Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  Arch cringed, but Hendricks just smiled and detoured around, tipping his hat excessively as he went. Thankfully, he was apparently confident enough in his manhood not to start World War III over her goad. Arch let out a sigh of relief. It was just as well; he’d had about enough fighting for the morning—at least of the variety that didn’t involve stabbing holy objects into demons anyway.

  *

  Lauren didn’t have a lot of patience for the Marine-turned-demon hunter. He probably wasn’t a bad guy under normal circumstances, but her appetite for testosterone-laden bullshit had run out around the time her mother had died, and Hendricks managed to annoy her on a near-constant basis now. Especially lately, he seemed to have evolved from being a slight pain in the ass to being an absolutely huge one. Maybe it had something to do with being raped by that demon Duchess, but that would have to be someone else’s cleanup. Lauren had enough to deal with.

  “Doctor,” Sheriff Reeve said, gracious as ever, “thanks for coming.” Whatever his failings, Reeve, at least, had manners.

  “No problem.” Lauren had a bag over her shoulder with the stuff she needed. Well, some of it anyway. Once she got the feeding tube in, she’d leave it to other people to figure out what to pour in, but she had a protein shake for the poor, mute bastard to start out with, since he wasn’t eating and she could only do so much with an IV. “I’ll get to work if you—” she looked at Molly “—want to hang out here for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Molly said, sounding pretty indifferent. A lot of the spark had gone out of her daughter. It was disquieting, but it couldn’t be helped at the moment, and anyway, it was a funeral day—how much spark should she have expected today? “Have fun.”

  Lauren frowned, clutching her medical bag against her side. Putting a feeding tube into an insensate patient wasn’t something she would have considered fun, unless it was the demon who had killed her mother, and she was inserting it rectally, perhaps with mildly acidic lubricant. Even that probably wouldn’t be fun, though it might at least be at little satisfying.

  “You know where you’re going, right?” Reeve asked.

  Of course she fucking knew. She just gave him a look that stated the obvious. “I think I can find my way,” she said coolly. He didn’t mean anything by it, but she’d been here a few times before, after all, to care for this particular patient.

  Lauren made her way down the hall, leaving behind the stilted conversation in the bullpen. “So … Mack …” Molly was saying. She dodged into the holding cells and shut the door behind her before she could hear where the conversation was going. Probably nowhere good, because Molly was not among the world’s great small-talkers.

  The sheriff’s station only had a few holding cells, and Lauren pressed the button to let herself into the area, prompting a buzz from a nearby speaker. Someone was sitting inside, staring up at the ceiling, and Lauren nodded as she came inside. “Hey, Sam.”

  Sam Allen was a local tow truck driver, and pretty well looked the part, save for he wasn’t wearing his jumpsuit today. He looked pretty bored just sitting here, staring up at the ceiling. He glanced at her without a lot of interest. “Hey, Lauren. Here to feed him?”

  “Yeah,” Lauren said. “I’m here for his health, not mine.”

  Sam chuckled. It wasn’t that funny, but he looked like he’d been here for a while, and he didn’t even have a smart phone to entertain him, apparently. “I’ll let you in. Gotta lock the door behind you though.”

  “I know the routine.”

  “Can’t chance this bastard getting out,” Sam said.

  “Why?” Lauren asked. “He’s demon-free.”

  Sam’s face darkened. “He killed a lot of people, Lauren. A whole lot of people.”

  She turned so Sam couldn’t see her roll her eyes. The man in the cell hadn’t killed anyone, as far as she knew. He had carried a demon the way a person might carry a virus, and that demon had killed a lot of people. She didn’t expect Sam to understand that though. Hell, she might have understood it on an intellectual level, but she still had trouble coming to grips with it on an emotional one.

