Tales of Crow- The Complete series Box Set

by Chris Ward

  ‘I have to get back to Suzanne.’

  Tommy took a step forward. ‘I kept you off the street while the DCA hunt was at its worst. Do you think you would have survived out there?’ Tommy laughed bitterly. ‘You couldn’t even get the better of one old man. For what it’s worth, if at any time in the future you decide to throttle someone, never, never let them go.’

  Patrick said nothing. His cheeks burned with anger and shame.

  ‘I can help you, but I don’t jump when someone clicks their fingers. You want to dance, make your own fucking dance. And never question my associations. I work with who it is necessary to work with. It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘I need to get back to Suzanne.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’ve kept my ear to the ground and heard nothing of a girl being captured. She’s still out there, despite your best efforts to create a trail.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Patrick looked up. ‘I need to take a shit.’

  ‘Second door on the left.’ Tommy smirked. ‘Close it behind you.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Patrick made for the door, but as he passed Tommy, his uncle grinned and said, ‘Then when you’re done, we can talk about how you’re going to deliver the girl. I’m still waiting for payback for getting you out.’

  Anger bloomed like a field of wildflowers. Patrick swung his fist, backhanding Tommy across the face, turning as he did to throw another punch with his left.

  ‘Jesus, Patrick, it was a fucking joke—’

  Tommy caught the second attempted blow, but as he pulled Patrick off balance, Patrick stamped down on his knee. Tommy howled and crumpled to the ground. Patrick pushed his uncle over and battered him until his fists ached.

  ‘Don’t you ever talk about her like that—’

  ‘You’re a dead man,’ Tommy groaned, fighting to avoid Patrick’s fists. ‘A walking dead man.’

  Patrick leaned back and kicked Tommy one last time in the stomach, then turned and ran. He was in a town house, so he ran along a short corridor and let himself out of a backdoor into a paved yard. A back wall reached to his shoulder, but he jumped and pulled himself up, only realising after he had climbed down the other side that he wore no shoes.

  He was in an alleyway he didn’t recognise. There was no time to worry about where he was, because Tommy would be after him. He picked a direction and ran at random, then zigzagged down alleyways until he was completely lost.

  Finally, he climbed over a hedge into a small park. The rusty swings and climbing frame were deserted. A small toilet block stood to one side, the kind of place Patrick would once have never entered for fear of what lowlifes might be inside. Now, though, he didn’t care. He went inside and took a long overdue shit.

  Essentials were a frustrating necessity before he could get anything meaningful done. It took him a couple of hours to find a house with an unlocked door where he sneaked in and stole a pair of shoes. They more or less fit if he let his socks bunch a little, but he wished he’d had time to hunt down his old trainers.

  After walking for a couple more streets, he began to recognise his surroundings. Tommy must have held him in a local safe house, because he was only a mile from his mother’s place.

  Tommy had called him an idiot, reckless. It was stupid to go back to his own house, but he had some vague notion that his mother, in all her alcoholic excess, might have kept a packet or two of antibiotics around in case she caught something from the suspect drink Race used to provide her.

  Peering out of an alley at his house across the street, however, he quickly realised it was a foolish idea. From the way the front door had been broken in and then padlocked shut and stickered with police tape, he knew the DCA had been here.

  Taking a circuitous route, he approached again from the rear. For an hour or more he lay in wait, watching for any sign the house was under observation, but also plucking up the courage to approach. When he finally did, he found the back door also broken in, swinging on one remaining hinge.

  He smelled his mother’s body before he found her, lying in her own filth and blood on the kitchen floor. Her face had contorted in a death caused by multiple injuries designed to inflict as much pain as possible. Patrick wiped away a tear. While he had never felt much love for her, it was clear how she had suffered in his name. It didn’t matter that she had likely told them anything they wanted to hear; his escape had brought them here.

  From the living room he took a sofa drape and laid it over her. Then, aware he was already compromising his situation by being here, he went through the drawers, looking for anything the DCA—and possibly subsequent looters—had missed.

  In his bedroom upstairs he found a pair of old shoes, so he jettisoned the ones he had stolen. He changed his clothes and quickly cleaned himself up, then rooted through the bathroom for anything of use, but found only an old packet of painkillers that was several years out of date.

  ‘Goodbye, Mother,’ he said to the shape under the sheet as he left, wishing he could do more.

  As the crow flew, it was several miles out to the lake where Suzanne was hiding out. Patrick couldn’t go back there empty-handed, but where could he find medicine?

  A few doors down from him, he remembered a neighbour had owned a bicycle. The government was in the process of banning them from sale, citing a shortage of materials, requesting that unused bikes be handed in. They had so far fallen short of banning them outright, and Patrick remembered his neighbour boasting about how he kept it hidden.

  Now, as Patrick climbed over the back wall of his neighbour’s garden, he found the bike inside a locked wooden shed, visible through a window. With everyone at work, he didn’t care about the noise as he kicked the door in and hauled the bike out. A lock took a little more time to break, busted open with a pair of pliers found in a toolbox. As Patrick lifted it and dropped it over the wall into the alley, he wondered why breaking and entering—something he had always thought the domain of criminals—was so easy.

