Demons of Time

by Varun Sayal

  Copyright © 2019 Varun Sayal

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-93-5351-893-6

  No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,

  or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  About the Author

  Varun Sayal is a science fiction author who has built considerable repute in the writing world within a short span of time. His début work ‘Time Crawlers’ has been a phenomenal hit on Amazon. It has also been very well received by the Goodreads Reader community. Testimony to that fact is over three hundred positive reviews on GoodReads, Amazon and other platforms, within just six months of publishing that book.

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  Dedicated to my parents;

  I am what I am today, because of them.

  And to my lovely wife,

  who is the source of all my strength

  and happiness.

  Table of Contents

  1 - Kumbh And Vetri, The Time-Demons

  2 - University of Time-Readers

  3 - Trisillex, the Devil From 2072 AD

  4 - Kumbh’s Estranged Son

  5 - Neurotoxin in Thy Bloodstream

  6 - Virtual Exoskeleton, Virtexo 2.0

  7 - The Chamber of Time Travel

  8 - The Spell of Reanimation

  9 - Rudrakshini, the Queen of Necromancers

  10 - Kaal-Vaahini, the River Of Time

  11 - Flight VQ7101, Dallas To Mumbai

  12 - Ears and Eyes Of An International Gangster

  13 - The Burden Of A Hundred Generations

  14 - Triangulating the Devil

  15 - Operation North Eagle, Target Yellow Prince

  16 - Entering the Jaws Of The Demon

  17 - The Doppelganger

  18 - The Last Laugh

  19 - A Dark Deception

  20 - A Heavy Price

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Read more from the Author

  1.

  Kumbh And Vetri, The Time-Demons

  Dandak Forest, India | Year 3077 BC

  An eight-year-old boy and a woman in her early thirties sprinted across the jungle. Feeble moonlight illuminated their path. The two shadows chasing them drew closer. The child scampered in his short pants, but the woman’s long-robed saree was slowing her down. As they ran for their lives through the jungle, the thorny bushes tore at their clothes and scratched their skin. Their feet bled from the sharp stones and twigs on their way. Out of breath, gasping for air, they dashed through the forest for their lives.

  “How far, Mother?” the child asked.

  The mother pushed the son, ensuring he kept his pace. “Right behind that line of trees, son. Don’t slow down.”

  The son stumbled over a sharp-edged stone and slipped. His mother halted to come back and help him up. She froze in terror as she realized the two shadows had finally caught up with them. They now stood only a few feet away from her, glaring at her and the child.

  “Please don’t kill my son. I’m the one who planned this escape. Please let him go,” Mother implored, her hands folded in a plea.

  One shadow came forward, out of the shade. His ravenous face and athletic body looked menacing in the murky light of the overcast night. His well-built, brawny torso was drenched with sweat, and he was wheezing because of the chase. His hair was long and stringy, hanging around enormous eyes. With rugged dark green trousers below, he was naked from the waist up. A long necklace made of human and goat skulls was hanging around his neck. In his right hand, he clutched a huge, shining metal hammer stained with old, dried blood.

  He was Kumbh, also known as Kaal-daitya, a demon of time. Kumbh came closer to the mother and the son, sat down on his knees, and looked right into the mother’s eyes.

  He spoke in a sardonic tone. “This is your third crack at running away in last two months, right? I assumed you were more likely to fight than flee. Your belligerent personality made you so appealing. In fact, I loved the fact that I hated this fight in you. Or I hated the fact that I loved it. Either way, I think this stupid son of yours is the reason you’re losing your best qualities. He’ll have to pay the price for your treacherous attempt to escape. I warned you the last time. Did I not?”

  His giant face further widened with a sinister smile that floated on his filthy scarred lips. His wide, blood-stained incisors clenched together.

  The second shadow also walked out of the shades. He was Vetri, the twin brother of Kumbh, another time-demon. He wore a similar attire and he had a long strand of barbed wire in his hands, which he was twisting and pulling as if readying himself to strangle a human being.

  “Brother, why don’t we kill this child and feed him to the wild animals? After that, we’ll tie this wretched woman by her legs using this rope, and drag her all the way back to our palace. This is the best way to teach her the right lesson,” Vetri said. He licked the barbed wire with his coarse, blackened tongue.

  Mother pleaded again, “No, no, please don’t kill my boy! I’ll do whatever you want; take my life instead. I committed this mistake, not him.”

  “We can’t kill you, can we? We need you, Dhara. We need you in our bed to brighten our lonely nights.” Vetri let out a burst of laughter. “Brother, I have an idea. Why don’t we let these two run a few more miles in the jungle while we chase them? I was enjoying this whole chase, this hunt. It reminded me of the times when we used to make lowly village kids run through the forest while we chased them, and then impaled their skulls on our javelins.”

  Kumbh cut off Vetri. “Enough. We need to end this now. You take the bitch back to the night palace. I will finish off this kid and scatter his bone shards around the jungle. It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a good cattle-smashing.” He smelled his hammer as if relishing the stench emanating from it.

