Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (38 page)

¹
And in case you’re wondering, there was no way we could have retrieved the surviving ex-demons and brought them with us to the surface. The room was clogged with antidote gas, remember? The only one among us who could have gone in there with impunity was Aanandi, and the task of dragging each dead-weight body out in turn by herself would have taken several minutes – time we didn’t have to spare. It wasn’t particularly noble of us to leave them behind, but there was no alternative. Besides, if the rakshasa which Korolev had restored to human form was anything to go by, none of them had much in the way of sanity left or much of a life to look forward to. So, all things considered, a quick painless death was perhaps the kindest thing for them. I think. I choose to think.

43. RED HOT MONKEY GOD SEX

W
E DIDN’T GET
much sleep that night. Who did? Like everyone else, we stayed glued to the television. McDunn’s Tavern was far from the worst place in the world to watch apocalyptic events unfolding. At least there was alcohol, and McDunn was prepared to keep serving it long after the licensing laws said he shouldn’t.

“Let the cops try and bust me,” he said. “All the good it’ll do them. This could be the end of civilisation.
Mad Max
time. What do I care about losing my licence? If ever there was a time for everyone to get completely bloody shitfaced blotto, it’s now.”

Take note, however. He didn’t start doling the drinks out for free.

Gradually the evidence of a nuclear strike mounted up, until it was irrefutable.

A US Geological Survey field unit in Kabul had recorded a seismic event 400-odd miles away, its epicentre in the Kashmir Valley. It had registered 4.0 on the moment magnitude scale, a level consonant with a one-kiloton above-ground nuclear explosion.

Then some very shaky phone footage came in from a Swiss mountaineer halfway up Mount Kolahoi in the Himalayas. It showed what appeared to be a mushroom cloud on the horizon, although the distance made it hard to tell for sure. It could just have been a lone, oddly shaped cumulonimbus.

Rumours began to circulate about a power blackout in the area surrounding Srinagar, which suggested either that several electricity generating stations had been destroyed or that an electromagnetic pulse had caused voltage surges and knocked out the power grid. Most likely it was a combination of both. The rumours were corroborated by reporters in the region.

What remained unclear was which of the two sides in the ongoing conflict was responsible for launching the weapon. Srinagar had fallen to Pakistani forces the previous afternoon, and the Indian prime minister had responded by giving Pakistan twenty-four hours to withdraw from the city or ‘reap the consequences.’ Was this him making good on his threat? The Pakistanis had begun to pull their troops out, however, so it was possible that they had capitulated but, in revenge, subjected Srinagar to a scorched earth policy.

Experts speculated. Pundits pontificated. Worry was etched deep into every face onscreen.

Meanwhile stock markets plummeted like suicides leaping off a cliff. Trillions were wiped off share values. Only gold and other precious metals prospered, as investors shunted what was left of their money into solid commodities.

The United Nations convened at dawn in New York for a special emergency session, but the ambassadors from India and Pakistan didn’t show up. This left everyone else with little to do except spout off at one another across the chamber in their native tongues, a Babel of impotence. The security council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities, after which all the delegates went home to be with their families.

The question of who launched the nuke continued to confound the media. The governments of both countries would neither claim nor deny responsibility. Each refused point blank to give any public statement beyond saying that they were assessing the situation and considering an appropriate response.

That was the new global reality. Never mind who started it; it had happened. Atomic fission had been used in anger for the first time in seventy years. Millions were dead. Images taken from an overflying plane showed the incandescent wasteland that Srinagar and its environs had become. Firestorms blazed in the darkness. A 2,000-year-old city had been erased from the map, its monuments gone, its inhabitants incinerated in a single, terrible flash. There was nothing left but burning irradiated rubble.

We watched well into the small hours. Nothing changed. The horror could not be undone. Srinagar could not be unbombed.

But eventually fatigue set in. There was only so much reportage, analysis and conjecture the mind could take. Repetition numbed the tragedy to a dull nothingness. That or the many beers I drank. Doubtless both.

I don’t recall much about staggering back to the motel through downtown Cloncurry. I think I may have had a run-in with a semi-feral cattle dog chained up in somebody’s front yard. The hound either didn’t like the cut of my jib or it had been unsettled by the febrile mood that had overtaken the humans in town. Maybe it had something against monkeys, or devas. I don’t know. Woof bloody woof.

Anyway, canine close encounter aside, I made it to the motel unscathed, and into bed, and within moments of passing out on the pillow – or so it seemed – there was a knock at the door and I was letting Aanandi in.

She had been crying. She had just got off the phone with her parents in Boston. Her father was putting up a brave front but he was scared, she could tell, very scared. The Senguptas had relatives back in the old country, of course; Mumbai mainly, but also down south in Bangalore and Chennai. He was frightened on their behalf, he said, fearful that the entire subcontinent was about to go down in flames.

