Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(19)

“Your London river tour is about to begin,” he said, pushing the throttle forward. The boat bumped against the pontoon and then moved away.

Those women had something of the water about them, Jack thought. But when he saw them appear along the riverbank at the metal railing, they paused and watched the boat chugging away downriver. He sensed a moment of indecision in them as they seemed ready to give pursuit. But then they leapt into the water and swam in the opposite direction, moving incredibly quickly across the water's slugging surface before diving and disappearing from view.

“Trick?” Jenna asked. Jack wasn't sure. He readied himself, prepared to fight them if he had to. He imagined their slick fingers and tentacles curling around the boat's safety rail, their unnatural faces peering at him, showing him their teeth. But a few moments later he saw them surface and scramble up onto the opposite bank, and they disappeared south of the river without another backward glance.

“Weird,” Jenna said.

“Yeah. Maybe there're easier pickings that way.”

No one replied. None of them wanted to discuss what, or who, those easier pickings might be.

The boat was a small tourist vessel that promised “The most picturesque views of London, bar none.” How one boat could offer any more picturesque views than any other, Jack did not know. But right then he thanked the owners of the City Sleeker for running their business on the Thames. He hoped they'd not been in London when Evolve hit, but disaster had struck at the height of summer, and he knew it unlikely. He didn't want to ask Breezer about where they'd found the Sleeker, nor how many bodies it had contained.

It was about thirty feet long, the front half open, the stern covered with a glass canopy. The cabin was right at the stern, raised a little from the canopy so that the captain could see along the length of the boat. Seating was arranged looking outward, not ahead, with an open area of deck down the centre for those who wished to stand. Life belts were strung beneath seats, and on the covered area's roof was a lifeboat, strapped down and covered in a tarpaulin. No one wished to be reminded of their vulnerability.

Jack and Sparky uncovered the lifeboat and familiarised themselves with its release mechanism. None of them wanted to go into these waters, and with the amount of detritus in the river, the chance of hitting a submerged object was too high for comfort.

Breezer piloted them upstream. The others sat within the glass-enclosed area, still feeling exposed. The engine sounded incredibly loud.

Lucy-Anne was not asleep, but she seemed to be staring into space. Jack held her leg and gently eased her bleeding. The bullet had barely grazed her, but she would still bruise. Then she went back to her silent contemplation. He guessed she had a lot to think through, and when they were safer he'd talk to her.

Safer. It was not a word that meant much right then.

Rhali watched the river banks, casting out her senses, discovering several groups of people moving around the city to the north. There were some to the south as well, and she quickly gathered a picture of movements which she communicated to the others.

“I think some of them are Choppers,” she said. “And some of them are just…normal people. Like you.” She nodded at Breezer.

“Irregulars,” Jenna said.

“Whatever name they wish to use,” Rhali said dismissively. “But some of them—a lot of them—are strange. Changed. Like those women we saw. And they're tortured.”

Jack glanced at Rhali.

“Not like me,” she said. “I mean they're in pain from what they have become. Imagine changing so much. Imagine what such physical changes must feel like?”

“They're going the wrong way to be fleeing the city, even if they know about the bomb,” Jack said. “They're coming south for something else.”

“They do know,” Lucy-Anne said. “And Nomad told me they're not so monstrous. I think she meant that they know exactly what they're doing. They're intelligent.”

“Great,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Sparky said. “Long as what they're doing doesn't involve eating us.”

Lucy-Anne started crying, grasping her friend, burying her face in his jacket. Jack had never seen her so vulnerable. Whatever had happened to her, whatever she had seen, must have been terrible. He wondered what had happened to the boy Rook.

But he feared that finding out would only add to the weight of responsibility he felt. He had no power to counter that, no unknown star in his new universe that could temper the fates being piled on him. Rhali, the poor girl who'd had terrible things done to her, and he'd not even had the time to ask what. Lucy-Anne, his old girlfriend, confused and suffering and with so much to tell. Sparky and Jenna, still with him because they valued their friendship so much. Breezer. Even his father. That bastard Reaper, following him and protecting him, or perhaps merely playing with him now that Miller was no longer such an exciting plaything.

The bomb, London, Nomad, his expanding starscape of wonders, and his potential for contagion.

He wished he could shrug them all off and be on his own, unhindered and free. He closed his eyes but it didn't work. He hadn't chosen all this at all; it had been thrust upon him. Nomad was to blame.

When he opened his eyes Jenna was staring at him, and he thought of reaching out and touching her, as Nomad had touched him. His vision swam red. Red, for danger. What would I give her? he thought, and then his musings were interrupted.