Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness

by Sarwat Chadda

  A chill breeze caressed Ash’s nape.

  He’d been in a room a lot like this once, in the Savage Fortress. It had been the night he’d learned his world was stranger than he’d imagined, when he’d discovered monsters – demons – were very real.

  A photograph caught his attention. Age had turned it yellow and the black had given way to a metallic sheen.

  Savage wore an officer’s uniform. His legs were in puttees, long strips of cloth wound round for protection, and he had an old-fashioned tin hat, a Brodie, on his lap. The soldiers around him looked at the camera, cigarettes or pipes loose in their mouths, weary, with muddy shovels and picks lying around a half-dug trench. One man rested his arm across a large machine gun.

  The First World War.

  It had to be. The style of the uniforms and the weapons were consistent with the Great War. Ash had studied it and read about the terrible slaughters of the first mechanical war and how thousands of men would march across no-man’s-land to be decimated by machine-gun fire and poison gas.

  Only Savage looked relaxed. He knew that he was going to get out of this alive. He knew the bullets and the gas and the bombs couldn’t hurt him.

  One of the men was gazing across at Savage. Ash looked at his face – just some nameless private. Forgotten in history. Was there anyone alive now who knew his name? What sort of life he’d led? What sort of death he’d had? Whether or not he’d made it out of the Normandy mud alive?

  If only I could slip into the picture, thought Ash. Stop Savage then, before he became too powerful.

  But that might only make it worse. He’d be changing Time himself then, and who knew what the effects would be? The further back you went, the bigger the ripples.

  He came to the desk and checked the drawers. Then he grinned.

  Got it.

  A notebook, the electronic variety. He ran his palm over it. There might be some useful info on it, and if Ashoka could bypass all this security then surely he’d have no problem hacking something like this. He put it in its plastic case and zipped it closed. Too big for his pocket, he tucked it inside his shirt. Ash closed the drawer, had a last look around to see if there was anything else of use – nope. He had what he wanted.

  He was out a moment later, the door clicking as he closed it behind him.

  He jumped as Parvati appeared in front of him. She was just a silhouette at the top of the stairs, but he knew it was her by her stance and her shape. Even in the darkness he could see the faint shimmer of her scales.

  “I’ve got Savage’s notebook.” He patted his chest as he approached her. “It could be useful. You find anything?”

  Parvati hissed and Ash stopped.

  “Parvati? What’s up?”

  Her front foot slid forward and her fingers flexed.

  Now, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ash noticed something different about the rakshasa princess. “What happened to your hair?”

  Her hair was always long, down to her waist and as glossy black as oil on water. Now it was cropped short and spiky.

  “Parvati?” Ash stepped nearer and reached out. “What’s wrong?”

  Her fist rammed into his jaw, propelling Ash into the wall. Stars blazed in his eyes. He blinked and dived as her boot swung towards his head. Her heel smashed the wall lamp, sprinkling Ash with glass.

  He blocked the next kick, but couldn’t stop the flurry of punches that came from all directions. It was as if Parvati had six arms. One blow rattled the teeth in his mouth and suddenly he was spitting blood.

  “Parvati!” he shouted. “Stop!” What the hell was going on? She had gone mad. But there wasn’t a chance to ask. Parvati reached over her shoulders and there was the ominous sound of steel against steel. Two curved blades shone in the darkness.

  He needed to level the battleground. Darkness was Parvati’s element. He stumbled backwards towards the patch of light in the corridor.

  “Parvati …”

  She swung the twin tulwar blades with mastery. A wall of lightning, blazing silver blurred about him and Ash ripped free his katar, barely deflecting one of the swords before it decapitated him. Sparks jumped as metal struck metal. Ash struck back, a feint to try to wrong-foot her, but Parvati saw through it and he received a cut along his arm for his pains.

  “Parvati, please …”

  Parvati stepped into the square of light. “My name is Rani.”

