Rain (The Quest Trilogy-Book Two)

by Iram Dana

  Subodh, who had heard the conversation, came running out with a large bowl full of camel milk.

  “Let’s go!” he rasped.

  The three of them hurried over to where the Queen stood waiting and Subodh respectfully placed the bowl of milk in front of her. She drank the entire lot in a single gulp and then looked up and blew out a jet of poisonous fumes. “I shall be on my way now. But before I go …”

  She bent her head and touched the sand below where a silver path emerged.

  “Follow this path … it will lead you out of the desert.” she said to them, and then slithered inside the sand, disappearing from view.

  Rain and Heart turned to Subodh.

  “What do you say, Subodh?”

  “It is time to leave … the future beckons.” said Subodh.

  *****

  Early the next morning, they packed their supplies and belongings and set out on the silver path stretching out before them. Every once in a while a great ripple would go through the path, throwing all of them off their feet. When they stood up the again, they would always find themselves a great distance away from their last spot.

  Barely two weeks later, they were out of the desert and onto a lonely highway. In the distance, they could make out the headlights of a car which caught up and then zoomed past them.

  “Finally! Civilization!” cheered Rain.

  The highway was dotted with the occasional motels where they could stop in order to grab a bite or rest for the night. Late that evening, Rain began to complain of hunger and exhaustion.

  “The next place we see, we will stop to eat, okay?” said Heart.

  Rain pushed his hands into his pockets. “But I’m hungry now!” he grumbled.

  His stomach gave a loud growl as a testimony to his statement.

  “I know, but all our food supplies are over. Just have a little patience, and then we’ll find a good place to satisfy your hunger.” consoled Heart.

  “I don’t want to have patience, I want to have food!”

  Heart gave a sigh. He knew it would be useless trying to reason with Rain when he was in this mood. There was silence for a short while and then Rain’s stomach growled again. He stopped walking and dug his heels into the ground stubbornly. “I’m not moving until I get something to eat!”

  Subodh nodded and then walked behind Rain and landed a blow to his head.

  “Ow!” yelled Rain, jumping forward.

  “Will that be enough, or would you like some more?” said Subodh calmly.

  Rain muttered something under his breath but began to move again, stomping his way ahead. They faced no more trouble from him after that and soon, were approaching a cozy little shack. It had the words ‘Sam’s – come on in, beer sport!’ written on a sign above it.

  The place was dimly lit from within and had four large wooden tables placed in four corners with a single light bulb hanging over each one, out of which only three were working. One table was shrouded in darkness. Rain walked straight to the ordering counter where a fat man stood, wearing a grease-stained vest and with a cheap cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “What’s on the menu tonight?” inquired Rain.

  “Would you like some wine or beer?” said the barman.

  “No. I don’t drink alcohol.”

  “Good, ‘cause I don’t have any!” said the man, and started to laugh in what sounded like a series of snorts. Rain bestowed him with a look of bored disgust.

  “Just tell me what I can order.” he snapped.

  The barman pushed a small booklet in front of him which contained the names of at least a hundred different dishes.

  “Wow! You serve all of this here?”

  “No. But I like showin’ off the menu!”

  The man began snorting again and Rain lost his temper.

  “Just talk straight, dammit!” growled Rain, banging his fist on the counter.

  A crack appeared on the glass surface. It traveled in a zigzagging path up to a stack of wine glasses piled high towards one side and travelled up the fragile construction. An instant later, the entire lot came crashing down in a mass of tinkling glass. The barman roared in anger and charged towards Rain.

  “Why you little …! I’ll have your skin for that!”

  Before he could lay a finger on Rain, Heart stepped between them. The barman stopped to glare at the obstruction in his path.

  “Get outta the way or I’ll sock you one in the eye, too!” he yelled.

  Heart rolled up his sleeves and flexed his muscles. Rain came to stand beside him and did the same. Fear and uncertainty crossed the barman’s features.

  A harried looking woman came rushing out of the kitchen at the sound of the commotion.

  “Sam! What’s all this? What’s going on?” she cried.

  No man turned to acknowledge her. She took in the scene before her, sensing the tension in the air. “Are you making trouble again, Sam?” she asked.

  The barman sneered. He seemed to be losing his anger and bravado real fast.

  “Now look,” hissed Heart, “We’re two very hungry lads … and hunger makes us very unreasonable. Let’s not force us to demonstrate how unreasonable we can get, all right? Just bring us whatever’s on the menu tonight.”

  The woman grabbed her husband’s hand and began to pull him inside the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind him, he’s a clown … means no harm, really. You boys please have a seat. I’ll bring out your meals in a jiffy.” she said to the two of them, as the reluctant barman began yielding to the force of her tugs.

  “Just stay calm … I’ll be right out.” she called over her shoulder.

  Rain and Heart silently walked to the table where Subodh was seated and took their seats opposite each other.

  “What were you doing to that guy back there? He looked like he was going to gag on his own fear.” remarked Rain.

  Heart rubbed his temples wearily.

  “I had to do something. He was going to punch the daylights out of you.”

  “Well tha …” began Rain, and then caught Subodh reaching for his stick from the corner of his eyes and amended quickly. “Well, that was real cool of you.”

