The Swarm Descends

by Jacob Grey

  It took him a second to realise he was back on the rooftop.

  Cries of agony reverberated across the top of the building. Caw looked up to see the Mother of Flies still hovering, flailing madly in the sky. He must have fallen from deep inside her. With every wail her form was shrinking as the flies abandoned her. The crows were still attacking, relentlessly tearing at her body. At last she stopped struggling and dropped. A ball of flies smashed into the rooftop and burst away into the night, leaving a human body behind, lying prone on the ground. Cynthia Davenport.

  The crows swirled above her, waiting for Caw’s command.

  Caw found his feet and staggered towards her, drawing the Crow’s Beak from his back. He was weak and dizzy, but his anger surged hotly. His hand seemed to have a will of its own as it raised the blade above her body. Caw longed to bring it down, stabbing her through her black heart.

  But he paused. Selina’s mother lay beneath him, curled and unconscious. Her expensive suit was torn to pieces, and her skin was covered in bleeding cuts from the crows’ attack. In places her hair had been ripped from her scalp.

  Footsteps came running across the rooftop.

  “Mum?” said Selina. She dropped beside Cynthia Davenport, her face wet with tears.

  Caw’s anger left him in a rush. However cruel and evil the fly feral was, she was still a mother. He let the Crow’s Beak fall limp in his hand. He couldn’t make Selina an orphan like himself.

  Mrs Strickham approached, leading her foxes. For a moment Caw wondered what she would do, but she merely put two fingers to the throat of the Mother of Flies.

  “She’s alive,” she said. “Just.” Caw couldn’t tell whether she was happy or sad.

  Mr Strickham was on his phone. “… yes, that’s right. The top of Verona Tower. The rooftop, yes… No, it’s the Commissioner who’s injured. Send all the men you can.”

  Lydia reached Caw’s side. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Caw staggered back a little, leaning his weight on her. “I think so,” he said. He glanced up at the crows still massed in the sky. “Thanks to them.”

  Shimmer and Glum glided down and joined them.

  I’m getting too old for this, said Glum.

  Selina looked up from her mother. “Is she going to be all right?”

  Hopefully not, muttered Shimmer.

  “There’s help coming,” said Mr Strickham. “They’ll do what they can, but … she’ll have to be placed in custody, you know that? After all she’s done …”

  Selina nodded. Her face was deathly pale. She tried to stand, but her leg gave way beneath her. Caw rushed to catch her, but didn’t get there in time. She crumpled on top of her mother and the Midnight Stone fell from her hand, gleaming softly.

  “Selina?” Caw said.

  Her eyes closed and she gave no answer. Looking down as he cradled her head, Caw saw that her leg was soaked with blood. “Selina?” he said again. “Hold on.”

  In the distance, an ambulance siren wailed through the night.

  In the afternoon light of the next day, Caw watched the city swish by through Mr Strickham’s car window. His eyes kept threatening to close, and his body was bruised and aching, but it was a good sort of exhaustion. After the storm of the previous night, everything looked a little cleaner. Normal people were going about their business, striding to their jobs, holding hands on the pavements, drinking in cafés. No one knew how close Blackstone had come to catastrophe just a few hours before.

  And no one, Caw was sure, noticed that three crows were keeping pace with the car as it made its way through the city. Glum, Shimmer and Screech flitted in and out of his line of sight.

  “Are you OK?” asked Lydia, who was sitting beside him.

  “Just thinking,” he said, “how it only takes a few evil people to bring a city to its knees.”

  “Only a few good people to save it too,” said Lydia, smiling.

  “And a few thousand crows.”

  “We’re nearly there,” said Mr Strickham from the driver’s seat, as they turned a corner towards the abandoned zoo. “Lydia and I will wait outside.”

  “Er … I don’t think so!” said Lydia.

  “Sweetheart …” began her father.

  “Dad, I’m going in,” she said.

  They pulled up at the same zoo gates where Chen had dropped them the day before. Velma Strickham was already there, foxes gathered beside her. She had come ahead to spread word of what had happened. It had taken Lydia’s father most of the morning at the council offices, but after a lot of discussion he’d been reinstated as governor of the prison and his first act had been to get the innocent ferals released – easy, since the city had no record of their arrest.

