They’d thrown her out of the Archives.
Sasha gnawed anxiously at her lower lip, arms folded tightly across her chest as she stood just outside the circle of flashing lights and activity. Logically, she knew why she’d been barred from returning to the building. Even if the gas was mostly gone and the worms were all dead, it was still a serious biohazard, and they had to make sure the worms were actually all dead. And the police still had to investigate what had happened, even if it was fairly straightforward.
But still…
“Anything?” The man who’d popped up to save her from…whatever was lurking in Artifact Storage emerged from the shadows at her shoulder. He looked exhausted, like he’d been sick for a long time, and he seemed chilled despite the warm July evening. His fingers twitched and flexed a lot like the way Jon’s did when he was having an anxiety spike.
“What brand do you smoke?” The question, which had no immediate relevance to the situation, slipped out without Sasha giving it conscious thought.
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise, then shrugged ruefully. “Woodbines, but I’m trying to quit. In theory. Those things will kill you, you know.”
He said it like it was some kind of dark joke. Sasha didn’t get the punchline, though. “Sorry, that was…you remind me of Jon. The fidgeting, I mean. He keeps trying to quit smoking, too, and he’ll manage for a while, but then he gets a really bad anxiety attack and sneaks a cigarette to calm himself down and then he’s off and hooked again.” She took a deep breath to stop the rambling. “And no. Nothing. I should…God, there should be something. They would have—would anyone tell me if…”
She swallowed hard against the end of the sentence. Would anyone tell me if they were dead? Bad enough to see the pair of bodies sprawled in the middle of a mass of worms, worse to know she was at least partially responsible for their state, but not knowing where the third was made things so much worse. And she wasn’t family. They could all be dead and she’d never know.
The man’s eyes went slightly unfocused as he stared at the Institute. “Only one aware enough of death to fear it died down there tonight. The worms were…ignorant. Unsatisfying.” He winced and closed his eyes, fingers curling into a fist. It was obvious he was in pain, although probably not as bad as when he’d collapsed to his knees after they’d escaped Artifact Storage, or when he’d had to stumble out of the Institute rather than venture down into the Archives with her.
“Seriously, are you okay?” Sasha decided to save the questions about the statement he’d just made for a later time. “If you’re—is it some kind of chronic pain thing or—”
“I’m fine.” The man took a deep breath and straightened. “Believe me, it’s better than the alternative.”
Sasha wasn’t so sure about that, or what the “alternative” was, but she let it pass. Although they weren’t dead, so there was that.
It belatedly occurred to her that she hadn’t actually acknowledged what had happened in Artifact Storage. “Thank you, by the way. For saving me. Whatever that…thing was, I’m pretty sure it would have killed me easily.”
“It would have,” the man replied, in the same offhand tone of voice Martin used when he rattled off some random fact without consciously being aware he was doing it. “You were Marked for Death. You’re fine now, though, so either the CO2 killed it too or it took someone else, or it’s just not looking to kill anymore. Or it was just circumstantial. I don’t know.”
“Oh. Good. Um. Thank you?” Sasha blinked at him. “What about you?”
“I’m not looking to kill you, either.”
“I mean, would it have killed you?”
A very faint blush rose in the man’s pale cheeks. “Oh. No, I don’t think it could have, but I’m not exactly keen to test that out.”
Not would, Sasha noted. Could. “All right, well, if you’re going to spout all this…my boss doesn’t like the word ‘spooky’, so let’s say ominous bullshit, that’s probably who you should talk to.”
The man gave a slightly hollow laugh. “You work for the Archives, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry. I owe the Archivist a statement anyway, and believe me, I’ll be around to pay up. But not tonight.”
Sasha didn’t point out that Jon was still in quarantine, so he’d have to stick around a while if he wanted to talk to him. “I’m pretty sure the Archives are going to be closed for a bit anyway.”
“Even if they weren’t. I have promises to keep.” Something in the man’s eyes softened, and he smiled a little, if only briefly.
Sasha was hit with the sudden, powerful memory of the four of them stepping out of the pub where they’d gone to celebrate surviving to the Christmas holidays into the clear December night, and Martin stopping, looking up at the sky, and reciting a poem in a soft, solemn voice. It sent a lance of pain through her, and she shook her head to clear it. “Well. Go keep them then. I’m going to stay here and figure out where my boys are.”
“Right. Be seeing you.” The man shrugged to settle his trench coat a little more securely and strode off.
