The Black Tattoo (21 page)

"Freeze!" barked the leader, dropping into a firing crouch and leveling a fat-barreled black pistol at Esme.
 
"Stay where you are!" he added, in case she hadn't known what he'd meant.

There was a pause.

Esme looked at the group with a strange kind of detachment.
 
Everything was unreal to her after Raymond's death:
 
for a moment, she had the urge to laugh.
 
Slowly, not breaking her stance, she took one hand off the sword and pulled her hood back.

"Hello," she said evenly.
 
"Who are you?"

"Oh," said the man, lowering his gun.
 
"You're a girl."

Esme's eyebrows flew upward.
 
Now
she was surprised.
 
"And?" she inquired.

"It's all right!" called the man.
 
"Weapons down, gentlemen:
 
she's a girl."
 
Instantly, the rest of the group flicked the safeties on their MP5s back on and snapped to attention.

"All units, this in Number Two," said the man, holding one hand to his ear.
 
"We have a civilian in the main room of the top floor.
 
Lone female, young, apparently harmless.
 
Testing for possible contamination now."

Esme glanced around at the rest of the men, noting their positions.
 
Holding her stance, keeping both her hands on her practice sword, she looked back at the man who had spoken.

"What do you mean," she asked, "'possible contamination'?"

"We are sorry, mademoiselle," said a second man, stepping forward.
 
(He spoke slowly and calmly, with a pronounced French accent.)
 
"We believe you may 'ave been in contact with something rather dangerous."

"Really," said Esme, still not moving in the slightest.
 
"And who are you people, if you don't mind my asking?"

"We are the Sons of the Scorpion Flail," the French-accented man replied, a secret international rapid-reaction force, sworn to protect the world from supernatural—"

"What have I told you, Number Three?" the first man interrupted, rounding on his comrade.
 
"For the last time, what is our first rule of engagement?"

There was another pause.

"But she is 'ere, sir," said Number 3, gesturing awkwardly at Esme.
 
"She must be part of zis 'Brotherhood' the informant mentioned, so I see no reason for—"

"Our first rule, Number Three," the man repeated.

Number 3's shoulders slumped.
 
"'Operatinoal information may be divulged to civilians only on a need-to-know basis only'," be quoted miserably.
 
"Sir."

"Thank you, Number Three," said Number 2.
 
"So, enough talk.
 
Number Nine?
 
Number Twelve?
 
Give her the test."
 
Obediently, two men began to advance on Esme from either side.

"What test?" Esme asked.

"A blood test," Number 3 told her quickly.
 
"It will determine in moments whether we 'ave anything to fear from you.
 
And we would feel better," he added, "if you would lower your weapon."

"I'm afraid," said Esme quietly, "that that's just not going to be possible."

Halfway across the floor toward her, Number 9 and Number 12 stopped and turned to look at their leaders.

"Drop the stick, honey," said Number 2.
 
"We're not fooling around here."

Looking at the men, in their black gear and gas masks, something inside Esme came awake with a
whoosh
:
 
a soaring, sizzling, sparkling sensation that flushed through all her senses and left her tingling.

"No," she said.

"Sweetheart," said Number 2, "you have no idea who you're dealing with.
 
We're the Sons of the Scorpion Flail.
 
We travel the world, looking for evil, and wherever we find it, we kick its butt.
 
Now, I'm telling you, girl, drop that thing and take the test; otherwise I'm going to have to get nasty."

"No," Esme repeated, with a predatory smile.
 
She was going to enjoy this now.

"I'm going to count to three," Number 2 announced brilliantly.
 
"ONE!"

If shouting was supposed to make Esme flinch, it didn't work.

"TWO!
 
Look," said Number 2, when Esme still didn't move, "you want to do this the hard way?
 
Fine!
 
You asked for it.
 
THR
—"

That was as far as he got before Esme's bokken smacked into his face.

It had happened so fast that no one had seen it, but the faceplate of the man's gas mask now had a jagged spiderweb crack.
 
Esme deliberately hadn't thrown the practice weapon hard enough to do more than give Number 2 a surprise, but he staggered backward, holding his hands up to his face.
 
In the sudden silence as the rest of the men stared at him, the clatter the bokken made falling to the floor seemed very loud indeed.

"Whuh.
 
What?" said Number 2.
 
"T-uh.
 
Take her down!"

Number 9 and Number 12 looked at each other.
 
Then they lunged.

Number 9 got his hand on the girl first.
 
His black-gloved fist closed around her left elbow, and for a fraction of a second he felt pleased with himself.

The feeling didn't last.

Esme's first move was minimal, a single small step, turning on the balls of her feet — but Number 9 suddenly found himself off balance, stumbling toward her.
 
To his further surprise (it was supposed to be
him
grabbing
her
, after all), Esme took hold of his wrist with both her hands — and now she had control of his arm.

Esme could have broken Number 9's arm in a number of different places.
 
She could have hurt him so badly that he never did anything with the arm again — but instead, she contented herself with a simple but well-executed aikido move.
 
Number 9 was a good foot and a half taller than Esme, but her utter command of her weight and balance made this no problem:
 
she flipped him, straight into Number 12, his partner, and the two Sons of the Scorpion Flail crashed to the ground, astonished, in a tangle of black-clad limbs and military equipment.

The third man to reach her didn't fare any better:
 
a bare heel on the end of a whiplash kick exploded under his armored ribs, and, still reaching for the girl, he found himself lifted off his feet, climbing into the air, flying back over the heads of his fellows.

