“Yet you feel called to protect those of others,” Starling said.
Hendricks made his way into the bathroom, taking his 1911 out of his holster and setting it on the back of the toilet. Then he unsheathed his sword and leaned it against the reserve tank. He always did this lately, his little routine before getting in the shower. He hadn’t used to, but ever since—
“You worry,” Starling said, eyeing his preparations.
“I’ve kinda gotten my ass beat a few times since I got here,” he said, letting the belt buckle clank on the floor, tossing the scabbard and holster past the redhead who was just hanging out in the doorway of his bathroom, being of no particular use to anyone, least of all him. “Better safe than sorry, as they say.”
“But this is new,” Starling said, still staring at him with those dusky, impenetrable eyes.
“Every other hotspot I’ve been to, you know how many times demons have tracked me down to do me harm?” He held up a hand with his index finger pressed to his thumb in the international sign of zero. “Nada. As in, ‘not a one.’”
She cocked her head in confusion once more. “But this didn’t come about after any of the attacks on the places where you stayed—”
Hendricks just froze, holding himself upright, hands clenching the bottom of his t-shirt, ready to strip it off. His back locked into place and he couldn’t move his arms for a second, like a combat freeze, like his animal brain took over for a few beats of the heart and he was playing dead right there in front of his toilet.
“—it came after—”
“I damned well know what it came after,” Hendricks said, hands still stuck at the bottom of his t-shirt. He swallowed hard and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, suddenly struck by nausea. He gagged, looking down at the toilet. At least he was close if he chucked.
It took a moment but the nausea passed, and he stared at the white porcelain, stained all around the bowl, and at the dull gunmetal of his 1911 on top of the reserve tank, then the sword beside the throne. They reassured him, at least a little, and he looked at the redhead framed in the door out of the corner of his eye. “I know very damned well what it came after,” he finished.
“Do you want to hear something?” Starling asked.
“Is it a cryptic warning about shit yet to roll my way?” Hendricks asked, the scent of bile wafting out of his mouth, infecting his taste buds.
“The blood-dimmed tide is about to be loosed.” She stared at him, those impossible eyes fixed on him, and he didn’t know quite what to say.
“You make that up?” he asked at last.
“It is a quote from a poem by William Butler Yates,” she said. “It is called the Second Coming.”
“I don’t really acknowledge a first coming,” Hendricks muttered, mostly to himself, staring at the stained toilet bowl. “You trying to change up your routine? Because even with the hints of poetry, it still sounds like a cryptic warning.”
“There is always danger afoot,” she said, “always something to be wary of, as we move toward the end of all things.”
Hendricks listened to her as he stared into the toilet. His skin felt dirty, sticky, disgusting, like he’d been marked somehow, slimed. He felt filthy and wanted to climb into the shower, to let the hot water burn his flesh for a while as he scrubbed himself clean. “I need to shower,” he announced suddenly.
“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, staring at him.
He didn’t look at her. “You can if you want. It’s a free country.”
“I will watch over you, then,” she said.
He shrugged, still feeling that transient hint of nausea. “I don’t reckon you’ll see anything you haven’t seen here before, given your profession when you’re not whooping demon ass and making apocalyptic announcements of doom.” But the words rang hollow even in his own ears, and he undressed a lot slower than usual. That sick feeling didn’t quite leave him, even after he was under the hot water, the shower curtain between him and the redhead who was standing guard at his bathroom door.
2.
Braeden Tarley made it home just in time for his favorite part of the night. He’d been worried he wouldn’t get back from the meeting earlier enough, but as soon as he walked in the door and caught the smile and nod from the babysitter, he hurried and fumbled for his wallet to pay her and ushered her out so he could get down to the most important business at hand.
“Daddy!” Abi squealed as he came into her room. She was already in bed, covers twisted from clearly playing when she was supposed to be sleeping. The hall light behind him cast his shadow long across the toys strewn across her floor, dolls and a mini-kitchen and a little shopping cart. There was a noise machine making sound like waves crashing against rocks, like music to his ears, sitting there on the dresser across the room from her bed, and he slid the knob lower as he came into the room.
Abilene Harlequin Tarley (he’d wanted to call her Harley, because owning one of those motorcycles had been Braeden’s ultimate ambition, but his wife was having none of her being Harley Tarley) was the most beautiful girl in the entire world, Braeden was damned convinced, and had been since he’d first laid eyes on her. She had these perfect little blond pigtails that it had taken him months to master, a beautiful button nose that was a little round at the end, and a smile that was like someone turned on a tractor-trailer’s headlamps in your face without the covers. She gave him one of those right then, and he couldn’t help but forget everything that had happened at that stupid meeting, breaking an idiot grin of his own.
“How’s my girl?” Braeden said, sliding in next to her on the little day bed tucked into the corner of her room. It doubled as a sofa, and its cushions were a little too thin for his taste, but he didn’t have to sleep on it. If she got scared, she always just came and got in his bed anyway.
“Daddy, today at Miss Creek's we learned about the states,” Abi said, eyes all excited. She didn’t look tired, which was a mite vexing considering it was at least half an hour past her bedtime. “Do you know how many states I know?”
