras out there than Vee had thought. Now Karan’s words made much more sense.

  Her mother’s voice drew Vee’s attention back. “Yes. The Apsara guild. They’re an organization that looks after Apsaras in need.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Vee, folding her arms around her waist. “For such a powerful supernatural race we seem to be pretty powerless. We need a guild to take care of things, to make the higher level decisions?”

  Devi shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “About what? Being powerless,” Vee smirked. “I can’t jump, I can’t fly—well not high enough that I’d be impressed.”

  Devi sighed. “I mean that you are wrong about being supernatural—not that you’re right about the Guild either.” Devi ran her hands up and down her thighs, as if she didn’t know what to do with them and had to keep them moving. “Our familial line does not belong to the supernatural race. It’s a technicality, but the apsaras were heavenly winged warriors. The emphasis on heavenly.”

  Vee frowned. “So what? We’re not supernatural, we’re divine?”

  “Something like that. The race of the apsaras as we know it was one descended from the Sage Narada and the General of the Kings Guard, Tilottama. That’s a blend of human, although an ascended spiritual human, and a divine creature.

  “But because of the anomaly that meant not all descendants would receive the ability of the apsara, it meant that the powers were diluted and sometimes didn’t rear its head for generations. We lost our standing as a divine race. For years, the Guild sought to ensure we gathered and trained all the apsaras we could find who had any significant form of power. Latent and mild talents were also put to use. Latent and mild talents like mine.” Devi had the power to calm a person down, like a sponge, absorbing the stress and fear only to replace it with peace and tranquillity. Though she’d never talked openly about her powers in the past, since Vee’s dad had returned to them, she’d begun to mellow where her apsara ability came into play. Now she nodded, “Ma’s powers were much stronger, but she bound herself willingly.”

  “She got her powers bound?” Vee couldn’t stop her outrage from filtering into her voice.

  Devi shook her head. “No. The fear she experienced through her life, the sense of self-preservation she possessed, told her to hide her power. But your power, on the other hand, is explosive in comparison. You, your very existence is confirmation of who and what the apsara line truly is. Had our race continued to merely possess mild levels of power, you could have classed us as telepaths or telekinetics. Powers along those lines. But there isn’t anything supernatural about us.”

  “So we get off on a technicality,” Vee muttered, still unsure how to process her mother’s revelations.

  Devi gave Vee a quizzical look. “Until you,” she said softly. “You spelled change.”

  Chapter 68

  “I still don’t understand what is so special about me. I don’t mean me Vee, but me special apsara.”

  “Did you miss the part of the warriors of heaven?” Vee frowned at her mother’s words. “The apsaras were the royal guard. They protected Lord Shiva in his abode, and wherever else he went. They weren’t limited in their powers either. Everything you have and more.”

  “The books imply there was a battle, after which the apsaras were ousted, and the gods began to disappear,” said Vee.

  Devi nodded. “It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it.”

  Vee stiffened. “Okay, wait. I thought you weren’t an apsara?”

  Devi nodded. “I’m not truly one, but your grandmother was. My father found out about her heritage. I think Mom blamed herself for being careless. You’re not really meant to keep your identity from those you love. Just as the sage and the Apsara who began our line were very much in love, every Apsara hopes to have the same with their partner.

  “But Mom knew from early on that he wouldn’t be receptive. But after I was born, the guild needed confirmation that I didn’t carry the gene. She’d assured them that I didn’t, but they insisted that they needed to test me for themselves
. She should have arranged to see them out of the house, but she hadn’t counted on how suspicious he was. He’d set up secret security cameras and microphones around the house to watch her every move, and he’d heard everything she and the guild discussed.

  “They told her that it was still possible that I’d come into my wings when I came of age and warned her to keep me safe either way because I carried the gene. They also asked if she still refused it bring her husband into the guild core, saying that all around support was important.

  “He used that against her when he confronted her about it. Insisted she show him her wings.” Devi let out a hiccupping sob, and Vee felt sick. She knew what her mom was about to tell her.

  “She showed him. In her terror they just revealed themselves. And he…he ripped them right off her shoulders.”

  “She stayed with him after that?”

