And that made me scared.
Since leaving Delhi, Aaron had avoided all towns. “We should assume we are being followed,” he explained. “Let’s not make it any easier for them than it already is.” Caleb had been allowed to drive only once, just long enough for Aaron to take a two hour nap in the front passenger seat.
Caleb’s hand slid across the vinyl seat between us and grasped mine. When I met his eyes, I could see the exhaustion dragging at his features, it made him look older. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I just took another pill, but it’s not really kicking in yet.”
He glanced down at my legs, still bandaged from the night, only now the pristine white gauze had splotches of brown and yellow where the wounds underneath had oozed. “We need to get those changed,” he said.
I sighed, wishing we wouldn’t speak of my legs. “We will. When we get there,” I whispered. My legs would be changed, altered—scarred. I had, over the last several hours, tried to convince myself it was a small sacrifice, I had barely escaped a burning building with my life. A fire deliberately set, not intending to leave me with a few scars, but to take my life.
I was lucky. Very lucky.
The edge of the pain began to dull. I leaned over the best I could without causing my legs to move too much, and rested my head in Caleb’s lap. When his hand cupped my forehead and then pushed gently over my head and through my hair, I let my eyes close and tried to forget about my legs and just enjoy the feeling of his warmth, his hand, the protection of his presence here next to me. In less than half an hour, we would be meeting up with another key keeper, and hopefully, getting the next piece in the puzzle.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ellora
The Ellora Caves were unlike anything I had ever seen. Cut directly into the rocks, thirty-four caves and temples paying homage to three different religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and one I had never heard of before, Jain. They looked more like livable art palaces than the crude stone caves I had been expecting. They were stunning in their intricacy, awesome in their size, and crawling with tourists from all over the world.
I sat, slumped and exhausted, in the heavily worn wheelchair Aaron had also purchased yesterday from the seedy looking chemist that had also sold him the pain pills. Caleb and Sophie stood beside me in their crumpled clothes. Worry and sleep deprivation made the expressions around their blood shot eyes grim as we all scanned the crowd without any certainty about what exactly we were looking for.
At least one of the many people swarming past us would not be a tourist, one should be our contact—the keeper of the Hindu key that fit the emerald puzzle box. But not even Aaron had any idea what he, or she, looked like. Only that we were to meet them here, at this time, on this day. Was our contact here?
“Maybe he’ll find us,” Sophie said.
I nodded slowly hoping she was right. Because the sooner we got this over with, the sooner we all could find somewhere to sleep. Somewhere clean, quiet, and without four wheels barreling down the road beneath us. Somewhere with running water and a toilet. I dared a glance down at the dirty bandages wrapping my lower legs—somewhere I could scream in private when Aaron had half a minute to pull the old gauze from my wounds and clean the horrendous mess of flesh and blood I imagined to be underneath. The thought made my stomach quiver, I didn’t think even the red pills would be able to stop the degree of pain that process would cause.
Aaron, crossing a small bridge among the stream of tourists, looked back at us and waved his hand for us to follow him. Caleb grabbed the wheelchair’s handles behind me and began rolling me over the uneven wooden slats, a series of jarring bumps vibrated through my body.
Caleb leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Are you okay?”
My head nodded but I didn’t say a word, I kept my eyes focused on the back of Aaron’s sweaty T-shirt in front of us. In truth, I was nowhere near fine, but it wouldn’t do any good to give Caleb a list of grief that he was likely suffering from too—except for second degree burns, we were all in the same boat, so tired we felt sick, filthy, hungry, and probably wishing we could just go home.
“We need to get your legs taken care of.”
“I know, we will.”
“We should be doing that first,” he said.
I sighed. “You’re right, but this is what we’re doing first.”
“It’s gonna bloody well kill you when he takes those off,” Sophie said nodding at my crusty bandages.
“Sophie!” Caleb yelled.
Her eyes got big, “What? I’m only saying we should have cleaned them sooner cause now the gauze is all stuck to the scabs and they’ll all likely pull off and start blee—”
“Jesus Sophie, will you shut up already! Charlotte doesn’t want to hear it!”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Charlotte doesn’t want to hear about her scabby, bleeding legs. Charlotte’s already very afraid of how much it’s going to hurt.”
Sophie stopped walking, “Oh God. I’m such an idiot Charlotte. I’m sorry.”
I reached down and grabbed the silver grips on the wheels. “Stop,” I said to Caleb. He did and I twisted the chair around so I was facing Sophie then pushed the wheels myself until I was right in front of her. I took both her hands in mine.
“Without you, I wouldn’t have just a couple of burned legs,” I whispered. “Without you, I wouldn’t be here at all.” A tear slid down her cheek and her bottom lip trembled. I reached up and wiped it off of her soft, pale skin. “You are not an idiot and I don’t want you to ever forget that it was you that saved my life Sophie, because I certainly won’t.”
“Oh Charlotte!” she cried and rushed in to hug me, pushing against my legs as she did.
“Aahh,” I said.
She jumped back as soon as she realized what she had done. “Oh God! Are you okay? I’m such a twit.”
