ASH MISTRY AND THE CITY OF DEATH (8 page)

hy was it he could fall asleep on a bus, on a train and even on a bicycle, but not on a plane? Ash shifted in the armchair, the blanket tucked under his chin, and tried to balance his cheek on the pillow. Not working. The steady drone of the propellers filled the tin can of the cabin. Ash looked around. It was dark beyond the small round windows. He wondered where they were.

John lay on the floor, snoring softly. Khan was up, legs crossed and teeth sunk deep into a large piece of lamb. The juices, red and very raw, dribbled down his chin as the bones crunched. He peeled off a strip with his nail and offered it to Ash.

Ash shook his head.

Parvati slept. The chandelier chimed overhead and the few lights cast her face in a sickly yellow tone. Or maybe it wasn’t the lights. Her scales were flaking off her face, and the skin was drawn and tight over her bones. Her eyelids opened, just a razor’s width, and a feverish green fire burned in her gaze.

“Parvati, what’s wrong?”

Parvati struggled to sit up. She straightened the blankets and Ash glimpsed the bony body beneath it. How could she have lost so much weight so quickly? When she coughed, the air rattled within her withered lungs. She sank back into her seat, too tired even to speak.

Ash saw the golden lights of death shining all over her.

“She’ll be better when we get back to India.”

The two of them moved to the back of the plane, away from Parvati’s hearing. “What’s happening to her?” asked Ash.

Khan frowned. “I thought you’d know. It’s the Koh-i-noor.”

“The aastra?”

“Of course. Rakshasas cannot possess the tools of the gods. They were crafted to be used against us. The Koh-i-noor robs her of her life because she was not meant to carry it. It’s only because of her human heritage she’s lasted this long.”

“Where is it?”

“Round her neck.”

“I’ll get it off her, then.” But as Ash stepped towards her, Khan placed his hand on his shoulder.

“No, I can’t let you do that.” Khan scowled. “I’m not so sure she wanted you to have it. Aren’t things hard enough already with you being the Kali-aastra?”

Ash didn’t meet the tiger demon’s gaze. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Just because I’m ridiculously handsome does not make me stupid,” said Khan.

Ash snorted. “Who says you’re handsome?”

Khan crossed his arms. “I hear you’ve been having bad dreams.”

“Nothing strange about that. Everyone has them from time to time.”

Khan shook his head. “No. Parvati told me this might happen. It’ll get worse as time progresses. The past will become more and more real until you cannot separate it from the present. What you are, Ash Mistry, will vanish under the waves of stronger, deeper souls. Especially those like Ashoka.”

“Wait,” said John as he joined them in one of his rare ventures beyond the bathroom. “You were Ashoka? The emperor Ashoka?”

Ash nodded.

John sat down opposite him, fascinated. “Cool.”

“Wasn’t as great as all that,” Ash admitted.

Khan picked up a bottle of water and with a sharp swipe of his claw took off the top. He gulped it all down. “You know what his name means?”

“No. Never really thought about it.”

“Without sorrow.” Khan smacked his lips and tossed the bottle away. “I’ve met some bloodthirsty humans in my time, but Ashoka was in a class of his own.”

“No. He was a great man. He was an emperor,” said John. “Everyone knows that.”

“Oh, I’m not denying he was great, but there’s only one way to forge an empire, little man,” said Khan. “And that’s by killing absolutely everyone who stands in your way. Genghis Khan told me that, and he should know.” Khan paused. “Or was it Napoleon? Short fellow on a horse. Wore a funny hat.”

Khan was telling the truth, Ash had to admit. He had never felt such coldness and cruel ambition as when he’d dreamed he was Ashoka. He’d relished the death and the terror he’d brought to that nameless village. Revelled in it.

“How can I stop the memories from affecting me?” Ash asked.

Khan shrugged. “You can’t. Kali brought you back. Did you never think there would be a price?”

here was nothing more surreal than arriving in a strange city, in a strange country, at three in the morning.

The streetlights glowed vague and insubstantial through the dense mist that covered Kolkata. Lone cars crept along the silent streets, and Ash looked out at the beggars and homeless families lying under thin cotton sheets on the pavement, with nothing but flattened cardboard boxes as mattresses. Mangy dogs sniffed at the rubbish piled in the alleyways, and skeletal cows roamed everywhere, nibbling at trash.

Khan snored in the back seat of their taxi. Parvati still looked terrible, bordering on hideous. She had a shawl over her head, but was more demon than human now. Her skull had mutated into a flat, serpentine wedge, and a cobra hood spread out on either side of her neck. The venomous fangs glistened and her tongue constantly flicked out, tasting the air. Scales covered her hands, and each nail was a long, slender needle.

John shifted, stuck as he was with Khan to his left and Parvati to his right. He’d decided to tag along with them after they’d landed. A life of flying didn’t suit him and Jimmy hadn’t been sad to see him go. His eyes stared at the unfamiliar city. “And I thought Varanasi was gloomy,” he said.

“You want to go back there?”

“Not likely.” He smiled at Ash. “I owe you.”

It was good to have John around. When Ash and Lucky had been hunted by Savage and his demons, he had turned out to be their only friend. The boy had lived in the Lalgur as one of the many half-starved urchins that haunted every big city in India, stealing food and trinkets and tourist gear for Ujba, who was a major player in Varanasi’s criminal underworld.

Ujba. Ash scowled as he remembered the crime lord. Ujba had been given the task of training Ash in
Kalari-payit
, the ancient Indian martial art. It had meant weeks of brutal beatings by Ujba’s best students. Ujba believed in the school of extremely hard knocks. John had helped Ash and Lucky escape Ujba’s den.

