Jack of Ravens (72 page)

They were only a few steps ahead of the cascading spiders as they reached the windows that looked out over London’s glittering cityscape.

Was this supposed to be some kind of rescue?’ Mallory snapped. Because if it was, it’s the worst one ever.’

They made it down three more floors, their injuries mounting with each level. Finally they could go no further. The volume of spiders behind them was so great the stairwell was covered – floor and walls – apart from a small semi-circle where the four of them had been backed against the window.

How many of them are there? ‘Sophie said, aghast.

‘About ten billion,’ Church replied,’ give or take.’

‘I’ve got to say, you seem pretty blase about this,’ Mallory shouted.

‘You’re taking it in your stride too.’

Mallory was surprised to realise this was true.

Give me your hand,’ Ruth said to Sophie. If everything’s right, you should still have some vestige of ability to manipulate the Craft.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Sophie bristled, unable to take her eyes off the advancing black line. Ruth took her hand nonetheless.

Try not to make things worse this time,’ Church said.

Ruth mouthed some insult, but her attention was already focussing internally.

What am I supposed to do?’ Sophie asked.

‘Don’t think. Just feel.’

Mallory was surprised to see Church was now oblivious to the threat of the spiders. He had returned the sword to a scabbard strapped across his back and stood with his hands pressed against the glass, looking out over the Thames and the lights of the City.

Mallory kicked out at the nearest spiders. The tip of his boot hung ragged where it made contact. Some help.’

‘I am helping,’ Church said quietly. ‘You need to lighten up.’

Behind the skyscrapers of the financial quarter, the clouds were lit with lightning. ‘Okay,’ Church said. ‘Do your stuff.’

Ruth bowed her head so her hair fell across her face. The stale air of the stairwell took on the freshness of the seaside. The advancing spiders came to a hesitant stop. In the entirety of the stairwell, there was no movement at all. Far outside, a rumble of thunder; another flash of lightning.

Sophie stiffened, her eyelids fluttering. A flush had risen to her cheeks. Her hand was unresponsive where Mallory held it.

Now would be good,’ Church said.

Ruth threw her head back and said a single word. Mallory was thrown to his knees by a force that came from nowhere. With an eerie silence, it blew the windows out, shards glittering as they fell to the rail transit far below.
Standing on the brink, Church was unmoved by the powerfully gusting wind that raged inside, threatening to pluck them all out.

Sophie staggered, shook her head. Oh. What happened?’ As she came to her senses, she noticed a curious thing: the spiders had moved back several feet. They’re scared,’ she said, puzzled. Of us.’

It’ll pass.’ Ruth grabbed Church’s shoulder with what Mallory noted as tenderness. This would not be a good time to screw up.’

Don’t worry. Look.’

Mallory followed Church’s pointing arm to a strange motion in the sky far away over the City. The lights of the Lloyd’s building were briefly obscured before appearing again.

The spiders are moving again,’ Sophie warned.

Mallory was fascinated by the shifting patterns of shadow and light outside. Gold and red flared briefly against the towering structures. Deep in the dark at the back of his head, where his true self had been locked away for too long, memories stirred; feelings of danger, awe and wonder.

Church saw the thoughts play across Mallory’s face. The world doesn’t have to be like this,’ he said.

‘Church, we can’t wait any longer.’ The urgency in Ruth’s voice jolted them both from their reflection.

The spiders inched forward, gaining confidence.

Whatever you did … can’t you do it again?’ Mallory asked.

‘It doesn’t work like that.’ An edge of weariness sharpened Ruth’s words. She pressed Sophie back towards Mallory and Church at the window.

Another strong gust. Mallory grabbed the window jamb to stop him being pulled out. He had a brief, head-spinning view down the vast expanse of the tower to the railway line so far below it was barely visible.

Okay, out there,’ Church said insistently. He motioned to a thin ledge that ran around the outside of the tower just below the window.

‘You’re joking!’ Mallory saw that Church wasn’t.

‘Come up with a better plan, you get to be king.’ Steeling himself, Church stepped out of the window, pressing his back against the smooth wall of the tower. Mallory could see the strain in his face as he forced himself not to look down. The wind gusted and roared, deafening.

A surge of spiders drove Mallory, Sophie and Ruth out after him. Sophie gave a small cry, her face drained of blood, and Mallory grabbed her and pressed her back as she almost lurched over the edge.

What’s wrong with you?’ Mallory yelled over the wind. There’s nowhere to go from here! Why did I ever come with you?’

Because you chose life.’

Mallory’s ironic laugh was stolen from his lips by the raging wind. He could barely hold on. Closing his eyes, he thought he was going to be sick.

‘Keep moving,’ Ruth shouted, ‘the spiders are still coming!’

‘This is pointless!’ Mallory yelled. ‘We’re all dead!’

I’m trying to buy us some time.’ Church edged further along the ledge.

Eyes screwed shut, Sophie was paralysed, barely even breathing. Closing his own eyes so he didn’t have to see the drop, Mallory squeezed her hand and urged her to match him step for step along the ledge. The wind tugged at his feet, got behind his back and lifted him away from the wall. He forced himself against it, gasping. Nowhere to go,’ he said to himself.

Yes, there is,’ Church shouted. Look!’

Above the Thames, whatever Mallory had spied earlier was moving closer. Occasionally it would be caught in the spotlights of the new buildings that lined the river, and then it would gleam like jewels. It was still a silhouette against the city’s lights, but Mallory could tell it was the size of an airliner. A burst of fire erupted from the front with a roar, and in its glare Mallory saw burning eyes and a serpentine tail, and the billowing wings that carried it on the currents that surged among the skyscrapers.