  The man in the cell didn’t make it any easier on her either. Sam unlocked the door to let her in and she found him there, sitting on the cot, staring through her. She probably should have pitied him, should have viewed him as a poor unfortunate, but she couldn’t, not entirely. She could mouth all the excuses to Sam about how he was no guiltier than any sick patient with an infectious disease, but the truth was …

  Lauren hated the man in the cell. And she didn’t even know his name.

  “Hello,” she said, trying to stay professional. He wouldn’t answer, and that was just as well, because the thought of carrying on a conversation with the man who’d brought the demon to town that had possessed her daughter, had killed her mother, had ruined her home …

  Well, it was a lot to stomach.

  “Can you hear me, sir?” She asked mostly as a formality. He didn’t give any sign that he’d heard her, and he hadn’t since he’d been here. He just stared straight ahead, didn’t really respond to stimuli like light or pain. Pinching him, even hard, had no effect. She’d stuck him a few times with IV fluids, and she hadn’t been particularly gentle on any of the sticks, but he hadn’t reacted. The man was in a catatonic state for all intents and purposes.

  “Of course you can’t,” she muttered under her breath. Why would he start talking now, after all? He had remained silent as a damned stone for the last few days, there was no reason for him to begin gabbing now. The man didn’t even twitch, or scratch himself. When he urinated—which he did rarely—he just pissed his pants. Lauren didn’t love the smell, though it was mostly the scent of sterile agent lingering in the air now. Someone must have cleaned him up, otherwise the place would have just stunk of urine.

  “Anything to declare?” she asked, her gloves snapping as she put them on. She needed to take a few stats—blood pressure, heart rate and all that—before she could just cram a feeding tube in. “If you have anything pressing to add to the conversation, now’s the time.” She went about her work, not expecting a response and not getting one. She read out his blood pressure and heart rate as she took them, then pulled the pulse oximeter off his immobile finger.

  “I don’t blame you for not talking,” she said matter-of-factly as she ran her hands over his neck, feeling his glands; demon possession might cause cancer, and she’d be the first to document it. It wasn’t like she could publish the data anywhere, but nonetheless, she felt she should have it. “I expect some of the guys who have come in here to watch over you have probably said some shitty things.” She glanced unconsciously over her shoulder at Sam, who was behind the glass, staring at them distantly. He couldn’t hear them, as far as she knew.

  The man in the cell said nothing, did nothing—just stared straight ahead.

  “I’d be ashamed if I was responsible for the death of a mess of people. I mean, who wouldn’t?” She was being conversational, though she wasn’t sure why she was doing it here, now, with this man. “Especially if you didn’t really do anything to deserve it. I mean, we don’t even know how you came in contact with the demon—demons, I guess, since there were a fuck-lot of them in you.” She sighed. “I wonder how many there were. Hundreds? Thousands? A million?”

  She turned, and thought she heard something, a whisper so low it might have been the squeak of her shoe. She spun back to find the patient—

  Sitting still, staring ahead, not a sign of movement on or around his body.

  Lauren stared at him for a moment, trying to decide—had he actually talked? Probably not, right? That must have been her shoe or something else, because this—this motherfucker—he hadn’t opened his mouth, surely. He was still silent, not a hint of sound passing between his lips.

  She shook it off. “Whatever,” she said, dismissing it as a thought, as anything but a word from the man before her. “I’m almost done anyway, but if you’ve got anything to say, you’d better s
ay it now, because pretty soon there’s going to be a feeding tube down your throat, so conversation? Yeah, it’ll be a problem.”

  She stared at his blank eyes. Inserting this feeding tube was an exercise in pointlessness. Why preserve the body for a mind already gone?

  “Any last words?” Lauren asked, getting the tube ready. It was an NG tube at least, rather than one she’d have to stick down his craw. It still wouldn’t be much fun to insert, like trying to snake a garden hose down a bumpy crevasse. “You sure?” she asked the impassive mien as though he’d responded.

  He didn’t say a word.

