The Weapon of the Devas

by Nanda Gopal Guruswamy

  The Weapon of the Devas

  By Nanda Guruswamy

  Dedicated to my mom for her love and support

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Harder Stronger Faster, but not Better

  Chapter 2: Newcastle

  Chapter 3: Midnight Show

  Chapter 4: Eviction

  Chapter 5: Mysore

  Chapter 6: The Kick

  Chapter 7: Arjuna

  Chapter 8: Devakratha

  Chapter 9: Bottled Fury

  Chapter 10: The Thug

  Chapter 11: Dirty Tricks

  Chapter 12: Prisoner

  Chapter 13: Radheya

  Chapter 14: Bite the Bullet

  Chapter 15: Destroyed

  Chapter 16: Payback

  Chapter 17: Target Acquired

  Chapter 18: Celestial Astronomy

  Chapter 19: Onward and Upward! To Death!

  Chapter 20: Squelchy

  Chapter 21: Epiphany

  Chapter 22: Stone Lion Guarding the Shore

  Chapter 23: Mayendran’s creation

  Chapter 24: Magic Marker

  Chapter 25: Pawn takes King

  Chapter 26: Just Bring it!!

  Chapter 1: Harder Stronger Faster, but not Better

  It is said that when the Creator Brahma fell asleep at the end of the Age of Truth, monsters came pouring out of nostrils and mouth. These red eyed, fanged creatures were filled with such insatiable bloodlust and ravenous hunger that they started consuming the Creator himself. The understandably upset Creator had these creatures called Rakshasas banished to the place where all unpleasant things were sent. Earth.

  The Rakshasa has the strength of a bull, can fly and magic comes to it as naturally as breathing. Most notably, a rakshasa is a master of illusion and also capable of turning itself into any animal in an instant. Oh, did I also forget to mention that they had a sweet tooth for human flesh, preferably alive. In short, it’s one bad motherfucker you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Which is exactly where I was.

  Rakshasas are forbidden to hunt Humans since the start of the Final Age, but there’s always that one weirdo who goes off the reservation. People are a particularly finicky bunch these days and the finding of a few random half eaten body parts had driven the city panic levels to a record high. The police have a hard time investigating as the human criminals, but when you move onto supernatural turf, it’s a whole new ballgame. The police weren’t trained to find clues left by entities of the freaky kind. They couldn’t track or understand the nature of these creatures. And they were smart enough to accept that fact. I was listed as their contractor and the crimes that even hinted of anything paranormal were sent my way, and so here I am. And believe you me, I get the really bad stuff. The crazy part is that they didn’t have to; it is my duty as a sworn Guardian to protect this city from all supernatural threats. But hey, anything to pay the rent.

  So how do you beat a creature that’s stronger, faster and has eons of experience hunting and killing? One word. Preparation. They maybe invincible, but with preparation and little bit of luck they can be defeated.

  I traced the Rakshasa back to this alley. This is where it was coming out of the sewer to feed. Hiding out in the gutters in the morning and feeding at night. And I need to catch it here, cause I’d never find the damn thing down in the sewer. This position I was crouched in was uncomfortable but I needed to stay still so the Rakshasa couldn’t detect me. The egg fried rice from the Kabab stall, was grumbling in my stomach. There was a sound. It was two beggars shuffling along wearing long cloaks. These guys would scare away the Rakshasa and I had no wish to hunt the thing down in the sewers, so I got up slowly and walked towards them.

  "Hey, go find another place to sleep. Haven’t you heard? These streets aren’t safe."

  They stopped. As I neared them, I saw that one was holding the other tightly and they weren’t shuffling, the first one was dragging the other. I sucked in a sudden breath. It was the Rakshasa. Damn! I had just given away my element of surprise. It looked even more surprised, and I saw its face clearly. It had a scraggly beard with something red on it. Not sauce, I think. It looked like a ... an animal. It was totally black with eyes red as burning coal, it had two long incisors poking out its mouth like a sabretooth.

  "Man, you are one ugly ass Rakshasa," I said.

