Silence settled, underpinned by the hiss of the rain, the rush of wind, the steady heartbeat of steel-rimmed wheels on iron tracks. Inside, the sounds were more intimate, leeched of warmth by the echo from the bare walls. There was the deep, heavy chuffs of the sleeping, the whisper of cloth on cloth and the grumble of supplies in their boxes as the carriage rocked.
Despite his efforts, Skeebs’ breathing had slowed, the boy, willingly or not, drifting asleep. Amanda was alone.
Almost alone.
Reeves was silent. Expectant.
Amanda moved as silently as she could.
Reeves’ stink made her nose curl. Magic seemed to leak from his very pores, the taste in Amanda’s mouth making her want to scrub and scrub and scrub.
It had been easier having Reeves in the box, out of sight, out of mind, just a package to be delivered.
The tattoos continued to swirl, gentle eddies curving them along the skin, symbols coming into view then sliding out again under a shadow or bruise.
Looking at them made her dizzy. Her skin crawled, urging her back to her sleeping bag.
Just a few more days and she could let loose with Bridget’s knife, love every hot moment of it. But she dreaded it too. Didn’t know if she would have what it took when the moment came. If it came.
She turned, looked over the others. All asleep. Caleb was snoring up a storm.
Unobserved, Amanda checked the manacles, inspected the raw, pink welts they’d made in the prisoner’s skin. There was salve in the first aid kit. She didn’t want to risk waking anyone getting it, but maybe further down the line…
Fingers gentle, she brushed the prisoner’s cheek. He was practically unrecognisable, eyes two engorged bulbs, lips split and puffed up.
Amanda squeezed the prisoner’s shoulder, wiped away the beginning of a tear. What a fucking mess.
Tiptoeing to her sleeping bag, she slipped back inside.
Just a few more days.
She leaned back her head, staring up at the light swinging overhead. Hand snaking almost of its own accord, she took out her wallet, flipped it open to the photo inside.
There they were; the five of them smiling up at the camera. They’d enjoyed the shoot so much the kids wore three identical bright smiles, each a copy of their father’s. Amanda was glad of that. Simon had this big, honest dazzling smile that came from deep within him. The kids had deserved to inherit that smile. She was the only one closed lipped, holding back.
Those smiles were a victory to be grateful for. Her father’s abuse may have closed her off, but she’d never passed that down to her children. Simon hadn’t let it. He’d always been the best part of her.
Simon’s face shone up at her and her need for him felt more real than anything around her. Just to hold him again, rest her cheek on his shoulder, to smell his warmth.
Skeebs shifted, settling deeper into sleep.
God, Simon, what was she going to do? How was she going to raise their last little girl on her own? After what she’d done. After what she was going to do? She wanted Michaela back so much it was a hole inside her, but things would never be the same again and neither would they. Maybe they’d see each other again, two strangers who didn’t know how to talk.
But she had to try. Had to try for her little girl, for Michaela’s future. She wouldn’t let this break her daughter.
Laying her head back, she closed her eyes, Michaela’s image fixed in her mind. She tried to breathe deep and slow.
She relaxed her hands… started to drift…
Her mother was crying. That was always the accompaniment to their little family ritual. Mother would plead and clutch at her husband ‘No, David, please, let her alone, just for today,’ until Amanda’s father threw her aside. Mother wouldn’t get up again. Once she was thrown she would stay in that spot, sitting and watching, tears streaming down her pinched face. The ritual was a well-worn groove, resistance so ground into powder that there was no point in trying any more.
Amanda, barely ten years old, would watch trembling from the small space between the sofa and the wall. Her tears were identical to her mother’s.
They’d lock eyes, her mother telling her she was sorry until father stepped between them – blotting out the light.
His hands would shake, the first symptom of blood-magic withdrawal. A few hours more and magic would start leaking out, involuntary spasms that shorted light bulbs, shook rooms and made the radio scream.
‘Get up.’
Sometimes Amanda would stay. Then she’d cover her ears and cower from the inevitable crash as the sofa was plucked away from the wall with a wave of father’s hand.
Other times she stood, Father backing away to give her room.
The bowl would be in his hand. She hated that bowl, could trace every rune carved inside in her sleep.
