Wicked Prayer

by Norman Partridge

  But, once more, the Crow was already gone.

  It sat on top of the Dodge Durango, a placid knot of midnight in the morning light. The bird looked like it had never even moved, let alone driven its sharp beak through Dan’s hand.

  I feel better, Dan. How about you?

  Dan rubbed his hand. Already the wound had healed over, but the pain remained.

  “I guess I deserved that,” he said.

  Maybe. Maybe not... I haven't given you what you wanted. You haven’t given me what I wanted, either Maybe we’re even now.

  “Yeah, maybe . . . but nothing’s changed.”

  Do you still want to know the truth?

  “Yes.”

  Are you sure?

  Dan nodded.

  Then close your eyes.

  “Why?”

  It's simple, Dan. The Crow cawed. You can’t have a vision with your eyes open.

  Kyra Damon’s eyelids fluttered over eyes she’d stolen from another ... as in sleep, as in a dream.

  She was in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a room in an expensive resort hotel, soaking in steaming, perfumed waters in a tub shaped like a human skull.

  But she was really not there at all.

  She was in a vision.

  She was in the land of the Crow.

  And she was not alone.

  Dan Cody stood in the desert, a motionless golem made of dead flesh.

  The morning sun beat down on him the same way it had on a thousand other mornings, relentless and unforgiving as the desert itself. But this morning Dan did not curse the sun’s heat, even though his lips were chapped leather and his tongue was too dry to moisten them.

  A hot wind blew off the arid badlands to the west, carrying the scent of a scorched hell that no man could tame. The wind ruffled Dan’s long hair as it gusted with rising force and slapped his face with sand, but he did not feel the pain that was the desert’s only gift, and he did not turn from its fury.

  Like Kyra Damon, Dan was in a place but not of it. Earthly bonds had been transcended, severed by a blade honed sharper than any Mountain Clan Crow knife. Now the part of Dan that mattered most—the part that made him who he was—had left the desert behind.

  That part of Dan had nothing to do with his flesh, dead or alive. Some called it the soul, but Dan didn’t know about that. He only knew that it was the truest part of him—the part that had fallen in love with a woman named Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin.

  Now it was free of his body.

  Dan had set it free as soon as he closed his eyes.

  And now he stood in the land of the Crow.

  There were tombstones here in this kind of cool fog and dank mists—time-worn monuments alive with moss and shadow. And there were trees. Gnarled pine and cypress with thick trunks and branches that joined in a twisted canopy above Dan’s head, guardian limbs forming a roof that eclipsed the sky.

  If there was a sky here at all. Dan did not know. This was not his world, and this world was no desert.

  A rustling sounded in the air above his head.

  The brittle sound of branches, the soft murmur of leaves.

  The whispering slice of the Crow’s dark wing, like the shuffling of Tarot cards.

  “Welcome," the bird said.

  The man looked up and found the Crow's dark eyes in a knot of twisted branches.

  The bird’s beak did not part. There was much to say, of course. That was true. But there were questions, as well: where to start, and what to share, and what to keep secret.

  That was the mystery of it. That was the power of secrets. The Crow’s survival depended on those secrets. The black bird and its brethren had kept their own council for centuries. Oh, there were rumors, of course, and snatches of truth—legends of the black-winged avenger that found their way into the pages of rare and exotic earthly tomes, ones that were bound in the flesh of sinners. But from time immemorial, no living mortal had ever learned the true secrets of the Crow, for no mortal had ever glimpsed the Crow's realm and lived to tell the tale.

  Until Kyra Damon turned her eyes on this land of twisted trees and black-winged silence.

  Until the Crow denied her lust for unjust vengeance.

  Until Johnny Church cut the rope that should have killed Kyra, and breathed air into her oxygen-starved lungs, and set her dead heart beating once again.

  The bird looked down at the man. Dan Cody did not say a word. He was not like Kyra Damon at all. He knew when to talk . . . and when to listen.

  The Crow said, "It began with a woman, and a rope twisted thirteen times . . .”

  Kyra heard the Crow's voice, hurried to find it in the labyrinth of forest.

