‘Wandered off again.’
‘You let her?’
‘I don’t let her do anything. She goes where she pleases. She’s gone this long without them catching her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Let me work.’ The sand had been scraped away, darker sand beneath and more of the stone’s root exposed. From a distance, Amanda could just about see more runes over Karina’s shoulder as she crouched down to look at them.
Reaching into the box, she pulled out the tools she needed, the thin twist of wood and some kind of lens, its thick frame inscribed with runes. Bending down and getting to work, she hissed between her teeth.
‘You OK?’ asked Amanda.
‘The wards are active so it’s tough to work on them. The magic fluctuates. Not easy to control…’
Even from a distance, Amanda could feel the difference. The magic throbbed in the air, making her ears pop. Stepping further away did little to help.
Groaning, Karina’s head dipped towards the sand.
‘Look, if you can’t do it…’
‘I can do it,’ Karina snapped, ‘just leave me to—’
There was a snap out in the trees, whipping Amanda’s attention back to the forest. But she could see nothing, only bark and leaves, shadows and light playing in the breeze.
‘Let’s go.’ She hurried over to Karina’s side. The force was even worse here. It plucked at her nerve endings, squeezed at her sinuses. Even moving forward seemed like an effort. ‘Pack the things. I think someone’s coming. We can come back.’
But Karina didn’t reply. She’d stopped working altogether, shuffling closer to the stone so that her nose was only an inch away.
‘Come on. We’re out of time.’ Amanda was closing the box when Karina snapped her head to look at her. Blood was gushing from her nose and dripping off her chin. Her eyes were bloodshot.
‘Someone’s already tampered with this.’
‘What?’
‘The storm ward. Someone’s already been hacking the runes. Look.’
To Amanda’s surprise, she could see it. Fresher-looking markings blending into the others.
There was blood on the sand where Karina had been crouching.
‘We’ll figure it out later. Come on.’ She grabbed Karina, hauling the woman to her feet.
‘If they find it like this…’ Karina protested.
‘Like you said, someone’s already had a go. Now come on.’
They’d barely taken a step when someone emerged from the trees.
Steph looked as angry as ever as she stormed over.
Throwing out her hands, the runes flared across her wooden fingers as Amanda felt the pinch of power binding her.
Already off balance from pulling at Karina, she fell to the ground, grunting at the impact of the hard sand.
‘Steph,’ Karina was on her feet. ‘What are you—’
‘They’re coming,’ Steph replied. ‘I told you. They’re coming right for us. She led them to us.’
‘No,’ Amanda croaked, just managing to shake her head. ‘I’d never…’
‘We have to get back,’ said Karina. ‘Let her go. Come on.’
Steph relented, the bindings coming apart all at once.
The women scrabbled away back through the trees towards the hollow.
‘What were those marks?’ Amanda asked, lugging the box with her. ‘What were they doing?’
‘I didn’t have time to see. But it looks like—’
There were noises in the woods now. They could hear voices approaching.
They reached the hollow, slipping in through the wards.
‘It’s over here,’ came a voice, Zoe. ‘I can feel something.’
They were all there, Harry, Zoe, Andre, Bohdan and Mallory, heading towards them.
‘What were you doing back there?’ asked Steph.
‘Looking for a way to communicate with the mainland,’ replied Karina. ‘I need to find you a safe space.’
‘I’m not leaving without you.’
‘Well, you’re going to have to. We can’t hide forever. I’m just trying to protect you.’
‘So you trust her? Look, she’s led them right to us.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ said Amanda.
The gang were approaching, squinting through the trees. They didn’t seem to have seen or heard them. Steph’s wards carved into the trees were working.
‘Where are they then?’ Mallory was looking worse than ever. Wherever the ropes had touched him from his divination there were now ugly welts, red-raw burns.
‘Right ahead,’ said Zoe. ‘She disappeared between those two trees.’
The world opened up underneath Amanda as Karina and Steph turned to stare at her.
