Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  All at once the carrion crows began to caw, the harsh cacophony of their screams obliterating the classical music that spilled from the Merc.

  “That’s some sweet song, eh, Johnnyboy?” Raymondo asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” A smile twisted across Johnny’s lips. “It’s sweet, all right.”

  The full moon hung behind him, the color of an aged scar. It cast Johnny’s long black shadow over the bloated corpse of suburbia . . . and his shadow stretched all the way to Kyra Damon’s live, electric flesh.

  Johnny couldn’t help himself He screamed into the night, screamed as if his throat were full of violins, matching the cries of the gathering crows. He screamed long and loud and hard, until his voice was ruined and his throat was raw.

  When he was done, the shrunken head said, “You’re a real piece of work, Johnnyboy.”

  “Yeah," Johnny croaked. “Yeah, I am.”

  He grinned, raised his fist to the night.

  He screamed again, raw and ruined, like he was at a dark concert in hell.

  And the crows rose up as one.

  Eight miles north of Scorpion Flats

  Sixty-seven miles southeast of Tucson

  Bones welded by righteous hatred ...

  Heart mended by unwavering faith in everlasting love…

  Nascent connective tissue joining muscle and bone, fresh feathers blossoming like silky black flowers from wounds that seemed too deep to heal. . .

  . . . the Crow rose once more.

  The black bird was stronger now. Rejuvenated. Wings unfurled, it rode the cresting night wind over the dump, searching for the mortal remains of the man called Dan Cody.

  The lamb’s blood-colored ’49 Merc was long gone, along with its three outlaw passengers. But the Crow scented the stink of brimstone exhaust, and it followed the tread-prints of whitewall tires, and it traced the footprints of Johnny Church and Kyra Damon as easily as cloven hoof tracks left by Satan himself

  The air was ripe with the odor of dark enchantment and animal blood. The Crow had no doubt that evil rooted in the fertile soil of this land of broken dreams.

  And though it was cautious, the Crow was not afraid.

  The bird dipped low in the night, circling a twisted cathedral made of trash.

  And suddenly there it was . . . the thing the bird sought. There . . . at the very top of the cathedral, penned by rusting road-sign spires and leaning plywood arches and twisted scrap-metal pews.

  A battered Westinghouse sepulchre, where two wronged lovers lay locked in death’s bloody embrace.

  Kyra Damon’s carrion army watched the intruder from a hundred hidden perches, waiting to strike with one will.

  The white obelisk towered above them like an object of worship. What lay within, the birds did not know. They knew only that the obelisk’s contents had drawn the Crow like so much bait. The bait would trigger the ancient deathtrap found in the pages of Kyra Damon’s grimoire, and the carrion crow would destroy their enchanted brother. If they failed in this mission, the force of their mistress’s anger would rip their beating hearts from their chests and tear their wings from their sockets and scatter their bones to the four corners of the earth, where the beasts of the field would devour their flesh. . . .

  If they failed in their mission.

  But they would not fail. They were many against one. Large, strong, carrion birds who drew sustenance from the dead, who drank blood from cooling bodies even as the scarlet fluid steamed in the chill night air. Their beaks were sharp and their talons long. The brighteyed intruder was smaller by far, almost delicate by comparison.

  But the Crow was not weak. This the carrion tribe knew. The spirit bird possessed an unnatural strength. The Crow had come here to share that strength with another. When it did that, the Crow would be weak . . . and vulnerable.

  And that was when the carrion tribe would strike.

  Feathers rustled against the wind as the Crow began its descent, dark body cleaving the night like a hatchet.

  There was danger below. The Crow knew it the same way it knew that lightning followed thunder.

  The black bird cawed a long, loud warning, breaking the silence.

  Danger be damned.

  The Crow did not have time for fear.

  It landed on the battered Westinghouse freezer.

  Nothing inside the box but death and pain. Tools of the dark bird’s trade.

