There was a loose shuffle as everybody sort of came back to their senses. Alison looked backward and saw Mrs. Reeve just burning in the corner, showing a lot more fire than her husband was at the moment. Alison caught her mother doing a little burning too, and she knew exactly how both of them felt.
“I’ll need your badges.” Pike stuck out his hand. “And your car keys. Anything else that belongs to the department. Ed’ll be along in a little bit and I wouldn’t want to have to send him out to arrest any of y’all for theft of county property. We’re in bad enough shape as it is without wasting time on that.”
That caused a moment of silence, and then Arch was the first to bring up a jangling set of keys and toss something right at Pike. It hit him lightly on the chest and then clacked onto the counter. “It appears that Mrs. Stan is not the only one of a mind to assault me today,” Pike said with no small amount of amusement.
“That’s not assault,” Arch said as he stepped up to the counter with enough mustard that Pike jumped back automatically by reflex. His smug smile vanished on seeing Arch bear down on him, and even when his brain caught up with his body’s instinct to figure out he’d just been fucked with, the smile didn’t come back. Arch just smiled, and Alison didn’t bother to hold back one of her own; her man had played it real well. “You heard the sheriff,” Arch said, still using Reeve’s title in spite of everything Pike had just said. “We got other places to be.” That got the watch moving again.
*
Brian figured that being ousted from the dispatcher chair only a few short hours after the first “Oh, shit” moment of sitting down in it would come as a relief. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead it had come with an “Oh, shit” of its own, except this time it was down to the giant angst bomb of watching their headquarters and all their resources just evaporate with one piece of paper that heralded the end of all things.
“Fuck,” Brian swore under his breath as he took himself and not a hell of a lot else out of the front door, sandwiched between his mother and father. Such was his distress that he didn’t even feel self-conscious about walking with his mom and dad like this, something he hadn’t felt comfortable doing since before he was a teenager.
“Language,” his mother said.
“Goddamn fucking shit,” he replied. “We just lost our HQ, in case you didn’t notice, and the big cheese of Calhoun County just set himself foursquare against everything we’re trying to do here.” A few of the others had streamed out, like Hendricks and Duncan and Dr. Darlington. Most of the rest were still cleaning shit up. He’d seen Erin and Arch go to clean out their desks. Reeve was probably doing the same, though he’d taken everything so stoically it wouldn’t have surprised Brian to hear a gunshot ring out from the building following by the news that he’d either shot himself or Pike.
“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much,” Bill said, looking at his son with his typical muted personality.
“Because you have a plan?” Brian ran both hands through his hair.
“Because you’ll get an ulcer,” his father replied.
“That’s not helpful in the slightest,” Brian said. “I just ordered our new radios, but even with Prime, they’re not going to be here for a couple days.”
“We’ve made do before,” Bill said, acting like it was all no big deal.
“You were also operating out of shithole farmhouse in the sticks,” Brian said, unleashing his aggravation with the new status quo through biting sarcasm. It was what he had to work with. “We’re not going to go back to that, are we?” His hands were sweating and he was wiping them in his hair. “How are we supposed to carry around holy swords and knives without the sanction of the law?”
His father blinked. “I don’t expect I’ll be following the law on that directive.”
“Great,” Brian said, “so we’re going to give Pike in there a reason to arrest us all. As though he’s not going to be looking for an excuse.”
“What about this new sheriff?” Hendricks asked with a frown.
“Ed Fries,” Bill said, casting a look over his shoulder back into the station. “He’s a good man for the most part, but his intellectual horse ain’t gonna be winning any races, if you catch my meaning.”
“So, he’s a dumbass,” Duncan said. “That’s probably better than having a real smart, on-his-game type guy in office. Easier to work around.”
“Does it not worry any of you that we’ve got work around him at all?” Brian asked. Clearly these people were not getting it.
Hendricks looked at him with his usual helping of devil-may-care that just cemented his place in Brian’s mind as a complete dullard, bereft of a brain of his own. “Some of us have already gone against the law in this town, so I guess we’re used to it now.”