  Vee’s ears were ringing, and she barely heard her mother’s response. “Yes. She stayed. The guild wanted to take her away, but she told them it wasn’t possible. He’d threatened to kill her if she ever left, but he also took steps to ensure people would not trust her. He had a psychiatrist friend declare her unfit to be alone with her child and brought his sisters into the house to watch over me instead. She was supervised at all times when she was with me.”

  “This sounds like a bad Hollywood movie.”

  Devi let out a harsh laugh. “Yes. It does. But her life…you just couldn’t make it up.”

  “Why did she marry him in the first place?” asked Vee, still confused as to how an Apsara with such power could end up abused at the hands of a human.

  “You have to understand something about the Apsara line. The power is extremely diluted. Wings, the power to fly, the power to read residual auras, fighting strength and skills…there is a list of them, all powers most Apsara have, some in a combination of two of those abilities but that’s rare in itself. You are the rarest purist of them all. The only Apsara in history having all of those abilities together.

  “Mom had a little bit of the aural reading, and she could read emotions very well. Perhaps that’s how she knew he was serious.”

  “When did you know something was wrong? That she needed help.”

  Beside her Radhima whispered, “Where exactly are you going with this?” Vee gave a slight shake of her head then stiffened. She probably looked like she had a tic or something.

  Devi was speaking, and when Vee looked up, she found her mother staring at her, an odd expression on her face. “In my late teens. I’d been acting out, and we’d had an argument. Not that it could have gotten heated what with my aunts being in the room. To be honest, it was more me being frustrated that I couldn’t be with her in private, but I took it out on her.

  “I later found her crying in the bathroom. I’d opened the door to see what was happening—perhaps I should have knocked, but stubborn teenagers rarely follow house rules. Ma was tending to a wound on her side, putting some salve onto a bruise where the skin had broken. It was just on her ribs, at her back, a location that made me realize it had to have been inflicted by someone else. I had my suspicions, but I allowed myself to be side-tracked by first investigating my aunts. A sort of self-protection I guess.”

  “Oh dear. I never knew she saw that,” whispered Radhima from my side. I glanced at her, sad for what she’d been through, sad that her daughter had seen her pain in its truest form.

  When Vee looked back at Devi, she found her mother giving her that suspicious glance again. Vee threw a question at her quickly, realizing that she was getting too close to having to fess up. “I take it you found out it wasn’t them?”

  Devi nodded, her brows furrowing as she turned her attention from Vee to her past. “They were almost just as bad to her, but more with words than with physical violence.”

  “Wait, I thought you told me he didn’t hit her physically.”

  Devi shrugged. “When I finally confronted her she said it was just once. I’d kept a close eye on my aunts and cleared them of the physical abuse, but I saw so clearly what they’d been doing. I guess it helped that I’d taken to eavesdropping. I’d even used a drinking glass against the wall to listen. They gas-lighted her all the time, constant passive aggressive bullshit too. They were also deliberately sabotaging… but that’s a whole other conversation. In the end, I narrowed the perpetrator down to one person: my father.

  “Little did I know that his cameras were catching me in action. He hauled me up one day, asking why I was spying on his sisters. I lied, because well, how would I have known he had a video feed to prove it? He slapped me, busted my lip, bruised my cheek. Mom went ballistic. After that, we had a long conversation and made a plan to run.”

  “And you managed to leave without him stopping you?”

  Devi nodded. “He couldn’t have stopped us even if he’d tried.” Her words were cryptic, her tone hard but edged with something else. Vee sighed, feeling the grief her mother was exuding. She was about to tell her mother how sorry she was when Devi spoke. “So are you going to tell me how you know all this? How did you find out something that my mother swore she’d never tell anyone?”

  There was a note of what Vee could only describe as fear in Devi’s face.

  Vee shrugged, entertaining a faint hope that she could get away without telling her mother the truth. “I told you. Radhima told me.”

  Devi shook her head. “When? She never mentioned that she was going to tell you about her past. She would have come to me first.”

  Vee sighed. “It was Radhima. She told me. Only…she didn’t come to you to tell you about it because she only told me yesterday.”

