***
“What’s that?” Erin asked, her eyes catching on a red silk bag. It was pretty and stitched, and floating in the rapidly rising water that was running across the dam.
Arch seemed to stare at it with unblinking eyes as it washed to the middle of the dam. “I think it’s … it might be that thing that Gideon—the demon guy—was going to use to blow up the dam.”
“He was gonna blow up the dam?” Erin said, blinking. Holy shit. She didn’t say it, just thought it. What the fuck was going on here? She didn’t say that either. She just watched as the red silk bag washed off the front of the dam, making its long drop down the sheer face before she or Arch could even move to stop it.
***
Gideon felt the blade cutting into him, felt it and fought back. He was slow, though, from the wounds, and from the water holding him back from using his full strength. He could feel them sinking, here in the depths, and as the sword cut through his chest, a dim feeling of awareness that came over him, even as he tried to lash out at the man in the black coat.
He’d felt this feeling before. A thousand times. Ten thousand times. But from the other side.
Death.
When the blade tore through into his heart—the beating central nexus of his massive essence—it didn’t kill him right away. No, just like a knife to the heart—or a heart attack, he thought ironically, remembering that guy a few days earlier—what was his name? The first one that he’d felt die here in Midian?
It was like that. Agony in the chest, a sick feeling spreading through his limbs. He lost control of his hand first, and with a last spasm it went limp. He could still feel the heat rising off his body, like blood flowing to his extremities in one last burst.
Gideon drifted down and looked up to the face of the cowboy. He was missing his hat now. Didn’t look right. Not like the time he’d seen him in the parking lot.
It was the black hat that sold the look for Gideon. Without it, this guy just looked human. He realized that now as he stared him in the face. Before, he’d been a demon hunter. Now he was just a guy.
A guy who’d killed him. But still just a guy.
There was anguish at the thought of his long life being squandered. All those years and he’d never awakened to what he had in the last few days. It could have been so much better if he’d known. He could have had so much more if he’d just pushed beyond what he’d always been told.
But now it was too late.
He wanted to rail against it, would have if he could have moved his arm or his legs. But he couldn’t. The heat was rising, the cowboy hanging over him like death—real death, finally—and dark wings sprouting up on either side of him.
Gideon was going to burn, he didn’t have any illusions about that. He was lifeless, but the life hadn’t quite fled yet. When it did, it would be a spectacular burst of hell's fire that would flash-boil the water around him for twenty feet.
And maybe—just maybe—he could burn the cowboy up as he went. One last one, for the road.
Show him who death really was.
***
Hendricks felt strong hands grabbing his arms, dragging at him as he hung there in the wash. In the river? Water had flooded into his nose and mouth, was drowning him now, just like it had last time, and he was ready. Oh, Renée
, how he was ready.
One last death, and he was settled up. Not really, but it was as close as he was going to get in this life.
He wanted to fight against the hands that had him, but he couldn’t. He thrashed, but they were far too strong, both of them, and he was far too weak, and his lungs were crying for air, and—
When his head broke the surface, it felt like had the last time he’d been pulled out of the water. He hadn’t wanted to come back then, either, but he’d been at peace—or something close to it—when he had. Now he was kicking and screaming as he was lifted up onto the concrete, sputtering and spitting the water out of his nose and mouth.
Hendricks landed on his forearms and knees, and he felt it when he did. He rolled to the side shortly, then to his back, and felt water tap-tap-tapping him on the face as he lay there, spent.
“Hendricks?” The female voice was lighter than the last time. He knew it, too. Not because it sounded like something born of infinity and familiarity, but because he’d heard it before. Whispering in the night. Urging him to fuck her.
He opened his eyes to see Erin leaning over him, an M-16 in her hands. And he could have sworn he saw Arch just behind her shoulder. “I’m not married,” he whispered as he looked at her. “Not anymore.”
