The Crowmaster

by Barry Hutchison

The pain exploded like a bomb in the middle of my face. I opened my eyes to find myself on my knees, my cupped hands catching the blood that was flowing from my nostrils.

  ‘You hit me!’ I cried. ‘Did you… did you hit me?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t hit you,’ Ameena retorted. ‘Don’t be stupid. Your nose just sort of… moved. By itself.’ She gave a faint shudder. ‘Wasn’t very nice to look at.’

  ‘Wasn’t a barrel of laughs from my end, either,’ I scowled, wiping a smear of blood from across my lips. I stood up, shaking off the woozy sensation that danced inside my head.

  The pain was worse than ever. It burned like fingers of lava, reaching up through my nose and deep into my brain. Ameena chewed her lip as she watched me cross to the bed and sit down.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was worth a try, right?’

  I glared at her, but didn’t reply.

  ‘Any ideas for getting out of here?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, me neither. I suppose we could…’ She stopped and looked at me, her head tilted slightly to one side. ‘Wait, what did you say?’

  ‘I have an idea for getting out of here,’ I told her.

  ‘Excellent!’

  ‘Well, you say that now,’ I told her. ‘But I don’t think you’re going to like it.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  A FALL TO RUINS

  ‘So what, you’re just going to leave me here?’ Ameena demanded. Her voice was higher and more shrill than I’d ever heard it. I’d warned her she wasn’t going to like my plan and I’d been right.

  ‘Just for a second,’ I assured her. ‘The place I’m going is dangerous. I need to check the coast’s clear before I take you with me.’

  ‘More dangerous than here?’ she scoffed, just as another crow crunched against the door.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Much more.’

  I was still sitting on the bed, looking up at her. Her mouth opened to speak, but either she couldn’t think of anything to say, or she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Either way, she closed her mouth again and looked away.

  ‘I just…’ I stopped, glanced up to the ceiling, then continued. ‘It’s my fault Mum got hurt. It’s my fault that Marion… It’s my fault what happened to Marion.’ She turned back to look at me, and it took all my willpower not to just look away and start blushing. ‘I don’t want something happening to you too.’

  ‘So you leave me with a bunch of killer crows?’

  ‘It’ll just be for a second,’ I promised. ‘And then I’ll come back.’

  She chewed on her lip again and looked over to the door. When she looked back, her face was several shades paler.

  ‘You’d better.’

  I stood up. ‘I will.’

  Ameena hesitated, then gave a short, reluctant nod of her head. ‘So,’ she said, ‘how does this work?’

  ‘The place I’m going, it’s called the Darkest Corners,’ I explained. ‘It’s where they go when they’re forgotten. All the imaginary friends. It’s where they all go.’

  ‘That’s where you went with the girl and the doll?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But that wasn’t the first time I’ve been there. I can just sort of take myself there. It’s hard to explain, but that world’s a lot like this one. A building here is the same building there.’

  ‘What, exactly the same?’

  ‘Well, yeah. No. Sort of,’ I said. ‘But a bit more run down. And with a load more monsters.’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ said Ameena grimly.

  ‘It isn’t. But maybe there’s a way out over there. We’re trapped in this room, but the birds are here in this world, not that one. If we can go there and escape from the house, I can bring us back a mile away from here and the crows won’t even know we’ve left the room.’

  ‘OK,’ Ameena said, even though she was shaking her head. ‘Go for it. But hurry.’

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ I said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

  A half-smile pulled at the corner of Ameena’s mouth. ‘Funny. Now scat.’

  * * *

  I might not have been able to heal myself, but transporting myself to the Darkest Corners was becoming almost second nature. It took me just a few seconds to make the feeling of electricity zip through my head, and just a few more to focus on one of the flickering blue sparks. There was a brief sensation, like a wind howling through my head, and the world around me changed.

  It was dark, but then it was always dark there. What was more surprising was that instead of standing inside a house, I was floating three or four metres above the ruins of one.

