The Crowmaster (10 page)

‘Excellent!'

‘Well, you say that now,' I told her. ‘But I don't think you're going to like it.'

‘S
o what, you're just going to
leave
me here?' Ameena demanded. Her voice was higher and more shrill than I'd ever heard it. I'd warned her she wasn't going to like my plan and I'd been right.

‘Just for a second,' I assured her. ‘The place I'm going is dangerous. I need to check the coast's clear before I take you with me.'

‘More dangerous than
here
?' she scoffed, just as another crow crunched against the door.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Much more.'

I was still sitting on the bed, looking up at her. Her mouth opened to speak, but either she couldn't think of anything to say, or she couldn't bring herself to say it. Either way, she closed her mouth again and looked away.

‘I just…' I stopped, glanced up to the ceiling, then continued. ‘It's my fault Mum got hurt. It's my fault that Marion… It's my fault what happened to Marion.' She turned back to look at me, and it took all my willpower not to just look away and start blushing. ‘I don't want something happening to you too.'

‘So you leave me with a bunch of killer crows?'

‘It'll just be for a second,' I promised. ‘And then I'll come back.'

She chewed on her lip again and looked over to the door. When she looked back, her face was several shades paler.

‘You'd better.'

I stood up. ‘I will.'

Ameena hesitated, then gave a short, reluctant nod of her head. ‘So,' she said, ‘how does this work?'

‘The place I'm going, it's called the Darkest Corners,' I explained. ‘It's where they go when they're forgotten. All the imaginary friends. It's where they all go.'

‘That's where you went with the girl and the doll?'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘But that wasn't the first time I've been there. I can just sort of take myself there. It's hard to explain, but that world's a lot like this one. A building here is the same building there.'

‘What, exactly the same?'

‘Well, yeah. No. Sort of,' I said. ‘But a bit more run down. And with a load more monsters.'

‘Sounds lovely,' said Ameena grimly.

‘It isn't. But maybe there's a way out over there. We're trapped in this room, but the birds are here in this world, not that one. If we can go there and escape from the house, I can bring us back a mile away from here and the crows won't even know we've left the room.'

‘OK,' Ameena said, even though she was shaking her head. ‘Go for it. But hurry.'

‘I'll be quick,' I said. ‘Don't go anywhere.'

A half-smile pulled at the corner of Ameena's mouth. ‘Funny. Now scat.'

*  *  *

I might not have been able to heal myself, but transporting myself to the Darkest Corners was becoming almost second nature. It took me just a few seconds to make the feeling of electricity zip through my head, and just a few more to focus on one of the flickering blue sparks. There was a brief sensation, like a wind howling through my head, and the world around me changed.

It was dark, but then it was always dark there. What was more surprising was that instead of standing inside a house, I was floating three or four metres above the ruins of one.

I didn't stay floating for long.

Had the building collapsed recently, my landing would have been worse than it actually was. Luckily for me the house seemed to have fallen down years ago. The moss and grass that had grown over its remains broke my fall a little, and saved me from any broken bones.

Still, it hurt. A lot. I lay there, half hidden by the grass and debris, willing my body to get up. But the pain brought with it an exhaustion like none I'd ever known, and for a long time my body ignored my requests and just did its own thing.

Eventually, the thought of Ameena stuck back in the house stirred my muscles into moving. A dull ache across my shoulders became sharp and stabbing as I pushed myself up on my arms. The moss beneath me was slippery and wet. It took me three attempts to get to my feet, and two more tries before I managed to stay there.

The glow from a fat, full moon slipped through a gap in the clouds and cast a silvery glow over my surroundings. The faint light picked out details that swept away any doubts I may have had that this was the same house as the one I'd just left.

Most of the walls had long since fallen down, but a few hadn't crumbled all the way. I could make out the shape of Marion's kitchen. The enormous cooker she'd made dinner on stood cold and silent in the corner. Weeds grew around its iron feet and crawled up over the oven door, binding it shut.

I clambered past the oven, and out through the gap in the wall where the back door should have stood. Once outside the building's boundary, I began scrabbling in the rocks at my feet, pushing them aside and ripping up the grass and weeds below.

