Rising Light

Chapter 21: Mucous Membrane

Kate glanced over her shoulder, watched as John flitted around the Mill House. She'd seen him spurred on by the thoughts of a job plenty of times before, but this was something new. With the very real idea that they might be able to actually save Astra, there was no stopping him. Despite her own hopes of what they might achieve, she couldn't stop worrying that he would work himself to death just to finish this. The thought turned any hope that she was holding onto – that she had been holding onto for as long as she could remember – turn sour. It was an odd sensation for Kate, but she bit through it and stole a glance at Ben. Because, after everything that had happened, he was still here. Still beside her, even if his own movements were as hurried as John's; even as he mumbled each new useful thing under his breath, making a register of it all.

Not that her moment of stillness lasted. Soon she was moving at the same speed as the boys, desperate to collect everything lest they miss this moment. Miss the chance they were being given to finally save Astra.

'Is this a good idea?' came Chas's voice, but it did nothing to still the flurry of movement. In fact, Kate almost danced around him to grab another jar. A precaution that she didn't really want to think about. 'You've not even thought it through.'

'Don't need to,' said John gruffly around a cigarette. For once, Kate didn't have it in her to snap at him. 'This is –'

'Too convenient.' Zed's soft voice instantly doused the movement, in the way that Chas's comment couldn't. All attention snapped to her, but she didn't falter under the weight. If anything, she stood a little straighter and looked at John directly. 'You were the one who said that things like this don't happen,' she reminded him, before turning her gaze on Kate. 'And we can be lucky; the two of you have the luck of the devil sometimes, but this much?' She shook her head, but the tension in the room remained.

John took a slow drag of his cigarette before finally moving back to his inventory, to trying to make sure they were prepared for a trip back to England. Back to Newcastle. 'It isn't,' he assured her.

'In fact,' said Ben, pushing his glasses firmly up his nose as he went back to work, 'it would make sense to be now. The time that's passed, the fact that the Rising Darkness is opening more fissures –'

'Exactly,' Chas cut across him. 'The Rising Darkness.'

'We can save her, Chas,' Kate said softly, busying herself with filling up a kit bag, making sure that she had any and all first aid equipment she might need. 'We gotta take this chance. No matter what it looks like.'

Silence settled over the room. There was no mistaking the cavern that was slowly growing between them all. Newcastle and after. Whatever they said, there was no way of fully breaching the space. No way of letting Chas and Zed fully realize that there was no turning away from this opportunity, even if it looked completely futile.

'What about the others?' said Ben, for once speaking to John without a flicker of dislike. 'How exactly do we get the band together? Especially...' He heaved a sigh, looked away from the other man as Kate felt her chest constricting.

'Gary,' she finished for him.

'I've got an idea,' John assured them, but he didn't look over his shoulder, he didn't even still in his movements of preparation. For once, Kate wondered how long he'd been preparing for this eventuality.

Since the day it happened, she knew.

'Plan on sacrificing someone else? How about that Nik guy?'

Chas's words found the chink in John's armor quicker than anything else. In an instant John had rounded on his friend. Rage obvious as he squared up to the much taller man.