Lips Touch: Three Times(20)
Author: Laini Taylor

"My dear," he said now with exaggerated courtesy, "you look very tired. Won’t you sit?" He pulled a chair out for her at the tea table. "Will you take some refreshment?" His lip pulled into a snarl. Unable to contain himself, he added, "One last cup of tea before you burn, you old bitch?"

"No, thank you," she replied. "I’ve done playing at civility with you, demon."

"Yes. Done. So you are! What are you waiting for? Go on. You can catch up to your countrymen if you hurry. Do you know what I am going to do the moment you’re gone? ‘Pranjivan’ might mean ‘life,’ but that won’t protect him. Nothing will. I’m thinking up something slow for him, for all those years I had to knock on the tradesmen’s door like some common peddler. And then? I’ve been saving this up, Estella. I’m going to go on a pilgrimage and seek out every brat you ever hauled back up to the world and make them wish they’d stayed dead the first time. Oh, I won’t remember them all, but I’ll do my best."

Estella bade Pranjivan’s shadow set her down and it did, though it stayed at her side and held her up as she took feeble steps toward Vasudev. Her voice was a rasp as she cried, "Yama won’t tolerate that, Vasudev. Do you hear me?"

"But how long will it take him to notice, do you think? When will he chance to visit our little neighborhood of Hell? When did he last?" He was taunting her. Estella sometimes imagined she felt the presence of the Lord of Hell passing close in the great Fire, but she had not seen or heard him for sixty years, since she first came here fresh with widow’s grief and had this awful duty thrust upon her.

Now, her voice shaking, she whispered, "You can’t do this…."

But Vasudev only laughed. "Can’t I? Go on and die, Estella. Our little arrangement couldn’t last forever, and — my teeth! — it’s lasted long enough. You never had any business here. Hell is no place for the living!"

At that moment they both heard an unmistakable sound in the corridor. Vasudev’s eyes widened and Estella found the strength to stand straighter. It was footfall. In unison they turned to peer down the gleaming black tunnel. They both knew that souls drifted these byways as silently as butterflies. The dead made no sound of footfall.

Only the living did that.

Breathless, watching, they made out only a blur at first, and soon the shape of a girl, walking with a posture of rigid resolution such as one might bear when going to her doom. It was Anamique, her eyes still wide with shock. She held Pranjivan’s kite string loosely in her fingers. She had followed it like a lifeline through the dark, and as she rounded the curve now and faced the Fire, she had to close her eyes against its brilliance.

When she opened them and blinked, she saw figures silhouetted against the Fire and went toward them. It had been months since she had glimpsed the old bitch in town and she was shocked by the change in her. Many times she had thought of knocking on the door of her palace or accosting her in the street, of testing the curse on the one who had delivered it. She had dreamed of it, but she never dared it. And now the old bitch stood before her as thin as the shaft of a feather and nearly translucent with frailty, and Anamique held her tongue. She wanted more than revenge. She wanted James back, and all the others, her parents and sisters, her ayah, and the old Rajput warrior who had swallowed his dignity to guide her pony around the yard. But if she spoke her questions aloud, she would only kill again and there would be no one left to tell her what to do.

"Have you come for him, child?" Estella asked. Anamique nodded.

Vasudev chuffed. He had a sour, calculating look on his moon-round face. "So sorry," he said. "Nothing to be done about it. The Lord of Hell will remake him, just like all the others. You’re too late, you see." He pointed to the Fire.

Anamique stared at it. Its glow lit her gray eyes orange and a look of despair came over her lovely face.

"Poor thing," the demon said. "Best just turn yourself around and get on out while you can." He stepped forward and took Anamique’s elbow in an almost kindly fashion, acting quite the small gentleman as he began to guide her back the way she’d come.

Dazed, the girl looked over her shoulder at Estella, who suddenly called out, "Wait a moment, child."

Vasudev grimaced. "No time for nonsense, now. Come, come."

Estella laughed once, sharply. "What’s the matter, Vasudev? Afraid of something?"

Vasudev scowled. "Afraid? Bosh! Just concerned for the girl. This is no place for the living!"

"No, it isn’t, is it?" Estella gave him a penetrating look. "Anamique, come here," she said.

Anamique went to her. Vasudev gritted his teeth. His eyes darted anxiously between the Fire and this living girl whose grief reminded him so much of Estella’s grief, decades past.

Estella said, "I regret that you were drawn into this demon’s twisted world, dear girl. Your curse has been a lesion on my soul these eighteen years. You should know that because of it, twenty-two children survived an earthquake who would otherwise have died. Your curse saved all those lives. And these years of your silence, your strength has saved many more."

"She didn’t save anyone," argued Vasudev peevishly. "Choosing not to kill someone isn’t the same as saving them."

"A fine distinction, coming from you," the old woman replied.

Anamique looked confused. Estella reached for her hand and clutched it. Her voice seemed to weaken now with every word she spoke. "There’s no cheating death," she whispered. "We will all pass through the purifying Fire and be reborn in the bodies we have earned, man or cricket, jackal or eagle. Those decisions are Yama’s alone; my only influence has been when, and who deserved more time before the Fire. I have bought years for children, and there was no currency but trade. A dirty soul for a clean one, one to one, that’s the way it works. But the day of your christening, Vasudev offered up twenty-two children for free. Of course they weren’t really free.

Their price was the curse. It was a risk, and now it has proven a very bad bargain indeed."

"This is all a fine education for the young lady, I’m sure," Vasudev interrupted. "But it’s time she was getting out of here. Missy? Estella needs some peace so she can finally die?

"Not quite yet," Estella said, producing a flask from within the folds of her shawl and holding it out to Anamique. "Child, quickly, drink this," she said.

Vasudev gasped. "No! You can’t!" he sputtered.

Anamique looked back and forth between them, uncertain. Then Estella whispered, "It’s not too late to save him," and Anamique took the flask and drank. It tasted of spice and herbs and burned going down and she felt it spreading through her in a way that made her aware of her moving blood and all its pathways.