Through a crack in the crowd she saw a man in an ivory plague doctor's mask on the opposite side of the room. The long beak had been filled with herbs when the sixteenth-century doctors had treated the plagues, but the nightmarish figures reeked of death. The man wore a long black cloak that billowed behind as he stalked through the crowd. Jamie thought she recognized something of his walk, but she couldn't quite grasp who she was reminded of.
The moment was broken and Blake turned to see what she was looking at. Jamie felt the loss of his touch but pleasure would have to wait.
"There," she said, nudging Blake to look across the room, but the man had slipped away in the crowd.
"I don't see anything," Blake said. "What was it?"
"A man in a plague doctor's mask," Jamie said.
Blake's jaw tightened as he scanned the crowd.
"Let's go in opposite directions around the perimeter," Jamie said. "See if we can spot him again."
Blake looked down at her, his face in shadow but his concern evident. He stroked her cheek with one gloved finger. "Don't challenge him, Jamie. Please. Get one of the security guards if you find him first."
"Don't worry," she said. "We don't even know if it's him. It is a masked ball, after all, and the plague doctor is a commonly used mask."
"I'll meet you back here then," Blake said, turning and slipping back into the crowd, his posture resolute.
Jamie began to walk slowly in the opposite direction, scanning the crowd.
***
The mask was heavy but the freedom of anonymity was worth the pain. Dale Cameron stalked around the perimeter of the ball, his eyes flicking over the skin of those dancing close by. There was plenty to tempt him tonight.
In the whirl of the dance, he saw the glazed eyes and wide smiles of intoxication. In the corners of the hall, couples were already indulging in the pleasures of the flesh and on their skin, the marks of the tattooist's trade. But he couldn't stop to admire the body art of the deviants right now. He had other plans for this masquerade. He looked at his watch. It was almost time.
He had been down earlier to inspect the security procedures as part of his day-job role and had brought the bag in then. No one would think to question a Detective Superintendent, after all. Now it was under his cloak and all he had to do was position it, then leave.
***
The band reached a crescendo and the excited crowd screamed and whistled their appreciation. Then the lead singer pointed up to the roof above. The main lights went out and spotlights lit up a net of black and white balloons above.
"Ten … nine," the crowd shouted.
The countdown to midnight had begun, when the balloons would be released. Inside were all kinds of prizes, tickets to other events, luxury gifts and getaways. Jamie anticipated craziness on the central dance floor as people dove for the balloons, and she moved as far to the edge of the crowd as possible. There, she stood next to one of the huge pillars that supported the main hall.
"Eight … seven."
Her leg brushed against something and Jamie looked down to see a black package resting against the pillar. Cold sweat prickled across her skin. She looked around quickly for a security guard. Something was very wrong here.
"Six … five."
She shouted a warning to move, but the attention of the crowd was on the balloons above and the band played so loudly, it was impossible to hear anything. She couldn't see any of the security team near her, but there would be a team by the door. Jamie slid around the back of the crowd, making for the exit as fast as she could.
"Four … three."
In the flash of the spotlights sweeping the room, Jamie spotted the man in the plague doctor mask walking towards the main exit in front of her. One of his hands reached into the pocket of his cloak.
Jamie pushed her way through the crowd after him, her heart hammering in her chest.
"Two … one."
On the final count, the crowd screamed in excitement and drums beat faster as the balloons dropped and the scramble for prizes began. The spotlights swept around the room faster now, whirling in crazy patterns with strobes that took the atmosphere to an edge of hysteria.
The man turned, surveying the room, his demeanor that of a judge pronouncing a death sentence.
Jamie emerged at the edge of the crowd. He saw her and met her eyes as she took another step towards him. Jamie felt a spark of recognition as the man turned away and walked swiftly out the exit, as a blast shook the building and the screams of the excited crowd turned to terror.
Screams echoed across the darkness of the Turbine Hall as another blast boomed, followed by the crash of falling masonry.
The explosions were concentrated at the back of the hall right by the stage, where the crowd was the most dense. Jamie was torn – she desperately wanted to pursue the man in the mask, but Blake was back there in the darkness along with hundreds of other people. This was her community now.
She turned back into the hall.
The shouts of the security team could be heard above the din of suffering and those who could walk began to stream for the exits. The dull green emergency lighting cast sickly shadows on their skin, the masks turning them into escapees from a demonic realm. Sirens wailed outside as police and ambulances arrived, the central location at least guaranteeing a swift emergency response.
Jamie joined the security team, helping people to the exits as she searched in growing desperation for Blake at the back of the hall.
Body parts lay strewn on the floor amongst pieces of rubber from the balloons, some limbs perfectly intact but ripped from their owners. The bombs had contained tiny ball bearings which acted as bullets in the blast. Jamie brushed back tears as she stepped around the edge of the horror.
She had to find Blake.
In triage mode, Jamie stepped through the bodies. Some people were groaning, clutching bloody limbs, others were silent, staring straight ahead. She reached down to check one woman's pulse, her face painted white with dust, her eyes open but unblinking. This one was dead. The couple Jamie had seen dancing earlier lay entwined together a little further in. The top half of their bodies were intact, his eagle mask still perfectly placed and nestling into her neck. But their torsos had separated from their legs and they lay in a pool of blood.
Jamie pushed aside her desire to run from the horror, calling on her police training to face what lay head. She focused on her search for Blake, checking bodies, rapidly becoming inured to the dead and dying. Around her the paramedics worked quickly and bodies were stretchered away. London was ever ready for disaster, but it had been years since it had visited the capital in such terrible carnage. Jamie's resolve hardened every second, for every body she checked, for every life that was taken. She would find the man in the mask.
