28 July 2000The map y between them like a battlefield.

  Priya leaned back against the wall, knees hugged to her chest. Her braid had frayed at the edges, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion.

  She’d arrived at Bharath’s door just a few hours ago with her shocking confession—that she had initially been sent to honeytrap him—but now they had forged a different alliance based on a fragile, new-born trust.

  “We’ve got nothing,” she muttered, a hint of her Bengali accent slipping through as her frustration mounted. “Jaani toh shob kichhu—we know where they operate. We know the routines. But without proof ... it’s just noise.”

  Bharath stared at the network she had sketched—lines connecting strangers’ names and unseen safehouses. Just nine days ago, he wouldn’t have recognized a single name on this map. Nine days ago, he was just trying to find his way around Calcutta without getting hopelessly lost.

  Then Priya, who he had thought was just a friendly market girl with Rising Sun loyalties, had appeared at his doorstep earlier that night on the run. A temptress sent to lure men to their doom. But she had backed out, and now they were after her. Somehow Bharath had become her confidant, her shelter.

  “You said Rekha Das might be involved,” he murmured quietly, recalling their conversation from st night about the notorious socialite and her daughter Anya. Just hearing the name again sent a strange current through his body—a connection he couldn’t expin to Priya.

  She scoffed, twisting the end of her braid in that nervous habit he had come to recognize.

  “Hoyto. Maybe. But she’s not stupid. She’s been dancing with devils for years. Erom mohi—a woman like that doesn’t leave trails. And even if she did ... we couldn’t get near them.”

  “So you really think she could be working with Arjun?” he pressed, remembering how Priya had described Rekha Das’s ruthless social climbing and exploitation of her daughter.

  Priya nodded grimly. “Page 3 royalty like her need people like Arjun to handle the dirty work. She throws the biggest parties, knows every powerful man in Calcutta, and uses her daughter Anya as bait while keeping her own hands clean.”

  Something twisted in Bharath’s gut at the mention of Anya’s name—a feeling he couldn’t expin to Priya. He had seen Anya in his dreams since before he ever id eyes on her photograph. He felt her presence like a beautiful phantom limb. The intimacy they had shared in that other realm felt more real than anything in his waking life, yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell Priya about it.

  Not yet.

  Bharath nodded slowly as frustration coiled like a knot behind his ribs, tight and ready to snap. The map they had created from Priya’s inside knowledge of Arjun’s operation and what she’d overheard during her time with the Syndicate seemed comprehensive, but without solid evidence, they had nothing to threaten the Syndicate with, nothing to secure her safety.

  He stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Priya asked sharply.

  “Food,” he said, grabbing his wallet and slipping on his sandals. Her eyes followed Bharath with that mixture of gratitude and stubborn independence he had come to recognize in the few hours since she had appeared at his door-soaking wet and desperate. “You haven’t eaten for a while. Neither have I.”

  “Where will you even go?” she asked. “You’ve only been in Calcutta, what—a week?”

  “Almost two,” Bharath corrected her, a hint of pride in his voice. “Since the 18th. And I’ve figured out that much at least. There’s a food stall just down the street. I pass it on my way to training.”

  “It’s not safe,” she said, rising quickly, her kohl-lined eyes widening. “Ekhon raat hoeche. You shouldn’t be seen out te. They might be watching.”

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though his stomach knotted at the thought of the danger surrounding them.

  “They don’t know where I live,” he said. “Heritage City only announced my signing st week. I’m still a nobody here. And I’m not wearing my club gear. I’ll be fifteen minutes. Lock the door behind me.”

  She opened her mouth to argue again, but the rumble from her stomach betrayed her.

  He gave her a look.

  She sighed and nodded. “Thik achhe. But don’t be a hero.” A pause, then softer: “You’ve already done more than you should have to.”

  He met her eyes. “That’s what friends are for, right?” The word felt both inadequate and presumptuous between them—they had only met a week ago when she’d approached him at the market.

  “Just hungry,” he said, and slipped into the humid night.

  The streets were quieter at night—calmer than the chaos of central Calcutta, but not dead. Mosquitoes danced zily under flickering bulbs. Dogs curled by shuttered storefronts, tails twitching in sleep. This wasn’t the heart of the city. This was Salt Lake—its polished skin, hiding the nerves beneath. New money. New buildings. Old secrets.

  He was still learning his way around this strange, sprawling metropolis. His agent had assured him that signing with Heritage City AC was the opportunity of a lifetime—a step up from the Chennai league where he had made his name. What the agent hadn’t mentioned was the byzantine politics, the fierce rivalry with Rising Sun FC, or the underbelly of corruption that seemed to permeate everything in Calcutta.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked, letting the humidity settle over him like a second shirt.

  Priya had protested, of course. Their paths should never have crossed—him, a new footballer from Chennai with barely nine days in Calcutta; her, a young woman entrapped by the Syndicate and forced to honeytrap men. She had confessed everything just hours ago: how she had spotted Bharath as a potential target after his signing, how she followed him around to get closer to him, spy on him and eventually, feed the Syndicate details about his finances and routines. But something had changed. She couldn’t go through with it and refused her handlers. Now they were hunting her, and he had become her unexpected ally.

  The pn was simple—pick up two egg rolls and some beguni (fried eggpnt fritters, as the vendor had expined to him yesterday) from the corner stall down past the main road, maybe some lebu sharbat—lemon soda with a dash of salt and sugar that Priya had introduced him to. Come back. Feed her. Think.

  But the city, even in its quiet, had cracks.

  And cracks let things through.

  The corner stall wasn’t much.

  Pstic stools. One flickering bulb. Old Bengali songs crackling on a tiny radio. The sweet scent of paan mixing with the oily aroma of frying egg rolls.

  But the voices he heard right next to the stall stopped him cold.

  Tamil.

  Rough. Slurred. And angry.

  Two men crouched near a broken-down scooter—whiskey bottle between them, arguing openly.

  Thugs.

  Their dialect was the rough-edged slum sng of Chennai’s underbelly—cheri Tamil.

  His home city.

