by SGD Singh
I'll bet they were, thought Asha. Better eight dead Zombies than thousands, even millions.
“When we got home, Abhijay and Balraj were gone. They'd left all of their possessions behind.”
Asha remembered the intricate gold ring with the large diamond that her grandfather always wore on his pinky.
“Maninder never saw him again.” Dādi raised a glass of water to her lips with shaking hands and drank. “About ten years later, we heard through relatives that he was in Colombia. My son was born by then. He is just like his father. He grew to become a fine doctor, with three sons of his own. Only Nidhan is anything like Abhijay, and I thank God that my husband is not alive to know him. He tried very hard to forget that he ever had a brother, or that the horrors of that night ever happened. Nidhan would have made that difficult. And he would have tried to… fix him.”
She focused her eyes on Asha. “I don't pretend to understand what is… what's really going on. But I see Zemirah in you, Asha. You have a pure, kind soul. Your heart is full of compassion. And I hope… I pray that someday you can forgive me.”
Asha wrapped her arms around the older woman as tears spilled from her eyes. “There's nothing to forgive, Dādi.”
Reaching across the tray, Asha took two apples with one hand and slipped them into the pocket of her long shirt, where they rotted, as she kept one arm still around Dādi. “You should rest now. Don't worry, okay? Tomorrow I'll tell you all about BapuJi. I promise.”
The older woman nodded, lying back against the pillows. As Asha watched, she closed her eyes and was asleep within seconds.
† † †
Asha leaned on the wall outside Dādi's room, taking deep breaths to slow her pounding heart.
Oh, BapuJi.
Asha felt ashamed of her own self-pity. True, her parents had died in a car accident when she was eight. Quickly and painlessly. What did she know about true suffering? She hoped that she would never know it, never have to experience the anguish and pain of losing a spouse, a child. But then Asha remembered what it meant to be Guard. She thought of all the other Trainees who had confided that they, too, had dead parents. Asha felt her legs give way beneath her, her eyes filling with tears as she slid to the floor.
A frog hopped along the moonlit veranda, casting strange shadows across the marble.
“Who the bloody hell do you think you are, eh?”
Asha jumped, looking up to find where the voice came from, and saw Kushi.
She stood halfway down the winding staircase, wearing what looked like expensive French lingerie, its matching robe fluttering in the soft breeze. Kushi looked anything but gorgeous.
“Answer me!” she stamped a satin slippered foot.
Asha struggled to find words. “I… sorry if I woke you, I was—”
Kushi advanced down the steps, her perfect features contorted with rage. “How long do you think you can stay here, eating our food, living off my husband's hard-earned money?” She was close enough to touch Asha. Close enough Asha could smell her perfume. Perfume and alcohol.
Asha stepped sideways from the wall, backing away from Kushi.
“You have no manners,” Kushi hissed furiously, rounding on her. “How dare you disturb my beloved Dādi's rest? Maybe you people don't care if she lives or dies, but I do! And she can't leave you any property, so stop trying to make her, you cheap bitch…” Her eyes flashed. “Your kind couldn't handle success, even if you did manage to steal it. Who do you think you are?” She was shouting now. “Well? Answer me! Do you think I'm afraid of an uneducated nobody raised by a filthy cook? I'll slap you in your face!”
Asha blinked, unable to believe what she heard. The woman's insane! She opened her mouth to say—what? When Nidhan appeared.
He placed himself firmly between Asha and Kushi.
“That's enough,” he said, his voice like calm rolling thunder. Kushi jerked her head up at him with hate-filled eyes, but she must have seen something there, because she cringed and stumbled back.
A shadow flickered across the veranda. The shadow of a hawk.
Kushi made a disgusted noise and retreated slowly up the stairs, cursing so obscenely under her breath, it made Asha's face burn.
Aquila stepped out from behind a pillar, moving to Asha's side. “I seriously almost fired a flare, yaar. Who the fu—”
“That was Kushi,” said Nidhan. “And I'm pretty sure she's from this realm.” He put a hand on Asha's shoulder. “Are you okay? She can be—”
“A raving lunatic?” said Aquila. “You're sure she's not a Witch?”
