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, th
ere 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.
"Charlie?" said a voice. It was Jack. "Charlie, what's happened?"
For a moment, Charlie didn't answer. His eyes, though red from crying, were shining strangely. He blinked, looked at Jack, and smiled.
"It's all right, mate," he said slowly. "It's all going to be all right."
Esme — who'd been holding Nick's wrist — looked at Raymond. There was a long silence. Then she said, "He's dead."
* * * * *
"Three o'clock tomorrow," barked Raymond to Charlie, as he bundled the boys through the door.
"But what about that guy?" spluttered Jack. "He's, you know... dead!"
"Not your problem, mate," said Raymond. "Three o'clock sharp," he emphasized, still looking at Charlie.
"What about me?" asked Jack, before the door closed.
Raymond paused.
"I don't know," he said, his eyes narrowing at Jack. "What about you?"
"He comes or I don't," said Charlie.
"Suit yourself." The big man turned and was gone.
Jack and Charlie stared at the door for a moment, even though it had slammed shut. They looked at each other, then they looked out at the street.
The sky was empty of clouds, and the afternoon sun was still hot and strong, making the pavement blaze uncomfortably. Traffic was heavy in both directions, and another long snake of sweaty-looking tourists was crawling its way west on the opposite side of the street.
Charlie turned to Jack. "It's too hot for the Tube," he said. "Let's get a bus."
"Oh," said Jack, surprised. "Er, okay." They set off, and soon they were safely wobbling their way north, back toward where they both lived.
They were sitting on the top deck of the bus, at the front, where they always sat, like everything was perfectly normal. It was almost as if — Jack thought — the whole episode had been some kind of dream. When he found that he couldn't stand it any longer, Jack spoke.
"Charlie, are you all right?"
"Huh?" said Charlie, drumming his hands on his knees.
"Are you all right? " Jack repeated.
"I'm fine, mate!" said Charlie. "Better than fine: I'm terrific. Fantastic. Amazing!"
Jack looked at him. Charlie's eyes were shining: his grin was huge. He certainly looked well enough.
"What about your hands?" Jack asked.
"What? Oh," said Charlie. He stopped drumming and showed them to Jack. "Look, they're fine too. Not a scratch!"
It was true. Charlie's hands looked perfectly normal; there were no outward signs of his ordeal. There was no sign in Charlie of anything that had happened, in fact, from the scene in the restaurant to... whatever the hell had just taken place upstairs at the theater.
"So," said Jack. "Let me get this straight."
Charlie looked at him and grinned some more.
"Demons are real," Jack started.
"Apparently," said Charlie.
"And there's one on the loose. A bad one."
"'Liquid darkness, bent on destruction,' yadda yadda yadda," said Charlie.
"And you," said Jack, grinning back despite himself, "are now the new leader of an ancient brotherhood whose sole sworn purpose is to fight this... 'scourge' — and bring it back under control."
"That's about the size of it, yeah," said Charlie. His grin widened. "Pretty cool, huh?"
Jack was doing his best: really, he was, and Charlie's enthusiasm, as always, was infectious. But a large part of his brain just couldn't help having doubts, and he knew that he had to say something.
"What about that guy, though?" Jack asked. "The one who just, like, died right in front of us?"
Charlie's grin vanished. "Jack, don't get boring on me, all right?"
Stung to the quick, Jack closed his mouth and fell silent.
Being called boring — especially by Charlie — was Jack's Achilles heel. The idea that he was boring scared Jack, because secretly, he was worried it might be true. Jack admired Charlie's ability to throw himself into things. It was part of the reason they got on.
Perhaps seeing the effect that his words had had, Charlie smiled again.
"Mate, this is what we've been waiting for," he breathed. "The chance to have a real adventure! Don't you see? Heh," he added, chuckling to himself, "and what about that Esme, eh?"
"What about her?" asked Jack, as casually as he could.
"Come on, man," said Charlie. "You were there."
Jack squirmed for a second as Charlie grinned in his face, and finally admitted, "She's all right."
