Legion (Southern Watch Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  *

  Reeve was only about ten steps away as Alison fired into the bastard who started all this. Chester, he’d heard him say, and that was fine a name as Reeve had ever heard for a dead man. His legs were pounding against the concrete and he mounted the curb, coming at the fucker sideways. He wasn’t going to make it before Alison struck the final blow, it didn’t look like, but he had his sword in hand nonetheless, just in case he’d be able to get a hit in before she sent Chester back to hell.

  *

  Arch stopped running when he saw Alison had it all sewn up. She was on this demon, Chester, advancing carefully through gunsmoke, not too fast lest she trip herself up. He recognized the cold, vengeful, lizard part of her brain at work, and knew she was calculating every move. She wasn’t taking any chances; she was going at him methodically, clearly intent on taking him apart and finish this deal once and for all.

  *

  Chester had been surprised when Alison Stan had remembered William’s name. He’d assumed these worthless bugs were too stupid, too self-involved, too self-centered, to recall much of anything beyond themselves. Years of his experiences working with people like this, lauding them in arguments with William, had been washed away in a single day of rage. He’d defaulted into a state where he’d lost all respect for human ability and cognition, and this was the result: Chester getting shot repeatedly, the essence of all those he still carried in this form washing around hard within him.

  The disorientation was akin to be strung upside down and yanked into the air, and Chester’s balance was the first thing to go. His back hit against the boarded-up storefront behind him and only barely preserved his ability to keep himself even somewhat upright. She had fired countless rounds into him by this point, the stink of the gunfire filling the air around him, another unfamiliar ingredient in an utterly unfamiliar experience.

  Chester watched the world around him slosh to and fro as his senses were addled by her unceasing stream of bullets. Her aim was good, her manner cold, and he knew she meant to end him, no doubt.

  She meant to end them all.

  Chester watched her close to within range; she stopped less than two feet from them, firing again and again into him without remorse. Without emotion.

  This was the way it was supposed to be. This was how he had turned his own people loose to do what they had done in this square. There was no remorse, but he had seen emotion. Vengeful blood lust had run over them, his army, and he had watched from the side as the slaughter turned into chaos. Chester had rage of his own, but he had not partaken in this particular gluttonous buffet of rage. A distant part of it sickened him, he realized now as the world listed hard around him like one of the old ships in which he and William had come to the new world for the first time.

  The thought of William was like a hot poker jabbed through his shell, piercing the disorientation of the gunfire and spearing him squarely in the essence. The world went right for a moment, and Chester felt the rage solidify him, turning him in one direction and one only.

  Hers.

  He lashed out with a single hand, striking almost blindly, aiming for nothing but the form in front of him, sticking a gun in his face and coming at him with a knife, and he heard the cry and knew he’d struck true.

  *

  The feel of something stabbing her in the side made Alison think at first she’d gotten speared by something from behind. It took her brain a second to process that Chester had been the one to do it, lashing out with a hand as she’d started to bring down the knife on him.

  It had hit hard, hard enough that it pushed her back a step, dragging the holy blade away from Chester before she could sink the tip. The force of the impact she felt quickly, the pain of it was something that took a moment to sink in, but when it did she doubled over, unable to stop herself from folding, like all the muscles in her belly had quit at once.

  “Shit,” she said as she bent hard, firing one last time as she did so. The bastard had got her in the gut. The first thought that ran through was that she hoped, dear God, that he hadn’t gotten her in the uterus. The pain brought tears to her eyes and when she got them open again a second later she saw the Glock’s slide was locked back, the chamber open.

  Out of bullets.

  She speared forward blindly with the knife before she even raised her head. It was an instinctive sort of strike, lashing out in the direction of danger. She thrust it out there and felt it catch nothing but air, and a second later something got her good across the neck, like someone backhanded her in the throat or like that time she’d run straight into a volleyball net without seeing it—

  When Alison looked down, she could see the blood just dripping out, running down the front of her shirt, and when she tried to raise her head, it didn’t come up easy. She labored, lifting up, and watched a little more blood squirt out as she caught sight of Chester’s face, staring back at her. She tried to stab at him, but he was too far away, and she sagged, her legs failing, arms feeling so weak she just needed to … sleep …

  “NOOOOO!” More than one scream rent the air around her as Alison dropped to the concrete sidewalk. She couldn’t see anything but Chester’s feet, and the sun started setting hard in her head, light fleeing from the corners of her vision.

  *

  Arch saw it from a distance, not believing it as the horror show unfolded not thirty feet away. Alison had it, she had it in the bag, and then Chester swiped out and caught her right in the side. Arch stood there, stunned, the cold evening air running over him having not a dang thing to do with the chill he felt as she struck at him again and he got her right across the throat, splitting it wide, letting the blood run—

  Arch was in motion in a second, was zero to sprinting in that moment, and as she fell to the ground at Chester’s feet, the dread spiraled at him like a perfectly thrown football about to hit him in the face, and there was nothing Arch could do to block it.

