by Al K. Line
My head was clear when I awoke. Most disconcerting. I expected to have the mother of all hangovers but it seemed like Japanese beer agreed with me a lot better than anything back home. Note to self—buy Japanese beer from now on.
What wasn't clear was where the hell I was.
It was dark and I guessed maybe I'd made it back to the hotel, even into bed. That would explain the reason why I was flat on my back. It wouldn't explain why I couldn't move anything apart from my head, though. I tried to get up but something was holding me down. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I became aware that there was a fire in the room and I wasn't totally horizontal. I was propped up against a hard board, angled so my upper body was slightly elevated, meaning I could see down the length of my body. Flames danced across my naked flesh... Naked flesh? What had I got up to?
To the right of my head was an empty ceramic bottle used for serving sake, but going by the smell it wasn't what it had contained. I knew that smell, familiar from spending so much time in Grandma's kitchen.
This was a potion, a simple thing designed to give you focus and ultra clarity. To dispel the fog of booze or indecision, to bring your thoughts into stark relief, make you be utterly in the moment. A potion to clear away any interference because of battered or bombarded neurons and force your mind to function properly. Someone had given it to me and I'd obviously drunk it. Maybe Japanese beer was the same as ours after all. Not to self—cancel the Japanese beer order idea.
It didn't explain why I had been given it or why I was tethered to the floor of a room, though. Some time later, light crept over the walls through slatted blinds. The dawn was arriving, the world carrying on regardless of what happened to stupid, drunken foreigners. The room remained rather dark but the heat was intense.
All my questions were answered soon enough as a man entered and nodded to me. He walked over to a length of rope with a hook on the end and hung up a leg of what looked like a young pig. The fat man took up his knife and I watched, mesmerized, as he expertly flayed the skin in long strips. He turned when satisfied that his blade was sharp; he pointed the tip at me and nodded again.
I was next.
An Anatomy Lesson
I didn't want to watch but couldn't turn away either. I think it's in our blood to be fascinated by the morbid, and this was about as morbid as you can get.
The fat Japanese, skin sweaty and oozing sour sake, stood over me where I lay on the floor. The grotesque creature wore a dirty loincloth, thick material knotted around his groin, right up the crack of his backside like a sumo wrestler but twice as intimidating because of the wicked knife he held. He smiled an evil grin and sank down on his haunches. He was covered head-to-toe in old ink, much of it faded and blurred, the demon faces rippling while his fat flesh wobbled as he began his work.
He started on my left thigh.
I tried not to scream but that was just being stupid, so I screamed and I screamed some more. I don't know how long it went on for, that first taste of the skinner's knife, as I blacked out countless times, only to come to with his sweat-soaked face leering at me and nodding, knowing how much it hurt. Enjoying it, telling me now I was awake that the work would continue.
Over and over and over again, each slice worse than the last, each smile nastier when he slapped me back to consciousness, grinning as the sweat from his bloated face fell into my eyes, stinging and humiliating me.
The room was smoky and cloying, the fire burning bright then low then bright again as my torturer added more wood to keep himself hot in the spartan room. He clearly had a sense of ritual to his work. Almost naked, drenched and stinking as he rested between bouts of intense concentration, he swigged from a never-ending supply of sake. Sometimes he paused to eat, or just squatted by the fire humming to himself, rocking back and forth, huge belly overhanging, before he turned the moment he somehow knew I was conscious and shifted over close to resume his work.
Hour after hour it went on, my upper thigh eventually peeled, looking like an orange when the skin won't come away easily and you end up making a mess of it and it's all mushy underneath. But this pulp, this oozing and bloody mess, it was no orange. It was my thigh. The skin was gone from knee to groin, peeled in a thin layer, the strips arranged carefully on a low table close by, aligned beside me so I could see.
