The Apsara Chronicles Boxed Set Read online

  With that she turned and headed out the door, leaving Vee to stand there and stare at the empty air, unable to decide if she should be annoyed or encouraged by her mother’s participation.

  Syama transported mother and daughter to the bush in the park they’d used previously as an arrival location. Vee brushed dead leaves off her jeans and wriggled, a little impatient to get things moving. Devi had dressed in a similar fashion to her daughter, choosing a pair of dark jeans, combat boots, and a black sweater.

  They used Syama as cover, hiding within the hellhound’s glamor as they headed to the front door.

  For the third time in the last week, Vee found herself standing in front of the deceptively homely house in the suburbs. Both Akil and Syama were with her and Devi as backup, and they now stood studying the building from up the road.

  “Very unassuming place,” said Devi through the side of her mouth.

  Vee hid a smile. So weird seeing her mother out in the field, trying to be badass. The woman wore power suits for a living. Sure, she knew how to aim and shoot, but Vee wasn’t certain her mother was cut out for field work.

  Unless there was something Vee didn’t know about her mother’s past.

  Not that that would be so unusual.

  Chapter 46

  Vee glanced at Akil, who nodded and launched himself into the air, arms aloft. As he rose, light flashed along his limbs and his body shimmered, giving way to his feathered form and outstretched wings.

  “That is just so freaking cool,” whispered Syama. Vee glanced at the hellhound, amused. “Don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

  Vee shared a smile with her mother, but she couldn’t remain focused on banter. Not with what waited in the house before them.

  Akil returned in a flurry of feathers and landed beside Devi, who seemed strangely calm with suddenly being faced with a boy who changed into an owl.

  “The place is empty.” Akil glanced back at the house. “Not a sign of a guard or any kind of perimeter wards.”

  Vee stared at him, still a little off-balance having him around and so involved after having been shot through the arm. Twice.

  Vee let out a breath. “We’ve waited long enough.” A hum from her hip drew her attention to the chakra which she’d strapped her belt using a loop of leather. It glowed now, letting off a low, ringing sound.

  When she glanced at Akil he said, “That is the power of the chakra. It will channel your own energy. You’re ready to tackle this demon and the chakra knows. It responds with its own energy to double its power.”

  Yeah, it had certainly responded only hours ago, exploding Professor Menon into a million pieces.

  Vee nodded, a little overwhelmed by the intensity of the ringing. “Who can hear it?”

  “You, and our Lord. Me, of course, as I gave it to you and I’m your weapon, too.”

  They both looked at Syama who was staring. “What are you two talking about?”

  Vee glanced at the chakra again, then looked at Syama, deciding there wasn’t time to go over it. “No time. Tell you later. I need to go. You guys can watch from here but I’m not sure what good it will do besides being able to get me to safety once I leave the building. Be on the lookout for Ma in case she leaves the house.”

  Both Vee’s guards nodded and she turned and headed across the street toward the house with her mother following close on her heels. Two guards, and neither one could enter the house.

  So much for protection.

  Vee headed to the door, rang the bell, and entered the house when the butler opened up.

  Inside, the butler repeated his performance, showing them to the living room to wait. Everything seemed a little too calm and respectable given that Vee and Syama had both almost been killed on their last visit.

  After about ten minutes of waiting, Vee heard a sound like the buzzing of a thousand bees, coming from behind her. She’d walked over to the mantelpiece to study a ragged carving of a hand bearing a bloody heart. The organ was lit from the interior by a pulsing light and appeared to be beating, adding further to the macabre nature of the sculpture.

  The buzzing drew her gaze first, even before her mother touched her elbow to draw her attention. Vee turned on her heel.

  Despite being prepared for something unusual, the sight that greeted her made her jaw drop.

  He was tall, skin fair, and eyes dark and blazing. He was clean-shaven, very unlike the old painted depictions of him. And he seemed to still have deific aspirations.