At the very back of the hall, Jamie found a huddle of people behind the stage. The metal structure had shielded them from the airborne missiles and they weren't seriously injured. Blake lay amongst them, blood trickling from the side of his mask to the floor, his blue eyes dazed. Jamie rushed to him, gathering him into her arms, tears coming at last as she lay in the dust at his side.
"Oh, Blake," she whispered. "I thought …"
He pulled her into his arms and she heard his heartbeat against her cheek.
"It's OK," he whispered. "I'm not going anywhere."
***
She had been in too many hospitals lately, Jamie thought a few hours later. She sat in another waiting room drinking crappy coffee, watching the minutes tick by until Blake could be discharged. He only had a concussion but she was well aware of how much more serious it could have been.
A TV in the corner played the early-morning news on a ten-minute repeat cycle, images from the aftermath of the explosion cut together with smartphone footage shot earlier in the evening and uploaded by eager partiers. The parade of beautiful faces in glorious gowns, smiles under their masks, made the after images of body bags and billowing smoke even more shocking. The media was already calling it the Bloody Masquerade.
The news came on again and this time, the images were live. Dale Cameron's patrician face was somber as he read from a prepared statement by the police.
"This morning we mourn the sixty-four people lost last night in the tragedy at the Tate Modern. Over one hundred remain in hospital, some critically injured. My team is processing the crime scene and we're confident that we will be able to bring the terrorists responsible to justice in the following days." He looked directly into the cameras. "We
will
clean up the city, and that's a promise I personally intend to keep."
The camera flicked back to the newsreader.
"That was Detective Superintendent Dale Cameron, who is heading up the task force for the masquerade attack. He's also running for London Mayor in the elections early next week. His main rival, Amanda Masters, was critically injured at the masquerade ball which she was attending as patron of the arts in Southwark."
Jamie's eyes narrowed as she looked at the screen, focusing on Cameron's stance. There was something there, a camouflage of respectability, a hard edge that people wanted but that she knew hid a dangerous side. That kind of strength attracted people and made him a pillar of society, but how far did he take his crusade to clean up the city? Jamie thought back to the night in the Hellfire Caves when she had thought she had seen him in the smoke, part of those who dismembered a man in the darkness. And he had definitely been connected to RAIN, a group who used the mentally ill for their own research ends, uncaring of the human cost. Could Cameron be the man in the mask?
The waiting room door opened and Blake came back in, a dressing on the side of his head. There were dark shadows under his eyes and she saw exhaustion there that reflected her own. She went to him and took his hand.
"I'm taking you home," she said. "By taxi, not by bike."
He smiled. "Thought you said it wasn't a date."
Jamie gave a sharp laugh. "Guess that concussion isn't too bad then."
After a short taxi ride, Jamie pushed open the door to Blake's flat in the historic Bloomsbury area. The early-morning commuters were walking through the streets, but it was still quiet in the square. Many of the tall terraced houses were affixed with blue plaques commemorating the famous names who once lived here: Darwin, Dickens and even JM Barrie, who created Peter Pan. As Jamie helped Blake inside and up the staircase, she considered that he was a kind of Lost Boy, his beautiful face wracked by pain from past lives that were not even his own. He mounted the stairs slowly, gripping the bannister with his gloved hand.
Blake's rooms were at the very top of the building, a small studio flat nestled in the eaves with a view over the rooftops of London. It was sparsely furnished with a few pieces of wooden furniture. Jamie had been here once before, when she had been crazy with grief and Blake had been out of his mind on tequila. He had looked after her then, and she would help him now.
"Shall I make tea?" Jamie asked, as Blake sat heavily on the bed.
"You don't have to stay, you know," he said. "I'm only going to sleep."
Jamie smiled. "You have concussion, you idiot. I'm staying while you sleep so you don't suddenly die. After all that trouble finding you after the explosion, do you think I'm going to let you out of my sight now?"
Blake managed to return a smile that turned into a grimace as pain crossed his face. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.
Jamie crossed to the little kitchen, searching in the cupboards for teabags. She found a mostly empty bottle of tequila next to the Tetley. As she made the tea, she noticed another empty bottle of spirits in the recycling. She knew Blake drank, but she hadn't really realized how much until now. He was damaged, but then so was she. They just coped with their grief in different ways.
She carried the sweet milky tea back to Blake, putting it on a side table within his reach. Jamie sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking down at him. The soft morning light from the window touched his face, his caramel skin smooth and unblemished, his stubble almost a beard now. His chest rose and fell rhythmically but every breath was controlled, forced through the pain of bruising to his chest.
If he had been in a different place when the blast went off … Jamie couldn't think of losing Blake that way. After all, he'd only been there because she'd asked him to be and she had put him in danger before. Images of broken bodies came to her mind, the Turbine Hall full of smoke and the bloody corpses of those who had been celebrating only moments before. The full force of the tragedy began to settle upon her now. It seemed surreal, the sensation similar to how she had felt after Polly's death. The realization of obliteration, how fragile we really are on the face of the earth, how easily ended.
Blake opened his eyes and the deep blue was intense as he gazed up at Jamie. He raised one gloved hand to her cheek, touching her face softly.
"Will you lie down next to me?" His voice was soft with a note of vulnerability. "You must be exhausted too."
At his words, Jamie felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. The last few days had been crazy and the events of last night had almost broken her. This was not how she had imagined them being together, but right now, they both needed a human touch.
"As long as you don't think this is a date," Jamie whispered with a half smile, but she felt the prick of tears in her eyes. She lay down next to him, putting her head on the crook of his shoulder, her hand on his broad chest. Blake smelled of smoke and antiseptic and underneath, his own musky scent. Jamie nuzzled closer, he put his arm around her and they slept.