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

by Robert J. Crane

  “Dr. Darlington,” came Sheriff Reeve’s voice from through the spokes of the wheel, his near-bald head looking almost as wrinkled as his forehead. “Are you all right?”

  Lauren felt the weight of Molly in her arms, her daughter in her grasp, the full significance of what had just happened causing her emotional mind to tremble even as the logical, careful, assessing, doctor part of her tried to assemble it into something rational. “I’m …” She didn’t take her eyes off of Molly, and she didn’t answer. She just didn’t have anything to say that made one damned lick of sense.

  ***

  “Will you hold the fuck up?” Hendricks said, gasping for breath and feeling like he’d been gasping most of the day. He didn’t feel much in the way of pain from the drop, which was fortunate; this was more from the flat-out, haul-ass run he’d done to try and keep up with Duncan. They’d skated the edge of the carnival, running the fence line, hiding behind cover as best they could, Hendricks wondering all the while exactly how this particular shitstorm was going to make landfall.

  “Now is not a good time for stopping,” Duncan said, slowing only a little. They were nearing the parking lot, and, Hendricks figured, some measure of safety.

  “When would be a good time to stop and die?” Hendricks asked, barely getting out his smart-assed reply.

  “When we’re safely in Moscow, I think.” Duncan ran on, leaving Hendricks cursing as they rounded the last curve in the fence and found themselves staring at the first row of parked cars.

  “Fuck that, I ain’t running that far,” Hendricks said, trying to avoid doubling over. “We still got business here, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, enjoy your stay in the local jail while this town and county get destroyed by the rising tide of demonic chaos,” Duncan said. “Should be a front row seat for the end of Midian.”

  Hendricks adjusted his hat on his head. It wasn’t that bad … was it?

  Of course it was. The signs were all there. They’d been watching the water level rising all along; now it was just a matter of when it would pour over.

  A car screeched to a stop in front of them, lights flaring. It took a second for him to work out that it was Arch’s Explorer, and the man himself was sitting in the front seat. Hendricks staggered forward a few steps behind Duncan, slipping through the passenger door that the demon graciously opened for him as the OOC slid into the back. Arch did not spare the horses once they were both in, putting pedal to metal in such a manner that Hendricks’s doubts about having to run were erased in an instant. “How bad is it?” he asked once they were out of the parking lot and streaking down a paved road toward town.

  “We’re gonna need to get as much of our stuff together as we can pack in ten minutes or less and vacate Midian proper,” Arch said. The tension was apparent in every facet of the man’s reply, from his form as he held the wheel with one hand to the slow delivery of each word with emphasis. “You get that, Alison?”

  ***

  “I heard you,” Alison said, the line still open. “Everybody made it out?”

  “We’re all clear,” Arch replied. “Meet us at the apartment; we’ll need to ditch the Explorer.”

  He hung up without another word, and Alison was left speechless anyhow. She did not look at her father as they slid down a back road. She didn’t need to; she watched him unspool the earphone out of his own ear after Arch hung up. Watched him and saw the expression on his face turn to fear, something she had never really seen there before.

  ***

  “So much for the town car,” Duncan said from the back seat.

  “That sucker would draw nothing but heat,” Hendricks said. Arch glanced at the cowboy in the passenger seat. He didn’t bother adding his chorus of assent. “Kind of like the Explorer now, I guess?”

  Arch didn’t take his eyes off the road. “You guess right.” He swerved slightly to avoid a pothole. The emotions were roiling inside of him, a thousand—no, a million of them, all warring for space to stretch out and express themselves.

  “I only need like five minutes at my place,” Hendricks said.

  “Same,” Duncan said. “Assuming you mean for me to come with you.”

  Arch glanced into the rearview mirror, saw on the demon’s face a cold, blunt look that wasn’t without a little rage etched in between the lines. “You got anywhere else to go?”

