‘Sounds fun. The wards easy to make?’
Zoe laughed. ‘Slow down, bitch. They work with the ones already on the island. They need to be the same stone, island stone, and the same paint. Can you imagine having to be the poor sod who had to come here to make the first ward? The danger pay must have been outrageous. Just make peace with the fact that once you’re on the island, you’re there for life. Only way you can make it easier on yourself is taking us up on our offer.’
The helmsman was heading back into the cabin, the storm wards in their nets secured all around the hull. The boat began to push on into the wall of clouds.
‘Come on,’ said Zoe. ‘You’re going to want to be sat for this.’
Harry was already parked by the cabin. There was nowhere else to sit but opposite. Some message passed between him and Zoe, but the reassurance that Amanda was playing ball bounced off Harry’s dour countenance.
Fuck, but what had she walked into?
The boat began to rock as it pierced the clouds, the touch of the waves becoming punches. The air bruised around them, darkening to a dusky purple. The clouds rose up ahead and, just when it looked like they were going to be eaten, they parted, fleeing before the nose of the boat, the wind and the lightning held at bay.
But nothing could keep back the waves. The boat lurched higher with every second heartbeat, steeper and steeper.
There wasn’t enough of a gap for the plastic cuff hands to slip under the railing, preventing her from hooking her arms. Digging her feet into the deck, trying to catch her cuffs to the seat edge, all Amanda could do was clench her teeth and pray as the boat pitched and yawed.
Thunder boomed, so loud that it overpowered her senses. The sound filled her ears and the world closed in around her, squeezed into a small ball of turbulence, pitch and aching muscles, her teeth gritted so hard they might crack. Water sprayed her, soaked her. She could taste salt on her lips and couldn’t say whether it was seawater or blood. She could feel the engine stuttering, coughing and roaring and coughing again.
Retching, no food to throw up, Amanda held on for dear life, her knees glowing with the effort, not daring to close her eyes for fear of making it worse.
And then they were out the other side. The swells began to calm, though still the boat rocked from the waves the wards hadn’t fully managed to quell. The sky brightened, not quite recovering its former radiance.
It took Amanda some effort to force her body to uncurl, every muscle stiff and singing with cramp.
‘You OK?’ asked Zoe. Her hair was soaked to rat’s tails, but she was smiling, relishing Amanda’s discomfort as a distraction to her own.
‘That was with the wards?’
Emerging from the mists, there was a low cliff face of solid stone. The boat was already skirting around it and Amanda did her best to see without standing, worrying that the stormy waves were intent on smashing their little vessel straight into the rocks.
The cliff twisted back on itself, revealing a small bay nestled at its foot, and behind it, a large empty grass slope that leaned upwards into the grey sky, bisected by a single black line of tarmac. Where the bay met the water, there was a small white shed and a short pier, a twin to the one that she had left.
Harry stood, eclipsing the weak sun behind him. ‘You going to behave?’
‘I won’t snitch but I’ll tell you what I told you before. Whatever you’ve got going on, I’m not interested. You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. That’s all I ever wanted.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ said Zoe. ‘I think she’s telling the truth. This is a coincidence. She gave a false name. Fitz made a mistake.’
‘Fitz doesn’t make mistakes,’ said Harry. ‘And I don’t give a fuck what you want. Next time I see you, you’d best be prepared to tell me everything you discussed with him. You keep anything from me and I’m finishing what we started.’
Zoe blew out her cheeks as Harry returned to the helmsman. ‘Whatever reason the warden brought you for, it’s definitely doing something. I’ve never seen Harry rattled like this. Next time we see each other, you’re definitely telling me what you did to him. If you live long enough. Looks like Drummond’s come to welcome you.’
‘And who’s he?’
‘The Deputy. In charge of the guards. I’d behave with him, if I were you. Right now there’s not a thing standing between him and beating you half to death except a provocation.’
The boat was just coming in to dock. Two more masked guards were waiting for them. They were accompanied by another man in guard uniform but no helmet, busy fighting a losing battle to stop his thin red hair from flying back to reveal his balding pate. Drummond, she presumed.
If he was surprised to see two other prisoners on the boat, he showed no sign, his eyes only for Amanda. Whatever clout Harry held here was enough to make her shiver.
The big man must have read it in her expression because he gave her a small, self-satisfied smile. ‘Welcome to my island.’
‘Amanda Ellis?’ Drummond asked, using her alias.
‘That’s me.’
‘Welcome to Coldwater. You’re coming with us.’
The guards took her by the arms, lifting her off the boat, her compliance a non-issue.
‘See you soon, Coleman,’ she heard Harry call behind her. ‘See you very soon.’
They had a jeep waiting to drive her up the smooth stretch of road, the Coldwater logo painted down the side.
It smelled of old sweat as they pushed her into the back seat, the pair of masked guards taking the front. Drummond joined her in the back, saying nothing as she twisted to peer out of the rear window. Engine growling, they were away up the slope. The window on her side was rolled down, a chill wind clutching her in its hand.
