by Amber Benson
His stomach roiled with nausea from the way Priya had violated him, binding him with magic, working him like some marionette, trying to force his sister to sacrifice the queen—Hell, all of Britain—just to spare his life.
“Fucking cow!” he screamed as he staggered toward her, tapping the magic within him again. He could feel the soul of Albion. A moment ago it had been dormant, but now it roared through him with such force that his entire body shook. His eyes burned and he could feel pressure coming from them, could see arcs of golden lightning sparking from them. His hands contorted and he began to summon all the destructive magic he could recall into one devastating spell.
So blinded was he with pain and rage and the surge of magic within him that he did not notice when Priya began to change. Now, as he turned to attack her, he saw what she had become, the hideous, blue-skinned demon-goddess. A belt of human skulls hung around her waist and her sari was in tatters, revealing naked flesh inscribed with whorls and sigils that might have been some ancient language.
Before he could utter a word of incantation, the goddess roared in pain and a wooden spear burst from her back, bright lights of crimson and silver dancing upon its tip. William hesitated. The fog coalesced around him and he took a step closer, trying to discover what was happening.
He saw Tipu Gupta, realized that the old man had run the demon-goddess through with his walking stick, and that he was draining magic from her, somehow. The Protector of Bharath seemed reinvigorated, as though he were growing younger before William’s eyes. He shouted in triumph and sneered at the goddess, whom he called Kurukulla.
And then she killed him. Plunging the dagger into the side of his neck, she hacked his face in two with an enormous gore-stained cleaver. He fell to the ground, hands still clasped around his staff, which slid wetly from her wound.
William screamed in horror. This was not how it was supposed to end. Kurukulla turned, then, her deep blue face stained with Tipu Gupta’s blood. Whatever was left of Priya Gupta, it was trapped inside the goddess, as twisted as Frederick Martin and all the others.
The magic had been building up in William, and now he roared words that erupted as little more than a guttural bellow, and thrust out his hands. The power that burst forth was twined gold and black—a black dark as pitch—and it shot toward the demon bitch goddess with such force that he intended it to tear her body to pieces.
Kurukulla raised her shield and William’s magic struck home, shattering it. The fragments showered to the ground, some of them igniting with flames before they hit the buckled street. The hollow skull she carried as a bowl fell from her grasp and shattered, as well.
The goddess sneered, fresh blood sliding from the edges of her fanged mouth like the slaver of a dog, dripping from her chin. Her shield had protected her, left her untouched. Now with her two empty hands she reached for him. He tried to fight her but she batted his arms aside as though he were a child and grasped him by the shoulders, lifting him from the ground.
Her other two hands came up, ritual dagger in one and scarlet-stained cleaver in the other.
That was the moment when William Swift knew that he was going to die.
And then Tamara’s voice echoed through the fog. “Nigel!” she screamed. “Now!”
William heard a rustle of clothing and a savage grunt from off to his right. He caught only a glimpse of the terrifying face of Nigel Townsend, no less gore-streaked than Kurukulla’s own, as the vampire lunged out of the fog and threw himself at William. Nigel tore him from the goddess’s grasp and continued moving, uncannily strong, carrying them both into the fog. Toward the palace, toward Tamara.
Nigel stumbled, and the two of them sprawled on the road, but William scrambled to his feet in time to find Tamara shouting in Latin, in time to see thick tree roots bursting up through the street and wrapping around the four-armed demon-goddess, who screamed, three eyes wide with fury, rolling and red. Blue-white magic leaped from Tamara’s hands, and the air separating her from Kurukulla warped and crumpled. The spell struck her, buffeting the goddess. The air around her froze and ice formed on her flesh.
Kurukulla began to laugh.
“What can you hope to do?” the demon-goddess roared in thickly accented English. “Your empire is over and mine is about to begin. I claim vengeance for Bharath. I claim blood and fire and death! The might of Kali is in me! And now the soul of Bharath itself, the magic of Bharath, passes from that decrepit old . . .”