"All right?" Charlie echoed with disbelief. "She's better than all right, mate. She's gorgeous. And did you see the way she looked at me?"
Jack hadn't, but his lack of reply didn't seem to stop Charlie.
"Oh yes," Charlie pronounced sagely. "Very promising, I'd say."
There was a pause.
"So," said Jack, giving up trying to sort it all out in his head. "This 'power' they guy gave you. You're what, some kind of superhero now?"
"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Charlie gleefully.
"You going to start wearing your pants outside your trousers, then?" asked Jack. "Do you think we should get you a cape?"
"Tchah, right," said Charlie, looking out of the window again.
DARKNESS
People are used to seeing the homeless in the West End, and as the day passed and Jessica sat motionless in her circle, few people noticed her and none cared. That night, when the Scourge came to her for the second time, it just stood there at first, testing the protective ring of magic-charged tobacco and cigarette ends with long, wet, ink-black fingers.
"Do you believe in God, Jessica?" it asked.
Jessica had now been sitting cross-legged on the damp concrete walkway, without changing her position, for a full twenty four hours. She did not dignify this with a reply.
"I've met him, you know," the demon told her conversationally. "Your 'God.' He's rather different from how you imagine him, I should think. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing him again. I want to tell him exactly what I think of him."
Jessica didn't answer.
"It was clever of you to suspect Nick all this time," said the Scourge, unperturbed. "No one else guessed he would never complete the ritual to reimprison me. Even he thought he was strong enough to resist — right up until the end."
Surprised despite herself, Jessica looked up.
"Yes," the Scourge told her, "Nick's dead. And I have found a worthy vessel at last."
Jessica said nothing.
"He's perfect," said the demon. "Young, hotheaded, and with a pain and fury inside him that is most" — "invigorating. When the time comes for him to understand what I can offer him, there's no chance whatsoever he'll refuse me. You see, I'm not just going to make him into a god." It leaned closer. "I'm going to make him stronger than God."
The Scourge took a step toward her.
"I'm going to take your life, Jessica," it said. "I'm going to suck out your essence, to your last breath; I'm going to do the same to each of your little band until I've had
my satisfaction from every one of you. And then, then, with this boy as my puppet, I'm going to open the Fracture, and—"
"And what?" Jessica interrupted, making a face. "What is your 'sinister master plan to conquer the world,' exactly? I wish you'd tell me straight, instead of all this posing."
"My dear woman," said the Scourge slowly, "I may still be stuck here in this ludicrous little science project, but I assure you, my horizons are somewhat wider. When I go back to Hell I'm going to wake the Dragon — and the Dragon is going to destroy everything. Well?" it asked. "What do you think of that?"
"Would you be quiet, please?" said Jessica. "I'm trying to concentrate here."
The demon froze.
"It's started, Jessica," it told her quietly. "There's nothing anyone can do to prevent it."
Jessica just closed her eyes again.
* * * * *
Esme was far too angry to sleep — and whenever she couldn't sleep, she trained. At this moment, she was using her makiwara boards.
The makiwara boards were the only pieces of actual training equipment that Raymond had ever allowed her to own or use. Five solid oak blocks screwed to the wall in the shape of a cross at the far end of her training room, their purpose was brutally simple. With her fists, her knees, her elbows — with every striking point of her body from the top of her forehead to the backs of her heels — she was hitting the blocks as fast, as hard, and as often as she could.
Students of the martial arts have used makiwara boards — or their equivalents — for centuries. They are used to toughen the skin, to deaden and finally kill the nerve endings in the student's striking points — to make the student's body as resilient, as hard, as the wood. The purpose of makiwara training is also mental: thanks to her years with the blocks, Esme had learned to control her pain and not let it affect her.
She had been hitting the boards for about an hour. Standing behind her, Raymond noted wearily that each of the five dark oak surfaces now carried a telltale dark smudge of red.
"Esme?"
She ignored him, continuing to smash at the boards.