“That’s okay, I understand,” Casey said. He sounded like he said, “unnerstand.” “She needs some space to grieve. I’m happy to give her that. Just figured maybe she needed a strong man—”
“She needs the space,” Brian said, closing his eyes under his hand. It was soothing in the dark, strangely. “Light-years of space.”
Then, suddenly, it wasn’t so dark anymore. Brian opened his eyes and the woods before him were gone, replaced by an old gate that was plastered with a couple faded NO TRESPASSING signs.
Casey brought the truck to a halt and hopped out. Brian watched him walk in front of the vehicle, straight up to the gate, and just swing it open as pretty as you please. Then he came back up to the truck and vaulted back in over the running board, grinning to beat the band.
“Where the hell are we?” Brian stared at the road ahead. It seemed to rise up to a hill and then go right or left to either side, not forward at all.
“You’ll see,” Casey said, and he was driving again, the truck bumping up and down the disused gravel path. It was clear this particular road hadn’t been cared for in a long time, the gravel washed out enough to leave large potholes.
Brian braced himself against the dash with his left hand and the Oh shit! bar with his right. It didn’t help that much; he still bounced around like a pea in an empty bag as Casey floored it and took the truck over the uneven-as-hell road. “Fuck!” Brian breathed as Casey swung the truck to the left at the intersection and they started to head down as the road curved.
Looking left, Brian finally realized—or suspected—where they were. “Is this the old quarry?”
“Yep,” Casey almost chirped with glee. He pushed the truck hard down the old road that led down into the quarry. Brian could see the bottom; it looked drier than a jar of moonshine the morning after a redneck party.
“What the hell are we doing here?” Brian asked.
“You’ll see,” Casey said, pushing the truck down the path.
The quarry was—objectively speaking—fucking huge, acres and acres of fill having been ripped right out of the earth for all manner of construction projects. They’d probably even used some of the gravel to build that road back there, and the rock, in general, was used for—well, hell, whatever rock was used for. Asphalt, among other things. It stretched the length and width of several football fields. Brian had heard that they’d shut it down because it was practically an artificial lake at this point, but there damned sure wasn’t a lot of evidence of that.
But then, rain had been hard to come by of late, though no one had said much about it. The harvest was over, and rain wasn’t nearly as critical as it had been during the summer months. No one was fussing about it now, especially with all the other shit they had to worry about in Midian.
Casey brought the truck to a skidding halt down in the floor of the quarry, yelling, “Yeeeeehaw!” like some stereotypical redneck. Brian, although pretty fucking busy holding on for his damned life, had a second to reflect on this choice by Casey, and he had to wonder whether the taxidermist was genuinely yelling it out of enthusiasm, or whether he was using it ironically. Hard to tell. Irony and sarcasm had ruined, almost permanently, genuine enthusiasm.
“All right,” Casey said, and opened up the door, stepping out like he was jumping out of a plane for a sky dive. He left it open and stalked around to Brian’s side, ripping the door open as Brian sat there, still clutching the dash and the Oh shit! bar. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Brian asked, finally deciding it was safe to start letting go of the things he was clinging to for stability. The truck probably wasn’t going to start driving like a bat out of hell without Casey at the wheel. He checked to make sure it was in park though, just to be certain.
“You’re gonna drive,” Casey said, pointing at the driver’s seat, like that cleared it all up.
“Drive where?”
“Right here, dumbass,” Casey said. “Around the quarry.”
Brian only had to think about this for a second. “Look, man, if I thought making turns in a confined space was fun, I’d be a huge fan of NASCAR, but I don’t. So I don’t see what the point is—”
“The point is, slide over into that driver’s seat and let’s get started.” Casey brought up a hand as though he were going to touch him. “Don’t make me move your ass myself. Because I’m not just going to push it; I’m gonna cop a feel and add you to the ratings matrix at the same time.” He grinned. “Make my day.”
