Depths: Southern Watch #2

by Crane, Robert J.

  She was watching him, though, and she caught it. He could tell by her expression. “Shit, you believe that stuff, don’t you?”

  What was the truth? He stuck close to it and started talking. “The Bible does say there are demons and—”

  “Yeah, the Bible also says that the world is six thousand years old, and we’ve got some pretty compelling evidence to the contrary.”

  Arch wasn’t really in the mood for a full-on, theological debate. “I’m not arguing the merits of Archbishop Ussher’s chronology of the Bible at four a.m. for a variety of reasons, the least of which being I don’t believe the Irishman was right and the greatest of which is that I’m too tired. You don’t believe in demons. Why are you asking me about them?”

  He saw her expression subtly change. He thought it turned a little … spiteful. “Hendricks has books on demons in his hotel room.”

  “He showed ’em to you?” Arch felt his head reel a little at that one. He hadn’t figured Hendricks would have been so dumb. Her mention of his name was more than a little salt in the wound, though, since Arch still had no plan for getting the cowboy back. Sitting around wasn’t helping.

  “Not exactly,” Erin said, and Arch was prepared to call her out on dodging until she said something else. “But I just confronted him about them outside his motel and—”

  “Wait, you just saw Hendricks?” Arch felt his body tense. “When?”

  “Just a little bit ago. He was just getting back to his hotel with those two guys in suits.” She blushed. “We … uh … had it out right there in front of them.”

  “Did you?” Arch murmured. He turned and fumbled for his keys, locking his door.

  “Where are you going?” Erin asked.

  “I lost track of Hendricks earlier tonight,” Arch said, already heading down the walk toward the parking lot. “Just want to … make sure he made it home okay.”

  “It’s four a.m., Arch,” Erin said as he started to pass her. She pivoted, and the look she gave him was incredulous. “If I were you, I might go make peace with Reeve for blowing off work in the midst of the single biggest crisis Calhoun County has seen.”

  “Yeah,” Arch said, “I’ll go do that, too.”

  “Seriously?” Erin said from behind him. “That’s the line you’re gonna give me? You gotta go check up on a twenty-five year-old bad boy that you barely know? Why the hell are you bullshitting me, Arch?”

  Arch thought about looking back as he answered but decided it would be counter-productive. “I’m not … doing that,” he said, neatly avoiding repeating what she’d said, “to you. I just got business to attend to.”

  “You might want to attend to your job,” Erin said. She was following him now into the parking lot, but not very fast. She wasn’t trying to catch him. It was more like she was content to argue with him at a distance. “While you’ve still got one—”

  He slammed the door and her words were lost under the roar of the Explorer’s engine. He triggered the wipers once and goosed the gas pedal, heading out of the parking lot a heck of a lot faster than he normally would have.

  * * *

  Hendricks heard the squeal of tires outside his room. He was sitting there on the bed, Lerner in the chair by the window, tapping his fingers on the table. Duncan was standing by the door, staring straight ahead. He’d been doing that for a while, trying to get a handle on something, Lerner had said. Hendricks thought it was fucking creepy, but then again, he was hanging out in his hotel room with two demons with a boner for law and order of some sort.

  Lerner looked up to Duncan, who stirred. “It’s his cop friend,” Duncan said, nodding at Hendricks.

  “Arch,” Hendricks said with a flash of annoyance. Couldn’t they use proper names for human beings? Then again, he probably wasn’t too hung up on using a demon’s proper name. But of course he’d always thought they were killing machines, from top to bottom.

  Also, his body and head still ached. Thinking wasn’t on the top of his priorities list at the moment.

  There was an insistent knocking at the door. “Open it,” Hendricks said to Duncan.

  “What’s the magic word?” Lerner said, smiling at him with that smartass grin.

  “Brimstone,” Hendricks said. The mattress was soft against his ass, calling out for him to just lie down and go to sleep. It wasn’t like they were doing anything else.

  Lerner looked at Duncan and shrugged. “Good enough for me.” Duncan opened the door.