  He did his best to keep out of sight by sticking to the alleyways as he made his way across town. The weather had turned, the clear skies turning grey and threatening rain, and as evening drew in he felt more comfortable cycling on open roads, diving for cover whenever he heard cars coming. As he reached the town limits, though, the tarmac roads gave way to gravel. The bike was a basic road bike, not designed for uneven surfaces. After a few minutes of struggling over rocks, he got off and pushed.

  He was able to pick his pace up again out of town when the main road intersected with winding farm lanes. While many were overgrown, the tarmac had not yet been cleared, so Patrick threaded back and forth until he found himself outside Cheddar. The lake was on the other side, but he still had nothing to show for his disappearance.

  Night was finally on its way, the long late summer day giving way to a grey twilight. Patrick pedaled hard through the streets, his desperation growing. Afraid of the DCA, he skirted around the small town centre, keeping to residential streets.

  The houses were giving way to fields when he spotted an old man helping an old woman up a path to a door.

  No.

  Patrick felt a flush of shame as the idea came to him.

  If anyone was likely to have medication, it would be two elderly people.

  And it wouldn’t be hard to rob them.

  He hid the bike behind a hedge and skirted around behind their house. Unlike other houses in the area, the gardens here were flat, bordered only by a low fence Patrick could easily step over. Even though he felt no fear from a couple who needed assistance walking, he looked around for some kind of weapon, choosing a wooden garden stake left poking out of a small vegetable garden.

  The backdoor was unlocked. Patrick crept inside, wondering where the old couple had gone. Through a door out of a utility room, he heard voices, quiet conversation, the clink of a cup on a countertop, a little laughter, and he felt again the wave of shame that had previously come over him.

  ‘For Suzanne,’ he whispered. ‘
For Kelly. For us. For everything.’

  With a dramatic howl, he kicked open the kitchen door and burst through. The woman, easily in her seventies, cried out in alarm, falling back towards her husband, who was sitting in a chair by a round dining table. A cup shattered on the floor, spraying Patrick’s ankles with hot tea.

  ‘What do you want?’ the woman gasped. ‘Take anything. Please … please don’t hurt us.’

  ‘Just … just shut up and do as I say,’ Patrick said, struggling to force authority into his quivering voice. ‘I won’t hurt you if I get what I want.’

  ‘Please, we didn’t do anything,’ the old woman said.

  ‘My friend’s hurt,’ Patrick said. ‘I need medicine. Antibiotics.’

  ‘In the drawer,’ the old woman said, but as Patrick looked where her shaking finger pointed, he caught the old man’s eyes.

  No sign of fear, only of sadness, disappointment.

  Patrick lifted the stake. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Is this what’s become of everything? God, you disgust me, you horrible little boy.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Patrick swung the stake before he could stop himself. There was no power to the blow, but it struck the old man on the head, just above his left ear. The old man gasped, clutching for his head as the woman howled. Patrick saw blood on the stake and dropped it, stepping back.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Get out of here,’ the old man muttered. ‘You’re a disgrace, boy. An utter disgrace. What would your parents think of you?’

  Patrick backed away. He glanced at the drawer, but he had no idea which one of several the woman had meant, and his nerve was draining out of him like water through a sieve. He looked at them, the old man groaning with blood running through his fingers, the old woman sobbing as she hugged him.

  The old man was right.

  He was a disgrace.

  His cheeks burned as he ran for the door, and by the time he hurdled over the back fence, he was crying harder than even the old woman had been.

  It was night before he made it up to the reservoir, but the moment he set his eyes on the cabin, he knew Suzanne and Kelly were gone.

  The place had been ransacked, the doors and windows smashed in, the furniture overturned, the cupboards open, emptied out. In one corner, it looked like someone had attempted to set a fire before changing their mind and stamping it out.

  Feeling like the most hopeless person in the world, Patrick went outside and sat on the step, head in his hands.

  28

  Urla

  The two photographs were contrasting images of the same man. On one side, Tommy Crown, respectable civil lawyer, a pen picture taken from his website homepage. On the other, a grainy, badly lit picture of Tommy Crown, smuggler, gambler, thug … and some said people’s champion.

  Urla looked up. ‘And you say he’s connected to the new owner at Carmichael Industries?’

  Dave Green nodded. ‘According to my source, Tommy Green is the man behind the disappearance of several DCA agents.’

  Urla nodded, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. Nine men had disappeared in the last few days, some pulled out of their beds, others jumped during routine patrols. The frustration she had felt at the inability of her men to deal with whoever was behind this was something she had taken out on the chiefs at the local training academy, but having seen the remains of the creature which attacked the checkpoint, she had reluctantly admitted to herself that they were dealing with something hitherto unknown.

  ‘You know Tommy Crown,’ Urla said. ‘What kind of man is he? Can he be turned to work for us?’

  Dave Green shook his head. ‘He’s a hard bastard, and he’s not a man you cross. He looks out for himself first, which is why I guess he’s working with this Doctor Crow person. There must be something in it for him.’

