“Excellent,” she says, grinning. “My ex can be taught.”
I allow the key to drop back inside my shirt.
“I understand the need to destroy Kali. But what I don’t get is why you sent me the key in the first place if you knew you needed it to kill the evil God? Why not hang onto it, and when Kashmiri wasn’t looking, insert the key into the statue on your own and destroy the resident evil?”
She shakes her head.
“I knew I wouldn’t live long enough to get the chance. Kashmiri’s eyes were always on me. So, I made the decision to send it on to the one bad ass person I could trust to get ‘er done. Now it’s up to you…bad ass.”
“How can I possibly get to the statue, Elizabeth?”
She grins again, nods.
“You’re Chase Baker,” she says. “Famous Renaissance man. You’ll find a way. You always do.”
Raising her hand, she kisses her fingertips, and blows the kiss my way. I’ll be damned if I don’t actually feel the kiss on my lips. It’s enough to make me cry. She winks at me then turns and begins to walk back into the light. I stand there stunned, paralyzed. In a matter of seconds, she simply vanishes. I feel my eyes grow heavy then, as the concrete corridor begins to close in on me, the light that swallowed up Elizabeth pouring into my nostrils and my open mouth.
Then…
When I come to, I’m lying on my side on the back of a flat-bed truck. Ribs stinging from my dropping onto them, deadweight. Holy crap, I’m definitely not twenty-one anymore. I’m not thirty or forty either. Everything hurts now. As my eyes focus, I can see that Tony is lying beside me, in the back of a pickup truck. But Anjali and the boy are gone.
“Tony,” I say, “you awake?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I never really passed out from that sleeper gas. I held my breath for as long as I could. The floor opened up, and we took a ride down a metal slide until we finally dropped directly into this truck bed. That fucker, Kashmiri, has thought of everything. You clunked your head and went night-night.”
…Just a dream…Elizabeth came to me in a dream…She kissed me in the dream and it felt so real…She gave me instructions. Explicit instructions…
“What about Anjali? The boy?”
“They were removed. I played dead. The bandits took our weapons and the kid and his mother, then left you and me here.”
“How long I been out?”
“Two, three minutes. No more.”
I feel for my .45. It’s gone. But the two sticks of dynamite are still there, shoved deep inside my pants, and hidden by my shirt tail. With my having landed on my stomach and chest, the bandits never saw them. Rather, they never thought to look for them. I sit up, take a better look at the truck. It’s a red Toyota 4X4 with a cage set inside the back bed. The cage door, which now takes the place of the truck’s tailgate, is padlocked. No wonder they haven’t bothered to bind our hands and feet. They’d rather transport us like wild animals.
We’re parked in some kind of underground garage that houses other trucks and heavy-duty digging equipment. When the truck’s engine fires up and it pulls ahead, I grab hold of the iron bars and pull myself up. The truck proceeds up a ramp to an overhead door that’s opening as we’re moving towards it so that by the time we reach the top of the concrete ramp it’s fully raised.
Pulling out into the hot jungle sun, we follow a gravel road flanked on both sides by Thuggees, their faces masked and the signature yellow sash draped around their waists. All of them screaming in their foreign tongue, their fisted hands raised into the air, their black eyes angry, filled with a hate that seems to emanate from their cells, like a bone deep cancer. Now I see why the Thuggee was the most feared terrorist organization on earth during the nineteenth century. They were the incarnation of evil, as are the men who line this road. They have the power of Satan on their side in the form of Kali, and that makes them a viscous, indestructible, almost superhuman force, at least in their own minds. They also have a God Boy who, through no fault of his own, possess the conduit-like power to conjure up the darkness. There is a fine line between good and evil. Only a razor’s edge separates them. One cannot exist without the other, and we possess both in our hearts. If I had to guess, I would say that the God Boy and his mother are about to make the ultimate sacrifice to the evil God, and that Tony and I are right behind them.
Soon, the road comes to an end only a few feet before the open diamond deposit. The truck driver pulls the truck around so that Tony and I face the deposit directly. Chained to the concrete posts is Anjali. Behind her, the statue of Kali has been raised from out of the blue diamond, its eight arms opened wide, six of the hands holding the gold metallic impression of freshly cut out human hearts, one hand holding a curved sword, the final hand holding to the hair of a freshly severed human head. The statue appears to be glowing in the bright shine of the blue diamond like it’s about to come alive, just like the stone Kali who attacked us in the depths of the mine.
