Depths: Southern Watch #2

by Crane, Robert J.

  Erin stopped at the light at the top of the exit ramp as she heard tires squealing to her right over a crack of thunder overhead. Pulling out of the Sinbad’s parking lot was the sedan that those two peckerwoods who had been parked outside the murder scene were driving. They blew down the Old Jackson Highway in one hell of a hurry, violating the speed limit as they headed toward the hills—the opposite direction from where she was supposed to be going.

  She took a long breath, trying to decide what to do. Unconsciously, her hand reached down to the switch for the siren and lights and she flipped them. “Hold on,” she said to Lucia, whose face was a mask of uncertainty as Erin jerked the wheel to the right and headed after the sedan.

  * * *

  Hendricks stared at the thing in his hand. He had some doubts about drinking out of a cow’s bladder.

  “It’s been boiled,” Spellman said, watching him. “You needn’t worry about cow urine. Not that it would harm you in any way if you did drink some.”

  The dude had seemed to go blank for a few minutes after Lerner and Duncan had left, with Duncan exhorting him to drink it. He wasn’t sure why, but he trusted Duncan. Sort of. “How did you know I was thinking that?” he asked Spellman.

  “It was written all over your face,” Spellman said mildly. “Or somewhere.” He went blank again, like someone had cut the power to him.

  Hendricks started to move toward the door. Arch would be here in minutes, and he needed to be outside. If Lerner and Duncan could handle this, fine, and all the better, but … if they couldn’t …

  He grunted in pain as his ribs screamed at him. “Fuck it,” he said. There was no way he’d be ready for a fight, not in his present condition. He’d limp into a greater and get his head popped off like a cork, just the way Lerner had said.

  Hendricks pulled the stopper out of the bladder and upended it, chugging it down. He caught movement from Spellman out of the corner of his eye, like someone turned the power on to him again. He looked pleased. Unsettlingly so.

  * * *

  Lerner had shot off on a back road at a ninety-degree angle, tires skidding across gravel. He could hear the heavy thunks and tiny plinks of rock hitting the car, and wondered how much it would cost to fix it at the body shop. The accountants would have his ass in a sling for that. Maybe literally.

  Duncan was reading the map next to him, and his usual calm was gone out the fucking window. “Uhhhhmmm … it looks like there’s a turnoff up ahead …”

  “Left or right, numbnuts?” Lerner asked, gritting his teeth as he felt the traction slip on a curve.

  “Right, I think,” Duncan said.

  “You think?” The rain was pounding the windshield, trees were zipping by outside. They were blurred by the lines of water falling down the windows.

  “Yeah,” Duncan said. “This map … I’m not sure how accurate it is.”

  Lerner felt the car slalom around a lazy S-curve and tried to keep from jerking the wheel too hard to compensate. “Lovely.”

  “It might be easier to read it if the car wasn’t bumping all over the place.”

  “You’re just eighteen different kinds of fucking helpful, aren’t you?” Lerner asked. He kept going, though.

  * * *

  Erin saw the sedan make the turnoff toward the lower dam and followed. Lucia was still sitting pale next to her, and she tried to give her a reassuring smile. They were ahead far enough that they might reasonably be able to claim they didn’t see her coming up on them with sirens wailing and lights flashing. She needed to get closer.

  The brothel thing could wait. Right now she had her teeth into something else, and oddly enough—and she did kick herself when she thought of it this way—it felt like her future depended on catching them.

  * * *

  “Get in the car!” Arch called out the window as he slowed down. Hendricks was already in the parking lot, running through the wash. Arch was pretty sure the parking lot had dried out yesterday after the rain quit, but it was already back to flooding. Bad sign for the town. Maybe an omen of things to come.