  But that was easier said than done. There wasn't even a path to follow, and no wonder This was the land of the Crow, a place of winged travel. It might be that Kyra Damon was the first woman to walk among these trees.

  Ever.

  She didn’t walk, though. She ran. But she couldn’t seem to get anywhere. There were all those goddamned trees, for one thing. And where there weren’t trees, tombstones choked the path . . . old ones covered with moss, cracked and weather-worn and unreadable. Those that could be read bore strange symbols, deep lines that looked like they had been etched by a giant bird’s talons.

  The tombstones rose from the dank ground like broken teeth in a dead man’s skull, and Kyra dodged around them, squeezed between the twisted tree trunks, raced to find the black bird. The Crow chattered on, spilling Kyra’s secrets while she ran. She gasped for breath, sweating now . . . even in the cold.

  The forest floor was soft and yielding beneath her black boots, and her legs began to ache from exertion. An icy breeze tore through her hair. . . foggy, damp as a sponge.

  It was as if she were moving through water.

  Of course, Kyra was moving just that way . . . moving as one moves in a dream. She lay in a bathtub in a resort hotel in Las Vegas, hot water scented with yarrow and attar of black roses and clary sage lapping at her shoulders as her fingers flexed into fists and her leg muscles danced like wild rats trapped beneath her skin. Her neck was slack on the curved lip of the tub, her black-red hair fanned over a painted crack in the fiberglass skull. She tossed her head back and forth—the back of her all-too-human skull balanced on the fiberglass replica, her chin pointed at the ceiling, her white neck with its angry purple scar exposed as if for the coup de grace of a vampire’s bite. She rocked back and forth, more violently now, and scented ripples washed over her shoulders and splashed the wicked scar on her neck as if it were the high water mark for a very bad dream, but Kyra could not banish that dream ... for it was really no dream at all.

  It was a vision.

  Still Kyra ran, the black bird’s words guiding her like a siren’s call. She had no idea whom the bird was addressing, but it didn’t matter to her. What mattered were the words. They stung her like sharp pecks from the Crow’s beak, like raking talons that scored her flesh.

  The bird was telling her story.

  Sharing her secrets with another

  Telling about the stairwell in San Francisco, and the noose twisted thirteen times for luck, and the secret prayer Kyra had made to the dark deity known as the Crow.

  Kyra clenched her teeth in anger The bird was regurgitating her secrets like worms vomited up to feed a hatchling.

  Kyra wanted to shut the bird's black beak. The secrets were hers and hers alone, and she would not have them shared with another

  But the bird kept on, its brittle caw somewhere ahead in the twisted branches, lost in fog as thick as woven ghosts.

  The Crow said, “Like many others, Kyra Damon summoned me with a prayer... a wish for strength everlasting and vengeance and immortality. But her prayer was wicked, and she was undeserving, and I turned her away."

  “Why didn't she die?" Dan asked.

  “Fate . . . destiny . . . Johnny Church showing up with a sharp knife and a rudimentary knowledge of CPR. Select whatever answer suits your purposes ... or your perceptions.
The force that delivered Kyra Damon from death's door is not important. What concerns me is the force that took hold of her soul after I denied her. That force is equal to mine, a true antithesis. It’s evil, black and pure, and it gave Kyra a gift-’’

  “A vision?’’

  “A set of random images, really, filtered through the power of an evil book. But when knitted together through the black arts, with knife and gun and spilled blood, that vision will become a tangible reality, and Kyra Damon will become very powerful."

  “As powerful as you?"

  The black bird’s head dipped, its beak knifing the fog. “Yes," it said. “She wants our power. She wants strength everlasting, and immortality, and—most of all—she wants vengeance."

  “Against you?"

  “Yes . . . and anyone who stands in her way"

  “I get the idea,” Dan said. “The vision is driving Kyra. If she fulfill it, you’re history . . . and so am I."

  “By extension, yes.”

  “Then let me see what Kyra saw. I need to know what I’m up against. I need to know what she’s after.’’

  “I did not create the vision, Dan. The force that lives in Kyra’s book did that. But I am a part of that vision. I have joined with it, just as I have joined with you . . . and with Leticia.”

  “Then I’m a part of Kyra’s vision, too.”

