Demons of Time

by Varun Sayal

  “Captain Kaniago, Team Bravo is coming in as a backup,” Rujeeth yelled on the radio.

  “Negative, negative. Something strange is attacking us now…we don’t know what…with sharp teeth, it’s ripping our soldiers apart …”

  “What is it, Captain? Describe it for us.”

  “ …five of us are hidden inside a nook…sniffing us…is coming for us…bullets not working…”

  There was a strange loud noise, and the radio went silent. Captain Kaniago had most likely been killed in action. Rujeeth and Shafi both had petrified looks on their faces and fear in their eyes. Tej looked at a group of seven soldiers who were present there. They were the team leads. Their confidence was shaken too. Facing guns and soldiers inside was expected, but a strange creature on whom bullets were not working? None of them had encountered anything like that.

  “Whatever it is, we have to face it. Team Bravo and Charlie need to go in,” Tej declared.

  “What are you saying, boss? We don’t even know what we’re getting into. We should wait and get more reinforcements before we go in.”

  “Reinforcements? We don’t have time Rujeeth.”

  “What’s the hurry?” Shafi interjected. “We have surrounded the castle, and around a hundred men are guarding the parameter. No one can go out. Let’s get more weapons, more soldiers and then go in all guns blazing. We don’t know what’s inside.”

  “What a brilliant plan, Shafi,” Tej mocked. “While we sit here waiting, how do you not know that another army commissioned by Samarth Bhasin is not en route to this place? We have to get inside and finish him right away.”

  “Why don’t we rip apart the whole place? We know Samarth Bhasin is inside. Let’s get the son of the bitch. I can arrange for a hellfire missile to be fired on the castle within the next two hours. This whole place would be stones and rubble after that.” Rujeeth was getting frustrated with Ravi’s strange doggedness over killing Samarth Bhasin in person.

  “No. We don’t know for sure that Samarth Bhasin is inside. What if he has already escaped? I don’t want to leave here with a dilemma over whether my arch-enemy is dead or alive. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with a deadly shadow looming over my shoulder. I want proof of death in front of my eyes.”

  Rujeeth and Shafi both looked at each other.

  “I won’t go,” Rujeeth said with determination.

  “Sorry, boss.” Shafi nodded his head in negation.

  Tej realized everything was falling apart. Each minute the clock was ticking, Kumbh was inching towards a silent victory.

  “All right, I will go in myself. I will take a team of thirty men with me.”

  Tej looked at the seven team-leads and asked them to assemble their best thirty men.

  A half hour later, at 10:30 AM, twenty-two soldiers assembled near the radio station, along with three team leads. Rujeeth and Shafi were sitting on small chairs. They had already given up. Tej stood uptight waiting for soldiers to settle.

  “If I am not wrong, I asked for thirty. We only have twenty-two here. And where are the other four team leads?” Tej demanded.

  One of the team leads stepped forward. “The news has spread, sir, that there is a strange creature inside, on which even bullets are useless. Who would want to go in? Even these twenty-two soldiers gathered here, they are not sure, sir.”

  “Hmm. So you’re afraid?”

  “We are not afraid, sir, but we are not foolish either. In a battle, we know who our combatant is. It’s another soldier or a machine or another gun waiting for us on the other side. We are trained to fight those dangers. But taking on an enemy without having any understanding of its strengths and weaknesses is foolhardiness. It’s the same as walking into the jaws of certain death. Captain Kaniago was the best of us. He went in with fifty men and still was killed in action. What chance does anyone of us have?”

  “One million dollars!” Tej screamed. He was thinking on his feet again. He needed this army at any cost.

  “What?” Rujeeth questioned.

  “Shhh! Be quiet, Rujeeth.” Tej angrily signaled Rujeeth to keep his mouth shut. He turned again to the soldiers.

