Black Tattoo, The Page 26

  Floating smoothly upward through the summer night air, he began to look in through the windows. On the south-facing side, the side where he'd materialized, all of them were dark except one. Luckily (or unluckily), that turned out to be the one he'd been looking for. Six floors up off the ground, Charlie froze.

  They were standing n the middle of the kitchen: his dad and the woman Charlie hardly knew. They were hugging each other.

  It wasn't the kind of hug he'd ever seen his dad and his mum give each other: Charlie knew that straightaway. His dad's face was pressed deep into the side of the woman's neck. The woman was running her hands very slowly across Charlie's dad's back, high up, up near his shoulders.

  The kitchen looked bright and new and amazingly clean, as if it had never been used before. The glare of the bare strip light on the kitchen ceiling gave the place a harsh, antiseptic appearance. Outside, staring in from the darkness, watching them, Charlie felt his stomach knotting into icy twists of loathing and disgust.

  Charlie remembered what his dad had told him that time in the Chinese restaurant: When the chance cam up for me to be really happy, I had to take it. He smiled fiercely. Maybe the two people he was looking at thought they were happy now. Maybe they were even right. But it wasn't going to last. Soon they'd be sorry. When they found out about what he was about to do, they'd be sorry for the rest of their lives. And that, Charlie decided, was fine by him.

  "God, Sandra," said Mr. Farnsworth finally, lifting his head to look at her. His eyes were red and puffy. "What if he's done something stupid? What am I going to do? I just wish he'd call."

  "I know," said the woman doggedly. "I know."

  But Charlie didn't hear this. He was long gone.

  * * * * *

  This time, he reappeared on Hungerford Bridge.

  Of all London's bridges across the Thames, this was Charlie's favorite. From Hungerford Bridge you can see most of the city's landmarks, and the looping golden-yellow lights on either side of the river at that point are really quite lovely. Charlie looked down at the black, silent Thames moving below him, cold and deep and merciless, and for a second he felt that the bridge — the whole city with him on it — was moving, and that the river itself was still. Then he pulled himself together. Dawn was on its way now. If he was going to finish what he'd come to do, he had to act fast. He took a step back from the railing and began his magic.

  Even at that time of night, there were still a few people on the bridge. His first priority, therefore, was to prevent anyone from seeing him and what he was about to do. Charlie frowned, and the space around him began to shimmer: for the next few minutes, until he was ready, the eyes of anybody who looked would simply slide past him as if he weren't there. Now he was free to get on with the real business at hand.

  The air started to thicken and go hot as Charlie coaxed it into giving him what he wanted.

  The trunk came first — an ugly, solid clump that he massaged into shape with a grimace of disgust, smoothing it with his fingers. With quick, careful movements, he extended the arms and legs, focusing his concentration on the bones, the sinews, and the blood vessels as they whispered into being behind the delicate layers of skin. Next, still frowning, he looked at the gap between the shoulders — and it began to glisten and bulge. In another moment it was inflating: swelling as it filled with bone and blood and, finally, brain. Still Charlie concentrated, smoothing and whittling and working at the surfaces until at last his hands fell to his sides, and he stood back and looked at his handiwork.

  He gripped the railing, suddenly dizzy. His stomach felt watery, his temples twitched, and his whole body ached with a kind of shock at what he had just pulled out of himself.

  But there. It was done. It would do.

  Floating in front of him, standing stiff like a mannequin, pinned in the air by Charlie's power, was a replica of himself. Charlie hadn't bothered to copy all his moles and freckles and so forth, but apart from those, the replica was exact in every detail: hair, blood type, fingerprints, even his teeth, in case Charlie's dental records were used to identify him.

  It felt quite strange, looking at himself like this. For a moment he almost felt sorry for this body of his and what was going to happen to it on its journey down into the cold and the dark. But then he remembered.

  He'd come there to kill himself. And it was time to finish the job.

