The Hand of Kali Box Set Vol 2

by T. G. Ayer

  Dev shook his head. “She isn’t dying. But she is infected by something. A parasite of sorts that’s managed to alter her DNA structure enough that I’m a little worried that even if you get rid of the mahavitala from her mind, Joss may never be the same again.”

  This time, the silence in the kitchen was filled with darkness and horror, and Maya didn’t want to speak for fear of bursting into tears.

  “What exactly does this mean for Joss?” asked Ria softly, reaching for Maya’s hand.

  The girls held onto each other, fingers threaded, lending each other warmth and support as Dev replied, “Joss’s DNA no longer qualifies as fully human. She’s slowly turning into what modern terminology would label as vampire. Except not the Dracula kind.”

  Ria’s nails dug deep into Maya’s fingers and she was glad for the sharp stabs of pain. If she hadn’t had the little cuts to think about, she would have lost her mind, cried, yelled at her parents, cursed Yama and Kali and everyone involved in the mission.

  Instead, she sucked in a hard breath and squeezed Ria’s hand. She looked at her friend whose eyes were filled with tears, and said, “I suppose we should be grateful. Joss would be so pissed if she turned into the sparkly kind.”

  Ria sputtered on a laugh, amusement shimmering through her tears. “Very true. Silver linings, right?” she offered though her expression sobered.

  The elder Raos shared a curious look, then Leela peered at Maya. “What are you two talking about? Sparkly what?”

  Maya said, “Just a type of vampire Joss hates.” Leela still frowned in confusion though she didn’t pursue for clarification. Maya continued, “I suppose this means that even if I find a way to remove the demon, we’re already too late to save Joss completely and go back to the way things were?”

  Dev was strangely silent, and his face suddenly appeared ancient, as though in the course of the last few day’s he’d aged a decade. Maya knew how he felt.

  She rubbed her forehead and stared at her cold coffee. “But as you said, when she does wake up, she’s going to go ballistic one way or another. Which means we need to do whatever it takes to ensure she doesn’t get any worse. Because Joss as a paranormal agent is talented and super-skilled and focused. I’m a little afraid of what Joss as a vampire will be like.”

  “Nothing like a healthy dose of fear of bloodsuckers to get a girl moving,” muttered Ria as she got to her feet.

  Maya stood as well and met her mom’s reddened eyes. “I’m going to go up and see what I can do.”

  “I’m going with you in case you need help,” Ria added, her tone saying Maya couldn’t decline the help even if she wanted to.

  So Maya left the kitchen with Ria in tow, and her parents staring after her, both looking bleak and worried. She hated seeing them hurting and she was determined to fix Joss as quickly as she could.

  Maya opened Joss’s room door and was about to ask Ria to fetch her go-bag when she paused in shock, stopping in her tracks so suddenly that Ria walked right into her.

  Nurse Lark hovered over Joss, and in the darkness, Maya wasn’t able to see what she was doing. The room light flicked on, thanks to Ria, and caught the woman holding Joss’s arm. Startled by the light, the nurse spun around to face Maya, though her left hand remained behind her back.

  “What are you doing?” Maya asked, ice in her tone and her eyes.

  Nurse Lark smiled, her gentle-granny expression looking like a mask on her face. “I was merely checking up on my patient, Maya. It is, after all, my job.” She nodded and walked toward the girls, forcing them to either grab hold of her or move aside.

  Maya let her pass and Ria also stepped away, and as the woman headed out of the room, she stuck her hands inside the pockets of her knee-length cardigan.

  Despite her suspicions of the nurse, Maya’s main concern was Joss. She rushed to the bedside, checking her friend’s vitals and making sure she was still alive.

  Ria remained in the doorway as Maya inspected Joss’s neck and arm. The stray drops of blood on the sheet was no surprise, though the ampoule in Joss’s arm appeared untouched.

  “She took a blood sample,” Maya hissed and turned to race down out the room and down the stairs.

  Nurse Lark was opening the door and Maya yelled out, “Stop! Nurse Lark! What did you do to Joss?”

