London Eye

“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.”

“Dad,” Jack said. “Reaper. Please! He has Mum and Emily.”

“I don't know those names,” the Superior said, but this time he did not meet Jack's gaze.

“But I do,” Jack said. “And whether you recognise them anymore or not, you wouldn't kill your own wife and daughter, would you? After everything that's happened?”

Reaper stared at Miller, who stared at Jack. Jack shivered. A rook cried out and Lucy-Anne shifted slightly, a bird on her head fluttering away as though called somewhere else.

“Please, Dad,” Jack said, lifting his voice above the roar of the spreading flames. The air was redolent with the stench of cooking flesh, and he felt sick. But he had not come this far to lose everything, and everything now rested on his father's shoulders.

On Reaper's shoulders.

“Those two,” Reaper said quietly, and a blink later the soldiers either side of Miller both slumped to the ground with knives protruding from their throats. One of them gurgled and clutched at the blade with his good arm, but the blind Superior's aim had been true, and they died quickly.

Miller gasped and stood up, staring defiantly into Reaper's eyes.

“Ready?” Reaper said, grinning. Miller did not respond.

“You're a monster,” Jack hissed. “A beast, worse than him, worse than all the Choppers. You can save people who love you, here and now. But what do you choose, Dad?”

His father did not react. Jack felt movement around him, and he knew that Shade was somewhere close by, ready to strike.

“Reaper! What a name. Who chose that? You should be wearing your underpants on the outside and have a good reserve of one-liners.” Jack snorted. “You're dressed in black, I'll give you that.”

“Don't mock me, child!” his father cried, and Jack gasped at the effect of his father's voice. It struck him like something solid, knocking air from his lungs and sweeping his legs from beneath him. Jack hit the ground on one arm, managing not to cry out at the sudden pain.

But Reaper was frowning at him now, and there was something going on in his mind other than violence. Jack could see it. He could sense it. And as he closed his eyes, he felt his father's confusion as past struggled with present, to define the future.

He felt it.

I can feel what he's thinking! Jack thought, and the taste of the Nomad's finger flooded his mouth. But now was no time for wonder.

“Your friends?” Reaper asked, nodding at Sparky and Jenna.

“Yes. My friends.”

“Ten minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked, standing slowly.

“You have ten minutes. I'll wait here with my friend Miller, chat to him, perhaps try and persuade him to tell