"It isn't over," the man said, seething, walking slowly towards us, astutely escaping the debris.

I noticed he was wet and the last time I had seen someone that way was Ashwanth Veer. My instant inkling about him was that if he was someone belonging to that very clan.

"Who are you? What do you want?" I asked nervously, taking a few steps ahead, walking past Pruthvi and Nazira, "And why do you have that stone with you?"

"So many questions, yet only one answer," he said, in a sing song tone, "I am the one who is sent to enjoy watching your heart stop."

"What rubbish?!" I exclaimed.

As he moved closer, I looked into his eyes that were filled with an intense loathing that I involuntarily had to take a step back. Hardik at once pulled itself away from the heavy weight of the trunk and rolled close into a scroll and stayed down at a corner. I never had a good feeling whenever it did that. Nobody knew how and why, but it has a potential to sense an upcoming danger.

  The man looked sharply at Nazira when she went ahead to stand beside the wall quite away from us. His eyes immediately widened but quickly shrunk down to normal in a failed attempt to hide his stagger.

"If you are here for my sister," said Pruthvi, standing in front of Nazira, "then forget it."

The man scoffed, "Nazira Khan is an old school, Pruthvi Krishna. And believe me, Shashi Thribhuvan has no time for ear transplants."

Uncontrollable anger rippled through me. And I fought back my urge to burn him down instantly.

"Mind your tongue," I said, harshly, having a distinct impression of fierce rivalry beginning to spring between us, "Just answer my question. Who the hell are you?"

    "Well," he said, now standing still on a spot, "I heard you ask a lot of question, Hayden. Yet my son tells me, no one has ever told you about why you are called Fire of Vengeance."

    Pruthvi walked up to stand beside me. "Your son?" he asked, and I was here thinking about if he was going answer my million dollar question.

    "Tyrell Kissler!" he answered, making my hair at the back stand. I noticed his features settled as if he was sucking in all his coldness. "I am sorry, you might not know but he is actually a Kerenza, Jyran Kerenza's son, my son. I do not blame myself to miss an only opportunity to give him my name though. But if I had it, I would have named him- Rahu, Rahu Kerenza."

    "Stop the madness!" Pruthvi shouted, he looked rather angry than ever, his voice abnormally strainful for the tension looming in great hall. "What the hell are you talking about? His father is Ivan Kissler."

       I looked away in a slight guilt. What kind of a friend I was, I didn't even know his father's name.  Every time it has always been me telling him about my parents, where I had no idea about his, except that they were farm laborers.

            "No, kid," Jyran said, slightly shaking his head, interrupting my thoughts, "I am his father. I bestowed him with the every ounce of blood his heart is pumping."

Pruthvi said enraged, "You are lying."

    "It does not matter," I said, suddenly, grabbing everyone's attention, "It makes no difference whose son he is."

    Pruthvi looked at me, flabbergasted. "What?"

    He wasn't the only one glaring at me. Nazira's panic-stricken eyes were fixed on me, although I didn't dare to look back at them.

    "Pruthvi, aren't you happy that our friend is actually having a living parent?" I said, "Isn't that what we all need so badly?"

    "But Hayden..."

    Jyran clapped his hands obstructively.

    "So much like your grandfather, Hayden," he said, "I am impressed. But the thing is..."

    "On mentioning that," I cut him, finding my own voice rising, "It depends on how well you treat him-like a normal son, or as a bait to kill me and my friends."

    Jyran scowled and grunted his displeasure. "Why would you say that?"

    "Because from the past few months it was you who have been toying with him, changing his personality, messing with his mind..."

    Jyran smirked. "You mean Aatmayukta? Learn to use exact terms Hayden.  And yes, you guessed it right. It was indeed me, entering his room beneath all your noses, and spending quality time with my son.  Those were the days."

    "Aatmayukta?" I asked, frowning.

    "An intense dark magic performed with the aim to insentient soul from the mind and body."

        My jaw hung open.  "No!" I choked, cold wisp of air escaping through my lungs. Can anybody in the world do that? Can a father do that to his own son?

    "That is what you have been doing to our friend?" Pruthvi asked, as shocked as I was.

"And I successfully accomplished in it," he said proudly, "Thanks to your juvenile teenage brains to think that his change was because of his separation from his girlfriend. It surely gave me an ample amount of time I needed. But yes, I couldn't have done that, if Tyrell himself hasn't given me the permission."

    "Shut it!" I said, fuming, a flash of irritation crossing through my gaze, "He wouldn't agree for it. That can't be true."