  And then the sensation came again, a subtle spark of avian senses, a jolt transmitted to the Crow’s brain over a prescient tangle of nerves. Danger. The bird raised its head, trained black eyes upon the dark landscape below. All was quiet. Still, the Crow sensed the blight of evil like the presence of disease, and it waited for that evil with the patience of a predator.

  But patience was not always a virtue. The Crow knew this to be true. Races often went to the swift.

  And the Crow was swift. It raised its beak to the heavens, turned its eyes to the stars.

  And then its beak fell as swiftly as a guillotine blade.

  Once, twice, clacking against the hard white shell of the freezer.

  Something moved within. Something stirred . . .

  The Crow thought of an egg, ready to hatch.

  Inside his tomb, Dan Cody’s eyes flicked open.

  Dead or alive, Dan couldn’t tell. Both forces surged within his body, fighting like a wild riptide in his blood.

  He didn’t know where he was. He smelled the coppery stench of coagulated blood, the dank stink of an airless tomb. And he smelled Leti’s perfume, light and sweet and warm as a desert flower after a spring rain.

  Dan couldn’t see a thing. Not in the darkness.

  And yet . . . somehow ... he saw everything. A rising flood of memory closed over him—the pain and the horror; the love and the hope; the dying pulse of a severed dream.

  Dan reached out with stiff, bloody fingers and gathered Leti’s face to his chest, and his strong shoulders heaved with sobs, and he stared blindly into the blackness and searched for the dimmest glimmer of light.

  But Dan could not find it. No matter how hard he tried. The cool glow of the moon, the brilliant power of the sun ... all the light in the universe wouldn’t have made a difference, because Dan Cody saw what waited for him in this new world that existed between life and death.

  This world was black.

  The Crow heard the despairing cries of the man within the sepulchre. Its heart was heavy even while it rejoiced, for this was always the way of those newly baptized in the Crow’s dark waters.

  The bird settled on top of the white box and spread its glossy black wings, waiting. Newly regenerated, the wings shone sticky- bright in the moonlight. Dark feathers gleamed with gossamer threads of restorative fluids. The feathers dried under the caress of the night wind.

  The man called Dan Cody wore skin, not feathers. But the Crow knew it would be the same for him, as well.

  Inside the chained box, the choking sobs slowly abated.

  A deep silence penetrated the still of the night.

  This silence, the Crow knew, was the first sign of a dawning awareness. A new perception born of death, nurtured by life. The man, like the bird, would heal . . . though the Crow knew from long experience that the man would find this healing superficial. Dan Cody’s scars ran much deeper than flesh, for the ravaging effects of past pains were irreversible.

  In time, however, the perceptions of bird and man would join as one.

  In time.

  Still, time was of the essence. Quietly, the bird concentrated its supernatural energies on the dead man’s core triumvirate—his body, his brain, and his soul. The Crow repaired not only the grievous damages sustained by the man’s flesh, but endowed that flesh with the superior skills and abilities necessary to the journey ahead.

  The exertion required for this undertaking was essential.

  It was also exhausting.

  The task burned every resource the Crow possessed.

  And when the black bird was exhau
sted, the carrion tribe’s attack came.

  Suddenly, savagely, without warning.

  And the Crow was trapped in the heart of a black-winged cyclone.

  Within the suffocating prison, Dan Cody heard the Crow’s screams.

  Screams. That was too simple a word. These were sounds of rage and pain and despair, sounds that echoed in Dan’s head like clawfuls of broken glass.

  In truth, his blood ran cold. Because the screams were speaking to him.

  No . . . not screams, Dan realized suddenly. Not screams at all.

  Caws. Cries for help. That’s what the sounds were. The realization was part of a new consciousness that pulsed within Dan.

  A moment before that consciousness had been very strong. Now it was growing weaker, like a dying breath.

  Like a whisper.

  I helped you. . . . came the caw. I helped you . . . now you must help me.

  A new pulse throbbed through Dan’s veins. The pulse of vengeance, hard and fierce, driven by the heartbeat of retribution for wrongs past and present.

  That's right, Dan. ... I helped you . . . now you help me. . .

  Dan was trapped in the darkness, but he was not alone anymore. There was another, as close as his own pulse. Another who had helped him, and who needed his help now.

