The leader exchanged a greeting with the gunmen and the group continued into a large cavern, easily several hundred yards across. Allie and Drake gasped at the sight of at least a thousand near-naked slumbering youths and children pressed together like sardines on the floor, the stink of unwashed bodies overpowering. Allie’s eyes narrowed as they walked along the edge of the nightmarish scene; the sleeping figures were malnourished and so pale that their skin was translucent, even the toddlers old before their time.
Gunmen stood every few yards along the edge of the cavern, keeping watch, their faces covered, likely to help mask the smell of disease and deprivation. Drake fought to keep his gorge from spewing through his nose, and it was clear that Allie was fighting the same battle as she trudged unsteadily after her captors.
They traversed the first cavern and entered another, smaller cave, with still more sleeping laborers, to a lit passage at the end. Once at that opening, after passing more guards, they were led into a room where an overfed Indian man sat behind a hand-carved wooden desk, incense burning to mask the stink from the outer areas, fresh air piping through a duct that ran from the edge of the ceiling.
“You have caused me much distress,” Mehta said, looking Drake and Allie over. “Your reward for successfully pursuing this adventure will be a death that is far more agonizing than any you can imagine.”
“Who are you?” Drake demanded.
An almost shy smile tugged at the man’s rotund lips and he snapped his fingers. “Suri, cut their backpacks off and let’s see what they brought us.”
The leader of the gunmen stepped forward and flicked open a switchblade, and then sliced through the shoulder straps and placed both backpacks on the desk. Mehta unzipped Drake’s and dumped it out, and then did the same with Allie’s, pausing when the bundled dagger slid from the black nylon with a thump.
“Ah, perfect. This spares me more effort. Very kind of you to return that which was stolen from my brother’s safekeeping,” he said, unwrapping the gold blade and turning it over in his hands. Suri stepped forward and murmured into his ear, and Mehta nodded. “Now, tell me everything you know, and don’t lie or it will go worse for you.”
“Know? We know what’s on the blade — it led us to a ruined temple, beneath which is supposed to be some sort of cache of treasure.”
“Really? Then it’s as I suspected. You are not only fools, you are unlucky ones at that.”
Drake glared at him, and he waved a limp hand at them. “Suri, have you summoned our friends?”
Suri nodded. “They are on their way.”
“And our valued clients? Are they satisfied with the shipment?”
“Most assuredly. The money is counted, and they are ready to leave.”
Mehta nodded to Suri and returned his attention to Drake and Allie. “You caught me at a bad time. I have other guests, or I’d give you a tour of my little camp.”
“Who are these people? Slaves? They look like they’re half dead,” Allie said.
Mehta nodded. “I own them. They were born in these caves and will die here. They are a natural resource to be harvested and put to use, like oil or natural gas, nothing more.”
“Put to what use?” Drake asked.
“You really do not know, do you? I suppose it does not matter now — dead men tell no tales, as they say.” Mehta paused. “This is a mine. We dig for uranium — an outlier vein my grandfather discovered many years ago, which we’ve been mining ever since. What was originally a population of criminals condemned to death became generations of new labor, each giving birth to more diggers as they matured into adults, and ultimately wasting away from the effects of a lifetime in the mines.”
“You… these people are born and die here?”
“Most without ever seeing the sun. It is better that way for them — they know nothing of the outside world. Any newcomers we are sent are segregated and work in the milling and chemical processing area, which takes a heavy toll on them.” Mehta looked up as three figures arrived at the chamber opening. Allie and Drake twisted their heads to get a glimpse of the newcomers and stiffened at the sight. The filthy men were clad in rags, their skin smeared with ash, their waist-length beards and hair dreadlocked and greasy, and necklaces and amulets of human bones adorned their chests and arms.
“Oh, God…” Allie gasped at the men’s ruined mouths and sharpened teeth.
“Not God, no,” Mehta said. “Quite the furthest thing from it, actually. They believe themselves to be human incarnations of ancient demons, bringers of death. They are worshippers of Kali, the black goddess of destruction, and mutilate themselves as an act of homage to her, a symbol of their faith and devotion. They are a centuries-old cult of ruthless killers… and they are the guardians of this treasure you so imprudently covet. A treasure that they hold to be sacred and which must be kept from human sight at any cost. They believe that to fail in their task is to invite the end of the world. Quaint, but a useful conceit to encourage. I’ve found it helpful to use for my purposes.”
“The statue at Swami Baba Raja’s…” Drake murmured.
“Is of no consequence to me, other than as a memento, a gift that helped establish my brother as a holy man capable of manifesting ancient rarities, the icon shown to only a chosen few in exchange for their devotion… and silence.” Mehta pursed his lips as though he’d tasted something sour. “This is a superstitious country, and the old ways die hard. It does not matter whether I believe these trinkets to be inconsequential. What matters is that for my brother, the power they wield is sufficient to bend them to one’s will, just as any holy relic’s true worth is in the minds of the faithful, not in the eyes of the skeptic. And so the sword will be returned to my brother in good time, and then the goddess shall be whole again, her legacy undamaged, your meddling in affairs that don’t concern you an inconsequential ripple on the surface of a limitless lake.”
“Why are you doing this to us?” Allie asked quietly.
“Surely you can’t be that dim. I cannot afford interlopers, whether fortune hunters or adventurers, intruding into my valley and exposing my operation to prying eyes. Your quest for the treasure sealed your fate — it is now out of my hands.”
Mehta spoke rapidly to Suri, who nodded and spoke in a different tongue to the members of the death cult. Suri turned to Allie and Drake and sneered. “You have been gifted to them for their ritual. Believe me that it is a curiosity unlike any you have ever witnessed — and it will be your last.”
The tallest of the cult members stepped forward to take Allie by the arm. His bloodshot eyes darted to Mehta’s desk, where the dagger was resting beside Allie’s backpack, and then returned to Drake and Allie with a smoldering glower. He grunted a hoarse monosyllable and the other two cult members joined him.
“As an archeologist, I’m sure you’ll find their primitive ceremony as fascinating as it is monstrous,” Mehta called out to Allie. “Oh, yes, of course I know who you are. The irony being that all of your money couldn’t buy your way out of this predicament. It is of no value to these men, whose only interest is to desecrate your souls in the cold light of a blood moon. Enjoy your final breaths, my curious friends. Remember it’s the journey, not the destination, which makes things interesting.”
Mehta’s laugh followed them like a taunt as the cult killers dragged Drake and Allie from Mehta’s chamber. They passed back through the hellish vista of the slave camp, past generations of slave laborers whose lives were preordained to be short and brutal, their existences determined by a corpulent madman who cared nothing for them. Once outside the cave mouth, Suri and his men followed the cult killers to the barbed wire and stopped at the trail, watching wordlessly as Drake and Allie disappeared into the night, bound for an agonizing death they would beg for before the night was done.