by SGD Singh
“Is it true you killed this thing?” Jax demanded.
Asha took a bite of her saffron rice with mint-plum chutney and sautéed ginger. “Nope. Barely saw it for two seconds. Someone’s been feeding you false information.”
Nidhan peered at the illustration. “Look at that. They really didn’t capture Ol’ Sequin Pants’ passion, though. In person he definitely possessed more… joie de vivre.” He said it like like cho-ah duh veevur, with a rolled R.
Lexi choked on her drink. “Don’t, Nidhan. That’s painful.”
Jax said, “Lexi killed it, didn’t she?”
“Thanks.” Lexi raised her glass of beet-daikon juice. “But no, I only helped piss him off.”
Aquila glanced up from his breakfast. “It was Asha’s grandfather who killed that thing.”
“But that hasn’t stopped everyone insisting Asha autograph their book,” Ursala teased.
As if on cue, three more graduates from various Headquarters appeared behind Asha, books in hand. They shoved pens at her even as she opened her mouth to explain. Finally she looked at the time, shook her head, and quickly signed the corner of each picture.
“In all fairness,” Nidhan said, pushing his empty plate away and sliding Lexi’s plate of unfinished food toward himself, “a lot more of those things might have gotten through if it hadn’t been for Asha.”
Jax held her book out to Asha, smiling. “Sign mine, too.”
“Jax, I seriously saw the thing for two seconds.” Asha shoved the book toward Aquila, who was finishing his turmeric milk with honey. “Now that BapuJi’s gone, you should have Nidhan, Lexi, and Aquila sign it. They were the only other people who had contact with it. Lexi even cut its heads off.”
Jax’s gray eyes widened in awe and Lexi shrugged.
Aquila glared at Asha for a second before scrawling his name across the bottom of the page, sliding the book to Nidhan.
“You know what? I want pants like this, Lexi. Make it happen.” Nidhan signed the picture with a cheerful flourish. “Of course, it will be a challenge to replicate the smell.”
He held the book out to Lexi and she made a face that might as well have said, I will stab you with that pen if you touch me with that book.
Jax grabbed the volume before Lexi damaged it. “Thanks. This will make a ton of cash on eBay.”
Ursala spit his drink all over his plate, and let loose a string of curses Asha had never heard involving physically impossible things and donkeys. Everyone else froze.
“Kidding.” Jax hugged the book. “Lighten up, you guys. It would’ve been received as fiction anyway. The market’s flooded with shit like this.” She stood. “So, how do we send our stuff to Australia?”
Asha avoided Aquila’s stern glare as the whole table let out a collective breath. “You don’t need to do anything. Everything personal from your room will be waiting for you at Sydney HQ.”
Aquila was watching Jax write her name in the front of the book, smoothing its cover.
If she lives that long, that is.
If any of us live that long.
Are you going to tell me why you’re so optimistic?
It’s nothing specific. I… this won’t be a simple extraction. Call it a bad feeling.
Aquila pushed his plate away. We better get going, then.
Asha reached behind her chair for her survival pack, and stood, slinging it over her shoulder. She threw an apple into the air and caught a dried, brown core. “Let’s move out, people!” She called in her best Uma imitation. “Five minutes!”
The rest of the fruit on the table died as the team glowed with health.
“Hey!” Nidhan said. “I was gonna eat that, Asha. Do the words food packets mean nothing to you?”
Ursala pushed buttons on his phone and everyone else collected their packs and said their goodbyes.
Asha and Lexi were the last to reach the stairs that would take them to their transportation, and they fell in behind Jax and Kelakha. Lexi began to hum Hot Chelle Rae’s Hung Up, her voice echoing beautifully along the stone stairwell. Jax stumbled, blushing, and would have fallen if Kelakha, oblivious to Lexi’s teasing, hadn’t caught her.
“Lexi,” hissed Asha. “Don’t be mean.”
“What?” Lexi blinked innocently. “I didn’t even say anything!” But she was trying not to laugh. “Great. Now that song’s stuck in my head…”
The eleven team members crowded into the cage-like elevator that took them to the surface, and Asha watched Jax take in every detail of their rise to the outside. She appeared calm, but Asha noticed that Kelakha stayed protectively by her side, ready to offer his help.
