Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) (11 page)

“Are you talking about Hanuman, the monkey god?” I asked.

Mukta stopped dancing. He didn’t say anything for a long moment and I was pretty sure he hadn’t liked the question.

“No, Mud Devil. I am not discussing Hanuman here,” Mukta said. “Hanuman is a great god who was born of a Vanara mother. That is where the similarity ends.” Mukta lowered his voice. “The Monkey Man is a great embarrassment to Hanuman and all Vanaras. Most Vanaras wish the Monkey Man had never been born. But he was born and his followers have grown to many. That is why you must listen to my story. The story will answer your questions.”
 

The shimmering reflection in the brass pot faded out yet again to be replaced by a bright sunny day inside an old-fashioned courtyard. Spotted blue butterflies fluttered in the sunlight. The Monkey Man was hunched down on one knee, his shoulders bent, offering a shining silver collar to the maiden. Once again, the maiden’s face was hidden. Instead of taking the collar, she ran. Good for her. I wouldn’t have married him either, especially if he gave me a collar. That was just creepy.

“One day,” Mukta said, “the Monkey Man happened upon a maiden whom he could not have. And she whom the Monkey Man could not have, he grew to hate.”
 

The flames returned to the shimmering reflection as the Monkey Man pursued the maiden on horseback, sword held high in his long tail.

“So he ended her life,” Mukta said.

The Monkey Man thrust his sword down.
 

I turned my eyes from the pot and rose, the black cobra still undulating back and forth. I was careful not to startle the snake or the lizards, but I was determined. Enough was enough. I didn’t want to see anymore. I grabbed Zak by the arm.

“End of story. Thank you, Mukta. We have a plane to catch,” I said.

“No. It is not the end of the story,” Mukta said. “This story takes place in India where troubles do not end at the grave.”

Zak and I looked at each other. We both knew things were getting weird. Did I say weird? I should have said, super weird. Even Zak looked like he could use a time-out. But we were curious again, too curious to simply get up and leave without finding out what had happened. We turned our eyes back to the oily black pot.

“The maiden was reincarnated as a soldier,” Mukta said.
 

In the pot, a group of men with swords, led by a fearless looking woman, battled the Vanara army. Flames flickered through the forest. Just like before, the woman’s face was hidden. The Monkey Man approached her from behind.

“Then a sailor.”

The oily image changed again to show a maiden swabbing the decks of an ancient ship. The Monkey Man approached from behind, now wearing a captain’s hat.
 

“A tailor.”

The oily surface rippled to reveal a maiden sewing a suit for an individual who looked exactly like the Monkey Man.

“A prisoner.”

Bars appeared in the black pot. Behind the prison bars the maiden was approached by the Monkey Man, his long yellow claws extended. I noted that the Monkey Man was nothing, if not persistent. The oil in the black pot caught fire, flames licking the air above. The cobra continued to undulate, seemingly unconcerned by the flame.

“The Monkey Man followed her through each life, destroying she who would not be his.”

Zak and I watched the black pot as a gleaming dagger slashed through the fire. Then a rope tightened. Scissors stabbed. Yellow claws struck.
 

“This bloodshed went on until even the gods grew weary.”

“So why didn't she come back as a radioactive monster or something?” Zak said. “That would have shown the Monkey Man.”

“Because radioactive monsters are from Japan. This is India. The gods had a better plan.”

We looked back into the pot. The flames disappeared and a mist rose from the pot. Then the cobra slithered slowly out of the pot and wrapped itself around the outside of it. I couldn’t help but feel just a little less comfortable than I had been. There were complicated patterns of leopards and elephants and monkeys cast into the surface of the brass pot. The snake seemed to massage itself on them as it wrapped its muscular body around the pot and rose. Zak and I both shuffled back, closer to the door, just in case.
 

The mist continued to rise like a fog from the pot, tumbling from its brim and into the hut until we were surrounded by it. I looked down, but I couldn’t even see below my own waist, which really freaked me out as far as the snake was concerned. A moment later, I saw something strange. A mountaintop seemed to pop out of the mist. Hindu gods appeared, sitting around the mountaintop like miniature people on a cloud. It was like an invasion of the little people. The gods had lots of arms and blue skin, and one even had the head of an elephant like Ganesha in the swimming pool, but what was strange was that unlike the scene we had just seen unfold in the reflection in the oil, these gods seemed real — like three-dimensional little people.

