The Crowmaster (12 page)

I
stumbled clumsily through the woods, clattering into trees, tripping on weeds, barely staying upright. I was no longer even sure where I was running to, but I knew exactly what I was running from.

She'd been my friend. Maybe my
only
friend. And now she was… she was… I couldn't bring myself to think about it.

I staggered on, but at every step I was bombarded by another image of Ameena. Her wide grin that made her nose crinkle up. Her boots under my mum's coffee table. The feeling of her shoulder against mine as we'd looked out through Marion's window.

I heard the monster shout with Ameena's voice somewhere behind me – not too far away. A knot of anger bunched my stomach up tight, and my feet decided to stop moving all by themselves.

The voice called my name again, closer still, directly behind me. I tucked myself in behind the thick, straight trunk of a towering tree, bunched my fingers into tight, tight fists, and waited.

For almost a minute I stood there, my legs cramping painfully as I struggled to stay motionless and hidden. My breath rattled in and out, surely loud enough to give me away. I could do nothing to quieten it, though, and when I heard the murderer's footsteps thudding closer and closer, each breath came louder still.

When the rustling of the grass was almost beside me, I leapt out of my hiding place, head down, shoulder out. The thing wearing Ameena's body let out a gasp of shock. It couldn't move fast enough to dodge my charge, and its ribs made a satisfying
crunch
as my shoulder slammed against them.

The pain from my injuries was nearly overwhelming. It stopped me concentrating, made it impossible for me to use my powers. That suited me fine. I didn't want to use the power. I wanted to pound on the monster, punish it with my bare hands, make it realise the mistake it had made by taking Ameena away from me.

I would make the Crowmaster beg, make him plead with me to spare him. And when he'd done that – when he'd wept and screamed and cried out for me to let him live, I'd say just one word.

I'd say ‘No'.

My charge didn't take as much out of it as I'd hoped. It twisted Ameena's body, deflecting the brunt of my attack and sending us both spinning down on to the forest floor.

‘Have you gone
mental
?' Ameena's voice demanded, as we both scrabbled to get up. The Crowmaster was still trying to trick me, still trying to make me believe I was attacking my friend. I blocked it out and focused on the fight.

We were halfway to our feet when I drove my fist hard against what had once been Ameena's cheek, dropping down and letting my weight add power to the punch.

The Crowmaster glared at me through Ameena's eyes. ‘Right,' he said, still sounding exactly like her, ‘that's it.'

A jab to my throat left me gasping for air. I was too busy choking even to try to defend myself when the thing in Ameena's skin leapt on top of me, pressing a knee hard against my chest. I fought hard, kicking and pushing, but the tightness in my throat and the pressure on my chest kept me pinned down.

‘Spectacular a hissy fit as this is, we don't have time for it,' her voice growled.

‘I'll kill you,' I hissed. ‘I swear I'll kill you for this.'

‘For
what
? What are you spazzing out about now?'

‘You don't care, do you?' I snarled. Tears ran in different directions down both sides of my head, pooling in my ears. ‘You took her away from me, and you don't give a damn! She meant something to me –
she meant everything to me
– and you used her like… like…'

I wilted beneath the puzzled gaze of those eyes, so brown as to be almost black. ‘You didn't have to kill her,' I mumbled. ‘You didn't have to kill Ameena.'

‘Er… hello? What? Listen, kiddo, I don't know what you think has happened, but I'm pretty sure I'm not dead.' She glanced up into the darkness lurking between the trees. ‘Not yet, anyway.'

Kiddo
. She'd called me ‘kiddo'. I hated it when she called me ‘kiddo'. She
always
called me ‘kiddo'.

But no, it was a trick. He was messing with my head.

‘You're not her,' I said through clenched teeth. ‘You're the Crowmaster.'

‘I'm not the Crowmaster!' she retorted, almost smiling at the suggestion.

She didn't smile for long. The spindly fingers crept like an insect through her hair, yanking her head backwards before either of us could react. The weight lifted from my chest in a sharp, sudden jerk. Ameena bit her lip, trying to resist screaming or swearing. Or both.

‘That's right, you ain't,' the scarecrow said, his face split into a grin, that horrible laugh of his hissing in Ameena's ear.
SS-SS-SS-SS-SS!
‘
I
am!'

I don't remember getting up. One moment I was flat on the ground, and the next I was standing there in front of them both, the pain that had been ravaging my body a rapidly fading memory.

The Crowmaster had one of his pets perched on his shoulder – a fat, ugly brute with blood on its beak. Its head twitched at every little movement I made, and I knew the scarecrow was watching me through the crow's eyes.