  Urla nodded. ‘You’ve done well.’ She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope, sliding it across the desk. ‘Your fee.’

  Dave Green lifted an eyebrow. ‘All of it?’

  Urla held his gaze. ‘You can come over here and take the rest.’

  As Dave Green got up, came around the desk and began to put his rough hands on her, Urla’s thoughts drifted far away, wondering how she could transform her poorly trained, inept policing force into something capable of bringing down a growing army of half-human monsters … before Maxim Cale showed up.

  It wasn’t going to be easy.

  Later, after Dave Green had gone, leaving behind him a warm glow that would keep her satisfied until she met with Justin again, she returned to her desk and began to make phone calls.

  First, she needed to hunt down Tommy Crown. Once she had him captive, she would formulate a plan to defeat the mysterious Doctor Crow and the army of monstrosities he was building while decimating her own.

  Night had fallen and it was getting late, so she headed out. Justin and her other office staff had long since gone home, Justin having slipped a note into her locker asking her to consider a late-night hookup. Urla smiled, but tonight she had work to do.

  Her car was waiting in the parking area. Even though security cameras covered every inch of the parking area, Urla never let her hand go far from her gun. The lights were forever breaking down, leaving wide patches of tarmac in darkness.

  And in one such patch lay a black shape she almost tripped over.

  Her heart told her who it was before she switched on a small pocket torch attached to her key ring.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ….’

  Urla took a step back, drawing her gun with her free hand. At first it appeared that Dave Green was grinning, but only because his dead eyes had been prised open, and gore from his savaged neck had been wiped around his face in an upward semi-circle.

  Urla, bile rising in her throat, batted a fly away from her face and glanced around her, gun trained on the surrounding streets, fearing the killer might still be nearby.

  Nothing. The parking area was silent.

  She looked back at Dave Green, running the torchlight over his body. As well as his neck, his trousers had been torn open, and his genitals ripped off. Sharp claws had left fleshy gashes on his navel.

  Urla felt a shiver run down her back, and was certain she could hear the faintest peal of laughter. She spun around again, pointing her gun into every dark shadow, but she knew in her heart what Dave Green’s murder meant.

  Someone was mocking her, and they were telling her something.

  That she wasn’t safe.

  That she was marked.

  Losing her nerve, Urla ran for her car.

  29

  Kurou

  Watching through Divan’s eyes, Kurou chortled with excitement as his newly repaired Huntsman cut down Urla Wynne’s associate and arranged an impressive tableaux for the DCA’s chief to find.

  Divan had done a fine job. Green, fresh from shopping their mutual associate for a bag of cash and a decent lay, hadn’t even seen the Huntsman coming. In hindsight, Kurou wished he’d instructed Divan to take a little more time, but Dave Green had lost his throat before he even realised the Huntsman was there. It was an inglorious death for an inglorious man.

  Kurou couldn’t stop thinking about the woman, though. Urla Wynne had bigger balls than any of her employees, and he would love the chance to work his construction magic on a woman. He remembered a girl called Akane Yamaguchi, whom he had effectively brought back to life, much to the delight and eventual revulsion of her poor boyfriend, Jun. What wonderful days those had been, but they felt so long ago now.

  How he would love for them to come again, and how wonderful a test subject a strong woman like Urla Wynne would make.

  But no matter. He had nine good prototypes in various stages of development. His supply line might be compromised now, but in a few days Tommy would no longer be needed. Kurou licked his lips. His Huntsman could bring in fresh material far quicker, and Tommy himself would make a fine addition to Kurou’s new
workforce.

  He lifted an eyebrow. A light was flashing on the screen, Divan having detected something during his return journey which he perceived as a threat. Kurou expanded the screen, changing the night vision to infrared and zooming in on the figure Divan had detected moving in his direction.

  A boy pushing a bicycle over the gravel in the direction of the industrial estate.

  He looked familiar.

  ‘Well, well, a flown crow’s come home,’ Kurou said, stroking a finger against the figure on the screen.

  ‘Kill?’ came Divan’s voice through a speaker, little more than a low growl.

  ‘Oh ho, no, we can’t have that,’ Kurou said. ‘What kind of master would I be if I let you kill your own brother? Watch him, see where he goes.’

  Patrick Devan, head down, continued pushing the bike up to the entrance to the industrial estate. Divan watched from the trees on the other side of the road, never letting Patrick get an idea of his presence. Kurou had seen plenty of his Huntsmen’s ability to kill, but it was nice to know they could employ stealth when necessary too.

  Patrick turned into the estate, and as soon as he found himself on tarmac, he climbed back on the bike and started pedaling towards Carmichael Industries.

  ‘Oh, looks like we have a visitor,’ Kurou said. ‘Keep out of sight, let him come to me.’

  Kurou rubbed his beaklike nose. Patrick Devan, saved from the gallows, his martyrdom incomplete. How he reminded Kurou so much of an old foe, Jun Matsumoto.

  ‘Laurette,’ he called. ‘Prepare tea and biscuits. It appears we have a guest this late night. Welcome him in, make him at home. I would so much like to hear what he has to say before … well, before we talk.’ He grinned to himself, then turned back to the screen.