***
Erin stared down at Hendricks, a little surprised by his first words after Starling and the guy in the suit had fished him out of the water. “Uhm … that’s good. It looks like you were right about there being demons, too.”
“Heh,” Hendricks said, still looking up at her like he was dazed. “I guess I’m not a fucking liar after all.”
“No,” she agreed, “just a fucker.”
***
Arch stared down at Hendricks over Erin’s shoulder, and finally saw Hendricks’s eyes alight on him. “Arch?” the cowboy said.
“I’m here,” Arch said. He was still feeling more than a little dazed himself. And cold, the rain beating down on him with his shirt gone and all.
“Where are your clothes?” Hendricks asked. “Why do you keep losing your clothes?”
Arch sighed. He really didn’t have an answer for that.
***
Lerner stood on the edge of the dam closest to the reservoir. The redhead was next to him, watching Harris and Arch hanging over Hendricks like he was dead. They were all wrapped up in each other, but he was watching the redhead.
He’d seen her at the whorehouse, at a distance. Her eyes were normal, then. And Duncan could read her just fine.
Now, her eyes were dusky as all hell. Indeterminate color. And he was looking real hard, trying to figure it. This wasn’t some shit he’d seen before, and he’d been on the job a long time.
Which meant she was something new? Or something that predated his years of service?
He kept watching her, and she kept watching the little scene playing out in front of them.
***
Hendricks almost felt well enough to get to his feet. Almost. Arch threw him a helping hand and he took it, and the cop pulled him up. He ran a hand up his own face and up to the top of his head before he realized something was missing.
“My hat,” he said.
***
Arch saw it drifting toward the other edge of the dam. He went toward it at run and caught it before it went over the edge. He looked down—all the way down—and took a quick step back. It wasn’t a plunge he thought anyone could easily survive—human or demon.
***
Hendricks felt the smooth felt of the wet hat as Arch handed it back to him. He dumped it out and set it back on his head, felt it settle just right. The brim drooped from the effect of the water, but that had happened last time, too. It dried out in time.
“Thank you,” he said to Arch. “I can’t …” He stopped before his voice broke.
***
Erin heard the quaver in the way Hendricks spoke, and while part of her said to stay back, another part urged her on, and she placed a hand on his back, unasked. It felt right. He made a slow turn around to look at her, and she caught sight of something in his eyes. A pain in the depths, something she’d never seen all the times they’d been together.
She leaned in and kissed him. It just felt right, too.
***
Lerner was still watching the redhead watch everything unfold. She was a cool customer. Beyond cool, actually. It wasn’t until the cowboy kissed Deputy Harris that the ice queen melted, just for a second. But when she did, it was obvious as hell to him. Him and no one else, because she only wavered for a blink before she went back to her normal even self.
But he saw it, the flash of it, for the half second of existence it
had. Saw it and recorded it in his mind for later. He knew that emotion. He’d felt it himself only a few minutes earlier when he watched Duncan go flying off the top of the dam.
Rage. Pure, hate-filled rage.
***
“This is a beautiful denouement,” Hendricks heard Lerner say as he broke off his kiss with Erin. Her lips were soft, and moist. He was still dripping wet and could feel it as he stood there, his clothing absolutely soaked under the weight of his coat. His sword was on the ground where he’d let go of it when he got thrown out of the water, and he stooped to pick it up and sheathe it. “But I need to go check and see if my partner survived his plunge off the dam,” Lerner finished. “Adios.” The demon sketched a rough salute to them and started off toward the sedan.
“You owe me a mirror,” Erin said. She didn’t sound angry, more weary. She was still clutching an M-16 in her hands. It took him a second of staring at it to realize it was probably an AR-15. Cops didn’t carry M-16s.
“Bill me for it,” Lerner tossed over his shoulder without looking back. He stooped to pick up a black gym bag that was still resting on the surface of the dam, two or three inches of water running around it. It didn’t so much as move until he picked it up. “Better yet, bill your boyfriend,” Lerner went on, holding the gym bag in his hand like it weighed nothing. “I did just save his life, after all.” Lerner got into the car without once looking up and backed up off the dam in the sedan with a little more speed than Hendricks would have thought safe given the location.