  “I offer one million dollars to every soldier ready to go inside with me. This amount will be transferred to any account of your choice, in any bank, in any city across the world. For every person who signs up to go inside with me, I will initiate the transfer for them right here, right now. The money will be credited to that person’s account within the next two hours. So, even if I die during the next two hours, that transfer will still go through. But during these two hours, if anyone tries to flee the castle, or abandon the mission, the transfer will be canceled. Shafi will make sure of that.”

  “What, boss?” Shafi balked. Ravi was shooting mad instructions in thin air and was expecting them to be executed.

  “Can you arrange it, Shafi? To have one million dollars transferred to every gentleman who agrees to go inside the castle with me? Can you do at least this for me? And yes, you will get 2% for each successful transfer.” Tej wanted to make sure Shafi had skin in the game.

  “Whatever you want, boss. I will get on it.” Shafi was relieved. Arranging this much money within this timeframe was difficult, but it was a better choice than following Ravi into the pit of death. Plus, he was getting a two percent cut.

  Tej faced the soldiers. “Go spread the news of this offer. The clocks read 10:35 AM IST. I will enter the castle at 11:30. If no one else is ready, I will go in alone. The choice is yours.”

  At 11:30 AM, around forty-three soldiers were ready to enter the castle with Tej. Each of them had shared their bank details with Shafi, who was initiating transfers for them one by one.

  A group of fifteen soldiers entered the castle in a vanguard formation, followed by Tej and the remaining twenty-eight men.

  They passed through the main gallery-way into the inner chamber of the castle and entered a huge illuminated hallway. A pile of chewed flesh, dismembered organs, and blood-stained ammunition welcomed them. The end of the hallway was dark, the ceiling lights there were destroyed during the gunfire.

  There was a sudden growl at the end of the hallway. The soldiers immediately pointed their guns towards the sound. The pungent stink of human fear and sweat filled the hall. Then they saw the shadow of a huge animal walking towards them.

  “No one fires,” Tej spoke in a hushed tone. “Let us first understand what this thing is,” His hunter instincts were driving him.

  The beast slowly walked out from darkness into the light and showed itself. It was a twelve-foot-long and seven-foot-high Liother, a hybrid between a lion and a panther. The monster had bloodshot eyes and a wide jaw with knife-sharp teeth. It had dense lion-like gray hair around its face and neck. Its colossal, muscular body was light black in color and had thin gray hair at some places. Its heavy paws had long sharp claws, which could tear through human flesh, bones, and internal organs with ease. Dark stain-lines made of dried human blood were visible on its face. A severed human-arm clasped between its teeth warned them of its ferocity. It was as if the God of Death himself was staring at them.

  Each soldier in that hallway was now regretting his decision to sell his life for a million dollars. It was not only death they feared but the ruthless, inhumane way in which it was going to come to them.

  Tej noticed that most of the body of the beast was covered with some kind of light, translucent armor. It was evident that bullet-fire would be futile on most of its body surface. Its forehead, face, and some folds where armor plates joined were the only vulnerable points.

  At that moment, Tej pictured what was about to go down in that hallway. The beast would attack them. They would fire on it, but its armor would protect it. Within a matter of seconds, the Liother would disembowel at least ten to fifteen of these men. The animal would ravage their fragile bodies with immense speed and veraciou
s blitz. The rest, witnessing this lethal carnage, would flee the scene. Tej’s cause would be lost, and Kumbh would win.

  But the word “Blitz” suddenly struck him. He recalled Rigu’s words. “Kumbh usually goes on a knock-off blitz, where he knocks off the consciousness of several individuals rapidly before he takes a host.”

  What if he could use the same technique and knock-off this Liother’s consciousness for a few moments? If that happened that will help them gain an advantage on the beast. But could he do such a quick jump? Could he even jump in the same time-slice? Why not? As Guru Rigu said, he only had to focus on his destination.

  His destination host was not a human this time, it was this Liother, and his destination time was a few milliseconds in past.

  The Liother dropped the severed arm down and eyed the soldiers in front of him. The men tightened their holds on their guns, ready to fire, but no one moved even one inch. Liother bent backward a little, about to jump onto them.

