We Shall Be Monsters, page 6
Where are they? she thought furiously. Her lips were dry and cracked, longing for water and instead about to be wetted with toxin.
The glass had just touched her bottom lip when a coarse scream resounded over Kinara, so loud it vibrated though the jar. The people in the crowd echoed that scream with their own as a large shadow swooped over them.
The shadow belonged to a massive bird bristling with sharp feathers, and wings that stirred dust into the air with every flap. It sported a head similar to a vulture’s, and its underside was covered in thick scales. Curved talons sprouted from its feet like sinister smiles. It circled the town and screeched again, the sound reverberating down the valley.
A sakela pachi. A slow grin spread across Kajal’s face while the crowd panicked and dispersed. The hunters let their arrows fly, but they only knocked harmlessly against the demon’s keratin plating.
Using the commotion to her advantage, Kajal hurled the jar at the shrine behind her. The glass shattered against the Elephant, and the poison dripped down its stone trunk.
“This is the dakini’s doing!” someone cried.
Two pairs of hands grabbed her. But it wasn’t the rebels; it was Gurveer Bibi’s sons.
“Ah,” she said as her heart gave a sickening thump. “So, this probably looks bad—”
She broke off with a gasp as they dragged her from the shrine. One fisted a hand in her hair, and pain lit across her scalp. Kajal fought back, stomping on the insteps of their feet, but it only enraged them more. They shook her and bruised her, spitting vile curses and names.
A sharp whistle broke through the screeches of the sakela pachi. Kajal despaired, thinking that the bhuta had appeared, that Lasya had also decided to make her pay—but it was the rebels riding toward her on horseback.
“Get away from her!” Sezal shouted.
Too invested in their vengeance, Gurveer Bibi’s sons didn’t listen.
Sezal pulled on her horse’s reins, and the brown gelding reared with flailing hooves, which caught the bigger son in the chest and sent him flying. Rattled, the smaller one ran to help him.
Kajal coughed and choked on dust as Vivaan dismounted and hauled her to her feet.
“My dog!” She pointed to the building where she’d heard Kutaa’s whining.
Vivaan swore and ran toward it.
Sezal reached down. “Come on!”
Kajal took her hand and scrambled up behind her on the gelding, her clumsy efforts making the horse step nervously sideways. Then again, it may have been reacting to the bird demon circling above.
“How did you manage this?” Kajal demanded over the uproar.
“What, you think we’re able to summon rakshasas at will? We just know what it takes to lure them out.”
The lack of pyre smoke suddenly made sense. “You took the bodies.”
Sezal gestured at one of the taller buildings nearby. Kajal watched the rakshasa land on the flat roof in a great pile of feathers and scales, its beak yawning open.
It tore into what was undoubtedly Gurveer Bibi and Gurdeep. A severed arm sailed over the edge and plummeted limply to the ground.
“It’s not elegant, but it got the job done,” Sezal said.
“Rakshasas grow stronger when they eat the dead,” Kajal reminded her.
“Yes.” Sezal’s smile fell. “But despite what these people believe about rakshasas, most don’t go after humans or eat live ones. The sakela pachi should fly off once it’s had its meal.”
Vivaan returned, Kutaa at his heels. The dog let out a deep bark at the sight of Kajal.
“Let’s go,” Vivaan said once he’d swung up onto his own horse.
Kajal held on to Sezal as they rode for the town’s perimeter. She worried Kutaa wouldn’t be able to keep up with the horses, but if anything, being undead made him faster, as if he were no longer hindered by the normal limitations of his body.
Kajal hoped Sezal was right about the sakela pachi. She worked closely with death and did not shrink from it, but that didn’t mean she wanted the townspeople to become a rakshasa’s victims.
Are you sure about that?
She shoved the thought away, as well as her faint misgiving at the rebels’ methods. They were her best chance of safely getting Lasya’s body back. In the meantime, she just had to continue what she’d been trying to do all these months: keep her head down and avoid suspicion.
Easier said than done.
Chapter Seven
Lasya had always been better at making friends than Kajal.
