It rattles across the floor, dancing around once, twice, thrice in a circle before coming to rest between the muddy shoes of my captor.
The soldier picks it up, rubs his finger over its shiny surface and it’s as if he’s touched that part of me which I’ve hidden for so long.
Hidden from my shipmates on the month-long voyage to this country.
Hidden from those who had killed my father and raped my mother after she had offered herself up in my place. Right in front of me and Lily. And all through it I hung onto this coin, stolen from my father’s wallet. I’d gripped it and prayed to whoever was out there to save us. But of course no one had come. Only the coin had stayed with me. Solid. A reminder of all that was normal and sane in a world gone mad. A world crumbling around me.
"It’s mine," I growl, clamping down on the surge of frustration that twists my gut. Knowing even as I say it that I should have simply saved my breath. Not baited him further.
But I have. To. Say. Something.
The coin is the only sign left of my parents. Of where I come from. Of London; once a city once filled with flowers, and trees so high they soared up towards the faint sunshine that filtered down through the clouds.
Ancient trees. As old as the city I’m in now. And yet Bombay is also new, reinventing itself, marching into a new world. And I am trying to find my place in it.
The soldier doesn’t even hear me. Simply pockets my coin.
Anger pulses through me, licking my nerve endings. I swear aloud and want to scream at him, ask him to give it back. Tell him that he cannot just take what is not his. That it’s impolite to do so. And that brings me up short. I should’ve left civilities behind a long time ago. Desperation can turn humans into animals; bring out the beast in them.
When you lose the roof over your head, you take what you find to shield yourself. That much I have learned in my race to find refuge in this new world. And yet a part of me still hopes, yearns, for things to go back to what they were. Simple. Civilized. Safe.
But they won’t.
For now, I have more pressing things to worry about. Like figuring out where they are taking me. When the vehicle leaps forward, my stomach twists with fear and bile rushes to my throat.
Heart thudding against my ribs I burst out, "Where are you taking me?"
Neither answers.
Then, one of them replies, "To introduce you to your future, of course."
At which I just react. Blood pumping in my ears, I strain against my bonds. Managing to get to my knees I launch myself at the soldiers.
Head-butting one, I bite the other on his arm. The sourness of his skin, mixed with the coppery taste of blood, fills my mouth.
He screams. A shrill, high-pitched cry, before his partner drags me off him, and slams me against the wall. I hit my head and everything goes dark.
Chapter Two
Bombay, a month later
Everything in his past has led up to this moment, for he’s sworn to protect this city.
Jai jumps out of the Humvee at the notorious refugee camp nicknamed the Jungle. He can smell the migrants, smell their desperation – a mix of human waste and unwashed skin. Their unspoken prayers fill the air, coating the mid-morning fog.
Hidden away behind the tin and paper walls of the shantytown, they scuttle around, and he can feel the rise and fall of a hundred chests. Hands steady, he pulls out his gun.
Slowing his breathing, he calms his mind just as he’s been trained and looks for whatever’s out there.
A tarpaulin comes loose from one of the ramshackle shanties. Breaking free it flies up the dirt road, up and up and past a shadow walking towards him.
Stealthy, deliberate, taking its time, it comes to a stop not twenty feet from him. Even as its muscles tense, Jai springs to his feet, rushing towards it and is treated to his first close-up of a shifter.
At least eight feet long from jaw to tail, it's clear it's hybrid. It combines the cunning of man with the strength of a wolf. A walking death wish. An unlikely fallout of the nuclear disaster that had followed the tsunamis of 2014, which had swept many cities around the world.
With powerful legs and hair bristling like spears, the shifter springs towards him with a howl.
Jai fires without hesitation. Once. Twice. Thrice. But the shifter moves fast. A speed that is at complete odds with its bulk. So fast its body is almost a blur. None of the bullets hit.
Four. Five.
It doesn’t even slow down.
Six.
He’s out of bullets.
