‘We’re infiltrating Mara’s regime the day after tomorrow,’ she says evenly. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try to look for your friend.’
‘Try. Great.’ I stand. ‘If you’re going up against Mara, I’m coming with you.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘You said I could leave whenever I wanted.’
‘Not if you’re going to run off and get killed.’
‘So I’m your prisoner after all.’
‘I’m trying to do the right thing–’
I cut her off with a laugh. Annoyance crosses her face and my pulse quickens. If I keep lobbing flaming grenades her way, she’s going to have to either take the explosions or hurl them back.
Was there a lock on the bedroom door? I can’t remember.
‘We can discuss this later,’ Celene says, grabbing a khaki jacket from the back of a chair. ‘Let me show you the rest of the camp. You’ll see for yourself we’re more than capable of taking on Mara.’
She’s at the door before I can protest and then I’m going after her again like some irritating little yappy dog that doesn’t know what’s best for it. I can’t shake the feeling she’s got me on a leash.
Outside, the rain has stopped, but fog creeps between the cabins. They look so strange on their stilts and I wonder if there are wild animals out here. Maybe the fences are for keeping more than just Mara at bay.
Curiosity keeps threatening to make me ask questions. I have so many of them multiplying inside me I’m practically vibrating. I clench my fists. I don’t want to make this easy for her. The more we talk, the less I’m able to see the monster.
Celene leads me towards the portacabin resting at the back of the encampment, away from the other cabins, and suddenly I’m on high alert again. This is the place that looks like a torture chamber. Or somewhere dead bodies are hacked apart to be used in satanic rituals.
I consider slipping away. Celene has her back to me and I could probably make it all of twenty feet before she notices I’m not behind her. What the hell’s in the portacabin? I wish I had the knife in my boot, the one I always have for emergencies, but it’s long gone and I feel more vulnerable than ever.
We reach the portcabin and now all I want to know is what’s inside.
If Celene really does want me to believe she’s changed, here’s her chance to prove it.
First chain dripping blood I see, though, I’m out of here.
An armed guard stands at the door. More guards stroll around the perimeter.
‘What was this place? I mean, before you moved in.’
That one slipped out before I could stop it.
‘It was a holiday camp. Something bad happened, a fire, and there was flooding every winter. They tried to get around that by building cabins on stilts but by then the place wasn’t earning a penny. It lay unused for a decade. I bought it at a steal almost ten years ago.’
She goes up the steps to the portacabin. The guard tips his hat at her, then blinks at me.
‘She’s with me,’ Celene says and my insides flutter strangely.
The guard stares at me a moment longer, then nods. We go inside.
What light there is comes from little lamps swinging from the ceiling. There are a few desks. Somebody sits wearing headphones, scribbling notes. Another hunches over a laptop. They’re monitoring news feeds. Some are staring at CCTV footage, others seem to be listening in to police radios.
‘This is operations,’ Celene says as we move between the desks, and I almost smile. They’re shadowing people.
No, these aren’t shadows. They’re hunters. Killers. Like me but not.
‘The camp population is thirty-five.’ Celene leads me between the desks. ‘We have ten monitors in operations, two trained infiltration units, ten fighters apiece, and then there are the heads of operations. There are two of us.’
‘You’re a head of operations.’
Celene nods.
Mama’s earning the big bucks.
We’ve reached the back of the room. Turning a corner into a side room, I stop short. For a moment I thought I was back in the Dead Room. The wall contains an elaborate montage of headshots and maps. The headshots are arranged in a triangle. Mara’s at the top and a number of smaller shots spread out below him.
‘The Wall,’ Celene says, joining me as I stare up at it.
A lot of the smaller shots have red crosses struck through them.
‘Mara’s dangerous because he’s different from past power players,’ Celene says. ‘Usually, reaching the top of the pyramid means killing the competition. Mara’s plans are more insidious. He wants to unite the factions under his rule, create an empire.’
She points at four pictures directly under Mara. Two women and two men.
