by

Jeanette Barcroft  ( barcroj@smtpgate.mugu.navy.mil )
 
 
 
 
 

Based on the film

Starring

Brandon Lee
 
 

Produced by

Jeff Most
 

Directed by

Alex Proyas
 

Screenplay by

David J. Schow
and
John Shirley
 

Based on

the comic book series and comic strip
by

James O'Barr
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dedicated

to

Brandon Lee
1965 - 1993
 

Dreamdancer

I sit bemused
And drenched in dreams,
Wrapt in silence,
While within
Myriad voices sing,
Myriad shadows dance.
This is my song:
To build a shadow world
Of joy and pain and joy again;
Where all is deeper, wider, brighter, darker,
Dream incarnate——wholly, purely, singing ... singing;
Where lost things come to rest,
And the unborn unfolds its wings and flies.
——Jeanette Barcroft
 
 
 
 

Author's Note

This novelization of the movie, The Crow, has not been authorized by
anyone connected with the making of the movie. I wrote it solely for
my own pleasure--a true labor of love. I now wish to share it with those
who also share my admiration of Brandon Lee and his performance in James
O'Barr's moving tale of grief and revenge. It is my gift to all of you,
and my memorial to him. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed
writing it.

Jeanette Barcroft
31 March 1997
 
 

For Brandon

I ... I never knew him,
But another I,
In the dancing shadows,
Danced with him.
But where is the Dance
Which shifts the great Immovable,
Beyond which he has gone?
O foolish bird at the heart of me,
To beat my wings
Against that transparent barrier:
To see so clearly
That which can never be reached.
... And so I come to death
And grief of death at last
This roundabout way.
--Jeanette Barcroft
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Whenever someone dies, a ripple is felt throughout all the elemental
planes, and a great, compassionate spirit reaches into this world. It is
many ... and it is one. It is everywhere ... and it is here. It has a
thousand souls to guide ... and just this one, lost and bewildered in an
unknown darkness.

A winged shadow, in the mortal shape of an earth-born bird, takes flight
over a sunless and suffering city. Beneath its glistening wings great
fires reach up with greedy flame fingers, but it flies on in unperturbed
passage through the rain-wet sky, and in a voiceless whisper calls:
[Come. Follow me. It is time.]
 
 

Betrayal
 
 

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to
the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a
terrible sadness is carried with it; and the soul can't rest. Then
sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back--to put the
wrong things right.
--Sarah's Journal

October 30, Devil's Night.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
--William Butler Yeats

Sergeant Albrecht looked through the shattered remnants of the
once-handsome round window that dominated the high loft where he stood,
drawing somberly on his ever-present cigarette. But he wasn't paying
attention to the opening that gaped at his feet and arched over his head,
or even to the fevered activity of the police investigation in full spate
behind him. For the moment he was looking down six stories at the
blood-drenched body of a young man lying broken on the sidewalk below, and
he felt a grief that years on the force hadn't burned out of him--another
innocent victim of the senseless violence that poisoned this city, another
bright future lost, another dream destroyed.
Then, as the body below was mercifully covered, hiding it from his sight,
he crushed his cigarette underfoot and turned his attention back to the
room behind him. It had been a nice place once ... just a little while
ago. And even now, trashed and vandalized, it was still an appealing room,
with its heavy cast iron support pipes angling sharply towards the high
ceiling, subdividing the space into airy pyramids topped with Victorian
fretwork. When the round window had been intact--eight feet in diameter
with its surrounding lunettes--it must have been an imposing space.
Now it was a shambles, a charnel house, a place of death and suffering.
Albrecht looked grimly at the paramedics, urgent and intent as they
worked on a young woman. Scattered across the floor were photographs
of a pretty, laughing face that bore no resemblance to the bloodstained
anguish that he could see behind the oxygen mask strapped over her mouth
and nose; and the pitiful, almost animal noises that she made were as
far removed from laughter as any human utterance could be.
 

Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of the Christ
himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
--Walt Whitman

Posted on the wall in places of honor were a series of publicity photos:
a band--Hangman's Joke--five young men alternately grinning and glowering
theatrically into the camera. He'd heard of them before--local boys making
good. One of them he'd seen before ... until a bloodied sheet had been
drawn over him. It had been a handsome face, with a shoulder-length mane
of dark hair, high cheekbones, a strong jaw that gave his frown a
pugnacious look, and a smile whose sweetness belied the truculence of that
jaw. Albrecht scanned the pictures on the wall with a leaden eye--there
had been no laughter left on that silent face, only a stunned
bewilderment ... and oblivion.
From the litter on the floor he picked up a delicately engraved wedding
invitation and read it with a growing sense of resignation: "Shelly
Webster and Eric Draven cordially invite you to participate in their sunset
wedding, 31 October ..." It only needed this, he thought sadly, shaking
his head.
"Hey, Sarge." Albrecht looked up from the invitation and saw the wedding
dress resplendent on a dressmaker's dummy, and he nodded to the curious
officer standing next to it.
"Yeah," he said heavily, walking over to touch the exquisite lace. "Shelly
Webster and Eric Draven. Wedding was tomorrow night."
"Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyhow?" the other asked, hiding
his emotions under an air of breezy disgust, but he didn't fool Albrecht.
"Nobody," he said flatly. Not in this life anyway. Then the strained
voice of one of the paramedics distracted him.
"Sir? We gotta move her." He looked over at Albrecht in desperate appeal,
while Shelly Webster moaned and writhed before him.
"Do it!" Albrecht said, his own voice tight.
"Right, guys. Do it!" the paramedic said with relief, gathering their gear
and beginning the long difficult passage down five flights of stairs--the
old building didn't boast anything so modern as an elevator.
"Devil's fuckin' Night!" the other officer grunted, looking out the window
at a fire raging just across the street. "What's the count so far?" But
his casual words couldn't hide the fear in his voice.
"A hundred and forty-three fires," Albrecht answered grimly, but that count
was already a half an hour old. Who knew what it was by now.
"They're slackin' off from last year," the other said, almost hopefully.
"Three hours to go ... maybe they're just slow starters," Albrecht said
sourly. He had the feeling that this year was going to be the worst yet.
Then with a grimace of pained compassion on his dark brown face, he gazed
at the shattered room and thought about the shattered lives it spoke
of--the broken window, the bloodied bed, and the great drying pool of blood
in the middle of the floor.
And everywhere, the investigators were gathering evidence--taking
photographs, dusting for prints. Oh, they'd find plenty of evidence all
right, for all the good it would do them. Nothing would ever come of it,
he knew. Nothing ever did. Evidence would get "lost", witnesses would
"forget". Even if they made a few arrests, there wouldn't be any
convictions--the "fix was in" and he'd already beaten his head against its
brick wall enough to know the futility of even trying.
He sighed and went to follow Shelly Webster on what was probably going to
be her final journey anywhere.

* * *

The timidity of the child ... is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at
this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike
being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone.
--G. K. Chesterton

Sarah had meant to stay home that night, she really had. After all, the
wedding was tomorrow night and Shelly and Eric would want to be alone; and
besides, she wasn't a little kid any more, to be scared of Devil's Night:
for every one of her ten years, she'd survived it just fine.
She would've been okay, even though Darla hadn't come home yet--so, what
else was new?--but the building across the street caught on fire with a
roar that shook everything for a block around, and suddenly she lost her
nerve.
After all, it is Devil's Night and they did ask me to stay with them, Sarah
told herself as she grabbed her skateboard and hurried downstairs into the
street. She just hoped they wouldn't give her a bad time about chickening
out... nah, they wouldn't do that, they were too cool to tease about
something like being a little jumpy on Devil's Night.
They'd take her in just like they always did when she needed a place to
stay, like when Darla left her alone for too long, or worse yet, when she
brought someone home. They would laugh and kid around, and maybe Eric
would play the guitar and sing for them. And she wouldn't be scared, not
with them, even on Devil's Night ... even if there was a fire. Eric would
take care of them if there was trouble, Eric always took care of them.
But when she turned onto the street where Shelly lived and saw all the
flashing lights and the burning building, she knew a moment of fear that
cut like a knife of ice through her stomach. No, no, you dummy. It's
across the street, she chided herself, checking out Shelly's building just
to be sure. It was fine, no fire anywhere in it, just a lot of people
looking out of windows at all the activity in the street. Then she froze
all over again.
There was something wrong with the window in Shelly's room! The big round
window that they all loved--it looked like it was broken! No, no, it had
to be her imagination, it was to high to really tell anyway. But as she
got closer, she could see the lights and the figures moving around inside
the loft that should have held only Shelly and Eric.
Skating as fast as she could, Sarah sped up to the edges of the crowd and
began elbowing her way rudely past the restless, unheeding bodies barring
her way. But there was something wrong, she could tell. They weren't out
here just to see the fire, people didn't act this jumpy and morbidly
curious for a fire ... not on Devil's Night. She could hear an angry voice
by the entranceway to the building.
"... I realize that, but you can't come in here and move her away like
this. We got procedures to stick by. You guys shoulda cleared this with
me first. This the victim?" The victim? Sarah thought in a rising panic,
what victim did he mean? No, no, it couldn't be ...
"No, it's Amelia Earhart. We found her, detective, and you missed it."
That was another voice, tired and sarcastic, but kind too, even though she
could tell he was annoyed by the angry man. But who were they talking
about? Desperately Sarah wriggled her way through the crowd, then stopped
in shock when she caught sight of a blood-drenched sheet covering ...
something! What? Who? No, no ... From beyond another group of curious
on-lookers, the angry voice barked out again.
"I don't care what her name is, I didn't give the order to move her.
Jesus, Albrecht, I can see why they took away your gold shield."
"Yeah, I wasn't a big enough ass-hole. C'mon, let's go," the kind voice
said impatiently, heading towards her, and the crowd parted to reveal a
gurney being pushed by a paramedic, with a kind-faced black policeman
walking protectively next to it. And on the gurney ...
"Shelly?" Sarah gasped in disbelief, horror slamming into her like a fist.
She felt sick when she saw all the blood, all the tubes. And who was under
that sheet? No, no, it couldn't be Eric!
"Stand back, kid," the cop said with brusque compassion, but Sarah grabbed
the gurney railing and refused to be brushed away.

--A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
--William Wordsworth

With a convulsive effort, Shelly dragged the oxygen mask from her face and
looked fearfully up at them, her voice hoarse and breathless as she begged,
"Where's Eric?"
Under that sheet, Sarah thought tearfully, wanting to throw up at the
thought ... and at the sight of Shelly, her face all broken and swollen and
bloody, twisted with pain and a terrible fear.
"Just don't worry about him," the cop said gently, trying to reassure her,
but Sarah knew he was just making meaningless noises to keep her quiet.
"Tell him to take care of Sarah," Shelly whispered, sobbing in agony, as
the last of her strength faded away. And Sarah could only stand stricken,
paralyzed by the suddenness of it all, while she watched the woman who was
more mother to her than her real mother being lifted into the waiting
ambulance.
"Look, I will," the cop was saying, in the kind of voice grown-ups used
when they were shining you on. "You just ... uh, lie back. C'mon, c'mon,"
he called to the paramedics, hurrying them along.
They closed the doors to the ambulance and stood despondently, watching it
drive away, siren wailing like a lost soul; and Sarah finally realized that
something much worse than a fire had come into her life that night: that
everything ... the only things ... she loved had been stolen from her.
"You Sarah?"
"Yeah," she whispered, still staring after the ambulance. Then she looked
up at the policeman, and her tears turned his worried face into a dark
blur.
"Yeah, look. Your sister ... she's gonna be okay," he said, in that same
"shining-it-on" voice and Sarah couldn't stand it anymore.
"She's not my sister," she said bleakly, her throat so tight that she could
hardly get the words out. "Shelly just takes care of me. She's my friend,
her and Eric." My best friends, she thought, my only friends. "You lied
to her about Eric ..." she added, remembering that sheet-draped body, not
accusing him, but just stating a fact. A fact she was having a hard time
admitting to herself--Eric was dead! And even then, she hoped he'd
contradict her. But he didn't.
"Look, I had to," he admitted, finally being honest with her ... and
destroying the last of her hope.
"And you're lying to me about Shelly," she went on, shaking with the pain
of her loss. "She's gonna die, isn't she?" She dragged her sleeve across
her face, no longer able to speak around the ache in her throat that hurt
like she'd swallowed a razor blade, or to hold back the tears that burned
her eyes like acid.
"Hey ... uh. Now, come on, come on," the cop groaned, unmanned by her
grief. "S'okay, she's gonna be fine," he soothed, patting her shoulder.
He was bullshitting her again, but this time she was ready to accept the
comfort he was trying to give her. And the pressure of his warm hands on
her shoulders was the only thing that kept her on her feet, as she gave
way to an overwhelming sorrow.
They were gone--one minute everything was okay, and the next ... nothing
would ever be okay again. She was all alone, like she'd been most of her
life ... and it was more than she could bear.

Unnoticed over their heads, a crow sat with funereal calm and looked upon
the scene below. Voiceless, it called ... and voiceless, it was answered:
[Come. It is time to leave this place.]
No. Shelly! Shelly! I can't leave. I have to protect Shelly. I have to
get to her! I can't leave. I can't leave.

* * *

Sergeant Albrecht was starting to feel the drag of twenty-four hours
without sleep, and he knew that his ordeal had just begun. For the last
eight hours he'd sat by the bedside of the wreck of what had once been a
vibrant, lovely, young bride-to-be. He'd watched the doctors come,
marshalling all the forces of twentieth-century medicine before them ...
and leave, shaking their heads wearily, defeated by the havoc wreaked by
that most primitive of weapons--the human hand.
Shelly Webster was dying. Not easily and--God help her--not quickly. And
like some kind of vulture, he stayed by her side, praying that she would
revive just long enough to give him a name. Just one little name so he
could get the scumbags who'd done this to her and make them pay. But so
far she hadn't said a word after that one heartbreakingly useless request
in the street: Tell Eric to take care of Sarah. Eric couldn't even take
care of himself now ... neither of them would ever take care of anyone
again. And what of little Sarah? Just another wounded soul in a city
full of them.
He didn't know why this one turned his stomach so much. He'd been a cop
too long, he'd been in this neighborhood too long, for something like this
to bother him. Maybe it was because they were supposed to have been
married today. Maybe it was because he'd heard her boyfriend's music
before and liked it. Maybe it was because he'd seen them together in the
neighborhood, alive and full of joy. Maybe it was because that kid,
Sarah, had cried so hopelessly in his arms.
Whatever it was, it made him feel like hell.
But he didn't really need Shelly's testimony to know who was responsible
for what had happened that night--it was Top Dollar. That evil man was
behind everything that went on in this neighborhood. He was the center
and source of the cancer that blighted the district, and he ran it like a
spider--a particularly poisonous spider--sitting in the middle of its web,
in some mysterious way sensitive to every quiver of every thread, always
making the preemptive strike, never caught unawares. Top Dollar had
everybody's number: He knew who was honest and who wasn't, and who was
hypocrite enough to be corrupted. He knew who was weak and who was strong,
and he knew all the ways that the strong ones could be weakened. He knew
who the movers and shakers were in the city, and he knew who could be
moved and who could be shaken to his advantage. And he knew how to use
what he knew.
The soldiers he'd sent after Shelly Webster and Eric Draven were
irrelevant, they were merely puppets under orders--vicious, murdering
puppets--but they were "under the dragon's wing", as the saying went in
the neighborhood.
Shit, even if he had twenty witnesses and a videotape, Albrecht doubted
there'd be any convictions, and Top Dollar would still be untouched. He
didn't know why he even bothered to keep this vigil--Shelly Webster was
never going to awaken this side of Heaven, and even if she did, and gave
him names and detailed descriptions, it would do no good. But he stayed
anyway. Nobody should have to die alone.
Especially a bride on her wedding day.

* * *

O fairest of creation! last and best
Of all God's works! creature in whom excell'd
Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defac'd, deflower'd, and now to Death devote?
--John Milton

The old graveyard by the abandoned cathedral was a depressing place to be
on a wet November afternoon, but Sergeant Albrecht felt irresistibly drawn
to it. Morosely he stood in the mud before two newly-erected gravestones
and stared at the flowers withering around them.
Shelly Webster and Eric Draven, together in death as they no longer could
be in life. Damn it! Why couldn't he let this one go? Gloomily he walked
out of the graveyard, lost in dark thoughts.
The case was going nowhere--as usual. The detectives were stalled--as
usual. Nobody was talking--as usual. And his superiors were getting
pissed off--as usual! But Albrecht couldn't let go--Shelly Webster haunted
him. The file told him nothing. The evidence that had been gathered was
useless. Maybe something had been overlooked. He headed back to the old
Calderon Court building where Eric Draven had died, and as he drove deeper
into that neighborhood, the city grew darker. Even at midday in full
summer, light seemed to fail in this part of town--here the rain seemed
wetter, the air held more chill. People that lived in this neighborhood
liked to say "This isn't Hell, but you can see it from here." But it was
his neighborhood--he'd grown up here, he lived here, he worked here, its
darkness was a part of him, and he tried to create his own light where he
needed it.
Like now, for instance.
Climbing the five flights of stairs in the hushed apartment building left
him panting and irritated. Already a good third of the tenants had moved
out--rats deserting the sinking ship ... or maybe just prudent people
heeding the writing on the wall. But he forgot all that when he faced the
yellow plastic tape stretched across Shelly Webster's Halloween-decorated
door and broke the flimsy police seal.
Almost furtively he pushed it open and ducked under the tape into the
spacious loft, still unchanged from the way he'd seen it a week before.
Oh, the blood had dried by now, and the rain had soaked the floor around
the broken window, and the wind had drifted most of the loose stuff up
against the walls. But nothing was missing that he could see, nothing
had been touched.
And yet ... there was a presence in that room that set the hairs prickling
along the back of his neck. All his cop's instincts told him he wasn't
alone, that there was someone or something in here with him, something
tortured and desperate.
The search he made for overlooked evidence was as fruitless as he'd feared
it would be, but he didn't skimp any of it, even when the fatigue of a week
of double shifts began creeping up on him. Not even when that damned
presence had him jumping at every floorboard creak and wind rustle.
Finally he gave up in bitter frustration.
Wearily he closed the door to the loft, with all its disturbing images and
began making his way down the stairs. Then he came to a sudden halt, his
hand going to his gun as he again sensed that same presence he'd felt in
the loft, only now it was coming up the stairs towards him. But his gun
pointed at nothing but empty air as something cold drifted urgently past
him.
Quickly he turned, straining to see up the dim stairwell, and for just a
moment he thought he glimpsed a leather-jacketed figure with long dark
hair rush to the door of the loft. And in the clutter of noise in the old
building he thought he heard a frightened voice cry out: "Shelly!" Then
there was nothing, and he was alone on the stairwell again.
God, he had to get some sleep; he was starting to hallucinate! Only ...
somehow he had the eerie feeling that what he'd seen was no hallucination,
that in some unearthly way Eric Draven was still trying to reach his
Shelly ... and that he was doomed to failure for all eternity.
 

* * *

Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
--Dylan Thomas

* * *
 
 
 

Judgement
 
 

A building gets torched, all that is left is ashes. I used to think that
was true about everything--families, friends, feelings. But now I know
that sometimes, if love proves real, two people who are meant to be
together ... nothing can keep them apart.
--Sarah's journal.

One year later.

Sorrow ... is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a
tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say
that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
--William Blake

Briskly Sarah skate-boarded her way through the chilly, storm-threatened
streets towards the old abandoned cathedral. In the fading daylight, its
magnificent proportions and soaring spires still had the power to awe ...
until you saw the ragged holes in the leaded roof and the broken panels in
the stained glass windows--too expensive for the parish to repair, and the
parish too poor for the mother church to bother. It was almost as if God
had abandoned the still beautiful building to its fate ... as He had done
to the rest of the neighborhood.
Since the cathedral had "died", it was only appropriate that the cemetery
was still very much "alive"--people were still being buried in it, and
those left behind still came and left what mementos they could afford.
Sarah couldn't afford anything, but she thought it was only fair that
everybody should share ... after all, wasn't death supposed to be the
"great leveller"?
So she went from grave to grave, taking a single flower from each one that
had an offering on it. In the summertime she'd raid the alley behind the
florist's for flowers, but this time of year it got dark too soon to do
that and make it back to the cemetery while she could still see. It was
important that she see what she was doing, even though she'd done it so
many times in the last year that she'd memorized every step of the way.
Finally she arrived at two simple graves set side by side in a quiet corner
of the graveyard. An old tree stretched its branches protectively over
them, and just a few weeks earlier had covered them with a soft shroud of
fallen leaves. Carefully Sarah propped her stolen bouquet against the
stone that read "Shelly Webster", and placed one perfect white rose, also
stolen, on the litter of leaves over the grave marked "Eric Draven".
Straightening up, she looked pensively at the two peaceful graves. For
the longest time she hadn't been able to come here without crying her eyes
out; but sometime, after the spring flowers had blossomed and faded, and
the old tree had managed to put out another crop of green leaves, it had
gotten easier ... not easy, mind you, but easier.
Now she could look at them and remember the good times with Eric and
Shelly, the fun they used to have and the hopes they'd had for the future,
and it almost didn't hurt at all.
"Later," she promised them, knowing that "almost" wasn't going to cut
it--that it still hurt just as much as it ever had. The pain hadn't gotten
any less--she'd just gotten stronger.
But not strong enough ... never strong enough.
And it was starting to rain again, as if she wasn't already depressed.
Resignedly she dragged the hood of her jacket over her head and started to
turn away from her friends' final resting place.
Then she stiffened as an enormous crow flew down from the direction of the
cathedral and landed on Eric's stone just a couple of yards away from where
she was standing. It cocked its head curiously at her and cawed a loud
greeting. That was really weird--for a wild bird to come so close, and
to look at her like it practically knew her.
"What're you, like, the night watchman?" she asked, half seriously, and
jumped a little when the big bird almost seemed to answer her with a loud
caw. It was a little creepy to see that big black bird perched so boldly
on Eric's stone, but after the first couple of seconds, she didn't mind;
it was even a little comforting to think that there was another living
creature to keep them company ... for a little while at least.
But she couldn't stay ... not that there was anything waiting for her at
home, probably not even enough food for dinner. She just didn't like
hanging around here after dark--too many dead people. So, giving the crow
a last quizzical look, she walked away through the rain. Behind her, she
thought she heard the bird pecking at something, but when she looked back,
it was just staring down at the rose she'd left for Eric. Don't eat it,
she thought wryly, but crows were meat-eaters weren't they? It wouldn't
bother with a flower.
She remembered a poem Shelly had read to her once ... Shelly had loved
poetry:

"... By these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories ...
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me
I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

Shelly'd had to tell her what half those words meant, which was why she'd
remembered it after all this time--pretty gloomy stuff, but it fit the way
she felt. There wasn't any forgetfulness, and the sadness didn't let up.
With a sigh she set her skateboard down on the rain-slick street and pushed
off, avoiding the sparse traffic with an ease born of long experience. If
she hurried, she could get to Mickey's while Albrecht was still there--it
was hard to be gloomy around them.
But still, she couldn't help thinking--tomorrow would be the first
anniversary of Eric and Shelly's deaths. A whole year without music,
without laughter, without love ... it felt like it had been a lifetime.

* * *

Child, you are like a flower,
So sweet and pure and fair.
I look at you, and sadness
Touches me with a prayer.
--Heinrich Heine

An open-air hotdog stand wasn't much of a place to eat, but it was cheap
and Officer Albrecht could keep an eye on his patrol car--which was a good
idea in this neighborhood--and besides, Mickey was a pal ... even if he
didn't know the right way to put together a 'dog.
"Y'know," the counterman drawled morosely as he squirted ketchup on
Albrecht's hotdog, "what this place needs is a good natural catastrophe:
earthquake, tornado ... y'know."
"No, no, no, Mickey, c'mon man," Albrecht protested, deliberately giving
his friend a bad time, "You gotta put the mustard underneath first." But
Mickey ignored him, thinking through his own solutions for cleansing the
neighborhood.
"... maybe a flood like in the Bible," he went on thoughtfully. He was
probably right at that, but you needed God for a biblical flood, and
Albrecht had an idea God didn't care much what went on down here anymore.
And why wish for natural catastrophes when Devil's Night tomorrow would
bring more un-natural ones than they could handle.
"Eh, eh, lemme do it. There we go," he said, taking the hotdog and
anointing it the way he liked. Ah, forget fire and flood--think about
dinner instead. "How about some onions?" he prompted, then snorted
indignantly, "C'mon, don't cheap out on me ... lots of onions. Now we're
talkin'," and he grinned with satisfaction when Mickey heaped on extra
onions.
It was a game they played all the time--Mickey preaching doom and gloom,
and Albrecht acting like food was the only thing he was interested in. It
filled the time, and brightened the darkness a little, which was all you
could hope for in this neighborhood.
Then both their moods lifted when they heard the familiar sound of an
approaching skateboard. There were, after all, a few other points of
light in the 'hood.
"Hey, it's the Sarah monster," Mickey called out fondly as the little girl
rolled to a practiced stop and joined Albrecht at the counter. She looked
like a little wet mouse, and he had a pretty good idea where she'd
been--paying her respects to Shelly and Eric again. Albrecht knew the
kind of home life she had that kept her wandering the streets, so he
didn't say anything about her appearance, or the fact that she was alone
out here on the "mean streets". He'd tried to pick up the slack a little
after the death of her friends, but there was only so much he could do.
The important thing was to be her friend--a kid like her needed all the
friends she could get.
"How do you steer that thing on a wet street?" he asked admiringly, smiling
at the collection of dime-store jewelry that she loved to wear--he had to
admit it gave her a rather endearing air.
"Pure talent!" she said with the smugness of a master athlete ... of
course, she never went anywhere except on the skateboard, so practice
probably had a lot more to do with it than talent, but what the hell. Then
she grinned at both of them--a happy relaxed grin--probably glad to be
among living friends again.
"Hi!" she said with a sigh, settling into place on the stool next to him.
"See now, Sarah ... she's a genuine hot-dogger," Albrecht punned, proud of
her strength and resilience--she'd had some really tough breaks in the last
year, but she had what it took to make it through okay. Except, maybe,
enough food to eat. "You hungry?" he asked, not making a big deal out of
it.
"You buyin'?" she teased, almost flirtatiously. Flirting? God, they grew
up fast in this neighborhood ... or was it just that girls were born
knowing how to flirt?
"I'm buying," he reassured her, trying not to laugh--she could be so damned
funny for an eleven-year-old.
"No onions though, okay," she said, and he could tell by her tone of voice
that she was setting him up for something. Well, he was glad to play
straight man for her.
"No onions?" he said, in an affronted tone, obligingly walking right into
whatever it was.
"They make you fart big time," she said smugly, giving them a satisfied
little smile when they cracked up.

It was nice to joke and laugh with good friends and (pretty) good food,
Sarah thought. She just wished there was more of that kind of thing in her
life ... like there'd been when Shelly and Eric were still alive. But for
now, laughter--what little there was--was the only balm in Gilead, and a
hotdog with friends was the closest she was ever likely to come to respite
and nepenthe.

* * *

Arcade Games was dark and quiet, with only a soft whimpering, as from some
small wounded animal, to break the silence. Then a man's careless voice
grated through the gloom.
"You know, Lake Erie actually caught on fire once, from all the crap
floatin' around in it." He was a man about forty with a ritually scarred
face--three vertical marks on his forehead and a circular cigar burn on
each cheek, just above the scraggly short beard he affected--and cold,
hooded eyes. In the shadowy interior of the arcade, the flame from his
Zippo as he lit a cigar was almost the only light.
For a dreaming moment he contemplated the image of a lake in flames.
"Ah! I wish I coulda seen that!" Then he snapped himself back to the
present and gave a sharp drill-sergeant whistle.
"Yee-haaaa!" the cry echoed through the arcade as his three scruffy
companions began demolishing all the glass-fronted games in a frenzy of
destruction that was almost sexual in its intensity. Of course, it was
all business--the stupid bitch who ran the place should've known better
than to cross Top Dollar. She did now, for all the good it did her.
They were getting paid well for this night's work, so he let the boys
play--they liked to break things ... and the bitch had been a nice little
bonus. But the scar-faced man, known to all in the neighborhood as T-bird,
for the supercharged red Thunderbird he always drove, had other things on
his agenda. Let the boys have their fun ... he had work to do.
Expertly he keyed in the necessary sequence and smiled with grim
satisfaction as the LED display began counting down: 5:00 ... 4:59 ...
4:58 ... With another whistle and a quick gesture he gathered his crew
and they spilled out into the quiet street, riotous with excitement.
Destruction always turned them on.
"Fire it up! Fire it up!" He led them in their victory chant--four
wild-eyed men pumping their arms in the rain-wet night. And anyone unlucky
enough to hear them shuddered in fear and stayed well out of their sight.
Then they piled into the big Thunderbird and roared away into the darkness.
... 3:59 ... 3:58 ...

* * *

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?
--I Corinthians 15:54-55

The crow perched quietly on Eric's gravestone looking down at the pale
rosebud lying on the ground before it. A heavy, driving rain soaked the
very air around it, but the bird merely blinked patiently into the
shadowed night. It was patience, and it had been waiting for a long time.
Through the short dark days of the previous winter, it had waited. When
spring brought a small measure of grace to the blighted streets, it had
waited. And when summer came with sullen heat and acrid smog, it had
waited. It had waited until the days shortened and the rains began to
wash the filth away again, until the cycles of sun and spinning earth
marched them back to All Hallow's Eve ... and Devil's night.
And now the waiting was at an end.
Suddenly the little rosebud shifted and rolled aside and the ground beneath
it lifted and split apart. Solemnly the bird watched as the dirt fell away
and the lid of Eric's coffin opened wide and ... something reached out of
it into the cold and the wet of the cruel night. No, not something--a
hand, just a hand ... a human hand. Not a skeleton or a zombie or freakish
thing, dead a year and rotting in a grave--just a strong guitarist's hand,
a living hand, attached to a living body, clawing at the crumbling earth
as if he'd only just fallen into a muddy hole and was scrambling to climb
out.
But there was something wrong with him. He crawled and struggled,
flopping and writhing repulsively on the sodden ground like a fish out of
water, groaning, then howling in anguish with a horrible bestial cry,
while the rain ran in streams over his almost unrecognizable face.
Why was he in such pain?
Racked by agony, he staggered to his feet, as wet and ungainly as a
newborn calf, wrapping his arms helplessly around a low-hanging tree
limb, flinching in animal terror when the crow flew up to land beside
him. He lifted his dazed, suffering face to the waiting bird, blinking
in the cold rain.
Wisps of steam rose from his shivering skin, but there was an
uncomprehending expression in his eyes. It was Eric ... and it wasn't
Eric--Eric without memory, without even humanity.
But it was better that he didn't remember, that he had no knowledge of
himself. Remembering would be too cruel. This slack mindlessness was
the kindest thing he could know, now that something had dragged ... or
driven ... him from the Peace of his grave.
Clinging to the tree branch, he grew a little stronger, a little steadier,
and the crow took flight, leading him into the night. Like an obedient
but mindless dog on a leash, he stumbled in its wake, falling more than
once when his clumsy feet betrayed him. Some harsh, primitive instinct
drove him to follow the crow without thought or question, but the bird
led him well--it had had an eternity of practice.
With awkward hands, Eric clawed off his open-backed burial shirt and coat
as if they angered him, as if all the sorrow and grief of those who'd
mourned him had steeped itself into the very fabric he wore ... and scalded
him with their caustic caress. He kept--without even knowing why--only
the silk-thread friendship bracelet that he'd worn ever since Shelly had
made it for him so long ago ... in another lifetime for both of them. Then
he staggered on, half-naked and barefoot, through the slime and filth of
the alleys, still following the crow. On his rain-dewed and trembling
flesh could be seen five ugly scars--like blobs of melted wax--from the
wounds that had killed him: four bullet wounds in front (and four exit
wounds in back), a wider one where a knife had pierced him, plus a dozen
thin traces where the window had bitten him.
Do dead people scar?

* * *

Albrecht watched Sarah apply herself to getting outside of her (onionless)
hotdog with a smile of satisfaction. Sure, it wasn't much of a meal, but
at least she wouldn't go hungry tonight. After she finished he planned to
offer her a lift back to her mom's apartment, and with any luck, she'd take
him up on it. That would get her off the streets for one night at least.
In a year of looking out for Sarah, he'd learned to take it one day, one
meal, one ride home at a time. He knew she still mourned her friends, but
more than that, she missed the focus they'd given her life. Albrecht knew
he couldn't replace that any more than he could replace them, but he hoped
he was at least a good substitute.
Only ... shit, he couldn't even get his own life in order--how did he
expect to be able to help a kid like Sarah? Oh well, he'd stick to
hotdogs, and maybe someday, when she needed help, she'd turn to him instead
of one of the cocky, gun-happy young bastards who crawled all over this
neighborhood ... like that bunch driving towards them right now.
Not that T-Bird's crew were exactly young, but they were all first-class
sons of bitches ... and very high on his short list of possible suspects
in the Draven-Webster murders. T-Bird, Tin-tin, Funboy and Skank--four of
the nastiest hounds kept in Top Dollar's kennels.
"Bad people out on the street tonight," he commented drily, as T-Bird's big
red muscle car--and source of his streetname--slowed down slightly in
deference to the parked patrol car, then speeded off again into the night
with a blare from its expensive sound system. Good thing he was going to
drive Sarah home tonight--it was getting too close to Devil's Night for
anyone, much less a little kid, to be out on the streets alone.

Sarah was enjoying her meal when suddenly everything in the little hotdog
stand jumped in place and bounced with a clatter as they were shaken by the
sound of an explosion no more than a block away. The humans all jumped too
when they heard the sound that had become all too horribly familiar this
time of year.
"Dammit," Albrecht muttered, dropping his cigarette and trying to sort out
the source of the explosion from the sound of its echoes.
"What was that?" Sarah gasped, knowing only too well what it was, but
scared anyway. It was a blast like that that had driven her out of the
apartment last year, and that triggered all sorts of memories that she'd
rather not deal with. Wide-eyed she turned to Albrecht, but he was
already up, turning towards the ominous glow down the street.
"You wait right here," he cautioned worriedly--no ride home for her
tonight--this was going to take hours.
"Be careful!" she cried, fear making her voice shake--she couldn't afford
to lose another friend ... cops lived such dangerous lives, particularly in
this neighborhood.
"Mickey, call it in for me," he shouted, running down the street towards
the flames that he could see ahead of him, all thought of Sarah and her
problems knocked out of his head by what he saw--it was going to be a bad
one, he could tell. A passing car had been caught in the blast and he
could hear panicked screams coming from surrounding buildings. More pain,
more suffering, more innocent lives ripped apart.
Damn, damn, DAMN!

* * *

And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.
--William Blake

Eric heard the explosion without comprehending what it was or what it
meant. Dumbly he turned his head towards the source of the noise that
hammered the air around him, flinching uselessly away from the painful
impact. But the crow would not let him linger.
His arms were wrapped tightly around his bare and shivering torso, his
hands fisted against his ribs; he careened drunkenly between the walls
and bruised his feet against the unyielding debris as he staggered through
the pitiless alleys. The cold cut at him like knives, and he shuddered at
the abuse done to his bare feet. In suffering bewilderment he followed the
crow without thought.
He heard the pitiful whimpering long before he saw the body huddled in a
dark trash-strewn corner. Like a startled deer he stiffened as a flash
of memory seared his mind--once before he had heard a woman cry out like
that. Then the memory was lost in a wash of horror that dropped into
emptiness.
[You are not here to help the living.]
The crow spread its wings before him, barring the way, but Eric couldn't
understand the strange message in his head. And something beyond even its
compulsion drew him. He followed the tiny sound around a corner into a
flame-lit alley and shrank in primeval terror from the blaze that consumed
the sky before him. He would have fled then, obeying the crow, but he saw
the form of a woman lying torn and broken, swept like flotsam amidst the
refuse of the alleyway. All unknowing he reached out to touch her ...

She was counting the day's receipts when she heard the noise. Then they
were all around her. She knew them--they had been on her case all this
last month. But she was already paying them more than she could afford
for "protection" ... they said it wasn't enough. She thrust the money at
them ... but that wasn't enough either. And she saw her own doom in their
eyes.
She tried to run away then, but Tin Tin grabbed her. He had his knives,
but T-bird liked to use his fists. Oh God, ohgodohgod ... it hurts, it
hurts ... stop, ohpleasepleaseplease ...
Explosion! Fire! Everywhere. Must get out, must get out. It hurts, it
hurts. So tired ... tired ...
It hurts ...

The whimpering had stilled, and with it the terrible images, but they beat
at his memory like the concussion of the explosion that had driven her into
the night. With a cry of anguish not his own, he gave voice to her fear
and despair, recoiling violently away from the lifeless body whose dying
thoughts had invaded his own blank and vulnerable mind.

... But what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[She is gone. Follow me now.]
Helplessly he looked to the crow to lead him away from this place of grief
and pain. On they went, away from the flames, away from the latest of the
city's tragedies. Into the cold, wet night the crow led the creature who
had once been Eric Draven, led him to a dumpster with a discarded but
serviceable pair of boots in it. And that was no less a miracle than his
grave opening to spill him out into the rain--shoes of any kind were hard
to come by in this neighborhood. But the crow was running things now and
miracles were going to become commonplace.
With a dazed expression on his face, Eric picked up the boots, looking over
at the crow like a dog trying to understand an unfamiliar command. Then
slowly he reached down and drew them over his bare, wet feet with clumsy
hands.
Finally the crow led him to a place he should have known well--if he'd been
able to know anything beyond these heartless alleys--a fire escape ladder
on the side of a tall, old building. But he recognized nothing, still
following the crow's lead with no comprehension of how or why any of this
was happening. And still no memory of anything else.
Up he went, shivering so hard by now that he could barely walk, much less
climb a slippery ladder. He slipped more than once on the wet metal as he
blindly followed the crow, and his clumsy, frozen body shuffled
precariously across the cluttered rooftop with its deadly six-story drop on
all sides. At last the crow led him to the roof access door and flew down
the narrow stairwell, the walls echoing with the clatter of its
wing-feathers, and Eric followed awkwardly, comprehension slowly growing
in his mind.
The crow was on the stair railing now and Eric stood before the door to
what once had been Shelly's home. It was still decorated with the
foolishly grinning cardboard skeleton that she and Sarah had hung there
over a year ago, but now it was barred with a length of yellow plastic
tape. He had no idea what any of it meant or what he was supposed to do
next.
[In there. Then you will know.]
Obediently he ripped the yellow tape aside with an unsteady hand and
pushed the decorated door open. Warily, still shivering convulsively,
he stepped into the dark, rain-drenched room. Roof's leaking again, the
thought darted across his mind like a fish and was gone as he stared around
the long-abandoned loft with its great, shattered round window.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.
--Theodore Roethke

Memory battered at the closed doors of his mind as he took a few hesitant
steps, then he stopped when a fluffy white apparition drifted out of the
shadows ... and meowed at him. A door opened, just a crack, and a name
slipped through.
"Gabriel," he cried, as joyful to be able to remember something, anything,
as he was to see the one-time pet. Gently he reached down to take the cat
in his arms ... and memory leapt at him like a spark of static electricity
from the cat's fur ...
Skank grabbed Gabriel--to wring his neck or throw him out the window or
whatever--but Gabriel had been a street cat before he was a beloved house
pet and he knew unkind hands when he felt them, and the level of noise and
tension in the room already had him in a panic. Eighteen scimitar-claws
and a mouthful of sharp rat-killing fangs ripped at the dangerous human
hands and suddenly he was free to escape ...

