Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  “Huh?”

  Kyra’s new blue eyes sparked. “Just because I said I’ve eaten, Johnny, that doesn’t mean I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “You will, if you’re a good boy.”

  Kyra turned and walked toward the mausoleum.

  She walked slowly, one hand still on the chrome necklace’s delicate links, uncoiling the thin chain from around her neck.

  As she reached the threshold, she dropped the necklace on the ground.

  And quite suddenly, the strangest thought sprang into Raymondo’s mind.

  Bait for the trap, he thought. Bait for the trap . . .

  Johnny stood at the mausoleum’s entrance, staring through the ornate, wrought iron gate at the woman within.

  Kyra Damon, supine and still as death on a sandstone vault strewn with spent rose petals, could have passed for an erotic work of funerary art—a seductive statue with bare thighs spread invitingly wide, her skin as smooth as translucent pearl.

  Her nakedness—except for a black leather bustier and lace-up dominatrix boots—didn’t surprise Johnny any more than it had at the dump, when Kyra had chowed down on that stray cat.

  Not that Johnny minded. A cat entree or a naked woman ... it was all cool with him.

  Johnny’s eyes lingered approvingly over his companion’s lithe lines. Hey, if Kyra Damon wanted to fuck him in a mausoleum, who was Johnny Church to rain on her funeral parade?

  Moonlight illuminated the arched, stained glass window on the opposite wall. A portrait of the Madonna and Child stared serenely down on Kyra. The Christ Child’s hands were outstretched, an amber halo glowing above its gleaming glass curls. Moonbeams shone through the Virgin’s eyes and poured luminous pools of blue light onto Kyra’s bare white breasts.

  Beneath the window stood an elaborate altar draped with Spanish lace. White tapers in silver sconces flickered there. Golden light glowed softly against sandstone walls, painting the framed portrait of the dead woman whose sharp eyes seemed to stare disapprovingly at the unredeemed sinner who stood in the doorway of her final resting place.

  Yeah, well, dead's dead. That was Johnny’s take on the situation, and all the Santeria shit in Mexico—or whatever this crap was— didn’t mean squat to a man who had only three gears.

  Johnny unbuckled his chrome-studded leather belt, let it drop to the ground with a heavy clink. “Time to shift into second,” he said.

  His right foot lashed out. There was a harsh metallic clang as the wrought iron door squealed open and smashed against the inner wall, and a smattering of ancient sandstone showered to the floor

  Kyra sat up suddenly, crimson-black hair slashing her throat like thin lines of blood. She raised a beckoning finger, and her nails were long and black and shiny as beetles.

  “There’s a good boy," she whispered. “Come to Mistress.”

  Johnny, ever obedient, did exactly as ordered. That was the way this game was played. Right now it was the way things were—Ky the top, Johnny the bottom—but pretty soon . . . Well, pretty soon it would be another way.

  The way it would be when they were equals.

  The way it would be when they shared the power of the Crow.

  Kyra hooked a long finger in the chrome ring on his dog collar Johnny started to pant. He couldn’t help himself Kyra looked like a bitch in heat.

  “You’re such an obedient boy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “You’d do anything I asked, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Because I’m stronger than you, aren’t I, Johnny? Right now I’m stronger than you can imagine, and I could make you do anything . . . anything—”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed. “But I won’t. Not tonight. Because you’ve pleased me tonight. You’ve done everything I asked. Tonight all I want is for you to be strong, Johnny.”

  The big gearhead didn’t need to hear another word. He slapped Kyra’s fingers off the dog collar, grabbed a good handful of that long dark hair and roughly thrust Kyra’s head backward.

  Blue eyes sparkled up at him like shards of smashed stained glass.

  “Man,” he said, because he couldn’t believe it. “What happened, Ky? How’d that Hardin woman’s eyes end up in your head? How’d—?”

  “We’ll talk later,” Kyra said. “Right now, there’s something else we need to do.”

  Crimson-black hair swung down over the edge of the vault, cutting the air like a gleaming pendulum blade. Johnny leaned over Kyra. His lips were close to her throat, the one part of Kyra that was rarely naked.

