Tantrics Of Old Read online

  ‘Vile weapons!’ Garth roared in anger and pain. ‘He’s a Necromancer! I will drink your blood, Tantric!’

  They removed their hands from their heads and Gray saw that Adri’s bullets had acted like acid, burning their very skin and hair. Both the Demons started walking again towards Adri. When they were a mere hundred metres away from him, Adri fired again, and though Garth got hit again, the other Demon deflected the bullet with an armour plate on the side of its hand.

  ‘He’s mine, he’s mine!’ Garth rumbled, recovering from the bullet.

  ‘I don’t think so, Garth,’ the other Demon replied, striding towards Adri. ‘I will crush this fool.’

  Adri waited for the Demon to close in before he began to back away. The Demon ignored the fact that Gray was standing a few feet away, open-mouthed; its anger was directed at Adri and Adri alone, at this little Tantric who needed to be shown what the Free Demons were capable of. It moved vehicles aside with a casual swipe of its claws as it approached—cars went flying, a bus was shoved aside with the ease of a paper model—nothing was going to stand between him and this Tantric. Adri was running away, frequently glancing back as the Demon cleared a path, rapidly gaining on him.

  Garth had recovered, and started walking after the other Demon as fast as it could. It was near Gray when Gray remembered his duties.

  ‘Oi!’ he shouted, clambering on top of a sedan. The Demon stopped, a few feet away and then turned to stare at Gray. It hadn’t smelt him because of its cold.

  ‘I will eat you after I eat your Tantric friend,’ it growled.

  ‘Eat this,’ Gray said, and lifting his shotgun, squeezed both triggers together. Tulsi coupled with hundreds of small, blessed iron beads and bent iron shards, packed together with gunpowder. A powerful holy package, containing an incredible punch; it threw the Demon off balance as some of it pierced through its armour and bit into the skin. Garth had known enough pain, and now it knew even more. It did the only obvious thing. It roared in anger as it tried to regain balance. Gray hurriedly emptied out the shells; his hands trembled as he slid new ones into the now warm firing chamber.

  Adri saw Gray’s fight at a distance. Provided he could keep the other Demon distracted, he would probably live for about another two minutes; these were Warrior Demons, insanely strong and tough, but not that fast. Or bright. And that was what Adri was counting on more than anything else. He had taken a stand, turning around to face the Demon approaching him. The creature snarled, tossing another car aside carelessly in a show of power as it strode towards Adri. Now that Adri had stopped running, and had actually turned around to face it, its gait had slowed down. It bore down on Adri in a slow, heavy manner, its lower jaw slowly twisting itself in a bare-fanged grin.

  ‘Masir, Bhuto,’ Adri said in the Old Tongue. ‘Now would be a good time.’

  ‘Then on this charge we get our freedom,’ two voices replied in perfect unison.

  ‘No! I have need of your services.’

  There was silence. The Demon approached steadily.

  ‘I command you!’ Adri shouted.

  No replies again.

  ‘All right, goddammit,’ Adri snapped. ‘Have your freedom after this charge, you bloody opportunists.’

  A car rose in the air, supported by an invisible force. It hovered for a second. The Demon looked at Adri. He was only a few meters away. ‘I hate your kind,’ it said. The car flew into the Demon with a sudden, incredible speed, sending it flying into a nearby wall which erupted with dust, smoke, and debris. Adri raised an arm to shield his face, and then ran towards the wall, coughing from the dust.

  Gray fired again, and the shots glanced off the Demon’s armour, though he saw it wince. While Gray hurriedly ejected the empty shells again, the Demon stood its ground, smoking the cigar. A fireball erupted into existence in its open claw, and Gray stared at it in mid-reload. Then he dropped the gun and ran. The Demon gave him perhaps a half second heads-up before it flung the fireball as one might fling a baseball; it narrowly missed Gray and shattered into an abandoned shop’s window display, setting mannequins on fire instantly.

  Gray stopped and stared in terror at his near escape. The Demon stood where it was. Another fireball exploded into actuality in its hand while it stared at Gray with hatred, breathing out cigar smoke.

  ‘Don’t you want to eat me?’ Gray shouted at it in desperation.

