Legion (Southern Watch Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  *

  Braeden Tarley was in the middle of a repair to a big rig when a quiet car came pulling up outside his shop. He tended to work with the garage doors open all the damned time when he could, though that got more difficult in the worst parts of winter. Fortunately that was a pretty small sliver of time, and it sure wasn’t here yet, so he had them open and could see the Toyota Camry drive up and park just outside one of the garage stalls. He even saw who got out, and though he was surprised, he wasn’t as surprised as he might have been only a day earlier.

  Braeden hopped down from what he was doing, grabbing a rag and wiping at his hands. It didn’t do much, but he wasn’t much of a mind to care about that. He could still smell it in the shop air, anyway, that scent of petroleum, of metal, and he liked it. This was part of the reason he’d gotten into this gig.

  “Holee-shit,” Tucker said from where he was working on Lester McQuaid’s diesel Ford pickup. “Lookee what we got here.”

  “Why don’t you just keep on working, Tucker,” Braeden said as he walked toward the open garage door. He paused, laying a dirty hand on the door’s rail. “How do you do today, County Administrator Pike?”

  “Why, Braeden, I am doing marvelously,” Pike said with that wide smile. He was holding a briefcase in front of his nuts with both hands, like Braeden might kick him right in the boys otherwise. Braeden wouldn’t have, not at this age, because that would be felony assault. Braeden of a different age might have, but probably not. His younger self had been more into self-directed mischief. He hadn’t given many fucks about what was going on in county politics back in those days. “How’s your little one?”

  “She’s fine.” Braeden gave his hands a once over again with the rag he was holding. It didn’t do much to improve the situation, but he wasn’t really eager to try at this point. He had figured out that Pike was carrying the briefcase as a different sort of shield, to keep from shaking his dirty hands, and Braeden was of a mind to try and force the issue. “What brings you out here today, sir?” He added the sir to be respectful. His natural inclination was not to trust the man, but he’d rarely had cause to encounter Pike. His impression of the man might have been limited, but what he had seen suggested to him that this guy was a world champion bullshitter with a silver tongue. That didn’t necessarily make him a liar, but it did make Braeden aware and wary.

  “I know you’re a busy man, Braeden, so I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” Pike said. “I’m here to talk to you about the meeting last night. I know you were there.”

  “I was.” Braeden didn’t see any point in lying about that; Pike had probably laid eyes on him, and as much fun as it might have been for him to be contentious about it, he didn’t want to waste time giving the man a chance to beat around the bush.

  “I recall seeing you with your hand down at that point toward the end of the meeting,” Pike said. Now he was fishing, though poorly.

  “That’s what you’re here to talk about?” Braeden asked.

  “It is,” Pike said, smiling. “If you aren’t familiar with how a recall election works, it requires signatures from people in the county in order to kick one of them off—to remove Sheriff Reeve from office.” He lifted the briefcase that he’d been using to protect his nuts and his hands. “I’ve got just such a petition here. I was wondering if you might be willing to sign.” He indicated the rest of the shop carefully. “If any of your employees might be willing, that’d be just fine, too.”

  “What are you gonna do if you kick Reeve out of office?” Braeden asked, tossing the dirty rag behind him. Pike had piqued his interest a little.

  “We’re gonna bring it before the people to elect a new sheriff,” Pike said without hesitation. “We’re going to find someone who’ll actually do the job, put an end to this wave of bullshit instead of just spinning around making excuses about demons to cover up what’s actually going on.”

  “What do you think is actually going on here?” Braeden asked. He heard Tucker behind him, listening. He knew the fucker was because he wasn’t making a sound.

  “Well, I don’t think it’s a big secret,” Pike said. “Some real bad characters have come to town, and the sheriff don’t know how to investigate or deal with them. That’s not a demon problem, that’s a leadership issue. Our town’s under concentrated attack from criminal elements, not some shady otherworldly underworld. Could be Russian mafia here, or the cartels, but whatever the case, Reeve’s decided to go and make up cockamamie bullshit to cover his failures.” Pike straightened. “I don’t know about you, but my momma taught me that when I screw up, I should take responsibility for it, and if I’m not up to the job at hand, maybe be a man, admit it, and step aside for someone who can do it.”