  Maya’s parents rushed into the hall from the kitchen. Shocked, they stared at the nurse who had frozen on the threshold.

  “Stop her!” Maya screamed as she took the steps two at a time.

  Her parents raced for the nurse, but the nurse slammed the door shut behind her. Maya got to the bottom of the stairs just as her dad flung the door open and they watched the old woman sprint into the rainy night.

  Nurse Lark raced toward a car waiting at the sidewalk. With the headlights turned off, they never would have noticed the car in the darkness had the low rumble of the engine not given it away.

  Moments later, Maya and her parents, along with Ria, were standing on the front porch in the dark, staring at the disappearing red tail-lights of Nurse Lark’s getaway car.

  Breathing hard, Leela asked, “What did she take?”

  In a voice filled with fear, Maya replied, “Joss’s blood.”

  And that was the first time Maya had ever heard her mom use the F-word.

  Chapter 32

  In the wake of the nurse’s theft of Joss’s blood, Maya and her family stood at Joss’s bedside in silence. After shutting the door and locking it, they’d hurried upstairs to check on her. Nobody spoke for a few minutes as they all digested what had just happened.

  “How was she up here when nobody even knew she was inside the house?” asked Leela, her tone filled with something Maya recognized: self blame.

  “How did she even get upstairs without someone spotting her passing the kitchen?” asked Ria softly, a hand to her throat.

  “I feel ill. She could have come up to murder Joss and we had no idea.” Maya stiffened and scanned the room. Why had Sabala not alerted them?

  She spotted the hellhound who seemed to materialize out of the shadows on the other side of Joss’s bed. He must have hidden himself to avoid shocking Ria who still had no idea he existed. And yet, he’d had thrown off a glamor.

  Probably because the glare Maya sent Sabala was filled with fury and accusation. Which was enough for the hellhound to risk terrifying an unsuspecting Ria by saying out loud, “Do not be afraid. The woman took blood from Joss and I’m afraid I couldn’t risk leaving. I chose to stay in case she intended to do more than steal blood. I apologize, Maya. But Joss is unhurt.”

  “What the fracking hell!” Ria’s voice scraped Maya’s ears with both pitch and volume. Maya turned, more shocked at Ria’s use of semi-profanity than anything.

  Ria stood between Maya’s parents, frozen in place, staring at Sabala, looking like she was about to pass out. Leela and Dev looked at each other over the girl’s head, though they both remained silent as though afraid to startle her.

  Ria whispered, “Please tell me I just imagined that a scary pooch just appeared out of nowhere and spoke to you in perfectly enunciated English.”

  Maya’s mom took a step aside to make way for her as she went to her shocked friend and gently held her arm. The tension in Ria’s muscles confirmed the state of her mind.

  “It’s okay, Ria,” Maya said softly. “A few things happened that I didn’t get a chance to tell you about when we left you at the compound. And the scary pooch was a little hard to explain over text. But you’re here. And now you know.”

  Ria turned a narrow-eyed glare at Maya. “And what exactly is it that I now know?” she asked, her tone dangerously cool.

  After glancing over at the hellhound, Maya sighed. “This is Sabala. He was sent by Mother Kali to protect me. He can make himself invisible. And he can talk. That particular piece of information is new to me too, so I share your shock in that regard.”

  A moment of tense silence passed and then Ria asked, “Wait a sec. Sabala? As
in Syama and Sabala?”

  “Yup. I know it’s a bit much to take in, Ria. And I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you before.”

  Ria was silent for a long moment, and just when Maya was convinced her poor friend was going to either pass out or run off screaming, Ria said, “I’m not sure what surprises me more. That there is a talking four-eyed hellhound sitting in Joss’s room, or that I’m not totally surprised that there is a talking four-eyed hellhound sitting in Joss’s room.” Then she sighed and gave Maya a quick hug, hopefully an act of silent forgiveness.

  The talking four-eyed hellhound walked around the bed and came to Maya’s side where he sat down in silence.

