The killer had not started again. He had continued. Five Rashis were already complete.
Sequence I
The Orders
Sanjay studied the unfinished sequence again.
The next zodiac period was moving toward its end. If the pattern was real, the police had very little time.
Someone was following a ritual. Sanjay needed to find out what it meant before another girl disappeared.
He called Raghuvir and the other officers to his desk.
“Find every tantrik and every person who claims to perform secret rituals in this area,” he said. “Check the nearby villages too. I want every name.”
The station came alive. Officers opened local records, called nearby outposts, and left in police jeeps.
Sequence II
The Questioning
Before long, several men were brought to the station.
Some called themselves healers. Some read horoscopes. Others said they could remove curses or speak to spirits.
Sanjay questioned each man firmly.
Did he know of a ritual connected to twelve Rashis? Had he heard of a sequence involving young girls? Did he know anyone who had tried such a thing?
Most denied knowing anything. Some looked angry. Others looked confused.
Hours passed. The answers gave Sanjay nothing.
They found many men who claimed to know the unseen. None could explain the five dead girls.
Near dawn
Sequence III
One Name
Near dawn, one frightened man asked to speak to Sanjay alone.
His voice was low. His hands would not stop shaking.
“There is one person who may know about such a ritual,” he said.
Sanjay leaned forward. “Who?”
The man looked toward the door before answering.
“Aghornath.”
Years earlier, Aghornath had been thrown out of the village because of his extreme practices. He now lived alone beyond the village, near an abandoned cave and an old cremation ground.
Raghuvir wrote down the location.
The search no longer covered the whole village. It had one name.
Sequence IV
The Cave
Sanjay did not wait for daylight.
He took Raghuvir and a small police team with him. Their jeeps left the village and followed a broken road toward the hills.
The road soon became too narrow. The officers continued on foot, carrying torches through the cold darkness.
At the edge of the old cremation ground, the cave appeared between the rocks.
The team stopped. Sanjay raised one hand, and the officers spread out behind him.
A faint orange light moved inside the cave.
Someone was there.
Aghornath was no longer only a name.