by SGD Singh
Don't be. These guys deserved worse.
Aquila glanced at Asha in alarm. With her glowing eyes and set jaw, she looked more dangerous than the Vampires… and more beautiful. Seeing what Ranya had done to the boy had freed her mind of remorse.
Aquila moved to stand near one of the sleeping Strigoi, his gurkha blade raised. He glanced at Asha as Garud, Fanishwar, Kelakha, and Chakori positioned themselves over the others, their weapons raised, waiting like statues of death. She looked fascinated. Barindra screeched, Strike, and, with a blur of steel, five Vampire heads rolled from their pillows. They screamed, a horrific sound like terrified pigs squealing filling the room, and Aquila saw Asha take a step back, blinking.
Gathering the Vampire's hair with one hand, Fanishwar lifted its dripping head and wrapped his fingers around one flailing ankle and moved toward the door with calm indifference, dragging the headless body behind him, and Aquila watched Asha jump aside as he passed her. She flinched as Barindra screeched again and Aquila turned his attention back to the Vampire in front of him, plunging his stake into its headless body.
He met Kelakha's eye and could almost hear him saying, Take your eyes off her for more than two seconds at a time, yaar. Is looking at her worth dying?
Aquila made himself not look at Asha. Yes, actually. Yes, it is.
Flames burst from the carcasses, igniting the carved beds, the silk bedding. Spreading like rivers of flame to cook the remains of the men on the floor.
Time to go.
Aquila and Kelakha escorted Asha back to Headquarters while the others met the police. Kelakha vanished to his room without a word.
Aquila knew he was also covered in blood and soot and badly in need of a shower, but as he stood with Asha in her doorway, she managed to drive all coherent thought from his mind. Her eyes met his, and without thinking, Aquila kissed her, her warm lips like life itself. He turned away while he still could, mumbling something about a shower, and when Asha's mind filled involuntarily with images of water running down his naked body, Aquila's self-control threatened to vanish and his knees nearly buckled.
He laughed then, pretending to push his way into her room, and Asha shoved him, closing the door, cutting off her rapid Spanish.
Chapter 29
Asha didn't care that Aquila had smeared blood and filth across her cheek. Taking off her jacket and shoes, she fell across her bed and was asleep within seconds.
It felt like only five minutes later when the alarm woke her, and Asha hurried to shower and dress for breakfast, joining Nidhan and Lexi on the veranda. She filled them in on the events of the morning as they entered the mess hall, filled their plates, and sat with Mia and Karan.
Looking around, Asha saw Himat wasn't there. He hadn't spoken to her since the Sphere Training incident two days ago, and he seemed to be avoiding her whenever he could. At least no one else was talking about it anymore.
A few minutes into their cardamom-cinnamon rice-and-coconut flour griddle cakes with rose mint sauce, Uma strode into the room and walked straight to their table. She stood, looking down at Asha, her expression fierce, and all conversation stopped.
“You will report to kitchen duty in fifteen minutes, Sandhu,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “And remain on kitchen duty until Sphere Training at oh three hundred hours. Every day, until further notice. And you will learn to follow orders.” Without waiting for a reply, Uma left the mess hall.
Mia whistled softly. “Mierda, you must've really pissed her off.”
† † †
Asha sniffed her hands. Garlic.
“I don't smell it, Asha,” said Lexi. “It's your imagination.”
Nidhan leaned across Lexi in the darkness of the Sphere Training theatre, saying, “Or else you have garlic in your nose,” and Lexi smacked him in the shoulder.
I think you smell absolutely divine… with a very slight hint of garlic.
Aquila kissed her hand then turned to her, tickling her neck with light kisses, and Asha's pulse raced. Lexi rolled her eyes, turning back to Nidhan and Karan, resuming their argument over who would be picked to enter the sphere next.
“Santos!” said Uma.
Lexi and Nidhan both made the same irritated snort, and Asha smiled.
Mia rose from her seat between Kelakha and Li Tsia and moved to the weapons wall, selecting a leg holster of five throwing knives. Buckling it, she straightened, entering the shimmering floor.
The first thing that hit them was the smell of rotting corpse. It was like it had been left in a hot house.
