Dropping what he was doing, the man’s fingers began to work as he readied a spell and Michaela ducked back out the door.
‘I just came to talk.’
‘Are you alone?’
‘I’m alone. You killed my friend.’
McKittrick laughed, a nervous, desperate bark. ‘What did you think was going to happen? You broke into my home.’
‘You didn’t have to kill him.’
‘You didn’t give me a choice. You didn’t need to involve him. This was between you and me.’
‘He helped me because he was my friend. Do you remember that? Having friends?’
‘All I remember is a lot of people who turned their back on Melissa when she needed them most. As far as I’m concerned, they were just as guilty as the people who hanged her.’
‘And sending their leader to prison wasn’t enough? You had to kill her too? And now this? Will it ever be enough?’
The man didn’t reply; she could hear his questions fighting to be asked first.
‘I talked to my mum. She’s not doing it. She’s helping Karina. We figured it all out. Karina said she regretted what she did to your wife, that she shouldn’t have left her like that.’
‘A bit late for that, isn’t it,’ snapped McKittrick. ‘You tell that bitch what I’m doing. Then we’ll see if she’s changed.’
‘What you’re doing is wrong. No one deserves what you’re about to do. And Melissa didn’t deserve what was done to her either. No one deserves any of this.’
‘That’s just it, isn’t? No one deserves it. No one’s at fault. But it’ll all change one day, they keep saying. Why? Because they’re making flyers? Another television debate? Another fucking march?’ She could hear McKittrick moving again, the grind of grit under one of the barrels as he moved it towards the pipe. ‘But then there’s trouble, and, oh no, they can’t help us. They have to pick their battles. They stood by and they let my Melissa hang. Worse, they denied her. They denounced her. They rewrote her. Everything she did, they turned into deceit. Well, now they’ll finally know how it feels. You can’t make them see, you can’t make them hear, but this will reach them, it will go right inside them and turn them inside out. They’ll finally understand.’
Michaela had stepped out into the doorway again. McKittrick was struggling under the weight of the barrel, rolling it as best he could to the open hatch.
He noticed her reappearance but didn’t move to stop her, his uninjured arm straining to keep the barrel upright. In his left arm he held her gun, doing his best to keep it pointed in her direction.
The moments the gun barrel swung towards her felt like an electric shock, but she stood her ground.
‘There’ll be riots,’ she pleaded. ‘Suicides. I tried what we made. And I don’t know how you’ve been standing it all this time because it knocked me out. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep.’
‘I didn’t have a choice.’
‘But no one out there will have one. They won’t have your memories of Melissa to cling to. They’ll be grieving and angry and they’ll take it out on one another. People are going to get hurt. And even after it wears off, they won’t know why.’
‘They will. I’ve already written the message. They’ll all see.’
Michaela shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You think you’re going to stop me?’
‘I already have. They’re on their way.’
‘Who?’
‘The police. I’ve told them everything. Might be time for you to get away, but… there definitely isn’t time for you to tip all this in the water. Especially since I would try to stop you.’
McKittrick had frozen, his face paling so much it was almost blue. ‘But you’re complicit. It’s just your word against mine. Everything we’ve done together, there is no evidence that—’
‘I know.’
‘They’ll hang you right beside me.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ She tried to keep the fear from her face. She didn’t want him to see it.
McKittrick burst into tears. He flung the barrel to the side, the lid popping and liquid grief sloshing across the floor, staining the concrete. The stink rose in the room, enough to make a pit open in Michaela’s stomach, the world turning to greys as her other emotions were crushed.
She had to cling to the door frame to steady herself. Concentrating on the feel of the cold stone under her palm, she told herself that what she was feeling was artificial and would pass.
McKittrick threw himself against the wall and slid down it, unaffected by the concentrated emotion pooling around the room. His brain had been swimming in it for years already. The gun sagged in his lap, pointing to the ground.
Despite the grief welling up inside her, it was hard to be moved. ‘You might not understand this, but I’ve lost people too. I’ve lost more than you can imagine. But you don’t get to poison people. You aren’t the hero here. I might have felt sorry for you if we’d met a year ago. But you’re a blackmailer, a murderer and a terrorist. Your grief doesn’t justify what you’ve done.’
‘And I suppose that makes you the hero, does it?’
‘I’m just making my own choices.’
There was the sound of voices coming from the distance. The sound of people shouting instructions, of boots heading their way.
‘Oh god.’ Tears spilled down Michaela’s cheeks. She fell against the door frame and slid down it herself, making sure that she kept her hands where the police could see them.
Popping the pellet into her mouth again, she reached out to her mother. She tried to tell herself that she had saved a lot of lives. But as the police spotted her, it was hard to take solace in that. She had a long journey ahead of her and she could only hope that it didn’t end in a short drop.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The drain on Amanda was getting worse. Fatigue made her dizzy, her limbs were tremoring, her head aching. But all she could do was hold herself straight. There was no room to fall or stumble. She couldn’t leave the circle. All she could do was endure, the battery in a giant machine, watching as Steph made her preparations.