  “You really do want it bad. Don’t ya, little girl?”

  “What do you think, you son of a bitch?”

  Johnny bit her. Hard. Kyra gasped sharply as his teeth closed on her warm flesh, but Johnny couldn’t slow down. He was way past ready to explode. He ripped Kyra off the vault by her hair, twisting her around so her delicious little backside was facing him.

  Johnny didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He wrapped a muscular arm around Kyra’s exposed throat. Tight, but not too tight. Just the way she liked it. And then he growled—deep and guttural, as if some primeval darkness had been unleashed within him— and he was rewarded with a sexy little shudder

  Oh, yeah. Johnny Church was pure male. Guaran-fuckin’-teed.

  He slapped Kyra’s ass, hard enough to leave red fingerprints.

  “Nasty dog,” she said with mock severity, and Johnny grinned, secure in the knowledge that he was one lucky man. Insatiability, versatility, and a sinner’s eye for twisted venues. Kyra Damon had it all, and she was reaching out for more every second.

  More strength. More power Kyra had taken everything she wanted, the same way she took the Crow woman’s eyes. Now she’d made those eyes her own. Johnny didn’t know why she’d done that, or how. He didn’t care.

  It didn’t make any difference, really. Because he was in on this deal. He and Kyra were partners, the very best kind. Everything she latched onto was going to come his way, too. Johnny’d make damn sure of that.

  Pretty soon, he’d have some power of his own.

  He stared down at Kyra, imagined her wearing his brand for life.

  Yeah. It wasn’t hard to imagine.

  Johnny grinned. When he had his own black mojo, this was the way it would be. Exactly.

  This way. His way.

  He pulled her toward him with one hand, but she twisted out of his sweaty grasp and slipped onto the vault. A second later there was a boot heel against Johnny’s solar plexus.

  “Uh-uh, stud,” Kyra said, shoving him hard, because she wasn’t one to give up so easily, and that made Johnny all the hotter He stumbled backward, slamming into the dead woman’s altar. Oranges bounced across the sandstone floor. A plaster statue of Jesus exploded at Johnny’s feet. Maria Elena Ramirez’s photograph landed facedown in a crackle of shattering glass.

  “You trying to piss me off, Ky?”

  Kyra smiled a razor blade smile. Her eyes locked on Johnny’s, and she nodded slightly . . . just like she had back at the Spirit Song Trading Post, seconds before Johnny pulled the Magnum’s trigger and blew that Indian bitch right out of her moccasins.

  Johnny knew what that nod meant.

  It meant: Do what you want to do.

  Do what you have to do.

  License to do what the black muse demanded. That’s what Kyra called it.

  License to take charge. That’s what Johnny called it.

  Kyra’s new eyes burned through him. She lay back on the vault, parting her raised thighs, revealing her shaved sex—a glistening, pierced, hot pink flower. Staring, Johnny peeled off Dan Cody’s gore-splattered leather jacket, dropped it on the floor of the tomb. Slid out of his Blasphemers T-shirt, his leather pants.

  He stood before her, naked, his muscles pumped with exertion and desire. Waiting.

  “Come,” Kyra said. ‘‘Now.’’ And Johnny moved toward her like an animal free
d from a cage. Soon she was beneath him, and he felt the wild beating of her heart as he pressed against her She wrapped her arms around him and raked his bare flesh with sharp black fingernails that might have been talons. Angry scarlet welts wept down his back.

  Do what you want to do.

  Do what you have to do.

  It's for both of us, Johnny assured himself. It's what nature demands of a man, and a woman. Primal and undeniable. It's what Kyra wants, deep down there in her gut and her stained soul, what she really needs—

  Kyra’s hands drifted to Johnny’s neck. She unbuckled the heavy, chrome-studded dog collar. The silver caught the moonlight. Black leather snapped in her hands.

  “You ready for me, Johnny?”

  Man, was he ever. His heart pounded like a jackhammer.

  Kyra slapped the buckle hard across Johnny’s face. He drew in a hard breath as a divot of pain throbbed deep in his cheekbone.

