More birds closed in, their claws raking through her hair and becoming entangled, wings flapping against her face, and she saw the orange flash of beaks dangerously close to her eyes.
This is my nightmare! And with that thought came a vague memory of what would come next. Lucy-Anne stood and closed her hand around a bird's ragged legs. And now I throw it, she thought, throwing the creature, and now the shadow.
The whistling changed pitch, and a ripple passed through the rooks. Their screeching died out as if they were concentrating on something else now, not just her. As the birds parted slightly before her, she tried to look past their chaotic wings, moving forward through them, keen to see whoever stood beyond.
The shape appeared. As the birds rose away from the square at last, roosting again on rooftops and in tree canopies, she saw the boy standing thirty yards along the street. He was short and slight, dressed in scruffy black clothing. His hair was a wild dark mop, and his stance was one of casual superiority. His smile too, when it came, communicated a level of confident control.
“They like you,” the boy called. “Which means I do as well. They're very choosy, my birds.”
“Your birds?” Lucy-Anne said.
The boy whistled one more time, a short sharp note, and the rooks fell completely silent.
“My birds.” He walked towards Lucy-Anne, and she felt herself unable to move. Not his whistling, she thought, that's not what's rooted me here. It's me. It's my nightmare of the birds, and…
…and now she wanted to see what came next.
“I dreamed about your birds,” she said.
The boy shrugged as he walked.
“You don't seem surprised.”
“Why should I?”
She tried to think of a reason, but none came. “I'm looking for my brother,” she said instead, and the boy's face grew more stern.
“You'll die,” he whispered. “In the streets, in the ruins, you'll die. If the Choppers don't get you, there are other things that will. North of here…wild places.”
“And you expect me to—”
“I can help you,” the boy said.
“What? Help me look for Andrew?”
He nodded. He paused several feet from Lucy-Anne, looking her up and down with a frankness she found unsettling. There was something birdlike about the way his dark eyes shifted, his hands clawed at the air, and his hair almost looked barbed.
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
“My name's Rook,” the boy said, “and I've met you in my dreams.”
The six terrorists who attacked London yesterday have been killed in a shoot-out with a military unit in the West End. Communications into and out of London are down. The biological agent used by the terrorists has not yet been identified, but the whole of the London basin is affected, and travel to and from the city is strictly prohibited. Please help the emergency services and the military to contain this disaster by following these simple guidelines: Anyone trying to enter or approach London will be arrested. Any aircraft attempting to overfly London will be shot down. There follows a list of numbers for concerned relatives…
—UK All-Channel Bulletin,
9:00 a.m. GMT onwards, July 29, 2019
At seventeen, Jack should have taken Sparky aside at the first opportunity to ask him how it was, was she hot, and to give him all the details. But that would have been in normal times, and these times were far from normal. There was a quietness to Sparky the next morning, and while Jenna helped Ruben and Rosemary prepare the best breakfast they could from old tinned foods, Jack sat beside his friend on the sofa.
“Okay, mate?”
“Yeah.”
“Hope today's a bit better than yesterday.”
“Well…” Sparky began, then he smiled. “Yesterday was mixed.”
“What's up?”