Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I think we just did,” Lauren said, looking over her shoulder. Where was her boss, telling her to go back to work?

  “For real,” Brian said. “No drowning, no entreaties to bring your daughter back to hell or anything, just—you know, real talk. Between people that have been there.”

  Lauren held her breath unintentionally. “Brian … what the hell else is there to talk about? I can’t go back. My daughter—”

  “I’m not going to ask you to,” Brian said. “I just …” He lowered his head, lowered his voice. “Okay, fine … I guess I am drowning—”

  “I’ll thank you not to drag me down with you.”

  “Not that way,” Brian said, and when he looked up, the wan humor was gone and his eyes were deep wells of loneliness. “I’m just …” He took a breath. “I’m starting to think … you made the right choice.” He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s good to see you, Lauren.” He gave her another look. “You look … good. I’ll, uh—”

  “Wait,” she said, regretting it even as she said it. “Maybe we can … get a coffee in the cafeteria.”

  Relief washed over his features, and it seemed to take a weight off him. “You sure?”

  “Quick,” she said, grabbing him by the upper arm and pushing him toward the elevator, “before I change my mind or my boss comes looking for me.”

  *

  Erin had parked in the line of cars forming at the end of the Milner driveway, Arch ahead of her and Reeve two up, someone in the passenger seat who looked like County Administrator Pike. “Goddamn,” Erin said, lips constricting in a rictus of distaste at the thought of what Reeve was probably being subjected to right now. She viewed politicians with distaste, and the thought of treating with one was about as appealing as having intercourse with a hot poker.

  She watched another couple cars come sliding into the line behind her, followed by a third a minute later. She could see Father Nguyen in one, Mike McInness and one of his patrons behind that. She couldn’t tell if the next one back was Larry Saunders, but Chauncey Watson was definitely the one after that. She lost track after that, cars rolling in every one to two minutes, filling the road around the curve.

  “That ain’t no good,” she muttered under her breath. Hell, pretty soon the tail was going to get so stretched out no one would be able to tell if the back of the line was getting ripped apart by those fucking hellcats.

  She was just about to dial up Reeve to say exactly that when someone knocked at the window on the passenger side and she just about shit herself jumping, hand already going for the gun on her hip. She looked over to see a dark face grinning in at her, and when she flipped the unlock button Amanda Guthrie slid in next to her.

  “Lerner,” she said as the black woman slammed the door after slipping into the passenger seat.

  “You know, calling me by a white man’s name is a microaggression,” Guthrie said with a smirk.

  “You prefer I call you by your demon name?” Erin tossed back. She knew full well that demons didn’t share names. “Because it’s the only real one you got.”

  “I always admired your skill with repartee, dear,” Guthrie said, and here she completely departed from Lerner, who would have come off sounding like a pretentious, paternalistic ass if he’d delivered these same words in that Boston accent. Coming from Guthrie it almost sounded sincere. “How are you doing this fine morning?” The question was delivered with definite precision, eyes focused on Erin, who was keeping hers straight ahead.

  “Fi—” Erin started to say.

  “‘Fine’? That’s all you’ve got?” Guthrie snorted.

  “Why are you in my car?” Erin asked.

  “Well, because we’re longtime gal pals, of course,” Guthrie said, holding a hand over her heart, mock-wounded. When she saw Erin’s skeptical glare, she said, “Oh, come on. We went over a cliff together. Also, I caught a ride here with Father Nguyen, and you can’t expect me to sit in a car with a holy man. That’s like asking any woman on the planet to sit next to Harvey Weinstein. You know what even setting foot in his church does to me?” Guthrie shuddered. “So … I needed some sanctuary. A safe place. And I saw you.”

  “You think I’m safe?” Erin kept her eyes ahead again.

  “Well, we went through—or over—some shit together,” Guthrie said breezily, “so … yeah. You’ll do, gal pal.” Guthrie settled back in her seat and feigned a deep breath. “So. What should we talk about?”

  “I dunno.”

  “How about vagina stuff?” Guthrie asked, looking right at Erin with a big grin. “Because lemme tell you, these things—”

  “Oh, God, what the fuck?” Erin felt like clawing her way out the window without even opening it first.

