Down By the River
The city of Bhai Mandwa defied any effort to love it. The weather was hot. The infrastructure was crumbling. The inept police trying to control the streets answered to corrupt politicians controlling them. If a malicious spirit didn’t kill you, a runaway bus probably would instead. Prem had lived there for all of her life but she still harbored some affection for it, tucked out of sight in her back pocket, next to one of her knives.
The Genja River was the city’s foremost feature, its one constant: a stretch of gray-green water that cut through it like a scar. Prem could smell the river as she stood up: a mix of fresh green vegetation, oil, chemical runoff, human waste, and rot—nothing else in the world smelled quite like the Genja. The river flooded at least twice a year, spilling out beyond its edges and filling up several city blocks with sewer water, sludge, and other things better left unmentioned. Most of the city’s people lived their entire lives without ever straying far from the Genja’s banks.
Prem checked the laces of her corset and unbuttoned her shirt cuffs, rolling up her sleeves as she walked down the flooded alley towards her destination. A new scent was in the air, and she finished with her sleeves just as she turned the corner and reached its source. “You put out more fumes than a smokestack, Preet.” Prem liked the smell of her sister’s smoke, but she didn’t say so out loud.
Preet, a tall, stocky woman with short hair, was leaning against the wall nearby, smoking a cigar. The sound of Prem’s voice caught Preet in the middle of inhaling a chest-full of more smoke; her eyes widened in surprise. She exhaled in a thick burst of breath, interspersed with hard coughing, like a boiler engine firing. “Mor—! Morda’s balls, Prem, you… I didn’t— didn’t think you’d be here for—” Preet pinched her cigar tight between her teeth, gave another hard cough and slapped the front of her chest “—for another ten minutes, at least.”
Prem shrugged, scratched one forearm. “I like to make an entrance.”
“You and your magic tricks.” Preet cast a look back up the empty alley that Prem had emerged from. She coughed again, grunted and slapped her chest one more time, as though angry at the interruption.
Prem didn’t know what to say to that, so she tried to lighten the mood: “Maybe you’re just not cut out for cigars.” It sounded awkward, a poor attempt at levity.
“Maybe.” Preet pulled the stub of wrapped tobacco out from between her teeth, flicked a bit of ash away, took another deep pull of smoke. She had a darker shade of brown skin than Prem’s, but they both had straight hair and matching noses, a common trait in their family.
Preet wore a penultimate Royal soldier’s uniform: a starched and pressed bright red coat, stretching nearly to her knees, with polished gold buttons and a matching starburst on her chest. She also wore a holstered firearm at her side, but forsook the ceremonial sword that was her mark of office as head of the Royal Guard. “When someone gets around to inventing a transportable hookah, let me know.” Preet showed her teeth in a mockery of a smile. “Until then, these’ll do.”
They fell silent for a moment. Prem looked towards the open street. “Is anyone else with you?”
Preet shook her head. “Pranay’s helping Priya with her New Year’s speech—it’s just you and me. Besides, I don’t want them to see this. What I do want is someone with your expertise.”
Prem went cold all over. Reluctant, voice dropping, she cocked her head to one side. “You want me to kill someone?”
Of Prem’s three sisters, only Preet could’ve found that amusing. She snorted, shook her head and flicked more ash off the end of her cigar. “Not this time. Follow me.”
A stone’s throw beyond the cramped buildings and swamped alleyway lay the banks of the Genja, which now flooded the boulevard they entered. People were goose-stepping through the tainted sludge, splashing and making such a racket. Preet’s red raiment stood out amongst more than a dozen men in dark blue coats and black leather boots. The men had cordoned off the area, pushing curious onlookers back.
“The Parliamentary Police are here,” Prem said. “What happened to it being ‘you and me’?”
Preet scoffed, waving a hand. “They’re the police. They don’t really count.”
“Well, that’s just lovely.” Prem twisted her nose, felt a sucking sensation in the well of her stomach.
“Relax, they’re not here for you. This way. I already got clearance.” Preet blew out another mouthful of pungent, gray smoke as they walked together toward the crowd of bluecoats.
