Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

And whatever fate demanded as bounty for those eyes, that was the price Kyra had to pay.

  Damn the consequences.

  The Native woman’s eyes were the first step toward gaining powers that would bring Kyra everything she’d ever dreamed of She had hoped to pluck those eyes from their owner’s skull sockets without killing the woman—or anyone else—in the process.

  Not that Kyra Damon was a skilled surgeon or anything, but going in she’d figured that all she had to do was pop a couple eyeballs, do a little cutting . . .

  And Kyra was an expert at cutting.

  She’d designed a few of Johnny’s scars, done all that bloody work herself

  Hey, anything for art.

  So cutting wasn’t a problem. She and Johnny had prepared for the task. Late one night they broke into a Tucson pharmacy, where they stocked up on behind-the-counter pain medications—plenty of Tylenol 3 with codeine. Surgical steel scissors, forceps, gauze, bandages, antiseptic. They filled a little black leather bag, planning to deliver Leticia Hardin into anesthetic oblivion before they performed the back-room operation.

  That was the plan. Snip out Hardin’s pretty blue orbs quick as a wink, dial the paramedics, and hit the road before their victim’s first scream slashed through the desert sky like sheet lightning on a hot summer night. Had everything gone as Kyra intended, the deal would have ended up like one of those urban legends you hear about—the one with the guy waking up in a bathtub filled with melting ice, a ragged red X stitched on his backside, minus one kidney snatched for transplant.

  That was the way it was supposed to go. No one was supposed to die at the Spirit Song Trading Post. Kyra was smarter than that. She hadn’t intended leaving any Crowbait behind like so much roadkill on the highway of eternity.

  Of course, things hadn’t gone down that way. The whole deal had been fucked up right from the start: they’d pressed the Hardin woman hard, found out the only person Likely to show up after closing time was her boyfriend. And just like that the boyfriend had appeared out of black midnight as if he’d been carried on the wings of the Crow. And then things had really gone bad, and Kyra had ended up with her flesh lashed by scorpion stingers, arachnid venom pulsing through her veins.

  Well, like the Boy Scouts said: you had to be prepared. And Kyra was big on preparation. That little word had blazed a trail down the dark path she’d been traveling for many moons.

  Kyra smiled. You didn’t have to be a witch to cast a spell, especially something as elementary as a spell of protection. Kyra knew that. You didn’t need to believe in God or Satan or Mother Earth or Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy or anything at all. In most cases, all that mystical mojo was as simple as baking a cake—requiring nothing more than the right ingredients and the right cookbook.

  Hey, if you had some patience, a library card and a little money for materials, you were all set.

  No, a little scorpion venom wasn’t going to kill Kyra Damon. It was sustenance to her dark soul, and it flowed through twined veins hidden just beneath her skin, traveling a dark river that ran to one throbbing source—a cold heart with a steady driving beat.

  Still, killing the couple could cost Kyra plenty. It wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d paid a steep price to get what she wanted. She’d paid a price for her dark powers, and the secrets that came with them. She’d paid a price for Johnny, and for Raymondo, too. She’d even paid a price for her own cold heart, and with every steady heartbeat she paid just a little bit more.

  In this game, she knew she’d have to pay. Ante up, big time. Because this was about life and death . . . and all the secret things that lay beyond the veil.

  This was about the Crow.

  Kyra shivered, a taunting wing-brush of dusky feathers across her soul.

  She was prone to premonitions. And she didn’t have to look in the rearview mirror to know that something was trailing the Merc like a ragged, wind-tangled black kite tied to the bumper.

  Besides, the shrunken head that hung from the rearview mirror was already doing that bit of surveillance work for Kyra. Menacingly lit from below by the glow of dashboard lights, the head hung between Johnny and Kyra by its knotted hair, swinging back and forth like some diabolical pendulum, its tiny eyes trained on the dark slab of night framed by the Merc’s rear window.

  “We’ve got company,” the head said through stitched lips.

  And it was right.

  Desert wind cooled the Crow’s wings as it swooped down on the Mercury.

  Driven by unnamed instincts that pumped through its beating wings like black fire . . . driven by the primitive concept of tribal retribution buried deep in the base of its avian brain . . . driven by the ancient thirst for vengeance.

