Numb.
The passenger-side window was too cold to rest against so Amanda could only lean close. She stared up into the heavens, the night’s sky awash with more stars than she had ever thought possible.
It was Caleb’s turn to drive the three of them crammed together in the lorry’s cabin. The van and Bridget’s body were hours and miles behind them. Incinerated.
Skeebs kept sitting straighter in his seat, rubbing at his eyes, desperate to stay awake.
The radio muttered Russian nothings, too low to be heard. The road made the sound of a chorus as it disappeared beneath them. They still had hours before they reached the train yard.
Amanda hugged herself against the cold trying to get beneath her ribs, her thoughts and feelings draining out into the dark outside. She missed her family, she missed Simon but she felt as empty as the landscape around her, her numbness interrupted by bright, roaring emotion as rarely as a passing truck. It would paralyse her, gut her, chill her all at once and be gone again just as quickly.
Half a snore and Skeebs startled. Snapping himself awake, the boy struggled to sit straighter, only to start drifting away again.
She made no move to wake him. Let him have his nightmares. Maybe he’d mutter some clue on how he managed to escape Reeves the day the demon broke loose. She knew that’s where he went every time he closed his eyes. It was there in the way he twitched and moaned, the things he cried out.
AK had insisted that maybe, just maybe, there was something useful in the boy’s head, some key to them all surviving if he could only be persuaded to talk without descending into a panic attack.
Amanda doubted it, she’d asked him often enough. But then again, you never could tell. The boy had been good once, someone she could work with. He wasn’t stupid or a coward, which only served to make the affect Reeves had on him all the more worrying.
But then they were all broken, the three of them, their lives changed by the thing in the steel box. Driven by the hope that killing the real demon would help them exorcise those they carried with them. Each of them had their minds fixed on a future.
The trouble was that Skeebs’ involved Amanda being dead.
And all because of the last job they had pulled together and what it had cost Skeebs’ brother, Danny.
Amanda had been worried the plan wasn’t going to work until the men jabbed their guns at her.
The air filling with barked orders to get on the ground, she raised her hands and made sure her crew did the same.
Caleb gave her the slightest nod, the phone ready in his hand, screen visible for everyone to see.
Danny was having a harder time, hands barely up past his waist, unable to wash the smirk from his face.
The air had thickened with the taste of magic – due no doubt to the two women still sitting in the back of one of the shiny black Mercedes that the men had arrived in. She could see them, side by side, hands moving fluidly from shape to shape, lips forming incantations.
One would be projecting a glamour, Amanda surmised. Whoever happened to look in their direction would see nothing but an empty garage forecourt under the DLR – lights off, and chain-link gates locked.
The other Abra would be the reason that Amanda could feel but not hear the train grinding along its tracks overhead. These men could gun her down and it wouldn’t disturb the homeless guy shuffling down the street not ten feet away.
The three of them were on their knees now. Amanda could see herself in the reflections of the men’s shades. There were eight of them, suits, cropped haircuts, the works. Private contractors.
A couple didn’t have guns. Instead they weaved hexes between their fingers and under their breaths. Amanda could already feel the magic slipping up and under the muscles in her arms, making them grow stiff, hot and heavy. More effective than any handcuffs.
And here came their employer in a car of his very own – another Mercedes indistinguishable from the others.
Lord Camberley was every bit as tall as he appeared on television. It was strange seeing the man she’d followed so closely in the media. For weeks, Amanda had scrutinised him in photos, videos, surveillance. Listened to him push for legalised magic, read his pieces in the broadsheets, watched him forcefully deny involvement with pro-magic extremists.
The fact that he was here in front of them called bullshit on that particular issue. Amanda wondered how much a journalist would have paid to catch him here, looking to trade cash for magical contraband.
The lord looked over the criminals on their knees before him. Their arms were already starting to tremble with the pain of the hex worming like hot needles through their tendons. He sniffed, unimpressed.
The lord had brought a PA with him. The lad’s expensive suit and three-figure haircut did little to disguise his nerves. He fidgeted with the briefcase in his hands, palms sweating, and eagerly obeyed when Camberley instructed it be opened.
Trying to look like he’d attended a hundred shady deals, the PA flipped the case onto the flat of his arm. The catches clicked loudly, the only sound to be heard beneath the Abra’s silence enchantment.
