A Brotherhood of Crows.
Chapter 9

It was coming up to midnight, and Gorcrow was getting ready for the ceremony.

He stood, naked, before his mirror, in the room that the Rookery had given to him: plush curtains framing a view onto a neat street in a desirable London postcode, a wide, four poster bed, neatly made, and a full length mirror against one wall, at which he starred, examining himself. He was tall, lean, with parade ground straight posture. His face was of little consequence. Outside of the high walls of the Rookery, some might have recognised it, particularly those who frequented the Palace of Westminster, or read the fashionable journals that fixated on the young up and comers. That was not the face he planned on wearing tonight.

At the foot of the bed, perpendicular to the mirror, was an immense travel trunk, open, and its contents spread out upon the sheets. Slowly, and with the great care of someone tending to the cracks in a fine old painting, Gorcrow began to dress himself. Over his underclothes, he pulled on smart black trousers (creased, of course), a slim fitting shirt that emphasised his physique, a waistcoat (red, to match the decor of the Rookery), shoes that shone an onyx black and seemed to devour the surrounding light, and an elegant suit jacket. The entire thing had been tailored by Savile Row, and had cost a small fortune. Gorcrow had not minded. He was in possession of a rather larger fortune, and the Rookery and its denizens had very strict dress codes. One could not engage in any act here, even something as perfunctory as that which would occur tonight, without the right garments.

The suit, of course, was the mood music to the crescendo of his dress. He reached into the trunk and withdrew the mask. Even now, after years of wearing it, he marvelled at it. It was a work of his own craftsmanship; layers of shining steel shaped into the head of a crow. From the back, a long plumage of real crow feathers burst, like a shock of hair, and at the front, the mask ended in a wickedly curved, hinged beak. Gorcrow pulled the mask, reverently, over his head. He adjusted it, so that his eyes filled the hollow dark sockets of the crows mask, filling them with the piercing green of his gaze. His fingers found the two screws on either side of the lower jaw, tightening them so they pressed into his own jaw. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, and was pleased to see the beak mimicked his movements, opening and shutting in time, each closure marked by a little, metallic click.

Now he was ready.

Satisfied, Gorcrow locked the trunk, and left his quarters and began the long walk through the maze like corridors of the rookery down to the drawing room. Other members of the Brotherhood were also beginning to gather, drifting out of side rooms, bed chambers and drawing rooms. Each one was dressed impeccably - tailored suits, black tie, long tail coats, walking sticks, the women in sleek, figure flattering dresses, some floor length, others ending on the thigh. The masks, however, outshone the evening wear - Gorcrow found himself surrounded by a menagerie of animals; here, a wolf, walking arm in arm with a lamb, with what appeared to be real wool in the place of hair. Here, something that approximated a human face, but with an elongated snout, broad and shark-like. There, a trio of insect headed woman kept step behind a man whose mask took the form of an angered boar, complete with tusks dyed with what Gorcrow was sure was real blood. The Brotherhood put a great deal of effort into many things, though a cursory glance at them might suggest that their main pleasure was in aesthetics.

Here and there, among the herd, were a few more eccentricities and oddities. Gorcrow passed a man whose mask appeared to be made entirely of velvet, a Picasso-esque approximation of a human face, angular and melted. As the crowd reached the staircase into the atrium (lit, tastefully, by the light of a thousand candles in the chandelier), Gorcrow brushed shoulders against a woman who seemed to have had her face flayed. Meat flesh was exposed, and her lidless eyes watched him with mad surprise. Perhaps it was a mask. Perhaps it wasn’t. Discretion was the watchword of the Brotherhood. Those who took it among themselves to modify themselves in ways the outside world might consider the stuff of nightmares were still welcome in the Rookerie, provided they did not stray from the word of the Book of Black Wings.

Now, they reached the central stage: a ballroom, candle lit, with bright light and deep patches of shadows, shifting like the spots on the skin of a prowling predator. A few musicians were playing soft classical music, and waiters served champagne in little ornate flutes. The waiters were blind. They had to be. No one save for members of the Brotherhood could witness what took place within the Rookery. The waiters knew exactly the steps they needed to take to get from the ballroom, to the dining room, and up to the quarters of the membership. What they lacked in sight, they made up for in memory and an eerie awareness of obstacles.

