Strange Ways

by Gray Williams

  Strange Ways

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six Three weeks later…

  Acknowledgements

  Time for one last adventure?

  Black Market Magic

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  To my family, Judith, Robert, Martin and Victoria

  Chapter One

  All the hard work was coming together. The only thing left to do was make sure that it paid.

  With a final twist, the last screw sank into the soft plaster. A quick check of the plate with thumb and forefinger confirmed it was secure. Coleman traced the runes etched into its surface, examining them for scratches. She’d learned the hard way that one mark in the wrong place among the lines and whorls of magical notation rendered these things useless at best, dangerous at worst.

  Satisfied that the protective coverings had done their job, she stepped back as much as the cupboard would allow. Using the torch on her phone and the diagram on-screen for reference, she ran an eye over all three plates now embedded into the wall before her, double-checking her work on the runes she’d chalked onto the plaster around them.

  She sucked at her lip, uncertain, unable to step back far enough to get perspective. Filled with moth-eaten bar stools and folded, scratched tables, she did her best in the coffin-sized space left to her. One wrong movement, a jerk of the elbow or flick of her foot, would kick-start a clattering commotion, attracting the attention of the two hundred staff and punters laughing and hollering on the other side of the wall.

  Leaning back, the foot of a bar stool pressing into her shoulder blade, she squinted.

  The three, hand-width plates shone dully in the torchlight as she tried to compare her set-up with the diagram.

  Satisfied as she was ever going to be, she zipped open the bag strapped across her chest and reached in for the tubes. The rubber lengths wobbled in her hand, threatening to catch on wooden limbs. Trapping them in an armpit, she worked slowly to keep them under control, attaching the first in its bracket in the centre of the highest plate, screwing the clamps tight to hold it in place.

  ‘This way is it?’

  She was just finishing clamping the final tube when she heard the thick Brummie accent. The door handle down by Coleman’s hip squeaked, a hand grabbing it from the other side.

  Heart in her mouth, Coleman braced herself, muscles bunching so hard they hurt.

  ‘No. No, Gavin,’ someone replied. ‘This way. This door.’

  ‘Just follow the fucking noise, you twat,’ came a third voice, laughing.

  ‘Now, do you want me to announce you?’ asked the second, the only voice that was female. ‘Or do you want to just head out?’

  ‘Let’s just get out there.’

  The handle squeaked back into place, the voices disappearing under the sound of the crowd.

  Coleman swallowed a sigh of relief, wiping at the sweat on her forehead. She had locked the door, of course, but now was not the time for even that to be discovered.

  Gavin had sounded nervous, she noted. Gavin Knox (because that’s who it was), lead singer of Vox Obscura, still got pre-gig nerves. The knowledge, and finding it out the way she had, gave Coleman a small illicit thrill. That was something to tell Jared later, when she handed the product over.

  But it meant that she was running out of time.

  The crowd on the other side of the sigiled wall had been loud before, but now the band were taking the stage, they went wild.

  ‘How you doing, London?’

  Coleman used the cheers and first vibrating guitar chords to cover the sound of her final preparations. A few more moments and the tubes were all feeding into the funnel, and the specially charmed gauze was in place. She touched the chalk rune with a fingertip and charged it with some power, the energy flowing from her with the sensation of warm water running through her nerves.

  Runes beginning to crackle, the apple-sharp smell of magic started to fill the tiny room. Though nothing visibly flowed down the tubes, the filter was dripping a clear, viscous liquid into the waiting flask.

  Coleman nodded to herself. Nothing left to do now but switch out the full flasks for empties, and think on how she was going to spend the money.

  But as the drums quickened and the bass kicked in, she realised relaxing wasn’t going to be an option. The speakers, little more than arm’s reach away on the other side of the wall, began to make the room vibrate around her. It was a noise more felt than heard, like it was melting her bones.

  A few minutes and the first flask was already full, prompting her to set up a fresh one. Fingers in her ears, she smiled to herself. These new plates were already worth the investment. She’d had to save up to afford the engraved plates and the equipment, then spent more weeks studying the online manuals. Now it looked like she’d made the money back with just a handful of operations like these.

  Excitement at a job well done starting to fizz in her breast, she raised her hands above her head, shimmying her hips in time to the music. Closing her eyes, she began to move her feet. She knew this song, she realised, enough to mouth along to the words. The big finish was coming and it was brilliant. There was probably enough room here to jump when it—

  She stopped, shaking herself. Those weren’t her feelings. Shit. The seals on the tubing were leaking. That or the yield was so large that it was hard to channel all the raw emotion coming through the plates. Hugging herself tight to keep her untrustworthy limbs under control, she fought the random surges of excitement, the urges to sing along, to jump, to live in the moment.

