by SM Reine
He grinned. “No problem.”
Fritz and Isobel emerged from The Pit. “Ready to go?” he asked.
I stood. “Where?”
“I’m making a new task force specifically for internal investigations and special ops. You can select an agent you trust as your partner. I assumed you’d pick Agent Takeuchi. Unless there’s someone else you’d like to nominate?”
“You assumed rightly, sir,” I said. I glanced at my brother. “You good here?”
“I’m fine,” Domingo said, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. “Go play secret agent man.”
+ + +
I was waiting for Suzy when she emerged from the Union detention center. It was in an underground bunker in the middle of the Mojave, probably an hour of driving from the nearest highway on narrow dirt roads. The entrance was hidden inside a big pile of black rocks. Suzy emerged looking disheveled and annoyed. Her suit was rumpled, tie loose around her neck, hair in a messy ponytail.
She stopped a few feet away from me with a dubious look.
“Hey, Suze,” I said. “Bad day?”
“I’ve had better,” she grunted.
“You’ve been declared innocent and the bad guys are dead. What could be better than that?”
“Not being detained in the first place,” Suzy said.
“Good point.”
But she perked up a little. “So they’re dead, huh?” She didn’t give me a chance to explain. She didn’t seem to care. “What the fuck happened with my Glock?”
“It was a mix-up,” I said.
Anger flashed over her features. “Hell of a fucking mix-up.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault.” She tugged the rubber band out of her ponytail. Fine black hair fell around her cheeks. “Fuck, I need a shower.”
I jerked my chin toward the pile of rocks. “What’s it like down there? I’ve always been curious.”
“You don’t want to know.”
Probably true. “Ready to go?”
“Oh yeah.”
I escorted her toward the helicopter that had carried me out to the detention center. Apparently, Union regulations didn’t allow aircraft to park directly on top of the underground construction, so it was a good quarter mile to the north. Fritz and Isobel climbed out as we approached and met us halfway.
“Welcome back, Agent Takeuchi,” Fritz said. “You’ve been reassigned from the Magical Violations Department to a new task force. You’re now Agent Hawke’s partner and will handle special investigations.”
Suzy glowered at him. “A promotion? Right when I’m getting out of a Union detention center?”
“Yes, it’s a promotion. You’ll have much more responsibility.”
“And more pay?”
Fritz was stony-faced. “We’ll see.”
Which meant no.
Damn. I hadn’t thought to ask for more money, but now that Suzy mentioned it, I wouldn’t have minded a raise. I was going to need a new apartment—one where I hadn’t killed a half-succubus—and moving wasn’t cheap. I also really wanted to complete my Star Trek: The Next Generation collection on Blu-ray.
“I accept the promotion,” Suzy said.
Fritz smiled. “Of course you do.”
The helicopter’s rotors hadn’t slowed while we talked. It was ready to take off when we approached. Fritz moved to help Suzy into the helicopter, but she jerked out of reach, giving him the kind of look that could have started engine fires.
I stood back for a moment, letting them pick their seats, buckle in. Isobel waited with me.
A question had been nagging at me since we left The Pit, and I couldn’t help but ask now that we were momentarily alone. “So you and Fritz,” I said, leaning close, keeping my tone low. Nobody would be able to hear us under the helicopter.
Isobel’s cheeks flushed. “Yeah, Fritz and me.”
“Are you…?”
“We used to be.” She quickly added, “But it’s been over for a while. I reminded him. He knows.”
That probably shouldn’t have made me feel as good as it did. The feeling didn’t last long. Ex-girlfriend of my boss? The only woman I could date with even more guilt would be Domingo’s estranged wife.
She climbed into the helicopter. I let Fritz help her up and kept my hands to myself.
I took the seat across from Isobel. “You knew I was going to be assigned to investigate you. So you knew I was coming. And you still dusted me with blister powder in the cemetery.”
Isobel had the courtesy to look embarrassed again. She waited to respond until she had pulled on her headset. Her voice came in over the speakers, flat and crackling with interference. “I thought you might have been with the Needles at the time.” She ducked her head and focused awfully hard on figuring out her buckles. “No hard feelings?”
Suzy was staring fixedly out the window, Fritz absorbed in his Blackberry. Both of them looked disturbed, probably for completely different reasons, but I knew they could hear us over their headsets.
I had a lot of hard feelings about this week and I didn’t think I was the only one. But it was a new day, and apparently, we were coworkers now. Better to move on.
“Naw,” I said. “No hard feelings.”
Fritz pushed his microphone closer to his mouth. “Good, because we have a lot of work to do. I just received a report of anomalous infernal activity in Reno, Nevada, and we’re the closest unit equipped for response.”
“Infernal?” Isobel asked. “You mean demons?”
That wasn’t the problem I had with Fritz’s statement. “How the hell are we equipped? We just got Suzy out of the detention center. We haven’t done any training for demons. We’re barely even a team yet.”
Fritz smirked. “I said internal investigation and special projects. This is special. Are you all ready?”
I was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question, but I exchanged a look with Suzy. For the first time since she’d stepped out of that bunker, there was a spark of mischief in her eye. “Born ready, sir.” Of course this was the kind of thing she’d love. She rolled with the punches better than anyone else I knew.
