It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
The wall nudged at Amanda’s left elbow, the curtain at her right, hemming her in. Every noise from the other end of the carriage made her breath hitch, adrenalin hot-wiring through her veins and soaking her clothes with sweat, despite the cold. She resisted the urge to peek around at the others, forced herself to take her time with her task, do it properly.
Outside, under the pervasive thrum of the train’s engine, she thought she could hear the ocean – some barren, icy shore wreathed in mist.
Couldn’t stay too long. Reeves would notice.
Steph had been thinking along the right lines; there was only one spot in the whole carriage with even a modicum of privacy. Amanda’s trousers were at her ankles, the tub of bleach open beneath her. The chemicals made her eyes water, grated at her throat. Holding the pose made her muscles burn.
But it gave Amanda the few minutes she needed, to steel her resolve, make a decision.
Her pack of cards were no longer the comfort in her hand they had once been. The weight was wrong with so many missing. Her fingers touched the softened corners, the familiar dimensions fitting in the grooves of her palm but the case had too much give, bending in her grip.
Was a shred of what she’d had worth clinging to? Or did it all need to go?
Reeves was saying something to Steph, a low conspiratorial whisper.
Committed now. Time to move.
‘Weeping, Amanda?’ called Reeves.
The cards were back in the pocket in a heartbeat. She was back into the room in another.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, shuffling back to join the others.
She ached worse than ever.
Dull, fibrous pain radiated from her bones, up her arms and legs, curling her spine, knotting in her shoulders and neck. Her feet throbbed, feeling compressed as though she’d been on them all day. Her jaw was so clenched it made her teeth hum whenever she was aware enough to relax.
It didn’t matter whether she sat, stood or lay down. Whether she was walking or stationary. She’d stretched, she’d tried going limp, she’d tried kneading her muscles, working them like clay. Nothing worked, nothing gave even a shred of relief.
Her wrists burned and itched. When she peeled back her glove, peeked under the cuff of her coat, she found the skin bruised and raw, worn away to red, shiny flesh. They were as worn as Reeves’ manacled wrists were smooth and unblemished.
The air was heavy with expectation as she came back to join them. The knife was resting on Steph’s bag waiting to be blessed. Another battle with Reeves waiting to be had. Steph’s idea on how to defend themselves unheard.
This had better work, she told herself, sitting back down.
‘So it’s, like, the words don’t matter,’ she said to Steph.
Though he stopped them from talking about how to defend themselves, Reeves had allowed them to speak openly about the blessing.
He was planning something, they all saw it, he let them see it. Not only were they heading into a fresh skirmish with him but he was tearing their composure ragged by letting them be the ones to initiate it.
‘It’s the tones the words make,’ Amanda continued. ‘That’s where we went wrong last time.’ Her finger traced along a line of cramped text.
Steph shrugged under her blanket. She took another slow bite from her chocolate bar, the last one in the supplies.
‘No come on.’ Amanda tried not to groan as she shuffled beside the girl, bones creaking like they were made of rusted metal.
‘I will see that,’ said Reeves.
Amanda knew better than to argue. Biting down on another groan, she lifted himself back up and hobbled over to show the demon the book she had been about to proffer.
The thing’s eyes travelled across it. Without even having to be asked, Amanda turned the pages. This close and she could smell her son, the scent provoking unwanted memories and feelings.
The creature looked up, staring hard into her face. Was that pleasure in its eyes?
‘Continue.’
Amanda swallowed the urge to say thank you and took the book back to Steph.
The girl looked morosely at the page, pulling her blanket tighter around her. Damn but the skin around her mouth was blue, the rest a stony grey except for the dark blush around her eyes and nose and the angry red of her burn. Despite the layers of clothes and blankets, her teeth chattered. As cold as Reeves was warm.
Though Steph’s vision incantation on her had long since worn off, Amanda could swear she could almost see the heat being leeched from the poor girl, pouring into Reeves, his skin flushed and glowing.
‘Come on now,’ Amanda pushed her in the chest to keep her focussed on the book, slipping something into her breast pocket as she did so.
The reaction was immediate, the girl looked up into her face and she gave the slightest of nods. Steph’s lips set harder.
‘So it doesn’t matter what you say,’ Amanda continued ‘it’s the tone you say it in. Can you read music?’
‘No.’ Steph looked at the page before closing her eyes to sink deeper into her shivers.
Reeves eyes were cold and mocking.
‘Alright then. Let’s figure it out. So, I reckon I remember that this middle line is—’
‘It’s hopeless,’ she interrupted.
‘No. It isn’t. Come on. We can figure this.’