‘These are the four heads of the main factions. Mara wants them working together with him.’
A smaller photograph snags my interest and I lean in closer to it, squinting at the image of a young man with sandy hair. He’s directly under the picture of one of the crime bosses, and I recognise him immediately. It’s Skinny, the boy from the pit in Mara’s warehouse, except under his picture reads: Viktor Kumiega.
‘Rumer?’
Celene’s voice is an echo.
The last time I saw this face, I was reaching across the front seat of the van, attempting to drag him inside. Then the bullet hit, making a sound like a stone hitting a watermelon, and there was red everywhere.
‘He’s dead,’ I murmur.
‘This one?’
Celene touches the photo of Skinny and I nod.
‘You know him?’
‘He was in the pit with me,’ I say.
‘Pit?’
‘In Mara’s warehouse. He has a pit full of dead bodies. Viktor was in there. He helped me escape. They killed him.’
‘His mother is Agnes Kumiega, a powerful player. It sounds like Mara was using her son as collateral. If Mara killed him, I can’t imagine it will have helped his cause.’
I don’t care about that. All I can think about is Bolt. I remember reaching for Skinny when the bullet hit and, in my mind, it’s Bolt I’m reaching for. Bolt whose brains get splattered against the window. Bolt I leave for dead in the road.
I’ve already decided I’m not staying here. Celene can argue all she likes. Even if I don’t leave with her tomorrow when her team go to confront Mara, I’ll slip out when there’s nobody here to stop me.
Celene doesn’t have to know that, though. For now, I have to play along. Let her think I’m interested in how she’s going to take down Mara. Let her think she’s convinced me it’s best she deals with him.
And I am interested, but not because I need convincing. I need to know everything she does if I’m going to kill Mara and save Bolt.
That means I’d better start asking questions.
‘How are you going to stop him? Mara?’
‘The Crook Spear. After I took it from Mara, I sold it to a collector, a Swedish investor called Magnus Vinter. He promised to keep it under wraps, and he paid a decent amount for it. Security at his mansion is airtight. Cameras, electric fences, armed guards. I knew it would be safe with him. Mara can’t be the only lunatic who believes it has supernatural properties. Even without them, it’s still a weapon. Better not to tempt anybody to do something stupid with it.’
‘So he’s the one who has it now?’
Celene nods, her gaze drifting up to another picture tacked to the The Wall. It’s an illustration of an exotic woman standing against a rising sun, her arm outstretched, a gun pointed at something or someone off-page.
The gun looks completely unremarkable. Not what I expected.
‘Magnus is hosting a party tomorrow evening in London. That’s where we’ll get Mara.’
‘He’ll be there?’
‘We leaked intel on the whereabouts of the gun to Mara this morning. He’s not stupid enough to try to crack Magnus’ security, so he’s going to use the party to infiltrate Magnus’ home an
d steal back the spear.’
‘Where you’ll stop him.’
‘I have my own invite to the party. I’ll walk right in the front door.’
‘What about the gun?’
‘It can stay where it is.’
‘But the legend. Mara thinks–’
‘Mara can think all he wants. If he gets the gun, I’ll have no choice but to shoot him with it.’
Just like his father.
‘Why did you steal the gun in the first place?’
Celene casts an eye over the cabin. ‘To buy this place. I knew I had to get out. This was my best bet. A chance at freedom.’
A shaft of light cuts through the gloom of the cabin as somebody comes in. He’s square shouldered and tall, striding towards us. As he passes under the lamps, his face is illuminated. Lined. Tired looking. It’s the guy I keep seeing around the camp. The one who was clutching the spade the night Celene brought me here.
‘Celene,’ he says when he reaches us.
‘Rumer, this is Frank,’ Celene says. ‘The second head operative.’
Frank seems distracted as he nods at me, barely making eye contact before he returns to Celene.
‘Figures have been sighted in the woods,’ he says. ‘May has headed out to patrol the area.’
‘How many?’
‘May reported two, but she couldn’t confirm.’
