Depths: Southern Watch #2

by Crane, Robert J.

  “I don’t know,” Hendricks said with a shrug, opening his door and gesturing for them to enter. “Because they don’t belong here.”

  “That’s probably true,” Lerner had to concede. Not bad on Hendricks’s part. “Try and figure this out, champ—you poke ’em with a pointy thing that has certain words and rituals performed over it, their shell breaks, and their essence gets a one-way ticket home.” He felt the grin return. “Why is that? Why not with any pointy thing?”

  He watched the cowboy’s face as he struggled to find an explanation. Finally the man gave up and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t think it’s because there might be something to this whole religion thing?” Lerner asked. He was loving this, twisting the cowboy’s tail. Putting the spurs to him.

  “Nope,” Hendricks said. “It sounds a lot like ‘correlation is causation’ to me. So you perform some ritual on a sword—which I’ve never seen done, by the way—and it somehow makes it a holy instrument of,” he rolled his eyes, “some almighty power. Who’s to say that’s what’s causing it to send demons back?” He frowned. “Why? Are you telling me there is a G—”

  “We don’t really say that name,” Duncan said abruptly, ending the fun.

  “Awww,” Lerner waved him off. “You could have let me keep going on him.”

  Hendricks paused, and Lerner could see him working through it. “So you’re saying there is a—” He halted, and looked at Duncan, who was almost glaring at him. “… that guy?”

  “We’re not saying anything.” Lerner grinned. Humans were fun.

  * * *

  Gideon stared across the table at Spellman. The red walls were making him feel feverish. Or was that just the desire rising? He took a breath of the fragrant air and realized it was more than a little hot in the house. “So … can you do it?”

  Spellman still had his fingers steepled. His expression was even, and he gave a little shrug. “Easy enough. I can have it assembled by tomorrow before midday.”

  “Okay,” Gideon said, running it through his head. It was after midnight. “You mean later today?”

  “Eh?” Spellman seemed lost in thought. “Yes, sorry. Time zones are confusing to me. Later today. Midday.”

  That would work just fine for Gideon. He’d seen the clouds outside, and the weather reports. It was going to rain even more, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. He nodded absently while he finished his train of thought. “That’ll work.”

  “Excellent,” Spellman said with a long, slow inhalation that Gideon could hear from across the table. “May I suggest another item of mine?”

  Gideon held up a hand. “I’m not really interested in—”

  “Oh, this I think you’ll find of interest,” Spellman said with a grin. He put a hand under the table and came out with a little silk cloth bag, tied at the top. “This contains a rune that, when carried on the person, keeps you from being detected by anything other than the five senses.”

  Gideon could feel his face crease into a frown. “Why would I want that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Spellman said with a thin smile. “It could be those two Officers of Occultic Concordance at your hotel room right now. Maybe you’d want to avoid them?”

  Gideon felt the world snap into sharp focus around him. “OOCs?”

  “At your motel.” Spellman looked pleased about it. Gloating. “Just thought I’d warn you. Find another place to stay.”

  “How did you know?” Gideon smacked his lips together. His whole body burned, but not from desire this time.

  “I pay to know these things,” Spellman said with a light shrug. “OOCs are bad for my business, it’s why I keep my whole operation under this shroud. Dislocation conjurings, obscurement charms.” He waved a hand through the air to indicate all that was around them. “I’ll have your item ready tomorrow.” He hesitated. “If you’re going to use it to hurt a lot of people at once, I feel I should advise you that it’s not going to be very satisfying for you.” He ran a thin finger along the table. “It’s all one rush, very immediate, not much pain or suffering …”

  “That’s not a problem,” Gideon said. “Know where I could stay for the night?”

  Spellman gave a slight shrug. “They’ll be watching the motels.” He smiled a little. “There’s a place on Water Street I think you’d like. I’ll get you the address.” Spellman hesitated. “I am strictly confidential with all my clientele, but perhaps I should ask what you plan to do with your item so that I’ll know how best to structure the incantation?” He ended with a pleasant smile and folded his hands together.

