15

“I have to wash up,” Jack said, indicating his injured hand as they entered his apartment. “Come into the bathroom with me.”

Kolabati looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Follow me.” Wordlessly, she complied.

As he began to wash the dirt and clotted blood from the gash, he watched her in the mirror over the sink. Her face was pale and haggard in the merciless light of the bathroom. His own looked ghoulish.

“Why would Kusum want to send his rakoshi after a little girl?”

She seemed to come out of her fugue. Her eyes cleared. “A little girl?”

“Seven years old.”

Her hand covered her mouth. “Is she a Westphalen?” she said between her fingers.

Jack stood numb and cold in the epiphany that burst upon him.

That’s it! My God, that’s the link! Nellie, Grace, and Vicky—all Westphalens!

“Yes.” He turned to face her. “The last Westphalen in America, I believe. But why the Westphalens?”

Kolabati leaned against the wall beside the sink and spoke to the opposite wall. She spoke slowly, carefully, as if measuring every word.

“About a century and a quarter ago, Captain Sir Albert Westphalen pillaged a temple in the hills of northern Bengal —the temple I told you about last night. He murdered the high priest and priestess along with all their acolytes, and burned the temple to the ground. The jewels he stole became the basis of the Westphalen fortune.

“Before she died the priestess laid a curse upon Captain Westphalen, saying that his line would end in blood and pain at the hands of the rakoshi. The Captain thought he had killed everyone in the temple but he was wrong. A child escaped the fire. The eldest son was mortally wounded, but before he died he made his younger brother vow to see that their mother’s curse was carried out. A single female rakosh egg—you saw the shell in Kusum’s apartment—was found in the caves beneath the ruins of temple. That egg and the vow of vengeance have been handed down from generation to generation. It became a family ceremony. No one took it seriously—until Kusum.”

Jack stared at Kolabati in disbelief. She was telling him that Grace and Nellie’s deaths and Vicky’s danger were all the result of a family curse begun in India over a century ago. She was not looking at him. Was she telling the truth? Why not? It was far less fantastic than much of what had happened to him today.

“You’ve got to save that little girl,” Kolabati said, finally looking up and meeting his eyes.

“I already have.” He dried his hand and began rubbing some Neosporin ointment from the medicine cabinet into the wound. “Neither your brother nor his monsters will find her tonight. And by tomorrow he’ll be gone.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You told me so an hour ago.”

She shook her head, very slowly, very definitely. “Oh, no. He may leave without me, but he will never leave without that little Westphalen girl. And…” She paused. “… you’ve earned his undying enmity by freeing me from his ship.”

“’Undying enmity’ is a bit much, isn’t it?”

“Not where Kusum is concerned.”

“What is it with your brother?” Jack placed a couple of four-by-four gauze pads in his palm and began to wrap it with cling. “I mean, didn’t any of the previous generations try to kill off the Westphalens?”

Kolabati shook her head.

“What made Kusum decide to take it all so seriously?”

“Kusum has problems— “

“You’re telling me!” He secured the cling with an inch of adhesive tape.

“You don’t understand. He took a vow of Brahmacharya—a vow of lifelong chastity—when he was twenty. He held to that vow and remained a steadfast Brahmachari for many years.” Her gaze wavered and wandered back to the wall. “But then he broke that vow. To this day he’s never forgiven himself. I told you the other night about his growing following of Hindu purists in India. Kusum doesn’t feel he has a right to be their leader until he has purified his karma. Everything he has done here in New York has been to atone for desecrating his vow of Brahmacharya.”

Jack hurled the roll of adhesive tape against the wall. He was suddenly furious.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “Kusum has killed Nellie and Grace and who knows how many winos, all because he got laid? Give me a break!”

“It’s true!”

“There’s got to be more to it than that!”

Kolabati still wasn’t looking at him. “You’ve got to understand Kusum— “

“No, I don’t! All I have to understand is that he’s trying to kill a little girl I happen to love very much. Kusum’s got a problem all right: me!”

“He’s trying to cleanse his karma.”

“Don’t tell me about karma. I heard enough about karma from your brother last night. He’s a mad dog!”

Kolabati turned on him, her eyes flashing. “Don’t say that!”

“Can you honestly deny it?”

“No! But don’t say that about him! Only I can say it!”

Jack could understand that. He nodded. “Okay. I’ll just think it.”

She started to turn around to leave the bathroom but Jack gently pulled her back. He wanted very badly to get to the phone to call Gia and check on Vicky, but he needed the answer to one more question.

“What happened to you in the hold? What did I say back there to shock you so?”

