Strange Ways

by Gray Williams

  From her window, she could see a ring of iron fence that started twenty feet into the ocean, rising up out of the waves onto the beach and along out of sight behind the van. It was protecting a small building, something that looked as though it had been constructed from a kit – all struts and corrugated sheet metal, a sloped canvas roof. It was painted as dull a grey as the ocean behind it, a small human-made blip of straight edges standing against the swirling chaos of nature.

  A scrape at her door made her start. The driver was disengaging the lock. They stood back and Amanda meekly stepped out of the van.

  If she had been glad for her coat in London, she was doubly glad of it now. If they’d only give her another pair of socks or some sturdy boots for her numbed toes.

  The van door slammed behind her, prompting her on. Bare coast stretched off in either direction, with a smear of dirt that could barely be called a road behind.

  There was more chain-link fence behind them, the back of a sign facing the world. She knew this kind of place, too remote to attract passers-by and an anonymous generic warning at the gate to keep people out, nothing to identify its purpose. It wouldn’t be on any maps. And now neither was she.

  She could feel the cold damp reaching up through her plimsolls as she walked across the small gritty mud-patch to the front door.

  Inside wasn’t much warmer. The steel walls and canvas roof were there to hold off the rain, not keep out the cold. The floor was more bare concrete, the walls decked with tools and chains, the roof hidden behind a palimpsest of ropes and pulleys.

  There was a small jetty, the ocean sticking a stubborn finger into the building. A large shuttered door looked out into the ocean; Amanda could see a small pier jutting out into the waves, invisible from where she’d been standing outside.

  The driver followed her in, planting a hand on Amanda’s shoulder.

  There was another guard waiting inside, identical to the driver, the uniform making them genderless.

  She was steered towards a stool in the corner. The driver stood back and watched, a hand on the taser at their hip.

  They worked in silence, the driver and the guard, long used to the routine. Amanda was happy to join them in the quiet, knowing when to keep her thoughts to herself.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Acting on some unspoken signal, the guards pulled her back onto her feet and the three of them headed out, taking the back door out to the water.

  The wind had risen to a gale. Thunder rumbled in the distance and she saw lightning strobe in the clot of haze on the horizon: Coldwater.

  A boat was approaching – a small ferry, made smaller against the vast sea and sky. Rocking with the waves, it made Amanda seasick just looking at it.

  With no news to print, media coverage had fallen away about Coldwater since its opening, though the Pro-Magics were always fighting to get it back into the public eye. Coldwater Justice Service seemed happy to keep the prison ticking over on the government’s behalf, holding those the ministers would be raked over the coals for executing. And if the prison failed? Then it was back to the tried-and-tested system of sending magic abusers straight to the scaffolds.

  The only time it returned to the public eye was for an execution. Those who proved too unruly for incarceration were sent back to the mainland for hanging, a circus arranged to prove that the status of the Abra prison was tenuous at best. The Pro-Magics howled at the evidence levelled at those sent back, pointing to the rumoured kill fees Coldwater would receive if the prison failed. The government and the private company, they cried, were both eager to pull the plug, when it stopped suiting them as a stick to beat their opponents with.

  Amanda thought of her target on the inside, Karina Khurana. Now that she’d had some time to think, she’d recalled a few things about the woman. She’d even seen her on television. For a long time, Karina had been in the background, the second in command of the Pro-Magic movement. Then, when the leader had died in a botched robbery attempt at his countryside estate (and it was a botched robbery despite what the conspiracy nuts said; Amanda knew, she’d been there) Karina had stepped in to fill the gap. To everyone’s (the media’s) surprise, despite the fact that she’d not been born to power, Karina had proved herself articulate. Talking in terms that everyone could understand, she’d helped to revitalise an already upward momentous movement.

  Then the whole demon thing had happened and Amanda had stopped paying it any mind.

  How the mighty had fallen.

  Amanda had never killed anyone in cold blood before. The other times had been hot and bundled in emotion. But this woman was no more tangible to her now than she had been on the television.