  It was Arch, sure as shit, and he jumped a little upon seeing Duncan behind the door in his purple suit, which was obvious by the motel room’s light. Arch hesitated outside the door, and Hendricks could see his hand go to his holster.

  “It’s all right,” Hendricks called out. “They’re uh …” he looked at Lerner, “… friends. Sort of.”

  Arch stepped inside and Duncan closed the door behind him. Hendricks watched Arch size up both Duncan and Lerner. They were both tiny compared to the big cop. “So … who are your friends?”

  “Lerner and Duncan,” Hendricks said, nodding to each of them in order.

  “First names or last names?” Arch asked.

  “Assumed names,” Lerner answered, keeping Hendricks from having to awkwardly try and guess which it might be. “In our world you don’t give your name out all willy-nilly. Names have power.”

  Hendricks could see Arch just bristle, like he was a cat that had had a static-filled sheet of polyester run over him. “Demons?”

  Duncan stared at him. It was Lerner who answered. “Yeah. And?”

  Arch went a little bug-eyed, like he was gonna just wade into Duncan and start mopping the floor with him. “And nothing. Demons—”

  “It’s all right, Arch,” Hendricks said. Though he had to admit, he wasn’t sure it was. “Apparently there’s a little grey area here. They’re with the Office of Occultic Concordance. Law enforcement for the underworld.”

  “And still demons?” Arch asked. Hendricks could hear the urge to fight in the man’s voice.

  “You say that like it’s an inherently bad thing,” Lerner said from his spot by the table. Arch shot him a look that would have melted the pavement on an overpass. “I don’t go killing you just because you’re human, y’know.”

  “They’re after the guy,” Hendricks said, trying to insert himself back into the conversation before it got ugly. Arch had a mad-on for demons. Which Hendricks could understand, having had one for about five years himself. He paused. Still kind of did. These guys acted different, though, not like the ones that changed their faces and came at you with fangs and whatnot. He’d seen—and killed—plenty of that type. “The one that caused that massive pile-up.”

  “And what are they gonna do when they catch up with him?” Arch asked, surveying both Lerner and Duncan at once. It was interesting to watch the deputy try and keep his head constantly swiveling to keep an eye on them. “Pin a medal on him?”

  “We don’t give medals for killing humans,” Lerner said with that same grin, though it went a little smarmier. “Just like you don’t give medals for shooting fish in a barrel.”

  That one killed the conversation for a minute.

  “We’re going to send him back when we catch him,” Duncan said after a pause. It was an uncomfortable silence, Hendricks recognized, and Arch was being damned stoic. Hendricks suspected that meant he was weighing whether or not to ventilate the essence out of Duncan and Lerner.

  “Back to where?” Arch asked, and Hendricks saw him relax a little. “Hades?”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lerner said with a laugh. “You can’t bring yourself to say hell, so you gotta use the Greek god of the underworld’s name?”

  “I don’t swear,” Arch said, and Hendricks thought he bristled less this time. He was probably used to deflecting that inquiry.

  Lerner just frowned at him, one side of his mouth up in a sneer. “True believer, huh?”

  “Leave him alone,” Hendricks said. “Let’s talk about
this syger-whatever.”

  “Sygraath,” Lerner said and the frown went complete. “Fine.”

  “Why were you waiting here?” Arch asked.

  “Because he was nesting next door,” Duncan said, leaning against the mauve-taupe wall.

  “Was?” Arch asked, and his eyes got big.

  “We think he got spooked,” Lerner said, dredging up some civility. It occurred to Hendricks that the demon would have been completely in place in a forties noir film. All he needed was a cigarette and for his hair to be a little more slicked back. “Someone might have tipped him we were in town.”

  Hendricks ran a hand over his face to scratch an itch and caught a scent of muddy stink clinging to him from when he’d been clubbed by Duncan. Whenever that had been. A couple hours ago? A lifetime ago, maybe.

  “You could have called and told me you were okay,” Arch said, and Hendricks looked up to see the deputy staring accusingly at him.

  “Sorry,” Hendricks said. “It’s been kind of a blur since I got back here. I don’t think I’m operating on all cylinders.”

