Black Tattoo, The Read online

Well, he told himself, he didn't care about that — not anymore. He'd taken steps. He'd left all that behind. And there — it occurred to him — was the answer.

  The universe shimmered and roared around him, waiting for whatever Charlie was going to think next.

  This, he thought — the noise, the lights, the stuff going on around him now — was all no different. His days of weakness, of being at the mercy of events, were gone. He alone — he, Charlie — had the power; he was in complete control of his destiny. Nothing was going to get in his way or hurt him anymore in any way whatsoever — he wouldn't allow it. He could just decide, and whatever he wanted would be so.

  Well, the noise and the lights were getting to him.

  He'd had as much as he was prepared to take.

  So he decided.

  Let it out, a voice echoed in Charlie's head Let it all out, open your heart, and LET ME IN. YES!

  It would all... just have... to STOP.

  As soon as he'd completed the thought, he felt something move inside himself. The thing that had been waiting inside him, waiting for this moment for longer than Charlie could possibly have imagined, suddenly seemed to give a great, convulsive LEAP.

  In front of his eyes, the vision was sucking back into itself like someone had pressed rewind. The black holes slammed shut, the suns brightened and went out again, and the planets and galaxies were flung past him and back into their appointed places. The view shrank and collapsed.

  Then he was back on his throne, and at last the horrible noise was dying down.

  Charlie let out a big sigh, glad it was all over. He had an odd taste at the back of his mouth — a strange, coppery taste that he couldn't identify at first — and to be honest, he was feeling a bit weird. He made to lift his hands to rub his eyes and found to his surprise that he couldn't: his arms seemed to be stuck to the throne somehow, as if they'd been glued there.

  Odder still, the black tattoo seemed to have vanished: of the great swirling pattern of curving blades and hooks, there was now no sign whatsoever. All there was was his own bare skin and the nasty taste that stayed in his mouth no matter how many times he swallowed.

  Blood, he realized suddenly. It was blood.

  Something's wrong here, he thought, beginning to panic: something was definitely wrong. Everything looked different. The Gukumats weren't looking at him — no one was. And underneath him, behind his back, the throne was moving again. With a speed that was shocking to Charlie, he saw that it was growing again. Tonguelike petals of moist-looking meat were curling upward in front of him, closing inward, blotting out the scene outside.. Charlie gave a last, great effort to escape his throne: his left arm came slightly free of its armrest—

  —and his eyes widened in horror.

  The movement had released a pool of dark red liquid. Two thick dribbles of his blood just had time to run over the edge of the armrest before thin tendrils of pink shot out, lassoing his arm and yanking it back into position.

  The throne went back to what it had been doing. It went about its work with redoubled strength now, battening down hungrily until Charlie's flesh quivered with each terrible suck. The realization, when it came to Charlie, was sudden and devastating.

  The charade was over. The throne was killing him.

  And now, at long last, Charlie began to get an inkling of just what an idiot he'd been.

  MAGIC

  Suddenly, a great thunderclap rang out. Rolling around and back from the distant walls, it was loud enough to silence the entire hordes of Hell. Everyone — Esme included — looked at the throne. In this sense, Charlie had finally got his wish, but the petals of meat had already closed, blocking him from sight.

  In the silence, a strange, rushing, gurgling sound became audible, getting nearer and nearer until it seemed to be coming from all around. Closer it came, an encroaching silvery tinkling hiss, quickly growing to the thunderous roar of an approaching torrent.

  Abruptly, a frothy, milk-colored liquid burst in from all sides of the room. The back rows of the assembled demons were caught completely by surprise, dissolving into nothing where they stood.

  The Dragon's juices had reached the heart chamber. It was the demons' turn to be broken down into energy for the awakening. Already the flood of pale fluid was darkening into a nutrient-rich, bloodred broth.

  There was a moment of horror, then the screaming started.

