by Jasmine Walt
“Sure, I’ll go fetch her.”
Leaving Eamon in the study, I legged it to my room, grabbed the belt with Vindra snug in her sheath, and made it back down to the study in record time. Eamon was fumbling with a drawer. He pushed it closed and sat down, offering me a shaky smile. I slid Vindra across the smooth oak surface toward him. He gently pulled her from the sheath to examine the blade.
His eyes lit up, his lips curling in a smile. “Do you know what these symbols mean?”
“I kept meaning to look them up but never got around to it.”
“They spell victory.” He turned the blade over in his hand. “This is written in Hindi. It’s Diya’s mother tongue. You say Barrett gave this to you?”
I nodded. “He said he came across it in an antique shop—I can’t recall where.”
“Strange how it would end up with you. Almost as if it were fate.”
“She’s pretty special. No matter where I leave her, she always returns to her sheath.”
Eamon nodded, slipping Vindra back onto the belt. “Do you mind if I get Drake to take a look at her? Maybe we can lift the residue of the entity from her?”
Hand my baby over? But if it was the only way to get answers . . . “That’s fine, but if we get a case and I have to head out, I’ll need her back.”
“Of course.”
A metallic ringing filled the air.
Eamon sat up. “That’s my phone. I left it in the sitting room.” He headed out of the study.
Looked like we were done for now. I picked up the photo and was about to leave when something on the carpet caught my eye. I moved quickly around the desk, knelt, and picked up the object.
A tiny, bright blue pill.
28
Drake turned the pill over in his hand, examining it for a stamp or some pharmaceutical label just as I had. We were in his greenhouse, surrounded by the scent of herbs. He’d returned from the garden center with a paper bag full of seeds and stuff. The sun lanced through the glass panes, heating my skin pleasantly and feeding the various flora he had growing in here.
When I’d first been introduced to his workspace, I’d honestly thought I’d stepped into an indoor jungle. Everything was planted in such a way as to encourage its neighbors to flourish. No pots and neat rows of labeled herbs and flora, just a magical garden providing him with everything he needed for spells and potions, which were his forte. Witch magic worked differently for each witch. It was a unique relationship with varying degrees of potency, or so I’d learned from my witch resources over the years.
Drake shook his head. “I don’t know what it’s for, but I intend to find out. Hellhounds don’t need to take pills. They don’t get sick.”
My stomach churned. “Eamon said he had indigestion earlier.”
“Bollocks. There’s something fishy going on here.”
“Can you find out what the pill is for?”
“Yeah, I have some contacts I can tap.”
“Great.”
“Malina? Are you in here?”
Eamon!
Drake pocketed the pill just in time.
Eamon popped his head around the door. “Malina, we need to get inside. Now.”
“What’s going on?” Drake asked.
“I’ll tell you once we’re safely indoors.”
We followed him out of the greenhouse and up to the house. Ajitah and the boys were no longer in the garden either.
I stepped into the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”
Aria materialized, Toto at her heels. “I’ll make tea.”
“Seriously, what’s going on?”
Ajitah appeared in the doorway. “The boys are set up in their room with a movie. What’s going on, Eamon?”
Eamon locked the back door, and the doorframe lit up neon blue for a split second. “Aria, are we locked down?”
She nodded.
The brightness of his eyes belied the calm tenor of his voice, and panic fluttered to life in my chest.
“Eamon, you’re scaring me.”
His brow wrinkled, and he pinched the skin at his throat. “I just got off the phone with Indra. He told me their vault was broken into. Something was taken, something very powerful. An artifact they should have destroyed a long time ago. The item was one they had promised they’d destroyed.” He locked eyes with me. “It’s a scroll containing the verse that, when spoken out loud, can control Garuda.”
Someone wanted to control Garuda? Garuda . . . The only creature we knew about that could kill a naga . . .
“I don’t understand,” Ajitah said. “Why would someone want to control Garuda?”
“Because it’s the only way to kill a naga.” I met Ajitah’s eyes. “Narada is going to send Garuda to kill me.”