“Some of us haven’t,” Lauren Darlington said with acerbic perfection, “and aren’t looking forward to it. I didn’t get into this so I could develop that criminal record I’ve so neatly avoided thus far in my life. I’m trying to save my town here, not create a rap sheet that would build my street cred in NECX.”
“You might just get both here,” Hendricks said with that infuriating smile of his.
Brian had finally had enough of the smug cowboy, and he was pretty well through taking the man’s shit just because he could talk tough and fight demons. “Well, lucky us,” he said. “That may just be the most exciting news of the day to a lowlife drifter like you, but for those of us who have a future, it’s not great news.”
Hendricks just stared at him for a long few seconds during which Brian wondered if the cowboy was going to cross over to him and punch him one real good or worse. He didn’t look away from Brian, and Brian didn’t dare look away, even if he felt like he was in the crosshairs of a predator.
Hendricks looked away first, though, turning and walking off. “Call me if we manage to get our shit together,” he said, and headed for his car.
“And if we don’t?” Bill asked.
Hendricks just disappeared into his SUV and fired it up, pulling out of the parking lot past them a few seconds later without ever answering.
“If we don’t,” Duncan said cheerfully, with maybe the most emotion Brian had ever heard from him, “I think this town is gonna be proper fucked or 'Holborn Viaduct', as our new friend would say.” And then he headed off to his own car, leaving the rest of them standing there with not a lot to do.
*
“I’m following the demon hunter with the cowboy hat,” Marthe said over the phone, the sound of a car on the highway rattling in the background.
“Excellent,” Chester said, then hung up, still staring out over the afternoon fields behind their new hideout. They were green and gorgeous, so different from the sprawling, decaying buildings of Queens. William would have loved this, too.
*
Hendricks found her waiting when he got back to the motel, because of course she was. “I hope you’re not gonna tell me about some shit storm blowing toward Midian,” he said by way of greeting. The stale air smelled like no one had been in or out of the motel room all day, which they probably hadn’t; housekeeping in the Sinbad sucked.
Starling cocked her head at him from where she lurked in the shadows near the sink. “No. There is no world-ending threat hurtling this way besides the inevitable one, and it slouches toward Midian.”
Something about that prickled his mind. “If you say so,” he said and started to strip down. If the phone rang, he planned to ignore it. He tossed his coat aside, running hands over his t-shirt afterward. It felt fine, and he gave it a sniff. Still clean enough, probably, though it did have some grass stains. Not nearly as many as the drover coat, though, but those would wipe off easily enough. The knees of his jeans were looking pretty green, too; he’d have to change those out.
His eyes flicked up and looked at her, still lingering there in the bathroom. “Don’t you have a job to get to?” he asked.
The curtains were drawn, just a little bit of light peeking through the
cracks, barely enough to give the room any light at all. “No,” Starling said simply, and he wondered if she really didn’t have anywhere else to be, or if the Starling persona was royally dicking with the other one, the one that worked as a hooker in Ms. Cherry’s brothel. Hendricks had met them both, and they were worlds apart in terms of personality, though he wouldn’t have claimed to know the hooker—Lucia—well enough to say whether he liked her any better than the cipher that was Starling.
“You just gonna wait outside my bathroom again while I shower?” Hendricks asked. Alison’s earlier warning was annoyingly present in his head, ringing out as he said it. It irked him a little, this dance he was doing with her. She was a looker, no denying that, but there wasn’t an ounce of heat between them.
On the other hand, it had been a while for him. Not nearly as long as his last drought, but ever since that bitch Kitty had made him hers, he’d been too revulsed to take his own piece in hand. It was all building up, but he was ignoring it as fast as he could, figuring it’d all work out at some point.
Starling didn’t answer at first, like she had to give it all due consideration first. “Is that where you want me?”
