The Black Tattoo (26 page)

Well
, thought Jack, standing up,
after what I've had so far, what's the worst that can happen?

He shuddered and told himself not to be so stupid.

Outside, across a thin strip of sandy floor, there was another cell, identical to his own — but Jack wasn't thinking about the cells anymore.
 
He was thinking about their occupants:
 
specifically, the coiled, sinewy shape on the floor of the cell that, as he continued to stare, suddenly
un
coiled itself a little, rose into the air, and looked right back at him.

"Fresh meat!" it exclaimed in a familiar scratchy voice.

The creature's face was wide and rubbery, with goggling bloodshot eyes.
 
The rest of it reminded Jack bizarrely, of a picture he'd seen once of the world's longest-ever tapeworm.
 
The color was the same, a smeared mixture of rancid off-white and intestinal brown.
 
Also, though Jack had never actually
smelled
a tapeworm, this thing was giving a pretty convincing impression of what that might be like — and a tapeworm not too long removed from its natural habitat, at that.
 
Effortlessly, the beast nosed its way into Jack's cell:
 
in a moment, its body had made a complete loop all around him — and still, Jack couldn't help noticing, a disconcerting amount of the rest of the creature's length remained behind it, on the floor of its own cell, its coils piled up, moist and glistening.

"Hello, fresh meat," it said, leering right in Jack's face — and the dizzying stench that came with the words almost buckled Jack's knees.
 
"MMM-hmmm," it added, obviously liking what it saw.
 
"Nice fresh thing for Shargle!"

"Shargle!" barked a voice from outside, making Jack and the creature both jump.
 
"Where are you?
 
Get out here!"

A flash of annoyance crossed the hideous face, and the eyes turned in the direction of the passage outside.

"
Now
, Shargle.
 
Or do you want me to tie your heads together again?"

"No, Inanna!" squeaked a voice from outside.
 
"Not the tying!
 
Not together!
 
Not again!"

Jack stared.
 
Heads? he thought dimly.

"I'm warning you, Shargle.
 
My name's coming up, I can feel it, and I won't have my chances ruined just 'cause a long streak of pus like you won't come out of his cell!"

The worm creature made a furious hissing sound, then with a sudden twisting movement, unwrapped itself from around Jack and backed out through the doorway.

"And whatever else is in there, you'd better follow him or I'll skewer you myself.
 
Move!"

Jack obeyed without question.
 
Still reeling from the smell, he stumbled out after Shargle.
 
And his eyes went wide.

There were several reasons for this.

First, now that he was outside, he could see that his initial guess about his cell being just a part of something much larger had been dead right.
 
He was surrounded by other doorways, leading to other cells just like his own, stretching to either side as far as his eyes could see.

Second, he wasn't the only one coming out.
 
Other creatures were too — all gradually forming up outside in the sandy passageway in an enormous and unruly line.
 
He only had time for a quick glance each way, but what he saw was enough to make him feel very nervous indeed.

Third, well... when he looked up at what was standing in front of him, he couldn't
help
but stare.

Whoever she was, she was a good nine feet tall and unmistakably female.
 
Her bulging torso was encased in some sort of black armored corset, a mass of straps, buckles, and — also unmistakably — weapons.
 
She was festooned with swords and knives of every description, all arranged within easy reach of her hands.
 
The hands themselves looked big enough to crush Jack's skull.
 
She was completely bald, with some kind of tribal tattoo on her scalp.
 
She had six silver rings in each ear and a silver spike through her bottom lip.
 
Her arms were bare; muscles like bowling balls twitched and rippled all over her, and, oh yeah, she was
blue
.

She was looking at him.

"Inanna," she boomed.

"Er, sorry?" said Jack.

"Name's Inanna," the giant repeated.
 
"And you are...?"

"Jack."

"Bit small for this job, aren't you?"

"Um," said Jack.
 
"Er..."
 
But that was as far as he got.
 
Quietly at first, a strange hissing sound began to fill the air.
 
Somewhere, a long way away, a gong had been struck.
 
Inanna shrugged, turned, and followed the line of monsters, who had begun to shuffle away along the sandy floor of the passage ahead.

"Move, fresh meat!" hissed Shargle into both his ears at once.

Flinching, Jack glanced round to find not one but two faces now leering into his.

Shargle has a head at both ends
, thought Jack numbly — and, a moment later, an uncomfortable realization occurred to him as to why the creature's breath was so bad.

He started walking quickly.

Supplicants
, boomed Gukumat's voice,
you have been summoned at the behest of Ebisu Eller-Kong Hacha'Fravashi, God of Rulers, God of the Dead, God of Darkness, God of Gods—

"Yadda yadda yadda yadda," Jack heard Inanna mutter.
 
"Come on."

This food you receive now is his gift to you, you penitents and seekers of boons.
 
When you have taken your bowl, you may proceed to the dining hall.

"I take the bowl this time," hissed one of Shargle's heads suddenly.
 
"
I
take the bowl."

"Uh-uh," spat the other quickly, rearing up to face its twin.
 
"No way!"

"Yes!" squeaked the first.
 
"
My
turn to do the eating!
 
You
do the other this time!
 
MY TURN, MY TURN!"

Up ahead, something was making its way down the line — something unlike anything Jack had ever seen before.
 
It basically consisted of six pale and disconcertingly human-looking legs, joined at the waist (knees pointing outward) to forma a sort of arch shape.
 
The place where the legs joined was wide and flat and held a tray on which were piled four tottering stacks of shiny black bowls:
 
a pair of arms that sprouted from each side of the creature was busily handing them out.
 
