The Black Tattoo (43 page)

For a moment, Number 2 just stared.
 
His face was going a strange gray-red color, and Jack could see some goodish-sized veins standing out on is neck.

"I am
not
," began Number 2, "going on this mission with—"

"Hey," said Esme, walking up to Number 2 and looking up at him, right in the eye.
 
"Me and Jack and... "
 
She paused.
 
"His, ah, friend here are going on this trip no matter what.
 
As for you and your men..."
 
She raked the room with a piercing gaze.
 
"I still haven't decided yet whether I want
any
of you to come along — at all."

Number 2 stared at her and gaped.

"B-but," he spluttered.
 
"But..."

Esme's amber eyes narrowed.
 
Her hard hands lifted fractionally for her sides.

"Problem?" she asked.

Number 2 fell silent.

"Thought not," said Esme.
 
"I'll let you take" — she considered — "three men.
 
And you'd better stay out of our way.
 
Now if you'll excuse us, we have a job to do."

She stalked off, over toward the cold spot in the air that marked the Fracture, leaving Number 2 standing there seething.

"Civilians," he said finally, and shook his head.
 
He looked at his men and clicked his fingers:
 
"Number Three?
 
Number Nine?
 
Number... Twelve?
 
You're all with me.
 
The rest of you, guard the Fracture till we come back."
 
His face darkened.
 
"
If
we come back."

"Sir!
 
Yes, sir!" barked the Sons — while the ones he'd called stepped forward.

"All set, Number Nine?" asked Number 2, with a significant look at the enormous pack the younger Son was carrying.
 
"Everything five-by-five?"

"Yes, sir!"
 
Number 9 snapped back proudly.
 
The mysterious black rectangle on his back was so large that it stuck out all round his head, making his face look almost comically small.
 
"Cocked and locked and ready to rock!
 
Sir!"

Jack winced.

"Good man," said Number 2.
 
"Suit up, gentlemen.
 
It's time to hit the road."

Four black gas masks were pulled into place with a simultaneous whisper.
 
Looking at the effect, Jack had to admit it was a good one.
 
With the simple addition of this one prop, the Sons had ceased to look quite so terrified and had become — well, if not actually terrifying, they certainly looked a lot more formidable than they had before.

Gesturing at the Fracture, Number 2 turned to Esme.
 
"After you, Miss Leverton."

Esme didn't bother to acknowledge this.
 
She didn't even turn round.
 
She just lifted her hands, and immediately the patch of air in front of her too on its glowing sheen.

Jack sighed.
 
Well
, he thought,
here we go ag
—"

"This is it, gentlemen," said Number 2, interrupting.
 
"This is what we've been training for.
 
You," he added, turning to his men — and conspicuously ignoring Jack, "have been picked for this mission for one simple reason:
 
you're the best.
 
You hear me?"

"Sir!
 
Yes, sir!" barked the three Sons, their voices now muffled by their masks.

"Make me proud," said Number 2.

Wallies
, thought Jack conclusively.

The Fracture began to open, and the dull red gave way to crisp, whispering white.
 
Number 2 took a step forward, so he stood shoulder to shoulder with Esme.

"Let's do it," he said.

They stepped into the light and vanished.
 
The three other Sons went after.

"Here we go, sir," murmured the Chinj in Jack's ear.
 
"Home sweet home."

"Sure," said Jack, not looking at it.
 
Right
.
 
He stepped into the whiteness, feeling it take him.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the throne room.

*
       
*
       
*
       
*
       
*

"
And Mr. Farrell
!" said a voice.
 
"
What
a surprise
."

A glance around the great red room was all it took.
 
Jack saw that the Sons had already been unmasked and were now struggling in the grip of the same jelly stuff he'd encountered on his first trip to Hell.

The Scourge stood up from its throne.

"
Overminister
," it said, "
if you'd be so good, I'd like these people transported to the gladiator pits
."
 
It glanced at Jack.
 
"
That's where they belong, after all
."

My pleasure, Sire
, Gukumat replied.

"
Esme, you're coming with me.
 
Take my hand, please
."

And that, really, was when Jack began to be scared.

Esme was standing before the throne.
  
Her arm was lifting as if it were being pulled by invisible strings.
 
As Esme put herself into the hands of her enemy, all Jack could do was watch in horror.
 
Then, together, they disappeared.

Jack sighed bitterly.
 
More jelly stuff was already climbing his legs, running up his back, surrounding him all over from head to toe.
 
He felt an all-too-familiar squeezing sensation — a moment of unbelievable tension — then Gukumat, the Sons, and the throne room all vanished, and Jack found himself back in his cell.

*
       
*
       
*
       
*
       
*

The Chinj wasn't with him, he realized.
 
It was the first time Jack had thought of the little creature since they'd stepped through the Fracture, and for a moment he felt a little guilty:
 
he hoped it had got away all right.
 
To be honest, though, as he reflected, looking around himself, he had enough problems to be getting on with on his own.

The cell was exactly the same.
 
He was surrounded by the same ceiling — or lack of one; there was the same floor.
 
It was almost as if he'd never left.

"Can anyone hear me?" he shouted quickly before his voice betrayed him.
 
"Hello?
 
Is anyone there?"

For a long moment there was silence.
 
