They moaned. They hissed and snarled and spat. Some had no eyes at all and sniffed, their necks stretched long to taste Ash’s scent in among the foulness. Bones lay broken and excrement stank in the alcoves.
Claws scratched the stone. Teeth, fangs, snapped with hunger.
How many were there? Shapes moved beyond the light, further and further into the darkness. The caverns could go on for ever.
A man – Ash thought it was a man – scuttled forward. He had six arms and no legs, so he moved like an ant. A swollen head with tusks jutted from the shoulders, and he snorted as he ran up to Ash, beady red eyes set at odd angles in his face. He stopped a few metres from Ash, watching, salivating.
Ash glanced at the bones nearby. These creatures weren’t fed by Savage. They fed off each other.
The six-armed man charged. He rushed in low and rammed Ash in the guts, crushing him against the iron door.
Ash gasped as a tusk dug into his thigh and he slammed his fists into the creature’s head. He drove a knee into its jaw and its teeth cracked. He did it again and they all fell out. The six-armed man spat them out and ran back, readying for a second attack. Ash struggled to stand, his stomach heaved and a thin tear bled down his leg.
The air oppressed him as the creatures clustered around. They stood upon each other and hands grasped out, bony fingers or talons jabbing at him, trying to snatch a piece of flesh. They cackled and groaned and jabbered with famished excitement.
A long, serpentine tail wound itself around Ash’s ankle. He pulled and beat at it, but it held on. Six-arms charged again, catching Ash in the ribs. He went down and Six-arms pounced on top of him. Cold, strong hands grabbed Ash’s other leg and began to pull. Nails ripped at his clothes and sank into his limbs.
Ash wedged the chain into Six-arms’ mouth. He heaved it back, bending the neck away from him, but the creature was immensely strong and was able to add its weight behind it. Spittle, green and putrid, dripped over Ash’s face. Those red eyes widened, glowing with bloodlust.
A tongue licked Ash’s foot. He thrashed out as he felt teeth on his toes.
Sweating, panting, he pushed. The chain dug into the monster’s mouth, deep into the sides and his tongue thrashed over the iron as Ash forced him further back. The bloodlust gave way to pain, to fear.
Ash pulled his legs free and tucked them under Six-arms’ body. Then, with a kick and shove, he threw him back into the heaving mass of horrors. He scrambled to his feet, crouching low, glaring back at the dozens of eager, hungry eyes.
They came closer. Six-arms vanished into the crowd, screaming, defeated, and they devoured him. A cluster of creatures surrounded him and tore him, literally, limb from limb, flesh spattering the rocks and other monsters.
Ash shivered, trying not to puke. He picked up a splintered bone. It was little better than nothing. “I hope you bloody well get food poisoning,” he snarled. It was all he had left – his defiance. No way could he take them all.
It was a grunt, from somewhere further back. A grunt that was some sort of laugh. Someone clapped their hands and grunted again. “Food poisoning? I like that.” The grunt rumbled out again. It was a deep, rocking sound that shook the air, raising echoes that boomed from the darkness. “Food poisoning!”
The mob of monsters fell silent, but for the odd crunch or slurp.
“Make way!” A stick whacked flesh and Ash watched the crowd part. Some were reluctant, still casting hungry looks at Ash and licking their lips, but make way they did.
“Make way …”
A man came forward. The bones within the wrinkled and scarred oak-brown skin had been warped so that his back curved sharply and his head, matted with dreadlocks and tilted on a scrawny neck, seemed ready to snap at the merest sudden move. His eyes were gone, the face grooved with deep scars running from his forehead, through the empty eye sockets and down to the bearded jaw. He walked towards Ash clutching a bamboo stick.
Ash looked at the scarred eye sockets, and knew those eyes would have been blue.
“Food poisoning?” The blind, mutilated man came to a stop facing Ash. “Funny, boy. Funny.”
Ash reached out and touched him. “Rishi?”
