by Chris Ward
After a few seconds of cowering on his belly with his arms over his head, Naotoshi climbed stiffly back to his feet.
Of the birdman, all that remained was a patch of blood mixed with a tangle of wires. The booby trap had been thorough; there were barely a few millimetres of circuitry left in one piece.
Whatever the man had been, he no longer was. The booby trap had not just been to control the man trapped behind the beak, but to protect the technology. The finest scientists in the world would have trouble making any sense of what was left.
Naotoshi looked up at the camera still sitting in the tree, it’s casing flecked with blood. The recording light was still blinking, so he had managed to capture everything. He went up to it, gave a short speech to anyone who might be watching, and then switched it off, saving the battery.
He looked down at the remains of the man one last time and gave a brief sigh. Much as it hurt him to see it, the birdman’s death had one useful consequence: the cave was now unguarded.
Tucking the camera into his bag and ignoring the aches in his body from where he had landed on the hard stones, Naotoshi stood up. There was work to be done. He had found and conquered one monster, but this was just the beginning. Where there was one there would be more, and he had a feeling there was much worse danger to come.
30
An ordeal in the woods
Karin held Nozomi close to her as the car sped towards the distant mountains. They had left the highway some time ago and were now moving through forested foothills, occasionally broken up by swathes of farmland.
Karin had tried to find a way out, but they were trapped inside the car. The glass screen cut them off from the two birdmen in the front, and even when they turned to each other, their beaks moving in what she assumed was speech, she could hear nothing.
She had quickly given up trying to attract their attention, and now she turned her mind to where they were going and what might happen.
This couldn’t end well. It was best for her to assume that Crow had Ken, and probably Jun as well. If he had cared for those monsters they had destroyed anything like as much as Jun had cared for Akane, he would have spent the last seven years harbouring a similar grudge or worse.
She needed a way out.
The doors and rear window were immovable, as was the glass between the front seats and the back. Karin looked down at her feet, saw the carpet there, and wondered.
Leaning down, she tried to grip her fingers underneath the edge and pull it up, but it was glued tight. Glued on to metal, most likely, leaving her no chance of breaking out.
She looked back at the window. The two birdmen were facing forward, watching the road. I have time, she thought. If only there was something I could do about it.
‘Mummy, where are we going?’ Nozomi asked, and Karin brushed away a strand of her daughter’s hair. ‘I’m scared. Please don’t let them hurt me.’
‘I won’t.’ Of course I won’t. I’d rather die. I’d rather—
Karin felt a cold stillness pass over her as the road opened out and she saw a cluster of houses spread across a wide valley, a looming castle standing watch over it from the top of a sheer rock bluff.
Heigel Castle.
That’s where Ken is. That’s where they’re taking us. And that is where Crow will take his revenge on us, and my daughter.
No mother would let her daughter suffer at the hands of a madman. Preservation of one’s young; it came from the deepest well of motherhood, something drawn on only in the worst of circumstances, that to protect them from suffering, a mother would….
He wants her, of course he does.
‘Sweetheart,’ she said, putting a hand under her daughter’s chin and tilting her head upwards, ‘you trust me, don’t you? That whatever happens, you trust me?’
Nozomi didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course, Mummy.’
‘I need to get them to stop the car. Whatever happens, just trust that I would never hurt you. Just do as I say.’
The girl nodded again. ‘Okay.’
‘Be brave, now.’
Nozomi smiled, even though her bottom lip was trembling. ‘I’ll try.’
‘That’s my girl. I love you. More than anything.’
‘I love you too, Mummy.’
The car was making a turn around a sharp bend that angled back down into the forest. Beyond a crash barrier, the hillside dropped away out of sight. As the car slowed, Karin twisted in her seat, grabbed her daughter around the neck, and threw her against the glass partition wall.
Nozomi screamed.
‘Scream louder!’ Karin shouted. ‘Scream as loud as you can!’
With every squeeze of her fingers, with every shove as she slammed her beautiful daughter against the glass, Karin felt a small piece of her soul breaking off and falling away. She had to make it look authentic. If they knew she was faking, they would never open the doors.
Tears streamed down Nozomi’s face as she screamed. Karin closed her eyes and shoved her daughter back against the glass again, trying to fight off the horrifying crush of sorrow that was bearing down on her. When she opened her eyes, she saw smears of blood on the glass where her fingernails had broken her daughter’s skin, and she felt knives of self-loathing cutting into her heart. Finally she had their attention. The two birdmen turned back. They looked at each other for a moment, then the car came to a grinding stop.
Karin didn’t let up. She shoved her daughter against the side window, dying inside as she saw the tears in Nozomi’s beautiful eyes, a trickle of blood running down her daughter’s face, despising herself as her fingers squeezed her daughter’s skin, leaving scratch marks on Nozomi’s shoulders in the hope that the birdmen would be fooled.
Her ruse worked. One of them jerked the door open and leaned in to pull them both out. Karin was ready. She pushed as he pulled, and as the fresh, forest air embraced them both, with her free hand she shoved Nozomi hard towards the edge of the road.
