“Bad month,” Molly said, doing that inappropriate teenager laugh. She stopped after about two seconds. “Oh my God, that’s not funny at all.”
“At least you realized it, sweetie,” Lauren said. She looked over at Mick. “So, Mick … you’re only in town for tonight?”
“Yep,” he said.
Monosyllabic was never a great sign, but Lauren withheld her disappointment and moved gamely to the next question. “Have her home by eleven, please.”
She searched his eyes for hints of intelligence, or, barring that, comprehension. “You got it,” Mick said, fulfilling at least part of the requirement. He held out a crooked elbow to Molly, like some sort of gentleman. “Shall we?” His northern accent was plain as day to her, and she found for the first time in her life she didn’t care for it. Usually it was such a breath of fresh air.
“See ya later, Mom,” Molly said, flushed with delight as she hooked her arm in his. Lauren tried to smile, because that—it was innocent, right? Walking arm in arm with a man? Lauren watched them cross the street, and they even looked both ways. Mick said something to Molly that was lost in the wind between them, and Molly laughed, not even a look back over her shoulder at her mother. That knot in her stomach was growing bigger.
“Molly got a date tonight?” Sheriff Reeve’s voice jarred Lauren out of her trance, watching them cross the square, talking, laughing. Doing the normal things couples did. Lauren vaguely remembered that.
“Yeah,” Lauren said, a little more tense now that she didn’t have to hide it in front of her daughter. “He’s not implicated in murder by any chance, is he? Because I wouldn’t mind an excuse to put an end to that.” She waved a finger gently in the direction of their laughing conversation as the two of them traced their way around the edge of the square.
“No, just a witness to another weird death,” Reeve said, somehow not relieving her. “Jarrett burst into flames. Spontaneous combustion. Pat saw the whole thing, kid didn’t come anywhere near him before it happened.” Reeve sighed. “I swear, it’s like this town is going to hell.”
Something about that tickled Lauren, bringing her back to what Arch Stan had said. They were demons. Like that was a normal, natural thing. Well, maybe for holy, pious Archibald Stan, they were. “Hell, huh?” Lauren just kept watching Mick and Molly. Molly laughed again at something he said, and it sent a jolt through her as she compared the now with a memory of her as a baby, sitting on the floor, laughing. Such a delightful sound, so innocent and sweet and full of promise.
A promise this carnie knew nothing about and was now walking away with. Lauren felt her fist clench.
“You okay?” Reeve asked.
“Just contemplating murder,” Lauren said.
“Sweet fancy Christ,” Reeve said, “Please refrain. I need another body in this town right now like I need a hole in my head.”
***
Arch’s phone rang as he was pacing around the map again, a pen in hand and a mad gleam in his eye that he could feel. He scrambled to answer quickly and was only mildly surprised when Alison’s name came up on the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Arch,” she said with a sense of relief that was palpable to him even over the open line.
“Alison,” he said, maybe with more than a little relief of his own. “Are you all right? Where are you?”
“Just passing Cleveland,” she said. “We got a big problem, though.”
Arch felt his teeth just about grind on that one. “Of course we do. How big?”
“Bigger than the bikers, that’s for sure.” Her voice was tight. “Arch, it could turn Midian into a wasteland.”
He felt himself fall into the chair heavily. “Sounds about normal. What’s the threat?”
“Someone with the carnival. Some kind of fire demon, sleeps with a girl there, and he somehow impregnates the whole dang town.”
Arch felt his face twist as he tried to plumb the meaning of the nonsensical statement she’d just made. He didn’t quite get it. “Say what?”
“I know, it doesn’t sound right.”
“Yeah, it sounds wrong,” Arch agreed. “Which is about par for Midian’s course of late. What’s the move?”
“Get to the festival, find the demon, send him packing home with nothing but his black-flame soul.”
“A plan I can endorse,” Arch said. “What do you need from me?”
“It’s spawns fire demons, so …” Her voice trailed off. “I dunno. You think a fire extinguisher would work?”