  “Okay then,” she said and propped his head back. He offered no resistance, another sign that he was brain dead. She readied the hose—

  She thought she caught a hint of movement in the eye, which had thus far failed to so much as follow her anywhere around the room. She looked right at his pupil, but it stayed fixed now, looking up at the ceiling. She’d imagined it, right? This guy was a vegetable, as much of one as Bill Longholt at this point—more of one, actually, because Longholt was supposedly at least moving and groaning—and even moving his eyes seemed out of this guy’s reach.

  “I’m just losing my goddamned mind, that’s all,” Lauren said to herself, and started the slow work of inserting the feeding tube. At least he didn’t resist, though part of her—a very small part—sort of wished he would, just so she could reassure herself that she was not losing her fucking mind and that he had, in fact, moved.

  *

  “Arch,” Barney Jones greeted as Arch came in the door of the Jones family home, a rambler out on the edge of Midian. Something was cooking on the stove, as it usually was no matter what time of day he dragged himself in. Barney was seated at the table just inside the entry door under the carport, along with Braeden Tarley. Tarley was a young, bearded, swarthy white man; Jones was old and black, dressed in clothes that marked him as a reverend—Arch’s preacher, no less. Jones and Tarley looked like they’d been talking before Arch had come in, and he could feel the uncomfortable remnants of an interrupted conversation heavy in the air as he stood there.

  “Olivia working on something in the kitchen?” Arch asked. Tarley had taken a hit the same night Arch had, losing his little girl to those demons on the square. Now he had demons of his own, in his head. That was the reason Tarley was staying here, and the reason Jones had offered Arch a spare bedroom as well. Arch had taken him up on the offer at the time mostly because the shock of the situation had taken over and he’d been unable to make a decision for himself, but now that he was on his feet again, he was about ready to move on out.

  “She is,” Jones said with a friendly smile. “She might need a hand.” Arch took the hint and walked on through to the kitchen via a swinging door, feeding the illusion that he didn’t know he was being asked to leave without being really asked.

  “Good to see you, Arch,” Olivia Jones said, stirring something on the stove. Arch took a deep sniff and caught a batch of gravy going, light brown and bubbling with flakes of pepper visible in its surface. Biscuits were baking in the oven, and Olivia was tending a pot of green beans with a wooden spoon in her other hand, alternating between the two pots. There was already an abandoned skillet sitting in the sink, handle jutting over to the other side like a telephone pole sticking out of the earth after a serious storm. Fried pork tenderloin was laid out on a paper-towel-lined serving dish on the counter, smelling like a little slice of heaven.

  Arch loved the smell of down-home cooking. His mother-in-law had done this well too, and Alison had been on her way to being able to craft a meal worthy of his raising. Arch felt a little hit inside, right around the heart, when he thought of his wife. He didn’t reckon that’d go away anytime soon, but as much as it troubled him—and it did; he woke in the night breathing heavy and crying—his grief was mitigated in the light of day.

  He had faith Alison was in a better place now, that he’d see her again once the veil had lifted. He missed her terribly, like a great, empty, gaping gash had been carved out of him. The Book said they became one flesh, and they danged sure had. He sometimes found himself starting to say something to her and then remembering—she wasn’t here anymore.

  “Give me a hand stirring here while I get the biscuits out?” Olivia asked, keeping focused on her work.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Arch said, taking a deep, hard breath. It wasn’t easy to draw that breath, to focus on food. He suspected Olivia didn’t even really need his help, like the gravy couldn’t stand a minute without stirring. The funeral was coming in just a couple hours, though he’d been trying to ignore it all day. All week, really. He’d been successful largely because his mother-in-law had been busy caring for Bill, and Brian had been distracting himself with work at the sheriff’s station as well, but it was getting harder now.

  Of course, there’d been no shortage of demons to distract either. Not in Midian. Not right now.

  Arch worked on the gravy; it was good and thick, not runny like Alison’s had been. She lost patience with it, didn’t give it time to reduce the way she should. He mentally slapped himself for thinking like that. Who cared that she didn’t make the gravy the way he’d had it when he was growing up?

