“Not really a jewelry sort of geezer,” I say boredly. It’s an exercise in self-restraint, and I can tell how little Atlas trusts me by the way he’s positioned my body between his and the bar, blocking me in.
“Ain’t really your choice, though, is it?”
“Everyone has a choice in here,” Kendra pipes in. “That’s how we run this establishment. If you have a problem with that, there’s eight other pubs in town, and they’d probably all appreciate the extra business right now. I’m happy to call you boys a cab. Or, you can sit back down and enjoy the rest of the night. We’re all friends here.”
Kermit—who I’m now considering re-dubbing the Incredible Sulk throughout my internal thought process—scowls and rolls his eyes at her like the disrespectful wanker he is.
“We’ll drink up and head off,” he snaps and he turns back to his mates, who are starting to disperse toward their table. “If that’s the way you run things here, love, we best not be caught dead with the likes of you, eh?”
I clench a fist and one of my knuckles cracks. Kendra doesn't react to either of us. Atlas’ massive body remains wedged against mine as Kermit and the rest of the Muppet Show drag themselves away. My chest unknots one fraying thread of control at a time, then fully deflates.
Part of me doesn’t dare believe I actually held my temper so successfully. But hey, there’s a first time for everything.
“You all right?” Atlas asks gruffly.
I nod, stiffly. “Couldn’t be better, mate.”
“Need to step out for a fag?”
“In a bit.”
The breath I release is shaky and shallow from lingering adrenaline. I can smell burning wood. I whip my arm away from the bar top, wincing at the scorch mark in the dark grain. Whoops.
“Kendra, love,” Atlas is calling across the bar. He makes a motion with his hand I don’t fully see; what attention span I have left in my drunken state is currently enveloped in trying to tug a Tetley’s Bitter beer towel over the damage I just did to the bar. I jump when she appears in front of me and places two shot glasses on top, right over the mark.
“Thanks for holding your temper there, Diesel,” she murmurs. “I didn’t need that shit tonight.” She glances over my shoulder, and I follow her gaze; the Incredible Sulk and his Twat-vengers are making like trees and getting the fuck out of dodge. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I smirk and down the rest of my pint, watching Kendra fill the two shot glasses with Glenfidditch.
“Oi, oi, what’s this then?”
“Thought you deserved it,” says Atlas, passing me one. “For holding your tongue. Cheers.”
“Your good health.”
“And yours.”
The scotch burns deliciously the whole way down. I slam the glass back down on the towel, and it tips over as it falls out of my hand. I snort a laugh. Fuck me, I'm pissed.
“And to the good health of your brigade, wherever they are,” adds Atlas, that ginormous mitt of his dwarfing his own empty shot glass. “Imagine running off to battle without your biggest gun.”
“Fucking idiots, the lot of ‘em,” I mutter back, shaking my head. But while I might be acting nonchalant about the whole thing (Oliver taught me that word this week, and I’m really proud I’ve remembered it), I’m bricking it. My brain can’t handle a single minute without wandering over to where they are, what they’re doing, whether they’re even still in one piece.
Not that I think Penny can’t handle herself, or that Duncan can’t handle Penny. I’ve watched them in the field, I’ve seen what they’re both capable of. But not being with them makes the wait agonizing.
“Well, that’s probably what got the rest of ‘em blown up in the first place, ain’t it?”
His comment hits me entirely wrong. It’s so jarring I have to replay it several times in my head, stuttered and broken like a buffering video, to make sure I actually heard him correctly.
I still don’t trust my own ears.
“You what?”
“B.L.A.Z.E.” Atlas cocks his head to look over at me. His eyes are bloodshot from the booze, but that’s no excuse for the smirk he’s wearing. “That’s probably why most of them went down, eh? Sheer fucking stupidity.”
I stare at him, flabbergasted. Those words don’t sound right coming out of my friend’s mouth. They don't suit anything else he’s ever said to me, in tone or context. My brain makes several attempts to form a reaction, but each time fails, crashes, and reboots. My mouth opens, closes, opens again, and hangs agape. It just won't compute.