The Brotherhood were beginning to sit now, those with mobile masks taking champagne and sipping it and gossiping quietly. Gorcrow refrained from sitting, and leant himself against a wall, on the edge of the candle light. It afforded him a good view of the action, but rendered him, to anyone watching, a dark outline, the shadow of a person, a kind of nothing that blurred into the background.

In the centre of the ballroom, where waltzes might onces have played out, stood a man. He was dressed smartly, but clearly not of the same class of the Brotherhood. The suit was probably borrowed. He was nervous, and Gorcrow could see the sweat sliding down his forehead.

Before him stood Wraith. Wraith was not that Brother’s real name, any more than Gorcrow was the real name of the man in the crow mask. But Wraith was always there, for these sorts of things. Wraith had conducted this ritual ever since Gorcrow had been a boy, and Brothers far older than Gorcrow had claimed to have seen Wraith when they were children. Rumours abounded that Wraith was centuries old. That would not have surprised Gorcrow. Despite the apparent youth on display, many of the Brothers were far far older than their looks suggested. Such was the way of things inside the Rookery.

Wraith wore a red tail coat, akin to that of a circus ringmaster. Fittingly, his mask was that of a clown, fixed in a permanent, ruby cheeked smile. There was something manic about that mask, the eyes just too wide, the grin just too broad, that gave the whole thing an air of madness. As the Crows began to sit, and fall silent, he clapped his white gloved hands, calling together the attention of the room.

“Brothers!” he intoned. The voice was booming, warm, out of place from the mouth of a demonic clown. “Brothers! So good of you to join us! We have a pilgrim that has travelled far,” a white glove gestured lazily at the nervous man, “to see the Council of Crows. Shall we hear him?”

“Yes!” the room chorused. Some of the Brothers banged the table or drummed their feet on the ground. Gorcrow remained silent.

Wraith turned in a sprightly movement to face the outsider. “Your name, pilgrim?”

The man shivered, aware of a thousand masked faces watching him. He probably doesn’t want to look at those faces too closely, Gorcrow thought. That might frighten him further, and then we’ll be here all night.

“Jacob -” he said, shakily, “Jacob Manning,”

“And why?” Wraith’s voice was always the same. Not a shout, but with a force to it, the kind of voice suited to projecting, unamplified, around great arenas, “Why, Jacob Manning, do you come before this Brotherhood?”

“I -” Manning’s voice wavered, and he mopped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Gorcrow felt his lip curl beneath his mask. Pathetic. It was like watching a petulant child being thrown on stage at the Royal Opera House, blinded by the stage lights. “I - I want my wife to die.”

A ripple of laughter circled the room, chattering in and out of the gloom. Really? thought Gorcrow. Is this what the Brotherhood did for its sport these days? Spousal homicide?

Manning continued, babbling now. “She - She’s been cheating on me - I’m sure of it. She’s fucking someone else, she - I want to do it myself but my career - I - she has money -”

Wraith, ever the showman, cut him off with a lazy sweep of the hand. Some sections of the Brotherhood whispered darkly about Wraith’s theatricality. Gorcrow, like the majority of the Brothers, didn’t really care. Let the old bastard have his fun. He always got the goods in the end. “And do you desire this money, Jacob Manning, Pilgrim to this house of Crows?”

Jacob shifted uneasily. Stupid fuck was probably trying to weigh up in his mind what sounded better: murdering his wife out of jilted love, or for her wealth. “...Yes,” he said, softly, and then louder. “Yes. Yes, I want her money.”

The candlelight flickered, and had it not been a mask, one could have been forgiven for thinking the mad smile of Wraith’s clown grew wider. “So, Brothers, we hear this pilgrim, prostrate before us in the Rookery, offer up his devotions - call on us to murder!” a dramatic pause, a sweep of his hands, the pose of a generous christ, “Shall we take this task upon us, Brothers?”