  Braeden chewed on that for a minute. “That all sounds real pretty. But what are you gonna do if you get Reeve out of there? Who you gonna bring in to replace him?”

  “That’s up to the people,” Pike said, smile fading a little.

  “So you don’t want the job?”

  “Jesus, no,” Pike said. “Ain’t my territory, policing. Like I said, it’s up to the people, but I got a couple ideas to float—either we bring in a big-city police chief or sheriff that’s had experience with this sort of shit or we go local with someone like Ed Fries.” He shrugged. “Can’t hardly get any worse than what we got going now, what with half of Midian getting wrecked.”

  Braeden thought about it for a minute. “You might have a point there. I just can’t swallow this demon stuff.” He motioned Pike forward. “Come on in here, I’ll sign your petition.” He looked behind him. “Tucker, you want to sign this?”

  “No sir, not me,” Tucker said, and the sound of a wrench turning came clicking over to Braeden. “I’m sorry, but this shit happening in Midian don’t sound like anything I’ve ever even heard the Russian mafia or the cartels doing, and they are some nasty bastards, I tell ya. I’ll buy demons on that.”

  “Pshhh,” Braeden said, shaking his head. “You are out of your mind, son. Go get Haskins and Tracy out here, see if they want to sign.”

  “I thought you wanted me to repair this Ford?”

  “You can’t take ten seconds away to help me out here?” Braeden tossed back with a frown. Goddamned Tucker being a shitdick. He always was, but he’d never looked for an excuse to put down his wrench and fuck around before.

  The sound of the ratcheting stopped for a second. “HASKINS! TRACY! Come on out here,” Tucker’s voice reverberated within the garage. “Braeden wants you to toss Sheriff Reeve out of office so we can all get fucked up by the shit tearing up this town quicker. Guess enough people ain’t died yet or something—”

  “Fuck you, Tucker,” Braeden spat at him.

  “Be a cold day in hell before I’m that desperate, Braeden.”

  “You just can’t hire good help these days, can you?” Pike asked with a knowing smile.

  Braeden seethed a little as he heard Haskins and Tracy coming out from the office. Tucker always was a pain in the ass, but this was a new low, doing it in front of Pike like this. “No, you can’t,” Braeden said. “You really can’t.”

  *

  Hendricks was almost back to the Sinbad, the sun hanging high overhead on a cloudless day, sky blue as Babe the Ox, and he was still pissed as hell in his stolen SUV. He had his hand hanging out the window a little as he came up on the freeway overpass, lost in his own thoughts, when he saw them.

  There were three of them, dressed pretty funny, walking out of the diner. His first thought was demons, so he slowed the SUV, trying to get a better look as he cruised on up. They were walking along, looking like they were heading out to a car, a beat-up old thing that looked like it might have crept out of the seventies, one of those big-framed steel monstrosities Detroit used to make. It was big and grey and had rust spots all over, and Hendricks knew that fucking car just like he knew its fucking driver.

  Hendricks jerked the wheel, cutting off a Volkswagen Golf that honked furiously a
t him as he hit the gravel parking lot of the diner at almost fifty. He adjusted the wheel to keep from sliding, but his move made enough noise that the triad walking toward the big damned car spun to look at him, and he whipped around so he could present his driver’s side window to them as he came up.

  “You’re late, fuckers,” Hendricks announced after he’d slid to a stop. “Just like every time.”

  “Fuck my mother, is that Cowboy Lafayette?” The leader spoke, a black man with a British accent, ducking his head down like that would help him peer into Hendricks’s face. His accent was thick, heavy, and it didn’t sound a goddamn thing like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

  “Is that Martin Lonsdale?” Hendricks fired back. The Brit sagged a little more; he liked being called Mart, Hendricks knew. He always called Hendricks Lafayette to be a giant, douchy Brit. One night in a bar he’d accused Hendricks of being French, and they’d had a hell of a tussle over it. It ended fair, no knives, swords, or guns pulled.

  “Oh, that’s how it is, is it?” Lonsdale said with something between irritation and a grin.