  The Crow’s cries were fading like the moonless shadow of midnight.

  Dan Cody would not live in darkness a moment longer.

  He would have light.

  The Crow screeched, fighting for its freedom as the carrion birds attacked from every quarter, a black hailstorm of pecking beaks and raking talons. So vicious was their assault, so unrelenting, that the possibility of flight—and escape—became a distant dream.

  Greasy black feathers swirled down on the dump, turning it into a sea of dark enchantment. Beneath a solid wall of fury, the Crow fought a losing battle as the killer birds battered its weakened body.

  Still, the Crow fought. It tore, whirled, bit, gouged eyes. It spit chunks of birdflesh from its beak as if they were scalding red coals, and great numbers of the dark army fell beneath its slashing talons. But the carrion killers were too many, their collective weapons too strong. They were backed by the power of Kyra Damon’s wrath, and that wrath was unending.

  The Crow was losing the battle.

  Soon, it would lose its life . . . and with it, Dan Cody’s.

  The bird cawed one final, frantic plea for salvation.

  But the cry, like the Crow, was lost behind a blurred curtain of beating black wings.

  The heavy chains that bound the Westinghouse burst as the freezer door exploded off its hinges. Dan Cody moved into the blackness, searching for the light. But there was no silver glow from the stars above to greet him, no constellations glimmering millions of miles away. Only an ebony storm raining from the sky, with slashing wings clapping like thunder.

  Carrion crows.

  Hundreds of them.

  Once again, the Crow’s screams found Dan’s ears.

  Crows all around him, but this voice was different.

  This voice spoke only to Dan Cody.

  I helped you, Dan. Now you help me. . . .

  Dan picked up the length of chain that had secured the freezer door. He stepped into the hurricane of birds. They filled the sky, obliterated the stars. Their wings pulsed with the rhythm of hate. Surely a crippled bird and a reanimated dead man could never stand against them.

  But so intent were the predators on their wounded prey that they didn’t even notice the man with the solid steel chain until it was too late. Dan Cody moved forward, swinging the chain like a death-scythe, carving a path through tangled thickets of wings and talons. Joints crunched. Backs broke. Wings snapped. And a hundred crows crashed into heaped piles of trash. Shrieks of agony filled the night, but the birds—driven by Kyra Damon’s power— did not flee from the battle.

  They turned from the Crow and attacked Dan as one. Cody grunted, moving ever forward, his wounds healing as fast as the bird’s could inflict them, the chain whistling above his head. Its hard steel links battered skulls and snapped bones, but the birds did not turn from their murderous task and neither did the dead man. He moved forward still, crunching lifeless beaks beneath his heavy boots, and above him the chain flashed in the moonlight, slick with the boiling black blood of the carrion birds’ fallen brethren.

  Bodies hailed down around the man until he was ankle-deep in feathered corpses.

  Still he came on like something unleashed from the gates of hell. The birds pecked ferociously, eager for a taste of his flesh, but the man hardly noticed their attack. With his free hand he tore the crows from his body in impatient handfuls, tossing them aside like crumpled black paper.

  The caws grew sparser. The man grew stronger, his heart thudding wildly. He was covered in the blood of his enemies, but he did not care. Fresh sweat stung his eyes, and his muscles burned with exertion, and heat pumped through his body with every breath he drew.

  But he did not care.

  It felt good to be alive again. Very, very good.

  I helped you now you help me!

  The chain whirled on. Dan looked to the sky.

  I helped you now you help me!

  The sky was black . . . but now stars waited there, shining brightly.

  I helped you now you help me!

  Now there was light, if only from the stars, if only from the bone-colored moon. Dan swung the chain and chopped the final remnants of winged darkness from the sky, and the last carrion crow fell at his feet, and he kicked its corpse aside.

  Then there was no sound in the dump but Dan Cody’s ragged breathing . . . and the painful rasping of one lone black bird.

  The Crow fluttered weakly on the ground, several feet from where Dan stood.

