Nine: Vengeance of the Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page B

happened?’ Ravi asked, making no effort to rush. He flicked the cigarette butt and got into his seat.
    ‘Move, move!’ She checked if the yogis were coming after her. She could see the shadowy figures watching from a distance. ‘Those people are going to kill me.’
    Ravi shook his head, turned on the ignition and, with a metallic grating of gears, launched the vehicle into reverse, heading towards the city.
    ‘There’s no one here. What happened?’
    ‘Too much knowledge can be dangerous,’ she said, still shaking and trying to process everything that had just happened. She felt as if she had been in a different time portal. She looked back. A cloud of dust rose and shone in the backlights of the jeep. That is what the knowledge had been to her—unclear, yet shiny and attractive.



3
Raakin
    Bhuj, Kutch, Gujarat
    Warm sunshine filtered through a smoggy sky and smudged windows. The Paranormal Subdivision, the special branch of the Research and Analysis Wing, was an unknown, invisible entity. The subdivisions were located all over the country. An obscure entity, the office in Bhuj was in the south section on the fifth floor of a commercial building. It consisted of a large featureless enclosure of efficiently sized cubicles with desktop computers linked to an external hard drive the size of a refrigerator. Ten investigators were sieving through the databanks, searching for unusual activity.
    Raakin’s office had a small glass window that allowed in some apathetic sunshine and brought warmth to the cold soulless atmosphere. He stared out at the landscape. Raakin Pant, senior intelligence officer, was in a foul mood. And it was not his natural state of mind. He prided himself on his ability to face life’s undulating flow without emotion. For his innate ability to maintain a rigid focus and cold logic in the face of every daunting situation, he had earned a reputation for being as emotionless as a robot. He picked out a brown volume from a stretch of wooden shelves nailed to the wall and sat down. A chakra was embedded on the cover of the brown book which opened like a box. He extracted a metal object shaped liked a pyramid and placed it in front of him. Closing his eyes, he focused. The object was a symbol of his strength, of his ability to keep his mind in neutral mode—no positive or negative intrusions. His room was quiet. The office outside was deserted, the officers were busy on outdoor assignments.
    Raakin would have preferred to be up on some mountaintop contemplating life. But in these times of strife, his destiny dictated that he be the point-man of the Nine. He did not choose to become part of the special division. It chose him. He had been invited, more like arm-twisted, to give up his post in America, to live in India. He had agreed. At this point in time, he couldn’t remember why he’d agreed.
    Raakin was able to solve strange cases because he kept an open mind. When he was asked to find out about unusual incidents in a house, he explained that ghosts were the cause. The city-dwellers snickered at him. But he believed that ghosts did not just exist in the realm of the uneducated or the illiterate. His belief had nothing to do with superstition. Entities existed, and the sooner people believed that, the easier it would be. He was matter-of-fact about it.
    In the case of the haunted house, there was a graveyard in the vicinity. He had contacted the local church, asked them to perform some prayers, sprinkle holy water and, oddly enough, that was the end of that. Raakin Pant was a man of science and believed in the paranormal. The combination worked in his favour when he was asked to head the department.
    Raakin was in the business of being scoffed at. You talk about ghosts and spirits, and people would rather see you locked up than running a paramilitary operation. Therefore, he maintained a distant, often expressionless visage, divulging none of the emotional turmoil that passed through his mind like