The demon took a halting step backward, clad in blood and rags, chest heaving with astonishment. Her empty hands grasped at the air as though she might capture what she had lost. She turned and glared down at the corpse of Tipu Gupta, then spun toward William, Tamara, and Nigel, her bloodred eyes flaring with a crimson storm.
“What have you done? The power . . . the magic of the Protector is meant to pass to me. The girl stole a taste of it, but she was his chosen successor, his heir. Now that he is dead it should all fall to this flesh, to this body.”
Silver light shone around her, connected to the ravaged remains of Tipu Gupta. As they watched, that magic drifted away into the sky, slipping off into the night and the fog, returning to India.
To Bharath.
“Stupid tart,” William snapped. “Did you really think old Tipu wouldn’t have chosen a new successor after his daughter betrayed him? His first loyalty was to Bharath. The magic will never be yours.”
Kurukulla almost seemed to shrink now. A ripple of crimson light flashed around all four of her hands, and she looked at them with hatred more pure than any emotion William had ever seen.
“Then whose? Who is Protector of Bharath?”
Tamara stepped up beside William, and once more that golden light roiled around her clenched fists. The street beneath her feet rumbled as though the Earth was yearning to answer her call again. William held his breath, awed by the natural force that churned inside her.
“We’ll find out one day,” Tamara said, her voice firm, yet almost gentle. “But not you, demon. Not you, Priya. You’ll be dead.”
“Priya?” William asked. “What do you—”
But Tamara wasn’t listening. She raised her hands above her head and shouted into the already dispersing fog. “Bodicea! Horatio! Byron! Come to us, all you ghosts of Albion! Already she is diminished, but the night is not yet over! Come to us!”
And at her summons, they came. William and Nigel could only stand and watch as the ghosts swarmed them, darting through the air and across the shattered road, flitting across the top of the palace walls and out of the trees in the park. In seconds, hundreds of the specters had gathered around.
“Do you really believe they will be of any help to you?” Kurukulla snarled, starting forward, three eyes glaring. She brought up the ceremonial dagger with which she had planned to slit William’s throat. “The blood of Albion will still run red this night!”
Even as she spoke, the gathering of phantoms parted to allow a trio of translucent figures to the fore. Bodicea stood with her spear in one hand and sword in the other. Nelson was grim-faced and dignified, though his own sword had vanished. Even with one arm missing, the sleeve pinned back, he had an air of command that was undeniable.
And then there was Byron. All his humor had gone from him earlier, in the thick of the fight. Now he only rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, hovering slightly higher than the others.
“My friends, do you know what I hate about lunatics?” Byron sighed. “They never know when they’ve lost.”
Tamara reached out for William’s hand, and he clasped hers gladly. He felt the connection instantly, the magic that cycled through both of them. The Protectors of Albion stood side by side, hand in hand, and the entire street trembled. The few accursed men that had not been destroyed by the ghosts had been creeping toward that gathering, still determined to serve their mistress, but they paused now. Whatever remained of rationality in their savage minds was chilled by the sight of the Protectors.
The monst
rous thing—the demon-goddess—let out a roar and charged at them.
“Destroy her,” Nigel whispered, his voice velvety and dangerous. “You can’t risk leaving her alive for another try at this.”
William and Tamara exchanged a glance. He nodded.
“Bodicea. Horatio. Take her.”
The spectral queen raised her spear and let out a war cry. Then she rushed at Kurukulla, first into the fray. The goddess’s cleaver swung toward her but, warrior that she was, Bodicea dodged it easily. Without the magic she had stolen, the demon-goddess was weakening.
Bodicea ran her through with her spear and brought her sword down, shearing off one of Kurukulla’s arms. “You might have had the power to stand against us before, demon!” she shouted. “But no longer!”
