Luther leaned forward, the chain allowing him to move four feet out from the pole.

“Pretty blade,” Luther said as he lifted it.

“Now I’m wheeling Juanito over,” Orson said, pushing the wheelchair within range. “Here’s what I’d like you to do. Get a good grip on that beautiful ivory handle and—”

Before Orson had finished his sentence, Luther sprang to his feet and thrust the blade into Juantio’s throat, twisting it so violently it cocked the man’s head at a funny angle.

The arterial spray was spectacular, and Orson was still laughing uncontrollably by the time it had diminished to an irregular spurt.

The wheelchair had rolled back after the initial blow, just out of Luther’s reach.

He was straining desperately, the knife still in his hand, to deliver another thrust.

Orson clapped as he walked back over to Luther.

“I swear I had a feeling about you,” Orson said.

“Yeah, well, it was mutual. Ever since that day in class when you lectured on the Inquisition, I thought you might have the Darkness, too.”

“The Darkness?”

“It’s what my father calls it.”

“Calls what?”

“Whatever you and I are.”

Somewhere out on the desert, a coyote yapped.

Orson was still smiling.

“Luther, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A Murder of Crows

Indiana, 1995

Charles Kork had seen movies where a character got a flat tire and was so mad he kicked it. That had always seemed pointless and stupid until now. Staring at the shredded tire and ruined rim on his Honda Accord, Kork didn’t just want to kick the damn thing. He wanted to take out his hunting knife, stab the fucker about a hundred times, and then toss it into a bonfire while imagining its screams of agony.

And of course he didn’t have a spare, because that was currently serving as one of the front tires, which had chosen to pop a week prior. Some asshole mechanic had warned him, last oil change, that his tires were bare and constituted a hazard. It had turned out to be prophetic. While the first flat was just a slow leak, this one had been a full-force blowout at sixty miles an hour, causing him to spin the car in a complete circle before fishtailing onto the shoulder alongside the road. Lucky he didn’t flip the car.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was that Kork had the mutilated body of a stripper in his trunk.

He kicked the tire a few times, swearing into the empty, mid-afternoon sky, and then stepped away and tried to think.

Middle of goddamn nowhere.

But he’d seen a state patrol car an hour ago. Even on lonely country roads like this, cops patrolled. Eventually, one would pull over, offer to call a tow truck.

What were the odds that he could buy a new tire without anyone knowing about the body?

Worst of all, he’d bought the car using his real name, and his goddamn fingerprints were all over it.

Kork took a deep breath, let it whistle out through his clenched teeth, watching his breath steam. He knew what he had to do. And it had to be fast, before a cop—or just as bad—some nosy motorist, stopped by with a big cornfield smile and a “got you a flat tire there, friend?”

Kork looked up and down the road. Indiana had to be the flattest fucking state in the country. He could see for miles in either direction. In all directions. He might as well have been on stage at Woodstock. Anyone coming would see him immediately.

And the fucking crows!

They were everywhere.

Circling and dive-bombing the fields. Scavenging for missed ears of corn.

So he’d better hurry.

It was a fall day. The morning had been colder than shit, a hard freeze overnight, but the sun had burned through the cloud cover and now it blazed down onto his face. He could feel the early pressure of a headache building.

Fumbling for his keys, Kork walked around the rear of the car to the trunk. He popped it, staring at the blue plastic tarpaulin, recalling all of the fun things he’d done to the whore only a few hours ago. His new favorite toy, a propane torch, lay next to the body. He’d gone through a whole fourteen ounce cylinder on the girl. It not only prompted screams so loud they made her throat bleed, but it smelled positively delicious.

Charles didn’t go there, of course. Cannibalism was for psychos. But he could admit to salivating a bit. Barbeques would be a lot more fun if the pigs and chickens were alive when you cooked them.

The same smell wafted up at him now, making him wish he’d stopped for lunch earlier. All he’d had was a few handfuls of popcorn from a jumbo bag he’d bought at a gas station last night.

Kork reached for the body, ready to lift it out, and got a pleasant shock when the bag jerked.

“Holy shit. The bitch is still alive.”

Charles had been pretty sure the whore was dead when he wrapped her up. He’d slit her throat pretty deep.

“You’re a fighter, I’ll give you that,” he said, hefting her out of the trunk and onto his shoulder. Moving quickly, he carried her ten yards into the cornfield and dropped her squirming body onto the cold, plowed earth.

He kicked at a clod of dirt, his work boot bouncing off without it budging an inch.

Frozen. Fucking frost.

Charles had a little hand shovel in his tool kit, but it wouldn’t be enough to bury a body. Especially with the ground so cold.

But leaving her exposed was just asking for trouble. He’d been planning on dumping the body in a river. Water washed away a lot of trace evidence. Creepy-crawlies nibbled at the feet and fingers. And with new DNA technology, where the cops could get a genetic fingerprint from a strand of hair or a drop of saliva, he had to be extra cautious.

Genetic fingerprint? Hell, she was probably covered with his actual fingerprints. This whore’s body was basically a billboard that read CHARLES KORK KILLED ME.

He took another quick look around, wondering what the hell he was going to do. Still no cars. Nothing but empty fields and those fucking crows.

Those fucking crows…

Jogging back to the car, Kork grabbed the bag of popcorn from the passenger seat. Plenty left. He walked out to the body and then reached down, unrolling the tarp.

The hooker looked like a slab of raw flank steak.

She twitched and moaned, obviously in shock.

Kork sprinkled the popcorn over her body.

“Dinnertime! Come and get it, you bastards!” he shouted.

He took a few steps back so he didn’t spook the birds.

The first one landed a few seconds later, attacking the popcorn.

And then something happened, prompting Kork to smile.

The crow’s beak began to stab down faster and faster.

Ravenously.

Because it had realized that there was something even tastier under the popcorn.

Soon, the whore’s body was covered in a thick blanket of crows, flapping and squawking and peck-peck-pecking away all the physical evidence.

Kork was still watching, still smiling, when a car came into view about a mile up the road.

Grabbing the tarp, he hurried back to his Honda and locked the blood-stained covering back in the trunk.

He looked at the crows, still feasting. While they were doing the intended job, they were also quite the spectacle, impossible to miss.

Kork felt even more exposed than he had earlier.

He squinted at the approaching vehicle, wondering if he should go for the gun he kept in the glove compartment. The car was a sedan, white. Possibly a cop.

If it was a cop, he’d have no choice. Have to take him out. But there was no damn place to run to. Killing a pig would lead to a nationwide manhunt. Maybe just taking him hostage would be smarter. But even then, Kork would have to leave his car behind. His car, in his name, covered in his fingerprints.

Why did killing a whore have to be so goddamn hard?