Rakshasa Book I, Part #4: Shadowfall (2 page)

“I’m not sure you’ll be laughing when you see him. He’s something of a prophet, although he’s been wrong in the past, so I wouldn’t take whatever he says as gospel… and he’s kind of, well, jaded, I guess?” Asena shook her head, seeming to reconsider. “No, that’s not it… not
jaded
… it’s hard to explain.”

“Not jaded?” I asked. “Something else?”

“Well, okay. Imagine that everyone you knew went through their entire life, from birth, adulthood and through to death, in a single day. Imagine that this happened, every day of every week, every week of every month. Everyone you knew died every day. Eventually you get sick of meeting new people, knowing that they’re going to die before you even really get to know them. You begin to see patterns, like, this person is X personality or Y personality. You know. People aren’t
that
different.”

I thought I understood. “Um, okay. So he’s a doctor?”

“I don’t think he has any formal qualifications, but he knows a lot due to his age. He claims he can see the future, but he’s been wrong before. Still… I think he might be able to help us.”

“Okay.” I turned to Asena. “Let’s go see him. Where is he?”

“West of Campbelltown. On a farm near the outskirts.”

Campbelltown was a town just south of Sydney. It would take us two or three hours to drive there. I’d barely been out of the state before and I didn’t like travelling.

That wasn’t entirely correct. Libby didn’t like travelling, but these days that person and her fears were smaller in my mind. I gave a firm nod.

“Right, well, I’ll book us a train ticket then. But how do we get in contact with him when we get there?”

Asena smiled, but there was a hesitation there too, as though she was humouring me. “That’ll be difficult. He doesn’t exactly have a phone, you know, and he doesn’t like visitors.”

“Then I’m guessing he won’t take kindly to us just showing up unannounced.”

Asena grimaced. “Not very well, no. He’s a Rewa… um, sort of. Or he was. At least, it’s more accurate to say, he and the Rewa share a common ancestor-clan.”

I bobbed my head eagerly. “Okay, so we get Ishan to ask him. He’s a Rewa, he’ll help us.” I gave a wide smile. “I’ll let you do most of the talking though. We don’t want to alarm him, yeah?”

She didn’t answer. I studied Asena’s face carefully. She was normally a lot more confident, strong, eager… “Asena, what’s wrong?”

“It’s… complicated,” she said. “I’d really love to see him, but Cinder and I don’t really get along.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Asena smiled wistfully. “Remember how I said my great, great, great-whatever grandfather was a British soldier in India?”

“Yeah?”

“Well… that’s his son. That’s Cinder.” Asena looked away, down the corridor of my apartment, towards the sound of Clintonette’s mewing kittens. “And he hates me. Can’t stand the sight of me.”

I stared. “Why? What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Asena gave me a sad smile. “Apparently I remind him too much of his wife.”

“Ah.” I tilted my head. “But he’s a Rewa. You’re Altaican…”

“Clan colours don’t breed true. Your clan is an aspect of your manifestation, not your linage.”

“Um, right.” I tried to change the subject just a little. “What about Katelyn, then? We can’t just rock up with an unconscious girl and shove her in the luggage…”

Asena nodded understandingly. “I’ll ask Susi and Vriko to stay here with her. They’ll keep a close eye on her while we’re gone.”

The plan was beginning to come together. Cinder wasn’t much, but he was something. He was a potential end to this problem with Katelyn, and right now I’d take any amount of potential in the future over the grim certainty I felt in my heart right now.

Katelyn wasn’t going to make it.

Chapter II

Mistaking The Hunter for the Hunted

I was about three quarters of the way through packing for the trip when my doorbell rang.

My behaviour had changed since the events of my transformation. In the past I used to love having visitors, especially since I had so few. I used to run to the door, throw it open, babble and laugh and invite them in for tea.