Chapter Twenty-three
“So, you’re the Eternal Warrior? Interesting,” said Rishi. He passed a bowl towards Ash. He must have sensed Ash’s reluctance. “Mushrooms. The only things that grow down here. Perfectly edible. Perfectly vegetarian.”
He couldn’t believe it was Rishi. Not the one from his timeline, of course. He’d died rescuing Ash, but having Rishi back, any version of him, meant they were still in with a chance.
Ash rubbed his wrists. They’d managed to smash off the manacles, but he was bruised and aching. He picked up the bowl and sniffed it. He ate one. Not bad. He ate another. “Yes. In my timeline we defeated Ravana.”
“Now, that I would have liked to see.” Rishi picked up a second bowl. “So I exist in this other timeline also?”
“You saved my life. Mine and my sister’s. It was you who told me about the Kali-aastra and what I was.”
“Glad I did something right.”
Ash looked at the old sadhu and, for the first time in ages, felt hope. “What happened?”
Rishi sighed and put the bowl down. One of the others sniffed at it and licked the few specks of left-over mushroom. “Savage returned to India ten years ago. First thing he did was buy that old maharajah’s palace downriver from Varanasi. Renamed it the Savage Fortress.”
“Same in my time. But he didn’t get it ten years ago. He only bought it a year or two back.”
Rishi grimaced. “He started digging and found the Kali-aastra. He knew exactly where to look. Then he headed off to Rajasthan. I followed. Alone.”
“What about Parvati?” asked Ash.
“She was just five, Ash. Her rakshasa soul hadn’t awoken. She was living as a human child with a family who loved her. A few siblings. I’d been keeping an eye on her, watching out for the first signs that she was changing. But I knew I still had a few years. Best let her enjoy them, don’t you think? The nightmares, the old memories would come soon enough, show her what she truly was – whose daughter she was. It was kinder to let her have some happy years first.”
“What happened in Rajasthan?”
Rishi nodded. “I tried to stop Savage, but what could I do by myself? He caught me and let that vulture Jat eat my eyes. I never saw Ravana, but I heard him. I heard the world scream at his rebirth. I wish I’d died that night.”
Ash touched the sadhu’s arm. “Then what?”
Rishi grunted. “Savage held me prisoner at the Savage Fortress for a few months while he studied with Ravana. Then, when he’d learned all he could …” Rishi drew his thumb across his throat. “He used the Kali-aastra to kill Ravana once and for all. There was a lot of confusion that night. I managed to escape, got as far as Varanasi before they caught me. So I was brought here.”
“But what about your magic? Couldn’t you just blast yourself out? I’ve seen you hurl lightning bolts.”
“Powers my god Shiva bestowed upon me. But they are powers of the sky; I cannot access them so far beneath the earth.” Rishi frowned. “Then, as Savage began his experiments, they started to arrive. Poor villagers, lost travellers. He tried out his alchemy on them, and those that didn’t die were left here. I did my best to look after them but, well, you’ve seen. A few hang on to their humanity, but only a very few. By the time Savage has finished with them they are barely human, in more ways than one. What you see here are the … least damaged.”
“You have to be joking.” Ash looked about him. He’d never seen a more gruesome group of monsters. Even when he’d witnessed the demon nations and seen every rakshasa gathered, awaiting Ravana’s rebirth, the horror hadn’t been this great. But those were true demons. These pitiful things were neither one nor the other. No wonder nature rejected them.
“The worst disappeared deeper into the mountain. Sometimes they creep here, steal a
few of my people. You can hear them in the darkness, and the screams of the ones they take. The mountain shakes and we lose a few under the collapsing chambers and rockfalls. I cannot imagine what sorts of creatures dwell in the very pits that make even a mountain tremble in fear.”
“How far in have you gone?”
“Not far. Every now and then we search to try to find those kidnapped, but it seems even the shadows are hungry, and members of the rescue party are killed. But sometimes, Ash, sometimes …” he smiled, “… I think I feel the wind on my face. It is cold and fresh and smells sweet, like the breath of a god. Oh, at that moment I feel almost free.” Rishi touched his own cheek. “I dream about sunlight. What it felt like. To be warm again.”
