Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness. Sarwat Chadda

then? What do you want?” said Ashoka. How does she know my name?

      She smiled. Even the darkness couldn’t hide the brilliance of her fangs. “We want to kill you, dear boy.”

       Chapter Two

      “There must be some mistake, I … I don’t know you,” stuttered Ashoka. “Please, it’s a mistake.”

      He looked at the woman, hoping to see a glimmer of pity, or compassion. But she just smiled, and there was no humanity in those fangs. “Please,” he repeated feebly.

      “Begging, Ash? How disappointing,” said Jackie. “But then we can’t all be heroes.”

      Without thinking, Ashoka slammed the bag into one of the rat mens’ face. He didn’t think about it; it just happened. The bag contained three huge hardback books, a large bag of dice, some lead miniatures and his boots. Rat-face Number One squeaked as the bag smashed into his nose. Ashoka then kicked Rat-face Number Two between the legs.

      He’d seen it done a million times in movies and the guy always went down. Always.

      Rat-face Number Two didn’t go down. He just leered.

      Ashoka charged. The two tumbled into a pile of rubbish and knocked over a bucket of compost. Ashoka pushed the rat-face down into a bag of rotting, stinking onions as he scrambled to his feet.

      Claws, hot and sharper than razors, tore open the back of his coat and sliced his skin. But he was too full of fear and adrenaline to feel the pain, and was up and running a second later, stumbling out of the alleyway.

      “Run, Ash, run!” Jackie laughed.

       What am I doing? What am I doing?

      He’d never been in a fight before and this was for real – life and death. His heart was pounding violently in his chest and his boots beat the pavement, the heavy impact echoing like a drum in the night. He was only a few hundred metres from his front door, but suddenly the alleyways through the estate turned into a labyrinth. He ran down one and came out into a small enclosed green, empty but for a pair of swings and a see-saw. He stared at the blank, unlit windows of the apartments that overlooked it.

      “Help!” He raced past the swings, throwing them behind him in a desperate attempt to stop Jackie. She moved on all fours and bounded over them. How is that possible?

      Lights came on in the estate around him, but he didn’t dare stop to call for help. One swipe of those claws and she’d have his head for a football. He ran on, down into another narrow gap between the apartment blocks—

      —and crashed straight into the rat-faces, who grabbed him. Ashoka wrestled and punched but couldn’t get free.

      “Hold him,” Jackie ordered. She panted and her tongue hung red and loose from her wide jaw. The rat-faces twisted Ashoka’s arms behind his back until they felt as if they’d break.

      “What do you want? I don’t even know you!” Ash shouted. This was insane.

      Jackie looked him over, coming so close he could smell her breath. Worse than a dead dog’s guts. “No, but I know you.” Jackie stroked his face with the back of her nail. “And I’m here to make sure you never do.” Then she turned her hand and dragged her fingers through his shirt. The cloth ripped open and she drew three thin, bleeding lines down his chest. She pulled his shirt wide open and peered at his skin. Her nail pressed against his belly. “No scar.” She grabbed his left hand and stared at his thumb. “Interesting.”

      She flexed her fingers and the nails struck like a butcher’s blades. “Hold him still. I don’t want his blood on my suit.”

      “Please …” begged Ashoka.

      A steel scream rang out right in his ear and Ashoka cried out as blood showered over his head.

      The rat-face gripping his right arm wobbled and Ashoka turned towards him to see blood vomiting from his severed neck. The head was still spinning in the air and Ashoka stared at the wide, surprised expression on his face, his mouth a perfect ‘O’.

      A moment later another figure appeared to the left, a long triangular blade of bright, sharp steel shining in its right fist. The rat-face who still had a head dropped Ashoka and drew out a pistol. It wasn’t some cool Desert Eagle or Walther PPK, it was an ancient gunpowder thing from a hundred years ago. But the barrel was huge, and in the narrow alleyway he couldn’t miss. The flint burst a bright flash of powder, and then thunder exploded from the barrel opening, filling the entire alleyway with acrid gun smoke.

      The bullet sparked on the steel blade as the figure swatted it aside, the lead ball rebounding to tear a chunk of brick off the wall.

      He swatted a bullet, thought Ashoka. That’s not possible.

      The rat-face stared as the shadow rammed his right fist, and the steel triangular blade, into his chest so hard that he came off his feet. A second fountain of blood sprayed out as the tip of gore-coated metal tore through the rat-face’s back. He scrabbled, and screamed a scream that should have shattered all the glass nearby, and almost did the same to Ashoka’s eardrums. Then the figure, a boy in a hoodie, tossed the dead rat-face aside and stepped past Ashoka, his attention on Jackie alone. The boy’s fingers tightened around the steel dagger in his fist.

      A katar. An Indian punch dagger. Ashoka hadn’t seen one since—

      “Jackie,” said the boy in the hoodie.

      “It’s true. You’re here,” Jackie snarled, edging away. She looked from Ashoka to the boy and back again. Then she threw back her head and screamed with demonic laughter and with two bounds vanished into the night.

      “Are you all right?” asked the boy, turning to Ashoka.

      Ashoka blinked and tried to wipe away the blood that covered his face. He thought he’d swallowed some. He swayed, his legs suddenly as solid as jelly.

      “He’s going to fall,” said the boy.

      Someone helped to support Ashoka: a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, dressed in a close-fitting suit of black-green. “I’ve got you,” she said. Despite the darkness she wore shades, so all Ashoka could see was the reflection of his own petrified face.

      “Let’s get away from here,” said the boy. “And bring him.”

      “I only live—”

      “I know where you live,” the boy snapped. “Now come on.”

      The girl steadied Ashoka. Then she picked up a long steel coil off the ground. The weapon had a sword hilt, but instead of a single blade there were four razor-sharp steel strips.

      “An urumi,” said Ashoka. “The serpent sword. That’s … cool.”

      He looked down at the now headless corpse of the first rat-face. She’d done it with the urumi. He could see the open arteries and the spine and neatly sliced muscle of the neck stump.

      “Oh, God.” Ashoka tried to hold it down, but bile flooded to the top of his throat. Then came straight out over the ground and his shoes. His stomach spasmed and bitter vomit poured out again and again.

      The boy in the hoodie sighed. “Pathetic.”

      The girl was patting Ashoka’s back. “Oh, please. You were just the same when I first met you.”

      “Was not.” The boy sounded petulant. “Have you quite finished?”

      “Yes. Yes, I have.” Then Ashoka saw the second rat-face, torso slick with black blood and white bone jutting from the gaping hole where his chest must once have been.

      “No. No, I haven’t.” He vomited some more.

      Once