“Nope. It wouldn't surprise me a bit,” said Nidhan. Asha felt him pat her shoulder. “This is your home, Asha. I hope you know that. I hope you won't let that… that horrible—”
“Are you guys okay? I thought I heard some… screeching.” Lexi rounded the corner in her pajamas, her hair tousled. She rubbed her eyes, yawning. “You need me to kick Kushi's ass?”
“Your response time is admirable,” said Nidhan dryly. “We could've all been dead by now.”
Aquila touched Asha's back. “Are you all right?” he whispered. She nodded, unable to bring her eyes to his. Knowing that if she did, she would burst into tears.
“Hey, at least I was asleep,” Lexi said. “Instead of getting my twentieth helping of pakoras.”
“You will never drop that, will you? Just because one time—”
Lexi opened her mouth to reply, but Asha took her by the arm saying, “C'mon, Lexi.”
Nidhan crossed his arms. “Who eats twenty helpings of pakoras, anyway? Twenty pakoras, maybe…”
That night, the haunting sound of Asha's harp lasted until dawn.
Chapter 20
At the end of the monsoon, the heat returned with a vengeance. Asha wondered for the fiftieth time in ten days how September could be even hotter than August as she and the other six Trainees in her group baked in the orchard. Sitting under the shade of an ancient apple tree, which looked lost in the papaya orchard, they fanned at the mosquitoes and tried to stay awake.
Uma was lecturing. “You've probably figured out that there are countless Underworlders we have no knowledge of, whole worlds as teeming with life as our own… Wake up, Sandhu!” Asha jumped, then realized Uma meant Nidhan. Her cousin looked around, blinking and brushing mosquitoes off his face.
“Dänav is what we call the most dangerous Underworlders we know,” she said.
Demon.
“You can get out your pens now, people. The doors between worlds have been closed for centuries and… Alright, let's go inside. Whose idea was it to have class out here, anyway? The bugs are ridiculous, and I can't think with this heat.”
Uma strode back into the building, everyone scrambling to follow as she crossed the indoor garden. Her footsteps echoing across the stone veranda, Uma went straight to Afzal's office, her white braid trailing behind her.
Bursting into the conference room, she told a startled Yael, “We're having class in here for the next two hours. Please inform Tanvir that we will be taking our drinks now, and if they are not something cold, he will experience pain.”
With a slight bow, Yael turned and left the conference room, moving much faster than his bulk suggested he could.
Uma turned the fans up as high as they would go. “We won't mention this to Afzal, who happens to be out of town at the moment.” She settled herself into the leather chair at the head of the oval table. “All right, everybody, just make yourselves comfortable. It's story time.”
Asha sat between Lexi and Himat, and across from Nidhan, Karan, Wei Feng, and Li Tsia.
Uma leaned back in her chair and contemplated the ceiling.
She opened her mouth to speak just as Yael entered the conference room and returned to his desk, pointedly ignoring them. Tanvir followed, holding a tray filled with tall, frost-covered steel glasses.
After placing a glass in front of each of them, Tanvir settled himself into the chair next to Himat, adjusted his Yankees cap,
and sipped his drink, smiling.
Uma watched him with narrowed eyes and then shrugged, motioning for the rest of them to drink.
To Asha's delight, her glass contained an iced smoothie of mango and raspberry with a hint of lemon. She leaned forward and raised her eyebrows at Tanvir and he bowed his head, his black eyes twinkling.
“One stormy night,” Uma began, sounding like a voice-over narrator for a theatrical trailer, “in a modern building of glass far, far, away…”
Everyone glanced around at each other, trying not to laugh.
“An angelic, innocent girl of shining beauty arrived at Infernal Guard Headquarters. With curling golden hair and sparkling green eyes, she shivered in her wet clothes and—her voice melodic and captivating, her language so polite—used the fancy intercom to ask the man if she could please come in and be permitted to use the phone. The young and rather inexperienced man looked out at her standing pitifully on the other side of the glass wall and found her sweet smile dazzling in its purity.”
