The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

RAKSHASI by Kelley Armstrong

FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS, I have done penance for my crimes as a human. After twenty, I had saved more lives than I had taken. After fifty, I had helped more people than I had wronged. I understand that my punishment should not end with an even accounting. Yet now, after two hundred years, that balance has long passed equilibrium. And I have come to realize that this life is no different than my old one. If I want something, I cannot rely on others to provide it.

I waited in the car while Jonathan checked the house. Jonathan. There is something ridiculous about calling your master by his given name. It’s an affectation of the modern age. In the early years, I was to refer to them as Master or Isha. When the family moved West, it became Sir, then Mr. Roy.

My current master does not particularly care for this familiarity. He pretends otherwise, but the fact that I must refer to him by his full name, where his wife and others use “Jon,” says much.

He called my cell phone.

“Amrita?” he said, as if someone else might be answering my phone. My name is not Amrita. My name is not important. Or, perhaps, too important. I have never given it to my masters. They call me Amrita, the eternal one.

“The coast is clear.” He paused. “I mean — ”

“I understand American idiom very well,” I said. “I have been living here since before you were born.”

He mumbled something unintelligible, then gave me my instructions, as if I hadn’t been doing this, too, since before he was born.

I got out of the car and headed for the house.

As Jonathan promised, there was an open window on the second floor. I found a quiet place away from the road, then shifted to my secondary form: a raven. Fly to the bedroom window. Squeeze through. Shift back.

There wasn’t even an alarm on the window to alert the occupant to my intrusion. Quite disappointing. These jobs always are. I long for the old days, when I would do bloody battle against power-mad English sahibs and crazed Kshatriyas. Then came the murderers and whoremasters, the Mob, the drug dealers. It was the last that made the Roys rethink their strategy. On the streets, drug dealers always came with well-armed friends. I may be immortal, but I can be injured, and while my personal comfort is not a concern, my income-earning potential is. They tried targeting the dealers at home, but there they were often surrounded by relative innocents. So, in this last decade, the Roys have concentrated on a new source of evil. A dull, weak, mewling source that bores me immeasurably. But my opinion, like my comfort, is of little consequence.

I took a moment to primp in the mirror. I am eternally young. Beautiful, too. More beautiful than when I was alive, which was not to say I was ugly then, but when I look in the mirror now, I imagine what my husband, Daman, would say. Imagine his smile. His laugh. His kiss. I have not seen him in two hundred years, yet when I primp for my target, it is still Daman I ready myself for.

I found the target — Morrison — in the study, talking on his speakerphone while working on his laptop. I moved into the doorway. Leaned against it. Smiled.

He stopped talking. Stopped typing. Stared.

Then, “Bill? I’ll call you back.”

He snapped his laptop shut. “How’d you get in here?”

“My name is Amrita. I am a surprise. From a very pleased client.”

I slid forward, gaze fixed on his. For another moment he stared, before remembering himself.

“But how did you get —?”

“I would not be much of a surprise if I rang your front bell, would I?” I glanced back at the door. “I trust we are alone?” Jonathan said no one else was in the house, but I always checked.

“W-we are.”

“Good.”

I sidled over and rolled his chair away from the desk … and any alarms underneath or guns in the drawers.

I straddled Morrison’s lap. Indecision wavered in his eyes. He was a smart man. He knew this was suspicious. And yet, as I said, I am a beautiful woman.

I put my arms around him, hands sliding down his arms, fingers entwining with his. I leaned over, lifting our hands … then wrenched his arms back so hard he screamed. I leapt from his lap, over the back of the chair, and bound his wrists with the cord I’d used as a belt.

I have subdued lapdogs that gave me more trouble than Morrison. He fought, but I have bound warriors. He was no warrior.

Next, I tortured him for information. It was a bloodless torture. Mental pain is the most effective of all, and with the power of illusion, I can make a man believe he is being rent limb from limb, and scream with the imagined agony.

As for the information I needed, it was a simple accounting of his misdeeds: details on the financial scam that paid for this mansion. I forced him to write out those details in a confession. Then I tortured him for the combination to his home safe.

