Warlock

by Vickram E Diwan

  The driver immediately opened the door of the other side for Rudolf Schönherr; a small red light built inside the lower section of the door, lighted simultaneously with the opening of the door. Rudolf Schönherr looked questioningly at his lawyer, “Are you coming? Can we drop you somewhere?”

  “No need,” she answered smiling, “my car is parked right next to yours.”

  Rudolf Schönherr looked at a ‘Honda City’ parked next to the Mercedes; he again turned his head to Anjali and said, “So? When and where do we meet next, to discuss the case?”

  “I will have my assistant call you and fix a mutually convenient time and place.”

  “Great,” he said and left with his friend.

  It was the second morning after his release and Rudolf Schönherr had woken up early. He picked up his Toyota Prado and drove out of the porch of his bungalow; it was a pleasant Monday and the roads were for the most part empty of traffic. He stopped his Prado in front of a temple in his locality; closed the engine of his car and looked for a long time at the temple.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, he could see through the windscreen, the young and beautiful girls going and coming out of the temple. His mind relapsed into the past, as forcibly suppressed memories returned to the fore in a series of flashes.

  His transgression in the quicksand of Evil had not been sudden, but a gradual and continual process. His blood itself seemed to be infested with Evil; for his maternal great-grandfather was a maniac murderer who had been executed for multiple counts of rapes and murders during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, in Deutschland (Germany), before the Nazis came to power. His son or Rudolf Schönherr’s grandfather had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a murderer at the ripe age of forty- one. He killed his servant in his butcher’s shop in a fit of rage. Post second world-war authority in Germany - the Allied powers controlled and administered court, tried and convicted him in absentia and awarded him the death penalty. He was also suspected to be on the Nazi payroll and had helped in identifying Jews in his neighborhood, who had been sent to extermination camps.

  The butcher son of the maniac murderer ran away to neighbouring Austria, where he found a woman of German descent, whom he married, and started a new butcher shop in a small Austrian town, after changing his name and identity. That woman was Rudolf Schönherr’s maternal grandmother, who bore the butcher three girls and two boys, of which the eldest was Sylvia Schönherr, mother of Rudolf. The madness in the family appeared to be hereditary and yet again manifested itself when the butcher was arrested for the abduction, rape, and murder of a young girl of the town. But he was never tried, as the entire family of the girl died mysteriously on the night before the case was to be heard in court. Neighbours cried foul, witchcraft was suspected, but nothing could be proved, the butcher was acquitted and the case was dismissed because of lack of evidence. No further record of the evil deeds by that butcher was available.

  His children turned out to be equally immoral and wayward. The eldest offspring Sylvia (was the most promiscuous, vicious and cruel. She had numerous affairs, became pregnant many times before she became a hippie and went off to Nepal and to India and finally married an Indian who was a chronic alcoholic. Her time was spent in unequal measure between India and Austria until she broke off her relationship with her good-for-nothing Indian husband and went back to Austria for good when Rudolf was eleven. She hardly met her son except on a few occasions when Rudolf visited his maternal family in Austria.

  It was the maternal grandmother, who showed great interest in her eldest daughter Sylvia’s son. The boy had a ‘spark’; she always used to say, had inherited all the special qualities of his (maternal) great-grandfather and could become a worthy successor of his grandmother. And it was during those visits to his maternal Granny’s house that Rudolf became interested in the dark world of the occult.

  The old woman, the butcher’s wife was a practicing witch, who claimed to have many evil and black powers. She was in contact with the world of spirits and demons and could summon many supernatural powers. It was she who brought Rudolf into the world of darkness, a young and impressionable boy with no role model to follow. He had always been a ‘big bully’ in his neighbourhood and school and was given to fits of great rage, which made him excessively violent. He was a rather Devil-send recruit and heir to the aging maternal grandmother. She took him under her wings and taught him the secrets of occult and witchcraft and helped shape his personality; transformed him into an even more immoral, violent and cruel person - the way of his ancestors.

