Tantrics Of Old (9 page)

The worst part was that he couldn’t instil the fear of the grisliest things that could happen in Old Kolkata into the siblings; he
needed
them to come along. He couldn’t scare them off. And yet his conscience would not let him push them into the city unprepared. Small warnings, he decided finally. Small tidbits of information to keep them on their toes.

And then, soundlessly, the lights started to dim. Slow, steady.

‘The lights!’ Gray yelped.

Adri stood up, grabbing his bag. ‘Our ride’s here,’ he said.

Maya had heard it coming before the two of them. She had been walking up and down the length of the platform once her brother had sat down and she was near the mouth of the tunnel when she heard the noise. Before she had time to walk back to Adri and Gray, the train zoomed in, screaming right past her. It wasn’t what she had anticipated, though she wasn’t expecting the typical New Kolkata train.

‘It’s not air-conditioned?’ Gray asked, looking at it with bulging eyes, as Adri, still smoking, fitted three rounds in his shooter.

The train was a wreck. It looked like a tangle of disfigured metal with rough holes punched in, held together with nothing but prayers. The compartments were old and beginning to rust; most of the windows had no safety bars, and old tube lights struggled to stay alight inside. The compartments were endless, they continued down the tunnel till they ran out of sight. The train stopped with an almighty sigh, the clanking and cluttering finally coming to a stop as age-old brakes screeched. The platform lights remained dim, making the train look creepier still, with its devastated exteriors and lights within.

‘Does this thing actually run?’ Maya asked incredulously as she picked up her bag.

‘There’s no AC,’ Gray groaned.

Maya spotted what Adri was holding. ‘Hey, is that a—’

Adri entered a compartment without answering, sliding open a rusty door. Shooter raised, he walked in, surveying the seats and the overhead baggage compartments with sharp eyes. Apart from a man sleeping in a far corner, the compartment was empty. The siblings crept in after him, and stared as Adri approached the sleeping man, weapon raised.

The man appeared to be a homeless—old clothes, cap pulled over face. Adri stood in front of him and slowly eased his weapon barrel towards the man’s forehead. The siblings watched, frozen. Adri gently lifted the cap with the barrel until he got a glimpse of the man’s face. Then he turned around and lowered the shooter.

‘It’s okay,’ he said.

A chair car. The seats weren’t in as bad a condition as the train itself, and Maya and Gray sat on the other side of the aisle from Adri. Every available inch of the compartment was covered with old, frayed leaflets and posters, scratched messages, and amateurish graffiti. The windows were open; the shutters had long broken away. The platform lights were so dim by now that they could see nothing but darkness outside.

‘How long is the journey?’ Maya asked, peering out of a window.

‘About six hours,’ Adri replied.

‘Not that long, huh?’ Gray commented.

‘Gets boring,’ Adri said, leaning back into his seat, his bag on the empty seat beside him.

Gray turned around to look at the man in the back row, still sleeping. ‘What did you suspect him of being?’ Gray asked. ‘A Demon?’

‘He could have been a lot of things, Gray,’ Adri replied, shifting in more comfortably.

‘You mean the train isn’t safe?’

‘Even New Kolkata isn’t safe. Nowhere is safe.’

Maya spoke up. ‘You’re always so vague.’ She wondered if the Tantric was concealing information, or hiding his ignorance. Either way, it was about time she got to know a bit more about him than he intended to reveal. His origins or background wouldn’t be a bad start. Any information was crucial, just in case he turned on them later on. She had already bound Adri’s diaries in brown paper—now she readied one inside her bag, keeping a watchful eye on the young Tantric. He looked ready to sleep off. She would wait until he was, in case he felt any magical vibes from the book or something—she could never be too sure. The train started, sluggishly at first, picking up speed soon. They rushed into an endless tunnel, the darkness outside deepening. Gray peered out of a window, while his sister seemed to hunt for something in her backpack. All he could see was black—the New Kolkata tunnel lights had clearly not been installed on the way to Old Kolkata. He wondered if this train was a secret from MYTH, or if they allowed it to run. The next instant, he froze. A figure was moving towards them through the aisle. A huge man in a blue uniform, the cap pulled over his head, casting his face into shadow. He was built well, his muscles pushing against the uniform’s fabric as he walked. He blocked the lights with his size as he approached.

‘A-A-Adri!’ Gray stammered, looking to his left. Maya was staring at the figure, while across the aisle Adri was sitting straighter and searching his bag for something.

The figure stopped in front of them. Then, in a voice that was more like a grunt, something Gray heard over the noise of the train, he spoke. ‘Tickets.’

The siblings looked at the man with their jaws hanging, eyes wide in surprise. In the darkness of the man’s face, something moved.

‘Here you are,’ Adri said.

A red cloth bag, tied at the mouth. The man took it, felt its weight, and grunted.

‘All three of you?’ he asked.

‘All three,’ Adri replied, praying he hadn’t miscalculated.

The figure moved past them towards the sleeping man in the back.

‘Who was that? You paid for us?’ Gray asked, while Maya looked on.

Adri took a moment before he replied. ‘He’s called the Driver,’ he said. ‘We do not talk about the Driver while we’re on the train.’

‘What was in that bag?’ Gray persisted.

‘Later. Believe me, now is not the time. His hearing is
quite
sharp,’ Adri replied, leaning back again. Shuteye. This was probably the last opportunity to grab a few hours of good sleep. If only sleep would come, if only that infernal ticking would leave. Tick, tock, tick. Every second. Leading to the dawn. His death. Death. A Fallen’s promise; what was it even worth? He could not sleep, how could he, when his life was literally in the hands of someone he could not trust? Adri frowned, despite himself. He counted the seconds with mad helplessness.

