Tantrics Of Old (20 page)

‘No, I want to see the university,’ Maya said.

‘You do?’ Gray asked wearily. He had not taken his camera out of his bag for a long time now.

‘Yes, it’s the very place that our ancestors studied in, jackass! You mean to tell me you have no interest in seeing what the old college was like?’

‘I have no interest in seeing what an Alabagus looks like,’ Gray muttered.

‘Legend! Fairy tale!’ Maya said, her voice shrill.

‘Okay, okay.’

‘Err, even I have some work in there,’ Adri added casually, and the siblings did not react.
Excellent
. He had no clue why Maya would be so enthusiastic about wanting to see the old university, but it was fortunate enough for his needs. Who needed to understand why she was eager when this need of hers could be used to shield his guilt?

Do not feel guilty. You have led them to a dangerous place just for your own needs, yes, but you need to live, and it is because of the only letter your mother wrote for you. All you need to do is make sure Maya and Gray are safe when you lead them, either back to the train or to the Angel. That’s all. They can hate you forever when they find out. It doesn’t matter. You have always been hated. You could never even meet the only person who loved you
.

The heat of the day receded as late afternoon came upon them. The sun began adopting a more golden glow and shadows began to lengthen. They mostly walked through narrow alleys, cutting through the occasional wide roads as quickly as possible. People lived along the alleys—they could hear distant voices like before; clothes were hung out to dry; dogs sunned themselves lazily outside locked doors; an occasional strain of music, but mostly people talking. Often far away. Often nearby. Gray imagined eyes watching them and every time he would look up to confirm, he would find his intuition mostly correct as curtains behind windows fell back into place and footsteps hurriedly exited balconies. They ran into the occasional traveller who crossed them without a word. A couple of these people, Gray noticed, were carrying rifles slung over their shoulders.

The city seemed alien to him. It wasn’t clean in the least; all sorts of filth lay in the back alleys they were walking through. Some areas stank so bad he had to hold his nose. He didn’t like it and had no idea why people raved about the greatness of the city. Was it some sort of delusion employed deliberately to make the residents feel better? But there was no question about it, the city could not compare to its new counterpart in terms of either safety, cleanliness or living standards. People seemed much, much happier in the utopia of New Kolkata, and somewhere inside, Gray was glad that when all this was over, he would be going back there.

He hadn’t photographed anything in the Old City after the witch incident. But he shouldn’t have let it get to him, he now decided. He had come to the Old City fantasising about the photographic opportunities it presented. And maybe his photographs could actually dissolve the urban raving about the Old City. Why obsess over something so desolate and dead? Gray reached into his bag and withdrew his camera, and from then on, he busied himself with taking pictures when he could, jogging lightly to catch up with the other two every time he fell behind—Adri and Maya never waited for him.

Some more conversation-less travelling later, they stopped. Up ahead in the distance, across the completely deserted road, they could see the twin gates of Jadavpur University. They stood there for a minute, not talking. The road was completely deserted. The wall running around the campus was visible as well, a long brown line in the horizon, the buildings beyond silent, uninhabited. It seemed like a giant trap, the lack of life almost deliberate.

Then Adri began to walk up the road, and they followed. They walked past broken-down cars that were permanent landmarks, scattered not just along the roadside but also, occasionally, bang in the centre of the road; past broken-down shops and remnants of what must’ve once been busy newspaper stalls; past broken-down ATM machines with their shutters pulled down and padlocked. The place sang of quiet desolation and no witnesses.

A crow cawed loudly in the distance. Adri gently eased one of his hand cannons out of its holster and held it by his side as he walked. He turned back and nodded at Gray.

‘What?’ Gray asked.

Adri sighed. ‘Keep that goddamned camera in and carry the shotgun.’

Gray nodded. Maya offered to carry the shotgun so Gray could continue taking his pictures. Gray wasn’t willing to relinquish his newly found weapon so easily, but Maya insisted with sibling finality. Grudgingly, Gray gave in.

