Black Tattoo, The Read online

  "Acquaintance?" echoed Charlie.

  Still grinning, the Emperor settled back in his seat. Raising one immaculately suited arm, he pointed at the ring. Charlie looked — and his eyes went wide.

  Seventh and final gladiator, boomed the voice, a surprise late entry! Newly arrived from the as-yet-unclaimed planet of Earth, and perhaps the best opposition that world has to offer, show your appreciation for Miss ESME LEVERTON!

  FAVORS

  Jack's mouth fell open.

  It was her. His head filled with questions like, How did she open the Fracture? What was she doing there? Had she come to rescue them? But as he watched her walking out calmly onto the white sand of the arena floor in her red top with the hood up, the main thing Jack thought was—

  Oh no.

  Suddenly, he realized that everyone was looking at him. He had said the words aloud.

  "Friendayours?" belched Jagmat, nudging him. The eyes — and other organs of attention — of the entire row seemed to swing round and focus on Jack as they waited for his answer. Jack felt the blood climbing up his neck and into his face.

  "Yeah," he managed.

  "Well, no offense, mate," said Jagmat, "but I hope she's better than you."

  * * * * *

  "She came," said the Scourge.

  "Surprised?" said the Emperor.

  "Yes," said Charlie, fighting to keep his expression blank. "Yes I am. Has she... said what she wants?"

  "I'll be hearing her request officially in a moment," said the Emperor. He smiled. "But I think you already know what it is."

  "She's come for us," said Charlie.

  The Emperor's smile only widened.

  "She will have to survive the Akachash first," said the Scourge.

  * * * * *

  As referee for this fight, said Gukumat, O loyal subjects, we present to you none other than the keeper of the pits himself: the Clashing Jaws, the Potentate of Pain, the Undisputed Master of the Ring... LORD SLINT!

  A hatch screwed open in the wall just below the royal box, and the great shape of the flying shark emerged into view, blotting out half the scene below. With a single lazy swish of his horribly scarred tail, Lord Slint propelled himself down through the air toward the ecstatic crowds. As the seven gladiators waited, with varying degrees of self-restraint, the shark made three wide, lazy circuits over the audience, provoking a Mexican wave effect as he did so.

  Svatog, Gladrash, and Gunch, Gukumat went on, your requests are already known to the Emperor. Tunku: you do not wish your request to be known unless you win. As for you other three, His Highness the Emperor will now hear your supplications. Fifth gladiator, what is your boon?

  The Sloat gave a great shudder. Rearing up on its hind legs once more, its disgusting brown jaws hinged open, it unspeakable poison-tipped mandibles mashing together as it ground out a single word: "FLESH."

  A thrill shook through the crowd.

  Inanna Twelve Swords, state your request. Briefly, please, the voice added as Inanna strode forward, her great black-leather-clad torso bulging as she took a deep breath before she spoke.

  "Demons of Hell," she shouted, "I have waited a long time for my chance in this ring, and this is the favor that I ask. I come from a far corner of the Demon Empire, a world called Bethesda. We are a peaceful people. A hardworking people. But the tithes and taxes we have been forced to pay lately are more than we can bear. Now, I'm going to give you," she went on, raking the other gladiators with a piercing glare, "a display of fighting you have never seen. And in return, I ask only that the Emperor and his Overminister relax the grossly unfair—"

  Thank you, sixth gladiator.

  "—and cruel demands they have—"

  Thank you, sixth gladiator, the voice repeated, losing patience.

  "—seen fit to inflict of a planet that never did them any harm!"

  That will be all!

  "MY PEOPLE ARE STARVING!" boomed Inanna in a voice that echoed round the great stadium even despite the booing and jeering of the crowd. "ALL I WANT IS THAT YOU PUT RIGHT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!"

  Sixth gladiator, said the voice.

  He sand of the arena floor went dark around Inanna as Lord Slint settled, gently, in the air just over her head. Big as she was, Inanna would go down the great shark's gullet in not much more than a single mouthful. Looking up, she fell silent and her face turned grim.