  ‘I don’t mind fried,’ the Demon growled. It threw the second fireball.

  Gray flung himself away from the projectile, at the cost of a painful recovery on the footpath. He watched the fire burn away on a solid wall this time. Suddenly, he realised that the Demon had not been speaking in the Old Tongue. It knew his language. He forced himself to get up. The Demon hadn’t lit another fireball so far—it was watching him. With mild interest.

  ‘How come you’re talking in my tongue?’ Gray shouted, supporting himself to his feet with an enormous effort. Keep it talking. His brain wasn’t working straight anymore, but if there was one thing he realised, it was that he didn’t know shit about Demons. That, and that if even one fireball found its mark, he was history. If only Maya was here, more than anything, she would know its weaknesses. Adri, curse him, had severely under-informed him. He risked a glance at the Necromancer and saw a huge cloud of dust in the distance. Whatever it was, he hoped Adri had survived it. Without Adri he was gone.

  He looked back and realised the Demon was almost upon him. It had crept up to him in less than five seconds. That wasn’t slow! He stumbled back and fell hard, bumping his head against the footpath. His head spun. Colours. Spinning fast. Dissolving into an image. The grinning face of a Demon. And then he was in the air—he felt heavy and weightless. He kicked, but all he felt was air. He was dangling. He realised that the Demon was lifting him up with a vice-like grip on the back of his neck and all it was using were its thumb and forefinger. His vision cleared a little; he saw he was several feet off the ground, facing the monster.

  ‘Yes, human, I speak your language. I have been trained,’ Garth said.

  ‘Let me go, let me go,’ Gray muttered.

  ‘So that you can pick up your toy and shoot me again? I think not. You think me dumb just because I like violence, just because you are food to me? I am educated in seven languages, human filth.’

  ‘Do you have family?’ Gray shouted, struggling fiercely. ‘I’ve got a sister I need to save from the Ancients in Jadavpur. She’s counting on us!’

  ‘I do have family,’ the Demon replied. ‘Family young and old—but if that was a stab at me letting you go, then you have to try better.’ It laughed brutally, spraying Gray with spit.

  ‘What do you want?’ Gray asked, and stopped struggling. It wasn’t helping anyway.

  ‘Ah, good question. I will first snap your neck gently. You will stop feeling a lot of things right then; I will proceed to go and kill that little Tantric, then come back to you, and eat you slowly. I will chew your bones, not the head though—I don’t eat heads, that’s brutish—but all this will obviously happen after de-clothing you. I won’t munch on your clothes either. Then I will eat the Tantric, I don’t like their taste much, but you’re my main course anyway.’

  ‘Why do you want to kill me?’

  ‘I don’t want to kill you, I want to eat you. Two different things. If you can tell me a way I can have all your flesh and bones and you can still be alive, then I’d love to—HOLD IT!’

  The Demon spun around in its place, Gray loosely dangling from its outstretched hand. Adri skidded to a stop a small distance away; he had been running at Garth. The Demon looked at Adri and gave off an angry puff of smoke.

  ‘One step and I snap this moron’s neck,’ it threatened. ‘Drop them weapons.’

  ‘God, this is like some gangster film,’ Gray complained loudly, embarrassed.

  ‘Shut up, human,’ Garth drawled.

  Adri was thinking. He really didn’t have much of a choice here. If only the Demon hadn’t seen him, if only he hadn�
��t been cornered into dismissing all three of his spirits already, if only. He slowly lowered his weapons to the ground—they were too beautifully crafted for him to drop—and stood back up, glaring at the Demon. He still had two vials of holy water, but that was nowhere enough to do more than just sting the Demon. Gray’s shotgun lay a few meters away on the road, but as long as the Demon had Gray’s neck between his fingers, nothing could be done. And with all probability, the Demon would kill Gray any second now.

  SLISH.

  The noise came out of the blue. Adri had expected a SNAP or a CRICK. He looked at the Demon and saw something buried in its right wrist, something bright red. It gave one of its loudest howls of pain yet. Both Gray and the cigar dropped as the Demon examined its wrist, still bellowing in a voice of pure power. Gray lay in his place, stunned, until he felt Adri’s firm hands pulling him away from the creature.

