The warm water ran over her skin, scalding hot, just like she liked it. Her arms were already red from the warmth of the spray, a perfect exfoliation by heat. Her skin always tended toward oily instead of dry anyway, so the loss of moisture from boiling herself wasn’t a big deal to her. She’d put her hair back before she got in, intending to keep it dry so she didn’t have to deal with it when she got out, but that resolution lasted about thirty seconds and then she said fuck it and just let the water dribble down through her hair, all warm and wonderful. She’d just do a ponytail, who fucking cared.
The sound of the water against the porcelain tub was a steady, soothing sound, and she got lost in the rhythm. She closed her eyes and just listened, warm wetness just rolling down her skin from forehead to neck, from shoulders to shins, the smell of the hot water like bliss.
A click from beyond the curtain made her open her eyes, blinking the water out between her lashes. She had locked the door, hadn’t she? Immediate discomfort leaped upon her, and she said, “Umm, occupied.”
The door clicked shut again, and she closed her eyes once more. Probably just Molly, not thinking, barging in to pee. Her daughter had a powerful ability to get so distracted she barely noticed the world around her. Usually it manifested while she was reading, but Lauren wouldn’t put it past her to have it extend to just walking around, especially now that Molly’s head was constantly in the clouds about demons. Or, maybe more like in the ground about demons? Where was hell, anyway?
Chilly air drifted down from above the shower curtain, causing Lauren to shiver. Jesus, that was something, just a sudden draft out of nowhere. She shuddered again, the cool air causing her flesh to immediately prickle and pop into goose bumps. “Fuck.” She put a hand on the knob, ready to turn it to an even hotter temperature to overcome the sudden chill. Someone must have turned on the air conditioner or something—
The shower curtain rattled as it was pulled back suddenly, the sound and rush of unexpected light as it moved scaring the hell out of Lauren; if she hadn’t already been standing in a stream of warm water she would have sworn she’d peed herself first at the fright, and then again at what was waiting beyond the curtain.
Molly was standing there, staring right at her.
But she wasn’t alone.
There was another woman standing there, Yvette Something-or-other, a lady Lauren barely knew, who lived somewhere out of town. And between her and Molly stood her mother. Vera looked about scared half-shitless, her glasses askew on her nose.
That was what Lauren saw in the first second after the curtain was pulled back; conscious only of the three of them, of her own nudity and shock, it took her a second more to realize the real horror of the situation, which was—
Oh, God.
—that Molly had a very serious, very angry look on her face … and she was holding a knife to Vera’s neck, a little trickle of crimson blood already working its way down her throat. The terror was stark and obvious on her mother’s face, and whatever warmth Lauren had felt a moment earlier vanished just as surely as if someone had turned the shower knob all the way to cold.
*
Reeve had barely stripped off his uniform in disgust when it hit him that he was doing this, really doing this, something he never would have imagined. He could have seen himself losing re-election at some point in the future. Hell, he’d thought it could happen, had pondered it only a week or two ago, before he found out about demons for the first time. Since then he hadn’t had much time to give it a think, but he’d considered the possibility that maybe he’d run again, after this was over, and lose. He’d thought just yesterday that maybe he’d fail to win the recall election that Pike was going to mount. He hadn’t spent a ton of time dwelling on that, but he’d at least given it a little consideration in the sleeplessness of last night.
But it hadn’t even been a mote of possibility that he’d get dragged out of office this very day by the goddamned wolves of Calhoun County politics.
He held his uniform shirt in his hands, staring down at the khakis. His rib ached faintly, but he ignored it. He sniffed and smelled something a little pungent, but ignored that, too. He’d put this uniform on when he was a hell of a lot younger man, with good intentions. He’d wanted to protect this county against whatever came its way, wanted to help people, dammit.
Now he was holding it with loathing, looking at it like it was a disease-soaked blanket hurled at him. This uniform was something he’d given his all to, especially lately. If there was anything more he could have done, especially since he’d had his eyes forcefully opened, he didn’t know what it was.