The sense of bleak increased as they stepped past the twin black gates of the university which, once proud, were now rusty and decaying, vines choking every inch of space. Beyond the gates was the empty university campus, nursed only by the elements, its buildings, though they still stood, all weak and crumbling. It looked unvisited for years. A road went down as far as the eye could see, diverging into various different directions. Old weathered buildings everywhere. Maya and Gray immediately realised that like most of New Kolkata, even their college had been modelled after the original one; they could recognise the buildings and the turns. Adri confirmed this.

‘Your college in New Kolkata is built according to this design. So tell me where the Demonology department is.’

‘This way,’ Gray said, glancing at Maya, who silently followed, taciturn again, just barely being able to lift the heavy shotgun.

They passed a series of buildings, took a short cut through a huge field, and then walked on a cobblestone path, passing more abandoned, broken-down cars and an old tank model. There was no sign of any life around as they walked.

‘This place is too silent,’ Maya spoke suddenly.

‘Yeah, and it’s pretty much freaking me out,’ Gray muttered.

Even the trees—there were quite a lot of them—were silent to the passing wind. They grew incredibly tall and thick with no gardeners around to control their growth, often crashing into buildings and weaving their branches through windows and collapsed ceilings, emerging out of roofs. Vegetation had almost entirely taken over the campus. Wild grass grew high in what had earlier been a manicured lawn and even the smallest of cobblestones they walked on was lined with moss. Adri had told the siblings to expect this sort of a plant infestation—the Old City had gone through drastic changes in its isolation, with parts of it being transformed into complete forests, while others got submerged under water.

Maya was beginning to understand why people avoided JU. Dread. An inexplicable feeling of being watched. Thoughts of sudden and brutal ends. She could never have come here alone and unarmed. She understood Adri a lot better now, but she realised he was taking them through here because of something he wanted to see, a selfish personal interest. The location coincided, and that made things easier for her; she did not speak out. Her apprehension was mounting high, and it had made her sullen and silent the entire day.

When the Demonology Wing finally came in sight—a lone building at the end of the path—Adri slowed down, and half raising his weapon, he led the way, cautiously and slowly. His eyes darted everywhere, every window with a broken glass pane, every place that was in shadow, every place that he couldn’t see. The building itself was a dark motley green-grey, covered entirely as it was with moss and vines. The tall, wooden front doors were ajar, and nothing could be seen except for the yawning darkness within. Adri approached the doors with his weapon completely raised—one hand supported by the other—and pushed the door open. Gently. It swung inward with a loud creak, and everything was silent once more.

Adri peeped inside. Ahead of him lay a dark corridor, the darkness occasionally broken by dim sunlight trickling in through an open window, or a crack in the wall. He looked at the light and realised the sun would set soon; they could not, under any circumstance, linger around the university after dark. He needed to hurry. He took a step inside. Splash. Looking down, Adri saw water running all over the black and white chequered floor. Moving inside as quietly as he could, Adri made his way to an old, faded notice board on the wall right opposite the door and found exactly what he was looking for—a list of all the professors in the department and their offices. Professor Sural. Third floor.

‘Third floor,’ Adri whispered. Maya pointed towards a staircase on their right and they began to move. When they reached the staircase, Adri noticed that it went down as well—this place had a basement then, he noted. He started walking up the stairs, gun raised. It took them about ten minutes to find the professor’s office; their watchfulness slowed them down. When Adri entered the professor’s room, the first thing he noticed was a setting sun, beyond a broken window. He swore softly, holstered his hand cannon, and looked around the small office.

It was as forsaken as the rest of the building. A small table lay next to the window. Three chairs, barely standing. A bookshelf. The weather had not spared any of them; every paper that lay about had been washed in muddy water and dried in harsh sunlight. The books crumbled in Adri’s hand as he thumbed through them. He slowly let go of his backpack, dropping it to the floor, and began scanning the bookshelf with greater care for anything that might resemble his father’s books. Nothing familiar. He hoped the professor had not kept them on the bookshelf; nothing on it was readable any longer. He carefully studied the spines. Nothing. He turned and began to look around the room.

‘What are you looking for?’ Gray asked.

‘A book,’ Adri said.

