The Crow: A Murder of Crows by David Bischoff & Poppy Z. Brite & Chet Williamson

Author:David Bischoff & Poppy Z. Brite & Chet Williamson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

five

"No," Lucrece says, but Jared is already through the bedroom window, following the crow. He doesn't pause to consider the unseen force that threw the windows open as the bird fluttered cawing above the bed. And he does not pause to question gravity or the distance down to the street; he moves now on instinct alone, an instinct that either he's carried back with him from the grave or flows into him from the crow. He hears the French windows bang closed behind him, shutting out the storm again, shutting out Lucrece.

There is a faint sense of vertigo, not of fal ing but of the risk of fal ing, and the commingled flapping from the long tails of the latex frock coat and the bird's broad wings.

Then there is a flat and solid rooftop beneath his feet. Jared turns, looking back toward the apartment. He can see dim, unsteady candlelight behind the curtains. He imagines movement on the other side, Lucrece coming to see if he's lying broken on the street, but the crow caws again, a harsh, demanding sound. Jared looks away, stares instead down at the bird perched on the edge of a sagging, leaf-clogged gutter.

"What now?" he asks.

The crow shakes herself, throws a crystal spray of raindrops from her feathers. She peers up at him, her eyes eager, impatient but indecisive.

"That's what I thought," Jared says, tasting the rain on his lips, the faint oily taint of petrochemicals in the drops. "You're turning out to be pretty goddamn useless, you know?" The crow blinks, squawks again, as if to say, I already dragged your sorry dead ass al the way back from hel , didn't I? She shakes herself a second time and looks south toward the lights of Bourbon Street.

"You can't find the guy who killed Benny, and you don't know why. Well, while you're figuring it out, I have some other scores to settle. Any chance you can help with that?"

The bird looks away.

"I think you have to," Jared says. "Maybe you're not supposed to, but I can make you. Because you know where they are, and you know they damn well deserve it."

The crow huddles into herself and emits a small, mournful croak. He sees that she is shivering, but he is no longer capable of anything like pity, least of all for this black bird that dragged him out of oblivion.

The rain is cold, though, and he does wonder a moment that he can still feel cold.

Then another wave of loss and anger washes over him, a thousand times more chilling than the storm, more bitter than the polluted rain. Hurt so big and heavy it can only cripple him or drive him on.

than the storm, more bitter than the polluted rain. Hurt so big and heavy it can only cripple him or drive him on.

"Is that all there is to keep me moving?" he whispers, suspecting that the bird doesn't have the answer but needing to ask anyway. The loss and the

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