  Cynthia Davenport had been taken away in a straitjacket, raving about flies and crows.

  As they got out of the car Caw noticed that Mr Strickham was staying inside. His wife gave him a strained look.

  “Dad, please,” said Lydia through the open window.

  “This is none of our business,” he said, hands still on the wheel and looking straight ahead.

  “How can you say that?” Lydia replied. “After everything that’s happened?”

  Mr Strickham turned to her. “We need to put it behind us,” he said. “Get back to being a normal family.”

  Lydia sighed. “Dad, we’re not a normal family. Mum’s a feral. That means one day I—”

  “Enough!” he snapped. “I can’t stop you going in there, but I want nothing more to do with those people.”

  Lydia turned away, close to tears, and joined Caw and her mother. Velma Strickham put her arm around her daughter.

  Caw shivered. It was strange being back here, where the Mother of Flies had laid her ambush.

  “You must come over for dinner soon,” Mrs Strickham said to him.

  “Will Mr Strickham be OK with that?” Caw asked.

  Mrs Strickham shrugged. “He’ll have to be. We all need to adapt. Perhaps you and I can even practise together in the park. I wouldn’t mind you teaching me a few tricks.”

  Caw was almost speechless. Was Velma Strickham – the fox feral of Blackstone – really asking him for advice?

  “Of course, if you’re too busy …” she continued.

  “No. No!” said Caw. “It would be an honour. If you … I mean, whenever.”

  “Come on,” said Lydia smiling and taking his hand. “You’re making me embarrassed.”

  Caw’s heart lifted as they entered the old penguin enclosure and he saw Crumb and Pip waiting side by side. Crumb was feeding bits of bread to his birds.

  “You’re here!” Caw said, running up to hug them both. But as he drew close, his footsteps slowed. Crumb looked serious, and Pip stared at the floor. Perhaps they were still angry about being locked up. They had every right to be.

  “You look like a wreck,” said Crumb gruffly.

  Caw shrugged. His jacket was ripped in places from the eagle’s talons and his trousers were streaked with dirt from the roof. “It was a long night.”

  “You should have tried spending it in a cold jail cell with twenty other ferals and no working toilet.”

  Caw cleared his throat. “Look, I’m sorry. I …”

  Crumb’s face broke into a smile and he opened his arms. “Come here, kid.”

  Relief rushed through Caw as he embraced Crumb. After Crumb had let him go, he took Caw by both shoulders. “I’m so proud of you, Caw,” he said. “We heard about what you did on the rooftop.”

  “But tell us in your own words,” said Pip, practically jumping up and down. “We heard you controlled ten thousand crows!”

  Caw blushed. “I thought I’d never see either of you again,” he said. “When we learned what the Mother of Flies was planning, creating new ferals, I thought she’d …” A wave of sickness passed over him as he imagined what might have been.

  “A few hours in prison, that was all we suffered,” said Crumb. “Some had it worse – at least Pip’s mice could sneak
into the kitchens and steal us extra food.”

  Pip was smiling shyly. “So, did you really take on the Mother of Flies on your own?”

  Excuse me! said Screech, flapping.

  The other crows joined in the protest, squawking madly.

  “I might have had a little help,” said Caw smiling. “And I wouldn’t have stood a chance without all the training, of course.”

  Crumb gave him a punch on the shoulder and Caw winced.

  “Something tells me you’re being modest,” said the pigeon feral. “Velma told us what you did. I just wish I could have seen that woman get what she deserved. Her daughter too.”

  As the pain from Caw’s shoulder receded, a deeper pain surfaced at the thought of Selina. He wanted to change the subject.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’ve been thinking … about the church.”

  Pip looked worried. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

  Caw smiled. “Well, that’s what I’ve been wondering. I actually have a house, you know? And it doesn’t have a hole in the roof.”

  A few of the scattered pigeons warbled in protest, until Crumb held out a finger. “Quiet, you lot. He didn’t mean it like that.”