‘I can read music,’ said Caleb. The man was slumped against the far wall, his face a bruised mask, eyes swollen bulbs. His skin was a stormy sky of yellows and purples and blacks, red capillaries standing out like distant tongues of lightning.
He’d been quieter than normal of late, thoughtful. Amanda knew the man long enough to see when he was getting sentimental. He was thinking of Michael and when he talked to Amanda it was to reminisce, something Michael had done or Michaela had said. ‘We get through this she’s going to be OK,’ he kept saying.
‘Can you hum this?’ Amanda didn’t even have the strength to stand, sliding over on her knees. ‘Have a look.’
They all looked to Reeves, waiting for him to protest.
He said nothing.
Amanda was beginning to wonder if he was acting at random, forcing them to stop avenues of enquiry to bluff them into believing that they were on a path that threatened him. How many hours had they potentially wasted trying to read around a subject because Reeves had reacted to it and found nothing of value?
Caleb took the book. The tips of two of his fingers were stained black with frostbite. Amanda said nothing as the big man held the book at an angle so he could see through the fleshy slits, angling his reading glasses. He hummed a few notes, walked Steph through it.
‘That’s my girl,’ said Caleb, staring blindly up at the ceiling. ‘She’s a natural.’
‘And if Ray Charles here says you’ve got it…’ Amanda patted Caleb on the shoulder. The big man gave a morose chuckle. The girl frowned, the reference falling flat. ‘God, I’m as old as I feel,’ said Amanda. She took a breath, the next words weighing heavy. ‘So, are we ready to do this?’
Steph ran her tongue along her teeth again, stretching the skin of her burned chin. A finger played at the corner of one of her stacks of pages.
‘We should go over it one more time. If we’ve missed—’
‘We’ve got this,’ said Amanda, injecting as much confidence in her voice as she could muster. ‘We’ve been researching for hours. If we don’t know it now, we never will.’
‘We’ve missed something,’ said Steph. ‘I know it. He’ll try and get me.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘A few minutes if I get it right.’
‘So we need a distraction.’
‘That’s my cue,’ said Caleb.
Amanda had expected it, already knew the paths Caleb’s mind had been travelling down. That didn’t stop it from making her shudder with the poison of what her best friend was about to suggest.
‘What are you going to do? Dance?’
‘That two-step shuffle I’m known for.’
Reeves jerked in his chains.
Caleb pushed himself to his feet, careful on his ribs. ‘Beating held him off last time. Probably work again.’
‘But you’ll be hurting yourself,’ said Steph. ‘You’ll get all the injuries.’
‘Yup,’ Caleb sniffed. ‘Sounds about right. Heard what you were saying, about it taking time and effort to get food out of you. We know he doesn’t like pain. Should be a good distraction.’
‘But…’ Steph looked to Amanda. ‘Are we really going to let him do this?’
‘It’s his decision. We haven’t a better idea and we’re running out of time.’
‘But he can barely stand. This could kill him.’
Caleb nodded. ‘Reckon you’re right. But I’ve been around a while. There’s a girl out there more deserving of a second chance. Up to her mother to stick around.’
Amanda didn’t know what to say. Even if she did, she didn’t know if she’d be able to say it past the lump in her throat. Her truest friend, willing to kill himself for her daughter.
‘Thank you,’ she managed.
‘What are family for?’
It was an awkward embrace, Amanda could barely lift her arms, Caleb was too sore to be touched.
‘Weirdest beating I ever gave,’ said Caleb as they pulled away. He cracked his knuckles. ‘Good thing I’m an expert.’
‘Will this do?’ Amanda asked Steph.
‘I think so,’ she replied, wide-eyed.
‘Get ready then.’
‘Fuck, can’t feel my hands,’ Caleb shook them to keep the circulation going. ‘Going to avoid the face, work the right-hand side a bit more.’ He tapped the demon’s ribs with his left hand. ‘Cracked the left ribs, don’t fancy doing them worse.’ He took a deep breath, gingerly scratched at his nose. ‘Weirdest fucking beating I ever gave.’
‘Just don’t start until I say.’
‘You are a pawn,’ said Reeves. A smirk hadn’t left his face since they’d started talking. ‘You think this your own idea but she has manipulated you.’
‘Sounds like he’s scared,’ said Caleb.
‘I think you’re right.’ Amanda wished she could smile at the thought.
‘Just say the word.’ Caleb set his feet, fists up like a boxer in front of the punching bag.
‘You ready?’ said Amanda to Steph.
The girl had managed to throw her fatigue aside. She’d rooted through her bag, gathered what she needed.
‘This still might not come out right,’ she said, working the string around her fingers.
The knife was beside her, the blade polished bright. Amanda weighed it in her hands, studied the symbols in the metal.
‘We’ve done everything we can. You can plan and plan, but eventually you got to shit or get off the pot. The rest you take as it comes.’