Parked directly to my right, maybe twenty feet away, is another pickup truck that sports an iron cage on its flatbed. Placed inside it is Rajesh, now dressed in his gold turban, tunic, and trousers. Obviously, Kashmiri is not taking a chance on the God Boy being suddenly rescued by the good guys.
A sea of Thuggees are kneeling before the diamond deposit. They are waving their hands in the air and engaging in charismatic chanting in time with the pounding of drums and the blaring of horns. Now arriving, while surrounded by a special team of red-sashed Thuggees, is Kashmiri. He’s back to wearing his ceremonial red robe and the horned head-dress, his face having been painted with red and black stripes. Gripped in his right hand, is the ceremonial wood staff, its head carved in the form of a giant cobra. There’s no indication that he’s in any pain whatsoever from the round he took in the thigh, or even that he’s been shot at all. He moves in a fluid if not graceful manner without so much as a hint of a limp. Maybe Kali has healed his wound. Or, more realistically, perhaps he made the God Boy touch him, and like many others, his bullet wound was mended on the spot.
He takes a moment to bow obediently to the God Boy, then turns back to the diamond deposit, positioning his bare feet on its edge. Anjali’s clothing has been removed and now all she wears is a slim white gown. She’s struggling against the chains that secure her to the concrete posts, but she is not screaming, as to do so would compromise her integrity, her defiance in the face of certain murder. But with all the chanting and drum beating, it would be impossible to hear her regardless.
“He’s gonna cut her heart out,” Tony says, grabbing onto the bars beside me. “That son of a bitch is going to cut her, Chase, and there’s not a goddamned thing we can do about it.”
The sky begins to grow dark, the sun entirely covered up. Lightning strikes off in the distance and the very jungle ground we occupy seems to tremble like a severe aftershock.
“He’s summoning the beast,” I say. “He doesn’t want to use the God Boy’s body for his evil purposes. Rather, he’s using the boy’s good, God-like power as the catalyst for dredging up Kali. In return, he will give Kali Anjali’s soul.”
“More like he’s using the God Boy as bait,” Tony points out. “If Kali can swipe the power of a good God and twist it inside out, she’ll be even more powerful. Even more evil. I can bet dollars to donuts that with each of these ceremonies, a little bit more of that kid dies.”
A cold wind blows. The now blackened sky begins to open up with a pounding rain, and hailstones the size of golf balls.
“We’re about to get pummeled, Chase,” Tony says, placing his hands on his head.
A bolt of lightning strikes the center of the blue diamond deposit making the diamond glow brilliantly as if a switch has been turned on. Kashmiri raises his head up to the heavens, but I know in my heart that he is speaking to a Satan that resides in the deepest depths of the underworld. The Thuggees are chanting themselves into a frenzy, entirely oblivious of the hailstones pelting them on the head and face, oblivio
us of the rain, oblivious of the thunder.
Kashmiri lets loose with a scream that turns my blood to ice water. That’s when a geyser of steam and a brilliant ray of blue light emanates up from the blue diamond’s center, and the giant ghost face of Kali appears, her mouth opened wide and screaming from the depths of her tortured underworld existence. I catch a glance over my shoulder at Rajesh, and I can see that he is down on his back, his six arms and two legs trembling violently while a seizure overtakes his body. Kali is literally sucking the goodness out of the boy along with his life. It’s no wonder he’s so sickly, so close to death.
Kashmiri’s feet levitate off the ground and he begins to float over the diamond deposit toward Anjali and the face of Kali. She spots him and passes out from fright. It’s just as well. She need not be conscious for what he’s about to do to her.
When he is within inches from her, he pulls the half-moon shaped blade from his sash, presses the tip against Anjali’s heart, and at the top of his deep voice, begins to chant something to Kali in a loud voice. It’s then that I remember the two sticks of dynamite I have stuffed in my pants.
35
“Tony, give me a hand.”
I pull out the first stick and my lighter. I hand him the lighter.
“Fire the bitch up. Then take cover.”
