The End of the Line

by The End of the Line (retail) (epub)

  Steph froze with a tiny squeak, her complexion turning to the colour of milk, her gloved hands clenched in the material of her sleeping bag.

  Skeebs exploded, redoubling his efforts to fight his way from the confines of his sleeping bag, tripping over himself, hand thrust in his pocket.

  Amanda, shaking, started to push herself to her feet, her limbs like water, her arm a constant scream of pain.

  Caleb wasn’t moving. The horror of what Amanda had done threatened to envelop her but she pushed it back.

  Skeebs pulled his hand from his pocket with a hiss of success. He had a knife, a cruel, sharp little thing. He turned, the point darting from Reeves to Amanda to Caleb and around to the girl, eyes wild.

  Steph recoiled and the knife swung back to Reeves, moving like it was pulling Skeebs behind it, sniffing for blood.

  ‘Keep away,’ the boy trembled, backing away towards the supplies again, keeping them all in sight. ‘I’ll fucking stab them, I swear.’

  ‘Skeebs,’ Amanda’s voice was hoarse, ‘put that down.’

  ‘Don’t fucking move.’ Skeebs steadied the knife in both hands. ‘You think I care about these people? I been rehearsing this since I got on. I ain’t afraid.’

  Steph climbed backwards up the wall, keeping herself as far from Skeebs as possible. She flinched as the knife swung back around, a frightened squeak escaping her throat as she hot-stepped backwards to Amanda’s side.

  ‘I said no one fucking move!’

  But just as quickly the knifepoint was back on Amanda.

  ‘No one fucking move,’ he said again, lower this time, rocking on his feet like he was preparing to lunge.

  He shuffled around towards Caleb, gave him a kick. Amanda willed the big man to stir, to give some sign he was alive. Nothing.

  ‘Skeebs,’ Amanda spoke slowly, a warning.

  ‘Shut up. Just shut up!’ The knife came away for a second as Skeebs clutched at his head. ‘Fuck!’ Before he realised that he needed it levelled and stabbed it out at the women again.

  But it was already too late. Steph had already ducked down and pulled the knife from Bridget’s bag. She came up holding it like a sword, both hands around the handle, a desperate fiery look in her eye.

  ‘Woah, woah, woah,’ Amanda held out her hands, trying to stop things from escalating. She’d never seen a knife fight that ended well for either party.

  ‘You take it,’ the girl jerked the knife toward her.

  ‘She makes another move and I’ll fucking slot her, I swear,’ said Skeebs.

  ‘We can’t let him ruin this,’ said Steph. ‘We work together. You take this and I can—’

  ‘No one’s fighting,’ said Amanda. ‘Back off. Skeebs, put the knife down.’

  Skeebs almost laughed, the noise twisting into anger and tears. ‘I ain’t her fucking bitch,’ he said to Reeves. ‘I ain’t yours.’ Now he looked to Amanda. ‘You were always ordering me around. Like you was better than me. I was telling you. I told you this would happen. You treated me like a fuck up.’

  ‘Skeebs, Caleb’s hurt,’ Amanda insisted. ‘We need to check on him. I need to see what damage Reeves did. I can’t do that with either of you waving those things around.’

  ‘You think I’m falling for that? What, are you going for his key?’ Skeebs clutched at his pocket, checking his was still there. ‘You,’ he flicked the knife at Steph, ‘drop that and kick it over here.’

  The girl didn’t move, swallowing hard, breath wheezing in her throat.

  ‘You think I’m fucking kidding?’

  ‘Put it down,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Take it from me,’ Steph insisted, proffering it again. ‘We can work together. I can use magic.’

  ‘No magic.’ The girl had more nerve than Amanda had thought. Who knew, if she hadn’t picked up the knife Skeebs might have attacked and this would be over already. But if the girl got herself hurt, or worse, killed, that would be bad for all of them. The thought of the girl bleeding out, eyes wide, begging Amanda for a solution made her sick to her stomach.