‘She set me up,’ she stammered. ‘I thought I could trust her. I swear I didn’t…’
‘You there, Coleman?’ bellowed Harry.
The three women froze.
‘Always knew you were up to something,’ he went on. ‘Never knew it would be this. Know how much she hates Abras, Khurana? Killed her own father rather than help him. Know that? Just step out. This doesn’t have to be a big deal. Make it easy on yourself. All is fucking forgiven.’
Steph was breathing like she’d run a mile, flexing her fingers, glaring at Harry and his cronies.
‘Steph…’ Karina had noticed and was reaching out to her, but Steph jerked away.
‘We have to fight them. If we rush out and surprise them…’
‘We can’t take them all on,’ said Karina.
‘We’re not just giving up,’ snarled Steph.
‘Fine,’ said Harry to the silence. ‘We’ll break it down.’
‘You hear that, bitch?’ shouted Mallory. ‘We’re coming for you. Best start running.’
‘Steph, please,’ said Karina. ‘We don’t have time. We have to leave.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I’m done being chased.’
Zoe, Andre, Bohdan and Mallory were all facing the ring now, working in synchronised cantrips. The air between the trees was beginning to shimmer like it was heating up. The wards carved into the bark blackened, the smell of magic and burning wood permeating the air.
Steph began to weave a hex of her own, but Karina stood in the way. ‘We can’t fight them. I don’t want you getting hurt.’
‘They’re going to hurt us anyway,’ Steph replied. ‘Don’t you see? We have a right to defend ourselves. I can do it. And I know you can.’
The pair continued to argue as the barrier began to break down around them.
For a long moment, Amanda considered what she could do. It would be so easy; step out of the circle, give the pair up. Karina would be dead, her job would be done, she could live on the island, figure out what happened next. She could come up with some lie. Stay on Harry’s crew. It would all be so simple.
She deserved to be under Harry’s thumb, she deserved to be right back where she’d started. After everything she’d done, everyone she’d hurt, she could just give up and roll over. Finally relax.
How had she let this happen? How had she let herself trust Zoe? She’d known Amanda had been up to something and had handed her the rope to hang herself with. How had she not seen it? Now the very people she had been trying to help were in harm’s way. How had she done this again? How had she been so stupid?
She deserved this. She deserved to fall at Harry’s feet. But fuck this. If she was going to go down, she’d at least let it be doing something good. She might not be able to fight and win, but she could certainly buy a little time, save Steph, save Michaela.
‘You need to run,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Where?’ asked Karina. ‘What about you?’
‘Doesn’t matter. If I stall them, save my daughter. That’s all I want. Can you do that?’
‘We don’t need her,’ said Steph. ‘We’re not running. If we take them by surprise…’
‘They’re criminals, Steph,’ said Karina, ‘we can’t fight them.’
‘Then you go. Because I’m not running from them any more.’
‘You have to go,’ said Amanda. ‘These people will tear you apart.’
The air was shimmering so hard it was a blur now. She could see the shape of Harry pointing and saying something. He’d spotted them, he could see the glamour beginning to break down, revealing them behind it.
Amanda strode forward. She could already see her fist connecting with Zoe’s face. Then if she did whatever she could to Mallory…
The air cracked as the glamour snapped shut, causing the gang to flinch away at the sudden breaking.
Amanda closed the gap as fast as she could. She was ready to fight, ready to fall. This was it. This was how she was going to end it.
Only Steph charged past her.
The young woman was already weaving a hex. Bohdan found his legs cut out from under him, the man flailing in the air before smacking down chin first into the earth. The air snapped, the world becoming a negative of itself as Steph drew all the light into one bright cinder. She sent it careening towards Harry and Mallory. The pair ducked either side, their eyes wide, surprised that control over the situation had been taken so easily from them.
An errant blast from Harry caught Amanda a glancing blow, spinning her around and sending her staggering to cover.
