xp_logs | London Calling: Corvus Majesty

Remy meets his own trial in London, one that even his powers can't stop.

For once, the Tower of London wasn't wrapped in tourists. The broad laneway which
ran from the Tower Bridge in front of the south walls, normally packed with
sightseers and strolling families was empty, home only to the gentle lapping of the
Thames against the stones of the quay. There was an emptiness unlike the city; pale,
wan, and smothered, as if a pillow had been pressed down on the entire place,
forcing out the last breathes and removing all traces of once vibrant life.

Remy LeBeau could tell when a city was sick. He didn't have Amanda's powers, the raw
connection to the place where humanity set down stone and built in its own image.
What he did have was a feeling of being in a place; a sixth sense of when the
natural ebb and flow of a place was interrupted and made strange. Too many years in
too many cities, with his life depending on catching even the slightest hint of
danger had honed it razor sharp, and his time at the feet of Tante Mattie burnishing
it bright. He could feel the twist happening, deep in his mind, and sense that the
sickness in one of the great cities in the world wasn't simply going to pass.

What he couldn't explain was the feeling that brought him here. Once they had
reached the main city itself, the strangeness effecting the city had sunk into their
own bones, and each of his team had gone off to search for the cause, but really,
had been pulled in different directions, following a call that only they could hear.
He'd crossed over London bridge, past the Monument in which Jubilee had stopped to
idle. He'd left her behind, crossing past Billingsgate and up to the wide venue
which had been cleared and paved to the west of the Tower of London.

The high curtain walls, normally grey from years of restoration, now stood streaked
sooty black, with long lines where the rain sluiced the filth down between the
stones. The area between the paved area and the walls was normally a grassy park,
but now it stood as thick mud, black and grasping. Even the entrance was no longer
as open and inviting, as the broad cement transitioned to rough broken cobbles. Remy
ignored it. He wasn't comfortable with the front door in any case.

His feet took him to his current perch, watching the usual exit for tourists day,
and for unfortunates hundreds of years ago; the Traitor's Gate. The Cajun was
questioning himself, why listening to a strange feeling, as opposed to his normal,
professional approach to a scene like this. But time wasn't on his side, and the
surety in him couldn't just be his own feelings. Tante had taught him the other side
of what his training had; that cities were not merely collections of stone and
brick, in which people lived their lives. The feelings and identity of the people
who called it home sunk deep into the stones, and echoed as each new person found
it. Transplant the entire population of London into New Orleans, and you would never
have the same feeling, and vice versa. There was an identity and a sense they
exhibited, and it dwelt in the same place as magic came from; indescribable, but not
without power.

Whatever was happening to London wasn't just happening to the people. It was
happening to the city. It that was so, maybe its way of fighting back was finding
Amanda, making her bring them here, and pulling them to where they were needed.
Whatever the case, this wasn't a normal operation, and considering that, it needed
to be treated differently. With this in mind, the assassin slid the still retracted
staff into his hands, and stepped through the gate.

"There's a likely customer for my wares. Step up, step up, sir! Too late will be your cry if you allow opportunity to pass you by." The voice was gratingly London; the fake cleaned up Cockney of the 20th century films. His patter like the streetside salesmen, all the way down to his tiny stand, full of rough canvas bags, tied with a length of rope. "There's a good lad, don't be shy. 'ere I 'ave something special, something special indeed. This 'ere is the Tower of London, the pivot which the whole of British history turns on, you know? The place of kings, and Dukes, and even 'umble providers of goods like myself. 'ave a look at my stock."

Remy picked up one of the bags as he sized the man up. Tall and rail thin, dressed in a shabby black longcoat which had seen better days, and capped with an old top hat, felt gone bald, and the stack crooked, so the front drooped down towards the vulture like face. He was thinfaced, dominated by a sharp beak of a nose, and tangles of greasy black hair that escaped the edge of the cap. His grin was broken and yellow, surrounded by a smattering of tiny white scars. A hard man and a bottom feeder; if Remy was asked to guess, he'd bet a knifeman, a little more cunning than the average thug, to make up for his frail frame, and likely obsessed with cruelty as a way of compensating for his street rep. The kind you'd hire to blind a rival's child, or rape and torture their younger relatives; the type that simply wouldn't say no to anything.

"I can see you've got an eye on you, sir. Yes, you 'ave. That's the quality you've picked up, a real man of taste. Just a quid, sir, and that is all yours." He grinned, long and sinister. "Something that will remind you of 'ome, I think. The true 'ome, where you find inside your 'ead."

Remy fished out the coin, tossed it to him. The setup was laughable, like a bad movie searching for something authentically English, and coming up with nothing beyond bad clichés.

"Got a name, homme?"