My legs hurt, but I laughed. Hysterical, exhaustion driven snorts of laugher bubbled up and out of me while Sophie looked shocked and Caleb furrowed his brow even deeper. Their expressions only made me laugh harder and when I tried to stop, the sound ripped through my chest until I had to bend forward. “Oh God,” I laughed. “That’s funny,” tears streamed down my face. “Your face,” I blurted. “And you were trying too…and then you…” I shook my head unable to finish my sentence.
Sophie finally gave me a nervous smile but eyed her brother standing behind me, wondering if I had finally cracked completely. It only made me laugh even harder.
“What are you doing?” Aaron yelled from the other side of the bridge. “We don’t have all day!” He threw his arms up in exasperation, turned, and stormed towards the rock carved temple in front of him.
“Let’s go,” Caleb said sternly behind me.
“Yes,” I laughed. “Let’s go.” It was insane, laughing when we were in the middle of so much, but with every hysterical wave that rolled though me, I was grateful. Like it was washing away all the fear that had been crouching inside me ever since I woke up in that room filled with smoke. I reached over the armrest of the chair and grabbed Sophie’s hand while Caleb pushed me the rest of the way over the bridge. “Thank you,” I said and laughed again. “I feel so much better.”
Sophie leaned over and kissed my head. “I love you Charlotte.”
Suddenly serious, I stopped laughing and looked into her beautiful almond eyes, “I love you too, Sophie…like you were my own sister.”
We wandered the caves for hours. Growing more exhausted, and irritated, with every passing minute, even the hard to believe beauty of the temples and caves could not distract us from the basic needs our bodies were starving for: food, water, and something more reasonable than a stone slab to sleep on. The sun hung low along the horizon and we hadn’t seen another tourist for almost an hour, only an elderly Indian man with rough feet and a whisk broom. The rhythmic sound of the bristles against the stone floor filled the cave.
Aaron sat on a carved stone bench, elbows resting on his kne
es, head hanging between his shoulders—having driven us almost all the way from Delhi, he had to be the most exhausted. But it was Caleb who complained the most. Not about himself. His complaints were all about me, my legs, my needs. Aaron’s continued silence on the topic seemed to be driving Caleb into a frenzy.
“Whoever the guy is, he’s clearly not showing. We need to go, now!”
I didn’t dare tell him that the last red pill I had taken before we got out of the car had completely worn off a half hour ago. The pain now radiated from my legs and made me nauseous.
Sophie sat on the floor leaning up against a twenty-foot deity with eight arms fanning out around it. She was fast asleep.
I wondered how long Aaron intended to wait. I didn’t think I could hold out much longer. And what would we do without the Hindu key? Not only did the contact have the key, he also had the information we would need in order to find the next key. If we didn’t find him, we didn’t have anywhere else to go—except home. Home to the dying Franzen and a life for my mother and Grace that depended on the protection of those willing to help them hide underground.
At least as long as my mother could keep Lilith back. Could she do that? Could she hold Lilith back forever? Without Franzen’s strength to help her?
Suddenly, my eyes riveted onto the man and his broom. His bent and crooked body, his hands gripping the worn handle, his rough sandaled feet shifted his frame in time with the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh bouncing off the cave walls. I stared at him without being sure why until he looked up and his eyes locked with mine. Vibrant, his eyes glowed with life. It was like looking into the eyes of a very young child, not a man near eighty. Neither of us looked away, we continued to stare at each other, like we knew one another, and then he smiled, his mouth full of gums and single crooked teeth.
“You are looking for me? Yes?”
And my head nodded up and down even though I had no idea if he was or was not the person we needed. “I mean…I believe you may be.”
Aaron stood up and glanced back and forth between us.
The man’s smile grew even wider, “Well, that is good. Belief in something is the greatest place to start in anything.”
“You have the Hindu key?” Aaron strode over to the man in three long steps.
The man turned slowly, as if considering Aaron and his brusque impatience for the first time even though he had been in this room with us for at least thirty minutes. “I have it,” he said.
Aaron thrust out his hand, “Well we’re happy to take it off your hands now.”
The man stared down at Aaron’s hand for several seconds before his head fell back and laugher filled the cave. “You must excuse me,” he said and shook his head. “I never get used to Americans. The Hindu Key, as you call it, has been in my family for over five hundred years. It is no common artifact to be carried on me like a car key. Nor is it something I would hand over to anyone other than the true ascendant in possession of the both the puzzle and the preceding key.”
“True ascendant?” I asked.
His eyes fixed back onto mine. “The one destined to solve the Emerald Tablet.”
“I have a green stone puzzle box,” I said. “Not a tablet.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“The box will become a tablet?”
“As soon as the ascendant solves it. You are the true ascendant then?”
I didn’t answer and only stared at him. I wondered if he would still give me the key if I said I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think so, but I also couldn’t bring myself to say that I was this ‘true ascendant.’
Before I could think of what I would say, the man began to slowly nod his head. “Ah, I see,” he smiled. “Like the tablet, you too are, not yet.”