‘Run!’ she screamed as Nozomi fell over the crash barriers. Karin heard her daughter barrelling down the slope and prayed it wasn’t too steep, that there weren’t hidden drops, that she wouldn’t slam into a tree, that a thousand other things wouldn’t happen, and that her daughter would get away.
The first birdman had recoiled and was peering over the crash barriers. Karin tried to leap after her daughter, but the second stuck out a hand and grabbed her, hauling her back.
Knowing every second she could distract them would give her daughter a greater chance to escape, Karin fought them like an animal was inside of her, struggling until her strength was gone, until her fingernails were bloody, her body battered and bruised.
Finally, unable to fight any longer, she let the second birdman hold her tight in its arms as it leaned back against the car.
The first was still peering over the crash barriers. It turned back to the second and for a few seconds their beaks let out soft clacks and clicks as if they were conferring. Then the first turned and leapt over the rail, disappearing from sight.
Karin sighed. She waited a few moments for the birdman to return with her daughter’s broken body cradled in its arms. When, after more than a minute it didn’t, she gave a brief, sad smile.
Nozomi had got away. It was up to the girl now to run until she found someone who could help her.
‘Run, sweetheart,’ she whispered. ‘Run and don’t stop.’
A hard claw pressing into her chin turned her face towards the birdman looming over her. Karin’s tired eyes looked up at a man’s eyes staring down at her over a ghastly hooked crow’s beak.
She was exhausted. She wanted to sleep, but as she closed her eyes she felt the clawed hands twisting her around.
He had once been called Ricky Dale. He didn’t remember the exact moment of his capture because since then his thoughts had rarely been his own, but he was sure he had seen many hundreds of sunrises since he fell asleep in the Marseille alley and woke up in a cold, stone room, strapped to a metal operating ta
ble.
He remembered the first wire that had gone in, because it had pierced the sole of his foot, and it had stung like a bee, with a sting that was stinging him from the inside out. He didn’t remember the first wire into his brain, because he had been asleep for that, but he remembered waking and feeling different, that someone was in there, playing around with his thoughts, and whenever he moved his head he felt a tugging sensation as if he was a human mannequin controlled by thousands of invisible strings.
He had quickly learned to obey the voice that gave him orders. There was plenty of pain to be had for disobeying, and occasionally, when the voice he knew as master gave him rein to remember old human pleasures such as lust, greed, or violence, he embraced them without question, because he could never know when such a time might come again.
She has tricked you, the voice said, as Ricky focused on the woman in his arms, while the other one—they were all other ones, a name was theirs alone—ran into the forest in pursuit of the little girl who had escaped.
I want her brought to me, but first I want you to punish her. I want you to punish her in the way a man should punish a woman.
Ricky turned his gaze towards the woman, and a warm feeling began to glow in his belly. How long had it been since he had felt that?
Wires tugged from places they had never tugged before as he twisted her around on the front of the car and pulled her clothes away with his powerful beak.
The remnants of his human mind recognised that she was beautiful, her body slim and toned, the kind of body that drew the desire of men like the moon pulled the tides. As he pushed her backwards and positioned himself between her legs, he paused for a moment, overcome by a brief surge of something from his past—something he might once have named as guilt—but then the voice was there, overcoming everything.
Punish her, it said. Make sure she never forgets the lesson you are about to teach her.
Behind the monstrous beak that now covered his face, Ricky’s old mouth smiled. He tried to cry out with delight, but as always the sound came out as a violent squawk.
The creature who had once been Ricky Dale, a young British man who had left for a busking holiday in France and never returned, looked down at the woman’s brave, defiant eyes.
Yield, bitch. Yield.
Karin knew what was about to happen, and she knew there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
Her daughter was on the run in the forest, pursued by one of the nightmarish creatures that had kidnapped them. Karin couldn’t know what might happen, but one creature hunting Nozomi was better than two. The longer she could keep this one occupied, the better chance her daughter would have.
She refused to cry. She stared at the creature as it plundered her for as long as she could bear it, wanting it to see the revulsion in her eyes. She wrapped her legs around its waist, pulling it tight, holding it inside her, refusing to let it go.
By the time it tossed her back into the car some time later, she could barely remember who she was. She lay on the floor of the vehicle as it sped off, trying to concentrate on Nozomi’s face even as it became hazy, as if it were already drifting into memory.
31
An uninvited entrance
Showered and wearing some old clothes from the lost property box, Jun felt better than he had in a long time. He was alone in the waiting room after the single officer had gone off to see what was happening at the hotel. While the sound of the shower came from behind a closed door, Jun’s gaze flicked around the room, from the switched off TV in one corner, to a bunch of photographs over the wall that showed a group of police officers posing with bowling balls and a shiny trophy. To his left, beside the entrance, were a number of posters of large, smiling policemen with their arms crossed, ruffling the hair of a smiling child, holding out a hand to help a pensioner across the street. Slogans in Romanian that he couldn’t read no doubt told of the nobility of the police force, and how easy it was to sign up.