Hendricks felt a little swell of disgust that had nothing to do with the girl in front of him and everything to do with the way he was feeling about himself at present. “Well, I damned sure don’t want you in there with me,” he said, turning that prickly, angry feeling outward as he went past her, even though he wasn’t quite sure what he said was true. Hell, Hendricks didn’t know what he wanted, other than to feel normal again. He shut the door behind him and locked it, even though he was under no illusions that it would stop her if she meant to get in.
*
“This is a fine kettle of fish,” Arch said as he stowed a box of stuff that he’d left behind at his desk in the back of Bill’s car. He’d taken the Explorer to work this morning, of course, leaving Alison’s car behind at his in-laws’ house, and now they found themselves without a car because County Administrator Pike had swooped in and shown himself to be a fool. Arch was still burning from what the man had said, though at least his wife had been clever enough to give them all the peace of mind that they were dealing with a straight-up jerk of the human variety rather than a demon. That was something, he reckoned.
“Tell me about it,” Reeve said from across the parking lot, stowing his own box of stuff. Arch had caught glimpses of him packing in his office while he’d gone about his own labors; he felt sorry for Reeve because the man had far, far more room to spread out and bring in his own things than Arch had, and he’d taken full advantage. Reeve had two rifles he’d pulled out of the gun cabinet in his office slung over his shoulder, personal ones that he’d brought in and never bothered to take home—until now. Pike had watched him suspiciously, and he’d indignantly told the bastard they were his. Silently, Arch had applauded this display of fire from Reeve, especially since he’d taken so much garbage from Pike with more dignity than it deserved.
“So what do we do now?” Brian asked. He looked like he’d been chewing his fingernails nervously, or somesuch. Didn’t seem much comfortable, that was Arch’s impression of his brother-in-law at the moment. Not that he’d ever exactly been the calm and cheerful type, but even Brian wasn’t normally quite this full of nerves. Maybe he really had quit smoking pot.
“We’ll get together a little later,” Reeve said, slamming the trunk of his wife’s car with some misplaced gusto that Arch suspected would have been better directed at County Administrator Pike’s nose. “I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but … I need a short break to let some things settle before I start clamoring to make my next move.”
“Except that Legion demon is out there right now, and who knows what he’s up to?” Brian held his hands up. “Anyone? Are we supposed to just … sit back and let him wreak havoc or whatever?”
“If you know where he’s at,” Reeve said, and under the afternoon sun the man just looked tired and haggard, “I’m all for some action in that direction. But you heard Duncan: this guy could come at us from anywhere.” He frowned, his face looking pinched. “Where is Duncan, anyway?”
“Left in a huff just after Hendricks,” Lauren Darlington said. She looked slightly less concerned than Brian. She might have been more concerned, for all Arch knew, but was hiding it better. “This isn’t the end, is it?”
“I’m not done,” Reeve said, heading for the driver’s door of Donna’s car. She was still hanging back; Arch got the feeling she wasn’t real comfortable around large numbers of people she didn’t know well. Reeve parked it next to the door, the car between his body and the rest of them, his hand resting on the roof of the sedan. “But I do feel like I’ve gotten my ass good and kicked this last day or so, and I need a hot meal and some cave time to think over a next move. Let’s talk after supper, all right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just got in the car and started it, and Donna got in the passenger side without looking back at any of them. He pulled out and gave ’em all a wave, but the tension was evident in his eyes.
“Shit, this thing is over, isn’t it?” Brian said, causing Arch to roll his eyes. For a smart guy, his brother-in-law was awfully dumb sometimes.
*
“I’m following the man named Reeve,” Clara said, and then hung up the phone on Chester. No words were needed, really, other than what she’d relayed. The fields were so green, and this was the third such call he’d gotten. Besides Marthe following the cowboy, there was also Jack who was after the man in the t-shirt who had left just after the cowboy. Chester had not seen him, but Jack had given a full description, and he suspected it was the OOC who had been on the front porch of the house earlier, the one that had helped kill Bentley and Mary.
