Crow Of Thorns E-Book

Richard Mosses

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Nik Munro has the same nightmare every night. Refusing to listen, he carries on until Corbie - the crow of thorns - tells him the Great Spirits have chosen him to become a shaman.

Taking him through his first steps to fulfill his destiny, Nik has to journey to the Underworld and retrieve his soul. Trying to balance his old and new lives, Nik soon understands that Corbie has a hidden agenda that comes with a heavy price.

Can Nik prevail in a game against powers beyond his comprehension?

This book contains adult content and is not recommended for readers under the age of 18.

Leseprobe

Crow Of Thorns

Richard Mosses

Copyright (C) 2019 Richard Mosses

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Quill

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter 1

The tent arches above me. I sit up, breath pounding into steam. Grey day leaks through the nylon flaps. I feel like crying. Perhaps my prayers were answered after all.

Thankfully morning has come. I am empty, shallow, hollow, fragile.

From within the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag I grab at my clothes, dress quickly and crawl out into the bright, grey day.

As usual, I'm one of the first to rise. I stretch, breathing in the cold air. All around me, the sea of tents stretches – canvas and nylon, of many colours and hues, billows and flexes with the thin breeze. From makeshift drying lines, left-out clothing hangs stiff, rimed with frost.

I shiver and stoop back inside, pull on a jumper and coat, find my wash things and head across the grass, avoiding guy lines. As I pass between the giant Victorian greenhouses on my way to the toilet block at the back of the Botanic Gardens, only the yap of Janice's wee dog, protecting its owner and her stuff, breaks the silence.

I wash and shave in icy water, and brush my teeth. We're lucky to have any kind of facilities at all, but just the same I long for a hot shower, to stand in there until my skin wrinkles, until I've washed the ache out of my joints, until I can feel the ends of my toes again.

The smell of espresso and the warmth of the café are adequate compensation. I slide into my usual seat just as Sindi appears to take my order.

“Howdy stranger.” Sindi runs her fingers down her pen, before flipping it over and starting again. “How you?” Her Northern Irish accent could dent metal, which might explain the piercings – shards of shrapnel.

“Not bad.” I look up at her pretty, disfigured face. “How's work?”

“Things are picking up again. You're here, for a change.”

I smile. “I've got some time, and some cash.”

“Sure, you look like you could do with a good feed. What can I get you?” Her pen is poised over the pad.

I wonder what I can afford. “I'll have a bacon roll and mug of tea, please.”

“That'll be a tenner.”

Fuck. “Really?” But my stomach groans.

“Sorry. New management policy. We've had too many runners.”

I find my phone and wave it in front of Sindi's terminal.

“I'll be right back now.” A few moments later scalding tea is banged down on the table along with a chipped plate holding a morning roll stacked with bacon – sunshine yellow oozing out of it like a cartoon gunshot wound. The breakfast of kings.

“Charlie was feeling generous,” she says. “Since you're a regular.”

I smile wide and it infects Sindi, but she leaves as soon as some customers with real money come in. I wolf the roll, wash it down with the tea sugared until there are no packets left in the little ceramic pot. I glance at the time and run out of the café, wiping yolk from my face.

Chapter 2

I check each server core. All the lights are blinking a comforting fluorescent green. I could stay in like everyone else, read my diagnostics or sit in a nearby pub or hotel and start a new set of simulations using a borrowed Wi-Fi link. But I prefer the comfort of routine, and the cooled server room is still warmer than outside.

I miss putting on my suit every day, tearing away the protective film from a freshly laundered shirt. It felt like being a superhero leaving behind a secret identity, showing my true face to the world. But I have nowhere to keep a suit now and no access to an iron. And anyway, wearing my civvies protects me too. Would people be as kind if they knew what I had done?

I used to dig out information, analyse the data, understand what was and predict what could be, and ended up inventing, purely as a side effect, new ways of assessing risks. Someone else packaged that risk, turned it into a product. It was too abstract for the salespeople who simply sold another way to make money out of other money. They didn't know it could take just one guy defaulting on a payment for the whole house of cards to come crashing down.

