“Then what are we?” I demanded. “In the metaphor, I mean. Since we’re not demons or angels or humans.”
Lily laughed. “You’re the traffic cops, boyos! For when all the lights fail.”
After contemplating that a moment, Remi said, “Well, that just tickles me plumb to death.”
And I, whose annoyance and adrenaline had run out at pretty much the same time on a wave of weariness—we’d been up for something like thirty-six hours, plus hiked a mountain and killed shit—slid down deep in the chair and stretched out my legs. Planted an elbow on the chair arm and propped up my head against a hand. Around a yawn, I said, “At least they’re hot.”
Lily was not following. “What’s hot?”
I waved my hand in an indistinct gesture. “You three. Legion, Lily, and Greg.” I allowed my eyes to drift closed.
“Well, I’ve only seen two of the three ladies,” Remi said, “but I’ll agree with you on those counts. Yup. Pretty as twelve acres of pregnant red hogs.”
For a moment I assumed I’d heard that wrong because I was just on the verge of a coma. But no. I hadn’t.
My eyes snapped open. “Did you seriously just compare women to hogs? Do you even know how many women would have your ’nads for that?”
Remi quirked a brow. “It’s just an old Texas saying. I didn’t make it up.”
I looked at Lily to gauge her reaction.
She smiled, lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, said, “If all the boyo wants are hogs in his bed, that’s one way to make sure of it.”
A slow but distinct parade of considerations crossed Remi’s face. Finally he said, “I might could retire that one.”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed pointedly; preferring, in the interests of male solidarity, that Remi survive.
He said, rather mournfully, “But to a man who loves bacon—”
Lily advised, “Shut up, Remi.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Smart man.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With the dinette transformed to a bed—McCue took the pull-out sofa bed—I slept hard for several hours, rousing only when the scent of coffee permeated my senses. I discovered Remi up and pouring mugs full; Lily, the cowboy said, had taken the dog for a walk.
I crawled out of the sleeping bag Lily’d thrown at me, staggered my way to the bathroom, staggered back out and accepted the mug Remi offered. After drinking half of it, the staggers went away, and I felt alert again. It was verging on afternoon, but it felt like morning.
“You drink this much booze all the time?” McCue asked in an idleness underscored with—something. “I mean, God knows I party now and then, and I can hold my beer, but you been hitting the hard stuff.”
“Three days,” I murmured, rubbing my forehead.
It baffled him. “Three days what?”
“Three days of drinking after eighteen months with no booze,” I explained. “I think I may be forgiven.”
His eyes went blank, and I knew what he was thinking.
“I’m not on the wagon,” I said. “Not working the program. Best explanation: the wagon got stolen and locked in someone’s barn.” I stretched, cracked my spine.
“If you say so.” Remi swallowed coffee. “Can you run me down to my truck in a bit? I feel lost without my wheels.”
That’s right, his truck was still at the Zoo Club. “Sure.” I wandered into the garage, squatted at the cabinetry, began pulling open drawers.
Guns, ammunition, knives, flasks, bottles of a clear liquid and something oily, myriad tins and packets of herbs, bags of silver shot, boxes of bullets and cartridges, a loose substance that smelled like iron, an array of equipment used for making bullets and filling shotgun cartridges, knife sharpening stones, polishing cloths, chamois. In the deepest drawer was a stack of multi-sized bowls made of wood, brass, silver, steel, iron, and heavy glass, some carved with glyphs, some markedly plain. Small tripods, bowl rings with legs, clear glass containers of various liquid substances including something the dark, rich red of aged blood.
I found, too, a drawer containing sharpened stakes and crucifixes.
“You gotta be shitting me . . .” I took out one of the stakes, examined it. It was perhaps eighteen inches long, of a gnarled, striped wood, smooth, polished to a sheen akin to glass. It was twisted, with silver set throughout. The wood felt silky in my hands, and warm. Almost alive. Carved into the butt end was a Christian cross.