They had barely passed infancy when their parents died of illness. For the next seven years, they were passed around the village, reared more out of obligation than fondness.
With no family, no home, and nowhere to belong, they had chosen to wander instead. From town to town, village to village, poking their heads into other peoples’ houses and asking for a bit of food as payment for work. Some had taken pity—You poor girls, I can see your ribs! Come, I’ll make you cha—and some had merely sniffed and pointed out what needed to be done. Sweeping, cleaning, farming, feeding the cows, milking the cows, herding the cows inside when a monsoon sat crouched on the horizon.
The truly destitute had nothing to pay them with other than a corner in their shacks to sleep in. There had been many nights Kajal had slept tangled up with Lasya, each complaining about the other’s snoring, both their stomachs grumbling, Kajal miserable and Lasya calm.
That calmness, as well as the tiny smile she constantly wore, was what had made her sister so approachable. People were drawn to her, ignoring Kajal’s glower in favor of Lasya’s ringing laugh. They had gotten away with so much because of that laugh.
Now Lasya was dragging others with her to the grave. As if she were lonely. As if she still so badly wanted to make friends.
Despite the afternoon sun beating down on her and the rebels as they rode from Kinara, Kajal shuddered. Sezal turned her head with some concern.
“Are you sure you weren’t hurt this morning?” the girl asked.
“It’s not that,” Kajal muttered. She could have penned a list of everything that was wrong—it was too bright out, her thighs hurt from riding, the sway of Sezal’s horse was making her nauseous, the sattu ladoo she’d eaten an hour ago was barely enough to sate her hunger—but getting manhandled by Gurveer Bibi’s sons was not on it.
Sezal waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, the rebel girl shrugged and turned back around.
They were a good dozen miles from Kinara already, avoiding the main roads and the distant villages in case news from Kinara had spread. The gentle forestland had evened out into flat plains of scrub and gnarled trees. The sky was unimaginably large and blue, with no hills or mountains to break up its expanse.
It made Kajal feel too exposed. Too seen. On the other hand, they would have plenty of warning should rakshasas or soldiers turn up.
“You made up that story about the Vadhia trailing me just to scare me, didn’t you?” she asked of Vivaan, who rode ahead. Kutaa trotted beside them, fur rippling with his movements. “Either way, I’d like my notebook back.”
Vivaan silently assessed her, as if she were a particularly complicated knot for him to unravel.
“I didn’t make it up,” he said at last. “We just found you first.”
Kajal’s stomach writhed. “Well, I agreed to help you—still waiting to get more details on that, by the way—so…notebook?”
“No.”
“Why not?” It was nearly a whine.
“You know the concept of leverage, don’t you?”
“All right, all right,” Sezal interjected. “Kajal, we’ll return your notebook once you fulfill your part in this. We’ll tell you what that is when we make camp.”
“Which will be…?”
“A few more hours.”
Kajal held in a groan. Sezal reached back to pat her thigh.
“I’ll give you some chamomile when we stop,” Sezal said. “Helps with muscle cramps.”
She tried to parse out any hidden motives, but the girl seemed sincere enough. Kajal was used to people handing things to Lasya and overlooking her completely, relying on her sister to hand her half of whatever she received.
Being on the receiving end of something for a change was strangely awkward. She had no idea what to say, so she chose not to say anything.
The sun was on its way to setting when they spotted the priest. He was making a slow yet steady trek north, en route to cross them as they journeyed south.
Vivaan cast a questioning glance at Sezal, who shook her head. They didn’t alter their path, meaning they saw no threat from the lone wandering priest. Still, Kajal kept her gaze down.
When he was close enough, Kajal furtively took in his features. He was not old, exactly, but a far throw from young, with wrinkles set deep on either side of his mouth, and brown skin dark and weathered from years of traveling. He wore traditional robes of saffron, with a sash across his shoulder and chest, ripped at their hems, and a wide-brimmed hat. Whereas the sun had deepened his color, it had leached the vibrancy from his clothing.