He’d also helped them get in touch with their parents. So Ash’s dad had sent John money to help find his mother, who’d abandoned John in Varanasi when she hadn’t been able to cope.

Ash knew John had found his mum, but wondered why he wasn’t with her now. Had something gone wrong? He’d asked, but John had been evasive, moving the subject on to something else. Perhaps his mother hadn’t wanted him back after all. Ash would find a better time to talk about it. Maybe his dad could send some more cash to help.

Kolkata had been the capital of British India for two centuries, and as the taxi rolled on through the city, Ash got a sense of its faded grandeur. Old, elegant Victorian buildings stood cloaked in regal squalor, their walls haphazardly repaired, windows broken or boarded up, cracks emerald-fringed and moist with mould. The taxi splashed through ocean-sized puddles, and every weed or strip of green was blooming thanks to the recent monsoon rains.

“There,” said Parvati. “Stop there.”

Khan yawned, displaying a fine set of canines. “Home at last.”

Home? Ash got out of the front passenger seat and looked around. “Where’s the hotel?”

Parvati opened the taxi door. “We’re not staying at a hotel.”

Why did Ash suddenly get the feeling this was going to be no fun at all?

A high wall stretched along a run-down street. Palm trees creaked along the road, which was filled with pot-holes and exposed drains. Rats, big rats, scrabbled up loose wiring that hung down from the electricity poles. They followed Parvati along the wall to a large, ivy-covered gate. The air was dense with musk and mould.

Ash read the carved sign above the gate, heart sinking even lower. “The English Cemetery?” He gazed past the rusty iron railings. The place looked like a jungle. “Don’t tell me we’re staying here.”

“OK, I won’t tell you we’re staying here.” Parvati tossed her rucksack over the railings. The gates were held closed with a heavy chain, but there was enough slack for her to slip through. Khan growled and vaulted over the gate, clearing the uppermost spikes with a metre to spare. He looked back, grinning.

“Think there’ll be snakes?” asked Ash. The grass was over two metres high.

“Plenty,” said John. “But I’ve stayed in worse places.”

“The Lalgur was better than this,” said Ash.

John flinched. “I wasn’t talking about the Lalgur.”

“Where then?”

But John just twitched his head, evidently not wanting to talk about it, and followed Parvati through the gap.

“I know I’m going to regret this. A lot,” Ash said to no one in particular, but feeling it needed to be noted, as he’d bring it up later under the heading “I told you so” when it all went wrong. He chucked his own rucksack over, grabbed the rusty railings and climbed up.

Crumbling limestone tombs and headstones lay obscured in the overflowing foliage. Creepers hung down from banyan trees and huge palm leaves littered the winding, weed-choked path.

“What is this place?” Ash asked. He’d taken out his torch and shone it on a nearby headstone. ‘Sergeant Thomas Compton. Died 1802.’

“Calcutta was just a small cluster of villages until the East India Company set it out as one of their headquarters,” said Parvati, using Kolkata’s old English name. “It became one of their three presidencies in India. It was from here, Madras and Bombay that they ruled the country.”

“And this is where they buried their dead?”

“There’s a Scottish one further down the road,” Parvati said. “Even in death they did not want to mix with the locals.”

“Or with the Scots, obviously,” said Ash.

The grass shook beside him and a sharp bark burst out as two dogs leaped on to the path. Their fur was torn and patchy, tight against their ribs. Spittle hung from their yellow teeth.

“Leave them,” said Parvati. “They’re harmless.”

“They’re rabid,” said Ash, wondering if all his injections were up to date.

The dogs glowered, guarding their patch of grass, and Ash gave them a wide berth, with John keeping Ash between himself and the pair of feral beasts.

Ash was soon hopelessly lost. Parvati guided them around and around. There were mausoleums to entire families slain by disease or war, broken stone angels weeping over dead soldiers, and vast marble tombs of the great and good.

John squeezed Ash’s shoulder. Small lights shone up ahead.

Slowly, figures came into view. Dressed in cast-off clothes, they sat hunched over small cooking fires and passed around tin plates of food. Crude tents assembled out of rags and plastic sheets lined the side of the path.

“Wait,” said Ash. “There’s something wrong.”

The figures moved towards them. But some crept on all fours, their skins bristling with thick hair. Others stood straighter, but the fire shone off skin made of scales or armoured carapaces. One, a child, shook his head and snorted through tusks jutting from his lower jaw.

Rakshasas.

Ash pushed John behind him. “Get ready to run.” He moved into a ready stance, weight evenly spread out on the balls of his feet, arms loose as whips.

The tree bough above him creaked and eight red eyes gazed down. A huge, eight-limbed woman slid down a silver rope of spider silk.

Parvati stopped in front of them.

“Parvati…” said Ash.

She didn’t move.

Then, one after the other, the demons stepped forward. They bowed and touched Parvati’s feet, a sign of deep respect. Even the spider-woman scuttled forward and crouched before the demon princess, her mandibles clicking. She looked like Makdi, the spider-woman who’d served Savage back in the Savage Fortress, but while Makdi had been arrogant and cruelly beautiful, this one was spindly and wretched.

Rakshasas were meant to be terrifying and powerful, not pitiful. This lot were a motley group, riddled with deformities, totally unlike the sleek human-animal hybrids in Savage’s crew.

“Who are they?” Ash whispered to Khan.

“The lost and the damned,” he growled.

A huge, grey-skinned man made his way through the crowd, each step shaking the ground and making the tall grass quiver. He was easily the most gigantic person Ash had ever seen. Big ears flapped on either side of his head, and a pair of thick tusks jutted from his upper jaw. He groaned as he bent down to the ground and put his head to Parvati’s feet, the ultimate submission.

“Your royal highness,” he said. “We bid you welcome.”