  Duncan glanced at him. “You’re suffering from fatigue and your body is trying to heal the cuts and bruises you’ve received in the last few days. Also, you’re operating on a deficit of sleep.”

  “So, what’s the deal here?” Arch said, staring at Duncan.

  “He’s a reader of some kind,” Hendricks said. “Sees into people. Their essence.”

  “Yeah, they got a lady up in the hills that can do that, too,” Arch said, none too amused, from the tone of his voice. “But I meant what’s going on here? You’re watching for this … Sygraath together? You’re working together?”

  Hendricks looked from Duncan to Lerner. “Actually, they kind of bushwhacked me, interrogated me about Starling, and then dragged me back here.” He shrugged at Lerner, who shrugged back. “I don’t know about working together, but this Sygraath has got to go.”

  “He’s broken the laws of the Pact,” Lerner said abruptly. “In absolute violation of the Edicts of 1608, 1705 and a few other subsections. Sygraath are innocuous enough most of the time. They’ll feed on death, but they don’t cause it. They just savor it. You could make an argument they’re making the last moments of the dying more miserable—”

  “Which sounds like reason to kill them,” Arch interrupted.

  “—but they don’t actually do the killing,” Lerner said. “So we let ’em do their business. Now this one, he’s crossed the line. He’s killing people in a hotspot that’s already hot enough to boil over. So, yeah, we want to punch his ticket.” He glanced at Hendricks. “What about you, demon hunter? You want him bad enough to let us sit here for a while until he either shows up or we get another lead on him?”

  “Why can’t I just kill him myself?” Hendricks asked. He tried not to get too snotty about it, but he’d killed more than a few demons in his time, hadn’t he? He knew how this shit worked. Plus, he’d just taken on one partner; two more was a level of ballooning that he hadn’t ever figured on.

  “You’ve been living next door to this guy for a week without even knowing it,” Lerner said. One of his eyebrows popped up. “You’re a hell of a demon hunter, you know that?”

  “Also,” Duncan added, quiet and droll as always, “this Sygraath is a greater and would likely put a fine sheen on your bones by dragging you all over the parking lot at this point. You’re injured and weak and thus easy prey for even a non-fighter like him.”

  ‘Greater’ was a term that Hendricks knew all too well. He exchanged a look with Arch, whose mouth was a tight line. “What do you think, Arch?”

  Arch was damned quiet, and Hendricks thought that told him a lot about the cop’s thought process. “You gonna throw in with demons?” He was still watching Duncan and Lerner both.

  “They put up a fair argument,” Hendricks said. It was true; they did have a point. He was not in mint condition for a fight with a greater, that much he was sure of.

  “I don’t truck with no demons,” Arch said, and he was back to bristling again.

  “Arch,” Hendricks said, trying to figure out how to get the man to see reason, “Hollywood was a greater and he damned near rolled us even with the help of our mysterious sniper friend. Ygrusibas would’ve shredded us if we hadn’t had Starling’s help—”

  “Did you say Ygrusibas?” Lerner asked. For the first time since Hendricks had met him, he looked dead serious.

  * * *

  Erin sat quietly in her cruiser. Funny how she’d already started to think of it as hers after only a day. The heat was still blowing, she pushed her hair back and rubbed at the tiredness in the corners of her eyes.

  Arch was a good man; she had never really doubted it. Whatever he was in or up to with Hendricks, though … it couldn’t be good. Not only was Hendricks a lying, cheating sack of shit, but he might be crazy to boot.

  Not only that, but he hung around the weirdest people. Who the fuck was this Starling? And could she get any more bizarre? Talking in a dead, emotionless voice about futures and shit, like one of those astrology-loving nutbags. Erin remembered some of the girls talking about that shit in school. Actually, she could have sworn Alison Stan was one of them. She always did hide some weird tendencies under that pretty, cheerleader facade.

  What the fuck had Starling been talking about? Just crazy talk, surely.

  Erin shook her head. “If I see that redhead again …”

  * * *

  “You know what?” Arch said, and waved a hand at the three men—one man and two demons—sitting in the hotel room. “Talk it over however long you want. I got other stuff to do.”

