The Black Tattoo (57 page)

"There," said Number 3, from beside where Jack was standing.
 
"At last.
 
It is all over."

"I couldn' t have put it better myself," said a voice — and they all turned.

There, some twenty yards down the passageway, standing beside a large, but still pack-size, technological-looking metal shape—

—was Number 2.

"It's no good trying to stop me!" he screamed (though in fact, as yet, no one had).
 
"The countdown has begun.
 
In thirty seconds, all that's going to be left of this place is a mushroom cloud the size of
New York
!"

In the silence that greeted this announcement, Number 3 sighed.

"Number Two," he began.

"No, wait a second," Jack interrupted.
 
"You mean, that thing in the pack was... a bomb?
 
A nuclear
bomb?
"

Number 2 grinned widely, and his eyes glittered.
 
"Project Justice," he said, with a gesture at the device.
 
"As soon as the gateway to Hell was discovered, I gave the order myself.
 
The first away-team to make the trip was to go in with tactical nuclear capability.
 
That way, if Hell's inhabitants proved hostile, we could strike decisively while we had the chance — eliminating a potential threat at its source, and saving the human race!"

"You... plank!" Jack spluttered.
 
"You stupid, half-witted—"

"Number Two," said Number 3 again.
 
His voice was quiet, but something in its tone made Jack stop talking suddenly.
 
"This is unnecessary."

"Don't you try and tell me what's unnecessary, Number Three," said Number 2.
 
"You know your orders, and the situation's been clear ever since we got here.
 
This whole place is a threat to our world and our way of life, and the only chance we've got is to strike first and strike hard.
 
So, listen, any last words you got?
 
You'd better say them now, because in" — he consulted the readout on the device — "less than eighteen seconds, you'll have missed your chance.
 
Permanently."

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on here? asked Esme.
 
She pointed at Number 2.
 
"This man's not really going to do what he says he's going to do, is he?"

"
Non
," said Number 3.
 
"He is not."

"Watch me," said Number 2.
 
"Here we go!
 
Two!
 
One!
 
MOMMYYYYYYYYYYY!" he screamed, crouching and covering his ears while everyone — Number 3, Number 9, Jack, Charlie, Esme,
 
and the numberless Chinj — just stared at him.

Beside him, the machine beeped twice, then fell silent.

After another few seconds, Number 2 opened his eyes.

"Number Two," said Number 3, "for some time now it 'as been my belief that your judgment as a Son of the Scorpion Flail 'as been less than... reliable."

Number 2 stared at him, eyes wide.

"I must say," Number 3 went on, "my observations of your performance on zis mission 'ave certainly borne out my suspicions.
 
Wi' zis in mind, I took the decision to remove Project Justice's security key."
 
He held up the object:
 
it dangled from his gloved hand.
 
"A fact you would 'ave noticed if you 'ad checked for its presence before attempting to detonate the device."

"You..." said Number 2.
 
"Wait a second.
 
What the Hell
is
 
this?"

"Number Two," Number 3 continued, "you are 'ereby relieved of command, and your membership of the Sons of the Scorpion Flail is rescinded pending a full enquiry."

"Yeah?
 
Well, I've got new for you,
pal,
" said Number 2, standing up.
 
"You don't have the
 
authority.
 
Only Number One himself has the power to fire me — and his true identy's so top secret that nobody even knows what he looks like!"

Number 3 allowed himself a small smile.
 
"That is not," he said, "ze case at all, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," the man Number 2 had always thought of as his subordinate pointed out, "
you
know what I look like, do you not?"

For another moment, there was silence.

Number 2 turned sheet-white.
 
"Y-you don't mean..." he stammered.
 
"No, I don't believe it.
 
You mean, all this time — all those years — you... were... "

Still Number 3 — or Number 1, to give him his proper designation — said nothing.

"What the Hell's going on?" whispered Jack.

"W-well, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!" shrieked Number 2, whipping out his own Sig Sauer and pointing it at his superior officer.
 
"See?
 
Who's in charge now, huh?
 
Who's in charge now?
"
 
In three quick steps he moved away from the machine, the fat black hole at the end of the gun's barrel looming ever closer in Jack's vision.

"I'm going to count to three!" said Number 2.
 
"If you haven't given me that security key and got down on your knees by then, I swear to God I'm going to shoot you in the face."

"And what difference will that make if you're just going to blow us all up anyway?" said Jack brightly.

"SHUT UP!" screamed Number 2.
 
"Just
SHUT UP!
 
ONE!"
 
He pressed the barrel up against Number 1's forehead.

"Two!"

Nobody moved.

"Thr—
uhn!
" Number 2 grunted, as the large rock that had been dropped from above landed on his head and he fell to the ground.

"There said Jack's Chinj, fluttering into view and finding a perch on the back of its prone victim.
 
It looked up at the others.
 
"I
did
enjoy that," it said — and winked.

INTERLUDE

Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworth were standing side by side.

Mr. Farnsworth was pale:
 
his jaw was clenched, and his lips were pressed together in a bloodless line.
 
Mrs. Farnsworth's eyes were wide and red, and she was blinking a lot:
 
her knuckles were white where she gripped her handbag.

The two of them were standing in the morgue of Charing Cross police station in London's West End, in front of a mortuary slab.
 
They'd come to identify a body that had recently been found floating in the Thames.

However, except for a rumpled white shirt, the slab in front of them was empty.

"But... I don't understand it!" said the attendant.
 
