‘They didn’t even give you one?’ she asked.
‘It’s a gang. Not PwC. Think they’d let me in if I couldn’t get hands on one myself? It’ll work. Trust me.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Easy.’ Jared leaned forward to tuck the gun out of sight down the back of his trousers. ‘We break in. We fuck him up. We take his shit to give to Davey. We leave.’
‘I want to try scaring him first. I don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘Those aren’t my orders.’
‘And your orders aren’t my orders. I said I wanted him out of my life. I didn’t say I wanted him dead. That man is my problem; I want to deal with him my way.’
‘And when it doesn’t work, then can I shoot him? That OK with you?’
It wasn’t. But what choice did she have?
They climbed out of the car, the driver giving a nod.
‘Do it clean,’ the man muttered. ‘In, out and away. Don’t touch anything. Don’t say a word.’
Jared could only nod.
Unimpressed, the driver climbed back into the front seat to wait for them.
Michaela kept her head down, afraid of being seen. All of those windows, anyone could be watching.
Was this her life now? This heavy feeling? Having all her choices made for her? Swept along by the whims and orders of violent men? All because she’d fucked up once?
‘Keep thinking of my mum,’ she found herself saying as they crossed the road.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jared, his jaw tight, eyes darting from window to window. ‘She doesn’t have to know. My mum learned to stop asking a long time ago.’
‘No, I mean, she used to be in this business. She had a real reputation. I keep wondering what she would have done in this situation.’
‘She made emo?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe not this exactly, but… she did robberies and jobs and… my dad did stuff too. Forgeries. They never really let us in on it. Me and my brother and sister. They’d try to keep their world away from us. But after… something went wrong… it was just me and her, in this shitty little flat. We didn’t know what to do. We needed money, but Mum, she wouldn’t ask for it. No Coleman’s ever gone with her hand out. She was embarrassed, angry with herself. She’d be out getting jobs and she started telling me about them. Like, the worst had happened, so why not talk about it? But things had changed for her. After what had happened… all the people who had her back were gone. She’d have all these great ideas but no one to do them. And she wouldn’t let me help her.’
‘Why not? You’re smart.’
Because she was worried I’d end up here. In trouble and in someone else’s pocket. Michaela didn’t say it. Instead she asked, ‘What if he has security? Alarms or wards or something? His last place did.’
‘I already checked. There’s nothing. Not even those little deterrents you said his last place had. Makes sense. No point doing all that work and spending all that money if he thinks no one’s going to find it. Alarms and wards would only draw attention if they’re triggered.’
Michaela nodded. That made sense and, to her surprise, Jared’s words were actually comforting. It was good to have someone at least partly on her side. ‘You’re right,’ she said.
But it didn’t alleviate her fears completely.
Her mother would have brought gloves, she thought to herself. Wasn’t gunshot residue a thing? And silencers? This was a quiet street, everyone would hear a gunshot. Jared was all swagger and eager to please, but did he really know how to do this? Did the driver?
God, she needed a wicked shit.
Unable to stop herself, she checked the front door for wards while Jared pulled a bump key from his pocket.
‘Give me the gun,’ said Michaela.
‘What?’
‘I want the gun. This is my problem, I want the gun.’
For a moment she thought he was going to argue, then, with a look over his shoulder towards the driver, he slapped it into her hand.
It felt just as cold and ugly as she’d suspected.
‘OK. Just…’ Taking a breath, he put the pin of the bump key in the lock and worked the trigger until the door opened.
The place was quiet. Oppressively so. The entry hall was bare and there was a distinct tang of fresh paint.
The gun was heavy in her hand. Could she do it? Switch off another person’s life? Could Jared?
Her friend had never looked more serious in his life.
He pointed up. The gesture wasn’t necessary, she’d already heard the distinct creak of someone walking around upstairs.
The sound turned her to water. This was really happening. All she wanted to do was run back to the car and drive away. Anything, to just Not Be Here.
