The End of the Line

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

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘You still argue? I’ll make every fibre of him sing like the violin to the bow. He’ll die miserable and in agony. He’ll curse you for bringing him here. You will fail in the stone circle and I will kill everyone. Your daughter will die. Then thousands like her. And all for your pride. All for your fear of your father. Face me. Cease your scurrying and squirming and accept who you are.’

  Amanda could feel the horror radiating off her companions – the room lost for words.

  ‘You’ve got to do it, man.’ Skeebs was awake, himself. He raised a feeble hand, the cuffs of his gloves falling away from his wrists, burned to ash. He bent out a palm toward her, tears leaking down his cheeks.

  She recoiled. Skeebs screwed up his face with a wet, snotty snort and Amanda felt his pain brush across her nerve endings. ‘Fuck you waiting for? Do it. I don’t want to die.’

  ‘I’ll get the bowl,’ said Steph.

  ‘Wait,’ Amanda stopped her as she made to get the bag.

  ‘No!’ Skeebs shout choked to a croak. He squirmed where he sat. ‘Don’t fucking wait. Save me.’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Amanda, talking to Caleb.

  ‘Bargaining chips again,’ the big man rumbled.

  ‘I didn’t ask for this.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You make decisions and run from the consequences.’

  ‘All right, then what would you do?’

  ‘He’d take the blood,’ said Steph. ‘Wouldn’t you? It’s a man’s life we’re talking about.’

  But Caleb didn’t reply, his eyes locked on Amanda’s. They’d both seen addiction, knew what it meant.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Amanda. ‘You wanted me to open up. Talk to my crew. What do I do?’

  ‘He’d take the blood,’ repeated Steph. ‘We need it.’

  ‘You don’t take it, her life’s on the line too,’ Caleb pointed to Steph. ‘You still expect her to do it all for you? No tattoo? Less power. So you don’t have to?’

  Skeebs gasped in pain, he pushed himself against the wall as though he could flee from it. A single spark hopped across the floor beneath a finger poking through his ruined glove.

  ‘Michaela needs her mother. I can’t go back to her an addict, you know I can’t. We’re doing this for Michaela.’

  Caleb sighed, looking down at his hands, red from the cold. ‘No good decisions here.’

  Steph had fallen silent, almost in tears herself. It was her fate being decided, more than anyone else’s perhaps. If Amanda didn’t take the blood, if Steph had to do the ritual on her own power, no blood, no tattoo, then she’d be the one sacrificed to Reeves. All because of Amanda’s fear, her unwillingness to bend.

  Amanda gritted her teeth. She was Amanda fucking Coleman. She wasn’t a legend for nothing. There was always another way out. She knew what she had to do.

  ‘We’re not doing it. No one’s taking that boy’s blood. Fuck your terms and fuck your tattoo. But I’ll face the consequences.’ She looked to Caleb. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll do the ritual. I’m doing this right or I’m not doing it at all. The rest of us will make it. I swear. We’ll figure this out. I’m sorry, Skeebs. Shitty set a choices we got here. But it’s between you and my daughter…’

  ‘You’re just going to let me die? I fucking know things.’

  ‘No. It’s quite clear you don’t.’

  ‘I do. I swear. I…’ he squirmed in pain, gritting his teeth, squeezing shut his eyes. ‘’Cause I tried to kill you isn’t it? I had to. Danny…’ another wave of pain – Reeves making good on his promise. ‘And what I done. If I hadn’t got your son involved he wouldn’t have ended up like this.’

  ‘AK done that,’ said Caleb, ‘you was jus—’

  ‘I did that,’ Skeebs burst. ‘I did. To get to her so I could try to…’ This time Skeebs yelled with pain, feet kicking. ‘I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry. Please don’t let me die.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Amanda, though she couldn’t look the boy in the eye, her face set in a grimace. ‘The decision’s made.’

  Skeebs sobbed. No one could look him in the face now. The three of them drowning in self-loathing. Caleb’s face was stone again but Amanda knew her friend was hurting.

