“Wait,” said the Pawn, taking out her phone. She looked at Odette calculatingly, and her hand closed more firmly on Odette’s wrist. “What is that? What have they done?”
“I don’t know, I swear,” said Odette. “But it doesn’t sound good. We have to try to get away!”
“That’s not our first priority.” She hit an icon on her phone screen. “This is Pawn Clements. There is an explicit manifestation in the city of Westminster.” She paused. “Good. Advise them that there are screams coming from within the cloud.” Another pause. “Well, then, please advise Rook Thomas — and only Rook Thomas — that it is confirmed to be the work of the Antagonists. I witnessed a sleepwalker accompanied by a young male in sunglasses wearing a blue Mus and Gloucester suit proceeding along Oxford Street toward Park Lane a few minutes ago... no, you don’t need to know what that means. They’ll be able to find them on the recordings.” She hung up.
“Okay, great, you’ve done your duty. Now can we run away?” demanded Odette. The cloud was bearing down on them.
“Absolutely,” said Clements. She didn’t say what they both knew — that they couldn’t outrun it and that they would never have been able to even if they’d started running as soon as they saw it. At least it will give us something to do, Felicity thought. The two women turned and joined the stampede fleeing down Oxford Street.
Felicity and Odette were immediately buffeted on all sides. The legendary willingness of the British people to form an orderly queue had, quite understandably, been shattered by the appearance of this nightmare. Images of the Blitz, memories of various terrorist attacks, and the instinctive fear of the inexplicable had all combined to drive the crowd forward like panicked bison. Except they weren’t animals. There were no children or elderly people lying abandoned in ditches. As the mob ran, a man off to the side stumbled and fell, and Odette saw two people pull up and stop to help him, dragging him to his feet. The crowd pushed on, but no one was crushed or trampled.
Possessions had been ditched, shopping bags and satchels dropped. A bicycle lay on the ground, its owner presumably having realized that he could make no headway with it. Felicity leapt over it, and her iron grip on Odette’s wrist meant that she had to leap over it as well.
“Come on! Come on!” Clements said, panting, which Odette thought was rich, after the Pawn had made them wait. “Come on!”
The wall of fog was casting a shadow over them. Odette risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that it was barely meters away. It was dense, like a yellow-green ocean wave, and there were vague silhouettes of people falling as it overtook them. The screaming was closer too, hundreds of voices strong, so it seemed like the cloud itself was shrieking.
“Come on!”
Then the fog washed over them, and the sun was cut away.
Well, this isn’t so bad, thought Felicity, blinking in surprise. It smells of food. I don’t see what — IT HURTS! IT HURTS!
Every student at the Estate was, in year seven, year nine, and the final year, teargassed. It was part of their standard training, preparation for their roles as bureaucrats and defenders of the supernatural peace. During the course of her training to be in an assault team, Felicity had been sprayed with CS gas, chemical mace, capsicum, and PAVA, as well as with extracts of poison oak, poison ivy, poison sumac, and poisson meunière. She’d been doused with the odorous secretions of the skunk, the sachet kitty, and Pawn Hurlstone from tech support. She’d also, incidentally, been Tasered, lasered, phasered, grenazered, and set on fire (whilst in her armor).
So she was no stranger to pain.
This, however, felt different. This was pain of a different texture, a different flavor. It felt as if the fog were seeping into her skin and burning as it went. Her eyes were spikes of fire in her head. Felicity curled into a ball on the street, and the world went away, leaving only the hurt.
“I’m sure it does,” said Odette’s voice from a great distance away. Felicity managed to uncurl herself a little. She squinted up at the Grafter who was bent over her. She hadn’t even realized that she was screaming the words out loud. Then a new surge of pain cut through her, and the world went away again. She was lost, deep in an ocean. All of her barriers were breaking down. Her powers swept out frantically, and she was slapped with the histories of the world around her. Images from the past strobed into her mind.
She saw herself and Odette running, and the fog washing over them.
She saw her legs buckle, sending her flying to the ground, and Odette staggering a few steps after her.
She saw other people collapsing, writhing, their mouths gaping open. She could hear their screams now, distantly.
She saw Odette draw herself up and close her eyes, and when she opened them, they had turned completely black — the irises, the whites, everything replaced with flat black orbs. She seemed to be completely unaffected by the fog. The Grafter stood, surrounded by people curled up on the ground. The expression on her face was unreadable.
Felicity saw a man a few meters away lying flat on his back. As she watched, blood and clear liquid began to leak out of his clenched-shut eyes.
She saw herself, curled up on the ground, pressing her cheek against the concrete, her face covered in a smear of tears and snot. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth, and her jaws were open in a scream.
And then, miraculously, the pain began to ebb away. Not all of it — it was still agony — but she could feel a cool sensation sweeping across her skin, under her skin. It let her focus a little, and the years of discipline and practice kicked in. Felicity reeled her senses back into her body. She closed herself off from the people around her, then the pavement, then her clothes.
And now it’s just the worst pain you’ve ever experienced, she thought. There was no way to stop it, but the Checquy had taught her methods to cope with it, just as they’d taught her how to resist torture. Acknowledge it. Breathe through it. Compartmentalize it. Ignore it. The pain is there, it is happening, but you can put it in the background. Focus on the task at hand.
With an effort, Felicity stopped screaming. Her body was tensed against the burning, but she could think. This must be because of that stuff the graaf injected into me. It’s counteracting the fog a bit. She could not open her eyes — the pain and the swelling wouldn’t let her do that — but there were things she could do.
She sat up, banging her forehead against Odette Leliefeld’s jaw. The Grafter had been kneeling over her, although, judging from the surprised grunt, Felicity’s head had knocked her off her heels and onto her bottom.
“Leliefeld?” she said tightly, putting out her hand in the direction of the surprised grunt.
“Clements — what’s happened? Are you better?” said Odette’s astounded voice.
“I am a little better, although it still hurts like billy-oh. You?”
“I’m fine. It doesn’t appear to be affecting me.”
I noticed, Felicity thought. “What is — your eyes?” she managed to say.
“They’re protective lenses,” explained Odette. “They’re normally slotted away in my skull.”
“For this?”
“No, they’re actually for swimming, but I seem to be using them for poisonous fog more and more lately.”
“Oh... good.”
I wonder... Felicity thought. Did she know this was coming? Is she with the Antagonists?
“What should we do?” asked Odette.
But then why would she still be here?
“Do you have anything that can help me?” asked Felicity hopefully.
“No, I’m sorry. Marcel is the one with all the chemical glands. I could only kill you. Or make you feel worse.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. Can you give me my phone?” said Felicity. She felt Odette scrabbling in her pocket and then it was pressed awkwardly into her hand. She pressed the button and ordered it to call Rook Thomas.
“Pawn Clements? I got your message. Where are you?”
“Oxford Street.”