“I’ve done all I can,” Reeve murmured to himself. There wasn’t much reassurance there, maybe a speck’s worth at most. He sniffed again, and that smell …
God, what the hell was that?
He blinked and stared at the shiny badge pinned beneath the breast as it caught the light. It gleamed, all but the part where the word “Sheriff” was carved into the metal in a dark line of exposed copper that made the metal look a little black. Putting on this badge, the one that dropped the word “Deputy” from it, had been the proudest moment of his professional life.
Now, that pride was ripped off like his uniform, burned like—
Jesus, the smell in here. He wrinkled his nose and looked around; he’d pulled the bedroom door to, closing it from the hallway to the rest of the house, but something was wafting its way in, like someone was cleaning a lawnmower engine out there. “Donna?” he called. “Do you smell something?” He waited a second for an answer but got nothing. “I hope to hell that’s not dinner,” he said under his breath.
He looked back down at the uniform, pants puddled beneath him, his belt with the gun and sword on it poking out of the tent of fabric. Reeve held the shirt’s slightly rough cloth between his fingers, and let it fall out of his hand. To him, it was like letting go of the past. He was done being sheriff, at least for now, it looked like. Sure, he could go try and get a lawyer to fight for him, to sue the fuck outta the county on his behalf, but why? Unless something major changed, he was going to lose the recall election. Seeing that show of hands in the meeting hall last night had convinced him of that much. He was just about out of persuasion, too; this far down his rope, he was more likely to start telling people who doubted him to fuck themselves instead of trying to gently show them how wrong they were. It irritated him most that now he finally understood why Arch had done what he’d done when he’d run; most people just couldn’t wrap their damned heads around demons. It was just too much—
“Goddamn,” he said, nose wrinkling again. It near took his breath away, this time, and Reeve stuck his hairy wrist right up under his nose, trying to block it. He couldn’t ignore it anymore to marinate in his own anger, and whatever unhappy introspection he might have wanted to do, he could do it after he figured out what the fuck was stinking up the house like someone had dragged a gas pump in here and just let it loose—
He opened the door to find Donna standing there, staring at him with dead, burning eyes, wet like she’d been out in the rain. Fumes hit Reeve square in the nose, taking his breath away, and he knew in an instant that she was—goddamn, she was fucking drenched in it, a trail behind her, dark, wet carpeting stretching down the hall—in gasoline, and an old cigarette lighter was perched between her fingers, thumb ready to strike it up.
*
Brian had answered the door without really thinking about it. If he had been thinking about it, if he hadn’t had his head completely and totally in his self-pitying and self-involved situation, stewing in his own juices, he might not have opened the door. But he did, and when the autumn breeze came creeping in through the open door, Mrs. Lester’s hand did, too, and touched him lightly on the back of his before he could realize that her eyes were way, way different than he could ever remember seeing the older lady look at him before.
There was hate in those eyes, he realized a little belatedly, as she touched him. It wasn’t a gen
tle touch, either, it was like her fingernails dug into the back of his hand as she did it, like she sunk them in good, aiming to draw blood, even though he didn’t see her do anything like that. It wasn’t the only thing he felt as the breeze slunk past him, chilling him. Those were just the little things he noticed, the preambles to a larger, longer hell that followed a second later.
Brian’s vision blurred, knives jabbed into his temples, but he didn’t react at all, at least not physically. Everything got fuzzy for a second, signal interruption working its way through his brain, and the pain in his hand became a distant memory. The feeling of cold air finding its way through his clothes stayed, though, and maybe got worse; it was hard to tell through the knives in his brain.
You belong to us.
Brian couldn’t think of a good response to that. It wasn’t like a polite overture, something simple like, Hey, you wanna go grab some dinner? Or Hey, you want to go back to my place and fuck? No, it wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t nice, it was a scream in the ear in a quiet night, a punch to the groin that you didn’t see coming, and two-by-four to the back of the head that made a cracking noise that had nothing to do with the board.
