by Nick Cook
I leant forward. ‘Which is?’
That Chloe uses her ability to connect with the rats in the sewers.
Chloe stared at my phone as the blood drained from her face. ‘Why must the plan involve me and a rat?’
Not just one rat, Chloe – you’re thinking far too small in scale. You will need to control hundreds of thousands of them, maybe more, and all at once.
Chloe visibly shuddered. ‘You have to be kidding me, right?’
Ethan swivelled in his seat to face her. ‘No, he’s making perfect sense. The rats are everywhere. If you use them as our scouts, you could cover the whole of London really quickly.’
‘Rat-power rather than manpower in other words,’ Hammond said. ‘I rather like that.’
For a moment I swore Chloe was going to throw up. Instead, her expression shifted through a dozen emotions, until she finally breathed out through her nose.
‘Come on, this has to be worth a go,’ I said gently. ‘Can you try to ignore your fear of rats?’
Chloe opened her mouth, her face tight. I held her gaze.
She closed her mouth again and hung her head. ‘OK, I’ll try, but I’m not sure that I can merge with more than one creature at a time,’ she said.
‘Good girl,’ Ethan said.
Chloe threw him a look that could kill. ‘I am so not a girl.’
Ethan grinned. ‘Yes, that’s true, since you are about to become a rat.’
Chloe unsuccessfully tried to kick him under the table.
‘There’s one small flaw in this otherwise brilliant plan,’ Gem said. ‘I can’t see any rats around here for Chloe to connect with.’
Ethan sat back. ‘Oh, now I’ve got an idea for that particular challenge.’
‘What exactly?’ Chloe asked with slitted eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chloe sat, eyes unfocused, staring into the middle distance. Domino was curled up at her feet. We all watched her in silence, trying not to distract her. The only sound was the ticking of the ornate carriage clock on the mantelpiece.
Then Domino sat bolt upright, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. He padded to the door and General Hammond nodded to Williams, who followed the dog out of the room. Moments later, we heard the front door opening.
Chloe began to twitch as Williams walked back into the room.
‘How are you doing, Chloe? I whispered.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m seeing through Domino’s eyes. I’m in an alley now. There are bins everywhere.’
‘I know I’ve witnessed this before, but it doesn’t stop it being extraordinary,’ General Hammond whispered.
Chloe added, ‘I can smell a rat close by… It’s hiding just behind the bins…’
‘You mean Domino can smell it?’ Ethan said.
‘Sorry – it’s hard to know where Domino begins and I end at the moment. I’m moving towards it…I can see its eyes shining in the darkness. Oh my god, it’s huge!’
‘Come on, Chloe, you can do this,’ Gem said.
‘I know I can. It doesn’t mean I want to. I’ll be rummaging through the bins eating scraps next.’
Williams gave Chloe an ashen look.
‘OK, I’m reaching out from Domino’s mind and into the rat’s. Gently does it… No, that was an epic fail! It’s so different to anything I’ve tried to communicate with before. The rat seems a lot more suspicious.’
‘That’s not really surprising when everyone is trying to kill them,’ Ethan said.
‘I guess,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, I’m trying again, slowly, slowly… Nothing to worry about, my ratty friend…’
I mentally held my breath as everyone visibly tensed.
‘I’m in!’ A long pause. ‘OK, this isn’t what I expected at all. This rat is actually quite…well, not nice exactly, but not horrible either. In many ways, it’s not unlike Domino or Midnight in terms of having an instinctive view of the world.’
Ethan fist-bumped me. ‘I guess that’s one way to get over your rat phobia.’
‘I can still hear you, you know. If you don’t mind, I’m trying to concentrate here.’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Sorry.’
‘There are other rats around too,’ Chloe said. ‘This rat can sense them all. Oh, bless, it’s his family. Now for the bigger challenge.’
We all waited. This was the key moment. If she could pull it off…
Chloe spoke again, her tone strained. ‘God, this is so hard. As soon as I try to reach out, I begin to lose control of the first rat.’
