The End of the Line

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

  But all the while there were those whispers, spoken in words too low to hear, too foreign to understand. If they had a language it was the language of those shifting symbols written on Reeves’ body. They muttered in Amanda’s ear until they became as constant and rhythmic as the judder of the rails. They’d slipped deeper and deeper beneath her thoughts until she didn’t know where she ended and Reeves began.

  They spoke of bargains. Imaginings of Reeves plucking her daughter from AK’s grasp, the gangster’s blood congealing in his living veins…

  She wondered what Reeves was saying to the others.

  She could see it behind their eyes, the way their thoughts tugged at their features. What strange chemistry was going on in their heads?

  Steph

  The present –fifty-six hours to destination

  ‘Who did this?’ demanded Steph. Even angry, she kept her voice down to a whisper. Raised in her hand, she held the empty bottle for them all to see. The inside of the glass was still stained black, ink clinging to the sides. ‘This was by the toilet. Someone threw it all away.’

  She turned, looking to each of them.

  Caleb cleared his throat, the chair creaking under him, his big hand squeezing his book until his fingertips were white.

  Skeebs glared like the empty bottle was a personal affront.

  ‘It’s all gone?’ asked Amanda, standing.

  ‘Someone stole it from my bag.’

  Unspoken accusations clotted the air. Reeves’ whispers became urgent in Steph’s ears, stoking her paranoia.

  From the look on the other’s faces, they were hearing the same.

  ‘Well it wasn’t me,’ said Skeebs, too loudly, wedging his arms firmly in his sleeping bag. ‘I been sat here the whole time. What about her? She’s always up and fussing over Reeves and she’s already been got by him once.’

  Amanda scowled but didn’t offer any argument.

  ‘Sure it was full?’ asked Caleb. ‘Could have leaked.’

  ‘If it had leaked it would be all over everything. I don’t see ink anywhere else, do you?’ She was feeling testy. Between the whispers and her studies, her nerves felt like they’d been scoured.

  ‘We all been up once or twice,’ said Caleb. ‘And sleeping. Small thing like taking a bottle. Could have been any one of us.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t me,’ spluttered Steph.

  ‘Sure about that?’ asked Amanda.

  Another silence, the kind a sharp-toothed grin makes. Satisfaction radiated from their captive.

  ‘Security check time,’ said Amanda. Side-stepping, all eyes on her, she worked her fingers in the grooved metal symbols etched into Reeves’ manacle.

  Steph felt a small modicum of triumph as the woman’s eyes met hers, a small spark of companionship between them.

  There, she told that little negative voice. There was something she’d contributed. When Amanda had been under Reeves’ influence she’d said she hadn’t been able to even look at the symbols on the manacles or knife blade. Steph had done the research and found that touching them would have driven Reeves out. Reeves’ urging to touch them, she was certain, had been a bluff. Despite everything that had happened, the restraints were working, reining in Reeves’ powers. It was just the longer he was in them the better he was at slipping his influence past them. But until he learned to bypass them completely, it stood to reason that if someone could touch the symbols then they weren’t possessed. Amanda had agreed and told the girl she was doing a good job.

  Steph approached. She felt strange being so close to the demon. On top of everything, his nudity still made her uncomfortable. His whole body was indescribably alien to her, made her uncomfortable in her own skin.

  Caleb’s glove came off her hand easily, it was so large. The symbols were sharp to the touch.

  Holding just long enough for the others to be satisfied, she whipped her hand away again, resisting the urge to wipe it on her skirt.

  Caleb passed as well.

  Skeebs had grown dark around the eyes. Despite the cold, a thin bead of sweat crawled down his cheek.

  ‘Come on,’ said Caleb. ‘Sooner you start, sooner it’s done.’

  The boy looked like he was going to throw up, he was so scared. He didn’t even leave his sleeping bag, choosing instead to hold it up to his chest and shuffle, careful not to fall with the jerk and sway of the train.

