by Tim Lebbon
Rook reappeared in the doorway, and the watching bird fluttered past him and from the room with hardly a sound.
“Family’s upstairs,” he said, glancing around the room. “We’ll stay down here. Two sofas. I’ll check the kitchen, see if any canned food’s still edible.”
Lucy-Anne only nodded, and as he left again she leaned across so that she could see the staircase outside. She felt no temptation to go up.
As she heard Rook rooting through the kitchen cupboards she sat back in the sofa and breathed in deeply. She’d had one night’s disturbed sleep since leaving her friends, and exhaustion was creeping in. Sleep lured her down, yet Andrew urged her on.
“I will find you,” she whispered, and the room seemed to be listening. But what would she find? In the north of London, where even people like Rook chose not to tread and there were bad people, hungry and cruel, would the Andrew she might find be one that she wanted?
A flutter, and three rooks entered the room. They perched in high corners and became as motionless as shadows.
She remembered him from when they were younger and tried to imagine what he might be capable of now.
Her eyes drooped. When she jerked in her sleep and looked again, one of the rooks had come closer, standing motionless on a low coffee table not six feet from her. She stared, it stared back. She lifted one foot quickly, as if to kick out, but the bird did not move. He’s watching me, she thought.
The sofa was deep and soft. From the kitchen, she heard the dull rasp of a tin being opened, and then something wet being spooned into a bowl.
Between blinks the bird vanished from sight and the room lit up, suddenly bright and airy and filled with life once more.
Rook is there before her, sitting in a chair and drinking from a steaming mug. He’s smiling, and there is no mockery in that expression now, no superiority. He starts to stand and—
Music is playing through the room’s stereo system. It’s something soft and gentle, lulling. Rook sits on the sofa beside her, and though they do not live here, she feels very much at home. She glances at the window, where net curtains are hung to conceal the view outside. She leans sideways, because between curtains and window there is a chink of bare glass, and she thinks perhaps she has seen an eye—
She is lying on the sofa and Rook is sitting by her side. She’s all but naked. Rook’s smile is both alluring and comforting, as if this has all happened before. She glances at the window, but the curtains have been drawn tightly closed.
The toy car is no longer beneath the table. The book has been closed and re-shelved. The coat over the back of the sofa is now Rook’s, and the wallet hanging from the inside pocket is spilling ink-black feathers.
She opens her mouth, but Rook kisses her—
Rook is lying on her, and when she looks past him the room is filled with rooks, perching on the picture rail, the bookshelves, the table and the backs of chairs. As she opens her mouth to cry out they beat her to it, caw-cawing as one, flapping their wings and suddenly filling the space with frantic movement.
Lucy-Anne shouted herself awake, sitting up on the sofa, waving her hands around her head to ward off the birds and push Rook away. But she was alone in the room once more, and any watching birds had gone.
Rook rushed into the room, looking around for any threat. “What?” he asked.
Lucy-Anne pressed one had to her chest. Her heart was beating hard. She shook her head.
“Dream?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She did not elaborate. How could she?
“Was this one about me, too?” he asked, smiling. Then he held up one finger and turned, leaving the room and calling back, “Food in one minute!”
Lucy-Anne stood and paced the room. She stood by the window and moved the closed curtains aside, revealing bare glass and no net curtains. Outside, the street was silent and motionless. There was no sense of being watched.
“What the bloody hell?” she muttered. Whether the dream was prophecy or desire, there was no way to know. But for a moment it had all felt so real.
Drawn like a searcher to a beacon in the dark, Nomad drifted through the streets of London.
I have felt this before, and touched him, and now Jack is just beginning to understand his potential. But this…
Nomad usually wandered, yet now she moved with unaccustomed purpose. She sensed other people seeing her and moving out of the way. Eyes followed her progress, and whispers sounded behind her, wrapping her in myth and legend.