  Subodh coughed suspiciously and put his stick back down.

  “Save your breath.” said Heart. “You’ll need all your energy later.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because we don’t have anything with which to pay for our meals.” whispered Heart.

  “Oh …”

  “Yes. Oh.” repeated Heart.

  “Actually, we do have a way of paying for our meals … and for the broken glasses.” said Rain.

  “We do?”

  Rain pulled out the five gold coins from his pocket.

  “I got these on my last Quest.”

  Heart took the coins from Rain.

  “This should be enough to pay for the meals, the glasses and buy the whole bleeding place from that guy!”

  “Yeah. Then he can put the coins on display … show it off…” said Rain, mimicking the barman’s demeanor.

  The kitchen door opened then and the barman’s wife came to their table and placed three plates of grilled steak and roasted vegetables before them.

  “Sam would like you to pay for the broken glasses …” she said, nervously wringing her hands together as they began to dig in. Nobody paid her any heed.

  Rain, who was having his first completely civilized meal since entering Quniverse, wouldn’t have realized it if a truck had hit him then and gone. The woman hovered around their table for a while and then left with a worried sigh.

  Rain and Heart had two more servings and at the end of it were so full, they were ready to collapse then and there for the night.

  “Aah! This is the life. A hard day’s work done, food in my belly … now all I want, is muh laydee!” said Rain.

  “I wanna lay Dee, too!” said Heart.

  Rain threw his head back and roared with laughter. Beside him, Subodh, who had finished his meal long
before them, lay fast asleep on the bench.

  “Should we wake him up now?” asked Heart.

  “Naah! We should, in fact, be joining him now.”

  “Amen to that.”

  The doors of the eatery opened just then and a gorgeous woman wearing red stilettos and a short, strapless red dress sauntered in. Rain and Heart straightened in their seats instantly. They watched her walk up to the counter, where no barman was present, and then halt. She waited silently for a few seconds, tapping her polished nails on the cracked glass counter and then turned to look at the two of them.

  Heart locked his fingers behind his head and reclined casually against the wall while Rain self-consciously combed his hands through his hair. The woman smiled coquettishly at the two of them and then cat-walked up to their table. She halted in a model-esque pose before the two of them.

  As they watched, she reached behind her back and, while staring defiantly into their eyes, slowly began unzipping her dress. Rain and Heart’s eyes bulged and they stopped breathing.

  She wouldn’t. She couldn’t … could she?

  She let the dress fall.

  Both Rain and Heart lurched forward in their seats. Underneath the dress she was wearing a white towel, draped across her luscious body and tucked in at the front. Her lips curved into a saucy smile and she reached for the front of her towel. Rain and Heart gasped and slapped their hands over their eyes, anticipating what she was about to do next. They heard the soft garment fall to the ground and then ... silence. Gingerly, they opened their fingers a crack and peeped through them.

  The towel and dress lay in a pile on the floor and above the discarded garments, posing with one hand on the hip and one behind the head – was a fat, grey donkey. She had long eyelashes and wore bright pink lipstick on her pouty lips. It was like watching a cartoon come to life.

  Rain and Heart’s hands flew from their eyes and their jaws hit the floor. They turned to look at each other in blank shock. Was this for real?

  At the other end of the dimly lit shack, someone who had obviously been trying really hard to control their laughter finally let it burst through the dams of their self control.

  The overtly feminine donkey swayed her hips and walked daintily out of the door, while the stranger continued to bang his fists on the table and laugh like there was no tomorrow.

  Rain squinted at the lone table with the fused bulb hanging over it. Was someone actually sitting there? Rain could now make out a dark-skinned man wearing black from head to toe and therefore, well camouflaged by the dim lighting of the interiors. From where he sat, he could only make out a set of gleaming white teeth. After laughing himself silly, the stranger finally got up and walked over to their table. Rain sized up the synonym for the incredible hulk walking up to their table, whose hair was plaited into neat corn rows held together in a pony tail.

  “Angel.” said the stranger, holding out an enormous hand and revealing a black Geeya mark. Rain took the hand and shook it.

  “Rain here. And this is my friend Heart.” he introduced.

  “Nice to meet you guys.” said Angel. He had a deep, booming voice that carried for miles in the silence, and it was still tinged with laughter.

  “Can we help you?” inquired Heart.

  “Not really. I just wanted to know what you thought of ‘Laydee the donkey.’”

  “You were responsible for that?” said Rain, motioning with his eyes towards the door where the donkey had just disappeared.

  “Oh yeah!” rumbled Angel, stifling a giggle.

  “How did you manage to do that?” asked Heart.

  “I can project my imaginations out of my head, into the real world. Make it a part of reality.”

  “Touch, see, feel reality?” said Rain hopefully.

  “Nope. Just see and hear reality.”

  Rain looked at Heart and the two of them made mock faces of regret.

  “Aw, bummer!” said Rain.

  “That was good, though.” said Heart, and turned to Rain. “Let’s pay up and leave, brother. It’s late I am fairly tired.”

  Rain took the gold coins out of his pocket and was about to call out to the lady when Angel placed a hand on Rain’s shoulder and shook his head.