I don't know why I was so determined to find it. Maybe I still had doubts. Maybe I couldn't believe that even here, in this hellish place, Marion's house could be quite so decayed. Or maybe I just didn't want to believe it, because if it was true – if this really was Marion's house – then that meant…

I tore out a clump of weeds, and there it was. It was caked with soil, and scarred by years of neglect, but even in the half-light of the moon the colour was unmistakeable.

Yellow.

Follow the yellow brick road.

Tears suddenly filled my eyes, swimming the world out of focus. I thought of Ameena, stuck in that room, death waiting just beyond the door to claim her. I was supposed to make the jump back to her. I was supposed to go back and save her. I'd promised. But if I went back there now, I wouldn't be inside the room, I'd be outside the house. There'd be no way for me to get back to her.

I realised I was still holding fistfuls of weeds. I let them fall, and slowly stood up. My eyes went up to the spot where I had first appeared. Just up there, and a whole world away, Ameena would be pacing the floor.

Even now, I'd been gone longer than I'd told her I would. Would she be worrying yet? Would she be thinking I'd been killed? Or worse, that I'd just abandoned her?

I wiped my tears on the back of my clenched fists. I had to go back. Even if it meant appearing right in the middle of the crows and fighting my way up to the bedroom, I would do it. There was no way I was just going to leave her on her own.

I closed my eyes and made the sparks flash through me, but before I could trap one, a hand caught me by the shoulder and spun me roughly round.

Flicking my eyes open, I instinctively raised my fists, ready for whatever monster I was about to encounter. But what I found myself facing wasn't a monster. Not on the outside, anyway. It was a man.

It was my dad.

‘Well now,' he smiled, his hand still on my shoulder, ‘fancy seeing you all the way out here.'

Pulling back, I batted his grip away. A flash of mock surprise passed across his face, only to be replaced by his usual self-satisfied smirk.

I hated him. Hated the way he towered above me and made me feel small. Hated his broad shoulders and muscular arms that looked as if they could snap me like a twig. Hated his short, dark hair and his craggy, unshaven face.

And most of all I hated the fact that when he looked at me, I could see my own features in his. The resemblance between us – even I had to admit – was uncanny. And that made me feel sick.

I didn't want to be related to this man. I didn't want to have anything to do with him ever again. All the bad things that had happened in the past few weeks – all the pain and the fear and the
death
– were down to him. And now he was smiling at me. Grinning. And that made me hate him all the more.

‘What do you want?' I demanded through gritted teeth.

‘Hey, what's the matter?' he said, sticking his bottom lip out, like a baby about to burst into tears. ‘No “How are you? How you been?” or anything?' He held his arms wide and stepped in closer. ‘Come on. Give your old man a hug.'

‘Touch me and I'll kill you,' I warned. I was shocked to hear the words come out of my mouth, but in that instant I knew I meant them. After everything he'd done to me – to Mum – I knew there was a part of me that would love to see him burn.

He hesitated, and this time the flicker of surprise on his face appeared genuine. He recovered quickly, and the smirk was back on his face in moments. But he didn't touch me.

‘Well, what kind of way is that to talk to your—'

‘I should kill you anyway,' I snarled. ‘The Crowmaster. You sent him after me, didn't you? You sent him.'

‘Guilty as charged,' he said, beaming proudly. ‘Although I told him to smash your mum's skull in first.' He placed the back of his hand next to his mouth, as if sharing some great secret. ‘Between you and me, she's had it coming for a while.'

I hurled myself at him, driving a shoulder hard into his stomach. I was screaming – no,
roaring
– as I kicked my feet against the stone and shoved forward.

He gave a low groan, and for one triumphant moment I thought I'd hurt him. But the groan became a chuckle, and the chuckle became a laugh. He was standing his ground with ease, my charge not making him take so much as a single step backwards.

‘Easy there, kiddo!' he snorted. ‘Almost creased my shirt.'

I swung wide with a fist and drove it into his side, right below his ribcage. It made a satisfying
thump
, but his only reaction was to laugh louder.