  I didn’t stay floating for long.

  Had the building collapsed recently, my landing would have been worse than it actually was. Luckily for me the house seemed to have fallen down years ago. The moss and grass that had grown over its remains broke my fall a little, and saved me from any broken bones.

  Still, it hurt. A lot. I lay there, half hidden by the grass and debris, willing my body to get up. But the pain brought with it an exhaustion like none I’d ever known, and for a long time my body ignored my requests and just did its own thing.

  Eventually, the thought of Ameena stuck back in the house stirred my muscles into moving. A dull ache across my shoulders became sharp and stabbing as I pushed myself up on my arms. The moss beneath me was slippery and wet. It took me three attempts to get to my feet, and two more tries before I managed to stay there.

  The glow from a fat, full moon slipped through a gap in the clouds and cast a silvery glow over my surroundings. The faint light picked out details that swept away any doubts I may have had that this was the same house as the one I’d just left.

  Most of the walls had long since fallen down, but a few hadn’t crumbled all the way. I could make out the shape of Marion’s kitchen. The enormous cooker she’d made dinner on stood cold and silent in the corner. Weeds grew around its iron feet and crawled up over the oven door, binding it shut.

  I clambered past the oven, and out through the gap in the wall where the back door should have stood. Once outside the building’s boundary, I began scrabbling in the rocks at my feet, pushing them aside and ripping up the grass and weeds below.

  I don’t know why I was so determined to find it. Maybe I still had doubts. Maybe I couldn’t believe that even here, in this hellish place, Marion’s house could be quite so decayed. Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it, because if it was true – if this really was Marion’s house – then that meant…

  I tore out a clump of weeds, and there it was. It was caked with soil, and scarred by years of neglect, but even in the half-light of the moon the colour was unmistakeable.

  Yellow.

  Follow the yellow brick road.

  Tears suddenly filled my eyes, swimming the world out of focus. I thought of Ameena, stuck in that room, death waiting just beyond the door to claim her. I was supposed to make the jump back to her. I was supposed to go back and save her. I’d promised. But if I went back there now, I wouldn’t be inside the room, I’d be outside the house. There’d be no way for me to get back to her.

  I realised I was still holding fistfuls of weeds. I let them fall, and slowly stood up. My eyes went up to the spot where I had first appeared. Just up there, and a whole world away, Ameena would be pacing the floor.

  Even now, I’d been gone longer than I’d told her I would. Would she be worrying yet? Would she be thinking I’d been killed? Or worse, that I’d just abandoned her?

  I wiped my tears on the back of my clenched fists. I had to go back. Even if it meant appearing right in the middle of the crows and fighting my way up to the bedroom, I would do it. There was no way I was just going to leave her on her own.

  I closed my eyes and made the sparks flash through me, but before I could trap one, a hand caught me by the shoulder and spun me roughly round.

  Flicking my eyes open, I instinctively raised my fists, ready for whatever monster I was about to encounter. But what I found myself faci
ng wasn’t a monster. Not on the outside, anyway. It was a man.

  It was my dad.

  ‘Well now,’ he smiled, his hand still on my shoulder, ‘fancy seeing you all the way out here.’

  Pulling back, I batted his grip away. A flash of mock surprise passed across his face, only to be replaced by his usual self-satisfied smirk.

  I hated him. Hated the way he towered above me and made me feel small. Hated his broad shoulders and muscular arms that looked as if they could snap me like a twig. Hated his short, dark hair and his craggy, unshaven face.

  And most of all I hated the fact that when he looked at me, I could see my own features in his. The resemblance between us – even I had to admit – was uncanny. And that made me feel sick.

  I didn’t want to be related to this man. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him ever again. All the bad things that had happened in the past few weeks – all the pain and the fear and the death – were down to him. And now he was smiling at me. Grinning. And that made me hate him all the more.

  ‘What do you want?’ I demanded through gritted teeth.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ he said, sticking his bottom lip out, like a baby about to burst into tears. ‘No “How are you? How you been?” or anything?’ He held his arms wide and stepped in closer. ‘Come on. Give your old man a hug.’

