Culver was lit up ahead, about a hundred lights just shining as night started to descend, but …
The town had faded beneath the black smoke blotting out the purple sky in a steady cloud, and what looked like a massive bonfire going on just up ahead.
Erin eased off finally on the approach, done blistering her way up the highway. It was like seeing the conflagration gave her permission to stop rushing. Or maybe it just stunned her, she realized as she pulled the cruiser into the parking lot, wheeling up, and looking around for—
There was no sign of the bald head shining against the licking flames that were billowing their way out of the flat roof of the county building. Smoke poured out of the second floor windows, like black water rolling upward in defiance of gravity.
She let the cruiser coast into the parking lot, managed to regain her presence of mind and hit the brakes right before she collided with the fire truck, already deployed and just starting to get the hoses going. They’d probably been here a while, but she knew, dimly, that it took some time to charge the hoses and all that. They were starting a stream now, water falling into the black smoke and into the structure itself as Erin put the car in park and stepped out.
The air was thick with smoke, that chemical stink of something other than wood burning. She coughed a couple times, then covered her nose with her upper arm, but that didn’t do anything but make her realize she’d either rushed out the door this morning without remembering her deodorant or else it had failed, miserably, after a taxing day.
Erin looked around, and found one thing—County Administrator Pike sitting on the bumper of a car with a blanket wrapped around him, his wife next to him. She was watching the blaze, and as Erin came up, she could see the fire dancing in the woman’s eyes, a kind of intensity in the flames that made Erin wonder if she was in there at all.
They both had a little soot caked on their faces, like they’d rubbed charcoal on them. Pike coughed as she approached, and Mrs. Pike blinked her surprise away, locking her eyes on Erin.
Erin didn’t have to ask; Pike told her: “Sheriff Reeve—he’s still in there.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d breathed in a fair amount of smoke.
“Jenny’s in there too,” Mrs. Pike said, her own voice a little wobbly. When Erin just stared at her, she went on, “Jenny’s his administrative assistant.”
Erin just stared at her. Nobody called things what they were anymore. She looked at Pike, and he nodded. His secretary was still in there?
She turned back to the blaze, and it was glowing orange in every one of the first floor windows now, fire kicking out from every single one. If the secretary was still in there … if Reeve was still in there …
“They’re fucking dead,” Erin said, as the squeal of tires turned her head, announcing the arrival of Hendricks in his stolen SUV, and, a second later, Barney Jones, Braeden Tarley, and, in the back seat, Arch. She’d have to tell them, she realized, feeling a little cloud settling over her like the black smoke filling the skies was twisting downward to funnel right onto her. She’d have to tell them all.
Sheriff Reeve was fucking dead.
*
Brian was killing time, tapping his fingers against the desk as he sat there in the holding cell area. He didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to go look at the thing—that empty vessel in the next room that had carried more death to this town than any other demon so far. Staring in there didn’t seem like a sound plan, especially since he was still coming down off his high with Casey.
So he sat and tapped his fingers, and found it strangely rewarding. He could have fucked around with his phone, sure, but he’d done that, and staring at a small digital screen for a long time was kinda unappealing when he was lit.
So instead he tapped his fingers, and found it strangely soothing, both in the sensation at the tips and also for the steady cadence and noise it brought, ringing in his senses.
Something buzzed, and Brian sighed. There went the phone. He fished for it, coming up with it and staring at the burning phosphorescent screen, white and bright as the text message came through.
SHERIFF REEVE IS DEAD.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered, gut sinking like someone had kicked him in the balls.
Was this for real?
*
Arch had waited around with the others until the fire died down. No one had said much of anything once Erin had gotten out her news, because … what was anyone going to say?
So they’d waited in silence until the fire department had done their work, and the building was barely smoking now. It still stank to high heaven, but there were no embers coming out of the windows like fireflies in the night, and the hoses weren’t squirting to their fullest, the streams dying down now.
