Crow Shine

by Alan Baxter

  “Walk away, Johanssen. Was that so hard to understand?”

  David spun around, an involuntary whimper escaping. The Suit looked angry and resigned. “What the fuck, exactly . . . ?” David gestured behind him.

  The Suit stood halfway up metal stairs leading to the mezzanine. David saw movement up there too and looked away, unable to take in any more. “Why didn’t you just walk away, Johanssen?”

  “You killed Boris, you bastard!”

  “Boris?”

  “That’s what I called him, he couldn’t even remember his name. What did you people do to him?”

  The Suit laughed. “What did we do to him? We looked after him.”

  “By shooting him in the head?”

  “That was unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate? That’s a bit of a fucking understatement.”

  “There are some things that are beyond the control of everyone, Johanssen. And some things you should just leave well alone.”

  David was unsure what to say, what to do. Let’s just say that I’m a company man, here to take care of some business. What sort of company was this? This whole place was like a teenager’s fevered dream. “Who are you people?” he asked.

  The Suit made a rueful face. “There are some things you should just leave alone and some things, Johanssen, that you would not be able to understand. Everything here is both of those things.”

  The sensation that had drawn David here swelled under his ribs, threatening to burst him open like an egg dropped to a hard floor. He gasped, clutching at his chest. The Suit extended his right hand, palm up, towards David. He grabbed at something invisible in the air and pulled his hand away. David felt as though his heart had been torn out through his chest. He cried out, staggering forward, fell onto one knee. He distantly registered laughter from somewhere in the enormous room. His whole body swelled with agony, brightness flashing through his mind for a split second, then everything went still. He fell forward, catching himself on both hands, moaning as he dragged air into his lungs. The sense of imperative had gone. Any connection he’d had to The Suit was severed. He sat back on his heels, staring up into the man’s face, his hatred raw. “Who. The Fuck. Are. You people?”

  The man laughed again. “You should be dead, you know. You’re stronger than you think.”

  “Is that right? I feel about as strong as a piss-soaked tissue right now.”

  “That echo I left behind should have fried you if you went back there. Instead it empowered you, led you to me.”

  “Lucky break for me, eh?”

  “No, not really.” A moment of genuine sadness wisped across The Suit’s face, like a cloud across the moon.

  “You said you were on company business when you killed Boris. What does that mean?” More laughter from the room beyond. David knew he was the only person not in on the joke. “Who are you?”

  “You can call me Michael.”

  “That’s a start I suppose.”

  Michael smiled. “But it won’t do you any good.”

  People had stopped to watch their exchange, the TV ignored, the games paused. Even the people fucking had stopped, completely relaxed in their nakedness, invulnerable. “What sort of company is this?” David asked. He sneered at their smiles and chuckles. “Some kind of secret society?”

  Michael laughed again. “Something like that, I suppose.”

  One corner of David’s mouth hitched up in disdain. He wasn’t going to keep making a fool of himself. He stood, staring the fucker down even though he felt like pissing his pants. Michael was humouring him. He could be swatted like a fly at any moment, but he wasn’t. He was past caring and had every intention of pushing his luck until something broke, even if that turned out to be him. “Well?”

  Michael sighed. “You like Shakespeare, Johanssen?”

  “What?”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Hamlet, act one, scene five.”

  “That supposed to mean something to me?”

  Michael shook his head, suddenly angry. “There are more things in heaven and earth, David Johanssen, that are dreamt of by your philosophies. You broken, weeping, frightened children of the void, asking all the questions and expecting there to be answers. Well, fuck you too, little man. You’re nothing, but there are rules. Rules binding both of us. So fuck off.” He turned and started walking up the stairs.

  David started after him. “Wait a fucking minute, you pompous prick. I need answers and I’m not going . . . ”

  Michael gestured with one hand. Something unseen lifted David off his feet and slammed him into the wall. He yelped, the wind rushing from his lungs, his head cracking sharply against the plastered bricks. Stars and comets burst behind his eyes. Immediately the mood in the room changed from one of amused observation to determined action. Several men stood and moved in on David. Michael resumed his climb up the stairs, disappearing onto the mezzanine. Strong hands grabbed David, hoisted him, thrashing, into the air. They carried him through the small office and launched him over the metal steps out onto the street. He cried out as his shoulder cracked and he rolled over on gravel and broken glass. Without a word the men turned and closed the door behind them. David writhed on the ground, angry tears squeezing from his eyes. The huge white building behind him cast its shadow across the road. With a sob of pain and impotence David staggered to his feet and hobbled out into the heavy sunshine. He probably needed a hospital, but he’d start with a pub.

  4

  David sat in some nameless bar, a shot glass cupped between shaking hands. He was battered and bruised but fairly certain nothing was broken. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he could move it. The booze took the edge off, though he was determined not to get blind.

  Walk away, Johanssen. He had tried to walk away, in the alley, and that strange sensation had pulled him back. Pulled him back for a beating. Now that compulsion had gone and he should walk away again. Now he could, but was damned if he was going to.

