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

by Robert J. Crane

  That wasn’t enough for Suit and Tie, though. Hendricks’s sword was out of position, his arms extended over the demon from where he’d gotten caught in the tackle. He couldn’t reverse his hold on the sword quickly enough and a serious pain in his chest almost caused him to drop the blade. He was still injured from where another demon had done a number on him just a week or so earlier.

  For a flash, Hendricks considered trying to stop the demon as Suit and Tie got up into a schoolboy position to start punching the shit out of him. That idea fled quickly and instead he tried to block. He caught the first punch with his left wrist and nearly screamed from the pain as it hit. His arm went numb from the wrist down, and it ached all the way up, like he’d gotten a shovel smashed into it.

  “Get the fuck outta here!” Hendricks heard somewhere, and the heavy footfalls of boots fell around him. He dimly realized that it was the boys from the bar exercising the better part of valor. He wished he could join them.

  The next punch from Suit and Tie caught him in the nose, and he felt the blood start running. His head got hazy. There were two of that fucker on top of him, weren’t there?

  Hendricks’s eyes alit on Sweater Vest. He was standing just past Suit and Tie’s shoulder, past the white shirt that was now a little spotted from blood. Hendricks knew some of it was his.

  Hendricks’s mind slipped back to him long enough to remember he had something in his hand. Something that might help. He looked over at it, blinking as the next blow descended.

  Oh, right. A sword.

  He jabbed up and poked it into Suit and Tie’s ribcage. He put some power into it, like he needed to bury it up to the hilt to get the job done. It didn’t go all the way in to the hilt, but he got it in a good three inches, and that was enough. Suit and Tie’s bloody ensemble was engulfed in the shadowed fire that came from a demon’s demise, and Hendricks felt the belching of the cloud of heat as he passed.

  Hendricks wanted to sag to the floor and just wait, but McInness was in Sweater Vest’s grasp. This was not going to end well, but still Hendricks could not compel his body to get off the damned floor.

  There was a noise behind him, but he couldn’t turn to look. Thunderous steps moved past him, heavy footfalls, like the boys from Duck Dynasty were back with friends, but—

  No. That wasn’t it.

  A mountainous black man stood over him, wearing a sheriff’s deputy’s khaki uniform. He only glanced at Hendricks for a second before he grabbed Sweater Vest from behind and pulled him backward, throwing him out of Hendricks’s sight.

  Oh, thank God.

  Arch.

  ***

  Archibald Stan didn’t like his first name, so he went by Arch. It didn’t have the ring of a name to his ears, not a traditional one, but it worked. Easy to say, easy to remember, and distinctive. He didn’t really care that it was distinctive, but it worked in his favor so he didn’t dislike it.

  Arch had seen the regulars go bolting out the door of the bar from where he’d sat in the parking lot, soaking in the silence in his patrol car. Rain tapped at his windows as the front door to the Charnel House Bar opened and men started spilling out. That was about as much signal as he needed to know that things inside had gone downhill. He’d been waiting for Hendricks to come out and get him once he’d confirmed that the out-of-towners inside were, in fact, demons. But the cowboy never did come out. If Arch had been any other deputy on the force, he could have just gone in with Hendricks.

  But everyone in Calhoun County knew that Arch Stan didn’t really drink, and if he did he wouldn’t come to a backwoods joint in the south end of the county to do it. So instead he waited to charge in until the Charnel House had suffered a rapid exodus of its usual patronage.

  Arch took one look around as he burst in the door. The bar in the corner was a mess of shattered beer bottles. One of the patrons was on the floor, bleeding from the mouth, and Mike McInness, the proprietor, was in the hands of a demon wearing a sweater vest.

  Arch hadn’t run into too many demons yet, but he’d seen one in a suit. A sweater vest? That was new.

  Arch pulled the sanctified switchblade Hendricks had given him a week or so earlier and heard it click open before he stepped forward. He spared a passing thought for Hendricks and realized that the crumpled pile of black to his right was actually the man in question. He looked like he’d been roughed up good, but he didn’t seem to be in immediate danger.