  Arch watched out the open window as Hendricks hustled toward the Explorer, splashing all the way and holding on to his hat. His black drover coat seemed to be keeping the rain off him, but his black cowboy hat looked like it was soaked and drooping just a little after being out for only a few seconds. It was a gully-washer, no doubt, and he hit the switch to roll the window up as Hendricks opened the door, jumped in and slammed it shut in seconds. The cowboy took his hat off and shook it toward the floorboard. “Let’s go,” he said, and Arch obliged, gunning it.

  * * *

  Gideon had gotten the guy’s heart, but he was so caught up in the moment that he hadn’t bothered with a scream. By the time he remembered he needed it, the security guard was already dead. Double damn.

  He threw the body into the woods with ease, like he was Cubs fan tossing a baseball. It landed about ten feet from him, in some underbrush, with a cracking noise. Not like it mattered. The guy wasn’t going to feel it anymore anyway. Gideon hadn’t even caught his name as he passed through.

  He’d saved him for later. Stored away that pain, that screaming agony in his essence. He’d never done that before, preferring to pleasure himself right when he got them. It was a curious feeling, a churning, constant arousal inside.

  He flipped the gate switch in the guardhouse, got back in the car and started up the road again. He could feel the pleasure from this kill welling up inside him, stirring. He was already rock-hard, but he didn’t have time to satiate himself, not now. His erection caused his cargo pants to tent, just a little, as he sat in the rental car and pushed his foot to the pedal. The engine in the sedan whined as he started up the hill’s incline. He could see the dam out his window.

  There were more souls coming, and soon. He could almost taste the anticipation of having so many of them to chew on, to savor. He’d have a feast of them to satiate himself with, and he could jerk off for weeks on what he’d get once the dam went down.

  * * *

  Lerner hit the brakes when they got to a guardhouse. There was a fence blocking them from going any further, and the gate looked strong enough to at least fuck up the front of the car, if not stop them. Lerner wasn’t all that sanguine about trying to bust through. When he saw the security guard come walking out, he suspected he might not need to.

  Lerner slowed the car and crept it up to the gate. Stared down the slate grey hood as the rain washed over it, and rolled his window down halfway. Big, heavy drops of water drenched his left arm and started to soak the pleather interior of the door panel.

  “How y’all doing?” the guard asked by way of greeting. An awning above the guardhouse was shielding him but not by much. His security uniform was already showing signs of dampness.

  “Anyone come through here lately?” Lerner asked. “Anyone who didn’t have permission?”

  The guard just sort of frowned at him, like he didn’t get asked penetrating questions by total strangers every day. “No. You’re the only ones to come through here in hours. All the employees go up to the top of the dam; we just block the bottom because the Department of Homeland Security says we gotta.” He shrugged. “Terrorists, y’know.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Lerner said. He could see the dam up ahead, barely, in the distance, through the rain, over the trees. He put the car in reverse without even bothering to roll the window up or say so much as Thank you to the guard, who was looking pretty damned confused at this point.

  “He wasn’t lying,” Duncan said, “and he didn’t have any kind of gap to indicate he was being fiddled with.”

  “I figured that out on my own, genius,” Lerner snapped. “Clearly this Gideon bastard is going to the top of the dam.” He smacked the wheel lightly, careful not to do it any harm. Which he could, easily. “Why didn’t you steer us to the top?”

  Duncan stared down at the map, concentrating on it like it contained the secret to all existence. Lerner had read in a human book once
that the answer was forty-two. It made about as much sense as anything else he’d heard. “I don’t know how to read a map. I just followed the road that led to Tallakeet Dam—”

  “Well, find another one!” Lerner exploded. “Fuck,” he breathed as he finished his one-eighty and saw flashing lights of blue and red blurring as the windshield wipers cleared the rain and another torrent covered it again.

  * * *

  “Got him boxed in,” Erin said, almost to herself. The rain was coming down hard now, and she wasn’t looking forward to getting out in it to write this ticket. But part of her was.

  “What if he runs?” Lucia asked. Erin glanced at her; the girl looked terrified. And she really did look like a girl right now, not a woman, damned sure not a hooker. She looked like a scared girl, no more than twenty-two. Older than Erin, sure, but … fearful. For whatever reason.

