She was hanging out in the room with the icemaker and the vending machines again, just lurking, listening for the elevator. The quiet hum of the icemaker was a pleasant enough sound, like fluorescent lights turned up to twelve. It alternated on and off every little while, and the sound of ice being dumped, crackling, into the machine was a pleasant distraction every once in a while from her thoughts. She thought about the new ice hitting the old ice, mixing, becoming a heterogeneous mass of water turned solid. She thought about water a lot; it was something she pondered when she had spare time. Which she’d had a lot of recently.
The ice crashed down into the machine and just beneath that, she heard the faint ring of the elevator. It caused her to stiffen in place, all senses crashing to alertness, the yellow-beige walls of the hotel snapping back into stark clarity and the starburst patterns in the carpeting coming back into clear focus. She didn’t have irises or lenses in her eyes to adjust, but still somehow she could lose focus. That was cause for more pondering, actually.
She eased up to the door, listening carefully. The gears and the cables in the elevator shaft were squeaking as the box came to a halt, and now she could hear the doors sliding open. She paused at the door, her dark hand a hard contrast against the white trim of the frame, and if she’d had breath, she would have waited with it bated.
This was the time.
She heard footsteps against the hard carpet, thumping along, someone in a great damned big hurry. The movement was not subtle; it was the steps of someone in a rush, wanting to get down the hall, eager to retreat from the world, to turtle inside their room, maybe even hide in the bed and pull up the covers.
Interesting. That’s what Amanda Guthrie thought.
She knew it was the OOC by his footsteps, could tell it was him by the urgency, by the lack of the sound of breaths being taken. He was sure he was alone in this hallway, too, which meant he was reaching out with his senses, even though he was going with a full head of steam toward his room. Something had happened, that much seemed obvious, and she would have bet anything it had something to do with the sound of gunshots she’d picked up earlier.
But none of that mattered now. He was almost to her, and the moment was at hand. He was moving at demon speed, assured of his own safety, certain that he was alone.
It was going to be worth it just to yank that certainty away for a second.
She timed it perfectly, jumping out as he passed. She smacked into him and he was knocked solidly off course. He almost went through the wall but caught himself just in time, perfectly expert, getting hold of his balance before he tumbled through drywall and wood into some empty room, and his head snapped up to look right at her. There was a burning in those eyes, and she knew she’d caught him completely off guard, scared the shit out of him—if OOCs had done much in the way of shitting—and he was left staring, the reflex to strike back about to take hold.
“Duncan,” Amanda said, backing off and smirking at him. He was scanning her hard right now, had to be, trying to figure out how he’d gotten blindsided. He didn’t show much in the way of emotion, but she’d known him long enough to know that his self-preservation instincts, the ones ingrained so deep in even demons, were flaring hard right now. His bland face was all hard lines, his eyes aglare at Amanda, but they softened slightly at her relaxed posture, her sudden backward movement.
“Who are you?” Duncan asked, and he had the baton out, in his hand, undeployed. He was giving her the benefit of a doubt, but only a tiny little bit. The question was playing across his essence, probably, trying to punch through Amanda’s shell and get to the answer, to figure out just who the hell she was, because if he just vaped her, the answers would be lost to the wind.
“St. Louis,” Amanda said, smiling enigmatically, “1904. You go on a hot air balloon for the first time, and it shows you a view of this old world that you can’t even believe. Two years later you stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and you shed a little tear; a piece of your essence worms its way out of your eye and evaporates in the air like a human crying out salt water.”
“How do you know about that?” Duncan asked, his grip on the baton not loosening, not even a little.
“Ponca City, Oklahoma, 1933,” Amanda went on, locking eyes with him, seeing flickers of what was going on inside the shell. “You see the Dust Bowl with your own eyes, and you start to feel bad for the humans. It opens the door to empathy, and suddenly you’re wondering what the hell you’re doing here on this planet.”
“I know what I’m doing here,” Duncan said, and his hand shook, the baton gripped in his fingers, one of them hovering over the switch that would trip the spring and open the telescoping baton with a THUNK! “My question is … who are you? And what are you doing here?”
“Bosnia, 1993,” Amanda went on, and if her eye could have twinkled, it would have. “A herd of entwastle falls upon a group of refugees, ripping them to shreds before you can thin the herd and send it running.”
Duncan bristled harder at that. “So … you’ve been talking to Lerner.” He opened the baton, THUNK. “I guess now I know who you are.”
Amanda eyed the baton without concern. She figured she had another thirty seconds or so before he decided to come at her with it. “You’re threatening someone from Home Office? Ballsy, Duncan. Ballsy.”
“Funny how quiet Home Office has been lately,” Duncan said, practically seething. “Why, I haven’t heard from you at all.”
“We’ve been busy,” Amanda said, and the baton wavered slightly. “But I’m not from Home Office. I’ve just … been there recently.”
Duncan’s eyes flickered. “Is that so?”
