by Alex Archer
“That was impressive.”
The voice shattered the silence.
She looked up.
Dunraj stood there before her.
“What do you want?”
“I underestimated your abilities.”
She said nothing and let Dunraj continue.
“That poison we use is a very old and very effective recipe. I’ve never seen anyone withstand its effect the way you just did.”
“I don’t like drugs,” she said.
“That was fairly obvious. But I must admit I’m at a loss how you were able to flush your system the way you did. Do you have some sort of experience with narcotics?”
Annja smirked. “You’re not the first person who has tried to drug me, Dunraj.”
He frowned. “Is that so? Fascinating. You are truly something to marvel at, Annja Creed. I almost hate to kill you.”
“So don’t.”
Dunraj eyed her. “And what would you have me do instead—kill your comrade here? Would you barter his life for yours?”
“You know better than to ask me that question.”
“Do I? It might amaze you to know that most people I’ve had here would sell their most treasured love to me if it meant an escape for them. The tragedy of the human race, I suppose. We can never really trust the love of others. Betrayal is so commonplace these days.”
“Something you’d know a lot about, I suppose,” she said.
“Naturally.”
“You really think your goddess wants blood sacrifice?”
Dunraj smiled. “Of course she does. And I’ll prove it to you.”
Annja hesitated before slowly, painfully struggling to her feet. “How so?”
“By showing you firsthand what Kali wants.” He helped Annja steady herself through the pain of her joints.
He led Annja out of the cave, leaving Frank behind.
Chapter 17
Dunraj dragged Annja back down the network of caves. She stumbled along, doing her best to keep pace, but Dunraj knew where he was going. And Annja did not. Especially since it appeared they were heading to a different section of the fortress than they’d been in before with the statue of Kali.
Besides, she’d just put her body through unbearable pain. It would take her at least a few minutes to find any strength.
“Have you figured out your way around yet?” Dunraj asked.
“It’s a maze and it’s dark. I have no idea where I am in this labyrinth.”
“And that’s exactly the way it should be.” Dunraj pulled her into another corridor, one that twisted and bent into an odd shape that finally opened up into another room.
Oh, my God, thought Annja. Not this.
Five of Dunraj’s men were circled around a giant stone altar in the middle of the room. On all of the walls, images of Kali adorned the rock, emblazoned in bright colors that flickered as the torchlight from several wall sconces fell across it.
A man lay naked on the altar, stretched out with his limbs splayed apart. Judging from the fear on his face, he knew what was coming. He screamed when he saw Dunraj.
“Quiet him, please.”
One of Dunraj’s men stuffed a gag in the man’s mouth. It muffled his screams, but the moaning continued.
Annja looked at Dunraj.
“Is this absolutely necessary?”
Dunraj stared into her eyes. “I don’t think you are taking us as seriously as you need to. Do you understand what is coming for you tomorrow? That you will be taken for Kali, as well?”
“You mentioned it before, I think.”
“And yet you are remarkably well composed. Certainly not the actions of someone who is afraid.”
“I don’t let fear paralyze me into inaction. What good would that do? I have never in my life sat back and simply let things happen. I don’t intend to start now.”
“You mean to escape, then?”
Annja smiled. “I just finished telling you I have no idea where I am in this godforsaken place. How could I possibly be contemplating escape?”
“If you’re not thinking about escape, then how else will you save your life and the life of your cameraman?”
Annja turned the tables and stared back into Dunraj’s eyes. “Why would I tell you what my plans are? You’d just go ahead and spoil them. And then we’d have no fun whatsoever.”
“Fun?” Dunraj shook his head. “You think this is fun? This is a solemn occasion to mark our devotion to our goddess, Kali. This isn’t some summer holiday, Annja.”
“I find it difficult to imagine that any deity would demand their followers spill blood in their name. More likely, this is just a bastardized attempt to justify murder for your financial gain. To get rid of competitive developments. Murder is something I don’t condone or accept.”
Dunraj eyed her for a moment longer before a thin smile spread across his face. “You’ve killed before. Haven’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has a great deal to do with it, actually,” he said. “And it explains the lack of fear in your eyes when you look at me. You don’t see me as the one to be afraid of so much as the one who currently has the power in this relationship.”
Annja said nothing. Better to let Dunraj continue on his megalomania streak than interrupt it, she figured.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re not afraid because you think there’s going to be an opportunity for you to change the power structure. You’re biding your time until that opportunity presents itself.”
Annja smiled. “I won’t incriminate myself in anything. If you think you’ve got a theory, then I guess we’ll just have to wait until it happens for it to either be proven or refuted, huh?”
Dunraj frowned. “Of course, I find myself wondering how you intend to mount this power shift when your hands are conveniently tied behind your back. You certainly present no threat to anyone while you are in that state.”
“You know what they say about states.”
“No, what?”
“They’re meant to be changed.”
