Rakshasa Book I, Part #3: Tigerheart Read online

  Contents

  First Page Header

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Epilogue

  Looking for more?

  Rakshasa

  Part III: Tigerheart

  A Paranormal Romance Serial

  with a little hint of spice.

  “When the moon crosses the sun, all shall come to its end.”

  - Cinder the Rakshasan Prophet, 1699.

  Author’s note: A section of this piece was written as I watched the total solar eclipse on the 14th of November, 2012. Cool, huh?

  Prologue

  You Hurt Their Friends

  I gripped the receiver so hard the plastic creaked and I had to stop myself before I broke it. “Let Katelyn go. She’s just a human, she has nothing to do with this. It’s not her you want.”

  “You’re right,” the Champawat Tiger purred down the line, “it’s you. She means nothing to me, nothing at all, so don’t think for even a second that I won’t tear this little friend of yours to shreds and mail her remains to you piece by piece.” A pause, then, “If you want your friend to survive, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

  I looked into Ishan’s bright blue eyes. I could tell he wanted me to hang up, to let the Champawat Tiger do whatever he wanted to with Katelyn so I didn’t endanger myself, but I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.

  “Okay,” I said, inhaling slightly as I steadied my nerves. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  A low chuckle through the speaker. “Excellent.”

  Ishan’s silent gaze told me he did not approve. ‘Hang up’, he mouthed, but I shook my head.

  “What I am proposing,” said the Champawat Tiger, “is very simple. I wish to exchange a life for a life.”

  I frowned at that. “I’m not going to rush to my death,” I said, “and I’m not going to kill someone else.”

  “Well now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You are going to kill someone else, either the person I tell you, or your friend by your inaction. Your fate has already been decided. All I’m asking you to do is choose.”

  It wasn’t a choice I could make easily, but when put in such black and white terms the decision was obvious.

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  A low chuckle from the speaker, throaty and deep. “Oh, silly fledgling, we’re all murderers. We kill every day with inaction. A child starves in Africa, a mother dies in childbirth from easily preventable complications, a man contracts HIV for lack of a fifteen cent condom, and what do we do? We drink fine wine at dinner, grumble about the cost of petrol, and our biggest health complication is obesity.” The Rakshasa’s tone became venomous. “Obesity. These humans created a society where they have so much excess that they gorge themselves to death, wilfully ignorant of those who have none. The humans are a species without compassion.”

  “You’re one to talk of compassion,” I said, “You murder Rakshasa fledglings. You kill your own kind, to gain power for yourself. You’re a monster.”

  “We both are,” he said, “I’m merely more aware of what I am.” He clicked his tongue. “But we’re not here to discuss philosophy, are we?”

  I blew into the receiver, closing my eyes. “No.”

  “Then let’s get started. At first light tomorrow head north, to Lake George. It is dry this time of year. Go to the wind generators on the far side right as dawn breaks, then await my instructions.”

  There was a faint click as he hung up, followed by the dull beeping of the dial tone. I moved the phone away from my head, replacing it on the phone.

  “You can’t be thinking of going,” Ishan said, his face close to mine. I reached up and cupped his cheeks, looking into his sky blue eyes.

  “I have to. Katelyn’s life’s at stake, here. She’s been my bestie forever. I can’t leave her to be killed.”

  “Katelyn said it was a trap. Even I could tell you that it is. The Champawat Tiger doesn’t want to bargain with you, or do any kind of fair deal. He wants us all dead so he can have the power of the Rakshasa for himself. Everything he does, every move he makes is a bee-line towards this goal. Even if he’s genuinely not trying to kill you this time, next time he will. It’s all he wants.”

  “I know.” I inhaled a lungful of air, held it for a second, then slowly let it out. “But for now, he’s got Katelyn, and we’ve got till sundown to figure out what the hell we’re going to do about it.”

  Chapter I

  The Net Snags Both Ways

  It was 7:04pm. A quick Google on Ishan’s phone told us that sunrise was at 5:48am. We had less than ten hours before we had to meet the Champawat Tiger to follow the next stage of his directions.

  Most shops were starting to close by this stage but Ishan drove us into the city centre anyway. The ride was performed mostly in silence but my mind was whirring. Why would the Champawat Tiger even want to bargain with us? What did he stand to gain from doing what he had done? What was out by the wind turbines that could matter so much to him, so far away from the Garden of Shadow and our home in the mountains?

  Ishan’s car sped through the evening traffic, weaving expertly between cars. In the past I might have freaked out over it all, but speed seemed to matter less to me now. Despite being well in excess of the speed limit and attracting a number of annoyed honks the car seemed to be moving terribly slowly.

  We pulled up at one of the car parks on London circuit, right at the centre of town. As I pushed open the door and stepped onto the pavement, three figures moved towards us. Initially alert, I recognised one as Asena; a tall Caucasian woman with frizzy red hair. She was one of us, one of my coven. I gave them a firm nod as they approached.

  “Aurora,” Asena said, gesturing to her left, “I want to introduce Vriko…”

  Vriko was a shorter, dark skinned, youthful looking Indian man with a thin beard and goatee and black rimmed glasses. He seemed nervous to me, constantly glancing around as though expecting the shadows to reach out and grab him.