‘Mara’s?’
‘For our sake, I hope not.’
Celene’s demeanour changes. It’s like she’s grabbed an exposed wire and the electricity has jolted to life every nerve in her body. She grabs my arm and ushers us back through the cabin.
Outside, it’s just as gloomy. Fog hangs in ghostly wreaths and the air’s wet. We hurry through the camp. Celene’s hand is clamped around my arm and the contact unnerves me.
‘I want guards at all access points,’ she tells Frank. ‘Anybody with a gun.’
We reach Celene’s cabin.
‘Rumer, go up and lock yourself in,’ she says.
I want to protest, but her no-nonsense look says I’d be stupid to. I wouldn’t want to help protect a camp full of serial killers anyway but, if Mara’s turned up, I’d rather do anything than lock myself in Celene’s cabin. She’s playing the protection card, though. Maybe she’s worried I’ll die before she can use me in whatever she’s got planned. It’s easier to let her think I’m going along with her. Easier for her, anyway.
‘I won’t be long.’ She stares at me until I turn and hurry up the steps. She watches until I’m inside, maybe listening for the sound of the key clicking in the door. Her expression’s strained and I find myself wondering if she’s having as much trouble trusting me as I am her. Does she think I’ll try to escape if she’s not got an eye on me? I have to admit, it’s the first thought that enters my head.
I watch through the window as, wearing that same conflicted expression, she finally takes off through the camp, Frank at her side.
If Mara’s here, that changes everything. Does he have Bolt with him? And if Mara knows where the Crook Spear is, what use does he have for me now anyway?
Celene betrayed Mara and killed his father. This is revenge. Mara won’t stop until he’s taken Celene out, and I can’t help thinking he’ll do the same to me. I’ve made it pretty clear I’ll never work for him.
Below, campers and the guards race around clutching guns. I don’t see any of Mara’s men, though. What if they break in? That’ll give Celene a chance to prove once and for all whose bite is worse than their bark.
If they get past her, they’ll sweep every cabin until they’re sure they’ve destroyed the whole nest.
And if they find me here, I’ll have nothing to defend myself with.
I spin about and hurry into the kitchen, zeroing in on a knife block. I grab the biggest knife and squeeze the cold steel into my palm, feeling better already. But there’s no gunfire outside. No shouting. Was Frank wrong? The figures in the woods were just poachers or dog walkers? If it was Mara’s men, did May manage to head them off?
Minutes tick by and my focus trembles on the front door, waiting for somebody to crash through, imagining what I’ll do then.
Nobody appears. It’s unnaturally quiet out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s never quiet in London. There’s a constant drone. Buses and kids in parks, the Tube rattling under your feet.
Silence means death.
My focus blurs, the quiet like a shroud, and I’m suddenly aware I’m alone in Celene’s home. I could kick myself for wasting so many minutes. This place has me on edge and my natural instincts are smothered under a blanket of static. I shouldn’t be guarding the front door, I should be doing what I always do.
I cast a look around the cabin. Now is the perfect time to find out what secrets Celene’s hiding.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
By the mid-afternoon light, I pick over the living room. Self-help books with stupid titles. A few trinkets on the table by the sofa. Shells. A carved cat. A pair of slippers by the stairs. Where are the weapons? The relics of her crimes? The cupboard under the stairs is stacked with tins and jars, a couple of backpacks. The most incriminating object is a small axe resting against the wall, but it’s not stained with old blood. If anything, it looks brand new. She might actually chop wood with it.
The kitchen’s like any other. Cleaner, maybe, but then Celene was always good at cleaning up after herself.
It can’t be that easy. Celene… what? Finds Gaia and becomes a whole new person? If shadowing taught me anything, it’s that people aren’t like that. They don’t change, they just become more extreme versions of who they always were. Thieves become criminal masterminds, worriers end up never leaving the house, daytime drinkers become booze-a-holics. The thought of a more extreme version of Celene makes the hairs on my arms stand up and I throw a look at the door to make sure she’s not back yet.