I was one of the lucky ones. I got a new job, in a smaller firm, doing what I do best – even if it's only for a third what I made before. And I live in a tent. It's odd that the stains on the pavement outside the old offices never seem to wash away.

I gather data and make models. But that kind of work requires a number of powerful machines, dedicated iron, and with everyone else working from home someone needs to keep the systems running.

I sit down at the only desk the company owns, surrounded by black and grey, plastic and glass, the hum of hard drives and cooling fans, and enter a password – data might want to be free, but sometimes it needs help escaping its prison.

The view of the Clyde is always impressive. I get lost looking at the steel waters lapping against the walls. Dr Reynolds coughs to gain my attention.

“How are you getting on?”

These sessions have been an unexpected benefit of my severance package.

“I had the dream again.” The couch creaks beneath me. I avoid eye contact. “It was much worse this time.”

“Tell me about it.”

I try my best to explain. As I speak, Reynolds scribbles in her notebook. What is so important? I turn my head and she finds my eyes.

A hand moves across my chest, clammy and pale. Fingers curl around my ankle. A third hand grasps my thigh. I struggle but the hands tighten their grip. There are screams directed at me. I shout, and a fist is pushed into my mouth. I can't move. Bound and powerless, mute, I'm pulled down into the earth, through dirt and bedrock, passing worms and stones, falling into caverns of fire.

I land on my back on a stone slab. Hands still hold me, arms slither over me. This is when I normally wake up. But something is different tonight.

Shadowed figures approach, their voices distinct above the chorus of hate.

- Can you see it?

- No.

- What about here?

My left arm is pulled behind my head. It feels like something wants to drag me from the stone slab, but the hands stop them. My shoulder pops as the bone is torn from its socket. My cry is stifled by the fist as tendons tear and muscles rip. An electric blue flash fills my mind obliterating all thoughts except one: I want to wake up.

But I am dead, and this is Hell, with no escape for sinners.

The severed arm is held over me, its warm blood dripping onto my chest. The skin is peeled, each muscle stripped away, and all is thrown into a bubbling pot until only the bones remain.

- Is it there?

They are looking for something. I pray to all the gods I know that they find it. Soon. What did I do to deserve this?

- No.

I confess.

- Is it there?

I confess to every shameful moment.

The bones are tossed into the pot. A shaft of dark metal lances my right leg, sending more electric bursts into my brain. Hands pull at the edges of the wound, widening it. The skin is stripped back, exposed flesh sifted and separated. The lance is withdrawn, and the skeletal leg wrenched from its socket.

- No.

I confess to each unintended slight.

- Maybe there.

Lances pierce my torso, ringing when they hit the slab beneath. A butterfly pinned while fingers burrow, ribs snap, and the chest is exposed. I feel a terrible pity for my beating heart, my airless lungs. It drives me to one last desperate prayer, to confess the smallest, pettiest things. I empty myself.

Still they persist.

Each organ, each part, is lifted, examined, rejected, and thrown into the pot, until only the head remains – barely conscious.

- Is it there?

- No.

Fingers scoop out the eyes, yet I still see, my jaw removed, my tongue torn away, my skull cracked open and the brain squeezed out.

A hand finds something, something small, and holds it between thumb and forefinger.

- Is this it?

- Yes. Put it back.

Like a film in reverse, my body is put back together. Vessels, lymph nodes, nerves, tendons, veins, muscles, fat, skin, all gathered from the pot, clean. Dislocated limbs sewn back together, organs replaced. Last of all the small bone, glinting in the flames, is forced back into my head through my nose. A final agony, then nothing.

“What do you think accounts for the change?” she says.

“It's been the same since I was a teenager. But never like this.”

“So, what then?” Her eyes focus on me. “What do you think it could be?”

“I was eviscerated last night.” I tear my eyes away. “It has fuck all to do with a guilty conscience.”

“Maybe you should think about that. I'm sorry this will be our last time, it looks like we were just starting to make some progress.”

