Vol 1: Revelation Of Masks — Epilogue

Manda loved the night.

It offered him everything that he wished for—the silence, the calm, the vulnerability humans offered in their sleep.

But most of all, he loved the cold night air grazing past his skin. Not because he liked the chill itself but rather quite the opposite.

It made him truly feel the warmth of fresh blood on his hands spreading throughout his body.

He loved the sticky sensation of it on his fingers, the rustic smell permeating his nose, burying all his other senses smells under it.

Oh, how long he had waited to experience this!

The sharp cawing of a crow broke his state of meditation, the knife he twirled almost slipped through his long fingers.

The white feathered creature with beady eyes and sharp beak was perched on the water tank on the rooftop. It didn’t behave like other birds, didn’t move its neck around constantly in search of food.

This one knew its purpose.

Then again, this was no ordinary crow.

‘Figures he would come to rain on my parade,’ Manda thought, as he got up with a sign. Even Rakshas like him deserved to have some fun in peace.

Gripping the blade with his thumb and index finger, Manda threw the knife right back into the cold dead body of his fresh kill—a young man in his early 20s with early signs of baldness and late signs of height growth—creating another stab wound in the chest.

“Dammit! So close,” Manda muttered. He had intended to get the blade lodged in the same spot as the one that got the human dead but mistakes happen. Nobody was perfect, afterall. Even superior beings like Rakshas.

The crow croaked once again.

“Yes, yes, I bloody heard you the first time, mate! I’m coming,” Manda said walking leisurely towards the white crow who refused to fly down to a lower level of height, to stand at the same level as him. “How may this lowly servant of yours help you, your highness?” He asked the crow with as much bite as he could muster without actually hurting the creature.

Prideful as he may be, Manda wasn’t stupid.

Knowing this might probably take some time, Manda sat down on the rooftop wall, his legs dangling in the wind with no fear of heights.

Why should he fear anything anyways? He was a Rakshas, that too, a strong one.

The white glassy eyes of the crow turned towards him and when it opened its mouth, instead of a croak, a human voice came out from its beak. “Were you busy?” It asked.

“Busy? Oh no no, mate, I was simply sitting on the lawn chair with a nice cold beer in my hand gazing at the stars wondering who’s the fucked up idiot who thinks this is fun?”

“Be serious, Danav,” said the voice from the crow with a coldness that managed to make even Manda’s spine shiver. He liked to believe the cause for that was the cold air. “Give me a progress report.”

Manda sighed. There went his peace of the night. It was short-lived but it had a good run nonetheless.

“The plan’s moving just fine, albeit a bit sluggish. The schedule is a little tight sometimes but I manage to make it work,” he said, licking his fingers, “the success rate is getting higher on each try so there’s that, too.”

“Good. And you? Has there been any complications with your identity?”

“None that I know of,” Manda said, his thumb in his mouth, trying to piece the memory of his host together. There’s not a lot he remembers from when Manda lets his host take over the control.

A condition that Manda wasn’t a big supporter of.

‘I don’t know why I can’t just completely take over the body like others,’ He thought. Well, he could take over, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he wasn’t allowed to take over.

Manda pulled out a kerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands clean. The warmth of the blood was gone leaving only a sticky sensation of his host's saliva on his fingers.

He wasn’t a big fan of that sensation. Especially since all it provided was a chill in his hands.

“That doesn’t sound assuring enough to me,” A growling sound came from the crow. It was strange to hear such a feral sound coming from a little bird. Though the source of the voice was a little hard to clearly pinpoint. It came off as slightly gruffed up and heavy.

“Tough luck, mate,” Manda said, spotting the faint red spots on his hand that were being very difficult to come off. “What can I say, it’s not easy being undercover.” He licked those spots and tried to clean them off again.

“Then try to be extra careful. Especially now.”

…Why now? “Um, bossman, is there something you might wanna fill in with me?”

“There are Grimmers in the town now. None at the level that you’d need to worry too much, but nonetheless, try to stay on guard.”

‘Ah, so that’s the reason for all that disturbance I’ve been sensing for the past couple of days,’ Manda figured. “I wonder if that’s what happened to Akkoro…” Manda whispered under his breath.

“What was that?” The voice from within the crow asked, slight panic evident in its voice.

“Ah, nothing, bossman. One of the Rakshas we summoned last week suddenly stopped responding to me for the past 3 days,” Manda explained, “I didn’t think much of it since, well, he is a Rakshas. Low levelled one, sure, but he still has the instincts of a Rakshas. I just figured he went wild but hey, since that’s one of the reasons we called him up—to cause chaos—so…”

“Controlled chaos,” the voice grunted, trying to keep his mind and voice calm and still in control, “that’s the plan.”

Manda thought that was a stupid condition in the plan. Chaos wasn’t chaos if it could be controlled. Not that he expected his boss to understand.

One had to be a Rakshas to understand the true meaning of chaos.

Then again, Manda has no idea who his boss was. He had his money on him being as Asur, would explain his personality.

“Fine, sorry, mate. My mistake,” Manda said, getting up, his hands now clean and the blood leaving a nice aftertaste in his mouth.

The night was good. The night was free. Unfortunately, the night wasn’t eternal.

‘Too bad I have to give up the control soon,’ Manda thought.

“Keep me updated, and do not screw up my plan.” The crow’s eyes turned back to midnight black, the white on its feathers misted away to reveal the black underneath it. It stared at the limp body on the rooftop, neck turned in various directions with rapid speed before flying away to sit on some other rooftop or shit on somebody’s car.

Now that’s an actual bird.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Manda muttered with a small salute. Turning his attention back to the body, he missed the warm feeling he had experienced before the interruption.

“Oh well, back to work.” He picked out a golden crystal from his pocket—it had the size of a small round candy—and crushed it within his fist. The dust of the crystals vaporised in the air and mixed into the dust and other components of the sky in an instant.

“I’m heading back home so make sure everything goes as planned, okay buddy?” Manda ordered a lanky guy sitting in the corner, biting his thumbnail.

“Y-yes,” the man said in a whispered tone. His body shook on each step he took like a leaf on a very windy day. “I-I will h-he-help him get p-peace, don’t w-wo-worry.”

‘I’m more worried about you getting picked up by the wind,’ Manda thought and chuckled at the thought.

While Manda feared nobody, even he had to admit the human looked creepy. ‘For beings that are purity given form, they sure tend to exhibit a lot of impurities in their actions.’

Jumping up on the ledge, Manda breathed in a long deep breath and jumped down on the ground with a heavy thud.

No one came out to see what had happened. No one lived now to see what had happened.

All it takes to end a life is one single night.

Yes, Manda indeed loved the night very much.