Dunraj allowed himself another grin. “You do so impress me with your spirit. It’s a terrible shame you must be sacrificed to Kali, although I am certain she will enjoy your soul.” Dunraj came closer and drew his hand over Annja’s breast. “I admit I find myself wondering if perhaps there isn’t a little time before I send you to the other world to serve Kali for eternity.”
Annja looked down at Dunraj’s hand and then back into his eyes. She licked her lips. “Well, why don’t we find out?”
Dunraj smiled wider. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? At least then your miserable life would be spared. At least until you bored me.”
Annja leaned closer to Dunraj’s ear. “I could make your wildest dreams come true.”
“I believe you could.”
Annja shrugged. “But you’d have to untie me. Otherwise, I’d just be lying there and we wouldn’t have any fun at all.”
Dunraj leaned back away from her. “I admire your pathetic attempt to prolong your life, but it won’t work.” He sighed. “It’s a shame we do not have more time together. I genuinely believe we could be good for each other. I’m not the monster you think I am.”
Annja shook her head. “Tell me something. Why does every bad person I’ve ever known feel they have to go out of their way to prove that? It gets really tiresome.”
Dunraj said nothing for a moment. And then he shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps you are right, Annja.”
She didn’t respond.
He drew a wicked-looking knife out from his belt. Its blade gleamed in the torchlight. “We’ve conversed enough, I think.”
Annja nodded at the blade. “And what are you planning to do with that? Kill me now?”
Dunraj laughed. “Good heavens, no. You are scheduled for tomorrow for a reason. Tomorrow is one of the most important dates in our calendar.”
He ran a finger along the edge of the blade, and Annja saw a lin
e of blood bead up on his skin. “This is for the man behind me. In a moment, I will cut his heart out.”
“Lovely. Why don’t you just kill him and be done with it? There’s no need to prolong his suffering.”
“But his suffering is what gives us power. I wouldn’t expect you to understand this process. But tomorrow, when you die, you will.”
When Dunraj turned back to the man, Annja tried to kick at him. But she was held back by two more men who had come up unseen behind her. They kept her pinned in place.
If only I could get my sword, Annja thought. I could make mincemeat of these assholes.
Dunraj approached the young man on the slab of rock and held the blade in front of his eyes. The poor guy started convulsing on the rock altar, desperate to escape what was coming.
Annja shook her head. “Don’t do this, Dunraj.”
He glanced back at her. “It’s too late for him now. He will be dead very soon.”
And then with a small invocation, Dunraj plunged the knife into the man’s chest. Annja saw the man’s face explode in pain and then go slack.
Dunraj’s back mercifully blocked the view of the man’s chest, but Annja could tell by the way Dunraj bent and moved his arms that he was cutting into the chest cavity.
She fought back a rush of bile.
Dunraj worked meticulously, and after several moments, he held the heart aloft as blood flowed down his arms.
Then he turned to Annja.
“You see? You see the power this organ holds? It pulses with life. With energy. And we partake of that energy to continue our service to great goddess Kali.”
Dunraj smiled.
Then he plunged his teeth directly into the heart, chewing and swallowing as the bloody mess covered his face. He held the heart out to his followers. One by one the men bit from the raw heart muscle, chewing and swallowing a piece of what had once been a part of a living human.
He held the last of it out to Annja.
She vomited.
Chapter 18
Annja shook her head. “He’s a monster.”
She sat alone in the cell. Frank was still unresponsive to her attempts to rouse him from the narcotic-induced slumber. Annja looked at his peaceful expression and she felt jealous. Frank hadn’t been exposed to the horror that Annja had seen.
She owed it to him to make sure he didn’t have to die inside this horrible mountain fortress. And certainly not by some psychopath named Dunraj. If they escaped and Frank got hit by a car crossing the street, then that was fate. But dying by Dunraj’s hand was unacceptable.
Annja shifted. Her hands still ached. The pain had returned after she managed to fight off the effects of the Thuggee drug. And now she was growing increasingly concerned that unless she found a way to restore her blood flow, Frank’s fears would be justified and she’d be in danger of losing her hands when they got out of this.
If they got out of it.
Something about the tying method of the Thuggee made this more of a challenge than the folded steel cuffs she’d gotten out of before.
Annja ducked her head out of the cavern. As far as she could tell, there was no one around. Time to see if there was a sharp piece of rock out here she could use to saw her way through the bindings.
Annja worked her way down the corridor about ten feet. It was as smooth as the walls in the cave. She switched sides and used her back to feel this wall.
Nothing.
Annja checked back in on Frank. She was going to have to make a tough decision. She needed to get these bindings off and be able to get her sword out. But there was nothing to use around here.
She had to find a way to get through them. And that would mean leaving Frank behind while she went to search.
As far as Annja knew, there’d been only one unexpected visit to their cavern and that was by Dunraj himself right before his impromptu feast. Otherwise, Annja didn’t think there had been guards posted.
