I slid along the wall to my left, lighting match after match until only a few remained. The eyes were no longer visible. I felt boards, splinters, and nails against my injured hand but no door. No window. The scrabbling sounds were everywhere, cartilage scraping on stone and wood. The dizziness was much worse now and threatened to throw me to the floor.

There has to be an exit.

I stopped, lifted my curling match, took a breath, and ignited the rest of my matchbook. There, in the brief, bright flare, on the wall three feet above my head, were visible the outlines of a window. The panes were intact but painted black. The light faded as the dying flames nipped at my fingers.

Dropping the burning matchbook, I crouched and leaped. The window frame was inset, and my fingers found a grip. My legs battered against the smooth wall, trying to find leverage. Somehow I pulled myself to one elbow on the narrow sill, my cheek touching the blacked-out squares of glass. I balanced there, my arms shaking uncontrollably, preparing to break the painted glass with my forearm.

Something grabbed at my legs.

My forearm came down full weight on my broken finger, and in a second's instinctive arching I teetered backward, lost the precarious balance, and slid down the wall to sprawl on the hard floor.

The darkness was absolute.

I had risen to my knees when I felt the presence near me.

Four hands closed on me.

Four arms roughly lifted me and carried me.

One's spirit does not depart immediately after death, but, rather, watches the disposition of events much as a disinterested spectator might.

There were distant voices. A light shone through my eyelids and then was gone. Cool rain fell on my face and my arms.

Rain?

More voices, raised in argument now. Somewhere a tinny car engine started up, exhaust rattling. Gravel crunched under tires. My forehead ached, my left hand pulsed intolerably, and my nose itched.

This can't be what dead is.

The noise of a four-cylinder engine was very loud. I tried to look around, and discovered that my right eye would not open. It was caked shut with drying blood from the cut on my brow.

The idol's hand.

Through the slit of my left eye, I saw that I was being supported — half dragged — by the heavy man in khaki and another Kapalika. Several other men, including the bald one in white, were talking animatedly in the rain.

You can go back to sleep. No!

The rain, my aching hand, and an intolerable itch kept me from sliding down the dark chute into unconsciousness again. One of the men supporting me turned his face my way, and I quickly shut my eye — but not before I caught a glimpse of a green van, the driver's door dented, windowless in the back. A sick sense of recognition washed through me.

The men continued to argue, voices rising shrilly. I listened, and it was as if I suddenly had become proficient in Bengali. I knew without any doubt that they were discussing what to do with my body once they carried out the bald man's orders concerning me.

Finally, the man in khaki grunted, and he and another Kapalika carried me to the back of the van. The tops of my feet dragged across gravel. They let me fall forward into the airless interior. My head struck the side of the truck and struck again on the metal floorboards. I risked opening my eye long enough to see the heavy man and the other Kapalika climb in the back with me while another jumped into the front left passenger seat. The driver turned and asked something. The heavy man kicked me sharply in the side. The air rushed out of me but I did not stir. The Kapalika laughed and said something that began with "Nay."

That's two I owe you, you fat motherfucker.

The anger helped. The hot fire of it served to clear my mind and to quell the fog of terror that filled me. Still, as the van began to move and the sound of crunching gravel came to me through the metal against my ear, I could think of absolutely nothing to do. This was the point in a thousand movies I'd watched where the character overpowers his captors after a vicious fight.

I could not fight them.

I doubted if I could sit up without help. And not all of my weakness was because of whatever drug they had put in the tea. I hurt already. I didn't want them to hurt me anymore. My only possible weapon was to continue feigning unconsciousness and to pray that this would give me another few minutes before they hurt me again.

He broke my finger. I had never had a broken bone before. Not even as a child. It was something I had been vaguely proud of, like having a perfect attendance record in school. Now this sweaty son of a bitch had broken my finger with no more thought or effort than I would take to turn the dial on a TV. It was this matter-of-fact callousness that convinced me that these men would not just dump me off somewhere to let me find my way back to the hotel.

All violence is an exercise in power, Mr. Luczak.

I would have begged them to let me go then if a greater fear had not held me in check. I was paralyzed by the dark uncertainty of what they would do next; but somewhere, just beneath the panicked scurry of my thoughts, was the realization that as long as they focused their anger on me, Amrita and Victoria would be left alone. So I said nothing, did nothing. Nothing except lie there in the hot darkness, smelling the dried shit and old vomit stink of the van's interior, listening to the banter and nostril-clearing sounds of the four Kapalikas, and praising each precious second that passed without further pain being inflicted.

The van shifted up through gears and moved at speed onto a paved section of street. Several times the high sound of the exhaust echoed back to us as if we were between buildings. Occasionally I could hear the blare of trucks, and once I sneaked a glance that showed reflected rectangles of headlights flitting along the van's inner wall. A second later the Kapalika in khaki said something to me in soft, sneering Bengali. My heart began to pound.

We stopped then. The brakes squealed, and the other Kapalika in the back with us shouted angrily as he was thrown forward. Our driver shouted a curse and palmed several sharp blasts on the horn. I could hear a shouted reply from outside. There was the crack of a whip followed by the angry bellow of an ox. Our driver screamed obscenities and leaned on the horn.

A minute later I heard the front van doors open as both the driver and the other Kapalika in front jumped out to continue shouting at whatever obstacle was in our way. The curses continued. The third Kapalika squeezed forward, jumped out, and joined the unseen argument. That left only the man in khaki in the van with me.

This is my chance.

Knowing that I had to act was not enough to make me act. I knew that I should make a dash for the open doors, strike out at the squatting man next to me. Do something. But although I somehow was convinced that this would be my last chance at surprise, my last chance to escape, I could not translate my thoughts into actions. Only lying there seemed to offer the guarantee of a few more minutes without confrontation. Without new pain. Without being killed.

Suddenly the rear doors exploded open. The heavy man, shoved violently from the side, fell clumsily to the floorboards. A hand gripped my arm and roughly pulled me to a sitting position. My legs flopped outside and I blinked in pain, my right eye twitching open against a crust of blood.

"Come! Stand! Hurry." It was Krishna's voice. It was Krishna's face looming over me, hair flying, sharp teeth exposed in a gleeful, maniacal grin. It was Krishna's thin right arm that braced me upright and supported me firmly when I almost fell forward onto my face.