Steph was working quickly, moving from ward to ward, adding runes in paint. There was no easy way to change the glyphs carved into the stone, not without more time. But what she was painting was going to piggyback off them, use the storm wards and Harry’s counter-ritual to create her own effect.
Amanda only wished that she would hurry up and finish.
‘Mum?’ The voice in her head made her jump. ‘It’s me.’
‘Michaela? Yes, I’m here.’
‘I did it. I stopped him.’
‘That’s great. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Mum, I called the police. They’re coming right now. They’re going to take us in.’
The words didn’t register at first, the news coming like a wave of cold spreading from the tip of her head downwards.
‘Mum, I’m not like you. After everything that happened and what I was doing. The people I was getting involved with. All it was doing was making things worse. I was mixing with worse and worse people and they’re all fucking predators. Even if I’d stopped McKittrick some other way, there were people waiting to take advantage of me. And if it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else. I got it for a while. It was exciting. But then I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and… I don’t think I can live like that. I couldn’t live your life.’
‘Are they there? Are the police right there? Because if there’s time to get away, you can still—’
‘I can’t. I told them everything. McKittrick knows everything anyway. And Davey’s after me. One of his men is dead. And a friend of mine, too. It’s over, Mum. At least I saved a lot of people.’ Amanda could hear the false, desperate cheer in her daughter’s voice. The cheer that was only a half-step away from hysteria.
Amanda stared at the water before her, not seeing it. She was too shocked to cry, too overwhelmed for the tears to have room to surfac
e. ‘But what’s going to happen to you? What are you going to say?’
‘The truth, I guess. And then we’ll see. At least no one gets hurt. Because… I could have figured out some other way. I could have got Davey to help me, but then the price he wanted… I would have ended up hurting more people, and helping people who hurt people. Stopping McKittrick, I would still have been like him, know what I’m saying? I didn’t want that. I didn’t think I could live with that. I was happy keeping it all at arm’s length, but now I’m in it and even one night was too much. Too many people got hurt and I was part of the problem. I think I can cut a deal. That’s what you always said, wasn’t it? That the law only works when it suits them. If I give them this and give them Davey, that’ll count for something, right? You know how it works… Are you still there?’
‘I’m still here. Baby, you tell them everything. You tell them about me, you tell them about your dad. You tell them about Davey. Whatever they want. You make a deal with them, you hear me? Don’t worry about anyone else. You come out of this alive. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. You make that deal. They’ll grab it with both hands. Get a lawyer and get a deal.’
‘But if they find out about you…’
‘They already have me. And we can’t only half do this. You do whatever it takes… I’m… well there’s a lot happening here. But if you give them everything it’ll be OK. I’ll be OK. I’m trusting you, you have to trust me, OK? Don’t lie to them. Give them whatever they want. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I should have been there, I should have protected you. But I’m here now. I’m whatever you need me to be.’ She could feel Michaela’s tears running down her cheeks. The connection was so strong and Amanda rubbed at where she could feel them, knowing her daughter could feel it too. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
‘Don’t cry.’
‘I’ll stop when you do.’
She could feel her daughter laugh, not hear it but feel it clear as a bell through the connection.
‘What’s happening with you?’ asked Michaela. ‘You feel… hurt. Is everything OK? Did you win?’
‘I’m going to be OK, don’t you worry.’
There was a long pause. She could see Michaela weighing whether knowing the truth was going to make her feel better or worse.
‘I’m proud of you,’ said Amanda to distract her. ‘I really am.’
‘They’re almost here.’
‘Just stay alive. Just give them everything, you don’t have to worry about me—’ she shouted it, but her daughter was already gone.
‘What was that?’ Steph was watching her, expressionless.
‘My daughter, she…’ Amanda stopped when Steph winced.
‘We don’t have time. They’ll have begun at the prison already. I’ve got the connections here. I’m the antenna. You’re the battery. This ring is now the microphone. They’re going to hear us for a thousand miles. You ready?’
‘Yes. Let’s do it.’
Steph spread out her arms and her fingers, the wooden ones bending in directions they shouldn’t have been able to.
The power began to flow.
Amanda could feel the connections being made. She could feel Steph reaching through the wards, her power tapping into the power of the curse, rising to meet it, greeting it almost. And she could feel her reach out in the other direction, out across the island to the waiting circle of Abras in the basement of the prison. She could feel Karina, could picture her standing in the middle of their circle. The room wouldn’t be big enough to allow them all to join, but there were other ways for them to feed their power in, lines of people joining the circle from the back, like rays on a symbol of a sun.
Together, through Steph, they fed their message up into the clouds of the curse storm, up into the lightning and into the raw magic beneath it.
And Karina spoke. They used the storm as an amplifier. They subverted it, rose up on the back of it, used its raw power to feed their own, and Amanda could feel the words flowing through her.
