Raktabija.

Raktabija

by james bezerra

        Twenty-six thousand feet above the Arabian Sea at night and the Arabian Sea doesn’t even look like anything. Not an abyss, not a maw, not edgeless obsidian the size of history, or a even metaphor. Not an anything. Just a nothing. This is the thing we always have trouble understanding about the universe, isn’t it? That it is almost entirely empty.

        We have it strapped down to a completely normal gurney in the center of the hold and the gurney is ratcheted down to the metal plates of the floor with those same wide bright polyester webbing straps that they use for any other cargo that would go in here, I suppose. Gets the job done. When we do hit the occasional bippy bit of turbulence, the floor plates rattle a little. The Payload Specialist, hunched by the forward bulkhead and the locked cockpit door, stands up each time, but doesn’t approach it. He hasn’t said a word since we left Djibouti airspace and went feet wet over the Gulf of Adan. He doesn’t like it on his plane.

I suppose saying it is impolite.

Perhaps her would be better. I’m not sure. I’ve never really understood how the Trimurti works. But then I’ve never worked any of the Indian stations. I’ve been operating fairly independently under the authority of the station chief in Nairobi for two years, but I’ve spend most of that time in and around Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab isn’t going to snuff itself out and the Company needed someone to handle intelligence logistics with AMISON.

Busy years these have been.

Made busier now by her. She was not what I needed in my life.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice the Payload Specialist stand up quick, though we aren’t bumping. He points nervously at her.

I look to see one of her four arms beginning to wriggle against the tight gurney straps. I move over to a jumpseat near enough to her so that I can look down into her face. Her skin is very dark, but the station chief in Mumbai told me over a staticy SATCOM line a week ago that it would be; that’s part of her story. When her eyes open they are surprisingly bright. When she sees me above her she stops struggling.

“I have no intention of hurting you,” I say. “If fact, you’re getting an all-expense-paid trip home. You have absolutely no business on the African continent little lady. I’m going to take the tape off your mouth and then you’re going to explain to me why I have satellite photos of you meeting with Hizbul insurgents in the desert outside of Biadoa a week ago. Blink if you understand me.”

She blinks calmly and so I rip the tape off. I always like the ripping-the-tape-off part, it is a sign of good faith but one painful enough that it makes it clear to everybody exactly who is in charge.

She licks her chapped lips slowly with her tongue. I hadn’t noticed before how hollow her cheeks are. How thin and bony each of her arms are.

“Talk,” I tell her.

“Asura,” she says.

I have no fucking clue what that is. “Is that who you were meeting?”

She smiles and its dangerous how big and jagged her teeth are. I glance over to make sure the strap across her forehead is tightened down all the way and locked.

“We used to be such good friends,” she says. She is looking at me. I don’t know if she is talking to me or about me. I think she can sense that because she says, “Asura means great and mighty. Remember, Raktabija?” And then she starts to laugh. She just laughs and laughs and she is laughing at me, this much is clear. If her mouth were less threatening I’d put the tape back on, but as it is, I can just imagine her ripping the tips on my fingers off with just the littlest jerks of her violently gnashing teeth.

I pace toward the end of the cabin and stand down near where the cargo ramp angles upward into its locked position. I take the SAT phone from my pocket and dial up the station chief in Mumbai.

It rings. Then again. The quiet in between the rings is staticy, which ain’t bad considering I’m four and a half miles up moving at six hundred miles an hour above a black ocean that’s as empty as space. Rings again. This is pissing me off because he knows we’re on our way in and is supposed to have his phone in his lap.

Rings again.

Finally he answers, “Bombay-6.”

“I keep telling you that you gotta change that. It’s way too obvious.”

“Bombay-6,” he says again.

“Bombay-6 this is Estafet-1.”

“Code in ...”

“Tandoori delivery.”

“You know,” he says, “that’s borderline racist.”

“You’re supposed to answer when I call.”

“I did. Are you still in-bound?”

“Yeah, everything is fine. We’re on schedule. Look …” I rub the back on my neck and move as far into the back as I can. “I’ve got a question. Does Raktavija mean anything to you? Or asura? She said those words and I’m wondering if there’s something very under-the-radar going on that I haven’t gotten wind of yet out in The Mog. Maybe your extremists hooking up with mine, sharing logistics or intel, maybe …” Through the pop and crackle I can hear him snickering and I don’t like being laughed at this much back-to-back. “What?”

“Man you need to read a book one of these days.”

“How about when we land I shove one up you ass?”

“I would be surprised if you had one with you. Anyway, she’s talking about a fairy tale, man. It’s one of their myths. These guys, the Asura, were like, what do you call ‘em, deities. They used to be good guys but then they got all spun out on their own power and turned into crazy assholes. You following me? One of the biggest badasses was called Raktavija and he’s fighting against the … um … shit, they’re like angels … the Matrikas, I think, yeah. So the Matrikas, they’re attacking this dude full-on but he’s like Bowser or something. Every time they stab him his drops of blood fall to the ground and each one turns into a new little Rakatavija. But the Matrikas, they just keep stabbing and stabbing and not even giving two shits about all the new Rakatavijas running loose all over the goddam place now. It’s just this dumb Hindu story. It doesn’t mean anything. Did you call it in to Langley when you went feet-wet?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Okay. Well I’ll see you in a couple hours. Let me know if she starts talking to you about Little Miss Muffet or is we need to drone strike Noah’s Ark or anything. Bombay-6 out.”

He hangs up so I hang up. I slowly slip the sat phone back into my pocket. Then I turn and I see her standing there in the center of the cabin, three times bigger now, her dark skin hanging loosely on her sharp bones but still somehow shimmering. Her huge jaw has unhinged and she is shoving the flailing Payload Specialist down her dark gullet with one arm and reaching for me with the others.

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