"It was here!
 
It was here not thirty seconds ago, when I went to open the door for you!
 
And now it's—"

"It's what?" asked Mr. Farnsworth, with heavy emphasis.

"Gone!" said the attendant.
 
He got a grip on himself.

"I'm so,
so
sorry," he said.
 
"I've been helping people to identify bodies for over fifteen years, and I assure you, nothing like this has ever happened before.
 
It's extraordinary!
 
It was here not two minutes ago, and now it's just... vanished!"

"Not 'it'," said Mr. Farnsworth.

"Pardon?"

"Not 'it'," Mr. Farnsworth repeated, his voice rising dangerously.
 
"Stop saying '
it
'!
 
That's our
son
you might be talking about, you bl—!"

At that exact moment, a phone rang.

It was a mobile phone.
 
There was an embarrassed pause, at first the attendant and then Mr. Farnsworth huffed, sighed, patted their pockets, checked their phones — and frowned.

Blinking, Mrs. Farnsworth took her mobile from her bag.
 
She looked at the screen, pressed the button, and, numbly, held it up to her ear.

"Mum?" said Charlie.
 
"Mum?
 
It's me."

THE TREE

"Here," said Esme.
 
"This one."

"What, really?" asked Charlie, surprised.
 
"But it's just like the others!"

"That's the whole point," said Jack.
 
"I imagine."

"Looks safe enough," acknowledged Number 1.
 
He looked at Esme.
 
"We do this now?" he asked.

Esme said nothing.
 
She took the staff — which had grown strangely dull and rusty looking, like an elderly scaffolding pole — and strode ahead of them into the undergrowth surrounding the large and gnarled-looking oak tree that stood a little way up the small slope beside the battered tarmac path.
 
Pausing only to look around to make sure no one happened to be watching, Number 1 and the boys set off after her.

They were in a certain park, in London.
 
It was early autumn now, but the sky was a pleasingly clear pale blue and the sun was warm on Jack's back, casting long shadows on the ground in front of him as he followed the others into the shrubbery.
 
It was a good day to be in a park.
 
A five-a-side football match with jumpers for goalposts was going on some three or four hundred yards away.
 
People were flying kites, walking dogs, throwing Frisbees and doing other park-type things.
 
No one saw the little group disappearing off the path — or if they did, they didn't think anything of it.
 
In another moment, Jack was sloshing through the piles of leaves as the air around him (under the shade of the tree) turned dark.

"Looks old," he said, looking up at it.

"Yeah," said Esme.
 
"No one knows how old."
 
Her face turned sad.
 
"At least," she added, "not anymore."

"Well," said Charlie.
 
"What happens next?
 
How does it work?"

Esme didn't answer.
 
She was circling the tree, the leaves making soft scrunching sounds under her trainers.
 
The trunk of the tree was wide and solid looking, covered in bulbous lumps like petrified cauliflowers, or possibly, Jack thought, brains.

"Here," said Esme finally, taking up a spot some four or five feet away to Jack's right.
 
With a sudden smooth movement, she lifted the staff and struck it into the ground.
 
For a fraction of a second, Jack actually thought he could feel an impact tremor vibrating up through the soles of his trainers.
 
But then he told himself he must be imagining things.

Esme tested the staff, which was now sticking straight up into the air, but it remained where it was.

"All right," she said.
 
"We need to get around the tree.
 
If we stretch out, I think we should be able to hold hands."

Before he could do anything about it, Jack felt himself holding hands with Charlie and Number 1, having missed his chance.
 
With hideous predictability, he'd ended up on the opposite side from Esme and the staff — out of sight of whatever was about to happen.
 
Typical
.
 
He sighed.

"Ready?" he heard Esme ask.

"Er... sure," he said hurriedly.

"Then we'll begin."
 
Esme took a deep breath.

Jack suddenly noticed that all around them, all the noises of the park — the people, the traffic from the road beyond, even the birds — seemed to have gone strangely silent.

"
Khentimentu the Scourge
," said Esme quietly, and her voice seemed to set off small flowering explosions behind Jack's eyeballs.
 
"
To roots that bind and thorns that catch, I consign you
."

Number 1's and Charlie's hands grew warm in Jack's own.
 
He was standing very close to the tree, facing inward, and his nostrils were filled with the dark, earthy, wet smell of the leaves and the mossy bark of the tree in front of him.
 
The smells were strong, sweet, and — suddenly — almost overwhelming.

"
By the light of the world
," said Esme in the same clear voice.
 
"
By the strength of my will and the curse that first stilled you, I command that you return to your prison.
 
Get you hence
," she finished, "
and trouble us no more
."

From far away at first, but coming quickly closer, Jack felt a low, bubbling, sizzling sensation.
 
It traveled up his arms and rushed through his veins, a tide of something hot and dark.
 
It was like being hit by a wave of warm oil, but oil that was somehow alive, scrabbling and rippling and seething all through him in a frantic last effort to take hold.
 
Jack held on tight to the hands that held his.
 
The circle remained unbroken, and...

And then, as quickly as it had come, the sensation vanished.

For another long second the four of them stood there like that.
 
Then...

"There," said Esme.

Charlie let go first, Number 1 a moment after that, and Jack found himself standing in front of what still looked like an ordinary tree, with his hands tingling.

He walked round to join the others, noticing as he did so that the staff that Esme had been carrying had now vanished.

"Is that it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Esme.
 
"Yes it is."