Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  He felt his mouth dry. “And?”

  She did not break off from his look, did not blink. “You have a task set before you.”

  He started to bark back at her about tasks he did not want nor need, but before the bile even had a chance to bubble out in hot, molten fury, it was as though he had blinked and she was no longer there. Empty space stood before him, the cloudy sky now more closely approximating a grey day than night, the smell of fire and sulfur nearly gone from the wind.

  “That’s a hell of a thing,” Mr. Longholt said, staring into the space she had occupied.

  “Neat trick, huh?” Duncan said, and he sounded a little pissed himself. He bumped lightly into Hendricks’s shoulder as he stepped forward, like it could give him a better view to the empty space Starling had been standing in only a moment before. “Well … you want to keep arguing about whether you ought to do as she said like a dog, or would you like to go see if we can save that town where you’ve been hanging your hat, laying your—lay?” Duncan grinned, and once again Hendricks had the sense that it was the sort of crack Lerner would have made, had he been here.

  Hendricks felt like arguing, was all set for it, ready to let it fly, but the lack of Starling to rail against took all the starch out of his collar. He kept his mouth shut long enough for reason to prevail, never once looking away from the place that damned woman had stood as she spouted her matter-of-fact bullshit. “Let’s just go,” he said, and he turned away, tracing a path back to the town car one step at a time. He tossed the keys to Duncan, though, and headed for the passenger seat for himself as he watched Alison go toward her father’s pickup. He spared only a fleeting thought about how it might be marginally more fun to be a fly on the window of that vehicle than the passenger in his own, seated next to the stoic demon for a hundred and fifty miles of highway and silence.

  17.

  Alison didn’t exactly revel in silence, not when her daddy was right there. He gave her the space to start the conversation, and she appreciated that, watching the fence posts on the side of the highway whipping by as they blew past at eighty. The black town car carrying Hendricks and Duncan was just ahead of them, setting the pace her father was following. The air conditioner was turned up to full and blowing cold air at her, silent accusation for what had happened a hundred miles ago and more now.

  “She wasn’t the same girl,” Alison said, breaking the silence herself, a plate crashing to the floor of the kitchen on a quiet night.

  “No, she wasn’t,” her daddy agreed, nodding along without much else in the way of emotion. “I could see that plain as day, even through the scope.”

  “How do you reckon it’s been for her?” Alison asked, genuinely curious. “All those years there with nothin’ but those dogs for company?”

  Her father just shook his head. “Girl wasn’t right, that’s for damned sure. Last time she was … distant, for certain. But not like this. Her daddy … I reckon he’d have been real disappointed to see how it all turned out for her. I find myself thinking that redheaded gal might have done Amanda a favor by putting her down.”

  “Like a dog,” Alison said.

  Her father held a silence for a second, guiding the old pickup truck between the lines. “Just like.”

  She held her thoughts for another minute, just letting them sift. “Did you ever think when we went there all those years ago … that … what happened there … that it’d ever happen to our home?”

  “Hell no.” There was a silent shame there, she realized, unspoken. “It was one of those things that I couldn’t explain at the time, not knowing about demons and whatnot. I still don’t really know much, at least not like your new friend in the cowboy hat seems to. But I don’t reckon anyone looks at the misfortunes of others like that—and I couldn’t see what happened to her, her town, in any way except through the eyes of her daddy, because I knew him well—and wonders too hard about what would happen if a freak occurrence like that came to rest on his own home. It’s a lot easier to think that something like that’d happen to someone else, anyone but you. So, no, I didn’t ever think about it coming. Not to Midian.” He swallowed hard enough that she saw his Adam’s apple waver. “Not in a million years.”

  “More like thirty years.” She sat there for a second and the reached out, resting a hand on his arm. “We’ll stop it, Daddy.”

  He gave her a faint smile. “Damned right we will, sweetheart.” But she could tell that in his heart of hearts, he was really not so certain.