  ‘Pick yourself up,’ Adri panted. ‘It’s far from dead.’ He ran back to get his guns from the road.

  The Demon could not smell the newcomer, but knew it was the third person his partner had smelt before. Instinctively it looked up and saw him, standing high up on one of the balconies of the buildings surrounding them. His body was completely in shadow; his eyes glinted.

  ‘GRAAAA!’ the Demon roared and threw two fireballs at him. Its arms were well practiced at lobbing these weapons of death—both the fireballs set the balcony on hellfire, but the figure was no longer there. He had jumped, and was making his way down to the street, springing off windowsills and drainage pipes like an acrobat. The Demon threw fireballs again. And again. The figure dodged and in a leap, landed on the road. Holy bullets dug into the Demon’s back—it cringed in momentary pain before turning around to launch fireballs at Adri, who ran fast to dodge them.

  The Demon picked up a car without any apparent strain and flung it after a fleeing Adri. Adri dived to the road, bruising himself, just as the car flew over him, crashing into another. Gray’s hands trembled as he hid behind a pillar with his shotgun, trying to reload it. He tried and tried, but his hands would not stop trembling; the roars of the Demon did not help. The mysterious figure was gone—the Demon could not see him as it looked around, the bullets eating into the flesh on its nape. It was angry.

  Adri’s hands were bloody, he had grazed them badly. They trembled as he reached for his bandolier and reloaded his revolvers, still lying down where he had dodged the car. Gray peeked out from behind the pillar and unloaded both shells into the Demon; it was more infuriated at Gray revealing himself than the wounds he inflicted—it rushed at him. Gray fled and the Demon punched through the pillar. Cement shattered as its clenched claw missed Gray by inches. It saw him run towards Adri and fireballs came to life in both its claws. Before it could throw them though, the Demon felt fresh pain in the back of its knee joints. Loud, immediate pain. It looked down and saw sharp, bright red objects sticking out of its kneecaps.

  Adri got up and approached the Demon, as Gray ran past him. He lifted both hand cannons and let loose a volley of bullets, aiming at its head and chest. The Demon took the punishment—blocks of its cracked skin exploded as the bullets hit, but it still stood. It sent a couple of fireballs at Adri in return, and Adri ducked behind an SUV for cover.

  The Demon spun around just in time to catch the third figure sneaking up on it with something red and glowing in his hand. Garth whacked him with a fist and he went flying into a car, denting it, and falling to the road. Then he was up again—something the Demon didn’t believe possible—and began throwing sharp glowing things at it that sank into its flesh. They hurt incredibly. It wanted this newcomer gone; it could easily take care of the other two. It broke off a nearby lamp post and threw it. The figure danced out of the way and silently threw more of his weapons at the Demon. Garth retaliated with fireballs, but dodging them seemed almost too easy for this stranger.

  Shotgun shells bit into its back again and the Demon regretted not snapping Gray’s neck when it had the chance. It sighed. Too late for that now. It half spun, igniting yet more fireballs in its claws when Adri’s bullets joined the fray once more. Adri threw his vials of holy water next. The bottles smashed when they hit the Demon and the water ran down its body like acid. The pain was slowly beginning to numb itself out. The Demon’s fireballs went out, its legs gave way. It fell on its knees with a downcast head, praying for one of the humans to come within its arm’s reach, perhaps in sympathy or whatever. No such luck. More shrapnel penetrated its neck; the burning slowly faded out. The Demon shut its eyes and did not open them again, its giant body still in a kneel.

  Gray collapsed to the ground, his shotgun clattering beside him, his breathing slow and heavy. Adri put a hand on his shoulder; Gray nodded slowly, not making any move to remove it. The dozen or so missed fireballs were burning elsewhere, forming a rough ring of light around them. Light and shadow played on the face of the dead Demon, and on the figure now closely observing it.

  He was tall, the stranger, tall and very well built; one could tell that by the way his muscles coiled even when he was still. It indicated he could move any split second and do exactly what he wanted to do. His arms were bare and muscular with small rings inscribed along the sides. He wore black robes, the upper part tight and fitting his frame perfectly, the lower trousers loose, whipping around in the wind. His face was possibly the most interesting thing about him. He wore a mask that covered everything tightly, but his hair—long and black—playing around in the wind like his robes. The mask was simple—it had absolutely no detail except two round glass eyepieces, like a gas mask. His feet were bare, except for black bandages wrapping up the arch, leaving the toes and the heel visible.

