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The Swarm Descends
Jacob Grey
The second book in this gripping, high-impact, high-energy new series.After the Spinning Man was banished to the Land of the Dead in an epic struggle between good and evil Ferals, Caw’s life has become safer, free of the darkness that had stalked Blackstone for so long. But there’s a new villain in town – and the Mother of Flies will stop at nothing to make crime, corruption and chaos descend once more.Caw must use every ounce of courage, and every friend he can find, to face-off against some truly terrifying Ferals. Dark family secrets will be revealed – and he will learn to be very careful about who to trust…
Copyright (#u2993fd1f-3c08-5f16-8e13-cdaaca81e200)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Ferals: The Swarm Descends
Text © Working Partners Ltd 2015
Covert art © Jeff Nentrup, 2015
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007578542
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007578559
Version: 2015-07-30
Contents
Cover (#ufcbd7c63-d670-5a77-bf82-943714d390c5)
Title Page (#u4f47870f-28c3-5762-8cc2-d9d46d6c4e59)
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Also Available
About the Publisher
(#u2993fd1f-3c08-5f16-8e13-cdaaca81e200)
here are ghosts in this place, thought Caw. Perhaps not the kind that swooped through empty rooms, banging doors and howling, but sadder spirits. Sorrow lingered here, silent, and lost from the memories of the living.
He checked the watch Crumb had given him – 2am.
This is a bad idea, said Glum. He was perched on a branch ten feet above, beak resting in the thick plumage of his chest feathers. I’m older than you. Why does no one ever listen to the voice of experience?
“I did listen,” said Caw. “I just chose to ignore you.”
He tried to sound confident, but his mouth was dry as he crouched, shivering, in the bushes. The house in front of him was abandoned, its walls flaking and covered in graffiti. He counted two intact windows, while the rest were either cracked or boarded up. The front lawn was so overgrown there wasn’t even a path to the door. One of the trees that grew beside the house had blown over in a storm and its branches, which had crushed a section of the roof, now appeared to be growing into the building.
Home sweet home, muttered Screech, hopping nervously along Caw’s shoulder. The young crow’s claws pricked Caw’s skin, even through the leather of his coat.
Home? thought Caw. It didn’t feel like it. Not at all.
He searched his memories, but couldn’t find this place among them. He’d been five years old when the crows had carried him away, and nothing about the building in front of him was familiar. Except the unsettling feeling of dread he felt as he looked at it; the same feeling he had in his dreams.
Not too late to go back to the church, Caw, said Glum. We could have those leftover sweet potato pancakes from dinner. Besides, how do we even know this is the right place?
“I just know,” said Caw, feeling cold certainty in his gut.
A snap of fluttering wings sounded at his back and a third crow alighted on the ground. Wiry and sleek, she stabbed a slender beak into the earth and prised up a wriggling worm. The slimy creature squirmed and coiled as the crow tossed back her head and gobbled it down.
Hey, Shimmer! said Screech, puffing out his chest.
Coast’s clear, the female crow said, loose crumbs of earth dropping from her beak. What are you all waiting for?
For this young man to see sense, said Glum. To let history lie.
Don’t be such a killjoy, said Shimmer, stretching her wings. They were sheened with blues and reds like spilt oil on wet tarmac. It took me four weeks to find this place. If Caw’s not going in, I am.
“Can you all stop talking about me as if I’m not here?” said Caw. For once, the crows ceased their bickering. It was a rare occurrence since Shimmer had joined the group. Crows were stubborn. They liked to argue, and they liked having the last word even more. All except Milky, the white crow that Caw had grown up with. In all the years in the nest, he’d spoken less than twenty words. Caw wished the old crow was still with them.
He stood up, stretching his lower back and casting a glance back along the street. None of the buildings in this part of town was inhabited any more. The families had all moved out when the jobs dried up after the Dark Summer – the secret war between ferals that had broken out eight years ago. A broken and rusted scooter lay in a gutter full of leaves, and below, in a tree in a front garden, hung a lopsided swing, its cords frayed.
Caw wondered for a moment what it had been like growing up here. Had he played with other children from these now-abandoned houses? It was hard to imagine sounds of laughter in a place so dismal and heavy with silence. He began to make his way up the driveway towards the house, heart thumping. The front door was boarded up, but he could climb in through a window easily enough.
You can still turn back, said Glum, remaining stubbornly perched on his branch.
It was easy for Glum to say: this house meant nothing to him. But for Caw, it was everything. For so many years his past was a blank – an open sea with no charts to guide him. But this place was a landmark, and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Who knew what he might find inside?
