Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers

by SM Reine

  Starling cocked her head at him, still serious. “No.”

  Hendricks could tell she was ready to say something else, but he stopped her. “She’s my designated driver.”

  “Uh huh,” Reeve said, staring down at them. “Tell you what,” he seemed to decide. “We’ll head on over to Arch’s, see what he has to say about all this.”

  “That sounds great,” Hendricks said with a smile. “You mind leading the way? I’m pretty wasted and she doesn’t know this town for shit.”

  Reeve gave him something just short of a leer—trying to keep the politeness on until he knew for fact that Hendricks was a lying scumbag. “All right,” was the measured response that came back, but the implication it carried was, Fuck you. Try and run and I will own your ass for all time.

  Hendricks gestured for Starling to roll up the window and start the engine. They waited in silence as the red-and-blue lights flashed past them, going slow, and after a moment Starling brought the car back on the road to follow the police cruiser.

  + + +

  Arch rolled into the bathroom, managing to turn the tables on the demon that was on him like a duck on a June bug, slamming the thing’s head into the bathroom sink. It bared its teeth at him, demon teeth, like pointed canines you’d see on a vampire in a movie. He brought its head down toward him in a sudden jerk after holding it back for just a moment, and let it clip the top of its head on the sink. He heard the cracking of the ceramic countertop, the demon’s face looked dazed, and he drove it back toward him again with so much force that the lip of the counter broke with the impact and the demon went limp for a moment.

  It was all Arch needed to get a leg up and shove the thing, hard, into the shower curtain, where it got entangled. He got to his feet and pulled the shattered bowl of the sink out of the small pedestal, holding it like an awkward baseball bat, water spraying out of the plumbing at him. He took the whole thing and swung like a champ at the demon just getting up from the tub. He aimed at the neck, figuring it was the weakest part of the whole body. The sink shattered upon impact, raining fragments into Arch’s unprotected skin. He was rewarded with a hiss like the one he’d heard before, then the room was lit up by a flare of orange light. The thing disappeared in a burst of dark flame, leaving behind the smell of sulfur and brimstone.

  The sink was ruined but Arch didn’t give a damn. He looked for a weapon and came up with the shower rod, since the sink was too fragmented to do him much good. The rod was already ripped out of the wall from where the demon had torn it down in landing, and he readied himself for the last of them, the woman, whom he could hear out in the kitchen still, and he saw red thinking about what she might be doing to Alison. If Alison was even still alive. He felt a lurch in his stomach and started toward the door. As he passed the gargantuan hole in the wall, he looked out and saw the switchblade just waiting on the carpet up ahead.

  “Did you get him?” came a female voice, kind of husky, and he couldn’t remember her name. Severson? Amanda, maybe?

  “Yeah,” Arch said, lowering his voice, making himself cough. “I got him.” He wanted to be wearing clothes, but this wasn’t the moment, not with what was at stake. All hell had broken loose upon his house, his home, and he could feel the rage covering all the aches and pains that ought to be wearing on him. He wondered if anyone would have called the Sheriff’s Department yet. One of his neighbors was elderly, the woman below him. Doubtful she’d hear much of anything but Wheel of Fortune at this time of night. The ones on the other side of his kitchen were younger, though, and from out of town originally. They might call 911 if they heard what was happening in his place.

  “Let’s get them out of here, then,” came the voice of the female demon. He was almost certain her name was Amanda. He remembered the mug shot. “Hollywood’s waiting.”

  Arch pondered his course. “Gimme a hand,” he said, rough and low. He heard movement out in the kitchen, footsteps coming toward him along with something being gently set down on the floor outside. He hoped it was Alison. He hoped Amanda wasn’t giving much thought to his request, that she was dumb. He was betting on that, actually. Smart people generally didn’t become common criminals, after all. If they went to crime at all, they generally became uncommon ones.