  Gideon told him.

  “Holy shit,” Spellman said, jaw slack, eyes wide. “I’ll need payment in advance.” Spellman’s mouth opened and closed as he looked around the room like he was surveying it. “And some time to close my doors. Midday.”

  “Works for me,” Gideon said. “That address?”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Spellman said, getting out of the chair. He moved slowly, hesitantly.

  “This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Gideon asked as Spellman reached the threshold of the dining room.

  “No, no,” Spellman said, turning back. All the amusement was gone from him. “Just a little more trouble than I was expecting.” He leaned closer to Gideon, like he was whispering something confidential. “You’re a sight more ambitious than any of the Sygraath I’ve met in the last age.”

  Gideon watched his retreating back as Spellman walked toward the stairs and began to climb them. “Just got a taste for it now, that’s all.”

  * * *

  “You don’t really believe much in having personal possessions, huh?” Lerner hit Hendricks with that as he was slipping the books back in his duffel bag. Everything was neat and mostly consigned to the bag.

  Hendricks looked down at the duffel as he tucked the photo into the cover of one of the books, face down. He didn’t want to look at it. “High speed, low drag.”

  He could hear the puzzlement in Lerner’s voice. “What?”

  “It’s a saying in the Marines.” Hendricks stood, cracking his back as he did so. He was making more popping noises now when he moved than he had before the fight yesterday. Also, his back still ached from where Lerner had given him that cheap shot for his brother demons or whatever. “In the infantry, you move around a lot. You don’t want to carry a lot of shit with you. Makes drag. Slows you down.”

  “Huh,” Lerner was nodding like it made some kind of sense to him. Hendricks doubted it. The demon was standing over by the table against the window. Duncan was paused just inside the door, and Lerner looked over at him. “Can we go in there now?”

  Duncan’s eyes were closed, and he was just standing there, still as could be. He didn’t even wobble like someone trying to stand still would. “She’s gone. We should be clear.”

  “I love the hint of chance in that,” Hendricks said, “because keeping a clean criminal record this long hasn’t been reward enough.”

  “Stop whining, you big pussy,” Lerner said.

  “I need my gun and sword back,” Hendricks said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lerner said. “Now that your girlfriend’s gone, they’re all yours.” He gestured toward the door, and Duncan stood back, opening it so they could leave.

  “How are you gonna open the door?” Hendricks asked as he followed Lerner out and watched Duncan close it behind them. “Something more subtle than kicking it down, I hope?”

  “Sure,” Lerner said with a wink. “We have our ways, after all.”

  * * *

  Gideon turned his car onto Water Street, which was just at the edge of Midian. It was ramshackle as all hell, a messy collection of old houses with peeling paint, white paneling falling off in great strips. Even at night it was obvious that the houses were just decaying away.

  He checked the note Spellman had given him for the address again. He drove down the tree-lined road, figuring it wouldn’t be hard to spot.

&nbs
p; It wasn’t.

  Most of the houses were little shit, things you’d find in the first-ring suburbs of most major cities that had grown up after World War II. Tract homes. No exception here, except they might have been older. They were tiny, barely shanties in his opinion, save for the one he had the address for.

  It stuck out in the middle of the block, probably once a beautiful manor house with lovely sculpting and a pleasant veranda to sip tea on as the sun went down.

  Now it was a shithole, with the same faded wood paneling as everything else on the block, the warped floorboards visible even from the street. All the paneling from the gables of the roof had torn off, and what looked like mildew was growing beneath.

  Gideon stepped out of his car as the rain started to fall again. He could hear it rattling the tin roof of the house as he made his way up the front walk. The lawn was overgrown, and a light burning in the front window was the only sign the house was occupied. The fresh night air was soured by the smell of some kind of smoke drifting off a porch down the way. Gideon could see the flare of someone lighting something up, but it didn’t smell like tobacco.

