by Jacob Grey
Caw saw that only two birds had remained outside the fray. Screech and Milky. They stared at Caw.
“You saved me,” he said.
Screech hopped forwards. Opened his beak.
You saved yourself, he said.
Caw’s knees felt weak, but his heart was dancing. “I can understand you!” he cried.
The crows chose the one who is worthy, said Screech. The one who fights not for himself, but for the good of many.
The pain in Caw’s hands and leg was nothing as a smile spread across his face. “I thought I’d never be able to speak to you again. That I’d lost you all.”
You will never lose us, said Screech. We are bound to you.
He looked older, wiser.
“White suits you,” said Caw.
Go, Caw, said Screech. They need you.
Caw nodded. “Are you coming too?”
Screech looked at Milky, and the old crow’s gaze was stern.
I cannot, said Screech, and Caw caught a trace of sadness in his voice. My place is here.
Caw couldn’t leave Screech here, not like this. Not after all that his brave crow had done. Tears sprang into his eyes.
“Please, come with me,” he said. “I need you, Screech. More than ever.”
Leave, crow talker, said Milky. This place is not for you. Not yet.
Goodbye, Caw, said Screech, and Caw knew that the crow would never again return to the Land of the Living.
And so he turned his back on Screech and Milky, and picked up the Crow’s Beak from the snow. Its power flooded into his fingers at once. With a single flick, the point of the blade ripped open a black gash in the fabric of this world.
“Come on,” he said to Selina, who had been quietly standing to one side. “It’s time to go home.”
She shuffled towards the edge of the portal. Then she hesitated and glanced back. “You are coming too, aren’t you?” she said.
Caw lowered his head. Many crows had hopped on to Black Corvus’s back, gripping his tattered clothing in their talons. Corvus’s body rose from the ground, hanging limply beneath them, and Caw watched them carry it over the trees. The crows flew in convoy, a white cloud gradually blending with the white sky, until there was nothing left of them or Corvus to be seen. Somewhere among them were Screech and Milky.
The black hole ahead seemed to be leaking heat, as if Caw and Selina were standing near a fire.
“Caw?” said Selina.
He looked into the trees, and for a few moments he imagined what it would be like to stay. A limbo existence – without cares, or worries, or fear. An escape from Blackstone and the wars between the ferals. Peace. He’d earned it. He’d lost enough, hadn’t he?
Then he felt Selina slip her warm hand into his.
Milky was right.
Not yet.
Caw turned, and together they walked through the black doorway.
***
He was lying on the floor next to the fireplace, Selina prostrate beside him. The colour had returned to her cheeks and her black hair moved as it hung across her face. She was breathing!
Spiders’ webs hung above them and through the strands of webbing, Caw saw movement on the other side of the room. His heart froze, a scream lodged in his throat.
Where the Spinning Man had stood before, there was a bulbous white abdomen covered in scraps of black clothing. A spider’s legs had sprouted beneath it, white and almost translucent, and covered in fine hairs like the bristles of frost on winter branches.
Bile rose into Caw’s throat.
The Spinning Man’s head was distorted almost beyond recognition. Caw couldn’t see his face, but the hair was white and hanging in ragged clumps. Beneath it, his scalp seemed slick with a sort of pale slime. His torso had shrivelled, the skin wrinkled and blotchy; his arms had shrunk into twitching limbs that ended in pale claws. His six other legs were like splinters of ice.
Caw stood up quietly, grasping the Crow’s Beak. Despite the terror that threatened to paralyse him, his body felt stronger than ever before. The wounds to his torso had somehow healed, leaving only a dull ache. But if the Spinning Man realised they were still alive, he would kill them in an instant. He needed to lead this spider creature away from Selina.
He needed the crows.
Caw edged round the table, ducking under strands of silk and stepping over others. If he could just get closer …
The Spinning Man’s disgusting head rotated to look at Caw. The only thing that remained of his human face was the pale skin. His skull was squashed, the features flattened to pit-like nostrils, protruding black eyeballs, and a gaping, toothless maw.