  ‘You think I’m going to hesitate stabbing them, think again,’ said Skeebs, still talking to Reeves. ‘I’ve been thinking on stabbing this bitch for days. And think I care she’s a little girl?’

  ‘No one’s being controlled by Reeves,’ said Amanda. ‘He had me, I shook him off.’ She showed the skin of her wrist, red and blistered. ‘The chains are working. Now, again, you’re being a complete arsehole, standing between me and my getting my little girl back.’

  ‘And you’re between me and my brother. He says I can’t see him again unless you’re in the ground.’

  ‘Yeah? Well fucking sucks to be you, doesn’t it? Because you kill me and Reeves’ll have you bent over faster’n you can blink. Then your brother. Then any other of your little dipshit friends you’ve got left. But your brother doesn’t care about that because he’d rather see you dead than have people think he’s weak.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Danny doesn’t care about you. Danny only cares about Danny and nothing you ever do is going to change that.’

  Skeebs launched forward. Steph gave a squeal as Amanda pushed her aside, out of harm’s way. No time to do anything else, every nerve a live wire, Amanda braced herself.

  Skeebs barged her aside, his shoulder hitting her squarely in the chest.

  Trying not to step on Caleb, Amanda stumbled. The tendons up her arm twanged as she caught her elbow on the wall. The ache in the deadened muscle of her bruised thigh made her grimace.

  Skeebs wavered as he reached Reeves, stiffening his resolve, and brought up the knife.

  ‘NO!’ Amanda made a clumsy grab for the knife, scrabbling at Skeebs’ arm.

  They fought, the knife waving between them, Amanda trying to push them away from the prisoner.

  ‘Not waiting for some fucking ritual,’ Skeebs forced out between gritted teeth.

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ Amanda replied. ‘You kill him now and one of us dies.’

  Some of the strength went out of Skeebs as confusion took hold.

  ‘Just let me explain. It was the night Reeves was summoned. I was there.’

  Chapter 12

  Amanda

  Six months earlier

  Amanda barged into her son’s bedroom, the door slamming into the wall and rattling the light fixtures.

  Michaela and Darren leapt from the floor to their feet, Michaela’s hand darting behind her back hiding something from view.

  Anger flashed across Darren’s face at his parent’s intrusion.

  Amanda pinned them both in place with a glare. Simon came in behind her and she only got angrier when she saw the relief on both kids’ faces.

  They’d set a small fire in the middle of a small frying pan, contraband Abra herbs floating on wax in low water. Two small crude fetishes made from pipe-cleaners and sparrow feathers sat either side, completely unnecessary and used only by amateurs.

  She kicked it with a crash into a corner of the room. The water put out the flame, the metal rang like a muted bell. The children recoiled before their mother’s anger.

  ‘Hey, what the fuck!’ Darren protested at the water dripping down his wall.

  ‘Emily, you little snitch,’ screeched Michaela. Amanda didn’t need to look to know her youngest was peering around the doorway to see the explosion that she had sparked.

  ‘Don’t you DARE make this about her,’ Amanda snarled, jabbing a finger up under her elder daughter’s nose. ‘You bring this filth into my house don’t you fucking dare put any of it at her feet. I could smell it from the fucking garden.’ Their eyes darted to the window they’d opened to deal with the smoke.

  Amanda paced, fists clenching and unclenching, working off the excess energy that screamed to be used. She looked to her husband, now leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, lips a perfect mirror of his son’s. Here to make sure she didn’t go too far, just like she’d asked.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘No
thing,’ mumbled Michaela.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing! We were just mucking around.’

  ‘Not with this you fucking… show me your hands. Both of you, show me your hands.’ She was already grabbing at Darren’s arm, pulling it out from around his back.

  Michaela, quicker on the uptake, held hers out for inspection. Both boy and girl had their index fingers bandaged tightly, blood specking the fingertips and Amanda knew that amongst the little tuft of half-burned grass smouldering in the corner, she would find two fingernails.

  She snatched at Michaela’s other hand, held palm down so her mother wouldn’t see what was clutched in it – her provisional driver’s licence.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you were playing at?’