With a guttural howl, Eric dropped the startled cat, recoiling across the
room. But once the doors were opened, all the memories in the room leapt
at him from ambush wherever he turned--like bloodstains they'd lingered,
soaked deep into everything he touched--his and Shelly's. The whole loft
resonated with them--he felt the pain like physical blows against his
already battered body, suffered again through two waking nightmares ...

She heard the fierce pounding on the door and for just a second thought it
might be Eric. Eagerly she hurried over, but it was burst open by a
cruel-faced man and three leering others. Sheer panic drove her
backwards, then the smashing force of the leader's hand across her
cheek ...
Their voices hammered at her: "Dept. of Housing ... Code violations ...
safety hazards ... place looks fine to me ... let's redecorate ..."
None of it meant anything. All of it hurt ...
One of them held her down; he was the smallest of them, but she was
helpless in his cruel hands, and could only watch in terror as the others
ranged through her home destroying everything they touched, like a pack of
ravening wolves ...
"'Abash'd the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely....'
It's pornography," the leader was reading, from her own book, from
Paradise Lost, defiling the words, defiling the very air she breathed.
"Virtue?" he spat the word like the foulest obscenity ...
The black one had knives, but the other one kept using his fists.
Nononono, don't, please don't hit me again. Hands, heavy clumsy hands,
wouldn't let her go. Knives flashing. Blood, her own blood. Nonono,
please, don't hurt me, please no more, nomorenomore ... They ripped at
her clothes like animals, and like a smaller animal, wounded to death, she
tried helplessly to scuttle away from them ...
"No, no, me first ..." blond hair, leering, gleeful face, tattooed body
arching over her ... nonono, not that, please God not that. Help me, Eric,
helpmehelpmehelp ...

The door to Shelly's loft was open, there were terrifying, unnatural
sounds coming from it. Something was wrong! Something was terribly
wrong! In a growing panic he pushed the door open ... and walked into
chaos ...
It was a scene out of his worst nightmare, and yet it was real. Four
men had invaded the sanctuary of his love and destroyed it. Shelly!
He had to get to Shelly, had to save her from these monsters. But they
stood between him and Shelly and they wouldn't let him pass ...
The knife caught him before he'd taken two steps inside. Desperate to
get to Shelly, to protect her any way he could, he never even saw it coming
or who had thrown it. Eight inches to the hilt it embedded itself in his
chest, spinning him down to collapse in agony a dozen feet ... a thousand
miles ... from Shelly ...
He writhed on the floor of Shelly's once joyful home, his hands on the
knife transfixing him, slippery with his scarlet blood. With an effort
that cost him nearly all the life he had left, he pulled the alien thing
out of his body and threw it away from him. Then he lifted his blurring
eyes and searched helplessly for Shelly, trying to find the one who meant
more to him than his own life. Then he found her, on the bed, and saw
what they were doing to her, what they had already done to her. A bitter
determination transfigured him as he forced his dying body to struggle
those last few feet to her ...
"Shelly!" he gasped, with breath he couldn't spare, stretching out his
bloodied hand to her. And Shelly saw him and called out his name,
straining her own hand uselessly. But he couldn't reach her--those others
were in the way, he had to go through them before he could be with Shelly
again ... and they weren't going to let him through. They ranged before
him like hungry jackals and blocked his every hope, even as his life flowed
out of him in an ever-widening lake of blood ...
They dragged him to his feet, one on each side, holding his limp body
spread-eagle between them like a grotesque parody of the crucifixion, while
two others took aim with their ugly pistols. He was dying already, there
was no need to torment him any more; but they were drunk on their own
violence and lusting after savagery ...
The bullets hit him like a battering ram. His face writhed with shock,
then relaxed into the bewildered softness of a reproachful infant, as the
bullets propelled him backwards through the crystal panes of the beautiful
round window, to fall in a rain of glass and blood onto the sidewalk
below ...

He'd already suffered through it once, but the hideous brutality of those
memories was more than he could endure. It was too much. He howled in
mindless agony as he lived again the pain and terror of that night. There
was no respite, no escape from the barrage of memory, like land-mines
lurking for him in everything he touched. From wall to wall he recoiled,
clutching his head against the unendurable pain, trying to flee what could
not be fled.
He ran from it all, galvanized by despair. He bounded onto the platform
and leapt in violent denial through the once beautiful round window. This
time, Shelly, I will reach you, he thought as his body hurtled into space.
[You will not find her there.]
The message arrowed into his mind, and at the last instant, his hands shot
up and grabbed the sturdy iron of the surrounding lunettes, still lined
with razored glass that bit deeply into his palms. Between his clinging
hands, the broken bars formed the sign of a cross ... but there was no
salvation there for either of them.
The force of his leap carried his body swinging far out into the slanting
rain that laced the night sky, until he lifted above the horizontal and
hung there for an eternity before gravity drew him back into the room. He
dropped from the iron bar with a twist of his body that was as graceful as
it was anguished, to land crouching in unanswerable grief on the floor of
the loft.
He held his slashed palms dumbly before his face and welcomed the merely
physical pain they gave him. Then, to his astonishment, the blood oozed
back into the lacerations and the edges closed smoothly over and the skin
of his palms was whole again, denying him the pain, the absolution, he
yearned for.

* * *

Still falls the Rain--
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss--
Blind as the ... nails
Upon the Cross.
--Edith Sitwell

Sarah had finished her hotdog even though her appetite had deserted her and
her stomach had knotted up in fear as soon as she'd heard the explosion.
"I hate Devil's Night," she murmured unnecessarily to Mickey, who was
staring nervously past her at the reflections of the flames on the windows
across the street.
"Yeah, me too, and it's not even supposed to start until tomorrow. God,
what if they're turning it into a two-nighter?" He seemed more depressed
than worried by the idea, but Sarah was horrified--two nights of this?
She could barely handle one!
Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and disobeyed Albrecht's order to
dash down the wet street and join the other curious onlookers and try to
find out what was going on. She wasn't surprised to see that it was the
Arcade that had gotten blown up--word on the streets was that Alison, who
ran it, had been butting heads with Top Dollar for a couple of months now,
although you would've thought they'd hit it tomorrow night instead of
tonight. Maybe T-Bird was booked solid, she decided, having a pretty good
idea who'd done it.
There were fire trucks and an ambulance and lots of police cars all
around, and the fire looked like it was going to burn a long time in spite
of the rain that was falling heavily. Sarah saw Albrecht some distance
away looking tired and harassed ... no, she wasn't going to bother him for
a ride home with all this going on, she thought, heading back to Mickey's,
but she wasn't going to hang around any of it either.
She told the curious counterman what she'd seen and left a message for
Albrecht with him, then skated quickly away into the rainy night, leaving
all the noise and the flashing lights behind. A shroud of Loneliness
closed around her as soon as she left her friends; she hated being alone
anymore, not like before she met Shelly and Eric, when she'd been used to
it--now it ate away at her, like rust on iron. Everything, everything in
her world was corroding into dust--she wondered how long it would take
before there was nothing left of her.
What would've happened if I'd stayed with Shelly last year, she wondered,
not for the first time. She'd dropped by the loft after school that day,
and Shelly'd wanted her to stay the night with them, even though the
wedding was the next day and she had a million things to do. What would've
happened if I'd been there? Stupid question though, the same thing
would've happened to her as it did to Shelly--beaten, raped, killed--no
matter that she was just a ten-year-old kid. Nothing like that would've
stopped them ... whoever they were.
And that was almost the worst part--not knowing who they were; time and
time again this past year she had looked into the faces of the punks who
were commoner than rats in this neighborhood and wondered: Did he rape
Shelly? Did he stab Eric? And she never knew, was never going to find
out.
Shelly and Eric were dead, and their murderers walked the streets alive ...
sometimes Sarah wished she had been there with Shelly. And sometimes she
was afraid she'd be joining them anyway, whether she wanted to or not.
Nah, I'm tough. I'll survive. I don't need anybody, she told herself
morosely, knowing she lied, but unwilling to admit it ... even to herself.
Darla wasn't home (as usual) and there wasn't a scrap of food in the
place. Sarah turned on her heel and left the apartment, unexpectedly
angry at something that happened all the time these days. Well, she knew
where to find Darla.

* * *

The land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness.
--Ezekiel 9:9

It was called The Pit, which was a classier name than it deserved, and it
was T-bird's favorite hangout ... for a lot of reasons. One of which was
that the place let them get away with the kind of screwing around his crew
liked to do, another being that one of that same crew lived upstairs.
They were a tight bunch of guys--none of them overly bright and all of them
mean skunks. He was a good decade older than any of them, but they
followed him loyally, old boonie rat that he was, because they knew that
without him they were just a bunch of fuckin' bolos.
Right now they were just kicking back and enjoying themselves before he
had to go in and report to Top Dollar on the Arcade job.. By this time,
they were already on their third round of drinks and Funboy wanted to try
something different.
T-bird watched incuriously as Funboy took a bullet and challenged all of
them with it, then tossed it jauntily into the air like it was a beer nut.
For a moment it spun hypnotically, then disappeared into Funboy's mouth as
he gulped it down with a manful swallow of hard liquor. Now that was a
good trick, T-bird thought, adding his voice to the admiring comments, but
he knew another.
"See if you can top that, man? Can you top that?" Funboy boasted, a grin
of triumph splitting his handsome, dissipated face--he looked like a
seventeen-year-old bully who'd grown older and meaner, but had never
outgrown his adolescent rawness, like an ageing surfer with his long blond
hair and smiley-face t-shirt ... who'd never been nearer the ocean than a
morphine dream. He lived on the edge, T-bird thought, but he didn't have
any imagination, which was why T-bird had made him part of the crew--he
always did exactly what he was told to do, and with an enthusiasm that was
gratifying to watch.
So, he doesn't think I can top him, T-bird thought slyly, putting a bullet
on his tongue and talking carefully around it. "Here's to Devil's Night,
my new favorite holiday," he toasted them, looking forward to tomorrow
night's profitable activities, then washed it down with his drink. Nothin'
to that, but here comes the kicker, he thought, anticipating their
reaction, then he stubbed out his cigar on his wet tongue, to the
accompaniment of some impressive sizzles, a cloud of smoke, and a
satisfying round of exclamations from his crew.
He'd learned the trick in 'Nam--it was easy if you knew how: which was to
have the tongue good and wet, the cigar nearly out ... and enough booze
and drugs in you that you didn't give a damn if you swallowed a
flame-thrower. And it impressed the hell out of his crew, which was the
whole point.
"You sick fuckhead!" Funboy groaned admiringly, his unshaven face blank
with astonishment.
"Are you out of your mother-fuckin' mind, man?" Tin Tin growled, his
truculent black features twisted in a combination of disgust and awe. But
that changed in an instant when he saw the weaselly little man seated next
to him start to lift his glass.
Tin Tin was easily the biggest man in his crew and could make two of wiry
little Skank. With a contemptuous gesture, he forced Skank's hand down,
ignoring the other's outraged appeal to T-bird. T-bird just grinned and
watched while Tin Tin quickly downed his bullet-and-booze cocktail, then
smirked at Skank.
"Pussies drink last, man," Tin Tin explained pityingly, as if to a retarded
child.
Well, maybe Skank wasn't all that bright, and if Funboy was stuck at
seventeen years old, Skank had never made it past twelve; but he was just
as tough and mean as the worst of them, and he didn't like being bullied
by Tin Tin. He surged to his feet and pulled out his gun.
"Fuck you, Tin Tin," he spat, in his thick mush-mouthed voice, holding the
gun to the black man's temple.
"Shit ain't even loaded, man," Tin Tin mocked, standing up himself,
drawing one of his many knives and thrusting it like an extension of his
hand to Skank's scrawny throat. The smaller man pulled back from the razor
sharp blade in sudden dismay. But help came from an unexpected quarter.
"This one is!" Funboy snarled, on his feet and pointing his gun at Tin Tin,
more as an excuse for a good fight than to defend Skank. Tin Tin had
already drawn a second knife to counter Funboy's threat, when T-bird
decided it was time to slap his little wolf cubs back into order.
Bouncing to his feet, he grabbed Skank's gun and pulled it down, pointing
his gun at each in turn, noting with satisfaction the tiny flinches each
one made as they stared down the barrel. "Which one of you motor-city
mother-fuckers wants to bet me this one isn't?" he snapped at them like a
drill sergeant.
Message received!
Then he grinned, letting them off the hook. "Hey! Fire it up! Fire it
up!" he chanted, pumping his arms in their rallying call, and they joined
him, letting off their high spirits with cries of "Fire it up!" instead of
mayhem. Sometimes it was a real bitch keeping them from killing each
other, and that Tin Tin was the worst, the way he pushed dumbass Skank
around all the time. But, hell, he wouldn't have them any other way.
"Here's your shooters," said the pretty but slatternly waitress, Darla,
bringing them their next round of drinks. "Put your guns away, huh, guys,"
she begged ineffectually, but probably only because the bartender told her
to say that. Then she smiled with seductive affection at Funboy and bent
down to give him a lingering kiss--those two had been an item for months,
and probably for months to come ... as long as Funboy kept supplying her
with drugs.
Not that she was averse to sharing her "affections" with any of them,
T-Bird thought with some amusement as he watched Tin Tin lean over and lick
the woman provocatively on the arm like she was a particularly tasty piece
of candy ... which she was.

* * *

This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--.
--Emily Dickinson

The cockroach chittered confidently across the wet wood--there had been
some noise earlier, but all was quiet now, and it didn't sense the cat
anywhere near ... it didn't sense anything anywhere near.
And it never sensed the great black bird that swooped suddenly upon it,
effortlessly snatching it from the floor and carrying it to a dry perch,
where it began ripping the tasty insect apart with its powerful beak. The
bird spared a moment to glance at the figure huddled across the room from
him, then went back to its snack. Not yet. The man wasn't ready yet ...
but soon ...

Eric had finally come to rest, hunched before Shelly's dressing table, the
harlequin mask he'd once teased her with in happier days still hanging
mutely from the mirror. He had pushed away a few of the shadows by
surrounding himself with dozens of flickering candles--their delicate
light illuminated the ugly ridged scars of bullet and knife on his muscular
back and chest as he wept, and every tear he shed scalded his soul. With
trembling hands he caressed the last few undamaged treasures that Shelly
had worn and loved ...

"Boo," he teased gently, holding the mask to his face, but she only smiled
indulgently at him. Ruefully he lowered it, his own lips curling into a
sweeter smile than the painted one on the mask.

All the sweet, loving memories poured across his mind like acid, searing
his every thought. He thought he'd already endured all the pain that could
be endured, but these memories sent him past every conceivable
limit ...

"Oh ... oh boy! The dismay in her voice had him moving before he even
knew what was wrong. Then he saw the flames dancing in the saucepan and
knew that another one of her "experiments" had gone awry. Deftly he
smothered the little blaze and guided her firmly away from the stove.
"Restaurant," he said jauntily, manfully suppressing the urge to tease her
about this latest culinary disaster.

At last, nearly all the doors of his mind stood open, all the raw gaping
wounds lay bare before his waking thoughts ... and they crushed him.
Everything he touched yielded its bitter fruits of memory and filled him
with more grief than he could bear, but he had no place to flee from them
...

"Don't even think of it," she giggled from the bathtub, while he leered at
her with mock lasciviousness. "Eric! Two people can't fit in here! ...
I'm serious!"
"So am I," he said moving closer, dropping the towel around his waist and
chuckling diabolically. A great splash drowned out her giggling protests.
"Okay, wiseguy, you're mopping that ... oooh ..." She never finished what
she'd been about to say.

He was there again, with Shelly, in those suffocating memories--laughing,
playing, making music. He hugged them to himself in spite of their acid
fingers, like a drug whose lure he could not resist ...

Her joy fed him, her laughter warmed him, her love transfigured him. She
was as brilliant as the sun, as luminous as the moon, he couldn't stop
looking at her, couldn't stop thinking about her. Every song he made was
a paean to her and to their love ...
He knelt before her, worshipping her body with his own. Her eyes were
smoky with passion as she drew him to her, shuddering as his lips set her
on fire ...

God, you bastard. How could you do that to her? His tortured mental cry,
his first coherent thought since he'd awakened, lashed through his mind
like a bullwhip.
How could you make something so soft and innocent and beautiful and then
destroy it? How could you do that? How could you make her suffer like
that? You bastard.
But it wasn't God who was to blame after all. It was himself--he had
failed her, his beloved, left her undefended to suffer ... to suffer ...
But no, no! To think that was intolerable! He crushed the thought out of
his awareness, but still it lurked in the dark corners of his mind like the
subtlest of poisons: colorless, odorless, tasteless ... and lethal!

With a strangled cry of anguish that ripped his throat and his wounded
heart, he drove his fist into Shelly's mirror, shattering the images in
his mind before they destroyed him completely. He caught a glimpse of his
ravaged face in the spider-web mosaic of the crazed glass, then swept the
candles to hiss into darkness on the floor, and wept for a loss he could
not bear.
The crow turned its fathomless gaze upon the shuddering man who wept among
the spilled candles. Now ... now it was time.

And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing.... According to
their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence
to his enemies.
--Isaiah 59:17-18

Then, when it seemed that he would be crushed under the intolerable
pressure, a cold purpose flowed over him, sealing him off from his pain,
and layering him away from the past. He reached outward with his rage,
turning it away from his own vulnerable guilt.
"Sometimes, when everything else has been stolen, all there is left, is
revenge." Where had he heard that before? It didn't matter--it was true,
and he was going to take all that he had left in both hands and wield it
like a sword against those who had taken everything else from him.
This time he would make it through them. This time he would reach
Shelly.
The makeup kit that Shelly had bought for that lost Halloween had waited
patiently for him all these months, and now grimly he began his
transformation: Man into harlequin mask. Death-white face, mocking
black-slashed and shadowed clown-eyes, and black spectral lips, curling
in a sneering, counterfeit smile. His once kind, handsome face vanished
beneath the devil's mask, and he shuddered inwardly at the hardness there
that shut him off from what he had been. But Shelly was the only one in
his thoughts now--Shelly ... and revenge.
He discarded the last of his burial clothing and found the well-traveled
case and lifted out the black leather second-skin that had once been his
signature costume in Hangman's Joke.
Strength had returned along with the memories, and he dressed with
unconscious grace. Now once again these clothes would be his signature,
but this time there would be no joke--this Hangman was as serious as
death.
The crow came to rest on his shoulder as he stalked across the ruined loft
to the shattered window and stood with clenched fists looking out over the
city: Grim Death and the carrion crow, ready to claim their own.

For I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and
their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my
raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my
redeemed is come.
--Isaiah 63:3-4

* * *

"Couple more rings--that's twenty-four k," Tin Tin bragged, while the
greasy, fat, ugly little man known only as Gideon pawed through the
scattered loot on the pawnshop counter. Gideon was one of the scavengers
of the neighborhood, skulking around the heels of the predators, hating
them almost as much as they hated him.
"Twenty-four k, huh? It's Eighteen k. Crap! It's probably fake." Gideon
squinted at the ring in disgust, sneering at the arrogant black face
watching him expectantly. Now the asshole was bragging about the purse,
like leather was something special. "Jeez. What's this, Tin Tin, a
bloodstain that's on here?" That Tin Tin was a real dumbass, Gideon
thought, not trying to hide the sneer on his face, but he knew how to keep
the motherfucker on a short leash. Big, mean, ... and stupid! That was
Tin Tin all right.
"I'll give you fifty bucks. I hate charities. Now you--take it or leave
it." He watched smugly as Tin Tin tapped his fingers on the counter, torn
between greed and anger. "Decisions, decisions," he smirked, then grunted
in satisfaction when the other snatched up the money.
But Tin Tin couldn't leave the insult unchallenged, and he backed out of
the pawnshop in a cold rage. "Cheap ass, chrome-domed, child molestin',
saprophyte motherfucker," he snarled viciously, trying to salvage his
pride.
"Lock the gate when you go out," Gideon ordered, impervious to that kind of
baiting, although the one about "chrome-domed" stung a little.
"Ah close this up fo' yo' reeeeal good, massah! Fuck you!" Tin Tin
blustered in mocking humility, thrusting out his middle finger, but
impotent to do more than hurl insults at the little slug's head. Gideon
was "under the dragon's wing" as much as he was, so he couldn't stab the
fatass like he really wanted to.
"Sit on it and twirl," the little pawnbroker muttered, determined to have
the last word, but Tin Tin pretended not to hear as he slammed the steel
grating shut and hooked the padlock securely over it. He was tempted to
leave it open and see what kind of trouble found its way into the pawnshop,
but that wasn't the kind of temptation it was healthy to indulge in. Top
Dollar would want to know who was responsible.
Leaving the securely locked shop behind him, Tin Tin strode off into the
night rain, a lean black animal, angry and hungry and looking for prey.

* * *

The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth
him, he shall slay him.
--Numbers 35:19

The dark city flashed by below, lights reflecting from a kaleidoscope of
rain-slick surfaces--the crow was on the wing, hunting for a hunter. Far
below it, the tiny figure of a man caught his eye, and it wheeled with a
triumphant caw. Back it sped, in a swift crow's flight, back to the silent
specter waiting for it high above the quiet streets; and with a flash of
wing, led him in earth-bound flight across the rooftops.

It was like a dream--he'd had dreams before of running like
this--tirelessly, easily, leaping from building to building with inhuman
strength and grace, his teeth bared in a feral grin as he tested the powers
of his resurrected body. He was no ghost--there was heat and blood and
weight to his body. He felt the impact of the rooftops against the soles
of his boots, felt the even pounding of his heart and the rush of air in
his lungs. But there was no fatigue, no pain; the rain didn't chill him
anymore, and his strength never faltered.
He'd always been strong and graceful--taking the stairs two-at-a-time,
dancing on stage with the band--but this was like nothing human he'd ever
known, and he ran with a hot elation. The lowering clouds and the
rain-drenched air ate what little light there was, but still he could
see--a glowing luminosity lit everything he turned his eyes upon and
guided his feet on a sure path. He followed the crow, linked to it,
seeing the night spread out before him in a shifting double vision, as
sure and swift of foot as the fleetest deer, or like some agile, arboreal
ape, swinging through a rooftop rain-forest canopy.
[You run like a warrior. You are the unleashed arrow. Tonight we shall
drink the blood of your enemies.]
The crow dipped into a ghost-lit alley splashed with shadows from an
oil-drum fire, and turned its hunter's eye upon the hunter--Tin Tin strode
down the alley, shaking the rain off his braided mane and lighting a
cigarette at the fitful flames of the oil-drum.
Tin Tin of the deadly knives, Tin Tin who'd cut Shelly's white skin,
who'd thrown the knife that had killed Eric. He was too quick, too
strong ... he was a dead man.
Eric saw his quarry through the crow's skewed vision, and felt his
Purpose gather itself around him. Three stories below, a dead man awaited
him--two dead men would meet tonight, and only one would walk away. He
stood on the edge of a sheer thirty foot wall and offered himself to
gravity as gracefully as a diver, dropping down to land heavily but
unharmed amongst the trash of a thousand lives.
Once before he had fallen, into a spinning, endless night, letting go of
everything that he had been or would become; but this time, as the full
realization of the power he now possessed spread through his mind, he
threw back his head and laughed--wild, triumphant ... ghostly.
Tin Tin stiffened when he heard the maniacal laughter echoing eerily across
the alley-way, but his tension eased when he saw the slender figure
approaching him through the rain. He had no fear of the merely human, not
on his own turf and with his "friends" with him.
"What the fuck you all painted up for, crackhead, huh?" he taunted, as the
silent specter advanced steadily towards him, "Halloween ain't 'til
mañana." Okay, the freako wanted to fight? That was fine with Tin Tin--he
wanted to kill somebody. He threw away his cigarette and snatched out his
knife. "C'mon!" he challenged, eager for battle.
He shoved the flaming barrel into Eric's path, but Eric threw himself at
Tin Tin in a rush of such sudden ferocity that it caught the other
unawares, wary street-fighter though he was. The mud of the filthy
alleyway sprayed outward from their skidding bodies as they hit the ground,
then Eric pinned the larger man down, grabbing his flailing hands and
holding the deadly knives away from him, his face twisted into
unrecognizability by a snarl of animal fury. Then Eric jerked the heavier
man to his feet and threw him almost casually across the alley, more easily
than Tin Tin had thrown Shelly across the loft. He had never moved with
such brutal savagery, and it filled him with fiery exultation--this violent
killing rage of a grown man who has lost everything that he loved.
But he had to be violent to survive a battle like this. Tin Tin threw his
fist at Eric's head, a terrible blow that should have shattered his skull,
but all he did was shake it off and dive back at Tin Tin with a
death's-head leer. Again and again the big man struck crippling blows that
Eric shrugged off with little more than shouts of passing pain--even a
vicious kick that landed between his legs did no more than double him over
for a few seconds.
He was only toying with Tin Tin--bouncing him against the alley wall with
punishing backhand smacks that left him stunned but still fighting. With
one careless blow he knocked Tin Tin's knife out of his hand, sending it
tumbling through the air to land amongst the hissing coals of the spilled
fire. He was almost enjoying himself.
He thrilled with bloodthirsty delight as he realized how incredibly strong
he had become, and how nearly impervious to pain and injury he had become.
He remembered the cuts from the window healing in seconds on his palms, and
knew he was experiencing more miracles and wonders.
"Murderer! Murderer!" he yelled, as, with a fierce irresistible strength,
he flung Tin Tin twenty feet across the alley where he slammed against the
wall and lay stunned at its base. Eric followed with a quick leap and
immobilized him with pitiless hands, one fist drawn back for a killing
blow. But he didn't deliver it. No ... that would be too quick, too
easy--Tin Tin was going to have to die knowing why he died.
"I aint murdered nobody, man. I don't fuckin' know you, man. What the
fuck you want, man?" Tin Tin gasped, shaken as he'd never been shaken in
his life--the guy was so damned strong, and nothing he did seemed to hurt
him.
"I want you to tell me a story--a man and a woman in a loft, a year ago."
Eric's voice was harsh, out of breath after the violence of their
struggle.
"You're outta your motherfuckin' mind!"
"Listen!" Eric barked hoarsely, pressing his forearm across Tin Tin's
throat. "I'm sure you'll remember. You killed him ... on Halloween."
Tin Tin fought for air, blustering through his growing fear. "Yeah, yeah,
man, look ... on Halloween, yeah. Some dude. Some bitch. Whatever."
Eric slapped his face, slamming his head against the wall, and stared at
him with blazing eyes. "Her name was Shelly," he snarled, fighting for
control. Tin Tin was quick to spot the weakness in his enemy and he spat
in Eric's face, hoping to break that control. He almost succeeded.
Through gritted teeth, Eric accused him, "You cut her! You raped her!"

Through a haze of pain Shelly saw the black face grinning lasciviously at
her. Fire ripped across her skin, again and again, and he laughed, holding
his bloody knife before her terrified eyes, and lapped her blood off of its
gleaming surface with an obscene leer. Hands ... hands ... they would not
let her scream.

"Shelly ... yeah, I shanked her pink ass and she loved it," Tin Tin crowed
obscenely, waiting for the flinch he knew would come. Eric bowed his head,
wounded by his memories and more vulnerable to those poisonous words than
he'd been to physical blows.
Tin Tin struck then, darting his head forward like the viper he was,
stunning Eric to his knees. Tin Tin's groping hands found a heavy iron
pipe and he swung it heavily across the smaller man, again and again, in
spine-crushing, killing blows.
"Murderer! Murderer!" Eric gasped hoarsely, dazed and stricken, as Tin
Tin danced triumphantly away.
"Let me tell you about murder: it's fun, it's easy," Tin Tin gloated, back
in control again. "You gonna learn aaall about it." But Eric already
knew more about murder than Tin Tin could ever imagine, and on this cold
wet night, Eric was going to be his teacher.
Arrogant in his ignorance, Tin Tin laughed, and with deadly ease snatched
out two killing knives and carved the air flamboyantly; then, like a
bullfighter confident of his victim, he turned his back, stalking away and
shrugging off his long leather coat. When he'd reached the distance he
favored for throwing, he turned and boasted, "I'd like you to meet two
buddies of mine. We never miss." But his confidence slipped a little
when he saw his supposedly crippled opponent rise unsteadily to his feet
and begin to come after him again.
He threw his first knife, a blurring flash straight to Eric's heart, but
Eric stood easily before his adversary now, ducking with a swift,
economical movement, and the blade passed harmlessly over his head. "Try
harder," he said grimly, straightening up and walking forward.
The second knife flashed, and Eric batted it aside with a quick, careless
movement of one hand. "Try again," he challenged, still coming on. He
caught the third knife in his hands, effortlessly stopping its deadly
trajectory just inches away from his face. Tin Tin gasped in stunned
disbelief.
Then baring his teeth in a devil's snarl, Eric threw the evil blade back
towards its owner, pinning him against a stack of pallets like a fly in a
specimen case. And finally, as his "friends" were turned against him one
by one, Tin Tin knew what it felt like to be afraid, knew what Shelly had
felt.
"Victims," Eric whispered grimly, snatching yet another knife from his
enemy and holding it like a dagger over his head, "aren't we all?" His
hand descended, and there was the crunch of steel into flesh.
Two dead men met in an alley ... and only one walked away.

* * *

Club Trash was jammin'! Hundreds of young people crammed into the tight
space, moving like a great herd of sweating cattle, mindlessly swaying to
the band that filled the air with sound as thick as summer smog. The
walls were lined with publicity photos of the many bands who'd played there
in the past, and lost among them was one which read: Hangman's Joke.
"Look at this mess," T-bird barked in disgust, as he and Skank rudely
shoved their way through the oblivious masses. "What's the world coming
to?" Stupid assholes all of them, coming down here looking for thrills.
He'd like to give them a few thrills, starting with that sexy chick singing
up there on the stage, shaking her tail and coming on to everybody like she
was aching for the gang bang to end all gang bangs. But business before
pleasure.
"I gotta go upstairs--report from the front," he told Skank, leaving the
little man eagerly ordering drinks at the bar. Dumbass Skank--wasn't even
looking twice at the singer--he'd rather grab Darla's brat in an alley when
he thought no one was looking. Then again, maybe he had something
there--the kid was starting to turn into a real baby fox. Hmmm, they ought
to be able to put her to good use pretty soon ... if she hadn't already
started free-lancing. Then he put Sarah out of his mind for the moment--he
had important business to attend to.
"Get out of my way, you worms," T-bird shouted angrily, as he elbowed his
way through the stinking mass of humanity, finally breaking free at a
well-guarded stairwell. He passed the watchdogs with a nod of his
head--they knew him here. Quickly he began to climb.
"Why don't you ladies come back later, check me out?" T-bird heard that
rich voice long before he saw its owner--Grange, the sophisticated black
man with the Mephistopheles beard who carried enough weaponry concealed
under his expensive suits to hold off an entire SWAT team single-handedly
... not that any SWAT team would ever be dumb enough to invade Top Dollar's
domain, or could even get within a mile of it without tipping him off.
Right now he was coming on to two luscious bunnies with all the confidence
of a big cat, he was almost purring when he turned his attention from them
to T-bird who joined them on the landing.
"Hey, guess what?" T-bird announced smugly, "Arcade Games fell down, went
boom."
"Boom?" Grange lifted an eyebrow.
"Can you imagine that? 'S tragic," T-bird mocked, shaking his head in
counterfeit dismay.
But Grange wasn't interested in his games. Not when there was business to
attend to. "Gather your soldiers. You're on for tomorrow night, no
sweat." He gave T-bird a tight smile. Oh yeah, there would be work
a-plenty for all of them tomorrow night.
"Is The Man in?" T-bird asked, a little warily. He wanted to make his
report and get it over with--Top Dollar was not someone he liked to spend
too much time with, him and that woman of his. He ran this neighborhood
like a god, but not one it was comfortable ... or safe ... to be around.
But then Grange really did smile, knowingly. "He's 'taking a meeting',"
he said, winking lewdly, and T-bird didn't care to speculate on the nature
of that "meeting".

* * *

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects
in us all.... Absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of
depravity.... Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not
yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.
--Marquis de Sade

A man and a woman moved languorously on the whispering silken sheets of an
enormous bed, their passions spent for the moment. Another woman lay
motionless beside them. The man lifted himself on one elbow and delicately
kissed the bruise which was slowly blossoming over the woman's ribs, and
chuckled deep in his throat.
He was a handsome man--a perfect subject for the Renaissance painters ...
if they ever needed a model for Lucifer. His hair was beautiful, longer
than the woman's, and it fell like a veil over his naked shoulders,
clinging in places to the drying sweat, limning the bizarre tattoos that
decorated his body. He had a fine voice, rich and deep, that never seemed
to be without a sneer in it.
He was known as Top Dollar, and the woman was his half-sister,
Myca.
"Does that hurt?" he asked, caressing the bruise.
"Pain is power," she hissed, with a quick intake of breath.
"Hah! You sound like that witch, your mother."
"She taught me much."
"Well, my mother taught me this," he purred in his dark voice, kissing her
full breasts and taking her nipple between his teeth. "Are you ready for
seconds?" he asked, anticipation turning the question into a growl.
She watched him impassively through half-lidded almond eyes, her oriental
features as inscrutable as the stereotype would have them. When she didn't
answer, he bit her, lightly at first, then harder until she was writhing
in abandon beneath him. He tasted blood on his tongue before she gasped
her assent, pulling his face to hers and licking her own blood off of his
lips.
He took her as ungently as she demanded, permitting her to draw his blood
with her wicked long nails. The violence of their coupling would have
shocked the punkers dancing mindlessly in the club below, but Top Dollar
and his sister knew all the rules of this little game--they'd been playing
it for a long, long time.
After a while they slept.

Top Dollar was restless and discontented, even after the games with his
sister and her latest "playmate". And it disturbed him that he didn't
know why. He gazed impassively at his sister's voluptuous body while she
showered, her movements languid and sensuous under the steaming spray of
three shower heads. It was a beguiling picture she made, framed by the
open doorway and surrounded by glittering black tile, a tattoo making a
brilliant splash of color down the delicious curve of her back.
But he turned away from her and focused on the little crystal globe he
held pensively in one hand, watching the tiny snowflakes swirl around the
macabre miniature grave-yard enclosed within it.
"You are thinking about the past," his sister said, sitting down beside
him, her exotic face enigmatic.
"Dad gave me this ... fifth birthday. Told me: 'childhood's over the
minute you know you're gonna die.'" He shook the little globe and passed
it somberly over to her.
"And on my fifth birthday, he gave me you," she mused reminiscently.
"I thought it was the other way around," he snorted.
"That is what you were meant to think," she said, with sly complaisance,
then she looked intently at him, focusing on the present once more.
"It is the dream again--there are forces gathering against you. You must
find out what they are." Her almond eyes glittered as she kissed his
forehead in an erotic benison. "Tell me what you saw."
"Just the usual," he said, his sardonic voice dark with frustration.
"Something's watching me ... and waiting."
"This time it was different." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yeah. This time was the last time--I could feel it. It won't be just a
dream anymore, and it's not gonna be satisfied with just watching. It
begins tonight ... and ends tomorrow."
"For the last year, you have been having this dream of the watcher. And I
cannot find out why! Something is blocking me!" She quivered in outrage
at the thought--she was not used to being forestalled in this way. She
looked at him with her fathomless black eyes. "And what is there about
tonight that draws it?"
"I don't know about tonight, but as for tomorrow, you know that as well as
I do, little sister. My own Devil's Night. And if the 'forces' gathering
against me are because of my sins on that night of nights, then they're a
vast multitude and even you won't be able to hold them at bay. But, if
it's nothin' more than a bad dream, then I got nothin' to worry about, do
I?" His words were mocking, but not his tone--there was so much deadly
promise repeated each time he had that dream that he was forced to take
it seriously.
"Devil's Night--that is the key." Then she dismissed the puzzle from her
mind--she had other ways to solve it. Her gaze drifted across the gleaming
silk of the tangled bedsheets until it caressed the lush, odalisque curves
of the unmoving female form. "Is she asleep?" she asked, almost idly.
Her brother reached over with a careless hand to roll the woman onto her
back, the splendid globes of her breasts glowing like a Renoir painting,
her lovely eyes staring sightlessly into infinity. "I think we broke her,"
he said with a dismissive sniff--they never lasted long in the games he and
Myca liked to play, the janitor was welcome to her now ... as soon as Myca
had finished with her. He leaned back appreciatively to watch his sister
at work.
The knife she lifted in her delicate hand looked more like a piece of
jewelry than a cutting blade, but it was sharper than the finest scalpel.
Caressing the dead woman's face, she traced a languid finger around the
staring, priceless eyes. "I love her eyes ... pretty."
There was no blood, of course, at least, not enough to stain the sheets,
and Myca knew well how to extract her prizes with the least amount of
untidiness. "All the power resides in the eyes," she whispered when she
had finished. "I shall find your watcher for you, and we will destroy
it."
He took her then, carelessly elbowing the dead woman out of his way, all
his discontent forgotten in a great tidal wash of carnality.

"Grange, tell me what we did last Devil's Night." Myca stared piercingly
at the elegant black man lounging attentively across the table from her.
Grange's phenomenal memory, powers of observation and attention to detail
were all the records she needed to consult. He nodded, his handsome face
cool and impassive, his intelligent eyes concealing any hint of curiosity
about her request--time and time again she had interrogated him like this,
learning more from his reports than he ever put into them. There were
those who wondered how Top Dollar knew the things he did to run his
criminal empire so effectively, but Grange knew ... and the answer sat
before him now, looking purely decorative, but with a mind and eyes that
saw through the secrets of the world.
He began enumerating every fire set that night, but they ran to scores and
she stopped him impatiently. "No, it is not a fire. It has not the feel
of a fire. What else?" she demanded, unsatisfied, cupping two soft pieces
of excised flesh in her hand. "Help me to see," she whispered to them,
while Grange went on with his recitation.
"... then there was Shelly Webster and Eric Draven. She was organizing
the tenants at 1929 Calderon Court Apartments to fight evictions. T-bird's
crew went to change her mind. They exceeded their instructions slightly
when her boyfriend caught them at work and ended up killing them both. No
heirs or grieving relatives. And, of course, no witnesses and no arrests."
"Dead? Both of them?"
"Dead and buried ... unless you want to count the ghost."
"Ghost? Tell me of this 'ghost'." She leaned forward, a strange
otherworldly knowing burning in her eyes.
"Nothing much to tell. Some of the tenants said they saw or heard
something on the top floor. Did us a favor anyway--cleared the building
out damned fast. It's been empty for nearly a year now."
"It's on the list then, ain't it?" Top Dollar drawled, joining them.
"Maybe we'll toast the ghost tomorrow night. That'll end it for sure."
"Another thing," Grange added thoughtfully, "Draven was in a
band--Hangman's Joke. They played at the club a few times ... think
there's a connection?"
"Hangman's Joke? Oooo, I'm getting scared," Top Dollar mocked lazily.
His sister frowned. "No. Eric Draven is not your watcher, but there is a
link. I still cannot see, but I shall be ready. Tonight, all will be made
clear."
Yes, tonight. Let her brother play with his fires and his petty thugs,
this was the real power--to see ... and to act upon what was seen.

