by SM Reine
Hendricks just let that lie there for a minute, waiting to see if he’d elaborate. “What about ’em?”
“They’re here,” Arch said, like that explained everything.
“Yes, I know that,” Hendricks said mildly. If this was what he’d been awakened for, the lawman was lucky he had a badge. If he’d just been some schmoe, like an IT help desk worker, Hendricks would have flattened him with a punch to the jaw for this shit. Especially if he’d been an IT help desk worker. Smug, unhelpful fucks. “It’s why I’m here.”
“No, I mean,” Arch said, shaking his head like he could shake it into making sense, “I went out on a call from my boss, a— not a missing person, exactly, but like a friend who they couldn’t reach—anyway, I go up to the door and there are these good ol’ boys I know from way back. Stupid guys, real idiots, three or four misdemeanors each, maybe a petty felony or so apiece, and they’re hanging out in these people’s house.” His hands were moving when he talked, like an Italian. Hendricks tried to hide his amusement because clearly the big man had been rattled by what he’d seen. “I swear, when one of them peered out of the curtain at me, I—I saw him.”
Hendricks waited to see if it was a pause in the conversation that Arch was using to take a breath. After another moment it was pretty clear he was waiting for a response, so Hendricks spoke. “Yes, that’s generally what would happen when someone stares out at you through a window, you would see them.”
“No,” Arch said, head shaking again, “I mean I saw him. Saw him saw him. Like his demon face.”
Hendricks felt an ashy sensation, like he’d swallowed something he shouldn’t have. Which he had, but he didn’t think it was the beer doing this to him. “Look,” he said, trying to be sympathetic, “what I told you last night, maybe it’s got you kind of rattled. It’s not like everybody’s a demon, okay? Even in a hotspot, they’re pretty few and far between. Most people are just honest citizens—or citizens, at least—and if you saw these guys getting into trouble, the odds are good that they’re probably just the petty criminals you were describing, no demonic influence necessary—”
“So then they tried to surround me and I shot each of them in the face and ran.”
“Oh, fuck!” Hendricks was already cursing himself for his stupidity. Explain the demon world to someone for the first time in five years, and the next day they go and commit multiple homicides … “Look, those guys … they probably weren’t demons …“ He felt like shit and not just because of the hangover. Were these his fault? It felt a little like they were.
“Well, they chased me down the driveway after three head shots each,” Arch said, his eyes were burning. The man was pissed, deeply so. “I would say that unless you know a lot of petty criminals that can take a few .40 rounds between the eyes and then catch up to a car doing thirty—”
“Oh, shit, you ran into demons!” Hendricks said.
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Arch said, well, archly. Hendricks couldn’t blame him.
“Sorry, I thought maybe you were just a little overzealous,” Hendricks said. “You know, first day after I turned your world upside down, thought maybe you were still acclimating. I know my first day after learning about demons, I was seeing them everywhere, looking in everybody’s eyes trying to figure out if they were one. I’m told it’s a natural response, especially when you’ve witnessed something traumatic involving—” He shut his mouth and bore the scrutiny of Arch’s curious and furious stare while he pondered how best to change the track of the conversation. “Where were they?” That was easy.
“Old Man MacGruder’s dairy farm,” Arch said. He seriously was pissed, like these demons had called his mother a whore or something. “Three of them that I saw.”
“This MacGruder a friend of yours?” Hendricks asked with more than a little curiosity of his own.
“What?” Arch said, like it was a question out of the blue. “No, I barely knew the man. What do we do now?”
“We?” Hendricks asked, a little dumbfounded. “I don’t know what we do, but I’m gonna try and go out there and kill them in a bit. Might have to get a little breakfast first, though.” He patted his stomach, felt the rumble of displeasure. “Or maybe not.” He tapped on his forehead then stopped when it hurt. “How many of them did you say there were?”
“Three.”
Hendricks got a pained look that wasn’t just from how he was feeling. “Shit.” He waited for a beat, thinking it over. “Okay, maybe this is a ‘we’ thing instead of a ‘me’ thing.”