Andre had darted behind a tree of his own. Throwing a blast of power, he swore as Steph tore his hex in two with her hands. The runes across her wooden extremities glowing a dark red, she reshaped the blast, the air shimmering like heat around her hands before throwing it back. Andre cried out as his cover exploded into splinters.
‘What the fuck is she doing here?’ bellowed Harry.
It was all the proof Amanda needed. Steph had been the girl they’d been hunting.
‘Fuck you!’ Steph shrieked, sending Harry stumbling as the trunk of the tree he was hiding behind started to char and smoke.
The man froze the moment he was out from his cover. His limbs went rigid, his muscles visibly twitching under his clothes as he tried to move.
Steph’s twelve fingers were working in a blur as she bound the man, the runes strobing and crackling with energy along the wood. His heels scraped as he was pulled closer and closer towards her.
Taken aback, feeling totally outgunned, Amanda had frozen, looking for a way into the fight. Fuck, but she needed a weapon and there was nothing in sight. She could feel the power in her own veins, remembered the rush of unleashing it. But even if it worked, one blast wouldn’t change the course of this fight. And it would lay her out for days, the after-effects twisting her up.
Both Susyk and Andre were on their feet again, synchronising their hex, making the ground around Steph’s feet shiver and boil.
But she was paying it no notice, the ground directly beneath her was as still as it had ever been. Was she weaving two spells at once? Amanda didn’t even know if that was possible. But the fingers on each of the young woman’s hands were working independently, her prosthetic designs giving her an edge against their opponents.
But fighting off the three men in front of her meant that she had taken her eyes off Mallory.
The fear hit. They felt it thicken in the air. Amanda could see it grip Steph as her eyes widened and her breath caught. She didn’t dare turn her head away from the three men in front of her, couldn’t see Mallory coming for her, that terrible bat swinging by his side.
Amanda broke from cover as Steph, losing her composure, turned to meet him. The air flickered with migraine sparks, prosthetic fingers rattling as she hurriedly prepared a new hex.
She sent a wave of power towards the small man, only for him to smash it to pieces with his bat, the blood-soaked runes in the wood howling with fear and anguish.
Stepping back, she tried again, with the same result, Mallory smiling wolfishly, enjoying his opponent’s panic.
He didn’t even see Amanda coming.
She threw her entire body weight into him, crashing the pair of them to the ground.
The smell of him filled her nostrils, animal and foetid. Now there was a new stratum, the hot stink of the burns banding his flesh.
She brought an elbow down, not caring where it landed so long as it hurt him. Reorientating herself, she saw the bat still in his hand and went for it.
Mallory screamed something she didn’t catch, tried to bring a knee up into her side, but she was too close. They rolled in the leaves, he on top for a moment, but she managed to carry the momentum over again so that they were back where they started.
He was trying to raise the bat over his head, aiming to bring it down on her.
The fear coming off it was screaming at her, mixing with her own anger, making her frantic. She couldn’t run, she had to fight. Climbing up his body, reaching for his hands, her mouth touched flesh and she bit, hard as she could, until she tasted copper.
Her hands were at the crooks of his arms, then to his wrists and then, finally, her fingertips brushed the rough wood of the handle.
And in an instant the fear was gone, replaced by something far darker.
Where the fear had come from so much blood from the injuries of his victims soaking the bat’s shaft, the handle had been saturated with a concoction of Mallory’s sweat and the blood from rough swings that had rubbed his palms raw. And with it, the small man’s bottomless rage.
The feeling rushed down her arms, meeting her own anger, syncing with it, something so raw and—
The man’s fist connected with the side of her head and the connection was broken.
The world twisted around her and she was on the ground again, Mallory on top, the bat raised. She grabbed for it, grappling with his forearms, stopping him from bringing it down.
Her hands were shaking; the fear from Mallory’s bat had returned, crackling under her skin, muddling her thoughts, telling her to run.
The tide had turned for Steph too. The fear had taken her, sending her hiding behind a tree, shivering and sobbing angry tears. She flinched and cried out as fistfuls of the tree dissolved to splinters, Bohdan, Andre and Harry closing in.