‘Try to relax as much as you can,’ Gem said. ‘That’s what I did when I healed Domino, although it was the hardest thing I’d ever tried, like balancing on the head of a needle.’
‘Yes, that!’ Chloe replied.
She took another breath, slower now, the skin relaxing around her eyes. Then one by one, pearls of sweat appeared on her forehead and her breath caught.
My heart stuttered. I could almost taste the combined tension in the room.
Chloe let a bit of breath out. ‘Hell, that was hard, but I’ve done it. This is utterly amazing. It’s as if I’ve got eight sets of eyes and can see everywhere at once, although it’s also very confusing. What seems to be important is not to fight it and just go with the flow.’
I leant forward in my chair. ‘But are you still controlling all of them?’
‘Give me a sec – I’m going to try sending them down into the sewers…’ Another long pause.
My fingernails dug red crescents into my palms. When Chloe whooped, I nearly wet myself.
‘Yes! This is beyond mind-blowing,’ she said. ‘My control over them is holding, even as I’m running into other rats and linking into them too. Breathe, Chloe, breathe… Holy shit – it’s like sitting inside the biggest CCTV control room where you can dive into any view you want. I’m on the streets, I’m in the sewers, I’m even in people’s houses, and all at the same time.’
My phone buzzed. If Chloe can maintain this, she’ll be able to spread out rapidly across the whole of London, Sentinel messaged.
General Hammond gestured towards Williams. ‘Can you make everyone some strong coffee, please? I have a feeling this is going to take a while.’
The clock’s hands crawled towards the small hours. While Chloe had been trying to extend across London, she’d become more and more soaked in sweat, but she’d made real progress. We’d already ruled out at least a third of the city. Meanwhile, a procession of people had turned up at Hammond’s house, all of whom he’d briefed individually. They had been dispatched to do whatever they could to help track down the DEC machine.
Now I felt we were really doing something at last, although that did nothing to deal with my other two lingering fears: one, whether we would be in time to stop the new portal before it went critical; and two, whether Dad and Claire would manage to get Waverider fixed so we could collapse the portal when we did eventually find it.
‘Chloe, do you need a break?’ I asked. ‘You must be exhausted by now.’
‘I’ve got to keep going, Jake. I can’t stop. I might find them at any moment.’
‘Yes, of course…’
I glanced across at Ethan who’d fallen asleep in his chair. Domino, now released from Chloe’s mind control, lay curled up, dozing at Ethan’s feet. Hammond was briefing the latest group of people in the hallway about what could be done to evacuate London if we failed. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that if we did fail there wouldn’t be anywhere to evacuate people to safely. According to Sentinel’s computer modelling, the Shade would spread like a plague to swamp our entire world within a year.
Gem stood gazing through a gap in the curtains at the swirling fog. I walked over to her.
‘How are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Just trying to emotionally process everything that’s happened.’
‘It’s a lot to take on board in a short space of time.’
She turned to me. ‘Does it ever get any easier, Jake?’
‘Realising that you’re a genetically engineered psychic soldier dropped into a war fighting creatures from beyond space and time? No, that’s a big ask for anyone.’
Gem didn’t give me even a hint of a smile. ‘I didn’t actually mean that,’ she said.
‘What then?’
‘I mean losing the people closest to you – the ones who get caught in the crossfire.’
I blinked hard. For Gem the loss of her parents was still raw – just like Allan, and even Clarke, was for me.
‘No, it doesn’t. But that space inside you eventually becomes part of who you are. Trust me, it gets easier to keep living.’
She gave me a wary look. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Gem, you’ve effectively asked us to kill you on two occasions.’
‘You know why? Because of what was at stake.’
‘Is that really the only reason?’
She closed her eyes and didn’t answer. It seemed to be her usual tactic to avoid tricky questions.