  But there was Michaela to think of, and Amanda was not going to make the mistake that she had made last time. She wasn’t going to hesitate, she wasn’t going to let any principles or qualms get in her way. What was a stranger’s life against her daughter’s? And what was a little more guilt?

  The gurgle of the boat engine could just be heard over the wind and the swells, the helmsman working the engine hard to keep it straight. The Coldwater Justice Service logo on the prow was so fresh it glowed, unperturbed by the constant wash of saltwater.

  There was another masked guard at the helm. An unmasked woman stood at their side, staring at Amanda with open interest. A man, also unmasked, was at the stern. He threw a rope over to the guard to secure the boat as it came in.

  The driver nudged Amanda towards the edge.

  But she didn’t budge, frozen at the sight of the rope thrower.

  He was broad, bald and the salt air had reddened his cheeks. He had also stilled on seeing her, his open-mouthed surprise quickly turning to fury. Turning his back, he busied himself with more ropes, hiding his reaction from the guards, who were busy conferring. Not a word audibly passed between them, but it was clear from their body language that they were talking. Amanda was beginning to suspect that their voices were being somehow communicated behind the masks.

  The driver took her by the arm, leading her to the boat. She wanted to resist, wanted to speak out. She couldn’t get on, not with the large man already aboard. But what could she say without revealing her true identity?

  Handed over to the helmsman, Amanda kept her eyes fixed on the ropeman’s broad back as she was pushed towards a seat at the side, wishing all the harder that her hands were free.

  The guards’ conversation finished, the driver and their partner headed back up the dock as the boat made quick work of reversing and speeding away, a lone scrap of cold steel and hot fuel in turbulent waters. The wind howled and the island of Coldwater soon became a threat in the distance, a strange smudge of stormy clouds on the horizon.

  Amanda slid along the seating to a position nearer the pilothouse, both to get away from the ropeman and to escape the sporadic deluge of saltwater that soaked the boat’s stern.

  She could feel the woman’s eyes on her. Tall, East Asian, her long dark hair streaked with copper tones, she’d picked up that something was happening between her fellow passengers that she couldn’t see.

  But Amanda only had eyes for the man. Every inch of her being that wasn’t fighting the sway of the boat was fixed on those broad shoulders, the rough hands strangling the rope.

  When he turned, she watched his small eyes roam the coast, making sure that they were far from land.

  She stood, moving back under the shelter of the pilothouse, closer to the guard.

  Harry Church was older but unmistakable. It was the same neat little beard, the same rectangular glasses with the tinted frames. He was in boots, jeans and a sou’wester, his hands seizing into fists at his side. No cuffs, but not a prison officer. No, he had to be an inmate. He had the same jacket that she did. But what was he doing here? They let him get this close to the mainland?

  The woman went to his side. ‘You OK?’ She had to shout over the engine.

  He replied, something Amanda couldn’t hear, but his eyes never left her.

  Nodding,
the woman approached, eyeing Amanda up and down, trying to figure it all out. Moving past, she shouted something into the helmsman’s ear and got a nod in response.

  The engine died and within moments there was only the sound of water lapping at the hull, the crack and rumble of thunder.

  They were long out of sight of the pier, the building just a grey smudge on a grey coast. The bank of storm clouds ahead was nothing but haze.

  Harry was already striding forward. There was nothing Amanda could do but tense, nowhere to run, no way to fight.

  Grabbing the bar that held her hands together, he whirled her around, his free hand going for her throat. The cold metal of the handrail hit her in the small of the back. Shoes squeaking as they left the floor, she was tipped over the edge.

  ‘You haven’t a fucking clue what you just got yourself involved in,’ Harry growled, holding her over the churning water.