The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped out to find Avinash and Kairav waiting in front of a jet.
“Can Nidhan fly that?” Jax wondered aloud, and Ursala answered something in Punjabi that made Ariella laugh and Nidhan protest. But Asha was distracted.
Kairav was as beautiful as Asha remembered, but she wasn’t supposed to be there. Asha took in her long hair tied up in a braided bun and her survival clothes that had turned dark against the flat-black aircraft.
Her husband towered above her, his fierce features breaking into a grin at the sight of Asha. He turned his attention to Jax, and frowned, saying in his gravelly voice, “You must be the civilian.”
Jax was only a fraction his size, but she didn’t hesitate. “And you must be the Werewolf.”
Twenty eyes widened in disbelief, and Kelakha moved a step closer to Jax.
Shit, Asha heard Aquila think. She really is suicidal.
But then Avinash laughed, extending his hand. “I can see why Asha likes you,” he said.
She’s bonding, for your information. She never had friends before, okay?
Whatever you say, Preciosa.
Asha motioned everyone except Avinash and Kairav board the aircraft. When they were alone, Asha whirled on the couple, feeling her temper flare. “We agreed that Kairav would meet us in Australia.”
Kairav raised her chin, crossing her arms. “We didn’t agree to anything.”
Asha fixed her with beginning-to-glow eyes. “You shouldn’t be here, Kairav, and you know it.”
Kairav didn’t lower her gaze.
Avinash cleared his throat. “She refuses to leave my side after… everything. I’ve argued, but… it’s either both of us, or neither of us.”
Asha stared hard at Kairav, waiting for her to realize she was being a stubborn idiot.
She didn’t.
Aquila. He says its both he and his stubborn-ass wife or neither of them.
And will we need her?
No.
If she gets killed, it won’t be your fault.
You can be the one to tell Avinash that when the time comes.
Wasting time. Let’s move.
Asha sighed, frowning at Kairav. “Okay. But you follow my orders from this moment forward. Understood?”
Kairav lowered her eyes and nodded.
Asha took a step forward, standing inches from her. “Kairav. Understood?”
“Yes, Asha.” She raised her hands. “Understood.”
Asha shook her head and glared up at Avinash. Finally, she leapt over the railing and jogged down the aisle to the co pilot’s seat next to Nidhan. A minute later, they were airborne.
Chapter 13
The jet’s cabin held twelve recliners that faced each other against windowless walls across a wide aisle. Jax sat in the first empty seat she found. She watched Kelakha, Aquila, and Ursala across from her as they had a short hand-gesture conversation, then closed their eyes and fell instantly asleep. Next to Ursala, Ariella and Lexi cleaned their weapons with loving care, laughing as they mimed what Jax sincerely hoped were various methods of dismembering Underworlders, while Avinash and Kairav settled in to her left. To her right, Kai, Kenda, and Koko argued in an unfamiliar language while Koko, who she’d learned had the jackrabbit tattoo, typed something apparently controversial on his phone.
After a
bout ten minutes, everyone but Jax, and presumably Nidhan and Asha, were sound asleep.
Jax felt too wired to rest, and so took her phone out of her pocket and read more Infernal Guard books, which she’d scanned, only looking up when Nidhan’s voice called through a speaker, “This is your wake up call, ladies and gentlemen. Landing in five.”
Everyone was instantly alert, straightening in their seats and buckling harness-like seat belts. Jax recalled Nidhan’s previous landing, in a much smaller aircraft, and followed suit. Five minutes later, as promised, the jet shuddered and bounced on its wheels as it hit the ground with a protesting whine, throwing everyone against their harnesses as it screeched to a stop.
They all cheered sarcastically, then started to gather their packs. Nidhan’s voice called, “Sorry!”
Asha was down the isle, standing before the open exit before anyone else.
Jax could see an adobe church standing alone in the distance, surrounded by empty desert shimmering in the blinding sunlight.