As she approached her target, she probed with inhuman senses, constructing a picture of what she would see and why she was being impelled this way. She paused by a knot of crashed and burned vehicles.
I have felt this before, but this time is different.
Soon, she saw the girl. Purple-haired, strong, angry, confused, she was accompanied by a boy and his birds. They were heading north, searching for her brother, whom Nomad could have found if she so desired. But she did not yet wish that. She had come to learn that leaving matters to fate might sometimes steer the world.
She watched them from the shadow of a doorway, and when the girl saw her watching she froze, scared and confused.
And Nomad gasped.
She had seen this girl in dreadful dreams she did her best to forget.
The girl ran at her and Nomad quickly melted away, fleeing through buildings and across roads, down alleys and up staircases. Behind her, she sensed the girl’s confusion.
Nomad sat on a rooftop and looked out over London, the toxic city so filled with potential. For the first time ever in her new life, she was afraid.
CHAPTER SIX
FLEETER
As the Jeep slewed across the road and mounted the pavement, Jack grabbed Sparky’s and Jenna’s arms and pulled them backwards, just waiting for the next burst of gunfire.
Brakes squealed as the other two vehicles skidded to a halt. Someone shouted. Someone else screamed.
Jenna tripped and went down. Jack could have let her go, but he chose to hold on and fall with her. Sparky stood beside them, Jenna’s knife suddenly in his hand.
The Jeep struck a building at the corner of the crossroads, and Jack cringed as he saw someone thrown through the already-shattered windscreen, blood spattering behind them. They slid across the crumpled bonnet and came to rest against the wall, motionless.
“Too late to run,” Jack said. Something passed across his field of vision and he blinked rapidly.
The crashed Jeep’s rear doors opened and three Choppers jumped out, guns at the ready, eyes wide and alert.
Jack searched inside. He delved into that sparkling constellation of potential Nomad had seeded within him, looking desperately for something that might help them. He grasped one idea he had used already and made the weapons hot, but the Choppers wore heavy gloves. He threw an image at one of them that they were breathing insects. Perhaps it was the Choppers’ fear, or his own panic, but it was ineffective.
As Jack stood and helped Jenna to her feet, the three Choppers rushed forward and aimed their guns.
“Don’t move!” one of them said, his voice incredibly high. There was blood splashed on his face.
“Just shoot them!” a second soldier said. Her head flipped back and her throat opened from ear to ear, her only scream a bubbling cry.
“Stop it!” the first soldier said. His gun was shaking as he aimed at Sparky, his comrade bleeding out on the ground beside him.
Something moved again. A blur, a smudge on reality. Jack blinked.
The soldier’s gun vanished from his hands and then appeared again, barrel pressed against his forehead, held by a tall, stocky woman in a short dress.
“Where the hell did she come from?” Jenna asked.
“Out of thin air,” Sparky said. “Let’s hope she’s on our side, eh?”
“Drop it!” the woman said, but the third soldier spun, bringing his own weapon to bear on the newly arrived woman.
She grinned, flitted out of view again, and the
third soldier’s head snapped back before the gunshot even sounded.
“Shit,” Jenna said, turning away.
The other two Jeeps’ doors sprung open and Choppers emerged, a dozen of them fanning out around their vehicles and quickly closing on the scene of slaughter.
“Shift!” Sparky said needlessly, and he grabbed Jenna’s hand as the three of them darted for cover.
But Jack was watching, trying to perceive what was happening, and at the same time a particular star began to shine in his mind’s eye. There she is, he thought, flooded with certainty that he would be able to follow the woman in the dress.
The last survivor from the crashed Jeep was pulling his sidearm, eyes on Jack, hatred on his face.
The woman had not reappeared, but from behind the vehicle came a startled cry, and then several guns started firing at once.
Sparky and Jenna reached a shop doorway and slid across the pavement until they were protected from the field of fire.
Jack breathed deeply. When Sparky turned to look at him, he smiled.