+ + +
Arch didn’t love the thought of involving Hendricks, a near-stranger, in what was really department business. But when a demon hunter wanders into town the day before you nearly get overrun with demons, it narrows your options right down: either tell the people around you that you think there are unearthly creatures involved in unpleasant dealings in your town or go to the supposed professional about them. Part of Arch was wondering if Hendricks was jerking him around, but it seemed mighty unlikely. The cowboy was leaned against the door of Arch’s patrol car, looking like he was suffering just from being up and moving, and mighty displeased to be awake even now. “You gonna be all right?” Arch asked him.
“I’ll manage,” Hendricks came back.
They rode along toward Kilner Road in silence, Arch not really wanting to say much of anything, on account of how pissed and suspicious he still was, and Hendricks staying quiet, Arch assumed, because he was still hung over. Arch didn’t know that he’d ever been as hungover as Hendricks was now, and he reckoned he’d be pretty okay with going to his grave without ever knowing how it felt, thank you very much.
“It’s down here,” Arch said as they turned on Kilner Road. “Got a plan?”
Hendricks sat up in interest. “Where there’s three, there’s a possibility of more.”
Arch watched Hendricks unbuckle his seat belt and lean forward to look down the road. “How many can you take at once?”
Hendricks appeared to consider this for a moment, while still staring down the road. “Three, maybe, depending on what kind they are. While I’m fighting two of them, though, the third will probably be killing you, since you don’t really have a good way to hold them at bay.”
“Bad plan,” Arch pronounced. “I veto that one.”
“Agreed,” Hendricks said, and motioned for Arch to stop the car. “It’s pretty sub-optimal. Anything head-on is, really. I think we should make this a reconnaissance mission, take a look around, see what we can see, and be ready to hoof it on back to the car at the first sign of trouble.” Arch had drawn the car to a stop on the side of the road and Hendricks opened the door, letting the summer heat seep in, humidity and all. “I doubt they’re gonna be going anywhere, and it ain’t like they’re up to much here. It’s a dairy farm, after all, not a chemical weapons factory.” The cowboy sniffed and then made a face. “Well, maybe …“
“They’re up to murder, in all likelihood,” Arch said tightly, and his hand went to his pistol. He ejected the magazine and checked to make sure it was topped off again. He carried spare bullets in a gym bag in the hatch back of the Explorer, and he’d filled it up before picking up Hendricks at the motel. He listened to the satisfying click as he pushed the magazine back into the Glock and then opened the back of the car and pulled out a shotgun, too. When Hendricks gave him the What-the-hell-is-that-for look he just said, “it may not kill them, but it seems like it hurts them, and it for sure puts ’em down for a few seconds.”
“True enough,” Hendricks said, and they were heading for the fence.
“Careful,” Arch said, pointing at the low wire. “It’s electrified.”
“I suspected as much,” Hendricks said, easing over it after using the second wire as a brace to land his big cowboy boot. “Being from Wisconsin, I’ve been in a cow pasture or two.” He gave Arch a grin, this one pretty real.
“Y’all ain’t got much else for entertainment up there, huh?” Arch pondere
d what to do about the shotgun before finally just handing it over to Hendricks and keeping an eye on the man until he got over the fence and got it handed back to him.
“I think that’s the North’s joke for the South.” Hendricks squinted. “Actually, that’s mostly our joke for Iowa. We don’t think of much south of that or Illinois.”
They made their way through a copse of trees just past the fence. It was a grove of pines, tall ones, with rough patches of bark that made it look like each tree was patterned like a turtle shell. The thick smell of them in the heat wasn’t quite overwhelming, but it did make Arch long for a nap. By the look of him, Hendricks was feeling the same, though for different reasons. Instead, they were sneaking up on a passel of demons that were hiding out in a dairy farmer’s house. A thought occurred to Arch. “Do you think Old Man MacGruder is still alive?”