* * *

Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.
--Arthur Rimbaud

"Hey, kid! Get the hell outta the road!"
Sarah ignored the angry cabdriver as she dodged skillfully through the
sparse traffic. So? Run me down! See if I care, she thought angrily as
she approached The Pit, warily scanning the sidewalk and nearby
alleyways--the last time she'd come here she'd taken a short cut and run
into Skank who'd been taking a piss in the alley ... lucky for her T-bird
had been in a hurry that night. Well, at least there was no sign of them
out here now, but her skin crawled at the thought of going into the bar
after Darla ... at least she had an ally of sorts in the bartender. With
a determined air, she went down the steps to the sleazy bar's sunken
entrance, pushed it open and went in. The smokey interior was hardly
brighter than outside, but there was enough light to see Darla sitting
spraddle-legged on the lap of her current--and to Sarah's mind,
worst--"boyfriend", Funboy.
Sarah had despised all of Darla's "boyfriends", but she hated Funboy with
a passion ... and feared him. Mostly, he treated her with contempt, but
every now and then, she'd catch him looking at her with a kind of scary
speculation, and she didn't want to know whatever it was he was planning
for her, although she had a pretty good idea. Like mother, like daughter,
isn't that what people said? And eleven wasn't to young to start ... hell,
she knew kids her age who'd been at it for years.
But not her, not Sarah! She'd been Shelly and Eric's friend, and she'd
never disappoint them by going into sex and drugs like Darla. She'd fight
them every chance she got, like right now! she thought, sitting down at the
table where Darla and Funboy were practically doing it in front of
everybody, and cleared her throat pointedly to get their attention.
Almost groggily, the slatternly young woman looked over and saw the little
girl staring accusingly at her, and had the grace to feel a moment of
shame.
"Told ya to stay outta here," she muttered defensively, letting her eyes
slide away from her daughter, as if she couldn't bear to look at her ...
or be looked at.
"So, I guess you're not gonna be home 'til a lot later, huh, Darla?" Sarah
challenged her scornfully, hiding the hurt that gnawed at her with the
skill that only comes after long experience.
"She's busy!" Funboy sneered, looking at her up and down in the way that
always made her feel wormy inside. "Go play with your dolls or something,
okay" he suggested mockingly, giving her that stupid open-mouthed waiting
look that most grown-ups outgrew when they left high school. It infuriated
her.
"I don't have any dolls!" she snapped back at him, forgetting in her anger
that this was a dangerous man to push. But Darla must have sensed what
was building between them, because she reached for the little pile of bills
on the table and handed a few to Sarah.
"Get some food, huh," she said hopefully, trying to get rid of her before
there was trouble. But Sarah was too mad by this time, and with all she'd
been through so far tonight, she was getting reckless.
"Somebody already bought me dinner ..." she said sullenly, taking the
money, but rejecting Darla's offer. Then she challenged Funboy directly,
"... the police!" she spat at him, letting him know that she still had
some protectors left in this world.
But after a few seconds, his impatient glare unnerved her, so she snatched
up the money and retreated, hating him, and herself for giving in so
easily.
"'Somebody already bought me dinner ... the police'," he mocked cruelly as
she walked stiff-backed away from them, her mother's foolish giggle at his
jibe stabbing her like a knife.
I hate them, Sarah thought, fighting back her tears. Shelly ... Eric ...
why did you have to die?
But there was no answer ... there would never be an answer to that
question.

* * *

In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish
leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent.
--Isaiah 27:1

[This one has what you seek.]
Eric stood before the steel grating of Gideon's Pawnshop, staring through
the dirty glass at the dirty little man counting his dirty money in the
back of the dirty shop.
"Hey! Piss off! We're closed! Cerrado!" The vicious little man bellowed
inside the shop when Eric pounded loudly on the padlocked gate. "Go sleep
it off somewhere else, dusthead ... unless you wanna get mutilated."
Then Eric wrenched open the gate as if the lock were made of paper, and
through the smeared glass he could see Gideon pull out his gun and angrily
advance to challenge the intruder, muttering as he came, "Goddamn creatures
of the night--they never learn."
Eric ignored Gideon's warnings and tapped three slow, sepulchral knocks on
the glass of the door; then, even as the dangerous little man warily
approached, bold with the gun he carried, Eric smashed the glass,
shattering it in an explosion of sound, and stepped casually through. Out
of the night, the crow skimmed past, buffeting the startled little man off
of his feet and sending the pistol skidding across the floor.
"... Suddenly I heard a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."
Eric quoted sardonically, casually brushing broken glass off of his
shoulder.
"What're you talking about?" Gideon gasped from the floor, his fat face
with its ridiculous moustache--like an anemic caterpillar crawling across
his upper lip--sweaty with fear.
"You heard me rapping, right?" Eric said, raising his eyebrows quizzically
as he slowly advanced into the shop.
"You're trespassing," Gideon blustered, realizing that his intruder was
weaponless. "And you owe me a fuckin' new door."
"I'm looking for something in an engagement ring ... gold," Eric said,
ignoring him and sounding for all the world like a genuine customer. Then
he lowered his head and spread his empty hands into a wide, cruciform
stance, offering no threat. But Gideon scarcely even heard him--his
scrambling hands had found his pistol and he raised it, taking trembling
aim.
"You're looking for a coroner, shit-for-brains," he gasped, and pulled the
trigger.
The bullet slammed into Eric full in the chest, right over his heart, and
exited his back in an explosive mist of blood, the force of it driving him
backwards, while a flash of white-hot agony lanced through him. He had
felt this before!
But this time ... it was different. He stood in shock, looking down at his
chest while the bullet hole shrank and healed itself in seconds, leaving
only a charred hole in his tunic and the fading memory of a fleeting pain.
He lifted his head, a grin of wolfish glee pulling his black-painted lips
apart--a thin drool of saliva dripping off his lower lip was the only sign
that he'd been affected by the bullet--and he laughed again with a dark,
mad joy at this new evidence of his invulnerability.
In utter horror, Gideon stared at him, gasping like a dying fish. "Shit on
me shit on me shit on me ..." he shrieked, scuttling like the cockroach he
was for the safety of his back counter and the weapons hidden there. But
Eric caught him before he'd gone inches and threw him completely across
the room ... to land behind that same counter. Hearing Eric's feet behind
him, Gideon fumbled for a weapon, but he wasn't quick enough. Eric leapt
onto the counter, then high into the air as Gideon came up swinging a bat
across the empty space that Eric had occupied an instant before.
Confusion blanked the little man's fat face as he searched for the
intruder, then stark terror when Eric swung past him, his painted face
upside down and on a level with his own, like a child playing games on the
monkey bars ... except, this was no game.
"Mr. Gideon. You're not paying attention," the upside-down face said, as
Eric ripped the bat from his hands and slammed it viciously against his
head. But the slimy little shopkeeper wasn't stopped that easily.
Eric swung down and dropped to crouch on the counter before him like an
attacking panther, and Gideon swung his arm to backhand Eric's face with a
blow that would have broken his nose ... if it had connected. But Eric
caught his wrist and stopped it cold, as effortlessly as he would have
caught a thrown ball. Then he smashed the glass countertop in front of
Gideon, reached through to snatch up one of the knives on display, and
drove it through Gideon's hand, pinning him to the counter as he'd pinned
Tin Tin to the stack of pallets. Gideon screamed in horrified disbelief.
"I repeat, a gold engagement ring, yes?" Eric reminded him implacably,
muffling his yells of pain with a pitiless hand. "It was pawned here a
year ago by a customer of yours named Tin Tin." Suddenly he leaped off
of the counter, leaving Gideon trapped by the knife through his hand. "He
confided in me before he ran out of breath," Eric snarled, swinging around
to stare back at Gideon with an expression of such savagery that the
shopkeeper recoiled in stark terror.

* * *

Albrecht stood in the midst of the small cluster of official vehicles which
had gathered in this noisome alley, and watched Detective Torres stare
sourly at the body being carried past them into the waiting ambulance. It
had five knives sticking out of its chest and was overpoweringly dead.
"Who's this sack of shit?" Torres snapped in disgust.
"That's Tin Tin, one of T-bird's little helpers. I think you can rule out
'accidental death'," Albrecht smirked, with no little satisfaction. He
remembered another October night, and another man who had died with five
wounds in his chest. And without a shred of proof, he knew that this dead
man on the stretcher had been in that loft the night Shelly Webster and
Eric Draven had been killed.
"Don't any of your street demons have real grown-up names?" the detective
asked with surly amusement, but Albrecht went on, ignoring him.
"This could be a turf hit, but it doesn't look like your usual gang crap."
In fact, the whole thing had him puzzled.
"C'mon, Albrecht, spare me. You're a beat cop now, so be a beat cop," the
detective snapped, hating the other man, whose honesty couldn't be
subverted, whose decency couldn't be bullied.
"I'm supposed to thank you for that, right?" Albrecht said bitterly, stung
by the taunt. Torres' smirk gave him all the answer he needed.
"A word to the wise--watch your fuckin' mouth!" Torres sneered, knowing--as
all bullies knew--when his words would hurt the most. Then his face went
stiff in shocked disgust as he caught his first glimpse of the alley wall
behind Albrecht. "What the hell do you call that?"
Almost casually, knowing what he would see, Albrecht turned, letting his
eyes travel across the outline of a giant bird which spanned over twenty
feet. "I call it blood, detective," he drawled, repaying the taunt with
one of his own. "I suppose you'll write it up as ... graffiti."
"You can leave my crime scene now, okay," Torres muttered, shaken by the
sight, but determined to have the last word. But Albrecht just smiled to
himself--Tin Tin a corpse and Torres looking sick, and both on the same
night ... things were definitely starting to look up.

* * *

I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.
--Charles Beaudelaire

Eric raged through the pawnshop. His mood had changed from bitter scorn to
something much deadlier. "Warmer?" he shouted, his tone more threat than
question.
"What're you doing," Gideon wailed, still pinned to the counter.
"Don't you know this game," Eric asked harshly, leaving a trail of
destruction behind him.
"What game you talking about?" Gideon shrieked, gaping at the knife
sticking out of his hand. "Okay, the rings, I'll tell you about the
rings. They're in the metal box, under the shelf there. Get your fucking
rings, you can chew on 'em and choke on 'em, you sonuvabitch ..." But he
was choking himself, in helpless rage and pain.
Behind another counter, Eric found the metal box, and suddenly he went very
still. With an easy grace he crossed his legs and sank bonelessly to the
floor, opening the box with trembling hands.

"Look, it goes up to the attic," he said, barely repressing the laughter
that bubbled out of him. Shelly looked down doubtfully from her perch on
the ladder, then smiled back at him when she saw his expression. She could
tell there was something wonderful up there ... and there was, even more
wonderful than she could ever guess ...

Again memory's acid fingers scorched his mind, and he saw the candlelit
attic room where he'd proposed to Shelly, where he'd given her this ring.
It didn't belong here, in this shop of so many sorrows.
But there were dozens of rings ... hundreds. How can I ever find Shelly's
ring in here? he thought in dismay, still wincing from the memory he'd just
relived. But he couldn't leave it in Gideon's hands. What if it had
already been sold?
He reached into the little box and drew out one of the rings, staring at it
in the dim light. "No," he said bleakly, tossing it impatiently away to
land with a jingle on the floor beside him. The next one he didn't even
need to look at, eyes were no longer necessary--Shelly's ring would sing to
him with her essence the instant he touched it. "No. No. No," he
repeated, sensing the anonymous pain each one carried, searching through
nettles to grasp the sharpest thorn.
Suddenly he sucked in his breath with a hiss of purest agony, and opened
his eyes upon the delicate ring between his fingers. "Shelly!" Her name
was torn from his throat as the memories clinging to the golden circlet
swarmed into his consciousness like a million merciless wasps--the secret
attic room lit with a hundred candles, the offering of the little velvet
box, Shelly's joyous acceptance and all the sweet memories that followed
...

He'd worked out a beautiful speech, but when the time came, all he could do
was grin like a tongue-tied ten-year-old giving his girl a valentine. In
the end, that was all he needed--the magic of the candlelight and the
delicately beautiful ring said everything that he needed to say, and the
look on Shelly's face told him everything he needed to hear ...
"Mine," he breathed through her ecstatic embrace, at last daring to use the
word. "Mine forever."
"Only forever?" she whispered back, her love consuming him like a
flame.
"Forever ... and ever!" he said solemnly, and it was the truest thing he'd
ever said in his life ...

With a gesture of aching tenderness, he slipped the ring onto his little
finger and touched it briefly to his lips. Then the iron mask of his
purpose clamped down on his mind again and he roared through the shop like
a primal force of nature, taking what he needed and leaving ruin in his
wake.

My fury shall be poured out upon this place, ... and it shall burn, and
shall not be quenched.
--Jeremiah 7:20

Gideon had finally managed to get enough nerve to wrench the knife out of
his hand and was fumbling to find a weapon when Eric loomed up out of the
shadows again, with a gun as long as his forearm pointed right at the fat
ugly face. From behind him drifted the eye-burning fumes of spilled
gasoline.
"You have one chance to live," Eric said ominously.
Gideon was a broken man, wrapping his bleeding hand in a filthy rag,
cowering behind the counter, and staring down the barrel of the gun in
Eric's hand. He still didn't have a clue why this man was here or what
he wanted--all he knew was that Eric wasn't like any thief he'd ever run
into before.
"Look, man," he whimpered, confused and desperate. "Take anything you
want."
"Thank you," Eric said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
"Take anything!" Gideon screamed, watching in horror while Eric poured
gasoline all over the counters around him.
Tossing the empty can aside, Eric impaled Gideon with his burning gaze.
"Now you're going to tell me where to find the rest of Tin Tin's little
party pals."
Gideon blanched and babbled the information as fast as his tongue could
spit it out. "They all hang out at The Pit. All of T-bird's little
potato-heads hang out there. Funboy--he lives there, upstairs ...
alright?"
"Funboy ..." Eric murmured, bracing his soul against the images of that
vacuous face leering over Shelly. "A whole jolly club," he cried, his
voice harsh as he fought to control his fury, smashing counter after
counter in a violent punctuation to his words. "With jolly pirate
nicknames!
"Hold still!" he snarled at Gideon, rage so mixed with pain by now that he
could hardly breath. He held up one of the rings from the box, absorbing
its bitter message of misery, layering it on top of his own. "Each one of
these is a life ..." one by one he threw them at the flinching, whimpering
little man, as implacable as Nemesis, " ... a life you helped destroy!"
"I beg you ... don't kill me."
"I'm not going to kill you," Eric promised grimly. "Your job will be to
tell the rest of them that Death is coming for them ... tonight!" His eyes
burned inside their painted shadows as he tipped the rest of the pitiful
hoard of rings down the barrel of the enormous gun he held.
"Tell them Eric Draven sends his regards," he said with quiet menace, then
turned and strolled almost casually through the havoc he had wreaked,
pausing only to pick up an electric guitar as he passed.
"Walk outta here, they're gonna erase your sorry ass," Gideon screamed
frantically, still blustering in spite of all that had happened. "You're
nothin' but street grease, y'hear? Street grease, you motherfucker!"
But Eric only paused in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder with
an arch expression of feigned curiosity on his face. "Is that gasoline I
smell?" he asked rhetorically as his lips curled into a cruel smile.
Gideon shrieked like a trapped rat, and fled the promise in Eric's words,
while Eric stepped out of the pawnshop, held the ugly weapon at arms'
length and fired its pathetic, jeweled shrapnel into the fume-laden
interior.
With an eerie, satisfying beauty, flame mushroomed from every door and
window with a roar that broke windows for a block around. For a few brief
seconds, a new sun lit the skies, enveloping Eric in its corona, melting
the glass in the windows, yet leaving him as unharmed as if he'd been
caressed by a summer breeze.

* * *

All love, all liking, all delight
Lies drowned with us in endless night.
--Robert Herrick

Les the bartender had seen the whole business with Darla and Funboy, of
course, but he was busy with another customer down the counter, so Sarah
had a few minutes to pull herself together before he came over to her. He
was a gruff and ugly man, but there was more real kindness in his face than
in Darla's entire body, and Sarah was glad to count him as one of her
friends; although, considering where he worked, she didn't get to see him
very often.
"Root beer," she told him morosely, not wanting to brave the rainy night
just yet. She pushed one of Darla's bills towards him.
"It's on the house, kiddo, you know that," he said with his usual gruff
kindness, pushing her money back at her as he set her drink down, "one root
beer." Then his eye was attracted by something behind her, and she
swiveled in her seat to see what it was. It was Darla and Funboy--they'd
left the little table and were starting up the stairs to Funboy's room,
Darla a little ahead, looking back flirtatiously at the man who was already
fondling her lewdly.
Sarah turned back to face Les, hunching her shoulders in a hot, shamed
misery at what they were doing ... and were going to do.
"I can't do anything," Les said in pained embarrassment and sympathy.
"Your mom? Technically, she's ... off, right now," he explained, as if
that would do any good.
"Yeah. Way off," Sarah said bitterly, adding to herself--I wish she
was ... on another planet! Slowly she sipped her root beer, its sweetness
growing flat as depression washed over her. Funboy was an asshole, a jerk,
a rat-bastard, mother-fucking ... oh shit, what a stupid, stupid pun.
"Look, kiddo, you watch your step around Funboy--you push that sonuvabitch
too far and you could wind up in big trouble," Les went on, looking at her
with genuine concern, but he wasn't telling her anything she didn't already
know.
"Yeah, I know," she sighed heavily, afraid that she had no real way of
avoiding her mother's boyfriend ... or whatever plans he might have for
her future.
Role models. Shelly had told her to look for good people to study as role
models, but Shelly had been the only one she'd known ... until Eric came
into their lives. Then Sarah began studying him for all she was worth.
Shelly had laughed and said she was like Jane Goodall studying chimpanzees
in Africa, and Eric got a big kick out of that, bouncing all around the
loft, pretending to be a chimp. They'd all laughed until they cried and
their sides hurt. Ever after that, whenever Eric wanted to tease her, he'd
call her "Sarah Jane" and go "Ook, ook," crouching and swinging his arms
like a monkey. It never failed to crack them both up.
Damn! He'd been such a great guy!
But if Eric was a positive role model, then Funboy was a negative one, and
she'd better study him too, so she'd never, never, never have anything to
do with any creep the least little bit like him, and so she'd never make
the same stupid mistakes her mother did.
Finally she couldn't stand even being in the same building as Funboy and
her mother, knowing what they were doing upstairs. Not after remembering
those happy times with Shelly and Eric. Well, at least they were doing it
here and not back at the apartment. Rain or no rain, she went back out
into the night.

* * *

Eric was so bemused by what he had learned ... and what he had done ...that
he didn't even notice the police car come screeching to a halt in front of
him or the policeman who got out of it and pointed a gun at him, until he
heard the nervous shout, "Police! Don't move. I said: Don't! Move!"
Eric smiled benignly at the officer as a strange sense of recognition
washed over him. He read the name-badge on his pocket--Albrecht. Somehow
he knew this man.
"I thought the police always said 'freeze'," Eric said with quiet
curiosity, pausing and offering no threat.
"Well, I am the police, and I say: don't move, Snow White. You move,
you're dead." Albrecht watched him with a wary eye, terribly unsure of
his ground with this compelling stranger who walked unscathed through
fire.
"And I say I'm dead ... and I move," Eric countered, raising his hands
submissively and walking slowly forward. But the irony of the words could
not mask the sadness in his voice.
"Not one more step ... I'm serious!"
Eric finally stopped and looked quizzically at the nervous policeman.
"Then shoot me, if you will," he bowed in gentle mockery, "Officer
Albrecht." Tilting his head, he stared up at the bewildered policeman
with a look that was not quite sane.
"What are you, nuts? Walking into a gun?" Albrecht gasped, relieved that
the weirdo had finally stopped. "You high?"
"You don't remember me," Eric said, not really surprised.
"What are you talking about?"
"How about Shelly? Do you remember Shelly Webster?" All mockery had
fled from his voice, burned away by the now too familiar pain of memory.
"Shelly Webster's dead, my friend," Albrecht said, wrestling painful
memories of his own. "I want you to move over to the curb there. C'mon,
real nice and easy. C'mon, move it!" Finally Eric obeyed, stepping back
to the curb and sitting down obediently. "I'm waiting for backup. It's
getting too friggin' weird for me."
"Oh, it gets better," Eric said, the wolfish look returning to his face.
"Do you know someone named T-bird? He had a friend who shouldn't have
played with knives. Like the coat?" he asked, baring his teeth in a feral
smile as he lifted the lapel.
"You're the guy that murdered Tin Tin," Albrecht gasped, torn between
dismay and approval, then his face softened in compassion when he saw the
pain sear the painted face before him.
"He was already dead. He died a year ago ... the moment he touched her."
Eric's expression froze as he stared into his own bleak nightmares,
"They're all dead ... they just don't know it yet." And he lifted his
wide, mad eyes to stare at the bewildered policeman.
Shouts of looters from the burning pawnshop caught Albrecht's attention
then, before he could respond to Eric's unnerving words, and for a fleeting
instant he took his eyes off of him to shout at them. When he looked back,
Eric was gone. There was no one left with him in the empty street except
a pair of looters disappearing into distant shadows, no sound except the
roaring surge of the fire destroying Gideon's and a fading cackle of
laughter from the triumphant looters.
"Oh great. Great!" he berated himself. "A guy shows up looking like a
mime from hell and you lose him right out in the open." He looked up and
down the street in frustrated disgust. "Well, at least he didn't do that
'walking against the wind' shit. I hate that," he sighed as the first of
his backup arrived. How the hell was he going to explain this?

* * *

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
--Hesiod

The eyes were at the end of their usefulness. They never lasted long--once
out of the body, their potency faded after just a few days. But there was
always one last function they could perform, and Myca tended to it with
delicate care. Smoke rose from the brazier and swirled intoxicatingly
around her as she lounged on Top Dollar's boardroom table next to it.
Carefully she sprinkled the sizzling pan with her own exotic blend of
potent crystals and herbs, extracting the last essences of the eye within
that perfumed, narcotic smoke. She breathed deeply of the fumes, absorbing
their power, reaching for the disturbing visions they opened for her, and
watched her brother pace across the room.
"You are very restless."
"Just wish I was a little hungry again, that's all," he said, his voice
heavy with discontent--not even anticipating Devil's Night gave him the
pleasure he craved.
"Be careful of what you ask for ..." his sister warned,
"Yeah, I may get it. I know," he sighed, taking her warning seriously, as
he did everything she told him--she was, after all, his ultimate source of
information, the linchpin of his organizational machine. He sat down next
to her and the brazier, taking a deep breath of the heady smoke, letting
his sister's alchemies work their magic on him.
"There are energies aligning against you," she said, thinking of what she'd
seen in the smoke.
"Seein' is believin', isn't it?" he mocked her teasingly, still confident
of his own strength, and let her kiss him, tasting of her own alchemies.
Ah, Myca fed his hunger... she was his hunger, and he needed no other. He
touched his little finger to his tongue and then to the mound of white
powder in front of him. Smiling sensuously at his sister, he licked the
cocaine like a naughty boy stealing sugar. "Mmm ... yummy," he teased,
letting the tiny tingle blend with the powerful surge he got from her
visionary smoke.
She flowed down from the table top then, to perch provocatively on his
chair arm, brushing her breasts lingeringly against his shoulder while she
loosely gathered his long hair, letting it spill in a silken fall through
her fingers. He dropped one hand to her leg to steady her against him,
caressing the firm, silk-clad flesh of her inner thigh--her body
intoxicated him more than her own sorcerous chemistries.
Then his pleasures were disturbed as Grange entered with T-bird trailing
behind like a well-trained killer dog. Grange's first words sent a cold
wave of anger through him, erasing all his feelings of satisfaction.
"Gideon's pawnshop just burned down ... to the foundation," he said,
delivering the bad news impassively.
"Nobody cleared this little event with me," Top Dollar observed sourly,
beginning to cut a line of cocaine. He had a feeling he was going to
need it.
"I didn't have nothin' to do with that," T-bird hastened to assure him.
As if he would--T-bird was too obedient a hound to slip his leash like
that, but he was probably jealous of whoever had done it.
"Ah, sure," Top Dollar drawled scornfully, "you must be awful
disappointed."
But T-bird didn't care about that. It seemed he had other things on his
mind. "I got trouble," he intoned ominously. "One of my crew got himself
perished."
"Yeah? And who might that be?"
"Tin Tin," he returned, with a morose expression. "Somebody stuck his
blades in all his major organs in alphabetical order."
Tin Tin? Oh yeah--good with knives ... he liked that in a man. "Well,
gentlemen," he sneered, "by all means, I think we oughtta have an
introspective moment of silence for poor old Tin Tin." He snorted the
line of coke he'd been readying--as good a eulogy as any--then looked
speculatively at T-bird, "You're workin' for me tomorrow night, right?"
"Whatever you say, I can do," he answered gloomily, a loyal soldier to the
end.
"Good, that's very reassuring," Top Dollar said, with some irony, then
thought about the implications of what they'd told him. "I still ain't
heard the story on why Gideon's burned down. Is that a natural
catastrophe, or act of God or something?" He raked them with his
irritated gaze. "Call it my 'need-to-know'."
They left him then, alone with Myca again, and he snorted another line,
remembering his own words:
It begins tonight ...

* * *

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone.
--Psalms 91:11-13

Climbing the steps onto the sidewalk, Sarah sighed in defeat. It was still
raining, she was cold and wet, and there was nothing but an empty apartment
waiting for her. Tomorrow was Devil's Night and she was going to be all
alone for it ... again. Maybe somebody would blow up their building and
she just wouldn't bother to escape.
Sure, why not? she thought, climbing onto her skateboard and pushing off
into the street. What do I have to live for anyway?
Then, without warning, the lights of a cab that she hadn't seen ... or
maybe she had seen it and didn't give a damn ... loomed up out of the
darkness only a couple of yards away! Too close, too close!
Suddenly a pair of strong arms wrapped around her, lifting and snatching
her out of the car's path so superhumanly quickly that her feet almost
bounced off of its side, and her skateboard shot between its wheels. Sheer
claustrophobic panic struck her for an instant as she was blasted with the
backwash of the car's passing and its reeking exhaust, and she struggled
uselessly against the relentless grasp that had lifted her as effortlessly
as if she were a baby.
"Let me go, you creep!" she yelled, fear making her abusive, but when her
unknown rescuer promptly set her down safely on the sidewalk, she was
overcome by embarrassment at her reaction. Ashamed of her fear and of the
shitty way she'd treated the stranger who'd just saved her life, she did
the first thing which came into her mind--which was to abuse the departing
cabdriver who'd come so close to flattening her.
"You didn't even slow down, you dickhead!" she shouted at the retreating
taillights, and didn't see how her rescuer winced away from her in painful
recognition, or how he cupped his hand to his face to hide it from her,
turning away and reaching blindly for the support of a telephone pole, his
eyes blurring with sudden tears.
"He couldn't have stopped," he said quietly, his voice tight with emotion,
as he turned his face away from her and leaned wearily against the pole.
"He was a buttface! I coulda made it," Sarah said stoutly, but it was a
false bravado--she knew she would've been killed if this stranger hadn't
acted so quickly. He'd saved her, and then he'd let her go, giving her
plenty of space when she'd yelled at him. He probably was a really nice
guy, and all she'd done so far was holler at him. Well, she wasn't going
to apologize--she had a right to get upset, and she didn't owe this guy
anything. Except your life, her conscience nagged at her.
Well then, I can be friendly, I guess. She stepped closer to him,
wondering why he wouldn't look at her. And why was he leaning up against
that pole like that? Had he hurt himself rescuing her? She saw that he
carried an electric guitar slung across his back, and the sight of it
awoke painful memories--Eric had played a guitar like that, sitting
cross-legged in Shelly's loft, composing songs for his band. Then she
saw the white makeup on his face, half hidden behind the tangled tendrils
of his wet hair--he was wetter than she was.
"What're you supposed to be, a clown or something?" she asked curiously,
just to let him know that she didn't spend all her time hollering, and
while it wasn't exactly a thank-you, it kind of opened the door if he
wanted to talk.
"Sometimes," he said, in such a sad voice that she knew she wasn't going
to get any more out of him. In her experience, when grown-ups were that
unhappy, they were scary to be around.
Still, she owed him some kind of acknowledgement for helping her, even if
it was nothing more than a moment's friendliness. But what could she say?
Thanks for saving my life? No, that was too ... personal. She was more
comfortable avoiding the subject altogether.
"It's more like surfing than skating," she said conversationally, going
across the now-quiet street to retrieve her skateboard from the far curb
where it had landed. It still wasn't much of a thank-you, but she didn't
want to just skate off without saying something. Besides ... there was
something hauntingly familiar about the face behind all that white
paint.
She sighed, looking at all the cold wet pavement ahead of her. "I wish
the rain would stop, just once," she said bitterly, letting a little of
her own unhappiness show, as if in response to the stranger's mood.
"It can't rain all the time," he said, in such a wistful, yearning voice
that it almost broke her heart ... until she was stunned by recognition.
She knew those words! And she knew that voice!
"Eric?" she cried in hope and disbelief, spinning around to look at where
he'd been standing.
But he was gone ... although less than a second had passed between his
words and her remembrance of them. He had vanished into thin air more
quickly than humanly possible.
Eric was dead! So who ... or what ... had she seen?

* * *

Sarah! Sarah ... Shelly's little "stray kitten".
How the very touch of her had burned his mind. He'd acted without thought
when he saw her step into the path of the onrushing taxi, but harsh words
had echoed through his mind: [You are not here for the living.] And
then ... the memories, oh God, the memories ...

... "Ta-dum!" Shelly crowed proudly, holding up her wedding dress--they'd
finally stitched the last bit of lace into place, and it was perfect.
They'd been working on it together for days and she was thrilled Shelly
had let her help ...
Whump! The pillow caught her in the face, giving her a mouthful of fuzzy
nap and almost making her choke on her own laughter. "Oooo, I'll get you
for that," she giggled, bouncing across the bed after a nearly hysterical
Shelly, while Eric watched in delight, laughing so hard he had to hold his
sides. Then Shelly grabbed him and they all three rolled on the bed,
whooping like a trio of maniacs ...

They left him strangely weak and shaken, as if the simple act of lifting a
child to safety had drained all the strength out of him. And to see her
like that: so alone and unhappy, so defensive ... and defenseless ... had
hurt worse than Tin Tin's knives or Gideon's gun. Her loss had been as
great as his own.
[Go now. You are not here for the living.]
He'd heard those words before ... a million years ... a few hours ago?
What did they mean? But he left, as commanded, sensing the rightness in
those words, even as every compassionate bone in his body protested the
wrongness of abandoning Sarah yet again.
He left her, between one heartbeat and the next, left her alone in the
rain-wet street ... and the sound of his name on her lips stilled the very
breath in his lungs.

* * *

His shift had ended an hour ago, but Albrecht was on the trail of a
memory--a nagging, impossible memory. Of a man six times dead who'd walked
through flames, bowed to him in front of a burning building and spoke of
death as one who knew it intimately. God, talk about overkill, he thought,
remembering the autopsy report--stab wound, four bullet wounds and a
six-story fall--any one of which would've killed him outright! And yet ...
who had he seen tonight? Maybe there was a twin brother ...
"Don't thank me." He looked up to see Annie Coopersmith bringing the file
he had begged her to "borrow". A smile lit her pretty, dark features.
"Are we fighting the good fight?"
He took the file and began looking through its too-familiar contents with a
heavy heart. "Double homicide, a year ago. No convictions. Annie, look
at that." He handed her a copy of the petition that had started it all.
"'We the undersigned tenants of 1929 Calderon Court Apartments ...'" she
began reading. "What is this, a petition?"
He sighed--anywhere else in the city, that's all it would've been, but for
Shelly ... "A big 'kick-me' sign for a very nice girl who found herself a
cause ... that cause that got her killed."
Annie was shocked--even she knew better, and she didn't live in the
district. "She was fighting tenant eviction in that neighborhood?"
"Shelly Webster and her nice rock-and-roll boyfriend, Eric Draven," he
explained, spreading the publicity photos of Hangman's Joke across his
desk and studying them intently.
"You know, the last time you went snooping around on a case is when you got
put back on the beat," she warned him, half teasing, half serious. The
"fix was in" in this precinct, and Albrecht had been slapped down more
than once for going against it. She didn't know that this was the case
that had gotten him demoted.
"Yeah, I know. Torres keeps reminding me."
"Oho, I bet he does," she laughed. But Albrecht dismissed the detective
from his mind as he stared at Eric's photo, then he took a pen and began
to draw a harlequin mask onto the face. Annie looked over his shoulder.
Uh oh, tampering with evidence, she thought. "You're gonna wind up working
a school crosswalk," she quipped, wondering what he was up to.
"I'm cool," he said distractedly, hardly daring to believe his eyes.
Annie gave up on him--he'd learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut, and
she didn't really want to know more than she already did--then she wouldn't
have to lie to cover for him. "You didn't get that file from me, okay?"
she said, walking away. "Don't tell me you 'owe me one'."
"Um ... I owe you one," he called back to her, and meant it too, but she
wasn't impressed.
"Yeah, right," she laughed, shaking her head. He was the best cop in the
place, and because of that, Torres treated him like shit. No, she owed
him, and more than one ... and she'd probably keep on helping him until it
got her busted.
Back at his desk, Albrecht remembered how his mystery man had spoken of
T-bird. Yeah, T-bird and his crew--whom he'd moved to the top of his
short-list of suspects in the Draven-Webster murders. He stared at Eric's
ink-altered face laughing eerily up at him. Eric Draven was dead ...
Damn! He'd even seen his ghost--a properly spectral and transparent
ghost--outside the loft a year ago ... and he hadn't been the only one--one
of the reasons the building had cleared out so fast, and had remained empty
and unvandalized since then, was because too many other people had seen the
same thing he had.
The man he'd seen outside of Gideon's had been no ghost, he'd been solid
flesh and blood. But Eric Draven had no brothers, twin or otherwise. So
who ...? "Damn," he muttered, not willing to finish the thought.

* * *

Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom
of asps.... To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence ... for the day of
their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make
haste.
--Deuteronomy 32:33,35

The sound of the music was ugly and pounding, making the very air throb
around him. The crow wheeled through the air and came to land on Eric's
shoulder where he sat perched beside a neon sign that read "Hotel" in
blinking lights--the latest station on this pilgrimage of death. With a
dark flutter of wings it flew to an open window sill and watched two
people lying half-naked on a bed. They were Funboy and Darla.
"Tomorrow night, we can get high, and watch this whole fuckin' city burn,
from that window," Funboy giggled, thrusting a morphine-laden needle into
Darla's veins. From the sound of his slurred voice, he was already high.
Outside, Eric listened grimly, his perception filtered through the eyes of
the crow.
Then the bird flew into the room and landed on the television, sending
images of the two on the bed back to Eric. The blast of noise from the
boombox ruffled its feathers and it gave an indignant squawk. Darla lifted
her eyes at the unexpected sound.
"There's a big fuckin' bird over there," she giggled, peering over
Funboy's head while he slobbered wet kisses across her neck.
He was on a serious nod, all his reason seduced by the poisonous fumes of
the drug in his veins, barely able to slew his head around to look at the
crow gravely watching him. "Its a squab!" he shouted, beginning to laugh
helplessly. "C'mere, bird. Hey, birdie, birdie. Here birdie, here
birdiebirdiebirdie ... " It was the funniest joke he'd heard all day.
Then Eric stepped through the window, the guitar he'd taken from Gideon's
slung over his shoulder, and walked unnoticed into the room. "Here,
Funboy," he mocked ominously, pausing to brush his forehead against the
cold light bulb dangling nakedly in the middle of the room, but it
couldn't cool the fever in his blood.
"What the fuck?" Funboy said stupidly, his face going slack with surprise
when he finally noticed the intruder. Then Eric raised his fist and
rushed the bed with a maniacal grin, feinting an attack on Funboy in time
to the music. Darla giggled stupidly as she watched Funboy scramble in
panic from an attack that ended harmlessly when Eric casually turned away
to hang his guitar safely on a coat-rack.
"No, man! Don't do that!" Funboy gasped. "You nearly gave me a fuckin'
heart attack." He fumbled for his gun on the nightstand and pointed it
angrily at Eric's back. "'S time for you to get your bird and leave,
freako."
But bullets were no more of a threat to Eric than spitballs by now, and
all he did was drag up a chair and straddle it, grinning at Funboy, his
teeth flashing against his black-painted lips. Then he lifted his right
hand and placed it flat against the muzzle of the gun, and taunted, "Take
your shot, Funboy. You got me, dead bang." For a long moment the three
of them were immobile--Eric waiting patiently, with a look of madness in
his eyes, Funboy and Darla frozen in amazement--while the pulsing lights
from the boombox reflected hypnotically off of the gleaming metal of the
gun barrel.
Shaken out of his stupor, Funboy gaped at him in astonishment, then
giggled. "You are seriously fucked up. Did you look in a mirror? ... You
need professional help," he crowed, delighted that Eric had offered himself
so willingly.
Darla jumped when Funboy pulled the trigger, sending a bullet ripping
through Eric's palm and splattering all three of them with his blood. The
first sharp pain wrung a cry from him as he staggered back and spun away,
but it was gone in an instant, and he smirked to himself as he continued to
cry out in pretended agony. Behind him, Funboy leapt to his feet and
bounced up and down on the bed, cheering like a triumphant teenager:
"Bingo! Hah, he shoots! He scores!"
But his glee faded when Eric turned, holding up his bloody hand, not crying
out in pain but laughing and whooping in imitation of Funboy's own cheers.
With a demented playfulness he peered at them through the ragged hole,
then howled in triumph when it closed and healed even as they watched.
Funboy could only stare in horror and gasp, "Je-sus Chr-ist!"
But, like Gabriel with a mouse, Eric hadn't finished toying with his prey.
"Jesus Christ ... stop me if you've heard this one ..." he began
conversationally, sounding like everyone who'd ever told a bad joke,
dazzling them with his change of mood. Lifting his arms and spreading them
wide, he stood completely vulnerable before Funboy, as Darla, horror
blurring her blood-splattered face, began edging away from them.
"... Jesus Christ walks into a hotel ..." Funboy couldn't figure out what
he was playing at, but he had one answer for anything that confused him and
he used it again, shooting Eric in the shoulder, staggering him back a few
paces. But Eric only glanced at the wound as it vanished and dismissed it
with a mocking "Ow." Then, with his hands clasped behind him and a
deranged dancing/seesaw gait, he half walked, half skipped towards
Funboy.
" ... He hands the innkeeper three nails. He asks ..." Another bullet
slammed into him, in the stomach this time, doubling him over, driving him
back a few feet.
"Don't you ever fuckin' die?" Funboy screamed hoarsely, panting with terror
as he stood on the shaking bed, never realizing that Eric had already died
at his hands ... one year earlier.
Eric ignored him as he finished the bitterly ironic "joke" he was telling.
"...'Can you put me up for the night?'"
Then, as Funboy raised the gun again, Eric backhanded his arm with brutal
impatience, so that the next bullet ripped through Funboy's own leg, and he
shrieked in agony as he collapsed back onto the bed. "Does that hurt?"
Eric asked solicitously, as he leapt agilely to squat next to the writhing
man and regarded him with cold, humorless eyes. The time for joking had
ended.
"Fuck! Does it ... fuck, does it hurt?" Funboy groaned, as Darla darted to
the bathroom and locked herself in, lost in a mindless panic.
Shock and terror and the venomous drugs still in his veins had ripped all
coherent thought from Funboy's brain as he clutched his bloodsoaked leg and
stared with horrified despair at the shredded flesh. "Oh God. Look what
you've done to my sheets," he wailed inanely as he fell out of
consciousness.
Eric stepped off of the bed then, and tossed Funboy's gun aside. Once, he
dimly remembered, carnage like this would have sickened him, and he would
have scorned to bully and toy with anyone like this. But now, as he
grabbed Funboy by the ankle of his wounded leg and dragged him across the
floor to the bathroom, all he could hold in his mind were Shelly's last
agonized memories of this man raping her--the demons of remembrance had
driven him far beyond the gentle, compassionate man he had once been, and
they left no room for pity or mercy ... no room for anything but the
terrible need to punish these animals for what they had done to her ...