  "Oh crap! " bared Jagmat, high up above proceedings, still trapped in his magical bubble. Suddenly this didn't seem such a bad place to be, not compared to what was happening to the rank-and-file demons on the ground. As one, in a blind panic, the population had lunged for the center of the room, trying to get as far away from the surrounding tide of juices as they could, trampling anyone and everything in their path in a headlong charge of storming feet, tentacles, pseudopods, fins, coils, and whatever else they used to get around. It wasn't going to do them any good: the climb to the top of the central plateau was all but impossible, as it was protected by magical barriers that Gukumat had constructed for the very purpose of preventing any escape. Jagmat stared downward, horrified, as the foremost of he demon hordes scrabbled frantically up the sides of the central platform, only to fall back and vanish into the teeming, howling mass that followed them.

  The walls, the floor, the entirety of the chamber gave a long, rippling shudder. All over the room, gigantic veins and blood vessels began to twitch and convulse as each and every part of the heart chamber began, slowly, to come to life.

  The air was hot with carnage. Esme stood there, stunned by it, hardly able to make sense of it all—

  —and in that moment, the Scourge laughed.

  It was a dreadful sound, like no laugh Esme had ever heard. It was husky, like dry bones scraping together, yet is was also high and screeching, like the brakes on a bus full of screaming children just before it plummets over a cliff. It echoed through the surrounding noise, chilling her to the quick, and in another moment the Overminister — all seven thousand of him — joined in.

  They were enjoying this, the Scourge and Gukumat. The were enjoying their moment, savoring a triumph that, for them, had been a long time coming.

  Esme set her jaw, shaking off the last of the pain of the Scourge's stab wound. It hadn't healed up properly yet, but she wasn't thinking about that. The shoulder would work: that was all that mattered.

  She stood up.

  The Scourge saw her and, with an effort, managed to stop laughing.

  "There," it said, gesturing behind itself at the throne at the center of the plateau, which was still sealing and tightening — slowly — around its victim. "If you're planning any last-minute heroics, Esme, I should tell you, there's no longer any point. Charlie has served his purpose. The Dragon is waking."

  "We're not dead yet," said Esme. "That means there's still a chance."

  The Scourge looked at her, then shrugged, the movement making its shoulders and neck drip together in long, tarlike strings.

  "If you could get to the throne in the next few moments, you could still rescue Charlie, I suppose. Perhaps you might even convince the Dragon to return to its slumber — though it would certainly want your life in Charlie's place."

  "Fine. Whatever it takes."

  "Still," said the Scourge, "two further problems remain for you. First, you don't have much time."

  "And second?"

  "Second, I won't let you."

  "Then I guess I'd better pull out all the stops," said Esme.

  She could feel it now, feel it inside herself. This was the last battle. This was what she'd been waiting for her whole life to do.

  Magic. She would have to use magic.

  Already the power was rippling through her, coursing in her veins until the very ends of her hair crackled with it. And now, for the first time, she recognized what it was and where it came from.

  Remember what I told you about your mother, said Raymond's voice in her head. Remember your mother. And don't ever forget... well, that I l
ove you.

  It was Raymond who had brought her up, Raymond who had trained her. Raymond had made her what she was, not the Scourge. And her mother's blood ran in her veins, every bit as strong as anything else that was there.

  Almost without realizing she was doing it, Esme lowered her hands to her sides. She lifted, rocking forward slightly, until only the tips of her toes remained in contact with the fleshy red ground below her. She closed her eyes.

  "At last," said the Scourge. "At long last, the moment of tr—"

  In that second, before the demon could finish what it was saying, Esme struck.

  The air over her hands heated up, rippled, and burst into light. Her feet left the ground and she rose into the air, but she had eyes for nothing but the face of her enemy. Bringing her hands up, concentrating her hatred and determination, summoning every ounce — every drop — of the unstoppable, bottomless desire for revenge that seemed at that moment to consume her entire being. Esme flung her magic at the Scourge.