  “Why do you always snub me, brother?” Vetri retorted. Pitch-drunk, he wasn’t in a mood to take orders, especially in front of their slaves.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Kumbh pacified him. “But we don’t have time for a playful chase. In the heat of the moment, we came running after this woman. Our bodyguards and imperial protection army, none of them are here. We need to finish them and head back right away.”

  There was a sudden movement in the bushes nearby, and both Kumbh and Vetri stiffened. Dhara and the child also stood up and gaped at the bushes.

  From within the woods emerged an old hermit. He was the renowned sage Guru Rigu. His long white hair was tied on top of his head. His thick white mustache and a big beard covered most of his wrinkled face. He had a long dark red cloth tied around his waist, and he wore a few sacred bead-necklaces around his frail, attenuated torso. In his left hand, he clutched a metal pot, and a bright creamy-white color conch-shell in his right hand.

  Rigu spoke in a soft tone. “Kumbh and Vetri, you are standing within the confines of the holy Dandak forest. This forest has not seen a sin committed on its soil since the last thousand years. Why don’t you two leave this poor woman and her child alone? In return, I promise I will allow you two to leave this place, with no harm.”

  Kumbh smirked and clamped on his hammer with indignation. He po
inted his finger at Rigu. “You? You promise that you will allow us to leave this place without any harm? How kind of you, old man. But since you already know our names, you must also know who we are. You must know that even the most powerful sages and their curse-laden holy waters cannot scratch us. So why don’t you take your puny threats and go continue your night-stroll in peace? If you stay, this may be your last night alive.”

  Rigu smiled. “I know very well who you are. You both lived as the ancient demons Trikaati and Vapaati a few centuries ago when you slaughtered and cannibalized your enemy tribes. Two hundred years ago, you wreaked havoc as the bloodthirsty princes Trilesh and Vapt, when you mercilessly incinerated ten thousand large villages and their inhabitants. Men, women, children, and cattle were annihilated. For what? So that you could win a bet over who could destroy more lives in one day.

  “Then you also went a few thousand years in the future and became the barbaric Mongol invaders Temüjin and his twin brother Vladüjin. There, you waged wars, took millions of innocent lives, and caused decades of endless bloodshed in name of conquering the land. The list of your heinous crimes is endless. You can crawl through time and land your consciousnesses into whichever innocent bodies you like; possess them, control them, and cause endless death and misery wherever you go. You have no ethical accountability—and that is not acceptable. Time travel is a power, a blessing, a gift, which you could have used to serve humanity. Instead, you have abused it to take countless lives over the centuries.”

  Rigu’s words stunned Kumbh and Vetri, and they stood unmoved. There was silence in the forest for a few moments.

  Then Kumbh spoke. “I reckon that you’re a time-reader. Normal human beings don’t know those things about us. I loathe your kind because, like a silent serpent, you read and document our movements and secrets. I believed we wiped out your race around five hundred years ago. I strangled the last known time-reader sage Alek with these very hands. But it seems we were wrong in assuming you all were gone for good.”

  Rigu felt an angry expression grow on his face. He controlled himself.

  Kumbh was more alert and careful too. He knew that time-readers could selectively read the past, present, and future. Armed with this knowledge, time-readers were their only truly formidable enemies. He realized Rigu would not have walked into this situation without doing a time-reading of it. The sage would have weighed a lot of permutations and combinations of what was about to go down.

  Kumbh took a quick look at his surroundings as he addressed Rigu. “You knew what kind of beasts we are. Yet you believe that you can somehow defeat us today and get out of here alive? You knew that we would come here, right at this moment. Why did you walk into the arms of death like this? There are far easier ways to commit suicide, old man. You don’t have a lot of days left in your dismal life, given your old age and your already gangly body.”

  Vetri cut him short and grabbed Dhara’s arm. “Why are you talking so much? Let’s kill this old sage and the kid, and let’s go home. I’m yearning for another drink, and this is annoying.” Vetri was not much of a thinker, because his brother did most of the planning for both of them.

  As Vetri was about to drag Dhara along with him, he felt a sudden sharp pain on his wrist. He had to let go of the woman. Her boy has dug his teeth sharply into his wrist and was not letting go.

  “You little snake! I’ll slaughter you!” Vetri slapped the boy, who fell on the ground, unconscious. As Vetri bent to grab the boy by his neck and strangle him, Rigu quickly splashed the water from his metal pot on both Vetri and Kumbh.

  Both of them froze for a moment, anticipating some kind of curse to administer or some sort of chemical reaction to occur. But nothing happened. Both of them looked at each other and cachinnated.

  “This was your holy water, old fool? See? It had no impact on us.” Vetri chuckled. “I told you, we’re unassailable. Was this even holy water, or were you carrying that for your late night ablutions?” Both of them sneered and mocked Rigu.

  Rigu lowered his head. “My holy water didn’t work. I was sure it would, but it didn’t. You are formidable entities indeed. I admit I underestimated your divinity. I know you’ll kill me, but the person who is about to die is usually granted one last wish. You two are benevolent emperors, rulers of this universe. I hope you will grant me one last wish—a dying man’s last desire?”