“I dunno, stupidity might not be the word I’m looking for,” Atlas is mumbling, drumming his fingers on the bar top. “Selfishness, maybe, is what did ‘em all in. Or ignorance.”
“Shut it.”
I don’t even realize I’ve spoken; it’s a knee-jerk reaction. Those threads of control that were starting to relax are growing taut again, much faster this time. The already frayed and weakened edges are threatening to snap.
Atlas doesn't act like I've even spoken. “Yeah, that’s what it is,” he's going on. “Sheer fucking ignorance. Not knowing what’s good for you, or how good you really have life in this country. When they drag what’s left of that dumb cunt of yours back from wherever she was stupid enough to wander off to, you’ll see what I mean.”
“Atlas, I said shut it. Shut your fucking face, now, or I’ll shut it for you.”
It could be the alcohol, it could be the one-eighty my mate just did on me. It could be the mental image of Penny coming back to me in any state other than the one I last saw her in. But something’s heating the embers in the pit of my stomach. Nausea and rage and disbelief rush through my mind, drowning out all other rational thought.
And then, the strike of the match. The catalyst. The spark.
Atlas snorts, turning to smirk at me.
“Well, she better come back in one piece,” he says. “I told my contact with KING that I’d be delivering four dangerous terrorist Anomalies on live television for them tonight, and I’d hate for you little buggers to make a liar out of me.”
He grins.
“I guess it’s time to put all those tales to the test, eh, boy?” he asks. “Drink up. Let’s see how good at fighting your way out of a corner you really are.”
25 Penny’s Game Plan
Oliver’s waiting for us half a street down, my old rucksack hanging off one skinny shoulder, and he hops in the back with Duncan after I flash the headlights at him.
Immediately, his arms fling themselves around me and he’s glomming onto my back, his nose in my neck and his breath in my hair. The pleasant tingling sensation throws me off for a beat or two. It’s as if a few hours without his proximity somehow made me forget the sheer bliss of his presence.
It doesn’t take us more than a minute to fill Oliver in on the horrifically-detailed details, including the newest addition to the team. Our youngest brigade member isn’t enthusiastic when he realizes the extent of my knowledge on the enigma that is Rhys Shields basically consists of his name and the fact that he was in the right place at the right time. I can’t say I blame him; I’m less than thrilled with it all myself. But at the end of the day, he seems to have some sort of grasp on what’s occurring, and that’s more than we’ve got between the rest of us.
For Alfie’s sake, I must trust him. At least until further notice. It can be my penance for putting myself first this afternoon, without thinking of him. If it weren’t for my stupidity, he wouldn’t be in this mess without his brigade there to back him up.
By the time I cautiously roll into the carpark beside the Faux Globe, a bustle of eight crewmen are hurriedly unloading a gold KING News production truck. All three lads stare and scrutinize, but from what I quickly see, there’s no sign of Kay.
I park away from where they’re setting up tripods and various other pieces of camera equipment. Our tires crunch over loose gravel, louder than I would’ve liked, but nobody’s paying us any heed. Their entire focus is on the job at hand: the
mission.
I know that feel, mate.
“Do you reckon it’s already kicked off inside?” asks Oliver, quietly as if he daren't jinx it.
The rest of us aren’t given the opportunity to hazard any sort of guess. With an almighty crash, and what I swear is a near-perfect reproduction of the Wilhelm scream, a fiery bundle of limbs and lime-green tracksuit shatters one of the pub’s glass block windows from the inside and careens with a familiar brutality into the front-end of the news van.
Bloody hell, Alfie…
“What an absolute fecking eejit.”
“Hey’up!” Rhys exclaims joyfully. “We’re off and running!” He pops his door open and hauls his body forward as if to exit the vehicle, but my arm snapping out across his chest pins his lanky frame to the seat.
“I’m sorry.” I whirl my head to glare at him. “Did I give the order to move the fuck out without realizing I’ve done it again?”
“Oh, no, why, have you had a problem with doing that in the past?”
