Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (2 page)

Tuesday night was Dungeons & Dragons night. Ashoka, Josh (sorry,
Joshua
), Akbar and Gemma were in the middle of exploring the ‘Caverns of Chaos’ and right now they were trying to stop an evil sorcerer from turning the entire population of the Greyfalcon into zombies. Or vampires. Or miscellaneous undead types.

Gemma picked up her dice. “My thief sneaks around the back of the columns. She’ll try and get closer to the Big Bad.”

Gemma had only joined a few months ago, right after Guy Fawkes Night. He’d thought she’d play once or twice, then stop and go off and do something cool with the other cool kids like Jack, but, proving that there was a God, she’d turned out to be a closet geek. So Tuesday night, as well as being Dungeons & Dragons, was Gemma night.

They reached over the table and repositioned their miniature figures. Akbar started describing how the evil necromancer was raising a horde of skeletal warriors from the ground, and Josh – Joshua – retaliated with his elvish sorcerer casting a fireball spell.

“Ignore Josh,” said Gemma as the battle progressed. “I like ‘Ashoka’.”

“Thanks.” It still took people a bit of getting used to. Most of the teachers remembered and his parents too, but half his mates still slipped up and he reckoned Josh – Joshua – was doing it on purpose. But Ashoka’s trip to India last year had changed his outlook on a lot of things. It had been the
best holiday ever
, and after coming home he’d decided to use his proper ‘Indian’ name from now on.

The battle wrapped, the bad guy dead and the city saved, they began to tidy up. Ten minutes later and Ashoka and Gemma were strolling down South Croxted Road. The wind blew along the path, carrying a vortex of leaves that swirled in the amber light of the streetlamps. Ashoka adjusted his coat, zipping it up to his chin. The cold went into the bones. Gemma had her hands stuffed in her jacket. They walked in silence.

I should try and hold hands, or something
, he thought
. How hard can that be?

Yeah, Ashoka, and while you’re at it you can try leaping that building in a single bound.

“Saw you coming back from cross-country,” Gemma said. “I assume it was you: covered in leaves and mud and your shorts all ripped at the back?”

Oh, no
. Ashoka pulled his cap down, hoping she couldn’t see him blushing.

“Nice underpants, by the way.”

“Shut up, Gemma.”

She laughed and they got to the corner of Tesco. “This is me,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Ashoka.”

Wow. Ashoka sounded so much better the way she said it.

They waited at the traffic lights. Cars went by.

Go on. Do something. Kiss her. You know you want to.

Ashoka shuffled. “Yeah, tomorrow. G’night.”

The traffic lights changed from green to red and Gemma crossed.

You are a total coward.

That was a golden opportunity and he’d blown it. Why didn’t he just go for it? What was the absolute worst that could happen?

She’d say no. Face it, that’s what she’d say, isn’t it? Better not even try than suffer the rejection. Girls like that don’t go out with guys like you. Especially once they know you wear
Doctor Who
underpants.

Ashoka adjusted his backpack and took the gap between the shops, his shortcut home. The alleyway wasn’t wide and they still hadn’t fixed the lights, but he’d done this route a million times and his feet went on autopilot. It was along the estate and the rubbish wasn’t collected till the morning so he had to watch his step around the black refuse sacks. Two red-eyed rats watched him pass.

“Gross.” He kept away. The things looked evil.

A dog barked nearby, then whimpered and shut up.

Someone chuckled ahead of him.

“Who’s there?” said Ashoka.

The chuckle turned into a grotesque howling laugh and a figure appeared at the end of the alleyway. The light from the courtyard behind cast an eerie light over everything.

A woman, dressed in a white suit, stood waiting for him. She leaned against the wall, arms folded, her thick, tawny hair framing her face like a mane. She wore a pair of dark glasses and a hungry grin.

“Ash Mistry?” she asked. Her accent was posh, clipped, with each syllable bitten off.

“Do I know you?” He was tempted to correct her, tell her it was Ashoka, but a large part of his brain was sending signals to his mouth warning him that this was not the sort of woman who liked being corrected or made upset or angry on any level.

“My name’s Jackie.” She stepped forward and her fingers flexed. Her long, curved nails shone like daggers. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

A snarl from behind him raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He turned to see two men standing there. They glared at Ashoka, smiling with crooked, jagged teeth in their thin mouths and long, greasy whiskers under their rodent-like noses. Their eyes were malevolent, burning crimson.