Ash sank back against the wall. His stomach rumbled and protested. It wanted more than a few wrinkled mushrooms. He was too tired, too bruised and too hungry. He looked at the old man. Rishi, the legend. He’d struck a cow the first time Ash had met him. Out on the hot, dusty streets of Varanasi. His eyes had shone bright blue. Now they were gone. Only one man shone now and that was Savage. He’d eaten all their hopes, gorged himself on the lives of everyone who’d tried to stop him, and made himself whole, young, immortal and all-powerful.
“How did Savage awaken the Kali-aastra?” The weapon of the death goddess demanded a great sacrifice before it could be used.
“Himself,” said Rishi.
“What?”
“Think about it, Ash. There are two of you, so there were two of him. The version you knew, who cast the Time Spell, and the version that existed in this timeline.”
“That is seriously messed up. Why didn’t the other demons have their revenge on Savage when he killed Ravana? Why did they let him get away with it?”
“He had the demon king’s heir.”
“Rani,” said Ash. It all made sense.
“Yes, Rani. She is the queen, the rani, of all the demon nations. A puppet of Savage’s to be sure, but still, in name, she rules as her father once did. Savage will tire of the arrangement. He was never one to stand behind the throne when he could sit upon it.”
Ash frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He plans to kill her. It is Savage’s nature to betray. Surely you know that?”
Yes, of course he did. Savage had conned Parvati out of her father’s scrolls back in the nineteenth century. He’d killed Ash before the Iron Gates. He’d tricked him in order to get into Lanka. For all his grandeur, power and ambition, Savage was just a thief. Plain and simple. “I’ve got to warn her,” said Ash.
“Why would she believe you?”
“If it just makes her mistrust Savage, even a little, puts her on her guard, that’s good enough.”
“Why do you want to? She’s as evil as he is. They deserve one another.”
“No, Rishi. I know Rani. She might call herself queen of the demons, but she’s been my friend for hundreds of reincarnations. She’s my friend in this one too, but she just doesn’t know it yet.”
“It must be a most powerful friendship.”
Ash stopped. How many times had she saved his life and he hers? Countless times, over more centuries than history knew. “It is.” He walked to the iron door. “When is she down next?”
“Who knows? This is the first time she’s been here in months.” Rishi hobbled over. “But what’s the rush?”
“Savage has perfected his drug. He’s going to launch it in a few days. What you have here is going to happen all over the world.”
Rishi went pale. “He is insane.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
Ash looked down into the deeper caverns, into the blackness. He licked his lips. What had Rishi said? Wind on his face.
“What is it, boy? What do you think?”
What was down there? There was only one way to find out. He made up his mind and grasped Rishi’s arm. “I think it’s time we got the hell out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“Don’t look,” said Parvati, but much too late.
They hung from hooks, swaying, cocooned in plastic. Ashoka’s flashlight caught on pallid faces and empty eyes.
But what was worse was the way they … sloshed. Fluids had run from the bodies and collected at the bottom of the bags. A few had sprung leaks so the blood and fat and gore dripped steadily into pink puddles on the hard, ceramic floor. Thin rivulets ran to chrome drains and Ashoka felt sick thinking about what they must have swum through to get here. The odour of disinfectant burnt his nostrils, but it still failed to mask the putrid, humid stench of decomposition. A chunk of bile stirred high in his throat. “Those chimneys …”
“They’re burning the bodies.”
Ashoka stumbled back into the lift. He stared at the floor, trying to clear his mind. “You knew?”
“I suspected. I’ve come across this sort of operation before.”
“Oh, Jesus – Lucks!” Was she here? Or his mum? His dad?
No. No, not after all this.
He couldn’t raise his gaze. He was too terrified of what he might see, whom he might see. But how could he not look? He needed to know. What was better? To live in ignorant hope or to risk seeing Lucky hanging upside down in one of those bags?
“You go back. I’ll look for them,” said Parvati. But even her voice faltered.
“No, I have to come. I have to see.”