It. Just. Keeps. Coming. Eyes burning yellow in its face. Before Jai can pull out his sword the shifter slams into him. Jai’s head hits the ground, and the beast tears through his army fatigues. He screams as its nails bury in his flesh.
The animal’s breath surrounds him, flows over his skin, almost burning on contact. Its jaws snap open and it goes straight for his throat.
The blood thunders in his ears. His pulse is racing and sweat streams down his forehead. Pinned so close to the earth, nose buried in the dirt, Jai can’t breathe. Just as the world goes dark around the edges, he hears a scream.
The pressure on his chest eases and the shifter is flung to the ground next to him. On its back. Jaws still open.
There’s a girl astride the savage, gripping its chest with her thighs. She rams her sword through its throat, twisting it in. Blood gushes out, spraying her crimson, the red glistening in the moonlight.
A shudder runs through the shifter and then it lies unmoving.
It will forever be burned into his brain – the sight of her holding up the bleeding sword as she raises her head to the skies and cries out a guttural howl of triumph, of life. Something inside him pushes to get out, to break free. There’s a fierce need to hold on to her and soar with her. Ride the wave of her exultance, and soar up, up, up. Away from here, away from his past, the ties that hold him back.
Then she’s on her feet.
Bending towards him she reaches out a hand. Her dark brown hair swirls in anger. Dark blue, almost indigo-colored eyes burn into his, and when his fingers touch her palm, a jolt of awareness shocks him, taking him by surprise. The intensity is like nothing he’s ever experienced before. Goosebumps break out over his skin and a tremor runs down his back. Before his mind can even register what he’s doing, he grasps her palm. Closing his hand over hers, he grips it. A part of it registering how small and fragile she feels, and soft. Like silk. He can sense her strength, her fierce will, as she squeezes back, her nails digging into his skin.
Perhaps she feels it too for her eyebrows shoot down in a frown, and she bites down on her lower lip. She leans closer as if to say something. Then, her features sharpen. Her delicate eyebrows shoot up. Swinging her sword as if it’s a part of her, the girl turns around to rush at his team who now point their guns at her.
Jai shouts at his team to stop but already they are shooting. Weaving through the thick air, she slithers over the ground. Before straightening to kick out the legs from the man closest to her. Then she lays low the one next to him too. Her blade cuts through the man on the other side and, bracing against the fallen body, she leaps up, using the open door of the Humvee as leverage to roll across the roof of the vehicle and onto the other side. By the time Jai rushes around to the other side, she’s gone.
Who is she?
Chapter Three
A soldier trained to kill, and he’s just been saved by a slip of a girl. A touch on his shoulder has Jai looking down into the face of his childhood friend, and right-hand man, Gilbert.
"More coming," Gilbert says.
Jai turns to see a group of dark shadows moving towards them.
The shifters are growing bolder. This is the third such attack on the camp in the last month. Rumor has it that they also take some of the younger female refugees captive. To use them for food, or perhaps as slaves, or worse, to mate with the prisoners forcibly and grow their own numbers? A sliver of anger runs through him and he pushes aw
ay that thought.
Gilbert swears. "So how are we supposed to take on these monsters if they are faster than guns? So fast even you couldn’t even get them at close range."
Jai hears the unspoken worry in those words. He’s one of the fastest shots in the country and definitely in this part of the world. If Jai couldn’t get the wolves, then no one could. At least not with guns.
But she had gotten them. With a sword. Moving so fast her sword had sparked an arc of silver through the air as she’d gone for its throat.
"They may look like wolves but they are half human," Jai corrects him.
Gilbert snorts, "Nothing human about them. Animals, that’s what they are."
"They are shifters," Jai snaps. "Half breeds. And while that doesn’t mean we should spare them, it does mean that when we kill the wolves, we also kill their human side."
"They are dangerous" Gilbert says, voice vibrating with anger. "Either we get them first or they kill us. Besides, we are out of bullets," he adds.
