Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Let it go,” Brian said, and then turned his attention to Erin. “What’s going on?” he asked, measurably relaxing when he saw her.

  “We had an incident involving something called a fire sloth,” Erin said. “It was about the size of one of those big SUVs, and it breathed—”

  “Poison gas?” Casey leapt in, drawing every head toward him. He cracked a smile. “Just kidding. Fire, right?”

  “Primo guesswork, Ace,” Erin said with withering sarcasm. “Yeah, it breathed fire. Burned down that new Whistling Poons—I mean Pines—” goddamn Benny; everyone was chuckling at her for that one “—development out on the end of town. Torched the clothes off of Arch—”

  “Is he okay?” Brian asked, face suddenly frozen, almost stricken.

  “I knew a girl with a whistling poon,” Casey said, suddenly introspective.

  “He’s fine,” Erin said. “Apparently he’s the chosen of God, so he’s immune to hellfire.”

  “It made a sound like—actually, it reminded me a little of that part in the Kid Rock song, ‘Cowboy,’ where he’s—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Casey,” Brian said, giving him a slap to the chest. “We’re talking about hellfire immunity here.”

  “Hmm,” Casey said, seeming to give that some thought. “I wonder if that means Arch is immune to gonorrhea too?” When he caught the others gaping at him, openly, he added, “What? It burns like fire.”

  “Yeah, he’s probably immune to that,” Brian said calmly, “since he’s never slept with anyone but my sister, and I don’t see him embracing the whoring life now.”

  “Wow, that’s loyalty,” Casey said. “I don’t know how he does it. I mean, Alison was pretty and all, God rest her soul—”

  “You know what, Casey?” Erin asked, catching the not-subtle hardening of Brian’s features. “Probably best you just stop it right there.”

  “All right then,” Casey said with a shrug, then clapped his hands together in front of him. “So … what else are y’all up to?”

  “I’m just checking in,” Nguyen said. “And then maybe I’ll collapse for a while, unless someone wants to start a poker game.” When Casey cocked his head at the Father, he added, “For toothpicks only. I don’t gamble.”

  “An unjust gain of toothpicks still seems like gambling to me, Father,” Brian said with a thin smile.

  “God, you all are such a bunch of gossipy, catty, worrying little bitches,” Erin said, blowing air between pursed lips.

  “Whooo,” Brian said. “Shots fired.”

  “Yeah, at your manhood,” Casey agreed.

  Brian looked a little put out. “Yours too.”

  “Mine’s big,” Casey said with admirable self-assurance. “It can take the hit.”

  “You’re sitting here backbiting,” Erin said, building to a head of steam, “when we were all out there dealing with a truck-sized menace that blew hellfire at us. Where were you clowns?”

  “Brainstorming,” Brian said.

  “Getting high and putting dirt on the tires at the quarry,” Casey corrected him. When he caught the PO’d look, he shrugged. “She ain’t your mom, dumbass. You ain’t got to lie to her about smoking weed.”

  “No, but she’s a cop, Casey,” Brian said in a low growl, “and do you have any idea what the penalty for possession of marijuana is in Tennessee? Spoiler alert: it’s not among the lightest sentences in the US.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your weed,” Erin said, still steaming. “You can toke up out of dick-shaped bongs for all I care—”

  “Done it,” Casey said calmly.

  “I’m starting to get a little pissed about the lack of commitment around here,” Erin went on. “I thought we formed this watch so we could get serious about this demon shit going on around here.”

  “I thought it was a survival mechanism,” Father Nguyen tossed in. “Hang together or hang separately?”

  “It is that,” Erin said, toning it down a notch and throwing a little acknowledgment the Father’s way. “But you’d think, given everything on the line, people’d be all in by now. They’d be showing up more to stuff.” She threw up her arms. “People are still fucking going to work at the mill like it’s just another normal day.”

  “Yeah,” Casey said, “don’t they know that worrying about a demon eating you is more important than a bank taking back your house? Or your kids starving?”

