We’d run together often, both students of parkour. But to do it properly demanded attention to detail, especially when mapping the swiftest course. Safety was usually a prime consideration, but any hint of personal wellbeing was absent on this frantic dash. Smith bulleted us through the streets, never slowing as he checked behind and above for unnamed pursuers. My bare feet suffered because there was no chance to avoid broken glass or bruising stones as we blew past, the hurt as real as birth or death or any other actual event I imagined sane people experienced. This surely was the most authentic fit I’d had yet.
“I’m so sorry, Bear. We can’t slow down. They’ve spotted us. Run!”
He shepherded me in front of him. The quite evening suburb of leafy trees and outraged dog-walkers, scurrying aside for the two idiots ramming through them, gradually gave way to the traffic noise, diesel fumes and jaundiced fluorescence of the city proper. Saturday night revellers cursing such drug-fuelled madness replaced their more sedate neighbours. We streaked for the highway, which carved a moat teeming with mechanical monsters between us and the warehouse.
And then I heard them. A vast cloud of flapping wings whooshing and diving close on our heels in assault, their eerie caws gaining. Crows – omens of death and bad luck. Thousands upon thousands of the big, sharp-beaked birds that seemed hell-bent on one purpose. To annihilate us! I had never seen so many as the numbers I glimpsed over my shoulder – they obscured the moon’s glow. Their shrieking clamour deafened.
“Crows? From where?” I said, hysteria tinged.
“They are not crows. Don’t stop, Bear.”
Adrenaline shot through me and I careened out into the road, barely missing a horn-blaring screech of wheels, my heart thumping loudly in my ears. If not birds, then what?
“Hey! What are you doing, you lunatic.”
Racing onwards, I glanced behind to see Smithy raise his hands in apology at the car’s hood, earning another riled bleat from the horn when he dashed after me into two lanes of traffic. Lucky it was fairly sparse at this time of night. He took the lead to weave the clearest path ahead, which involved springing over the cement barricade in the middle.
“Don’t stop, Bear!”
Despite the fact we played chicken with lumbering semi-trailers and nimble sports cars, whose drivers were too distracted by hands-free headsets for quick evasive manoeuvres, I really didn’t need the encouragement. In my periphery, the lead attackers swerved from the heights on the offensive. The swarm scattered when a truck loaded with shipping containers ploughed through their midst, so close behind it skimmed my dress and the gust from eighteen rumbling wheels whipped hair across my eyes as I made the verge. The howl from the semi’s airhorn punched my eardrums. A tall noise-reduction wall finally signalled the end of the freeway, the concrete facade decorated with impressions of wattle and gumnuts.
“Oh, God. More climbing,” I wheezed.
“I’m right here, Bear. You can do it.”
Smith linked his hands and I placed one brutalised foot within so he could hoist me up onto its face where the bumps and divots provided a surprisingly good scaffold. Several big black birds slammed recklessly into the wall next to me in an exploding hail of meat and feathers. And fur and talons and fangs.
“What are they? What do they want?” I screamed, scrambling up and over, my arms slippery with spattered gore. Couldn’t anyone else see them?
“Winnie, focus on me. You’re making them worse,” Smith bellowed from below.
I dropped to a deserted residential lane on the other side, lined with cars parked almost bumper to bumper. Finally off the highway, there wasn’t time for relief when a creature loomed into view like a hunting eagle with talons extended, gliding straight for me along the valley of vehicles. I lunged between two cars, the tips of its wings fanning my cheek as it missed me by a millimetre.
Terror pulsed through me. Up close, it was like nothing I’d seen before. They were hybrid beasts from hellish realms: wings a mix of leather and feather, beaks rowed with spiked teeth, claws with spines longer than my fingers and malevolent red eyes. Half nightmarish bat, half otherworld vulture to feast on my flesh. The more scared I became, the grosser and more frightening were their mutations.
The lone one flapped back around to join more of its brethren crowding the mouth of the street. On reflex, I launched upright to lash out as it flew by, connecting its solid body with a thud and a shriek. For a figment of terror, it seemed particularly sturdy and my attempt hardly punted the horrid creature from its arc.
Hoping the rest didn’t possess such initiative, I observed them amass to circle in wait while I cowered in vague safety, flanked by a station-wagon’s tailgate and the grill of a Toyota four-wheel drive. The back window of the wagon had one of those stick-figure ‘my family’ transparencies on the lower right, a twiggy girl in a tutu mocking me with normality. If only.
Bent double to stay concealed behind the row of cars, Smith slipped from the wall and ran along the path fronting parallel terraces to scrunch in next to me. “The stalemate won’t last.” He peeked over the roof of the wagon at the growing horde. His look was calculating. “Get your breath, we need to make another run for it.”
I stared at him, fear-stricken. “You can see them, right?”