  ‘Just tell my brother I’m sorry, all right?’ said Skeebs. ‘Tell Danny I’m sorry I let him down. I just wanted him to… he’s all the family I’ve got.’

  ‘We’ll tell him,’ said Amanda. ‘We promise.’

  Skeebs gasped, biting back a cry of pain, fingers curling to arthritic claws.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ pleaded Steph. ‘You have to take the blood. Do the ritual.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Blood addiction isn’t like a fucking head cold. The hunger eats the heart out of you. If I go back to my daughter like that then I shouldn’t go back at all. I’ll do the ritual and you’ll help me. You think he’d even be offering this if it meant we might beat him? It’s a trick. Smoke and mirrors just to get what he wants.’

  Steph opened her mouth to reply but nothing came. There were no good options. They were all going to die.

  ‘More suffering for your pride,’ said Reeves. There was an edge to his voice now.

  There came the clank of metal and the muscles of Reeves’ arms tightened as he pulled his wrists closer together. ‘But I think it’s time that you had your fair share. I have grown tired of mine. I grow sick of the fatigue of these chains, the pain of my face, the bite of the air. Why don’t we widen those channels between us and put them to some proper use. Perhaps it will give you all something to consider when I make my next offer. Stephanie, for you the cold.’

  Steph gasped, staggered, would have fallen if Amanda hadn’t caught her. Her lips began to turn blue, her skin cold as ice. Her teeth started to chatter.

  ‘For you, Amanda,’ continued Reeves, ‘the woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders. What’s a little more?’

  Amanda dropped, pain seizing her muscles, bone deep like a hard flu. Her wrists ached and when she looked they were red and raw.

  Reeves flexed his shoulders, rolling out the kinks that now knotted in Amanda’s back.

  Amanda could feel the weight of those chains in her arms, the ache in her legs and feet from standing for so long.

  ‘And Caleb, the labours of your work.’

  Reeves’ face began to heal, the swelling draining away, his skin moulding itself to his bones, the bruises on his body shrinking like black roses closing at dusk.

  Darren’s face revealed itself, those features of Simon’s, cheek bones high and chiselled, his sharp grey eyes standing out, filled with hate.

  Caleb’s laboured breath hitched as his ribs bruised, became shorter, more constricted. His face grew red, the swellings growing like a rosy blush across his cheeks before overwhelming his face, eyes puffing over and his lower lip splitting and bleeding afresh. The man took it with barely a grunt of discomfort. His left hand came up to charily test his new injuries.

  It took only the space of a minute – Reeves standing tall, refreshed, while the three remaining captors could barely stand – shouldering their prisoner’s burdens.

  ‘I think we understand one another now,’ said Reeves.

  Skeebs finally screamed as the pain overpowered his resolve, so loud it hurt their ears. His desperate urge to live began to saturate the air, his feeling so real that Amanda could taste it in the back of her throat.

  Chapter 28

  Steph

  The present – twenty-seven hours to destination

  ‘He’s gone.’

  Caleb pulled away from the boy’s chest, patting the dead boy’s shoulder. His face was inscrutable beneath his new bruises. But there was no mistaking the limpness with which he sat back against the wall, the way he squeezed the big rock of his fist as he looked up to the ceiling. His sigh was thin and hard out of his ruined throat. ‘Fuck.’

  Steph pulled her blanket closer around her and heaved an inward sigh of relief. Eight hour
s Skeebs had held on, his lingering departure one weight too many to carry. His pain and need for his brother threading the air, something to be inhaled.

  Skeebs had screamed until his vocal chords had torn. And then he’d kept trying.

  Caleb had proposed putting the boy out of his misery and Reeves had denied him. There would be no escaping their decision, he had announced.

  She frowned down at her books. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t muster any strong feelings. Nothing that wasn’t rooted in self-interest. Though they’d never seen eye to eye, both Amanda and Caleb were upset, taking it as some grown-ups did by turning to stone.

  But the whole carriage had been a death bed since Skeebs had started dying and Reeves talking. The unspoken rules had changed. It dictated terms and if they disobeyed, the consequences could be severe. Loud noises were unpermitted, distractions like cards were forbidden, anything that didn’t display solemnity for the situation.