  Neither answered, each looking to the other for solidarity.

  ‘Kids,’ warned Simon. ‘Come on. How do you expect this to play out where you aren’t grounded?’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ they both shouted in unison.

  ‘We were just…’ Michaela caught herself before she blurted a full confession.

  ‘Just what?’ demanded Amanda.

  ‘We were just…’ The words lost strength half way through, like if she said them but Amanda didn’t hear then she’d get the best of both worlds. ‘Making a glamour.’

  ‘You were using magic in my house to make yourself a fake ID?’

  ‘It’s no big deal! Dad makes—’

  ‘And who told you how to make this?’

  The boy was good. Smart. Years of growing up with a poker professional had taught him how to disguise a few tells. It didn’t stop him casting a guilty look to the side of his bed but made him realise he’d given the game away when he had.

  His phone was lying on the floor by the bedpost, the screen still open.

  The boy was fast but Amanda was faster, snatching the phone up before he could move. ‘Hey, you’ve got no right.’

  Amanda pinned him back in place with a look, scrolling quickly through the document. It was some amateurish glamour ritual, so convoluted there’d only been half a chance it would have worked. The more likely result would have been Michaela fabricating some lie about how her licence had melted tomorrow morning.

  On the floor where the phone had been sitting was a small glass lens, popped from a pair of glasses. She could feel the weak enchantment through her skin as she picked it up, the tingle up her scars putting her even more on edge.

  ‘We just want what’s best for you, kids,’ said Simon as she looked through it. Everything looked the same, though she bet that if the spell had worked the lens would help imprint the caster’s desires on the now-enchanted laminate, like, say, an earlier date of birth.

  ‘We were just trying it,’ said Darren. ‘I didn’t say yes to any of the rest. Neither of us is any good at art and since Dad—’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Simon, anger touching his voice now.

  And Darren knew he’d fucked up. He hadn’t seen what Amanda was looking at on his phone and jumped the gun on defending him and his sister against something else.

  Simon, Michaela and Darren started arguing, the blame going from one to the other to no-one in particular as Amanda checked the boy’s texts.

  ‘What’s this?’ she brandished the phone under Darren’s nose.

  ‘I told you, we were just trying it out. I never said we’d do the rest.’

  ‘Not the fucking IDs we’ll get to that in a minute, the couriering.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Three weeks, it says here.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Your son has been muling contraband around London for…’

  She raised the phone up like she was going to hurl it at the wall. She could hear it in her head, the crash of it like crockery, like her own childhood mealtimes. She thought better of it.

  ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t in no danger,’ said Darren.

  ‘I’ll just…’ Michaela made to leave.

  ‘Don’t you move,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Darren,’ said Simon, ‘if you’d been caught that’s serious jail time.’

  ‘Wasn’t going to be caught, was I? ’Sides, Skeebs had this new thing for me.’

  ‘He’s just using you to get at me,’ said Amanda.

  ‘What? That’s bullshi—’

  ‘Language,’ Simon warned.

  ‘You think Skeebs just texts you out of the blue, for no reason after AK fires me? How’d he get your number?’ Unable to look at it any more, Amanda handed her husband the phone. Looking more upset than angry, Simon began to scroll through the texts, following the story.

  ‘I dunno. Maybe he thinks I got what you’ve got.’

  ‘Skeebs has got nothing to do with this. It’s AK. He wants me to know that he can touch someone I care about. It’s just a fucked-up power play.’ She was explaining as much to Simon as her son now, the pair of them wearing identical, angry expressions.

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘So what is it like?’ asked Simon.

  ‘That’s code,’ Amanda explained to her husband, jabbing at the list on screen. ‘AK’s been having him pick up packages.’

  Darren sighed. ‘I’m not stupid. I opened a couple of them. He was just testing me.’

  ‘So you can qualify to pick up the really illegal stuff?’ Simon was raising his voice now.

  ‘It was just random junk. One was just some old telescope, or a pair of jeans or old SIM cards. Now he wants me making fake IDs so we can sell them. Good money. But I wasn’t gonna. Mum, come on!’