“It’s not possible,” said the monster’s rasping voice. “You were dead.”
Caw filled his chest and straightened up. “So were you,” he replied.
And there, somewhere in the ether, he felt the flapping essence of the crows. Come to me …
The Spinning Man’s body turned, leg-points thumping on the floorboards.
“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” said Caw. “But I’m not frightened.”
The Spinning Man’s mouth split in a grin and a thick black tongue flickered out. “You should be,” he hissed. “My human body was always so frail. So I have chosen a new form. A greater form.” He gestured to himself with a claw. “I am no longer the spider feral, Jack Carmichael. I am the spider god.”
He rushed at Caw, legs scrabbling, tearing through the webs.
Caw picked up a chair and hurled it across the room at the oncoming creature. The Spinning Man dodged easily, scurrying up the wall until he was right above Caw. As the hideous creature dropped, Caw dived across the floor. The Spinning Man landed with an ominous thud, crouching on his jointed spider knees.
“No use running,” he hissed.
Through the window, Caw saw something flash past – a dark, winged shape.
The Spinning Man shot forwards, barging straight into him. Caw fell backwards over the sofa and on to the floor. The Spinning Man loomed across the top of the sofa, legs ready to stab. Caw rolled sideways as the first claw slammed down, then he kicked out. His foot ached with the impact, like he had just kicked a tree trunk.
Caw scrambled backwards, but the Spinning Man pursued him on scuttling legs.
“When you’re dead, the crow line will be finished. My spiders will hunt down your wretched birds and slaughter every single one.”
Caw reached the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll have to catch me first!” he yelled.
Then he turned and ran up the stairs, pushing his legs with all the strength he had.
He was halfway up before the Spinning Man caught him. Caw turned and swung the Crow’s Beak, and the blade lodged deep in one of the spider’s legs. The Spinning Man leapt to the ceiling, tearing the blade out of Caw’s hand. He turned his head and hissed, his black tongue flapping in and out like a writhing snake. Then he reached down with a fore-claw, yanked the Crow’s Beak free and tossed it aside. Spots of black blood spattered on to the stairs like tar.
Caw vaulted over the banister and launched himself towards his bedroom. As soon as he was through the door, he tried to slam it closed, but it hit something solid. A monstrous spider leg scrabbled through the gap. Caw rammed his shoulder into the door and the leg retreated. He pushed the bolt across, breathing hard.
The wood of the door thundered under a heavy impact.
“Let me in, let me in,” taunted the Spinning Man in a sing-song voice.
Caw ran to the window and flung it open. The cool night air enveloped him. He felt a wave of unexpected dizziness as he looked at the drop below.
The door rocked on its hinges as the Spinning Man threw his weight against it.
Caw felt shaken as he stared out – as his past came rushing back to him. He’d been here before, held over the abyss. As a child. In my dreams. The night his mother and father had pushed him out.
It was happening all over again.
The wood of the door splintered,
but the lock still held. The tip of a spider leg pushed through the crack.
Caw looked up at the starlit sky. His crows were out there, somewhere. He strained his eyes and his mind, begging them to come.
More panels in the door broke away and he saw the Spinning Man’s vile face at the opening. It glistened with sweat, eyes mad with rage. “Open up, Jack,” he said. “Don’t run away from me!”
The sky was still empty.
The Spinning Man reached another claw through, feeling for the lock. He drew back the bolt then pushed the remains of the door open. The gigantic spider squeezed into the room.
With his back to the open window, Caw faced his enemy. There was something out there behind him, something building. He sensed flapping wings and open beaks devouring the night.
“Here we are again,” said the Spinning Man, stalking closer. He gazed around with mild curiosity. “You know, I came for you that night too, as your parents lay dying downstairs. But they’d hidden you already.”