The fat man stood. I watched his flesh bounce as he patted folds of it with a towel, soaking up stale sweat infused with the smoke from the hot fire. It was dark outside now, the only light the red of the fire, crackling and spitting, making me overheat, but he fed the flames and the temperature increased. It was like a sauna, and I laughed as I thought about the time I'd got trapped in one many years ago, freaking as I was on a job and had a suit on, thinking it was the end of the world while I panicked and shook the door, unable to get it open until I remembered I had magic at my fingertips and could get myself out of there in seconds.
Magic wouldn't save me now, couldn't. I was trapped, bound to the floor with stakes and rope and magic wards too powerful for me to break.
Eternity filled with pain was my world as the man grunted and held my gaze while sharpening his special knife, a terrible curved blade specifically made for the skinning of human beings. Beautiful in its purity of purpose, the handle carved and the blade gleaming, keen to continue the work it was forged to carry out.
He began on the other leg.
He must have found his stride, because he worked diligently without pause, humming to himself some tune I still have in my head now, unable to dispel it. But the words meant nothing when he would suddenly break out into song before returning to his humming. He lifted up a long strip, pride behind his eyes because he'd managed so much of my skin in one bloody length.
As with the other pieces, he cleaned it gently, carefully, as if he were washing a lover, and placed it beside the rest.
Was he going to do my whole body, stripping me of my ink? Was that what this was about? Not just torture, but to take away my magic, steal the essence, the power held within my tattoos that allowed me to use magic so well? The way I could channel it and change it, direct it with my will thanks to how it enhanced the abilities I already had?
Would I be laid out flat on his table, a map of my body with my tattoos telling the story of my life? Would he use it to do something worse? No, nothing could be worse than being flayed alive by the fat man.
Nothing.
I was wrong.
Meeting the Enemy
On and on it went. The later the hour, the hotter it got, and the sweatier the man became. It was as though he sank deeper into the skinner's trance, his craft improving as time passed in a dream-haze of terror. Bottle after bottle of sake, the sound of the blade being sharpened, steel against stone, him pouring a little of his drink onto the stone to ease his practiced strokes. A sound that will haunt me until the day I die, as I knew what it meant—more pain, more skin lost.
And me, tied there, unable to use magic, just a Regular human being, watching with sick incredulity that it was even possible as my body was laid out bare. The flayed man, two of me now. One screaming, crying, amazed so much pain was even possible, the other me silent, flat, arranged neatly on the table. Getting bigger.
This was why the table was so long, why it was so out of proportion, it was to contain all of me, piece after carefully stripped piece, cleaned with a loving hand. Would he sew it all together, make a suit of me? Would I be dead long before that happened? I hoped so.
That was all I wanted through the endless hours. To be dead, gone. I should have let the Council carry out their sentence. That way I would never have even existed, and none of this would have happened. Nothing ever would have.
Utter, final exhaustion came to me at some point and I couldn't remain awake no matter the pain, the slaps, the angry shouts and the threats. What could he threaten me with? There was nothing left to fear, this was as terrifying as it could possibly get. And even that waned as acceptance sank in. My mind was unable to cope with the horror, refu
sed the fat man's orders. It simply shut down to try to escape the surreal ignominy, go somewhere black and empty.
Oblivion.
Maybe I slept for an hour, maybe it was for a day. Time was lost to me when I finally came to, hurting like I had never hurt in my life, yet still clinging to a desperate hope it had all been a dream.
No such luck.
There was no fat man, just me, and the other me, now almost two legs worth of skin displayed like the most terrible of shrouds. He'd been busy, forging ahead while I was unconscious.
Then she entered the room.
Kimiko Cocchi.
Things got a whole lot worse after that.
*
I was a boy when I met Kimiko, yet even then she was already unbelievably old. It was during the First World War when everything was in chaos and we all thought the insanity had reached a crescendo. It hadn't. The war raged, my parents were killed, and I lost the plot.
I was Trouble—yeah, capital T.