She could see the same thing in Jared’s eyes, the way his gaze travelled across the ceiling before he turned to look at the back door, checking the distance.
They passed silent rooms as they made their way to the stairs. The furniture looked unused, waiting for human habitation. She spotted photos on the shelves, McKittrick in the arms of a smiling woman, the pair holiday-happy.
The only room with a little evidence of use was the kitchen. Plates were stacked by the sink. There were washed ready-meal containers beside them, the green recycle bin filled with their cardboard wrappings. Paint pots and tins of what looked like resin stood stacked up against the far wall by the back door.
Up the stairs and the creaking sound grew.
She could hear him now, the shuffle of papers, the small noises a person made as they carried out their life, sighs as they thought, the smack of lips, scratching.
He was so close.
Michaela carried on closer, keeping her feet to the edge of the stairs to stop them from groaning under her weight.
She closed her eyes, counted to three, readjusting her grip on the gun. Then she was around the corner, the gun pointed out as she strode down the corridor.
McKittrick reacted as though someone had stuck a cattle prod in the small of his back. He had been bent over a table covered in paperwork and files and the sound of her striding towards him made him jerk straight. Spinning around, his face was pale and slack as he stared dumbly at the shadowy figure, the bulk of his frame obscuring the light from the desk lamp.
She wasn’t sure what she would do next, but he was under her gun, and he was scared.
‘Who is that?’ he demanded, squinting to see, stepping to the side to let the lamplight touch her face.
She didn’t know how to respond, every conceivable answer felt stupid or redundant. So she reset her stance, firmed her grip on the gun, begging it to stop trembling.
‘Michaela,’ he said. ‘How…?’
‘Get on your knees, man.’ Jared’s voice was right by her ear. She winced, his nerves making him overly loud.
But his words had the opposite effect on the man. His face firmed as he started to recover from his shock. ‘You are making a very big mistake.’
‘I didn’t ask you to do this to me or my mum,’ she snapped, finally voicing her thoughts. ‘Didn’t think it would end this way, did you? Like I wouldn’t have a choice in how this turned out?’
‘Oh, you have a choice. You can put that down and you and your friend can leave. If you just let me explain—’
‘Oh, so now there’s a gun on you, you’re trying to reason with me? Now I’ve done something you didn’t plan for, I’m suddenly worth your time? He’s right. Get on your knees. You pushed me to this. If you wanted me to be reasonable, you’re weeks too late. I know about your wife. I know about your pain, and I’m sick of the fucking smell of it. Whatever you’re planning on doing with it, I don’t care. The only thing you should be worrying about is begging me to let you walk away.’
Jared was bristling beside her. She was talking too much and she knew she should stop, but she couldn’t.
‘If you do this you will never see your mother—’
‘You can’t do a damn thing to my moth
er. You’re just using us to keep a hold over each other. When, quite clearly, you’ve really got neither of us.’
‘Give me the gun,’ said Jared. ‘This isn’t going anywhere.’
‘You’ll go to prison for this,’ said McKittrick. He was still standing. He’d seen the hesitation in her eyes. She could see him growing in strength, standing straighter, getting his confidence back.
She cocked the hammer of the gun. It was stiffer than she’d imagined, took both hands. In that moment of concentration, McKittrick moved. Hand quick, he reached out and touched something on the wall by the door.
The smell of magic filled her nostrils, there was the crackle of energy in the air and she felt the floor move beneath her like something alive stirring from sleep.
When she looked up, McKittrick was gone.
Heart thudding in her chest, her head filling with screams, she strode forward after him into the room and…
This wasn’t the room. She blinked, turning around. She was in the hallway again by the front door.
She heard Jared cry out from the floor above. She rushed back down the corridor, up the stairs, but the upstairs hall was empty, just the open room, the desk, the papers. No people.
There were sounds downstairs. Someone striding around.