  Erin just let that hang there. “Dammit, Casey, that ain’t—”

  “He’s got a point,” Brian said, sounding like he was conceding something he did not want to concede. “People are acting normal about this because … fuck, Erin. Who wants to acknowledge this for what it really is when they can maybe turn away from the truth for a little longer?” He put a hand through his hair. “They’re clinging to their lives because they don’t want to give up everything. It’s like charity. People are starving across the world, but you don’t see everyone give away everything they have and keep only the minimum to survive for themselves, do you? No, they give a little extra every now and again, to assuage their conscience, and go on living their lives. Because the alternative is to admit that they’re doing all right while their neighbors—local or global—are fucking dying.”

  “That’s not exactly right,” Casey said, frowning. “They go on living their lives, dumbass, because if they gave away everything, what the hell are they working for?”

  Brian slipped him a silky smile. “The good of our fellow man.” Duh! wasn’t said, but it was obvious to everyone in the room he meant it.

  “People ain’t wired that way,” Casey said, shaking his head. “We ain’t all Mother Theresa, and we don’t all get our satisfaction from giving everything away. You tell a man he gets to go home with his paycheck stripped down to nothing but the bare minimum to survive, why the hell is he going to go work harder?” Brian shrugged, already checking out, probably feeling like he’d made his point well enough. “People don’t work at the mill cuz it’s fun, Brian. They work there cuz it pays the bills, lets them live their life, feel like they’re contributing.” He paused. “And maybe lets ’em afford the payments on a sweet-ass bass boat and a new F-150.” He looked right at Erin. “You take that away from ’em, what the hell are they working for? What the hell are they fighting for?”

  “I get that, under normal circumstances,” Erin said, trying to avoid thinking about the fact that Casey fucking Meacham had just made a reasonable point. “This ain’t normal circumstances, Casey.”

  “Yeah, it ain’t normal,” Casey said. “But they want it to be normal, Erin. The guys around here, they’d love nothing better than for it to be back to fucking normal, you know? They ain’t looking for high drama, and most ain’t looking for this fight. They just want to live, man.” He put his thumbs in his belt loops under his greasy, sweaty shirt. “Just live. Have a few bucks in their pockets. Maybe take the kids to Disney every few years, hit up the Redneck Riviera with the family once a summer, and spend their weekends in the boat when it’s warm and the woods when it ain’t, and get football when they’re not doing either of those things. They don’t want your demon bullshit rolling through their main street, and they’ll fight to push it back, but … you can’t blame ’em for keeping their heads down and hoping the problem mostly goes away on its own, so they can get back to their business.” He leaned forward slightly on the balls of his feet. “Cuz they all got business of their own, and only the real adrenaline chasers or the ones who lost a shit-ton—like your friend the cowboy, or Braeden Tarley, or maybe Keith Drumlin—want this thing to go on a second longer than it has to.”

  Erin sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. Yeah, he had a damned good fucking point, and she hated every bit of it. “Okay,” she said. “So, how do we get ’em more involved?” She wondered if Reeve was still at the scene. Surely these were things he’d been pondering. “And …” This was the one rattling inside her since she’d seen Mary Wrightson’s shattered house: “How the hell do we kill that herd of h
ellcats?” She looked right at Brian.

  “Uhhh …” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He did look like he was a little high, maybe. “I have no idea.”

  She looked to Father Nguyen, and he said, “Unless it involves me sleeping for the first time in a couple days … I have no idea.”

  Benny Binion shrugged. “I’m just the radio man.”

  “Well,” Erin started, “we should keep thinking about—”

  “Okay, actually, I have an idea,” Casey said.

  Erin braced herself, deciding whether or not she even wanted to ask. Finally, figuring it best to just get it over with, she said, “All right … what is it?”

  *

  Reeve eased his car into the parking space at the County Administrator’s office and let out a deep sigh. It may not have been his least favorite thing ever, but meeting with Pike was right up there, regardless of how contrite the greasy little shit was about what had happened about Halloween, and however much he protested he was ready to help.

