The Power(95)

Allie feels the muscles and nerves trying to resist, but they’re used to her now, and she to them. Dampen down the reaction here, strengthen the one there. It wouldn’t be so easy if Tatiana hadn’t drunk so much and taken a concoction of Allie’s own manufacture, something Roxy had cooked up for her in the labs. It’s not easy now. But it can be done. Allie places her mind in Tatiana’s hand, holding the letter opener.

There’s a smell, suddenly, in the room. A scent like rotten fruit. But the hidden cameras can’t pick up a smell.

In one swift movement, too fast for Mother Eve to do anything about it – how could she have suspected what was about to happen? – Tatiana Moskalev, maddened by the crumbling of her power, slashes at her own throat with the sharp little knife.

Mother Eve jumps back, screaming, shouting for help.

Tatiana Moskalev bleeds out over the papers across her desk, her right hand still twitching as if it were alive.





Darrell



‘They sent me from the office,’ says the lumbering Irina. ‘There is a soldier on one of the paths at the back.’

Shit.

They watch through the closed-circuit TV. The factory’s eight miles down a dirt track from the main road, and the entrance is concealed by hedges and forest. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find it. But there’s a soldier – just one, no sign of a larger party – not far from their perimeter fence. She’s a mile out from the factory proper, all right; she can’t even see it from where she is. But she’s there, walking around the fence, taking photographs on her phone.

The women in the office look at Darrell.

They’re all thinking: what would Roxy do? He can see it on their foreheads like they’ve written it there in marker pen.

Darrell feels the skein in his chest start to throb and twist. He’s been practising with it, after all. There’s a part of Roxy right here and that part knows just what to do. He’s strong. Mightier than the mightiest. He’s not supposed to show any of these girls what he can do – Bernie’s been very clear about that – the cat is not to be let out of the bag. Until he’s ready to be shown off to the highest bidders in London as an example of what they can do … he’s to keep it secret.

The skein whispers to him: She’s only one soldier. Go out there and give her a fright.

Power knows what to do. It has a logic to it.

He says, All of you, watch me. I’m going out.

He talks to the skein as he walks down the long gravel path and opens the gate in the perimeter fence.

He says: Don’t fail me now. I paid good money for you. We can work together on this, you and me.

The skein, obedient now, laid out along Darrell’s collarbone as it had once been in Roxy’s, begins to hum and sizzle. It is a good feeling; that is an aspect of the situation Darrell had suspected but not confirmed until now. Feels a little bit like being drunk, in a good way, in a strong way. Like that feeling you get when you’re drunk that you could take all comers, and in this case you really could.

The skein talks back to him.

It says: I’m ready.

It says: Come on, my son.

It says: Whatever you need, I’ve got it.

Power doesn’t care who uses it. The skein doesn’t rebel against him, doesn’t know that he’s not its rightful mistress. It just says: Yes. Yes, I can. Yes. You’ve got this.

He lets a little arc pass between his finger and his thumb. He’s still not used to that feeling. It buzzes uncomfortably on the surface of the skin, but it feels strong and right inside his chest. He should just let her go, but he can take her, no sweat. That’ll show them.

When he looks back at the factory, the women are crowded around the windows watching him. A few of them are straying out on to the path to keep him in their eye line. They’re muttering to each other behind their hands. One of them makes a long arc between her palms.

They’re sinister fuckers, the way they move together. Roxy’s gone too easy on them all these years, letting them have their weird little ceremonies and use the Glitter in their off hours. They go into the woods together at sunset and don’t come back till dawn, and he can’t fucking say anything, can he, because they turn up bang on time and they get the job done, but something’s going on, he can tell it by the smell of them. They’ve made a little fucking culture here, and he knows they talk about him, and he knows they think he shouldn’t be here.

He crouches low so she won’t see him coming.

Behind Darrell, the tide of women grows.





Roxy says in the morning when she and Tunde are dressed again, ‘I can get you out of the country.’

He had forgotten, really, that there is an ‘out of the country’ to get to. Already this feels more real and more inevitable than anything that has come before.

He pauses halfway through pulling on a sock. He’s left them to dry overnight. They still stink, and their texture is crisp and gravelly.

‘How?’ he says.

She shrugs one shoulder, smiles. ‘I’m Roxy Monke. I know a few people around here. You want to get out?’

Yes, he does. Yes.

He says to her, ‘What about you?’

She says, ‘I’m going to get my thing back. And then I’ll come and find you.’