Unfinished Business (The Shades of Northwood 3)

by Wendy Maddocks

  “Hey, cowboy. Missed me?” Katie heard the word echo around the main room of the club before she even got through the dark doorway. She stamped the back of her own hand with a black S, shrugged out of her thick coat and pushed it through the hatch of the coat check area. Last day of her life or not, there were still rules. When she opened the door and called out, Katie felt like she was sneaking home at midnight after a party. The place was darker than midnight, stars twinkling above her and all around. For one eternal instant, there was a complete hush. Not one breath was taken. Not a single movement. The world was still and perfect and she was the only one in it. She could do whatever she wanted and there wasn’t a soul alive to make her feel guilty about it. But there was so much she already felt guilty about. And there was nobody to forgive her either. If it hadn’t been for the faint mists of colour near the stars jostling each other and weaving in out of other colours, Katie would have cried… sunk to her knees in the surety that she was truly defeated. But no. She wasn’t alone. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could just make out dark outlines – lots of them – moving busily around and whispering panicked words she couldn’t quite make out. Her blood was pounding too loudly under the sensitive membranes of her ears. A twinkling light caught on a shock of hair glinting silver under it. A platinum blond head instructing the other shadows and pointing at random spaces around the room.

  “Shimma?”

  He was handing out weapons; daggers and Tazers, charms and sprays. It wasntas simple as pepper spray, she suddenly knew, not knowing just what it was instead. Then she caught a snatch of conversation.

  “These things can only be used in defence.”

  “But we want to help Katie, not ourselves.”

  “You’re here. She never expected you guys to come.”

  “And all we can do is stand around, armed to holy fuck, and do nothing.”

  “Isn’t that what she asked you to do?”

  How does-

  But Katie had the question torn from her mind with a blinding flash of light that seemed to come from nowhere, leaving her disoriented and blinking multi-coloured spots from her eyes.

  “Well, well. The little girl grew up.”

  “I’m not a little girl. I’m not even Katie anymore.”

  “And who are you instead?” He smirked. It made her skin crawl to watch. Whatever Katie had seen and done, there were still things that frightened her.

  “You’re a murderer.”

  “You’re one too.”

  Yeah, that stung. It hurt worse because it was true.

  “Your friends… two of the people you pretended to care about died this week. Not by your hand, true, but you’re just as much to blame as me. You did nothing to bring them back.”

  “You can’t blame me for not following them into the End Place. I might never even come back.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Another thing ‘bout you.”

  Katie held her hand up like a traffic cop motioning drivers to stop. The silver badge, stuck to her hand with blistered and pierced skin (she didn’t feel any of it – numb to the core) and now streaked with her blood. “This badge…” Katie closed her eyes and turned her gaze inward. The history of the badge flowed right through her, pouring out of her mouth like a river of words. Some of the knowledge she had pieced together over the last few days but the rest… that was coming from somewhere new entirely. “The first trophy you took from the first man you murdered. Henry Lawson. You wanted to be sheriff in your town but you were evil even then. so you killed the true man – the true son of the law – and took his badge and his place. Those who defied you joined him in his grave of sand. All while wearing this shield. The blood of each and every one of them stained the silver. Their blood, their fear, a piece of their broken souls. And silver shall reflect.”

  “That’s mine. Give it back to me.”

  “This? You want a badge that’s been spelled by the Keepers? All the lives you took inside it. Don’t think it’ll fill you with warm fluffies, but… what the hell.” She reversed her grip and flung the badge towards him like a frisbee, points of the star flicking drops of her blood to the floor and whirling lethally through the air. At this point, Katie actually wanted one of the points to lodge in his forehead or pop an eyeball. But he snatched it out of the air, there was a spark of something so brief she couldn’t even identify a colour and then nothing but a low hum.

  He lifted his head with a snarl curling his thin lips. “Looks like it didn’t work.”

  “Shit.” Katie whispered a curse, certain that the fake-sheriff could hear anyway. “I hoped it would work.”

  “Let me explain, little girl.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “They’re still scared of me. Just like you are now. And fear… forget what you hear in the stories. Fear makes you weak.”

  He’s right. It makes me weak enough.