I’d since learnt that the world, while beautiful and full of kind souls, also had its share of sharp teeth and rotten minds. These days I was more cautious, so my approach to the the heavy door was silent, cautious and more guarded. I glanced through the peephole that, before my Rakshasa bloodline had manifested, was so unused it had been completely filled up with spiderwebs.

A blonde policewoman, badge in hand, stood on the other side of the door. I recognised her. Sergeant Thomas.

Sergeant Thomas had been the one to interview me after my first transformation, when Katelyn had thought I’d been kidnapped by the Champawat Tiger. The memory bought back a stab of guilt. Katelyn had immediately leapt to my defence, calling the cops and convincing them something terrible had happened to me, and had the police force out looking for me within a day. It’d been weeks since she was incapacitated and we were no closer to helping her now than we were then.

Cinder would change that, I promised myself, and pulled open the door.

“Good evening, Miss Meda, it’s Sergeant Thomas. Australian Federal Police.”

I nodded politely. “Yes, I remember. Thank you for your assistance earlier.”

Thomas gave a nod followed by a surprisingly genuine smile. “It was my pleasure.”

“Can I help you?” I asked. “Is this about what happened earlier?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly, Miss Meda, it’s just a follow-up visit. We just want to make absolutely, completely sure that there was nothing going on that night that we should know about. It’s common for people who’ve experienced trauma to try and conceal it, try to carry on their lives as though nothing’s happened, but that can hinder our investigations substantially.”

The truth was that I’d turned into a powerful creature of muscles and claws, then slaughtered a roo on the outskirts of the city whilst the Altaica clan members watched on with cautious, curious eyes. When the deed was done I woke up on a hilltop covered in blood. I’d washed myself in a creek and then, with little more than a blanket and some shoes, had walked back into town. Their suspicion was understandable.

“No, no,” I said, “just me being a derp, I suppose.” I gave an effortless, pseudo-sincere smile. “Seriously, I was fine then and I’m fine now.”

Thomas’s eyes flicked away, to the side, and I knew exactly what she was looking at. The side of my fridge, visible from the doorway, was still crumpled in from when the Champawat Tiger had thrown me into it. Her smile slowly faded. I got the impression that she believed what I was saying, but there was still some doubt, some piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit in.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, deliberately keeping my eyes on her to pull her attention away from my fridge.

It worked. She looked at me, refocusing her attention. “We’re not sure yet. Your friend Jacques. He was waiting for you when you arrived back at your apartment. How long have you known him?”

I felt a chill slowly creep down my spine and it was everything I could do to hold back my physical revolution. Jacques was the Champwat Tiger, a serial killer calling himself Eclipse but basking in the infamy the humans were assigning to him. The
real
Champawat Tiger was a female tiger who killed hundreds of humans in India. Although he had little to do with her, really, it’s possible he just really liked the name.

I’d done my reading, though. The Champawat Tiger’s reign over the Champawat area finally came to an end at the business end of a British hunter’s rifle. Some not entirely insignificant part of me hoped that our Champawat Tiger would receive a similar fate.

“Not very long,” I answered. “I mostly knew him through Katelyn.”

It was true. Katelyn had met Jacques in a club, and they’d gone home together. The idea of the two of them humping like bunnies made my skin crawl and I couldn’t resist the urge to scratch at my forearm. “Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Well,” said Thomas, “he’s been missing for about two weeks. He didn’t notify his work, he hasn’t paid his rent. His bank accounts are untouched. Nobody’s seen him at all. We’re treating his disappearance as suspicious, which in turn, makes us want to re-examine your own little stroll in the dark just to be
certain
that there’s nothing we’ve overlooked.” She gave me a meaningful look. “There’s no shame in admitting something happened to you, but the longer you leave it, the less likely that justice will be served.”

Jacques’s disappearance boded ill for us. I made my face seem concerned, worried even, although my mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. The dates matched up to only a couple of weeks after Katelyn. What was the cause of his disappearance? Where had he gone? Why hadn’t he told anyone?

