She looked at him with her large black eyes, and then slowly, started moving. She did not walk, she glided towards Gray, the ends of her dress mixing with the mist.
Gray felt pure terror seize him. ‘Stay away from me!’ he screamed, holding the shotgun up.
She did not falter, not for a second, as she glided. Closer, closer.
‘I mean it, stay away!’ Gray choked out.
The edges of her lips steadily bended themselves into a smile. Gray closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the triggers. He almost fired when she spoke.
Her voice was dry, like straw burning. There was no mood, no tone in the words she spoke, yet there was music, of a certain kind, which gave her sentence shape.
‘Are you going to fire that Lupara, Gray?’ Anulekha asked.
Gray peeped. She was standing right in front of him, and he could see her better. Her skin was cracking, like ceramic. Her hair was dry. There was a long scar, dry and black, across her neck. He looked at her eyes, the giant, dark eyes, and saw himself reflected in them. She wasn’t blinking.
‘I’d prefer not to,’ Gray squeaked.
‘Good,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ve had enough of guns for a lifetime.’
Gray slowly lowered the gun. Anulekha was looking straight at him. He felt uncomfortable, but not threatened. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I wanted a lot of things,’ she said. ‘I want nothing now.’
‘Then . . . then why am I here? Why am I meeting you?’
‘I’d like to know that myself,’ Anulekha said. ‘Perhaps we should exchange stories.’
Gray nodded. ‘I can tell you my story.’
‘No,’ Anulekha said.
‘No?’
‘You will tell me my story,’ Anulekha said, beginning to smile. He could see her teeth. Yellow. ‘And after that, I will tell you yours. Sounds fair?’
‘But . . . but how can I know your story?’
‘How can you not? You are here, as am I.’
‘I can only tell you what I’ve heard.’
Anulekha’s grin got wider. ‘What you’ve heard? The rumours, you mean. You’ll have to do better than that, young Gray.’
‘What if I refuse?’ Gray asked warily.
Anulekha’s grin was gone. She gazed at Gray, still not blinking.
‘Then the Pashan shall drink again. It has been ages, and they tell me they are thirsty.’
Gray slowly raised the shotgun. ‘I’ve shot Demons with this thing,’ he said. ‘Get away from me, Anulekha.’
‘I am not a Demon,’ she said softly, approaching Gray, closing the small distance between them. With the softest of sounds, her fingernails started growing.
‘Fine!’ Gray exclaimed suddenly, dropping the gun, which entered the mist soundlessly. ‘Fine! I’ll do it.’
Anulekha paused. ‘You will?’
‘Yes,’ Gray said.
‘But how will you tell me my story if all you’ve heard are rumours and hearsay?’
‘There is a grain of truth in every legend,’ Gray said, and he remembered Adri. In that moment, Gray did not think of his sister, his flesh and blood, or Fayne, the assassin who had protected him through thick and thin. No, Gray thought of the young Tantric, and he felt calm ebb through his veins. Adri’s hand seemed to be on his shoulder, calming him, reassuring him. Somehow, that crazy Tantric with no plan, the suicidal bastard was all Gray needed to remember. Adri needed to come back. You can do this. ‘I’ll try and separate the facts from fiction.’
‘Very well,’ Anulekha whispered. ‘Tell me of how I died.’
Gray thought for a second. ‘The stories say Drake Senior killed you. They say he clubbed you to death with his walking stick,’ Gray began as the entity before him watched and listened. ‘But I think not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you had just shot two men, two men who had claimed you as part of their lives. Perhaps, I believe, without your consent. You were planning on leaving, on escape—you would have been jittery, nervous, alert. An old man on a wheelchair could not have crept up behind you, much less beaten you to death while seated. No, it had to be someone you knew. Someone who you trusted.’
‘Who, then?’ Anulekha asked.
‘I think . . . I think it was your son. Francois Drake.’
‘Francois?’ Anulekha repeated. ‘A boy of twelve?’
‘A boy who hired Soul Hunters later. You could not have suspected him then. You might have been prepared for the old man, but not your own flesh and blood.’