  He gave the manacles the merest brush and then touched them again when both Amanda and Caleb insisted.

  They allowed themselves to breathe.

  ‘Told you,’ Skeebs muttered, retreating back to his spot.

  ‘So who did it then?’ asked Steph. ‘It wasn’t nobody.’

  ‘No,’ said Amanda. ‘It wasn’t. Could be someone’s decided to join Reeves. No possession required.’

  ‘Just as easily be you,’ said Caleb. ‘Didn’t want magic in the first place.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Skeebs, leaping at the chance to accuse someone else. ‘And you’re always checking on him.’

  ‘I’m just seeing he doesn’t die before we get him to where he needs to be,’ said Amanda.

  ‘You ask me, you lost your nerve when Bridget died. Wasn’t until he was out the box, you started giving a shit about him.’

  ‘We kicked the shit out of him.’

  ‘And whose idea was that? You or Caleb’s?’

  ‘It was hers, Skeebs,’ Caleb sniffed. ‘She just didn’t stick around to watch.’

  ‘Meaning?’ asked Amanda. ‘Because I get enough from him without you—’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Steph, surprising herself. ‘It’s the whispers. If you kill each other then you’re just doing his work for him. There’s more ink. I have another bottle. We just need to,’ she swallowed, not liking the words, ‘watch each other more closely.’

  Soon they’ll ask if you can stop it. She swallowed, heart in her mouth. What will they do when you admit that since you started reading you feel you know even less than before?

  ‘She’s right,’ said Amanda, giving her a nod. ‘We’re all…’ She shook her head, headed back across the cabin to the first aid kit. ‘Enough!’

  Skeebs flinched, pulling his legs out of the way as she passed. ‘Fucking ice box in here.’ Amanda made to put the cream away, thought better of it and rolled up her sleeve. The burn on her arm was raw and shiny.

  The others looked to one another. What could they do? Watch one another, not dare to sleep.

  Caleb lumbered back to his seat, gloveless hands clamped in his armpits.

  ‘How far north are we?’ asked Skeebs, blowing into his hands, breaking the silence of Reeves’ murmurings.

  ‘More north than any of us have ever been,’ said Amanda, gently rubbing the cream into her forearm.

  ‘Why’s it got to be all the way out here, this circle?’

  ‘It’s a place of power,’ said Steph. ‘The walls are thinner.’

  ‘What’s that mean the walls are thinner”?’

  ‘Um…’ she didn’t know what it meant. It was just a phrase she’d seen in the notes by a diagram she didn’t understand. ‘Walls’ and ‘thin’ were just glib phrases hiding deep layers of meaning and magic it would take years to understand.

  ‘Means she knows what she’s talking about,’ said Amanda, leaping to her aid.

  ‘And I’m asking her a question, because she hasn’t barely told us shit.’

  ‘The less you know the better so you can’t fuck it up. Twice you’ve tried to stab me and if I wasn’t such a soft touch you’d already be out that door. But that doesn’t mean that any of us are going to trust you.’

  ‘Trust me? Like we should trust you? Said yourself, you’re always playing some angle. I don’t know what your deal is with him,’ he nodded to Reeves, ‘but we all know you’d sell us out to AK in a heartbeat if it meant getting your girl back. I mean, how do we even know you ain’t done that already? Any of the rest of you think about that? I mean look at me. I got the shakes, I get nightmares. W
hy am I even here?’

  ‘You’ve got—’

  ‘Bullshit! Bull. Shit. Reason I’m here is because AK wanted me out the way. Got nothing to do with what I know. I mean you’ve got me, Bridget’s daughter and you two. We’re all that’s left. We’re loose ends. And I bet you any money that AK’s going to have something cooking to get rid of us when we get back so he walks away clean. And you know that. So if you’re not listening to him,’ he looked to Reeves again, ‘you’re definitely in with AK. Rest of us got no reason to trust you. Your daughter might already be dead for all you know. You think about that?’

