This time she saw them straight away. The birds. Hundreds of them, everywhere. It was as though they’d been waiting for her.
She stood puffing. The adrenaline started to dissipate, and in its place, she felt a trickle of dread. Her skin began to crawl. She started to back up, but before she could take more than a couple of steps she heard a low coarse laugh.
She spun around. Fear hit her like a slap. He was so still, that for a second he looked like part of the broken wall behind him. He was dirty, his hair in greasy tangles, but bound up with black feathers. From his ears dangled long earrings glittering with blue stones.
He moved slowly to block her exit. Light twisted off the edge of something he held in his hand. A knife? No, a pair of scissors. What was he going to do to her? She w