  Tej decided it was now or never. He chanted his mantra and re-iterated the destination in his mind. He saw himself traveling towards the beast’s brain. It worked!

  Tej was inside the animal’s brain. Although he did not try to read it, all he saw was blood, bones, flesh, and brutality. Liother’s old preys, hunting chases in the forest, and the torture it endured at hands of its captors all were coming to Tej. He was being sucked into the enormous web of bestial images inside Liother’s brain. He knew he had to get out. He focused on Ravi’s brain and traveled back to his body.

  He woke up in Ravi’s body and realized that Ravi had collapsed on the floor, but he swiftly aligned his senses and got up. Liother had collapsed, too, and was vigorously shaking its head. The beast’s consciousness was indeed knocked-off, but it was returning to its senses. Some soldiers had dared to go near the creature, aiming their guns at it.

  “Shoot it in the head, right now!” Tej screamed at the top of his voice.

  The soldiers surrounded the beast and unloaded their bullets into its body—forehead, limbs, wherever they could find a chink in the armor.

  They waited a few seconds for Liother to show movement. But the creature was motionless. It had succumbed to its injuries.

  Tej sat on his knees, panting. This threat was neutralized. But this battle was far from over.

  17.

  The Doppelganger

  The clock read 11:42 AM. Wasting no more time, Tej got his hands on the schematics of the castle and laid them out on the ground.

  The inner sanctum was right behind this hallway in which they were standing. He lit up a bright torch and ambled towards the end. He asked the soldiers to stay put. At end of the hallway was a huge steel door embedded between the dense stone wall: the last line of defense between him and Kumbh.

  Again it was futile to cut through the stone walls, as they were thick and dense, but it was plausible to cut through the steel door. The team ruled out the usage of explosives because they were now inside the castle. Any detonation near the walls could have caused irreversible structural damage. The only way was to cut through the steel door using a high-power oxy-acetylene torch.

  Tej radioed Rujeeth that the situation was under control. He asked him to send a few men inside, along with the necessary equipment. Within a few minutes, two of the men started cutting a man-sized hole into the door. Tej explored alternate routes to the inner sanctum, but there were none. Every other hallway was completely jammed with huge quantities of concrete. Kumbh had adopted a classic defense technique of bolting all inlets but one sealed shut. The one entrance was guarded with every possible resource.

  They took over four hours to cut through the thick steel door. It was around 04:03 PM IST when they finally cut out a hole, through which one man could slip in at a time. Tej peeped through that hole and saw a small passage which turned to the right. As per the schematics, the inner sanctum was right after this passage. He breathed a sigh of relief. He had two good hours before sunset in India.

  While he was looking at his watch, a damning realization resounded in his head. He recollected Rigu’s exact words. “As soon as the sun sets on his geo-locale on the seventh day, Kumbh will bolt out of 2024.”

  Tej hadn’t understood the meaning of geo-locales at that time, but equipped with the knowledge of Ravi’s brain, he now knew what they exactly were. This island, Macci-Pulau, was not in the same geo-locale as India. The timezone on this island ran one and a half hours before India’s time zone. Which meant if the Sun would set in India at 06:07 PM IST, it would set at Macci-Pulau at 04:37 PM IST. Which meant that he had only thirty-four minutes. This miscalculation could have cost him the whole mission. His goal was within reach, yet so far.

  He sent five men through the hole in the door to do a quick recon and report back. He checked his front pocket to confirm that he still had the green bhasm secured in the plastic packet. He also re-checked the sharp knife left in a secure sleeve in his left back pocket.

  The men returned and signaled that way forward was clear. Tej entered through the hole in the door. He moved towards the innermost reinforced room of the castle where the periphery of the inner sanctum began.

  As soon as he entered the last gallery-way, as per his map schematics, he saw another small door at the end of it.

  This was it. The innermost chamber. He saw that three security-guards lying on the ground, lifeless. They were most likely Bhasin’s men, shot dead by someone. Moreover, the door they were guarding was not bolted, as he expected. It was slightly open, and its outer bolts were scorched. It was clear that someone blasted through the door using a light-explosive charge.