  Jagmat, high above, glimpsed a smoking streak run a line between the girl and the demon. It left a black scorch mark on the fleshy red ground, and for a second, as whatever it was struck the Scourge's outstretched palms, it seemed that nothing else was going to happen. Then—

  KER-BLAM!

  Spreading from the line, widening and swallowing all in its path, a sudden, shatteringly bright light expanded, searing every sense in Jagmat's jellylike body. The magical bubble that held him rattled and shook; he and Shargle bounced around inside it like dice in a cup; and when Jagmat next was able to see what was happening, he saw that the Scourge had vanished and a great ring of the Gukumats — hundreds of them — had been flung back from the blast. There was a wide, clear space around where the girl and the demon had been standing, swept clean in a spreading wave as if from an explosion. Those Gukumats at the edge had been knocked straight over the precipice. The robes of many that remained were on fire; shrieking, they thrashed and slapped at themselves as they tried to put out the flames, and some just lay where they'd been flung.

  "Whoa," said Jagmat, with his usual understatement. Then, "I wonder which ones were lookin' after the — AAAAAGH! "

  Abruptly, as soon as he'd articulated the thought, the walls of his bubblelike magical prison simply flickered out of existence, and the hapless demon found himself plunging toward the ground.

  And then all Hell broke loose.

  Howling with a mixture of terror and sudden delight, the wave of rank-and-file demons that at that moment had been scrabbling up toward the central platform suddenly found that their way was no longer blocked by the Overminister's magic. They poured in a black screaming rush over the edge, overwhelming the first line of Gukumats before they had time to put up any resistance.

  Thos Gukumats behind the outside lines were no luckier: the ring of glowing bubbles holding the gladiators had failed, and now the air was filled by a sudden plummeting deluge of grudge-filled and angry fighting demons. The Carnotaur, in particular, was not satisfied with the score or so of flat-toned Gukumats that cushioned its landing: it had disliked the Overminister for a long time, and now, it had decided — unsheathing its claws, glands seeping acid from every pore — that some serious payback was due.

  Gukumat had a full-scale rebellion on his hands. And suddenly, for the first time in its millennia-long life, his hivelike mind found itself uncomfortably uncertain of what the outcome was going to be.

  Slowly, in the weird calm at the center of all this chaos, Esme came down to earth. She was breathing hard, but she forced herself back under control. There was no sign of the Scourge. Ignoring the fierce battle that was beginning to rage around her, she looked all over the place, checking the smoking heaps of lifeless Gukumat bodies that seemed to have piled up at the edge of the blast.

  She had never used her power like that. She had never known it could be used like that, or who powerful she really was. Truth to tell, she had scared herself more than a little, but she forced herself not to think about that now. The Scourge wasn't dead — it couldn't be dead. All she had done, she knew, was strike the first blow — and she wasn't sure if she had the strength to strike a second.

  Well, now was her chance. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was just on the point of disappearing, ready to find Charlie and see what she could do to stop what was happening, when she felt, without looking, the air in front of her face as it rippled and went hot.

  The blow came instantaneously.

  Her eyes flew open, and she watched with a sort of detached weariness as she was thrown back another twenty feet. She hit the ground hard, and by the time she'd skidded to a halt, the Socurge was standing over her again.

  "Not bad," it said. A stinging slap to her face made Esme's world explode into stars. "Not bad at all," it added, swinging at her again.

  But when it struck this time, the blow landed on thin air. The Scourge froze, staring, but Esme had vanished. And when it heard her voice again, she was behind it.

  "Kentimentu the Scourge," said Esme quickly, wiping the blood from her mouth in a long streak down her arm, "To roost that bind and thorns that catch I consign you."

  The demon shook a little — wobbled — but stood firm. It turned to face her. So Esme said it again.

  "Kentimentu the Scourge," she said. "To roots that bind and thorns that catch I consign you."

  "You still don't understand, do you?" it said. "Those words have no power over me, not from you. You can't banish me. You are me. All that you can do — all that you've learned — comes from me!"

