Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  Where are you going? it called. We have to hurry if we're going to stop Kyra Damon. We don't have much time.

  Dan swallowed hard. His throat was dry . . . dry as a dead man’s gullet. Still, he kept driving, rocks banging hard in the truck’s wheel-wells, fat tires hissing over sand.

  Finally, he pulled to a stop. The Crow circled above him.

  Dream or vision? Dan wondered. Reality or imagination?

  A hundred other questions churned in Dan’s skull. He couldn’t answer one of them. Not by himself. To find an answer, he’d have to trust another. He didn’t know if he could do that, either.

  He opened his mouth. There was only one thing to say, and he’d say it to the Crow.

  “Kyra Damon said you lied to me.”

  She'll say anything to stop us.

  The Crow swooped over the hood of the Dodge. The first glimmer of morning sun cast a shadow there, and the bird rose in the burnt scarlet sky.

  That was when Dan saw the stars. The Crow constellation, gleaming the way it had in his dream ... or his vision.

  It didn’t belong in this sky at all, but there it was.

  Gleaming even as the sun rose in the east.

  And moving.

  “Tell me about the stars,” Dan said. “Tell me how Kyra Damon stole them from you.”

  We have to hurry—

  “Tell me what she’s after.”

  We don’t have time for this—

  “Tell me the truth, or I’m not going anywhere.”

  The Crow cawed, nothing but a rusty bark. No answer at all.

  “Have it your way,” Dan said. He took Eldon Carlisle’s pistol from its holster, and he stepped out of the Dodge Durango. His boots hit desert sand, his stance set wide. He raised the pistol, aiming at the sky—past the scarlet horizon, through the purple haze, beyond the bright blue face of morning, to a small cluster of stars.

  No, the Crow cried. You don't understand—

  “Then make me understand, dammit.”

  No-

  Dan opened fire. The big Colt bucked in his hand, and the bullets flew far but they could never reach the stars.

  That was Dan Cody’s truth, and he believed it. He had always lived in the real world, or at least a world he imagined was real. A world where bullets could never reach the stars, and black-feathered crows could not blur the borders of Life and death, and dead men could never, ever, under any circumstances, rise like Lazarus and walk.

  It was a world where the eyes you were born with were the same ones socketed in your skull when you died. A world where vision—like perception and its stubborn twin, reality—never changed.

  That had been Dan Cody’s world for nearly twenty-five years. It hadn’t changed until he met Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin. Leti understood dreams and visions and perceptions. She understood that reality did not come with set parameters, or an owner’s manual, or a money-back guarantee. And, most of all, she understood Dan Cody.

  Now Leti was gone. And Dan didn’t know what kind of world he had entered in the wake of her death, and his own.

  But someone knew. . . .

  The Crow circled high above Dan’s head.

  High enough for a bird . . . but lower than any star.

  Dan redirected the barrel of the Colt .45.

  The metal sight fell in line with the Crow’s wings . . . and it was just as dark.

  Dan’s finger trembled on the trigger.

  “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Now.”

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  The Crow constellation loomed above Las Vegas, and Johnny Church's '49 Mercury raced toward the city as if it were some dark Bethlehem.

  There was no outrunning daylight, though. Not for Church, who hunched behind the wheel like a black leather gargoyle . . . not for a jabbering exhibit of the cannibal's lost art that went by the name of Raymondo . . . not even for a woman like Kyra Damon. Inevitably, the stars faded from view, and soon Kyra blinked a single sandpaper blink and when she opened her stolen eyes the constellation Corvus was quite suddenly gone.

  As if someone shot it right out of the sky, Kyra thought. But that was impossible. The constellation would return when darkness fell, and when that happened she would find the exact destination that her vision demanded.

  It would be difficult, but Kyra knew she could wait one more day for that to happen. Until then . . . well, it wasn’t like it was hard to find a place to stay in Vegas, or a thousand twisted ways to occupy her time.

