The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  He let his eyes drift shut again, and though he was dimly aware of the sounds of her moving about the room, fetching clothes from the floor, it only came to him in drifts, followed by what felt like long periods of missing time. He felt her kiss and it stirred him enough to open his eyes again. She was sitting on the bed next to him now, looking down with a sweet smile. “Hey,” he said quietly, still sleepy.

  “I love you,” she said, and kissed him, leaning over, the soft cotton of her polo shirt pushed against his chest.

  “Love you, too, babe,” he said, and let his eyes drift shut.

  “I’ll be back late,” she said, words drifting into his consciousness from somewhere above.

  “Mmhmm.” He was drifting off again, dimly aware that her footsteps were receding now. The smell of her perfume—a trendy one from a department store she visited down in Chattanooga—was still hanging in the air, along with the earthier smell of his sweat. His muscles were at peace, worn out, relaxed. He rolled his head sideways and the scent of the laundry detergent from the sheets wafted up at him, something just a little fruity, like apple. They felt soft, and he was perfectly content to lie like this, just like this, maybe for the rest of the night. He heard her in the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge before leaving, like she always did.

  The next sound he heard was the front door crashing in, wood breaking off its hinges, and the sound of Alison’s screams vaulted him back to immediate consciousness.

  8.

  Hendricks remembered he liked making out. He hadn’t done a ton of it in high school but enough to get by. It was the frustrating kind of making out back then, though, the kind that didn’t ever last long enough, the kind that didn’t hold the promise of sweeter things to come, the crescendo at the end of all that buildup. Second base, maybe, if he’d been lucky. He hadn’t gotten laid until the summer after high school ended, just about on his way out of town headed to Basic. It had been awkward and unexpected, without any making out to start things off, which put it at odds with his whole high school experience. All finish, no buildup. Which might have been part of the reason it was so awkward.

  Erin’s tongue probed his, and the collective taste of their beers was heavy. They’d been at the bar for something like an hour, kissing almost the whole time. They were taking frequent breaks for hydration, though (not really, not unless beer hydrated; in Hendricks’s experience, it did just the opposite), during which they exchanged long, meaningful stares as they sipped their beers quietly, without saying anything.

  This time, after they broke apart to take a breath, Erin finally said something. “Aren’t you going to invite me back to your motel room?” There was a hint of impatience there, as she downed the rest of her mug. It was her fourth.

  “Yep,” Hendricks said, nodding, finishing his beer as she stood, her fingers finding his, holding his hand and helping to pull him to his feet as the last of the cold beer sluiced down his throat.

  ***

  Arch was a little slow stumbling out of bed, the deep drifting feeling despoiled by the sudden screams and sounds of his door being broken into pieces, torn from its hinges as he scrambled for his pants, which he was pretty sure were somewhere between the bed he was on and the door that was being busted apart. His eyes found them a little outside the bedroom, and he stumbled to his knees. Alison was just a little in front of him, her hand over her mouth, screaming. There were hands reaching through the top half of the solid door, which was broken cleanly at the middle, and being pushed to the side. With one last screech and crack it gave and the door came open in pieces, just as he pulled his gun with his right hand and dug the switchblade Hendricks had lent him out of his pants pocket and let it flip open with his left.

  ***

  She tasted good, like he remembered a woman should taste, all warm on his lips. Even the heat out in the parking lot wasn’t bothering him. They’d paused on the blacktop, hands all over each other, fumbling a little each time they stopped. Then they’d walk a spell further, hand in hand, little shared glances full of significant meaning. The significance to Hendricks was that it looked like she’d be tearing his clothes off the minute they got back to the motel. He worried only a little about that, planning to ball up the drover coat and get it off first and foremost, along with his belt, which he would have to unfasten first. If he did it right, he could get the sword off and keep it from clattering by taking the coat off properly. The gun would be only a little more complicated; if he kept his body aligned just so while they were undressing, odds were she’d never even notice it as he stepped out of his jeans. Besides, her eyes were closed every time they were kissing. He’d checked.

  They paused to kiss on the overpass, dusk just starting to settle. Hendricks let his mind wander a little this time, as he put a hand at the small of her back and crept it up her uniform top. Seemed like it was getting close to seven in the evening or so. He was pretty damned buzzed, but she was absolutely hammered. He stopped his hand at the clasp of her bra, just making sure he knew where it was, getting a general feel for it. For later.

  They started walking again, and he let her get out in front of him just a bit and watched her ass. It was good, very good, wriggling with each step in her khakis, the faint traces of her underwear visible. The top of her undies was visible, too, because he hadn’t fully removed his hand from her back yet, keeping her shirt just a little up. The small of her back had a little tattoo, something circular with spikes, like an artist’s rendition of a sunrise. He couldn’t see it very well now, but he had a feeling he’d get a better look at it real soon. Maybe for an extended period of time, if he had his way.

