Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness

by Sarwat Chadda

  Ashoka broke the surface and began to swim towards the other side. His clothing weighed him down, but the dock wasn’t that big. Still, he was panting in no time. He paused, treading water, took several big, deep breaths, and looked around.

  “Parvati?”

  She was already halfway across. In spite of her wound she cut through the water with smooth, easy strokes. It wouldn’t take her long to reach the ladder on the opposite side.

  Ash started off. Not easy doing the front crawl wearing winter woollies with a bow across his back, but each stroke took him another metre from vulture man and Jackie and Rani and danger. A horn sounded ahead and he saw Elaine’s van. She waved at him.

  Parvati was climbing out.

  Almost there.

  His arms felt as if they were made of lead. His stroke barely broke the surface. The dock wasn’t as small as he’d first thought.

  Parvati was shouting at him.

  What was she saying? Elaine now stood beside her and they were both signalling frantically.

  Was it Rani? Jackie? He looked around, but there was no one there.

  The water rippled behind him. A gull, sleeping on the surface, bobbed up and down. Looking startled, it raised a wing, squawked and vanished under the water, leaving a small puff of feathers.

  That’s not good.

  “Ashoka! Swim! Swim!” Parvati screamed.

  “Put your back into it, boy!” added Elaine.

  The water surged and a deep roar shook from under him. Ashoka pounded the water, splashing wildly. He had to get out. Parvati’s eyes were wide with terror. “FASTER!”

  The water peaked and troughed now as the huge submerged mass accelerated towards him.

  Ashoka gasped with each stroke. He beat the water with his arms and legs, every muscle burning with effort and fear. He had to get out!

  The growl broke the surface and he heard a huge splash of something heavy and long hitting the water.

  What was it? He dared not look. He just focused on the two women ahead. Parvati had clambered back down and was reaching for him. Elaine just stared past him, hand covering her mouth, her face utterly pale.

  Ashoka dragged up all his strength and heaved his way forward.

  There was another splash and then the water swelled under him. Something had dived back down. It was coming.

  “Ashoka! Take my hand!” Parvati leaned as far as she could, one arm hooked around a ladder rung, the other stretched out.

  Just a few more metres!

  The submerged roar shook his very bones. A long, huge black shape began to appear below him. Big, thick scales of dark, knobbly green caught the undulating light. Huge yellow reptilian eyes shone, and beneath them stretched a mouth filled with jagged fangs. Wider and wider it opened, enough to swallow a cow whole. A tail, thick as a tree truck, whipped the water behind it and it surged upwards.

  Ashoka thrashed forward.

  His hand caught Parvati’s. She pulled.

  Ashoka slapped against her as a creature erupted out of the water, showering them both. Its cry turned his blood to ice and all he could do was cling to Parvati, paralysed by terror. The air rushed around him as the monster rose and he was blinded as its shadow loomed over them both.

  This is it. Death.

  But if he was dead, he wanted to see what had killed him. He turned his head.

  A crocodile, tall as a house, climbed and climbed, water cascading from its open mouth and down its gigantic body. It smashed the water with its tail and towered over them, even over Elaine and her van. The scales looked thicker than his hand and the teeth would crush his skull with ease. A few feathers clung to its jaw.

  It looked down at him. The yellow eyes hungered, shining with pure, immortal hate.

  “Move!” screamed Parvati.

  He did. His hands slipped on the rungs, but he managed to scramble up. Ashoka threw himself off across the ground as the giant crocodile crashed down, tearing the ladder out of the wall. The steel crumbled like wire.

  Elaine was already revving the van.

  Parvati pulled him upwards and Ashoka stumbled on to the tarmac. Oh God, he’d never been so pleased to be on land. He wanted to kiss it.

  The giant monster fell back into the water, throwing up a wave over them all. The tail stood out for a second before it too disappeared.

  In the distance, in front of Savage’s warehouse, was Rani. She stood there surrounded by her rakshasas. Ash was nowhere to be seen. What have they done to him? wondered Ashoka.