Hendricks looked at Arch, who was still standing there, shirtless, the rain coming down around them. He met the cop’s gaze, and neither one of them said anything for a minute. “Need a ride home?” Arch asked him, finally.
Hendricks thought about that for a minute then looked at Erin. There was something in her eyes that told him what he needed to know. “Nah, I think I’ve got that covered,” he told Arch.
“Shit,” Erin said, snapping her fingers. She let the rifle in her hands sag. “I’m supposed to drop Lucia—I mean Starling—off at the station.”
Something about that prickled at Hendricks. He looked around the surface of the dam. “Hey, wasn’t Starling here just a minute ago …?”
“Son of a bitch,” Erin said. Hendricks agreed with part of that assessment, anyway. The dam was empty from side to side, except for the three of them. Hendricks peered at Erin’s patrol car, parked just a little closer than Arch’s cruiser. It looked empty. “Man,” Erin said, “Reeve is gonna have my ass for this.”
“Why?” Hendricks asked, frowning. “What does the sheriff have to do with Starling?”
He could see the pained look on Erin’s face. “That’s … kind of a long story.”
“Tell me on the way home?” Hendricks asked, and felt her wrap an arm around his waist. He put his around her shoulders and they started back along the dam, side by side. The rain had slackened, finally.
“Yours or mine?” she asked. And he didn’t have an answer for her. Not right away.
***
Lerner made his way back down the winding hill road almost as fast as he’d made his way up. This time, he didn’t even have a cop in pursuit; something more important was at stake. The shift of the car’s transmission as he revved up and down bothered him not at all. He almost tuned it out as he raced around tight corners and taxed his wet tires well past the point he knew he should have.
He knew he was home free when he hit the last straightaway, knew that the guardhouse was ahead less than a mile. The Caledonia River was running to his left, the source up over the dam somewhere ahead of him. He kept one eye on the road and one on the water as he drove like mad.
It was the eye on the road that eventually found him. Lerner hit the brakes as he approached, squealing the sedan to a stop and jamming the PRNDL switch into park without bothering to even pull his keys out of the ignition. He had the door open and was half out of it when the naked figure rushed in front of his headlights and opened the passenger door, sliding into the front seat.
“You scared me almost worse than hell,” Lerner said as he got back in the car.
“Occupational hazard,” Duncan said. He looked like he was shivering, but he wasn’t. He was shaking. “We won, of course.” It wasn’t even a question.
“Yes. We did,” Lerner agreed, and put the car in reverse. He turned around so he didn’t accidentally back into a pine tree while he pulled the car about. He liked that Duncan didn’t ask what he meant about the we thing. “The redhead came back.”
“Did she?” Duncan asked. Lerner could see the puzzlement. It was just barely there under Duncan’s almost inscrutable expression. “I didn’t … I couldn’t see her there. When I looked.”
“I figured you wouldn’t,” Lerner said, nodding to himself. He was driving slowly, now. Crisis passed. He took a breath and let it out. “When she was the hooker coming out of the whorehouse, her eyes were normal, some human color, and you could read her, right?” He didn’t need to wait for Duncan’s nod, but he did. “The same girl shows up on the dam, her eyes are some dusky hue I can’t place, she looks … just different and feels off—and you can’t feel her at all.” He smiled and looked at Duncan. “You ever heard of anything like that before?”
Duncan didn’t answer at first. That was a bad sign, Lerner thought. “Maybe,” he said finally. “But … it’s been a long time.”
“I was thinking it had to be something old or something new,” Lerner said, still nodding.
“Real old,” Duncan said. He paused. “You know, if those humans hadn’t been there—”
“Don’t …” Lerner said. “Just don’t. We’re OOCs. We don’t do team-ups.”