  ***

  Arch waited for the arms breaking through his door to be followed by bodies, things he could shoot at. He’d refilled the magazine in his Glock twice in the last twenty-four hours, and it looked like soon he’d need to do it a third time. He stood and got Alison by the shoulder, pushing her back behind him. Her fingers clutched at his arm, nails digging into his flesh in purest fear. He felt her press into him, her cloth pants against his right butt cheek, and he remembered that he was naked, and spared only a thought to wondering if that made him vulnerable before aiming down the sights of his pistol and firing the first round as a head popped through the door.

  ***

  The parking lot of the motel was packed red clay, and with the sun going down the whole scene looked a little like what he remembered Florida to be like. Dusty, kind of orange-ish, like some sort of cross between Italian villas and tropical paradise. The Sinbad was neither of those things, but it was dusty, and orange in the sunset. Erin stumbled along beside him, having a little more trouble walking than he was. Not that he was having an easy time of it, just easier than her. Keeping up with her on beers had been a bad idea.

  She swayed, and he let her walk out in front of him again, put his hand on her ass while letting a big grin slip out on his face. It had been a long time. Without the alcohol, he might even have found a way to talk himself out of it. He’d done that a couple times before, once in a town in Montenegro, and another time just outside New Orleans. That one had been easy—or harder, depending on how you looked at it.

  That wasn’t going to happen this time, though. He could feel the stiffness in his jeans. He’d been ready for an hour or more. She stopped and kissed him again, just outside the door to his room, and he unbuckled her belt then slid a hand down the front of her pants, teasing. His fingers went further south then got really slick, and he figured out that she was apparently ready, too.

  ***

  Arch shot twice, a double tap at the first face to reveal itself through the door. It looked human when he first saw it, but the gunshots broke that facade away quickly, revealing something else; a face twisted around the edges and distorted, the eyes, nose and mouth lit by something that looked like fire bleeding out from within. The body that it was attached to staggered then was pushed aside by another man. This one Arch knew, a guy who’d been picked up by Reeve fo
r possession a couple times, a real meth-head, though he showed none of the obvious scarring. Arch put two rounds in his face and the guy stalled in his advance.

  ***

  Hendricks fumbled for his key. The motel had one of the old-fashioned locks, and he was going at it left handed and blind, since his right hand was presently occupied down Erin’s pants and she had her hands on his face as she kissed him, moaning a little as he swayed with her, listening to the key scrape against the door, then hit the frame as he tried to find the lock without looking at it. It might take a while, but he was happy enough doing what he was doing that he was okay with that.

  He opened his eyes when he heard footsteps over Erin’s moans, the sound of urgency, of feet running. He looked up just in time to see someone hit Erin with a solid push from the side. She stumbled, already a little unbalanced, and her head hit the door frame to his left. She fell soundlessly, her moaning cut off with a final, “Ohhh—”

  Hendricks backed against the door, dropping the key and found himself outnumbered, four to one. They rushed him before he could recover enough presence of mind to get a hand on his sword.

  ***

  “Get in the bedroom and lock the door!” Arch shouted as he shrugged out of Alison’s tight grasp, breaking her grip on his arm. He advanced on the first of the demons, the meth head, and shot him again in the face, causing the man to stagger back. Arch jumped forward and hit him in the chest with the switchblade, tugging it down like he was ripping a hole in a piece of canvas. It took some strength, but Arch had that. Maybe even more right now because he was fighting naked, his wife—his whole world—just behind him. He was the only thing standing between her and these things.

  ***

  Hendricks should have been dead, going hand to hand with four demons. He should have been ripped apart in the first five seconds of the fight. He hadn’t died though, he’d shoulder-charged the nearest of them and hit him in a football tackle that would have probably drawn criticism from someone who’d actually played the sport, like Arch. But it put the guy down and that was what mattered, right?

  They were fast and he was drunk. He spared a look to make sure Erin was all right, and she was, as near as he could tell. A thin line of blood was running down her scalp from the side of her head, but it looked like it was all. She was slumped against his door, just looking like she’d had too much to drink and hadn’t quite made it inside before passing out.

  He didn’t have time to think about it, though, because the other three were coming at him. He’d learned to fight multiple opponents at a time in the Marines, in martial arts training. It was all predicated on keeping the fight to one-on-one at all times. With humans, that wasn’t too hard. You just had to be highly mobile and good with a kick, keeping them at bay until you could score some points—or put them down, hard, in a real fight. Hendricks was good with a kick under normal conditions. Right now he didn’t trust himself too much with one, for fear he’d fall down by aiming at the wrong guy. His reflexes were for shit, absolutely destroyed by the booze. If he lived, he’d take himself to task for being such a dumbass as to take his eye off the ball in order to soothe his balls. He could have at least maybe waited until the demon thing that he’d already set to simmering was taken care of before trying to take advantage of his opportunity with Erin, but clearly it had just been too long since he’d gotten laid, because he wasn’t thinking with the right head.

  As drunk as he was, the demons had to have been enjoying a high of their own because they were moving slower than any demons he’d ever grappled with before. For a moment, he questioned whether they were in fact demons at all, but he landed a hard, wobbling cross on the jaw of one of them and saw two things. One, the guy ignored the pain, and two, the eyes—the windows to the man’s soul—flared with fire, genuine and real. Demon essence to the core. Hendricks gave him a hard, drunken shove that was surprisingly effective and the man lost his footing and tumbled onto his back.

