While she was falling, Arch leapt sideways through the hole in the wall, diving for the switchblade. He came up with it after face planting, hard. He wasn’t a martial artist, more of a brawler, so rolling wasn’t something that came naturally to him, but he didn’t care. He had the blade and he was turned around, coming to his feet in a lunge toward the bedroom door.
He caught a furious look from Amanda as she rounded the corner heading for him, a serious mad-on coming through the haze of whatever she was on. The blade caught her beneath the sternum and it slid in as her anger turned to surprise. Arch was face to face with her but he dropped to his knees and put all his weight into it as he slid down, ripping the knife into where her guts would be. She stared down at him, kneeling before her in his nakedness, a stunned look on her face, like she couldn’t believe she’d gotten gutted by a nude black man. It lasted for about a second before the flames broke loose, starting at the place where he’d torn her open, progressing swiftly over the exterior of her body and flaring in her eyes and mouth as she screamed her way back to oblivion.
Exhausted, all his adrenaline blown out in one good burst, Arch fell back and crawled on his hands and knees to the kitchen, to Alison, and picked up her head and clutched it against him. He was listening for breath, and when he finally heard it, he thanked his God in a whisper that was ragged with worry and relief.
***
“How do you think he’s doing?” Hendricks asked, more to cut the nervous tension in the car than because he thought she’d be able to tell him. He didn’t want to be responsible for someone else, which was why he’d never taken on a partner in the demon-hunting game. It didn’t have to be a solitary occupation, after all, and lots of people liked to team up on either a short or long-term basis. That wasn’t for him. He knew there were others like him, too, loners, and he could read the looks in their eyes. No entanglements, that was the rule. Just blow around from hotspot to hotspot, doing their thing, not having to worry if anyone else got hurt. It was sweet enough, for a while.
Starling didn’t look at him as she answered. “Fighting a demon without a blessed weapon puts a heavy burden upon your friend.”
“He’s not my friend,” Hendricks said out of rote habit. When Starling looked over at him, her face close-guarded silence and accusation, he elaborated. “I don’t have any friends.”
“You seemed friendly enough with the woman who was with you outside your dwelling.” There was no accusation there, just a flat tone, a statement of fact. He thought.
“That’s a different kind of friendly, Miss Starling. A whole different kind.”
***
Arch had caught her steady breathing now, like she was just asleep, and when he pinched her hand he saw her eyelids flutter, which was a good thing, he remembered from his first aid training. She let out a soft moan and he tried to gather an explanation of what he was going say to her when she woke up. It wasn’t going to be a fun explanation, he knew that much. He was considering the fact that he hadn’t heard a mess of sirens to be a mark in his favor, but then he looked out the window and saw the flash of red and blue, and he had a feeling his night might actually be about to get worse.
***
They pulled into a parking lot for a duplex apartment building, a small one that looked like it maybe had four units all together—two upstairs, two downstairs, with the doors to each of them obvious on the front of the building. One of the doors was blown clear open, off its hinges, which Hendricks generally considered a bad sign. “Too late,” he muttered. “Fuck.”
Starling shifted the car into neutral before figuring out how to put it in park, and the sheriff was already out of his car by the time Hendricks staggered out the passenger door of his. “Hands in the air!” Reeve shouted at Hendricks, who complied quickly. He had turned his back on the door to the second-floor apartment, probably trying to make sure that there wasn’t a threat at his back before he dealt with the possibility of one at his front. Hendricks kept his hands up then glanced to Starling, who was also out of the car, her red hair slung over one shoulder like it had been braided there. Her hands were not remotely up, and Reeve had taken notice of that. The sheriff’s gun came around accordingly, and Hendricks got a bad feeling about what was about to happen.
“Hold it,” came a shout from the second floor, and Reeve turned his head just for a second to take in the sight of Arch, wearing only his work pants, running across the balcony toward the stairs on the right side of the building. The whole place was an older brick building, with redwood for the guardrails across the balcony. It gave the place a different feel, a little homey, a little woodsy, even though it was only a block or two from the center of town. “It’s all right, sir,” Arch said, coming down the steps.
