Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “No, that’s not my stated fucking objective,” Reeve said, sipping the cold coffee. It was shit, but he didn’t care because he wasn’t drinking it for the flavor. He was drinking it to stave off the five-alarm headache he’d be experiencing in the next hour if he didn’t quaff it down. “But my oath was to protect people, and leaving one to twist in the cold woods? Not my finest hour.”

  “But getting ripped into pieces in the woods by devil dogs would be?” Brian asked. “Doesn’t sound that fine to me.”

  “Devil cats,” Arch said, and when Brian shot him a look of mild amusement, he said, “Hendricks, Alison, and your dad faced devil dogs before. Just being clear about it.”

  “I’ve faced a couple devil dogs in my time,” Brian said seriously. “I imagine as a long-standing officer of the law, you probably have too; am I right, Sheriff?”

  Reeve didn’t want to find that amusing—didn’t want to find anything Brian said amusing—but this stupid joke did actually draw a smile. “I have. But I prefer Little Debbies. Those oatmeal crème pies just kill me.”

  “One artery at a time, yes they do,” Brian said, arching his eyebrows, pleased as punch that someone had gotten his joke. Arch was just shaking his head. “Ready for the election?”

  “Ready as I’m gonna get,” Reeve said, feeling across his bare head again. That headache was starting, even though he had a cup of coffee in his hand. He took another long pull, figuring he’d better hurry up and get it down before that throb started feeling like a bullet in the skull; otherwise, even without the election, this was going to be a bitch of a day.

  The jangling bell over the door caused all three of them to turn to see who was coming in, a silhouetted shadow highlighted by the sun behind them, showing a thin figure with a box in hand that started to clear as he stepped inside and was lit by the overhead lights.

  Reeve stifled a sigh. Of all days …

  “Gentlemen,” County Administrator Pike said, brandishing the box in his hand, “I hope you’re hungry, because I brought donuts, on this most auspicious of days. Peace offering.” He gestured toward Reeve with it.

  Yep. Reeve rubbed his forehead. It was definitely going to be a bitch of a day.

  *

  Hendricks awoke in the cold light of day, abs feeling the strain from—well, from the fucking he’d been doing lately. It had taken a little while for him to get sore, but yesterday he and Starling had gone for two rounds, the second one lasting well over an hour and progressing into something approaching a workout. By the time he’d finished, he was exhausted, spent, and pretty sure he was shooting blanks from the days of increased sexual operating tempo.

  He looked down, and noticed he wasn’t even approaching hard. No morning wood here, probably because he’d drained the damned thing of all its sap with the help of that fiery redhead.

  Hendricks scratched his crotch, feeling the sticky reminder that he’d been balls deep in Starling last night all matted around his pubes. He was a little surprised it hadn’t rubbed off on the sheet, but then maybe he’d slept on his back the whole night. Kinda unusual, but—

  Hey, was that a weight on his shoulder? He looked down in surprise to find Starling’s hair glinting in the darkness, catching a little light from the gaps in the curtains. That was a little weird. She stirred and looked up at him, eyes fully open, like she hadn’t slept a wink all night.

  “You’re still here,” he said as she sat up in bed, her small breasts hanging pertly right in front of him.

  “I was not required elsewhere,” Starling said. He was getting used to her lack of emotion, though it had taken awhile, especially during sex. She made some noises, but they were nothing like the more human partners he’d had over his lifetime.

  Still, her pussy was sweet silk, and he didn’t mind the quiet in exchange for her active nature. She didn’t just lie there and take it; she made it a mission to wring some joy out of his ass in the process. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she was getting there, too. At least it seemed like it, in her limited emotion sort of way. She did roll her eyes and shit, and make a weird noise deep in her throat when she got what he expected was close. Not that that was a sign of any sort he could hang his hat on.