  Charlie transferred his watch to the body's wrist. He took out his mobile phone and stuck it into the back pocket of the identical black jeans the body was wearing. He gave the new version of himself a last, critical look — then pitched himself up, over the railing, and into the river. Thee was a soft splash from below, and his body vanished, to be washed up somewhere downstream.

  The Emperor was dead. Long live the Emperor.

  It was done. His last links to the world he'd grown up in were severed. There was nothing else to keep him there, so he closed his eyes, opened them again, and then he was standing in front of the Fracture.

  There were some more of the goons from earlier, shouting and firing guns at him, but he paid them no mind. He just stepped through, back into the quiet, seething whiteness that seemed to reach out and beckon him in. In another moment, he was back in the throne room.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said.

  The Scourge stood up, walked quickly down the steps of the dais, and took Charlie's hands in two of its own. Its touch was smooth and cool.

  "I'm so glad to see you," it said. "I can't tell you how glad. We have big things to accomplish, you and I."

  "Yeah," said Charlie, and smiled.

  He felt great. All the pent-up frustrations of his life were falling away: he could feel them streaming off him like water when you climb out of a swimming pool. All the tension and the rage and the fear and the hurt were slipping away until all that was left was himself and the demon and their future together. He felt strong and fit and full of excitement: he felt better than he'd ever felt in his life.

  "Let's do it," he said. "Let's go to work."

  And inwardly, triumphantly, the Scourge smiled.

  Arm in arm, the boy and the demon walked out of the throne room.

  Charlie didn't look back.

  PERSONAL DEMONS

  When the dreadful noise of the intruder alarms finally stopped, Jack noticed a tapping sound — coming, he realized, from the window.

  "What? " said Jack aloud. What the Hell was it now? Scowling, he stood up and yanked open the curtains.

  There, on his windowsill, sat a small, batlike creature.

  It was Jack's Chinj.

  It was looking at him.

  Jack stared. He hadn't been expecting to see the Chinj again: certainly not here, on Earth, in London's West End, on the windowsill of the Palace Theatre. The small creature's smile of delight widened to a look of near-ecstasy as Jack opened the window.

  "Sir!" it breathed. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you!"

  "Er, hi," said Jack. There was a pause. "Um, if you don't mind my asking, what are you actually doing here?"

  "Why, sir," said the Chinj, obviously hurt but trying not to show it. "You can't seriously be suggesting that I should have abandoned my sacred duty to you simply because you decided to leave our realm? But of course," it joshed, nudging Jack's arm with one leathery wing and looking up at him slyly, "you are joking with me."

  "What do you mean," asked Jack, grim-faced, "'our' realm?"

  "Why, our home," said the Chinj, its jaunty expression beginning to slip.

  "The pits," it added, seeing that its point wasn't getting across.

  "Hell," prompted the Chinj finally, giving Jack a puzzled look. "Sir."

  Jack stared at the Chinj. Then he rubbed a hand over his eyes.

  "Listen," he said, "I think there's been some kind of mistake. This " — he pointed past the Chinj and out at the London night — "is my home, where my kind come from. I know we met there and everything, but I'm not actually from Hell. I mean..." He tried a smile. It didn'
t come out very well. "I'm not actually a demon or anything. Okay?"

  The Chinj frowned.

  "Yes, you are, sir," it said. "Or part demon anyway."

  "Er, no," said Jack. "I'm not."

  "Of course you are."

  "No," said Jack, quite firmly now. "I'm not."

  "Sir," began the Chinj, holding up one tiny finger. "If I might point out, I have been performing most of your digestive functions for you for some time now."

  "What? " said Jack.

  "And I think I can claim to know what I'm talking about. Yes, sir, you are a demon. At any rate, you certainly need to feed like one."

  "Look," said Jack, "I'm not going to argue about this. It's nice to see you again and everything, but if you don’t mind, I'm having a miserable night and I really, really want to go back to bed. I'm sorry about your wasted journey. But, you know, good night."

  He reached for the window, ready to close it again.

  "You are sick?" asked the Chinj quickly.

  Jack froze.

  "You have aches and pains in your limbs? Your stomach keeps rumbling?"

  Jack said nothing.