  Rani raised her sword. A salute? A threat? Who knew?

  Ashoka fell into the rear of the van. Gears shrieked and a sudden cloud of black fumes coughed out of the exhaust. Parvati slammed the doors and collapsed beside him. They’d escaped.

  “Oh God,” gasped Ashoka. “What was that?”

  It took Parvati a few seconds to get enough breath back to reply. “The vulture was Jat, the crocodile Mayar.”

  “He really doesn’t like me, does he?”

  “You killed them both, back in my timeline. Mayar’s death was spectacularly unpleasant.” She groaned as she got up, then looked him over. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Ashoka coughed out some Thames water. He wasn’t wounded, but was too exhausted to move. He lay there, soaked through and shivering. “But I have wet myself.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Just patch me up and let me go,” snapped Parvati as she lay on the lounge floor, Elaine kneeling over her stitching up the long cut down her back.

  “Stop fussing. It’s not my fault you can’t lie still,” said the old woman.

  “Ash needs me.”

  “Ash can look after himself.”

  Parvati winced as the needle went back in.

  Ashoka tried not to watch. It was pretty gross. Blood oozed over the scales shivering across her skin.

  He turned back to his own job – drying out the notebook Ash had nicked from Savage’s house. Despite its protective casing it had still had a dip in the water and so he’d removed the cover and stood with a hairdryer, gently passing it over the exposed circuit boards.

  “At last,” said Parvati as Elaine snipped the end off the thread.

  The old woman sucked her teeth. “Just let me put a bandage over it.”

  “Forget it. We’ve wasted enough time already.” Parvati pulled a shirt off the sofa and began buttoning up. “I lost my urumi. Got any?”

  “I’ll look.” Elaine rocked on her heels. “You need to take it easy. Not that you’re going to listen to a word I say.”

  “That’s right, I’m not.” Parvati glanced over to Ashoka. “You’ll stay with her.”

  “What about my family?” said Ashoka. “We had a deal.”

  “You had a deal with Ash, not with me,” Parvati replied. “I’m going to find him.”

  “Parvati, you can’t leave.”

  “Never presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, mortal.” She stood up, but only got three steps before she wobbled and Ashoka grabbed her. Their gaze met and she snatched her arm free. “I don’t need any help.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood and you’re injured. How do you think you can take on that crazy other you and all her demons? That’s assuming you can even find them.”

  Parvati scowled. “So I should waste my efforts on a fool’s errand, looking for your family?”

  “Ash thought so, yes.”

  “Ash has a sentimental streak. It’s got him into trouble before.” She sighed. “And your family were just bait for Ash. Now Savage has him, they’re just baggage. And Savage doesn’t hang on to baggage.”

  Ashoka froze. “What are you saying?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No, they’re not.” He couldn’t believe that, not for a second.

  “Ashoka—”

  “They are not dead,” he insisted. “Not even Savage would allow that. He knows them.”

  “You have no idea wh
at Savage is capable of. I’m sorry.”

  Ashoka threw down the hairdryer and switched on the notebook. It was the only clue they had. There could be something in there about Lucks and his parents.

  “What are you hoping to find?” asked Parvati.

  The notebook hummed. Thank God. The dip in the dock hadn’t damaged it.

  “Information. Emails. Anything.” The screen glowed to life. It turned blue and a password request popped up.

  Ashoka felt Parvati put her hand on his shoulder as she leaned in to look at the screen. “You have a way around that?”

  “Yeah.” He took a data cable from the table and slid Elaine’s laptop up against it. The screen still showed his dad’s security site and he connected the two computers together. “Now, this is really illegal, but you can’t create a security system without knowing how to test it to breaking point.”

  “Hacking, right?”

  Ashoka activated the burglar icon on the laptop and suddenly the screen rolled into an endless series of letters and numbers. “Right.”

  “How come Ash doesn’t think like you?” said Parvati. She sounded almost impressed.

  “Too busy fighting bad guys, I suppose.”

