by Jacob Grey
“It is,” said Lydia. She reached for her father’s hand. “We wouldn’t lie to you, Dad.”
“But you did,” he said sadly. He pulled Lydia into an embrace and stared over her head at his wife. “You lied to me for years.”
For a few moments, no one spoke.
It was Crumb who broke the silence. “So can you get us in or not?” he asked.
Mr Strickham stiffened.
“Dad?” asked Lydia, breaking their hug.
He looked down at her. “I don’t like it,” he said. “What you’re doing is against the law. You’re nothing better than vigilantes, really, and if you weren’t my family, I’d be tempted to call the federal authorities. It’s not too late to reconsider, you know?”
Mrs Strickham shook her head briskly. “We need you, Tony. Are you with us, or not?”
“I suppose I have no choice,” he said. “But I can’t get you in through the front door. We’ll have to go another way.”
Caw listened as Lydia’s father laid out the plan. He might not officially work at the prison any more, but the guards still knew him. He’d march right up to the front gates. He thought he might be able to claim he was collecting the last of his belongings from his office.
Meanwhile Caw and the others would enter through the sewer tunnels, the same way that the disciples of the Spinning Man had escaped a few weeks before. Mr Strickham was sure repairs hadn’t started on the breakout tunnel yet. “The City Council keep promising the funds, but then they always do,” he said.
“Good luck,” said Mrs Strickham. She reached out to touch her husband, but he backed away. Lydia hugged him fiercely.
“Be careful, Dad. Any sign of trouble, you run.”
“Same goes for you,” he said. Then he strode off into the night.
Caw knew that his words of warning would be ignored. No one was backing down tonight.
Already several foxes had begun to emerge from the surrounding streets, padding silently towards them, and pigeons were settling on the rooftops above.
“Ready?” said Crumb, holding Selina by the arm.
Mrs Strickham took a crowbar and a torch from the boot of the car and went to the manhole cover in the alleyway. It was loose and she prised it open in a matter of seconds. Her foxes went down first, disappearing into the dark hole. Lydia followed, then Selina.
As Crumb went down, Caw made a decision and summoned his crows. Shimmer, Screech and Glum landed beside him.
Caw took the stone from his pocket and placed it between them, keeping hold of the handkerchief. “Take this to the old bandstand in the park,” he whispered. “Bury it under the bench.”
Why? said Glum.
“I don’t want to risk the Mother of Flies getting it,” he said. “And if I don’t come out again …”
Don’t talk like that, said Shimmer.
“… take it somewhere far away,” he finished.
Crumb stuck his head out again and Caw positioned his body to hide the stone. “What are you waiting for?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Caw.
As Crumb lowered his body again, Caw followed.
See you soon, said Screech, hopping on to the stone and clutching it in a talon. Good luck!
Caw gave them a wave and descended the ladder, then pulled the manhole cover over him with an echoing clang.
An arc of torchlight illuminated the narrow tunnel. Caw could see a channel of foul-smelling slime sitting stagnant to the depth of about an inch. Mrs Strickham’s foxes kept their paws well out of it and Caw placed his feet on either side. He had to stand in a slight crouch.
Lydia held the rough map her father had drawn.
They trooped along the tunnel, stopping at intersections to check the way. There was no life down here, and the only sounds were their breathing and the shuffle of footsteps. Caw began to feel closed in and doubts crept into his mind. What if Mr Strickham had got the route wrong? Would they even be able to find their way back?
The foxes’ eyes gleamed like gold coins in the torchlight.
“This should be it,” said Lydia, pausing at the side of the tunnel. Caw saw a shaft leading off the main conduit at chest height, barely wide enough to crawl down. The metal cladding was discoloured with streaks of orange and green.
“I’ll go first,” said Caw.
As he reached up, Lydia caught his arm. “What you said in the car,” she said. “About the stone. I just want you to know that I … well, I understand why you kept it secret.”
Caw was so grateful he didn’t know what to say. He smiled in the darkness. Then he pulled himself into the shaft, edging along on his hands and knees, with the torch shaking in his hand.
