The Black Tattoo (22 page)

Turning toward the Thames, gathering her strength, she flung herself out into the air.

SPECTATORS

Charlie and the Scourge were standing at the foot of a small mountain of bloodred cushions.
 
At the top of them, a tall man with red skin and a white suit was lounging about as if he owned the place.
 
Which, as it turned out, he did.

God of Rulers, God of the Dead, The Voice of the Void
... the demon who stood beside them was saying.
 
Or at least, Charlie supposed that it was this demon:
 
it was always hard to tell when someone was speaking to you without their mouth moving.
 
It (Charlie had decided to think of this demon as an "it") was about six feet tall, dressed in long robes, and was floating about thirty centimeters off the ground.
 
Its head was squat and heavy, ridged with thick bones, and appeared to be much too big for its delicate body.
 
It also had what Charlie could only describe as a
really
disgusting monster-type mouth; the four yellow inch-long hooks that crossed in front of its gob instead of lips had spread wide open as soon as Charlie and the Scourge had appeared, exposing a truly revolting wet pink hole within.
 
This demon, Charlie decided, was quite staggeringly ugly.
 
Which, now that he came to think of it, was pretty much exactly what he'd been expecting demons to look like.

"
His name is Gukumat
," the Scourge murmured.
 
"
He has the power to replicate himself, and his consciousness is collective:
 
each one of him is linked to the others.
 
At this moment, hundreds, perhaps thousands, more of him are currently engaged in the upkeep and administration of every part of Hell and its dominions.
 
Overminister Gukumat is a powerful ally indeed.
 
And a useful friend
."

Lord of Crossing-Places
, Gukumat droned on pompously, in a weird, lots-of-people-talking-at-once voice that made the words appear directly inside Charlie's head.
 
King of All Tears, and Suzerain Absolute of the Dominions of Hell
.

The Emperor gave a vague wave of one cloven hand.

"
Sire
, said Gukumat, turning slowly toward him,
allow me to present Khentimentu the Scourge
.

The Scourge made a low bow.
 
Taking his cue, Charlie bowed too — though it hadn't escaped his notice that he hadn't yet been introduced.

There was a pause.

"I wonder, Khentimentu," said the Emperor, "is it
normal
for you to go around like this?"

"
Like what, my lord
?"

"Outside your vessel?" said the Emperor, gesturing at Charlie with distaste.
 
"I mean, it's almost as if" — he smirked — "as if you're not fully dressed!"

"I'm Charlie," said Charlie brightly, stepping forward.

"Well," said the Emperor, looking at the Scourge again and ignoring Charlie utterly, "your personal habits are your own affair."

Charlie blinked.

"Gukumat!" barked the Emperor suddenly.

Yes, Excellency?

"What do you have for me and my guests?"

Jocasta is fighting the Ogdru Sisters in the pit
, was the reply.

The Emperor gave a wide smile.
 
"Gukumat," he said, "you know what I like."

There was a low rumble of shifting stone, then a crack of blazing white light opened out across the darkened room.
 
Still dimly realizing that the Emperor had insulted him, Charlie turned, just as the whole of the wall behind him seemed to come away from the ceiling and slide downward.
 
The air was suddenly filled by a sound unlike anything Charlie had ever heard in his life.
 
It was quiet at first, like the distant hiss of a gas tap — but as the wall opened further the noise became louder, gradually resolving into a terrible boiling mixture of sounds:
 
baying, barking, howling, jeering, rumbling, crashing, and screaming.
 
Charlie stared out of the enormous hole where the wall had been, at what lay beyond it, stared — and gaped.

"Welcome to the royal box," said the Emperor.

Outside and far below them was the wide, blinding-white sandy-floored ring of an arena.
 
The noise Charlie was hearing, he realized, was a crowd noise, coming from the unbelievable mass of spectators that rose, tier upon dazzling huge tier, around the arena's massive black walls.
 
There were hundreds of thousands of demons out there, all apparently different.
 
There were things out there that defied belief:
 
creatures that Charlie couldn't have begun to describe.
 
For the time being, however, strangely enough, Charlie wasn't really looking at the audience.
 
Like the rest of the spectators, his attention was inexorably drawn to what was taking place on the arena's floor.

Spread in an even circle around the ring was a pack of a dozen or so of what Charlie immediately identified as velociraptors, or something very like them.
 
The had the same long, muscular bodies, the same loping movements, the same beautifully balanced proportions of crouching torso and elegant, sinewy tail.
 
Their eyes were quick and their claws were sharp, and the only thing that was different about them was the scythelike talons that protruded from the front of each of their hind feet:
 
apparently made of some kind of metal, the talons glittered and flashed, occasionally sending bright little reflections scurrying over the black stone of the arena walls.

Their opponent was something Charlie had never seen before.
 
It looked a bit like a rhinoceros:
 
it had a similar sort of humped, armored body — only instead of four legs it had six.
 
The creature's head was wide and flat:
 
its brow and the length of its snout were protected by a triangular plate of thick, heavy bone.
 
The skin that covered this part of the creature's face was a raw-looking pink, covered in whorls and wrinkles.
 
Also, the creature was
huge
:
 
its length covered more than a third of the diameter of the ring, and the tip of its ridged back actually reached
above
the line of massive stones at the arena's edge.
 
The monster shook its heavy head and bellowed at the nearest of the raptors, exposing a variety of businesslike teeth, and the raptors took a careful skip back out of snapping distance.

The big beast was breathing hard:
 
the thick gray hide of its sides pumped in and out, thightening and slackening.
 
Charlie noticed four wide gashes behind the heavy bulk of its front left shoulder.
 
