Paw-Prints Of The Gods Read Online Free Page A

little
early,” Lilith told her, seeing her raise a quizzical eyebrow. “The
monks wanted to see you straight after the service broadcast.”
    “Service?” asked
Ravana. After what the nurses had told her, it should not have been
a surprise to learn that hospice life included religious services,
but this was the first real confirmation that the medical centre
was a church-run affair. “Can anyone join in?”
    “Only the devout,”
Jizo replied. Her triumphant sideways glance at her colleague
suggested that while she herself qualified for such worthy status,
Lilith did not.
    The singing continued
unabated. They arrived at the interview room, to find the two
chairs on the far side of the desk unexpectedly vacant. Lilith
invited Ravana to take her usual seat and then waited with Jizo at
the door, presumably for the arrival of one or both of the monks.
For a while Ravana was content to sit gazing longingly through the
window at the distant sandy beach. After several minutes passed and
neither nurse spoke, she could take the silence no more and decided
to pose the question that had been on her mind since yesterday.
    “Why does Brother
Simha have twelve fingers?”
    Jizo looked up from
pulling the legs off a spider, scooped from its web near the door.
Her leer had become an apprehensive stare. Ravana shivered at the
sight of something alive squirming in the pocket of the nurse’s
grey habit.
    “Does he?” remarked
Jizo, looking uncomfortable. “Can’t say I noticed.”
    “Polydactyly,” Lilith
replied smugly.
    “Yes!” Jizo cried.
“Poly-what-she-said. Some sort of dinosaur.”
    “A rare congenital
medical condition,” Lilith corrected, regarding Jizo with disdain.
“Some people are born with extra fingers or toes.”
    “Like the dinosaur,”
her colleague persisted, unwilling to let go of an idea. “With big
claws dripping blood and guts from all the tiny animals they’ve
ripped apart and...”
    “You’re thinking of a
Pterodactyl,” Ravana hastily interrupted. Jizo’s wild macabre
imagination made her feel sick. “I think they had wings.”
    “Exactly! The extra
fingers and floppy skin enabled them to fly.”
    Lilith gave the weary
sigh of someone who wished they were anywhere else but here. Ravana
opened her mouth to ask something else, then realised the singing
had stopped. A tramp of footsteps in the corridor outside sent the
nervous nurses back to their positions by the door. Moments later,
the monks arrived.
    The two grey figures
swept into the room in a blur of cloaks and scarlet sashes. They
slipped silently into the waiting chairs, leaving Lilith and Jizo
to disappear through the door and close it behind them. Ravana’s
headache flared as the usual wave of panic crashed over her, a fear
which like yesterday remained as she stared into the dark recesses
of their hoods. This time she faced them with a clear mind. It
dawned on her that the random emotional shapes their presence
brought to mind were being generated by her implant, yet the images
were quite unlike the shadowy pictures glimpsed whilst in her room.
Her mind went back to the nightmare vision of twelve grey figures
reaching towards her with their outstretched hands. Ravana turned
her gaze from the seated figures and shuddered.
    Brother Simha, the
monk with lions upon his sash, nodded to his companion sat at his
side, then leaned forward to level the blank stare of his hood at
Ravana.
    “zz-raavaanaa-zz,” he
hissed, his voice cold and unwelcoming.
“zz-wee-aaree-moost-coonceerneed-aaboouut-yyoouur-meemooryy-zz.”
    “zz-yyoouu-aaree-noot-weell-zz,” rasped Brother Dhanus, who wore
the customary archers on his sash.
“zz-teell-uus-aaboouut-thee-booook-theen-yyoouu-caan-reest-zz.”
    Ravana stared back,
her fear growing by the minute. “What book?”
    The formless shapes in
her mind reverberated with angry spikes as each monk spoke. The
thought of what she may have done to generate such dreadful
passions terrified her. Their