  Kyra could certainly use some rest, if she was up to such a mortal pursuit. Not that she’d really have time for sleep. There was a lot to do in the space often or twelve hours, before darkness blanketed the desert and her clear blue Crow eyes turned once more to the stars.

  Kyra smiled. There was time for everything, really. Time to get things done, and time to enjoy the moment. She’d earned that time, the same way she’d earned the things she was determined to take from the Crow, the same way she’d earned every precious, desperate moment of life that she’d ever enjoyed or endured.

  Kyra Damon had bought every ticking second of it with anger and rage, with bullets and blood and a big piece of her soul. It was hers. All of it. She knew that now. She saw it clearly with eyes she’d stolen from another woman, a woman who probably hadn’t even understood the depth of her own power.

  Everything Kyra had ever wanted was finally within her reach.

  She’d have it all, and soon.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to take the time to enjoy the moment.

  After all, it wasn’t every night that a girl got herself married . . . and Kyra wasn’t thinking of anything quite so mundane as her impending nuptials with Johnny Church. That kind of union didn’t matter to her. Men and women stood in front of ministers and slipped rings on their fingers all the time, then they slipped them off and called a lawyer. That was nothing new.

  No, mortal marriage didn’t interest Kyra Damon, any more than Johnny Church did. That wasn’t what this was about, not at all, though poor Johnny couldn’t understand that.

  Johnny was interested in making Kyra Damon his own. First, last, and always.

  But Kyra was interested in another kind of union.

  A union with a black bird.

  A union with its power.

  Daylight broke over the hills to the east, swept down jagged crags and filled the gullies with a purple glow that blazed red and simmered orange as the sun rose higher and higher, until at last the burning sphere was free of the hills and its rays broke across the flat, barren expanse of the desert, sparking a scalding glint off the barrel of the Colt .45 Dan Cody gripped in his hand.

  The dead man aimed at the black bird circling in the sky above him.

  Don’t pull the trigger, the Crow warned. If you do, you’ll finish both of us.

  “I’m not so sure I care anymore.”

  You care. You know you do. You care about Leticia—

  “Yes, I do. But Leticia’s dead. You said so yourself You brought me back, but you can’t bring her back. The woman I wanted to spend my life with is buried in a hole in the ground.”

  We can still save her. Together. We can stop Kyra Damon and her consorts. And when we do that, you and Leticia will be joined for all eternity.

  “And how will eternity be for her without any eyes?” Dan said, tracing the Crow’s path with his pistol. “That bitch carved them out of Leti’s head like a couple of trophies. Now Kyra Damon sees the world through the eyes of a Crow. She sees things. Things that have to do with you and your power. I want to know what those things are, and why they frighten you.”

  There are some things you can’t know, some things you can’t understand—

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right—I can’t understand . . . but Kyra Damon can?”

  Kyra is not like you. She has visions. She sees things other people can’t even imagine.

  “Leti had visions. I didn’t always understand them, either, but she never hid them from me.�
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  The bird circled above, silent, leaving no sound on the wind, no words to fill Dan’s head. But the silence didn’t matter. Leti’s words were already there, locked in Dan’s skull. Her visions were with him always. Visions of the two of them together, visions of the life they’d have . . . and visions that had come to him unbidden, of a wedding gone horribly wrong, of a wedding turned into a funeral for a blood-spattered bride.

  Dan’s gun hand trembled. He swallowed hard, his voice shaking as he went on. “One thing’s for sure—Leti won’t ever have another vision, because Kyra Damon stole her eyes.” He cocked the pistol. “I may be as blind as she is, but you aren’t. You know why Damon wanted the eyes of a Crow Indian. You know why she’s following a moving constellation that’s named for a Crow. And if you don’t tell me why those things are happening, and why Leti had to die. I’ll blow your feathered ass south of eternity and eat your carcass myself”

  Even if I told you . . . you wouldn’t understand. There are no simple answers. There are only more questions—

  “Then there’s no use in talking anymore,” Dan said.

  He raised the gun and pulled the trigger, and the pistol’s report obliterated the desert silence like a brutal thunderclap.