  Bharath slowed his pace down, the familiar cadences pulling him in like a magnet. After days of linguistic isotion—struggling with even basic Bengali phrases during training sessions—the sound of Tamil, even this crude dialect, felt like an unexpected gift.

  The words hit him like stabs of ice.

  “Pogudhu da ... three days ah naanga Bankra Road- paiyyan maadhiri vei pannom. Babysitters aa? Intha Calcutta pasangalukku?” (Three whole days we worked like babysitters in Bankra Road. For these useless Calcutta guys?) The other one grunted, swigging deep from the bottle, the amber liquid catching the streetlight.

  Bharath’s stomach twisted.

  Girls.

  Bankra Road.

  “Afzal periya aalu nu solikuran. Ivan paathaa kodukka maari. Duddu vara, onnum vara. Ivanga madam enna da ... pazhaya cinema heroine maadhiri build-up kudukkura?” (Afzal thinks he’s a big man. But nothing’s coming. No cash, Nothing. And that madam of theirs—acting like some old film heroine?)

  Bharath froze.

  Heroine.

  That word caught his attention.

  In Chennai street Tamil, “heroine” could mean a few things—sometimes it literally meant a film actress, but in certain contexts, it referred to someone famous or influential.

  Could they be talking about Rekha Das? The socialite Priya had mentioned in their conversations? Bharath’s heart raced at the possibility, no matter how far-fetched it might be. If it was Rekha, that might mean a connection to Anya—the woman who had cimed his dreams, whose face he had seen only in magazines and on the TV, yet felt drawn to in ways he couldn’t expin.

  He felt a familiar stirring below his waist at the thought of Anya and quickly adjusted his posture, leaning awkwardly against the wall. The egg roll vendor gave him a knowing look and snickered, making him blush furiously. Bharath angled his body away from the counter, pretending he had a sudden interest in a poster of Bollywood stars he could barely recognize.

  His mind fshed to the dream he had just st night—Anya in his arms, their bodies entwined in moonlight, her whispered promises that she belonged to him. The dream had felt so real, so visceral. She had been his in that other realm, and he hers, even though they had never met in the waking world. And now here were these thugs, casually discussing her mother’s (potentially?) criminal connections.

  The first thug cursed loudly, digging into his pocket and pulled something out.

  Not a weapon.

  A photograph.

  Faded. Crumpled. But Bharath caught a glimpse as he waved it drunkenly.

  A woman. Looked like a party photo.

  Maybe a hotel lobby shot. Maybe staged.

  Too far to see details.

  “En kitta copy irukku da,” he bragged, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with greed. “Enakku paisa kedaikaama ponaalum paravail ... naan ithu vithuduven—apparum settle aidam.” (I’ve got a copy, man. Even if I don’t get paid—I’ll sell this somewhere. I’ll get enough to retire.)

  The second man spped his hand down, whispering harshly now—finally worried.

  The egg roll vendor shouted something at Bharath, waving two wrapped parcels. He fumbled with his wallet, pulling out rupee notes. The vendor impatiently pointed to a twenty-rupee price scrawled on a board, and Bharath handed over a fifty-rupee note. He sighed dramatically, counted out the change, and stuffed it back in his hand along with the food.

  “Dhonyobad,” Bharath attempted in his terrible Bengali accent.

  The vendor winced as if physically pained by his pronunciation. “Just go, football boy. You’re scaring my customers,” in Hindi. Bharath blinked in surprise. “You know I py football?”

  “Everyone knows. You kick ball for Heritage.” He made a disgusted face and spat to the side. “Rising Sun better”.

  Great. Even the street food vendors were football fanatics in this city.

  Priya sat cross-legged on the floor, still poring over their sketch-map, a half-empty cup of sweet milky cha beside her. The scent of cardamom hung in the air from the tea she insisted on brewing the Bengali way—boiled with ginger, not steeped. When she saw Bharath, relief washed over her face before she quickly masked it with her usual composure.

  “Baba re, you were gone for so long—” There was a tremor in her voice she couldn’t quite hide.

  And then he told her.

  Every word.

  Every slurred compint.

  Every dangerous brag.

  The photograph.

  The reference to an “old film heroine.”

  And the unmissable location—Bankra Road.

  Priya’s face shifted from worry to cold, calcuting focus.

  “So it’s true,” she whispered, her fingers gripping the edge of the sketch-map. “Everything I told you about Rekha Das st night—it’s actually happening. She really could be connected to the Syndicate”.

  Priya took a bite of her egg roll, then suddenly grimaced. “Ish! Too much chili!”

  “Really?” Bharath was already halfway through his. “Seems mild to me.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “You and your Chennai stomach. This would burn through normal people.” “Are you calling me abnormal?” he grinned.

  “I’m calling you a fire-breathing dragon,” she retorted, but reached for the water bottle with a small smile. Bharath felt good to see her momentarily distracted from their troubles. But the lightness didn’t st long. Her eyes sharpened again.

  “The one with the photograph...” she said slowly, “Describe him again.” Bharath closed his eyes and recalled the details.

  “Older. Maybe te 30s. Scar above his left eyebrow. Short. Wiry. Wears that cheap leather jacket—even in this heat.” She nodded.

  “That’s Mani.”

  “You know him?” Bharath asked, recalling how she had expined the syndicate’s hierarchy to him st night—the handlers, the fixers, the muscle who kept girls like her in line.

  She let out a dry chuckle, running her thumb across the silver bangles that always adorned her left wrist—a gift from her mother, she’d once told him.

  “Ami chini oder moto lok. I know the type. Small-time thug. Not trusted with real jobs. Used for holding, waiting, threatening wives of targets. But loud. Desperate. Always feels like he’s being cheated.”

  “We can’t risk you going near them,” Bharath said finally, surprising himself with the protective edge in his voice. She nodded. Quiet. Too quiet.

  “They’ll recognize me. Mani especially.” Her fingers twisted anxiously in her p. “You’ve already risked enough helping me hide.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about, Priya.” Bharath sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “You’re the one who taught me the importance of this story. We’re in this together now.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Tumi bhalo manush. You are a good man. Maybe too good for this mess I’ve brought to your door.”

