by Chris Ward
The man’s eyes became slits. ‘And if we don’t…?’
Kurou sighed. ‘I have hostages. I will kill them all if my terms are not met by tomorrow morning. What I require is parliamentary action taken on this issue. I have asked the landowner myself, and he was less than helpful. It was rather disappointing, to be honest.’
The two newscasters exchanged a glance. The man leaned across and whispered into the woman’s ear. Her eyes went wide for a moment, but she quickly resumed her professional face.
‘Sir, do you have anything to do with the disappearance of Grigore Albescu?’
Kurou smiled. ‘Of course. He’s right here. He’s my prize among lesser prizes, a prize loin among a trough of chops. My requirement is that the decree is signed and authorised by midday tomorrow or he will die, along with his girlfriend Crina Dobel and a number of others, more than ten of which are tourists.’ He spread his hands. ‘Think about your national identity, won’t you? Such an event would cause a serious drop in revenue. As a businessman myself, I understand the potential pitfalls of refusing my remarkably fair and just proposal.’
‘Sir, perhaps it would be better if you spoke to someone in the government—’
‘No. I have said what I needed to say. I require a signed governmental decree to be delivered to the front gates of Heigel Castle at midday tomorrow or all of my hostages will die. Goodbye now.’
He motioned for the birdman to switch the monitor and its webcam off, then he turned back to Grigore, who was sitting by the wall, starring out at the catwalk.
‘Did you enjoy my little interruption, sire?’ Kurou asked. ‘You see, a secondary plan is always a must. As a businessman, I’m sure you understand.’
Grigore turned towards him, a look of utter despair on his face. His jaw worked for a few seconds before he managed to find the strength to croak two sombre words.
‘She fell.’
36
Jun and Jennie join the audience
‘Don’t stop!’ Jun hissed, pulling Jennie along behind him as they hurried down yet another flight of stairs. ‘I can hear them coming. We have to keep moving.’
Beside him, Jennie tried to control her breathing as they ran, afraid any sound would alert more birdmen to their presence. They had seen two giving chase, and even though Jun had locked the door from the inside, the sound of it splintering had followed them not long after. Now, Jun was leading them down into the dark, along corridors where a chill, heavy air hung like a mist, and which smelt of damp and soil and the soles of old boots.
Some corridors were lit by dim electric emergency lighting, others only by the residual light from adjoining corridors. At times they ran blind, following the twists and turns of the castle’s lower reaches with little plan other than to get as far away from the following birdmen as they could.
Finally, with their strength almost at an end, Jun began to try doors on either side of them, hoping to find somewhere to hide. Jenny didn’t like the idea of being trapped down here, but they had little choice. They couldn’t run forever.
The first few were locked, but finally they found one that was open, and they slipped inside to find themselves in a small chapel room lit by natural light through a stained glass window built into the outer wall of the castle. There were only eight rows of pews and a pulpit standing on a raised stage. A couple of candlesticks stood on either side of a large closed book.
Jennie glanced back to see Jun pulling a deadbolt across. Then he came back over to her, a finger pressed to his lips. So close his breath tickled her ear, he whispered, ‘Don’t make a sound.’
Almost as if they were afraid to be further away, they sat down on the cold flagstones on either side of the door, listening for sounds of pursuit. Neither spoke, but after some time, Jennie felt a tug on her hand and looked down to see Jun’s fingers looping through hers. She tried to ignore the way they were shaking as he flashed a smile that said don’t give up.
The minutes ticked by. Finally, when Jennie was just thinking it was safe, the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside made her start. There was more than one pair, and a moment later the door between them rattled. Jun’s fingers went tight over hers, and she saw a rock in his hand. By his feet there was a hole in the floor where he had pulled out the loose stone.
Jun’s eyes were wide and wild as he stared at her while the door shook, his gaze so intense she had to look away. Long seconds ticked by as the rattling intensified before it finally ceased and a clatter of feet announced the creature’s departure. Silence flooded back in, and Jennie stared at the floor, listening to the thumping of her heart, hardly daring to breathe as long seconds turned into minutes. Jun’s fingers still gripped hers tightly, and she concentrated on the warmth of Jun’s palm as she stared into the flagstones, until every crack, fissure, and dust trail seemed a thousand miles wide.
She remembered the darkest days of her time with Brian, lying on her back in the darkness as the man who had once been kind and loving grunted and sweated above her, his powerful thrusts bruising the insides of her thighs. She tried to think of something else, of Pogo, of pleasant lunches with old university friends, as his abusive, condescending words came in a torrent. Perhaps there were women in the world who enjoyed being labelled a slut and a whore, but each insult was like a switch across the back of her legs, slowly stripping away the skin of her resolve. She had often wondered if deep down she deserved the abuse, after all, she did whatever he wanted whenever he asked, whether it was kneel in front of him or lie down and close her eyes. He never physically attacked her in those early days, and in the grey of early mornings after he had gone to work, she would lie on her side and look out on their wide garden and wonder what had been the catalyst for his change. There had to be something after all, but without a concrete reason Jennie eventually came back around to the same conclusion: that it had to be her fault.
