Reaper's Legacy: Book Two (Toxic City)(5)

Jenna smiled at him, eyes glittering.

“*,” 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.

“What's he doing?” Sparky asked.

“Don't know,” Jenna said. “Same when I found him. I thought he was eating flies, but I don't think there's anything there.”

“Just cos you don't see nothing, don't mean there's nothing there.” The man glared at them, his wide white eyes startling, dreadlocks gathered across his shoulders, chest, and drawn up knees like a hundred twisting snakes. Although sitting in the trolley, he seemed animated with constant movement.

Deeper in the ruined store, Jack could see the shadows of other people observing them. The glint of light on metal—a gun? Something about that comforted him. These weird powers were troubling, and beside them a gun was almost mundane.

They'd been told that this man would be able to tell whether they were being followed or spied upon, and whether the Choppers could trace them. Jack had found the tracking chip in the photo of his mother, but perhaps there was something more.

“So can you do it?” he asked.

“Kids,” the man said. His age was ambiguous; he could have been forty or sixty. “Just not polite anymore.”

“Can you do it, please?” Sparky said.

The man's hand snapped out, arm surprisingly long, and he clenched his hand close to Sparky's face. Drew it in close to his nose, eyes rolling slightly, trolley wheels squeaking with movement. His dreadlocks shimmered and squirmed, and his shoulders shook. He inhaled and closed his eyes.

“You're all right,” he said.

“Good,” Jack said. “Thanks. So now—”

“Didn't say you,” the man said. “You, you got more about you.” He wasn't quite staring at Jack. All around him, but not quite at him. “Doubts, and hidden things. Weird.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Tell me about it.”

The man turned suddenly and reached for Jenna, stretching out from the trolley and almost tipping it over. She flinched back, but his fist closed and plucked several dark hairs from her head. He drew them quickly to his face and breathed in. Wheels squeaked.

“Shit,” Sparky said, glancing at Jack. “We could've just run.”

“We've been running all night,” Jack said.

“You're fine,” the man said to Jenna. He turned back to Jack, letting Jenna's plucked hair go to float down around him. “Now, back to you. To you. You.”

“What do you need?” Jack asked.

The man was frowning. His eyes grew wider, and he started keening, crunching up in pain.

Someone emerged from the shadowy shop. The short woman glanced at Jack and his friends, and Jack saw a look in her eyes that he recognised from his mother. She had been made some sort of a healer by the effects of Doomsday, but she was someone who had always cared.

“He's very sick,” the woman said. “You should leave him now.”

“I can't,” Jack said. “He hasn't checked me yet. I need to know if I'm being watched.”

“He's weak and needs rest,” the woman said. She sounded so weary and sad.

“Is it the same as the others?” Jack asked.

The woman looked at him in surprise. “You're outsiders. You've seen others suffering from this?”

“My mother worked in a hospital under Stockwell tube station,” he said.

The woman sighed, nodded. “The same. It affects the mind, and the body, and withers them both. So sad. Such a loss.”

“Especially with the powers they all have,” Jenna said.

“No,” the woman said. “It's such a loss because they're people, and I can't do a thing to help.”

“You're watched,” the man said. His voice was incredibly low, almost vibrating through the ground. Even the carer stepped back. “You're known. You're…observed…by…her.”

By Nomad, Jack thought, but he did not speak her name.

“Take him away,” Jack said. But the man had stopped shaking and was looking at Jack now, one long, thin arm raised, fingers clawed as if to tear something out of the air.

“She's waiting to see,” he rumbled. Pigeons took flight at his voice, and Jack felt the words resounding in his chest, his belly. “See if the…seed…took…” He sighed and slumped down, muttering something as his hair closed across his face as if to hide him from view.

“What was that all about?” Jenna asked. She came close to Jack, Sparky standing behind her.

“Maybe he meant Nomad,” Jack whispered.