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"Look, those women are dressed like me," Joshua said "Except they only have two breasts each"

"Technically, they're not dressed, they're painted You make a very attractive female demon, Josh Did I tell you that?"

"This isn't going to work"

"Of course it's going to work"

I guessed that there were already ten thousand worshipers in the te drums A procession of thirtya basket under his arm As they reached the altar, each man duoat heads

"What are those?" Joshua asked

"Those are exactly what you think they are"

"They're not the heads of the children?"

"No, I think those are the heads of strangers who happened down the road ere on before Rurass"

After the severed heads were dispersed across the altar, the fe the headless corpse of ato the altar Each one enitalia against the bloody stu down the insides of their thighs

"There's sort of a the here," I said

"I think I' to be sick," Joshua said

"Mindful breath," I said, using one of the phrases that Gaspar was always barking at us ere learning meditation I knew that if Joshua could stay with the yeti for days at a ti to death, he could certainly conjure up the bodily control to keep froe was all that was keepingIt was as if the atrocity of the whole scene couldn't fit in h for my sanity and my stomach to remain intact

A shout went up in the cro and I could see a torch-lit sedan chair being carried above the heads of the worshipers On it reclined a half-naked er skin wrapped around his hips, his skin painted light gray with ashes His hair was plaited with grease and he wore the bones of a hu a necklace of human skulls

"High priest," I said

"They aren't even going to notice you, Biff How can you even get their attention after they've seen all this?"

"They haven't seen what I' to show them"

As the sedan chair eed from the crowd in front of the altar, we could see a procession following it: tied to the back of the sedan chair was a line of naked children, ether, a less ornately dressed priest on either side of thean to untie the children and take the the boulevard Here and there in the crowd I could see people beginning to brandish edged weapons: short swords, axes, and the long-bladed spears Joshua and I had seen over the elephant grass The high priest was sitting on the headless corpse, shouting a poe

"Here we go," I said, pulling the black glass dagger from under my sari "Take this"

Joshua looked at the blade shiht "I won't kill anyone," he said Tears were streah the black and if anythinghim look more fierce

"That's fine, but you'll need to cut them loose"

"Right" He took the knife from me

"Josh, you knohat's co You've seen it before Nobody else here has, especially those kids You can't carry all of theh of their wits about the afraid Put your teeth in"

Joshua nodded and slipped the row of crocodile teeth attached to a piece of rawhide under his upper lip, leaving the teeth to protrude like fangs I put in s, then ran into the dark to circle the crowd

As I approached the rear of the altar I pulled the special torch I'd irdle of huoat's udders stuffed with straw, but the Untouchable wo as no one bothered to count fingers) Through Kali's stone legs I could see the priests tying each of the children on the trunk of a wooden elephant As soon as the bonds were tight, each priest drew a bronze blade and held it aloft, ready to strike off a finger as soon as the high priest gave the signal

I struck the tip of e of the altar, screamed for all I orth, then threw my sari off and ran up the steps as the torch burst into dazzling blue flame that trailed sparks behind oat heads and stood between the legs of the statue of Kali, ing by the hair in the other

"I am Kali," I screah my fake teeth

Soh priest turned around and looked at ht of the torch than my fierce proclamation

"I aain "Goddess of destruction and all this disgusting crap you have here!" They weren't getting it The priest signaled for the other priests to come around me fro to make their way across the dance floor of decapitations toward me

"I ed on I did have the crowd's attention, though unfortunately they weren't cowering in fear ataround the wooden elephants, the guarding priests having left their posts to come after me "Really! I mean it!" Maybe it was the teeth I spit them out toward the nearest of my attackers

Running across a sea of slick, bloody heads is evidently a pretty difficult task Not if you've spent the last six years of your life hopping from the top of one post to another, even in ice and snow, but for the run-of-the-h row to hoe The priests and acolytes were slipping and sliding a over each other, s hioat's horn when he fell

One of the priests was only a few feet away fro not to fall on his own blade as he crawled over thedestructionoh, fuck it," I said I lit the fuse on the severed head I held in s and tossed it in a steep arch over oddess's open maw, then disappeared

I kicked the approaching priest in the jaw, then danced across the goat heads, leapt over the head of the high priest, and was halfway to Joshua at the first wooden elephant when Kali, with a deafening report, breathed fire out over the crowd and the top of her head blew off

Finally, I had the crowd's attention They were traet away, but I had their attention I stood in thefor the fuse to burn down before I let it sail over the heads of the receding crowd It exploded in the air, sending a circle of fla some of the worshipers ere close

Joshua had seven of the children around his as he moved to the next elephant Several of the priests had recovered and were stor down the steps of the altar toward arland, lit the fuse, and held it out to them

"Ah, ah, ah," I cautioned "Kali Goddess of destruction Wrath et cetera"

At the sight of the sparking fuse they stopped and began to backpedal "Now that's the sort of respect you should have shown before"

I started whirling the head by the hair and the priests lost all see and turned and ran I hurled the head back up the boulevard onto the altar, where it exploded, sending a spray of real severed goat heads in all directions

"Josh! Duck! Goat heads!"