As they disappeared into the distance, Amanda could see from their body language that Harry and Zoe were already arguing. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or concerned about that.
What the fuck was he doing here? Last she’d heard, Harry had been locked up in Holloway. Now here he was, in some kind of cold war with the warden, and with enough clout with the guards to bum a pleasure cruise across the channel. That was all kinds of bad. Even if she managed to survive his company long enough to carry out her mission, was she prepared to be stuck on an island with him until one of them was dead?
She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. That was for later; right now she had a job to do.
Drummond was watching her, his eyes fixed on her face, expression set in a scowl.
Turning away, she looked out of the window. The wind was biting into her now, wrapped around her middle. She wanted to pull her coat closer around her, but her hands were still in the stiff cuffs and she didn’t dare ask for help. Drummond had the look of a man who thought an answer and a swing of his club were the same thing.
Her hands had numbed to a dull ache now, stationary for so long that it felt like they were calcifying inside the cuffs. There was only a little give in them, enough that she could feel her fingers flex, but not enough to move or bend them in any significant way.
The island was cold and hard. Granite covered with thick tufts of hardy grass, granite covered with trees shivering together against the wind.
For a few minutes, there was only growing grass slope. The cliff she’d seen was the highest point of the island, the rest was low grass and patches of forest reaching out either side of the road. Despite the temperature, now that they were inland, the sun had found its way over the tall ring of storm clouds that lurked a half-mile off the coast in every direction.
She’d liked to have seen the horizon, but the storm clouds loomed like large prison walls, which, she supposed, was what they were.
There was a shuffle beside her, the tip of Drummond’s boot nudging at her knee as he hitched one leg up into the seat between them, taking up as much space as possible. His eyes dared her to react, but she kept her attention firmly on the scenery.
Reaching a fork in t
he road, they took the left. Unable to resist, Amanda peered down the road not taken, catching a glimpse of tall, wire-topped walls.
The road they followed took them someplace entirely different; a village. There was the strange feeling of unreality to the whole place. As though they had driven onto a movie set. Everything looked new, the buildings even younger than the roads beneath them, like they’d been built out of a kit.
One of the doors opened and a woman stepped out, hair swinging in a ponytail. She looked fresh and clean in a way that instantly told Amanda that she wasn’t an inmate. The lanyard swinging from her neck confirmed it.
There was a larger building at the end of the road, its slanted roof and tall windows giving the impression of a church. There was even a noticeboard at the base of the small flight of steps leading up to the large, double-doored entrance.
If Amanda closed her eyes and opened them again, having forgotten where she was, she’d have thought she’d walked into some new-build show-home village. Illumination was provided by large floodlights on brushed-steel struts, the thick yellow cables that powered them visibly burrowing into the ground. There was no sign of any prisoners, only more of the identical-looking mirror-masked guards and clean-looking, well-to-do men and women in office attire and long, warm coats.
The whole village took less than a minute to cross and they soon left it behind, the transition from habitation to vegetation a sharp line.
The sound of a baton extending made her tense. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Drummond looking over his weapon, squinting as though inspecting it for nicks and scratches.
He was just trying to intimidate her, she told herself. Trying to get a reaction. He was winning on the first part, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of giving in to the second.
A few minutes more and the trees parted to reveal the largest building yet at the end of a gravel drive. Unlike the others they had passed, it was old and old-fashioned. Must have been one of the original buildings. The windows were small but had been fitted recently. The door too. The walls had been washed white, but no amount of work had been able to cover the ingrained grime that the cursed storm must have rubbed into the brickwork before the wards had been installed. It was surrounded by a wire fence and, even from a distance, Amanda could feel the magic coming off it, the latent power making the scars up and down her arms itch.
The windows were too high for Amanda to see inside, catching only glimpses of ceiling lights blazing despite the hour.
Amanda’s nerves ratcheted higher as the car squeaked to a stop in front of the large double-doored entrance. The engine barely had time to cut out before the guards in the front were out and round to her door.
‘Welcome to the White House. Make sure she gets the proper Coldwater welcome,’ said Drummond, watching as she was pulled from her seat. ‘Until I hear otherwise, she’s just like the rest of them. Make sure she knows just what that means.’
There was nothing for it but to co-operate. When the welcome wagon was rolling, the only thing to do was to try not to fall under its wheels.
Through the doors, she caught a blast of heat, stifling after the chill of the outside.
Inside, the building was a collection of sterile corridors and bare, beige rooms, defined by the simple, functional furniture of padded seats and featureless tables. If it weren’t for the barred windows, this could have been any building anywhere.
Passing staff gave her wary looks as she was pushed into a room where a table, chair and pair of women awaited her.
Left in their care, they took off her cuffs, much to her relief. One of the women warned her that all the guards were elite at taking down magic users and that there were more anti-magic security precautions beside. To try anything was tantamount to putting a gun to her own head.
Amanda shrugged and answered that she had no intention of causing any trouble. The women didn’t relax a single bit.
There were the familiar things. There was stripping and searching. They took a snip of her hair.
