Tantrics Of Old Read online

  The one half-prostrate on the bed was Adri Sen, having just woken up from one nightmare to another. He would’ve sighed if he was older—having known the life of a Necromancer better by then—but he was just twenty-three and he could find no casual remark to throw at the creature in front of him. No, Adri was shaken, and visibly so.

  Death was facing him. Smell. Decay. Little girls singing sadly. Old men gazing beyond the horizon in long, lingering, final looks. Shackles binding dreams. Death knells. Feasting crows. Piles of corpses. Stories and warnings. The mask of rust. The cloak of chains.

  Adri was overwhelmed. An aura was penetrating him. Killing his thoughts, leaving none save dread. Trance.

  Adri looked at the mask. Rusted metal held together with punched bolts. Grates for the mouth and dark holes for the eyes. Ugly. Heavy. Consuming. Eternal. A deformed skull. A tomb. Adri looked for the eyes within, but could not see them. Something moved in the hollow. Liquid. He could not take his eyes off the mask. It drew his gaze, forced him to look at what it was. Decay. The mask stood for everything that had given way to the marches of time, everything that was no more, everything that had been. Broken apart, torn down to the bones, until life itself was swallowed, devoured by the rusted skull that sat before him. Adri tore his eyes away from the mask. A shawl covered the upper body, tattered, dry. Black. More metal over dark robes. Leggings, rusted. Gauntlets, rusted. Bloodstains, dry. Chains trailing down the body, twisting, turning, running along like hair, spreading on the floor, trailing across it. Thin darkness, slithering around its body. Like fluid. A snake. A shadow. Dark and viscous. Death.

  Adri’s mind began to slowly recover from the aura. This wasn’t a spirit, he realised. It was a Horseman, one of the four. Death, to be more exact—an old being, spoken about in stories and lore, an entity beyond anything he had ever witnessed.

  ‘Forgive me, this is the only place I could find to sit,’ Death spoke slowly. His voice carried a grated, cold, dry edge. Like a razor. It was the eeriest voice he had ever heard, and he had heard many—Demons used many voices to frighten and impress.

  ‘You’re a Horseman, aren’t you?’ Adri asked slowly, sitting up.

  The creature nodded slowly. ‘I am Death,’ it said.

  Adri wondered—not with the lazy air of a stargazer, he wondered, and wondered fast—why Death was here. The only answer that presented itself was not a reassuring one. Of course people died all the time in New Kolkata—they got hurt, they fell sick, they met with accidents, and old age caught up with them. Death itself, however, did not come for them. Never. It was unheard of. Ridiculous even, that a being of such rumoured power would run around collecting people whose time was up. The universe did not work that way. No, there had to be something else, something more. He tried to break through the rising panic in his mind and look at things logically. Adri’s time wasn’t up. He decided to ask.

  ‘Your time is up,’ Death replied.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’ Panic engulfed him in entirety.

  Death took its own sweet time to reply, observing Adri closely. Adri felt it pulling at his existence, pulling him and everything he was towards itself with its very gaze. ‘You must die, Adri Sen. I have come for you. I will personally take you across the River.’

  For the first time now, Adri noticed ash flying all over the room, covering it like a blanket. This death of his to be, was it because of his smoking?

  ‘Why?’ he asked Death. ‘Why must I die?’

  ‘Because it is your time.’

  Adri blinked hard. Had he imagined the mask grinning?

  ‘I have been searching for you all this while . . . and now, I have finally found you.’

  Searching for him? Was Death warming up to him in a dark way? ‘Horseman,’ he spoke, ‘to be honest, I haven’t dealt with your kind before. Hell, I haven’t even seen a Horseman before. The salt keeps the Demons out, and the Coven, thankfully the Coven doesn’t have access to these areas.’ Reaching into a bedside drawer, Adri withdrew a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit a cigarette and took a long, deep drag. Death watched. ‘So what I want to ask,’ he continued, ‘is how does one keep a Horseman out of one’s house?’

  ‘You cannot keep Death out of your house,’ Death replied.

