The End of the Line Read online

  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.

&n
bsp; 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 frogmarchin
g 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.