"Got a gun in my pocket! You're happy to see me, aren't you," the blond
one laughed eagerly, his leering face looming over her while the little
dark one pinned her down and stifled her screams. "You wanna see what I
got?" His bare, tattooed chest writhed obscenely before her as he wriggled
out of his pants. She squeezed her eyes shut in horror at what was to
come ...

Inflamed by the flashing vision, Eric burst through the locked door of the
bathroom without a pause and glanced around the filthy, squalid little
room. His gaze skimmed over Darla cowering in the corner, but all his
focus was on Funboy as he dragged his prostrate body over to the rusted
tub and dumped him into it, turning on the shower so that the cold water
would awaken him--a quiet death while he was unconscious would not satisfy
the bloodlust that raged within him.
Then he turned his attention to Darla, who was sobbing as she fumbled with
one of the ubiquitous straight razors, holding it before her in a feeble
defense. He knew her! Old memories awoke ... and newer ones, of a lonely
child, lost on the uncaring streets.
[If you wish to help her, you must pay the price. Help the living, and
you will bleed.]
He looked over at the crow, sitting impassively on the television,
regarding him with its fathomless eyes. But he had loved the child
too--Shelly's "stray kitten"--and blood was little enough to offer for
love.
He crossed purposefully to Darla, ignoring her frantic, screaming protests,
and batted the razor out of her hands; then he lifted her in a relentless
grip, forcing her to face herself in the mirror.
"Look!" he commanded, compelling her obedience. "'Mother is the name for
God on the lips and hearts of all children.' Do you understand?" At her
blank look, he felt a strange power flow into him and he gripped her arms
cruelly ... and she gasped as a milky fluid began to drip out of the needle
tracks that cratered her arms.
"Morphine is bad for you," Eric said softly when Darla relaxed in his
arms, freed from the poisons in her mind. He opened his hands then,
releasing her from his grasp, stepping away to look at her with sad
compassion. Then he took her head between relentless hands, burning his
gaze into her eyes.
"Your daughter is out there on the streets, waiting for you." And he
watched the guilty self-knowledge war with her fear of him, until she
sagged in defeat. With a stunned look on her face, she sidled past him,
then ran from the room like someone had just snatched her from the jaws
of Hell ... which maybe Eric had.
"Go, and sin no more ..."

* * *

Four floors below them, bloody, battered, and nearly unrecognizable,
Gideon sat drinking at the bar. He was in a foul temper ... and he
figured he had good reason to be.
"If I wanted ice, I woulda asked for ice," he snarled, wanting to lash out
at somebody, anybody. Angrily he tossed the ice over his shoulder and
slammed the glass back down on the bar. "Now fill it up!"
"Fill it up yourself, 'macho man'," Les, the bartender snapped, dropping
the bottle in front of him. He didn't want this aggravation, not from a
piece of slime like Gideon.
"I really need this," the little man muttered sourly, fumbling one-handed
with the bottle, too pissed off and in too much pain to care who he
alienated. Damn, he should've gone to the hospital first, but after what
he'd been through, he needed a drink more than anything else ... a lot of
drinks. Then he felt a presence behind him as he saw a manicured brown
hand reach for the bottle and pour him a healthy serving of the liquor.
"All right," he spat ungraciously, just wanting to be left alone,
especially by this man.
"You burn yourself playing with matches?" a cool voice asked him, as if he
didn't already know the answer.
"Fuck off," he snapped, hurting too much to play games.
"You have an appointment," Grange said brusquely, refusing to let the
little man irritate him.
Gideon sneered nastily. "This is a first. Do I bow or do I curtsey," he
smirked, too angry to be worried about the summons. He gestured
expansively to the bartender, "Get my friend here a glass of blood." Then
his words were drowned out by the crash of a falling chair as someone ran
blindly across the room and out the front door. It was Darla, still only
half-dressed, clutching her clothes to her chest as she ran.
"Hey! Good night ... Darla," Les called out, his voice dripping with
contempt. He didn't like Darla any better than he did Gideon--both of them
were losers.
But Grange's eyes narrowed as he watched the panic-stricken woman disappear
into the wet night. He knew she'd been upstairs with Funboy ... and what
would send her running out of there like that? Could it have anything to
do with whoever had killed Tin Tin and burned down Gideon's? ... or with
Myca's "watcher"? Whatever it was, it was his job to find out.
Jamming his hat firmly onto Gideon's injured head, and smiling as the
little man jerked away from the abuse, he whispered, "You stay put. Right
there." Then he began making his way cautiously up three flights of
stairs--he had no intention of winding up like Tin Tin, whatever awaited
him in Funboy's room.

* * *

Eric watched Darla flee the room, then all compassion left him as he turned
his attention back to Funboy, who was finally regaining consciousness under
the cold insistence of the shower. No more games now, no more mockery ...
it was time to end the farce. He turned to the collection of needles and
vials of morphine lying on the dresser and picked one up with distaste,
hating its deadly seductiveness, but it was just the instrument he needed
to send Funboy to his final judgement.
But he'd turned his back on Funboy one time too many.
With an strangled cry, the crazed druggie attacked his unprotected back
with the very razor Eric had so carelessly batted from Darla's hands.
Through the tough leather of Tin Tin's coat, through the sturdy knit of his
tunic, deep into Eric's own shrinking, quivering flesh, Funboy slashed like
the maniac he was.
Pain exploded across Eric's back and he fell to his knees in helpless
agony. Help the living and you will bleed, the crow had warned him, and
here was the stunning proof of those words. These wounds were not healing,
this pain was not fading. For too long he knelt in shock, mind and body
refusing to encompass the damage done to them; and his blood flowed freely
... as promised.
Funboy was in control again, the freako was his! But his leg was killing
him--not even the morphine was enough to dull that pain. Ah, but there was
a cure for that ... a cure for everything! He grabbed the big bag of
cocaine that shared the place of honor with his morphine ampules and held
it to his face, inhaling mightily and to hell with the niceties--he had
business to take care of. And what a pleasure it was going to be!
Eric was still paralyzed, on his knees in shock after the handful of
heartbeats it took Funboy to take the coke into his lungs, still helpless
and unresisting, and Funboy leapt on him like Gabriel pouncing on a mouse.
He was completely berserk by now--pain and drugs having ripped to shreds
what little mind he had left. Again and again he slashed at the
defenseless man before him, a burning lust for blood taking control of him
as it had so many times in the past.
Eric rolled onto his wounded back, trying desperately to fend off Funboy's
deadly attack, but he had nothing except his own tender flesh for a
shield. The vicious blade cut him again and again until his hands and
arms ran with blood and searing agony. He had never known such pain in
his life ... or in his afterlife.
Then I will bleed, he had said, all unknowing of the cost. He had become
arrogant, careless, so confident of his supernatural abilities that he had
forgotten what it was like to be vulnerable, to be hurt.
Once before he had seen this man through a red haze of pain, and once
before he had died at this man's hands. Would it happen again? He
struggled, but he had no strength. He fought, but he had no skill. The
only thing that saved him now was the fact that Funboy was too drugged-up
to be a coherent fighter--he swung and slashed without thought, hurting
Eric but never making the crippling, the killing blow.
It was luck ... or divine intervention ... that finally gave Eric a
chance. It was just another wild thrust, purely defensive, without hope
beyond the instant, with but one thought--keep the blade away from his face
and neck. But it sent Funboy spinning, crashing against a clutter of
furniture, and the razor went flying out of his suddenly nerveless grasp.
But there was still the gun! It lay on the bed where Eric had tossed it a
few moments ... a lifetime ... ago. He'd spurned it then, as the hateful,
ugly thing it was, but Funboy had no such qualms. The gun was his chosen
weapon, and this time he meant to pump this bleeding freako so full of lead
he'd fall over from the weight alone.
Eric had only one chance before Funboy reached the gun and ended this
one-sided fight with one bullet ... or a dozen, it didn't matter. He
twisted his pain-racked body and reached in sheer, hopeless desperation
...
[Blood enough for the living.]
Strength began to trickle back to him, strength and purpose. He reached
and snagged Funboy, somehow knowing where to press, where to lever, when
to pull. Funboy fell in a swirl of dirty blond hair, to crash heavily
onto the floor, all the breath and sense knocked out of him.
The syringe that Eric had dropped was near to his fingers and he picked it
up again. Funboy had lived for guns and drugs ... it was only fitting that
he should die by them as well.

* * *

When Grange burst into the room moments later, he almost thought it was
empty ... until he saw Funboy's trembling body convulsing on the floor,
cast into stark shadows by a fallen lamp. Then a shadow moved in the
window and he spun around ... and froze in disbelief. A lithe figure
dressed all in black, with a black and white painted harlequin face,
crouched on the sill, held a bloody finger across black, grinning lips and
winked impudently at him. Then, with an inhumanly quick movement, it
disappeared.
Two seconds later Grange was at that same window, looking down at a sheer
drop, an escape route that would give even a cat-burglar pause. Feeling
like someone had just walked over his grave he turned back to Funboy--maybe
there was enough life left in him to give him some answers. But he went
completely still when he finally got a clear view of what had been done to
the dying man.
Five syringes, like deadly cactus spines, bristled out of his chest, and
around them traced in blood (Eric's blood, had he but known it) ... the
outline of a bird.

* * *

The slashes weren't healing, although the terrible flow of blood had
stopped. Blood enough, the crow had said. Blood enough for Darla, blood
enough for Sarah ... and still, little enough to offer for love.
He bound his ribs and arms with lengths of black electrical tape that he'd
taken with him from Funboy's apartment, closing over the gaping wounds,
closing in the pain that lingered, slowly dissipating from his awareness,
like fog under the morning sun. He took off Shelly's ring, choking back a
sob when he saw how the blade had nicked the precious gold, and strung it
on a thong around his neck.
Then he was ready to follow the crow again.
The bird flew overhead, blinking its eyes against the rain, while below it
Eric ran easily along the rooftops with an eerie, primal elation, glorying
in his recovered strength, shutting out the horrors of the last few
hours--the pain and the blood and the price of love--and sharing this brief
joy of flight with the unearthly bird as they made their way through the
rain-swept night. The cold air whistled into his lungs and the hot blood
pulsed through his veins. He didn't know where the crow was leading him,
and he didn't care--for this timeless moment he was without thought and at
peace.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
--Aesop

This time the bird led him to another open window, high on an empty wall,
and he shuddered as he slipped soundlessly through it. Who would it be
this time? Who would he execute in these comfortable rooms?
Comfortable? Who lived here? He slipped out of a small but tidy bedroom
and into the shadows of an equally tidy living room. The TV was on, and he
could hear someone moving around in the kitchen.
Where was he? This couldn't be T-bird's place, and he had a feeling Skank
lived in a dumpster. " ... As you can see, I'm here on the corner of
Twenty-seventh Street and East Washington Place, the site of last year's
biggest Devil's Night conflagration. It was exactly one year ago that the
building you see across the street from me was totally demolished by fire.
The fire that was won by seven fire companies but lost the lives of two
firefighters. In fact, if it weren't for the constant surveillance by the
local police precincts ..." the TV droned as a figure stepped suspiciously
out of the kitchen, looking towards the bedroom ... it was Officer
Albrecht!
He was wearing just shorts and a t-shirt, with his cop hat still on; he had
a beer in one hand and a sheaf of photographs in the other, which he laid
on a table as he edged cautiously into the bedroom--he'd obviously sensed
Eric come in, although there had been no sound--but then, he was a cop in
a bad neighborhood, he had to have good senses. Then, to his surprise,
Eric felt a wave of playfulness sweep over him. Playfulness?
"Freeze!" he barked, taking an impish delight in making the policeman jump
and drop his beer. For a minute he thought Albrecht was going to pull a
gun or something, but as soon as he turned and saw Eric, he relaxed a
little.
"Jesus! Don't ever do that, man," he gasped, holding a hand to his chest,
startled but accepting his intruder with an unexpected equanimity.
Curiously, Eric picked up the photograph the policeman had been
studying--it was a picture of himself, he realized: one of the band's
publicity photos, with his harlequin make-up inked in!
"Good likeness," Eric said admiringly. So Albrecht had recognized him in
the street ... and the fact that he'd been led here meant ... what? The
crow must have some reason.
But Albrecht was having a little trouble adjusting to his uninvited guest.
He finally completed the thought that he hadn't dared to at the station,
and it stunned him. "I saw your body, man. You ... you died! You got
buried!"
But that was not something Eric was ready to talk about, not even ready to
think about. That was not what he wanted answers to. But then, he didn't
want to bluntly tell Albrecht to mind his own business either. "You still
have your hat on," he pointed out dryly, avoiding the subject altogether.
He felt a sting of compassion when the policeman removed his hat and walked
in a daze across the living room. Obviously, from the looks of those
photos, he'd figured something out already, but it was going to take him
a little while to get used to the idea. Eric went into the little kitchen
and found another beer in the refrigerator--that might help. He took it
back to Albrecht.
"Shit! Holy shit!" the officer was muttering, frightened and curious at
the same time. He stared at Eric as he walked up, carrying the cold beer
bottle. "Say, a-are you some kind of ... of ghost?"
"Boo!" Eric teased, opening the beer and handing it to him. Then he
remembered teasing Shelly the same way once, with another harlequin mask,
and all playfulness fled him. He sat down heavily and looked beseechingly
at Albrecht, "I don't know what I am," he said in despair. "I need for
you to tell me what happened to us."
It was a terrible thing for anyone to have to ask, but he still didn't know
what had finally happened to Shelly, after he'd gone through the window.
At least Albrecht would be able to give him some answers.
But Albrecht didn't look too happy with what he was going to have to say.
"Well, you took a six-story swan dive out of a window. She, uh ... was
beaten and raped ... died at the hospital ..." He faltered to a halt, his
face crumpling with compassion when Eric froze, his eyes going wide as the
words hit him like blows.
He thought he'd borne all he could earlier, in the loft, when he'd regained
his memories. But to hear it from Albrecht like that made it all so
horribly real again that he almost couldn't stand it.
He trembled in a daze, barely able to hear what Albrecht was saying. "Hey,
you asked, man," the other said guiltily, putting a little distance between
them, plainly distressed at causing Eric any more pain. "Hey, c'mon, read
the file!" he said, picking it up and paging through it distractedly.
"Shelly Webster ... held on for thirty hours in intensive care ... her body
finally just gave it up. I saw it, man--I couldn't do jack for her." He
was shaking as he held the file out for Eric, wanting him to know what had
happened, but hating to be the one to tell him.
Eric went over to him uncertainly, looking at the files as if they were a
poisonous insect, then the crow give him a little mental nudge. Before he
even knew what he was doing, he had grasped Albrecht's head in his hands
...

He'd seen battered women before but never like this--her face was swollen
into unrecognizability and her skin slashed to ribbons, the ugly
lacerations swelling against the stitches. They'd operated ... twice--for
the skull fracture and for the internal injuries, but she was fading ...
fading ...
He could feel her pain, with every breath she took, with every labored beat
of her heart. They hovered uselessly, all of them, doctors, nurses, and
himself--most useless of all ...
Hours of pain ... hours of suffering ... the mute appeal in every line of
her body: "Help me. Make it stop hurting." But there was nothing he
could do, nothing any of them could do ...
The angry electronic whine of the heart monitor warned them of the end, and
they fought. Fought against Death with everything that twentieth-century
medicine could marshal--CPR, shocks, drugs ... none of it was enough. None
of it could keep the tormented soul of Shelly Webster in the ruined shell
of her body ...

Albrecht had been there for every minute of Shelly's suffering, and he had
a very good memory.
Grabbing his head with a cry that ripped his already shredding mind, Eric
flung himself away from Albrecht's memories. "Don't touch me!" he yelled
hoarsely, when Albrecht reached out to steady him, the very touch of his
hand sending shock waves through his consciousness. He recoiled violently,
crashing blindly against the furniture all the way across the room, until
he collapsed on the floor in front of a chair and huddled there, his whole
body racked with ugly, choking sobs.
"Hey ... you okay?" Albrecht asked helplessly, even though it was obvious
that he was anything but okay.
"I saw her!" Eric sobbed, his voice raw with suffering, haunted by the
memories just forced upon him. Then he grew a little quieter, looking
up at Albrecht with tortured eyes, and a note of wonder came into his
trembling voice. "I saw her through your eyes." Wonder, and then
gratitude: "You stayed with her the whole time!"
"Yeah, well ... you gotta understand something, alright?" He didn't want
to take more credit than he deserved. "I was ... I was hoping she'd come
out of it, you know? And give me something I could work with." He took
out a cigarette and lit it ruefully. "Yeah ... what the hell," he
murmured, depressed by the memory of his helplessness.
But Eric knew that wasn't the whole truth, knew that he'd stayed out of
compassion more than anything else, knew that if he'd really wanted
"something to work with", he would've tried to get more out of her. And
yet, the sheer injustice of it all was as bitter as gall on his tongue.
Fixing Albrecht with an accusing glare, he challenged him angrily, "Why
didn't you do something about it?"
It was an unfair question, but the policeman answered it honestly, "You
think any of those people in that building--even the ones who signed the
petition--would talk after what happened to you?" he said, defensive and
guilty at the same time. "I kept asking questions and ... finally got
busted for sticking my nose where it wasn't wanted." In the end ... he had
failed, failed them, and failed himself, as helpless before the corruption
in this neighborhood as Shelly had been before the thugs who'd killed
her.
For several moments the two men sat silently, each lost in his own dark
thoughts. Then Eric picked up a framed photograph on the table, and looked
sadly at the image of Albrecht and a quietly beautiful black woman. "This
your wife?"
"Yeah. We ... uh, well ... not anymore," the policeman faltered,
embarrassed. "We're getting a divorce," he finally admitted with a weary
bitterness.
Eric looked at him with gentle sympathy, "It's funny," he mused, his voice
choking a little as he spoke, "little things used to mean so much to Shelly
... I used to think they were kind of trivial. Believe me," and he fixed
Albrecht with a look that almost compelled him to belief, "nothing is
trivial!"
There was a universe of meaning in his words, Albrecht knew. Nothing was
trivial once it had been stolen from you.
Eric swallowed hard as he reached over and plucked Albrecht's cigarette
from his lips and took a long pull from it, then he held it up ruefully,
smoke and grief hoarsening his voice, "You shouldn't smoke these--they'll
kill you."
As a joke, it was more tragic than it was funny, Albrecht thought. As a
warning--considering the source--he'd better take it seriously.
Eric stubbed out the cigarette and wearily lifted himself off of the
floor. He began to move away, his shoulders bowed under the burden of too
much sadness, his hands fisted under his crossed arms as if he felt a
terrible chill in the comfortable room. He looked so forlorn and
inconsolable that Albrecht would've wept if he weren't such a tough guy ...
after all, cops weren't supposed to cry ... dammit!
"You gonna vanish into thin air again?" he asked nervously, not wanting
him to leave, but not knowing how to make him stay.
"I thought I'd use your front door," Eric said contritely, closer to tears
than Albrecht was.
"Look, man ... uh," Albrecht felt helpless in the face of such sorrow.
There was nothing he could say except inanities, but still he had to say
something. "I'm sorry as hell for what happened to you and your
girlfriend."
"Yeah," Eric said bleakly, his voice rough with regret, his dark eyes
bright with unshed tears and his whole body trembling in spite of the
tight grip his crossed arms maintained. Knives and bullets couldn't harm
him, but here with Albrecht he was all too vulnerable ... to grief.
He turned and walked silently out the door.
"Yeah," Albrecht whispered to the empty room.

* * *

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither
shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the
earth.
--Jeremiah 16:4

Gideon's "appointment" was not going well ... for him. He was holding his
own for the moment, but too many parts of him hurt like hell ... and he was
scared shitless. He knew Grange was a dangerous sonuvabitch, but Top
Dollar's reputation gave him cold shivers ... and he didn't like the way
that chink chick kept looking at him--like he was dog-shit or something.
And that damn rock music from the club below--it was shaking the whole
building. It made it hard to concentrate on what he was saying.
"I got stabbed! I shot the sonuvabitch! I watched the bullet hole close
by itself! And then my business gets blown up real good!" He leered
insolently at the chick, "Other than that, my day sucked."
"Yeah, I saw him too," Grange said quietly. "He had a guitar. He winked
at me before he jumped out of a fourth-floor window like he had wings."
"He winked at you," Top Dollar said dryly, stalking across the room like a
big jungle cat. "Tsk! Musicians!" Then he fixed Gideon with the kind of
look that cat gives to its dinner. "What else did you see?"
But Gideon wasn't about to be intimidated ... or at least, not appear to be
intimidated. "So far I haven't heard shit about what you're gonna do about
all this crap," he snarled. "I mean, what do I get? My livelihood got
flushed away and went swirling ..."
"You ain't lost everything!" Top Dollar whirled on him threateningly, and
Gideon pulled back in fear. But he reacted to that threat as he did to
all threats--he attacked.
"Yesss," he hissed, struggling to rise to his feet. "And maybe you're not
such a big shot eith- ..." But Grange shoved him roughly back down into
the chair, wringing an anguished "Jesus!" out of him. Gideon had forgotten
one important fact--the only reason his tactics of attack had worked in
the past was because he was "under the dragon's wing". They weren't going
to work against the dragon--Top Dollar--himself.
"Fair enough," Top Dollar ignored his bluster, then with a look of cruel
anticipation, tossed him a small object. "Catch!" he said casually,
walking away.
Gideon had caught the thing reflexively before its repulsively sticky
texture made him drop it in disgust, but when he saw what it was, he was
horrified. "Fuck!" he yelped, his own eyes bugging out as he stared at
the bloody human eyeball rolling on the table in front of him. "Jesus!" he
whispered, and this time it was almost a prayer.
"Say hello to the last fella who wouldn't cooperate with me," Top Dollar
said ominously, and Gideon had a terrible feeling he was serious.
"What're you telling me ... you're telling me this thing is real?" he
gasped. Jesus! What kind of loony-tunes were these guys?
"All the power in the world resides in the eyes, fella--sometimes they're
more useful than the people who bear them." Top Dollar's rough voice
boomed compellingly as he went to a closed display case and pulled it
open. Inside was an intricate display of swords and knives, and Gideon's
pawnbroker's eye told him he was looking at a few hundred K worth of
weaponry. It didn't reassure him at all to see Top Dollar select one of
the swords and brandish it like he knew how to use it.
"You're directly outta your fuckin' mind, y'know that," he blustered,
shock and disgust making him even less temperate than usual.
"Yeah," Top Dollar agreed dangerously. "Eyes see! It's one of the most
important things I learned from my sister."
"Your sister!" he almost choked. "She's supposed to be your sister?" The
chink chick? Now he knew Top Dollar was crazy. He started to laugh, not
even trying to hide his contempt.
"My father's daughter ... that's right." Top Dollar looked narrowly at
Gideon, hiding his reaction to the insult as he walked around the table to
stand close to him. "What's the matter? You don't see the resemblance?"
He looked at the woman and Gideon could sense some kind of silent
communication between them, and his skin crawled at the idea.
Then, with a sudden swift turn, Top Dollar had the sword point pressed
against his throat! Grange's hands pushed down relentlessly on his
shoulders, and even the chick, sitting on the table, got into the act by
pressing his shoulder back with one elegantly shod foot.
"Now, let's take it from the top, friend? With a lot of detail.
Whaddya say?" The reddish glow of Top Dollar's eyes and the cold,
controlled anger in his rough voice told Gideon that he'd blustered a
little too long. With real terror, he hurried to follow Top Dollar's
command.
"He had a bird with him--nearly picked my face off," he rushed to get it
all out. "He told me to tell T-bird that death was on its way, whatever
the fuck that means. Draven ... he said his name was Eric Draven." He
eyed the sword fearfully. "Want to relax that thing now?" he grimaced,
after all, he'd told them all he knew.
But Top Dollar wasn't done with him yet. "And this 'bird-man', he just
happened to let you live, huh?" He turned away in disgust, but at least
he took the sword with him. Then he looked back, "You sure you ain't
makin' all of this up just to save your own ass?"
With the sword point removed from his neck, Gideon's relief turned into a
careless rage. "I ain't makin' all this up," he snarled angrily, "I ain't
... twisted like you two fucks!"
The chick took her foot off of him then, as a chill descended over the
room, and Top Dollar looked at him with hooded eyes. "Alright," he said
softly to Grange, who took his hands away from Gideon's shoulders and
stepped back. Well, that got their attention, Gideon thought smugly.
"A boy and his bird ... awful touching," Top Dollar said sardonically and
Gideon started laughing--the stupid twits didn't even know when they'd been
insulted! Shit, even Top Dollar was chuckling now.
It was the last sound he ever heard.

With the graceful strength of a trained swordsman, Top Dollar spun around
and thrust the sword completely through the ugly little pawnbroker's
throat, then stood watching him convulse grotesquely in his death throes.
"For the fuck's sake, die! will ya!" he shouted impatiently. "Gimme that
thing," he gestured for one of Grange's guns and blasted two bullets into
Gideon, finally stilling the twitching body. "Thanks," he said casually,
handing it back--he'd use a gun when he had to, but he much preferred his
blades.
Myca stared with cool speculation at the corpse before them--she'd take the
eyes, of course, but otherwise it was just a damned nuisance. He embraced
her sensuously, kissing her with a hot, erotic urgency--killing someone,
even a slug like Gideon, always made him want her more than ever.
"Funboy said he saw a black bird too, a big one ... then he choked to
death on his own blood," the black man said calmly, unmoved by the grisly
corpse. "I'll have the janitor ... come on up." He left the room.
Myca turned her enigmatic face to her brother and shook her head slowly.
"The black bird is the key! It is as I have feared--the Watcher has
come."
"Yeah, so it would seem. But it doesn't sound like he's much interested
in us, now, is he?"
"It is only a matter of time."
Top Dollar strode impatiently to the display case and restored the sword to
its proper place. "Let 'im come, then. I'm lookin' forward to it."

* * *

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the
beauty of loneliness & of pain: of strength & freedom. The beauty of
disappointment & never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, &
everlasting beauty of monotony.
--Benjamin Britten

It was a wet but uneventful trip back to the apartment, and it was a good
thing that Sarah didn't run into much traffic because her head was
spinning. Had she forgotten what Eric looked like? It had been a whole
year after all, and she hadn't gotten a good look at the stranger's face;
and what he'd said was something anyone might've said. Except ... he'd
saved her life! Who else would do something like that in this
neighborhood? He hadn't even minded that she didn't thank him, that she'd
kicked him and called him a creep. Who else was so nice?
Nobody! That's who. Nobody alive, anyway, except maybe Albrecht, or
Mickey ... or Les. But not a stranger, not somebody who didn't know her.
Eric knew her.
But Eric was dead.
None of it makes any sense, she thought, unlocking the apartment with the
key she always wore on a chain around her neck. Dead is dead ... so who
did I see? Well, at least there was one mystery she could solve, she
decided, kneeling down before a wooden crate full of records without even
taking off her coat. Not that she wanted to--she always left a window
open, except in the coldest weather, to clean out the stink and stuffiness
of the squalid little apartment.
Almost feverishly she hunted through the albums until she found the one
she was looking for. Last Laugh by Hangman's Joke, the cover read, with a
familiar, cartoonish skeleton dancing around the words. She hadn't played
it in a long time--it always made her want to cry. But now there was
something important she had to find out.
There it was, "Fire in the Rain", the last cut on side one. Carefully she
put the record on the turntable and lifted the arm to the last track, then
waited tensely for the music to start, drumming her fingers impatiently on
the table. She wasn't really sure what good this was going to do, but she
had to find out.
Of course, she knew the words already--she knew the words to all of Eric's
songs. But this one was special--he'd written it for her! Or, at least,
he'd started to write it for her, once when she'd gone to see them on a
cold wet day ... a lot like today ... but it had ended up being for Shelly,
like everything else he wrote, but she didn't mind, she still loved the
words anyway:

Oh, it's a hard rain and a cold rain,
A bitter rain--the sky is cryin'.
Seems like it's been rainin' forever.
But it can't rain all the time.

Gonna light you a fire that the rain can't drown,
What do you care if the rain comes down.
Gonna light you a fire that'll burn forever,
Like the sun behind the clouds,
Like a billion burning stars.
I am the fire in the rain.

I'll dry the shadows in your soul,
I'll warm your body, I'll ease your pain,
I'll be your light in the darkness,
I am the fire in the rain.

Maybe someday, when she was grown up, she'd find somebody who felt that way
about her. She hoped so, because there sure as hell wasn't anybody like
that now!
Suddenly a familiar squawk drew her attention to the window, and she was
astonished to see a crow flutter to rest on the window sill. It couldn't
be ... and yet ... how many wild crows were there in this neighborhood that
came so close to her and cawed at her like they knew her?
"You again?" she said wonderingly, as she walked over to the big wet bird.
Could it really be the same bird? She'd never thought much about crows
before, but this one seemed special somehow--bigger, handsomer ...
weirder. "You lost? Or hungry?" she asked, wondering if she had anything
to feed it. It really was looking at her like it knew her. "Hi," she said
softly, yearningly. Maybe it would stick around and be her friend--a crow
would make a great pet.
But, with an almost apologetic look, it leapt off of the sill and winged
its way into the night. It's almost like all he wanted to do was check up
on me, to see that I got home okay, she thought, turning her attention back
to the record. Some dust must've caught on the needle, because it was
sticking, repeating one phrase over and over again.
With a sigh of irritation, she started over to fix it, then she froze in
surprise--the phrase it played again and again was the same one she'd heard
the stranger say ... and it was sung in the same voice!
" ... Can't rain all the time! ... Can't rain all the time! ..."

* * *

Into the rain-drenched night he played Shelly's Farewell, sitting on the
roof over the loft, oblivious to the wet and cold. He'd even stolen power
from the pole next to the building to run the amps, although he had no
idea how to do something like that. But this night was full of unanswered
questions.
I still don't know what I am, he thought, his fingers stroking the guitar
strings, the hypnotic melody crying his grief to the unsympathetic clouds.
First I was alive, and then I was dead, and then ... nothing. I remember
dying, but not what came after ... until last night. Ghost? Angel?
Reincarnation? None of it fit, none of it made sense.
And there were still strange gaps in his memory--everything before he met
Shelly seemed distant and out of focus. He looked over at the crow sitting
impassively next to him. And what are you, my friend, guiding me on this
trail of vengeance ... "O! that way madness lies; let me shun that," Oh
yeah, Shakespeare knew about madness. But what good was any of it, what
could he hope to change? God, he had failed them both: Too late to save
Shelly, too dead to help Sarah. Why had he come back when nothing he'd
done so far had changed either of those failures? Why was he compelled
to avenge Shelly's death when Sarah was in far greater need of his help;
and yet, he was prevented from really helping her. It was almost as if
this terrible compulsion for vengeance had taken over his mind, leaving no
room for anything else, except in this quiet time.
"Why! Why did I come back?" And the answer came slashing back at him as
it had again and again that night: they all died the moment they touched
her.
The crow was gone again, flying off on its own business. Maybe it had
other lost souls to guide through the city. Whatever. He'd been so lost
in his music and thoughts he didn't even remember when it had left. But
that didn't surprise him--memory just wasn't working right tonight. In
just a few short hours he'd learned to hate his memories. They didn't
come quietly--they leapt at him like ravening beasts, drawing blood with
every touch, forcing him to relive every instant with all the intensity of
the original. And when they didn't return, when he couldn't remember, it
was like running into a wall in the dark.
He saw a flash of light at a distant window--someone listening, curious
about the music drifting through the rain. Did they see him here on the
roof, or just hear the sound of his guitar? Some ghost he was! He should
at least be able to turn invisible. But he couldn't complain--what he did
have served his purpose better than insubstantial ectoplasm.
No, Tin Tin and Gideon would not have been intimidated by a mere ghost,
and Funboy probably saw worse in his drugged stupors. And nothing less
than real blood would ever satisfy the bloodlust burning within him.
[She is safe.] The crow fluttered to rest beside him, looking at him with
its onyx eyes. She? ... oh yes, Sarah. He bowed his head in simple
gratitude towards the bird as he let the guitar bleed his song into the
night.

* * *

I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them.
--Haggai 2:22

The crow was in flight again, over the rain-dark city and Eric was running
with grim effortlessness below. Neither his strength nor purpose had
dimmed, but the long relentless night of reprisal and remembrance had
drained him and there was no joy, fierce or otherwise, in his graceful
passage across the rooftops.
Two left ... and only one of significance: T-bird. Yes, T-bird, then
Skank, and then he would be ... free. From what? For what? He didn't
know, he couldn't think--thinking was too painful, his thoughts too
corrosive, as if the invulnerability of his body had been paid for with
the vulnerability of his soul.
Enough! Don't think! Follow the crow, follow it to T-bird.

"... I don't know. How many times I gotta tell you--we're in this
together? If one part falls, we all fall!"
What was that? Through the crow's eyes he looked down on two men walking
below. One was shouting at the other, both were angry. They were T-bird
and Skank ... and it was T-bird's turn to face his own mortality.
T-bird didn't know they had all started falling a year ago--and tonight
was the night they would finally hit the ground.
"You know how long it took us to put this together? That piece of ratshit
made Tin Tin into a fuckin' voodoo doll!" T-bird had to keep his peace
around Top Dollar, but now he wanted to howl his rage--Tin Tin had been
the most reliable man in his crew.
"Tin Tin was a dick!" Skank was having a hard time dealing with Tin Tin's
death--he hated the big black bully, but he'd always been part of T-bird's
crew. Now he was gone.
"Tin Tin ..." Suddenly T-bird stopped and began pumping his arms in
their old rallying cry: "Fire it up! Fire it up!" Skank joined him,
and for a moment the street rang with their tribute to their fallen
comrade.
[A warrior's chant ... but they do not deserve a warrior's death.]
Eric "heard" the contemptuous words as he slipped down to street level with
the crow guiding him deftly into position. Then the two men came to a halt
in front of a liquor store.
"No Funboy," T-bird said in irritation, looking at his watch, not worried
yet, but not happy either--not after Tin Tin.
"Probably still banging away on Darla," Skank laughed, doing an impromptu
bump-and-grind against a parking meter, chuckling away like a demented
twelve-year-old telling a dirty joke. Not exactly, Eric thought, knowing
the real joke behind his words.
T-bird agreed with Skank, but ignored his screwing around--he was used to
his antics and didn't see any point in encouraging them. Whistling to get
his attention, he ordered, "Smokes and road beers. Be quick!" That was
the nice thing about having someone like Skank around--he always followed
orders, even for scut-work like that.
"I'm on it," Skank said brightly, bounding into the store, cheerfully doing
his boss's bidding.
T-bird walked over to his pride and joy--his big red super-charged
Thunderbird, complete with vanity plates reading: "TEE BIRD". He always
locked the doors, even in this neighborhood, where everybody knew that to
touch that car was to get a one-way ticket to the morgue. He got in and
settled himself comfortably into the driver's seat with a sigh, then lit a
cigar, thinking gloomily about Tin Tin and the way he'd died.
He felt a wave of uneasiness when the crow landed on the hood of his car,
then a sharp stab of fear when a bizzare figure arose with inhuman
swiftness from the shadows of the back seat and held a gun to his head,
so quickly that he only had time to lift his own gun a few inches.
"What the fuck are you supposed to be, man?" he quavered, his voice tight
with dread.
"I'm your passenger," Eric said without emotion, his face impassive as he
plucked T-bird's gun from his hand and his cigar from his lips. He'd had
enough of being attacked and shot at, this time he would do what he had to
do and be done with it. He grabbed the top of T-bird's head with pitiless,
irresistible fingers and forced him to look straight ahead.
"Drive." That one quiet, ominous word was like ice running down T-bird's
spine, and he could no more disobey it than he could stop the shaking of
his hands as he fumbled the key into the ignition and started the car. For
once the deep animal roar of the engine gave him no satisfaction, not even
when the vibration sent the crow into flight off of the hood. Fear
weighted his foot and the tires squealed as the big car screamed into the
night.

* * *

Skank had his arms full of beer and his mouth full of potato chips, busily
gathering everything T-bird had ordered and more, when he saw two little
boys enter the store and pull out automatic weapons. He went slack-jawed
with disbelief. "What's all this happy horseshit?" he gasped, as they
threatened the clerk and started herding the customers over to the
counter. The stupid little shits even took his .45 before he had a chance
to stop them. They didn't know who he was, who he worked for. Damn, but
they were gonna to be sorry when they found out.
Then he spotted T-bird's hot rod deserting him as it sped away down the
street, and he forgot all about the grammar-school gangsters holding guns
on him. He dropped his armload and ran heedlessly into the street,
shouting his leader's name. But the young thugs weren't about to let their
quarry escape, and the one who'd taken his .45 shot him in the leg with it
before he ever reached the door.
But he didn't give a damn about that. "Hey, T-bird, T-bird," he wailed,
limping into the street, staring with dismay into the darkness where his
leader had disappeared. He never even saw the little hatchback that
smashed into him, lifting him into the air like a toy.
It flung him onto its windshield with a loud shattering of glass, then on
over its low roof, where he finally fell with a groaning thud to the
street. He was still trying to follow T-bird, when a rough pair of hands
grabbed him and hauled him to unsteady feet. But their owner wasn't in a
mood to offer help.
"What the fuck's the matter with you?" the driver bellowed. He was a big
man, and in a vile temper. "You stupid ass-hair! You hit my car!" He
swung and got one good solid hit on Skank, not realizing that even the
least of T-bird's crew was as vicious a fighter as anyone in the 'hood.
"What a classic!" one of the gun-toting little boys shouted, laughing
hysterically at Skank's antics, but he never even heard them--random
violence by under-age punks was the least of his worries.
Battered and wounded as he was, Skank laid the other man out with two
wicked punches and dived into the little hatchback, his only thought being
to follow T-bird and find out what had gone wrong.

* * *

Fear tastes like a rusty knife.
--John Cheever

T-bird was scared. He hadn't been this scared since he'd been in
combat--but he was still thinking. It had always gotten him out of trouble
before ... it would again.
"Whaddya want, man? Money? Drugs? I got 'em." There had to be some way
to get this guy to back off. "We could use you ... you did Tin Tin. This
is business, right?" Shit, anybody who could take out Tin Tin like that
would give his crew a real edge.
But the guy in the back seat wasn't buying any of it. "Faster," was all he
said, his voice so low it could barely be heard over the roar of the
engine; and the deadly intensity in that one word sent cold sweat running
down his ribs.
It was hard to drive at that speed, with the stranger's fingers clamped
like vise-grips on the top of his head--it took every bit of his
considerable skill to keep them and the big car all in one piece, and when
he saw the red and blue lights in his rear-view mirror he got even
tenser.
"Ah, look--makin' us popular. When they flash us like that, they ain't
friends." The stranger was bothered by cops less than he was by dangerous
speeds, giving their pursuers no more than a casual glance before turning
his cold eyes back to stare at him through the mirror.
T-bird swallowed hard. "If you got something personal, amigo, we can work
it out, right?" He was starting to get desperate now. Dammit! How could
this bastard charge in here like this and take over? Why wouldn't he
answer? How could they cut a deal if the guy wouldn't say one damned
word.

