Black Tattoo, The Read online

  The shark hadn't bitten him seriously yet: for the time being, it was only carrying him, but Jack wasn't thinking, in between things like AAAARGH! and SHARK!, went something like this:

  How come he didn't get to have superpowers that made him be able to do cool things?

  How come he didn’t get to face his enemies on equal terms? Or have sword fights or do kung fu?

  And this! said his brain, with mounting indignation. Look at this latest situation! He'd thought having to go to Hell was bad. Getting bitten by a giant spider — well, at the time, that had seemed about as low as you could get. But oh no, his luck had to go one better, didn't it?

  This whole situation, Jack was deciding — not just this latest development but pretty much everything, stretching back in an unbroken line for what seemed like most of his life — was infuriatingly, excruciatingly, incandescent-apoplexy-inducingly UNFAIR.

  What this was, Jack decided, what this whole situation was, really, when you came down to it, he thought, the realization hitting him with almost as much force as the shark had —

  — was typical.

  Jack's mind lit up with a freezing-white blast of clarity.

  And now, suddenly, he was angry. Very angry indeed.

  In his hand, much to his astonishment, was his knife. He must have got it out before the shark had grabbed him. His arm was free, trailing below the giant flying shark's lower jaw. So Jack reached up with the knife — and he struck.

  The first blow almost jarred the knife's handle from his grasp as it hit Lord Slint's hard snout. Jack took a stronger grip.

  "NO!" he shouted as he stabbed down again.

  "NO, NO, NO!" he shouted, stabbing down on each word, oblivious to the soft thunks of the puncturing sounds echoing in his ears.

  "I'm NOT!" he yelled.

  "GETTING!"

  "BLOODY!"

  "KILLED!"

  "AGAIN!"

  On the last stab, Jack heard a soft and unforgettably revolting smutch as his knife hit home. Then several surprising things happened at once.

  Lord Slint's gray-pink mouth hinged open in a grimace of sudden and terrible agony. He stopped swimming. His marblelike eyes rolled back in his head.

  And slowly, but with gathering speed, Jack and the giant shark demon began to fall.

  "Oh, no," said Jack, feeling gravity take hold.

  "Oh, no! " he repeated with feeling, as he kicked himself loose from the shark's mouth.

  And then, suddenly, they landed.

  * * * * *

  "It is you who are weak," the Emperor had been saying. "You who are overconfident." On each "you" he flashed his power out again, making the Scourge jerk helplessly where it lay.

  "Now..." He paused, raising his hands for the killer blow. "Now it's game over."

  Then he froze.

  Wham! With a sudden and stunning impact, Jack struck the soft carpet — just a few scant inches from the jelly stuff.

  Ker-splash!

  Lord Slint, in comparison, wasn't so lucky.

  Whether the giant flying shark was alive or dead before he hit the pool, it's hard to say. Lord Slint did not have time to struggle or fight before the seething jelly stuff picked him clean. In another second, even his great skeleton was gone, and there was nothing left of his carcass but an evaporating stain on the surface. But Jack wasn't looking at that.

  "Huk," said the Emperor — and stood there rigid, his golden eyes bulging out with shock.

  There was a long, slow moment of silence in the room.

  The Emperor had been poised to destroy the Scourge — poised to wreak final destruction on this mythical creature and add its powers to his own — when, quite by accident, he'd been distracted. As the small gladiator — this "Jack" — had fallen from the roof, followed by Lord Slint, the Emperor had paused in what he'd been doing, to watch. In that moment, while his attention was elsewhere, something extraordinary had happened.

  Ebisu Eller-Kong Hacha-Fravashi, Suzerain Absolute of the Dominions of Hell, looked down at his chest. Specifically, he looked down at the long spike of cold steel that had suddenly appeared there. Already the area around the wound was filling up with blood, a spreading stain of bright red, made brighter still by the shining whiteness of the suit he was wearing.

  "What?" asked the Emperor. "How...?"

  In answer, Charlie put his head up from behind the Emperor's shoulder, clenched his neck in the crook of his arm to get a better grip—

  —the rammed the pigeon sword home, farther still.