  With proper training of his grandmother, Rudolf became a secret Sorcerer - a Warlock! A thoroughly corrupt, immoral and evil man, who possessed supernatural powers. His interest in Eastern occult practices made him spend a few years in Tibet, China and Japan; before he settled in India and took an Aghori Tantrik as his Guru. Using his cover as an acclaimed artist, he moved around in high society of Delhi, performing in major stage-events and was invited to the parties of foreign Embassies, without anyone being any wiser as regards his real self.

  In another flash of memory; Rudolf Schönherr saw his alcoholic father, who swore at him and thrashed him routinely in fits of anger. He derived devilish pleasure in making Rudolf forcibly watch him make out with prostitutes that he brought home, unmindful of the way he was ruining his son’s life and leaving his impressionable psyche wounded for a lifetime. Rudolf, therefore, felt no pain or grief when his father died because of over-drinking.

  In another flash of memory, he remembered how he was further traumatized by the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father’s brother when Rudolf was left with him for one night. Another incident that he remembered clearly had happened in Austria, where he was abducted along with the daughter of his grandmother’s neighbour by a trucker near a highway. She was raped and killed in front of his eyes, though he had managed to escape; the incident had tormented him for long.

  The mental and physical abuse ended, when he entered the dark world of the occult and made a clean and violent break from the past. He recalled the upliftment, excitement and tremendous self-confidence, which mastery of the supernatural had given him. And the image of the old witch, who was his teacher and whom he adored more than anyone else came before his eyes; she had the greatest influence on him had set the course of his entire life.

  Coming out of his reverie, Rudolf summoned Harry, who instantly appeared on the seat next to him. Harry’s real name was Harinath, a failed Sorcerer or tantrik, who had been killed by the evil power, which he was attempting to master and make a slave for himself. From that time, he had become a wandering spirit, a Ghost, unable to go to either Heaven or Hell. It was Rudolf, who uses his powers as a Warlock had succeeded in enslaving him.

  Not taking his eyes from the white marble stairs of the temple he asked, “Harry; do you know why these young girls go to the temple on a Monday morning?”

  “Why?” Harry asked back, utterly surprised by his master’s actions and his mood.

  “To worship Lord Shiva; the myth is that if a young girl offers her prayers to him for 16 consecutive Mondays, she is blessed with a good husband,” said Rudolf Schönherr.

  “I’m not surprised by that Warlock,” Harry said, “but I am taken aback the way you said it. I failed to detect any sarcasm or contempt in your voice.”

  “I have often wondered; do all such girls get good husbands? What do you think?”

  “I have no idea,” Harry answered, unable to understand the purpose of that conversation.

  “But their husbands would definitely get good wives, wouldn’t they? Beautiful, virtuous, religious, caring, loving and good wives, and while those men get ‘this’, what do I get? A promiscuous middle-aged woman like that Leena,” said Rudolf in a bitter voice.

  “But no one is forcing Leena or women like her on you,” Harry said.

  “What other choice have I got?” Rudolf asked in a voice of resignation. “I can not find for myself the love of
one of these virtuous girls, can I?”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Because I can’t change my evil ways; Evil my dear Harry is like riding a Lion. Once you are sitting on its back, you have to go where it takes you and if you dare to get off the beast, it would itself eat you. Evil is the path of no remorse and no return.”

  “That still doesn’t mean that you have to choose Leena or her kind,” Harry argued.

  “Yes, but the alternative is a life of solitude or celibacy. Believe me, it is worse than being with a woman, no matter if she is an adulteress and as promiscuous as you are. Maybe, it has been rightly said after all, that ‘we all get what we deserve’. If I was born, raised and treated differently, I could have been by now married to such a virtuous and loving girl, rather than leading the life of a wanderer. However, as things stand, I have little choice except to accept Leena or any other woman like her, simply because they are available and do not demand marriage vows as a pre-condition for becoming intimate with me,” lamented Rudolf.

  “Do I detect a trace of complaint in your voice?”

