The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [138]
‘Who else but Kali would he trust to destroy all intruders?’ Shankarpa said firmly.
Nina directed her flashlight at the statue for a better look. ‘The question is . . . will she destroy everyone who tries to get the Shiva-Vedas? Do you know how to reach them?’
‘That knowledge was also lost a long time ago.’
‘Swell. So we’ll have to figure this out too.’ She brought the light down to examine one of the statue’s weapons, but Kit blocked the beam. ‘Excuse me, Kit - I need to see.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ He moved away . . .
Into the passage.
‘Kit, wait!’ Nina shouted as she suddenly realised the danger - but too late.
The statue came to life.
The eight arms bearing weapons all moved at once as ancient mechanisms inside the statue ground into action, slashing down into the narrow tunnel. One of the swords stabbed at Kit. He jumped back in shock—
Not quickly enough. The giant blade’s tip hacked deep into his shin with a spurt of blood.
He screamed and fell, clutching the wound. Kali’s arms screeched back to their original positions and juddered to a stop.
Eddie was the first to risk advancing, pulling Kit out of the passage. ‘Let me see,’ he said, carefully easing up Kit’s blood-soaked trouser leg to find that he had been cut to the bone, a chunk of his calf muscle peeled back like dog-gnawed meat. ‘Shit, that’s deep. Nina, is the first-aid kit in your gear?’
She retrieved it, Eddie putting on a pair of disposable vinyl gloves and starting to clean the wound. ‘This’ll hurt,’ he warned Kit. ‘Sorry, but there’s no anaesthetic. I’ll go as easy as I can.’
Nina held the injured man’s hand. ‘Just try to stay calm.’
‘That is . . . easier said than done,’ Kit gasped through his teeth. ‘My parents always warned me that if I behaved badly, Kali would punish me. But I never imagined it would actually happen!’
‘You haven’t behaved badly. It would have happened whoever went into the passage.’ She looked up at the statue, its red eyes staring menacingly back at her. A booby trap, a last line of defence for the treasures at the heart of the Vault. But there had to be a way past it - the priests who had shown the Shiva-Vedas to Talonor obviously knew it . . .
‘Okay, I’m going to stitch it up,’ Eddie reported. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Like the goddess just chopped off my foot,’ Kit rasped.
‘You’ll be okay. Just try to breathe slowly.’ He pushed the needle through the flesh, and Kit’s entire body tensed.
Girilal and Shankarpa moved past to stare in awe at the statue. The old yogi hesitantly extended his stick into the passage, pushing the tip down on the first stone slab of its floor. Kali burst into movement again, the long sword arcing down. The blade chopped through the wood as both men jumped away, then returned to its original position.
‘And this was a very good stick,’ Girilal said sadly, holding up the truncated end of his staff.
Even while trying to comfort Kit, Nina couldn’t help turning her mind to the trap. ‘Anyone walking down the passage triggers it. And even if you could climb to the end without touching the floor, you still have to drop down to go through the opening at the end. And when you do . . .’ She indicated the giant stone foot poised above the gap. ‘You get stomped.’
‘Just like Shiva,’ said Girilal, thoughtful.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There was a demon called Raktabija,’ he told her, ‘who seemed impossible to kill in battle because every time he was cut, when his blood touched the ground another copy of him leapt up. Only Kali was strong enough to destroy him - she drank all the blood from Raktabija’s body, then ate his clones! But she became drunk with victory and danced across the battlefield, crushing the dead under her feet. To stop her, Shiva pretended to be one of the corpses, and when Kali realised she had stepped on her husband, she was ashamed and became calm again.’
‘Did she kill him?’ Nina asked.
‘No, she stopped just before she crushed him.’
Eddie finished stitching Kit’s injury. ‘Doesn’t help us get past, though.’
‘There has to be a way through,’ Nina said. She saw a spear beside