Reeves was looking out of the window. The offices formed a concentric square around the void of the atrium, all of them seen through near invisible glass. Every direction Reeves looked he could see more workers, more screens.
‘Yes.’
‘Then get started.’
Reeves could feel a tingling in his fingertips. He smiled.
It was the simplest of instructions: a tiny string of almost random letters and a single command. Buy.
Sending out a tendril, he touched the mind of the man beside him. The worker was already using magic to give himself an extra bit of pep. Reeves stole inside along with it. He established a bond, more subtle than the brute force with which he’d taken the guards. This was more nuanced, more insidious, a coupling and connection that went both ways, flooding the demon with the tumultuous chemical sensation of humanity. The man barely even blinked, the only sign that Reeves had taken him was that he stopped talking midsentence leaping from one conversation into another entirely.
It was so easy. He reached out and took another mind, like plucking a stream of thought from the air and reining it in. Two minds became ten became a hundred. The feeling was exhilarating, done under orders but able to stretch the boundaries so far to spread himself so wide. He could feel the bond within him straining, thinning.
Bridget’s anxiety had begun to spike into fear.
He had the room in the space of thirty seconds, the crowd lapsed into silence for a moment but there were none left to notice. He allowed himself to be swept along the tide of hormones and instincts, hopes, dreams and urges for a moment. He could taste a man’s breakfast pastry, feel the pain of a fingertip papercut, the warm afterglow of an early morning fuck.
Skeebs, Livingston and Jay stood off to one side, looking around with dawning expressions of wonder as the room began to hum their tune. Men and women were still arriving, shirt sleeves rolled up and ties loose. The surprise barely had time to register in their eyes before they were caught too, joining the rabble in its war cry.
The feeling was incredible, like stretching muscles after being confined in too small a box, breathing fresh air after too small a room. The taking of these minds was pure sensation, power in its purest form, all blood and nerves and a grin that’s also a snarl.
He sank deeper into every mind, enjoying how easy it all was. They were talking on phones, typing on computers but now they were talking louder, typing harder, faster, driven on like whipped horses before a carriage, compelled for reasons they didn’t know.
But it wasn’t enough. He could go further.
Another minute and he had the minds on the rest of the floor. Another and he had the whole building singing like a choir.
The feeling was incredible, the power in his chest growing and growing, smothering the bonds that had held him in check, the way the brightest light can swallow a silhouette. There was no break in the bond, no pivotal moment when he felt it snap, one moment it was, the next it was not.
He exulted in it, let them continue their orders, pushing the value of this strange intangible stock higher and higher. This cold place of steel and glass and stone was his church – entirely his. This was the natural order and he would remind humanity in no uncertain terms that this was how it would remain.
Except…
The three of them were just standing there at arm’s length, their hearts quick with elation, smiles wide, eyes bright. Jay, grabbing at Skeebs’ shoulder, was practically jumping. ‘We fucking did it, man. We fucking did it. Look at it fucking climb!’
Livingston winced as the volume continued to rise, every throat in every room of the building roaring to make itself heard, fingers hammering at keys, spouting nonsense. Spilled drinks were ignored, scalded palms disregarded.
There was a man at the nearest desk shouting and yelling with the rest. Face beet red, thinning hair plastered to his scalp with sweat, his little eyes rolled in their sockets as though only they were beyond Reeves’ control. Reeves could feel his heart running a minute mile, his voice strained to breaking point, screeching high and piercing like a violin.
A push was all it took. The man took another heaving breath, bared his teeth and brought them down on his bare forearm. Blood squirted into the eyes of the man next to him, the crimson standing out beautifully amongst the white and black of their clothing. The man with the blood in his eyes wiped a hand across his face, never pausing in his baying for shares.
The biter spat the chunk of bloodied flesh into his computer screen, ignoring the blood running down his crisp white shirt as he took a second bite.
Reeves exulted in the simple cruelty, tasting the blood on the man’s lips, feeling the throb of pain and pump of blood. Until it wasn’t enough.
