Tonight’s ceremony was especially important. The last of its kind—forever. The Westphalen line would be extinct after tonight. Ajit and Rupobati would finally be avenged.
As the ceremony finally approached its climax, Kusum sensed a disturbance in the forward hold—the nursery—off to his right. A female rakosh turn and moved down the passage. Good. He hadn't wanted to interrupt the nearly stagnant flow of the ceremony at this point to send one of them to investigate.
He tightened his grip on the child's arm as he raised his voice for the final invocation. Almost over...almost over at last...
Suddenly the eyes of the rakoshi were no longer on him. They began to hiss and roar as their attention shifted to his right. Kusum glanced over and watched in shock as a screaming horde of immature rakoshi poured into the hold from the nursery, followed by a fully grown rakosh, its body completely aflame. It tumbled in and collapsed on the floor near the elevator platform.
And behind it, striding down the dark passage like the avatar of a vengeful god, came Jack.
Kusum felt his world constrict around him, closing in on his throat, choking off his air.
Jack...here...alive! Impossible!
That could only mean that the Mother was dead! But how? How could a single puny human defeat the Mother? And how had Jack found him here? What sort of a man was this?
Or was he a man at all? He seemed more like an irresistible preternatural force the gods had sent to test him.
The child began struggling in his grasp, screaming, "Jack! Jack!"
35
Jack froze in disbelief at the sound of that familiar little voice crying his name. And then he saw her.
"Vicky!"
She was alive! Still alive!
Jack felt tears pushing at his eyes. For a second he could see only Vicky. Then he saw that Kusum held her by the arm. As Jack moved forward, Kusum pulled the squirming child in front of him as a shield.
"Stay calm, Vicks! I'll get you home soon."
And he would. He swore to the god he’d long ago ceased to believe in that he would see Vicky to safety. If she’d stayed alive this long, he would take her the rest of the way. If he couldn't fix this, then all his years as Repairman Jack had been for nothing.
No customer here—this was for himself.
Jack glanced into the hold. The crowded rakoshi were oblivious to him; their only concern was the burning rakosh on the floor and their master on the platform. Jack returned his attention to Vicky. As he stepped out of the passage, he failed to notice a rakosh pressed against the wall to his right until he brushed by him. The creature hissed and flailed wildly with its talons. Jack ducked and fired the flamethrower in a wide are, catching the outflung arm of the attacking rakosh and moving the stream out into the crowd.
Chaos. The rakoshi panicked, clawing at each other to escape the jet of fire and avoid those aflame from it.
Jack heard Kusum's voice shouting, "Stop it! Stop it or I'll wring her neck!"
He looked up and saw Kusum with his hand around Vicky's throat. Vicky's face reddened and her eyes widened as he lifted her half a foot off the ground to demonstrate.
Jack released the trigger of the flamethrower. He now had a wide area of floor clear to him. Only one rakosh—one with a scarred and distorted lower lip—stayed near the platform. Black smoke rose from the prone forms of a dozen or so burning rakoshi. The air was getting thick.
"Treat her well," Jack said in a tight voice as he backed against the wall. "She's all that's keeping you alive right now."
"What is she to you?"
"I want her safe."
"She is not of your flesh. She is just another member of a society that would exterminate you if it knew you existed, that rejects what you value most. And even this little one here will want you locked away once she is grown. We should not be at war, you and I. We are brothers, voluntary outcasts from the worlds in which we live. We are—"
"Cut the bullshit!" Jack said. "She's mine. I want her!"
Kusum glowered at him. "How did you escape the Mother?"
"Killed her. Matter of fact, got a couple of her teeth in my pocket. Want them?"
Kusum's face darkened. "Impossible! She—" His voice broke off as he stared at Jack. "That necklace!"
"Your sister's."
"You've killed her, then," he said in a suddenly hushed voice.
"No. She's fine."
"She would never surrender it willingly!"
"She's asleep—doesn't know that I borrowed it for a while."
