“Large latte, extra shot.” Jack tried to sit up, and Jenna grabbed him beneath one arm, Rhali the other. When he was sitting he looked around at them all, saw the toolbox in Hayden's hand, nodded. “Good. Right. Let's go.”
None of them spoke. There was a stiffness and soreness in Jack's right eye. It felt like someone had punched him there and it was swollen, but when he closed his left eye he could still see, though his vision was blurred.
And his head hurt like hell.
“But…” Lucy-Anne said.
“Mate,” Sparky said.
“What?” Jack went to stand, but Jenna pressed her hand gently on his shoulder.
“For a moment we thought you were dead,” she said. “Then it looked like your eye had been gouged out. And Hayden thought you had a fractured skull, and we weren't sure whether you'd even wake up or not. There was so much bleeding. You were shaking, and muttering things. And we just…didn't know.”
“I'm fine,” Jack said. “Bastard of a headache.” He leaned into Rhali and she held him, kissing his forehead. He liked her breath against his face.
“You healed yourself,” Sparky said. “How cool is that?”
“Doesn't feel like it's healed,” Jack said. He lifted a hand to his face and touched his right eye, wincing when he felt the knotted flesh there, the hard scars that would probably remain forever.
“Dude, compared to what it was you're a supermodel,” Jenna said, and they all laughed.
“So you got what you need?” Jack asked, nodding at the toolbox in Hayden's hand.
“Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?” Sparky asked, and Hayden's eyes opened wider.
“Yeah, everything, got it all,” he said.
“Right,” Sparky said. “Heard some gunfire to the north, long way off. Other than that, things are quiet out there.”
“That's what I'm afraid of,” Jenna said. “Quiet things.”
“Nothing close,” Rhali said. “Nothing I can sense, anyway. That doesn't mean there aren't small groups of creatures out there. And the museum…” She closed her eyes again, swaying slightly. “Lots.”
“How many?” Lucy-Anne asked.
Rhali shrugged. “Lots. And lots.”
“Bridges to cross when we get there,” Jack said. His rush of joy at surfacing to find his friends around him was quickly receding, and now the future only promised more pain, and trouble, and violence. And they didn't have very long left.
“What's the time?”
“Almost eight,” Jenna said.
“Four hours.”
Rhali helped him up and he smiled his thanks. He felt sick and weak, but he could not project that. They needed his strength. They needed to feel he still had their backs, and between blinks he saw that universe of talents he still had access to, and the red star of contagion he would never, ever touch.
“So what are we waiting for?” Jack asked.
Outside, the sun was touching the rooftops in the west.
“What if you'd died?” Jenna asked him as they set off for the Imperial War Museum.
“No, Jenna.”
“But if you had. We were desperate back there, Jack. And I was scared. I felt naked, exposed.”
“There's no way I'd ever infect you. I'd never do that to anyone, you least of all.”
“But it's a gift! The things you can do, Jack. The amazing things.”
“I've killed people.” Stating it like that, stark and plain, brought the reality home to Jack once again. Previously it had been a memory that haunted him, but now it was a truth that had been hauled into the fading sunlight and laid bare.
“They were trying to kill us.” But Jenna spoke without conviction.
“I'll explain it when all this is over,” Jack said.
“So we go closer to the museum,” Jenna said. “Those things are there. Lots of them, according to Rhali. Some of them are like the others we met—more monsters than people. They're hungry. They attack us, we fight them off, you use some of your powers to smash them away or burn them or, I dunno, turn them into Muppets. But one gets through and kills you. You're dead, Jack. Deader than Miller with his brains blown out, and deader than Lucy-Anne's ghost brother. What happens then?”
“You do your best.”