Desmond remained behind as his unit left. He glanced at the eagle and noticed its gaze never wavered from his own.
Finley touched his arm. “What are we going to do, Garrett? I mean, Desmond. I’m sorry, I keep forgetting.”
He turned to his sister. “Call me whatever you wish, Finn. I’ll answer to both. Now, go with Odran and the others. I’m going to follow the eagle and see this out.”
She glanced at the retreating backs of the other soldiers. “They have such high hopes, but we know the truth. How many children will return with them, Desmond? How many of them will be empty shells?” She turned to her brother and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”
He waved her off dismissively. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that I knew what I was doing when I took you away in that cave back in Egypt. I saw how you looked at Kelsey. I saw the love in your eyes and still I took you. I did it quickly because I didn’t want you to have a say and decide to remain on Earth. I needed you to come with me, because it was prophesied that in our thirty-third year, we would be able to help win the war.”
He stared at her skeptically. “Where was it prophesied, Finn? In the manuscript you left behind?”
She nodded. “I had the luxury of learning who we were long before you did. I just had no time to explain everything to you at the time.”
Desmond shook his head and then laughed. It sounded hollow. “So you ended up in the 1700s and got all your memories, and I ended up present day and couldn’t remember jack. Funny how those portals work, isn’t it?”
She exhaled loudly. “Not really. They can send you anywhere, Desmond.”
“Why did our memories disappear, Finn?”
“Mother explained that it was to protect us. Whoever designed the portals in the first place designed them in a way that when children left the world, their memories were hidden until they received certain clues that would trigger the memories to return.”
“And this prophesy?” Desmond asked.
“The manuscript makes it clear that we would return to Aihika to help fight this war. It was clear as day about the portals, the tubs for stasis and for there to be a keeper to maintain the secrets of Aihika.”
He shook his head. “You make it sound so simple. None of this was simple. Where are most of the other kids that fled with us? Sasha? Her brother Clem?”
Finley shrugged. “They could be anywhere, still living on Earth, Xanadu or the third human realm, Prithvi. Some of them did return, though. Odran. Keiffer, Shira.” Finley stared at the eagle and turned to her brother. “I’m not going with the others. Let’s follow the eagle.”
Desmond peered into Finley’s blue-green eyes and saw her resolve. Without thinking, he gripped her in a sudden, desperate hug and she returned it. They stood that way for a full five seconds and then he pulled back. “Come on, Finn. Just like when we were kids, let’s go fight.”
She peered into his face and then snickered. “Maybe you’ll be a better shot this time than when we were children,” she teased.
He exhaled loudly. “Yes, let’s hope.”
The eagle flapped its wings and took off again up the mountain, coming to perch on a branch further up the trail.
Another roar of thunder crashed across the heavens, and then another, and then the sky opened up and it began to rain. In seconds, Desmond and Finley were drenched.
Desmond yelled above the clash of thunder that now never seemed to cease. It felt as if the very heavens above them were being ripped apart. He turned to his sister and her face reflected reds and yellows, the colors of the flames in the sky above. “Finn, it’s time. Let’s go.”
The eagle took flight and they followed it up the mountain.
Chapter 22
Sitaula stood at the mouth of the mine shaft and watched dispassionately as Kelsey and Ari slogged their way up the worn, rocky trail towards him. It had started to rain and he could see their way had become more precarious the higher they climbed. He turned and saw rivulets of mud cascading down the mountain.
Sitaula had changed out of his monk’s robes and discarded them in a corner of the cave. They rested atop the brown ape costume he’d purchased a few years before in a costume shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He knew after today he would no longer need either of them.
This day was a long time in coming. At least seven years long. Sitaula removed a worn drawing from the back pocket of his blue jeans and for the thousandth time stared at the girl in the image. The Asuras had instructed him to watch out for this girl. That she was dangerous and if he ever came in contact with her, he should destroy her immediately. That if he didn’t, Bianca’s life would hang in the balance.
Sitaula stared at the girl in the picture. Her long dark hair seemed to have a life of its own and her brilliant blue eyes resembled the color of the night sky. The way she held herself gave him pause, and had he been younger, and not conflicted, thoughts of her would have kept him awake at night. Something about her pulled at his being.
He’d recognized Kelsey as the woman in the drawing as soon as he saw her in his temple. When she’d sat down to tea with him, her presence called to him so strongly that he knew instantly that she was the girl the Asuras had warned him about. The girl sent to destroy him and who would get his daughter killed. He’d contemplated poisoning her tea when he had the chance, but chose not to.
He had other plans.
Sitaula turned and began to make his arrangements. He had time. Because of the storm, it would take Kelsey and Ari a good thirty minutes to reach the entrance to the shaft where he hid.
He sat down on the dirt floor and faced the opening. He toyed with the pistol he held in his lap and he wondered, not for the first time, how his life had turned out this way.