  “Not that good,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I still haven’t figured out the washing machine in this apartment. All my training gear is turning gray.”

  She looked at him oddly, then suddenly burst into ughter. “You’re supposed to separate whites and colors!” “They’re all the same in the dark when I throw them in,” he shrugged. “Besides, at home my mother always—” he stopped, embarrassed.

  “Your mother always did your undry,” she finished, still chuckling. “Typical man.”

  “Hey, I can cook!”

  “Eggs. You can cook eggs.”

  “And make excellent tea,” Bharath insisted.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

  Then Priya’s voice cut through the silence. Low. Certain. “Aamra aatke nei.” Her eyes glinted in the dim light. “Not stuck. We just need to stop thinking like good people.”

  Bharath raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?” His limited experience in Calcutta hadn’t prepared him for whatever she was considering. Less than 24 hours ago, she was a terrified woman at his door confessing she had been trapped into working for the Syndicate, honey trapping men and helping bckmail them. Now she was plotting revenge with a confidence that was both impressive and unsettling.

  “It means we need to be creative,” she said, pushing herself up from the floor.

  “Mani and his type?” Priya said, her voice sharper now, warming to the idea. She twisted a strand of hair that had escaped her braid, her mind clearly racing. “They love two things more than money.”

  Bharath waited, watching as she began to pace. The confidence in her movements reminded him that despite her youth, she had navigated a dangerous world for long. Last night she had told him how the Syndicate had recruited her—pretty, poor, invisible—to target wealthy men. She knew these people in ways he never could.

  “Booze. And bragging.” She ticked them off on her fingers.

  “So we could...” he started, trying to follow her logic.

  “Let’s consider all our options,” she said, her tone cooled to calcution, switching to a more analytical tone. “One: we could simply buy the photo from Mani—offer him more money than he’d get elsewhere. But that’s risky. He might just take our money and tell the Syndicate anyway.”

  Bharath nodded slowly. “Two: we could report this to the police?”

  She shot him a look that made him feel incredibly naive. “You’ve been in Calcutta how long? Ten days? Half the department is in the Syndicate’s pocket. The other half wouldn’t touch a case involving Rekha Das or the Syndicate with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Right,” he said, feeling foolish. “Not that then. I’m starting to think the only honest people in this city are the ones who admit they’re criminals.”

  Priya snorted. “That’s ... unfortunately accurate.”

  “Three,” she continued, “we could set a trap for Mani. Get him talking to someone who seems interested in buying the photo.”

  “That would be me, I’m guessing?” he asked.

  “No, too risky. You’re new to Calcutta, but you’re not unknown. Heritage City pstered your signing photos across half the sports pages st week.”

  Bharath couldn’t help feeling a flicker of pride at that, despite their dire situation.

  “Four,” she mused, “we could break into wherever he’s staying and steal it.”

  “You know where he lives?”

  She shook her head. “And Bankra Road has too many eyes. That’s out.”

  “Five,” he offered, trying to be helpful, “what about bckmail? If he’s doing something illegal—”

  “He’s a thug. Everything he does is illegal. But bckmail just makes things personal.” She stopped pacing suddenly. “Six ... what if we just...”

  A slow smile spread across her face.

  Bharath tapped his fingers against the edge of the table. “Okay, walk me through this again—clean. Simple.”

  Priya nodded, already folding the scrap of paper she’d written earlier. “Step one: you talk to Kunal.”

  “Kunal? Why him?”

  “He knows Hari kaka,” she said, slipping the paper into an envelope. “And Hari kaka runs the stall where Mani and his type drink. I used to wait there for ... jobs. Hari helped me once. If he gets this message, he’ll help again.”

  “So Kunal gives him the note?”

  “Exactly. Quietly. No questions asked. The note asks Hari to get Mani drunk on Friday night and pnt one idea in his head—that someone’s been going around ciming to have dirt on Rekha Das.”

  Bharath raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

  “That’s enough,” she said. “Men like Mani live to prove they’re bigger than they are. The moment he hears someone else might have his photo, he’ll whip it out and brag that he’s the only one holding gold.”

  He exhaled slowly, already visualizing it. “Alright. Let’s say that works. Then what?”

  “Then you hire Madan,” she said, sliding a second note across the table. “Your club photographer. You tell him you want some candid shots of ‘real Calcutta’ for your family back home. Tell him your cousin’s obsessed with Bengali street culture—whatever works.”

  “And we shoot near the stall?”

  “Exactly,” she nodded. “Hari kaka will seat Mani where Madan has a clean line of sight. If Mani pulls out the photo, Madan gets the shot.”

  “No stealing. No confrontation.”

  “No suspicions,” she added. “Madan doesn’t need to know what he’s photographing. He just needs to keep clicking.” Bharath frowned. “But if Mani doesn’t pull it out—”

  “Then we try again,” she said simply. “But he will. Hari knows how to provoke him. And if we get the shot, we’ll have proof without Mani even knowing it.”

  He leaned back, nodding slowly. “Smart. Clean.”

  She grinned. “That’s why we’re doing it Friday night. Drunk men are always the loudest.”

  As she expined her pn further, Bharath’s mind drifted again to Anya—to her face, her lips, the way she’d moved against him in his dreams. A powerful wave of arousal hit him so suddenly that he had to grab a cushion from the couch and pce it awkwardly on his p.

  Priya stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening slightly as she realized what was happening.

  “I, uh...” he stuttered, mortified.

  To his surprise, she burst out ughing. “Oh my God, you’re like a teenager!”

  “I’m sorry,” Bharath said, face burning. “I was just thinking about ... strategy.”

  “Strategy. Right.” She was still giggling. “Must be quite a complex ... position you’re considering.”

  “Can we please change the subject?” Bharath begged, unable to look her in the eye.

  She composed herself, though her eyes still danced with amusement. “Of course. Let’s talk about your ... smaller problems.”

  Bharath gred at her, but eventually couldn’t help smiling. The absurdity of the situation—plotting against gangsters while battling inconvenient arousal—was too ridiculous not to ugh at.

  Bharath stared at the crude pn sketched out in front of them.

  Was it risky? Absolutely.

  Was it brilliant? Maybe.

