Bhagavad Gita: Deathbird Plummets

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With the information delivered to the UN Inspectors, there is a final thread to clear up, one which Farouk, Leo and Emma take upon themselves to clear.



The house in Gwadar was silent and still, tucked away in a quiet area of the city, away from the docks and the markets. There had been several men guarding the house, but between the telepathic abilities of both Farouk and Frost, they had no chance of seeing the group. Inside the house, it was threadbare and empty, obviously having been standing unoccupied for some time. In a chair in the sparse living room sat Calysee Neramani-Khan. The elegant woman looked all but broken, scared, and resigned to fate. She looked up as they entered, but made no movement towards a weapon.

"Are you being paid by my brother, the military, or someone else? I'd appreciate knowing who is going to kill me."

"Kill?" Farouk's voice slithered through the dark of the room like blood over broken glass. "Oh, no, my dear. " He smiled almost reverentially as he shouldered past Emma, ignoring the latter's cold look.

"How did you find me?"

"Your fingernail. One touch and we knew." The Arab, who looked as if he had aged decades in the last day, stalked toward the would-be queen with the smooth gliding grace of a starving predator. Calysee hadn't moved, her preternatural stillness unwavering even as his hand reached out to caress her hair with shocking gentleness, sliding down until Farouk was cupping her chin and twisting her face up with a brutal jerk.

Leo moved forward at that, concern flaring in his eyes, but Emma's deceptively slim hand restrained him. He swallowed and tried to remind himself that appearances were deceiving. It was difficult to do, even knowing the part this now broken-seeming woman had played in the deaths of thousands. He straightened and forced his expression to neutral, watching Amahl study Calysee.

Amahl's lips were still twisted in an expression that could charitably be called a smile as he looked down into Khan's eyes. "Death? What do you know of life to deserve to die, you vapid little ingenue, with your pathetic scrabblings for power? Death?" Farouk laughed hoarsely, the sound rising in pitch until he was roaring, spittle flying. "Had you but a glimmer of hope, a faint chance to one day understand what you have wrought, what you cost me you little viper, I might indeed allow you to die!"

Contemptuously flicking Calysee's head back, Amahl stepped back, suddenly calm. "No death. No. But you will tell my friends everything. EVERYTHING!" His harsh breathing echoed through the small room as his black, dead eyes captured Calysee with a strange, magnetic force. "Because if you don't, I will lock you forever in your own head. With horrors you can not possibly imagine..."

His lips stretched into a death-head grin as Calysee's eyes grew distant, blank and she began to gasp and then scream. It was the tinny, weak sound of a brutalized child.

"Farouk! FAROUK!"

Leo's voice brought him back, and Amahl shook off the hand on his shoulder. "Everything," he reminded the woman. "Everything."

Without looking at Frost or Samson he turned and stalked out of the room, ignoring the wetness on his cheeks.

Emma smiled coldly at Calysee and, taking a chair, sat down opposite the woman. "You'll have to excuse Farouk," she said. "You killed his friend. And he doesn't tend towards the subtle. Myself now," she settled back in her chair. "I like to think that there are worse things that could happen than being locked in with Farouk's daddy-issues made manifest. Perhaps having your brother stand before the world and confess to the crimes of his sister, a family gone mad with power. You wouldn't just lose your own game, Calysee. You'd lose every game. Every member of your family would be arrested and probably killed. Down to the lowliest second cousin." Her smile was dreadful.

"And then I would lock you inside your own head with monsters you can imagine. Here," said Emma and leaned forward, "try this one."

Calysee's face turned puzzled and then her mouth stretched backwards in a terrible rictus of fear. The sound that burst from her throat was a thin keening, high and piercing and terrified. It cut off abruptly as Emma took the thin psychic blade out of Calysee's mind.

"He's such fun, isn't he?" said Emma. "You killed a million people, Calysee, for the sake of power. And you lost." Emma shook her head. "If that many people are going to die for your ambitions, you might at least be smart enough to gain the power they died for. Unfortunately, it's become apparent that you aren't very smart at all. Well-connected, well-placed, perhaps, but awfully, awfully bad at what you were trying to do."

"Enough!" Calysee gasped around her pain. The images their powers caused were terrifying, but she'd known terror before. Her mindscape was scarred, not from trauma, but almost with intentional and meticulous force by others. Her mental shields were the equal to anything Charles could teach non-psions. And there was something else there; a psychic tripwire in her head. Neramani had known telepathic attack before, and while she hated the pain, the one thing she lacked fear.

"If you wish to kill me, do so! Enough with these games!" She choked out. If needed, taking her own life was simple enough.

"I nearly did it," shrieked Calysee, the terrible high cry of a wounded bird. "I was so close . . ." Her voice sank to a whisper. "He promised me that I could do it."

Her expression changed suddenly and her hand flicked up, two steel fingernails burying themselves into the chair, inches from Emma's shoulder. They had a discoloured oily look, likely from the same poison used to kill the intelligence officer they'd found assassinated in the town. It was stupid to have left a message, but a politician did not think like a professional assassin. This too was a message; articulating that even beaten, broken, and mentally scourged by their telepathic powers, she was not simply going to fragment in front of them.