  You will hold your peace, or the consequences will be swift and painful, Gukumat told her, in a voice that only she could hear. Inanna scowled for a moment, then nodded curtly.

  Seventh gladiator, you may speak, said Gukumat, in his announcer's voice again.

  All eyes in the ring turned to Esme.

  Esme just stood there at first, staring up at the royal box.

  Speak, Gukumat repeated. The Emperor is listening.

  Never taking her eyes off the distant bulk of the royal box, Esme took a step forward. She pulled back her hood, opened her mouth, and, in a quiet voice that everyone there heard quite distinctly, said, "It doesn't have to be this way."

  In the royal box, the Emperor smiled. The he got out of his seat.

  Sire, Gukumat muttered, keep back from the window. Its not safe!

  But the Emperor had already brushed the Overminister aside. He walked straight up to the great sandy sill and spread out his hands on it luxuriously. He leaned out into the open air and replied, "Oh yes? And why is that?"

  Now the silence in the arena was intense. To the absolute and certain knowledge of every demon there present, the Emperor had never answered a gladiator directly in this way. Never.

  "You could just give me what I want," said Esme.

  "Which is what again? Remind me."

  "The Scourge," said Esme, the steel in her voice sending a cold chill down Charlie's back. "Let me fight the Scourge."

  A buzz of fevered speculation spread round the audience, quelling itself quickly when the Emperor opened his mouth to answer.

  "I shall let you fight the Scourge," he said grandly, "If you win."

  "I have no quarrel with you or these others here," said Esme, casting a glance around the ring at the six other gladiators. The Sloat rippled its legs listlessly, but the other, more experienced fighters did not react. "But for them, and for you, this is the last chance. Give me the Scourge."

  In the rows around the royal box, a bit of guffawing and tittering broke out among the more aristocratic demons.

  "I told you," said the Emperor, pretending to be surprised. "If you win."

  "Then everyone in this ring," said Esme simply, "is going to die."

  For a moment, there was shocked silence.

  Then, suddenly, the whole arena was laughing. Svatog even joined in, the great foghorn grunts of his glee bouncing off the great black walls and echoing round the pit.

  Esme's expression didn't change in the slightest — and the Emperor, despite himself, found his own smile beginning to fade.

  "We'll see." He spun on his heel and went back to his royal seat. "She has courage, I'll give her that," he said, frowning as he settled himself. "Gukumat, I grow weary of preliminaries. Let's get this under way."

  With pleasure, Your Magnificence, Gukumat replied with a bow.

  GLADIATORS, his voice boomed in the heads of everyone present, TAKE YOUR POSITIONS!

  Every demon in the audience began to stamp the ground in time. The rhythm was slow, unhurried, and merciless at first.

  Crash. Crash. CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!

  Crash. Crash. CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!

  But it quickly got louder and faster, reaching an ecstasy of noise and thunder, and now, suddenly, the whole crowd was up for it, ready for the blood, ready for the carnage, ready to scream and howl and roar their guts out at the terrible battle that was about to take place on the shining white sand of the arena floor below. The noise of the crowd was like a solid thing, pressing on Jack until he was dizzy with it.

  And, said Gukumat, pausing fractionally.

  BEGIN!

 
THE FIGHT

  As soon as the command was given, the cheering died away to an excited murmur.

  Esme unstrapped the pigeon sword from her back: now she held it by her hip, in her left hand, her fingers loosely encircling the top of the dark wooden scabbard. She let her right hand fall easily to her side again: she bounced a couple of jogging steps on the spot, to ease a little of the tension in her legs — then she was ready.

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Raymond had always told her, a fight'll be decided in the first few seconds.

  Esme glanced round the ring. Her attention was caught by Ianna, the tall blue woman: for a moment, they looked at each other — then Esme let her eyes flick onward as she waited to see which of her opponents was going to make the first move.

  It didn't take much longer to find out.

  To the delight of the crowd, Svatog the Canceler — standing some twelve yards off to Esme's right — was the first to lose his patience. With a heave of his arms, he lifted both his feet off the ground and slammed them down, hard enough to make the earth tremble under Esme's trainers. Turning toward Esme and flinging his arms wide (the gleaming steel claws sprang out to either side), he pushed out his great black chest—

  —and screamed.