  “Yes, the fuck—let’s talk about fucking,” Guthrie said. “This body got an upgrade. Cuz I’m gonna tell you—that old one? Seriously lacking in the pleasure centers. This one is new hotness though, and they really improved the interface for experiencing the big O if you know what I mean—”

  “I’d like to not know what you mean,” Erin said, clutching helplessly at the door handle. She didn’t pull it, but God, did she want to.

  “Hey, I just figured given how much you and the cowboy used to roll around like a couple of angry hamsters, you might be able to give me some advice,” Guthrie said, “maybe some pointers. I haven’t spent a lot of time pondering sex since it was, uhh … kinda pointless, actually, in my old body. Home Office neutered us, big time, in terms of what made it through those shells. But now, it’s like a fucking symphony up in my—”

  “Lalalalalalalala,” Erin said, putting her hands over her head. “You’re a demon. I don’t need to know about what you’re doing with your demon snatch.”

  “Fine, be that way,” Guthrie said, folding her arms over her chest. “I’ll find someone else to talk it over with later.” She stayed silent long enough for Erin to withdraw her hands from her head. “So … what do you want to talk about then?”

  “I don’t, really,” Erin said.

  “What about your family?” Guthrie asked.

  “Uh, no—”

  “I heard they all came swarming to town when you got hurt,” Guthrie said, keeping a neutral expression. “Weren’t you raised here?”

  “Yeah, why—”

  “So did they just bail on you the second you graduated or what?”

  Erin just sort of sat there, blinking. “Not—I mean, yeah, shortly after, I guess. My parents never intended to stay here as long as they did, so when I graduated—yeah, they moved over by Nashville. My brothers were already gone—”

  “Oh, cool, where’d your brothers go?” Guthrie asked.

  “One’s in Cleveland, Ohio,” Erin said. “He helps run a factory up there; been working there since he graduated college. Another is a captain in the army—”

  “So they left and never came back,” Guthrie nodded. “Is that a trend? I feel like that’s a trend I’ve read about. Brain drain, I think they call it? Where the smart, ambitious people leave little towns for prospects elsewhere?”

  Erin flushed. “Does that mean I’m not a brain, since I haven’t been drained?”

  Guthrie just shrugged. “You can get all offended by it if you want, but I’m not casting judgment on you, nor aspersions on your choices. Just stating a fact as expressed by someone else. Seems like your family left this little berg and you stayed, for whatever reason. I’m curious about why.”

  “Because I like it here,” Erin said, feeling a little defensive.

  “Pre-demon, I assume you mean. Unless you’re really into brimstoning us, which—I wouldn’t blame you. There’s some fun in popping demons.”

  “No, I don’t particularly enjoy popping you like zits,” Erin said. “I liked the town the way it was before. I knew everybody. Everything was … familiar. I grew up here. My parents didn’t. My dad came for work, and stayed because it was a decent, quiet place to raise a family. Once his family was raised, he didn’t see a reason to stay, so he
and Mom left. They offered to have me come with them, but—come on, I’m a grown-up … ish,” she added, blushing. “I didn’t want to follow them to some new place where I didn’t know anyone.”

  “See, I read towns like this are dying,” Guthrie said. “That they usually have this one big employer—”

  “Yeah,” Erin said. “Ours is a paper mill.”

  “Right,” Guthrie said. “So when that one big employer goes, this town of a thousand, two thousand, three thousand—it throws like a quarter, half the workforce out of work. Suddenly all this money that’s flowing into that employer stops, the paychecks from the employer stop, all the money those employees are spending stops—”

  “Thanks for the high-school economics lesson.”

  “—and the town just dries up,” Guthrie went on. “Shops croak off—you know, the ones that weren’t already torched by Wal-Mart. The square ends up a hollow shell of closed-down businesses. People leave if they can, stay if they can’t, or if they’re … overly attached.” She didn’t look at Erin as she said this, but Erin felt the burn of accusation even so. “Hope sinks, and so does the town.”

  “And then demons move in and make things oh so much worse,” Erin said.

