I kicked the approaching priest in the jaw, then danced across the goat heads, leapt over the head of the high priest, and was halfway to Joshua at the first wooden elephant when Kali, with a deafening report, breathed fire out over the crowd and the top of her head blew off.

Finally, I had the crowd’s attention. They were trampling each other to get away, but I had their attention. I stood in the middle of the boulevard, swinging my second severed head in a circle, waiting for the fuse to burn down before I let it sail over the heads of the receding crowd. It exploded in the air, sending a circle of flame across the sky and no doubt deafening some of the worshipers who were close.

Joshua had seven of the children around him, clinging to his legs as he moved to the next elephant. Several of the priests had recovered and were storming down the steps of the altar toward me, knives in hand. I pulled another head from my garland, lit the fuse, and held it out to them.

“Ah, ah, ah,” I cautioned. “Kali. Goddess of destruction. Wrath et cetera.”

At the sight of the sparking fuse they stopped and began to backpedal. “Now that’s the sort of respect you should have shown before.”

I started whirling the head by the hair and the priests lost all semblance of courage and turned and ran. I hurled the head back up the boulevard onto the altar, where it exploded, sending a spray of real severed goat heads in all directions.

“Josh! Duck! Goat heads!”

Joshua pushed the children to the ground and fell over them until the pieces settled. He glared at me a second, then went on to free the other children. I hurled three more heads into different directions and now the entire temple square was nearly deserted but for Joshua, the children, a few injured worshipers, and the dead. I had built the bombs without any shrapnel in them, so those who had been injured had been trampled in the panic and the dead were those who had already been sacrificed to Kali. I think we pulled it off without killing anyone.

As Joshua led the children down the wide boulevard and out of the temple square, I covered our exit, backing down the boulevard, my last explosive head swinging in one hand, my torch in the other. Once I saw that Joshua and the children were safely away, I lit the fuse, whirled the head around and let it fly toward the black goddess.

“Bitch,” I said.

I was out of sight when it exploded.

Joshua and I got as far as a limestone cliff overlooking the Ganges before we had to stop to let the children rest. They were tired and hungry, but mostly they were hungry, and we had brought nothing for them to eat. At least, after Joshua’s touch, they weren’t afraid, and that gave them some peace. Josh and I were too jangled to sleep, so we sat up as the children lay down on the rocks around us and snored like kittens. Joshua held Rumi’s little daughter, Vitra, and before long her face was smeared with black paint from nuzzling his shoulder. All through the night, as he rocked the child, all I heard Joshua say was, “No more blood. No more blood.”

At first light we could see thousands, no, tens of thousands of people gathering at the banks of the river, all dressed in white, except for a few old men who were naked. They moved into the water and stood facing east, heads raised in anticipation, dotting the river as far as the eye could see. As the sun became a molten fingernail of light on the horizon, the muddy surface of the river turned golden. The gold light reflected off its surface onto the buildings, the shanties, the trees, the palaces, making everything in sight, including the worshipers, appear to have been gilded. And worshipers they were, for we could hear their songs from where we sat, and although we could not discern the words, we could hear that these were the songs of God.

“Are those the same people from last night?” I said.

“They would have to be, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t understand these people. I don’t understand their religion. I don’t understand how they think.”

Joshua stood and watched the Indians bowing and singing to the dawn, looking occasionally to the face of the child that slept on his shoulder. “This is testament to the glory of God’s creation, whether these people know it or not.”

“How can you say that? The sacrifices to Kali, the way the Untouchables are treated. Whatever they might believe, in practice their religion is hideous.”

“You’re right. It’s not right to condemn this child because she was not born a Brahman?”

“Of course not.”

“Then is it right to condemn her because she is not born a Jew?”

“What do you mean?”

“A man who is born a gentile may not see the kingdom of God. Are we, as Hebrews, any different from them? The lambs at the temple on Passover? The wealth and power of the Sadducees while others go hungry? At least the Untouchables can reach their reward eventually, through karma and rebirth. We don’t allow any gentile to do so.”

“You can’t compare what they do to God’s law. We don’t sacrifice human beings. We feed our poor, we take care of the sick.”

“Unless the sick are unclean,” Joshua said.

“But, Josh, we’re the chosen. It’s God’s will.”

“But is it right? He won’t tell me what to do. So I’ll say. And I say, no more.”

“You’re not just talking about eating bacon, are you?”

“Gautama the Buddha gave the way to people of all births to find the hand of God. With no blood sacrifice. Our doors have been marked with blood for too long, Biff.”

“So that’s what you think you’re going to do? Bring God to everyone?”

“Yes. After a nap.”

“Of course, I meant after a nap.”

Joshua held the little girl so I could see her face as she slept on his shoulder.

When the children awoke we led them back to their families at the pits, handing them into the arms of their mothers, who snatched each child away from us as if we were devils incarnate; they glared over their shoulders as they carried the babies back to their pits.

“Grateful bunch,” I said.

“They are afraid that we’ve angered Kali. And we’ve brought them another hungry mouth.”

“Still. Why did they help us if they didn’t want their children back?”

“Because we told them what to do. That’s what they do. What they are told. That’s how the Brahmans keep them in line. If they do what they are told, then perhaps they will not be Untouchables next life.”

“That’s depressing.”

Joshua nodded. We only had little Vitra to return to her father now, and I was sure that Rumi would be happy to see his daughter. His distress over losing her had basically been the reason he had saved our lives. As we came over the sandstone rise we could see that Rumi was not alone in his pit.

Rumi stood on his sitting rock, stark naked, sprinkling salt on his erect member as a large humpbacked cow, which nearly filled the rest of the pit, licked at the salt. Joshua held Vitra so she faced away from the pit, then backed away, as if he didn’t want to disturb the moment of beefy intimacy.

“A cow, Rumi?” I exclaimed. “I thought you people had beliefs.”

“That’s not a cow, that’s a bull,” Joshua said.

“Oh, that’s got to be your super-bonus abomination there. Where we come from whole cities get destroyed for that kind of thing, Rumi.” I reached over and put my hand over Vitra’s eyes. “Stay away from Daddy, honey, or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt.”

“But this is my wife, reincarnated.”

“Oh, don’t try that one on me, Rumi. For six years I lived in a Buddhist monastery where the only female company was a wild yak. I know from desperate.”

Joshua grabbed my arm. “You didn’t?”

“Relax, I’m just making a point. You’re the Messiah here, Josh. What do you think?”

“I think we need to go to Tamil and find the third magus.” He set Vitra down and Rumi quickly pulled up his loincloth as the child ran to him. “Go with God, Rumi,” Joshua said.