Johnny sucked a hard breath and floored the accelerator.
“Fuck you,” he told the head.
“No, fuck
you,”
Raymondo retorted.
Kyra shook her head. “Hey Johnny, you think maybe we should have left Raymondo in the window of that antique shop in New Orleans?”
“If you had, you’d both be in serious shit now,” Raymondo said. “Or maybe you’re somehow
unperturbed
by the idea of a
Night of the Living Dead
castoff tearing through that sweet cheetah-skin upholstery covering the backseat.”
Johnny snorted.
“Here’s the way I see it, Johnnyboy,” Raymondo went on, warming to the subject. “After the ambulating dead man chews his way through your precious upholstery, he’ll no doubt hand you a one-way ticket to eternity.”
Johnny swore. “What kind of shit are you shovelin’ now, shortcake? How’s some dead man gonna get to me when I know he’s comin’—”
“Let me tell you, Johnny. He’ll get to you because that’s the only thing in the world he wants to do. That’s a requirement of vengeance, eternal-style, and nothing less will satisfy the Crow. That dead cowboy will do you like no one’s ever been done before. He’s going to bash your head in with a tire iron till it looks like a plate of well-cooked pasta with red sauce, heavy on the meat. I mean, your skull may be
thick,
Johnny, but it’s not
that
thick. He’ll crack it eventually, and then he’ll start scooping, and—”
“Bite me, little man.”
But Raymondo was not so easily deterred. “Then, Johnnyboy, when the Crow’s sidekick is done preparing
that
order, he’ll make Kyra here
eat
the plate of pasta that used to be your head.” The shrunken head grinned. “Extra red sauce? Perhaps a nice pinot noir, my dear?”
“Get real,” Johnny said. “You saw what happened back there at the trading post—it was the
Crow
who ran, not us.”
Raymondo endeavored to let the matter drop. He stared at the backseat, at the crazy amalgam of belongings Kyra and Johnny required for their one-way road trip—a couple battered suitcases
crammed with clothes (nearly all of them black), Johnny’s storehouse of guns and explosives (Church swore that survivalists had the best swap meets, and he definitely knew where to shop), Kyra’s potions and powders and talismans and relics.
Among this singularly Amerikkan shrapnel lay a coffin-shaped matte black box with a red velvet lining. This was one of Johnny Church’s prized possessions: a limited edition boxed set containing a collection of CDs by a punk band out of some New Jersey hellhole. The Blasphemers were, as far as the shrunken head was concerned, Johnny Church’s kind of band all the way—big, muscular morons who toted their instruments as if they were machine guns. Heavy on the Halloween gimmickry, with a double dose of death’s head packaging.
All this came courtesy of the band’s lead singer and one-man brain trust, Erik Hearse. Hearse and his boys had risen from nothing in the mid-seventies and early eighties with an act that featured guillotines and strippers and bloodthirsty brain-splitting guitar work, and they’d stuck around long enough to enjoy a revival with the latest horror rock crowd. At present Hearse was as hot as hot got—with a major label deal, a guaranteed track on any horror movie soundtrack CD, and a line of merch that ranged from T-shirts to video games to comic books, shot glasses, and condoms.
It was all a lot of crap, Raymondo thought. Including the coffin- shaped box set, which included the band’s signature songs, plus enough outtakes and live tracks to send a hero-worshipping idiot like Johnny Church to his knees with his head bowed Muslim-style toward the New Jersey hellhole that had given birth to Hearse and his raw, driving music.
Such was the depth of Johnny’s belief Raymondo knew that to be true.
Just as he knew that the time had come to use that belief against the poor, overstimulated musclehead.
‘“Black Mariah,”’ Raymondo mused out loud. It was the title of one of the band’s hardcore punk-pop masterpieces, to hear Johnny Church tell it. To Raymondo, it was nothing but a trash heap’s worth of noise.
“Huh?” Johnny said, missing the connection. “What the fuck are you goin’ on about now, Raymondo?”
“‘Black Mariah,’” the shrunken head repeated ominously. “Put it on, Johnnyboy. Let’s hear it one last time. Because that’s what you’re driving tonight, and pretty soon you’ll be as dead as your passengers.”
“Get real, Raymondo.”
“Are you afraid of the truth, Johnnyboy?”
“Truth?”
The driver waved a scornful hand. “Dropped that word from my vocabulary a long time ago, little buddy. Along with a fistful of other words:
conscience
and
morality, guilt
and
innocence, responsibility
and
obligation.
While I was at it, I shit-canned all those little phrases most people live by:
A penny saved is a penny earned. . . . Brush after every meal. . . . Truth, justice, and the American way.
Said adios to ten fingers’ worth of commandments, too. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of my favorites. I tell ya, Raymondo, the only church I attend is the Church of
Johnny.
To me, every day is about nothing more than
me
and
mine.”
“So that’s how it is.”
“That’s how it is.”
“Do you mind a bit of friendly advice, Johnnyboy?”
“And what’s that, Raymondo?”
“I think
you
and
yours
better watch your self-absorbed
asses.”
“Huh?”
“Check the rearview, genius.”
"What?"
“Eternity’s hot on your backside,” said the shrunken head. “In fact, it’s almost here. . . .”
The Crow was exhausted.
Chasing a bewitched automobile over miles of hard desert territory, choking on brimstone smoke, burning in hellfire . . . that could slow anyone down, even a messenger from the far side of death.
But rest was a luxury that this messenger could not afford.
This time, the Crow would not be denied.
Weary wings fought brisk downdrafts as the black bird tried to close the distance. The Mercury was far ahead, moving fast. The black bird’s lungs burned with effort, but it would not stop—the bird was made for pursuit.