  *

  Chester slit her throat for good measure, something he might not have done if she hadn’t still been trying with everything in her to kill him. He watched her sink low, falling to her knees, dull eyes not comprehending the damage he’d done to her in his own defense, in the defense of the others that were with him.

  His work was not yet done, after all.

  This was simply another step on the cold path of vengeance he’d set out on.

  Chester spun to deal with Sheriff Reeve, who was coming at him from what the man probably perceived to be his blind side. Chester disabused him of his misperception by slapping away the flat blade of his sword and then slamming a fist into the man’s gut, rocking him back. Chester stepped on Reeve’s hand just hard enough to deprive him of his weapon, and then stood above the sheriff, whose pained face looked up at him, eyes widening in the knowledge that there was nothing left for him to do to save himself.

  *

  Reeve’s hand ached like a car had run over it, and his sword was so far out of reach that even if his hand hadn’t been pinned, stinging, under Chester’s foot, he doubted he would have been able to reach it before the demon pummeled him to death with one good punch.

  Chester looked down at him with cold indifference, like he was staring at a bug, and Reeve just stared back, trying to pour every last ounce of his defiance at this bastard … this bastard who’d done more to hurt him than anyone else Reeve had ever met.

  “Had enough yet, Sheriff?” Chester asked.

  “You … took every goddamned thing from me,” Reeve said. He hadn’t meant to answer the man, but it just popped out. “My wife … my town … you killed …”

  “You still have your life,” Chester said.

  “I don’t expect you’re planning to let me keep that much longer,” Reeve said. He could see Arch running at Chester from behind, fury racking his deputy’s face, sword held high, but he didn’t dare look at him for fear Chester would see it coming. Instead he glanced sideways at Duncan, who still had five of these goddamned assholes on him, though they w
ere falling fast. Off in the distance, toward the other side of the square near Surrey’s, he could see Father Nguyen with his cross on a stick held high like a battle standard, a few others rallied around him, fighting their way through a cluster of demons that were coming at them. “I doubt you’ve got much mercy in your heart or essence or whatever you call that black tar that goes pop out of you assholes when you get exposed to the light of day.”

  “Is that so?” Chester asked, still staring down at him like he was examining him through a microscope, such a low form of life as to not even merit full attention. “I don’t think it would be merciful to let you live, Sheriff.” And Chester smiled coldly and spun, slapping Arch Stan’s hand so hard his sword flew out of it and hit the boarded-up window behind them. Without missing a beat, Chester reached out and smacked Arch in the sternum, and Reeve heard the pop as Arch went sailing back ten feet and hit the pavement, all the air coming out of him in a rush.

  That done, Chester looked right back down at Reeve. “And I am not feeling merciful anyway, Sheriff … so now you can live with the knowledge that not only did you cost your wife her life … but that you prompted the suffering that has ravaged this town.”

  And with that, Chester spread his arms wide, wide enough to encompass the square and all the destruction within it. There were more dead here than Reeve could count, even if he’d wanted to look around and actually assess the damage. “Look upon your good works, Sheriff Reeve. I had not killed a human being in over a hundred years, and then only in self-defense. Less than a day in your town and I cast aside those ways and claimed the lives of those you held dear because you and yours made your war upon me.” Chester’s face was dark again, his rage seething and bubbling up to the surface. “I did not strike the first blow in this, remember. You did.” He folded his arms in front of him, and there was a dark satisfaction on his face. “Remember that, as you lie here.” His eyes grew angrier. “Remember that, as my servants fetch people from this town, house by house, and slaughter them in front of you and your friends. Watch your community die, piece by piece, and realize—”

  Chester’s eye went from spiteful to wide in a half-second, and his head jerked around and down, snapping with the force of the sudden turn. His mouth flew open mid-speech, and darkness whirled inside him, a vortex of black that heralded his departure from this world and return to the other one, to the place that Reeve hoped had a lot of fire and torment, though he was fairly certain however much of it there was, it wasn’t near enough for the atrocity he’d seen committed in this square.

  *

  Chester felt the sting and turned, looking down, down at the heel of his shoe, where a dagger rested, its blade sunk in beneath the leather and he watched it, dumbfounded, in shock, as the first tuggings broke loose within him and he felt himself becoming unmoored from this body he had held for so long.

  His gaze drifted to where Alison Stan lay, staring up at him, lips in a muted smile that was not half as wide as the darker one on her neck that he had cut out of her very flesh. “I bruise your … heel,” she whispered nonsensically, her hand still on the blade that had struck him.

  Chester wanted to say something in reply, something about how she had done no good, that she had not saved herself, nor anyone else, but the vortex ripped and tore at him, dragging some of his fellows ahead of him. He held on a moment longer and then remembered …

  William is on the other side.

  To hell with these people.

  Chester let go of the earth, let go of the body that he and William had shared for so long, and departed, leaving behind him his revenge and all that he had done in its service, not caring what he might face on the other side, knowing that William would at least be there, waiting.