The Waterback District was a poor man’s property squatting in the shadow of some of the richest real estate in the city, where gilded towers of steel, copper and iron sheathed in glass vied for space with immense factories. Tall chimneys billowed out an ever-present cloud of steam and smoke that hung over the streets both night and day. Industry and technology had transformed the city of Bhai Mandwa in a single generation, which brought a cresting wave of poor migrants into the city looking for work. One would be hard-pressed to find any positive transformation in the Waterback, with its squat tenement buildings, shuttered windows, and ramshackle huts, and there were a hundred such neighborhoods just like it all over the capital.
The hustle and bustle of activity amassed in the shadow of a single-story, rectangular gray building. It had rows of even-spaced pale blue doors, laid end-to-end, like cells in a prison block. One of them stood open to a dark, unwelcome-looking room. None of the men in blue appeared to want to go near it, but Prem couldn’t blame them for that—something malicious or foul hung about that open portal like a cloud of flies.
As the two women approached, a pair of policemen stepped forward to block their path. “Sorry, sorry,” said one, “you can’t come through here.” He reached out for Prem’s shoulder; his pristine gloves looked white and freshly pressed.
Preet intercepted the grabbing hand. “I’m Preet Marantha, Seneschal of the Guard.” Already an imposing figure, she was half a head taller than either of the men, and talking with bared teeth around her cigar gave her a sneer. “This is my sister Prem; she’s with me. I already arranged our visit with your superior.”
The officer paused, albeit with some reluctance. “I know who you are, Seneschal. I was told about your arrival, that’s already been cleared. But I wasn’t told about this other one, so I can’t let her pass. This—”
Prem didn’t speak up in protest, but she saw a frightened look come over the second policeman’s face. “Hold it.” He grabbed his companion’s shoulder, pulling him away from the women. The man wouldn’t look Prem in the eye, but forced a tight, controlled smile. “You ladies carry on, please. I’ll make sure Superintendent Neru knows you’ve arrived. Excuse us.” The policeman grabbed his partner by the scruff of his coat and led him away, each arguing with the other in quiet, tense voices.
Prem looked at her sister, lips pursed, not knowing what to say, not wanting to say anything. Preet gave a harsh bark of a laugh. “That’s more like it,” she said. “Give me an army of policemen over a newspaper maggot any day.”
“You didn’t have to tell them who I was.” Prem looked up and down the street, scanning the crowd, rooftops, dark places for any familiar faces—not that she wanted to find any. “Your ‘maggots’ aren’t that far away.” She nodded towards a couple of men standing behind a cordoning rope strung at the far end of the block: both wore white armbands bearing the word PRESS in thick, black ink. One had a cigarette stub in his lip and scribbled notes on a pad of paper while the other aimed the small, black eye of his photobox across the chaotic expanse of the flooded street.
Preet grunted. “It’s been six weeks since you came back from the dead, Prem; eventually, everyone is going to know who you are. You can’t hide in the palace forever. Come on.”
Prem didn’t say a word. She stared at the photographer for longer than she should have, not knowing what she could say to fill the hollow in the pit of her stomach. Then she followed her sister across the street, towards whatever awaited them inside that dark cell.
The paint on the open door was peeling off; the wood had warped from regular flooding. Prem took note of a burnt-out gas lamp hung askew over the doorway, one of the iron screws rusted away long ago. A concrete slab raised above street level served as the floor, which still left several inches of standing water in a small, square-shaped room. A single window cut out of the rear wall provided the only source of illumination in that dark space—through it, Prem could see the lights of the Gilded Quarter shining through the midday gloom across a set of railroad tracks, where the tall towers of wealthy residences rose high above the cloudy heads of the factories.
Prem heard the far-off sound of a steam engine’s whistle and its ringing bell. She knew all about rooms like that one, having lived in some herself, scared and lonely amidst the squalor, withstanding the smell of refuse piles and overflowing sewers, dreading the constant buzzing of poka flies. Prem’s fear had faded away long ago, but she still remembered the decay; she could taste it, sense it welling up like bile at the back of her throat.
“The only thing missing are bars on the window,” Prem said, feeling sad and sick.
“You never struck me as the kind to joke, Prem.”
“I wasn’t.”
A near-indiscernible sound filled the room. It was so faint at first that Prem almost missed it, drowned out by the noise of the people outside—a slithering, hissing, crawling sensation that crept into Prem’s ears and wore away at the inside of her skull. Preet blew out more smoke, which helped to cover up the smell of death in the air, something foul and familiar at the same moment that made Prem’s heart slow and almost stop. The source of the sound came from a humanoid shape lying on the floor under a thin, white sheet, soaked with equal parts river water and blood.