Asha made quick hand gestures Jax realized she was beginning to understand. A two-handed gesture meant, surround the target with weapons at the ready. Asha pointed to people with motions for East, West, North, and South.
She turned to Jax. “Stay with Kelakha,” she ordered before disappearing through the door.
Jax translated that to mean, Kelakha, stay with the civilian.
Eleven people exploded out of the aircraft in one fluid motion, moving across the uneven desert as if their feet hardly touched the dusty earth. Jax scrambled to keep up with Kelakha, who she saw made a valiant effort to be patient with her as they fell behind the others.
He led her through the front gate and into a deserted flagstone courtyard, skirted around a brightly tiled fountain, and approached the large church, where Jax saw the words Saint Agatho Shrine of The Blessed Eternal Purity engraved over the door. Even as her mind wondered, blessed eternal purity of what? Jax realized that the convent’s doors hung open, the dark interior gaping like a screaming mouth, and she felt the hairs on her neck stand up.
Kelakha stopped, holding an arm out to block Jax from passing him as he cocked his head sideways, sniffing the air. He opened his mouth and emitted the mournful sound of an eagle’s screech, and Jax took a step back, her heart thundering in her chest.
This is definitely not a training exercise.
Kelakha was looking at her. “Are you all right? You look… don’t faint, okay? Just breathe.”
Jax nodded and took a huge, gulping breath. “I’ll be fine.”
More bird calls echoed across the silent courtyard. “Survivors,” he said, breaking into a jog. “C’mon.”
He reached the open doors of the church first and paused. “It’s not pretty.”
One of the triplets called, “Don’t puke, civilian!”
Jax started to get offended, but then as she stepped inside she realized there was a very real possibility she would throw up. Nothing, not even life on the streets, had prepared her for this. Her eyes adjusted from the bright sun to the cool darkness of the sanctuary, and Jax realized she was inches from three dogs lying in wide pools of blood, their insides strewn across the floor like swollen noodles. German Shepherds. Maybe. She couldn’t be sure.
Tearing her gaze away, Jax saw a human leg protruding from between two wooden pews. She closed her eyes, taking another shaky breath. Kai, Kenda, and Koko stood at the doors, calm and serene as mountains in a blizzard. Jax forced her mind to focus.
St. Agatho. Early Christian hermit and abbot known as the Father of the Desert for his hermitage through the Egyptian wilderness… So much blood… he held a stone in his mouth for three years to learn to be silent. So maybe blessed eternal silence… a leg. There is a leg…
“This way.” Kelakha moved down the center aisle, and Jax followed. She told herself not to look, but her mutinous eyes darted to the leg, and she had to suck in another breath when she saw the leg was only a leg. It looked as if it could have been part of a mannequin. A plus-sized, very bloody mannequin.
Kelakha pushed open a door to the left of the altar, and ran silently up a narrow staircase, pausing to wait for Jax to catch up.
They were behind the sanctuary now. She followed him along a narrow corridor until he stopped at the third door, which stood open.
Inside, Asha, Aquila, and Ursala stood leaning over an elderly woman on a small wooden bed.
She was so covered in blood it was as if she’d bathed in it. Jax watched as Asha grasped the woman’s fingers in her heavily-ringed hands, speaking to her in rapid, urgent Spanish. The woman’s head shook from side to side on the bloody pillow, and she seemed to be protesting with her eyes, refusing to speak.
Blessed silence in practice, Jax thought unkindly, then winced.
Jax didn’t move from behind Kelakha, wishing she hadn’t seen the puddle of blood on the floor beneath the bed. She focused instead on the window and the square of bright blue sky.
Aquila made a hand motion, and Kelakha and Ursala began searching the room. Jax stepped back out of their way until she hit the wall. Aquila lunged for a rosary of wooden beads on a small table, and shoved them into Asha’s outstretched hand.
The woman on the bed pointed to the rosary, nodded frantically, and lost consciousness as Lexi rushed in, followed by Nidhan. The giant Tvastar wrapped the woman in the blood-soaked blanket and lifted her in his powerful arms, rushing back out.