With my help, the Roys kill — sorry, eliminate — the basest dregs of the criminal bucket. This is their divine mission, handed down to them millennia ago, when they were granted the ability to control my kind. They seek out evil. I eliminate it. A very noble profession, but one that does not pay the bills. Finding targets, researching them, and preparing for my attack is a fulltime job. So the Roys, like other isha families, also have divine permission to take what they require from their victims.

Once I had what I needed, I forced Morrison to take out his gun and shoot himself, leaving his confession on the desk and adequate compensation for his victims still in his safe.

Before he pulled the trigger, he looked at me. They always do. Seeking mercy, I suppose. But I know, better than anyone, that such sins cannot be pardoned in this life. If they are, mercy will be seen as a sign of weakness, and the perpetrator will revert to his former path once the initial scare passes.

Still, they always look at me, and they always ask the same thing.

“What are you?”

“Rakshasi,” I replied, and pushed his finger on the trigger.

Rakshasi. Morrison didn’t know what that meant. They never do. Even those of my own heritage rarely have more than a vague inkling of my kind, perhaps from a story told by a grandmother to frighten them into obedience.

The word means protector, which has always made me laugh. We are demon warriors, cursed to walk the earth as monsters, wreaking havoc wherever we go. Disturbers. Defilers. Devourers.

It is only after we accept the bargain of the isha that we become protectors. When we rise from our deathbed, we are met by a member of an isha family. He tells us our fate. Misery and guilt and pain, forever suffering everything that, in life, we visited upon others. Yet we can redeem ourselves. Submit to their bargain, work for them until we have repaid our debt, and we will be free.

I did not take that first offer. I doubt any rakshasi does. We are men and women of iron will and we do not cower at the first threat of adversity. I truly do not believe the isha expect agreement. Not then. They simply offer the deal, and when it is rejected they leave. Then, on every succeeding anniversary, they find us, and they offer again.

In the end, it was not the misery or guilt or pain that wore me down. It was loneliness. We are doomed to be alone as we walk the earth. I might have held out if the isha had not brought me a letter one year. A letter from Daman. He, too, had been doomed to this existence. Our crimes were shared, as had been every part of our lives from childhood.

Daman had accepted his isha’s bargain, and he pleaded with me to do the same. Take the deal and we would be together again. So he had been promised. So I was promised. And so I accepted.

We returned to Jonathan’s house. It is the same one I have lived in for sixty years, though Jonathan and Catherine only arrived two years ago, when he took over as isha from his uncle. I came with the house. Or, I should say, it came with me.

It was no modest home, either. For size and grandeur, it was on a scale with Morrison’s mansion. There were no vows of poverty in this family of crusaders. Like the Templar Knights, they lined their pockets extravagantly with the proceeds of their good deeds, which may be part of the reason behind the switch to corporate sharks. We are in a recession. To some, that means tightening the purse strings. To others, it means seeking richer sources of income. I cannot argue with that. I felt the same way when I walked the earth as a human. But it does bear noting that if the Roys free me, they will lose this income. Which gives them little incentive to agree that I have repaid my debt.

Jonathan took me to my apartment. As cages go, it is a well-gilded one. Sleeping quarters, living area, kitchen, and bath, all lavishly furnished. The shelves are lined with books. A computer, stereo, and television are provided for my amusement. Anything I wish is mine. Anything except freedom. The walls are imbued with magic that prevents me from leaving without my isha.

Beyond a recitation of events, Jonathan and I had not spoken on the four-hour drive from Morrison’s house. Every isha is different. With some, I have found something akin to friendship. Most prefer a more businesslike relationship. Jonathan takes that to the extreme, talking to me only when necessary. To engage me in conversation might lead to asking about my thoughts or feelings, which would imply that I have such things. That I am a sentient being. Best to forget that.

In my apartment, I prepared dinner. A glass of human blood. A plate of human flesh. It is what I need to survive, and my ishas provide it. At one time, they used their victims. Now, that is inconvenient. One of the isha families without a rakshasi saw a market and filled it. Jonathan orders my meals. They come in a refrigerated case, the blood in wine bottles and flesh neatly packaged and labeled as pork.

I fixed a plate of curry. I may be a cannibal, but I have retained some sense of taste. When I finished, I waited for Catherine. She gives me time after a job to eat, preferring not to visit while the scent of cooked flesh lingers in the air. As a courtesy, I cracked open the windows.