Preet lifted the edge of the covering and grimaced. “Poor thing,” she said, biting down hard on her cigar. “I wonder how long she’s been like this.”
Prem crouched down on the balls of her feet next to her sister. Underneath the sheet lay a small figure on her back, head turned away from the door, the body still as though asleep and uncaring of the racket outside her room. She wore a tattered, sky-blue dress soaked in blood, turned almost as dark as her tangled black hair. An ugly wound split the body nearly in two, opening her up from navel to throat; her small limbs and torso had turned a dark, brownish-gray, while inside the open cavity lived a mass of wriggling, writhing things.
“Gods, that’s foul,” Preet said. She flared her nostrils and made small, furious puffs of smoke as if to further mask the smell.
Prem didn’t show any outward reaction, but she was cold all over, intense and focused, like a hound already on the hunt. Death did that to her. “This is why you wanted me here?”
“Mm. For starters.” Preet’s affirmation was followed by another grunt as she flexed her jaw. “Call it professional curiosity. Who should know murder better than you, supposedly?”
A moment passed before Prem replied. She was distracted, which made her want to brush away the interruption away like the flies. “I stop caring about bodies once they quit moving, Preet.”
“Yes, yes, so you’ve said. Humor me.”
Prem eyed the gruesome handiwork. The killing blow looked crude and excessive on one so small, but Prem’s expertise came from adults. Assassins couldn’t always afford to be picky, but she’d never been desperate enough to take a job from anyone callous enough to pay for a child’s murder. “Given the maggots, the decomposition, and the fact that the river flooded a couple of days ago, she’s been here for awhile—three, four days, maybe more.” Given the girl’s size, Prem guessed her age at about nine or ten years old. Most of the soft flesh of her face was already eaten away, and her body was swollen and distended from exposure to the flood waters. She stared for so long that Preet gave her a hard nudge.
“What’s the matter with you?” Preet said, sounding equally upset and concerned, somehow.
Prem reached out with one hand, almost touching a small, smooth patch of uneaten flesh on the girl’s cheek, but stopped just short. “She’s all alone.” The younger sister could sense the elder’s long stare.
“We don’t know that she was alone when she died, Prem.”
“Well, she’s alone now, isn’t she?” Prem pushed to her feet. Frigid cold seemed to radiate out of her every pore. Unwanted thoughts, emotions, memories came back to her like the roar of an approaching locomotive outside—all of them were screaming in her mind as they swelled and grew in strength, impossible to ignore. “If she’d been my child, she wouldn’t be here right now.”
The Seneschal laid the sheet back down—she did so gently, as if just letting it drop might disturb the little one slumbering beneath it. “Unpleasant business.” She finished speaking and stood just as the passing train blew its whistle, and the loud cha-cha-cha-cha of the engine rolled past so close that the water turned opaque as the ground vibrated under their feet and a sharp gust of wind blew through the cell. The metal wheels clicked on the tracks, a repetitive staccato sound that lasted for half a minute before the line of cars finally passed and the sound began to fade.
“But she’s not the only reason we’re here.” It wasn’t a question when Prem said it.
“No, she isn’t.” Preet expelled another puff of thick smoke while looking around the room. From the ceiling to the floor, someone had plastered the bare walls with newsprint. Prem saw full page broadsheets, half-page spreads with grainy pictures, all the way down to articles with print so small she had to squint to read them. Smeared across the wall above the girl’s body was a message written in blood and swarming with more flies: DEATH TO THE ROYAL BITCH.
Preet pointed at the message. “That is why I didn’t want the others here.”
“You still asked me to come,” Prem said.
The elder sister showed off her mockery of a grin again, cigar pinched tight between her teeth. “Well, who better to consider an assassination threat than you, Prem?”
Prem thought about that and nodded, seeing a certain logic, however twisted, in her older sister’s words. She stepped to the wall nearest the door, where the light was brightest. “’Monarch’s 40 Year Reign Comes to Sad End,’” she read, swatting more poka flies away. “’Fourth Child Born to Royal Family.’ ‘Eldest Royal Daughter Does Unthinkable, Abdicates Throne.’ ‘Can Youngest Royal Carry on Her Father’s Legacy?’” One story featured a formal portrait taken of the royal family when Priya, the youngest, celebrated her first birthday. Their mother Asha sat in the middle; Oam, their father, towered over her, his long hands resting on his beloved wife’s shoulders. Eldest Pranay stood on one side, while both Preet and Prem stood on the other. Only Priya smiled from her perch on their mother’s lap, happy amidst the drawn, sober faces, too little to know better. It made her stand out, a solitary beam of sunshine amongst dark, unfriendly clouds.
