Stepping out onto the glistening sidewalk, Sarah looked to the grey night sky and made her way to the street. Too much rain made it tough not to flip her board, but anything was better than another night alone in a dumpy apartment. Darla was out, probably getting drunk or stoned, most likely both, and if she were to stumble through the door she would be pretty much useless as a mother anyways, but then Sarah was used to this. Sighing, she dropped her board and hopped on. She didn't see the taxi as it sped along, not until strong arms were wrapping tightly around her, lifting her easily, as she was pulled back to the tune of an angry car horn sent echoing through the dense night air.

"Let go you creep!

She struggled in his arms until he released her and then barely looking his way, Sarah turned her attention back to the street, "You need to slow down you dickhead!"

When she turned back to him, the painted…clown; he was leaning into the lamp post, his back to her.

"He couldn't have stopped…"

"He was a butt face. I could have made it…" Leaning towards him in an effort to see his face, "What are you supposed to be, a clown or something?" Her voice once filled with pre-teen annoyance turned to gentle curiosity as she regarded him.

"Sometimes…"

Who was this guy, and where was he going dressed like that, a Halloween party? If so, he was a day early. Devil's night wasn't over, not yet.

Spotting her skateboard, Sarah moved away from him, "It's more like surfing then skating. I wish the rain would stop, just once." She pressed a foot on the edge of her board and shot it up to her waiting hand.

"It can't rain all the time…"

"Eric?

She turned around, but he was gone. There was nothing behind her but the wet, empty street….

XXXXX

He was perched atop the rusted iron of the fire escape, his sole companion, the crow; its thin bird feet dancing in agitation upon his shoulder, as if ready for flight. These movements went ignored at first. Eric's mind was elsewhere. His mind was on the wet streets below, on the little girl that belonged anywhere but.

Sarah...

When he grabbed her from the clutches of danger, from the racing taxi that sped her toward a sure death, it had all come back to him; who she was and her significance to him, the friendship of a life passed such luxuries; of a life he could no longer be a part of, a life that was dead to him or at least it was supposed to be.

Images of the small girl's smile, the echoes of her laughter fled like precious vapor as the raven dark head jerked up, as if called to sudden attention, and then lifted into the humid night air. The bird's passage drew dark, smoky eyes to the grey sky, as Eric followed his winged companion's flight.

His scuffed black boots hit the streets then, as he dropped to the ground, the echoes of his heels on the wet pavement the only sound in the dark night. The streets however, were not empty, but merely quiet, its inhabitants tucked away for the night, hidden within boxes, in the shadows of dumpsters, dark alleys filled with silent, silken nightmares that had subsequently replaced all that was light, all hopes and dreams.

He would not wake them, these street dwellers. They were not what he was searching for this night. They were not on his list of those deserving to be laid to rest, though some of them might welcome the gentle caress of death, the sighing reprieve it would grant them from this existence.

No, Eric Draven was not looking to kill merely for the sake of killing, he had a list carved into his soul; the names embedded in his skin, marrow and sinew…forevermore…His only hope, to erase them, to wash them alight with blood. Only when his retribution had been measured out, only then could he seek her out.

Shelly…

The Crow flew silently above this lone traveler's dark head, keeping company with the clouds. A low caw could be heard and then it picked up speed, its jet black feathers beating overtime as it sailed forward scoping out its prey, scoping out Eric's prey. The bird would find what it was looking for as it's familiar looked on, seeing within this bird's eye view, feeling the wind upon his face, its fingers in his hair as if it were he coasting below the clouds, at hunt.

As he walked, the street lights, what few remained in this part of Detroit, shone vertically upon Eric's harlequin features, the grease paint lending him an almost ghostly glow and pallor his normal warm skin tones had never given off, not even in the dead of a Michigan winter. He was no longer living, yet his blood was pumping through his veins, his body would be warm to the touch. Reanimated fully; invincible, surely, and he would need to be if he were to attend to this business at hand. And there was business he would have to attend to.

His eyes not seeing the dark, decrepit buildings before him honed in on the couple. The two were on a mattress, the dirty sheets beneath them littered with drug paraphernalia. Suddenly the woman, Sarah's mother, Darla, and this knowledge made Eric's jaw tighten, was looking at him. No, she wasn't looking at him, but at this sleek, dark extension of him, The Crow.

He saw her lips move silently and then he was leaping onto the window sill, Fun boy's voice filling his ears, the morphine delirium present in the high, shrill cadence of his words. "Here birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. Here birdie, birdie, birdie," laughter then, as if any of this should be funny, as if Fun boy would be laughing mere minutes, no, count them, seconds from now.

Eric, hopped to the floor, his boots leaving the paint chipped sill, his guitar slung along his arm as he brought it around to the front of his lithe form.

His boots creaked along the dirty floor, "…Here Fun boy…"

Startled, glazed eyes moved from bird to man. "What the fuck?"

Eric stopped below the bare, dead bulb hanging from the ceiling and lifted his chin slightly to trace his forehead along the cool glass of 100 watts of useless illumination as he studied the pair, his dark eyes wide, more vibrant, more alive as he regarded them coolly.

Suddenly, he was rushing the bed, his skilled fingers running along the neck of the guitar making the instrument screech, "Oh man, don't do that! You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack!" Fun boy seemed to relax almost for a moment.

Now this, this was funny to Eric, that this scum should feel a moment of relief that this was not some beast; some monster crawled from its hidey hole beneath his bed…come flitting through his window with mirth and might to steal a soul hardly worthy of stealing.

"Time to take your bird and leave, freak," the gun was drawn, the backbone behind the courage, no doubt; the real reason behind Fun boy's confidence, that and what could be shot out of a syringe. Somehow this was even more amusing to Eric.

