Reaper's Legacy: Book Two (Toxic City)(40)

It felt strange approaching the skyscraper they had so recently escaped. Yesterday they had leaped from the roof of this building in a rickety hang glider, trusting their lives to fate. Coming back made the memory of that escape unreal.

“Bloody high, isn't it?” Sparky said.

“We'd have made a mess on the pavement.” Jenna was clasping Sparky's hand, and Jack could not shake the growing feeling that he was alone. Left out. He hated it, because there was a selfishness to that thought.

“It might be best if you…” Jack started saying, but Shade was no longer there. They heard breaking glass from somewhere, a shout, and then several more voices joining in. They sounded confused and scared.

“So much for diplomacy,” Sparky said.

“Come on,” Jack said. “I'm hoping this'll be pretty easy.”

The three men and two women on the ground floor of the office building let them pass when they saw Jack. They were all surprised, but he also saw an element of respect as well. Maybe their daring escape had livened up these people's day.

They climbed, and Shade led the way. He flowed up the stairs, moving from shadow to shadow and making it appear that the stairwell was flexing and bulging, some monstrous gullet sucking them upwards. After fifteen storeys doors started opening behind them as they passed, and faces peered into the stairwell to watch them go. Several people followed them, including two women bearing rifles. But no one spoke.

Breezer was waiting for them on the twentieth floor. He leaned against the stair railing, looking down casually as they climbed the last flight towards him. They were panting hard, sweating from the climb, and Jack had been ignoring the temptation to dip into his powers to find something to help. His friends could not do that. He wanted to work as hard as them.

They stopped on the landing. Shade was a flight below them, standing in the corner and almost not there. He said nothing, only watched. The threat exuding from him was overt and did not require voicing.

“You owe me a hang glider,” Breezer said.

“Bill me,” Sparky said. “My address is 55 Don't-give-a-shit Avenue.”

Breezer looked past them at Shade and quickly looked away again.

“You told me you weren't really the leader here,” Jack said. “I'm hoping that was a lie.”

“Hoping?”

Jack sighed, probed, grasped a point of light inside, squeezed it tight. A rush of information. He used Breezer's talent against him. “It's how the others see you,” he said. “You're strong. Resourceful. And you never were a heating engineer.”

“Oh,” Breezer said. “Well. That's a pretence I've kept up since Doomsday.”

“So what was he?” Jenna asked.

“Police,” Jack said. “Serious Organised Crime squad.”

“Amazing,” Breezer said. “How do you do it? What does it feel like?”

“Unnatural,” Jack said. He closed his mind to what Nomad had given him and spat, trying to rid himself of her taste.

“Hungry?” Breezer asked.

“Burgers?” Sparky asked hopefully.

Breezer laughed. It was such a natural, unforced sound that it put Jack instantly at ease, and he glanced back at Shade and gestured.

“Come on,” Jack said. “You do eat, don't you?”

Not so anyone would notice.

“Fine.” Jack followed Sparky and Jenna through the doorway, and as it swung shut he saw Shade slip through from the corner of his eye. Their guard. Jack was already quite certain he would not be required.

The same cooking barrel, the same people around them, but this time Breezer seemed more deferential. He had underestimated Jack and his friends last time. Now, they had proved themselves more resourceful than he could have imagined.

“So you went to your father,” Breezer said. He glanced around the open-plan office, looking for Shade. Dawn sunlight bathed them, casting shadows behind screens and in doorways, and Shade could have been anywhere. “Got one of his monsters protecting you.”

“They're not monsters,” Jack said.

“Then what are they?” Breezer asked.

“Confused,” Jenna said. “They're overwhelmed. Everything changed so quickly. They lost loved ones, saw what became of millions in London, lived amongst the stink and rot of decaying bodies. Then they were hunted and murdered, and they fought back. One of them can…I don't know how, but she slows time. Jumps between moments. They're at odds with their humanity. They're not monsters. They've just had these powers thrust upon them, and they don't know how to handle them.”

“Haven't we all?” Breezer asked.

“Yes,” Jenna said, glancing at Jack. “And I think you all might be fighting madness.”

“Charming,” Breezer said, but he did not dispute what she'd said.

“I told you what my priority was,” Jack said. “My mother, my sister. Everyone they've got at Camp H. Well, now there might be a way to get to them.”

“You've asked Reaper for help,” Breezer said. “And he said yes?”

“He's agreed that by combining talents, you might be able to find Camp H.”

“And can't you do it?” Breezer asked. “Nomad's touch is on you, Jack. Isn't it? Can't you just sit there now and find Camp H?”