  Whatever this thing was, it was certainly bigger than him. Who the hell were those people? Some kind of paranormal old boys’ club? Government? High society? They obviously didn’t care about anyone else, and he was clearly one of the little people in their eyes. And what of the powers he had seen? Michael, if that was his real name, had tossed him aside like a finished apple core.

  “It really depends just how badly you want to know.”

  A tall, lithe woman stood beside him. She wore a figure hugging black dress, barely concealing every line of her. She leaned one elbow on the bar. His eyes travelled from her stunning face, taking in long, shining black hair, deep inviting cleavage, the smooth rise of one hip, firm thigh, pale skin over long calves. When he pulled his eyes back up she was smiling. “You like?”

  David sputtered. “Sorry, I . . . sorry. I’m drunk.”

  “That’s okay. I do tend to have this effect on men.” She said the word “men” like an alcoholic might say “whiskey”.

  “Who are you?”

  “Lily.” She pulled up a stool and slid onto it, leaning forward, pushing her ample cleavage towards him deliberately.

  “Given the last couple of days I’ve had,” David said slowly, “this is almost certainly not what it seems.”

  “Oh, you can fuck me if you like.” She waved the barman over.

  David watched, his heart pounding, as the barman’s eyes roved down and back, helplessly swallowed by her. “Er . . . yes, love?”

  She smiled crookedly. “Red wine?”

  David could almost see the steam escaping the poor man’s ears. “Sure.” He tore himself away and fumbled among the glasses.

  “You see,” Lily said. “I have this effect.”

  David’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an expert at playing it, I’ll give you that. You are gorgeous, but you could play it down if you wanted to.”

  She pouted. “Such a pragmatist, really? I didn’t say I didn’t like it. So you want to fuck me?”<
br />
  “More than you could imagine. But with all the messed up shit that’s been happening to me, I can’t see this ending well.”

  She shrugged, winking at the barman as he handed her a glass. He didn’t even think to charge her. “Good, bad, it’s all relative,” she said.

  “You see, that’s what I mean. That’s trouble talking right there.”

  “How badly do you want to know about Michael?”

  David shook his head. “No, no. This is messed up, too. How do you know anything about me? How do you know I’ve been mixed up with this Michael fucker? How did you know I was here?”

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve had a tough time, huh?”

  She leaned forward, taking a handful of David’s shirt. She pulled him closer and planted a kiss on him, hot, wet, full lips pressing against his. Every part of his body fired, neurons in overdrive, his heart pumped, his cock hardened. He had never experienced anything so passionate. She took one hand as they kissed, pressed it over her breast, down her side, across one firm thigh, up under the skirt of her dress.

  David gasped, pulling away. He ached for her, wanted to drag her to the floor right there and then and fuck her brains out. He felt as though his cock was about to explode. But something terrified him too. Something powerfully bad, addictive, intoxicating. She leaned back, smiling at him, eyes smouldering.

  Her aura surged with waves of power, the colours so dark. She was sexual desire personified but so much more than that. She was darkness and rage, vindictiveness and revenge. She was terrifying.

  He staggered up off his stool, knocking it over in his haste. He had to get away. Run away before this woman sucked him into a deep blackness that no man could escape. She sat demurely, watching, smiling.

  “You’re bad, lady. You’re fucking incredible, but you’re bad.”

  She laughed and it heated his soul. With a cry like a terrified child David ran, pushing between a couple who cursed him as he burst out onto the street. He ran until he saw a taxi, then fell into pine scented safety and told the driver to take him home.

  *

  Sitting on his bed, looking around the one-room hole he called home, David trembled. Images of Lily swam across his mind like the afterburn of looking at the sun. Every curve of her, her scent, her taste. He was still hard. With a sound of dismay he dropped his trousers and beat away until he exploded across the floor, hating himself, disgusted. The images were still there, sliding across his brain. He fell back onto the bed, appalled at what he had become. A man of nearly forty lying in a bedsit with his trousers round his ankles. Wet, heaving sobs erupted from him.

  Sometime later he kicked off his trousers, pulled off his shirt and socks and went to the shower in the tiny bathroom off the corner of his tinier kitchenette. He stood under cool water, fighting off the summer humidity, staring at his feet, thinking of nothing. When he returned to the bed he glared at the Ouija board propped up against the wall. The thing that had started it all. The thing that had cursed his life. Driven by sudden fury he stood and lifted one knee. With a remorseful cry he drove his foot down against the board, snapping it against the wall, splinters flying. Sharp pain speared the sole of his foot and was matched by splinters through his soul. The board lay broken, ruined, crooked against the wall. He spent ten minutes picking tiny shards of wood from his foot.

  Feeling drained, if not really any better, he reached for his phone. After a few rings Stella answered. “I’m sorry I hung up on you.”

  That was a surprise. “I wanted to call to say sorry for shouting at you.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Oh, David.”

  There were several seconds of silence. Eventually he had to break it. “I am sorry I yelled at you. I’ve been having a harder time than usual. I know it’s hard for you too, with the boys.”