Catherine extended me a return courtesy by knocking before she entered. Most of my ishas do not — either they don’t realize I may have a need for privacy or they wish to remind me of my place. Jonathan regularly “forgets” to knock, which is his way of asserting his position without challenging me. I would hold him in higher regard if he simply barged in.

“How did it go?” Catherine asked as she entered. One might presume she’d already spoken to her husband and was simply asking to be polite, but with this couple, such a level of communication was not a given.

As I told her it had been a success, I accompanied her to the living area, walking slowly to keep pace with her crutches. Catherine suffers from a crippling disease that today has a name — multiple sclerosis. In general, I’m not interested in the advances of science, but I have researched this particular ailment to help me better understand the first isha’s wife who has sought my companionship.

Most wives have no knowledge of their husbands’ otherworldly abilities, and thus no knowledge of me. For decades, I have been shunted in and out a side door and otherwise kept in my soundproof apartment.

Occasionally, though, the Roys take a wife from within the isha community. That is where Jonathan found Catherine. And if such a choice — not only an isha’s daughter, but a cripple — helped him win his position over his brothers … It is not my concern.

As to what Catherine and I could possibly have in common, the answer is little, which gives us much to discuss. Catherine is endlessly fascinated with my life. To her, I am the star in some terrible yet endlessly thrilling adventure.

“Have you been doing better?” she asked as I fixed tea.

“I am surviving. We both know that I would prefer it wasn’t so, but …” I smiled her way. “You have heard quite enough on that matter.”

“I wish you could be happier, Amrita.”

“I’ve been alive too long to be happy. I would prefer to be gone. At peace.” I handed her a cup. “But, again, we’ve talked about this enough. It’s a depressing way to spend your visits. I would prefer to talk about you and your happiness. Did you ask Jonathan about the trip?”

Her gaze dropped to her teacup. “He said it wasn’t possible. He’d love to, but he can’t take you and he can’t leave his duties here.”

“Oh. I had thought perhaps he would be able to take me. That the council would consider it acceptable to revisit my roots. I am sorry I mentioned it, then.”

“Don’t be. You know I want to see India. You make it sound so wonderful. I just hope …” She sipped her tea. “I hope by the time he’s free of his obligation, I’m still in good enough health …”

Her voice trailed off. I didn’t need to remind her that it was a fool’s dream.

“He would like to take you,” I said.

“I know.”

“He would like to go himself.”

“I know. But his obligation …”

Could be over anytime he chooses. Those were the words left unspoken. Also the words but he does not have the strength of will to do it, to defy his family by freeing me on his own, despite the fact it is his decision to make, and the council will support it.

“I would miss you,” she blurted. “I’d miss our talks.”

I smiled. “As would I. If you were free to travel, though, you would see these places for yourself, make new friends. Here, we are both prisoners.”

Jonathan insists she stay in the house. He says it is for her own safety, so she can’t be targeted in retaliation for our acts.

She suspects, I’m sure, that he keeps her here because it is convenient. She is as much his property as I am. Without his obligation as an excuse, she’d have more freedom, whether he liked it or not.

“Jonathan knows best,” she said finally. “He will free you. I know he will. It just isn’t time.”

It never would be. Not if I relied on Catherine.

There were many things Daman and I agreed on, as partners in life, in love, in ambition. One was that — despite the teachings of the Brahmins — all men are created equal. Each bears within him the capacity to achieve his heart’s desire. He needs only the strength of will to see it through.

Daman’s story was an old one. A boy from a family rich in respect and lineage, poor in wealth and power. His family wanted him to marry a merchant’s daughter with a rich dowry. Instead he chose me, a scholar’s daughter, his childhood playmate. I brought something more valuable than money — intelligence, ambition, and a shared vision for what could be.

A hundred years ago, when my ishas lived in England, one saw the play Macbeth, and forever after that he called me Lady Macbeth. I found the allusion insulting. Macbeth was a coward, his wife a harpy. Daman did not need me to push him. Every step we took, we took as one.