  “So how about it?” said Caw.

  Crumb’s mouth turned down. “Well, if you’d prefer to live there, I can’t stop you …”

  “No!” said Caw. “Not just me – all three of us. You and Pip too. I mean, it needs a bit of work, but …”

  Crumb rocked back on his heels. “What? Me? In a real house?”

  “Oh, please can we?” said Pip, tugging at his arm. “Think of it! Bedrooms, a kitchen, a working toilet. It’ll be like we’re a real family.”

  Crumb hesitated a moment more, before smiling broadly. “When you put it like that … well, we accept!”

  A wolf prowled into the enclosure, then lay in a patch of sun. Racklen came in next, pushing Madeleine the squirrel feral in her wheelchair. Caw was glad to see her again and she smiled warmly at him. Other ferals followed. Caw recognised them from the last zoo visit, but there were more besides. Soon the enclosure was thronging with men, women and children, young and old. Ali the bee feral was dressed in his dark business suit as always, looking like he’d just stepped out of his office for lunch. Birds fluttered overhead and came to rest on the railings. Caw noticed that a single cat was sitting beside a noticeboard – Freddie. Caw scanned the faces of the assembled ferals, but Felix Quaker was not among them.

  “So where is she now?” growled Racklen. “Where’s the Mother of Flies?”

  Velma Strickham held up a hand to placate the wolf feral. “She’s been taken to the mental hospital on the other side of Blackstone.”

  “The hospital!” said Racklen. “She should be brought here, to face feral justice.”

  “She’s no threat now,” said Mrs Strickham. “She strained her powers too far in trying to defeat Caw and now her bond with the flies has been broken. The police rounded up the animals she’d kept in her apartment. They’re trying to track down the helicopter and find the escaped prisoners now. Meanwhile, my husband is having her monitored twenty-four hours a day under a maximum security guard.”

  “Your husband?” said Ali. “A non feral? What does he know?”

  “He has seen what she’s capable of,” said Mrs Strickham. “She will not harm anyone again.”

  The ferals burst into discontented mutterings.

  “That’s not good enough,” said Racklen, advancing on Lydia’s mother. Her foxes snarled and stood in his path and his wolf’s hackles rose menacingly. “Turn her over to us,” he said. “We’ll deal with her. This city won’t be safe while she breathes its air.”

  “We can’t just kill her,” interrupted Caw.

  “She was ready to kill all of us!” said the wolf feral.

  “But we’re better than her,” Caw said.

  The mutterings slowly died down, but still people didn’t look happy.

  “Caw has a grievance against Cynthia Davenport as great as any of us,” said Mrs Strickham. “If he can control his desire for vengeance, then so can we.”

  Caw glanced at Mrs Strickham, then at Lydia. Even they didn’t know how close he had come in his heart to killing the Mother of Flies. He remembered the rush of anger and the feeling of the Crow’s Beak ready to deliver a fatal blow. And he knew what had stopped him wasn’t just the fact that she was defenceless. It was Selina. He couldn’t have deprived her of her mother. When she woke up – if she ever did – he didn’t want it to be to the news that she too was an orphan. That was the misery the Spinning Man had inflicted on him, and he wouldn’t inflict it on anyone else.

  Caw leant over and murmured to Velma Strickham.

  “I need to go to the hospital,” he said.

  lackstone General Hospital was a grim and forbidding complex in the south of the city. Chen dropped Caw and Lydia in front of the main building and told them that he’d be waiting in the car park. Caw asked his crows to wait outside too.

  “Birds aren’t allowed in hospitals,” he said.

  That’s prejudice, that is, Glum grumbled.

  As they headed for the hospital entrance, Chen called after them. “Hey, Caw,” he said. “Thank you. For everything. For saving us.”

  Caw blushed and turned away.

  “You’ll have to get used to that, you know,” muttered Lydia. “You’re a feral hero now.”

  Caw grinned, until he remembered why they were here. “I hope she’s OK.”

  Lydia’s smile dropped too, but she said nothing. Caw wondered how she really felt about the daughter of the Mother of Flies.

