The woman flicked through a couple, pouring over the illustrations before she finally noticed Steph watching. She flinched at the attention then seemed to relax.
‘Just taking a break,’ she said. ‘It’s hard with…’ She flexed her shoulder against the weight of Reeves’ chains. ‘I know card tricks but I’m telling you this string is something else.’ She said it in a cheerful tone that fooled neither of them. ‘We’ll do it though. I’ll do it. Skeebs won’t have… I mean, it won’t have been for nothing.’ She snorted. ‘Kind of funny, I pull this off I’ll go down in history as the first person to banish a demon. Can’t say I ever saw that coming.’
Steph wanted to scream. She wanted to shout. They were running out of time and they were just as fucked as they’d ever been. She couldn’t say half the things she wanted to say not without Reeves hearing, not without it shooting her down. They were fucked, fucked, fucked unless Amanda got better at this.
‘I show you these?’ Amanda raised the cards. ‘He made them for me, one for every week of our first year together. Wasn’t long after that we were married and we had Michaela. And I vowed I wouldn’t end up like my father. This man, my little girl, she was my chance at getting away from all that. And now…’ she raised a hand and let it fall again. ‘We all end up back where we started. There’s no running from it. Michaela and this pack, they’ve all I’ve got left and they’re more important to me than anything. But look at how they’ve ended up. Might be they’ll be better off if I’m gone. And I can’t get… When I think of her…’ She jerked her knee, the fetish shifting across it.
‘Here,’ Steph took it, carefully removing her gloves. The cold made them hurt, every touch to them like glasspaper. The skin was pale, skin flaking. Amanda noticed and bit at her lip, Steph said nothing fearful of how Reeves would reply.
It took her a few moments but she made the form that Amanda had been in then smoothly and slowly showed her how to slip into the next. ‘See?’
‘Not like card tricks,’ Amanda took it back. ‘Reckon I’ll learn it all in time?’
The cards were still resting high on her knee. The illustration was Amanda walking in the park, arm entwined with her husband’s, her face pressed to her shoulder, a wide, bright smile across her face. Her husband was handsome.
‘Yeah,’ Steph lied. ‘Definitely. You almost had it.’
Amanda nodded, intent on the string.
Steph tried not to let it show on her face that it felt like she had tight straps around her chest. Years of practice had got her as good as she was today and if she had it right they had less than a day now. Amanda wouldn’t be ready and no amount of tutelage from Steph was going to change that.
She admired the woman’s bravery. She’d changed since their talks. Working together, Steph had to admit, had brought them closer together. It had made Amanda seem more of a person. She hoped the reverse was true as well. But maybe it was time for Steph to be brave as well. Karina would do it. Her mum would have done it. Didn’t she want to live up to these women’s examples?
‘How’s the knife going?’ asked Amanda, struggling to imitate the movements Steph had made.
‘Something still isn’t right,’ said Steph. ‘There’s something in the notes about “frequencies” but the rest of the page is missing.’
‘Give me another half hour with this and I’ll come and have a look.’
‘There’s another problem too.’
Amanda’s fingers were frozen in the same position as last time, refusing to cooperate. She collapsed the cradle in frustration. ‘What?’
‘Even if we get the blessing figured out, there’s no telling if he’ll let us do it. If he stops us then we’re not going to have any choice but to let him go.’
‘Then what do we do about that?’
Reeves was watching them. That’s all he did now, watch. He never slept, never shivered, never moved, his eyes drilling into her, reading her. Reminding her that in this room, they had no secrets.
‘I don’t know,’ she lied again. ‘I’ll need to figure something out.’
‘Then do it soon,’ said Amanda. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘He might not, though. He wants the ritual to happen. He wants the confrontation. He knows we won’t let him go.’
‘Well hurrah for that. We’re really showing him a thing or two.’
Steph bit back a response. There was no time for arguing either. No time for hurt feelings. If Amanda could act and do as she wanted then so could Steph.
She nodded and went back to her space.
She took her time, flicking through the pages, careful with each turn to spare the singed and brittle paper.
A few more minutes of checking and re-checking and she thought she might have a plan. Despite what she’d said, there was no knowing Reeves’ mind. Maybe he would interfere with the blessing. But if this worked, she could protect them and, more crucially, win them a small victory they all so badly needed. She just needed to get it to Amanda without Reeves knowing. There was only one way that she could think of to do that.
It was the work of a moment to slip the pen up her sleeve. She went through the pages again, trying to hold it all in her memory as she slowly tore an empty page from the back of the text book, holding it behind her body to conceal it from Reeves.
She could feel his eyes on her as she worked, pressing the paper so it tore under her thumb a bit at a time. Once she had it, eased it out, she went through the slow process of folding it small enough to hide in her fist.
For once she was glad that she wouldn’t stop shivering. It hid the way she was shaking head to toe, the tin-taste of adrenalin on her tongue as she stood and made to go to the bathroom.
‘Stop.’
The word was like a shot in the back, tearing through her body and spreading her open.
The entire room froze. Steph’s mind screamed, a high-pitch non-sound that wiped out all thought. It took everything she had not to piss herself.