He reached over to pluck an ebony feather from my hair and show it to me, the quill a grisly clot that turned my stomach. The feather gave off the strong stench of carrion.
“I see them.”
I offered him a feeble smile. “Well, at least I have a witness. Maybe even a friend to join me in the loony bin. Did you spike my lemonade with magic mushrooms?”
“Yeah, because this has really made the night a hoot,” he snorted. “A special memory.”
“I’d probably watch the sarcasm around Fortescue. You can’t make me go back out there, Smith.”
“Winnie, you must listen to me.” He gently took me by the shoulders, gazing intently at me with those lovely green eyes. “The longer you stay here, the worse it will get. Don’t ask me how I know …” Smithy crinkled his nose in confusion – the expression I found irresistible. “I just do. I’ll distract them.”
“No. Let’s phone Bea to come and get us.”
Smith put a finger over my lips to still my objection, shuffling to swap sides so that he was nearer to the road. Evidently, we wouldn’t last long enough for rescue. His fingertips lingered along my jaw. “Wait for my count of three. Go low and stick close to the gardens in front of those terraces so they can’t get a clean angle. Do not stop. Keep running.”
Alarmed, I looked over at the path and the scant cover of the tiny patches of land with their scrappy, broken-down fences and scrawny weeds. In that second of inattention, Smithy was out and darting up the centre of the road towards the horrid pack of fiends, waving his arms and bawling at the top of his lungs, “Come on, bastards. Here I am! Ready, Bear? One.”
The flock’s interest immediately zeroed in on him and they spiralled high to retake bombing formation. “Great,” I muttered.
Not only had I sucked Smithy into my psycho-world, the spectres were poised to consume him. I gulped and took several sharp breaths in preparation for the dash, ignoring my burning, bloodied feet. Was this truly happening? What if I just lay down and took a quiet nap right here on the asphalt, and waited for this to fade so I could finally wake clammy and afraid, yet secure in my own bed?
But the pain, the dread, the bursting lungs all felt so terribly real and I could not shake the conviction that those things would devour me too. If I gave them the chance. Oddly, I had unfounded faith Vegas would come through this unscathed. He stood with his feet planted as the malignant cloud dropped to swarm him. Seeing him vanish into a murder of crows, I very nearly broke into hysterical laughter at the expression. I couldn’t watch or I’d have a heart attack.
“Two,” he cried out.
I pivoted on the balls of my objecting feet, rising from my crouch and slipping to the corner of the wagon. I fooled myself that if I didn’t look their way, they wouldn’t look mine. But a roar from Smithy and a volley of indignant squawks drew my focus. From a thick knot at their core, several creatures burst off in wayward trajectories. They tailspun into others, bringing a glut crashing to earth where they burst like blood-filled sacs in the middle of the street.
With acrobatic skill he jumped high into their midst, plucking several more from the air and flinging them to carve a void as other assailants lurched out of the way. His efforts succeeded in ramping their ferocity and he swore. I thought this may be my cue.
“Three!”
The vortex tightened around him and I scurried from my rabbit hole, feeling every bit as helpless as a fleeing hare. I made it all the way along the road, where the paltry cover of terraces abruptly ended. Turning right at the corner, I stopped, whispering Smithy’s name. From my spot hugging the grimy brick wall of the last yard, I peeked out for a better view of the street, to where it seemed the night had swallowed him whole and everything else. I edged beyond the wall into smothering silence.
“Smithy?”
It was stupid to waste the chance he’d provided, but who left a loved one behind? And here, in the midst of my lunacy I clung to that fact more assuredly than anything else in this slippery reality. The sudden realisation that I loved Vegas Smith gave me strength and heightened my angst for him.
“Smithy,” I shouted.
Almost at once, his yell gained volume as he materialised from inky nothing and ran for me at full tilt along the road, a boiling horde snapping in his wake. “What’s wrong with you! Run!”
I took off. We dodged madly, as they rammed into the buildings above, showering us in gore. Smith swatted them at my rear as we ran, pounding any from my direct line. A stubborn pursuer evaded his grasp and lunged at my scalp, closer with each pass. Talons abruptly gripped my shoulder in needles of shooting agony, dagger teeth snapping at my cheek.
“Get off.” I almost choked on pain and revulsion.
Reaching up, I grabbed the brute by its slimed snout. Its claws gouged my bare skin when I yanked it off, tossing it forcefully to the ground. My energy drained rapidly and I had no will to check if my attacker survived. I could not keep this up. We neared the alleyway, hurdling obstacles and dodging startled party people, but I knew I wouldn’t make it. My feet were raw as the last of the adrenalin deserted me, taking my final strength with it. My shoulder pulsed with fire.
