The End of the Line Read online

  Was this how her father had felt, all the time? This boiling anger simmering just under his muscles?

  ‘You’re not him,’ she said to herself, pushing the thoughts away.

  She walked over to the jeep, motioning the passenger to come out.

  The vehicle door opened. Music spilled out after the passenger, some singer-songwriter pop song.

  Amanda stared, stared far too long.

  She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, Amanda’s youngest daughter’s age. Long, straight brown hair. Thick glasses, too small on her round face, set over a grimace.

  One of her shoe laces had come undone, looping around her ill-judged Converse trainers. She had no scarf, no gloves, a thin denim jacket. In a few moments, the cold would begin to gut her.

  The girl folded her arms under Amanda’s scrutiny, her chin already wobbling with upset.

  ‘You’re the new Abra?’ Amanda couldn’t keep the cold from her tone. She didn’t like Abras at the best of times but a girl the same age as her dead daughter made her blood curdle. Who had any business filling a girl’s head with that stuff?

  The girl nodded, swallowed, realised that wasn’t enough. ‘Yes. But… if you don’t want me. I mean, I can…’ The girl put her hand to the door.

  ‘No,’ Amanda heard herself snap, making the girl recoil like the metal had flashed red hot. Amanda shook herself, clawing back a little self-control. ‘We don’t have time.’

  ‘Well, I can call a taxi,’ she pleaded. ‘If you just gave me a bit of money—’

  ‘Show me.’

  The girl faltered mid-sentence. ‘What?’

  ‘Your ink. Show me.’

  ‘Do I have to?’ the girl pleaded.

  ‘Magic, then.’

  ‘OK. Um…’ she looked at the ground, casting around for something. ‘What would you like me to…?’

  ‘Anything. Just make it fast.’

  ‘OK. I…’ She set her feet, furrowed her brow in concentration, clasped her palms together, fingers interlocked, one atop the other.

  She pulled her hands apart, the movement taking effort like they were magnetised. A spark appeared in the space between them, seemed to leech the light from the surrounding air, focussing it into a single point.

  The taste of magic was sharp like a bitter apple.

  Amanda’s mouth flooded with saliva, her stomach churned. The scars up her arms and legs began to tingle. In an instant, she was in her childhood living room, back hard to the wall, her father eclipsing her as she—

  ‘Fine!’ she said, louder than she intended.

  The girl jumped, the light winking out.

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Amanda strode over, shaking herself from the grip of the memory. The girl backed out of the way as Amanda rounded the car door. ‘You know why you’re here?’ Amanda asked.

  The bag in the foot well was bright pink and pathetically small, barely room for a change of clothes.

  ‘Yes, I mean the old man—’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘I know scrying and a few—’

  ‘Can you do the ritual, yes or no?’

  Her chin wobbled again. Her breath began to huff with the onset of tears. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ The words came out in a choked whisper, high as a mis­chord on a violin.

  Amanda sighed. She didn’t have time for this. ‘Depends if you can give a straight answer.’

  ‘But it’s not a fair question! No one’s ever got this far before. I… I know some of the theory. But until I see the notes… It’s all hypothetical. I’m not even sure my—’

  ‘Stop shouting.’

  Amanda scowled at the sky.

  The girl was right. If capturing a wild demon was meant to be impossible, which it was, killing it was more so. The fact that they’d even made it this far was one for the history books. The ritual, the stone circle, it all amounted to fingers-crossed because every other Abra who’d tried it through the centuries had ended up dead just trying to get the thing they’d summoned locked in a box. The safest bet was to never summon them in the first place. They almost hadn’t managed to capture Reeves themselves… and it had cost them all so much already.

  Amanda could feel the weight of her playing cards in her breast pocket.

  The girl was clamping on her misery, gumming it between her lips.

  If this was the best AK could do then things were desperate.

  But then so was she. That sound of Michaela’s chair scraping against concrete was like a splinter in her heart. What was her little girl thinking right now? What would she think when AK found out that Amanda hadn’t taken this girl with her? Amanda wanted to waste no time imagining. Every second wasted was another moment for AK to do something terrible to the one good thing she had left.

  Keeping her bag, Amanda swept an arm around the teenager, herding her towards the carriage. ‘Come on. Go.’

  The girl moved with all the speed of someone in a daydream looking up and down the train like she’d never seen one before. She tripped over her trailing lace but didn’t fall.

  ‘We’re actually riding in this?’

  ‘All the way. Now come on.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘A few days. Ninety-six hours.’

  Caleb was waiting in the doorway of the carriage. Amanda could see the disapproval in the man’s eyes as he watched Amanda frogmarch the girl forward. The added height of the train only served to make him look even more menacing, like an approaching meteor.

  The drivers were watching, hands in pockets, postures identical.

  Caleb stepped forward, a smile stretching his face in an effort to welcome her. He hitched his trousers to kneel so that he was closer to her height.

  Caleb’s face wasn’t suited to smiling, it only added an unnatural leer that didn’t sit true.

  The girl stopped short.

  ‘Come on,’ Amanda gave her a nudge. ‘He’s not dangerous. Just ugly.’

  ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ Caleb reached out a shovel-like hand.

  ‘The box is open.’ The girl hadn’t been able to see it from the car.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Amanda. ‘Box didn’t work. If it did you wouldn’t be here. New set up’s better, you’ll see.’

  ‘Steph.’

  ‘What?’

  The girl turned, accusation in her eyes, the first thing Amanda had seen from her other than ‘stunned’.

  ‘You didn’t ask me my name. It’s Steph.’

  ‘Great. Amanda.’

  She nodded like she knew already. AK had probably already filled her head with all sorts of shit about her.

  Amanda half lifted, half pushed her up and inside, letting her use the iron wheels for footholds.

  Caleb grunted deep in his throat, disapproving, and again he and Amanda locked gazes over the teen’s head.

  This is how it has to be, she tried to tell him, this was for Michaela.

  The indecision wrestled across the big man’s face a moment before he stepped away, allowing the girl to scrabble her way inside.

  At least she’d be easier to control, Amanda thought with a twinge of self-loathing. She should know, her father had kept her under his boot heel for so long that obeying had been easier than thinking.

  Knees clicking, Amanda followed her, throwing the bag in at her feet.

  She took one last look around, taking in the sky and a few final breaths of fresh air.

  The drivers were backing towards the engine having watched the whole show.

  Amanda held her hand up and brought it down again. The left driver threw back a salute. He turned to his partner, said something and Amanda heard laughter on the breeze as they made for the driver’s cabin.

  If all went well, she wouldn’t see them again until the end of the line.

  Her crew were all staring at her.

  ‘This is fucked up,’ said Skeebs.

  ‘This is going to work. Four more days and this will all be over.’ She pulled the door c
losed with a thunderous rumble. The last cut of natural light shone like diamond before it was mugged by the dimmer, artificial lamps inside. Four travel lamps had been set hanging along the ceiling, obliterating all shadows except those cast by the occupants themselves and those were faded and fractured, each person standing in the petals of their grey, pale mimicries.

  Skeebs turned back to the supplies, distracting himself by rummaging through each box in turn.

  The four padlocks that had once sealed the box were now set in the thick deadbolts that secured the carriage door from the inside. Amanda snapped them shut. The bolts were still warm from the blowtorches.

  A jolt staggered them as the train started to move, the supplies shifting in their boxes.

  Amanda patted her pockets to make sure she had everything. She kept her head down, delaying the moment she had to look toward the front end of the carriage.

  Steph, backed against the nearest wall, had no such problem. The girl’s eyes were wide and try as she might, Amanda couldn’t stop the image of what the girl was seeing in her mind’s eye.

  The chains were thick and bright in the lamplight, three on each side twisted together like seaman’s rope before fraying once again, ending in one of three brackets set into the thick manacle. The only thing holding them taut was the unconscious naked man suspended between them, his arms stretched across the width of the carriage, his knees almost but not quite touching the floor.

  Hard to believe how much pain and suffering this thing, Reeves, had caused, seeing it like this. It looked like a man, had been one once, but truth was the thing inside was wearing that skin like a sock-puppet. There were hundreds of deaths at this thing’s feet, who knew how many thousands more if they failed and it got back home.

  Caleb had stripped him once he was in chains. Their caution at his concealing something, anything, overriding their worry about keeping him warm. If things got too bad they’d give him a blanket, they’d decided.

  The train was picking up pace, each jerk of the tracks coming quicker than the last, flattening into a permanent rumble.

  Amanda frowned. There was no turning back.

  Chapter 6

  Steph

  The present – ninety-six hours to destination

  This was bad.

  Steph pressed herself against the cold steel of the carriage wall, her left shoulder digging painfully against the doorframe. She didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe almost, afraid that the slightest action might attract the attention of her captors.

  The cold was cutting through her, freezing her fingers and hugging around her body. The men who had taken her had mentioned nothing of the cold, there had been no talk of a hat or gloves when they’d bundled her onto a plane. Now here she was with a job to do and she felt even more woefully unprepared than she ever had done before.

  She was trying her hardest not to cry and knew it was a fight she was going to lose.

  Amanda (and she shuddered at the thought that she was stuck on a train with an infamous Abra killer) had forgotten her the moment she’d locked the door and started arguing with Skeebs.

  The argument took up the whole carriage, which was small enough as it was.

  From the supplies stacked at one end to the… she swallowed… thing chained up at the other, their whole living space was barely longer than two cars parked nose to tail. As for the width, she could make a standing jump from the wall and already be halfway to the opposite side.

  Not that she’d dare.

  Sometimes the arguing criminals passed so close she had to flatten herself against the wall. They even brushed against her, a sleeve or a back scraping across the bag clutched in front of her. Her nose filled with the smell of cigarette smoke.

  Even up close, she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Neither dared raise their voice, one eye always on the unconscious figure in chains, afraid to rouse him. Their words were lost beneath the throb of the engine and clatter of wheels on tracks. They were arguing about her, she knew it. Her and the man in chains.

  Oh God, please don’t let them fight.