  Three crooked grooves crossed her face. Her left eye was blind and white, the tip of the upper lip raised in a sneer by the scar that ran from her temple down her cheek. Steel barbs chimed in her hair, tied to the brutal short locks. Her armour was a mixture of ancient and modern, her arms coiled with serpentine tattoos. A pair of daggers had been rammed into the white sash she wore around her slim waist, each with a cobra-styled hilt, matching the designs on her swords, their eyes glistening with emerald stones. She glared at Ash, her forked tongue flicking between her long fangs. Her face was framed by scales, giving her a greenish hue. This wasn’t the Parvati he knew.

  “Ash!”

  Parvati ran up the stairs. His Parvati. She stared at Ash and the girl he was fighting. Ashoka, huffing and puffing, clambered up behind her, carrying a satchel. His mouth dropped open.

  Two Parvatis. And Ash was obviously fighting the evil-twin version.

  That explains a lot. None of it good.

  Two Ashes. Two Parvatis. Two of everyone.

  Parvati flicked free her urumi. The four steel ribbons danced and lashed, eager tongues wanting blood.

  “Wait!” shouted Ash. This was Parvati, of this world. Maybe she could help them.

  But Parvati wasn’t listening. She pounced.

  Rani transformed. She spun between the steel whips, any one of them capable of slicing off a limb, one moment taking the form of a cobra, twisting in the air, then, as the four blades recoiled, landing on the ground, human again.

  Parvati couldn’t change that fast, nor with such precision.

  Rani spun her swords and came at Parvati. She sheared off one of her locks and Parvati flinched as the tip entered her shoulder. The urumi skated across Rani’s armour but did nothing more than scratch the black-lacquered steel.

  They weren’t going to stop. One would kill the other.

  Ash wasn’t going to let that happen. He charged in.

  He jabbed low with the katar, following with kicks and punches as Parvati swept her urumi blades in all directions.

  But Rani wove through their assault. Ever changing, often in the blink of an eye, she twisted and spun and struck, one second human, another cobra, sometimes a creature melding both. Her spine did things that should be impossible without crippling herself and her limbs were quadruple-jointed so attacks came from unbelievable angles and she could slip through even the strongest, bone-breaking locks and holds.

  But she couldn’t defeat them. She stepped back as Parvati and Ash merged their fighting into a single, seamless, blazing blitzkrieg.

  Ash, panting and sweaty, stood beside Parvati as she shook the urumi, ready for another attack.

  “You can’t win,” Ash said. “Put down your weapon and let’s just talk. That’s all.” He bent down, opening his hand. “Look, I’ll go first.” He rested the katar on the floor. “See?”

  Rani smiled crookedly. “Stupid.”

  The tulwar flashed at Ash’s unprotected neck. She transformed, her arm stretching out an extra metre. Ash didn’t even flinch before Parvati barged him out of the way. The blade sliced along her back and Ash heard the skin and muscle rip open. Blood splashed the wall. She was hurt.

  The front door crashed open downstairs.

  Then Ash heard the cackling howl. Jackie had come to the party.

  “Get Parvati out of here,” he said to Ashoka. “Now.”

  How many were there? Did it matter? He could barely hold Rani at bay. She smiled and it was an ugly thing; the moon-shadow made her look gaunt and turned her face into a death mask.

  The house echoed with the beat
of boots. They were going to be trapped. Ashoka helped Parvati up while Ash stood between them and Rani. But the cobra girl wasn’t interested in attacking, she was just waiting for reinforcements.

  Ashoka’s gaze darted from one end of the corridor to the other. “They’re coming up the staircase. There’s no way out.”

  Ash nudged them back, his attention never wavering from Rani or her two swords, which she twirled in slow, supple circles. “The skylight.”

  “How am I going to get up there?” asked Ashoka in a panic.

  “Just think!” He really was useless. “Climb on that table.”

  Ashoka muttered something and knocked a vase off a small coffee table. He dragged it into the spot right under the skylight.

  The howling rose in pitch and the air quivered with Jackie’s giggling delight, accompanied by a chorus of other snarling beasts and who knew what else.

  The glass shattered. He dared not take his eyes off Rani, but heard Ashoka huff and puff as he clambered up on the table, which creaked ominously. What a bloody farce. The lump of lard was going to break the table. Ash would have been out and gone by now. “Any time today would be good.”

