Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  Sam was winching the sheriff’s car down from the back of the truck when Arch caught up with him. The red tail lights of the big tow truck glowed, casting Sam’s unshaven, three-four day scruff in a light not unlike that which Reeve had been in when Arch had seen him. That caused a moment of disquiet, thinking about that particular landmine, still lying in his path undetonated.

  “What can I do for you, Arch?” Sam asked, glancing up at him as he approached. “I don’t reckon you followed me back here just to make sure I got home safely.”

  Arch didn’t bother splitting into a grin for him, but the man had figured that much out. “Police property in the trunk, Sam. I can’t just leave it to get smashed.”

  Sam blinked at him, lines around his squinting, folding like the middle of an accordion. “Arch, this trunk is all beat to shit, if you’ll pardon my French. I don’t think you’re gonna be able to open it with a key.”

  “I can’t leave it in there, Sam,” Arch said. “Sheriff stored his long guns in the back.”

  Sam scratched his face, giving it a thought. “Got a pry bar. You might could work it loose if you were willing to put some elbow grease into it.”

  Arch let out the hint of a smile. “That’d be mighty helpful, Sam.” He watched the man nod and make his way slowly back to the cab. It wouldn’t do to just let what was in the trunk of the car get lost, not when Arch had an idea of how they might make use of it. Waste not, want not.

  ***

  “You look much better already,” Spellman opined, the sorry fucker.

  Hendricks could hear the sounds from the room down the hall now, the rattle of cages. Deal with the devil nearly done, he was about ready to start looking someone in the face. He gave a moment’s thought to the absurdity of using the phrase metaphorically and moved on.

  “Your color is much improved,” Spellman continued.

  Hendricks tore his eyes away from the empty skin that was Spellman and looked Alison in the face. She was sitting next to him at a finely appointed dining room table that would have looked a few degrees out of place in an actual farmhouse. It was a little too swank, a little too polished, a little too unused. He doubted a fork or a knife had ever been set upon the surface of this smooth monstrosity. The whole room had that feel about it, all appearance, with no sense that anyone actually lived here.

  “You do look almost alive now,” Alison told him in that flat, anti-depressant tone of hers.

  “Thanks.” He swept his gaze back to Wren Spellman, trying not to look him in the eyes and taking in the salt and pepper sideburns instead. “I need another round before I go.”

  Spellman was hovering, his—its?—hands a few inches from Hendricks’s head. He did have a medical kit, Hendricks noticed, wondering where the hell that had come from. It was open in one palm, and he had a nice piece of gauze pinched between his fingers. It reeked of rubbing alcohol, even though Hendricks hadn’t seen him open a bottle nor dip the gauze in it. “This is going to sting, so you might want to prepare yourself.”

  “I’ve had wounds cleaned before, thanks,” Hendricks said through gritted teeth, already preparing himself for the pain.

  “I wasn’t talking about the wound cleaning,” Spellman said, pressing the swab to Hendricks’s neck. It burned only a little, surprisingly. Probably the effects of the drug already working on him. “I was talking about the fact that I can’t sell you another round of the medicine you just took.”

  Hendricks felt himself give a comically exaggerated blink. He could feel the cool, mentholated burn of the swab on the skin of his neck, dabbing away the crust of blood as Spellman’s hands worked with precision to clean whatever was left of the wound. “Beg pardon?” he asked. “What, are you out of the stuff?”

  “No, I’m quite well stocked,” Spellman said coolly, and it took all Hendricks could manage not to jerk around and start battering the smug fucker with a fist. “I just can’t sell you another vial knowing what you plan to do with it.”

  Hendricks lost his battle with restraint, and the chair flipped over behind him as he came to his feet. He had a few inches on Spellman, the empty bastard, and he drew himself up to his full height as he stared down at the Screen, looking for something behind the eyes. “Say that again.”

