Read Online Wicked Prayer by Norman Partridge - Free Book Online

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