  “Arch—” Hendricks said, and the cowboy started to get up off the bed. Tried, anyway. It didn’t go so well and he cringed at the pain.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me, cowboy,” Arch said with a mirthless laugh. “Demons are real. Straight out of the bowels of Hades—” He saw that one demon—Lerner—roll eyes at that, “—and now you want to conspire with two of them to take down another. I might have thrown away my job today—”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Hendricks said, and this time he made it to his feet, though he was hunched a little, like an old man.

  “Yes, I did.” Arch didn’t quite yell it, but he put force behind it. “Because I believe that demons—with the slaughters, and the accidents and whatnot—are a grave threat to the people of this town.”

  “They are,” Hendricks said and took a shuffling step toward him. Arch backed toward the door, keeping an eye on Duncan, the one next to the door. He wasn’t moving, though, just standing there.

  “But now you’re working with them,” Arch said. He could feel the bile, the fury, rising inside him.

  “Come on, Arch,” Hendricks said, taking a limping step closer. “Surely even you can see that … maybe they’re not all bad?”

  “Are they demons?” Arch asked and turned his head to look at the one called Lerner. He looked right back, smug. “Are they from hell?”

  “That’s the word,” Lerner said. Still smug. Arch wanted to wipe that right off his face with a fist.

  “Arch—” Hendricks said.

  “Call me if you find this guy,” Arch said, and fumbled for the door handle, “you know, if you and your demon buddies can’t handle it.”

  He slammed the door as he left, indifferent to the noise it made in the night.

  * * *

  Lerner watched the cop go with little interest. He was a big fellow. Had kind of a scary look to him when he was mad. If you were human. Lerner didn’t fear humans. Why would he? Most of them didn’t know how to release an essence.

  Lerner honed back in on the cowboy, who was standing just a few feet from the bed in his room. Which was a shithole exactly on par with the one that the unnamed Sygraath had been holed up in. At least the motel was consistent. “You mentioned Ygrusibas.” He caught Hendricks’s attention with that one. “How do you even know that name?”

  Hendr
icks looked like he was just coming back to himself, and Lerner felt a little bad for having hit him earlier. Man looked like an empty shell of flesh sagging in on itself. “Because we killed—” Hendricks paused. “Because we sent him back to hell over a week ago. Whatever you call it.”

  “No, you couldn’t have,” Lerner said with a quick exhale. He meant it to sound amused, but he was in control of his facade enough to know it wasn’t amusement but fear. The name of Ygrusibas had not been spoken aloud by a human in thousands of years.

  Or at least it shouldn’t have been.

  “Yet we did,” Hendricks said, shuffling back to the bed. He sat down slowly, and it made Lerner wonder if his ass was hurting for some reason, too. “Guy named Hollywood summons him up—”

  “Not a real name, I presume,” Duncan said. Lerner shot him a look which he thought was pretty clear. It said, You don’t actually believe this shit, do you?

  “Probably not,” Hendricks said. “He comes to town with a book, kills some people on a farm on the outskirts with the intention of summoning Ygrusibas. Wreaks havoc.” Hendricks adjusted his cowboy hat down, annoying the fuck outta Lerner. Why was the guy wearing a cowboy hat? He didn’t even have a car, let alone a horse. Lerner looked around the room again real quick. Or a pot to piss in. “Releases Ygrusibas into a cow—”

  “Whoa,” Duncan said.

  “Bull. Shit.” That was Lerner’s reaction. No fucking way was the other part of it, but he kept that to himself.

  “More like cow shit,” Hendricks said, bumping his hat back. What was up with the coat, too, Lerner wondered? “Anyway, the cow-demon starts going crazy, eats Hollywood, goes on a rampage, and Arch and I stop it before it gets out of the pasture.”

  Lerner didn’t keep from rolling his eyes, not at this. “One of the ancients gets summoned up and two humans kill it in a cow pasture?” He faux-yawned, just to be an ass. “Yeah. Sure. You guys must be the Big Swinging Dicks of the demon-slaying scene in this fucking backwoods hell.” He cast a sidelong look at Duncan and stopped. “You’re not fucking serious.”