  “So that’s what it takes to get you to spend the night?” He ran a hand through his tangled hair, thought about touching hers, but somehow that felt … weird. Indecent, overly familiar … something. He would have laughed at the fact that he’d fuck Starling nine ways to Sunday but feel strange about making an intimate gesture toward her like that, but he didn’t want to do so in her face, and it wasn’t that funny anyway.

  She didn’t react to his question. “When I am required elsewhere, I must go.”

  “I s’pose,” he said, rolling out of bed and heading for the bathroom. “Good thing for me your other half doesn’t have a busy schedule today.”

  “Why?” She appeared behind him in the bathroom door. “Do you wish me to stay more often?”

  He stared at his stubbled face in the mirror. “I don’t mind you being around.”

  She was staring at him, but he didn’t look back at her for some reason. “That is not the same.”

  He turned. “Now, that right there might be the most damned woman-esque thing you’ve ever said.” She cocked her head at him, a curious question unspoken. “It was the sort of thing a lady might say to lay a trap for a fella to step right into.”

  “What kind of trap?”

  “The kind meant to prompt a man to say something she wants to hear,” Hendricks said, turning back to the mirror. He had a few bruises on his neck where she’d broken some blood vessels sucking on him. Thank God she hadn’t put that much effort and suction on his cock, because the way she was putting miles on that thing, he needed it in top condition. She’d wear and tear it in a different way.

  “What do you think I want to hear?” She said it more softly than usual.

  He studied a long bruise that extended to his collarbone. He vaguely recalled her making that one, though it was kind of a blur. Hendricks figured it had come during that second, longer fuck when she’d been straddling him, riding him like a bucking bronco, pausing and going shallower in order to nibble and bite at his neck. It was a hard screw, filled with hunger and empty rhythm, desire without a lot of pleasure during parts of it. He liked it overall, but it had some weird, hollow moments that made him not so sorry when he’d finally hit his climax.

  “I figure you want to hear …” he started, but stopped when he heard a knocking in the distance. It started faint but grew in intensity, and he turned his head, looking around.

  Starling was gone, without a trace as always. Not even the smell of her sweaty skin and that faint hint of her sex was present.

  Hendricks stepped out of the bathroom, looking toward the door. Another knock sounded and he looked around. Starling was definitely gone, and someone was thumping at it.

  He edged over and snatched up his coat, putting it on over his naked body, then picked up his sword. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Duncan,” came the muffled voice from the other side.

  Hendricks froze. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I came to get a glimpse of those packaged goods you’re barely hiding under your coat, flasher. Get dressed and answer the door, will you?”

  Hendricks chuckled and dropped the coat, searching for his boxers. No point in dirtying another pair when he was all covered in Starling and his own dried ejaculate.

  “No, I said get dressed. Don’t answer the door in the damned buff,” Duncan said faintly from the other side.

  “You shut up or I’m answering the door right fucking now,” Hendricks said, balancing on one leg while he shoved the other one into the leg of his boxers.

  “I’ve seen your ass and your junk before when we were roomies out in that abandoned house,” Duncan said. “Also, I’m a demon; I don’t really care about your little snail hose or that pinched hole between your buttcheeks. Your anatomy doesn’t impre
ss me at all.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, you’re the only one it doesn’t impress then,” Hendricks muttered.

  “I doubt that.” Duncan had heard him perfectly.

  Hendricks pulled on his jeans and forewent the shirt, walking over and throwing the door open. “What do you want, shell game?”

  Duncan just squinted at him. “Is that supposed to be a nickname? Or are you calling me the operator of a cheating street game?”

  Hendricks gave him a shrug right back. “I dunno. I just thought it sounded cool, since you’ve got a shell instead of skin.” He leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “What are you doing with your neck all up in my woods?”

  “It’s a pretty small woods around here,” Duncan said. “I caught a blip out in this direction.”

  “Blip?”

  “You remember I can sense things?”

  It was Hendricks’s turn to squint. “I remember you could for a while. Thought you were all constipated with that or something.”