  The name Vriko was familiar to me. On the night I had first met Ishan I’d been locked out of my apartment. I broke a window with my rain-destroyed iPhone but in the morning it had been completely repaired. Ishan told me that Vriko had the ability to repair broken things simply by touching them.

  “… and Susi.”

  Susi, even shorter than Vriko, was a lighter skinned Indian woman who was wearing comfortable looking slacks and seemed relaxed and composed, her hands casually resting inside her pockets. She gave me a friendly nod.

  “Hi,” I said to them both, then to Vriko, “thanks for fixing my window.”

  “No worries,” he said, looking to Ishan with a wary look on his face. “Is it necessary to bring him? Do we need to involve the Rewa in this? This is an Altaican matter.”

  I could sense Ishan’s unease. There was a sudden, palpable hostility in the air, as the three Altaican Rakshasa stared down Ishan, the lone member of the white-stripped Rewa clan.

  “Ishan’s with me,” I said, keeping my tone even. “He’s going to help us with this. All I want is Katelyn to be safe, I’m really not concerned about inter-clan politics.”

  Vriko looked unhappy with that answer but looked to Asena anyway. “Right, well, so what’s the plan, with Eclipse?”

  Eclipse was the Rakshasa name of the Champawat Tiger. The human papers thought he was a serial killer and had assigned that name, perhaps ironically, to him. He’d been killing people for some time, but things had only recently come to a head.

  The name Eclipse conjured worrying images in my mind. Since
my transformation I’d experienced powerful, shared dreams with Ishan; always ending with an eclipse and a gunshot.

  Asena spoke to all of us. “We don’t know what Eclipse is planning, but we know what he wants. He wants us,” she glanced to Ishan, “and the Rewa, eventually, dead. Taking human hostages is a new thing, for him, but I think he realised when you and Ishan confronted him that the only way he can kill is if he finds the fledglings alone, which we’re making harder for him. Perhaps he wants to split us up, perhaps he wants to test our strength…”

  Vriko spoke up. “Or perhaps he’s just playing with us and Aurora’s friend is already dead. Or maybe this whole thing is a Rewa trick.”

  “Or maybe,” Susi began, but I cut her off.

  “Her name is Katelyn,” I said, “and I heard her voice over the phone.”

  “So?” Susi seemed unconcerned with Ishan’s presence. “Eclipse’s power is unknown, but many Rakshasa have demonstrated vocal mimicry. It’s a common power.”

  “It’s a common power,” Asena said, perfectly mimicking Susi’s voice.

  That didn’t seem right to me. The Champawat Tiger had spoken over Katelyn, cut her off. And it was her: I’d known Katelyn for years, there was no way anyone could mimic the subtle inflections in her voice, the edge of terror that pervaded her every word as she tried to warn me against rescuing her. This was no impostor, this was really her.

  “Then why did she warn us not to come?” I said.

  “Because,” said Vriko, “that’s what he expects she would say. It’s a neat little bit of reverse psychology. Maybe this whole thing is a set up.”

  “But—”

  Ishan held up his hands for calm. “It’s unreasonable to speculate that Eclipse possesses vocal mimicry when he could have, simply, genuinely taken Katelyn. Nobody’s seen her since he claimed he did. It’s not unreasonable to suggest this is what’s taken place.”

  I smiled at him and he returned the gesture, the two of us exchanging a brief but electrified stare. We had barely spoken to each other outside of the dream world, but already the connection here was strong. It seemed strange to love someone primarily in my dreams, but it was what it was. I was beginning to accept it.

  “Right,” said Susi, but she didn’t seem convinced. There was a moment of awkward silence as the five Rakshasa stood around the busy Canberra streets, the noises of cars driving past and music from a nearby club pounding away in the background.

  “So we’re doing this. First things first,” Asena said, reaching into her pocket then looking to me, “you need a new phone. Catch.”

  She tossed me a small black object and I caught it with a grace that surprised me. I was usually rubbish at catching. I opened my hand, seeing another phone, just like the one I’d had soaked.

  “Thanks.” I slipped it into a pocket on my jeans.

  “Keep it on you at all times,” Asena said, “We’ve all got the number. We might need to stay in contact with you if something goes wrong.” She gave a subtle glance to Ishan. “And make sure he has the number, too.”

  “When something goes wrong,” I clarified, “Katelyn said it was a trap.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it,” said Vriko, an eager grin forming over his face, “see, we know it’s a trap, and Eclipse knows that we know it’s a trap, but what Eclipse doesn’t know is that we know that he knows it’s a trap, but we’re going to spring our own trap on him.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Don’t mind Vriko,” Ishan said, casually slipping closer to me and putting his arm around my shoulder. “He drinks too much caffeine.” I leaned in against his chest, resting my chest against him, gently breathing in his scent.

  “The point is,” said Asena, “we know we’re swimming into his net, but Eclipse is going to discover that nets snag both ways.”