  ***

  Hendricks rapped the window, staring out. The sky was starting to show the first purple hues, and that didn’t sit well with him for some reason. Veteran of Iraq, demon hunter who’d put the sword to more of the beasts than he could rightly count, and now he was getting squeamish—nervous, he corrected himself—wondering what was about to happen. He’d left home behind a long damned time ago, walked away at eighteen with not even a look back for very good reasons. With Renee, it had felt different for a while, like he could go home, just to a different one. When he’d been fished out of Lake Ponchartrain, that feeling had gone like yesterday’s breakfast, flushed out of him. Nothing left but a hollow, hungry feeling that he’d filled by indulging in revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge against an endless, disorganized army of demons that he’d bested on every single occasion. Strong but solitary, he’d found stomping demons flat easier than knocking down doors or going on missions in Iraq.

  He could hear a noise in the wheel well of the car as it rolled along the highway, and that noise was driving him half nuts. The steady thump of his knuckles against the glass didn’t cover it, didn’t nearly blot it out of his hearing. It almost seemed like it added to it, a drum beat for the music that was torturing his soul. If he’d believed in souls.

  “Will you stop that?” Duncan asked him. The OOC didn’t seem terribly put off by it, such was his calm.

  “Sorry,” Hendricks said, not really sorry. He did stop the drumbeat, though, letting his knuckles twitch idly in the same rhythm. He could hear the noise, that buzzing, screaming sound like he’d heard on the mountain as he hung out the window and felt the air streaking through his uncovered hair—

  “Missing your girlfriend?” Duncan asked, and Hendricks could tell by the way he asked that he didn’t really care.

  “Missing your boyfriend?” Hendricks lobbed back.

  Duncan didn’t respond, and Hendricks sunk back into thought. That buzzing noise was a damned haunting thing. He imagined hearing it in dreams, wondered how much of it that it would take to drive him mad. He listened closer to the thrum of the tires on the highway and concluded that it probably wouldn’t take all that much. Then he thought of Erin, lying in a hospital bed somewhere he couldn’t even see her, hopefully surrounded by her family by now, and the sound became a buzzing in his head again, and before he knew it, he was drumming his fingers on the window without even being fully aware of it.

  This time, Duncan said nothing.

  ***

  “He just burned right up,” Mick said to the skeptical-looking sheriff. The man had a really severe case of baldness going on, and a cynical look to match. It was just consuming his whole face, that don’t-bullshit-me cop look. Mick tried to decide whether it was from the squinted eyes, those puckered lips, or some other feature. The sheriff had talked to Pat from the diner first, and Mick had listened to the man spin a short story about how the bum had been going on and on about fire and suddenly burst into flame. It had been filled with the requisite amount of “Holy shits!” and exclamations of “Jesus!” It hadn’t given the sheriff much of anything to work with, though, and Mick was all about keeping that the case. “Never seen anything like that before, and I’ve worked the freak show tent for a few years, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, the amazing elephant-pig fetus must pale in comparison to this,” the sheriff said, unimpressed, as he made a notation on the itty bitty notepad he carried with him. “You see anything suspicious before the event?”

&n
bsp; “The guy was rambling about fire,” Mick said with a shrug. “Like the diner guy said, he was like a broken record on it. Couldn’t get it out of his head for whatever reason.”

  “And then he burst into flames,” the sheriff said, writing something else down. It took Mick only a second to realize he wasn’t asking. “You weren’t anywhere near him when it happened?”

  “I never got closer than about ten feet from him,” Mick said. “I was standing by, uh …” He pretended to have to remember the name for a second, “… Pat, yeah, Pat, when he lit off.”

  “All right, then,” the sheriff said, and flipped his notebook closed. “Do you have any contact information where I can reach you if we have any other questions?”

  Mick stared at him, trying to screw up his face to look uncomfortable at giving a tough answer. “I mean, I go where the carnival goes, so you kinda have to get ahold of them to get me.”

  The sheriff lowered his head slightly. “You don’t have a cell phone?”

  Mick shrugged. “Never needed one.”

