Nope, that wasn’t a good way to go.
“Get on out of here,” Reeve said again, waving his hat at them. “Go patrol, just … get the fuck outta here.”
Arch didn’t need to be told again. He’d never really seen Reeve in one of these moods before.
He thought about trying to say something else reassuring, but he still couldn’t think of anything. So instead he just fell into line with Erin as they headed toward the barricades set up just past the site of Tim Connor’s launch. They stayed quiet all the way ’til they were on the other side of the first blood splatter, and Arch knew that was as far as he was gonna get before Erin said something.
***
“What the fuck do you think did this?” Erin asked. She had the sick feeling in her stomach that came from knowing something the sheriff most assuredly did not but being totally unable to voice it to him. It made her feel bad, made her feel—if she admitted it to herself—a little bit excited, too, like she was on the inside for a secret that no one else knew.
“No idea,” Arch said, the big, stoic man that he was. He was stalking away from the scene in a hell of a hurry, his eyes hidden darkly under the brim of his hat. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to be shadowy and shit or if he was annoyed with her.
“But it was a demon, right?” Erin asked a little louder than she intended and realized a moment later there were people out on their porches all down the sides of the street.
Arch played it cool and didn’t even bother to turn his head to look, like she hadn’t just said anything. He was a cool customer, Arch. “Probably,” he said in a low voice that was probably more appropriate to the situation than hers had been. Erin kicked herself mentally. She should have been a little more circumspect, she knew. “But it’s not like I know enough about them to tell what kind.”
Erin thought back to that book of Hendricks’s that she’d pilfered a couple days ago, before the dam. It had all types of demons in it. Crazy shit. She was sure it meant he was crazy, too, but then she’d seen a guy breathe fire out of his mouth like some kind of dragon, and suddenly the ex-Marine didn’t seem quite so insane. “You think Hendricks would know?”
Arch just looked tense now. “Maybe. If not him, maybe his new buddies.”
“You mean Lerner and Duncan?” Erin shot him a coy smile. Lerner and Duncan seemed all right, even though they were demons. Or Officers of Occultic Concordance, as they’d pronounced themselves when she’d gotten the full intro. Lerner had said it with a swagger. Duncan hadn’t said anything at all.
“Yeah,” Arch said tightly as they crossed through a gap in the barricades to where their patrol cars were parked on the other side. “Them.” Arch’s Explorer’s lights were flashing, and so were the dashboard lights in Erin’s car—which had until really recently been the sheriff’s own. She didn’t exactly consider this a moment appropriate to smile, considering how straight-to-shit things had gotten in Midian lately, but the thought of having her own car was almost worthy of one, even under the circumstances. Even if it was still missing the driver’s side mirror.
“How did you explain that mirror to the sheriff?” Arch asked, like he could read her fucking mind or something.
“I haven’t,” she said. “Figured if he had time to notice it, it’d be the least of his problems. He hasn’t said shit about it yet.”
Arch paused next to his car, lowered his voice. “What about those spent shells from the rifle in the back?” He kept his cool gaze on her. “He find out about those yet?”
“The gun’s clean,” Erin said. To this she smiled, though politely and coolly rather than with any kind of satisfaction. “Cleaned it myself after I took it to the range. Bought some replacement ammo while I was there, so no need for anyone to be the wiser about that little ordeal.” Because losing a mirror was one thing but discharging an AR-15 in a gun battle with a demon on top of Tallakeet Dam was the sort of thing Reeve might pay attention to, even in his current state. “What about those big .50 cal rounds hiding up in the tree line near the dam?”
Arch didn’t even flinch. “Picked ’em up myself the day after.” He opened his driver’s side door and got in. He shot her a little half-assed look of pure chagrin. “No need to leave that thread hanging out for anybody to yank on.”
***
Hendricks was running down the goddamned hill at a high enough speed that it ought to have scared the shit out of him. Maybe it did a little, but after clearing doors in Ramadi a few times, the fear factor for running down a steep hill turned down a few notches. It was like being afraid of getting in a bicycle accident after learning to drive a car at a hundred and ninety miles an hour; it could still happen, but it wasn’t something you gave a lot of thought to.