  All in one frightening moment Katie raised her arms, commanding the attention of the dozen or so people in the club, looked at a bank of twinkling lights which promptly blew out all together. A collective gasp ran through the room. She turned ti each wall and each spread of fairy lights went dark until there was only a smattering of green and blue dots overhead. Katie raised her hands above her head, palms up, and they exploded in a shower of coloured glass and golden sparks, sinking everything and everyone into absolute darkness.

  “Let’s dance.”

  “I’ll lead.”

  “Don’t think so. My idea, my song.” And it was her song drifting around the club, coming through the speakers hidden in the walls. A haunting, daunting and dangerous thin tune. Pipes, strings, a thousand mournful voices. A song she had never heard before but one that sounded like the song of fire and grief and confusion that had been plaguing her all week. It signalled a change, a turn in her heart as humanity and love made way for pure fury and abandon. But the song was fragmented – split notes nobody else seemed to notice. Katie looked up, her tanned skin rippling with purple-black underneath and her eyes glittering so madly they would make the blind see. “Hope you know how to tango. This’ll be over fast.” But he was still faster. Katie saw it before anything else – a thin, cruel curve of red crackling through the darkness, arcing towards her and slicing a ruby after image of its course – she saw it happen in slow motion and she still could jump away in time. A thin leather whip slammed down on her shoulder. It felt like it was deep enough to chip bone but, after a short blast of agony, numbness spread over her left shoulder like the pooling of her blood.

  The impact forced Katie to her knees, listening to sharp gasps and quickly-stifled screams all around her. What are they all screaming for? I’m the one getting hurt. She looked around her, trying to find familiar faces, but the club was so completely black it was impossible to see even her own hand before her face. The sounds were just enough for her to pick out roughly where people were standing though.

  “Why’s she burnt? It’s just a badge.”

  “She put a spell on it.”

  “The girl does magic too? Shit.”

  “No. She didn’t do it but… you can see it, right, Simma?”

  “Sure. You mean you can’t?”

  “Nuh-uh. Can’t see nothin’.”

  “Maybe it’s not meant for people like you.”

  Leo. Jaye. Shimma. Two of them could see the spell. She hoped it meant it was working.

  The whip crackled back to life but it simply hung in the air for a long minute. Emotions raced through her mind – anger, defeat, determination – but riding above them all was fear, abject terror. Not of dying, not of losing everyone she held close, not of him. Just of getting hit with that whip again. The things hidden in the darkness weren’t half as scary as the one she could see arcing down. She turned her face away, predicting that the trajectory would slice off her nose. Leaning slightly to one side, the blade-sharp ribbon touching her cheek a
nd lancing across her hamstring near her foot. That’ll put me out of action for a while, she thought abstractly. Breathless, Katie fell to her side, unable to silence the hiss that came out every time she used it to scramble away from the centre, the burning centre, of that red hate. She had gotten a bit turned around when she had fallen but when she felt the ridge between wooden floor and industrial carpet, Katie knew there was a loveseat straight ahead and collapsed against the back of it, shivering with shock and blood loss. “So,” she chattered, willing her mind to focus. If she distracted herself far enough from the pain it would fade away. “Do I get to know your name?”

  “You want small talk? Now?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I want screaming!”

  “Won’t have to wait long. I’m bleeding out.”

  A quiet chuckle, louder than it had any right to be in the awe-struck hush.

  “I can see how this might seem funny to you. You’ve been the big man, attacked a girl with your whip, brought her to the brink of begging, now you’re waiting for her to give up, faint, just stop fighting so you can flay the skin off her body and carve away at bone and muscle until her blood is covering her hands, her soul yours to play with.”

  “You’re the thing that goes bump in the night. The evil thing that gives the girl nightmares. You’re feeding on her fear because you know that she might be better tan you… maybe good enough to beat you. Like she did last time.”

  No no no! This wasn’t the plan. This was wrong. Katie willed her friends to shut up, tried to warn them that this could be very dangerous, and all the while knew it was no good.

  “It doesn’t matter that you can’t see Katie. Does it? It matters that you know she’s here and sooner or later, she’ll make some noise – a scream or a smack as she collapses - to give her away. Then you’ll go over and raise your fist and knock out a kid. And that’s what grown men do.”

  She gave up listening to – Chris? – speak, stuck on one idea. She used one foot to kick her heel against the floor. “Over here, doofus!” she shouted, out of breath after three words. “Down here moron.” Heeled boots clicked over the wooden floor but stopped metres away from her. Another voice from the circle had joined in.

