The Crow - City of Angels, page 1
I believe there’s a place where the restless souls wander. Burdened by the weight of their own sadness, they cannot enter Heaven … And so they wait, trapped between our world and the next, endlessly searching for a way to rid themselves of their pain—in the hopes that somehow, some day they will be reunited with the ones they love.
Ashe feels the barbed wire cutting his wrists,
chokes on the salt water filling his lungs.
The pain of his last breath is just the beginning.
He dies.
And is reborn.
Guided from the realm of the dead by a dark spirit, an avatar,
Ashe wears the mask of the Crow.
His enemies will feel his wrath.
Good and evil, life and death,
an intimate dance in the …
City of Angels
THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS
A Boulevard Book / published by arrangement with
ERPEC Releasing, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Boulevard edition / August 1996
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 1-57297-218-1
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE CITY IS OF NIGHT; PERCHANCE OF DEATH,
BUT CERTAINLY OF NIGHT …
—James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night
From Sarah’s journal:
I believe there’s a place where the restless souls wander. Burdened by the weight of their own sadness, they cannot enter heaven.
And so they wait, trapped between our world and the next, endlessly searching for a way to rid themselves of their pain—in the hopes that somehow, someday, they will be reunited with the ones they love.
I believe it’s true, for I have seen it happen …
There is a land …
There is a land the living cannot know. It is a land where the mist hangs in the air like an infinite number of tears, coalescing into a thick cloud of pain and sorrow that seems as impenetrable as it is endless.
There is nothing else. No hills or valleys define the barren landscape. No trees mar its sodden surface. Nothing grows there but grief.
Through that primordial realm of shadow a bird flies. It is a crow, its feathers black as night, so black that it seems to draw all the light around it into the soft sheen of its feathers, and it glimmers with that stolen light. Its eyes are a golden brown, the color of newly dead leaves, the shade of regret, of hopes lost and dreams shattered. Its beak and claws glint like black steel, cold and deadly.
Something else moves in this loveless land. It bears the shape of a warrior mounted on a horse. The steed gallops through the blinding mist, as though it knows there is nothing but the hanging tears to halt its swift progress. It makes no sound as it runs. No foam drips from its mouth, and its chest does not move, nor do its nostrils flare. It seems to have unending strength. Its legs, a black blur in the mist, are tireless machines, driving it onward with its rider.
That rider’s baleful eyes shine behind a face that seems to be a mask. It is of the whiteness of chalk covering yellow bone. Black accents highlight it, outlining the grim mouth, turning the corners of the lips upward, creating a false smile in a land where smiles are unknown.
The blackness also surrounds the eyes. A broader scar of black extends from the brows to the cheeks, a dark slash miraculously sparing the eyes themselves. It is as though an ebony tear drops from the center of each eye, and rises from them as well.
It is a mask of laughter and of despair, a face of pained and bitter irony.
The horse and rider plunge through the mist, never seeming to reach their destination, if indeed they have one. And above them the crow drifts, its feathers heavy with bright darkness, with black light, with grief …
With hope.
Curve saw the crow settle down on the shipping container. Ugly freakin’ bird, and only about twenty yards away. He would have pulled out his piece and blown it into a cloud of feathers and blood if his hands hadn’t been otherwise occupied.
He looked down and grinned at the crude stamp on the glassine envelope that he now ripped open. “’Lo, you little prick,” he mumbled to the cartoon imp who looked up at him with a shit-eating grin and a cheery thumbs-up. That’s right, kiddies, it seemed to say. We’re havin’ some fun now …
Trinity. Best drug in Curve’s pissed and addled memory. The Father, Son, and Holy Shit and a great big brain-bomb all rolled into one. Took the top of your head clean off and let the angels fly in, take a cosmic crap, and roar on out again.
Curve breathed in long and hard through his congested nose. He wanted to get his sinuses as clear as possible so that Trinity could rush in unimpeded and send his mind to that bright nirvana that the combination of the drug and his already whacked-out brain created.
The night and the docks didn’t help to clear his nose. He breathed in a nice unhealthy dose of poison along with the air. The spot where the river met the sea was filled with as much shit and garbage as water anymore. The whole damn City of Angels was polluted with chemicals and by-products and crap he couldn’t pronounce. And it was polluted with him too.
Yeah, Curve was part of the pollution, not the solution, and proud of it. He made sure he was sitting firmly on the seat of his chopper so that the rush wouldn’t knock him down. Then he ducked his head, jammed his nose right into the glassine, and sucked in like an industrial vac, turning the envelope inside out with the strength of his snort.
Badda-bing, badda-bang, badda-CHOW!
Oh yeah, the bells rang and the sirens wailed and Trinity peeled open his skull like a stripper rolling down her panties. Then Trinity screwed his brain and it came twenty or thirty times until the angels were done with him and flew away.
But the crow hadn’t. It was still sitting there, a big ugly bird on a big ugly dock in the biggest, ugliest, and baddest city in the world, and the black son-of-a-bitch was looking at something, and when Curve looked where the crow was looking, he remembered why he was down on this shithole dock in the first place.