  Amanda couldn’t struggle, couldn’t kick, couldn’t move. She could feel water leaping to touch the back of her head. Breathing hard through clenched teeth, she could only fix her eyes on Harry and the grey sky above him.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for this a long time,’ said Harry. He relaxed his grip for only a moment, his mouth twitching upwards when Amanda cried out as she dropped. ‘What’d he promise you? Money? Freedom? Eh? He honestly think I’d let you stab me in the back a second time? Like I’m that fucking stupid?’ He pretended to drop her again and Amanda pinched her lips closed to stop herself from shouting.

  She tried to see past to the woman, to the guard, but neither looked inclined to step in. She couldn’t see the guard’s face, but she knew the stance of a prison officer on an inmate’s payroll when she saw one. The guards on the dock hadn’t paid Harry any mind either. Fuck.

  ‘Not so cocky now, are you? Don’t look at them. Look at me. I could drop you overboard and they’ll swear you fell. You have no fucking idea what you’ve walked into.’

  ‘Harry,’ the woman stepped forward. ‘Whatever you’re planning, hurry it along. We don’t want to be missed.’

  ‘Then don’t interrupt me,’ he shot her a look before turning back to Amanda. ‘Start talking. What’s he want you to do? Spy on me? That it? Or is he just trying to fuck with me?’

  ‘I don’t—’ Amanda’s words cut off into a sound that was half cry, half growl as he pushed her further over the edge. Her thighs squealed on the slick metal, her heels digging into the side of the boat. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear. Fuuuuck.’

  He leaned her out further and further over the ocean. Her wrists were in agony, the cuffs biting at her joints, the only thing keeping her from the brine.

  An amulet had slipped out from Harry’s collar, the rock of the boat making it connect painfully with her throat.

  ‘You must think I’m really fucking stupid.’

  Amanda spoke in short bursts, her every muscle working against gravity. ‘Stupid. Never. Entered into it. Not everything’s about you. Fuck, will you pull me back in? We can talk.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here,’ said the woman, ‘but either way, you need to finish this or Fitz is going to ask questions.’ She leaned closer to Harry. ‘This wasn’t the plan. You said no attention.’

  ‘He’s fucking with me,’ said Harry, sweat beginning to drip from his nose.

  ‘What else is new? What I want to know is does it change anything?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Amanda. ‘I swear. I didn’t know you were here. Whatever you think is going on, I’ve got nothing to do with it. This isn’t about you.’

  The radio in the cabin crackled, a voice coming through. The helmsman turned to answer it.

  ‘Start the engine,’ Harry called after them. A single heave and Amanda was back in the boat, trying to find her footing. ‘You talk to her,’ Harry pushed Amanda backwards into the woman’s arms. ‘I’ve got to think about this.’

  The two women watched as he stalked back to join the helmsman, tucking the amulet back under his coat where it belonged. It was a stone, Amanda saw, carved with runes. They let him wear something like that here?

  The boat lurched back to life.

  ‘You all right?’ the woman asked, leading her to a seat.

  ‘Better than the alternative.’ Amanda grimaced as she flexed her wrists inside the manacles.

  ‘You know each other?’

  Harry was staring out towards the cloud bank ahead, wiping the sweat from his face with a sleeve.

  ‘Might say that,’ said Amanda. ‘I’m the one who put him in prison.’

  ‘You’re a cop, too?’

  Amanda shook her head. ‘That was before my time. He used to work for my dad. Then, after my dad died, Harry quit the force to become a full-time gangster. He wanted me to work for him. I didn’t want to. Didn’t go well for him after that.’

  The woman grimaced, running a finger down her face to remove the long hair tangling with her lips, her nose. ‘Hell of a coincidence you coming here.’

  ‘I call it bad luck. I’m serious, whatever he thinks I’m here for, I’ve got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Then why are you here? Not saying I believe you, but let’s just pretend. Why’d Fitz take you?’

  ‘I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘Fitzackley. The warden. Of Coldwater. Not a soul gets in without his approval. He must have said something. Or you said something to him?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve never met him. I was in prison. I did magic. They put me in solitary. They sent me here. That’s it. I’m not looking for trouble.’ She rubbed her hand at her neck where the noose had rubbed her skin. It had only been around her throat a moment, but it felt like the rope was still there, her flesh scraped raw.