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the crumpled photo – a picture of his parents, from happier times. Crumb had given it to him. The pigeon feral hadn’t wanted Caw to come tonight either – grumbling that it was “a waste of time”. Caw let his thumb brush across his parents’ faces. They looked almost exactly the same as they had when he found them in the Land of the Dead. He’d only managed to share a few precious moments with them, and it had left his heart aching for more. Where better to find out about them than this place?
He owed it to them not to turn back.
As Caw laid a hand on one of the boards over the door, he found that it was loose. He gripped the edge firmly and easily yanked it free, rusting nails and all. The others posed no more bother, and soon he’d cleared the way.
Caw sensed the crows behind him and turned. Sure enough, all three were perched on the ground.
“Let me go in alone,” he said.
Shimmer nodded and Screech hopped back a few steps. Glum looked away with a dramatic toss of his head.
There was a light switch inside, but Caw wasn’t surprised that nothing happened when he pressed it. The air was cool and musty. In the gloom, he made out overturned furniture and pictures hanging lopsidedly from the walls. A grand staircase rose from the entrance hall up to a landing, then doubled back on itself to the first floor level. Caw thought he saw something move up there – a rat, or a bird, perhaps, but when he looked again there was nothing.
Caw felt a dim sense of belonging. Small things looked familiar – a lampshade, a doorknob, a tattered curtain. Or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks, wanting to see something significant among the debris of abandoned lives.
Through an archway, Caw could see a sagging couch and wires protruding from a wall socket, and as he walked towards it the view opened on to a dining table.
A rush of fear turned his feet to lead. He knew this room from his nightmares. It was here that it had happened – beside that very table his parents had been murdered by the spiders of the Spinning Man. The table was covered in dust now, but Caw couldn’t bring himself to step any closer.
Instead, he turned back to the stairs. They creaked as he climbed. With each step, a haunting nostalgia swelled in his stomach. When he reached the first floor, his feet carried him automatically towards a door with a small placard in the shape of a train. Painted on it were words he recognised from Crumb’s lessons – “Jack’s Room”.
Jack Carmichael.
That had been his name, once.
Caw took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
On the opposite wall, his eyes fell on the window and his knees turned to water. The memories, so dream-like, crystallised into a feeling of pure fear. Caw gripped the doorframe to steady himself.
He remembered the firm hands of his parents as they dragged him from his bed and hauled him towards the window. Their fingers had been so tight it had hurt and their ears had seemed deaf to his screams of panic. Then his father had opened the window and his mother had thrust him out. Caw had watched the ground spinning towards him, felt the terror rising as he fell …
He took a deep breath as the power of the memory faded.
For years, that had been his only remembrance of them, festering in his mind. Their heartless abandonment. Now he knew it wasn’t the full story. It was just one line in a tale that had begun centuries ago – a tale of ferals at war with one another. His parents hadn’t been trying to kill him – they’d been protecting him, by getting him as far away from the Spinning Man as possible.
Caw opened his eyes, looking away from the window. He was trembling.
The rest of the room was practically empty. A couple of shelves held scraps of paper; and bundles of old clothing had been pushed into one corner. Caw hadn’t been expecting the room to be preserved like a museum, but still he felt a rush of rage. Someone had taken all of his things.
The anger seeped away as quickly as it had come, leaving only a numb sorrow. Of course the house had been ransacked and looted. Plenty of petty criminals had taken advantage of the chaos caused by the Dark Summer. Caw guessed a nice house like this would have made for easy pickings.
He let his feet carry him across the mould-covered carpet towards the window. The glass was cracked, and he rubbed a sheen of condensation away with the cuff of his leather jacket. Outside the night was still, the stars bright in a cloudless sky, the moon glowing softly.
Caw sighed. Crumb was right – there was no point in coming here. The past was dead.
Then, in the trees below, he saw something. A pale face materialising from the darkness beside a tree trunk.
Caw’s heart jolted. The face didn’t move at all, just stared up at him. It was an old man, with skin so white he might have been wearing make-up like a clown. Who was he? And what was he doing here, in Caw’s garden?
Caw gripped the window frame. He tried to yank it up to call out to the man, but it didn’t budge. He heaved again and it gave a grating screech. He was about to open his mouth when he heard a panicked intake of breath at his back.
“Who are you?” said a voice.
Caw spun round and saw the pile of clothes in the corner stirring. There was a girl lying there, wrapped in a sleeping bag. She was skinny, with dark tangled hair framing her grubby face. She looked a year or two older than him.
Caw stepped back until he collided with the window. His leg muscles wanted to run, but fear paralysed him. He found his voice.
“I …” he started. But what was he supposed to say? Where to start? Her eyes were defiant, but scared too, he noticed, his fear dipping slightly. He raised his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. “This is my house,” he said. “Who are you?”
The girl stood up, shaking the sleeping bag off. She picked up a baseball bat from beside her, knuckles white as they clenched it.
“Are you on your own?” said the girl.
