Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  Because this was what the watch did.

  They might not solve all the problems, but they’d sure try. And that was all the difference Brian could hope for, he realized grimly, as he counted the minutes until he could leave.

  *

  The elevator doors opened on the 4th floor at Red Cedar, and Brian stepped out, head down, humming to himself. It wasn’t a happy hum—the smell of this place tended to put him into a quieter mood. It was more born of desire to break the chain of gloomy thoughts that had hounded him on the drive to Chattanooga.

  And they had hounded him, too. Right into the elevator, following like a mangy and flea-bitten stray dog, ready to transfer some itchy misery right to him.

  He raised his eyes to make sure he wasn’t going to run into anyone as he navigated the beige hallways, passing right by the waiting area where he’d killed more hours than he cared to count. Then he let his gaze droop again. He didn’t look up much anymore. Why would he? People here were mostly grim, mostly glum. A few spots of light here and there, but … these were people whose family members, friends were seriously ill.

  Where was the bright spot in that?

  It was kinda like Midian in that way. Smiling, happy people in the streets? Yeah, once upon a time. They might have been having a hell of a time if not for this whole demon swarm that had come down on them like a fucking apocalypse, but—

  “Mr. Longholt?” A soft voice caused Brian to stop, mid-step, and nearly trip over himself. He blinked and looked up to see a woman standing. He hadn’t even heard her approach. She was wearing a long white coat. One of his dad’s doctors, probably. He’d met a few but didn’t remember all their names.

  “Yeah?” Brian asked, voice a little raspy. He rubbed at his neck. “That’s me.”

  The doctor’s face was expressionless. “About your father …”

  Brian perked up. “Yes?” Could there be some good news at-fucking-last?

  “He went into cardiac arrest about an hour ago,” the doctor went on, as calm as if she were placing a lunch order, “and despite all of our efforts, we were unable to resuscitate him.”

  Brian blinked, taking all that in. “You … what?”

  The lady doctor looked at him. She was somehow blurry now. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “My … loss …?” It didn’t quite make it through the first time, but it was starting to sink in now.

  Brian just stood there, numb. She probably said something more, but he couldn’t hear it.

  His dad … dead?

  Something snapped in him, and even though people were talking, he ignored them all, plunging past the elevator and to the stairs. Urgent cries followed him, but he heard none of them—and all of them. He went down the four flights to the lobby and was out, out the door and on his way back to his car, had started it up and was on his way back to Midian only moments later.

  And through the cloud of emotions, all pressed on mute, he knew at last what he had to do.

  *

  “I can’t protect you from life,” Lauren said. It was her opening volley to Molly. Heh. “Volley to Molly.” It even sounded funny in her head.

  Molly was just staring at her as they cruised down the Chattanooga street, head tilted to the side. “Uhm, okay. What does that have to do with my trig homework for the new school?” She stared blankly at Lauren. “Which is due tomorrow, and we don’t seem to be heading back to Elise’s house.” She kept her eyes fixed on Lauren but shook her head slightly. “Hello? Mom? Anybody home?”

  “I’m here,” Lauren said, turning her attention back to the road. It was only a quarter mile to 75, and she needed to pay attention so she didn’t miss the turn. “Just … trying to tell you something I figured out today.” She thought about carrying those toddlers on her hips. Once upon a time she’d carried Molly like that.

  Now all she could do was carry her daughter in a car. She was way too big to lift.

  “Ooookay,” Molly said, in full sarcastic teen style, leaning back and looking at Lauren, waiting for her to go on.

  “If all I teach you is to run when things get really bad,” Lauren said, easing back into the conversation she’d rehearsed in her head when she’d driven back to Chattanooga, “what the hell am I really teaching you?” She hit the turn signal; I-75’s northbound on-ramp was coming up.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said, sounding pretty checked out. “To be a track star?”

  “Well, I don’t think you have much of a future as Usain Bolt,” Lauren said, “because I’ve seen you run, and frankly, you’re more dangerous to yourself on those gangly legs than you are safe.”

