When they were in the parking lot, the big cop turned over his shoulder and looked back at him. “Your weapons stay in the car. I’ll listen to your story over one beer. If I don’t like the sound of it, your next ride is to the sheriff’s station.”
“Can I get a last meal, too?” Hendricks grinned.
The deputy was impassive. “If you want. Not sure I’d trust Fast Freddie’s to handle my dietary needs, but it’s your digestive tract.”
Hendricks let the grin hang. “You paying?”
“Nope,” the cop said and stepped out, shoes squeaking on the wet asphalt.
Hendricks shrugged. It wasn’t like he didn’t have money. He waited for the cop to open the door and considered himself lucky he wasn’t cuffed. When it opened, he stepped out, walking slowly in front of the deputy, leading the way without much concern. It was understandable, after all; the deputy wanted to keep an eye on his potential prisoner.
Stepping inside Fast Freddie’s was like taking the dial of the time machine and spinning it back to the Old West, if the Old West had had neon signs. After thinking about it for a moment, Hendricks decided maybe it was more like a rodeo king’s worst nightmare, the inside of this place, some garish cross between a honky-tonk and a bullrider’s bar, or maybe more of a caricature of what some jackass thought those things oughta look like rather than what they really did. It didn’t matter either way, though, because the people at the bar were there for one reason alone—to drink—and they were all about that serious business when Hendricks walked in with the deputy just behind him. He imagined the cop’s khakis probably turned a few eyes his way, then realized that in this sort of bar, all the eyes were on a pullstring attached to the door handle anyway, and whenever someone walked in they got the once over from the entire patronage. In most cases, this was not a good thing. In one instance, though …
A damned fine-looking girl wearing a V-necked white t-shirt came flouncing up, on her seventh or eight drink if Hendricks were gambling (and in this case he would have, gladly), jeans too tight by half for anywhere but a bar or a rodeo, but there were no complaints from him on that score, not for this girl. She was blond, and not just perky but pretty, wasted on this establishment. He tried to draw himself up a little straighter, and for a half a flash he let himself imagine that she might actually be coming to the door to talk to him.
That image was dispelled a half second later when she went straight up to the cop. “You came!” she said and gave the guy a big hug. Here the height difference was blatantly obvious; the deputy was a damned giant, and this girl was average height. Hendricks had never really been insecure about his height, but then he was a shade under six feet and always considered that reasonable. He’d been in the same barracks with a guy in boot camp on Parris Island who was even taller than the deputy at his side and always felt bad for the fella because what they’d always said about tall guys being well-hung had turned out not to be true for this guy. To the disappointment of a girl in his training platoon. Of course she told everyone. Poor bastard.
“I’m uh …” The deputy looked just a little discomfited to Hendricks’s eyes. More than a little, actually, the man looked like he’d been dunked in cold water and forced to confess to a particularly heinous crime, all in one expression. “I’m just here for a drink with my friend …” The deputy looked at him, gave him a pointed, Help me out, pal kind of look.
“Lafayette Hendricks, ma’am,” he said doffing his cowboy hat to the blond lady. She looked a little younger than him, not much, probably twenty-two, twenty-three. Her blue eyes glimmered with vague interest, he thought, but he hadn’t seen that in a long time and wasn’t practiced enough to tell whether she was just being polite or if it was something more.
“This is Erin Harris,” the deputy said, nodding to the blond. “She’s the dispatcher down at the station.”
“Name like Lafayette, you ain’t gonna start speaking French to me?” she asked. Maybe that was interest.
“Not likely,” Hendricks said, keeping it cool. “I’m from Wisconsin. Can’t speak a lick of French ’cept for maybe merci and oui.”
“I think, technically,” Erin said, beset by a case of the giggles that was probably induced by the bourbon that he could smell on her breath, “that the oui would come before the merci.” Another giggle, and it was cute. “But I might be out of practice.”
Hendricks wondered if he was blushing visibly. There was every chance she was going to regret this flirtation later, if she even remembered it. “I’m afraid I’ll have to trust your experience with the language is greater than my own, because mine is pretty limited.”
She giggled again then stopped as the cop cleared his throat. “Sorry, Erin,” the cop said, “I’m just here to have a beer with my friend.”
She blinked, kind of wide-eyed, and Hendricks was sure it made her even cuter. “You’re gonna have a beer? Like an actual one? Holy shit.” She shook her head, and it looked like she almost lost her balance. “Well, okay, then,” she touched the deputy all around his collar, then tried to straighten it but left it popped out on one side. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I got it.” The deputy’s mild chagrin was obvious as he fiddled with his collar, straightening it out.
“I’ll just leave you boys alone, then,” she said, and Hendricks caught the first hint of slurring in her speech. “But when you get done, you should come over and join me and the boys for another round. I would definitely buy you a beer, Officer Stan.” She shuffled away under her own power, barely, not quite falling down drunk but definitely happier than she would have been without the alcohol coursing through her veins.
When she was gone, the cop she’d called Officer Stan guided Hendricks over to a corner table and gestured at the barman by holding up two fingers and getting a nod in return. “I thought you didn’t drink?” Hendricks asked.