Tree branches whipped at him as he descended the slope, hauling ass and all else while whipping around tree trunks and shit. He wasn’t winded, not yet, but he wasn’t in near as good a shape as he’d been in the Marines, either, so it was bound to catch up with him soon. He thought that, anyway, as he ducked his head slightly to avoid a low-hanging branch and nearly fucking toppled. That would be an embarrassing thing to have to cop to—yeah, I rolled down a fucking hill while chasing after a demon. I’m a serious demon hunter, all right.
He’d busted down the front door of the demon’s home as impolitely as he could. About like he imagined Arch would do, crashing in some meth dealer’s house if he had to. Knocked it off its hinges before his companions could volunteer to do it for him; he was always more of a DIY guy, hating to delegate shit. Do it yourself it gets it done right. He wasn’t an officer, after all.
Now he was damned near pinwheeling his arms to keep from getting that weightless sensation as each foot left the ground. It was a steep fucking hill—foothill, he guessed—somewhere near the bottom of the King Daddy mountain in these parts, Mount Horeb or something stupid. His mind defaulted to calling it Mouth Whore-ebb, though that wasn’t exactly how the locals said it.
All this kept flashing through his mind as he ran. Busting down that door, sword in hand, ready to deal damage to a demon only to have the scrawny bastard flash those eyes at him and cannonball out the nearby picture window into the gulch below the house—all of it played along with a commentary in his head that said, Holy shit, what the fuck am I doing?
And the answer was: Trying to make this town a safer place, one demon sonofabitch at a time.
The wind kicked up a little as he came over a slope. He grunted and adjusted his feet to compensate. He still felt like he was out of control, but his legs were keeping up so far. It was a crazy fucking feeling, not quite as bad as tear-assing down a steep road on a bike but close, and his quarry was at least a hundred feet ahead of him, busting branches of the trees with his arms as he ran. Hey, it cleared a path for Hendricks, and he wasn’t choosy about the kind of help he was getting, especially lately.
Especially lately.
He didn’t have enough breath to shout insults at the thing or he would have. All he had was the focus to keep his eye on the damned ball, on the damned demon, and his mind out of the possibilities for all the shit that could befall him should he fall. He wasn’t sure if there was a tonic that could undo all the fucked-up damage his body would take if that would happen, and he didn’t want to find out.
The wind kept a coming, blowing in his eyes and making him squint. It was a hot damned day, and he was sweating like he was on Parris Island again, just wishing it was some morning PT. It wasn’t quite as bad as Iraq, though, that was certain. The ground was all dried up, too, which was weird as hell, he thought idly as he went, because only a couple days ago it had rained hard enough to flood the fuck outta the whole county.
“On your left!” came a voice from—big surprise—his left. Hendricks would have tossed a look of disdain but instead he tucked his left elbow again, even as he kept dodging down the slope, his big black drover coat billowing behind him and his cowboy hat still clinging to his head.
***
Lerner surged
past the cowboy without much effort. Hendricks had a good lead time because the dumbass had jumped out the window behind the fleeing demon—a quantel’a, as near as Lerner could see—and Lerner wasn’t willing to do something that stupid. It wasn’t exactly a point of pride, like he was too good to go leaping out a window. It was more like he just shook his head at the two of them for being fucking morons and made his way down with his partner, Duncan, in tow. Like civilized people and not fucking animals.
They were running like animals now, though, he and Duncan. And cursing like men. Well, he was, anyway. Duncan was still stoic and approaching on Hendricks’s right, though he hadn’t bothered to announce himself. He’d often pondered why Duncan was such a mild-mannered sort of fellow when he really could have cut loose—like Lerner did every now and again. He hadn’t come up with any answers on that front, not even after a hundred-plus years. That was probably some sort of answer in and of itself, but as long as Lerner had pondered it he hadn’t gotten to the bottom of it in any way that satisfied.