Arch didn’t really know how to answer that, but it didn’t matter because his mind jumped in a new direction. “Oh, wow. That can’t be coincidence.”
“What?” Her voice picked up. “What is it?”
“Jarrett just burned to death on the town square,” Arch said. “I heard the all-call on the radio just before I got home.”
“Sounds like our boy is already working,” Alison said.
“Hmm,” Arch said. “You sure it’s a boy we’re looking for?”
“Unless you know a lot of girls who can impregnate a whole town with fire demons?”
“Point.” Arch scratched his face, scruff and all. “How do we do this?”
“We’re gonna have to comb the festival looking for something unusual,” Alison said. “The demon is going to try to knock up a girl there.”
“So we’re looking for teens who look like they’re ready to have relations at the Summer Lights fest.” Arch felt some of the thrill of hope, the certainty of direction fade. “Well, that should be …” He didn’t even have the heart to say it.
“Like picking a horny teenage couple out of a pack of horny teenage couples,” Alison said, finishing the thought for him. “Arch, if we don’t, we’re gonna have to kill the girl who gets pregnant. She becomes the queen of the demon horde that follows.” She didn’t sound any more hopeful than he did. Fairly desperate, actually.
“So if we can’t find them, we have to kill a human being?” Arch asked, feeling the weight go out of his legs. Luckily he was already sitting.
“It’s her or the town,” Alison said. She said something else, but there was a burst of static and he couldn’t hear it.
“Alison?” he asked. “Alison?” She was gone, signified by the double beep of his phone to let him know the line was dead.
Arch set the phone slowly down on the map, stared at the black screen, and all the dark X’s marked over the colorful surface lines of the paper. Every one of them felt like a failure, and the black screen of the phone was the worst of all. It stared back at him with a dark reflection of his own face, his features blurred and consumed by the blank screen. It felt to him like he’d been subsumed by the darkness within it, like it had spread all over his features until all was in shadow, and he wondered if it was an omen for the immediate future.
18.
The sunset didn’t stop the heat. Mick was picking his way across the field, Molly hanging on his arm like a lady at a fancy dance, and he could feel her sweating, though from anticipation or the heat, he wasn’t sure. She was wearing a soft cotton dress that fell to mid-thigh, and he caught a look at those knees. What was it about that joint that moved him so? Bone and cartilage and connective tissue, but the way it moved, the way it could right-angle and twist, the pale skin stretched over it all—something it about it got to him.
They made their way through the short grass, heading toward the main gate. Cars were parked all around them, from the newest of the new to the old—Fords, Chevys and Dodges. Mick had seen BMWs before, but he didn’t see many here. He figured this was the working man’s entertainment, the blue-collar place of leisure. The carnival was already lit up, the Ferris wheel shining at him across the field. That’d be the place, he figured. It was a good place for it, even with the new, smaller boxes. He could do it sitting down, Molly astride him. He’d done it that way before, in tight places, though it’d been a few centuries.
That was the one downside to his condition. It sure felt good when it happen
ed, but he would like to have done it more often. That rush of release, that feeling when it surged out of him and filled the girl, filled all the women nearby—that was a damned good feeling. Cathartic in its way. It wasn’t just a little satiation; it was like drinking a river to drown your thirst on a hot day. Once you could handle it, there was nothing so sweet and relieving.
But Mick wasn’t up for a leaving a trail of carnage that would have OOCs after him, looking over his shoulder every day of his life. This he figured he could manage, just this town, and he’d be done for a while.
He dropped Molly’s arm from his and took her hand, meeting her shy eyes with his and smiling. She smiled back as they passed the entry gate without paying, just a wave from Joshua to let him know he was clear to proceed. He could tell she felt it by the look on her face; she was special. Tonight she was his lady, and he was gonna do everything to make her feel it, so that by the end of the night she’d feel obligated to let him feel it.