“I haven’t had a beer in two years,” the deputy returned.
“But you have good enough code with the bartender that you can hold up two fingers and he knows what to bring you?”
The deputy shrugged. “All beer tastes the same to me—bad. Reckon he’ll bring me whatever he sells the most of.”
“We could shoot whiskey if you’d prefer,” Hendricks suggested. He’d gladly shoot whiskey, and lots of it. Mainly because he was likely to be hurting tomorrow anyway, courtesy of the Chu’ala. Why not add a little distraction behind the eyes, just to give the bruises a competition for what would hurt the most in the morning?
“No, thanks,” the deputy said.
“So the pretty blond you work with called you Officer Stan,” Hendricks said as he took in the place again. The girl who’d talked to the deputy was in the corner with a couple of other guys and looking over at him. Maybe some interest. Maybe. “You got a first name, or is it Stan and she’s just real formal?”
“Everyone calls me Arch,” came the reply. Damn, the guy was tall, like a mountain sitting across the table from him, and forbidding, too, near humorless.
“Why’s that?”
“Because my momma named me Archibald, and it’s a silly name that I don’t care for.”
Hendricks watched him, gave him a little smile. “That’s all right, no one calls me Lafayette, either.”
“Yeah, I heard you call yourself—what? Lafayette—”
“Lafayette Jackson Hendricks is what my momma called me,” he said, “when she was mad at me about something—which was a fair amount. But no one’s called me Lafayette since my momma died, and no one calls me Jack on account of I make it clear to them that I won’t abide it, so I pretty much go by Hendricks. Once upon a time it was Staff Sergeant Hendricks but now it’s plain old Hendricks.” Hendricks started to go on but one of the waitresses dropped a couple of bottles of Budweiser off at the table. He blanched as he took his first sip and saw the same from the deputy. “Bud’s not to my liking, either.”
“Oh, yeah?” The deputy eyed him carefully. “You tell much difference between the different
kinds of beer?”
“Not the national brands,” Hendricks said. “Back home in Western Wisconsin, where I come from, they got a brew called Leinenkugels that beats the shit outta anything you find elsewhere. I went all over in the Marines. The only other things I found I really liked were some Greek beer I can’t even remember the name of and Guinness.”
Arch paused, surveying Hendricks real quietly. “This discussion of microbrews is real classy, but let’s cut right through the bunk. What happened back there?”
Hendricks grinned again. It was getting to be natural for him this evening, and it hadn’t been like that for him in years. “Like I said, you sure you want to delve very deep in that? It’s a long way down that rabbit hole, Alice. You might be sorry you ever opened your eyes to that world because it’s damned hard to climb back up after you take that trip, and things don’t tend to be the same after you take the first step.”
Not even a moment’s hesitation. “Yes, I want to know what happened out there. You said demon. Demon, like from hell?”
“Dunno if he’s from hell,” Hendricks said, taking another swill—literally, and not liking it much. “But I know he’s a demon, like the creatures of old. They look like humans, ’til you know what to look for. Different breeds, too, species, like animals, but they blend in with humans most of the time. At least, most do.”
Arch was listening, taking it all in. “All right, so if they’re demons, what are they here for?”
Hendricks gave the barest shrug. “If you’re talking about in the larger sense of it, in the ‘Why are we all here? What is our greater purpose?’ sense, then fuck if I know. If you mean, why are they here in this town, right now, that I might have an answer for, though I’m not sure you’re gonna like it.”
“Lay it on me.” It was hard to tell whether this deputy, Arch, was humoring him or seriously listening, but either way, he was paying attention, so Hendricks went on.
“The way it was explained to me, there are certain places on the earth that flare at any given moment, become ‘hotspots’ if you will, that pull in demons like the light on a bugzapper—but without the zapper, I suppose. They’re drawn to them, these bursts of … I dunno, mystical or whatever activity, and they come congregating into whatever town or place is throwing off that vibe. Right now, it’s here in Calhoun County.”
“Uh huh,” Arch’s arms were folded now, which was new. Hendricks didn’t like the look of that. “How do you know about this mystical stuff?”
Hendricks shrugged. “Someone told me about it, and I was just about as disbelieving as you are. Course, that was about five years and eighteen hotspots ago, so I’ve since developed a little faith that my mentor wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass, but when I was sitting in your chair it was all, ‘Yeah, right,’ and ‘Whatever.’ Probably about what you’re thinking now. I was also thinking, ‘Bullshit,’ but you don’t strike me as much of the swearing type, so maybe you have a clean way to say it.”
“Malarkey.”
Hendricks raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? You’re gonna go with that, huh?”
“It’s gotten me this far.”
“‘Bullshit’ sounds more—”
“Profane?”
“That, too,” Hendricks agreed. “But I would have said serious.”
Arch rolled his eyes, which Hendricks got the suspicion wasn’t very characteristic of the man, either. But half his beer was gone, obvious by the light shining through the brown bottle. “You gotta swear like a sailor to be serious, huh?”