  ‘Touch me and I’ll kill you,’ I warned. I was shocked to hear the words come out of my mouth, but in that instant I knew I meant them. After everything he’d done to me – to Mum – I knew there was a part of me that would love to see him burn.

  He hesitated, and this time the flicker of surprise on his face appeared genuine. He recovered quickly, and the smirk was back on his face in moments. But he didn’t touch me.

  ‘Well, what kind of way is that to talk to your—’

  ‘I should kill you anyway,’ I snarled. ‘The Crowmaster. You sent him after me, didn’t you? You sent him.’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said, beaming proudly. ‘Although I told him to smash your mum’s skull in first.’ He placed the back of his hand next to his mouth, as if sharing some great secret. ‘Between you and me, she’s had it coming for a while.’

  I hurled myself at him, driving a shoulder hard into his stomach. I was screaming – no, roaring – as I kicked my feet against the stone and shoved forward.

  He gave a low groan, and for one triumphant moment I thought I’d hurt him. But the groan became a chuckle, and the chuckle became a laugh. He was standing his ground with ease, my charge not making him take so much as a single step backwards.

  ‘Easy there, kiddo!’ he snorted. ‘Almost creased my shirt.’

  I swung wide with a fist and drove it into his side, right below his ribcage. It made a satisfying thump, but his only reaction was to laugh louder.

  ‘Now you’re just being silly,’ he said, and the lightness in his voice sent tremors of rage right through me.

  ‘You think I can’t hurt you?’ I barked, leaping back from him. The electrical surge of my powers burned like white fire behind my eyes.

  ‘What, you think you can?’ He winked with his left eye, and at the same time his right arm began to move. His open hand caught me across the side of the face. The slap made a sound like the cracking of a whip, and an alarm started wailing in my left ear.

  The strike shocked me and made me lose my focus. My dad’s eyes were alive with a shimmering darkness. His hand was already drawing back, opening up, getting ready to rain down another blow.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said, punctuating the sentence with another smack that made my teeth rattle and my cheek burn. ‘Do it. Hurt me, tough guy.’

  I stumbled back, my arms shielding my head from another attack. He was laughing again – a deep, booming laugh he seemed to spit all the way from the bottom of his stomach.

  The buzzing inside my head exploded outwards, as I raced to visualise his legs snapping in two. ‘OK,’ I growled, picturing the cracking and the tearing as his bones broke and ripped outwards through his thigh muscles. ‘You asked for it.’

  The image solidified in my mind, clearer than anything I could ever remember imagining before. Everything, right down to the shock and fear on his face was frozen there behind my eyelids. Lucid. Crystal clear.

  But not actually happening.

  I kept the image in my head. Focused on it. Filled the sparks with every detail of that picture, sent them rushing towards him. But still he didn’t budge. The power was roaring through me. The mental picture was there.

  So why wasn’t it working? Why wouldn’t he fall?

  He moved with the speed and grace of a big cat, leaping a mound of broken bricks and landing directly in front of me. I tried to pull back, but his hand was suddenly in my hair, bunched into a fist, holding my head in place.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention?’ he said, smiling innocently. ‘You don’t work over here.’ He leaned in close enough for me to smell the stale sourness of his sweat. ‘Here in this world, you’re nothing. You’re nothing special at all.’

  With a low grunt, he threw me backwards, releasing his grip and letting me drop like a dead weight on to the muddy grass. A dull ache jabbed at my hip as I landed on top of the lighter Marion had left me with. Under normal circumstances the pain would have bothered me, but right now it was the last thing on my mind.

  There was a faint chink as my dad unclipped the thick metal buckle of his belt, and then he was back standing over me, very slowly and very deliberately wrapping the thick belt strap around one of his fists. With each loop over his knuckles, the leather gave a foreboding creak.

