Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  The shrunken head seemed to be enjoying it, though. Raymondo grinned his little stitched grin, flickering eyes staring at Johnny like he was some freak on one of those tabloid talk shows or something.

  A dry little cackle from the head.

  “Don’t say a single word, Raymondo.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Johnnyboy. No single word would be quite delicious enough for this.”

  “I’m warning you—”

  “No threats, Johnny. In fact, you’d better treat me right ... or I’ll sic your wife on you.”

  “You’d better shut up, slag. You’d better do it now.”

  Raymondo tittered. “Sure. Anything you say, Mr. Damon—” Johnny slammed on the brakes.

  Kyra glared at him.

  “I’ll take it from you,” Johnny said, his silver-ringed fingers strangling the steering wheel. “I have to take it from you. But I won’t take it from that shrunken little turd.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Kyra said. “You have my permission to work this out on your own. Because I see it like this, Johnny: you can drive, and Raymondo can’t. And I want to be at Erik Hearse’s mansion ASAP. By tomorrow afternoon, I want to be eyeball-to- eyeball with Lilith Spain.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, Kyra? I need to ask your permission now? I can’t do anything on my own?”

  “Just get me there, Johnny. That’s all I ask.”

  “What about Raymondo? Do I have to listen to his shit, too?”

  “You can always turn on the radio.”

  “You know the antenna’s busted.”

  “Now you’re thinking.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about, Ky?”

  Kyra smiled, glanced at the head. “Even a broken antenna’s good for something ... if you use your imagination.”

  Johnny caught on, grinning through swollen lips, realizing that his mistress had just tossed him a particularly juicy bone.

  Yeah.

  A busted antenna.

  Yeah.

  Dry desert wind lashed Raymondo’s leathery face.

  The shrunken head was impaled on the Merc's radio aerial, courtesy of Johnny Church.

  The Merc whipped across the Mojave Desert, doing eighty miles per. Eighty was bad, but Raymondo knew that Johnny’s car could go a lot faster. If the humiliated gearhead decided to kick the hellfire/nitro afterburners into gear, the shrunken head figured his gristly skin would peel right off his noggin.

  Wind tore at Raymondo’s lips, and they flared into a startled black pocket.

  A very tiny pocket, hardly large enough to hold—

  A moth. Coming right at him. Head on collision.

  Hell's bells, Raymondo thought, really frightened now.

  He fought to close his mouth.

  Didn’t quite make it.

  Inside the Merc, Johnny Church whooped and hollered.

  Gray wings fluttered against the roof of Raymondo’s mouth.

  A road sign shot by on the right.

  Raymondo did the math, calculating the distance to Erik Hearse’s mansion.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Hearse Castle

  Twenty miles south of Big Sur, California

  Lilith Spain lived in a cemetery.

  She stared through her bedroom window at a gothic city of the dead. Erik Hearse’s mansion was located on a remote stretch of jagged California coastline, a world away from Lilith’s native Rome. It was a place of marble and bronze statuary that had endured the ravages of time, a place of Monterey pine and gnarled cypress trees twisted by nature’s cruel hand. A place of spiked wrought iron, and granite-faced angels, and sadness made eternal by a sculptor’s chisel.

  Lilith did not live in a crypt, of course, though sometimes she imagined that she would feel most at home in one. But Hearse’s mansion was the next best thing—it teetered on a rocky cliff at the edge of a cemetery, a dark house of stone and brick and wallpaper the color of old blood.

  Erik Hearse had bought the house two years ago, after The Blasphemers capped their major-league comeback with a pay-per- view Halloween concert. He’d purchased the cemetery in the wake of his renewed success, buying it lock, stock, and columbarium from a consortium of local businessman who found themselves in desperate financial straits.

  Which was not surprising—the town nearest the property had dried up years before, and the cemetery was not exactly a growing concern. Plus there were problems with looters and vandals. The former mined the cemetery for everything from stone sculpture to stained glass to coffins inlaid with precious metals. The latter blazed different trails—cutting paths of destruction through avenues of the dead with sledgehammers and shovels in search of darker souvenirs—worm-picked skulls, and gold-filled teeth, and withered, mummified hearts.