  The more she fought her tears the more she could feel them rising inside her in a flood.

  The big one was no help. Unlike the other two, he was making final checks, rattling boxes, twisting padlocks in their brackets with his big paws. He glowered at everything, growled constantly. There was a stain on the cuff of his coat she didn’t want to know about.

  He eclipsed the lamps overhead, whenever he lumbered past. The sheer size of him made her shrink back, like he exerted a wake she had to fight against or risk being pulled down and trampled under his scuffed, old boots.

  Amanda snapped. She and Skeebs were nose to nose, now, eyes bugging, spitting and hissing, fists clenched.

  Steph flinched and curled away at every sharp sound. She felt her bladder loosen when Skeebs kicked the wall a few feet away from her.

  She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut but didn’t dare. These people were killers.

  Legs like water under her, she began to inch away from them toward the rear of the carriage.

  Again, she eyed the supplies, hoping to find a nook had opened up that she could crawl inside.

  The boxes were plastic, transparent, the kind you used when you moved house, stacked up against the wall opposite, near the back. She counted five, stacked one atop the other, uneasy in their mounts. Through their sides, she could see dreary rows of canned food, bottled water, a travel stove. One was sleeping bags and blankets.

  There was a small wooden table like you’d find in a classroom, and some chairs stacked in a neat column.

  At the back, a large metal trailer with thick rubber tyres was balanced on its end, almost touching the ceiling, tethered in place. At its toes, there was a quad bike, its red chassis gleaming. That’s what would be taking them the final leg of the journey.

  What there wasn’t was a coffin. She thought there’d be one, or at least her mother’s body under a blanket. She’d been dreading seeing it for the whole flight. Now that it wasn’t there it left only a hollow feeling of anti-climax.

  It had been less than twenty-four hours since she’d heard that her mother had died. The tears had gone as quickly as they’d come. Like the feeling was just too big for them. How did you cry out something that was as big as your whole body?

  Perhaps it had been the company. That man, AK, who had taken her as ‘collateral’ while her mother worked to recapture her mistake. Crying in front of him had made her feel small and self-conscious. Not that these people were any better.

  Perhaps it was that her feelings about her mother’s death were more complicated than she dared admit.

  The last few feet of space at the rear of the container had been fitted with a curtain on a rail. She guessed this had to do with the toilet rolls and buckets of bleach in the far corner.

  She was just filing away the humiliating idea of going to the toilet in front of these people for later when she saw the bag.

  It was brown, large and leather, thrown beside the toiletries and as welcome as a familiar face. Her mother’s bag.

  And in an instant she was back to the moment when she’d held it last.

  Ten months earlier

  Steph sat by the door and tried not to die of shame.

  The small community room was packed, every chair filled, the back wall a row of crossed arms and frowning faces. Abras (that’s what they called magic users here in London, she’d learned) from every walk of life had come to put their heads together to solve their most pressing concern: how to get magic legalised and use it to better mankind.

  Now the whole room was arguing with her mother.

  As instructed and on best behaviour, Steph sat beneath a noticeboard that groaned beneath the weight of flyers for the anti-capitalist, pro-equality, care in the community and pro-polygamy groups that used the space. She held her mother’s bag in her lap, under strict instructions to never open it or let it out of her sight. She imagined it filled with possibilities, k
nowledge that seeped out into her fingers like some kind of benign radiation. She longed to peek inside, to go through her mum’s notes, explore the tools and inks and powders. She wanted, just for a moment, to close her eyes and pretend the bag was hers and that she was a proper magician. To have just a few minutes alone with it would be the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  Mum had just finished her presentation – ‘Bridget Fergusson: Re-inventing Magic for the Needs of the 21st Century’. Steph knew the speech by heart, every pause, every emphasis, she’d heard it in three cities already. As well as the resulting arguments.

  But this was London, Mum had said, voicing her pre-speech jitters. They did things differently here. This was the capital of the pro-magic movement. They were forward-looking here. They’d understand what she was trying to do. Why they hadn’t moved here earlier, she didn’t know. Steph had nodded along, knowing her input wasn’t required or even desired.

  Now her mum was red in the face. ‘If people can see what we can do,’ Mum was shouting over her lead opponent, ‘the benefits we can give to the economy, to their daily lives, far beyond what science alone can give them, then the vote would swing in our favour overnight. We need to provide them with magic as simple and consequence-free as the flicking of a light switch.’

  It was like this every time. Mum had come to lead not listen. It looked like they would be moving again soon enough, Steph thought with an inward sigh. She asked herself why she kept asking to come to these things – bearing her mother’s sufferance and her ‘well, I can’t be expected to watch you’s.

  But she knew the answer. It thrilled her to be in the same room as these people worked to make the world a better place even if she was just sitting in the corner, her mum’s bag and an agenda clutched in her lap.

  She always hoped there’d be someone her age present, friends were hard to come by when she moved so often. But there never was and so she sat, overlooked, aching to contribute or even be noticed.

  ‘There are inherent risks,’ said Mum, replying to some argument. ‘But with all of us working together, the power we can—’