Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress (4 page)

sh, you have got to see this.”

“Go away. I’m dead.”

“No. Get up.”

“Go away. Now.”

Lucky began cranking open the metal window shutters. Ash groaned as the rusty steel plates screeched.

“A real sister would let her elder brother sleep.” He checked his watch. Seven. Seven! On his so-called holidays. “But I suppose you can’t help it. Being adopted and all.”

“I was not adopted.”

“It’s true. Found in the dustbin. Mum and Dad wanted
to sell you to the organ traffickers. I stopped them. You should be grateful. Now go away.”

“Look, Ash!” Lucky pulled off his sheet. “Look!”

She never listened to him. Ash crawled off the bed and joined her at the window.

There was a car in the driveway. Which was weird since they didn’t own a car. Weirder still, it was a brand-new mirror-bright silver Mercedes S-Class Saloon.

“Savage,” said Ash.

“Can you believe it?” Lucky was at the door. “Come on.” She dashed out. Reluctantly, Ash followed.

Uncle Vik had a pink-walled bungalow in the grounds of Varanasi University. It was a staff perk. It was also an insect-infested concrete box with no air-conditioning. As Ash came out he saw there were dozens of students at the low garden wall. More than a few were taking photos of it with their mobiles. Most of the lecturers at the university still rode bicycles and here was a bank-breaking Mercedes.

“It’s amazing,” said Uncle Vik from the driver’s seat. The dashboard was all walnut trim with a 3D-map display, multimedia system, all the bells and whistles. There were TV screens on the back of the front seats. Any more gadgets
and it would have had a NASA logo on it. “It was here when I woke up.”

Ash tensed. Savage had been here while they’d slept. “Did… did you see anyone?”

“No. But the guard said it was the Englishwoman who dropped it off.”

Jackie. At least she hadn’t come in.

“Isn’t this all too much?” said Aunt Anita. She sounded worried. “Maybe you should give this back, Vikram.”

“The only way they’ll get this off me,” Uncle Vik’s grip tightened round the steering wheel, “is from my cold, dead hands.”

Lucky opened the rear passenger door and started bouncing on the white leather seats.

“Ash, what’s wrong?” asked Uncle Vik.

This wasn’t right. The car. All that money. Savage had bought his uncle. It made him sick. “I just want some breakfast.”

Back in the kitchen, Ash poured out some cornflakes while Aunt Anita put on the kettle and toast.

“He’s dying, you know that,” said Uncle Vik.

Ash paused, the spoon a few millimetres from his mouth. “Who?”

“Lord Savage. A skin disease. Cancer. One of the guests told me last night.”

Aunt Anita filled up the white china teapot. “You think this business has something to do with his illness?”

“He wants to leave a legacy. See something done in his name,” said Uncle Vik, his gaze roaming to the window and the car outside. “He can’t take it with him, can he?”

“Still, two million pounds, Vikram. It’s not normal.”

Uncle Vik kissed his wife’s forehead. “Who knows what is normal to a man like him? Lord Savage wants immortality. If these excavations are a success, he’ll have it. He’ll be the one who unlocked the secrets of an entire culture. Two million doesn’t seem much for immortality.”

“And you’ll be rich and famous too, Uncle,” said Lucky. She shook her head at the toast and picked a banana from the fruit bowl. “Can I have a pony?”

Uncle Vik laughed. “What’s mine is yours. We’re family.”

“What about those freaks he has working for him?” asked Ash. “That skinny guy, Jat? Now you can’t tell me he’s normal.”

“Bodyguards,” said Vik. “Lord Savage is immensely rich, and India is not like London, Ash. He needs protection.”

That made sense. But things were clearly not right with Savage. Ash chewed his cornflakes as he went over last night
in his mind. Memories of rakshasas and men with reptile eyes didn’t last long in the sunlight. If Jat was a bodyguard it was his job to scare intruders, and he’d certainly done that. It didn’t mean he really wanted to eat Ash’s eyeballs. Savage had called Mayar a demon, but that didn’t have to be literally true. Uncle Vik often called Lucky his little monkey, but that didn’t mean she had a tail.