  “Depends on what you mean to do,” Duncan said. “If you’re just gonna hunker down and hide until this place slides off the map, I can think of other uses for my time.”

  “Oh, no,” Arch said, the answer coming out more playful than he intended. “No, no, no. See, we’re in it now. I just watched my career go up in smoke to save my hometown; if you think I’m gonna do that and just run so the next nasty thing that washes up on these shores can have free rein to finish the job? You got something else coming.”

  Hendricks was the first to speak up. “What do you got in mind, Arch?”

  “We move out into the country,” Arch said, “find a place where they won’t look for us. Embrace the wide open spaces of rural American life.” He felt his grip on the wheel tighten. “Then we start taking this war to the demons and doing it a lot harder than we have up to this point.”

  Hendricks just listened, composing his reply when his train of thought got derailed from the back seat.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Duncan said. “When do we start?”

  ***

  “Are you all right?” Lauren asked. They were riding in the car, shaken, stirred, fucked up, really. Molly was taking it better than Lauren had thought she would. Maybe.

  “No,” Molly said, shaking her head. “And yes. Kinda? Sorta? I don’t know?”

  Lauren listened to her, and when she stopped speaking, gave her a nod. “All right answers.”

  “I know, in the abstract, that a lot of guys are assholes with a one-track mind,” Molly said, and there was no hiding the raw edge of pain in her voice, “but Jesus. I thought I knew him better than that. I guess it was all lies.”

  “Some men are demons,” Lauren said, realizing that there was more truth to that than she’d ever thought of before.

  “You stabbed him with a sword,” Molly said carefully.

  “I did,” Lauren said.

  “And he went poof,” Molly said. “Like a product of my imagination.”

  “You didn’t imagine that particular asshole,” Lauren said, keeping the wheel even in her hands. Ten and two, and for some reason the wheel looked like a Ferris wheel to her for a second. “He really did go up in a puff of smoke.”

  “I’m no doctor,” Molly said with a healthy dose of sarcasm, “but isn’t that supposed to be impossible?”

  “Yep,” Lauren said.

  “So what’s the scientific explanation for that?”

  Lauren made as expressive a shrug as she could without moving her hands off the wheel. “I don’t know. What’s the scientific explanation for Jarrett Barnes spontaneously combusting?”

  Molly sat in silence for a minute. “Some men are demons.”

  “Yep.”

  They rode the rest of the way home in silence.

  ***

  Her daddy dropped her off a block away and Alison ran, ran all the way to the apartment. They’d talked it over and decided this was for the best; it would keep him out of the obvious scrutiny that was coming. He’d probably still get some of it, but if he stayed mostly out of sight during the exodus, he’d at least be able to help some rather than be forced to flee with them.

  And fleeing with them—that was something Alison hadn’t exactly been planning for at the outset of the day.

  The Explorer was not in the apartment building’s lot, and she figured for sure that he had not made it back yet. It sent a flutter of worry through her belly, primal concern that rooted there and crept up toward her heart.

  She made her way down the side of the building to the apartment. The outside lights cast long shadows on the pavement, and she watched her own slip past smoothly,
like a snake, or a slick of oil rolling down a river.

  She tried the handle and found it turned without unlocking. Hesitant, she pushed the door open, heard the squeak of the hinges, and felt for the pistol she’d kept under her t-shirt.

  Then she saw a shadow cross in the living room and froze, just long enough to realize it was Arch, and she went to him in a rush.

  She fell into his arms with a sudden bleeding of tension that was astonishing in its quickness. She felt like jelly against him, all form lost in the moment of contact. He returned the pressure of her embrace, firmer than he had been lately, and kissed her in return.

  “Oh, Arch,” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were dry; his were not, surprisingly. “I didn’t think you were here.”

  “I let Duncan and Hendricks take the Explorer,” he said. “We’re meeting ’em out at the MacGruder place. We’ll ditch the sheriff’s car there and make for our destination.”