  Steph had had little choice but to throw herself back into the books, tried to plan around the fact that the tattoo was no longer happening. If she could find a way to counteract the side effects… It helped take her mind off the biting cold at least.

  She wondered if Amanda could learn it in time. Now that Steph was no longer in the firing line she wondered if she should do it after all. She had years of practice behind her. She had strength, she knew it. The flash she’d used to blind Skeebs, the other small tricks she’d learned at home, they’d all performed outside her expectations. Even her mother had lifted an eyebrow when measuring her abilities. It was just specific knowledge she lacked. Only knowledge. This was a job for a scalpel not a sledgehammer, which was what Amanda would be. As much as she’d wished Amanda would do it herself, now that was what was happening it seemed woefully misguided.

  She wished she could have a private word with Amanda. She wanted to say she was sorry for her loss though she wasn’t sure if she meant it. But she couldn’t.

  Reeves hadn’t allowed them to put the hood back. It was in charge and now it was impossible to say anything. His keen hearing picked up every muttered aside or whispered word. He replied as though they were directed at him, his retorts full of mockery and poison that made them retreat back into themselves, wishing they’d never spoken. She wanted to talk about the plan more than ever and couldn’t. How could she when the man they were plotting against was feet away? Amanda thought the same, she could see it in her eyes, the way she’d look at her and pressed her lips tight. It was just another way Reeves had rendered them impotent.

  ‘We need to get him out,’ said Amanda, her voice brittle with fatigue. She was dark around the eyes, her cheeks sunken.

  Caleb nodded, grimaced as he steeled himself to sit up.

  Steph watched as they gently packed Skeebs away, folding up his hands, tucking in his elbows, making sure his eyes were closed. The sleeping bag became a body bag.

  Caleb moved stiffy, his ribs paining him. Amanda was bent over like a woman twice her age, burdened by invisible weight.

  They moved like they were sleep walking. Slow and quiet, trying to make as little noise and fuss as possible. Everything was said in looks, glances, nods and points. ‘Get the door open.’ Amanda held out the keys to the padlocks. Steph, reluctant to get involved, took them. Cinching the blanket closer around her shoulders, one gloved hand holding it closed, she got to her feet.

  But Skeebs’ spiralling hadn’t stopped her studying. If anything, it had spurred her. Spurred Amanda too. There had been a time she’d clung to the thought of returning home a hero, a demon banisher, bringing a revolution in magic theory with her. Now even surviving seemed a remote possibility. The fact that she kept working at all was only a stubborn, desperate act of self-preservation.

  She just wished they could compare notes without Reeves scoffing, making their theories sound like childish burbling. She could see Amanda struggling, throwing her pleading looks to help. The idea of even doing the ritual terrified her but there she was, doing her best for her daughter. Determined to see things through so Skeebs’ death wasn’t for nothing.

  The keys slipped easily into the locks. It took all of her weight to roll the door open.

  The wind stampeded in at a deafening volume, sending food wrappers whipping around the carriage. The pages of Skeebs’ last magazine turned from beginning to end in a blur.

  The fresh air filled her with life to the tips of her fingers. Eyes streaming against the chill breeze, blinking in the cold, white light she squinted to look out at the world.

  The sky was a rich, velvet purple, the night’s stars giving their last twinkling alls before conceding to the sun that was just only beginning to water the night away with a grey that promised blue.

  The ground below was thick with black trees, dusted white with snow. She stood amazed. With the cold and no windows to peer through all she had had to go on about Siberia was what her own imagination could supply. What she had pictured was wasteland more akin to Antarctica than the swathes of frosted greenery that stretched before her.

  If she’d thought it was possible to feel colder, she was wrong. The inside of the carriage was positively balmy compared to the great expanse outside. The cold near cut her in half and brought an involuntary moan from her lips.

  ‘Steph! Come on!’

  Amanda and Caleb shuffled forward, side-on. They lifted the bag between them slowly, small-stepped their way across the carriage, frowning with exertion.

