The Serpent's Shadow

then dropped down onto the dead tree and began to clean her talons meticulously.

Even in the dim light, Maya saw that the owl's talons were considerably bloodied; whatever she'd been hunting, it wasn't rats.

'Have you been eating the neighbor's cats?' she asked sternly.

Nisha looked down at her and gave a hoot that held so much derision it could not have been an accident, as if to say, 'Surely you know that I wouldn't trouble myself with their scrawny moggies!'

Maya had to laugh at her tone. 'I beg your pardon, dear. I should have known better.'

Owls didn't snort, couldn't snort, but the sound Nisha produced was as close to a snort as a beak could manage, and she went back to the important task of talon sanitation.

Rhadi took that moment to lean forward and say distinctly into her ear, 'Good Peter!'

'Very good Peter,' she agreed. 'Do you all like Peter?'

Rhadi chuckled, Charan made a contented little noise, and Rajah bowed his head. Neither Nisha nor Mala made any sounds, but both roused their feathers and fluffed up the tiny feathers around their beaks, a sign of supreme contentment. 'Good Peter!' Rhadi repeated, then leaned closer and whispered something in Urdu which was highly improper—if delightful to contemplate, in one's very private thoughts—and made Maya blush hotly even though there was no one about to hear the parrot except the other animals.

'Where did you learn that?' she demanded.

Rhadi only laughed and flew up to his favorite perch beside Mala. The two birds, who in any other circumstances than this would have been predator and prey, actually preened each others' heads before settling in for the night.

Rajah dropped his fan, and hopped up onto the rocks beside the fountain pool, also ready at last to sleep. They all seemed more relaxed; perhaps they had only been waiting for Nisha to return and all of the 'family' to be within the bounds of the house. Even Nisha looked decidedly relaxed.

'Well, if you are all going to sleep, I ought to as well,' she said aloud. Charan looked up at her, and jumped down out of her lap onto the floor, walking toward the door a few paces, then looking back at her over his shoulder.

'All right, I'm coming!' she laughed, and followed him.

Deep in the heart of her sanctuary, Shivani frowned, though not at her wounded dacoit, who lay insensible on a blanket at her feet. He could not help his condition, inconvenient as it was. Her servants were trained, highly skilled, indeed, the pick of the warriors that her temple had to offer. But they could not guard against deadly force on silent wings coming down out of a night sky. Especially when such a formidable foe was completely unexpected.

The dacoit was a pitiful sight, if Shivani were inclined to pity. He had lost one eye to a gouging claw, and his scalp was furrowed from eyebrow to crown with great talon gashes. It was a wonder that he was not dead; he should have been dead, and would have been, had the talon that took his eye gotten all the way to his brain. At the moment, he was only semiconscious; Shivani had given him enough opium to drop a water buffalo to take away his pain. He moaned in delirium despite it, and might not survive the night. He had lost a great deal of blood, and she would not take him to an English hospital, nor would he wish her to. Her body servant had bandaged him as best she could, and that would have to do; he would rest here in the quiet of the warehouse on a clean pallet, and if the Goddess willed it, he would be gathered to her.

Meanwhile, she had lost his services and skills, which was a great inconvenience.

She had the name of Maya Witherspoon, she had the address at which the girl lived, and she had counted on being able to use the eyes and ears of her thugees and dacoits to spy out the details of her enemy's household. She had not counted on the vigilance of the girl's servants—one of whom was her sister's personal warrior of old—nor that the girl still had Surya's former 'pets' with her.

Pets! What a trivial name for creatures with such preternatural intelligence! There was little doubt that the 'pets' were nothing of the sort; how much Surya had altered them remained to be seen, but altered they certainly were—else some of them would be in decrepit old age, if not dead by now. One of them, the great eagle-owl, had made that attack on Shivani's man tonight, a move that no ordinary owl would even have contemplated, much less executed with such perfection.

Pets, indeed. Their presence rendered it unlikely that anyone could get near to the place, even over the rooftops, for there had been a falcon as well as an owl, and although it might be possible to avoid the falcon's attacks, it would not be possible to hide from its sharp eyes once it was in the sky.

She could not penetrate the girl's magical defenses herself either. She could not use ordinary means to spy on her. Under most circumstances, it would seem that there would be no way to see what the girl was up to. But it occurred to Shivani that there might be a third option, if the defenses were specifically keyed against Shivani herself, or against the magic of the homeland.