Now Lerner was watching the world whip past him as he ran down what felt to him like a mountain, hoping he didn’t take a misstep. Smashing into a tree at this speed could be potentially career ending for him. And by career ending, he meant breaking open the shell that held his happy demon essence in that rough covering he called a body. It would not make for a joyful day, not for him. He could kind of imagine showing back up in the underworld, earthly form busted and burned up, and imagined the reception he’d get. It made him watch his steps just a touch more carefully.
The fucking quantel’a that had started the whole foot chase wasn’t getting away, but the strung-out dipshit was damned sure making a good show of it. Whatever he was on was letting him run a lot farther and faster than he should have been able to. Fear would probably do that to a quantel’a. Fear and meth.
“You getting a reading?” Lerner called out to Duncan and saw a shake of the head in return as Duncan passed Hendricks. The cowboy started to do a double take and halted as he cut left around a tree, its big-ass, low-hanging branches causing him to swing wide just behind Duncan. “Sons of bitches. I catch that fucking screen Spellman selling those fucking clouding runes to anyone, I’m gonna expose his empty-ass innards to the light of day.”
“Would it do any good?” Hendricks had started to gasp now. Lerner wondered how much longer the cowboy could run.
“It’d do my heart some good,” Lerner said blackly. That screen—just an empty vessel that could talk like a man, used as a veil by someone from the other side to transact business with earthly creatures—that sonofabitch was the cause of all his problems for the last few days. All of them. And they couldn’t even find his ass now, nor the asses of most of the other troublemaking demons in town, because the fucking screen had been selling runes that hid them from Duncan and his sensing powers. “Yours too, based on how much huffing you’re doing, meatbag.”
“I’m not used to running mountains every day,” Hendricks answered, and Lerner could hear him trying to rein in his heavy breathing. He hadn’t known the cowboy for more than a few days, and already he could see the pride just oozing off the bastard.
“Wouldn’t matter if you did,” Duncan answered matter-of-factly, missing Hendricks’s look of ire, “he’s faster than you.” Duncan turned on the jets and blew down the slope.
Lerner wanted to laugh at Duncan’s sudden burst of speed, but he had enough charity in him that he decided not to rub it into the cowboy. Poor bastard. Instead, he just sped up himself.
***
They were outpacing him like mad now, Lerner and Duncan, and Hendricks could feel his face burning not just from the heat of the run but from shame. Sure, they were demons, and they damned well ought to be stronger and faster than him.
That didn’t make it burn any less, though.
Duncan broke loose a tree limb ahead of him, sending it spiraling down the slope with a hard hit of the wrist. The crack echoed down the mountain. Hendricks could see a field somewhere through the trees up ahead.
He knew they had to catch this bastard soon. Duncan was closest, was closest and almost there—
The demon juked right as Duncan was almost close enough to lay a hand on him. Hendricks would have held his breath if he hadn’t needed every one of them at the moment. Duncan missed a step and tumbled, his shoulder hitting the ground hard enough to break bones.
If he’d had bones.
The demon burned hard right like a receiver in a football game. He snaked out of view for a second behind a low fir tree. Hendricks picked up on him again as he turned back down the slope.
Hendricks was beyond winded now, beyond tired. He wanted to go back to his hotel room and pass out and wake up without any of the pains he knew he was going to. Beyond any rationality, he wanted Erin to massage his hurts away, wanted to get down and nasty with her. That second bit would probably happen anyway, based on how often they’d been fucking the last couple days.
He filed that thought away for later as he rounded the pine and swooped down the slope after Lerner. He didn’t look back to make sure Duncan was all right. He was sure the demon was, though he’d probably messed up his lime-colored suit.
Lerner was a good twenty yards ahead of Hendricks by now, and about ten behind the demon. The fucker was doing everything in his power to not run a straight line, and he could have been going anywhere based on his movements. Hendricks half expected him to double back and head up the slope.
“Nowhere to run,” Hendricks breathed.
