Warren Murphy - The Arms of Kali

She heard about some man who was supposed to be coming for the goddess, Kali, to be Her lover. Not at all unlike the Second Coming, her other church used to talk about before they got into revolution.

One thing she liked very much was the way this new church referred to God as She.

A. H. Baynes knelt in the rear with his family, and they all waved their arms and screamed when the rest of the ashram screamed to kill for the love of Kali.

"Kill for the love of killing," chanted the people as they bowed before the many-armed statue.

A. H. nudged his son, who had been silent. "I don't like to yell, Daddy," said the boy.

"You yell enough at home," whispered A. H.

"That's different."

"You can yell here," Baynes said.

"I don't know the words."

"Move your lips," Baynes said.

"Who do they want to kill?"

"Bad people. Yell."

A. H. Baynes let his mind wander pleasantly as the chants began to roll: kill for the love of killing, kill for the love of Kali. This was a resource driven by a power he had never experienced before. In the rear of the ashram, he felt as if he had just discovered atomic energy.

There was one problem that he could see. If this group kept growing, there would be an ever-growing need for travelers to kill. And that many killings might not just kill travelers; it might kill travel itself.

No more communications, no more commerce. Professors unable to travel, students unwilling. Civilization might well return to the Stone.Age.

The Stone Age.

Baynes thought about that for a moment as the chanting beat out like thunder from the skies. The Stone Age, he thought. Everything gone. Could it happen? Maybe.

He knew what to do. He would have to buy up some good cave property as a hedge. In the meantime, all was right with his world, and he opened his lungs to shout, "Kill for the love of Kali." And his children joined him this time.

And then, suddenly, the ashram fell silent. All eyes turned to the door in the back as a young man raced forward, down the aisle, his eyes glittering with excitement. "She has provided," he shouted. "She has provided." In his hand he held a large pile of airline tickets. "I found them on the street outside," he said. "She has provided."

The other followers nodded. Some mumbled. "She always provides. We love Kali."

A moment later, Ban Sar Din ran out into the ashram from his holy office in the back, dumped out a batch of yellow handkerchiefs, and ran back to his office. The floor of the ashram shuddered with the slam of a steel-reinforced door.

Chapter Ten

Holly Rodan finished making her five hundredth tissue-paper carnation and attached it to the garland draped around the statue's neck.

"Oh, Kali," she purred. "You are even more beautiful with these. When he comes, he will not be able to resist you."

She sang a little song as she wound the paper flowers around the statue, as if it were a maypole. One of the flowers must have fallen from the garland and gotten underfoot, because suddenly her foot slipped out from under her and she fell forward on her face with a crash.

"Clumsy me," she giggled, and applied a blob of spittle to her skinned knee.

She had just barely started on the 501st carnation when she fell again with a loud thump. This time she slid almost to the edge of the raised platform on which the statue stood. She tried to get up and fell again, this time careening completely off the platform with a hard thump.

"Noise! Noise!" Ban Sar Din screeched, waddling out of his office. On his way out, he slammed into a computer console that had been delivered that morning for A. H. Baynes.

"First the crazy American installs two private telephone lines in my sacred office, and now this," he snapped. He kicked the computer. "What does he want of me? Oh, I live the life of a pig."

Holly thumped loudly to the floor again, this time near the empty chairs of the faithful.

"What is the matter with you, noisome child? In my land, women do not crash on the floor, even when they bend to kiss the feet of their husbands. Do you not think I have headaches enough with this Baynes pirate taking over my inner sanctum? Boom, boom, thump, thump. Even in Calcutta it is not so noisy."

"A thousand thousand pardons, Holy One and respected of Kali," Holly said. "I just can't seem to get a grip on my . . ." With that, she slid halfway across the floor and banged her head on the incense table. "I've got it," she suddenly cried, sitting up. "I know why I'm stumbling and falling all over the place."

"Ah, drugs. It is the curse of our age. What are you on?" he said.

"It's Kali," Holly said, beaming. "Don't you see, Holy One? She's pushing me out the door. She wants me to leave on a mission. Alone. And somehow I knew She would. That is why when the others left on their trips, I chose to stay behind to decorate the statue."

"If you say so," Ban Sar Din said.

"The goddess has spoken to me," Holly rhapsodized. "Me, Holly Rodan. She has chosen me especially to serve Her." She stood up with dignity, crashed to the floor again, then crawled on her hands and knees toward the statue. "O Holy One," she shouted. "I can smell her."

"Fine, fine," Ban Sar Din said, smiling and nodding agreeably. Inwardly, he made a mental note not to let Holly go on any more flights. The young woman had obviously gone over the edge. A planeful of closet killers was risky enough, but a genuine loud-mouthed loony-tune like Holly among them was sure to attract attention.

"The scent, the scent," Holly chanted, whipping her long blond hair back and forth across the base of the statue. "She wants me to carry her scent with her. Smell for Kali," she intoned. "Smell, smell, SMELL. O Holy One, I will never wash again," she said.

"Very Indian," Bar Sar Din said. The telephone rang.

"Smell for Kali. Kill for Kali," Holly was chanting.

"It's for you," Ban Sar Din said. "I think it's your mother."

Holly made a disgusted face as she disentangled her hair from the goddess's feet.

"Oh, Mother, what is it now?" she said into the phone. "Yeah. Yeah. So what? Huh? Well, I don't know. God ... that's it. She made it happen. What? I'll explain later."

She hung up and looked at Ban Sar Din with an unalloyed expression of pleasure. "Holy One. My father's been killed in a car wreck," she said breathlessly.

"Poor child. My sympathies-"

"No, no, no. Don't you see? Kali did it."

Ban Sar Din looked dubiously at the statue for which he had paid forty-three dollars. "Kali killed your father? Is he around here somewhere?"

"No. He's in Denver. Or what's left of him is in Denver. See. That's where Kali wants me to go. The call from my mother was a sign. My mission is to go to Denver. Maybe there's someone special I'm supposed to kill there."

"Now, don't be rash, Holly," Ban Sar Din said, wondering what would happen if she got picked up for murder alone, without another member of the ashram around to kill her before she could spill the beans to the police. "Perhaps you should be accompanied . . ."

"I must go alone," Holly said fervently. "I must go where Kali sends me."

"And Kali is sending you to Denver?" Bar Sar Din said. He realized he no longer had any plane tickets to Denver.

"Denver," Holly said, her voice almost lyrical. "Kali is sending me to Denver."

"Fly tourist," Ban Sar Din said. "I don't have a free ticket to Denver."

Holly Rodan chanted "Kill for Kali" under her breath during the taxi ride on the way to the airport. She chanted while she waited for her plane in the just Folks terminal. It was now the most crowded terminal in the airport. Banners everywhere with just Folks's red-white-and-blue logo announced it as "the Friendly, SAFE Airline." In the waiting area, loudspeakers droned constantly, giving the safety statistics of just Folks compared with International Mid-America Airlines.