The first firemen went in a few minutes later, and came out a few more after that. Arch was standing with Marty Ferrell, waiting to see what he’d say.
It didn’t take long for Ferrell to make his way over, his grey hair matted down with sweat. Marty was in his late forties, and he had that jaded look that cops tended to pick up after a year or two patrolling. Ferrell split his attention between Arch and Erin, like he was delivering news of a car accident death to a married couple. Arch realized he might have done the same a time or two in his career, and felt mighty strange about it.
“We think we found them,” Ferrell said, his mask hanging off.
“I need to see,” Erin said.
For just a moment, Ferrell looked like he might argue. But then he shrugged, and said, “The building seems structurally sound, so … okay. You’ll need a mask.” He nodded at one of his men.
“I’m going too,” Arch said, just to eliminate any doubt. The chief nodded.
“Me three,” Hendricks said, and the man shed his coat, tossing it to a fireman, who caught it, looking sour at the catch and then, a second later, surprised at the sight of the pistol and the sword on Hendricks’s belt. Maybe some of these guys were from Culver, not Midian, and didn’t know what had been happening.
It took a few minutes to suit up, and they did this in silence too, except for the occasional acknowledgment of the fireman’s commands. Arch had his head in a mask the first of all of them, carrying one of those oxygen tanks on his back, a fireman in close attendance.
“If this goes sideways,” Ferrell said, and his expression was plain even though he had his mask back on, “you will follow us and haul your asses out of there. Follow my commands exactly, you understand?”
“Yes,” Erin said, and Arch echoed her.
“Yes, Mother,” Hendricks said a beat after them.
If Ferrell took umbrage to Hendricks’s remark, he didn’t let on. Instead he lifted a hand and signaled for them to follow.
The downstairs didn’t look anything like what Arch was expecting. He figured the whole place would be gutted by fire, but it wasn’t. There was damage, sure, but to his right it looked like the fire hadn’t even made it down there. Just an inch of standing water that seemed like it might have washed in during the flood a few months back. Papers were floating, sodden, on top of the waters, and a small desk trash can on its side drifted past in one of the larger puddles.
Black soot clung to every wall, giving the entire place a shading. They made their way through toward the staircase, and passed a bathroom. “Anyone need to piss?” Hendricks muttered, spiking Arch’s annoyance. He didn’t say anything though.
“Up the stairs, and be careful,” Ferrell said, muffled through his mask but talking loud enough to be heard.
They circled up the stairwell, borrowed boots squishing in the wetness and squeaking once they went up a step, leaving the standing water behind. Here, thin smoke still clouded the ceiling, and Arch eyed it nervously. He knew that the big danger in a fire was smoke inhalation, not necessarily being burned to death, and it made him leery of the stuff lingering above.
“This way,” Ferrell said, as he pushed through the door at the top of the staircase.
Here, the evidence of
a fire was in full flower. Black scorched the walls from the ground up, dark ebony scoring telling Arch that the flames had had their way here. A charred desk in the corner of the room suggested to him that this had maybe been an office, though it was hard to tell in the haze. Water dripped down from the ceiling, catching him on the shoulders and wetting the bright yellow coat he wore over his clothes.
“Jesus,” Hendricks breathed.
Erin made no sound, but led the way behind the chief, ash and water splashing underfoot. She turned and he saw a grim look through her plastic mask, the quiet determination that suggested to him she was focused, taking in everything or maybe almost nothing—excluding anything from her sight that didn’t fit what she was looking for.
“Over here,” Ferrell said, waving them over. They went on through a room that had the same black scorching as the walls. It was obvious this was where the fire had been at the hottest, and Arch could see clear through to the sky above. “This old building was made out of cinder block and the subfloor’s pretty strong, but … better we don’t linger here too much, okay?”
Erin stopped in the door, Arch a step behind her. He could see over her just fine, so he didn’t need to ask why she stopped.