There was twelve years difference between the eldest sister Pranay and Priya the youngest, and nearly half of that between Pranay and Preet. Prem wasn’t even a year old when Priya was born, and in their early years the two girls lived nigh-inseparable lives before Prem vanished as a child, stolen from the rest of her family for an entire decade, her childhood taken away like it never even existed. Instead of a pampered life in her father’s palace, Prem grew up in the seedy, criminal underbelly of the capital, as far from the Ooncha Mahal, the Highest Palace, as a child could be.
Prem had returned from her childhood exile, but some days she felt like a stranger to the rest of her family. Some of her happier memories were still as clear as watching the sun rise that morning. Others existed only as flickering shadows passing across the surface of her mind, like a fleeting glimpse of something wonderful before it vanished. All four sisters were grown now, and the country’s government and its future now sat squarely on Priya’s untested shoulders.
“Oh look, here’s one about you,” Preet said. “’Tragic Accident in Royal Palace! One Royal Daughter Ill, Another Missing, Feared Dead—Raj and Rani Heartbroken Over Loss.’”
Preet’s casual tone stung deep in Prem’s belly, twisting, biting, ready to spill all of her anger and resentment out onto the cold, concrete floor. She wanted to glare at her sister, but bit the inside of her cheek instead. “Yes, I remember,” Prem said. “I was there when it happened.” Taking a slow, calming breath, Prem pushed the bitterness into the deepest, darkest part of herself—a place she was all too familiar with, but didn’t talk about with anyone. “Where do you think this all came from?” she said, slowly turning in place, taking the whole room in, all in one long, harrowing moment.
Preet snorted, blowing out more smoke. “Looks like they came from all over the city,” she said. “The Caller, the Bhai Mandwa News, the Times, the Daily Gazette, the Jairan Express—there’s probably more than a dozen different papers here.”
A woman’s scream from outside cut short their conversation. The entire world froze in that second; both sisters looked at each other, each unable to turn away until time began moving again as the shriek turned into loud, bitter sobs.
“I’m guessing that’ll be the mother,” Preet said. She let out a long, heavy sigh. “Shit.”
Prem nodded, agreeing, not knowing what else to say.
Preet tossed the nub of her cigar into a corner where it sputtered and went out. “I’ll go listen in, find out what she tells the police.”
Prem still didn’t say anything, or even watch her sister leave. She tried to block out the crying screams while stepping around the edges of the empty room, mindful to not disturb the dead body still lying in the center of it. For a split second, she caught a glimpse of the dead girl’s burgundy hair under the edge of the sheet. Prem froze, blinked, then looked again—now it was black again, the same as she noticed earlier.
Death and Prem were familiar acquaintances, though perhaps not friends—as a girl growing up on her own, she was required to do a great many things for the sake of her own survival; murder might’ve been the worst of Prem’s crimes, but it was hardly the only one. In spite of that, the little girl’s body reminded Prem of another young girl, someone precious to her once, but now long-since lost.
Focusing on the newsprint helped to distract Prem from the memories, and she bent in closer to read. Some of the papers had cracked and started peeling off the walls; many had pictures or woodcut etchings, some in color. Anytime a picture showed one or more of the royal children, it was circled in red ink; Prem recognized herself in a lot of them. She saw other headlines circled as well, mentions of a bloody turf war between the Idrayani and Hogenkal gangs, two of the largest criminal organizations in the city. Those names brought back other memories that Prem preferred to keep buried: of life on the streets, compelled to kill for sport or even worse. She remembered the girl with the burgundy hair, remembered hiding with her, both of them crying in the dark, craving comfort and safety and finding neither.
Prem stifled such thoughts, forcing them down, deep down—past the dark places in her mind, into the numbed center of her being, where they would linger until she forgot about them again for a little while.
