Tantrics Of Old (42 page)

‘The Wraith is the one I shall be killing,’ Fayne said. ‘If he loses control he will but be a prisoner in his own mind.’

‘But he seems fine to me,’ Gray protested. ‘Why are you always thinking about the Wraith?’

‘I do not take chances with anything. And besides,’ the assassin said, looking at Adri’s outstretched right hand, ‘the process has already begun.’

Adri stopped just as they were about to enter the forest, and turned around. ‘The most important thing is to stay together,’ he said. ‘The forest is known to play tricks on one’s senses. Do not believe what you see, just what you can touch. Get me?’

Fayne and Gray nodded quietly. Adri drew a revolver and led the way into the thicket. Gray held his shotgun as he followed, while Fayne took the rear with Maya.

‘So tell me Mazumder,’ Adri whispered a few moments later. ‘You ever been here before?’

I must confess that I have. There was this camp of runaway vampires—mostly women and children who I had been hunting for the longest time. To elude me, they finally decided to run into this forest for their protection. You see, those blighted things were terrified of me!
The Wraith laughed.

‘Brave job, hunting women and children,’ Adri said.

I do not pretend to be a saint, Tantric. I have killed hundreds of vampire children in my time before they could age and be more of a threat than they already were. Yes, I have done things frowned upon, but back then I was their bane. I was the one they would see in their daymares! It is unfortunate that my earth time was limited. I would love to hunt them again
.

‘You are leaving for the next Plane soon enough, Mazumder.’

Unfortunately, yes
.

‘Where is this graveyard of yours?’

Incidentally, right across this bloody forest, near Howrah like I said. We are close
.

‘Excellent. I believe you were in the middle of a story though.’

Ah, yes. Though I cannot really tell tales like that old man, curse his soul. Yes, I was hunting this group of bloodsuckers in this very forest when I realised that something was hunting ME. My senses, you see, were quite keen when I was human. I heard it for hours, creeping behind me, following me, and sensing my movements. Though I was tempted to, I dared not face it. I knew the damned thing, whatever it was, wasn’t a vampire
.

‘Then?’

Then I chanced upon the group I had been tracking. Turns out there wasn’t much left to kill. They were dead. Eaten, scattered
.

‘What did you do?’

What do you THINK I did? I got the hell out of there as soon as I could. Didn’t meet whatever had been stalking me
.

The stories were similar and yet different, Adri realised. He had given a lot of thought about what did live in the
Bishakto Jongol
, but he never got his reply. He had gone through a similar experience in the forest, and had survived without getting to know what had killed the others. He knew of creatures that lived here, dangerous creatures—but there was something else, something he did not know about.

The forest was dark and depressing. They were walking on marshy ground and the rain did not help. They had to constantly search for good and solid footholds, and wade through mucky water quite often; this made their progress very slow. The forest wasn’t quiet either. Along with the calls of birds and the occasional forest creature, the rain and the wind were creating a symphony of their very own. It was tough to be alert and wary; their field of vision was always terribly limited by the thick undergrowth which did not allow whatever little sun there was to come through. Shadows dominated heavily. ‘Darkness,’ Gray said loudly an hour later. ‘Not good.’ Evening was descending.

‘Arrive, Aina,’ Adri commanded in the Old Tongue. ‘Spirit glow. Show me the way.’

A translucent orb materialised in mid-air near them, and slowly filled up with a deep blue glow.

‘Not as much light as a fireball, but it’ll have to do,’ Adri said, frowning and looking at it. ‘Fireball’s no use in this rain.’

The spirit hovered around them as they walked. With the setting of the sun the forest had been plunged into complete darkness, and apart from the eerie blue glow of the spirit, everything was pitch black. Adri checked his compass at regular intervals; Gray complained a lot and loudly so, while Fayne carried Maya, silent as ever. The sounds of the forest increased as night fell; a thousand crickets started a sonata around them. Frogs croaked and things slithered and crawled away as they walked through the muddy ground, their steps heavy and wary. Gray was extremely jumpy; he pointed his shotgun at any branch that moved, any splashing noise that they heard in any direction. He was the only one with a weapon out as Adri had holstered his weapon long back.