She looked up at Jun and saw his eyes were closed, his head leaning back against the wall. Despite the premature age lines on his face he was a beautiful man, but beautiful in a delicate, feminine way. He was the kind of man that a girl wanted to take home and care for, to hold close until his troubles had been squeezed away. A smile trickled on to her lips, and she thought about this girl, Akane, wondering if she had ever known how lucky she had been to have stolen this man’s heart.
What am I thinking? This is hardly the time.
She went to pull her hand away, but stopped. Jun’s hand was trembling, little tremors running through his fingers, making her own tingle. She looked up at him again and his eyes no longer seemed merely closed; they were squeezed tightly shut, lines of worry etched into his forehead.
‘Jun,’ she started to whisper, then stopped, remembering the creatures outside.
His lips began to tremble, and a line of spittle dribbled down his chin. Jennie heard a low growling sound that at first she thought was coming from somewhere deep in the castle, before realizing that it came from Jun’s throat.
‘My medication,’ he muttered, lips barely parting enough to let the words out. ‘I need my medication….’
Jennie looked around, wondering if it was something he had dropped, but he had no belongings. Neither of them did. They had escaped the car with only the clothes on their backs.
‘Jun, you have to hang on.’
He threw his head back against the wall and began to howl, so loud that Jennie clamped her hands over her ears and rolled away from him. Jun writhed on the ground, his legs kicking out, his hands scrabbling at the flagstones until his fingers came away bloody.
Sounds came from the corridor even as Jennie came to her senses and reached out to pull Jun close, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him against her chest. He was shaking as if electricity was coursing through him, though his howling had given way to heavy sobs. She whispered into his ear, trying to soothe him, one hand stroking at his hair.
‘Since the forest,’ he muttered. ‘Ever since the forest.’ At first she thought he m
eant the forest where she had met him yesterday, then he added, ‘Since the snow. Since the … bears.’
Jennie knew nothing about panic attacks and couldn’t guess how long it would last. She knew they needed to move now because the birdmen might have heard his screams, but Jun looked incapable of standing up, let along walking or running anywhere.
‘Jun, we have to move.’
‘Akane … I miss you.’
She felt a lump in her throat, but at the same time she wanted to slap him. Trying to stir herself into action, she jumped to her feet and attempted to pull Jun up, but he was a dead weight.
‘Come on, Jun!’ she shouted, finally finding her voice, but he just slumped at her feet, covering his head with his hands. She crouched down to try again, just as the stained glass window behind her shattered, showering her in sharp, glittery confetti.
A billowing black shape broke through the gap and landed behind her. The vicious beak opened to release a screech, and she tried to cover Jun with her hands as if that would protect him. A second creature landed behind her, and then Jennie found herself clamped against the first creature’s chest, the stench of filth and sweat making her gag as it wrapped arms as strong as tree branches around her, lifting her off her feet.
Then she was travelling up through the air, the castle wall flashing past in a blur of grey mixed with the occasional glimmer of glass. She didn’t know how the creature was moving until she was thrown to the ground on the grey stones behind a line of battlements, and she turned around to see the birdman pulling a grappling hook out of a metal ring attached to the wall.
Three of them made a circle around her, their huge black wings fanned out behind them, rippling in the breeze as the wind swirled and gusted around the towers of the castle. Their ugly faces cocked from one side to the other as if she had just appeared out of nowhere.
Through their legs she saw another birdman appear, with Jun held in its arms. It tossed him down beside her. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around Jun’s neck and pulled him close. This time, his panic attack subsiding, he hugged her back.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I couldn’t stop myself. It was like someone was controlling me.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, wondering whether it really was, or whether she should be counting down the seconds left in her life.
The birdmen didn’t seem to know what to do with them. They stood in a ring, making sure their prisoners couldn’t escape, but they appeared to be waiting for orders.
‘Let us go?’ Jennie ventured.
One of the birdmen gave an angry squawk and kicked her in the side. As she gasped in pain, Jun started to push himself up, only for Jennie to pull him back down.
‘Don’t anger them any more,’ she said.
Jun grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked it. ‘Damn it,’ he cursed. ‘This is my fault. Some plan I had!’
The birdman made a noise like a snigger. The others had wandered over towards the battlements and were looking down at something below.
‘Jun, come here,’ Jennie said, pulling him close. Before he could react she pulled his lips against hers and slipped a hand around the back of his head, kissing him deeply. After a moment his lips relaxed. Behind them, she felt the birdman move a couple of steps away, as if embarrassed by their sudden show of emotion.
Jennie leaned into Jun’s ear. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I needed to get your attention and lose his. One thing I learned about living with an abusive husband is that you have to wait for your moment to escape. Try to go too soon and you’ll be trapped.’
‘Too late and you’re dead,’ Jun whispered back.
‘Don’t think about that,’ Jennie said. ‘Wait for our chance. It’ll come.’
One of the other birdmen came back towards them, gesturing wildly and squawking in some language only the creatures could understand. He pointed towards the battlements and Jennie managed to pick out one word: ‘Audience.’