  “They only run on COPS and in movies,” Erin said. She said it with enough feeling that she saw Lucia relax a little. She had a little of the perfume smell from the whorehouse on, and Erin had to admit the fragrance was kind of growing on her. Maybe she’d ask what kind it was later.

  * * *

  “It’s Deputy Harris,” Duncan reported, matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, I fucking know it’s her,” Lerner snapped again. He could feel his essence bulging him at the seams. He did not have time for this shit, not now. Maniac on the loose, what did you do? Lerner shifted the car into drive and gunned it. The sedan slipped a little as he darted to the right and went off the road.

  “Home office is going to be pissed,” Duncan said. Lerner could hear the strain in his voice, and did not give a single flying fuck.

  “Let them come do this job,” Lerner said as he slid on the grass just off the road. He cut it close and watched his driver’s side mirror smash into Deputy’s Harris’s as he blew past her and skidded back onto the road.

  Lerner caught a glimpse of Harris as he went past her window. She looked appropriately shocked, he thought.

  The redhead in the passenger seat, though? Not so much. Lerner tried to decide whether that should worry him or not, and figured he’d just say fuck it all and deal with it later.

  * * *

  Erin watched the sedan shear off her driver’s side mirror with enough shock that it’d rival whatever the hell Tallakeet Dam generated in a day.

  “He ran,” Lucia said, calm as dead. Like she was Starling.

  “I saw that,” Erin said, shaking as she put the car in reverse and floored it backward. She whipped around and saw the sedan’s taillights disappearing into the curving trail, dropped the cruiser in gear and took off after him.

  * * *

  Gideon had forgotten the scream twice more at the top of the dam. A couple engineers were surveying cracks or something on top of the dam, watching the water roll over the top. He’d heard them scream, sure, had felt them churn as they died.

  But he’d forgotten to catch a scream into his red silk bag of conjured goodness. He didn’t see anyone else on top of the dam, and he wondered how far he’d have to walk to get another. At least there was a good reason why he’d missed that last one. Something totally unexpected.

  His essence was just churning now, and his skin was burning up with the heat of the souls he’d stored up. He’d never waited this long before releasing before. He hadn’t even known he could. Usually his hand went straight to his cock when death approached. That was the advantage of staying in his own apartment all the time, just watching at a distance. He was always ready for death’s approach and the gratification was instant when it arrived.

  Here he’d felt something new, and as he tasted the acrid smoke on his tongue from what he’d just found out, he had to reflect … it was pretty cool. Definitely something he could use in the future. The fear and terror had been so worth it, even though it had scared the hell out of him at first.

  Not as bad as that second engineer, though. Not even close.

  Water was running over the top of the dam. It was big enough for a two-lane road, Gideon figured. He wondered if there had been one here at some point; it looked like there had been, faded lines under an inch of water that washed from the reservoir side to his right down the face of the dam at his left.

  He had a good two or three hundred yards of walking to get to the other side of the dam, and he’d left his car behind for obvious reasons—he didn’t want it to get washed away when he set off the conjuring. Still, in the mad rush he figured he’d be able to sit on top of the dam—what was left of it—and savor the death for a while before anyone came looking for him. It’d feel good to take matters in hand once more. Let some pressure out of the system.

  His shoes splashed as he walked and the ripples from the current washing down and over the face of the dam was mixed with the impact of the rain coming from above. Down below, some four hundred feet he could see the sluice gates open, the water churning white as they drained the reservoir as fast as they could. Gideon glanced back at the water streaming over the top. Not nearly fast enough, apparently.

  All he needed now was a scream. Gideon breathed deep, smelled the fresh air as a thousand raindrops hit him in the face and head, and over the rush of the water he could hear a car in the distance.

  He turned and saw headlights. He peered through the haze of the falling rain and realized he knew that car. It was a cop car, the one he’d seen outside his motel. The cowboy got out of the passenger side, looking fresh as a daisy. A hell of a lot better than when last he’d seen him. The black cop got out of the driver’s side, and both of them looked serious.