The briefcase was empty.
It was as empty, in fact, as the stack of wooden crates in the back of Amanda’s van. The stack she’d already assured Camberley’s men were filled with all the Abra contraband – herbs, spices, instruments and inks – that an illegal network of pro-magic ‘legalise it’ hippies and pseudo-intellectuals could need to further their cause.
She’d already made a mint selling these crates up and down the country. It was almost embarrassing. All she’d had to do was wave a few genuine samples around, make her prices reasonable, and desperate Abras everywhere had fallen over themselves to meet in secluded locations, money in hand. The look on their faces when they were robbed had been priceless.
This transaction, however, was working out a mite different.
‘It has taken me not some considerable effort to have you tracked down,’ said Camberley. ‘And some expense as well.’
‘Yeah well here we are, then,’ sneered Danny. ‘Took you long enough.’
Amanda bit her tongue, unwilling to risk shooting the boy a dirty look. When it came down to it, you had to trust your crew and right now she had to trust Danny to not be so stupid as to shoot his wad too soon.
‘Well that proves which one you are,’ Camberley replied. ‘You may all recall that you pulled a scam like this two months ago and left the man you robbed in serious need of medical attention.’
‘Yeah, I remember,’ said Danny. ‘Mouthed off, didn’t he?’
‘He may never recover full use of his hand. You were already robbing him of the money he had brought in good faith. Why be so small minded and take his wallet? He struggles to perform even the most basic spells left-handed.’ The twist on Camberley’s face revealed how he felt about that. It was a look he wouldn’t let anywhere near a camera lens. ‘Would you have done it if you’d known that he worked for me?’
‘Probably have done both hands,’ Danny grinned. ‘Still jerk off can’t he?’
‘Enough, Danny,’ said Amanda. She could see the anger building on Camberley’s countenance.
Camberley turned to her, looking her up and down. Until then he’d not given her the slightest notice, people like him often overlooked the black woman, she imagined, but not today. ‘I don’t know who you are. No one mentioned a woman.’
‘Call me the brains of the operation. Anything you got to say you address it to me.’
Camberley moved to stand over her. Amanda fought not to flinch as he cupped her chin, lifting her head.
‘I would hardly say “brains” is the appropriate term,’ the man sniffed. ‘But if that’s the case then I bring that same question to you. If you had known that your victims were associates of mine would you have done the same?’
Her arms were screaming with pain now. She wouldn’t have been able to throw a punch even if she’d allowed herself to.
‘No.’
‘And what are you going to do now that you know?’
‘We can get you the money back. What’s left of it.’
‘No…’ The man sighed, grimacing as though at a bitter taste. Of course they had already frittered the money away. Criminals had no self-control. ‘You can keep the money. I am much more interested in the contraband you were promising. The samples you had were very high quality, suggesting that you do have access to such things. Would that be correct?’
‘We know people. But—’
‘Then I would like very much to be put in touch with those people immediately. I have funds readily available if they are able to produce their goods within an hour.’
‘We can do that for you, yes.’
‘Then I suggest you get started. But if I perceive even a hint of trickery then you will find that the rumours of our prowess at disposing of bodies hold a lot truth.’
‘Heard you know all about making things disappear,’ said Danny. He was referring to a scandal a few years back. A journalist, claiming to have had proof that Camberley was taking money from pro-magic governments in South America, had disappeared.
There’d never been any proof that Camberley had been involved but, to some, the body shot the nearest bodyguard delivered to Danny’s midriff was proof enough.
Danny doubled over, gasping for breath.
Camberley’s eyes were bright at the sight of retribution, drinking in the boy’s pain. He turned back to Amanda. ‘Call them. Now.’
Which was the perfect time for Caleb’s phone to start ringing – the jolly little tune of an incoming video call.
All eyes were drawn to the screen.
Amanda watched the first flicker of doubt cross Camberley’s face when he saw the caller ID. ‘Lady Camberley.’
‘Think we should answer that?’ asked Amanda.
‘What is that?’ asked Camberley. ‘Yes. Yes, answer it.’
Caleb opened the call.
‘You there?’ Amanda called.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.’ If Danny was the pinnacle of youthful arrogance, his kid brother, Skeebs, was the opposite. The boy’s face filled the screen, anxious and eager to please. ‘You there? We’re ready, I got them right here. I got them.’