‘Go on then.’ The words, like gunshots to her young ears, made her jump and she struggled to roll up her sleeve. Father let her choose which limb was bled. She’d done her legs the last couple of days.
When she didn’t do it fast enough, invisible hands snatched at her, tugging so hard her shoulder hurt in its socket. There were already a dozen cuts, some were scab-stitched lines, others raw and wet.
‘Now.’ The knife was held out, handle first. Then the empty bowl was thrust forward.
She picked a spot that had mostly healed and sat the edge of the blade on her arm.
She shouldn’t hesitate. She knew she shouldn’t. And still she did.
‘Now!’
She flinched, gritted her teeth and cut. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, tears rolling, but didn’t dare miss the bowl.
God, the pain.
There would only be the sound of her laboured breath, of Mother’s whimpers and the silken sound of liquid hitting the bowl, collecting in those runes.
Amanda hated those runes.
Once father was finished with his spells, she would be the one to wash it and place it in the dish rack, the water in the sink pink as it swirled down the plug hole.
The cigarette almost fell from her mouth jerking her back to the present.
Cursing herself, she jabbed it dead. The photo went back in her wallet. Then the store-bought cards went to one side.
She pulled out her pack of cards, flicked through the designs, her and Simon’s first year together all out of order; first kiss coming after their first weekend away.
Fuck but she thought she’d had Skeebs. She’d almost managed to steer the boy through his trauma long enough to talk about how he had escaped Reeves. There had to be something there. Something she could use. Reeves wouldn’t just let the kid escape. This thing didn’t show mercy. She’d been reasonable, hadn’t she? Said the right things? Maybe she could have told him the truth about the importance of the ritual, the little shit kept on talking about skipping it, but with no idea how he would react, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. The boy just needed to look past all the petty shit that had happened before and help her. The only situation that mattered was what was happening now. Fuck Reeves, fuck Danny.
Simon had seen, she’d really tried. But what had the boy done but thrown it back in her face? Next time she wouldn’t be so gentle. She should have just left him to die in that squalid little shithole she’d found him in. Whatever it took, Simon, she was getting this job done and she was claiming their daughter.
Just so long as Amanda came back to them the same woman.
The thought came to her like it came from Simon himself.
She’d been doing this recently, having conversations with Simon in her head. She could picture him, stretched out beside her, feet tucked under her like he would on the sofa.
Oh God, Simon, she was so sorry she hadn’t got there in time—
It was OK. She was making up for it now. She would do what needed to be done, he whispered in her ear. But if that meant becoming more like her father; violence and magic…
Don’t worry, she imagined resting a hand on his thigh, that was never going to happen.
She’d struggled against becoming her father her whole life; more years with the man dead than alive. But she had always felt it in her blood, the urge to let go of her anger and swing away.
Magic and her father were inextricably linked. It was his power that had allowed the man to become a monster. Amanda wasn’t even going to take the first step down that road. Magic was a teachable thing but the power to wield it was hereditary. Sometimes when magic got too close Amanda could feel something in her veins respond – her father’s power was hers now, terrible potential that she would never tap.
The thing about being brave was that you didn’t do it just once. You had to keep doing it. She’d been brave when she’d left the house but that had only got her as far as her doorstep. Then she’d had to pluck up the courage to get the bus. Then she’d had to be brave when she stepped off it again.
Now she had to be brave and step through those doors.
The Angel’s Bells was a grown-up place. No children allowed. Men laughed and fought and they came out, stinking of beer and cigarettes, anger stoked for the trip home.
This was where her father went. When her father said he was going out, this was where he’d be.
But not today. There was a job today. There was always an atmosphere at home when there was a job on. She and her mother were expected to tread more lightly, the bloodlettings increased to two per day.
He’d left before sun up and the house had let out a held breath. Amanda had spent the morning building up her courage. She’d waited until her mother had gone for a shower before slipping out.
Now it was raining.
She hadn’t taken a coat, the sky had been clear when she’d left. Now water ran from the tip of her nose and her short braids, clothes soaked right down to her underwear. When she walked, her shoes squished and frothed freezing rainwater.
Passers-by were starting to look – the little urchin staring across the busy road at the half-empty pub.