  Driven to catch the car, and the dead man inside.

  A corpse who would become the black bird’s designated avenger.

  For in the world of the Crow, vengeance was plural. . . not singular.

  It took two, working together . . . man and bird.

  But to revive its human counterpart, the Crow required strength, concentration, and contact.

  The Crow’s scream tore the night as the bird closed on the Mercury. The Crow beat its wings, reached out with its talons, strained every muscle as it neared the car. It saw its own reflection in the gleaming paint, felt the pain of the dead couple locked within, knew exactly what actions were required to take that pain away.

  Black talons raked the trunk. Claws on steel: just for a second. Then the Mercury accelerated, lake pipes billowing a sickly yellow exhaust that stank of brimstone.

  The car pulled away, and the bird was momentarily blinded by a dervish of hell fumes. But the Crow fought through the smoke, its wings a blur of motion, still moving forward, closing on the trunk once more.

  Once again, the bird’s reflection gleamed on the chrome bumper, dark body painting the chrome letters on the trunk as the Crow screamed, spreading its wings, ready to light on the speeding vehicle.

  The Merc’s engine roared. Instantly, five feet separated the bird from the automobile.

  But the bird closed again, with desperate speed and agility.

  A moment too late.

  Red flames flared from the lake pipes, singeing the Crow’s feathers to black tar The Merc was gone in a hellfire burst, leaving the bird behind—two pounds of muscle and blood and feathers and hollow bones, tumbling through the air.

  An ordinary bird would have been doomed. But the Crow was no ordinary bird. Though its talons scraped pavement and sparked like knives, the bird’s dark wings never touched ground.

  The Crow climbed through the night air. Moonlight washed its singed wings, wings that sprouted new feathers in less time than it took a slug from a .357 Magnum to rip through a man’s heart.

  A mile ahead, demon tailights flared.

  Black wings that glowed as brightly as gunmetal beat furiously as the Crow fought to close the distance.

  “I guess the Crow didn’t know that this ride is supercharged by Satan,”

  Johnny Church laughed. “That’ll teach ol’ Tweety Bird to fuck with a gearhead who’s got a devil woman ridin’ shotgun and a shrunken head for a pit crew!”

  Kyra Damon nodded. “All you have to do is rig your engine with a little nitro and a hellfire chaser. . . . Why, that’s enough to put a hitch in anyone’s getalong.”

  Her own laughter joined with the blond killer’s, and the sound was a dark symphony to Kyra’s ears. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed Johnny C. on the throat. He smelled good: hot and sweaty and male, and she liked the way his carotid artery pumped beneath the tanned skin almost as much as she liked the smooth, muscular bulge of his biceps.

  Johnny’s full lips curved into a smile as Kyra’s hand traveled the slick length of his leather-clad thigh, coming to a rest close to his crotch.

  Teasing now, moving closer, petting a tight, hot leather bulge.

  “You know just the spot, baby,” Johnny said, thigh muscles tightening.

  And sh
e did.

  The Merc headed northwest, a blood clot pumping down a dark vein of highway. The sultry smells of the desert—windswept canyons, gnarled mesquite, sun-baked earth—rushed through the open windows and wrapped around Kyra like cool-scented sheets on a summer’s night. Life is good, she told herself, digging her dark polished fingernails into Johnny’s hard thigh. The black bird’s fucked, and life is good.

  And life—eternal life—was what all this was about. Living for- fucking-ever, and then some. That was the concept, soon to become a reality, and for the first time the absolute inevitability of the whole idea slammed Kyra in an unadulterated rush that was more intoxicating than any chemical high ever experienced by mere mortals.

  “This is sweet.” Kyra grinned deliciously, ran both hands through her long scarlet-black tresses. “Fucking sweet!"

  Johnny grinned back, let out a whoop of pure exhilaration. “Hold on!” he screamed as he floored the accelerator.

  Kyra thought: It doesn't take much to get Johnny Church’s testosterone pumping. Guns, girls, and ammo . . . and a little thing called immortality.

  No, it doesn’t take much at all.