  “I know what you mean Harry; yes, I myself have chosen this kind of life and hence should not complain, but still…sometimes I am just unable to stop myself from being swept away by the tide of inner desires and emotions. I guess its just natural for a human being; but don’t you worry Harry, these ‘moods’ of mine occur only once in every six months or so and they don’t last very long, at least not long enough to change radically my basic character and drives.”

  “That reminds me,” Harry said, “You never get tired of boasting your basic evil nature. What these ‘moods’ of yours are for? Why this desire for a virtuous wife at all?”

  “The human limitation, Harry,” Rudolf Schönherr answered, “no one is purely good or purely evil. Why? Because no matter how much hard we try to swing ourselves to one of the two sides of the great divide, we remain ‘human’. And being human is by definition being imperfect and imperfection by its very nature disdains and makes impossible, the possibility of purity, whether in good or in evil.”

  “But I thought that you were above ordinary human beings, whereas you are not,” Harry said candidly.

  “To every action there is equal and opposite reaction - Newton had said. Whenever Virtue sleeps, she wakes up refreshed, as Nietzsche had put it. In my particular case the dilemmas and the opposite swings of character, are compounded by my almost violent push towards evil. The result is what you see now, sudden outbursts, impulses over which I have no control. Hell, I don’t even know anymore, if it is the God trying to pull me back in his fold by these overpowering ‘moods’ or is it Devil testing me, trying to explore the strength of my resolve. The end result, however, is that on such occasions I feel drawn towards purity, the representation of which are these beautiful and virtuous girls. Alas! Even an intrinsically evil man has his weaknesses.”

  Rudolf waved his hand slightly; understanding his command, Harry vanished from the seat beside him. His master sat for a long time in his car; after all the young women had gone, Rudolf started the engine of his car and drove back to his bungalow in the lowest of spirits. He was chronically depressed and wasted his entire day boozing and doing drugs, in a vain attempt to overcome his self-pity, sulking, solitude and fighting the tormenting ghosts of his troublesome past.

  While Rudolf Schönherr was pouting, Inspector Uday Thakur was busy finding evidence to strengthenthe case against him in the court; to have his bail cancelled and obtain his Police remand. To achieve that objective he had descended on the former's estate in Mehrauli with an army of Policemen; who searched through the wasteland spread to many acres. Hours of the tireless search were fruitful when Uday found a part of Payal’s sandal near the gate and the remains of her torn dress from a tent in the Circus.

  The Crime Brach sleuth was in high spirits when he heard from the forensic experts that Payal’s fingerprints were found all over the farmhouse – in the toilet, kitchen and the bedroom. And out of a large number of blurred fingerprints they had picked up from the car, at least one clearly belonged to Payal. All that further verified the statement of the complainant and would help prosecution prove its case in the court; felt Inspector Thakur.

  But the real trophy – so to speak – was the body of the sacrificial victim; the recovery of the mortal remains of the child alone would substantially alter the balance in their favour and lead to the cancellation of Rudolf Schönherr’s bail, he felt. Inspector Thakur had developed a personal dislike for Rudolf Schönherr and wanted to wipe off the smug smile on his lips. The personality and vicious crimes of the latter caused revulsion, as did his arrogant attitude and belief that with his wealth and connections in high society, he could get away with anything.

  Inspector Uday had also brought with him divers that searched through the murky water of the lake in the farmhouse for hours, while his men were surveying the empty wasteland for clues. He was disappointed when no skeleton or bones were found from the lake. But he was a persistent and obstinate detective, who did not give up easily; he had also with him a pair of clothes of the labourer’s missing child, which he made the trained dogs of Police sniff and catch the scent from. The dogs first went to the car parked on the porch and ran upstairs to the glass pyramid. The dogs growled and barked outside the structure, but showed reluctance in entering it; much to the surprise of the Inspector. It was as if they could detect the presence of something sinister inside, which was invisible to the human eye. They kept on barking loudly and scratching the glass of the pyramid wall with their nails before they ran down the stairs.