  But it felt right.

  Smart. Fast. Street-level.

  Exactly the kind of solution the Syndicate’s slick operators would never expect.

  “You know, it’s ironic. You being a Rising Sun fan and me pying for Heritage City.” He had noticed the red and gold keychain she always carried—Rising Sun’s colors.

  She smiled wryly. “Football rivalries seem small compared to what we’re dealing with now.” Then her expression turned contemptive.

  “You’ve changed since I first met you at the market. There’s something different about you ... something beyond football.” He thought of Anya, of the dreams that had been growing increasingly vivid since his arrival in Calcutta, but kept silent. He shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware of the pillow still on his p.

  “And I can guess what—or who—might be causing some of these changes,” Priya added with a knowing smirk. “I could say the same about you,” he replied, desperate to change the subject. “The girl who helped me pick fruit wasn’t exactly revealing her true self either.” There was no accusation in his voice—just acknowledgment of how complex their situation had become.

  “Fair point,” she conceded. “Though in my defense, I wasn’t actually pnning to go through with it from the beginning. You were terrible at being a mark.”

  “Terrible how?” he asked, genuinely curious.

  “Well, for starters, most men would have invited me up to their apartment that first day. You just thanked me for helping with the shopping.”

  He felt his face flush. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Don’t be,” she said seriously. “It’s why we’re both still alive.”

  And just like that—they weren’t prey anymore.

  They were hunting.

  “Tomorrow night,” she whispered, more to herself than to Bharath. “Friday night. We’re going to turn this around.”

  The night was heavy over the city. The kind of humid weight that settled into your bones. Even the buzzing of distant auto-rickshaws and the occasional bark of stray dogs seemed softer, drowned under the low hum of the fan in Bharath’s apartment and the distant temple bells signaling the midnight aarti.

  Priya had fallen asleep curled into the edge of the couch, tension still written into every line of her elegant frame despite the exhaustion. Her bangle-adorned arm dangled off the edge, silver glinting in the dim light. The faint scent of vender oil from her hair mingled with the lingering aroma of their dinner.

  Bharath carefully draped a light cotton bnket over her. In sleep, the young woman who had approached him so naturally in the market, who had spent time with him under false pretenses, and who had finally broken down at his door just hours ago confessing everything, looked vulnerable.

  It was strange how quickly they had formed this bond—the football pyer from Chennai who barely spoke a word of Bengali and the girl who’d been trapped in the Syndicate’s web of honey traps and bckmail. She deserved the rest. They both did.

  But Bharath’s mind wouldn’t quiet.

  Not after what they had uncovered tonight. Not after what they had pnned. Not after what they had dared to dream. The thought of what y ahead, what danger still circled her, pulled at him like an itch beneath his skin. At first, when she had first appeared at his door earlier, wild-eyed and desperate, he had offered shelter out of simple decency. Now he found himself willing to risk everything to protect her—not out of romance, but something deeper. Something like family. The fierce, protective instinct he had always felt for his sister back in Chennai.

  But more than that ... there was another pull. One that thrummed low in his body ever since that night in the yantra. The dream. The yantra. And Anya Das—a woman he had never met in the flesh but whose body and soul he had known intimately in their shared dreamscape.

  The vision they had shared just st night had been the most vivid yet— bodies joining in moonlight, promises whispered against heated skin. She had cimed him spiritually and emotionally in a way he couldn’t expin.

  She would be waiting for him.

  Bharath didn’t even remember closing his eyes.

  The first thing Bharath felt as he stepped into the dream was a subtle shift in the air—a breathlessness, as though the world itself held its breath. No jolt, no pull—just a gradual sinking into something deeper, vaster.

  He was no longer in his apartment. There was nothing familiar to touch or hold, yet he felt more present than ever. Beneath his bare feet stretched an immense expanse of ancient stone, warm and gently contoured, as if shaped by centuries of sacred ritual. The ground hummed with quiet resonance. It felt alive, as though it recognized him.

  Intricate geometric patterns flowed across the surface—triangles, spirals, lotus petals—etched in motion, shifting like sentient thought. Not decoration, but nguage. Not static, but breathing.

  There were no walls. No sky. Just a boundless, shimmering manda that spiraled infinitely in all directions. A living yantra—sacred geometry unfurling around him, glowing faintly in hues of green, silver, and red. It pulsed not with light, but intent. The air was thick with power—not overwhelming, but so dense it clung to his skin, teasing understanding just beyond reach. He took a step. The stone welcomed it. Symbols rearranged underfoot, their edges softening, reshaping to his presence.

  He knelt, reaching toward a glowing petal. His hand hovered, then touched it—not quite contact, but enough. It hummed under his fingers, a silent acknowledgment.

  Startled, he drew back. The glow fred, then softened again, as if it were breathing with him.

  It felt familiar—eerily so. Not from memory, but from something older. A knowing buried deep within his bones. These symbols weren’t just ancient; they were eternal, waiting for him to remember.

  Near the center of the yantra, one petal pulsed brighter than the rest—a deep red, edged in gold, radiant like fire. It tugged at him, each step toward it heavier, the air denser with unseen force. But just as he reached out, it shimmered and slipped from reach, teasing, sentient.

  And then ... stillness.

  He froze.

  The air changed again.

  He was not alone.

  No figures appeared, but presence crackled in the air. Like a storm building behind the silence. Something watched him. Not with eyes, but with awareness. The yantra had noticed.

  The patterns began to shift again—more organic now. The lotus petals contracted and stretched as if breathing. The triangles folded inward like muscle memory returning.

  And then he felt it.

  The goddesses.

  Not seen—but felt. A heat, a pulse, a divine pull at the edge of perception.

  They were close. Watching. Waiting.

  Their energy coiled around him, not demanding, not violent—but vast. Like being seen by the sky.

  He didn’t understand. Couldn’t. There were no answers here, only sensation—mystery thick as mist.

  The petals brightened, glowing with ethereal light.

  He stood still, heart pounding, breath slow.

  And then came the surge.

  A presence swept through him—impossible, holy, electrifying. The goddesses’ energy flooded his body, not with chaos, but with cosmic precision. Each vibration carried purpose.

