Tantrics Of Old by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya Page B

to her. Then another. She turned extremely rigid, slowly, not even daring to breathe; and in the silence, she waited. Something cold touched her cheek. She almost screamed. It retracted, then touched her forehead, something icy and soft. It stayed for a while, then retreated once more. Biting her lip, Maya readied herself for the next touch; it did not come again. She heard the sniff a moment later, but to her left, where Adri was. It took Maya more than a moment to realise that the worst had passed, that the thing, the Dyne had moved on. But still she lay as one dead, not daring to move. For how long she sat like this, she did not know, nor did she know when the tears started to slowly make their way down her cheeks. By the time the lights came back on, however, she had regained her composure completely, her eyes and cheeks dry as rock. The Dyne was gone. Gray was still sleeping and looked untouched—much to her relief. Adri was looking at her.
    ‘You okay?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Maya replied, embarrassed, not meeting his eye.
    ‘Don’t feel ashamed. Their kind has what we call an
influence
over our senses; they can affect us in various ways, the most common being the sapping of courage, of will. How you reacted wasn’t your fault entirely.’
    ‘How were you so calm?’ Maya asked, as she realised why she had panicked.
    ‘Training. And all the experience with their kind.’
    ‘What are they?’
    ‘Witches. Dynes. One of the most terrible races out there in the Old City. I don’t know why this one was on the train. But they can’t transform here, not on the train, and thus we were comparatively safe.’
    ‘Transform? Transform into what?’
    ‘Their true form. They’re not human.’
    ‘
What
are they, then?’
    ‘Savage beings ruled by a hunger for flesh. One of the damned races, also one of the most feared.’
    Maya was quiet. ‘We aren’t even
there
yet. And look what’s happening already,’ she spoke.
    Adri nodded. ‘It’s certainly not a good start.’
    ‘Why did she smell us?’ Maya asked. ‘You said she’s a smell collector. What does she do with the smells?’
    Adri looked into his bag, searching for something. He groped around till he finally withdrew a clutch of bullets coated in what looked like silver. ‘You’re not going to like the answer,’ he replied drily.
    ‘I suppose I must know,’ Maya said. ‘If I am going with you all the way to where my brother is, then it’s best I start preparing.’
    Adri nodded in understanding. ‘Witches,’ he said, ‘are predators. And this one has taken our smell because she intends to hunt us down in Old Kolkata.’
    ‘My God. Silver bullets, they kill witches, then?’ Maya asked hopefully.
    Adri laughed a short laugh. He had laughed after a long while, and it felt good. ‘They aren’t werewolves, and this isn’t silver. It’s mercury inside crystal with a couple of more ingredients thrown in.’
    ‘Is it meant for the witches?’
    ‘Yes,’ Adri said, removing the current rounds from the shooter and putting in the mercury bullets.
    ‘Okay. I’m glad to know you have
some
sort of defence against them.’
    ‘Not enough. I will need to buy ingredients in the Old City. I need to make more bullets.’ Adri pocketed the last two shots for ease of access.
    ‘Will we be okay?’
    ‘Yes, hopefully. I’m not planning to take us through witch territory yet, so if we’re lucky they won’t bother us again. They’re quite territorial, Dynes.’
    Maya felt a bit better. Her opinion of him, she had to admit, was beginning to change. Where she had been sceptical about his claims of being a Tantric, she now knew that he had evidently been trained in Necromancy, and trained well—so far he had proved knowledgeable and dependable. And calm in the face of danger. No, he was definitely no pushover Tantric. Sigh. It would be tough to take care of her little business in the Old City. It was something even Gray did not know. No, she knew she would