There was a collective groan as everyone covered their noses.
Mia wrinkled her nose and shot a flare through a closing window as the room began to shrink, mildewed walls closing in on her. Light faded, covering her in green-tinged gloom, and Mia crouched, the ceiling becoming too low to stand. The room continued to shrink in on her until Mia found herself in a five foot box with the rotting corpse of a very obese human.
Mia's chest was rising and falling, her eyes wide as she fought to remain calm.
But it wasn't until a centipede the size of a snake slithered along the wall and dropped onto her leg that Mia screamed. Cursing in Spanish, she kicked her leg out, stumbling against the decaying corpse, and the room dissolved back into gleaming copper reflecting on rippling water.
Mia cursed Asuras in ways Asha hadn't realized were conceivable, returned her weapons, and stalked back to her seat, where Li Tsia and Kelakha hurried to comfort her.
“Jiao Wan!” Uma called, and Lexi and Nidhan crossed their arms, glaring mutinously.
Choosing a thick, curved sword, Jiao Wan walked into the water, her bright red hair shining in the copper-tinged light.
“Chinese single-waist knife,” Aquila murmured.
“Knife?”
“In Kung Fu weapons,” he whispered, his warm breath tickling her ear, “the knife is sharp only on one side. It's heavier and tougher, and the sword is sharp on both sides and daintier. Plus, they're used very differently… I thought you knew Kung Fu.”
“BapuJi taught us some Wushu techniques, but—oh, shit,” said Asha. “Zombies…”
Jiao Wan stood in a narrow cement room. The only way out was a door at the opposite end behind five Zombies that were slowly closing in on her. Shaking horribly injured heads, they snapped rotting teeth and rolled milky, unseeing eyes as they shuffled on twisted legs, sniffing the air.
Jiao Wan's dark eyes flashed, a smile playing across her face, and she spun left in a blur of purple silk, severing the first Zombie's head from its body. Before it hit the ground, she'd sliced upward in a flash of steel, and the second collapsed. Leaping, her movements light as a ballerina, she was behind the third. Its head balanced on torn and filthy shoulders before it slid slowly from its neck in a fountain of blood as its legs gave way.
Two left.
Jiao Wan kicked the nearest Zombie savagely in the stomach, and it folded forward, its arms reaching for her, its neck meeting her blade as dark blood poured onto her shoes. Then, in one graceful upward arc of her blade, the last Zombie's head fell to the cement with a sickening crunch.
Loud applause erupted and didn't die down until after she'd returned to her seat.
Once the room was quiet, Uma said, “What did she forget to do, people?”
“I forgot my flare,” Jiao Wan admitted.
“Correct. There was a small window, an easy shot, which you didn't seem to notice. In a real life situation, if one of those Zombies had bitten you, fancy knife-work aside, you would have turned in twenty-four hours and added yourself to the epidemic.”
“Yes Ma'am—Uma. I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. Just remember your flare next time,” Uma said. “Okay, moving on… Hewitt!”
Lexi jumped up so fast, Nidhan had to scramble to get his legs out of her way. Taking the stairs three at a time, she jogged to the weapons, selecting, predictably, the largest khanda on the wall. She practically skipped into the sphere.
>
The room dissolved into an emerald green mountain slope. Jagged boulders lay scattered in the grass, the remains of a long ago avalanche, and mist rolled up from an icy river, giving the impression of floating in clouds. Lexi looked like a poster girl for Infernal Guard, Team USA with her blonde hair, navy and red clothes, and double edged sword in one hand. She raised her revolver and shot a flare into the wide sky, and Asha laughed. She reached a hand across the empty seat to Nidhan. He slapped it absentmindedly, his eyes fixed on Lexi.
The mist cleared slowly to reveal a twenty-foot-tall dead tree towering behind her, its twisted black branches silhouetted against the bleached-out sky.
“Wait,” Asha whispered. “That's not a—”
“Yep,” Aquila grinned. “Rasatala tree-demon. This should be fun.”
The eerie sound of a sinking ship, wood groaning with pressure, filled the room, and Lexi turned, her sword raised. Her eyes widened for a split second as she looked up at the tree, then Lexi planted her feet firmly and bent her legs. Asha's stomach dropped as she realized Lexi was preparing to jump.
