Page 3 (1/2)

The crossbow bolt through the Dr Pepper er froa - arently in unison - outside his office

"We wuz outta change," said Ortega The sheriff was being helpful

"I can vouch for hirinned at each other and pounded backs

The ht of two giants grinning down at hi so fiercely at hi heads - it was all too er went back to his bed and pulled his pillon over his ears

There were equally valid excuses for h spirits could be blah And carelessness But e was entirely unavoidable due to the very nature of competitive sports at this, the Championship level The list of events included Spin the Coffee Table, Pike Vaulting and the ever-popular Ash Tray Rug Hockey All of this beingYourself Blind While Waiting for The Goddamn Whores to Show Up, which, as everyone knows, is strenuous enough by definition and only becoer it takes

All in all they did 5,000 worth of dae to the motel

It was a lot of fun

The party started out with about two dozenTeam Crow, the locals, and the cops It later swelled to about fifty or so But by 3 AM it was back down to the twenty or so serious-minded Father Hernandez turned out to be hilariously funny He sang dirty liht that a little weird But it turned out that Hernandez had once been a real father, as in husband, with two little girls and a red-haired wife - all of whos, twenty years before in northwestern Mexico

Everybody got real , and eachhiot a lot more depressed when a towheaded kid named, no shit, Bambi, who had wandered into the party some hours earlier from who knohere, started to cry about Hernandez’s lost family This pissed Crow off He was already in a bad un Actually he liked wearing the badge pretty much It was shiny and made him feel official and all and reun was one of these forty-four er than his waist and every ti him to yelp and leap to his feet to rub ’em and that only reminded him that the whores still weren’t there and on and on and on

So this crying Ba else He cleared everybody off of the suite’s main sofa with one swipe of the back of his hand and unzipped the cover off the largest cushion Then he stepped over and picked up the sobbing Bambi by both ears and tried to zip him up inside

Anthony sioddamn consideration, Jack!" he snorted and unfolded the kid fro his ar, "Thank ya, brother," and voet mad He just took ’em both into as left of the bathrooot sick in the tub Then he carried hi, in his aran to lecture everybody present about kindness, ending with two exquisitely pertinent state a certain measure of respect and tenderness to your fellow human souls is the way a real onna show up or not?"

The co since returned and al frenzy He held onto his sides and rolled back and forth kicking his feet

The rest of the party stared at him in abject bewildera had been both stung and hu sheriff, procure up by now, almost 4:30, infuriated hied hi to call for two hours to see what the hold-up was but for the life of hiet the sonuvabitch to work He couldn’t even get a goddauilty Deyo, athe phone out of the wall the first time hours earlier A veteran of three years’ duty on the destroyer Hepburn, and therefore athe wires using his very best navy knot But for some reason the phone still wouldn’t work

A half-dozen of thereed the knot was a thing of beauty and that the phone should by God phone The real probleh to kill a steer But this did not occur to anyone Exceptthe phone in the next rooet it," he screeched He rose, reeling with laughter, and ricocheted into the adjoining bedrooht it in to be retied

This one didn’t work either

It was the phone coreed The phone company was fucked And everybody had a drink to that

It was starting to get really late Only the hard core re the sheriff, Father Hernandez, and Ba the women, a Quest That was cheered until somebody else pointed out that they were almost out of liquor

One of the deputies re since locked up and gone hoa, desperate for redemption, allowed as how they had already robbed a bank,deal

"Whores first!" piped Ba Baa stared at Anthony "You’re kidding"

"No kidding," Anthony assured hi but drink" He held up his index finger like a lecturer’s pointer "And I gotta get sick first to do that ’Scuse enerated into a squabble that sounded like two co sections

"Booze first!"

"No! Sex first!"

"Booze!"

"Sex!"

"Booze!"

"Sex!"

"Booze!"

Soreat deal

Then Baot a van outside," he piped gleefully "We can go fill it full of both!"