    "Yes it is," he said and then took a pause. "Haven't doctor taught you that dark magic cannot be performed on anyone without one's permission?"

Unable to answer him, I frantically looked at Pruthvi who was having an disgruntled expression.

"Hayden Mackay," he said forcing me look back at him, "let's get to the point. Everyone says I am good in bargaining and making pacts, so here I am with one more. I was asked to kill you and end this thing you have with Shashi. But on thinking deeply, that will not do any good to me."

"What do you want?" I asked, although I knew whatever it was, I was going to reject it.

Jyran gaped at me, his expression hardened before he said, "I cannot deny that I am indebted to your grandfather for sparing my life. And just because of that, I will let you and your friends live. But in return I need my son. I need a family and my son is my family. "

"You have got to be kidding me," I said, incredulously, as Pruthvi folded his hands and shook his head in disapproval.

"I do not kid," Jyran said, gravely, "Doctor wouldn't let me have Tyrell in a direct way. He challenged me to get pass through you and Pruthvi first before I could have my son. So I am asking you..."

"You messed up with his soul," I said, rage plucking at my nerves as I thought about what he had done to my friend, "How can you possibly believe that I can accept you nonsensical pact? I would rather have a fight with you."

"His soul reminds me of his mother," he said immediately and unregrettably, "And I don't mind at all to shut everything down that reminds me of her."

"What kind of a father are you?" I asked, infuriated.

"A right father to my son. And I told you he asked for everything I did to him. You really have to pay attention here."

    "Prove it!" I demanded him, and I didn't even plan for it, "I don't believe in anything that I don't see with my own eyes. Especially it is anything against a person like Tyrell."

    Jyran smirked. "With pleasure."

    He pulled one of his beaded chain out of his neck and dropped a single bead in his hand. Closing his eyes, his lips started reciting a long command. There was a vague resemblance to what he was doing and on recalling what it was, frowning, I glanced at Pruthvi. He caught my eye and mouthed, "Drishtika Messenger."

The colors on the wall he was facing at, began to saturate, forming a milky white bright illumination. A rectangular white screen quickly took its shape. I constricted my heart. He was truly making an effort to prove it and I knew whatever I was going to see wasn't going to be  easy.

  As soon as the picture came through, first thing that I noticed were the manly hands, holding a plate full of meals. There were a beaded bracelet around the strong wrists, confirming whose hands they were. He seemed to be walking around a dimly lit room, with many glass utensils, pitchers and flasks spread all over the floor.

    He placed the plate on a table and looked up at the other person sitting across the table. Now as I watched her in reality rather than in my dreams, a cold fury clenched my heart. She looked paler and weaker than the last I had seen her in the Sharad's prison. She was still draped in the same orange saree and a short, broken, walking stick was resting beside the arm of the chair she was sitting in. Her face so deep and saggy, and at her age and knowing what kind of person she was, it would have been better for everyone if she already had one foot in a grave.

    "Damn!" whispered Jyran, beneath his breath, "Wrong bead!"

    "It was you who set her free?" asked Pruthvi, dropping his hands.

    I stared at him, waiting for his answer which he didn't bother to reply. His silence stating the obvious answer.

    My mind raced. I didn't bother about it at first, but the familiar brilliant lights had closed behind him when we first arrived here a few minutes ago. Was that Gates of Chandrika? Was he the one who stole a piece of The Silver rock and it wasn't Shourya? And that is how he helped Zarina escape?

    "Have it," said the voice behind the hands, dragging my attention back to the screen, "Looks like King Aghastya is terribly impoverished to provide food for his prisoners."

    Despite her frail appearance, she still had the vigor in her to show her stubbornness like a wild boar. Without looking up at the person providing her food, she pulled the plate towards her and smelled the food like a hungry dog.

My eyes at once averted to check of Pruthvi, his face was screwed up in an expression of immense loathing he could ever have on anyone. Nazira, on the other hand was dazed and confused, watching the woman probably for the first time in her life, her eyes glistening with water.

    "Why did you bring me here?" Zarina asked, "I have to meet Shashi."

    "He is coming to get you. He will be here any minute," said Jyran from behind the screen, "But before you leave with him, you need to answer my question."

    "You know I spill beans only for money," she said, nothing about her looked like she was imprisoned for months, "Delight me first."

    Within a few second, I watched Jyran's hands throwing a hefty pack of Rupals on the table. She quickly grabbed it, gleefully. 

    "What do you want to know?" she asked, keeping the pack beside her.

