Wicked Prayer (3 page)

Kyra was silent a moment, her intent green eyes trained on the man in the parking lot. “No,” she said finally. “This cowboy doesn’t know shit.”

“If you’d just let me talk to him,” Leticia said. “I can make him go away.”

“Get this straight, Pocahontas. No talk. No smoke signals, either.” Under any other circumstances Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin would have scalped a man for less of an insult than that, or so Dan Cody liked to kid her. This time, she hardly noticed the slander. She said: “I swear that I can make him leave.”

“I already told you: we’re not taking that chance.”

“Please—”

Johnny grinned pitilessly. “How ’bout ‘pretty please with a cherry on top’?”

“But—”

“Hold on, Pocahontas,” Kyra said. “Here comes your mystery date.” Leticia turned to the window, saw Dan Cody through dream catcher crosshairs. His worn leather jacket was open in the warm night air, revealing a well-toned torso.

Kyra smirked. “Will your date be a dreamboat... or a dud?” Leticia didn’t even hear the snide remark; she saw the bag of scorpions in Dan’s left hand.

The roses in his right.

Oh, God,
Leticia thought, and a cold hand closed over her heart. “It doesn’t look like the cowboy’s got a gun,” Johnny said. “But it’s hard to know for sure.”

Leticia’s bright blue gaze speared the big man. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him—”

“Don’t worry, Pocahontas.” Church tapped the barrel of the .357 Magnum to the side of his head, then flashed Leticia another Ultra Brite smile. “Just do what I tell you, and this will all be over soon.”

A moment before, in the parking lot, Dan Cody thought:
This will all be over soon.

While Leticia Hardin begged Johnny Church to leave Dan alone, the object of that debate had returned to the driver’s side of his Jeep, where he’d reached under the seat for a heavy leather glove, which he drew over his left hand, buckling it at the wrist. Then Dan had bent across the seat, just as a final
please
crossed Leticia’s lips, and he’d gathered up the canvas bag with his gloved hand, the roses with the hand that was naked.

He’d left his pistol behind. He’d left his shotgun behind.

He figured he didn’t need them.

Not tonight.

Tonight, his business was with roses and scorpions . . . and a blue-eyed woman named Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin.

Dan headed toward the neon-lit trading post, roses in one hand, scorpions in the other. He gripped the roses tightly, so apprehensive that he didn’t even notice as a sharp thorn punctured his lifeline.

It's all right, Cody,
he told himself.

This will all be over soon.

“Well color me yeller and call me Custer,” Johnny said. “No wonder the son of a bitch was holdin’ back. Looks like your cavalry man’s bringing you a boo-kay of flowers, Pocahontas!”

“Roses.” Kyra Damon let out a derisive little snort. “He should have brought Indian Paintbrush, to go with the decor.”

Johnny let loose a donkey laugh, and Kyra pulled out the Walther PPK she’d tucked under her black leather belt. The little automatic was fully loaded, and while Kyra didn’t intend to use it, she liked to be prepared.

Instant respect,
Kyra thought, her finger finding the trigger.
Just add bullets.

That’s what this was about. Aim a gun at someone’s head and they were markedly more open to suggestion. That’s the way it would be with the cowboy. As in:
Get your ass on the floor, motherfucker. And give it a good long lick while I tie your motherfucking jack-
off hands behind your back, because you and that floor are gonna get real down and dirty before we’re done. That’s better, amigo. Now don’t make a move and you won’t get hurt. Much.

Kyra’s black lips played with a smile that was definitely on the south side of
sneer.
She eased one of the dangling dream catchers out of her line of sight. The desert rat walking toward the trading post didn’t really look like much of a threat, but something about him made her tattoos tingle—

After all, this
was
 
the Wild West. And sure, the roses the guy was carrying were nothing to worry about . . . but there was that canvas bag, too. No reason to believe the cowboy would bring a piece along on a date—leastwise, not
that
kind of a piece—but he could have a .45 or two stashed in that scruffy-ass bag.

Or maybe the .45s were tucked under his leather jacket, snuggled in a pair of shoulder holsters like a couple of fat rattlesnakes warm and cozy in their burrows.

Maybe. Because in the world Kyra Damon knew, almost anything was possible.

Maybe, but not this time. No way this guy knew what was waiting for him . . . Kyra’s patented sixth sense had told her that.

No way . . . unless the Crow had warned him somehow.

Suddenly, the chromed chain around Kyra’s neck seemed way too tight, and she could hardly breathe.
Get a grip, girl,
she told herself.
The Crow hasn’t told this guy shit. This cowboy's alive, and the living can’t hear the black bird’s music.

Dan Cody was
alive,
and that was Kyra’s protection. As far as she was concerned the cowboy was going to stay that way. Let Pocahontas think what she wanted. . . . Hell, let her imagination run the fuck away with hen Whatever edged up the intimidation meter another level worked just fine for Kyra Damon—

Outside, Dan Cody’s boots rattled across gravel . . . then rapped over solid cement as he approached the trading post.

Kyra watched him come. She knew better than to choke like this . . . knew there was nothing to worry about . . . knew just as well that her heart was in her fucking throat.

Outside, a determined
slap
of a leather strap on leather jacket
as Cody swung the canvas bag over his right shoulder as if it were packed full of ammo.

Kyra swallowed hard, trying to choke her heart back into her chest.
What is it about this guy, anyway?
she asked herself
.
It's as if he’s looking straight through me. As if he’s saying, “I know you’re in there, bitch. And in one short minute. I'm gonna open my bag, and pull out my gun, and blow you away with one well-placed shot
—"

Kyra could almost hear the taunting cackle of the Crow in the distance.