  “I just asked you a question, Johnny.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Then do it.”

  Johnny slapped her. “I don’t need your permission. I’m not asking for it. Not anymore.”

  Johnny yanked the dog collar from Kyra’s hands and pressed it to her windpipe . . . right across the pale lavender scar she almost always concealed with a necklace or a scarf

  The scar a hangman’s noose had left on Kyra’s very white neck.

  Man, sometimes Johnny couldn’t believe that someone with Kyra’s confidence had tried to kill herself He still didn’t know why she’d done it. Not really. Oh, he knew the kind of hate she kept locked inside her heart. He knew the way that kind of hate could burn . . . just like sulfuric fucking acid.

  But, hey, like someone said—life is tough and then you die. Johnny hadn’t had it easy either, but the idea of killing himself had never crossed his mind. For Johnny, life was about making up for disappointments, not giving in to them. He wanted to run the clock down, drive it hard and fast and get what he could while the getting was good—

  “Harder,” came Kyra’s strangled whisper.

  “Anything you want, babe.” Johnny grit his teeth, pressed the stiff leather band against Kyra’s scarred throat, the force of his weight behind it.

  Hard, harder As hard as she wanted it.

  Ten seconds ticked by. Twenty . . . then thirty.

  Do what you have to do.

  Do what you want to do.

  Kyra’s eyes were different now. They were blue, and they had once belonged to another woman. But the look that came into them was more than familiar to Johnny.

  It was a look he’d never forget as long as he lived.

  It was the same look Johnny had seen when he walked into his busted-up little apartment house in San Francisco’s Mission District one night and discovered a woman he didn’t even know hanging there in a nasty little piss-soaked stairwell, rope knotted around a banister, feet dangling inches above a threadbare carpet, green eyes bulging like she could suddenly see everything in this world and the one that lay beyond.

  Everything there was to see.

  In the mausoleum, Kyra opened her mouth, tried to breathe. Johnny didn’t let her. Her fingernails dug into his hips, made crescent moons of blood that glistened on his hot skin. She pulled him close, then inside. He slid in easily, came within seconds, an explosion of pure pleasure that seemed to shatter his skull as if it were made of sugar.

  A couple seconds later, it was the same for Kyra.

  Johnny released the collar, hands shaking.

  Kyra gasped, filled her lungs with huge gulps of air.

  Johnny stared at her, spent. She opened her mouth, and he knew exactly what she was going to say.

  The same two words she’d said when he cut her down in that shitty little stairwell.

  Those words weren’t thank you.

  All Kyra said was: “The Crow ..."

  Kyra closed Leticia Dreams The Truth Hardin’s eyes as the leather strap pressed down on her neck.

  Inside her mind, everything was dark.

  Dark and electric.

  First, she saw the things she always saw, the bright flashes of memory that came as the air died inside her and her lungs began to burn like napalm.

  A man. A classical musician. Her father, a violin tucked beneath his chin. Strong fingers, lean and beautiful, clasped around a bow as she waits, breathless. The sound: Peter Warlock’s "Bransle.” The sensation: rapture, and love, and a reverence for hands that can make such exquisite music.

  Later. The same hands turning angry. Striking Kyra (though Kyra is not yet her name), throwing his child across the room like a broken instrument.

  And a woman comes. Kyra’s mother Hair swinging like severed catgut strings. Screaming at an artist whose favorite medium is human pain.

  The girl who will be Kyra. Frightened, barefoot, running down a spiral staircase. Shouts and threats chasing after her.

  Later A voice, strung-out soprano, on the telephone. A hand tight around Kyra’s small wrist. "It won’t be forever. Mom,” Kyra’s mother said. "Just until we get back from Europe. He can’t create with a child around. She irritates him. If you can just take her for a while.”