Ameena was staying unusually quiet, and I only had to glance at her to realise why. One of the Crowmaster's long black fingernails was pressed against her throat. It dug in deeper with every breath she took, until a trickle of red crept down her neck.

‘Let her go.'

‘Now why would I go and do a thing like that?' the scarecrow sneered.

‘It's me you want, not her. Let her go.'

‘That's one mighty big head you got there, boy,' he hissed. ‘Some folks might think you're somethin' special, but me? I don't care one little bit.' He hocked up a mouthful of black saliva and spat it on to the ground at my feet. ‘I let this one go on purpose, see? Thought it'd be a real hoot to let you think she was me. Thought you might slit her throat and bleed her dry, or at least beat on her until she stopped beating back.'

He pressed his talon harder against Ameena's throat, making her eyes bulge. ‘But instead what do you do? You cry like a baby and get your ass whupped by a girl. Man, that was a disappointing moment.'

‘What is it you want?' I asked.

‘I already got what I want, boy,' he smirked. ‘Thanks to your daddy I got me a Get Outta Hell Free card. Now all I gotta do is kill you and there ain't no way hell can follow me here.'

‘Then let Ameena go,' I said. ‘You don't have to hurt her.'

‘Oh sure, I don't
have
to,' he grinned, ‘but I bet it'll be all kinds of fun.'

His empty eye sockets widened and that flesh-crawling laugh hissed from his wide cavernous mouth. He yanked harder on Ameena's hair until she couldn't help but scream. His hand drew back, the stupidly elongated fingers splaying out, the claws extending to their full terrifying length, aiming for Ameena's exposed throat.

He was halfway through the movement, too far into it to stop suddenly. That was my cue. Clenching my fist, I did something I never anticipated I'd ever find myself doing.

I punched a crow in the face.

The Crowmaster may have been expecting me to attack him, but he wasn't prepared for me hitting the bird. Nor, it seems, was the bird. It flipped backwards off its master's shoulder, squawking and flapping as it tried to slow its fall.

Still seeing through the crow's eyes, the Crowmaster became instantly disorientated. His ragged nails swished narrowly past Ameena's throat, throwing them both off balance. Ameena twisted her shoulder into him and bent at the waist, letting his momentum carry him up and over her back.

Even before the scarecrow hit the ground, Ameena bounded over to where the bird had landed on the forest floor. Lifting her boot, she brought it down hard on the crow's head.

‘Have some of
that
!' she cried triumphantly, before a sudden fluttering filled the forest behind us.

‘Move!' Ameena cried, catching me by the arm. Before I knew what was happening, I was fleeing again, hurrying through the trees, ducking and jumping and weaving through a denser and denser jungle of roots and weeds and thin, tangling branches.

That sound – that rhythmic rippling of rapid applause – was growing louder, the birds quickly closing the gap between us.

Ameena moved through the trees like a shark through water, cutting effortlessly through the forest and pulling away from me with every bound. The mass of pain that I'd temporarily managed to forget about now came rushing back, making my head throb and my chest burn and my limbs turn achingly heavy.

I would have given up then, I'm almost certain. With the crows screeching behind me and my legs buckling beneath me, I would have surely collapsed to the ground and let them do whatever it was they were going to do.

I would have died there in the clawing darkness of the woods, had I not seen the clearing through a gap in the trees. ‘Over there!' I shouted, my voice little more than a loud croak. Ameena turned and followed my finger, which was pointing ahead and to her right.

It took her a moment to realise what she was looking at, but then she banked sharply and began to run faster. I was already crashing after her, and together we hurried towards the clearing.

And towards the towering mast that loomed imposingly at its heart.

‘W
hat now?' Ameena barked as I entered the clearing just a few paces behind her.

I didn't reply, partly because I was too out of breath to speak, but mostly because I didn't know what to say. I had no idea what we should do next.

The mast was much larger than I'd expected. It almost filled the width of the clearing, and stretched way up into the dusky darkness above our heads. From a distance it had seemed to shine with a near-supernatural silvery sheen. Up close, it was a dull gun-metal grey, with no sign of the gleam it had appeared to possess.

I tried to tell myself it didn't make any difference. What mattered were the components of the mast – the dishes, the antennae, the big knobbly bits that stuck out of the side – not how shiny it was. And yet, even though I knew this, the lack of that near-magical sparkle caused my heart to sink, and made me wonder if the whole plan wasn't doomed to failure.

The birds were still flocking after us, now just a few metres from the clearing. An image of their vicious beaks snapped into focus in my mind's eye, closely followed by visions of Marion and Toto's remains.
Both
Totos.