‘Where did you go?’ Jared’s voice.
‘I’m up here,’ she called and winced. She looked over her shoulder, expecting McKittrick to be behind her.
There were more footsteps downstairs and she heard Jared shout ‘Hey!’
But before she could turn back to the stairs, she heard a noise to her right.
The bedroom door was open. The bed was unmade, a suitcase open at the foot, spilling unclean underwear and shirts in all directions.
McKittrick stood with his back to her, scooping things from the top of the dresser and shoving them into his pockets. He was wearing his coat, the hem swishing around his calves as he moved, hurriedly packing.
‘Stop!’ Even she heard the panic rising in her voice. She brought the gun up to bear on the centre of his back, her hands trembling more than ever. The confusion was rattling her, angering her, the situation escaping her control.
Gritting her teeth, she squeezed the trigger. The bang, the buck of the gun in her hands, it was like the world shut off for a second. There was a zinging sensation, something stung her cheek.
Shocked, McKittrick spun around, his hand knocking the bedside lamp to the floor, casting everything into strange relief.
Ears ringing, nerves thrumming, cheek aching, Michaela turned to look at the shattered window beside her. Like her, the bullet had gone through one door and emerged out of another. Another couple of inches and she’d have shot herself in the head. She touched her face and her fingers came away red.
She turned back to McKittrick. The pair of them stared at one another, a relationship re-evaluated as they both began to wrestle with the idea of who they were dealing with. McKittrick suddenly looking at a woman willing to pull the trigger on him, and her at a man who was capable of greater magic than she had thought possible.
Snarling, the man began to stride towards her. It took some effort for her not to give in to her instinct to raise the gun for a second shot. Still, she stepped back as he crossed the threshold and disappeared before her eyes.
There was thudding on the stairs, the walls trembling with the force, and there was Jared looking panicked. He had a knife in his hand, some combat, camouflage-painted thing he must have bought off the internet. ‘There’s no way out. I went out the front door and… What the fuck is going on? Place is a fucking maze all of a sudden.’
‘I know. He’s packing up and leaving. He knows we can’t get him unless…’
‘Did you get him? I heard you shoot.’
‘Does it look like I fucking got him? Just shut up a second.’
She closed her eyes, trying to gather her thoughts. Figure shit out. That’s what her mother would do.
She replayed everything that had happened. McKittrick had reached out, touched the wall, and then everything had gone haywire, doors not leading to the rooms that they had before. He hadn’t made any cantrips, no words or sounds. This wasn’t a spell. Something that lasted this long and was this complex… This was ward work. He’d rigged the house. Made it so he could escape with what he needed if the place was compromised.
So where were the wards?
She looked around, taking in the floorboards, the walls, the ceilings.
‘What?’ asked Jared.
‘There have to be wards,’ she explained. ‘That’s how he’s doing this. He’s made a maze only he knows the way through. But they should be everywhere, he—’ It struck her. The smell of fresh paint when she’d come in. ‘Keep him busy, I have an idea.’
To her relief, Jared didn’t argue or ask questions. He just went straight through a door and disappeared.
Biting her lip, Michaela tried to figure out what she could do. She needed a knife of her own. The wards would be made of something specific. Something the paint wouldn’t be able to mix with. That meant she was looking for some kind of paste, more likely a resin, something that could be painted over. A ward needed to know what shape it was, but also what it was made of. Otherwise, wards wouldn’t work at all, a smear of dirt, enough dust, anything could corrupt its shape. A ward made up of paint could only be changed by the same kind of paint, ink by ink, even toothpaste.
The emotion-work and her research had taught her a lot this past year; working with McKittrick had taught her even more. She knew wards, and knew enough to know that she was good at them. If she could just find the resin, or whatever he’d used, then she might have something to work with. Then, once she got her eyes on these runes…
A ward’s shape was important. Every symbol had to be precise, its position, the order in which the lines were painted, the circle it was placed into, the size, it all mattered.