The rain and hail pelt our heads.
“Take cover where exactly? You’ll blow us both to Kingdom Come.”
“That woman is about to die. Then we’re next. And Kingdom fucking Come is already here ‘case you hadn’t noticed. Blowing the lock on the cage is our only option.”
“Jesus H, does everything have to be so freakin’ hard?” he says. “But I will say this, Baker. I forgot how much fun it was hanging out with you.”
I hold the stick of dynamite steady, careful to keep it hidden by my bush jacket. In the wind and the rain, Tony requires both hands to light it up. One to work the lighter and the other cupped hand to shield the flame. The fuse ignites. I take back the lighter and, at the same time, immediately stuff the stick into the U-clasp on the padlock.
“Cover!” I bark.
We jump to the opposite side of the cage, crouch down where the side bars meet the metal floor of the truck bed, shielding our faces with our hands. Even with the fuse spitting out shards of flame, the Thuggees who surround us are so caught up in the trance-inducing ceremony and the appearance of their devil God, they don’t take notice of the dynamite. Or, if they notice it, they don’t seem to care.
The dynamite blows. The cage shudders and the door bursts open.
“You hit, Tony?” I shout.
“If I am, I don’t feel it,” he says. “I still got all my limbs?”
“You mean, is your junk still attached?”
He bobs his head, his wide eyes screaming, I don’t believe what just happened.
“Go,” I say. “Go, go.”
We jump out and pounce on the two bandits closest to us, relieving them of their Kalashnikovs. We don’t give them a chance to warn the others. We shoot them dead on the spot. That gets the attention of a dozen more bandits who turn, aim their weapons. Tony and I hit the dirt and fire into their legs, dropping them where they stand.
In the near distance, Kashmiri is still reciting his chants, preparing to plunge that knife into Anjali’s heart. The rain and hail pour down. Lightning strikes all around us, thunder concussions like incoming mortar rounds. The projected face of Kali screams bloody murder directly at me.
Firing from the hip, we make our way to the edge of the diamond deposit.
“Tony, cover me,” I order. Then, “Kashmiri!”
The red-robed and black-bearded man turns, his knife still in hand.
I don’t waste any time with the terrorist. I plant a bead and shoot. But the rifle is out of rounds. The Chief Thuggee’s face lights up with pleasure as he returns the dagger to his sash, and hurls himself across the diamond deposit, wrapping both his hands around my throat.
Behind me, it’s all Tony can do to keep the bandits back. Shooting until his rifle is empty, then picking up another one and shooting it until that, too, is empty.
I fall onto my back, Kashmiri landing hard on my chest. I punch him in the mouth with all the force I can muster. But it’s like punching a brick wall. He raises his entire body up effortlessly so that he’s straddling me on his knees. He pulls the crescent dagger back out of his sash, presses the blade against my neck with one hand, and grabs hold of the Kali Key with the other, yanking on the thick leather necklace in effort to break it as if it were a worn shoelace.
“Kali claims your soul!” he chants, his smile beaming. “Kali claims your soul!”
Knowing that strength alone won’t break the leather necklace, Kashmiri pulls the blade away from my neck and starts to cut.
“Chase, I can’t hold them,” Tony barks from behind me. “There’s too many.”
I hear a scream. Peering over my shoulder, I see that Tony has taken a bullet to the chest. He drops hard, like a sack of rocks. That’s when I feel for the last stick of dynamite stuffed in my waistband. I pull it out, along with my lighter and, cupping my hand around it so that Kashmiri can’t see it, fire up the fuse. I wait the few seconds it takes for the fuse to burn down to the explosive. Raising the business end of the lighter up to Kashmiri’s neck, I flick the flame under his chin. His mouth opens wide while he screams in agony. He releases the necklace and the dagger.
“Eat this!” I say, stuffing the stick of dynamite into his mouth and down his throat.
I roll my body out from under him.
The stick detonates.
When I turn to look, I see that Kashmiri’s head has evaporated along with most of his chest cavity. His big body absorbed almost the entire blast. The exploded dynamite has had another more profound effect. It’s caused the army of Thuggees to back-step away from the diamond deposit, some of the black-clad men even throwing down their weapons and running away towards the forest that surrounds the grassy plain. Now that their invincible leader has been so easily destroyed, they know that they too are next in line for a one-way ticket to the underworld.