The crow flew high above them, looking down and Eric watched through its
eyes, a little unnerved behind his impassive mask by the speed and by
T-bird's growing panic, and worried about the safety of the police car
wailing in pursuit. But from the crow's perspective, so far overhead, it
was almost harder to watch--he could see the terrible risks both cars were
taking, the near misses, the scrambling pedestrians, the dodging cars. If
we crash now, he wondered, would even you be able to heal me? Of course,
he didn't care what happened to T-bird.
The police car was right on their tail--close enough for the policemen to
see him clearly through the rear window. That wasn't good--the fewer
people who saw him the better. How were they going to lose the police
car? They should never have gotten involved in this in the first place:
it was a private vengeance--no one else was supposed to get hurt.

Skank was having nothing but trouble.
The little hatchback didn't have a tenth of the power of T-bird's car--he'd
lost them in seconds and was reduced to driving frantically back and forth
looking for something that seemed to have vanished off the face of the
earth. The cracked windshield was nearly impossible to see out of; he
didn't know where he was going; pain and desperation were scrambling his
already tangled thought processes.
Screaming in frustration, he fought his way through traffic, down alleys,
and in and out of dead ends, with never a sight of T-bird. Shrieking, he
stood on the brakes, skidding to a stop as a truck loomed out of nowhere,
spraying the little car with an opaque shower of muddy water--now he
couldn't see at all. He hit the wipers, but they only smeared the goo
across the broken glass; he tried to roll down the window, but the crank
broke off in his hand.
"Holy shit! Goddamn foreign cars!" he wailed, lost and helpless and
hurting. "This ain't good, this ain't good!" He had to find T-bird,
he was nothing without T-bird. No Tin Tin ... no Funboy. It was just
him and T-bird ... Where was he? Where where where?
"T-bird!" he yelped in ecstasy when he saw the familiar red car flash
across the alley ahead of him. At last! At last! "I got you, man!
I'm comin'!" he called, flooring it, pushing the little car to its
limit.

A squeal of brakes caught the crow's attention and it ducked its head to
look behind: a little hatchback had just darted out of an alley directly
into the path of the policemen! The crow wheeled in mid-air as the police
car plowed into the smaller car, shoving it fifty yards down the street
with a raucous grinding of metal. Eric wept inside--this was just what
he'd dreaded: more innocent lives forfeit ... when would it ever end?
[No one is harmed who should not be harmed.]
The crow obligingly circled lower, and Eric saw a familiar, loathsome
figure flop out of the little car and stumble away. It was Skank!
Bloody, battered and limping, but otherwise uninjured. He looked over
at the cops, who were dazed but unhurt--thanks to their air-bags--and
he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. When he looked back for Skank, he
saw him staggering around a corner, still in dogged pursuit of his
leader. Silence reigned, except for the insistent pinging of the little
hatchback's "door-open" alarm.
Then the bird flew ahead again, and Eric eased the pressure of his hand
a fraction, allowing T-bird to slow down to a safer speed. Relentlessly
he directed his prisoner to drive where the crow guided. By now Eric was
so forbiddingly grim that he repelled even himself. He'd said no more
than five words to T-bird the whole time, not like he'd done with the
others.
But what was there to say after all? By now he knew all he wanted to know
about that night. This whole business had reached the point where it was
nothing more than a messy clean-up job that had to be done.
Memory and vengeance drove him with twin scourges.

A sound of cornered-animal fear ... like the last sound the treed and shot
and falling animal makes ... when he finally doesn't care any more about
anything but himself and his dying.
--Ken Kesey

They out-drove the crow, but it didn't matter--he knew by now where they
were to go. It was quiet on the old deserted wharf when they finally
rolled to a stop--no sound but that of rats scuttling away from the light,
and of the river lapping emptily at the pilings, smelling of sewage and
lost hope.
By the time the bird drew close again, he'd lashed T-bird to the driver's
seat with coil after coil of tough duct tape, and terror radiated from the
bound man like the heat from one of his own arson fires.
"Do you remember Shelly Webster?" Eric asked quietly, walking back to the
open trunk of the car to rummage through its pyrotechnic contents.
"Remember? ... I remember everything ... But I don't know what ... what?
What?" T-bird babbled, hardly aware of what he was saying. He tried to
get a grip on himself, tried to understand what was happening to him.
"What're you talking about? No, no, no ... You mean that place downtown?
Yeah, I remember her. We needed to put some fear into that little
lady--she wasn't going along with our 'tenant relocation' program!" It
was business! Couldn't the guy see that? And what did it have to do with
here and now?
Eric picked over the liberal assortment of explosives T-bird carried with
him--his "tools of the trade"--finally choosing a simple, deadly-looking
canister, and walked back to stand looking impassively at the imprisoned
man.
T-bird was still hopelessly trying to justify himself, realizing with
every word that it was having no effect at all on his kidnapper. "...
Then her idiot boyfriend shows up and turns a simple sweep-and-clear into
a total cluster fuck! Who gives a shit--it's ancient history!"
"Simple sweep-and-clear"? Eric stiffened as a burning red rage overwhelmed
him. You want "simple sweep-and-clear"? he thought and gathered all the
barbed-wire memories of that night and flung them at T-bird's mind, not
even knowing if he would be able to sense them or not.
T-bird sensed something. He blanched, staring up at Eric with terror in
his eyes. "Why? Whaddya want? What is it? What?" Panic blurred his
mind, nightmare images flashed before his eyes, and still the man before
him kept silent. "Speak to me!" he begged, "Speak!" But Eric said
nothing, haunted by memories of his own ...

"Did you send us these petitions?" the leader said, pushing his way into
the room, the familiar sheets of paper fluttering in his hands ... she
could taste the blood in her mouth, feel the bones grating in her cheek
... "Abashed the devil stood ..." she heard the words from a ringing
distance ... "does it get you sweaty? ..." the words made no sense ...
she was so frightened ... it hurts ... it hurts ... Eric? Where are you?
ERIC! Help me! Help me!

At last, the images sent into his mind began making connections and T-bird
looked at Eric, almost sobbing in relief at having solved at least part
of the puzzle. "I know you! I know you ... I knew I knew you ... I knew
I knew you ..." Then he blinked in horror at the implications of that
recognition.
"But you ain't you ... you can't be you. We put you through the window!
There ain't no comin' back!" It was getting harder for him to breath.
"This is the really real world--there ain't no comin' back! We killed
you dead--there ain't no comin' back!" He said it over and over, as if
somehow the repetition could make it true.
But Eric merely ripped off another length of tape, watching unmoved when
T-bird winced at the sound, and started winding it around the imprisoned
man's head, immobilizing it against the head-rest. T-bird began to
strain helplessly against the unyielding tape.
Eric had taped and tied the steering wheel and gas pedal in fixed
positions, and now he reached in and started the car, then pulled a pin
out of the canister he held and tossed it between T-bird's legs, where
it sizzled and sputtered like a Fourth of July rocket. T-bird looked
down at his own doom, and fear took him completely. Only one image
remained of all those Eric had sent him and he clung to it like a
lifeline, drowning in the sea of his own evil.
"'Abashed the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is ...'" The
big engine almost drowned out the noise of the sputtering incendiary
device in T-bird's lap, and he began to choke on his own words. "'...
felt how awful ... goodness ...'"
The time had finally come for T-bird to look upon his own evil and die
recognizing it, terrified by what he saw.
Eric put the car in gear, and for the last time its tires squealed as it
gathered speed down the long wharf, away from the vulnerable wooden
buildings and piers, away from Eric who gave it an ironic two-fingered
wave before beginning to squirt lighter fluid in a now familiar outline
onto the wooden surface of the dock.
As the two T-birds arced into the air at the end of the wharf, Eric lit
T-bird's lighter and tossed it onto the spill of fluid; and as the air
over the water blossomed into a fiery cascade of metal and explosives, a
quiet serpent of flame outlined Eric's signature of vengeance, branding
the wood with the image of a giant crow before the rain snuffed it out.
The crow fluttered down to land on his shoulder as he strode imperturbably
through the leaping flames, untouched by their searing fingers. And where
T-bird had been, only a few hissing pieces of molten metal sank quietly
beneath the water.

* * *

He is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
--Mark 16:6

The thin sunlight of the late October dawn did nothing to dissipate the
chill that Grange felt as he walked warily into the old churchyard, but
he made no complaint. Myca had her reasons for sending him to seek out
Eric Draven's final resting place. And he had a pretty good idea of what
to expect when he found it.
Even so, his fabled equanimity was shaken when he saw what awaited him in
front of the simple headstone marked "Eric Draven". With an impassive
face that hid a troubled mind, he squatted in the mud beside the gaping
hole and stared into the empty coffin it revealed.
It was real, he thought, drawing his fingers through the crumbling
dirt--impossible, but real. But then, after years of working with Myca
and her otherworldly alchemies, he was used to things that were impossible
but real.
He just wished this one were working with them instead of against them.

* * *

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them.
Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
--Oscar Wilde

"This is the seven a.m. edition of Action News. For over a decade, the
night before Halloween has had a darker and deadlier nickname in the
inner city--Devil's Night--the name given to what has become an annual
plague of arson. Last year over 200 blazes were reported and eleven
people lost their lives. Tonight will repeat what may become the biggest
and deadliest Devil's Night ever. The mayor has firefighteres from all
surrounding counties, as well as ..."
It wasn't the sound of the television that finally woke Sarah up, but
the completely unfamiliar sounds and smells of somebody cooking breakfast
in the tiny kitchen. With a groan, she realized she'd fallen asleep on
her couch-bed still in her wet clothes and clutching Eric's album to her
chest. She was stiff and even still a little damp in places--at least
she'd had the good sense to drag a blanket over herself before zonking
out.
She'd fallen asleep looking at Eric's picture on the album cover,
wondering if it really had been him she'd seen. And if it was, why had he
disappeared? Why hadn't he stayed, talked to her, kept her company for a
little while at least?
But what the hell was going on in the kitchen?
She got off of the couch groggily, rubbing her gummy eyes while she stared
in disbelief at Darla bustling distractedly around the kitchen. There was
something definitely wrong here--she hardly recognized her mother--no
make-up, hair still wet from the shower. She looked younger somehow ...
and prettier.
Eggs, bacon, toast, juice ... Darla! This was even harder to believe than
some guy who looked and sounded like Eric and quoted from his song ... and
disappeared into thin air.
Carefully she put Eric's album down in a safe place and started warily
towards the kitchen, blinking a little in the early morning sunlight which
streamed in through the windows--the rain had finally stopped ... for a
while at least. "Can't rain all the time," just like he'd said ... this
was getting too weird. Then she hesitated when Darla looked over and saw
her. The look her mother gave her was as unfamiliar as her behavior--shy,
hopeful, almost apologetic as she clutched mismatched salt and pepper
shakers to her chest like they were some kind of talisman.
"You like them up or over?" she asked tentatively. "I can't remember?"
"What are you doing?" Sarah asked resentfully, remembering last night.
"I don't even like eggs." Which wasn't exactly true, but she didn't trust
whoever it was that had invaded the kitchen.
"Wait ... you loved eggs," Darla protested, a little desperately ... as if
it really mattered somehow.
"Yeah ... when I was five," Sarah grumbled in disgust, which was probably
the last time you bothered to make anything for me, her expression added,
as she sat down and stonily watched her mother pour her some apple juice.
She stared at the glass like it might contain poison.
"So whaddya want now?" Darla persisted brightly, "black coffee and
cigarettes?" But a pathetic desperation lurked under her jaunty words,
and Sarah didn't trust her at all.
"So, what did you take to become 'mother of the year'? she asked sullenly,
withdrawing visibly from her mother's anxious efforts to please.
"Oh ... it wasn't drugs," she said with an eerie kind of wonder in her
voice. "Someone kind of ... woke me up," and her face softened into awe
as if she were remembering something wonderful.
"Who?" Sarah asked, her own face pinching with suspicion. What was
going on here? This whole thing was making her very uncomfortable ...
and yet--maybe she wasn't the only one to have had a strange encounter
last night.
"Oh ... it was nuts," Darla said helplessly, not meeting her daughter's
eye.
She's hiding something, Sarah thought angrily. Woke her up without
drugs? Yeah, right. Nobody could do that. Nobody can come back from
the dead, either! whispered a small voice.
"You're acting weird," Sarah snapped, suddenly frightened of everything
that was going on. She couldn't take it anymore, she had to push it all
away before she got hurt again.
"Didya win the lottery or something, Darla?" she said with heavy
insolence, her face radiating distrust. No way was she going to let
a shitty breakfast make up for all Darla had done ... and hadn't done.
If she'd wanted to hurt her mother, she succeeded ... but it was a bitter
success.
"Oh, forget it." Her mother's face crumpled as years of weary defeat
crushed down on her with Sarah's cynical words. Failure etched her face
as she picked up the frying pan and took it over to the trash can. "I
never was too good at this 'mommy' shit."
But there was something about the bitterness and disappointment in her
voice that cut Sarah to the quick, and she leapt to her feet in dismay.
"Over easy!" she cried urgently, and her spirits lifted when she saw that
hopeful look return to her mother's face again, as if a couple of eggs
had wiped out years of disillusionment.
"I like them over easy ... Mom," she repeated shyly, as if to a
stranger. But she had a feeling that something extraordinary had
happened last night, and maybe neither of them was the same person
anymore.
With an anxious smile, her mother flipped first one egg and then the
other, and glanced up at Sarah with a nervous giggle. Like two kids
together, Sarah joined her laughter, leaving the door open for more,
as she'd done last night for ... whoever.
It wasn't much, but it was a beginning.

Breakfast was full of awkward silences as they both clumsily felt their
way into a new relationship, but by the time they washed the dishes
together, they were both becoming more at ease. Finally her mother
dried her hands and opened the morning paper out onto the table.
"I got the paper this morning," she pointed out unnecessarily. "See,
I ... I wanted to check a few things out." Then she turned to the want
ads and wistfully traced her fingers down the columns marked "help
wanted". "I thought I might look for another job," she said, a little
fearfully, and looked at Sarah as if she expected her to reject the whole
idea with scorn.
But Sarah was overjoyed. "That's great, Mom. Then maybe you wouldn't
mind me comin' by."
Her mother winced a little when she said that, remembering the night
before. Biting her lip, she looked at the clock and frowned. "Um ...
when do you have to be at school?"
For a moment Sarah was annoyed, then she shrugged. How could she know
after all? This was supposed to be a new beginning. "I got plenty of
time. And they're letting us out early today, 'cause of, you know ...
Devil's Night."
Her mother's eyes went wide with fear ... and something else--that
remembering look again, but by now Sarah knew her mother wasn't going
to tell her whatever it was she was remembering. Still ... she had an
idea. It was kind of a trick, but she had to have some answers or she
was going to go crazy.
She showered and dressed for school in a whirlwind fifteen minutes,
then took another five to make a careful drawing on a clean sheet of
paper. Then, with a pounding heart, she took it to her mother, who was
engrossed in copying information from the newspaper.
"Look, Mom, I did this for my art class," she said abruptly, shoving
the drawing under her mother's nose, and watched her face intently.
Her reaction was striking ... and revealing--she jumped a foot and went
white as a sheet, staring at the drawing with open-mouthed shock. Sarah
smiled sweetly, but was unable to keep the smugness out of her voice as
she explained, "It's a clown-face, see. My teacher says I draw faces
real good, he says I have a 'talent for portraiture', whatever that
means. Think this one's worth an 'A'?" she asked innocently.
It was a remarkable likeness, worth every bit of an "A". The face that
stared up at Darla from the drawing paper was unmistakable--that strong
jaw, that long tangled mane of dark hair, those piercing eyes and
beautifully curved lips ... and the make-up, like a circus mask--black
slashes over black-rimmed eyes, black grinning mouth. She almost
couldn't bear to look at it, remembering ...
"Uh ... I ... yeah. Sure," her mother faltered, touching the drawing with
trembling fingers. She looked up at Sarah and swallowed with difficulty,
as if her mouth had suddenly gone dry.
"What's the matter, Mom? You look like you've seen a ghost," Sarah asked,
a little cruelly, knowing now, as surely as if she'd been told, who had
"awakened" her mother. "It's just somebody I saw last night. He ... he
kinda saved my life," she added softly.
"Saved your life?" her mother yelped, stunned by this second blow coming
so soon after the first.
"Yeah, I wasn't watching where I was going, almost got hit by a car. But
he pulled me back in time. No big deal," she added with a little shake of
her head, knowing that it was a very big deal.
"Did you ... thank him?"
"Uh, not really. I think he was in a hurry to go somewhere," Sarah said
guiltily.
"I wish you had," her mother whispered, staring fixedly at the drawing,
then she lifted her eyes, and Sarah was startled to see tears shimmer and
start to spill over. "I think we both have a lot to thank him for." Then,
to Sarah's surprise, she held out her arms and gave her daughter a fierce
hug, and the next thing she knew, they both were crying.
Finally her mother pushed her away with a loud sniffle. "G'wan, hon, or
you'll be late for school. And, uh ... could I have this drawing when
you're done with it." She looked down at it again with awe.
"Ah, go ahead and keep it. We're not having art today anyway." Her mother
blushed as she realized how she'd been tricked, then smiled ruefully.
"Thank you, Sarah ... for everything."
"Yeah. Uh ... you too," Sarah said, hurrying out the door, still finding
it almost impossible to say thank you to anyone.

* * *

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.
--William Shakespeare

Officer Albrecht had awakened that morning feeling like one of the great
mysteries of the universe had been revealed to him. Life after death!
And he'd had living proof of it in his front room! Well, maybe "living"
wasn't exactly the right word for whatever Eric Draven was ... and yet,
he'd seemed so very alive. His hands had been warm and solid when they'd
touched his face, and the way he'd crashed across the room afterwards had
been anything but ghost-like. And the sadness he carried with him--so
much sorrow and grief ... those were living emotions.
But that business of seeing Shelly's death through his eyes, and coming in
through his bedroom window--on the fifth floor with only a narrow
ledge--and the way he disappeared from plain sight outside Gideon's ...
no, those weren't exactly human-like either.
I don't know what I am. What a damned thing for a man to have to say.
But dead or alive, human or ghost, Eric Draven was back, that was for
sure. And just the fact that anyone could come back was a great wonder
in itself. It meant that death wasn't the end, that something of a man
lived beyond it.
But Albrecht had seen a lot of death in his years on the force, so why was
this the first "ghost" he'd seen? Why had Eric Draven come back, and none
of the others? Then again, how did he know they hadn't? The city could be
crawling with solid-flesh ghosts for all he knew--Eric was just the only
one who'd ever stopped by his place for a beer and conversation. Yeah,
that might explain some of the weirder things that went on--stuff that was
buried in police reports and never made it to the evening news.
Like the bizarre way Tin Tin was murdered--of course, Draven had
practically admitted to that one, out there by Gideon's. He died a year
ago--the moment he touched her. T-bird's crew. He'd suspected them
right from the start, but without evidence and the only witnesses dead or
scared into silence, he hadn't even tried to make a case--as if it
would've done any good if he had. They're all dead, they just don't know
it yet. Yeah, it looked like Draven was going to take care of it.
Oh, it was vigilantism of course, which he looked upon with all the
disdain of the professional for an amateur with an agenda. But, in
Draven's case, he wasn't going to judge the man ... or whatever he was.
If anyone ever deserved to exact revenge, it was Eric Draven, and
Albrecht could only cheer his efforts.
Like the report he'd heard just before he'd left the station: Funboy
dead, shot and forcibly O.D.'d, with the bloody outline of a bird on his
chest. What the hell did the bird mean? he wondered. A skull would've
made better sense, or some other symbol related to Draven's band, or to
the make-up he was wearing. Well, if I ever see him again, maybe I'll
ask him, he thought. And maybe he'd have enough nerve to ask some of the
big questions, like--what was it like wherever he'd come from.

The station was humming when he got in, gearing up for Devil's
Night--double shifts for everybody and nobody taking leave. It was going
to be a helluva night--us against them, but everybody had been through it
before ... and besides, Eric Draven was out there somewhere, evening up
the odds. Just the thought of that put him in a good mood.
"Hey, Albrecht!" Damn! That was a voice that could destroy the best of
moods. Albrecht sighed and came to a halt by Detective Torres' office,
reaching for the sheaf of photographs the other man was waving aggressively
at him.
"This is the third hit in your 'hood in twenty-four hours! We just fished
this out of the river. He's fused to his own car--we're gonna have to I.D.
his teeth!"
The angry frustration in the detective's voice fell like sweet music on
Albrecht's ears as he thumbed through the pictures. Man and car were
totally unrecognizable, except for one fragment of the distinctive
Thunderbird chrome-work. The last photo in the group showed the charred
outline of a bird on some kind of wooden surface, but he didn't really
need to see it to know that Draven had found the third "dead man" who had
murdered him and Shelly.
"His name's T-bird," he volunteered smugly, unable to resist the
temptation. "Arson was his specialty. Looks like he zigged when he
shoulda zagged." He handed Torres the pile of photos with an air of
satisfaction. One less fire-starter for tonight anyway.
"Case closed."
"Bull-fuckin'-shit! C'mere." Uh-oh, maybe he'd pushed a little too
hard, but how often did he get such an opportunity? He followed Torres
into his office, watching him warily.
"You're holding out on me!" Well, that was true enough, but Torres would
never be able to handle the truth, even if he'd been willing to tell him.
"I got a God-damned vigilante killer knocking off scum-bags left and
right. And you're covering up for somebody. Who's the cartoon character
with the painted face?"
You don't really want to know. "Hey, you're the detective. Why don't you
tell me?"
Hatred twisted the detective's acne-scarred face as he sputtered into his
list of complaints. "Okay! Gideon's blows all to hell, and you're having
a chit-chat with some weirdo who winds up in T-bird's car when it zigs
instead of zags. Then you steal one of my case files from homicide,
and you're saying this is just a fuckin' automobile accident? C'mon!"
Damn! So he'd found out about the file--not good. And Draven had been
seen in T-bird's car--that could be a problem. But nothing of those
thoughts showed on his face as he smiled benevolently at the angry
detective.
"Yeah. Good speech though--I didn't want to interrupt you, it sounded
good. You gotta write that shit down." He was smirking a little by the
time he'd finished--he never could resist getting a dig in whenever he
could ... the trouble was, he usually had to pay for it later.
"Alright, smartass," Torres sneered, looking too damned smug himself,
and Albrecht tensed, having a feeling that pay-back time was coming now
instead of later. "The Captain's got a little love-note waiting for you.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your suspension!"
"Suspension!?" Oh God! This was worse than anything he'd expected.
"For what?"
"Misconduct!" Torres snapped triumphantly, dismissing him.
Albrecht stalked out of the office in a black rage. Misconduct? Who
the hell was he kidding? If anyone was guilty of misconduct, it was
Torres--suppressing evidence, misdirecting investigations. If he'd ever
doubted Torres was in Top Dollar's pocket, this proved it.
But just to be sure, he went to see what the Captain had to say.
"I'm sorry, Albrecht, but Torres' complaints are legitimate. And it's all
there on your record--there's nothing I can do."
Albrecht knew he'd say that, but he'd hoped for something more--he and
the Captain went 'way back together. "So, Torres is right and I'm wrong?"
he asked bitterly.
"It's not that simple, Albrecht, and you know it. Look, I've covered your
ass as best I could for the last two years--this time you've gone too
far. My hands are tied."
"Yeah, and I know who supplied the rope to tie 'em." The Captain started
to get up indignantly, but Albrecht waved him down. "No, no. I'm goin'.
Forget I said anything." As he left the Captain's office he paused in the
doorway and looked back sadly at his one-time friend. "If you need another
man tonight, you know where to find me." It was still "us against them",
even if the lines did get a little blurred at times.

* * *

Suspense in news is torture.
--John Milton

Sarah wished she didn't have to go to school today, and not just because
it was Devil's Night--there was so damned much to think about. Who was
the man in the clown make-up, and just what had he done to turn her mother
around like that? It couldn't be Eric! She'd watched them carry away the
shattered remains of his body exactly a year ago tonight. She'd read the
newspaper articles that said he'd been stabbed and shot before he was ever
thrown from the window to fall six stories. You couldn't get any deader
than that! She'd gone to his funeral, and visited his grave every couple
of days for a whole year--he was dead and under the ground, not walking
the streets in white make-up helping out his old friends.
But if it wasn't Eric, who was it?
When she got to school, she hung back from the knots of chattering kids,
wanting more than ever just to be alone with her thoughts. But today,
that was going to be impossible--the whole school-yard was seething with
gossip, and the other kids weren't going to let her escape it.
"Didya hear what happened to your mom's boyfriend?" they asked, clustering
around her avidly.
"Yeah, he's dead! O.D.'d last night."
"Nah! Rip-rap said he was shot!"
"And Tin Tin got it too. I heard he was stuck full of knives ..."
" ... And T-bird got blown up in his own fuckin' car ..."
"And the Arcade and Gideon's got blown up too ..."
"Yeah, and they found Gideon's body in an alley, all burnt up."
"And Alison, from the Arcade, too."
"No, you jerk. They found her in a different alley."
"So? Whaddya know about all this shit?"
"No ... no, I didn't know ... except about the Arcade. I ... I saw that!"
Sarah gasped breathlessly, trying to sort out the jumble of voices around
her. "You mean ... they're all dead?"
"Yeah, all dead," she was assured by half a dozen voices at once, all of
them shivering in a strange mix of terror and delight--this was better than
a horror movie, but at the same time, it was all a little too close for
comfort.
"Didn't Funboy hang around with T-bird and Tin Tin a lot?" one of the boys
asked, eyes wide with the thoughts of plots and conspiracies beyond his
understanding.
"Yeah," Sarah agreed nervously, "and another one, a mean little bastard
named Skank." She shuddered as she remembered the time he'd caught her in
the alley outside of The Pit. If T-bird hadn't whistled him off of her,
she knew what would've happened.
"Oh, him. I heard he got the shit beat outta him last night."
"So, who's it takin' out T-bird's crew?"
"Yeah, and why?"
"Stupid question! T-bird's a real badass!"
"Yeah, but don't he work for Top Dollar?"
At the sound of that name a silence fell over the little group, and they
all shared a shiver of real dread. Sarah looked at them with an icy chill
spreading through her. She knew that these kids had access to the hottest
gossip in the neighborhood and although it was exaggerated and distorted,
there was usually a lot of truth in it.
"You sure nobody knows who did it?" she asked shakily.
"Well, I heard there was a guy with a white face hanging around Gideon's
..." one boy volunteered.
"So? What the hell's that supposed to mean?" another challenged.
"I dunno, it's just kinda weird."
"It's all fuckin' weird!"
But Sarah wasn't paying any attention to them by that time, not once she
heard "guy with a white face". It was him again ... it had to be. And
he was killing off T-Bird's crew one by one, although she didn't know where
Gideon's and the Arcade fit in.
But why T-Bird? She had the horrible feeling that she already knew the
answer to that question: All this past year, every time she'd asked
herself, Did this one kill Eric?, the answer had been in front of her all
the time.
It had been her own mother's boyfriend!
For the first time in her life, she was glad to hear the school-bell
ring.

Sarah avoided everybody when they were all let out of school early as
promised, and took a wide detour on the way home to stand in a filthy
alley and stare open-mouthed at an eerie figure outlined on the wall.
"An eagle", the kids had said it was, although many had been convinced it
was a Thunderbird like on T-Bird's car, but Sarah knew better. She'd seen
the model for it perched on Eric's gravestone and on her own windowsill:
it was a crow.
And according to her informants, there was another just like it charred
into the wood of the wharf where T-Bird himself had met his fiery end;
and, it was whispered, another one had been drawn on Funboy's chest with
his own blood.
But why the crow? She'd stolen a moment from class time to look up "crow"
in the encyclopedia and found out more than she wanted to know about the
habits and natural history of the bird, and just a few hints about what it
had once meant to people living in simpler times--messenger of death, and
guide to things spiritual.
Could the crow have somehow brought Eric back? As a ghost? But what kind
of ghost was made of solid, warm flesh? She remembered the strength in the
arms that had snatched her to safety the night before, and the heart that
she'd felt pounding under her ear when he set her down. Ghosts weren't
like that? Or were they? How could she know, after all?--it wasn't like
she'd ever met one before.
By the time she reached home, she didn't know what to think, just that
she'd give anything to see ... whoever ... again. And she wanted to talk
to her mother again about who she'd seen, the guy who'd "woke her up".
But Darla was gone and another shock awaited Sarah when she walked into
the apartment.
It was clean! Or, at least, as clean as one morning's steady work could
make it--things had been swept, tidied and scrubbed, all the trash had
been thrown out and there were neat piles stacked in the corners of stuff
to be sorted through later. Sarah barely recognized the place, and she
walked around it in stunned amazement before she even noticed the note
left in the middle of the clean kitchen table: "I have a couple of job
interviews this afternoon. I'll be home before dark. Wish me luck.
Mom."
"Job interviews! Wow, she's serious," Sarah muttered to the unfamiliar
room. "I wonder if she's heard about Funboy yet, or the others."
Probably--the grown-ups' gossip mill was even faster than the kids'.
She wondered what her mom was feeling right now--everything seemed to have
changed overnight and Sarah wasn't too sure she could keep up with it.
Shit, there was even fresh fruit in a bowl to snack on!
There were too many questions and not enough answers. And no one to ask,
either. She could ask her mom--maybe--except she wasn't here. She
could've asked Shelly or Eric, if they were still alive, but if they'd
been alive, there wouldn't be any questions. She could ask that
stranger--who might be Eric ... if she could find him again. So, where
would a ghost go in the daytime? Back to his grave?
Or back to the place where he'd died? Back to the loft?
Back to the loft! Sarah thought with a nervous shiver. She'd avoided that
whole part of the neighborhood ever since that awful night--the very
thought of seeing where they'd suffered and died was more than she could
bear. But now ...
With sudden determination, she grabbed her skateboard and an apple from
the bowl and headed back out the door. She had to find out, had to know
for sure ... even if she was completely wrong about the whole thing.
The last time I came this way ... her mind kept repeating as she skated
closer to the old Calderon Court Apartments. It had been later, of course,
and raining that night (that much was still the same--a storm had rolled
in while she was in school, drowning the promise of the morning sun), and
there'd been fires everywhere (and that would be the same too, in a few
more hours), and there'd been police cars and fire trucks everywhere in
the street below the loft ... and an ambulance.
But there was nothing there now, in the dismal light of a cloudy late
afternoon--just the boarded-up entryway of an abandoned building and
warning signs posted all over it. She felt a little lost somehow when
she saw that--she hadn't realized that the place was empty, was as dead
as Eric and Shelly. It seemed fitting somehow: like the whole building
was a memorial to them. At least, it was better than someone else moving
into what had been their home.
As thunder rolled heavily overhead, promising ever more rain, Sarah tugged
on the carelessly nailed planks blocking the doorway. They came off
easily even though she wasn't all that strong, and she wondered why no
one had broken in before her. This was just the kind of place that would
normally get turned into a crack house ... or worse.
But the whole place was silent as she began climbing the five flights
of stairs to the loft ... as silent as the grave, she thought, with a
shudder at the eeriness of it all. She didn't know what she might find
in here--crazed druggies, weapons stash, homeless winos sleeping it off,
runaways and street kids looking for shelter--anybody and anything could
be in here.
But by the time she reached the top floor, she realized that the whole
vast building was empty of all human life but her own--not a sound reached
her from inside the long halls, no foot but hers had walked the dusty
floors, no hand but hers had pushed away the clinging cobwebs. It was
like walking through the set of a horror movie, only this was real.
And was there a real ghost waiting for her on the top floor? Well, if
there is, it's Eric's ghost, and he used to be my best friend, so I can't
be afraid of him now. That thought steadied her when the quiet and the
emptiness started getting on her nerves, and she kept on climbing, pausing
every now and then to listen for ... whatever.

* * *

But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are
heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.
--Arthur Rimbaud

Eric had returned to the loft when the thin morning light drove him to hide
from the eyes of mortal men. But once back inside, memories of Shelly came
creeping out to invade his mind again, and this time he didn't even try to
resist them. He could think of Shelly ... or of blood; and until the crow
came back to lead him to Skank, he'd rather think of Shelly, in spite of
the pain it cost him.
He lit a fire in the fireplace with the logs that were still stacked next
to it and found the box of photographs on the shelf in the closet, still
untouched although everything around it had been ripped and scattered.
Lovingly he pulled it down as Gabriel joined him, and began letting each
photo draw him into it, reliving every experience anew as tears flowed
over his painted cheeks.

"Seven blackbirds in a tree, count them and see what they be. One for
sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver,
six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told" She giggled
tenderly over the old counting rhyme, stroking his arm lovingly. "What
would you like, Eric, a boy or girl?" "A little girl of course, just as
beautiful as you." "And then a little boy," she sighed, "just as handsome
as you!" ...
He sat cross-legged on the floor of the loft, playing softly on his guitar
while she worked busily in the kitchen across from him--he was composing
another love song--everything he wrote anymore was a love song, but love
was all he felt anymore ...
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." he read, every word awakening
to new life as he spoke it, then he felt a chill when he reached the last
three lines:
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!
--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death....
Then he relaxed with a rueful smile--nothing like that was going to happen
anytime soon. Better he should read Fred Browning:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made ...
She slept quietly in his arms, bathed in the afterglow of their
love-making, so sweet, so warm, so trusting. His flesh sang where it
touched hers, and his eyes misted with tears as he looked down on her
loveliness ...
The field of wildflowers was so beautiful, but Shelly was more beautiful
still, and he lifted her in his arms, drinking in her sweet fragrance,
and danced with her among the sunlit flowers ...

He had no idea how much time had passed in the present, while he wandered
the corridors of the past, but suddenly the crow snapped him back into the
here-and-now with an urgent "Caw!" In a daze he lifted his head, then
moved with inhuman swiftness.

* * *

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
--William Blake

Finally Sarah reached the last landing and stood before the still
Halloween-decorated door to Shelly's one-time home ... and it was open!
Just a crack, but someone had been there before her! The yellow
crime-scene tape had been pulled away, and--she discovered as she peered
around looking for other clues--there were muddy footprints leading up to
the door from back along the hall and around a corner that she knew led to
the stairs going up to the roof.
Would a ghost have come in from the roof? Well, maybe ... if he didn't
want anybody to see him. Which made sense ... as much as anything made
sense in this whole crazy business. And would he be there now? Or
nobody? Or somebody else, somebody that she'd rather not meet?
Well, the only way to find out was to go inside, and so, with a wary look
around, she pushed the door open and walked cautiously into the room.
It was awful! It was worse than she'd been afraid it would be. It was a
mess! Shelly had been so neat, so proud of the way she'd fixed the place
up--she'd loved the old iron pyramid beams and the big round window, but
it was all ruined now. The window was broken (by Eric falling through it,
she remembered, shivering) and everything was smashed and scattered all
over the floor--papers and books and pages of books, and the roof was
leaking rainwater over it all with an empty, echo-y sound.
"Eric?" she called tentatively, feeling silly and depressed at the same
time. "Man, Sarah, you're going crazy." There was nothing in this room
but bitter memories--she'd climbed five flights of stairs for nothing.
But wait, what was that?
A plaintive "meow" almost made her jump, before she recognized the fluffy
white cat approaching her. "Gabriel! I thought you were dead!" Yeah,
dead along with everything else in here. She knelt in relief and welcomed
the lonely cat into her arms, taking comfort in his hairy warmth and
rumbling purr. But the stranger had been warm too ... "You're not dead ...
are you?" she asked, not entirely convinced by the cat's solidity. Then
her nose wrinkled as she smelled fresh woodsmoke.
Woodsmoke? In this rain-soaked place? With a sinking feeling she turned
to the fireplace, and her stomach gave a jump when she saw the thin
tendrils of smoke still curling up from the logs set into it. Someone
had been there, just minutes before!
Slowly, still carrying Gabriel, she walked over to the fireplace and
looked down at the ashes littering it. Some of them still held the shape
of what they'd been--sheets of paper ... or photographs. There was one,
only half-burned, peeking out from under the logs, and she reached
carefully for it.
It was Shelly and Eric, laughing, happy ... alive. She let it flutter out
of her nerveless fingers, hardly able to bear the sight of them, so
carefree, so unaware of what was going to happen to them. But at least,
one of her questions had been answered. She set Gabriel down and turned
away from the fireplace.
"I knew it was you," she said, almost sadly, to the empty room. "Even
with the make-up. I remembered your song." She wandered aimlessly around
the room, looking without hope for someone who wasn't there. "You said:
'Can't rain all the time'. That is from your song? Right?" But only
silence greeted her voice--a whole room as silent as a grave. She saw
the jar of white face makeup, and the black lipstick that she and Shelly
had bought for that long-ago Halloween, and wasn't surprised to see that
they'd been used recently. There was a broad smear across the dust on
Shelly's dressing table, and that looked fresh too.
She sighed in frustration and disappointment, then caught her breath in
sudden hope as a crow--the crow--flew into the room and landed on one of
the iron beams. It blinked quizzically down at her and cawed in a
familiar way, its claws ringing metallically on the beam. If the crow
was here, it had to mean something.
"Aw, c'mon Eric, I know you're here," she quavered, a little desperately.
"I miss you ... and Shelly. Gets so lonely all by myself," she finished
miserably, admitting to him what she'd never dared to admit to
herself.
But there was no answer, no sound at all except the desolate, endless
drip of rain. It can rain all the time, she thought bitterly, finally
realizing that he'd betrayed her hopes just like everyone else had.
"The hell with you," she muttered, disillusioned and resentful, as
she picked up her skateboard and turned to leave the room that held
nothing but things best left forgotten. "I thought you cared!"
But she'd taken no more than a single step, when, by some miracle,
the sinking sun found a hole in the clouds and sent a shimmering golden
circle of light through the round window to fall against the wall
before her ... and haloed in that molten sunlight was the shadow of a
slender, graceful man.
"Sarah," a voice whispered from behind her, a voice as endlessly sad as
time itself, and she spun around in sudden hope at the sound of it.
"I do care," he protested gently, turning all her despair into joy; and,
with a glad cry, she dropped her skateboard and ran tearfully into his
waiting embrace.
He knelt to gather her to him--two strong arms wrapped around her, and
a strong heart pounded against her own, his warm hand reached up to
cradle her head to his shoulder, and his tears were warm and wet
against her neck. He was real, real, real!
"It was you, I knew it was you!" she murmured over and over again,
squeezing her eyes shut against the brilliant sunlight and her own
burning tears. "You came back, you really came back."
"Sarah, I didn't come back ... for this," he said painfully, as the
sunlight faded behind the clouds again, pushing her gently away so that
he could search her face.
"I ... I know," she hiccuped, fishing in her pocket for a clean tissue.
"It was for them, T-Bird and the others. Because of what they did ...
to you and Shelly. I saw you ... I saw what they did to you. I was
coming over to stay with you--I was afraid of the fires ... and I saw you
both ..."
"Oh, sweetheart, I wish you hadn't."
"But I did! And I wish I'd been there, with you! I wish I'd died too,"
she wailed, baring her last secret to him, without thinking of the pain
she'd cause.
"Oh no, please, Sarah. Don't say that ... you don't know. You have to
live, and grow up, and do everything you're meant to do. You can't let
them win!"
"But you and Shelly were the only friends I ever had!" she sniffed, looking
back at him almost accusingly.
"What about Officer Albrecht? What about your mother?" he asked tenderly,
holding her firmly away from him.
"She did see you then, didn't she? Last night ... after I did, on the
street. Was she there? When you ... killed Funboy?" she finished in a
whisper.
"No ... but I did frighten her--badly. I'm sorry for that," he said with
quiet sadness.
"Well, I'm not. She said you woke her up, and you did--she's different
now. Everything's different ... after last night. What did you say to
her?"
He smiled gently at her, "I only reminded her of something she already
knew."
"So, what're you going to do now?" She had trouble keeping her voice from
shaking as she asked him that all-important question.
"There's still one left, Sarah. I have to find him. And then I have to
leave," he said with such grim finality that she knew it was hopeless to
plead with him to stay.
"One more ... you mean Skank, don't you?" and she shuddered at the memory
of groping hands and fetid breath.
"What's wrong? Did he hurt you?" Eric's anger hit her like a Devil's
Night fire, and it wasn't even directed towards her. She could almost
feel sorry for Skank ... almost, but not quite.
"He tried to--last month. I guess he thought if Funboy had Darla, he could
have me. But T-Bird called him off before he got very far ... 'sides,
I kicked him in the balls and that kind of slowed him down." Suddenly a
horrible thought struck her: Skank must've tried the same things with
Shelly that night, except, nobody stopped him then. It made her want to
throw up, just thinking of him even touching Shelly.
"He won't hurt you ever again," Eric promised forbiddingly, his voice
harsh and unrecognizable. "He'll never hurt anyone again."
"Why, Eric? Why did it have to happen?" she sobbed, asking yet again
the oldest of the unanswerable questions. Eric could only shake his
head, his grey eyes awash in tears.
"All I know is that I have to do what they stopped me from doing that
night--I have to get to Shelly. But I can't reach her without going
through them first. That's all I came back for--not for the living ...
not for you, Sarah. I'm sorry. Just for those four men .. who were
dead the moment they touched her. When that's done, then I can leave
here."
"But where will you go?"
"I don't know. Wherever Shelly is." He smiled ruefully at her,
smoothing her wet hair away from her face. "Do you think heaven will
have me after last night?"
"They better! They'll probably have a parade for you," she said, trying
unsuccessfully to swallow the lump in her throat.
"You can have the rest of the photographs," he said, changing the subject
abruptly, and he gestured at a small suitcase against the wall. "I
should've thought to save them for you."
"But ... why were you burning them?" she asked, but read her answer in the
look of anguish that flashed across his face, and she remembered how much
it had hurt her to look at that half-burned scrap in the fireplace.
"Would you take care of Gabriel?" he asked quietly, rising to his feet and
stepping away from her. "He's not really cut out to be an alley cat
anymore."
It was then that Sarah knew that their visit--the last time she'd ever
see him--was at an end.
"Sure," she choked, bending down to pick up the big cat. But when she
straightened up again, Eric was gone.