  She checked the equipment. The three plates were humming with the crowd’s emotions, channelling those feelings into the tubes, where the filter converted them into a liquid for the flasks to catch. Pure liquid feels. The kind of stuff that, for the right price, people would happily buy by the shot to get that ‘going to see their favourite band’ feeling in the comfort of their armchair, or at a party, or in the bedroom.

  But the set-up was perfect. The problem was the yield, overwhelming the plates, psychic effluvia filling the air around her. There was nothing she could do except make herself comfortable and try not to let them get to her.

  Leaning back, inserting herself carefully among the stools, she clamped her hands under her arms and locked her ankles. It was a strange sensation, excitement that wasn’t yours, closer to a heart attack than anything else when it was unexpected. The only way through was to accept it for what it was rather than fight it.

  Eyes closed, she imagined herself swaying to the music, leaping in the air.

  It was going to be a long wait. She’d have to sit tight until long after the gig had finished before she packed up and left. But as she’d been taught, the best jobs took effort, especially the not-getting-caught part.

  She had this under control, she reassured herself. Crime was in her blood.

  She push
ed away that bitter thought, concentrating on the job in front of her.

  It was another couple of flasks before she started to realise that something else was wrong.

  It was the emotions washing over her: each song, they were stronger. No longer content with swaying to the music, the urge to leave and wade out into the crowd was becoming unquestionable. She was striking it rich, making six months’ worth of rent in a night – why shouldn’t she head out and celebrate?

  Starting to sweat, the excitement of the crowd turned to an itch under her skin. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

  Checking again that the plates were secure, she found to her dismay that there was some give to them. The vibrations of the bass, the force of the emotions were making the plates hum. It was all too much for the old wall. As she touched the lowest metal disc, flakes of plaster came away under her fingertips. Eyes straining in the torchlight, she thought she could see cracks spider-webbing from the screw holes. She was certain they hadn’t been there before.

  It was only a matter of time before the plates fell out. Or that someone passing the cupboard caught an errant wave of emotion and got suspicious.

  ‘Let’s hear you make some noise!’

  The call made Coleman wince. There was an edge to Gavin’s voice, almost feral.

  The band were already getting the backwash, feeding off the excitement of their fans in more ways than one. And, as they got more manic, they drove their audience to greater heights, creating a feedback loop that would only end in tears.

  She had to shut this down.

  Back on her phone, she swept through the pages of the manual she’d downloaded. It was cheap – the diagrams accurate but hand-drawn, the text poorly written.

  There was no mention of what would happen if she just ripped the plates from the walls while the gig was in full swing. Was there an order she had to pull them out in? Or should she rub away the chalked sigils first? And in what order? Do it wrong and most likely it would stop working, but there was a slim chance the thing could go off like a bomb. It had only taken one small thing going wrong to realise that she didn’t truly understand how this device worked at all.

  Something creaked on the other side of the wall. Another wave of excitement made her giddy, potent as five shots of tequila. Her head swam as she fought the urge to scream and shout and whistle. Clenching her fists, she opened her mouth wide to let out a silent bellow, relieving some of the pressure.

  She heard the stage door opening and closing, the music taking on new shapes in the corridor outside. Jabbing off the torch on her phone, she dulled the screen and held it to her chest.

  ‘I told him, he’s not allowed to swing off that. It’s not safe.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do? You tell him. Listen, the crowd are fucking loving it.’

  They were right outside, shadows dancing in the crack of light under the door.

  The emotions emanating from the plates were constant now. She trembled with them, pressing her lips tight, afraid of what would happen if she stopped fighting. The door would be no barrier. Any moment now it would start to get to the pair outside. If they realised the feelings for what they were…

  Another roar burst from the crowd.

  ‘Fucking hell. What’s with them tonight? Right, if you go and get…’ The voices drifted away as they headed off down the corridor.

  But Coleman couldn’t relax. No. This was getting too dangerous. Abort. Abort.

  Cursing herself for being so stupid, she made sure that the bottles she’d already filled were secure in her bag.

  Thumbing the torch back on and slipping it into her breast pocket, she strained her ears, trying to tell if the pair were coming back. But with the noise of the band and the crowd it was hard to say.

  Waiting to make sure they’d left only meant more time for them to discover her. She couldn’t leave the equipment here either, the amount that she’d paid for it.

  The only way out of this problem was through it. Resolved, Coleman began to unscrew the highest of the plates. It took less than half the time it had to set it up. The crumbling plaster came away easily, sprinkling around her feet as she fought to balance the screws in their brackets, slipping the whole contraption, tube and all, into her bag. No time for finesse.

  The emotion in the air began to stutter.

  For a moment, the music stopped, the silence thudding like a blow to the chest. The drummer had missed a beat, Gavin’s voice faltering as he forgot the next lyric.