Kajal had roamed Dharati long enough to have had several run-ins with pujaris. The wandering priests went from shrine to shrine—in towns and in the wild alike—to give offerings and pray. This, supposedly, helped the elements of nature stay on course.
Although Kajal would walk faster at the sight of them, Lasya would slow down and reach into her bag. We have little enough as it is, Kajal would mutter.
Lasya would nudge her in reprimand. Which means we shouldn’t risk angering anyone, yaksha or otherwise.
The pujaris were always appreciative no matter the offering or its size. Even when Kajal was on her own and gave them only a crumb of what she could spare, they would smile and bow.
This pujari walked steadily through the grass, his long walking stick helping pull him along. He raised his head and peered at them from under his straw hat. His mouth split in an uneven grin above his straggly beard.
“Greetings,” he called in a croaking voice. “Do you have puja?”
The rebels reined in their horses. Despite the tension in her shoulders, Kajal automatically reached for the pack she no longer had.
“We’ve got it,” Sezal assured her, rooting through her saddlebags. Vivaan did the same.
Kutaa’s eyes never left the bent form of the priest. The pujari whistled at Kutaa, but the dog only twitched one ear.
The whistle wound Kajal’s shoulders tighter. For a moment, she was back in Kinara’s fields harvesting greens, staring at Lasya’s motionless bhuta, that high whine an omen of death. Goosebumps pebbled her skin.
Sezal and Vivaan each gave the priest a sattu ladoo. Kajal watched in mild dismay as the small balls of millet mixed with turmeric and salt disappeared into the pujari’s battered bag; she had been hoping to sneak another when Sezal wasn’t paying attention.
The pujari bowed low, hands pressed together against his forehead, showing off the sarbloh bangle on his wrist. The iron bracelets were worn by most people in Dharati not only as a determent to rakshasas, but as a symbol that they belonged to the cyclical nature of the world—the wheel of dharma—and were mere specks within a wider cosmos.
Vivaan and Sezal didn’t wear them. Kajal wrapped a hand around her own bare wrist; she and Lasya had never worn them either. But Lasya had never taken off the small copper ring Kajal had once gifted her, a paltry substitution that had nonetheless delighted her.
Realizing the priest’s eyes had settled on her, Kajal stiffened. His jaw worked before he opened his mouth and clacked his teeth together in a strange pattern. Kutaa’s ears went flat.
It was then she saw the dark tendril creeping toward the pujari’s left eye.
“Go,” Kajal whispered to Sezal. “Now.”
To their credit, Sezal and Vivaan didn’t hesitate and urged their horses onward. Once they were far enough away, Vivaan asked, “What’s going on?”
“Blight.”
Vivaan swore, and Sezal nearly turned to look over her shoulder before stopping herself. “Are you sure?” Sezal demanded. “I thought you said it couldn’t affect humans?”
“I said it hasn’t been known to spread through humans, but…” Kajal tried not to visualize the inky stain near the priest’s eye. “Maybe that’s changing.”
“Then shouldn’t we do something?” Sezal asked.
But there was only one way to deal with a blighted thing, and killing a pujari was beyond sacrilegious.
It had been disturbing enough for Kajal to see the blight infect an animal. To see it infect a human—even worse, a priest—made it feel like the world was beginning to deteriorate all around her. If she didn’t get Lasya’s body soon, her sister might deteriorate along with it.
Kajal pressed her fingertips to her forehead, rubbing them in a small circle between her eyebrows. She glared determinedly forward even as she felt the priest’s gaze on her back, the clicking of his teeth echoing in her ears.
* * *
They rode well into dusk, forcing the horses on even as the earth bruised black and blue with evening. When they finally stopped, it was in a grove of almond trees.
Kajal staggered from Sezal’s horse and plopped to the ground as the other two prepared camp, murmuring to each other in grave tones. Kutaa sat beside her, showing no signs of weariness whatsoever. She marveled at it, at him, at what she had accomplished. Already her blood was fizzing with the potential of what she could do at the university.