Perhaps his mum was right and he should cut down on all those computer games. They were giving him an over-active imagination.

What was real? Believable? That Lord Savage was a terminally ill man with strange servants living in a rundown palace, trying to get his name in the history books – or that he was an evil monster, served by demons?

Well, put like that…

Ash was being stupid. If he carried on like this he’d be checking for monsters under his bed next.

After breakfast, Ash joined Uncle Vik as he prepared to drive over to the Savage Fortress. His uncle popped open the trunk and dropped in his briefcase.

“Be careful.” Despite everything, Ash couldn’t get rid of the fear he’d felt last night. “You know. Drive carefully.”

“You think I’m going to risk a dent on this beautiful car?”
There was even a pair of leather driving gloves lying on the dashboard. Uncle Vik put them on with a sigh of satisfaction. “Our luck’s changing, Ash.”

The guard cleared the students away from the gate as Uncle Vik reversed out. Ash waved until the car could no longer be seen.

Aunt Anita handed Ash some suntan lotion.

“Put this on.”

“We’re going out? Where?”

“We’ve just been given two million pounds.” Anita smiled. “We’re going shopping.”

While Anita was busy buying up the entire stock of the silk emporium, Ash and Lucky settled in at the Cyber Café to surf the web and catch up on emails.

The emporium was part of a grand old government office built by the Victorians but now divided up into a thousand private stalls. Ash got himself a booth facing the main street, completely open to the traffic outside and the mass of humanity making its way towards the old city, the temples and the cremation sites, like an endless river of prayers.

Ash Googled ‘Lord Alexander Savage’ and came up with a long list of charities, foundations, business ventures and
offices all over the subcontinent and the Far East. There was a photo of the current Lord Savage having tea with the Dalai Lama up in the Himalayas. Ash had even found a portrait of the first Savage: a pirate, drug dealer, slave dealer and member of the Hellfire Club. The original mad, bad and dangerous to know. The ice-cold blue eyes stared at Ash from all those centuries ago, filled with cruel indifference and contempt.

Ash logged into his webmail account and found messages from Josh, Sean and Akbar. They’d had an all night multi-gamer and were wondering if he wanted to hook up when he got back. A big fat ‘yes’ to that. If Lucky was getting a pony, then he was getting all the gaming hardware now money was no object. Like Uncle Vik had said, they were family and Ash’s uncle was keen, desperate even, to pay his brother back for all the support he’d given. Uncle Vik seemed a new man, raised by Savage’s patronage. Maybe Uncle Vik was right, their luck was changing.

Ash could picture his room now. New console. Huge flat-screen. Cinema surround-sound system. The guys would go mental when he told them what he was planning.

Josh added that he’d bumped into Gemma at the lido pool. Ash should have seen her, he wrote, all tanned and in
a flower-patterned bikini. Josh, as his best friend and on his behalf, had admitted to her that Ash totally fancied her. Josh also added that she hadn’t been violently sick when he’d told her. So that was good.

Gemma. In a bikini. Ash couldn’t think about that without blushing. She was going to the top of his ‘Things I Like’ list. Josh was going on his ‘To be killed as a matter of urgency’ list.

Ash didn’t venture much near any swimming pools. He was worried some Japanese fisherman might harpoon him.

Lucky nudged him.

“What?”

“That girl. She’s so totally checking you out.” Lucky stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, pointing in what she thought was a discreet manner.

“Shut up.”

“No, she is. Honestly.”

Ash looked slowly sideways. “Which one?”

“Green.”

Ash made an extravagant motion for the waiter to bring him another Coke. He used the move to scan the other people at the café, looking for someone in green.

Wow
.