I walk home. It's already dark. Am I really torturing myself to make up for my past actions? Absurd, but I have to consider it. It's weird thinking I don't have to go back to see Dr Reynolds. It felt like a millstone, but it was also good to have someone to talk to.

A car horn blares, shocks me out of my stupor. I grin like an idiot and half-wave an apology, then watch as the Merc speeds off towards Park Circus. I used to have one just like it.

Along Woodlands Road, a grey squirrel, which probably ought to be hibernating, crosses the path in front of me, darts up a tree and then, clinging to the trunk, tries to pretend it isn't there. The camouflage might work were it not for the nervous micro-movements of ear and eye.

A shadow swoops down, sending the squirrel scurrying higher into the tree, and a bloody great crow lands on the pavement in front of me. I step back, then feel like an idiot. It's huge, it might be a raven. It's looking right at me, its head tilted slightly, with a dark empty eye. I stare back. No bird is going to better me in a staring contest. Only when the bird shifts its feet, do I realise that I can see through it.

There's a haze around the bird so that its outline is ill-defined. It appears to be made of thorns – tangled, twisted, barbed. A multitude of spines stick out from its body, making it look like an intricate statue made from coat hangers.

This isn't possible. It's a trick of the winter light.

It walks towards me. Fixes me again with its eye. “Hi. Nikolai Munro?”

Did it really speak? I try walking around it, but the bird blocks my path, causing me to stop and change direction. I want to kick it. “Get out of my way.”

The crow flaps its wings and moves out of leg reach. “Go on then, walk on by. I just wanna talk.”

I've not had alcohol or drugs in a long time, so it can't be that. I've not eaten in a while, so maybe I'm hallucinating. I cross the road.

The crow, with an easy flap of its wings, glides over the road, and is soon alongside me. “Look, Niky - can I call you that? You think this is your imagination. I get that. But I'm not – well, technically I am. But whatever way you look at it, I'm here. I'm not going away, so you'd be better off accepting that.”

Its voice is rough, like it's been smoking forty a day since it was a kid. A Noo Yoik accent. If my subconscious is talking to me, it's chosen a weird way to express itself. It's like being in a Disney cartoon. I don't want to end up dancing with animated candlesticks, but I decide to play along. “If you're my friend, then what's your name?”

“Corbie.”

“Of course. Twa corbies sittin on a wa. So what do you want?”

The crow cocks its head to one side, like it can't believe what it's hearing. “I'm here to train you.”

“For what? The London Marathon?”

“Good one. Not bad. You were chosen. They found the shaman's bone in you, man.”

The small metal thing is shoved back into my head. There is pain between my eyes. The fear of the nightmare returns in full force. I'm going to be sick.

I understand now that my mum was right – all my life I've been called. I don't want her to be right.

I walk past the bird, aiming a kick that it easily avoids. “Piss off and leave me alone.”

Chapter 3

For the first time in as long as I can remember the alarm wakes me up. Not just a signal to get out of bed. I slept right through the night. No dreams. Some sort of miracle. Yet I still feel shattered.

I get myself together and leave the tent. There's a commotion a few rows over, near the road. Someone probably tripped on a guy line and woke people up. But it's Albert's tent they're standing round and something wrong wafts its way towards me.

Out of all of us Albert shouldn't be here – he's seventy odd and should be enjoying retirement. Instead he's putting in who knows how many hours at the local supermarket and still finds time to help people out.

The sweet foul stench grows as I get closer to his tent.

Janice is in tears, and there's no sign of her yappy wee Jack Russell, which is odd. Big Malky is comforting her but it looks more like he's trying to cop a feel. Young Silk, skinny and pale is on his knees looking through the tent flaps. He stands up when he hears me coming. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit him.

“He's deid,” he says, confirming what I had already guessed. He shifts from one foot to the next, his red-rimmed eyes look for exits. “Janice said that Brutus wouldnae leave the tent alane. Me an Malky couldnae reach him so we opened it up… Jeesus, the smell.”

He hunches over, hands on his knees and dry wretches.

“Anyone called an ambulance?” I take my phone out and catch a flicker of appraisal from Silk.

Malky shrugs. “He's deid. An ambulance is nae use. Besides none ae us could afford one.”

