Jon stood in the shadows, watching the activity around the Institute, and specifically around the Archives. He knew he had to take care not to be seen...or worse, scented. Daisy still belonged to the Hunt, and she’d known him for a monster when they’d first met; no way would she not know him for one now, when his powers were so much stronger, his connection to the Eye so much more than it had been. If he was being honest, she still terrified him, and he wasn’t sure he could take her on, even now. She was out here...somewhere. He was sure of it, and it wouldn’t take any effort for him to Know exactly where she was and what she was thinking. Basira, too.
But he didn’t. For one thing, he’d promised Basira to stay out of her mind more than necessary, and even if that was a promise he’d made in the future, he was going to do her the courtesy of sticking to it. For another, he didn’t want to risk alerting anybody to his presence more than he had to. Instead, he balled the cuffs of the sweater into his fists and watched.
He was too late.
Even having managed to get a ride from two men in a removal van who’d cut his travel time essentially in half, and who thankfully hadn’t had any statements to tempt him—although he rather suspected their dog might have, had he only been able to understand it—it had still taken him a full five days to get to London, and another four hours to walk from where they had dropped him off to the Institute. And he’d arrived to find...this.
It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to figure out what had happened. The police were everywhere; the ambulance crew had just finished packing everything back up; and if that wasn’t an ECDC truck over there, Jon was prepared to obtain a hat for the sole purpose of eating it. Jane Prentiss had attacked the Institute and this was the aftermath. He’d been too late to stop anything.
On the other hand—Jon took a deep breath. There had logically been no way to prevent this from happening. She’d followed Martin home hoping to get an easy way into the Archives—if she had infested an Archival Assistant, a thought too horrible for Jon to contemplate even after everything else he’d seen, she would have been inside and able to attack the Archives, attack Jon, with relative ease—but she’d always known where the Institute was, and attacking it had probably always been her plan. Still, he had hoped to get there early enough that, together with Martin, he could go into the tunnels and spray down Jane Prentiss and her worms with no one being any the wiser, then regroup, use the tunnels as a base of operations, possibly punch Jurgen Leitner in the face, and bring the Archival team on board.
Instead, the amount of chaos stretching around them indicated that Jane Prentiss had attacked after all, that Gertrude Robinson’s body had been found, and that Jonah’s plan was well in progress. Sasha had been taken by the Stranger. Tim was going to slip farther and farther into his own well of anger. Jon’s past counterpart would slowly edge deeper and deeper into paranoia and it would be harder and harder for them to convince him of the truth. And Martin...
Hang on, though. Something wasn’t right.
Jon closed his eyes for a moment and tried to remember, tried to filter out all the undeniable chaos and stress that had built up over the last few years and really think about the day of the attack, to sort through what had actually happened and what had blown itself up in his memory. The attack had been early in the day—Tim had been on his lunch break, Martin and Sasha doing their own work, Jon recording Andre Ramao’s statement, their first real brush with Salesa. Elias—it was safer to think of him that way with regards to the incident—had been happily engaged in his budgets. A Tuesday, a bright one. By the time Jon had bullied everyone into making their statements, it was tending towards dark...but more than that, most of the activity had died down. The police had come back the next day for the body, but except for a lone officer guarding the premises, everything was clear.
Which meant...
Jon felt a faint flicker of hope spring up in his chest. It was late; he didn’t have his phone anymore, and he’d never worn a wristwatch, so he didn’t know exactly what time it was, but he could guess. Or, with a little bit of effort, he could Know. He decided to do that, to reach out to the nearest mind, just for a second. He knew better than to do it for too long, though.
He found the ECDC woman grousing, tired, wishing to go home. It had been a long day, and her boss wasn’t going to be happy about paying this much in overtime, although since it was both an after-hours call and had gone on so long, he’d be charging the Magnus Institute extra. It was, after all, nearly midnight and—
Jon withdrew from her mind the moment he had the time. Midnight. An after-hours call. Things had changed, which probably meant that Martin, his Martin, had triggered things somehow. Not optimal, Jon would grant you, they’d hoped to do things quietly, but...
He suddenly froze as his mind caught up with where his thoughts had been trending. Martin. Martin had to have made it to the Institute, to the Archives, but he wasn’t anywhere Jon could see him. Which meant, best-case scenario, he was still in the tunnels beneath the Institute, hiding from the Eye and anyone else who might be after him, waiting for Jon. Worst-case scenario...