  When the sound was gone, all that remained was the anguished scream of the Crow.

  Kyra Damon and Johnny Church spent a couple hours trolling the theme resorts on the strip. They eyeballed the Luxor, New York New York, Caesar’s Palace, The Mirage, even The Bellagio. Hey, money wasn’t an object. They had plenty of that, and they got more whenever they needed it.

  They didn’t hit ATMs when they were low on cash, the way the no-hopes did. No savings or checking accounts for Mr Church and Ms. Damon. No credit cards. Johnny and Kyra didn’t believe in plastic.

  They believed in steel—snub-nosed and long-barreled. And gunpowder. And bullets. And the greenbacks those three components brought them when they waved said hardware beneath the noses of a long line of clerks and tellers and nine-to-five functionaries of every stripe.

  So the killers could afford to be selective when it came to choosing their wedding night digs. They turned thumbs down on several signature Vegas neon and concrete nightmares—none of them were what you’d call goth-intensive.

  The Excalibur was a little closer. At least it looked like a big castle. But there was too much King Arthur crap for Johnny’s taste, and Kyra didn’t like the whole Renaissance Faire ambience. That was hippie shit. Kyra wasn’t staying in any tie-dyed Disneyland on her wedding night. No fuckin’ way.

  So they kept on going, down the Strip, through the longest goddamned stoplights in the entire civilized world.

  Waiting at those lights, they spotted a three-story skull with gas-torch spewing eye sockets, and they figured they’d found the right place at last.

  About twenty minutes and two blocks later, they drove right through the skull’s open mouth and into a patented Vegas fantasy land. It wasn’t quite goth, of course. The hotel was called Skull Island, but that was kind of misleading because the place was really a riff off the King Kong shtick. There were lots of palm trees and penned up tigers and bellhops in safari gear . . . even an animatronic giant gorilla in the showroom, or so the desk clerk said.

  But Kyra and Johnny could overlook all that plastic Bwana Devil merch, because there was plenty of cool shit, too. The place was leopard-print intensive, and while neither of them really went for the whole Tiki bar thing—fuck Raymondo’s opinion, thank you very much—they both had to admit that the Skull Island bartenders mixed pretty mean zombies.

  Rum warmed Kyra’s stomach like a blowtorch notched to blue flame. Her pale cheeks glowed. Sure, she had a lot to do—lay down thirty-five bucks for a license at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau, find a wicked place to get hitched, get a cool dress to get hitched in (and who knew how long that would take in this hip-to- be-square town)—but she wasn’t going to do any of it right now.

  She could wait, just a little while.

  Enjoy herself, and relax, for once in her life.

  The suite was too nice to waste. After a couple of drinks, all that leopard-print didn’t look as tacky. And then there was the bathtub, set right in the middle of the room.

  The tub was really the shit. Big circular thing. Fiberglass, shaped like a human skull with the top lopped off Kyra was soaking in it now, luxuriating in hot water scented with essential oils . . . yarrow to open herself to cosmic vibrations and strengthen her psychic abilities . . . attar of black roses to draw negative energies toward her . . . clary sage to access destructive forces and induce disturbing dreams.

  Room service zombies were good . . . but hey, this was the perfect cocktail.

  Stir well and enjoy.

  Johnny was in the bathroom. He’d caught a quick shower, and now he was gabbing with Raymondo. The two of them were laughing. Johnny, throaty and alive. Raymondo, dry as a desert breeze.

  Johnny came out of the bathroom wearing coal-black Levi’s and his tattered Blasphemers T-shirt. “I’m going out for a while, babe,” he said. “I wanna get me some wedding duds.”

  “Sure,” Kyra said, lounging in the steaming bath. “Have fun.”

  “I’m taking Raymondo with me.” Johnny shook his head and laughed, and then his voice dropped to a whisper. “This’ll blow your mind, Ky.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The little fuck wants to marry us. Isn’t that a scream?”

  “Get out of here! Raymondo can’t marry anyone. He’s no minister.”