  ‘Now,’ he said, pressing the wrapped fist into the palm of his other hand, ‘let Daddy show you how it should be done.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  INTO THE BIRDHOUSE

  ‘Wait!’ I yelped, shuffling backwards. ‘You need me. The Crowmaster told me everything. You need me alive.’

  ‘Alive, yes. Uninjured? Not necessarily,’ my dad said. He walked slowly forward, keeping pace with me. ‘Took me almost a whole day to travel all the way up here, but I knew you’d make the jump over eventually. I wanted to be here. Waiting.’

  ‘You came all this way just to beat me up?’

  ‘Partly that,’ he nodded. ‘Partly that. Mostly, though, I wanted to offer you one more chance to pick the right side.’ He looked off into the middle distance, then back to me. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t offer again, but I felt bad about that, Kyle, I really did. You’re my son, I shouldn’t have given up on you so quickly.’

  My back hit the partially collapsed wall that would have made up one side of Marion’s kitchen. I had no choice but to stop. My dad stepped closer so his feet were next to mine. The full moon sat directly behind him, casting a ghostly white halo around his head.

  ‘So this is my final offer,’ he continued, creaking the leather around his fist to hammer home his point. ‘There’s a war coming, Kyle. Help me. Work with me. And I promise we’ll rule the world.’

  I didn’t reply. There was something in the tone of his voice I hadn’t heard before. Was it… desperation?

  ‘So,’ he asked, with something bordering on compassion in his smile, ‘what do you say?’

  ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ I said. Though his features didn’t move, the warmth drained right out of his face. ‘Whatever your plan is – whatever you’re going to do – you can’t do it without me, can you? You’re scared it’s all falling apart.’

  ‘Scared?’ He rolled the word around in his mouth as he said it, as if tasting every letter. ‘What could I possibly be scared of?’

  I pushed myself up using the wall for support. He didn’t make any move to try to stop me. ‘Me,’ I answered. ‘You’re scared of me.’

  Just as I’d hoped, he hurled back his head and laughed. It was all for show, like a lot of the things he did, but I’d been counting on him doing it. I knew he wasn’t afraid of me.

  But he should have been.

  I swung hard with
a rock I’d taken from the ground. He must’ve seen my arm move from the corner of his eye, because his laughter caught in his throat. Too late. The chunk of stone vibrated in my hand as it battered solidly against the side of his head.

  A noise that was halfway between a gasp and a growl escaped his lips. He staggered sideways, his hand flying to his eye socket where the rock had caught him. His undamaged eye turned on me, hatred burning in its dark centre.

  ‘I’ll never help you,’ I told him. My insides felt like half-set jelly, so I was amazed by how confident my voice sounded. ‘I might not have any abilities here, but in my world I do, and I’ll use them to stop anything you send after me, including the Crowmaster. Understood?’

  ‘You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life,’ my dad hissed. Trickles of blood were seeping through his fingers. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it. ‘I know you better than you know yourself, son. I’ve been planning this since the day you were born. You’ll help me. You’ll make that whole world burn. Whether you mean to or not.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ I told him, and before he could answer, I caught hold of a spark that flitted past behind my eyelids, and left that hellish place behind.

  It was brighter back in the real world, but not much. The layer of cloud that covered the sky had grown thicker in my absence, blocking out even more of the sun’s light. A raw January wind whistled around me, nipping at my ears and nose.

  But at least the wind was the only thing nipping at me. Even though I’d arrived back outside Marion’s house, I couldn’t see a single bird in the sky. That was either very good news, or very bad. Good because it meant I wasn’t currently having my tongue torn out, but bad because if the birds weren’t out here, then they were probably all waiting inside.

  Ducking down low, I scurried over to the kitchen window and took a peek through the shattered pane. The kitchen had been virtually destroyed. The hanging pots lay scattered on the floor. The table where Marion and I had eaten our dinner was covered by a layer of shattered glass. All the little knick-knacks and ornaments that had sat on all the little shelves had been knocked over, smashed, or both.