The shaft followed a slight incline for several metres, then reached what looked like a dead end. But on closer inspection, he saw it turned vertically upwards. He manoeuvred himself around the bend, wondering how on earth a man of Jawbone’s size could have managed. The dog feral had been well over six feet tall and thick with muscle. Caw saw the glint of a metal grate above, and light beyond. He reached up. The grate moved easily in his hand and he pushed it carefully aside. Still, the scrape of metal seemed horribly loud.
He held his breath, expecting to hear guards’ whistles or alarms.
Nothing.
“Go on then,” said Crumb from below. “I can’t stand this stink any more.”
Caw stretched up with both hands, grabbing the cold floor.
Fingers closed around his wrist and he let out a cry.
“Quiet!” said Mr Strickham, leaning over the hole.
Caw’s thumping heart subsided and he let Lydia’s father heave him up. He emerged into a shower room of grubby tiles.
“Sorry if I scared you,” said Mr Strickham.
Together, they helped the others from the drainage shaft. Lydia brushed down her clothes. “That was horrible,” she said.
“Getting in was easier than I expected,” said Mr Strickham.
“We still need to be careful,” said his wife. “Cynthia Davenport will have eyes everywhere.” Mrs Strickham alone looked unperturbed by the expedition through the claustrophobic sewers. Her black coat didn’t even seem dirty, whereas Crumb was caked in all sorts of scuffs and stains.
“There’s another problem,” said Mr Strickham. “I’ve already checked the systems and the prisoners haven’t been logged. That means I don’t know which cells they’re being held in.”
“Where are the high security areas?” said Caw.
“There are several,” said Mr Strickham, “all spread about the prison. That way, security breaches can be contained more easily.”
Something scurried across the tiles, making Lydia jump. One of Mrs Strickham’s foxes pounced and landed on top of it.
“Off,” she said, and the fox lifted its front paws. It was a cockroach.
“We always tried to keep the place clean, but we never could get rid of the damn things,” said Mr Strickham. His gaze was fixed on the fox that his wife had controlled, as effortlessly as though it were part of her own body.
Caw caught Lydia’s eye. A cockroach might mean something – a face from the past he had hoped never to see again. He leant down. “Take us to your master,” he said.
Mr Strickham glared at him. “So now you’re going to tell me that insects speak human?” he said.
“This one might,” said Lydia.
The roach scurried away, Caw and the others following close behind. It moved quickly, never seeming to doubt where it was going, and they had to jog to keep up. They climbed up metal stairs, along corridors, past featureless, identical cell doors. The whole place smelled of disinfectant, but other odours lurked beneath – stale sweat and desperation. Soon the signs on the wall read ‘B-WING’. The roach slipped under a barred doorway.
“This is one of the high security areas,” said Mr Strickham, sliding an access card through a reader and cranking open the door. “But I’m pretty sure all these cells are empty.”
The roach disappe
ared under a door labelled “Cell B23”.
The door was solid steel with a grille as big as a letterbox at head height. Before Caw even put his eye to it, he had guessed what he’d see.
“Hello, crow talker,” said a voice from the dark room. Caw pressed a switch beside the door, and a light came on inside. A doughy face with a stubbled chin leered at him, eyes set in hollow sockets. Caw’s heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t look away. He wasn’t the same scared boy who would have run before.
“Hello, Scuttle,” he said.
he cockroach feral sat hunched on a thick mattress, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit just like the one he’d been wearing when Caw first encountered him breaking out of prison many weeks before. Caw saw that his face was mottled with bruises and there was a cut above his eyebrow.
“Come to gloat, have you?” Scuttle said.
“Of course he hasn’t,” said a woman from the cell opposite. Selina jumped as Mamba’s darting black eyes appeared at the grille. “Let me guess, crow talker – you want to know about the Mother of Flies? Ah, and if it isn’t young Lydia Strickham as well. Tell me, got a new dog yet?”
Lydia rushed at the door, pounding with her fists. “I hope you rot in there!”
