Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (21 page)

Kurma showed off the impenetrability of his armour by inviting Vamana, at full size, to hit him hard on the head. Vamana pounded away like a steam hammer, and the paving stones beneath Kurma’s feet cracked, but the Turtle himself remained unbent and upright, weathering the blows. Kurma’s siddhi was the ability to absorb untold amounts of shock and pressure. His armour afforded protection against penetrative wounds, but the man inside was extraordinarily durable too. The density of his skeleton and musculature was so great that, Korolev reckoned, he could survive being crushed inside a car compacter.

Narasimha and Parashurama did their thing, sparring with each other at blazing speeds.

But it was my double act with Rama that brought the house down. I skipped around finding objects to toss into the air. Rama shot them. Be it cloth napkin or empty magnum of Dom Perignon, I hurled it aloft and he either shattered it or pinned it to a wall. I juggled three tablespoons –
with my feet
– and Rama pinged all three in turn. I balanced on a dining chair while his arrows snapped the legs off one after another until finally I was left perching on tiptoe on the chair’s back, the whole thing poised at an acute angle, with just the last remaining leg holding it up. When Rama shot that leg too, what was left of the chair fell to the floor, but I wasn’t on it any more. I was dangling upside down from one of the marquee’s horizontal roof struts. Again, this was courtesy of my feet, which only that morning I had found out were fantastically prehensile. It was like having a second pair of hands attached to my ankles.

All of the above was improvised. It just came naturally to the two of us, as if it were a routine we had rehearsed together for years. I felt entirely in sync with Rama. You know that thing where you meet somebody for the first time and you instantly become firm friends? Like you’ve known each other all your lives, or maybe knew each other in a past life? You almost don’t need to speak, you’re so attuned to each other’s wavelength? That. That was me and Rama. Rama and Hanuman, the Vedic Dynamic Duo.

Afterwards, when the applause had died down and the mingling resumed, Aanandi sidled up to me. It was the first time we’d spoken since my elevation to the ranks of deva-dom.

“So,” she said. She appraised me up and down, an eyebrow cocked. “Hanuman. It figures.”

“Oh, don’t pretend you had nothing to do with it, Aanandi. I know you. I bet you’re the one who proposed I should be the monkey god. This has your fingerprints all over it.”

She blushed ever so slightly. It was very fetching. “Vignesh and I talked about it a while back.” She nodded towards Bhatnagar, who was deep in conversation with the Cabinet Secretary, both speaking Hindi. “It was his idea that there should be a Hanuman on the team. He used to read comics about him as a kid. There’s this publishing imprint in India called Amar Chitra Katha. It’s been going for decades and it does comic-strip retellings of the great epics. Hanuman had his own series, and it was Vignesh’s favourite. Once the Dashavatara were up and running, creating a Hanuman was always his next goal.”

I recalled that Bhatnagar had been watching my acrobatic antics just now more keenly than most, and I had noticed a childlike delight on his face as I cavorted and tumbled. His wife and two sons were with him, and he had kept pointing me out to the boys and making excited comments. They, being in their teens, acted as though they couldn’t care less. One of them barely took his eyes off his smartphone.

“And you encouraged him to choose me for the job,” I said.

“I didn’t
dis
courage him, put it that way. He wondered aloud who’d be a suitable candidate, and I jokingly suggested you. He, also jokingly, agreed. But I think somewhere inside him he was thinking, ‘Well, if the opportunity ever presents itself...’”

“And then you helped persuade me to agree.”

“You didn’t take much persuading, as I recall.”

“With hindsight, I shouldn’t have needed
any
.”

“You like how you are?”

“Who the fuck wouldn’t? Look at me. I look great, even with the monkeyish add-ons. I
feel
great.”

“You do look great.” Aanandi gave me another once-over. “Not that you didn’t before. But this is like Zak deluxe. Zak after a total makeover.” She put a hand on my chest, gently exploring its firm contours.

“How come it’s okay for a girl to do that to a boy whenever she feels like it, but if the roles were reversed it’d be all ‘inappropriate touching’?”

“It just is. Double standards. Get used to it. And pecs aren’t boobs.”

“You make a fair point. But still, in the interests of gender equality, I think I should be allowed to squeeze back sometime.”

“And maybe you’ll get that chance.”

She took a step back, however, so that I wouldn’t get any funny ideas. The chance she was referring to wasn’t going to come any time in the immediate future.

“You’ve been a hit with our visitors,” she said. “Yours and Rama’s circus act went down a storm. It’s all anyone’s talking about.”

“I’m a born showoff. Just call me a performing monkey. Why are these people here anyway? This is some sort of public relations exercise, right? A big old schmooze fest. India’s our faith power station so we’ve got to keep its rulers sweet. Is that the deal?”

“Something like that,” Aanandi said.

“So it’s not? It’s more?”

“Or less.”

This peeved me. She could be so aggravatingly elusive at times.

“Why do you keep on keeping things from me?” I snapped. “I’m a deva now. I have the same clearance level as you. I’m in the loop. Is it too much to ask for some honesty?”

“‘Honesty,’ says the swipe card stealer.”

“You can’t hold that against me forever.”

“I damn well can if I feel like it. What I can’t do – won’t do – is give you a straight answer if I don’t think you’re ready for it.”

“Oh, and who decides that? You?”

“Yes. And keep your voice down. People are looking.”

They were, most notably Lombard, and he was scowling, and I didn’t want to piss him off, not on what was obviously an important occasion, so I did lower my voice.