  “I’m doing my best!”

  Ash grunted again and then the roof creaked as a weight rested upon it. Ashoka was up.

  Just at that moment Jackie appeared. Her mane shook with excitement and her face was a hideous amalgam of human and jackal, a long snout dominating it and each fang dripping with spittle. Her amber eyes shone hungrily.

  Parvati groaned as she slithered up on to the roof, Ashoka pulling her from above. “Come on, Ash.”

  “You get going. I’ll catch up once I’ve dealt with this lot.” Wow, that sounded almost confident.

  Four more men ran up behind Jackie, pausing on the stairs. A couple of heavy-shouldered dog-demons – thick necks and blunt noses and small feral eyes. Two more rats, each carrying a pistol, those old-fashioned flintlock things with wide barrels.

  “Come on, Ash,” urged Parvati.

  He glanced up.

  She stretched out towards him, sweat covering her face and her scales shimmering nervously. A trickle of blood ran down her arm, dripping from her fingers. “Come on!”

  Ash looked up at her, then, reaching into his shirt, he slapped the notebook into her hand. “Go!”

  And then she was gone, and Ash charged.

  His attack took Rani by surprise. She ducked his swipe but not his knee as it slammed into her belly. Ash tripped over her foot, but rolled past and then was swamped by the musky stench of Jackie’s fur. The jackal rakshasa screamed as she sank her claws into his shoulder.

  Ash tried to heave his katar into the monster’s face, but someone grabbed his arm. He roared and kicked as bodies flew at him, weighing him down by sheer numbers. A bullet whistled and more glass smashed.

  Once he’d have carved through this lot in seconds. Once, when he’d been a master of death. Now he took punches and blows and couldn’t see for the blood in his eyes.

  Winning didn’t matter. Ash headbutted one of the beasts. He just needed to keep them busy.

  Feet scurried above him, one light and graceful, the other lumbering and uneven. Parvati and Ashoka were getting away.

  A fist came out of the bundle and almost took his head off. Ash braced himself, wobbled, then one more dog charged him and they all – Ash, Jackie, the rest – collapsed into a scrum. With Ash at the bottom.

  Blood dripped from his cut lip and his shoulder ached from Jackie’s claws digging into the meat.

  Buried under a pile of demons, Ash couldn’t move. His face was pressed against the floor and all he could see were feet.

  A dainty toe pushed against his cheek. “So you’re the Kali-aastra?” said Rani.

  “At your service.”

  The toe dug hard into the soft flesh under his eye. “I was expecting more – given the way Savage talks about you.”

  “Yeah, Savage is my number-one fan.”

  “Get him up.”

  They held him by the arms, legs and waist. They weren’t taking any risks. Jackie gripped his neck from behind, controlling him like a puppet so he had to face Rani.

  She looked so much like Parvati. The scars and the white, blind left eye had surprised him, but these details were superficial, meaningless. This was Parvati. How could they be enemies?

  Rani slapped him hard. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He wasn’t going to have any teeth left soon. “Just being friendly.”

  “We are not friends. Savage told me all about you. How you want to destroy the rakshasa nation.”

  “Some of my best friends are rakshasas.”

  Rani glanced at the skylight, then spat. “That girl, Parvati? A traitor to her people. Can she do what I do? Not any more. She has allowed her human side to make her weak. She refuses to acknowledge what she is. A demon. The daughter of Ravana.”

  Was that it? Rani had embraced her supernatural heritage. All these things she could do, change in an eye-blink, fight so far beyond human ability, all because she had full access to her demonic powers, powers Parvati had been denying herself.

  Now it seemed obvious. Parvati held back. She’d done it for so long it had become natural.

  What other sacrifices had Parvati made to try to be human?

  Ash followed Rani’s gaze to the broken skylight. “At least they got away.”

  Rani laughed. The sound could have cut stone. This was how a demon queen should laugh: without pity or joy. It was as cruel as winter. “There is an English saying about out of a frying pan and into a fire, yes? I prefer from the fangs of a cobra into the jaws of a crocodile.”