"Yea!" shouted the crowd as Bah-stepped carefully over to the door, opened it, and - And the va his claws deep into his ribs and spreading them and then it pulled his chest apart Baans and blood and then clumped to the floor in a little pile and the va at them too fast, too dauy, soh time to raise his forearh and ripped him open from throat to shoulder and he screamed - Jesus God, how he screa crossboas all Crow could think and he spun around looking for it, taking his eyes off the fiend for a second because this was a vampire and that was the only way to stop it, the only way in the world and this was night! Nighttime and maybe that wouldn’t do it either but there it was, propped up against the end table under the lamp and Crow dove for it across the sofa full of horrifiedto their feet because this was all so fast for the, could it? Iwas just -

Crow crashed across the back of the sofa over the tops of so head and they flipped hiht shoulder first onto the point of the bolt

"God!" he gasped, as it sank into his tissue He twisted to the side off of it and it tore loose raggedly fro like crazy, agonizing pain, and the laht beside his bead and started shorting out and then Crow rose to his knees blank-faced and beaten to watch the rest of the strobe-lit nightht: David Deyo in ht foot picture-perfectly up under the va the sound that would have popped the skull off any nor David’s oh, God! using his spine like a handle as he sla David long dead already, all his bones crushed, flopping gruesoe shoulders sla him for chrissake like this was Astroturf and -

Darkness And then crash in the blackness just a couple of feet away

Light: Anthony’s body hanging on the sill of the shattered pictureand then sliding horribly, slowly, on through, his legs dragging the curtains pop-pop-pop - off the curtain rod to billow gently to the ground covering hi, "Yes! Yes! Yes! The !" as if that had been Anthony’s plan for escape all along

"What" stuttered Crow but he knehat Cat htered invincible in the night air There was no chance, and he stu him by the shoulder that already bled, and "Ohh!" spouted forth from Crow’s mouth with the pain and Cat said "Jack, you’re hurt!" in surprise and Crow mumbled back, "We’re all dead!"

And then h the last of the glass and landing on so soft and dead like an old and trusted friend but not to think about it He rose to his feet and turned for Cat, Cherry Cat, without whoain for the last ti hih the as the priest, Father Hernandez, not nutless at all, stabbing the edge of his huge silver cross right into the fiend’s forehead before dying, decapitated, from a backhanded, almost casual, blow

All blood and horror everywhere back there, on the walls and the ceiling and - And the sheriff, stunned into i lot staring at the old battered Cadillac convertible alongside his patrol car pickup

"Jack, please!" Catand Crow looked down at him and saw the tears in his eyes and realized that it was fear for his own safety that so terrified his friend

So he hurried, because he couldn’t stand to see Cherry Cat crying

Crow opened the side door to the pickup Cat shoved him at and climbed in beside the sheriff that somehow Cat had collected from the driver’s side And then Cat was inside too behind the wheel and Ood! The keys! Where are the but they were there, the sheriff had just left ’enition, why not? Who would steal it?

And Crow found hi lot onto the highway Because it was better, it was fun, to have so thumps of horror from inside the htered occupants of the convertible, the whores who had been too late, but not late enough and - "CROWWW!" sounded out in the darkness, piercing through the roar of the engine and the distance and twisting each man in the cab of the truck into a little ball "CROWWW!" shouted the vaine even harder and the truck vaulted forward to sixty, seventy, eighty hway

"CROWWW!" blasted theht them and leapt onto the back of the truck bed and slah the rearand Crow found that he had the sheriff’s huge cannon pistol in his hand and he jabbed it in the er

The fiend, all shiny blood-red teeth of his ghastly sence, disappeared backward rolling froh the tailgate and sla all asprawl on the sandpaper asphalt

"Oh! Yes, yes! Ha! Hey!" the sheriff whined delightedly at the sight, the thought that thebetter, the other two in the cab still cru pleasure changed to a shrill baby-boy whiht of the monster back on his feet al, and coh for the up, trapping the trickling black blood left fro cross and - "Jesus Christ!" screamed Crow as they topped over a hill at over a hundredhway

Cat wrenched the truck to the left and ot sideways and careened back across the center line starting to spin around and around and topping up over another hill so they could see the city square in the distance and Crow thought, Well, at least we alht of rede sun just starting to peek out over

The sun! The fucking sun! was his last thought before the truck began to tu over and over on its sides and then end over end and then sliding forever and ever down the ot hiot the three of the cron the three blocks toward the hospital before the aot their blood types, and when they were all set and going to ht:

I thought sure it was the leader

First Interlude

The Man sat cal for his aide to compose himself When at last he seean the aide, his voice rich with frustration and almost childlike pique, "this man Crow is a catastrophe"

"Tell us," said the Man

"Holiness, the man arrived drunk He was loud He was obnoxious and profane He insulted everyone in sight He referred to the priests as eunuchs He called the sisters penguins He atteht on the steps outside the private entrance"

"Was there a fight?"

"No, Holiness I intervened" The aide sighed "Forgive me, Holiness, but I alood to have been thrashed by the Swiss"