The camera lurched around.
Grit cracked under foot as a half dozen people craned to see the little screen.
There was the briefest impression of an empty room; bare red brick, warped floorboards, somewhere old and pokey. Then two people came into view, tied to chairs – a teen boy and a smartly dressed woman – bags over their heads.
‘Courtney?’ the blood drained from Camberley’s face at the sight of his wife.
‘Amazing who you bump into shopping, isn’t it?’ said Amanda. ‘Any one of your men gets on the radio, they’re dead. Anyone tries to hex us, they’re dead. Understand? This isn’t your trap, it’s ours.’
‘Motherfucker,’ Danny, still squirming in the dirt, forced the words out around the pain in his gut.
‘Get her to cut the binding,’ Amanda nodded to the Abra by the car. ‘Now.’
Camberley was too shocked to do anything but nod.
The hex left all at once. Amanda gave a sigh of relief. She rubbed at her arms as she climbed to her feet. Camberley was still a foot and a half taller but she could look him in the eye now.
‘We’ve been trying to get your attention for months now. Should have beat on one of your guys sooner. What’s money to a rich person? All you care about is your pride. Or your legacy.’ She thumbed back towards the pair whimpering on the screen.
‘You have no idea what you’ve done,’ said Camberley.
‘Oh, I have an idea. See, I knew a chat like we’re about to have has to be done in private. No cameras, no soundbites, no uncompromising bullshit. Here it’s just a guy, talking to a woman who wants all that money he brought with him in exchange for his family back. So when he compromises, no one needs to know.’
The lord opened his mouth but Amanda held up a hand.
‘And let’s skip the part where you say “what money?”. You’ve already said you had it.’
‘“Readily available,” he said,’ said Caleb.
‘We figured, a man like yourself would want to see his rivals under his heel,’ she waved around at the men toting guns and hexes, the Abras in the backseat. ‘Especially if it already looked like they’d bested him once. He’d want to see what shapes their faces made in the dirt. Fair enough. He’s only human. But, see, a man like that, he needs to feel like he’s better than everyone else. He doesn’t just hit back like some common thug. No. See, he takes his defeat and makes a win out of it. Like that defeat was just part of some bigger plan where he was always on top. He’d still want the merchandise. He’d want to go over our heads, make a deal with our suppliers so we would end up working for him. He’d want us taking his shit, week in, week out, knowing he was smarter. But to do that, he’d need to bring the money if he was looking to make a fast, hard deal. But…’ Amanda waved to the phone again. ‘You’re just going to give that money to us. And you can start by having your guys lower those weapons.’
The pair on the screen shifted and snivelled in their chairs. Even through the tinny speakers it was clear that their mouths were gagged.
Danny was starting to recover, slowly uncurling from around his bruised gut.
All eyes were on the lord. His fists were clenched, jaw too, the man might as well have been a statue of himself. His eyes were fixed on the screen.
This was that moment, Amanda thought. You distracted them, you pulled them in, letting them think they were winning and then flipped them about until they couldn’t see straight. Then, if you’d done everything right, you could just stand back and watch them defeat themselves.
The truth was that there had been no way that Amanda and her crew could get near Camberley’s wife and boy. Security was too tight and it would have been impossible to determine every protection spell that had been quietly placed on them.
But what you could do was watch them a long while, get to know their routine and their wardrobe. Then on the day of the job, you took note of what mother and son were wearing and dressed two similarly shaped friends in the same clothes. Put them on a small screen, show it from a distance and no one dared look too closely. No one was easier to reel in than someone used to control and no one easier to control than someone who felt they had none.
‘Kid?’ Amanda called. ‘Looks like the lord’s going to need more convincing.’
Skeebs obliged. The camera wobbled as the boy rushed to raise the pistol, turning the weapon around for the audience.
‘We can start with your son’s kneecap,’ she said. Something animal inside her purred when her mark swallowed, his Adam’s apple dipping as though he was fighting down a billiard ball. That was the moment she knew she had him.
‘All right,’ he said. The men lowered their guns, placed them down on the ground and kicked them over.
First rule on a job, you make sure your crew are OK at every stage.
Caleb needed a hand getting up off his knees. Amanda obliged. She looked him in the eye and knew from the look her old friend gave back that he was ready for stage two.
