Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  In his most private, unguarded moments—and this was definitely one, with his heavy wooden door tightly shut—he pondered the opportunities laid out before him. It was a narrow road he walked, trying to slice off one piece of the county at a time, making sure his duly dull constituents didn’t get wise to his act. He had a plan, and it wasn’t to get run out of town on a rail before the fun really began.

  There were certainly opportunities. There were nglashii harbored in a nest out near the National Forest, according to Pike’s sources. Nglashii were two-legged, three-headed chaos-thrivers. They didn’t tend to show up to a hotspot party until it was time for the big show to begin. As much as he regretted his little sacrifice going awry in the square, it hadn’t been all in vain. The demons here might not have been able to participate thanks to that damned possessed bastard stealing the thunder, but it had raised a few eyebrows in the underworld, and sent a bunch of demons stampeding this way. The other hotspots were slowly dying out now, and this place was starting to look more and more appealing to the crowd he was looking to attract.

  “County Administrator,” Jenny beeped in on his phone.

  “Yes?” Pike asked, putting those weighty thoughts on hold.

  “Your wife is on line two.”

  “Thank you, Jenny,” Pike said, leaning forward to pick up the phone. “Hello, Darling Darla.” He’d had that special name for her for years.

  “Jackass,” she scoffed, but he knew she was smiling. “Are you sitting behind your desk, contemplating masturbation?”

  “I was actually considering my evil plan,” Pike said with a little amusement. His wife had a filthy mouth when she wanted to. Not when the kids were around, though.

  “Well, that’s a form of onanism. Intellectual, but still.”

  “It does feel good when I do it.” He chuckled. “Are you checking in on me for any specific reason?”

  “I wanted to let you know,” she said, getting to it, “I’m not in the mood tonight, so make sure you fuck Jenny before you come home. Or if you’re in a hurry, have her suck your cock.” There was that dirty mouth. She sounded almost entertained by this suggestion. Well, she had been entertained by it before, when she’d watched while touching herself.

  “Because you’re closed for business, got it,” Pike said. She was awfully damned considerate to give him a warning. It was more than most wives gave their philandering husbands, after all—willing consent for him to despoil whoever he could sink his dick into, and happy in the knowledge that he was doing it. Sure, it came with a price—her doing a little despoiling of her own—but he didn’t really mind.

  He knew at the end of the day, she’d always come home to him and he’d always come home to her. They had a tie that united them that went far beyond the physical, even though they still fucked like rabbits.

  That tie was power. They both craved it like he craved a lick of her nipple right now.

  “Have you called Sheriff Reeve yet?” Darla asked, dry amusement in her voice crackling like fall leaves.

  “Every day,” Pike said. “He doesn’t answer or call back for some reason.”

  “Maybe it’s because you set up the event that resulted in the death of a shit-ton of people in his tribe and never showed up for it. Made you look a little guilty.”

  “Well, hell, I am guilty,” Pike said with a smirk. “But how would he know that for sure?”

  “Reeve never struck me as a man who was overly concerned with proof.”

  “He is a bit lacking in the refinement that might have come from a higher education,” Pike said. “I wonder sometimes if he’s even heard of Miranda Rights.”

  “Who is this Miranda?” Darla asked. The woman was damned funny when she aimed to be, and she usually did. “Does she have a tight ass?”

  “Not as tight as yours, Darling Darla.”

  “You have a silver tongue. Watch where you put it.”

  “So … not up this Miranda’s ass, then?”

  “Mmmm.” Darla let out a long sigh. “Maybe I am in the mood after all.”

  “That was a quick turnaround. You want me to hold off on dumping my load in Jenny?”

  “Nah,” Darla said. “Go ahead. It’ll be a fun challenge getting you interested again. But make sure you call Reeve. It’s very important you hedge—”

  “I know,” Pike said, nodding along. “I need to appease the man ahead of the recall—in case he wins.”