  Erik Hearse, always the good neighbor, had stepped forward with a plan to restore the cemetery the same way he’d restored the adjoining mansion, painting himself a gothic resurrectionist intent on preserving a magnificent collection of funerary art-the aforementioned stained-glass windows (including privately commissioned works by Tiffany), and statuary created by the finest talents of the day, and unparalleled examples of nineteenth-century crypt architecture (witness the monolithic columbarium, a stone tower which housed the ashes of three hundred souls).

  Erik took a pounding in the press, of course. Columnists began calling his mansion Hearse Castle, a sardonic twist on William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon, which lay an hour’s drive to the south. But Erik Hearse was not one to back down when he wanted something, be it fame or a house or a cemetery or a woman. Backed by a raft of publicists who painted him as a patron of the arts and real estate lawyers who were prepared to take any troublemakers to the mat, the resurgent star got what he wanted.

  The same way he got Lilith Spain.

  First the ultimate collectable, much sought after and prized. Then a trophy wife who would double as a tool in Hearse’s Hollywood fantasies, a human puppet to Hearse’s master puppeteer.

  Lilith sighed. Collectable, wife, puppet—she wasn’t up to playing any of the roles her husband had to offer. She was only a human being, and as it turned out not a very strong one at that. She’d come to Erik Hearse because it seemed he had everything she wanted— money, fame, and that most valuable of entertainment industry commodities: access—all the things that could put her on top for the first time in her life.

  She’d known there were things Erik wanted from her, too, things she felt she could easily give because she’d given them so often before. But a person could only give so much. Especially when they’d hit bottom, as Lilith had.

  After the marriage, Lilith discovered that she was too tired to care. Life with Erik seemed nothing but a chore. They never seemed to stop, always traveling here or there for this or that event, always on the run.

  Lilith couldn’t keep the pace. She didn’t want to be seen at parties, or in magazine spreads, or at the innumerable music industry events. She didn’t want to make the effort.

  And she certainly didn’t want to act anymore. She didn’t want to be anyone’s puppet, especially Erik’s, and she didn’t want any part of his plan to reincarnate her celebrity mother through her own flesh while Erik reinvented himself as Hollywood’s next dark genius.

  No. Reincarnation wasn’t for her. Lilith wanted to stay here, at the mansion. She wanted to stay with the dead. Only they could understand her need for silence. Only they knew the pleasures of true quiet, and the intoxicating peace that quiet could provide.

  Lilith knew there was only one way to obtain that peace while she still lived. It came with the bite of a needle, the smooth thrust of a plunger through the barrel of a syringe as warm, numbing comfort entered her veins.

  That was what Lilith wanted.

  To stop.

  And not move at all.

  Not move . . . forever, like the dead.

  But Erik wouldn’t leave her alone, wouldn’t stop pushing her about his Hollywood plans. She returned hi
s overtures with silence. Soon even Erik, the most persistent and self-absorbed of creatures, began to understand that Lilith Spain was not interested in reincarnation, or rebirth, or reanimation.

  So Erik hid her away like a tarnished memory, making her a virtual prisoner at his remote mansion. Because he expected more of Lilith. He’d told her that at least a hundred times since discovering that she’d started using again, as if he were the master and she were a disobedient pet who required firm instruction.

  But Lilith knew that he didn’t care about her. Not really. She was nothing to him . . . except someone’s daughter, of course. She would always have her cinematic bloodline. It was a vampire’s curse and she couldn’t escape it, even here, where her dead mother’s publicity photos stared at her from the walls, where Amanda Irons still walked in black-and-white worlds on television screens ... a ghost that Erik Hearse could never touch, no matter how hard he tried.

  Finally, Erik had reached the end of his rope. Angry and dissatisfied, he had gone to L.A. for another round of meetings. That was his excuse, anyway. He’d left a week ago, after one last big fight, and had yet to return.