‘Now you're just being silly,' he said, and the lightness in his voice sent tremors of rage right through me.

‘You think I can't hurt you?' I barked, leaping back from him. The electrical surge of my powers burned like white fire behind my eyes.

‘What, you think you can?' He winked with his left eye, and at the same time his right arm began to move. His open hand caught me across the side of the face. The slap made a sound like the cracking of a whip, and an alarm started wailing in my left ear.

The strike shocked me and made me lose my focus. My dad's eyes were alive with a shimmering darkness. His hand was already drawing back, opening up, getting ready to rain down another blow.

‘Go on then,' he said, punctuating the sentence with another
smack
that made my teeth rattle and my cheek burn. ‘Do it. Hurt me, tough guy.'

I stumbled back, my arms shielding my head from another attack. He was laughing again – a deep, booming laugh he seemed to spit all the way from the bottom of his stomach.

The buzzing inside my head exploded outwards, as I raced to visualise his legs snapping in two. ‘OK,' I growled, picturing the cracking and the tearing as his bones broke and ripped outwards through his thigh muscles. ‘You asked for it.'

The image solidified in my mind, clearer than anything I could ever remember imagining before. Everything, right down to the shock and fear on his face was frozen there behind my eyelids. Lucid. Crystal clear.

But not actually happening.

I kept the image in my head. Focused on it. Filled the sparks with every detail of that picture, sent them rushing towards him. But still he didn't budge. The power was roaring through me. The mental picture was there.

So why wasn't it working? Why wouldn't he fall?

He moved with the speed and grace of a big cat, leaping a mound of broken bricks and landing directly in front of me. I tried to pull back, but his hand was suddenly in my hair, bunched into a fist, holding my head in place.

‘Oh, didn't I mention?' he said, smiling innocently. ‘You don't work over here.' He leaned in close enough for me to smell the stale sourness of his sweat. ‘Here in this world, you're nothing. You're nothing special at all.'

With a low grunt, he threw me backwards, releasing his grip and letting me drop like a dead weight on to the muddy grass. A dull ache jabbed at my hip as I landed on top of the lighter Marion had left me with. Under normal circumstances the pain would have bothered me, but right now it was the last thing on my mind.

There was a faint
chink
as my dad unclipped the thick metal buckle of his belt, and then he was back standing over me, very slowly and very deliberately wrapping the thick belt strap around one of his fists. With each loop over his knuckles, the leather gave a foreboding
creak
.

‘Now,' he said, pressing the wrapped fist into the palm of his other hand, ‘let Daddy show you how it
should
be done.'

‘W
ait!' I yelped, shuffling backwards. ‘You need me. The Crowmaster told me everything. You need me alive.'

‘Alive, yes. Uninjured? Not necessarily,' my dad said. He walked slowly forward, keeping pace with me. ‘Took me almost a whole day to travel all the way up here, but I knew you'd make the jump over eventually. I wanted to be here. Waiting.'

‘You came all this way just to beat me up?'

‘Partly that,' he nodded. ‘Partly that. Mostly, though, I wanted to offer you one more chance to pick the right side.' He looked off into the middle distance, then back to me. ‘I know I said I wouldn't offer again, but I felt bad about that, Kyle, I really did. You're my son, I shouldn't have given up on you so quickly.'

My back hit the partially collapsed wall that would have made up one side of Marion's kitchen. I had no choice but to stop. My dad stepped closer so his feet were next to mine. The full moon sat directly behind him, casting a ghostly white halo around his head.

‘So
this
is my final offer,' he continued, creaking the leather around his fist to hammer home his point. ‘There's a war coming, Kyle. Help me. Work with me. And I promise we'll rule the world.'

I didn't reply. There was something in the tone of his voice I hadn't heard before. Was it… desperation?

‘So,' he asked, with something bordering on compassion in his smile, ‘what do you say?'

‘You're scared, aren't you?' I said. Though his features didn't move, the warmth drained right out of his face. ‘Whatever your plan is – whatever you're going to do – you can't do it without me, can you? You're scared it's all falling apart.'