A scything low sweep cut a fourth man's legs from under him.

A snapping back-smash with the point of her right elbow dropped a fifth without Esme even needing to look.

Then, while the rest of her attackers piled at the place where she'd just been standing, Esme sprang into the air, flipped over once in a tight forward roll, and came down in a crouch beside where her practice sword had landed.

Perhaps a whole second had passed.
 
The man she'd kicked, Number 24, was just hitting the wall:
 
surprisingly high up, he slid to the floor with a crash.
 
At any rate, by the time the rest of the group turned around, Esme had retrieved her bokken.

The remainder of the fight happened very quickly indeed.

She struck at knees, and elbows, and necks and ribs and ankles.
 
She struck the breath from lungs and the strength from bodies.
 
She kicked, she flipped, she swept, sliced, and smashed — and all with a fierce and easy joy, because it was what she was good at, what she did best.
 
The heavy black weapon blurred in her hands and — silent and unconscious or howling and clasping themselves — the men toppled helplessly around her.

Suddenly, it was over.
 
In her right hand she still held her bokken.
 
In her left, she held the group's leader by the collar.

She had him off balance:
 
she was supporting his entire weight easily with one hand — if she let go of him, he would fall flat on his back.
 
Tucking the bokken's tip under the black rubber edge of his shattered mask, she ripped it neatly off his face and looked at him.

The man looked to be about forty years old.
 
He hadn't exactly been handsome to begin with, and his face was now disfigured by terror:
 
his piglike eyes glittered at her from under their beetling black brows, and his mouth was opening and closing like a ventriloquist's dummy's.
 
Number 2 was plainly frightened out of his wits — by her.
 
He was frightened of Esme.
 
The sensation was strange to her, and a little uncomfortable.

"You're... not...
human
," the man gibbered.

Esme just looked at him.
 
Hurting the man suddenly didn't hold quite the same attraction for her as it had a few moments ago — and now, to be honest, she didn't really know what to do instead.

"You're not human!" Number 2 repeated.
 
He cast a wild-eyed glance at what remained of his troops and heard the moans and whimpers of those who were conscious.
 
"We need backup," he added to himself.
 
"We need more men.
 
My — yes!"
 
He put a hand up to his headset.
 
"All units, this is Number Two!
 
We are under attack!
 
Repeat!
 
We are under attack!
 
All units converge on the first floor main room!
 
Get me backup — now!"

Esme's eyes narrowed.
 
She dropped the man (he hit the ground with a thump) and took an uncertain step backward.
 
"How many of you are there?" she asked.

"Hundreds!" said Number 2, crawling back from her.
 
"Thousands!
 
Keep away from me!"

"We 'ave another twenty men," said a voice from behind her.
 
"Mademoiselle?
 
Please listen to me."

She turned around and saw Number 3, the French-accented man.
 
Like the rest of the group, he'd been wearing body armor:
 
nonetheless, Esme was reasonably certain that she had cracked at least two of his ribs, and he could only be sitting up with great difficulty.
 
Strangely, this didn't seem to have affected how polite he was being.

"We were told of this," he said.
 
"An ancient evil, and a secret Brotherhood pledged to stop that evil from being released.
 
It seems the informant spoke the truth."

He paused, and all Esme could hear was the sound of heavy boots poinding up the stairs and outside the doors, onto the landing.

"When the others come, do not fight them," said Number 3.
 
"If you fight, they will shoot you:
 
it is useless.
 
We are 'ere to 'elp you!" he added desperately.
 
"And all I ask in return is that you trust me."

"Why?" asked Esme.

Number 3 pulled off his mask.
 
His jet-black hair cropped short, and running just above his right eyebrow halfway down his cheek was a long, angry scar.
 
The eye crossed by the scar was a pale grayish-blue color, but the other, Number 3's left, was a deep, warm brown with flecks of gold in it.
 
He was looking at her and — strangely — smiling.

"Jessica sent for us," he said.

Esme stared at him.
 
But then the doors burst open, and more men filled the room.

"Fire at will!" shrieked Number 2.

"Non!" yelled Number 3.
 
But the guns were already coming up:
 
black-gloved fingers were tightening on the triggers.

And now, Esme saw, these people were shooting at her.

Time went slack.

Esme watched the flowering muzzle-flash of the guns with a weird kind of breathless concentration.
 
The clattering bubble-wrap pops of the MP5s seemed to have slowed to rhythmic gluey thumping in her ears.
 
She could see the spreading black stream of bullets stitching the air; their trails sticking out of the barrels like stair-rods, like banners that would unroll and say
bang
.
 
She caught a long glimpse of them all, the men firing their guns, and —
there's something a bit special about you.
 
It's always been too late for her
— strange words seemed to be echoing in her ears.

She dropped the sword.
 
Faster than time — faster than the world — but with an easy grace that felt as natural to her as breathing, she leaped.

And by the time the first bullets reached the place where she'd been standing—

—Esme wasn't there.

Rising now, her arms out to either side of her, Esme swung her legs up, flipping backward this time.
 
As she reached the height of the butterfly room's great round window, she was in position:
 
with perfect precision, the bare soles of her feet struck the exact center of the circle.

Then the world sped up around her once more.

Metal struts buckled and split:
 
glass exploded, and cool air hit her like a shock wave.
 
Ignoring the bullets buzzing around her, Esme completed her back flip, coming upright, outside now, high above Cambridge Circus.
 
Her thoughts were now utterly focused on the one place in London she had left to go.