“Shit.” Brian slid over without hesitation. He put his hands on the wheel; at least it would provide some stability, and he could avoid going ninety miles an hour around this quarry while in the driver’s seat.
“Attagirl,” Casey said, and hopped up into the passenger seat. He slammed the door shut and put on the seatbelt, then put his hands in his lap. “Get your door closed.” Brian obeyed, leaning over and feeling like he was going to fall out of the giant truck to do so. “Okay, let’s rock out with the cock out!” Casey said.
“That’s kinda sexist,” Brian said, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut as soon as he said it.
“We’re dudes,” Casey said, staring at him blankly.
“Yeah,” Brian said lamely. “But … still.”
“Fair point, I guess,” Casey said. “All right, I got the ladies covered too—Let’s roll out with your hole out!”
Brian stared at the steering wheel, wondering again how he’d been talked into this. The sun was beating down on the truck from overhead, the mighty engine idling, and his foot was on the pedal. “For fuck’s sake,” Brian murmured.
“Well, come on then,” Casey said, grinning widely. “Let’s do this.”
“Do what? There’s no one to race, there’s nothing to—”
“It ain’t a race,” Casey said, like this was the stupidest comment in the world. “It’s about getting out there, letting yourself run wild. Run free! Like our ancestors, unfettered by the craziness of the day. It’s about finding yourself by letting loose!”
“I don’t know that ‘letting loose’ is going to help me right now. Because I have very serious problems that aren’t going to be solved by racing a big old truck around an abandoned quarry.”
“You say that, but you ain’t even touched the pedal yet. Come on.”
Brian sat back against the seat, smelling the aroma of tobacco buried in the cloth like it had been released by his gentle push against it. His stomach rumbled, and the faint taste of the coffee he’d had hours and hours ago lingered on his tongue mixed with the bile that seemed perpetually ready to work its way up in the back of his throat. “I don’t want to.”
Casey just sat there in silence for a minute, then nodded. “You need to unwind, brutha.” He shifted his head toward the glove compartment in front of him. “I got some weed in here, just for you. Let’s smoke out and tear some shit up, get some dust on these tires.”
“I don’t—” Brian sagged farther into the seat. “I shouldn’t.”
“You need to cut loose, man,” Casey said. “Get some of the kinks out of your soul. Smoke up, me hearty, yo ho.” His voice took on a pirate accent.
“No,” Brian said, shaking his head. He’d been through this, hadn’t he? It might feel better in the short-term, but getting high wouldn’t fix anything that was wrong, tempting as it was.
“Well, you need to relax somehow.” Casey seemed to ponder in the silence. “I got whiskey in the glove box too.”
“No.” Brian didn’t really like the feeling of being drunk.
“Well …” Casey leaned in. “Ms. Cherry’s?”
“No.”
That provided a moment of blissful silence. Then Casey said, “There’s some condoms in the glove box, if you want a little piece of what I let Gus Terkel have.”
“Jesus, do you have a full BDSM kit in there too?” Brian nodded at the glove box. He stared at Casey for only a moment as the taxidermist smiled. Before the man had a chance to answer, Brian said, “You know what? I’ll ju
st take the weed. The weed’s fine.”
“What about—”
“No, I’m good on everything else,” Brian said, pushing his eyes straight ahead. “No offense, Casey, you’re just … not my type.” He stared out across the dusty ground, feeling the hard blush. “I’m sure Gus Terkel is a very, uh, lucky man …”
“I’d say so,” Casey agreed. “You seen his wife? Pshaaaw. Wish I could be in the middle of that sandwich.”
Brian stomped the pedal, hoping it would stop Casey before he could go into too much detail about what that might entail.
“Yeehaw!” Casey shouted again as the truck surged into motion, kicking up a cloud of dust in the rearview. “And you aren’t even high yet! This is gonna be great!”