Reeve gave him an Are you fucking kidding me? look but held his tongue. Hendricks just stood there and waited, wondering how best to avoid the conflicting stories that were about to come pouring out in an attempt to untangle this mess that was sitting in front of them. He didn’t like the thought of that, not one bit, and would probably have been quicker about finding a way out of it if not for the fact that he was still very, very drunk, and the sway in his head made him acutely aware of it.
“I need you to put out an APB on that small-timer, Amanda Severson,” Arch said, now crossing the parking lot toward them. “She and her little friends just busted up my place.”
Hendricks was impressed, then he realized that Arch probably wasn’t even lying about that, what with his door being broken open and all. It made him wonder if the big man had driven them off singlehandedly, then made him wonder how many of them he’d tussled with.
“Severson?” Reeve asked, putting his gun back in the holster. “Medium height? Dark hair? Got picked up for intent to distribute a few months back?”
Arch nodded, not even taking in or acknowledging Hendricks yet. “That’s the one. She and three others just broke down my door, looked like they made to stage a home invasion.”
Reeve gave a quick look over around the parking lot, like he couldn’t believe it. The sun wasn’t even setting yet. “We don’t exactly have a long history of daring daylight break-ins in the center of Midian. And certainly not by criminals who would be dumb enough to pick out the residence of a known member of the sheriff’s department.”
“Yet that’s exactly what happened,” Arch said, eyes boring into the sheriff’s. Hendricks just watched, transfixed. “I beat ’em up pretty good, think I shot a couple of ’em , but they bum rushed me. Might have been wearing Kevlar, because I didn’t see ’em bleed at all. This was something I ain’t never seen before, just crazy. They knocked out Alison, that Severson woman laid hands on her.”
Reeve got serious, real serious, fast. “She all right?”
Arch’s voice went low. “She’s a little hazy, needs to go to the doctor, I think. But I drove ’em off. Was about to call for help when you pulled up.” He cast a look to Hendricks. “Good to see you, Hendricks. Sorry I didn’t catch up with you earlier.”
“It’s all right,” Hendricks said, giving Arch a knowing look. “I was just spending some time with Erin when some other friends of ours showed up unexpectedly. Starling and I hung out with them for a bit until they left, but Erin was a little too far gone by that point and passed out.” He tried to figure out the best way to phrase things to communicate information without making it a dead giveaway to Reeve that there was subtext. He tried to make his look pained, and found it came pretty easily. He was still hiding a hell of an injury under his coat, after all. “Bet you wish you’d brought your wife out with us, huh?”
Arch didn’t smile in his reply. “I need to get her to the hospital, get her looked at.” He looked to Reeve. “You want to get this place cordoned off for me?”
If the sheriff took umbrage to being given an order by his deputy, he didn’t show it. “Damned right,” he said. “I’ll get that APB sent out, too, call in all the boys. We’ll find these fuckers and drag ’em in by the short hairs, lea
ve nothing left but a bald and bleeding patch by the time we’re done. No one does this shit to the law in Calhoun County.”
***
Hollywood stroked his forehead, leaning back against the chair in the old dairy farmer’s house. It was beyond inconvenient, having to be here now, but since he’d killed that chambermaid in Chattanooga, it would probably be more of a hindrance for him to stay there. There weren’t that many five-star hotels in a town like that, after all, and if he’d been in one, it was unlikely that the next would be much better. Fuck Southern hospitality.
He pulled his hand back from his brow. And then there was this. Krauther stood in front of him, looking a little contrite, one lone lackey still in tow. “So …” Hollywood said, “how’d they die?”