Kusum barked out a laugh. "So! My whore of a sister will finally reap the rewards of her karma! And how fitting that you should be the instrument of her reckoning!"
Thinking Kusum was distracted, Jack took a step forward: The Indian immediately tightened his grip on Vicky's throat. Through the tangle of her wet stringy hair, Jack saw her eyes wince shut in pain.
"No closer!"
The rakoshi stirred and edged nearer the platform at the sound of Kusum's raised voice.
Jack stepped back. "Sooner or later you're going to lose, Kusum. Give her up now."
"Why should I lose? I have but to point out your location to the rakoshi and tell them that there stands the slayer of the Mother. The necklace would not protect you then. And though your flamethrower might kill dozens of them, in their frenzy for revenge they would tear you to pieces."
Jack pointed to the bomb slung from his belt. "But what would you do about these?"
Kusum's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Fire bombs I've planted them all over the ship. All timed to go off at 3:45." He looked at his watch. "It's 3:00 now. Only forty-five minutes to go. How will you ever find them in time?"
"The child will die, too."
Jack saw Vicky's already terrified face blanch as she listened to them. She had to hear—no way to shield her from the truth.
"Better that way than what you've got planned for her."
Kusum shrugged. "My rakoshi and I will merely swim ashore. Perhaps the child's mother waits there. They ought to find her tasty."
Jack masked his horror at the vision of Gia facing a horde of rakoshi emerging from the bay.
"That won't save your ship. And it will leave your rakoshi without a home and out of your control."
"So," Kusum said after a pause. "A stalemate."
"Right. But if you’ll let the kid go, I'll show you where the bombs are. Then I'll take her home while you take off for India."
He didn't want to let Kusum go—he had a score to settle with the Indian—but it was a price he was willing to pay for Vicky’s life.
Kusum shook his head. "She's a Westphalen...the last surviving Westphalen...and I cannot—"
"You're wrong!" Jack cried, grasping at a thread of hope. "She's not the last. Her father is in England! He's..."
Kusum shook his head again. "I took care of him last year during my stay at the Consulate in London."
Jack saw Vicky stiffen as her eyes widened.
"My Daddy!"
"Hush, child," Kusum said in an incongruously gentle tone. "He was not worthy of a single tear." Then he raised his voice. "So it's still a stalemate, Repairman Jack. But perhaps there is a way we can settle this honorably."
"Honorably?" Jack felt his rage swell. "How much honor can I expect from a fallen..." —What was the word Kolabati had used? —"...a fallen Brachmachari?"
Kusum’s face darkened. "She told you of that? Did she also tell you who it was who seduced me into breaking my vow of chastity? Did she say who it was I bedded during those years when I polluted my karma to an almost irredeemable level? No—of course she wouldn't. It was Kolabati herself—my own sister!"
Jack was stunned. "You're lying!"
"Would that I were." He got a faraway look in his eyes. "It seemed so right at the time. After nearly a century of living, my sister seemed to be the only person on earth worth knowing...certainly the only one left with whom I had anything in common."
"You'
re crazier than I thought you were."
Kusum smiled sadly. "Ah! Something else my dear sister neglected to mention. She probably told you our parents were killed in 1948 in a train wreck during the chaos following the end of British colonial rule. It's a good story—we cooked it up together. But it's a lie. I was born in 1846. Yes, I said 1846. Bati was born in 1850. Our parents, whose names adorn the stern of this ship, were killed by Sir Albert Westphalen and his men when they raided the temple of Kali in the hills of northwestern Bengal in 1857. I nearly killed Westphalen then myself, but he was bigger and stronger than the puny twelve-year-old boy I was, and nearly severed my left arm from my body. Only the necklace saved me."
Jack's mouth went dry. The man spoke his madness so casually, so matter-of-factly, with the utter conviction of truth. No doubt because he believed it true.
"The necklace?" Jack said.
He had to keep him talking. Perhaps he would find an opening, a chance to get Vicky free of his grasp. But he had to keep the rakoshi in mind, too—they kept drawing closer by imperceptible degrees.
