“Your ‘rather’ and mine are about to come in conflict,” Reeve said and looked sideways. “I need to consult with my deputies for a moment. I also need you and your … ‘clients,’” he said it with enough differentiation that Lex Deivrel scowled at him, fake smile gone in a second, “to step outside. Away from the crime scene.”
“Fine,” Deivrel said, and her smile came back. She recovered quickly, Erin thought.
“Deputy Harris, Deputy Stan,” Reeve said, and beckoned to her and Arch, “a word, please.” He nodded to Deivrel. “You ladies, too. Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Lerner and Duncan were parked just down the street. It was easy to see when the house started to clear out. The big black deputy came out first—Lerner was bad with names, but hadn’t Hendricks called him ‘Arch’ or something? Yeah. The cowboy’s girlfriend was next, pert little blond, followed by a woman wearing nearly nothing, a lawyer—Lerner could smell that for himself—and a redhead. “Hello,” he said. “Look who we have here.”
“Coming out of the whorehouse, no less,” Duncan said, eyes opened. He was wearing a frown. “I can feel her.”
Lerner looked over at him. “Really? Are her tits real or fake?”
Duncan ignored his classless remark. “She’s definitely there. Not like last time at all.”
Lerner stared at her, dressed just about the same as when last he’d seen her, save for an overshirt. “Well, well, well. This is getting more and more interesting.”
“You think so?” Duncan asked, eyes closed. “Because for me it’s taking a turn into WTF territory.”
“Pffft,” Lerner said. “Stop trying to talk like the human kids. WTF. Just say ‘what the fuck’ like a man.”
* * *
“Arch,” Reeve said once they were off the porch. Dark clouds were accumulating in the sky, but the sun was still backlighting them. Arch could feel the heat, and the rain would be nice to help cool it off. “I put that pothead in the back of your car. Mind taking him to the station for me?”
“Sure,” Arch said then frowned. He and Reeve had hashed things out—sort of. This seemed like a peculiar peace offering, though. “I’ll get him down there, booked in, and head back.”
“No,” Reeve said with a shake of the head, and he stepped closer to Arch. They stood on the lawn, a good twenty feet from where the two ladies—Starling and Ms. Cherry—waited with their lawyer. Erin was hovering just a few feet from them, keeping her eyes on the porch. “Listen, you’ve seen a lot these last few days. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
Arch felt a curiosity burning now. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Reeve said, and he was all sincerity as near as Arch could tell. “No one ought to see the shit we have these last few days. Just go on home, get your head on straight, spend some time with your missus if she has the day off,” which she did, Arch vaguely recalled, “keep your phone on and close by. I’ll whistle you up if we run into a shitstorm.” He looked up. “Which we probably will if those fucking idiots from the TVA don’t get down here to start sandbagging the river soon.”
“I’ll get this taken care of,” Arch said, gesturing toward the car. He could see a man in the back. Even from where he stood, the fella looked mighty sullen. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it,” Reeve said, waving him off. “Now get that taken care of, will you? And don’t go disappearing on the way to the station house.” The sheriff wore a grim smile as Arch looked back at him. “I won’t be as forgiving a second time.”
Arch didn’t really find much to say to that, so he just started back to the car. The lights were still flashing on it, and he couldn’t remember if he’d left them that way or if Reeve had turned them on to justify his diagonal parking job, but either way, he was taking up a good portion of the street. He made his way around the back of the car and stopped when he saw a sedan parked less than a hundred feet behind his Explorer.
It was the demons.
* * *
Erin watched Arch walking toward the car as Reeve started coming back toward her. “Where’s he going?”
“Back to the station with the prisoner,” Reeve said. “Come on, we got work to do.”
“Doing what?” Erin asked. “Trying to slink past some fancified lawyer so we can question a couple hookers about someone who died in a way that’s pretty damned impossible based on what they’ve told us?”