Gaping, he almost forgot where he was. It was a dream, of the city, of his own troubled, imprisoned mind. Behind him, the spiders swarmed along the side of the building, many plucked off by the wind and sent spiralling into the dark gulf, forgotten now in the face of approaching wonder.

Is that—?’ Sophie had opened her eyes as though she had sensed what was coming.

‘Yes,’ Mallory said, ‘It is.’ He was puzzled why he wasn’t more surprised. He saw Church was smiling and that didn’t surprise him either.

The Fabulous Beast caught the thermals and soared over the Thames.

‘Come on!’ Ruth urged. ‘I’ve got spiders nibbling at my fingers!’

You’re summoning it?’ Mallory said.

His eyes glassy, Church didn’t respond. The Beast glided languorously around the towers of Docklands, the beat of its enormous wings echoing louder than the wind. As it neared, Church came alive. When it passes beneath us, jump.’

Mallory and Sophie looked at him with horror. Before they could protest, Ruth placed one hand in the small of Sophie’s back and propelled her off the ledge. Church did the same with Mallory.

The wind tore at Mallory as he fell, kicking. Two seconds of plummeting stretched to an age, and then he hit the back of the Beast, winding him. He slid, clung on to a bony tine along its spine, felt the others land nearby. The wings thundered with a steady, deafening beat and they rose higher, and higher still. Mallory watched the lights of the towers fall away as he clung on for dear life.

He realised he must have been wearing an odd expression for Church was looking at him curiously. Scared?’ Church asked.

‘No,’ Mallory replied, baffled. ‘I just had the strangest feeling of déjà vu.’

2

England sleeps, England dreams. Across the rolling landscape beyond the capital, there is no peaceful darkness. Sodium lights burn brightly everywhere. There is no silence. The arterial roads still throb with traffic.

In the north-west of England, on the edge of the wild but beautiful country that runs down to the Lake District, Caitlin Shepherd sits in her car outside the Tebay motorway service station. The lights are bright, but all is still. Soon it will open for the first visitors of the day, the lonely few for whom travel was life – but not travel in the sense of mind-altering, character-enriching experience; back and forth travel, mundane travel, a relentless round with no final destination. Perpetual motion with no meaning was Caitlin’s lot, shipping samples of beauty products to shops that would consider stocking them, or perhaps not, and, like Caitlin, would not give it a second thought the moment the decision had been made.

She craved sleep for escape, even though she was not allowed the luxury of dreams, but sleep would not come.

She was not alone. Several container lorries were parked nearby, their cabs dark. Yet Caitlin felt that in one of them someone was watching her. She always felt she was being observed, tracked, hunted, wherever she was, whatever she was doing. Paranoia, she thought wearily, another mental illness to add to the constant buzzing voices in her head. Her doctor had prescribed pills, several different types, and for a while she’d taken them; the voices stilled, the unease dulled, and with it went any sense, however slight, of being engaged in life. Eventually she threw them all out and consigned herself to a future of never being happy.

She closed her eyes. Sleep still did not come.

Wake up, Caitlin
.

One of the voices, the little girl. She fought against the urge, then gave in and looked around, hating herself for it. It always made her feel queasy when the voices told her things her unconscious could not possibly know.

An attractive, charismatic Asian man loomed up at the passenger window, his black hair gleaming in the car park lights. A leather eye-patch covered one socket, but it did not make him appear in the least menacing. He smiled and tapped gently on the glass. Yet Caitlin could see he was on edge, his eyes flickering from side to side, searching the dark.

Go away,’ she said.

We need to talk.’ His voice was calm, yet insistent.

No, we don’t. If you’re not away from here in ten seconds, I’m going to turn on the ignition and drive over you.’

The sound of a lorry door opening echoed across the quiet car park. The Asian man glanced in its direction, became a touch more urgent.

‘My name is Shavi,’ he said. ‘I am a Brother of Dragons—’

‘I’m not interested in your little cult.’

‘You are a Sister of Dragons. We share a heritage—’

‘Six, seven, eight …’

Forgive me,’ Shavi said. Shattering the window with a tyre iron, he yanked open the door. Caitlin yelled and leaned on the horn. Barely one blare had echoed across the car park when Caitlin went woozy from the fumes from a small wooden box that Shavi had thrust under her nose.

‘Just herbs,’ he whispered. ‘Do not worry.’

Dreamily, she saw herself being hauled out of the car as if she were watching a stranger. Shavi carried her effortlessly away from the bright lights to the dark of the moorland that pressed up hard against the service station. Behind them, Caitlin was vaguely aware of movement; rescuers responding to her cries, she thought obliquely.

She was aware of the stars and the moon, the lush smell of vegetation, but she couldn’t muster either fear for herself or any desire to fight back.

It was only when they lay behind a scrubby bush on cool grass with the lights of the service station a distant glow that she began to think coherently once more. Her attacker, she realised, didn’t seem violent; in fact, there was a benign, gentle air about him. Yet she struggled as soon as she was able. He placed a firm hand over her mouth and said quietly, ‘Hush. Look.’

Responding to something in his tone, she peered past the bush towards the car park. Shadows shifted across the moorland. People searching for her? Shavi released his grip on her mouth, and it was that action which convinced her to trust him.

What is it?’ she hissed. Some quality to the quickly moving silhouettes did not appear right.

Keep watching,’ he said. But if they come too close, be prepared to move quickly into the wilderness. If they see us, we will not be able to outpace them.’

His words unnerved her.
What is out there?
she thought.

A shape loomed up on the other side of the bush and she almost cried out. It had approached from a different direction, moving quickly. Shavi pressed her down, holding her still. His heart thundered against her back. Their chance of escape gone, they could only hope against discovery.

Caitlin could smell a foul farmyard odour. Breathing like the scraping of rusty iron echoed loudly. Whatever was on the other side of the bush had stopped. It sniffed the air.