Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  The boo-teek, as Johnny had called it, was open by appointment only.

  Naturally. The little sign that dangled from a gold chain—no doubt solid gold—on the other side of the glass door said so in carefully painted, impeccably grammatical script.

  “Shit, Ky,” Johnny moaned. “I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else.”

  An appraising glance from Kyra chilled Johnny.

  "You can’t be the man I’m going to marry,” she said, knowing just how to get to him.

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “The man I’m going to marry wouldn’t let a silly little sign stop him.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Johnny laughed. “Fuck if I’ll let any- thing keep your inner-fashion-chick from finding satisfaction today.”

  Johnny’s wallet was connected to his belt loop by a chrome-plated chain, and he yanked it like a gunslinger drawing his weapon. His thick fingers plucked a wad of money from folds of oil-stained leather.

  “Watch this, babe,” he said. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  He pounded on the door, held the bills up to the glass. Soon sharp little footsteps sounded inside the shop, and a shadow fell on the glass as a slim silhouette approached on the other side.

  A silhouette that shook its head at the sight of Johnny’s greenbacks and turned away.

  “Fuck that,” Johnny said, because he didn’t give up so easily.

  He added more bills to the wad, then knocked again, louder this time.

  And this time, he got what he wanted. The woman who unlocked the door was a dark-eyed Asian beauty, model-thin, dressed in a crisp, monochromatic Vera Wang suit. She took the money from Johnny’s hand, slipped it into her pocket without even making eye contact.

  “My time is valuable,” she said. “I hope you understand that.”

  “Sure,” Johnny said, not complaining at all. “I’m cool with the price of admission.”

  The woman held up a hand. “I can spare you thirty minutes . . . and not one minute longer.”

  Then she turned on her heel, and showed Johnny and Kyra her back.

  They followed her into the boo-teek.

  Johnny Church locked the door behind them.

  He felt like a real man.

  The kind of man Kyra Damon would marry.

  Dan Cody clutched the steering wheel, driving much too fast, oblivious to the hazards of a scarred desert landscape that jostled his dead bones and made the Durango’s shock absorbers scream.

  As pain went, this was minimal. Dan had already endured the main event. He couldn’t forget that.

  One more time, he felt the .357 slug ripping through him. But this time he wasn’t facedown on his belly. This time he could see Johnny Church, see the twisted expression on the bastard’s face as he pulled the trigger.

  And that wasn’t all Dan saw. He saw Kyra Damon, too, a demon standing at Church’s side with a Mountain Clan Crow knife clutched in her slim-fingered hand.

  Dan didn’t want to see what Kyra would do with that knife. But he saw it, all the same. The image was branded on his brain . . . etched in stereoscopic gore on both scratched lenses of his sunglasses like an inescapable mirage waiting just ahead in the desert.

  But Dan knew that this was no mirage. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, rushing toward a memory.

  No, Dan! Stop! We have to wait. . . for the stars! For—

  Dan Cody wasn’t listening to the black bird. As far as he was concerned, the time for waiting had come and gone.

  Like a ’49 Mercury the color of lamb’s blood on the fast track to hell.

  “You’ve got a wonderful body,” the Asian woman said, her almond eyes traveling from Kyra’s snatch to her breasts. “It certainly suits your look.”

  The woman smiled as her eyes found Kyra Damon’s, and her smile was like a slap. Kyra knew just what that smile said: I don’t care how much money your boyfriend has, you silly little slag. You’re way out of your league, and we both know it. Don’t come to me with your lips painted like rotten plums and your bad bathroom dye job. Don’t come to me with cheeks dusted with glitter, and those bruises on your skin where your lover has sucked you raw, and your trashy off-the-rack clothes covering your nasty tattoos and piercings. Don’t come to me, my dear, unless you have a masochistic appetite for smiles that sting like slaps.

  The slight didn’t bother Kyra. Not really.

  She knew how to play the designer’s little game.

  “I guess we’ll have to take our business elsewhere, Johnny,” she said, winking, and the big road dog was smart enough to pick up her cue.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Publicity people ain’t gonna like it, though. They wanted something really special for the cover shoot, and Rolling Stone can’t hold off more than a couple of days.”