  McInness, on the other hand, looked like he was about to get his head yanked off. That made him Arch’s priority.

  Arch moved to bury the switchblade in the back of the sweater-vest-wearing demon, but the guy moved at the last second. Arch caught the demon’s shoulder with his free hand and pulled him back. The demon let go of McInness, who fell to the floor with a thud that echoed through the bar.

  “Well, if it ain’t another human,” the sweater-vest-clad demon said with a wide grin, his true face revealed.

  “Yep,” Arch said, standing off with him. The demon was blocking passage through the door, not that Arch had any intention of walking through it right now.

  “But you’re not scared, are you?” The demon was still grinning. Like he didn’t see the knife in Arch’s hand. Or didn’t know what it meant for him.

  “Of a devil spawn like you?” Arch shrugged. “Can’t see why I should be. You’re just a little balloon of sulfur stink waiting to get popped.”

  “You think you got it in you to do it?” Sweater Vest leered at him. “Because I think you’re gonna be dinner for me and my boys—” He looked left, then right, seeming to realize he was alone with Arch. “What the— Where my boys at?” He turned his fiery eyes to Arch.

  “Seems like somebody let the fire out of them already,” Arch said, trying to hide the switchblade, turning his body so the demon in the sweater vest couldn’t see it. “But I’m sure you got nothing to worry about.” Arch felt himself smile a little. “You’re not scared, are you?”

  Whether it was him turning the demon’s words against him or just the accusation of being yellow-bellied that caused the demon to charge him, Arch didn’t know. The demon came at him, though, and Arch jabbed him right in the heart with the switchblade. The air filled with the smell of brimstone and those hateful eyes just burned up right there. Arch had a hand on the sweater vest and felt the faint tingle as the black fire crawled over his skin while dissolving the demon.

  Arch took a long look around after that, making sure that there wasn’t another demon waiting to jump him from behind the bar or in the bathroom. Once he knew there wasn’t, he checked on Hendricks, who was mumbling into the floor. “You all right?” Arch asked him, kneeling next to the man in the black drover coat.

  “Feel like someone stomped my ass and then scraped me off their boot,” Hendricks said, looking up at Arch with half-lidded eyes. “Gimme a minute and I’ll get up. Check on McInness and the other guy, will you?”

  “Yeah,” Arch said and moved over to McInness. His steps creaked the uneven floorboards of the Charnel House as he went. The bartender was a little out of it, but Arch gave him a gentle slap to the face and his eyes flickered. “You in there, McInness?”

  “Is it opening time already?” McInness said, his red face a little bloody. “Sweet Jesus, is that you, Arch?” The older man’s eyes were open now, and when he parted his lips Arch noticed the upper one was split good. “What the hell are you doing in my bar?”

  Arch stared into McInness’s eyes and waved a hand over his face. “You might have a concussion, Mike.”

  “I think someone had a fight at my bar,” McInness said. “I should probably check on the place before I go to the doctor.”

  Arch looked around him. “Uh … you’re in your bar right now, Mike.”

  McInness blinked, his expression perplexed. “I should probably go on to the doctor, then.”

  Arch couldn’t disagree with that sentiment, but before he could voice it, he heard someone else grunt from the floor next to the bar. It was a guy
he barely knew, Ellroy was the man’s name, long-bearded fellow who worked a farm out near Culver, a little unincorporated town that Arch drove through every few days on patrol. He only knew the guy because he’d gotten flagged down once to help with some out-of-towner who was tearing up and down the man’s road twice a day like a maniac. It had turned out to be a local high-school boy who’d been visiting a girl up the road. A warning had taken the lead out of the boy’s foot, and Ellroy had been mighty grateful.

  “What the hell …?” Ellroy said, his lips oozing blood.

  “You got in a bar fight,” Arch said, watching the man struggle to a sitting position. Ellroy was wearing denim suspenders with a camouflage t-shirt underneath.

  “Am I going to jail?” Ellroy asked. Arch could see the crow’s feet at the sides of the older man’s eyes as he blinked. He had the look of a man who laughed a lot.

  “Not tonight,” Arch said, keeping his eye on Ellroy. “I don’t think you started it.”

