Quoth the crow, p.5
Quoth the Crow, page 5
part #3 of The Crow Series
dredged the thing, then hired an architect to give it just the
right look—and then proceeded to create a huge tourist
attraction and centerpiece for a run-down and exhausted city.
Blessing could see the restaurants of Little Italy off to the east,
the Aquarium and, on the other side of the water, the Science
Museum. It being Saturday, dozens of paddle boats were
inching around in the blue-gray, below the masts of the old
colonial warship, the U. S. S. Constellation, restored and
polished and ready for Kodak flashes and the scampering of
children’s tennis shoes.
There was a puff of breeze, the smell of cherry blossoms
and honeysuckle and tar. Blessing looked down to the street.
The house was seventy-one feet tall, six stories including attic
and roof; and while this did not sound that high, when actually
staring down from the top onto the hard concrete of the
sidewalk, it seemed a great height indeed.
Blessing suddenly experienced a wave of vertigo. He felt
dizzy and had to crouch down to steady himself. He took a
deep breath. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, he
thought. Why had he even bothered? That’s what money was
for: to let other people risk their necks. Get a handyman to
come on up here and take a look. Experienced roof people
with a decent sense of balance.
However, the dizziness passed.
Well, he told himself. As long as I’m up here…
Just ahead reared the chimney, a brave, old, brick thing
with the faded original ceramic, red chimney pots, proudly
tilted against the elements. And on the other side, a rustle, a
clatter, a scraping.
Blessing inched forward. If he could get a little bit closer,
he could peer around the chimney and get a look. At that point
he would know whether or not there was a nest. If there wasn’t
and it was just a bird perched there for a bit, or even in the
beginnings of a nest, he could scare it off immediately and be
done with all this. He wouldn’t even have to call the
handyman and he could proudly tell Amy of his valiant
exploits.
He reached the chimney. It smelled of soot and ash.
Blessing still couldn’t see a thing around the side of the
chimney base. It was as though the damned bird had
intentionally occluded itself from view.
If he could just poke his nose around the chimney, there
was no way the bird would be able to hide itself. At the very
least he’d be able to see the twigs and whatnot of a bird’s nest
and that would be all he needed to make a judgment. He could
creep back down and finish the Stephen King book knowing
exactly what was going on.
Suddenly, in his mind, a picture flashed: Stephen himself
through a fish-eye lens, peering into his life, black horn-
rimmed glasses huge.
Don’t go in the cellar, Bill!
“I’m on the roof, dammit.” Blessing laughed through
gritted teeth. “And life is not a horror movie!”
Using the crevices in the masonry of the chimney, he
pulled himself slowly up toward another stand.
Peripherally, he noticed someone walking up the sidewalk.
There was a chuff, chuff, chuff of feet mounting steps.
And then an angry clang, clang, clang of the doorbell.
Blast it! thought Blessing. Who could that be?
Distracted, he reached to the top of the chimney for the top
—most brick, not noticing that years of rain, wind, snow, and
sleet had eroded it.
Blessing gripped it, pulled on it to regain his balance.
Ke-rack.
With a sickening crumble, the brick gave way.
Blessing found himself hanging in the air, wildly
windmilling. He let go of the half brick and it tumbled down
the side of the roof, clanking off the gutter and bashing into
the top of the gas barbecue before falling off the edge into the
backyard garden.
William Blessing fell the other way.
He made a desperate reach for the tin top of the roof with
his right hand. Missed. His body pounded hard onto the
shingles, and bounced. And he began to slide. The angle was
even steeper than the side he had scaled and he well knew that
there was precious little hope that the flimsy aluminum gutter
that ridged the edge would hold his weight, even if he could
grab it.
With all his strength, he kicked upward with his legs. His
Rockports caught the rough shingles at a sufficient angle to
cause friction and a temporary stop to his nasty plummet.
His left hand flung out and snagged the edge of the top
aluminum strip. His left Rockport skittered off the shingle, and
the fall yanked at his left arm hard, but he managed to stop his
fall at the last moment.
Blessing gripped with all his might, realizing that the fall
had pounded much of his breath out of him. He managed to
take in a ragged gasp even as he swung up with his right hand
to grab hold of the edge. His first effort failed—but the second
hooked onto the aluminum firmly.
Blessing hung on, not moving for a few moments, trying to
regain his breath and his strength. Once that was
accomplished, he knew he could use his feet ( Thank God for
Rockports—good ridged walking shoes. Yes! ) and his jeans to
edge on up. Then he could wrap his arms over the edge and
get a decent hold onto the roof. Then he could start edging his
way back down to the balcony—not exactly a study in
gymnastic competence, but at least assured of a platform of
wood to prevent him from falling seventy feet.