The shower clicked off. A couple of minutes later Jennie appeared through the door, rubbing at her hair with a towel. She too looked like a new person, even though the jeans she was now wearing had probably belonged to a kid and the grey blouse was only really suitable for a wake. She hadn’t applied any make-up, but with the gore and trash washed off, her natural beauty was able to shine through. Jun found his gaze lingering on her and purposely looked away.
‘Where did he go?’ she asked, nodding at the desk.
‘To the hotel. He said we should wait for him here.’
‘And should we?’
Jun smiled. ‘Not a chance.’ He lifted a set of keys. ‘The guy’s hardly a security expert. These start one of the cruisers out in the car park. I think it’s time for us to go and take a look at that castle, don’t you?’
She smiled. ‘Lead the way,’ she said.
He had already found which cruiser the key fitted. Unlike police cars in Japan, which now required police ID cards to start them, the ones in Heigel were tatty old things, with electric windows that stuttered, exhausts that spat and coughed, and suspensions that seemed designed to hurt rather than cushion. By the time they had crossed the potholed car park the smile had even gone from Jennie’s face.
‘What’s the plan?’ she asked.
Jun passed her a tourist map he had found in a rack of similar leaflets next to the waiting room door. As she opened it out, he leaned across and pointed at a thin forest road snaking around the base of the bluff and winding up through the forest towards the approach road to the main gate on the northern side of the castle.
‘I thought we’d do the decent thing and knock,’ he said. ‘I want to have a look at the place. I’m pretty sure he won’t let us in, but you never know.’
‘What are you going to do if he does?’
Jun looked towards her and smiled. ‘I’m going to give myself up,’ he said. ‘Crow will remember me. I destroyed his life’s work. If I offer myself as a trade, perhaps he’ll let my friend and his other hostages go.’
‘You really think so?’
Jun shrugged. ‘To be honest, I’m right out of ideas. It might work.’ His fingers tapped idly on the wheel as he drove. ‘I don’t care what happens to me. I just want to get close to him. If I get close enough I can kill him.’
‘Jun, I don’t want you to get hurt.’
Jun smiled. He reached down by his feet and lifted a leather gun holster, the firearm still inside. ‘If I can get close enough, I can take him out,’ he said. ‘I just need one shot.’
‘Where did you get that?’
‘I had a poke around in the back room behind the desk. It was in a drawer. I don’t think they’re very good at security here in Heigel.’
‘They probably don’t get much crime.’
Jun nodded. ‘Which is why they haven’t handled this very well. I still don’t know what we’re going to do, but it seems like Crow is trying to take back this town for his beloved eagles, either by forced legislation or violence. He doesn’t care for human life. We have to kill him before he kills anyone else.’
They drove on for a few minutes in silence until Jun realised Jennie was staring at him.
‘What is it?’ he asked, looking across at her.
‘I was just wondering,’ she said, ‘if you could really do it. Could you really point that gun at him and kill him?’
‘Yes, I could,’ Jun answered without hesitation. ‘The only woman I’ve ever loved is dead because of him.’
Jennie looked away. Jun watched the road, not wanting to see the look in her eyes. Once, years ago, he had been innocent, but years of touring in Ken’s band had familiarized him with the ways a woman could look at you. He hadn’t set out to be a hero, yet he saw the same look from her as he saw from girls at the front of the audience every time they played a show. He knew what those looks meant, but rather than feel pleased, he felt sorry for Jennie. He didn’t want to set her up for any more heartache, because he knew that a confrontation with Crow was something from w
hich he might not walk away.
‘It takes all sorts,’ Jennie said quietly beside him. ‘It takes all sorts to decide to pull a trigger, doesn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She sighed. ‘I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone,’ she said, and Jun could hear her voice breaking down. ‘Yet whenever I think of Brian … hurting my little Pogo—and I know he did it with a smile on his face—I can imagine having a gun in my hand pointed at him … and pulling the trigger.’
Jun nodded. ‘Everyone has a breaking point. For what it’s worth, I think your ex-husband is a fucking bastard. If I ever run into him I’ll beat the living shit out of him for what he did to you.’
Jennie gave a watery laugh. ‘You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.’
‘I mean it.’
And Jun realised he did. He couldn’t stop himself looking across at her, and while her face in profile was nothing like how Akane’s had been, he realised that she too was beautiful. With her foreign father, Jennie didn’t share Akane’s classical Japanese looks, but in her eyes and the set of her mouth Jun saw the same defiance, the same stoicism that he had loved in Akane.
I can’t let that bastard near her. I couldn’t bear to see her hurt.
The trees were thinning out as the road continued to rise. The bluff still towered to their left, but the castle was now out of sight, hidden by the jutting lip of the rock face.
As they got nearer, Jun saw a jagged mass of slopes and outcrops; some sections bare, crevassed rock, others braved by hardy shrubs and patches of grass, others crumbly and treacherous. It was a rock climbers’ dream.
For a while the road wound up the hillside in the bluff’s shadow, then it turned away, angling back east, leaving the bluff behind and dropping down into the forest. Jun was starting to think they had missed a turning somewhere when the road made a sharp left and they came out on a junction with a wide, flag-stoned section of road. Ornate but rusty metal railings lined either side.