Tim Lebbon - Reaper's Legacy

“Where are we going?” Jack asked again.

“Trust me,” Fleeter said.

“I don’t trust her as far as I could throw her,” Sparky said aloud, and Jenna laughed.

“I don’t think you’d ever get close enough to try.”

“You two okay?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Jenna said.

“Dandy,” Sparky said.

Jack nodded. He felt the weight of responsibility upon him—it would be down to him to talk to Reaper, persuade him of their cause, convince him not to simply abandon them, or worse. But having his friends with him meant the world.

Changing, he needed them now more than ever.

He wondered what his mother and Emily were doing right now. He tried to imagine them safe and sound, perhaps locked in the same room in Camp H. They would support each other, and Emily would likely be lively and chirpy, singing songs and insisting that her mother sing along.

All the while, though, a different image played behind that one. The more he tried to ignore it—the metal bed, dissection equipment, gutters running with blood—the clearer it became.

He searched for a star that might show him his family, but found none.

“Damn it,” Jack said, shaking his head and fighting the tears. But the more he fought, the more insistent they became. “Damn it!”

“Jack?” Jenna said.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “Fleeter. Hey. How soon?”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “Almost there.”

“Almost where?” Sparky asked.

“Almost…” she said, trailing off, walking on.

Jack’s friends comforted him, but neither asked what he had seen or sensed to bring on his tears. He wished they had. He wanted to tell them that it was nothing but a normal, very human fear for his loved ones.

Fleeter paused with her hand held up and then vanished with a clap! that echoed from surrounding buildings, leaving them abandoned and alone.

Jack started pacing, but Jenna urged him to remain calm, convincing both Jack and Sparky that the woman would be back. “Why lead us all this way just to disappear?” she asked.

“Trap?” Sparky suggested.

Jack tried to search around them, sense out danger, but his heart was too hurried. He could not concentrate. And when Fleeter appeared before them again, he slumped against Sparky and sighed with relief.

“Choppers,” she said. “Come on.”

“What did you do to them?” Jack asked.

“Slowed them down.” Fleeter grinned. “Punctures. They’ll be going home tonight to see their loved ones, don’t you worry, Jack.” Loaded with sarcasm the words might have been, still they came as a relief. Jack had seen far too many people die already, and he would do everything he could from now on to prevent any more.

They passed an old indoor market, grand architecture crumbled and ignored long before Doomsday, and Jack became more alert. Something about the way Fleeter moved told him that something was going to happen soon. She looked back more often, smiling uncertainly.

“Fleeter, please tell me that—” he began, but then she was gone again.

“Damn it!” he shouted. Pigeons took flight from atop the market building, and somewhere in the far distance a scream sounded, rising high and then quickly cut off. Jack’s wasn’t the only drama being played out in London this evening. But it was probably the most important.

“She’ll be back,” Jenna said.

“You think?” Sparky said. “Spooks the shit out of me, that one.”

“She’s brought us this far,” Jenna said.

“How far? She’s dumped us outside this old place, and what the hell happens now? D’you know where we are?”

“Not really,” Jenna admitted quietly.

“Jack?” Sparky asked.

“Well…”

“You could do a Superman to find out, I suppose,” Sparky said. He was becoming agitated, stepping from foot to foot. “But what good’s any of that done us so far? Huh?”

Jack’s mind was spinning. He searched inside for something to help, some way to move them forward, but his confusion blurred everything. He felt more useless than ever.

“I’ll go on my own,” he said. “You two leave. I’ve dragged you here, too far, too dangerous. And really, it’s—”

“You tell us it’s nothing to do with us and I’ll deck you,” Sparky said, and right then Jack knew that he meant it.

Clap! Fleeter appeared across the street from them, swirling up a twisting cloud of dust and litter. She smoothed down her dress and ran a hand through her hair.

“What?” she asked. Then she smiled, knowing what she had done. “Come on. Reaper will see you.”

“He’s near?” Sparky asked.

“Well, quite near. Come on. Bit of crawling to do.”

“Crawling?” Jack asked.

“S’pose we’ve done enough running, flying, and walking today,” Sparky said.

Fleeter led them around the side of the large market building, and where a huge tangle of old stalls was piled in a rusting heap against one moss-covered brick wall, she went down on her knees.

Back beneath the ground , Jack thought. Breezer and his friends hid under the Choppers’ noses, but it surprised Jack that his father would hide himself away.

Wary, alert for the first aggressive move from Fleeter, he was the first to follow her.

It was difficult to actually tell when they went below ground again. Through the tangle of market stalls, their route led past a tumble of bricks, down a short concrete slope, through a pile of timber slumped with damp, and then they dropped into a larger duct. Fleeter hefted a torch from her pocket. They could almost stand here, but not quite, and they followed Fleeter stooped over. Sparky cursed several times when he banged his head on the pipes and ducting trays above them, and by the time they reached a larger junction area, blood was dribbling down his face. Jenna tutted and dabbed at his scalp with the sleeve of her jacket, and Sparky raised an eyebrow at Jack.

He wants me to fix it , Jack thought. He delved inside and circled the star he thought might help. But there was no time right now, because Fleeter was stopping for nothing. He merely nodded at his friends and then carried on.

Jack tried to keep track of their route. If something went wrong down here—if it was a trap, or something worse—they might have to come back up quickly. But he quickly lost his way. Crawling, scrambling, and climbing on occasion, he tried to access an ability that might help him map their route in his mind. His senses expanded until he could sense water courses and pipes streaming around them, but they did not need water. He grasped another spark and heard a whisper of voices overlying each other, and quickly withdrew when he realised he was hearing Sparky remembering an argument between his parents and dead brother. He shook his head, feeling grubby, as if he had intruded on something personal. The more confused he became, the greater his anger at being unable to help them. Nomad had seeded an ocean of possibilities within him, but had never told him how to use them.

“I feel like a rat,” Sparky said as they passed along a dry sewer.

“You smell like one,” Jenna said.

“That’s the sewer, I’ll have you know.”

“Nah. It’s dried up. Old crap. The smell’s you. You stink of rat .”

“This way,” Fleeter said from ahead, paying no attention.

They left the sewer through a hole in one wall and headed down an uneven slope. It reminded Jack inevitably of their journey into London through the hidden subterranean route, and he kept his ears open for wild dogs or anything else that might cause them problems. But Fleeter moved with a casual confidence, and he thought she had been this way many times before.