Danny on the other hand…
She shouldn’t have taken him for this gig. She’d called that wrong. Danny and Skeebs were cool as quicksilver when it came to a bank or a vault, they’d proved that plenty of times. But, like Camberley, Danny always had to be the one on top and where Danny led, his younger more reliable brother, followed.
Now he’d been made to look weak, Danny had something to prove.
Before Amanda could reach him, the boy had scooped up the nearest dropped pistol. He raised it with a wide smile, pointing it in the face of the guard who had hit him. ‘Punch me, motherfucker?’
They hadn’t brought any weapons of their own. The whole point was that they appeared defenceless. If they’d needed them, Amanda had explained, then the job was already fucked beyond belief. No guns meant a commitment to not fucking up.
‘You OK?’ Amanda asked Danny, quietly, back turned to their audience.
‘Never fucking better once this guy learns some respect.’ Danny jabbed the gun at the guard.
‘I told you that might happen and I told you that you had to keep your cool. You promised me, you promised the boss.’
‘Fucking sucker punched me.’
The words spoke volumes. Danny’s ambitions for himself and his brother were a leash worth holding tight. The boy wanted to impress, to climb. But Henderson, the boss, the man who had taken Amanda in, wasn’t well, whispers of cancer. He was weakening and jackals like Danny could smell it.
‘Then you get back at him by stealing his boss’ money,’ she tried. ‘Anything else is just going to complicate things. So stop being a little boy and act like a professional.’ She turned to Camberley again. ‘The money, let’s see it.’
Camberley was sweating now. Amanda liked that. The man nodded, motioned to the Abra who had been working the arm breaker hex. Glaring daggers at Amanda, she received some short instructions from her employer. A stick of chalk appeared in her hand.
She strode to the nearest pillar, drew a circle and then, with a precise hand began to add symbols, first twelve o’clock, then nine, then two, the order as important as the exactness of the symbols themselves.
Amanda tried not to flinch at the sight of them but something must have shown on her face the way Camberley looked at her.
‘Fuck you looking at?’ burst Danny. The bodyguard opposite flinched, raised his hands higher. ‘Eyes on the ground. Eyes on the fucking ground.’
‘He gets the message,’ said Amanda. ‘How much longer?’
The Abra at the pillar wiped her brow.
‘She’s working as fast as she can,’ said Camberley. ‘But she must be precise.’
Silence stretched as another train passed overhead, its shadow flickering across the gravel. The only sound was the scratching of chalk on stone.
‘Bet you’re wishing you hadn’t hit me now,’ said Danny. ‘Bet you were feeling the big man when you did that.’
‘Easy,’ said Caleb. ‘We’re all keeping calm.’
‘I want him to apologise.’ Danny strode forward, angling the gun as though preparing to pop the man in the head.
The bodyguard backed away a step. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘You get off on that shit?’ Danny insisted. ‘Hitting a guy when you got a gun in his face? How you like it?’
The guard was looking around, hoping for someone to come to his rescue.
‘Is this really necessary?’ asked Camberley, appealing to Amanda.
‘Not so fun is it?’ asked Amanda. ‘Being the helpless one.’
‘Danielle?’ asked Camberley.
‘I’m trying,’ the Abra at the wall snapped, wiping more sweat from her brow. ‘I’m almost done.’
‘I ought to fucking kill you,’ said Danny. ‘You knew who I was you wouldn’t even have got out of bed this morning.’
‘Sir,’ the man said, forcefully, ‘I am extremely sorry.’
Amanda held Camberley’s gaze, making him feel it, the helplessness, his choices needled down to two, comply or watch his loved ones suffer.
It was a feeling she knew all too well.
‘Step it down,’ she said over her shoulder, once the point was across.
‘Nuh-uh. No way I can let that go.’
‘You’re going to have to,’ said Amanda. ‘We talked about this.’
‘You should fuck him up, Danny,’ said Skeebs listening in on the phone.
‘Shut up,’ said Caleb, putting the phone to his mouth then lifting it again.
‘There,’ said Danielle, stepping back. ‘It’s done. It’s done.’
Lord Camberley was already shucking his jacket. Actions fast, precise, he draped it over the bonnet of his car. The waistcoat beneath accentuated his slender frame. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, began to roll up his sleeves.