29
My pulse thundered in my ears, and my knees gave way. I grabbed hold of the tabletop just as Ajitah’s hands reached for my waist.
“Are you all right?”
No, I wasn’t. I was going to die. Shit, there was something wrong with the air; I couldn’t breathe.
Ajitah’s arms tightened around me. “Malina, relax. It’s going to be okay. You’re okay.”
“She’s hyperventilating,” Drake said.
“Malina!”
A hand cracked across my cheek, sending pain reverberating through my face. Moisture gathered at the corner of my eyes. He’d hit me. Eamon had slapped me.
He reached for me. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No. Don’t be.” I fell into the nearest chair as the world came back into focus. “Thanks.”
I couldn’t believe I’d almost lost it. Fear wasn’t my thing, but when it came to him, to Garuda . . . well, that was an explosive cocktail of terror waiting to ignite. And now he was coming for me. Everything I’d attempted to train myself not to fear was actually going to come to pass.
“When was the scroll stolen?” Ajitah asked.
Eamon cleared his throat. “The alarms were tripped sometime in the early hours of the morning, but a glitch in their systems didn’t flag it until half an hour ago. Indra called me immediately. It has to be Narada. No one else knows about the scroll’s existence.”
“And they kept it . . . why?”
Eamon snorted. “An insurance policy? Garuda is incredibly powerful, almost a god in his own right. They granted him his freedom after the gates to the underworld were sealed and after the gods made peace with the naga and forgave them for their theft of the amrit. The scroll should have been destroyed. They told Garuda it had been destroyed. But Indra held on to it, and now Narada has it.” He looked to me. “He can’t get in. Aria has sealed the mansion, and his invitation has been revoked. Aria won’t allow him in.”
It was the first time he’d confirmed in words what I’d suspected for a while—that Aria was either connected to the mansion or was a physical representation of the structure.
“Good,” Ajitah said. “And what is Indra doing about getting this scroll back? We can’t stay in lockdown forever.”
Oh, God, I hadn’t even thought of that. A few minutes ago, I’d been free of Narada as a threat, and now I was back at square one, but this time, it was even worse because I had Garuda out to get me too. The terror was subsiding into a steady panic, and my neurons were kicking into gear.
“Indra has recruited more Ghandarva to try to locate Narada,” Eamon said. “We just need to wait it out.”
Waiting it out sounded good. Safe and cushy with zero chance of getting killed. But Narada had proven himself to be excellent at this game of hide and seek, and there was no guarantee that the Ghandarva would find him anytime soon. Meanwhile, he had the key to controlling Garuda, the key to making him his bitch. What if he decided to unleash him on other innocents, on humans? Aside from the fact that Garuda would be dangerous in Narada’s control, Garuda didn’t deserve to be controlled like that. He had a right to be free.
Eamon was still talking when I pushed back my seat and stood. “No.”
Everyone turned to look
at me.
“No?” Ajitah said.
“No, we’re not just going to wait it out. Indra and Varuna have been looking for Narada for weeks with no luck. What makes them think they’ll be able to find him now? What if Narada gets fed up with this stalemate and unleashes Garuda on the humans?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Eamon said. “If you die, billions of humans die. A handful will be a small sacrifice. Malina, there is nothing else we can do.”
I’d been responsible for ending too many innocent lives. I would not have any others on my conscience. The assassin in me surged to the surface, sick of being the hunted. It was time to be the hunter, and I had a plan. “There is something else we can do. We can use me as bait.”
“No way,” Ajitah said, slicing the air with his hand.
It wasn’t up to him. It wasn’t up to anyone. This was my call. But I needed them on my side to make it work.
I focused on Eamon. “Narada is going to keep coming for me. I’ll never be safe, not until he’s captured, and the only way to do that is to give him what he wants. Let the bastard have me, and I can lead you to him.” I turned to Drake. “Can you make some kind of magical tracker?”