  He turned to look at Adri, who looked back at the glass eyepieces reflecting everything but the man inside. Adri holstered his weapon in what he hoped was a sign of good faith.

  ‘Thanks for the assist,’ Adri said.

  The man in the mask shook his head. ‘Rashkor. I merely came in when I saw you in a catch 22. I am not concerned with either of you.’ He had a gravelly voice which was further muffled because of his mask.

  ‘Right,’ Adri said. ‘We’ll just carry on, then.’

  The man nodded.

  Gray slowly got to his feet. ‘What was that?’ he muttered softly.

  ‘I don’t like their kind myself, Gray,’ Adri said, helping him stand.

  Gray looked at Adri. ‘How did you take care of the other one so fast?’

  Adri had almost forgotten. He let Gray go, withdrew a revolver, and jogged towards where the other Demon lay. He approached the pile of rubble gingerly, weapon raised. He inspected the debris closely, then looked around, holstering the weapon again. The masked man stood a few feet away.

  ‘It’s gone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Adri said. ‘I had drawn a negative circle around its body, though,’ he murmured in a lower voice, mostly to himself. The man heard.

  ‘Curious. It must have scraped off a part of the circle with a brick or stone,’ he said.

  Adri looked at Gray, still standing where he had been left; presently looking at the Demon’s dead body with great repulsion. Adri turned to the masked man.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  The masked man did not hesitate. The reply was natural and came with a practiced ease. ‘I am called Fayne of Ahzad,’ he said.

  ‘Fayne,’ Adri said, his eyebrows narrowing. ‘You are a long way from home, assassin.’

  ‘It is not coincidence which brings me here,’ Fayne said calmly. ‘I am on a charge: to protect the one called Maya Ghosh from any kind of harm until the charge is lifted from me.’

  ‘Maya?’ Adri could not hide his surprise. ‘Who put you on this charge?’

  ‘It is forbidden to reveal the owner of the contract,’ Fayne said.

  Adri had already anticipated this reply. ‘Well, you’re a bit late. She’s a captive, and dying as we speak,’ Adri said.

  ‘I have been following both of you since Jadavpur,�
� Fayne replied. ‘I know there is a chance of saving her. I am not concerned with either of you, but I will help you get the body back to the Ancients.’

  The assassin had eavesdropped on them surely, or else had slight telepathic abilities—Adri wasn’t sure which. He knew that he couldn’t have taken the Demon down without Fayne’s help, and he knew that if Fayne did hail from Ahzad as he claimed, then he would be a powerful companion and certainly a useful one to have. The infamous Assassins of Ahzad needed no elucidation; their names were whispered with fear across lands. They were masterfully trained, extremely capable, and were incredibly expensive to hire; Adri had absolutely no clue as to who would pay that much for Maya’s protection and why. Who even knew she was here in the Old City? Adri brushed his questions aside for the moment. They did not matter. What mattered was not getting in the assassin’s way deliberately, or by error—the assassins of Ahzad were patient enough when needed, but otherwise they were cold and brutal. If shedding of blood was needed to save Maya, it would be shed. If he and Gray were to slow Fayne down—

  ‘So will you travel with us?’ Adri asked.

  ‘Normally I wouldn’t. The two of you were quite erratic in the fight with the Demon, proving yourselves amateurs of true combat. But since you are the only one equipped to enter the crypt and get the body of the vampire hunter out, I will.’ Fayne turned around. ‘The fires will attract undue attention, not to mention the Demon which got away. We should leave. Ghawaziya.’

  True. Adri walked towards where his backpack lay, occasionally glancing behind his shoulder at the unmoving assassin, now gazing into the distance.

  Adri wasn’t all that sure if Gray was hiding something. Gray had said that he had no clue when asked who would pay money to protect Maya, but there was something too quick about his answer that put Adri on his guard. Something was not being revealed, some details were not being talked about. Fair enough, seeing that he himself had hidden as much as he could from the siblings; but there was something he wanted an answer to.