Contagion

“Can’t you just talk to them?”

“You’ve seen some of what I’ve seen. I think they’re beyond conversation.”

Lucy-Anne had already shared with him what she knew of them from her time in the north. They looked wild, but carried a startling intelligence. They were vicious and brutal, but organised as well, sometimes hunting in packs for some of the scarcest food there was—humans.

Jack had asked what they ate in the north, and it had been Andrew who offered the answer. I only saw it once but…think of farms where humans keep cattle. More than that, you don’t want to know.

And so close to the museum they called a halt again, hiding behind the innocent facade of a restaurant window, watching darkness fall outside and wondering what to do.

“Nomad is still inside?” Jack asked.

“She showed no sign of wishing to be anywhere else,” Andrew replied. He seemed to flicker before Jack, like reality wavering in and out of focus.

“If she can get in, so can I,” Jack said. “Maybe that is the first thing to do. I’ll go inside, look at everything, try and find a way in for Hayden.”

“But how can you get past everything Hayden says they have in there, even with your talents?”

“Nomad did.”

“Nomad’s almost a dream,” Lucy-Anne said.

Jack’s frustration was growing. Blessed or cursed with such powers, still he sat in an Indian restaurant where no one had eaten for two years, curled menus and neat place settings taunting him with the normality that was no more.

“Maybe Reaper had the right idea,” he said quietly. “A distraction. Not for the Choppers, but for these things around the museum. Draw them away so that Hayden can get inside. Work on the traps. See what he can do. He’s the tech guy, after all. Get into the tank and start dismantling the bomb.”

“Me and Sparky,” Jenna said.

“No,” Jack said.

“But—”

“No! You’ll be killed. They’ll catch you easily. No, it has to be me and Fleeter. We’re the distraction, you get Hayden inside, then I’ll meet you back at the museum.”

“You’re taking on an awful lot yourself,” Lucy-Anne said. “Why don’t you let—”

“Where’s Rhali?” Jenna asked.

As he stood from the chair he’d taken and moved to the front window, Jack already knew. No, he tried to say, but his mouth was suddenly dry.

He saw Rhali just as she disappeared around the junction at the end of the street, heading for the museum. She’s going to get herself killed! he thought. But at the same time he realised that whatever happened when they pursued Rhali could be the distraction they needed. And she knew that.

“Fleeter!” Jack said, readying himself to flip and go to Rhali’s aid.

And then all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THREE

For a moment Jack thought something had happened to the sinking sun, shadowing the street outside and concealing everything from view. Then as the creature struck the window and smashed through, he realised what had happened. As they’d been sitting there talking they had been stalked. And now the stalker had closed for the kill.

He squeezed his eyes shut and crossed his arms before his face, yet still he felt the cool kiss of dozens of glass shards across his cheeks and chin, forearms and scalp. He backed quickly away and his legs struck a chair, sending him sprawling. Even before he struck the ground he was kicking back with his feet, trying to distance himself from the window and whatever was coming in, because it was big. It had to be to block out so much light.

Fleeter screamed.

Jack opened his eyes and felt the horrible tickle of shattered glass across his face. He looked at the floor and risked blinking rapidly, and his vision cleared.

Someone shouted. Jack lifted his head and picked up the chair at the same time, but the thing was paying him no attention. Its teeth and claws were concerned only with Fleeter. Its wings were folded around her, claws at their tips curled into her shoulders, and its bat-like face darted down again and again, biting chunks from her arms as she waved them frantically before her face. The creature had long blonde hair, and for what felt like several long seconds Jack became mesmerised by the flowery hair clip hanging from a few thin, filthy strands.

Fleeter’s blood splashed his face.

His eyelids drooped and he delved inward, but Jack was not himself. He still felt a deep, penetrating pain from his face and eye wound that he had healed only so much…saw Rhali disappearing around the street corner and into danger…thought of his mother and Emily and whether he would ever see them again…and when he tried to send a freezing exhalation at the thing to still its sickening, gnashing mouth, his breath condensed before his face and fell to the floor in a fine snow.

Fleeter cried out, a single, desperate scream that chilled Jack to the core. Everything is going wrong! Nothing is simple, nothing is safe, and I should be going after Rhali!

From somewhere in the distance came the angry rattle of heavy gunfire.

Jack flipped, but without success. For a moment the scene around him slowed, but then staggered onwards like a film with frames removed. The bat-thing jarred and jerked, and other movement sent sharp shadows dancing across the restaurant’s tables.

Shivering, feeling hopeless, trying to gather himself to use his powers as they were meant to be used, Jack could only watch as Sparky leapt across tabletops and powered into the bat monster, grasping its hair and pulling its head back, wrapping his legs around its torso and trapping its wings.

“Sparky!” he shouted. But Sparky was grimacing, his spiked hair spattered with Fleeter’s blood from the creature’s mouth as he brought up his knife and slashed it across the monster’s throat.

It screeched and pulled back, launching itself back through the shattered window with strong, long legs. Human legs, Jack thought, and on one ankle he saw what might have been an Ironman tattoo. Sparky went with it, attacking with the knife and trying to get past one waving wing that the thing had worked free. It struck Sparky with it, and the sound of leathery wing against his head was like a palm against a brick wall.

Hayden was hunkered down beneath the window sill, whimpering.

“Help her and stay safe!” Jack shouted at him, pointing at Fleeter. He could see more blood than skin on the girl’s face. But it was his friend who needed him most.

He heard more gunfire, and the sound of a helicopter coming closer.

Taking a deep breath and struggling to settle the turmoil of his talents, Jack leapt out through the window.

As Sparky jumped on the thing and started hacking with his knife, Lucy-Anne heard breaking glass from the kitchen at the rear of the restaurant.

If something gets in behind us…she thought, and Jenna obviously had the same idea. She tapped Lucy-Anne’s arm and led the way back towards the kitchen doors. She glanced back only once, looking past Lucy-Anne at where Sparky fought the thing. Her eyes went wide. Then they were at the swing doors into the kitchen, and Lucy-Anne pushed them open first.

Weaponless, defenceless, she stormed into the kitchen.

The thing stood at the back of the large room, and for a moment she thought it was Shade. Right then she’d have welcomed him with open arms, even though he spooked the hell out of her. At least she mostly knew what he was.