‘But why would my Francois kill his mother?’
Gray hesitated. ‘He saw you. He saw you shoot his father. He saw you murder Gibraltar.’
‘And he killed me in turn? Would you kill your mother if you saw her kill your father, Gray?’
‘My father tried to murder my mother once, tried to choke her to death. Yes, I had grabbed a knife,’ Gray said.
Anulekha stared into Gray’s eyes. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘You speak the truth.’
‘Yes I do. And I still think it was your son who killed you.’
Anulekha looked up at the moonlit sky. ‘And what was in my bags, Gray? Clothes? Or simply gold?’
‘This question isn’t about your bags,’ Gray said, wondering if his guess had been correct. ‘It is about you, and why you were leaving.’
‘Yes,’ Anulekha said lazily. ‘So was I a money-lusting fille de joie, or was I a bored housewife? Or had I perhaps always been loyal, and the affair was a misunderstanding? Tell me.’
‘A difficult question,’ Gray mumbled.
‘You play for time.’
‘You played for time,’ Gray said. ‘That is all you were doing. You did have an affair with Dahouffe, but it was all part of a plan. An escape.’
‘And why would I want to leave the ruler of Frozen Bombay?’ Anulekha asked.
‘Because you never wanted power. I think you were with Drake because you wanted his protection, if only for a time. Then you decided to move on.’
‘So, you think I move on, from man to man?’
‘My grandmother told me how Drake found you—in the ocean, clinging on to the last piece of a destroyed ship. I think you have a history. I think you were being hunted.’
‘And who was hunting me?’
‘I don’t know, but his coming to Frozen Bombay was the reason you decided to leave, to run again. No sunken boat this time, but a bloodied mansion. You tried to take Francois with you as well. You tried to get him to come, but that is when he stabbed you to death and cut your head off. The old man simply cleaned up the mess. The real story could not be allowed to get out. Francois Drake, would be, after all, the next Sea Lord, the ruler of Frozen Bombay.’
Anulekha was smiling again. ‘But you have to tell me who was hunting me.’
Gray paused. ‘The love of your life,’ he said, softly. ‘The man who loved you, the man who you truly loved.’
‘How do you know?’
‘And when you left him, you left with something, something extremely precious to this man. Not a child, no, but something. An object. Something you wore around your neck once, before it was taken from you, with your death.’
Anulekha’s hands went to her neck almost unconsciously, to the thin line there, below the scar, the thin line fairer than the rest.
Gray continued. ‘It used to hang from that chain around your neck, this object, but you stopped wearing it when you married Drake. It was this object you were concerned about when you tried to leave, not some bag. Dahouffe was simply a distraction for Drake.’
‘Do you think I seduced Dahouffe?’
‘I think he saw you and could not get over you. You decided to simply use the opportunity he presented.’
‘You cushion your words.’
‘I’m not afraid of you anymore, Anulekha. There is nothing I can do to hurt you, or save myself. I do not cushion anything, I’m telling you what I feel.’
‘Let us sit, Gray. We have been standi
ng for too long.’
As they sat, Gray realised his legs were tired. He was tired. It felt better now. The mist swirled around his legs and torso, climbing up, but it did not harm him.
‘The test is over, young one,’ Anulekha said. ‘I simply wish to talk now.’
Gray felt overbearing relief. He nodded.
‘You could see the mark of the chain, the skin fairer there, the round shadow on my chest, the missing object. That could have been an educated guess. You knew how I was found, so another educated guess could have told you more about me. But how did you know about who I was running from? Nobody could have told you that.’
‘Your claws did.’
Anulekha looked surprised. She lifted her hands, and the fingernails grew once more. ‘My claws?’
‘Yes,’ Gray said seriously. ‘I don’t know much about the supernatural, really. I’m not a Tantric, nor am I educated in any of the darker arts. But from what I could guess, if you were a spirit, or a ghost, even a murderous one, you wouldn’t have claws. You would use similar means to kill as you did in life. A pistol, maybe a knife. So, why the claws? And why do your hands transform into claws? Because you needed to hide your claws from everyone you met, and you hid them well. They would have betrayed you.’
