Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

The shadow creature had ears like a cat, pointed at the tips. He could see it now that it was closer. Its skin looked like nothing he’d ever seen—like a black cloud, fuzzy and indistinct. It snapped its head around at him, red eyes on his.

  Mack gulped. The thing was mad.

  “Oh, Godddddd!” his dad yelled as the thing tore him loose from the tree. He disappeared behind the trunk. There was a tearing sound, sick and wet. The screams intensified, even as they became more choked and guttural.

  Mack stared into the red eyes of the thing stalking him and fired his gun again. It flinched, staggering as it hit the tree.

  But the red eyes never left him.

  Mack’s ears were ringing. His dad’s screams had been muffled by the percussive rifle shots that had deafened him. The black creature opened its mouth at him, just a few feet. It was snarling, but he couldn’t hear it.

  He tried to shoot again. Nothing happened.

  Empty.

  Mack pulled the trigger again, fruitlessly. Again. He couldn’t even hear the click.

  The shadow cat rose up on its haunches. It could smell blood—his blood. Mack remembered the hunting knife at his belt and pawed for it. It was buttoned into the sheath, and he couldn’t work the button—

  The cat leapt. Damn, it moved fast too.

  He wanted to close his eyes. Knew he should. He couldn’t hear his dad anymore.

  Mack couldn’t stop looking though, his eyes fixed, wide, on the thing. That thing was death, he realized with a sick pit in his stomach.

  Death was coming.

  And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  *

  Lafayette Jackson Hendricks had dealt with all kinds of shit in his time. Twenty-five years old, he’d spent time in Iraq during some of the high points of the war, had a night in New Orleans that had somehow ended up an even more memorable hell than his time in Iraq, and since then …

  Well, since then he’d bummed around the world fighting demons.

  It wasn’t an easy gig, especially given some of the shit he’d seen lately. Some of the things he’d run across in Midian, Tennessee had turned his stomach in ways that it hadn’t been turned in the sandbox.

  In Iraq, though, he’d faced flesh-and-blood men. Men who bled. Men who died. He’d looked down the sights of an M-16 at them, pulled the trigger, and watched them dissolve into blood, bone, tissue and brains.

  Now he faced an enemy that didn’t dissolve at all when he pulled the trigger.

  Hendricks had an AR-15, the civilian model of the weapon he’d carried over there, slung across his chest. It was a new addition to his gear. He’d used one a few months back, one that was property of the sheriff’s department, but this one was new, only fifty rounds put through its recently-virgin barrel. He’d been the one to break her in, to get the sights the way he wanted them.

  Now he peered down the red-dot sight at what was up ahead, and let loose.

  It took multiple trigger pulls to crack out multiple shots. That might have made him sigh at any other time; the three-shot burst setting on an M-16 was handy when you were trying to fill the air with a high volume of bullets. Not as good as an M249 SAW for it, but the M-16 did a decent job of fire suppression.

  He wasn’t taking any fire here though.

  Hendricks peered through the sights as he ran, minding his footing, firing and moving. His red dot was settled on a black target, some demon slung low to the ground like a fucking jungle cat.

  He pulled the trigger again as he hurried forward, loosing another three shots. He had a thirty-round mag, and he figured he could close the distance before the hellcat—that was what it was, after all—managed to shrug off the effects of the rifle shots.

  “COWBOY is moving in,” Hendricks said over the open channel as he advanced, trying to put the damned thing down. It had been about to sink its demon teeth into a fucking kid dressed in camo and blaze orange.

  “Understood,” came the voice over the other end of the radio connection. This rig wasn’t too different from what he’d used in the Marines.

  Hendricks peppered the beast again, really let it have it. He knew the demon wasn’t going to die from what he was doing, but it surely didn’t feel too good inside the thing’s shell, either. He was plenty happy to put a hurting on it. He was only about twenty feet away now, and the kid that had been about to be the cat’s lunch was looking pretty grateful, now prone. He was on his belly, staring up at Hendricks like God Himself was advancing on the kid’s position.