  He gasped as it moved through him—not pain, not pleasure, but a totality.

  They weren’t visions.

  They were real.

  And they were here.

  And then Bharath saw them.

  Lingams. Rising like sacred stones from the earth itself. Obsidian slick, each wrapped in its own shrouded space within the yantra. Silent. Waiting.

  He circled slowly, his breath catching.

  Not all were clear.

  Some shimmered like distant stars. Others seemed incomplete, veiled from his gaze as if still forming—or still waiting to be cimed.

  But three...

  Three shone.

  The first burned brightest.

  Red and gold silk y curled at its base, catching an unseen wind, whispering of a presence he knew as surely as his own breath. Anya.

  The yantra folded around him and a vision opened—not a dream, but a window. A glimpse.

  Anya curled alone beneath fine sheets in her room. Fragile and fierce. Soft brown skin touched by moonlight. Eyes haunted by memories older than her years.

  But Anya’s eyes remained closed—her heart somewhere distant. Somewhere with him?

  Though they had never met in the flesh, never spoken a word to each other in the waking world, in this realm of spirit and dream they were bound by something ancient and powerful.

  The vision shimmered ... then faded.

  He turned to the next lingam. The energy here was quieter. Stronger. Rooted. The earth beneath all else. It thrummed low in his belly—not sharp like fire, but steady like stone warmed by sunlight.

  The third pulsed with an edge. Like lightning held in pause. Tension and grace wound together. Wounded but unyielding.

  He didn’t know them yet.

  But they knew him.

  He stepped back, slowly turning to take in the impossible vastness of the yantra. The other stones shimmered in the distance. Shrouded. Silent.

  Questions churned in his mind.

  Why him? Why this pce? Why now?

  But answers wouldn’t come. Not tonight.

  Only a promise.

  The sacred breeze rose again, curling around him like the first inhation of desire. And then they came...

  She moved like fme—Anya, the red-silk goddess—bold and sure, her presence pulling him into her orbit.

  And behind her...

  The others—shadows resolving into form—figures Bharath could feel in his bones even if he could not yet name them. Eyes gleaming. Hands reaching. Bodies destined.

  The yantra thrummed like a temple drum beneath them, each beat syncing to a truth older than nguage...

  What followed defied nguage. A moment suspended outside of time—outside of breath itself.

  They came to him not as mortals, but as visions made flesh. Eternal energies wrapped in luminous skin.

  The Red-Silk Goddess, her eyes fierce with knowing, her body wrapped in fme and devotion, moved like a secret whispered through incense smoke.

  The Earth Goddess, lush and grounded, all generous curves and quiet might, approached with the grace of rain-washed soil.

  And the Silver Storm, wild and untamed, her hair a halo of motion, danced like lightning caught between monsoon winds and midnight waves.

  They circled him like stars around a sun, like stories orbiting the soul of a man not yet broken open.

  Their eyes devoured him—not hungrily, but wholly. As if their touch would complete an equation he’d forgotten he was born to solve.

  Bharath stood still, breath caught. The air had thickened, becoming something sacred. Something holy.

  He felt his skin prickle, each heartbeat slowing, aligning with something older than pulse.

  Then, without a word, the Red-Silk Goddess stepped forward.

  She did not ask. She cimed—fingers brushing his chest, her nails tracing the edge of his heart like a prayer.

  He gasped. Her touch was heat and history. She smiled—possessive, unyielding—then kissed him.

  And in that kiss was fire: hunger, memory, and prophecy woven into one.

  Not lust. Not romance.

  A cim.

  As if she had waited across lifetimes to find him again.

  She pulled back, breathless, her lips red like tulsi-stained offerings.

  Then came the Earth Goddess.

  She did not move so much as unfold—like dusk sinking into wet fields.

  Her lips found his neck first, her breath warm and slow, tasting him like sun-ripened mango on a vilge afternoon.

  She wrapped her arms around him, her breasts heavy against his chest, her hips pressing into his, grounding him in the gravity of desire made sacred.

  When she kissed him, it was not possession. It was anchoring.

  A moan left him—not from arousal, but from the deep recognition of being seen.

  And then came the Silver Storm.

  She didn’t kiss him. She took him.

  Her mouth cimed his with greedy precision, her fingers already threading through his hair, her hips rolling with wild, untamed rhythm even before they touched.

  She was sharp. Hungry. Electric.

  Her kiss tasted of things yet to come—warnings wrapped in want, prophecies hidden in breathless gasps. Their hands were everywhere.

  Each touch was deliberate. Each caress a ritual.

  They id him down—together—onto a bed woven from the glowing petals of the yantra itself. It cradled him like a mother’s palm, trembling beneath him with each rising breath.

  And then, one by one, they worshipped him.

  The Red-Silk Goddess mounted him slowly, her red sari peeling away like fire made flesh.

  She rode him like a mantra—repeating, ascending, folding in on itself until sound became silence.

  Her hips moved with ancient rhythm, and her eyes never left his.

  Each thrust was a bell ringing in a temple that only they could hear.

  She came with his name on her lips, and the petals beneath them turned gold.

  Before his breath could return, the Earth Goddess slid over him.

  She was warmth—weight—belonging.

  Her skin tasted of saffron and ash and rain. She sank onto him with a sigh that made the entire yantra ripple. She moved like rivers flow—slow, insistent, ancient.

  And then the storm broke.

  The Silver Storm took him on her back—legs hooked around his waist, hair wild, voice even wilder. She moaned his name in sylbles he hadn’t yet earned, and her body drew him in again and again, thighs gripping with need, fingers clutching at prophecy.

  She came like lightning—loud, fast, shattering.

  When she bit his lip, it wasn’t pain—it was pact. But the ritual did not end.

  They returned to him. Together.

  Flesh against flesh, lips meeting lips—not just his, but each other’s.

  The three goddesses turned toward one another, exploring and teasing, their moans like poetry of lust and liberation.

  Bharath watched, reverent, as they touched each other with holy reverence. The Red Goddess kissed the Earth’s breasts as Bharath entered her from behind. The Silver one sat astride his chest, her thighs quivering as he tasted her again, her moans echoing like thunder in a stone shrine.