  Adri was thinking fast. He wasn’t ready to die. No, not yet. A plan began to formulate in his mind; not brilliant in particular, but it would have to do. It was decent, given the circumstances and the kind of pressure he was under. It would involve pain, something he did not like. But anything was preferable to death. Literally or otherwise.

  Adri reached beneath his pillow, as slowly and stealthily as possible, and withdrew his shooter—someone had taken a revolver and modified it to hold a gemstone inside, one with a powerful magical essence, turning it into a magical projectile firearm. Adri’s shooter was silver with a brown handle, a light blue glow seeping out from its insides—in the next instant, quick as lightning, he pointed the shooter at Death’s face, the barrel mere inches from its forehead, and without word or breath, pulled the trigger.

  CLICK.

  Nothing. No smoking barrel. No screams. No Death clutching a bleeding head. Nothing. An unforgivable mistake. Adri stared at the shooter in disgust, feeling incredibly foolish. He kept the shooter under his pillow for obvious reasons, but he hadn’t loaded the damn thing. Across the room, in a wooden box, lay the ammunition that the accursed weapon was missing. Before he could think any further, Death’s gauntleted hand reached over and snatched the weapon from his grasp.

  ‘Curious,’ Death spoke, turning the shooter around in his hands, examining it from all angles. ‘I have seen these before.’

  Adri stared incredulously at Death as it handed him the shooter back.

  ‘It is of no use, human. Weapons do not affect me.’

  ‘There’s been a mistake somewhere,’ Adri spoke.

  ‘Your words do not affect me either,’ Death replied. ‘Your soul is mine.’ It stood up then, nine feet tall, the chains across its body rattling and clanking as they were pulled up from their resting places. An extremely tall, terrifying creature, old, powerful, dominating, it loomed over him. The shawl fluttered in the afternoon breeze. The darkness beyond the mask pierced into him. Adri felt fear. Real, raw fear. This was it.

  ‘But not today,’ Death concluded. ‘As per the rules, and my personal touch of sympathy, I give you twenty-four hours to make your peace with the Gods, to say goodbye to your loved ones, and to undo your wrongs. I will be where you are tomorrow to take what is mine.’

  Adri stared as Death turned to leave, hunching to avoid the skull lamp. At the doorway, it paused and turned around. ‘Oh, and I guess your plan was to shoot me with your concoctions, which would not have had any effect on me whatsoever, then jump out of the window, crashing rather painfully, I might add, in the alley below, pick yourself up along with your broken bones, and hobble away from me? Laughable.’ It started on its way, but Adri interrupted.

  ‘Horseman,’ he said, ‘I need more time.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ Death replied.

  It bent down and moved out of his doorway. Adri heard it descending the staircase, the chains rattling. Beyond earshot then. Beyond sight. Whatever. How did Horsemen travel anyway?

  He heard a loud neigh and wanted to kick himself. Horsemen. Right. Adri did not move. He needed to think. Lighting another cigarette, he lay back in his bed.

  The young Tantric was not typically handsome, but he did have a rugged sharpness to him that warranted a sly, second look. He was slim and muscular, apart from the slight belly trying to burst out, that is; luckily, he was good at holding his breath, managing to pull his stomach in at the most crowded of places, not that he looked the social type. His hair was long, dark, and unkempt, and he was mostly always unshaven. He was tall and lean, old writing tattooed all over his arms, curling serpentine towards his back. He caught the attention of women at times, but he never allowed things to go beyond that. Ever. Tantrics co
uldn’t afford to form intimate bonds with too many women—the very mention of a Tantric was enough to make anyone nervous. But Adri’s quiet, reserved demeanour helped him blend in with people who weren’t Necromancers. The tattoos were a dead giveaway, of course, but Adri mostly wore full sleeves.

  He slept naked though, and he looked down at himself now with sudden horror—he had been naked all this while in front of a mysterious, ancient entity. Had he glimpsed rotten teeth beneath the grates? He hurriedly gathered his bedclothes about him, trying very hard to shrug off this feeling of embarrassment. There were more important things that needed to be taken care of. He needed to save his own life, for one.

