Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  ***

  Hendricks was climbing to the side now, working his way up a forty-five degree angle, his feet extended and his back bent as he shimmied up the arm toward the box that dangled at the end of it. This was, he had to concede, an immense pain in the ass. It was a lot more fun to fast-rope out of a helo than try and climb this damned thing.

  There was no screaming now, and the box dangled only ten feet above him. He could feel his sword hanging at his belt. His pistol was there, too, and he’d taken the time to reload it on the journey here. He was pretty clear about which of them he’d need more right now, though, and he doubted it’d be the 1911.

  The screaming of his muscles seemed to diminish in the last few upward steps. And they were steps. He was leaning most of his weight on his legs, using them and the resistance of the soles of his boots against the metal to climb. It was an age-old thing, something he’d applied to climbing drainpipes in his youth. This time if he fell, though, it wouldn’t just be a sore tailbone as a consequence.

  He kept climbing the arm to the extension point where it met the joint above the car. Even at his sideways angle, it was going to require either a small leap or some fancy footwork to transition to the little running board on the bottom of the car. He swung and heard a collective gasp from below at his stunt work. He tried not to reflect on the fact that there were a few hundred pairs of eyes watching him, because the consequences of that particular bit of business were a whole ’nother matter, one that would probably rock his skull clear off its shoulders if he gave it time to think.

  Instead, Hendricks positioned himself, anchored his hand inside the thin window of the box, and jerked the door open full force before freeing his hand to go for his sword.

  He hadn’t quite got it clear of the scabbard when the fucker inside—a demon with blazing eyes that shone through his facade—stood in surprise. The bastard probably hadn’t even remembered that his pants were around his ankles and his tiny pecker was hanging out like a pinky finger dangling all by its sad, skinny self in the middle of a tangled black forest of pubic hair.

  “Check out time,” Hendricks announced to the startled demon as he moved his body and coat to hide from the crowd the sword that he pointed into the car.

  ***

  Alison looked through the scope as Hendricks flung the door to the Ferris wheel’s car open, and she saw the glint of his blade as he drew it, but everything else was cut off by the billow of his coat.

  “I don’t have a shot,” she said into her microphone as she stared through the scope, willing Hendricks to move the hell out of the way. There was absolutely nothing behind the Ferris wheel except for an empty baseball field, red clay without so much as a soul on it visible even from here.

  “Me either,” her daddy said. She settled in to wait for the situation to change and was shocked at how fast it did.

  ***

  Mick had thrown her panties out the little window, a “Hell yeah, fuck you,” gesture to the girl who’d been such a pain in his dick. Not that it mattered to her now, but presumably she’d notice their absence later.

  After.

  He had gotten down on all fours and taken a deep whiff as he slid her dress up around her armpits. She smelled good, and he came up to his knees. The car wasn’t yet at the twelve o’clock, and he didn’t need that much time, he figured. He’d just dropped trow and slid his pants down around his ankles when he saw a set of fingers pop inside the window.

  If Mick had been human, he would have shit himself right there. Fingers didn’t just appear in the window of a moving Ferris wheel car at the top of its arc. The surprise made his stomach drop and he felt himself start to go limp, a feeling not aided a second later when that fucking demon hunter in the cowboy hat and black coat ripped the door open. Mick hadn’t heard what he’d said over the shock and fury mingling in his essence at the humiliation. The fear was the worst, that uncertainty of getting so damned close to what he wanted and having this guy—this fucking guy—show up at the last moment to yank it away.

  The cowboy had a sword in his hand, the point dangling just inches from Mick’s face, and Mick found himself swallowing hard, letting the fury take over. Fuck this. He was a greater for a reason, and even if the sword was a holy object, he wasn’t gonna let it matter. He reached out and grabbed it by the blade, felt it dig into his fingers, and ignored the pain. He shoved on it, hard, and watched the hilt hit the cowboy in the sternum. He fucked up his balance, tilting sideways, one of his boots losing footing and the other following suit.

  The demon hunter tumbled out, fingers gripping the window but letting go of his sword. Mick had it by the blade, and stood there surprised for only a second while the cowboy caught himself on the window, four little fingers sparing him from a hell of a fall. Four little piggies.

  Mick just smiled and stepped over the limp body of Molly—no, Mandy? Shit. Whatever. He stood at the door to the car and looked at the cowboy hanging there exposed, his fingers right there for the unfurling …

  ***

  Hendricks was hanging there, fingers in fucking agony, the only thing keeping his ass from splattering on the grass below. He heard the requisite “oohs” and “aahs” and “HOLY LIVING FUCKS” out of the crowd below, but it was all background noise. His arm was twisted, holding all his weight, and he knew he didn’t have an overabundance of time.

  Plus, his sword was gone. He’d liked to have held on to it, but being as he’d been getting shoved out the door by the demon holding onto the other end of it at the time, it had seemed like a real good idea to part ways with it lest it continue to be used in just that manner.

  Now he saw the demon reverse his grip on it, and suddenly Hendricks was staring down the blade. Not a sight he was used to seeing, but he had to reflect he might not have any more chances after this one to see it in this way.