  *****

  I was surprised at how little we actually purchased while we were in Canberra city. I was given a short list and when we were done we all met back at Ishan’s car, then we loaded the things into the boot. Asena carried a crate of dehydrated food to replenish supplies at the coven, Vriko produced a stack of batteries for the lanterns while Susi had boxes of numerous odds and ends.

  Most notable, though, were what I was supposed to buy: two first aid boxes. Ishan returned carrying a small, square package that was wrapped in several layers of thick cloth.

  “Hopefully we won’t need those,” I said, grunting slightly as I lifted the boxes into the boot. In was surprised by how light they were carrying them back: my body was getting stronger and stronger, but when the time came to place them into the car they both felt unnaturally heavy.

  “Those aren’t for us,” Ishan said, resting the package gently down on the car’s bumper with a metallic tink, then slipping his hand around my middle and giving me a gentle squeeze, “They’re for Katelyn. We don’t know what kind of state she’ll be in.”

  I nestled in to Ishan’s chest, frowning slightly. I felt slightly worried, looking at everything we’d gathered. There were a lot of supplies. “There’s almost enough here to take care of a small army. If Katelyn’s hurt, can’t we just take her to the hospital?”

  Asena shook her head. “She knows about us. She’s seen Eclipse in his natural form; if we take her back to the hospital, she’s certain to reveal us. We cannot have that.”

  “Well, what if she’s badly injured? What if she needs surgery?”

  Asena looked uncomfortable and couldn’t meet my gaze. “Then, well, we do the best we can and hope for the best.”

  Perhaps it was this statement, or perhaps it was the stress of it all, but I felt distinctly unwell. I snuggled my back up against Ishan’s chest and his strong arms held me tightly. His skin seemed paler than usual and I, somewhat strangely, sensed a general feeling of unease with the other Rakshasa. My eyes wandered down to the small package Ishan had put on the boot.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something we can use against Eclipse.” With a careful hand Ishan peeled back the cloth, revealing the solid wooden top of a heavy box underneath. He eased open the heavy wooden lid, revealing its contents.

  A block of gleaming silver.

  Instantly I felt sick just looking at it. I felt as though I were looking at a corpse; revolting and horrid, so disgusting I couldn’t look at it anymore. I turned away and closed my eyes.

  The faint clunk of the lid closing abated the feeling somewhat. “What the hell are you going to do with that thing?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Ishan replied, “but it could come in useful. We have a small smelting room at our coven. I’ll take it to Hailstone, see what he can do with it.”

  I opened my eyes just in time to see Asena rolled hers, subtly, but I caught it.

  “Sounds good,” I said, as much to her as it was to Ishan. “We all need to work together on this one.” I twisted around, glancing up over my shoulder to Ishan. “What help can the Rewa provide?”

  “Little,” Ishan answered, “they will be unwilling to become involved in what they see as a purely Altaican matter. Eclipse is one of yours.”

  “But if Katelyn’s… killed, there’ll be an investigation. The humans will become more suspicious. The Champawat Tiger threatens to expose all of us.”

  He hesitated slightly, then rolled his shoulders. “Hailstone… is Hailstone,” he answered, “once he’s made up his mind about something it’s difficult to convince him otherwise.”

  I felt my blood rising. Katelyn was all I cared about, and the feud between the two Rakshasa clans seemed petty, pointless and risky.

  But Ishan’s hands gave me a gentle squeeze and I felt my anger evaporate. Hailstone, although he seemed like a complete jerk and had threatened me to stay away from Ishan, didn’t seem to have anything other than his coven’s best interests at heart. Getting angry at Ishan’s covenmate wasn’t going to save Katelyn; quite the contrary, in fact. We needed all the allies we could get.

&nb
sp; “Let’s focus on Katelyn,” I said, giving each of my coven a meaningful look, then turning around to look at Ishan, “she’s in danger. She’s the priority at the moment.” I turned back to the rest of the group. “We can do this.”

  The unsteady look on Asena’s face betrayed her feelings, but she hid it well. “Yeah.”

  Chapter II

  The Calm

  Our tasks complete, our group split up to avoid being followed. Asena and the others went west and we went south, driving across the bridge over Lake Burley Griffin and towards Weston Creek, then beyond. The car was parked in a park on the south western outskirts of the city then, our burdens easily lifted on our shoulders, we made sure we weren’t followed and then headed off into the woodlands and up the mountains.

  Ishan carried the silver, wrapped in more cloth to shield us from the effects.

  “Asena didn’t seem too sanguine of our chances,” I observed, putting one shoe before the other as I climbed up the steep hill with ease, “neither did the others.”

  “Eclipse is a powerful, dangerous foe,” Ishan said, “and while his ultimate goal is clear, his short-term motives are opaque. Rakshasa… tend not to work together very well. We’re individualistic. We’re not pack animals. Helping others doesn’t come naturally to us, even our own kind.”

  “Why couldn’t I be a were-wolf instead,” I joked, but Ishan shot me a sober look.

  I stared at him. “Wait, don’t tell me they’re real?”

  “There are none in Australia,” Ishan reassured me, “at least, not that we know of. But yes.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to answer to that. “Well, what else is real?”

  Ishan smiled. “It’s a very long list, none of which concern us very much at this point.”