  He reached the front porch and avoided the most obvious of the warped floorboards. He stepped off track a dozen times before he reached the door and knocked tentatively.

  There was movement inside that he could hear, and the door swung open suddenly to reveal a raven-haired woman in a white silk robe. Her skin was tanned, with spots here and there that showed hints of her age. He would have guessed she was on the late side of her thirties, but he wasn’t all that good with human ages.

  “Hello, darling,” she said in a thick, husky voice. The accent wasn’t Southern; it was almost more European.

  “I’m … uh … looking for a room for the night,” he said, hearing his voice change pitch through the sentence with embarrassment.

  “Come right on in,” she said, and her green eyes were lit with amusement. She was wearing a lot of dark makeup under them, and her eyelashes were black and prominent.

  Gideon followed her into a foyer that didn’t really match the exterior of the house. That was twice tonight. Inside it was decently maintained, with a placid blue wallpaper pattern highlighted by gold fleur-de-lis. There was a staircase just inside, and he looked at the white carpet leading up it as the woman shut the door behind him.

  “My name is Melina Cherry,” she said in that husky voice. He turned to look at her and she smiled. Her smile was about as real as her tits.

  “Gideon,” he said with a nod. He could feel the unease. “Like I said, I need a room.”

  “Well, Mr. Gideon,” Melina Cherry said as she reached out and ran a finger softly across his face. “We don’t just do rooms here, you must know. There are several lovely hotels here in the Midian area that would be more than glad to just let a room to you.” She straightened up, stretching her long neck. Her robe fell open, revealing a bare breast. “Here, if you pay for the girl, the room is yours.”

  “Okay,” Gideon said with a nod. “I’ll take a girl—but only if I can have the room for the night.”

  She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “We’re not exactly set up for room service—at least not the kind you’d find in a hotel, but all right. I don’t care if you sleep in the bed after you use it. Not at this late hour, anyway.”

  “Okay,” he said. He didn’t really want a girl, but it wasn’t the end of the world. “How much?”

  “A hundred,” Melina said after a moment, running fingers through her thick, black hair.

  Gideon nodded and fumbled into the pocket of his cargo shorts. He had it, it and plenty more to spare since Spellman was fine with being paid by bank transfer. He stripped five crisp twenties off the wad of money he carried and handed it over to Ms. Cherry—he doubted that was her real name—and she watched with patient expectation and counted as he went.

  “Blond, me or the redhead, Mr. Gideon?” Melina Cherry asked once she’d slipped his money into the pocket of her robe. It was still open, and Gideon looked. He wasn’t really into human bodies, but hers was not in bad shape. A little dappled on the skin. Age would do that, he knew.

  “Uhm, blond,” he said, picking at random. It mattered little to him.

  “Interesting. Most people are asking for the redhead, lately. Colleen,” Ms. Cherry trilled in a lovely tone. A whiff of strong perfume came from behind him and Gideon felt a hand tuck delicately around his waist. “Show Mr. Gideon to a room, please.”

  “Right this way, sir,” Colleen whispered in his ear. She walked at his side, and he glanced over at her. She was in her twenties, he figured, blond hair curled like she was a movie star. She sniffed a couple times, like she was trying to get a whiff of him. Her fingers were light against his back, and he could feel her tickling the flabby skin that he’d heard called a love handle. That was no big deal, either.

  “Make sure you show our guest a good time, Colleen,” Ms. Cherry said, and Gideon looked back to see her leaning against the banister, her robe still open for him to see. “Make him sleep soundly.”

  Gideon looked back to Colleen, who wore a smile that was fraught with tension. Her eye twitched and he wondered just what she was on. “Oh, I’m sure she will,” he said aloud before Colleen could answer. “I’m sure she will.”

  Chapter 13

  Erin had slowed down near town and let her thoughts catch up with her. She was almost through the town square when she thought of something and hit the next right turn.

  The rain was spotting the windshield when she pulled into the apartment complex, the heat blowing so loudly that she couldn’t even hear the rain. It gave off that smell, the one heaters had, and it felt like it was drying out her nose.