"There's no need to threaten me," said Emma in a bored tone, as she
flicked back from diamond to flesh, noting the "he", knowing from Calysee's reaction that she was not talking about her late unlamented husband. Talking about someone alive, someone who had driven this plot. It called for an abrupt change in tactics. "I'm not here to rip you to
pieces. I'm here to make a deal with you. A story. And a name. For your freedom. And our silence." She leaned forward. "You were used, Calysee. And he's still using you. There's a thing inside your head and if we try and ream out his name, it'll collapse and take you with it, until there's nothing left you of a shell. You'll be a drooling little
lackwit with no dignity. You were a puppet, little girl. You killed a million people and you did it because someone else wanted you to. If you're going to be a supervillain, at least have the decency to do it on your own terms." Emma didn't bother to hide her absolute contempt for the woman in front of her.

Is this what it's like to be the good cop? Leo wondered irreverently to himself, watching Emma terrorize the now trembling woman. Every instinct and years of medical training was urging him to stop this, to administer aid and healing. But his logic was reminding him that there were nearly a million men, women and children in desperate need of healing as well--all because of politics and power.

He stepped forward. "Mrs. Neramani, who is this he? If the man who caused this is still out there, he will escape justice unless you help us. He doesn't deserve your protection or loyalty." Leo stepped closer to Emma, leaning down to meet Calysee's eyes, "He used you, Mrs. Neramani, and if you don't talk to us, he will have beaten you completely."

There was a flash of emotion on her face as she considered this, and Leo's stomach twisted as he realized what it was--happiness. Calysee was apparently incapable of regret or shame for the damage she had done, but she could still be motivated by revenge. Leo mentally shook his head, I'm going to need a shower after this. And forget hazard pay--Charles owes me an Arabian.

"If I tell you, you'll let me go?" Calysee asked, her eyes now calculatedly gazing back and forth between Leo and Emma.

Leo hesitated, and glanced at Emma, "We can help you if you help us," he finally qualified, not wanting to give any specifics.

"Protection. If you want to know, I will be protected." She hissed. She was ready to die if she had to, but she wanted to live. To live was to take revenge, on her brother who betrayed her, on those fools who bungled her plots, and most of all, one day on these people in front of her.

"Oh we'll protect you," said Emma. "Better than you can imagine. You'll never leave your house again. You'll never have power or influence again. You will never be allowed to contact members of your family or even begin to attempt to exert influence upon your brother. It will be announced by your brother that, after visiting Srinagar, you are so upset by the devastation that you have withdrawn from society and started a life of religious observance and penance. Your purported links to the terrorists will be denied by all." Emma leaned forward. "You will visit Srinagar. You will look at the corpses you made. You will see what you have done; up close and personal and really quite fetid by now. And, after that, you will never be seen in public again. But you won't be dead and you won't be on trial and executed or torn apart by a mob, and I shall not destroy your brother or your family by making him confess to your crimes, of which it appears he is entirely innocent. If you make any attempt to break any of these rules, I shall collapse the thing inside your head and you'll spend the rest of your days as a gibbering idiot child. But, if you agree to these terms and tell us the name, you'll have your revenge."

"It was just over a year ago. My husband had died, and with him, my access to power. I had some value with India, but the military wanted little to do with an Indian widow of a failed general. That's when he came. Or she. Or they. It was a voice on the phone and a name. It just asked me what I wanted most, and I told him. This miserable little state only needs to destroy the tribal identity to unify. Economics supported and enforced by military controls would be enough to make that happen, if we didn't need to worry about India. I could have dragged this place into the new century. He said it would be done." Calysee paused, wiped her suddenly dry lips with the back of her hand. "Three weeks later, a package was delivered. It was information connecting my husband to secret terrorist groups, some military developments outside of the normal channels... enough to break the Colonels once loyal to him to my leash. From them, I learned the full picture, including Deathbird."

She smiled thinly. "Deathbird. A young Shiva being made by my own dear husband. He considered it an emergency weapon. If war was imminent, sneak him into New Delhi, and decapitate the Indian government to buy time to stop an invasion. He never considered how useful 'terrorists' could be. It didn't take much, mercenaries acquired by my husband's former aide stole him, and his fanatics smuggled him into Srinager, a wretched Kashmiri blot. Once the explosion had happened, the Colonels had no choice but to support me. I knew that incident would be the key to toppling Singh's government and bringing my brother to power. Once he had that power, with Pakistan fragmenting and only one person with any viable international credibility and military support in the country, he'd settle for a peace and use the terrorists as the targets to placate his people."

"Consider it. The UN asked, no, begged to send help while the rest of the military learns who controls the most tanks and men. The perfect excuse for international assistance on 'anti-terror' attacks, breaking the backs of the tribes, and an, ha, elected Pakistani leader who leads the way on economic and social reform, opening up the country to every business deal and economic aid package a grateful West can send." She shook her head. "With the fundamentalists as an excuse, the military not tied to protecting the border, and India's careful support, this country would become real for the first time. And all mine. Now, ashes. How will I be protected?"

"A nice story," said Emma. "The name."

Calysee's eyes flared with something that has transformed it for a second into an echo of a proud aristocrats who had embarked on this mad gamble. "Kingmaker. He called himself the Kingmaker."