Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  “The fucking mess on Crosser Street,” Harris breathed. She turned pasty pale under that blond hair, like someone had pulled a plug under her chin and let all the blood drain out of her face.

  “Pretty egregious, no?” Lerner asked, feigning sympathy so he could really hit her with the next bombshell he was about to deliver. “Most cities have a good underground market where you can do pick-up, or have human meat brought right to your door. It’s a lot more civilized than what they’ve got going out here in the boonies.” He sniffed, trying to keep a straight face. “More of a kill-it-and-grill-it yourself atmosphere around here, you know.”

  Lerner just waited for his asshole comments to land. They did, and he judged it to be worth it. Hendricks blew air out through pursed lips, still keeping his eyes averted from the scene like he was trying to avoid seeing a train derail. Deputy Stan—Lerner still wasn’t used to calling him Arch—had a darkening expression on his face, like he had an inkling of all this but didn’t like to hear it laid out quite so brutally. Harris was still looking pretty sick and edging toward her boy toy Hendricks. Lerner wondered idly if it would put them off the fuck fest they’d seemed to have planned for tonight.

  As for the last one, Mrs. Stan—she was just watching like it wasn’t a big deal. He waited, and she stared back at him.

  “They ship human body parts like the genitals as a special sort of delicacy,” Lerner said, pretending he wasn’t watching her. Having demon eyes helped. He didn’t have to be looking at her to see her clearly; he didn’t have an actual iris, so he could see whatever was in the arc of his eyes. “Cook ’em up, eat ’em raw—they do all sorts of stuff. They even have this version of veal in the high-end stores—”

  “That’s enough,” Hendricks finally said. His girlfriend was three shades of white, all bleached out. He just looked disgusted, like he’d heard it all before and was tired of it. Deputy Stan still had that look of quiet fury in his eyes, and his wife was still just staring straight ahead, listening politely like she was at the fucking country club and someone had told her what was on the dinner menu. No big.

  “We got another one,” Deputy Stan said, breaking his silence. The big man looked more than a little irritable, and Lerner wondered if he’d had a bad morning already. Probably, the way this town was going.

  Lerner was still keeping an eye on the wife, though. Mrs. Stan was an interesting character, and showing zero reaction to the news that humans were a food source to demons? Lerner had his ideas of how a Southern belle should act, and they weren’t all based on cable TV viewings of Gone With the Wind, either. This chick was different, though. Real different. And not just because she carried a rifle that would make most real men shit their pants and run.

  He watched her, and she just listened to her husband. That same polite look, like she was taking it all in, with no reaction on the surface. What Lerner wondered, though, was what was going on beneath the facade?

  ***

  Erin was ready to chuck. She had that sick feeling in her gut like she was gonna, and she kinda just wanted to get it over with, just stick a finger down her throat and start the engine so she could finish and be on with life. The problem was, even if she emptied her stomach, the thing causing her to feel nauseated was still gonna hang around. It was like having your eyes opened so you could watch a snuff film. Not a great thing to wake up to.

  “Another what?” Hendricks asked. She was standing inches from him, could tell that he wasn’t too happy about the current topic of conversation, either. He didn’t look sick, just annoyed.

  “Another body,” she answered before Arch could. “Another murder.” She looked to Lerner and Duncan, those two weird-ass guys. “Another demon.”

  “Oh, yeah, look at us, like we dragged them to town,” Lerner said, eyebrows raised. She didn’t have too much sense of the man yet—though she supposed he wasn’t a man at all, was he? She had, however, decided that man or not, he was a dick.

  “Did I say that?” She was able to keep her tone calmer than she would have thought given how annoyed she was at him. “Or did I just look to you as our resident experts on demonology?” She paused and felt that slight satisfaction dissolve as she thought about what she’d just said. “If that’s a thing.”

  “Heh,” Lerner said and glanced at Duncan like he’d heard something hilarious. “Demonology.”

  “We got a body,” Arch said stiffly. More stiffly than usual. He looked a little pissed himself.