The wounds were red, raw, and shining.
 
As the terrible noise of the crowd fell suddenly to an expectant rumble, one of the raptors opened its wide mouth and squealed something, provoking a high, scratching cackle of unmistakable laughter from the rest of the pack.
 
They bobbed on their taloned feet, enjoying the moment.

Jocasta's been wounded
, said Gukumat,
but the two sides are still quite perfectly matched.
 
The Ogdru Sisters have pack tactics and youth, but Jocasta has strength, experience, and... well
.
 
The tall demon lifted a long, robed arm and pointed at the arena.
 
See for yourself.

The audience gave a great roar of delight as the six raptors suddenly and simultaneously leaped to the attack.
 
At the same moment, the creature that Gukumat had
 
referred to as Jocasta reared up into the air and — with a speed and accuracy that Charlie would never have believed possible from one so bulky — caught two of the raptors in her claws.
 
In another second, the great beast slammed back down, pinning them to the floor with her full weight.
 
The other four scratched uselessly on the big creature's unarmored sides and then fell back.
 
The two that had been unlucky jerked on the ground as Jocasta took her weight off them — then lay still.
 
The remaining raptors abruptly abandoned the outflanking maneuver they'd been planning and slunk back to the shadows at the edge of the ring to rethink their tactics.
 
Jocasta just bellowed at them contemptuously.

"What do you do for entertainment in your world?" asked the Emperor abruptly.

"Sorry?" said Charlie.
 
The suddenness of the question had startled him — but the Emperor did not repeat himself.
 
He just continued to stare at Charlie with his weird golden eyes.

"Oh," said Charlie.
 
"Well, we have films.
 
You know, stories.
 
Games.
 
Music.
 
Stuff like that."

"I'm not talking about those things," said the Emperor dismissively.
 
"Don't you have anything
physical?
 
Anything..."
 
He gestured toward the arena, just as one of the raptors leaped into the air, its steel-shod talons flashing, only to catch Jocasta's double-spiked tail in the chest.
 
The unconscious raptor was flung against the nearest wall-slab, where it slid down and landed in the shadows in a wet heap.
 
The crowd went wild.
 
"Like this?" finished the Emperor with a smile.

"Not really," said Charlie, doing his best.
 
"Well, we have, er,
sport
, I guess.
 
We compete against each other in running or swimming — or football."

"Football?" echoed the Emperor.
 
In the arena, Jocasta had caught two more of the raptors in her front paws and was busily engaged in smashing them against each other.
 
Again and again.

"Yeah," said Charlie awkwardly.
 
"You've got, er, eleven guys on each side, they're on this big field, and they're only allowed to touch the ball with their feet.
 
Right?
 
And you've got a net at each end.
 
That's the goal:
 
whoever kicks the ball in there gets a goal, and whichever side get the most goals... wins."
 
Seeing that the Emperor's attention was elsewhere, he turned.
 
Two lucky members of the raptor flock had got a hold under Jocasta's armor:
 
they dug their talons in, hard.
 
The big beast's mouth hinged open in a grimace of agony.

"But is there violence?" asked the Emperor.
 
"Does anyone get hurt?
 
Or die?"

"No," said Charlie uncertainly.

"Then what's the point of it?
 
This... 'football'?"
 
The Emperor made little quote marks in the air with his cloven hands.

"How d'you mean?"

"I mean," said the Emperor, rolling his eyes, "that this game you're describing is a test of strength.
 
The best team wins, yes?"

"Er, yeah."

"Well, what greater test of strength could there be than
fighting?
"

Charlie stared.
 
"But—"

"No physical trial could be more testing than fighting for your life.
 
None.
 
Therefore, any other physical trial is inferior.
 
Correct?"

Now Charlie just gasped.

"So, if no one gets hurt," said the Emperor slowly, as if he were talking to a moron, "what's the
point?
"

Out on the arena floor, the fight was reaching some kind of a climax.
 
Jocasta, her face a mask of pain and rage, was swinging her great body from side to side, trying to dislodge the raptors.
 
But they clung on stubbornly.
 
Seeing their chance, the rest of the flock leaped to the attack.
 
Another fell prey to a swipe of her tail — but the others were climbing all over Jocasta now, stabbing and slashing with their great steel claws, leaving raw red welts as they went.
 
The crowd was screaming its approval.

"But... watching things kill each other — that's just wrong!" said Charlie.

Jocasta rolled, howling, onto her back, squashing all but four of the raptors, who managed to leap clear in time.
 
But they came back as soon as she righted herself, clinging on even tighter than before, tearing and ripping at her in an ecstasy of fury — and the big beast was starting to weaken.
 
The Emperor yawned.

"They're in pain!" said Charlie, his voice going high and reedy, which only made him more indignant.
 
He felt the Scourge lay a restraining hand on his arm, but he wrenched it away and jabbed at the arena.
 
"They're dying!" he said.
 
"And for you it's supposed to be what —
fun?
"

Slowly, the Emperor turned to Charlie and raised an eyebrow.

"All right," he said.
 
"First, I don't find it fun.
 
Rather the opposite.
 
I usually find the whole thing to be quite
dull
, if the truth be told.
 
You see, it's always been this way, ever since the time of the ancestors."

He smiled slowly, at the Scourge first, then at Gukumat.

"It may shock these two veterans to hear it," he said, "but I think the Old Ones were wiser than they let on.
 
We demons are a disparate lot and prone to violence, so making that violence a part of our culture —
officially
, as it were — was undoubtedly a very shrewd and clever idea.
 
That's why I allowed it to continue, even after — your world presently excepted — we succeeded in conquering the universe."