  They became one body, one breath.

  They moved together, the yantra glowing brighter beneath them, each climax a spark drawn onto sacred geometry.

  He entered the Earth again—his moans muffled by the Silver Storm’s thighs—and as the Red Goddess wrapped her arms around them all, they colpsed into the final wave together.

  And when he came—within one, tasting another, held by the third—the yantra exploded.

  Not in chaos.

  In transcendence.

  The entire dreamscape erupted into golden light, as though Brahma himself had exhaled.

  Pleasure passed through him not as orgasm—but as awakening.

  He didn’t just belong to them now.

  They were his—each in their own way. And each to each other.

  Bound not in skin, but in soul.

  When the light dimmed, they y tangled in silence.

  He stroked the Silver’s damp hair.

  He kissed the Earth’s wrist, where her pulse danced like a drumbeat. He pressed his forehead to the Red-Silk’s chest, where her heart whispered things he wasn’t ready to understand.

  This was no dream. This was a covenant.

  And it had only just begun.

  29th July 2000Bharath jolted upright.

  The first sensation was weightlessness. Not the dream kind. The real kind. The room was still dark, touched only by the first thin bleed of light through the stted windows. The fan above turned zily, creaking in rhythm. The cotton bnket bunched around his hips. Sweat clung to his chest, but he wasn’t hot. Not really. Just ... stretched. Unmoored.

  His breathing came hard and shallow—then slower, steadier. He rubbed his eyes.

  The dream clung to him like a second skin.

  He gnced at the couch. Priya was still there, curled beneath the same light sheet, one arm dangling off the edge, her silver bangles glinting faintly in the soft morning glow. She hadn’t stirred. The world around him hadn’t changed.

  But he had.

  His skin still tingled where they’d touched him. Lips that weren’t real still ghosted over his chest, his neck, his thighs. His heart thudded not from fear—but from the echo of something far bigger than arousal.

  The yantra.

  He had returned. But not with Anya. Not with intent. Not even in sleep where he had meant to go to her. This time, he hadn’t even tried.

  He pushed the bnket off and swung his legs over the side of the bed, elbows on his knees, palms pressed to his face. His fingers were trembling.

  What just happened?

  He had entered the dreamspace with Anya before—always in half-lucid, sacred intimacy. It was always her. Always the same pull, the same softness, the same knowing. But this ... this wasn’t like those dreams. She had always interacted with him. Why had she not this time?

  This was the yantra.

  Not the soft version they’d shared. Not the manda blooming in moonlight with Anya’s body wrapped around his.

  This was the real yantra—older, sentient, alive.

  And the other two...

  Bharath blinked, images fshing behind his eyes.

  The Earth. The Storm.

  Their bodies. Their touch. Their breath on his skin.

  They had been goddesses.

  But they had said nothing. Other than chanting his name.

  Not a word. Not a single phrase to help him understand.

  Only their presence. Their eyes. Their cim.

  He pressed his fingers to his chest, right over his sternum, where the Red-Silk Goddess had first touched him. It almost ached there—like a soft bruise. Like he had been opened and something had been pnted inside.

  Why didn’t they speak?

  Why didn’t Anya?

  The image of her in the dream flickered—alone beneath sheets, distant. Her face hadn’t turned toward him. Her eyes had remained shut. Why?

  Was she locked out?

  Was she the reason he had been pulled into the deeper yantra without warning?

  Or was she being kept away?

  He stood abruptly and walked to the window, pushing it open. The early morning air hit his face like a sp—moist, sharp with the smell of wet pavement and hibiscus flowers crushed underfoot.

  His mind spun.

  He had seen three lingams.

  Anya’s was marked in red silk. She was the only one he knew.

  The other two had been veiled in mystery until they approached him. Until they made themselves known.

  But what were they? Were they real women like Anya, waiting somewhere in the waking world?

  Were they visions? Spirits?

  Or were they parts of Anya—symbolic aspects made manifest?

  No.

  That didn’t feel right. They were real. He had felt the difference. Their energy had distinct weight, distinct rhythm. He stared down at the street below. A rickshaw walh was setting up for the day. Two milkmen chatted while leaning on their bicycles. The world was turning as always. Normal. Indifferent.

  But something inside him had changed.

  And he didn’t know what it meant.

  He shut his eyes.

  The goddesses had taken him. Fully. Completely. Worshipped and consumed him like he was part of something bigger. But they had left no answers. No expnation. Only the promise of something more.

  Was he being tested?

  Was he meant to find them?

  Was Anya in danger? He didn’t know.

  He only knew this: He was no longer an outsider to the yantra. He was inside it now. Marked. Cimed. Changed. And for the first time, Bharath felt not just drawn toward Anya.

  But pulled toward something else— something divine. And it terrified him.

  In the living room, Priya still y curled up under the thin sheet on the couch, her breathing soft, the smallest crease between her brows even in sleep — a girl who fought wars even when her eyes were closed.

  For a brief moment, Bharath stayed like that.

  Watching her. Remembering the things that needed remembering. Mani. The photo. Hari kaka. Madan. The evening pn.

  But before all that — the day had to be lived like it was any other. And that started with training.

  Stepping out onto the streets was like stepping back into a life he had almost forgotten. Salt Lake had its own rhythm in the mornings — quieter than most parts of Calcutta, but never completely still. There were the usual sights. Vendors setting up their stalls. Tea boiling in dented steel pots. The damp smell of wet earth and old concrete rising in the already-warming air.

  His body moved with surprising ease as he crossed into Sector 1, cutting through the narrow streets that led towards the main road. The weight of the pn sat in his head, but it didn’t press down on him like before.

  If anything, it had settled into a kind of order.

  Almost like the yantra dream had left something behind — not power, not strength — but precision.

  Focus.

  Bharath reached the old tea stall by instinct, the same one that had become an unofficial checkpoint between worlds these past few days. The owner barely looked up as he signalled for two egg rolls. He ate standing, leaning on the worn wooden counter, his eyes on the passing crowd.

  The streets had changed, but the rules hadn’t.

  Observe. Remember. Blend in.