"It does more than hide one from rakoshi. It heals...and preserves. It slows aging. It does not make one invulnerable—Westphalen's men put bullets through my parents' hearts while they were wearing their necklaces and left them just as dead as they would have been without them. But the necklace I wear, the one I removed from my father's corpse after I vowed to avenge him, helped mend my wound. I lost my arm, true, but without the aid of the necklace I would have died. Look at your own wounds. You've been injured before, I am sure. Do they hurt as much as you would expect? Do they bleed as much as they should?"
Warily, Jack glanced down at his arms and legs. They were bloody and they hurt—but nowhere near as much as they should have. Then he remembered how his back and left shoulder had started feeling better soon after he’d put on the necklace. He hadn't made the connection until now.
"You now wear one of the two existing necklaces of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. While you wear it, it heals you and slows your aging to a crawl. But take it off, and all those years come tumbling back upon you."
Jack leaped upon an inconsistency. "You said 'two existing necklaces.' What about your grandmother's? The one I returned?"
Kusum laughed. "Haven't you guessed yet? There is no grandmother! That was Kolabati herself! She was the assault victim! She had been following me to learn where I went at night and—How do you Americans so eloquently put it?— 'got rolled.' That old woman you saw in the hospital was Kolabati, dying of old age without her necklace. Once I replaced it about her neck, she quickly returned to the same state of youth when the necklace was stolen from her." He laughed again. "Even as we speak, she grows older and uglier and more feeble by the minute!"
Jack's mind whirled. He tried to ignore what he’d been told. Couldn't be true. Kusum was simply trying to distract him, confuse him, and he couldn't allow that. Had to concentrate on Vicky and on getting her to safety. She was looking at him with those big blue eyes of hers, begging him to get her out of here.
"You're only wasting time, Kusum. Those bombs go off in thirty minutes."
"True," the Indian said. "And I too grow older with every minute."
Jack noticed Kusum's bare throat. He did look considerably older than Jack remembered him.
"Your necklace..."
"I take it off when I address them." He gestured to the rakoshi. "Otherwise they wouldn't be able to see their master.”
"You mean 'father,' don't you? Kolabati told me what Kaka-ji means."
Kusum's gaze faltered, and for an instant Jack thought this might be his chance. But then it leveled at him again.
"What one had once thought unspeakable becomes a duty when the Goddess commands."
"Give me the child!" Jack shouted.
This going nowhere. And time was passing on those bomb timers…he could almost hear them ticking.
"You'll have to earn her, Repairman Jack. A trial by combat...hand-to-hand combat. I shall prove to you that a rapidly-aging, one-armed Bengali is more than a match for a two-armed American."
Jack stared at him in mute disbelief.
"I'm quite serious," Kusum continued. "You've defiled my sister, invaded my ship, killed my rakoshi. I demand satisfaction. No weapons—man to man. With the child as prize.”
Trial by combat. Insane! This man was living in the dark ages. How could Jack face Kusum and risk losing the contest—he remembered what one of the Indian's kicks had done to the door in the pilot's quarters—when Vicky's life rode on the outcome? And yet how could he refuse? At least Vicky had a chance if he accepted Kusum's challenge. Jack saw no hope for her if he refused.
"You're no match for me, Kusum. It wouldn't be fair. And besides, we don't have time."
"The fairness is my concern. And do not worry about the time—it will be a brief contest. Do you accept?"
Jack studied him. Kusum was very confident—sure, no doubt, that Jack was ignorant of the fact that he fought savate-style. He probably figured a kick to the solar plexus, a kick to the face, and it would be over. Jack could take advantage of that overconfidence.
"Let me get this straight: If I win, Vicky and I can leave unmolested. And if I lose...?"
"If you lose, you agree to disarm all the bombs you have set and leave the child with me."
Insane...yet as much as he loathed to admit it, the idea held a certain perverse appeal. Jack could not still the thrill of anticipation that leaped through him. He wanted to get his hands on this man, wanted to hurt him, damage him. A bullet, a flamethrower, even a knife—all much too impersonal to repay Kusum for the horrors he’d put Vicky through.