However, just as Blessing was beginning to get his wind
back and start thinking about making the effort, there was a
flutter and flap.
And a “caw.”
Startled, he looked toward the chimney.
From behind it emerged the largest bird that William
Blessing had ever seen in the wild.
His first impression was simply of black, as though some
piece had been cut out of the darkness of last night, and been
hidden behind the chimney until now. Its wingspan must have
been at least a yard or more as it flapped toward him. It settled
on the top of the roof, just inches from his fingers, and it
cocked its head at him, as though to inspect him at close
quarters.
A crow.
Blessing could see that it was a crow, of the sort he would
normally see winging over Maryland horse farms or perched
on telephone wires in the country, scanning the fields for prey
—but not in the center of town.
This close, Blessing could see that it was not all black. Its
feet were gray, its talons were white, and its eyes were
crimson.
“Shoo!” said Blessing. “Come on! Shoo!”
Instead of winging away however, it sidled closer, its sharp
talons scratching along aluminum.
It opened its sharp beak and stared down at Blessing as it
stepped toward his hands.
two
But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
—Edgar A. Poe, “The Conqueror
Worm”
WHEN BAXTER BRITTLE AWOKE AT SEVEN MINUTES AFTER
NOON, he found himself half-covered in blood that was not his
own.
The blood was sticky and sweet smelling. It clung to his
long hair like a gypsy curse. The pain of his hangover doubled
as he sat looking at his hands, dazed, wondering what the hell
had happened. It couldn’t be real blood, he knew. Had they
been spraying around some sort of homemade Halloween dye
in imitation of an Insane Clown Posse concert?
Droning in the background of the “Dungeon,” the salon in
Le Salon des Gothiques, were the ominous sounds of
Lustmord. Fuck me, thought Baxter. I gotta stop putting those
damned CDs on repeat. The unnerving vibrations echoed
throughout the dim recesses of the basement. Although he’d
made every effort to clean the place up and decorate it after
inheriting the building from his parents ( I told them they
needed new tires), and despite the gang burning incense and
censer pots like crazy, the place still smelled of fungus and
damp and Baltimore. Feathers and posters and chains and
swords and daggers and swaths of white muslin hung
everywhere, and huge candles (the next best thing to torches!)
burned in sconces, giving the area great atmosphere and depth.
Hallways led to a mysterious, unfinished subbasement, an
abandoned relic from the last days of Prohibition. But the
ceiling was too damned low, and the altar was something out
of a shot-on-video horror movie. Garish and wretched, really,
all of it, Baxter thought. If he could ever scrape together a
decent amount of cash, he’d either do this den up right—or
just move away and ditch the whole Goth business. Just retire
to the south of France, drink red wine, eat snails and truffles,
and listen to Chopin.
He groaned and got to his knees. He was wearing his long
coat, silken black on the outside, silken red on the inside. Part
of his pain wasn’t the throbbing hangover but from the inside
of his mouth. He pulled out faux fangs and placed them on a
nearby antique mahjong table he’d bought at Goodwill. Damn!
He didn’t remember putting in his Drac chops last night.
On the other hand, he didn’t remember a whole lot of
anything. Barney and Wilhemina had taken over the bar about
nine. He’d hung around with some of the early arrivals of the
gang at one of the back tables. It had been “old school” Goth
night, with lots of Bauhaus, The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, and
The Mission making up the spin list. He was competing with
Orpheus and Hepburns, two club bars uncomfortably close by,
for the city’s meager Goth crowd, which included everyone
from curious students and RenFest Celtic fans to confused
metal-heads and old punkers. His two main DJs also worked
local music shops, Modern Music and Soundgarden, and were
beginning to build a following, though it was the weekend
New Wave and Disco nights that did the most business.
He recalled vaguely drinking something green with streaks
of blue—some sort of melon shooter, doubtless. Oh, right—
there was this newbie there—a cute teenager with so much
mascara and eye shadow she looked like some Gothic raccoon.
Blond dye job with straggly spiked hair, torn Siouxsie and the
Banshees T-shirt held together with safety pins. Obviously
under eighteen, but she was so damned cute, he didn’t have
her carded and booted. In fact, when the gang adjourned
downstairs for a meeting of the Salon, he’d instructed Baron
DeBaskerville to make sure she came along. However, this
was the point where memory began to shred into smoke,
mirrors, throbbing electric guitars, and sonorous chants.