“How many states do you know?” Braeden asked, stooping low so that he could put his elbows on the edge of the day bed.
“All of them,” she said, smiling broadly. “Arizona, Alaska, Texas, Tennessee, West Carolina—”
“I don’t think there’s a West Carolina,” Braeden said, barely suppressing a grin. “North and South, I recall, but no East or West Carolina.”
Abi frowned at this, looking toward the ceiling as she pondered it. “No, there’s a West Carolina.”
“Sure you’re not thinking of West Virginia?”
She considered this a little further. “No, you’re wrong. Miss Creek says there’s a West Carolina.”
He barely held it in. “Either Miss Creek failed geography or you’re not recalling it right.”
“What did you do today, Daddy?” Abi asked, clearly just moving right on past.
“I fixed engines, just like every day,” he said with his best smile. He brought up one of his hands and she grabbed it, pressing it to her nose. She liked the citrus smell of the Zep TKO hand cleaner, and she made a big production of drinking it in, holding his hand up there and then smiling, her eyes closed as she let it drop away from her face.
“Mmmm,” she said, resting her head back on her pillow, eyes opening just a slit to peer out at him while trying to act like she was sleeping. “Sing me a song.”
“What do you want me to sing?” he asked, leaning his elbow on the hard wood at the edge of the bed.
“Something pretty.”
“That’s a broad category,” Braeden said, thinking it over. “How about ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’?”
Her eyes popped open. “No.” She squinted them shut again.
“It’s a great song, a classic—”
“No.”
He thought about it again. “How about, ‘Bartender Blues’ by—”
“I want ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman',’” she said
, easing those eyes open again for a second.
Braeden thought about mounting a half-hearted protest but gave it right up and launched into the song. Whatever Abi wanted that he could give her, he gave her. He figured that since she was missing one parent that could say yes to her, he kinda had to do double duty on that, too.
*
“So that’s how it went,” Reeve said to his wife, Donna, sitting in their kitchen. The dark, thin wooden wall panels were the height of seventies and eighties style, and he’d been meaning to tear them out and paint, but his priority list of projects had taken a backseat ever since he’d gotten elected sheriff. He and Donna had been married for umpteen million years, together for a little while before that, so she was used to the honey-do list getting put off. “Not exactly the biggest success of my political career,” he finished.
“You’re a lousy politician, sweetheart,” Donna said, full of sympathy, her steel hair cut short around her ears in a little bit of a bob. It was a classy look for a classy lady, and Reeve didn’t mind it at all. She’d done a hell of a great job raising their kids while he was working his ass off for the department and a succession of sheriffs. Now the kids were all grown, and he and Donna were in their sunset years, and he was in the big job, the one he’d always wanted. “You’re too straight a shooter to deal with people like Pike.”
“Oh, if it was down to me actually shooting him, I reckon I’d do all right—because of the straight nature of my shooting.” Reeve mimed drawing a pistol, making one out of his finger. He smiled, but it faded in an instant.
“What are you thinking about right now?” She reached across the table and took his hand. He stared down at it; both of them had their fair share of wrinkles, and their hair was a hell of a lot shorter than when they’d met, but he had a hard time imagining her any different than she was now.
“I’m thinking …” he said slowly, “I can imagine what some of these people in our town are going through. The ones I’ve had to deliver the news to.” He squeezed her hand gently. “One of the things I’ve always loved about Calhoun County was how tight we pull together when things go bad. How many times have we gone over to sit with someone when they lost kin? And you get there, and the house is all filled up with casseroles and deviled eggs and sandwich plates and food brought in by people who are feeling the sympathy.” He shook his head. “We’ve lost so many folks lately … I wonder if the people seeing their kin die now are getting … less, you know? I wonder if we’re starting to hit the point where our community is jaded enough that they feel like they’ve given enough.”
“I don’t think so,” Donna said, shaking her head. “I went over to Marge Rosalind’s daughter’s place—you know her husband got killed when the big demon came stomping through, and they lost the house—she’s living with them for a bit. Well, they were stocked up, Nick, I tell you.” She scooted a little closer to him, put a hand on his shoulder and started to rub. “The people around here care about each other. They trust each other, are neighborly for the most part. It’s just who we are.” She gave him a faint smile. “Whatever happened tonight, just know that before the end of this, they’ll come back ’round to you.”
“I shudder to think what it’ll take to convince some of these folks I’m not a lying sack of shit, making this crap up to cover what an incompetent fucking idiot I am,” Reeve said with a weak smile. He leaned forward and gave his wife a peck, and she turned to take it on the lips. He halted before pulling away, and gave her a deeper kiss, the kind they didn’t really exchange very often any more. She returned it, and he scooted his chair a little closer, the leg scuffing on the linoleum floor as he hopped over.
They kissed like that for a few minutes, like they used to. The longer it went on, though, the more Reeve felt his internal temperature rising, a peculiar kind of worry setting in.
Finally, his wife broke from him, hand on his cheek. “What’s wrong, Nick?”
Reeve didn’t know quite how to say it. “This … this ain’t never happened before.”
It took her a second to get it, but when she did, she was steely calm. “It ain’t no big deal. We can fix this in a hot second.”