“The gods decided that for her ninth life the maiden would be reincarnated as the Ghost Leopard.”

“Whoa, a ghost?” Zak said.

“Yes, a Ghost Leopard.”

The mist flew out of the pot revealing a tiny mountain valley held within its depths.

“Destined to wander the lonely mountains as a ghost, the Leopard would be invulnerable to the Monkey Man.”

Inside the pot a practically see-through leopard roamed through a high mountain valley.
 

 
“The gods promised that as long as the Ghost Leopard wandered the Earth, the evil Monkey Man could do no more harm.”

The valley inside the pot grew bigger and bigger until it took up the full floor of the hut. I couldn’t understand how it was possible, but what had been the ceiling of the hut was now a night sky filled with billions of twinkling stars. A shooting star fell out of the sky and through the Leopard as it walked. The Leopard continued on as though nothing had happened. Then the Leopard walked straight through a stunted dead tree, and then, a boulder. It was obvious that the Leopard was a ghost. It clearly had no body. Nothing could harm it.
 

“But once every hundred years, under the light of the full moon, the gods decreed that the Leopard would be given back its physical body.”

A full moon moved into the starry sky above. The moon shone down on a snowy mountainside and as its light fell, the Leopard’s ghostly form solidified. Now I could only see little glimpses of fur and tail as the Leopard moved stealthily between the rocks.
 

“Just like a werewolf?” Zak asked.

“Did he say werewolf?” I said to Zak.

“I don’t get it,” Zak said.

“Please. Not a wolf,” Mukta said, “a Ghost Leopard. Once every hundred years, under the light of the full moon, the Ghost Leopard is given its body back. At this time, the gods bestow the Leopard with the strength it needs to continue its lonely walk. But in its physical form the Leopard is also vulnerable. If found, the Monkey Man can kill it.”

I watched as the Leopard moved between the rocks, always concealing its position. Though I tried, I never got a good look at it.

“If the gods are so great, then why didn’t they just make the Leopard invulnerable all the time?” Zak asked.

“Because fair is fair, my young friend, and that would not be fair to the Monkey Man.”

I stared at the pot. I felt a strange calm as the cobra slowly uncoiled, inching higher and higher above it. Then, what looked like fire began to twirl in an ever-bigger ball about four feet above the pot. Sparks and flames rained down out of the fire just missing the Ghost Leopard as it slinked through the boulders below. “It has been five thousand years, but the Monkey Man seeks it still,” Mukta said. “And he grows smarter. He pays very bad men to help him. He uses technology. If he should succeed in shooting an arrow through the Leopard atop the sacred peak of Tendua Tibba, the Monkey Man will grow greatly in power. All living things will suffer. Fire will rain from the sky.”

Without warning, the whoosh of an arrow cut through the air. It was the loudest arrow I had ever heard and both Zak and I dove down into the mist, covering our ears. As we did, the Ghost Leopard bolted for cover. There was still a ball of fire and sparks floating above the brass pot and that’s where the scariest thing of all happened. The cobra extended its hooded head into the ball of sparks and flame. Then it hissed and struck, lightning flying from its mouth.

Both Zak and I jumped backward. The lightning bolt actually hit the front door which briefly broke into flame before it began to smoke, a charred scar running down its length. Mukta threw a jug of water on the door and the cobra calmly curled back around the brass pot. What looked like a miniature model of the mountains complete with roads, trees, and rivers now sat in the pot.

“You have been chosen to see that this does not happen,” Mukta said. He traced a route with his old, wrinkled finger through the tiny mountains in the pot. “Take the North bus toward Tatura. Where the road ends, the way to Tendua Tibba begins. Paw prints will lead you to her crooked spire. Once there, you will wait for the first glimpse of the full moon.”

“What then?” Zak asked.

“Why then, my young friend, you will protect the Ghost Leopard.”