Both my gaze and my grip tighten considerably. “Look, nobby. You may have been kind enough to provide a bit of banter for the drive, but that’s my mate in there, and this is our mission. You need to understand that before we let you join the party, if you will.”
Rhys quirks one immaculately-plucked eyebrow. “Let me?”
I twist in my seat to nod at Duncan. “See the big fuck-off Scottish bloke in the back?”
“I don’t see him so much as feel him constantly trying to pummel me with his eyes, so yes, after a fashion,” Rhys replies smoothly without even glancing back.
“Well, if you don’t play nice, I’m going to take his leash off and let him pummel you with his fists and his face, like he’s wanted to since he met you.”
Duncan’s heavy bass chuckle practically rocks the entire car as it rumbles through the chassis beneath our seats. Judging from the face Rhys pulls, he believes me.
“Very well then, Little Miss Warrior Princess. I’m all ears. How does your little brigade do business in these sorts of situations?”
“Dee, you cop any sight of Kay yet?” I forge the conscious decision that now is not the time to slap a sense of etiquette into the rookie. “Get used to looking,” I add as he leans sideways in the small car to see better out the rear window. “I want your eyes on him at all times. As sickening as it might sound, your job here is to keep that nauseating, terror-inducing tosspot in one piece for his adoring audience. Savvy?”
There’s a resentment in Duncan’s eyes that burns hotter than jet fuel. But aloud, he only grunts his assent. I turn to Oliver.
“OP, you brought the gear I asked for?”
Oliver’s hands are visibly shaking as they raise the rucksack into view. “Plus anything else I thought might be of use. I have to admit, I’ve never tried to hack such a high-profile target on an antique before.”
I roll my eyes, and the smirk I resist pushes through and causes one side of my mouth to twitch. “You’re so welcome, mate.”
“But—not that it’s a bad unit—!”
My laugh is clipped but not unpleasant. “Niceties later, over a cuppa. Right now, anything you can do to disrupt their equipment, get it done—stop it from broadcasting, recording, whatever.”
Oliver bites his lip. “Oh, those production trucks don’t really have a way to… I would literally have to be on top of it to stop the signal.”
“Then you’ll have to be on top of it.”
I’m extremely cautious with the words I choose, and how I choose to say them, because Oliver is not going to like the message they convey.
“OP, I’m sorry. I need to ask more of you than I’ve ever asked before. If there were any other way, you know I’d move mountains to keep you safe, but there’s four of us. Not twenty-eight.” My face is soaked in more sympathy than I think I’ve ever felt for a person in my life. “Your lieutenant is going to need all hands on-deck for this one.”
The silence is palpable, weighing heavy on our shoulders. I can practically hear the circuitry I believe exists within his head whirring as it does its best to process this information. I hate having to ask him, especially knowing how much he’s been struggling both physically and emotionally in the aftermath of our tragedy.
But I’ve been given a clear-cut choice: ask, and allow him to be a big boy and make his own decisions, or risk probable failure. In this last week I’ve gained enough respect for him as an individual, as an adult, that my choice is made simple for me.
Oliver meets my gaze, his own unsure. Eyes usually bright and pure are suddenly so clouded. I hate myself for doing this to him.
And then, in a single blink, his resolve hardens. Oliver tilts his chin up, locks his eyes with mine, and says, “Yes, sir. Whatever you need.”
The heart in me explodes with relief, with joy, with love. I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud of him.
“You’ve got free reign, whatever it takes to keep them offline. Get creative.”
Oliver’s staring dead ahead, nodding slowly to himself. “Get creative,” he repeats. “Right. I can do that.”
“Shields, you’re with me. Whatever’s happening in there, we’re going to make them pack it the fuck in.”
“Bravo, I’m on board. Do I get a fun moniker too?”
I don’t mean for my snort to be as audible or derisory as it is when it exits my body, but I don’t waste time softening it. “Survive tonight and I’ll see about giving you one,” I quip back. “You can earn it like these lads had to.”
“Hm, seems reasonable. But if I have to work for it, I’d like more than just a letter or two.”