‘Need more light, Adri,’ Gray said nervously after they had travelled for a while. ‘I don’t like this place.’

‘Ashthir. Spirit glow. With Gray,’ Adri spoke in the Old Tongue again.

Another spirit appeared and lit up near Gray.

‘Thank you,’ Gray said—and collapsed.

He had taken a false step. The ground completely gave way beneath him. He was falling, free-falling for a couple of seconds before hitting a muddy slope. He rolled down, shouting, trying to hold on to anything that he could find, but everything that he could grab—mostly plants and roots—was either too slippery, or broke in his hand. He fell into complete darkness, slipping and sliding and rolling down a long way until finally he was in a free-fall again, landing on soft ground in the end.

‘Aaaah,’ Gray moaned slowly without moving. He lay there as he had landed, breathing heavily, trying to recuperate, his eyes tightly closed. Then he opened them, blinking mud out, and realised he wasn’t in darkness like he had expected. The spirit had followed him and was bathing him in blue light. Slowly, Gray moved, and pain immediately shot up his body. He cried out, and his voice echoed before silence returned to wherever he was.

‘Adri? Fayne?’ he cried out wearily. No replies. Nothing at all. There was a noise, water falling somewhere in the distance. It was an echo of the actual noise, Gray realised. He tried to move again and slowly twisted around and sat up. The effort induced pain, but not otherworldly—in all probability nothing was broken. He tried to see from where he had fallen and noticed fresh soil scattered around him—the landslide had occurred behind him, maybe he could still crawl up the slant. He got up slowly and realised he was still wearing his bag. His shotgun was gone, he could not see it on the ground around him.

Gray approached the slant behind him and tried to climb, but it was impossible; the slant was wet and slippery, and water was still pouring down softly. He turned around. In the dim blue light he could see that the soft soil on which he had fallen ended after a while, giving way to rocks. He was underground. He peered up one last time and saw nothing, no one. He called out again. Nothing. He would have to find a way out, then.

He began to walk, and the orb went with him. His shoes stepped on hard rock as he walked forward. The ground gradually narrowed into a passage. CRUNCH. He had stepped on something and broken it. Looking down, Gray realised, with a sudden burst of apprehension, that it was a bone. A bone that looked too long to be anything but human. The orb hovered lower as he bent down and started to walk slower and soon the other bones came into sight. The rocks were strewn with bones of all kinds; Gray had never been one to study the human skeleton, but he recognised parts of a spine, a broken rib cage among others. Human bones then, he thought. This did not look like a burial ground—something was here. He felt chills go up his spine; he felt insecure and vulnerable.

‘Gray!’ He heard Adri call behind him.

‘Oh thank God!’ Gray exclaimed, and turning, walked into the darkness faster than the orb could keep up with. Then he tripped and fell. What he tripped over was the Sadhu's Shotgun and in doing so he set it off. In the brief flash of gunfire the entire space was illuminated just for a moment, and in that moment Gray saw something white not far from him. It seemed like a humanoid figure and it disappeared the instant Gray saw it, and then he hit the ground hard.

‘Ow, twice,’ he groaned painfully and at that moment, firm hands grabbed his shoulders from behind, pulling him up.

‘You okay?’ Adri asked.

‘Huh? You were right ahead of me—’ Gray mumbled as Adri pulled him to his feet, and then slung the shotgun around his own shoulder.

‘Fast. Lets’ go,’ Adri said, urgency in his voice.

Gray did not protest. They walked down a couple of corridors and then came to a wider space like the one before. Gray saw a crevasse above him, and Fayne’s dark silhouette standing above with the other orb next to him. A rope was hanging in front of them. Gray grabbed it and Fayne pulled him up to the surface, then Adri. Once out, Fayne sat in the wet grass, resting his arms calmly on his lap. Adri and Gray sat as well, catching their breath, getting wet in the rain. Maya lay next to them, oblivious.