Caw’s heart swelled with the sudden nearness of his crows.
They were here. They had come.
“Do your worst,” he said.
“You cannot even imagine,” said his enemy.
The Spinning Man ran across the carpet, and Caw ducked as a black torrent swept in through the open window. The room seemed to fill with crows in less than a second, the air dense with feathers and fierce cries. Caw lost sight of the Spinning Man then saw him scuttling this way and that, smashing into the walls as he sought to escape the onslaught. The crows swirled around him, taking it in turns to swoop in, attack, then climb away. The assault was relentless. The Spinning Man shrieked as his legs buckled beneath him, like a spider caught in swirling water.
Caw saw with a hundred crows’ eyes. He felt the power of their bodies. With just one thought, the murder swept away from the huge spider then rammed him from the side, throwing him on to his back. Caw drove the beaks and talons towards his enemy’s soft underbelly. The spider legs writhed, but they couldn’t stop the crows. He caught flashes of the Spinning Man through the consciousness of the birds – a thousand snapshots of hate-filled malice.
There was only one thing left to do.
Caw pushed the crows harder and they smothered every inch of the Spinning Man, gripping whatever they could in their talons. As one, they hoisted him into the air. Caw felt the weight of the monstrous spider – heavy, yet light in the grasp of so many. They carried it in a ball of flapping black feathers, towards the open window.
The change happened almost without Caw noticing. Suddenly he was a crow.
He threw himself into the melee. Among the triumphant cacophony of cries, they carried the giant spider out into the night, climbing higher and higher.
Caw felt no mercy.
The pain of his parents, of Screech, the pain of all the Spinning Man’s victims pressed on his heart and made it as black as the inky feathers of his crows.
They rose through the sky until Caw was higher than he had ever been before; Blackstone was just an illuminated sprawl in the midst of a vast land.
“I’ll kill you, crow talker!” screeched the Spinning Man.
It is time, Caw told the crows.
Then he opened his talons, along with a hundred other crows.
For an instant, time seemed to freeze and the Spinning Man’s eight-legged body hung in equilibrium.
Then he fell.
As the giant spider plummeted, splinters of white light ripped across its body. Caw watched as the shards of brightness tore it apart and heard its wretched scream sear through the night.
And long before the Spinning Man reached the ground, there was nothing of him left.
aw felt suddenly weak, his wings sapped of power. They folded against his sides and he began to drop through the currents of air, face upwards, wind rushing through his feathers. Then the feathers were gone and he could feel his clothes flapping against his skin. He was a boy again, gravity dragging him earthwards.
But he wasn’t scared. As he fell, a feeling of serenity enfolded him. He saw the crows swooping from above and landing gently across his body, and with each bird that latched on, his descent slowed and weightlessness cushioned him. He gazed at the stars overhead as his crows carried him lower. He could sense in every wingbeat their love for him.
At last they bore him through his bedroom window before laying him softly on the carpet and then flapping away through the open window. Only Glum and Shimmer remained, perching by Caw’s side.
He’s dead, said Glum, his voice wondrous to hear. It’s over.
We did it, said Shimmer. For Screech.
Caw nodded, still lying face up, swallowing back tears. He would tell them later what he had seen in the Land of the Dead. And he would never, ever forget it.
“For Screech,” he said.
After a few moments, he got to his feet and went to the window. Crows had alighted across the trees and they turned to look at him, beady eyes glinting in the dark.
“Thank you,” he said.
The birds warbled softly at first, but their voices rose to proud cries, filling the air and shaking the leaves with his name.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
After they fell silent, he heard a human voice from behind him. “Caw?”
Selina was standing in the doorway. Her hair was black and shining, her skin glowing. She looked stronger than ever.
“You’re … you’re fine,” he said.
Then she grinned and ran into his open arms.
“He’s gone,” said Caw, as she gripped him so tightly he thought his ribs might break. “Forever.”