  A glow emanated from him, one that was characteristic of most gods. It framed him from head to toe, including the halo of half a dozen vicious cobras that fanned out behind his head.

  He wore a leather sleeveless vest, black leather pants, and matching boots. On his forearms were gleaming gold arm-braces, covering him from wrist halfway to his elbow.

  Long hair framed a face of granite features and a chiseled jaw. He had a menacing air, the look of a man who could hurt just for the pleasure of seeing blood spilled. A man who could listen to the screams of a victim and smile.

  Maybe it was Vee’s imagination in overdrive, affected by the writings of the Apsara Tilottama. But all she saw when she looked at Kasipu was evil.

  He waited just inside the door as if he’d expected Vee to bow. For an instant his eyes filled with satisfaction. Until he saw Devi standing beside Vee.

  “I do believe I was specific enough in my request. You,” he pointed at Vee, “are the one I wanted, the one responsible for killing my brother. So, who is she?” He aimed the finger at Devi. He tilted his head, studying her mother, his inspection making Vee’s skin crawl.

  Devi took a step closer to the asura. “I’m the one who killed your brother. Not Vee.”

  Kasipu’s eyes glowed the darkness lit by a fiery anger. “You lie, woman. And I do not tolerate liars.”

  Devi shook her head. “I was there. I know what happened.”

  Kasipu’s skin reddened as his fury grew. Vee touched her mother’s arm, a silent warning. She’d gone off-script, had agreed to go along with Vee, only to change tack and try and take Vee’s place.

  And the asura wasn’t having any of it.

  He seemed to be very sure who had killed his brother, and though Vee herself believed it had been her father, she wasn’t about to admit that. Not when Ma’s life hung in the balance. Who knew what the demon would do if he should discover that his brother’s killer was dead?

  Vee tried to step forward but her mother pushed her aside.

  Kasipu’s fury only grew, his anger turning almost tangible as the air in the room began to spin. The demon lifted his hands, palms up as if invoking the gods. And perhaps they heard him because the air began to spin ever faster, whipping Vee’s hair around so that the ends whipped her cheeks and obstructed her vision.

  Her mother’s movement to push Vee behind her had caught the asura’s eye and he advanced on her, walking through the tornado he’d summoned as if not a thing was out of place. The elements heeded his presence and simply shifted around him.

  Vee side-stepped to protect her mother but the push-pull of the spinning air around her caused her to teeter on her feet. She needed to grab onto something or be swept into the tornado. A glance around the room, and her hopes sank. The air was a spinning vortex of artifacts and paintings, of cushions and carpets. Vee ducked aside to avoid a head-on collision with the hand-heart sculpture.

  She kept one eye on her mother who, despite the spinning air, also remained in position as Kasipu advanced on her. He stopped in front of her, reached out and closed his fingers around her throat. Devi didn’t move and Vee had to wonder if the demon had somehow transfixed her mother because she couldn’t imagine the woman sacrificing herself for anything.

  Maybe she would for her mother and her daughter, said a voice in Vee’s head.

  Vee focused on her mother.

  And on trying to get to her before the demon killed her.

  But as hard as she tried she couldn’t move through th
e air, which by now was forcing her in the opposite direction as her mother and Kasipu. She reached out and grabbed hold of the back of the sofa but the piece of furniture merely responded by sliding with her.

  She watched helplessly as the demon lifted her mother off the ground, and held her in an eerily similar grip to the one in which her unknown golem had Vee only a few days ago. Could Kasipu have sent the golem? But no, the being who’d stepped through the portal had been someone totally different.

  When the demon let out a frustrated cry, Vee stared frantic and unable to help. What was wrong with him? Anger was bad because anger meant he could lose control and hurt her mother—maybe even kill her.

  Kasipu let out another frustrated cry, shaking Devi within his grip his muscles straining, the veins on his forehead looking like they were about to pop. Vee frowned.