Of course, it was possible that Dunraj had told his men to keep an eye on her. She was, after all, not under the effects of the drugs.
But she had to take a chance if there was any hope of getting out of this place alive.
And it had to be now.
She edged farther down the corridor, feeling her way through the maze. She reached the fork in the tunnel and tried to remember which way Dunraj had dragged her. The left seemed right, but abruptly she decided to go to the right instead.
A good thing she did.
Moments after she ducked into a recessed part of the wall, Annja felt the air shift and then saw movement heading in her direction. She pulled her head in and stilled her breathing.
Two of Dunraj’s men went past her. Annja waited thirty seconds and then moved again.
If she’d taken the left branch of the tunnel, she would have walked right into them. She followed behind them, still marveling at how easily they moved through these unlit tunnels.
Annja was adapting to the lack of light, but she still had to rely on her peripheral vision to see where she was going. And it wasn’t always accurate. Twice she bumped her head and winced as the pain shot through her skull.
The last thing she needed was a concussion.
A second one.
She finally came to a point where she felt rock bite into her skin. Annja wanted to shout for joy, but kept the reaction in check. She started rubbing her bindings against the sharp outcropping.
This piece was much larger than what she and Frank had found back in their cell. And so Annja put her all into cutting through the bindings. Back and forth she sawed, until once again, her shirt was soaked from the exertion.
I need to keep going, she thought. This is the only chance I have of getting us out of here.
She felt one of the bindings give way, and it fell to the ground. Annja’s heart leaped at the thought of getting closer to being freed.
But then she heard a pebble skitter nearby, and she shrank back down into the recessed portion of the tunnel.
The same two men who had gone past her before came walking back through. Annja held her breath and waited. Once they’d gone, she returned to her original position and renewed her attempts to saw through.
I need to get this done now, Annja thought. I can’t risk staying here much longer or coming back later. If they find out I’ve left the cave, this whole place will be alive with these guys.
And if her hands weren’t free, she’d die all too quick.
Annja kept sawing. She felt another binding go slack, and she had more flexion in her wrists now.
Keep going, Annja, she thought.
The rock was doing its job well, and she sawed furiously now, almost afraid once or twice that the bindings might start to smoke and catch fire.
Annja frowned and threw her entire body weight against the rock, willing the last remaining strands to split apart.
And then she was free.
But there was little time to enjoy her freedom because as soon as she brought her hands around to the front of her body, a massive avalanche of pain came shattering down on her.
Her shoulders throbbed from being in that position for so long. Her wrists felt as if they were swelling up to three times their size as blood poured down into her hands and fingers.
Every nerve ending felt as if it was being fired in a forge. Annja bit down on her lip.
She staggered back down the tunnel. She had to get back to the cavern where Frank was.
Annja stumbled and fell against the cavern floor.
And held her breath.
Off in the distance, she heard something.
Someone.
One of Dunraj’s men had heard her fall. Annja scrambled to her feet and thought about bringing the sword out.
But her hands were useless. The pain shooting up and down her arms was virtually unbearable.
I need to hide.
Annja crept farther down the tunnel and found another narrow recessed point that she curled her body into.
Dun
raj’s man came along seconds later. His footsteps were soft.
Stealthy.
Annja steeled herself. She wasn’t in any position to fight this guy. He’d kill her far too quickly, and then her escape would have been for nothing.
Dunraj’s man was anything but hurried. With each step he took, he searched the area.
Did he know there was an intruder? Or did he simply suspect something was amiss?
He continued to walk toward her, and every footstep brought him closer to Annja’s hiding place.
This isn’t going to go well, she thought.
He was all of ten feet away when Annja felt the air around them shift again and another man came down from the other side of Annja.
Now she was surrounded.
The second man said something to Annja’s original hunter, and the two of them sprinted down the corridor.
Where were they going?
No time to wait and see, Annja thought. She needed to get back to Frank.
She came out of her recess and zipped down the corridor as fast as she could, amazed at how much more balance she had now that she could use her arms again.
If only she could use her hands, she thought.
Back the way she’d come, Annja ran as softly as she dared without compromising speed. She got turned around twice, shouted at herself in her mind and then righted the direction after trusting her gut instincts.
Then she fell into the cave and there was Frank, still sleeping soundly on the cavern floor.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
She sat there with her back against the wall and massaged her hands.
The pain was still intense.
At least the toughest part is done, she thought. Now the one thing that remains to be fixed is to get my hands back into working condition so I can use the sword.
The sword.
Just the thought of being able to hold it properly and feel the power bleeding into her body energized her. It was time to get the hell out of this place and call Pradesh and his buddies in to mop up the mess.
Annja glanced at Frank. He’d be shocked to see her free. And Annja needed to get his hands untied, as well. But first things first, she had to make sure she was good to go before she tried anything with Frank.