  Hendricks wanted to feel triumphant about it, but the one he’d already tackled was back on his feet, so it was still three on one. He circled left to put one of them between him and the other two, and tried to figure out his next move.

  ***

  Arch fired again, but now there were three of them, and they were all in his apartment. Two guys and one girl, all mug shots he recognized, all multi-time losers that he knew were stronger than he was and also more clothed. The clothed part still bothered him, which he found a little funny at a moment he was fighting for his life.

  Two of them came at him at once while the other writhed on the floor from catching a slug in the face, and he fired twice at the one on the left, delaying him. He changed targets to the woman, then realized his action was open, the last bullet fired. If she hadn’t been practically on top of him, he would have tried a combat reload. As it was, he committed the cardinal sin in a fight: he hesitated.

  She slammed into him with all the fury of someone high enough to feel no pain from the impact. Arch felt himself get whipped through the air and onto the ground, landing hard on his back. He managed to roll enough so that he didn’t get the wind knocked out of him, but he was still down, and a demon woman who was stronger than him was on top of him. He felt her fist hit him in the chest, right on the sternum. The second hit him in the ribs, causing him to fold in pain.

  ***

  Hendricks found himself four on one again, despite his best efforts. The only bright spot for him was that he was being enough of a pain in the ass to them that not one of them had gone for Erin yet. Which was fortunate, because if they had any brains, they would have played her as the hostage long ago and probably wrapped things up by now.

  They were smart enough to keep bunched up on him, though, and it was keeping him from even getting a chance to pull his sword. Five times he’d had his hand on the hilt, raising it up, and they’d slammed into him, or forced him to roll, not giving him the distance to draw it out. He was about to get frustrated, and was ready to do something he knew he shouldn’t. Screw it, though, as slow as these bastards were, it was still life or death. He had his hand on the grip of his pistol and was about to pull it to fire from the hip when one of them got a hand on him.

  ***

  Arch hadn’t been hit—really hit—since his last year of college football. He’d worn pads for that, though, and in this case there was literally nothing between the crack of demon fist and his body, skin and muscle, and bone. He didn’t feel anything break, but it damned sure hurt, and he didn’t care for that, nossir. He bucked, arching his back and pushing the demon off him enough to get the switchblade around. He slashed across her face as she dodged back, toppling off him and letting him do no more than slice her across the cheek.

  He started to roll to his feet but another of them slammed into his side. This one was the one he’d stalled at the door, recovered from the gunshots to the face. Arch grimaced from the impact and hit the floor again.

  ***

  Hendricks was in the grip of one of them, taking a hit to the jaw for his stupidity in not pulling the gun earlier. That was dumb. If he couldn’t pull his sword, why not at least get a hand on the gun? It could have bought him a few seconds, maybe, and that might have been just enough. But no, he had been too concerned with the attention it would draw, playing careful to avoid the law, when he really should have been playing careful the other way. The way that avoided death.

  He got hit again, and he couldn’t decide whether the alcohol was helping him take the punches better by muting the pain or dulling his senses so that every hit took longer to recover from. He didn’t come to a conclusion on that, mostly because of the sudden, searing agony he felt in the region of his chest as the one that had him slapped a hand against his shirt, wrestler-style.

  If a normal guy had done it, it might have stung. When the demon did it, it shredded the fabric and left him with thin lines at the points of each finger impact, like Hendricks had just been whipped there. The demon was a malevolent son of a bitch,
he could see that through his pained, drunken haze. There was a big grin looking him right in the face. The slap came down again, harder this time, and Hendricks felt the blood run down his chest under his shirt.

  ***

  Arch hit the ground again, and his head ran into the wall. He was pushed tight against the wall, his face mashed against the dull white paint, the color Alison had been begging him to paint over since they moved in. His hands were empty, he dimly realized, now unsure of where the switchblade was. The demon had an arm against his neck, and all the thing’s weight was on him, holding him down, as he looked into the kitchen, toward where the demon woman had rolled after he forced her off of him.

  There was a smell of powder from where he’d splintered the drywall hanging in his nose, and he felt blood coming down, too, settling on his lips with a distinctive metallic taste. He could hear his own breathing, the pounding of his heart. His right eye was mashed against the wall so he couldn’t even see straight. The aches and pains were all there, along with the sense of the elbow of the creature that was on him, ready to break his spine. That was all bad. Very, very bad. But it was nothing compared to what he saw in front of him.

  Standing in the kitchen, the female demon had her hands out, wrapped around a soft—very soft, as he remembered from just a few minutes earlier—target. She had her tongue out of her mouth, hands wrapped around a body, one hooked around a throat, the other holding it up at the waist. What she was doing was suggestive, almost lascivious, like she was about to enjoy a good lick, a meal of itself. The blond hair hung limp from the head of the demon’s hostage.

  Alison’s eyes were closed, and she did not move, leaving Arch to wonder, the demon’s elbow ready to break his neck, if they had already killed his wife.