Her new cut had started to bleed again, her arm staining tie-dyed pinks and reds.
She could just go home. Mother would be angry but she wouldn’t say anything. Father would return, flushed with success none the wiser. And in a day or two he’d need more blood.
The clouds were so dark out that the lights were on low inside. The dark wood panelling drew in the light. She could just about see the bottles of black spirits behind the bar, keeping their secrets. Cigarette smoke made a haze, irritating her eyes.
There was no music.
Two old men, sat at a corner table, stared. Their chins were frosted with white stubble, their false teeth left at home.
Feet squelching, she rounded the bar.
The people she was looking for were at the back. There was the sweet, pungent reek of pipe smoke here, the tang of spent spells. They sat nursing pints, sleeves rolled back to display their Abra tats in defiant display.
They were an odd group, even to a ten-year-old. People who looked like teachers or stuffy old professors alongside men like her dad, shaven heads and split knuckles. Old men beside young men.
These, she would realise later, were the old soldiers. Abras who had fought for their country to find their discipline shunned in peacetime. The horrors committed by the enemy had seen to the illegalisation of magic in the late 1940s – replaced by reliance on tanks and planes and atom bombs. War time Abras had had no work to come back to. Desperation, poverty and ostracising had done the rest – turning heroes to criminals as they plied their skills in the only trade that would have them.
Two were playing darts. Neither of them even bothered to unfold their arms as the sharp needle points thudded into the board.
The rest were arguing. Something about high principles. Leaps in scientific and psychological theory were showing new ways that magic could be applied. Magic would be in a second renaissance if it was only made legal again – time, space, the subconscious – if only word could be spread.
One by one they stopped their debate to stare at the little girl as she dribbled her way through the empty, scratched tables toward them.
By the time she arrived, heart in her throat, she had their full attention.
‘Are you the Abras?’ she asked.
‘Depends who’s asking, sweetheart,’ said the man closest. He wore a suit and tie, his hair cut neat like he should have belonged in an office. He even had fussy little glasses which he pushed up his nose.
‘Are you or aren’t you?’
This defiance raised a ripple of indulgent laughter.
‘What’s left of them, aye,’ came another voice. She didn’t see which said it.
‘I need your help. My dad hurts me. He does blood magic.’ She rolled up a sleeve for them to see, felt vindicated at how even the biggest among them recoiled.
‘Oi, Jerry!’ one of them shouted towards the bar. ‘Bring us some bandages, will you?’
Amanda let out a sigh of relief as a muffled agreement drifted back and a stool was pushed forward for her to sit on.
‘Who’s your dad, love? Who done that to you?’
‘His name’s…’ she swallowed. ‘David Coleman.’
And just like that the air was sucked from the room. It was a feeling she knew all too well. Like the man himself had stepped in through the front door.
‘Got to make a call,’ said the man with the glasses and he hurried away.
‘You have to help me, please,’ she pleaded. ‘He hurts me all the time and my mum can’t help. I know you know him. If you could just talk to him. He’s always talking about you and how you learned magic to help people. Well we need help. Please.’ She was fully sobbing now, desperate for them to prove that she hadn’t made a mistake.
‘All right, love, all right.’ A man in a leather jacket patted her on the shoulder. ‘S’alright. You did good in coming to us. Good that you came to us first.’
Time for a game. Amanda shifted herself against the wall so she could play and see the prisoner across the cards at the same time. The cards click-clicked as she dealt herself two poker hands. Simon, sat opposite, held his cards. She imagined the way his eyes sparkled when he had a good hand, laughed at her skill at always being able to tell his tells.
She would get the answers from Skeebs, she told her husband. All she had to do was make that window, a small length of time where the boy was more afraid of her than his captor hanging in chains.
One hand to her. A pair of Jacks. She dealt again.
But what if Bridget was right? What if magic was the only solution? Amanda could picture his concerned frown, the way his forehead wrinkled.
She won again. Dealt. Her gaze drifted to Reeves. If Simon was really there she’d be peering over his shoulder…
He shouldn’t worry, she’d figure something out. She hadn’t needed magic against her father, she wouldn’t need it now.
