Tantrics Of Old (28 page)

They entered Jadavpur University on a run and headed straight towards the Demonology building. There was no time to be lost; it would be too late once the sun had set.
And after all I’ve done
, Adri thought,
I cannot allow Maya’s life to be lost in the balance
. They settled near the building. Adri quickly cleared the ground and fishing out his silver knife from his bag, started the lengthy process of scratching the call-sign on the ground. It was complicated, but he remembered it like the clearest picture he had seen, his hand having a life of its own as he remembered and etched the sacred runes in the soil.

‘Candles. From my bag, now!’ he hissed. Gray hurried over to his side and started groping around in his bag. Fayne stood by them, his gaze moving from the sign to the sun and back. Once the candles were arranged according to Adri’s instructions, Gray lit them, all in the specific order they were supposed to be. Adri placed a tiny red mask, as big as his thumb, in the centre. Then, one of the Lost Pages. And finally, the silver knife between two runes. Then Adri started the incantations, slowly and softly.

‘The sun,’ Fayne said. ‘She sets.’

Adri kept chanting, and long moments later, he felt a gust of wind pass through his very bones, a wind that did not bother the candles. Something was here.

‘Reveal yourself,’ Adri said.

‘Blood,’ a voice said out of nowhere. ‘I need blood.’

‘So we’ve got ourselves a practical joker here,’ Adri sighed. ‘Why do your types always have to receive my call?’

Of course spirits didn’t need blood. He would have called a spirit he knew, but that would take much more time, something he didn’t have.

‘You seem to be in a hurry, Necromancer,’ the spirit replied, its voice now sharper, in control.

‘I give you the chance to move to your next; complete a charge for me in return,’ Adri said.

‘I obey your terms. What kind of charge?’ the spirit asked to Adri’s immense relief.

‘Reanimation. Of the simple kind,’ Adri replied.

The sun had just set when Adri opened the door and moved into the darkness, another makeshift torch burning in his hand. He walked in silence, his boots crushing tiny rock, the noise echoing loudly in the caverns beyond. Adri knew where he was, and it unnerved him. This was someplace no one dared, no citizen of Old Kolkata, no matter how experienced or powerful. Heck, his own father had warned him of this. Along with warnings against Wraith possession.

‘Ancients!’ he screamed, waving the torch around.

He knew he was being watched from the moment he had entered. He heard the soft snapping noise start in droves as bodies unwounded from around stalagmites and rocks, making their way towards him. He could only see the empty, airy darkness all around him, and though he could hear the Ancients approaching, not being able to see them made him very, very uneasy. He was not used to them; his work had never let him deal much with vampires. He had dealt with Wraiths before, but that was a long time back; Adri cursed himself for not remembering the sharp smell of the Wraith. Not that any damage had happened, but he would have been able to plan things out a bit earlier. Planning was always where it was at. Planning had saved his life on countless occasions.

One of the undead vampires slowly emerged out of the darkness, the black hollows of its eye sockets glaring at Adri. It looked at the flame in his hand with great distaste before turning to face Adri once more.

‘Where is the body, human?’ it rasped angrily. ‘It’s not with you!’

‘The girl,’ Adri shouted. ‘Let me see the girl.’

This time the other Ancient entered from behind him, bringing Maya’s limp body in its hands. Adri turned around and found Maya’s face incredibly close to his own, mere inches away. He looked at her and it seemed it had been a long time since he had last seen her. Here she was, right in front of him, but she was not with him. Yet. Her eyes were shut, and her skin was paler now, a bluish tint creeping up her face; her hair seemed to be losing its lustre and looked dry, hanging as if it were not a part of her. Adri slowly extended his free hand and first felt her neck for puncture marks and then checked her pulse. She was alive and unbitten; a rare feat for the Ancients.

‘Let me hold her and you will have your body,’ he said.

The Ancient did not speak. It considered.

‘Either way, I cannot walk out alive without your leave. Let me hold her,’ Adri said.

The Ancient remained silent. Then, slowly, it nodded. Maya was handed over to Adri roughly, and her sudden weight overcame him for a few moments. But then, he was standing, supporting her limp frame with his shoulders, careful to keep the burning torch away from her. He pointed at the door from which he had come. ‘There’s Mazumder. I got him, but with a bonus.’

The door opened and the dead body of Mazumder walked in, slowly but surely. The Ancient’s heads whipped towards this spectacle, staring without reaction, unable to believe what they saw. There stood their hated vampire hunter, dressed in a torn tuxedo, standing tall and defiant and looking at them with his usual unusual hatred; his skin unexpectedly fresh when the Ancients were expecting a creature of bone and dust.

That’s supposed to be me? An insult. I do not stand like that
.

Adri ignored Mazumder’s complaint in his head. ‘A gift for the Ancients; this gutless worm who was hiding away, still very much alive,’ he spoke.

The Ancients were hypnotised. They did not react, did not speak; they only stared at the dead body of Mazumder which stood watching all of them. Soft snapping broke the silence as more and more Ancients slowly gathered around Adri. Three emerged softly from the darkness to his left. Adri could hear one more right behind him. Then another one next to the first one, and another one to his right. Everyone stood transfixed; until Mazumder’s body broke into a sudden run and disappeared into the darkness of the cavern in the other direction.

Screeches broke loose. ‘The hunt is on!’ several Ancients rasped as they slid forward at an incredible speed on their snakelike bodies, disappearing after the mobile cadaver. It was a rush, a mass of writhing, speeding Ancients, of old and powerful predators, and then they were all gone. Adri looked at them, puzzled and unable to believe that his idea had worked so well. Slowly, he started to move towards the door. Maya wasn’t very light; moving her wasn’t as easy as he had hoped.