“Then we'll take its picture,” I said.

“Oh no, one must not do this. The Ghost Leopard is one with India. To capture its image would be to steal its soul.”
 

I considered what Mukta had said. “So why doesn’t the Monkey Man just steal the Leopard’s soul with a camera. Seems easier than shooting an arrow.”

“To steal a soul, one must first have a soul, Mud Devil. The Monkey Man and those who work for him have long since lost theirs.”

I thought about it. What Mukta was saying was crazy. A soulless Monkey Man? A Ghost Leopard? None of it made any sense. Of course, neither did Mukta's strange brass pot or any of the rest of it, and that I had seen with my own eyes. Mukta reached for the cobra, picking it up by its tail. The cobra hissed and twisted as though at any moment it might double back and bite him. Both Zak and I now had our backs to the wall. Mukta handed the snake’s tail to Zak who cringed back as far as the hut would let him.

“Take this whip.”

Whip? We looked down again and the snake’s tail that Mukta had been holding was now the leather handle of a bull whip. What had been the body of the snake now looked like black braided leather with a silver tip where the cobra’s fangs had been. The whip’s handle had four dime sized depressions on it as if it had once contained some kind of ornament that had long since fallen out. Zak cautiously accepted the whip, holding it loosely in his right hand.

“Cool,” Zak purred. “My very own snake whip.” Zak thought for a moment. “I’m naming it Stryker,” he said.

“Be cautious and alert,” Mukta said. “Your fate is with the mountain now, Mud Devils.”

 
I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth as I thought about what I was going to say. The truth was, I didn’t need to think. Even though I had seen some strange things, I already knew what I thought. The thing I was thinking about was whether or not I could restrain myself from saying it. Apparently I couldn’t. “Do you really believe any of this crazy story?” I finally asked.

“It is not what I believe,” Mukta said.
 

He turned down the oil lamp and took my hand in his, showing me that he too had the strange spotted birthmark.

“It is what you believe, my friend.”

I dreamt again that night. I dreamt that I was sleeping on the floor of a hut. I dreamt I got up in the middle of the night because I was thirsty. But there was no water in the hut. So I went outside. There was an old-fashioned pump there, the kind with a handle that you pump down with one hand. It was dark, but I found the handle and began to pump water out of the ground. I pumped harder and harder, but no water came out for a long time. When the water finally did start to come out, it was dirty. Not dirty, but blue. That’s when I ran my fingers under the water and saw that it wasn’t water, but butterflies flowing from the pump. Weird, I know. The butterflies filled the air around me, their spotted blue wings flapping hard enough to actually blow my long hair back in the wind. Then, in an instant, the butterflies disappeared and the wind dropped, leaving nothing but silence. I looked up to see an enormous cat-like shadow cast across the ground. I took a step toward the shadow and it was gone.

When we woke up, it was barely light out, gray clouds hanging low in the sky. Given the circumstances, I had slept well. Mukta had fed us some hot Indian bread called naan and given us some blankets, and we’d gone to sleep on the floor. I had insisted that Zak put his new whip, Stryker, outside because some part of me was worried that it would turn back into a cobra, but other than that, the night had been fine. True, my dream had been strange, but who didn’t have a weird dream once in a while? I guess when I thought about it honestly I had weird dreams more than once in a while. I had them every night. But it was day now, and after a few biscuits and hot chai, we said our goodbyes and climbed the steep path away from Mukta's hut. We wore our new striped pajamas, mostly because our own clothes were still covered in wet muck. Zak seemed to like his new outfit more than I did. I thought we looked like prisoners who had just escaped from some old cartoon.

“He was a good dancer,” Zak said.

“Phone,” I said back to him.
 

I only spoke one word because I didn’t want to waste time talking. We needed to find a telephone and fast. In a few minutes we found ourselves in an open-air bazaar. Among the peanut vendors and jewelry makers and rug shops was a tiny shop with a picture of a mobile phone. A man with oily brown hair and a creepy look in his eye kept watch on us while I spoke into an antique phone. The phone had a handset that sort of looked like a black banana, kind of like the one I had once found tucked away in my grandfather’s basement.