‘Come here.’
There was no disobeying that voice. Reeves didn’t need powers to control any more. Feet heavy and numb she turned.
Amanda was bolt-upright in her chair. Caleb was blinking, mouth open like he wanted to speak. It was five steps to Reeves. It felt like fifty.
Someone do something, she pleaded. Someone say something.
But there was nothing to do. Nothing to say.
The thing’s face, so like the man on Amanda’s cards, was sharp now the bruises were gone. High cheek bones and cold eyes and a look behind them that was far from human. ‘Show me.’
Tears leaked down to her chin as she unclenched her fist to reveal the paper, already damp with sweat.
‘What were you planning?’
‘Nothing, I—’
The cold flashed through her, more potent than it had ever been. She felt her heart freeze a moment. It spiked the words in her throat.
‘What were you planning?’
‘A chaff spell. If we could stop you from interfering with the blessing, I thought…’
‘Eat the paper.’
Steph looked down at the torn page in her hand. She wondered if it would be easier to eat folded as it was or strangled into a little ball. There was no question of disobeying.
‘Do it,’ said Reeves.
A ball then. Steph squeezed the page up in her fist, gathering it into her palm with her fingers.
Amanda wouldn’t look at her. Head down, eyes down, the woman looked for all the world like a child caught talking in class, waiting her turn with the teacher.
Steph placed the wadded up page on her tongue and began to chew.
It tasted of petrol from the fire, a sharp chemical hit, but she held down the urge to cough and swallowed the page down as quickly as she could manage.
The demon watched, expressionless.
Neither Amanda or Caleb said a word. What would they say? But she wished they would say something. But no, despite what she wanted, Steph had to face facts – if
she wanted to survive, there were things she would have to do alone.
There was only one option left. One way she could take control.
Amanda
Amanda sighed as the girl swallowed down the paper and went back to her seat. She wouldn’t meet Amanda’s eye.
Everything was difficult.
Amanda’s burn itched and chafed against the cold, constant rub of Reeves’ chains. Her limbs felt stretched, rubbery and weak, every movement the product of intense consideration. Even lifting the string was difficult, turning the pages of the books an effort.
She sat slumped in the cold chair, insulated by blankets and layers of clothing, her legs stretched out. Anything to ease the weight, which constantly pulled her down. Hunger that wasn’t hers gnawed at her belly, cold that wasn’t hers chilled her.
Any vestige of morale she had left was sinking into the depths, dragged down by the cold, leaden weights.
She tortured herself with thoughts of her daughter. Cord cutting her wrists. Gag cleaving her mouth. Cold. Hungry. Alone. Surrounded by animals that pretended to be men.
The room was silent except for the murmur of the train. Caleb’s breathing was more laboured than ever. His face, rocky to begin with, was now a ruin of swellings and bruises. He’d removed the bandage from around his head, saying it irritated him. Now he kept the brim of his hat way back, revealing the ugly, stitched gash across his forehead.
Their travel bags were gathered under him, allowing him to sleep sitting up, easing the pressure on his broken ribs. A bottle of painkillers sat within reach, bottled water beside them. He’d tried helping with the books, given up soon after. He liked reading a bit of fiction now and again but what was in these books were beyond him.
‘Teacher told me I should have tried harder,’ he’d rumbled. ‘Never crossed my mind she might be right.’
Steph stumbled to her feet – hard work while she was clutching her blankets as close to her body as possible. Shivering, teeth chattering, she shuffled to the toilet. No doubt to cry in private.
The two adults had got off lightly compared to the girl. She had been given the lion’s share of Reeves’ hunger and cold. Her face was pale and drawn, her lips tinged a corpse-like blue. She shivered in her blankets, the centre of a molehill of layers –- her clothes, Skeebs’ spare clothes, her blanket, Skeebs’ blanket. They’d debated whether or not they needed to be warming her or Reeves, him being the source of her discomfort. The demon had delighted in tormenting them over it. He’d refused blankets, any attempts to warm him. They didn’t dare use the stove in case he caused another incident.
The girl pulled the melted remnants of the shower curtain closed, left alone with the final bucket of bleach.
‘Hope,’ said Reeves.
Amanda’s breath caught. It always did whenever Reeves spoke, her son’s voice twisted at something deep inside her.
The demon was standing tall, his skin flushed and healthy. It was hard looking at her son’s face, there was a cruel bent to it, a smirk and a narrowing of the eyes that Amanda found hard to look at.
‘Such a hard thing to snuff out. Every single one of you I’ve killed, it’s the last thing to die. Not a one of you can imagine a life without yourselves. You ignore the inevitable, certain that some new path will present itself. It might even be my favourite thing about you, the challenge of breaking it. I could spend years on it if I were granted the time.’
‘Good thing you don’t have any left.’
‘I have plenty. Do you really expect to find some panacea to all your problems in those pages?’
‘Learning more every moment. That’s not hope, that’s knowing the angles.’
‘It’s a stall. Everything about humanity is a stall. Animal instinct wrapped in pretence.’