Jai knows Gilbert is right. The seriousness of the situation sinks in. With their guns proving to be ineffective, it’s going to be a losing fight. He pushes that thought aside too.
Right now, he must stop them.
Jumping over the fallen shifter, he runs towards the oncoming animals. Then something prompts him to fling aside the empty gun. Following his instinct, he pulls out his sword. His mother’s sword.
Twenty-one years ago, his mother had touched this very sword to the altar at a little temple off the coast of Bombay. Her action had set off tsunamis across the world. Killer waves that had swept away many cities including Bombay.
He’d inherited the sword on his eighteenth birthday. And even three years later, it still feels unfamiliar, heavy. Yet, as he grips it this time, the handle curves into his palm, reassuring him.
He points the blade at the silently approaching predators, then swears again.
The animals form a wall of muscle and teeth and claws and iron will. Only one way out.
Without waiting, he takes off down the road, followed by Gilbert and the two other team members.
Jai’s footsteps pound the ground, mud and dirt splashing in his wake. Then he’s upon the first of the wolves, which howls and leaps at him.
Gripping his sword with both hands he jumps at it and slams the blade right into its heart. Blood fountains out, bathing him in crimson. But already Jai’s yanked out the blade and dived to the side to avoid the falling body.
Following Jai’s example, Gilbert too pulls out his sword, thrusting it at the animal that’s come at them from the side.
But the shifter is too fast, shadow-swift, almost one with the darkness. Off the mark, Gilbert thrusts-misses again, swears.
When the animal leaps, Jai sees his chance. In a final act of desperation, grips the sword with both hands, putting everything he has into pushing the blade up. The sword cuts through the breeze with a screeching sound before finding its target. The shifter crashes to the ground.
Jai doesn't pause. Intent only on felling the next one, he leaps, slashing out with his sword. Right-left-right again, opening the belly of the next. Guttural cries in his wake as he slides low, low below the falling carcass. Kicking the legs out of the next shifter, he screams as he plunges the blade into the next. Heaving the sword out, he jumps, thrusts and bends low, slamming the blade in. And then he’s through to the other side of the pack.
Behind him, Gilbert puts out a hand, motioning the others who have reached him to stop.
Silence.
Chest heaving, blood dripping from the sword, Jai snaps his eyes on the last remaining shifter.
This one is smaller than the others. Silence clings to it like armor. It’s waiting, not moving and he braces himself, echoing its stillness. It takes a step forward and he still doesn’t look away.
Another step forward and his neck muscles tense.
A trickle of sweat runs down his forehead and into his eyes, stinging them, but he doesn’t blink.
The shifter stops right in front of him.
Its golden eyes stare unblinking, as if it can see right through to his soul. A breeze blows in from the sea, rippling its fur, bringing with it a whiff of sea-salt and a curious musty smell like that of the first rains mixed with the smell of heavy vegetation.
It leans close, so close. Its warm breath rushes over his neck, and his hair stands on end. Don’t. Move. A. Muscle. Don’t. Don’t. Jai freezes and it prances around him, so near its hair brushes Jai’s trousers. Stopping in front of him, it stares into his eyes, its warm brown eyes blinking. This one will not attack him.
Even as he realizes this, he knows he’s too far gone now, the blood of battle is in his veins. Without giving himself time to think, he slices down with his sword, removing its head in a single stroke.
The shifter's torso stays standing for a second, then topples over. Jai moves aside as it crashes to the ground, its severed head coming to rest at his feet.
Footsteps behind him, and then Gilbert’s standing next to him, his hand still gripping the empty gun. The breath he’s been holding wheezes out, and his knees threaten to buckle from under him.
"We did it!" Gilbert throws his free arm around his friend, circling his neck in that half-awkward way of boys who’ve grown up together.
The blood and guts on their clothes mingle and stick, making a sucking noise when Jai pulls away. Turning, he slips the bloodied sword back into its scabbard.