This was going to be fun.
“Great,” I said. “Let’s go to Reno.”
Hell of a week.
From the Author
Dear Reader:
I hope you’ve enjoyed Cèsar’s story! If you’d like to know when the next Preternatural Affairs novel (Silver Bullet) comes out, visit my website to sign up for my new release email alerts.
You might also be interested in The Descent Series, another series of urban fantasy mysteries that take place in the same world with different characters. (And did I mention that you can get the first three books for free on most major ebook sellers?)
I hope you’ll also leave a review with your thoughts on the site where you bought Witch Hunt—it helps other readers find the series, and I appreciate the feedback!
Happy reading!
Sara (SM Reine)
http://authorsmreine.com/
http://facebook.com/authorsmreine
CALLED
SOUTHERN WATCH: BOOK ONE
ROBERT J. CRANE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Reikonos Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.
1
He came to town riding the wind; when he left, he reckoned he’d do it just about the same way. The thing was, Lafayette Jackson Hendricks had been in the wind a long damned time, and he’d had just about enough of that shit to last a lifetime. In his current occupation, though, that life expectancy was not terribly long compared to most. But that was nothing new. It never had
been, not in either of the occupations he’d chosen in his life.
He reflected on all this as he stepped off the running board of the big Mack truck, the engine brake squealing as he jumped down, an old Marine duffel slung over his back, the strap running over his long black drover coat. It was summer, it was night, and it was raining. The drover coat was a duster that helped keep the rain off him. The black cowboy hat he wore helped even more, but it was still coming down bad enough that his jeans were soaked at the bottom almost as soon as his boots hit the ground. The boots were old and leather and faded from landing in puddles just like this all over the U.S.
Hendricks could hear the subtle click of his heels against the blacktop over the rain as it started to slacken up a little. The semi that had carried him pulled down the ramp back onto the interstate, rumbling out of sight. He pulled up the sleeve of his coat to take a peek at his watch. It was just after ten o’clock.
The smell of the rain was fresh, but the heat was pervasive, even at this time of night, making the rain seem like a warm shower. It was summer, after all, and damned humid, something even the downpour hadn’t been able to alleviate. The taste of dinner from the restaurant where he’d met the trucker who had given him the ride was still lingering on Hendricks’s tongue, and he’d forgotten to buy a pack of gum to replace the one he’d finished somewhere in Kentucky. The mint was sorely missed right now, and he rubbed his tongue uncomfortably against the top of his mouth.
His boots clicked against the pavement, carrying him ahead, and the headlights of a passing car caught a green sign in the distance just enough for him to see it even in the dark of the Tennessee night.
Entering Calhoun County.
+ + +
Archibald “Arch” Stan turned his patrol car around just before the county line, his headlights illuminating a figure walking along the side of the road. It was a guy, a duffel on his back and a black cowboy hat and drover coat keeping the rain off him. The rain was letting up, at least to Arch’s eyes, after a deuce of a downpour only a few minutes earlier. A real frog-strangler, his mother would have said. Gully washer, he’d have called it. In either case, he felt bad for the cowboy who was in it now. He started to pull over to say something to the guy when his radio crackled to life.
“Fifteen, this is Dispatch, come back.”
He hesitated for only a second and he thumbed the mike. “Fifteen here, go ahead.”
“Fifteen, sheriff asks that you return to the station.”
Arch felt a faint swirl of amusement before he clicked the mike on again. “I know, I know, I’m getting perilously close to overtime.”
He could hear laughter in the voice of the dispatcher at the other end of the radio, Erin Harris. “You know the boss likes to pinch those pennies until he can hear Abe Lincoln scream as they're leaving his hand.”
Arch sighed. “Tell him I’ll be clocking out in five. Wouldn’t want to make hard work a habit around here, after all.”
“Damned right. Save that crap for when you’re off the clock,” Harris said, her drawl especially conspicuous over the radio. “Channel it into making your wife happy around the house; it’ll do you more good than trying to bleed overtime dollars out of—” There was a subtle hiss as Harris paused, and when she came back on her tone was more formal. “Uh, we’ll see you in five, Fifteen. Dispatch out.”
Arch grinned. No doubt the sheriff had just popped his head out of his office. “Right you are, Dispatch. Over and out.”
He had been driving steadily the entire time he’d been talking, the black surface of County Highway 12 carrying him east, back toward the town of Midian. He was less than a mile away now, and he gave one last glance behind him to the figure walking along the side of the road. The guy had probably been let off at the interstate bridge by a trucker and was headed toward Midian or parts beyond. Any other quiet night, Arch might have had him get in the back, behind the security grill that kept him separated from arrestees, and given the guy a ride to town. The rain spotted his windshield as he drove, and the faint lights of Midian were just ahead, over the hill. He sighed and watched the drifter disappear behind him as he went down into a dip in the road. No room in the budget for being a nice guy, not in this economy, anyway. He was lucky to still have a law enforcement job, especially in Calhoun County.
“Good luck, Cowboy,” he whispered and put the pedal down on the accelerator. He had to be back at the station in less than five minutes, after all.
