Sarwat Chadda: Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness

Ash shifted in his seat. “It’s only a theory.” He picked through the newspaper cuttings, trying to work out what changes Savage had made in the last ten years. Governments were different, the prime minister was an old friend of Savage’s, a board director at the Savage Foundation. He owed his entire career to Savage. No one would say a bad word against the aristocrat. Why should they? He had done only good.

But Ash knew Savage. There had to be more. “What’s he planning?”

The scale of his organisation was vast, global. The business papers joked about it.

The Savage Empire.

But Ash didn’t find it funny. “They think he’s the Messiah.”

Parvati sat down beside him. “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.”

Elaine turned the laptop around to face them. “I found this clip on YouTube. It’s Savage being interviewed by Letterman last year.”

The frozen image had captured Savage close up. Eyes hidden behind his shades, he was smiling, the easy smile of a man who knew it all. His skin shone with an inhuman purity, too perfect to be real, as if he was shining from within. He relaxed into an armchair, left heel of his boot up on his right knee, dressed immaculately, of course. The interviewer leaned over his desk, captivated.

Ash pressed play.

“So, Lord Savage—”

“Please, David, it’s Alex. I know how you Americans feel about us aristocrats.”

“We love you Brits!”

The audience cheered and clapped.

Savage smiled. “You weren’t so keen on us in 1776.”

The interviewer shook his head. “Alex, if you’d have been in charge, maybe we wouldn’t have been so desperate to rebel.”

Ash noticed the change as Savage’s radiant smile darkened for just a second, then switched back. “Well, you can’t fix the past.”

“But you can fix the future, right? Is that what you’re about?”

Savage nodded solemnly. “I’ve seen the future, David. It’s not good. Unless someone does something, then we’re on the path to destruction. Mankind has all these gifts and we don’t know how to use them. If it’s not war, it’ll be pollution, overpopulation. No one country is to blame. You’re all at it. Grabbing what you can without caring what you leave. Expecting your children, their children, to sort out your mess.”

“Alex Savage, saving the world. All by yourself?”

Savage’s smile broadened. “No. I’ve got some friends on their way.”

Ash shivered.

“You’ve come a long way in a short time, Alex. You’re the number-one pharmaceutical company in the world and your donations to charities run into the billions. What’s the secret of your success?”

Savage laughed. “I learned from my past mistakes.”

“Come on, there must be more. Your vaccines will save millions of lives. Some say your genetically modified crops that can grow in barren deserts will end global hunger. And you’ve done this all for free. Why?”

“I own the Savage Foundation. I have a lot of money. How rich does one man need to be?” said Savage.

“So, any ambitions still left unfulfilled?”

Savage smiled. “Oh, just one.”

The interviewer leaned closer. “And what’s that?”

“I want it to be a surprise.”

The audience howled with disappointment, and the clip ended.

“You can’t argue with the facts,” said Elaine. “Savage has helped improve the lives of millions of people.”

“He wants to keep the sheep happy,” said Parvati. “It makes them easier to handle when you take them to the slaughterhouse.”

“Maybe he’s changed.” Elaine put a cigarette between her lips. “People do that, y’know.”

Ash took it out of her mouth and squashed it. “But for most, old habits die hard.”

He stared at the frozen image of Savage on the small screen. His ruthless smile, his casual air of superiority. It was all there, but no one else seemed to see it. Savage hadn’t changed. He was planning something and Ash had no doubt it was something terrible and on a massive scale.

But what?

When Ash awoke the next morning, the others were already up and in the kitchen having breakfast. Elaine was keeping herself busy while Parvati was trying to talk to Ashoka about something.

Ash pulled up a chair and looked at the boy sitting opposite him. Ashoka had his arms crossed in front of him and a look of disbelief on his face.

“I don’t get it,” said Ashoka.

Ash and Parvati looked at each other. Parvati shrugged. Ash met Ashoka’s gaze. “What don’t you get?”

“Like, how are you the Kali-aastra?”

Ash took a deep breath. “Last summer I went to India with my sister, Lucky. We were visiting Uncle Vik and Aunt Anita in Varanasi.”

“And that’s when you found the golden arrowhead of Kali, right?”

“That’s right, and a sliver of it entered my thumb. What I didn’t realise at the time was this meant I became the Kali-aastra.”

“A superhero then.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”

“But you have superpowers, right?”

Ash frowned.

“A superhero. With or without the cape.” Ashoka was clearly smirking. “What does being the Kali-aastra allow you to do? Heat vision? A spot of leaping tall buildings?”

“Depends,” Ash said, ignoring the smirk. Don’t rise to it. He’s trying to wind you up . “When a person dies, I absorb some of their life force. When I killed Ravana—”

“Ravana, as in the demon king?” The smirk widened.

“Yes. Him. When I killed him I gained superhuman strength, speed, endless endurance, all of that.”

“OK,” said Ashoka. “I don’t want you to take this as an insult or anything, but you three are clearly insane. You’ve obviously escaped from some loony bin, and that Jackie is another escapee from the asylum, and she was after you, not me. You all have major issues that need resolving, either in group therapy or with medication. My family have got mixed up in all your craziness and you need to call whoever has them right now and tell them to free them. Whatever drama you have going on is none of my business.”

“I give up,” said Ash. He’d tried to be reasonable, but now it was time to hand it over. “All yours, Parvati.”

Ashoka smirked. “What is this? The good-cop, bad-cop routine?”

Ash picked up his tea. It was cold. Typical. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Parvati smiled. “So, you’ve got it all sorted, have you, Ashoka? No such things as rakshasas?”

Ashoka nodded. “No. Such. Thing. Fairy tales.”

Parvati took off her sunglasses and leaned towards Ashoka so they were nose to nose. “Then these must be some … genetic defect?” Her eyes were pure serpent; green with a pair of black slits for pupils.

Ashoka leaped out of his seat. “Bloody hell!”

Parvati had him flat against the wall. Ashoka’s face had turned sheet white. Ash almost felt sorry for him.

Almost. Actually, he didn’t feel sorry at all. He was enjoying this. Maybe it was bad of him, not warning Ashoka about Parvati in advance. But he’d had enough of that smirk. Ash leaned back and watched, smiling to himself. How can you explain a girl like Parvati? She might look like a teenager, but she was more than four and a half thousand years old. Her mother had been a human princess and her father was Ravana, the demon king. Her early years had not been particularly stable. She had a deep psychotic streak and was a one-girl weapon of mass destruction.

But when she laughed, nothing else seemed to matter.

Ashoka tried to slide sideways towards the door, but Parvati extended her fangs, pausing a few centimetres from his throat. Sweat ran down his pallid face. “And this must just be poor dental work.” Each one was slick with venom. She shivered, and scales, shiny green scales, rose through her skin, clustering like a collar around her neck at first, then extending to her jaw, her cheekbones. Her hair sank into the skull as it widened, swelling either side into a cobra’s hood. “And this? Do you think some dermatologist might be able to fix this?”