Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(14)



“What are you looking for?” she said in a low voice.

“A thorn in our sides.”

“Great. The Keeper and his crows. Fun times,” I added sarcastically. “Now, if you could just wake me up now and send me back to reality, I would really appreciate it.”

Pam nodded like a bobble-head doll on crack. “Yeah. Send us back. Won’t it anger the ‘Keeper’ if you cross the border with us?” Her finger quotations were too much.

Chester sneered, searching for the thorn in his side who kept the crows. “It’s a boundary, not a border,” he corrected, and then added, “The Keeper’s days are numbered here. I’m not worried ‘bout the likes of him. A payday like this is worth the chance. Two floaters. How’d we luck out on that?”

“Maybe the Keeper likes it here. Maybe he’s like, the Bird Man of Purgatory. I’d be reluctant to give up such an illustrious title,” I defended, as I pictured an old man in an overcoat, hobbling along with a cane and a bag of bread, a trail of crows in his wake. I felt sorry for him. Especially if guys like Gus and Chester were mean to him.

A shimmer ahead revealed a previously unseen stone wall with an iron gate, at least two stories high and reminiscent of medieval times. If my high school English teacher was right, it was called a portcullis.

Pamela began to hyperventilate, her squeaks rising in pitch with each breath. “Where? How?” she asked incredulously.

“Raise the gate. We have two,” Gus said in a low voice. Would they even hear him? My question was answered when the metal gate began to rise, its spiked bottom revealed and lifted high. The crows began to caw loudly, swooping down at our heads, and Pam and I reflexively raised our arms to guard ourselves. Death by crow. That would be a tragedy, even in a nightmare. A flurry of dark feathers swirled through the churning air. Maybe that was why they called them a murder...and not a gaggle, or a flock.

A tug on my leash told me to move. Chester wasted no time getting inside the wall, and Gus and Pamela were fast on our heels. But we were met with another wall; the second taller, thicker, and stronger than the first.

“This is The Killing Field. Watch yourself,” warned Gus, his body taut, eyes focused on the tops of the wall.

“Killing F-Field?” Pam stuttered.

Thirty feet away was a gate that mirrored the one we just walked through. Was this some sort of joke? Like a McDonald’s located on a corner adjacent to another McDonald’s? Would a scary clown jump out from the shadows next?

The gray sky grew angry and bottom-heavy clouds swirled overhead. “Can it rain here?” I asked idly.

Pamela’s mouth gaped open. “We’re in something called ‘The Killing Field’ and you’re wondering about the weather? What is wrong with you?”

She certainly was a scolder. A crybaby, too. Gus and Chester ignored us, easing step by step toward the next gate.

“Open up,” Gus requested.

For a moment, there was nothing, and then the ground shook beneath our feet.

“Earthquake!” Pamela screamed, dropping to her knees and bracing herself against the soil. I stood, watching everything unfold. More feathers rained down in a macabre, yet beautiful torrent. The wind swirled. If I had hair, it would have whipped in all directions.

Gus and Chester looked like they were about to piss themselves. “Open the doorway!” Chester hollered. The gate did not rise. He ran toward it, hauling me along with him, singing my neck with each long pump of his arm. “Damn it all to hell! Open this bloody thing now! The Keeper is coming.”

“He’s already here. We cannot open it for you and we cannot help you,” came a deep and ominous voice. “The Keeper has sealed the gate.”

Chester’s jowls began to quiver. “No, not like this. I can’t go like this.” He whipped around and his eyes went wide at something behind me. I expected to see something enormous, skeletal, and wrapped in black, or maybe not skeletal at all; maybe a monster whose skin oozed with pus and venom.

I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a guy with dark, messy black hair jump down from the top of the wall we’d passed through. I gasped. He wasn’t a giant, but his demeanor led me to believe he just might be. His jeans were worn and bore holes at the knees and thighs. And my God, looking up, I found the V of his hips, which were as bare as the muscles that lined his stomach like soldiers in formation. Sweet holy mother of eight packs.

Tattoos crawled up his skin, morphing and changing as he approached Chester, who pulled Pam in front of him like the coward he was.

“Let her go.” Three words, each one weighing more than the one that came before it. And then a promise. “And I’ll make it fast.” The Keeper closed his fists into tight balls and watched Chester with eagle-sharp eyes.

When Chester shoved Pamela toward him, the guy caught her by the upper arms and whispered something in her ear. The lightning disappeared from around her throat and she calmed immediately, a sweet sigh falling from her lips. Pamela moved to the wall, where she stood with arms folded in front of her. She waited, complacent as a child.

“What did he give her?” I asked, confounded. Dark eyes fastened on me for a second before Chester tore his attention away with one word, uttered like a curse.

“Keeper,” spat Chester.

“Chester. What did I tell you would happen the next time you trafficked a soul?” He raised a dark eyebrow. It was pierced with a thin, silver ring. There were small, black ear gauges in his ears.

Casey L. Bond's Books