Author's Note: First off, I do not own The Crow. Second off, I don't like the movie sequels, so this fic will be disregarding them. It takes place eighteen years after the first one. Third off, this is not my first Crow fanfic, I had previously written another one and then took it off, but I decided to start fresh. Fourth and final off, hope you enjoy!
The Crow: No Rest for the Wicked
"She it is, she, that found me
In the morphia honeymoon;
With silk and steel she bound me
In her poisonous milk she drowned me,
Even now her arms surround me."
— Aleister Crowley.
Detective Marissa Louise Dalle had a long night at work and she was ready to go home. She started up the car with the radio on belting out rock music on her favorite station. She took out a cigarette and a lighter to take a few puffs before throwing it out the window. She took a left turn to The Pit, her favorite bar.
Maybe a drink will take the edge off. Dalle thought as she reeled over the events that took place tonight.
Two young women were found battered and broken and left for dead out on East Jesus Nowhere in Michigan. The trucker who found them called the police. Dalle was called into the scene for an investigation. It looked like one of the girls tried to fight off whoever attacked her, but apparently, there were too many, too fast. She was struggling for movement, but she was holding the other girl's hand and trying to comfort that girl who lay motionless beside her. There was blood everywhere, so one of the first priorities was calling the paramedics to make sure the young women would be in good hands. Unfortunately, the motionless girl was pronounced Dead on Arrival and the other girl would not let go of her, reacting violently when they tried to have her let go of the dead girl's hand.
One thing that was odd about this entire thing was that there was a crow (or raven?) standing over the girl. The paramedics shooed the bird away once they managed to put the surviving girl in the ambulance, but the bird followed the ambulance car all the way to the hospital. Dalle arrived at the hospital in time but was stopped by one of the doctors.
She identified herself as a detective and identified the reason for visiting the unknown patient.
"I'm sorry, but she won't be of much help even if she was cooperative." The doctor said sadly.
"What do you mean 'Won't be of much help'?" Dalle asked.
"The patient has suffered brain damage. We don't know how extensive it is, but it doesn't look good. We had asked her four simple questions: Who are you? Where are you? What day is it? What were you doing? She said the same thing over and over." She answered.
"What exactly did she say?" Dalle asked, dreading the answer.
"When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs."
Dear God, Dalle thought, as she asked, "May I see how she's doing right now?"
"Five minutes."
"Okay." Dalle said as the doctor lead her to the room where the patient was being kept.
There in the hospital bed, a young woman, possibly in her late twenties/early thirties lay suffering, with bruises, cuts, and burns all over. The major ones were bandaged up. her long hair was blonde, but had black tips at the ends. She was laden with tattoos on her arms, chest, and god knows where else. She glared at Dalle and said "When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs."
"I'm sorry about what happened to you and your friend-"
"When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs."
"I know it must be hard-"
"When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs." The girl said louder, beginning to shake violently.
"I promise I will do everything in my power to do what-"
"When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs!" The girl shouted, grabbing the closest item near her, which was a foam cup with ice in it and throwing it across the room, hitting the wall where Dalle was.
The nurses entered the room where they tried to put her under control While Dalle was escorted out of the room by the same doctor she talked to.
"If anything else happens, you'll be the first to know." The doctor informed Dalle as she handed her the hospital contact number.
"Thank you." Dalle said as she left to go back to her car.
Outside, as Dalle pressed the button on the car key remote and approached her car, she heard a caw and found that same crow on top of her car.
"Hi bird." Dalle said to it. "Your friend's not doing too good."
The crow billowed out a loud "CAAAAAW!" that sounded mournful and Dalle could not help but feel sorry for it. The crow then flew off somewhere and Dalle didn't think to look where it was headed. She opened her car door, started the car and drove away from the hospital.
Dalle could still picture the girl's angry face in her mind. It was as if she was angry at more than just Dalle, as if her pain went back years ago. But since she was the only one available, she took it out on her. Anger, mixed with pain, sadness and god knows what else.
What has that girl gone through that made her like that? Dalle wondered to herself as she made a turn and drove into the parking lot where The Pit was. Once she got out of the car she got out her pepper spray. One downside to her favorite bar was that it was in a bad part of town. Luckily, there were no leches out for the moment as she came in.
"Hey Detective." The bartender greeted. He was a graying aged man who looked like he'd seen more than his fair share of bad things happening over the years.
"Hey Lars." Dalle greeted back.
"So what'll it be? The usual?" The bartender, now named Lars asked.
"You know me all too well." Dalle laughed.
"Comin' right up!" Lars said as he pulled out a pint glass and filled it with a beer on tap and handed it to Dalle.
"Thanks. Keep the change" Dalle said as she handed out a ten dollar bill to the bartender.
"So, How was your day?" Lars asked, taking the money.
"Alright, I guess. Investigating a homicide." Dalle answered as she started to drink.
"Already?"
"Two young women. One dead, the other in the hospital. Doesn't look like the typical 'mugging a lady' crime. Looks like whoever did that took time out of their day for full on torture." Dalle took another sip of her beer.
"Well, shit!"
"Tell me about it." Dalle lit up another cigarette to puff.
"Is the surviving girl ok?"
"She's awake, but her speech is kinda limited to just one sentence. 'When the hangman jokes, nobody laughs', something like that."
"Wait, that sounds familiar, but it's on the tip of my tongue."
"Well, if it starts coming back to you, let me know. Any information you can give me helps." As Dalle finished her beer, she grabbed a napkin and a pen and wrote her number and gave it to Lars.
"Thanks. Good night."
"You too." Dalle replied as she grabbed her jacket and purse and left the bar.
Dalle yawned as she took the long route home because the usual shortcut was under construction. She was tired and could use a very long nap. The beer didn't help much except for making her more tired than she should be. Once she got home, she would be ready to crash.
Riiing! Dalle checked her phone: It was the hospital number that was given to her.
"Hello?" She answered.
"Is this Detective Marissa Dalle?" The caller asked.
"Yes. You calling about the girl patient admitted here a while ago?"
"Yes. I'm afraid we've got some bad news."
"What is it?"
"This patient's head injury wasn't what we hoped for. It was much worse."
Dalle could feel her stomach fall faster the more news she got.
"Apparently, it was what we call an epidural hematoma. It was already bleeding badly. We were going to fix it, but, it was already too late. She didn't make it."
"Okay. Thanks." Dalle said in a monotone voice as she hung up, thinking about nothing but the girl as she drove the rest of the way home. If she was not distracted by the bad news along with driving, she would have noticed something even stranger than what she thought she had seen in the new now-double homicide. It was a woman in a tattered black Victorian mourning dress, her face obscured by an equally tattered hood from an equally tattered cloak, a deer skull painted with black markings adorning her head. Her hair tousled and messed up and holding a crow on her arm. This Woman in Black turned her head to see Dalle driving her car further and further until it was out of view.
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