  Amanda had turned to look out the window, gripping the sill until her fingertips hurt, counting under her breath. There was the strong urge to leave the room before something happened.

  ‘That’s worse,’ said Simon. ‘What I do, I do everything to keep us anonymous and keep us safe. But glamours? Both of you? That doesn’t get you in prison. They hang people for this.’

  The words lingered in the air.

  Amanda rounded on the pair of them, light-headed. ‘You little fucking…’ Amanda went for the boy.

  ‘Amanda!’ Simon warned.

  There must have been something in Amanda’s eyes because Michaela stepped back into the wall with a thud.

  Amanda cleared her throat, tried to rein herself back in. ‘You’re not leaving this house,’ she managed. ‘No internet. You’re not seeing them again. Not AK, not Skeebs. You’re off limits.’

  ‘This isn’t fair.’

  ‘You want more?’ Amanda clenched her fists, could feel her veins running like charged copper wires under her skin. ‘You want to tell me about unfair?’

  The boy quailed and Amanda let out a snort of triumph. She’d cowed the boy. She looked to her husband to see if he saw it and then felt something wither inside her when she saw the look of fear in her daughter’s face.

  And the look of disappointment on her husband’s face. Her work had breached the family sanctuary. Something she’d sworn would never happen.

  ‘Fuck this. I’ll sort it.’ She stormed from the room.

  There was nothing for it but to flee. Five minutes and she was in the car, hands shaking on the wheel, still gripping her son’s phone. The gun they kept under the bed was on the passenger seat.

  She was not her father.

  * * *

  Word was out, Amanda was looking for AK. That meant he couldn’t be found.

  Caleb called, then Jamison. Back off, calm down, go home. Simon must have told them.

  The gun was in the glove compartment but even there, she could feel its weight.

  Nobody returned her calls. But then they hadn’t for months now. The old job was closed to her.

  That didn’t stop her. It wasn’t just AK’s childish attempt to get at her, it wasn’t just that he was using Darren to do it. There was something about those items Darren had been picking up. Alarm bells for something she half remembered but couldn’t grasp.

  Cars and pedestrians slid by beyond the glass. Th
ere was the close feeling of an incoming storm, a hammer to shatter the heat.

  She stopped at the club. Nothing. Pubs, warehouses, taxi firms. Anywhere AK or Skeebs did business. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just old men who used to be friends telling her to go home and cool off.

  Where would he go? What would he do?

  And there it was. Those packages made a cold, cold sense. Childhood memories coalesced in a waft of cigarette smoke, her father drunk, trying to impress a little girl by telling her things she’d rather not know.

  Bridget was preparing to try the summoning and binding – confident at last in her theories.

  She knew where AK would be.

  * * *

  The sun was already setting fire to the horizon when Amanda reached Shoreditch, the orange sky deepening the colour of the old firebrick buildings and blinding the windows to incandescent white.

  Something was already in motion. An oppressive feeling cloaked the street, the thin rain making the streetlamps hold their light close, and making deep pits of the doorways.

  It was as if the air itself pressed around her feelings, heating and compressing, fermenting them into something dark and old. Amanda gritted her teeth and bore it, the feeling was more than familiar to her – magic of the blackest kind. She didn’t have long.

  She pulled in, took out the gun. She could see her destination from the driver’s seat – one of the few doors without a trendy sign and a re-purpose. The old warehouse loomed, several floors high, stitched up the side with old cargo doors.

  It hadn’t been hard to find out that the Abra, Bridget, had set up shop here.

  She should go home. But she knew she wouldn’t.

  A couple sheltering in a doorway from the drizzle had begun to argue. Dogs were barking, pulling at their leashes or turning on their owners. Birds squabbled on the rooftops. Car horns began to blare in the next street. All around Amanda, the aura of a powerful summoning was taking its toll, passers-by succumbing to the haze and lashing out. It was only going to get worse.

  Candlelight flickered down from the top window of the warehouse.

  Hunching her shoulders, Amanda leapt from the car and headed over, not bothering to conceal her weapon.