Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  Drake had been there through it all, watching every change made by these humans with approval. His own people certainly hadn’t made any great strides in making food better or more impressive. They all varied in what they ate, after all. Some enjoyed the same foods as humans, some liked to eat humans themselves, others dwelled in the sewers and enjoyed excrement—mostly that of humans. Drake didn’t understand those creatures any better than a human understood a dung beetle—it made sense that someone would fulfill that function, but it made his shell crawl to contemplate being one of them.

  This last twenty years or so, though, with the rise of American cuisine to new heights … these had been heady times for Aaron Drake. Suddenly, a home-cooked meal at a ma and pop diner wasn’t necessarily cause for despair. Now they were places where chefs took pride in their efforts and often tried to elevate them beyond simple greasy spoon offerings. Previously, America’s primary alimentary virtue had been the sheer volume of food available; now it had somehow become a place where food was plentiful and exceptional. Spices, preparations, recipes—what had once been simplistic was now revolutionary, the citizenry seemingly obsessed with the culinary arts, attempting creations in the privacy of their own homes that might once have been the exclusive domain of the executive chef of a restaurant in one of the major metropolises.

  Now, cuisine was everywhere.

  And Aaron Drake couldn’t have been happier, though he did feel his options here in Midian, Tennessee were limited. Leave it to the hotspot to open in a place where there wasn’t a single Michelin star to be found. The diner on the square had plainly been left behind in the food revolution that had spread across America, and there wasn’t a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to be found within an hour’s drive.

  Drake sighed, a sad, throaty sound. He hadn’t had a good meal in Midian since Duchess Kitty had left town so abruptly. Her party had been exquisite, a perfect breath of New York cuisine brought to town for one brief, blessed moment. It was a curse that she’d fled so quickly, without hosting another gathering, but that was to be expected. The quality of the local parties had gone precipitously downhill since then as well.

  And oh, how the hunger had risen within him since then. Why, it felt like he was practically starving.

  The key to the entire food revolution had hinged on two concepts, Drake knew—one, the ingredients available to amateur chefs were now infinitely better than they had been before. Now a normal person could get veal or duck breast or at least USDA Choice beef or goose liver pate in the proper store. Along with that came other possibilities, such as fresh thyme, ginger, things that in the fifties might have been taken for being exotic diseases rather than what they were—sophisticated flavor-improving opportunities. Second, and perhaps more importantly, techniques were being disseminated over the internet to people who would never have had access to them before. Suddenly, a housewife in Toledo, Ohio could get the same basic culinary training that was once reserved for a master chef in Paris. Of course, the master chefs of Paris were busy pioneering new techniques that would make their way to housewives in Toledo in five years, but the principle still allowed for a rapid diffusion of knowledge, and now any diner owner could add in a touch of sophistication that would have been impossible only a few decades earlier.

  It was a wondrous time to be alive, especially for a gourmand like Aaron Drake.

  Of course, the ingredients available in Midian weren’t quite top shelf. That lack of access to a Whole Foods down on the corner made it less desirable of a location than New York or Los Angeles. But there were ways around that, weren’t there? Some of the spices he could get on an extended trip, and vegetables could keep for a few days.

  It was the meats that lost their flavor first. Farm-to-table was becoming such an important part of the chain of knowledge, and while there were farms around here … Drake had a taste for something else—something slightly more controversial, something not available at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.

  There was a shop in town—every town, sort of—that could deliver what he wanted. At a price, of course. Drake contemplated paying the asking price for the meat he was looking for, but he wasn’t an exceedingly wealthy demon. He had funds, of course, as one should after living for as long as he had, but they weren’t of a sum that he could afford to never work again. A service that delivered fresh meat of the type he wanted, the sort provided by Spellman to various locales and hotspots, wasn’t cheap. Not at all.

  No, his was a problem of supply. He had the demand, but he didn’t want to pay the asking price for that meat, which shouldn’t have been rare or lacking in supply—there were seven billion of them, damn it!—yet it was. This was why he came to hotspots, because oftentimes there was a sudden excess of supply, bodies lying about, going to waste.

