He’d got a little drunk on her, if he was being honest with himself. She was damned pretty, had a youthful cuteness about her that hadn’t been part of his life over the last few years. She was cheery, that was it. Hendricks hadn’t been cheery in a long damned time. Rueful, more often than not. Sarcastic, all the time.
Also, she had a body that didn’t look like it had gotten any mileage on it since high school, and he liked that. She was a thin slip of a girl, and there wasn’t any problem at all with that in his mind. She was proportioned just right for it, too, not comically exaggerated like she’d had surgery on her busts, as some did. No, her chest was pretty close to flat and for some reason it worked just fine for him.
He crossed into the parking lot of the Sinbad motel, bearing toward his room at little more than a saunter. It was about all he could manage, and it had taken him a while to get from Midian to out here. His hip was aching, and he figured he’d go in and sit in that ugly ass chair in the corner of his room, put his feet up for a spell. He might even need some more sleep, and he knew for a fact he needed a hot shower after the walk. Things were sticking together on him from the faint sweat generated by his activity.
He looked up in time to see a guy coming out of the room next to his. Kind of a middle-aged fellow, medium height, medium build, long hair around the sides but way bald on top. The guy was wearing—no shit—a t-shirt that said nothing but Nike, and a pair of khaki cargo pants. He had on a pair of white tennis shoes, and his legs were pale enough that Hendricks knew he was a northerner in a heartbeat. The legs looked just like Hendricks’s when he didn’t have his jeans on.
“Morning,” Hendricks said, tipping his hat to the guy as he passed. He’d learned that this was the way things were done in the South, greeting everybody you passed. That shit didn’t fly in the North.
The guy said nothing, just sort of nodded as he went by.
Hendricks didn’t think much of it. Lots of people were unfriendly like that, and he ached too much to dwell on it or give a shit. He pulled his key and opened his door, disappearing inside to where slightly cooler air waited. And possibly a shower.
***
Gideon just nodded at the cowboy as he passed him. He looked back when he was sure the guy wasn’t watching him, and saw him go into the room next door. Shit.
He knew the cowboy, had felt it when the cowboy had cut loose a couple of demons in a bar last night. That black hat and black coat. There was a sword in there somewhere; he remembered the vision of those Y’freiti demons getting stabbed right through. He’d filed it away at the time, indifferent, because demon deaths didn’t do anything for him. He stared at the cowboy’s back as the man retreated into his room and closed the door.
Still, a demon hunter in the next room? That was some nerve-racking shit for him to deal with. Gideon had no plans to do anything that would cross the cowboy, but it was still unnerving. Demon hunters and demons weren’t exactly good neighbors, though apparently the cowboy hadn’t seen his real face. Which was fortunate, because Gideon wasn’t much of a killer. He was more of a voyeur.
Still, if the cowboy figured things out …
Nah. Gideon turned and kept on walking. He needed something to eat, needed to get out for a while and stretch his legs. Besides, if his nose didn’t deceive him, he smelled death coming nearby. Really close, in fact. It was too tantalizing to pass up. And why not be deathly close when it came? He’d never really tried that before.
Gideon put thoughts of the cowboy out of his mind for now and turned to walk over to his rental car. He’d just head toward the death he felt coming for now and leave everything else to be dealt with later.
5.
Lerner stared out the window of the hotel and watched rain start. Again. Last night had been a downpour, the little Holiday Inn-style thirty-unit building buffeted by high winds and a hard rain all night long. He’d gone to sleep listening to it tap on the roof, the sound of Duncan’s slow breathing in the bed next to his as familiar as eating. Not as enjoyable, though.
He put his hand on the glass and felt the slight chill from it across the tips of his fingers. He’d often given a lot of thought to the fact that the shell over his essence breathed the way a human did, could feel sensation and even had a sense of smell the way a human’s did, but contained none of the organs of a human. No liver, kidneys, heart or lungs. On the occasions where they stumbled across dead humans and he had a few minutes, he liked poke around inside, see what was going on in there. Lerner thought being a doctor would have been a magnificent career, if only for the opportunity to poke around inside real, living human beings.
Of course, he didn’t really care whether they lived or died, so that probably disqualified him.
Still, the knowledge was interesting. He remembered the smell of the kitchen in the house they’d raided last night. The corpse was so different from a living person. It wasn’t better or worse, just different. The sight of a gutted human didn’t offend him, really, it just bothered him from a job perspective. It meant paperwork. It meant headaches. When there were as many bodies as the Tul’rore had left behind, it meant an interdiction, possibly some expulsions from the plane. Which was what they’d done last night.
“You finish your Form S0-8T?” Duncan’s tone was clipped, all business. He was sitting at the table behind Lerner, already trying to get his shit done for the day. Lerner was putting it off, and Duncan probably knew it. His gentle reminder was the same thing he always did, trying to push Lerner to get done, too, and Lerner didn’t care for it. Still, he didn’t feel the need to turn around and gnash Duncan’s head off over it. Literally or figuratively. No, Lerner just kept staring out the window. Duncan would get the message in time.