  It let go of its dinner and made a grab for my left shoulder. I recovered, dropped my weight on my right leg bending it, and as my left shoulder went down my right shoulder came up and along with it my fist. I punched it right on the throat. The human throat is delicate and doesn’t take much effort to crush the windpipe and kill someone, just about the same amount of pressure it takes to crush a tin can.

  But it wasn’t human and it didn’t breathe. The punch just pissed it off. It snarled. I burped. Damn fried rice! It lunged at me and it was too quick and strong. It had me by the throat. Its hands burned and huge welts were on them when it touched me. It was the holy water bath. I took a bath in water that was blessed by a priest. And boy was I happy that the rain didn’t wash it off. It screamed and shoved me. It was strong and threw me a few yards off. The hood came off my head and the rain was in my eyes blurring my vision in the already pitch-dark alley. That fall hurt bad, and dazed me. It was looking at its hands and then me. It realized that it couldn’t touch me. I smiled, thinking I had an advantage now.

  "What? No small talk? How are the kids back home?"

  It bared his teeth and they were dripping blood. So it had recently fed. It would be at its strongest now. But I didn’t come here without a plan, I had a knife. Doesn’t sound like much. But this was special. The knife was covered in a thick paste, an Ayurvedic mix of a plant that had long since gone extinct; I had to give up nearly an arm and leg to get it. The poison worked by paralyzing certain muscles and nerves in the human body, So I just increased the dosage to paralyze a Rakshasa. However the delivery system here was not a needle or an injection, it was a stab right in the guts.

  The knife was hidden in my hand I was trying to distract it so I could get close enough. I was still on the ground trying to appear weak. "So Bloodbeard, I can see that you’re new around here. Hope you’re adjusting to the new food." I said casually as I slowly tried to get up. But it was onto me, it immediately stepped back and looked around. It walked towards a dumpster and was looking at it. "Looking for something in there? Why’re you munching on humans anyway? I mean, this pollution and the food we eat are all kind of bad, so I’m guessing the people aren’t as tasty as... say KFC. I mean, you should try a bucket of their chicken legs, there’s one just around the corner." I said. There was no reply.

  Instead it picked up the whole freaking dumpster and came towards me. That thing must have weighed a ton. I might not get a chance to use the knife. I fell back down again and was still disoriented from the throw. Bad time to lose my balance. So much for my advantage. I was thinking fast and backing away. “Man of action, huh. Well, me too,” I said. Still no reply. Bloodbeard would just crush me and then eat me. I could feel the blood rushing into my head, fear rushing in as it got closer. The walls of the alley got closer and closer. I gathered my strength and threw the knife at him. It sunk in its gut. But it didn’t seem to bother the Rakshasa. The poison would take a minute to show effect. A minute … I didn’t have. It would just crush me and then be paralyzed for a couple of hours and walk away from this. Ii was close. It raised the dumpster above its head and was getting ready to throw it down on me. I wouldn’t stand a chance if it hit me. Suddenly in the microsecond before it was gonna throw, something lit up in my head. It was simple. I gathered in my will and focused my energy. “Hatha!” I said and let the power out of me. A c
ompact stream of pure force rushed out of my right hand which was pointed right at Bloodbeard’s left knee. I heard a popping sound. His knee caved and he stumbled, and the dumpster fell right on top of him—one ton of metal and whatever garbage was in it. There was another sound … like the one you hear when a cockroach is crushed under your feet.

  Bloodbeard came crashing down on the ground and was at my level.

  “Hi, my name is Shiva. Pleased to meet you.” I said. “Uhhnn …” he grunted. Ahh! Finally something.

  But the Rakshasa was not yet done, It changed immediately into a small sparrow. That’s when my ace in the sleeve came into play. I had rigged a net above the alley, a net so fine that it wasn’t visible at all. A net made from the hair of a great Gandharva king especially created to trap such creatures.

