Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “That’s what people say about my brother-in-law,” Brian said.

  “Bigger than Arch,” Benny said. “Bigger than a house, according to her.”

  Brian just stared at him. “And you didn’t think to mention that to the watch?” He scrambled and grabbed the cell phone from in front of Benny and hurriedly composed a text. Even without him trying, it was better spelled than the last.

  *

  Hendricks was driving again, happy as a pig in shit to be in charge. Duncan didn’t seem to mind, since he was a little demonic pussy gelding, content to let others drive. Not that Hendricks hadn’t had a long period of that, but it was mainly because he didn’t want to deal with the maintenance issues of having a car. Now that he’d come to Midian, though, and was dealing with a hotspot laid out over a full-sized American county—or most of it—the advantages of having an automobile were undeniable. It wasn’t like this was some quaint, one-street European village with excellent public transportation, after all.

  Which was good, because he liked having the .45 strapped to his hip, no matter how little it did to demons. He fucking hated leaving it behind on the rare occasions when he traveled internationally. And getting the sword through customs? A cast-iron bitch, it was.

  “What are you feeling?” Hendricks asked, looking over at Duncan. So far all the OOC had told him was to head into town. The thin man, whoever he was, had not come back to the motel after their initial sighting, at least as far as Hendricks knew. He’d been watching—at least a little between sleeping, fucking Starling, and watching Westworld—and no dice on seeing him. He suspected that the bastard had probably taken a room in town somewhere. Maybe he’d seen them, who knew? “Other than yourself.” He nodded at Duncan’s crotch.

  “I don’t really do that,” Duncan said, concentrating.

  “You let Guthrie do it?” Hendricks asked.

  Duncan just stared out the front window. “Guthrie’s got his—her—whatever—Guthrie’s got no need for me.”

  Hendricks wasn’t sure how to take that reply and didn’t want to probe further for fear of what it might upturn. So he didn’t.

  For about five seconds. “Is Guthrie fucking someone local?”

  “You mean like you?” Duncan asked, finally favoring him with at least a sidelong look.

  “I know she ain’t fucking me,” Hendricks said. “I’d remember a cranky demon wearing the shell of a middle-aged black lady crashing into my crotch, and that ain’t happened.”

  “What has happened?” Duncan asked, and Hendricks got the feeling he was trying to divert attention away from not answering the question. “You and a—whatever Starling is—”

  “You guys have a hard time copping to the fact that she’s on the other team, huh?”

  “I don’t know her and I don’t know what she is,” Duncan said. “And neither do you, other than a good lay.”

  “Sounds like almost every relationship on planet Earth,” Hendricks said. “Plus or minus the ‘good lay’ thing. So I’m kinda ahead with that.”

  “You didn’t even believe in the ‘other side,’” Duncan said. “But now you believe—”

  “I don’t believe in God,” Hendricks said, “in the same way I don’t believe in Zeus or Odin or whoever the ancient peoples of the world worshipped. That doesn’t mean I don’t think there might have been people by those names who were—I don’t know—ancient heroes or something that ancient man elevated into gods. I mean, think about it, maybe some guy got crucified two thousand years ago, and his followers put on a scheme to pretend he came back. The ultimate stage one of the grief process, you know?” He shrugged. “We humans have funny ways of explaining the events of life to ourselves. I could easily believe someone takes a story about some scary army up against their virtuous one and turned it into something about frightening, demonic anger—them—versus our saintly, sweet army of pure defense who never did a cross thing ever—us. Boom, there’s your Christian myth in a nutshell, because let’s face it—everybody needs a devil to hate.”

  “Well, you people do a fair amount of hating of us devils,” Duncan said. “And speaking as one of them, I wish you’d pick your targets better.”

  “Speaking as one of the hunters,” Hendricks said, “I do—as evidenced by the fact you and I haven’t gotten in a scrape yet.” He jerked the steering wheel slightly to avoid an oversized truck coming down the road toward him.

  “I like the ‘yet,’” Duncan said.

