The Black Tattoo (4 page)

"But Nick!" Raymond spluttered.
 
"You didn't mention this was about who's going to be leader!"

"Frankly, Raymond," said Nick, "I'd've thought it was obvious.
 
You and I no longer have the strength to do what must be done:
 
it is time to pass the burden to the next generation.
 
The one who performs best in the test will take on as much of my own power as I am able to give, becoming the new leader of the group."

"But... that should be Esme, shouldn't it?" Raymond asked.
 
"She's been training all her life."

"So you keep telling me," said Nick.
 
Then, seeing Raymond's and Esme's shocked expressions, he sighed.

"Look," he told them, "I know this might seem strange to you.
 
But the Brotherhood needs reinforcements and time is short.
 
You've always trusted me before, Raymond:
 
trust me now,
Trust me
," Nick repeated.
 
"That's all I ask."

Raymond and Esme looked at each other but said nothing:
 
already, Nick had gone back to concentrating on Charlie.

"Now, what you're being offered here," he went on, staring at Charlie intently, "is something in the way of a proper adventure.
 
A chance to battle an ancient evil and — quite possibly — save the world.
 
And all I need from you, at this stage, is a simple yes or no.
 
So... what's your answer?"

There was a pause.

Jack had loved fantasy, science fiction, and horror all his life — the films, the games, and the books.
 
He'd heard worse stories, and frankly, he'd heard better ones, but no one had ever expected him to believe one was actually
true
before.
 
He was so nonplussed, he wasn't sure how to react, so he turned and looked at Charlie.

To his amazement, Charlie wasn't even smiling:
 
he was looking at Nick with fixed attention — giving every appearance of having listened seriously to every word Nick had said.
 
Jack waited for him to say no.
 
He waited for Charlie to burst out laughing — for him to do anything, in fact, except what he did, which was shrug and say—

"All right, sure."

"Splendid," said Nick, already setting off back round the table toward them.

Jack stared at his friend.
 

"Wait!" he said, his voice coming out (infuriatingly) as a kind of squeak.
 
"Er... what sort of 'test' are we talking about here?" he asked, in the gruffest voice he could manage.

"I'll show you," said Nick.

Slowly, grimacing with pain, he began to pull off his gloves, one finger at a time.
 
Then, when the gloves were off, he turned his hands and held them out in front of him, palms out.
 
There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room.

The skin of Nick's hands was horribly burned all over.
 
The palms were two masses of thick scar tissue — red, inflamed, and glistening.

"Could the three of you stand in a line, please?" asked Nick politely.
 
"This won't take long."

Suddenly, Jack was standing with Charlie on his left and Esme on his right.
 
Their faces were grim:
 
to Jack's mounting dismay, everyone apart from him seemed to be taking this seriously.
 
He looked at Nick, who had closed his eyes, concentrating — and Jack's stare widened even further.

Something was happening.
 
Something weird.

The air in front of Nick's dreadful scarred hands began to wobble and shake.
 
The effect was a bit like heat haze, but it only lasted for a moment, because just then a shadowy shape appeared, a shape that instantly began to thicken and stretch.
 
In another moment something long and silvery had formed in Nick's hands, which were closing around it.
 
Then, before Jack's brain really had time to register what it had seen, Nick was holding what appeared to be some sort of long metal bar, horizontally, so it stuck out to either side of him.
 
The bar's length stretched along all three of them — Esme and Charlie too.

"Now," said Nick, "take hold of the staff."

Esme went first, taking her end of the object with both hands.
 
Charlie took hold of his end too.
 
All right
, thought Jack, and followed their example.
 
The object was smooth and cool in his hands — solid and real in every respect, save for the fact that it had just appeared out of thin air.

"Ready?" Nick whispered.
 
His horrible burned hands were clamped on either side of Jack's.
 
"Go," he croaked.

Jack felt a sudden pain, like red-hot scissors stabbing into his hands.

Before he could stop himself, he let go.

Nick's eyes snapped open.

"S-sorry," Jack stammered.
 
"Wasn't ready."

"On three this time," said Nick, through his teeth.
 
"Hold on for as long as you can."
 
He closed his eyes once more.

"One... two...
three
."

And it started again.

The pain was astonishing.
 
It felt as though the skin of Jack's hands was being peeled off with red-hot pincers, like his palms were being devoured by ants.
 
Jack resisted as long as he could — which was about two seconds — then he let go with a gasp.

This time, however, Nick did not stop the test.

Jack glanced down at his hands.
 
They were completely unharmed.
 
They weren't even tingling.
 
Jack turned to Charlie, fully expecting his friend to have let go too.

But he had not.

Charlie's hands were clenched tight around the staff, the bones in his knuckles standing out white under the skin.
 
His eyes were squeezed shut, and the muscles around his mouth were bunched into knots from the way he was clamping his jaw closed — but he wasn't letting go.
 
And that, really, was when Jack began to get scared.

He looked from Charlie to the girl on his right, Esme.
 
Her eyes were closed too, but she appeared much more relaxed than Charlie.
 
Her face was a mask of concentration and control, and Jack could see that she wouldn't be letting go of the staff anytime soon.
 
What scared him was that he knew Charlie wouldn't either.

In the breathless hush of the big, dimly lit room, Jack suddenly became aware of a low, electrical humming sound.
 