Cold terror flooded Ashoka. He held out his bag. “Here, take it.”

Jackie tutted. “Oh, Ash, that is not what we want.”

“What then? What do you want?” said Ashoka.
How does she know my name?

She smiled. Even the darkness couldn’t hide the brilliance of her fangs. “We want to kill you, dear boy.”

“T
here must be some mistake, I … I don’t know you,” stuttered Ashoka. “Please, it’s a mistake.”

He looked at the woman, hoping to see a glimmer of pity, or compassion. But she just smiled, and there was no humanity in those fangs. “Please,” he repeated feebly.

“Begging, Ash? How disappointing,” said Jackie. “But then we can’t all be heroes.”

Without thinking, Ashoka slammed the bag into one of the rat mens’ face. He didn’t think about it; it just happened. The bag contained three huge hardback books, a large bag of dice, some lead miniatures and his boots. Rat-face Number One squeaked as the bag smashed into his nose. Ashoka then kicked Rat-face Number Two between the legs.

He’d seen it done a million times in movies and the guy always went down. Always.

Rat-face Number Two didn’t go down. He just leered.

Ashoka charged. The two tumbled into a pile of rubbish and knocked over a bucket of compost. Ashoka pushed the rat-face down into a bag of rotting, stinking onions as he scrambled to his feet.

Claws, hot and sharper than razors, tore open the back of his coat and sliced his skin. But he was too full of fear and adrenaline to feel the pain, and was up and running a second later, stumbling out of the alleyway.

“Run, Ash, run!” Jackie laughed.

What am I doing? What am I doing?

He’d never been in a fight before and this was for
real
– life and death. His heart was pounding violently in his chest and his boots beat the pavement, the heavy impact echoing like a drum in the night. He was only a few hundred metres from his front door, but suddenly the alleyways through the estate turned into a labyrinth. He ran down one and came out into a small enclosed green, empty but for a pair of swings and a see-saw. He stared at the blank, unlit windows of the apartments that overlooked it.

“Help!” He raced past the swings, throwing them behind him in a desperate attempt to stop Jackie. She moved on all fours and bounded over them.
How is that possible?

Lights came on in the estate around him, but he didn’t dare stop to call for help. One swipe of those claws and she’d have his head for a football. He ran on, down into another narrow gap between the apartment blocks—

—and crashed straight into the rat-faces, who grabbed him. Ashoka wrestled and punched but couldn’t get free.

“Hold him,” Jackie ordered. She panted and her tongue hung red and loose from her wide jaw. The rat-faces twisted Ashoka’s arms behind his back until they felt as if they’d break.

“What do you want? I don’t even know you!” Ash shouted. This was insane.

Jackie looked him over, coming so close he could smell her breath. Worse than a dead dog’s guts. “No, but I know you.” Jackie stroked his face with the back of her nail. “And I’m here to make sure you never do.” Then she turned her hand and dragged her fingers through his shirt. The cloth ripped open and she drew three thin, bleeding lines down his chest. She pulled his shirt wide open and peered at his skin. Her nail pressed against his belly. “No scar.” She grabbed his left hand and stared at his thumb. “Interesting.”

She flexed her fingers and the nails struck like a butcher’s blades. “Hold him still. I don’t want his blood on my suit.”

“Please …” begged Ashoka.

A steel scream rang out right in his ear and Ashoka cried out as blood showered over his head.

The rat-face gripping his right arm wobbled and Ashoka turned towards him to see blood vomiting from his severed neck. The head was still spinning in the air and Ashoka stared at the wide, surprised expression on his face, his mouth a perfect ‘O’.

A moment later another figure appeared to the left, a long triangular blade of bright, sharp steel shining in its right fist. The rat-face who still had a head dropped Ashoka and drew out a pistol. It wasn’t some cool Desert Eagle or Walther PPK, it was an ancient gunpowder thing from a hundred years ago. But the barrel was huge, and in the narrow alleyway he couldn’t miss. The flint burst a bright flash of powder, and then thunder exploded from the barrel opening, filling the entire alleyway with acrid gun smoke.

The bullet sparked on the steel blade as the figure swatted it aside, the lead ball rebounding to tear a chunk of brick off the wall.

He swatted a bullet
,
thought Ashoka.
That’s not possible.