Kajal idly petted him while Vivaan methodically brushed down the horses and Sezal gathered fallen almonds, tossing them in a small pot to soak. A memory came to her, unbidden: Lasya reaching for a bitter almond, and Kajal batting her hand away.
“Those are poisonous,” Kajal had scolded. “If you want to eat them, take the skins off first.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Lasya had plucked the almond drupe from the tree, peeling away its hull. “Almond oil is good for the skin. But also”—her sister had smiled wryly—“we need to be prepared for anything, right? As much as I hate the thought.”
Now Kajal waited to make sure the rebels weren’t turned in her direction and slipped a generous handful of fallen almonds into her pocket.
Just in case.
Kajal then leaned in closer to Kutaa and whispered in his fuzzy ear, “Just how much can you understand me?”
He turned to look at her, and giddy curiosity held her in its grip. It was difficult to say whether he’d been an unusually intelligent dog in life, or if there was some singular connection they shared—the obedience of a creation to its creator.
She wanted to test his limits. “Can you retrieve my notebook?”
Kutaa sat unmoving, and she worried he couldn’t understand after all. Then he gave a brief yawn, stretched, and padded silently over to the saddlebags. Kajal sat with her hands pressed to her cheeks, unable to believe this was actually working.
As he nosed through the bags, Kajal cleared her throat to gain the rebels’ attention. “Back in Kinara, you said the two of you were hired by a group of…What did you call them? ‘Concerned citizens’?”
“They call themselves the Insurrectionists,” Vivaan said.
“I suggested the Rowdy Renegades, but it didn’t take.” Sezal threw an almond at Vivaan, which hit the back of his head.
He rubbed at the spot. “It’s not a joke.”
Kutaa was still searching. “How did you come to be Insurrectionists, then?” Kajal asked.
“We sort of fell into it,” Sezal answered. “Heard some mumblings that interested us, and followed them to the so—”
She’d turned to her saddlebags, only to find Kutaa in the process of dragging out Kajal’s notebook. Caught in the act, the dog froze.
“Uh,” Kajal said. “Aha. Hmm. Weird.”
Vivaan flashed her an annoyed look and went to take the notebook from the dog’s mouth, playing a short game of tug-of-war until Kutaa reluctantly let go.
Kajal braced herself for their anger, or even their fists. Instead, Sezal reined in her laughter and dug through her bag for a small pouch, which she handed to Kajal. Inside were dried chamomile flowers. Kajal hesitated before Sezal made a gesture to go ahead and take some, despite what had just happened.
Kajal chewed on two, the flavor cloying on her tongue, and stretched out her legs. “One would think the yaksha deities would do something about fixing the land, instead of leaving it to the common folk,” she said before they could decide they were actually mad at her.
“Such is the way with gods, I suppose.” Sezal took the pouch back and crunched on a flower. “That’s why we’re tasked with fulfilling dharma, after all.”
“So you believe you’re acting under some divine purpose?”
Sezal inhaled wrong and started coughing around her laughter. Vivaan handed her a waterskin.
“Some of us do,” she said after a few sips, waggling her eyebrows in Vivaan’s direction. He rolled his eyes and gave Kajal a sattu ladoo. Kutaa, who’d come to sit by Kajal again, sniffed it. “But really, this goes beyond something as abstract as divine purpose.”
Night had properly fallen. As Kajal ate her ladoo, ghost lights drifted through the field. They were an ethereal blue, tiny flames surrounded by balls of radiance. It was said they were the spirits of children who turned into benevolent yakshas once they passed from the mortal world.
Kajal held out a hand, and one of the ghost lights drifted close. The little ball floated a few inches above her palm and bathed her skin in pale sapphire before darting off into the dark again.
Those who lived in heavily populated areas hardly came into contact with the yakshas and rakshasas of their realm, and the supernatural could only be understood through stories. This was even truer of the mystical demon and heavenly races of the other planes, who hadn’t been seen in many years. All the humans had were fanciful depictions from myth, such as the celestial apsaras, who danced among the stars, and the fearsome danavas, who could beguile others with illusions.
