by K. N. Banet
“Perfect. One mess becomes other messes. Just what we need,” one of the vampires said softly, then coughed to cover something else up. “We’ll get the nest to send out their best to patrol the night streets. They can pick up anyone wandering around when there’s a Code Black in place.”
“Will they?” I asked boldly. “It risks exposure and their lives, and let’s be real, the nest here is a collection of lackadaisical party animals.”
“If I tell them to, they will,” he answered coolly, and I knew I should have been afraid, but I didn’t really feel like being scared of my bosses, and he could go swim up shit creek. I was the one who had to deal with the actual monsters. “Kaliya, I think we’re all agreed that with the lack of Lord Cassius at the moment, or any backup, we won’t have any problem with you bending the rules until this situation is resolved.”
“Agreed,” a couple said at the same time. I knew the witches—weird ones.
One continued on her own. “With the fact a majority of the escapees are dangerous criminals and subject to the death penalty due to their escape, your official duty will be to track them down and kill or capture them if needed. Whatever you discover in the process, you can report to us, and we’ll have someone on hand to formally build the case. That way, no one gives us any trouble about having an Executioner doing this and keeps other Tribunal employees out of harm’s way.”
“So, dig into whatever I need to and send it your way. Can do. Pretty good at it. Going to let the prison know I’m going to be rummaging through their shit?”
“They’ll know by the time you get there, but don’t leave for the prison before dawn while we continue to monitor the situation there,” the male witch said with a bite. “Also, if you find Kartane, just kill him. We don’t tolerate traitors.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Hanging up now.” I did just that, leaving them to their meeting. I had what I needed.
Free rein.
It was time to really get to work.
14
Chapter Fourteen
“What’s the news?” Raphael asked as I walked back out to the dining and kitchen area.
“I can pretty much do whatever I want. We’re going to the prison at dawn. The Tribunal is going to use the locals to help contain the incident. The werewolf pack is going to try to capture Wesley. They’ll probably report something about Nakul, something I need to be prepared for. They’re reaching out to a local witch and her coven to try to pinpoint Levi’s location, and the vampires are going to run patrols, keeping other supernatural civilians off the streets and possibly reporting if they see any criminals who need to be cleaned up.”
“Sounds like battle plans,” he commented, his face serious in the low light of my new kitchen.
“It’s the end of the world,” I reminded him with a shrug. “They need all hands on deck, mobilizing behind closed doors as we continue to see how perilous this situation is. In the last eight hours, we went from having the most secure location on the planet to a wave of criminals flooding the city. This could get a lot worse before it gets better. Actually, not could. It will get worse before it gets better.” Saying that made me realize I didn’t want him watching my back. I wanted him safe. I wanted him to stay right where he was, in my kitchen, looking too good for the circumstances. I didn’t want another death on my conscience and definitely not his. “Would you be pissed if I asked you to stay here and stay secure?”
“Yes,” he growled, his eyes turning black in a single heartbeat and his secondary scent filling the room. “Don’t do it. Don’t sneak off without me watching your back, Kaliya.”
“Fine.” I raised my hands, giving up on it immediately. The answer didn’t surprise me. Raphael was that guy who would do whatever was necessary for those he was loyal to. How I ended up being the person who got that sort of loyalty was beyond me, but I had it. That much was becoming very clear this dark, stormy evening. “It was a simple question.”
“No, it wasn’t. You would definitely leave me here if you thought I would get in your way and get myself or you killed,” he retorted.
“I don’t want you to die,” I answered softly, realizing honesty was the best policy right now. I had my secrets, but that was one I needed him to know. He didn’t need to know why. “That’s all. I love that you’re helping me, and it’s really nice of you, and thanks, but I don’t want you to die. I won’t make you stay here, though, if you don’t want to. Just wanted to ask.”
That stunned him enough to give me time to retreat, a raw vulnerability making my heart hurt a little. I didn’t even like this guy, but I didn’t want him to die.
I like him more than I want to admit. I hate his rigid sense of morality, but it’s respectable, and…
I wish I was the type of person he is.
Going back to my bedroom, I sat on the bed, sighing heavily. There wasn’t much to do until dawn, or the Tribunal got back to me. I had no idea what to do with the time, and I didn’t have anything to work with in this house. I listened to Raphael wander around, not really thinking about it, but kept a general awareness of him.
It felt like an eternity later, but he walked into the room and sat on the edge of my bed as if he belonged there. I tried not to let it bother me or give me any thoughts I didn’t need. His black clothing looked appealing, a stark contrast to the color explosion of my private space.
“What’s up?” I asked, looking at his back.
“Didn’t want to leave you in here alone.” He seemed to be staring at the door, a view he blocked. “I like talking to you, but it’s beginning to feel like we always argue.”
“We do always argue,” I confirmed, looking back at the ceiling. “We’re two different people from two different worlds with very little understanding of each other.”
I’m trying to get better, but damn it, I hate that you look at me sometimes like I’m a monster.
He chuckled darkly, but I didn’t know what was funny.