Remi had followed me. Now he leaned a shoulder against the wall, threw most of his weight to one leg, crossed a booted ankle over the other casually, cradled a mug in one palm. “A week ago, I was at a rodeo. Rode me a saddle bronc, bareback bronc, even a bull. Made it to the buzzer on the broncs, but that big old bull threw me off like I was a fly perched atop his back. He swatted me good. There I was in the dirt, and that old boy ducked his head and tried to hook me. I saw that horn comin’ down from above, comin’ right at me, and I thought: I’ll die, or I won’t, but I’ll know one way or another in under two seconds.”
I looked up at him. McCue’s face was pensive, but his eyes strangely calm, considering he was talking about nearly being gored by a bull. “Yeah?”
“Clown distracted him, another got me on my feet, and I jumped up on the fence as that old bull headed through the alleyway. It wasn’t but ten minutes later, just as I picked up my gear bag, that Grandaddy called. Said I was needed, summoned me here. But he didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. He trained me just to answer whatever he suggested.”
I nodded. “Didn’t tell me anything, either, just that he wanted to meet me here. I was up in Oregon. I’ve always done what the man asked of me, never even asked ‘how high’ when he suggested I jump. Just did it. But had I known about this . . . I don’t know. Not sure I’d have come.” I ran a hand through long hair, pushed it off my face. “Hard to wrap my head around, you know? But I remember things—things he said when I was growing up. They made no sense then, but . . .” I let it trail off, because I still wasn’t sure what I thought of anything, of anything at all to do with angels, demons, Lucifer, the End of Days, and any other crazy thing Grandaddy had alluded to.
“And now they do,” Remi finished. “Make sense, I mean. It’s the craziest damn thing I’ve ever heard, what he told us the other night. They oughta lock me up for even thinkin’ it might be real.”
I knew what was coming. “But.”
“But,” Remi agreed. “Then I stand right here and look at what’s in those drawers and cabinets, and I remember what we did last night. What we killed. Or whatever it was we did to those—things. And right now that piece of wood you’re holding might could be something meant to kill vampires, if all the folktales are true.” He smiled, drank down some of his coffee. “That’s your wheelhouse. So—are they true, those stories? We going all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on their sparkly little undead asses?”
I dropped the stake back into the drawer, closed it and rose. “Hell if I know. But something tells me we’re going to find out. Because beacon or no beacon, something’s happening. Grandaddy sure as hell seemed to sprout wings out there on that mountain. Then there’s our own personal Irish goddess, a demon in a hot chick’s body, and a third chick warning me that you and I are being set up by celestial beings with ulterior motives. Not exactly Charlie and his angels.” Skewed humor bubbled up. “Hell, with Grandaddy in the mix, in this case Charlie is an angel.”
After a moment, Remi’s tone changed. “I heard what Grandaddy said about your parents. But you’ve got a brother, right?”
I thought about my parents, who I hadn’t seen for eighteen months—my cop father not being inclined to visit a son in prison, and backed up by my mother—and my brother, home for Sunday dinner, whom I’d floored with a single punch the day before I left to answer Grandaddy’s summons.
And while in prison I thought about having a normal life to go back to, but
I didn’t, really. Just a bike and the open road. Matty would know why, because it was his fault my normal life was over. It always was his fault. But now he wouldn’t have me to pull his ass out of the fire.
I hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Yeah, I’ve got a brother. Let’s leave it at that.”
McCue was very quiet for a long moment. “I’ve got a daughter. She’s two. But she lives with her mother, who’s got a new beau, and I don’t hardly get to see her. Maybe twice a year, if I’m lucky.” He grimaced. “I guess now I won’t even have that.”
He straightened, pushed off the wall, headed swiftly back toward the living quarters while I stared after him.
* * *
—
Remi left his hat behind when I ran him down to the Zoo Club on the motorcycle. When the bike rumbled its way into the gravel-and-cinder lot, we discovered a police SUV parked next to Remi’s silver pickup. I felt a familiar pinch of apprehension in my gut, even though it was wholly illogical; I was out of prison by some arcane maneuvering of a celestial being, so I didn’t think that was the issue. Probably someone suspected the truck had been abandoned, since it had been parked between the tree and building for well over twelve hours. I goosed the throttle enough to roll the bike slowly toward the truck to drop off Remi.