"'course I do. Not many that don't 'ave 'em, 'cept course those that don't need 'em no more." He drew a thumb across his throat, his yellow fingernail rasping against the black stubble. "Quality like yourself wouldn't 'ave none of them though. They call me Jack Dawes, those that call me at all. Rooftop Jack to some, the rougher sort will say. At your service." He doffed his hat and made a mocking bow to the Cajun. Remy was weighing the bag in his hand. It felt organic, shifting, full of something small.

"How does a man like youself get to sell your wares in de Tower den, Jack? You a friend of de guards?"

"Oh, close friend sir. Might say that they take great care to make sure that I don't leave. if I did, the 'ole place might come crashing down."

"You don't look like a prisoner."

"Not any more, no. See, there's rules 'bout 'ow poor ol' Jack can come and go. Rules and traditions and suspicions all. But that's the price you pay when you have the duty which Rooftop Jack must fulfill."

Remy opened the bag, reaching inside. He held up his hand, and birdseed spilled out between his fingers.

"Duties?"

"'course." Jack replaced his hat and spread his arms. "The Tower is the only place for a captured King." A pair of crows alighted from the arm, flapping as they perched on his outstretched arms. Around his feet, the Tower ravens, with their clipped wings, walked back and forth, heads bobbing as if to punctuate his speech with the motions of their sharp beaks.

"Captured king? Dat's what you think you are?" Remy tossed the bag of bird seed on to the ground dismissively.

"Of course. I'm the King of Ravens, and thanks to yourself--" The ravens on the grass spread their wings, and with an explosive gesture, launched themselves into the sky. The Tower ravens were supposed to have their wings clipped, making them unable to fly. However, they were all awing now, circling in the air above. "we're all now free. Ta."

The figure leapt into the air. He caught the edge of the stone and pulled himself up, unnaturally agile and light. As he reached the apex of his jump, his coat unfurled around him, like a set of wings, and he all but glided to the next tower top.

Remy was moving instantly. He wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but somehow he'd set a chain of events in motion, and this suddenly less clownish figure was no longer trapped when he should be. The Cajun went up the rough wall at almost the same speed he ran, the ancient stones providing enough handholds as to be a highway for him. He topped the edge, and twisted as a crow dived past him, lunging for his eyes. Paused just long enough for Remy to snap its back as he was moving. Obviously his Majesty didn't want him following.

The spare figure was leaping from the Tower, and gliding across to the Mariners Hall, a flock of dark birds around him. He could see ravens, crows, smaller black figures. Remy remembered hearing somewhere that crows and ravens were of the same family. Maybe this king extended to all the creatures of that type. He leapt from the walls, rolling as he hit and immediately tackled the wall ahead of him, clambering up the statue and using a firm grip on the pediment to pull himself higher.

At the top, he saw the King several rooftops away. He was angling west, away from the Tower, towards St.Pauls. Remy tucked the staff into his inner pocket. He'd need all his skill for this. As he raced along the roof, he bent to scoop up a handful of gravel and stick it in his other pocket. He arced out over the empty air and caught the next ledge, his feet churning for a moment before he found a brace against the stone and pulled himself over. The tiles echoed his footfalls as he raced along.

In front of him, birds swirled, the crows angling to block his path. He reached for the gravel, and tossed the tiny stones quickly, knocking them out of the air with unnatural precision. His spatial sense was straining, as the birds circled him while he was unable to stop. He needed to keep moving, or he'd lose the king.

The two figures crisscrossed the rooftops, clattering over copper shod eaves, racing along the apex of tiles on the sharp roofed churches, skittering on gravel and tar in blocky office buildings, racing past false cupolas and classical pillars, past long defunct clocks and empty bell towers, through twists of ivy and fractal sprawls of lichen. Finally, the King pushed out over the scattered trees of a park, forcing LeBeau to bounce from branch tops and land badly against the heavy buttress of St.Paul's itself. With a grim snarl, Remy pulled himself up the bricks and iron work, ignoring the damage he might be causing. Climbing the massive church was like ascending a minor mountain, and even one misstep or missed attack by a raven would spill him fatally into the street.

Remy gasped as he reached the long, flat length of the nave's roof. High above him, balanced perfectly on the circular ball from which the cross grew from at the very apex of the church, the King called to him.

"Quality! You still following me? Planning to pay 'omage then?" He waved encouragingly towards his chest. "Up and over, up and over. We'll wait."

