Tim Lebbon - London Eye

The woman was smiling at him. Her eyes shone.

The man came forward, and Jack saw that he was limping, one leg of his trousers torn and dark with blood.

“I'm going,” Jack said, and when the man lowered his hand the feeling of manipulation left.

Jack turned and ran. With every step, he listened out for more shouts and screams from Lucy-Anne. But she was either too far way for him to hear anymore, or she had at last seen or sensed the danger they were all in.

At the door to room 602 he paused and looked back. The woman was close, and behind her came the man, limping heavily but displaying no sign of pain in his expression. In fact, his grim face gave away nothing, and Jack had always been afraid of masks.

The door had not been closed properly, and just as the woman reached Jack it swung open, revealing Gordon and Rosemary standing just inside.

“We heard the noise,” the woman said. “We'd like to join the party.”

“You've no business here,” Gordon said.

“No business?” the tall man replied, talking over Jack's head. “No business in this fine hotel, in this dead city, where law no longer reigns?” He leaned across Jack, his voice lowered. “The likes of you don't decide whose business is whose.”

Jack could see panic in Rosemary's eyes, and he wondered just how dangerous these two Superiors were. He turned around. The woman was directly behind him, scruffy but beautiful, and she held him with her piercing gaze.

“We don't want trouble,” Jack said, his voice bled weak by the effect she had upon him. She blinked, slow and sensuous.

The tall man looked down at him then, his face so close that Jack could smell his stale breath. “If you don't want trouble, boy, why find your way into London at all?”

“They're not from outside,” Gordon said, “they come from-”

“Where are they from?” the woman asked.

“Outside,” Gordon replied. He frowned and looked away.

“You're Superiors,” Jack said. Perhaps if he could connect with them, things would not go so bad.

“And you're normal,” the tall man said, with evident distaste.

“Yeah, sorry,” Jack said. “I can't heal wounds or make people tell me the truth. No interest at all, me.” He could see between Rosemary and Gordon now, and Emily, Jenna, and Sparky were gathered together in the sunken seating area inside the room. They all looked scared. He wondered what they had been told.

“I think we'll still come inside anyway, just to check things over,” the Tall Man said. He pushed past Jack and into the hotel room.

Jack looked at the woman. She seemed to wear a permanent, cute smile. “After you,” she said.

When they were all inside the room, the woman shut the door and locked it behind them.

“I'm Puppeteer,” the tall man said.

“And I'm his beautiful assistant, Scryer.” The woman by the door performed a small curtsey, lifting an imaginary skirt hem.

“Oh, very imaginative,” Jack said.

Puppeteer glanced at him, then away again, as if dismissing Jack entirely from his consideration. He looked around the extravagant hotel suite, and then his attention rested on Jack's sister and friends. “Three more boring, unimportant people from outside, yes?”

“No, we come from-” Jenna began, but Jack stepped forward, taking the opportunity to join his friends. The air stank with danger.

“Don't bother,” he said. He pointed at Scryer. “She can make you tell the truth.”

“I can,” the woman said, slinking across the room. Jack was amazed how sexy a woman could look in such innocuous clothing. “You told the truth about your ex-girlfriend, didn't you?”

Jack went cold. Such personal thoughts, exposed now for everyone. Scryer may have a lovely smile, but he could see the brutal potential in her ability.

“What do you two do?” Scryer asked.

Gordon and Rosemary answered at the same time. “I smell bloodlines…” “Healer…”

“Great powers!” Scryer said. “I've met lots of healers, of course, but it's still good. You're still special.”

“But I'm not Superior,” Rosemary said. Jack was surprised at the conviction in her voice.

“And why wouldn't you want to be?” Puppeteer asked. “You do something now you couldn't two years ago, doesn't that make you feel-”

“I'm still a human. Look at you! What was your real name? Paul? Derek? Now you call yourself Puppeteer, like some comic book hero?”

“I've moved on,” Puppeteer said.

“Well, this is intense,” Sparky whispered behind Jack. When Jack glanced around, Sparky and Jenna were standing close, Emily just in front of them.

“We'll be all right,” Jack said.

“So what are outsiders doing in the Toxic City?” Scryer asked.

“Come to find my parents,” Jack said, because it was true. He leaned forward, mouth working as if chewing on air, ready to tell these Superiors the rest of the reason they'd come here. But he swallowed the words and turned away. So long as she gets something true , he thought. Scryer was looking at him strangely, the smile now gone from her eyes. And she knows that…she knows her limits!

“Normals,” Puppeteer sneered. “Just…humans.”

“‘Just’?” Jack asked. So what's my mother? he thought. What's my father? He looked at Rosemary but she would not meet his eyes.

“You're hurt,” Rosemary said to the tall man.

“Someone shot me.”

“Who?” Sparky asked. Puppeteer looked at him as though surprised he could even talk.

“A Chopper patrol, earlier today. We were playing with them, and they opened fire. Perhaps they forgot to have their coffee this morning.”

“Is the bullet still inside?” Rosemary asked.

Puppeteer seemed uncertain about whether to even answer. Jack could see where this was heading; he could also sense the tall man's discomfort.

“Passed right through,” Scryer answered for him.

“I can heal it,” Rosemary said, but she made no move. Waiting for permission , Jack thought. It's like Us and Them. Or Us, Them, and The Others.

Puppeteer glanced down at his leg, trousers torn and shoe shining with fresh blood. He lifted his foot and turned it, wincing slightly as he put his weight on it once again. “Very well,” he said. “I'll let you.”

Rosemary knelt at Puppeteer's feet, and it was one of the strangest acts Jack had ever seen. The tall man turned away and stared through the tall, wide window. While Rosemary lifted the trouser leg and bunched it around his knee, exposing the wound so that she could work at it, the man sniffed, hummed to himself, and generally acted as though nothing was happening. His companion sat in one of the large sofas and called Gordon across to her, asking him questions in subdued tones. Jack could not hear what she said, but it was obvious by her continuing smile that the man was giving her the answers she sought. She kept glancing past the Irregular at Jack-none of the others, just him-and he felt the dreadful power of her gaze.

I'd tell her the truth if she just looked at me , he thought. He looked down at his shoes and thought about Lucy-Anne, crying and alone elsewhere in the hotel, or perhaps even out there, shouting her way through strange streets. He should be searching for her. But he knew they would not be allowed to leave.

“What will they do to us?” Emily whispered. She stepped closer to Jack, and he felt the cool angles of her camera against his leg.

“Nothing,” he said. But he could not be certain of that at all. The Superiors pretended not to hear, but he was sure they had.

Rosemary knelt very still, apart from her fingers moving across and through the pouting wound. Jack could not see her face, but he had seen her doing this enough times before to know that it would be blank, cool, and in control. The man's hands hung by his sides, his fingers relaxed. Whatever powers he had were dormant, for now. But Jack could remember that alien sensation of his muscles twitching under someone else's command. Puppeteer, he called himself, and he thought himself Superior. Perhaps soon they would witness the full range of his abilities.