Russell Blake - The Goddess Legacy

Roland dared a glance at the gunman. “If they get choppers in the air, we’re in serious trouble.”

“Remote chance they can respond that quickly. I like our odds.”

“It will occur to them soon enough.”

“By which time we’ll be gone.”

The heavy vehicle leaned precariously as it made the right, and the Frenchman had to fight to bring the steering back under control before decelerating to a more sane speed. All eyes were on the chain-link fence that ran alongside the dark canal, and Roland slowed further when he saw a gate.

“Can you blow through it?” the gunman asked.

“You pay the insurance, not me.”

He pointed the hood at the gate and accelerated as the SUV neared it. The gate exploded off its hinges and flew off to the side, and then they were bouncing down a rutted dirt track. Dense vegetation surrounded them, and branches scratched at the windshield and body as they tore by.

The canal was full of rushing brown water, but the driver managed to keep the vehicle’s wheels clear of it enough to achieve reasonable progress. The gunman’s phone trilled and he answered it, spoke a few hushed words, and then terminated the call. He turned to the driver.

“Can you get us to the Yamuna River by the Nizamuddin bridge?”

Roland’s eyes darted to the mirror and then back to the road. “Anything’s possible.”

The gunman gave him further instructions. “Everything’s ready.”

The Frenchman considered him. “You may wish to take a taxi. Split up. That way if we’re stopped, they’ve got nothing.”

“No time. They may be slow, but they’ll mobilize, and we could see roadblocks, at least overnight.”

The driver shrugged. “Your call.”

“That’s right, it is. Get us back on a road as soon as you see an opening. They’ll tumble to the broken gate eventually.”

Spencer and Drake watched the exchange without comment. Drake took Allie’s hand and was relieved when she didn’t pull away. Any anger she’d felt at being subjected to immediate danger after arriving had apparently been forgotten, although Drake was only cautiously optimistic.

“Who are you?” Spencer asked the gunman as the driver swerved onto a concrete ramp that led to a street above.

“I’ll explain later.”

“How about now?” Drake tried.

“Right now, the less you know, the better. If you’re captured, you know nothing. That’s the way I like it.”

The gunman’s tone didn’t leave any room for argument, and Drake settled back into the seat as the SUV accelerated and shredded through another gate. The passenger-side mirror blew off from the impact and the cracked windshield frosted on the gunman’s side, but if the Frenchman cared about the damage, he gave no sign.

The gunman checked his phone map again and nodded. “We should be there in ten minutes. Fifteen on the outside,” he said.

“We’ll want another vehicle.”

“I’ll arrange it by morning.”

“Where are we going?” Allie asked.

“Somewhere nobody will think of looking for you in a million years.”

Spencer tried again. “Why are you helping us?”

The gunman laughed humorlessly. “Obviously, because I want something.”

“Money?”

It was the driver’s turn to chuckle. “I’ll take some if you’re offering.”

The gunman shook his head. “I’ll tell you soon enough.”

“What do you want?” Drake demanded.

The gunman twisted around in his seat and studied Drake for a long beat, and then turned back around.

“I asked you a question,” Drake said.

The gunman nodded. “I heard you. Now hear me. We’ll discuss it once we’re off the road. Until then, you’re to keep your mouth shut so you don’t distract us. That’s not an option, and if you don’t like it, you can try your luck out there,” he said, pointing at a slum to their left. “You’d last about ten minutes. They’d cut your throat for your shoes, much less any money you might have, and you’d be praying for the police to find you and drag you off to prison. Want to test my patience? Because I’m in a seriously bad mood, and I’m getting tired of being interrogated like a schoolboy while I save your sorry ass.”

Drake decided to err on the side of prudence and sat back. Allie squeezed his hand, which was slim comfort as they bounced along to an unknown destination in a country he’d already grown to hate in only a few short hours.

Two men carried a stretcher down a trail toward a clearing near the ruins of an ancient stone structure, now little more than rubble. Three more toted torches, whose flames provided light in the darkness. Fog curled around them, lending them the appearances of spectral phantoms as they trudged down the path. All wore the traditional garb of mountain peasants: stained, ragged handmade robes and callused bare feet.

At the clearing, they approached a tall post at the center of a flat stone area, perhaps once a terrace or courtyard but now unrecognizable. The men were obviously nervous, glancing around furtively as they set the stretcher on the ground.

A rail-thin young man lay on the coarse canvas, clad only in an orange loincloth, his form so emaciated that his ribs jutted through his skin. He moaned and glanced at his bearers first in confusion and then in growing horror as he realized where he’d been taken. He’d never been to the cursed place, but the legends were of nightmare proportion, and evil seemed to emanate from the ruins like poison smoke.

“No…” he managed, his voice a croak. “Please. I beg you.”

The torch carriers looked away, and one of the two stretcher bearers grunted as he knelt beside him. “Your time is almost at hand. Be brave. It is an honor,” he said.

“It’s… a… a… gah,” he gasped, his energy spent.

“Your approval is not required.”

“Please. Water.”

The other stretcher bearer frowned. “Why waste it on the likes of him?”

The two men lifted the boy’s frail form and dragged him to the post, where they lashed his wrists behind him so the pole supported him in a standing position. Even in the dark they could make out the stained stone beneath it, the regular rains insufficient to rinse them completely clean. After studying their handiwork, one of the torchbearers walked to an old brass bell suspended from a nearby tree and rang it twice, and then tossed his torch onto a pile of branches and kindling ringed by stones. Orange tongues of flame licked from the fire pit as he raced to rejoin his companions, his expression frightened.

The bell’s last peal echoed through the area as the men rushed back up the path, and soon the faint glow of their torches had dimmed to nothing. The youth’s eyes drifted shut as silence reclaimed the clearing. His breathing was shallow, and his chin rested on his emaciated chest.

A sound from across the field jolted him back to full alertness, and his eyes popped open in terror. A procession of robed figures shambled toward him from out of the darkness. A monotone chant preceded them, one word, over and over, barely distinguishable, but to the youth as clear as the ringing of the bell. The name of the goddess of destruction, the deity that the approaching cult worshipped, the object of their devotion… and bloodlust.

Kali.

He offered a silent prayer and resolved to accept his fate without resistance. His strength had long since abandoned him; his body was nothing but a shell, powerless to fight an unstoppable force older than history. Nothing he said, no plea or offer, would halt the cult’s macabre ceremony, and he wouldn’t spend his last moments demeaning himself. He knew that he was wasting away from the illness that had claimed so many of his brethren — a byproduct of the work he’d been laboring at since a toddler — so at worst, these twisted animals would deprive him of the lingering moments of agony a death from that affliction would entail. In the end, perhaps they were doing him a favor, and he begged the universe to make his departure swift and painless.