“Where's Brutus now?” I say to Janice.

“I tied him up outside the park.” She points in the direction of Queen Margaret Drive. “He wouldnae shut up.”

Albert must have died a few days ago, when it was colder. I didn't notice his absence. Today it's warmer, so the natural processes must have hit his corpse hungry.

I look out over the tent village. “We need to find somewhere else.” Then I start dialling, even though Malky is right, this is hardly an emergency. “Otherwise none of us will make it through January.”

I wait for the police to arrive, mostly so no one borrows anything from Albert. I call Kathryn to tell her I'm running late. We discuss a feeble excuse to give the kids, one that won't spook them – though Lucas would probably find it cool and Samantha would be indifferent. Kathryn needs to protect her illusion of their innocence and it's easier to play along.

It's nearly eleven by the time I get there, making me regret stopping to help out. I have my own illusions – that our tent city is a community.

Fiona opens the door. “You made it then?” I always thought we got along, but then things went south, and I knew better.

“I couldn't just leave.”

“The living are more important than the dead.” Fiona had high hopes once, that didn't involve shouldering the burden of her daughter and grandchildren.

She leads me through to the kitchen. The kids are upstairs in gadget oblivion. Kathryn sits at the round table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. A look passes between the two women and Fiona disappears. I take a seat opposite Kathryn and get my excuses in early.

“It's not that.” Kathryn puts down her mug and looks me in the eye. “I can't go on like this. This weird twilight life.”

“I'll get back on my feet again soon. They say things are looking up.”

“When did you last eat?” Her tone softens. It isn't an accusation.

I shrug, I can't think of anything worth saying, so the silence lengthens. “I want to move on,” Kathryn says.

“What? You mean you've met someone?” I can't believe it. I'm struggling to pay for us all, literally freezing my ass off, and she's out playing.

“It's not like that.” Kathryn takes a sip of tea.

“So what is it like?” I can't sit. I need air. I slide open the patio doors.

“Niky. It's cold.”

“Really? I barely notice it anymore.”

“My lean wolf-man.” She smiles. “I'm sorry it's come to this, but I want a divorce.”

“You know I can't afford that.”

“Mum will give me the money.”

“That is exactly why I'm in a tent and not living here.”

“That is exactly why I'm asking for the divorce. Don't drag this out for another year out of spite.”

“Have you told the kids?”

“Of course not. There's nothing to tell them, yet.”

Everything I thought I was working towards is slipping away from me. My pride kept us from living together, but I thought we still loved each other, that we had an understanding – as soon as I had the means we'd be back together again. I can't recall the last time I stayed over, though. A year already since we left the old house? Who am I fooling here? “Okay,” I say. “If that's what you want.”

“I'll get the papers drawn up for next time. Nothing else will change, I promise.” She gets up. “Here's some money.” When I don't take the notes, she puts them on the table. “And the car keys.” She drops them on top of the money. “Take them to McDonalds and the cinema. I'll see you later.”

Kathryn leaves the room. I stare at the space she filled just a moment before.

Chapter 4

Back at the tent city there are a lot of people hanging out by Albert's tent, which has been sealed up with police tape. There are a number of yellow rectangles around it, like death has crept into the grass. No one had come to take the body away and the wait has turned into a vigil. People have been coming to pay their respects all day, telling stories. A small shrine has formed, with meagre offerings.

I join them. Maybe it will help me with my own loss. Silk and Malky aren't here, but Janice is about. Brutus must still be chained up elsewhere. A half-bottle of rough vodka is being passed from hand to hand. I think twice then take a mouthful.

A woman standing next to me says, “Did you know him?” She brushes a stray hair back behind her ear. It has become a ritual invitation. It's no surprise to see a stranger. The tent city has a core, but some people come and go.

“We used to say hello to one another,” I say. “He helped me out. More than I ever thanked him for.”

“Do you know where they took the body?” She wrinkles her nose.

I thought everyone knew by now. “That's why we're here. Waiting for someone to come for it.”

“Jesus Christ.” She shakes her head. “The whole fucking system is falling down.”