"All right," he said in as close to a normal voice as he could manage. "But how do I know you won't sic your pets on me if I win—or as soon as I take this off?" He pointed to the flamethrower tanks on his back.
Kusum frowned. "That would be dishonorable. You insult me by even suggesting it. But to ease your suspicions, we will fight on this platform after it has been raised beyond the reach of the rakoshi."
Jack could think of no more objections. He lowered the discharge tube and stepped toward the platform.
Kusum smiled the smile of a cat that has just seen a mouse walk into its dinner dish.
"Vicky stays on the platform with us, right?" Jack said, loosening the straps on his harness.
"Of course. And to show my good will, I will even let her hold necklace during the contest." He shifted his grip from Vicky's throat to her arm. "It's there on the floor, child. Pick it up."
Hesitantly, Vicky stretched out and picked up the necklace. She held it as if it were a snake.
"I don't want this!" she wailed.
"Just hold onto it, Vicks," Jack told her. "It'll protect you."
Kusum started to pull her back toward him. As he switched his grip from her arm to her throat, Vicky moved. Without warning she cried out and lunged away from him. Kusum snatched for her but she had fear and desperation as allies. Five frantic steps, a flying leap, and she crashed against Jack's chest, clutching at him, screaming:
"Don't let him get me, Jack! Don't let him! Don't let him!"
Got her!
Jack's vision blurred and his voice became lost in the surge of emotion that filled him as he held Vicky's trembling little body against him. He couldn't think—so he reacted. In a single move he raised the discharge tube with his right hand and swung his left arm behind Vicky’s back to grasp the forward grip, holding her to him while he steadied the tube. He pointed it at Kusum.
"Give her back!" Kusum shouted, rushing to the edge of the platform. His sudden movement and raised voice caused the rakoshi to shift, murmur, and edge forward. "She's mine!"
"No way," Jack said softly, finding his voice again as he squeezed Vicky closer. "You're safe, Vicks."
He had her now and no one was taking her away. No one.
He began to back toward the forward hold.
"Stay where you are!" Kusum roared. Spittle flecked his lip
s—he was so enraged he was actually beginning to foam at the mouth. "One more step and I'll tell them where you are. As I said before, they'll tear you to pieces. Now—come up here and face me as we agreed."
Jack shook his head. "I had nothing to lose then. Now I've got Vicky." Agreement or not, no way was he letting her go. "The fight's off."
"Have you no honor? You agreed!"
"I lied," Jack said, and pulled the trigger.
The stream of napalm hit Kusum squarely in the chest, spreading over him, engulfing him in flame. He released a long, high, hoarse scream and reached his arm out toward Jack and Vicky as his fiery body went rigid. Twisting, writhing convulsively, his features masked in flame, he stumbled forward off the platform, still reaching for them, his obsession with ending the Westphalen line driving him even in the midst of his death agony.
Jack held Vicky's face into his shoulder so she wouldn’t see, and was about to loose another blast when Kusum veered off to the side, spinning and whirling in a flaming dance, finally falling dead in front of his rakoshi horde, burning...burning...
The rakoshi went mad.
36
If Jack had looked upon the hold as a suburb of hell before, it became one of the inner circles upon the death of the Kaka-ji. The rakoshi exploded into frenzied movement, leaping into the air, clawing, tearing at each other. Unable to find Jack and Vicky, they turned on each other. It was as if all of hell's demons had decided to riot. All except one—
The rakosh with the scarred lip remained aloof from the carnage; it stared in their direction as if sensing their presence there, even though it could not see them.
As the struggles of the creatures brought groups of them near, Jack began backing down the passageway to the forward hold. A trio of rakoshi, locked in combat, black blood gushing from their wounds, blundered into the passage. Jack sprayed them with the flamethrower, sending them reeling away, then turned and ran.
The Tomb (Repairman Jack) Page 40