“Yes!”, “No, gut the fool!”, “Speak the words!”, “Speak!” various voices cried out from the Brotherhood. Gorcrow, again, held his tongue. He tolerated the theatre of it all, but he would not take part in it.

“Speak the words!” , “Yes, “Speak the word of Black Wings!” - this cry grew louder, drowning out the ayes and nays, and obscuring the musicians, who until now had carried on their tasteful tunes.

Wraith’s eyes twinkled. “The Brothers speak, Pilgrim,” he boomed, “They would have you bow your head and heed our creed. Will you do them this sacrament?”

“Yes - um. Yes…” Manning was beyond nervous now. He was openly afraid. He probably thinks we’re going to rip him limb from limb if he puts a toe out of line, thought Gorcrow. Perhaps we will. It would be a damn shame, given the alternative, but at least some blood would flow that evening.

Wraith raised his arms to the sky. He had gone from generous christ to messiah, calling upon his heavenly father, and began: “We believe in a life everlasting. We know the terrible pain of the life current. We seek to free people from that pain, so they might enter the gates of Paradise. The victim of a murderer is not a sinner - the horror of the crime frees them from their imprisonment in purgatory. Thus, in the act of killing others, we save them. We free them. Yet, we ourselves commit no sin for we merely aid those seeking salvation. Our work is the work of God. We believe in the life everlasting, and to save life, we must destroy it. Our Brotherhood is a murder of crows, and we trade murder for murder to save humanity from itself.”

Wraith hesitated. The assembled Brothers were hanging on his every word, the ebb and flow of his booming voice, despite the fact that they had heard these words uttered a thousand times before and would a thousand times again. Arms out again, welcoming his Brothers to the fold: “All shall die.”

“All shall rot!” chorused a thousand voices in reply, a tidal wave of delight and reverence.

“...Beneath the beating of Black Wings.” Wraith’s arms fell, and his gaze turned upon Jacob Manning, who had listened to the creed with his mouth hanging open gormlessly. “So, Pilgrim. You have heard the tenants of our faith. Will you trade murder for murder?”

He nodded, dimly.

A ripple of approval swept the crowd. Gorcrow stood up a little straighter. Now, the real business of the evening began.

“Bring forth the child!” boomed Wraith.

Two lesser Brothers rushed to the centre of the room. One held a small, wooden box, and the other, something wrapped in clothes. Something squirming. The bundle was placed at Manning’s feet. He was staring at it in with a mixture of surprise and horrified realisation. Gorcrow smirked. Now the bastard realised what he had just agreed to among a company of Crows.

“It’s...it’s a baby!” Manning spluttered, looking around, vainly searching for some acknowledgement of the insanity. “It’s a baby!”

“Yes,” Wraith was opening the wooden box. “We trade murder for murder. Will you do this deed?”

He held something out to Manning, who took it with shaking hands. It was a hammer. A crude, heavy hammer.

“But - but, who, it’s a child!” Manning screamed.

Wraith’s tone hardened. “Would you break your word, Pilgrim? Would you blaspheme our sacrament?”

“Gut the fool!” someone screamed from the dark. “Feast on him!”, “Flay him!”, “Murder for murder!”

Manning looked about the assembled Brothers, back to Wraith, and then at the hammer in his hands. His face was bloodless and pale. At his feet, the bundle twitched and writhed. Gorcrow thought, for one second, Manning’s panicked gaze caught his own, as if begging for aid. Gorcrow glared back at him, and clicked, through his metal beak: “Do it!”

Manning closed his eyes. He shakily raised his arm, the hammer held firm. Weeping.

His arm fell.

After that, there was little to be heard save the cheers of the Brotherhood of Crows.

*

Later, when it was done, when the child had been harvested, and when Manning had been dragged away and thrown out of the Rookery, Gorcrow slipped through the crowd. Now the festivities were over, the Council of Ravens would begin, and Gorcrow was due to speak. He weaved through the ornate corridors and long galleries of the Rookery, passing Brothers chattering excitedly about tonight, and comparing it to the previous night and speculating what might happen tomorrow. The sport had been good tonight. Other nights, less so. Such a shame.