One woman I followed was a shoplifter. She was crafty, though. She’d shoplift expensive clothes, get dolled up, then target the shops in New Bond Street, playing on the shopkeepers’ prejudices. I sort of respected her. She’d found a way to survive, just like everybody else.
Looks like Celene found a way, too.
At best, her crimes could have landed her behind bars for life. At worst, she’d have been tortured by her enemies. Perhaps turned up at a police station in boxes. Or even washed up on the Thames, like the woman everybody assumed was her back in the nineties. Divine justice.
Seems Celene’s as clever as she sounded in the reports I hoard in the Dead Room. She tricked these gullibles, played on their sympathies, perhaps even constructed a story of domestic abuse (so tragic) and they’d be cold hearted to turn her down now, wouldn’t they?
Celene said everybody else in the camp has a history as messed up as hers. Are they all killers? Or were some of them victims? Dominic didn’t seem the killing type, but then he killed himself. Possibly.
My gaze drifts to the stairs.
Her bedroom.
If the cabin contains any incriminating evidence, it’ll be in there.
Still clutching the knife, I go upstairs. Four doors line the landing. The bathroom. The spare room I slept in last night. The room she made for me. That just leaves–
I open the final door.
I don’t know what to expect. After discovering Celene was alive, I’ve pretty much learnt not to have expectations. I stare blankly at the neat room with its single bed and bookcase. It could be a prison cell.
Going inside would be an intrusion, but that didn’t stop Celene kidnapping me. If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be with Mara, potentially even rescuing Bolt by now. Instead, I’m here, looking at the place where my murderous mother sleeps.
‘Rumer?’
My shoulders tense, but Celene’s not caught me in the act. Her voice comes up the stairs. I shut her bedroom door and slide the kitchen knife into the chest of drawers in the other room – my room. It might come in handy.
‘False alarm,’ Celene sa
ys as I come down the stairs.
‘Poachers,’ Frank adds. He’s in the kitchen, filling the kettle, then setting out three mugs, taking a spoon from a drawer. He seems awfully at home in Celene’s house.
‘You look tired,’ Celene says.
‘I’ll live.’
My mind’s still in her bedroom. The secrets she’s hiding in there. I want her gone so I can keep snooping. What if I don’t get another chance? Celene didn’t leave me in the house alone for more than ten minutes. She must be afraid I’ll find whatever it is she’s hoarding.
‘Tea?’ Frank’s already stirring the contents of the mugs. I’d prefer coffee, but for once I need to play nice. Be a good girl. Ask the right questions. Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. It’s about time the shadow started speaking.
‘You get a lot of false alarms like that?’ I ask.
‘The guards are jittery,’ Celene says. ‘We’re closer than ever to stopping Mara and that means we’re even more of a target.’
‘So far, we’ve gone undetected, though.’ Frank hands me a mug. ‘Quite an accomplishment, given the world we’re dealing with.’
Celene cradles her mug by the window, leaning against a wooden beam. She doesn’t seem to like to sit, as if relaxing for a moment will put her at a disadvantage. Frank sits on the sofa, presumably so he can watch the door. Old tricks. I can’t shake the feeling I’m among people who share my haunted mentality.
‘What’s happened to Dominic?’ I ask, perching on the arm of the sofa.
‘Dominic?’ Frank’s brow creases.
‘Domhnall,’ Celene murmurs. ‘He’ll be laid to rest later this week, when everything’s settled down.’
Frank winces as he sips his tea. ‘A shame. Some of us fight our demons, but some of us tire of fighting.’
So Frank doesn’t suspect foul play. My mother’s face is blank as a whitewashed sky, but her eyes are dark and stormy.
‘Look at us.’ Frank tuts. ‘Rumer, tell me about yourself.’
I give him a few breadcrumbs. Stale scraps of my life to satisfy his curiosity. In return, he talks about his time in the military, how he fought in some war somewhere, how Celene befriended him when he was at a low ebb, brought him here, what a wonderful woman she is.
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