  Molly’s face darkened. “Gee, thanks. I wonder who I inherited being a klutz from, ‘She-who-trips-on-moonbeams’?”

  Lauren shrugged. “We’re not graceful. It’s genetic. But that’s okay, because you know what we are?” She looked right at Molly as she took the turn onto 75. “We’re fucking fighters, daughter of mine.”

  Molly frowned, then turned to look out the windshield. “Are we going …?” She pointed toward the freeway ahead as Lauren sped up, preparing to merge. Traffic was light; Midian was less than an hour away.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said, and saw Molly’s eyebrows rise. “We are. We’re going home.”

  Molly swallowed, and there was a moment of conflict. “Good,” she said with a pleasant, cheek-rosying bout of enthusiasm. Then, after a pause: “So … where are we staying? Back at Ms. Cherry’s? Because—”

  “No,” Lauren said, shaking her head. She’d had enough of living in a whorehouse. Not that Ms. Cherry wasn’t sweet, but that environment made her skin itch like she was courting crabs. Which was probably unfair, but when it came to her daughter … fuck fair. Fuck fair right where Casey fucked the girls in that house. “Like I said … we’re going home.”

  This time Molly gulped for real, but she didn’t say anything. She just held her peace, lapsing into a quiet. Lauren could read it, could tell the fear was still there, the thought of confronting what they’d left behind …

  “It’s on my mind too,” Lauren said, reaching over and brushing Molly’s arm. Her daughter nodded once, then swallowed visibly again. “And it’s going to be tough. But we’re going to face it together, okay?”

  “Okay,” Molly said, and she nodded, a little more forcefully. “Okay.” It wasn’t, of course—not yet.

  But Lauren knew that it would be.

  Because they really would face it together.

  *

  Hendricks got the call and responded, dragging his ass out of bed and coming to the station. He’d half-expected Starling to show up while he’d been killing time back at the motel, but she hadn’t. Lucia must have been busy. The thought didn’t bother him, but not getting his dick sucked kind of did.

  He walked into the station, pushing through the Plexiglas entry and into the bullpen. It was pretty quiet, save for Casey behind the desk. The taxidermist was dicking around on his phone, and Hendricks caught a glimpse of Candy Crush as he passed. How long had that shit been going on? He started to say something, but Arch poked his head out of the sheriff’s old office and waved him in.

  Hendricks cocked an eyebrow at that as Arch disappeared back inside. But he shrugged, threading his way between desks and heading toward the office door, where he paused briefly when he came around the edge and saw who was sitting in the chair.

  “Come in,” Erin said, stern as fuck, the vision of every pissed-off law enforcement professional he’d ever seen.

  Hendricks felt a tingle of doubt at whether he should abide by that “suggestion” or not. It didn’t seem real friendly to him, but then, nothing she did seemed friendly to him these days. He glanced inside; Arch stood to his left, just inside the door, arms folded.

  The whole thing made him uneasy.

  But he didn’t say a damned thing, just walked right in and gestured to the door behind him. “Is this an open door or closed door kind of meeting?”

  Arch reached over and shut it, an
swering that one.

  They stood there in silence for a few minutes, Arch with his arms folded, Erin sitting in Reeve’s old chair, staring at him impassively, so Hendricks took his cue from both of them and hitched his hands behind him in “at ease” position. He could outlast the fucking end of the world like this, knees loose and eyes forward. He hated that it might seem like he was waiting for orders or something, but he knew himself, and knew he could sit like this until Midian was nothing but a mosquito bite hole in the face of the globe. Which would probably be about three weeks from now.

  The minutes dragged on, and still Hendricks said nothing. If these fuckers wanted to have a stubborn-off, he’d show the hell out of them. He could out-wait them, fucking amateurs—

  Arch finally broke the silence. “Why didn’t you help us with the demon today?”

  Hendricks didn’t bother to look at him. “Which one? Yours—” he pointed to Arch “—or yours?” He pointed to Erin.

