by SGD Singh
Lexi elbowed him sharply. “Ow! Why are you always—”
Aquila sat across from Asha, and held an apple out to her in one heavily ringed hand.
Lexi and Nidhan stopped eating.
Asha looked at the apple and then met his gaze. The sun shone through Aquila's disheveled hair and into his golden-brown eyes. One side of his mouth curved into a crooked smile, and Asha's heart skipped a beat.
Swallowing, she reached for the apple, her fingertips brushing his palm for a moment, sending sparks up her arm. Blushing, Asha tried to focus her mind on the apple.
Nothing happened.
“Don't try so hard,” Aquila said softly. “Just relax.”
“Be one with the apple,” Nidhan said.
Lexi slapped his shoulder. “It's okay, Asha. It's only been two—”
“Holy crap, would you look at that?” Nidhan whispered.
The apple wasn't even recognizable anymore. It had become a brown, shriveled core in dried, papery skin.
Asha and Aquila wore matching goofy smiles as they looked at each other. He held out another apple to Asha who snatched it. Within seconds, it met the same fate as the last.
“Asha,” said Lexi, “look at your hair.”
Asha pulled her hair over one shoulder and studied it in surprise. It looked like the hair in a computer-enhanced shampoo commercial.
“Also, your eyes are extra creepy again,” Lexi added. “Oh my God, Asha. You're a Healer, right? Well, why don't you try transferring whatever you're doing to another person? Namely, me.”
“Cool,” Nidhan said, pointing. “You made her eyes dim.”
“I don't know, Lexi. What if it backfired and I did to you what I did to those apples?”
“Okay, let's try it on Nidhan first.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Nidhan.
“You can pull your hand away! You're not an apple.”
“So observant.”
“Try it on me,” said Aquila. His gaze intent, he held both hands out to Asha, an apple in his left.
Asha hesitated before slowly reaching out and taking the apple. Aquila kept his right hand extended, palm up. Asha studied the calluses on his palms just beneath his rings. She let out a ragged breath and met his gaze.
“I trust you,” he said softly, not taking his eyes from hers.
Asha took a deep breath and placed her hand in his. His skin was warm and dry, and as Aquila's fingers closed around hers, Asha had to use all her willpower to ignore the pounding of her heart and focus on the apple. Breathe, dammit.
“Relax,” Aquila whispered, and Asha closed her eyes, picturing the energy of the apple in her mind, pulling it to her, and transferring it to him. Soon she was aware of only Aquila's hand around hers, and Asha drifted. Content. Safe.
Lexi cleared her throat. “Asha. Uh, I think that's good.”
Opening her eyes, Asha gasped, snatching her hand from Aquila's. A pile of dead fruit lay in the basket. A dozen apples, bananas, mangoes, pomegranates—all of the fruit Chotu had brought for them the previous day. Lexi must have switched it out while her eyes were closed.
Lexi's grin confirmed as much. Her best friend tilted her head toward Aquila, and when Asha looked at him, a gasp escaped her before she could stop it.
He looked spectacular. His skin glowed, his hair shone every shade of brown and gold. And his eyes. Oh my God, his eyes.
“What?” he said when, Asha continued to stare.
Nidhan held up a destroyed guava and squinted at Aquila. “Let's just say you're lucky I'm not a crazed demon, because damn, man. You look good enough to eat.”
Aquila scowled at him, and Lexi and Asha burst into laughter.
“Nidhan?” Asha said.
“Oh, no.” He raised his hands. “The Universe will implode if I get any more magnificent than I already am.”
Asha laughed. “Of course. But I was wondering how we could heal Dādi without, you know, freaking her out?”
Lexi said, “Just go in there with a bunch of fruit while she's having her nap.”
“That's in about an hour.” Nidhan rose, turning to Lexi. “Want to come with me to buy more fruit? Chotu will start to wonder if everything in the kitchen disappears.”
Lexi jumped up. “How many papayas do you think we can carry?” They disappeared down the stairwell, leaving Asha and Aquila alone on the roof.
Asha studied her hands, as the sound of Nidhan's motorcycle filled the courtyard, fading a moment later as it drove through the gate.