“J—!” Sparky shouted, and Jack let the power flood through him, scorching his veins, setting every nerve on fire with the thrilling potential of something he had never done before.
The world ground to a halt.
Jack caught his breath as every sense retreated to nothing. Sounds faded until all he heard was his own beating heart, and blood pulsing through his ears. The air was motionless. Smoke hung like Christmas decorations above the crashed Jeep’s front end. Blood dripped from the dead soldier on its bonnet, each drop barely moving, exclamations on the air.
Sparky reached for Jack, mouth hanging open and bearing his unuttered name. Jenna was suspended halfway through a fall to the ground, hair streaming behind her, hand held out to arrest the impact, her eyes on Sparky.
Jack looked around at the Choppers, all similarly frozen—
But not quite. “Not quite still,” Jack said. His voice did not echo, as if he’d spoken in an insulated chamber rather than in this bloodied London street. The Chopper pulling a gun on him was shifting slightly, his shoulder raising, hand tugging the pistol from its holster, movements as imperceptible as a minute hand on a clock. And Sparky’s mouth opened wider, wider, as he shouted his friend’s name in terror.
“Oh!” a surprised voice said. “Well. I thought I was the only one.”
The woman in the dress appeared from behind the crashed Jeep and strolled casually across to the standing soldier. She stepped over one of the bodies without looking down, though Jack had seen her shoot the terrified man in the face.
“Who…?” Jack said.
“Name’s Fleeter,” she said. She watched Jack curiously as she moved the soldier’s hand aside and pulled the pistol from his belt. Then she smiled, and it made her look manic. “I wasn’t told you could do this.” She stepped back and aimed the gun at the man’s head.
“Wait!” Jack said, his word cut off by the gunshot.
“Why?” the woman asked, all innocence. As she walked towards Jack, he saw the most terrible thing.
The bullet struck the Chopper’s face in slow motion. It impacted his skin, entered just below his left eye socket, and sent a ripple of imminent destruction through the man’s face.
Jack turned away, not wishing to see any more.
“So,” the woman said, circling Jack so that she could see his face. “You want to help me with the rest of them?”
“No!” Jack said. “Who are you? What are you?”
“Reaper sent me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you didn’t get into trouble.”
She had already turned and was walking towards the other soldiers, her wide hips swaying the short skirt. She wasn’t pretty, but she was striking. In Jack’s eyes right now she was also monstrous, and he was desperate to prevent her continuing the slaughter.
Whatever these Choppers might do, they were still people, each with families and individual stories to tell.
“Why would he worry about me?”
The woman who had called herself Fleeter shrugged. “I just do as he tells me.”
“Just following orders, eh? That’s what these Choppers do. Hey. Hey!” She was approaching more of the soldiers and raising the stolen pistol.
Fleeter turned and looked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in surprise. “What?”
“Don’t,” Jack said.
She pulled the trigger. The sound was a crushing impact and then an extended, deafening roar, like a train bursting from a tunnel and then receding. He saw the bullet leave the gun and strike a woman in the eye.
“Don’t!” he shouted. He ran at Fleeter and she stepped aside, tripping him up. As Jack struck the ground his anger grew, and the pain from knees and elbows fed it. He delved deep and stood again, turning to the woman, sending a thought, spasming her thigh muscles so that she groaned and stumbled, dropping the gun and hitting the road.
“I said don’t,” Jack said. The gunshot’s roar was a grumbling echo, fading, fading. “Now you can help me get my friends away from here.”
“Can’t,” Fleeter said through gritted teeth.
“Why not?”
“I don’t move people. I just speed myself up.” She looked up at him, still trying to massage the cramps from her muscles. “Like you.”
“You’re nothing like me,” Jack said. As he went to Sparky and Jenna he could feel the flow of time all around, moving like random currents in thick soup. I’ll carry them, he thought. Away from danger, hide somewhere, and then—
Something slipped. Everything fluttered and blinked, and then noise and chaos burst around him—gunshots, shouting, someone screaming one name over and over again: “Peter! Peter! Peter!”