  “Yes, the vision belongs to all of us now. I’m not sure if Kyra understands that or not. But as long as we remember that the vision is ours as much as it is hers, we can turn it to the light instead of the darkness.”

  "What about Johnny Church? Is he part of the vision, too?"

  “Johnny Church doesn’t have a soul. When it comes to visions, he's a blind man."

  “I think we’ve talked enough.” Dan shifted, swallowed hard. “I’m ready to open my eyes and see things for what they are."

  “You already know how the vision begins, Dan—with the blue eyes of a Crow.”

  Dan nodded. “With Leticia’s eyes."

  “Then you know it is a vision born of pain. Are you willing to join with that pain?”

  “Yes,” Dan said. “Whatever it takes."

  The Crow did not say another word. Its black wings spread wide, curtaining the knot of branches that seemed to hold it captive. Suddenly the bird was free of the tree, gliding through the fog like an ebony blade, lighting on Dan’s outstretched arm.

  And in the desert, bird and man did the same.

  The bird drifted over rising thermals, and the man raised his arm toward the unforgiving sun, and the Crow’s talons found purchase in the man’s tattered denim jacket. The bird’s black eye stared at the man’s sunburned face, at the cracked lips that felt no pain.

  For Dan Cody’s lips were kissed by chill, fog-shrouded mists in the land of the Crow. He felt no pain at all. But Dan realized that there was pain yet to come, both in the land of the living and the realm of the dead.

  Spanning the boundaries of two worlds, the Crow stared at Dan Cody.

  In the desert, Dan’s eyes were closed tight.

  In the land of the Crow, his eyes were wide open.

  And he saw:

  A Crow with human eyes . . .

  A blue-eyed bird, black of wing, that became a woman Dan recognized. Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin; her smile open and giving, her hair lush and soft as a midnight breeze, her lips parting as if to answer a question . . .

  But the answer never came, because there was another woman at Leticia's side. Kyra Damon. And before Dan could rescue his love there came screams instead of words or whispers, and darkness like bottled midnight.

  And then pinpricks of light gouged the black sky above, and the stars shone down on Kyra Damon's bloodstained hands and the blue eyes she had taken, and she held those eyes to the heavens and saw a secret in the stars.

  She followed those stars, followed a Crow made of light through a river of midnight to meet her destiny . . . And it was a destiny Dan Cody could not envision, just as Kyra Damon could not envision it, for that destiny had yet to be revealed.

  But Dan saw what would follow in its wake. Someone or something, who waited for Kyra ... or perhaps Dan ... or perhaps the Crow . . .

  It was another woman who waited. Dan was sure of that.

  She was a creature of black hair and white skin, with lips as black as rotten plums . . .

  . . . and eyes as black as marbles . . .

  ... as black as the eyes of the Crow . . .

  ... a woman with Crow eyes.

  Kyra saw two figures up ahead.

  The black bird and the goddamned cowboy.

  Kyra stopped short, hiding behind a tree that looked like it belonged in Hansel and Gretel’s favorite forest. She was breathing hard, but neither bird nor man noticed her, because the wind was blowing in her direction, carrying the voice of the Crow to her ears, banishing the sound of her ragged breathing. The fog was like a river of ectoplasm, and it tasted like death.

  No wonder the Crow’s on my ass, Kyra thought. Anything to get out of this bleak Brothers Grimm hell.

  And it was a bad one. Ninth circle stuff, minus the cheery warmth of fire and brimstone. From Kyra Damon's POV, the place was more depressing than San Francisco’s Mission District. Sure, there weren’t any panhandlers hitting you up for a quarter, no homeless junkies huddled under blankets on every comer, no punk-ska bands practicing in the next apartment who made you want to slash your wrists, but—

  Save it, Ky, she told herself. This isn’t the time for a multileveled-reality compare/contrast session.

  No way.

  This was no time for mental masturbatory bullshit.

  This was time for action.

  Because the Crow was giving up the goods to its chosen avenger. The black-winged bastard was giving up Kyra's vision, leeching it straight out of her. Kyra could fucking feel it happening, like a tap running in her skull. It was a feeling she'd had too many times before and she didn't like it, the same sensation she'd get when she was on the streets—before the book and the rope, before Johnny and Raymondo— and she was hurting, and some smooth-talking asshole coaxed and cajoled her after getting her high and her deepest darkest secrets came sliding over her tongue even though she didn't want them to.