In our twenty years together, we recouped everything his family had lost over the centuries. Our supporters would say that we brought stability and prosperity to the region. Our detractors would point out the trail of bodies in our wake, and the growing piles of coin in our coffers. Neither is incorrect. We did good and we did evil. We left the lands better than we found them, but at a price that was, perhaps, too steep.

I do regret the path we took. Yet if given a second chance, I would not sit in a corner, content with my lot. My ambition would merely be checked by a better appreciation for the value of human life. That appreciation has stayed my hand in this matter. Which has gotten me nowhere.

My next assignment came nearly four months later. That is typical. While one might look at the world and see plenty of wrongdoers, it is a rare one that must be culled altogether. Jonathan needs to search for a target. Then he must compile a dossier and submit it to the council, who will return elimination approval or request more information. After that comes weeks of surveillance, at which point my participation is required, my talents for illusion and shape-shifting useful.

Jonathan is supposed to assist with the surveillance work. He claims he’s conducting his own elsewhere, but when I’ve followed, I’ve found him in coffee shops, flirting with serving girls or working on his novel.

He is supposed to supervise me, in case I shirk my duties and find a coffee shop of my own. I’ve considered it. I even have an idea for a novel. While it amuses me to think of this, I cannot do it. I enjoy the unsupervised times too much to risk them, and I do not have the personality for lounging and storytelling.

However, this time when I did my surveillance I was … less than forthright about my findings.

The target was yet another financier. Unlike Morrison, this one had been the subject of death threats, so he employed a bodyguard — a young man he passed off as his personal assistant.

I learned about the death threats by eavesdropping. I left them out of the report. I discovered the assistant’s true nature only by surveillance. I left that out of the report as well. My official conclusion was that this man — Garvey — was no more security conscious than the others, but that his assistant was rarely away from his side, so I would lure the young man away, then let Jonathan subdue him while I dealt with Garvey.

It went as one might expect. Separating the two had been easy enough. Such things are minor obstacles for one who has spent hundreds of years practicing the art of illusion.

I got the bodyguard upstairs, where Jonathan was waiting. Then I hurried back to Garvey.

Jonathan’s cries for help came before I reached the bottom of the stairs. They alerted Garvey, as I knew they would. My job, then, was to subdue the financier before he could retrieve his gun. After that it would be safe for me to go to my isha’s aid.

It took some time for me to subdue Garvey. He was unexpectedly strong. Or so I would later claim.

By the time I returned upstairs, the bodyguard had beaten Jonathan unconscious and was preparing the killing blow. I shot him with Garvey’s gun. Then I left Jonathan where he lay, returned to Garvey, and carried on. This was my mission, which superseded all else, even the life of my isha.

When I was finished with Garvey — after he confessed to killing his guard, then taking his own life — I drove Jonathan to the hospital. Then I called Catherine.

“I take responsibility for this,” I said to Catherine as we stood beside Jonathan’s hospital bed. “My job was to protect him. I failed.”

“You didn’t know about the bodyguard.”

“I should have. That, too, is my job. We are both to conduct a proper survey — ”

“If Jon didn’t find out about him, there’s no reason you would.”

I fell silent. Stared down at Jonathan, still unconscious after surgery to stanch the internal bleeding. I snuck looks at Catherine, searching for some sign that she would secretly have been relieved by his death. I’d seen none.

She claimed to love him. She did love him. I could still work with this.

“It’s becoming so much more dangerous,” I murmured. “There have always been accidents, but it is so much harder to keep an isha safe these days.”

“Accidents? This — this hasn’t happened before, has it?”

I kept my gaze on Jonathan.

“Amrita.”

I looked up slowly, then hesitated before saying, “The council has assured me that the rate of injury on my missions is far below that of most.”

“Rate of injury?” Her voice squeaked a little. “I’ve never heard of an isha being seriously injured. You mean things like sprained ankles and bruises, right?”

I said nothing.

“Amrita!”

Again I looked up. Again I hesitated before speaking. “There have been … incidents. Jonathan’s great-uncle’s car accident, it was … not an accident. That was the story the council told the family. And there have been … others.” I hurried on. “But the risk with me is negligible, compared to others.”

Which didn’t reassure her in the least. I said nothing after that. I had planted the seed. It would take time to sprout.