In front of him, under the hands of Nick and Charlie and Esme, Jack saw the blue-black surface of the staff give off a gunmetal glint — then begin, imperceptibly at first, to glow.
 
Slowly, Charlie's lips parted and curled back, his face scrunching up even harder.

What is he
thinking? Jack wondered.

*
       
*
       
*
       
*
       
*

In Charlie's mind, there was a soft, velvety rush of darkness.

When it lifted, he was at home, back in the kitchen, with his dad.

The scene was exactly the same as the morning when his dad had told him he was leaving, only the light was a bit strange and flickery.
 
Charlie's dad's eyes too were different somehow.
 
Darker.
 
Almost black.

"
Listen to me carefully, Charlie
," said Charlie's dad.
 
"
It's time you heard the truth
."
 
The voice was a little deeper, a little louder than normal, and each word seemed to set off small flowering splashes behind Charlie's eyes.

"
You know what it means
," his dad began, "
about me leaving
?"

Charlie said nothing, just listened.

"
It means that everything you know is a lie
."

A shrill, cold sensation was filling up Charlie's stomach.
 
He stared, frozen.

"
I don't expect you to understand this — you're young, after all
," said his father.
 
"
But I think even you can get it, if I say that a lot of the time when you were growing up — for a lot of the time when we were together as a family — I was... wishing I was somewhere else
."

He paused, giving Charlie a few moments to let this sink in.

"But—" said Charlie.

"
Ah
," said his dad, holding up a hand, "
don't tell me.
 
You're going to say that you had no idea.
 
That you thought I seemed happy.
 
Yes
?"

Charlie said nothing.

"
You know the answer to this one, Charlie
," said his father.

"Oh, no..." said Charlie.
 
The cold feeling in his belly was getting stronger.

"
I did it for
you
," said his dad slowly.
 
"
For fourteen years, fourteen years of living a lie, I kept the whole miserable thing going — for you.
 
Now
."

He smiled, the lips drawing back from his teeth.

"
Parts of our time together as a family have been... nice.
 
And I love you, Charlie.
 
You're my son
."

"Oh, Dad... please..."

"
But the fact remains that every good memory you have, each and every good time you thought we had, has now changed
."

He paused.

"
From now on, whenever you think back to time you spent with me — whenever you look back to your childhood and anything good in it — you'll be wondering
..."

He leaned forward, his eyes flashing darkly, the blackness in them widening.

"
Were we happy
?" asked his father.

"Oh, no," Charlie whispered.

"
Were we really as happy as you remember
?"

"Please, Dad... no..."

"
Or was one of us just... pretending
?"

*
       
*
       
*
       
*
       
*

Charlie's hands were black shapes, clenched tight against the brightening orange-yellow of the staff.
 
His head hung low, his shoulders were hunched — and Jack watched helplessly as, right in front of him, his friend started to moan to himself.

It was a quiet sound at first, a sound that Jack had never heard a person make before:
 
a low, weird, keening kind of sound.
 
Charlie's mouth was barely open.
 
He was swaying slightly, as if the sound itself were making him move, as if the sound were a separate creature somehow, something that had been waiting and growing deep inside him, waiting for its chance to come out.

"Ohhhhhhh-ho," said Charlie.
 
"Oh, Dad."

His face was red and sticky-looking, his tears glittering in the light from the magical staff.
 
Jack stared, fascinated.

"Ohhhhhh, Dad," moaned Charlie, louder now.
 
"Oh no."

He took one more rasping breath, threw back his shoulders, and tipped his head back—

—and
howled
.

It was a terrible sound, an indescribable sound — a dry, scratching, inhuman sound, like grinding glass and tearing paper.
 
It went on and on, getting louder and louder.
 
Jack wanted to shut his eyes but he couldn't, he couldn't look away, and now, suddenly, the staff was blazing white, and the humming was filling the room, almost loud enough to drown out the terrible, maiming sound that was coming from Charlie's mouth.

Esme's lips were pressed tight together now, turning pale with tension and effort.

"It's not right," said someone suddenly.
 
It was Raymond.
 
"Nick, this isn't right!
 
It shouldn't be like this!"

"
Let it out
," said a voice in Charlie's head.
 
"
Let it all out, open your heart, and LET ME IN.
 
YES
!
"

And suddenly, everything happened at once.

Esme let go with a shout.

There was a thunderous, echoing CRACK.

And the staff, or whatever it was, vanished.

*
       
*
       
*
       
*
       
*

For a long moment, there was silence.
 
Nick, still holding out his horribly scarred hands, stood swaying on his feet, blinking.

"What?" he said, looking at his surroundings and the people staring at him, as if taking them in for the first time.

"Where am —?
 
Wait," said Nick.
 
"This is..."
 
The he looked down at his hands.
 
His face went suddenly white with horror, and his mouth fell open.

"Oh, no," he said.
 
"Oh, God.
 
This is — wait!
 
No!
 
You can't!
 
The
—"

But before he could finish whatever he'd been going to say, his eyes rolled back, his knees buckled beneath him, and he sank, insensible, to the floor.
 
Esme and Raymond rushed to his side.
 
Charlie, meanwhile, was looking at his hands.

The skin, from palms to fingertips, was completely, utterly black:
 
an inky, glistening, polished-ebony black.
 
As he watched, the darkness bunched and wriggled for a moment — then it shot straight up his arms, disappearing under the sleeves of his shirt.
 
Slowly, Charlie let his hands fall to his sides.