Aghornath was no longer only a name. He was sitting inside the cave, before a fire.
Sequence I
Before the Fire
Sanjay entered first. Raghuvir and the other officers followed him.
Aghornath sat with his eyes closed. He was deep in sadhana. The fire moved in front of him, but he did not move.
The police formed a circle around him.
“Aghornath,” Sanjay said.
The old man slowly opened his eyes.
Sanjay placed photographs of the five murdered girls before him. He asked about each girl and each murder.
Aghornath looked at the photographs without speaking.
Sequence II
The Sign He Knew
Then Sanjay showed him the zodiac sequence.
Aghornath's fingers stopped on his prayer beads. His eyes moved across the signs in their exact order.
For the first time, fear appeared on his face.
Sanjay saw it.
“You know this,” he said.
Aghornath tried to look away, but the silence had already answered.
The photographs did not frighten him. The sequence did.
Under questioning
Sequence III
Twelve Rashis
Under firm questioning, Aghornath finally spoke.
He described an old ritual built around the twelve Rashis. It demanded twelve human sacrifices, one for every Rashi.
Every victim had to be a girl between ten and fifteen years old. She had to belong to the Rashi required for that stage of the ritual.
The sacrifices also had to happen in the exact zodiac order, near the end of each Rashi period.
No sign could be skipped.
If the required girl was not available, the person performing the ritual had to wait. The wait could last months or even years.
Twelve Rashis. Twelve girls. One unfinished ritual.
Sequence IV
The Call
Sanjay looked at the sequence again.
Now the six-year gap made sense. The ritual had not ended. It had been waiting for the correct girl and the correct Rashi.
But two questions remained.
Who was performing the ritual?
And why had the murders started again now?
“Tell me who is doing this,” Sanjay said.
Aghornath gave him no answer.
Before Sanjay could ask again, his phone rang inside the cave.
He looked at the screen and answered.
The call was from home.