The room went silent in the space of a heartbeat, the only noise the tinny voices of people on the other end of the phones.
Skeebs, Livingston and Jay looked around surprised, unsettled as they gazed across the frozen crowd. They looked to Reeves. Reeves laughed.
The room erupted, everything happened at once. Men and women started to tear at each other, clawing at one another’s clothes then down into the skin, fingernails bending and breaking as they rent deep grooves in flesh.
A woman proceeded to bite off her own fingers one by one, spitting them to the floor.
There was the strange tonal sound of several heads hitting the glass windows at once, spots of blood left behind as those who had hit it stepped back to try again. Some started to succeed, glass shattering. They started to funnel through, falling and joining the fall as others on other floors broke through below, bodies colliding mid-air as they rushed to meet the polished marble.
The second wave didn’t reach the windows, men and women falling to their knees and devouring the glass by the handful, fingers, lips and tongues turning red, blood dribbling onto the carpet.
The place was a sea of violent motion as they kicked, stamped, stabbed, strangled and crushed themselves and one another. Paper took to the air, swept up in the action and the draft coming from the broken windows which led to the square outside. Screams were already to be heard from passers-by at the bodies lying spread below.
Reeves smiled. He should have been doing this a month ago. His entire body sang with sensation as he felt the pain of everyone in the room, the squeeze of an expensive shoe crushed down on a colleague’s throat, the tender pain of a pen thrust through a navel.
He was aware of the three watching, blinking with dull cow eyes as they tried to comprehend what was happening.
Reeves ignored them, directing the ebb and flow of the crowd as they turned this way and that like a flock of starlings turning in on itself, attacking, devouring.
‘Man, fuck this,’ Skeebs hurried over, grabbing Reeves by the arm. ‘Come on, we got to get out of here.’
Reeves swatted him away, not even pausing to watch the boy tumble across the floor.
‘Don’t you get it?’ said Livingston, shouting over the noise of the massacre as Jay went to pick up his friend. ‘He’s doing this.’
There was so much red now, soaking in puddles on the floor, running from the broken windows to obscure the moving tickertape of numbers outside.
Skeebs had picked himself off the floor, shrugging off Jay’s attempts to see if he was OK.
‘Man, you need to step off,’ he shouted to Reeves, reaching around his back for the gun nestled there.
Livingston was backing away towards the exit, turning to realise that it was no exit at all. The glass was matted red, the gore smearing as a man and women fought together, biting and gouging and scratching and tearing. Their weight held the door closed.
‘I ain’t asking again,’ said Skeebs when he didn’t get a reply, panic rising in his voice.
Metal rang like a bell as a worker hit a balcony railing on his way down into the atrium. His body jackknifed neatly in half, his head shattering the partition glass.
‘Man, I said stop!’ He strode across the room, levelled the gun at Reeves’ head.
/> The sound of the hammer cocking echoed around the room. Every head turned toward the three men. For a long moment the only sounds were coming from outside, the distant wail of sirens, the moans and screams of those below in the streets.
Skeebs hesitated, looking around at all those bloodied faces staring back from eyeless sockets, cheeks so bitten they hung in tatters. He licked at his lips, shifted the grip on his gun. It rattled as his hand shook.
Reeves didn’t turn his head.
‘Man, fuck you.’ Skeebs pulled the trigger.
There was the fleshy snap of bone and Skeebs flinched, blood spattering his face. Jay didn’t make a sound, his finger bending and swelling where the pistol hammer had closed on his knuckle. His other hand snatched the pistol from Skeebs’ grip. In the work of a moment the gun was disabled and Jay was stepping away, that same blank look in his eye as the others.
Astonishment gave way quickly to anger, the boy’s growing fear veneered in typical aggression. ‘Why you doing this?’
‘I’m sending a message.’
‘We were going to be rich.’
‘I don’t need money.’
‘You don’t let us leave,’ said Livingston, ‘you’re a dead man.’
It was enough to make Reeves laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic.
