Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(59)

With one last smile, Lucy-Anne turned her back on her dead brother and led the way.

Jack felt sad at Fleeter's death. He hadn't grown to actually like her, but she'd been interesting, and in her own selfish way she'd helped them more than once. He thought that deep down past the surface arrogance there had still been a little lost girl. He wished he'd asked her name.

They'd left her covered with a jacket, just another corpse in the mausoleum of London.

He was also mourning his lost father, a period of renewed grief that had lasted for two years. And he felt terrible about leaving his dear friends. But thinking too much about them might undo him, and jeopardise everything he was trying to do. He had a plan and he was determined to see it through, because if he did not then it would have all been for nothing. The pain, the suffering and death. He could not let that happen.

He would not.

So he did his best to leave that Jack of grief and sadness behind, and the one who approached the museum was a new, simpler Jack. A young man with a mission, shorn of thoughts that might distract. He had become a memory with a purpose.

The scenario awaiting them was strange and troubling, but he tried not to waste too much time to wonder. The things surrounding the museum—frozen in the moment where they sat, lay, ran, flew, crawled—were amazing and terrifying. Jack walked quickly past them. The air was heavy and still, but sometimes he still caught a whiff of animal scents, unnatural and unknown.

“Hurry,” he said. Nomad had been falling behind, and he'd not wanted to risk a look back. He feared that acknowledging her slowness would give her the excuse to stop, and they had so much further to go.

“I…” Nomad said. “I think…coming from here, to help Lucy-Anne…I dug deep, used everything.”

Jack had to stop then, and he turned to confront Nomad. He was shocked at the change that had come over her. Still ethereal and mysterious, she was tainted now with smears of blood from her nose and the corners of her eyes. She looked lessened. The blood made her seem more human. “You're Nomad. You're the First Vector, Angelina Walker, the cause of all this!”

Nomad nodded without any sign of regret. “Yes. But I am…weaker.”

“Not now!” Jack said. “Come on. Come on, just a few more minutes, get me into—”

“You go,” she said. Her eyes changed then, seeming to glaze over with something darker. She staggered forwards, reaching for the museum's perimeter fence, but Jack caught her before she fell. “You go on. I can't stay like this. The illness…is in me as well. It has been for some time, but I've been denying it. Too late, Jack. But you're strong enough.”

“No!” Jack said. “I need your help. I'm not as strong as you think.” But he lied. Desperate, anxious to get inside, still he needed Nomad with him. But not only for her help. He needed her because he could not let her escape London. Not with what she had inside, that potential for contagion. He was ready to remain here to keep his own infection contained, so he could never let her go.

He checked the time, and wondered how accurate the timer on the bomb might be.

Without warning Nomad flipped back, and Jack had to follow. The world came to life around them. Movement, sound, smells, much of it unnatural and strange. Jack grabbed Nomad's arm and ran.

Through the gates into the museum grounds, and something came at them from the left. Jack raised a hand to halt it, but the shape skidded to a stop and backed off. Other creatures moved aside. Perhaps these amazing, wretched things were scared of Nomad. Maybe they perceived some kind of hope in their sudden arrival.

Or perhaps it was simply that they had already eaten.

Nomad ran with him, grunting at every footfall. She was more human than he had ever known her.

“The doors?” Jack asked.

“Safe,” she said. “The traps begin inside.”

Jack knew it was a terrible risk, but he used Reaper's power to grunt the doors open. They fell back, hinges twisted and lock shattered, and he and Nomad ran inside. He had no wish to give those creatures time to rethink, so he skidded on the marble floor, turned, and breathed a gush of white flame at the opened doors. Glass cracked and shattered in the inner vestibule walls, and the flames lit the area as bright as daytime.

Jack shoved forward with both hands, feeling his power surge through the air and catch the doors, slamming them against the darkness of London. He kept them closed and melted their hinges, twisting the lock back into place and melting it into one piece. It might not withstand a sustained assault. But it would have to do.

“Show me,” he said to Nomad. She was staring at him with those glazed eyes, and he saw the respect and wonder. But he could not pander to that. “Show me!”

“This way,” she said. He followed her into the main hall where machines of war stood on pristine plinths or hung from the ceiling. She held up a hand and they came to a halt. She pointed. In the darkness Jack saw the fine tendrils of lasers crisscrossing the large space, and the glimmer of trip wires. Then she touched his arm and pointed at the hulking shadow of a tank at the other end of the hall.

There, she said in his mind.

Jack could see that she was getting worse. That did not concern him now. It would help when the time came.

“We don't need to get too close,” he said.

She was looking at him wide-eyed. “I've brought you as far as I can,” she whispered. “I can't stay here, Jack. I know you must, and I won't change that. But what I have is too precious and it has to be preserved.”