From the corner of her eye, Asha saw Aquila lean forward across the table, holding his hands out to her.
Blood pounding in her ears, she looked at him. Whatever she had done to him hadn't gone away yet. He still looked amazing.
“Now reverse it,” he said.
Asha froze. “No way.” She shook her head.
“C'mon, Asha. You said it yourself. What good is this Talent against Underworlders?” He wiggled his fingers. “You can make me stunning again afterward if you want.”
Looking into his impossibly beautiful eyes, Asha reached out her hands.
His warm fingers enveloped hers, igniting a tingling fire that spread along her skin, sending her pulse racing. But that was all. Asha let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
“Try not relaxing this time. Focus,” Aquila whispered. “Think of your nightmares.”
Asha's eyes flew open. She tried to pull her hands away, but his grip became like iron.
“I. I can't—”
“You can, Asha…” He nodded, smiling in encouragement, and Asha closed her eyes.
The gore of her nightmares flooded into her mind, the horror once again taking her breath away. It was horror she had mercifully been free from for two days, thanks to the necklace.
She could feel Aquila's hands in some distant way, but the now-familiar laughter filled her ears, clawing at her mind, eroding her wellbeing. Blood. So much blood!
Aquila's hands slipped from hers, and Asha's eyes flew open. With a groan, he lurched forward, collapsing to the floor. Asha was on her feet, circling the table, throwing the chair against the railing and collapsing at his side.
“Aquila!” She didn't recognize her own voice. He was completely still, his eyes closed. Without thinking, Asha threw her arms around him. He didn't move, and she sobbed as she moved his head onto her lap, touching his face with trembling hands, looking around desperately for fruit, anything still alive. A potted tree sat against the railing. Maybe she could—
She felt Aquila's laughter before she saw it.
“Oh, you baboon's butthole!” Asha shoved him away, and his head smacked the marble with a thud.
“Ow!” He gasped through his laughter. “I'm sorry, Asha. That was…”
“Yeah, it was.” Asha punched his shoulder, and kicked at his leg.
“Ow!” He was still laughing, and the sound sent Asha's traitorous pulse racing.
Meeting her eyes, Aquila said, “It was working, Asha. It worked. I felt myself being… drained. But you seemed like you'd had enough. Maybe this time, you can try just thinking of something you don't like?” He held out his hands with a grin. “So…”
“Don't push your luck,” she said, rising and stalking to the stairwell.
“Oh c'mon, Asha,” Aquila called after her. “I have a bump on my head! And extremely painful bruises!”
“Eat some fruit!” she called over her shoulder, turning away before he could see her smiling.
Chapter 19
Later that night, they sparred around a large fire in the mango grove.
Karan and Ursala had joined them for lunch—which Chotu called dinner—before returning to Headquarters. They assured Lexi she wasn't missing much. Asha had missed laundry duty.
Nidhan looked at her with resentment, grumbling something unintelligible in Punjabi.
They were used to staying awake all night now, but without a busy schedule, the hours passed slowly. Asha watched the flames as she tried to think of a way to ask Dādi
about her grandparents. She told herself she didn't want to upset an old woman, but the deeper truth was that Asha wasn't sure she wanted to know what had happened to make BapuJi leave India. It was nothing good, she was sure.
Aquila lowered himself to the ground next to her and began tracing lines in the dirt with a stick. After watching the flames for a long minute, he said, “Just ask her, Asha. That's why you're here, right? We go back tomorrow, and then you'll have to wait another week, or more. Chakori said we'd have to intensify training when we get back.”
Asha watched Lexi and Nidhan spar through the flames, Lexi's golden hair floating around her head as she swung two lathis, taunting him and then spinning out of Nidhan's reach. He said something that Asha couldn't hear, his voice full of amusement, and Lexi renewed her attack. Nidhan jumped high as she slid into a crouch, the lathis blurring toward his legs…
Asha abruptly got up and went to Dādi's room.
† † †
The old woman sat, awake but still as a stone idol, on her bed in the near-darkness. A solitary candle made the shadows play across the cracks of her face, and she looked without surprise at Asha standing in the doorway.
