Rakshasa (4 page)

Ishan, however, had white ‘fur’, unlike the orange colour that covered my body. He leaned over me, panting heavily, still lodged within my body, eyes still closed. I reached up with a hand, touching his striped face, smiling. He smiled back, revealing elongated canine teeth.

“I see what you mean about the transformation.” I felt my tail bump against another, slowly winding around it, squeezing gently. I stroked my thumb over his cheek. “See?”

He opened his eyes, but the moment he did they widened in shock. He withdrew from me, scrambling back, his face a mask of horror and confusion as he slowly climbed to his feet.

“Ishan?! Ishan, what’s wrong?”

He stared, mouth agape, at my entire body. His confusion was completely alien to me; he looked as I looked, except for his white fur. I stood, too, staring at him in bewilderment.

“Your… your markings,” he said, extending a hand. “Orange? From the Altaica clan? But how? You should be Rewa, like me.”

I held out my hand to his, taking it and squeezing it firmly. “Ishan, I don’t understand. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He went to speak but, suddenly, the world began to darken. I looked over my shoulder as, once again, the moon began to cross in front of the sun.

“What?” Ishan asked, seeming oblivious.

“The eclipse. It’s coming again.” I turned back to him, stepping close, but he instinctively stepped back.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, “why are you Altaican?”

“I don’t even know what that means!” The world became crimson tinted and dark, the moon covering the sun’s light. I groped for him, blindly. “Ishan? Ishan?!”

But there was the roar of the shotgun, the wizz of flying buckshot. The dream world disappeared and the real world replaced it.

Chapter IV

Naked, Screaming and Covered in Blood

A human is born into this world naked, screaming and covered in blood. They have no memory of what came before, and their eyes are open in a way that never comes again. Their mind is clear and fresh and accepting of new possibilities. They know nothing of anything and their brains are eager to be filled with knew knowledge, to learn, to expand, to grow.

A Rakshasa is born the same way, more or less.

I awoke in a vast open field, staring up at a twilight sky just beginning to fill with stars. The last vestigial rays of the sun’s warmth and light were tickling the highest of the clouds, painting them with faint strokes of red and gold. Grass, slick with bright red blood, clumped together below me. I felt cold, clammy, sticky.

My mind felt clouded, fogged. Where was I?

I struggled to sit but my body was weak, as though my limbs were made of lead. I struggled to see in the twilight. I could see I was naked, but unlike the dream I felt exposed. I felt vulnerable and weak and helpless. In a frenzy I wiped my hands off on the thick grass, trying to get the blood off.

In the gloom I could see the tiger-stripe tattoo was back on my arms, stopping at the elbow, just as before. But now it didn’t give me confidence and power. I felt like a freak.

I could hear footsteps. Panic began to fill me. I turned to see the approaching shadow of a person—tall and broad, their face obscured in the darkness.

“W-…who are you? Where am I?”

“Don’t worry,” came Ishan’s voice, “I’m here.”

Relief. “Ishan? What’s going on?”

He crouched beside me, taking my bloody hands in his. He was wearing a collared shirt and stone washed jeans, which seemed odd. I had gotten so used to seeing him naked. “It’s okay,” he answered, “you’ve undergone your first shift. I doubt you remember much, but it’s okay. That’s normal. Just try to relax.”

“There’s blood, Ishan. What happened?” I squinted, trying to see him. “I don’t have my glasses.”

He smiled, leaning in close enough for me to see, his handsome features softened by the lack of light. “Pretty soon you won’t need them anymore as you eyes adjust. Already your body will be beginning to strengthen; at first you’ll feel weaker, but that’s just because you’ve been running. Soon you’ll be stronger. Stronger than any other human.”

He placed his hand in mine and I used him to stand, leaning against his chest, my breath exhaling in a soft white cloud. I remembered I was naked and suddenly was made acutely aware of how cold Canberra nights could get. I shivered against Ishan, pressing against him for warmth, but almost instantly I felt a warm blanket being draped around my shoulders.