An anxiety attack came on quickly and he could taste the bile that leapt into his throat. Sweat popped up on his brow. He’d started to have these attacks more and more as the years went on, knowing that at any moment his carefully crafted façade could be uncovered. His heart hammered in his chest and he implored his mind to concentrate on his breathing. He could not do what needed to be done if he couldn’t get his thoughts focused. He tried to empty his mind, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Bianca. Everything he had been forced to do, every despicable deed, every heinous action, he had done for her. God, he’d made such a terrible monk.
Sitaula reflected on his life and how screwed up it had become. How when he’d first met his wife, Anjali, he had thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He was stunned at his good fortune to catch the eye of the most beautiful, brilliant and most sought after girl at Harvard during his senior year. Long dark hair, bright wide eyes, deep olive skin. Everything she did amazed him. Anjali possessed talents that would take others lifetimes to achieve. She could play multiple instruments at the master level, she knew multiple languages and she could draw and paint. There was nothing she couldn’t do. He’d been instantly smitten with her, and when they’d met at a rally, they’d had a connection so strong, it couldn’t be denied. Their courtship had been fast, furious and mind-blowing.
After they married, her father offered him a job at Korgin Stanley Group making more money in a year than his parents probably had made in their entire lifetime. Within his first year, he’d been promoted to Vice President and then quickly to Junior Partner. Soon after, Anjali got pregnant and they moved into a house large enough to fit his entire extended family back in Nepal. Everything he ever wanted in life had come to fruition and he felt truly complete.
But then things changed.
At first Sitaula had been placed in the accounting department at Korgin Stanley, but as time went on, Anjali’s father moved him into different positions of power. Positions where he learned more about the secret dealings of the company that had sucked him in and trapped him with their family obligations and money. He learned what Korgin Stanley rea
lly did. Learned how dirty they were, how nefarious their actions were. How they cared nothing for the lives of the innocents they hurt, as long as it yielded them a profit for themselves and their investors in the end.
So Sitaula began to investigate, and the more he took apart the layers of the corporation to see what hid underneath, the more scared and trapped he became. Anjali’s father ruled Korgin Stanley with an iron fist and Sitaula learned how evil people could be. And how far they would go to acquire wealth and power.
One night when Anjali was three months pregnant, he’d woken up at three a.m. to find her side of the bed empty. In fear, he’d searched the house. He called her cellphone, he checked the woods outside, and for a good half hour was frantic with worry. He’d been about to call the police when he finally discovered her in their driveway, just emerging from her father’s Mercedes. She had glanced at him, and without a word, had gone into the house. Sitaula had stared at his father-in-law sitting in the driver’s seat. The man never spoke to him. He only smiled as he put the car in reverse and drove away. His expression had chilled Sitaula to the bone.
Sitaula followed Anjali into the house and he demanded to know where she’d gone and why her clothing was covered in blood splatters. She’d told him to butt out and leave her alone, but he wouldn’t. He wanted to know why she reeked of baby powder.
They ended up having a fight so ferocious that an ambulance had been called. His wife, his gentle flower, had turned on him in a blink of an eye. Gone was the woman he had married, the woman who had thought he had walked on water. She accused him of being soft, of not being the man she thought he was. She accused him of prying into her life where he had no business prying, and told him that he was nothing without her. In her anger, she’d grabbed a butcher’s knife from the kitchen and slashed him. Only then, when his own blood had spilled, did Anjali finally calm down. He’d had to get twenty stitches in his thigh, but no charges were filed even though the police had been summoned by the hospital because of the violence of the crime. Just like everything else that could be bought with the right amount of lawyers and money, Anjali’s father had taken care of things and the incident had quietly disappeared.
Anjali had apologized profusely to Sitaula, blaming her outburst on the pregnancy and stress from work. Still, no matter how much he asked, she refused to divulge what she’d been doing and begged him to simply let things be.
The next day after the fight, he’d been called into his father-in-law’s office and the man told him in no uncertain terms that he was never to divulge what happened the night before. He threatened him so badly that Sitaula could do nothing but sit there dumbfounded. He left his father-in-law’s office in numbed shock, and limped back to his desk, for the first time contemplating leaving his wife. He didn’t, because of the pregnancy, and instead, complied with his father-in-law’s demands, though he’d never quite trusted either of them after that.
It proved to be a sound decision because things didn’t change for the better. Anjali was different after the incident. She became even more secretive and a wedge had forever been driven between them.
Sitaula had thought that when the baby was born, things would get better, but they hadn’t. After Bianca’s birth, Anjali’s strange behaviors escalated. She disappeared all the time, and when she returned, he knew another heinous crime had been committed. She became less secretive about her activities, carelessly leaving her evidence behind for him to find. He wondered if she did that on purpose, to taunt him with it. How many times did he find discarded clothing in the garbage, caked with dirt or blood? How many times did he discover baby items he knew did not belong to Bianca? When he found the dead toddler in the trunk of her car, he could no longer control himself. He confronted her and threatened to call the police. He’d actually picked up the phone when Anjali threw a pot at his head when he wasn’t looking and knocked him unconscious. She took that time to flee and when she’d returned a few hours later, the dead child was gone and the car had been cleaned and simonized until it glowed.