  Ellroy nodded, seemed like he understood. “Did I win?”

  Arch gave him a look. The good ol’ boys did seem to enjoy a fight. “I don’t think so. The guys who did it ran off, though.”

  “Aw, man,” Ellroy said, holding his head. “How’s McInness?”

  “Needs to go to the hospital.” Arch stood. “You sober enough to drive him?”

  “I only had one,” Ellroy said. He was a big son of a gun, not much shorter than Arch himself. The broken beer bottles left the place drenched in a smell that was more than a little disagreeable.

  “Help me get him up,” Arch said to Ellroy and gestured to McInness. The barman wasn’t a small fella, either.

  “Okay,” Ellroy said, and on the count of three they each put an arm over a shoulder and lifted McInness up. The barman didn’t say much about that, his eyes still fluttering. “Say, what about that cowboy?” Ellroy said, and pointed to where Hendricks lay on the floor.

  “Oh, him?” Arch shuffled along as he and Ellroy dragged McInness out of the bar. He swung the door open and held it as they carried the big barman out into the night. Arch tossed a look back at Hendricks, who still lay on the dirty floor of the bar, hands holding his face. “I’ll deal with him in a few minutes.”

  ***

  His name was Lerner, according to his driver’s license, and that was what his partner called him as well. He tended to stick to suits, the blander the better; his color palette was admittedly not as creative as his partner’s—Duncan, he was called. Duncan would have worn wild, lime-colored shit if he were allowed to. Lerner didn’t let him, though; it just wasn’t appropriate.

  The humidity was thick in the air as Lerner stepped out of the town car. It was a rental, but they’d gone with it because it looked like a cop car, smelled like a cop car, and Lerner always tried to look like a cop, everywhere he went. Made his life easier. He sidled along through the sweltering night with Duncan at his side, ambling down a city street. Houses were lined up along either side, tall trees swaying in an ineffectual breeze. “Hot out tonight,” Lerner said. Duncan just grunted acknowledgment. He was like that. The quiet type. Lerner made up for it.

  The smell of someone’s fried chicken was still hanging in the air, though Lerner couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to cook with the windows open. “Like a fucking sauna out here,” Lerner muttered to himself as he paused next to a white picket fence that ringed a white house. He sniffed the air; there was something under the fried chicken smell. “Here?” he asked.

  Duncan nodded, his brown eyes narrowed under heavy brows, stray hairs jutting in all different directions. “You could fucking say something, Igor,” Lerner said, but Duncan just shrugged. Lerner ran a hand over the gate of the waist-high fence, feeling the smooth, painted wood in his hand. “Even I can feel something amiss here.” There was definitely some essence in the air, some hints of something that shouldn’t be this strong.

  They took the front steps off the walk, dress shoes sounding like the ticking of a grandfather clock. Same rhythm, too, Lerner thought, perfectly timed. He reached under his jacket, a nice little pinstripe number he’d picked up at Men’s Wearhouse that came with matching trousers. When his hand emerged, he had a truncheon clutched tightly in it, a six-inch length of metal enclosed in a rubber grip. He could feel the checkering of the grip in his hand, and that little flutter within told him it was almost time. He stepped onto the porch and up to the front door where he stood in front of an oval window that was tinted with some crystalline highlights in a pattern. He could see a lacy curtain behind it.

  Duncan was dressed in a cream colored suit for this. He looked like a damned pimp. “Stand off to the side,” Lerner told him. Duncan did. He might not listen when it came to fashion, but when it was go time, he was all business. He had his truncheon out, too, in a waiting hand. He stood beside the door frame, the cracking paint peeling off on his shoulder.

  Lerner stared at the front door for another second then delivered a heavy knock with his knuckles. He rapped hard and waited. He resisted the temptation to tap his foot on the grey floorboards of the porch.

  “Who is it?” A male voice came from somewhere behind the curtain.

  Lerner held a steady eye on the front door. “We’re here from the First Church of—” He cut off, muttering something under his breath. “We’re here to talk to you about our Lord and Savior.”