  “Just one?” Lerner asked, and some of the dickishness dissolved. At this point, Duncan reached up and tugged on Lerner’s arm. Erin didn’t get even close to the same vibe from him as she did from Lerner. Duncan seemed softer somehow, maybe because his face wasn’t quite as lean. Lerner kind of paused as he noticed what Duncan was doing, like he was actively reassessing what an ass he was being. “What is it this time?”

  “Looked like a real nasty hit and run,” Arch said. “Like someone was going a hundred miles an hour down a residential street, but no one heard an engine rev like that.”

  Lerner shrugged. “That’s not a lot to go on. Could be anything. Could be a car instead of a demon.” Duncan tugged his sleeve again and Lerner wavered for a second. “But assuming it was a demon, it could be almost any kind. Strength like the Hulk is not out of line for any number of types of our kind.”

  “How many types?” Erin asked. “Like, a dozen types? Or—”

  “A hundred,” Duncan answered, again almost apologetic. “Or at least somewhere between there and a thousand. A lot.”

  “Well, that don’t make it too easy to narrow down,” Arch said.

  “The worst part is that they’re unassuming,” Hendricks said, and she could see him adjust the brim of his hat over his eyes. He was projecting the aura like he was old hand at this—which he was, obviously.

  “What the kid means with his twenty-dollar words,” Lerner said before Erin could ask him to clarify—it still annoyed her the demon did that shit—“is that if a demon did this, there’s no guarantee they’re going to look any different than a normal human when they’re just walking around among you. It’s not like they’re carrying the muscle mass of Brock Lesnar—it could look like a twelve year-old girl, for all we know.” He chucked a twisted smile at Hendricks. “Or like he said, unassuming.”

  “How did it look?” Duncan asked. For a second, Erin thought she saw irritation flash on Lerner’s face, but it was gone in half a beat.

  “The scene?” Arch answered. He always seemed to like to take the lead in these things, as best he could. Made sense; he’d been a leader around these parts for as long as she could remember. “Like I said, hit and run wouldn’t have been too out of place. Body got hit, went flying about a hundred feet or so—”

  “Whoa,” Lerner said, lips pursed in an “o” and eyes all squinted. “Like a fucking field goal.”

  “That’s a hundred yards,” Duncan murmured.

  “Who was it?” Alison asked, finally coming out of her shell a little. She looked reserved to Erin, like she was just taking it all in.

  “Tim Connor,” Arch said. “Got him on a jog.”

  “Ohh,” Alison looked pained. “He used to come into the store all the time asking for organic chicken breasts. We didn’t get too many of them in, just a few, because almost nobody bought them—”

  “I’m sure this going somewhere lovely, princess,” Lerner said, and there was that dickishness again, “but rather than eulogizing the poor bastard, maybe we should start looking for what killed him.” He snapped to face Arch, who didn’t look none too pleased at Lerner’s behavior toward Alison. “Where did this happen?”

  “Berg Street,” Erin answered after a few seconds of silence in which Arch did not speak. “The sheriff has the scene cordoned off.”

  “We’ll take a peek after sundown,” Lerner said, stretching. She frowned at the demon—Hendricks had said that they were all just bags of contained essence. Why would he need to stretch? Unless he was just trying to look
human in his movements? She was tempted to ask him but didn’t. Because he was an ass. “Come on, Duncan, let’s vamoose on back to the motel.”

  “Gonna catch some shut eye?” Hendricks asked. She couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  “Nah, there’s a new episode of World’s Deadliest Catch on that I’ve been wanting to see, and since we don’t have a DVR …” Lerner shot him a toxic smile. “If the world goes to hell, give us a call. Otherwise we’ll be at the scene after dark.”

  “And then?” Arch asked. He was most definitely not sounding happy, at least not to Erin’s ears.

  “And then we deal with the next thing, and the next thing,” Lerner said, already turning away to head back to his town car. “It’s always gonna be something here until things calm down.”

  “When will that be?” Erin felt her irritation with the demon dissolve just enough for her to slip that out.