  He saw her turn the corner at the door and come in, not even bothering to be cautious. He wondered if she was high right now, strung out on something that could make a demon dulled and slow. She twitched in surprise when she saw him, but he was already coming at her, driving the end of the shower rod into her midsection. It didn’t pierce the skin, probably because it was too dull, but then, he hadn’t meant it to. Arch ran her as hard as he could forward, and she fell back, pushed into the bedroom door that was directly opposite the bathroom.

  While she was falling, Arch leapt sideways through the hole in the wall, diving for the switchblade. He came up with it after face planting, hard. He wasn’t a martial artist, more of a brawler, so rolling wasn’t something that came naturally to him, but he didn’t care. He had the blade and he was turned around, coming to his feet in a lunge toward the bedroom door.

  He caught a furious look from Amanda as she rounded the corner heading for him, a serious mad-on coming through the haze of whatever she was on. The blade caught her beneath the sternum and it slid in as her anger turned to surprise. Arch was face to face with her but he dropped to his knees and put all his weight into it as he slid down, ripping the knife into where her guts would be. She stared down at him, kneeling before her in his nakedness, a stunned look on her face, like she couldn’t believe she’d gotten gutted by a nude black man. It lasted for about a second before the flames broke loose, starting at the place where he’d torn her open, progressing swiftly over the exterior of her body and flaring in her eyes and mouth as she screamed her way back to oblivion.

  Exhausted, all his adrenaline blown out in one good burst, Arch fell back and crawled on his hands and knees to the kitchen, to Alison, and picked up her head and clutched it against him. He was listening for breath, and when he finally heard it, he thanked his God in a whisper that was ragged with worry and relief.

  + + +

  “How do you think he’s doing?” Hendricks asked, more to cut the nervous tension in the car than because he thought she’d be able to tell him. He didn’t want to be responsible for someone else, which was why he’d never taken on a partner in the demon-hunting game. It didn’t have to be a solitary occupation, after all, and lots of people liked to team up on either a short or long-term basis. That wasn’t for him. He knew there were others like him, too, loners, and he could read the looks in their eyes. No entanglements, that was the rule. Just blow around from hotspot to hotspot, doing their thing, not having to worry if anyone else got hurt. It was sweet enough, for a while.

  Starling didn’t look at him as she answered. “Fighting a demon without a blessed weapon puts a heavy burden upon your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Hendricks said out of rote habit. When Starling looked over at him, her face close-guarded silence and accusation, he elaborated. “I don’t have any friends.”

  “You seemed friendly enough with the woman who was with you outside your dwelling.” There was no accusation there, just a flat tone, a statement of fact. He thought.

  “That’s a different kind of friendly, Miss Starling. A whole different kind.”

  + + +

  Arch had caught her steady breathing now, like she was just asleep, and when he pinched her hand he saw her eyelids flutter, which was a good thing, he remembered from his first aid training. She let out a soft moan and he tried to gather an explanation of what he was going say to her when she woke up. It wasn’t going to be a fun explanation, he knew that much. He was considering the fact that he hadn’t heard a mess of sirens to be a mark in his favor, but then he looked out the window and saw the flash of red and blue, and he had a feeling his night might actually be about to get worse.

  + + +

  They pulled into a park
ing lot for a duplex apartment building, a small one that looked like it maybe had four units all together—two upstairs, two downstairs, with the doors to each of them obvious on the front of the building. One of the doors was blown clear open, off its hinges, which Hendricks generally considered a bad sign. “Too late,” he muttered. “Fuck.”

  Starling shifted the car into neutral before figuring out how to put it in park, and the sheriff was already out of his car by the time Hendricks staggered out the passenger door of his. “Hands in the air!” Reeve shouted at Hendricks, who complied quickly. He had turned his back on the door to the second-floor apartment, probably trying to make sure that there wasn’t a threat at his back before he dealt with the possibility of one at his front. Hendricks kept his hands up then glanced to Starling, who was also out of the car, her red hair slung over one shoulder like it had been braided there. Her hands were not remotely up, and Reeve had taken notice of that. The sheriff’s gun came around accordingly, and Hendricks got a bad feeling about what was about to happen.