The majesty of the child’s murder wasn’t just a theatric. Manning’s wife had probably died at the same moment her husband had brought down that hammer. Efficiency was the watchword of the Crows. No, what it came down to, what it always came down to, Gorcrow mused as he began to climb to the Tower of Ravens, far back and well hidden within the Rookery, where only a few Brothers trod - what it really came down to was Chaos. Always Chaos.

Chaos was the basic founding energy of the particular kind of Unnatural Science which the Crows utilised. Chaos occurred naturally enough, without human intervention, but it was hard to replace. You needed a huge amount of luck, trying to pin down the precise set of circumstances where things didn’t happen the way they were meant to and you could harvest the resultant disruption. Long ago, the Crows had developed the means to capture Chaos in its purest form, so that it might be used, so that it might be weaponised. Yet it was finite. And with it, so was the power of Crows.

Centuries ago, some old Crow, whose name history had failed to record, had an epiphany. If Chaos could be harvested when things went in unexpected directions, when the natural order of things was disrupted, then perhaps the Brotherhood could cause such disruption in a much simpler way. For what was more disruptive than murder, the wilful ending of life? Murder for murder, and Chaos abounded. Snuff out a life, and you would reap the rewards. Chaos dwelt in the hearts of those who ended lives. So powerful was this argument that the Crows had built up an entire religion for the simple end of spreading murder, and feasting on Chaos.

Chaos. Earlier epochs had seen it as a type of magic. Now, the Brotherhood called it by a different name - science. But all the while there had been those who called it God.

Gorcrow entered the council chamber and took his seat. This room, like most of those in the Rookery, was also candle lit, and the shimmering flames illuminated the three Brothers already seated in front of him. Behind them, more Brothers lurked, standing silent in the shadows. The power structures if the Brotherhood of Crows were complex, not least because of the constant backstabbing and betrayals and sudden advancements. Not, Gorcrow thought ruefully as he tried to pick out known masks in the shadows, unlike what those Brothers got up to in their lives outside the Rookery.

“All shall die,” intoned one of the three Brothers seated before Gorcrow.

“All shall rot,” replied Gorcrow.

The Council of Ravens shifted in their seats. The three seated Crows had remained the same for the last five years at least. In a world as treacherous as that of the Rookery, that was a feat that warranted mention. Whatever they were doing to hold onto power, it was clearly working.

On the left sat Lord Vraath. Vraath stood out among the Crows. He eschewed the evening wear and finery his Brothers wore, and instead opted for a long, rather shapeless black poncho, that covered him from neck to knees. What could be seen of his legs was little - his scuffed, calf length riding boots obscured any sense of his body shape. His mask was odd too. Rumour was that he had taken a cast of his own face, and then had the skin stretched, until it was paper thin. His mouth was drawn in a perpetual smirk, and his eyeholes unnaturally wide. His real eyes watched you, balefully, from behind that mask. To have a mask of your own face would have been the ultimate taboo in the Brotherhood. No one Crow knew who his Brothers were. It was safer that way. Vraath, however, was not one for tradition. Despite this unorthodox attitude, he had held the left seat on the Council of Ravens, it was rumoured, for almost twenty years.

At the right sat Garth. Garth was an old Crow, and it showed. He never stayed still. His hands constantly wrung themselves together, as if trying to rub off stains that only he could see. His clothes were tattered - chunks had been torn from his suit jacket, in patterns that looked suspiciously like bite marks. Probably self inflicted. He reeked; his trousers were stained with bodily fluids, and beneath his mask, he was muttering constantly to himself, a stream of garbled gibberish that provided a baseline to his presence. Given his physical state of decay, his mask was appropriate. It was the face of a human corpse in a state of putrefaction. Skin hung loose over raw sinew; yellowing bone poked out at the cheeks, and realistic looking sores on the bare, grey skull.