He landed in the hospital the next day. He couldn’t stop vomiting and blamed it on the concussion, “from an innocent fall on his tiled kitchen floors,” but he knew that the pot connecting with his head wasn’t the only reason for his sudden illness. His wife had played the diligent caring bride to the staff, held his hand and touted her love, but the look she’d given him when no one watched was terrifying. He knew in his heart that she had poisoned him. When she casually mentioned how scary it would be for Bianca to become ill if he so much as mentioned anything about the child in her trunk, his heart froze. He loved Bianca more than anything in the world, and when Anjali threatened her life, he knew he would do anything to keep his baby safe, even if it meant ignoring whatever nefarious activities his crazy psychopath of a wife and her lunatic father were doing. He knew he couldn’t simply grab Bianca and go on the run. Anjali and her dad had the money and resources behind them and he was certain no matter how far he went, they’d track him down. He had to do what he could to keep his child safe.
So, Sitaula played dumb for the next five years. Pretended things between him and Anjali were fine and that he knew nothing of her disappearances at all hours of the night. He smiled throughout the family functions, performed his job at Korgin Stanley seamlessly, and to the world, he faked his absolute love and devotion for his wife. What he couldn’t fake was any physical attraction for her, so they’d stopped having sex. To him, she was an animal and he didn’t want any part of her. He knew she went out at night to fulfill her own needs, but he didn’t care any longer. She’d leave the house in clothes fit for a hooker and when she’d return, she’d reek of men’s cologne and tobacco. In the beginning, she’d try to get a rise out of him, tease and provoke him with her escapades, but he was so numb to her actions that he didn’t care or respond. He’d taken to sleeping on the couch in his home office. All he cared about was Bianca and he’d fake the world just to keep her safe.
But it all changed that one fateful night when he overheard Anjali having a hushed conversation with her father. He’d hid in the hallway and listened to his wife discuss offering his daughter to someone as payment in order to gain their complete trust.
It was all Sitaula could do not to give himself away. No one was going to take Bianca from him. No one was going to hurt her. She was not collateral for whatever atrocities Anjali continued to commit in a double life he was not privy to.
So the next morning when he was supposed to be at work, he slipped out of the office and returned home. For thirty minutes he hid himself in the woods behind the house, trying to summon the courage to do what needed to be done. Anjali had taken the day off because the housekeeper had needed to go to the doctor, and he knew this would be the only time he could do this without being caught. He couldn’t lose his courage and he had to do this fast. His daughter’s life hung in the balance.
Finally, he made the fateful call and when Anjali came outside to meet him, he hit her over the head repeatedly with a shovel and then shoved her body in the back of their minivan, crushed between the motorcycle he’d stored there and the floor well. Then he drove twenty miles away and dumped the vehicle in a pond in the middle of the woods. It took just minutes for it to sink and then without another look, he drove the motorcycle back to the office.
He was sitting was at his desk by lunchtime reading financial reports when his father-in-law called him into his office to say that something had happened at home. The housekeeper had returned to the house and Bianca had been alone.
He’d played the game of distraught husband. He cried at the right times when the police came calling. He took time off to care for Bianca to help her through her mother’s disappearance. He set up a fund with an excessive reward for any leads to her disappearance, and he continued to work at Korgin Stanley so Anjali’s father would not catch on. He thought he was now safe. Safe from Anjali’s violent episodes, safe from her reprehensible activities, and safe from her threats of hurting or using
his daughter.
Bianca’s father never said a word to him about his daughter’s disappearance, but Sitaula would catch him staring at him all the time. Just watching him. At work, he’d suddenly feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and he’d glance up from his reports to see his father-in-law leaning in the doorway of his office. Or Sitaula would be walking out to the parking lot to drive home for the evening, and he’d glance up at the massive glass building to notice his father-in-law framed in his office window. A few times in the middle of the night he’d have a sixth sense and when he’d peek out of his bedroom’s balcony window, he’d see his father-in-law’s Mercedes just idling at the end of his long driveway. It would sit there for a few minutes and then slowly drive away.
Day and night, Sitaula lived in fear that he would be found out. Lived in fear someone would discover the car in the pond. But in twelve years, it didn’t happen and for now, he was safe.
Until the moment he wasn’t.
One afternoon in Bianca’s seventeenth year, that safety net he’d meticulously built instantly shattered. The Asuras came calling and Sitaula finally learned just how far down the path of evil his wife had gone and what crimes against humanity she’d committed. A creature showed up one Saturday afternoon at his home while Bianca was at a friend’s house. Sitaula had been reading the paper when his front door crashed in and a massive being barreled right into his living room. The thing was so terrifying and otherworldly that Sitaula knew in his heart it could not possibly be from this earth. At least eight feet tall, the male, three-faced creature gave off a heated energy that made Sitaula’s skin prickle. It pointed the fingers of four of its six arms in his direction and the timbre of its voice made the walls of Sitaula’s house shake.
The Call of Mount Sumeru Page 17