Mahmud laughed and Rohan kicked me under the table.
“Askuchar,” Rohan said. With that one word, all levity at our table fled. He topped up all our sake, serving himself last.
“What about it?” Mahmud’s expression was bland.
I gripped my chopsticks, my eyes darting to Rohan’s.
A flash of impatience darkened his face. “Don’t play politics. This is you and me and no bullshit. There was no logical reason for those yaksas to have trekked from Nepal through India and into Pakistan. Why Askuchar? Conveniently isolated for burying evidence? That mission was all kinds of wrong, man, and you know it.”
“Yeah.” Mahmud scrubbed a hand over his face. “I keep seeing those villagers ravaged. Yaksas are bloodthirsty, but that? It was like they’d gone berserk.”
Or they’d been forced to attack. I shook