  The Asian woman’s eyes sparked.

  Not smiling now, are you, bitch? Kyra thought.

  But Kyra didn’t so much as grin. “Oh, excuse me,” she said evenly. “I should have mentioned: we’re in a band.”

  “Black Mariah,” Johnny added, going into bullshit overdrive. “We got a new CD coming out in three weeks. European tour starts in four”

  “We’re busy busy busy,” Kyra said. “No time for anything. And then this big sweetheart goes and proposes.”

  “Hey, love can’t wait, baby. Not for publicity departments, and not for appointments. What good’s a little fame if you can’t do what you want, when you want?”

  “I understand perfectly,” the designer said. “I’d love to show you a few things.”

  “All right.” Kyra slipped Johnny another wink, then took a turn around the shop with the designer at her side.

  The little starfucker was nice as pie, now . . . hungry for a little celeb cache to come her way. Kyra realized that was the only reason the designer was being nice to her, and she wasn’t impressed.

  Dismissively, she glanced at the woman’s merchandise. Lots of lace and satin and silk. Chains of stitched pearls and translucent trains by the yard. Silk duchess satin strapless gowns, and puffed sleeved sequined abominations, and clinging sheaths that would only look good on little boys . . . and silk organza wraps over all. Dress after dress after dress, and they seemed to come in three colors.

  White . . . whiter . . . whitest.

  The designer knew she was striking out. She was getting a little desperate, trying to keep Kyra as far away from the front door as possible, trying her best to find a dress . . . maybe in bone, maybe in ivory, and here’s another in silver starshine . . . just one dress in that white blizzard of designer merch that would fit the bill—

  Now it was Kyra’s turn to smile.

  Kyra’s turn to slap.

  She turned to the designer, raised her chin just slightly, looked down her nose.

  "I was hoping you’d have something in black,” she said.

  A white dust cloud rose from the desert floor.

  Before it, dragging the cloud like a tattered shroud, raced a dead man behind the wheel of a Dodge Durango.

  The Crow’s wings scythed the sand-choked air. The black bird fought to keep up with the Dodge, but the man named Dan Cody was pulling away . . . and he was doing it in a perfectly ordinary vehicle.

  Johnny Church’s ’49 Merc was supercharged by Kyra Damon’s dark powers, and the Crow had managed to catch it just the night before. But that was when Kyra Damon still had green eyes. Since then, Kyra had joined with her vision ... at least the first part of it. And now her eyes were blue, and she was stronger, and the Crow was weaker.

  But the bird was not helpless. It still had strength, and it would not surrender until every ounce of that particular commodity was gone.

  Dan Cody was strong, too. Willful. But he had to listen. He had to wait for the night, and the stars. If he headed off in the wrong direction, they’d lose valuable time.

  And losing time would bring disaster—Johnny Church would slip a wedding ring set with black diamonds onto Kyra Damon’s finger.


  If that happened . . .

  No, it wouldn’t happen.

  The Crow wouldn’t allow such a blasphemy to occur

  Not in Dan Cody’s world.

  And not in the world of the Crow.

  Kyra and the woman were in a dressing room, a place of perfume and mirrors and reflected truth where a man like Johnny Church wouldn’t dare set foot.

  “It’s a perfect fit,” the designer said, her eyes traveling Kyra’s body as if the young woman were a work of art. “The dress was definitely meant for you.”

  Kyra stared at herself in the mirror. The designer was right. Kyra Damon was a dark dream, as beautiful and desirable as she could ever hope to be. No doubt about it.

  The dress was black satin, and tight, and sheer. Strapless, revealing one alabaster shoulder naked and smooth, the other cloaked in a wispy spiderweb of ebony organza. A lowslung belt of the tiniest black pearls embraced her hips and a wild slit slithered up one thigh. Silk bound her small breasts so tightly that she burned with the heat of arousal, her nipples hard little rocks that even the preacherman would see. The final touch; a choker like a strangler’s hands—all midnight opal and ebony and sharp chrome slivers— eclipsed Kyra’s scarred neck.