  It had to fucking well stop, and right now.

  Kyra reached under her arm for her shoulder holster.

  It wasn't there, and neither was her Walther PPK.

  Fucking hardass dream, she thought. I can’t even catch a break.

  And then Kyra looked at the black Hansel and Gretel tree trunk just inches from her face.

  Really looked at it.

  Saw the Mountain Clan Crow knife stuck between scabby slabs of bark. Yeah. Right where it belonged. Because this wasn't a hardass dream. It was a vision, and it belonged to Kyra Damon.

  Kyra grabbed the hilt of the knife and freed the blade from the fairy tale tree.

  The blade shone brightly despite the gloom. Kyra smiled. The knife had some serious mojo, all right. She held it up, stared at her blue-eyed reflection in the gleaming metal.

  The knife belonged to her now, the same way the vision did.

  A slight movement behind her.

  A shadow, reflected in the blade.

  “You're wrong, Kyra," came a familiar voice. “You don't own the vision anymore. It doesn’t belong to you . . . and neither does that knife.”

  Kyra turned, startled, the blade gripped tightly in her trembling hand.

  In a second the knife was snatched away.

  Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin stood before Kyra, low fog pooling at her ankles, pitted scarlet eye sockets gleaming in her smiling, bronze-skinned face.

  “I think this belongs to me,” Leticia said, pressing the sharp blade to Kyra’s throbbing jugular vein.

  Kyra wanted to scream, knew that she couldn’t. The knifeblade had her pinned against the twisted spine of the tree, and she didn't dare move an inch.

  Leticia Hardin leaned toward her, empty eye sockets
wet and slick as chopped meat. In the real world, there'd be no way the dead woman could stand there with a knife pressing against the plum-colored scar that ringed Kyra's throat, no way Leticia could so much as see Kyra at all when her goddamn Injun eyes had been carved out of her head, but this was obviously a long fucking way from the real world. Kyra wasn't quite up to testing the bounds of an alternate reality by taking a chance with a razor-sharp blade, no matter how imaginary this world might be.

  Better safe than sorry. That was the way she'd play this one.

  “Smart thinking, Kyra.” A rictus grin crossed Leticia Hardin's face and she leaned closer, close enough so that the raw scent of the dead woman's blood hit Kyra like a couple of rusty iron spikes hammered into her nostrils.

  Leticia's empty eye sockets came even with Kyra's new blue eyes. “Nice eyes,” Leticia said, and only a deaf person could have missed the pained sarcasm in the Crow woman's voice. “I like the color . . . but it really doesn't suit you.”

  Though Kyra was terrified, a ripe fuck you brimmed on her tongue like a conditioned response. But as soon as the first word overflowed Kyra's lips the knife dug in.

  ‘‘You had your chance to talk," Leticia said. “I had to listen to you back there at the trading post. You and your slag boyfriend were quite the chatterboxes. Remember?

  Leticia eased off with the blade, but only for a second. Then she redirected it. The flat edge whispered over Kyra’s cheek until the point neared the comer of her right eye, flicked against Kyra’s eyelashes . . . and then the flesh beneath.

  A single tear spilled from the blue orb and ran the length of the silver blade.

  “Last night I didn’t have a choice," Leticia said. “I listened to you. You treated me like an idiot, like there was no way in the world I could understand your power But I’m not an idiot, Kyra. I know what you’re about now. I’ve seen what you can do. I’m not impressed. Because all you’ve done with your power is spit on mine."

  “I killed you," Kyra whispered. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep silent no matter what price she might pay for her words. “Your Native American mojo can’t save your little red ass in this world any more than your dream catchers could save it in our world. Maybe that’s what happens when you slap a price tag on your magic, put it up for sale in some tourist trap. I’ve got news for you: all the fifty-percent-off flashing blue light special dream catchers in the world wouldn’t have helped you last night. None of them caught the all-American nightmare that blew through your front door like a Halloween wind, did they?"