Uma leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her smoothie. “Sympathy for the child overriding security measures and common sense, he opened the doors. Smiling with heart-wrenching gratitude, the child walked in out of the storm. Her small limbs shivering pathetically, she looked up, full of innocence, and then—what do you think happened?”
Wei Feng's hand shot up. “She turned into a demonic monster and killed him.”
Nidhan said, “Her legs melted off when she walked through the holy water that is always right inside the door.”
Uma scratched her head and studied her rings. “The holy water, unfortunately, had been tampered with. The system in this faraway land was not the most efficient to begin with, despite all manner of modern frills.”
She let a dramatic silence stretch out for a long minute.
Tanvir rolled his eyes, finished his drink, and slammed the glass onto the table with a loud crack.
Uma shot him a warning look. “In his defense, the young man did not know about the holy water situation. Had he known, we can but hope he would have thought twice about opening the door to a perfect stranger.” She met each of their eyes and went on, lowering her voice dramatically. “As it was, he had to watch in stunned horror as the innocent girl transformed into a Dänav, a horse-like creature no one had ever seen and lived to talk about. Understand that I say horse very reluctantly, as it should be compared in only the most general terms. Anyway, this equine creature, covered in scales, shook enormous curved horns and cracked the stone tiles of the lobby as it stomped its powerful cloven hooves.”
Asha realized that Uma was telling them about the attack on Miami Headquarters. The attack that was the reason she was sent to India. Uma was talking and Asha struggled to hear her words over her pounding heart.
“The Dänav turned its hollow, hideously large goat eyes to meet the young man's. Its stare began to glow brighter and brighter, and with a hiss like ten angry alligators, it opened its mouth, revealing rows upon rows of metallic teeth.”
Uma waited a long, silent moment, then reached into her weapons belt and brought her hand up. Everyone leaned forward to see the six inch spike that she held, razor sharp as it flashed under the overhead lights.
She heard Himat swear, and Lexi tensed, straightening beside her. Asha sucked in a breath. How many of those things were stuck into you, BapuJi?
“The security guard barely had time to push a fancy emergency button before the Dänav spit five of these babies into his legs from ten feet away.” She jabbed the spike at the air to emphasize each word. Everyone cringed.
“Half an hour later, the Jodha still hadn't terminated it. Only after one fatality and ten badly injured Guards, someone finally stabbed the damn thing in the eye with a diamond-tipped spear, and it went down. Messily. Once you get past its impressive armor, you better haul ass, because this thing has blood like lava that burns holes through anything it touches.”
Uma took another sip of her drink and studied the metallic tooth.
“After that, they went to work healing the wounded. Because, you see, the punctures from the teeth were multiplying. Puss-filled wounds spread from each original injury and it became obvious that anyone who had been hit would eventually die. Luckily, their Healer did not give up, despite his own spreading wounds. He discovered the cure. And other than the brave Seer who gave his life in defense of all creatures great and small of our fair realm, and one badly scarred hand, and a very shaken-up young man who will never open the door to a stranger again, they all lived happily ever after. The end.”
Uma put the spike back into her weapons belt and said, “Any questions?”
Tanvir's hand shot up.
“Not you.”
Asha lifted a hand. “Okay, we've seen the injuries, and a few of us have witnessed the cure.” Asha glanced at Wei Feng and Li Tsia. “These horse-things, these Dänav, can they be domesticated?”
Everyone stared. Even Yael, forgetting to pretend not to be listening, swiveled around at his desk in surprise.
Uma hardly missed a beat before she said, “We can be certain of nothing at this point.”
When no one else asked a question, Uma snapped, “Okay, class over. Follow Tanvir to the kitchens where he will serve you a real, live, medicinally vile drink.” She looked pointedly at Himat. “Drink all of it. And use the rest of the time until lunch in the training room.”
Everyone began filing out of the conference room. Uma reached an arm out to block Asha at the door saying, “Come with me, Sandhu.”