What was he planning now?

“Oh my God, that’s awful!” I shook my head. “No, no,” I lied, “nothing happened at all. I seriously just had a blonde moment and went walking around, and got further away than I’d intended.” I gave her a cheesy, apologetic smile. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Thomas answered, “and it’s okay. But you know what to do if you see him, or hear anything, right?”

“Oh don’t worry,” I said, “I do.”

Chapter III

Too Much To Say

I’d always liked trains.

There was something about being a passenger on a train, winding through some of the most amazingly beautiful countryside in the entire world, that just appealed to me. I loved idea of having to do nothing at all on your journey, just being carried along on tracks that could well be a hundred years old, then arriving at your destination in or near the heart of the city you were visiting. Your surroundings would pass by you, a beautiful slideshow of the world, set to the melody of the clunking tracks and the engine’s whine.

The CountryLink rail line from Canberra to Campbelltown was exactly this. It wound its way through mountains covered in olive green trees, in and out of old brick tunnels carved through the heart of mountains years ago, then across large, sprawling fields full of golden grass and dotted with black cows. It was one of the most beautiful and powerful bits of natural wonder I’d ever laid eyes upon, but the whole way there I could barely take a moment to enjoy it.

My mind was on more serious matters. Jacques was “missing” and the police were beginning to suspect that the day I transformed was something other than ordinary. Cinder was an enigmatic character, someone I had no idea how to deal with, and with whom Asena could not help. I was glad she was here though. Ishan, reluctant to travel with two Altaican Rakshasa, would be making his way up to meet with me. Until then I’d be doing this on my own.

The scenery was beautiful and relaxing, the train’s gentle swaying hypnotic, and my mind overstressed and in need of rest. I rested my head up against the window for a moment, just a moment, and closed my eyes, letting the rhythm and the comforting sounds soothe me and drive away the worry.

Before I knew it, I was asleep and dreaming.

*****

Ice crunched under my bare feet and a fierce wind howled around me, blasting the heat from my body and cutting through even my newly developed resistance to the cold. My hair whipped around and got in my eyes, and for a moment I couldn’t see.

“Ishan?!”

All around me the dream world was a crystalline, frozen wasteland. I lifted up a foot to reveal dead, blackened grass underneath me, a rotting carpet over a dead, frozen land. Roiling, dark clouds tumbled above, their thunderheads dumping hailstones in the distance, pouring their frozen contents down onto the once verdant, vibrant landscape.

My dream was dying.

“ISHAN!?”

He was nowhere to be seen. Panic began to swell within me. My sharp Rakshasa eyes scanned the surrounding area, trying to find him.

Nothing. I saw nothing, until a hand burst out of the snow and grabbed my ankle.

I recoiled in panic, jerking my foot away, but then as I stared down at the hand I recognised it. I fell down to my knees, digging frantically, clawing at the white powder, scratching and digging until my fingers were numb.

I uncovered Ishan’s face and he gasped in a lungful of air. With powerful, superhuman strength I gripped his bare shoulders, dragging him out of the snow and out into the air.

“Aurora!” He gasped in air, coughing with frozen lips, his arms blindly seeking me.

I grabbed him and drew his naked body to mine, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing him with all my considerable strength. He did the same to me and our bodies stood pressed together, ankle sunk deep in the snow, gripping each other for all we were worth.

“What’s going on?” I shouted over the howl of the wind, giving an involuntary shudder from the numbing cold. “It’s getting worse!”

Suddenly, the noise of the wind faded away to barely a whisper, although its icy touch continued to drag across my body. I felt myself calming.

Ishan had done the same thing when I had first met him, at a crowded club months ago, a strange ability of his to shield out all other sound from our shared surroundings so that we could hear only each other. I didn’t understand it, and I hadn’t asked him about it, but at this moment I basked in its ability to make everything seem alright again even when it clearly wasn’t.