  "YES," hissed the Scourge, rising up weakly from the floor.

  "No! " gasped Jack, watching from where he'd landed. What Jack saw on Charlie's face at that moment appalled and horrified him. This time, unlike before, there was no sign of the black tattoo. This time, Charlie's killing rage was nothing but his own. And there wasn't just rage on his face: the fury was matched in equal measure by a savage kind of glee. It was obvious to Jack — it was written, truly, all over his friend's face — that for the first time, Charlie was enjoying this new power he had found, unaided: the power to kill.

  "It's not fair!" the Emperor whined, drips of bright red blood coming out with the words, making even more of a mess of his suit. "It's... not... fair! "

  "You are weak, Hacha'Fravashi," the Scourge repeated, putting its face right up to its enemy's. "Weak and decadent. You, and those before you since I was banished, have turned from the one true path. With Gukumat's help, I will awaken the Dragon. The whole universe will be returned to the purity of the Void. And you," the Scourge finished, "you and everyone else no longer have the power to stop me."

  As if in answer to the Scourge's words, the Emperor's golden eyes rolled up in his head. His whole body went suddenly rigid in a last paroxysm of agony — then limp.

  Into the pool, said Gukumat.

  "Yes, into the pool," echoed the Scourge, its husky whisper a shred of the commanding voice it had always used before. "Do it, Charlie. Do it now."

  Slowly, wordlessly, Charlie let the pigeon sword's point tip forward, further and further, until finally the weight of the Emperor's body made it slip off the end — flopping into the jelly stuff with a splash.

  It hissed delightedly as it received him. The surface seethed and boiled. There was a loud electrical sizzling sound. Then silence.

  Ebisu Eller-Kong Hacha'Fravashi was gone.

  The Emperor is dead, said the Overminister in his strange, multitudinous voice. Long live the Emperor.

  Charlie looked up. Slowly, as if his mind were coming back from some place far away, his eyes regained their focus.

  "Huh?" he said.

  All hail to Charlie Farnsworth, Gukumat intoned. God of Rulers, God of the Dead, God of Darkness, God of Gods. The Voice of the Void, whose breath is the wind and whose rage makes all worlds tremble. Lord of Crossing-Places, King of All Tears, and the Suzerain Absolute of the Dominions of Hell.

  "Hail," the Scourge answered, bowing deeply.

  Jack just stared.

  But then, slowly—

  — warily —

  — Charlie started to smile.

  TRUST ME

  "Not being funny or anything," Charlie was saying, sometime later, "but — when I thought you were dead? It really... sucked."

  Jack looked at him.

  "Being on the receiving end wasn't all that great either," he replied. "But, you know, thanks."

  There was a pause.

  Behind Jack, the blazing light of the Fracture beckoned and shrieked. In front of him stood Charlie, smiling in a way that Jack suddenly found completely and utterly exasperating. Past Charlie's shoulder he could see the Scourge, making a great show of conversing with Gukumat but doubtless listening to every word he and Charlie said.

  Suddenly, he didn't care.

  "At the risk of stating the completely bloody obvious," he began, "this is a staggeringly bad idea. Don't you think? I mean, for one thing, what the Hell am I going to tell your folks?"

  "Huh?" said
Charlie.

  "Your parents," Jack prompted. "Remember them? Come on, man, they're gonna be frantic!"

  Charlie's face darkened. "Tell 'em whatever you like," he growled.

  "Sure," said Jack. "I'll tell them that you've gone off to become Emperor of Hell—"

  Acting Emperor of Hell, said an officious voice, and Jack realized that Gukumat was looking at them. He has not yet been crowned.

  "Whatever," Jack muttered. He looked back at Charlie.

  "Come on," he told him. "Come back with us."

  "I want to stay, Jack," said Charlie, shaking his head. "I'm telling you, there's nothing for me" — he gestured at the Fracture — "over there."

  "Oh yeah?" said Jack. "And what's for you here?"

  "Anything I want," said Charlie simply, and smiled.

  Jack looked at that smile.

  "Well," he said, "I suppose that this is it, then."

  "Yeah. I guess it is."