Selina broke away and glanced up, still smiling. “Thank you,” she said.
Ahem … said Glum. That’s quite enough of that.
Caw broke the embrace. “We should get back to the park,” he said. “They might need our help. Are you all right to fly?”
“As long as you don’t drop me,” said Selina. “I’ve already died once today.”
And Caw smiled for what felt like the first time in years.
The crows carried them over the northern reaches of the city. Caw was battered and bruised, but he felt more at one with his crows than ever. They trusted him and he trusted them, completely and without question. Whatever had happened in the Land of the Dead – whatever bond had been reformed there – it held in the Land of the Living too.
On the way to Blackstone Park, Selina told him everything. About Johnny Fivetails and the White Widow; how Mr Silk had acted as the go-between, offering the coyote feral money and a position of power in the city once the war was won. The Spinning Man had always planned for Johnny to infiltrate Caw’s allies and turn them against him.
Caw felt stupid – he’d fallen for it all so easily. But then, so had everyone else.
In return, Caw told Selina how he’d looked out for her in hospital, and how guilty he’d been feeling ever since that night on the roof of her mother’s apartment.
“I never got the chance to say thank you,” he said, turning to her as they whipped through the air, side by side. “You stepped in front of a bullet for me.”
“I’d say we’re even now,” said Selina. Her face darkened. “I know she tried to shoot you. But she’s still my mother, you know? No matter what she did.”
Caw didn’t know what to say. He thought of Cynthia Davenport, locked in a cell in the psychiatric hospital, her mind utterly gone.
“We’ll visit her together,” he said. “When all this is over.”
Selina smiled gratefully. “Yeah, I’d like that – thank you.” She looked ahead. “Uh-oh.”
They were above the park now and could see that the railings were surrounded by police cars. More were pulling up at the gates and cops with torches and guns were moving between the trees. Caw directed his crows to descend at the far side, where it was completely dark. They landed and then the crows lifted away into the trees.
Caw heard shouts of “Freeze!” and “Hands up!” in the di
stance.
He pulled Selina aside as a panther came slinking through the bushes towards them. Caw was about to summon the crows when the big cat tripped over its own feet and landed heavily on the grass. A tranquilliser dart protruded from its dark fur. The panther’s eyes closed as its flank rose and fell with slow, steady breaths.
Suddenly Caw was blinded by light and two cops appeared in front of them. “Don’t move!” said one. “Hands behind your heads.”
Caw held his crows back. He and Selina raised their hands and the cops approached slowly. But just as one grabbed Caw’s wrist, a voice called out, “Leave them!” And another man rushed through the trees to their side.
It was Mr Strickham, wearing a bulletproof vest and a long overcoat.
“Are you sure, sir?” asked the cop holding on to Caw’s wrist.
“They’re not criminals,” said Lydia’s dad angrily.
The cops stepped back and Mr Strickham beckoned Caw and Selina to follow him. He looked tired but determined as he led them through the trees, to the fountain at the very centre of Blackstone Park. Police officers swarmed all around, and Caw saw that most of the convict ferals were in handcuffs or being treated for injuries on the ground. His heart sank as he saw dead animals lying everywhere – foxes, rats, birds and more. The bison was sprawled across a bench with blood dripping from its snout, while two police officers stood guard. It was a devastating scene.
“This will take some explaining,” said Mr Strickham grimly. “And the press aren’t going to hold back. I don’t suppose you want to fill me in?”
Caw looked around, but he couldn’t see any of his friends among the ferals being arrested. Had they managed to escape?
Caw, squawked Glum from a branch above. We’ve found the others – east wall of the park.
Mr Strickham looked up. “One of yours, I suppose?”
Caw nodded.
“I guess I should be happy,” said Mr Strickham. “It seems that all the escaped convicts are accounted for.” He paused, and Caw saw he was almost overwhelmed with emotion. “If you see my wife and Lydia before I do, tell them … Tell them I’ll see them at home.”