Anulekha listened with wonder.
‘This thing you took and ran, the object on your locket, you need it to keep yourself in human form. At least periodically. I don’t know what it is, perhaps a ritualistic something, a totem maybe, or a consumable, a flask of something. Can’t be sure about that.’
‘How can you tell?’ Anulekha asked. ‘People have told me versions of the rumours, hundreds of versions. Some I let pass, some I kill. But none have gotten so close, young one, none.’
‘The legend of the two lovers,’ Gray said slowly. ‘The fairy tale. They have a misunderstanding, the two lovers, and one runs from the other. She steals the heart of the other one, the heart of her lover, because she needs it to shed her true skin and become someone else. The lover pursues her. He pursues her to the ends of the earth, but when he finds her, she is already dead, killed by a human. He returns to the sea, returns to his true form, and vows that his kind will never be seen by humans again.’
‘A tale your grandmother told you?’ Anulekha asked.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You are correct, Gray,’ Anulekha said, smiling. ‘Yes, I am not human. And I was running from my lover. I had always been, for lifetimes.’
‘Who was he?’ Gray asked softly.
‘She,’ Anulekha answered, equally soft. ‘She was my soul mate, another one just like me, perhaps too alike. I had to run. She had to chase. I would like to think that she found my body, like the legend says.’ She paused. ‘Francois killed me, and he did not have to use a knife. He has my blood, he is a monster.’
‘Dear God. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,’ Gray said. ‘What happened was unfair.’
‘You honour my story. You have told me what happened even when you were not there to see it. Let me tell you your story, Gray.’
‘Tell me,’ Gray said.
‘Your grandmother, she was more, much more than what you think she was. And for the journey ahead, you must remember what she told you, every single thing that seemed unimportant at the time, or merely a story. You must remember it all.’
‘Who was my grandmother? Was she . . . was she one of you?’ Gray asked, eyes wide.
‘No,’ Anulekha said, eyes equally wide. ‘But she knew that you and I would meet as we did, Gray. She knew you would have to tell me my story, and that is the only reason why she told you the story of the Dirty Knives, and the legend of the two lovers.’
‘She . . . she knew? Do you mean she could, I don’t know—see into the future or something?’
‘Not the future, no,’ Anulekha shook her head. ‘But simply the Web, the Web around you, the connections, the possibilities. I see it now, and it is from there that I tell you what I do.’
‘The Web,’ Gray repeated. ‘What is it?’
‘Something of great power. Something with immense possibilities, something which links you and who you have been, who you are meant to be. But that is not important here, not who she was. What holds importance is what she told you. Every single story.’ She paused. ‘That is my gift to you.’
Anulekha’s hand was approaching Gray’s face. It was not a claw—her fingernails had retracted—it was simply a pale, slim hand. She felt Gray’s cheek and smiled. ‘Godspeed. You may pass through.’
Her hand felt its way down Gray’s forehead, and gently closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was daylight. Blinking, Gray looked around. He was where he had been before. And the others were there, thank God. Zabrielle was sitting against a rock, Fayne stood looking at him, and Maya was standing next to him, eyes closed.
‘Are you all right, myrkho?’ Fayne asked.
‘You should be calling me detective, I’d have been good at it,’ Gray replied, looking at Maya. ‘What’s up with her?’
‘She’s not back yet,’ Zabrielle said.
Gray pulled at his own hair in exhaustion. ‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘That was incredible. That was something else. It was totally something else.’
‘Who did you meet?’
‘Anulekha . . . wait, you meet different people?’
Both Fayne and Zabrielle nodded. ‘Who?’ Gray asked.
‘I met Drake Senior,’ Zabrielle said. ‘Easy.’
‘Hmm,’ Fayne said. ‘Zel-ih-Sham, the Soul Hunter.’
‘How did it go?’ Gray asked.
‘I’m here.’
‘Wait, if you fail the test—’
‘You never come back,’ Zabrielle finished.
Gray looked at Maya, and was about to say something when her eyes fluttered open.