  “Keep your head down!” Hendricks yelled. The kid ducked and covered like a good PFC when a drill sergeant shouted at him. The AR-15 rattled out another bellowing chorus and came up dry. He’d already gone through thirty rounds? Shit.

  It was time to get up close and personal anyway.

  Hendricks let the rifle fall back gently, making sure no part of it swung to cock him in the nuts. Nothing could ruin a man’s day like a mag to the boys. While he brought the AR back with one hand, he drew his sword with the other, bringing it out so that the black hellcat could see what was coming for him. Its red eyes locked on the holy blade, some primitive intelligence evident in the creature’s hissing reaction.

  “That’s right, motherfucker,” Hendricks said. “Your essence is about to taste air.”

  The hellcat didn’t like that. It hissed in that otherworldly screech, like a whisper combined with a shriek, and it must have decided it didn’t want to die backed up against a tree because it came out swinging at him.

  That suited Hendricks just fine.

  He swung the sword as the cat came at him, paw extended, shadowy claws visible like glowing black teeth. It was swiping for him, desperate. Not desperate enough to retreat, but crazy enough to come at him even though he had the reach on the sucker.

  The blade caught it mid-paw as it tried to swipe the weapon down. Maybe it was gambling that he was just some dumbass out for a walk with a regular sword on his belt. Bad gamble, Hendricks figured, but who knew how smart the hellcat was?

  The thing screeched as the holy implement made contact with the demonic skin. It had seemed to be almost smoking black, its skin alive, undulating like a cloud from a smokestack.

  The skin stopped moving the moment the sword found home. It blanched, switching from black to a pale blue, then almost white as it evaporated. The essence in the core of the demon made a shrieking sound as it left this plane of existence behind. Nothing but a puff of white smoke heralded its passing.

  Well, that and a hellacious burst of brimstone even worse than the stink the damned thing dragged around normally.

  Hendricks watched the thing pass with a jaded eye. He’d snuffed his share of demons—his and a hundred other peoples’ share, because very few people on Earth hunted demons. “Stay down, kid!” he shouted, giving the boy who still had his head down little in the way of attention as he galloped past. There were more hellcats, Hendricks was sure, and close by, because he could see the blood trail—

  Hendricks stopped short as he came around the tree. It wasn’t a pretty sight, what he saw. “Fuck,” he whispered, his sword still dangling from his hand.

  *

  Lauren Ella Darlington was sitting at the breakfast table in a whorehouse, her daughter beside her, French toast sizzling on the nearby cook top. She was eating it too, and it was delicious, the flavors of cinnamon and maple syrup sweet on her tongue. She’d half expected it to be tasteless or unappetizing, but no.

  This was the best French toast she’d maybe ever had in her life.

  Here in this whorehouse.

  Sitting next to her daughter.

  While the madam cooked for them.

  And one of the johns sat across the table.

  Hell if these weren’t the craziest days Lauren had ever lived through.

  “Would you like some more, dear?” Melina Cherry asked Molly, Lauren’s daughter. Her voice was a low purr of the sort that was not at all out of place given the madam’s profession. Her beautiful, slightly lined
olive skin was exposed down to the cleavage by her nightdress as she leaned over to slide another slice of the French toast onto Molly’s plate after receiving a nod in reply to her question. The madam switched her attention to the only man at the table, and Lauren looked at him reluctantly. She’d been trying to avoid eye contact with him throughout the entire meal.

  Unfortunately, Casey Meacham hadn’t shared her reticence to talk given the fucking awkward circumstances. “I think it’s gonna be a fine day,” he said as Melina Cherry slid two more slices of the French toast onto his plate. Casey had already devoured at least two—maybe more; Lauren hadn’t been watching closely—and set to work cutting these up, his knife clinking against Ms. Cherry’s beautiful china.

  It wasn’t that Casey ate like a pig, Lauren told herself. It wasn’t that he stuffed dead animals for a living either, though the smell of the taxidermy chemicals was pretty strong on him even now, in spite of the smell of night sweat and sex that she hoped—really, really hoped—Molly couldn’t place. It was a nauseating combination that threatened to make Lauren chuck her good—no, amazing—French toast all over the red and white checkered tablecloth.