But the devil has already been summoned, even without the sacrificial offering of Anjali’s beating heart. Before me, floating above the still unconscious body of the God Boy’s mother is the face of Kali. The gaunt, hollow-eyed skull screams in anger. The earth shakes once more. Lightning strikes all around me.
…“You must find a way to unlock the Golden Kali Statue. Only when you unlock it and open its doors will Kali return to where she belongs. In the belly of the statue.”
I feel for the key around my neck. I cross over the trembling diamond, the heat that’s radiating up from it shooting up through the soles of my boots all the way up my legs and into my spine. I pass by the concrete pillars supporting the chains that bind Anjali until I come to the ancient Kali statue. Pulling the diamond embedded bronze key from my neck, I eyeball the back of the solid gold statue. There’s a rectangle embossed into the statue’s back. Some sort of writing or inscription is inlaid inside the box, along with a small, narrow slit that’s intended to facilitate a key. I slip the key inside.
The gold statue shakes and comes alive, its legs straightening out, its eight arms moving up and down, its eyes blinking, mouth opening and closing. The hearts gripped in six of its hands are now real, alive, pumping and bleeding. The blade of the sword gripped in the seventh hand is waving, the rain and hail spattering against it. The severed head being held by its hair in the eighth hand is suddenly alive, its eyes blinking, its mouth moving, as if trying to say something.
The skull on the Kali statue splits open, like a rose coming into full bloom. That’s when the giant, radiating ghost of Kali begins to distort and change shape, like the bulbs on a stadium light show suddenly losing their power. The translucent ghost image grows thinner and thinner, then smaller and smaller, like a black hole collapsing into itself until finally it is sucked into the statue head, the skull panels sl
amming closed with a resounding bang that echoes throughout the valley.
The radiation from the blue diamond quickly disappears along with its heat while the rain and hail stop, the black cloud-covered sky opening up to reveal a heavenly blue. My eyes locked on the Golden Kali Statue, I see its once glowing skin now burst into flames while the entire eight-armed body disintegrates into a pile of charred ash. The wind blows the ash around so that it covers the blue diamond deposit like fallen leaves on a glass blue pond.
Anjali raises her head then, says, “Am I alive?”
“Yes, you are alive,” I say. Peering over my left shoulder. “Tony,” I whisper, staring at the pool of blood that surrounds his body.
The Thuggees are running away from the diamond mine. Running for their evil lives. I cross over the diamond, grab hold of Tony’s Kalishnikov, carry it with me back across the diamond deposit to Anjali.
“Let’s just get you away from here first,” I say. “Then we’ll find a key that will remove the shackles.”
I press the barrel of the Kalashnikov against the chain that holds Anjali’s left arm to the first concrete pillar. I shoot and the chain breaks free. I do the same with the second arm and the second pillar. When Anjali is released, she runs to the cage where her boy is lying on his back, unconscious.
“Rajesh!” she wails, “Rajesh. Are you alive?”
I cross over the blue diamond, but stop when I come to Kashmiri. Digging under his sash, I find his key ring. I carry them to Anjali and unlock her wrist shackles. She hardly notices when they drop to the ground. It takes me several tries, but within a few seconds I find the key that opens Rajesh’s cage. As soon as the steel barred door is open, Anjali reaches in and pulls him out, cradling him to her.
His big, brown eyes open then, and he works up a smile. But that smile quickly vanishes when he spots Tony lying on his back on the ground.
“Please put me down,” the six-armed God Boy says as Anjali lowers him to the ground. He slowly makes the few steps to where Tony is laid out. Dropping to his knees, the boy lays all of his hands on my now dead friend. For a moment, I interpret Rajesh’s gesture as one of respect and thanks for a man who helped save his life and in return, gave his own life. But nothing short of miraculous happens then. A dull glow emanates from all of Rajesh’s hands, his body transforming from sickly boy to a holy spirit-filled entity. A being filled with the goodness and the glory of a benevolent god. In turn, Tony’s body trembles, the blood that surrounds him disappears, and slowly, he sits up. The man, not reincarnated, but resurrected.
Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) Page 16