“Gear up, lads.”
Rhys glances rearward as, at my word, Duncan and Oliver start to act in sync. My dad’s old WrightTech laptop and several other pieces of tech are drawn from the unzipped rucksack. Duncan’s large hand appears to the left of my head to deliver my bat. Hands run the lengths of clothing lines, ensuring weapons and phones and any other items on our personage are properly hidden.
With the fluidity of a brigade who has brazenly pulled heists of this magnitude before, the three of us glance up at one another simultaneously. There’s almost a telepathic link between us all, despite none of us having any Magick to that degree. It’s natural, primal, human. It’s what we do, what we’ve done countless times in the past.
And what we will continue to do, until a time comes when we have no reason to keep fighting.
“... not that we’ve been in situations similar to this,” I add hastily, the afterthought stuffed in there with a sheepish look back over at Rhys. He beams at me.
“Righty-ho, well! Best of British to us all then!” he proclaims merrily, and in the time it takes to open the door, he’s gone. In the footwell he’d once occupied, Tesla the maine coon seems to know when she’s not needed, or not safe; she’s curled up on the rubber mat with her small muzzle and whiskers tilted up toward the window, as if waiting for her daddy’s return.
I allow myself a moment to realign my thoughts, inhaling and exhaling, before returning to the present. When I do, both Duncan and Oliver have me in their visual crosshairs.
“He’s a right laugh, isn’t he?” is all I really have to say.
“I like the cat,” says Oliver, neutrally. Duncan sighs, the tail-end of it rasping into a growl.
“Well, lass, you sure do attract a type.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way, Dee-Dog.” I’m too busy re-lacing my boots to regard him visually as I respond. “In all seriousness, though, we’ll discuss it when Alfie’s safe with us and not framed for murder and rotting in the Vault.”
“I dunnae trust him.”
“I think I do.”
Both of their heads snap up. Duncan’s face softens at the sincerity of my tone. “Aye right,” he murmurs, bewildered. “Why’s that then?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer honestly. I have no reason not to be fully transparent with them both. “But something in my gut is telling me he’s
one of the good guys.”
That seems to strike a chord in Duncan, and he recoils in realization. Then, he nods. “Aye, lass. If that’s the case, that’s all I needed to hear. I’ve got yours.”
“You’ve got mine,” is my clockwork reply, and just phrasing those familiar syllables and nuances tugs that twitch in my lips up into a half-smile. No matter what happens around us, no matter what changes or shifts, there’s one constant that stays the same: Duncan Doherty always has my back.
“Keep an eye on the cat,” is my last direct order to them both as I shove my own door open and prepare to enter whatever fray is currently occurring inside the pub. “I hate stories where they hurt the cat.”
And then, I’m gone too, meeting the tall, dark, and handsome enigma waiting for me by the boot of the car, and striding across a carpark toward a broken window, hoping my last words to two of my closest friends in the world weren’t an awful, fourth-wall-breaking joke.
26 Alfie’s Big Mouth
There’s nothing left but the color red.
It’s hard to explain it better than that, and I’ve never been all that fucking fancy with words. Life comes at you fast sometimes, so fast you don’t have time to retain every single detail. When that happens, it all boils down to one thing, a tiny fraction of a feeling or a thought. A taste, a smell, or a sound. A distant memory from a dream you can’t remember, or a scream from a nightmare you can’t fucking forget.
For me, it’s a color. Hot like fire, or dark like blood, it makes no difference. Everything’s just red, everywhere I look. It’s all I can focus on.
Lighting a fire in a space filled with hardwood and highly-flammable furnishings may sound like something an ‘eejit’ might do, but it takes being at the trigger of this flamethrower to understand and appreciate the control I actually have over my Magick. It comes from months and months of intense mental training. Every torrent I whip up crawls and licks its way across carpet and cushion without so much as singing it. My will is steel forged in a furnace hotter than anyone else I know can handle; my grip is like iron. My Magick won’t harm a sod in sight, not unless I specifically want it to.
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