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They weren’t going to stop. One would kill the other.
Ash wasn’t going to let that happen. He charged in.
He jabbed low with the katar, following with kicks and punches as Parvati swept her urumi blades in all directions.
But Rani wove through their assault. Ever changing, often in the blink of an eye, she twisted and spun and struck, one second human, another cobra, sometimes a creature melding both. Her spine did things that should be impossible without crippling herself and her limbs were quadruple-jointed so attacks came from unbelievable angles and she could slip through even the strongest, bone-breaking locks and holds.
But she couldn’t defeat them. She stepped back as Parvati and Ash merged their fighting into a single, seamless, blazing blitzkrieg.
Ash, panting and sweaty, stood beside Parvati as she shook the urumi, ready for another attack.
“You can’t win,” Ash said. “Put down your weapon and let’s just talk. That’s all.” He bent down, opening his hand. “Look, I’ll go first.” He rested the katar on the floor. “See?”
Rani smiled crookedly. “Stupid.”
The tulwar flashed at Ash’s unprotected neck. She transformed, her arm stretching out an extra metre. Ash didn’t even flinch before Parvati barged him out of the way. The blade sliced along her back and Ash heard the skin and muscle rip open. Blood splashed the wall. She was hurt.
The front door crashed open downstairs.
Then Ash heard the cackling howl. Jackie had come to the party.
“Get Parvati out of here,” he said to Ashoka. “Now.”
How many were there? Did it matter? He could barely hold Rani at bay. She smiled and it was an ugly thing; the moon-shadow made her look gaunt and turned her face into a death mask.
The house echoed with the beat of boots. They were going to be trapped. Ashoka helped Parvati up while Ash stood between them and Rani. But the cobra girl wasn’t interested in attacking, she was just waiting for reinforcements.
Ashoka’s gaze darted from one end of the corridor to the other. “They’re coming up the staircase. There’s no way out.”
Ash nudged them back, his attention never wavering from Rani or her two swords, which she twirled in slow, supple circles. “The skylight.”
“How am I going to get up there?” asked Ashoka in a panic.
“Just think!” He really was useless. “Climb on that table.”
Ashoka muttered something and knocked a vase off a small coffee table. He dragged it into the spot right under the skylight.
The howling rose in pitch and the air quivered with Jackie’s giggling delight, accompanied by a chorus of other snarling beasts and who knew what else.
The glass shattered. He dared not take his eyes off Rani, but heard Ashoka huff and puff as he clambered up on the table, which creaked ominously. What a bloody farce. The lump of lard was going to break the table. Ash would have been out and gone by now. “Any time today would be good.”
“I’m doing my best!”
Ash grunted again and then the roof creaked as a weight rested upon it. Ashoka was up.
Just at that moment Jackie appeared. Her mane shook with excitement and her face was a hideous amalgam of human and jackal, a long snout dominating it and each fang dripping with spittle. Her amber eyes shone hungrily.
Parvati groaned as she slithered up on to the roof, Ashoka pulling her from above. “Come on, Ash.”
“You get going. I’ll catch up once I’ve dealt with this lot.” Wow, that sounded almost confident.
Four more men ran up behind Jackie, pausing on the stairs. A couple of heavy-shouldered dog-demons – thick necks and blunt noses and small feral eyes. Two more rats, each carrying a pistol, those old-fashioned flintlock things with wide barrels.
“Come on, Ash,” urged Parvati.
He glanced up.
She stretched out towards him, sweat covering her face and her scales shimmering nervously. A trickle of blood ran down her arm, dripping from her fingers. “Come on!”
Ash looked up at her, then, reaching into his shirt, he slapped the notebook into her hand. “Go!”
And then she was gone, and Ash charged.
His attack took Rani by surprise. She ducked his swipe but not his knee as it slammed into her belly. Ash tripped over her foot, but rolled past and then was swamped by the musky stench of Jackie’s fur. The jackal rakshasa screamed as she sank her claws into his shoulder.