“Some woman,” Krauther said, “some woman or some thing, I’m not sure. She felt like …” Krauther’s essence flared behind the veneer, and Hollywood could see it—see him—like he was looking through a thick glass at something distorted on the other side. “I don’t know what she felt like. Maybe—”
“One of ours?” Hollywood tossed out, still rubbing his forehead. He was throbbing, all through his essence, so much annoyance that he couldn’t give form to. After all, there were only so many more of his kind in this pointless burg, only so many demons that would be willing to hitch their star to his, and if he made an example out of these two fuck-ups, that was two less he’d have available to send to their horrible deaths later, if needed. He took a deep breath of the cowshit-filled air in the parlor of the old farmhouse. And if all this came to fruition, there would damned sure be a need for that later.
“I don’t know,” Krauther said, and Hollywood looked up to see the fear flare in his essence. “One of theirs, maybe.”
“One of THEIRS?” Hollywood was on his feet in a second, Krauther’s Metallica t-shirt twisted up in his hand, the demon holding on by the balls of his feet to the floor as Hollywood had him unbalanced. “Tell me you don’t fucking think one of THEIRS is here, now?”
Krauther’s eyes were wide, and his arms were wiggling, trying to keep him from tipping over. “I … I don’t know, Hollywood. She had a vibe, man. Power. Essence, maybe. Not sure what the deal is, but she didn’t have the smell of a human.”
Hollywood let Krauther go, let him fall flat on his ass. His mind was racing, faster than it usually did, even when he did a snort of blow. Sometimes it amazed him that human drugs worked on demons, but the shell was the same, really; the essence was the big difference. Humans had no souls, not really, just little things, comparatively speaking. But his kind—and the others … they were full up. Bursting out of their bodies. Not like a human, which was almost an empty vessel.
“Maybe she was just another interested party,” Hollywood said at last, looking from Krauther to the other minion then to Sleeveless, who waited in the corner, watching the whole thing. “This is a hotspot, after all, there’s plenty of draw here. It could have been one of the Commission, trying to keep you from outing yourselves. No reason to think one …” He didn’t grind his teeth, but only because he smiled instead, “… one of their kind would be about. They don’t get out and about that much anymore.” He smoothed his tie and looked down at Krauther. “Have you ever even seen one of them?”
Krauther hesitated before answering. “No.”
Hollywood smirked. Fucking stupid hick. The excitable type, ready to jump to crazy conclusions with no reason to go there except the meth. Figured. “It wasn’t one of them. You smelled it wrong. Maybe a stray demon, maybe a half-human. Their kind doesn’t come down here anymore.” He straightened his tie again, tightened it up, then looked back toward Sleeveless. “Time?”
Sleeveless pulled out his cell phone. “Eight o’clock.”
“Okay.” Hollywood straightened his collar, too. “We got a little time to kill before our other team checks in.” There was a little nervous tension there, and he didn’t like it. Whoever this woman was, she couldn’t have gotten to both teams, could she? No. The other one, the cop, they’d be bringing him along any minute. Him and his wife.
Hollywood put it out of his mind and compulsively turned to a mirror that was on the wall, a garish thing with the brand of a major beer printed on the middle of it, like the wicked queen’s image was a reflection of a Miller Lite logo. He looked at himself in the mirror, smoothed his hair back into place in the slicked-back ponytail then checked his clothing. Flawless. He cast a glance at Sleeveless. “Just to be safe, prep the alternates, will you?” One couldn’t be too careful, when dealing with meth-addled idiots, after all.
Sleeveless nodded and disappeared into the hallway behind them. There was the sound of a door opening, then footsteps on stairs. A few seconds later, there was a sound of screaming—urgent, crying, terrified. As it should be.
Hollywood stared in the mirror, past the brand name of the beer. It was like it didn’t even exist if he concentrated hard enough. All that was left in there was him. Him and what he was about to bring upon the world. Because he was worthy. Because he was the one. The one with the vision to do it. He looked at the flawless, even teeth staring back at him and recognized once again that there was a reason he had been passed over in the past, why he’d failed at acting and chosen to transition into producing. It was that vision which would carry him through. All that was standing between him and it was execution. And finally, he’d get what he’d deserved all along.
A starring role.