Steph frowned as she set her hands apart, stretching the string taut between them. She was trying not to cry though whether for Caleb or for herself it was hard to say.
As instructed, Amanda delicately placed the knife flat over the loops. ‘Be quick. Do it right.’
‘What if this doesn’t work?’
‘Do I try to break the string like last time?’
‘There’s the knife, you’ll hurt yourself.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
Steph breathed hard down her nose, brow furrowed.
‘You ready, Caleb?’ The words almost caught in Amanda’s throat.
Caleb’s fists came up. ‘Say the word.’
‘I’ll have the painkillers ready for when we’re done.’
‘Aye. Can’t get enough of those. You’re going to owe me so many pints when we get home.’
‘Believe me, you’ll get them.’
Steph clenched her teeth, nodded, the string playing between her fingers.
‘Just be ready with the first aid box or something?’ Her hands started working; simple, silent knots. Amanda did as she was told, setting the box down next to her and holding it on her lap.
‘You should be looking at me, Amanda,’ said Reeves.
Caleb rocked on the balls of his heels. ‘Want me to—?’
‘Just give her a minute,’ said Amanda. ‘Let her get into it.’
Steph’s hands began to move faster and faster, the knots more and more complex. But this time the blade was part of the pattern, turning this way and that as the strings pushed it, spinning it around like a pin in a gyroscope.
The knife-blade taste of magic touched Amanda’s tongue.
‘Amanda?’
‘Do it.’
‘Look at me, Amanda,’ Reeves snarled. ‘Look at what you’ve brought this—’
The first punch caught it straight in the nose, a practiced, measured jab that snapped its head back.
Amanda flinched, forced herself to keep watching as Caleb shot her a look of apology. Reeves growled, blood from his nose staining his lip and bared teeth. Both his lips were split.
And then they weren’t, the cuts sealing themselves before their eyes. Blood pattered to the floor as Caleb’s nose began to gush.
Caleb only sniffed, wiped at his face with the back of a hand. ‘This takes the fucking cake,’ he said, thickly, stepped forward again for a second shot.
The girl was well underway, the blade darting and flicking in every direction, as though held in place by a shimmering bubble of string, trying to nose its way out. Amanda couldn’t help but lean away, picturing the thing flying out and burying itself between her eyes.
There came the familiar butcher’s sound behind him – Caleb hard at work. The smack of meat, the cry of pain mingled with the big man’s grunt of exertion.
It felt like the last time. She was back sitting on that upturned filing cabinet, curled over and cringing at every blow, sweat from her palms salting her cigarette.
She forced herself to watch.
Caleb was already beginning to slow, his breath laboured, his face and clothes ribboned with blood. He let out a low growl ‘fuck’ and shook his head in an attempt to clear it.
‘Are you watching,’ Reeves called. His tone was ice cold, depths cold, but there was effort behind it. It was as Amanda expected, centuries tearing through people however it pleased, had made the demon soft. Reeves didn’t like to experience pain and now all of his attention was on shifting his wounds to Caleb as quickly as the chains would allow.
‘You OK?’ she asked Caleb.
‘Never better,’ Caleb mumbled. ‘You finished yet?’
‘Not yet.’
The blade between Steph’s hands was a blur, humming in a silver ball, everywhere at once. Steph was looking at it intently. Only one of her pupils were missing, looking elsewhere while one stayed fixed on the blade that was resolutely here. Though sometimes it wasn’t. In the space of a blink, Amanda was sure that there were times when she was only looking at squirming string.
She didn’t dare ask how it was going, didn’t want to break the girl’s concentration.
Another smack behind her, the sound striking her to the very core, like her ribs were rattling around her heart.
It was impossible not to see her son in those chains. The bruises and swellings gone, so like his father, being beaten by the disfigured abomination in the boots and long coat. Her little boy was in trouble.
She silently urged Steph to hurry. What was taking so long? It had been minutes already.
Caleb looked over to her, his tongue flicking out to taste the blood that ran from his nose and down his chin. His eyes were bleary, glazed with pain. ‘Want I should stop?’
She wanted to say ‘yes’. She could feel Simon watching her, could feel his disapproval, feel his pleading inside her. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Keep going if you want me to.’
It took a ruthless, callous bastard to say yes. ‘Not long’, she promised. ‘We’ve almost got it.’
The blade was definitely disappearing. Each time it flickered from sight for longer, and as it did Steph’s remaining pupil contracted, shrinking down until it was gone.
There was only the string now, but Amanda was sure that she could see where the knife wasn’t, a space where it would have been, where it still might be, just, somewhere else. The string writhed and undulated around the girl’s flickering fingers.