  “I can’t sell you any more of the compound in question,” Spellman said with a shrug, like it was just a fact of life. “You see, you intend to use it on Deputy Harris, a noble—no, really, laudable goal.” His face fell, the tics of emotion following along with his speech. “The problem is, Deputy Harris is in the hospital at this very moment, fighting for her life. Doctors are working on her. X-rays are being taken, magnetic resonance imaging is being done—all the wonders of the human medical world are being applied to her.” Spellman’s hands were clean now, not a hint of bloody gauze anywhere in sight. “So if you were to walk into her room and administer some of my compound to her, you would produce a verifiable medical miracle. You’d practically bring her back from the dead.” Spellman’s face went dead. “I can’t have that, no matter intimidating you look, all puffed up like that.”

  “I don’t really do much puffing,” Hendricks said, “or huffing. Pretty much skip straight to blowing your house down.”

  “Ah, yes, my house,” Spellman said with a light shrug. “It’d be a shame if you did that. I wouldn’t be able to help you any more if you did. And I’d have to go through the trouble of pulling up stakes, of finding a new storefront. A very messy headache would entail. Of course there’d be the matter of revenge, too—”

  “Are you threatening me?” Hendricks said, and it was only through sheer will he didn’t seize the man by his Han jacket and smear him all over his too-fancy table.

  “No more than you’re threatening me,” Spellman said, face inscrutable. “No, I can’t sell you the compound you want. But … perhaps there is something I can do for you.”

  Hendricks hadn’t reached for his sword yet, but damn if he hadn’t wanted to. “Go on,” he said, once he got his jaw to stop locking up from anger. It took a moment.

  ***

  Lauren didn’t push the gurney because she didn’t really need to, but she was right there with the paramedics as they did, riding it right through into the Red Cedar ER. She saw Doctor Burnham as they came in, knew he’d been on duty tonight but decided to divert here anyway. Still sort of young, married, but fooled around with any woman he could sink his dick in. She’d heard from two of the nurses that every time he fucked he made a “The doctor is in!” proclamation when he got his tip wet. She hadn’t been interested in him before that, and afterward it had put him on the DNF list forever.

  “Gimme the bullet,” Burnham said as she slid in alongside the gurney into the trauma room.

  “MVA, possible skull fracture,” Lauren said, noting that Burnham didn’t even say a word about her being in the ambulance, like her picking up a shift and coming through the door in runner’s clothes was a perfectly normal occurrence. She ran through the rest of the vitals on memory, not really paying attention. She was eyeing Deputy Harris’s face again; the poor girl … she just …

  “So, Lauren,” Burnham said as he got to work, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  She ignored the twitch of a nerve at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not here, Chase,” she said, calling him by his first name. If he wanted to get familiar, it was a two-way street. “I’m a product of your overactive imagination.” She pulled the latex gloves from her hands one by one, letting them snap as they were removed. “You got this?”

  Burnham only spared her a glance as he started to assess his patient. His patient. Not hers anymore. “I got it.” Dipshit he may be, but Burnham was a decent doc. If he said he had it, he had it.

  “Great,” Lauren said, and looked down, remembering that faint pain in her knees probably meant she needed sutures. “Because this doctor is out.” She pushed through the swinging doors before Burnham could say anything to that. She paused in the white tile hallway, looking down the path
straight ahead, staring off into the far distance of the corridor. “Good luck, Deputy,” she said, and started toward the locker room. After she cleaned up she’d have to find a ride back to Midian. And Molly.

  Oh, Molly.

  ***

  “I’d like to see you again,” Mick said. He’d done it right, he knew it. Her face was all aglow, the overhead lamp hanging above them, the skies dark outside the window, lights of the square the sole guard against the blossoming night. The proprietor of the café was the only one left, and he was giving Mick the eye again. Not a good look. Every time he passed near, though, he was all smiles for Molly.

  Molly’s face was flushed, and she had a good look to her, at least to Mick. She’d had fun. He’d made her laugh. That seemed important, making her laugh. Those pale cheeks pink with the laughter, like she’d brushed them with a rose, leaving traces of the color behind on her snowy skin as they passed. “I’d like that,” Molly said, her lips fighting not to turn up in the corners.