  The dress was perfect.

  Fashioned for another—a celebrity’s bride—but meant for Kyra Damon.

  Kyra knew that. She felt it deeply, like her vision.

  And the knowledge made her shiver.

  “You designed this dress for Lilith Spain?” Kyra asked.

  “Yes. Ms. Spain was quite explicit about the design. We even had plans to do a new line together. But her fiance didn’t like the dress.”

  “Erik Hearse?”

  “Yes ... he favored a Ravenna gown from Rista Rosa. Very sleek, very low cut. . . very unblack."

  Kyra raised an eyebrow.

  “Hearse insisted on—shall we say—more virginal wedding attire for his bride.”

  “Mmm.” Kyra ran her hands down the black length of her silk- clad thighs. “Nothing like a case of the Madonna/Whore complex to push that old fashion envelope, is there?”

  A slight smile slid over the designer’s perfect lips. “He got his way, of course. He is the star, after all, though she’s the one with the bloodlines. Her mother was an actress and her father was a director, you know.”

  “Oh, I know,” Kyra said, without a trace of sarcasm.

  To tell the truth, there was nothing she didn’t know about Erik Hearse. Not with the way Johnny obsessed about the guy. Johnny wasn’t much of a reader, but he bought any rag that featured an article about the Blasphemers lead singer—from the most amateurish fanzines to monthly slicks that came jammed with perfume ads.

  Kyra stared at her reflection, remembering one particular magazine. “I saw Hearse and Spain on the cover of People after the wedding. Didn’t like her dress at all. Lilith made a big mistake.”

  But secretly, Kyra was glad that Erik Hearse (ne Hershkowitz) had gotten his way. She wasn’t surprised. He’d been riding high since his comeback, and he’d obviously gotten hot enough to start believing his own publicity.

  For her part, Kyra thought it was pretty funny. A serious case of big-kid-itis. Hearse had spent the last few years making up for all the lean years he’d endured since first hitting it big. After making a successful comeback, he’d bought everything he’d ever wanted. Cars and mansions . . . even a cemetery, if Kyra remembered the story correctly. Plus he’d purchased a younger face courtesy of cosmetic surgery, bright new appliances to decorate that face, $20K in new tattoos, and toys and guitars and friends and enemies . . . and then there was his horror collection.

  To which he’d just added the ultimate prize.

  Lilith Spain.

  Outside of the fact that she spoke German, French, Italian, and English fluently, Lilith wasn’t much in Kyra’s opinion. Just another Euro-trash diva headed for a serious meltdown. According to the tabloids, Lilith started modeling at twelve. By the age of fourteen, she was a regular at Rome’s seedier nightspots. At sixteen she did her first nude scene, in one of her father’s films. After that she began grinding out quickie horror films, usually playing a leather- clad vampire, usually ending up naked and dripping blood. By the time she hit twenty-two, she’d had two marriages, five abortions, and three trips to rehab for a nasty little heroin habit that had started in her modeling days. As far as Kyra was concerned, the girl had issues they didn’t even have names for yet.

  That didn’t matter to Erik Hearse, of course. Seeing Lilith’s promo pictures in Fangoria and Deep Red, he was hooked. After all, he’d practically gone through puberty looking at Lilith’s mom, Amanda Irons, up there on the silver screen. Young Erik Hershkowitz had jerked off to Amanda’s movies when he still had his first guitar, and now he owned every one of them on Japanese laserdisc—and uncut, too.

  His Amanda Irons collection didn’t stop there. He had special photo albums, limited edition collector publications, bootleg tapes of Irons’s appearances on Italian television, even home movies he’d bought from a European source on the Web. He couldn’t help but add Amanda’s daughter to his collection. For Hearse, Lilith Spain was a true daughter of darkness—as close as he’d ever get to his very first wet dream.

  Hearse had plans for his new bride. That was how the story went. Big plans. Svengali plans. With his horror background Hearse figured he was built to play producer/director, and he was bent on recreating his bride as an Amanda Irons for the nineties. He wanted to trap her on celluloid, keep her there for all eternity as his greatest creation.