“He’s proving you wrong on that one,” Lerner tossed over his shoulder. Hendricks frowned. He hadn’t expected the demon to even hear him. What were they called again? Oh, right. Office of Occultic Concordance.
OOCs.
Lerner was closing the gap with the speedy, dodgy bastard. The slope got sandy and the ground went a little soft, forcing Hendricks to look for better footing. Lerner didn’t, though, and missed a step.
Whoosh.
The OOC went sideways down the hill, smacking into a tree with a noise that told Hendricks he did feel pain.
“And then there was one,” Hendricks muttered.
The trees thinned ahead and the demon was slowing. Whether it was because he thought he’d gotten away clean after dodging two OOCs or because he had smelled Hendricks coming and didn’t think he was much of a threat—well, it didn’t matter.
Hendricks passed the last few trees as the last boughs vanished and uninterrupted sky appeared above them. The demon wasn’t exactly pulling a Run Forrest Run anymore. He’d slowed and was jogging backward lightly, like he was just leading Hendricks on at this point, standing at the edge of a meadow that stretched all the way up to a fence beyond. There was activity there, but it was far enough off that Hendricks didn’t pay it a bit of attention.
“Moves like that, you oughta be playing for the Titans,” Hendricks said, slowing to a walk as he entered the meadow. The grass was ankle deep, green and uneven, whispering as he stepped on it.
The guy was all thin and rangy, had meth teeth and black-as-night demon eyes. “OOCs don’t let us play sports, can you believe it?” He grinned. “Damn near killed me when I found out as a teen. I was pretty good at football.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t really have the build to be taken seriously as anything but a kicker,” Hendricks said, keeping his distance. The sun was damned hot above now that the trees were behind them. The demon was just treading in place, looking more like a boxer practicing footwork than a runner about to sprint off. “So … we gonna throw down now?”
“Looks like a fair fight to me,” the demon said, still grinning with those spotted teeth. “Now that you’ve lost your friends.”
“Oh, they weren’t my friends,” Hendricks said. Draw the sword or draw him in? Guy could run, no doubt, and pulling the sword tended to make demons antsy. Wait too long, though, and this bastard was fast enough to put him in a world of hurt.
“You’re a human demon hunter hanging out w
ith OOCs,” the demon said, shaking his head. “That’s not even strange bedfellows man, that’s like … a cat sleeping with a giraffe.”
“God, I hope I’m the giraffe in that scenario,” Hendricks muttered.
“You’re about to be the cat,” the guy said, and he lunged for Hendricks.
Hendricks knew in the second the guy came at him that he should have pulled the sword. The demon already knew he was a hunter, already had a feel for what he was capable of, and knew he was hanging out with OOCs. The rumors—they’d damned sure gotten around, and fast, considering he’d just met Lerner and Duncan a couple days ago.
Hendricks knew even as he got his hand on the hilt that the demon would be on him before it was out, would have his teeth buried in Hendricks throat before he could even—
BOOM.
The sound was louder than thunder, like artillery called in from the hill, like an airstrike dropping in from above. The demon that was coming at Hendricks dropped—more like flipped backward, upper body rocked like he’d been hit with God’s own hammer right in the chest. Not that Hendricks believed in God, but the way that fucker flipped, it might as well have been an act of His.
The sound of the shot faded as Hendricks closed on the demon. The guy was hurting, plain as anything. Hendricks thought about making light of it, but why? He drew his sword as he stood over the bastard, and smelled the strong scent of smoked meth hanging in the air.
“Not your friends, huh?” the demon asked, with black eyes.
“You know a lot of OOCs that carry a .50 cal Barrett rifle?” Hendricks asked. He smiled, shrugged, and slammed the sword through the demon’s chest.
Black fire crept out from the hole, from his eyes, from his mouth, and swallowed him whole like he’d been pulled back into the black depths of hell. The grass beneath him waved lightly with the passing of the storm of ebony flame, then settled undisturbed, the blades just a little shorter in the shape of the demon’s figure than the ones around them.
Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted Page 3