The rest…
The rest was darkness.
Baxter Brittle hoisted himself up. Damn! He had to open
the bar. Hung over or not, he pulled the Saturday afternoon
shift, and if he didn’t let the daytime regulars in, they might
switch to one of the other myriad bars near the Little Italy area
of Baltimore. This was not a good cash flow time for that to
happen. No, not at all.
Baxter’s actual living quarters were above the bar. (The
gang called the Dungeon the “Dying Quarters.”) Baxter would
have to take his shower there. But there was a laundry sink off
in the corner, so he went over and splashed himself with some
cold, brackish water. His head was pounding. His eyes were
bleary. He went back to the mahjong table, and stared down
hopefully. Yeah! Sure enough, there was a little vial. Just
enough for a snort.
The single skinny line through a plastic straw cleared his
head a little. He just wanted to get out of this hole for right
now, deal with the spilled “blood” or whatever it was later. But
there was a bottle of good French Napoleon brandy that should
be in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by the Chamber of Naked
Horrors altar and a swig would surely ease some of the claws
digging into his neocortex. He struggled over to it, stopping a
moment to put a sock in Mr. Lustmord’s cavernous rumblings
(oh, sweet, sweet silence) and opened the fake-walnut cabinet
door. Sure enough, there was the bottle. Close to empty, but he
didn’t need a lot. He grabbed the bottle by the neck, pulled out
the stopper, and tilted it back.
Fire and condensed wine.
The liquid burned down his throat, exploding into gentler
warmth in his stomach. He could feel the raw alcohol spread
its feathery fingers of comfort through his torso and up to his
head, easing the throbbing pain somewhat. The comfort was so
great, that he swallowed another gulp. Less impact, but still…
He put the bottle back, weaved around, a little unsteadily,
and started back across the rug in front of the cheesy grade Z
movie altar and…
…almost tripped over the body there.
It was a naked woman.
He hadn’t seen her before, because she was half under the
table holding sacramental dishes, goblets, and all that black
magic gobbledegook. She was stretched out, spikey-haired
head poking out like a bit of fading flesh amidst ceremonies of
the grave.
“Oh, come on,” said Baxter Brittle. “Hey! You’re not
supposed to be here…” God, he could get in a lot of trouble
for this! “Look, wake up!”
He reached down haltingly and pulled her over toward
him.
She flopped back.
The mascara and makeup looked as though it had melted
down her cheeks and temples, and her red lips looked like a
pile of mashed cherries.
She no longer looked like a sexy punk-tart.
She looked like a dead little girl.
From between her small, banal breasts jutted a
silver-handled blade. Even through his stunned horror, Baxter
recognized it as one of the gang’s ceremonial knives.
It too had come from the grade Z movie, but its origins had
apparently been, like many of that movie’s props, through
some of the less reputable downtown Baltimore pawnshops.
Before, it was one of the few items down here that Baxter had
taken genuine pride in. Some of the Gothiques and he would
play for hours at speculating on the true origins of some of
their ghoulish, macabre collection. The pearl-and-gold-
handled knife had been one of their favorites. It was from the
torture chambers of Torquemada’s Spanish Inquisition, surely!
No—it had once belonged to one of the soldiers of Vlad the
Impaler of Transylvania, fighting off the barbarian hordes! No
—it was stolen from an old Buddhist Monastery of Mysteries
in Nepal!
Now, though, it was just a piece of sharp metal stuck into a
naked girl.
There was blood everywhere.
This, Baxter Brittle realized, was where the stuff on him
had come from.
Beyond here, in fact, was a large pool, already congealing.
Hoping against hope, woozily, Baxter felt for a pulse in the
neck.
Nothing but cold, dead flesh.
He drew his fingers away as though he had touched
something hot. His head buzzed and for a moment, he felt
faint. He staggered a bit and had to fall against the table. A
goblet fell over, and thick, cold blood oozed out onto a
pentacle emblem on the cloth there.
He swung around to the cabinet, grabbed the bottle of
Napoleon brandy, and swallowed the last few ounces of the
stuff. He let it drop from his fingers, and then he staggered
away from the scene of blood, death, and more blood.
There had to be better ways of waking up.
five
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors
never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart.
I stood repeating, “Tis some visiter entreating
entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my
chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
—Edgar A. Poe, The Raven
DONALD MARQUETTE LEANED AGAINST THE DOORBELL FOR
THE third time.