    "You always knew about the existence of Shaatrumani Stone, didn't you?" Jyran in the screen asked.

Now was the moment, the old woman looked up at the person sitting in front of her. I blinked and Pruthvi jerked. It was as if she was looking straight at us.

    "Why do you ask?"

    "You knew about it, or not?"

    "Yes." she replied. "I always knew."

    "Why didn't you tell Shashi when he was in verge of killing Suspected Samagraha?"

    "Two reasons," she said without any hesitation, eating the wheat bread, "One, he didn't ask me. Two, he didn't pay me well."

    Jyran at once leaned forward and banged the table hard, out of suddenly born anger. "Your arrogance costed Victoria's life, you old bag!"

    "Enough about the past," she snapped, "Found my great grand daughter yet?"

Screen suddenly went white and before I could even decipher the facts about what I had seen and heard, colors formed in the screen again. Now, I was looking at a well known door of the room, where I usually spend more time than in my own and then at the rack where colored caps were stacked in.

    "That is Tyrell's room," whispered Pruthvi.

        Lantern inside the room was lit, it must be the time after dinner or even late in the night. My mind was creating with all sort of possibilities making it slight difficult for me to concentrate on a hand that was placed on the table, fingers tapping on it. Jyran was waiting inside his room. And he entered into his room through...Gates of Chandrika?

    "Leena is going to kill Pruthvi today," said a full of life and playful voice, coming right outside the door.

    "It's all because of you jerk."

I gasped. That was me. Hearing my own voice sent shrill down my spine.

O God! It was that day. Only if I knew someone was waiting in his room...I could have saved Tyrell from getting drowned into this mess. Then it struck me what exact day it was. Wasn't that the same night when Tyrell suspiciously had landed in jail?

    Tyrell in the screen was laughing mischievously,  cracking a joke on me before retiring to his room. I watched him turning the knob of the door. Jyran in the screen stood up bracing himself. As soon as the door opened and Tyrell stepped inside.

"What the...." he shrieked looking at the man.

Before he even could finish getting confounded, watching a strange man standing nonchalantly in his room, the door closed shut with a loud bang. Tyrell at once screamed suddenly, grabbing his head with both of his hand and he fell down on his knees.

"My son," said Jyran, his voice as greedy as it could be. He walked ahead and crouched down beside the fallen Tyrell. "I know this hurts. But you have a powerful stone in your pocket and I don't want you to use it on me. I am helpless. Will you forgive me?"

Tyrell fell on the ground completely, shaking and swaying.

"STOP THIS!" He bellowed, "WHO ARE YOU?"

            "For me to stop hurting you, you have to accept everything I ask of you."

"NEVER," He shouted. "HAYDEN! PRUTHVI! HELP!"

I inhaled sharply that for a moment I forgot to let air out of my lungs. A knot of guilt twisted in my stomach that I wasn't able to hold it. Pruthvi eyes dropped on to the floor, guilt-ridden.

"No one is going to hear you, my son," Jyran said, "I hexed your room quite well."

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?" Tyrell asked, clenching his head tight.

"Just a long walk," Jyran said, "Only you and me, away from here where no one can see us."

"No!"

Jyran grunted,  when Tyrell screamed loudly enough to give me goosebumps.

"FINE! JUST MAKE IT STOP!" Tyrell said finally, his eyes streaming with tears and sweat drenching his shirt.

"Oh, you are easy!" said Jyran, and I could sense pleasure in his voice.

Tyrell stopped shouting and was breathing heavily. "Lightning..."

"Celina Hanslay will die if you do that mistake," said Jyran immediately, pointing his finger up.

Tyrell gaped, gulping down his command over his stone, a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead. "How do you know her?"

Jyran ignored his question. "And not to mention Shourya and his men are already having their eyes on her, round the clock."

"No!" I was certain, he was scared to death.

"Come with me and do as I say," said Jyran, "And his men won't lay their hands on her."

"Celina is strong..."

"Try me, my boy. Go ahead. Take the risk."

Tyrell clenched his fists. "What do you want from me?"

"Just a long walk, that is all I ask. You are a Samagraha, I hope this isn't a matter to you."

"Fine," he said quickly, "Just don't hurt her."

I watched Jyran's hand removing a canister from his robes which seemed to be containing a white shining powder. Pouring some of it into his hands and blowing it he said, "Gate of Chandrika-open at the Bay Plane Road, Tampa."

The screen blurred and the colors of Tyrell's room saturated. For a while nothing came up. The rectangular screen wasn't dissolving yet, but lingered on the wall, waiting for an instruction.