+ + +
They called him Hollywood when they thought he wasn’t listening. For the locals, “the city” meant Chattanooga, or Knoxville, maybe Atlanta, the small town hicks. No, when the man they called Hollywood said “the city,” they figured out pretty quickly he was talking about L.A., and his nickname, well, it came pretty shortly after.
In their culture—not southern culture, but their true one, the demon culture—names were power, so you didn’t exchange names, and you damned fucking sure didn’t ask for one, not until one was offered to you. Even these hicks knew better than that, and for just that little bit of etiquette, Hollywood was grateful.
He’d hired four of them, flashing a wad of cash around and doling it out a little at a time. The first hundred was a good start, and the roll he’d carried promised more if he was kept happy with their services. They were all small time, not used to people from Atlanta coming through, he figured, let alone some big-shot big shit from L.A. They all kind of marveled at it, marveled at him, deferred to him. And why shouldn’t they? He was gonna be paying the bills, after all.
“I love it,” Hollywood whispered. He pushed the ponytail off his shoulder, feeling the smooth texture of his pricey suit. The rain had stopped, thankfully, and the quiet of the night was punctuated by the occasional sound of dripping, water making its way down the drainpipes of the metal barn not fifteen feet from where he was standing.
They were just inside a fence, one that the four of them had opened for him, stepping and fetching like he was some kind of royalty. In reality, he was the man with money, which made him royalty around here. Calhoun County offered damned little work for their kind, Hollywood suspected. A patron for them was probably something long-desired. One that drew water like he did … well, that was a bonus, surely. “Seriously,” Hollywood breathed. “I love it.”
One of them had the balls to say it. “Umm … it’s a fucking cow pasture, man.” He quieted down after that, though.
It was a cow pasture. A few acres of fenced-in ground, green in the daylight but barely visible in the night. The smell of manure wafted faintly, suppressed by the recent rain but still there and pungent. The night air was stifling. The rain hadn’t eased the humidity at all; it had just trapped it there, like a prisoner awaiting a release that wasn’t coming anytime soon. It was the sort of shit that caused even Hollywood to sweat, and he wasn’t the kind to sweat easily.
“You know what your problem is?” Hollywood said after a moment’s silence. His Gucci loafers squished in the wet grass. Squished. He grimaced inside, but actor that he was, didn’t let it show. “You lack vision,” he told his enthusiastically waiting audience. These backwoods hicks hung on his every word. And why wouldn’t they? “Exterior—night!” He said, walking forward slowly, almost stalking, his hands held out in front of him forming a square with his fingers and thumbs, as though he were filming something. “A group of demons prepare to bring forth an ancient evil, one that will consume the entirety of the world, ridding it of the plague of those fucking humans—” He said it like a curse, meant it like a curse, like he was talking about the vilest thing ever made, which he was, “—and restore it to the righteous, tipping the scales and …” He stopped and looked back at the four of them, these sad-sack locals, these meth-taking hillbillies who probably didn’t even make enough in a lifetime to afford one Gucci loafer, let alone a pair. “You’re not seeing it, are you?”
There was a pause before the answer, the same ballsy one as before. “It’s a cow pasture, man. You just st
epped in a pie.”
“A … pie?” Hollywood hesitated, then the smell hit him and he felt a little ooze in the shoe. He forced a smile. Acting. He should have been an actor; he would have been genius at it. “Local flavor. That’s what that is.” He inhaled deeply through his nose and regretted it. “Whatever.” He shrugged it off, then opened his eyes and looked for the one with the flannel shirt that was cut off at the shoulders. “You. Bring me my book.”
It took the local just a second to react, then he came running forward with the book, a heavy, leather-bound tome that was absolutely unlike anything they made nowadays. It wasn’t cheap or flimsy. It was … it was like organic produce, dammit, not the factory shit you picked up in the big-box bookstores. Hollywood took it, felt the weight of it in his hands, and opened it up. “It’s probably too much to hope for that any of you boys speak Latin, isn’t it?” He looked at the semi-circle still standing back and then at the one closest to him. “Never mind.” He put on his best ingratiating smile. “Now … where’s the farmer?” There was a pause from the little circle, and he waited for the answer. It didn’t come. “Where’s the fucking farmer?” Hollywood asked again, this time annoyed. Stupid hicks.
“In his house?” came the suggestion a moment later.
“Well, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” Hollywood said, finally letting out a little of the anger he’d been holding back. It was good to let it out, let these losers see something beneath the veneer. Maybe that was the kind of management style they related to, something more emotion-based. “I said we’d need the farmer, didn’t I?” He thought about hitting the sleeveless wonder who’d handed him the book, because, hey, he was closest, but he decided against it. That was for later. It would probably have to happen eventually, just to let them know not to fuck with him, but it didn’t have to happen yet. They were probably like dogs and could be yelled into better results. “Go get the farmer.” He paused as three of them made to turn around. “You,” he said to the one in the sleeveless flannel shirt, “you stay with me.” He lowered his voice, talking to himself, the only intelligent one here. “I said we’d need the famer, didn’t I? Did I not say it? For fuck’s sake.”