  She swore to herself as the feelings flickered over her brain. The faltering flow was more noticeable than the constant stream. Where before the punters had thought they were just having a good time, now they might spot their feelings as induced by her tampering.

  ‘Fuck,’ Coleman hissed, grappling at the second plate, every noise amplified in the silence as the crowd’s roar faded, the fans just as confused as the band.

  Come on. This plate was tougher, refusing to budge.

  The door handle rattled. She froze. Maybe they were just—

  ‘Someone in there?’ a voice called.

  Shit!

  She swallowed, her tongue dry and trying to choke her. Tears were threatening. It was all going wrong, all the work, all the planning, how was she—

  She jumped as the door rattled again, biting her tongue against the squeak of fright that tried to escape her.

  The band kicked up back, the music blasting to life. But the roar of the crowd failed to follow it.

  ‘I think someone’s in there. Is there a key?’ the woman on the other side of the door. ‘Well, it is locked… I know… Will Simon have the key? Go fetch him. We’re getting a key,’ she called through the door. ‘You’d best come out.’

  Forgetting the screwdriver, Coleman fought to dig her fingertips between the metal and wall. When that didn’t work, she tried twisting the screws with her fingernails. Managing the barest millimetre with each effort, she went back to prying.

  The thing came free all at once. Stools wobbled and rattled behind her as she fell back, screws scattering around her feet.

  ‘There is someone there. Simon!’

  No time. First came help, then came the police. She had to be gone before they even considered calling them. She forced the plate into her bag. But its tube had stuck to the filter, pulling it from the half-filled flask. Tipping over, raw emotions dribbled out onto the floorboards, soaking into them. The scent of it was near overpowering, bypassing her olfactory senses and flooding her with feeling, sending a shudder through Coleman’s frame.

  The woman on the other side of the door gasped. She’d felt it too, the emotion too obvious now to be felt as anything other than what it was.

  The band had stopped playing again. Coleman could hear Knox at the microphone umming and ahhing, trying to collect his thoughts as strange, errant emotions surged through him.

  With the drop in sound, she could hear more of what was happening in the corridor outside, the distant shout of voices, more people approaching. Simon with the key.

  The crowd were shouting now, confused. The momentum and magic of the gig had stuttered to a stop as the feedback loop was broken, the audience’s spirits crashing. The mixture vibrating the final plate was now just a melange of confusion and disappointment. The merest dribble ran from the flailing tube.

  But Coleman was thinking more clearly, her blood no longer rushing with other people’s excitement. Trying to ignore the rattle of the door handle, the bang of the woman’s fist, her demands of ‘Answer me!’, Coleman worked on releasing the final plate.

  Fingertips smarting from the bite of the screw heads, she pried it away. Shoving it into her bag, she gathered up the tubes and filter.

  ‘Aziz, there you are. Have you got the key?’

  ‘Right here, right here.’

  ‘I can hear them moving around. I don’t know what they’re doing…’

  With the side of a fist, Coleman scrubbed away at the runes. The less evidence she left beh
ind, the better. Though most cops these days turned a blind eye to small uses of magic, being caught doing this kind of shit came with nothing short of a hanging. The last thing she wanted was to have to explain anything to them.

  Her boot found the screws that had dropped at her feet. No time or room to pick them up, she kicked them through the stool legs towards the side of the cupboard. She hoped that if they bothered to check the crime scene after this, they wouldn’t make the effort to remove the stools. Even if they did, in a room like this, what were a few screws? Or a few fingerprints for that matter.

  The door banged again, right by her ear. The strike had been higher up than the woman’s. So hard that the door rattled in its frame. She could already picture the size of the fist that caused it.

  ‘Hey.’ A man’s voice. ‘Come out. Don’t make this difficult.’

  Twisting her bag, hands shaking, Coleman groped for the emergency pocket, the one in the back that she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to open. If you brought a gun to a job, she’d been taught, you were planning to fail.

  Well, she hadn’t brought a gun…

  She tucked the small aerosol into her bra for safekeeping while she pulled out the filter mask and paper bag.

  The mask went on first, over her mouth and nose. It was a proper bit of kit too, could protect against all sorts.

  ‘All right then,’ said the man outside. There was a rattle of keys. ‘One of these,’ she heard him mutter.

  The paper bag was backed with card to prevent the runes drawn on every square inch from creasing in the wrong way, or worse, tearing. The paper shivered as she unfolded it. She checked that she was holding it the right way around before slipping it over her head, careful, careful not to rip it as she pulled it over her ponytail. The sound of her own breathing closed around her, a hot cloud against her face.

  Zipping the backpack shut, making sure it was secure on her shoulders, she heard a key scrabble at the lock.

  Coleman squared with the door, twitched the paper bag so that she could see through the eyeholes. Trying to take a deep breath, she found that she couldn’t. She couldn’t go to jail, she didn’t want to hang. She didn’t want to end up like—