Light flared into his eyes, and at first he thought the dark angels were coming back, but then he realized it was just the light of Nemo’s camcorder. He ran a hand over the top of his head to make sure that his skull really wasn’t open to the elements. The feel of his long blond hair against his palm reassured him, and he lit a cigarette. Tobacco tasted better when he was high on Trinity. Hell, everything was better on Trinity.
He got off his bike and admired again the custom painting on his pearl-drop gas tank. A woman with the biggest tits imaginable was doing the wild thing with the Grim Reaper, Death himself, and loving it. Death screws us all in the end, Curve thought. We might as well get to know the old bastard first.
He looked back at the end of the pier just a few yards away. Nemo was getting off on this all right, dancing around the guy and his kid with the camera, getting every last twitch of their faces, every single bit of fear captured on videotape. The old sleaze-hound loved to look. Curve always thought if you gave Nemo the choice between boning and watching, Nemo would just watch and whack. When he wasn’t working for Judah, he spent nearly all his time shoving tokens in the sticky slots at the Peep-O-Rama. He’d probably go home tonight and flick his chicken to the tape he was shooting now.
“Camera!” Nemo yelled as he moved around the father and son. The man was in his late twenties, and the boy was maybe eight or so. Curve couldn’t guess kids’ ages for shit. He had tried to forget his own childhood. It had sucked big time, a nightmare of beatings and burnings and things far worse.
What was so sacred about childhood? It was no different and just as cruel as adult life. As far as Curve was concerned, being a kid didn’t save you. Kids were nothing special. Hell, everybody in the City of Angels, except for Judah’s people, were victims, and kids were just shorter victims, that was all. The good thing about them was that they died easier than adults.
“Action!” Nemo yelled, his long hair flying as he danced around the pair. “Action action action!”
“What ya want ’em to do, start dancin’?” Spider Monkey said dryly. He had a helluva point. The man and his kid were at the end of the pier. Daddy’s right arm was linked with Sonny’s left one, and their hands were tied behind their backs. They were kneeling side by side on the rough, weather-beaten boards. They weren’t dancing, they weren’t running. They weren’t doing a damn thing but dying.
And crying. At least the kid was. “I’m sorry, Dad,” Curve heard him blubber. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to look …”
“It’s okay, Danny,” the father said. “It’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all, and Big Daddy knew it, no matter how much he tried to reassure little Danny.
Danny. Typical little-kid name, for all the good it would do him. Little Danny didn’t score any cute points with Kali, that was for sure. The bitch’s eyes were as cold as the metal that made up sixty percent of her wardrobe. Heavy metal, heavy heart, that was Kali. She just stood there, watching the little family’s fe
Curve saw her eyes blaze with pleasure when Nemo slapped the father hard across the face. “Makeup!” he yelled, and hit him again. “Get some color in those cheeks for the close-ups!” Nemo grinned, showing blackened teeth. Christ, Curve thought, with all the money Nemo got from Judah, you’d think he could have those rotten teeth fixed. Maybe that was why he never got any real pussy.
Nemo slapped the boy’s face then, not as hard as he had struck the father, but hard enough to rock the kid’s head back. “Stop it!” the father shouted. “You son-of-a-bitch, leave him alone!”
Old Pops had a lot of balls. He was in no position to be making demands. What was his name anyway? Curve thought for a moment, and the name came through the buzz-fuzz that Trinity had laid on his brain.
Corven. Ashe Corven. Goofy goddam name. But then, he thought, maybe no goofier than Curve and Kali and Spider Monkey. Of course, those were names they had chosen, not been given by some artsy-fartsy mama. Ashe. Yeah, Ashe was an ashehole who was going to become ashes to ashes.
“Did you tell me somethin’, man?” Nemo asked Ashe Corven, and then hit the kid again, this time harder, backhanding him. “I said makeup!” Nemo yelled so loudly that flecks of spittle glistened on Corven’s face.
The boy started to pray in a language Curve didn’t understand. He thought it was Latin.
“Learn that in Catholic school, little guy?” Spider Monkey said, crouching next to the tied-up pair and holding a large marigold in front of the kid’s face as though inviting him to smell it. His lean and gangly frame made him look easy to break, but Spider Monkey was all tough and stringy muscle. “You’re wasting your time, angelito. Nobody’s up there listening.”
“Maybe he oughta pray to Saint Lucas!” Nemo said, still gazing into the eyepiece of the camcorder, whirling around to capture everything.
“Shut up, man,” Spider Monkey told him. “You don’t know shit. It’s San Lucas—la Noche de San Lucas.”
Spider Monkey was right. October 29. La Noche de San Lucas. Curve didn’t know what the hell it was for—just a couple of nights before the Day of the Dead, as far as he was concerned. But then that was nothing special either. Every day was the day of the dead when you worked for Judah Earl.
Still, Spider Monkey seemed to take this religious shit half seriously sometimes, and now he held his marigold out in front of Ashe Corven’s face. The sudden burst of yellow orange seemed to brighten the mud-brown dock. “Flowers for the dead, señor?” Spider Monkey asked almost gently.