Then Nelson was there, and others joined him, moving so quickly that in seconds the demon-goddess was only barely visible among the semi-transparent forms of the ghosts, who tore and hacked at her, ripping apart that deep blue flesh, plucking out eyes and snapping bones.
A specter William did not recognize took up the ceremonial dagger with which Priya would have killed him, and drove it through the center of her head, into the hollow, bleeding socket of her third eye.
Despite all the demon-goddess had done, Tamara turned to William and buried her face in his shoulder, so as not to see. But only for a moment. Then she took a long breath and forced herself to look, to bear the horror of the war she was so much a part of.
At that moment, the scattered few of Kali’s Children still alive let out a chorus of shrieks. They contorted in pain and began to wither, and in seconds they began to die. One by one they crumbled to the ground, leaving little more than ash and a few scattered scales.
All but John Haversham, who was frozen with Farris in some kind of magical stasis just a dozen feet away, trapped between human and monster.
Byron stayed out of the massacre of Kurukulla, and his expression was troubled. Just when it seemed he was about to call a halt to it, Nelson was the one who drew back from the remains of their enemy.
“Enough!” he cried. “She is dead. We are not barbarians.”
Bodicea swung around, war paint still streaking her face and naked flesh, and glared at him.
“Well, not all of us, at least,” Byron noted.
The ghosts began to disperse. All save Horatio, Bodicea, and Byron.
William began to walk toward the corpse of Kurukulla. Tamara fell into step beside him and Nigel followed along, his eyes dark and his nostrils flaring with either distaste or hunger, William was not sure which. Beyond the corpse was another, the broken, bleeding form of Tipu Gupta, the true Protector of Bharath. Nothing remained of his face that would allow them to recognize him, but William had seen him die. The old man was gone, and somewhere in India, another had risen to bear the burden and receive the gift of Protectorship.
All their enemies had been destroyed, so they were startled by the wet, shifting sound that arose from the remains of Kurukulla. Her followers were gone or dead, the fog dispersed. The ghosts had torn her apart. How could she have survived? William stared in shock at her corpse.
A low moan came from beneath the gore and shattered bone.
It shifted.
A hand worked its way up through ravaged flesh, and then a second. Long, slender hands.
Priya Gupta tore her way out of the remains of Kurukulla.
“Careful,” Nigel warned.
Byron scoffed. “Careful, really? Look at her eyes.”
William did look, and he saw what Byron already had. The girl gazed around at the ghosts with wide eyes, lost and afraid. She did not know where she was, that much was clear.
“What’s happened to her?” Nelson asked, his spectral essence shimmering in the night beside them.
“Something in her mind has snapped,” William replied.
Tamara hugged herself and shivered as she stared at the girl. “I don’t think so. I think her mind snapped a very long time ago. And I think she was more powerful than her father ever knew. I confess, I’m not sure there ever really was a goddess . . . except that Priya wanted there to be.”
William gaped at her. “You don’t think she did all this herself? The curse and the Children of Kali, summoning the Rakshasa to serve her . . . why, look what she became! The goddess transformed her from within, warped her flesh, and—”
“Did she? I wonder,” Tamara said.
Then she strode away, back toward Farris and Haversham, arms still crossed, and shivering as though she was so cold she feared she might never be warm.
Nigel was beside William then, and he also watched Tamara go. Then the two turned to stare at Priya Gupta, who gazed around at the ghosts with wide and fearful eyes.
“If she’s right—” Nigel began in a dark rumble.
He never completed the sentence.
A jangling discordant sound filled the night, and the space between Priya and her father’s corpse wavered, then split open. There was only blackness beyond, a liquid dark that William had seen before.
“Tamara!” he shouted. “The Rakshasa!” For that tear in the fabric of reality was a portal to the realm of those vicious, bestial demons.
“Will, get back!” Tamara shouted as she ran to aid them.
Nigel shouted something to the ghosts. Bodicea and Nelson took to the air, floating above the Protectors. The vampire dropped into a crouch and bared his fangs, eyes gleaming red in the dark.