The crowd began to close in on Livingston. The man backed away, looking in every direction for an escape. Backwards held nothing but empty space and broken glass. ‘Skeebs?’
Reeves put his hand on Skeebs’ shoulder as soon as the boy’s head was turned. ‘Did you wonder what it would be like to be controlled?’
Livingston punched and kicked at his assailants, but they kept on coming, ignoring the pain. First hands had his wrists then more had his arms. There was a fist in his hair pulling. ‘Skeebs,’ the word was choked, his windpipe closing on itself as his head was pulled back toward the ceiling.
‘You will live,’ said Reeves into Skeebs’ ear. ‘All you must do is watch.’
Livingston jerked this way and that but only moved by inches, too many hands, too much muscle holding him in place.
His arms were raised until his hands were level with bloodied teeth.
Livingston screamed as one by one, they took his fingers, spitting them at his feet.
Skeebs was making small noises he wasn’t even aware of, his breath catching in his throat.
Flesh and bone crunched with each bite, far louder than the near silent pat of each digit falling to the floor.
The whole process took less than two minutes. His knees were sagging towards the floor as his legs failed to support him. A dozen strong hands held Livingston on his feet. His face had turned white, his head lolling as he fought the black clouds threatening to pull him into unconsciousness. Blood flowed like a stream from each bright red wound.
Skeebs was shaking from head to toe. Reeves could smell the fear and sweat coming off him. Jay stood by their side, watching the events, calm and placid as cattle.
‘You made your point,’ said Skeebs, ‘now let him go.’
‘You asked what it felt like to control another,’ said Reeves.
‘I wanted the money.’
A woman emerged from the crowd, a bright blue cord trailing behind her, the noose she’d made from the end bobbed in her hand.
‘What are you doing?’
Livingston didn’t struggle as she looped the noose over his head. He didn’t even acknowledge its presence. The crowd lifted him, carrying him to the window ledge.
‘I want you to push him.’
‘What? No. Fuck that.’
‘You will push him, then you will push the other.’
Jay moved to join his colleague at the ledge.
‘You will do it or I will make you.’
Reeves lifted his hand from Skeebs’ shoulder.
The boy took a step and another. His head turned this way and that as he sought an escape but the mindless traders had gathered now, forming a funnel so the only direction he had was onward.
Each breath came with a keening moan of pain from Livingston. Jay stood straight-backed and silent.
Skeebs looked from one to the other.
‘You may choose which goes first,’ said Reeves.
Jay released the pistol into the air where it dropped down to the ground far below. The view was magnificent, London stretching out in every direction.
‘I’ll kill you,’ said Skeebs.
‘You won’t.’
The sound of footsteps, the crack of glass, the near silent swish of material and another worker had brushed past Skeebs and stepped out the window.
‘Fuck!’
‘Choose.’
‘Skeebs?’ Jay’s voice shook.
Skeebs lunged. It wasn’t a hard push, it wasn’t even a good one but Jay stepped forward at the boy’s touch. Reeves released Jay’s mind. He screamed the whole way down.
The boy didn’t give himself a chance to think. He’d moved onto Livingston and in the work of a moment he was gone too. The blue cord snapped tight.
Skeebs’ hands were trembling as he tried to smooth down his hair. He was fighting tears, sniffing and rubbing at his nose. ‘Let me go now,’ the words barely croaked past his lips. ‘I did it. Let me go. Please, man, please.’ He fell to his knees, paying no mind to the red, glittering glass under him. ‘I didn’t want this. I never wanted this. I just wanted to go home.’
Hands grabbed him.
‘And I will.’
The hands tore at the boy’s shirt, pushed him down. A woman approached, a curve of broken glass tight in her hand.
‘I just want you to deliver a message for me first.’
Chapter 27
Amanda
The present – thirty-five hours to destination
‘He was to be my messenger.’ Skeebs startled them from Steph’s tale.