The rat-face stared as the shadow rammed his right fist, and the steel triangular blade, into his chest so hard that he came off his feet. A second fountain of blood sprayed out as the tip of gore-coated metal tore through the rat-face’s back. He scrabbled, and screamed a scream that should have shattered all the glass nearby, and almost did the same to Ashoka’s eardrums. Then the figure, a boy in a hoodie, tossed the dead rat-face aside and stepped past Ashoka, his attention on Jackie alone. The boy’s fingers tightened around the steel dagger in his fist.

A
katar
. An Indian punch dagger.
Ashoka hadn’t seen one since—

“Jackie,” said the boy in the hoodie.

“It’s true. You’re here,” Jackie snarled, edging away. She looked from Ashoka to the boy and back again. Then she threw back her head and screamed with demonic laughter and with two bounds vanished into the night.

“Are you all right?” asked the boy, turning to Ashoka.

Ashoka blinked and tried to wipe away the blood that covered his face. He thought he’d swallowed some. He swayed, his legs suddenly as solid as jelly.

“He’s going to fall,” said the boy.

Someone helped to support Ashoka: a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, dressed in a close-fitting suit of black-green. “I’ve got you,” she said. Despite the darkness she wore shades, so all Ashoka could see was the reflection of his own petrified face.

“Let’s get away from here,” said the boy. “And bring him.”

“I only live—”

“I know where you live,” the boy snapped. “Now come on.”

The girl steadied Ashoka. Then she picked up a long steel coil off the ground. The weapon had a sword hilt, but instead of a single blade there were four razor-sharp steel strips.

“An
urumi
,” said Ashoka. “The serpent sword. That’s … cool.”

He looked down at the now headless corpse of the first rat-face. She’d done it with the urumi. He could see the open arteries and the spine and neatly sliced muscle of the neck stump.

“Oh, God.” Ashoka tried to hold it down, but bile flooded to the top of his throat. Then came straight out over the ground and his shoes. His stomach spasmed and bitter vomit poured out again and again.

The boy in the hoodie sighed. “Pathetic.”

The girl was patting Ashoka’s back. “Oh, please. You were just the same when I first met you.”

“Was not.” The boy sounded petulant. “Have you quite finished?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.” Then Ashoka saw the second rat-face, torso slick with black blood and white bone jutting from the gaping hole where his chest must once have been.

“No. No, I haven’t.” He vomited some more.

Once the vomiting was all done and he’d downed a bottle of water, Ashoka was eventually able to walk again, and he followed the boy and girl out of the estate.
I could run
, he thought, but something told him he wouldn’t get very far.

“What’s going on?” Ashoka demanded. “Has the world gone bat-loony? Why were those people trying to kill me? Who
were
those people?”

The boy hurried Ashoka across the road, his face still hidden in the deep shadow of his hood. “Last question first. Those aren’t people. They’re
rakshasas
.”

Ashoka scoffed. “Indian demons? Yeah, right.”

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“Thanks. I won’t.”

“But you should.”

Ashoka paused. “You were at the woods today, weren’t you? Have you been following me?”

“That’s right. I knew Jackie would make her move sooner or later.”

“Who are you?” Ashoka said, suddenly filled with a dreadful anticipation. A small part of his subconscious didn’t want to know. There was something terrible and familiar about the boy.

The girl nodded. “Tell him.”

The boy took off his hood. A pair of dark eyes gazed back at Ashoka. Eyes he knew. The boy’s face was gaunt, but smooth and brown like his and his hair was the same as Ashoka’s, maybe longer than he wore his and more dishevelled than his mum would allow. The boy smiled, and it was a smile Ashoka could mirror, perfectly. He struggled to breathe. “Who are you?” he whispered, even though he knew.

The boy’s smile softened. “I am Ash Mistry.”

“S
it down,” said the girl.

Ashoka took a seat in his kitchen, his back against the wall, staring at the other boy.

The other Ash Mistry.

Weird did not begin to describe what it felt like to be face to face with himself. The boy had all his mannerisms – the way he pulled his hair from his forehead, the way he stood and tilted his head as he thought. But there were differences. The most obvious was that this other Ash was as sleek as a dagger and the way he moved was almost scary. He had a confidence that Ashoka lacked. Ashoka shuffled through life, a bit wary, a bit timid. This guy wasn’t just in charge of the situation – he
owned
it.