  When Ria pulled away, she studied Sabala for a long moment, then glanced over at the elder Raos and then at Maya. “Now that we’ve ticked the talking hellhound off the list of shocks for the day, we may proceed to the blood-stealing nurse.” Her expression remained deadpan and everyone smiled, though nobody really gave Ria’s comment the response it deserved.

  “So we can confidently assume KALIMA knows more about Joss than we realized,” said Maya, her heart slamming against her ribs now that the severity of Nurse Larks brazen theft hit her again.

  Leela nodded. “I’m beginning to wonder if this house is bugged despite our wards.”

  “Could have been something the nurse brought in with her that broke through, even if temporarily,” said Dev, speaking absently as though his thoughts were focused elsewhere. He was looking tired again, which was no surprise considering how late it was.

  “Your computers?” suggested Maya. “Mom’s contacts for the bloods?”

  “It could be anything,” Leela said, her tone edged with panic.

  Ria nodded. “There are too many ways to hack into communications and systems and GPS. If they wanted to, they wouldn’t hesitate to break their own privacy rules.”

  Maya looked at Ria for a few seconds, considering her words and the confidence with which she’d spoken. Ria had clearly been training and learning all these months in the jungle. She’d probably end up being one of the best of the Kali Hunters around.

  Then a thought struck Maya. “You guys joked a while back about GPS tracking. I really hope you weren’t even half serious.”

  The fear in her mom’s eyes was enough of an answer.

  “Who here has a tracker?” Maya asked slowly, trepidation clenching her stomach.

  Her parents shared a dark look, then her dad said, “Both you and Joss of course, and Ria.”

  Ria’s eyes went wide. “What? Why would I be chipped?”

  “And when would we have been chipped?” Maya added, panic teasing her enough that Sabala shifted and bumped against her. He’d remained oddly silent and she hoped Ria’s shocked reaction hadn’t upset him.

  Leela gave a sad smile. “We’ve all had trackers inserted for safety and security reasons. Even so, access to the chips aren’t guaranteed as many forms of interference can garble the transmissions. We still went with the chipping out of concern for our agents’ safety. And we had rules in place that only top-level security passes would be able to access GPS trackers, and only if agreed to by the board. They were only ever meant to be used in emergencies. Life or death situations.”

  “But these chips can be hacked right?” asked Maya softly.

  Dev shook his head, though not to deny the possibility. “This wouldn’t be happening if we were still in control of the agency.”

  “You’re not in control?” asked Ria softly, her face now pale.

  Perhaps speaking aloud is not wise at this time, suggested Sabala in Maya’s mind.

  She nodded and raised a finger to her lips then touched Ria’s shoulder. They all fell silent and Maya waited for her mom to take the lead.

  Leela said, “Maybe it’s time for you two to get some rest. Ria, you’ve had a long flight. Probably best for you to sleep so you can be rested when we head over to HQ in the morning for your briefing.”

  Ria laughed softly. “Yes, I did leave in a bit of a rush. The team back in India knew my reasons though, but I guess HQ will want to verify I’m not AWOL or something.” Her voice was filled with amusement though her eyes only reflected sadness and worry.

  Leela nodded and gave the girls a comforting smile, then waved at Dev to leave with her. As her parents left Joss’s room, Maya’s mind raced. If the agency had been listening, they’d already have heard everything she’d said to Ria, and to Nik, and to Mother Kali. Had they heard the goddess’s responses?

  And even if they hadn’t, Maya had told her parents a few sensitive details in the kitchen earlier. What happens if the board heard all of what they’d talked about these last few days? She had to hope they’d bypassed her dad’s security only because Nurse Lark had carried some kind of device around the house with her.

  Which would have been irregular, and dependent on where the nurse had been in the house. Because, if their chips had been turned on and the agency had been privy to everything they’d discussed, then Maya and her family had a lot of trouble ahead of them.

  For now, she held on tightly to her mom’s words. ‘…access to the chips aren’t guaranteed as many forms of interference can garble the transmissions.’

  Hopefully, at least part of their house was protected from the agency. Hopefully, some of what they’d discussed had remained private.