Corven only stared at him. There was a lot of hate in the man’s eyes. He was either brave or stupid. Or maybe he was just realistic. He knew what was coming, and didn’t see any reason to kiss ass at this point.
“No?” said Spider Monkey. He stuck a look of mock sorrow on his long face. “Suit yourself, then.” Spider Monkey looked at the flower, then tucked it behind his right ear and stood up.
Curve sniffed once more, fisted the remains of the white powder from his nose, and rubbed his knuckle on his gums. It was time. Everybody had had their fun. He walked up to Kali. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Judah’s waiting.”
Kali slowly took out her revolver and began to load it. This was foreplay for Kali. She inserted each bullet as methodically and carefully as if they were live grenades. Bitch. She was taking her own sweet time just to spit in Curve’s eye, and he didn’t like it a bit. But he was damned if he was going to give her the satisfaction of showing her he was pissed. He kept his face as flat and expressionless as hers, and waited.
It seemed like hours, but it might just have been the Trinity playing with his time sense. At last she flicked her wrist, and he heard the sharp snap of the cylinder locking into place. Kali slowly walked over to Ashe Corven and his kid, moving as sensuously and as menacingly as the goddess of death whose name she had stolen.
The kid, Danny, had stopped praying. His eyes didn’t move from Kali’s serpentine approach. “I’m scared, Dad,” he said in a whisper.
“I know,” Ashe Corven said. Curve thought he was trying to sound brave. But Corven’s voice cracked, and his face softened, and Curve saw fear there; not for himself, but for his son. Curve knew what would happen now. It was pleading time.
“Listen to me,” Corven said. “Please! He’s just a kid. Let him go, he can’t hurt you! He doesn’t even know who you are. Kill me, but please don’t—”
Hurt my son? Yeah, Curve thought. That’s probably what he would have said next, if Kali hadn’t brought up her revolver and plowed a bullet right through little Danny’s thin chest.
CROW: A LARGE BLACK BIRD THAT FEEDS UPON THE CARCASSES OF BEASTS.
—Johnson’s Dictionary
“NOOOOO!”
It came from deep inside him, from a hitherto unknown land on the map of his soul. He screamed as his heart tightened, clenching like a thick red fist. He had not imagined this. He had admitted the possibility, but had not even conceived of the power it would wield over him.
He knew that he would die, that they would probably both die for what they had seen. But all the imagining, all the fears, all the deaths died before death itself had not prepared him for this, for the brightest light of his life to be snuffed out. He did not expect so deep a blackness, so deep an abyss. He had not known that one could fall forever into total darkness, and he knew that this was to be his fate.
When Danny fell backward, Ashe had fallen with him, twisting so that his son’s bloody chest was against his own, and Danny’s eyes were inches away from his. He saw the life flee from them, and he could not reach out a hand to bring it back, could not draw death to him instead, for death was greedy. It wanted them both.
Something, a glint of orange light, whizzed over Ashe’s head, and for a mad moment he thought that it might be Danny’s soul soaring away. But the angry hiss told him that it was only a cigarette butt, flicked away by the one called Curve, striking the foul waters where the river met the sea. The Styx. River of the dead. Dead.
Dead.
“Nothing personal, sport,” he heard Curve’s gravel voice say. “Guess you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Then the shots came. He heard them distinctly, three of them. He felt them too, all three, enter his back. He felt his skin burst, his bones shatter, his heart and lungs tear apart, spilling blood and air into him, out of him, felt his head fill with pressure as the blood rushed into his ears, into his brain, drowning him. The pain did not stop. It went on and on, both the pain of death and the greater pain of loss.
From somewhere high above, far below, he heard a voice, and at first he thought it might be God, but he knew he was wrong when the words found meaning in his brain:
Drop ’em. Let’s get this cluster fuck on the road.
He felt what was left to feel in his body being pressed close to Danny’s. For a moment there was a sensation of curving, turning, rolling, and then the voice again:
Bon voyage, shitheads …
He fell. He seemed to fall forever, and his open eyes saw the dead face of his beloved son (in whom I am well pleased), past him the black, poisoned sky, something darker against it, and forms, shapes with heads and shoulder, the ones who did this, who killed him.
Who killed Danny.
Then he entered the water, not with a splash, but with the embrace of soft, cold arms, pulling gently down. The light faded, and looking up past dear dead Danny at the world was like looking through cloudy glass that slowly got thicker and thicker until it banished all the light. Ashe’s only movement now was in sympathy to the eddies of the vile waters. He could still hear, like a faraway drum, the sound of his own heart beating, struggling to close its new openings with blood, trying to save itself by pouring away Ashe’s life.
In the stygian darkness, as the beating grew slower and finally ceased altogether, Ashe somehow saw his blood, his life drifting up and away from him, spreading over him like a cloud, a blanket, like the wings of an angel …
… or the wings of a great bird.
The Crow floated upward through the murky waters, riding on the currents, rising as gently as Ashe and his son sank, until at last it burst from beneath the black surface, soaring into the air with one strong cry of triumph, the water falling away from it like a cast-off skin, like sins renounced.