  “You keep calling me a Frenchman, and see if I don’t beat your ass again,” Hendricks said.

  “It was a Jaffa Cake, that one,” Lonsdale said. “The last time you and I went ’round, I felt like I’d been skull-fucked by Ron Jeremy the next day.”

  “So you’re saying you enjoyed it, then?” Hendricks asked.

  “I forgot how much fun it is to be around you, Hendricks,” Lonsdale said, smiling weakly. “Have you met my associates, Mr. Grass and Mr. Sky?”

  Hendricks looked at the guys with Lonsdale. They were both medium height, medium build, brown-haired generic dudes. “What the hell, are you working with OOCs now?”

  Lonsdale looked at both of them for a second, a little alarmed. “They’re—no, they’re not OOCs.”

  “I’m not an OOC,” Grass said, frowning. He had an English accent, too.

  “I don’t even know what an OOC is,” Sky said, with a blunt face that looked like he’d never had an expression in his life.

  Lonsdale eased up to the car window. “They’re not terribly bright, these boys,” he whispered to Hendricks. “But they’re Robin Hood in a spot of bother, they are.”

  “Where’d you come in from?” Hendricks asked, ignoring the parts of what Lonsdale said that he didn’t understand, as usual.

  “Eastern Washington, if you can believe it,” Lonsdale said. “Spent the last six weeks in the high desert. I didn’t even bloody know you had a desert in Washington. Thought it was all redwoods and rain, like England but with more of your tree huggers and the correspondingly larger trees for them to hug.”

  Hendricks let out a low guffaw. “Where were you before that?”

  “Croatia,” Lonsdale said. “What about you? Been here long?”

  “Since early September, I think,” Hendricks said, nodding.

  “Seen any others of us?” Lonsdale asked.

  Hendricks shook his head. “Only you, now. Everyone else was chasing other hotspots, I think.”

  “Well, they’ll be rolling in now.” Lonsdale rubbed his hands together. “Word’s getting out. Plus, nine of the eighteen are burned out. I heard Tredegar is coming this way from Poland.”

  “Fuck,” Hendricks said. Tredegar made a mess everywhere he went, and not quietly, either. “We need him around here like we need the rest of the town knocked down.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lonsdale said in quiet agreement. “Next time we hoist a pint, remind me to tell you what happened with him when we crossed paths out in Missouri last year. I have never been so knackered, before or since.” He stood up a little straighter. “So you’ve been here a while, then? All by yourself? What’s it like?”

  “One of the worst I’ve seen,” Hendricks said. “This town is having a hard time catching a break. But we’ve been holding back the rolling brownouts so far.”

  “Oh, he went there, ladies and gentlemen,” Lonsdale said with a laugh, looking back at Mr. Grass and Mr. Sky and seeing nothing but blank looks. He lowered his voice. “You can’t tell a joke around this lot, either. They just stand there and guffaw if they know it’s a joke, but they don’t get it at all. It’s terrible.” He went back to speaking normally. “I suppose that’s not a problem for you, though, Mr. ‘I Work Alone.’”

  “Time are changing,” Hendricks said. “I’ve got a crew now.”

  “You’re a Dunlop, mate,” Lonsdale said, looking at him in studied disbelief.

  “I never know exactly what you mean with that cockney bullshit, Lonsdale,” Hendricks said, “but it’s true. There’s a local group that’s been helping me hold back the night.”

  “Look at you, Cowboy Hendricks, assembling your posse.” Lonsdale grinned. “You’re like Shalako or something, you are.”

  “Again, I have no idea what that is,” Hendricks said. Sounded like calico with a “sh” at the front.

  “It’s a classic western,” Lonsdale said. “Very disappointed you wouldn’t know it, being an American cowboy. My grandfather used to watch them on Sunday afternoons, with cold chocolate from the fridge in hand, and—”

  “Been good catching up with you, Lonsdale,” Hendricks said, tipping his hat to Grass and Sky behind the demon hunter.

  “Wait, wait,” Lonsdale said, holding up his hands. “How’s the state of things here?”