I nod. “I live in one of these tents. You don't need to tell me.”

“The police called, told me to come and get his stuff. I didn't even know he was living here.”

The penny drops. “You're his daughter?”

“Granddaughter.”

“Sorry. He never said. We all figured he was like us.”

“Too pig headed and proud.”

“That too.” I didn't have to sleep here before. Now I do. “I'm Nik,”I say, and offer her the bottle.

“Rachael.” She takes a swig.

A flutter of dark wings and a crawk, and the crow of thorns glides in and lands on the roof of Albert's tent. An estate vehicle painted white drives slowly towards us. People make way for it but no one tries to shoo the crow away. I decide to ignore it like everyone else, then I realise that I'm the only one who can see it.

Something is really wrong with me, something that can't be blamed on an empty stomach or the vodka. So much for therapy.

“It's alright, Boss.” The crow turns its head to one side, dark eye catching the headlights of the car. “The sooner you accept this, the easier it will be.”

“That's easy for you to say.”

Rachael frowns “What? I didn't say anything.”

“Sorry.” I try for a smile, just about manage it. “I was just running through a conversation in my head and that popped out. My wife asked me for a divorce today.”

“She lives here too?”

“No, at her mother's. We've been separated since I started living here. You know how it is. Pig-headed and proud.”

Rachael nods her head. “Look, I know this is kind of random, given we've just met. But would you come with me to the morgue or wherever they're taking him?”

She looks over my shoulder as a stretcher is taken out of the back of the estate, wheels concertina-ing onto the grass. Two men begin to get into bunny suits and masks.

“Okay… sure.” Clearly I'm non-threatening. Corbie takes flight as one of the men cuts into the tent and it collapses. “Look this isn't going to be good. You can sit in my tent for a few minutes while they work. We can pick up Albert's stuff later, at the morgue.”

“Okay.” Rachael looks green. She takes another swig of vodka and passes it back to me. I try to wash away the sweet rot clinging to the top of my palette. We need a stronger solvent. I pass the bottle back to the crowd then we walk away, Corbie gliding after us over the eaves.

I unzip the flaps and hold out a hand. Rachael stoops and crawls in.

“You got all the mod cons here.” She waves a hand toward my small pile of stuff.

“The tent was a gift from a charity. There are solar cells built into the fabric, even a crude heat pump in the floor that gives enough power for some light, or even a battery recharge in an emergency. Washing and other toiletries are reserved for the executive en suite bathroom. Sometimes, in summer, it even reaches above freezing. We're lucky, though, they used to lock the toilet block at night when they shut the park.”

Rachael sits down on top of my sleeping bag. “How can you live like this? Aren't there homeless shelters or something?”

I crawl in next to her. It's a two-man tent but we're still close. Her perfume reminds me of fresh apples and summer grass. “They're all full. So are the hostels. From what I hear they're worse than this – sleep with your back to the wall kinds of places. I had benefit for a while, but there's a cap on claims after the first year. In any case the money went to feed and clothe my two kids. I had to sell my house, my cars, and ninety-nine per cent of my stuff to pay my debts. I refused to go bankrupt. The silver lining… I now have a job, no debts, I support my family, and I live here. No rent, no facilities.”

“But why stay here at all? You could have stayed with your family. No need to be a hero.” She's angry and her eyes are moist.

“There's no way I can give you a satisfying answer. I've tried.” Her glare challenges me to try again. I dig deep, ignoring the nonsense about pride, about wanting to stand on my own feet, to fix what I broke myself, or even something feeble about the mother-in-law. I shrug. “Shame, mostly. Cowardice. Humiliation. I couldn't look in my wife's eyes, my kid's, without seeing a judgement, an accusation of failure. This is my punishment.”

“Idiot. Didn't you realise that you've been punishing them too?”

Something dislodges inside me, like a heavy weight shifting. “I used to have bad insomnia. I was afraid I would lose everything. One day someone told me the only cure was to think through the worst that could happen. So what if you lose your job, you'll still have your health – that kind of thing. I never for one minute thought it would be like this. But you're right. I shouldn't be here. None of us should.”