“I don’t do anything like a sailor,” Hendricks said with a frown. “I was a Marine.”
“Whatever. You know what I meant.” Arch took a swig and frowned, but it was a long pull and it looked like he’d just about finished the bottle. “I’m almost done with my beer and I’m still not really believing you.”
“Fair enough,” Hendricks said. “You did just see a man turn into something decidedly un-human, then disappear after being stabbed in the neck, though. What would be your logical, non-demon explanation for that? You know, if you had to explain it. Extra points if you manage to steer clear of any accusations involving me doping you with hallucinogens, because I plainly didn’t.”
Arch cocked an eyebrow at him. “Some guy I barely know just got—I don’t know, devoured by shadows while I watched—I’m not ruling out hallucinogens. For all I know you sprayed some kind of gas in the air and I’m tripping right now.” He held up the bottle. “Which would explain why I’m having a beer with you rather than dragging you to jail. Might be the only thing that makes sense in this case, actually.”
“He didn’t disappear,” Hendricks explained, keeping his cool though he felt his mouth go dry. He really, really didn’t want to spend a night in jail. Or two. Or three. Anything more than possession of the sword would be hard to prove, but the sword was pretty rare and he didn’t want to risk losing it. Or have shit go down out in the outside world while he was sweating away in county jail. “Most demons don’t have bodies like us, exactly. What they have is like a shell, a kind of a veneer of human flesh on the outside that hides their true appearance. When I stabbed him in the neck, I was breaking the shell, which caused his essence to be drawn back to wherever the hell it came from. Kind of breaks their hold on this … dimension? Realm? Whatever, I’ve never really understood the explanation I’ve gotten on that one.”
The bar was smoky, but Arch’s gaze was smokier. “You went after this thing to kill it, but you don’t really understand what happened to it?”
“Actually, I went up to the guy to ask for directions to the cheapest motel in town, but I recognized him, he knew I recognized him, and he knew I knew, which caused him to have to throw down, because that’s how Chu’ala demons act when they feel threatened in the slightest. I would have been perfectly happy just to get my directions and be on about my evening, but once that happened, we kind of got locked on course.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you’re carrying a sword to fight these things when you don’t really know what they’re all about.”
“I know enough,” Hendricks said, keeping his irritation under wraps. “The full explanation is somewhere between a genius-level physics problem and something involving mystical elements that are way more spiritual than I give a fuck about. I know the mechanics, I know how to kill them, and so I stick to what I know. And I carry the sword because the sword kills them.”
“How?” Arch asked.
“Mystical stuff,” Hendricks said. “Breaks through—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Arch waved him off.
“So,” Hendricks went on after a pause in which Arch stared at his beer for what felt like several minutes, “you still haven’t answered me about what you think it was you saw tonight.”
“See, I don’t have to explain it to you,” Arch said, and it was damned obvious he was cross as hell. “I have to explain it to the sheriff, my boss, about how I think I witnessed a murder, except I don’t have a victim, I don’t have a body, I don’t have anything except some cowboy with a sword and a pistol.”
“Hey, the pistol’s legal,” Hendricks said. “My carry permit is valid for Tennessee.”
“The sword ain’t, though.”
Hendricks gave a weak shrug. “You’d let me carry a gun but not a sword? So you charge me with … uh …”
“Let’s not go there,” Arch said darkly. “I could charge you with any number of things. That’s not at issue, me finding nominal violations of the law. My issue is whether I want to believe some jackwagon who steps into town and his first night starts stirring up some deeply dark mystical juju of a kind I don’t even know I believe in. If I let you walk, is this gonna become a pattern? You gonna go out and raise some more havoc, kill some more of those things?”
“I try to keep it out of the public eye, but yeah,” Hendricks replied, and finished his beer with a long pull. “Trust me when I tell you that these demons are not the sort of thing you want walking around your town, in
human skin or without. They’re killers, murderers, and cause all manner of mischief that goes unreported. Mysterious disappearances follow in their wake like fleas trail a dirty old hound dog. Things burn when they’re around, mental illness leaps right up through the roof. Murder rates skyrocket. “
Hendricks leaned across the table. “Things don’t turn out so well for these hotspots. Look at Detroit, look at New Orleans. Both of them have had flare-ups at various points in the last fifty years—hell, Detroit’s been a hotspot some twenty five times, some worse than others. Small towns, though, they get real bad. Turn to ghost towns in some cases.” He lowered his voice. “There was a town in Alaska last year, just dropped off the map, five hundred people gone by the time it was done flaring. You don’t want this thing going unchallenged, not here, not anywhere.”
Arch stared back at him. “There gonna be more like you coming?”
Hendricks took a long, slow breath, let the tobacco smoke in the air waft in. He didn’t smoke, but when he was drinking it didn’t bother him like it did when he was sober. He almost kind of liked it. “Probably, but not for a while. There’s kind of a lot going on for my kind right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” Arch asked. “You a … what? A demon hunter or something?”
“Something like that,” Hendricks said. “And there are definitely demon hunters, and some of them might even come this way, though I’d suspect it will be a long while before they do.”
The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted Page 4