***
Creampuff was quiet, now. That was a thankful thing, at least for Ygrusibas. Being winnowed in the pits of fire for the last eight or ten millennia (it was hard to keep track) was one thing. Being trapped in the body of a cow was quite another. Creampuff might have taken umbrage to that, but by this point in the summoning process, there just wasn’t that much of Creampuff left. Maybe an instinct or two, but otherwise, Ygrusibas was running just about the entire show.
Which should have been more eventful than it was. Ygrusibas was neither he nor she, but a transcendence of the mortal two genders, encompassing both. Yet somehow, it was trapped in a body that was decidedly binary. This was unfortunate but could be remedied with time and some effort. The change would require energy that was presently being expended to build up strength, though, which was a curious thing.
The gate was still an insurmountable obstacle, but Ygrusibas was not impressed. Millennia of imprisonment in the pits of fire compared to a day in the pasture? It was a welcome change, it told itself, over and over. No roasting flesh, no torment that ran soul deep. This was positively… well, boring by comparison, which might have been part of the problem. Ygrusibas had grown accustomed to torment, had survived it by plotting, by thinking of all who would suffer once it had been freed, given release from said torment. Anger and bitterness were the flames in Ygrusibas’s soul that had seen it through. With the external flames gone, the inner ones burned all the brighter, and with them came a desire to make things happen.
But none of it was happening fast enough. The body that Ygrusibas had taken was still trapped in a pasture, in a prison built just for this sort of animal. All attempts to break through the fence had resulted in a special kind of pain that Creampuff (or what was left of her) had predicted with a sort of dim-witted amusement. Ygrusibas hadn’t found it nearly so amusing, though. It was almost as bad as the pits again.
And so Ygrusibas seethed as sundown approached, casting the farmhouse in the distance in a fire-red glow that reminded Ygrusibas of where it had so recently escaped from. This did not sit well, not at all, even as the second night came on, and the demon waited for its full strength to return. Because when it did, the earth would tremble.
When it did, the world would end.
10.
Alison walked out of the emergency room under her own power a little before midnight, Arch at her side. Hendricks breathed a little sigh of relief when he saw them, sitting where he was on the hood of Erin’s car, almost sober by now. He had a few things on his mind, not the least of
which was Erin herself. He and Starling had gone back to the hotel to make sure the deputy was all right. She was; she’d even had a half-awake conversation with Hendricks while he’d cleaned the cut on the side of her head. It was a little thing, just a scratch, but there’d definitely be a bruise there tomorrow.
“Erin all right?” Arch asked as soon as he got within range of Hendricks.
“She’s fine,” Hendricks responded, giving Mrs. Stan a polite smile. “How do you do, ma’am?” He tipped his hat to her.
“I’m all right,” Alison said then shot a look at her husband before returning it to Hendricks. “And you are?”
“This is Lafayette Hendricks, dear,” Arch said tightly. “He’s an old friend, in town trying to settle some business.”
Hendricks couldn’t have put it much better himself. He tipped his hat again to Alison then turned back to Arch. “And there is some serious business that needs settling.”
Arch nodded, his uniform looking just a bit disheveled. Hendricks hadn’t seen his uniform disheveled even after the dust up with the demons at MacGruder’s farm. He assumed it was something of a new situation for Arch. “I never did catch your friend’s name,” Arch said, looking to Starling, who stood with her arms folded only a few feet away.
“He doesn’t have any friends,” Starling said, matter-of-factly. “I am Starling.”
Arch sent a look Hendricks’s way. Really? was how Hendricks interpreted it. “And you’re a … hunter as well?”
She cocked her head at him, but her expression didn’t change. “No.”
Arch gave Hendricks another look, and Hendricks felt a little swell of pity. He hadn’t figured out Starling’s angle either, but she’d been damned helpful and damned quiet, so he hadn’t pressed her too hard about what she was up to. Yet. “What’s the move?”
“I’m dropping Alison off at her parents’ house,” Arch announced, drawing a surprised look from Alison herself. “Then we need to have a discussion with those boys out at MacGruder’s.”
The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted Page 14