Rudra visits Kalighat Temple under the guise of attending a puja. He seeks out Sadhu Tapan Bhairav, a half-mad ascetic who once helped his father translate tantric fragments. Rudra finds his hut behind the cremation grounds—emptied, desecrated, and marked with blood. The sadhu's corpse is positioned in a meditative pose, entrails arranged like a lotus. On the wall: an eye drawn in menstrual blood.
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Rudra stood beneath the blackened gate of Kalighat Temple as the crowd of worshippers surged forward in prayer-choked waves. Incense curled into the smog-heavy air. Bell chimes clanged like warnings. The goat outside the inner sanctum kicked against its post, nervous—not yet knowing it was chosen.
He kept his head low and his satchel pressed to his side. The folded manuscript burned against his ribs like a fevered organ.
He wasn't here for the goddess.
Not today.
He slipped away from the procession as it bent toward the temple's sanctum, passing through a side alley strewn with dying marigolds and coconut husks. The pujaris and pilgrims didn't notice him; no one noticed anything near the burning grounds.
Past a rusted iron gate, behind a crumbling brick wall that stank of urine and camphor, lay the old cremation pit. It hadn't been used for public rites in years, though the smell of ash never left. Crows lingered in skeletal trees above it like bureaucrats waiting for bribes.
Rudra stepped carefully over the broken bricks and followed a path worn into the dirt behind the old shrine wall.
Tapan Bhairav's hut was nestled in the corner, beneath a twisted neem tree. It looked abandoned: thatched roof half-collapsed, prayer flags faded to dust.
He paused. Something was off.
The smell.
Not just decay—he knew that smell well.
This was fresh blood. Still sweet in the heat.
He approached cautiously, brushing aside the woven mat that hung as a door.
Inside, the shadows clung thick and wet. It took his eyes a moment to adjust.
Then he saw the body.
Sadhu Tapan sat in the center of the floor, upright, spine erect in full padmasana pose. His naked chest was carved with old scars and fresh wounds. His eyes were open and fixed—glass marbles staring skyward. His mouth was twisted in what might have been either peace or horror.
But his abdomen had been opened with surgical precision.
His entrails were arranged outward in a perfect lotus pattern—eight petals.
Each coiled spiral of gut had been cleaned and laid flat with reverent care.
And at the center of the lotus, resting gently where his heart had once been:
A single lotus seed. Glossy. Black.
Rudra's legs nearly gave.
He caught himself against the doorway.
For a long moment he stood there, breathing shallowly, forcing his mind not to reel.
He stepped forward slowly. His shoes stuck faintly to the floor—some mixture of blood and ghee had been poured across the boards.
On the wall to his left, etched in what he first thought was red sindoor paint—
—was an eye.
Oval, vertical, with lashes like flames.
It had been drawn with a fingertip.
Rudra leaned closer.
Not sindoor.
The scent was metallic, sour.
Blood.
And not just blood. He knew this texture from his mother's puja days.
Menstrual blood.
Used only in certain tantric rituals. The ones not spoken aloud. The ones you were never meant to see.
His hand trembled as he reached into his satchel and touched the wrapped manuscript.
It was warm again.
A hum—no, more like a pulse—flickered up his arm, up his neck.
The eye on the wall seemed to shimmer.
Then, behind him—
A voice.
Soft. Female. Calm.
"He told me you'd come."
Rudra turned.
And saw her.