An officer stood at the driver’s door, hands cupped around his eyes to peer into the interior. As I halted the bike nearby, I felt Remi unwind himself from behind me, the shift of weight off the bike; felt the brief clap upon my shoulder that spoke of thanks. I intended to pull out again, but something made me pause. Something made me turn off the engine, remove my helmet, and wait.
“Officer!” Remi called, raising a hand as he walked beyond the patrol SUV toward the driver’s side of his truck. “Sorry about that. I got a little liquored up last night, and this feller—” he hooked a thumbed over his shoulder in my direction, “—kept my drunk ass off the streets. I do apologize. I’ll get that outta here right quick.”
The officer straightened, turned to McCue with a smile, took a few steps away from the driver’s door. He was young and fit in a dark navy uniform, with a peak-crowned, round-brimmed trooper’s hat, and a spray of freckles across his face. “Sure thing. But can I see license and registration, just to make sure everything’s in order?”
“’Course.” Remi unlocked the truck and pulled registration info out of it, then handed it and license to the cop, who accepted them with thanks but didn’t even glance at them.
In the same friendly tone, as he looked across the truck bed at me, he said, “You lit ’em up nice and bright two days ago inside this building. I think all of us within a five hundred square mile radius felt it. Now you’re broadcasting loud and clear.”
I felt a wash of ice down my spine as I realized the magnitude of our stupidity. Over two days we had been warned multiple times by multiple people, and yet here we were, both exposed with no weapons that might work against this kind of enemy. We’d left everything at the motorhome. Hell, Lily didn’t even know where we were.
Newbies, indeed. Dipshitiots.
Swearing prodigiously, I dropped my helmet even as I threw a leg over the bike and pushed upright onto both feet, reaching back for the KA-BAR at my spine as I took three long running steps toward the truck. Remi vaulted up into the cab and dove for the open glovebox.
The surrogate in a cop’s body, meanwhile, just smiled at us benignly, even as I paused at the back of the truck with the knife gripped in my hand while Remi dug a revolver from the glovebox.
I exchanged a glance with McCue, and saw the same question in the cowboy’s eyes. What the hell do we do now?
“Broad daylight, here, where anyone can see you,” observed the demon, “and just what are you boys planning to do? Kill a cop? Because you’re not currently packing what can kill me. It’s the host who’ll die. Besides—” he spread his hands in a non-threatening gesture, “—right now I’m just saying hello to the new kids on the block.”
The cop stood several long paces away from the open truck door, where Remi had placed himself behind the wheel with his torso turned outward and two hands steadying the revolver. He flicked another quick, questioning glance at me, and I felt a sense of helplessness well up along with anger.
“That was quite an auspicious beginning last night, taking out two of us,” the demon continued, “particularly for rookies. You are to be commended. But don’t get too cocky; those were just rank-and-filers. Lesser demons. Cannon fodder, as it turns out. Now, my paygrade’s higher, and if you boys want to take a few shots at me, cut me with that KA-BAR, you go right ahead. A report on a certain silver Texas truck has already been called in. My host ends up dead or wounded? It’s not me who’ll suffer.”
“Then what the hell do you want?” I asked. “We just going to stand out here all morning monologuing like in a bad TV show?”
The young cop still looked friendly and cheerful, lacking the alpha aggressiveness of some law enforcement officers even if he did rest the heel of his hand upon the holstered gun. “Well, actually I was here as cleanup detail. While those two ghosts didn’t leave any bodies, per se, you did cut the connection between the hosts and their cohabitants. That means there are the remains of two of my brethren still inside that building. They’re dead, as humans reckon such things, but there are remains, just as with human bodies. We look after our own.” He shrugged. “Everyone comes home.”
Remi, still tucked up in the open truck cab with the gun in his hands, sounded scandalized. “Home to hell?”