  “Hold it,” came a shout from the second floor, and Reeve turned his head just for a second to take in the sight of Arch, wearing only his work pants, running across the balcony toward the stairs on the right side of the building. The whole place was an older brick building, with redwood for the guardrails across the balcony. It gave the place a different feel, a little homey, a little woodsy, even though it was only a block or two from the center of town. “It’s all right, sir,” Arch said, coming down the steps.

  Reeve gave him an Are you fucking kidding me? look but held his tongue. Hendricks just stood there and waited, wondering how best to avoid the conflicting stories that were about to come pouring out in an attempt to untangle this mess that was sitting in front of them. He didn’t like the thought of that, not one bit, and would probably have been quicker about finding a way out of it if not for the fact that he was still very, very drunk, and the sway in his head made him acutely aware of it.

  “I need you to put out an APB on that small-timer, Amanda Severson,” Arch said, now crossing the parking lot toward them. “She and her little friends just busted up my place.”

  Hendricks was impressed, then he realized that Arch probably wasn’t even lying about that, what with his door being broken open and all. It made him wonder if the big man had driven them off singlehandedly, then made him wonder how many of them he’d tussled with.

  “Severson?” Reeve asked, putting his gun back in the holster. “Medium height? Dark hair? Got picked up for intent to distribute a few months back?”

  Arch nodded, not even taking in or acknowledging Hendricks yet. “That’s the one. She and three others just broke down my door, looked like they made to stage a home invasion.”

  Reeve gave a quick look over around the parking lot, like he couldn’t believe it. The sun wasn’t even setting yet. “We don’t exactly have a long history of daring daylight break-ins in the center of Midian. And certainly not by criminals who would be dumb enough to pick out the residence of a known member of the sheriff’s department.”

  “Yet that’s exactly what happened,” Arch said, eyes boring into the sheriff’s. Hendricks just watched, transfixed. “I beat ’em up pretty good, think I shot a couple of ’em , but they bum rushed me. Might have been wearing Kevlar, because I didn’t see ’em bleed at all. This was something I ain’t never seen before, just crazy. They knocked out Alison, that Severson woman laid hands on her.”

  Reeve got serious, real serious, fast. “She all right?”

  Arch’s voice went low. “She’s a little hazy, needs to go to the doctor, I think. But I drove ’em off. Was about to call for help when you pulled up.” He cast a look to Hendricks. “Good to see you, Hendricks. Sorry I didn’t catch up with you earlier.”

  “It’s all right,” Hendricks said, giving Arch a knowing look. “I was just spending some time with Erin when some other friends of ours showed up unexpectedly. Starling and I hung out with them for a bit until they left, but Erin was a little too far gone by that point and passed out.” He tried to figure out the best way to phrase things to communicate information without making it a dead giveaway to Reeve that there was subtext. He tried to make his look pained, and found it came pretty easily. He was still hiding a hell of an injury under his coat, after all. “Bet you wish you’d brought your wife out with us, huh?”

  Arch didn’t smile in his reply. “I need to get her to the hospital, get her looked at.” He looked to Reeve. “You want to get this place cordoned off for me?”

  If the sheriff took umbrage to being given an order by his deputy, he didn’t show it. “Damned right,” he said. “I’ll get that APB sent out, too, call in all the boys. We’ll find these fuckers and drag ’em in by the short hairs, leave nothing left but a bald and bleeding patch by the time we’re done. No one does this shit to the law in Calhoun County.”

  + + +

  Hollywood stroked his forehead, leaning back against the chair in the old dairy farmer’s house. It was beyond inconvenient, having to be here now, but since he’d killed that chambermaid in Chattanooga, it would probably be more of a hindrance for him to stay there. There weren’t that many five-star hotels in a town like that, after all, and if he’d been in one, it was unlikely that the next would be much better. Fuck Southern hospitality.

