Chapter One Four and Twenty Thousand Black Birds Every night, around dinnertime, all the crows in Vancouver fly east, abandoning downtown for the surrounding suburbs and their hills. Its an amazing sight, a sky filled with cawing black birds, moving over the houses and parks like an enormous living storm cloud. No one knows for sure why they do this. Some believe they sense night is coming on, and bad things happen in the city at night. Neil Flamb, on his fifteenth birthday, burst out of the back door of his kitchen and into the alleyway behind his restaurant, Chez Flamb. He was hyperventilating. His eyes were wide with panic. A crow gave a loud caw and Neil glanced toward the sky. As he gulped desperately for air he watched the birds pass over his head, momentarily blocking out the setting sun. He felt a chill run down his spine, but it wasnt the cool evening air. The dark murder of crows seemed to match his mood perfectly. Neil took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He could hear the Soba twins back in the kitchen calling in more dinner orders. Neil shook as his sense of rising panic returned. He prided himself on running the kitchen like a finely tuned clock, but it didnt take long for orders to back upone more disaster he couldnt deal with right now. The crows continued to stream overhead. His foot tingled. Maybe he could just run away? No. Yes. What was going on? Calm down! he yelled at himself. His birthday had not gone well. Hed gotten into fights with his girlfrie