“That’s so.” Amanda met his gaze hard in return, and she let down a little of the shield built into her new shell. It was fancy, this year’s model, and a hell of a lot better than the last one she’d had. She just had to do a little motion, and Duncan would be able to see …
Duncan staggered, his baton dropping to his side, then falling out of his fingers and clattering to the ground. “It’s … you’re …”
Amanda just smiled at him. She’d had to lead the horse to water and let him drink at his own pace, and it had been worth it just for this moment. “That’s right.” Her driver’s license might have said Amanda Guthrie, but that was a lie, just as much of one as the last one she’d held, the one before, for the other shell—the one that had said her name was Lerner. “I’m back, baby.”
*
Why the hell am I here? Brian wondered as the car rolled along, turning a curve gently. His dad was at the wheel, and whenever his mother was in the car, Bill drove like an old lady. Hell, he drove like even more of an old lady than his mother did, which meant that in Brian’s eyes, it would have been better if his mother had been driving. It was almost like his dad’s protective instincts were going overtime, over the top, and Brian didn’t like it.
And here he was, squeezed into the back seat, Arch on one window, him on the other, and Alison in the middle, like she hadn’t just embarrassed the hell out of him in front of everybody, ripping him to pieces in the parking lot of the sheriff’s office. The only good news was that Dr. Darlington had already left, because if she hadn’t, Brian would have been twice as embarrassed. He had a little crush on the doctor; there was no point in denying it. Equally apparent to him was the fact that the doctor didn’t reciprocate, and that was perfectly well and good and all, but he was still only slightly less mortified that she hadn’t been present while he’d been dressed down. It felt a little like being a child again and stripped naked in front of strangers for changing. There was a burning shame that stuck in his throat and made him want to cry just a little.
The worst part of it was how hard she’d hit him right in the feels. It wasn’t like he was oblivious to the truths she’d blown into his face like an opened can of whoopass. He knew how much he stuck out in Midian, he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he didn’t really have any friends here; it was obvious to him that of this en
tire watch, he was the odd, odd, odd man out. And that took into account the demon, the pervert, and the guy who went everywhere dressed for the world’s most emo cattle drive.
It was even more obvious to him that maybe running to New York and finding work in a publishing house as a junior editor or assistant or someone who did coffee runs would be a hell of a lot safer than someone doing the same here in Midian.
That was a frightening thought. Someone walking through the back streets of the biggest city in the US might have better survival odds than someone in Midian if things kept getting worse, as had been suggested that they would.
Brian sighed and his breath fogged the window. It reminded him of being a kid again, as though just being stuck in the back seat next to his sister wasn’t enough to do that. If that wasn’t bad enough, and her ripping a piece out of his ass while being such a vicious witch wasn’t, he also had to deal with the fact that she was all up in his space. It wasn’t her fault, even he knew that; Arch was a big guy and the middle seat wasn’t exactly huge, but still, in spite of the fact that he could feel that she was contorting her body not to touch him, she still felt alarmingly close. Close enough that he could hear her breathe over the sound of the road, and it irritated him.
She hadn’t always been like this, though. She clearly had some anger built up, the way she’d blown off at him like Old Faithful. She was often snappish, but he usually did something to prompt it, because … well, because he could.
Going after his soft spots, though? That sucked. That made him feel like a loser, cast doubt on the tiny shreds of certainty that he’d started to pull together. Like being handed a behind-the-desk job hadn’t been bad enough for his self-esteem.
Why was he here? Talk about a question he’d pondered in the course of his philosophy degree. He figured he’d beaten that one to death, and the fact was, even after all that, he felt no closer to an answer as they pulled into the driveway than he had earlier, sitting at the desk, looking at what he thought was his new normal.
*
Lauren hadn’t figured on waiting around in the parking lot. Why would she? Reeve had left, the Stans and the Longholts were plainly of a mind to take off, and hanging around to try and talk some sense into County Administrator Pike seemed like a losing effort. She’d talked to him only a few weeks earlier and he’d been all kind and decent, going on about pulling together, uniting the community, not making people feel like they were alone in all this, and now here he was ripping Sheriff Reeve out of his job like he was pulling a weed out of a garden. She had her suspicions about the man, but at least Mrs. Stan had proven he was no demon. That made him either truly misguided or a real prick. Either way, she was feeling pretty burned about it at the moment.
Plus, the thought of these possession demons running around Midian kidnapping people? That was a troubling thought, to say the least. Lauren hadn’t exactly wrapped her mind around it yet. She’d just gotten acclimated to the idea that yes, there were demons, and yes, they were from hell, and yes, they were in town and killing people. She’d seen them, she’d fought them, she’d burned a few alive and vaporized some more, and that was enough to get her brain twisting around the concept.
But the idea that one could just … jump into your body? Take it over like you were a suit and it was putting you on? That was scary stuff to her, the kind of thing she didn’t care to dwell on. That was like going from one plus one straight to multivariable calculus. She considered a couple possibilities for how one of those things might work and then tried to discard the thought for fear she’d have a blow out of paranoia. The fact that they’d already taken Evelyn Creek and disappeared was concerning. That they’d vowed some kind of vengeance on Sheriff Reeve and Arch Stan was even more worrisome.