Aanandi in turn was worried for her parents, living as they did in one of America’s major cities. They had not abandoned Boston as so many others had during the early stages of the crisis. They had stayed put in their brownstone condo in leafy Brookline, but life was not easy for them now. The neighbourhood was mostly deserted. Many shops were shut, food stocks running low. People were trying to carry on as normal, maintain the civilised veneer, keep the social contract alive, but there had been spillovers of looting and street violence from rougher areas like Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury. Gangs roamed at night. The police were stretched thin trying to maintain order.

“And it’ll only get worse now,” she said. “Breakdown, mass panic. Law of the jungle. I’ve told them not to leave the apartment unless they absolutely have to, but my poppa, I know he won’t listen. He’ll head out to the grocery store, try and get in supplies. ‘Must think of your mother, ’Nandi.
Mataji
is not as strong as she once was. I must look after her.’ Stubborn ass.”

Fresh tears flowed.

“Zak,” she said. “Will you hold me?”

It wasn’t a request I was going to turn down, was I?

I held her. I felt her body through her clothes, the warmth of it, the pliancy. Her breasts pressing against my chest. Her shoulderblades flexing under my palms. It was wrong to be aroused, but I was. Couldn’t help it.

She felt what was happening. She pulled back just a little.

“Really?” she said with a crooked smile, sniffing.

“Afraid so. Sorry. Reflex. Out of my control.”

Her hand went down and gripped. The pressure she exerted was painfully exquisite.

“I don’t think you have anything to apologise about. Not judging by what I’m holding.”

Without letting go, she thrust her mouth against mine, sinking her tongue in urgently. I pawed her breast, homing in on her nipple through her blouse and bra. She made a desperate, compliant noise in the back of her throat.

Clothes flew. The bed creaked under the weight of two bodies suddenly dropping onto it, as it must have done on countless occasions before. A motel mattress and frame, well used to passion.

Within moments we were both perspiring in the humidity of an Australian night. Damp skin slithered against damp skin.

“P-protection?” I stammered.

“We could be dead tomorrow,” she whispered in my ear.

Hardness found a home in hot wetness. Slamming into place. Aanandi arched. Her lips formed a shape, a perfect O, while her eyes narrowed to slits.

I’m writing about it here because it was the best bloody shag I’ve ever had. I mean it. Zak Bramwell had sex, but Hanuman – he had sex to the power of a hundred. It was to ordinary intercourse as Dom Perignon is to Babycham, as an Aston Martin is to a Smart car, as Alan Moore is to just about any other comics writer you care to name. It was Jack Kirby lovemaking – epic, grandiose, excessive, dynamic, complete with fizzing crackles all around it.

I’m talking from my own point of view. Hanuman had senses and sensitivities way in advance of Zak Bramwell’s. He experienced, he
felt
, far more intensely than his non-deva alter ego ever had. When he came, it was an almighty, earthquaking
ka-blam!

But I don’t think Aanandi had anything to moan about, either. Or rather, she did. Plenty. And not just moaning. Yelling. Screaming. Howling. Yes, you read that right. Howling. I reckon she would have woken up every other guest on the premises if they hadn’t been awake already and watching the news on TV or jamming the telephone exchanges with anxious calls to loved ones or doing what Aanandi and I were doing – coupling as if that could somehow stop the world falling apart.

And the monkey god had stamina, you betcha. After the second go-round, Aanandi couldn’t believe I was up for another almost straight away, and neither could I, but that didn’t stop us from having thirds.

I hadn’t been that randy, or that quick to recover, since I was a five-wanks-a-day teenager.

In the aftermath, Aanandi and I spooned. She dozed off. I lay awake, fused to her by sweat and other secretions. The aroma of our cumulative funk was pretty pungent, but in a good way.

I thought of my past, my effortful and dissatisfied life, the troubled childhood I’d escaped by losing myself in comics and superhero dreams; and I thought of my present, the metamorphosis I’d undergone, the place I had earned alongside the Avatars, the powers I now possessed.

I also thought of my future.

There
had
to be a future. I knew this because I could feel it. Literally touch it. It was lying next to me.

“Aanandi?”

“Mmm?” She stirred. Her voice was thick with sleep and tiredness.

“We’re going to stop this.”

“Stop what? You mean you and me?”

“No. Fuck, no. The war. The Trinity. Everything that’s wrong. No one else can but us. Me and the Avatars. What’s the point in being devas – superheroes – and just standing on the sidelines twiddling our thumbs? We need to raise our game. We need to make a stand. We’ve been puppets. We’ve been blinkered. We’ve been lagging one step behind the whole time. This is where it all changes. This is when we finally come into our own and fight back.”

“Sounds good. But do you think you can get the Avatars to go along with that?”

“I know I can. Parashurama’s there already, just about. He might take a little convincing, but not much. The others will follow where he leads. But we need you, too. Your expertise. Your inside knowledge. We can’t do it without you.”

“They don’t trust me.”

“They will. You’ll make them.”

She rolled over. Her eyes shone in the silvery pre-dawn light stealing around the edges of the blinds. She cupped my face with a hand.

“You’re going to end the end of the world?” she said. “Devas save the day?”

“Damn right,” I said. “We’ve had enough of being the ball. Time to start being the bat.”