Desperately, Jon reached out, but he knew it was hopeless. Even after the end of the world, even when he’d been arguably one of the two most powerful beings in the universe, he hadn’t been able to see into the tunnels, so if Martin was down there, Jon wouldn’t be able to reach him, even if he wasn’t protected from the Eye somehow. And if he wasn’t down there...
No. No. Jon had to believe Martin was all right. They couldn’t have come all this way only to be separated for good.
The problem was that, while Jon had absolute faith in Martin, he didn’t have much faith in the rest of the universe.
For a minute, he was tempted to find a way into the tunnels—one of the outside entrances Tim had always used—but one look around told him that was no good. The police were still everywhere. He didn’t know if they’d found Gertrude Robinson’s body yet, but undoubtedly they’d be crawling through those twisted passages. And even if they weren’t, there were enough cameras on the outside of the Institute that he might be caught on tape. The last thing he wanted was Elias wondering why he’d come back so quickly...or why he’d taken off the bandages, he added mentally, running his fingers reflexively over one of the scars.
No. No, as much as it hurt, he’d have to find another way in. He had to trust that Martin was all right. They would be reunited, he vowed to himself. Wherever Martin was, Jon would find him. He just...might need some help.
New fears shot through him as he contemplated his next move. It was after hours. While that likely meant that Jon—past Jon—hadn’t been hurt, that wasn’t a guarantee; he’d begun leaving less and less as the weeks progressed, and depending on when this was, this might have been a night he stayed past dark. It might even have been after he read Jane Prentiss’ statement, in which case he might have fallen asleep. (Jon tried not to think about that night, about crashing on the cot without thinking and waking up tucked securely in a blanket cocoon with Martin asleep sitting up against the opposite corner, wrapped in a blanket himself. He’d felt guilty, both for taking Martin’s bed—the bed he himself had offered him—and for sleeping through the night; Martin wasn’t sleeping well, anyone could see that, and Jon had made it harder.) In which case...his past self might have been hurt as well, which would rather defeat the purpose.
But Martin—past Martin—what if he’d been hurt, too? Or worse, what if he hadn’t woken up? Jon didn’t think his Martin would deliberately put his past self in danger; despite his sometimes self-destructive or at least self-sacrificial tendencies, he’d probably see his past self just like Jon saw his: as an entirely separate entity, a person to be protected. But if something followed him and he couldn’t catch it, what if something awful had happened?
Then there was Tim and Sasha. Granted, as far as Jon knew, neither of them had ever spent the night at the Archives. He remembered Sasha avowing that they gave her the willies...but was that the real Sasha he remembered, or the Stranger, the Not-Them that had killed her and taken her place? Had the real Sasha ever impulsively decided to stay, thinking it unfair Martin had to suffer alone? Had Tim ever doubled back to keep Martin company and buck his spirits up? Was it something they’d kept secret from their boss, fearing they’d get in trouble?
And oh, God, the Stranger. If that table had been delivered, if Sasha had run into Artifact Storage to escape the worms, if she’d been taken again...Jon hadn’t needed his powers to know that Martin was privately hoping that, in addition to the big picture stop the apocalypse plan, they could save their friends. That Melanie would never get recruited to the Archives (and therefore never need to quit), that Tim would never become so angry and bitter and hateful, that Sasha would never be replaced in not only her physical body but in their memories. Truthfully, Jon was hoping that as well. He still felt more than a little guilt about what had happened to all three of them. If he was too late to stop that...
Jon took a deep breath, centering himself. Well, there was one way he could check on that, at least. Maybe he could check on all of that at once, but at least he could check out the latter. Drawing on a little bit of the Eye’s power, he reached out for Sasha James’ mind.
He almost gasped with relief when he touched it easily, the shape revealing it to be unequivocally the real thing. She was alive...astonished to be, but alive nonetheless. She buzzed with adrenaline, which was probably a good thing, because she’d promised Jon she’d give him her statement about what had happened tonight as soon as the four of them were somewhere they could talk easily. They had a bit before they got to Tim’s place and then she’d have to figure out where the hell to start—God, she wished she could shake that feeling of being watched all the time!
Jon withdrew his mind’s gaze hastily. That was a bit of a relief, at any rate. The four of them. That meant that all of them had made it out of the Archives alive...and Sasha, at least, had been in there. Thank God she hadn’t gone up to Artifact Storage.
