Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) by James Lovegrove Page A

Honestly?”
    “I’d like to think that altruism lies at the heart of it. After all, I’m a superhero buff. Superheroes never fight crime for the money or the glory. They do it out of a sense of responsibility. It’s a vocation. But maybe I’m naive.”
    “Do you have any inkling how much Lombard, Krieger and Bhatnagar have spent on this?” She jerked her head backwards to indicate Mount Meru.
    “I’m guessing ‘a lot.’”
    “The technical term for it is, in fact, ‘a buttload.’ And they’re not the types to just throw away huge sums of capital. They’re going to want to see a return on their investment.”
    “They want to monetise the Avatars somehow?” I said. “How? Action figures, movies, licensing deals, lunchboxes, that sort of thing?”
    Aanandi gave a hollow laugh. “You are naive. It’s actually quite charming.” She uncapped two more Tigers and handed me one, even though I hadn’t finished the one I was on. I was building up a decent buzz. She, I could tell, was starting to reel. Her eyes were losing focus and her speech had developed a slight slur. She was getting herself drunk in that way that people who don’t want to think too hard about their lives get themselves drunk. “I don’t know if I haven’t been wasting my time here.”
    “What, with me, on this beach?”
    “No, Mister Ego. At Mount Meru. Maybe I’m not cut out for this job. I just... I couldn’t resist. When they asked, when they told me what they were doing... I loved the myths, you see. My pop used to tell me them on his knee. Every night, those were my bedtime stories. Hindu folk tales. How King Kaushika tried to steal the yogi Vasistha’s cow, only he ended up seeing that Vasistha’s lifestyle was better than his own and so abandoned his kingdom to become a yogi himself instead. How mischievous Krishna hid the cowherd girls’ clothes while they were bathing in the river, and how his foster mother accused him of eating earth and he opened his mouth and showed her the entire universe inside his throat. How the sage Rishyashringa made it stop raining and King Lomaharsha sent his daughter Shanta to seduce him and take away his chastity so that he lost his power and the drought ended. When I was really little I used to think my dad was making the stories up himself. I must’ve been about nine or ten when I finally learned they were taken from the Upanishads and the Brahmana and the Mahabharata . He’d sit there speaking in his thick accent, and I’d sit there listening with his beard tickling my head, and I loved it. I loved it all. And that’s why I so wanted to be a part of this, because it would make it real, those stories, and I know my poppa would have loved to see it. Only now...”
    “It’s not what you expected.”
    “It’s so much less. So much cheaper. So much more cynical. I can’t explain. There are things you don’t know and shouldn’t know, Zak.”
    She turned to me, her eyes glistening, tears bright in the rays of the sinking sun.
    “You really should leave,” she said. “I’m telling you this as a friend. As someone who likes you and respects you and doesn’t want to see you get sucked into something you may not be able to get out of. It’s too late for me, probably. I’m in too deep. I’m compromised. You’re not, not yet. Quit while you still can. Just tell the Trinity you’re done, time to go. I can’t see them objecting. Part on good terms with them and go back to your life and enjoy the money you’ve made and don’t think about any of this any more.”
    “You’re serious.”
    “As cancer.”
    “But... What is going on here, Aanandi? What am I missing?”
    She tried to rise. She failed twice but managed it the third time. “I can’t tell you. Won’t. For your own good. Just take my advice. Please, Zak.”
    She sealed the request with a clumsy kiss on my forehead, and then she was gone, shambling down the beach with the beer cooler tucked under one arm, and I just sat