London Eye

something. Not the truth. I couldn't do that to them.”

“Will leaving…?”

“Compared to everything else we've been through?” She looked around, smiling at a patient walking with the aid of a wheeled frame. “It'll be sad, rather than hard.”

“Sis, you look after Mum, won't you?”

“You betcha!” Emily stood slightly in front of their mother, like a bodyguard preparing to take a bullet. Her face was so stern that Jack laughed out loud.

The thought of leaving his mother so soon after finding her again was incredibly painful. But the longer they remained together, the less inclined he'd be to leave at all. And he owed his father everything.

“That camera,” he said to Emily. “It's precious. It's almost priceless, for all the people we've seen in London. You know that, don't you?”

“Of course I do! I'm not a bloody kid, you know.”

“I know you're not, Emily. You're my hero.”

“See, Mum?” she said, beaming proudly. “Jack's hero!”

“So when you get out, put the camera somewhere safe and sound. Don't take it home with you. When I come out with Sparky and Jenna, we'll retrieve it and do what we can.”

“And Dad?” Emily said.

“I'll do my best.”

“Why does he call himself Reaper now?” his little sister asked.

“Because he's forgotten who he is. I'm going to remind him.”

“Please keep them safe,” Jack said to Rosemary.

The old woman smiled. “Keep yourself safe. Good luck with Reaper.”

“His name's Graham. And I'm looking forward to seeing my father again.” Jack knew what she wanted to hear: I'll speak to him, persuade him, plead with him if I have to. But he could not say that yet, because his priority was completing his family. Perhaps the two aims would run side by side, or maybe they would collide. Time would tell.

Jack, Sparky, and Jenna watched them leave the underground hospital. Jenna put an arm around Jack's shoulder.

“Wimp,” Sparky muttered, and Jack coughed, half-laugh, half-sob.

Jack saw his mother and sister pass out of sight, and he could not fight away the feeling that he would never see his family again. Standing there with his two best friends in the world, he had never felt so alone.

Chapter Sixteen

On Reaper's shoulders

Birmingham is the new capital city of Great Britain.

— Government Proclamation, 3:44 p.m. GMT, July 29, 2019

Lucy-Anne was too terrified to ask him about his dreams. Her own scared her enough. So she walked with Rook in silence, and he told her they had somewhere special to go.

“But I need to find Andrew,” she said.

“And you've told me where he is. ‘North of here,’ you said.”

“Yeah.”

“Girl…where north of here?” She still hadn't told him her name, because in some ways it still felt distant to her. It belonged to a girl with other friends, another life.

“Well…” she began, but there was little else she could say. Your brother is alive north of here, she remembered a man saying, and if that was all he'd said, perhaps that thing in her mind would not have snapped. But he had gone on, told her more.

“North is a big place,” Rook said. “And like I mentioned, it's a wild place.” He looked up at the clear blue sky, speckled with hundreds of dark spots where the rooks kept pace with them. “Everywhere in the city is wild now.”

“So where are you taking me?” she asked.

Rook laughed, and high above Lucy-Anne heard the cawing of many birds.

“Girl, I don't believe I can take you anywhere. But if you'll come with me, I'll introduce you to some people who might help.”

“Why might they?”

He frowned a little, looked away, but then smiled at her again. “Because I'll ask them.”

The boy seemed friendly enough to Lucy-Anne. And he was strong, not just in his wiry frame, but mentally. He exuded a power that frightened her a little, but alongside that fright she had to admit it turned her on as well. His was a power she had never imagined, and something about the fact he had changed his name made him seem closer to the city. She had come to this place with friends, but they paled when compared to Rook.

“Okay,” she said. “But first I have to pee.”

Rook glanced around, then pointed at an overgrown parking lot beside a burnt-out pub. “Public toilets!” he said, giggling at his own joke.

Lucy-Anne dashed across the road, feeling his eyes burning into her back. His dark eyes. So like a rook's, she thought, almost lifeless. But the rest of his face made up for it; he always wore a smile, and there were laughter lines in his young man's skin.

He was dangerous, but for now she felt safe around him.

For now.

Rosemary had told them which way to go. No one really knew where Reaper could be found, but there were rumours. North, across the river, into the heart of the city, and look out for the rooks. One of the boys that runs with Reaper communes with them. Last I heard, they were seen above St. James's Park.

As they crossed Vauxhall Bridge, Jack remembered a dozen movies that had used this place as a setting. He'd often heard his father describing London as a giant film set, and now here he was, in a depressing movie about a sad future. Two years ago, who could have believed that London would ever look like this?

The Houses of Parliament, once home to the British Government, was a ruin. One half of it looked as though it had suffered sustained bombing, and there was little recognisable left. The other half had burned, and though most of its walls were still standing, they were swathed in a thick green climbing plant erupting with violet flowers. The once-smart lawns outside, where Jack had watched countless politicians being interviewed for TV and Net- News, was a plain of waist-high grass and graceful bamboo.

The Big Ben tower was still there, but the clock faces had been blown out, and Jack could see straight through its upper section. The bell itself seemed to have gone. Perhaps they would find it, if they looked long enough, fallen and covered in moss. But that would gain them nothing. Time flicked at him with its cruel whip, though as yet Jack was unsure why he felt such urgency.

Perhaps it was those dying Irregulars in the underground hospital.

They paused on the bridge for a while, catching their breath, taking a drink and looking down the River Thames. It flowed through a wild place now. Clumps of detritus-plants, branches, broken things-drifted down from upriver, gently bobbing towards the sea. A couple of the old river cruisers were still there, one of them wedged beneath one of the gentle arches of Grosvenor Bridge, the other still moored at river's edge not far from where they stood. From this distance it looked strangely peaceful and serene, so much so that it seemed out of place. A picture postcard image of hell.

“I'm glad you two got together,” Jack said. They had not talked much since leaving the Underground again, though the silence was never uncomfortable.