  Why did that matter now?

  Arch swallowed his thoughts along with his grief, and brought up the spoon. He caught a little gravy on the side of his hand, and it brought her to mind again. It didn’t take much to stir thoughts of her. This time it was seeing that little pale blob on his dark skin, reminding him of how it looked when he held her hand, their fingers intertwined.

  He hurriedly pressed the finger to his mouth, tasted the salty, peppery goodness of the gravy. He went back to stirring, listening idly to Olivia humming as she pulled the biscuits out of the small countertop oven behind him. Arch drew a ragged breath, trying not to think about it anymore as he gave the green beans a stir.

  “Make sure it doesn’t burn, Arch,” Olivia said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, not really listening to her.

  His mind was elsewhere, remembering a day in the park, before this had all happened …

  “Do you ever think about leaving Midian?” Alison asked, breeze stirring her fair hair over her shoulder, little strands of yellow whipping like they were playing in the wind.

  He’d stared at her, at the single freckle standing out on her nose. It hadn’t been there at the beginning of summer, but it was there now, a little kiss from the sun. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “We coulda stayed in Knoxville.” She wasn’t wearing her sunglasses, and when the sun came out from behind the clouds, she squinted, looking at him narrowed-eyed—but not in an angry way; like she was trying to pick him out in the brightness of the day, the sun causing the green hills around them to almost glow.

  “After college? I s’pose,” Arch said. “I never wanted to work for a city department though. And your folks are here.”

  “I know.” She seemed a little restless under her skin, like she wanted to get up and move but forced herself to stay seated. “Midian’s home, but …” She stared off into the distance, out of the sun, so the lines around her eyes relaxed somewhat.

  “But what?” He’d never had much ambition to leave, but she’d been the one that most wanted to stay when he’d mentioned other possibilities—Knoxville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Charleston … he’d never fought hard for any of them because of her.

  “Town’s not what it used to be,” she said, shaking it off like a bad dream she was waking from. “Not a lot of jobs moving to Midian. If the paper mill goes …”

  “They been talking about the town going under if the paper mill leaves since we were in elementary school. Ain’t happened yet.”

  “Yet.” Her fair hair and occasionally blank look seemed to give people who didn’t know her the impression that Alison was some dumb airhead. She wasn’t, not even close. “Daddy says it’ll happen eventually. Paper’s less of a need, and they’ve been bleeding jobs for years,
not hiring new workers to place the retirees.” She glanced at him. “It’ll happen.”

  “Well, we’ll deal with it when it does,” he said. “But for now … you got a job at your daddy’s store, and I’m deputy, so …” He smiled. “What’s there to worry about?” He looked into that pretty face, and suddenly it was jarring, and he was back in Barney and Olivia Jones’s kitchen, and he realized he’d never … never really see her again …

  “Arch,” Olivia said with an excess of patience, “didn’t I ask you not to let the gravy burn?” She was standing at his side, looking past him. The gravy wasn’t just browned, it was blackened, stuck in great chunks to the bottom of the pan.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Arch said, a lump in his throat like he’d swallowed an apple whole. He handed her the spoon and retreated, disappearing up the stairs into the darkness of pulled curtains, ignoring the smell of burned food, hurrying into his room so he could close his door and weep in privacy for everything that he’d lost.

  And he’d lost danged near everything.

  *

  “What can you say about a woman like Vera Darlington?” Pastor Richards’s question echoed through Lauren’s head, through the church, which was empty except for a scattered handful of mourners.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The candles were burning on the altar, and the cross was hanging, empty, above it.

  And the pews behind where Lauren and Molly sat in the front row were damned near as empty as the cross.

  How had this happened? Lauren wondered. Her mother had lived in Midian her whole life. She had friends, she had acquaintances. This church should have been bursting at the seams. Did people not know when the service was? Surely not.