You belong to us.
Brian didn’t want to belong to anyone. All he wanted was to leave town and never come back. He didn’t want anyone telling him how it was going to be. That was the shitter about living at home, really; his dad and mom got to boss him around a little. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t tolerate much of it, because in a contest of wills, he wasn’t going to—
You belong to us.
That fucking Lonsdale, what did he say? Like a chorus of harpies? That sounded about right, and he heard it, right in his brain, like a bunch of needles being dragged along vinyl. The voices were scratchy and hard, unyielding and angry, God, so fucking angry that it made that girl he’d accidentally called by the wrong name during sex that one time look fucking happy as a clam by comparison.
Brian closed the door on Mrs. Lester. She was already walking away anyhow, wandering off down the walk to a waiting car when he heard the click of the lock. Brian was left alone—
Not alone.
—in the entryway to the house, staring around at the long hallway in front of him.
His dad peeked his head out at the far end of the hall, cell phone up to his ear, hand covering the microphone, but inadequately. “Who was it?”
Oh, Jesus, Bill—Dad—you have to—
“Ding dong and ditch,” he said—well, it came out in his voice, but he didn’t say it—
“Hmm,” his dad said, shrugging and disappearing around the corner. No worries about that, then. “Yes … yeah, I need your help on that …” His voice trailed quietly as he went, speaking to whoever was on the phone.
Brian walked down the hall, the world curiously dark around him. It wasn’t nearly night yet, but the world had taken on the tinge of shadow, like darkness was bleeding in around the edges. Brian walked crisply, slowly, taking it all in, running fingers down the wall. He saw trace amounts of finger oil being left behind, and thought about how his mom used to yell at him about that when he was a kid. “Keep your hands off the wall!” she’d shout. Yeah, like—
Holy shit holy shit oh God! Holy fucking fuck somebody—
Brian walked out into the living room where his dad was waiting, just hanging up the phone and saying something in a hushed voice to his mom. They both looked up as he came in, stopped talking as if they’d been caught discussing him; well, him or Alison as regarded him—
SHIT! NO! MOM! DAD! JESUS CHRIST—
“What are you talking about in here?” Brian asked, and it sounded just—just a little sarcastic, just perfectly on point to hit the tone he might have taken in the same circumstances, if he hadn’t just had his balls ripped off in a public setting by his sister—
ALISON! ARCH! FUCK, SOMEBODY! ANYBODY!
His father was only a few feet away now, and Brian stopped where he was standing, waiting for the answer. “Well,” his dad said, and Brian could tell he was thinking fast—
DAD! MOM! GET OUT OF HERE! Fuck fuck fuck—
Brian moved a couple steps closer, waiting to hear the answer. A goofy, shit-eating grin was plastered all over his face, he could feel it, and it was too wide, too smarmy, too—
NO! Don’t do this! You don’t have to do this!
Brian blinked as his father started to open his mouth to answer. Before he could Brian reached out, hand blurring with speed, and went right for the pistol he knew his dad was carrying under his jacket. He yanked it out before his father could even react, turned it upward with a flick of the wrist, and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash blinded him for a second, but when it faded he saw the blood, everywhere, running down his dad’s shirt and jacket, covering him, and somewhere within Brian Longholt a silent scream died trying to make its way out of his mouth.
7.
Amanda Guthrie had vaped more than her fair share of demons, but she hadn’t done it in her current form. That didn’t much matter, because the shell wrapped around her essence was just a shell; one with a few cool new perks and a different look, but not one so radically different from the old Lerner one that she was unprepared for a fight using it. She was up to her ass in fucking demons right now, though, and it was bringing back memories.
Duncan was across the room, swinging for the fences with his baton. His frustration was showing like the cracks in the hotel room walls, more and more obvious as they continued to appear. Sometime real soon, in fact, the demons-in-human-bodies that they were fighting might even realize that Duncan was upset, Guthrie figured. She’d dealt with him for a long time, after all, and no one could read Duncan like she could.
