Page 62 of Tiger's Quest
“Come. Let’s get you home. There is much we need to discuss.”
When we got home, Kishan took my bag upstairs and left me alone with Mr. Kadam in the peacock room.
Books were piled high on his beautiful mahogany desk; the normally organized and clean top was covered with papers. I picked up a few papers to examine the notes written in his elegant script. “Have you figured out the second prophecy?”
“I’m close. Actually, it’s thanks to you that I’m as close as I am. The landmark that puzzled me turned out to be the Himalayas. All this time, I’d been searching for a certain mountain, not realizing that it was a mountainrangeI needed to find. Thanks to your report on the Himalayas and their weather patterns, I was able to open my mind to that possibility, and it led to new discoveries for me.”
“Glad to be of help.” I set the papers down and asked quietly, “What are we going to do? How are we going to find Ren?”
“We’ll find him, Miss Kelsey. Don’t worry. There’s even a chance he may be able to escape on his own and call us.”
A thought occurred to me. “Will he be able to change into a man if he’s captured?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t able to before, but now you’ve broken part of the curse. That may make a difference.”
I squared my shoulders. “Mr. Kadam, I want you to train me. I want you to work with me on weapons and martial arts. You taught both of the boys, and I want you to coach me too.”
He looked at me thoughtfully for a minute. “Alright, Miss Kelsey. It will take discipline and many, many hours of practice to become competent. Don’t expect to be able to do what Ren and Kishan can do. They have been trained all their lives, and the tiger within each of them makes them stronger.”
“That’s okay. I’m prepared for that. I plan to ask Kishan to continue working with me. I can learn faster if I practice with both of you.”
He nodded. “Perhaps it is for the best. Not only will you learn new skills, but sometimes it helps to keep your hands busy when they are tied. I still need to focus much of my attention on research, but I will make time to train with you every day. I can also give you routines to practice on your own as well as some things you can learn with Kishan.”
“Thank you. I’d like to help you with your research too. I can take notes, and a new set of eyes can’t hurt.”
“We can start today.”
I nodded. He gestured to the leather furniture and we sat down.
“Now, tell me about this new power you seem to have. Kishan explained it to me, but I want to hear what happened from your perspective.”
“Well, I needed to protect Ren and was so angry I think I actually saw a red haze around me. He’d been hit with darts, and he was staggering, weakening. I knew that he wouldn’t last much longer. I stepped in front of him to face our attackers. I was desperate because there were so many men coming at us. A kind of fire burned in me.”
“What did it feel like?”
“It felt like . . . a whoosh of power in my center, like a pilot light in a water heater that suddenly bursts into flame. My stomach tightened as if to push the heat up to my chest. My heart burned, and the blood felt like it was boiling in my veins. I felt a bubbling sensation traveling down my arm. When it reached my hand, the symbols that Phet had painted in henna reappeared and glowed red. I could hear asnap, crackle, popkind of noise and then this power rose and spilled out of me. A lightning bolt shot out of my hand. It picked one guy up in the air and slammed him into a tree.”
“And this power worked several times?”
“Yes. I was able to take down several men until I was shot with the tranquilizers. Then, the power sort of fizzled out.”
“Did the lightning bolts kill them or just stun them?”
“I hope it just stunned them. To be honest, we didn’t stick around long enough to find out. My first target, the man who hit the tree, was pretty hurt I imagine. I was really desperate.”
“I’d be curious to see if you can reproduce the effect when you aren’t in danger. Perhaps we can practice. It would also be interesting to see if you can widen the band to encompass more than one person at a time and to see how long you can maintain the burst.”
“I’d also like to practice the intensity. I’d prefer not to kill people,” I added.
“Of course.”
“Where do you think it came from?”
“I have . . . a theory.”
“Really? Tell me.”
“One of the ancient stories of India says that when the gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, faced the demon king, Mahishasur, they could not defeat him. They combined their energies, which took the form of light, and the goddess Durga emerged from that light. She was born to fight him.”