“You know we’re here for the duration,” Duncan said, and Lerner heard a little hint of something. Emotion. “Till the hotspot goes.”
“I know.”
“There could be worse things than having—”
“If you say ‘friends,’ I will kick your naked ass right out of this car and make you walk back to town,” Lerner said.
Duncan didn’t say anything for a moment. “I was going to say allies.” He let that hang for a minute, but Lerner didn’t reply. “That suit was one of my favorites,” Duncan said. Now he sounded like he was whining. As much as Duncan ever did, anyway.
“It was ugly,” Lerner said, and caught the faintly—very faintly—scandalized look from Duncan. “You’re right, of course. Not about the suit. But we’re gonna be here for a while. Maybe we play nice.” He didn’t smile. “They’ve got an in on some power—some thing—that we can’t place, with that redhead. That’s worth keeping an eye on, wouldn’t you say?”
Duncan didn’t say—at first. Finally, “We should definitely keep watch.” Lerner couldn’t disagree with that.
***
Erin pulled the cruiser into the parking spot in front of Hendricks’s motel room. They sat there for a minute in silence. They’d talked, on and off, on the drive down from the dam. Erin wasn’t sure she understood the whole demon thing, really, but Hendricks had shed a little light. Basic stuff. Every question she asked left them in silence, though, for a few minutes while she processed the answer and honed in one which was the next best question to ask.
She hadn’t run out of them, that was sure.
The hot air was blowing out of the car’s vents, and they were both still soaked. The sheriff’s cloth seats were drenched, and Erin had a suspicion that it was liable to leave a mildewed stink once it dried that would be just as obvious as the missing mirror. The hot air blowing out of the vents helped a little, though they both still shivered occasionally as they sat there in the parking lot.
“You want to come in?” Hendricks asked. Tentatively, like he wasn’t sure.
What the hell did he think she would say to that? He wasn’t married, he wasn’t crazy, and her head was swirling like a martini someone had just spun a swizzle stick in. Plus he was some kind of big fucking hero demon slayer who’d damned near gotten himself killed
to save the whole town. She wasn’t sure what the proper protocol even was in this situation; whether she should run screaming away from him or just throw her panties at him. “Sure,” she said.
They got out of the car and drifted toward the door. At least the rain had stopped, though every step caused another ripple in the giant puddle that was the parking lot of the Sinbad motel.
He paused at the door and rummaged in his pocket before producing the key—along with a handful of water. “Guess I’m lucky I didn’t lose this,” he said.
“Guess so.” She tried to laugh, but it was a halfhearted effort at best. She stared at him. He was a hero. Saw Arch go down and just charged right at the demon knowing that it could turn him to ash. She wanted to say something of that sort to him, but he was fumbling with the keys, and she didn’t know how to say it.
So she kissed him. Long, slow. Her hand ended up on his chest, she felt the muscles under his wet shirt. She knew she was past running away, even as fucked up as things had gotten, and she wanted to throw her panties at him but something—some damned something—was holding her back, so she just kissed him until he broke it off.
She tried to go in on him again, could hear the door squeak on its hinges. She caught his lips and felt him press back, but only for a moment before he broke away again. She grasped his shirt in her hand, squeezing it and trying to pull him close but he stopped her. “Wait.”
She caught her breath as she paused, lips inches from his. This was what she wanted, right? He was good at it, they had fun together. She’d seen what he’d done, who he was, right? This was what was supposed to happen next.
It was what always happened next.
She held there, though, dripping, in the open door of his motel room, staring him in the eyes. He stared right back, and she could watch him think. It was still cute, but something nagged at her. She waited for him to say something, get something out or off his chest before he resumed kissing her the way he always had. He already knew how to get her started, get her wet, even after a couple of weeks and just a few times. And this time, she was ready. She should have been ready. It was like makeup sex, right?
The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted Page 46