Once again I found myself wondering about the dog that had come leaping to my rescue from… well, from nowhere. That big, powerful, savage animal that had appeared at just the right moment to save me from death, just like the mattress had.

But once again I had no time to dwell on the mystery of the two Totos. The crows were swarming into the clearing now, and if we didn't move fast the dog's rescue – and death – would have been in vain.

‘Into the middle,' I yelped, already running, ‘beneath the tower!'

‘I heard these things give you brain tumours,' she said, moving forward, but not quite running.

‘Really?' I snapped, hurrying past her. ‘Well I know for a fact
those
things tear your face off and eat it. Take your pick.'

Ameena overtook me before I'd finished the sentence. She stopped almost exactly in the centre of the space beneath the mast. By the time she spun round I was beside her, gripping the sleeve of her jacket for no reason other than fear.

A bubble of panic formed in my throat when I realised the birds weren't slowing. They raced in our direction, a wide stream of black, flowing from the trees and heading directly towards us.

‘Do something!'

I pushed down the pain, forgot the fact that fifty per cent of my face was so smashed up it looked like mashed potato. The birds were coming, and I was the only one who could—

‘They're turning!' Ameena yelled, before I could even attempt anything. ‘Check it out!'

She was right. As the line of birds reached the mast it split in two, each half arcing around the outside of the structure until they crossed paths at the other side. They didn't slow down then, just kept flying around and around, one half moving in one direction, the other half taking the opposite route, criss-crossing their way around the mast.

Faster and faster they flew, until the sheer speed of their flight made it impossible to follow any one individual bird. Faster still they went, moving fluidly, somehow able to avoid crashing into all the other birds racing in the opposite direction.

‘What are they doing?' Ameena asked. She was clinging to my arm now, as tightly as I clung to hers.

‘I… I don't know,' I confessed. ‘I thought the mast would send them crazy, make them fly away. Like the phone did.'

‘But it isn't.'

‘Isn't it?' I whispered. ‘I'm not sure. They're not coming in here. They're not trying to get at us.'

‘Probably heard about the brain tumours,' Ameena muttered.

‘Maybe…' I looked up at the massive, towering structure above our heads. From directly below it seemed impossibly big, like some giant metal dinosaur. I wondered how many calls it could handle at once.

And then a terrible thought hit me. The mast was up here on a hillside in the middle of nowhere, miles from anything even resembling civilisation. What if the birds weren't being driven back because nobody was making a call? The phone had only scattered the crows when it had started to ring – the signal, I guessed, somehow breaking the Crowmaster's hold on them as it travelled through the air.

If no one made a call, then would there be a signal from the mast? Would there be anything to stop the birds?

I hurriedly told Ameena my theory. Her face seemed to crumple before I was half finished. She glanced at the circle of screeching death that surrounded us, and not for the first time that night I could see real, raw fear in her eyes.

‘They're not scared to come in,' she said, realising the same thing I had just half a second before her. ‘They're keeping us trapped. They're keeping us in here.' She tore her gaze from the birds and turned to me. There was no hope in her wide, dark eyes. ‘He's coming. He's coming for us.'

‘Listen,' I said, trying to sound like I believed what I was about to say, ‘I have an idea.'

I could tell from the way she looked at me that she'd heard the doubt in my voice. Still, we both knew we were beyond even the clutching at straws stage. What we needed now was a miracle.

‘OK,' she said, nodding slowly. ‘Spill.'

I took a short breath, swallowed once, and then put the sentence out there.

‘I think I created that dog.'

She blinked. Whatever insanity she had expected to emerge from my mouth, I had obviously surpassed it.

‘It sounds crazy, yes, and I don't know if I believe it myself, but he just kind of appeared from nowhere, like, well, like Mr Mumbles and Caddie did back at the house. And there was a mattress too; I think I made that, and—'

‘Do it,' Ameena said, cutting me off mid-babble. ‘Whatever you're planning, do it.' She stole another look at the wall of birds. ‘Although it's going to take one mean dog to get through all that.'

‘I wasn't thinking about a dog,' I told her. I could feel my cheeks flush red at the sheer ridiculousness of what I was saying. ‘I was going to see if I could make a… a mobile phone.'

She blinked again and her head made a very slight spasming movement, as if she was fighting back the urge to laugh. ‘Right,' she nodded. ‘Good. Go for it.' She squeezed her lips between her fingertips, trying to stop herself saying anything else. She failed miserably. ‘Just make sure you top it up first.'