  *

  Hendricks saw it just as he was coming back to his feet, the fall of Alison Stan. He heard Arch shout, “NOOOO!” and go running, get whacked around by the demon godfather of all this misery, but he couldn’t get there nearly in time, so he settled for hobbling past Erin, ignoring her, and going straight for Arch, but by the time he got to the man, he was just about on his feet, though staggering, and Chester was headed straight back to hell, courtesy of Alison.

  “Arch, you all right?” Hendricks asked lamely, grabbing him by the arm and trying to haul him up but failing to do much other than latch on just as the big man was getting his balance to go forward again. He would have smacked himself for asking such a stupid question, but it was done in the heat of a pretty dire moment.

  “No, I am not all right,” Arch said, shaking off Hendricks’s arm like he was shrugging right out of a half-assed tackle. He didn’t even look back as he broke into a shambling run straight for his wife, who was just lying there with her throat slit, hand still clinging to the knife she’d just jabbed into the archdemon’s heel.

  *

  Amanda was on the other side of the square, helping a small cluster of idiots finish up their fight when she heard the scream. She batoned some doofus in a muscle shirt in the back of the head as he charged at the priest with the cross staff, cold-cocking him hard enough to send his chin right to the bloody street. She didn’t have much use for these makeshift demon hunters, or the real kind, those fucking losers, but she had to admit they’d done a decent job of sweeping the square clean of most of the shit that was soiling it.

  “NOOOOO!” Most of the yelling and screaming had died down, so when Amanda heard that, she was able to turn her head and look. Just past the big monument in the middle of everything she saw the shit going down, Duncan up to his elbows in this plague of a Legion, and past that …

  Alison Stan looked like she was about to take a dirt nap.

  “Well, that’s a real shame,” Amanda said and whipped the baton into the face of another one of the demons, this one with blood dripping down her chin. Amanda had actually liked Alison. That was too bad.

  *

  Lauren was clutching Molly tight to her when the scream crackled through the air. She couldn’t see who had let it out, because the dais and the monument were right in the way, but she turned her head in time to see Reeve go down under the assault of some demon, who was holding him. She started to get up, pulling a resisting Molly with her, but something happened, and the demon dropped to his feet. Someone happened to him, Lauren realized, finally starting to shake herself out of the daze that had settled when she’d gotten her hands on Molly again.

  The square was getting damned near close to quiet, and the only fighting she could see was Duncan throwing down with about three or four demons, and maybe five more going behind her with Mike McInness from the Charnel House, Pastor Jones, Father Nguyen, and Casey. It looked like they were wrapping things up pretty good, taking apart their bloodthirsty opponents with nasty, angry precision.

  Lauren pulled Molly close as she peered across the square at where Reeve was sitting, freed from the demon who’d been stepping on him. He was sagging, shaking his head as he looked past the fallen demon to—

  It hit Lauren in an instant that Alison Stan was who that happened to the demon. She couldn’t see her real well, but she could tell the blond lady was prone, a knife in her hand.

  “Oh my God,” Molly breathed into Lauren’s ear, and Lauren couldn’t tell if she was talking about how Alison looked or was just taking in the scene in the square in general. From what she could see of Mrs. Stan as she ambled into motion, her doctor’s training coming back to the fore … either fit.

  *

  Arch ran until he was almost upon her, legs wobbling as he slowed only a few feet away. His eyes took her in, her jeans soiled and darkened, the denim almost black from the blood they’d soaked up during her fall. He swept his gaze up, slow, almost afraid to look right at her, at her face. She had a piece missing out of her side, an extra curve that was foreign to him, and he was the expert on her body if anyone was. He took the last few steps as his eyes made their way up to her neck, where her fingers were planted, trying to hold back a tide of red that was still blossoming out be
tween her digits, running bright crimson down her shaking hand.

  “Alison,” he said quietly as he sank to his knees at her side. His eyes met hers finally, his survey done, and he swallowed hard as about a million different feelings welled up inside him and he tried to keep every last one of them down.

  “Arch,” she said, barely a whisper, and she reached up for him. He grabbed her left hand with both of his, an impulse reaction. She was holding her throat with the other, not that it was doing a lick of good. “He … he killed ’em, Arch …” She turned her head and a little blood rolled out the side.

  He dropped her hand and tried to get her to steady herself. “You just … you just hold still,” he said, the desperation leaking out faster than the blood between her fingers. “Help is … it’ll be on the way …”

  She looked back up at him, but her irises were getting glassy. “He killed ’em, Arch. Killed our …” She blinked, and a little tear ran down the side of her cheek, “… our kids.”

  Her lips stopped moving, and Arch’s hands shook as he touched her pale, cold cheeks. “Alison? Stay with me, baby.” She did not respond, and the breath left her body softly, almost a sigh. The red liquid running out of her neck went down to a trickle, all its force expelled, and he stared into eyes that stared back into his, but they were empty of all the life that he’d known in his wife’s.

  “Alison?” Arch asked, voice quivering. The air was still and quiet around them, and there was a grunt to his right. Lauren Darlington came down right next to him, her hands stained with red as well, her breath hot next to his face. She looked at Alison, ran her hands over his wife’s skin, touched her neck, pulled Alison’s hand away, and after a moment, she let out a quiet breath of her own.