Grabbing a chair, he scraped it along the bare floor and straddled it, his arm shooting out to press his palm flush against the barrel of the revolver. "Take your shot, Fun boy, you got me dead bang."

"You are seriously fucked up. You need professional help!" The gun followed this statement with a bellowing of its own, the bullet moving cleanly through reanimated flesh. Eric jumped up, his amusement leading him to clown, to add drama to this performance, to give a moment's belief that he was actually wounded and in pain, that Fun boy stood a chance in this game.

This game…

"He shoots, he scores!" Fun boy had fallen for it, like a fish on a big fucking hook."

"Ah, ah, ah, ah…" Turning, this bellow of pain changed, the laughter ringing out as Eric lifted his hand to show the damage, the light from the window shining through this momentary stigmata. The blood was real all right, its bright relief a deep shade of crimson as it drenched his wrist, as it ran freely along his forearm. Still he laughed, a demented sound echoing along the dank walls and dusty floor of the small room. But as he looked through the jagged hole of the wound, his eyes on his prey, his laughter died, but it was spent only briefly. Soon he was laughing again at the incredulous look on Fun boy's face when the wound shrank and healed before stupefied eyes.

"Jesus Christ…"

"Jesus Christ...Stop me if you've heard this one. Jesus Christ walks into a hotel…" The gun blast stopped him for a moment, the bullet slamming into Eric's shoulder eliciting a playful, "Ow!"

Fun boy, still thinking he was in control of the situation laughed for a moment as Darla cowered helplessly on the mattress at his antsy, dancing feet.

"He hands the innkeeper three nails and he asks…" Another blast, this one to the chest, pushed Eric back with force and he faltered for another moment, but then lifted his head to meet Fun boy's stare dead on.

"Don't you ever fucking die?!" Fun boy was reacting just as Eric had hoped that he would, like the scared little pussy that most of his kind usually turned out to be if confronted alone, without their posse.

"Can you put me up for the night?" He was offering the punch line in lieu of an answer when Fun boy cocked the gun and raised it back up.

Eric jumped at him, shoving the barrel downward as the bullet crashed out of its chamber. The blow dropped Fun boy to the mattress, as the bullet slammed into unresisting flesh, his squeals equaling that of a stuck pig at slaughter, as he clutched his oozing thigh. The gun having been cast away lay off to the side now, seemingly forgotten.

"Does that hurt?"

Darla hurried passed Eric as he reached and grabbed the gun. He let her go. He could hear the bathroom door opening and closing behind him. Good, she was safe now.

Fun boy was whimpering, his eyes not completely focusing as he looked around him at the blood, "Look what you've done to my sheets," this was uttered as he fell backwards onto the mattress as if lifeless.

Was he dead? No, not yet. Tossing the gun aside, Eric grabbed Fun boy by one foot and began to drag him across the floor. He needed to wake him up for this.

We wouldn't want Fun boy to miss all the fun, now would we?

The bathroom shower would do nicely. Kicking open the bathroom door, Eric shot Sarah's mother a warning glance where she sat whimpering and then he dragged Fun boy the remaining distance to the bath tub.

The images in his head, images of that night, assaulted him then, Fun boy unbuttoning his pants as he hovered over Shelly, "I got this gun in my pocket…You happy to see me?"

Shelly...

He shoved these painful memories aside using his anger as a catalyst, and dropped the dead weight of his load into the tub and cranked on the cold water, bringing the shower to life.

Would he let this man ruin yet another young woman's life, the future of a bright young girl?

Turning, he looked at Sarah's mother, the fear shining brightly in her drugged out eyes.

Darla did not know that he had saved her daughter earlier that night from a speeding car. Just as Eric could not know that later that very same night he would be called upon to save Sarah again. This time on a rain slickened rooftop, from the very man he sought to destroy, from the man that had taken everything from him, or at least given the orders to deliver death to his and Shelly's door.

It was only when he started to approach Darla that she screamed, "Stay away from me…stay away from me!" When he was close enough she swiped at him with a straight razor, but he dodged her first attempt. Her second attempt he met with his hand, grasping her arm until he could jerk the weapon free.

Tossing the blade aside he grabbed Darla and pulled her with him, screaming, to the mirror, where he put a hand across her forehead, locking her head in place, in his efforts to make her see. "Look." When she met the reflection of her own eyes, "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand?"

His hands gripped her arm inches below her track marks then, and he began to squeeze gently, but insistently, pressing as he milked the soft creamy flesh. "Morphine is bad for you." The white liquid oozed out of the fresh wounds recently fed with her cravings and dripped down her arm. Eric could see the amazed, but fearful look in Darla's eyes, first in the mirror and then when she turned to face him. Reaching for her, he cupped her face in his hands, "Your daughter is out there on the streets waiting for you." This was followed by a slight nod to the door as he released his grip on her.

And then she was gone, leaving him to his business. She was hopefully off to find her daughter. To be the mother Sarah not only deserved, but was entitled to by the unspoken right of all children born into this world, even those unsolicited.

Eric would learn little of Sarah's future this night; he was safe only in the assumption that she did indeed have a future.

He would learn more, but that would be for another day…A day when this, his mission was long over, a day when he would be called forth once more from his bed of earth, from rest, and this time from the soft embrace of his love, Shelly.

He would be called back, and when he was, it would be in answer to the soft cawing of a crow…

A different kind of love would demand this return, but a love in its own right just as powerful, just as meaningful as that which had elicited his initial return from death.

…It can't rain all the time…

(Dialog and storyline for this chapter were taken from the movie The Crow. (No copyright infringement meant or intended) I may or may not continue this story. Not sure at the moment, but it is calling to me. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks for reading!)