The paperwork was probably the worst part of the job. Expelling pact violators wasn’t a bad job. It didn’t make him go sour in the stomach to crack open a shell and send someone’s essence screaming back to the underworld. He didn’t have a stomach, anyway.
Everyone knew the rules, and if they wanted to keep earth as a nice playground where everyone could feed reasonably, enjoy their desires in an orderly manner, and keep the humans from freaking out and staging a full-on anti-demon war the way they had in the past, the rules needed to be followed.
Lerner liked rules. Almost as much as he like pontificating.
Duncan cleared his throat, and Lerner felt his expression turn to an eyeroll. “No, I haven’t finished my fucking Form S0-8T, and you damned well know it. Don’t be a Mother Hubbard. I’ll get to it eventually.” The damned bureaucracy of the Office of Occultic Concordance was worse than the fires and freeze of damnation, honestly. “After all,” he went on, “it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do today.”
Duncan made a sound like he was clearing the throat he didn’t even have. “You know something could come in at any time.”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope it does.” Lerner reached down and felt the truncheon on his belt. He kind of liked cracking open a demon, letting the essence pour out. It made him feel alive. He wondered if that made him like a serial killer among the humans, then realized he didn’t much care.
After all, among his own people, it wasn’t like murder was even a crime.
***
“What the hell is up with Hendricks?”
Arch got the question he’d been dreading the minute they were outside, out of earshot of Reeve, Fries and Reines. She asked as Arch was heading back to grab his raincoat, the big yellow reflective-striped one that he kept in the back of the Explorer as part of his standard gear. He fished it out and pulled it on as the first little droplets continued to fall here and there. He pretended to not hear her as he fished around in the back for the accompanying hat.
“Arch, don’t even pretend you can’t hear me,” Erin’s voice came at him again. “That crap might work on your wife but it doesn’t work on me.”
“Sorry, what did you want to know?” Arch said, forcing a smile as he came up with his hat. He put it on, adjusting the
brim.
“What’s up with him?” Erin didn’t have rain gear on, and Arch cast a look skyward. He suspected it was about to open up, but she didn’t seem concerned. Her khaki uniform was just starting to show the first signs of spotting from the raindrops.
“Well, he wears a cowboy hat …” Arch started, a little tentative.
“I fucking know that,” she said, not seeing the humor in it, plainly. Arch’s stomach was a little unsettled yet from what he’d seen. He was glad he’d skipped breakfast. “What’s his deal? Where’s he from? Why’s he here?”
“You could try asking him this, you know,” Arch said, looking up and down the street. There were a few people out watching the cavalcade of police cars, but they were all safely under their porch awnings now.
“I’m asking you,” Erin said with a seriousness he didn’t usually see in her. “And I would hope, as my friend, you’ll tell me.”
Arch was caught a little off guard by that one. They were coworkers, sure, but he wasn’t certain he’d have gone all out and called her a friend. Still, it made him feel a little bad about the whole thing. “He’s from Wisconsin.”
“If you’re gonna be a kneejerk ass—”
“Whoa,” Arch said, and could feel his eyebrow crank down. “Whatever problems you’ve got are between you and him, okay? Don’t go dragging me into it.” He slammed the hatchback of the Explorer down. “And clearly you’ve got a problem with him.”
“I need to know some things about him,” she said, unfolding her arms and seeming to spit fire at the same time. “He’s like a damned cipher that got dropped out of the heavens onto my doorstep by you.”
“I only dropped him on your doorstep last night because he needed someone to keep an eye on him,” Arch said. He was still stinging from her swearing at him like that. “I figured that might be something you could do since the two of you were getting close—”
“We’re not,” Erin said, and a hand worked its way up to cover her eyes as she said it. “I mean … we’re … you know … but we don’t really talk or know anything about each other like …”
“Yeah, okay,” Arch said, having heard more than enough.
“Look, I jumped all over him because he was a friend of yours,” she said, peeking from behind her fingers, and for some reason that made Arch’s stomach rumble again. “I figured it was as close as I’d get to my mom endorsing one of the bad boys I’ve liked. But without the creepy side effect of having her try and date him.”
Arch started to say something to that, but gave up after a moment of trying to figure out what and coming up dry. “Um—”
“Do you even really know him?” she asked, and this time he felt the impact of her words like thunder on a clear day. “I need to know, Arch.”
Arch tried to figure out what to say to that. “Not as well as you apparently think I do,” he finally said.
Erin covered her face again, and he could barely hear her say, “Goddamn.”
“Hey, y’all!” Sheriff Reeve’s voice boomed out over the street, and Arch turned his head to see what was going on. Reeve was standing on the porch of the Hughes house next to Reines and Fries, gesturing to Erin and Arch with a hand to get on over there. Arch headed that way, listening to the tapping of the rain on the brim of his hat. It was getting worse, starting to open up on them.
Arch hit the front porch a few seconds later and looked back for Erin, who was not behind him. He caught sight of her rummaging in the back seat of her car and wondered if she might be heading out because of their conversation about Hendricks. She emerged from the back of the car a moment later with her rain gear. She slammed her door and it echoed down the street. The four of them watched while she ran through the increasing downpour to join them on the porch.
