Crooked Crows Novels & Stories

“Not that interesting in all honesty. My ancestor got bitten by a wolf, the wolf was cursed. Hey presto, first shapeshifter.” “Oh… I heard a winged beast cursed some siblings.” “Not ever heard of that,” Christopher grunted as he picked up a larger carved boulder. “Was probably a lie, what stories do you know?” she probed, trying a heavier boulder. “Nothing that interesting, I suppose Daniel the Diabolical is kind of fun, but of course you’ll know about him.” Klara frowned, “No, never heard of him.” “Oh…” Christopher looked confused, “Erm…” his confusion turned to discomfort. “It’s not actually that fun… or interesting.”

and emailed Marcus Greer back. "Give me a number." The reply came thirty seconds later. Marcus had been waiting for the email. "Two million. Cash. Untraceable. Forty-eight hours." Damien closed his eyes. Two million was not about money. Marcus knew Damien could write a two-million-dollar check in his sleep. Two million was the amount of money a desperate man asks for when he wants to say, " You owe me this for ruining my life. The amount itself was an insult as much as a price tag.

Bianca woke up as a Queen and no wild flying bird objected to her reign. As the crows soared through the moonlit sky, their numbers began to multiply. One by one, more joined the flock, their glossy black feathers glistening in the pale light. The flapping of their wings echoed in the stillness of the night as they came together, united by their shared mission. With each passing moment, the flock grew larger, like an unstoppable force gathering strength. The crows cawed with determination, their voices echoing through the dense forest. They flew through the trees, their wings beating in perfect harmony, their beady eyes focused on the goal ahead.

Dozens of them hung from the branches on both sides of the road, tied by their feet with thin silver thread. Their black wings turned slowly in the rain. Like ornaments. Like warnings. At the center of the road, painted in blood across the asphalt, was the same crown-and-claw symbol. Damien stopped the truck. The engine idled. The trees leaned close. Then every dead crow opened its eyes.

Another watched me, head tilted, before fluttering to the handlebars of the bike. The numbers on my arm dimmed, their light leaching into the swamp mud. Only the crow saw—its red eye reflecting the fading glow like a dying star. The swamp belched up a guttural yipping. Three coyotes slunk from the kudzu, ribs pressing against mange-peeled hides. Their eyes burned amber, too human in the half-light. The leader limped, its left foreleg bent like a question mark etched in bone—a broken compass needle pointing nowhere good. Mamá had warned me about these: the kind Mamá called ‘crossroads hounds’, shaped by the land’s hunger.

The elk took up flanking positions around us and ran along side the dogs who seemed keep to chase the elk instead of continuing to the lakes. “Hike! Leave them boys. Hike!” More large black wolves started to pour down the slopes. As they did I began to see a flock of crows in the moon light wing low to the ground. The battle crows formed a mass and drove their beaks into the on coming wave of wolves, eliciting yips and yowls as the wolves turned away. As the sled began to cross the land bridge large gray and red wolves lines the edge of the bridge, closing off the path behind us, allowing none to follow us.

And tonight, it would become something else entirely. They were all there. My brothers. My beasts. My grave diggers. Crow leaned against the bar with a cigarette dangling between his lips, the smoke coiling up toward the low ceiling in lazy spirals. His face was half in shadow, his knuckles bruised from a fight that hadn’t been his but he’d joined anyway.

Mr Streeter walks up to the front of the stage and calls for the first trainee. “Trainee Will Adams, please come forward.” A guy sat in front of us stands up and walks over to Mr Streeter. Mr Streeter takes Wills right hand, placing a blade to his palm and recites, “Do you William Adams, accept your transition from trainee to hunter, promise to protect the innocent at all cost, and pledge to do what you must to rid this world of the creature who inhabit it.” “I do" came Wills reply. With this Mr Streeter pulls the blade across Wills palm which swells up with his blood. He raises it over a golden bowl and allows several drops to fall into the bowl with a hiss.

I gripped my phone tight, recording every word. Jane's daughter, my cousin Angela, lived there too. Angela had a bad rep and got kicked out of the family, then just a fringe member. Her only gig was dealing cards at some shady underground casino. She took one look at me and decided she did not like what she saw. "Some people think they're all that just because they got into Camford University, but they're still mooching off my family," she sneered, without saying my name but making it clear who she meant.

"The rumor concerning CRUZ company...you didn't hear it?" "CRUZ company? I didn't hear about that, what was it about?" "CRUZ company was accused of producing fake designs and forging other companies' designs of paintings. It was all over the news, Clara." There was a hint of shock and surprise in Ella's voice.