He shook himself. Tim’s place. Well, he knew where that was, unfortunately, having stalked Tim there during his paranoid fit. He could get there quickly enough. Hopefully, anyway; he didn’t exactly have any money on him, so hailing a cab or even taking the Underground was out of the question, which meant he’d have to leg it. It was doable. And since they were evidently driving there, they’d have time to talk before he arrived.
Jon set off on his walk. As he’d done for the entire journey, he stuck to the shadows, avoiding crowded streets, busy roads, and alleys where tramps might be hiding to ask for money, cigarettes...or worse.
Something in his bag buzzed and whirred. Without breaking stride, Jon slung the bag off his shoulders and fished out the recorder, which, sure enough, was on and waiting for him. He could feel the statement rising in him. He probably ought to stop to record it...
“Eight point seven million residents. The fourth most dangerous city in the United Kingdom. One of the most watched cities in the world. Everyone speaks the statistics,” he said into the mouthpiece of the recorder. “Few understand them. Few can feel the weight of those people around them, the fear and anticipation of violence, the sensation of every camera, every eye tracking their every move. Those who can are called paranoid, delusional, overly fearful. They are also right.
“It is a strange sensation to walk through a city that has never been safe to you and feel it even more so. Even stranger to feel it after...well, what we’ve lived through this past...how long has it been? Even I don’t know that. I never will. But as terrifying as those realms, those domains, those hellscapes were, they are as nothing compared to an ordinary spring night in London, circa 2016. This night.
“A clock tower chimes in the distance, counting off a quarter ‘til. The time men used to call the Witching Hour. If only they knew what those words could mean. Night falls and in some places the city’s lights outshine the stars, while in others the sky is completely hidden behind close-gathered roofs or billowing, choking smoke. There are those in this city who couldn’t name a single star if you labeled the chart for them and those who haven’t seen one for years. Some are wistful. Some are watchful. Some are angry. Some are pure danger.
“In the domains, we were safe, to a degree. The domains could only harm us so far as we allowed them to. We were the Watchers, not the Watched, and our fear fed nothing. They were not for us, and so could not hurt us unless we gave them permission. And we navigated them together, and we survived them together. And even when we reached London, there was so little that could truly harm us...until the end. And we knew what we faced, or thought we knew what we faced, and whatever else happened, we faced it together.
“But this is a London that cares nothing for our permission. This is a London that does not belong to one power, or any powers. This is a London that still belongs only to itself. From the Ritz to the Anchor and Crown, as the song says, London is still its own and belongs to itself and its people. And it does not fear the Watcher, not yet. There is no protection to be had here, save one’s own awareness.
“There, the further from the Eye’s seat of power we were, the safer—in theory—we were. Here, nowhere is safe. It may be that the only place of true safety is the very tunnels I cannot yet enter, the very place from whence Fear plans to rise but will not, cannot, must not. The tunnels hold death, yes, and fear and terror and many of the worst memories from the time of before...but they may be the key to our safety now.
“Meanwhile, the very streets seek to trip, the roads seek to confuse, the denizens seek to gain their own selfish ends at the expense of any who stands in their way. We cannot, I cannot let them. Death does not wait here, only those who seek to invoke it. Fear does not bind this city, Fear does not own its streets, and yet fear cannot be disregarded, for to ignore it, to deny its existence, is to invite its cause. The only way to stay safe is to stay focused, to concentrate, and to trust that at the end of the road the journey may come to a safe close. Or at least a resting place, a shelter from the storm.”
Jon fell silent and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for only a moment as he lowered the tape recorder. When he opened them again, he was astonished to see that he was standing in front of Tim’s house—someplace he hadn’t seen in years but still recognized. His car, or the car he’d once owned anyway, sat in the driveway, and there was a light on inside, which meant they were still up. He actually hadn’t realized he was still walking, let alone that he was walking in the direction he meant to head. Either the Eye or sheer dumb luck had protected him from being run over as he crossed the streets.
He tucked the recorder away in his bag, then headed up the walk to the front door. Hopefully they weren’t in the middle of recording their statements, he thought idly as he knocked, as firmly as he could, on the door.
A few moments passed, and then the door opened, exposing Tim, who yelped in surprise when he saw Jon standing there. Jon managed a smile.
“Hello, Tim,” he said. “May I come in?”