  The train rattled along its tracks, the suspension creaking and squeaking as the carriage rocked. Empty food cans shifted and scraped.

  A look crossed Amanda’s face that showed that she had. She snorted, a beat too late to hide her concern. ‘You’re fucking paranoid. That’s Reeves getting in your head.’

  ‘Not the same as being wrong,’ said Caleb.

  The pair held each other’s gaze for the longest time.

  ‘One of you spilled that ink,’ said Amanda, looking around. ‘You tried to sabotage us. But siding with him is the worst mistake you’ll ever make, because I’ll fucking kill you. Wasn’t for me and what I did, what I… He wouldn’t be in those chains and you’d all be dead. Right now. All of you, fucking dead. This here is your last fucking chance. Keep an eye on your bag,’ Amanda said to Steph. ‘And the rest of us are going to be watching you. This isn’t happening again.’

  Steph opened her mouth to protest and thought better of it. Arguing was getting them nowhere. It was exactly what Reeves wanted.

  Amanda went back to her sleeping bag, all anger and bluster as she pulled it up around her.

  Skeebs flinched at nothing in particular, curling up on himself again, fingers returning to his ears.

  ‘How much longer until we arrive?’ Steph asked, trying to dispel the tension. She sounded small, even to her own ears.

  ‘A couple more days,’ said Amanda. She checked her watch. ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Easier to keep track in prison,’ scowled Caleb. He was still glaring at Amanda from their heated exchange. ‘At least we had windows.’

  Amanda stiffened, a reaction that Caleb drank in before casting a look at Steph. She didn’t know whether she was meant to smile or frown in sympathy.

  ‘GBH,’ he said, answering her unasked question.

  The hair on the back of her arms stood on end. She wanted to clear her throat, didn’t dare to. She retreated back to her sleeping bag, the cold sinking through her inadequate clothing.

  ‘Caleb—’ Amanda started but the big man cut her off.

  ‘Guy deserved it though. Don’t remember much about the night I did it. Every time I try to remember, I think back to that other night. In the pub. Michael had just lost his job. Amanda here was more furious than he was. Raging. “No one treats someone I know like that.” Remember? You on your high horse. Could already see your wheels turning,’ Caleb spun his finger around and around, ‘some big revenge plan. Simon telling you not to. You not listening. And I’m right there with you. Ready to do whatever you say to get back at the bastard who hurt my man. But Michael, never anything got to him. He was laughing and joking. Had this way of… washing it all off. Friends were what mattered to him. Family. Everything else was just details. And anyone with him, they’d see it that way too. Like he pulled a blanket around them, made them see that what they had was what was most important. Convinced you that night. Had you forgetting and “cheers”ing, kissing Simon on his cheek. Laughing at the pictures of your kids on your phone. He was the heart of us, that man. Stopped us… being ourselves.’ The big man scowled to himself.

  Amanda was holding her breath. She remembered. How could she forget? Every time Caleb took a breath she’d wonder how much further he was taking the story.

  ‘Can’t stop thinking about that. He was so himself. And you were so you. The attack on Michael was an attack on you and Amanda doesn’t listen to anyone when she wants what she wants. Next week, wasn’t it? Next week you found out about Brekke. Michael… Learn a lot about yourself in prison. Different way of shrinking your problems. Living day to day. Nothing but anger and sadness. Watching your back. Can’t not be changed being there.’

  Amanda was motionless as stone. They all were. Any sound would constitute a response.

  The silence sank again, plunging them back into their own thoughts. With Reeves slipping through the cracks.

  Steph

  The present – fifty-three hours to destination

  Steph squinted down at her books and tried not to cry.

  Skeebs’ question about magic had rattled her.

  The truth was she was struggling. The knife blessing was complicated and needed to be so precise – so many things could go wrong. Mum had written down the ingredients and rituals for the ink but not the order in which they had to be applied. As for the banishing ritual itself, the more she read about it, the more it looked like blood magic was the only option.