“I can hear you,” Lex Deivrel said, her arms folded as she stood on the edge of the porch, looking down at them. “I’ve warned you twice now, Nick. Any further prejudicial comments by yourself or your deputies toward my clients and—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reeve said, “day in court, et cetera. I got it. We’ll play nice.” He turned to give Erin a look but ended up smiling through his admonishing glare.
* * *
Arch strolled over to the sedan, glancing around at the run down, ramshackle houses up and down the street as he did so. There were still gawkers out, but none of them were smoking anything funny, at least. Gawkers were just a normal part of life in a small town. Rumors about what had happened at the brothel were probably already burning up the phone lines in Midian.
“Gentlemen,” Arch said as he strolled up to the window of the sedan. The quiet one—Duncan, he thought—was just sitting there, waiting for him, already had the window down. Like he was ready for a conversation. The mouth of the operation, Lerner, was looking across from the driver’s side.
“Good day, deputy,” Lerner said with a wink. “Another tragic victim of the bad influences on your lovely little burg?”
Arch felt like reaching through the window and knocking the smug right off his face, but he didn’t. Instead he went for an alternate topic of conversation. “Where’s your new best friend?”
“I assume you mean your pal Hendricks?” Lerner said, still a little smug. “He’s sleeping it off back at his motel. Your boy’s in a lot of pain. Maybe he should find a less hazardous occupation.”
“Someone’s gotta keep a watch on what your kind is doing ’round here,” Arch said, and after he said them, he wished he could shove the words back into his mouth.
The irony didn’t seem to be lost on Lerner, and the smug smile stayed fixed where it was. “Heh. The more things change, huh?”
“Hendricks is fine,” Duncan said in a soft voice, changing the topic of conversation. For some reason, Arch believed him when he said it. “Though he should take it a little lighter on the painkillers.”
“You talk to him about it,” Arch said. He didn’t want anything to do with that conversation lest he have to involve it in some way with his job.
“You mind telling us what’s going on here, Officer?” Lerner asked. The smugness was reduced but not gone.
Arch sighed. Why not? “Dead woman in there. Looks like she got burnt up by some demon’s … uh … emission.”
The smug vanished off Lerner’s face in a heartbeat. “You’re fucking joking.”
Arch glared at him. “I assure you I’m not.”
Lerner let out a low whistle. “Oh man, looks like our old Sygraath learned a new trick.” Lerner paused, like he was doing it for comic effect. “And tried it out during a trick.”
Duncan didn’t laugh. “That’s not funny,” he said. Arch had to agree.
Lerner sighed. “Whatever. We’ve still got a Sygraath off the chain here and presently untraceable.”
Arch cast his eyes toward the house. “You don’t think he’s gonna come back to the scene of the crime, do you?”
“Unlikely,” Duncan said in that quiet way he had.
“We think he’s planning something big,” Lerner said. “He’s probably laying low until then.”
“Something big?” Arch asked. “Bigger than the mass murder yesterday morning? Or the traffic pile-up yesterday afternoon?”
“He didn’t do the mass murder,” Lerner said with a shake of the head. “That was a group of Tul’rore. We sent those back the night before l
ast.”
Arch frowned. “You did?”
“Yeah,” Lerner said, like it was no big deal. “We got that taken care of for you.” He smiled. “See? We’re not all bad.”
Arch wasn’t quite ready to concede that just yet. “I gotta go drop some parole violator off at the station.”
“Watch out for the lawyer,” Duncan offered helpfully as Arch stood up, his back cracking as he removed himself from where he’d been leaning down to talk to them.
“Why?” Arch asked. “Is she a demon?”
“Possibly,” Duncan said evenly. “Though not as many attorneys are demons as you might think. I just meant be careful because she’s a lawyer.”