Chapter 21
Uma led her without another word down the twisting staircases and past the hospital. She pushed open the carved wooden door and entered the empty herb garden. Moving quickly through it, she placed one of her rings on a blank stone, and part of the wall moved aside, revealing a cheerfully lit indoor Zen garden.
Asha gazed around in astonishment. Soft waterfalls flowed peacefully into streams that ran under bright red bridges. Carefully groomed plants filled the space. The high ceiling was painted the bright blue of a high desert sky, cotton clouds seeming to drift across it, and Asha had the disorienting feeling she was outside, even though she knew she was two stories underground.
Janu sat under an ancient cherry tree, reading a book. So this is the Seer's training room, Asha thought, wondering why Kelakha hadn't told them about it on their first tour.
Janu smiled up at them as they approached, placing his book face down in the grass. “Uma. You're looking energetic, as always.”
“Janu. Sandhu here needs your expertise. She's clearly not telling us everything and with more casualties, I strongly urge—”
He held a hand up, silencing her. Patting the grass next to him, he motioned Asha to sit.
“Thank you, Uma,” Janu said. “You can go now.”
Uma held his gaze for a long moment. Then with an exasperated sigh, she stalked back out of the garden.
A delicately beautiful woman in her early thirties approached with tea, bending to put it down near Janu, Asha noticed that she was missing a pinky finger on her right hand, a long scar trailing up her slender arm. Her straight black hair fell over one shoulder as she served the tea, and she glanced at Asha with a dazzling smile.
“This is my assistant, Kairav,” Janu said. White Lotus.
“Are… are you Avinash's wife?” Asha asked, remembering the exquisite white lotus pearl and crystal inlay on the Tvastar's strange guitar.
She laughed, a musical sound. “I am. Is there anything I can get you, Asha? Some tea?”
Asha shook her head, and with a bow, Kairav disappeared into the small gazebo at the other end of the garden.
Janu took a sip of his tea and fixed his blue-green eyes on Asha. They are actually creepy.
“Now, tell me what you said to Uma to make her so waspish.”
Asha looked at her hands. “She was teaching us about the Dänav that attacked Headquarters in Miami. I realized it was the same kind of creature I saw one n
ight outside the fort here, just beyond the forest.” Asha hurried to explain, “But when I saw it, there was a… a girl. She was riding it… well, sitting on it, so, so I asked Uma if they could be tamed—domesticated—and next thing I knew, she ended the class and marched me here.”
Janu smiled at her, and for an instant, his eyes seemed to glow. “And?”
“And… and I told Aquila Desai all about it right away, and he went straight to Afzal. I'm not hiding anything.” Asha knew, somehow, that now was the time to talk about her nightmares. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
“Asha, please don't kill the grass. It's not easy to grow it this far underground.”
Asha opened her eyes and gasped, jumping up. A perfect circle of yellowed grass lay under her feet.
“I'm sorry! I didn't—”
Janu laughed and waved it away, motioning her to sit. “You were about to say… ?”
“I… the person on the Dänav is the same girl I've been having nightmares about since my birthday… at least until the necklace…”
“Tell me about them, your nightmares,” Janu said, leaning against the tree and sipping his tea.
Asha looked around uneasily. “Well, it's always dark. Really dark. Like an underground cave? And then… I know she's around the next corner. I'm compelled, somehow, to turn the corner, follow the only light… and then, I see her… She looks my age, but she has a… I don't know, a power about her. And she's doing… things… at this stone altar. Things to… babies.” Asha couldn't look at him as she went on, feeling a familiar chill creep up her spine. “They scream and scream… and I can see their little chubby legs kicking, their tiny hands reaching, and I can't move! I just stand there, like some useless… And she laughs. She always laughs. And she's draining their blood with strange… instruments, and ranting. Something about purifying the world. And once, she was eating…” Asha closed her eyes and swallowed at the memory. “Actually eating… and then she, she… Janu, am I going crazy? The nightmares, they seem so… until I put this necklace on,” Asha touched her collar, where the necklace lay concealed against her skin. “I was dreading ever falling asleep again.”