Her hands were twisted behind her and tied with rope. Beside her Jun tried to fight, landing a punch in the other birdman’s stomach, only for it to slam him to the ground with the ease of a bull tossing a pillow. Jun groaned as he was hauled up again, and this time he didn’t resist as the creatures tied his hands.
The birdmen dragged them towards the balcony. Jennie realised they were on the top of the main castle keep, thirty metres above the courtyard where they had entered with the stolen police car. Two towers rose up on either side of them, extending precariously from the bluff itself. To the right was the King’s Tower, slightly taller and thicker than the Queen’s Tower to the left. Strung between them was a thin catwalk, an open stone bridge with a small covered gallery at its centre.
Several birdmen moved up there, carrying pieces of metal, assembling them into something larger under the cover of the gallery. Jennie had no idea what they were doing, but they were doing it over a drop that fell right down the face of the bluff to the town of Heigel below.
‘Audience,’ the birdman croaked again, and Jennie found herself lifted over the edge, the ropes tying her hands attached to others that were looped over one of the battlements. The ropes went tight and her wrists screamed as they took the full weight of her body. Jun was lowered down beside her, his own hands stretched above his head, a grimace on his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered through tears.
‘Jun!’ she shouted, her anger blooming. She no longer cared about the drop to the courtyard thirty metres below them, or the aches in her shoulders and wrists, or the birdmen standing above them on the catwalk suspended over the kind of vista that filled the calendars her company sent out to its regular customers every year.
She cared that he had given up.
‘Are you dead?’ she shouted at him. ‘Are you dead yet? If you’re not dead then shut up, Jun! You can’t give up. You have to keep fighting.’
‘We’re as good as dead.’
‘No, we’re not. While we’re still alive we have a chance.’
‘I’ve failed,’ he said. ‘I’ve failed again.’
‘You haven’t failed anything yet.’
‘Yes, I have. Look.’
He couldn’t point, but there could be only one place he meant. She lifted her gaze to the catwalk and gasped. A door had opened in one of the towers and the birdmen were leading out a string of people, taking them towards the gallery in the centre.
Jennie understood him at last. Perhaps they had failed after all. As she watched the group of Japanese tourists who had come to Heigel under her care being led out towards the covered gallery in the middle of the catwalk and what appeared to be a cage being constructed and suspended underneath it, she wondered what they could possibly do other than hang here uselessly and watch as Professor Crow carried out his hideous plan.
37
The birdcage
Professor Kurou watched from the window of the King’s Tower as the great silver cage was assembled. The birdmen had pulled up what was left of Crina’s braids, and tied them to what had become the top of the cage, then lowered the whole contraption so that it hung about fifteen feet beneath the catwalk. A second, thicker rope had been added at the cage’s centre to give it extra stability, given that some eagles still circled, picking at the frayed strands of what had once been Crina’s hair.
Kurou didn’t want it to fall too soon, preferably not before the whole world was watching.
He turned back towards Grigore. The businessman, unshackled, sat slumped against the wall, his defeated eyes staring at the floor.
‘Do you approve, sire? Is it not a marvel of ingenuity?’
‘It’s a fucking cage.’
Kurou shook his head. ‘It’s a birdcage, you fool. And soon it will hold a number of pretty, singing birds, birds that will wilt and die unless your government is prepared to do what you were too cowardly to do when you had the chance.’
‘They’ll find you and bring you to justice for this.’
‘Justice? You do not
understand the meaning of the word. If there was any real justice in the world humanity would never have been allowed to exist.’
‘They’re coming for you.’
Grigore was certainly correct. It would only be a matter of time before the castle’s causeway was a hive of flashing lights and sirens. There might even be helicopters.
He would have to stay out of sight. There were likely to be SWAT teams and possibly military snipers. They would pretend to negotiate at first, but all the while they’d be looking through their laser sights, hoping to take him out without harm to his hostages. It was the expected response to the situation. He was prepared for most eventualities, but what he couldn’t allow was a failure of his plan.
He hurried out of the room and back through the castle, to the main keep overlooking the causeway and the gates. As expected there were a handful of police cars already there, but they were outnumbered by the television crews setting up just behind a police ticker tape line set up at the far side of the bridge.
‘Oh, come a little closer, won’t you?’ he whispered, peering out from one of the windows. ‘No one ever got a decent view from sitting at the back.’
The dakka-dakka of a helicopter came from somewhere overhead, and after a few seconds one appeared over the top of the trees, making a lazy arc up into the sky above the castle, where it hovered like a giant metal fly. Kurou was a little disappointed when his keen eyes picked out that it was a TV crew rather than something military. Still, if it got his cause the widespread attention he hoped for, the military would soon follow.
The more people in attendance the better.
He relayed a few more commands, and then heard the birdmen unrolling a huge projection screen that covered the front gate of the castle. In an hour or so he would address his audience. All he needed to do was finish setting up.
He was just about to head back to the King’s Tower when he saw an incoming message on the screen. It was from the leader of a group of birdmen who had been sweeping the lower level of the castle in the hunt for the two fugitives who had sneaked in through the front gate.