“Will you still give me your key?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head as if considering me from another angle. “We will see.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Hindu
Mohan’s home was tiny, cluttered, and the rich scent of Indian cooking wove through every thread of fabric, from the patterned silk drapes to the blue velvet ottoman. My wheelchair wouldn’t fit through his narrow front door, so Caleb scooped me from the tattered vinyl seat, carried me through the door and placed me gently onto the crooked sofa Mohan pointed to. I positioned my legs with the the bandaged sections hanging over the edge, so the pressure from the cushions wouldn’t cause me any more pain than I was already in, and so I wouldn’t get any blood onto the velour fabric. Although, now sitting right on it, I could see that a little blood stain here or there probably wouldn’t be noticed or even make a difference amongst all the others already ruining the couch.
“First,” Mohan announced. “We must take care of your body,” he motioned to my legs and then shuffled to the far end of the room and took a large bowl from a high shelf. A moment later, the sound of water could be heard splashing against the ceramic while Mohan moved from shelf to cupboard and back to the shelf collecting several jars and tubes that he added haphazardly to the water filling the bowl. I noticed the tiny refrigerator and then the table with mismatched chairs for two—it was his kitchen. To my left, and behind a sheer screen, I could see a low lying futon on the floor piled with a few deflated pillows and a ratty blanket. A small mountain of books lay in varying degrees of openness around what must be the bedroom section of his one room house.
As I scanned the rest of the house, I couldn’t help but wonder where the toilet must be and then immediately hoped I wouldn’t have to ask to use it—wherever it was.
Aaron, annoyed and impatient that Mohan had dragged us all the way to his house instead of just giving us the key at the caves, flopped his large sweaty body into a pile of cushions on the floor in the corner. Sophie picked her way carefully across the messy room until she was next to me, then bent her knees slowly until she had lowered her stiff frame onto the couch at my side.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, as if providing herself the assurance more than me.
“Okay,” Mohan clapped his wet hands loudly above the bowl in the sink. He lifted the dripping container and crossed the room with it, sloshing water all over the floor and several faded rugs on the way.
Caleb leaned over and peered into the bowl then recoiled with a disgusted face, “What is that?”
“Skin healer,” Mohan said.
“Skin healer?” Caleb asked incredulous. “What’s in it?”
“Oh, some of this and some of that.” Mohan placed the bowl under my feet then reached for my hand. When I placed my hand in his, he smiled and pulled me gently forward, guiding my bandaged feet to the foul smelling concoction beneath them.
Caleb shot Aaron an alarmed look—are we really going to let this happen? Aaron waved his hand in dismissal, as if this sort of thing happened every day.
“Will it hurt?” I asked.
Mohan pursed his lips and swept his palms against each other, “No pain. With this, the bandages will slide right off.”
I looked into his bright shiny eyes and knew he was telling me the truth—at least as far as he knew it to be. I lowered my feet into the medicinal stew and felt the wet seep into the crusty bandages and then begin the slow climb up my legs. Mohan began scooping handfuls of liquid and soaking the gauze higher up my legs until I could feel cool damp saturating all the fabric and, miraculously, cooling my painful legs as well.
“It feels better,” I breathed.
Mohan smiled big, “Yes, and so soon you will feel brand new again.”
Aaron scoffed in the corner but Mohan ignored him and pulled a large pocket knife from his pocket. When he pulled it open and revealed the large sharp blade, I recoiled and Caleb lunged forward.
“What’s up with that?” he asked, moving the best he could between Mohan and my body while trying to not touch my legs.
“The bandages,” Mohan pointed with the blade. “They will cause infection if we don’t cut them off.”
Caleb hesitated a moment, eye
ing the knife, still not sure why we were in this strange man’s home and now placing ourselves at the mercy of his very pointy knife.
“Settle down, hero,” Aaron said. “He’s right. We’re wasting time, but he’s still right.”
I reached up and took Caleb’s hand. “It’s okay,” I said even though I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have this ancient man wielding a knife around my flesh. “Just sit with me and hold my hand.”
When Caleb turned and met my eyes, I tried to smile. He could tell my smile was forced, but he sighed and sat down anyway. “Just be careful with that,” he said to Mohan. “She’s been through enough already without you cutting a major artery.”
“Great,” I said. “I hadn’t even considered major arteries.” Caleb squeezed my hand and put his arm around me.
“My wife,” Mohan stopped, sighed gently and shook his head. “Sarita, a good woman, she was a born healer.”
I didn’t watch, but I could feel a slight tug at the gauze as he began to cut it away from the flesh.
“She used to help everyone. Even when she was a very small child, people would travel for days at a time, bringing their own sick child, father, brother, sister. Sarita! They would call for her. She was a natural power before she even knew the power she commanded.”
“What happened to her?” Sophie asked.
I expected Caleb to scold her once again for her brazen questions, but he was either too worried or too distracted by Mohan’s cutting, he continued to sit silently and waited to see if Mohan would answer.
“The great equalizer,” Mohan said. “Death comes to all men, and even the most gifted of women. Time came and took her from me…for now anyway.”
Midheaven (Ascendant Trilogy Book 2) Page 12