  Dan’s arms ached from exertion, but he bent down and gently lifted the wounded bird. The Crow’s eyes were closed. Still, the bird’s steely beak found Dan’s lifeline, traced the shallow, callused gully there.

  Dan said nothing. There was nothing that needed to be said. He only smoothed the bird’s feathers with a gentle hand. Soon the Crow’s body grew warm beneath his touch, and he could almost feel a dark pulse beating beneath its feathered flesh.

  It was a strong pulse.

  Dan knew.

  He shared it now.

  Yucca Valley, Arizona

  The Crow circled in the night sky black wings gleaming like some unnatural constellation that couldn’t be charted by mortal eyes.

  Dan watched it, wondering at the bird’s strength. Somehow, they were connected. Dan couldn’t understand how, but he sensed the Crow’s thoughts urging him onward.

  But Dan wasn’t ready to move. Not yet.

  The bird had brought him back from beyond the veil. He knew that. One tap of its beak upon his chained prison and the fatal gunshot wound to his chest had scarred over, and his heart had begun to beat again. Another tap and the tom ligaments and smashed cartilage in his knee healed. One final tap and his shredded shoulder muscles knit together, filling his flesh like cold, hard cemetery marble.

  Dan was strong now, strong enough to pound a chained freezer door off its hinges. But his strength did not bring him joy, for the Crow had not resurrected Leticia. Her corpse still lay inside the white tomb.

  Her skin was stained crimson, and Dan was reminded of the roses he’d brought for Leti just a few hours ago. Hours. Dan shook his head. It seemed that a hundred thousand years had passed since the moment he’d bought the flowers.

  In that moment, the world had been new and full of promise, and death had been nothing . . . nothing at all. But now death was everything, and Dan was left with nothing. The burst of exhilaration that had coursed through his veins as he’d killed the carrion crows was gone, and he didn’t know if he could ever get it back without Leticia at his side.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice bitter.

  The Crow spread its wings, dropped from the sky, lighted on Dan’s shoulder. You are asking why I resurrected y
ou, and not Leticia.

  “Yes.”

  I can bring only one soul back from the grave. I had only two choices.

  “Why choose me?”

  Would you have Leticia stand here in your place?

  “Yes, goddamn it!”

  Really, Dan Cody? Would you really want Leticia to feel what you're feeling now?

  Dan fell silent, his heart pumping pain, regret, sorrow.

  “No,” he whispered.

  Now she sleeps. And her sleep is sweet, and she sleeps in a place where pain can never wake her.

  The bird spread its wings and left Dan’s shoulder. A few flaps and it landed on the ground. It cawed again, calling Dan, and he walked to the place where the bird waited.

  The Crow’s black beak worried the garbage. It pecked through a sack of trash from a suburban home—Halloween candy wrappers, a child’s drawings of vampires and werewolves, an empty tube of fake blood, a set of plastic vampire fangs . . .

  The Crow discarded these things with busy twists of its beak. Deeper in the bag, under a torn piece of cardboard stamped with suitably gothic script, were two small plastic containers of foundation makeup, only partially used.

  One stark white. One jet-black.

  The Crow tapped each container in turn, then nudged them toward Dan’s feet.

  Dan looked down, between his scuffed Wolverine work boots. The boots were now dappled with bloodstains, fine droplets gone nearly black on sand-colored suede.

  As if waiting, the Crow cocked its head and stared at Dan with black eyes like bullets. Dan couldn’t look away from the eyes set in the bird’s tiny skull, for what he saw there was more than darkness.

  He saw another man, face painted, a stranger whose expression was equal parts harlequin, demon, and angel.

  Without thinking, Dan bent low and picked up one of the containers. The Crow’s voice filled his head. I can help you, the bird said. But you must help me. We must work together. Do you understand?

  Dan didn’t speak. The wind picked up. Brittle shards of garbage churned in the night. Dan saw the man with the painted face standing before him like a ghost delivered by the night, and he saw other men . . . and other women. Each of them had faced the moment Dan faced now, and each of them had chosen to walk beneath the shadow of the Crow’s wing.