Moved by her anguish, he knelt opposite Kolabati. Gently he pulled the empty egg from her grasp and he took her two hands in his.

“Tell me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.”

“You wouldn’t believe…”

“I’ve already seen them. I believe. Now I’ve got to understand. What are they?”

“They are rakoshi.”

“I gathered that. But the name means nothing.”

“They are demons. They people the folk tales of Bengal. They’re used to spice up stories told at night to frighten children or to make them behave—’The rakoshi will get you!’ Only a select few through the ages have known that they are more than mere superstition.”

“And you and Kusum are two of those select few, I take it.”

“We are the only ones left. We come from a long line of high priests and priestesses. We are the last of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. Through the ages the members of our family have been charged with the care of the rakoshi—to breed them, control them, and use them according to the laws set down in the old days. And until the middle of the last century we discharged that duty faithfully.”

She paused, seemingly lost in thought. Jack impatiently urged her on.

“What happened then?”

“British soldiers sacked the temple of Kali where our ancestors worshipped. They killed everyone they could find, looted what they could, poured burning oil into the rakoshi cave, and set the temple afire. Only one child of the priest and priestess survived.” She glanced at the empty shell. “And only one intact rakosh egg was found in the fire-blasted caves. A female egg. Without a male egg, it meant the end of the rakoshi. They were instinct.”

Jack touched the shell gingerly. So this was where those horrors came from. Hard to believe. He lifted the shell and held it so the light from the lamp shown through the hole into the interior. Whatever had been in here was long gone.

“I can tell you for sure, Kolabati: They aren’t extinct. There were a good fifty of them in that ship tonight.” Fifty of them… he tried to blank out the memory. Poor Nellie!

“Kusum must have found a male egg. He hatched them both and started a nest.”

Kolabati baffled him. Could it be true that she hadn’t known until now? He hoped so. He hated to think she could fool him so completely.

“That’s all well and fine, but I still don’t know what they are. What do they do?”

“They’re demons—”

“Demons, shmemons! Demons are supernatural! There was nothing supernatural about those things. They were flesh and blood!”

“No flesh like you have ever seen before, Jack. And their blood is almost black.”

“Black, red—blood is blood.”

“No, Jack!” She rose up on her knees and gripped his shoulders with painful intensity. “You must never underestimate them! Never! They appear slow-witted but they are cunning. And they are almost impossible to kill.”

“The British did a good job, it seems.”