  Until this morning, he had not known that Horsemen truly existed. He knew nothing really of their weaknesses, nothing of their powers. There were, of course, the old books, the ones that spoke about them in the occasional reference, as ghosts, as monuments forgotten—but they offered no real knowledge. And as it was with every being he had ever fought against, knowledge was the first step. He needed to know more. And he needed to know why. Death had dropped certain keywords, certain phrases that indicated that its presence in his room was more than the usual I-have-come-to-take-your-life-away-mortal grind. While the words did not make sense to him, they might just do so to another. Someone he knew. An old being, not of this earth, but the only one who could possibly help him now.

  Stubbing the cigarette out, Adri got up. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He was living on borrowed time. He had no intentions of saying any goodbyes to anyone just as yet. No. He had no choice, he would have to turn to this being, and seek him out.

  Adri hurriedly got dressed—jeans, the usual kurta, the lockets around his neck clinking against each other—and picked up his shooter. Walking to the wooden box at the other end of the room, he took out a fistful of bright red bullets, tucked three of them into the hollow grooves of the shooter, and stuffed the rest into his pockets. He put the shooter inside a leather sling bag, flinging it over his shoulder before slipping into a pair of red slippers. A huge key, shaped like a leaping frog, hung on a nail next to the door. He picked it up, stepped out of his room, locked his door, and headed down the staircase, out into the street.

  The new Coffee House was nothing like the old one, not that MYTH had tried recreating the environment either. This was more like a New Age fast-food joint—clean, organised, and well-maintained. The charm of untidiness was not something MYTH would understand. Disarray was not to be found here, not even a speck of it. The waiters were strapping young men bouncing about with trays of food, models of efficiency with uniforms to match. The feel was that of the new and the squeaky clean. The damn place was air-conditioned, Adri observed with discomfort as he made his way up the marble staircase. Still, it had throngs of people, which made it a safe place for a meeting. Crowding Coffee House were people of all kinds, people from everywhere—from the young students of Presidency University and wanderers of College Street, to old timers who came from all over Kolkata just to sit and talk about old times. Forgettable middle-classers would be found discussing politics, MYTH’s administration, and the future, while brash film-makers crunched the latest new wave and plans to use actual magic in their films. As Adri wove his way in, overhearing snatches of every conversation conceivable, he wasn’t noticed by anyone except his contact.

  Aurcoe raised a hand. Adri saw him and made his way towards the young man sitting calmly at a table in one corner of Coffee House. This place was just as noisy as the old one, Adri noted as he reached Aurcoe. It helped the secret conversations. Drawing a chair, he sat down. Aurcoe smiled at him.

  Aurcoe looked like any other man in New Kolkata. There was nothing unusual or striking about him. Chubby face, intelligent eyes sparkling from behind a pair of rimless spectacles, thinning dark hair, and a well-fed countenance with belly to match. Very normal, very ordinary. But Adri was a Tantric, and therefore, a bearer of the natural gift of Second Sight, and he could see the creature in his true form—the pearl-white skin and the dry branch-like stumps behind his shoulders.

  ‘Infusion,’ Adri barked, and a nearby waiter nodded and rushed off.

  ‘I take it this is not a pleasure meet?’ Aurcoe enquired in a completely normal, human voice. He was still smiling.

  ‘No,’ Adri replied. ‘With your kind it’s always business, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sen, Sen . . . what could I have possibly ever done to you to earn your disfavour? I am but a humble creature here to answer your summons.’ Aurcoe added a little tilt of the head, a mock bow.

  ‘Sure. And I am Harry Houdini, come here to pull rabbits out of my—’

  Aurcoe laughed, interrupting Adri. ‘I did not mean to be sarcastic,’ he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘But if we do not talk about business, my mind does tend to flicker. I might, for instance, begin to ask you how your father is doing, the great adventurer that he is. He though, was miraculously quick where his deals with me were concerned . . .’ Aurcoe’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Save it,’ Adri muttered. The creature had a habit of bringing up things one would rather shy away from, rattling skeletons in one’s closet. Knowing everyone’s secrets made it an effective blackmailer and an expert manipulator, deceptively innocent at first glance, but sly and deceitful to the core. Yet, Adri thought regretfully, the only one capable of helping him. Hesitation. ‘I need your help,’ he said at length.