  “That does happen sometimes,” Guthrie said with a nod. “Hotspots don’t tend to happen in economically booming areas for some reason. I’ve pondered that one, but it’d take someone with a lot more knowledge of how that world works to come to a conclusion, I think.” Her eyes twinkled, and Erin got the feeling she wasn’t saying all she knew.

  “Feels like that might be intentional,” Erin said, her face starting to cool down a little.

  “Maybe,” Guthrie said, “but as they say, ‘correlation does not equal causation.’ Meaning—”

  “I fucking know it means they might be unrelated, asshole. I may not fit your definition of a brain, but I’m not an idiot.”

  Guthrie grinned. “Sorry. Talking down to an audience is part of being a demon, you know. Our opinion of humans isn’t all that high.”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “Last I checked, you guys live in our society, not vice versa, and I don’t see you creating the internal combustion engine, the internet, or cell phones.” She looked at Guthrie pointedly, expecting she’d know the answer to this next question before she asked it. “Do they have cell phones in hell?”

  Guthrie made a whoosh noise. “I must give credit here, because that was a quality burn. It wasn’t quite to the burn level of flesh in the pits, but—damn, girl, you have struck true. No, demons didn’t have much to do with any of those things, and all we use cell phones for in hell is in this one room where all they do is ring all day long, different phones. Or they’re just out of reach of someone who wants to check their email—because they’re at a low level of conscious thought, and it’s this instinctive kind of drive to get that phone in hand.” Guthrie cackled. “It’d be sad if it wasn’t so damned funny. You people enslaved your conscious thought to machines in less than twenty years. I thought the TV was bad, but these things—anyway, yeah. Way to go with that little innovation. You should totes be proud of what you accomplished with those.”

  “Jokes aside, I kinda am proud,” Erin said, “to be part of a species that innovates, that shares knowledge at the tips of our fingers—”

  “Yeah, that Kylie Jenner Instagram account is a real boon to humanity.”

  “Manufacturing and the automobile created pollution on an industrial level,” Erin said. “If Kylie Jenner’s Instagram account and the rest of the Kardashians is the worst side effect of the digital age, I think we’re going to be okay.”

  “I knew I chose the right car to get into,” Guthrie said. “So, here’s something I’ve pondered—”

  Brake lights flared ahead of Erin, catching her attention immediately. Guthrie shut right up. “Looks like it’s go time,” Erin said.

  “Bummer,” Guthrie said. “I was just about to regale you with my treatise on the notional divide between rural and urban America in these times.”

  Erin rolled her eyes as she put the car in gear. “Shit, I’m out of the fucking loop by a mile, and I can tell you that this is a topic that’s already been beaten to death.”

  “But that’s the thing about whatever’s in the zeitgeist,” Guthrie said, “everyone has their take. And I like to hear them all.”

  “Later,” Erin said, putting her foot gently on the accelerator. “We’ve got to get moving now.” And she eased the car off the shoulder, following Arch’s bumper as their little convoy headed down the road. She wondered what they’d find—if anything—when they got there.

  *

  Brian kept his head down, staring at the surface of the hospital cafeteria table, cup of coffee steaming in front of him, a small mountain of unstirred sugar somewhere in the depths. Cream had turned the dark surface a blotchy cocoa color. He’d stuck a wooden stir stick in it, but had yet to twirl it. He did so now, and it flared along the surface, the color blending under the steam that rose off it, the deep aroma of coffee filling his nostrils.

  He could feel Lauren’s gaze, burning into the top of his head, but he kept his down, focusing on the coffee. He’d gotten her here and—now what? What the hell was he supposed to say? He’d caught her with the intention of presenting some sort of case for the watch, and now that she was here, sitting right in front of him, the buzz of the cafeteria all around them …

  What the hell was he supposed to say?

  “You know what happens when someone drowns?” Lauren asked, breaking the silence and causing Brian to jerk his head up to look at her. She was cool and impassive, the doc in her professional environs, her scrubs and her jaded expression marking her as someone who belonged here, among the stress and the fear, among the patients and their anxious loved ones and the overworked staff.

