London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(68)

“Some of the blasts blew glass from the window, and I got this.” She touched the scar beside her nose. “It hurt terribly, but as I touched it in front of the mirror…I knew I could do something about it. And it was as if knowing I could do something helped, because the cut started to heal. It took ten minutes. I wasn't surprised or upset, shocked or scared. It felt natural, and if anything, I was a little annoyed that I couldn't heal it any better. But that was right at the beginning, and my ability has improved with time.

“I waited, expecting help. But when I saw people moved through the streets, I was suddenly too scared to call to them. And it was Rosemary who found me.”

Emily seemed content to cuddle into her mother and hear the sound of her voice. She even seemed sleepy. But Jack was filled with more questions, many more, so many that he wondered whether they would ever be able to talk normally with each other again.

There was one question screaming to be asked.

“Dad. Reaper. Please tell me.”

She looked at him for a long time, studying his face. “I didn't know he was still alive until six months ago.”

“He didn't try to find you?”

She shook her head. “He's not Graham anymore, Jack.”

“Not my daddy?” Emily asked.

“No, baby. He's changed much more than anyone else I know, or have heard about. I saw Reaper once, from a distance, and though I recognised him, I also knew he was someone else. And everything they say about him…” She frowned and looked away.

“You're still wearing the locket he bought you,” Jack said.

His mother smiled sadly and fingered the jewellery. “Of course. My husband gave me this, and I loved him very much.”

“Rosemary left London to get me so that I could speak to Dad. Persuade him to join his Superiors with everyone else and fight their way out of London.”

His mother seemed genuinely shocked, and she sat back and stared up at the ceiling for a while. “Everyone's so desperate,” she said. “It's tragic. There's so much good in what's left of this place, but no hope at all.”

“I'll speak to him. I've already said I would, but I insisted on coming to you first.”

“I've no hope left for him, Jack. I've heard about the things he's done. He's very, very dangerous now. You understand? He's…” she trailed off again.

“He's killed people.”

“I cure, he kills.” She was going to ask him not to go, he knew that. The request would come soon. But the more his mother betrayed loss of hope for his father, the more determined Jack was becoming to talk to him.

“He won't hurt me,” Jack said.

“Your father died when I was lying beside him on that pavement. The man you might find, Reaper, is someone else. Please, son, don't—”

“Mum.” He noticed that Emily was asleep now, and he moved closer so that he could hug them both together. “I've got to try. You see that? I've spent two years trying to find my way here. I can't just abandon him now.”

“The Choppers, the soldiers, there's just no way out for any of us.”

“It's not for anyone else I'll be doing it,” he said. “It's for us: you, Emily, me. We need him. I need him. I need my dad.”

“He's not your dad anymore,” she said quietly. Then she sighed, put her arm around him, and hugged him back. The three of them sat there for a while, saying no more, content just to be with each other. Jack was overjoyed. But the joy was shadowed by the knowledge of what he had to do next and the terrible fear that he might fail.

Sparky and Jenna came down, and Jack introduced his mother to them as Susan. He told her they were his best friends.

Rosemary was with them, and when the women spoke it was with a reserve that perhaps had not been there before. That was not Jack's fault. And truly, he did not care. Rosemary had helped them and healed them when it was needed, but she had also led them willingly into danger and between the literal jaws of death. And the more he thought about how things had worked out so far, the more he believed she had used them all.

Jack took a moment to look around the hospital. After a few minutes, his mother finished talking with Rosemary and came to join him. Hidden away in the curtained area were several terribly sick people, and his mother said she had no idea what ailed them. Her gift was healing, but only physical alterations responded to her particular touch—wounds, cuts, and broken bones. Rosemary was slightly different in that she could also sense a sickness inside and, if it was something out of place, or something that should not be there, heal it. She had taken cancers from people, fixed faulty heart valves. But neither woman could combat the invisibly small invaders of infection.