In the middle was Zacken. The Brotherhood of Crows did not, as such, have a pyramid power structure, but if it did, Lord Zacken would have been very close to the apex of that pyramid. She wore a deep turquoise dress, and lounged on her chair, restlessly. There was something catlike about her movements - each one suggestive of muscles beneath that dress, tightly coiled, piased, as if she was ready to pounce. Her mask was intricate - a diamond shaped head, with narrow slits for eyes, a wide, grinning mouth, framed on either side by insect like mandibles.

“Make your report, Brother,” said Zacken tersely.

Gorcrow nodded. Behind his mask his eyes flicked back and forth between the assembled Brothers, pondering his pre-rehearsed script and contemplating how they would react. “Brothers,” he began. As his beak opened and shut with each word, the syllables were accentuated with a small, metal click. “My research continues to advance day by day. With the resources granted to me by this council, I had begun to make new advances in the field of reanimation, and it developing new assets for our Brotherhood, for which I am most honoured -”

“You may dispense with the pleasantries,” Vraath cut him off sharply, “We are not interested in flattery. Tell us of the results of your experiment in Edinburgh,”

“...Flattery,” giggled Garth, dankly. His voice was a jittering, phlegmatic wheeze, “Flattery, battery, cattery - this little Crow is ripe for a shattering…”

Gorcrow ignored Garth. Past council meetings had taught him that around half of what the old Brother said was total nonsense, but that it paid to keep your ears pricked; within the monologue of nonsensical, Garth occasionally spoke with insight and cunning. Gorcrow licked his lips beneath his mask, and said, to Vraath:

“The experiment was successful. The chosen target was implanted with my new Chaos drive. Psychological manipulation drove him to death and my device took control of his body. He committed an act of suitable depravity before succumbing to attack. I believe this illustrates the potential of my work for further combat situations.”

There was silence from the Council. Garth began scratching where his mask met his neck, a little too violently. His nails were already stained and filthy with his own dried blood. Zacken seemed rather detached. She languished in her chair, and while Gorcrow has been speaking, and began picking at her fingertips with a small stiletto knife that had appeared, as if by magic, in her hands. Only Vraath appeared to be paying Gorcrow any attention, leaning forward on his seat, fingers interlaced, his eyes regarding him from behind his disgustingly stretched skin. This didn’t fill Gorcrow with optimism. Garth was mad; Vraath was pedantic, opinionated and had a wicked eye for detail. Zacken spoke infrequently, and when she did, it could mean advancement or murder depending on her whims.

Vraath spoke now: “By what criteria do you regard your experiment a success, Brother?”

Grocrow frowned. “I do not understand?”

“Your creation died. The Council followed events closely. Only one murder was committed. You promised us much more.”

Gorcrow spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture: “Teething problems, Brothers, are to expected in any project such as this -”

“...teething, teething, teething the breathing,” Garth chuckled, “Teething the breathing and feast on them! Feast on em!”

“More importantly,” Zacken spoke suddenly, without looking up from her knife play, “Avaron remains alive.”

Gorcrow sighed. The Council had high - and unrealistic - expectations.

“Yes, Avaron is not dead.” he replied, “but that is not the point. The aim of this exercise was not the death of the Sleepwalker. You must appreciate, Brothers, the cunning my creation showed. It laid Avaron a trap. He was almost caught in it. I did not instruct it to do so - it planned and executed this without instruction. It has an intelligence. I merely found it a host. And, furthermore, it almost killed the woman Munro as well.”

Vraath cut him off. “This Council does not deal with almosts, Brother. We wish for results. This Avaron, this Sleepwalker, poses too much of a threat to us to be ignored. It would have been preferable if he had been killed.”

“And as for Munro,” Zacken continued, “You know as well as we do that she is off limits for the time being. She is desired by the Long Friends, and we would be fools to interfere with their will.”

“...Long Friends, they call themselves...very unfriendly they are…” Garth rambled away. His fingers were bloodied now. He had gashed his neck again and was clearly revelling in his own bleeding, “Long Friends - Pale Citizens - ghosts with teeth of fog, they want to sink them into the bitch Munro...feast on her! Feast!”

