Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (4 page)

“Keeping you safe,” said Ash. “We’ve a friend—”

“Acquaintance really,” interrupted Parvati.

“… Who knows the situation. We’ve been staying with her for the last month. She’s helping.”

Ashoka turned up the collar of his coat to cut out the chill wind. The only place open was a kebab shop and the only people around were tramps loitering under the bus shelters.

Everywhere they looked were boarded-up shops. A man stood guard outside an off-licence, a snarling pit bull tugging at its leash. The car parked opposite had smashed windows and no wheels.

“Nice neighbourhood,” said Ashoka.

Ash pointed to a shop on the corner.

Elaine’s Bazaar.

It was a junk shop. Steel grilles covered the windows, not that what was in there looked worth stealing. Old dust-covered VCRs, a kid’s bike, mannequins wearing last century’s clothes, and cheap Formica furniture. The paint on the overhead sign, three golden balls, was turning green and flaky with age. The shop had an apartment above it and lights shone within. Ash got out some keys.

“This is your secret hideout?” asked Ashoka. He peered through the shop window. Was that a stuffed bear inside? “It’s not exactly Wayne Manor, is it?”

“And you’re not exactly Bruce Wayne,” said Ash.

The interior smelt musty. The stuffed bear wore a feather boa and a top hat. Clothes spilled out of battered trunks. A small door behind the counter opened up and a light came on.

An old woman wearing a faded tartan dressing gown paused to look at them. Her wild grey hair stuck out in all directions and she was scrawny, her skin wrinkled and thick on her bones. A cigarette glowed between her yellow teeth. “Where are the others?” she said.

“Captured,” said Ash. He took the cigarette out of the woman’s thin fingers. “And I’ve spoken to you about these already.”

Parvati interrupted. “Ashoka, meet Elaine. She’ll be your host for the next few days.”

Elaine peered at Ashoka. She didn’t look impressed, but then neither was Ashoka. Wasn’t there somewhere better than this dump? Like a cardboard box under a bridge?

“Were you followed?” asked the old woman.

“Please,” said Parvati. “Give us some credit.”

Elaine pulled the dressing gown up to her neck and double-locked the door behind them. “I just don’t want any unexpected guests, that’s all. Not safe for an old woman like me, living all alone.”

Ashoka felt exhausted. The last few hours, all the panic and fear and running, were catching up with him. He wasn’t used to this. “This is not my life,” he muttered.

“It is now,” said Ash, not too unkindly. “I’m sorry.”

Elaine turned around and started back upstairs. “I’ve a room for you, boy.”

The apartment upstairs wasn’t exactly flash, but, unlike the shop below, it was at least neat and tidy. There were some photos on the wall, a frame with Arabic calligraphy and a painting of a scene from the Bible. He spotted a statuette of Ganesha on the mantelpiece and a menorah beside it. Sticks of incense smouldered in a narrow brass fluted pot, the sweet smell mixing with coffee and nicotine. Ashoka picked the sofa with a Rajasthani cover and fell on it.

He’d never been so beaten in his entire life. Every part of him was on the verge of collapse.

Rakshasas. Time travellers. Kidnappings. And Savage. Was it true? Was Savage behind all this? It was too much to take in.

He put his face in his hands.

Ash pulled off his coat and dropped his katar on the dining table. “You’ve had a busy day. Get some sleep and we’ll go over everything in the morning.”

“How can you be so calm?” Ashoka snapped. “They’ve got my family.”

Parvati smiled at him. “Please, Ashoka, we’re here to help you. Get some rest.”

Elaine came through with a bundle of linen, a pillow and a duvet. “Here you go.”

He wasn’t happy, but Ashoka took the pile off the old woman. She directed him through a doorway and Ashoka entered a small room with a single brass bed and table. There was a window, but it faced a brick wall. He dropped the duvet over the mattress and dropped himself on to the duvet.

He was asleep before he hit the bed.

P
arvati stood at the door, listening. “He’s asleep.”

Ash turned back to the dining room as Elaine put a mug down. She shook out another cigarette, then caught the look in his eye and put it back with a forlorn sigh. “Well, what next, boss?” she said.

“A shower.” Ash sniffed his clothing. “I stink of rat-demon.” There were flecks of blood on his sleeves. “Then we talk.”