  The Explorer was parked there, sure enough, just sitting in the middle of the parking lot. It had mud all over the back rear tires and covering the wheel wells. She stepped out into the freshly falling rain as the puddle just outside her door rippled from the droplets falling into it. The brick apartment was lit by a couple lampposts and lights outside every door.

  She had been by Arch’s old apartment once but knew that he had moved to a different one after some lowlifes had dropped by and kicked down his door. It had been the most exciting thing to happen in Calhoun County for years. Until today.

  She stood outside her car and hesitated. Knocking on Arch’s door at this hour felt strange. He was probably here, after all, since his car was parked outside. Why wouldn’t he answer his radio or his phone, though? She bit her lower lip and chewed while she thought that over. The thing she least wanted to do was get into some sort of argument with him, especially about Hendricks.

  “Dammit,” she whispered, talking to herself, “his business is with the sheriff, not me.” She started to turn and get back into her car when she saw someone move in the shadows.

  * * *

  Lerner let Duncan open the door because he had a subtle art with these things.

  “Excuse me,” Duncan said and gestured for Hendricks to move out of the way. The cowboy did, and Lerner felt himself grin. This was going to be good.

  Duncan kicked the door open. The frame splintered around the lock and burst inward.

  “Son of a bitch,” Hendricks said, looking over his shoulder like the cops were going to descend on him at any minute. “I thought you said you had your ‘ways’?”

  “It’s open, ain’t it?” Lerner asked, grinning. “That’s one way to do it.” He gestured for Duncan to go in, which he did. Lerner started to follow but paused as he passed Hendricks. “Listen, kid, if you don’t want to come in and see what it looks like when a Sygraath is nesting right next door to you, don’t. Stand your law-abiding ass right out here and wait for us.” He winked. “Won’t be more than a minute or two.”

  With a pat on the cowboy’s shoulder, which was covered with that black duster coat he wore, Lerner moved on in. Duncan was already standing in the middle of the room, feeling it all out. The place looked about like Hendricks’s room had looked
to Lerner—a complete and total shithole. The wallpaper was something between beige and reddish, but it looked brown—also, like shit—and the place smelled like someone had been whacking off and spraying their demon spunk all over the place. Which had probably happened because the inhabitant was a Sygraath.

  Same bed in the same place, same shitty half-clean hotel smell that Lerner was used to. This one smelled like it might have been a smoking room at one point in time, the lingering aftereffects of cigarettes in the air after what had probably been years of absence. Or, hell, for all he knew someone had lit one up last week in the place. Lerner ran a hand over the wooden dresser and the TV as he steered past where Duncan stood. “Anything?”

  Duncan was quiet for a beat before answering. “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?” Lerner asked, frowning. It wasn’t like Duncan to come up with ‘nothing.’

  “He’s gone,” Duncan said. Blank eyes turned toward Lerner. “Completely gone.”

  “What, did he leave and go back to Chattanooga or move out of range of your sense of him?” Lerner had seen that happen before. Wouldn’t surprise him, either, if the Sygraath had gotten jumpy and bailed. It’s what happened sometimes when OOCs came calling. The wise would pack up and leave rather than run into the storm that followed.

  “No,” Duncan said, and Lerner knew him well enough to recognize that look. It wasn’t a good look.

  “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Hendricks asked from the door. He was just leaning there, the cowboy, waiting outside the door frame looking guilty as a Frac’shaa with its hands in a baby carriage.

  “He’s disappeared,” Lerner said, picking what Duncan was saying out of him without having to have him say it. “Which means he’s got some black arts working for him.” Before the cowboy could ask, he turned to head it off. “He wouldn’t disappear if he didn’t know we were on to him. Makes me worry he might have something in mind, something he’d like to be left alone to pull off. Something big.” He could see the kid wasn’t getting it, so he made it even more obvious. “Something that’ll kill enough people to satisfy him.”