Mrs Strickham tugged her back and stepped in front of Mamba’s cell, her foxes pawing at the door. “What do you know about her, snake talker?”
“Nothing,” hissed Mamba, retreating from the door. “Don’t tell them anything, Scuttle.”
Caw looked back in at the cockroach feral. Only one person would be daring enough to beat up a feral who controlled cockroaches. “She did that to you, didn’t she?” he said. “Cynthia Davenport.”
“What?” said Selina. “What did she do?” She pushed alongside Caw and looked into the cell. Her mouth opened in a small gasp.
Scuttle’s hands went up to his bruised face, as if remembering the blows.
“I don’t believe it,” breathed Selina.
“She never liked the Spinning Man,” he said. “She took it out on me.”
“Scuttle, shut up!” snapped Mamba from the cell opposite. She sounded angry, but scared too.
“Open the door,” said Mrs Strickham. “I can make him talk.”
Mr Strickham slid a key card down the sensor on the right of the door. Caw heard bolts slide across and the door opened of its own accord.
Scuttle pressed himself further into the corner of the cell. As Caw and the others entered, several roaches scurried across the floor and darted inside Scuttle’s clothes. “You can’t hurt me any more than she did,” said the hunched feral.
“Are you sure?” said Mrs Strickham, prowling forwards with her foxes.
One roach was slower than the others and ran in panicked circles. Crumb trapped it beneath his foot and the insect screeched.
“Stop that!” said Scuttle. “It hurts him!”
Crumb sneered, and pressed his weight harder on the shell. “They say cockroaches would be the only thing to survive a nuclear war. Think this one can survive my size tens?”
“All right! All right!” said Scuttle. “I’ll tell you all I know, but it’s not much. The Mother of Flies is up to something in the prison.”
Mamba’s door shook. “Don’t tell them, you wretch. She’ll know!”
“Keep talking,” said Crumb.
“She’s been moving the prisoners around,” said Scuttle. “The most dangerous ones. She’s transferred them somewhere. D-wing is totally empty now.”
So she can lock up the ferals there, thought Caw. He looked at Mrs Strickham, who gave him a nod. No doubt she was thinking the same thing.
“It’s something to do with him!” said Scuttle, pointing a stubby finger at Caw.
Caw shivered. “Me?”
“That’s why she did this to me,” said Scuttle. “She wanted to know everything about him. Where he lived. Where he went.”
“And what did you tell him?” asked Caw.
The roach feral shrugged. “What we knew, which wasn’t much. We told her where your parents lived.”
Caw looked at Selina. “So that’s how you knew where to find me?”
“She just gave me an address,” Selina pleaded. “I didn’t know where it came from.”
Mamba smiled, her teeth sparkling. “You won’t defeat her. You know that, don’t you?”
“No one cares what you think,” said Lydia.
Mamba ignored her. “The Mother of Flies isn’t like the Spinning Man,” she said. “She might come from a wretched line, but she’s cruel, powerful and devious. She wouldn’t join us in the Dark Summer – she always had bigger plans.”
Caw wondered if the crows had managed to hide the stone. They’d be careful, of course, but what if a fly was watching them?
“We’re finished here,” said Mrs Strickham. “Let’s go.”
Scuttle jumped up, wringing his hands. “Wait! Please! I can’t stay in here! Maybe I can help you in some way. I could be your spy?”
Crumb lifted his boot and let the cockroach scurry back to his master. Then he slammed the cell door. “You’re right where you belong.”
“Both of you,” hissed Lydia at Mamba.
“I’d rather be in a cell than suffer what the Mother of Flies will do to you,” said Mamba.
Caw watched her darkly shining eyes shrink away from the grille.
Mrs Strickham beckoned for Caw and the others to follow her and they set off back the way they’d come.
“Don’t leave me!” cried Scuttle. “I’m begging you!”
Caw felt a shred of sympathy for the cockroach feral in spite of everything. But by the time they’d turned a few corners, his voice had died away.
“Where’s D-wing?” asked Crumb. “That’s where she must have taken the ferals.”
“Follow me,” said Lydia’s father.