  “He and that little Boy Scout Troop he’s formed are a real threat to what we’re doing here,” Darla said. She sounded hot. And menacing. Menacingly hot, like she’d shoot Nick Reeve right in the head if he was in front of her. “You need to make peace, to throw them off the scent until you can deal with him.”

  “Well, gosh, Darling Darla,” Pike said, “I’d sure like to, but short of walking up and capping the bastard or waiting for the recall to drag his ass out of his chair, I’m not sure how to approach that particular problem.”

  Darla paused, clearly giving it some thought. He could almost imagine her blond hair tossed back over her shoulder, pale blue eyes darting around in thought. She had just a slight bit of fat built up around her body from child birth, and it didn’t do anything for Pike. He didn’t dare say a word about it; the old saying about a woman with extra pounds living longer than the man who mentioned it was probably true, especially in the case of his Darla. “No, I suppose it’d be too much to shoot him in the head, even for this county right now. Which is why you need to make peace with the man. Keep in mind that as far as he knows, you’re not involved in demon goings-on. One of them stabbed you with a holy blade, didn’t they?”

  Pike held up his hand, looking at the bandage where Alison Stan—that cunt, devils take her fucking soul—had jabbed him with a knife. “Indeed they did.”

  “So they probably just think you’re an asshole politician. Take advantage of that. They’re probably decent people.” She snorted a little. “Get in their blind spot. They’re worried about demons right now, not people.”

  “Reeve’s been in law enforcement an awfully long time,” Pike said, looking at the closed door to his office. “He might see a little farther than the rest of his merry band.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Darla said. “Snow him for a few days, and maybe the recall will take care of it.”

  “I don’t think even a recall is going to pull this man out of the fight,” Pike said. “I don’t think the fucker is just going to pull up stakes and leave Calhoun County.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, “but it’ll diminish his base of support, and events are likely to take care of him given enough time. No man can fight a demon army forever.”

  That was true, wasn’t it? “As always, my lovely, you have wisdom.”

  “I’ve got more than that,” Darla said. “Call Reeve. Make your peace. Swallow your ego and, later, maybe I’ll swallow your cock if it goes well.”

  “Mmmhmmm,” Pike said, staring at the door. “I’ll get right on it. If he’ll take my call.”

  “Maybe you should dial 911.”

  “Ooh, that’s clever, my dear.”

  “I’m a clever girl. And Jason?” she asked sweetly.

  “Yes, my darling?”

  “I want to taste Jenny on you when you get home, you hear me? Give it to her good.” And she hung up.

  Pike nodded, replacing the phone in the handset. How could he argue with his wife over something like that? He stared at the phone for a minute and tried to decide which to do first, fuck Jenny or call that bastard Reeve. He decided on the former, imagining Jenny bent over his desk, the thought of her ass smashing against his pubic bone giving him an immediate chubby. He flicked the intercom switch with a smile on his face. “Jenny, would you mind coming in here for a minute? We need to go over the schedule for next week’s events.”

  She’d know what that meant.

  *

  Brian stared at the teenage boy as Hendricks and Arch brought him in. He had a sick look on his face, as one might when t
hey’d seen a parent murdered in front of them. It wasn’t too hard for Brian to imagine what that felt like, since he’d recently damned near seen his father murdered in front of him, and by his own hand, no less. At least the boy wouldn’t have to deal with that guilt, though he’d probably be working through some of his very own.

  “Gentlemen,” Sheriff Reeve said somewhat formally, coming out of his office to greet them. Brian cast him a long look. They hadn’t spoken for the last half hour or so, however long it had taken Hendricks and Arch to make their way back to the sheriff’s station. It had been a good silence, the kind Brian used for processing through the steady river of horrendous emotion that seemed to pulse through his veins with regularity of late. Reeve bent over to look the young man in the eye. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Mack Wellstone, sir.” Damn if he didn’t have manners, under those skinny shoulders. He was wearing a blaze orange vest of a kind that Brian associated with trips where his dad had wanted him to hunt and he hadn’t wanted to.