  The sound was incredible. Like the blast of a steam engine, the acrid gust of his roar blew out a Esme with the force of a thirty-mile-an-hour wind. His squinty eyes bulged with rage and the roar continued, on and on, until it seemed it would never stop. Svatog's smoking hooves smacked into the ground, a step toward Esme, and another step. The crowd roared with him, waiting for blood, waiting to see the small human girl torn to shreds whenever Svatog chose to bring those clawed arms of his together.

  Esme stood still.

  Jack, frozen in his seat by helpless horror, glimpsed a blur of movement.

  A glint of something flashing in the light.

  Then, suddenly, the scream stopped.

  The audience too fell silent. Why had Svatog gone quiet? Why was he just standing there like that? And why did the girl now have her back to him?

  For a long, slow moment, nothing happened. Then, with a terrible, echoing hiss, something burst. The sand at Svatog's feet turned suddenly black. The eighteen-foot-tall demon sank to his knees, then fell on his face — hitting the arena floor with a ringing smack.

  "What?" said Jack.

  "Holy crap!" belched Jagmat.

  One gladiator down, five to go.

  The crowd erupted.

  Esme just stood there, with the pigeon sword out in front of her. Outwardly she was perfectly composed — but inwardly her highly trained fighter's mind was working at full speed, alert to every detail of what would happen next.

  Because then the battle really began.

  Without warning, drawing one of her own curved swords, Inanna leaped sideways — and struck. For a second, as the wide blade bit into the fluttering black of his cloak, it looked like the bout was already over for Inanna's neighbor, Ripitith Gunch.

  But something strange was happening. The fourth gladiator's cloak was moving, shifting — changing. For one more long second, his narrow face seemed to hang in the air, his cruel mouth opening in a hideous grin.

  Then the place where he'd been standing simply burst apart, into a boiling, tearing, chittering brown cloud of...

  What?

  Screaming with frustration, Inanna threw one of her arms up to cover her face as a swarm of locusts suddenly engulfed her. The swarm blasted past her in a tornado of beige insectile wings that seethed in the air and left a long black shadow on the arena floor, as her opponent — transfigured — sped out of her reach.

  Meanwhile, with a bellowing scream, Gladrash the Blunt, set off on a galloping circuit of the ring. The giant cow had not yet reached top speed by the time she reached Esme, but the thundering hooves would certainly have squashed her flat if she hadn't been watching. A leap, straight up into the air, tucking her legs under her into a smooth flip — and Gladrash's charge passed through empty space. Still, the giant cow kept on, kicking up dust, thundering toward her next opponent — Inanna.

  The Sloat's legs gave a convulsive ripple, and it advanced away from the shadows at the arena's edge. Hissing nastily and grinning through its mandibles, it brought its face low onot the blinding white of the sandy floor, arching its long body up and over behind its head. The ridge of foot-long spines along its back began to quiver. As Esme dropped to her feet, the Sloat took a deep breath that made the membranous sacs on either side of its mouth bluge with effort—

  —and it fired the spines straight at Esme.

  Ripitith Gunch, rematerializing in the center of his cloud of locusts just behind Esme, with his long knife drawn and ready, transfigured himself back again suddenly as he realized his surprise attack was mistimed. As a flock of bats this time, he poured, shrieking, across the ring again, but not before several of his flock had been brought down, caught in midair, to expire, convulsing on the sand as the poison of the Sloat's stings worked its awful magic. Gunch took himself in his bat-flock form to the far end of the ring, gathering the elements of himself into a shivering black column before he rematerialized fully. He looked down. There were three or four gaping holes in his cloak. He tutted and tossed the frayed edge of the cloak over one shoulder. Then, suddenly, he stiffened. His eyes bulged. His cold blood seemed to thicken and congeal in his veins. For a second more, he stood there shuddering — then he too fell facedown dead on the sand.

