Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven by Kevin Hearne Page B

to a modest dwelling about a half mile away from the temple. Thanjavur has trees and patches of unpaved earth scattered throughout, and there is a small vegetable garden in the front of Laksha’s house, sufficient to serve as a place marker for Kaveri.
    Once inside, Laksha fetches towels for us all and invites me to change into a robe while she throws my clothes into a dryer. That seems like an unnecessary delay to me.
    “Won’t we be leaving soon?”
    “There is time enough to get dry.” I give her my clothes, put on the robe, and get Orlaith toweled off to the point where she’s just wet instead of dripping. Laksha makes me a cup of hot chai, then takes us to a room she calls her craft room—a polite term for witchcraft. There are circles on the floor, one of salt and another painted with what I fear might be dried blood. After cautioning to avoid the circles, Laksha guides us past them to a mahogany table on the far wall and lights a few candles. Shards of pottery with raised Sanskrit letters are arranged on the table,pieced next to one another to form lines of text. Orlaith puts her nose at the edge of the table and snuffles a couple of times.
     she says, and then sits down.
    “This vessel was unearthed not far from here,” Laksha says, pointing at the shards. “Your father was drawn to a dig north of town, and these writings are what alarmed me so. They say, ‘Keep sealed for all time. He who opens this prison will die, and rakshasas will plague the land.’ Then there are some praises to Shiva at the end.”
    “That’s it? Nothing about who or what was inside?”
    Laksha shrugs. “It does not say, but we can make inferences. If he has power over rakshasas, then he must either be an
asura—
one of the higher-powered demons that rivaled the Vedic devas—or a raksoyuj.
Asuras
tend to take on their own physical form, while a raksoyuj must possess others. Your father is possessed, so a raksoyuj is the most likely—”
    “Wait. Why must a raksoyuj possess others?”
    Laksha looks uncomfortable at my question. “How much do you know of the Hindu cycle of birth and rebirth?”
    “I guess just the basics: The body dies but the spirit doesn’t. Spirits return in new bodies, and each one is trying to become pure enough to return to the source, right?”
    “Precisely. And each lifetime will have few or no memories of past lives. These words suggest that the prisoner’s original body is long gone but his spirit never moved on in the cycle. It was trapped in this container instead. He was trying to prolong this particular existence by possessing others.”
    I search her face for emotion and find none.
    “Forgive me for saying so, but that sounds an awful lot like what you are doing.”
    “I know,” she replies after a pause, her voice soft and haunted. “We are very similar. In this thing I see the end of a path I nearly walked. I am not sure the path I took is much better.”
    “All right. What’s the difference between you and this raksoyuj?”
    “I possess the body only. I have no traffic with the spirit. Ipush the occupying spirit out and take over—simply hijack the body. But he controls both the spirit and the body.”
    “Didn’t you do that with me?”
    “No, I shared space in your head and found unused pathways and corners of your brain to inhabit. I did not read your thoughts unless you wished to speak to me, and with rare exceptions, I only took control of your body with your permission. What he’s doing is enslaving your father. He knows what your father knows, remembers what he remembers. In outward appearance your father will look the same. But his behavior is quite different now.”
    “What is he doing exactly? You said he’s spreading pestilence.”
    “Yes, this is the end of the second day. The numbers of the ill are growing, and the hospitals are already strained. Doctors are confused, but people sense that the disease is unnatural. Earlier this afternoon—outside