Wicked Prayer by Norman Partridge Read Free Book Online Page B

of a blue-eyed Crow . . .
    And whatever fate demanded as bounty for those eyes, that was the price Kyra had to pay.
    Damn the consequences.
    The Native woman’s eyes were the first step toward gaining powers that would bring Kyra everything she’d ever dreamed of She had hoped to pluck those eyes from their owner’s skull sockets without killing the woman—or anyone else—in the process.
    Not that Kyra Damon was a skilled surgeon or anything, but going in she’d figured that all she had to do was pop a couple eyeballs, do a little cutting . . .
    And Kyra was an expert at cutting.
    She’d designed a few of Johnny’s scars, done all that bloody work herself
    Hey, anything for art.
    So cutting wasn’t a problem. She and Johnny had prepared for the task. Late one night they broke into a Tucson pharmacy, where they stocked up on behind-the-counter pain medications—plenty of Tylenol 3 with codeine. Surgical steel scissors, forceps, gauze, bandages, antiseptic. They filled a little black leather bag, planning to deliver Leticia Hardin into anesthetic oblivion before they performed the back-room operation.
    That was the plan. Snip out Hardin’s pretty blue orbs quick as a wink, dial the paramedics, and hit the road before their victim’s first scream slashed through the desert sky like sheet lightning on a hot summer night. Had everything gone as Kyra intended, the deal would have ended up like one of those urban legends you hear about—the one with the guy waking up in a bathtub filled with melting ice, a ragged red X stitched on his backside, minus one kidney snatched for transplant.
    That was the way it was supposed to go. No one was supposed to die at the Spirit Song Trading Post. Kyra was smarter than that. She hadn’t intended leaving any Crowbait behind like so much roadkill on the highway of eternity.
    Of course, things hadn’t gone down that way. The whole deal had been fucked up right from the start: they’d pressed the Hardin woman hard, found out the only person Likely to show up after closing time was her boyfriend. And just like that the boyfriend had appeared out of black midnight as if he’d been carried on the wings of the Crow. And then things had really gone bad, and Kyra had ended up with her flesh lashed by scorpion stingers, arachnid venom pulsing through her veins.
    Well, like the Boy Scouts said: you had to be prepared. And Kyra was big on preparation. That little word had blazed a trail down the dark path she’d been traveling for many moons.
    Kyra smiled. You didn’t have to be a witch to cast a spell, especially something as elementary as a spell of protection. Kyra knew that. You didn’t need to believe in God or Satan or Mother Earth or Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy or anything at all. In most cases, all that mystical mojo was as simple as baking a cake—requiring nothing more than the right ingredients and the right cookbook.
    Hey, if you had some patience, a library card and a little money for materials, you were all set.
    No, a little scorpion venom wasn’t going to kill Kyra Damon. It was sustenance to her dark soul, and it flowed through twined veins hidden just beneath her skin, traveling a dark river that ran to one throbbing source—a cold heart with a steady driving beat.
    Still, killing the couple could cost Kyra plenty. It wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d paid a steep price to get what she wanted. She’d paid a price for her dark powers, and the secrets that came with them. She’d paid a price for Johnny, and for Raymondo, too. She’d even paid a price for her own cold heart, and with every steady heartbeat she paid just a little bit more.
    In this game, she knew she’d have to pay. Ante up, big time. Because this was about life and death . . . and all the secret things that lay beyond the veil.
    This was about the Crow.
    Kyra shivered, a taunting wing-brush of dusky feathers across her soul.
    She was prone to premonitions. And she didn’t have