Sarwat Chadda: Ash Mistry and the City of Death

The Kali-aastra, the living weapon of the death goddess Kali. He’d slain the demon king Ravana and absorbed his preternatural energies. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound and do five impossible things before breakfast. Six at the weekend.

Had it only been last summer? It felt like a lifetime ago. It had been a lifetime ago. Ash touched the scar on his abdomen that he’d got when his old life had, literally, ended. Three months had passed since his rebirth, and the powers had lessened somewhat, but that was like saying K2 was smaller than Mount Everest. It was still a huge mountain and Ash was still somewhere high above normal.

He remembered going running one night in September, just after coming back from India. Ravana’s strength surged through every atom of his body, and it was threatening to explode out of him, so he’d needed to burn it off. He ran. And ran and ran. He’d stopped when he got to Edinburgh. He’d climbed the old castle, then run all the way back. He’d still been home before dawn.

But raw power wasn’t everything. There was no point in having the strength to knock out an elephant if you didn’t have the skill to hit it where it hurt most. So every morning before the sun came up, Ash crept out to the park or the nearby Sydenham Woods and trained. He’d been taught the basics of Kalari-payit, the ancient Indian martial art, and once he’d caught a glimpse of Kali herself and watched her fight. Somewhere in his DNA lay all the arts of combat. Kicks, high and low, sweeping arcs, punches, spear-strikes, blocks and grapples. He shifted from one move to another with instinctive grace. That rhythm, the dance of Kali, came to him more and more easily.

Would he ever be truly ‘normal’? No. The death energies he’d absorbed from Ravana would fade away over time, but when? It could be decades. Centuries. There were no scales that could measure the strength of the demon king. And when – if – Ravana’s energies did fade, Ash would for ever absorb more. Death was the one certainty, and death strengthened him.

Death was everywhere.

Now, in winter, the trees lining the road had lost their summer coats, and the gutters were filled with damp, golden leaves steadily rotting, steadily dying. A small trickle of power entered his fingertips as he passed along the decaying piles. At night Ash gazed at stars and wondered whether somewhere out in the universe there was a supernova happening, a star’s life ending. A solar system becoming extinct, waves of energy radiating out across the cosmos. Were the heavens making him stronger too?

It felt too big sometimes, what he was and what it meant. So he liked to be normal at school. That was why he hid his powers. It was nice to pretend, to escape, even if it was just for a few hours a day.

He registered that it was cold, but it didn’t bother him. He wore the sweater merely for show nowadays. It had just turned half past four, and the long, late autumn shadows led him home.

Ash stopped by his garden gate and looked up and down the road. For what? Gemma following him home? Not bloody likely, given his pathetic performance in the lunch hall.

You blew it.

So much about him had changed and not changed. He still didn’t understand maths and he certainly couldn’t get a date.

He turned into Croxted Road and saw a battered white van parked outside their drive. Must be to do with Number 43; they were having their house repainted. He’d ask them to move it before Dad got home. If they didn’t, he could do it himself. It looked about three tons. No problem.

Lucky opened the door before Ash even knocked. His sister was still in her school uniform, green sweater and grey skirt, grey socks that came up to her knees. Her long black ponytail flicked across her face as she turned back and forth. “Ash—”

“Before you ask, the answer is no.” Ash went in and threw his rucksack into the corner. “I did not ask Gemma out.”

“Ash—”

“Just give it a rest, will you? Who says I’m interested in her anyway?” He passed through the hall to the kitchen. He really needed some comfort food right now, and that packet of doughnuts up on the sweets shelf would do nicely. Lucky grabbed his sleeve as he turned the door handle.

“Ash!”

“What?”

Lucky was the only one who knew what he’d been through in India, but she didn’t treat him any differently, which was why, even though she was eleven and way too smart for her own good, he would die for her.

Had died for her.

You would think that would count for something, wouldn’t you? But right now she was being a typical younger sister. Which was irritating.

Lucky stared hard at him, as if she was trying to project her thoughts directly into his head. Alas, while he could kill with a touch, Ash couldn’t read minds. Maybe that would come later.

“What is it?” he said. Then he paused and sniffed the air. “Is Dad smoking again? Mum will go mental if he’s doing it in the house.”

“This is nothing to do with Dad.” Lucky frowned and crossed her arms. Not good. “You’ve got visitors.” Then she spun on her heels and stomped upstairs to her room. The whole house shook as she slammed the door.

Gemma? Had she come over to see him? She did live just down the road. It had to be. He checked that his fly was up and quickly wiped his nose. Then he opened the kitchen door.

So not Gemma. A gaunt old woman leaned against the sink, blowing cigarette smoke out of the half-open window. Her hair would have suited a witch: wild, thick as a bush and grey as slate. She dropped her stub into Ash’s Yoda mug, where it died with a hiss.

The old woman smiled at Ash, her thin lips parting to reveal a row of yellow teeth. It wasn’t pretty. She searched her baggy woollen cardigan and took out a packet of Marlboro Lights. She flicked her Zippo and within two puffs the fresh cigarette was glowing.

“You’re not allowed to smoke in here,” Ash said. He’d been brought up to respect his elders – it was the Indian way – but there was something thoroughly disrespectful about this woman.

“So you’re Ash Mistry,” she said. “The Kali-aastra.”

Ash tensed. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Elaine.”

“I don’t know any Elaines.”

“She’s a friend of mine.”

Ash spun round at the new voice, one he recognised.

An Indian girl stepped out from behind the fridge. That was why he hadn’t seen her, but then she was very good at being invisible. She played with a silver locket as she gazed at him through her big black sunglasses. She wore a pair of dark green trousers and a black cotton shirt, its collar and cuffs embroidered with entwined serpents. Looking at her, a stranger would guess she was about fifteen. They’d only be off by about four thousand years.

She took off her glasses, and her pupils, vertical slits, dilated with sly amusement. The green irises filled out the rest of her eyes, leaving no whites at all. Her lips parted into a smile, and Ash glimpsed a pair of half-extended venomous fangs where her canines should have been.

She looked like a vampire, cold and with a terrible beauty. But no vampire could compare to her. She was the daughter of the demon king and born to end men’s lives.

“Namaste,” said Parvati.

hey looked at each other, neither moving. Then Ash came forward and somewhat awkwardly hugged Parvati.

She stepped back and looked at him.

“You’ve changed,” she said.

“For the better, right?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Oh, nice to see you again too, Parvati.

“How have you been?” he asked. “It’s been ages and I haven’t heard anything.”

“You missed me? How nice.”

“I didn’t say that. But I thought you might have dropped me an e-mail at least.”