  There was another pause.

  "Listen," said Jack. "You're not going to get into anything evil here, are you?" He was trying to keep the tone of his voice light and joshing, but the effect sounded pathetic, even to him.

  "Trust me," said Charlie, smiling.

  Yeah, thought Jack sadly. Right.

  "Well," he said, "good luck."

  "Yeah," said Charlie, sticking out a hand. "You too."

  They shook.

  "But I think you're making a big mistake," Jack told him.

  Charlie tore his hand out of Jack's and stalked off, scowling.

  Jack sighed.

  "Mr. Farrell," said a voice.

  Jack whirled round, and there — it's ink-black face mirroring his own — stood the Scourge.

  "What I'm going to say is quite obvious," it said, "but I thought I'd make it clear to avoid any... misunderstandings."

  Jack just looked at it.

  "I have been merciful with you this time. If our paths cross again, I can't guarantee I may be so again. I would earnestly advise you, therefore, not to interfere in the future."

  "Is that right?" said Jack, doing his best. "Well, I guess that depends on what happens between you and my friend over there, doesn't it?" He gave the Scourge his most threatening look — and saw from his reflection that it wasn't very impressive.

  "You humans," said the Scourge. "So melodramatic. And so dreadfully, dreadfully predictable. You have been warned, Jack Farrell."

  It turned and drifted smoothly away.

  "Yeah," said Jack to its retreating back, "whatever! " But it didn't turn round.

  Jack sighed again and put his hands on the bar at one end of the ordinary-looking hospital trolley that was standing beside him with Esme laid out on it.

  Esme's face was completely blank, utterly, horribly lifeless except for the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing. There was nothing anyone could do, God had said. Physically, there was nothing wrong with her — and it wasn't magic either. Her unconsciousness was somehow self-induced, self-inflicted: she could wake up at any time, or she might never wake up at all. Personally, Jack had his doubts about this analysis, but his opinion, as usual, didn't seem to count for much.

  He looked back at Charlie, who immediately looked away, pretending not to have been watching him.

  Jack sniffed. If he was going, it was time to go.

  He turned his back, took a deep breath, and started pushing the trolley.

  Its wheels squeaked, with a low keening sound almost like a human voice. The squeaking stayed audible for a surprisingly long time as the boy and the girl passed into the crackling whiteness of the Fracture—

  —and vanished.

  Charlie watched them go. Then he turned away.

  END OF BOOK TWO

  BOOK THREE

  THE MASTER OF NONE

  THE CATCH

  Charlie Farnsworth stood on the edge of the Needle and looked out over Hell.

  The gargantuan mountainlike shape of the palace seemed to swell out beneath his feet. Beyond, the glory of Hell's fantastic landscape seemed barely contained by its purple-blue horizon. Everything Charlie could see — the sea of fire, the five great roads, all of it — now, supposedly, belonged to him. But Charlie still wasn't happy.

  "What did Gukumat mean?" he asked the ink-black figure standing beside him? "What was that about my just being 'acting' Emperor of Hell, exactly?"

  "It is just as the Overminister said, Charlie," the Scourge replied carefully. "You have killed Hacha'Fravashi. You have taken his place on the throne. But you have not yet been crowned Emperor."

  "So? What's the holdup? Why can't you just crown me and get on with it?"

  "I'm afraid," said the Scourge, "that it's not quite as simple as that."

  "Why?" asked Charlie, rounding on the demon. "Why isn't it as simple as that, exactly? You promised me if I killed the Emperor we could rule Hell together. You promised! And now what're you doing? Backing out on me! Using me again, to get what you want!"

  Inwardly, the Scourge sighed.

  "We can both have what we want," it told Charlie slowly. "You can still become Emperor, and the demons will follow you until the end of the universe." It paused. "There is, however, a catch."

  "I knew it!" Charlie stamped his foot.

  "There is something you have to do first," said the Scourge.

  "Oh yeah? And what's that?"

  "You must make a decision, once and for all."

  "What decision?"

  "If you truly wish to become Emperor of Hell—"

  "Yes?" said Charlie. "Yes?"