Hendricks didn’t halt his walk, but he did look back from where he was leading the way. “That the guy that owns the place?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s dead,” Hendricks said, his voice flat. “Demons aren’t big on hostages or prisoners.” He waited a second then spoke again. “I shouldn’t say that—there are some species of demons that are big on prisoners, but only because they like their food fresh. Like, really fresh. Basically live and still squirming while they eat it.”
Arch felt his grip tighten on the shotgun. “These things … they eat people?”
“Some of them, yeah.” Hendricks kept on going, kept his stride. “Sometimes only certain parts, depending on what kind of demon they are—you know, eyes, noses, butt cheeks. Sometimes it’s a specific cut of meat, like the human version of the sirloin or some shit like that. Some will just eat the intangibles, like your soul.” He looked back and Arch knew by the dark look on Hendricks’s face he wasn’t bullshitting. “Some don’t eat people, and they’re peaceable enough, integrated into human society without a hitch. I don’t run across many of those, but there’s probably a reason for that.”
Arch chewed on that thought as they came upon a slight rise. “The house is just up over there.” He pointed the shotgun up over the hill and Hendricks stopped. “We might ought to creep low, just in case they’re watching out the windows.”
“These guys seem like the cautious type to you?” Hendricks was asking sort of seriously, but there was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
“They’re pretty dumb as humans, but now that I know they’re demons, I’m a little more concerned.”
“Fair enough,” Hendricks said and crouched down, the long trail of his drover coat dipping to the ground with him. Arch squatted next to him. “Let’s get up over there and—”
Hendricks didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before Arch felt the shotgun being ripped from his grasp. It hit him squarely across the nose and he saw stars, then the hard metal barrel was pressed tight against his neck, squeezing the breath out of him. He struggled for breath, and as his eyes fell on Hendricks, he saw the cowboy with Kellen’s hairy forearm across his neck, choking him out exactly the same as was happening to him. He started to pass out, the bright sunny sky fading as he felt his strength drain, sagging against the strong arms that were holding him so tightly that even Arch couldn’t seem to find a way to fight back.
5
Hendricks didn’t love the smell of the demon that had grabbed him and couldn’t see much of him other than a hairy arm that had him around the neck in a way that locked his throat. He could see that Arch was getting it even worse, being choked out by some fucker in a button-up shirt that had grease smudged all over it. The smell of the dairy farm was thick in the air around him, and a lone fly buzzed past Hendricks’s face as the son of a bitch who had him around the neck started dragging him.
“You’re … choking him … to death,” Hendricks managed, catching the attention of the grubby fuck who had Arch, shotgun across his neck.
The guy with the button-up readjusted, letting the shotgun loose from around Arch’s neck and grabbing him one-armed, holding him about like the other guy had Hendricks. It wasn’t pretty, but demons had the strength to keep a human down with only one arm in the fight. Hendricks hadn’t really expected his warning about choking Arch to death to do much more than produce a guffaw and was surprised when it actually stopped the guy. He even looked concerned, or his human facade did, anyway. That made Hendricks curious, because the idea of a demon concerned with a human’s welfare was laughable, at least on the surface. His mind immediately ran to the idea that something else was going on, something that they needed the two of them for—alive. Which was worrisome.
“You okay?” he asked Arch, whose eyes were rolling back in his head. There was a coughing fit from the big man, and it would have been surreal to see the six-foot-two mountain of a deputy manhandled by some scrub fuck who looked like he’d stumbled out from between the gears of a machine—if not for the fact that the one who was manhandling him was a demon. Hendricks wasn’t sure what kind, though, because he’d yet to see the real face of the thing.
“Still breathing,” Arch answered him after a horrendous coughing fit. The grubby bastard who was dragging him along had the shotgun, and was paying no attention to Arch’s hands. Probably wasn’t very concerned he’d do something untoward, because presently Arch was doing everything he could just to keep from having his head pulled off as he was dragged along. That might change, though. Hendricks was in much the same boat, trying to keep up with the hairy bastard that was pulling him along headfirst. He didn’t want to go for his sword until he knew the demon was well and truly distracted, though, because even if he pulled it and struck true before the bastard could rip his head off—which was iffy—it was almost certain that Arch’s demon would kill him plenty dead before Hendricks could get the man free.
