Reaper's Legacy

“Are they poisonous? Constrictors? Do they…how much like real snakes are they?”

“You want to stay and find out?” He ran and she followed him, skirting around the lake’s edge but not getting too close. Things were splashing in there. From the dark came wretched cries. It must hurt them, she thought. Such a huge change, so quickly. It must hurt! Though scared of them, she also felt pity.

Rook ran over a small footbridge that passed over a stream leading into the lake, and without pause headed across a wide area of long-grassed lawn spotted with occasional clumps of trees and wooden seating shelters. Moonlight silvered the land, setting fire to treetops. To their left and right shadows ran to keep pace with them, but Lucy-Anne could only assume that Rook knew about them. A rook landed on her left shoulder, its surprising lightness startling her, and a thought came unbidden: They’re graceful and beautiful. She understood some of Rook’s attachment to these creatures then, and for the first time she felt a pang of jealousy at his incredible abilities. Perhaps because he was closer to them than he ever could be to her.

They approached another small wooded area. She wondered why Rook was leading them into the trees instead of around them, and then she saw the shadowy humps across the grassland to their right. They moved slowly, sluggishly, but they seemed to be much larger than normal people. She was so glad that darkness mostly hid them from view.

“What the hell?” she asked, but he did not answer. He was focussed, committed to getting them across the park safely, past the mutations and the dangers, and she had to wonder why. He was not the heartless boy she had assumed when they had met. If anything he was confused and conflicted, hiding behind his grief over his dead mother and brother, sheltering emotions with his unusual abilities and the deadly opportunities they afforded him. Perhaps being with her was the first chance he’d had to properly express himself in two years.

They entered the wooded area, and as she opened her mouth to call him to a stop, to hold him and thank him, a shocking sense settled over Lucy-Anne that she had been to this place before.

With my parents, my brother, on one of those days we came to London? Surely I wouldn’t recognise it still, especially in the dark and with how much things have changed? Maybe I saw pictures? Maybe it’s a famous view of Regent’s Park that’s used for—

And then she smelled blackberries.

It was her dream. And soon would come the park bench smothered by shrubs, and then the monkey-man swinging down from the trees at her, and then the ground would open up to swallow Rook, and she would look down into the hole to see—

“Rook!” she shouted, and he skidded to a halt before her. The sense of deja vu was still all-encompassing, and she tried to break it. If she could move on from the conviction that this had all happened before, maybe she could change things. Not every dream comes true, she thought. Rook and me in the house, making love…that hasn’t happened, yet. And she stepped forward and reached for Rook, grasping his jacket and pulling him close, ignoring his startled expression and pressing her lips to his. He was unresponsive and cold, and he shoved her away.

“No,” she said, “no, don’t. Just…thank you. For doing this. But…” She looked around. There was no bench, and no man swinging down at her from the trees. She sighed, and it shook her whole body.

“What?” Rook asked. He took her hands in his and waited until she looked up at him. “What is it?”

“Blackberries,” she said. “I smell them.”

“Not in season.”

She took in a breath and smelled damp soil, rain, and the warm tang of evergreens.

“No,” she said. “You’re right. Not blackberries at all.”

Frowning, he grasped her right hand tight and tugged her on. The first few steps were painful because she expected the ground to open at any minute and for them to tumble into the pit. But when that did not happen, and they emerged close to the northern edge of the park, she started running more freely. She experienced a moment of utter delight and well-being, and when they reached the boundary wall she grabbed Rook again and kissed him properly. This time he relaxed slightly into her embrace, but his eyes remained open and alert.

A rook landed on his shoulder and stared at her quizzically.

Lucy-Anne laughed. There was a hint of hysteria to the sound, and Rook looked as befuddled as his bird.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s fine.”

“Well, we’re through the park, at least,” he said. “Come on. Long way to go.”

In the streets, that feeling of well-being left her as quickly as it had come. When the first piercing shriek rang out, and was taken up by many others, Lucy-Anne wondered whether they had actually avoided anything at all.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE NEW

As they walked through the twilit streets of a changed, ruined London, Jack started to experiment with the universe of possibilities he had been given. Each time he probed in towards the sparks of potential inside he tasted Nomad’s finger on his tongue. It was an exotic, scary taste, and he thought perhaps he might become addicted.

Fleeter led the way, incongruous with her blood-spattered hands and party dress. Sparky and Jenna followed her, walking close together. Jack brought up the rear. He had not asked Fleeter where they were going. He and his friends were exhausted—since entering London they had been pushed from one trial to another, with barely any time to rest—and he craved some peace. If Fleeter kept her words to take them to Reaper, perhaps they would find some.

Or maybe everything would get worse.

They were walking along a narrow residential street. Dark windows observed their progress, and Jack grasped a spark, letting it seed in his mind and grow into something amazing. He probed towards one house and felt his way inside, tasting the happiness that had once dwelled there. He heard children laughing, adults loving, a dog barking as it played with a young boy, and the chiming of a music box in a little girl’s pink room. He smiled… but then felt suddenly queasy when the reality of that house now hit home. The parents sat dead and decomposed in the living room, and the children were not there at all. The family had died apart.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Jack snatched at something else.

His fingers tingled. Sparks jumped beneath his fingernails, lightening his quicks and shadowing the bones of his hands against red flesh. He touched one of the cars still parked neatly along the kerb, and the sizzle of electricity snapped at the metal chassis, cracking the windscreen and drawing smoke from the half-flat tyres.

Sparky and Jenna jumped and span around, eyes wide. Seeing what he was doing did nothing to lessen their shock. Lightning danced across the car’s roof and bonnet, and illuminated the dank insides.

“Come on,” Fleeter said, feigning boredom. But he saw the interest even in her eyes.

Jack snapped his fingers and sparks jumped from them, fading in the air around his head. Sparky and Jenna were watching, and he smiled. They smiled back, but their uncertainty was clear.

As they walked, he tried to dip in to other abilities. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. He heard his friends’ heartbeats from a dozen paces away, but when he tried to lure a kestrel down from above the bird ignored him. He sensed an Irregular watching them from behind a dusty window, felt the woman’s sadness and fear, and he could almost taste the sickness settling upon her. But when he attempted to grasp the star that might enable him to communicate with her—to tell her, without speaking, that he promised to do what he could to help —he failed. Feedback squealed in his own mind, voice distorted and pained.

Uncertainties haunted him. Incredible powers were his, but so too was doubt, and a fear that when the time came to access these powers to save his friends, or himself, he would fail. The vast scope of potential within him was growing, but perhaps he could not move fast enough to keep up.

Jack jogged past his friends until he walked level with Fleeter.

“So where are we going?” he asked.