I cough, catch my breath and cough again. Must be the bad air.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Guess something went down the wrong way. Let's get you to the morgue.”

We hail a taxi from the top of Byres Road to the Saltmarket. Rachael winces when she looks at the meter, but she pays anyway.

“I have a car, but it's sitting dry since what was left in the tank got siphoned out. Couldn't afford to put petrol in it anyway.”

“What do you do?” I say, pulling my coat tight against the thin wind coming off the Clyde.

“Primary teacher.” She shrugs.

I clear some phlegm from the back of my throat and lead her to the wooden door. I'd heard they had planned a new mortuary at the Southern General. Guess it didn't work out. This place has been used for centuries. People were hung on the Green over the road, a short journey from the old High Court next door. I ring the bell and we wait in silence.

The door opens and a woman wearing blues nods and invites us in. She shows us to a small waiting area where there are only four seats. “We'll be ready for you in a minute.” She brushes hair behind her ear, smiles briefly and leaves.

We wait for nearly twenty. I'm about to go and find someone when the woman returns.

“Sorry about that. They brought everything in the tent for some reason. We had to check it all, just in case.” She looks how I feel. A bone-deep weariness has crawled into me.

“Just in case of what?” Rachael stands up.

“If it had turned out to be a suspicious death something in there may have been relevant to the enquiry. Are you ready to formally identify the body?” Her tone is soft, unthreatening. I forgot the people who work here are trained doctors. Good bedside manner for the dead.

“So what was it?” Rachael says.

“What was what?” the doctor says.

“If it wasn't suspicious, what did he die from?”

“Oh, right. We're putting it down to hyperthermia.”

We follow her down the hall and into a side room. There's a large pane of glass between us and the steel slab. On top of the slab is a body draped in a green sheet. A man with a white beard and glasses walks over to the body and angles something hanging from a large light.

“If you look at the monitor, please.” The woman indicates an ancient CRT TV bolted up high in our room. It shows the covered face. The man pulls back the sheet to show a skull with a thin veneer of flesh that just about looks like Albert. “Do you recognise this person?”

Rachael stares at the monitor. “He's so thin.” Her voice breaks. “Yes. That's my Grandfather, Albert Morrison.” Her composure starts to slip. I pass her my unused hanky.

“Thank you. Let me take you back to the waiting area. I'll get you the completed death certificate and your grandfather's personal effects. Can I get you some tea while you wait?”

Another hour seems to pass. I don't know what to say and Rachael stares at the mauve wall ahead of her, hanky in one hand, Styrofoam cup in the other.

“If it hadn't been for you, he wouldn't be dead,” she says.

“I don't see what I have to do with it.” I'm know I'm not responsible for the collapse of the finance sector, or her grandfather choosing to live in a tent in a park, but I feel a stab of guilt anyway.

“You let him stay there. You should have told him to go home. You could have checked up on him.” Her eyes are hot while her cheeks are wet.

“Maybe I should go.”

“And run out on your mess? Seems like a regular habit.”

I push down my anger, stand up and open the door as the doctor comes in carrying two large carrier bags and a backpack. “Sorry, I didn't see you there,” she says, as I brush past her and out into the cold. The raven is sitting on a railing waiting for me. “And you can piss off too,” I shout. The night air hits my chest. I double over and cough up a large radioactive glob into the gutter. This isn't good.

I don't wait for Rachael. I'm not running away. I just don't feel like being a relative stranger's punching bag.

I walk home and can sense the bird gliding along in my wake, but I don't care anymore. I'm too tired and cold to care.

Back in my tent I think about calling Kathryn. It's late. Maybe I should leave it until tomorrow. I call anyway, and tell her I'm sorry, that I've been a fool, that I'll move back in. We don't need to do this. We can be a family again. The answering machine cuts me off.

Between fits of coughing I manage to fall asleep.

Sweat has soaked through my t-shirt and my sleeping bag feels damp. I have a raging thirst. My head is pounding and I can't breathe through my nose. My chest feels like a huge stone has been placed on it. I fumble around for some water, but the bottle is empty.