  “Are you family?” asked the receptionist, when they asked for Selina Davenport at the desk.

  “No,” said Caw. “She’s a friend of ours.”

  “I’m afraid only family can—”

  “She doesn’t have any,” said Lydia. “Her dad’s gone and her mum’s in a mental hospital.”

  “Oh, right,” said the receptionist, looking embarrassed. “Let me see what I can do.”

  She made a quick phone call, then directed them to the juvenile ward.

  The corridors were too bright for Caw’s liking and he caught a few nurses throwing strange glances at his torn black clothes. They reached the ward at last and saw the curtain had been pulled across the glass screen so it was impossible to see inside. Fearing the worst, Caw opened the door.

  There was only a single bed inside and the window blinds were closed as well, casting the room in a half-light. Selina Davenport was propped up against several pillows, wearing a hospital gown. A nurse was checking her drip.

  “Oh, hello,” said the nurse. “Reception said you were on your way. Still unresponsive, I’m afraid.”

  Tubes and wires trailed from both of Selina’s arms and the gunshot wound on her leg was bandaged heavily. Her eyes were closed. Machines bleeped out a regular, slow heartbeat.

  “Do you know what’s wrong with her?” asked Caw.

  The nurse looked for a long time at Selina’s face, so peaceful. “The doctors are trying to work it out. There’s some sort of toxin in her blood, an infection, but they’re struggling to identify it. Very odd for a gunshot wound.”

  The nurse made some notes on a clipboard at the end of the bed. “She’s certainly a fighter. I hope there’s some good news soon.” Tucking away the pen, the nurse left the room, closing the door and leaving them alone.

  Lydia and Caw approached the sick girl in the bed.

  “I didn’t trust her for a long time,” Lydia said, “but I guess she proved herself in the end.”

  Caw sat beside the bed. Selina’s face looked slightly swollen, and her eyelids were a pale and sickly lilac.

  “It wasn’t her fault who her mother is,” he said. “Selina?” he added in a whisper.

  Nothing.

  The door clicked again and he looked up, expecting to see another member of the medical staff. But it was a man dressed in orange corduroy trousers and a vivid purple jacket
.

  “Felix!” gasped Lydia.

  Quaker’s eyes travelled quickly over Selina and Lydia, to Caw, then to his own feet. “Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

  Caw felt a surge of anger at Quaker, for not telling him the truth about the Midnight Stone sooner – but he managed to fight it down. “Come in,” he said.

  Quaker touched his moustache nervously, twisting the ends. “I wanted to apologise,” he said quietly.

  Caw couldn’t think what to say, so he settled for, “Where have you been?”

  Quaker shrugged. “Cats always find a hiding place,” he replied.

  He edged into the room. Caw noticed that Lydia was glaring coldly at him.

  “I heard what happened on the rooftop,” said the cat feral. “I even sent Freddie to the meeting today, though I didn’t come myself.”

  “Why not?” said Lydia fiercely. “Afraid some might not take kindly to a coward in their midst?”

  Quaker swallowed, wringing his hands. “You’re quite right, my girl. I have an acute survival instinct. Call it cowardice if you will. I knew of the Midnight Stone, and of the lengths the Mother of Flies would go to in order to possess it. I am not a fighter. Not like the Carmichaels.”

  “If that’s your idea of an apology,” said Lydia, “you probably shouldn’t have bothered.”

  Quaker nodded meekly and started to turn.

  “No, wait,” said Caw. “I want to know – how did you find out about the Midnight Stone? In the time of Black Corvus, all the ferals signed a pact to die with the secret. Did the cat ferals break the pledge?”

  Quaker shook his head. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “Never underestimate the tenacity of a historian.”

  Caw frowned. Quaker reached into his jacket and took out a small scroll of parchment. As the cat feral unrolled it, Caw recognised it from the memory in Bootlace’s cavern. The writing was faded and so squiggly Caw couldn’t decipher the letters, but one signature scrawled at the base stood out. He took the parchment and brought it closer to his eyes.

  Black Corvus.

  “It’s the pledge of secrecy!” he said.