  “No. It’s on me. Consider it amends for the almost-dessert I served up to you guys.” said Angel with a grin.

  Rain shrugged. “Be my guest.”

  Angel walked up to the counter and paid for both, their meals and the damage caused by Rain. Rain would have thanked him but Subodh was now awake.

  “Have space for one more in your little group?” asked Angel, once he had finished paying.

  “In this lonely universe, the more the merrier.” said Rain.

  Rain was the first to walk out of the door followed by Heart, Angel, and lastly, a sleepy Subodh.

  Right outside the door Rain jerked to a halt, causing Heart to bump into him, Angel to bump into Heart, and Subodh to bump into Angel.

  “Hey! What …” began Heart.

  “Yo man! What’s the …” growled Angel.

  Rain held up a hand to silence both of them.

  “Shhh … watch.” he whispered, pointing to the highway.

  *****

  CHAPTER 19

  “What is it?” whispered Heart and Angel, coming to stand beside Rain.

  “Look over there.” said Rain, pointing to the highway.

  A lone headlight could be seen shining in the distance.

  “Man!” breathed Angel, “Is that a …?”

  “Yeah. A Ducati Monster.” said Rain, with reverence.

  “A Ducati Monster, in Quniverse!” exclaimed Heart.

  “Is this the reason you are giving a concussion to an old man?” barked Subodh, landing a blow to Rain’s head.

  “What the hell …?” said Angel, eyeing Subodh incredulously.

  Rain sighed. “If you want to stay in this group, you’ll have to get used to that.”

  The bike zoomed past them and all three turned their heads collectively, religiously following every turn of its wheels. The bike had barely passed them, when it screeched to a halt, did a u-turn and headed straight towards them. It roared into the driveway of the shack and swerved into a parking slot, throwing up a cloud of dust as it skidded to a halt. Rain and Angel let out a low whistle, admiring the driver’s mean driving skills. The rider of the bike, dressed entirely in white leather with orange highlights on the cuffs and collar, got off the bike lithely and reached up to pull the helmet off.

  Long, brown hair came tumbling down in a luscious mass of waves and curls.

  “Whoa!” said Rain, softly.

  Beside him, Heart sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Now that’s what I call a hot momma!” rumbled Angel under his breath.

  The girl spotted the four of them standing there and paused uncertainly. From somewhere out of their view, a leering voice floated out of the darkness.

  “Now what’s a hot chick like you doing on a dangerous bike like that?”

  A lanky teenager, wearing a hooded sweatshirt loped out of the shadows. He stopped a few feet away from the girl and spat on the ground.

  “I’m lost …see? Now hand the keys over so I can safely drive myself home.” he sneered.

  Heart started forward but the girl held up a hand and he stopped where he was.

  The boy’s head jerked towards the door of the shack and fear leapt into his features when he realized that they were not the only two people there. He drew a gun out of his pocket.

  “No one move!” he cried, “Or someone gets hurt.”

  He pointed the gun at the girl who, for some reason, was as calm as a saint. The boy held out his palm.

  “Now gimme the keys, quick!” he ordered.

  The girl crossed one leg over the other and casually leaned against her bike, making no such move.

  “It’s loaded!” warned the boy, looking wild eyed. He raised the gun so it pointed to her head. “I’ll shoot …I’m not kidding!”

>   “I’ll give you one warning …” said the girl icily, her eyes never leaving the boy’s. “Put that gun down, and leave … now.”

  She spoke in heavily accented English.

  The boy, however, seemed to grow more belligerent at her warning.

  “Trying to play smarty chick with me, are ya? I’ll show ya …”

  Heart, sensing the intention in the boy’s heart, leapt at him. In the scuffle that followed, the boy pulled the trigger of the gun and a bullet shot out, narrowly missing the girl and grazing the sleeve of her white leather jacket. The girl moved off her bike.

  “Time’s up.” she said, striding over to the boy. “You, move.” she commanded Heart and to the boy, she snapped;

  “Get up.”

  The boy got to his feet jerkily. Against his will, he lifted his hand and placed the tip of the gun on his own head.

  “Scared now?” hissed the girl, with fire in her eyes.

  “What are you doing? Stop it! Stop it!” yelled the boy, eyes huge like saucers.

  His hands shoved the gun into his mouth and he jerked wildly where he stood.

  “Not trying to run now, are you? Not with a bike right here, waiting to be stolen. Be patient.” taunted the girl.

  The boy grabbed the barrel of the gun with both his hands, pointed it at his legs and shot himself in the knee caps, shrieking with pain. Then he flung the gun towards Rain, who caught it and unloaded it immediately.

  The girl turned to Heart, releasing the boy from some unknown force, and he collapsed to the ground in a mass of pain.

  “You are all right?” she said to Heart, who was still on the ground.

  Heart nodded.

  “You are Spanish?” he asked her.

  Her features hardened. “Is that a problem?”

  Heart shook his head vigorously. “No, no. It is not a problem at all.”

  “In that case, I should leave before there is.” said the girl, and turned on her heel and walked up to the bike.

  “Wait!” called Heart. She stopped.