Parvati took his hand and led Ashoka into the lab.
They weren’t human any more. Not just in death, but in what had been done to them. Their flashlights shone upon scaled skin and fur and there were feathers and odd, misjoined limbs, sometimes human, sometimes not, that had grown out of bellies or chests. One old man had teeth within his eyelids.
But no one Ashoka recognised.
They walked silently among the corpses. Goosebumps prickled over his bare arms as the chilled air blasted out, and yet Ashoka sweated, lost in this inverted forest of the dead.
The lights came on. Parvati pulled him behind a storage cabinet. Blue neon tubes flickered and hummed and then bank upon bank awoke, filling the white chamber with cold irradiance. The doors at the far end slammed open, a trolley clanked over the threshold, and Ashoka heard voices talking in what he thought was Cantonese. He peeked a glance as they walked by.
The trolley was three decks high, stainless steel, and the two men with it unhooked and lay a body on each shelf. They might as well have been picking the Christmas turkey for all the interest they took. They heaved and got the trolley rolling back out. The last man flicked the lights back off.
A few seconds later Ashoka and Parvati followed through the same big double doors and found themselves in a corridor of red-painted brickwork and concrete. Drainpipes ran along the ceiling and Ashoka spotted the dark stains where joints had leaked. The two men and the trolley vanished around a corner.
They crept along the corridor, eyes peeled, Parvati ahead with her knife out. Ashoka felt he was leaving a trail of sweat; every muscle was tight and his nerves were shredded. The doors off the corridor were stainless steel and heavy, down a tall step to prevent contaminants running out into the corridor. The entire underground complex stank of antiseptic. Ashoka caught the distant roar of a furnace and gulped. The pitch rose and he knew what was being burnt within.
They were getting nowhere. Sooner or later those two guys they’d taken out would be missed, or would wake up, or be found wrapped under the desk, and then all hell would break loose. What they needed was a set of floor plans.
Ashoka peered through a glass panel in one of the doors … and met the gaze of a man looking back. The man frowned through a pair of thick spectacles, then his mouth dropped open. A clipboard clattered on the floor.
“Parvati!” Ashoka shouted.
She moved, hurling the door open. She jumped over a steel table as the man dashed towards the far wall and the red alarm button upon it. He stumbled over a stool and it clanged like a hammer on tin as it bounced on the tiles. Parvati sprang in front of him and wove h
er hands around his arms, twisting them over his shoulder and driving him to his knees so he screamed.
Ashoka checked the corridor, then locked the door and hung a coat over the glass panel before joining them.
He stared at the line of cold steel tables. They weren’t flat, but sloped into a central gulley that ran to a small drain at the foot. Not just tables – dissection slabs. Over each hung a small camera and microphone, and a gas mask dangled from a valve. The slabs had four sets of straps, one at head level, then shoulders, waist and ankles. But you didn’t need to strap down corpses.
They’re for live experiments.
Neatly arranged beside each was a tray of medical instruments, including electric saws and drills. The slabs were thankfully empty, but even walking past them Ashoka felt sick. Jars filled nearby shelves. He didn’t dare look at what was in them.
“You’re breaking my arm!” cried the man. He panted with fear and panic, and stared from Parvati to Ashoka and back. “This is restricted access.”
Parvati held him with one hand and peered at his security tag. “I can see why, Dr Wells.”
Ashoka went to the man’s desk. The laptop was open and there was a paused video clip on the screen. It showed Dr Wells, dressed in a head-to-foot blood-spattered bio-suit, standing over a man strapped to the slab. Or what was left of one.
Dr Wells paled. “And that is not for public viewing.”
This is real. This is not some computer game or movie or fake footage. That is a person on that slab.
“Who was he?” Ashoka asked, his voice tight.
“Who was who?”
“The man lying there.”
Dr Wells frowned. “I don’t know. He just had a test number. It says so on the log.”
Rage pounded in Ashoka’s temples. “What did you do to him?”
“Please,” whispered the doctor. “I just work here. I don’t make the decisions. I just—”
Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness Page 13