But I wasn’t going to be put off that easily. I squared up to her, taking her by the shoulders. ‘You need to keep fighting for every breath in this life, Gem. And I’m not talking about for reasons of revenge. You’re an Awoken now, and part of something bigger than yourself.’
‘In other words, join the cause in the name of the greater good?’
‘Why not? And we all saw a glimpse of your true gift tonight with what you did to save Domino.’
Her dark eyes peered into mine. ‘So you think my road to redemption is paved with healing animals? Maybe I should have been a vet. My mum suggested it once.’
‘You know you can probably heal people too, right? Who knows how many lives you could save – how many you could pull back from being snuffed out of existence.’
‘A healer…’ A tiny smile curled at the corner of her mouth. ‘That’s certainly a career that Mum would approve of. Dad too.’
‘That’s parents for you. The most important thing is that you need to stop being so hard on yourself.’
‘You sound like you’re talking from personal experience?’
I dropped my arms and gazed at the ground. ‘I am.’ I looked up into her eyes again. ‘We’re all here for you… I’m here for you.’
Her fingers brushed my hand before she drew them away again, but she was nodding when I looked up.
‘Yes. Just as importantly, where is the loo in this place? All that coffee has gone right through me,’ she said.
I grinned at her. ‘There’s one upstairs on the first landing.’
‘Thanks.’ Her gaze lingered on mine for a moment. She disappeared out of the door just as Hammond entered and crossed to his desk.
A bell chimed four times from the carriage clock.
A moan escaped from Chloe’s lips.
I returned to her side. ‘Don’t push yourself too hard.’
‘I’m utterly shattered if you want the truth…’ Chloe paused. ‘Hang on – I’m sensing something through one of the rats… Yes, there’s something not quite right here – a patch of fog that she seems really afraid of.’
Hammond glanced at her. ‘Where are you exactly?’
‘I just need to concentrate on this single rat for a moment to work that out… Right, I’m looking through her eyes. There is a massive building in front of me…’ She gasped. ‘It’s St Paul’s Cathedral.’
‘That’s right next to where I was bloody well nearly captured,’ I said.
‘It all fits,’ Hammond said. ‘St Paul’s has been closed to the public for the last month because the dome needed urgent renovations to its cracked structural masonry. There were a lot of people very angry about the lack of notice when they had to close their businesses in the immediate vicinity, because of the risk of collapse.’
‘Sounds like a perfect cover story to me,’ I replied.
He nodded. ‘Doesn’t it just.’
We heard a muffled thump from the ceiling.
‘That will be Gem up there,’ I said, following Hammond’s gaze. ‘She probably got lost trying to find the loo.’
Domino snarled at the ceiling as Williams entered with yet another pot of fresh coffee.
Hammond looked at the dog and then frowned. He gestured to his assistant. ‘Can you check Gem is OK up there?’
‘At once, sir.’
Ethan yawned and stretched his arms upwards. ‘Have I missed anything?’
‘Only that we may have just found the Shade’s centre of operations.’
He swung his legs off the sofa, his expression sharpening.
Chloe’s eyes opened and she gazed blankly left and right. ‘Something’s not quite right here. I can feel static washing over the rat’s fur.’
‘Do you think this could be linked to them setting up a new DEC in the cathedral?’ Ethan asked.
My phone’s screen lit up. You could be right, Ethan, Sentinel messaged. Strategically, St Paul’s is right in the middle of London. If the Shade opened up their new portal in that location, the initial effects would be catastrophic. Considering the sheer density of population in that area, millions would die instantly.
I ground my palm into my forehead. ‘I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I think to look around there first?’
‘I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much, Jake. Things often only become obvious with the gift of hindsight, but what’s important is that we’ve got a real lead now,’ Hammond said. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Can you move any closer, Chloe? Maybe get inside with the rat under your control?’
‘The rat is terrified. I’m trying, but I’m having a hard time trying to persuade her…’ She gritted her teeth together before her face relaxed again. ‘OK…that was a bit of a mental struggle, but she’s moving towards it again.’