She unzipped his pants, reaching on in there, taking his penis out as she pressed her mouth back to his lips. She worked him good, just the way he liked, but after another ten minutes of her making every effort she could, it was as clear as day to him that this particular battle was a loss, and not a pretty one.
“Sonofabitch,” Reeve said breathlessly as Donna settled back into the chair next to him, limp dick just sitting there are folded and ashamed—as it damned well should have been. Donna bent to put her head on his shoulder, stroking his back gently.
“It’s all right, Nick.”
“The hell it is,” Reeve said, disgust threatening to give him an ulcer. Hell, if he had an ulcer, at least that would have been a reasonable excuse for the disgrace that had just happened here. “This—I mean, this doesn’t happen.”
“Those commercials for Cialis say differently.”
“Well, it don’t happen to me,” Reeve said, indignant. A moment later he regretted turning his hostility to his wife. “Not to me,” he said, lower and little contrite. He felt little reassurance from her there at his side. “There are demons invading Midian, more than half the town turned against me tonight, and now this. Shit.”
She rubbed at his shoulder again. “Well, at least you know it can’t get any worse.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking down at her, head on his shoulder. “Don’t you go tempting fate, now.”
*
Arch rolled off Alison, breathless, his energy spent. He was sweating between the sheets, trying to mop it up off his forehead with the edge of the cotton. They were nice sheets, nicer than anything he’d owned. They were staying in Alison’s old bedroom at her parents’ house, and that meant they had to keep quiet, which was easier for Arch than Alison. He was habitually quiet anyway, to the point where she teased him by asking him if he was afraid the Good Lord would hear him if he made any sound louder than a whisper. She, on the other hand, didn’t mind getting embarrassingly loud, even when they were in an apartment that had a common wall with an elderly lady. Fortunately, she hadn’t been able to hear. Even more fortunately, Alison had learned to tone down her enthusiasm slightly in her parents’ house. If only she’d felt the same when they’d lived with Hendricks and Duncan. Arch hadn’t been able to comfortably look either of them in the eye for the first few weeks in that farmhouse.
“I never get tired of that,” Alison said, sheet resting just above her waist. He gave a look over at her pale nipples, almost glowing in the faint light breaking in past the curtains. The back porch light was just outside and shone right in the room. Time was, in the wee hours of the morning that gave Arch problems, but he doubted he’d have much trouble anymore. Not after they’d just spent weeks living in a country house, sleeping during the day without the benefit of curtains.
“It is one of the better rewards for us human beings,” Arch said.
“Duncan says demons do it, too,” Alison said. “Hell, you know they do.”
“I have a hard time imagining them enjoying it as much,” Arch said a little stiffly. “Duncan doesn’t seem interested at all, for instance.”
“Like we ain’t never met human people that exact same way,” Alison said with a frown in the dark. She got up and headed for the bathroom. Her parents’ house was pretty nice, and Alison had an in-suite bathroom. Made it convenient, that was for sure. And it certainly didn’t motivate him to go looking for an apartment at the moment, either. He heard the tinkle of her making water, wishing a little self-consciously she’d close the bathroom door. The sound the toilet paper roll squeaking followed a few seconds after it stopped, and then the loud flush.
She padded back into the room. “You have trouble thinking of demons as people, don’t you?”
“Because they’re not,” Arch said, pulling the sheet up to just below his neck as she g
ot back into the bed. The whole thing shook under her light weight.
“Duncan’s people.” She sounded certain. “Don’t you remember that whole argument with Hendricks we had out in the barn at the other house where—”
“Duncan strikes me as different than most of the demons I’ve driven a sword point through,” Arch said. “For one, he’s not interested in hurting human people. For another, he is interested in stopping the demons who do.”
Alison shifted uncomfortably, grunting in bed next to him, fanning herself with the sheet. “Good God, it’s hot in here, isn’t it?”
Arch arched his eyebrows. “I was thinking it was fairly cool, myself.”
“You’re crazy,” Alison said. “But I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you’re not really willing to think of a demon as a person until they’re part of the cause or whatever.”
“Well, a large portion of the ones I’ve met had ill intent, so I’ll admit it might be coloring my perspective a bit.”
“Lerner wasn’t interested in hurting people, either,” she said.
Arch didn’t respond to that one. Lerner, Duncan’s old partner, had been sucked back to hell after he’d gone flying over the side of Mount Horeb in a police cruiser during a chase. Before he’d gone, though, he’d been a sarcastic bastard, the sort with a personality like sandpaper, rubbing everyone around him the wrong way. Rather than saying so, though, Arch tried to make like he was heading to sleep, closing his eyes and letting the fight that one would open up pass him right on by.
“We’re meeting tomorrow, aren’t we?” Alison asked, jarring Arch slightly.
He cracked an eye open. “The watch? Yeah. In the morning. Gonna talk about what happened at the meeting tonight for the benefit of those who weren’t there to witness it go all to heck.”
She let that rest in silence for a second. “All to hell, Arch.” When he looked over at her quizzically, she elaborated. “Fits better.” He didn’t agree verbally, just closed his eyes. But she was right.
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