  Help? Shit. Even if the bastard could have made the demons go away with a slap of his ass and one good fart, Reeve would have been hesitant to ask the goddamned Yankee carpetbagging son of a bitch for help.

  “Once burned, twice shy,” Reeve muttered under his breath, still massaging his head. Ibuprofen, Tylenol, coffee—not one of these fucking things had made a dent in the throbbing pain Reeve was feeling in his skull. It had adopted a sort of bass echo in his ears now too, which made his disposition less friendly. Not that Reeve necessarily gave a shit, but Pike might if he ended up bearing the brunt of his orneriness. “Feels like that burn might have happened right behind the fucking eyes.”

  There was nothing more for it though. Reeve looked out the car window and up at the second story of the old brick building. What genius had decided to put the County Administrator’s office out here near Culver when the sheriff’s station was all the way back in Midian?

  A genius of the first order, of course, because it meant that Reeve didn’t get caught up in the bullshit day-to-day politics that Pike embraced like a horny teenage boy jumped on the first hot slice of naked chick that came his way. If Reeve could have gone back in time, he might have professed his thanks in any way possible to the architect of that decision. He wasn’t a sappy man, and certainly not inclined toward the same sex, but he might have conceded a handjob or twelve would be a worthy price to pay for the limited amount of contact he’d had with Pike up to this point in his career.

  Reeve had seen County Administrators come and go, of course. A sheriff or two as well. But he couldn’t quite recall seeing one like Pike, poached out of somewhere too far north for Reeve to ever trust him. It wasn’t that—as Erin had once accused him—Calhoun County was the end of his world; it was more of a general feeling that when someone moved halfway across the country and left their home behind to try and carve out a career in county government, leaving most of their family behind to do so—that person might just be a little toward the snake end of ambitious. And if that wasn’t enough to raise your eyebrow and make you keep your attention on them, Reeve didn’t know what would.

  Deciding he’d sat his ass out here about as long as he could get away with, Reeve sighed once more and gave up the hope of massaging that headache away. It never did work, regardless of where he rubbed. But he still kept trying anyway.

  Popping the door open, the brisk autumn breeze came rushing in at him as Reeve stood up, leaving the comfortable car’s seat behind. He let out a light groan and stretched, something that was becoming more and more necessary as the years went on. His lower back was pissed at him for standing so long at the fire site, and now his hamstrings were mad as hell that he’d been sitting for a half hour. If he could ever just get his damned body to get all in agreement about a course of action, Reeve felt like he’d have accomplished almost as much as organizing the watch.

  But there was always at least one complainer, and now his damned bladder, upset at the long-ish drive out here, chimed in as well.

  Reeve went for the door and found the building more or less empty. Hardly surprising, given the day, given the hour, given that there was a special election today, and given that the County Administrator’s office was not a polling place. He stopped off in the men’s room just inside the first floor, not seeing a soul at the receptionist’s desk. The other offices on the floor looked empty too, which suited Reeve just fine.

  Reeve stood at the urinal, zipper down, dick out, straining against his already throbbing head. He’d held it a little too long, and now his piss was refusing to come out. Son of a bitch.

  “I wish I knew what it’d take to make your ass happy,” he said to his bladder, voice echoing against the tile in the small men’s room. It was immaculately maintained, even though it looked like this place had been built in the forties. Janitorial took their shit seriously here, because it was fucking spotless. He wished the cleaning crew that worked the sheriff’s office had a quarter of this group’s work ethic and talent. Probably cost five times as much.

  It felt like little pinpricks in his urethra for a second when Reeve finally got things going, and the spray squirted to a stop a moment later. “Goddammit,” he said, louder than he intended. Why was everything these days such a damned ordeal?

  Because it just fucking had to be, of course. Nothing could be easy, not even taking a piss. Reeve put a hand on the cold tile above the urinal, listened to the silence, or near enough. An air conditioner was faintly humming in the background, pushing cool air through the building. Or maybe heat, given it was chilly outside. Either way, that distant sound wasn’t near enough to drown out the throbbing of his heart, the pulse of which provoked an actual reaction in Reeve’s head, like an aneurysm building up to blow.