She wasn’t without her own frustrations at the moment. She bashed one of their attackers in the skull, breaking skin, and watched the black fire rip an essence out of that body while the human being that wore that skin took control again. It was a sad thing to watch, that dazed look in a person’s eye when they realize they’ve been out of it for a while, that slow dawning of understanding when they blinked away the sleepy feeling and saw that they were in a hotel room with a bunch of people moving faster than anything they’d seen before …
Except every time Amanda had seen that happen so far, that sweet moment of victory only lasted about two seconds and another one of these demon fuckers would swoop back in and touch the poor bastard, and that light of awareness would get snuffed out hard, and they’d jump right back into the fight.
It was getting to the point where Amanda was seriously considering just killing the damned humans to stop this repetitive cycle. Who the fuck wanted to keep knocking the same face around constantly?
“I think we should—” she started to say.
“No,” Duncan cut her off. The bastard. He still had it. “There has to be an end to these things.”
Amanda gave him a stinkeye for a quarter-second between swings. “Legions. Fuck. I knew Home Office had a good reason for wiping these out.”
Duncan didn’t respond, at least not immediately. “Yep,” he finally said, taciturn as ever.
It was good to be back. Even with this shit to deal with.
*
Reeve was stuck staring, dumbstruck, at Donna posed just outside his door, lighter in hand, reeking and covered head to feet in gasoline. She was just soaked, like she’d gone for a midnight swim in a gasoline watering hole and not bothered to take a stitch off first. Reeve just stared at her, slack-jawed, disbelieving, before it clicked in his head what he was dealing with. “Legion,” he said, barely whispering it.
“It is our name, for we are—” The voice came out of her mouth but it wasn’t hers, it was that of a grating, angry man. The eyes that had once looked at him with such love held nothing but hate, in a way that he’d never seen from these eyes before. They’d had arguments in their years of marriage, sure, but even when Donna had been pissed off and spitting fire, she’d never looked at him like she was looking at him now.
Her hand came up, the cigarette lighter clenched between the fingers, poised to strike the flint and push the button.
“Wait!” Reeve shouted, voice bellowing out in fear and echoing through the quiet house. “Don’t—”
“We pleaded with you,” came the angry man’s voice from between her lips again. “Told you we were no threat. That we didn’t want violence. And still you—”
“Your compatriot apparently didn’t feel the same about violence,” Reeve said, mind frantically racing to try and defuse this situation. These bastards had him over a barrel, now, it was plain, and he needed to get right to the root, get them talked off the ledge before something real bad happened here. “And I’m real sorry about how that played out—”
“Your apologies are meaningless,” the voice rose, even more furious. “Your words are empty.”
“I mean it, sincerely,” Reeve said, digging deep and hard, ripping his pride out without even thinking about it. Apologize to a demon? He wouldn’t have thought so this morning, but then, a lot had changed since then. “I am sorry. People do funny things when you threaten them and their loved ones.” He gestured out with a single hand to indicate Donna. “We had no choice, and I’m—”
“Stop apologizing!” the voice screamed, and Donna’s face contorted with anger, gasoline dripping out of her grey hair, dark and soaked in the petroleum.
“I don’t know what else I can do for you,” Reeve said, voice shaking. “Tell me what you want. We can—”
“What we want?” The voice paused, and the dead eyes stared at him.
“Everybody wants something,” Reeve said, keeping his hands as neutrally placed as he could, not daring to go for a weapon. If he went for anything, it was over, because that demon in Donna’s skin could flick that lighter faster than he could draw a sword and nick her arm. “What do you want?” He licked his lips, tentative. If he could just get them to tell him what they wanted, it’d be something. They could find some common ground, start working toward a solution that didn’t involve—
Legion (Southern Watch Book 5) Page 28