Amanda sneered at the tattoos that covered his chest and forearms – symbols and sigils, each denoting a discipline or particular spell. To use magic cost. Spells have side effects for all but the most powerful mages. Practiced users got ink, the positions on the body exact, their geometry more so. The ink had to be specially prepared, blessed, administered. Some tats offered protection, others negated bad side effects or enhanced powers in certain disciplines. The sheer amount of ink on the man showed a seriously practiced Abra.
Hatred squeezing at the back of her throat, Amanda slipped out her phone and took a picture. The lord froze as he finished rolling up his sleeves.
‘Insurance,’ she explained. ‘You even look like you’re coming after us, the tabloids will have this front page.’
The lord made a face like he’d taken a particularly rancid mouthful. He sighed hard down his nose, his mouth pinched and walked over to the pillar.
A brush of his finger against the dry concrete and the space inside the circle cleared like steam from glass revealing a room.
From where Amanda was standing there were only impressions to be gleaned, mahogany and leather, bookshelves and dust-mottled sunlight.
And a black briefcase.
Camberley reached through. The skin of concrete, only just visible, parted like warm butter.
Danny’s mouth was hanging open, beef with the bodyguard temporarily forgotten. The guard could have snatched the gun from the boy’s hand but knew better than to risk it. All he had to do now was sit tight and this would soon be over.
Even Amanda had to admit that she was impressed. That was the thing about magic, it was always impressive. But that did nothing to rid her of the bad taste in her mouth, the feeling of unease that crawled beneath her skin.
The briefcase had weight. It was evident in the way Camberley carried it. He slung it up onto the bonnet of the car, stepped to one side so everyone could see and opened it.
Payday.
‘Yes!’ shouted Danny, practically jumping, smile wide and wild. He shouted in his victim’s face. ‘Fucking yes!’
‘We got it?’ Skeebs asked. ‘We got it?’
‘Why don’t you go over and grab it?’ Amanda asked Danny.
The boy didn’t need to be asked twice. He strode over, shouldering the lord aside. From his pocket, he pulled a pair of high street shopping bags and began to unload the money from the case.
‘You’ll let them go now,’ said Camberley, his eyes back on the screen.
‘Soon as we’re gone,’ said Caleb. ‘They’ll find you.’
‘And that photo.’
‘Won’t ever be seen unless you give us shit.’ Despite the magic, Amanda was struggling against the urge to grin.
‘And how do I know I won’t be receiving another call from you in a month, when you’ve spent all of that?’
Danny strode back, the money heavy in the carrier bags. ‘We did it, man, let’s get out of here.’
Camberley nodded, urging them to go, that expression still on his face like he was sucking a sour sweet. The guards and Abras were starting to relax, the ordeal was coming to a close.
Except there was one last thing Amanda wanted.
She looked to Caleb.
Stage three?
A look of concern flickered across his face but he nodded.
It always gave her a stab of guilt, that look, a reminder of what the next step had cost them in the past, of what it had cost Caleb. She’d promised she’d stop doing this yet here they were, she still asking and Caleb still letting her.
She pushed the guilt aside. They’re go for phase three.
‘Wait,’ said Amanda. The whole courtyard froze. ‘That your home through there?’ She gestured to the portal. There was actual sunlight streaming from it now, the sky cloudless in the room beyond, unlike the underbelly of the dirty railway.
‘We had an agreement,’ Camberley blustered. ‘You have the money—’
Amanda picked up another of the discarded guns, checked it over and handed it backward to Caleb. She didn’t even have to look. When she handed something out, Caleb’s big mitt was always there to take it.
‘Show me. You two hold down the fort. His honour’s about to give me a private tour.’
The lord looked around, it taking him a moment or two to catch up on what she meant. ‘No. No I can’t.’ The assistant at his side turned green at the suggestion.
‘Won’t take long. Faster we’re done, faster you see your family again.’ She held out an arm, inviting the lord to go first.
Camberley was pale, uncomfortable. Good.
‘Any of you try to fuck with this,’ the bodyguards bristled as she looked across them, ‘those two on the screen are dead. Right? And that goes double for you.’ The Abra, Danielle, winced. ‘And triple for you, your lordship.’
Camberley nodded, then nodded around to his staff to show that this was a directive from him as well.
It wasn’t a large hole, drawn only wide enough to accommodate a briefcase, but it was big enough. Waist-height too. Camberley slid through first.