  Oh, yeah. Mick had this one. It was almost in the bag. “How about coming to the carnival tomorrow night? I’ve got the evening off, and I could show you around.” He just tossed it out there. Like bait. Waited for her to go for it.

  She stared at him soberly, looked down for just a second. Thinking it over, he figured. “All right,” she said finally.

  “Want me to pick you up at your house?” he asked. Fishing again.

  Her eyes darted to the proprietor. “No,” she said, hushed. “Not unless you don’t want me to go with you.”

  He nodded like he was some kind of sage. “Parents. I get it.”

  “Just a mom,” Molly said. The cheeks weren’t quite as red now. “She used to be cool, but lately she’s just … ugh. Anyway. Meet me here? In the square? Say around sundown?”

  “Sundown, tomorrow, here,” Mick said, spelling it out. He forced a smile. “Sounds good. I think you’ll like the carnival. I might be able to show you some things you haven’t seen before.”

  She didn’t answer in words, just a slight nod, and a partial smile that hid a subtle enthusiasm. Oh yeah. Mick knew he had this. Right in the damned bag.

  ***

  “How long do you think it’ll take to work?” Hendricks asked, staring at the banana bag skeptically. He’d already paid, figuring something was better than nothing. He gave it a squeeze, and the clear liquid seemed to glimmer with the motion, like there was something hidden inside it.

  “It’ll begin working immediately,” Spellman said. “It just won’t have as sudden of an effect as what you’ve taken. This is a watered-down version of the compound. Slow burn instead of … raging forest fire.” He shrugged. “It’s an imperfect metaphor. The point is, it will begin to heal her as soon as you manage to trade this for her present IV.”

  “Great,” Hendricks said, and started to leave. He didn’t wait to see if Alison was at his side, just turned on his boot and felt the slip of the ornate rug underfoot.

  “A word of caution,” Spellman said, and Hendricks turned back to look at him. Alison was behind him, between him and Spellman, just watching the screen where she’d entered the hall outside the archway to the dining room. “Even if you administer the dose, she may not recover in time.”

  Hendricks felt that rampant desire to grab the man by his jacket again, to smash his head through the glass curio cabinet on the side of the dining room. To ventilate his skin, just a little, to let the essence run out. “Clarify, please.” He said it with restraint.

  “You might want to settle down, just a little,” Spellman said. “That threatening mien may work all manner of wonder when you’re out in your role as demon hunter, but it does so little good for your complexion in this light.”

  Hendricks took a step and stopped when Spellman held out a hand. “I’ve given you the best I can; what I mean to say is that your … lover? Paramour? Fling? She’s in a terrible condition, putting it mildly. She may die regardless. I want to warn you, because I’d hate to have you angry at me because of some perceived failure on my part. So I’m giving you the product warning.” He moved his hands as if he were indicating a marquee of some sort: “Warning: you need to get it to her in the next couple hours to have a chance, and even then…this may not save her life.”

  “Then give me the one that does,” Hendricks said in a low growl.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Spellman said. He wasn’t quite gleeful, but he was way, way too close to it for Hendricks’s taste.

  “Then I’m afraid you’re about to feel the embrace of the warm summer air in your innards,” Hendricks said, and started for his sword, pushing aside the rough fabric of his coat.

  Spellman laughed, looking skyward. “I don’t think you quite understand what you’re up against here, but putting that aside—even if you could somehow compel me to part with the potion … what makes you think you could get your poor, unconscious lady friend to drink it?” He stared back at Hendricks, who had a hand on his sword’s hilt. “You need something that works intravenously.”

  “I’m about to give you something that works intravenously,” Hendricks said and made to draw his sword.

  The lights darkened and the fixtures rattled, and Spellman’s eyes went red. “I’m not a garden variety demon, and I think you’ll find that my bite is worse than any vembra’nonn.”

  “Hendricks,” Alison said warningly.

