Prithviraj knocks on the door. Minutes pass. No response. He knocks again, louder. His jaw tightens.

"Hey."

A sound of movement on the other side of the door. A stirring. A clattering. A muffled whisper. A silence.

"Hey," says Prithviraj. "Hey. Hey."

The door opens a crack to reveal half of Vaibhav's face. "Boss?"

"Are you dressed?"

"Not really?" Vaibhav blinks away his grogginess. "Is that you, sir, all the way out here?"

"And is that you, sleeping in the middle of the day?"

"I had a long, awful week." Vaibhav lets him in and the door closes behind them. In the darkness the men stand, facing each other but seeing nothing.

"I can turn on a light," says Vaibhav.

Prithviraj cracks his knuckles. "You have no windows."

"Let me get the light, boss."

"Kneel."

"What?"

"Kneel."

Vaibhav obeys with a thud, thud.

It is Prithviraj who switches on the lamp, the flat an instant vignette of the men's shadows lengthened in the glow.

"Madam phoned me this morning, said the Labyrinth was discovered by police." Prithviraj paces, removing a flask from his jacket and sipping and frowning at the taste. "Two goondas opened fire on the squad car immediately, the idiots."

"Lord Shiva," Vaibhav mutters.

"Don't curse." Prithviraj sets his flask on the mantle, folds his hands behind his back, and circles his kneeling employee. "We'll need divine intervention here, Vaibhav. You most of all."

"Why me?"

"Where did you rape Yashvi?"

Suddenly the shadows are observant things, aware of the shapes of good and evil and how far those shapes stretch.

Vaibhav slumps and his shirt ripples. "Yashvi?"

"Ah, yes, she was Radnya when she was with you."

"Was this long ago?"

Prithviraj swallows a chuckle. "So, in your bed?"

"What in my bed?"

"That you raped her. Was it in your—" In a clean and frank movement, Prithviraj rams his elbow into Vaibhav's nape and sends him straight down.

A pariah dog barks once outside, but otherwise the neighborhood remains still.

"Oh, Vaibhav." Prithviraj rubs his elbow. "How much mercy do you need?"

From the man crumpled beneath him comes shrieking. Mewling and shrieking. Then a trembling, broken plea like a wounded animal comprehending its end. Prithviraj rears so far back he nearly trips. "Radnya was her name."

He kicks Vaibhav so hard in the side that the chandelier on the ceiling rings. Blood erupts from Vaibhav's mouth, spattering the floor in a pattern that could belong to abstract art in any other context. Prithviraj brings the gagging man up by the collar and calmly asks, "Ever had your fingernails ripped off, slowly, one by one."

"I . . ." Vaibhav's nose bubbles blood. ". . . can't say . . . that I have."

"Ever had acid poured in your crotch?"

"I . . . have . . . not, sir."

"Torture changes men, Vaibhav. It makes it so when they close their eyes, they see storms behind their eyelids for the rest of their lives."

"Don't torture me! That's a sin!" Vaibhav's face warps into a parody of itself. "Aren't you scared? Scared to burn in your consequences! Burn burn! Prithviraj will burn!"

"I'll ask you my question once more, Vaibhab, and if you don't answer I will go into my truck, find my pliers, and rip your thumbnail out. Understand?"

"Yes!"

"Did you rape Radnya in your bed?"

"It was in the parlor."

And almost before Vaibhab can finish speaking, Prithviraj has lugged him into the parlor, has shoved him to the rug there to topple, cower, and hack.

"I'll die!" Vaibhav rolls around, trying to accentuate the pain. "I'll die!"

"Where in this room?"

Vaibhav kneels once more, his boxers dripping urine. "Here, boss."

"Specifics."

"On the floor."

"Where you're kneeling. I see. Yes, I see. Right. Stay put, if you can." Prithviraj rears back once more, this time punching him in the center of the brow. Vaibhav recoils goofily, throwing out his arms as his bulky, leaden body plops to the carpet.

Prithviraj mounts him. "Were you in this position during your vile fun?"

"No."

Prithviraj stoops, splitting Vaibhav's lip wide with another punch. "Did you hit her while you did it?"

"No."

"Like I just hit you?"

"No." The word sounds muffled and labored. Out of pulsing tatters of lips a vomit stream sizzles over Vaibhav's ballooning cheeks. "No, boss, I didn't."

"You were not to touch her." Another punch. "She wasn't for you." Another. "She was for my customers, she wasn't for you!" Another. "She's my merchandise, not yours!"

The blood pools under Vaibhav's head now. His eyes swell shut and his nose bends over his left cheek. "You're no better than I, sir."

"No better? Hah! She will have a lopsided ear forever, because you defiling her wasn't enough, eh? Had to go and maim her, in addition? My property! Maimed! Maimed!"

"Those girls are dead," Vaibhav strains to say. "You know there's no hurting the dead."

"We're the dead, not the girls." Prithviraj wrings his employee's bloody collar, and two red trails trickle down his veined wrists.

"Then we're invincible, boss." Vaibhav grins through crimson teeth, a few molars dropping and tinking to the floor. "Can't you see? Invincible."

Prithviraj releases the collar to wrap his fingers around the throat underneath: a throat strangely soft, fleshy, like dough ready for kneading. He begins applying pressure, without much vehemence or rage. Vaibhav starts choking. The chandelier sways over them, its strings of beads singing a faint and lyricless song.

At this point Vaibhav's face has doubled in size, every orifice swollen shut. He looks waterlogged almost. Like a giant bruise. Prithviraj grunts, his arms bulging as he squeezes the man's neck. The man who damaged his girl.

How dare I call her mine? he thinks, breathing a quavering sigh as his employee gurgles blood and vomit. The girl is no one's, no one's at all. The girl knows this, knows about feelings behind actions and grief buried in words. She counts these things, collects them like she's some kind of crazy angel in the rubble of a slum that burned quick and smoldered long.

Prithviraj whimpers, hums to himself.

The girl could be infinity or the closest thing. Will she count to what she is, infinity? Can she assign an arithmetical value to the awful mystery of the forever in her dreams?

Vaibhav's eyes dart and he kicks a dozen times, thrashes couple more, spasms once or twice, twitches a pinky, and then goes limp.

"We're not invincible, are we?" Prithviraj shudders. "Never. No! You can't kill the dead, but that's because you don't have to, right? They're already . . ."

He realizes he is arguing with a corpse.