  He’d thought that after the incident on the square, he might have been able to sneak in and pick up a few fresh pieces, a few little things to soothe the hunger of an aching belly tired of pork and beef and chicken … but no. No, they’d closed that place up tightly, leaving Aaron Drake to skulk meekly around the edges of the police barricades, seeing no way in to collect a liver here and there, maybe a severed leg for a sumptuous roast. There was human veal too, but that was right out, a terrible disappointment to see it go to waste.

  Drake was the sort who didn’t want to get his hands dirty. He didn’t mind involving himself in the preparation, or even occasionally the butchery, but he didn’t want to trouble himself with the law, which could make his life disproportionately difficult. He didn’t like physical confrontation, especially in a town with demon hunters in it. Threat to his life was a frightening prospect, not something he cared for at all, no.

  Yet the hunger was there, and needed to be sated. His desire for a filling meal, something other than chicken-fried chicken—ugh—was rising. He only needed one, at least for now, something well raised, with a little marbling, something simple that he could slaughter and savor, going through unique preparations in order to scratch that itch he felt after a long time in the food desert that was Midian, Tennessee. Meat he could season, something he could prepare and then sink his teeth into, moist and delicious …

  Yes, that moment was coming. And soon. His hunger could not be contained any longer.

  He needed to eat.

  *

  Sheriff Reeve stared at the blinking light only a second before facing his fear and picking up the handset, hitting the hold button as he did so. “This is Sheriff Reeve. What can I do for you, County Administrator Pike?” He put a cool emphasis on the man’s title, figuring he’d at least start off polite.

  “I was calling to apologize to you personally,” Pike said, unctuous as ever. He was an ingratiating fuck, either looking for the right thing to say or, once you’d gotten on his bad side, the thing that would most piss you off. “Obviously, things have changed after what happened at Halloween.”

  “Have they?” Reeve asked, cooler still.

  “I bear a considerable part of the blame for holding that event,” Pike said. “I know that. And even more for denying that there was something going on in this town, even though you were telling me that things were … unbelievable.”

  “I was telling you that demons were attacking us,” Reeve said. “You ready to believe that now?”

  “Well, I’m closer to ready,” Pike said, and Reeve could sense some discomfort. “I didn’t see it with my own eyes, obviously—”

  “Obviously.” Because if you had, your own eyes would probably have been ripped out and splattered across the square with half the crowd you brought there, you dumb fuck.

  “Look,” Pike said with an aura of patience, “we’re in a shitstorm, no denying it. I’m calling you up, hat in hand, asking, ‘What can I do for you?’”

  “Other than knock this stupid recall business off?” Reeve asked with a sour taste in his mouth.

  “If I could do that, I would in a heartbeat,” Pike said, smoothly, maybe even sincerely. Reeve couldn’t tell, not wit
h this one. “But that’s out of my hands; it’s mandated by the signatures I collected. Talk to any lawyer; they’ll tell you. I, uh … well, I set the wheels in motion, and even an injunction couldn’t stop it now.”

  “Well, then I reckon there ain’t much—”

  “Hold it,” Pike said. “Listen … there’s other stuff I can do for you. I know we’ve been arguing about budget—”

  “Since day one.”

  “And it’s not like I can just pull money out of my ass, but … this is an emergency. It doesn’t hurt us if we overspend a little in the process of trying to save this county from … well, from whatever—”

  “Demons.” Christ, was this guy serious? Hundreds of people dead over the last few months and he was still talking like it was business as usual, budgets and spreadsheets. Maybe he was sincere, but talking about helping with the fucking budget? It was probably a mark of how ingrained in the bastard’s personality penny-pinching was that this was the approach he took in trying to get Reeve’s attention.

  “Yeah, demons,” Pike said, sounding pretty uneasy about it. Well, it was an uneasy sort of subject. “My point is … I want to help. Is there anything I can do?”