  "That's not true," said Esme. "My mother defeated you before, and I can defeat you now: Khentimentu the Scourge, to roots that bind and thorns that catch I—"

  "No," said the demon, wrapping one liquid-black hand around her throat, "you can't."

  And once more, it started to squeeze.

  THE END

  "Now, are you absolutely sure that you've got me all right?" It was something like the seventeenth time Jack had asked this question, he knew. A part of him even suspected that the Chinj might be becoming a little impatient with him, but he didn't really care. At that moment, he was being carried, bodily, high over a horde of demons that — when they weren't being horrifyingly dissolved by a rising tide of juices — were busily engaged in massacring each other in a variety of creative and enthusiastic ways. Given the situation, the question of whether the flock of batlike creatures had a firm grip on him or not was one that he needed to hear the answer to, he found, both urgently and often.

  "You are not... as heavy... as the other humans," said the nearest Chinj into his ear, with some difficulty. "I suppose... we should be thankful... for that."

  Jack was surrounded by them. If anyone down below had chanced to look up (which, thankfully, they were all too busy to do) they would have been hard-pressed to make Jack out amongst the rattling, clattering flock. The Chinj had carried him a long way already. The glimpses that Jack caught in between the heaving, flapping, furry bodies were enough to tell him that they need only go a little further.

  The radio in his ear crackled suddenly..

  "Jack?"

  "Yep."

  "They cannot take my any further; I am dropping now," said Number 3.

  "Are you on target?" he asked. "Are you close enough to the center?"

  "Can't see. No time. They're—"

  The signal dissolved into a burst of static, or possibly the clattering of wings.

  "Number Three!" said Jack. "Number Three, can you hear me?"

  The radio crackled again, but there was no answer.

  "Good luck!" called Jack — immediately feeling very silly indeed. If the Chinj had dropped Number 3 into the mass of demons, then he was going to need a lot more than luck.

  But suddenly, it was his turn.

  "We are close to the center," said the voice in his ear. "Going down now. Do not... forget your promise to us... small human."

  The landing, when it came, was surprisingly gentle. In le
ss than a second, it seemed to Jack, he was standing on his own two feet on the eerily squishy arterial-red ground, and the fluttering black flock was opening around him, peeling away in a great spreading tornado of dark furry bodies and leathery wings.

  Now, finally, he could take in the scene.

  An explosion off to his right was the first thing that attracted his attention. A blast wave full of something wet and sticky passed over him, and when his vision cleared, he glimpsed Number 3 backing away from the crowd toward the center of the plateau, covering his escape with a hail of fire from his MP5.

  Jack couldn't see what was following him, not at first. For a moment it seemed as though the mass of demons — still fighting one another — were going to leave him be. But then the crowds parted — the impromptu barricade of prone and still faintly smoking Gukumat bodies was roughly shoved aside — and Jack realized that Number 3 was in trouble.

  The demon that was after him wasn't especially big, but it looked strong. Its squat, barrel-like body was covered in a gray-green scaly armor of some kind: it swatted at Number 3's bullets with its long-fingered razor-clawed hands as though the gunfire were a cloud of mosquitoes. It rattled forward on its stumpy legs with a terrible eagerness: its small head, not much bigger than a pair of fists held side by side, was split up the center by a disgusting vertical maw of hooks and thrashing tentacles, and its long bony arms grasped out for the Son as he backed away.

  Jack watched, frozen, as Number 3's first gun ran dry. The creature lunged — and the Son leaped to one side, drawing a heavy Sig Sauer automatic pistol from his hip and shooting several fat bullets into the creature's face at almost point-blank range. The demon staggered back a yard or two, physically driven back by the force of the shots — but Jack could see, with a terrible detached certainty, that it was stunned rather than actually hurt.

  With a smooth movement, Number 3 pulled the rocket launcher that was strapped to his back round to a firing position. He raised the long, tube-shaped weapon up onto his shoulder and, without even appearing to take aim, let rip.