  By the time Bharath reached the club grounds, the sun had begun to climb higher, burning away whatever traces of coolness the morning had pretended to offer.

  The reserve pyers were already trickling in — some stretching, others zily kicking balls between them.

  Coach Biswas was his usual self, prowling near the sideline, barking instructions without wasting breath. The serious pyers responded. The zy ones tried to look busy.

  Bharath joined the warm-up circle like he had always belonged there. Nothing hurried. Nothing showy. Just precise.

  It didn’t take long for the drills to begin — short passing routines, movement drills, control exercises. Things he could do in his sleep. Except today ... Everything felt sharper. He didn’t need to gnce twice before releasing the ball. He didn’t need to think about space — it was just there, opening like clockwork.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kunal watching.

  Coach of the reserves. Ex-midfielder with a game sharper than most pyers Bharath had known.

  One of the few men who spoke little — but saw much.

  As he broke from the passing line for a water break, he drifted near Kunal without making it obvious.

  “You’re quiet today, Bharath.”

  It wasn’t an accusation.

  Not really an observation either.

  It was the sort of line men like him threw when their instincts told them something was coming.

  Bharath wiped his face with his sleeve.

  “Need a word,” he said, low. “Yeah?” “Not here.”

  He didn’t respond immediately.

  Didn’t need to.

  Men like Kunal measured moments before they stepped into them.

  After a beat, he jerked his head slightly toward the equipment shed. “Five minutes.”

  That was all Bharath was going to get. And it was all he needed.

  The shed sat at the far end of the ground, where the old metal fence curled inward toward the back lot and only the gardeners and the stray cats ever lingered. Its doors creaked faintly when Bharath stepped through, but no one gnced up. The reserve squad had their eyes on the pitch and the physio tent. No one paid attention to two men walking off with serious faces and sweat-darkened colrs.

  Kunal didn’t speak as he followed Bharath inside. He pulled the door shut behind him with one hand, then leaned against a shelf of worn cones and half-defted footballs. His eyes swept the room once — out of habit, not paranoia — then fixed on him with that same, sharp quiet he always carried on the touchline.

  “Alright,” he said, voice low. “Talk.”

  Bharath didn’t start with names.

  He started with the truth.

  “There’s a girl staying with me. Her name’s Priya. She’s on the run from a man named Mani — small-time scum working for someone bigger. The Syndicate.”

  Kunal’s brow twitched slightly, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “She was part of the Syndicate. They used her to bait and trap men. She walked away. And now they want her back. Or buried. Either works.”

  Still no questions. Just a flicker in his jaw. The faintest tension along his shoulders.

  “She doesn’t have weapons. She doesn’t have people. All we’ve got is information. And tonight, we’re going to get more. A photograph. Proof.”

  He stared at Bharath for another beat, then asked — quietly, cautiously — “What’s my role in this?” “I need someone to pass a message to Hari kaka. Priya’s old contact. She has written down the instructions to be passed to him in this note.

  Kunal’s arms crossed.

  His eyes darkened, just a shade.

  “So this girl—Priya—she’s baiting Mani?”

  “Not exactly. She’s giving him something he already wants,” Bharath said, his voice ft. “Attention. Nostalgia. Familiarity. Enough for him to let his guard down. The photo is all we need. We’re not pulling him into anything bigger than his ego.” Kunal looked away for a second, ran a hand through his damp hair.

  “And why the hell are you involved in this?”

  Bharath didn’t flinch.

  “Because she trusted me when she didn’t have to. And because no one else is going to lift a finger.” He gave a short, mirthless exhale.

  “And because you like her.”

  “That too,” Bharath said. “But mostly because if I don’t help, she disappears. Maybe not today. But soon. And the next girl doesn’t get to walk away.”

  The silence that followed was heavy — not awkward, but full of a weight he didn’t want to carry, but knew too well.

  Finally, he pushed off the wall, walking slowly across the shed. Kunal didn’t look at Bharath. He stopped near a crate, picked up a pair of cones, then set them down again without reason.

  “I’ve seen how the Syndicate operates. Back when I pyed, before my knee went ... I knew a guy. Defender. Tough. Honest. The kind who pyed to win but never dirty.”

  He swallowed. It was the first time Bharath had seen his expression crack.

  “He got too close to something he shouldn’t have. One week ter, he was out. Ban for ‘match fixing’. No hearing. No second chance. Never pyed again.”

  He looked up at Bharath now.

  Not angry. Not emotional.

  Just tired.

  “That’s how they clean house.”

  Kunal let that sit in the space between them.

  “I’m not asking you to go up against the Syndicate. Just help us take one piece off the board.” Kunal nodded slowly.

  “I’ll pass the message to Hari,” he said. “And I’ll make sure Madan gets what he needs.”

  Bharath felt his breath ease just a little. Not relief. But movement.

  Kunal turned to leave, but paused near the door. “And Bharath?” “Yeah?” “You get one shot at this. If it goes sideways, it doesn’t come back to me. Not my name. Not the club. Not the boys.” “Understood.” “And if you die out there...” he looked over his shoulder, “ ... don’t make it messy. I’ll still have to answer for the body.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply.

  The door swung shut behind him.

  And the room was quiet again.

  The final whistle blew sharper than usual, and as the pyers jogged into their cooldown ps, Bharath felt Kunal’s eyes on him again.

  Not hard. Not suspicious.

  Measured. Waiting.

  Sure enough, just as he looped past the halfway line, Kunal’s voice carried casually across the pitch. “Bharath”

  Simple. Neutral.

  He peeled away from the group, slowing his jog into a walk.

  “Noticed you stretching that left calf funny earlier,” Kunal said, loud enough for nearby pyers to hear but soft enough that only Bharath understood what this was. “Go get that checked out before it becomes something worse.”

  Every pyer in India had heard some version of that line.

  And every smart pyer obeyed.

  “Understood, Coach.”

  No hesitation. No pride. No chance for anyone to say he was skipping work.

  He veered off toward the changing room without looking back.

  The physio, an older man who looked like he’d seen a thousand half-faked injuries in his time, didn’t even blink when Bharath walked in rubbing his calf.