“Is she nuts?” Aquila whispered.
“Pretty much.”
Nidhan cursed under his breath in Punjabi as a massive branch swung at Lexi, slicing through her pants as she jumped back, and with one powerful strike of her sword, she severed the entire branch from the tree. There was a deafening crack, followed by an earsplitting roar and Asha heard Aquila laugh as she flinched.
Blood flowed down Lexi's leg and onto the ground, but she didn't seem to notice as she secured the khanda onto her back in one swift movement, and, pulling out her revolver, launched herself onto the thick branch that swung at her with a terrifying whoosh, its twigs reaching like giant claws, twisting in the empty air where Lexi had stood a second before.
Running along its twisted branch, jumping, almost dancing with the demon's attempts to shake her off, Lexi pulled a large knife out of her weapons belt. Branches slashed at her, tearing her sleeves, but Lexi was already to the main trunk, and as the demon opened its dark mouth, white eyes blazing, Lexi struck the knife on the revolver and simultaneously fired a flare into the sparks, straight down its cavernous throat.
A roar twice as loud as the previous one erupted from the creature, and Lexi yelled something no one could hear. From her gesture and expression, Asha guessed it was probably something they didn't want to hear anyway. The demon continued to roar as the flames spread, pouring from its jaws like fiery vomit, and Lexi jumped, rolling smoothly to the ground as the room dissolved back into the sparkling sphere.
After looking around as if she were disappointed her turn was over, and somehow looking even more like she belonged on a poster with her clothes torn and soot smeared fashionably across her face, Lexi replaced her weapon and returned to her seat, giving Nidhan's outstretched hand a resounding slap. She whispered something to him, and Nidhan burst into laughter.
Uma called on Tzirga, who chose a twisted, double-sided spear held at the center—a maru, Aquila told Asha—and panicked after ten very convincing minutes of finding herself alone in the ocean.
Tzirga was followed by Nidhan, who impressed everyone with his ability to stylishly tear through four Vampires in less than two minutes with a talwar, combined with mind-boggling staking speed. Asha suspected Lexi was using all her self-control not to throw herself into his arms when he returned to his seat.
After Nidhan, it was Bao Chen's turn, who, in addition to finding himself in a swamp, had to confront what Aquila explained were Talatala Ngiri Demons, and what Asha thought were the most terrifying creatures she had ever seen, which, by now was saying a lot. Looking something like very toothy prehistoric warthogs, they had six legs ending in sharp clawed feet, and long tails with poisonous stingers at the end. Plus they reeked like wet dog with gangrene.
Let's never go there.
Agreed.
Four of them surrounded Bao Chen, blinking glowing red eyes and making eerie tropical bird-like noises to each other.
Chen's own eyes turned an alarming white-grey before he sprang into the air, transforming into the most adorable snow leopard Asha could imagine. Sitting in the rotting tree, he gazed down at the Ngiri demons as they surrounded its base.
A few seconds later, the demons began taking turns slamming into the tree, their muddy fur standing up along wide necks.
Dropping from the tree in a whirlwind of claws and teeth, Chen was human in the blink of an eye. He put up an impressive fight as he sliced through the creatures with an enormous Guan Dao spear, shooting them in quick succession with holy water bullets and silver bullets, every one a perfect shot.
Everyone was cheering until they realized Bao Chen's skin had begun to blister, which then erupted into bloody bubbles.
“One of the tails got him,” said Aquila. “Hurts like the dickens.”
Asha laughed. “Hurts like the what?”
“A lot. The dickens is American slang for a whole hell of a lot.”
“Do you think he'll Turn and let us pet him?” Asha said, elbowing Lexi, who nodded.
Aquila laughed as the swamp finally disappeared. “Go ahead and ask him,” he said. “Or you might want to get Mia to ask him.”
Mia turned from her seat between Kelakha and Li Tsia, “Get me to ask who what?”
“Was that snow leopard the cutest thing you've ever seen?” said Lexi.
“Why don't you keep calling him cute and see what happens?” said Nidhan.