  Lerner actually turned around to face her when he answered. “Hopefully it’ll last for a while yet.” He wore a kind of twisted grimace that held not one ounce of pleasure. “Because the likelihood is that when it’s done, the town is done right along with it.”

  ***

  “God, what a cheery fucker,” Erin said as the OOCs drove away. She had shuffled closer to Hendricks, and he could smell her light perfume as she slipped an arm into his drover coat and around his waist.

  “He’s got a point,” Hendricks said, watching the town car kick up dust in the driveway. “I’ve been to enough hotspots the last few years to know. Most of ’em tend to be on a slow burn, things ratchet up a little at a time. Things have already gotten crazy here, what with Hollywood, those demons that came through and ate all those people, plus Gideon, that necromantic cock-spurt. Shit’s already getting bad here, and it’s not even week two. This isn’t a slow burn, it’s a fast one.” Hendricks shook his head. “Those are the ones that tend to go big.”

  “You’ve been in ones like that before?” Arch asked.

  “A couple times,” Hendricks said, chewing his lip. It gave him a sort of nervous satisfaction to nibble on his lip the way Erin probably would later. “There are always signs when it’s about to spin out of control. Enough to let you know to leave, anyway.”

  “Define ‘spin out of control,’” Arch said.

  Hendricks felt a flare of discomfort that twisted his face. Worse, he knew he’d let it show. “Well …”

  “How bad could it get?” Arch said, pressing him. Hendricks could almost feel the earnestness dripping off the Deputy. It was a funny thing, how Arch could stab a demon with a knife after a knockdown brawl and still have that ring of … naivety? Something. Not quite innocence. “You said Detroit and New Orleans have been hotspots—”

  “Low level,” Hendricks corrected. “Increased murder rates, some bizarre happenings, I mean all that shit’s grist for the mill. They weren’t huge spikes because they were slow burners. The towns where you see things get out of control …” He paused. “Well, those are the ones that disappear off the map. You can always tell when it’s about to happen because demon activity goes through the roof. You can’t walk down a street safely—”

  “You mean like how I was laying in my apartment and demons came busting through the door,” Arch said dryly. “Or how you got jumped outside your hotel room and she got knocked out.” He gestured to Erin.

  “I got knocked out?” Erin wheeled on him, and he felt her grip tighten on his belt. “That’s what happened?”

  Hendricks shrugged, feeling the scarlet rush across his cheeks. “Would you have believed me at the time if I’d said it was demons?”

  “No,” she said, a little mollified. “And I probably wouldn’t have laid you, either.” Hendricks caught Arch looking away pretty hard on that one.

  “It can get a whole lot worse,” Hendricks said. “Though I admit I don’t usually get run down like that on my first couple days in town. Demons tend to avoid demon hunters until they have to face them or until they’ve got the numbers on their side. Hollywood was different. He didn’t avoid. He confronted because he was a pissy little fucker.” It was true; normally it didn’t matter if Hendricks got a little plastered in a hotspot as long as he wasn’t too far gone.

  “Probably wouldn’t have been as bad if he hadn’t caught you flat-footed while you were chasing tail,” Arch said with a little bit of sting. What was up with him? Bad mood, it felt like.

  “And just what were you doing that they busted down your door and caught you naked as the day you were born?” Hendricks asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He had a lot of respect for Arch, but he hadn’t known him for long enough to take too much of his shit.

  “We were trying for a baby,” Alison said, completely casual, like she wasn’t saying anything out of the ordinary.

  That sort of stayed there in the air like a heinous fart in the barracks during basic. Hendricks didn’t know what to say to clear it, either.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Erin finally said. She looked tired and uncomfortable. “I don’t know why we’re even bickering now that Lerner’s gone. I would have thought that guy took all the asshole with him when he left.”

  Hendricks had to concede she had a point, even though he secretly kind of liked the particular brand of obnoxious Lerner spit out everywhere he went. “So, this scene you were at … pretty messy, huh?”

  “Never seen anything quite like it,” Arch said, shaking his head. “I’m getting real used to the sight of blood at this point, though.”