The metal pellet her blackmailer had given her had been safely nestled in her cheek since the incident in the canteen, the spells placed on it keeping her from unwittingly spitting it out or swallowing it while she’d been unconscious. Marnie had told her the name of it, but Jonsey, after she’d woken, had referred to it as a ‘scryball’ and that was the name that had stuck. They’d rubbed it in her blood to awaken the glamour before the canteen, but not yet added the final markings to make it usable for communication. The glamour to keep it hidden from those searching her, their attention sliding off it like it was oiled, had worked fine for the lay guards of Blue Meadow, but she’d doubted it would work against the guard at Coldwater. Marnie had already suggested a solution for that.
Out in the corridor, there was a feeling of activity. Through the small window in the door, Amanda would glimpse a fleeting figure, a man or woman striving to be somewhere else. A couple of times, one would pause to peer in at them. Not finding what they were looking for, they would hurry away again.
When the time came for Amanda to open her mouth and lift her tongue, she spoke.
‘Lot of people around here. All stuck on an island. There a plan if we can’t get food? Do the prisoners starve first or is it the staff?’
It didn’t mean much, she didn’t care about the answer, but it was enough to take the woman’s mind off the job enough to let the glamour lever its way through the crack in her attention. Amanda watched the woman’s eyes roam her mouth, before she stepped away, declaring it clear.
Then there was paperwork and more questions. She complied.
There was showering. The water was barely warm, but the shampoo was a store product in an actual bottle, not the grainy sachet stuff she was used to. Though she gave no sign of it, fearful they would take it from her, the feeling was luxurious, like she was bathing herself in double cream. But it was supervised as well, so she didn’t spend too long with it, sticking to her quick prison shower routine.
‘You see any?’ one woman asked the other.
‘No. Raise your arms.’
Amanda obeyed.
‘Turn. Turn. Good. No tattoos or magical markings. Scarring.’
The woman pointed towards the fresh clothes that had been set out for her, neatly folded on a plastic chair.
‘We’ll get to those in a minute,’ said the other woman. ‘You have no internal markings, no swallowed runes or carvings?’
‘Think before you answer,’ the other woman cut in. ‘Because, if we suspect that you do, we have an X-ray machine and a seer on hand. If we find you’ve been lying to us, the penalty will be severe.’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Now tell us about the scars. Is that from a blood circle?’
Amanda didn’t disguise her wince. Blood circles were where Abras got their power highs by sitting in a circle, draining blood from a wound and giving it to the person next to them. It was the lowest ebb of blood magic, done for the high rather than the power it granted. There had been plenty of it seen in the last decade, the most vitriolic of the newspapers more than eager to splash pictures of it across their pages and decry the downfall of the nation.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘My father from when I was a child. He drained me and my mother daily.’ The subject was easier to talk about to people like this, the bluntness tended to stop them from asking further questions.
But these women seemed unmoved, one of them simply scribbling on her clipboard. She took her time over it, allowing Amanda the chance to pull on the new clothes. Nothing quite fitted right, which made her feel strange and lopsided. They were simple. Underwear, thick socks, jeans, a vest, a jumper. The jumper was a bright, lurid green. If she tried to run, she would stand out for a mile in all directions against the dull muted tones of the landscape.
‘Your father was a magic user?’
‘Never convicted. Check with Blue Meadow. They saw these as well. They’ll tell you, I’m not an addict. They’d hav
e spotted it by now if I was.’
‘Maybe,’ the woman with the clipboard sniffed.
The guards stepped in again as Amanda pulled her plimsolls back on. They may have been the pair who’d brought her, but it was impossible to tell.
‘We’re done,’ said the woman. ‘Take her.’
Amanda bit her tongue and closed her eyes, keeping her breathing steady as another pair of cuffs were pushed over her hands.
They stepped into the chill air outside. Gravel crunched under their boots as the two guards pushed her around the side of the building, her sense of unease growing with each step. Something about this was off, a diversion from the regular route.
‘Where are you taking me?’
Neither answered except to give her another push.
There were more fields around the back, and a pair of identical logoed jeeps under a shelter. A small concrete structure poked out from the earth, the worn, damp stone and heavy rusted door looking like something from the war.
Amanda forced herself not to struggle, resisted the urge to bolt, as one of the guards opened the steel door, which gave a long, low groan. The room inside was small and bare, not even a bulb to light it, nothing but a drain in the centre of the floor. She stumbled as they pushed her inside. The door was already closed by the time she turned.
Chapter Seven
They left her there for a day. A full, cold, damp day. With no food, no water, no light and no warmth. A day of hugging herself, sat by the drain. The cold draught whistling from the grate competed with the one that crept under the door. Leaning against the walls meant giving her heat to the cold stone. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth dried.
Amanda tried shouting until she was hoarse but never heard a single other human being. There was only the rustle of the trees, the call of the birds, the distant growl of the curse-thunder.
The cold got under her ribs, her whole body rattling as she shivered, even her toes curled up for warmth.
Strange Ways Page 8