  “I want to take my hammer and crush your skull right now,” Kumbh cautioned. He raised his hammer to Rigu’s forehead and touched it as if taking aim. ”You won’t even feel a thing, old man. But your last wish intrigues me. Go on, tell me, what do you want to do before I swing my hammer? And yes, don’t try any tricks. I won’t take more than a moment to drop you.”

  Rigu took a deep breath and looked at the conch-shell in his hand. “I wanted to blow my sacred conch-shell, my shakti-shankha, one last time. This holy conch-shell has been passed on as a family legacy from my grandfather to my father, and then to me. Our ancestors believed if we blew this conch-shell right before our death, it’s sound-waves will take us to heaven after our demise,” Rigu pleaded.

  Vetri chuckled. “Go on. We grant your last wish. I will count to five, and after that, Kumbh will smash your head.”

  “No! Don’t move an inch, time-reader!” Kumbh thundered. “Vetri, we don’t know what this sage will do with this conch-shell. He’s a time-reader, and you know these treacherous bastards. They seldom confront us without razor-sharp preparations. With this conch-shell, he may be calling for help. An army may be moving in our direction as we speak. Let’s get out of here.” Kumbh put his hand on Vetri’s shoulder and pressed it lightly.

  “Hold on, do you think I’m stupid?” Vetri pushed Kumbh away, his eyes drowsy with drunken torpor.

  “No, I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  “No—what do you mean? By allowing him to blow some puny conch-shell, I’m threatening our safety? Because I’m an imbecile?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No, but you meant that. You constantly question my decisions, don’t you? We are time-demons, my brother! This stupid old man can do us no harm. Don’t you understand?”

  “I do, but…”

  “But what? What? We are the kings of the world. When people are dying in front of us, we grant them last wishes. That is our culture. Our legacy.”

  Kumbh gave up. It was another irritable mood that made Vetri completely lose the sense of what was in their best interests. At such times, he only viewed the world through the lens of his fragile ego.

  “All right, geezer. Go ahead.”

  “No! I’ll give this order.” Vetri protested again.

  “Yes sir, will you please give this order?” Kumbh said and bowed a little.

  Vetri grinned like a dunce. He loved these small victories over his brainy brother. He addressed Rigu. “Hey, you time-reading insect! Go ahead, blow your conch-shell. But this better not be another vacuous trick of yours. Otherwise, we’ll torture you for days before we take your life. Go on. I, Lord Vetri, permit you to fulfill your dying wish.”

  Rigu instantly threw the metal pot to the side, then clenched the conch-shell with both his hands. He pressed it to his lips and blew with the full force of his throat. A deep trumpeting blast resonated through the forest. It went higher and higher in pitch, finally fading to a complete close. The waves of sound kept echoing for a few moments throughout the desolated vicinity.

  Kumbh picked up his hammer and touched its blunt claw to Rigu’s head as if taking aim. He lifted the hammer and was about to strike Rigu when his hands and arms stiffened.

  “Now, get ready to die, son of a …why can’t I move? I can’t move, Vetri! What’s happening? Are you able to move? What’s this monkey magic, sage? What have you done?” Kumbh thundered in anger. He struggled to move his arms, but he was completely frozen. He couldn’t move a single muscle.

  “I can’t move
either…my neck is stiff. I cannot…” Vetri attempted to speak, but his throat, his mouth, and his tongue felt so dry as if they were made of stone.

  Rigu had a victorious smile on his face. His trick had worked. “Chemical-induced paralytic shock, catalyzed by sound waves—an anesthetic potion I have been working on for some time. Well, since the moment I saw the vision, I knew you both would come to Dandak Forest today. The innocent holy water I splashed on you was actually that anesthetic.

  “While we engaged in conversation, this chemical entered your body through your skin and spread through your system. When I blew the conch-shell, the sonic waves catalyzed the paralytic properties of the chemical. You are both completely immobilized. You can’t move, you can’t speak. You couldn’t even tilt your eyeballs if you wanted to. The effect of this incapacitating dosage will stay on for a few hours. In a few moments, you will feel delirious as the chemicals reach your brain and put you into a deep sleep.”

  Both Kumbh and Vetri shook their heads as if overcome with a fit. They then collapsed on the ground and lay there, unconscious.

  Dhara picked up her son and tightly hugged him, sobbing. He was still unconscious. Rigu approached them and put his hand on her head. She looked at Rigu with gratitude in her eyes. She couldn’t believe that Rigu had subdued such powerful devils. He had saved her and her son from imminent torture and death.

  “What will happen now? What will happen to me and my son?” she asked.

  With a satisfied smile, Rigu sat on a grass patch nearby. “Your son is a brave kid. He fought for you, even used his teeth as a weapon when he felt your life was in danger. He’ll be fine. He was only knocked unconscious by Vetri’s blow. I have medicine at my ashram which will heal both of you in no time.”

  “Nothing can heal me, Gurudev,” Dhara addressed the guru by his proper title, “Gurudev.” “These animals have beaten, raped, and ravaged me for the past several years—both myself and many other women like me. Seeing those atrocities over the years, I’ve lost a sense of purpose. My soul feels shattered. I would have taken my life long ago, but I am only alive because of my son. I don’t want any healing, Gurudev, I only want to take care of him.” Dhara burst into tears.