  No, it wasn’t any of those things that made her feel like a virgin whore in a room full of horny johns, a metaphor that felt awkwardly appropriate for where she was at in her life at the moment.

  It was the fact that they were all sitting there around Ms. Cherry’s table, Casey in nothing more than his boxers and a white, stained, wife-beater t-shirt, every single one of them knowing he’d paid Ms. Cherry for sex the night before and probably—okay, definitely, because the walls weren’t thick enough to keep back the sound—fucked her for literally hours while Lauren and Molly tried to sleep. Tried, and failed, because …

  Well, because they were spending their time trying not to imagine Casey fucking Ms. Cherry.

  Five times.

  “Yeah,” Molly said softly to Casey’s proclamation. “Probably not gonna be a fine day for some of us.”

  Lauren cringed. Maybe the fact that it was today had a little something to do with their inability to sleep. Though the loud sex hadn’t helped matters.

  It was a shame too, because with the exception of Casey’s visit last night, the whorehouse had turned out to be a surprisingly nice place for Lauren and Molly to hang their hats. It had started to feel … not like home, but like a refuge from all that was going on out in Midian.

  And then this fucking guy showed up.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” Casey said, cramming a bite of French toast into his gaping piehole. “Foh-god ab—”

  “Casey, darling,” Ms. Cherry said sweetly, “please. No talking with your mouth full.”

  “Thass whut I sed tu yu lass night!” He guffawed as he finished swallowing some of his mammoth bite. His amusement faded. “Anyway, yeah … forgot about the funerals today, sorry.”

  His words were like a tiny stiletto knife, pricking Lauren in the heart.

  Today was the day.

  Today was the day they were going to bury her mom.

  “How many funerals are there today?” Ms. Cherry asked. “I know Sheriff Reeve’s wife is at noon, and your mother’s—” she met Lauren’s gaze with true regret “—is at two.”

  “Alison Stan’s is at four,” Lauren said, a little numbly. She hadn’t had much time to grieve on that one. Not that she knew Alison Stan terribly well, but she’d been part of the watch they’d formed in Midian to fight back, and it had stung all the same. “Some others too … so many I can’t remember.” She put a hand over her eyes for a second and laughed mirthlessly. “It’s a bad sign when you have scheduling conflicts because you’ve got so many damned funerals.”

  “It is a bad sign,” Casey agreed, cutting up his French toast, eyes on the plate. “Like seeing one that says, ‘Toilet Out of Order’ after you’ve just dropped a massive deuce.”

  Molly cringed visibly and pushed her plate away. “Ya know … I’m not hungry.”

  Casey stared at her. “You’re a teenager, right? How old are you again?”

  Lauren stiffened. This was prime Casey, inquiring about the age of her daughter. She could see this one coming and started to try and head it off, but too late—

  “Umm … sixteen …” Molly said, regarding him carefully.

  “Hm,” Casey said. “You should say ‘literally’ more often, shouldn’t you? Isn’t that hallmark of your age group?”

  Lauren just stared at him, and a slight flush of relief reached her cheeks. “That … was way less bad than I thought it was going to be.”

  “Anyhoo,” Casey said, turning his attention back to his French toast, “you’re turning into a right pretty little thing. When you hit eighteen, you let me know and we’ll celebrate.” He looked up, mouth full again, eyes twinkling. “Cuz you’ll be legal,” he managed to get out around a mashed piece of crust.

  “And there it is,” Lauren said.

  “Casey,” Ms. Cherry scolded, shuffling around as she turned off the cook top. She gave an apologetic look to Lauren. “You have to forgive him. He’s a very sexual being.”

  “Yeah,” Molly said under her breath, “we kinda heard that last night.”

  Casey looked at her expectantly. “And?”

  She blinked a couple of times. “We … ‘literally’ … just heard that last night?” She tried it out experimentally.

  “That’s how you do it.” Casey nodded, and turned back to his food.

