Chapter 20 A Dance with the Devil
The upside of all this demon chaos is that I’m getting much stronger from dancing.
After a quick stretch, I move right into a warm-up tatkar.
My arms don’t burn and my calves are ready to spring into action.
It’s hard to believe I gave this up. Without bothering to play music, I transition into a set of todas, counting the bol under my breath.
It’s hard work, reciting and dancing at the same time, and I love it.
I feel so connected, like I am rooted to the earth and blossoming, pouring out life.
It’s an incandescent, effervescent joy to spin and stamp and throw my hands up.
But I don’t see any visions, and am offered no guidance as I move into a Shiva Tandava.
I hear the words of the stotram in my head as I dance, music only I can hear.
Perhaps there is nothing more to learn from the past, now that I’ve discovered the truth about Muya.
I move from a sitting pose to standing, with my hand in front of my forehead signifying the third eye.
I think of Chandini, her quiet power, the greatest of them all.
I leap to one side to show Shiva’s hair, extending to symbolize the Ganga flowing from it, then to the other side to show his snake necklace, a sharp, sudden motion.
I think of Usha, fighting threats in every corner until she was horribly betrayed.
I hold up my hand and shake it to symbolize the damaru, stamping a beat with my heel and toes.
I think of Tara, steady and strong, hardening her heart.
I jump into the dramatic Nataraja pose, then out of it to show a trident. I stab and claw as I become fearsome Shiva defeating his enemies.
I think of Laila, annihilating those who dared to sow destruction.
I am Shiva, fighting his enemies. I am Shiva, benevolent and auspicious. I am love, passion. I am Shiva dancing the Tandava. Shiva bringing destruction.
I think of Heera. Annoying, and yet…
I spin into the final beats of the Tandava, my arms moving into sum, triumphant. I stamp my feet to assume the final pose, panting.
“Well done,” a voice says. My eyes adjust from the spinning and I find Muya standing in my dark kitchen. “Was that a Shiva Tandava?”
“How did you get in here?” I ask. My chest is heaving, and I hope it disguises my fear. “I’m willing to scream.”
“Like you did the first several times we talked?” he asks. “You’re a good dancer, but surely there’s better subject matter. Krishna, perhaps?”
I thrust one of my feet forward at an angle my body instinctively knows, the first step of the Nataraja pose.
Muya flinches ever so slightly. I grin, recalling something from the vision I had a week ago.
I was so irritated by Heera that I failed to recognize the most important part of her story: she beat a demon.
“What do you want? I know who you really are now. You helped burn down my clinic, you tried to get us in trouble by almost killing a protester, and you nearly got me arrested. You can tell Asmodeus I know you’re working together, and I still have one more day before he comes for the clinic.
” The energy from the dancing is leaving my body, and I take a step back to lean against the wall.
Muya stalks forward. “What are you talking about? I did what you asked. I got you into the office building. I came here to tell you that after you ran away like a coward, I couldn’t learn anything else.
Your country is filled with dark networks of powerful people. Why go out of your way to blame me?”
“I know your game,” I tell him. “I know what you did to Usha. I’m not going to let you get anywhere near me. Besides, I know Asmodeus is the person pulling the strings. I’m not going to waste my time negotiating with you.”
“Usha?” he whispers as his face crumples. “Is that what this is about? What did I do to Usha? Tell me. I tried to help her, and she repaid me by trapping me. And now you take her side?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re an idiot!” Muya snaps. “She turned on me when I tried to warn her that her friends were foes. She might have been even stupider than you, and that’s saying something.”
“You ruined her life! You set her up!”
Muya tips his head back and laughs. “I was trying to help her, but humanity is beyond help. I promised Chandini to look out for others like her, to aid people just because I could. She was good. The only good one of any of you. I assure you, I would never have chosen you. I would never have chosen any of your awful, disgusting kind.”
“I didn’t want you to choose me!” I yell. “I want you to leave me alone. I want my life to go back to normal.”
“Okay,” Muya says. “Let’s make your life go back to normal.” He lunges forward and grabs my wrist with inhuman strength. “You already hate me, so what’s another…” I feel his power creeping over me, and the command beneath its touch. You don’t remember why you want this power.
Nausea churns in my gut. He’s finally revealed himself. He’s trying to force me to give up. And I can’t even remember why I’m fighting—
But I can still remember that he is not to be trusted, and certainly not with power. I hold on to that thought, and meet his power with my own. His own. Though they are the same magic, they feel completely distinct, as my desire to avoid ignorance meets his desire to inflict it.
“How dare you?” I grit out.
He pushes again, stronger this time, and I cannot remember why I’m here or what I’m doing.
I want to give in to this nice, helpful man, this…
demon. With my free hand I swipe at his eyes.
He ducks, a pathetic human instinct, and his grip loosens.
I pull myself free, dodge around him, and run toward the kitchen for a knife.
Muya looks down at his hands, then back at me, shaking his head like he doesn’t know where he is. Then he meets my eyes and sneers.
“You’re pathetic, wanting to be someone and yet doing nothing. Sooner or later you’ll fail, and I’ll be there to laugh at you.”
He sees himself out without trying to attack me again.
I dead-bolt the door behind him, a headache forming in my sinuses from the force of holding back sobs.
Muya’s right, and I despise him for it. I almost wish I could go back to not knowing, back to suspecting him without certainty. Back to ignorance.
I try all night to recall the memory of Heera, whose story I hardly cared about the first time.