Gorcrow shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had expected this meeting to be difficult, but this level of hostility from the Council of Ravens, and put him on edge. “Munro’s interference was an unforeseen event. The point is that my creation could have killed her. We know that both she and Avaron are worthy adversaries - who, thankfully, remain unaware of our work - and if one of my creatures could almost slaughter them, imagine what many could do -”

Vraath snorted dismissively. “You wish to build an army of these monsters, Brother?”

“Why not?” Gorcrow shot back. He raised his voice to address the room at large, “Brothers, let us be honest with ourselves. We wield considerable power. We have Brothers in the highest seats of government and religious authority in both the Commonwealth and the Severance. We influence matters of state and theology with ease - but where has this led us? Are we any closer to accomplishing the work God entrusted to our Order? Have we aided humanity, freed it from suffering, and allowed to transcend life itself? We have not. We kill and harvest Chaos, but our work is confined, it remains hidden,” he paused. He had their attention now. Even Garth had stopped gibbering and cutting himself for a second and seemed to listening, a thin tendril of drool dripping from the mouthpiece of his mask. “Brothers - we are fighting a war. Let us not forget this. And to fight a war we need soldiers. Cunning soldiers. Powerful soldiers. Soldiers who are obedient to the Brotherhood but think with ingenuity and act ruthlessly.”

Zacken waved a hand briskly. “We already have our Clockwork Hearts. They have served us well.”

“Clockwork Hearts?” Gorcrow fought to keep the incredulity from his voice, “With all due respect, Brother, we all know that the Clockwork Hearts are little more than wind-up corpses. They cannot think for themselves. They will follow orders, certainly, but they are weak. They do not adapt to new situations, they are incapable of strategic thinking. We could have sent a dozen Clockwork Hearts against Avaron and Munro and they would have slaughtered them without a second thought. Brothers - we must aspire to more. And we can only fight this war of ours, this holy war, if we have soldiers ready to march into battle. You know I am right, Brothers.”

Gorcrow’s heart was pumping in his chest. He felt sick from invoking the theological nonsense, but he had to use every argument in his armoury. He had also directly stated that he knew better than the Council, a risky strategy. The silent Council Brothers, lurking in the shadows, were murmuring know. Half of them admired his guile, and the other half wanted to cut him from crotch to throat and spill his guts on the floor.

Vraath leaned back in his seat. “And what would you need to make this army of yours?”

“Mass Chaos. More than we have ever gathered before.”

“And how do you intend to harvest this Chaos? Some act of mass murder? A bomb, a plague? Come now, Brother; we have our beliefs but we must be discrete -”

This time Gorcrow cut Vraath off. “Brothers, we know there is a place - a place of unimaginable Chaos. If I can access it, I will have what I need.”

Garth laughed. It sounds like someone drowning. “He speaks of the Sleepless Storm, that great cloud that battens down all things. He thinks he can summon it and harvest it. Fool! Whoreson! Feast on him. Feast on Munro, Feast on Avaron, Feast on us all, Feast! Feast! Feast!”

Zacken’s hand shot out. She seized Garth’s mask and yanked it forward, and down. Her other hand clutched the stiletto knife, angled upwards. Garth’s head hit the knife with a sickening crack, and the point of the blade exploded from the back of his rotted skull. He gave a sudden damp gasp. The room sat in silence as his hands, wavering, tried to free himself, tried to drag himself off that cruel blade. Then his limbs began to spasm, and finally fell still.

Gorcrow realised he’d been holding his breath. He let one out, ragged and nervous.

Zacken knocked Garth’s head back, and almost casually drew her stiletto knife out from the dead Crow’s eye socket. “All things die,” she said.

“All things rot,” replied the rest of the room.

“Brother Garth has served this Brotherhood well, and he shall soar in heaven upon Black Wings,” Zacken continued. She was wiping blood off her knife blade as two of the other Brother detached from the shadows and removed Garth’s foul smelling body. “However, he had outlived his usefulness to this Council. We shall replace a successor for him in due course. But,” she turned her gaze back on Gorcrow, “We must resolve the matter at hand. You believe you have a way of using the storm to harvest Chaos, and build us an army, Brother?”