“Kaliya, I’ve always understood. I know I make you repeat it and explain, but this entire thing has made me realize I do understand. I just didn’t want to. I was raised to believe differently and…”
“So, you’ve been playing dumb?” I raised an eyebrow. “Thanks. Every time you do, it makes me feel like I’m awful and deserve to go rot in some hell realm.”
“I know,” he mumbled. “I’m going to stop. Well, try to. Some habits are hard to break. I don’t think you’re a bad person, I just think you made tough decisions.”
“You used to,” I accused.
“Yeah…” he agreed, nodding. He was turned away from me again. “Then I heard you talk about stuff in the prison, the sympathy on your face when you thought about what those monsters did to their victims and how you wanted them all to burn for it. And Wesley? If it weren’t for you, I would have written him off as one of Nakul’s or that redcap’s type. A killing machine, a monster. Something or someone who needed to be locked away because he’s evil. It’s not easy for me to admit that, by the way.”
“I wasn’t going to assume it was. You were trying to throw him off the balcony, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Raphael admitted softly. “I never thought I would write people off. But you knew it was Wesley, and you were upset for him and how he was going to be hurt. I always knew I misjudged you, but I never realized just how much. Does that make me a bad person?”
“I’m not the person to ask. Look at me. The judgments you’ve made aren’t that far off.” I snorted as I sat up and moved to sit next to him. “I kill people for the ‘greater good.’ I make mistakes sometimes and get other people hurt, or worse, killed. I know my reputation, and I’ve earned it, but I have a job to do and a world to survive in. I’ll take the reputation if it means breathing another day. I’ll pour one out for those I’ve lost, then I have to keep moving.”
“And you’ve lived this way for over a century. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
“A century isn’t very long when you know you
have immortality in front of you. Well, it is for me, because I’m barely older than a century, but I know people who are thousands of years old. They look at me and see a young woman who barely has her footing.” I elbowed him. “I’m closer to your age than Cassius or Sorcha. Those two being fae? Who knows how old they actually are? Who knows how many years they’ve seen pass in the fae lands for it to only be a month or year here? Or maybe they’re there for a day and miss a decade here.”
“Is it ever consistent?” he asked.
“You’d have to ask Cassius. He once told me it depended on the region of that world. Like his homelands are very consistent with this world, but others bend time more extremely and fluctuate in a pattern. It all depends.”
“Ah.” Raphael nodded slowly. “Thanks for listening to me.”
I shrugged, not wanting the conversation to end but unsure how to keep it going. I looked down at my rug and wondered how Raphael would feel if I showed him more, gave him another piece of me.
“I’ve never given you a dossier on nagas, have I?” I asked softly.
“No. I figured you would tell me about your kind or make me figure it out on my own.”
I smirked. “Yeah…I just didn’t think about it. Did you do any research?”
“I did. I read a Wiki article and dug into some of the legends and all of that. Had some interesting questions, but I was never really sure how to ask.”
“Let me guess. You read the legend of Kaliya.” I tried not to sigh. It was unavoidable once people did even a tiny amount of research to realize I was the namesake of a great legend. “Yes, I’m named after him.”
“I figured that much,” Raphael said smartly, a smirk on his face, mirroring my own. “I’m betting you know the truth of the story, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. I knew the story well, better than most, probably better than anyone. I was his namesake, after all. “I’ll give you the cliff notes because most accounts get it…mostly right.
“Kaliya was chased away from his home by Garuda, the eagle or the bird man or bird god, however you want to phrase it. He had multiple forms. He was a god or supernatural in his own right, and he hated our kind. So, Kaliya ran from his home to a place where Garuda couldn’t get to him, a region called Vrindavan, and got into a spot of accidental trouble. Kaliya was immensely powerful, but with very little control. He poisoned the Yamunā river with his venom because he was so powerful. When others drew close, he was scared and paranoid, so he hurt them or killed them, thinking he was protecting himself and his family. The god Krishna stumbled on him and saw the plight the locals were having and killed Kaliya.”
“I thought he just sent Kaliya to the um…Shit, there was a place…”
“Pātāla,” I answered, knowing he probably thought Pātāla was a real place. Some underground system of caverns or something. Some made that mistake, not understanding the connotation of what Kaliya’s story was about.
“Yeah, it’s like subterranean—”
“It’s the underworld,” I corrected softly. “Krishna sent Kaliya to hell. He killed him. Kaliya’s mate and his female family members begged for mercy for their powerful male, and Krishna killed him. And it wasn’t Krishna’s fault…” I sighed, looking away. “Kaliya was supposed to live away from humanity because he couldn’t learn to control his power. He was too dangerous and broke the rules. He was paranoid and scared when someone came to tell him to leave and go back to his home. But he was only protecting himself and his family from Garuda. He was stuck between Krishna and Garuda. Krishna killed him and sent him to the underworld. There are actually two naga realms in the underworld, but…” I shrugged. It didn’t really matter. I didn’t personally understand the distinction between them and how some nagas ended up in one and others in the other. One had Kaliya, and the other had Vasuki, who was a whole different conversation.