Jagged lines drawn across the walls made a web work of bright crimson, connecting one circle to another, creating a pattern that Prem couldn’t identify. That left both the murdered girl and the threat itself, a bloody crescendo to the entire act. In all, it was an impressive body of work, proof of an obsession that showed someone had something nefarious planned for Prem’s little sister, if not for all four of them. But something else bothered her, something that took a long time to coalesce in her mind: the suspicion that some part of it seemed a little too obvious. Prem just didn’t know why it felt that way, yet.
There was someone coughing at the door; Prem turned and saw the same pair of policemen from earlier standing just outside. The one who stopped Prem from being accosted looked contrite, but he still wouldn’t look her in the eyes. He also had a small, greasy black circle freshly smeared in the center of his forehead: a tikkal, a symbol to ward off evil. Prem thought about laughing, but contented herself with a smirk instead.
“We’re here to remove the body, Miss,” the other policeman said, hefting a wooden gurney in his hands.
For a moment, Prem stared at the both of them. The thought of the men manhandling that girl’s body seemed a final insult to the poor child’s memory. She stepped around the corpse and into the doorway, right in front of the skittish man. He kept his gaze averted, even when she leaned in right next to him, so close she knew he could feel the heat of her body against his. “You’ve never seen someone possessed by a spirit up close before, have you?” Prem’s breath was hot across his cheek; she wondered how bright her eyes were shining in the pale light.
The policeman still wouldn’t look at her. Prem watched him shiver. “Only lunatics and savages willingly consort with demons,” he said, finally daring to meet her eyes.
“Care to find out which one I might be?” Prem let him wither under her stare before looking to his companion. “Treat her gently,” she said, then pushed past them, stepping out to the flooded street again. She was still cold all over, right down to the tips of her hair. Something troubled Prem, and she was irritated at herself for being troubled—dead bodies weren’t supposed to bother her that way.
A portly woman wrapped in a plain gray dress and black shawl stood on the other side of the street surrounded by policemen, and it seemed that she could only answer their questions through small, shallow breaths and blubbering whimpers. When the small body came out on the gurney, covered by the blood-stained sheet, the woman started shrieking and bawling again, wiping her face over and over—it looked to Prem like she wanted to run over and pick up the dead child, as though cradling the corpse might somehow bring it back to life.
The policemen carried the body into a nearby boilerbus with tall steel sides, painted blue with a golden serpent, the so-called “Noble Dragon,” emblem of the Parliamentary Police. After they boarded, the door shut behind them, the engine sputtered to life, expelled a thick cloud out of its pipes, and the bus rolled up the flooded street.
Preet stood nearby, biting the tip off another cigar. “Told you it was unpleasant business,” she said from between clenched teeth.
“It generally is. Did the mother manage to say anything?”
“Look at her.” Preet spat out the nub of paper and nodded at the tearful woman, who kept sobbing into her shawl. “How much do you expect her to say?”
Prem shrugged. “I don’t.”
Preet stared at her sister for a long moment before she flicked a match and lit the wrapped tobacco in her mouth, then she nodded her head through a fresh cloud of smoke to someone standing next to her. “Prem, meet Police Deputy Superintendent Mariander Neru. He’s the one who called me.”
Mariander was a tall man with coifed hair, a chocolate complexion and bright eyes. He looked young, younger than most of the policemen serving under him, and was, Prem had to admit, somewhat handsome. Mariander pressed both hands together and bowed his head. “Namak,” he said in the traditional Jairan greeting. He wore the mark of his office, a brass trident, pinned to his breast.
Prem did the same. “And to you,” she said.
Mariander looked at Prem, his eyes gone wide. “Are you the Mari Prem, returned after such a long absence?”
Prem gave the man a flat, unfriendly look, but that didn’t appear to fluster him.
“I’m honored to meet you—both of you,” he said, sounding excited. “I’ve read stories of your family in the papers for years.”
“We get that a lot,” Preet said with a smirk, waving one hand in a dismissive fashion. “Price of celebrity and all that.”
“Why did you call the Seneschal?” Prem said, trying to stay civil. So long as they didn’t talk about her, she could manage that much. “The Police don’t answer to the Palace Guard.”
“I know they don’t,” he said. “But when my men told me about what they found and I saw the proof for myself, I felt it was my duty to inform the Palace right away.” Mariander looked around and leaned in close, speaking in a low voice. “If news of this gets out, it could cause civil unrest. The Rani’s life is in danger—all your lives could be in danger. I couldn’t, in good conscience, take that chance and keep the information to myself, could I?” The way he said it seemed so sincere, and Prem kept waiting for him to break into a smile or to wink at some camera she couldn’t see. But he never did—Mariander actually seemed to believe what he said.