  Hendricks nodded. “It’s not been pretty around here lately, that’s for sure.”

  “Least the carnival’s coming,” Alison said with a shrug. Hendricks withheld the frown out of politeness only.

  ***

  Lauren Ella Darlington was born in Midian, raised in Midian, lived in Midian, and worked in Chattanooga. She justified this to herself by saying she lived on the far southwestern edge of Midian and worked on the far northeastern edge of Chattanooga, which meant she was only driving about forty minutes per day, and that wasn’t too bad, really, was it? Especially not for her to be an attending physician at the Red Cedar Medical Center, floating from the ER to the ICU, depending on the day and the patient load. Red Cedar was not exactly a level-one trauma center, so on any given day the patient load varied from one or two to a handful, mostly old folks on the way out.

  On the plus side, she did get the occasional fun job, like suturing up some kid’s leg when he wrecked his ATV against a tree. He was lucky sutures were all he needed. Other than a new ATV, she supposed, listening to him bitch about it. Had his priorities firmly in order, too.

  The other advantage to being the locally known big-city doctor in Midian was that Lauren occasionally got a call from Sheriff Reeve. She hadn’t voted for him—or anyone from his party, ever—but he went to church with her mother and he hadn’t ever been an obnoxious asshole to her that she could recall. Plenty had in Midian, especially after a certain time in her high school career. She’d made a list and everything.

  But it was ultimately a pointless list, because if she’d gotten a call from any one of them complaining of anything more serious than pink eye, she would ultimately have just sighed and had them meet her at the diner so she could try and judge what was wrong. And then send them to some other doctor if it was serious, because dammit, if they were on the list, she didn’t want to deal with them.

  She cursed herself for being a little soft, but she knew it was all true. Because there’d been plenty of other people in the town who hadn’t landed themselves on that list, who’d helped her, who’d done right by her and cared and sent pies and cookies and God-only-knew what else, and she told herself she’d help everyone because of them, not the ones on her list. Her shit list.

  She guided the car onto Berg Street and killed the ignition. She didn’t remember to put it in park until after she’d done that, which happened frequently. Lauren said “Fuck!” really loud to herself in the car. No one could hear her, not that it would have matter
ed. Everyone in Midian had an opinion about her already anyway, and screaming “FUCK!” from the rooftops wouldn’t have changed it one way or another.

  She grabbed her purse, which was laden with all manner of crap from make-up to tissues, and slung it over her shoulder. Old habit, she realized as she got out of the car. It wasn’t like someone in Midian was going to come running up and break her car’s window while she was outside talking to the sheriff a couple hundred feet away. It wasn’t Chattanooga, after all, and that stuff didn’t even happen all that often there. Still, old habits.

  Old enemies.

  Old lists.

  Her heels clicked along on the pavement as Lauren walked, sighing to herself with irritation that she’d gotten roped into this. It was pointless. There was a perfectly good pathologist at the morgue where this corpse was going, and they’d be able to render a much more sensible, well-thought-out suggestion as to what had happened than she would. She tried to come up with a reason why she was doing this for Reeve, any reason at all, and the only one she could summon forth was that she was doing it because he wasn’t on the list.

  Lauren dodged the blood trail as she made her way toward the sheriff. He looked about as hangdog as she’d ever seen a man who wasn’t sleeping in the doghouse, his normally jovial face completely weighed down. It had been a shitty week, she knew, but Reeve was usually a lot more effervescent than this.

  “Dr. Darlington,” Reeve said as she approached.

  “Sheriff,” she replied with a veneer of politeness that she didn’t really feel. It was a world of ick around her. She didn’t get grossed out easily—you couldn’t get through medical school and an internship if you did—but this was pretty gross. She’d seen a few high-speed collisions and the results were seldom suitable for an open casket funeral. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, seeing as the EMTs have already pronounced the victim dead,” Reeve said, smearing the sarcasm on with a trowel, “I was hoping you might just take a look at this real quick and tell me what you think.”