  “Where you going? What’s so good about her anyway, when there’s, like, ten of us just standing here like lemons. That could make a girl feel very insecure.”

  “There’s no way you can hurt her. Not without going through all of us first.”

  Oh God. They were all willing to die for her.

  Then two voices she hadn’t expected to hear chimed in, speaking as one. “And we’re looking after her. If she dies, her parents will kill us so if you’re dead set on this, kill us first. Nobody knows why you hurt people, nobody much cares but if true darkness can’t get this one, you sure as hell can’t.”

  Did they think she could still be saved? That there was still something left. More voices said their piece – some just a few words, some a speech Shakespeare would have envied. After a few seconds of nothing, Katie figured the ring of people had come to an end. All these people willing to risk everything for her. They all believed she could still win this fight. She sent out her thanks in one mental blast she wasn’t sure any of them would feel. Maybe her mental speech only existed with Jack and no-one else- Jack who she loved, Jack who made the world that bit nicer, Jack who was very far away and was still breaking her heart. She felt warm tears tracking down her cheeks, looked down to see the faintest silver glitter on her skin.

  “One question. Does it hurt yet?”

  Katie made a conscious decision to shut out pain. Her ankle didn’t hurt when she walked on it. Her face didn’t feel as though it was cracking with every twitch. Nor was her injured hand probably never going to be usable again.

  “You what?”

  “Well, you saw what it did to my hand when I held it. I hate to think what it’s doing to you.”

  “What you talking about?”

  “Guys?” she prompted the silent club, not even positivethey were all still there.”

  Jaye answered. “It’s got a Keeper spell on it.”

  “I can’t see what it’s doing to you-“

  “It’s a spell of light,” Shimma chipped in. “They trap a section of light in an object. Blood releases it.”

  “What he said.”

  “It burns whatever darkness if touches. Katie burnt her hand because she has a lot of darkness inside her. But not her own, I don’t think.” His voice took on a thoughtful, distant quality and then he snapped back into the moment. “But you… you’re made of darkness. It must be having a feast on you.”

  Oh. She hadn’t been expecting that. Nobody had. More gasps circled the club and somebody fell to the ground.

  “Giving you an ouchie?”

  “What have you done to me, you stupid little girl?”

  “I wasn’t sure it would work. They wouldn’t tell me exactly what the spell would do. Said there would be pain but it’s actually killing you. Which is kinda beautiful, in its’ way.” And that was the point. Katie didn’t say kinda; never turned her words into slang or rounded off their ends. The strictest English teacher in the history of Arthur Claymore High – maybe the history of all schools, ever – had seen to that. Katie was no longer Katie, a pained and terrified girl – she was Jaye and Adam and Chris and Lainy and anyone else who was hiding in the darkness. But this fake sheriff didn’t know that. He still thought he was in charge, had her beaten. “Shall I tell you how I figured you out? Why I was even the slightest bit prepared for this? No? Oh, diddums. I’m gonna anyway.” With some huffing and puffing, Katie pulled herself onto the dancefloor and got to slightly unsteady feet. She stood up and threw her hands out at her sides, hoping she was in the right place. “Hands!” A hand on either side of her worked their fingers into hers and she felt the others join hands too like a tiny electrical jolt running through them all and into her. She started speaking as this went one. “I knew you weren’t who you said you were from the start. I didn’t know know but there was something off about you. And then you murdered Mademoiselle Romani with the same strokes you killed Jack with… some serial killer thing maybe? OCD? Did you kill them all in exactly the same way.” Get back on track, girl! “I digress. You seemed less than surprised that Jack was missing which probably means you already know. And you didn’t need much convincing to step into my dreams and help. You saw me dark and weak and helpless and you thought this was your chance.”

  “What are you saying? You knew the whole while? I believe that like I believe in unicorns and castles in the clouds.”