A week later, Jonathan was still in the hospital, recovering from his injuries. I had not yet returned to my apartment — once I entered, I wouldn’t be able to leave. Catherine had to retrieve my food and drink from the refrigerator. She didn’t like that, but the alternative was to sentence her only helpmate to prison until Jonathan recovered.

The day before he was due to come home, Catherine visited me in the guest room.

She entered without a word. Sat without a word. Stayed there for nearly thirty minutes without a word. Then she said, “Tell me how to release you.”

We had to hurry. I could only be freed without Jonathan’s consent if he was unable to give consent.

We withheld his fever medication until his temperature rose. While befuddled by fever — and a few of my illusory tricks — he parted with the combination to his safe.

I retrieved what we needed, and fingered the stacks of hundred-dollar bills, but I took none. I had no need for them.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Catherine asked as I prepared the ritual. “They say that when a rakshasi passes to the other side, there is no afterlife. This is your afterlife. There’ll be nothing else.”

“Peace,” I said. “There will be peace.”

She nodded. My death was, after all, to her benefit, meaning the council would not judge her or Jonathan as harshly as if they’d freed me.

I drew the ritual circle in sand around Jonathan’s bed. I lit tiny fires in the appropriate locations. I placed a necklace bearing one half of an amulet around my neck, and the other around his. I recited the incantations. Endless details, etched into my brain, the memories of my kind, as accessible as any other aspect of my magic, but requiring Jonathan’s assistance. Or the assistance of his bodily form — hair to be burned, fingernails to be ground into powder, saliva and blood to be mixed with that powder.

Finally, as Catherine waited anxiously, I injected myself with the mixture. The ritual calls for it to be rubbed into an open wound. I’d made this modernized alteration, and Catherine had readily agreed that it seemed far less barbaric.

Next I injected Jonathan. Then I began the incantations.

Jonathan shuddered in his sleep. His mouth opened and closed, as if gasping for air. Catherine grabbed his hand.

“What’s happening?” she said.

“The bond is breaking.”

Now I shuddered, feeling that hated bond tighten, as if in reflexive protest. Then slowly, blessedly, it loosened.

Catherine started to gibber that something was wrong. Jonathan wasn’t breathing. Why wasn’t he breathing? His heartbeat was slowing. Why was it slowing?

I kept my eyes closed, ignoring her cries, and her tugs on my arm, until at last the bond slid away. One last deep shudder and I opened my eyes to see the world as I hadn’t seen it in two hundred years. Bright and glimmering with promise.

Catherine was shrieking now. Shrieking that Jonathan’s heart had stopped.

I turned toward the door. She lunged at me, crutches falling as she grabbed my shirt with both hands.

“He’s dead!” she cried. “It’s supposed to be you, not him. Something went wrong.”

“No,” I said. “Nothing went wrong.”

She screamed then, an endless wail of rage and grief. I picked her up, ignoring her feeble blows and kicks, and set her gently in a chair, then leaned her crutches within reach.

She snatched them and pushed to her feet. When I tried to walk away, she managed to get in front of me.

“What have you done?” she said.

“Freed us. Both of us.”

“You lied!”

“I told you what you needed to hear.” I eased her aside. “I do not want annihilation. I want what I was promised — a free life. For that, I need his consent, and the council to provide the necessary tools. There is, however, a loophole. A final act of mercy from an isha to his rakshasi. On his deathbed, he may free me with his amulet and that ritual.”

“I–I don’t — ”

“You will tell the council that is what happened here. The poison I injected is the one we’ve used many times on our targets, undetectable. The council will believe Jonathan unexpectedly succumbed to his injuries.”

“I will not tell them — ”

“Yes, you will. If not, you will be complicit in his death. And even if you manage to convince them otherwise, you will forfeit this house and all that goes with it. It is yours only if he dies and I am freed. They may contest that, but even if they do, you will have already removed the contents of his safe. I left everything for you.”

That was less generous than it seemed. For years, I’d been taking extra from our targets and hiding it in my room. I would not leave unprepared. I was never unprepared.

Now that the bond was broken, there was nothing to stop me from entering and exiting my apartment, and taking all I had collected. I passed Catherine and headed for the door.

She was silent until I reached it.

“What will I do now?” she said.

I glanced back at her. “Live. I intend to.”