  Well, he certainly sounded sincere, Reeve had to concede. Entrenched in being a bureaucratic prick, but maybe sincere in his desire to help. Brian had shown Reeve that everybody might be able to help, at least in their own way. It might not be standing out on the line, swinging a sword like the cowboy, but someone had to man the radio, someone had to keep the lights on, didn’t they? “I appreciate the offer,” Reeve said, somewhat grudgingly. “Lord knows we could use some help. I expect there’s more you could do if you were of a mind to.”

  “Well, I’d love to be of help,” Pike said. “All I’m looking for is a chance to be of assistance.” Reeve could almost see the bastard smiling in his office, and something about it made him uneasy.

  “Great, well … start with that budget,” Reeve said, wondering what Pike’s idea of unlocking funds would look like. He suspected it would be pretty minimal compared to what Reeve actually needed. “Then … we can talk again after.” The nice thing about it would be that maybe Pike would get off his back for a while.

  “Next time, we should meet face to face,” Pike said.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Reeve said, fully intending to blow him off. He didn’t want to see Pike, not ever if he could avoid it, no matter what part the man had to play. The son of a bitch had still arrogantly scheduled Halloween, against all logic and advice, and hadn’t even shown up to see the slaughter. He might not have been a demon, or controlled by a demon, but he was damned sure lacking in judgment. Reeve hung up, figuring that was as good a capstone to their conversation as any. That nagging question about where Pike had been could wait, at least a little longer.

  He stared at the phone for a minute after he hung it up, wondering how much time he’d have to recover from this conversation with Pike before he’d have to try and navigate another. The County Administrator was a persistent son of a bitch, so probably not long. It’d probably be at least a couple days, though, before the bureaucrat got his purse strings untied and started doling out money. The watch could use a paycheck or two in their capacity as informal deputies, some meals and stuff. Brian Longholt had been paying for a lot of that on ol’ Bill’s credit card, but Reeve didn’t feel too sanguine about that lasting, given Bill’s vegetative state.

  It took Reeve a minute to realize that there were raised voices coming from out in the bullpen, and he slumped against the headrest on his chair. Did this shit never end?

  *

  “Lying to the kid doesn’t do him any favors,” Arch said hotly, digging in, feeling like he was arguing with a stone wall. Hendricks’s face suggested he was pretty much a stone wall, less emotion than Arch at this moment, and for a lot less reason than Arch had. For some reason, that got under Arch’s skin.

  “Telling him the unvarnished truth doesn’t do us any favors,” Hendricks said. “Do you want him to explain to his mom why you’re laying out what happened to his dad?”

  “Jesus, Hendricks,” Brian said, looking pretty damned uncomfortable. The kid was watching them all from the waiting area, listening to them talk about him without saying a word. “Gaslighting him seems kinda shitty—”

  “Stop talking in fucking hipster dipshit code,” Hendricks said.

  Brian blinked at the cowboy. “Fine. Trying to convince him he didn’t see what he saw after he already lost his dad? Dick move. It’s not even a flaccid, half-measure dick move, it’s a full-on, mighty erection straight into the unlubed orifice move—”

  “That’s enough,” Arch said, blanching at the graphic nature of his brother-in-law’s—well, former brother-in-law, now—description of events. “We don’t need that kind of talk in addition to all that’s going on—”

  Brian must have bit his tongue, because he made a face but kept his peace. “All I’m saying,” he finally allowed, “is that Arch is right, and lying is a shitty thing to do, especially under these circumstances.”

  “Why don’t you shove it up your fucking pussy-ass hole?” Hendricks asked, favoring Brian with a look of utter contempt. “This isn’t tiddlywinks, you little bitch, this is a war with otherworldly forces, and in case you missed last week’s episode—we’re fucking losing.”

  “I didn’t miss it,” Arch shot back. “I noticed, trust me.”

  Hendricks adopted a slightly chastened look. “I—I’m sure you did.”

  “It didn’t escape past me, either,” Brian said. “And you probably shouldn’t be teaching this kid new words after—” He glanced at the kid, still watching them all. “After what happened.”

  “He’s probably heard the words ‘pussy,’ ‘ass,’ ‘bitch,’ and ‘fucking’ before,” Hendricks said. “You pussy-ass fucking bitch.”