‘Hey!’
They’d forgotten about Zoe.
One of her eyes was swelling, her bottom lip cut and bleeding. But Karina was worse, blood trickling down her neck from the knife at her throat.
‘No!’ Steph’s cry was a raw rent in the air, but before she could raise her hands, Zoe had jerked the politician between them.
Another blast kicked up dirt at Steph’s feet, making her leap back, cringing with fear.
‘Circle round,’ Harry ordered. ‘Grab her. Before she disappears.’
‘Get out of here,’ shouted Amanda.
Steph flinched, hearing the words but not heeding them.
‘Steph, go!’
Another blast scraped the earth before her, forcing the girl to press herself back into the tree.
‘Just go,’ Karina pleaded. ‘We’ll be OK. Steph, please.’
‘Don’t let her jump,’ said Harry.
Andre and Bohdan were circling round, closing in from either side. They were weaving another spell, each man’s hands mirroring the other’s.
Coming to herself, Steph performed a few cantrips of her own. They were complex movements, the extra finger and the flexibility of her wooden digits creating even more intricate shapes. There was a strange sensation that made Amanda’s ear pop, made her flinch, and when she looked again, the girl was gone.
Amanda blinked. One moment Steph had been there, the next moment…
She looked to Karina, who looked equally dumbfounded at the girl’s teleportation.
‘Fuck!’ shouted Harry. ‘Fuck! You let her get away.’
‘We didn’t have enough time,’ bleated Andre.
‘How did she even get here? You telling me she hopped through the curse barrier?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Bohdan, wearily. ‘We still haven’t—’
‘Just fucking find her,’ said Harry. ‘Fuck. And you.’ He tur
ned to Amanda. ‘Make another move and I’ll kill you.’
Mallory hauled Amanda to her feet, the bat still singing by his side.
The blow took her low in the stomach. She would have folded in half if Mallory hadn’t been holding her upright. Even then, the man staggered as Amanda sagged, fighting for air. Rough hands grabbed her, throwing her to the ground, causing her to gasp in a mouthful of pine needles.
She could hear seagulls screeching as a boot met her ribs, kicking her over onto her back.
‘Knew you were up to something,’ said Harry. ‘Think I wouldn’t find out?’
‘Barely thought about you at all.’ Amanda squeezed a smile through the pain, defiant.
‘Fucking bitch!’ Mallory was back. Planting a boot on her hip, he pressed down with the tip of his bat, pushing it into the artery in her throat.
Amanda croaked, tried to move out from under it, but Mallory just pressed harder. Bohdan shouted encouragement. Zoe only watched, her expression tightly neutral and cold.
‘Leave her alone!’ cried Karina, but nobody listened.
‘She did it just to fuck with us,’ snarled Mallory. ‘Another fucking one of them not happy unless they’re shitting all over us.’
Amanda used the time to think, struggling with her eyes closed. She couldn’t let them kill Karina. Steph had the scryball and if Amanda didn’t find her with Karina alive, then she’d never see it again.
‘Nah, that’s not it,’ said Harry. ‘This one wouldn’t lift a finger unless there was profit in it for her. Never happy unless she’s calling the shots. You should have seen how she pulled on her big friend’s leash all day.’
‘I reckon she knew,’ said Zoe. ‘This was never about us or the warden. It was her,’ she flicked her knife towards the woman at her feet. ‘Remember how she was always asking about her. Spent all day pressing us to search her room, then disappeared the moment we did.’
‘Fucking set me up,’ snapped Mallory, pressing the bat deeper.
Amanda couldn’t reply, couldn’t even feel her face, just the pressure on her neck, fuzzing her senses. She writhed, trying to get out from under it. She could feel her hands fumbling at the bat, trying to push it away, but it wouldn’t move, and it only encouraged Mallory to leer and increase the pressure.
Strange Ways Page 22