The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  “I don’t know.” Arch shook his head.

  “Well, you saw it up on the mountain, didn’t you?” Fries pressed. Didn’t stop eating to press, but he pressed.

  “I don’t know what I saw,” Arch said. He shook his head again, and pulled his time card out of the repository and punched out. “Guess I’ll head home.”

  “But you just got here,” Fries said.

  “Doesn’t sound like the sheriff wants me in on this,” Arch replied.

  “Probably short on cash,” Fries said sympathetically. “You close to overtime?”

  “Nope,” Arch said as he moved back through the swinging doors to the counter. “Pretty close to done, though, I think.” He kept that part back until he was safely in the entry hall, with a bulletproof door between him and Fries.

  ***

  Lauren planned the conversation in her head before it was to happen. She’d been planning it all night, in fact, in lieu of sleeping. Fatigue edged around her, swooping in and pecking at her like a carrion bird, but it had stubbornly refused to send in a big-ass predator to just finish the job and drag her carcass away to dreamland, so she’d let her mind race as she plotted out everything she wanted to say.

  She’d run the gamut in these conversations from the stereotypical angry mother—“I’m worried about your safety, you lying little liar!”—to the solicitous and friendly mom—“You know I’m just concerned about your well-being…”—to the grossly inappropriate girlfriend-instead-of-mom approach—“So, how was he in bed?” The last one nearly made her vomit to even consider, so she’d settled on something between the first two. Something self-aware, something cool, something that would not set off all of Molly’s parental proximity alarms, she hoped.

  Also, something that would reassure her, as a mother, that the, “So, how was he in bed?” line was wholly unnecessary in this case. Because moms worry about that sort of thing, especially when their own experience has given them cause to worry.

  Molly came down with slumped shoulders around the usual time. Lauren’s efforts had been directed toward the stove for most of the morning—or at least the last few minutes—and she did not say anything as Molly entered the kitchen, waiting as her daughter poured a cup of coffee and with the first sip seemed to realize that something was out of the ordinary.

  “What … the hell?” Molly asked.

  “I’ll take ‘Things I said last night for $1,000, Alex,’” Lauren tossed out, with as much good humor as she could muster on no sleep. And with shit on her mind that wouldn’t go away.

  “What is this?” Molly asked, staring at her over the coffee mug, steam blurring her features slightly.

  “It’s called ‘breakfast,’” Lauren said, stirring a skillet of eggs with a spatula while she took a quick glance at the timer. The toast was in the oven, and she figured another two minutes would see it done. “I don’t blame you for not recognizing it, though, since we haven’t really seen it ’round these here parts for a while.”

  Molly did not look amused. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Come on, kid,” Lauren said, putting a note of pleading into her voice. “I know you generally like the sort of morning meal that comes wrapped in an aluminum package and has more preservatives in it than a freshly embalmed corpse.” Molly blanched at that—maybe it was a little topical for the occasion. “But it’s Saturday, you’ve got no school to run off to in a rush with homework in tow. I made fresh eggs.”

  “How fresh?” Molly asked, still looking either suspicious or put out. “Like … farm fresh?”

  Lauren paused before answering. “Like … they might have been purchased at Rogerson’s sometime in the last few months.”

  “I’ll stick with the Pop-Tarts, I think.”

  “Oh, don’t go organic-superior on me now, missy,” Lauren said, pointing the spatula at her, “and especially not with your carb-infused, post-apocalyptic toaster pastry.”

  “Whatever,” Molly said, nonplussed. She turned to leave.

  “Who’s the guy?” Lauren called after her. She saw her daughter’s shoulders hunch just a little, and a slight slosh of coffee hit the linoleum.

  Molly swore, quietly, mildly, under her breath but just loud enough that Lauren could hear it. She turned, and there was that look of half-guilt, half-wonderment. “You keep asking that. What guy?” Like she hadn’t just given herself away.

  “Come on,” Lauren said, stepping away from the stove. “It’s me. You’re out of the house in the middle of the night, you think I don’t know there’s a guy involved somehow?”