  “Hendricks!” Arch said, furious now.

  “Jesus,” Brian breathed. “You don’t ever let up, do you?”

  “What in the blue hell is going on out here?” Reeve asked, opening his door in a rush of furious air. He wore a look like a storm cloud. Arch felt the look on Reeve’s face was probably mirrored in his own—weary, personal grief looking for an outlet.

  “Vocabulary lessons for the pussies,” Hendricks said, causing Reeve’s eyes to burn a little brighter.

  There was a squeak as the entry door opened in the lobby area and Lauren Darlington stepped in with her daughter. Both of them were dark-haired and leaden-eyed. Arch had known them before all this, and they’d been lighter then. Well, Lauren had always been irritable with him, but when he’d watched her unobserved, she’d been a pretty happy person overall, especially when with her daughter.

  There was none of that now; both of them looked bleary, the weight of grief clear upon them. Molly looked a bit worse for the wear, but then, the girl had suffered through some rough times even before she’d killed her grandmother while possessed, hadn’t she?

  “Why are you all shouting about vaginas in here?” Lauren asked, looking irritated. She shot a look back at her daughter, who closed her eyes and giggled slightly, giving her an impish look that broke through the weary sadness for an all-too-brief moment.

  “Uh, maybe they were talking about cats,” Molly said, eyeing Mack Wellstone, who was glancing at her and Lauren with vague interest.

  “No, it was definitely about vaginas. I like to shout the virtue of vaginas everywhere I go,” Hendricks said, causing Arch to close his eyes and shake his head. There was no changing the cowboy. “I’m a big fan of them, you see.”

  “An admirer from a distance, I’m sure,” Lauren said coolly, delivering enough reproach that the cowboy couldn’t miss it.

  “Who’s the new kid?” Molly asked, probably to defuse the rapidly increasing tension.

  “I’m no doctor of gynecology, like maybe you are,” Hendricks said, not letting the moment escape him, wide grin plastered on his face, “but I’ve examined my fair share up close.” Arch w
as pretty sure that Hendricks knew that wasn’t Lauren’s specialty, but since when had the cowboy ever let facts hold him back? “Call it a hobby of mine.”

  “Yeah, I doubt you lack the ability to go pro,” Lauren sniped back. She wasn’t one to back down from a snark-fight, Arch knew by experience.

  “Seriously,” Molly said, “are you two going to just pee all over each other in an attempt to mark your territory for most sarcastic? Because I’m the teenager here and I will batter you both to hell with my natural ability if you keep giving me reason.” She jerked a head toward Mack Wellstone. “I ask again, imploring you both to remember you’re putatively adults before I’m forced to pull out the nuclear snark on your amateurish, aging asses: Who’s the new guy?”

  Lauren and Hendricks exchanged a sullen look. There was no particular antipathy between them that Arch knew about, but they were both strong personalities and tensions were running high all around. He decided to insert himself into the peacemaking process: “We picked him up in the woods this morning. His name’s Mack. He, uh … lost his dad.”

  That caused both Lauren and Molly’s faces to fall. The Darlington ladies didn’t lack for empathy. “I’m so sorry, Mack,” Lauren said, looking at Mack sincerely.

  “Yeah,” Molly chimed in, nodding at him. “I lost my grandmother last week, so I, uh … kinda know how you feel.”

  Mack Wellstone seemed to take it all in like a sponge taking in water, but without any visible swelling effect. “Thanks,” he said after a few seconds. He kept his eyes on Molly though.

  “I’m gonna head out for a bit,” Hendricks said, even as he headed for the door. “If you need me, call me.” He slowed a little as he approached the door; Molly and Lauren were still standing just slightly in the way. Molly launched herself aside with all the urgency she might have put into dodging a gunshot. Lauren moved a little slower, met eyes with the cowboy, challenging him before she moved just a few inches aside and put out her arm toward the door, as if proffering a formal invitation for him to walk through it. Her eyes were alive with the sarcasm she wasn’t giving voice to, as though daring him to be a smartass about it.