(Book 5) Hayden Mackay and The Pride of Haima-Endira

4. The Puppet Master

"Thanks, Mrs. Zutshi. You're the best!" I said, stuffing a sandwich into my mouth and taking a couple of them in my hands for my friends, only if my appetite allowed me to not eat them in my way down to the basement.

Ashwant, in his drunken state, struggled to keep up with his condition and dozed off right in the chair. My friends were waiting for me and it was time I met them and to see things through with the beast. Apart from the night's meal, I borrowed a couple of gadgets from Ira in the kitchen. They were necessary to experiment.

I descended down the stairs, heading into the dimness of the basement. Ashwant had been using it as a storeroom- a fine spacious one with thick walls and shelves that served as a pantry. The smell of the fish was in abundance. There was a single tiny lantern hung on the wall at the entrance. Walking further down, I heard Pruthvi yelling at the beast and saw him hitting hard on its head as if a punching bag. "Hey, ugly. Wake up!"

Leena was standing at the corner, with a bored and disinterested look on her face. Earlier, Pruthvi had asked her not to be around the beast, to which she had taken it as an offense. "You don't have to worry about me, I am not your girlfriend anymore," she had said to shut Pruthvi up. When she saw me coming in, she jumped with delighted. All that excitement wasn't for me but for the sandwiches. Didn't even bother to spare one for Pruthvi.

The beast seemed to be returning from its temporary state of unconsciousness, and whenever its eyes opened they leered right at Leena, with a vile intention. It's muddy hair fairly covered its face. Head falling back and forth. Hands and legs were tightly fastened with a rope. Its drape was slightly torn from the sides. Seemed like Pruthvi had gone a bit too far with the beast.

"What did you do to him?" I asked quite nonchalantly.

"Tried some fisticuffs. Managed to knock its brain. Oh, it does have a brain by the way. It can understand us speak and even reply."

"Good. But I thought you were going to wait for me. Didn't Ashawant give it a sedative?"

"Well Mackay, that didn't work for a long time as you were anticipating. It woke up and started speaking gibberish. Also, things got a little nasty when it tried to hurt Leena."

"Right," I said, as Leena rolled her eyes, her cheeks swollen with the amount of food in her mouth.

I crouched down and stared into his eyes that were now sternly directed at Leena. In turn, she smirked and challenged it back with a come-and-get-me look. I snapped my fingers hard in front of its face.

Roaaar! A tiny flame in the shape of Singh's face appeared, giving a mild but a threatening roar. The beast responded and shifted its eyes to fix with mine.

"Keep looking at me!" I warned, "and I want you to answer my questions. Straight to the point."

It clicked its tongue in an annoying way.

"Why the heck don't you die?"

It burst down laughing. The great loud harsh crackle of laughter, that could wake up the whole clan. It seemed as if it was trying to get relief from its state of half unconsciousness. Mouth wide opened. Yellowish teeth out. A foul unpleasant smell of dung and decomposed dead animal filtered through the air. My stomach churned. Maddened, I raised my hand, flamed it up and slapped it hard beneath its ears.

Smack!

Leena jerked at my sudden reaction. Pruthvi whistled softly. The temperature inside the basement seemed to drop.

It was like hitting hard rock. The impact was two way. As a consequence, my wrist hurt and the beast collapsed down onto the floor. His hair was caught on fire. It didn't stay put for a long time though. The flames gradually decreased and then disappeared. There were prints of my fingers visible on his cheeks but no burn marks. The beast's eyes shifted back to Leena, leered and sneered at her. It was high time I went for a trial and error method.