Bhim takes his time lumbering up to her. “Did you really think you run the show here? Go ahead, shout all you want.” He stands over her, smiling indulgently at her cries, then bends down and slaps her hard. She screams throatily as he lifts her by the hair, then tries to crawl away whimpering, after he punches her in the mouth and lets her drop. “Do you understand now? Most respected Devi ma?”

He’s about to hit her once more when the rumble from the devotees distracts him. They’re milling around, riled at their devi’s treatment, their outrage barely contained by the guards. Bhim lets off several shots in the air to calm them down. “Look, she’s fine,” he says, lifting the girl to her feet and trying to wipe away the blood. “They’ll have her fixed in no time.” He thrusts her into the weeping maidens’ arms.

Unfortunately, the gun he’s fired seems to jog his memory. “Ah yes, the Muslim. We were about to do away with you, weren’t we, before the interruption?” He checks to see if the gun still has bullets, then waves the guards closest to me away from my body.

Suddenly, I feel very exposed. The wind blows in from the sea to swirl around my frame, highlighting its vulnerability, its isolation. “Ordinarily, I’d prefer something with a little more flair, but packing you back in a buffalo would take much too long.” He points the gun at my chest, and I feel my stomach contract, my breath stop. It seems too soon, too abrupt—I can think of nothing to say to give myself even another few seconds, nothing to do except stare paralyzed into the point-blank muzzle.

“Jaz!” Karun runs up and pushes away Bhim’s hand just as the gun discharges.

The bullet goes off into space. Karun falls against me, and I hold him in my arms and look into his face—in that one instant, I witness something I’ve never known, never even believed existed. The love I see there, the lips mouthing my name—this is what people live and die for, what they spend their entire existence seeking. It is the most intimate moment we’ve shared, conveyed entirely through touch and gaze, with nothing left to articulate. What good deeds did the Jazter perform to deserve such a moment?

Then I hear Bhim shout to get Karun off me, as Sarita, screaming, flings her body at us. Das tries to pull her away, the guards join in to separate the tangle, and at the edge of this drama, I notice the Devi creeping up on Bhim. This time, she carries her trident—with a yell, she plunges it with all her might into his thigh.

Bhim bellows in pain—so loudly, that for a moment, we all stop. The girl steps back to gaze regally at him—a devi staring down at her vanquished demon in triumph. But then he pulls the trident out, and she retreats a few paces. He raises the weapon and aims it at her—she gives a yelp and scurries away. The crowd parts to let Bhim through as he limps after her. A guard comes to his assistance, but he waves him away. “Come back. Bhim kaka has a lesson to teach you.” He hurls the trident after the girl, but it clatters harmlessly across the terrace.

“Help,” Devi ma screams, trying to get to the clamoring devotees sequestered near the audio shed. But the guards have learnt Bhim’s trick—they fire their weapons into the air to tamp down the group’s fervor. The shots drive the girl away—she veers instead towards the path leading to the turret. Her cries trail off as Bhim chases her past the potted palms, through the gate, down the walkway next to the parapet.

Abruptly, the speakers come alive—the transmitters are still on, and the Devi’s microphone has drawn into range. “Help,” she says. “Help me, he’s trying to kill me.” Her words roll across the terrace, sweep over the plants and the pool, reverberate from end to end. The devotees shout and strain in rage, but can’t break free of their cordon. By now, despite his injury, Bhim has closed in—used to being toted to and fro, the girl keeps tripping, her puffed cherub legs unused to maintaining this pace. “Help. Help me, I’m being killed.” With Bhim almost upon her, she clambers onto the parapet to try to get away.

He latches onto her foot—the microphone is sensitive enough to pick up his words. “So this is why I brought you here? This is why I saved you from your slum, you witch, you chudail?” He tries to pull her down, but she kicks him in the head with her other foot and scrambles away. Her screams echo across the entire beach, broadcast through the crowd below by the speakers stationed everywhere.

He catches her again and tries to throttle her. Her limbs thrash around, her head hangs backwards over the parapet between a pair of crenellations. The amplifiers blazon every sob she emits, every wheeze, every terrified grunt. Her choking pleas roil the assembly below. A stream of debris starts raining down on the parapet—stones, shoes, coconut shells—anything people can lay their hands on. One of the projectiles strikes Bhim and he lets go, pressing both hands to his forehead.