‘And what if she gets spotted?’ Hammond asked.
‘Then they’ll see a rat,’ Ethan said with a thin smile.
‘We’ve made it to the steps,’ Chloe said. ‘There’s scaffolding everywhere and a large sign saying the cathedral is closed.’
‘No doubt all part of the Shade’s efforts to deceive everyone,’ Hammond said.
‘OK, I’m climbing the steps to try to get inside,’ Chloe continued. ‘The fog is thicker than ever – it’s almost choking this poor rat.’
‘Keep going, Chloe. You’ve almost made it,’ I said.
Chloe glanced back over her shoulder and stiffened. ‘A black Jag has just pulled up. Mathews is getting out and… What the hell?!’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘He’s got Gem! Two guards are dragging her from the car.’
The door burst open and Williams rushed back in. ‘Miss Gemma has gone, sir. A bedroom window was open and there are claw marks all over the windowsill.’
I put my hands on top of my head. ‘Holy shit!’
Chloe’s face tensed. ‘Gem’s fighting them every step of the way… No! Mathews just whispered in her ear – it looks as if she’s been hypnotised again and I can’t exactly whisper the password in her ear to break her trance again.’
‘We’ve got to get after her,’ I said.
General Hammond grabbed his pistol from the desk. ‘Williams, can you get that horse and carriage back here?’
‘At once.’ He rushed out.
‘I’m going to see where they take her,’ Chloe said. ‘Mathews is walking up the steps with her. But my rat is really shivering now – the air is getting really cold.’
‘This has to be the location of the DEC,’ I said. ‘Are you sure Mathews hasn’t noticed your rat?’
There was a pause. ‘No, we’re in the clear. He’s walked straight past me – I mean us – and he’s going in… I’m following him before the door closes…’
Chloe’s breathing accelerated before slowing again.
‘Right, we’re inside!’ she said. ‘Mathews didn’t see a thing. Now we’re following him into the cathedral and… Oh shit!’
‘What is it?’ Hammond asked as he emptied a bo
x of bullets into his pocket.
‘There are thousands and thousands of shadow crows in here, and hundreds of wolves too. I can’t see Gavin anywhere, though.’
‘What about Archios?’ I asked. ‘He must be around somewhere.’
‘No, not a sign of the shadow man.’
That’s strange, Sentinel texted. I would have thought he would have wanted to be there for such a critical moment.
‘Me too,’ I replied.
‘Well, wherever he is, Mathews has just walked Gem through them and into the middle of the cathedral. I can’t see them any more. I’m going to go higher to see what’s going on above all those bloody wolves.’
My pulse thumped in my ears as there was another longer pause.
‘Right, I’m climbing a staircase up to somewhere that’s signposted the Whispering Gallery. Oh my god, the smell… It makes the sewers smell like a perfume counter— Oh fuck!’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I’ve reached the gallery, but there’s a wolf up here and he’s seen us – the rat, I mean. Now we’re running… We can’t escape… We’re cornered…’
A message flashed up on my phone’s screen from Sentinel. Chloe needs to break contact immediately – before her consciousness is trapped again!
I shook her. ‘Chloe, let go of the rat. You can’t help her. We’re heading over there right now.’
‘Oh my god, the wolf’s eyes! Its mouth is full of shadows, and it’s getting closer…’ Chloe whispered.
‘Chloe!’ I shouted.
Her sharp scream bounced around the room as her face twisted into an expression of pure fear.
I shook her harder. ‘Chloe, wake up!’ I could feel her tingling with static under my hands.
With a crackle of light, the room started to dissolve. What the hell was happening? I locked my arms tighter round Chloe as the drawing room and the others vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Foul, icy air stung my nose. I slowly opened my eyes to see ice glittering over every surface. Huge icicles hung from a painted dome ceiling above me. I felt a hand locked round mine as I sat up – Chloe’s fingers still clenched about my wrist, even though she lay motionless on the floor next to me.