  Molly’s brow arched down. “Projecting much?”

  “Probably,” Lauren said lightly, letting that one skate past. “I assume you’re at least a little like me.”

  Molly’s forehead was home to its very own thunderclouds. “I’m not …” She sighed. “I’m not that much like you.”

  “Just a little,” Lauren pressed. “So, what’s his name?” She could feel the hesitation. “Come on. You had to have been seen with him in town. You know by noon your grandmother is going to have enough information on him to put out an arrest warrant to all fifty states and Interpol.”

  Molly made a disgusted noise, one that held just a hint of concession. She waited a minute then spoke. “Mick. His name is Mick.”

  “Ugh.” Lauren did not even try to hide her distaste. “You cannot go out with a guy named Mick.”

  “Why not?” Molly asked, more than a little umbrage cracking through. Her coffee had stopped steaming, but she had just started, Lauren figured.

  “Because you’d be ‘Mick and Molly,’ and that’s just unacceptably cutesy.” Lauren waited, burying the unease, letting a little smile—maddening, infuriating, she knew, and just a little too close to the edge of ‘Mom trying too hard’—creep up. She just waited.

  Molly’s face softened, her shoulders slumped, and her head pitched forward. “Yes. How could I not have seen it before now? ‘Mick and Molly.’ I’ll call the whole thing off immediately.”

  “As well you should,” Lauren said with a smirk. “When are you seeing him again?” she asked, a hundred degrees cooler than she felt. If this Mick had been in front of her right now, she would have wedged the spatula firmly up his nose.

  “I’m not,” Molly said, a little too coolly herself. “I’m grounded, remember?”

  Lauren took a slow, painful breath. Her lungs felt leaden, like someone had filled them full of air already. “When were you supposed to see him?”

  “Tonight,” Molly said. “At the Summer Lights Festival.”

  “I trust I don’t know this Mick for a reason?” Lauren asked. “I mean, I don’t recognize the name, so I’m assuming it’s not just a nickname one of the boys at your school decided to adopt, like Razor, or Scooter, or—”

  “Strangely, no one at my school goes by the name ‘Razor’ or ‘Scooter,’ though there is one who goes by the name ‘Razor Scooter.’ He’s about as cool as you’d expect someone with that nickname to be.” That was Molly back on her feet, the fun, the snark all flowing out.

  “Sounds like the equivalent of a skater when I was growing up,” Lauren played along. “Totally gnarly dudes, those guys.” She consciously softened her approach as she pushed a little more. “So … Mick. I don’t know him?”

  “He works for the carnival,” Molly said, just a little sheepish. “He’s a really nice guy. He’s leaving town after tonight.”

  Lauren felt her face go ashen inside, that sense that she’d stood up entirely too fast after sitting for a long while, but she kept the smile in place from her last joke. “Your grounding can start tomorrow morning, I think.”

  Molly took it without a sign, save for a little glint in her eyes and a little smile crawling up on her lips. She did walk with just a little more spring as she headed back toward the stairs. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome,” Lauren said, and then belatedly remembered the eggs on the stove. They were like pebbles in the pan. She sighed, then sighed again
as she threw them into the garbage. The blackened toast followed a few minutes after.

  ***

  Midmorning came and went without a sign of any sort of dwelling. Hendricks felt antsy, Alison looked just tired to his eyes, and Duncan walked on without a care in the world. Hendricks found himself envying the demon, even though he was hardly exhausted at this point. The drover coat was hot, though, with the summer weather in full effect. He could feel the sweat popping out everywhere, and his thighs were sticking together down below. A most uncomfortable sensation.

  “How far?” he asked Alison. The smell of greenery in the air wasn’t too bad. Pine, he figured. It wasn’t as hot as Iraq, that was for damned sure. The humidity was a real bitch here, though.