Devi ma stumbles away screaming. The crenellations impede her—she almost falls off several times negotiating their treacherous topography. Reaching the turret, she realizes she has nowhere further to flee. She flaps her arms uselessly, then spots the levitation machine. She squeezes into it, pulling at its supports, wrapping its straps around her neck and torso, as if hoping it will magically transport her. But she remains earthbound. “Help me please, help your Devi ma,” she pleads to the mob below. Thousands of hands rise towards her, some with garments stretched like nets to catch her should she jump. She peers over, looking for a balcony or ledge to break her fall, but the turret has none. With Bhim only steps away, she inches up to the very edge and mewls.

She waits too long. Bhim nabs her before she can jump, hoisting her into the air like a puppet at the end of his arm. By now he has seen the turmoil below, picked up on the wrath of the crowd. “Look, she’s just an ordinary girl, that too from the slums. She’s not a real devi, so no need to work yourselves up this much.”

His words are faint, and the girl’s screams almost drown them out. He sets her down to rip off her microphone—she seizes the opportunity to squirm out of his grasp. But she’s not fast enough—he catches her by the arm and spins her around, then slams her headfirst into the parapet stone. The microphone captures the sound of impact impeccably, amplifying it for the benefit of the crowd.

I can feel the outrage from the beach rumble under my feet even where we stand. Bhim’s response is to forge on. “I’m the one who found her, installed her here for you to worship. The miracles, the fireworks, it’s all a show—I even write the lines she mouths.” He holds her aloft again, her head lolling like that of a freshly slaughtered calf. “A true devi wouldn’t be so helpless, would hardly allow me to smack her around. If she’s real, where is her holy power, why doesn’t she strike me down?”

Perhaps Bhim doesn’t see what we can from our vantage point—the angry sweep of humanity below him curling along its edge like a carpet to climb up the turret wall. “Follow me, not her. I’m the one, not she, who will save you from the enemy bomb.” Each time he shakes her rag-doll body in the air to underscore the Devi’s helplessness, the crowd presses forward, more of its members scrambling atop or trampled under the rising surge. The edifice, however, proves too tall to scale—halfway up, the embankment of bodies comes toppling down.

But the mob has also discovered the balconies forming a grid up the wall closest to the terrace. As Bhim booms on about uniting against the enemy colony in Mahim, the first devotees shinny up carved poles and swing over Rajput railings to clamber onto the walkway ledge. Khakis around us promptly shoot them down. This, however, galvanizes the long-cordoned terrace disciples, who finally manage to overpower their guards. They stream down the walkway, hauling their beach compatriots up over the parapet. “Shoot them,” Bhim commands, but even with weapons dutifully fired, the surge is already too thick to staunch.

His escape cut off, Bhim backs away to the edge of the turret. He threatens to toss the girl over, waving her body in the air. Perhaps it’s the breeze from this motion that revives the Devi. “Welcome,” she says to her army of followers, then twists around to claw at Bhim’s face.

The next moment is a blur, with Bhim shouting, devotees charging, and the Devi woozily spurring them on with snatches of her speech (“Show them no mercy,” “Nourish the land with their blood”). Seconds later, both she and Bhim hurtle down towards a mosaic of shirts and saris held aloft (together with the odd devotee pulled along). The loudspeakers continue to chronicle Bhim’s fate even after his body is swallowed from view—his screams mingling with the frenzied cries of the hordes, followed by a subtle series of pops quite distinct from the static, like knuckles cracking or a stale baguette snapped in two. It takes me an instant to realize this might be the sound a body makes when pulled apart. I look at the eddies of activity swirling in the floodlights, and although I can’t be sure, I think I spot Bhim’s head bobbing away like a coconut.

The Devi, on the other hand, seems none too worse for her tumble. Dazed but intact, she rides the adulatory swells resting on her back for a while, then sits up to test-wave each of her three hands in turn. In short order, she is presiding over a group of people pulling up loudspeaker poles and lashing them together to cant against the hotel as climbing ramps. The last glimpse I have is of her leading the charge to reclaim her abode, the arms supporting her invisibly tucked under. An airborne presence, like Superdevi herself, gliding magically over the sea of her followers.