After the main roads, Rosemary led them along a lane beside a tall, grand looking building. Several cars had been burnt out here, and they had to climb over the scorched metallic ruins because there was no room between the walls. Jenna slipped on the last car and gasped as raw metal sliced her ankle.
“I'll see to that in a minute,” Rosemary said, and Jack stared at her with amazement once again.
Past the cars, the woman opened a heavy grille gate, which had a chain and padlock placed around it as though locked. When the others filed through after her she replaced the chain, hanging the padlock so that it did not quite click shut.
Jenna groaned, leaning on Sparky for support. Blood dripped from her boot.
“At least he'll have smelled us by now,” Rosemary said, kneeling beside the wounded girl.
“Make him sound like a bloody vampire,” Lucy-Anne said.
“There's no such things as vampires,” Rosemary muttered, and that made them all laugh softly. She looked up, surprised at first, and then smiling along with them. “Fair enough,” she said. “Maybe there are, and I just haven't met them yet. London's full of secrets.”
She rested Jenna's foot against her leg and touched the cut, growing still and silent as her fingers did their work.
A door opened behind them. Something long and dark emerged, aiming their way, and behind it was the most terrified face Jack had ever seen.
“It's me!” Rosemary said, jumping up and holding up both hands, the right one still bloody. “Gordon, it's me.”
The man behind the gun blinked and looked at all of them, one by one. “They're from outside!” he said.
“Yes, of course. I told you I was going.”
“But I never thought you'd come back.” Gordon lowered the gun slightly, and a smile struggled to break his expression. But he still looked frightened. “Come inside, quickly. There's been lots of patrols. I'm sure they know I'm here.”
“If they knew, they'd have come for you by now,” Rosemary said. “It's nice to see you, Gordon.”
He swing the rifle down by his side, and at last the smile looked almost at home. “And you.”
Rosemary went first, and the others followed, with Gordon closing the door behind Jenna and throwing bolts, turning a key and clipping shut two heavy padlocks.
“Nothing like home security,” Sparky said.
“Peace of mind,” the man said. “That's all it gives me.” He was a short, thin man, with closely shaven hair, a small goatee and piercing blue eyes. He looked exhausted, with dark bags under his eyes and heavy jowls. But Jack guessed he always looked like that, and probably had before Doomsday. He wondered what Gordon had been: Stock trader? Doctor? Shop keeper? He almost asked, but decided he didn't really need to know something so buried in the past. Nobody was what they used to be.
Gordon's eyes also looked haunted, as if he already knew why they had come to see him.
They followed him through the kitchens, store rooms, and back-of-house areas of the hotel, eventually coming to the service staircase that took them up twelve flights and six floors. By the end of the climb Sparky and Jenna were panting, and Lucy-Anne grinned at them both.
“You need more exercise!” she said. Emily was filming her, and she gave the camera two thumbs-up. Jack was pleased to see her smile.
“Give me a second,” Gordon muttered, disappearing through a door and leaving them alone on the top landing.
“Where's he gone?” Jenna asked.
“Security measures,” Rosemary said. “He must like you all.” They heard some strange noises from beyond the door—a whirring sound, clicking, and the clinking of dozens of bottles—and then the door opened and Gordon peered around the jamb.
He offered them a weak smile. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
The door opened onto the junction of two long corridors, perpendicular to each other. From the décor, carpet, furniture, and mirrors placed along the corridor, Jack could tell immediately that this had once been a plush hotel.
They followed Gordon along the left hand corridor, passing a complex arrangement of bottles, wires, and metallic stands that he must have just decommissioned. Jack wondered whether it was just a warning system, or something more sinister.