They were more than words, the same way that sound isn’t sound when it’s halfway through a telephone wire, merely information. As only part of the link of the chain, the conduit of power between the inmates of Coldwater and the storm, Amanda could only sense fleeting rushes of thought and feeling. But out in the world, Karina was being heard – one of the biggest distress calls in history. It would be felt by every Abra in a thousand-mile radius, her message spoken straight into their bones, heard by millions. And she spoke the truth.
Amanda screamed. The power was surging under her skin, power from both directions, flowing through her. It felt like she was shaking apart from the inside out, like she was vibrating so hard that she might just start to melt; every atom of her knocked out of place and tumbling to the ground, eyes, blood, muscle, bone, cartilage and soul all mixing and becoming one with the mud beneath her feet.
Karina told the world. She spoke about was happening in the prison, of Fitzackley’s actions, of the gross injustice of the running of the island and the treatment of the people on it. She spoke of Coldwater as a false promise, of an unjust legal system. She sent out the call for help. Anyone who supported them, who could grant them asylum, who would hear their story, would have the disks as proof of what happened here. The inmates would keep the storm up for as long as they were able, to prevent the government authorities from recapturing them, but would take in any with the capacity to lift them to safety.
There was no telling if anyone was going to respond. This was a broadcast system, not a receiver. The only thing left was hope.
Amanda could feel her strength waning. She had never used so much of it before, had never known she was capable of so much. The feeling of the power surging through her was more incredible and terrifying than she would have guessed. But she could feel herself giving in. Her every muscle felt pulled out and thin, her eyeballs throbbed, there was ringing in her ears. It was only the magic keeping her standing now, her body held rigid by the flow of it. All she wanted was for it to be over so that she could collapse to the ground.
Karina’s speech seemed to go on for an age, but in reality Amanda knew it to be only a few minutes.
Through her darkening vision, she could see Steph ahead of her, working the magic, controlling its course, making sure that the connection endured. She was facing Amanda, but her eyes were closed, concentrating on the ebb and flow of power around her.
The words ceased. Karina had said her piece and the silence only gave Amanda more room in her head to focus on her ailing body. She could feel it giving out, her heart beginning to stutter as her power was exhausted, barely the energy to keep beating. Soon enough, magical atrophy would set in. The spell, still hungry, would look elsewhere for what it needed, sapping her other bodily systems, draining her until she collapsed into entropic dust.
Her part coming to an end, Steph opened her eyes, taking in the world again before her gaze alighted on Amanda. There was shock there and Amanda knew just how close she was from being used up completely.
‘It’s done,’ Amanda said. The words were thick in her mouth. She barely had the energy to say them aloud. But she didn’t need to. The connection of magic between them worked in her favour, getting her meaning across in ways that words couldn’t.
She could see that the girl heard what she said, could see the understanding in the flicker of her eyes. But Steph did nothing. She only stood and watched.
They had found themselves on opposite sides of this equation before. A job between them completed but the power still surging. Steph had been on her knees, barely holding herself together, unable to plead for Amanda to sever the connection before the worst happened. And Amanda had just stood back and watched.
Now here they were, positions reversed, and Steph was going to make the same decision.
Amanda deserved it. She knew she did. She understood the girl’s resentment, understood her anger, her feeling of betrayal. And Michaela had bee
n right. The criminal world didn’t just attract people like her to it, it took people in and changed them. She had helped make Steph the woman she was today. The girl she had met would have never contemplated what she was doing now. What was Amanda but someone who forced people into making terrible choices?
This was it. Finally the end she deserved, the end she had been looking for all this time. Well, she was ready for it, she had done her piece.
Her vision darkened at the edges, sparks eating away at the rain and wind. The ringing in her ears was all that she could hear. Her body was letting go, fading. All she had to do was relax, let the power take her, consume her.
But no.
That little voice inside her spoke up. She had more to do. Michaela still needed her. She had more to give. She was Amanda fucking Coleman and she wanted to live.
She pushed back. Pulling together her last vestiges of strength, she stood tall and looked Steph in the eye, daring the girl to do it.
The stare between them drew out, Amanda struggling for breath, the wood of the bat creaking under Steph’s fingers.
Scowling, the girl severed the connection, cutting the spell in a few quick motions.
Amanda fell to her knees, barely able to move. She saw Steph approach, that awful bat at her side.
Amanda looked the girl in the eye and found nothing but anger.
The tip of the bat touched her chin and she shut her eyes.
‘You don’t have to be like me.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Three weeks later…
The cuffs were unyielding around Michaela’s hands, the insides filled with a heat that made her fingertips itch.
She stood in the centre of the boat, watching out through the window of the pilothouse at the storm ahead. Though she’d lived in London her whole life, she felt like she’d never seen anything so huge. The cloud banks stretched in both directions and far up into the sky, a huge churning wall, traced with lightning that left streaks in her vision.
The deck rocked beneath her. She would have had to fight to keep her balance were it not for the guard either side of her, their gloved hands biting at her arms.
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