  “It’s 2014, son, you might consider looking into gettin’ one,” the sheriff said, turning away from him with a sigh. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  “Uh, you’re welcome,” Mick said, turning back to the mouth of the alley and the square beyond. They hadn’t retrieved the bum’s body yet, it just sat under a white sheet that was weighed down on two corners by stones. The wind whipped through every few minutes, disturbing the edges and moving the corners that were not weighed down. It was flapping lightly in the breeze now, like the dead man was trying to surrender by waving the flag.

  Too late, you crazy fuck.

  Mick looked past the body, burying that sense of self-satisfaction he felt running through him. He caught a glimpse of dark hair and saw Molly in the middle of the square with a woman who looked damned similar, though her hair was maybe a shade or two darker and she was wearing surgical scrubs. Was that normal in this town? Mick guessed it wasn’t. He hesitated at the mouth of the alley and caught Molly looking his way. They were supposed to meet here, but he wondered at the presence of what damned sure looked like her older sister. Then Molly waved at him, and he shrugged it off, heading toward her at a walk. No reason to hurry; tonight was the night, and all he needed to do was play it cool.

  ***

  Lauren felt a hint of sick as the guy—Mick—crossed the road toward them. Sick at the thought of Mick. Heh. Her scrubs felt dirty on her skin, and not just because of her shift. She felt like some dust or grime or something deeper had settled on them in that mine, had contaminated them, and the fact she hadn’t had time for a long shower and a change of clothes was a source of aggravation. She’d wanted to be here for this, though, and since Molly had been ready to leave the minute she got home, she ditched any thoughts of being clean and not icky and heebie-jeebie free for the time being and walked her to the square. But seeing this Mick hadn’t really helped matters. In fact, it had generated a nasty little sliver of doubt in her stomach.

  Yes, he looked nice enough. Though she did have to frown since he was walking away from the mouth of an alley which contained—if she wasn’t much mistaken—another body. Yet another body. Sheriff Reeve, naturally, was in close attendance.

  Sweet fancy Christ, what the hell was going on in this town?

  “Hey,” Mick said, earning no points for wit. At least he hadn’t said “Yo!”

  “Hey,” Molly replied, and Lauren felt like she should slap her daughter in the back of the head.

  “Wassssssssuup?” Lauren said, just for variety. It got them both to look at her, her daughter with flushed cheeks from embarrassment and the carnival worker with one of those perplexed expressions that Lauren so often found directed her way. “I’m Lauren,” she added.

  “Mick,” came the reply. No, “I’m,” to preface it, just the statement of a name. Nope, she didn’t like him.

  “Mick, this is my … mom,” Molly finally found voice to say.

  “Oh, wow,” Mick said, brows slightly inclined, “I woulda thought sister. Good for you.”

  Lauren tried not to dissect that statement for its obvious flaws, instead jumping to a more important question. “So, Mick … is that a body over there?”

  “Yeah,” Mick said, apparently not concerned by this admission. “Dude just started screaming and burst into flames.” He frowned, the expression revealing him to be kind of an idiot in Lauren’s estimation. “You got a weird town here. Lot of people dying, it seems like.”

  Lauren cocked an eyebrow at him and knew if her father had been alive and standing here, he would have crafted a careful warning about how it could be one more by the end of the evening depending on how things went. “You caught us on a bad week.”

  “Bad month,” Molly said, doing that inappropriate teenager laugh. She stopped after about two seconds. “Oh my God, that’s not funny at all.”

  “At least you realized it, sweetie,” Lauren said. She looked over at Mick. “So, Mick … you’re only in town for tonight?”

  “Yep,” he said.

  Monosyllabic was never a great sign, but Lauren withheld her disappointment and moved gamely to the next question. “Have her home by eleven, please.”

  She searched his eyes for hints of intelligence, or, barring that, comprehension. “You got it,” Mick said, fulfilling at least part of the requirement. He held out a crooked elbow to Molly, like some sort of gentleman. “Shall we?” His northern accent was plain as day to her, and she found for the first time in her life she didn’t care for it. Usually it was such a breath of fresh air.