Then — and the sound was like tow pieces of sandpaper rubbing together — Jack heard laughter.

"Well, well, well," said a voice.
 
"If it isn't fresh meat."

Jack did not reply.

"How are you, fresh meat?" asked Shargle.
 
"Did you miss me?
 
I sure missed you."

Jack walked over to the nearest wall and leaned against it.
 
Then he let his legs sag and his back slide down it, until he was sitting on the floor in the corner.
 
Oh, perfect
, he thought, this was just perfect.
 
Of all the demons in Hell he could've had for a next-door neighbor, it had to be this one.
 
How completely, utterly—

"I knew you'd come back," the worm hissed through the wall.
 
"I've been waiting.
 
And we're going to have fun, you an' me.
 
I know it."

Well, thought Jack, that was that.
 
His second trip to Hell had already gone about as well as his first.
 
He sighed, rested his head on his hands, and waited for whatever was going to go wrong
 
next.

BLOOD

"
I'm glad you decided to come
," said the Scourge.

"You didn't exactly leave me much of a choice," Esme replied.

"
Perhaps not.
 
But before that, before Felix passed on my message, you had already made another choice, had you not?
"

Esme could feel warm air slipping by on the bare skin of her face.
 
Although the darkness surrounding her was total, she knew they were traveling downward, and at a great speed.
 
The Scourge's hand was still holding hers; it was cool and smooth and nothing like a human hand at all.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"
When we last fought, when I showed you what you are, you reacted strangely
," said the Scourge.
 
"
For a while, I was even afraid that you might not recover.
 
Your attempt to deny the truth about yourself might easily have destroyed you utterly.
 
Instead, you woke up — and that is
 
a choice, of a kind.
 
The question is, why
?"

"Why do you think?" asked Esme through her teeth.

"
I was hoping
," said the Scourge, "
it was because you've accepted the situation:
 
you've understood what you are at last, and you've realized that it's pointless to resist me
."

"Guess again."

"
But in fact
," the Scourge went on wearily, "
you've only come back because you still think you can defeat me
."

"Bingo," said Esme.

"
Oh, dear
," said the Scourge.
 
"
How tiresomely human of you.
 
Well, we shall see
."

A glimmer of light appeared far below them, quietly growing to a chilly white glow as they continued their plummeting descent.
 
Esme now saw they were traveling at a blurring speed down an arterial red-colored tunnel.
 
The tunnel was becoming narrower and narrower, unit there was barely enough room to pass without touching its moist-looking sides.
 
Then it opened out suddenly into a space so vast that for a moment it took Esme's breath away.

Beneath Esme's feet, to begin with, was nothing more than a kind of steamy red mist:
 
wherever the floor was, it was too far away to see, and the same was true of the walls.
 
The ceiling, the only part of the room she could make out so far, seemed to stretch out forever in any direction she looked.
 
It was made of the same wet-looking fleshy red stuff as the tunnel.
 
All across it ran a series of meandering raised strips, like gigantic dark blue pipes of some kind.
 
What Esme was seeing wasn't making a whole lot of sense to her, so as she and the demon hurtled on downward, she waited as calmly as she could for whatever the Scourge was going to show her next.
 
But when at last the floor of the vast room did finally loom into view, Esme found herself staring again.

From here — from the altitude she was at now — the raised bluish pipe things didn't look like pipes anymore.
 
They were more like blood vessels.
 
Veins
, she realized.
 
Vast as it was, the room looked like it was alive.
 
And gigantic.
 
Bigger than anything she could possibly have imagined.

"
The heart of the Dragon
," said the Scourge.

For the past few minutes, Esme had noticed an odd sensation inside herself.
 
It was a kind of quickening:
 
a shivering sense of electric anticipation, spreading through her whole being, sending rushes of goose bumps up her arms and the back of her neck.
 
It wasn't fear or nerves — she'd learned to control those.
 
It was something else.
 
Something—

"
Yes
!" said the scourge delightedly.
 
"
You feel it.
 
I knew you would
."

"Feel what?" said Esme, and scowled at her own stubbornmess forcing her into so weak a lie.

"
Don't you know what that is
?
 
That sensation
?"

"No."

"
I'll tell you.
 
It is the demon in you
."

"Yeah, right."

"
This place
," said the Scourge, gesturing grandly with its free hand, "
is where our power comes from.
 
This is where our people began:
 
the first people, the rulers of Creation, and the ones who will bring it to its conclusion.
 
All that is strong and good in you — all that is demon — has its origin in here.
 
That is why you're feeling what you feel now
."

"Why don't you just cut the nonsense," Esme suggested, "and show me whatever it is you want to show me?"

"
All in good time
," said the Scourge.

Far below, the veins on the floor of the chamber were getting bigger — bunching and bulging and knotting together.
 
Before much longer, Esme could see what they were leading to:
 
a plateau, huge and roughly circular, that swelled out of the surrounding meaty red flesh like some bulbous growth or excrescence.
 
As they got closer, Esme began to make out more details.

Every inch of the plateau's fleshy red surface was covered, it seemed to her, by thousands of tall figures — each one of them apparently identical.
 
Each and every one of them was dressed in flowing robes and floating off the ground.
 
Each and every one of them had conjured a magical globe of light and was holding it, patiently, suspended over their long fingers to show the way.