Amanda scowled at the portal, as the lord slid ungainly across the polished table on the other side. Though she knew better, she still held her breath as she went through, loathing the pins and needles that swept down her body as she traversed the magic’s skin.
The air was different on the other side. There was a country note to it, courtesy of an open window. The breeze was gentler too, calmed by the susurrus of trees outside.
The sour look was back on Lord Camberley’s face. No doubt at the dirty Londoner tracking dirt across his cashmere carpets or whatever. ‘Take what you want and leave.’
To her eye there wasn’t much worth taking. The room was large, the carpets rich underfoot. The desk, tables and chairs were a polished earthy mahogany, carved in designs that spoke of other centuries. But it was cluttered. Every surface was overwhelmed by trinkets and photos in frames, the wall crowded with paintings, ornate mirrors and antique clocks. The only nod to the twenty-first century was the flat screen TV awkwardly positioned between two tables, its wires trailing across the floor and through the table legs to a plug hidden behind a bookcase.
There was a chalk circle on the wall here as well – prepared earlier for the briefcase transaction. Camberley had probably thought that was clever. Through it, she could see Caleb and Danny facing off with the bodyguards. No sound came through the portal.
Danny was glaring at her, disapproving.
Amanda looked around, taking her time, reminding the lord who was in control. Everything here, it was all worth a fortune or it was worth fuck all. Just the accumulated bric-a-brac of a wealthy family that couldn’t bear to throw anything out.
The desk was covered in paperwork and ledgers. At the top, in a swirly brass, Oriental looking holder, was a fountain pen. She picked it up, made a mark on the nearest paper, compared the ink’s colour to the signature at the bottom of the paper. It matched, or would once the fresh ink dried.
Camberley, already growing impatient, tutted and sighed at her every action.
He broke when Amanda weighed the pen in her hand. ‘I really don’t see—’
‘You’ve been pushing hard on the call for the legalised magic referendum. If you don’t want the photo I’ve got here ending up on the front page, you should back away from the issue. Take a few months off, family emergency or something.’
Clocks ticked as she watched her words sink in, surprise turning to cold realisation.
‘Who sent you?’
‘That would really help you, wouldn’t it? Thinking someone like you is pulling my strings. Your family has a gun to their heads because you’re so arrogant you can’t look at someone like me and believe I have what it takes to outsmart you. Well, I don’t give a fuck who you think I’m working for, so long as you do what I say.’
‘You work alone then. You flinched when Dani— when my colleague began to inscribe the anchoring sigil. Are you completely rhabdophobic or is it simply the idea of progress that terrifies you?’
Amanda was already rolling up her sleeve. She approached, turning her arm over and back again so he could see the scars that covered her from wrist to elbow and beyond. The pattern of puckered skin was thick as static on an old television screen, all the places her father had cut her to fuel his spells.
She could see from the look in his eyes that he knew what they meant. Blood magic was frowned on, even by his movement. It was partly why magic was banned in the UK in the first place. Its use in the World Wars had turned public opinion away from it across Europe, the States and anywhere else the wars had touched. Magic came from the power in a person’s blood, but take someone else’s blood, do the right incantations and you didn’t just add to your capabilities, you multiplied them.
But blood magic was addictive, once someone tasted the power they couldn’t live without it. Unless you had a young family who couldn’t fight back. Or believed they didn’t deserve to.
Camberley’s face shifted into something calm, something political. Old habits died hard if you let them. Before he could start spewing some conciliatory, explanatory bollocks she cut him off, her voice gentle. ‘My father gave me these. You knew him. Met with him on occasion. Down at The Blind Mage.’
She may as well have punched him. She watched as he explored her face and found something he recognised. She had her father’s eyes, she’d been told. On the bad days she avoided them in the mirror.
You! He didn’t need to say it. And like thunder follows lightning the rest of the legend played out across his face.
Because a legend was what it was. Anyone who knew the truth would never talk. Amanda’s father had been as infamous as the Krays, to those who knew with the right people. An Abra with plenty of power and no morals David Coleman had used his magic ruthlessly, making himself plenty of money by staying ahead of the police and keeping his true identity secret. Bank jobs, kidnapping, murders. There was nothing he hadn’t done and got away with. But only those who truly knew him knew the whole truth; the only thing David Coleman had exploited more than his victims had been his own family.