"Remy hate dis guy." LeBeau muttered, as he leapt, caught the edge of a quillion, and pulled himself up next to one of the adornments which broke up the circle of pillars. He pulled himself up, carefully bracing his fingers in almost minute gaps and protrusions, giving himself just enough of a grace to sustain him until the next one. He barely made the complex under/over to reach the bottom of the mid-platform rail, and dragged himself over the edge. Tourists often had problems using the steps to reach the top of the dome. Remy envied them for a moment, and then slapped his head. All of the banter by the King of Ravens was making him stupid, following his lead. There was no way to clear the cusp of the dome and fight off his birds at the same time. But he didn't have to.

The next round of attacking birds found themselves left outside as one of the doors slammed shut, and the Cajun was tucking away his lockpicks as he took the steps two at a time. There were no tourists, and the narrow stairs to the top proved a welcome breather for LeBeau as he raced up. At the very top, he slammed through the door, finding himself on a narrow railed landing which stretched around the top of the dome. Above him, the King of Ravens waited, but he was laughing now. Remy could barely see him through the mass of birds.

"You've run a race you 'ave, my friend. Why not 'ave a rest, watch what's next?" He pointed to the clouds. Obviously the effects of the Tower were spreading, as great inky clouds of soot streaked the sky, like the pictures of Victorian London. The blackness fought against the sun itself, and were moving in. Remy paused, straining for a better look, and for the first time in ages, was shocked speechless. The black sooty clouds were not the smoky backgrounds of the industrial engine of the city a hundred years past. As they came closer, they fragmented into tens and hundreds of thousands of tiny figures; birds. Crows, and ravens and black carrion birds of all sizes.

"Beautiful, isn't it? 's always been their city. They led the dead to the afterlife, they lived off the garbage and the filth. They provided the final fate for traitors, plucking their skulls clean as their 'eads sat spiked on the bridge." The King had dropped down to the statuary fifteen feet above his head. "That's why they said the tower of London will stand 'til the ravens leave it. Bit o' sales malarkey that would 'ave shamed the least talented of a callsman to claim it, but you get way with that when you're royalty. They forgot two things. That eventually, the common folk get to believe in any sham kept up 'long enough."

"And de other thing?"

"Only way to keep the ravens there was to caged them. And the caged always want to be free." The King shrugged, and motioned to the sky. "The Tower falls, and we'll eat until we're fat and happy on the flesh of those what wanted us here. Been a pleasure, my friend. But I'm afraid you're a bit of a thing that I've no more time for."

A great cloud of bird rose up behind him, and dove. Remy desperately cast his handful of charged gravel, but it barely slowed the flock. His staff was out, tracing lethal circles around him, but for each bird he killed, a dozen replaced it. His spatial sense had simply cut out, in order to keep him mind from being overwhelmed by the input.

It wasn't long before the birds obscured the Cajun, pecking at him, forcing him to finally give up striking back and focus on keeping his coat and hands between the beaks and his face. Remy went down, the birds pulling in tighter, clawing and pecking each other bloody in their lust for his flesh.

The King alighted on to the ledge beside them, a smile on his face. He turned to the bird on his shoulder. "Shame 'bout this one. Could have been a friend, I think. Might 'ave fit right in with the flock. Shame that he didn't let 'is real self out. If only he'd known that us ravens together make up a murder."

A hand shot out from the roiling mass of feathers and took the King of Ravens by the throat. In the space between heartbeats, the impossibly strong fingers twisted, and the wet gristle sound of breaking bones cracked out over the caws of the birds. Remy emerged from the pile of feathers, face streaked with blood from a hundred cuts, staring into the fading eyes of the broken necked King.

"Dere's not a damn thing anyone knows more 'bout murder den Gambit."

He dropped the body, which dissipated as it hit the stones. Out in the skies around St.Paul's, the massive murders simply wafted away, like smoke. Even the flocks around the King melted away in the sun, only a few examples left. A raven, perched on the rail, turned to look at him. It twisted its head to the side, cawing once, before launching into the air. Remy watched it straight out its dive and angle across the nave and between the two far towers before turning back towards the Thames, where the Tower huddled. Remy took a deep shuddering breath as he swayed against the rail, blood dripping on the top and pooling at his feet. He reeled back, back hitting the stones, and slid down, sitting stupidly on the landing, legs sprawled out in front of him, staring blankly over London as the shock traveled the length of his system.

It was then he noticed the heaviness in his inside pocket, pulling out a canvas bag. He opened it to stare dumbly at the birdseed. On the railing in front of him, a starling landed, chirruped twice and took back off into the air. Dumbly, Remy tossed a handful of the seed infront of him, and then another, watching as the birds landed to peck at it. He started to laugh; a wet, broken sound, but a live one, as he spilled out the rest of the bag, watching as more birds landed; pigeons and larks, finches and tits, warblers and sparrows, even a solitary crow. Laughed as they pecked at the seed around him and then cast themselves out into the London sky.