  ‘Fine. Then I’ll keep this basic. I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not, so I’m just going to… Look, when we get to Coldwater, you’re going to be taken to see the warden. So, he already told us someone was coming and that we’ve got to work with you. But what he actually wants is for you to spy on us and feed everything we say back to him. We’ve got a bit of reach when it comes to the guards around here, so we thought, before that, we’d come out, have a quick word with you before you reached the island. But, as it turns out, Fitz only went and picked you, someone Harry has history with. That’s why we had all that… confusion back there.’

  ‘Work with you doing what?’

  ‘We’ll get to that. What’s important is that you’re not going to work for Fitz, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Exactly. Because if Harry thinks anything that goes on between us is getting back to Fitz, then you’re going to wish he had dropped you back there. I’m not going to be able to save you from him even if I wanted to. And, believe me, it’s going to be just as easy on land to make it look like an accident as out here. So what’s going to happen is that you’re going to let Fitz think you’re playing along. But really, you’re going to be telling him whatever we feed you. Understand?’

  ‘What do I get?’

  The woman gave her a wry smile. ‘To live. Fuck, the tits on you.’

  ‘Harry is right though. If I was really brought here to spy, I’m a terrible choice.’

  ‘That is a point. Fitz is a stuck-up posho, but he’s not stupid. But even Harry had no idea you were who we were coming out to meet. Amanda your real name?’

  Amanda nodded. ‘Different surname.’

  ‘Yeah, that’d do it. Still though. Maybe this is all some fucked-up coincidence.’

  ‘Well, so long as he stays out of my way,’ she nodded back towards Harry, ‘I’m happy to stay out of his.’

  ‘Don’t think we’re going to have much of a say in that. I’m Zoe by the way.’

  ‘Pleasure. So what is this we’re going to be working on together?’

  ‘Let’s just say if you really don’t know, then it’s best I keep you in the dark. Plausible deniability for when you meet Fitz. He lets us get away with a fair bi
t, but even he doesn’t know how much freedom we’ve got around here. Play along and you’ll get the same perks we do and, believe me, they’re better than anything you’d get being locked away on the mainland. You,’ she tapped Amanda’s hand, ‘have just lucked out. If you play your cards right. For now, let’s just concentrate on getting you onto dry land in one piece.’

  They turned their heads towards their destination. The stormy haze had grown ahead of the boat, becoming a roiling wall of mist and cloud, held back as though it was trapped by an invisible shell of glass.

  The boat slowed to a stop and Amanda craned her neck, looking up the vast slope of the tempest. ‘What is that?’

  ‘The storm,’ Zoe shouted back over the wind and thunder. ‘No one tell you? This island’s cursed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why do you think they chose this place? Stand back.’

  The helmsman had stepped out onto the deck. Crouching beside a large box by the cabin, they pulled out a heavy canvas sack.

  ‘It was something like two hundred years ago,’ Zoe continued. ‘Some dispute over ownership. This old toff killed all his servants and used the blood to curse the island, wanted it scoured clean by storms. Whole place was built on some kind of rare nexus, like a magic reservoir. He drained all of it, so the curse started and now no one can stop it, just… push it to one side. Why they got this place so cheap.’

  The storm rumbled ahead, lightning skittering behind the clouds. The helmsman had opened the sack and pulled out several netted bags, each ending with a hook. Inside, they held large, smooth stones, covered with runes.

  Harry watched from the door, casting dangerous looks over towards the two women.

  ‘But they reclaimed it,’ Zoe continued. ‘Whole island is ringed with these stones – storm wards. Like those he’s got there. They can’t get rid of the curse, but they can hold it back, feeding off the same ambient power. Must have been a son of a bitch to set up. But that’s what makes it so good for a prison. Can’t get in or out without the right wards. Can’t communicate, either. No radio, no scrying, no satellites. Nothing. Completely cut off.’