  Duncan didn’t react visibly, at least not in the obvious way a human might have. He did, however, fidget. “I am, though that’s a pretty clumsy and anthropomorphic way of looking at it. My sense … it’s clouded, something is pressing in on it. Those talismans the screen has been selling aren’t helping, but there’s more, now. Something deeper. More powerful, maybe.”

  “Sounds a little sinister,” Hendricks said.

  Duncan kept a straight face. As always. “Doesn’t need to be. Some forces of our kind are just so powerful, they blot things out when they get near.”

  Hendricks nodded. “I expect I might have that problem if Kate Upton were to get too close to me. Where’s your lesser half? Washing her hair? Painting her toenails?”

  Duncan shook his head. “You’re kind of a pig, Hendricks.”

  “These days, pig’s just code for a guy who has the balls to occasionally say the rude shit that comes to mind,” Hendricks said. “So … this blip—where is it and why are you knocking on my door?” He looked back. “Wait, it wasn’t in my room, was it? Because I could maybe explain that—”

  “No, it didn’t have anything to do with the squirming redhead you’ve been exuberantly shoving your pickled mini-hose into every chance you get,” Duncan said. “The blip I got—it’s close. Figured you might want in on the action, especially since, uh … Guthrie is otherwise occupied.”

  Hendricks strolled to the bed and snatched up his dirty shirt, shedding his coat and stretching it on over his head. “Not gonna tell me what she’s up to, huh?”

  “Just getting acclimated to her new shell,” Duncan said. He could have been telling the truth; it wasn’t like there was tension in his voice that betrayed the lie. But when it came to Guthrie, Hendricks wasn’t so sure he trusted anything about the newly returned OOC.

  “How?” Hendricks asked. “And seriously, if you say toenail painting—”

  “I didn’t see any full-service nail salons around here, did you?” Duncan asked. “Besides, our toenails don’t grow. What you see is what you get.”

  “That true of your hair, too?”

  Duncan nodded. “Ours, yes. Our shells don’t really come with that feature built in. There are demons who do grow hair and toenails, just like there are demons who have certain spots on their bodies that can feel a little more sensation than I do.”

  Hendricks got a little queasy at the words. He was pretty sure he knew what Duncan was alluding to; he just wasn’t sure why he would have gone there—and now, especially. He didn’t say any of this though, instead going with, “All right, where are we going?” as he pulled his coat back on. He looked around for his hat, and found it in the usual spot atop the dresser.

  “Nowhere,” Duncan said, head turned around to stare. Hendricks threw the hat on his head and rejoined the OOC at the door in time to see a thin man shuffling across the parking lot toward what looked like an old hearse. “At least not yet.”

  Hendricks stared at the guy. He wasn’t looking around, just making his way to the car. He got out the keys and unlocked it, then slipped inside. His movements were fluid, graceful—they kind of reminded Hendricks of a bird, a really big one. The hearse’s engine roared to life a moment later, and the car started to roll toward the Sinbad parking lot’s exit.

  “Okay, now we’re going,” Duncan said, heading for Hendricks’s car.

  “I like how you just know I’m going to want to drive,” Hendricks said.

  “You’re kind of a control freak, Marine,” Duncan said, slipping into the passenger seat. Hendricks never locked the doors. Why would he? Demons would kill you, but car theft in Midian was probably pretty flat at zero once you controlled for all the GTA he’d been doing himself.

  “I let Uncle Sam sit in the driver’s seat for a couple years,” Hendricks said. “Now that I’m out, I do like to occasionally exercise a little control over my own self, when I get the chance.” He started the car. “That guy? Pretty sure I’ve seen him before.”

  “Where?” Duncan asked.

  Hendricks took a deep breath. “I want to say he was at Alison’s funeral, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Duncan said. “Because he’s got an aura about him.”

  “Aura?” Hendricks put the car in gear and backed out in a quick turn, gunning the vehicle toward the parking lot exit. The hearse was already rolling back over the interstate bridge toward town, and Hendricks took care not to squeal the tires to draw attention. His purloined SUV had some miles and was pretty common. He might be able to blend in, even in these low-traffic country roads.