  Another voice, a man’s, tenor A moaning Marat in the bulging claw-foot bathtub, percussion of hissing water drops against tiled floor, the shrill strains of an original violin suite echoing against a vaulted ceiling. "I have lost all, I have lost all... ”

  Years pass among relatives. One year after another, spent in the silent solitude of a closed room. Books about music, and an, and banished tribes. Books about death. Later, books about sorcery. The casting of spells. The performance of rituals. The transcendence of the soul. Secret verses and esoteric songs. Sunrise, sunset. . . through all the solstices and all the equinoxes. But nothing brings back what she has lost.

  A voice remembered. Tenor "I have lost all, I have lost all... ”

  All but the pain. And the pain settles in her heart like a hard black seed until it takes root and bears fruit, and she eats of the fruit, and the fruit stains her lips black, for the fruit is poison. . . .

  There is no way to escape this world of the living in which she walks, no way to find the world of the dead. No way to escape the taunts of children at the philistine school she attends, children who laugh and speak in whispers about the girl who dresses in black.

  Later. Older children who laugh not at her but at death itself who dance like Dia de Los Muertos skeletons in empty warehouses. They smile their ecstasy smiles and listen to her deepest secrets. Then they use her, and use her again, until they are finished and there is nothing left to use, and still the danse macabre continues, for there is always another empty warehouse, always another empty drug.

  No sorcery. No spells. No transcendence of the soul.

  Nothing at all, but the cool black surf of drugs in veins beneath her pale skin.

  But still she survives ... on the streets now, reduced to walking bones amidst the stink of human sewage. Filth and degradation. Begging for money. Pound of flesh traded for anything that could make her feel, if only for a hot surging moment. And always someone else who wants to use her. But there is nothing left. Nothing left and she has no more to lose.

  So she stops selling herself

  Instead, she gives herself away.

  To those in the cult.

  Ritual sex majick. That's what these men claim to practice, and they take Kyra for an acolyte. There are thirteen men and Kyra, and they take the only thing she has that is still worth taking with words that lie, words that promise power

  But the thirteen men in the cult have no power. Not really. They only have cocks, like all other men. And they have cameras, cameras with which they make videos, recording their ceremonies for a select clientele.

  Smoke and mirrors is what it all amounts to. No majick at all. Only men in robes gang-banging a little strung-out goth girl. A power fantasy for the weak, set to the music of a supplicant’s eager whimpers, played out on a stage set with alta
r, rack, and other singular devices of the torturer's trade.

  Kyra does not realize this at first, of course. She is afraid, and she is much too weak to discover the truth through all the lies. She only knows that it comes to her, unbidden.

  This time, the truth finds her.

  For it lives in a book used by the men, a book written in Latin from which their more learned members recite wicked prayers they cannot begin to comprehend. To them, the book is only window-dressing, a script to be recited in empty voices.

  But the book itself is not empty. It is bound in the tattered hide of a sinner, and it is not like the men at all. Instinctively, Kyra knows this. She cannot read Latin, but she understands that the book has power, understands that it is calling to her and her alone—

  Kyra studies the book when the men have finished with her, when they need sleep as all men do. She flips its faded leaves one by one, studies strange symbols and drawings she cannot begin to understand. She is drawn to the book at every free moment, when the men drink their wine, and when they tell their lies, and when they turn to other women—

  Which, of course, they do. For they are not what they say they are, these men, and they do not even believe the words that slip from their mouths, and so they tire of Kyra.

  They turn to other women. Once more, Kyra finds herself on the street. But she will not stay there. Not now. Not when the book’s secrets call her. So she waits for the right moment, and it is not hard; it is not hard to wait because the men in the cult don’t even know what they have, not really. To them, the hook is no more than a prop.

  She waits for a moonless night, waits outside the cult house in the cold until the eager whimpers of her replacement fade within its dark walls.

  The chanting ends soon afterward, and Kyra is sorry for that. The voices that carry the words are empty, but the words themselves are from the book, and they strengthen Kyra’s resolve.

  Soon the lights dim, and Kyra steals into the house.

  All is quiet, save for the quiet slosh of gasoline in the large plastic can she carries at her side. She finds the book, and it is as warm to her touch as an expectant lover. She holds it to her chest, and there is no sound at all now, but she can almost hear the words that live within, and she can feel the true power those words hold.