F. Paul Wilson - The Tomb

Already the horrors he had witnessed tonight were taking on an air of unreality. Was what he had seen real?

Of course it was. It just didn't seem so standing here amid the staid normalcy of Fifth Avenue in the upper Sixties. Maybe that was good. Maybe that seeming unreality would let him sleep at night until he took care of Kusum and his monsters.

He caught a cab and told the driver to go around the Park instead of through it.

6

Kolabati watched through the peephole until Jack stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him. Then she slumped against the door.

Had she told him too much? What had she said? She couldn't remember what she might have blurted out in the aftermath of the shock of finding that hole in the rakosh egg. Probably nothing too damaging—she'd had such long experience at keeping secrets from people that it was now an integral part of her nature. Still, she wished she could be sure.

Kolabati straightened up and pushed those concerns aside. What was done was done. Kusum would be coming back tonight. After what Jack had told her, she was sure of that.

It was all so clear now. That name: Westphalen . It explained everything. Everything except where Kusum had found the male egg. And what he intended to do next.

Westphalen… she thought Kusum would have forgotten that name by now. But then, why should she have thought that? Kusum forgot nothing, not a favor, certainly not a slight. He would never forget the name Westphalen. Nor the time-worn vow attached to it.

Kolabati ran her hands up and down her arms. Captain Sir Albert Westphalen had committed a hideous crime and deserved an equally hideous death. But not his descendants. Innocent people should not be given into the hands of the rakoshi for a crime committed before they were born.

But she could not worry about them now. She had to decide how to handle Kusum. To protect Jack she would have to pretend to know more than she did. She tried to remember the name of the woman Jack said had disappeared last night… Paton, wasn't it? Nellie Paton. And she needed a way to put Kusum on the defensive.

She went into the bedroom and brought the empty egg back to the tiny foyer. There she dropped the shell just inside the door. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

Tense and anxious, she found herself a chair and tried to get comfortable.

7

Kusum stood outside his apartment door a moment to compose himself. Kolabati was certainly waiting within with questions as to his whereabouts last night. He had his answers ready. What he had to do now was mask the elation that must be beaming from his face. He had disposed of the next to the last Westphalen—one more and he would be released from the vow. Tomorrow he would set the wheels in motion to secure the last of Albert Westphalen's line. Then he would set sail for India.

He keyed the lock and opened the door. Kolabati sat facing him from a living room chair, her arms and legs crossed, her face impassive. As he smiled and stepped forward, something crunched under his foot. He looked down and saw the shattered rakoshi egg. A thousand thoughts hurtled through his shocked mind, but the one that leaped to the forefront was: How much does she know ?

"So," he said as he closed the door behind him. "You know."

"Yes, brother. I know."

"How—?"

"That's what I want to know!" she said sharply.

She was being so oblique! She knew the egg had hatched. What else did she know? He didn't want to give anything away. He decided to proceed on the assumption that she knew only of the empty egg and nothing more.

"I didn't want to tell you about the egg," he said finally. "I was too ashamed. After all, it was in my care when it broke, and—"

"Kusum!" Kolabati leaped to her feet, her face livid. "Don't lie to me! I know about the ship and I know about the Westphalen women!"

Kusum felt as if he had been struck by lightning. She knew everything!

"How… ?" was all he could manage to say.

"I followed you yesterday."

"You followed me?" He was sure he had eluded her. She had to be bluffing. "Didn't you learn your lesson last time?"

"Forget the last time. I followed you to your ship last night."

"Impossible!"

"So you thought. But I watched and waited all last night. I saw the rakoshi leave. I saw them return with their captive. And I learned from Jack today that Nellie Paton, a Westphalen, disappeared last night. That was all I needed to know." She glared at him. "No more lies, Kusum. It's my turn to ask, 'how?' "

Stunned, Kusum stepped down into the living room and sank into a chair. He would have to bring her into it now… tell her everything. Almost everything. There was one part he could never tell her—he could barely think about that himself. But he could tell her the rest. Maybe she could see his side.

He began his tale.

8

Kolabati scrutinized her brother closely as he spoke, watching for lies. His voice was clear and cool, his expression calm with just a hint of guilt, like a husband confessing a minor dalliance with another woman.

"I felt lost after you left India. It was as if I had lost my other arm. Despite all my followers clustered around me, I spent much time alone—too much time, you might say. I began to review my life and all I had done and not done with it. Despite my growing influence, I felt unworthy of the trust so many were placing in me. What had I truly accomplished except to filthy my karma to the level of the lowest caste? I confess that for a time I wallowed in self-pity. Finally I decided to journey back to Bharangpur, to the hills there. To the Temple ruins that was now the tomb of our parents and our heritage."

He paused and looked directly at her. "The foundation is still there, you know. The ashes of the rest are gone, washed into the sand or blown away, but the stone foundation remains, and the rakoshi caves beneath are intact. The hills are still uninhabited. Despite all the crowding at home, people still avoid those hills. I stayed there for days in an effort to renew myself. I prayed, I fasted, I wandered the caves… yet nothing happened. I felt as empty and as worthless as before.

"And then I found it!"

Kolabati saw a light begin to glow in her brother's eyes, growing steadily, as if someone were stoking a fire within his brain.

"A male egg, intact, just beneath the surface of the sand in a tiny alcove in the caves! At first I did not know what to make of it, or what to do with it. Then it struck me: I was being given a second chance. There before me lay the means to accomplish all that I should have with my life, the means to cleanse my karma and make it worthy of one of my caste. I saw it then as my destiny. I was to start a nest of rakoshi and use them to fulfill the vow."

A male egg . Kusum continued to talk about how he manipulated the foreign service and managed to have himself assigned to the London embassy. Kolabati barely heard him. A male egg … she remembered hunting through the ruins of the Temple and the caves beneath as a child, searching everywhere for a male egg. In their youth they both had felt it their duty to start a new nest and they had desperately wanted a male egg.

"After I established myself at the embassy," Kusum was saying, "I searched for Captain Westphalen's descendants. I learned that there were only four of his bloodline left. They were not a prolific family and a number of them were killed off in the World Wars. To my dismay, I learned that only one, Richard Westphalen, was still in Britain. The other three were in America. But that did not deter me. I hatched the eggs, mated them, and started the nest. I have since disposed of three of the four Westphalens. There is only one left."