Stop it, Kyra. Right this fucking minute. You're being stupid. Stupid, because this guy doesn’t know shit. If he knew you were waiting for him, he wouldn’t have brought long-stemmed roses. He'd have brought a long-stemmed assault rifle. Make that a dozen long-stemmed assault rifles and a box of chocolate-covered grenades
—

“Let’s get ready to
rrrrrru
mble,”
Johnny said.

Kyra shot her partner a quick glance. “Stay
cool,
Johnny. Remember what we’re here for.” Then she turned to Leticia: “Don’t do anything stupid, and you and your cowboy will get to live another day. You got me? ”

The Native woman nodded, her eyes gleaming with anger. Kyra bristled. The cowboy was one thing, but this was another. No way was Kyra letting this little bitch get to her. “I’ll bet you’d just love to scratch my eyes out,” she said. “But I’ve got news for you, Pocahontas—the sweetest kittens have the sharpest claws.”

“And Ky’s got the sharpest claws of all.” Johnny laughed. “I got the scars to prove it.”

Kyra swallowed hard, and it was like she was choking down her heart. The sound of Johnny’s laughter calmed her. He had a sexy laugh. Pocahontas, sullen-faced, said nothing. In this light, her eyes didn’t look blue at all. They looked black.

Black as a Crow’s wing—

Outside, a rasping sound hacksawed the silence.

Kyra whirled toward the window. In the parking lot, the night flapped over the cowboy’s shoulders, talons raking his long dark hair.

Not the night,
Kyra realized with a terrified start.

The Crow.

The motherfucking Crow.

“Damn it, get out of here!” Dan said, twisting away from the clawing bird.

Three scything flaps of its wings and the Crow was twenty feet away, on the other side of the parking lot.

Dark there, an empty landscape knotted with shadows.

Dan squinted. Wait just a minute. That landscape wasn’t quite as empty as it first appeared.

The bird flapped its wings, then landed on something that looked like a steel hunk of midnight.

Dan stopped in his tracks and stared across the parking lot.

The bird was perched on a cherried-out ’49 Merc.

“Great,” Kyra Damon said. “Just great. The son of a bitch just saw the car.” She paused, peering through the dusty glass. Then; “Looks like he’s gonna walk over there and check it out. Son of a bitch!"

Johnny Church shrugged. “So what? There’s nothing strange about a car in a parking lot. Even if it
is
one hot fucking rod, if I do say so myself”

“Yeah, nothing strange about a
car,”
Kyra said, turning on Johnny with unexpected ferocity, “but the feathered bastard sitting on the hood is something else entirely.”

Leticia Hardin’s eyes moved from the man to the woman, then back to the man. Watching. Waiting. Weighing reactions.

“Relax,” Johnny told Kyra. “The bird can’t do anything to us as long as we play by its rules. What does it weigh? A pound, maybe two? Its guts wouldn’t even fill a diaper.”

“Never underestimate your opponent.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that.” Johnny walked over to the window where Kyra stood, looking outside.

“Easy, Johnny,” Kyra warned. “Keep out of the cowboy’s line of sight.”

“Christ almighty. Would you
relax
already? Now that the idiot’s
finally moving, he won’t be a problem. He’ll come through the door, I’ll whack him on the head, tie him up, and then—”

Behind the counter, Leticia made a small, tentative movement.

Kyra’s eyes locked on her like dead bolts while Johnny Church, who seemed not only to possess a perfect smile but perfect hearing and reflexes as well, pivoted on his heel and aimed the .357 at the center of the Native woman’s forehead in less time than it took Leticia to blink one blue eye.

Leticia froze.

“Uh uh, Pocahontas,” Johnny said. “You stay where you are. You try anything, and I mean
anything,
and your boyfriend will get hurt real bad. Oh, I won’t kill him. I promised you that. But what I’ll do to him will be worse than dyin’. You can believe me on that one.”

Leticia didn’t move.

Johnny lowered the gun. “There’s a good little Indian.”

“Fuck you,” Leticia spat, unable to still her tongue.

“Anytime, Pocahontas. Your teepee or mine?”

“Shut up, both of you,” Kyra hissed. “Johnny, if the cowboy looks inside the car, we’re gonna be in serious shit.”

“Oooh, my Spidey senses are tingling,” the big man said.
‘‘Can't
—
seem
—
to
—
think
—"

“I’m telling you this, Johnny; if the Crow gets a message to this cowboy
...”

“And I’m telling
you
this; the guy doesn’t even know when to get a
haircut,
for fuck’s sake. He sure as hell doesn’t know how to talk to a fucking bird, even one that made the trip from the far side of eternity. And the bird can’t talk to him, ’cause he ain’t dead.”

“But you know the bird will
try.
The Crow’s not stupid, Johnny. It knows what we’re doing, and it won’t
go gentle into this good night.
Not without a fight.”

“As long as we don’t give it a corpse to work with, the bird can’t
do
shit.”

“A
bird?"
 
Leticia interrupted. “You’re worried
about...
a
bird?"

Kyra Damon turned and regarded the woman with cold eyes. For a moment, she’d almost forgotten the little piece of meat was there.

Pretty little thing with pretty little blue eyes.

Blue eyes that couldn't see a thing.

“You’re part Indian, right?” Kyra said.

“What the hell business is it of yours what I am?”

“What tribe do you belong to?”

“What kind of question is that?”

Kyra, losing patience, abruptly cocked her gun and aimed it in Leticia’s direction. “I said what
tribe."

Leticia stared down the short barrel of the PPK. “Crow,” she said quickly. “I’m half
Crow.
But what does that have to do with anything?”