“I brought this,” Ishan explained, “after my own first time. I had to walk back and I nearly froze. I brought some shoes too. Trust me, you'll need them, the ground is as cold as ice at night."

I shuffled under the blanket, pressing up to Ishan’s chest, breathing in his real scent for the first time. It was just like in my dream, but the world was dark and the lurid technicolour was gone. That and the blood.

The real world was never as good as the world we imagined.

“Nobody met you after your first time?” I asked.

He smiled, rubbing my back through the blanket. “No,” he answered, “I wasn’t bonded to anyone, so nobody knew.” He gave a wry smile. “At least you transformed in the night, instead of in the middle of the day.”

“Why?”

“Humans… don’t take well to seeing our kind. It’s much easier this way, believe me.”

I shivered against him, trying to warm myself. I wiggled my feet into the shoes, wearing them without any socks, which was how I usually wore them anyway. “You said something about… about the Rewa. You said I was Altaica. What is that?”

Ishan hesitated somewhat and I could sense his reluctance was deeper than he was letting on. “The Rakshasa are, it might appear, better than humans in every way… but we have a number of human foibles. We are, for lack of a better word, tribal. There are clans of our kind… small covens, banding together for protection and for company. I am of the Rewa, those who have white fur. Your markings indicate that you’re an Altaica. Our rivals. Violently so.”

I wrapped my arms around him, giving a gentle squeeze. “You don’t seem to be violent towards me.”

He gave a low chuckle. “You’re right. For now. Many other of my packmates would attack you on sight, if they knew what you were and there were no humans around.”

“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’ll need a name, too.”

I raised my head, looking at him. “But I have a name.”

“You need a Rakshasa name. We all have them. Your old name is… well, it’s old. It’s who you were, not who you are now.”

At that moment I still felt like Libby. I opened my mouth to offer complaint, but instead another word tumbled out.

“Aurora. I like Aurora.”

He smiled a warm, bright smile. Ishan lowered his head, gently pressing his lips to mine. This was our first
real
kiss and, although it lacked the powerful, supernatural exaggeration of the dream ones we had shared, it still sent tingles all up and down my spine.

“Aurora. I like it too.”

I gave him a gentle kiss on the shoulder, through his jacket, feeling the blanket begin to do its work. “Good. Because it’s the first thing that jumped into my head.”

“That’s how the best names are picked.”

I paused, breathing in his scent, keeping my face against his shoulder, rubbing my cheek to him. “What was the shotgun sound?”

“What sound?”

I kissed his skin. “In the dream. Both times. There was a loud sound, I swore it was a gun, and I swear… someone was shooting at me, right at the end.”

He rubbed my back gently. “I don’t know.”

I enjoyed the quiet, cuddling with Ishan in the dark on top of the hill. “So what happens now?”

He smiled, giving me a warm squeeze, his arms holding me tightly.

“Now you go home and try to comfort your friend. She’ll be worried sick.”

“Katelyn?” I blinked, then remembered. She was sleeping over tonight. “Ooooh crap.”

Ishan laughed and leaned forward, kissing my forehead. “Okay. I have to run. I’ll see you soon.” He pulled his head back, giving me a meaningful look. “Dream well, tonight.”

I planned to. I laughed, glancing out at the lights of the city, and when I turned back to him he was gone.

*****

Ishan was right. The shoes helped, the blanket helped more. I walked down the hill and made my way back towards the city. The headlights of cars lit up the road, but I crossed in a gap between them, slipping into the shadows effortlessly, as though I belonged there. They seemed blind to me; slow, trundling machines with such a limited range of vision. Easy to avoid. I was certain I wasn’t seen.

Certainty. It was a strange thing. I normally wasn’t confident in anything I did, but tonight I felt as though evading the headlights was the easiest thing in the world.