  “Why there?” Alison asked.

  “Because we’re going across the county,” Arch said, “over by Culver. By the time Reeve gets all his ducks in a row, his crime scene at the festival contained, we’ll be hunkered down—for now.”

  “Okay,” she said, still staring in his dark eyes. She could almost touch the pain there, right at the top, it was so obvious to her. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Pack a bag,” Arch said, nodding once. “Clothes. Toiletries. All the stuff you’ll need.”

  “For what?” Alison asked.

  “For living,” Arch said.

  She shook her head. “Not what I meant. What kind of living? City living? Camping?”

  Arch didn’t think about it for more than a second. “War. Pack like you’re going to war.”

  Alison felt a mask of steely calm descend over her. “Okay.” And she got to work.

  ***

  Duncan had taken seconds—like maybe thirty, total—to cram about fifteen fugly suits into his suitcase and carry it out the door, tossing it in the back of the Explorer while Hendricks watched, waiting to slam it shut as soon as the OOC was in. It was an amazing bit of efficiency in his view. And while he had been standing there, waiting for the demon, he’d found the case in the back of the Explorer and opened it up, making a mental note to make sure to bring that with them. It was like he’d run into an old friend, really.

  Hendricks had taken slightly more time at his hotel room, but he was out of there in less than three minutes. That was the blessing of being the kind of guy who traveled light; he was only ever a few seconds from being ready to go.

  Now he was driving down the back roads toward the rendezvous point, watching the curves and enjoying the silence with Duncan at his side.

  Well, maybe “enjoying” was too strong a word.

  “You hear that?” Duncan stiffened in the passenger seat.

  Hendricks cocked his ears like a dog. Or imagined he did. Probably just tilted his head a little. Still like a dog. All he heard was the sound of the road, the sound of the wheel well, the sound of—

  Buzzing.

  Mechanical fucking buzzing.

  He stomped the brakes and listened to the screech of tires as the Explorer fishtailed just a little on the back road. He peered through the windshield at the long, straight stretch of road ahead of him. “I’m not imagining it, am I?”

  “Nope,” Duncan said with a tightly wound coil of rage all his own. Hendricks could sympathize.

  Hendricks opened the door and hit the pavement with boots a clackin’. He heard Duncan get out on the other side, the Explorer slightly fishtailed to expose the passenger side of the car—still dented and fucked up from the battle on the mountain—to the side of the road the noise was coming from. “Got a plan?” Duncan called as he came around to meet Hendricks at the lift gate.

  “Yep,” Hendricks said. He just opened the gate and pushed Duncan’s suitcase aside to reveal his new best friend.

  “You’re gonna beat ’em to death with a plastic case,” Duncan said. “Should be fun, if not terribly productive.”

  Hendricks didn’t reply to the sarcastic dig. He just flipped the case open.

  Duncan let out a low whistle. “You know how to use that thing?”

  Hendricks just smiled. “You’re goddamned right I do.” He hefted the AR-15 by the handle and checked the mag—again. It was full up, with a spare already prepared. Sixty rounds of mayhem at his fingertips.

  It was like coming home, the feel of it in his hands. The actions were reflex—pulling the charging rod, battering the switch with his palm to jerk the bolt forward—he’d done this a thousand times since he'd pinned his EGA, and as he came around the car to give himself a rest on the hood, he reflected that he couldn’t have planned a better spot to do this if he’d had to.

  “You unleash hell, and we’ll wade in together to wipe out the stragglers with sword and baton,” Duncan said. “Fair enough?”

  “Works for me,” Hendricks said and fiddled with the red dot sight. The last time he’d used one of these, the range was so close he’d just aimed down the side of the barrel.