  He took a deep breath, tried to make it soothing, but it just came out ragged, like he’d run a few miles. He’d done nothing of the sort, but he could smell the smoke from the fire on himself, seeped into his uniform, could feel the tension of dealing with—hell, all the shit he’d dealt with these last few weeks and months—ratcheting through his muscles. His left hand seemed like it might have been shaking, with his penis clutched in it and refusing to open the damned floodgates.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he breathed, tired of exerting himself here. A funny thought flashed through his mind—how long had it been since he and Donna had had marital relations? It’d been a few weeks before she died, hadn’t it? It was so infrequent these days, not at all like when they’d been young. He could almost see her in front of him. She was sagging, true, about as much as he was. They both had a gut, and took pains to hide it in their clothes. Her breasts weren’t nearly as pert as they’d been when they’d first married … but he hadn’t cared. They’d gotten old together, and she still looked good to him. He’d been with her more than any other woman in his life, and it was almost like he was that dog of Pavlov’s he read about in his youth, conditioned to drool every time she took off her clothes. Of course, he didn’t get fed every time she got naked, but it happened enough that he still got revved up, even though he knew for a fact if she’d come to him naked as a jaybird when he was a young man, he’d have thought twice, three times, maybe, but said no nonetheless.

  Now, he jumped on that every time he could.

  Or he had.

  A little spray came drizzling out of the tip of Reeve’s dick. Just a few drops at first, but somehow picturing Donna naked had taken some of the starch out of his muscles, relaxed him a little. He imagined her laugh, and another little squirt came out, splattering the back of the urinal with a gentle tinkling sound against the porcelain. It ran, tracing a yellow waterfall down to the pink, scented urinal cake, the smell of which was barely there under all the smoke on Reeve’s clothes.

  “I got all the time in the world,” he told himself, and imagined Donna again. He thought about the two of them in bed, and strangely, that really got things going. He was letting it all out now, peeing up a storm in front of the urinal thinking about his dea
d wife. It should have felt disrespectful somehow, this idea that he was thinking of her and it was letting him piss, finally, after all that strain and trying came to naught, but he didn’t care because he could almost feel the water level in his bladder dropping, and it was a sweet goddamned relief.

  Pretty soon it pinched off, and Reeve felt a lump in his throat. The regret was setting in, now that he was done. Thinking of those sorts of memories had been relaxing at first, but of course there’d be a cost. He’d been running from this shit for weeks, burying himself in thoughts of demons, of saving the town. It had been all he’d thought of, the cause of his present headache and his fatigue. He leaned hard against that hand that braced him against the wall, and gave his dick a shake, then again. It dripped the last few stray drops, and he carefully navigated it back inside the zipper.

  Another unwanted thought presented itself—would he ever use it for anything besides pissing again? He had his doubts. Nick Reeve was getting up there, and even with Donna it was becoming more and more infrequent. Hell, he’d even failed to rise to the occasion last time she’d offered, a humiliating retreat if ever there was one. The fact that that was their last sexual experience together …

  Well, that, as his grandkids were so fond of saying, really sucked.

  He zipped up and pushed off the tile wall, making his way over to the sink. Reeve stared at himself in the mirror. His face was red from the exertion of trying to pee around—stressed muscles, an angry prostate? Hell if he knew. It wasn’t helping the headache though, that much was certain. He looked at himself in the mirror, and …

  Man, he’d gotten old. Those crow’s feet had really dug in around the eyes, like someone had gotten in there with a shovel and started entrenching. He turned the knob on the faucet and started to wash his hands in cold water, feeling the chill seep through to the old bones and stay there. Winter would be here soon enough, and he couldn’t take those like he used to either. He and Donna had talked about spending their winters down in the Redneck Riviera after he retired, that stretch of the Florida panhandle where Tennesseeans and Alabamans and Georgians all drove down to vacation. It’d be warmer there, maybe a chance for his old bones to thaw out.