Crooked Crows Romane & Geschichten

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.

Do not think about silver wolves or archive letters or the map folded in the lining of my winter coat. I was not successfully doing any of that last part, but the attempt had a certain dignity. I was sitting at the narrow desk by the window when the crow landed on the sill. It was a large bird. Glossy black, with the particular intelligent stillness of crows that know exactly where they are and have decided it suits them. It looked at me with one eye. Then the other. Then it set down the thing it had been carrying in its beak with a small decisive tap against the window ledge and waited.

"NO ... NO ... NO !!" the sound of a crow. I was surprised to hear the sound, and made the hairs on my neck stand up. “Huh, crow? I should how? I'm afraid!" I said panicked. I remember that crows are friends of vampires, which is why I was afraid. Not only that as a child I was attacked by crows for no reason. That's why I was scared and plus this isn't my world, I'm in my own novel world. The crow in my novel world is a vampire friend, the one who always reports to the vampire leader is a black crow like the crow in front of me right now.

The crow worked fast, driven by the blood that stirred in its veins, feeling the might of a God who they had silently thought of but never served. The crematorium was a place often watched by beady eyes, never finding titbits of flesh but enjoying what people did drop. Seeds from plants, crumbs from foods, often couple with the scent from the burners which their sensitive nostrils could pick up. The raised mounds with plain wooden markers haphazardly stabbed into them, indicated the latest residents. Unable to have anything more ornate until the ground had settled over their final bed. Without the aid of amulets, their renewed life would be short, but Am-Heh hoped it would be enough to have

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.