Tim Lebbon - Reaper's Legacy

He sensed someone watching them. Hairs on his neck bristled and he looked back. In the wavering light he saw Jenna and Sparky also looking around them, their own natural senses piqued. They both looked at him. Expecting something of him. So Jack closed his eyes briefly, drifted through his cosmos of potential, and smiled when he found what he was looking for.

“Through there,” he said, pointing at a gap in the wall none of them had noticed before. “Shade. That shadow guy we saw with Reaper before.”

Fleeter glanced back at Jack, mildly surprised. She aimed her torch directly back at his face, and he turned away, dazzled.

“He’s there to make sure no one gets in who shouldn’t,” she said.

“Or out,” a voice said from the dark gap in the wall. A chuckle followed, and Jack tried not to show his fear.

“Cheery bastard,” Sparky said. “Maybe the smell’s coming from him.”

“Sparky!” Jenna said.

But Fleeter only laughed. “Come on. Almost there.”

They went through another tunnel and emerged into what seemed to be a natural cavern. Dead, dried roots hung from the ceiling, and a swathe of spiderwebs hazed the ceiling from view. Jack shivered. He’d never liked spiders, and he wondered what they ate down here.

“Oh, gross,” Jenna said, and Jack saw where she was pointing. Several rat corpses hung directly above them, spun in silk yet still clearly visible.

“Reaper?” Fleeter asked.

“Yes,” a deep voice said, and Jack recognised his father instantly. He had seen him kill with that voice; one word could shatter bones and boil blood. And try though he did, Jack could find nothing in it that reminded him of the man he had once loved. “Yes, thank you, Fleeter.”

“I did say sorry,” she said, voice rising slightly.

A sigh from somewhere in the cavern. Then silence.

“Shall I…” she asked.

“Yes,” Reaper said. “Send them in.”

She aimed her torch into the cavern’s corner and looked at Jack, Sparky and Jenna. She nodded ahead. “Go on. Through.”

Jack went first. As he passed through the crack in the wall he thought about what he was going to say to his father, and what Reaper might say back. He was nervous, but also excited. He’d seen something of the father he had once loved left in Reaper, he was sure of it, and now was the time to—

But in the place beyond the cavern, shock froze Jack motionless.

Reaper was standing just beyond the opening that had been melted through concrete and brick sometime in the past, and beyond him was a room from the past. Jack had seen places like this in old war movies his mother used to enjoy, peopled by thin-moustached soldiers and pretty uniformed women. They’d all spoken very properly. The men had smoked and looked worried, and the women had taken calls on old-fashioned phones and pushed small flags around a large table.

This room must have once been one of those old war rooms. High-ceilinged, one long wall had a platform halfway up, and a man Jack recognised stood there, leaning casually on a rickety-looking handrail. His name was Puppeteer, and he had almost killed Jack’s little sister.

Past Reaper, the huge table in the centre of the room was taken with a map of London. Sheets of paper were taped together to form one continuous map, and at its edges were areas of splashed red paint. The red formed a boundary, and Jack assumed this represented the Exclusion Zone, that collar of firebombed and flattened suburbs now separating London from the rest of the world.

“I thought I told you to run,” Reaper said.

“You did,” Jack said. “And we did, just before you murdered Miller.”

Reaper raised an eyebrow. It was a startlingly familiar expression, one that used to denote humour when his father was normal. But now it was something else. It spoke of superiority.

“Who said I murdered him?”

Jack let it go. It might have been a word game and he was too tired, and too afraid for his family, to indulge.

“What’s this?” Jack asked. On the London map were perhaps two dozen small blue flags, reminiscent of the Choppers’ uniform colour. There were other flags, too—red, yellow, white. What they were meant to represent was more obscure.

A tall, extremely thin black woman with startlingly white hair stood beside the table. Now and then she would reach out and touch a flag, pause, look to the ceiling, and then move it slightly across the map. Sometimes she touched a flag and then seemed to have second thoughts, shifting her spindly hand to another flag before moving it. Her arms were incredibly long. She blinked slowly at Jack, barely acknowledging his and his friends’ presence.

“What does it look like?” Reaper said.

“A war room,” Sparky said.

Reaper barely glanced at Sparky and Jenna before focussing on Jack again. They stood there in silence for a moment, cool subterranean breath wafting through the gap in the wall behind them. The stone and concrete had been melted and reset, and Jack wondered by what. A Superior, perhaps. But he would not ask.

“We need to talk,” he said to Reaper, and the tall man’s expression did not flicker.

“He followed me,” Fleeter said. “Some Choppers found them, so I flipped and took them out…most of them, at least. And Jack followed me.”

“He flipped too?” Reaper said. He could not hide his surprise, and in that unguarded moment Jack saw something of his father. Just a flash, but it was there.

“I told you,” Jack said. “Nomad touched me. And you told me she didn’t exist.”

Reaper—his father—stared at him. Jack felt like a child examined by an adult, a mouse being scrutinised by a cat. But he did not flinch.

“I saw her once,” Reaper said. “But I don’t believe in her.”

“Maybe you’re scared that she’s more powerful than you?”

Reaper was silent for a long time, never once taking his eyes from Jack. The stare was a challenge; Jack stood up to it. Then Reaper said, “Perhaps we do need to talk. Fleeter, feed his friends, and show them where they can rest.” He looked up at Sparky and Jenna, his expression stern. “You’re tired.”

No backchat, Sparky , Jack thought. Please, not now when we might be getting somewhere.

But Jenna said, “Yeah,” and Fleeter moved off to their left. Sparky and Jenna followed, and Sparky threw a glance back at Jack that said, Gonna be okay?

Jack smiled, nodded. Yes. He’d be okay.

“Where shall we talk, Dad?”

From the moment Reaper led him away from the war room, Jack felt a confidence that belied everything that had happened. Following the man who had been his father, he plunged into that tumultuous, ever-expanding universe of abilities and closed on one without even thinking, feeling its heat, sensing its incredible gravity. He smiled as it filled his consciousness, and he was suddenly awash in a sea of beautiful memories. These times with his family warmed and calmed him, and made him feel that everything really was going to be all right.

But they were not for him.

That’s the first time I’ve used it without real effort , he thought. Nomad’s scent touched his nostrils, her taste flooded his mouth. It was something amazing.

This was certainly no James Bond–style secret base. The subterranean rooms must have been flooded in the past, and a layer of moss covered the walls up to waist height. The place smelled musty and unused. Whatever the Superiors were doing here—and Jack was going to get to that—they were not concerned about comfort.

Reaper shoved a door open with his knee and entered a small room, beckoning Jack to follow. Inside were several folding chairs and a table covered with bottles of water, spirits, and tinned food.