  “You ever heard that old saying?” The demon asked, the fire muted, barely visible in his eyes as he stared down the blade at Hendricks. “You live by the sword, you die by the sword?”

  Hendricks just braced himself, and the blade rared back, ready to slide into him like a skewer to a pig.

  ***

  “I have a shot,” Alison said, “and I’m taking it.” She saw the skinny little bastard with the blade pointed at Hendricks, and she stroked the trigger as she blotted out all else, aiming for center mass and compensating for that slight breeze.

  ***

  Arch was in the crowd below when the roar of the big rifle belted out. A few ladies screamed—a few men, too, Arch reckoned. He’d heard Alison’s warning and used the opportunity to push his way through the crowd. He caught a few glares that softened the minute they saw his uniform.

  Duncan was still up on the platform, but all activity there had stopped; the demon and the two carnies that had been fighting him were all transfixed, staring up into the sky at the car above.

  ***

  The roar of the rifle reached Hendricks’s ears about a second after he watched the skinny little demon lose an arm at the shoulder. It took him a second to realize it had spun off, ricocheting on the frame of the door and twirling downward like a helicopter blade as it fell into the crowd below. Hendricks blinked and looked up to see the demon looking at him in muted astonishment. It hadn’t been the arm that held the sword, but he was in sheer disbelief, the blade sagging from where it had been pointed at Hendricks’s chest only a moment before.

  “What the hell was that?” the demon choked out.

  “Not a sword,” Hendricks said, and swung his feet up to kick the demon in the legs full force.

  ***

  Alison watched Hendricks swing back into the car after knocking the demon back. Once more, the black coat billowed as he stood framed in the entry, completely blocking her ability to see into the Ferris wheel’s car.

  “No shot, no shot!” she called into the microphone, trapping it between two fingers and bringing it closer to her mouth as she stared with one eye through the scope. “Duncan, get tha
t wheel spinning! Hendricks needs to get his ass on the ground ASAP!”

  ***

  Arch could hear Alison speaking over the chaos in the crowd, but he could only make out every other word or so. He heard the part about getting Hendricks on the ground and agreed wholeheartedly, so much so that he shoved his way through the last few people in the crowd and vaulted up on the platform that supported the Ferris wheel. “You!” he snapped at the carnie that had broken off from Duncan the minute he’d announced himself as a federal agent. Arch flicked his badge with a finger, causing it to catch the light and draw the youth’s attention to it, snapping him out of his trance. “Get that car down here. Now.” He didn’t leave any room for argument, and the young man nodded, cowed, and headed toward the controls. The two that had been fighting with Duncan just stood back, still stunned, and stared up along with the OOC and the rest of the crowd.

  ***

  Lauren was within a hundred feet of the Ferris wheel when the cowboy swung back in. She was making slow progress through the throng, and had resorted to crowd surfing tactics, jumping up and placing weight on peoples’ shoulders to make them give way. She thought about just announcing herself as a doctor, but she somehow doubted that would impress in the middle of this spectacle of redneck theater. Gunshots, high-wire fighting and derring-do, oh my.

  This close to the Ferris wheel, the crowd had congealed; there was simply no more room to maneuver. These were hardly a panicked herd, which was a surprise given that everyone had heard the gunfire. But it was equally obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that whoever was shooting had done so at the mostly naked guy in the car that had tried to attack the cowboy. It was a surprisingly illogical progression for a crowd to make, in Lauren’s estimation. They should have run like a herd of cattle, but apparently they were too busy watching the show.

  Whatever the case, Lauren knew she’d gone about as far as she could go in this direction without a tractor-trailer with which to plow through the crowd. She looked left and saw the density of people lighten off to the far side of the Ferris wheel. It was stationed right against the fence to the ball field, and there was no one in the small no man’s land behind it.

  Lauren started working her way around the edge of the crowd toward that space, hoping for a better look but doubting she’d get one. Still, approaching from that side and climbing onto the platform from behind would be a better bet than trying to fight her way through a crowd too drunk on what they were watching to move the fuck out of the way.

  ***

  Hendricks was balancing tentatively, his feet back on the solid ground of the running board but still painfully aware that this was not so solid as he might wish. The box rocked left to right, more than a sway, and Hendricks braced himself in the door frame, taking the shift in weight by tensing his thighs. That fucking demon still had his sword, but the bastard was a touch off balance, and that was about all the advantage Hendricks had.

  He drew his pistol and fired from the hip, dimly aware that there was a body at his feet. The gunshot tore through the little car, the flash lighting everything up and the sound just about driving him backward from the force and recoil. It staggered the demon, though, so Hendricks pulled the trigger again. This time, when the flash lit the car, Hendricks realized there was a second door on the other side of the box, and he started wondering if there was a way to use this to his advantage.

  ***

  Lauren had made it to the other side of the Ferris wheel when the shooting started. This time it was painfully obvious where it was coming from, the muzzle flash lighting up the car that was currently at the midnight position and starting its descent around. She hadn’t heard a scream for a while, though, and part of that worried her in a distant sort of way as she crossed around the edge of the rail that sealed the Ferris wheel off from the grounds. A square of white cloth was lying on the dewy grass, discarded, and it took her eyes only a moment to realize they were cotton panties. She stooped to pick them up without thinking it through, and it was only a moment more before the size printed in the back gave her more reason than ever to be worried about what was happening above her.