  Shimma tightened his grip, directly to the left. Katie squeezed back, not quite sure of the reaction, but knowing it was the right thing to do. “I gave my friends specific instructions to talk to you and nobody else but I knew they couldn’t keep that promise – thought telling people might protect me. They can’t save me from everything though, and I’d like to choose for myself whether to be part of this crazy shit or not. When this is over, I’m done, I know that much. Definitely signing for the ‘too young to die’ school. I even knew they’d follow me here after I said it’d be dangerous. I never expected this though, never even hoped they’d try to help. An now –“ She felt a constant vibration through the joined hands. It was almost a flow of electricity into her body and suddenly it was as if she had opened her eyes on a room blazing with light and shade. Her friends were still staring blankly ahead, still coccooned in the tranquil black. But the man clutching a silver badge in one hand and a thin whip in the other was stooped over as though winded, but glaring spears of hate at her. “I am all of them.”

  Thank you.

  She sent the message out with her mind, knowing few, if any of them, would hear it. Eyelids flickered all around her. She was wrong again then.

  “You think you can beat me? You reckon I’ll leave enough of you left to eve
n make decent worm food?”

  You moron. That thing’s gonna eat you alive if you keep holdin’ it. A chuckle – Leo, she thought.

  “You called me a murderer before.” Katie shrugged, her soft eyes locked with his angry ones and fixed liked they were the only two people in the world. “Never was. Now, I wanna know how it feels.”

  The snigger rippled around the room until everybody – even Katie – was giggling quietly at something. The angry man looked wildly around him, eyes flashing in bright confusion. He roared in his raged, wheeled back to Katie and flicked his whip at her. It sliced deep into her right arm. It was a gash about an inch long. Immediately blood raced to the surface and started to spill over the ripped skin. There was no part of her that wasn’t streaked with blood, that would require the mere hell of TCP to heal. Can you heal a black soul with antiseptic? Bandage a broken heart? Then can the dark drip of blood onto the floor. So much blood, so much life, all around her and beginning to glow in that way of a lightbulb under layers and layers of fabric. Faint but too strong to be snuffed out.

  “Shut it, god dammit!” he bellowed.

  But Katie just laughed. Laughed even as he raised his whip once more. “oh, you idiot! Don’t you get it? Blood releases the magic.” He just glared at her, whipped raised but frozen in the air. “The more blood you spill, the worse you hurt. I honestly thought I’d have to bleed out but hey… it never specified my blood.”

  “You bit-“

  But he never got to finish the word. Leo cut him off.

  “And she’s our bitch. Seriously mad bitch, but still ours.”

  And then the angry man was slumped on the floor, trying to frantically shake his hand loose of the silver badge which now shone so silver hot it had melted into his skin. “You can’t kill me. Not like this. Not now.”

  “Pretty sure I can. And I should. Yeah, I think I will.”

  Katie loosed her hands and walked towards him, crouching down by his face. death was like a shadow hanging over the entire room. She looked down at him, blanking her face and eyes. The humanity still fighting a losing battle inside her was unhelpful now. Emotions would pull at her, give her pause and this man some chance some chance to worm his way out. Or man this worm out. She barked a laugh but it was gone just as quickly. With features of marble and a heart as tough as stone, Katie glanced into his angry eyes fully expecting her defences to be battered by looks of fear and remorse. Maybe a silent plea for forgiveness. There was none of that. a flash of something and then it morphed, hardened into an evil he hadn’t even been close to before.

  “Because you’ll never find Jack.”

  It was his secret weapon, his last resort, but was it good enough? An ache suddenly sprang up in her gut. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had last seen Jack, last touched him, last believed they would last forever. And they couldn’t even survive ‘I love you’. Was that even worth saving? Should she really let this hateful creature live to tell her where to find Jack just to have him leave her all over again? If he was even telling the truth. “I don’t believe you.”

  “No?”

  “Oh, I believe you took him. Him vanishing was a bit too convenient. I just don’t think you’d ever tell me.”

  “He’s been calling your name for three days. I’m surprised you can’t hear him.”

  “Well, he’s hardly going to call yours.” Katie rose to her feet again, more unsteady now. The blood loss was getting to her. She reached down and took the whip from him and he didn’t try to hang on to it. Didn’t have the energy. A thought raced through the room, her friends having the same thought as her at the same moment. Not even words. Just an image and the absolute knowledge that it was the right thing to do. The knowledge was that the blood of the badge holder started the spell and it would end it. The picture was Katie, looking fierce and magical, arcing the thin leather lace down towards the chest of the man on the floor. His eyes were wide and he threw his hands up as if it would help. But he knew it was coming just like Katie knew it. She cracked the whip down with all the strength she could find – not much with her own cuts –and the world bloomed with red.