Sasha watched him go, then turned her attention back to the Institute just in time to see the door open. She gasped in relief at the figure emerging and ran forward. “Tim!”
Tim looked up and flung out his arms, catching Sasha in a tight hug as she reached him. She clung to him just as hard, and she could feel him shaking. “Oh, thank God, I thought you were…I didn’t know what happened to you.”
“I’m okay, I—I’m okay.” Tim didn’t sound too sure of that, honestly. “I—Jon and Martin. Sash, have you seen them? Are they—we got separated, I-I lost them, and the police wouldn’t tell me anything—”
“They’re in quarantine, but they’ll be okay.” Sasha spoke forcefully. They would be okay, they had to be. She pulled back and looked Tim up and down anxiously. He didn’t look like he’d been bitten—and probably they wouldn’t have let him out if he had been—but there was a fine layer of grit clinging to him. At first she thought it was CO2 residue, but then she realized it had a more organic quality. “Where have you been?”
“Under the Institute. There are tunnels everywhere—I think it’s the remains of the old Millbank Prison complex—that’s where the worms were hiding. I found Jon and Martin huddled up in document storage, we escaped down there, and…” Tim closed his eyes, but a tear forced its way out of the corner of one and traced a path through the grime on his face. “I thought they were right behind me.”
“Oh, Tim.” Sasha hugged him again. “Did you just come up?”
Tim nodded against her cheek—he was only about three inches taller than she was and leaning on her kind of heavily. “Like two hours ago. Or maybe it just feels like two hours ago.”
Sasha’s stomach lurched. “Christ. That was—I was supervising them taking Jane Prentiss’ body off, and when I got back from that they wouldn’t let me down there…”
“Yeah, that was ‘cause of me. I’ve been going around in circles with them since I came up.” Tim took a deep breath. “Sasha…I found Gertrude Robinson’s body. She was down there. Still is, I guess. I told the police I didn’t remember where she was…which is true…and after the sixteenth time I repeated it, they finally gave in and let me go.” He pulled back, and Sasha flinched at the stark fear in his eyes. “She was murdered. Shot.”
Sasha sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, God.”
“Yeah,” Tim said again. “We’ve got to find Jon and Martin.”
A slamming noise made both of them jump. Sasha whirled towards the source of the noise and almost gasped with relief as someone pulled aside the door to the quarantine tent, allowing a heavily-bandaged Jon to limp out. He paused, looked around him, and evidently spotted Tim and Sasha; his shoulders slumped with evident relief, and he began staggering determinedly towards them.
They met him halfway, catching him in a hug just before he fell over from overexertion. “You’re okay,” he gasped out. “I—I was so worried, I…where’s Martin? You sent him home already?”
“He’s not out yet,” Sasha told him. She tried not to hug him too hard; he was probably in pain, or masking it very well with painkillers. “We’re fine, Jon, are you…?”
“Fine.” Jon sounded about as convinced of that as Tim had a minute before. He pulled away from them, or tried to, and looked back towards the quarantine tent anxiously. A moment later, he sagged, necessitating both Tim and Sasha holding him up to keep him from falling over, as the tent opened once more and Martin came out, visibly exhausted and wrapped up like a mummy.
Tim stretched out a free arm to him; Sasha did the same. Martin managed more speed than Sasha would have expected in the shape he was in and joined another group hug. For a long moment, they just stood there, soaking in one another’s nearness and reveling in the fact that they were alive.
“Prentiss?” Jon finally asked, his voice muffled by Martin’s chest.
“Dead,” Sasha said. “I went with them to destroy her body, about an hour after…after they put you two in quarantine. She’s gone. So are the worms.”
Tim let out a soft, almost desperate-sounding laugh. “The CO2 worked. Score one for Michael, I guess. Who’d have thought?”
“I mean, most things die when you cut off their oxygen supply,” Martin mumbled. He took a deep breath and started to pull back. “We…I guess we need to talk.”
“Not here,” Tim and Sasha said in unison.
Jon took a deep breath, too, and extracted himself from the center of the hug—reluctantly, if Sasha was any judge, which was a change. He usually avoided physical contact, even if it was obvious he desperately needed it. “I’m open to suggestions. My, my flat’s kind of small and…we need somewhere safe.”
He looked up at Martin. Tim did, too. Sasha frowned at them, then turned a quizzical look on Martin, who rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as he nudged at a bandage. “I think I know a place.”