A pair of Rakshasa leaped from the breach with a sound like paper tearing. They did not so much as glance at William, Tamara, and their allies. With terrible speed they fell upon Priya Gupta. One grabbed her legs, claws puncturing her flesh, and the other took her by an arm and a fistful of her hair, and even as William and Tamara began to react, they hauled her back through that rippling black portal.
That jangling noise came again and the portal collapsed in upon itself, leaving only a small eddying breeze in its wake.
Colonel Dunstan bore witness to it all.
William Swift had bound his spirit to that spot in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace, and thus captured he could only watch as the Children of Kali were destroyed by the ghosts of Albion, could only stare in abject despair as Priya Gupta’s grand plan unraveled.
He had lived his life as a faithful subject of the British Crown, largely ignoring his Indian heritage. After his death he had come to realize the injustice done to his mother’s people, not merely as a minority in British society, but as a conquered nation under the rule of British generals.
His soul had seethed with the injustice, and when he had learned of Priya’s dark deeds he had sworn allegiance to her cause. He had loved his father and he loved England, had served her in war . . . but he felt with all his heart that something had to be done to make the people see that British imperialism was unjust.
Instead he watched in astonishment as Priya Gupta was transformed, as something emerged from within her. The colonel understood that the thing was a representation of some facet of Kali, but not one he recognized. Yet how it had come about was a mystery to him. Priya had claimed to serve the goddess, but he had not given much thought to that.
Then, the moment the dark goddess killed the Protector of Bharath, it all came crashing to a halt.
The Children of Kali crumbled to dust. The last of the Rakshasa had been destroyed. The ghosts of Albion rallied around the Protectors and tore the goddess apart . . .
And so it ended, leaving Colonel Dunstan a prisoner of war, years after his own death.
Hours passed, the horizon began to lighten, and by then the Protectors had done their work all too well. The corpse of Tipu Gupta was removed, the ashen remains of the Children of Kali were scattered on the breeze, and the dead Rakshasa were burned with magical flame that reduced the monsters to little more than char upon the ground. Only the buckled street remained, as a mystery that would never be solved.
By the time the sun rose on a spectacular spring day, there was no trace o
f the war that had taken place overnight. No trace, save for the ghost held captive at the gates of Buckingham Palace.
For hours, Dunstan watched people come and go at the palace, saw couples strolling through St. James’s Park, and watched carriages rattling by. But of course, they could not see him. Colonel Dunstan was a silent phantom, sentenced to the anguish of watching the very people he had betrayed, unaware that anything at all had happened, unaware that they were party to prejudice and oppression.
He was in Hell.
All that long day, he was left to suffer in defeat. It was just after dark when he sensed the presence of another ghost, and turned to find the specter of Admiral Nelson staring at him with his one good eye.
“Oh, let me guess,” Dunstan’s ghost said, each word filled with bitterness. “You’re here to tell me that I’m a traitor to Albion and the queen, that I’m a disgrace, that as a military man you’re appalled by my behavior, and if I weren’t already dead—”
Nelson raised his chin, back straight. “Actually, no.”
The colonel faltered. He felt the weight of the magic that bound him, and a strange tiredness that he knew must be of the soul, since he had flesh no longer. He stared at Nelson expectantly.
“Go on, then,” he said finally.
“You are a disgrace to the uniform you wore in life,” Nelson said, his tone matter-of-fact. “There’s no doubt of that. And aside from all else, you betrayed me, Colonel. I’d thought us friends. Perhaps, though, it will surprise you to learn that I don’t believe you were entirely wrong. It may be that our control of India is oppressive. And I’ll allow that if the Protectors had been more vigilant they might have learned of the plague spreading through the East End sooner.
“But I have watched them, sir. They are learning, and meanwhile, they struggle to do their best. As for the empire . . . well, that is a war for others to fight now. For the living. I can only hope that those representing our interests abroad behave honorably. If they do not, they bring shame upon us all.”