Lexi put a hand on Asha’s shoulder, and Jax heard her say softly, “There’s no more, Asha. I’m sorry.” She added something about “hospital” and followed Nidhan.
“Jesus, Aquila,” Asha said, her hands in her hair as she looked around the room, leaving streaks of blood along her hairline. “This just happened.” The anguish in her glowing eyes made Jax catch her breath.
Cursing softly, Asha shook her head, gathered the beads in both hands, and closed her eyes.
Aquila raised a hand, silencing Jax before she could speak.
The next second, Asha was sprinting for the door, already to the stairs, with the four of them racing to follow her.
“I thought Underworlders couldn’t enter places of worship,” Jax panted.
“Familiars,” Ursala and Kelakha both said, their voices filled with disgust.
“Or Witches,” Kelakha said.
Ursala added, “They left that woman on purpose. They’ll be watching the nearest hospital so they can tell whoever did this we’ve arrived.”
“Good,” said Kelakha, and the fury in that one syllable made Jax cold.
Asha was running through another silent courtyard behind the church, toward a small building covered in crumbling adobe. Still-damp laundry hung in the blinding sun, waving lazily in the slight breeze.
Seeing the four of them running, Avinash and Kairav, who had been watching the perimeter, jumped over a low wall to join them, and Kai, Kenda, and Koko burst from the church behind Jax. Asha threw the door open and disappeared into the darkness.
Ariella came out a second later, jumping aside as everyone raced passed her to follow Asha. “There’s no one down there!” she called after them. But Asha didn’t slow down.
Jax felt the temperature drop as she followed the others through an empty room and down a set of narrow stone stairs. The air smelled of damp earth. Like a freshly dug grave. They ended up in a low-ceilinged storage room. A single naked bulb lit the space, casting eerie shadows across dusty shelves.
“See?” said Ariella, behind them. “There’s no one here.”
Asha turned fierce, glowing eyes on her. “A portal, Trivedi. They took our Seer and about a dozen others through a goddamned flash portal not more than ten minutes ago.”
Stunned silence filled the room.
Ursala’s phone dinged, and he typed something that brought Lexi and Nidhan rushing down the stairs a moment later.
Everyone stayed perfectly still while Lexi and Asha looked at each other for a long moment, Asha’s eyes glowed brighter, giving her a terrifyin
g air. Jax could feel her heart trying to hammer its way through her chest.
“So we go after him,” said Lexi, her expression confused, impatient. “Flash portals don’t fully close for twenty-four hours, right? We go after him right fucking now and we come back within twenty-four hours.”
Asha nodded, but Jax noticed her hand shook as she ran it through her hair.
Chapter 14
What is it? Asha could feel Aquila resisting the urge to rush to her side.
Lexi has to stay here. Call it a… bad feeling.
Aquila turned to the wall to hide his expression. Oh, it’s gonna be more than a bad feeling. Anything less than her death doesn’t explain it.
Asha studied Lexi, puzzled. No. Not her death. Something… else.
She felt her eyes fill with sudden tears she couldn’t have stopped if she wanted to. Sadness and loss mixed with joy so acute she gasped, and Asha heard Aquila’s breath catch at the same time.
Okay. That felt… weird.
Yeah, no kidding.
So, Lexi’s not going to die. She’s going to… what?
I have no idea. All I know is she has to stay, Aquila. Everything depends on it.
The others were watching her with mounting confusion.
Lexi snapped, “What? What the hell are we waiting for?”
Asha shifted her feet. “You have to stay here.”
“Excuse me?” Lexi took a step forward and towered over Asha. She always seemed to grow taller when she got angry.
The others took a collective step back, and Asha saw the reflection of her glowing eyes in her friends’ faces. “You will stay here with Ariella, Nidhan, Kai, Kenda, and Koko. You will guard the portal and destroy the Underworlders and familiars who return.”
Lexi glanced around in disbelief. “And… and Jax goes with you? And Kairav? Asha—”
“Jax will be needed.” Asha stabbed a ringed hand at the ground. “This is why she’s here.”