  He pulled his hand back from his brow. And then there was this. Krauther stood in front of him, looking a little contrite, one lone lackey still in tow. “So …” Hollywood said, “how’d they die?”

  “Some woman,” Krauther said, “some woman or some thing, I’m not sure. She felt like …” Krauther’s essence flared behind the veneer, and Hollywood could see it—see him—like he was looking through a thick glass at something distorted on the other side. “I don’t know what she felt like. Maybe—”

  “One of ours?” Hollywood tossed out, still rubbing his forehead. He was throbbing, all through his essence, so much annoyance that he couldn’t give form to. After all, there were only so many more of his kind in this pointless burg, only so many demons that would be willing to hitch their star to his, and if he made an example out of these two fuck-ups, that was two less he’d have available to send to their horrible deaths later, if needed. He took a deep breath of the cowshit-filled air in the parlor of the old farmhouse. And if all this came to fruition, there would damned sure be a need for that later.

  “I don’t know,” Krauther said, and Hollywood looked up to see the fear flare in his essence. “One of theirs, maybe.”

  “One of THEIRS?” Hollywood was on his feet in a second, Krauther’s Metallica t-shirt twisted up in his hand, the demon holding on by the balls of his feet to the floor as Hollywood had him unbalanced. “Tell me you don’t fucking think one of THEIRS is here, now?”

  Krauther’s eyes were wide, and his arms were wiggling, trying to keep him from tipping over. “I … I don’t know, Hollywood. She had a vibe, man. Power. Essence, maybe. Not sure what the deal is, but she didn’t have the smell of a human.”

  Hollywood let Krauther go, let him fall flat on his ass. His mind was racing, faster than it usually did, even when he did a snort of blow. Sometimes it amazed him that human drugs worked on demons, but the shell was the same, really; the essence was the big difference. Humans had no souls, not really, just little things, comparatively speaking. But his kind—and the others … they were full up. Bursting out of their bodies. Not like a human, which was almost an empty vessel.

  “Maybe she was just another interested party,” Hollywood said at last, looking from Krauther to the other minion then to Sleeveless, who waited in the corner, watching the whole thing. “This is a hotspot, after all, there’s plenty of draw here. It could have been one of the Commission, trying to keep you from outing yourselves. No reason to think one …” He didn’t grind his teeth, but only because he smiled instead, “… one of their kind would be about. They don’t get out and about that much anymore.” He smoothed his tie and looked down at Krauther. “Have
you ever even seen one of them?”

  Krauther hesitated before answering. “No.”

  Hollywood smirked. Fucking stupid hick. The excitable type, ready to jump to crazy conclusions with no reason to go there except the meth. Figured. “It wasn’t one of them. You smelled it wrong. Maybe a stray demon, maybe a half-human. Their kind doesn’t come down here anymore.” He straightened his tie again, tightened it up, then looked back toward Sleeveless. “Time?”

  Sleeveless pulled out his cell phone. “Eight o’clock.”

  “Okay.” Hollywood straightened his collar, too. “We got a little time to kill before our other team checks in.” There was a little nervous tension there, and he didn’t like it. Whoever this woman was, she couldn’t have gotten to both teams, could she? No. The other one, the cop, they’d be bringing him along any minute. Him and his wife.

  Hollywood put it out of his mind and compulsively turned to a mirror that was on the wall, a garish thing with the brand of a major beer printed on the middle of it, like the wicked queen’s image was a reflection of a Miller Lite logo. He looked at himself in the mirror, smoothed his hair back into place in the slicked-back ponytail then checked his clothing. Flawless. He cast a glance at Sleeveless. “Just to be safe, prep the alternates, will you?” One couldn’t be too careful, when dealing with meth-addled idiots, after all.

  Sleeveless nodded and disappeared into the hallway behind them. There was the sound of a door opening, then footsteps on stairs. A few seconds later, there was a sound of screaming—urgent, crying, terrified. As it should be.