  Kyra’s thoughts turned to the black bird . . . perhaps just so much roadkill back there on the highway. Even if the Crow still lived, it couldn’t harm her now. She wouldn’t let it. She was too close to her dream. And she was too smart for the bird, and—

  Screw the Crow, Kyra thought. She wasn’t going to waste another second thinking about it. Because on a night like this, anything was within Kyra Damon’s reach. On a night like this, she knew she would live forever. . . .

  But there was another passenger on Kyra and Johnny’s road trip to immortality—a cursed counselor Kyra had found long ago, one who was fated to be her guide—and he was determined to have his say, as well.

  “It’ll take more than a little hellfire to stop the Crow,” said the shrunken head. “Mark my words—it’ll be back, and soon.”

  Kyra glared at the desiccated thing suspended from the rearview mirror. “You’re getting a really smart mouth, Raymondo.”

  “Maybe I am. But maybe you’re head’s swelling a little bit, Kyra.”

  “Shut your dead mouth, Raymondo.” Johnny’s voice was a barbed-wire rasp. “Ky knows what she’s doing.”

  “Please, Johnny,” Raymondo said. “This is an adult conversation. You’d do better to keep your eyes on the road . . . and slow down a little bit. All the speed in the world won’t stop the Crow, and this highway isn’t a racetrack, nor is it the set of Speedway, Hot Rods to Hell, Death Race 2000, or—”

  Johnny sucked a hard breath and floored the accelerator.

  “Fuck you,” he told the head.

  “No, fuck you,” Raymondo retorted.

  Kyra shook her head. “Hey Johnny, you think maybe we should have left Raymondo in the window of that antique shop in New Orleans?”

  “If you had, you’d both be in serious shit now,” Raymondo said. “Or maybe you’re somehow unperturbed by the idea of a Night of the Living Dead castoff tearing through that sweet cheetah-skin upholstery covering the backseat.”

  Johnny snorted.

  “Here’s the way I see it, Johnnyboy,” Raymondo went on, warming to the subject. “After the ambulating dead man chews his way through your precious upholstery, he’ll no doubt hand you a one-way ticket to eternity.”

  Johnny swore. “What kind of shit are you shovelin’ now, shortcake? How’s some dead man gonna get to me when I know he’s comin’—”

  “Let me tell you, Johnny. He’ll get to you because that’s the only thing in the world he wants to do. That’s a requirement of vengeance, eternal-style, and nothing less will satisfy the Crow. That dead cowboy will do you like no one’s ever been done before. He’s going to bash your head in with a tire iron till it looks like a plate of well-cooked pasta with red sauce, heavy on the meat. I mean, your skull may be thick, Johnny, but it’s not that thick. He’ll crack it eventually, and then he’ll start scooping, and—”

  “Bite me, little man.”

  But Raymondo was not so easily deterred. “Then, Johnnyboy, when the Crow’s sidekick is done preparing that order, he’ll make Kyra here eat the plate of pasta that used to be your head.” The shrunken head grinned. “Extra red sauce? Perhaps a nice pinot noir, my dear?”

  “Get real,” Johnny said. “You saw what happened back there at the trading post—it was the Crow who ran, not us.”

  Raymondo endeavored to let the matter drop. He stared at the backseat, at the crazy amalgam of belongings Kyra and Johnny required for their one-way road trip—a couple battered suitcases crammed with clothes (nearly all of them black), Johnny’s storehouse of guns and explosives (Church swore that survivalists had the best swap meets, and he definitely knew where to shop), Kyra’s potions and powders and talismans and relics.

  Among this singularly Amerikkan shrapnel lay a coffin-shaped matte black box with a red velvet lining. This was one of Johnny Church’s prized possessions: a limited edition boxed set containing a collection of CDs by a punk band out of some New Jersey hellhole. The Blasphemers were, as far as the shrunken head was concerned, Johnny Church’s kind of band all the way—big, muscular morons who toted their instruments as if they were machine guns. Heavy on the Halloween gimmickry, with a double dose of death’s head packaging.