  Ms. Cherry looked like she wanted to weigh in on this, but she paused, one arm draped around Casey, looking past them all to the open door. Lauren turned her head and saw, with a lot of surprise, the fourth occupant of the whorehouse, standing in the doorway, her hair in a tight ponytail, pale skin free of makeup. She was a pretty thing, as Casey might have said—oh, God, Lauren wondered, wishing she hadn’t—had Casey had her, too? Probably, she had to concede, shivering in revulsion.

  “Lucia,” Ms. Cherry said, smiling warmly at the girl standing in the doorway, “why don’t you come in and have something to eat, darling?”

  “Not very hungry,” Lucia said quietly, but she edged in anyway, mouse-quiet. She had the shifty gaze that Lauren associated with abuse victims, that worried look that was always seeking out the direction of the next attack. She lingered at the edges of a room, of any conversation. Today was no exception; she made her way toward the fridge and opened it, but didn’t turn her back to any of them for more than a second or so, as though she thought they might fall on her in a rage. She emerged with a can of Coke and opened it with a long, chipped pink fingernail. She seemed to freeze as she regarded the damage, then took a long, shuddering pull of the drink, watching Casey the whole time.

  “I made French toast,” Ms. Cherry said lightly, plainly trying to entice the girl.

  “It’s very good,” Molly said in the way she had when she was trying to draw in a stray cat to pet or feed. She took a bite, apparently to illustrate it, even though she’d previously shoved her plate away.

  Lucia regarded her and Lauren in turn, her expression inscrutable. In that way, she wasn’t totally dissimilar to Starling, the entity that apparently claimed use of her body at times. Lauren might not have believed that if she hadn’t had conversations with Starling, who was quiet but not shy, and Lucia, who was quiet and shy. The eyes were the real difference. Lucia’s were always darting around, and Starling’s …

  Well, Lauren couldn’t even remember exactly what Starling’s looked like.

  “You should have a bite or two,” Ms. Cherry said, sounding like a mother hen. She’d been that way to Lauren and Molly too, always gently coaxing rather than applying death-grip pressure, the way Lauren’s mother would have.

  Oof. Just thinking about her mother caused Lauren a pang of pain, of regret. She couldn’t believe it was today.

  “Okay,” Lucia conceded. She moved the chair back just a hair, barely enough that a piece of paper could slide in between it and the table, but she damned sure fit her skinny self in there whe
n she sat down. She put the Coke down in front of her, eyes flitting over to Casey. “Hi,” she said, without any of the normal nervousness that Lauren associated with her. She sounded pretty okay with him, which Lauren—who did not find Casey anywhere in the same neighborhood, or even continent, as okay—found surprising.

  “Hey, Lucia,” Casey said with a mouth full. “How you doing?”

  “Good,” Lucia whispered. She smiled faintly. “Heard you had fun last night.”

  “Always do,” Casey said brightly, lifting another full fork. “Did you have a quiet evening?”

  “Things have been very quiet of late,” Ms. Cherry said with a frown, still hovering behind Casey. “Which is surprising.”

  “A lot of people just died,” Molly said, looking somewhere between shocked and mortified. “I’d think that would … uhh … depress business … for you?”

  Ms. Cherry shook her head. “People deal with their grief in different ways.”

  “It’s true,” Casey said, nodding sagely. “Last time I went to a funeral, I got laid afterward. Girl I went with pulled the truck over and fucked me right there at the entrance to the graveyard. Went right at it like she was going to tear my clothes off.” He shook his head, and did a full body shiver of delight. “I think when there’s death all around you, it’s a natural instinct to do something so life-affirming—”

  “Please cover your ears, Molly,” Lauren said, feeling the desire to collapse on the table. She’d never considered herself any kind of prude—it wasn’t like she got pregnant at sixteen through immaculate conception, after all. It was the messy kind of conception, and surprisingly fun considering how many of her friends had been fooling around at the same time and had nothing but half-hearted shrugs to express themselves over it. Or horror stories. There were a few of those.

  “Well, maybe he’s right,” Molly said uncomfortably—but still too comfortably for Lauren’s taste. You’re sixteen, for chrissakes … “Maybe when people see that much death around, they just sort of … look for things to … cheer them up.” She shrugged at her mother, way, way less creeped out than Lauren would have hoped.