  She stumbled back and found herself greeting the floor with her bum. “Oof!” Then the world flared white and black and every colour she could think of. So vivid. They called to her. Sang. She could make out the real world under the colours, the blood swirling together and pooling in the centre of the dancefloor. Then everyone left – Marcie, Jaye, Adam, everybody but Shimma. Then more people came and a woman wearing a black shirt with SHIMMA embroidered at the neck began mopping up the blood with a shake of her head. Music she couldn’t hear over the singing of the colours – the wistful/wishing singing – but could see as whispers of aqua sound waves started flowing. More people, hundreds of them moving in and out of her fixed frame of vision, hundreds of them dancing to the music she couldn’t hear. A man came and stood right in front of her and started swaying in front of her. He was dancing with her, she realised, and bit her lip, not wanting to dance too because her foot – oh it hurt! Katie was wondering what to do, was just about to speak – couldn’t he see all the blood? Did he think she was dancing fit? – when the question was taken out of her hands by another dancing through her. Not around her or jostling her on the way past, but literally right through her. What was that all about? Another question to puzzle out as she watched colours fade in and out, calling to her, calling her name, and the scene changed again. She was still stuck in the same place – couldn’t move, didn’t want to move – the people were all gone and Shimma was kneeling on the ground a few feet away and tracing his fingers through a faint bloodstain that glowed hot purple-black. Katie reached out and touched a hand to his shoulder. Her skin was touching him it was plain to see, but there was no feeling of contact. He didn’t even seem to notice her. Did not seem to notice the colours, the singing, none of it. There was a slight pressure on her head. It was the centre of her forehead where Jaye had shot her with a ghost bullet the month before. Why did she suddenly relate that to Jaye? The strobing colours were giving her a headache and then she was flying, falling, and only the colours would catch her. The pressure fell from her head to her lips but it was all too late. She was diving downwards, a force nothing could halt even for a moment.

  Where is this?

  Katie had the feeling she had been here before. Fragmented rainbows and swirling mists filled the air. It was tempting to stop and breathe in what she knew would be their sweet and clean scent. There was no time for that. She knew it like she knew two twos were four. It was just a fact she couldn’t argue.

  She kept limping forward; she ached all over, blood covered every strip of her clothing, the little that was still rushing through her veins felt like liquid ice and a soul deep chill was setting in. This was no time to be surrendering to the constant shivers. Forward. That was where she had to go. Forward. And still she had that falling feeling. The butterflies (bats) in the stomach, the heart in her mouth. Why was she falling? Had she been pushed? Had she jumped? Where from? How long would she be a plaything for gravity when would she hit the ground? Was there any ground to hit? Or would she be caught like this – plummeting through fog and shadow forever and ever? How many pieces of her would be left when she was done?

  Fight.

  She kept stumbling forward. Nothing mattered. The angry man was dead, she had given herself over to the darkness to do it. Given so much that the darkness had taken it all… and now it wanted the rest of her. Not that there was much left.

  More than you think. You can’t give it up.

  And then she saw it. A clear bubble, shining its many pearly colours in the light. She hurried over to it, somehow disappointed to find it empty. It shouldn’t be empty… something should be inside.

  “You mustn’t stay here,” a young voice warned. A dark shadow emerged from behind a rock off to her left. It belonged to a l
ittle boy of perhaps ten years old with dark curls and eyes like space.

  “Am I in danger?”

  “Yes. If you don’t leave now, you’ll be trapped here. Like me.”

  “But yours not in the bubble any more,” she said, remembering what should be in the bubble. The boy, he had been in there before. And now he wasn’t.

  “No, I’m not in there now. You freed me.” He rolled up a grubby shirt sleeve and held his right arm out. There was a thin silver-pink scar about an inch long running down it. Realisation hit Katie like a brick. It kept coming at her but the boy held her gaze. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not trapped.”

  “You needed to save somebody. Oh, Leo, what made you think that?”

  He just shook his head.

  “What am I in danger from?”

  “Please, just go, before it’s too late.”

  “I can feel something in me. It’s taking me over. I’m almost gone.”

  “Before it’s too late,” he insisted, pushing Katie away with the little strength e had.

  Chapter sixteen