  “You know,” Duncan said, “I get a bad feeling about him.”

  “Shit,” Hendricks said, turning out onto Old Jackson Highway. “In this town, that could mean anything.” And he headed off slowly after the hearse, trying not to attract the attention of the thin man behind the wheel.

  *

  Lauren was awakened by the thud of a heavy pillow across her face, and it had the effect of startling her out of a deep sleep and making her feel like she was under attack all in one. She jerked to wakefulness and sat up on the sofa bed she’d been sleeping on these last few nights like someone had zapped her with a bolt of lightning, looking around for the threat just in time to catch a pillow to the kisser again.

  “Oh, good,” Molly said dryly, whacking her with the pillow again for good measure, “you’re awake.”

  “What the fuck is up with the low-key murder attempt?” Lauren growled, feeling bushwhacked, irritable, and not all that well rested. Sleep had been like her mother when she was a teenager—a total bitch, always harassing the shit out of her but never making her feel particularly happy to see her. Lauren cringed as that comparison crossed her mind, and she silently caught herself asking forgiveness for the uncharitable thought from a higher power she didn’t even really believe in. Old habit, she supposed, from an easier time in her life.

  “You wanted me to wake you up for work,” Molly said. She was still wearing PJs, probably because it wasn’t like she was registered for school down here in Chattanooga. “Voila. You’re awake.” She wore a look of what Lauren judged to be supreme teenager-ness, filled with angst and rage, expressed not-so-gently through a pillow this morning.

  “I figured you could shake my shoulder, or say, ‘Mom, it’s time to wake up,’ in that honeyed voice of yours, or maybe—and this is kind of a throwback—just come running into my bed and dive-bomb me like the olden days of yore.”

  “I’m a little bigger now,” Molly said. “I’d probably rupture your spleen or something.”

  “Yeah, well, medically I could deal with that.”

  “But a smack to the face with a pillow is beyond your ken, Doctor?”

  “Smartass,” Lauren muttered. Molly disappeared out the door of the small attic room they were sharing, and Lauren rubbed at her eyes, trying to salvage some of those sleepy feelings she’d been indulging just a few minutes earlier, before the rudest of all rude awakenings
that didn’t involve a demon.

  But it did involve a teenager, and those were sort of like demons.

  Lauren grabbed her cell phone; twelve missed calls, eleven messages. That was par for the course, and made her glad she’d muted the damned thing before bed. She could have set the alarm on that, of course, but she’d figured Molly would do a slightly less annoying job of waking her for her shift.

  She stared at the clock display. At least her daughter had gotten her up. An hour after she was supposed to, but still … Lauren smiled, but it faded quickly. She still knew Molly. Sort of.

  With a stifled yawn, Lauren stood, feet against the cool wood of the attic floor. This place belonged to a friend from work, and she’d need to find a place of her own soon. They’d only been here a week, and while Molly was clearly not adjusted—not within miles of it, actually—Lauren was feeling good about her decision. Other than her daughter’s murder-by-pillow attempt this morning, neither of them had been in mortal peril in almost a week.

  It was just better this way. Safer. All she had to do was her work and raise her daughter. And that was plenty enough to be dealing with at this stage of her life, she thought as she headed toward the bathroom to start putting herself together for the day.

  *

  Aaron Drake savored the last bite of the barbecued meat. It was a radius and ulna of a human being, smoked gently in the Kamado for hours and then checked by a digital thermometer to be sure it was just the perfect temperature. He’d seasoned the whole body with a dry rub he’d made himself from a recipe online by a very famous chef. He’d patted it gently on, not removing the skin before cooking, then placed a full beer can in the rectum, which entered directly into the empty body cavity. It had boiled during cooking and imparted a lovely flavor that melded well with the dry rub. After the meat was done cooking, he added a little small-batch barbecue sauce from an outfit near Memphis that was really on to something with their exquisite flavors.