She began to sing, shaky at first then growing in confidence, repeating the notes that Caleb had taught her.
This was it. If there was any time the girl was at her most vulnerable, it was now.
Another crack and Caleb gave a long animal moan of pain, ending in a gargle.
The big man was bent over double, breathing hard. Sweat dripped from the tip of his bloody nose. The broken skin over his knuckles was shining, the palms staining his jeans as he gripped his thighs for support.
Reeves stood tall in his chains, looking down his nose on the crouching hulk before him with an imperious air.
‘You OK?’ asked Amanda. ‘Caleb?’
‘I can’t…’ Caleb’s lips were pressed tight, like he was trying not to vomit. When he spat it was red. ‘Head’s fucking swimming.’
‘You have to keep going. She’s not done yet.’
Caleb convulsed, a thin dribble of puke leaking through his swollen lips, beading down his front and mixing with the blood.
Steph gave a shuddering gasp like ice cold hands had grabbed her around the middle. She stiffened and for the smallest moment the pattern failed, a note cracked in half.
‘No, wait. Leave her,’ Amanda ordered Reeves.
Reeves’ pupils were gone, leaving only her son’s hazel irises. He was deeper in that void, deeper in that place where his shape wasn’t a man’s.
‘Caleb, hit him.’
Caleb tried to straighten and jerked back down with a huff of air like there was a hook in his belly.
‘Caleb!’
The big man shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, trembling like a kicked dog.
Spit flecked Amanda’s face as Steph chuffed through her teeth, face screwed up and growing pink with pain. Her fingers were faltering, the smooth motions beginning to stutter.
Amanda clenched her fists, knowing what she had to do, unable to tell her muscles to do it, tendons taut and frozen.
Steph’s cry rent the air, blood spilling from her nose in a sudden stream. She was doggedly trying to keep up the chant.
It felt like Amanda was floating, watching herself as her fist crashed into the side of her son’s jaw. She shouted something, but didn’t hear what it was, the word jagged in her throat.
Reeves’ head snapped to the side, blood spattering the floor and wall. Caleb spat out the rest onto his hands.
The girl gave a gasp of relief, heaved lungful after lungful of air.
Amanda shook her hand, the pain of the collision incredible. Inside her gloves, she could already feel the split skin on her knuckles.
Reeves was back up, his pupils disappearing again. Amanda was weaker than her friend, she was fighting the weight of the chains. There was no way she’d be able to keep it up or be even half as effective as Caleb had been.
She had to try something else.
Steph began to moan again.
Caleb was still bent double, his breathing rough, arms cinched around his middle.
It was up to her. She had to do something. There had to be something. Something in the room she could use.
Steph’s moan became a scream.
Her hands were around her son’s throat. Darren’s eyes bulged as Amanda settled her grip, fingers stiffening to iron bars, thumbnails digging, digging.
Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.
Caleb fell to his knees.
She couldn’t stop herself, Amanda realised. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t dare stop. She was tired and angry and in pain and she just wanted it to end. She wanted Michaela, she didn’t want to think of her in AK’s hands any longer, every minute she spent with him another wound.
Strengthless hands pushed against her back, Caleb trying to stop her, his crushed throat unable to make a sound. Darren’s eyes were bloodshot urging her on.
‘Amanda!’
There was the blade. She saw it between Steph’s hands, for a split second. It was coming back.
But she didn’t dare let up. Every muscle and tendon up her hands and arms was a string of hot pain.
Caleb slumped to the floor behind her, incapable of little more than a rhythmic click in the back of his mouth. The smack of his lips was like a drowning fish.
Silence. Nothing but the flutter of the string in Steph’s fingers.
The blade was almost completely visible again. Slowing its gyrations until Amanda could make out the details on the handle once again.
Amanda’s hand fell limp to her side, every tendon in her hands stretched and sore. She felt like she’d gone ten rounds and on the inside… She squeezed her eyes, not wanting to think on it. Dirty, she felt dirty and sick.
Reeves didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His jaw was swelling where Amanda had punched him, the bruise growing before his eyes, like watching an apple rapidly moulder.
It didn’t fade, a guilty reminder of what she’d done.
Swallowing back the urge to vomit, Amanda crouched down at Caleb’s side, rolled him onto his back.
‘No. Caleb. Fuck. Wake up. Come on. Please, Caleb.’
She couldn’t see the man’s eyes, hidden under the bruising. But the continuous growl of his breath had stopped. ‘No. Shit.’ Amanda worked two hands into the folds of man’s neck, looking for a pulse, finding none.
She didn’t remember what happened next.
There was an effort to resuscitate him but she didn’t know CPR. There was screaming. There were tears. There was black, black guilt.
But Caleb never came back.