  Doctor Darlington leaned forward, her own coffee black as the Midian night. “It’s not like in movies, and it’s not like what you’d think it looks like. They’re in panic mode, no upper brain function. It almost looks like they’re playing, but really they’re trying desperately to keep their head above water. And if you go in there, after them, they will cling to you, drag you, not even knowing they’re doing it. Easiest way to drown is to try and rescue someone who’s drowning.”

  Brian cleared his throat. He looked up and found her staring straight at him. “Are you saying … we’re drowning?”

  “Yes,” Lauren said simply. “You, the watch—you can feel it. Midian’s sinking, the ground beneath you is gone, and you’re just—dipping below the surface of the waves. You haven’t really felt the ground in a long time, haven’t gotten a good breath in a while—of hope, I guess? I dunno, it’s not a perfect analogy. But you’re drowning, Brian, you more than most, and I think—if I let you talk me into what you want to talk me into—I’d get dragged back in and drown with you. With the town. And my daughter too.”

  “Shit,” Brian said, taking a sip of the coffee. He just barely kept from embarrassing himself by spitting it out. Four creams, four sugars, and it still tasted like bottom-of-the-pot grounds dipped in ass.

  “You saying that because you believe I’m wrong?” Lauren asked. “Or because you know I’m right?”

  “I don’t … I’m not saying whether I think you’re right or wrong,” Brian said, lying. “I know that’s how you see it—”

  “It’s how anyone with a halfway clear head and a pair of eyes sees it, Brian,” Lauren said, leaning in closer. “Do you know how many of those things there were on Faulkner Road? How much destruction they caused? One of them ripped a police cruiser to pieces, pretty much by accident. They slashed Sam Allen into guts and cutlets. Whatever’s left of him, you might as well throw into the mess in the square, because putting him back together? You’d have an easier fucking time with Humpty Dumpty. There are hundreds of those things. Maybe a thousand or more. What are you going to do? Grab a bunch of swords and play hack n’ slash?” She brought a hand up and put it over her forehead. “I just …
can’t believe it took me seeing that, living in a whorehouse, burying my mother … it took all that for me to realize …” She shook her head.

  He knew what she was going to say, but he wanted to hear it anyhow. “Realize what?”

  “Midian’s fucking lost, Brian,” Lauren said, now whispering. She looked around self-consciously, but there was no one near enough to hear them. “It’s sinking, you’re sinking, and the sooner you guys realize it, the sooner you can do something sensible, like evacuate the place. Get out while you can, because staying is going to equal dying.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Brian said, shaking his head. “We beat that—that Rog’tausch thing, that giant demon wrecking ball, we beat that legion—”

  “Yeah, well, we beat more than that,” Lauren said, “but fighting the last war is a good way to get yourself killed, and I’m telling you—we got nothing when it comes to this. And things are just getting worse. I mean, does anyone have any idea what happened to that Mack kid? Or his mom?”

  Brian looked back down at the table, at his steaming, corrosive, acidic coffee. “We think the hellcats got him. No idea about his mom though. Kid claimed a guy got her. Some other folks have been disappearing; they might be related—”

  “So you add that together with the shit that happened on Crosser Street,” Lauren said, “where all those people got eaten like a fucking buffet, the—the hooker that got burned from the inside out, the bicycle victims, and I bet you’ve had other stuff pop up since then—shit, Brian, they keep coming up with new demons and new ways to kill us. Who knows what’s coming tomorrow? How long do you want to keep trying to see the next way that town’s going to fuck with us—”

  “It’s not the town that’s doing the fucking,” Brian said, looking up at her with a fresh determination. “It’s the demons.”

  “Does it matter?” Lauren asked. “Think about how many have been killed. How many different ways they’ve died. Yeah, it’s demons, I get it. But as nasty as it’s gotten there, does it really matter if we differentiate? Because the people are just as dead. And if you’re living there, staying there, in the midst of—of all the shit that’s going on—how crazy do you have to be? At what point do you look at what’s staring at you out of the dark, licking its lips ravenously, and say, ‘Yep, that’s my limit. I quit’? And how stupid are you if you don’t ever hit that point?”