They were pulled along unwillingly over the hill. The flies were thicker now, and Hendricks saw the pastureland with the wide open fields from their slightly elevated perch. He tried to ignore the pain in his neck from being dragged along by the fucker who had him, but it was hard to dismiss. Harder still to resist pulling his sword and shoving it right up the bastard’s ass. He was pretty well positioned for that, anyway.
“Hey, Kellen,” the one dragging Arch said, “ain’t this supposed to be a dairy farm, man?”
“Yeah,” the hairy one who had the back of Hendricks’s neck buried in his armpit replied, “so what?”
“Well, why ain’t there any cows, man?”
Kellen paused, letting Hendricks brush up against his hairy side. “Well, there’s one.” He pointed, but Hendricks couldn’t see it very well, since he was doing it with the other hand, the one that wasn’t currently jammed against Hendricks’s windpipe.
There was a pause, and the one holding Arch seemed to think about this. “Isn’t that the same one we saw last night?”
“Yep,” Kellen agreed.
“So,” the other said, “shouldn’t there be more than one around here?”
“I dunno,” Kellen said, plainly uninterested in the affairs of dairy farming. “Who cares? They’re cows. They’re probably here somewhere.”
Hendricks might have given that some more thought, but it wasn’t a pressing concern for him, waiting as he was for a fine opportunity to turn the tables on the two stooges without getting Arch killed. He was all about saving his own neck, but he thought he’d feel more than a little poorly about it if his bid for freedom cost the life of the deputy. There was something to be said for not throwing your comrades to the wolves, metaphorically speaking, and Arch was as close as he had to one of those. Hell, Arch was one of the few people who’d actually had a conversation with him in the last few years. It was probably bad when you could count the number of people you talked to for more than thirty seconds in any given month on one hand.
“We need to take these boys to Hollywood,” Kellen said.
“No, thanks,” Hendricks gasped, struggling for air, “I hate California.”
“Look,” the hairy one said, gri
nding his wrist into Hendricks’s neck. This time Hendricks saw what he was pointing at. It was a sedan, kinda fancy, pulling in the driveway. They got dragged down the hill as someone wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt came running around the side and opened the back door to allow a man to step out. If Hendricks thought the car was fancy, it was nothing compared to the guy riding in the back.
He was medium sized, with a ponytail and slicked back hair. He wore an earring, an opulent little thing that Hendricks could see sparkle with diamonds. He was a white guy, wearing a grey suit that reeked of money. Hendricks had heard someone say one time that you couldn’t always tell when a suit was expensive, but he was pretty sure this one was because it seemed to fit its wearer just about perfectly. He wore sunglasses, too, one of the more expensive types. All the fancy accouterments aside, Hendricks got the sense that this guy, Hollywood, was a full-flow douchenozzle, an impression that was confirmed the minute the bastard opened his mouth.
“What the fuck is this?” Hollywood asked as Hendricks and Arch were dragged into view. “Where did you find these peckerwoods?”
“Up over the hill,” Kellen said. “Heard ’em parking the car down the road a ways when we were out in the woods for a smoke.”
Hendricks didn’t smell cigarettes on either one of them, and Hollywood looked at them funny for a moment but let it pass. “Well,” Hollywood said and broke into a smile, “I guess that saves us the trouble of looking for sacrifices for tonight.” He pulled the sleeve of his suit up and looked at a glittering gold watch beneath. “Now we just have to figure out what to do with them for the next few hours.”
“So you’re Hollywood?” Hendricks said, causing his handler to try and adjust his chokehold again to shut him up. “Let me guess … you’re a big fan of Hulk Hogan during the NWO years?”
Hollywood didn’t blink, just looked at him over the sunglasses for about a quarter second before shifting his gaze away. “Can you put them in the farmer’s cellar?”