“Yes,” replied Gorcrow, “If it is the will of the Council,” All two of you, he added, bitterly.

Zacken glanced at Vraath. Vraath had not moved at all since she had stabbed Garth, and he seemed frozen in his seat, though whether out of surprise or fear, it was unclear. “We shall consider this matter. You have created no more of these creatures?”

“No,” lied Gorcrow. Lying to the Council came much easier than he expected.

“Very well. In the meantime, we have another task for you, something connected to this.” Zacken returned the stiletto knife to wherever she kept it, and straightened in her seat. “We have had a request from a contact in the Ministry of Theological Justice. They wish for us to replace information on someone - an academic, Dr Crucius. Do you know him?”

Gorcrow did, but if he could lie once, he could lie against with little trouble. “His name is familiar to me, Brother.”

“Crucius has an interest in the storm. His work could be a threat to us, and to the Long Friends as well, if he is allowed to continue. It is the will of this Council that you aid the Ministry on this matter. If the Sleepwalker and Munro do become aware of us, we cannot fight both them and Crucius.”

Grocrow felt himself smile. Things were falling into place in a far neater way than he could have anticipated. “And what of Avaron - the Sleepwalker?”

Vraath shrugged. “Avaron will remain in the dark. And if not, he shall rot.”

All things do. “As the Council wishes.”

With that, the Council of Ravens dismissed him. As he left the Tower of Ravens, Gorcrow wondered what kind of complex process would be used to select Garth’s replacement. It was no great loss. The old bastard had lost control of his mind, and his body, and he was, if little else, an embarrassment. Perhaps those Crows who lurked in the shadows were now plotting and sharpening knives and eying up throats to be slit. Such was the way in the Brotherhood. Such was the way of Black Wings.

Avaron, the one they called Sleepwalker, was a problem. He had shown remarkable resourcefulness in the way he had dealt with the creature. The Brotherhood were of course aware of the threat posed by Avaron, and by the woman Munro. The same discretion by which the Crows did their business was to be their defence against him in the first instance. Of course, Avaron would have to die at some point, but the Brotherhood felt no rush in committing him to the ground. To make a move too soon, it had been agreed, might draw Avaron onto their trail, and that could spell disaster.

And yet…

And yet Gorcrow did not agree. He couldn’t. If Avaron was such a great threat, why not simply eliminate him? Or, better still, drag him from the streets, rend him down until he was a husk, and make him something better? The thought of the latter pleased Gorcrow beyond measure. It had been foolish, perhaps, to speak to Avaron from that crows head, the one Gorcrow had left on the corpse of his creature’s first kill. It had worth it alone for the fear in the Sleepwalker’s eyes. Foolish, perhaps, but Gorcrow was of a mind to play with his prey before he moved in for the kill. It was only a matter of time.

And as for Munro. Well, she was something else. If she was to be robed in the Long Friends, then so be it. The Brotherhood maintained an uneasy relationship with those Pale Citizens. Gorcrow could not kill Munro, certainly.

But it didn’t mean he couldn’t make her wish that she was dead.

Perhaps, given the tastes of the Long Friends, that would be kinder.

That being said, it was the Long Friends that worried him more. The Brotherhood had long hoped to court the power of those Pale Citizens. And they had never once thoughts of the consequences of that.

Back in his chambers, Gorcrow checked his communicator. A message for him. He took off his mask and dialed the number back.

“Good evening, sir,” said the voice on the other end, addressing him by his real name.

“Good evening, Detective Inspector. What can I do for you?”

“You asked to be notified of that matter we discussed,” the other man paused. Gorcrow could imagine him looking around for eavesdroppers. “We picked up that group as you asked. Twenty of them. Illegals, sir. Somalis, mostly. Some women and children as you requested.”

Gorcrow smiled. The evening was getting better and better. “Excellent, Detective Inspector. Have them processed and placed on the next transport to Kazakhstan. Your assistance in this matter is much appreciated.”

He killed the call, and stood, looking out his window, into the streets of London, and daydreamed of Chaos, and storms and steel claws.