Mia grinned. “Vamos a tenderle una emboscada después,” she whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, and winked. We'll ambush him later.
Nidhan looked at them curiously, but Lexi and Asha just giggled. Wiggling her eyebrows, Lexi made meaningless hand signals at Asha until Nidhan's expression went from confusion to repulsion.
Bao Chen returned to his seat next to Himat and Ibha, accompanied by effusive applause from all the females in the class and whistles and shouts of precious, cuddle bug, and snuggie pie from the males. They shut up when he raised one extremely long-clawed hand at them in an obscene gesture.
“Okay, Sandhu!” said Uma, looking at a piece of paper. “That means you this time, Asha.”
The room fell quiet as Asha walked to the weapons wall, selecting a large katar and securing it into her belt. Taking out her revolver, she stepped into the shimmering water, looking down in surprise as it covered her shoes, realizing when it didn't soak into them that it wasn't water at all.
When Asha looked up, she found herself standing in her own room, the olive green walls reflecting the glow of the setting sun through the half-open French doors.
After shooting a flare into the garden, Asha looked around, waiting. Praying Aquila wouldn't appear naked on her bed.
She smelled brewing coffee, and then she heard it. Her harp was being played like only one person in the whole world could play it.
Her mother.
A Revenant.
The haunting notes of her mother's favorite Swahili song filled the room, bringing sudden tears to Asha's eyes. And then the sound, the heartbreaking near-forgotten sound of her mother's voice reached her, and Asha almost fell to her knees.
A Revenant. It's not real…
Gripping the carved bedpost, Asha tried to breathe. Terror threatened to overtake her at even the idea of hurting something that looked and sounded like her mother. And still the music continued—every chord, every beautiful note like a kick to her chest.
Asha stood frozen, unable to move. The room stubbornly remained the same as the song came to an end and Asha watched in horror as a shadow moved across the balcony, and a vision exactly like her mother entered the room and smiled at her with kind blue-green eyes. So beautiful.
So wrong… not real…
But as Asha gazed dumbly, it was impossible to convince herself that this was a monster, and not even a real monster, but the illusion of a monster.
When it spoke its voice was warm and tender, a voice Asha remembered only in her dreams. Th
e Revenant spoke in Spanish. “Why are you here, Asha?”
Shaking her head, Asha stumbled back.
“You don't belong here.” It smiled, eyes filled with kindness. “Did you really think that you could join The Guard?” Shaking its head, sad now, the Revenant continued. “Why do you think we raised you Innocent? You were too weak, sweetheart, too frail, and we needed to protect you. Ask BapuJi, if you don't believe me. He'll tell you how he felt. He didn't even want you to be born, my darling. He tried to convince even me. Your grandfather knew, you see, that you would never be strong enough, that you would be born without courage…”
The Revenant was advancing slowly toward Asha who raised her revolver with a shaking hand. Sun bullet? No—holy water. Wait—behead it in its chosen form.
Shit.
Asha pulled out the katar, wrapping her fingers around its H-shaped handle.
The Revenant smiled, full of compassionate sorrow. “I've been searching for you for so long.” It held its hands, beautifully familiar hands, to its heart. “Let me take you home, honey. This place, these freakish people, it's not for us… I mean, just look at yourself. Only seventeen and already letting yourself go… such a waste. We'll get you cleaned up. You'd be amazed what a makeover can do. A normal school, with normal friends who understand what it means to really enjoy life. This whole thing is really beneath you, sweetheart. You know I'm right… if you stay I promise you'll only embarrass yourself as the most colossal failure.” The thing smiled, radiant. “I'm only telling you this because I love you, you understand that, right?”
Shut up shut up shut up…
It wasn't until Asha felt the wall against her that she realized she'd been backing away from the Revenant, who still advanced. Her arms felt like lead as she blinked, heart pounding. The thought of beheading this creature was impossible, and Asha felt herself begin to panic, some small part of her mind wondering why her turn was taking so damn long.
Then the Revenant was touching her with icy hands, her mother's eyes filling with an oily darkness, and Asha recoiled in horror. Her throat felt raw and she realized she was screaming as everything went black.