  But he hadn’t given up. Not Erik. That wasn’t his way. He’d simply begun a new course of action, leaving behind a team of nurses and counselors and bodyguards to tend Lilith.

  A recovery team. That’s what Erik called them. Lilith knew better, though. She knew that the five people who dogged her steps like shadows were really a team of assistant resurrectionists, bent on aiding Erik’s reincarnation scheme.

  So far, they were satisfied that they’d done their job. After all, they’d kept Lilith away from the junk for a week. But she could bide her time. She’d detoxed before. She knew how to do that. She’d ridden withdrawals, ridden them just to torture herself The slow, empty burn was something that couldn’t be understood by those who hadn’t endured it. But for Lilith, it only made the return to indulgence—and blessed oblivion—that much sweeter.

  One of the team members, a woman with the impossibly pleasant name of Melody, sat in a cozy chair on the opposite side of Lilith’s bedroom, reading a book. She was an anger-management therapist, there to address Lilith’s resentment issues. Lilith knew better. The woman was really nothing more than a deterrent, a watchdog whose presence was meant to keep Lilith from hurrying to the carefully hidden syringes and little plastic packets of bliss that she’d stashed for detox emergencies.

  Lilith didn’t give the woman cause to worry, though. She stood by the window, stock-still. She knew that if she did that long enough. Melody wouldn’t see her at all. And then Lilith would be just like one of her favorite neighbors, the dead who rested in Erik’s cemetery. They knew how to keep still. They didn’t move No one noticed them.

  No one bothered the dead, or asked anything of them.

  They were left alone, in peace.

  To Lilith, the idea seemed glorious.

  So she waited. And she didn’t move. She made a game of it.

  Melody turned a page, shifted in her chair. There were no words from Lilith’s lips to bother her. Only words that never left paper, forever trapped on the pages of a book, and the gentle tap of rain on the windowpane.

  Lilith waited by the window, at first enjoying her new game. She decided that she was very good at being dead. But soon it became more difficult. Her leg muscles began to twitch, and her left calf threatened to knot into a cramp.

  But that only made the game more of a challenge. Standing still wasn’t as easy as most people thought. Lilith wondered how the dead did it. It took a lot of concentration, a certain kind of determination that was difficult to maintain.

  But Lilith was determined.

  She didn’t move. Not one inch.

  She stared through the window, at the rain washing the tombstones and the black earth below.

  She imagined herself beneath the cold embrace of the storm, buried deep in the welcoming earth. Hundreds of bodies rested beneath that ground. All of them, curled together under a blanket of eternal sleep. All of them silent, forevermore.

  Lilith longed for that silence.

  And the company of the dead.

  Johnny and Kyra climbed out of the Merc.

  Cold raindrops pelted them. That was okay with Johnny. The rain felt good on his bruised face, easing the lingering pain from the beating Kyra had dished out.

  Kyra plucked Raymondo from the aerial, then tossed the head in Johnny’s direction. He caught the little fuck in one big fist and laced Raymondo’s hair through the chromed ring of his dog collar without a word.

  Hey, it wasn’t time to argue.

  It was time for action. Even Raymondo knew that. For the first time in Johnny’s memory, the head managed to keep his lip zipped.

  Johnny knew that Raymondo’s silence wouldn’t last, though, so he got down to business. He checked the .357, dropped a handful of extra bullets into one pocket, slipped the gun into a shoulder holster. Then he popped the Merc’s scarred trunk, grabbed some other stuff he was likely to need.

  Black market merch—a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Johnny filled his pockets, then grabbed a canvas pouch with a shoulder strap and started filling that, too.

  A withered little sigh drifted up from under Johnny’s chin as he dug through his stash.

  “Mr. Overkill,” Raymondo said.

  “Stuff a moth in it, dickhead,” Johnny said. “I knew you couldn’t keep quiet for long.”