Amanda’s early years were one long memory of being hunched over bowls, squeezing her blood from open wounds to fuel her father’s schemes. There were beatings and there were long nights listening to the sounds of her mother’s pleas from the living room, kitchen, bedroom.
Until one day, the word was out, pubs across London whispering the news: David Coleman was dead. His fourteen-year-old daughter had done what the Met and his rivals couldn’t.
What they didn’t know was how she had done it. When people didn’t know things, they filled the gap with stories and fairy tales. To save herself and her mother, Amanda had inadvertently made herself an Abra legend more potent and scary than her father had ever been.
The Abra killer.
No matter how powerful you thought you were, she’d rip through your protections and kill you with hexes from a city away. And she’d do it just because she hated Abras, hated magic and was hell-bent on exterminating both.
‘That’s not all of us,’ said Camberley, his mouth sticking and dry. If he’d been afraid before, now he was feverish. ‘Blood magic, even we shun it. It’s abominable. Uncivilised. You have to understand, what we’re campaigning for—’
‘I don’t care. Back off the campaign.’
The lord scowled, still fighting, the old bastard.
‘Save it,’ she said before he could speak. ‘And whatever you’re thinking, you’re not going to find us. You haven’t got a trick, charm or contact I’ve not already thought of before I got here. That’s why I’m taking this.’ She waved the pen in front of his eyes. ‘Every time you’re writing something, thinking on hunting us down, I want you to remember I already took this, what else have I already figured how to take? Is your son really worth your pride?’
She could see the struggle on his face, the look in his eye, the twitch on his lips. This was it again. If you placed things just right, picked your words, your place, your moment, you could just leave the rest to your opponent and watch them beat themselves. Going after the son had been the right idea. She’d remembered a photo in the papers a few months ago, seen the way he had his arm around him, their smiles identical. Parents would do the impossible for their children. Sometimes even change.
Camberley opened his mouth to protest and then shut it. He nodded and Amanda knew they were done. There was nothing more to say. You won and you walked away.
She’d only taken a step toward the portal when Danny came through.
The boy was on his feet before Amanda had time to blink.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she growled as he looked around the room. The gun was still in his hand.
She bent down to look through the portal. Caleb was alone, gun in one hand, phone in the other and the money at his feet. He was scowling back at her.
‘We’ve been thinking too small,’ Danny replied. ‘Trust me, I got this.’ He strode forward and before Amanda could say otherwise, punched Camberley deep in his gut.
The lord folded neatly in half with a wheezing exclamation.
‘Yeah, now you know how it feels.’
‘We need to—’ Amanda made to stop him and froze at the gun in her face.
‘We tried it your way,’ said the boy. ‘You saw that back there, they were walking all over us. This ain’t just about the money it’s about the respect.’
He looked around, at the sunlight streaming through the window, the wide grounds visible beyond the curtains. ‘Man, look at this fucking place. I’m telling you, this will be me one day. Me and my brother. Big fucking home and a whole bunch of people waiting on me.’
Amanda said nothing. Danny could do anything he wanted here and tell it how he wanted it told. They both knew it.
She should have seen this sooner, cut those boys loose, but she’d thought the crew had one more job left in them before the pups started to bite.
Camberley, recovering, muttered something under his breath.
‘What you say?’ Danny grabbed the man by his hair, pulling his head back, that Adam’s apple jutting like a boil ripe for popping.
‘There’s a safe,’ the man said, voice distant like even he couldn’t hear himself saying the words. ‘Up in the bedroom.’
Danny’s eyes lit up. ‘Then let’s get going.’ He pulled the man up onto his feet.
‘No,’ said Amanda.
Danny was already frogmarching the lord over to the door. ‘I want my money. Open the door.’ That last bit to Camberley who complied.
It opened onto a corridor, just as crowded as the study with side tables, vases, busts, paintings. It was a minor miracle that they didn’t knock anything over as the boy and his hostage stormed through it.
Amanda watched them go, unsure of what to do.
A door opened, halfway down the hall, between Amanda and the others. A young woman stepped out, blonde, jodhpurs, complete stereotype. Another PA or something judging by the iPad resting in the crook of her arm.
Danny turned.
The poor woman barely had time to gasp before the bullet took her in the chest.