  "You are always hungry, yes?" the Chinj went on. "But there is nothing to eat here that seems to satisfy you?"

  "Yes," said Jack quietly.

  "Well," said the creature, unable to keep the note of triumph out of its voice, "why do you think that is?"

  There was another pause.

  "I'm just ill," said Jack, with a sudden and horrible uncertainty. "Upset stomach. You know, something I ate, that's all."

  But the Chinj was shaking its head.

  "Oh, sir," it said sadly. "I had no idea."

  "No idea what?"

  "That you didn't know," said the Chinj. "It must come as a bit of a shock." It reached out a leathery black wing and touched Jack softly on the arm. "It's all right, sir. I'm here now. And I'll take care of you. Always."

  Jack stared at the Chinj, too stunned to be angry anymore. He looked into its wide, dark eyes. The Chinj felt sorry for him, he realized. This threw Jack completely.

  "If I may say so," said the small creature quietly, "you really don't look well. Little wonder," it added, "when you haven't fed properly in so long. If I might suggest...?"

  Smiling kindly, the Chinj gestured with its eyes to a place on the floor somewhere behind where Jack was standing.

  Jack turned and looked. All he could see in the direction the Chinj was indicating was a small bright blue plastic bucketlike object, an empty wastepaper bin, sitting in the corner of the room. He looked back at the Chinj.

  And it was then, with a falling sensation in his heart, that Jack realized what the creature meant to do.

  His stomach let out a growl so astonishingly loud that Jack was suddenly scared that it might alert the guards outside. The growl went on for what seemed like an eternity, a long, gurgling ripple of deep sound that finally tailed off into a high, soft series of murmurs. Obviously, there was no choice. Jack bent down and, with shaking hands, picked up the empty bin. When he turned back, the Chinj was already in position, its wings folded neatly behind its furry back to keep them out of the way. As Jack did his best to hold the blue plastic bin steady in front of it, he watched as a momentary spasm of something like pain crossed the face of the small creature.

  Then it opened its mouth and let fly.

  Jack closed his eyes. He didn't want to watch any more. Hearing the thick splatter as the stuff hit the plastic bottom of the bin — feeling the occasional droplets that splashed back up onto his hands in tiny, warm spots — these sensations were enough for him. When at last the Chinj had fulfilled its sacred duty, the edges of the bin were heavy in his hands and the smell was thick and strong in his nostrils.

  "There," said the Chinj, with quiet pride.

  Jack opened his eyes and looked down. He looked at the porridgey stuff lurking darkly in the shadows at the bottom of the bin. To his horror, he found that he had never wanted anything so much in his entire life. His whole body was gripped with a deep, physical need that was so strong it shocked him.

  Nervelessly, he lifted the edge of the bin to his lips, staring with a strange fascination at the reluctant, bulging way the stuff crept up the side as he tipped it up toward his eager, suddenly slavering mouth.

  "There," murmured the Chinj again soothingly. "Long swallows, sir. Nice and steady, that's the way."

  And time went slack.

  * * * * *

  Charlie and the Scourge reappeared in darkness. They were traveling downward and at tremendous speed, but even with Charlie's eyes as superhumanly powerful as they were now, he could see nothing anywhere, in any direction. He could smell nothing, feel nothing. Apart from the demon's cool liquid hand holding his, there was only darkness.

  "Okay," said Charlie. "How about you tell me where we actually are? And, like, what we're actually doing here?"

  "We have now passed beyond Hell's foundations," the Scourge answered. "We are reaching the heart of Creation: the sleeping place," it said and paused, "of the Dragon."

  Charlie considered this for a moment.

  "And this," he said, "means what to me, exactly?"

  "It means everything, Charlie," the Scourge replied. "This place is where it all began, and this is the place it will end. The being that sleeps here created it all. And from here too Creation will be unmade."

  There was a pause while Charlie gave this his best shot.

  No, he decided, he still wasn't getting it.

  "So, this Dragon, it's... what? Another God?" he asked.