He had taken a few steps when he heard the soft snapping in the darkness behind him. He froze. The sound circled around him and came to a stop in front of him, slowly, with leisure, and then the Ancient appeared from the darkness.

‘Going somewhere, human?’ it asked, coiling its bones beneath it.

If it was smiling, Adri again, couldn’t tell. He could still hear the cries of the other Ancients echoing in the caverns. They seemed far away by now. The dead body was a fast runner.

‘You are a dead-talker,’ the Ancient whispered. ‘There is obviously another spirit in the hated one’s body.’

‘It is his body, the one you asked for. I have fulfilled my part of the deal,’ Adri spoke.

‘Idiot,’ it replied with relish. ‘With vampires, there
is
no deal.’

Many things happened. The Ancient lunged forward, raising its claws, baring its fangs with a deadly predatory hiss—a move that would send shivers up Adri’s spine whenever he would think about it in the future. In that instant, Fayne burst from the shadows behind the creature, his eyeglasses reflecting the torchlight. With one muscled arm he grabbed the Ancient’s bony neck, pulling it back. In the other arm, his red bladed dagger gleamed; the next moment, the Ancient had been cut from its spine. Blood, dark and silent, sprayed from the open bone wounds all over Adri, Maya, and Fayne. The Ancient would have screeched in agony had it not been for Fayne’s dagger buried in its skull. It was over in seconds. Fayne’s strong arms easily lifted Maya over his shoulders, and they ran towards the door, Adri abandoning the makeshift torch at the doorway as they ran up the stairs. They did not stop until they were out of the Demonology building and near the tree where Gray waited anxiously.

Fayne put Maya down in the grass and turned to Adri. ‘Well played,
pashlin
,’ the assassin said.

Adri shook his head. ‘Complications,’ he said quietly.

Gray had been relieved to see Maya, but Adri did a good job at sounding ominous; and Gray realised if he kept this up, the Tantric’s company wouldn’t be something to keep. All Adri seemed to do was attract trouble, he thought silently, cursing. He knelt near Maya and tried to look at her, but there was no light. ‘Before you do anything else, take the corruption out,’ Gray said.

‘That is what the problem is,’ Adri said. ‘I have no idea how.’

Gray’s shotgun was a few feet away, but had it been in his hands, Gray might have fired it. He was livid—he could not believe his ears, could not believe what this Tantric was saying and what he had done. The blinding rage converted itself, midway, to sorrow; hot angry tears surfaced in his eyes, try as he did to control them. He fought to keep his voice steady. ‘What do you mean you
don’t know how
?’ he asked.

‘A corruption is not an easy thing to control. It is not something to give and later take away. It’s a venom, ultimately fatal,’ Adri looked at Fayne. ‘An assassin’s weapon.’

‘What kind of corruption did you give the
fatiya
?’ Fayne asked, his voice still expressionless.

‘The Whisper of Dread,’ Adri said. ‘It was the only one powerful enough to affect the Ancients. And the only one I had at that moment.’

‘Well, so what do we do?’ Gray asked, looking from one to the other.

‘There should be an antidote for every poison, every venom,’ Fayne said.

‘So make one!’ Gray exclaimed, not daring to breathe. ‘Make one.’

‘I am an assassin, not a healer. Antidotes are best found with them. However, the Whisper of Dread, I’m sorry to say, is one of the most masterful, dependable poisons. I have used it on countless occasions myself when I have needed to be far away when it does take effect. Not immediate, but deadly in time.’

Adri turned to Gray, not meeting his eyes. ‘I think there is an antidote, but I’m afraid I do not know the ingredients required to fashion it.’

‘How long does she have?’

‘Till sunrise, if she’s lucky,’ Fayne said.

Gray forced his head to stop spinning; he forced that nauseating feeling in his gut to go away. Now was not the time. He needed to help figure things out. ‘So what can be done? Who knows the cure?’ he asked desperately.

‘The Lake of Fire. MYTH will have the antidote for sure,’ Adri said, looking at Fayne.

‘We cannot reach there by sunrise,’ Fayne spoke. ‘It seems I shall fail in my charge.’

‘There must be a place closer!’ Gray yelled. ‘Are you giving up already?’

‘No,’ Adri said. ‘Recollecting.’

I would have helped this lass, she’s not half bad
, the Wraith crooned.
But this bloody city changes every time I close my eyes
.

Adri moved off to a side. ‘It also retains its old,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know a place?’

Do you know of Nagina? The cinema hall with the tragic incident?

‘Yes. The fire which had burnt everything down,’ Adri whispered. Behind him, Gray was engaged in furious conversation with a completely calm Fayne.

Yes. But the cinema never shut down, it seems. It still runs
.

‘How’s that possible?’

The dead are still trapped in that hall, Adri
.

Adri waited, thinking.

I had a friend among the victims. A healer, one of the best. This was long back, but even the Whisper of Dread is among the venoms of old
.

‘Will he know the cure?’

He is our best shot, at any rate
.

‘Can’t I summon him here?’

Do you have something that belongs to him, fool?

‘Oh, right. It’s not very far from here, is it?’

Couple of hours
.

Gray tapped Adri’s shoulder. ‘And who are you talking to?’ he asked sharply.

‘Myself,’ Adri said. ‘It calms me down. Any agreement?’