  “Oh, myyyyy,” Raymondo purred. “Maybe we were wrong about you and the Crow, Johnny. Forget immortality. Maybe the black bird gifted you with psychic powers. Maybe you can open your own psychic hotline.”

  “Yeah.” Johnny slammed the trunk. “Or maybe I can just jam something up your doll-sized gullet besides a radio aerial. Maybe this time I’ll mount you on the barrel of a .357 and let you eat lead instead of bugs—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Kyra said.

  Johnny nodded. He was sick of this whole deal, too. But for him, the next part—the last part—would probably be the best part. Crashing Hearse’s pad, ripping his way straight through whatever security measures the man had to offer.

  Yeah. It was time to spill some serious blood. Finally, Johnny could do that without worrying about the Crow resurrecting his victims. Kyra was strong now, stronger than the black bird, so they didn’t have to worry about the body count anymore. Kyra could squash a dozen Dan Codys before breakfast and not even bat an eye.

  And that sounded like one hell of a plan to Johnny. Man, he needed to feel the burn, needed to melt all the anger and humiliation clean off his soul with some major mayhem, and he figured he wasn’t going to have a better opportunity anytime soon.

  “Give me a couple minutes to get the phone line and the alarm,” he told Kyra. “Then I’ll find a way in at the back, and you can hit the front. If either of us runs into trouble—”

  “Just do your job,” Kyra said. “Show me that I brought you along for a reason.”

  Johnny jerked in his boots as if she’d coldcocked him.

  Man. That was low. He wasn’t going to just swallow that kind of insult.

  But by the time he got his mouth open, Kyra had already turned away.

  And then she started walking.

  Through the rain. Through the cemetery.

  Toward Erik Hearse’s mansion.

  Even though she lived in a cemetery, Lilith had never seen a ghost before.

  She stared through the window as rain sheeted against the pane. Out there, walking among the tombstones, was a spirit. A woman’s ghost. . . Lilith was sure of it.

  Lilith watched, transfixed. The way the creature moved. So graceful. So determined. If only she could have learned to move like that, she would have never wanted to stand still at all—

  The ghost came nearer now, weaving a path through a granite and marble maze. But the spirit did not look at the names chiseled upon the tombstones as she passed them by, and she did not trade glances with the granite-faced angels who l
eaned toward her from cracked monuments, and she did not turn an envious eye upon steepled crypts with cool, dry chambers that loomed in the storm like havens for the wet and rotting dead.

  The rain-soaked spirit’s gaze fell on none of these things, seeking instead the second floor window where Lilith stood.

  Dead eyes met those of the living, and a chill of recognition capered over Lilith’s spine.

  Suddenly, Lilith realized that there was really no reason to be frightened.

  After all, Lilith Spain knew this visitor from the other side of the grave.

  The spirit’s face was pale, the color of a cold moon, with a silver dusting of stars on her cheeks. Her lips were as dark as the rich soil of a grave, and her black hair was matted to her head by wild torrents of rain. And her dress—

  The ghost’s 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 . . . and silk bound her small breasts tightly . . . and a choker like a strangler’s hands—all midnight opal and ebony and sharp chrome slivers—eclipsed the spirit’s neck.

  Lilith Spain recognized that dress, and all too well.

  It was a dress that Lilith had wanted to wear in life.

  It was only appropriate that she wear it in death.

  Lilith watched her spirit through her own reflection on the cold windowpane. It was not such a strange thing, seeing her own ghost.

  Not really. Not when you longed for death. Not when you lived in a cemetery, and the paths you walked were the paths of the dead, paths seldom marked by human footprints.

  When you walked alone in a place like this one, you yearned for a special kind of company. You learned the names chiseled on each headstone, and you visited steepled crypts and found nothing inside but your own hushed whispers, and you climbed the twisting stone staircase of a black-walled columbarium that housed the ashes of three hundred souls, and you spent your evenings among brass urns and black porcelain jars and statues hollowed to hold bitter gray fistfuls of cremains.