  Brian felt a hard pang in his heart at the memory. He sure as hell wished he’d done more hunting now; he might have been better prepared to be out there with a gun and a sword instead of sitting in the sheriff’s station with a wicked limp, playing Felicity Smoak to the cowboy’s Oliver Queen—but without the played-out sexual tension.

  “I’m sorry about your father, Mack,” Reeve said, and Brian could tell the man felt it, more emotion bleeding out in his voice right now than Brian had heard from him over the last week. “Where are you from?”

  “Knoxville, sir.” His voice was flat.

  “Do you live with your momma and your daddy?”

  “Yessir.” It was painful to listen to the conversation; the boy was shut down, responding only when spoken to, like he’d been rendered insensate by watching his daddy die. How much had he seen, Brian wondered? Not that he needed to see it to be scarred by it.

  “Could you write down your momma’s phone number for me?” Reeve picked up a pen and pad from the desk next to him and handed it to the boy. Mack Wellstone didn’t hesitate; he wrote down a number immediately and handed pen and pad right back to Reeve, his expression still unchanged.

  “I’ll go give her a ring,” Reeve said, retreating slowly. “These fellas will keep you company until I get back, all right?”

  Brian glanced at Hendricks and Arch, both of whom were pretty damned quiet. Hendricks had his hat down, trying to hide his sullen expression. Brian couldn’t quite figure that one out; the cowboy had less cause than the rest of them to be upset. He wasn’t from here, wasn’t watching his own hometown go straight to hell in a handcart. Even Arch didn’t look quite that grim, and Lord knew he had more reason to.

  “Hey,” Brian said to the boy, whose gaze slid over to him easily. “I’m Brian.”

  “Hi,” Mack intoned. The kid really wasn’t feeling much, was he?

  “You hungry?” Brian asked.

  “No.”

  “Want something to drink? A Coke or something? RC Cola? Moon pie?”

  “No.” The kid didn’t register emotion at all. That was probably for the best.

  “Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.” Brian paused for a second. “You want—”

  “For chrissakes,” Hendricks said, rolling his eyes back hard, “leave him be. Jesus, people.”

  Arch shot Hendricks a look that would have burned through a lead-lined shield. “Would you kindly stop—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Hendricks said. “I took the Lord’s name in vain, I know.”

  They fell into a dreadful silence. There was a clear tension between the two of them, and they’d been thick as thieves only a week ago. That was the effect of losing Alison, Brian figured, feeling another sharp stab to the heart. At least Arch hadn’t completely come apart on them. That would have been extra shit on top of a crap sandwich, given what was going on. He was soldiering through though, wasn’t he? Brian snuck a look at him, but Arch just looked neutral. He clearly wasn’t shut down, but that was down to his faith, wasn’t it?

  He was probably praying his way through or something. Brian didn’t have the luxury of believing to carry him through this shitshow.

  Reeve came out the office door again a few minutes later, opening it quietly. “I talked to your momma,” he said, making his way over to Mack again. “She’s on her way up from Knoxville.” He tried to meet the boy’s gaze, but Mack was fixated on the gun rack on the far side of the room. “Shouldn’t be too long.”

  “I shot that dog,” Mack Wellstone said, looking at the guns. “Shot him a few times.” He sounded curious, trying to explain something he couldn’t quite work through. “He didn’t die though.”

  “Probably just missed,” Hendricks said quickly.

  “I didn’t miss,” Mack said with the first stirring of emotion he’d exhibited since walking in the door. The denial was hot, the boy’s eyes narrow enough that Brian would have labored to squeeze a dime through the slits that remained. “I hit ’em, but they didn’t die.” He looked over at Hendricks. “And when he shot one, it hissed like a balloon with the air coming out.”

  That prompted another uncomfortable silence. “I’m sure it was just—” Reeve started.

  Brian coughed loudly, to cut him off. “Don’t gaslight the kid,” he said under his breath. Everyone heard him.

  Reeve just stared at him. “Gas-what?”