Like the chalk back at the nightclub, change the symbols in the wrong order or in the wrong way and most likely they would stop working. But there was the slim chance that they would malfunction, react in a way they weren’t supposed to or interact with other nearby wards. But if she interfered with them just right…
‘Hey,’ Jared was back again. Somehow he had ended up in McKittrick’s office. ‘Can’t fucking find him.’
‘No, that’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Don’t leave there yet. Grab whatever you can from his desk. I don’t think he’ll want to leave without his plans. We have to keep him here for as long as possible.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m off to find the kitchen. Just watch your back.’
She stepped through the door of the bedroom. Closing her eyes, she tried to stop her senses from spinning out at the sudden change. She was in the living room. Looking around in case she spotted something useful, she stepped again. Then she was in a bathroom. Downstairs judging from the view out of the small window in the back wall. There were footsteps past the closed door behind her, McKittrick rushing around on his business, navigating the house’s new geometry in a way only he knew how to do.
A step again and she was back in the hallway. There was no time to try to figure this place out. All the doorways, each with two directions from which to enter them. There were too many options. Did the sequence of doors matter? Did her previous door affect where the next would take her? No time to find out. She just had to keep going and hope that luck would deliver her either to McKittrick or the kitchen.
Three more hops landed her in the kitchen. Her head was swimming now. Even with her eyes closed, the shifts were taking their toll, a bit heavier each time. Her mouth was dry and a throb was growing behind her eyes.
‘What are you doing?’ McKittrick was standing behind her, out in the downstairs hallway.
Ignoring him, she began to rifle around under the sink.
She quickly found what she was looking for – a bottle of bleach and a spray bottle. No time to worry about her hands, she did he
r best to pour the bleach cleanly into the other container.
The cold water tap sputtered, the magic messing with the pipes as she diluted the solution, screwing the cap back on. There was an unused sponge by the sink.
McKittrick was gone. Either continuing with his business, or coming for her.
Let him come.
Heading for the kitchen window, she picked up the nearest saucepan, throwing it with all her might. The pane shattered and a quick look confirmed what Jared had told her, the windows were just as inescapable as the doors. There were no glass shards on the overgrown patio outside, no glitter in the dying light. One of the rooms was now littered with it.
Covering her mouth with a dishcloth, she sprayed at the paint around the window and began to scrub.
It didn’t take long. The bleach ate quickly through the fresh paint, the smell stinging at her eyes and nostrils.
‘Hey,’ Jared made her jump. He was in the hallway. ‘The fuck you doing?’
‘I’ve got an idea to get us out of this. What are you doing?’
‘I took his stuff, like you said. He’s pissed. But he’s slow as fuck and thanks to this he can’t even corner me.’
‘OK. That’s good. Buy me time.’
‘What you doing?’
‘I can explain it or do it, not both.’
Jared grinned. Now he was having fun.
‘Just don’t get caught,’ she urged. ‘He’s old but he’s dangerous.’
‘It’ll be fine. Trust me.’ He didn’t wait for her to respond, ducking through the cupboard door.
Back to scrubbing, the watery paint was running down the wall, pooling and dribbling off the counter. She let the chemicals do the work. Too much scrubbing and she’d destroy the ward underneath, and she didn’t want that.
Sure enough, a ward was being revealed, painted in resin. As she worked, wiping and towelling, trying not to think about how her hands were itching, she looked it over. It was the exact kind of work she expected from McKittrick, neat, efficient and genius. She understood the notation, she realised, could read his methods among the symbols, swirls and shapes.
He’d rigged it so it needed as little magic as possible and used the power of the person passing through the door or window rather than that of the ward-maker themselves. Meaning that just by going through the doors, they were fuelling the enchantment. The only way out would be to figure the sequence of doors to leave by or to stay in one room and wait however many hours it took for the wards to run out of power.
Strange Ways Page 27