Ash tried to heave his katar into the monster’s face, but someone grabbed his arm. He roared and kicked as bodies flew at him, weighing him down by sheer numbers. A bullet whistled and more glass smashed.
Once he’d have carved through this lot in seconds. Once, when he’d been a master of death. Now he took punches and blows and couldn’t see for the blood in his eyes.
Winning didn’t matter. Ash headbutted one of the beasts. He just needed to keep them busy.
Feet scurried above him, one light and graceful, the other lumbering and uneven. Parvati and Ashoka were getting away.
A fist came out of the bundle and almost took his head off. Ash braced himself, wobbled, then one more dog charged him and they all – Ash, Jackie, the rest – collapsed into a scrum. With Ash at the bottom.
Blood dripped from his cut lip and his shoulder ached from Jackie’s claws digging into the meat.
Buried under a pile of demons, Ash couldn’t move. His face was pressed against the floor and all he could see were feet.
A dainty toe pushed against his cheek. “So you’re the Kali-aastra?” said Rani.
“At your service.”
The toe dug hard into the soft flesh under his eye. “I was expecting more – given the way Savage talks about you.”
“Yeah, Savage is my number-one fan.”
“Get him up.”
They held him by the arms, legs and waist. They weren’t taking any risks. Jackie gripped his neck from behind, controlling him like a puppet so he had to face Rani.
She looked so much like Parvati. The scars and the white, blind left eye had surprised him, but these details were superficial, meaningless. This was Parvati. How could they be enemies?
Rani slapped him hard. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He wasn’t going to have any teeth left soon. “Just being friendly.”
“We are not friends. Savage told me all about you. How you want to destroy the rakshasa nation.”
“Some of my best friends are rakshasas.”
Rani glanced at the skylight, then spat. “That girl, Parvati? A traitor to her people. Can she do what I do? Not any more. She has allowed her human side to make her weak. She refuses to acknowledge what she is. A demon. The daughter of Ravana.”
Was that it? Rani had embraced her supernatural heritage. All these things she could do, change in an eye-blink, fight so far beyond human ability, all because she had full access to her demonic powers, powers Parvati had been denying herself.
Now it seemed obvious. Parvati held back. She’d done it for so long it had become natural.
What other sacrifices had Parvati made to try to be human?
Ash followed Rani’s gaze to the broken skylight. “At least they got away.”
Rani laughed. The sound could have cut stone. This was how a demon queen should laugh: without pity or joy. It was as cruel as winter. “There is an English saying about out of a frying pan and into a fire, yes? I prefer from the fangs of a cobra into the jaws of a crocodile.”
Crocodile? What did she mean?
There had been a crocodile. Along with Jackie and a vulture demon he’d been one of Savage’s henchmen. But he’d died. Ash had killed him.
In another timeline.
Oh no. Ash remembered.
Jackie sniggered and her breath was rank on his skin. “You killed my closest friend, but that was in another world, boy.” Her claws dug into his neck. “He’s been dying to meet you.”
Chapter Nine (#ulink_c2ad57bc-2b01-5715-b32d-68a944948b44)
Ashoka hauled Parvati up through the hole in the roof. He heard Ash’s roars and thumps and cries. Maybe his double could win, but they couldn’t risk hanging about. He looked across the snow-layered roof. There was a flattish path between the chimneys. “Come on, Parvati.” He took her hand.
“We need to help him!” cried Parvati.
“Come on!” The roof creaked as he pulled her along.
Parvati hesitated and it looked as if she was going to jump back down into the fray.
Ashoka understood. He’d do anything for the people he loved too. That was why he was here. But Parvati was in no state to fight. And he couldn’t rescue his family alone. “You don’t stand a chance down there with that injury. And I need you, Parvati.”
She didn’t say anything, but her lips tightened grimly and she joined him, hardly leaving footprints in the snow.