  All this came courtesy of the band’s lead singer and one-man brain trust, Erik Hearse. Hearse and his boys had risen from nothing in the mid-seventies and early eighties with an act that featured guillotines and strippers and bloodthirsty brain-splitting guitar work, and they’d stuck around long enough to enjoy a revival with the latest horror rock crowd. At present Hearse was as hot as hot got—with a major label deal, a guaranteed track on any horror movie soundtrack CD, and a line of merch that ranged from T-shirts to video games to comic books, shot glasses, and condoms.

  It was all a lot of crap, Raymondo thought. Including the coffin- shaped box set, which included the band’s signature songs, plus enough outtakes and live tracks to send a hero-worshipping idiot like Johnny Church to his knees with his head bowed Muslim-style toward the New Jersey hellhole that had given birth to Hearse and his raw, driving music.

  Such was the depth of Johnny’s belief Raymondo knew that to be true.

  Just as he knew that the time had come to use that belief against the poor, overstimulated musclehead.

  ‘“Black Mariah,”’ Raymondo mused out loud. It was the title of one of the band’s hardcore punk-pop masterpieces, to hear Johnny Church tell it. To Raymondo, it was nothing but a trash heap’s worth of noise.

  “Huh?” Johnny said, missing the connection. “What the fuck are you goin’ on about now, Raymondo?”

  “‘Black Mariah,’” the shrunken head repeated ominously. “Put it on, Johnnyboy. Let’s hear it one last time. Because that’s what you’re driving tonight, and pretty soon you’ll be as dead as your passengers.”

  “Get real, Raymondo.”

  “Are you afraid of the truth, Johnnyboy?”

  “Truth?” The driver waved a scornful hand. “Dropped that word from my vocabulary a long time ago, little buddy. Along with a fistful of other words: conscience and morality, guilt and innocence, responsibility and obligation. While I was at it, I shit-canned all those little phrases most people live by: A penny saved is a penny earned. . . . Brush after every meal. . . . Truth, justice, and the American way. Said adios to ten fingers’ worth of commandments, too. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of my favorites. I tell ya, Raymondo, the only church I attend is the Church of Johnny. To me, every day is about nothing more than me and mine.”

  “So that’s how it is.”

  “That’s how it is.”

  “Do you mind a bit of friendly advice, Johnnyboy?”

  “And what’s that, Raymondo?”

  “I think you and yours better watch your self-absorbed asses.”

  “Huh?”

  “Check the rearview, genius.”

  "
What?"

  “Eternity’s hot on your backside,” said the shrunken head. “In fact, it’s almost here. . . .”

  The Crow was exhausted.

  Chasing a bewitched automobile over miles of hard desert territory, choking on brimstone smoke, burning in hellfire . . . that could slow anyone down, even a messenger from the far side of death.

  But rest was a luxury that this messenger could not afford.

  This time, the Crow would not be denied.

  Weary wings fought brisk downdrafts as the black bird tried to close the distance. The Mercury was far ahead, moving fast. The black bird’s lungs burned with effort, but it would not stop—the bird was made for pursuit.

  The Crow could do little else. It was a creature of instinct, built for one purpose by forces unknown and unknowable. Its mission was a simple one. Find those who had been wronged in death—those who were worthy of a second chance—and set the wrong things right.

  That was the way of it tonight. Two people had been wronged. But tonight it didn’t end there.

  Two lovers had been wronged, but another had been wronged, as well.

  The Crow.

  The black bird had been wronged by a woman named Kyra Damon. She was a threat, a predator like no other the Crow had ever faced. If the Crow was to survive, it would have to stop Kyra Damon in her tracks.

  Righteous anger set the bird’s heart pounding as it overtook the Mercury.

  Black eyes focused on the sealed lid of the trunk directly below.

  The Crow forgot Kyra Damon and her companions, the forces bent on its immediate extinction. Instead, the bird concentrated its energies on the dead man locked in the trunk.

  One instant was all it would take.

  A meeting, a melding, a focus joined.

  A spark in the darkness, flaring to a vengeful fire that in a handful of seconds would rage out of control.

  The bird dived toward the car. Again its reflection gleamed on the polished trunk, but this time a man’s reflection waited beneath the bird’s.

  Brown eyes met black on a slab of Detroit steel that shone like the polished lid of a coffin.

  The Crow’s claws scraped metal, and the dead man’s hands curled into fists.