  Maya shared a worried look with Ria. Then, in silence, they rummaged inside the nightstands and closets and tallboys, and searched the rest of the room, just in case. When they both came up empty, Maya stood still for a moment, feeling as though she wanted to throw herself on the floor and bawl her eyes out. Or scream.

  I understand this is difficult for you, but perhaps now is the time to attempt to dispatch Kripali from Joss’s mind. You have the power, Maya. Just believe in yourself and do it.

  Sabala wasn’t wrong. Maya fetched a pencil and notepad from the nightstand before pointing at the light switch for Ria to shut it off.

  With the room in darkness, Ria came to read the message Maya had already scribbled out. Stay silent. Have to get rid of the demon asap.

  What do you need me to do?

  Bowl of water and burn the frankincense. Stay dark if possible.

  Maya wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but she knew water diluted demonic power and so did frankincense. Other than that, Maya was winging it.

  Frankincense will dispel the negative energies, removing any darkness which a demon or spirit may attach itself to. Water is also life and is a both a purifier and a conduit of energy. So far, you’re doing perfectly, said Sabala, his voice encouraging and somewhat pleased. Which of course pleased Maya.

  Ria nodded and left the room, switching on her smartphone’s torch, while Maya shucked off her loafers and climbed onto the bed beside Joss. The room was cloaked in darkness and the only light came from the bathroom where the door had been left about an inch ajar. Just enough light for her to see what she was doing.

  She rested her fingers briefly on Joss’s temples, testing for any form of resistance. Finding none, Maya took a few deep breaths and rolled her shoulders. Ria tiptoed inside the room with an already lit tray of frankincense and a brass bowl of water.

  She set the two dishes on the nightstand and stood beside the bed, waiting. When Maya looked up at Ria and shook her head, pointing to the door for her to leave, Ria refused, eyes wide as she glared back.

  Maya grabbed the notepad and scribbled out a message.

  If I cast this demon out, she’ll attach herself to the first vulnerable person she can find.

  Ria paused as though she was about to obey, but then her eyes widened. She shook her head and turned her hand over to reveal a tattoo of the goddess on her forearm

  Got it at the temple in the compound. Strange old priest came. Said I needed protection.

  The dark lines forming the mother goddess’s image was surrounded by words in an ancient language.

  The mark is a form of Ma Kali’s protection. It is sufficien
t to protect Ria, assured Sabala.

  You? Ria wrote.

  Kapali cannot possess you. As Kali’s Hand, you have the ultimate protection.

  Maya relayed Sabala’s message and then studied the tattoo, sadness filling her that Joss hadn’t been protected by something, a tattoo or an amulet. Any protection would have helped save Joss.

  Ria wrote another message. Your parents? Everyone in the house vulnerable.

  Mom probably safe. Check on Dad.

  Ria raced out of the room to find Maya’s parents and while she was gone, Maya breathed in and out, trying to free her mind from any intrusive thoughts. Ria returned mere minutes later and handed over a note in Leela’s handwriting.

  We both have Kali’s protection. Tattoo similar to Ria’s though not the same. Protected as guardians of the Mother.

  Relieved, Maya nodded at Ria and then focused on the patient. She rested her fingers on Joss’s temples and, within moments, she sank into her BFF’s mind. She honed in on the protection around Joss’s consciousness and saw that Mother Kali had meant: Joss’s strength filled the ward around her mind, strong and solid.

  Now, all Maya had to do was to find the Kripali and kick her out. Which was easier said than done. Minutes ticked by and, as hard as she searched, she found no sign of the mahavitala. Despondent, Maya had just begun to retreat when she found her awareness snagged by something, as though an invisible lassoo had been thrown around her mind.

  Her first instinct was to struggle, and she did, almost freeing herself from its hold, but she stopped when a feeling of intense familiarity and love filled her.

  Joss.

  Without thinking Maya dropped her guard and let Joss pull her in. And then, in her mind, Joss said, “Took you long enough.”

  “Sorry. Lot’s hitting the fan. Now, how do I get rid of your unwelcome guest.”

  “I’m not sure. I’m just focusing on keeping the barrier strong so she won’t get in.”