  Legend has it that he lost half his subjects of his mountain-top kingdom when Rakshasas turned themselves into hawks and flew to the top of mountain to hunt his people. And so, he and his army created these nets from strands of their hair and put spells on them and gave it to their citizens to capture the birds. And then, the entire kingdom never went hungry again. I did give up an arm and a leg to get it.

  I looked at my watch, 3.04 a.m. The entire thing happened in a minute. Looks like Einstein was right—time passes slowly when you’re not having fun or you know … are about to die. The little sparrow was writhing in pain inside the net. I got up, uttered the words that would bring him back to his original form, took the knife out from under his gut and beheaded him as he was kicking and screaming. Nasty, but that’s the job. There may be other ways to kill a Rakshasa but I was always clear and direct. I got up and composed myself. The other beggar was still lying huddled on the ground. I walked over to him and helped him up. He was out of his mind. He wailed and thrashed. I let go and he ran away cursing. Why do I even bother? “You’re welcome.” I called after him.

  Parked safely far away, under a bright streetlight near a tea shop, were the valiant police. I walked over and tossed a bag with Bloodbeard’s head into the jeep. “Don’t open it. Wait till dawn and show it to the sunlight. Do the same with the body back in the alley as well. And search the sewer for more corpses.” I said walking away. The cops looked back at me with a dumb expression, “Yes sir,” said a constable weakly. He was looking at the bag with dread. He looked back up at me with something like an awe.

  I was distant and aloof. I didn’t care what they thought as long as they paid me. The rent was due. After I concluded my business with the police, I went into the tea shop and dropped on the wooden bench and asked “Half-tea?” The owner nodded and gave me a glass filled with one percent tea, once percent milk and ninety-eight percent hot water that passed for tea in thousands of roadside teashops in India. It was good.

  So yeah, something did happen back there that you can’t explain. You see, explanations rely on a little thing called logic, and magic doesn’t come from there. We built our world based on logic and mathematics ignoring everything else. People like Cantor and Godel proved that logic is fundamentally flawed, and yet the world clings to it like a needy, insecure lover. Logic comes from one plus one equals two but magic comes from Infinity. You can think of the biggest number in the world and you’re still gonna be closer to zero than infinity. So stop looking for explanations in the framework of logic. Our understanding of the universe or our very own brains is very limited. So stop looking for explanations. There aren’t any. Magic… It’s real. Each one of us is magic.

  We are all made of the five basic elements, wind – the air we breathe, water – the blood, earth – the flesh, and fire – the electricity that our nerves use to communicate. And one more thing that’s the most important of all, for lack of a better word, lets call it ‘ether’. And anything and everything physical in this world comes from a combination of these things. Sometimes these combinations are fiendishly complicated, but nonetheless they’re there. So doesn’t matter how deep you look using telescopes. You’re always going to find countless number of universes. And it doesn’t matter how much you collide particles using the Hadron collider, you’re always gonna find new particles every time. When you do this, you’re looking at nothing but Infinity, nothing but the origin of Magic.

  All of us are familiar with magic in several forms, music is one. How do you think a random combination of sounds can make us happy or sad or make us start head banging. Kids, who are taught music from a very young age start to see structure, patterns. They rearrange them to create masterpieces. So imagine a child being taught from a very young age to use “magic” to control the five basic elements. They learn to do amazing things which people call magic. So in a way wizards are hackers of reality. Sounds way cooler this way.

  Everyone can do it, though it takes incredible effort and guidance. The first step is Maya … Illusion … to believe that the whole world is just an illusion. When the world is nothing but an illusion, anything is possible. The truth that our Indian civilization discovered ages ago is now just being discovered by science. Look up holographic universe in string theory. Look it up.

  Just like a musician tends towards a certain genre, we wizards lean towards an element where we are strongest. I can do many things but I lean towards fire. What I created back there was a force of pure will which is a synergy of everything. Its cool even in the wizarding world, trust me.