There was a body in the floor in front of another burned-out desk. It looked like it had gotten the worst of the fire, scorched and charred, almost kneeling like it was praying.
“Shit,” Erin breathed, and a second later, he saw it. He saw quite a lot, actually, but this …
A piece of metal hanging from the body, a six-point star reduced to slag that hung, deformed, from the blackened remainder of clothing on the left breast. It was no longer readable, but based on where it was located on the body, Arch had no doubts …
That was a sheriff’s badge.
This was Sheriff Nicholas Reeve.
“Fuck,” Hendricks breathed behind him. They were all whispering like they were treading on holy ground.
The face was no longer recognizable as such. Arch had seen folks die in a fire before, and sometimes they even came out of it looking like nothing had happened.
This was not the case here.
Reeve’s face was gone, black and charred, not a square inch of visible skin that didn’t carry a thick layer of carbon, the face and skull charred beyond recognition.
Erin finally moved, turning, pushing past Arch, on her way out. “Move,” she said, sounding like she had gravel in her throat.
“There’s another body in here,” Ferrell said, and Arch turned back to deal with him as Erin bustled past. Hendricks hesitated, then Arch heard him turn his heel and splash off after her, a little slower.
“I’ll take a look,” Arch said, and he did, stepping into the room. It might once have been a sunny office, but now he was afforded a view of the trees outside, not seeing a heck of a lot except the smoke oozing its way out. There was another body, sure enough, and he gave it a quick look. It was a little smaller than the one before, and he nodded once he’d given it the once-over. “Probably the secretary.”
“That’s my guess,” Ferrell said with a nod, face blurred by the mask.
“You got a guess on how this came to happen?” Arch asked, trying to picture the scene in his mind. He hadn’t quite run across anything this bad.
“Fire started down the hall—I think,” Ferrell said. “Old records room, highly combustible. Can’t say for sure how it happened, just that it spread quickly.” He hesitated. “I need to look around more before I make a judgment. But anyway, looks like these two were maybe overwhelmed. By the time they got warning about the fire, it was already blocking the stairs.” He shrugged under the fire coat. “That’s all speculation, of course.”
“The sprinklers didn’t work?” Arch asked.
“Apparently not,” Ferrell said. “It’s an old building, but …” He shook his head. “We’ll take a closer look.”
“Shouldn’t the fire alarms have warned them about this?” Hendricks spoke from behind him, and Arch turned in surprise to see the cowboy standing there, hatless, coatless, watching intently beneath the mask. “You know, before it trapped them and burned them alive.”
“You’d think,” Ferrell said, tension betraying him. “Like I said, I need to look around more.”
“Could have been a fire sloth,” Arch said. “Maybe shot a blaze right in here.”
“He just said it started in the records room,” Hendricks said.
“I said I think it did,” Ferrell said. “I need to actually investigate. It could have started in multiple places for all I know. One of those things y’all killed, breathing in the window? That’d explain how it lit up so fast, because that fire it used down at Whistling Pines? Was damned hot.”
“‘Damned hot’ is the right way to describe it,” Hendricks said dryly. And then he turned and headed on out.
“You let us know when you figure it out, okay?” Arch asked, taking one last look at the corpse, burned like it was praying, right there in front of the remains of the desk.
He turned away from the bizarre tableau, thinking he might ought to do some praying of his own, post-haste. Beyond that …
Sheriff Reeve was dead.
Arch tried to come to grips with that reality on his way down the stairs. He still hadn’t, even when he took off the mask out in the parking lot, and breathed in a long breath of smoky night air.
*
Erin was struggling with what she’d seen inside. She knew what it was she’d seen, but her gut didn’t want to believe it. It felt like one of those times when you looked in the mirror and didn’t quite recognize the face looking back at you. Dazed, she shed her fire coat and mask, handing them off numbly to a fireman who took them, unspeaking, and wandered across the parking lot.