  “Gaslight,” Brian said, but no one knew what the fuck he was talking about, plainly, so he lowered his voice and tried to explain. It didn’t matter, of course, because Mack Wellstone could hear every word he was saying. “Gaslighting means trying to explain away something to make someone think they’re crazy when they’re not.”

  Reeve shot him a look of—not even daggers, more like swords. “I am not—” He stopped mid-sentence, giving Brian a you idiot look. “Son,” Reeve said, turning back to Mack, “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “What happened to him?” Mack asked, a little less dully now. His brain was re-engaging, the primal response that had resulted in him freezing finally letting loose.

  “Nothing good,” Hendricks answered under his breath, the most honest goddamned thing any of them had said to the boy so far.

  “I’m not sure,” Reeve said, and though that was probably literally honest in that he and Brian hadn’t gotten the exact details, they were sure as shit clear on the general cause.

  “That thing wasn’t a dog,” Mack said.

  “We don’t know exactly what it was,” Reeve said.

  “Huh.” Mack settled back on his heels, still staring at the gun rack in the corner.

  “Your momma’s gonna be here in an hour or so,” Reeve said, clearly trying to walk him back from these precipitous questions. “Why don’t you grab a chair and sit for a bit? We can get you something if you want—”

  “Not hungry.”

  “You want a Co—”

  “Not thirsty,” the boy said, but he did wander over to the nearest chair and plopped himself down, still staring at the gun rack in the corner of Reeve’s office. It had glass covering it so that someone couldn’t just walk up and grab a weapon. Brian was wishing it was lined with steel right now.

  Reeve followed the boy’s gaze, finally, and seemed to make the connection. “Uh huh,” he said. He didn’t do anything obvious, but Brian figured it would be on his list to shut the door to his office given how hard the kid was staring at his guns. “Well. We’ll just wait for your momma to get here then,” he said uncomfortably.

  The emergency line rang, something that was a pretty regular occurrence, and Brian flipped the switch to route it to his headset. “911, what’s your emergency?” he asked.

  “Hello,” said a playful voice, one that raised his own eyebrows, “this is County Administrator Pike, and I need to talk to Sheriff Reeve.”

  Brian frowned. “I’m sorry, this is an emergency line—”

  “It’s an emergency,” Pike said coolly.

  “What is your emer
gency, sir?” Brian asked, doubting that whatever Pike was playing at—probably trying to break through and talk to the sheriff, who had made it clear he had no desire to talk to this bastard—rose to the level of actual emergency.

  “I got a serious problem over here,” Pike said, still cool as a freezer. “Let me talk to Reeve.”

  Brian froze, trying to decide what to do. “Listen, Administrator Pike, this is an emergency line—” He caught Reeve tossing his head back in despair.

  “And this is an emergency, I told you.”

  “Just put him through to my office,” Reeve said, gesturing at the door. He was going to have to close it anyway, wasn’t he? Brian figured the despair had finally gotten through to the man.

  “Hold for a minute,” Brian said, clicking the button to shut Pike off. The line blinked bright red. “You sure? I can ‘accidentally’ disconnect him.”

  “No,” Reeve said, shadowed in profile in his doorway as he stood there, looking back at Brian out of the corner of his eye. “I suppose I’ve avoided this long enough.” He shut that door behind him, and a moment later the red phone line stopped blinking furiously.

  *

  His name was Aaron Drake, as far as anyone in this world knew. It wasn’t his real name, of course, but demon names weren’t often exchanged because of the power they held, so he went by Aaron Drake, which was a fine enough appellation. It had a sort of old-world prestige to it, reflecting well on Aaron Drake’s standing in society.

  Ah, society. It was the true measure of human sophistication that they didn’t just scrabble in the mud with their fingers anymore, or chase animals and carelessly roast them around the fire. He recalled well the days of primitive man, when fire was their greatest accomplishment. At the time, cooking meat had been the new thing. Then someone had discovered salt and spices, and things had taken another step. At some point—Aaron Drake could scarcely remember that far back, though he had been there for it—crops had come into play, along with sowing and reaping, and the culinary arts had taken another leap forward.