  “He says he is. Says that when he was in that cannibal stew pot with those South American missionaries, they made him an honorary preacher man. Taught him the secret handshake and everything. Between that and his indoctrination into the black arts at the hands of that heathen witch doctor, he figures he’s got all the bases covered.”

  “That’s wild.” Kyra sipped her zombie, getting used to the idea. “Do you think we should let him do it?”

  “Only if he can find a tux. And a body to fill it out.”

  Kyra grinned. “Maybe you could drop by Toys R Us. Check out the Barbie section, buy a Prom Date Ken complete with burgundy tuxedo. All you’d have to do is pull off the head.”

  An indignant little voice from the bathroom: “I heard that, Ms. Damon.”

  Kyra laughed. “Eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, shithead.”

  Johnny fastened the studded collar around his neck. Then he got Raymondo and knotted the shrunken head’s hair to the chrome loop in the middle of the collar.

  “Don’t go talking to our little sidekick in the middle of the casino,” Kyra warned. “I don’t want you getting in some fight with Skull Island’s security cops. Knowing this place, they’re probably outfitted like cannibal headhunters. You might end up like Raymondo.”

  “Forget about it,” Johnny said. “No one’s gonna even notice a shrunken head around this place. They’ve got talking robot heads in every Tiki bar. Anyone notices Raymondo, all they’re going to ask me for is directions to the gift shop where I got ’im so they can buy one, too.”

  “Well, be careful on the Strip. Lots of shitheads out there.”

  “Baby, this is Vegas. Pirate ships sink every hour. Volcanoes blow up every fifteen minutes. White tigers fuck in front of an audience every five seconds. Elvis still walks these streets. No one’s going to notice anything.”

  Kyra had to go with Johnny on that one. He bent over the tub and gave her a kiss. And then he was gone, taking Raymondo with him, and a pleasant silence closed around her.

  Silence, but not darkness. The suite faced east. Its big windows mirrored the sunrise. Kyra sipped her zombie and watched warm tendrils of light filter through the sheer gossamer blinds.

  Sunlight had never looked quite so golden before, quite so alive. She sensed power in that light, a power different than any she’d ever contemplated. It was as if she were tapped into the sun somehow, as if it were filling her up.

  Maybe i
t wasn’t the sun that she was feeling. Maybe it was the Crow’s power, settling down in her flesh like the slow burn of immortality.

  Or maybe it was just the rum. Kyra laughed, a little sloppy, a little drunk. Either way, she didn’t want to close her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep, where she could only see things that were already locked in her skull. She was seeing things differently now. Had been, almost from the moment she’d carved the Crow bitch’s eyes right out of their sockets.

  Everything was different. The constellation Corvus . . . and Johnny and Raymondo . . . and the sunrise . . . and now Kyra herself

  Everything was different.

  Kyra stared into the light. It grew brighter, whiter. It filled the sky. It filled the room. But the light could never fill Kyra Damon. It could never wash away the shadows trapped inside her pale flesh. Kyra knew that.

  Those shadows were the strong heart of her.

  They would be with her, always.

  With her new eyes, Kyra saw that clearly.

  Clearly, even as she drained zombie dregs from her glass, even as she leaned back against the sloped curve of the tub and the hot water lapped against her shoulders . . . even as she closed her eyes, though she didn’t really want to . . .

  . . . even as she slept.

  The bird swooped toward Dan like a black nightmare.

  Dan pulled the trigger as the Crow came on, but the pistol was empty. Not that his bullets had done him any good. The bird was an elusive target—much too fast, darting and diving and changing direction, wings slicing the air like knives—and every one of Dan’s six shots had pierced nothing but air.

  But it was the bird’s turn now. Its wings slapped Dan’s face as it attacked. He turned away, swinging the empty pistol in a murderous arc, but his blows were as ineffective as his bullets. The bird had already moved on.

  And returned. Talons raked the gun barrel, and a sharp beak plunged into the back of Dan’s hand. Pain jabbed him as if a nail had been driven through his flesh, and he dropped the pistol, lashing out at the bird with his free hand curled into a fist.