Tim Lebbon - London Eye

The helicopter was hovering above the opposite row of houses, and Reaper faced up to it as bullets impacted all around him. He seemed to be drawing a long, deep breath.

Jack dropped to his stomach just as his father screamed. It was a short, sharp sound, but louder than anything Jack had ever heard before in his life. A grunt of unimaginable volume, it caused a storm of movement across the street: dust and shrapnel was driven away as though by a huge storm; bodies of dead rooks fluttered through the air once more; windows and doors, all but untouched on that side of the street, blew inwards.

The shout struck the helicopter, and it went into a spin. Bullets raked along the street as its guns continued firing, tearing up the ground a few feet from Jack's face and ripping through the tangle of crashed, blackened cars. Then the shooting stopped, and the aircraft dropped as though punched from above. It hit the row of houses and sank in, rotors shredding two roofs of tiles and timber and filling the air with chaos once more. Walls blew out, floors collapsed, and the sudden quiet after the crash was stunning.

Jack lifted himself and looked around to make sure everyone he loved was okay. Sparky and the others peered out from the house once again, and along the street the other Superiors picked themselves up, dusted themselves down.

Reaper stood where he had been before, staring at the downed aircraft. He smiled.

Jack looked at the new wreck as well, and through the ruin of a house's facade he saw movement as people tried to climb from the twisted metal and piled masonry.

The second shout came without warning. More directed this time, still the volume was agonising and unbelievable, and Jack fell to his knees with his hands clasping bloodied ears.

The helicopter exploded. It was a small blast, but the fuel tanks ignited, and the fire spread quickly.

People started screaming.

Reaper was smiling wider now.

“Dad, get them out,” Jack said.

“Never call me that,” Reaper said. Jack realised that he was more than aware of what was happening, who had found him, and why Jack was here.

It simply did not matter.

The screaming from the burning helicopter was terrible, and Jack walked back and forth with his hands over his ears, hating what he was hearing but unable to do anything about it. He felt the heat of the flames on his back as he turned to his father, and past him to the house. Jenna and Sparky were standing by the front door, holding each other as they watched, but Lucy-Anne was trotting along the street with the boy with rooks on his shoulders.

There were a series of smaller blasts from the fire as ammunition ignited, and the last of the screams was cut off.

“No,” Jack said, not wanting to see his dad like this, not wishing to believe the man who had loved him and read to him and played football with him could be standing here with the burnt-flesh smell of his victims hanging in the air. And smiling. He was still smiling.

Jack ran past his father towards Sparky and Jenna, and as he passed he muttered, “Bastard.”

“You okay?” Sparky asked.

“Yeah. You?” Jack's friends nodded.

“You're bleeding,” Jenna said, nodding down at Jack's leg. There was a wound in his calf that poured blood, and his trouser leg and shoe were sodden.

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “Can't feel it.”

“Your dad's nice,” Sparky said.

Reaper was walking slowly along the street, his shadow dancing beside him as he passed the flaming wreck. The fire had spread to the houses’ structures now, and smoke was seeping from the roofs of buildings several doors along. Soon, the whole terrace would go up.

“I can't give up on him,” Jack said.

“Jack, he could kill you.” Jenna stepped forward and held his face in her hands, and he saw the pity in her eyes. He hated that.

“But he won't.” Jack ran along the street after his father, and he heard his friends coming along behind him.

Reaper had reached the first downed helicopter, where his Superiors were flanking Miller and two surviving soldiers. The soldiers each nursed a broken arm, and looked around in obvious terror.

“Miller,” Reaper said. “It's been a long time since we were face to face.”

“And I remember what happened then,” Miller said.

Reaper smiled and lifted his shirt, displaying an ugly, bubbled scar across his stomach and hip. “Smarted for a bit,” he said, nodding. “But I'm much stronger now. Just ask your barbequed friends.”

Miller glanced along the street toward the burning helicopter, then he saw Jack, and his eyes went wide.

“Dad, Emily was here too,” Jack said. “But she's gone. We found Mum and they've left together, and I want you to leave too.”

“With you?” Reaper asked.

“Yes,” Jack nodded. “Dad…” He could not hold back a tear, and he wiped it angrily from his cheek. “Mum's given up on you. She says you're…too far gone.”

Reaper held up his hands and turned around, looking at the rooks still circling, the fire spreading along the street, the Superiors standing casually around the captured Chopper and his two soldiers. “Why would I ever want to give all this up?”

“They want you to join with them,” Jack said. “Break out of London.”

Reaper waved a dismissive hand. “I know they do. But they have no vision, no ambition, and no idea of what's coming.”

“And you do?”

“Of course.” He pointed at Miller. “First, this bastard gets his comeuppance. Not sure quite how yet, but we Superiors are imaginative. Then after that…well, that's for me to know, not you.”

“I'm your son!”

Reaper smiled sarcastically. “What's your name, again?”

Sparky and Jenna were behind him, and Jenna touched his arm. “We should go,” she whispered.

“I'm not leaving yet,” Jack said. “Lucy-Anne?”

Lucy-Anne looked at her three friends from across the other side of the circle, stepping closer to the bird-boy as she did so. “My brother's still alive somewhere,” she said, and her voice sounded different. Older? Wiser? Jack wasn't certain. Changed , for sure. “Rook said he'll help me find him. And there's something…” Lucy-Anne trailed off, frowning, and then several rooks fluttered down and landed on her shoulders. She grimaced for a couple of seconds; then she looked at Jack and smiled.

“Say your goodbyes, Chopper bastard,” Reaper said. The blind Superior drew a throwing knife and knelt, drawing her arm back ready to unleash the weapon.

“They didn't get out,” Miller said, kneeling and raising a hand in useless defence. “Emily and your mother, Jack…we caught them in the tunnels. The other Irregular put up quite a fight for an old woman. We have them in Camp H, and if anything happens to me…”

Reaper muttered something, and the Superior held her throwing stance.

“You have ten seconds,” Reaper said. “And I'm only giving you that because you mentioned the camp.”

“You know all about it!” Miller said. “It's where we take you freaks when we want to cut your brains out, slice and dice them and examine them under-”

“You call it Camp Hope,” Reaper growled.

A shadow streaked out from behind the fallen aircraft, denying the sun its rightful touch, and Miller flipped backward as something struck him in the face. The shadow was a man, standing beside the Chopper and leaning down, his hand raised for another blow.

“I don't like being called a freak,” the shadow man said.

“Leave him, Shade,” Reaper said. “I've just thought of a nicer way for him to die.”

“The soldiers at Camp H are angry,” Miller said, staring directly at Jack and ignoring the blood on his own face. “They've all lost friends these past couple of days, and I'm a friend to them all. There's no saying what they'll do to your mother and sister before they kill them.”