  “See ya later, Mom,” Molly said, flushed with delight as she hooked her arm in his. Lauren tried to smile, because that—it was innocent, right? Walking arm in arm with a man? Lauren watched them cross the street, and they even looked both ways. Mick said something to Molly that was lost in the wind between them, and Molly laughed, not even a look back over her shoulder at her mother. That knot in her stomach was growing bigger.

  “Molly got a date tonight?” Sheriff Reeve’s voice jarred Lauren out of her trance, watching them cross the square, talking, laughing. Doing the normal things couples did. Lauren vaguely remembered that.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said, a little more tense now that she didn’t have to hide it in front of her daughter. “He’s not implicated in murder by any chance, is he? Because I wouldn’t mind an excuse to put an end to that.” She waved a finger gently in the direction of their laughing conversation as the two of them traced their way around the edge of the square.

  “No, just a witness to another weird death,” Reeve said, somehow not relieving her. “Jarrett burst into flames. Spontaneous combustion. Pat saw the whole thing, kid didn’t come anywhere near him before it happened.” Reeve sighed. “I swear, it’s like this town is going to hell.”

  Something about that tickled Lauren, bringing her back to what Arch Stan had said. They were demons. Like that was a normal, natural thing. Well, maybe for holy, pious Archibald Stan, they were. “Hell, huh?” Lauren just kept watching Mick and Molly. Molly laughed again at something he said, and it sent a jolt through her as she compared the now with a memory of her as a baby, sitting on the floor, laughing. Such a delightful sound, so innocent and sweet and full of promise.

  A promise this carnie knew nothing about and was now walking away with. Lauren felt her fist clench.

  “You okay?” Reeve asked.

  “Just contemplating murder,” Lauren said.

  “Sweet fancy Christ,” Reeve said, “Please refrain. I need another body in this town right now like I need a hole in my head.”

  ***

  Arch’s phone rang as he was pacing around the map again, a pen in hand and a mad gleam in his eye that he could feel. He scrambled to answer quickly and was only mildly surprised when Alison’s name came up on the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Arch,” she said with a sense of relief that was palpable to him even over the open line.

  “Alison,” he said, ma
ybe with more than a little relief of his own. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “Just passing Cleveland,” she said. “We got a big problem, though.”

  Arch felt his teeth just about grind on that one. “Of course we do. How big?”

  “Bigger than the bikers, that’s for sure.” Her voice was tight. “Arch, it could turn Midian into a wasteland.”

  He felt himself fall into the chair heavily. “Sounds about normal. What’s the threat?”

  “Someone with the carnival. Some kind of fire demon, sleeps with a girl there, and he somehow impregnates the whole dang town.”

  Arch felt his face twist as he tried to plumb the meaning of the nonsensical statement she’d just made. He didn’t quite get it. “Say what?”

  “I know, it doesn’t sound right.”

  “Yeah, it sounds wrong,” Arch agreed. “Which is about par for Midian’s course of late. What’s the move?”

  “Get to the festival, find the demon, send him packing home with nothing but his black-flame soul.”

  “A plan I can endorse,” Arch said. “What do you need from me?”

  “It’s spawns fire demons, so …” Her voice trailed off. “I dunno. You think a fire extinguisher would work?”

  Arch didn’t really know how to answer that, but it didn’t matter because his mind jumped in a new direction. “Oh, wow. That can’t be coincidence.”

  “What?” Her voice picked up. “What is it?”

  “Jarrett just burned to death on the town square,” Arch said. “I heard the all-call on the radio just before I got home.”

  “Sounds like our boy is already working,” Alison said.

  “Hmm,” Arch said. “You sure it’s a boy we’re looking for?”

  “Unless you know a lot of girls who can impregnate a whole town with fire demons?”

  “Point.” Arch scratched his face, scruff and all. “How do we do this?”

  “We’re gonna have to comb the festival looking for something unusual,” Alison said. “The demon is going to try to knock up a girl there.”