An Indian girl in a green top and trousers sat at the edge of the café – tall, slim and ultra-cool. She was about the same age as him, maybe a year or two older. Her long black hair was loose and hung down over her shoulders, shimmering like oil on water, and her lips glistened with pale gloss. She rested her pointed chin on her fist, and it did seem as if she was looking straight at Ash, but her eyes were hidden behind a pair of big sunglasses so he couldn’t be sure. She could be asleep for all he knew.

“She’s not looking at me,” Ash said.

“Go and say something.” Lucky nudged him again. “Go on.”

“She’s not looking at me,” he repeated.

“Your loss. She’s going anyway.”

Ash spun round. The stool was empty. He caught a glimpse of green silk enter the busy crowd, then the girl disappeared into the ever-moving river of people.

He could have said something.

Ash turned back to his computer again. And said what? Nothing. Girls like that weren’t interested in guys like him.

Over the next few days the mood in the house changed. Uncle Vik was busy and excited by the translations and
reckoned he’d be finished within two weeks. There was talk of a new house, holidays abroad, even a pony for Lucky. Everyone was happy.

Except Ash.

Something still niggled at him. It was like a mosquito bite just under the skin. He could scratch all he liked, but it wouldn’t go away.

“Ashoka!” Aunt Anita called from the front door.

“What?”

“You coming or not?”

Drat. He’d forgotten they were going to meet Uncle Vik at the dig for a picnic.

“Do I have to?”

He’d planned to go do some more research online down at the Cyber Café. Check out the best prices for the computer hardware. And she might be there, the girl in green. But that wasn’t why he was going. Honestly. Just research. He slipped into his Nike T-shirt and checked himself again. It was his lucky T-shirt and if he held his stomach in a bit, it wouldn’t sit over his belly like a tent.

And if she did just happen to be there, this time he’d speak to her. See if she wanted to hang out or something. But not a date. Definitely not a date.

Ash went to the door.

“I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll go next time.”

Anita glanced at her watch. “The taxi’s waiting. You’ll be OK?”

“He’s going to look for his girlfriend,” said Lucky, sucking orange juice from a large curly straw.

“You have a girlfriend?”

“No. Lucky’s being an idiot. As usual.”

“Then why are you wearing the Nike, then?” Lucky turned to her aunt. “He thinks it makes him look athletic. As if.”

“What’s her name?” asked Aunt Anita.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

The taxi horn honked outside and Aunt Anita picked up a large wicker picnic basket. “Well, I hope you are not mixing with bad girls, Ashoka. I’m sure when the time comes, your mother will pick a most suitable girl for you from a good, respectable family.”

Lucky made smooching motions from behind Aunt Anita’s back. Ash glowered, but forced himself to keep quiet.

You just wait, Lucks.

He went back to his room and picked up his wallet. He tossed it aside. He should just face it, she wasn’t going to be there at the café. He tossed it aside.

He didn’t want to go with them and there was only one reason why: he was scared. Scared of Mayar, Savage, all of them. Even now, days later, when his uncle had been back and forth and everything was going right, all Ash wanted to do was hide.

What was he afraid of? Rakshasas that didn’t exist?

Stupid. You’re being stupid.

And why would any girl want to go out with a guy who couldn’t even leave his house? Best face up to it now.

Ash ran back out. “Hold on!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

Uncle Vik was waiting for them on the riverbank, collecting a lantern from the boot of the Mercedes.

“The bridge still down?” asked Aunt Anita as she saw the rowing boat up on the bank.

“Welcome to India,” said Uncle Vik.

Ash looked at the boat, then at his uncle. “You can row?”

“Just get in.” Uncle Vik waved at Eddie, calling out, “You go. I will bring them home.”

Vik pushed off with the oar and, after a few seconds of faffing, found his rhythm and took them across the Ganges.

The far bank was about half a kilometre away, but the
river flowed at a languid speed, like it knew it was too hot to hurry. Ash peered into the water and watched his face ripple and part in the black, shiny waters.

“See anything?” asked his uncle.

“Just me.” Ash leaned back. “How can anyone be so ridiculously good-looking?”

“So modest also,” said Uncle Vik mockingly. “Just like your father.”