‘He was to be my messenger.’ Skeebs startled them from Steph’s tale.
He was just as they’d left him, zipped into his sleeping bag, beanie hat on, bag acting as a pillow, hands neatly folded in his lap. His colour had worsened, his skin a burnished greenish gold. The air murmured around him. Too close and they felt the wisps of the boy’s stray thoughts and feelings.
His lips moved as though unattached to the rest of him.
‘Instead he hid, cocooned himself in drugs and drink to become a pitiful shell.’
‘Get your hooks out of him,’ said Amanda, weary to her very bones.
Skeebs smiled. ‘You will remove the hood.’
‘If you think we’re—’
Skeebs grimaced, his back arched like he had a hook in his belly lifting him from the floor, bending him to the point of breaking. The boy let out a roar of pain that tapered into a squeak of air as his windpipe closed before he collapsed back down again. Sparks of the raw magic filling his pores snapped and crackled across his skin, the cold, steel stench of it filling the room and making the fingertips of his gloves char.
‘Is his life worth less than your pride?’
Steph clapped her hands to her ears as Skeebs screamed again. It did no good. The scream was everywhere at once, the very air singing it out like a tuning fork, reaching tight into the centre of their heads. Images of the boy’s brother came with it. Danny as Amanda had never seen him, calm, laughing, a private family moment broadcast on all frequencies as Skeebs’ mind fixed on him as he screamed. Thin tears leaked down into his hair, blackened fingers ramrod straight, almost popping from their sockets.
‘All right!’ Amanda shot to her feet. ‘Stop. Just stop.’
Skeebs collapsed, a puppet with his strings cut, limbs bent at haphazard angles. The scream faded, dying back to murmurs in the air again.
Heart in her mouth, lips pressed tight, Amanda pulled the hood away to find her son looking straight at her, piercing electrodes shocking her heart. The swelling and bruising of the thing’s face had healed some, purples fading to dirty yellow.
She tried to remove the headphones and gag without touching him. Amanda’s skin crawled at the tickle of Reeves’ hot, fetid breath.
‘Whatever you’re doing I want you to stop.’
‘It is a test of sincerity. Of your commitment to principals. What is more important, those around you or your pride.’
‘Just tell us what you did.’
‘I am feeding him. In much the same way I will feed from you or the girl. I am giving my power to him. His body does not know how to release it and so it finds ways out. It will soon kill him. Do you understand?’
Amanda pictured the Reeves’ connections, drawing from Steph, drawing from all of them and feeding into Skeebs. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. You are learning. Defying your father by following in his footsteps. But you go neither fast nor far enough.
‘I have my hooks in every one of you. I control the very air you breathe. There is nowhere that you can hide. I’m inside you, around you, before and after you.’
Skeebs spasmed, whimpering and twisting like a man stabbed in the gut.
Amanda gritted her teeth.
‘Your chains are failing, my powers are close to recovered. Mr Keyes is lucky. He’ll be dead long before I’m free. He will have a day at most but it will likely be hours. The most merciful thing to do would be to kill him. But you can still put him to one final use.’
The air whispered of Danny, the desperate urge to make him proud.
‘No more half-measures. No more self-deception. You will be the one to confront me. Your only route to success lies solely on your shoulders. The others are only playing pieces, figures to be sacrificed and taken. It is time you embraced that. Without power, a tattoo is required for the girl to survive the conclusion of the ritual. Mr Keyes will no longer be applying it. If any of you attempt to do it yourselves without my permission, I will snatch the heart from the girl’s chest.’
Steph had turned shades of green, swaying where she sat. The spell to help Amanda see had taken so much out of her and the threat of instant death looked enough to finish her. Amanda put a hand to her shoulder to keep the girl steady. If it was this bad already, not having a tattoo for the ritual would be enough to finish her.
‘I’m guessing you have an alternative,’ said Amanda.
‘You will use the boy’s blood.’ The demon grinned. ‘You will use it immediately. I have seen to it that his blood is more potent than any man alive. You can use it again when it is time to confront me in the circle. My power is growing with every heartbeat. Blood will be your only hope of resisting the draining when you open yourself for the ritual. Use the blood now and I will allow you yourself to take the tattoo.’
‘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.