  Hendricks did his best to shrug without upsetting the wheel. “You seem all right, but let’s face it—you work for somebody other than the watch. You’ve seen what’s happened among us humans over the last week, without Reeve to steer the ship. Our intentions are all toward trying to get things righted around here. Yours are to police demons, probably. But your Home Office—”

  “Which I’ve been ignoring.” Duncan didn’t quite bristle, but maybe his low-key version of it.

  “—they’ve got other aims,” Hendricks said. “Now maybe you stay with us all the way up to whatever end we make of this thing, and maybe you decide to follow your original loyalties. I wouldn’t care to speak for you in that.”

  Duncan actually turned and looked at him, but he was inscrutable. “That’s … probably wise.” It sounded like a concession.

  “Do I turn up ahead here?” Hendricks asked. As much as he wanted to continue the conversation and stab home the next point he’d come up with, he was just driving down Old Jackson Highway without a clue where he was going.

  “Stay straight,” Duncan said. A buzzing filled the air as their phones went off. Hendricks started to go for his, but Duncan beat him, grabbing his own first. “Eyes on the road. I’ll read it to you.”

  “Maybe mine’s different than yours,” Hendricks said.

  “‘I need you now,’” Duncan said. “It’s signed, ‘Starling.’ You’re right; this one is probably just for me.”

  “Dick,” Hendricks said. Duncan was reading his own phone; there was no way he got a text from Starling. Plus: “She doesn’t even text, you fucking shelled asshole.”

  “I bet Starling sexting would be super hot,” Duncan said, still staring at his phone. “‘I will bring the hot pussy unto you this eve. You must bring the rigid cock, and together we will grate our nethers against one another until climax is achieved.’”

  “You’re giving me another boner here,” Hendricks said. “What’s the message actually say?”

  “It’s borderline illiterate, but it says there was a massive demon sighted out on Hickory Lane. Why do you people bother having rules you don’t even follow?”

  “What the hell are we talking about?” Hendricks asked, kinda confused.

  “The speed limit is 45 through here,” Duncan said, pointing at the needle. “I don’t mean to be pedantic, but you’re doing 55.”

  Hendricks confirmed that he was indeed ten over. “And?”

  “No one drives the speed limit exactly,” Duncan said. “It’s more like a speed guideline, and they only tend to nail you if you get, like, ten over.”

  “Yeah, I doubt they’ll do that around here, because we work with them, and they’re busy with other shit,” Hendricks said. “But I get your point.”

  “Why have a law nobody follows?” Duncan asked. “Also, turn left at the next traffic light.”

  “We getting close?” Hendricks asked.

  “No. The square’s been closed since Halloween, remember?” Duncan pointed ahead. Yep, Hendricks could see the barricades, still up. “I guess the county hasn’t hired an official clean-up crew, and you people seem averse to driving on the splattered remains of your own, so …”

  Hendricks cringed. “Yeah. Somebody ought to get to cleaning that shit.”

  “Drumlin and McMinn are on it.” Hendricks stared at Duncan blankly over those names. “I dunno,” the demon said in answer, “they’re two of the new guys on the watch.”

  “Pffft, FNGs,” Hendricks said. “You expect me to remember all these Jo
hnny Come Latelys?”

  “I don’t expect anything of you except for you to keep sticking your boner in a redhead you don’t exactly understand,” Duncan said, “but then again, I’ve probably got a Hobbesian view of human nature.”

  “Cute. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s dim,” Duncan said. “Very dim. Take a right and follow this past the square.”

  Hendricks did as he was told, mainly because he didn’t have an active GPS to do the guiding for him. “So … massive demon out near Hickory Lane. Wherever that is.”

  “I guess,” Duncan said. “I’m not feeling it.”

  “You think it’s a false alarm?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just not feeling it. Either way, I want to follow this up.”

  “Because the skinny guy here is dangerous?” Hendricks asked. He’d stabbed a few demons of late, but there was always time in his day to stab another.

  “I don’t know,” Duncan said. “He’s no innocent, hanging around this town and stirring up my demon-dar.”

