such.
“I think so,” Sparky said.
Emily nodded.
“I am,” Lucy-Anne said.
“Good luck,” Jenna said. “Really, all of you. I should leave.”
“No!” Jack said. “You didn't lose anyone on Doomsday, but you're part of our gang.”
“Right!” Lucy-Anne said.
“Yeah.” Sparky nodded, then prodded the knife at his left thumb. He hissed, then stared at the dribble of blood that bloomed and then flowed down his hand and onto his wrist.
Gordon leaned forward, hand held out. “May I?”
Sparky offered this stranger, this Irregular, his shaking hand.
Gordon touched the wound on Sparky's thumb with his index finger, just enough to pick up a smear of blood. Then he went to the huge window and pulled on a cord, opening five fanlights at ceiling level. A breath of fresh air and the cooing of pigeons came in, and Gordon put the bloodied finger into his mouth.
They all watched him, and he must have sensed it because he lowered his head as he withdrew his finger. Jack edged to one side, trying to see the man's expression, and then he wished he'd remained where he was.
Gordon was cringing, almost gagging, as though he'd put something rotten and rank onto his tongue, rather than a droplet of a living person's blood. A tear squeezed from his eyes and spotted the expensive carpet at his feet.
Jack saw Rosemary's face drop, and she looked down at her feet.
“His name's Stephen,” Sparky said. “He lived in Peckham, last I heard. Taller than me.” Gordon did not react to his voice, and Jack could see desperation creeping over his friend. “Tattoo on his arm. His name.” He stood and approached the man, reaching out but pausing just before he touched the Irregular's shoulder.
“I'm sorry,” Gordon said, “but your brother's dead.”
Jack expected shouting and raving, denial and fury, and for a second he saw that and more behind Sparky's eyes. All that, and the temporary madness of grief.
But then Sparky stepped away from Gordon and slumped back down onto the floor cushions, holding his head in his hands and trying to cover his eyes, his ears, trying to shut himself off from the cruel world that had destroyed his family and left him like this.
Jack wanted to go to him. He saw Jenna take a step forward as well. But Emily grasped his hand, and Jenna looked at Lucy-Anne, then across at him. Being the one out of all of them who had not had family in London, she was aware that there could be more grief to come.
“Me next,” Lucy-Anne said. Her voice was gruff. She jumped down beside Sparky, snatched the knife from his hand and drew the blade harshly across her palm. She hissed and grimaced, and blood spattered the cushions and carpet as she strode to Gordon.
“I only need a speck,” Gordon said.
“Take as much as you want.”
She held out her hand.
Her hand was shaking, she couldn't help that. Part of it was the pain of the cut, but most of it was because of what this man could do. What he was
“I've dreamed this,” she whispered, and if any of the others heard her, they said nothing.
She watched Gordon turn and approach the window again. He stepped so close that she saw his breath condensing on the glass. Then he took a deep breath and touched Lucy-Anne's blood to his tongue.
…
“No,” Lucy-Anne moaned, and she knew that nightmare at last.
Gordon cringed again, quivering in the sunlight slanting through the window. Then he grew still, and he spoke without turning around or looking up. “Your brother is alive north of here. The rest, I think you already know.”
“No,” she moaned again, hand clenching tight around the knife handle, her other hand dripping blood onto the lush carpet. “We walked over them. I could have seen them, I knew they were there…” The whole nightmare came to her now, a solid, dreadful memory that refused to go away.
She screamed, raised the knife again, saw the startled expressions on her friends’ faces, and threw the blade over Sparky's head towards the bed. Even before it bounced from one of the corner posts she was running, screaming again, raging, venting fury and hatred as spittle-strewn invectives.
“We can't have her making too much-” she heard Gordon say.
“Her mum and dad are dead!” Emily snapped.
Lucy-Anne reached the door and hauled it open, swinging it so hard that the handle knocked a chunk from the plasterboard wall behind. She went with no destination in mind, bursting through doors, sprinting along corridors, trying to outrun the nightmare that had been stalking her since yesterday. And for a while, in that place of endless corridors and rooms that all looked the same, she lost herself to grief and rage.
As his girlfriend disappeared out into the corridor, and Sparky looked up as though he had never seen any of them before, Jack only wanted to hear about his father.
“You really need to stop her,” Gordon said. “There are Superiors about, I sensed them earlier.”
“Superiors?” Jack asked, confused.
“Later!” Rosemary said, grabbing Jack's arm. “Go after her.” Lucy-Anne's screams were fading as she ran.
“But my father…” he said.
“I can tell you about him soon enough. And dear Susan, your mother. But stop her making that noise, or we'll all be in trouble.”
Rosemary glared at Jack, and he nodded, signalling Emily to stay with the others and then running for the door.
Just as he exited the plush suite and started along the corridor, he heard Gordon say, “Oh sweet Jesus, they're already here.”
Chapter Ten
There will be a statement from the prime minister on all TV and radio channels at midnight.
Jack expected monsters.
As he ran along the plush hotel corridor in pursuit of Lucy-Anne's fading screams, he wondered whether he was now just following echoes.
The door to the service staircase opened. Jack skidded to a halt. A woman stepped out. She was beautiful, but terrifying in a way Jack could not properly establish. Maybe it was the complete disregard she seemed to have for her appearance: tatty, loose trousers; a torn jacket; dirty sweatshirt. Or perhaps it was her eyes and the way they seemed to bore right through him from the second they locked glances.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and her voice came from inside his head as well as without. Jack slumped