  He could see them now, emerging from the dark—the peloton, the bicyclists, the Night Riders, if they wanted to call themselves that fucking pitiful-ass name. He fired his first shot and watched the soft-shelled bitch riding at the front of the pack disappear in a cloud of black as his bike fell underneath him. The tightly packed group struggled to swerve. Some failed. Some didn’t. Hendricks didn’t give a fuck. He had a full mag and a sword at his side to cap it all off if need be. He fired another shot, and another. Watched the chaos break, watched the demons panic. He filled the air with lead, a small, satisfied smile working its way out onto his face.

  Bikes fell.

  Demons screamed.

  Black flames writhed.

  Lafayette Jackson Hendricks clutched the AR-15 tight against his shoulder through both magazines, and by the time he was done, the handful of the demons that remained were all heaped in piles, trapped under bikes, disoriented.

  He didn’t even get the chance to finish them off. Duncan—that sadistic, magnificent bastard—had run forward like a lion heading for a carcass. Hendricks lost count of how many times the baton rose and fell. Kinda like the number of shots he’d fired.

  All he knew was that once it was done, there wasn’t a single demon left alive.

  They packed up without another word, tossed their stuff in the back and headed on down the road a little late. Hendricks couldn’t pull far enough off the road to keep from scratching the Explorer’s undercarriage with broken bicycles.

  They went in silence for a little longer, and Hendricks figured he’d just confirm—just for himself—that he was one hundred percent right in what he was picking up off of Duncan. “Wanna talk?” he asked, throwing it out there.

  “Nope,” Duncan said. Simple as that.

  Hendricks just shrugged. “Works for me.”

  ***

  Lauren couldn’t get rid of that nagging feeling. It was on her ass like an overbearing attending physician on an intern, like naivety on a med student. Molly was fine, Molly was coping—as fine as could be under the circumstances, surprisingly okay for what had happened. She’d gotten her home, gotten her inside, handed her off to her mom with a flimsy explanation, one that left out some crucial details. She hadn’t know what to say; her mom had given her the concerned look, the soft one that glossed over the problematic details in favor of motherly empathy—for now.

  But answers were gonna be needed.

  And that got Lauren in the car a little after midnight, after making just one call. Because she needed to know.

  ***

  Arch turned Alison’s car onto the dirt lane and took ’em down a half mile before making another turn onto a driveway. There was no mailbox on the stand, just a weatherworn place where it looked like one might have been a long time ago.

  Duncan and Hendricks were in the back, apparently in a war to see who could say the least. Arch didn’t mind that; they’
d been silent as stones since MacGruder’s farm, since they’d tossed their things in the back. Duncan’s suitcase and Hendricks’s duffel had joined Arch’s and Alison’s bags in her old car. Plus the AR case Hendricks had brought. Arch had pretty well forgotten it in the hubbub.

  The car was made for city driving, not dirt roads, but it managed. It kicked up the gravel, rocks dinging on the undercarriage and in the wheel wells. It hugged the ground but chugged along, up the winding driveway.

  Night had descended; the light holding it at bay around the festival was far distant. Arch’s mind felt the pull of the gloom, felt the desperation of the moment.

  This was the valley of the shadow of death, but he would fear no evil. He had no rod or staff, just a demon with a baton, a cowboy with a sword, a wife with a massive rifle, and a switchblade of his own to guard the flock.

  That’d do.

  It’d have to.

  He stopped the car in front of the old house. It didn’t look too bad, the exterior a little unkempt, the lawn overgrown by a few months. Shabby, but not post-apocalyptic.

  Yet.

  “Where the fuck are we?” Hendricks broke his silence with a doozy, finding a way to sprinkle his favorite word into the sentence. The man could squeeze it into a prayer, Arch figured. If he’d prayed.

  “This is an old farmhouse,” Arch replied. He glanced over the top of the house and saw Alison get out the passenger side. She gave him a reassuring smile. “Been here since 1892. It was owned last by the McCullough family, but now it’s the property of Bank of America.” He looked back at Hendricks. “Served the foreclosure papers myself.”

  “So we’re uh … squatting?” Hendricks asked.