Drake glanced at Eamon and then nodded. “Yeah, I know a sigil we can use to track you.”
Good, a sigil was perfect. “We let Garuda take me to Narada, and you guys follow.”
“This is crazy,” Ajitah said. “What makes you think Garuda won’t just kill you on sight?”
My stomach quivered. “Because Narada will want to be there. He came to my fiftieth marking ceremony because he wanted to witness his plan coming to fruition. I’ve evaded his clutches for weeks, and it must be driving him nuts. I know he won’t want to miss my death. He’s probably already commanded Garuda to bring me to him. You guys will be right on my tail.”
“It could work,” Drake said.
It really could, but I needed Eamon on board. He needed to believe in me.
His amber eyes blazed. “Malina, it’s too risky.”
“So was going after Ajitah’s kids, but we did it. Think of it as another case, except in this instance, it’s Garuda we’re saving. That scroll must be destroyed.”
Eamon’s shoulders sagged. “Drake, get the tracker ready.”
“You have to be joking,” Ajitah said.
“Garuda is attempting to breach our defenses,” Aria said from her position stirring soup at the stove.
My stomach fluttered with nerves. Now that the bravado speech was done and Eamon was on board, the reality of what I was about to do hit home.
Ajitah pushed past Eamon to grip my shoulders. “Malina, think about what you’re going to do. You’re basing your plan on speculation as to what Narada’s orders may or may not be. What if you’re wrong? What if Garuda has been ordered to kill you on sight?”
I looked up into his silver-gray eyes, and my determined reflection stared back at me.
“Then you’ll fight him off.”
The lights flickered.
“Defenses are holding,” Aria said, spooning soup into bowls.
Soup none of us would be eating, but it was soothing to see her doing a normal, everyday task.
Ajitah’s fingers bit into my flesh, his voice a raw rasp of desperation. “Dammit, Malina, how can I just stand here and let you go?”
Eamon cleared his throat. “It’s a solid plan, and I trust my daughter’s judgment. Ajitah, Drake, you will go outside with her.”
Drake held up an index finger. “I just need to get some supplies from my room to mark Malina with the sigil.”
I gently extricated myself from Ajitah’s grip, because if I didn’t put some distance between our bodies now, I wasn’t sure I’d have the courage to walk out into the arms of death.
30
Drake painted the sigil onto the small of my back using some strange black paste, and Aria dropped our defenses enough for us to step outside onto the pavement.
The sun was setting, and the street, with its derelict buildings, was silent as a tomb. Long shadows spilled off the pavement and onto the road, and pockets of thick darkness looked at us with dead eyes from the broken windows of the building opposite us. Drake and Ajitah flanked me, our eyes on the sky because surely that was where Garuda would attack from. Aria had said he was trying to breach the defenses, so where was he?
My scalp prickled with awareness, and adrenaline flooded my limbs a moment before a shadow detached itself from the ruins across the road.
“You should have stayed inside, Malina.” Garuda stepped out of the gloom and into the road. “You could still go inside.” His voice sounded strained. “Just get back home.”
My feet acted before I could think, and I stumbled backward, head reeling, throat tight with fear.
Ajitah stepped in front of me, his body a welcome shield.
I had to pull it together. Deep breaths. “Are you here to kill me?”
“Not yet.” Garuda took one slow step toward me, his feet dragging as if he was fighting himself. “But I will, Malina.” He shook his head, his eyes dark and desperate. “If they make me, I will. Please . . . go inside.”
“They?” Drake asked.
Garuda’s eyes flashed red, his expression smoothed out, and he tucked in his chin and barreled toward us. Ajitah pushed me behind him again, stepping forward, intent on meeting Garuda head-on. But that wasn’t part of the plan. Garuda hadn’t been ordered to kill me. Not yet. His orders were simply for retrieval.
Bracing myself for contact, I leapt around Ajitah and into Garuda’s arms. His invigorating scent filled my head, his chest pressed against my cheek, and then the ground was rushing away. Ajitah’s anguished yell followed me into the sky.
