Wicked Prayer (35 page)

Johnny jerked in his boots as if she’d coldcocked him.

Man. That was low. He wasn’t going to just swallow that kind of insult.

But by the time he got his mouth open, Kyra had already turned away.

And then she started walking.

Through the rain. Through the cemetery.

Toward Erik Hearse’s mansion.

Even though she lived in a cemetery, Lilith had never seen a ghost before.

She stared through the window as rain sheeted against the pane. Out there, walking among the tombstones, was a spirit. A woman’s ghost. . . Lilith was sure of it.

Lilith watched, transfixed. The way
the
creature
moved.
So graceful. So determined. If only she could have learned to move like that, she would have never wanted to stand still at all—

The ghost came nearer now, weaving a path through a granite and marble maze. But the spirit did not look at the names chiseled upon the tombstones as she passed them by, and she did not trade glances with the granite-faced angels who leaned toward her from
cracked monuments, and she did not turn an envious eye upon steepled crypts with cool, dry chambers that loomed in the storm like havens for the wet and rotting dead.

The rain-soaked spirit’s gaze fell on none of these things, seeking instead the second floor window where Lilith stood.

Dead eyes met those of the living, and a chill of recognition capered over Lilith’s spine.

Suddenly, Lilith realized that there was really no reason to be frightened.

After all, Lilith Spain
knew
this visitor from the other side of the grave.

The spirit’s face was pale, the color of a cold moon, with a silver dusting of stars on her cheeks. Her lips were as dark as the rich soil of a grave, and her black hair was matted to her head by wild torrents of rain. And her dress—

The ghost’s 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 . . . and silk bound her small breasts tightly . . . and a choker like a strangler’s hands—all midnight opal and ebony and sharp chrome slivers—eclipsed the spirit’s neck.

Lilith Spain recognized that dress, and all too well.

It was a dress that Lilith had wanted to wear in life.

It was only appropriate that she wear it in death.

Lilith watched her spirit through her own reflection on the cold windowpane. It was not such a strange thing, seeing her own ghost.

Not really. Not when you longed for death. Not when you lived in a cemetery, and the paths you walked were the paths of the dead, paths seldom marked by human footprints.

When you walked alone in a place like this one, you yearned for a special kind of company. You learned the names chiseled on each headstone, and you visited steepled crypts and found nothing inside but your own hushed whispers, and you climbed the twisting stone staircase of a black-walled columbarium that housed the ashes of three hundred souls, and you spent your evenings among brass urns
and black porcelain jars and statues hollowed to hold bitter gray fistfuls of cremains.

You walked alone ... on paths seldom touched by human footprints . . . until, at last, your own ghost came for you.

Dull footsteps sounded on the steps beneath Lilith’s bedroom window.

Another sound from downstairs, somewhere else in the house . . . the sound of breaking glass.

On the other side of the room. Melody’s eyes flashed open.

The attendant dropped her book, sprang from the chair. “Did you hear that?” she asked Lilith.

“Yes,” Lilith said. “But don’t worry. It’s only a ghost.”

Melody shivered. Lilith knew the feeling, knew just as well that it wouldn’t last with a sensible woman like Melody.

Another second and the therapist was back in control. “Stay here,” Melody said. “I’ll check with Randy and Doyle. Whatever’s going on. I’m sure they can deal with it.”

Lilith nodded. Randy and Doyle were a couple of burly “attendants” who provided the recovery team’s security. Mostly, Lilith suspected that they were there to handle her if she got violent, but apparently they were ready to deal with other situations, as well.

Melody hurried into the hallway. Impassively, Lilith watched her go. Let Melody and Randy and Doyle and their other little friends do whatever they wanted. It wouldn’t matter. Lilith doubted that they could do much to stop a ghost.

Lilith looked down at her arm, at a dozen pale roses left by repeated injections. The scars had faded in the last week, and soon they’d be cold and lifeless.

Just like her flesh.

Lilith closed her eyes for a moment. A smile crossed her lips.

Erik Hearse had always told her that the drugs would kill her.

She imagined he was right.

But she was still breathing. Lilith knew that. Her ghost hadn’t come for her . . . not yet.

She had to be
right
when she met her own spirit. She had to be perfect, and peaceful, and still. So she hurried to the bathroom,
pulled out the vanity drawers one by one, and soon her eager fingers found the Ziploc bag she had taped to the wall behind the bottom drawer.

Downstairs, gunfire rang out.

Lilith worked quickly, hoping there was time to add one more rose to the bouquet nestled in the hollow of her arm.

A fresh one.

A funeral rose.

Right now, speed was the key.

Johnny knew that. He’d taken down the phone lines, the alarm system too. Help wouldn’t be arriving from an outside source anytime soon. What mattered now was what waited in front of him— whatever security Hearse had in place right on the fucking property.

To deal with that, Johnny had to move, and move
fast.

A large window stood in front of him, holding his black reflection like a trapped animal.

He tossed a patio chair through it.

Raymondo chuckled. “Johnny’s patented Church key.”

Johnny barely heard him. He was already on the move, stepping across the threshold he’d manufactured, heavy boots crunching on broken glass as he entered the house.

Almost immediately, a bullet whizzed by his head, cracked into the wall at his side, and the wall coughed plaster.

Raymondo screeched, “Get down, idiot!”

