Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(27)

Jack glanced at Puppeteer one more time, and his pose suggested that he was about to raise his hands. He seemed coiled. Jack frowned. Something was going to happen, and he had to be ready as soon as he flipped back.

He could not put off the future forever.

Lucy-Anne was still staring at him, and her gasp of shock came upon his return.

“Where…”

“I sped up, that's all. Or slowed everything else down.” He frowned. “Not really sure how it works exactly.”

“Let's save that for later,” Jenna said. “Look.” She pointed up at the bridge, where Puppeteer had raised his hands into claws.

“Okay then,” Jack said. He stood at the bow of the boat. “Breezer!” he called back over his shoulder. “Aim for the central span.”

“What're you going to do?” Lucy-Anne asked.

Jack breathed deeply and heard Sparky say, “Magic!” Then he felt the air close all around him as if holding him in a fist, and his right foot left the boat's deck.

Rhali called out in alarm. Jenna and Sparky grabbed a leg each. Jack relaxed his mind, and then reached out with Puppeteer's own power.

He actually felt the tall man's clothing and skin against his palms. He lifted, his strength incredible, and as he brought Puppeteer out over the bridge's edge he felt himself drop to the deck again. The Superior had lost his hold.

“Yeah!” Sparky said.

Jack let go. Puppeteer fell and splashed into the Thames fifty feet ahead of them.

Jack relaxed, biting his lip to see away the brief dizziness that accompanied his use of a powerful talent. Is that the first sign of the sickness? he wondered. But he could not concern himself with that. In the scheme of things it was insignificant.

Puppeteer was splashing in the river's embrace, and Sparky heaved a lifebelt overboard. “Don't pollute the river!” he shouted.

“Jack! On the bridge!” Jenna pointed, and Jack already knew what he was going to see. More Superiors. Shade was there, barely visible between blinks, and the sleek form of Scryer rushing along the pavement. Of Reaper there was no sign.

“What do you want?” Jack shouted at Puppeteer. The man was clasping the lifebelt now, drifting past them in the grip of the river's flow. He stared back at Jack but gave no sign of having heard.

Jack reached out and clasped him, lifted him from the river, higher, higher, and even though he felt Puppeteer pushing back with his power, Jack was much stronger. When he was almost as high as the bridge again Jack let go and he fell, crying out slightly before striking the Thames once more. He disappeared beneath the surface then quickly popped up again, gasping, splashing around as he sought the dropped lifebelt. But he had drifted behind their boat now, and every second put more distance between them.

“What is this?” Jack shouted. Puppeteer turned away and started kicking for shore.

“I'm not happy going under there,” Breezer called from the cabin. They were closing on the bridge supports now, and the shadow Jack had seen underneath was no longer there.

“No choice,” he said. “Get us through as fast as you can.”


“I haven't seen Reaper,” Sparky said.

“No,” Jack said. “But I've got a feeling we'll be seeing him soon.”

Lucy-Anne was kneeling at the boat's bow like some slinky figurehead, and she pointed beneath the bridge. “Look! What the hell is she doing?”

Jack recognised the silhouette and the pose, and his heart sank.

The woman was inhaling and exhaling quickly, so hard that they could hear her breaths from two hundred feet away. And the surface of the slow-moving river was changing. Its texture altered, and it started glimmering even within the shadow cast by the great bridge.

“Better ease up,” Jack called to Breezer.

“Why?”

“’Cos this boat's not built for ice breaking.” As Breezer eased back on the throttle and their momentum carried them against the flow, the woman froze the river beneath the bridge's widest span. The surface became slushy at first, and then quickly grew into harder ridges, grinding against each other as the currents beneath played with the chunks of ice. Some of them parted from the mass and started drifting downriver, and they impacted gently against the boat's bow.

“If you want to talk, why don't you just say?” Jack shouted. The ice woman continued breathing hard, and for a few seconds he thought no one was going to reply.

But then he heard his father's voice. “Where's the fun in that?”

Reaper appeared from beneath the bridge and walked out onto the river. He stepped from one block of ice to another, balancing confidently on the moving mass, and came towards the boat. Shade was with him, seeming to form shadows where none should be.

“Your puppet guy's become a floater,” Sparky said. Reaper did not even respond. He was staring only at Jack, and Jack knew that he had already disregarded everyone else.

The boat nudged against the expanding slew of ice, and the ice woman kept breathing, solidifying the ice floe so that it barely moved beneath the river's drift. Jack could not conceive of the energies required to do that, but he did blink into his own universe and find the star that would give him the power. He shivered, and his next breath condensed in the air before him.

“We don't want you on our boat,” Jack said.