Coldbrook

The first person around the corner was Drake. He paused, took in the situation, then ran on. Moira came behind him, then several more Gaians. They were armed, sweating, grim-faced, and Holly thought they had been in a fight.

She did not lower the gun.

‘Take one more fucking step,’ she said, voice husky with threat.

Drake raised his crossbow and fired in one fluid movement. From behind him three more bolts blurred along the corridor.

Holly did not even have time to close her eyes before the projectiles struck home.

The fury staggered three more steps through the doorway, bolts protruding from her throat and face. Her mouth worked, and a high keening emerged, something like the strange hooting Holly had heard before. The woman who had been Sam — Coldbrook’s accountant, who had famously arrived at their last Halloween bash dressed as Carrie, complete with a drenching of fake blood — fell close enough for Holly to touch.

‘Any more?’ Drake asked.

Holly sat back against the wall and looked at him from under drooping eyelids. ‘Ask Moira,’ she said. And then they came close and she blacked out, allowing unconsciousness to claim her now that, perhaps, she was safe.

When Holly came to, Drake’s wife Paloma was kneeling beside her, tending her wound, frowning in concentration.

Holly hissed in pain and Paloma glanced up, obviously surprised that she was conscious.

‘Sorry,’ the tall woman said.

‘Right.’ Holly looked down at the gun in her hand. The phone between her knees had stopped ringing. She wondered if she was dreaming this, living a moment that never was as she sank deeper towards death.

‘Do I need to take your weapon?’ Drake asked. He was standing beyond Holly’s feet, between her and the huddled shapes of two dead furies.

‘Yeah. Probably. Fucker.’

Paloma grunted, something noncommittal and impatient.

‘I have to. . apologise,’ Drake said. He squatted in front of her, coming down to her level. ‘Moira was meant to tie you up, that’s all. When she came back to me she was mortified that-’

‘That she thought she’d killed me?’

‘Moira is in awe of you. And a little scared of you.’ Drake shrugged. ‘We all are.’

His wife unfolded a paper sachet and spread something on the knife wound, and Holly screeched at the sudden shattering pain. Paloma held her hand and squeezed softly, and then the pain faded as quickly as it had arrived.

‘It’ll settle soon,’ Paloma said. ‘The wound isn’t too deep, and I don’t think it’s damaged anything important.’

‘Other than me,’ Holly said.

Paloma’s smile was lopsided. ‘You know what I mean.’

Holly nodded her thanks and the woman stood, backed away, gave Drake room to move in closer. A couple more of his people stood further along the corridor, their backs turned. Holly could no longer see Moira.

‘Well, I suppose I should blow your head off first,’ Holly said. ‘You’re their boss, after all. What have you done to Jonah?’

Drake blinked uncomfortably but did not reply.

‘Is he dead?’ Holly asked.

‘No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know yet. But it doesn’t matter, he’s-’

‘Doesn’t matter?’

‘He’s lost to us, Holly. And he’s a brave man.’ Then Drake told her where Jonah had gone, and why.

‘This world is his priority!’ Holly said, stunned. But even as she spoke she wondered at the truth of that. Since his wife’s death Jonah had spent his life striving to reach the multiverse, beyond this world. His priorities went farther.

‘He’s a complex man,’ Drake said, and in his voice she heard him saying, As am I. ‘By doing what he can to stop those bastards — something I’ve craved my whole life — Jonah might save everything.’

‘Or he might destroy the last place that’s protected from this plague,’ Holly said.

Drake inclined his head. ‘Perhaps. But they’re the last world worth saving.’

‘You can arbitrarily decide that?’

‘Yes, I can.’

Holly shook her head.

‘Holly,’ Drake said. ‘Jonah demanded that I come back. His parting wish — his demand — was that I should help you and your friends in your vain search for a vaccine.’

‘You think it’s in vain.’

‘You’ve seen Mannan. We’ve discovered nothing.’

‘But you’re not us.’ Holly went to stand, and Drake and Paloma tried to help her. She waved them away. Tucking the gun in her belt and grabbing the phone, she pushed herself up the wall, fighting weakness more than pain. She’d lost blood. But she still had her determination.

She looked down at herself. Bloodied trousers, bra on display, dress tied around her waist. ‘While I’m doing this, maybe you can find me some clothes,’ she said to Paloma. Then she headed into the common room, and Drake followed.

Moira was there, examining coffee machines and juice dispensers on the counter. The short woman glanced her way, but Holly did not acknowledge her presence.

In the garage there were two bodies lying beside the Hummer, and its windows were smashed. Jonah had fought to block the doorway when the plague had already spread, and it was with that realisation that Holly felt the first stab of sorrow. I’ll never see him again, she thought, and she remembered him laughing, talking about things she barely understood and drinking his precious whisky. A complex man, Drake had called him. He didn’t know the half of it.

The keys were still in the vehicle. Holly drove it ten feet from the doorway, wondering whether she was changing anything. Perhaps the fates of whole universes hung on what she was doing right then. Or perhaps nothing mattered at all.

‘That’ll need guarding,’ she said, pointing at the door as she walked back towards the common room. Drake nodded.

Moira was standing by one of the easy chairs where Holly had once sat and talked with her friends and colleagues. She had the look of a cowed dog seeking attention.

Pausing before her, Holly said, ‘Right, then.’

From the garage, soft hooting.

And then came the screams.

8

All the time Jonah ran, he expected the Inquisitor to appear in front of him and trip him, stun him, carve him up and implant those grotesqueries that would make him one of its own. But he was starting to think that he was precious to the Inquisitor. He was his world’s chosen one — his reality’s human who would become one of their wretched missionaries — and so perhaps he now held the highest card. He had to submit to his fate in order for the Inquisitor to operate. . because the being had no wish to harm him.

It would have been funny if it were not so perverse.

So he slowed to a walk, always conscious of the gentle tug drawing him forward, the stronger force pushing him from behind. If he veered aside from the invisible path the sensation would tell him, and he could easily correct his course. He had always been one to take his own route through life, but things were different now. He felt the spike of the alien object nestled against his heart, and the warm flexible globule in his pocket. In many ways he no