  According to the music industry grapevine, Lilith wasn’t holding up too well under the strain. And Kyra knew what that meant for the scream queen’s daughter: Meltdown, here I come.

  Kyra smiled, staring at her reflection, running her hands over cool satin. Let the little slag self-destruct, she thought, long as she doesn’t do it in this dress, it’s okay with me.

  “You know,” the designer said, her fingers brushing the gown, “I really shouldn’t be showing this to you. Lilith and I almost had a deal . . . and almost seems good enough for Erik Hearse. His record company has a large legal department and Hearse doesn’t seem reluctant to use it. The last thing I need is more lawyers in my life.”

  “I have a record company, too,” Kyra lied. “And lawyers.”

  “I’m glad we see eye to eye.”

  “Yes,” Kyra said. “We certainly do. I’ll take the dress.”

  The Asian woman smiled. “Wonderful.”

  Kyra turned . . . just one more look in the mirror.

  The Asian woman stood behind her, placing a hand on Kyra’s alabaster shoulder, ever so softly.

  The woman found Kyra’s gaze in the mirror.

  Perfume, and mirrors, and reflected truth.

  “You have beautiful eyes, Kyra.”

  “They’re not mine.”

  Kyra smiled, and the woman laughed quietly, so the sound would only find Kyra’s ear.

  “My name is Connie.”

  “How exotic,” Kyra deadpanned.

  “I apologize if I was rude earlier. It’s been a difficult time for me. Losing the Lilith Spain line cost me a lot of money. I’d already made investments when the deal fell through, plans based on prospective income—”

  Kyra turned, and the dress seemed to embrace her as she moved. “Perhaps we can work something out,” she said. “I’m sure my management team would find the prospect interesting. If you come up with some figures, a proposal. . .”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Kyra turned her back, brushed black organza from her shoulder.

  “Unzip me?” she asked.

  Connie touched Kyra’s shoulder, traced the delicate ridge of her spine.

  The designer smelled of sandalwood and jasmine.

  The zipper whispered down.

  Kyra stripped off the dress.

  It was just as well.

  She didn’t want to get any blood on it. At least, not so soon.
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  And working with a knife was always messy.

  The Crow’s warning chased Dan Cody through the desert.

  Dan could barely hear it. Not when he saw Johnny Church lurking in his memory. He had a score to settle with that pin-faced lowlife, and as far as Dan was concerned he couldn’t meet up with the tattooed SOB fast enough.

  But the big gearhead was just the appetizer. Dan pressed the gas pedal to the floor, trading his mental portrait of Church for a snap of Kyra Damon. The little noose-maker herself When Dan caught up to her . . . man, what he’d do would make that little tango she’d danced at the end of that rope seem like a slice of heaven—

  Wait! the Crow cried as it struggled to keep pace with the truck. You don't know where you're headed! If we're going to find Church and Damon, we have to wait for the stars—

  Yeah, Dan thought sarcastically, and the alignment of the planets, too. There was no sense waiting. There was only one place a couple of slags like Kyra Damon and Johnny Church would go to get married, stars or no stars, vision or no vision—

  Wait!

  “No more waiting,” Dan said. “I know what I’m doing. I trusted you, and now it’s your turn to trust me.”

  He felt it in his bones. He knew he was right. Where else would a pair like Church and Damon go with a stolen wedding ring?

  A smile twisted across Dan’s scarred face.

  Sure things didn’t exist in Las Vegas. Never had. Never would.

  Except this time.

  Kyra and Johnny left the boo-teek, locking the door behind them.

  Dusk had fallen. It was cooler now.

  Probably not in the Merc, though. Even though the windows were tinted, Johnny’s ride had been sitting in the sun for at least a couple of hours.

  “I bet Raymondo’s broiling,” Johnny laughed.

  “Probably,” Kyra said. "Serves him right.”

  Yes, she thought, serves him right. Him, and everyone else who gives me a whisper of trouble.

  On the way to the parking lot, Kyra passed a trash can.

  She tossed Connie’s tongue into it.