He was just as they’d left him, zipped into his sleeping bag, beanie hat on, bag acting as a pillow, hands neatly folded in his lap. His colour had worsened, his skin a burnished greenish gold. The air murmured around him. Too close and they felt the wisps of the boy’s stray thoughts and feelings.
His lips moved as though unattached to the rest of him.
‘Instead he hid, cocooned himself in drugs and drink to become a pitiful shell.’
‘Get your hooks out of him,’ said Amanda, weary to her very bones.
Skeebs smiled. ‘You will remove the hood.’
‘If you think we’re—’
Skeebs grimaced, his back arched like he had a hook in his belly lifting him from the floor, bending him to the point of breaking. The boy let out a roar of pain that tapered into a squeak of air as his windpipe closed before he collapsed back down again. Sparks of the raw magic filling his pores snapped and crackled across his skin, the cold, steel stench of it filling the room and making the fingertips of his gloves char.
‘Is his life worth less than your pride?’
Steph clapped her hands to her ears as Skeebs screamed again. It did no good. The scream was everywhere at once, the very air singing it out like a tuning fork, reaching tight into the centre of their heads. Images of the boy’s brother came with it. Danny as Amanda had never seen him, calm, laughing, a private family moment broadcast on all frequencies as Skeebs’ mind fixed on him as he screamed. Thin tears leaked down into his hair, blackened fingers ramrod straight, almost popping from their sockets.
‘All right!’ Amanda shot to her feet. ‘Stop. Just stop.’
Skeebs collapsed, a puppet with his strings cut, limbs bent at haphazard angles. The scream faded, dying back to murmurs in the air again.
Heart in her mouth, lips pressed tight, Amanda pulled the hood away to find her son looking straight at her, piercing electrodes shocking her heart. The swelling and bruising of the thing’s face had healed some, purples fading to dirty yellow.
She tried to remove the headphones and gag without touching him. Amanda’s skin crawled at the tickle of Reeves’ hot, fetid breath.
‘It is a test of sincerity. Of your commitment to principals. What is more important, those around you or your pride.’
‘Just tell us what you did.’
‘I am feeding him. In much the same way I will feed from you or the girl. I am giving my power to him. His body does not know how to release it and so it finds ways out. It will soon kill him. Do you understand?’
Amanda pictured the Reeves’ connections, drawing from Steph, drawing from all of them and feeding into Skeebs. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. You are learning. Defying your father by following in his footsteps. But you go neither fast nor far enough.
‘I have my hooks in every one of you. I control the very air you breathe. There is nowhere that you can hide. I’m inside you, around you, before and after you.’
Skeebs spasmed, whimpering and twisting like a man stabbed in the gut.
Amanda gritted her teeth.
‘Your chains are failing, my powers are close to recovered. Mr Keyes is lucky. He’ll be dead long before I’m free. He will have a day at most but it will likely be hours. The most merciful thing to do would be to kill him. But you can still put him to one final use.’
The air whispered of Danny, the desperate urge to make him proud.
‘No more half-measures. No more self-deception. You will be the one to confront me. Your only route to success lies solely on your shoulders. The others are only playing pieces, figures to be sacrificed and taken. It is time you embraced that. Without power, a tattoo is required for the girl to survive the conclusion of the ritual. Mr Keyes will no longer be applying it. If any of you attempt to do it yourselves without my permission, I will snatch the heart from the girl’s chest.’
Steph had turned shades of green, swaying where she sat. The spell to help Amanda see had taken so much out of her and the threat of instant death looked enough to finish her. Amanda put a hand to her shoulder to keep the girl steady. If it was this bad already, not having a tattoo for the ritual would be enough to finish her.
‘I’m guessing you have an alternative,’ said Amanda.
‘You will use the boy’s blood.’ The demon grinned. ‘You will use it immediately. I have seen to it that his blood is more potent than any man alive. You can use it again when it is time to confront me in the circle. My power is growing with every heartbeat. Blood will be your only hope of resisting the draining when you open yourself for the ritual. Use the blood now and I will allow you yourself to take the tattoo.’
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