JONAH’S HEAD THRUMMED and the world swayed: someone was doing something to him, and he thought, He’s back.
Jonah wondered whether the Inquisitor had ever left. That first time had been before the plague came through, and perhaps Jonah was back there now, waking from a nightmare of the End of Days and succumbing to whatever had struck him down in his sleep. The dreams had been realistic – a culmination of his secret fears and concerns over what they were doing down in Coldbrook.
But it was not the Inquisitor kneeling above him. Drake was sweating as he manipulated something on Jonah’s chest. Behind him were the casting-field generators, the network of suspended pipes glowing and sparking slightly. How does that work? Jonah thought – and then he remembered Drake and the crossbow.
He drew a deep breath and the pain seared through him.
‘I’m almost done,’ Drake said. He knew that Jonah was awake, but he hadn’t even glanced at his face. ‘Keep still, or you’ll kill us all.’
‘Almost done . . . what?’ Jonah breathed. But Drake ignored him.
Jonah closed his eyes again and tried to remember: the heat and humidity of the generator room; Drake’s insistence that something had to be done, something had to stop the Inquisitors’ crusade.
And then the man’s sad expression as he’d shot him in the chest.
My heart! Jonah thought, and though he still felt the familiar thuds of heartbeats and heard the whisper of blood through his ears, they seemed different. Strained – like a car that had burned off all its oil and was grinding its engine parts.
‘What have you done?’ he said.
‘I’ve made a trade,’ Drake said. He sighed and leaned back from where Jonah lay on the floor. He was looking him in the eye at last.
‘A trade?’ Jonah asked.
‘I’m sorry, Jonah. I’ve taken hope from you and given it to everyone else.’
‘And how have you done that?’
‘Don’t you know yet? Haven’t you worked out the only way?’ Drake was sweating, tense.
‘You’ve turned me into a weapon,’ Jonah said, beginning to understand.
‘I’ve been waiting for someone like you for years, Jonah! A final hope. I believe the Inquisitor will take you back to its own Earth to initiate you into its ways.’
Jonah touched his chest. ‘And when I’m there, I release the plague that you’ve implanted in me.’
‘You’ve seen it flitting in and out, ghostlike. I think what they do is part casting, part breach, but they travel with impunity and without fear of infection. To beat them, we have to get past that. Take the fight to their world.’
‘It won’t know what you’re doing?’
‘It’s not all-seeing, Jonah. Not everywhere all the time,’
‘You don’t know any of this for sure.’
Drake shrugged. ‘Isn’t all science a matter of best guess?’
‘No,’ Jonah said. ‘But . . . that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.’ He tried to sit up, but Drake laid a strong hand on his chest.
‘Not yet,’ Drake said, hesitant. ‘So . . . you’ll go? You’ll help?’
‘Have you left me with any choice?’ Jonah asked. He felt a sickening weight in his stomach, and was surprised to discover it was the fear of death. He’d never thought he would be afraid, not after seeing Wendy die, witnessing her grace and dignity. But now there was so much still undone.
‘No choice.’
‘You’ve made me a prophet of blood and fear.’
‘It’s what our Coldbrook has been about for years. All our tests on Mannan and we’ve never moved one step closer to a cure. But we have tested this controlled plague-delivery system on him, and over the years we’ve perfected it. We’ve watched, and waited, and planned for the arrival of someone like you. Someone courted by an Inquisitor. And, Jonah, you’re doomed anyway. Why not save the multiverse before you die?’