  “You were right behind us,” Arch said, answering again without actually dignifying him with an answer. He unfolded his arms, coming off the wall. “And then, when we got to the end of the chase, you were gone.”

  “Didn’t think you’d notice,” Hendricks said, still in at-ease position. “Flattered that you did.” He looked sideways at Arch. “Seemed like you had it under control, so I just went on home.”

  “Why do I doubt that?” Erin asked, cool, still just sitting there.

  “Because you hate me?” Hendricks offered, somewhat lightly.

  She just stared him down, no hint of reaction. He’d baited her a few times lately, and she always showed a sign.

  This time? Nada.

  She leaned forward. “We got a 911 call while our respective chases were going on—”

  “Just one?” Hendricks raised an eyebrow. “The demons must be napping.”

  “Someone reported screaming from an old factory downtown,” Erin went on, apparently undeterred by his interruption. “When we got there, we found County Administrator Pike. Dead.” She added the last like a punctuation mark.

  Hendricks just stared at her. “That’s a shame,” he said flatly. He didn’t put much feeling into it one way or another.

  “The man looked to have been damned near gutted,” Arch said, moving up behind him. “Something sharp got him right across the torso, ripped him open.”

  “Scary things, demons,” Hendricks said. He could see which way this wind was blowing, and it was straight from the latrines toward him.

  “If this was a demon, yeah …” Erin said, just staring him down. He stared right back, not going to give her an inch. “But it wasn’t a demon, was it?”

  “I guess you’ll just have to ask your crime scene unit once they get done investigating it all,” Hendricks said.

  “Cut the crap,” Arch said, and now he got right up in Hendricks’s left ear. “He had bullets in him. .45s. And the wound channels were destroyed by something sharp—like your sword.”

  Hendricks cocked his head to the side to look at Arch. “Prove it.”

  That brought about another silence before Arch exploded into it again: “We don’t kill human beings, Hendricks—”

  “That’s flatly untrue,” Hendricks said, still maintaining his cool. It was hard not to under this level of stupid questioning. He tossed a nod toward Erin. “She killed a human. Back when the Rog’tausch came through town. She shot down Kitty Elizabeth’s manservant, who was an actual man, remember? Reeve hushed it up, buried it under a John Doe bullshit name.” He stared at Erin, who stared back. Now they were both impassive as hell. “I remember, even if you don’t.”

  “I remember,” Erin said, staring him down. “That was an accident though.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Hendricks said, pulling out the full scoff. “You damned sure meant to kill him; you just didn’t realize he wasn’t a demon at the time.”

  “We knew Pike wasn’t a demon,” Arch started to say. He was getting fucking overheated, and Hendricks knew why, a second later. “Alison—”

  “Something new is happening here,” Hendricks said, stretching a little because he was tired of dealing with this bullshit, jagoff inquiry without at least flexing his body. He was stiff from a rumble with a couple hesper’antu a few days earlier, the biggest physical challenge he’d had lately. Pissy little shits—both the hesper’antu and Erin and Arch at this point. “People are starting to work with demons. I mean, it does happen from time to time, but … given us partnering up with the OOCs, that vulture motherfucker who led you to the kids … it was inevitable, I guess, that people were gonna make some pacts with the enemy. It’s happening. Right here, right now.”

  “How is that new?” Arch asked, still seething. He looked like he had a leash on it for the moment, but Hendricks knew it was just a matter of time before the fury he was wanting to turn loose on Hendricks found its outlet, and it’d come racing back for him at that point. “You told me when everything started that people prayed to demons and such.”

  “I’ve never seen it happen at a hotspot though,” Hendricks said with a shrug. “Never seen it, period.”

  “That’s what you’re saying happened with Pike?” Erin was leaning forward now. “That he was … working with demons?”

  “I couldn’t prove it,” Hendricks said with a shrug, “but think about how he was trying to shut us down back during the buildup to the Rog’tausch. How he set up Halloween, trying to recall Reeve. If Alison hadn’t cut him with a holy knife, we would have all sworn he was a demon.” Here he looked right back at Arch. “And I bet—I just bet—if you pulled Reeve’s corpse out of the ground and had some mortician with half a brain give it the once-over … I bet you find signs of foul play, on him and that secretary.”