“You've come to ask about Zemirah,” she said, and Asha remembered Nidhan's words. She looked haunted.
“I've been waiting since the day you arrived.” She pushed a button in the wall next to her bed, and when a sleepy-looking Sanjay responded, she asked him to bring tea and sweets. He looked at the clock and began to protest, but Dādi let loose a torrent of impatient Punjabi. Sanjay left, returning a few minutes later to place a tray laden with tea and barfi on the bed. After an inquisitive look at Asha, he left.
“She was the most beautiful woman I have ever known,” Dādi said, motioning Asha to sit on the bed and pouring tea. “It wasn't just physical. Zemirah was kind, generous, and her smile… it opened people's hearts. I had been married a year when Maninder found out Abhijay wanted to marry her, and he was furious. Abhijay was only eighteen, and Zemirah had nothing. No money, no property, no education. But most unforgivable was that, she was Muslim.” The older woman shook her head. “This was something Maninder could never accept. I saw how determined Abhijay was and I attempted to convince my husband. I wanted to keep the brothers close. But the day that Abhijay and Zemirah were married, he… well. It was a very dark time.” She sipped her tea and gazed past Asha, her eyes looking into a time only she was left to remember.
“They moved into the house and then Abhijay was… gone. A lot. Most days, he would leave at sunset and not return home until dawn.”
He was at Headquarters.
“Maninder worked at the hospital all the time, it seemed, and the brothers hardly saw each other. When your father was on the way, I tried to help Zemirah, to befriend her, but if Maninder ever heard of me even speaking with her, he became… displeased. You could have cut the tension in our house with a knife.”
Dādi sighed, picking up a thin cookie, breaking it, and putting it back on the plate. “It wasn't until she had lived with us for fifteen months that finally my husband began to thaw toward his sister-in-law. He allowed me to help with the baby, to eat with her at the same table once or twice a month. I believe if she had lived longer, they could have actually grown close. But as it was… in the four years that she was married to his only brother, Maninder never fully accepted her for being… well, for being herself.” Dādi studied her hands, and Asha saw them tremble. “And then it was too late.”
Asha began to dread what would come next. She forced herself to sit and let the older woman tell the story in her slow, halting manner.
“It was right before Balraj—your father—turned three. Zemirah screamed in the night. Sometimes… sometimes I still hear that scream in my sleep.” Dādi lifted her eyes to Asha, eyes filled with pain.
Turning to the dark window, Dādi continued. “Abhijay wasn't home. I ran to Zemirah's room and found her… sick. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot. Her skin was cold, a sickening grey. I left Balraj with the maid, woke up the driver, and took her to the hospital.”
She gazed past Asha again. “By the time we reached the hospital, Zemirah was delirious. Maninder put her in a private room with a drip and gave her multiple injections, but after four hours she lost consciousness. I remember the smell, like rotten potatoes, was overpowering. I've never been able to stand that smell since.”
Chills. Bloodshot eyes. The stench of rotten potatoes.
“By the time Abhijay arrived, she had gone from cold and shivering to burning up with fever. I was sitting beside her when he burst in. He was like a madman, demanding to take her with him.”
Delirious fever to unconsciousness… Oh, BapuJi.
Zombies.
“Of course, Maninder wouldn't allow it. Zemirah was unconscious. I will never forget the look on Abhijay's face that night.” She gazed into the flame of the candle, and in her eyes Asha saw sorrow that took her breath away.
“Maninder was convinced, from the moment we brought her in, that Zemirah simply had some sort of season-changing-related flu. With enough rest, liquids, and medication she would be fine. Abhijay… well, he insisted he could heal her.” Dādi rubbed her healed hip, and Asha thought she saw a flash of recognition flash cross the woman's features.
“I'm ashamed to say that my husband laughed in his brother's face. Abhijay pleaded with him, dropping to his knees and begging him to listen, to let him heal Zemirah before it was too late. But he made the mistake of saying that Maninder didn't know what he was dealing with. And that was something my husband would never have admitted, at least not before that night.”