“Not every evil thing on earth is done by demons,” Lerner said, and he was lecturing Arch now, which Arch found plenty annoying. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of morally vacuous humans on this planet.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Arch said and started back toward his car. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
* * *
Gideon sat at the table, thinking. It was what he spent most of his time doing when he wasn’t enjoying a death. There was nothing on the horizon, sadly, but that was all right. It was understood. He’d accepted that death just didn’t happen here with the frequency it did in cities. So instead of dwelling on that, he was trying to—gently—relive some of his greatest hits.
Surprisingly, they were all from the last few days.
It came as a shock when he realized it. He’d hated this town, after all, and how frustrating it had been for him. It was stifling, the lack of death for him to enjoy. Like starving.
Like starving in the middle of a buffet, though. That’s what he’d figured out here.
All he had to do was take matters into his own hands. And not masturbationally speaking, either, because he’d been doing that for years, obviously. No, he had take his destiny in his own hands, go after what he wanted. It was an important lesson.
Now he was a hunter. Now he didn’t have to wait for the satisfaction to come to him, he could seek it. And it was more thrilling than any of the other deaths he’d felt.
Spellman’s empty vessel was still across from him, staring blankly into space. He’d been like that for a couple hours now. It didn’t bother Gideon; it was like being in a room with a doll. Which Gideon hadn’t ever done, that he could recall, but it didn’t bother him.
There was a stirring, and Spellman’s hand moved. Something was in it, something he could see. It was a red silk bag, tied at the top, and big as his head. Gideon knew it hadn’t been there before, and it was embroidered with gold stitching on the sides. He wondered if he was paying extra for that fanciness, then realized he didn’t care.
“It is done,” came Spellman’s quiet voice, pushing the bag across the table toward him. Gideon grasped it like it was water and he was in the middle of a desert. “It still requires a few trifling components in order to activate, but it should be no challenge for one such as yourself.”
“Additional components?” Gideon felt the urgency rising within. He needed to get off. Soon. “What components?”
“The heart of human,” Spellman said, ticking it off on his fingers, “some blood, a scream. You should be able to get it all from one person, actually.”
“Where am I supposed to …?” Gideon looked at the bag. He hadn’t killed anyone before, not in the way that would pull screams and a heart from them. Not blood, either, really. “I’ll have to get my hands pretty dirty for this.”
“As though they were clean before?” Spellman asked, with a twinkle in his eye. Gideon got the feeling there was a double entendre thrown in there somewhere. “There will be security guards where you’re going, and they’ll be human, of course. Naturally, they will be no match for a greater such as yourself.”
“I have to kill them myself?” Gideon took a breath and felt a tightness, as if his essence was heating his breath to expand within him.
“Now, now,” Spellman said with that same glimmer in his eyes, “think of how much of a growth experience this could be for you. Especially after all the self-discovery you’ve had in the last few days.”
Gideon looked down at his pudgy hands. The incense smell in the air grew stronger around him. It could be fun, couldn’t it? It wasn’t like killing that girl last night hadn’t been a joy. This could be better, even, because he could make it last longer, make it more painful. It’d be like foreplay. With tremendous ejaculation involved. “All right,” he said and pulled the silk bag up as he stood. “All right. I can do this.”
“Of course,” Spellman said with a smile. “Now … I’ll need to do another bank transfer to cover the cost of this …”
“Do I have to wait for you to do that?” Gideon stared at the bag in his hands, and he found himself wanting to do nothing more than add the last components and place it where he wanted it to go. He wanted to get the party started. Now.
“I can handle it,” Spellman said with a vague gesture of his hand, “if you’re in a hurry.”
“Please,” Gideon said, turning to walk out “I’ve got business to attend to up in the hills.” He carried the silk bag at his side, and it bobbed with his motion. It felt kind of heavy to him, like he was carrying something of great importance. Which he was, he supposed. The next stage in his growth, in his awakening. Soon he could take the next step, and move on.
All he needed now was a blood sacrifice.