‘Scared?' He rolled the word around in his mouth as he said it, as if tasting every letter. ‘What could I possibly be scared of?'

I pushed myself up using the wall for support. He didn't make any move to try to stop me. ‘Me,' I answered. ‘You're scared of me.'

Just as I'd hoped, he hurled back his head and laughed. It was all for show, like a lot of the things he did, but I'd been counting on him doing it. I knew he wasn't afraid of me.

But he should have been.

I swung hard with a rock I'd taken from the ground. He must've seen my arm move from the corner of his eye, because his laughter caught in his throat. Too late. The chunk of stone vibrated in my hand as it battered solidly against the side of his head.

A noise that was halfway between a gasp and a growl escaped his lips. He staggered sideways, his hand flying to his eye socket where the rock had caught him. His undamaged eye turned on me, hatred burning in its dark centre.

‘I'll never help you,' I told him. My insides felt like half-set jelly, so I was amazed by how confident my voice sounded. ‘I might not have any abilities here, but in my world I do, and I'll use them to stop anything you send after me, including the Crowmaster. Understood?'

‘You've just made the biggest mistake of your life,' my dad hissed. Trickles of blood were seeping through his fingers. I couldn't bring myself to feel bad about it. ‘I know you better than you know yourself, son. I've been planning this since the day you were born. You'll help me. You'll make that whole world burn. Whether you mean to or not.'

‘Don't count on it,' I told him, and before he could answer, I caught hold of a spark that flitted past behind my eyelids, and left that hellish place behind.

It was brighter back in the real world, but not much. The layer of cloud that covered the sky had grown thicker in my absence, blocking out even more of the sun's light. A raw January wind whistled around me, nipping at my ears and nose.

But at least the wind was the only thing nipping at me. Even though I'd arrived back outside Marion's house, I couldn't see a single bird in the sky. That was either very good news, or very bad. Good because it meant I wasn't currently having my tongue torn out, but bad because if the birds weren't out here, then they were probably all waiting inside.

Ducking down low, I scurried over to the kitchen window and took a peek through the shattered pane. The kitchen had been virtually destroyed. The hanging pots lay scattered on the floor. The table where Marion and I had eaten our dinner was covered by a layer of shattered glass. All the little knick-knacks and ornaments that had sat on all the little shelves had been knocked over, smashed, or both.

And over everything – on every surface – were feathers. Dozens and dozens of greasy black feathers.

But no birds.

I couldn't remember if the back door creaked, so I decided not to take the chance. The last thing I wanted to do was announce my presence and bring the birds flocking from wherever in the house they currently were. Instead, I carefully picked the larger slivers of glass from the wooden frame, and sat them down on the ground.

The wind grew around me as I worked. It only took twenty or thirty seconds to clear the worst of the glass, but by the time I had finished my fingers were numb with cold. I cupped them to my mouth and breathed on them for a few seconds, readying myself for what came next.

My entrance wasn't as stealthy as I'd hoped. I pushed myself up on the narrow window ledge and kicked against the roughcast stone wall with both feet. As I leaned my body forward into the kitchen, my legs were forced to bicycle-kick in thin air for a moment. I hung there, feet flailing frantically, as I realised I was sliding headfirst into the house.

There was no way to stop. My arms buckled and my legs swung up and I was helpless to prevent myself face-planting on to the glass-covered table. I slid right over the top, bringing the table with me as I crunched on to the hard kitchen floor.

It probably hurt, but I had no time to dwell on it. I was on my feet in a heartbeat, readying myself for the crows. They were sure to have heard my entrance. They'd be here any second.

As I stood there, eyes locked on the door, my ankle nudged against something. I lashed out instantly with the foot, not taking any chances. The metal soup pot spun across the floor until it hit the stove with a hollow
clang
.

Cursing myself for being so jumpy, I reached down and grabbed another cooking pot. It was a hefty bit of cookware, and I needed both hands to swing it properly, but I was ready to bet it'd be an effective weapon against an oncoming bird.

Probably wouldn't be so handy against a hundred of them, of course, but I tried not to think about that too much. It was better than nothing. Just.