“You might live to regret that,” Preet said, rolling her cigar in her fingertips. “Parliament’s been trying to keep us Royals in the dark since the civil war, when our great-grandfather was in power.”
“Anyone that obsessed with the Royal Family can’t be up to anything good,” Mariander said, squaring his shoulders. “I would do it again, too.”
Prem turned to her sister. “Someone is baiting us.”
They both stared at her, but only Mariander seemed surprised. “But who would do such a thing?”
“The who could be anybody. The why is more important.”
Preet pursed her lips around the cigar in her mouth. “Okay, why would somebody bait us? What’s the point? What would that accomplish?”
“Who owned that particular cell?” Prem said, motioning to the open door. “Who was using it most recently? The child’s mother?”
Mariander shook his head. “She lived in another tenement building several blocks over. I was told the girl was missing for a few days, before… well, before being found today.” He lowered his voice and cast a look at the mournful mother, still crying into her shawl while being led away, following the path of the steam bus. “Poor woman.”
Prem ignored him, counted off on her fingers: “So, a girl who didn’t live here is killed, and the Police just happen to find her body, along with a bunch of evidence that shows someone has an unhealthy interest in our family. None of that makes any sense.” The way Preet looked at her, curious but more amused than anything else, made Prem want to shake the woman. “Who found the body?”
Mariander pulled out a small notepad from a breast pocket, flipped to a paper covered in scribblings and notes. Prem watched him scan it with his fingertip, licking his lips as he did so. “Looks like… Hm, there’s no name. Must’ve been an anonymous tip.”
“Could be a coincidence,” Preet said, shrugging, not seeming to care.
“Another coincidence? I’ve only got so many fingers left to count with, Preet.”
“Well…” Preet looked a little uncertain, spreading both hands in a helpless motion. “What do you want us to do about it?”
“Who did the room belong to?” Prem said, looking back to the Deputy. “Do you have that in your notes?”
“An older gentleman named Amar was using it,” Mariander said, folding the pad up and tucking it back into his pocket. “He didn’t speak to the locals much. It’ll take more time before we can find out more.”
Preet snorted. “Probably a fake name,” she said.
“Of course it’s a fake name,” Prem said. “We don’t need to know what Amar’s real name is. I already know what he was doing here.”
“You do?” Mariander said. He and Preet looked at each other in surprise, then back to Prem.
“What?” Preet said.
Prem didn’t answer, but motioned for them to follow her before walking back toward the door of the little room. Another train rolled by; it blew a blast and its whistle split the air with an unwelcome screech as it passed. She could sense the others as they stepped up behind her.
“What is it?” Preet said.
“Look up,” Prem said. “There—scratched into the cement, hidden under the broken lamp. I noticed it on our way in.”
Preet and Mariander were of a similar height, both a head taller than Prem, so when Mariander slid the sagging lamp back into its proper position, they both spotted the revealed image right away. “A seven-pointed star,” he said. “The Mark of Kush.”
Prem nodded. “Amar had contact with the spirit world, which meant he was either a magician, or—”
“Or an assassin,” Preet said. “Good eye, Prem, I completely missed it.”
Prem ticked off a fifth item in her mind, just one more “coincidence” for the collection. All of them were possibly connected in some mysterious fashion, but none of them added up to anything good. “Assassins always use fake names, same as anyone else wanting to protect their identity. They also use tricks like that to hide in plain sight, so only the right people know what to look for.”
“What if it’s a fake mark?” Mariander asked.
“Magic users advertise their services with that mark, which warns others to stay away—it’s a message, tells them to keep out from each other’s territory. Assassins do the same thing, they’re just less obvious about it. Those who know what the mark means also know what happens to anyone using it under false pretenses: if word gets around that you’re a fake, the spirits themselves can punish you, since they’ll know that you’re lying, too.”
“But how do you know Amar is an assassin? How did you know to look for the mark?” Mariander asked. They locked eyes for a moment, but when Prem didn’t answer, he coughed and nodded, apparently smart enough not to force the subject further. “Right. Well then, it could explain the obsession with your family, at least.” Mariander turned around, taking one last glance inside. The sisters followed suit. “I can’t say that it gives me much comfort, though—the idea of a Royal-obsessed killer offers all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.”