  ‘Obviously,’ Aurcoe replied. ‘I’m not an idiot, Sen. Tell me.’

  Adri looked at Aurcoe seriously. A moment of silence. Adri took a deep breath. ‘Have you heard of the Horsemen of Old Kolkata?’

  Aurcoe did not reply immediately. He looked at Adri, his eyes fast, calculating. His smile was gone. CLANK. The waiter had appeared with Adri’s coffee. Adri took a sip and burnt his tongue.

  ‘Four,’ Aurcoe said, grim. ‘Four Horsemen. War, Death, Famine, and Pestilence.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Not much. The usual rumours of their connection to the Apocalypse. Their functions are unknown, most information being old wives’ tales. But contrary to a lot of ghost stories, they are for real.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Adri sighed. ‘Death paid me a visit this morning.’

  ‘The Horseman came to your apartment?’

  Adri nodded.

  ‘What did it want?’

  ‘My fucking soul. It has given me twenty-four hours to make my arrangements.’ Adri hated being straightforward with Aurcoe, and more than anything, being honest. His kind would never reciprocate. They had no honour. Information was like a weapon for his breed, and Adri was handing Aurcoe an arsenal. There was no way of knowing if this creature was lying about the limits of his knowledge about the Horsemen, but one thing was certain—his mention of the Horsemen had caught Aurcoe’s attention. This was not a routine affair. Irritatingly, however, Adri could not help but notice that Aurcoe’s annoying smile was back.

  ‘You have a soul, then?’ Aurcoe smirked.

  ‘The clock is ticking, damn it,’ Adri replied, irritated.

  ‘I knew this would be about you. Self-preservation, yet again. Tantrics, you know one, you known them all.’

  ‘Are you going to help me or not?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours? By now it’s what, twenty-one left? You honestly think I can help you?’

  ‘So I’m wasting my time?’

  ‘If the Horseman wants your soul, the Horseman will have it. Who am I to hold him back? And to tell you the truth, Sen,’ Aurcoe shuffled closer, ‘I think you fully well deserve it. The things that you have done—’

  ‘Have no place in this conversation,’ Adri finished, unmoved. ‘And look who’s talking.’

  ‘Ouch! That hurt, Sen!’ Aurcoe pretended to wince.

  ‘I haven’t even started yet, Aurcoe.’ Adri put his leather sling bag on the table with a soft thud. He knew Aurcoe would sense the magical energy emanating from within and easily identify the shooter in the bag.

  Aurcoe glanced down at the bag, and then up
again at Adri. ‘Like father, like son. Surprising how quickly even Victor would resort to cheap threats.’

  Aurcoe had hit something, and Adri recoiled. ‘Look,’ he said, barely controlling himself, ‘I don’t have either the time or the patience for your little games. I hate your kind and I hate how you twist words and facts and everything else. In fact, Aurcoe, I hate you. I hate your guts. And nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the things you want the most, denied to you. But that has nothing to do with this. My life is in question and you’re the only one I trust to have enough knowledge to pull me out of this mess.’

  ‘You been practicing that?’ Aurcoe chuckled. ‘In front of a mirror? Doesn’t change anything, you know. I told you—’

  ‘What you told me has no place here either. You think I don’t know you, Fallen? It’s not a question of what I want.’ Adri looked at Aurcoe, gravely. ‘The question here is what do you want?’

  Aurcoe burst into laughter, clapping his hands ecstatically like a child. ‘Oh very good, very good indeed, Sen! I love your hate. I feed off it, in fact.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Well, now you need to tell me more. Why shouldn’t Death have come for you?’

  ‘Because Death does not come for everyone. People die every day.’