  “I don’t know,” Alison replied. She just looked worn down, and Hendricks found himself wondering how long it had been since she’d slept. He knew it’d been a while for him, too, but whether it was the waffle place’s coffee or the vial of whatever Spellman had given him, he felt no urge to sleep. “A couple miles, maybe?”

  “Memory a little faded?” Duncan asked. He seemed a bit too chipper.

  “Like I said,” Alison sniffed, her shoulders with a pronounced bow to them, “the last time I came here I was a kid. It was a long walk, I remember that much.”

  “Your daddy brought you here?” Hendricks asked. “Not just a Sunday drive, I presume.”

  “One of his friends had moved down here after medical school,” Alison said. “They were close, talked all the time on the phone. One day he called and got an ‘Out of Service’ signal. He tried a few more times over the course of a year and finally decided to take matters into his own hands.”

  “Didn’t call the state police, I guess,” Hendricks said, taking an uneven step over a shrub that brushed his jeans. The cowboy boots were nice for a fight, but not particularly great for long walks. He could feel blisters forming. Ah, the sexy life of a demon hunter.

  “He couldn’t conceive of a scenario where he’d need to call the state police for this,” Alison said. “So he drove down one day, just me and him. When we got to the fence, he figured it was some kind of mistake. Spent a half an hour looking at the map, then took us back up the road. Once he figured he was right, he decided to cross the fence.” She exhaled softly. “I went with him.”

  “Trespassing?” Hendricks said with amusement.

  “Yep, we were regular lawbreakers,” she said without amusement.

  “I’m getting the hints of that,” Hendricks said. Didn’t really believe it, though, not really, even with her nighttime sniping of late. “So what did you find?”

  “I told you—”

  “What did you really find?” Hendricks shook a finger at her. “No more of this woman of mystery crap. Starling’s got that well and truly covered.”

  He watched her swallow, and almost pale in the faint sunlight. The clouds were hanging a little low, Hendricks thought. “We did find a survivor,” Alison said. “Didn’t really talk to her or anything, but we saw her. And there were creatures. Things.”

  “What kind of things?” Duncan asked before Hendricks could beat him to the punch.

  “Demons, for sure,” Alison said, “though we didn’t really know that at the time. They chased us. Nearly got us.”

  “What stopped them?” Hendricks asked.

  “My daddy goes heeled everywhere,” Alison said simply, like that was an explanation.

  “Heeled?” Duncan asked, his face exhibiting the first hint of curiosity. “Like … in high heels? They were put off by his innate sexiness?”

  “I think it means armed,” Hendricks offered helpfully. “In Old West slang or something.”

  “He carries a pistol, yes,” Alison said. “Everywhere he goes. He pulled his pistol and kept the things off of us while we ran. We saw someone as we hurried out of town. It’s not like we were ready for a fight. But those things … demons … they kept on coming until we were well into the outskirts. Then it was like they had their chains pulled, and they peeled off of us to go back to town.”

  “Dogs?” Duncan asked. “They were like dogs?”

  “Ran on all fours,” Alison said without emotion. “Looked like hellhounds or something.”

  That one sent the OOC to puzzling, and he kept his silence. Hendricks wanted to interrupt him to ask about it, but figured he could wait just a little bit longer before he absolutely needed to know.

  ***

  Lauren arrived at the hospital just a little bit earlier than she had to. The pall she’d felt the night before had more or less vanished, aided not by a burned breakfast that had all gone to waste but by the feeling of honesty and connection to Molly. Yeah, it sounded a little hippy-dippy even for her, but she’d take it. This was how she and her kid got along best; she trusted her to make good decisions.

  And not fuck a carnie who was about to leave town.

  Well, that part was implied.

  Oh, God, was it implied? It needed to be plainly stated, she figured, and made a panicked mental note to have another conversation with her daughter when she got off shift that afternoon.

  Still, it was with a mostly calm feeling that she rode the elevator up to the fourth floor so she could—person of conscience that she was—check on Deputy Harris before she started her shift in the ER.