  ***

  “You fucking animal,” Hendricks said, holding off on shooting the bastard again in favor of kicking him in the gut. The last two shots had made the fucker writhe, and Hendricks was highly in favor of more of that, but not at the expense of an ass-whooping. The sound of the box squeaking in its cradle at the end of the Ferris wheel arm was audible to him even over the ringing in his ears, and it sounded like that fucking buzz, that bee-like mechanical buzz, ringing in his ears like the crescendo of an orchestra. He rained another kick down on the one-armed demon’s gut, watched him flop against the far door, minding his footing so he didn’t trip over the girl. He braced himself and kicked the demon in the hand, heard the sword fall from his grasp. It was music, it was that buzzing, all in one, and it wasn’t until the demon caught his next kick with a shoulder and punched him in the balls that his thinking caught up with his instincts, and the words “Oh, shit” formed in his head.

  ***

  Alison peered through the scope, alarmed at what she was seeing. She was dead-on, a perfect view in the door of the Ferris wheel car. Hendricks had entered, had looked like he was getting the job done, and then suddenly he just crumpled. But the problem was his damned coat was still in the way. Any shot she took was going to go right through him, and it would be an utter miracle if it hit anything other than the cowboy.

  “Arch, I got nothing,” she said into microphone. “We’re shut out here. Can you see anything?” She suspected she already knew the answer without even checking, but she had to do something.

  ***

  “Arch!” Reeve’s voice turned his head from where Arch stood on the platform, hovering over the carnie working the Ferris wheel. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting that car down here,” Arch replied. Reeve was staring out at him from within the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with a boatload of people, looked like he was in a bit of a squeeze.

  “Did you hear that shooting?” Reeve called to him. Arch was a little surprised how quiet the scene was, all things considered. He supposed people were awed into silence.

  “Saw it, too,” Arch said, looking down at the sheriff.

  “I sent Reines up there on that hill after the shooters,” Reeve said. He pointed, and Arch followed where he’d gestured to see a Calhoun County sheriff’s cruiser climbing up the side of the hill where Alison and Bill had stationed themselves.

  “You sent Reines after the shooters?” Arch put a total lack of inflection into it, like he was stunned. “You sent Reines after the shooters, Sheriff? Up the hill?”

  Reeve looked up at him like he was an idiot. “Yes, Arch, I sent Deputy Reines to arrest whoever is shooting rifles into my goddamned festival. Can you please, kindly, do your job and help me control the scene here so we can get up there and assist him?”

  Arch just stared down at the sheriff and ignored the sudden, loud curse word that his wife practically shouted into his ear. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll start by getting this car back down to the platform.”

  ***

  “Fuck!” Alison said, treading into territory she did not usually venture into with that particular word, at least not in Arch’s earshot. It seemed appropriate, though. “We gotta move, Daddy.”

  “We’re gonna leave that cowboy without any help,” her daddy replied, loud enough she could hear him without the earphone. “You sure?”

  “I still got no shot,” Alison said, “and if we stay, all we’re gonna do is get ourselves arrested and still not do him a lick of good.” She pulled the rifle up, folding the tripod. She gave one last look through the unsteady scope and saw Hendricks’s undefined shape still obscured by the black coat and the darkness in the car. “We gotta book it.”

  ***

  Mick could feel the car moving around the circle, time ticking down on the face of the clock. He’d hammed it a bit, got the cowbo
y to drop his guard and get riled, and then he kicked him in the balls to make up for what he’d cost Mick.

  “You fucking shit,” Mick said, reaching up and taking hold of the cowboy by the face with his remaining hand as the man clenched in spasming pain. “Why don’t we find out if I can impregnate you?” He started to push the cowboy headfirst into the bench of the car. Knock him out, bend him over, flip that coat up and show him who was boss— “This is gonna burn.”

  “No, thanks,” the cowboy said and brought the pistol around. Shit. Mick had forgotten about that little stinger. “I’ve already got a girlfriend,” the cowboy said, and then he blind fired the gun right in Mick’s face. Twice.

  The pain was sudden and immediate, and it took Mick a minute to realize he’d fallen half out the back door of the car after the second shot, the dark sky lit above him and the outline of the spokes of the Ferris wheel all lit up around him. Mick held on, one-handed, to the edge of the doorway and watched as the cowboy tried to right himself then came staggering at Mick in an attempt to knock him out.

  It was clumsy, it was stupid, and Mick was faster. The cowboy missed as Mick slid out of the way and let the little bit of momentum the man in black had carry him forward. He looped out of the car and—the lucky fuck—caught a grip on the spoke below as they passed the three o’clock position. Mick smiled down at the cowboy’s one-handed hold, knowing that in about ten seconds his grip was going to be lost as the arm of the wheel slanted downward. It wasn’t going to be much of a drop by then, maybe fifteen, twenty feet, but it’d be enough to put the fucker down so Mick could—