Sensing my weakening endurance, Smith jammed up behind and circled my middle, swinging me round to throw me over his shoulder like limp celery. He didn’t miss a step. It was inconceivable, but he sped up and blazed into the alleyway. Abominations missiled from the sky squealing their fury.
“The door! The door,” I cried.
He would not be able to open it. The biometrics detected abnormal stress and locked. My current state qualified as off the chart. We made the recessed entrance. Smith raised his face to the video. The seething mass darted by, unable to halt their progress in the narrow valley of buildings, wings punching air. He set me down gently, aware of my injured feet and giving his back to the alley so I was protected.
The facial recognition worked with leisurely disregard. Several tenacious fiends bombarded the porch, but the angle was beyond them, their impact raining an explosion of feathers. Only a couple made it inside as we finally tumbled through. With the intuition of predators, Bea’s cats were ready. They leaped forward, gleeful about the unexpected sport, making short work of the intruders, and creating a dreadful mess that would not please Mrs Paget.
I slumped to the floor, panting with exhaustion. It was also necessary to ease the pressure on my soles that I guessed felt similar to strolling in a lava flow. Butchered avian tissue clumped my ruined dress. If they were avian at all.
“That actually happened. Right?”
Panic threatened to overwhelm. Smith knelt by me, his own clothes decorated in an abattoir. He gestured at Vovo and Cherish on their haunches mincing carcasses, crunching bone and grinding sinew with wolfish disregard. They were just crows.
“Normal birds,” I gasped. “I thought …”
“You thought right, Bear. And since when are crows lethal? It may be time to throw normal out the window.” He stroked my cheek with a troubled frown and tenderly picked me up, cradling me in his arms like a baby. “First aid, first. Talk later.”
I was too shattered to argue about his method of conveying me, but not too shattered not to argue. “Kitchen. Talk now. Preferably, with Bea, Fortescue and Mrs Paget present. They know. I know they know what’s going on.”
I was not explaining myself properly, but could be pardoned after what we’d endured. I had multiple wounds to prove it. Smith on the other hand, seemed extraordinarily unperturbed by tonight’s escapade.
“And, what’s more … Why do you look like you’re taking a refreshing turn about the park, rather than lugging me after a race for our lives from Frankenstein’s kamikazes? How did you know about them, anyway? If we go back tomorrow, the trail to your studio will be there, solid and uncollapsed. Won’t it?”
“You’re not very heavy, Winnie. And I will not discuss a thing until I’ve dressed your wounds.” His hold loosened on my shoulderblade, as he slyly inspected the slick on his palm. I turned to see. “Don’t look.”
Smithy’s fingers sprung into a fist, but I’d glimpsed enough slicked red to know the wound was bad. Dripped blood advertised our path through the display. His face was ashen.
“It’ll be okay. You’re going to be okay.” It sounded like he was trying to reassure himself as much as me.
“I need answers.”
Silence was his response. If I knew only one fact about Vegas Smith, it was that he was more pigheaded than Bea and Fortescue put together. I gave up for the moment and snuggled in to enjoy the ride, in spite of the hurt lancing my shoulder and radiating down my arm in excruciating waves. What I didn’t count on was the overwhelming fatigue. I’d walked kilometres on top of the evening’s unplanned athletics with blood loss and shock thrown in. My eyelids drooped, despite my intentions to drill my guardians until they yielded the truth.
“Winnie! Thank the Lord.” A barrage of footsteps and exclamations of relief met us at the bottom of the stairs. My teeth began to chatter.
“She is wounded,” Mrs Paget cried.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Bea. I didn’t know Bear wasn’t allowed out.”
“We shall discuss it later, Vegas. Thank you for getting her home. Fetch me some vitaver, Jerome. Hurry. Before the poison sets in.”
“The Stone’s hateful influence grows. We are running out of time, Bea.”
“I know, Grace.”
I must have passed out, only to rally briefly. I heard Smithy groan as if from a great distance, “So much blood.”
“Do not lose faith, Vegas,” Aunt Bea promised. “It takes more than this to fell a Keeper. Quickly, Grace, the vitaver.”
A strong peppermint liquid hit my tongue and seared my throat, the heat spreading my flesh. Words blurred foggily in my mind and darkness slowly descended. I struggled to stay awake and listen.
“What is vitaver?” Smith asked. “Keeper, I’ve heard before.”
“Vitaver is a restorative Grace brews from an ancient recipe. It hastens healing. As for what a Keeper is, it will all become clear when Winnie wakes. You have proven yourself the Warrior, Vegas. In the morning you shall both receive a full account. She will need you now, more than ever, since Hugo’s departure.”
“Er, okay. Speaking of which, where is Tiny?”
Fortescue replied, his voice strained, “I fear something untoward has befallen him. Hugo failed to return at our behest. The cats have lost the trail of our most feared enemy, only below the Crone.” Bone weary and confounded past endurance, I drifted away into blackness.