  A Microsoft Outlook window opened up. Ashoka grinned as he scanned the emails. “We are in.”

  Parvati dragged up a chair beside him. Both stared intently at the screen as Ashoka opened up email after email.

  The correspondence was mostly between Rani and Savage. Suddenly a lot of things made more sense. Savage had discovered Ash and Parvati were here on 13 December, the day after he’d cast the spell back in his original timeline. Jackie’s ambush of Ashoka and the kidnapping of his family had been a two-pronged attack. Savage had guessed, rightly, that Ash would be watching one or the other.

  But most exciting of all, the emails confirmed that Ashoka’s family were alive. At least they had been this morning. An email from Savage ordered Rani to have them delivered to a private airfield in Kent and flown out. It didn’t say to where.

  “We need to find them, right now.”

  Parvati gritted her teeth. “We should have stayed and rescued him.”

  “How? We were totally outnumbered and you were hurt. At least we can do something good; we have a lead. Ash would want us to do this. They’re his family too. Anyway, he’s the Kali-aastra. That’s like being Superman and Spider-Man and Batman combined, isn’t it? He’s a one-man superhero team. He doesn’t need us.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not.” She looked worried. “He’s changed. He’s been trying to hide it, but he’s not the way he was. We should have beaten Rani.”

  “How could you beat someone like her?”

  “I saw Ash go face to face with Ravana himself. Believe me, we should have won. But he’s slower, weaker than he used to be. His powers are fading. But I don’t know why, and he’s too proud to tell me.”

  “Oh, this is just great. I was kind of counting on him swooping in and saving the day!”

  “The Kali-aastra’s not feeding him the power it should do,” said Parvati. “It’s not awakened.”

  Ashoka shook his head. He wasn’t getting any of this. “Awakened?”

  “All aastras need to be awakened before they are of any real use. Each aastra requires a special spell or sacrifice to activate it. Once activated, it can be used to its full capacity. Think about it this way – what use is a Lamborghini without fuel? It has the potential to travel over two hundred miles per hour, but you can’t get it out of the garage without some petrol, can you? An aastra’s like that.”

  “So why didn’t Ash just awaken the Kali-aastra?”

  “It needs a death – a Great Death. You need to kill someone significant to you. Either a great enemy or great friend. That’s what Kali wants, before she’ll pass her powers into the aastra.”

  “Who did Ash kill last time?” The idea was horrible.

  “Himself. He allowed himself to die. He gave himself wholly to Kali. What greater sacrifice can there be?”

  “Wow. That’s pretty desperate.”

  Parvati nodded. “He did it to save his sister.” She looked at him. “You’d do the same.”

  He’d like to think he would. He would have said he’d do anything to protect Lucky. But to die? Could he go that far? “I’m not that sort of hero.”

  “Ash said the same thing to me once. Turns out he was.”

  “You’ve got us this far, boy, so you must be doing something right,” said Elaine, walking back into the room with an armful of weapons. “You got this airfield’s number?”

  Ashoka maximised the email. It was addressed to a Captain Lee, double-checking that he was on standby to fly the plane at short notice. The response from the pilot had the contact number below it. Elaine picked up her phone. “Is that Biggin Hill? I’m looking for Captain Lee. There’s a family emergency. His wife’s gone into labour.” Elaine nodded. “I know, but she’s in the operating ward and I can’t find her mobile. I’ve called the Hilton because he normally stays there, but they don’t have him …” Elaine made a writing motion. “Not the Hilton? Oh, of course. I forgot. The Metropole. The number? That would be most kind.”

  Ashoka quickly handed her a pencil and she scribbled down a phone number.

  Elaine smiled and winked at him. “You’ve been so kind. No, I’ll call him immediately. Thank you. Yes, it’s his first. He’ll be so annoyed to miss the birth – the baby wasn’t due for another week. Bye.”

  She flourished the sheet of paper. “They took your family to Hong Kong.”

