to go on, that Angulimala had been the width of a metro platform away and was now gone, his collection growing every week in the wet night watches while Dayal and his minions foundered in the selfsame dark. The cold wet grip of failure clutched at him so he told his driver to mount the pavement and scatter the children, because he had a riot to disrupt.
They sped along the pavement, their siren and lights blaring, a posse of civilian two-wheelers following in their wake, as will happen in Delhi. The driver sought his superior’s eyes in the mirror for confirmation, his foot poised over the brake, expecting the instruction to leave the first motorcyclist to hit his bumper lying in the wet dirt of the pavement as a warning to the others. But Dayal didn’t look up so they drove on, the turgid river surging below, the supposedly fleet motorized stream constrained above. Dayal’s phone beeped. Smita was on the line and sounding flustered, not something he associated with her.
“They’re broadcasting,” she said peremptorily. “Those little bastards are shooting their fight and showing it live.”
Dayal nodded. It was only as he expected. “How many of them? You’re recording it, I hope?”
“Of course. No more than three on each side, now. Perhaps less. Certainly no more. The hobbyists are gone. Scared off by you. These are the hard-cores.”
“Okay. Anything of interest?”
“Your boy in the kaffiyeh is there. He’s currently beating the hell out of one of the lycans.”
“Is there any sound?”
“None. It’s all silent. Whoever is filming is close to the action. It’s pretty tight. Can’t tell where they are, but I’m assuming it’s still in that new bus depot they’re building. There’s a lot of open concrete, and there seem to be patches of floodlit ground.”
“Where’s it being hosted?”
“An open-access web-streaming server. Mainstream, legal. The transmitting address is a ghost. We’re working on it. My guess is the source is a smartphone working on a 3G-enabled account. We’re working on that too.”
“Good,” said Dayal. “Very good. Anything else?”
“I suggest you get there quickly, sir. The clip’s going to be on YouTube in about two minutes.”
The car swept through the intersection that marked the end of the bridge and flew along the raised road that cut through the townships on the other side of the river. Dayal glimpsed towers off to one side and fields interspersed with squat concrete blocks on the other and once he thought he saw a statue of Hanuman, painted and glowering and large beyond belief, but the rain was strong and it might have been an illusion, and before he was really ready, they were there and pulling into the almost-finished bus depot, the security men sheltering forlornly in their little shack to the side. The car sped along the slick surface, its lights off now, the big floods of the bus bays’ illumination enough through the steadily falling rain. Off at the far end of the enormous depot, Dayal saw a tight knot of young people dissolving into the darkness. His car raced toward the wraiths, the rhythm of the raindrops and the thwacking of the wiper blades a backbeat to their swift, silent progress.
“Put on your lights,” said Dayal quietly. “I don’t want you to hit any kids lying on the road.” The lights came on and the car swept to a halt. Dayal and his driver barrelled out into the rain—a body lay still on the ground in the lee of one wall, a floodlight tower almost perpendicularly overhead. Dayal motioned his driver to look along the wall, knelt to check the body itself. He turned it over and saw a young man, perhaps in his late teens, with a beaten face that was already turning blue in the watery light. He was alive and breathing but in a bad way. He winced as Dayal moved him.
“Take it easy, son,” said the DCP gently. “Help will be here soon.” As he said it he heard the wail of sirens and in a moment saw the wash of watery headlights. By and by they were joined by Kapoor and a detachment from the local station, headed by the duty officer. The beaten adolescent lay quietly in Dayal’s arms as the men clustered around them. Kapoor knelt as well and felt for the boy’s hands. His eyes met Dayal’s as he counted ten fingers, then his eyebrows rose as he followed Dayal’s gaze to the puncture wounds in the boy’s neck. The driver arrived and reported the little gate in the wall a short distance away, and the road on the other side where the vehicles of the fighters must have been parked. Naturally, they were gone. Nevertheless, at a word from the duty officer, the men of the local station took off at a run to have a look around.
Kapoor peered at the local inspector, who picked wearily at the dripping collar of his uniform. “Didn’t you know?” he asked, without any apparent heat.
The inspector looked up, then away. “We’d heard.”
And so? wondered Kapoor.
“We’re a long way from HQ, uncle,” responded the inspector. “This rain has caused four accidents already tonight, including one less than a kilometer away on the highway. There’s been one building collapse and three evacuations. Up to eleven people might have died in the collapse. And over there, next to that new stadium, the local farmers are up in arms about the acquisition of their land for the parking lot.”
And your point is? inquired Kapoor’s eyebrows.
“Those fucking villagers are camped out with their sticks and their guns, uncle. If they start heating up, they won’t stop at biting each other. Frankly, these kids are a nuisance but they haven’t really hurt anybody.”
“Till now,” said the DCP.
The inspector nodded unhappily.
The DCP’s phone beeped. It was Smita. “It’s up on all the websites, sir.”
“Hmm. How did it end?”
“It came down to the boy in the kaffiyeh, the person holding the camera, and the boy I’m assuming you’re hovering over.”
The DCP grunted.
“They were obviously in a hurry. The boy in the kaffiyeh pummeled that poor child. Then he knelt over him, with his back to the camera, and appeared to bite his neck. The boy being bitten definitely seemed to be feeling it. Is he still alive?”
“He’ll live. Then?”
“The boy in the kaffiyeh let the victim collapse to the ground. Then he turned back to the camera and saluted. Very deliberately. He held up a finger, shook it at the camera, knelt down and drew it across the beaten boy’s throat, then stood up and saluted again. Then they seemed to hear something. Probably you. They took off running. The camera was killed seconds later.”
“Any progress on the account?”
“We’re working on it.”
The DCP hung up. At his feet, the boy stirred in the wet slush.
“Sacrifice,” he said faintly.
“What?” asked Kapoor.
“Sacrifice. He said I was a sacrifice.”
“Who did?” asked Kapoor roughly.
“The boy in the scarf. Our leader.”
“I thought you were a lycan?” said the DCP gently.
“No. No lycans. We’re all vampires. It was supposed to be my initiation.”
Kapoor and Dayal looked at each other.
“I suppose you don’t really know these guys?” asked Kapoor with disgust.
“No. They said I was a sacrifice. They said the Colonel would know and understand.”
“And that’s why they kicked the shit out of you,” said the inspector glumly.
“They said it was for my initiation.”
“They lied, son,” said Kapoor wearily. “They beat you up because they can. I suggest, when you’re out of hospital, you find new friends.”
The