‘Bloody Hell,’ she swore, clutching her head, blinking, her eyes adjusting to the daylight.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Gray said. ‘Didn’t want to brand you Coma Girl.’
‘Haha,’ Maya said drily. She looked at the others. ‘Well, seems like all of us have the permission to pass through. Let’s move.’
Zabrielle got up and slung her bag across her shoulder. ‘By all means, Maya.’
‘I have questions,’ Gray said. ‘Things to ask you.’
Maya picked up her bag. ‘Things like what?’
‘Like about our grandmother.’
Maya paused and looked into her brother’s eyes. For a second, she softened. ‘Me too,’ she said.
They started to walk.
4
Victor Sen looked at the cube in his hand. It was metallic, a dark steel with small holes drilled on every side. The top though, had a groove, meant to fit something.
A very specific something.
It was called a Caller, the cube in his hand, designed by some forgotten Tantric ages past, an object no one really used or needed. Guy couldn’t sell it, Victor thought. That had been the problem. Tantric had probably died penniless. He smirked. There were people, and then there were smart people.
His thoughts drew themselves to Adri. Surprising. Most surprising. Victor was almost proud, but the deception had bought Adri some time at best, put him in a position with absolutely no sense of control. He was merely an ornament now, in someone else’s hands, to be hidden and protected. And the girl, Maya, he was sure she was the one on whom they’d find the soul gem. Some sort of attachment with his son. Stupid girl. He would have killed all of them in the church if he had not underestimated Adri, which, he realised with reluctance, he had.
Victor looked out of the carriage window. Passing streets, mostly. He knew each one of them. He looked at the colonial architecture of this part of the city and the substructures within. Abandoned buildings, white paint peeling off the walls, faded posters, the occasional torn curtain whipping about in the wind, the random rag-picker ducking out of sight as he passed. He felt old, he felt like he had spent more than one lifetime in this city, in Old Kolkata. Someth
ing about the city, it could get to you. New was needed here, to change the way the city would look and feel, smell and hear.
Like the Apocalypse, for example.
Victor smiled and felt better. He’d see this to the end, he’d create the example needed here. He withdrew something from within his jacket. A soul gem. Next, he took the Caller and affixed the gem on top, dropping it into the empty seat opposite. Then he leaned back, comfortable.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, clearly.
The speakers built into the Caller buzzed with static. A pause. Then a voice replied.
‘Is this Victor Sen?’ The voice was lean, slightly nasal. It sounded quick and calculative.
‘I asked first,’ Victor said lazily. ‘Who are you, and what were you doing in Adri Sen’s body?’
‘I’m called Mazumder. Erstwhile vampire hunter, now a wraith. The Tantric found me and we made a deal.’
‘He harboured you? In his body?’
‘Where else? You think I’m in this gem by accident? He used another ebb blade to suck his own soul out. I had control of the body, for one glorious moment. Now it’s destroyed, I suppose.’
‘And why,’ Victor asked, ‘did my son harbour you?’
‘You are Victor, then. Thought so. Nice suit you were wearing in the church, slick. Listen, I have a deal for you, and if you’re smart you’ll take it.’
‘Perhaps we don’t understand each other, wraith. Do you know what a Lekaan Rufipes is?’
‘Is it a hair gel? Because you would know.’
‘No, it is not a hair gel,’ Victor said softly, adjusting his hair. ‘The Lekaan Rufipes is a species of spiders belonging to the Mygalomorphae family. This spider also goes by a more common name—the Soul Settler. You see, wraith, soul gems are rare, and people who use soul gems, mostly in battle or research, acquire them from certain mines where soul gems are found and sold. Vhendhya, of course, is the mine closest to Old Kolkata.’
‘And your point is?’
‘The point is that these mines are often infested with Soul Settlers. Now, what these spiders do is that they settle on a soul gem by swallowing it, and once inside, their body fluids, highly magical, derive nourishment from the gem. They are somehow attracted to soul gems, these large spiders, and prefer gems over anything else which a spider might hunt. Over time, they tend to completely digest the gem, after which they move on to another.’ Victor paused, gazing outside. It was getting dark.
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