  Could the lotus tea have worked to protect her mother from being killed by the demon? In a fit of rage, the demon drew Devi’s body to his left, gathered momentum, then swung back and flung her against the wall.

  She flew through the air like a rag doll, crashed into the wall, denting the surface and leaving a streak of red as she slid to the floor. Kasipu straightened as he watched Devi hit the ground in a sprawl of limbs.

  He began to laugh, big gulps of air that shook his shoulders as he guffawed, the sound reverberating around the room with such strength that the tornado faded and every spinning object hit the ground hard. Glass shattered, sculptures broke, and then everything stilled.

  Kasipu turned and looked at Vee, his eyes watering with mirth as he laughed.

  What the hell is so damned funny?

  “You should have listened,” his words rang around her, spinning much like the tornado had only moments ago.

  Vee shook her head. “She told me she did it. I believed her. And—”

  “It matters little to me.” He stared at Vee. “You . . . you are the one . . . you with your magic, your power, you are the one who killed my brother. Nobody else. And she deserved what she got for trying to lie to me.”

  Vee took a step toward him. “I’m sorry. Take me. You have me. Take me and leave my grandmother out of this. This isn’t her fight.”

  “You are right. This is not her fight. But you did not obey my instruction so she will die as I promised.”

  “No,” Vee pleaded, stepping even closer. From the corner of her eye she watched her mother wriggle as she finally regained consciousness. “Take me. It’s me you wanted.”

  The demon straightened and stared down at Vee, the snakes around his head coiling and twisting against each other, fighting for space. “I have grown tired of this.”

  He began to walk away and Vee spun on her heel unable to believe she’d come this far with no success. “What is it that you want?” she asked in an even tone. She was done pleading and begging.

  He slowed his steps and turned to face her. The smile on his face said it all.

  He’d won.

  He inclined his head in a regal nod. “You. Prepare to meet your fate.”

  Before Vee could open her mouth to agree, the asura disappeared in a flash of golden light.

  Chapter 47

  Vee inhaled slowly, not sure if she was trying to calm her shock or her fury.

  She hurried over to her mother, checked her pulse and heaved a sigh of relief. Devi was still alive, although Vee wasn’t sure if she’d hit her head hard enough for a concussion or a coma.

  Only a doctor would be able to tell.

  She lifted Devi in her arms and went to the front door, her muscles straining to hold on. Shifting her a little to the left, Vee prayed she wouldn’t drop her mother as she fiddled with the lock with her other hand.

  Thankfully, she managed to unlatch the door and it swung open. Syama was pacing on the sidewalk while the sirin sat on the porch railing, staring at the door.

  As soon as Vee stepped on the threshold the two shifted into human form and rushed to grab hold of her unconscious mother.

  Syama opened her mouth, but Vee cut her off. “Call Nivaan to help her. It’ll be faster than a hospital. And nobody come inside. Not until this is done.”

  Before either of them could say a word, Vee stepped back into the house and closed the door. She paused for a moment, her hands running up and down the side of her thighs. Then she shook her hands out, straightened her shoulders, and walked back into the room.

  Vee let out a strangled sound.

  The living room had miraculously been returned to its previous state of glory, every piece that had been flying around the room, now in its place. The dent in the wall was fixed, and the hand-heart atrocity was back on the mantelpiece.

  The only thing out of place was the giant mirror. No longer above the fireplace, it had now been set against the left-hand wall. Standing on its short side, the mirror was now taller than Vee in height, and stood almost as high as the ceiling.

  Vee shook her head and began to pace the floor, staring intermittently at the mirror which presided over the room. Perhaps if she hung around he’d reappear. If he wanted her that badly, surely he’d come.

  And Vee wasn’t about to let this drag on for another day.

  The longer she waited, the more attracted she was to the glass, and at last she stopped pacing. Closing in on the mirror she stared at the room’s reflection, frowning.