‘Then what are you worried about? Shut up and let me read.’
‘Does it make you feel closer to your father? Do you know more of his mind? Feel the tingle in your blood?’
Amanda ground her teeth. The truth was that she’d thought of little else. Reading through these books brought back a lot of dormant memories she’d rather have left forgotten. Small rituals brought into context, items scattered around the family home given purpose. Whether she wanted it to or not, these books were a passage into the past, small details attracting larger memories, cutting open old scars.
‘There is a lot to be said for blood sacrifices,’ Reeves went on. ‘Have you found any in your books yet?’
She had. Spells of illusion and extreme self-enhancement. Details of blood drained from certain parts of the body that made her body ache from childhood wounds.
‘The ones using your own blood are dirtiest, not as effective but a quick and dizzying high. There were times when young boys and girls were kept for the express purpose of bloodletting. That must make you feel some sense of being part of history, to know that there were young concubines before you with the same scars.’
It shouldn’t have hurt but it did. Her father had abused her, there was no new information there but to have them seen through a new lens, her body put to another cruel purpose made the whole thing seem fresh.
Reeves was trying to get to her again and it was working.
She looked around for a distraction. And realised that was what Reeves had been doing: distracting her.
She hadn’t heard a single noise come from behind the curtain since Steph had disappeared behind it. There had been no crack of the bleach lid, no sobs, nothing.
‘Steph,’ she called.
Lifting herself from the chair seemed to take an age, the leaden weights forcing her to hold the wall for support. She shuffled across the floor, still bent like a woman twice her age. ‘Steph.’
She scanned the floor as she went, couldn’t see the knife.
Now she could hear it, the sounds of someone trying to cry quietly.
She pulled the curtain back so hard it almost came off the railing.
The girl pushed herself against the wall, knife held to her chest, point to her chin. Her layers of blankets lay pooled around her feet, her sleeves were rolled up to reveal pale, goose-bumped flesh. Her mother’s bowl was in her lap.
Amanda would have believed her possessed were it not for that knife in the girl’s hand, or the expression on her face. She looked up with a defiant pout, her eyes red with crying.
‘What are you doing?’ Amanda asked.
‘We need to hold him off for the blessing,’ the girl protested. ‘You can’t do it, I’m not strong enough and he won’t let me show you how. But it doesn’t matter because you won’t learn in time. If I can’t have the tattoo then at least I can have the power. Maybe it’ll be enough to protect me. Using my own blood will be less powerful but—’
‘Give me the knife.’
‘I can do this,’ the girl insisted. ‘I’ve got to.’
‘The knife.’
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do. This will give me power. Understand? We’ll be able to beat him. You won’t have to worry about me, I know people. People who’ll look after me.’
‘You’ll kill yourself.’
‘Well at least I’ll die trying. That’s what you wanted right? I don’t want him to kill all those people. I don’t want my mum remembered for that.’
‘I didn’t agree to this.’
‘How could you? We can’t even compare notes. Not with him listening in. It’s up to me,’ she tapped her chest with the knife tip. ‘And I choose this. There’s no other choice. You go and…’ she sniffed, ‘go and… get bandages ready.’
Amanda didn’t move.
‘I said go on,’ she shoved the woman with her free hand but Amanda held her ground. When Steph tried to pull the curtain closed she held it open, her arm trembling with the effort.
‘You don’t need to do this.’
‘I want to do this,’ Steph insisted, the knife coming down to her side again. She swallowed. ‘I want to try. You talk about your daughter or friends and family but there’s lots o
f other people out there who might die. Innocent people.’
She put her arm to the lip of the bowl, her wrist pointing down into it. The knife came around, light flickering across the blade as it shivered in her hand.
‘I thought if I did this, got addicted, then you’d have no choice. You’d have to give me your blood anyway.’
Amanda licked her lips. Did she want her to do this? If it made their job easier? Get Michaela away from AK? If the girl wanted to do this then didn’t that make it OK?
But she made no move toward the first aid kit.
The edge crept towards the thin, veined skin. Amanda could see every goose bump, every fine blonde hair on her arm.
The girl held her breath, then hesitated long enough that she had to take another one.
Amanda’s wrists and ankles ached with standing for so long but she didn’t dare move. Even Reeves was silent, watching hungrily.
She wants to do this, Amanda repeated in her head. She wants to do this.
‘I can’t.’ The knife came away, the girl in tears again. ‘I can’t do it.’
Without thinking, Amanda had gathered her into a hug, holding her close. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’
‘I’m just so tired. I’m cold all the time and my face hurts and we don’t know if we know everything and even if we did he’s so powerful.’
‘Then let’s start there. Can we break the connections?’
‘You saw when I gave you the sight. We can’t even touch them. He can give and take what he wants. I can feel him literally stealing the food from my belly. Anything I eat, he gets it all. I’m literally giving him the energy he needs for his next attack.’
‘You’re not getting any food at all? But you’re eating…’
‘I keep it for a while. The connection, I think he has to physically draw it from me. It’s not instantaneous.’
The End of the Line Page 31