  It took Hendricks a second to get it. “Like demon radar.”

  “Bingo.”

  “That wasn’t real clear.”

  “Sometimes I like to make you get off your lazy, redhead-fucking ass and work for it.”

  “Maybe if it was a better joke …”

  “Turn in here,” Duncan said, sitting up abruptly. He pointed at a squat building that was on a side street, a small parking lot out back. It wasn’t terribly big, maybe a couple times the size of a normal house in town.

  Hendricks obeyed and pulled in, driving past the building into the rear parking lot and finding an open spot. He shifted into park because Duncan didn’t tell him not to, nose up like a bloodhound, ears perked like he was hearing something. “What is it, boy?” he asked, thinking of those black and white reruns of Lassie that he’d occasionally catch as a kid when at his grandparents’ house. “You hear something?”

  Duncan didn’t move. “I’m not a dog, and if you fall down a well, I’m leaving you there. Also … obscure.”

  “Like I made you work for it?” Hendricks cracked a grin and caught some more side-eye from Duncan. “You’ve been around a long time. Figured if anyone got it, you would.” He chucked a thumb over his shoulder toward the building. “This it?”

  “Yeah.” Duncan nodded. “What is this place?”

  Hendricks turned at the waist, looking over his shoulder. “Funeral home. Say, didn’t we run into this guy at—”

  “Funerals,” Duncan said, now turned around himself, squinting back at the building. “Hmm.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Hmmm.’”

  “Could be a lot of things,” Duncan said, opening the car door. “Mostly, though, it means we’re going to have to go inside for a closer look, because it’d be impossible to tell from here.”

  Hendricks checked his phone, catching the text message from the watch. The spelling wasn’t that far off. At least it was readable. Got the point across. He’d probably done worse. “And our comrades in arms? You reckon they’ll be fine while we go put a holy point in this skinny fuck?”

  “More of them are going out there to check out this ‘MAAASIVE’ demon than are going in here with us,” Duncan said, pulling out his baton and cradling it, undeployed, in his hand. “If you’re asking me to guess who’s in more danger, I say us.”

  “Pffft,” Hendricks said as they started across the parking lot. “‘Ain’t skeered.’” But he kept his hand on the hilt of his sword nonetheless.

  *

  Drake made his way carefully up to the front door of the house/daycare. He wasn’t sure exactly how many of the little creatures to expect, and it didn’t really matter. He would pick the choicest cuts.

  His wingtips thumped against the aging floorboards of the porch, and he tilted his head sideways in order to look into the tall pane window just to the left of the door. He put a pleasant smile on his face and rang the doorbell.

  The wind picked up and blew past him, ruffling the tail of his suit jacket and his hair, which was very carefully styled. He looked in the window, past his own reflection, which he barely noticed, and saw movement in the shadow projected by the glass. A woman with a wide smile and age lines at the corners of her eyes made her way to the door, little shadows following at her heels. A satisfying click heralded the door’s deadbolt being undone, and then the handle lock rattled.

  The door swung just a foot, and a woman’s face appeared, stuck out a little.

  “Perfect,” Drake said, and the woman frowned in confusion.

  He slipped the knife from his belt and ran it across her throat before she even had a chance to react. That done, he shoved her hard back inside, looking swiftly left and then right. There was no one on the surrounding porches—probably a little too chilly—and so he was alone out here, unwatched. Once he’d pushed the older woman out of the way, hearing squeals as she stumbled over some future cutlet lingering behind her, Drake entered the home daycare and shut the door behind him.

  The old woman was gasping, flopping, trying to hold her throat. She’d also fallen atop the cutlets, and so he heaved her off, tossing her bodily through the air. She crashed against the archway of a door leading into a playroom where another few children were playing with a colorful variety of toys, and then crashed back to the floor, head thumping soundly against it upon impact. She lay still, a pool of red spreading out onto the carpet from her neck, her skull caved in squarely in the back.