Which did strike me as a rather odd thing, now that I thought about it. Did hell view its demons as soldiers? Were there rituals and rules?
“Or Hades, bottomless pit, underworld, the habitation of fallen angels . . .” the cop went on, then waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t really matter what name you hang on it. It’s still just home to us, and the sooner I get those two back there, the sooner they’ll be reconstituted. So no, I’m not here for you; I don’t have the time. There’ll be others along directly who feel a little differently. In the meantime, have a nice day. Oh, and—happy birthday. Welcome to the war.”
I saw a pixilation in the air, the displacement of delineated image, now all jagged and broken up. A sudden blast of grit-laden air at my face made me duck aside and thrust a warding hand into the air, but too late to prevent the wash of irritation in my eyes. I smelled the rich, cloying stench, tasted it as I swore and wiped involuntary tears away from my cheeks with the back of my hand.
When my eyes cleared, I saw the cop had disappeared. “Where the hell did he go?”
Remi slid out of the truck and dropped to the ground, holding the gun down along one thigh. “He said he was here for the remains. I’m betting he’s inside the building collecting what’s left of those demons.”
“Yeah, well . . . now what?”
“We take him out,” McCue replied, heading for the roadhouse. “Ain’t that what we’re for? Besides, he’s got my license and registration. Come on, son, let’s go in after him before he grabs up those remains, takes ’em to hell, and they get . . . what’d he say—reconstituted? Yeah. That.”
In two jogging strides I caught up. “Take him out with what, Tex? You can’t use your six-shooter on a cop, now, can you?”
“I could,” McCue offered, moving swiftly. “Or you could, since you’re the one so handy with a gun. You could shoot him in the leg.”
I was astonished. “Shoot him in the leg? What the hell for?”
“I reckon a demon would rather have a host that wasn’t ventilated,” Remi answered. “We might could maybe drive out the demon that way.”
“Oh yeah—and then when the cop realizes I shot him, he’ll thank me? I don’t think so. Because how do we know if the guy will realize his body was borrowed by a demon? I’m not shooting him!”
“Well, it was just an idea,” McCue said. “But I got a bet
ter one anyway. Let’s go throw Latin at that sucker instead.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was a half-assed plan, but I couldn’t think of a better one. We really couldn’t shoot or stab the host. I mean, did the cop even know he was being, what—ridden? Possessed? Would he be sane once we exorcized the demon? Hell, would he even be alive?
Grandaddy had said the learning curve was steep. Lily’d said we’d pick up details as we went along. Of course, that was supposing we survived long enough to learn anything at all.
“You go around back,” McCue suggested. “Pick that lock if it needs doing. I’ll try the front door.”
We moved stride for stride toward the building, then split up. I headed around back, wondering if there was any way I might distract the surrogate if I beat Remi inside. I didn’t know the Latin for the rite. Hell, I didn’t even know if exorcism actually worked.
The surrogate could have killed us, I suspected. He hadn’t. I wanted to know why. I mean, as a cop he could have shot us both, I suppose, then crafted a story after the fact, but that would draw a lot of attention from police department to reporters and prevent him from collecting the remains of the surrogates Remi and I had killed. For some reason that seemed to matter a great deal. Everyone comes home, he’d said.
Home to hell for reconstitution? Then sent back into the field to find more hosts?
Around back, I pulled open the screen door quietly, then closed a hand around the knob. Tried it. It turned, the tongue-latch gave, and I eased the door open.
Remi was already inside. Remi was chanting.
I moved swiftly through the pool tables and found the cowboy standing in the middle of the dance floor as he let the Latin of the Rituale Romanum roll from his tongue. I heard nothing of Texas in it, just smooth vowels and consonants, an easy familiarity with the cadences and inflections.
Before him, on hands and knees, the cop was vomiting. But it wasn’t food or liquid he was bringing up. Wasn’t yellow-frothed bile. Neither was it smoke, nor light. It was gout after gout of something black and shiny, glinting in the light.
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