‘The hole that you tumbled through closed up with mud immediately,’ Adri panted. ‘There was no way we could have followed you. We rushed and looked for another way and found this crevasse; I retraced steps once beneath and found you. Luckily.’

‘There were bones,’ Gray said. ‘Bones down there, human bones.’

Something rustled loudly near them and all of them turned sharply. Fayne had a dagger in his hand already as he peered into the darkness.

‘Anything, Fayne?’ Adri asked slowly.

‘My vision does not help,’ Fayne said. ‘There are plants everywhere.’

Another plant rustled away from the first one. They turned again immediately, gazing into the darkness. But nothing happened and there was silence again, other than the rain.

‘You were saying something when I found you,’ Adri turned back to Gray, looking at him seriously.

‘I heard you call,’ Gray said, ‘from the other direction. And then you were behind me.’

Adri paused for a fraction of a second before he got to his feet in one move. He rushed to his bag and pulled it to where they were sitting, and then wordlessly started groping about like a madman until he found his bullet alchemy case. Moving the bag aside, he kept the open box on the grass, in the rain, and started crumbling and putting ingredients into a series of bullets. The bullets were aligned neatly with their heads unscrewed and he filled them quickly and decisively, taking only a moment to think and find the ingredient he needed. Fayne and Gray watched him just as silently, knowing he would not respond if they asked him questions right now. And then he was done. Calmer, he emptied out the bullets in his revolvers and started loading the new ones.

Another rustle made itself heard, from a new direction. Adri stopped loading and looked in the direction of the sound. The rustling stopped and there was silence. And then from the darkness, amidst the sound of the rain and the night, came a voice. One that Adri knew too well.

‘Adri, help!’ Victor Sen cried.

Adri looked down silently and fitted the last two bullets in his shooter.

‘Who was that?’ Gray asked incredulously.

‘That,’ Adri said, standing up, ‘was a Nishi.’

‘A Nishi?’ Gray asked.

‘An extremely dangerous spirit that can imitate voices.’

‘What? Does that mean—’

‘My voice you heard below, yes. Narrow escape. Now listen to me and fast. Nishis do not attack a group. They will try and single you out. Do not trust any voice you hear; they can imitate mothers, fathers, old lovers, siblings,
anyone
you know. Do not trust any voice, not even mine. Either wait for a visual confirmation, or make it call your name. It cannot call you more than twice.’

‘Okay, but why do you sound like you’re going somewhere?’

‘I’m going after them,’ Adri said. ‘Both of you stay here until I get back. Your weapons will not affect the Nishi.’

‘Point accepted,’ Fayne said quietly.

‘You’re going
after
them?’ Gray repeated unbelievably.

In response, Adri moved off into the forest, taking one of the orbs with him. The rain got heavier and came down with greater ferocity than before. Fayne and Gray sat quiet and unmoving, getting drenched. Gray realised he was scared.

‘Gray!’ Adri’s voice hissed from the darkness suddenly.

‘Oh my God,’ Gray murmured, shutting his eyes.

Adri’s voice laughed and Gray felt it moving around them in a circle, keeping to the darkness.

This was it, then. Nishis. I did not know of their existence
, the Wraith told Adri.

‘They are not vampires. You would not know,’ Adri said grimly, walking unhesitatingly into the foliage.

True
.

Adri heard a rustle to his right. He drew his gun and walked into the plants on his right. ‘Nishi! Nishi! Nishi!’ he shouted in the rain, walking into the darkness.

‘Put the light out, Adri,’ Maya’s voice spoke behind his ear.

He spun around and saw no one. He knew where the creature was now—in the direction where he had initially been walking, ready to pounce. He spun again and fired. He saw the salivating fangs in mid-air as his gun roared, right on mark. The creature erupted in fire and Adri deftly stepped aside. The creature crashed into the mud, but its fire did not go out even in the rain. It turned and twisted in complete silence, without a single gasp of pain escaping its throat. Adri left it burning and walked into the forest again.