I put on some clothes and immediately start shivering. I make my way to the toilet block and need to cool down again. I've had the flu before, but never like this.

In a pained blur I go down to the Byres Road supermarket. I wait outside for it to open, like a junkie. Once inside, even the cheapest paracetamol is barely affordable. I dry-swallow two on my way round the aisles. I get enough dried soup for a couple of days, but I've almost no money left. I'll have to risk the water from the taps in the toilets. Maybe a little lead might help kill the bugs running through my body. My limbs already feel like they're made from it – alternating between molten and cold.

My tent is more welcome than ever. I listen to the radio on my laptop and drift in and out of sleep, in and out of sweat. I'm sure the crow is in here with me, talking, but I can't make out what it's saying. Through the fog in my head it sounds like, “You're dyin.”

“It's just the flu.”

Is this what really took Albert, not the cold? I hadn't heard of any bugs going around. He's the first to get sick here. How long since anyone got typhus or cholera in Glasgow. Maybe it's bird flu from my new friend. I almost laugh, but it's more a gurgle in the back of my throat.

“No. You have pneumonia.”

“You're not a doctor. How do you know?”

The bird stands on my chest, talons like little pin pricks, and says, “I'm a shaman. You will be too, if you want to live.”

Chapter 5

I'm standing, fully clothed. At first I think I've wandered out of the tent in a fever, looking for water – I'm so thirsty I could drain a river and still not be satisfied. A mist covers everything, and there's no sound. Is this another dream?

I take a few steps but the fog is so thick I worry about walking off into someone's tent, or into traffic, or off the edge of a cliff. Something tells me I'm not in tent city, and this isn't a dream.

“Where am I?”

“Think of somewhere memorable, somewhere relaxin.” Corbie's rough crawk sounds like he's on my shoulder, but he's nowhere to be seen.

The mist begins to clear, burned off by the noon-day sun. I'm on a rough beach next to a huge weathered tree trunk. Worn stones and broken shells cover the ground. Just ahead, a thick bar of fly-blown seaweed marks high tide. I turn around to where the dry grass starts and look to the top of the tall thin pines. The blue sky has a few light clouds and several distant gulls circle. The air is fresh, the sun is warm. I feel a smile growing.

Corbie lands on the trunk beside me. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere near Fort William. I think that's it, over the water.” On the other side of the loch are houses, Ben Nevis towering over them.

“Childhood holiday?”

“Aye. We spent a week here in a wee cottage just up the road. I found a paperback of Ice Station Zebra.” I pick up a stick and prod at the ashes of someone's fire – the black soot ringed by burnt stones. “Why are we here? And how do you know about the pneumonia?”

“I told you. I'm a shaman. I could tell just by lookin at your soul. In order to get better you'll have to begin your trainin. The Great Spirits are getting impatient with you, so they've made you ill.”

“Great recruitment scheme they've got there. Conform or die.”

“If it is any comfort it happens to most of us. No one volunteers for this.”

“I feel really special. Just when I thought I was at the bottom, turns out I wasn't.”

The raven makes a thick throaty sound and I realise it's laughing. “You're nowhere near bottom, yet.”

I sit on the log and watch the water on the shore. The rhythmic lapping is calming. The light sparkles across the waves. “I'm a man of silicon and cities. These 'Great Spirits', who are they?”

Corbie lifts his wings up a bit – some kind of bird shrug.

I'm shocked. “You don't know? You're taking orders from them and you don't even know who they are?”

“Why should I? They're ancient, subtle, alien. I've never met them. Archetypes would define them too strictly. Demean them even. We could call them Bear, Stag, Anansi, Odin, Tenjin and it wouldn't make a difference.”

“Subtle as a brick if you ask me. What do you mean alien? Are they ETs? Am I an abductee?”

“Maybe I should have said other.” A cold breeze runs up the loch, ruffling the bird's feathers. “We should get started. We don't have much time.”

“Make a start on what?”

“Find what's makin you sick. Usually there's a part of your soul missin. Maybe it got snagged somewhere. Or somewhen.”