  A face appeared behind the glass, and it was just blank enough that Lerner knew on sight it was a demon. Just recovering from a ravening, his mouth probably watering at the “Lord and Savior” line. Demons ate up believers like they were candy, like they were a special gift from a divine they jerked away from in the light. Forbidden fruit.

  It got ‘em every time.

  The lock shifted in the door with a loud clunk, then the door started to yaw open. A wretched smell poured forth when it did, something that might have set Lerner gagging if he was the sort who was disturbed by scents. Like the smell of rotting bodies.

  Lerner took a step back. Gave him room, just like an evangelist might do. Polite. Lerner smiled, trying to look sincere.

  “So you’re here to convert me?” The man who was framed in the entry to the house stared out at Lerner. Duncan was out of his line of sight, just a step out of the way.

  “Yes, indeed, I’m here to convert you,” Lerner said, keeping the truncheon just behind his back. He kept his hands there like he was just maintaining a respectful distance and good posture.

  “You might find that hard,” the man said, and he just let it drip with irony. Lerner kept smiling. The guy in the door was wearing a suit of his own. Like he’d just been to church. Or had stolen it out of someone’s closet, more likely.

  “Well, sir, I think any change is bound to be somewhat disagreeable to one’s natural constitution,” Lerner said. “In fact, I’ve often wondered why people are so resistant to change.” This was something he pontificated quite often. “I mean, there are obviously things that are good for someone—like eating vegetables, following a low-fat diet, obeying the law—that they just don’t do, for whatever reason—”

  Lerner saw Duncan roll his eyes just before stepping around the door frame and activating the spring on the truncheon. The point of the baton came rushing out and hit the man in the suit in the chest.

  Lerner just stood there watching.

  If the man in the suit had been a man, Lerner knew he’d clutch his chest, aching from the baton’s spring punching the tip into his sternum. But the man didn’t do that, not exactly. He clutched for his chest all right, but he did it while his mouth opened soundlessly, lit by a black hellfire that rushed out of his chest, his eyes and mouth, consuming him completely before he said a word of response.

  “You could have let me finish first,” Lerner said. He wanted to swat Duncan in the back of the head. His partner never listened to his deep thoughts, so it seemed only fair that their marks should have to before they lit them up.

  “I’d have to hear it, then,” Duncan said, crossing the t
hreshold of the house.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to think a deep thought every now and again, Duncan.”

  “Let’s not test it, though.”

  “All right,” Lerner said once they were in the entry hall. It was white walls all the way back, opening into a family room or something toward the rear of the house. All the curtains were shut, darkening the place and filling it with gloom.

  “Should we announce ourselves?” Duncan asked in a low mutter, hopefully too low for anyone to hear him.

  “I think the element of surprise is going to be a nice thing to have working for us,” Lerner replied. “Unless you like the idea of getting blindsided by a Tul’rore with a taste for flesh.”

  Duncan didn’t have to think about that one for long. “I like quiet.”

  “Figured you would.”

  They crept along the old wood floors, a shiny, yellowed oak that squeaked occasionally as they went. Lerner grimaced every time it did. Duncan looked as indifferent as if he were choosing which bed he’d get at the motel.

  There was a noise ahead and they both paused, truncheons up and at the ready. Duncan’s was deployed still from impaling the first Tul’rore at the door. Lerner kept his finger hovering on the tiny button on the side of his. Having it spring-loaded was a nice advantage. It let him score at least one kill quick and easy. After that he’d have to work a little harder for it.

  That was all right, though. Lerner didn’t mind getting into a scrape here and there, so long as he and Duncan came out on top.

  And they always did.

  The noise turned into a crunching, like wood splintering under heavy pressure. He recognized the sound that followed, teeth rending flesh from bone. It took him only another second to realize the first noise was bone breaking. Getting crunched.

  It wasn’t a sound he loved.

  Duncan came around the corner into the family room first. Lerner followed a step behind. It was a wide area, classic decor with cloth couches and a TV that took up half the wall. Lerner had given a lot of thought to the increase in television size, thinking they were getting bigger as people in society lost touch with themselves. It was almost like they had to expand the screen to fill the shrinking hole of self—