* * *

An ugly sight, a man who is afraid.
--Jean Anouilh

"That's him! That's him!" Skank pointed one filthy, bloody finger at the
face in the photograph--Hangman's Joke, it said, and the name under the
face read: Eric Draven.
Skank looked awful--being shot and in two car accidents the night before
had left his wiry body torn and limping; seeing the only man he dared to
call friend blown up like a Fourth of July fireworks display had driven
him into a gibbering panic; finding the author of all his misery in the
photograph of a man he'd helped to kill a year earlier tipped him right
over the edge.
"That's him--but he looked different! He was all painted up white like
some kinda dead whore! I seen him." He limped and shuffled up and down
the boardroom before the amused eyes of Top Dollar and Grange--two men
who terrified him past what little reason he had left. "T-bird, he sent
me in for some road beers, right. Then he took him away, man, and I
chased 'em down. And he flash-fried T-bird to his fuckin' car ..." He
spun around in horror at the memory, lifting the whiskey bottle in his
bandaged hand in salute to his chief: "Ah, T-bird! Here's to you,
buddy!" And with a convulsive swallow he tried to drown his sorrows.
Top Dollar glowered at the frenetic antics of the animated piece of shit
bleeding all over his boardroom floor--what a mess--first Gideon then
this fuckhead. "I think we oughta just videotape this, play it back in
slow motion," he said in disgust, wondering if they could get anything
useful out of such a pitiful dipshit. Hell, now what was he doing?
"Fire it up! Fire it up!" Skank gave the old rallying cry, but his voice
was hoarse, and without the others he sounded more foolish than
menacing.
"Didya see the grave?" Top Dollar asked, one eye on the whirling dervish
before him, one on his lieutenant.
"Empty," Grange said flatly, as if there had been no doubt ... and after
last night, there really hadn't been. Unfortunately, Skank
heard him too.
"Grave! What grave? Wha' 'bout my fuckin' grave?" He hobbled
desperately up to them, bringing his noisome body a
little too close for civilized comfort, and Grange shoved him casually
back across the room.
"Three out of four," he said disgustedly. "He's working his way back
to this speed freak right here." And probably doing them a favor at
that.
But Skank felt the need to justify himself. "It's not fair! It was
Funboy's fault. That boy was outta control! T-bird, he came in there,
'Waste 'em both'." But he missed the point entirely--they'd all been
out of control that night! He began to sob noisily, shuffling up to them
again, forgetting the risks that involved. "Now this ghost's gonna kill
my ass next!"
Finally, completely out of patience, Top Dollar surged out of his chair
to hit the smaller man with the punishing fist of a trained fighter.
Skank staggered back against Grange, who thrust him into the seat Top
Dollar had just vacated. But he proved that, while neither brave nor
intelligent, he could absorb a helluva lot of punishment, as he cowered
in terror, muttering through his sobs, "This ghost gonna kill my ass
next ... this ghost gonna kill ..."
"Hey!" Top Dollar barked, shoving his angry face close to Skank's battered
one. "That ain't no ghost!" No, not a ghost. Somebody was going to a
lot of trouble to make it look like a ghost, but he knew there was a
living, breathing, mortal human being behind all of this, and when the
time came, he intended to prove just how mortal that man was--nobody took
out his people and survived for very long!
"They have all arrived," Myca announced coldly, watching her brother
closely. Now she might believe it was a ghost, but even if she was right,
he'd still back the both of them against any man living ... or dead.
"Watch him," he told Grange before leaving with Myca, "we might need
him." Right now however, he had this year's Devil's Night to organize,
and it was going to be special, "ghost" or no ghost.

* * *

So. He was a civilian again--for a while anyway--and he hated it. He felt
naked without his badge and gun, wearing his uniform shirt stripped of all
insignia, driving his own car ... and on Devil's Night, of all nights!
"Looks like they skipped the school crosswalk, Annie," Albrecht muttered
sourly to himself, as he drove through the neighborhood, his cop's
instincts keeping an eye out for trouble in spite of his current status.
For that matter, there were a couple of less-than-legal firearms tucked
away where he could get at them easily--another instinct that couldn't be
shut off.
It was almost sunset, almost night. Almost Devil's Night. And he didn't
like the edginess he was feeling. If only he were still on duty, had
something he could concentrate on, instead of driving aimlessly around,
looking for ... what?
Looking for a ghost maybe? Yeah, maybe--a ghost who had more questions
than answers; a ghost who was filled with more sadness than anger, and
whose anger was enough to scour the earth. The ghost of an ordinary
man ... who was anything but ordinary now. It was confusing and
depressing, and cops who let themselves become confused and depressed
didn't survive very long.
Eric would be going after Skank next, if his guess was right ... and he
knew it was. Skank was the last ... and the least ... of the four who'd
raped and beaten and finally murdered Shelly Webster, and he undoubtedly
deserved everything coming to him, but Albrecht couldn't help thinking
that it was a waste of effort. Skank was a cockroach and other feet would
soon squash him out of existence, now that he no longer had the protection
of his mentor, T-bird. Eric was no killer, in spite of last night's work,
and Albrecht had sensed the creeping poison of this vengeance that was
eating away his soul. It happened like that to cops sometimes ... too
often. All the violence, the suffering, the death and pain ... they could
kill as surely as a bullet to the heart.
But what effect would they have on a man already dead?

The barb in the arrow of childhood suffering is this: its intense
loneliness.
--Olive Schreiner

Finally he spotted a familiar little figure sitting in her usual place at
Mickey's counter and he pulled up to join Sarah. He wondered if she knew
about her mother's boyfriend and the other strange and violent events of
the night before, then shook his head ironically at the idea. Of course
she did--kids in this neighborhood absorbed gossip from the very air. She
probably knew more than he did.
But did she know about Eric?
Well, whatever she knew, it was certainly depressing her, he thought,
approaching the counter. She was sitting there all alone, except for a
big white cat that she seemed to be sharing a hotdog with. She barely
acknowledged his approach as she gloomily stroked the cat and stared
blankly at nothing.
"He like his plain or with onions?" he asked, trying to tease her out of
whatever it was that was bothering her, but it was like talking to a black
hole. "Fine, don't talk to me," he said, pretending to be affronted, but
looking at her with compassion. And who am I to jolly anyone out of a
depression? But Sarah surprised him.
"When someone's dead, they can't come back, can they?" she asked, darting
a quick glance at him, like she was ashamed to ask, but driven to it
anyway by a confusion as deep as his own. He knew just how she felt, and
he had a pretty good idea why she was asking.
"That's what I thought," he said cautiously, trying to give her the
honest answer she deserved, hoping she'd trust him enough to be honest in
return. "Are you referring to anyone in particular?" he asked, knowing
that there was only one person who could've come back to see both of them.
But he didn't want to pressure her--sometimes she was like a wild bird,
trusting no one. And with good reason.
"You'll just think I'm nuts," she said tightly, shutting him out, taking
wing away from him. Poor Sarah, he thought, carrying all of this alone.
"Yeah. Well then ... maybe they'll have to lock us both up," he said
quietly, not daring to speak too plainly in front of Mickey, but trying
to tell her that they shared a strange and wonderful secret.
"You ... see him too?" she asked almost fearfully, hunching her shoulders
against a scornful reply, but almost ready to land on his outstretched
hand.
"I saw ... somebody," he acknowledged, one eye on her, the other on Mickey,
busy behind the counter. But, now that it came right down to it, it was
hard to admit what he knew was true--that the ghost of Eric Draven had
stood before him with the voice and body of a living man. "Maybe it was
your fairy godfather," he quipped, backing away from what he really
wanted to say.
But Sarah heard the truth behind his words, saw it in his compassionate
face, and sighed with a knowledge that wasn't any lighter for being
shared. "Eric didn't come back for me," she said, cutting to the heart
of the matter. "He can't be my friend anymore, because ... I'm alive,"
she finished bitterly, and Albrecht had the awful feeling that she resented
being alive as much as she did the loss of Eric's friendship.
"You want a friend to walk you home?" he asked soberly, knowing that she
was going to need all the help she could get tonight. To lose Eric once
was bad enough. Now she'd lost him again, and he was just as helpless in
the face of her grief as he'd been a year earlier--once again he was going
to have to take a lonely, empty little girl back to her lonely, empty
little apartment, and leave her by herself ... on Devil's Night.
He was more depressed now than ever.

* * *

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
--William Shakespeare

Help the living and you will bleed ... Damn that crow! Eric thought,
looking down from the roof over the loft at the tiny figure in the street
below. Even at this distance he could see the dejection in her posture
and feel the grief in her heart ... and they hurt him, God, they hurt!
And yet, how could he have ignored her plea? ... "I thought you cared".
How could he have betrayed her yet again? She was just a child--a lonely,
frightened child--he had to comfort her, to reassure her. He couldn't
stop caring for her any more than he could still the beating of his
heart.
And so he bled again--inside now, where it hurt more than a thousand
razor cuts, and wounded him deeper than the unhealed slashes beneath the
tape on his arms. And still, he'd had to send her away, to walk alone
into the approaching night. Had he helped her? Had he done any good at
all? Had the sacrifice of blood been enough?
Her mother had changed, was different ... there was hope in that.
Everything's different, she'd said, with a glow of wonder on her little
face. There was still hope and promise and sunlight left in this
shadowed, blood-drenched world after all.
But, oh, it hurt ... it hurt.
There was a place to put the pain, he knew, and he lifted the stolen guitar
again, cradling it in his arms, stroking the strings and letting them sing
his ineffable sadness. And slowly the pain, and the memory of pain faded
from his mind just as the light was fading from the day. And as the sky
turned a sullen red under the dark clouds, the music changed. The grief
was drowned in rage; the tenderness fled, replaced by an angry, anguished
electronic frenzy. The amps howled in an insane feedback and the air
throbbed with murderous passion while his fingers did an inhuman devil's
dance across the guitar strings, until the crow spread its wings in
protest against the sheer savagery of the sounds lashing around them.
Then with a crash that shook the roof under his feet, the demonic music
stopped as Eric smashed guitar, amps and everything, hurling them all off
of the roof into the descending darkness.
Then he was gone, as the crow took wing again and led him into the
night.

* * *
The world ...
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.
--Matthew Arnold
 

The apartment was empty when Sarah got back, and she didn't even think
anything of it, until its unnatural neatness finally registered on her
awareness again. "'Back before dark', huh?" she muttered, hardly even
disillusioned at her mother's absence. "Find another boyfriend already,
Darla? Or another dealer, more likely."
Dispiritedly she sat down at the kitchen table and watched Gabriel prowl
curiously around the apartment. I'll have to get a sand box for him ...
and some food, that hot dog wasn't much, she thought numbly after he'd
finished his explorations and come back to meow plaintively at her.
Without much hope, she started rummaging through the cupboards and was
surprised to find them full of canned goods--there was enough there to
feed both of them.
She felt a little better after eating, but the empty apartment seemed to
haunt her even worse than the loft had--at least Eric had been in the
loft. There was no one here except her and Gabriel ... and too many broken
promises.
Finally she couldn't stand it anymore. It was too much like last
year--waiting alone for the Devil's Night fires. But this year she had
no place to go, this year there was no Eric and Shelly.
But there hadn't been last year, either, she thought with a sigh, as she
picked up Gabriel, her skateboard and the precious little suitcase full
of mementos of happier days--the only three things she cared about
anymore.
Gabriel squirmed out of her arms the minute she got outside, and she was
afraid at first that he meant to run away, maybe all the way back to the
loft. But he just slipped into a sheltered shadow next to the building
and sat down, calmly licking his fur.
"That's good, you wait for me there," she cautioned him. "You'll be safer
out here, in case of a fire. I'll be back ... after a while." But as she
stepped onto her skateboard and pushed off into the damp darkness, she
wondered why she should even bother. Oh, she'd come back for Gabriel,
but what else was there for her? Not Darla, that was for sure, her and
all her big talk about "waking up" and job interviews.
Everybody that I ever cared about has gone away and left me--my father,
Darla, Shelly ... Eric. But not this time. This time I won't let him!
But even as she said that to herself, she knew it wasn't true, that she
could do nothing to stop him. Didn't even want to, really--not if it
meant keeping him away from Shelly.
If Darla had been home, had kept her promises, it would've been different.
But she wasn't--everything else was different, after Eric, except that.
Not even Eric could fix her mother.
It had stopped raining by the time she reached the old cemetery, silent
as always in the shadow of the sad, abandoned cathedral. She hid the
little suitcase in a sheltered corner, in case it started raining again,
and looked carefully around. At least there weren't any fires yet ...
but it was still early, they'd be starting up soon enough. Well, there's
nothing to burn in here, she thought, relaxing for the first time since
she'd left the apartment, as the familiar, still peace of the graveyard
surrounded her. For the first time she didn't mind being here after
dark ... in fact, this was probably the only place left in the city that
she wasn't afraid to be in now--she sure wasn't afraid of ghosts anymore.
And besides, with the light from the street and surrounding buildings,
it wasn't even all that dark.
Even so, she almost panicked when she saw what looked like a bulky figure
kneeling in front of Eric's grave, and she froze in place for long minutes
trying to figure out who--or what--it was. But the longer she looked, the
less it looked like a figure. Cautiously she edged closer, as wary as the
wild bird Albrecht likened her to, and as ready to fly away if danger
threatened ... but nothing happened. Nothing moved.
And finally she realized that it was nothing more than a big mound of
earth, and the lid of a coffin that had pushed it up, with a gaping hole
in the muddy earth looming before Eric's gravestone. In awe, Sarah knelt
and touched the raw dirt and found the wilted rose that she had left the
evening before. She remembered the crow, tap-tapping on the stone ...
waking Eric up even as she'd skated away from them.
With a thump, she sat down in front of Shelly's stone, staring at that
miraculous, empty hole, remembering Eric as she'd seen him the night
before ... and only hours earlier.
"How did you do it?" she wondered, curling up against the chill of the
night air. Too many questions, and none of the answers made any sense.
She snuggled deeper into her coat and yawned groggily--she hadn't gotten
much sleep last night, and right now even the damp ground in front of
Shelly's grave seemed inviting. She'd just rest her head for a minute ...
it was too cold to really sleep.
She yawned again.

* * *

Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger
upon thee; and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense
thee for all thine abominations.
--Ezekiel 7:8

He was running across the rooftops again, heading for Skank--who was with
Top Dollar--and he gloried in his grace and strength. He heard the music
coming from the Club Trash a block before he reached it, and he finally
came to rest on a fire escape outside the bank of windows that lined Top
Dollar's boardroom. Over the raw, rhythmic sounds coming from the club
below, he could hear the murmur of voices from within.
"Well, boys," a deep voice rose over the babble coming out of the
boardroom, stilling it. He heard footsteps crossing the room, and a
whining whimper that could only be Skank. Tension washed over Eric--he
never moved a muscle, but he went from waiting to ready in an instant--the
stage was set and the last scene had finally begun.
"Well, boys ... it seems our friend T-bird won't be joining us this
evening, on account of a slight case of death," the leader announced
sardonically to an appreciative ripple of laughter--many voices ... too
many? "Well, well, well. Devil's Night is upon us again. I thought
we'd throw a little party, start a bunch of fires, make a little profit!"
Eric shuddered at the words, thinking of the terrible fires that had
ravaged the city for as long as he could remember--he and Shelly weren't
the only ones to have suffered on Devil's Night.
"I like the pretty lights," a woman's accented voice purred into the
silence following the man's words. And Eric went cold with a sick
hatred--people had died in those "pretty lights". Then he blinked as
the crow fluttered to a vantage point where it could see what lay within
the room.
God! It was full of men! Dizzily, he tried to count them through the
crow's shifting vision--there were at least two dozen! Could he fight
all of them? Then he felt a hot exultation sweep over him as he marked
all the men between him and his ultimate revenge, and he realized that he
didn't want it to be easy! The fangs of his guilt ripped him more savagely
than his anger, and without even realizing it, he meant for these men to
punish him for his failure to protect Shelly ... even as he punished them
for their sins.
He saw the leader--he knew him now--a man known in the neighborhood only
as Top Dollar. He was leaning forward, bracing himself on the table,
raking everyone with his eyes. A woman stood beside him in a bizarre
leather outfit, her heavy-lidded gaze contemptuous as she looked over her
lover's minions.
And there was Skank, sitting at Top Dollar's right, looking half-dead
already--he hadn't even cleaned himself up from last night, Eric saw with
some satisfaction, noting the dried blood crusted on his pasty skin and
the filthy, clumsily-tied bandages. Grange stood in back of him, almost
pinning him to his chair.
There were other faces that he recognized--some of the worst criminal
bosses in the neighborhood (and thus the whole city) were there: drug
lords, extortionists, gang bosses, arsonists, murderers ... a distillation
of all the evil in Top Dollar's evil empire. He would have to go through
all of them to get to Skank ... but somehow he didn't really care
anymore.
Then Top Dollar straightened up and began to speak again, a frown of
dissatisfaction twisting his face. "The problem is, it's all been done
before, y'see what I'm sayin'?"
"That's no reason to quit," one of the others protested sullenly.
"Wrong! Best reason to quit ... only reason to quit!" Top Dollar
snarled.
To quit? What did he mean? The tension in the room suddenly jumped a
hundred-fold. Why, if he stopped the Devil's Night fires, these men
would mutiny, Eric could feel it. Well, that might make it easier to get
to Skank ... but it wasn't going to be that simple. Top Dollar was
speaking again.
"A man has an idea. The idea attracts others, like-minded." He began to
pace around the table, drawing every eye like a magnet, his voice intense
and compelling. Everyone was confused, yet they couldn't help but
listen. "The idea expands. The idea becomes ... an institution!" He
spun around to face them again. "What was the idea?" he challenged them,
holding them spellbound like a TV evangelist.
"See, that's what's been bothering me, boys." Now his mood shifted from
irritation to profound self-satisfaction. He leaned on the table,
looking at them with his strange, reddish eyes. "But, I'll tell you,
when I used to think about the idea itself, I'd put a big old smile on
my face. You see, gentlemen: greed ... is for amateurs!
"Disorder, chaos, anarchy ... now that's fun!" His voice rose to a
near-shout as Eric listened with a cold fury--for years this man had
turned the city into a living hell ... and he called it fun!
But his soldiers weren't impressed--they could care less about anarchy
when there was money to be made. "What about Devil's Night?" one of
them demanded sulkily.
"What about it?" Top Dollar dismissed the question. "I started the first
fires in this god-damned city ... before I knew it, every charlatan and
shit-heel was imitating me!" Not that he'd ever allowed his "imitators"
to get away with much, but still, it rankled.
Outside on the fire escape, Eric lifted his eyes and stared into the
pulsing night. Soon. It would be soon now, and then the gnawing sense
of incompletion that consumed him like a flame would be extinguished ...
along with all his enemies.
"Shit, you know what they got now?" Top Dollar snorted in disgust,
sing-songing his answer: "'Devil's Night greeting cards'! Isn't that
precious?" Obviously the idea nauseated him. He went on, quieter,
even a little resigned: "The idea has become the institution, boys.
Time to move along."
"You don't want us to do "light my fire" time for the whole city?" one
of the soldiers asked nervously, and a subtle wave of rebellion rippled
across the assembled men.
"No!" Top Dollar took their doubt and discontent and shaped it to his
own ends, manipulating them all like a puppet master. "No, I want you
to set a fire so goddamn big the gods'll notice us again, that's what
I'm saying!" His voice rose, pounding at them like a heavy sea. "I want
all of you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time
and say 'Are we havin' fun or what?'!"
He had them! The energy in the room poured into him, intoxicating him
with its power. Suddenly he turned to the battered wreck next to him,
shouting into his face with gleeful brutality, "Hey, you!
What's-your-name, Skank? You don't feel that?"
Skank cowered away from the manic powerhouse confronting him, too
terrified to even lie, "I feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook!"
he gasped. It got a big laugh, but it was truer than any of the soldiers
knew--Top Dollar was using Skank as bait ... for Eric!
"'Feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook'," Top Dollar mocked
cruelly, "Well, boy, your momma must be damned proud of you!" That
got another big laugh, but it died away to murmurs when the crow
fluttered out of the shadows to land in the middle of the table, and
Eric moved silently and unseen into the room.
Skank recoiled, wailing piteously when he saw the crow--he knew all too
well what it meant--but Top Dollar only frowned in irritation at having
his joke spoiled. "How the hell did that thing get in here?"
"Gentlemen!" Eric's powerful, singer's voice boomed out of nowhere,
startling Top Dollar's soldiers into red alert, scattering them back
into battle formation. Suddenly two dozen deadly weapons were aimed
at him as he stalked out of the shadows into the light--two dozen
trigger-fingers held in check only by their obedience to Top Dollar.
No one else moved except Skank, pinioned by Grange and howling in
panic.
He was an eerie apparition as he advanced on them--from his tangled
hair, to his dead-white face with its mocking black lips and eyes "like
two holes burned in a blanket", to the tattered remnants of his
performing clothes held together with black electrical tape, and Tin
Tin's long coat billowing raggedly around him.
He still wore the heavy boots the crow had found for him, but he moved
as lightly as an acrobat as he tossed aside the chair at the end of the
long conference table and, in one fluid motion, leapt up to sit
cross-legged on its surface, challenging Top Dollar at the other end
and mocking them all with a lunatic laugh.
In the waiting stillness, Eric and Top Dollar were the only ones who
appeared to be at ease, but it was a sham, and tigers stalked the air
between them.
Then Top Dollar spoke with savage mockery: "'You're him, huh? The
"avenger", the "killer of killers"'. Nice outfit ... I'm not sure about
the face though," he sneered derisively, wagging an insolent finger at
Eric's face.
Eric let the scornful words pass unheeded, while he pointed implacably
at the cowering Skank, "I just want him." But he knew he would not be
permitted to take Skank away so easily.
"Well, you can't have him," Top Dollar taunted, in a parody of a
playground bully's sing-song. This was the worst way in the world to
confront Top Dollar, challenging him in front of all his men, and they
could all tell by the tone of his voice and the savagery of his
expression that he was going to destroy this weird stranger.
But Eric wasn't disturbed at all. "Well," he said calmly, rising
gracefully to his feet, weaponless and unafraid. He spread his empty
hands as if offering a benediction and smiled grimly down the length
of the table at his adversary. "I see you have made your decision.
Now let's see you enforce it." And with those quiet words of defiance,
he somehow knew that this man was the enemy he should have been pursuing
all along.
For a second he stood, unmoving and passive before them, until even
Top Dollar was unnerved into unleashing his hounds. "Ah, this is
already boring the shit outta me. Kill 'im!"
At his words two dozen guns fired again and again. Bullets hammered
at Eric's unresisting body, shaking it like a leaf in a hurricane.
His face twisted in a rictus of shock as, for one terrible moment,

the opposing forces of the crossfire actually held him upright. Then
he fell backwards with a great crash onto the floor.
"Oooo, that had to hurt!" Top Dollar quipped cruelly into the silence
that rang as the last gun was stilled, pouring himself a drink so that
he could savor the hot pleasure that always filled him after a good
killing.

Bring me my Bow of burning gold,
Bring me my Arrows of desire,
Bring me my Spear--O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
--William Blake

And what of Eric? For five interminable seconds two dozen men had
pumped bullets into him, turning his flesh into hamburger--had it
been ordinary flesh, not even the crow and all the supernatural power
in existence could have saved him ... but it wasn't ordinary flesh, and the
crow drew upon unimaginable energies.
For twenty seconds after Eric collapsed, a restless peace reigned. The men
relaxed into a nervous disorder, still jumpy from the adrenaline rush.
"That guy was crazy!" one of them said, voicing the unease they all felt,
even as they congratulated themselves on having destroyed him ... or so
they thought.
Myca saw the crow, still standing patiently on the conference table,
scanning them all with its wise eyes. She could feel the power emanating
from it, and she hungered for that power as for a drug. Tense with
determination she stalked the bird, reaching for it with a quick,
convulsive movement ... but it eluded her. With a contemptuous flirt of
its wings it launched itself into the air, fluttering out of her reach.
Her beautiful, exotic face twisted in rage at her failure, but at least
those fools who looked to her brother had taken care of that other one.
But she was wrong--in those same twenty seconds, hidden in the shadows
under the long conference table, Eric was being restored in ways none of
them could imagine. Then, even as one of the soldiers walked arrogantly
to the end of the table and bent down to look for him, Eric rolled away
out of sight, snatching a gun as he went, as unnoticed as a pickpocket.
And by the end of those twenty seconds, Eric was not where they expected
him to be. "He's gone!" The soldier gasped in disbelief, straightening
up, his gun coming to the ready. But he never had a chance to complete
the movement--a sharp crack shattered the restless silence as a bullet
snapped his head back and he dropped like a stone--and he didn't have
flesh that could be healed ... he was very simply dead!
There was horror and disbelief on every face at this grisly proof of Eric's
resurrection, and all their bantering turned back to battle readiness in
an instant. That one shot had started the firestorm all over again, but
before they could even locate their elusive foe, another of their number
was brutally cut down and his body dragged under the table.

I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation that are gathered
together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there
they shall die.
--Numbers 14:35

All of Top Dollar's men began shooting wildly at the fugitive shadow, as
Eric rolled through their bullets in a dizzying blur of motion. He
finally bounded into view, firing furiously in every direction with two
stolen guns, baring his teeth in a snarl of concentrated fury.
He danced through an incredible rain of bullets and yet kept on fighting.
Whatever fear Top Dollar's men had felt at Eric's supernatural powers was
forgotten as they did the only thing they really knew how to do--try to
stop him with firepower, even as proof of the futility of their efforts
stood invincible before them ... and was shooting back!
Then, for an instant, it almost looked like they'd gotten the better of
him, when a withering burst of fire struck him and spun him down again.
But the crow was a practiced healer and he'd no sooner hit the ground than
he was rolling over, firing back at his assailants with deadly precision.
And anyone Eric hit, stayed down!
The crow was working so quickly now, that every bullet passing through him
left healthy flesh in its wake and they slowed him no more than a
hard-thrown snowball, and soon no more than a strong gust of wind.
He leapt easily back to his feet, firing his two guns indiscriminately at
the men who still believed they outnumbered him, steadily making his way to
Skank, whose panicky shrieks gave away his position even over the roar of
the gunfire. Then Skank found refuge of a sort behind two terrified
women--expensive call girls who'd been part of the entertainment along
with the liberal supply of drugs on the table, and who'd been too
frightened to do more than cower on the sidelines.
Their shrieks joined Skank's as Eric flung away both his guns in a wide
gesture and advanced on them, his eyes burning as he closed in on his
prey--but they were in more danger from the weaponless Skank than they
were from Eric. Finally Skank's nerve broke and he bolted, shoving the
girls into Eric's arms while he made good his escape.
Eric pushed them almost gently away, and saw them scurry to safety as he
continued his relentless pursuit of Skank. No one could stop him, but
they kept on trying anyway. None of Top Dollar's men gave a damn about
Skank, but they weren't about to let Eric live if they could help it.
Skank could've told them that they were too late--Eric was already dead ...
and so were they: If they shot at him, they didn't hurt him but when he
shot them back ... they died! If they hit him, he hardly felt it, but
when he hit them back ... they died!
Weaponless now, he broke one man's neck with a savage chop of his hand
then flung him impatiently aside, grabbed the gun arm of a another and
swung the blazing weapon onto a third, sending him crashing through the
windows lining the room, then killed the gunman with a vicious slash
from one of the many straight-razors littering the long table. With
unconscious irony he whipped another man over the table right into the
fire of his comrades.
He disdained their efforts, ignored the bullets, danced through the
fire-storm like an demoniac acrobat; he became a mirror for their own
viciousness--unchanged himself, he reflected it all back upon them.
He used their own guns against them, and killed them with his bare hands,
as all around him the bullets shattered glass and wood, destroying all
the fine furnishings and the lamps overhead ... and men died!

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh.
Deuteronomy 32:42

Five men were making a desperate stand on the other side of the table as
Eric, still unarmed, leapt onto its littered surface, then off again in a
high, spinning somersault that an Olympic gymnast would have envied. He
landed in the midst of the gunmen and snatched another fallen gun, their
bullets disturbing him no more than a swarm of gnats. They scattered and
died.
From Top Dollar's display case, Eric wrenched one of the murderous blades
and cut down two more men who tried to close in on him, and slammed a third
against the wall where he shattered and collapsed. Then, in a momentary
lull in the killing frenzy that swirled around him, he told them what they
should have figured out for themselves by now: "You're all going to
die!"
With a gesture of cold disdain he tossed the sword aside and it came to
rest point down on the conference table, directly over Skank huddling in
terror beneath it. The room was in near darkness now, all the lights
within burst and destroyed, lit only by the brilliant strobe-flash of
gunfire from the few remaining fighters left alive and from the city-lights
glowing through the long windows.
Two men rushed him from behind, but all Eric did was thrust out a hand and
snare one as if he had eyes in the back of his head--which, with the crow,
he did. The other man paused just a few feet behind Eric fumbling with his
gun, but before he could do a thing, Eric had dropped to his back on the
floor, swung his legs expertly over his head and booted him in the crotch
so viciously that he flew backwards through the windows that overlooked
the club below. When his glass-strewn body fell amongst the mindless
dancers, a panic swept through them and their terrified screams rose in
an eerie counterpoint to the battle raging above.
Snatching up two more guns from the dozens that now littered the
floor, Eric again leapt onto the long conference table. From a balcony
above him, stuttering flashes stitched a trail of extinction towards him,
but he dodged it with an incredible back flip and ended up lying on his
back ripping his assailant apart with stolen bullets. Then Eric was back
on his feet before the man above had even finished dying, and with a
ravenous snarl on his face, strode down the long table blazing into the
shadows that surrounded him.
One by one Eric slaughtered them, setting the night aflame with his wrath,
destroying their lives as they had destroyed countless others. They were
all going to die: Top Dollar and Myca and Grange and all the nameless
others, and Tin Tin and Funboy and T-bird ... and Skank. They were all
going to die and burn in hell, as he had been burning ever since he'd died
a year ago.
In this bloodsoaked ballet of death that Eric was choreographing, nobody
was going to exit the stage ... except through the Gates of Hell!
Finally the last soldier fell and the last gun stilled, and Eric was alone
in the darkness, standing on the long conference table where he'd finished
the battle. Except ... he wasn't altogether alone.
In the club below, hundreds of patrons were still fleeing in panic from the
sounds of gunfire and the bodies that had plummeted into their midst;
approaching in the streets below, sirens wailed; and in the boardroom
itself, little scuttling rat-noises told Eric that the final target of his
vengeance still lived, still tried futilely to hide from him--for, even as
every other man in the room had fought and died fighting, Skank had hidden
and lived. Until now.
Grimly Eric stalked his prey, stepping the length of the table, crunching
thousands of dollars' worth of drugs under his feet in a gritty punctuation
to his search. Finally he paused before the sword, still standing where
he'd tossed it only moments earlier. Below him, he knew without seeing,
was Skank.
He grabbed the sword and with inhuman strength thrust it through the wood
of the table and into the floor below, almost taking off the tip of
Skank's nose in the process. Then he whipped down off the table to snatch
the wiry little coward as neatly as a cat snatches a mouse flushed from
cover.
"Guess it's not a good day to be a bad guy, huh, Skank?" Eric mocked
coldly, holding him as implacably as Skank had held Shelly, wanting him to
know what was coming.
But, alley rat that he was, Skank tried to divert Eric. "I'm not Skank!
There's Skank right there." He slid his eyes to one of the bodies lying
nearby. "Skank's dead!" he said slyly, as if that would have done him
any good. Eric had already killed over two dozen men who weren't
Skank--one more wouldn't have mattered.
Eric held him so close that he could smell the stench of terror on the
little man, and as he looked into the filthy face before him, a memory
superimposed itself before his eyes, of Skank holding Shelly down, his
fetid breath making her gag, while the others ripped at her clothes.

The hands ... the hands! They wouldn't let her scream ...

"Skank's dead," the little man had said.
"That's right," Eric whispered, blinded by the memory and by the fury that
burned red behind his eyes. With a spasm of almost unendurable agony he
threw Skank bodily through the window, where he tumbled through a shower
of blood-splashed glass to land in a lifeless heap on the roof of the first
police car that was screaming to a stop in the street below.
This time Eric didn't bother leaving behind the outline of a crow--there
was no one left who needed to see it. Nobody got out of here alive

tonight, he thought sadly ... not even me.

He was tired, and his mind was fading into blankness. The last one was
dead, falling into the rain-swept night as he had fallen a year ago.
The circle was complete, his work was done. The fire that had blazed so
furiously within him was guttering into cold ashes. All he wanted to do
now was find Shelly and rest. But, even as he gathered strength to leave
this charnel house, filled with death and dark, half-sensed images
of torture and despair, a squad of policemen burst into the room.
"Hold it!" one shouted as they deployed against him where he stood,
unarmed and passive in front of the bank of windows he had thrown Skank
out of. "That's all she wrote! Move and we shoot!"
Out of nowhere, Eric's forgotten sense of humor woke up for an instant,
surprising him as much as the policemen: He raised his hands wide in
meek submission ... and danced sideways away from them in a heart-breaking
parody of a soft-shoe routine.
He moved. They shot ... no senses of humor at all, he gasped as the
crow went into overdrive again. But this time he wasn't going to fight
back, he wasn't going to hurt cops just trying to do their job. All he
could do was try to get away.
He burst through the windows onto the fire escape where he'd sat no more
than ten minutes earlier listening to the late Top Dollar expounding
to his late associates. But now there were dozens of cops out there and
they were all shooting at him.
A single civilian car pulled up unnoticed as he staggered on the fire
escape, and the man within it groaned at what he saw above him. Dammit,
can't you leave him alone? He's not shooting back! He doesn't even have
a gun! Albrecht thought impotently, but he knew the kind of panicked
aggression that drove the men around him.
Eric broke away in a frantic flight, taking to the rooftops again,
where nothing human could follow him. But a helicopter wasn't human!
It came out of nowhere--all the manpower in readiness for Devil's Night
concentrated on chasing down one lone man, unarmed, not threatening them,
not even alive!
They were shooting at him! Was there no one in the city who wasn't trying
to pump bullets into him? Eric wondered, racing in his desperate
flight--dropping three stories to another roof level, somersaulting over
obstacles, soaring over alleyways, but never quite able to evade the
persistent helicopter.
Then he ran out of roof.
It was a terrible drop--forty, fifty feet--it was hard to tell in the
darkness, but he never hesitated, leaping into the dark and giving all
his trust to the spirits that guided him.
Halfway down, an awning broke his fall, then he landed bone-crushingly
hard in a jumble of old packing cases and other alley trash, sending a
dozing wino scampering for cover. But even as the crow strained to heal
him, he struggled to his feet, looking back up at the helicopter vanishing
overhead. Then they heard the squeal of brakes in the street beyond.
Ah no! More cops! Won't they ever give up? he thought despairingly.
But it wasn't more cops, it was just one cop, and he wasn't in a police
car. "Come on! Move it!" a familiar voice commanded urgently as he looked
dazedly over to see Albrecht throw open the door to his own car. He
staggered out of the alley while the crow worked feverishly to repair
the damage caused by that last terrible fall. He crashed into the side of
the car with a groan as his ravaged body tried and failed to obey his
mental commands; then finally, with a convulsive effort, he threw himself
into the passenger seat, slammed the door shut beside him and collapsed
in exhaustion as Albrecht peeled out before the baffled helicopter pilot
could figure out where Eric had disappeared to.
"My advice--next time, duck!" Albrecht said, trying to cover his concern
with a joke, but Eric only sat slumped in the seat next to him, unmoving
and unspeaking as his body was being restored, and the wail of sirens
echoed around them.
"So many cops, you'd think they were giving away doughnuts," Albrecht went
on, still trying to tease Eric into some kind of response, or maybe just
to cover his own nervousness. He couldn't have left Eric alone and
helpless on the street, and yet it was hard for him to go against his own
people like this and help him escape.
The same thought occurred to Eric finally, as his exhaustion drained away
and the mists in his brain cleared. And when a screaming police car zoomed
across an intersection in front of them, forcing Albrecht to come to a
screeching halt, he threw open the door and leapt from the car before it
had even stopped moving, leaving nothing behind but a draft of damp
October air and the sound of his running feet fading into the distance.
Albrecht looked at the blood-stained seat where Eric had been and muttered
in weary disgust, "I knew you were going to do that." But at least Eric
was free now ... yes, free and finished with the grisly task he'd set for
himself.
"Rest in Peace, friend," he murmured, reaching over and pulling the car
door shut. "Rest in peace."
* * *

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate.
--John Milton

A luxurious car purred over the pavement of a bridge, sheltering the
three within from the wet night that surrounded it. Below them, the city
was quiet ... and dark.
"Look at that out there--the whole city oughtta be in flames by now," said
the long-haired man sitting in the back seat, in tones of mortal offense.
"The sky oughtta be red!" This was his night--Top Dollar's own Devil's
Night, and one man had stopped him ... one dead man.
"So that, I take it, was the late, great Eric Draven," Grange said,
unperturbed by man or ghost. He'd seen enough of Draven to know that
firepower wasn't going to stop him for long, but he'd believed him when
he said he only wanted Skank. So, when Myca had signalled to him for a
strategic withdrawal, he'd gathered her and Top Dollar and hustled the
three of them out of the boardroom before things got really hot--anybody
that could come up shooting after that first volley was more than a match
for all the soldiers Top Dollar or anybody could muster.
From a safe vantage point, they'd watched Draven dispatch all of them,
right down to that speed freak, Skank, and then begin his flight from
the cops, who even now were probably having the time of their lives going
through Top Dollar's lair ... or at least they would until Torres started
earning his pay and called them off. Until then, there were safe houses
outside the city, new soldiers to recruit, and an empire to re-establish.
A "no-show" of the Devil's Night fires was the least of the problems
facing them. And Eric Draven might still be worst of them.
"He has power," Myca hissed, stroking the single black feather which was
the only part of that damned bird she'd been able to grab. "But it is
power you can take from him."
"I like him already," Top Dollar chuckled, greedy for the kind of power
he'd seen Draven using against him. Grange thought about that--as little
as he cared to face Draven in his strength, he'd love to steal as much as
he could from him and then see who was a match for whom.
"The crow is his link between the land of the living and the realm of the
dead," Myca went on in her sultry, accented voice, although how she knew
such things, Grange didn't like to contemplate.
"So, kill the crow," he said speculatively, "and destroy the man." That
sounded like a simple, straightforward approach and it appealed to
him--leave all the convoluted subtleties to Myca. "Now all we have to do
is find him."
"He will return to his grave ... but he will not answer your challenge.
He does not want us. We must find a way to bring him to us."
"Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something," her brother drawled
confidently.
"I underestimated the Watcher. I will not do so again--you will have
your revenge, my darling," she smiled, taking his face in her hands and
kissing him deeply, moaning a little as his hands moved roughly over her
body. In the driver's seat, Grange focused his eyes on the road ahead and
avoided looking into the rear-view mirror. It would take about fifteen
minutes to drive back to the old neighborhood, time enough for the two in
back to finish what they were starting.