As the madness around the world escalated, so did my own form of war. I raged against the world, against Grandma, against whoever killed my mother and father, and I raged against them for leaving me alone as a fourteen-year-old one year after the war started. Nobody imagined it would ever be repeated, certainly not on a grander scale just over two decades later, but it goes to show just how insane human beings are.
At the time, I was too caught up in my own misery to think much about anything apart from myself, and I've long ago forgiven that boy for his actions and the way he behaved—I was a grieving child.
Luckily, I had Rikka and Grandma, and he took me under his wing and taught me all about magic. I also met Kimiko Cocchi. I don't even recall exactly how, probably something to do with tagging along with Rikka while he went about his business, climbing the Hidden ladder, heading straight to the top. We were close, him and I, and I guess I saw him as a replacement for my father. Actually, I know I did, I always have.
All I remember about her is that I was awed by her beauty. I hadn't met many vampires then, and was new to their ways and the aura they have about them. She was like something from another world. Slender, clearly powerful of body and spirit, beautiful beyond belief, and utterly terrifying. She smiled at me, hardly taking notice, and I felt strange things happen in my belly. I never knew until then that such exquisite and mesmerizing women existed.
She was right out of a young boy's fantasies. Foreign and mysterious, wearing strange clothes—a silk kimono with a red sash around her narrow waist—chest high and prominent, the stuff of dreams. Her voice was as soft as her kimono, like a lullaby, and every movement she made was a snapshot of perfection.
I neither remember where we were nor what was said, just that the conversation was brief and guarded, thinking nothing of it apart from how exotic she was and that it was very dangerous to ever be in the presence of a vampire. But Rikka dealt with all manner of Hidden—just part of the world we were in.
I never saw her again, but I heard the tales. Heard how she rose to prominence, but that was her world, not mine. My world was Grandma, Rikka, and my quest for mastery of the Empty.
Look where that had got me.
I stared up at the beautiful face of this woman, who knew how old—nobody did—like the intervening years since we last met had been nothing but a dream, her waiting for me to seek her out, yet discouragingly unconcerned by this foreign gnat, this child in comparison to her. A woman that ruled the hardest and most dangerous of men in her country, was an immortal vampire and a sorceress, controlled the Yakuza, politicians, businesses large and small.
And it was all my fault.
If I hadn't craved magic, my parents would never have been killed. I was to blame.
I held her gaze as she stared down at me coldly, no attempt to glamor me—what would be the point?
Something clicked inside of me, though. I wasn't to blame, I was a kid that wanted to unravel the secrets of the Universe. I didn't kill them, she and Rikka did.
Rikka had paid, and I'd be damned if I would let her get away with it.
The having no flesh on my legs thing was a bit of an issue, though.
Vampire Scorn
"So, this is the infamous Faz Pound. Why do they call you Black Spark?" Kimiko tilted her head to the side, glossy black hair sliding on her silk Kimono, bringing back memories of so long ago.
"Let me up and I'll show you."
"Haha, silly little boy. Did you really think you could come to my country and kill me?"
"I was willing to give it a go."
"Not doing very well, are you?" She studied my legs with dispassion, as if she'd seen it a thousand times before. Maybe she had, or maybe she'd seen it ten-thousand times over her long life. Kimiko turned to the table and inspected the flesh, smiling, pleased with the progress so far. "That will be such a prize when it's finished. You do know there's a long way to go yet, don't you?"
I swallowed, throat dry, and tried to keep my voice steady, knowing I'd sounded like I was already beaten. "I figured as much, but your fat man is getting a little tired. Maybe give him the year off, I won't mind."
"Oh, haha, you are such a funny man. You have caused me some inconvenience, Faz, and—"
"Don't call me that! You don't get the right to use my given name. Spark, you call me Spark."
"I will call you whatever I damn well please," Kimiko snapped, clear features distorted by anger at my interruption. "As I was saying, Faz, you have caused me some trouble since your arrival. Even before, with your killing of that terrible disappointment of a man, Rikka. We had an arrangement and you ruined it."