But Johnny didn’t even listen. He dodged away from the broken window. He didn’t want anyone seeing his silhouette, and this room was big. Lots of furniture, lots of shadows to hide in—

Another shot smacked the wall, just above his head, and then another—

Fuck the shadows. They weren’t doing him any good.

Three more shots, all of them coming close. But this time Johnny spotted the muzzle flashes. There were two shooters, about twenty feet away, on the other side of the room.

Johnny didn’t want them coming any closer.

“What are you waiting for?” Raymondo cried. “Use your goddamn gun, Johnny! It’s time to do your goddamn job!”

But Johnny didn’t reach for his gun, and he didn’t say a goddamn word. He kept moving, heading for cover. Another muzzle flash, and a hot slug scored his inner thigh, way too close to home. A fire blazed down below, and it was a fire that stirred instant memories, both pleasant and unpleasant.

The fire burned deep.

Johnny thought
;
heat, blood . . . Kyra.

He dropped and rolled behind a large sofa, a black leather crab hunting for cover. He opened the canvas bag, reached inside—

A deep male voice on the other side of the big room, belonging to one of the shooters: “I got him! The fucker’s
hit!"

Johnny yanked a little loop of metal, as light and delicate as a wedding ring.

And then he threw the grenade.

A fireburst from below, like an exploding meteor that shook the whole house.

Melody froze on the staircase, her ears ringing. One blink of her eyes and darkness returned downstairs, save for two narrow bands of dull midnight that stretched from windows set on each side of the front door.

Melody wanted to get to that door, but she couldn’t move. Something was downstairs. She could hear it, moving around in the large party room off the entrance foyer.

Something toppled in that room, crashing to the floor. A dull cloud of smoke billowed through the open door, a fog ripe with the harsh scent of explosives.

Melody swallowed hard. She’d have to get by that doorway to leave the house. Unless she wanted to jump through one of the upstairs windows. Unless—

Footsteps sounded downstairs. Melody prayed it was Randy or Doyle, but she couldn’t be certain.

And she couldn’t wait long enough to be certain, because if the person down there wasn’t Randy or Doyle . . .

No. She wouldn’t think that way. Fear bred negativity. Melody knew that. For once, She had to take her own advice. Live in the moment and survive it. That’s what she always told her patients.

Eyes on the front door. Melody took her first step down the stairway.

Another . . . and another . . .

Someone stumbled into the smoke-choked hallway below. He crossed one band of narrow midnight, then stumbled into the other and dropped to his knees.

The man’s hair was blond and wavy, pulled back in a fashionable ponytail.

Randy,
Melody realized
.
It's Randy, and he's been hurt. . . .

Down on his knees, Randy whined like a whipped dog. Dark rain fell from his face. Only Melody knew instantly that it wasn’t rain.

It was blood.

Randy looked up at her, his eyes two puddles of gore in the cold glow of night.

His face was gone. All that remained was a skull sticky with slashed meat.

Oh, God,
Melody thought
.
Oh, God . . .

A hand dropped on her shoulder, and she nearly screamed.

It was Amber, one of the nurses. “Jesus!” she said. “What’s going on? Is that Randy down there? Is—?”

Another voice: “Look at him! He doesn’t have a face!”

The second voice belonged to Erin, the other nurse. She brushed by Melody and hurried down the staircase. An instant later, Amber followed her.

Melody expected them to stop and help the wounded man. But they didn’t. Fear had stolen any compassion they might have. Without a moment’s pause or hesitation, both nurses rushed past Randy.

They reached the front door at the same time.

Amber’s hand closed on the knob.

Two shots rang out in the darkness.

Two dead nurses dropped to the ground.

Erik Hearse’s mansion had become one long, dark scream.

There was nothing disturbing about a scream, though. Not when you lived in Lilith Spain’s skin. Lilith knew how to make the screaming stop. She had learned that lesson a long time ago.

She coiled a silk dressing-gown sash around her arm.

She drew back the plunger, then clutched the syringe between two fingers, then pressed the needle to her skin.

Luck was with hen

She hit the vein on her very first try.

The big man stepped over the dead bodyguard, a smoking pistol clutched in one hand. There came the soft creak of leather as he climbed the stairs, each footfall punctuated by the groan of aged oaken steps unaccustomed to bearing such a heavy load.

Melody couldn’t take her eyes off the man. His face was a mess. Not as bad as Randy’s, of course, but bad—a map of welts and bruises that made her stomach roll.

And there was another face, too, a small one that hung from the man’s neck. It was withered, and a pair of tiny eyes burned beneath its heavy brow like rubies infused with hellfire. The thing reminded Melody of an old novelty shrunken head, the kind that had been featured in comic book advertisements when she was a child, and— The big man’s hand closed around Melody’s throat.

Silence enveloped her. But the silence was no surprise. Not really. She’d been screaming all along and hadn’t realized it, but she couldn’t scream anymore. Not with the man’s hand around her throat. Not with him strangling hen

The man pushed her backward, and she lost her balance, and she slammed down hard on the staircase, and then the man straddled her, and he didn’t give up his grip.

Trapped air burned in Melody’s lungs.

The intruder smiled down at her, but he didn’t speak a word. The shrunken head did that. “We’ll give you one chance,” the head said. “You’d better tell us what we want to know.”

The man’s hand came away from her throat. Melody coughed, drew a precious breath. “I’ll tell you anything. . . .” she said. “Anything you want to know.”

The man bent close to her, still silent, his body pressing against hers. He smelled like an animal, and his chest was a hard slab of meat that crushed her breasts.