She fell, taking a table with her. A blue vase burst water in all directions, washing away the spray of blood that exploded from her back through the trim, neat cream of her blazer.
‘No!’ Camberley’s long reach snaked past Danny, grabbing for the gun.
Amanda ducked back into the study. Two more bullets smack-smacked into a portrait on the wall opposite the doorway.
Her heart hammered in her chest, her mouth tasted of tin.
She poked her head around the doorframe. The pair were cast into shadows by the bay windows at the end of the corridor, hands wrapped around the gun, wrestling for control.
Camberley was already hissing some incantation. Even from a distance, Amanda felt the air thicken with building magic.
Danny jerked the gun aside, clearing space for a head butt, catching the taller man in the jaw, cutting the curse short.
But rather than let the built-up power disappear along with his words, Camberley continued to let it build. No more finesse, no more shaping with talent, raw power started to flicker in the air like migraine sparks. Camberley’s family hadn’t got where they were today by being weak.
Danny, sensing what was coming, jerked the gun again and again, keeping his opponent off balance. Then, when the timing was right and using Camberley’s own weight as a counterbalance, he brought up a trainer and sent it down into Camberley’s knee with a crack.
The older man bellowed in pain, letting go of the gun. The pair toppled backwards, paintings rattling in their frames up and down the corridor as they crashed into opposite walls.
Danny brought up the gun. Camberley lifted his hands, the sparks snuffing out as he sucked the power from the air.
The gun barked once, a single shot to the man’s breast.
The lord let loose, the blunt percussive blast of raw magic shattering glass, porcelain, wood, plaster in all directions.
Amanda ducked again in time, splinters of wood and pottery pattering onto the thick study carpet.
An alarm began to trill.
She gulped at the now magicless air, wondering who was whispering ‘shit, shit, shit’ under her breath.
The corridor was in ruins, the two men slumped amidst a chrysanthemum of shards. Still.
The girl was still gurgling on the floor, blood clouding the spilled vase water, her blazer rent from a dozen new cuts.
Out the bay windows, Amanda could see two men running across the grounds to the house.
She licked her lips, starting to calculate.
Danny wasn’t moving. She could reach him, begin to drag him but she’d only make it half way to the portal by the time the men arrived.
Someone else called. A shout from somewhere inside the house.
Without a word, Amanda turned and headed back to the portal. She took a moment, trying to compose herself. Looking herself up and down there wasn’t a single sign anything had happened.
Cries of surprise and distress were just making themselves known when she slipped through.
The stand-off on the other side perked up as she emerged.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Caleb.
‘Where’s Danny?’ asked Skeebs, his voice small from the phone’s speaker.
‘Change of plan,’ said Amanda. She rubbed her hand across the runes, the portal fading closed with the speed of a camera shutter. ‘We’re leaving. He’s going to meet us. You,’ she pointed to Camberley’s entourage, ‘are to stay here.’ She was already headed for the van.
‘Wait, hang on,’ said PA.
‘You want them dead?’ Amanda gestured to the image still on the phone as she strode past Caleb. The big guy, reading his partner, was already scooping up the cash. ‘Do as you’re fucking told. Camberley will call you in a minute. We’ve struck a deal.’
‘Where’s Danny?’ Skeebs insisted.
‘I said, we’re meeting him.’
Thirty seconds later they were driving away with a cool million.
Amanda traced patterns across the window glass in the steam of her breath, her mind picking over that job. What would she have done differently if she’d known it would lead to this?
Danny had got twenty years. It had been in the papers.
Of course, he blamed Amanda and like the bodyguard, Danny couldn’t let something like that slide. And Skeebs couldn’t not do what his brother told him, whether it made sense or not.
If she had stayed to help it could easily have been her behind bars. But then maybe her family would still be alive.
But Henderson, the old boss, had still died a few months later. Just collapsed in the street and that was that. The war over who should fill the void began before his body was even cold.
Whatever she had decided, Reeves would still have been summoned and if not for her, Jamison would no doubt be dead. Caleb too. Danny and Skeebs.
Skeebs gave a full snore.
Turning away, Amanda went back to the black and the stars, begging sleep to take her.
Instead she was left with memories of the family she’d lost, the aching hole inside her, the plan ahead of her with all its complications and the empty future beyond it if she succeeded.