“Dig a little deeper next time,” I told him, smiling tightly. “This is all on the internet.” I made sure ages ago. Humans just needed to learn how to find it and understand it.
“Oh…Wow. I feel for him.” Raphael’s eyebrows went up, and I wondered if he saw the parallels. Trying to do anything he could to save his family, my ancestor Kaliya crossed paths with someone more dangerous than his original foe. In the end, he died anyway. His fate was inescapable, no matter how good or bad he was. It was just his fate. “It was all Garuda’s fault.”
“That’s the general consensus among my people,” I agreed, nodding. “So, yeah, a lot of truth in that legend, but it’s often played off with Kaliya being the bad guy. They hear about what he did in Vrindavan and forget he would have never been there if it weren’t for Garuda, who…well, is thankfully dead now. The leaders of the naga have displayed Garuda’s bones in their homes for centuries.” I gave my mother’s portion of the collection to Adhar ages ago, but I grew up able to see them every day in a display case in one of our homes’ sitting rooms.
“Morbid, but can’t…form an opinion on it. Not my place, is it?”
“One day, you’ll embrace the monster in you, and you’ll find someone whose bones you want to keep,” I said, smiling a little as his face flushed.
“I don’t think I’ll ever go that far, but sure, you can believe that.”
“You should learn the pleasurable taste of revenge.” With my smile growing, I kicked the rug in my room enough to reveal the corner of a trap door. “And if you want to know all about my people, here’s where I keep everything about them.”
He might be my mate one day. He deserves to know.
I pulled open the trapdoor and grabbed the small chest, pulling it out of the little airtight space.
“I stole all of this. Inside, there’s some really…” I put the chest on the bed and opened it. “Gross things.”
“Holy…” He looked inside, and I knew he saw the jar first. “Why do you have…”
“A jar with eyes? Because our people are killed for our parts by some. I’ve told you about that, and you heard how those inmates taunted me about it. I find them and bring them home. One day, I hope to find everything and take it all back to India, or send it to someone I know can handle it. Give them all a proper burial in our homeland. Maybe one day, they’ll be reborn, and this will just be a bad memory for our kind.”
“Reborn?”
“That’s the funny thing about nagas. There’s only a thousand of us, and parting us out like this? Well, the belief is the souls of these nagas can’t be reborn until they’re whole again. That’s why our numbers keep dropping, and we’re not having enough children.”
“Wait, hold on. I’m still trying to get on the same page with the reborn comment. You mean reincarnation?”
“Yup.” I looked at him, totally unsurprised by his reaction. “Originally, a thousand nagas were born. They grew up and mated with human women, but no children were born. Then the first naga was felled in battle. Suddenly, one of those women got pregnant, and she gave birth to the first female naga. A thousand souls, constantly being reincarnated, over and over with no memories of their pasts. For a long time, we could tell who was reborn of who. It was more important than our genealogy. There was a ceremony, and we learned the identity of our previous life and could learn from that life’s experiences with others. My mother told me it was frowned on to judge a child for their previous life or hold grudges. A new life meant new chances.” I knew I was rambling. My mother knew who she had been reborn from. I didn’t. Between her childhood and mine, our people had been decimated. No one would ever know again, not with so many dead.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly. “You can put that away. You don’t need to show me—”
“Yes, I do,” I said, trying to sound strong. “A lot of people don’t get it. They don’t understand that…I do everything for them,” I whispered at the end, running my hand over a naga skin purse. It was the newest piece of the collection. “All of it, I do for them. Raphael…I saved you four months ago, thinking you might know something about Mygi
, and Mygi might connect to everything I’ve been…” I shook my head sadly. “It wasn’t real. It was a connection I made in my head based on a stupid little girl who owned a bag once.” I picked up the bag and sighed. “This one. Her brother works for Mygi. I thought there might have been something there.”
“Kaliya, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I hissed. “It’s not okay. It’s not okay that I dragged you into my life with my enemies and all of this. It’s not okay that I got Carter killed.”
“He and I made the decision to let him try feeding on me to fight back. Sinclair killed him for it and damn near killed the rest of us. We knew it was a long shot. We knew we could die that night. That wasn’t all your fault.”
“Yes, it was.” Carter should never have been in Sinclair’s line of sight. It was my fault. I was the one who used him for information. I was the one who lost the phone, detailing that simple conversation and ploy. I was the one who failed.
I don’t know what he saw on my face, but I knew something in me had begun to crumble and fall. A shield I had been holding so tightly, only Cassius and Hisao had ever seen past it in the last century, no one else.
I had the shield because it helped me be alone and kept me and others safe. I needed Raphael to know that, to know the dark parts about being a naga—about being me.
All because of this. This insane quest I was on to find who or what was behind the slaughter of my people. I was the only person who believed there was some higher plan. Adhar and the rest? They just thought it was hunters who were looking for big prizes—just the way of things. We were a small species and could be easy prey if we weren’t careful.
I was the only naga convinced something else was going on, and my quest for answers only got people hurt and killed.
I needed Raphael to know it could be him one day.