  Crocodile? What did she mean?

  There had been a crocodile. Along with Jackie and a vulture demon he’d been one of Savage’s henchmen. But he’d died. Ash had killed him.

  In another timeline.

  Oh no. Ash remembered.

  Jackie sniggered and her breath was rank on his skin. “You killed my closest friend, but that was in another world, boy.” Her claws dug into his neck. “He’s been dying to meet you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ashoka hauled Parvati up through the hole in the roof. He heard Ash’s roars and thumps and cries. Maybe his double could win, but they couldn’t risk hanging about. He looked across the snow-layered roof. There was a flattish path between the chimneys. “Come on, Parvati.” He took her hand.

  “We need to help him!” cried Parvati.

  “Come on!” The roof creaked as he pulled her along.

  Parvati hesitated and it looked as if she was going to jump back down into the fray.

  Ashoka understood. He’d do anything for the people he loved too. That was why he was here. But Parvati was in no state to fight. And he couldn’t rescue his family alone. “You don’t stand a chance down there with that injury. And I need you, Parvati.”

  She didn’t say anything, but her lips tightened grimly and she joined him, hardly leaving footprints in the snow.

  They weaved their way between the chimneys, and as the snow fell Ashoka couldn’t tell which way they were going. He wiped the flakes off his face and tried to penetrate the white wall ahead of him.

  Streetlights glowed below, reflecting off the water in the basin. The quay sat alongside the rear of the warehouse, where the ships must once have docked and offloaded their spices and cottons from the East. The deep bay had canals branching off it and modern apartment blocks overlooked the shimmering waters. A flotilla of barges was moored up along the quayside.

  They were more than twenty metres above the ground and Ashoka walked, ever so carefully, to look down the side of the warehouse for a ladder or outside stairs. His legs turned to jelly as he saw the drop to the waters of the dock below.

  The wind picked up and the flakes swirled about him.

  “We need another way down,” he said.

  “Can’t we jump?” Parvati asked, joining him at the edge. “The water looks deep enough.”

&n
bsp; A flock of birds squawked and clustered above them, circling and swooping this way and that. Ashoka waved his arms. “Shoo!”

  Their wings were everywhere, and Ashoka wobbled as his heel went up against the low parapet wall. What was wrong with them?

  They broke away and flew off, still cawing angrily as they vanished into the sky. Ashoka spat out some feathers. “Yuck yuck yuck.”

  A deafening shriek shattered the night. The wind whooshed, hurling up a wave of snowflakes, and a black shape swooped down. Ashoka screamed as he glimpsed razor-sharp talons cutting through the air and the wings, the massive wings, beating and creating spinning eddies in the snow. A man’s face, dominated by a large hooked beak, glared at him. He was bald and a tuft of feathers encircled his scrawny neck. He shrieked again and dived towards Ashoka.

  It was impossible. Ashoka stared, a moment too long. He should have ducked, leaped aside, but he was transfixed. The man was like a vulture, a great big ugly one. The demon’s greedy pink eyes locked with his.

  The talons came straight for Ashoka, tearing at his chest, straight through his coat and jacket and shirt and skin. Ashoka stumbled back and his heel caught the very edge of the parapet. He flailed and reached for Parvati, but she was a hand’s breath too far away. Her eyes widened with horror and he tilted backwards.

  The demon vulture’s wing brushed his face.

  Ashoka grabbed it.

  Chapter Ten

  Vulture man cartwheeled as Ashoka held on to one wing. The demon screamed so loudly Ashoka thought his ears would bleed, and the world turned over and over. Talons swished at his face, then dug into his arm. Ashoka let go.

  He smashed into the black, freezing water. Straight down he went, the cold clutching his lungs. Arms and legs flapped, as bubbles rose all around him. Faintly he heard another splash and, in the dim light cast by the streetlights he saw Parvati’s slim figure pierce the water. She turned to him, gestured to the far side, and kicked off.

  At least down here he was safe from the vulture guy. That was the freakiest thing he’d ever seen.