  His bit said, Hendricks shut his trap. He wasn’t going to incriminate himself, but he wasn’t going to let them build up Pike as some kind of fucking hero either.

  “If you thought that was the case,” Erin said, about ten degrees cooler than Arch, “why not say anything to either of us?”

  “I just did,” Hendricks said, shrugging again. “Not my fault somebody already dealt with the motherfucker in question.”

  “I just bet,” Arch seethed. He stared Hendricks down for a minute, then said, “You didn’t even like Reeve. Why would you go out of your way to avenge him?”

  “Who says I did?” Hendricks tossed back. “My question is—why didn’t you? He was one of ours. He was your—both of your—mentors. But you just bought this bullshit story Pike threw out about a fire sloth, even though we haven’t heard a whisper of a second one of those slinking around since we wiped out the one in that development.” Hendricks slung his arms wide. “They’re not fucking quiet, okay? That first one ate some construction workers, I guarantee it. I know a lot of people are getting lost in the shuffle around here, but Jesus F. Christ, stop and smell the bullshit. Pike just parroted back what he’d probably heard from Reeve that same afternoon. He clipped him, clipped the secretary, probably sacrificed them both to demons, and you all showed up like the goddamned Army cavalry, so full of yourselves and the rightness of your cause that you didn’t even bother to ask yourselves if these were civilians or insurgents.” Hendricks leaned forward. “Let me help you out, because I’ve seen both: Pike was working for the enemy. No doubt. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “Or at least his,” Arch threw at him. Hendricks ignored it. “He had a wife and family—”

  “His wife was probably in on it,” Hendricks said. He didn’t have any doubts to assuage. Pike had confessed to someone, after all, based on what Starling had played back to him.

  Erin just stared at him, but he could see the wheels spinning. “You can’t just deal out justice however you see fit. Not here. Not now. You can’t just go killing people—”

  “I wish everybody in town, demons included, would get that message,” Hendricks said, looking right at her.

  She looked back. Didn’t back down an inch. “They will.”


  Hendricks could think of only one thing to say to that, some stupid Game of Thrones quote that bubbled right up: “‘I wish you luck in the wars to come.’”

  “I wish you would get your head out of your ass,” Erin said, standing up. It was almost hilarious how hard she was staring him down, but damn if she didn’t do it well, almost like a drill sergeant. “Or else … just get out, period. We don’t need your moody, maverick bullshit while we’re trying to save this town.” And with a last burning look, she walked to the door and out, closing it behind her.

  “Get yourself under control,” Arch said, clearly still seething. He started for the door, but Hendricks wasn’t done yet.

  “I was thinking about …” Hendricks started, and Arch slowed his roll, listening. “It’s been like an endless succession of days lately, since Halloween, with all the calls we’ve gotten. But …” He paused, things on his mind spilling out of his mouth. “You remember that kid, like two weeks ago? The one we saved from the hellcats in the woods on the day of hunting opener—”

  “I remember,” Arch said stiffly. “Mack Wellstone.”

  “Yeah, Mack,” Hendricks said, staring out the window behind Reeve’s desk. It was getting darker outside, twilight seeping out from behind the clouds in the form of a darkening sky. “We saved him … and then we lost him again. Then we lost Reeve … so much has happened in these last few months, but it’s all stepped up these last three weeks since Halloween. Every day a crisis. But those two things stand out, Mack and Reeve. We’ve seen a lot of people die—”

  “Or disappear,” Arch added quietly, all the anger bled out of his voice.

  “But some things …” Hendricks stared out that window, at that scraggly field outside where the even the weeds were starting to go brown for the coming winter. “Some things just stick with you, you know? For you, I guess, it’s the kids.” He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Arch nod. He didn’t have to guess why Arch had latched onto that thing. “For Erin, the hellcats; for me … I don’t know. I guess it was Reeve, sort of.”