  Tej approached the ajar door with caution. He decided he had to enter the inner sanctum on his own. He could not risk taking other men inside. He knew he won’t be able to perform Rudrakshini’s ritual in front of them. Or worse, they might shoot Samarth Bhasin in the heat of the moment, and inadvertently sabotage his whole plan.

  He asked the men to stay at their positions and gave strict orders that no one should come inside without direct, explicit orders. He was about to step inside when he heard a noise from within the room and stalled himself. Someone inside was speaking in an agitated tone.

  He peeked inside the door from outside and saw a boy in his late teens standing in an attack stance. The boy was holding some kind of strange-looking, futuristic gun in his hand. This gun was a long, metallic tube with several levers and patches. It had a small loose pouch near the trigger, and a flask containing an orange boiling liquid was attached below the nozzle. The boy was aiming the gun at a person, whom Tej could not see.

  Tej paid attention to what that boy was saying. He was fuming in anger and addressing the other person. “Kumbh, you time-demon, do you even remember me? I am Tej. And do you remember the atrocities you heaped upon me and my mother for so many years? I will avenge those today. Be ready to die for those sins.”

  Tej was taken aback. Why was this kid referring to himself as Tej? Upon that he was also mentioning the atrocities done to his own mother. Who was he?

  “This gun from the future is built specifically for demons of time such as yourself. This will extract all the atoms of your consciousness and will imprison them inside this small membrane,” the boy warned as he tightened his grip on the gun, ready to fire.

  A burst of uproarious laughter emanated from the other side. Whomever this boy was aiming his weapon at was laughing loudly.

  “Why are you laughing, you demon?” The boy shouted.

  The man repressed his laughter and responded. His voice was heavy. “Kid, this toy you are holding is complete junk. I have seen several of these in the future. It’s a satellite-based weapon, which is configured to a particular geostationary satellite from the future. I am not sure how you even brought it to this time-slice. That’s commendable. But beyond that, it will not work here. Yet let me show you what will work here—the.22 caliber which
I am holding in my hand. It’s metal and ballistics and has been working well since the Chinese invented gun-powder. The best part is, this works everywhere, and especially well on human bodies.”

  At that exact instant, the boy pressed the trigger on his hi-tech gun. The gun whirred, making a loud, shrilling sound and came to a standstill. Nothing happened. The boy frantically pressed the trigger multiple times, but still no result. Suddenly, there were several loud gunshot noises, and the boy’s lifeless body fell to the ground. Kumbh had shot him dead.

  Tej’s heart was beating even faster. He had witnessed Kumbh taking another life. Five soldiers whom he’d asked to stay back came running. They heard the bullet fire, too, but Tej gestured for them to go back. He waited for a few moments and then entered the room slowly, with a tight grip on his shotgun. He was aiming it at the direction of the voice. For a second, he looked at the body of the boy and felt sad for him. He mapped his steps, kept low, and looked for any object to hide behind, in case Kumbh fired on him too.

  The room was huge and well-lit. Tej was not expecting this. The walls were painted silver-grey. Several bright white lights on the roof illuminated the whole space. A lot of boxes of food and medical supplies were placed throughout the room as if it was a bunker built to sustain a natural apocalypse. Tej could not see the whole extent of the room because of these wooden boxes, but he knew Kumbh would be somewhere in there.

  He heard that heavy voice again. “I sense another presence here. Who are you? Show yourself.”

  Tej knew that voice came from behind a huge stack of boxes in front of him. He got up with caution and slunk towards the side of the stack. He clasped onto his shotgun, ready to shoot as soon as he stepped out from behind the stack into the open.

  “I used all my bullets on that kid. So don’t worry. You can come in peace,” The voice said.

  “Don’t move!” Tej shouted as he jumped out from behind the boxes and aimed his gun. The man in front of him was sitting in a wheelchair. He was Samarth Bhasin.