He felt her sweaty hand in his as they traipsed past the carnival games toward the midway by unspoken suggestion. He’d lead her where he wanted her to go. He felt the smile even as he took his eyes off of her, that anticipation breaking free and taking on a life of its own. This was where the fun began.
***
Hendricks was already ditching the car even as Duncan came to a halt in the wide field the festival was using for a parking lot. It took Hendricks a minute to realize they’d been at the edge of this field only a couple days earlier, and he hastily shot a look at the far end to confirm his suspicion. Yup. That was where they’d bagged that quantel’a after the downhill chase.
They’d fallen in behind Alison’s daddy as they drove into town. Duncan had fielded a call from her on his cell phone. She’d been in touch with Arch. Hendricks had watched the conversation, the demon driving adeptly with one hand as he coasted down the off-ramp toward the Old Jackson Highway. He heard snatches of Alison’s side of the conversation and of course all of Duncan’s, ferreting out that there was some incident that had happened involving fire. Hendricks didn’t care for the sound of it, but it did suggest that Starling was on to something. Not enough that he’d forgiven her for sending him down to that backwoods quarantine zone from hell, but he felt himself soften just a little.
Alison was out of the pickup truck door in a hot second, too. Hendricks caught sight of Arch waiting, leaning on his police cruiser, his uniform looking a little worse for the wear. Hendricks suspected he’d been up to something. It must have really been a hell of a thing if he hadn’t even bothered to change afterward.
Hendricks watched Alison run into her husband’s arms, watched them meet in a kiss that was equal parts relief and desire and fear. The interplay of emotions was all there, the warring of them, and he felt a few of his own as he watched it, unable to look away. He spared a thought for Erin, still lying in a hospital bed. He resolved to see her after this, and then hunt those fucking bikers down. Assuming they won this fight.
Assuming there’d be a fight.
“Bill?” Arch asked as he put his bride down, sweeping her to his side as he shifted his expression to regard his father-in-law. That was his name; Hendricks had forgotten and just taken to thinking of him as Alison’s father. Simpler that way. Bill.
“Arch,” Bill said, coming ’round the truck and offering his hand to his son-in-law. They shook with an easy familiarity, and the respect was apparent on both sides of the gesture. “I wish we were coming to this point of revelation under less strenuous circumstances.”
“You’ve known about demons all along?” Arch asked. He kept a good mask on it, Hendricks thought, but it was clear there was something going on beneath it.
“Since you were a child, I reckon,” Bill said. “I didn’t know exactly what was going on here until Alison spelled it all out for me, though.”
“Well, it’s all in the fire now,” Arch said. “And we’re about to be too, ’less we get this thing stopped in time.”
Duncan pushed up next to Hendricks. “Let’s find this fiery fuck and put an end to him; get back to the business at hand.”
“This is the business at hand,” Arch said firmly. “Flaming destruction of the whole town seems like a priority to me.”
“Whatever,” Duncan said, waving a hand. “What’s the plan?” There was a moment’s silence, and he looked to Hendricks rather obviously.
Hendricks saw the shift of gazes his way, and felt more than a little discomfort. “Um … okay. So. We’re hunting a, um …”
“A horny teenager,” Alison said. “In a sea of them.”
“Right,” Hendricks said, and his eyes scanned the carnival in the distance. The Ferris wheel was the most obvious point sticking on the horizon, but he saw the tops of tents and the metal, lit metal frames of other rides as well. “I don’t know how much good it’ll do when it comes to the fight, but having a couple people spotting from a distance might be helpful. Scan the crowd, call out anything that looks unusual—”
“Through the scope of a rifle?” Alison asked and then looked to her father. “That could be done. There’s a hillside overlook that runs around the side of the carnival. Good wooded cover.”
“Good hunting up there, too,” Bill said with a nod. “You know, in the fall. We should be able to drive up there from here; cross through the fence gate at the far end of the parking lot. It’s Ed Claskey’s land, he leaves the gate unlocked.”