"Sorry to be such an inconvenience to your plans, but I have plans of my own." I relaxed my head against the board, neck hurting from craning against my bonds. I also realized I needed to pee real bad. Had I done it through the torture? Probably. I was back to full awareness now, though, the pain making it hard to focus but conscious enough to understand that warm urine on flayed skin would not be the nicest of experiences.
I clenched anything I could think of and tried to send the searing torment far away. This wasn't my hurt, it was abstract, not even really there. It totally didn't work. It seared, scalded, gnawed and tormented like all kinds of hell.
Kimiko waved away the problems I'd caused with a slender, perfectly manicured hand. The light glinted off her pearly nails, so perfect and smooth. I could smell her perfume even above the sour smells in the room, making my head swim, too out-of-place amid the stench of humiliation and the foul, fat man.
"It doesn't matter. A few dead Yakuza is of no importance. Although," she said with a frown, "you did cost me some considerable inconvenience, not to mention money when you ruined my counting house."
"It's still all there, just under the rubble."
"I'm afraid not. The fox got a little carried away after you left, tried to break his bonds, and the place burned down, along with several other properties."
"Oh, that's a shame. I liked him."
"You are an annoyance, but no more. I have plans for your flesh, Faz, truly wonderful plans. The books your boss gave me over the years have been a revelation. Such wondrous magic I can now harness, such amazing things I can do. And your skin will be a delight to use to increase my power."
"I ain't dead yet," I managed, before the room swam and everything went black.
It was becoming a habit, but the world had nothing I wanted to see any longer, so I embraced the darkness and swam through the nothingness, empty of everything, even caring. I came back to reality with my face stinging, but not half as much as my legs. Body doing what it wanted without permission, I was urinating, and in my understandably confused state I thought for a moment it must be hitting my face. Nope, that was Kimiko, it was the piss that was causing the real pain.
How to describe the pain? I don't think I can even begin. It's enough to say I was pissing down my flayed legs while a vicious vampire slapped me about the head so I'd know the shame. That about sums it up, really. Uric
acid and muscle stripped bare—not a good mix.
"What?" I managed to croak as Kimiko slapped me again.
"Just wanted to say goodbye." She smiled the sweetest of smiles. I just stared at her blankly.
"Never." I don't know where it came from, that single word, but I knew I would never give in. Not like this. Not here, not naked in a stinking room. No way was I going out when it was just me and the fat man. And the knife.
"That's the spirit," she said, amused by my refusal to accept what was clearly inevitable. She barked something in Japanese, coming as a shock as her English was so flawless I'd forgotten for a moment what language we'd been speaking in.
The fat man came in, wiping his face, greasy smears across his lips and chin from whatever he'd been snacking on.
I hoped it hadn't been me.
She snapped out more orders, all business, no question who was in charge. He was meek and kept his head bowed, showing respect, never interrupting, just nodding, looking up when she said something, maybe asking him if he understood.
She kept pointing at me, at parts of me, possibly reminding him to be careful of certain areas of ink as he worked. It was as if I was just some kind of damn chair being stripped down, saving the precious covering for another purpose.
The obese skinner's breathing was heavy and loud, his sweat soaking him as he mumbled answers to his boss. She said a final few words to him then turned her attention back to me.
"Goodbye, Black Spark. We won't be seeing each other again."
"I'll haunt you for eternity. This isn't goodbye."
"Oh, haha. Ghosts don't scare me. Have you learned nothing? It is only the living that are truly terrifying." With that, she left.
She'd got that right. I was out of my mind with fear, and we weren't even halfway done yet.
Plans of Madmen
The fat man added wood to the fire, the heat now almost suffocating. But this was his territory, his ritual, so I said nothing. Haha, what could I say? It was the least of my worries, anyway.