“—ack!” Sparky finished shouting, and his eyes went wide.
“What the bloody hell?” Jenna asked. “How did you get from there to—?”
Jack fell into the doorway with them, overcome with sensory input after that brief respite. Everything felt wrong—the air, the noise, the feel of concrete pavement against his hands. He looked around quickly for Fleeter, but saw only the crashed Jeep and the Choppers now advancing quickly from behind it.
“They’ll kill us,” Jack said, because it was inevitable. They’d seen their comrades ambushed and murdered, and here were the kids they’d likely been looking for all across London. Shoot now, ask questions later.
The Choppers fell one after another, legs kicked from beneath them. They hit the ground hard as if shoved from above by a massive weight. Bones broke.
With a clap of displaced air, Fleeter appeared before them. She looked angry.
“Well, come on then,” she said. “Or I will have to finish them off.” She limped along the street without looking back, and Jack grabbed his friends’ hands.
“Come on!” he said, ignoring their questioning looks. “No time to lose.” He and his friends followed the woman along the street.
Moments later the shooting began. Bullets ripped into parked cars and across storefronts, ricochets sparking from the road, and Fleeter led them between two buildings, protected from the shooting but nowhere near safe. She skidded to a halt and looked back, angry.
“You’ll get me killed!” she said to Jack, and her fear was obvious. Desperate to use her ability to flit away, she had also been tasked with protecting Jack. By my father, Jack thought. But now was not the time to dwell on what that might mean.
“If you’ll trust me, we’ll be safe,” Jack said.
They heard cautious footsteps and whispered orders, the crackling of radios, and in moments the Choppers would storm the alley. There would be no demands to raise hands, give in, kneel down. Only bullets.
“Safe here?” Fleeter said, gesturing around at the alley.
“There,” Jack said. He pointed at a door alcove, where two red-painted fire doors were locked shut.
“Yeah,” Sparky said. Jack could have hugged his friend for remembering, and Sparky’s confidence seemed to change something in Fleeter.
Sparky and Jenna were already in the alcove, squatting, nowhere near out of sight but ready for Jack to save them. He joined his friends there, already floating through his cosmos of fledgling abilities, reaching for one blazing star he already knew.
“They’re brothers and fathers, daughters and mothers,” he said softly. Fleeter seemed to vibrate, shimmering as though seen through a heavy heat-haze as she struggled with doubt—disappear into her own slowed-down time and continue with her cold-blooded slaughter; or trust Jack?
As Jack held his friends’ hands and breathed deeply, Fleeter joined them, pressing one warm hand to the back of his neck. It was sticky with blood, and when she whispered to him, her voice was heavy with the threat of more.
“This goes wrong, I’ll only save myself,” she said.
“Clear!” a voice shouted, and Jack and the others turned slowly to look along the alley.
Two Choppers stood just beyond the entrance, one crouched down and aiming a machine gun, the other peering around the wall. We’re in plain sight but a world away, Jack thought. The woman with the machine gun swung the weapon back and forth to cover the alley, its barrel drifting past the alcove where they squatted and back again. The barrel did not waver.
“Okay, quick and careful,” a voice said. Two more Choppers entered the alley and started moving along, guns always at the ready. Jack saw their wide, scared eyes. He could almost smell their fear.
Sparky and Jenna both squeezed his hands at the same time, and he squeezed back. He felt Fleeter’s blood-sticky hand resting on the back of his neck, and close to his ear she breathed a quick, sharp laugh.
We’re not here, he thought, the alcove is empty, no one hiding here, red doors, red doors…
The Choppers passed them, one stepping a foot away from Jenna’s right leg. Jack knew that though he could convince the soldiers that the alcove was empty, if they stepped on one of them, the game was over.