“Is that trespassing?” Hendricks asked, only marginally interested in the answer.
“He’s a friend,” Bill said. “So no.”
“Sounds like hunting season’s come a little early this year,” Hendricks told them with a nod.
“Take these,” Arch said, slipping off Alison and dipping into his car to pull out a couple of little plastic bags with something black and threaded inside. “Earphones for your cells. We’ll conference call.”
“No walkie-talkies?” Hendricks said with a smirk.
“Didn’t have time to put much together,” Arch said, tossing the baggies to Bill, who caught them both with a nod and handed one to his daughter. They both headed back for his truck, slammed the doors and didn’t spare a lot of time getting moving, the pickup bouncing its way through the dirt parking lot.
“What about us?” Duncan asked. “Just start walking around the place?”
“Good a plan as any, I guess,” Hendricks said. “I’ll hang with you since I don’t have a phone.”
Arch just shook his head. “You may be regretting that before long.”
Hendricks shrugged. He’d never needed one. “Let’s get in there.”
“Wait,” Arch said, and Hendricks looked back at him. “You’re gonna need a ticket to get in, hotshot.”
Hendricks just blinked, the hot night bringing out the first beads of sweat under the brim of his hat. He hadn’t even considered it.
***
Lauren had decided to go to the festival. It wasn’t something she really wanted to do; it was something that she conceded was the crazy mother at work in her brain. She’d had a couple leaps getting to that point, but she’d finally bent her mind to do it, justifying it by saying she wasn’t gonna be looking for Molly. It was a big event, the biggest in Midian, and indeed the whole of Calhoun County. She lived in Calhoun County, ergo her attendance at this major social event was no big deal. Natural, even. She couldn’t avoid going just because her daughter was going, after all, she planned to laughingly tell Molly on the off-chance she ran into her daughter.
It didn’t even sound true in her head, but she went anyway.
She was just about to park the car when she saw Arch Stan through a narrow aisle of parked cars. He was wearing the same dirty, fucked-up uniform he’d soiled in the mine, and he had that cowboy (!) walking a pace behind him, and one of those federal agents that had flashed a badge at her, if she wasn’t mistaken. She stared a moment too long and nearly put her car into the trunk of a vintage Oldsmobile before she saw it and slammed the brakes.
She could feel her brow furrow in concentration as she mulled those three disparate elements while she searched for a parking space. To their credit, they did drive the thoughts of how Molly was doing out of her head almost until she reached the gate.
***
The song California Girls was playing on the tilt-a-whirl as Mick sat next to Molly and felt it jolt as it spun them. The hazy night closed in, laughter filling the air with the music, screams of delight as they went ’round and ’round. He felt her hand squeezed tight in his, an unexpected delight filling him. Benny was the announcer, and he was rhyming verses like he always did, amateur poet:
“Gonna go round and round!
Find yourself be spinnin’ down!
We takin’ ’round this tilt a whirl!
And when it stops—kiss yo girl!”
Mick could see the people in front of him laughing from the impromptu rhyme, giving in to the spontaneity of the unspontaneous moment. Benny had other rhymes, but Mick knew he’d pulled this one out just for Mick. Even so, he smiled at Molly. She smiled back, a nice tilt of her head that said she was thinking, Why not? So he gave it to her, a meeting of the lips for their first time, sweet and filled with promise. There was something in the heat of the night, in the touch of her slightly damp fingers to his, the interlacing as he squeezed her hand in his, of the taste of faint coffee on her tongue as his met hers. He wondered what she tasted on his.
They parted lips as the ride came to a stop, and Molly giggled with delight at Benny’s next rhyme.
“Now we comin’ to an end,
come on back and go ’round again,
but even if you’re done and going on,
kiss your girl again before you take her home!”
Mick matched her grin and took Benny’s advice as the soundtrack clicked in again. He was old enough to know that this wasn’t how the Beach Boys sang about California Girls, but it wasn’t bad, he reflected as he kissed her.
The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted Page 81