of his brethren – a byproduct of the work he’d been laboring at since a toddler – so at worst, these twisted animals would deprive him of the lingering moments of agony a death from that affliction would entail. In the end, perhaps they were doing him a favor, and he begged the universe to make his departure swift and painless.
The column stopped before him, and the leader looked him in the eyes, chilling his blood. The youth was looking into the face of hell – he knew then that the whispered rumors of timeless evil were no exaggeration. The man’s distorted grimace, the scars where his lips and tongue had been seared away with a glowing brand upon childhood initiation into the cult, the teeth honed to spikes – all were worse than the legends, as was the reek wafting from him as he leaned forward and hissed at the youth like a snake, unable to speak or form words, his dark goddess’s name a hoarse moan when mangled in atonal chant. His hair and beard were threaded with long strips of dry human skin, and a necklace of finger bones and desiccated ears hung low over the man’s bare chest smeared with ash and tattooed with forbidden occult talismans.
These were the infamous descendants of the Thuggee, the murderous cult that had preyed on India for centuries before supposedly being eradicated by the British, from which the English term thug had been derived. Most of the Thuggee had been opportunistic robbers, who would infiltrate caravans as innocent travelers, and once having earned their trust, would turn on them, strangling them and stealing their riches. But this sect was the worst of the worst, an extremist offshoot that had survived in the remotest reaches of the country, whose worship of the goddess of destruction was the stuff of whispered infamy and whose practices were abominations – cannibalism, human sacrifice, necrophilia…every imaginable desecration, including living in burial grounds and smearing themselves with excrement and the rotting flesh of the dead.
The death cult leader turned to his followers, who resumed their chant, an unholy keening from mutilated tongues. The tempo accelerated as the dark priest joined in, and when he spun back to the youth, he was clutching a wickedly curved blade with archaic symbols etched into the gleaming metal.
The youth’s determination to meet his end with dignity gave way to an agonized scream as the leader drove the blade into his abdomen and sliced upward, disemboweling him as another of the murderous clan slipped behind him. The sharp bite of wire burned like liquid fire against the youth’s throat, and then everything went mercifully black as it bit through his larynx and carotid artery, terminating the flow of oxygen to his brain.
The first part of the ceremony completed with the youth’s murder, the cult members lit torches and pounded drums in preparation for the next horrific phase – one that would extend long into the night, culminating in the youth’s remains roasted to ashes over the fire and his skeleton discarded in a massive pit with thousands of other unfortunates. Only then would the cult return to its caves along the rim of the boneyard, satiated until the next offering to the goddess of destruction, who required regular grisly tribute as her due.
Chapter 11
New Delhi, India
Drake elbowed Spencer as the SUV rolled to a stop at the end of a dirt road. In front of them was a houseboat, one of a dozen moored to the riverbank, its hull swaying slightly to the tug of the river’s current. The Frenchman killed the engine and opened his door.
“This is it,” he said. “Everybody out.”
The gunman led them up a rickety gangplank to the houseboat entrance while the driver stood by the SUV and lit a cigarette, checking his watch after blowing a plume of gray at a sliver of moon. The warm air was redolent of decay; the river’s brown rush frothed with diluted toxicity from factories upstream.
The gunman swung open the front door
The column stopped before him, and the leader looked him in the eyes, chilling his blood. The youth was looking into the face of hell – he knew then that the whispered rumors of timeless evil were no exaggeration. The man’s distorted grimace, the scars where his lips and tongue had been seared away with a glowing brand upon childhood initiation into the cult, the teeth honed to spikes – all were worse than the legends, as was the reek wafting from him as he leaned forward and hissed at the youth like a snake, unable to speak or form words, his dark goddess’s name a hoarse moan when mangled in atonal chant. His hair and beard were threaded with long strips of dry human skin, and a necklace of finger bones and desiccated ears hung low over the man’s bare chest smeared with ash and tattooed with forbidden occult talismans.
These were the infamous descendants of the Thuggee, the murderous cult that had preyed on India for centuries before supposedly being eradicated by the British, from which the English term thug had been derived. Most of the Thuggee had been opportunistic robbers, who would infiltrate caravans as innocent travelers, and once having earned their trust, would turn on them, strangling them and stealing their riches. But this sect was the worst of the worst, an extremist offshoot that had survived in the remotest reaches of the country, whose worship of the goddess of destruction was the stuff of whispered infamy and whose practices were abominations – cannibalism, human sacrifice, necrophilia…every imaginable desecration, including living in burial grounds and smearing themselves with excrement and the rotting flesh of the dead.
The death cult leader turned to his followers, who resumed their chant, an unholy keening from mutilated tongues. The tempo accelerated as the dark priest joined in, and when he spun back to the youth, he was clutching a wickedly curved blade with archaic symbols etched into the gleaming metal.
The youth’s determination to meet his end with dignity gave way to an agonized scream as the leader drove the blade into his abdomen and sliced upward, disemboweling him as another of the murderous clan slipped behind him. The sharp bite of wire burned like liquid fire against the youth’s throat, and then everything went mercifully black as it bit through his larynx and carotid artery, terminating the flow of oxygen to his brain.
The first part of the ceremony completed with the youth’s murder, the cult members lit torches and pounded drums in preparation for the next horrific phase – one that would extend long into the night, culminating in the youth’s remains roasted to ashes over the fire and his skeleton discarded in a massive pit with thousands of other unfortunates. Only then would the cult return to its caves along the rim of the boneyard, satiated until the next offering to the goddess of destruction, who required regular grisly tribute as her due.
Chapter 11
New Delhi, India
Drake elbowed Spencer as the SUV rolled to a stop at the end of a dirt road. In front of them was a houseboat, one of a dozen moored to the riverbank, its hull swaying slightly to the tug of the river’s current. The Frenchman killed the engine and opened his door.
“This is it,” he said. “Everybody out.”
The gunman led them up a rickety gangplank to the houseboat entrance while the driver stood by the SUV and lit a cigarette, checking his watch after blowing a plume of gray at a sliver of moon. The warm air was redolent of decay; the river’s brown rush frothed with diluted toxicity from factories upstream.
The gunman swung open the front door
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