He entered Elaine’s bathroom and dumped his clothes on the cold tiles. The pipes rattled as he turned the hot tap full on. The shower head gurgled, then steaming hot water blasted out. He put his head under and let it burn him.

The water turned pink and Ash watched it swirl around the plughole.

Calm?
Ashoka thought he was calm? Couldn’t he see how terrified he was?

Ash felt along his chest, from the smooth skin, taut across his muscles, to a ridge on his solar plexus. To the scar.

He glanced down at his thumb. There was a small cut. Last summer a sliver of metal had entered, kicking off his transformation from schoolboy to master of the arts of death. Servant of the goddess Kali. Her divine weapon.

The Kali-aastra.

He’d acquired superhuman strength and reflexes and even mastered Marma Adi, the ability to kill with a touch. He’d even gained the ability to glimpse the future, as his patron goddess was also the mistress of Time.

But all that power had gone the moment he’d jumped timelines.

It was as if he was half sleeping. Everything was slow, dull, colourless, compared to how he’d felt as the Kali-aastra. Had the jump to Ashoka’s universe drained him of all his power?

He shouldn’t be here. It had to be because of the Kali-aastra. Somehow it had protected him from the Time Spell, but in doing so burnt out his powers.

He needed to find a way to awaken them again. He needed a Great Death because that was what Kali craved. By killing for Kali, Ash gained more power.

He’d slain those rat-demons though and nothing had happened. He’d not felt even the slightest trickle of supernatural energy.

Perhaps their deaths weren’t great? Perhaps Kali wanted more death before she granted him anything? The last time, he’d had to sacrifice himself. How was he going to top that?

And in the meantime, without the power of Kali, what was he? Just a normal boy all over again, trying to defeat the greatest evil the universe has ever known.

And Ashoka thought he was calm?

He made a fist, looked at the water run and steam over the hard knuckles. Normal? Maybe that wasn’t totally true. He’d seen Kali dance. He still knew all the moves she’d shown him. He could fight better than any man, but once he’d been able to tear down buildings with his hands, move faster than an eye-blink, kill with a touch. That was all gone. Physically he was in perfect condition, perfect
human
condition. But that wasn’t going to be enough for what they faced. Not by a million miles.

Calm? He was so scared he wanted to puke.

He should tell Parvati. Why hadn’t he? He should have told her the instant he’d realised. Was it because he was afraid she’d think less of him for being ‘merely’ human? Was it pride?

He had to tell her. And he would.

When the time was right.

Ash spun the tap closed, dried and slipped on fresh clothes. Barefoot, he re-entered the main room and sat down on the sofa, facing Elaine and Parvati at the dining table. He ached everywhere.

Parvati looked up from her tea, frowning. “You all right?”

Ash forced a casual smile. “Fine.”

Elaine had her laptop open and a bundle of papers waiting for him on the dining table. She patted them. “All the information I could get on your boy.” She gazed at the screen. “Lord Alexander Savage. Multi-millionaire. Philanthropist. One of life’s good guys. And very easy on the eye.”

Ash looked at the photo. It was Savage with the US president, collecting some humanitarian award. The man was tall, handsome, with that floppy blonde hair common among dashing aristocrats, and wearing a white suit designed in Savile Row and sunglasses, like a Hollywood superstar. Even though the other guy in the photo was the most powerful man on the planet, there was something about Savage that just overshadowed all else. The president looked small and insignificant next to him.

Elaine had been working since December on finding out all she could, and they had built a timeline out of what they knew. Elaine was an occultist, a woman Ash had known in his own world, the only person they could go to who would believe them. The three of them had holed up in her apartment for the last month, scouring through the web, newspapers and Elaine’s own private library, digging up and assembling the pieces of the jigsaw. They didn’t have it all, but a picture was emerging.

“Savage came on to the scene ten years ago,” said Elaine. “He bought the old maharajah’s palace down from Varanasi and immediately started excavating the local area.”

“He was looking for the Kali-aastra,” said Ash. “It had been buried there.”

That’s where all the trouble had started, back in Ash’s timeline. Ash and his sister Lucky had been exploring the excavations. Ash had tumbled down a pit and ended up finding the golden arrowhead of Kali, the Kali-aastra, instead of Savage, a bit of Kali’s arrowhead embedding itself in his thumb.

Now that Savage could move through time it made sense that he’d have gone back into the past and made sure that he found the Kali-aastra first.