  "—then you can never go back to your world."

  There was a pause.

  "That's it?" asked Charlie. "That's the catch?"

  "That is the catch," said the Scourge. "Understand me, Charlie: after this, there is no turning back. If you want to become Emperor, I can make it so. The price, however, is that you must give up your past life and all it entails: friends, family — everything. You must choose, Charlie," it emphasized. "Them or us. One or the other. Forever."

  Charlie blinked.

  "You will, I'm sure, want to make a last visit to your home world before you decide," said the Scourge. "This has already been arranged for you."

  "Wow," said Charlie, pouting. "You've really got this all figured out, haven't you?"

  "Time is short," the Scourge snarled. "If you want to become Emperor, you must learn to expect some decisions to be made for you. That is the way for those who rule. If you find this objectionable, perhaps it would be better if—"

  "No!" said Charlie quickly. "No, that's okay."

  It was the first time the demon had lost its temper with him like that. He was surprised and, he realized, more than a little frightened.

  "You can have one night," said the Scourge. "One night in you world — we can't spare you for longer than that. You can then choose to return here or stay, as you wish — though if you choose to stay on Earth, you will naturally have to give up your powers. At any rate," it added, "the choice will be yours." It paused. "What do you say?"

  Charlie looked up at the demon standing beside him, this magical being that had come into his life and changed it utterly. Reflected in liquid darkness, his own eyes blinked back at him nervously.

  Them or us, he thought. One or the other. Forever.

  "Sure," Charlie heard himself say. "One night on Earth. Why not?"

  "Very well," said the Scourge. "Gukumat?"

  At his master's command, the Overminister shimmered into view.

  "Prepare the Fracture."

  As you wish, my lords, said Gukumat, bowing. As you wish.

  INTRUDERS

  London. The West End. 10:24 p.m.

  "That's it," the enormous security guard announced. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

  Number 3 looked up at the man, who stood a good foot taller than him (and a good two feet wider). The single button that the bouncer had managed to do up on his jacket was showing serious strain from the job of holding back his massive
chest.

  "Come on, mate," said the bouncer, "let's have you outside. You don't want any trouble, believe me."

  Number 3 sighed, reached up, and pushed his mirrored sunglasses a little way down his nose. Thanks to a scuffle with a vampire some years ago, his right eye was false, but his left eye was looking at the bouncer — hard.

  "Listen, please," Number 3 told him. He crooked a finger, and the other man bent obligingly forward. Number 3 rewarded him by opening his coat a little and giving him a brief glance at the small but efficient-looking 9mm machine pistol currently strapped under his armpit. The bouncer's eyes went wide.

  "I represent an organization call the Sons of the Scorpion Flail," said Number 3. He spoke quietly, with a pronounced French accent. "You 'ave not 'eard of us, and I would advise you now to forget you ever did. But call your boss, call the police, call the prime minister if you like: they will all tell you the same sing. Leave me alone, please. Now."

  For another long second Number 3 and the bouncer looked at each other, as the pub's denizens went about their business around them.

  Number 3 disliked this place. He never drank, so he supposed he wasn't really qualified to comment, but even if he did drink, it wouldn't be in the Light of the Moon. Night after night, the pub was packed with beery civilians, until the overworked bar staff could hardly keep up. All that meant to Number 3, however, was that Number 2 had made a serious operational error in not closing the place down. Because this pub, though it looked no different from the many other places just like it in London's West End, had a secret.

  The tiny speaker embedded in his sunglasses crackled for a second. Without breaking off his staring match with the bouncer, the Son pushed the shades back into position.

  "Three 'ere," he said.

  "We're reading activity in the Fracture," said a voice in his ear.

  Despite his years of experience, Number 3 felt his heart rate beginning to speed up.

  "Copy," he said. "Go away, please," he told the bouncer. "Sank you." He turned and focused his eyes on a spot at the far end of the room. Smoothly, the lenses of his shades switched down through the ultraviolet and thermal levels to a deeper, more sinister spectrum that reduced everyone and everything in the room to pale green smudges — everything except that spot, which, as Number 3 watched, began to whiten and swell outward.