  Devi’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head. “Oh, Vee.” She sighed and came toward her daughter, placing her hands on either side of Vee’s face. “I’m so sorry, honey. I seem to have forgotten how close the two of you were. In my own grief, I’ve been selfish, forgetting that you too are dealing with her loss.”

  Vee shook her head and grabbed her mother’s hands. “No, Mom. I’m serious. This isn’t in my head. Believe me, I thought it was, but you just confirmed it isn’t.”

  “How did I do that?” whispered Devi, her eyes filled with tears.

  “You confirmed what she told me yesterday. Radhima said that when you confirm the truth, then I’ll know she’s real. I honestly thought it was a figment of my imagination until now. I have to admit it’s a relief.”

  Devi shook her head and held Vee around the shoulders. “Vee, I really think you need to see someone. If you’re imagining your grandmother here, now, perhaps you need to talk to someone about it.”

  Vee shrugged her mother’s hand off and turned to stare at her. “I’m not imagining it, and I don’t need counseling. I’m telling you. It’s her.”

  Devi inhaled deeply and folded her arms across her chest. Vee knew that stance; her mother was resisting, but she was entertaining Vee only until she could show her daughter how wrong she was.

  This time she was in for disappointment.

  Chapter 69

  Vee suppressed the urge to groan out loud.

  Instead, she said, “She came to me a few weeks ago. A day or so after the funeral. I thought I was imagining it, and when she kept coming back, I began to get frustrated. But then she warned me that I didn’t have all the time in the world to make myself believe her. She told me to come here. She told me to ask you those questions, and now I realize why. Because that proves she’s real. How would my imagination have conjured up such a story only to discover that I am right? Those kinds of coincidences only exist in books and movies.”

  Devi had relaxed slightly, her spine no longer as stiff as a pole. “I don’t know what to say, honey.”

  “So you don’t believe me?” asked Vee. She discovered that the feeling curling in the pit of her stomach was hurt.

  Devi shook her head and gave Vee a sad smile. “A ghost? I just…I don’t—”

  “If you’re going to say that you don’t believe in ghosts, need
I remind you that I just killed a couple of demons this morning, a golem broke into my lab a month ago, and I’m an Apsara. I’m not even supposed to exist.”

  Devi hesitated, then stared around the room as though she couldn’t look Vee in the eye. “Okay. You have a point there.” Devi sighed and sank onto the sofa. She seemed listless, and reached for her glass, probably just so that her hands were occupied.

  Vee glanced at Radhima, who’d remained all too quiet where she stood beside the sofa. She glared at her grandmother then cocked her chin at her mother, silently urging the old woman to show herself.

  Then Vee cleared her throat. “She’s here. In this room with us.” Vee’s voice was overly loud, like a bell ringing in a silent room.

  Devi straightened, her fingers curled around the glass tightly. “What?” She glanced around the room, then looked back at Vee. “Where?”

  Vee looked over and Radhima’s ghost. “Help a girl out, would you?” She sent a pleading glance over at her grandmother whose face had suddenly become implacable.

  A few moments later, when nothing had happened, Devi looked up at her daughter.

  “No, Mom. Just wait a sec. I don’t know…maybe she’s got her own issues. She’ll show you. Just wait.”

  Still, after a few more minutes, nothing happened. No ghostly granny made an appearance.

  Devi put her glass onto the table and got to her feet. Her sigh was filled with sadness as she hurried over to Vee. “You see, honey. It’s not real. I don’t know what’s going on, but this thing about a ghost…I just think…I don’t know. Maybe we all just need time to adjust.”

  Vee swallowed down the tears of frustration that had built within her. She’d stuck her neck out with her mom, and Radhima had failed to confirm her claim. Now her mother believed she was going off the deep end. Vee had taken a risk and look where that had gotten her.

  As her disappointment faded, anger filled the vacated space.

  Vee nodded slowly and gave Devi a smile. Then, without another word she turned and left the office. As she strode off to the stairwell, her jaw held tight, she wondered if maybe her mother was right and she had just dreamed this whole thing up. She grabbed her security card from her pocket and swiped it through the card reader at the stairwell door.