Gray turned around and looked behind him, at the door that the Driver had gone through. It was solid metal. For an instant, just for an instant, he had a mad urge to run to the door and throw it open. He looked outside again. Darkness. It was going to be a long trip.

Adri wasn’t happy. He didn’t trust Demons and he didn’t like summoning them. Besides, under more normal circumstances, no boy his age would be expected to summon Demons. But then he had seen things not normal. Things he would remember for life.

‘I don’t want to trust a Demon,’ Adri spoke with finality. His voice was young. Untarnished. Innocent.

‘It’s like a formula, Adri. A mathematical formula. You put things on the board, you do it right and perfect, and there is no reason why the Demon won’t carry out your task,’ Victor explained for the hundredth time.

‘My Familiars can handle my tasks, Father,’ Adri spoke with the air of someone clutching at straws.

‘Familiars? Ha!’ Victor scoffed, turning away towards a giant window, as big as an entire wall. ‘They can’t even keep your secrets, can they? Not to mention their amazing fighting skills.’

‘I don’t want to call Demons,’ Adri insisted.

‘Are you afraid of them?’ his father asked.

‘No.’

‘Really, Adri?’

‘I’m not afraid.’

‘This is the age you have to start at, my boy. By the time you are my age you shall be perfect, you shall be flawless. Undefeatable.’

Adri remained silent.

‘Adventure is the ultimate aim, Adri. Experience. See it all. Do it all,’ Victor spoke with enthusiasm, turning back to his son.

‘I’m interested,’ Adri admitted. ‘I’m interested in what I learn, Father.’

‘Then why not Demons?’

Adri was silent once more. ‘I’ve heard bad things,’ he spoke at length.

‘You’ve heard that they kill Summoners even though all the conditions have been fulfilled. You’ve heard that our protective measures don’t work against them at times,’ Victor said.

‘Yes,’ Adri muttered.

‘You heard wrong. Nothing steps inside the circle. Nothing! You are always safe within it if the other measures were correct, if your incantations were correct, if the pentacle and the sacrifice were correct. Anything goes wrong, feels wrong, banish the Demon immediately.’

Adri was silent.

‘Seven hundred and sixty-two summonings, Adri,’ Victor continued, his voice now barely audible. ‘And as you can see, I’m still alive.’

‘Father,’ Adri asked, ‘have you ever summoned an elder Demon?’

‘Several,’ Victor replied.

‘Have you ever summoned one from the realm of shadow?’

The question hung in the air. ‘Have we been reading forbidden books, then?’ Victor asked softly.

‘No books are forbidden to me, Father,’ Adri replied gently.

‘This is exactly the kind of attitude I want from you,’ Victor said. ‘You must know more, much, much more than is expected from one your age. I am happy.’

Adri nodded politely.

‘You question is an important one, but you do not corroborate it with research. Demons of shadow do not heed our call. They are not bound to human summoning.’

‘And if one is called?’

‘If someone is silly enough to call a being they cannot control or banish. . .’ Victor shook his head. ‘I’m not telling you to do as you wish. Read the books, ask me questions. Learn the rules. But what I’ve been trying to tell you is that Demons can’t just be read about in books. You have to summon them, talk to them, see them for real, breathe in their stench, look into their eyes.
Then
you will begin to understand the power of the Tantric.’

‘I have been doing some summonings,’ Adri spoke.

‘Spirits. Yes. And you are impressive in calling them. You might even be
Ba’al Ob
one day if you keep carrying on like this. But you sharpen the arrow and do not attend to the bow. You are a Necromancer, and you must understand that you
have to
know by code everything there is to know about summoning, banishing and exorcising both Demons and spirits. Incompetence in either one will make you fail. And in our line of work, failure can be rather
grisly
.’

‘I will not disappoint you, Father,’ Adri said softly.

‘Start with the younger Demons, the weaker ones. The inexperienced ones are easier to catch, faster to summon.’

‘I really need to work with Demons, is it?’ Adri muttered, mostly to himself.

‘Stop running away, boy. Remember the basic summoning rules.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Well, what are they?’

‘Higher power, The Telephone Call, and Precautions.’

‘Excellent. Demons are the best keepers of secrets, always remember that. If a Demon does something for you, not a soul gets to know. That is the only reason Tantrics use Demons. That, and their massive reservoir of unholy power. Powerful creatures they are.’

‘What is the most powerful Demon you’ve met, Father?’

Victor was thoughtful for a long time. ‘The one which had destroyed the city of the Kushanas alone,’ he replied. ‘Ba’al. A Demon of incredible power, and I think it was young then, as far as Demons are concerned.’

‘Did you summon it?’

‘Yes. It took a couple of days to make all the arrangements and preparations, but yes, finally it was me who summoned it. The city had to fall, and we knew it could get the job done. It did.’ Victor’s eyes were cast to all the years back, to all the blood and the killing. Sigh. He missed those days. Adri didn’t miss the sigh.

‘This was before you were born,’ Victor added, all of a sudden. Adri said nothing. He had Demons to summon.

Maya looked up from the diary. Adri was sleeping, and looked more vulnerable than ever. Maya gazed at his face, one that had evidently been forced into prematurity. She had no clue as to how Necromancers were trained, or what they had to go through, and the diary was vastly interesting to her. About the young Tantric she now knew a bit more than before. It felt curiously good. She looked to her right and saw Gray snoring, head against a lone window grill. She turned around. The sleeping man hadn’t moved. What was it with everyone sleeping? Was the train so safe after all? The Driver, he had given her the chills; who was he anyway?
What
was he? Did he leave the wheel to collect tickets while the train sped? And why had Adri kept his magical weapon raised and ready as he had entered the train? Evidently they could be in danger. And now Adri was fast asleep, as was Gray. So-called protectors. Not that she needed protection, but danger could be anywhere.