“I hate them because they killed my brother.” He was looking at her shoulder, unable to meet her eyes. “They dragged him away soon after Doomsday, cut him up…” He waved away whatever images the recollection invoked.
“Go on,” Lucy-Anne said. Rook veered from anger to confusion, not used to exposing himself so much. But then he seemed to settle and started speaking.
“David. He was my twin but so much more…special. He could speak to the birds. All of them, from the smallest wren to the biggest buzzard. They’d drift down and perch so close to him that he could touch them. It was amazing, and he kept it from everyone but me.”
“Why keep it from people?” she asked, confused. Wasn’t everyone in London special nowadays?
“Because he was like that when we were little kids together, then older kids, then all through our teens. And it was only after Doomsday that it troubled him enough to get caught.”
She frowned, confused.
“He was like you,” Rook said. “Special all on his own, before all this.”
“Like me?”
“I dreamed of you because you dreamed of me,” Rook said softly, and it was the most emotion she’d heard him convey. He was opening himself to her, and at the same time his doubt about doing so was obvious. He’d been closed up tight for so long that this was hurting.
“I did dream of you,” she whispered.
“And that’s why I want to help you,” Rook said. “Because you’re like David. Pure. Don’t you see? You weren’t even here when it happened, and still you’re so special. Not like me. Changed into this by Doomsday and all the shit that’s come after.” He turned suddenly and walked away. Overhead, rooks followed them, flitting from roof to roof, all of them totally silent.
Lucy-Anne ran after him. She could not shake from her mind’s eye the image from her dream—that strange woman on the banks of the Thames, and the nuclear explosion that had seemed to pass her by.
“They’re just dreams! They can’t all come true.”
“I came true,” Rook said over his shoulder. He continued walking away, and Lucy-Anne could only follow.
CHAPTER TWO
MAJESTY
Jack stared along the barren wilderness of the Mall towards Buckingham Palace and wondered what had become of the Queen. Had she died at her first inhalation of Evolve, just like so many of her subjects? Or was she now someone with incredible, almost supernatural powers, a human being rapidly evolving into something greater—a fire starter, a healer, someone capable of impossible things?
As far as Jack was aware, no one had seen the Queen since Doomsday. Perhaps on his quest he would meet her, and her majesty would be revealed.
“Stop arsing about!” Sparky hissed. He was Jack’s best friend, heavily built with spiked blond hair, and a lighthearted manner that hid darker depths. “Jenna’s gonna be waiting.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. He closed his eyes briefly, and for a while he was his old self. He was glad. He felt so much closer to his friends like this.
All through the previous night, following his confrontation with his father and their escape from the scene of so much death and destruction, Jack had been sensing a change happening inside. The Nomad’s touch was working through him at its own strange pace. He was infected, but he had an idea that his own burgeoning powers were something different from his father’s, or Rosemary’s…or perhaps anyone else in London right now.
He had hidden himself, Sparky, and Jenna away from view in a basement while a Chopper looked right at them, and made the soldier not see. And he didn’t know for sure how he had done so. Invisible! Jenna had gasped, but Sparky had been more wary, eyeing his friend as he considered what had happened.
Jack was still not sure whether he had influenced their presence, or the Chopper’s ability to see them.
Sparky grabbed his arm. “We need to get across Trafalgar Square sharpish! Don’t like it here, it’s too open. Anyone could be watching.”
“We’ll be okay,” Jack said.
Sparky frowned at him.
“No special powers,” Jack said. “Just a feeling. Come on, let’s find Jenna.”
They ran up from the end of the Mall towards the square, crossing streets once crammed nose to tail with vehicles. Now it was jammed with a motionless traffic jam that might never move again. Many cars had their doors closed and windows obscured by a pale green growth inside, and Jack had no wish to see what might be hidden.
The square was home to thousands of pigeons, and the birds took flight in sweeping waves as Jack and Sparky ran across. That was a good sign as far as Jack was concerned; it meant that no one else was around to startle the birds aloft. Unless they’re like that boy Lucy-Anne’s gone off with, he thought. Sadness stabbed at the loss of his old girlfriend.
They skirted around one of the huge plinths bearing a proud, gigantic lion, and Jack looked up past it at Admiral Nelson on top of his column. Nelson’s view of London must be a sad one.
“There,” Sparky said, pointing. Jack followed his friend, trying not to see the mass of clothing and other things that filled one of the fountains. People had used to come here on New Year’s Eve to drink and celebrate and dance one year into the next, filled with hope for what the future might bring.
They met Jenna in front of the National Gallery, crouched down behind a pile of split black plastic bags spilling mouldy clothes. Sparky and Jenna touched hands briefly—they had progressed from good friends to lovers only recently, and their vitality was evident—and she looked at Jack with wide eyes.
“I’ve made contact,” she said. “They’re bringing him to a meeting point now, and he’ll check us over. But…”
“But what?” Jack prompted.
“They say he’s dying.”
“Well, if he can’t help us we’re lost,” Sparky said. He glanced back at Jack, as if expecting him to dispute his statement.
But Jack couldn’t. Miller and the Choppers were searching for them now—Miller knew that Jack had been touched by the mysterious Nomad, and his greatest desire now to was get hold of Jack and examine him. Dissect him, perhaps. See what was going on inside.
And what was? Jack wasn’t sure.
“Guys, I’m feeling pretty lost anyway,” Jack said. “You both know something’s happening with me, but I don’t really know what. Different things…and not all the time. I can’t…” He looked around, waved across the square. “I can’t topple Nelson’s Column with my mind, or see around corners. Or change this pile of clothes into stone. Or…” He shrugged, voice breaking, throat filling. He spoke quieter. “Maybe I’ll be able to do all those things tomorrow. But today, the only thing stopping me going mad with this is you two. My mates.”
Jenna smiled at him, eyes glittering.
“Pussy,” Sparky said.
Jack laughed softly. “Yeah. So come on. Let’s see if this old guy can help.”
From the moment he saw the old man, Jack knew that he was dying from something unknown. It was the same malady killing the Irregulars in the underground hospital where he’d found his mother. An incredible man—Jack hoped he could still use his gift—he was suffering from the mysterious illness affecting more and more of London’s survivors.
He was mad, first of all. Sitting in an old shopping trolley in the shattered entrance to a once-posh store, scrunched up like a skinny rag doll, the man seemed to be snatching at unseen flies bothering him. He stared, motionless, and then a hand would lash out, fist closing on nothing.