I ignored the jibe. Ameena and I both knew this was our last chance. All I had to do to save us was create a complex piece of telecommunications equipment from thin air. That was it. Simple.

Yeah, right.

Still, I had to try. I held out my left hand, palm facing me, fingers curled around a handset I had not even begun to imagine. As the birds whipped around us and my head throbbed like it was about to implode, I closed my eyes and tried to paint a picture with my mind.

‘If I can make a dog, I can make a phone,' I said, steeling my determination.

‘There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear out loud.'

I ignored that comment too. All that mattered was the phone. The phone I was trying to imagine nestled in the palm of my left hand. The phone that would save our lives.

Slowly, almost cautiously, I felt the first tingle inch across my scalp. It moved at such a crawl it took all my willpower to avoid concentrating on it and accidentally whisking myself off to the Darkest Corners. If it came to it, that place might prove to be a last-chance escape route, but going there would only delay the inevitable. Besides, I knew from experience that there could be something even worse waiting for us on the other side.

I screwed up my face and tried to dredge up the details of the phone Mum had given me. It had been black, or maybe a very dark blue. The buttons were grey with… were the numbers yellow? Or white?

Ignoring the detail, I concentrated on the phone's shape, and how it had felt in my hand. Solid, but not too heavy. How long was the casing? I felt sweat on my brow. How wide was the screen? I cursed myself for not having paid more attention.

Despite my uncertainties, the tingling filled my head. I heard Ameena whistle softly, before she blurted, ‘Something happening,' in a voice filled with wonder.

I kept concentrating, feeling something take form in the crook of my palm. I didn't open my eyes, but maintained my focus, trying to pin down an image of the phone, trying to remember every last detail.

When next Ameena spoke, the amazement was gone from her tone. Her voice was flat and deflated. ‘Oh.'

Blinking open my eyes, I looked down at my hand. There was a phone there. Of sorts. It looked like three or four different phones melted together.

It was as wide as it was long, with a jumbled mish-mash of buttons scattered apparently at random across the front. The screen was shaped like an upside-down letter L, but tapered to a point at one end. The casing itself seemed to be made of a number of different materials – from shiny black plastic to dull chrome – with no obvious joins between them.

I knew the phone wasn't going to work. It was too distorted, too deformed to be operational. Also, I'd forgotten to give it an “on” button.

‘Well, it nearly worked,' Ameena said, trying to sound encouraging, ‘which, I'll be honest, is a damn sight more than I expected.'

On the one hand I was devastated – the phone had been our only chance, and I'd screwed it up. But on the other hand I was amazed – amazed that I'd managed to create something out of nothing, just by thinking about it. OK, it wasn't perfect, but it was
there
. It
existed
, and that set me wondering just how powerful these abilities of mine actually were.

Ameena tugged on my sleeve and I looked up from the useless brick in my hand. It took me a moment, but then I saw him, standing just inside the circle of birds. His empty eyes were trained on us both. Another crow sat perched on his shoulder, watching us on his behalf.

He began to prowl around the mast, but never venturing beneath it. And all the while, the crows flew by behind him, a blurred wall of living black.

He didn't speak, just stared at us. We watched him pad back and forth, like a tiger waiting on feeding time at the zoo. The only difference was we were the ones inside the cage, not him.

‘Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining,' Ameena said in a whisper, ‘but why isn't he coming in?'

‘Maybe because…' I began, but the sentence ended there. I had no idea why he wasn't coming for us. Nothing made sense any more. ‘It must have something to do with the mast,' I guessed. ‘Maybe the signal's stronger under it or something.'

‘But I thought you said it didn't send out any signals unless someone made a call?'

‘Yeah, but I'm not a mobile phone engineer, am I?' I said, with more venom than I meant. ‘Maybe it's something like that, or maybe he's just claustrophobic, or maybe he heard you talking about brain tumours. At this point your guess is as good as mine.'

‘Fine. Then care to hazard a guess at what he's doing now?'

The Crowmaster was no longer pacing. He was stretching up with his elongated arms, wrapping his spindly fingers around the first of the twenty or so horizontal metal struts that ran up all four sides of the mast. The gap between each bar must've been over two metres, but the length of his limbs meant he was able to haul himself up with ease.

We watched him pull himself on to the first strut. It wasn't until he reached for the second that we realised he was climbing the mast.

I let my gaze overtake him, craning my neck and tilting my head until I could see what the Crowmaster was climbing towards. And I knew, in a flash, we were done for.

‘I was right, it's something to do with the signals,' I said, so quietly I could barely hear myself over the screeching of the birds. ‘And he's going to stop them.

‘He's going to smash the transmitter!'