The legs walked with a rippling, spidery movement as the creature made its way down the row.
 
Jack accepted his bowl, trying not to stare too much.

He could hear a long, low, rasping sound, a sound a little — no, a lot — like cheering.
 
He kept walking, and the passage opened out into a space that took his breath away.

At the center of the dining hall was a vast and blazing bonfire.
 
The floor of the hall sloped down gently toward it, and long curving tables of shiny black stone surrounded the fire in five concentric rings.
 
Across the vast room from where Jack was standing, two more lines of gladiators were pouring out from other passageways beyond.
 
But this wasn't where the cheering, which had seemed to double in strength when he emerged into the hall — was coming from.
 
Jack looked up.
 
The hall was like a massive chimney of black rock:
 
being in it was like standing at the bottom of a dormant volcano.
 
All around the wall of the room (though high enough to be well out of reach of any of the ground level's occupants) was some sort of observation deck.
 
This upper level too was teeming with demons — some of the surprisingly smartly dressed, compared to the gladiators, but all of them cheering and yelling and waving and baying and barking and shrieking.
 
Another packed observation deck was visible above it, and another above that.
 
The walls stretched higher than Jack could see, and it was all he could do to tear his eyes from the sight and follow Inanna down one of the wide aisles to a table.

Presently, he sat down — and took a look at his dining companions.

Directly opposite him, in between a giant octopus and a thing like a big black praying mantis, sat a creature that looked, Jack thought, surprisingly normal.
 
Mind you, he realized, his definition of "normal" had been pushed in some surprising new directions lately.
 
The creature was a man, or at least he looked like one:
 
he had only one head and a body not unlike Jack's own.
 
The man's eyes were a bit blank and fishy looking, but he was looking at Jack interestedly enough, and — slowly, as if it were an effort for him — he smiled.
 
Jack decided to take this as an encouraging sign.

"Er, hi!" he shouted.
 
There had to be thousands of gladiators all around him, and most of them seemed to be banging their bowls on the table.
 
"I'm Jack.
 
What's your name?"

The man's grin got wider, but that was his only response.

Now, suddenly, Jack became aware that Shargle's heads had stopped squabbling with each other and were looking at him.
 
The octopus and the mantis thing were too.
 
Jack looked at the man again, and at that moment—

SPLOT!

The man's eyeballs dropped out of his face and fell into the bowl in front of him.

Empty eye sockets gaped at Jack like small wet mouths.

"Whee!" said the man.
 
Then, louder,
"WHEEEEEEEEEE!"

Then something nasty happened to his face.

It was as if his head were a balloon, and all the air had suddenly been let out of it.
 
The dome of his narrow skull seemed to sag inward, provoking a considerable outpouring of greenish-gray goo that followed the eyeballs out of the sockets and into the bowl, joining them there.
 
The mouth kept screaming and grinning until the head collapsed utterly, at which point the scream subsided into a choked, wet gurgle.
 
The empty skin of the man's face sat between his shoulders for a moment — shivered — then
melted
, as the whole of what Jack could see of his body (shoulders, everything) suddenly turned liquid and slid out of sight.

Then there was a pause.

The giant octopus could barely contain its hilarity.
 
Its great bulbous sack of a head was quaking and rippling, its tentacles draped over each other and twitching in helpless little paroxysms.
 
The big black mantis creature was rocking itself back and forth so hard that it almost toppled over backward.

"HAAAAAAH!" said Shargle.
 
"HAAAH
 
HAA
 
HAA
 
HAA!
 
Didn't you like that, fresh meat?
 
That was
you
— see?
 
Jagmat pretended to be
you!
"

Jack said nothing.
 
He waited as, gradually, the laughter subsided.

"That's very clever," said Jack slowly.
 
"Oh yeah, I'm
really
impressed."

At his words, the thing sitting opposite seemed to re-form itself.
 
What was in the bowl turned pink and slid back with a hiss, and in another moment the creature had reared up in its true form, a frozen man-sized explosion of pink custardlike stuff.
 
It wobbled and shook.
 
Big bubbles formed and popped on its skin, belching out words.

"Fresh meat!" it burped.
 
"Fresh meat!
 
Fresh meat!"

"Whatever," said Jack — and sighed.
 
Yep
, he thought.
 
Gang up on the new guy
.
 
In some ways, when it came down to it, Hell was pretty predictable.
 
He turned away to look at Inanna and found to his surprise that she was smiling.
 
The smile vanished as soon as she saw him looking.
 
Still, Jack couldn't help feel a small glow of triumph.
 
Maybe — just maybe — he was getting the hang of things.

"Chinj!" yelled someone off to Jack's right, interrupting his thoughts.
 
In another second, the cry was taken up by the whole room.
 
"CHINJ!
 
CHINNNNNNNNNNNNJ!"

Jack, and everyone, looked up.

High up in the vaults of the gigantic dining hall, something was happening.
 
Jack couldn't really see what was going on at first:
 
it looked to him as if the shadows up there had somehow come to life.
 
A strange rattling, clattering sound was gradually making itself audible, and as the great black mass of shapes sank toward the light of the fire, Jack saw what was causing it.
 
The air of the hall was packed with a flock of small, black, birdlike creatures.

"CHINNNNNNNNJ!" howled the mass of gladiators.
 
"CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNJ!"

Jack watched the twisting, skittering flight of the creatures as they continued their descent toward the waiting hordes below.
 
Lower they came, circling wildly.
 
Now, one by one, individuals were breaking away from the group, plummeting like falling rocks to land on the tables below.