“You let the Guard worry about that,” Preet said. “It was good of you to contact me on the matter. I’ll send down some of my number to collect the evidence.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Preet frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll take care of collecting it all and send what I can on to the palace. I’ll also see that my men comb the District and look for anymore news of this ‘Amar’ and what he was doing here. Is that acceptable?”
The two sisters looked at one another. Preet shrugged. “I can’t believe you’d offer it, but yes, I’d say that’s quite acceptable.”
“I’ll see to it, then. Maris both, please give my regards to your sisters, if you would.” Mariander gave a slight bow at his waist in a show of farewell before wading down the street in the direction of his men.
Preet and Prem headed in the opposite direction. “Who would’ve thought someone in the Police could be half as decent as that?” Preet said as she flicked ash off of her cigar.
Prem looked back over her shoulder. “Do you actually think you can trust him? He seemed so…nice. So respectful.” Nobody was that nice; people like Mariander Neru didn’t exist. She was tense, waiting for the sound of the shouting reporters, or for the police to come chasing after them. Her palms were itching for the want of a knife hilt, just to feel a little safer. But nothing happened, and no one followed them.
“Trust him? Of course I don’t trust him.” Preet took a long, deep breath of fresh air. “I don’t trust any of them. The Police don’t help people like us, Prem—it’s a reality of life, like reporters being soul-sucking leeches, or how the Prime Minister’s never met a mirror she couldn’t crack by looking at it for long enough. You’ll learn that again before long, trust me. But if someone like Mariander Neru insists on helping us out, who are we to stand in his way?” Preet stuck her cigar back in her mouth and grunted. “You didn’t have to be so callous about that poor woman, Little Sister. She lost her child today. You should know more about lost children than most people.”
The hairs stuck out on the back of Prem’s neck. She wanted to punch Preet for saying such a thing, and more than that. “If parents watched their children more carefully, fewer children would end up paying the price for their carelessness,” she said, teeth clenched tight together.
“Voice of experience?”
Prem thought her sister’s voice too harsh, and it cut too deep for her liking. The younger sister didn’t answer, at first; Preet’s words stung, and Prem had to bite the inside of her cheek to not show it. “The girl just…reminded me of someone. It’s not important.”
“Not important?” Preet stared up at the sky, smoke blasting from both nostrils—a different sort of noble dragon, Prem thought her. “Seems plenty important to you, for some reason.”
“There’s no reason for you to care about it, Preet.” Prem felt the bite marks inside of her cheek throbbing against the tip of her tongue. She probed at them like an open wound, using the ache to soothe herself. “It was a long time ago.”
A visible tightness seized Preet’s body, a tension stretching from her shoulders and down her back that held tight for a moment, like she might explode in a gust of smoke and spitfire. “Damn it, Prem, why are you always like this? Ever since you showed up out of nowhere… I mean, ten years!” Prem watched as the restrained energy suddenly rolled out of her sister with a sigh. Preet smiled, but it was tight, frayed at the edges. “That’s a long time to be dead, you know?”
“I wasn’t dead, Preet.” Prem kept her voice as flat and cold as the concrete slab in Amar’s cell.
“You know what I mean.” Preet puffed hard on her cigar again, face twisted into a harsh mask, eyes staring at the road at her feet. “Father’s gone, Mother’s gone, you’re back home… Shit, I don’t even know what makes sense anymore.”
The two women continued their walk in silence for a time, which suited Prem just fine—either that or they’d start shouting, maybe come to blows. It wouldn’t be the first time. Birds chirped loudly in the trees along the flooded riverbank, struggling to make their songs heard above the din of traffic up ahead.
“You already know who this Amar is, don’t you, Prem?”
Prem nodded. “I think so.”
“And you were expecting something like this would happen, weren’t you?”
“Since Priya took the throne, yes.”
Preet snorted. “That was just a few weeks ago.”
Prem gave her first smile of the day, however forced it might’ve looked. “I like to be prepared.”
Preet laughed again, mocking and amused at the same time. “Our baby sister brings you back into the family after being gone all this time and you’re already eager to take a bullet for her.”
Prem only nodded. She didn’t really understand it herself, and thought best to stay quiet on the matter.
Preet sighed, and her smile faded. “Do you really think this is some kind of trick?”
