your head in with a tire iron till it looks like a plate of well-cooked pasta with red sauce, heavy on the meat. I mean, your skull may be thick, Johnny, but it’s not that thick. He’ll crack it eventually, and then he’ll start scooping, and—”
“Bite me, little man.”
But Raymondo was not so easily deterred. “Then, Johnnyboy, when the Crow’s sidekick is done preparing that order, he’ll make Kyra here eat the plate of pasta that used to be your head.” The shrunken head grinned. “Extra red sauce? Perhaps a nice pinot noir, my dear?”
“Get real,” Johnny said. “You saw what happened back there at the trading post—it was the Crow who ran, not us.”
Raymondo endeavored to let the matter drop. He stared at the backseat, at the crazy amalgam of belongings Kyra and Johnny required for their one-way road trip—a couple battered suitcases crammed with clothes (nearly all of them black), Johnny’s storehouse of guns and explosives (Church swore that survivalists had the best swap meets, and he definitely knew where to shop), Kyra’s potions and powders and talismans and relics.
Among this singularly Amerikkan shrapnel lay a coffin-shaped matte black box with a red velvet lining. This was one of Johnny Church’s prized possessions: a limited edition boxed set containing a collection of CDs by a punk band out of some New Jersey hellhole. The Blasphemers were, as far as the shrunken head was concerned, Johnny Church’s kind of band all the way—big, muscular morons who toted their instruments as if they were machine guns. Heavy on the Halloween gimmickry, with a double dose of death’s head packaging.
All this came courtesy of the band’s lead singer and one-man brain trust, Erik Hearse. Hearse and his boys had risen from nothing in the mid-seventies and early eighties with an act that featured guillotines and strippers and bloodthirsty brain-splitting guitar work, and they’d stuck around long enough to enjoy a revival with the latest horror rock crowd. At present Hearse was as hot as hot got—with a major label deal, a guaranteed track on any horror movie soundtrack CD, and a line of merch that ranged from T-shirts to video games to comic books, shot glasses, and condoms.
It was all a lot of crap, Raymondo thought. Including the coffin- shaped box set, which included the band’s signature songs, plus enough outtakes and live tracks to send a hero-worshipping idiot like Johnny Church to his knees with his head bowed Muslim-style toward the New Jersey hellhole that had given birth to Hearse and his raw, driving music.
Such was the depth of Johnny’s belief Raymondo knew that to be true.
Just as he knew that the time had come to use that belief against the poor, overstimulated musclehead.
‘“Black Mariah,”’ Raymondo mused out loud. It was the title of one of the band’s hardcore punk-pop masterpieces, to hear Johnny Church tell it. To Raymondo, it was nothing but a trash heap’s worth of noise.
“Huh?” Johnny said, missing the connection. “What the fuck are you goin’ on about now, Raymondo?”
“‘Black Mariah,’” the shrunken head repeated ominously. “Put it on, Johnnyboy. Let’s hear it one last time. Because that’s what you’re driving tonight, and pretty soon you’ll be as dead as your passengers.”
“Get real, Raymondo.”
“Are you afraid of the truth, Johnnyboy?”
“Truth?” The driver waved a scornful hand. “Dropped that word from my vocabulary a long time ago, little buddy. Along with a fistful of other words: conscience and morality, guilt and innocence, responsibility and obligation. While I was at it, I shit-canned all those little phrases most people live by: A penny saved is a penny earned. . . . Brush after every meal. . . . Truth, justice, and the American way. Said adios to ten fingers’ worth of commandments, too. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of my favorites. I tell ya, Raymondo, the only church I attend is the Church of
“Bite me, little man.”
But Raymondo was not so easily deterred. “Then, Johnnyboy, when the Crow’s sidekick is done preparing that order, he’ll make Kyra here eat the plate of pasta that used to be your head.” The shrunken head grinned. “Extra red sauce? Perhaps a nice pinot noir, my dear?”
“Get real,” Johnny said. “You saw what happened back there at the trading post—it was the Crow who ran, not us.”
Raymondo endeavored to let the matter drop. He stared at the backseat, at the crazy amalgam of belongings Kyra and Johnny required for their one-way road trip—a couple battered suitcases crammed with clothes (nearly all of them black), Johnny’s storehouse of guns and explosives (Church swore that survivalists had the best swap meets, and he definitely knew where to shop), Kyra’s potions and powders and talismans and relics.
Among this singularly Amerikkan shrapnel lay a coffin-shaped matte black box with a red velvet lining. This was one of Johnny Church’s prized possessions: a limited edition boxed set containing a collection of CDs by a punk band out of some New Jersey hellhole. The Blasphemers were, as far as the shrunken head was concerned, Johnny Church’s kind of band all the way—big, muscular morons who toted their instruments as if they were machine guns. Heavy on the Halloween gimmickry, with a double dose of death’s head packaging.
All this came courtesy of the band’s lead singer and one-man brain trust, Erik Hearse. Hearse and his boys had risen from nothing in the mid-seventies and early eighties with an act that featured guillotines and strippers and bloodthirsty brain-splitting guitar work, and they’d stuck around long enough to enjoy a revival with the latest horror rock crowd. At present Hearse was as hot as hot got—with a major label deal, a guaranteed track on any horror movie soundtrack CD, and a line of merch that ranged from T-shirts to video games to comic books, shot glasses, and condoms.
It was all a lot of crap, Raymondo thought. Including the coffin- shaped box set, which included the band’s signature songs, plus enough outtakes and live tracks to send a hero-worshipping idiot like Johnny Church to his knees with his head bowed Muslim-style toward the New Jersey hellhole that had given birth to Hearse and his raw, driving music.
Such was the depth of Johnny’s belief Raymondo knew that to be true.
Just as he knew that the time had come to use that belief against the poor, overstimulated musclehead.
‘“Black Mariah,”’ Raymondo mused out loud. It was the title of one of the band’s hardcore punk-pop masterpieces, to hear Johnny Church tell it. To Raymondo, it was nothing but a trash heap’s worth of noise.
“Huh?” Johnny said, missing the connection. “What the fuck are you goin’ on about now, Raymondo?”
“‘Black Mariah,’” the shrunken head repeated ominously. “Put it on, Johnnyboy. Let’s hear it one last time. Because that’s what you’re driving tonight, and pretty soon you’ll be as dead as your passengers.”
“Get real, Raymondo.”
“Are you afraid of the truth, Johnnyboy?”
“Truth?” The driver waved a scornful hand. “Dropped that word from my vocabulary a long time ago, little buddy. Along with a fistful of other words: conscience and morality, guilt and innocence, responsibility and obligation. While I was at it, I shit-canned all those little phrases most people live by: A penny saved is a penny earned. . . . Brush after every meal. . . . Truth, justice, and the American way. Said adios to ten fingers’ worth of commandments, too. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of my favorites. I tell ya, Raymondo, the only church I attend is the Church of
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