  That’s right! I am a wizard, a hacker of reality. So while there are cute and cuddly things, there are also ugly and twisted things as well. Even though we have tried to wipe them out, they exist and many of them go bump in the night. Or in the day. They really don’t have a schedule. That’s where I come in. I am a sworn Guardian, sworn to work to eliminate evil. Guardian sounds fancy, but it’s a crappy career choice. We are underpaid, are in danger all the time and job security means a whole different thing to us. I usually work on cases for the police and sometimes for people who are desperate enough to reach me. I am the Guardian of Bangalore, the city I call home.

  Home is a rented apartment fully loaded. Most Guardians really don’t care about saving, mostly ‘cause we don’t live very long and die horribly or are eaten, so atleast we deserve a few perks. I just got home and cleaned up and was going to bed when I got a call. It was 7.00 am. Looks like rest would have to wait. Fate had a few more things in store for me today. So I got ready and left.

  Traffic in India is hell, and nowhere is it worse than in Bangalore. It is like a killer obstacle course, amidst the narrow roads and pollution, we have enterprising salesmen at every signal, selling and begging and sometimes vice-versa. There are no rules. Even footpaths are not spared and we hide behind trucks and buses to avoid traffic cops and signals are a joke. With me through all this is Lakshmi, my bike. Lakshmi is a blue Pulsar, one of the older ones with the round dome headlight and a really solid engine. And I’ve added enough upgrades to compete with any street bike. Bikes are best to navigate through Bangalore’s traffic. There is always an unofficial race on the roads between bikes. It feels really good to be weaving in and out of traffic and leaving all the others in my dust. I snake through the traffic and reach Alagaraja’s place.

  It was a warehouse turned to a Car and Bike service centre, and doing well too. But the real stuff was downstairs. Alagaraja is a frighteningly clever Tamilian with many degrees in science and engineering and with some knowledge of the supernatural as well. He is the go-to man for anything and everything in my business. I even heard a rumour that he once built a short range missile to blow up his enemy’s headquarters. I prefer to think of him as Agent Q to my James Bond. His office on the first floor is a marvel, with dim lighting and soundproof walls. He’s got all the latest geek gadgets, so there are always things spinning, lights flashing and lots of TV screens with some graphs or news.

  He was sitting behind his plush teakwood screen staring at his computer monitor. He and I look completely different—he is short, dark and pudgy, where I am tall, 6’1, lean and have a long angular wheatish face.

 
I greeted him saying, “You know, just because you drink vodka doesn’t mean your wife can’t figure out you’re drunk and throw you out for the night.”

  He turned his bulky frame towards me and said, “which you so brilliantly deduced from my crumpled shirt and the stains on it? How do you know that I didn’t work here all night?”

  “Then the vodka bottle would be on your desk.” I replied. His dark face got even darker.

  “So how is your wife?”

  “Rich and Happy. Ignorance is truly bliss.”

  “Why did you call me?” I questioned.

  “I have a case for you.”

  “What if I’m already on a case?” I prodded further.

  “No, You’re not, I saw your status.” He replied wickedly.

  Oh, I had forgotten about that. I had updated my status on my social networking site about Bloodbeard, even got a couple of likes from my other Guardian buddies. Turns out that the supernatural villains are that much into social networking, so no harm done.

  “OK, what’ve you got?” I asked.

  “Before that, read this.” He said tossing the day’s newspaper at me.

  The article read ‘Police Encounter: Shivajinagar murderer shot down in the sewers, One Alive person, several corpses found’ and a long story of how the police were following the suspects and doing other clever detective stuff to track and chase the murderer.

  “Smart, it says that the body of the murderer fell into the main sewer pipe and got washed away, so they never find the body.” I said

  “There’s no mention of you.”

  “That’s the deal. I do the work, get paid and they get the credit.” Hmm, there was also another article of a man being murdered in his home. “Hey, I’ve heard of this guy. He’s a magical theorist.” I said.

  “A what!” Alagaraja’s eyes widened.

  “Magical theorist. Maya is just like any other field, we have researchers there as well. This guy was a specialist in creating new spells. He was a genius dealing with pretty advanced stuff. Rituals, yagnas to summon Asuras, Devas and even trading favours with them, that was his thing, I think.”