Free The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven Page B

going to end up.   And sure enough—
    CLUMP!
    It caught Charlie square on the back of the head, knocking him forward with the force of the blow.
    Suddenly all six footballers were laughing.
    "Sorry, mate!" called the one who had kicked the ball, smiling broadly as his friends caught up with him.   They all looked about sixteen or seventeen years old — certainly a lot bigger and stronger than Charlie and Jack.   One of them was laughing so hard he was making little snorting noises through his nose.
    Jack had seen these guys before.   Year after year they spent the whole summer kicking their football around, and they never once seemed to get bored with it.   Jack looked from them to his friend.   Charlie was just standing there stiffly — head still forward from where the ball had knocked him.
    "You all right?" called the lead footballer.   The others were still sniggering.
    "Now, slowly, Charlie turned.   "Who kicked it?" he asked.   "You?"
    "That's right," said the guy.   His smile was cocky, not apologetic at all — and certainly not apologetic enough for Charlie.
    "Come on," said Jack quietly, "let's leave it."   But he knew he was wasting his breath.
    "Why don't you watch what you're doing?" said Charlie.   "You stupid sod!"
    For a whole second the six lads stared at him.   Then they burst out laughing again, all except for the one who'd kicked the ball, who just frowned.
    "Listen, mate," he said, "I've told you I'm sorry."
    "And I'm telling you, mate ," said Charlie, "sorry's not good enough.   Get on your knees.   Right now."
    Now everyone was staring at Charlie, even Jack.
    "What?" said the lead footballer, grinning with disbelief.
    "On.   Your.   Knees ," said Charlie, and at the sound of his voice, the boy fell as if he'd been shot.
    From where Jack was standing, he could see the back of Charlie's neck.   He frowned.   Weird black shapes were appearing under his friend's skin.   Needle-sharp points of some inky-black substance were trickling up from under the collar of Charlie's T-shirt, widening into curved slivers of pure liquid darkness as they crawled up around his throat.   Now the shapes were creeping down out of Charlie's sleeves, sliding past his elbows and down his forearms with an oil-dark, liquid eagerness.
    Jack recognized the shapes:   the curves, the hooks, the spikes.   He'd seen them that moring on Charlie's back.
    It was the black tattoo.
    It was moving .
    " Now ," said Charlie, barely speaking above the level of a whisper, but something in his voice made strange explosions go off behind Jack's eyeballs.
    " Wet yourself ."
    The eyes of the hapless footballer fell closed.   A blissful expression crossed his face:   there was a moment of silence, then a soft, trickling sound, and now everyone was staring at the dark stain that was spreading down one leg of his shorts.
    "Euugh!   Gross!" said someone.
    The footballer woke up and looked down at his crotch, a look of total horror beginning to form on his face.
    Charlie just grinned and turned his back.   The moment was gone.   The strange shapes of the black tattoo had vanished back to wherever they had come from.   Jack blinked.
    "Come on, man," said Charlie to Jack.   "Let's go."
    No one tried to stop them.
    "Er... Charlie?" asked Jack, once they'd safely gone a few hundred yards farther down the path.
    "Yeah?"
    "Do you think it's safe?   Using your... powers like that?"
    Charlie smirked.   "Who are they going to tell?"
    In another moment, it seemed, they were standing outside the gate.
    "Take care, mate," said Charlie, turning to go.
    "Yeah," said Jack, to his friend's retreating back.   "You too."
     
     

JESSICA
     
    The demon didn't even bother to visit Jessica on the third night.   By the fourth, she knew she was finished.
    The Scourge just stood there at first, a scarecrow figure of rippling shadows.   Its arms hung loosely at its sides; its long, liquid fingers twitched lazily.
    " Humans ," it told her, "