  “The boys are both in school. I could do something. But, you know, when you work you stop getting benefit and it’s hard to get work that pays better than the benefit. Sometimes getting a job would actually make me worse off.”

  “I know, I know. It’s a fucked up system. But I really am giving as much as I can.”

  Silence again.

  “What did you mean, harder than usual?” Stella actually sounded concerned. He could hear some of the old Stella in her voice, the Stella who cared.

  “I don’t want to upset you.”

  She sighed. “More hoodoo shit?”

  “Yeah. But you know what, I didn’t go looking for it. It kinda found me and I’m trying to shake it off and I can’t.”

  “David, you need to leave all that stuff alone. I wish you could stop drinking, stop fucking with all that stuff. I wish you could be like you used to be.”

  “So do I, Stell. Believe me, so do I.”

  Silence hung again, an aural magistrate judging the weight of his fuck-ups. “I’m worth more to you dead, aren’t I?”

  “David!”

  “The life policy, still in the kids’ names if not yours.”

  “David, shut up. I don’t want to hear you talk like that. You may be a useless occultist drunk, but I don’t want your death on my conscience.” Just like the old Stella.

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Yeah, I’m just sayin’. I’m worth a lot more dead than alive.”

  “Most people are these days.”

  “I’m in something deep, Stella. I’m going to try to leave it alone, but I’m scared.”

  “Listen to yourself. Don’t do anything stupid, David. Maybe we should get together and talk.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should. But I have to finish this first. I can’t just walk away.”

  Stella’s voice was suddenly tight, he could hear tears in her throat. “You’re scaring me now.”

  “I’m sorry. Listen, it’ll be okay. I have to sort this shit out and then I’ll call you. I’ll call tomorrow night and we’ll sort something out. I really would like to see you, talk properly. I miss my boys, Stell.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Call me in the morning.”

  “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  He dropped the phone onto his bed and his face into his hands. The sobbing started again. Great, snotty heaves that only subsided as he slipped into a troubled sleep.

  *

  Lily stood at the end of his bed, smiling, her head tilted to one side. David was hard. “I’m dreaming, right?” His voice hoarse.

  “Dreams, reality.” Her voice was low, tempting. “Like good and bad it’s all shades of grey.”

  She slipped her fingertips beneath the hem of her tight black dress and peeled it up over her head, cast it aside. She stood there, unashamedly naked, watching him watch her. His eyes roved all over her, not a blemish, not a single part of her anything less than perfect. He tried to find her face again, distracted by milky, firm curves, dark nipples. Eventually he met her smiling eyes. She leaned forward, crawled over him, moving like a cat. He arched his back, sucking in air as she took hold of his cock and mounted him. Hands on his chest, hips rolling back and forth, she rode him slowly. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, David?”

  “You’re bad. You’re really, really bad.” He curled his hands into the sheets, trying to retain some kind of control. Instead he reached for her breasts.

  “Really, David, what is bad? What is good? We don’t live in a black and white world. Shades of grey, remember?”

  David worked with her, moving with the roll of her pelvis. Never in his life had he felt anything like this. He opened his mouth to speak but could only moan.

  She smiled again, grinding deeply against him. His hands found her hips, the perfect curve of her arse, and pulled her down harder, staring at the unbelievable beauty of her. “You may not be able to see me as anything but bad, but I’m not as ba
d as Michael, am I?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know . . . what . . . don’t . . . ”

  “We’re all shades of grey, David, even you. But Michael, oh, he’s as dark as grey can get, isn’t he? He killed your friend.”

  Half coherent thoughts struggled through the mist of lust in David’s mind. Since when did Boris become his friend? “I don’t know what to think!”

  She began to ride harder, faster. “Don’t think, David. You know. Michael is a bad man. He killed your friend. He beat you black and blue, threw you around like a doll. You can finish him and you can be done with all of this.”

  David panted, heart pounding along with his cock. His body thrummed with impending climax. “Done with it?”

  She rode harder and faster. “Kill him, David. Kill Michael. You’ll be done with it all. At the very least you’ll have avenged the death of your friend. That poor, lost man!”

  David breathed out incoherent sounds, electric currents flooding every fibre. His back arched, hips lifting off the bed, lightning cracking through his brain as he came more forcefully and completely than he ever had before. It went on and on, pulse after pulse, wave after wave. After an eternity he collapsed back onto the sweat soaked mattress, droplets coursing across his neck and chest, running in tickling rivulets down his sides. She leant forward, kissed his lips, slid off him. “Kill Michael, David. It’s the least you can do. You can strike a blow against the company.”

  Chest heaving, drawing as much air in as he could, cursing the heat of the night, David tried to form a thought. “The company . . . What do you know about the company?” She was gone. Still buzzing he fell back on the bed and slept like the dead.

  *

  The sound of ringing, atonal and electronic, pushed into his brain. Blinking against the light he rolled over, feeling around the bed, eventually finding the phone. TERRY FUHRER. The time read 9.18. “Shit.” He pressed the button to answer. “Hey, Terry. I’m really sorry.”