  Gideon just smiled. He wouldn’t have to walk very far for that scream after all.

  Chapter 17

  Hendricks got out of the Explorer first, before Arch had even parked it. He just felt good, revitalized, like his body was all in working order again and he’d gotten the best night of sleep he’d ever had. He couldn’t remember feeling this good even in the Marines, when he was at the top of his physical conditioning. His boots hit the puddle as the Explorer parked just past the sedan that the Sygraath—Gideon—had had parked outside his motel room when last he’d seen the fucker.

  The rain was coming down in sheets as he started to run down the road toward the dam. He could see Gideon out there, just staring at him. He didn’t wait for Arch because he didn’t need to. Hendricks pulled his sword as he went, and he felt fucking invincible. Whoever this Spellman guy was, he knew his shit.

  “Wait up!” Arch called from behind him. Hendricks heard him and estimated he was at least twenty paces back—a couple seconds, maybe. He didn’t slow down because there wasn’t time.

  A wind buffeted Hendricks, but his hat stayed on and that was all that mattered. He kept his grip on the sword as he ran. Gideon just stood there, and Hendricks could have sworn—yes, that fucker was smiling.

  “I’m going to wipe that goddamned grin right off your shit-eating face,” Hendricks said, low and menacing, when he was only about ten paces away. He did not give a fuck that Gideon was a greater. Up close, the dude looked like his vision of an internet troll—bald, overweight and dressed like he should never leave the house.

  “You’re going to die screaming,” Gideon said, and Hendricks was kind of amazed at the high pitch of his voice. The demon wasn’t small, but his voice made him sound a lot less intimidating.

  The rain just poured on around them as Hendricks closed the last steps between them.

  * * *

  Lerner jerked the handbrake and sent the car into a skid. Like some shit right out of The Fast and the Furious, that’s what it was. Lerner had seen those movies on cable. They were mindless, but so was everything else that humans watched, and he had a lot of downtime between jobs.

  He heard the gravel rattling on the undercarriage as they kicked up rocks. He kept the car from fishtailing, though. They’d hit a switchback, a sharp damned S-curve going back up the hill toward the top of the dam, and it taxed his driving skills. He would have considered it a minor
miracle that he’d made the turn, but his people didn’t believe in miracles.

  At least not for them.

  “How much longer?” he shouted at Duncan.

  Duncan took it well. “I don’t know. Five minutes? Ten?”

  “You suck at reading maps,” Lerner said bitterly.

  “I’d rather stick to reading,” Duncan said. Lerner knew what he meant by reading, and it wasn’t Fifty Shades of Grey. Though instruction in the best uses of whips and chains was occasionally useful in their work.

  Lerner jerked the wheel as they came around another bend in the road. The rain was just slamming them now, making him drive half-blind. Which was an easy formula for disaster in these conditions.

  As they came around the corner, Lerner caught a glimpse of the top of the dam. It was hard to see, but someone was up there. No, two someones. Then he saw a third.

  “Looks like our cowboy showed up after all,” Duncan said. Lerner didn’t have to look to see if his eyes were closed; they were. “And his cop friend.”

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Lerner said. He really wasn’t, though; he didn’t even have a mother.

  * * *

  Erin was a couple turns back from them, she was pretty sure. She’d catch glimpses of them here and there as she went, and it wasn’t like this road had any turn offs. They were racing up the curvy fucking path to the top of the dam, and it was as direct a route up into the hills as you could get without climbing up at a near ninety-degree angle.

  “Ummmm,” Lucia said from next to her. She spared a look for just a second as they hit a straightaway, and the hooker was green in face. She was holding real tight to the Oh shit bar, and Erin sent them around another corner in a skid. Lucia bounced in spite of her seat belt; she was just too small for it to hold her effectively. Erin sympathized; she had the same problem.