  A glimmer of hope. Savage wouldn’t bother flying them to Hong Kong if he was planning to kill them. “Why Hong Kong? Seems a lot of effort.”

  “Savage spent years there,” said Parvati. “He was one of the major players in the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. Hong Kong was their base. It’s also one of the key ports in and out of the Far East, and the Savage Foundation does a lot of work out there.”

  Ashoka looked over to Parvati. “I have to save them.” Even if she wouldn’t come with him, that’s where he was headed.

  “I would expect nothing less.” She inspected the weapons Elaine had brought up with her and picked up an arrow. “Elaine, can you get us a flight?”

  “Us?” asked Ashoka.

  Parvati smiled. “Us.”

  Chapter Twelve

  He never thought it would be like this. They’d said it would be easy. That the Hun would roll over and they’d all be back for Christmas. His father had been a soldier. It was an honourable profession, a glorious one. How many stories had he heard, around the village fire at night, of swordsmen and bandits and wolves? So when the call had gone out, he and his brothers had gone with the recruiting sergeant and put their marks on the paper. Though he was born and raised in India, Britain was the heart of the empire and he was a son of the empire.

  This is not honourable. This is not glorious.

  This is war.

  Private Reginald Bose sits deep in the mud, clutching his rifle. Blood pools in the murky water and the only sounds are the cries of dying men, lost in the fog and smoke. He should try to find them. But Reggie can’t move.

  He is alive. Not like Captain Clarke, who’s had a hole blown straight through him, or like Thompson, who danced like a mad marionette when the machine gun perforated him.

  He is uninjured. Unlike Corporal Jack, who crawls in the carnage, dragging himself along with no legs. Men lie among the craters and bodies and churned-up landscape wondering where their bits have gone.

  Yet Reggie can’t move. How can he? If he leaves this hole then death will swoop down and snatch him up.

  He shouldn’t be afraid of death, but he is. This is his one life. He is only sixteen and has only just come to the table, and the meal, the feast, is being taken away. He feels as if he is clawing for it with his fingertips.

  It is as if God has swept His hand over the land and men have fallen like toys. Their bodies are everywhere, abandoned. Did their lives mean anythi
ng? What did they achieve? This piece of mud?

  The glorious dead. That’s what the memorials will say. But Reggie sniffs and wipes tears from his smoke-blackened face. He doesn’t want glory if this is the price.

  His life means nothing to the majors and generals who send thousands of men to be torn apart by bombs and bullets and to be strung out on barbed wire, their skins ragged and red like sheets.

  His is a little life. But Reggie has a mother and a father and a little sister and other brothers and friends and the villagers that waved him farewell and gave him sweets for the journey from India to here, France and the battlefields of the First World War. His little life sends ripples far beyond the horizon. Are his parents thinking of him this very moment? What prayers are they offering?

  Who decides the value of his life? Why is it worth so little here, so much there?

  Reggie gazes at the face of his best friend, Paul. He still holds his hand, though it is cold now and Paul’s fingers are stiff. A small red hole decorates the centre of his chest and the blood around it has dried.

  This was their first battle. Paul had taken a dozen steps before he’d fallen. His life had been worth a spent bullet and a few muddy footprints.

  Paul had got married just before joining the army. His wife, Mary, is a maid at a country house in Dorset. Paul had been a stable hand. His master was a colonel and the male staff had all volunteered to accompany him. The colonel died two weeks ago. There will be a plaque in a church, a memorial service and grand funeral for him. Paul will get a blank spot in the earth and a few flowers from his widow. They both died the same way, but one’s death has been deemed great and the other’s very small.

  There is a splash. Voices whisper. Reggie hears a bolt being drawn.

  Shadows groan within the gently rolling fog.

  Death comes.

  His bullets are spent and all he has is the bayonet jutting from his rifle. Reggie should fight. He should kill these men. He should give them their own deaths, be they great or small. Is a German’s life worth less than his? It has to be, otherwise there would be no point to war. If a man’s life was worth the same as any other’s then there would be no killing. And all this would have been for nothing.