* * *

Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lend me leave to come unto my love?
--Edmund Spenser

After Eric bailed out of Albrecht's car, the crow led him on a roundabout
path through the dark alley-ways, eluding the police until they finally
emerged onto a quiet street far away from the wail of sirens and the flash
of lights. But he was so tired--all he could think about now was Shelly.
Which was all right--better than thinking about T-bird and his crew.
Better than thinking about what he'd just done.
He began to feel a growing discomfort and realized that it came from Tin
Tin's coat: the once elegant leather garment was cut and torn, full of
bullet-holes and stained with blood--it was a murderer's coat, and Eric
was done with murderers now. He shook it off with a shudder of distaste.
His own clothes were in just as bad a state, but soon he would have no
need for them.
He was just so tired. He paused next to some heavy scaffolding and leaned
against the sturdy iron, resting his head wearily on his arm. They had hurt
him, those men, but nothing they had done to him had hurt as much as
knowing he had failed to protect Shelly. And he had hurt them, but their
pain did nothing to ease his own ... but what did it matter anymore?
Yes, he was done at last with murderers. "Coming home, Shelly," he
whispered sadly, as tears trickled their way down his cheeks. Soon ...
soon ...
Then, from the gloom ahead of him came the incongruous sound of young
people's laughter, and the bobbing forms of costumed youngsters came
into view under the scattered street lights. Crazy kids, to be out like
that on Devil's Night. But there weren't any fires yet, and maybe they
were too high on something to care. Whatever. They were happy, that
was for sure, maybe the only happy people in the whole city, dancing and
laughing, seeing in Eric's painted face a kindred spirit. Maybe it was
all bravado, thumbing their noses at Devil's Night, but Eric didn't
care--he laughed with them, thumbing his nose at Death itself.
But there was too much pain in that laughter. He couldn't really mock
Death and come away unscathed. He had done what he'd come back to do
and nothing important had really changed--Shelly was still dead, he was
still dead, life was going to move on without them, and he didn't know
what lay beyond. He couldn't even be sure that he'd ever be able to find
Shelly again. He wasn't running anymore, or leaping like a gymnast; even
the crow seemed hard-pressed to keep him going. He was walking like an
old man--it was going to take him a long time to get to the old ruined
church, but he had time after all.
He had all the time in the world.

* * *

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.
--Isaac Watts

It was too cold to sleep, but Sarah fell asleep anyway--she was too worn
out to stay awake. And anyway, it was better than sitting up wondering
what Eric was doing, and if he was safe (but how could a ghost not be
safe?), and watching for the fires to start. So she slept, right there
on top of Shelly's grave, next to the muddy hole that had been his. He'd
told her himself that he'd come looking for Shelly as soon as he finished
with Skank, and where else would he look for her except here?
It was quiet there in the old graveyard--the sounds of the city crept
lightly around the sleeping stones, never awakening the sleeping child.
A few miles away there was noise aplenty--the loudest of bands, and then
even that was drowned out by gunfire, and finally the ever-present wail
of police sirens--but only the faintest echoes of all that reached among
the sleeping souls, disturbing none of them, living or dead.
No rain fell to chill her into wakefulness, no fires were lit, no sirens
screamed. Occasionally the breeze lifted a few leaves over her still form,
or the moon, looking briefly through shifting windows in the clouds, washed
her in a swift pale light, but she never knew of it, and she didn't
awaken.
She never saw the slender figure, all in black and white like clouded
moonlight, walk as silently as moonlight and as wearily as time through
the iron gates and hesitate, seeing her before him--one last mission of
conscience between him and his heart's desire.
She didn't see him kneel by her tucked-up feet with an expression of weary
affection, or the fond quirking of his lips as he reached for one of those
feet, but she felt his fingers there, and felt the gentle wiggle he gave
it, and she woke up suddenly to see him squatting on his heels, looking at
her with sweet, sad reproach.
"You're gonna say I shouldn't be in a cemetery in the middle of the night,
right?" she said defensively, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. As if that
makes any difference, her expression told him.
"Safest place in the world to be," he said, with gentle irony.
"It's 'cause everybody's dead," she agreed, trying to match his wry tone,
but only telling him that she preferred them to the living. "I knew you'd
come here," she went on intently, begging him for something they both knew
he couldn't give her.
"It's really late, Sarah," he said, and his words were like a door slamming
in her face.
"You didn't say goodbye," she accused him unfairly, despair making her
sullen; and even she didn't know if she meant that afternoon ... or a
year ago.
"You're just going to have to forgive me for that," he said patiently,
his grey eyes dark with compassion--there would never be time enough for
this kind of goodbye.
"And you're never coming back?" she asked miserably, knowing the answer
as well as he did, hating herself for asking it, hating the answer she
knew he had to give.
But he didn't answer. Instead, he reached behind his neck and untied the
leather cord he wore and brought it forward to show her the delicate
filigreed circlet suspended from it.
"I gave this to Shelly once," he said sadly, smiling past it into her
eyes, then he bent towards her and tied it carefully around her own
slender neck. "I think she'd like you to have it. This way you'll
always remember her," he whispered lovingly, and his voice caressed all
their memories of Shelly--shared and unshared--as he reached and
caressed her with his hand.
She leaned into his palm like Gabriel begging to be petted, but Gabriel
had never looked at him with such aching unhappiness. "I'll ... never
take it off," she choked, her voice breaking at last on the rocks of
must and have-to. Blindly she reached for him, hungry for love and hope
and trust and a thousand other things she'd been starved for all her
short life.
But all he could give her was one brief hug, one fierce grasp, his
bloodied fingers tight on her jacket, clutching it as if he were
drowning. Then he opened his hands and dropped his arms away from her,
looking at her miserable little face with a grief surpassing her own.
But he couldn't stay, and she couldn't go with him.

Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
--Emily Dickinson

"I better go sneak back in the house," she muttered, standing up and
turning away from him so he wouldn't see her tears as she walked away.
How could she leave him, how could she give up the only family she'd
ever known, ever wanted?
But how could he stay? And how could she keep him away from Shelly.
She'd said it to Albrecht--she was alive and Eric was ... dead. And
all she had of him was this last goodbye.
But, as if she were tied to him by a leash, she came to a halt after
just a few reluctant steps and turned back for one more look at him,
hoping beyond hope that he had some magic or secret power to change what
had to be. But there was nothing in his face except desolation, and his
whole body shook with the effort to contain his sorrow. Suddenly she
felt terribly guilty for causing him so much pain.
"Bye," she whispered, knowing of nothing that could comfort either of them,
except to go away and leave him alone. He couldn't even answer her,
couldn't find the words for an unhappiness beyond words, and finally she
tore herself away from his sad grey gaze and walked dejectedly away from
him, leaving him alone with Shelly at last.

Her steps were shuffling, as if she didn't trust her feet to find their
way safely across the ground, and her head was down, not daring to look
more than a few feet ahead in time or space. She was trying not to think;
she was trying not to feel; but all she knew was that nothing in her life
had ever hurt as much as this.
I shouldn't have come, she thought, in spite of her efforts not to think.
It hurts too much, she felt, in spite of her efforts not to feel. Ah no,
I'm tough. I can take it, she told herself, as she'd told herself so many
times in the last year ... but this time, she didn't even try to believe
it.
And so she shuffled despondently through the iron gates and past the wide
steps leading to the great cathedral doors, heading for the street that
would take her away from Eric forever, never looking up from her feet.
But even if she had looked up, she never would have seen the silent shadow
watching for her, never would have heard the stealthy approach behind her.
She knew nothing of the man who stalked her until his cunning hands muffled
her startled cries as he snatched her effortlessly off the ground, and
carried her swiftly through a side door into the vast and echoing nave
of the abandoned cathedral.
"Shhh, shhh," a velvety voice admonished her, while she squirmed and
protested in his grasp, "Take it easy, sweetheart." But she was too
frightened to understand his words, all her grief forgotten in the face
of this unexpected assault. His fingers cut off her breath, and his arm
crushed her ribs; she hurt only herself in her struggles against him, but
sheer claustrophobic panic drove her to fight him anyway.
He carried her deep into the center of the church, fitfully lit by a few
scattered candles and the streetlights outside, and set her on her feet
in front of a long-haired man and an oriental woman, his hands heavy on
her shoulders, still imprisoning her. She felt like a baby mouse trapped
between three hungry cats.
The woman stepped forward, studying Sarah with pitiless eyes ... eyes
which were immediately drawn to Shelly's ring. She lifted the precious
gold circlet in careless fingers, defiling it by her very touch, but
Sarah was too terrified to protest. Then the woman looked back at the
man with her, and Sarah followed her glance ... and her heart almost
stopped.
It wasn't that she recognized him--she'd never seen him before--but she'd
heard all her life of the man with the nose like an eagle's beak, hair
like a dark curtain and the body of a trained warrior, who was never seen
without the mysterious oriental woman called Myca, who was his constant
companion, or Grange, the clever black man who was his chief lieutenant.
She didn't know his real name, but on the streets he was known as Top
Dollar, and he was king in the kingdom of evil that had run this town
since before she was born.
And he had taken her! Sarah didn't know why, or how he'd come to this
place, or what he wanted with her. All she knew was that this hungry
cat was the deadliest of tigers, and the look in his eyes burned her
like fire.
When he saw the little ring that Myca held up for him he lifted his
eyebrows in an unspoken question. Something in her glance must have
told him the ring was important because he turned his attention back to
Sarah with a cruel smirk.
"What's that? Some sort of souvenir there, from your pal?" he said
sardonically, as he snapped the cord ruthlessly from her neck. "I'll
just keep it for good luck, whaddya say?"
Her neck still smarting from the cord, she could only stare at him in
frozen terror and say nothing, weeping inside over the loss of Shelly's
ring. All her street kid's defiance shriveled to nothing before the
threat of his heartless smile as she realized that she wasn't as tough
as she thought she was ... or needed to be.
Then Myca stepped between them again and stroked Sarah's face with a
glossy black feather, looking deep into her fear-dilated eyes, smiling
so strangely at what she saw that Sarah could barely breathe. She tried
to draw away from that baleful look, but only drove her head back against
Grange's unyielding chest.
"Her eyes ... are so innocent," the woman hissed in her dark accented
voice, and Sarah saw death looking at her through those black almond
eyes.
It shocked her out of her terrified immobility. "Eric! Eric!" she
yelped before Grange's hand closed over her mouth again, but it wasn't
enough, she knew. Eric was too far away, there was too much stone and
space between them--he could never hear her.
But now that she'd begun to fight them, she couldn't stop. Almost
mindlessly she struggled as Grange swiftly tied her wrists together
and Myca began dragging her up a tight twisting stairwell. For a second,
by a broken window, the woman's grasp slipped and she was able to cry
out Eric's name again, calling uselessly for his help, but then a gag was
bound around her mouth and she was forced higher and higher up the
steps.
"Good," Myca said in a strange voice, as she forced Sarah to hurry up
the stairs. "He hears ... and he comes." What did she mean? Eric?
No, that was impossible--nobody could hear her up here, and the woman
had no way of knowing what Eric was doing. He was probably in heaven
with Shelly by now ... and she was the prisoner of a crazy woman.
Finally they stopped, so dizzyingly far above the ground that the bottom
of the stairwell was lost in darkness, and Myca tied her firmly to one of
the support posts before hurrying down the steps, leaving her alone in
the dark. Desperately she strained against the ropes, scraping her
wrists raw. But all her efforts were useless--she couldn't get free,
and she couldn't make any more noise over the gag than the frightened,
trapped mouse she knew she was.
A cold draft swept through the tower, carrying the scent of rain, and
lightning etched the cracks in the boarded-up windows around her,
followed a few seconds later by the ominous rumble of thunder. Then all
was silent again, and Sarah sobbed in fear. By now, Eric was gone and
she was more alone than she'd ever been in her life.
They were going to kill her--she'd seen it in their eyes. But she'd
seen also the promise of something even worse planned for her, and she
was afraid that dying was going to be the easiest thing they would force
upon her.
At least dying would take her back to Eric.
The thunder sounded again, a little closer, and rain began hissing down
onto the stones of the old cathedral. There was no other sound from
below, no other sound except her own heart pounding against her ribs, and
her own breath sobbing around the cruel gag in her mouth. No other
sound ...
Then a shot exploded far below her, its echoes ripping through the still
air--a shot, and voices, muffled by distance, and she knew somehow that
her own life or death were being decided down there by people she didn't
know, in ways beyond her understanding.
Another shot stunned her with its echoes, and she wailed in mindless
panic as she jerked against her bonds, soaking the ropes around her wrists
with her own blood. And from below came the sound of more and more
gunfire.

* * *

For blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the
blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
--Numbers 35:33

Eric! Help!
The image struck him like a blow: Sarah, wild-eyed and terrified, being
dragged away by a creature that radiated evil! Where was she? What was
happening to her? Who had taken her?
He had been kneeling before Shelly's grave, Sarah's little offering of
flowers in his hand, as he reached yearningly to trace the beloved name
carved in the stone. But through the crow's now-familiar skewed
perspective he was blasted with that vision of horror--Sarah was in
danger!
Forgetting all his fatigue, he leapt to his feet with a speed and grace
that would have astonished him if he'd spared a second to think about
it ... but there were no seconds to spare.
[Help the living and you will bleed.]
Eric batted the words away like Tin Tin's knife, never pausing. "I know
that," he panted. "I'll bleed if I have to."
[They can keep you from finding Shelly.]
That made him hesitate, but only for an instant. "I'll have to chance
it--she wouldn't have me anyway, if I left Sarah. Are you with me?" he
growled, ready to go in alone, to lose Shelly, to risk his immortal soul
if that was what he had to do to save the child who was the daughter of
his heart.
[I am with you, warrior.]

The great cathedral doors boomed through the vast emptiness as Eric
wrenched them open and strode grimly down the central aisle, warily
searching the shadows around him while the crow scouted on ahead. The
grumble of thunder from the breaking storm filled his ears, and the roar
of the heavily falling rain drowned all other sounds. All he was aware
of now was whatever the crow saw ... and the crow saw nothing. Their
enemies were too well hidden, and they stood between him and Sarah, armed
to the teeth with guns and blades and Myca's tainted magics.
Suddenly Eric stopped, alerted by a tiny sound to his right. Then he saw
Grange pointing one of his deadly toys at him, and he flinched when a
brilliant red light lanced out from it, realizing that it had some kind
of laser targeting device on it. But before he could react, Grange
swung the gun so that the glowing red dot came to rest ... on the crow!
A single shot exploded into the silence and the crow was blown off of
its perch in a flurry of feathers to fall in a pitiful red and black heap
on the floor. Eric staggered, jolted through his link with the bird,
and spun around to face the man who stepped complacently out of the
shadows.
It was Top Dollar ... still alive, still deadly, and in a killing
rage!
Eric was beyond hope now, shaken and vulnerable, facing Top Dollar with
nothing and no one to help him, while his link to the crow was shattered
and the crow's delicate little body was beyond even its supernatural
power to heal. He was lost now--no rest, no peace, no Shelly ... and no
way to save Sarah!
Help the living and you will bleed ... but he'd never meant for the crow
to bleed for him.

Top Dollar smiled cruelly at him, savoring the moment. "Quick impression
for you," he said lightly, curling his lip at Eric standing quietly and
empty-handed before him. Then he made "wings" with his hands, "flapping"
them derisively. "Caw, caw! Bang! Fuck! I'm dead!" he laughed,
throwing his hands down and planting them on his hips as he stared
triumphantly at Eric.
But Eric ignored his mockery, giving no indication that he was disturbed
by it, or even by the attack on the crow that Top Dollar was parodying.
"Give me the girl and I'll let you walk out of here," he said in a quiet
voice. With or without the crow, he would not give up.
Top Dollar looked almost like he might be seriously considering the idea.
"Well, well. Why don't you just gimme a minute to think about that, huh?"
He turned his back on Eric and walked a few steps away.
Eric didn't believe him for one minute, but that didn't concern him right
then, because he felt something, and saw something that gave him renewed
hope: the crow was fluttering desperately on the floor, still alive after
an assault that should have blown it into bloody shreds. And it was
getting better! If only he could stall for a little while, if only he
could give the crow enough time to heal itself.
But Top Dollar wasn't about to give him any time at all. "Nah, fuck it!"
he said eagerly, drawing a gun and turning to face his Nemesis. With an
exultant snarl he fired at Eric, hitting him in the shoulder. The force
of the bullet ripped him back, half spinning him around and he staggered
helplessly before its killing force. This time there was no protective
link, there was no healing, there was nothing but bullet-torn flesh and a
shattering agony.
With trembling fingers, Eric touched his bleeding shoulder. "Aw, fuck!"
he whispered in helpless fury, then his legs crumpled under him and he
stumbled backwards, tripping on the chancel steps and falling helplessly
to the floor.
"Well, well, well," Top Dollar gloated arrogantly. "It does seem to me that
our little life has undergone a rather significant change in the last few
minutes, wouldn't you agree?" Then he launched his fist at Eric, smashing
it into his face with bone-shattering force.
Eric's unresisting body was thrown against the steps by Top Dollar's
merciless fist, then he rolled back down to land helpless and groaning
against his enemy's feet. Top Dollar leaned over Eric, lifting his hair
to peer at his wounded shoulder. "Well, for a ghost, you bleed just
fine!" he said in a voice full of disgusted disappointment--he'd obviously
hoped for more of a fight from Eric. He stepped away and Eric rolled
brokenly down the last of the chancel steps to lie in a crumpled, impotent
heap.
Hazily, he heard Grange call out, "It's still alive!" What was still
alive? he wondered sluggishly and he heard Top Dollar answer him
impatiently.
"Well, then kill it!" Kill what? Then he knew--kill the crow! No,
no! Leave it alone! But he couldn't do anything except writhe in
agony on the cold stone floor, trying futilely to gather enough strength
to just get to his feet again.
He heard Grange mutter callously, "Bye-bye, birdie," as he swung his
laser sight onto the struggling bird; and he knew that there was nothing
he could do to save his injured companion.
Suddenly his eyes were dazzled by a brilliant flare which seared across
the darkened nave and landed in a burst of flames against the pillar
behind Grange. In an instant all hell broke loose as a darting, dodging
figure came out of nowhere and began shooting at Grange and Top Dollar,
distracting them from the crow and Eric.
But not distracting them enough--Top Dollar spun around, sparing a second
to shoot at Eric. But Eric was on his feet at last--the crow had managed
to channel him enough healing force to get him moving again. But was it
going to be enough? Would he be able to escape Top Dollar's fury.
Top Dollar kept trying to shoot him, even as he battled the other unknown
assailant, and all Eric could do was throw himself recklessly behind
whatever pitiful shelter he could find, gasping in agony, barely holding
on to consciousness throughout it all. He knew how vulnerable he was
now, wounded and unarmed, impotent against his powerful enemies, with
someone he loved in their hands and out of his reach. It was altogether
too much like that night in the loft, and the terrible parallels paralyzed
his mind--he was terrified he was going to fail Sarah as he had failed
Shelly.
Only, it wasn't the same--this time he had help! This time he had the
crow (who was injured) and he had an ally who was shooting back at Top
Dollar and Grange (and whose identity was still a mystery). Some help!
he thought breathlessly as he dived for shelter behind a row of pews,
cringing as Top Dollar's bullets ripped through the wood over his head,
then he gasped in horror as he caught a glimpse of movement overhead and
realized that Grange had a clear shot at him.
There was no time to move or roll away as he stared down the barrel of
Grange's gun knowing he couldn't survive another bullet as long as the
crow was injured--he would be spun away into limbo, and Sarah and Shelly
would be lost to him forever. Still, he tried--he rolled, knowing he
couldn't reach cover in time, and flinched as shots rang out over his
head, expecting to feel the by now all-too-familiar impact of bullets in
his flesh--bullets that he could no longer shrug off like pinpricks.
But there was no impact. Instead, the crash of a heavy body falling
told him that Grange was the one who was hit, not himself. He kept
rolling, dodging Top Dollar's lethal gunfire while his unknown ally
laid down a barrage that was just as lethal. For a few precious seconds
he rested, trying to gather strength for his next move. Suddenly a
dismayed "Caw" cut through the sound of gunfire and he shuddered in
helpless anger as he felt Myca snatch the crow up and carry it away.
Oh no! Not the crow too! he gasped, struggling to follow her as she
fled up the stairs with Top Dollar.
[Wait. She will not harm me. And she does not know what she holds.]
Wearily, he agreed, sagging against a pillar then shrinking back when a
figure appeared out of the shadows, darting cautiously to his side, careful
to stay under cover. Then he relaxed when he recognized his unknown
ally--it was Albrecht!
The policeman was disheveled and panting when he dropped down next to
Eric, but an eager light of battle was in his eyes, and he was even
smiling grimly as he began checking his shotgun. "Aw shit!" he grunted
when he discovered he was out of shells, voicing his opinion of the whole
situation. "Well, just came by to pay my respects, and here you are
getting all shot up again. I've called for back-up. I can hold 'em
here while you get outta sight." He sounded almost happy, and maybe he
was--he finally had a chance to take out the criminals who had made his
life--and life in the neighborhood--hell for so long.
But Eric dampened his enthusiasm for the fight with just three forbidding
words: "No time. They've taken Sarah," he panted, pain and worry making
his voice rough. Suddenly Albrecht was all cop and all business.
"How many?" he growled, knowing that his worst fears for her safety had
been realized.
"Two more," Eric gasped in pain when he tried to shift his position, but
he belied his helplessness to go on confidently, "I can handle it, don't
worry." It was a lie, but at least it reassured Albrecht.
"I'm not worried," he said, almost jauntily. "Look, here's the plan:
You stay in front and when they run out of ammo, I'll arrest them." Eric
smiled inwardly at that image and wondered if Albrecht had seen the
boardroom after he'd left it. But he doubted if Top Dollar and Myca
would be easy to arrest even after they'd been disarmed.
"That sounds like a great plan," he said wryly, then his voice turned
bitter, "There's just one problem," and he lifted his hand away from his
wounded shoulder, distressed to see that he couldn't stop it from
trembling.
"Shit!" Albrecht groaned in dismay as he reached out, then drew back
before he actually touched the mangled flesh. "You're bleeding all over
the place!" He looked hard at Eric--when he'd picked him up after that
apocalyptic bloodbath at Top Dollar's, he'd been in a bad way ...
now he looked even worse. "I thought, y'know, you were invincible!" he
said, almost reproachfully.
"I was!" Eric snapped irritably, angry at his helplessness in the face of
Sarah's danger. "I'm not any more!"
Albrecht sighed, depressed by the odds facing them. "Well, I guess you
really will need my help, won't you? C'mon." He helped Eric to his feet,
trying to ignore his groans and gasps of pain.

High above them Sarah writhed against her bonds, terrified by the gunfire
that echoed below her, then even more terrified by the silence that
followed it. Then she heard the hurrying feet climbing the stairs and
her heart nearly stopped.
Maybe it's Eric, she thought wildly, grasping at hope even though she
knew there wasn't any to be had. It wasn't Eric, it was them, as she'd
known it would be. Top Dollar untied her from the newel post and
imprisoned her with a rough hand.
"I want him," Myca hissed, and Sarah quailed when she realized the woman
had to mean Eric.
"He's yours," Top Dollar smiled sardonically, handing her his gun.
"You take that," he whispered, then kissed her with carnal abandon while
he held Sarah close to him with one hand. "I'll be back" he promised as
he lifted Sarah carelessly and started up the stairs with her. Looking
over his shoulder, she saw Myca starting cautiously back down.
Look out, Eric! She's coming, she thought dizzily, her skin crawling at
Top Dollar's touch, praying that Myca wouldn't hurt him.
But it was a vain hope. Sarah jerked in Top Dollar's arms when she heard
the shots and he paused, swinging her around so they could both watch the
gun battle going on below them. "Pretty careless about your continued
good health," he muttered when a bullet whinged by them, but she knew that
Myca had fired first and Eric was only trying to defend himself.
Then she heard a cry from below and the sound of a heavy body falling
down the steps.
"So much for your pals," Top Dollar gloated. "And Myca's got that bird,
so that just leaves you ... and me." He ran a finger lightly down her
face, smiling with sensual anticipation when he saw how even that slight
touch repelled her. "Whaddya say we play a little game?"

But Top Dollar was wrong.
It had been Albrecht who fought with Myca, climbing the steps and firing at
the shadowy figure above him, while Eric fought his own battle against the
weakness of his body. And it was Albrecht who was shot, with a bullet
meant for Eric. He staggered back down the steps, losing his gun
God-only-knew-where in the shadows, and slumped against the wall of the
tower, a stricken look on his face.
Eric moved painfully to his side. "You were supposed to stay behind me,"
he chided gently, but his light words couldn't mask the concern in his
voice.
"I think I messed up," Albrecht gasped, his breath coming fast and shallow,
his eyes wide with fear as he tried to figure out how badly he was hurt.
He felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, but the worst of it was
knowing that Sarah was in the hands of those two murderous psychos up there
and he couldn't do another thing to help. It was all up to Eric now,
except the bullet hole in his shoulder proved that he was altogether too
"vincible" to do much good.
Slowly, heavily, every step taking all his strength, Eric climbed the
stairs to where Myca waited for him, the crow in one hand, her deadly gun
in the other. He didn't even know what he was going to do when he reached
her, only that if she shot him again this body would fail him, and his
soul ... he didn't know what would become of his soul. But he could guess
the kind of fate that awaited Sarah with Top Dollar and he would willingly
risk his body and his soul, his hopes of reaching Shelly and anything else
he had, to save her.
[Wait. Be still.]
Eric paused below Myca, obeying that unspoken command, half leaning on one
of the corner posts, panting from his exertions. Exhaustion etched his
face as he looked up at her, but an intense determination challenged the
gun she pointed at him.
She glanced down at the crow, quiet in her delicate grasp, and smiled
triumphantly. "This is all the power you ever had. Now, it is mine."
She looked at Eric, helpless and unarmed, like a sacrificial victim before
her, and she dropped her eyelids in sensual regret.
"Pity there is not more time ... for us." Then she lifted her gun, aiming
straight for Eric's eyes. And still he didn't move, he just stood there
slumped against the post, watching her through a damp tangle of hair, his
grey eyes dark with hatred.
But the crow had not been waiting without reason or purpose. It had taken
nearly every bit of its supernatural power to keep it and Eric "alive" and
to finally begin healing them. Even so, neither of them were restored to
anything like their full strength yet, and so they had to wait until the
last possible moment to act, wait until Myca relaxed her hold on the crow,
just enough ...
It was a big bird and a strong one when it had to be, and now it had to be
as never before in its existence. It hated this woman, and knew well how
to make its attack--a crow's ancient instinct is to go for the eyes, and
Myca's eyes were only inches away from its wicked beak.
The crow dug its claws fiercely into her flesh and buffeted her
mercilessly with its powerful wings, stabbing at her face again and again
with a two-inch long beak that was as hard as iron and as sharp as one of
her own knives.
Her screams shocked every one of them that could hear--except Eric. He
knew what this woman had done to Sarah and sensed through his link with
the crow what she'd planned to do to her, and his only emotion as he
watched the crow destroy her was regret that he wasn't the one doing it.
In a cold rage he watched her stagger blindly, breaking through the rotted
railing. Her flailing hands found the old bell-rope and she clung there
swaying for a moment, tipping the sweet-voiced bell above them to ring her
death-knell. And then she fell, still screaming, to her doom in the
shadows below, and he wasted even less pity on her than she'd shown
Sarah. Now there was only Top Dollar ... and Top Dollar had Sarah. But
he was strong again--strong enough, at least, for this. If he wasn't
already too late.
He almost was.

Top Dollar cursed when he first heard the screams, knowing from the sound
of them that something had gone terribly wrong. He didn't even need the
sound of her fall to tell him Myca was gone--the silence was enough. He
looked down to see Eric slowly climbing the stairs after him, then he
dragged Sarah over and dangled her perilously over the shaky railing.
"Here she is, ghost," he jeered, then darted his eyes around the bell
tower, looking for the best place to make his stand. He'd given his last
gun to Myca and all he had was the sword scabbarded on his back, but this
twisting stairwell was no place to use a sword--he would be at a
disadvantage here fighting with that damned ghost.
Gone ... everything was gone! And no way to get any of it back! In
little more that twenty-four hours he had lost it all--first T-bird's
crew, then all his men and his stronghold, then Grange ... and finally,
the one person who had made it all possible. For twenty-five years she
had been his mirror, his other self, his lover ... his secret weapon.
But now, he had nothing left ... nothing except this brat.
Nothing except revenge.
With a gutteral snarl, he snatched her up and ran up another
flight to where a boarded-up opening let out onto the long, leaded roof
of the nave. He kicked through the boards and stepped out onto the narrow,
two-foot wide flat peak of the roof and walked calmly to the far end, not
bothered at all by the heavy rain that pounded him and made the footing
slippery, nor by the fact that they were far higher than even his
penthouse, with nothing but a steeply pitched roof on either side, and
a sheer drop-off beyond.
There was little room to maneuver up here, but there would be room enought
for one man and one ghost ... and vengeance!

Sarah was almost paralyzed with fear--of Top Dollar, of the height, of the
fight that she knew was to come. Squirming in his pitiless grip, she cried
out hopelessly for Eric.
"D'ya think you can fly as good as my sister, little girl?" Top Dollar
whispered malevolently, as Eric climbed through the opening and walked
through the rain towards them. Sarah wasted no energy to answer him,
blinking tears and raindrops off of her lashes as she looked at Eric with
a desperate longing--she knew Top Dollar meant to throw her off of this
roof before Eric's horrified eyes, and she'd never see him again in life.
It was almost more than she could bear.
"Let her go!" Eric commanded harshly, his voice deep and resonant against
the thunder of the lashing storm. But the other man made no response.
"You can have me. I won't fight you," he offered, meaning every word of
it: Top Dollar couldn't really kill him after all, and the sight of Sarah,
so pale and frightened in that animal's grasp sickened him past
endurance.
But Top Dollar didn't want an easy surrender. For all that he stood so
calmly facing his Nemesis, he was filled with a homicidal fury--this man
or ghost or whatever he was, had killed his sister and destroyed everything
he'd spent his lifetime building. No! Eric Draven would fight ... and he
would die the final Death. But first, he too was going to lose that which
he loved the most.
"Alright," Top Dollar whispered, even as he took his supporting hands away
from Sarah and shoved her almost casually off of the narrow ledge. She
staggered, then threw herself flat against the roof as she began to slide
uncontrollably down its steep, slick surface.
"NO!" Eric yelled in anguish, reaching uselessly for her as she slid out
of his reach, but Top Dollar kicked him viciously in the stomach and he
doubled over in agony, staggering back away from her. Then, in one
graceful, lethal movement, Top Dollar drew his sword and swept it at Eric
with a gloating sneer of absolute mastery.
Eric recoiled from the deadly slash, falling back, then turned the fall
into a backward roll, bleeding from the deep gash across his belly where
the blade had caught him. He was injured and unarmed, defenseless against
the trained swordsman attacking him with such ferocity, on his back and
helpless, while Sarah ...

But she wasn't out of the picture yet.
When Top Dollar dropped her, she splayed her arms and legs, fingers,
face--everything she could use to stop her slide over the edge and onto
the ground so far below. And then she found what she'd been so
desperately searching for--her fingers discovered an irregularity in the
leading and curled over it with frantic strength.
For a few sickening seconds she was afraid the leading wouldn't hold her
weight, then she was afraid that her hands wouldn't hold her weight ...
then she forgot to be afraid for herself at all, as she strained to look
up and saw that Eric was on his back before Top Dollar.
Eric writhed away from another slash and tangled Top Dollar's feet with
his own, taking Top Dollar down too. Sarah hoped Top Dollar would fall
all the way, but he was too agile to be caught like that--he grabbed the
edge of the narrow ridgetop and broke his fall even as Eric was struggling
to his feet.
Then Eric turned, taking advantage of Top Dollar's slip for a split second
to follow one of the crow's fleeting instructions, and he grabbed the
iron finial cross that adorned the end of the building. It was the right
size for a sword, but it was firmly attached to its mounting ... and it
was a lightning rod.
Even as he wrapped his hands around the cross to pull it free, a bolt of
lightning struck, and his scream of agony was louder than the thunder
which followed. It took all of the strength that the crow could muster
just to keep Eric on his feet.
It wasn't going to be enough, Eric realized--he needed more than the
crow could give him. They were both too battered and worn, and Top
Dollar was fresh and strong ... they couldn't stop him. He was going
to finish Eric off in spite of everything they could do, and then he
would take Sarah again and make her really pay for Myca's death.
She was dead. They were all dead, even Albrecht was doomed. Even
with the cross to block the worst of the blows, he couldn't hold
his opponent off--he didn't have the skill or the years of practice
that Top Dollar was using so devastatingly against him, and his
strength was failing, even with the crow's help. Soon, the next blow,
or the one after that was going to leave him vulnerable to a killing
stroke, and that would be the end.
He felt desperate and crippled compared to Top Dollar's lithe strength.
Every step that he took away from that razor-sharp sword took him one
step closer to the end of the nave, with its sheer drop down to the broad
entryway steps, until finally he was forced to bend backwards against
the waist-high finial block, nearly helpless against Top Dollar's greater
skill. Little good the crow could do him if he fell all that way, and
little more could it do if Top Dollar cut him to pieces with that terrible
blade.

Sarah couldn't take her eyes off of them, even as she twisted helplessly,
clinging to her precarious hand-hold. Years of swinging on the monkey bars
at school had built up tough callouses on her palms--and now she needed
every one of them! Then her scrambling feet broke through something and a
portion of the roof fell away under her legs. She half-fell through the
hole, digging her stomach painfully into its edge, and putting even more
strain on her fingers. She wasn't going to be able to hold on much
longer.
Far, far below her, she heard the bits of broken roof finally hit the
ground ... how soon before she followed them?
Above her, oblivious to her plight, the two men fought on.

Then, in the violence of their struggle, just as it seemed Top Dollar had
overcome Eric, they both stumbled on the narrow, slippery ridgetop, and
fell again, switching positions once more, giving Eric a little more room
to maneuver; but by now it hardly mattered who was where--Eric could barely
defend himself against Top Dollar's pitiless advance. Top Dollar laughed
triumphantly, beating him down with every blow, toying with him,
prolonging his agony with sadistic delight.
Finally he grew tired of the game, and with one skillful movement hooked
the cross out of Eric's hands, leaving him at his mercy. Eric skidded
backwards away from that lethal blade and fell again as Top Dollar closed
in for the kill. In a last desperate movement, he lashed out with his feet,
catching Top Dollar in the belly and driving him back for a few precious
seconds. And at last, luck favored him--Top Dollar's sword flew out of his
hand and vanished into the rain-shadowed night.
But Top Dollar didn't care, he knew that he was the master here, knew that
Eric could not stand for long against him. With a maniacal burst of
laughter, he threw himself at his weakened foe, knocking them both off of
the narrow ridgetop to slide, as Sarah had done, down the leaded roof.
For one horrible moment she thought they both were going over the edge,
but at the last second they were stopped by one of the decorative pillars,
stunning both of them for a moment.
Then Eric saw her.
"Sarah," he cried hoarsely, reaching helplessly for her, turning his back
for one fatal instant on Top Dollar.
"Look out!" she cried uselessly, but she was too late in any case. He
always had more than one weapon, more than one blade, and standing now,
Top Dollar drew his second sword, smaller than the first, but large enough
to finish the game. Then, with the full strength of all his weight, he
drove it entirely through Eric's body!
She watched in an agony as great as his own as Eric arched against that
terrible blow, the bloodied end of the blade projecting a foot and more
from his chest, torment in every line of his body.
"Oh dear God," his lips shaped the words, but his lungs were too paralyzed
to give him breath enough to do more than gasp--a gasp that sounded more
like a death rattle than anything else. Then, as Top Dollar triumphantly
drew the gruesome blade out of Eric's body with a hideous, wet sound, he
slumped against the pillar, turning to face his foe one last time, sliding
his back down the rough stone until he sat braced against it, trying
futilely to draw air into his bleeding lungs.
Sarah turned her face away, weeping for his suffering. He's dead, and
now Top Dollar will take me again... or maybe he won't. Oh God, let me
die here with Eric! But still she clung to the roof, her body refusing to
surrender to the despair that clouded her mind.

Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th'ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition....
--John Milton

That first volley of bullets in the boardroom had hurt Eric worse, and a
dozen times in the battle that followed the crow had repaired more damage
than this one sword thrust had caused, but no longer--they were both too
wounded by what they had been through, and by the terrible price to be
paid for helping the living. Eric could barely hold himself upright
before Top Dollar, and the crow was scarcely half-healed itself,
struggling to do what it could for Eric.
It wasn't going to be enough. He needed more--more strength, more healing,
more time! ... And then Top Dollar, with overweening arrogance, gave them
all three.
"You know, my daddy used to say--every man's got a devil, and you can't
rest 'til you find him," he said, almost conversationally, as he squatted
down in front of Eric's slack body. And for the first time since the fight
began, Eric allowed himself to hope, while he listened to Top Dollar
gloat, giving the crow time to repair his ravaged body.
"What happened back there with you and your girlfriend ... I cleared that
building. Hell, nothing in this town happens without my say-so. So I'm
sorry if I spoiled your wedding plans there, friend. If it's any
consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face." He paused then,
showing that evil smile to Eric who stared fixedly at him, not even
comprehending the mocking words.
Then Top Dollar pulled out one of Myca's favorite knives and Eric blinked,
sensing all the suffering engrailed upon its razor edge.
[Do not fear that toy, warrior. You have a greater weapon.]
Yes ... I understand.
Top Dollar held the wicked little knife before Eric and grinned in
anticipation of the blood-letting to come. "You got a lot of spirit,
son. I am gonna miss you." Then he slanted a guick glance at Sara and
continued, "Course, I still got her now, don't I?" And the promise in
his eyes almost made her let go of her hold on the roof.
But before Top Dollar could move against him, Eric spoke, "I have
something to give you." Bright blood bubbled on his lips and his face
twisted with the effort it cost him to go on, "I don't want it anymore."
Top Dollar stared skeptically at him, not afraid of anything he could
do at this point. He barely flinched away when, with a convulsive
movement, Eric reached out with one bloody hand and grabbed his head.
And then it was too late for him!
"Thirty hours of pain!" Eric gasped, as the memories he'd taken from
Albrecht swarmed into Top Dollar's mind. He reached with his other hand,
storming Top Dollar's consciousness, forcing him into the fiery corner of
hell that he had created for Shelly. "All at once! All for you!"
For too many years Top Dollar had sown the wind that had scoured the
city. Now at last the time had come for him to reap the whirlwind of
his own evil.
The knife fell from his nerveless hand, and slowly he toppled backwards
after it. And down through that rain-laden night he fell, in
gravity-burdened flight, his eyes vacant and insane long before his limp
body impaled itself--heart and head--upon the horns of a stone gargoyle
below. And for many minutes afterward, the rainspout that was the
monster's mouth ran with the blood of another monster.

Sarah had heard Top Dollar's voice but closed her ears to what he was
saying--she couldn't bear to hear him taunt Eric as he died. But when
she heard his hoarse cries, she turned back in time to see him fall to
such a gruesome death that she wanted to throw up. She almost couldn't
believe that he was dead. He'd been responsible for the worst unhappiness
she'd ever known, and in the past few minutes he had nearly destroyed her,
along with the last of everything she loved.
And he may yet have succeeded, she realized. She was too exhausted to
help herself, all her strength and will spent. And Eric ... Eric was gone,
dead from a sword stuck all the way through him. Painfully she lifted her
eyes to him, but all she could see was part of his shoulder where he sat,
still slumped against the pillar just a few paces beyond her; then she felt
herself slip a couple of inches as the edge of the roof under her stomach
started to give way under her weight.
Suddenly it did give way and she swung down into darkness, her full weight
falling onto her abused hands. "Eric!" she shrieked in panic, even though
she knew it was useless, as the falling roof-pieces clattered into the vast
emptiness below her. She couldn't hold on any longer ... and Eric couldn't
help her--he was dead ... and in another few seconds she was going to be
dead too. She only hoped she could find him wherever they were going.
"Eric!" she whimpered again, feeling her fingers slipping, I don't want to
die!
"Sarah!" An exhausted voice over her head drew her eyes upward and she
gasped in disbelief. It was Eric! And he was alive ... or whatever.
With a move that would have been slow even before he'd died, he reached
and managed to get an arm around her and she fought her panic long enough
to let go with one hand and take his other arm in a death grip. Finally
he pulled her up to him and they both tottered for a heart-stopping moment
on the brink, then he dragged her back to the relative safety of the pillar
and wrapped her in a hug that promised to protect her from hell and all
its devils--which, in a way, he'd already done.
She was weeping as he held her--from reaction to the last fifteen minutes,
and because she knew he was going to leave her forever within the next
fifteen minutes.
"Thank you, thank you," she gasped breathlessly, over and over; but those
two little words couldn't begin to hold everything she wanted to put into
them, and she finally subsided into watery hiccups.
"C'mon," he muttered wearily, gently hauling her to her feet. "Let's get
you out of this rain before you catch your death," and he smiled almost
teasingly at her.
Then he had no more breath to spare as they made their way along the ledge
back to the center of the building, up the ladder-like steps along the roof
to the opening into the bell tower.
It was a slow and painful journey for both of them down the many
stairs, and Sarah found that she had to support Eric or he never would've
made it, but finally they reached the bottom floor where Albrecht had
dragged himself.
"Go help him," Eric told her, as they drew close to the wounded policeman,
and even though Sarah had the feeling Eric needed just as much help--if not
more--she hurried down the stairs to her only other friend in the world.
His dark skin looked grey and he didn't move when they arrived except to
quirk the corners of his mouth upward in a travesty of a smile.
"Are you alive?" Sarah asked, not entirely facetiously--after all, she was
already in the company of one ghost ... for all she knew, Albrecht could
be another.
"Ah, God," he gasped, proving that he was still among the living, then
fumbled in his pocket. "I need a cigarette." He fished out a pack and
passed it over to Eric who had slumped down across from him with a sigh of
pain. Sarah looked sadly at him, God, they were all walking-wounded, and
Albrecht shouldn't be smoking, especially not now. But she wasn't going
to deny him whatever comfort he could get, not after he'd risked his life
to save hers.
Eric absently took out a cigarette, "You helped me," he said quietly,
tapping his head. "What you kept in here saved me." His eyes echoed the
pain of those shared memories, and his voice trembled when he remembered
the last few desperate minutes on the roof. "Thanks," he said softly,
knowing how inadequate the word was.
"Don't mention it," Albrecht said, and meant it--after all, he was a
cop: "serving and protecting" were part of the job description. He
watched longingly as Eric lit a cigarette for him. "I've been meaning
to come to church anyway," he said, making light of the whole thing, and
gratefully took the cigarette Eric held up for him.
But his pleasure was short-lived as the acrid smoke burned into his
injured lung. "Oh yuck!" With a grimace of disgust he spat it out and
looked ruefully at them. "I'm quitting as of now ... if I live."
Eric laughed then, almost a real laugh, and Sarah's heart nearly broke
at the sight, then he stood up ... and it did break. He was going to
leave.
"No!" she whispered involuntarily, and he looked forlornly at her, his
eyes mirroring her own misery. But this time, there was nothing he
could do to help her.
In the distance they could hear approaching sirens and Eric turned his
face towards the sound. "Backup," Albrecht confirmed sarcastically.
"Took 'em long enough."
"Stay with him until help comes," Eric told her, knowing he couldn't stay
any longer.
"He'll be okay, right?" she asked worriedly, looking across at her wounded
friend, but when there was no answer she darted her eyes to where Eric had
been standing.
He was gone!
"Eric?" she yelped in dismay. Gone again ... without saying goodbye. She
couldn't take any more of this!
"Unh, he does that a lot," Albrecht grunted sympathetically, his heart
going out to her. But he had other things to take care of.
"Quick, Sarah," he said then, startling her. "We gotta work out a
story--Eric wasn't here, okay. It was all Top Dollar. He went crazy,
killed T-bird and everybody else, even Grange and the woman, then jumped
off the roof. I came here like I said--to pay my respects to Eric and
Shelly--and found him, we fought and he thought he killed me, then he
jumped. You came by after it was all over. Can you remember that?"
It was hard to follow his panting words when her mind was half-paralyzed
with grief, but finally the sense of what he wanted began to register.
"Uh, I guess so," she said uncertainly, hoping the story would be good
enough to protect Eric ... although, once he was back with Shelly, he
wouldn't need any protection.
Suddenly they heard voices in the nave and Sarah called out as loud as
she could, "Over here! Uh, 'Officer down!' Is that what you say?" she
asked Albrecht in a quieter voice.
He nodded at her, then smiled ruefully, "Looks like I'm going to live
after all."
"Yeah, and you promised to quit smoking if you did. I have a witness ...
even if he is a ghost.
"Don't worry, Sarah. I keep my promises." He smiled wearily at her as
the first of the cops found them.

The paramedics had arrived on the heels of the police cars and it took them
no time at all to bundle her friend up and haul him on a gurney out into
the night.
It hurt to remember that other night, exactly a year ago, when she'd
followed another friend on another gurney, but this wasn't like that:
Albrecht was going to be all right--the paramedics had promised her and
she could tell they weren't just shining her on.
He looked up into the cloudy sky above and smiled at her, "At least it
stopped raining," he said, trying to make her feel better.
"It can't rain all the time," she quoted, torn between love and loss,
then she frowned as a well-remembered voice blasted them with its anger.
"No, I don't believe it! This nightmare your fault, Albrecht?" it said,
callously holding up the paramedics from moving him further. It was the
bad-tempered cop from that night last year and she glared balefully at
him. What a rotten thing to say to someone who was hurt ... who'd just
saved her life!
"You go on home," Albrecht said to her in a low voice, and she was only
too ready to obey him--she didn't want to stay around that foul-mouthed
jerk any longer than she had to. Quickly she slipped away ... still, she
didn't like the idea of abandoning her friend to him.
"Want to tell me what's going on?" the jerk growled, and Sarah wished
she was grown up and a man so she could sock him in the face. She
peeked around the side of the ambulance.
Albrecht wasn't intimidated by the detective, not after what he'd been
through in the last twenty-four hours. "Your vigilante's up on the roof,"
he gloated with grim amusement, grabbing Torres by the lapel and dragging
him down to within inches of his face. "You missed it!" he grunted with
satisfaction.
Good for you! Sarah cheered, as the jerk barked at the paramedics.
"Get him outta here," he blustered, freeing himself from Albrecht's grip
with a shudder of disgust, then watched the paramedics load him into the
ambulance with an uncomfortable expression on his ugly face. He was
obviously unhappy about what he'd found here.
Stupid asshole, Sarah grumbled as she walked out into the street.
They would've had him out of here ages ago if you hadn't of stopped
them. Then she remembered her skateboard, and--more importantly--her
suitcase of photographs. She turned back to the cemetery to get them ...
and stopped cold. That's where Eric was going, she thought, starting to
tremble. Would he still be there? Suddenly it was the most important
thing in the world that she see him again. Not to talk to, or touch,
or hug ... just to see him one more time.

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is
love, the only survival, the only meaning.
--Thornton Wilder

She hurried into the graveyard, afraid she would be too late. Then she
saw him, huddled by Shelly's grave, forlorn and shivering, finally at the
end of his supernatural strength ... at the end of any kind of strength.
She knew she couldn't ... she mustn't ... go to him, but he looked so
pitiful lying there that she couldn't even bear to look. Next to him was
the gaping hole of his own grave, and she didn't want to look at that
either, thinking how horrible it must have been for him when he first
struggled out of it.
Then, turning her eyes away, she saw a ghostly figure approaching and
her heart skipped a beat when she recognized who it was. It was Shelly!
Shelly--whole and beautiful again, no pain, no fear, no injuries; able at
last to reach out to Eric and find him once more, with no one to stand
between them.
Sarah had never realized how poisoned her memory of Shelly had been by
that last image of her, bloody and suffering on the gurney outside her
shattered home. For all this past year the Shelly she had loved had been
lost to her as surely as she had been lost to Eric. Now, for the first
time in twelve unending months, she was back ... for both of them.
Shelly paused and looked through the concealing shadows at Sarah and
smiled lovingly at her. You never really lost us. And you never will.
She could hear Shelly's thoughts! ... thoughts like a warm caress.
Sarah sagged to the ground, overcome by grief and joy combined as she
watched Shelly go to Eric and reach a gentle hand to cup his face,
while he looked up at her in a daze. Her lips quirked in sympathy
at his sad state, then she bent down to kiss him, healing him with her
boundless love.
For a long time they kissed, while in the street beyond sirens
wailed and lights flashed, but in their little corner of the world,
all was still. Slowly Shelly drew Eric to his feet, until he stood,
tall and strong again at her side.
Then, for what Sarah knew was the really last time, they turned to
her. Eric lifted Shelly's hand to his lips and kissed it lovingly,
then held their joined hands out to Sarah, passing the kiss through
the air to her with a little salute. With trembling fingers, she returned
it to them, then was blinded by tears and buried her head in her arms,
grief for herself overpowering her joy for them.
When she was finally able to look up again, they were gone, as she'd known
they'd be. And something else was gone too! It took her a few moments to
figure out what it was, since everything looked perfectly ordinary. But
that was what was so strange--it hadn't been ordinary a few minutes ago:
but now Eric's grave was filled in and looked just as it had for the past
year.
He's really gone, she thought miserably as she walked slowly over to the
two quiet graves. And I'm all alone again.
Then the crow flew down to land on Eric's stone, holding something in his
beak for her. She reached out her hand and he dropped a familiar gold
circlet into her palm--somehow he'd found it after it had been taken from
her. And as she curled her fingers protectively around it, she remembered
Shelly's words: You never really lost us. And you never will.
But it's not the same as having you here, she thought wearily, And I don't
know what to do now. Everybody was dead-- Eric and Shelly, T-bird, Tin
Tin, Funboy and Skank, Top Dollar, Myca and Grange. She felt like the
last survivor of a war--which in a way, she was--or even, the last person
left alive in the world.
Too much blood. Too much death.
And what was she going to do now. Go home? Hah! That was a joke.
Maybe I'll just curl up on Eric's grave and go to sleep and not ever bother
to wake up, she sighed, her thoughts turning to death with terrifying
ease.
No, I can't do that ... not after what Shelly said. But I'm all alone,
and I don't know what to do.
She found her skateboard and the little suitcase and slowly walked out
into the empty night ... and her emptier future.

* * *

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
--Carl Sandburg

It had been one helluva night, Captain Lehman thought staring at the
mounds of paperwork on his desk, and the night wasn't even half over yet.
Shit, it had been a helluva twenty-four hours: Twenty-six of the city's
worst criminals violently murdered by their by their own leader; that
leader dead by his own hand; and not a single arson fire.
All that was on the plus side. On the minus side--one of his best
officers was in the hospital ... but the doctors had assured him that
Albrecht was going to be just fine. The Captain smiled with grim
satisfaction--Albrecht was a hero after that business at the old
cathedral, and Torres was shitting a brick trying to put a good face on
his jealousy. In fact, Torres had been on tilt ever since they'd
gotten the call for the first homicide the night before--as if he was
taking the whole thing personally ... and maybe he was.
Just then, two men walked into his office and quietly shut the door
behind them. He looked up at them in irritation, then went very still,
all the paperwork on his desk forgotten. He knew them, they were
I.A.--Internal Affairs--and their presence here could only mean trouble.
Wordlessly one of them dropped a folder in front of him, and with some
trepidation, he opened it and began reading.
"Where did you get this?" he asked in astonishment after scanning the
folder's contents for a few hurried minutes.
"From the Trash Club. Seems Top Dollar left in a little bit of a hurry.
Not that he's in any position to care anymore," the other added with a
certain smugness.
"Torres! Damn! That's why he kept leaning on Albrecht all this time.
I never did trust him." Damned if he wasn't going to see about
reinstatement for Albrecht after the dust settled. The captain shook his
head, angry for having nursed a viper to his bosom for so long. "You take
him into custody yet?"
"Yeah, he's downtown now. We had to move fast before he got wind of this
evidence. Keep a lid on this for now--Torres ain't the only one on Top
Dollar's payroll that we got evidence for."
"Busy night for the Prosecutor's Office."
"Yeah," said the I.A. man with a wolfish grin, and the Captain grinned
back.
Like he said--one helluva night!

* * *

O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
--Percy Bysshe Shelley

The streets were quiet and there wasn't a fire to be seen as Sarah slowly
skated her way back to the apartment. There weren't even that many people
out--they were probably all huddled indoors, watching and listening for the
fires to start. She almost wished she could tell them that they didn't
have to worry about it tonight--the boss fire-starter was dead, splattered
all over a stone statue, his insides hanging out in the rain.
She skidded to a stop by a telephone pole, clinging desperately to it as
she fought off another wave of nausea. She'd been okay until she'd left
the cemetery and started skating, then it had hit her--everything that
had happened ... since the night before, really. She'd thrown up into
the gutter three times already, and now there was nothing left in her
stomach. She was all alone, and sick. There was nobody left. Darla,
Albrecht, Shelly, Eric--all gone. Well, Albrecht wasn't really gone, just
in the hospital ... and at least Eric was with Shelly now, she had to keep
telling herself that. He was happy. He was at peace.
He was gone!
By now, she wasn't even sure she was going to be able to get home, she felt
so awful. She kept seeing Top Dollar, spiked on that horrible statue,
bloody stone horns sticking right through him, and Myca with her face all
ripped apart and ruined, and Grange practically floating in his own blood.
And Albrecht trying to pretend he was okay and doing a lousy job of it.
And older memories--Shelly, writhing in pain, gasping Eric's name, and
Eric, hidden under a blood-soaked sheet. Even tonight there'd been blood
all over him--it had come off on her jacket when he'd hugged her, and when
they'd helped each other down the stairs.
Too much blood. Too much death. And she was all alone, with waking
nightmares chasing her down the empty streets. She was shriveling up
inside from loneliness and fear and there wasn't a damn thing she could
do about it. She couldn't stop the corrosive memories--the way Top Dollar
had touched her, the deadly promise in Myca's eyes, Grange's implacable
hands ... and it didn't help a bit to know that they were dead now and
couldn't hurt her.
But they had hurt her, she realized shakily. Somehow they'd wounded her
so badly she knew she would never get well again. They'd wanted to kill
her ... and worse. And they'd nearly done it too. If it hadn't been for
Eric ... if he hadn't come, would they have left, taking her with them?
Of course they would've. And if Top Dollar had finished off Eric on the
roof, he would've pulled her up and taken her then too, she'd seen it in
his eyes. And what Skank had tried would have been nothing compared to
what they would've done to her.
It was too horrible to think about, but she couldn't stop thinking about
it. She'd heard that sometimes, when a mouse is lucky enough to escape
from a cat, it dies anyway, from shock, or heart failure--just plain scared
to death.
She felt like that mouse.
Finally she reached her apartment building and began calling for Gabriel.
She hoped he hadn't been out hunting for mice--she had too much sympathy
for them by now--and she hoped he wasn't trying to find his way back to
the loft--it was too far for him, and besides, she didn't want to go back
there again, not without Eric. Then, just as she was about to give up hope
and add Gabriel to her list of deserters, she heard a welcoming meow, and
saw his fluffy white tail bobbing above a pile of debris.
Climbing the stairs with her three most precious possessions, she wondered
why she was even bothering going "home" ... except that she desperately
needed a place to sleep for a while. She hoped Darla wouldn't be
there--she didn't think she could handle seeing her mother drugged up
again, not after the way the morning had begun. Too many promises
broken.
Too much blood. Too much death.
There was light coming from under the door--either Darla was back, or else
she'd left the light on. She hoped it was the latter. Her hands were
shaking so much that she could barely fit her key into the lock, and
Gabriel started to squirm in her arms, complaining about her clumsiness.
Suddenly all she wanted to do was lean her head against the wall and cry.
She couldn't even see the lock clearly anymore, as tears began blurring her
eyes.
This was it. She couldn't take any more. She was just going to collapse
right here in the hallway and to hell with everything. Nothing mattered
anymore anyway, she thought numbly, as she leaned against the unyielding
door, her knees starting to buckle.
Suddenly the door swung open and she nearly fell into the apartment,
Gabriel leaping out of her arms with an indignant yowl. But before she
could hit the floor someone grabbed her and held her steady, hugging her
tightly and crying all over her.
It was Darla.
"Oh, Sarah, Sarah. Where have you been? I've been so worried. Omigod,
you're bleeding! What's happened to you?" Her mother was almost
hysterical as she knelt on the floor, holding her daughter in a desperate
embrace.
"You ... you came back. You're not ... on anything," Sarah gasped
uncertainly, finding it hard to shift mental gears. She'd been so
convinced that her mother had abandoned her again.
"No, no. I told you, that's all over now, because of him. Where're you
hurt?" she asked, feverishly searching for the source of the blood, then
gasped when she saw Sarah's hands and wrists.
"Don't worry, Mom, it's not my blood--it's Eric's. Oh, yeah, my
hands--that's nothing. You should see the other guy," and she started to
laugh at the image her sick joke conjured up, and somehow she couldn't
stop laughing. Except, she wasn't laughing any more, she was
crying--crying as if her heart was going to break.
Only, it already had.
She cried for everything she'd lost, everything she wanted and couldn't
have, for everything that had happened to her in the last twenty-four
hours ... and the last twelve months ... and the last eleven years. She
cried because she was just a kid and she'd been crushed in the grown-ups'
games, and because she'd thought she was all alone. But she wasn't alone
anymore ... she had her mother back.
Finally, the tears were all gone. It had taken hours; her mother had
stripped her wet clothes off and dressed her in warm pajamas, cleaned and
bandaged her raw wrists and blistered palms, fed her and hugged her and
soothed her just like she was a little baby again. And finally she'd
listened, torn by horror and outrage, while Sarah told her everything
that had happened that night.
"I know it sounds crazy, Mom," she said, when she told about the fight
on the roof, "but I'm not making any of it up."
But her mother was too shocked by the threat to her daughter to waste any
time disbelieving any of the fantastic elements of the story. "I'm not
making this up either," she said, pulling back her sleeves and showing
Sarah her unblemished arms, which only the night before had been scarred
with ugly needle tracks. For a moment they stared wordlessly at each
other, sharing a miraculous secret. Then Sarah went on with her story.
It was terribly hard, reliving all of that for her mother, but a feeling
of relief grew with every word she spoke, and soon she found herself
telling her mom a lot of other stuff that she'd never told her before--how
she'd made friends with Shelly more than two years earlier, and how
wonderful it had been when Shelly had met Eric and fallen in love with
him, and what good friends the three of them had become. And how she'd
gone to Shelly's apartment a year ago this very night, and what she'd
found there. And how she'd mourned them and missed them all year long,
until she'd seen him the night before. And how she'd gone looking for
him that afternoon, and found him in Shelly's old loft.
"They're together now, Mom. I saw them. They went off with each other ...
and left me all alone," she sighed, choking up again at the memory.
"Not all alone. You still have me, remember? I'm so sorry I wasn't
here when you got home, but the buses were running late because of Devil's
Night. And because I wasn't here, that monster nearly killed you. Thank
God for Eric! ... ghost or whatever he was. He saved your life twice."
"Three times, Mom," she smiled into her mother's startled face, reaching
out to touch the inside of her arm, where the needle tracks had been. "He
brought you back to me."

Later that night--a peaceful, arson-less night--Darla kept quiet vigil by
her sleeping daughter's bed, watching her like the precious jewel she had
finally realized she was. The big cat, Gabriel, purred contentedly in her
lap as she absently stroked him, and the television droned quietly in the
corner of the room. Occasionally she would look up and pay close attention
to what the newscasters were saying, curious to learn the "official
version" of the night's events.
The incident at the old cathedral was reported much as Sarah had
described, with the omission of any mention of a ghost in whiteface ...
or of Sarah. Her friend Albrecht was going to be okay, according to the
reports, and she was looking forward to telling Sarah that as soon as she
woke up. They'd go see him in the hospital, Sarah would like that ... and
they needed to talk to him about just where Sarah fit into the "official"
story.
Of course, it would be great if they could all just pretend she'd never
been there, that nothing had happened to her. But she had been there,
and terrible things had happened to her. Sarah's hysterics had frightened
Darla, and she knew Sarah was going to need counseling after her
experiences. Her heart nearly stopped every time she thought about
the terrible danger Sarah had been in, how close she'd come to being
raped and killed. And not just tonight, but last night as well, and
even a year ago: if she'd gotten to her friend's apartment just a few
minutes earlier ... God! She couldn't bear to think about it--it had
all been her fault!
How many other nights had she been in danger, out there alone, on the
streets, like he'd said--Sarah's strange magical Eric. How many times
had Sarah had to fight for her life because her mother had failed her?
"Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children." So
what did that make her? A devil? Or just incredibly stupid? Hell, she
probably needed some counseling of her own, so she'd never turn to drugs
and jerks like Funboy ever again.
At least she'd gotten the new job--that would help: more money, a decent
place to work, a chance for promotion. It was a real miracle ... but this
had been a day for miracles, the greatest of which was sleeping in the
bed right next to her.
Yes, Eric, I do understand. Finally.

The news was on again. Darla turned her attention to the television.
A commentator was editorializing.
"... With the death of over two dozen of its worst criminals in a bizarre
murder/suicide spree, this city has been given a challenge to start
over, to live free and in peace. I say 'challenge' rather than
'opportunity' because it will be a challenge! It would be all too easy
for each of us to shrug our shoulders and turn our backs on what has
happened here tonight, saying we don't want to 'get involved'. But we are
involved! This is our future we hold in our hands. Are we going to
give it back to the criminals, or will we take a stand against them?
"They've been struck a heavy blow tonight, but it wasn't a mortal blow.
That will be up to us. I know I'm just one man, in a city of many
thousands, but I vow to you that I will fight. I'll find out what one
man can do to make this city clean and safe, and then I'll do it. And I'll
tell the rest of you so you can join me. Together we can take back
our city ... and our future ... one man and one woman at a time.
"We're all in this together ... it's all in our hands."
Thoughtfully, Darla reached over and turned the television off as the
news program ended, "Amen," she whispered, caressing her daughter's
sleeping face with gentle hands. "And thank you, Eric. Thank you for
everything."
 
 
 
 

Love is Forever
 
 

If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on
is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die ... but real
love is forever.
--Sarah's Journal

Seven years later.

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With Joy and Love triumphing.
--John Milton

Fred was putting the finishing touches on a birthday bouquet, when she
walked into the shop and he nearly dropped the baby's-breath all over the
floor. Quickly getting a hold of himself he hurried over to the vision of
blond loveliness that lit up the florist shop, outshining every flower
in it (to his eyes at least) and gave her a smile that burned with all
the ardor of his unrequited love.
"Hey, Sarah. This isn't your usual day. Special order this time?" he
asked a little breathlessly.
"No, Fred, same as always. I'll be too busy tomorrow," she said with her
sad, beautiful smile. He'd give anything if he could be the one to make
her smile with joy.
"Oh yeah, you're leaving for college tomorrow. I'm gonna miss you," he
sighed, disgusted by the inadequacy of the words and the clumsy way he
said them. Then his spirits sank even more when Les, his boss, came out
of the back room. He had the horrible suspicion that Les thought his
feelings for Sarah were something to laugh about, although he'd never
laughed at him ... yet.
"Hi, Les," she said, her face lighting up for her old friend, damn
him.
"So, tomorrow's the big day. Sarah-Monster's going to be a college
woman now. Hard to believe, kiddo." Les's ugly face looked about
ready to split with pride, as if he'd been personally responsible for
her success.
"Gonna try anyway," she laughed. It sounded like bells. "Did you hear?
Mom got the promotion! Assistant Food Services Manager."
"Good for her. Next thing you know she'll be running the whole
company."
"I dunno," chimed a voice from the back room, "food service is a
tough business." Mickey stuck his head through the doorway, as gloomy
as ever.
"Hear the hotdog king," Les derided fondly. "You'd better stick to the
roses!"
"Don't laugh!" Sarah protested. "She's talking about going for an MBA
after I get out of college. She'll do it too, if I know my mom." She
smiled proudly at the thought. "Oh yeah, Mrs. Albrecht has been trying
to get a hold of you. She wants to know if you and Mickey and Fred are
coming to my party, after the Neighborhood Watch meeting?"
"Are you kidding? She and Captain Albrecht both would have my hide
if I missed either one. 'It's our future' after all ... and yours too."
Fred groaned again inside when Les quoted that moldy old slogan--why did
Sarah have to have her going-away party at the Watcher's meeting? All
those old guys and businessmen? Just because she was friends with all
of them and had been a junior member ever since it had been organized by
her pal Albrecht. Dammit, she should be having a party with nothing but
kids her own age ... like himself.
"Here's your flowers," he said a little sullenly, handing her the
carefully wrapped package. "See you tonight."
"Thanks, Fred. Bye, Les, bye, Mickey. See you tonight," she said in her
lovely voice, then she was gone in a cloud of sunlit gold.

"Back to work, Fred," Les told his lovestruck assistant sternly, as he
stared after Sarah with dazzled eyes. He could sympathize with the
boy--Sarah had grown up into a remarkably good-looking young woman since
the days when he'd given her root-beers on the house at The Pit.
Of course, they'd all changed since those days--Albrecht, the former beat
cop, had made Captain a few years ago; Darla, the former ... well that was
best left forgotten ... had worked her way up through the ranks in the
hotel restaurant business; and he himself, former bartender in a sleazy
dive, had gone into partnership with Sarah's buddy, Mickey, and bought a
failing florist shop and turned it into a thriving business.
But then, the whole neighborhood was thriving these days, ever since Top
Dollar had rid it of the scum that were destroying it ... and then so
considerately had removed himself, having failed to kill Sarah and
Albrecht, thank God. Yes, this was the future they'd taken back,
"one man and one woman at a time", and he and Mickey and Darla and Sarah
were the living proof of that.
Poor Fred--he didn't understand any of it. All he saw was Sarah and his
hormones went into overdrive. He was a nice kid, but he didn't have a
chance with Sarah--Les had watched her grow up and start dating and he
knew that whatever she was looking for, she hadn't found it around here.
That little lady had high standards, maybe too high, but he couldn't fault
her for them.
And now she was off to say goodbye to the role model for those high
standards of hers--poor Fred indeed. He never had a chance against
her idealized memories of Eric Draven. None of her young men ever had.
Maybe she'd find her "Mr. Right" at college. He hoped so anyway, for her
sake--after what she'd been through, she deserved the best.

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each
other.
--Rainer Maria Rilke

The old cemetery had that burnt, end-of-summer smell to it, but it was
still the smell of growing things and Sarah paused to drink it in before
she made her way to Eric and Shelly's graves for her last visit until ...
oh, probably Thanksgiving vacation, although she thought she might try to
make it back for October thirtieth, the old "Devil's Night" ... that she
liked to think of as "Angel's Night", in honor of Eric and Shelly.
It was as peaceful as always in the cemetery, but not very quiet, and
Sarah frowned in irritation at the workmen, busy on their scaffolding
around the old cathedral. She usually came on Sunday and avoided the
racket of the restoration work that had been going on all summer.
Maybe they'd be done by the time she came back.
Whatever. She looked up at the cathedral roof, newly leaded and gleaming
in the sunlight, as smooth as a jetliner's wing. Boy, if someone threw
her down it now, she'd go sailing over the edge without a thing to catch
on to. She shuddered at the thought and dropped her eyes to one of the
gargoyles--the stone monster that had claimed Top Dollar as one of its
own still glowered there under the eaves, dark with mildew and uglier
things.
Shit! She pulled her eyes away from those haunted stones and faced back
into the cemetery--these were the only ghosts she wanted anything to do
with anymore. She hurried down the path to Eric and Shelly.
There was someone there! A stranger ... or, at least, she didn't
recognize him from the back. He was standing quietly in front of Eric's
grave, regret in every line of his body. (A tall, slender,
graceful-looking body with very cute buns, a part of her noticed)
"Hello there," she said softly, coming to a stop about a dozen feet
behind him. "Friend of yours?"
He started at the unexpected sound of her voice and turned quickly to
see who was behind him ... but her shock was greater than his.
"Eric?" she gasped. Not again?, she thought, swaying on her feet in
sudden dizziness. Then she felt a firm grasp on her arms and a steady
hand leading her to a little stone bench in the shade of a Japanese
maple.
"Are you all right?" She found herself blinking up into a worried
face that was a younger version of Eric's, listening to a voice so
like his that it gave her gooseflesh.
"Who are you?" she said in consternation, grabbing a tissue out of her
purse and wiping her damp face. This was uncanny.
"I'm Johnny Draven, Eric's cousin. I ..."
"Johnny!" Suddenly everything began making sense again. "'Eric's
Shadow'! He told me about you, how you came to live with his folks
after your mother died."
"That's right. I was only five, and my dad was stationed overseas."
He looked at her with growing interest and chuckled at his memories.
"'Eric's Shadow'. God, it's been a long time since anyone's called me
that. I still can't believe how patient he was--after all, he was
fourteen years older than me, practically a grown man. I worshiped
that big cousin of mine, even after he moved out and got a place of
his own. Did you know that he offered to take care of me after Uncle
Art and Aunt Emilie died?"
"Yeah, he told me. He said you were like his little brother. He liked
kids ... Shelly always said he'd make a great father." She sighed,
looking at the graves before them.
"She ... she was his fiancée, wasn't she. I was in Germany with my
dad when we heard about ... what happened." He touched the flowers
she was still carrying. "You must've known him pretty well yourself."
He looked at her inquiringly, lifting his eyebrows in an expression she'd
seen Eric make a thousand times.
"Yes," she whispered, as past and present, memories and reality seemed to
tangle together in the hot summer air. "They sort of took me in, back
when I was just a smart-mouth street brat. They straightened me out ...
saved my life really."
"It must've been hard on you when they were ... murdered. Did they ever
find out who did it?" She caught the flash of an old anger in his eyes
and recognized it as a twin of her own.
"Oh yeah, they found out," she said grimly, her eyes lifting involuntarily
back to that gargoyle. "They're all dead now--T-bird, Funboy, Tin Tin,
Skank, Top Dollar and all the rest. Eric and Shelly were avenged, in
spades!"
"So many! What happened? We never really knew--Dad was in the Air Force
you know, and we had to keep hopping around the world with no chance to
find out anything. But he's retired now, not too far from the State
University ... that's why I transferred, and that's why I'm here."
"You're going to State?" she asked, unerringly picking up on that
one fact.
"Yeah. I'm a junior, in Engineering. Why? Don't tell me you're
going too?" He looked at her with such a hopeful expression that her
heart began to soar.
"Just starting. I'm leaving tomorrow in fact. Look, why don't you
come to my going-away party tonight? One of the guests is a police
captain--he was there, he knows all about what happened. He's one of
my best friends, I'll ask him to tell you about it." She looked over
at him hopefully. Now that she'd talked with him for a few minutes,
she realized that he didn't really resemble Eric all that much ... no
more than you'd expect cousins to. But he certainly was good-looking
in his own right, and he seemed to share Eric's great personality.
Of course, he'd lived with Eric for five years--five very impressionable
years.
She stood up then, giving him a warm smile, and walked solemnly over to the
graves. Carefully she propped the colorful bouquet that Fred had prepared
in front of Shelly's stone, and placed one perfect white rose before
Eric's, then she stood and smiled at them both.
"Later," she said, in an old ritual, involuntarily scanning the trees for
large black birds. But of course there weren't any. "Have you eaten?
How would you like to have dinner with me and my mom, before the party?
We can listen to Eric's album, if you'd like."
"That'd be great, I never had a chance to hear it. So, what's your major,
do you know yet?" he asked, and after her bout of dizziness, it was only
understandable that he take her arm to steady her. And it was only natural
that, although she didn't feel the least bit dizzy anymore, she leaned a
little into his support.
"It's mathematics, with a minor in music."
"Math and music? That's kind of a weird combination, isn't it?"
"Not really. Eric gave me music ... it's about all I have left of him.
And I like math ... I'm good at it ... and I hope you're not one of those
who say math isn't for girls," she challenged, the playful tone not quite
masking the seriousness of her question.
"Hell, no! I think it's great. Hey, I'm pretty good in math myself--maybe
I can help you with your homework." He grinned at her in happy
expectation and her heart took wing.
"Is that a promise?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"It's a promise," he smiled back at her, then jumped when something
swooped down, startling both of them. "What the hell!"
"It's just a crow," she said wonderingly, staring at the big black
bird that had flown down to land on Eric's stone. "He comes here ...
sometimes. He's, like, the night watchman."
"Well then, Night Watchman," Johnny saluted the bird, "take care of
my cousin and his girlfriend, and everybody else."
"Oh, he will," Sarah said, winking at her old friend. "He's good at
taking care of things."
With a friendly caw, the crow fluffed its feathers and settled back
down to watch Sarah and Johnny walk together out of the cemetery and
into the revitalized streets beyond; then it burbled quietly to itself,
half-closing its eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun as it sent a
quiet message rippling across the elemental planes:
[They will be happy.]
You do good work.
[Not I. You are the one to help the living.]
With your help ... thank you, old friend.
With a satisfied caw, the crow took wing and vanished into the blinding
light of the sunset.
 
 
 

Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
--Dylan Thomas
 

Author's Afterword
(Or, How This Novel Came to be Written)

The Crow, starring the late Brandon Lee, opened on May 11, 1994, but I was
no fan of "chop-socky" revenge movies and paid it little attention because
I was hard at work on the final chapters of "Edward and Me", a "practice"
novel based on the Edward Scissorhands character from the Tim Burton movie,
which I had been working on since March. My theory was, that by writing a
story that could not be published because of copywrite restrictions, I
would be free to write and learn without worrying about pleasing an
editor.
I had produced well over 115,000 words when I began noticing those
evocative movie posters of Brandon Lee, and read several reviews of The
Crow which piqued my interest. I remembered the last time I had been
attracted to a character in a movie poster, and here I was, writing an
enormous novel based on the imaginings that movie inspired.
Finally, on June 4, 1994, I gave in and went to see the movie ... and my
life changed completely.
I drove home in a daze, already drafting my own version of the story in my
mind, replacing Sarah's streetwise character with another child, more
innocent and vulnerable, taking the plotline back several years before
the murders and developing a number of new characters. I went back to
see it again the next day--the first of over two dozen repeat viewings
that would fill my summer.
Poor "Edward and Me"--I barely wrote 3000 words over the next three days.
I couldn't stop thinking about The Crow. Finally it occurred to me that
this would make another great "practice" novel, although I had planned to
wrap up "Edward and Me" in the next few weeks and start on a "real"
novel--one I would submit for publication. But I had to put that
project on hold for a while: resisting The Crow was like resisting a
primal force of nature. I had to write!
Galvanized by that prospect, I tried to finish "Edward and Me", but
gave up after 2 days and began writing on June 12, 1994. I was soon
frustrated by my inability to recall the order of events or the dialogue
word for word, so I bought a microcassette recorder and recorded
the movie right in the theater, transcribing it later for reference.
And I continued to go see the movie 2 and 3 times a week, studying
every detail of it.
By the last week of July, I had written 100,000 words and was going
strong. My story is a dark, dark fantasy full of suffering, but balanced
by joy and redemption, and I deliberately let out all the stops in my
descriptions, which pretty much guarantees it unsuitable for the general
public. Then I began to get the urge to write exactly the movie I saw on
the screen ... so I did, writing both at the same time, which wasn't as
hard as it sounds since there is a lot of overlap between the two
stories.
On August 3, 1996, I ordered the movie book and original comic books,
also some posters and trading cards, to help me in my research. Once
they arrived, I studied them eagerly and began incorporating as much
information from them into my novels as I could: scenes and phrases from
the comic books, scenes and explanations from the original script that
didn't make it into the movie.
And I read James O'Barr's books over and over, even though they left me
shaking and aching inside. This, I thought, is a man who has suffered
much. I pray that he finds the peace within himself that so eluded
Eric.
By the end of August I was finished: 170,000 words of my own dark
fantasy, "Fire in the Rain", 62,000 words of "The Crow". Except, of
course, I couldn't leave them alone! There followed months of tweaking
and reworking.
And all the while, I was alone. I could find no one who shared my love
of this movie, no one to talk to, no one to show my book to ... until
April 1997 when I finally got on the Internet and, to my astonishment,
found thousands of others who felt the same way I did.
So, to all of you, this is my gift.
Take care, be well, fall in love
Jeanette Barcroft
2 April 1997