  She found the nursing staff absent from the station in the hallway, which was not exactly unusual. They didn’t have a ton of patients to cover, and they were probably out checking around. She just checked the board behind the desk, saw that Harris was in room 412, and whistled her merry way into the room. She found the respirator still going, the heart monitor still beeping, and the poor deputy’s color much improved.

  Lauren grabbed the chart off the end of the bed by sheer habit. Checking the notes, she peered from what she was reading to what she was seeing. Heart rate was looking a lot nicer, and so was the pulse ox. That didn’t necessarily mean anything by itself, but it was a good sign after the way the girl had looked when she’d been brought in.

  Lauren almost made it out without seeing two things of note. Almost.

  One was Sheriff Nicholas Reeve, asleep in the corner of the room with his hat down over his eyes. That made her tread quieter, afraid she’d wake him up. He would almost certainly want to talk about something, and she didn’t really have time for that.

  The second thing was the IV bag hanging from the tree. She almost made it past before something nagged at her and pulled her back. She stepped back and looked at it again, and it just jumped out at her.

  There was no writing on the bag at all. Not a brand, not instructions, nothing.

  “What the fuck …?” she said, so undone by the surprise she did not bother to keep her voice down.

  “What the fuck what?” Sheriff Reeve repeated, hat coming down off his eyes, blinking the bleariness out.

  She told him. The eyes went from bleary to hard in seconds flat, and Lauren had this feeling—just a hunch—that she was going to be late for her shift.

  ***

  Time slowed to a crawl as Hendricks made his way through that half-forested plain that passed for Alabama countryside. It was hillier than he expected, but he kept good time. Alison looked more and more worn out as the time passed, however, and he started to feel sorry for her. “Maybe we should take a break,” he suggested.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She was not quite wheezing, but it was evident from her gait that she was feeling the hike. She looked to be in reasonable shape, but Hendricks knew looks could be extremely deceiving. He’d met a few truly skinny people who were in just awful health, without enough cardio fitness to run across a driveway.

  “Maybe just a little rest,” Duncan said, giving him the eye. Hendricks could see the demon was observing the same phenomenon as he was, and wondered if the OOC was feeling a flash of sympathy. “No point in getting there if we’re exhausted when we arrive.”

  “You planning on running when we arrive?” Hendricks smirked at that, though upon
reflection he wasn’t sure that was much of a reason to smirk, really. He felt himself rest a hand on his pistol grip, just to reassure himself the old 1911 was still there.

  “Depends on what we’re staring down,” Duncan said. He lurked, walking slowly across the forested ground, the crunch of leaves under his dress shoes as Alison leaned against a tree. They hadn’t brought water, which had been stupid on Hendricks’s part. He’d been back in civilization so much of the time that the ordinary precautions of war had faded as he returned to a place where you could buy a water bottle in every store if you got thirsty. Sloppy.

  “What do you think we’re up against?” Hendricks asked. “Based on what she saw?”

  “Hellhounds are a broad category,” Duncan said, like he was just recalling it all right up, out of a memory bank or something. “They’re not really dogs, most of them, just four-legged and propel themselves like one. Or near enough so as not to matter.”

  “You people come in all shapes and sizes,” Hendricks said, leaning on the “you people.” He remembered a little belatedly that Lerner had needled him about that just a few days earlier.

  “There is a long history of hellhounds being set loose on earth,” Duncan said in what sounded like agreement. “Not really sure what class they’d be, though. Some of them look more like beetles, and those are a real bastard to dispatch—”

  “Why?” Alison asked.

  “Hard shell,” Duncan replied. “Low essence, low intelligence. Built like tanks, if tanks were low to the ground and moved like a cheetah.”

  “Abrams tank can get up to about fifty,” Hendricks said for no reason he could point to. Except that he hated feeling out of his depth, and marching into some town that had been dropped off the map for probably very good reasons felt like the dumbest move he’d made lately. Which took doing. Why was he buying into this again?

  Oh, right. Starling. If he really reflected on it, putting his faith in a girl who had as bad a problem with ambiguity as she did seemed like the dumbest move of all.