  Hendricks kept his eyes locked on Spellman but didn’t draw his sword. He realized that the lights had not flickered, had not dimmed; there was some sort of darkness in the room, a pervasive aura of blackness that seemed to be pushing against Hendricks, wrapping his chest, squeezing him. He struggled for breath like he was in a bear hug. “You know, I’ve got a couple friends that would just love to know where you are.”

  Spellman made a sound like a squeal, but lower and more violent, like a breath hissing out of a balloon with vibrato. It made his ears ache. “I wouldn’t go confusing any OOCs in your acquaintance with friends. I suspect there won’t be too many days until it’s driven home to you in agonizingly obvious ways that those … things … are not on your side.” Spellman’s eyes faded. “Besides, they couldn’t find me if they wanted to. My invitation is open to you and only you.” Spellman paused. “Well, you and one other member of your … entourage. Your … association? Your …”

  “Watch,” Hendricks said. “My watch.”

  “However you like it,” Spellman said with a flowery bow. “Are we now settled in all the matters of discussion between us?”

  Hendricks kept his gaze on the screen, his hot, resentful eyes the only expression of the gut-level emotion churning in his belly. He wanted to throttle this motherfucker, put his face against the tread of a tire and peel out until the skin—or shell—was all gone. He was fairly sure that Spellman could see all this as he looked into those mildly glowing red eyes, but that smile never dimmed. “We’re settled, all right.”

  “Then I look forward to seeing you again when we have further commerce to conduct,” Spellman said with that trace of a smile. “Good day, Corporal.” He smiled more broadly at Alison. “Mrs. Stan.”

  Hendricks didn’t turn away from the bastard, just kept his left hand cupped around the IV bag, right on the sword hilt, letting his fingers play on the leather that wrapped it. He gestured for Alison to get moving, and she did, not taking her eyes off of Spellman either. “Yeah,” Hendricks said. “I’m sure I’ll be walking through your door again real soon.”

  “I’m sure you will, too,” Spellman said without a trace of irony.

  Hendricks let the door close behind him, avoiding a last look at that room by the entry as though his life depended on it. The deal was done, but he felt less than satisfied. That was how a deal with a devil went, didn’t it? Feeling like you got fucked, but your pants were still on?

  As the door closed behind him, shutting out that smell, those sounds, and giving him the curious sense that a gateway was shutting to something like another world, he was left sta
nding on the porch of a farmhouse next to Alison, staring out at the messed up town car that they’d taken from Lerner and Duncan.

  “Now what?” Alison asked.

  As if he knew. Other than getting the IV bag to Erin, he had nothing. “This,” he said, waving the banana bag, the liquid within catching the light and sparkling as he waved it in front of her face. “This and … hell, I don’t know. Find those bicycling bastards somehow.”

  “You think they’re just gonna stick around and let us run them over again?” Alison asked. She didn’t look all that impressed with his plan.

  “Seems like they came out of it hurting less than we did,” Hendricks said, a little stiffly. He could feel his pride burning, still, from the confrontation with Spellman. It was sticking in his craw something fierce that he’d backed down. Hendricks hated backing down. The only thing he hated worse was losing, and he’d gotten a real good sense that losing was approaching on the horizon if he kept sailing toward Spellman.

  “In the sense that there are probably still forty of them left to the four of us, yes,” she said. “But we killed a lot of them. And I don’t think they’re going to flee town just because we ran a few of them down. Unless that’s usually how it works with these hotspots?”

  Hendricks felt his eyelids flutter at her a few times. She had a damned annoying point. “No. That’s not usually how it works. Demons don’t typically flee hotspots. I don’t know how these vembra’nonn work, but … no. With things going like they are around here, they’ll probably stick around for a while yet.”

  “Your flock of vembra’nonn are irrelevant, Lafayette Hendricks,” came a voice out of the darkness. He spun to see her there, under the porch light, pale as a fresh Wisconsin snowfall, her red hair blazing behind her and those dark eyes threatening to out-blacken the night sky. “There is a greater danger approaching this town than some kamikaze cyclists.”