  Hendricks made a show of looking around the sun-drenched parking lot around the diner. “Bright, I’d say.”

  “The demon state, fucking git. You said it’s bad a minute ago.”

  “Demons? They’re here,” Hendricks said simply, aiming for infuriating and pretty damned sure he’d hit his mark by the way Lonsdale’s face fell. “Lots and lots of ’em.”

  “Well, I know that, too, you twat, as we managed to vape one just last night right over there.” Lonsdale pointed to the edge of the highway. “Merkroth, I think.”

  Hendricks glanced back, realizing that was probably the call Reeve had got. No wonder that other deputy hadn’t found anything; by the time he’d gotten his pudding ass moving, the demon was already in the atmosphere. “Merkroth, huh? Hadn’t seen any of those around here yet.”

  “I’m not entirely certain I saw it now,” Lonsdale said. “It ran like a little bitch at the sight of me and my boys.” He puffed up with pride.

  “If you ran it down on foot, it wasn’t a merkroth,” Hendricks said, glancing back.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lonsdale said. “Got a line on any others? We haven’t quite made it into the town proper yet. Is there pandemonium in the streets?”

  “Neither pan nor ium, but quite a few demons when the sun goes down,” Hendricks said. “They’re still lurking below the surface. We’ve turned back a few big moves that might have opened the season on their end. It’s keeping a lid on things, letting it simmer.” Hendricks had a sudden memory of his mother fixing food in a pressure cooker.

  “So if I go strolling down the streets of this little hamlet, I’m not going to be confronting demons at every turn? Like that one village outside Amsterdam?”

  “I don’t think I was there for that one,” Hendricks said. “How about that one in Wyoming, where—”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. That was similarly bad,” Lonsdale agreed. “Is it like that?”

  “No, but they’re here,” Hendricks said. “Like I said, still in the shadows. You walk around at night, you’ll see some warpaint.”

  “Well, I think the boys and me will go do a little looking ’round,” Lonsdale said, brightening. “Get the lay of the land.”

  “There’s also a whorehouse on Water Street, since I know by lay of the land you mean—”

  “Oh, you are saucy James Hunt, Hendricks.”

  “Just trying to help,” Hendricks said, adjusting his hat once more. “Stay out of trouble, Lonsdale.”

  “Why would I ever do that?” Lonsdale said with a grin as Hendricks pulled away from him. That was just a little too damned close to the tru
th, wasn’t it?

  Since when had a demon hunter ever avoided trouble? Hell, it was their reason for being here.

  *

  When the office cleared out, the only ones left were Reeve and Donna, and Reeve had to admit he liked it better that way. Arch and Erin were heading off on patrol, and he’d finally pushed Casey Meacham out the front door in the middle of a damned story. It hadn’t been a good story, either; more like the kind that Penthouse Letters wouldn’t have printed even if they had a hard kink issue. Not that Reeve had read that sort of material in years.

  “It’s quite a group you’ve got there,” Donna said in the quiet bullpen as Reeve leaned against the edge of his door. He glanced at the white-faced clock hanging high on the wall, watched the minute hand tick over. “It’s a good team, Nick.”

  “I didn’t put ’em together,” Reeve said.

  “You hired Arch,” Donna said. “Your predecessor wouldn’t have done even that.”

  “And I’ve got cause to be glad of that now,” Reeve said, coming off the doorframe and sauntering over to Erin’s desk, where he pulled out the chair and sat. “A week ago I wouldn’t have thought so, but here we are.” He smiled wanly and widened his eyes. “Imagine where we’ll be in another week.”

  “In a better place, I hope,” Donna said.

  “I’d settle for that bastard Hendricks going to a better place.”

  “That’s not very Christian, Nick.”

  “I’m pretty lousy at that, lately,” Reeve said. He furrowed his brow. “I wonder what happened to that reporter that came into town before the Rog’tausch busted through everything.” Even thinking the name of that damned demon almost gave him reflux. He followed that train of thought down its track. “I can’t believe they ain’t got rid of that damned thing, yet.” He idly felt the place where the giant demon had burned him on his arm. It was mostly healed, still a little tender.