in Varanasi.”
“And that’s when you found the golden arrowhead of Kali, right?”
“That’s right, and a sliver of it entered my thumb. What I didn’t realise at the time was this meant I became the Kali-aastra.”
“A superhero then.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”
“But you have superpowers, right?”
Ash frowned.
“A superhero. With or without the cape.” Ashoka was clearly smirking. “What does being the Kali-aastra allow you to do? Heat vision? A spot of leaping tall buildings?”
“Depends,” Ash said, ignoring the smirk. Don’t rise to it. He’s trying to wind you up. “When a person dies, I absorb some of their life force. When I killed Ravana—”
“Ravana, as in the demon king?” The smirk widened.
“Yes. Him. When I killed him I gained superhuman strength, speed, endless endurance, all of that.”
“OK,” said Ashoka. “I don’t want you to take this as an insult or anything, but you three are clearly insane. You’ve obviously escaped from some loony bin, and that Jackie is another escapee from the asylum, and she was after you, not me. You all have major issues that need resolving, either in group therapy or with medication. My family have got mixed up in all your craziness and you need to call whoever has them right now and tell them to free them. Whatever drama you have going on is none of my business.”
“I give up,” said Ash. He’d tried to be reasonable, but now it was time to hand it over. “All yours, Parvati.”
Ashoka smirked. “What is this? The good-cop, bad-cop routine?”
Ash picked up his tea. It was cold. Typical. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Parvati smiled. “So, you’ve got it all sorted, have you, Ashoka? No such things as rakshasas?”
Ashoka nodded. “No. Such. Thing. Fairy tales.”
Parvati took off her sunglasses and leaned towards Ashoka so they were nose to nose. “Then these must be some … genetic defect?” Her eyes were pure serpent; green with a pair of black slits for pupils.
Ashoka leaped out of his seat. “Bloody hell!”
Parvati had him flat against the wall. Ashoka’s face had turned sheet white. Ash almost felt sorry for him.
Almost. Actually, he didn’t feel sorry at all. He was enjoying this. Maybe it was bad of him, not warning Ashoka about Parvati in advance. But he’d had enough of that smirk. Ash leaned back and watched, smiling to himself. How can you explain a girl like Parvati? She might look like a teenager, but she was more than four and a half thousand years old. Her mother had been a human princess and her father was Ravana, the demon king. Her early years had not been particularly stable. She had a deep psychotic streak and was a one-girl weapon of mass destruction.
But when she laughed, nothing else seemed to matter.
Ashoka tried to slide sideways towards the door, but Parvati extended her fangs, pausing a few centimetres from his throat. Sweat ran down his pallid face. “And this must just be poor dental work.” Each one was slick with venom. She shivered, and scales, shiny green scales, rose through her skin, clustering like a collar around her neck at first, then extending to her jaw, her cheekbones. Her hair sank into the skull as it widened, swelling either side into a cobra’s hood. “And this? Do you think some dermatologist might be able to fix this?”
Ashoka’s breath had deteriorated into short, desperate pants.
Ash was impressed. He’d thought Ashoka would wet his pants. Still, Parvati’s shock tactics seemed to have done the job.
“Enough, Parvati,” said Ash. He didn’t want Ashoka having a heart attack.
She dropped on to the table and the transformation was complete. A cobra now rose up before the terrified Ashoka. Its tongue flickered, it hissed, and Ash could tell Parvati was laughing.
Ashoka stared. Jaw moved. No words came out.
“I said enough,” said Ash. “You’ve made your point.”
The snake curled up, wound itself together and then unfurled back into a young woman. Scales still covered her like armour, taking a moment or two to recede back under her skin. She winked at Ash, took up her sunglasses and left the room.
Ash smiled and looked back at his doppelgänger. “Are you all right?”
Ashoka stared after her. “Rakshasas, they’re for real?”
“Very. But she’s on our side.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Ashoka replied, his voice still quivering. He picked up a glass of water and tried to hold it steady enough to drink. Eventually he gulped it down. “My God.”
“Well, what do you think?” Maybe they’d overdone it. They’d just planned to frighten him, not break his fragile little mind.
Ashoka huffed. “A rakshasa.” Then he smiled. He grinned. “That is bloody awesome.”
“Do we have any leads yet?” asked Ashoka, looking anxiously at the clock. “We’re running out of time. You said you’d rescue my family and it’s already five. They’ll be expecting our call soon, and then what?”
“Pacing up and down will not help,” said Parvati. “Just sit.”
Elaine was still on the phone, as she had been all day. The woman knew almost everyone. Ash wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d heard her speaking to an archbishop earlier. She was in the hallway, turning an unlit cigarette in her fingers.
Ashoka hurled himself back into the sofa. “This is hopeless.”
“That’s the attitude,” snapped Ash.
“We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t forget who saved your life.”
“Yeah, only to get my family killed instead.”
Ash sprang up, tossing the chair aside. That was it. He grabbed Ashoka’s shirt, hauled him off the sofa and stared hard into the boy’s eyes. “You have no idea—”
Elaine cleared her throat. “Finished?”
Reluctantly, most reluctantly, Ash let Ashoka go. “Please tell me you have something.”
Elaine flicked through her notepad. “Your dad drives a Range Rover? Licence plate M1STRY 1?”
Ashoka straightened his shirt, smoothed down his crumpled collar. “Yes. It’s grey.”
“Well, a friend of mine in the police has just found it. Abandoned in Docklands, Jardin Street. Just around the corner from—”
“East