His people were in place, doing as they were supposed to. Meanwhile, Chester sat here, staring out over the countryside while sitting in a rocking chair. “This was as it was meant to be,” he said to no one, because William was not there to hear him.
*
“Nothing is over,” Alison said to her brother, lacking patience and warmth and anything approaching gentleness. She’d been putting up with Brian’s crap for way, way too long to feel like she needed to spare the rod when it came to slapping his happy ass with the truth. “We just took a hit and we’re coming back off the ropes, okay?”
Brian made that sour face that she recalled from when they were kids. In a lot of ways, her brother had never really grown up. He was still the damned baby. “You pick a boxing-related metaphor to explain this to me? To me? Do you even know me?”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t,” she sighed, keeping from rolling her eyes only because her mother was present and she’d inevitably tut tut her disapproval of Alison’s tone and behavior. She was always overprotective of Brian that way, and it pissed Alison off to no end.
“Alison,” her mother said, and there it was, just minus the tut tut. “Your brother’s just worried is all.”
“We all are,” Arch said, trying to get right in the middle of it to make peace. Alison glared at him. He thought she overreacted to Brian, but he hadn’t had to grow up in the same house as the little prick. It was easy to be magnanimous when you hadn’t been putting up with someone’s shit for twenty years.
“Yeah, well, I’m sick of his griping, whining ass,” Alison said, just blowing it all out in one. She could feel the hard squeeze of anger pulling her down, and it was an unusually aggravating thing. “Like we ain’t got enough to worry about. This is just like it was when we were out at the farmhouse. I’m concussed, Hendricks is taken by Kitty Elizabeth, and he’s gotta show up and be a prick about demons not existing so he can catch Daddy in a lie.” She wheeled on Brian. “What are you even doing here?”
Brian paled immediately. “I’m—I —”
“You hate this town,” Alison said, just unloading on him, “you don’t like the people, you don’t even belong here—”
“Ali, that’s enough,” her father said with quiet disappointme
nt.
“I don’t think it is,” she said, not taking her eyes off Brian, whom she’d locked onto like a hawk swooping down on a field mouse. “What is it you’re after here? Because there ain’t no glory, obviously. And whatever reasons you had for peacefully sitting around getting high have clearly evaporated. So now you’re—what—gonna play like you’re a fighter? Brian, you been running from every fight that doesn’t involve strongly worded snark since you were four. You can sling fire with a sentence like no one else but put a sword in your hand and you just wilt back like someone’s breathing it at you.” Her anger was suddenly spent, and she felt exhausted. “What are you even doing here?”
He tried to answer, she saw, but his mouth moved and moved and he couldn’t get a single word out. He didn’t know. He didn’t have a damned clue. Alison sighed. “Yeah. I kinda figured it was like that.” She eyed the car, her mom’s Lincoln Navigator that they’d all be riding in since Arch’s Explorer had just been repossessed by the sheriff’s office under the new management. “Dammit,” she muttered to herself, seeing her parents and Arch all looking deeply uncomfortable but apparently unsure what they should say to her or Brian. This was going to be a damnably awkward ride home.
*
Amanda Guthrie had been waiting for this. She was pacing the beige-yellow hotel hallway again, smooth, thin carpet underneath her feet, staring at the pattern of blue broken by gawdawful ugly tan starbursts woven into it at intervals of every few inches. She’d walked it a hundred times before she’d finally figured out what those little tan monstrosities were, and now that she’d walked it a hundred more she was starting to feel like the starbursts were morphing into something else. The OOC had to be coming back soon, didn’t he? He couldn’t wander about town all day, could he?
Of course he could.
She’d smiled tightly at the two other guests she’d encountered in her walk, but they’d kept their heads down and ignored her. One of them was a demon, she’d caught that much, the other a human who was likely in town for a funeral, which was the only business booming in Midian at present. She had a suspicion that the wiser among them were starting to leave, which was a smart move. Rats fled sinking ships for a reason, after all, and it wasn’t because the thought of a swim appealed to them.
Legion (Southern Watch Book 5) Page 25