She touched a demon and made him ignorant of himself.
I cannot replicate it exactly, but I will have to try.
I’ll be no worse off, unless of course he senses my attempt and snaps my neck.
But I suspect public killing is not his style—and even if it is, death will be preferable to the alternative.
All I have left is to use the solutions the past has offered me.
I spend all Tuesday trying to devise some better solution, but I come up so blank I wonder if Muya in fact succeeded in muddling my head.
On Wednesday morning, four weeks into the Forty Days, I get to the clinic early.
Diane raises an eyebrow at me when I walk up just as she’s getting out of her car.
“Please tell me you don’t have another feeling. We barely survived the last one.”
I shake my head. “Nope. Just woke up really early.”
The protesters are rowdier than usual. I don’t know if they’re just really riled up about Forty Days or if Asmodeus has had some hand in it.
Maybe they’re excited about all the progress that they’re making.
If I was on the other side, I guess I would feel victorious too.
For a couple of years after Roe fell, I was naive enough to believe that each new development was rock bottom.
Six-week abortion bans. Complete abortion bans.
No exceptions for rape, incest, or life-threatening complications.
Paternal notice requirements. Parental rights for rapists.
But now, when I read the latest updates in abortion news, I don’t bat an eye.
Attempts to ban contraceptives as abortifacients.
Wastewater testing to monitor use of birth control.
Criminalizing women who leave the state for an abortion.
Rewards for those who turn women in. Flagging social media posts about abortion.
The administration threatening every other day to ban abortion outright.
It’s bleak, and I know it will only get worse.
There is no rock bottom, only the molten core of the earth.
The patients seem more on edge as well. We’ve had a lot of out-of-staters recently, several of whom openly espouse their anti-choice beliefs even as they ask for abortions, which we still provide for them.
One college-aged girl came in to get a Pap smear and an IUD and got in a shouting match with a protester, almost pushing over JJ in her haste to get inside.
It’s a bad time for all involved. The fear leaves me with too little time to plan, and I cannot come up with an ethical situation in which I could practice using my powers.
If my attempt fails with Asmodeus, I have a group text composed for Diane, Dr. Levy, Nina, and Dan telling them to evacuate the clinic.
Again. It will stay cued up in my phone, ready for me to press send. If I fail.
When I go back out after a bathroom break, Asmodeus has arrived.
He’s in a different body than the last time I saw him, but I can see that same outline of power that tells me it’s him and not someone under his spell.
I want to know what happens if I defeat him in this body—if he’ll simply spin up a new one.
But it’s too late to find out now. Instead I extend my hand, and he takes it with a broad grin.
My power is coiled just under my skin, and I let it pour forth.
I bleach myself from his memory. Block out the clinic.
Urge him to forget this quest for power.
It’s terrifying. I can almost feel his presence against my mind, soft, probing, inviting.
And massive. I am so, so small. I am no one.
And yet, Muya’s power is like an endless shadow, absorbing light, absorbing knowledge.
It envelops the parts of Asmodeus I’m seeking.
It smothers out the light in him. I push and push, hoping that it will be enough.
I feel myself start to grow weak, spasms shuddering through my muscles. I am not sure whether I’ve succeeded. Is this how Heera felt, in her moment of destiny? It is time to face my own fate. I release him as spots dance before my eyes. He looks at me blankly, then down at his dropped hand.
“Who are you?”
“You asked me for directions to the Red Line. Two blocks thataway.” I point, and with a befuddled shrug, he spins on his heel and walks away.
He just walks away.
I want to jump for joy, to grin up at the sky and spin in a circle like they do in the movies.
Instead, I’m rooted to the spot, heart pounding and limbs shaking.
I erased the memory of a demon. I saved the clinic.
A wall of noise pierces through my haze and I remember where I am.
There are still plenty of protesters outside, and they’re engaged in their usual screaming routine, but our clinic’s going to make it. I can feel it.
Of course, the moment I step foot inside, everything changes.
The two patients in the waiting room look fine, but Diane is on the phone and has a hand pressed against her heart.
She’s white as a sheet, which is hard to achieve on a Black woman.
I hover by the desk as Diane murmurs, “My god” and “Yes, sir.” I know something unthinkable has happened. Is it Diane’s family? Her husband?
My thoughts are only just beginning to spiral when Diane says, “Let me put you on hold a minute. I’ll see if I can get someone else to speak to you.” She presses a button, and then turns to me with tears in her eyes.
“What’s happened?” I whisper. “Is Tony okay?”
“Do you remember the girl who came in here last week from Texas, with the little blond boy?”
“Lauren?” I ask. I walked her out as she explained that she just didn’t have it in her to raise another child right now.
She needed to focus all her energy on little Jason.
She was young, and sweet, barely affected by the protesters.
When I talked to Diane afterward, I learned that a borderline abusive boyfriend was still in the picture, but because she lived in Texas we couldn’t do much to help.
“Was there a complication? Is it critical?”
“She’s dead,” Diane says. “Her boyfriend shot her and the little boy after he learned she had an abortion. The police need to speak to everyone who interacted with her.”
And then Diane, strong, unflappable Diane, breaks down in tears.
Jason, dead. Lauren, dead.
All I can think is, this is my fault. Too slow. Too stupid. Too weak. That meeting was just to distract me. Asmodeus told me he punished all who resisted him, and I—I still fell for it, trusting that the choices he gave me were actual options. A woman is dead. A child is dead. And it’s my fault.