  “Muscle pull?”

  “Feels like tightness, sir.”

  He made a non-committal sound.

  “Strip it down. Table.”

  Bharath y there for twenty minutes while the physio worked the muscle in deliberate, slow motions. He didn’t ask for details. Didn’t need to. The unspoken rule in reserve teams — if a coach sends you here, there’s no story worth chasing. When he was done, he patted Bharath’s calf.

  “Rest today. Walk it out if needed. No drills until cleared.” Perfect.

  Kunal was waiting near the club’s old equipment locker, pretending to check an inventory list.

  When Bharath passed him, he didn’t look up.

  But his voice reached Bharath. “Tell your friend ... Hari will know by noon.”

  A pause.

  “You’ll get your sign before sunset.”

  That was it.

  A simple sentence dressed like nothing.

  But it told him everything.

  Hari had the message.

  Madan would get moving.

  Priya would know if the pn were in motion before nightfall.

  Bharath didn’t stop. Didn’t even nod.

  Just kept walking.

  By the time Bharath made it back home, the streets were busier, but not yet in the chokehold of evening traffic.

  When he pushed open the door, Priya was already awake — her sharp eyes catching his from where she sat near the window, the same cramped map of Sealdah id out beside her.

  He dropped his bag near the corner.

  “It’s done,” he said quietly.

  Her shoulders rexed — just barely.

  “Kunal?”

  “Did his job. Hari knows. Madan’s next.”

  She exhaled slowly, leaning back against the wall. “How will we know?” “He said we’ll get a sign by evening.”

  She didn’t question it.

  Not because she was naive.

  But because men like Kunal didn’t speak unless they intended to follow through. They settled in for the long wait.

  The kind of waiting that didn’t feel idle.

  The kind of waiting that hummed beneath the skin like the tightening of a bowstring.

  The hours after the morning conversation passed in a rhythm both slow and sharp. The kind of afternoon where every sound felt louder than usual. The whirr of the fan above us. The occasional rumble of traffic outside.

  They didn’t talk much.

  Some pns didn’t need to be repeated.

  They had already gone over everything so many times that the map of Sealdah felt etched behind his eyelids. Streets that twisted like vines, alleys that offered cover, exits that were too narrow for escape but wide enough for shadowpy.

  Priya sat cross-legged opposite Bharath, fingers moving steadily as she wound a length of bck thread through the bangles Madan had sent over — part prop, part cover. To anyone else, she’d look like just another girl readying herself for a night of pying some man’s fantasy.

  But he knew better.

  Every piece she assembled was a weapon.

  Every gesture was armour.

  And still, for all that steel in her, there was a softness underneath that preparation today hadn’t quite erased. Her voice, when it came, was low.

  “You know, if this goes wrong...”

  He didn’t let her finish.

  “It won’t.”

  She gave Bharath a look then. Not sarcastic. Not dismissive.

  Almost ... grateful.

  But only for a second.

  Then the soldier in her returned.

  By te afternoon, the apartment felt heavier. Or maybe that was just in their heads.

  Priya had already packed the essentials — everything she wouldn’t mind losing if she had to disappear in a hurry. The camera. The scarf. The small folding knife. A rubber band wound tightly around a scrap of paper with the pn written in tiny, near-illegible script — a habit she said came from running cons, not trusting memory alone.

  He stood near the window, scanning the ne below.

  Waiting.

  Watching.

  The heat had softened the air outside, but the movement hadn’t stopped.

  Men pyed cards near the tea stall. A fruit seller yelled half-heartedly at a monkey perched near his bananas. Life moved the way it always did in Salt Lake.

  But he was waiting for something else.

  It came just after 4:15 PM.

  A bck thread — long, coarse — tied deliberately around the rusted gate tch of the empty building opposite theirs. Nobody local would’ve done that by accident.

  Nobody passing through would’ve noticed.

  But it was there.

  Clear as day.

  Hari’s sign.

  Kunal had delivered.

  The game was on.

  When Bharath told Priya, she didn’t speak immediately.

  She only tied her hair tighter.

  Layered the scarf into pce.

  Then stood in front of the mirror by the door for a long moment.

  “This feels strange,” she said finally.

  “What does?”

  She adjusted the scarf, lowering it over half her face.

  “Becoming someone I never wanted to be again.”

  He watched her quietly.

  “But this time,” he said, “you decide how the story ends.”

  That made her pause.

  Then — in a rare, unguarded moment — she smiled.

  Faint.

  But real.

  The sun was lower now — long, angled shadows cutting through the narrow street outside. Salt Lake had shifted into its evening self. More movement. More noise. More cover.

  Perfect for disappearing.

  Priya stood near the door, everything about her appearance calcuted to be forgettable. Loose salwar-kameez in muted tones. Thin scarf drawn low over her chin. Old sandals worn deliberately like someone without money to spare.

  But even like this...

  Even stripped of everything Bharath knew about her...

  She still looked dangerous.

  Because it wasn’t the clothes that mattered.

  It was the eyes.

  Eyes like hers didn’t forget how to hunt.

  She gnced at me, one st time.

  “You know the drill?” Bharath asked.

  “Stay out of sight. Get the camera-roll from Madan. Watch my back.” A pause.

  “And wait for you to come back.”

  Her lips twitched. “If I don’t?” “You will.”

  Simple. Certain.

  Because he couldn’t consider the alternative.

  Without another word, she stepped out — blending into the street like smoke in heat waves.

  Bharath moved upstairs slowly, climbing the creaking steps past the rows of old satellite dishes and dusty water tanks.

  From the rooftop, he had a clear view of the ne below.

  Priya was already moving away — a small, deliberate figure folding herself into the noise of Calcutta’s evening rush.

  No hesitation. No gnce back. She didn’t need to. Not anymore.

  And standing there — half in shadow, half in the st glow of the setting sun — Bharath realized something else.

  There were pyers.

  There were predators.

  And then there were people like Priya.

  People who survived not because they had to...

  But because they refused any other option.

  And yet standing there, hidden in the gathering dark, he had never seen Priya look more dangerous in his life.

  But even danger has a price. And tonight, it would come calling.