  A blink and she thought she saw something.

  When she opened her eyes again, the mirror remained unchanged. Another blink and she saw it again—a stone-walled room, two people chained to the wall, hanging from manacles, heads dropping forward.

  A blink and then it was a mirror again.

  Frustrated, Vee took a step closer and focused.

  The room came into view again. The man’s ribs protruded starkly, the hair on his head and face long and unkempt, oily and unwashed.

  The woman fared better, but neither were dressed in recognizable garb, so they could be demons or humans, and Vee couldn’t tell.

  The woman lifted her head and ice slid through Vee’s veins. She felt almost lightheaded with shock. She could have sworn the woman was her grandmother.

  And then the vision was gone.

  Vee stared around the room, frustrated now. Kasipu had kept her waiting. Was he taunting her with these visions too? Playing with her emotions?

  Vee returned to study the mirror. Every sense in her body told her to touch the mirror, but she refrained. She refused to be that idiotic female in the bad horror movie. Something told her touching the mirror would be a bad idea.

  Vee felt the blow to the back of her head before she saw the reflection of the butler beside her. She’d been so focused on the mirror that she’d forgotten he’d be lurking about.

  Losing her balance, she fell toward the mirror, instinctively reaching out to steady herself. She flinched in advance expecting the mirror to shatter into a million pieces, expecting shards of glass to do damage to her face and hands.

  Instead, she tumbled onto the mirror

  Into the mirror.

  And into the very cell she’d thought she’d imagined.

  Her head hit the ground and darkness swallowed her whole.

  Chapter 48

  Vee’s head was pounding when she regained consciousness. She lifted her hand to press her fingers to the sore spot on her forehead, but something hard and sharp cut into her wrist and metal clinked around her so loudly that she winced.

  She swallowed and lifted her head slowly, trying to get her bearings. Bright light swam in her vision and dizziness threatened to bring up the contents of her stomach. Vee swallowed and breathed through the wave of nausea.

  Blinking hard, she peered around her. Darkness enveloped her in an opaque shroud, suffocating her with its dense nothingness.

  The low hum reverberated through her hip, a comforting reminder of the chakra—still hanging from her belt. Invisible, of course, which would be why the weapon hadn’t been taken from her. Same for the conch which pressed against her hip from within her
pocket.

  She blinked away another wave of dizziness as she tilted her head and listened closely to her surroundings. Breathing echoed from the room, breathing that did not belong to her.

  She was not alone here in this stone prison.

  She tried using her aura sight, but her head swam and nausea rippled through her body, and Vee gave a sigh. She’d have to wait until she gained more strength.

  The longer she stared around her the more the darkness seemed to retreat, and at last she could define vague shapes in the dark room. Stone walls like the ones she’d seen in the mirror. Breathing to the right of her, ragged, phlegmy, leading her to believe the person was ill or recovering from an illness.

  Vee strained to get a good look at the prisoner, but the shadows still clung to the wall and all she could make out was a man, taller than her, also manacled to the wall.

  Slowly—so painfully slowly that Vee found herself closing her eyes and then opening them hoping the darkness would give way—the room came into view, and Vee caught sight of the person to the left of her. A woman, her silvery-gray hair down and hanging around her shoulders. She was completely still, her head hanging away from Vee so her profile was visible.

  A face that Vee would know wherever she saw it.

  Ma.

  Radhima hung lifelessly from the manacles, her wrists bent at an awkward angle, the metal cutting into her bleeding skin where they bore her entire weight.

  Vee searched for a sign of life, hair shifting with each exhalation, the movement of the fabric of her filthy dress every time she took a breath. But Vee saw nothing. Not a single sign.

  No. She refused to believe it.

  She glanced away, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall. And she found herself staring at the face of the other prisoner in the room.

  Her heart leaped, scrambling to jump from her chest and a fresh wave of tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away to stare at him, her blood filled with the fire of joy.