Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

to what is happening out there and instruct them to be extra alert, though all the noise and activity should be enough to frighten off-'

Johar reached out and gestured with his spinner. 'Chief Inspector- look.'

Frowning, Keshu rechecked his own instrument's readout. Some where overhead, above the ground and below the clouds, the drone was still doing its job. Only now the images it was transmitting made no sense: no sense at all.

When the new arrival had shot the big man and then confronted the others by the water hole, a puzzled Jena had decided that events had become too complicated. Her redemptions were models of simplicity and purity. Not knowing how to proceed under such increasingly baffling circumstances, she had decided to give up on her evening's original intent and had begun to withdraw.

And then the tiger had appeared, striking out of nowhere, slicing through the night like the incarnation of a god. The assassin had found himself slain. It had been a paralytic moment, one of those instants of unforeseen stupefaction capable of numbing even those who thought themselves permanently inured to all manner and kind of violence.

Unlike those clustered by the water hole, Jena hadn't screamed. She had just stared, hardly breathing, looking on as the tiger proceeded to first slay efficiently and then begin to dine on its prey. She crouched in awe, looking on in admiration. She was not frightened.

She was envious.

Never before had she been witness to such studied ferocity. Was the tiger nothing more than a big cat? Or was it truly, as the sacred scriptures declared, the mount of the goddess Durga herself? Jena's mind was awhirl, overwhelmed with the rigors of the long night's stalking, the warm enveloping smells of the jungle, the heat, and now this unexpected miraculous presentation right before her very eyes of death by tiger. From where she knelt she could smell the blood. It was something they shared. Deep, deep within herself, she knew she was more closely akin in spirit and desire to the tiger than she could ever be to its victim.

Was not the great goddess Durga, more properly known as Mahadevi, shown riding upon a tiger? Thus mounted, had not she defeated the demonic Mahisha against whose powers the combined might of all the other gods had shown themselves to be useless? And afterward, was not Durga acclaimed by all and anointed the leader of the gods in all matters of battle?

Why should she not be the same? Would not Mother Kali look with approval on her servant who, taking such initiative, would thereby render herself even more capable of serving? With her daily dose of drugs coursing through her system, dizzy with delusions of divine approval, she rose slowly from her place of concealment and began walking-not away from the scene of primeval carnage, but toward it.

Mesmerized, a flabbergasted Keshu and Johar stared at their readouts. It was the lieutenant who broke the temporary trance.

'Lord Krishna,' he muttered, 'she's not running away: she's heading right for it.'

Roistering his spinner, Keshu broke into a run. 'Tell everyone to hurry.' He pulled his sidearm. 'We have to get close enough so we can fire and scare it off, but I don't want to hit her!' He broke into the brush. Johar was right behind his superior, barking frantically into his spinner.

As she emerged into the small clearing by the water hole, Jena was chanting a favorite mantra to herself. Full of allusions to innocence lost, Mother Kali, India, loves gone astray, and murders committed, it would have provided ample fodder for even the least-demanding clinical psychologist.

It was doubtful that it had much of an impact on her present audience.

Instantly alert, able to see infinitely better at night than any human, the tiger looked up from its meal, raising its bloodied snout from the hollow it had chewed out of the center of the dead tracker's midsection. It stayed like that, staring unblinkingly at the creature that had interrupted its feeding, slowly and unconcernedly licking the blood from its exquisite muzzle.

Removing her clothes, singing softly to herself, Jena reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out the sword. The same sword that had, in the name of Mother Kali, sped so many on their journey away from this sordid, unhappy world. Jena had no necklace of skulls to dangle from her neck, no belt of dead men's hands to encircle her waist, but she had studied with the dedication of a true acolyte. She knew the reputed moves as well as any disciple.

Holding the sword tightly in one hand, regretting she had no head of a demon to display in the other, completely naked to the Sundarbans night, she began to dance.

Her movements were as graceful as those of the ballerina she had once thought, long, long ago, to become. As gracile and fluid as those of a sambar deer, as polished and controlled as those of a mass murderer. Twirling the razor-sharp weapon over her head and breathtakingly close to her sides, eyes half shut as if in a delirium of pleasure, she spun and twirled to the corrupt, unhealthy, soul-crippling music only she could hear. She alone, and Mother Kali, who was forever her lord and savior from the complete and utter insanity that years ago had threatened to overwhelm her completely.

Closer and closer she drew to the tiger, which lay on its belly, alert and watchful. Nearer to death but also nearer to Nirvana, to the trans formation that would make her invincible, unconquerable, indomitable. Soon nothing would be able to touch her, nothing would be able to harm her. Not ever, ever, again.

Voices sounding, coming rapidly nearer. Urgent voices, cajoling but not convincing. She knew those voices. The were the voices of men, that had never done anything but deceive her. She was very close now. She could smell the rancid stink of the dead man's eviscerated torso. She fan cied she could smell the bloody perfume of the tiger's breath.

'Cher pere,' she whispered softly as she bent forward. 'Do you have my mother's finger?'

'Nahi, no!' Keshu raised his pistol as he burst through the brush. So did Lieutenant Johar, and the half dozen officers who had closed in behind him.

Uttering a thunderous roar, the tiger leaped from where it lay crouched beside the disemboweled corpse of the tracker Schneemann and slammed into the slim, pirouetting form of the human that had dared to decisively intrude on its personal space, stepping over the invisible, imperceptible line the feeding cat had defined for itself. For just an instant smacked out of her self-imposed dream state and back to harsh, unforgiving reality, Jena had a second or so to stare with unglazed eyes up at the monster. Then she thudded into the ground with the big cat on top of her, her head twisted and bent unnaturally backward as she struck the unyielding earth.

Gunshots rang out. Intended to startle and not to kill, the multiple shots caught the tiger's attention immediately. Unsettled by the appearance of so many bipedal shapes and confused by the loud noise, it bounded away from the figure beneath its paws and raced off into the night, abandoning its latest prey and leaving behind only smells and shadows.

Night-goggle-equipped junior officers fired off a few more shots and continued to pursue the fleeing cat. But not too energetically, and only to the edge of the clearing. The huge animal could be anywhere, and special starlight-magnifying goggles notwithstanding, night was its ally, not theirs. Keshu and Lieutenant Johar slowed to a stop near the supine figure of the suspect. Other than a quick, repulsed glance in the direction of the partly eaten carcass, neither showed any interest in the dead man.

Attractive, Keshu thought as he stared down at her. More so than the computer-conjured composite suggested. The sword that lay in the dirt not far from her outstretched right arm was traditional in shape and style. It looked almost as if it had been modeled after a museum piece. That was hardly surprising, he reflected. The multiple murder victims whose killer he had been tracking had not had their heads and limbs cut to pieces with an epee.

At first, he had trouble interpreting the expression on her face. Then it struck him. Ecstasy. That made no sense. In which case, it fit with everything else that had transpired recently. Opposite him, on the other side of the body, Johar was kneeling to examine the motionless form more closely.

'No bite marks.' He paused, studying harder. 'No claw gouges: not even a scratch.' Obviously confused, he looked up at his superior. 'But she is dead. I do not need someone from Forensics to tell me that.'

Kneeling on the other side of the corpse, Keshu slipped his left hand beneath hair and head and started to lift it. Though he applied very little pressure, it moved freely. Too freely.

'Neck's broken. Must have hit awkwardly and then the cat fell on her. Too much weight for small bones.' In death, she looked quite peaceful. At ease. Now he would never know what had motivated her to commit all those