She touched her white hair with a shaking hand and sighed. “When Abhijay realized that he would never convince Maninder, he… lost control. He tried to take his wife by force and of course Maninder called security. It took ten men to hold your grandfather down while they injected him with a sedative. He was screaming, thrashing against the hands that held him… spitting curses. I remember he told Maninder that his arrogance would get everyone killed… he sounded hysterical, shouting that it wasn't too late, that he could still stop it. He sounded like a madman, Asha, making no sense. He was dragged into a room and locked in on his own brother's orders to sleep it off.”
Dādi went completely still, and Asha held her breath, knowing what was coming, unable to bring herself to get up and leave, to just run.
“My husband posted four attendants in Zemirah's hospital room to keep her safe,” D&adi's laugh lacked humor. “But she remained unconscious until… It was twenty-four hours after she first screamed in her room that Zemirah—died.” The older woman shook as tears began to stream down her face.
“I sat in the chair outside her room wondering how I could have let it happen. I should have said something, done something, anything to help her. I should have somehow made Maninder let Abhijay take her. She was the kindest… the best friend I ever had, the best person I had ever known, and I did nothing.”
Asha grasped her hand, and Dādi's eyes flew to hers as Asha poured healing into the woman.
The seconds stretched to minutes. Dādi reached for her tea and, when she realized it was cold, put it back on the tray.
“Dādi, it's late. You should rest. I—”
“No. I want to tell you. Do you know something? Except for your eyes, Asha, you look just like your grandmother. The first time you walked through that door I thought… for a moment…” She shook her head.
Closing her eyes, Dādi took a deep breath. When she opened them, Asha felt the hairs on her neck stand up. She looked through Asha, into the past, where something was filling her with revulsion and fear.
“I saw Maninder go into Zemirah's room. He still hoped that maybe there had been a malfunction with his machines, and she was actually alive. None of us could fathom how a completely healthy woman of twenty-two, a woman that he had said would be fine, could suddenly just die! I couldn't look at him. I felt… disgusted. His ego, his arrogant God-complex… had
killed her. But then I heard the terrible screaming, and I realized through the fog of my rage that something was wrong. A moment later, Maninder stumbled into the hallway, slipping and stumbling, frantic to lock the door of Zemirah's room. And I saw that he was sliding in blood. He was covered in blood as if he had bathed in it…”
Dādi began to shiver, and she spoke so softly that Asha had to strain to make out her words. She placed a healing hand on the older woman's, but she didn't seem to notice.
“At first, I thought it was his blood, and I admit it. Part of me was… glad. But then… then he pointed to the window in the door and I saw. Zemirah was… she was dead, but somehow… alive. I know that sounds crazy… but the attendants! They were torn, ripped open, writhing in agony. Zemirah… she…it… like a ravenous beast… was… eating them.” Dādi barely whispered now. “She looked at me, and her eyes… eyes like bloodshot lychees… white-grey. Unseeing. It was too late to save anyone trapped inside… And blood. So much blood. It covered everything, pouring from under the door. Dripping from the ceiling.
“My husband sat in a chair, sobbing like a sniveling child. I think he was going into shock. I screamed at him to tell me where Abhijay was, but he just stared at me as if I were a stranger. I slapped him then, hard across the face. It wasn't until I slapped him three times that he finally told me where he locked his brother, and I ran.
“They had chained Abhijay to the bed like a dangerous animal. When he saw me, all he said was, ‘What time is it?’ His voice was horrible, hollow. I think he knew when he saw my face that it was too late. He looked… defeated. We unlocked his chains, an attendant and I, and Abhijay fell to his knees with a sob that broke my heart into a thousand pieces. Then… he became calm. He stood and pulled a sword from his belt, a sword I hadn't even realized he was wearing. He ran toward Zemirah's room, the attendant and I trailing behind. By the time we reached him, it was over. Abhijay had beheaded them all. Four attendants, three interns, and… Zemirah. He waded through the blood, set fire to the room, and walked out of the hospital without a backward glance. And then he… left. The police were surprisingly understanding.”