Tim Lebbon: Reaper's Legacy

“What’s there?”

“Bad people, hungry and cruel.”

“I’m going anyway.”

Sara watched her, suddenly growing immensely sad. “I had a daughter, few years older than you. She’d moved away a couple of years before Doomsday, we’d had a row, hadn’t talked in over a year. I wonder…” She stared into space, then turned to look at the mannequin beside her. Perhaps she talked to them. Maybe they were her family now.

Unable to think of anything comforting to say, Lucy-Anne descended the stairs to find Rook still sitting where she’d left him.

“Hampstead Heath,” she said, and his dark expression only echoed what Sara had said. Lucy-Anne didn’t care. She was going, and she knew that Rook was intrigued enough to accompany her.

She tried to forget seeing him fall. Not all dreams come true .

As soon as Jenna could not open the door, Jack knew that they were in trouble.

“Now what?” Sparky said. He stood and rattled at the handle, as if his own strength could undo it when Jenna’s could not.

“It’s locked, Dumbo,” Jenna said.

“Yeah? Watch this.” Sparky took two steps back and braced himself, ready to shoulder-bash the door and probably break a bone in the process.

“Sparky!” Jack said. His friend paused, then relaxed.

“They’ve probably got a guard out there,” Jenna said.

“So what the hell’s going on?” Sparky asked.

“Me,” Jack said. “Breezer wants to see what’s happening to me.”

“And what is?” Jenna asked softly.

“A change,” Jack said. He searched for something else to say, to explain, but he could not. Tears threatened. “I’m really scared, guys.”

“Still a pussy,” Sparky said. But he clapped Jack on the shoulder, then ruffled his hair like a parent comforting a kid.

“So how do we get out of this one?” Jenna asked.

“Yeah,” Sparky said. “Can’t you, like, magic the door open, or something?” Jenna nudged him in the ribs, and he feigned hurt. He pinched her rump, she slapped his face.

Jack turned away, pursed his lips, thinking. He felt a flush of anger at Breezer—he’d taken them in to protect them, now he held them prisoner—but the man was only doing what he thought was best. That didn’t mean he could be reasoned with.

And there was no guarantee he would not use physical force to keep them there.

“This is an office block, not a prison,” Jack said. “Thin walls. Plasterboard. We know there’s probably someone watching the door out there.” He turned around and pointed at the wall behind him. “So we go that way.”

“Huh?” Sparky asked.

Jack pulled the folding knife from his pocket and flipped open the blade. He scored a long, deep line down the wall from face to waist height, and a drift of fine plaster fell out onto the bare concrete floor. He glanced back at Sparky and Jenna, grinning.

“Won’t take long.”

Jenna pulled her own knife and started two feet along the wall from Jack. They worked gently and deliberately, until Jack held up a hand and bent to look through the cut he’d formed. It was pitch back, but he realised it was a double-sided partition.

With a soft shove, Sparky pushed out and pulled away the section they’d outlined and set it aside, exposing metal studding and the back side of the opposite wall surface.

Twenty minutes later he pulled out a second square of plasterboard. Let this be easy , Jack thought, and they all held their breath.

The room beyond was much like the sparse office they had been locked into, except that the door stood ajar. Beyond, the sunlit corridor.

“Quietly,” Jack said.

“Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey,” Sparky whispered, lifting himself up through the hole.

Moments later they were in the second office. Jack felt time ticking by. Breezer will be waiting to talk to us, persuade us to his way of thinking. He’ll be keen to see me again, because it’s me he’s interested in . He felt a flush of pity for Breezer, but he was more and more determined—his mother and Emily came first, and Reaper was the only sure way to rescue them alive.

London, the survivors, the Choppers, the lies being fed to the public, even his own strange, growing powers…they all came second.

Jack peeked into the corridor. A man sat on the floor outside the door to the room they had just left. He had no weapon, and looked harmless. But the longer they avoided detection, the better their chances at escape. So far Breezer had only locked a door; there was no saying how much farther he would go to keep Jack from fleeing.

Jack moved back from the door and pressed his fingers to his lips. Jenna and Sparky nodded, eyes wide as they watched their friend. Jack knew they would always be a little afraid of him now, and he could hardly blame them. He was a little afraid of himself.

He delved inside, sensing for the star-scape of his burgeoning powers. They were chaotic and uneven, a miasma of possibilities, and suddenly he was confused. If he touched this star, what would happen? Who would he hurt, who would he kill? If I make the wrong choice, might I become like my father? He reached out but withdrew again, trying to sense his way through this troubling constellation.

This one . He grasped a spark and pulled back, and as Jenna took his arm and he slumped, he could sense the strong pulsing of her heart and the flow and ebb of her life force.

“Wrong one,” Jack said. “It’s…no…wrong one. Hang on, I…”

“We’ve all got special powers,” Sparky said. He pulled something from his pocket, glanced outside, then flicked it along the corridor.

Jack heard a small metal clang , then Sparky turned to the two of them. “Got maybe ten seconds,” he whispered, and he pulled the door open.

Jenna hauled Jack upright as Sparky slipped through the door and across the corridor. By the time Jack and Jenna stood by the open doorway, Sparky was holding open the door to the staircase, beckoning them over.

Jenna pulled Jack out and he had to follow, treading lightly, clasping her hand, only glancing to his right as he felt the coolness of the stairwell embracing him.

The man was fifteen feet along the corridor, his back to them and head tilted. He had yet to find the coin, take a while to think about that, unlock the door, check inside the office, find them gone—

“Now maybe we’ve got half a minute,” Sparky whispered as he eased the door closed. “Come on!”

They started down the staircase, and it reminded Jack of fleeing that terrible hotel only days before. Then he had seen a man have his head blown off, grenades had exploded, and Jenna had been shot in the stomach. It was only Rosemary and her healer friend who had saved Jenna, delving inside her for the bullet and then knitting her wounds from the inside out.

If one of them was injured now, there was no one to help.

No one but me , Jack thought. But his fledgling powers still confused and scared him. He felt like a Neanderthal man given access to Apple’s research and development department. He had toyed with some powers, but maybe that had been a fluke.

Maybe the powers were toying with him.

Jack reckoned they had about fifteen floors to descend. That was thirty flights of stairs. On the ground floor there would doubtless be someone keeping watch, but they would tackle that problem when they got there.

Sparky led the way, taking each flight in four long strides, then crouching on the landings and half landings, listening, before heading off again. Jenna seemed to flow rather than walk, her natural grace giving her stealth and fitness. Jack panted from exertion and fear. He was worried for himself, but more worried for Sparky and Jenna. Breezer claimed not to be a Superior, but there was no saying how he’d treat Jack’s friends if they were recaptured. It was Jack he was interested in.