The expected rush of flapping wings didn't happen, and I crept over to where the kitchen led out into the hall. Tucking myself in close to the doorframe, I risked a peek round the corner.

The hall looked much like the kitchen. The floor was covered in broken trinkets and torn phone books and the shattered remnants of what had been Marion's life. The same feathers were here, scattered haphazardly over the carpet and up the dark, narrow stairs.

My legs were trembling as I tiptoed across the hall to the bottom of the steps. Halfway there, I heard the sounds I had been dreading: a soft
caw
and the rustle of oily wings.

The sounds hadn't come from the hallway, and they hadn't come from up the stairs. But where had they come from? I stood in the middle of the floor, completely in the open, but frozen to the spot, listening for the noises to come again.

I didn't have to wait long. An inquisitive croak to my right made me spin to face the living-room door. A fat, black crow sat just inside the room, its back to me. It had a lump of dark red meat pinned beneath its claws. The meat made a sticky
schlop
sound as the bird's beak tore strip after strip away. After every bite, the crow tipped back its head and let the meat fall down into its gut.

I gripped the handle of the cooking pot until my knuckles turned white. I wanted to bring the pot down on the bird's head – to squish the thing into the carpet. To make it pay for what it had done to the dog. And had I not been so terrified, I might have done just that.

Instead, I snuck over to the door, picking my steps carefully, trying not to make any sound. I made it without alerting the bird, but now I was less than a metre away from the thing. It had its head down, ripping into the meat. If it craned its neck back now to swallow another bite, it would surely see me.

With no time to lose, I reached for the handle. As the door began to pull closed, the bottom of it brushed against the carpet.

The sound startled the bird. It released its grip on the meat and flapped into the air. Twisting round, it fixed me with its glassy gaze and opened its beak wide. Small lumps of half-chewed flesh still stuck in its throat, and I knew that if I didn't act fast, the next thing to go down that gullet would be me.

Panicking, I pulled the door closed much harder than I'd meant to. The slam seemed to vibrate the walls and floor, and echo around the house. There was no way the other birds wouldn't hear it, but that no longer mattered. If, as I suspected, the Crowmaster saw through the eyes of his minions, then it was too late for stealth. The bird had seen me, so the Crowmaster would know exactly where I was.

The fact the birds didn't come whooshing down the stairs didn't do anything to comfort me. If anything, it made my heart beat even faster. I should've been glad, but the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I realised nothing was coming for me.

The birds were all up there, and they now knew I'd escaped, so why weren't they coming? Why weren't…?

I let the pot fall; took the steps three at a time. The smell from Marion's remains hung in the air, thick and putrid and rotten enough for me to smell even through my blocked and broken nose as I powered up the final few stairs and on to the upper landing.

Empty. The upstairs hallway was empty!

I ran to the far end, shouting Ameena's name, but knowing she wouldn't answer. I knew the door would be open. Knew the room would be empty. Knew I'd been gone too long.

A tightness gripped my stomach and spread out through my body until my muscles were standing in knots. An emotion I couldn't even name – not rage, not terror, but something much more – boiled my blood in my veins. The scream of something primal shook the walls, and although the sound was completely alien to me, I knew I was the one making it.

He had taken her. The Crowmaster. I'd promised her she would be safe, and
he had taken her
. I knew that handing control of my powers over to anger wasn't a good idea, but not a single part of me cared. I had left her alone, and she had been taken. Another bad thing that was all my fault. Another person I cared about hurt because of me.

No more. Never again.

I turned on my heels and made for the door, the sparks glowing so brightly inside me I swear they lit up the room.

Just before I left the bedroom behind, I heard it. A knocking from inside the wardrobe. Soft and cautious.

My stomach tightened, ejecting a breath that was halfway between a laugh and a cry. I scolded myself for doubting her. Ameena was more than able to handle herself. What had I been worried about?

‘It's OK,' I said, about-turning back into the room, ‘the coast's clear. The birds have gone.'

And then, without even pausing to consider the consequences, I took hold of the handles and pulled both wardrobe doors wide open.