  She wondered what she would be like, addicted to the rush of someone else’s power in her veins. It was well-known that the only treatment of blood addiction was to be able to afford a regular supply of the stuff or people willing to give it. Would AK be that person? She’d only met him twice and though she had little doubt that he would give her a supply, Caleb had called it; the cost would come high. She’d likely end up little more than a slave, both to him and her addiction. She recalled the basement she’d been held in while her mum hunted down Reeves. Months with no windows or a bed, just a sleeping bag, dull concrete and a surly man on guard.

  But at least then she’d been looked after.

  What else had she to go home to now Mum was gone? She had no other relatives. There was only one other choice besides the gangster.

  She fingered the pages of the notebook, drinking in the sight of her mum’s handwriting.

  Karina would understand all this. She thought again of the look on her mentor’s face if Steph turned up on her doorstep with these notes, in need of a place to stay. Karina would surely take her in. Help her. Together they’d do incredible things. She pictured her mentor’s wide, easy smile and felt bad that she’d never felt the same way about her own mother.

  Though none of that mattered if she couldn’t figure out the knife and ink.

  They already know, said the little voice of doubt in her head. Why else are they trying to bargain with Reeves? They’re waiting for you to break.

  Steph could feel Reeves twisting her thoughts, adding weight to everything negative and suspicious. It wasn’t telepathy, she was certain of that. More projecting his wants into their heads, an urge to release him, to understand him, how they rationalised it was up to the brain.

  But knowing what he was doing didn’t make it any easier to avoid listening. Especially when they were her thoughts to begin with.

  But if just her mother’s notes would get her Karina’s praise, why not aim higher?

  Why stop at just a successful banishment. What if she surpassed her mother and arrived on Karina’s doorstep with a re-bound demon? Forget these criminals’ petty revenges or problems. What did she owe these people, really?

  The rest of them thought only of themselves. Why not her?

  Amanda

  The present – fifty-two hours to destination

  Amanda was trying not to shiver. The cards were back out, splayed in a game of patience. Part of the game now was keeping her hands outside the sleeping bag for as little time as possible.

  It was all falling apart.

  Her old friend’s eyes were fixed on his book.

  Blood was already starting to spot through the virgin white of his bandage, revealed every time the big man lifted his hat to scratch. The spot of blood on Amanda’s cuff wouldn’t wash out.

  Reeves had got to him too. For the first time in years, Amanda didn’t know what Caleb was thinking. That worried her.

  She remembered that night, he
’d talked about. Remembered the anger, the way Michael had smoothed it over. He’d always had that way about him. A man satisfied with what he had, everything else a bonus. Not long after, she’d got that man killed and Caleb in prison, while she walked away with nothing but guilt. She thought she and Caleb had put it behind them, even when it could never be forgotten. Now though, after everything that had happened with Reeves, there it was, Caleb bringing it up again when she was at her weakest. Right when she needed a friend.

  It was the whispers. Reeves might be unconscious or trapped like the girl said, but he was still smart, still pulling their strings, stoking old resentments.

  Now they were all thinking of how much they could trust Amanda. Whether there was another way out. And there wasn’t a thing she could say or do to stop it.

  She looked across her hand of cards for comfort, a jumble of her memories with Simon laid out neatly across her lap. She dwelled on a picture of her and Simon on their day at Brighton. They have ice cream cones in their hands, blobs of vanilla on the tips of their noses. They’re both grinning like fools. She’d smiled so much that year, with him.

  It prompted another memory, another day at the beach, the kids all around them screaming blue murder. She’d built sandcastles with Emily, listening as her little girl talked about whatever played across her young mind. She’d splashed in the waves with Michaela, the girl shrieking with delight as they had pushed and thrown one another in the water. She’d played Frisbee with Darren, wrestled with him in the sand, lifted him kicking and screaming with laughter. She’d loved the boy so much that day. Would have taken a bullet for him.