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. . .”