  The canines were so hot on the scent that their controllers were having a hard time holding on to their leash. They took the cops to a ditch far away from the house and began to scratch the ground with their nails and growl. Inspector Thakur sat on his toes and examined the ditch closely, but he was unable to find anything suspicious about it, except that it had no grass, like the ground around it. He wondered if it could have been because the ditch had been dug up in the recent past, and if it was the grave he had been searching for.

  He ordered the labourers that he had brought to the farmhouse to dig up the ditch, videographing the entire exercise. But as luck would have it, a sudden mild drizzle transformed into a heavy downpour, forcing them to abandon the pursuit. And since it was night by that time, Inspector Uday was forced to postpone the digging until the next morning. He rued the fact that the sniffer dogs he had requested for had been sent to him only in the evening and not in the afternoon, in which case he would have completed the task well before dusk. And the sunny day had quite inexplicably developed into a rainy evening. The off-season and unexpected rain had washed away all his planning and hopes, forcing him to beat an unwanted retreat.

  The spectacles of Inspector Uday Thakur was resting half-way on his nose as he was reading a report with undivided attention in his office in R.K.Puram in the succeeding evening, when his subordinate, S.I. Bishnoi entered the room. He had to wait for a short while until his boss had finished reading and looked up at him.

  “What is it, Sir?” He asked curiously.

  “The report from the forensic experts; the fingerprints they had picked up from Schönherr’s house and car have been successfully matched with those of Ms. Payal. While the strand of her hair, which they have taken from her will be sent to the laboratory in Hyderabad, for matching with the fallen hair picked up from the car and the bungalow.”

  “You seem to be surprisingly calm, after your outburst in the morning at the farmhouse, when we found that the ditch showed sign of tampering in the night.”

  “I am convinced Bishnoi, that in that ditch lay the remains of the child that had been sacrificed on the altar in front of Ms. Payal. Call it our misfortune or Rudolf Schönherr’s luck that the heavy rain had prevented the labourers from digging the ditch yesterday evening. Or we would have been able to book Schönherr for homicide and would have moved the court to have his bail cancelled. In my entire career
as a Police Officer, I have never slipped, goofed up in this manner,” he said in a regretful voice.

  “But you did the right thing Sir, you had posted two policemen at the place to guard it,” his assistant protested on his behalf.

  “Both of them were from the Mehrauli Police Station, working under Inspector Joginder Singh,” he said in a bitter voice.

  “Do you suspect foul play?”

  “Not that easy, Bishnoi, we will have to take prior permission from our superiors just to question them, let alone take the duo into custody. Even if I do, I am convinced that we will not find any success, because they will never retract their earlier statement and implicate themselves. Even common sense will tell them that any admission of guilt or wrongdoing on their part will lead to dismissal from service, arrest, jail, and trial for bribery, aiding and abetting a criminal and cooperating in the destruction of evidence. And for all we know, they may not even be involved in any misdemeanor and their only fault may be of spending the night in the shelter of the house, to escape the heavy downpour. And if they were involved at all, they could at best be only considered as pawns in this game,” reasoned Uday.

  “Do you also suspect the S.H.O. Joginder Singh’s involvement in this?”

  “Consider all the facts of the matter; Inspector Singh personally went to see the father of the abducted baby, instead of sending a junior from his station. It was after meeting him that the eyewitness was ‘unable’ to positively identify Schönherr in the parade in our office, because of which his lawyer was able to convince the court to release him on bail.”

  “He has been in the force for long; in fact, he is not very far from his retirement. Why would he help a criminal?” Bishnoi voiced his suspicions.

  “In his long and distinguished service, he has been suspended twice on charges of corruption and has faced departmental inquiries in three other cases. He may have been acquitted in all of them but he still is considered a tainted officer,” Inspector Thakur said candidly. “I have found all this only this afternoon after I had committed the monumental blunder of the previous evening. Furthermore, our Inspector Sa’ab is anxious to marry his daughter well in less than two months time, with a N.R.I. based in London.”