Kolabati’s shoulders slumped, her head tilted to the side. Silent sobs caused small quakes at first but soon grew strong enough to wrack her whole body. She closed her eyes and began to cry.

Jack was startled at first. He had never imagined the possibility of seeing Kolabati reduced to tears. She had always seemed so self-possessed, so worldly. Yet here she was standing before him and crying like a child. Her anguish touched him. He took her in his arms.

“Tell me about it. Talk it out.”

She cried for a while longer, then she began to talk, keeping her face buried against his shoulder as she spoke.

“Remember how I said these rakoshi were smaller and paler than they should be? And how shocked I was that they could speak?”

Jack nodded against her hair. “Yes.”

“Now I understand why. Kusum lied to me again! And again I believed him. But this is so much worse than a lie. I never thought even Kusum would go that far!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kusum lied about finding a male egg!” An hysterical edge was creeping onto her voice.

Jack pushed her to arms’ length. Her face was tortured. He wanted to shake her but didn’t.

“Talk sense!”

“Kaka-ji is Bengali for ’father’!”

“So?”

Kolabati only stared at him.

“Oh, jeez!” Jack leaned back against the sink, his mind reeling with the idea of Kusum impregnating the Mother rakosh. Visions of the act half-formed in his brain and then quickly faded to merciful black.

“How could your brother have fathered those rakoshi? Kaka-ji has to be a title of respect or something like that.”

Kolabati shook her head slowly, sadly. She appeared emotionally and physically drained.

“No. It’s true. The changes in the younglings are evidence enough.”

“But how?”

“Probably when she was very young and docile. He needed only one brood from her. From there on the rakoshi would mate with each other and bring the nest to full size.”

“I can’t believe it. Why would he even try?”

“Kusum…” Her voice faltered. “Kusum sometimes thinks Kali speaks to him in dreams. He may believe she told him to mate with the female. There are many dark tales of rakoshi mating with humans.”

“Tales! I’m not talking about tales! This is real life! I don’t know much about biology but I know cross-species fertilization is impossible!”

“But the rakoshi aren’t a different species, Jack. As I told you last night, legend has it that the ancient evil gods—the Old Ones—created the rakoshi as obscene parodies of humanity. They took a man and a woman and reshaped them in their image—into rakoshi. That means that somewhere far, far up the line there’s a common genetic ancestor between human and rakosh.” She gripped Jack’s arms. “You’ve got to stop him, Jack!”

“I could have stopped him last night,” he said, remembering how he had sighted down the barrel of the .357 at the space between Kusum’s eyes. “Could have killed him.”

“It’s not necessary to kill him to stop him.”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“There is: his necklace. Take it from him and he will lose his hold on the rakoshi.”

Jack smiled ruefully. “Sort of like the mice deciding to bell the cat, isn’t it?”

“No. You can do it. You are his equal… in more ways than you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why didn’t you shoot Kusum when you had the chance?”

“Worried about you, I guess, and… I don’t know… couldn’t pull the trigger.” Jack had wondered about the answer to that question, too.

Kolabati came close and leaned against his chest. “That’s because Kusum’s like you and you’re like him.”

Resentment flared like a torch. He pushed her away. “That’s crazy!”

“Not really,” she said, her smile seductive. “You’re carved from the same stone. Kusum is you—gone mad.”

Jack didn’t want to hear that. The idea repulsed him… frightened him. He changed the subject.

“If he comes tonight, will it be alone or will he bring some rakoshi?”

“It depends,” she said, moving closer again. “If he wants to take me with him, he’ll come in person since a rakosh will never find me. If he only wants to even the score with you for making a fool of him by stealing me away from under his nose, he’ll send the Mother rakosh.”

Jack swallowed, his throat going dry at the memory of the size of her.

“Swell.”

She kissed him. “But that won’t be for a while. I’m going to shower. Why don’t you come in with me? We both need one.”

“You go ahead,” he said, gently releasing himself from her. He did not meet her gaze. “Someone has to stay on guard. I’ll shower after you.”

She studied him a moment with her dark eyes, then turned and walked toward the bathroom. Jack watched her until the door closed behind her, then let out a long sigh. He felt no desire for her tonight. Was it because of Sunday night with Gia? It had been different when Gia was rejecting him. But now…

He was going to have to cool it with Kolabati. No more rolls in her Kama Sutra hay. But he had to tread softly here. He did not wish to weather the wrath of a scorned Indian woman.

He went to the secretary and removed the silenced Ruger with the hollow point bullets; he also took out a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special and loaded it. Then he sat down to wait for Kolabati to come out of the shower.