They weaved their way between the chimneys, and as the snow fell Ashoka couldn’t tell which way they were going. He wiped the flakes off his face and tried to penetrate the white wall ahead of him.
Streetlights glowed below, reflecting off the water in the basin. The quay sat alongside the rear of the warehouse, where the ships must once have docked and offloaded their spices and cottons from the East. The deep bay had canals branching off it and modern apartment blocks overlooked the shimmering waters. A flotilla of barges was moored up along the quayside.
They were more than twenty metres above the ground and Ashoka walked, ever so carefully, to look down the side of the warehouse for a ladder or outside stairs. His legs turned to jelly as he saw the drop to the waters of the dock below.
The wind picked up and the flakes swirled about him.
“We need another way down,” he said.
“Can’t we jump?” Parvati asked, joining him at the edge. “The water looks deep enough.”
A flock of birds squawked and clustered above them, circling and swooping this way and that. Ashoka waved his arms. “Shoo!”
Their wings were everywhere, and Ashoka wobbled as his heel went up against the low parapet wall. What was wrong with them?
They broke away and flew off, still cawing angrily as they vanished into the sky. Ashoka spat out some feathers. “Yuck yuck yuck.”
A deafening shriek shattered the night. The wind whooshed, hurling up a wave of snowflakes, and a black shape swooped down. Ashoka screamed as he glimpsed razor-sharp talons cutting through the air and the wings, the massive wings, beating and creating spinning eddies in the snow. A man’s face, dominated by a large hooked beak, glared at him. He was bald and a tuft of feathers encircled his scrawny neck. He shrieked again and dived towards Ashoka.
It was impossible. Ashoka stared, a moment too long. He should have ducked, leaped aside, but he was transfixed. The man was like a vulture, a great big ugly one. The demon’s greedy pink eyes locked with his.
The talons came straight for Ashoka, tearing at his chest, straight through his coat and jacket and shirt and skin. Ashoka stumbled back and his heel caught the very edge of the parapet. He flailed and reached for Parvati, but she was a hand’s breath too far away. Her eyes widened with horror and he tilted backwards.
The demon vulture’s wing brushed his face.
Ashoka grabbed it.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_4e7f8d6b-71db-533b-b5b5-6745275b715c)
Vulture man cartwheeled as Ashoka held on to one wing. The demon screamed so loudly Ashoka thought his ears would bleed, and the world turned over and over. Talons swished at his face, then dug into his arm. Ashoka let go.
He smashed into the black, freezing water. Straight down he went, the cold clutching his lungs. Arms and legs flapped, as bubbles rose all around him. Faintly he heard another splash and, in the dim light cast by the streetlights he saw Parvati’s slim figure pierce the water. She turned to him, gestured to the far side, and kicked off.
At least down here he was safe from the vulture guy. That was the freakiest thing he’d ever seen.
Ashoka broke the surface and began to swim towards the other side. His clothing weighed him down, but the dock wasn’t that big. Still, he was panting in no time. He paused, treading water, took several big, deep breaths, and looked around.
“Parvati?”
She was already halfway across. In spite of her wound she cut through the water with smooth, easy strokes. It wouldn’t take her long to reach the ladder on the opposite side.
Ash started off. Not easy doing the front crawl wearing winter woollies with a bow across his back, but each stroke took him another metre from vulture man and Jackie and Rani and danger. A horn sounded ahead and he saw Elaine’s van. She waved at him.
Parvati was climbing out.
Almost there.
His arms felt as if they were made of lead. His stroke barely broke the surface. The dock wasn’t as small as he’d first thought.
Parvati was shouting at him.
What was she saying? Elaine now stood beside her and they were both signalling frantically.
Was it Rani? Jackie? He looked around, but there was no one there.
The water rippled behind him. A gull, sleeping on the surface, bobbed up and down. Looking startled, it raised a wing, squawked and vanished under the water, leaving a small puff of feathers.
That’s not good.
“Ashoka! Swim! Swim!” Parvati screamed.