The Crow could do little else. It was a creature of instinct, built for one purpose by forces unknown and unknowable. Its mission was a simple one. Find those who had been wronged in death—those who were worthy of a second chance—and set the wrong things right.
That was the way of it tonight. Two people had been wronged. But tonight it didn’t end there.
Two lovers had been wronged, but another had been wronged, as well.
The Crow.
The black bird had been wronged by a woman named Kyra Damon. She was a threat, a predator like no other the Crow had ever faced. If the Crow was to survive, it would have to stop Kyra Damon in her tracks.
Righteous anger set the bird’s heart pounding as it overtook the Mercury.
Black eyes focused on the sealed lid of the trunk directly below.
The Crow forgot Kyra Damon and her companions, the forces bent on its immediate extinction. Instead, the bird concentrated its energies on the dead man locked in the trunk.
One instant was all it would take.
A meeting, a melding, a focus joined.
A spark in the darkness, flaring to a vengeful fire that in a handful of seconds would rage out of control.
The bird dived toward the car. Again its reflection gleamed on the polished trunk, but this time a man’s reflection waited beneath the bird’s.
Brown eyes met black on a slab of Detroit steel that shone like the polished lid of a coffin.
The Crow’s claws scraped metal, and the dead man’s hands curled into fists.
The man screamed . . . and so did the bird.
Dan Cody sucked a ragged breath, filling the clammy bellows of his lungs with an acrid mixture of odors: hot exhaust and stagnant air; his own sweat and the stink of death; the sweet black perfume of Leti’s hair and the iron-filing smell of clotted blood that slicked her scalp.
Dan lay there, shaking, locked in his lover’s dead embrace atop a plastic drop cloth. It was pitch-black inside the trunk, and Dan couldn’t see a thing.
Not with his own eyes. But he seemed to have another pair of eyes now. These were black as polished obsidian, and they saw everything—Dan’s own reflection, and the reflection of a bird painting the trunk of the car with its shadow . . . and black wings soaring through a desert night, and a canopy of stars . . .
A spark flared in Dan Cody’s heart, fought to tinder his soul, fought to burn brightly . . .
Bird and man joined as one. Dan’s hands twisted into claws. The wild desert wind whispered beneath his beating wings. Black feathers sprouted from his wounded shoulder, his exploded knee. His talons were strong and sharp and long, and they strained toward the Mercury’s trunk one more time, ready to ignite a wildfire of vengeance—
Gunfire exploded in the night.
A bullet tore feathers and broke ribs, ripping through the Crow’s body.
Pain eclipsed Dan Cody’s senses.
His first breath died in his throat, along with the scream of rebirth.
The bird was gone.
The spark was gone.
For the second time that night, Dan Cody died.
The wind tore at Kyra’s crimson-black hair, whipping it against her face like a lash, but she didn’t care. She leaned through the Merc’s
open passenger-side window, staring at the receding ribbon of highway with a smoking gun clutched in her hand.
In the distance, a wounded bird writhed in pain. Kyra saw it there on the blacktop—just for a second—black and bloody in the glow of a grapefruit moon . . . and then the bird was taken by darkness.
Kyra grinned, cold wind ripping through her tangled hair as she leaned backward out the window, eyes turned to the hungry black sky overhead.
A lot of stars up there. A lot of sky. The
heavens,
that was what some people called it, and that made Kyra Damon laugh. Because, at the moment, she felt as if every inch of that marvelous star- spattered eternity was her own black domain.
Moonlight glinted on the chrome link necklace looped thirteen times around Kyra’s neck. Satisfied, she pulled her head inside the Merc and dropped the .357. The gun made a solid, satisfying thunk as it hit the floorboards.
Johnny Church snatched up the resin-encased scorpion he’d taken from the trading post, used it to beat a voodoo rhythm on the dashboard. “Man,” he said. “Did you see those feathers fly?”
“Kyra’s quite the sharpshooter,” said Raymondo. “I’ll admit that. But the hexed bullets didn’t hurt.”
“Dead man’s tears,” Kyra said. “I only needed a few.” She smiled at the shrunken head, and one last teardrop rolled down its cheek. “Thanks, Raymondo. I’m glad you decided to join the team.”
“Anything for you. Besides, it’s
your
way or the
highway,
as our feathered friend just learned.”
“Do you think the Crow’s really dead?” Kyra asked. “Think we finished him this time?”
“Better believe it, sweet thing,” Johnny said. “That bird’s road pate.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Raymondo cautioned. “It might look like pate to you, but I say all we did was buy a little time between appetizers. Believe me—Crow isn’t off the menu yet. ”
“Are you
serious,
Raymondo? Kyra blew a hole right
through
that little fucker. Separated his wing-bone from his reanimation-bone.”
“Trust me on this one, Johnnyboy.”
“Man, if I'd known that, I would have stopped the damn car and backed over the bird a few times. Made damn
sure
it was dead.”
Kyra sucked a sharp clean breath between her teeth, held it a moment, then released it. “There’s more to it than that, Johnny. A lot more.”
“Then what are we gonna do? How are we gonna get rid of the bodies? How are we gonna keep the Crow from peckin’ the fucking life back into them?”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Raymondo said.
The shrunken head sketched it out for them. Kyra listened to Raymondo’s dry little voice, found music there, and elsewhere. In the purr of the Mercury’s well-tuned engine, in the hushed whisper of whitewall tires on a lonely desert highway.
The wind rushed through the open window, and Kyra closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, the rich smell of sage and pinon filling her lungs like a dusty perfume. She knew Raymondo was right. The Crow wouldn’t surrender so easily. Kyra could almost see the bird back there on the road, knitting itself together, sinew by sinew, muscle by muscle, feather by feather.
The wing-bone connecting to the reanimation-bone.