Steph rolled over to face her, her face slack with sleep. Caleb had lent her his gloves. Now her hands looked huge, the cuffs well past her wrists. For all his violence, the big idiot always had been soft. In a lot of ways, he had always been suited for family life much better than she had. If Michael had lived, if she hadn’t fucked up, maybe he wouldn’t even be here with her now.
She looks so like her.
Amanda had been surprised she hadn’t spotted it as soon as the girl had stepped out the car. Bridget’s daughter was rounder but the features were unmistakable. It was the accent maybe – Bridget’s had been Scottish, the girl’s was more English.
Are you going to tell her you burned her mother’s body?
If she thought it would help.
She won another hand. Simon rolled his eyes. Reeves’ chains rattled like applause.
The only risk was Skeebs might decide to blurt it out when the mood took him. Amanda didn’t think he would though. The boy might be impulsive but he had survival instincts just like the rest of them.
Reeves won this hand. Amanda wasn’t sure when she’d switched in her head from playing her husband to playing his murderer.
In a bout of superstition, she promised herself that if she beat Reeves five times in a row then they’d somehow get out of this train alive.
Steph’d gone straight for Bridget’s bag too. There she’d been, knife in hand, giving Reeves this look. Then she’d cried. It had been convincing. But not so much that Bridget’s bag wasn’t anywhere but at Amanda’s side now. She’d sooner give the girl a gun than access to those books, right now.
She’s the same age as Emily. Simon was at her side now, chin resting on her shoulder, fingers squeezing her upper arm. He watched her lose another hand, offered encouragement.
She was the same age as their youngest. Emily always had her nose in a book. Amanda would come home to find her daughter bent over her homework chewing on the end of her pen. She’d always talked about what she wanted to be, eyes fixed on the horizon. Climate change on the television? She was going to be an environmentalist. Earthquake? An architect. An election? A politician, God help them.
She won’t be anything now.
Another hand lost.
Michaela had been different. Always laughing, so firmly embedded in the now, full of life. Worries just broke against her optimism. The first to tell a joke or pull a face, so much like her father it made Amanda’s heart swell to think of her.
That chair squeaked across her thoughts again. Her wrists would be rubbed raw by whatever AK was using to bind her by now. She’d left AK furious on the phone. What would he do to get back at her? How would he take his anger out on her little girl?
Another hand lost.
The cards seemed to shift before her eyes. She was seeing aces where there were none. She saw patterns in her hands that had her elated but then, too late, she realised were meaningless. When were even numbered cards ever a good hand? Or black, red, black, red?
Reeves was laughing, she was sure.
Simon wasn’t there any more.
Her brow had been furrowed for so long it ached.
She caught herself glancing across the cards every few seconds at the prisoner before her, arms outstretched and head bobbing like a conductor at a symphony. Each time, she expected to find him staring back, the very idea like a fist around her heart.
The thought of Emily learning magic brought the taste of bile to the back of her throat.
Kids always picked up a bit of magic here and there, harmless, playground stuff. But to actively teach a child? Give them power over others? Amanda didn’t see a way you could give someone that kind of power and it not end up the same way every time.
Despondent, Amanda gathered the cards up and placed them back beside her heart. They felt good there. Safe.
Fatigue crashed down on her like a wave, so strong and so sudden that it made her nauseous.
She leaned back again, wormed herself a little deeper into her sleeping bag to stay warm.
Caleb had already slept an hour or two, she should wake him, get up now, right now and just…
‘There she is.’
The Abras had taken her out back, a cold, bare storeroom filled with boxes of crisps and pork scratchings. One of them had given her his coat, like it was some kind of consolation.
She’d sat and shivered and kicked herself as they’d drifted back to their conversation, trying to put the little abused girl out of their minds. They’d talked about magic making the world better, better medicine, better society, better everything. You’d think they were honest men, the way they talked.
Amanda was already crying when she heard the rumble of her dad’s voice like approaching storm clouds.
She didn’t turn when the door opened behind her. She barely even flinched when his hand came down on her shoulder.
A train blasted past outside, a shot of adrenalin to a soporific heart. Amanda jerked in fright, her whole body jackknifing, the train drumming in her ears. The prisoner quivered in his chains, shaking and twitching like a man electrified.