He should be elated at their victory, but all that’s left is a deep sadness. It drags him down, threatening to engulf him in its greasy embrace.
Will it always be like this? This darkness that follows the high of battle, the adrenaline wearing off to reveal the despair just below. And through it all the face of the girl.
He may well be dead if not for her.
He walks past the fallen corpses, past his team who are picking themselves up, up the road and towards his vehicle when a child darts out from behind one of the structures.
Skidding to a stop in front of him, the little girl asks, "So did you kill them?"
Jai hesitates. Then, a half-smile on his lips, he drops down to eye level with her, "Yes. You’re safe now," he says.
Just then a woman runs to her and picks her up. She twists her lips, her eyes darting away, refusing to meet his.
She's afraid of him.
The woman drags the girl away from him, back towards the shadows. "It’s not safe to speak to men like him, they’re out to kill us," she scolds her daughter.
Anger spurts through him at her words but he swallows his response. She’s right. He is a killer.
He’s doing what it takes to protect his city and his people. And keep his promise to his dying mother.
Springing to his feet, he heads back to his vehicle.
As Jai drives off, the weight of a hundred eyes tear into him. Their silent voices scream; asking him to take them back into the city. To safety.
Screeching to a halt in front of his bungalow on Bandra Hill, he walks into the house and straight to his bedroom, pausing to drop his mobile on the table. In this post-tsunami world, mobiles are restricted to a chosen few – Heads of State, those providing essential services, and Guardians like him.
The depletion of rare metals needed in everything, from electronics to communication, is one of the most serious shortages facing the world. So Jai’s aware that it’s a privilege to have a mobile phone.
Yet, he’s never been comfortable with these trappings of power. For they mark him, as different. All his life he’s tried to fit in, to belong. But it’s only after he joined the army and became a Guardian that he found his space.
Jai hates his job for what it demands of him. And yet, it’s because he’s forced to push himself all the time, mentally, physically, emotionally – it’s precisely this which has brought some meaning to his life.
But he’s not thinking of all this as he slams the sword on the table near the door with such force it almost bounces
off. He swears aloud. He’s got to be more careful with this weapon too. Hell, if the stories are right it once belonged to Queen Catherine of Braganza, in whose dowry the seven islands of Bombay were given to Charles II.
And yeah, so he is a direct, if illegitimate, descendent of the Queen, which means the blood running through him is the key for triggering the power of the sword.
Right now he doesn’t care about that either.
Swearing to himself, he strips off his bloody clothes, kicking them into a corner before heading straight to the shower.
"Jets on, full, hot."
He steps into the middle of the eight water streams so the water beats at his shoulders. It flows over his chest, running red as it washes away the blood. Just like the tsunami had cleaned the city of all its dirt and pollution, paving the way for the world they live in today. Many think this a better world. Yet, the survivors haven’t forgiven his mother for unleashing the killer wave on them, for the lives lost that day. So she had made him promise that he’d stay and protect the city and its survivors. To make up for her one impulsive mistake which had changed the city’s future. The world’s future. That’s him all right. Duty bound, honor driven.
That’s a good thing, right? Right? The shower turns off and he steps out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Walking past his bed, he stands by the open window, letting the sea-breeze dry off the remaining water drops on his chest.
Nothing can beat the feel of the sea air on freshly showered skin. Just then, a movement he spots from the corner of his eyes makes him turn. He has a fleeting impression of indigo eyes before he sees the gun pointed at him.
Chapter Four
It’s her. The girl who’d killed the shifter. She’s standing by the bed in her muddy, blood-splattered clothes. Her sword, still in its scabbard, balances against the nearby chair, hilt up, ready to be drawn. And she’s pointing his gun straight at him.
Jai’s training kicks in and his body tenses, ready to spring. Grunting a little, he forces himself to relax. The towel around his waist threatens to slip, and he lowers his hand to firm up the knot.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 125