  "That would be one name for it," the Scourge replied, "yes. But it would be better to leave the old stories of your world behind. The truth of the matter is this: the Dragon created everything. Then it slept."

  "'On the seventh day He rested'," quoted Charlie mechanically.

  "Well," the Scourge admitted, "that part of your folklore is surprisingly accurate. But that's where the resemblance ends. After creating the universe, the Dragon slept, but it did not wake up."

  "It didn't?" asked Charlie, doing his best to get his head round it.

  "No," said the Scourge. "It has been asleep since time began."

  Charlie was going to say something about this.

  But then a thousand voices spoke in unison, and all thought ran out of his head.

  Only one for whom the Void is pure in his heart, said the voices, can awaken the Maker of All.

  The words had come like a series of explosions behind Charlie's eyeballs. He was stunned by them. Even so, it occurred to Charlie that — was it possible? — he recognized who was speaking.

  Charlie Farnsworth, said Gukumat, are you that one?

  There was a long silence. Charlie looked in vain to where the Scourge's face should have been, but all around him there was still nothing but darkness.

  "Is this the, er...?" he whispered. "Do I—?"

  "Say yes, Charlie," said the Scourge.

  "Yes!"

  "'The Void is pure in my heart'."

  "The Void is pure in my heart!"

  Approach, boomed Gukumat's voices, in the same eerie, thunderous unison.

  And instantly, the darkness blazed into light.

  * * * * *

  "I know why the Scourge was exiled," Felix began. "I know why it was imprisoned."

  Felix had returned from Hell. He'd had no choice in the matter. And now he was delivering the Scourge's message.

  Esme stood in the butterfly room's ruined doorway. She was dressed in black — black combats and a black hooded top with the sleeves pulled well down — and she held the pigeon sword clasped to her chest.

  The rest of the room was filled with men with guns. Their last attempt to keep Esme sedated had ended badly: there had been a number of casualties, and now the Sons of the Scorpion Flail had decided on a policy of keeping a discreet and careful distance. They looked nervous. But Felix had only eyes for her.

  "Go on," said Esme quietly.

  "Well," said Feli
x, "we in the Brotherhood always believed that if the Scourge were ever allowed to escape and make its way back to Hell, it would form an army of demons and lead it back to conquer the Earth." He shrugged. "We were wrong."

  "Tell me, Felix," said Esme.

  "All our religions are false," Felix said. At this, a couple of the Sons began to shift awkwardly. Felix ignored them and pressed on.

  "There's no benevolent Creator watching over us all. There's no divine justice, no grand master plan. There's just this... being that made the universe and has been asleep ever since. The demons call it the Dragon."

  He took a step closer toward her.

  "I've seen it," he said. "The Scourge took me to the lower part of Hell, far below where the demons live, and showed me where it sleeps."

  His voice dropped almost to a whisper.

  "It's huge, Esme. You can't imagine how big it is: the brain just can't take it in. All of Hell is built on its back, and I don't think it's even noticed. And now the Scourge is going to wake it up."

  "So?" said Number 2.

  Felix gritted his teeth.

  "The sole purpose of the Scourge's existence," he explained, "is to wake the Dragon. For the whole of its life — longer than we can possibly imagine — it's been trying to do this one thing. Once, before, it almost succeeded: instead, the Scourge was sent into exile — imprisoned, here on Earth. But ever since then it's been biding its time, waiting for another chance. And now, thanks to this boy Charlie, that chance has finally come."

  "The chance for what?" asked Number 3 quietly.

  Felix didn't want to say it. It felt too much like another betrayal.

  He took a deep breath.

  "The Scourge hates all living things," he said. "Even — it seems — itself. The Scourge will use Charlie to help it wake the Dragon, and if the Scourge succeeds, if the Dragon wakes... the universe will come to an end."

  He paused.

  "The whole of Creation will be wiped out: everything will cease to exist. Instead, there will be on Void: nothingness. 'Purity,' the Scourge calls it. Forever."

  There. He had said it. Immediately, the thing inside him woke up and began its work. Felix could feel it. There was no turning back now.