Joshua pushed the children to the ground and fell over thelared at me a second, then went on to free the other children I hurled three more heads into different directions and now the entire temple square was nearly deserted but for Joshua, the children, a few injured worshipers, and the dead I had built the bombs without any shrapnel in them, so those who had been injured had been trampled in the panic and the dead were those who had already been sacrificed to Kali I think we pulled it off without killing anyone

As Joshua led the children down the wide boulevard and out of the te down the boulevard,in one hand, my torch in the other Once I saw that Joshua and the children were safely away, I lit the fuse, whirled the head around and let it fly toward the black goddess

"Bitch," I said

I was out of sight when it exploded

Joshua and I got as far as a lies before we had to stop to let the children rest They were tired and hungry, butfor them to eat At least, after Joshua's touch, they weren't afraid, and that gave theled to sleep, so we sat up as the children lay down on the rocks around us and snored like kittens Joshua held Ru her face was sh the night, as he rocked the child, all I heard Joshua say was, "No more blood No more blood"

At first light we could see thousands, no, tens of thousands of people gathering at the banks of the river, all dressed in white, except for a few oldeast, heads raised in anticipation, dotting the river as far as the eye could see As the sun becaht on the horizon, the ht reflected off its surface onto the buildings, the shanties, the trees, the palaces,the worshipers, appear to have been gilded And worshipers they were, for we could hear their songs froh we could not discern the words, we could hear that these were the songs of God

"Are those the saht?" I said

"They would have to be, wouldn't they?"

"I don't understand these people I don't understand their religion I don't understand how they think"

Joshua stood and watched the Indians bowing and singing to the dawn, looking occasionally to the face of the child that slept on his shoulder "This is testalory of God's creation, whether these people know it or not"

"How can you say that? The sacrifices to Kali, the way the Untouchables are treated Whatever they ion is hideous"

"You're right It's not right to condemn this child because she was not born a Brahman?"

"Of course not"

"Then is it right to condemn her because she is not born a Jew?"

"What do you mean?"

"A dom of God Are we, as Hebrews, any different from them? The lambs at the temple on Passover? The wealth and power of the Sadducees while others go hungry? At least the Untouchables can reach their reward eventually, through karentile to do so"

"You can't compare what they do to God's law We don't sacrifice hus We feed our poor, we take care of the sick"

"Unless the sick are unclean," Joshua said

"But, Josh, we're the chosen It's God's will"

"But is it right? He won't tell me what to do So I'll say And I say, no more"

"You're not just talking about eating bacon, are you?"

"Gautaave the way to people of all births to find the hand of God With no blood sacrifice Our doors have been , Biff"

"So that's what you think you're going to do? Bring God to everyone?"

"Yes After a nap"

"Of course, I meant after a nap"

Joshua held the little girl so I could see her face as she slept on his shoulder

When the children ae led the them into the arms of their mothers, who snatched each child away frolared over their shoulders as they carried the babies back to their pits

"Grateful bunch," I said

"They are afraid that we've angered Kali And we've brought thery mouth"

"Still Why did they help us if they didn't want their children back?"

"Because we told them what to do That's what they do What they are told That's how the Brahmans keep them in line If they do what they are told, then perhaps they will not be Untouchables next life"

"That's depressing"

Joshua nodded We only had little Vitra to return to her father now, and I was sure that Ruhter His distress over losing her had basically been the reason he had saved our lives As we came over the sandstone rise we could see that Rumi was not alone in his pit

Ru salt on his erect e humpbacked cohich nearly filled the rest of the pit, licked at the salt Joshua held Vitra so she faced away from the pit, then backed away, as if he didn't want to disturb the moment of beefy intimacy

"A cow, Ruht you people had beliefs"

"That's not a cow, that's a bull," Joshua said

"Oh, that's got to be your super-bonus aboet destroyed for that kind of thing, Rumi" I reached over and put my hand over Vitra's eyes "Stay away from Daddy, honey, or you'll turn into a pillar of salt"

"But this is my wife, reincarnated"

"Oh, don't try that one on me, Rumi For six years I lived in a Buddhist monastery where the only female company was a wild yak I know from desperate"

Joshua grabbed my arm "You didn't?"

"Relax, I' a point You're the Messiah here, Josh What do you think?"

"I think we need to go to Taus" He set Vitra down and Rumi quickly pulled up his loincloth as the child ran to him "Go with God, Rumi," Joshua said

"May Shiva watch over you, you heretics Thank you for returning hter"

Joshua and I gathered up our clothes and satchels, then bought some rice in the es south until we caore of Kali from our bodies

We sat on the beach, letting the sun dry our skin as we picked pitch out of our chest hairs

"You know, Josh," I said, as I fought a particularly stubborn gob of tar that had stuck inthose kids out of the temple square, and they were so little and weak, but none of the"

"Yep, I love all the little children of the world, you know?" "Really?"

He nodded "Green and yellow, black and white"

"Good to know - Wait, green?"

"No, not green I was just fuckin' with you"