  Steph stood aside, holding her glasses to her face, hair whipping at her burns, a chocolate bar wrapper catching in her blanket for a moment before diving away, down to join the splendour in front of them.

  Reeves looked on, eyes glittering. His presence discouraged any attempt at a eulogy. They would have felt too self-conscious doing anything in front of that leering, mocking smile.

  ‘On three,’ said Amanda, hands tucked into the folds of the sleeping bag and under Skeebs’ arms.

  ‘One.’

  Steph swallowed. It was a long drop into the trees. In the bag, bones would snap and cuts would leak sluggish, stagnant blood. The end result would be more like a bag of something bought from a butchers.

  ‘Two.’

  Animals, Steph pictured birds, wolves, would be drawn to the smell of good meat. If the bag tore during its passage through the branches, and she was certain that it would, they would feast.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Sorry, Skeebs.’

  The final swing and the body was gone. Wind pummelling their faces, snowflakes settling in their hair, they watched as it quickly shrank behind them. It turned end over end before disappearing with a ripple into the first fronds of the vegetation.

  Steph turned her back to the wind, her face numb and wind-burnt. Reeves gave her a smile.

  ‘Close the door,’ Amanda yelled.

  Steph turned to stare hard into the blurring wilderness. Maybe she should jump. Wasn’t that a better way out of this?

  Amanda put herself between the girl and the yawning outside.

  ‘Close the door,’ she repeated, and did it herself.

  The sound of the outdoors muffled as the door slid home but Steph could still hear it, pattering its fingers against the shell of the carriage. All that space less than a step away. Almost three days they had spent inside this thing with only boxes, three people, four walls, floor and ceiling to look at. She had needed that stark reminder that that wasn’t all there was.

  The padlocks went back. The keys went back. Amanda took two.

  The carriage seemed so much emptier without Skeebs. He’d taken up more space than his slight frame suggested. Or maybe the place was just so cramped that even a few extra square feet of space felt like a luxury.

  Caleb eased himself back into his spot, taking a long moment to stare at the vacant space where Skeebs had lain.

  A chair clattered as Amanda turned it to face the back of the carriage, away from the others. She slumped down into it her face hidden.

  Steph exchanged a
look with Caleb. They had both seen the pressure getting to their leader these past hours. She’d helped look after Skeebs, feeding him water when he was able to drink. She’d pressed hard at studying the books, learning the ritual she’d have to perform until she knew the steps by heart.

  But learning was very different from doing.

  Shivering, clenching her jaw so that her teeth didn’t chatter, Steph went to see what Amanda was doing.

  The woman had the string fetish out again, her hands going through the forms she’d need. It wasn’t ideal, the control the fetish lent would negate the strength of Amanda’s power but without it there was more chance of her being devoured by Reeves or by the demand of the task without a tattoo. That said, there was even more chance the ritual wouldn’t work at all.

  There were two dozen forms she needed to learn and she needed to slip from any one to any other in a heartbeat, channelling power, knowing when to channel and how. Directing her power through the knife while simultaneously opening the gate in the circle of stones both pushing and pulling Reeves through at the same time while not going through herself.

  Scowling with concentration, Amanda moved slowly from form to form, picking them at random with such a glacial pace that Steph grimaced. Two dozen forms. That meant a huge number of combinations. Amanda froze, her lips tightening as her fingers stiffened, middle and ring fingers crooked unable to complete the move she needed them to. The string cut deep into her fingers and along the backs of her hands.

  Giving up with a hard sigh of frustration, she let the string slacken. She swiped an angry hand over a drip that formed on her nose but whether it was sweat or tears Steph couldn’t say.

  Draping the string over her knee, Amanda reached into her pocket to pull out her pack of cards. It rattled it was so empty now. They’d clearly meant a lot to her, Steph knew, the way she’d reacted when she’d lost them. She’d seen a few, pictures of her and who she presumed was Amanda’s late husband. They’d clearly been so much in love. Something Steph wouldn’t have conceived a person like Amanda was capable of.