“I don’t know yet.” Prem shook her head. “But I don’t see it being anything else. Children don’t butcher themselves on a whim. Someone wanted the Police to find her, and even if you weren’t called today, we would have learned about the plot eventually.”
“But what’s the point? Now we know he’s coming. Did you ever warn your targets before you stabbed them in the back in a dark alley somewhere?”
“That’s why I said it was bait, Preet. We know someone’s baiting us—I want to know what he wants and why he’s doing it. Killers that get caught don’t stay killers for very long, but Amar wants us to sit up and pay attention, and we can’t just ignore him now, can we?”
“Well, I’m going to let him live just long enough to regret tipping us off to his plan, just you watch.” Preet ground one fist into the other hand, an evil glint in her eyes. “And I don’t care about the why. Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe the girl found his secret hiding place and he didn’t have time to stash the body. Maybe he just has a death wish. Who can understand why men do the things they do sometimes?”
They reached the end of the street where it intersected with the Golden Way, a wide boulevard that led up from the river and into the Gilded Quarter. The Ooncha Mahal stood in the distance, its tall towers and high walls offering sanctuary from the wild, untamed abandon of the industrial city growing in its long shadow.
Traffic was a mix of the old world and the new one together. It was less than a century since the creation of the foreigner Satish Iwata’s “glorious atmospheric steam engine.” Iwata was born in Keizuki, a country far to the east, beyond Jaira’s borders, but the power of his steam engine had spread to every corner of the known world.
Jaira was in the midst of an industrial revolution as the new and old worlds came together to create monumental change, and Bhai Mandwa stood at the epicenter of that change. In the shadow of the great factories and towering buildings, man-powered hand-carts and rickshaws shared the road with boiler-cars and busses with heaving engines and bright windows, some large enough to carry more than a dozen people at a time. Four lanes of chaotic, interconnecting traffic roared and rattled with the constant promise of disaster, yet somehow it all worked in spite of the risk of accidents and the potential for injury—for drivers, passengers, or both.
“Taxi!” Preet yelled, waving a hand over her head. A three-wheeled rickshaw rolled up next to them before stopping as its engine made loud popping, bubbling and whining sounds like an angry tea kettle. Its driver rode behind the passenger seat on a raised platform.
“Passage for two?” he asked after doffing his cap.
Prem shook her head. “You go on ahead,” she said.
Preet paused for a second, then nodded. “For one,” she corrected the man, stepping onto the floor of the vehicle and taking a seat. “Get me to the Palace. See you there, Prem.” The engine gave more loud pops before the car darted into traffic, driving up the street and out of sight.
For a while Prem watched other vehicles pass by, but such a mindless distraction only wasted time. She had other places to be, and even though she could’ve gone with her sister, Prem often got sick to her stomach while riding in a vehicle—a silly excuse, maybe, but still the truth, ever since her childhood. Prem had other ways to get to where she wanted to go—it was how she left the palace to meet her sister, and now she’d get back the same way.
Following the wide street down to a bridge that crossed the Genja, Prem watched as the reflections of the passing cars and wagons shimmered in the water, cutting across it like mirages before they vanished at the river’s edge. Downstream, tall smokestacks of shipping barges and tugboats billowed trails of white vapor; long airships floated overhead in a sky streaked with silvers wisps of cloud, propellers spinning, ferrying cargo and passengers in and out of the city.
The Genja was the main artery feeding Bhai Mandwa, leading south to Konya Bay and the ocean beyond. Prem was bound to the river—its waters coursed through her like blood in her body, keeping her heart beating. She loathed the river, and yet she loved it.
Prem stared out at the deep water for a few moments, her mind wandering. The questions in her mind all went unanswered, but still wanted those answers all the same. She thought of the girl with the burgundy hair again, recalling some sweet memories, but most of them were bitter and painfully mingled with the agony of losing her so long ago. Prem also thought of Amar, a man she hadn’t heard about for years, just one of the hundreds of lost souls she’d encountered in her other lifetime. He was a vindictive, cruel beast of a man, a careful and calculating killer, and now it appeared that he had his eyes set on Priya. What Prem had to find out was why.
Stepping into the water, Prem let it fill her boots, soak through her trousers and slip under her corset; the warm water slithered over her skin as she slipped beneath the surface and let the river swallow her whole. She closed her eyes as the Genja filled her ears, slid into her nose. She breathed it into her open mouth, soaked in its unnatural essence, becoming part of it. Then, she was gone.