* * *
Hendricks was floating peacefully in the water when heard the knocking at his door. It was a recurring dream for him and it usually turned into a nightmare. This time it was different. It hadn’t yet turned into a horror story when the thumping jarred him out of it.
He came to with the comforter mashed against his face. It kind of smelled, like feet or body odor or both. He realized as he woke that his legs were hanging off the edge of the bed, that he had not in fact been in the water, nor anywhere near it.
There was another thumping at the door and he realized it was closed. Lerner and Duncan weren’t anywhere around, and he wondered for a moment if he’d hallucinated the pair of them. Demons that were out to help people? Bullshit, his common sense told him as he rose, wiping the drool off his chin.
He still felt the fog as he staggered to the door. He flipped the lock and opened it without even thinking about who might be behind it. It was only as it was swinging open that he considered it. Too late by then.
An unfamiliar man waited just outside, dark clouds behind him covering the sky. Hendricks wondered if he was a Jehovah’s Witness, and was trying to think of a polite way to say FUCK OFF when the man spoke.
“Good day to you, Mr. Hendricks,” the man said with a bow. He looked to be in his fifties, grey hair. He looked awfully alert, though Hendricks thought he might have been drawing an unfair comparison since he was still swimming in the wash of his own head. “Are your friends Lerner and Duncan still here?”
“What?” Hendricks asked. He really did feel like he’d just gotten pulled out of the wash. Since that had actually happened to him at one point in time, he knew it was a valid comparison.
“Lerner and Duncan?” the man asked again. “They’re not here right now, are they?”
“No,” Hendricks said, and he felt the weight of the sword in his coat. His gun was on his hip. “Who are you?”
“Ah, forgive me my lapse in manners,” the man said with an abbreviated bow. “My name is Wren Spellman.” His eyes glimmered, as though he had a secret. He put a finger into the air, and red sparks shot from it as though it were a firecracker. “I’ve come to talk.”
Chapter 16
Erin’s frustration tolerance was being tested to the point of ridiculousness. She was convinced that Lex Deivrel was, in fact, a demon, if such a thing existed. The blond lawyer had a perpetually smug smile, and it was driving Erin to the point where she wanted to just slap it off the woman’s face. She’d grown up with three older brothers and had no compunction about doing such things. O
utside of the lawful consequences, of course.
Reeve, fortunately, was taking a more patient approach. They stood under dark skies, and it looked like the rain might cut loose at any moment. The road shimmered from the humidity, and it was getting past midday now. The crime scene unit from Chattanooga filled the street, and they still hadn’t managed to get Cherry or Lucia’s statements.
Erin reconsidered that helpful bit of face punching but doubted it’d do much other than land her in jail. And civil court, probably.
“We’re going to need to talk to your clients sooner or later,” Reeve said to Deivrel, “and we’re gonna do it at the station.” He’d been on and off the phone with the TVA all morning, trying to manage their flood response. In addition he’d fielded calls from the Highway Patrol regarding the mess on the freeway and also the crime lab’s initial report. Reeve was a busy man. Erin felt a little sorry for him.
The smell of the body in the house was wafting out now, the heat of midday causing it to ripen. It just smelled burnt to her, an appalling odor. She would have covered her nose, but for the fact it would have made her look ridiculous.
Instead, she sat there and listened to Reeve dicker with Lex Deivrel as she looked down the street. Just past the crime lab van she saw a familiar sight. It was the sedan that was parked outside Hendricks’s motel room, and the two guys that were with him were sitting in it.
* * *
Lerner and Duncan were still sitting outside the whorehouse, staring at the goings-on and had been for hours. What else were they going to do? “Laywer looks like she’s cockblocking everything,” Lerner pronounced with a note of sympathy. They had lawyers to deal with in their own work, though fortunately not as frequently as human law enforcement had to. The Pact from whence their authority was derived had a variety of interpretations, and lawyers tended to find lots of devils in the details of it.
Depths: Southern Watch #2 Page 23