But that wasn’t her immediate problem; the loss of their new headquarters was a more immediate concern, and it wasn’t hers to bear alone, she reflected as she pulled into her driveway. Her mother’s car was waiting under the carport, and she parked next to it, feeling some of the tension bleed out as she put the vehicle in park. A shower, some food, some time talking to Molly—that’s what she needed right now. Time to process, to make sense of things. Later, she’d meet up with the others and they’d figure out the next move.
She just hoped nothing bad happened to any of them in the meantime. Because having a possession demon after you? Well, she thought as she slammed the door after her, stepping out into the cool, early evening air, the smell of fall all around her, that didn’t sound like any fun at all.
*
“We’ve followed a dark-haired woman to her house,” said Mera, her host’s husky voice crackling over the phone. “This body does not know her, but seems to think she’s a doctor.”
“Doctor Lauren Darlington,” Chester said, nodding as he looked out over the field before him. The sun was drifting down toward the edge of the horizon, hiding behind the trees in the west. “Penelope saw her leaving the sheriff’s department as you went after her. She appears to be part of their group, so …” He didn’t need to finish the thought, and Mera hung up without further comment.
Chester felt the cool prickle of the wind as it picked up. They had people on Deputy Stan and the family that he was with, the Longholts, as well as on the OOC, Duncan. He had dispatched additional reinforcements for that one, figuring he would be a tricky fellow.
Chester felt as though he had these peoples’ fates in the palm of his hand; only a squeeze would see them delivered unto pain. The sheriff was under their watchful eye, as was the cowboy demon hunter. Their little watch was practically waiting to be slaughtered, but Chester was not of a mind to slaughter them, no, not yet. At least, not all of them. The OOC, certainly, he would need to be eliminated. But the others? They had possibilities, weaknesses, people they cared about as he had cared about William. Well, perhaps not that deeply, but close enough, for their kind, and now he would make them feel it—a lesser version of what he had felt. Shallow creatures that they were, they couldn’t feel exactly what he felt, of course, but he could make them feel something.
Living for as long as he had, Chester had a complexity and depth to his emotions that he knew humans could not fathom. He had lived among them, known them, even respected them. They had reasons for feeling the ways that they did, reasons for doing the things that they did. Knowing them as he had come to, he had respected them, respected life, and expected that respect to be returned.
But he had forgotten that these humans did not know what he and his brethren did. They were not united in their beliefs, did not share everything between themselves, did not have the common vision and values that he and his people shared. They were fractious and alone, and their lack of unity had caused them to act foolishly, to strike out at William.
He had wondered in the moments since it happened, he and the others, if only the humans had been more like him and his brethren, if only they understood among themselves, communicated, shared, felt the openness of connection the way he and his did, if things would have been different. He did not wonder for long, though, for he knew without a doubt it was true. If the humans had been more like him, none of this would have happened. They would not have backed William into a corner so foolishly, they would not have accosted him—those demon hunters first and the police second, not that there was a difference between them, really, was there? They were all humans, all fractious, all foolish, all isolated and dangerous.
If only they’d been like him, like his people, this would not have happened. Their division was their weakness; it created a terminal lack of understanding, and because of that … they knew pain. And Chester would heap more upon them, these people, these guilty, guilty people, for that was the only appropriate response. He had pain to share in abundance, for now that he had felt it at their hands, he and his brethren had no desire at all to keep it to themselves any longer.
*
Lauren was barely in the door when Molly caught her in a big hug, the kind that she remembered from when her dau
ghter was knee-high to a cricket, toddling over to tackle her when she got home from med school. Those had been the best hugs, the ones where a spontaneous and joyful outburst of “MOMMY!” had been followed by a hard squeeze around the neck, and lovely coiling of warm arms and weight as she’d picked her daughter up and hugged her right back.
It had felt like a long time since those days of happy greetings, but Molly came at her today, and she was caught a little off guard. This wasn’t the hug of a two-year-old squeezing with all her heart, though, but the hug of a teenager who was either genuinely happy to see her mother or else wanted something. Lauren was pretty sure it was the former, but if a request for an iPhone or something popped out in the next sixty seconds, she wouldn’t have been shocked.
“I was worried,” Molly said, hugging her tight. Lauren hugged her in return, not quite as tight, but enough. Molly was still a pretty thin girl, with tiny shoulders. She could have benefited from eighties shoulderpads if those had still been in vogue, but slender was okay anyway, so Lauren supposed it didn’t really matter.
“I’m fine,” Lauren said, and Molly broke off, eyes all brimming with worry.
“I heard shooting,” Molly said, hands still resting on Lauren’s shoulders. Her daughter was tall, now, almost as tall as Lauren was. When did that happen? “I figured maybe you were involved.”
“Only at the end,” Lauren said, “after it was done. And no one got badly hurt, so …”
“Whew,” Molly said, undisguised relief flooding her voice. “I feel like we dodged a bullet again.”
Legion (Southern Watch Book 5) Page 26
