The Crow Talker. Jacob Grey

the darkness to shield him. He watched as the girl’s father stepped out. He was a slender but tough-looking man, with fair hair receding a little at the front. He was straightening a tie and speaking into a phone clamped against his shoulder.

      It’s the one who walks that horrible dog! Glum said, hissing with disgust. Caw strained his ears to hear the man’s voice over the siren.

      “I’ll be there in three minutes,” shouted the man. “I want complete lockdown, a time-line and a map of the sewers.” A pause. “I don’t care whose fault it was. Meet me out front with everyone you can spare.” Another pause. “Yes, of course you should call the police commissioner! She needs to know about this, and fast. Get on it now!”

      He slipped the phone away and strode fast towards the prison.

      “What’s going on?” Caw muttered.

      Who cares? said Screech. Human stuff. Let’s go.

      As Caw watched, the girl appeared in the doorway of the house with the dog at her heels. She was wearing a green dressing gown. Her face was delicate, almost a perfect inverted triangle, with wide-set eyes and a small pointed chin. Her red hair, the same colour as her mother’s, hung loose and messy to her shoulders. “Dad?” she said.

      “Stay inside, Lydia,” snapped the man, barely looking back.

      Caw gripped the wall tighter.

      Her father broke into a trot down the pavement.

      The spider this way crawls, said a voice, close to Caw’s ear.

      Caw jumped. He glanced up and saw Milky perched in a branch.

      Glum snapped his head around. Did you just … speak? he said.

      Milky blinked, and Caw stared into the pale film of the old crow’s eyes. “Milky?” he said.

      The spider this way crawls, said the white crow again. His voice was like the rasp of wind over dried leaves. And we are but prey in his web.

      I told you old snowball’s bonkers, cackled Screech.

      Caw’s throat had gone dry. “What do you mean, the spider?” he asked.

      Milky stared back at him. Lydia was still at the door, watching.

      “What spider, Milky?” Caw said again.

      But the white crow was silent.

      Something was happening. Something big. And whatever it was, Caw wasn’t going to miss it.

      “Come on,” he said, at last. “We’re following that man.”

      

      aw tiptoed along the top of the park wall, keeping pace with Lydia’s father.

      This is ridiculous, said Glum. You’ll get us into trouble again, just like last night.

      Caw ignored him. They reached the end of the wall, and the man took a right turn towards the prison gates. For a moment Caw panicked. He couldn’t follow without being seen. But then he remembered.

      “Meet me on the roof,” he said to the crows, then slipped down and ran across the dark, deserted road. On the far side was an abandoned building, half demolished, with one wall completely gone, the insides exposed to the elements. Caw could see skeletal hulks of old machines within. Whatever they used to make, those days of usefulness were a long-forgotten memory.

      Caw scrambled over the rubble up to the first floor, careful not to make a sound. He skirted boxes piled high with old books, their covers mostly rotted away. He climbed two flights of stairs towards a hatch that opened on to a roof of corrugated metal. Then he crept to the highest point, where Glum, Screech and Milky were already perched, just as Lydia’s father reached the prison gates far below on the opposite side of the street.

      A dozen men and women in prison-guard uniform were standing in groups, illuminated by the floodlights, looking nervous but excited. Dogs strained at their leads, nosing the air.

      The wailing siren cut out suddenly, and the vibrations faded on the air.

      “Where’s that plan of the sewers?” said Lydia’s father. His voice carried clearly up to Caw.

      One of the men laid a large sheet of paper on the hood of a car.

      Caw’s heart quickened. He was right to think that Lydia’s father wasn’t just a guard. He was ordering the others around like he was in charge of the whole prison!

      “The police will be here in the next five minutes, but we can’t afford to wait. The clock is ticking. Everyone get into pairs. One dog per pair. Fan out into the surrounding streets. Check every manhole cover. If you see them, call it in. Don’t try to apprehend them – you know who we’re dealing with. And be careful!”

      The guards started to disperse, while Lydia’s father peered at the map. In a moment, he was alone.

      Can we please go home now? said Glum, fluffing out his feathers. It’s freezing!

      Hey, over here! called Screech.

      Caw turned round – the youngest of the crows was perched at the other end of the roof. A faint grinding sound was rising up from below. Something’s happening down there, said Screech.

      Caw looked at Lydia’s father. His head had jerked up, as though he’d heard it too. He swiftly folded the map and began to pace across the street.

      Caw ran over the roof to join Screech, and stared down into the alley below.

      It was empty, apart from a few strewn papers and some rubbish bins. One end of the alley forked into a maze of passages running between the buildings. The other, Caw guessed, eventually made its way to the main street near the prison.

      With another grinding sound, the manhole cover directly below Caw turned. One side cracked open, then the whole thing lifted free and was tossed aside like it weighed nothing, spinning like a coin, then settling flat. Caw shrank back, peering over the roof’s parapet. Something small scurried out of the dark well in the ground. An insect, or maybe a spider. And then two hands emerged. Big, meaty hands. A huge figure heaved itself into the open. Caw saw a bald head, a great gleaming dome of skin stretched over skull. The man wore an orange shirt and trousers.

      Suddenly it made sense. The guards in a panic. The search parties.

      “An escaped prisoner,” Caw whispered. “That’s who they’re looking for!”

      I can see that, said Glum.

      The man tipped back his head and terror caught in Caw’s throat. Something was wrong with the man’s mouth. It was too wide, like his cheeks were split in a hideous grin. Then, after a heartbeat, Caw realised it was a tattoo. A permanent smile.

      He’s a looker, Screech muttered.

      The prisoner started to tear off his shirt, and called down into the manhole in a muted voice, “All clear!” Then the man tossed the ripped prison shirt aside and turned back around.

      As Caw saw the man’s bare chest, he felt his bones turn to ice. A new wave of terror hit him, deeper than anything he’d felt outside his nightmares. Pure fear, straight from the darkest depths of his mind, undimmed by logic and impossible to ignore. It squeezed each of his nerve endings and turned his stomach to water.

      Inked across the massive man’s chest was a tattoo that rippled with his muscles, almost as though it was alive. Eight legs, scurrying.

      A spider.

      And not