He stood, took in one deep breath, and shouted.
His voice bore weight and heat. He pushed the power that had changed his father into the monster called Reaper, and the air before him blurred with the terrible energies unleashed. Combined with the heat of the new talent he had just touched, the destruction was awful. Loosened bricks were smashed from the high arch's outer curve, shattering in the air and peppering the buildings across the street with molten shrapnel. Windows burst inward, glass shards melted, doors smashed open, and several vehicles resting on flat tyres were flipped onto their sides and crushed against the buildings—a pub, a betting shop, several boarded-up homes. Window frames ignited. Car tyres flowed.
Jack knew there were three Choppers hiding behind these vehicles, but he felt very little remorse. Not then. That, and the guilt, would come later.
As his incredible shout faded, its echoes were replaced by the musical tinkle of falling glass and the patter of brick fragments. A Mercedes that had been crushed against the pub's front wall tilted, creaked, then fell back onto its tyres with a dull crash. Its heated metal ticked and groaned as it cooled. A shape slid down the wall behind it, leaving a dark smear against the brickwork. Night hid the full scene from Jack, and for that he was glad.
“Bloody hell,” Sparky said.
“Keep down,” Jenna said. She shifted forward, signalling to Rhali that she should stay back as far as she could.
“Jenna, careful!” Jack said. She went to her knees to look out into the dark street. There was moonlight, and a starscape that made Jack feel uncomfortable. And he knew also that there were night scopes and heat detection equipment, and that any Choppers watching would not have been shocked into immobility at his display of power. His father's use of it had killed many of their comrades, after all.
“I think they're down,” Jenna said.
Down. She could have said dead, Jack thought. Or crushed, or smeared across the road. But instead she tells me that they're down. He could have searched for a power and sensed outwards, perhaps, looking for signs of pain or indications of life. But right then he had no wish to revisit that constellation of potential still growing inside him. Not when that red thing was there as well.
“Then let's get the hell out of here,” he said. “We need to hide low ’til daylight, plan what to do.”
“Finding Lucy-Anne is what we do!” Sparky said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. He looked at Rhali and smiled. She did not smile back. He wondered what damage she must have suffered, physically and mentally, at the hands of the Choppers and their sick leader, Miller. Perhaps soon he would ask. “But first we've gotta find somewhere to rest. We can't run into another Chopper patrol, not now. They're out for revenge for what's happened to their mates, and…”
“And you're tired,” Jenna finished for him.
“Yeah. Exhausted.”
“Pussy,” Sparky said.
Jack smacked him playfully across the shoulder, and they hurried quickly along the street. He did not once look back. But that could not stop him from thinking of the people he had just killed.