Page 82 of Natural-Born Cullers

Jan rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Gray didn’t add to pushing him. Jan knew his own mind as well as Jack did.

“Ineeda whiskey for medicinal purposes,” said Jan. “That’s me asking, now I’m getting.” He tilted a whiskey glass Gray’s way, and as Gray shook his head, Jan pulled his housecoat around him before offering one over to Martin. Martin nodded eventually, and Jan took it to him.

“You… you thought about a Kindle?” Jan flicked a look at Martin’s book. “KU wuh… would give you access to most novels going.”

“Don’t know what a Kindle is, don’t care.” Martin thumbed over to the next page, but he looked bored doing it.

“What you reading anyway?” Jan buried a sneeze.

Martin took his drink and winced. “The benefits behind wearing a mask during a pandemic.”

Jan chuckled, then shifted the book to get a look at the title. “1984. Orwell.” He winced at Gray. “Ouch.”

Gray buried a smile as Martin took a swig of his drink and winced. He wasn’t really a whiskey connoisseur, Gray knew that. It surprised him how Martin wasn’t really into too much alcohol at all, bar the stray beer here and there. He’d gained a liking for sencha, a Japanese green tea, with the plants grown in the sun to give the tea a rich, dark colour and acerbic flavour. Jack was pure coffee and beer or champagne, and he looked comfortable tasting most things, everything bar literature. The yin and yang between them never failed to steal Gray’s drive to expose the subtle differences. The mind was an amazing complexity, and Jack… Martin, they proved that every goddamn time.

But as Jan settled down in bed, Martin got to his feet and came over and picked up Jan’s whiskey glass.

“Hey.” Jan didn’t look happy.

“Like I said—” Martin turned away. “—you don’t mix meds and alcohol.”

“Martin—”

“Janice?” He didn’t look back. “No. I… I….” He stopped, then shook his head, a look shifting down to Jan’s whiskey glass, then his own. “What…?” He shivered. “I… I—”

“Fuck—” Gray scrambled off the bed as Martin went down, hitting the floor hard. He almost caught him, but something flipped his own world upside down, taking him with it. It took him a moment to realise he was on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

He knew the signs, everything that dulled his senses. Martin had too. But Jan…?

As Gray tried to fight falling into the blackness, the quiet coming from the bed scared him so badly.

Jan wasn’t moving.

“Gray.”

The hiss came like sandpaper to Gray’s head, then he suddenly shoved at someone as a hand covered his mouth and nose, cutting off his breathing.

No, not a hand. Someone pressed a mask to his face, trying to force air into his system.

“Hey—hey. You need to keep this on. Just give it a few more seconds.”

Gray had no choice. Still on the floor, he felt the heavy spin, and he rested back down, looking up at the ceiling. For a moment, the debris of a blasted café ceiling had him blinking, how a sprinkler soaked into clothes, pattered lightly against his face. Ed would be sitting up against a wall across the street, Brin, and, call, he’d tried to call someone afterwards, not Rachel, but—

Jan.

Gray tried to move again, only he was forced back down with a hard press of the mask to his face. Oxygen hit his system a moment later, and he breathed deep, not fighting it anymore as his head started to clear. He gave a nod, then kept the mask pressed in close as he sat up, or tried to at least as he fought down sickness.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, you, an MI5 director, ending up at an ex-MI6 operative’s feet. People will want pictures eventually.” Raif wore his own mask, giving his voice the muffled effect, and he studied Gray for a moment, a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and a nod was eventually given. Gray wanted to snap that he should be wearing a full hazmat suit, only he ended up rolling cough after cough off and knocking into one of two small cylinders sitting close by.

“Oxygen,” Raif said quietly to Gray, offering a small smile. “Never leave home without it, or at least use your own until you can get access into a manor that has three labs in it with forethought into chemical spills. It’s good for most poison that hits the system.”

Pure oxygen usually did with most poisons, yet whatever had taken them out, it hadn’t needed to be administered intravenously or through a mask. Martin had looked at his drink, but Gray hadn’t, and….

“Ventilation.” Raif flicked a look to the corner where the vent sat. “Early tests are showing acarfentanyl and halothanemix, with some kind of aerosol-gas mixture similar to what the Russians used back in the eighties to gas a complex, only less potent. What the fuck have you been teaching that kid?” Raif’s look flicked behind them. “After he checked in with Ray and got no answer from the manor, George made the call and got us here. I’m your named off-location security point of contact, remember?”

Teach him? Us here? Carfentanyl and halothane…? Fuck. That unique blend wouldn’t have set any alarms off, anyone into chemicals would see that. But he did remember adding Raif and Cal as off-location security if something ill went down. Gray fought back throwing up. And George had made the call. Why not—“Ray?”

Gray said that as he instantly twisted around to Martin. He remembered not being able to catch him before he fell.

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