Amanda pressed herself back into the wall, the passing train thrumming through her body, squeezing every muscle and making her gritted teeth chatter. This would wake him, this would surely wake him and they weren’t ready. She wasn’t ready.
The passing train was sucked away again. Reeves slumped in his chains.
Amanda gasped, short breaths like nails in her throat, her pulse throbbing behind her eyes. Shit, shit, shit, shit. She cast around, looking to her companions but they slept like nothing had happened. Everything was just as she’d left it.
She sagged, her tensed muscles wrung out and sore.
She shook her head, gathered her thoughts. She’d almost fallen asleep on her own watch. She’d wake Caleb now, get him to watch for a couple of hours—
‘No.’
The prisoner’s eyes stabbed like icicles in Amanda’s chest, a piercing blue in the darkness.
‘No,’ Skeebs said again, knees coming up to his chest, a childlike plea on his lips as he dreamed. ‘No. Please.’
Reeves’ head was down again. Amanda blinked, realised that the prisoner couldn’t have been staring at her, not with his eyes swollen shut.
Rolling onto her feet, she crossed the short distance between them, the stench of stale sweat and urine intensifying. She checked the manacles. Tight. She ducked down to look at the prisoner’s face. Drool, pink with blood, stretched in an elastic thread. She could make out the contours of the swelling, broken lips and eyes closed up. Caleb had done so much damage.
The tattoos spiralled and writhed.
‘Please, no more… I’ll do anything.’ Skeebs’ words were a croak, a half sob. ‘Please.’
A wave of dizziness hit Amanda as she stood. She staggered but it passed as quickly as it had come.
The sound of the rain had changed. It wasn’t the dull roar of a torrent on metal any more, instead it was the light, distant patter of rain on the skylight at home.
Outside the freight carriage door, she could hear the sound of her husband busy in the kitchen; the whisper of the gas stove, the rattle of the pots and pans, the murmur of the radio. She couldn’t smell his cooking but knew it would be something warm, thick and comforting. She should wrap whatever she was doing up quickly, join him.
One summer, before the kids, it had been so hot that he’d cooked naked except for an apron.
And when she’d found his corpse, his blood had still been warm. Blood had drip, drip, dripped from the upstairs landing onto the stairs.
She was at the carriage door without remembering stepping over to it, her hand around the padlock, her padlock. But the others had all the keys…
‘Please, help me.’
She was crouched before the prisoner again, passing through the space like she was in a dream. She’d seen something last time, something that had caught her eye.
Something to do with the tattoos.
She leaned in closer, ducking her head to see the prisoner’s torso.
They weren’t like any language she’d ever seen, wasn’t English, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic. She couldn’t tell where one word ended and another began. Maybe they weren’t words at all. But she’d spotted something earlier, some hint of meaning out of the corner of her eye.
The prisoner raised his head. Stared with her son’s eyes.
No. Amanda forced her eyes to the ground and tried to calm herself. That hadn’t happened, that was in her head. She forced herself to look again, to take in the prisoner’s face.
He was staring back.
Amanda shut her eyes again, the effect making them water. Her eye was telling her one thing, that the prisoner was slumped down just as he had been, but her mind another, that the prisoner was staring straight back, face swollen and lips opening like a wound to speak.
‘Please, I’ll do anything. Just let me go.’ Skeebs continued to plead.
‘Just a minute, son,’ Amanda muttered to herself. Let her deal with… She stared hard at the tattoos, taking in every curl of ink. She had to decipher them before she woke up.
Woke up? She frowned at the thought. Was this a dream? No, she didn’t remember going to sleep. Mustn’t be distracted, not with the smell of cooking so tantalising outside. There were clues to be solved, something that would help her save her children in the tattoos, she was certain of it.
Emily’s body had stared at her when she’d got home. It was her fault they’d died and her daughter knew it. That blank gaze alone was too hard to bear.
Hints of meaning bubbled up from the inky palimpsest as Amanda’s eye roved but before she could read them a word it would sink back down. She would follow them, delving deeper, deeper into them, drowning herself in the scrawl, drawing closer under Reeves’ shadow.
‘Oh, God.’ Skeebs gave a shuddering sob.