31
I held on for dear life, but I needn’t have worried. Garuda’s arms were like steel bands around my torso. The beat of his wings drowned out the whoosh of blood in my ears. His grip tightened, becoming almost painful. I whimpered.
“Control it, Malina. Please . . .”
Was my terror fueling his predator instinct? Was I making it harder for him to fight his nature, to fight the command of the scroll? I closed my eyes, focusing on the sensation of the chilly night air against my cheek, of icy fingers running through my hair. I was safe. Safe. My pulse began to slow, and his grip eased.
“Where are you taking me?”
He responded with silence.
“Garuda, are you still there? Can you hear me?”
His arms flexed, telling me what I needed to know. He was still in there, still fighting.
We began our descent. A peek over his taut forearm revealed a landscape of twinkling lights covered by a thin layer of mist. It was impossible for me to make out any landmarks. I had no way of pinpointing our location. Garuda lost more altitude as something dark broke through the mist, surging toward us.
The entity!
Garuda pulled me closer, his lips brushing the top of my head. “I’m sorry, Malina.”
And then, the inky mass hit us head-on, and the lights went out.
“Wake up, Malina, you have to wake up.”
The voice was vaguely familiar.
“Malina, we don’t have much time before it returns.”
The urgency in the voice gave me the strength needed to peel my eyes open. A gray ceiling stared back at me. I turned my head to find colorful posters trapped behind glass, hanging on walls embedded with tiny white tiles. The air was thick and stale, and the ground beneath me cold and tacky. I rolled onto my side and pushed to a sitting position.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re all right.”
The speaker was a disheveled, gaunt man in tattered clothes, his feet bare and filthy. And yet, I knew him.
“Narada?”
“Yes. Yes! You have no idea how good it is to hear another voice, one that doesn’t belong to her.”
Where were we, exactly? Standing on unsteady legs, I did a quick visual sweep. Narada was a few feet to my right. Up ahead was a drop
and a set of tracks. Old signs were plastered everywhere—colorful lines showing different train stops.
This was the Underground.
I turned to Narada. The guy looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks, and a finger of unease slid up my spine. “What the heck is going on?”
He exhaled heavily. “We’re prisoners, Malina, and it’s my fault. I was weak. I allowed my ambition, my anger, to cloud my judgment. I made the wrong choice. I took you from your family.”
“I know that, but why are you here, like this, all messed up?” He was supposed to be the big bad, my nemesis. But right now, all I wanted to do was offer him some of Aria’s soup.
“I came to my senses soon after I stole you, but by then it was too late. She wouldn’t be dissuaded. When I refused to cooperate, she trapped me down here and took over my life.”
So, Narada wasn’t in control? A fist of dread unfurled in my chest. Our whole strategy had been based on Narada being the villain, so if he wasn’t . . .
“Who was this ‘she?’”
His lips trembled. “Something terrifying. Something more powerful than Brahma the creator. Able to best even Yama. She is the darkness that eats the light.”
“A demon?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s more than that. She is the first being. Older than Brahma. Older than creation. We didn’t know. No one knew when we laid the foundations of the underworld that we were building over her resting ground. She slumbered, but the chaos of Narak fed her. It woke her, and she extended her influence, infiltrated the minds of Yama’s guards, nurturing discord, until the uprising ripped open the gates of hell and spilled Shaitan into the human world. She’d hoped to escape then and find her place here in the mortal plane as ruler of all, but the gods closed the gates before she could crawl from the abyss. She calls herself Daughter of Chaos.”
“So how is she here?”
He licked his dry, cracked lips. “There was a breach seventeen years ago. Your father and his colleagues succeeded in closing it. I was there, the in-between man. And sometime during the battle, she seduced me, latching onto my mind and using me as an anchor to slip through. What we’re dealing with is a fraction of her power. A resonance of what is to come, an iota of her darkness. But once you are dead, once the hellhound line has ended, the gates open once more, and she will swarm across the earth. When that happens, we will all be enslaved.”