“All right, now that you’re all here,” Reeve said once Erin was there with them. Arch watched the water drip from her short blond hair. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, which was probably fortunate for her given the wet conditions. Her khaki uniform top was now sported a dark brown, camo-like pattern from all the places it had gotten wet. “I need y’all to start canvassing the area, asking the neighbors what they’ve seen. If anything.” Reeve pointed to the right. “Fries, you go that way, Reines, start across the street on the left, and Arch, go left. Take Erin with you and show her what to do.”
Arch caught a flash of irritation from Erin, but she didn’t speak up. “Yes, sir,” Arch said.
“All right, then,” Reeve said, his brow was puckered as if he was concentrating. “I’ll keep watch here until the crime scene unit arrives. See what you can find out in the meantime.” He waved them off, and Arch held up for a minute while Erin put on her raincoat and hat. Reines and Fries went scrambling to their cars to get their gear, the waist-high white gate slamming shut behind them with a rattling noise.
“Shall we?” Arch asked as Erin pulled her brim down low over her eyes. She didn’t look up at him, just led the way down the porch steps as the rain pitter-pattered on the awning and the sidewalk. Heavy grey clouds hung low overhead. They walked under the shade of old trees that kept a little of the rain from falling on them as they went.
Arch was getting used to the freeze out, had become real accustomed to it lately at home, and it bothered him less with Erin than it did with Alison. They only had to walk one house down the street, anyway, and she was fit enough to keep ahead of him at a reasonable pace if he didn’t try to run her down. Which he didn’t, though his long legs would easily have allowed him to.
She did the knocking when they got up to the house next door. It was an old-style Southern house with a porch wrapping all the way around. She let her small knuckles rattle on the screen door, not bothering to open it. He just watched and said nothing; he could play this game as well as her or better.
When there was no response after a minute or so of standing in the rain-drenched quiet, she pulled open the screen door and laid a firm knock on the front door itself. It gave and creaked open an inch, a black line all that showed of the interior.
“Who lives here?” Arch asked, already rummaging through his mind for the details.
“Orin and Kim Hauser,” Erin replied in a half second. “Older couple, in their sixties. He worked as a long-haul trucker until a few years ago when he retired.” She looked back at him. “They’ve got a couple grown kids still in town, Jake and—”
“Lisa,” Arch said with a nod. He stepped up next to her and pushed the door open slightly. “Mr. and Mrs. Hauser?” A stench hit him in the face as though he’d been punched in the nose, and he recoiled from it, drawing his Glock 22 as he did so. He could feel the weight of the plastic grip in his hand and heard the click as the metal barrel slid loose of the plastic holster. He kept his finger along the slide, off the trigger, and pointed the gun down at a forty-five degree angle. He pulled loose the little flashlight from his belt and threaded his left hand under his right. He pointed the flashlight in the same direction as the gun, and kept his eyes along the same sight line.
He saw Erin mimic his posture behind him, following along as he entered the house. His light illuminated the living room area ahead of him, shadows of the furniture cast on wallpaper checkered with blue dots or patterns too small for his eye to discern in the dark. A quick scan of the entry showed nothing out of the ordinary in the living room.
A wide aperture ran the length of half the room and entered a dining area of some sort. Arch could see the edge of a table beyond but little of the surface.
“Right behind you,” Erin said quietly.
“We should have radioed Reeve,” Arch said.
“He hears gunshots, he’ll come a runnin’,” Erin said.
Arch left his next thought unspoken—what if there was no time for shots?
Arch kept moving forward, each step throwing up a floorboard creak ominous enough to squeeze its way into any horror movie he’d ever seen at the drive-in theater near Whitsville. Any minute, he expected something awful to come crashing in through
the window at him, claws and all.
He made the edge of the dining room entry and covered behind the wall. He caught his breath and felt Erin stack up behind him. He wanted to close his eyes for the next part, because the smell was truly awful and he suspected he knew what was coming next.
Arch turned the corner and pointed the gun into the dining room. There was a faint buzzing noise, a few flies that had made their way in somehow. They were sweeping in low circles around the dining room table, and the smell was dead obvious here.
Mostly dead.
There was a rib cage stripped of nearly everything, a skull cracked open and empty from what he could see, though the shadows hid the contents pretty well. Other bones were strewn about the floor and table. Lesser ones he suspected. He took another step and his shoe hit another skull; he only knew it because it skittered off and hit a table leg, then rolled back toward him. It came to rest in the glow from an uncovered window.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Erin whispered from his side.
Arch didn’t do blasphemy, but he thought about swearing here. Thought about it and swallowed it whole. Instead he reached up to his shoulder and cued his mike, radio formality all thrown out. “Reeve … this is Arch. You’re gonna wanna come next door.” Arch took a look to his right, as though he could see through the wall and into the next house. “We’re gonna have to search the whole neighborhood.”
6.
Gideon didn’t love the smell of the burgers frying on the grill, but it was what the diner served, so he was stuck with it. He actually preferred salad, which was a hell of an irony even for him to digest. The salad prospects on the diner’s menu had seemed poor, so he just sat there, pondering the menu, waiting to see what happened.
The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted Page 25