  Two down, four to go. The crowd was in raptures. Tunku the Snool showed no reaction at all. The long, thin tentacle that had touched the transfiguration master on the back of the neck retracted up toward the floating watery sac of Tunku's jellyfish body, its poison exhausted. But there were plenty more where that one came from. Tunku the Snool sank back into the shadows, waiting.

  And meanwhile, Esme was fighting for her life.

  The Sloat's volley of poison-tipped spines was spread too wide: there had been no time to jump or dodge. Dropping the scabbard, Esme had take the pigeon sword in both hands and — with a speed born of instinct as much as her years of training — she was knocking the spines away out of the air. The pigeon sword flickered in her hands. The air in front of her was a silvery blur, and the stings were clattering against the massive stone slabs to either side of the ring. But they were coming too fast, even for her.

  Esme stepped back and, with a desperate outward blow of the pigeon sword, caught a low incoming spine and turned it aside. But now the sword was too far away from her body to catch the next one in time. She dropped flat onto her back. Twisting, she brought her right foot up for a kick that caught the last spine in midair, smacking it away.

  But then, with a dreadful hiss, the Sloat charged.

  Its dripping mandibles clashed shut in a blow that would have severed both of Esme's legs at the thigh if she hadn't been fast enough: at the last possible moment, she flipped backward and up onto her feet, bringing her sword up in front of her with a desperate lurch. Confronted by the flashing blade, the Sloat reared up, hissing, giving Esme the precious seconds she needed to back out of striking distance.

  Esme cursed herself inwardly. She'd been lucky: concentrating on an opponent's attack rather than the opponent was an amateur's mistake. Now too there were just too many factors, too many thoughts tearing at her concentration, demanding attention. She was watching the Sloat — but what about the other gladiators? She could track Gladrash by the sound of her hooves: the giant cow creature was making wild circuits of the ring, charging at whoever or whatever was in her way. But as to where any of Esme's other opponents were, why, one could be right behind—

  Hold on: she'd had an idea. The corners of Esme's mouth twitched and lifted in the tiniest ghost of a smile. Then she attacked.

  The gleaming blade of the pigeon sword hissed in the air. The Sloat ducked its broad, flat head, and Esme's stinging cross-body slash passed it harmlessly — millimeters from contact. Surprised, the foul beast danced back, its leg
s rippling. Holding the pigeon sword's long grip near the pommel for extra extension, Esme swung again, slashing downward. The Sloat counterattacked, snapping out at Esme's legs with its pincers — but they closed on nothing. Esme had sprung into another tight roll in the air, forward this time, whipping her feet round until they landed—

  —hard—

  —down on the top of the Sloat's head, driving it into the ground with a two-footed stomp that had her full weight behind it.

  There was a gratifyingly nasty popping sound. The crowd roared its approval. Esme jumped clear, and both combatants staggered back from each other.

  The Sloat backed away dazedly. One of its great mandibles was hanging off by a grisly flap.

  Esme straightened up, breathing hard. The last move had taken a lot out of her, and she could see that while she'd wounded the Sloat, it wasn't seriously weakened. All she'd really done was annoy it. However, it was now quite close to the ring's edge — its hindquarters were plunged in shadow, some three yards from the black stone wall. It might be enough.

  Suddenly, in a frenzy, the Sloat lunged, driving its wounded head straight into Esme's body, knocking her flat on her back. With two ringing thunks, the Sloat jabbed each of its front pincers into the sand on either side of her.

  Esme was trapped.

  The monstrous creature regarded her unblinkingly. Fat milky droplets of putrescent slime were dripping from its ruined mouth, sizzling and spitting as they hit the sand, and the broken mandible dangled horribly. Still, the Sloat hissed, a deep hiss of contentment and delight. It reared up, looked down at Esme one last time.

  And it saw she was smiling.

  The crowd was in a frenzy now — roaring, screaming, baying, barking. But under that, suddenly, the Sloat could hear another sound. A rhythmic, walloping, thundering sound, getting closer and closer. Now the smile on the small human morsel's lips had widened into a vicious, wicked grin: the Sloat's insect brain lit up with a flash of realization—