How can you defeat a guy who can travel in time? In Ash’s world Savage had been defeated, all but destroyed. Now he was the most important man on the planet.

Elaine nodded. “Reckon he found it pretty quick as the works didn’t last more than a month. He knew exactly where to look. It was at that point that he hired your uncle to oversee the dig, there and in Rajasthan.”

Parvati grimaced as she looked through the photos of a vast archaeological dig in the desert. “Where Ravana was imprisoned. Savage knew where he was, and now he had the means to free him.”

Elaine gave a low whistle. “Imagine – freeing the demon king himself. Savage plays for the highest stakes, doesn’t he?” She turned to Ash. “And in your timeline, you destroyed him?”

Ash nodded. “In my timeline it was me who found the arrow of Kali, not Savage. The one weapon in the universe that could kill the demon king. And it did.”

Parvati frowned. “But that was in your timeline. What do you think happened here?”

Ash continued. “Savage told me he never intended to allow Ravana to live. He just wanted to free him long enough to be granted immortality. Judging by the more recent photos, it looks as if he got his wish. Then I think he used the Kali-aastra to kill Ravana himself. Savage could not stand to have a rival.”

“Then what?” asked Parvati.

Elaine opened up the top folder. “Then Savage goes shopping. He’s spent the last decade turning the Savage Foundation into the biggest provider of medical and humanitarian aid in the world. It’s more or less wiped out childhood diseases. The rich countries pay for the medicines and Savage gives them to the poor ones for free. He’s got hospitals everywhere, even in the war zones no one else would dare enter. He could be the richest man in the world, but chooses to spend most of it on his charities. The Church wants to make him a saint, the Muslims consider him the Mahdi, the Buddhists say he’s a bodhisattva and the Hindus think he’s an avatar, a reincarnation of Vishnu. I think I’ve got a photo somewhere of him blessing the Pope. Or was it the Dalai Lama?”

“What’s Savage planning?” asked Ash.

“To make the world a better place?” suggested Elaine.

Parvati scoffed. “That’s what they all say. Every tyrant, every dictator in the world. Throughout history. They all promise a better world, but their utopias are always built with bones.” She drummed her fingertips and her long green nails clicked upon the wood. “I’ve seen men perish building the Great Wall. Watched children crushed under the marble they used to clad Rome. Slaves working in the Russian gulags, digging for diamonds in Africa, gold in the Americas. It’s all paid for in blood, Elaine. Every bit of it.”

“Your family, I mean
Ashoka’s
family, seem to have done pretty well out of it.” Elaine handed over a collection of cuttings. “Your uncle heads up the Savage Foundation’s Archaeological Institute, and your father’s business is booming, thanks to construction contracts from Savage. Why?”

Ash had thought long and hard about that. Savage had been like a fairy godfather to Ashoka’s family for the last decade. “He wanted them close. What better way to keep an eye on them? He must be worried Ashoka might somehow become the Eternal Warrior. He probably never expected me to turn up here.”

“It all changed on 12th December,” said Parvati. “That was the day Savage, in our universe, cast the Time Spell. It sent him back ten years to change the past. And Ash and I woke up in a different timeline – we just jumped sideways. I’d felt …
something
was happening a few days before. So I came straight over from India to here. I was on my way to Ash’s house when the Time Spell was cast. By the time I reached West Dulwich station the past had changed. I felt it happen.”

“Savage must have felt it too. He must have sensed our presence,” said Ash, “which is why he didn’t make a move against Ashoka and his family any earlier – because we hadn’t arrived yet. It’s only since we turned up on 12th December that he feels threatened.”

“So he sets his rakshasas on Ashoka to draw you out of hiding?” said Elaine.

“Exactly.”

“If the rest of this world changed, then why not you two?”

Parvati answered. “I had my father’s scrolls on sorcery for many centuries. I have studied some, though none to any great depth. I think, subconsciously, I knew enough about the magic of Time to make myself immune to the change. Ash is the Kali-aastra; Kali is the goddess of death and destruction, and Time. I believe she protected him.”

Ash shifted in his seat. “It’s only a theory.” He picked through the newspaper cuttings, trying to work out what changes Savage had made in the last ten years. Governments were different, the prime minister was an old friend of Savage’s, a board director at the Savage Foundation. He owed his entire career to Savage. No one would say a bad word against the aristocrat. Why should they? He had done only good.