They pressed on, slowly, through the abandoned passages, past empty cells and bare scuffed walls of peeling paint. Foxes trailed after them. Caw had lost his bearings completely, but Mr Strickham seemed sure of himself.
“She’ll have the place guarded, won’t she?” said Crumb.
“Yes, but we still have the trump card,” said Mrs Strickham. She turned to look at Selina, her glare more fierce and deadly than anything Caw had seen before. Like a fox that’s seen its prey, he thought. “Maybe we should see how much the Mother of Flies really loves her daughter.”
“What?” said Selina, edging closer to Caw. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I don’t think—” Crumb began.
“Quiet,” said Mrs Strickham. “She’s one life – the ferals are many.”
Selina suddenly broke into a sprint. Immediately several foxes were on her heels. She screamed as one leapt up, snatching her jacket in its teeth. As she reached the corner of the corridor she flung herself against the wall just before the foxes finally pinned her down. A siren began to wail, deafeningly loud.
Caw realised what she’d done and his heart dropped.
“She’s hit the emergency alarm,” shouted Mr Strickham. “They’ll be on us in less than a minute.”
“Which way?” Crumb demanded.
Mr Strickham shook his head in panic. “I … I don’t know.”
Crumb grabbed him by the shoulder. “Where will the guards come from?”
Mr Strickham raised a trembling finger and pointed past Selina. “From there. No, wait …” He spun on his heels, eyes narrowing as his mind worked. “We need to head for the service entrance. Through the exercise yard. There’s only a single guard this time of night.”
They set off at a run, Mrs Strickham grabbing hold of Selina and dragging her with them.
Caw looked at Cynthia Davenport’s daughter in shock. Just as he’d been starting to trust her. But it was Mrs Strickham’s fault too. She had threatened to kill her, after all …
At each door they reached, Mr Strickham used his card to get past. Caw’s heart was thumping and he expected guards to appear at every turn. At the end of a corr
idor, Mr Strickham swiped and a door opened on to a bare concrete yard, surrounded on three sides by tall windowless walls and on the fourth by a double fence topped with razor wire, with a tall closed gate at the centre. Two guard towers stood overlooking the gate.
“This way,” said Mr Strickham. “Follow me.”
The foxes streaked into the yard first. Halfway across, Caw sensed the buzz of a fly beside his ear and was about to call out when bright lights blinded him. He skidded to a halt, shielding his eyes. When he opened them again, he realised that spotlights were blazing down from each corner of the yard. He saw silhouettes of guards on the walls, and more in the towers, all angling rifles on to Caw and his friends. The red dots of laser sights traced across the ground and over their bodies.
They were completely surrounded. Caw thought about reaching for the Crow’s Beak on his back, but he knew he’d be dead before he could get the blade an inch from its harness.
He heard the hum of the electric gate opening, and then Cynthia Davenport walked casually through, still dressed in her black suit and flanked by Mr Silk and Pinkerton. Both were wearing police uniforms. The gate closed behind them.
“Nice of you to join us, Mr Carmichael,” she said, her breath misting the air. “And you’ve brought some friends, I see.”
“Mum!” said Selina. “It was me who set off the alarm! Mum, they’re saying things about you. I don’t understand. They were going to hurt me.”
Cynthia Davenport ignored her daughter, and kept her eyes on Caw. “Have you brought the stone?”
Caw clenched his jaw and shook his head. “You’ll never have it.”
“Oh, you silly, silly boy,” said the Mother of Flies. “Why make it so hard?”
Caw saw Mrs Strickham move quickly to his left. She grabbed Selina, whipped her around and cupped one hand under her chin.
“Lower your guns, or I’ll snap her neck!” she said.
The red dots didn’t waver, and neither did Cynthia Davenport’s expression. She looked at her daughter as if she were a piece of dirt.
“All I want is the Midnight Stone,” she said.
“Mum?” said Selina. “But... she’s crazy … she’ll …”
“I’ll do it, I swear!” said Mrs Strickham. She looked desperate, confused, like a cornered animal.