The tattoos had changed, Amanda could swear, harsh jags now gentle swirls. It almost made sense to her now, like a stranger’s handwriting. She willed it to make sense, to reveal something, but she could only make out half of it, the rest obscured by blood and bruising.
She snorted in frustration. Fucking Caleb had done that. Stopped her from understanding. There had been that little smile on his lips when he’d stepped out of the carriage, hidden the moment he’d seen Amanda watching. Like he was paying her back for what happened to Michael. Fucking Michael. Been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It hadn’t been her fault.
Simon called her name, beckoning her to join, help stir or fold or knead. An extra hand when he needed, sometimes a pair of lips to taste.
The whole thing struck her as odd all of a sudden. She frowned at the scribble before her. Why would the kitchen be outside? Wasn’t she… wherever she was? Her home was a crime scene now, silent, empty, blood dried in the carpets and on the walls.
It was a dream. She’d fallen asleep on her watch. She turned to where she’d been sitting and there she was, arms folded, nose buried in her scarf, sound asleep. But the idea that she could be in two places at once carried no potency and was soon whisked away as she returned her attention to the scrawl on the prisoner’s body. It had changed again, a little closer to legibility.
There was one line she was sure made sense, dream logic telling her so, but the fucking thing was bruised, the dark ink obscured by the clouded skin thick with burst blood vessels.
Amanda ground her teeth, shooting an angry look at Caleb. Amanda hadn’t been there when Caleb had set to work beating the prisoner. She’d talked to Jamison loudly on the phone outside, recording her confession too loudly, drowning out that abattoir smack of meat. She’d closed her ears to the words Reeves cried out until they’d fallen silent.
Amanda’s head was beginning to sing like an exposed nerve. Her teeth were gritted to the point of breaking, she could hear her pulse in her ears. And somehow the haze was what she needed as she saw written over the prisoner’s heart two words that made sense.
Help me.
What were they doing? How had it come to this? Keeping another person restrained. Caleb had done it. Caleb had egged them on. He’d known how much it hurt her but he’d wanted that. He’d wanted her to hurt.
But this was too far. Locking a man up for days? Beating him whenever he pleased?
The knife. Where was the knife?
Wrenching open Bridget’s bag, she recoiled. The blade hurt to look at, the symbols like black spots in her vision. She looked away, back to the prisoner’s tattoos, their black like balm. Reeves was comfort. Caleb the enemy. She saw that now.
She found herself at the supplies, no picking her way between the sleeping bags. She’d passed through as simply as a thought.
She tipped the top one over, the contents spilling around her feet.
A tin of food rolled across the floor, coming to a stop when it met Steph’s face with a pat.
She brought the box down over the bag, hiding the knife from view.
Neither of her companions stirred. Skeebs continued to whimper and plead.
Her husband continued to work in the kitchen. Unreachable. Caleb held the key.
Amanda’s lip tasted of sweat. She felt the shakes of nervous excitement under her skin. She felt bottled up, restrained. The tendons in her hands were stiff and rusty as if they had been still for years.
Her hand closed around a tin of something. Peaches? Didn’t matter. It was hard, cold, heavy. Perfect.
Amanda was glad she couldn’t see the bastard’s face, enfolded as it was in the sleeping bag’s hood.
She hesitated, readjusting her grip on the tin, her fingers slick with sweat. Do this and she could go home.
‘Help me,’ Skeebs whimpered.
Amanda planted her feet like a woman staring over the edge of a cliff, sweat dripping, her lips a thin scar.
No, she didn’t want— This was wrong— Reeves was controlling—
She shook her head, pinched shut her eyes, some thought skittering over her brain and gone again. No, she shouldn’t—
Again, her muscles ached to move, to exert themselves. They glowed as she fell to her knees at her friend’s side. She estimated where the head was, raised the can.
She could feel the prisoner watching her, feel his eyes boring into her, watching over her shoulder. There was that plea-filled message written on his chest and Skeebs’ words in her ear.
Her husband called for her again.
The tin trembled in the air and swung down, hitting the man with a thud, muffled by the thick padding of the sleeping bag. Amanda felt the bite as the rim found its target, grinned in triumph. She’d done it!
The growl of Caleb’s fractured trachea stopped, and blood began to boil out through the material in a red cloud.
And Amanda realised that this wasn’t a dream.