“It’s a business thing, then,” I said, putting two and two together. “That’s what the Trinity have wheeled their devas out for. We’re not just the after-dinner entertainment, we’re the merchandise.”

Aanandi tried to keep her expression inscrutable, but this in itself was tantamount to a big fat yes.

“I’m right, aren’t I? This is – it’s a trade expo.”

“Kind of.” She sighed. “Shit, I shouldn’t be saying anything. Not until the ink’s dry on the contract. You promise you won’t breathe a word to the others?”

“I don’t know. Depends on what I’m not supposed to be telling them.”

“You have to promise.”

“Well, all right.”

Aanandi drew me aside until we were in a corner where no one could overhear us.

“The Avatars will find out soon enough, once the deal’s been sealed,” she said. “I have a feeling Parashurama’s figured it out already. He’s a shrewd one. You think these bigwigs have come all the way from New Delhi just for shits and giggles? They want to sign the Ten up. They want to hire them.”

“As what? Mercenaries?”

“Pretty much. This whole shebang, it’s not just a meet-and-greet. Tonight there’ll be negotiations, the Trinity and the Indian government around a table, thrashing out terms of lease.”

“Can the Trinity do that? That’s not what the Avatars are about, surely.”

“Wrong. The Trinity can do whatever the hell they like, and the Avatars are about whatever the Trinity say they’re about. There’s serious money hovering in the air. Eight-, maybe nine-figure sums.”

I whistled.

“India loves the Dashavatara,” Aanandi continued. “The Indian government thinks recruiting the Avatars as an elite force of troops is a sound move. It could well be, both politically and strategically. It’ll cement the government’s popularity with the voters, and there’s an election in the offing so that can’t hurt. But also, in defence terms, who can deny that a unit of super-powered commandos is just the ticket for dealing with India’s enemies?”

“Which enemies? I thought India didn’t have that many.”

Aanandi rolled her eyes. “Typical Westerner geopolitical ignorance.” She started ticking off a checklist on her fingers. “There’s internal Islamist terrorism, for one thing. During the past couple of decades militant Muslims have set off bombs in Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, everywhere, killing hundreds of civilians. Not to mention Sikh separatists in the Punjab and paramilitary insurgents fighting for independence for Assam. Then there’s the troublesome neighbour to the north and the whole Kashmir dispute.”

“Oh, yeah. Pakistan. That’s not been good, has it?”

“Understatement of the century. After the Korean peninsula, Kashmir is the likeliest potential flashpoint for a nuclear conflict. Pakistan believes India has been unlawfully occupying half the region since Partition, India says much the same about Pakistan, and meanwhile most Kashmiris want to be shot of both of them and live in an autonomous state. There’ve been three wars over Kashmir so far, and there’s constant civil unrest within its borders which threatens to spill across into northern India. And with Pakistan being held together precariously by a caretaker government and becoming ever more unstable, only a step away from yet another military coup or, worse, a Taliban takeover...”

“India would like something special in its back pocket,” I finished. “Just in case. Something Dashavatara-shaped.”

“The propaganda value of the Dashavatara alone – it’s incalculable. It might even be enough to get the Pakistanis to back down and behave without a shot needing to be fired.”

“Alternatively it might just escalate the situation.”

“True,” Aanandi said with a grim nod. “I’m questioning the wisdom of hiring the Avatars out to India myself, but then who am I? I’m just a monkey, not an organ grinder. No offence meant.”

“None taken.” Now was not the moment to crack a joke about grinding organs. “Is this why those Pakistani jets came after us that time?” The attack on the
Garuda
had been only a few weeks ago. I could hardly believe it. It felt like I’d lived a lifetime since. In a sense, I had. “The Pakistanis foresaw something like this?”

“Who’s to say? Perhaps. The Pakistanis have itchy trigger fingers at the best of times, and this isn’t the best of times. We just have to hope –”

And then, as if on cue, the missile hit.

¹
A clear fish broth. Yummy.

²
Crazy name, crazy-looking fruit. Like a Mandelbrot set in plant form.

25. DRONE STRIKE

T
HE MISSILE WAS
fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle controlled remotely by a pilot in a military bunker in Karachi. The drone, a combat-capable upgrade of the Shahpar reconnaissance UAV, was Pakistan’s homegrown answer to the Predator, and while no match for the American craft in terms of efficiency, performance or payload, it was deadly enough.

The missile itself was a laser-guided Baktar-Shikan, a variant of the Chinese-built HJ-8 anti-tank missile, modified for air-to-ground launch. It was light and compact, to suit the small drone, but it still packed a considerable high-explosive wallop.

It struck the flank of the outer ring, some one hundred yards from where the assembled company was standing. The building spouted flame. The concussion blast knocked several people off their feet. Rubble spewed outwards, showering over us in a lethal hail.

I couldn’t understand why no one was moving out of the way. Bits of building were tumbling through the air – chunks of concrete, shards of glass, twisted fragments of steel – and people seemed to be watching it as though mesmerised. Why didn’t they run? Why weren’t they even ducking?

Then I realised that I had slipped into time dilation mode again. My reflexes and perceptions had hyper-accelerated in response to a threat. Seconds were passing like minutes.

I swept Aanandi aside, flattening her to the ground just as the wavefront of hurtling rubble reached us. Expressions – alarm, bewilderment, terror – shifted across her face as slowly as wax melting.