Then he saw it. A portrait of the professor mounted on the wall behind his desk. Adri took a moment to look at Professor Sural’s face, to look at the shining eyes, firm jaw, the hint of a smile playing around his lips, before yanking it off the wall rudely. There, behind it. The safe Smith had talked about. It was built into the wall—comparatively untouched by the elements—with a crude handle and a keyhole. Adri wondered if it was magical.

‘Open,’ he spoke in the Old Tongue. Nothing happened. Mechanical, then. He took a step back. ‘Appear, Sh’aar,’ he spoke softly in the Old Tongue once more. In about exactly a second, he felt its presence in the room.

‘On this charge I get my freedom,’ a voice spoke from nowhere. It sounded bored.

‘Oh my God!’ Gray exclaimed.

‘Open the lock,’ Adri said, ‘and have your freedom.’

The safe lock clicked open, and simultaneously Adri felt Sh’aar’s presence leave for the higher place.

‘One of the protector spirits I had commissioned to defend us. Don’t worry about it,’ Adri said without turning around, his hand on the handle.

‘You let it go?’ Gray asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You still have more, right?’

‘Yes.’

Adri opened the safe and the books caught his eye immediately. The Gunsmith had been right. They were here—three books, clad in black. Adri picked up the one with the letter H on its spine and opened it in the dying sunlight.
Heretic, Hoensach, Hoggath
, and finally,
Horsemen
.

Death is by far the most interesting of the four. There have been few victims of Death, however. Over the years, Death has reportedly taken three known people: Aniket Das, Kinsheal Naidu, Roland Thomas
.

That was all. Three names he had never heard before. Nothing else. Adri read and re-read the short passage, the shortest of all the descriptions in the fat book. Vexation gripped him and he threw the book against the wall with a scream; it hit the wall and fell heavily, a couple of pages floating to the floor. Adri scratched his head, sweeping back his hair repeatedly without realising it. Dead end. Three names. Maybe links. But he had no clue where he could find out more about these people. No clue at all.

Focus, Adri. First things first. You need to get out of here, along with the siblings. The sun has gone, and you need to go
.

He took a deep breath and looked up. Gray was staring at him. And Maya, Maya was not in the room.

‘Where’s Maya?’ he exclaimed in shock.

Gray looked around him, surprised. ‘She was here just now!’

‘Bloody hell,’ Adri muttered, and drawing a shooter, strode past Gray out into the corridor. Gray followed him hurriedly.

‘She has the shotgun,’ Gray said.

They would’ve heard it go off. Adri looked up and down the darkening corridor. There was no sign of her, no trace suggesting where she could have gone. Or been taken.

‘MAYA!’Gray shouted, panic in his voice.

Adri looked around sharply for a reaction. Nothing. His problems were increasing. The sun had set and the last dredges of light were leaving the sky. Visibility in the small corridor was declining rapidly. Adri didn’t want to use the second spirit so soon, but he was at a disadvantage. ‘Arrive, Masir,’ he commanded. ‘Fireball. Show me the way.’

The spirit materialised as a translucent orb suspended in midair, a few feet from Adri’s head. As Adri and Gray looked at it, it caught fire and began to burn. Light returned to the corridor. Adri moved and the fireball moved with him, keeping a distance. Removing the other shooter from its holster, Adri wordlessly handed it to Gray. Gray was momentarily thrilled to hold the majestic weapon, but it did not show on his face. He shouted his sister’s name again. They walked down the corridor, opening door after door, peering into offices, classrooms, broom closets, all empty and dilapidated.

‘We-we can search faster if we split up,’ Gray muttered.

Adri shook his head. ‘Stick to me. Like glue.’

They checked the whole of the third floor, but found no one. Whatever it was that had carried Maya off, it had made no noise at all, and it had left no traces; Adri wondered what it could be. He had heard tales and speculations, but had encountered very few beings in these grounds to be sure. Unless—

‘Gray,’ Adri said, turning to a very worried Gray staring into the darkness. ‘Gray, tell me, did Maya have any work here in the Demonology building? Any agenda? Anything she could want to find out?’

Gray was taken aback. ‘Maya would have told me if she wanted something from here.’