“Yo,” Guthrie’s voice reached out to her, like a beacon in the dark, and Erin found herself drawn toward the demon. Duncan was standing next to Guthrie, the two of them just waiting, like they’d gotten the message and come running—
Of course they had. That was what they did.
This was what the watch did.
Erin’s legs were numb and carried her over, her head down, dully staring at the webwork of hoses that crisscrossed the dark parking lot. She was staring at the individual pebbles, then lifted her eyes again. Guthrie was nearly inscrutable, severe, but Duncan—
Duncan knew.
He wasn’t looking up anymore, he was staring at his own feet in those whiter than white, perfectly gleaming tennis shoes. When had he even found time to get a new pair of shoes?
“You look like someone kicked you in the jimmies,” Guthrie said as she got closer. “Or the ovaries, I guess.” She traded a look with Duncan, who was glaring at her. “What?”
“Who else showed up?” Erin asked, looking around the parking lot. Other than the fire department volunteers, it didn’t look like many in the watch were here.
“I don’t know—” Guthrie started to say.
“We’re it,” Duncan said, “for now.”
The chill autumn air prickled at Erin’s skin. Dusk was settling heavy on this place. It was suppertime, and she glanced over to her right. The Pikes were standing there, still wearing their heavy emergency blankets. Braeden Tarley and Barney Jones were standing off from them a little ways, Jones watching her.
Erin picked her way over, Guthrie and Duncan trailing along in her wake a little ways back. When she got close, Mrs. Pike—damned if Erin could remember her name, in spite of having met the spiteful cunt a few times—looked up at her. There was no flash of recognition, but there was a flash. She elbowed her husband, and County Administrator Pike got up on his feet, trying to look solicitous as he did so, she reckoned.
“Hey there, deputy,” Pike said, voice all scratchy and low. Smoke inhalation, she figured. “Did you find—”
“We found him,” she said, with a simple nod. “Sheriff Reeve is dead. The other woman who was in there—”
“Oh, God, no,” Pike said, slumping back down onto the bumper of t
he car as his wife placed a hand on his back, rubbing it soothingly. “Jenny.”
“This is so terrible,” Mrs. Pike said, a little flatly for Erin’s taste. She bore a big cut on her left hand, an open wound that was bleeding slightly.
“Yeah.” Erin didn’t know what to say other than that. “Can you tell us what happened?”
There was a scrape of a foot behind them, and Erin turned to see Arch and Hendricks making their way over, Hendricks slipping back into his coat, the hat already back on his head. Arch had a dulled look, no surprise there, and neither of them acknowledged anyone in this rapidly forming little circle, just hung at the edge, listening to the Pikes.
“Something came out of the woods,” Mr. Pike said, giving a thousand-yard stare at the ground and shaking his head slowly. “All I saw was fire come blazing in the window. I jumped and ducked, but … it was everywhere.”
“I grabbed him by the collar and we crawled,” Mrs. Pike said, as she looked into Erin’s eyes. “On the ground, as fast as we could.”
“She just hung on to me the whole way,” Pike said, looking at his wife with those glazed eyes. “If it hadn’t been for you …” He kissed her on the cheek, a wet smack in the growing darkness. Then he looked at the building and shuddered.
“So no one else made it out alive?” Mrs. Pike’s lip trembled.
“I’m afraid not,” Erin said, feeling like the fire had burned out her insides, like it had scorched through the dead underbrush in her soul, and everything had just washed it away in the flames. There was nothing left now, not even the professionalism it took to remember what questions she should ask here, nor the sense to get some distance from it so she could recall.
All she could think of was that damned giant flaming sloth thing this afternoon, and how shit-tacular it was that now there was another one of them, a mate, maybe, all pissed off that its other half was dead. She glanced in the direction of Culver. Lucky it hadn’t decided to go on a rage through town, because that would have been a catastrophe.
Starling (Southern Watch Book 6) Page 47