For three seconds, Alex didn't move.
Around him, the food court went on being a food court. A baby was crying two tables away. Someone's tray crashed onto the floor near the Domino's counter and a group of boys cheered. On the big screen above the escalator, a Bollywood song was playing with the sound off. John was still talking about spicy chicken. Marina was still taking selfies.
Only Sara had gone quiet. She was looking at the old man, then at Alex, then at the old man again.
Alex put down the piece of chicken.
Alex- " Sorry, uncle. Hear what? "
The old man smiled wider, pleased, like a teacher whose student has given the wrong answer in an interesting way.
Old Man- " Good. Very good. You don't say yes to strangers. Your parents taught you well. "
He said parents gently. Alex's jaw went tight.
Old Man- " People call me Father B. My own people call me something longer. You've heard it, I think. On Wednesday. "
So he knew about the listening spell. Or he guessed. Either way, he was telling Alex that he knew, which was the same as a threat, said politely.
John finally noticed.
John- " Uncle, you want some chicken? We have extra. "
Father B- " That's very kind, son. I have mine. "
He touched the untouched piece on his plate with one finger, as if to prove it.
Father B- " I was just telling your friend he looks like someone I used to know. "
John- " Everyone says that about him. He has a common face. "
Marina- " John! "
John- " What? It's a compliment. Common faces are trustworthy. "
The old man laughed, a warm grandfather's laugh, and John laughed with him and went back to the bucket. Alex watched his friend turn away and thought very clearly: if this man wanted to, he could hurt John right now, at this table, and nobody in this food court would understand what had happened.
But he hadn't come to hurt anyone. Not tonight. He had come to talk.
Father B- " Walk with me, child. Just to the railing. Your friends can see you the whole time. "
Alex stood up. Sara caught his wrist under the table, quickly, and let it go. He gave her a small nod.
They walked together to the glass railing at the edge of the food court, where you could look down through four floors of the mall to the fountain on the ground floor. The old man walked slowly with his stick. He looked down at the fountain for a while.
Father B- " Do you know what you are? "
Alex- " A college student. "
Father B- " You are a shard. A piece of something very old that broke a long time ago and fell into a boy. Most shards don't last. They burn the boy out by twenty. You've lasted. You've grown. You've done it without anyone teaching you. "
He said it with real admiration. That was the worst part.
Father B- " The army has a little device now. They think they can close the doors. They can't. They can only put a lid on a pot that's already boiling. Something is coming through, child. Not this year, maybe. But soon. My people want to be standing in the right place when it does. "
Alex- " Under the mall? "
Father B- " Under the mall. "
He didn't even pretend.
Father B- " The girl you're protecting. Riya. She's a bell. She can hear the doors, and the doors can hear her. With her standing at the right place at the right time, we can open the door a little wider and choose what comes through first. Without her, it opens anyway, but it opens badly. "
Alex- " So you want a college girl to stand in a car park while something eats her. "
Father B- " I want her to sing, child. Bells are made to ring. "
He turned from the railing and looked at Alex properly for the first time. His eyes were pale grey, almost colourless, and very calm.
Father B- " I'm going to offer you something, and I want you to think before you answer. Not like the boy who bent Rajesh's gun. Like the one who waited four days to put him in a police van. "
Alex said nothing. The old man nodded, as if that was an answer.
Father B- " Bring her to me on Sunday. And I promise you that nothing will ever happen to the family of the young lady you love. Her father. Her mother. Her little cousins. Nothing. Ever. My people have a long reach and a long memory. "
So that was it. Riya for Serena.
Alex felt the heat again, from the hospital and the drawing room, coming up into his chest. On the floor below, a light flickered in a shoe shop window. He held it down. He breathed.
Then he did what the old man least expected. He smiled.
Alex- " You made two mistakes, Father. "
Father B- " Only two? "
Alex- " The first is your money. "
He took out his phone, opened the gallery, and held it up. A photo of a ledger page. One line, repeated month after month. Donation. Fifty thousand. A small red sun.
Alex- " Rajesh Malhotra is in jail tonight. The police have his books. Your sun is in his books twenty-four times. Right now nobody is asking what it means. If anything happens to anyone I know, someone will send the police a short note explaining it. With an address. "
He swiped to the next photo. A page from the stolen notebook, in neat old-fashioned handwriting. A list of dates and places. Kiln. Race ground. Mill. Basement. At the bottom of the page, a single letter, like a signature.
For the first time, the old man's smile stopped. Not for long. Half a second. But it stopped.
Father B- " Where did you get that? "
Alex- " From one of your men. He doesn't need it anymore. "
He put the phone back in his pocket.
Alex- " The second mistake is that you think I'll protect one person by giving you another. I won't. I'll protect both. And on Sunday, if your people are in that basement with Riya's name in their mouths, I'll come down and see them. "
Father B- " Alone? Against a door that has been fed for nine months? "
Alex- " You don't know what I've fed mine. "
The old man was quiet. Then, slowly, he started to laugh again, softly, shaking his head.
Father B- " Oh, child. You really are something. "
He held out his hand.
Alex looked at it. Then he shook it. A dry, light, papery hand. And as he did, he let a single thread of mana slide off his palm into the old man's sleeve, into the weave of the grey shawl, thin as a hair. A tracker. The kind a Zaroth king puts on an ambassador he doesn't trust. It would last a week. Maybe more, if the old man didn't wash the shawl, and Alex didn't think old men washed their shawls very often.
[Mark placed · Target: Father B. · Duration: 7 days]
Father B- " Sunday, then. I look forward to it. "
He picked up his stick and walked away through the food court, slow and bent, past the KFC counter and the crying baby and the Domino's queue, and stepped onto the down escalator. Alex watched the little mark in his mind go down with him. Third floor. Second. First. Ground. Out through the main doors. Into a car.
He went back to the table. John had finished the bucket.
John- " Who was that uncle? "
Alex- " Some Father. From a church. He wanted a donation. "
John- " Did you give? "
Alex- " No. "
John- " Good. Churches are rich. "
Marina hit him with a napkin. Sara didn't say anything. She just looked at Alex's face, and whatever she saw there made her put her hand on his knee under the table and keep it there.
They took an auto home. Alex sat in the middle and felt the mark moving across the city in the back of his head. South. Then east. Then it stopped in a part of the city he knew only from newspaper photos. Big houses. Old trees. Gates with guards.
At home, he locked the door, sat on the plastic chair on the step, and texted Riya.
Alex- " Don't go anywhere alone this weekend. Not even to the shop. If anyone you don't know talks to you, call me. "
Riya- " Did something happen? "
Alex- " An old man bought KFC. "
Riya- " That's not funny. "
Alex- " No. It isn't. "
He sat there a while with the phone in his hand and counted. Thirty cores in a bag. Two days. One basement with a door that had been fed for nine months. One old man who had just told him, smiling, exactly where he would be on Sunday.
That was the part that bothered him most. A man like that didn't tell you where he would be unless he wanted you somewhere else.
At 10:47, his phone buzzed.
Serena.
A photo. A long dining table with a white cloth, set for a dinner that had already finished. Her father at the head of it, in a crisp kurta, laughing at something. And beside him, in the guest's chair, with a grey shawl around his shoulders and a cup of tea in his thin hand, Father B.
Under it, a message.
Serena- " Papa's guest for Sunday lunch is also coming. He says he's an old family friend. Alex, I've never seen him before in my life. "