I stopped by one of the many creeks near Black Mountain and washed my hands clean, making sure to get all the blood out. It came off surprisingly easy, being recently dried, but I was careful. I was already a mess, walking around in just a blanket and shoes, and I figured blood would raise more questions than it answered.

Yet as I cleaned myself I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me with unfriendly eyes. I had thought, initially, that it was Ishan, but as I crouched on a large stone scrubbing my fingernails with my palm I somehow sensed that it wasn’t. This was someone else.

I put that thought out of my mind, though, and when I was clean I headed back to my apartment.

Chapter V

I had never seen so many cop cars in one place at once. The block around my apartment looked like some kind of disaster zone, the entire area lit by flashing blue and red lights. Australian Federal Police soldiers swarmed all over the area.

Without much of a clue what to do, I simply wandered into the area as though nothing was wrong. Instantly one of the officers, a tall blonde woman with her hair in a bun, noticed me. She shone her torch right at me and I held up my hand to screen my eyes.

“Over here! Over here!”

She ran over, her boots thumping on the concrete. “My name is Sergeant Thomas, I’m a police officer. Are you Miss Elizabeth Meda?”

I gave a vapid laugh, casually waving my hand. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s wrong, officer?”

She frowned with concern at my appearance as more officers arrived, their radios buzzing with reports. “Miss Meda,” she said, “Have you been harmed?”

I shook my head. “No,” I lied, smoothly and eloquently, “I just went for a walk.”

“A
walk
? At this hour?” Thomas indicated to my blanket. “Wearing just shoes and a blanket? And without your glasses?”

A shriek cut over my answer. From the crowd of officers Katelyn emerged, her mascara pouring down her face from crying. She sprinted up to me and nearly knocked me over, grabbing me and crushing my torso with her arms.

“OmigodLibbyIwassofrightenedIdidn’tknowwhereyouwentand-”

Sergeant Thomas pulled her off me with surprising strength and speed, a move which surprised me.

“I’m sorry, Miss Evans, but we can’t touch her yet. If someone’s harmed her, we need to collect evidence.”

I blinked in the light of a half-dozen torches, shaking my head. “Oh, no, seriously. I just went for a walk. I got freaked out by a weirdo earlier today, and I wanted some fresh air. I didn’t mean to go very far, just along the balcony, but I guess I wandered off.” I gave a sheepish smile, the perfect blend of embarrassment and awkwardness. “I’m sometimes a little doughy in the head.”

Katelyn seemed absolutely over the moon with relief, but Sergeant Thomas didn’t seem to be as convinced. “I’m going to need you to give a statement,” she said, “and I’m going to have your word that you won’t frighten us like this again.” She gestured around to the cadre of police cars and officers who, by now, were beginning to disperse. “We’ve wasted a lot of police time if you really just ‘took a stroll’.”

Another fake smile, perfectly executed. “It’s okay,” I reiterated, “I’m fine. I’m sorry I frightened you all.”

Sergeant Thomas seemed sceptical of this but, eventually, nodded her head. “Very well,” she said, “I’m glad this had a happy ending. With the Champawat Tiger roaming around, we don’t get many of those these days.”

Katelyn threw herself at me again, sobbing uncontrollably, and I wiggled a hand out of the blanket and patted her on the arm. Over her shoulder I could see Jacques waving politely to me. I gave a little wave back, then led Katelynn back towards our apartment.

*****

Katelyn finally stopped crying, and when she did she became angry. Angry that I had caused her so much distress, angry I had kept her up all night. Angry I had scared her.

Normally when Katelyn became angry it was like bad weather. I couldn’t do anything about it except try to handle the damage as best I could and wait for it all to blow over.

Not this time. This time I felt in complete control, as though she were a puppet and I was pulling the strings. I felt confident, calm and collected, even though to Katelyn I flawlessly projected my derpy, clumsy exterior.

To her I was still Libby the Loser. On the inside, though, I was Aurora. I was more and more Aurora with every second that passed.