  Drake did a headcount. One, two, three, four, five—six. Six little animals. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing, and would at least let him answer the big questions. “Hmm,” he said, and unlooped the rope he’d put on his belt. He leaned down and picked up the one caterwauling next to him, dragging it to its feet. It did not wish to stay on its feet though, which was most annoying. He wrapped the rope around its midsection and then moved on to bind up the next, leaving it to cry—for now. He had six more to rope, after all, before he could get moving.

  *

  Brian felt the semi-warm air come rushing down at him as the station’s heater kicked in. Thank God the heat worked here. Not that it was freezing outside, but it wasn’t exactly balmy out there.

  “Now that that’s done,” Brian said, putting down the cell phone, “you’re pretty much relieved, Benny.”

  Benny just frowned at him. “I think you relieved me when you took the phone away, Brian.”

  Brian shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure they knew what was coming.”

  Benny looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. “My wife’s always busting my ass about my spelling. I’m telling you, autocorrect did it this time.”

  “Autocorrect made it so you didn’t remember to tell them exactly how big the demon they were going out to investigate was?” Benny’s face took on a sullen expression. “I mean, uh …” Brian tried to think of a way to dig himself out, but it didn’t come immediately.

  “See you later,” Benny said a little huffily, and threaded his way through the bullpen’s assortment of desks, around the counter and out the door. Brian still hadn’t thought of something soothing to say by the time he walked out, and so he just mentally shrugged and got on about the day. Wasn’t much he could do, after all.

  *

  “Well, ain’t this a fucking grandiose display of hell come to earth?” Nate McMinn asked as Erin stood on Hickory Lane, trying to keep her jaw from banging against her clit. Maybe even her ankles, it was so close to the ground.

  Her skin prickled, and it had zero to do with the chilly air. The breeze came up and rustled its way through the trees still standing on the street, shoving aside the branches like a pissed-off running back shoving off a tackle, then two tackles, then more.

  Hickory Lane was a fucking devastated mess. Twelve houses used to stand here, and now …

  It looked like a hurricane had run through, shingles at Erin’s feet, entire buildings caved in, a disaster scene out of the Earth
quake! movie, or maybe any one of a dozen others she’d seen over the years lately, where the endgame was always utter devastation.

  That was what she was seeing here. One house had an open gas line burning, shooting flame up in the air like the fires of hell. She’d talked to Wyatt Pressler—Marty Ferrell’s replacement, now that he’d gone and disappeared—and he was already on it, trying to shut off the line for the entire street, because every front lawn on Hickory Lane was so covered in debris, every house so fucking devastated to the foundation that it wasn’t like they could reach the gas shutoffs for any of the former residences.

  This was Mary Wrightson’s farmhouse writ large; this was getting toward epic in its scale of destruction, and it made her sick. She’d been there the night that the Rog’tausch had started tearing through Midian, but that had been one big guy-shaped demon that had pounded its way through town, like a wrecking ball leaving holes in walls and smashing cars.

  Here, though … here it was an army of wrecking balls, ripping their way through whatever they wanted.

  “How the fuck do we even fight this?” Keith Drumlin asked. He and McMinn were tight, almost like they should have been holding each other for comfort, Erin thought. Normally, she might have gotten a giggle out of that idea.

  Not here. Not now.

  Instead she listened carefully for any sound out of the woods that surrounded Hickory Lane. Not a thing was moving though, and once she was sure it was so, she pulled her cell phone off its place on her belt and dialed up Father Nguyen. He answered after a few seconds with a sleepy mutter: “Hello?”

  “Did you finish yet?” she asked, hoping—hoping—goddamn did she hope—that he had.

  “Yeah,” he said, and she pumped her fist, looking at the wreckage of the debris field in front of her. “The last one is done. Did you run into—”

  “Yes,” Erin said. “The text is on your phone. Get whoever you can together and meet us out here. We’ll do a little mapping and then …” She hung up on the suggestion, staring at the wreckage of one of the houses. She hadn’t needed to say the rest; Nguyen knew exactly what was coming next anyhow. They’d been planning it since the last shadowcats had come running through and ripped up Mary Wrightson’s house.