The back end of the truck started to fishtail, and Brian fought it back under control, remembering what his daddy had taught him about not overcorrecting. Casey howled with excitement next to him, pumping his fist in the air. “That’s right, boy! You show this fucker who’s boss!” Brian wasn’t quite sure who he was referring to, but as the truck accelerated along the empty quarry, bumping hard on the uneven surface, he realized he didn’t really need to know. He had a vision of the internet comic where the dog was sitting in the middle of flames and thinking, “This is fine.” He found himself laughing, uncontrollably, as he brought the truck into a sharp turn.
“What?” Casey asked, as they hit a bump that almost put his head into the liner of the truck roof.
“I was just thinking … ‘This is fine,’” Brian said, and the truck bounced hard again, hard enough it felt like the bottom might have touched the ground. Casey howled his enthusiasm. “This is fine,” Brian muttered again under his breath. And for the moment, it was.
*
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Erin bustled out into the bullpen, hauling ass as fast as her ass would be hauled. “Got an emergency call from Duncan down at the Whistling Pines construction site off Bullock Pike!” Guthrie preceded her by a few steps, demon speed aiding the OOC’s passage out of the confinement area where they’d been extricating themselves from the cell block with John Demon Doe.
“Shit,” Reeve said, spurred to immediate action. Benny Binion was manning the dispatch station, and Reeve pointed a finger at him as he started to run for the door. “Get the word out!”
“You got it, bossman,” Benny said. He was a middle-aged guy, most of his hair gone but covered over by a cap, a few days of scruff settled on his cheeks. He worked out at the mill, drank at Fast Freddie’s sometimes, and had a wife and a couple kids at home. He started pounding away composing a text message on the emergency phone the second he picked it up. He pecked a couple times, said, “Shit,” and then hit the delete key. “Shit,” he said again. “Goddamned technology.”
Reeve slowed as he got to the door. “You gonna be okay there, Benny?”
“Fine,” Benny said, still pecking away, all his attention on the phone. “Shit. Goddamned autocorrect.” He looked up. “Go, go! I got this!”
“All right,” Reeve said, sounding a little skeptical.
Erin was right behind him and Guthrie, and then she felt a shove at her elbow. She looked to her left and there was Mary Wrightson, the look of fierce determination on her face reminding Erin of a bulldog. She looked up at Erin and said, by way of explanation, “I wanna see.”
“Mary, you should wait for your son here.” Reeve didn’t stop moving through the doors in order to tell her this, almost like he knew arguing with her was like arguing with a stone wall.
“Fuck that,” Mary said, brandishing her sawed-off shotgun. “I’m gonna see what this demon shit is all about.”
“Didn’t you see what it was all about when those hellcats ripped your house down?” Guthrie asked, almost innocently.
“I saw a swarm of shitbats flying my way,” Mary said, her head still covered with the dust of her ruined home, “like a fucking storm of meteors, tearing my crap all apart. You watch a curio box that’s been in your family for generations get shredded like cabbage for slaw as a black shadowy cat-looking motherfucker comes leaping through, it changes your perspective on life.”
Erin bit the bait on that one. “From what to what?”
“From thinking, ‘Hey, I’m old enough I got this thing figured out,’ to, ‘Holy fuck, I don’t know my ass from a glory hole,’” Mary replied. “So, I need to see the glory hole, as it were, get the world right in my head afore I need to take a dump, lest some poor bastard ends up with an unpleasant experience. Or maybe an awakening one, I don’t know.”
Erin snorted as she hit the parking lot. Something about that was funny, but she couldn’t quite sort out what.
“What are we dealing with here?” Reeve asked as he made for his car. Mary followed him, of course. Erin had a trace of regret about that, because naturally Guthrie followed her.
“It’s a—” Guthrie stopped, like she was puzzling through. “It’s a fifteen-foot-tall demon sloth that breathes fire.”
“That ain’t making my ass no clearer from the hole,” Mary said. “A what?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Guthrie said, diving into the passenger seat of Erin’s car just before she got there.
“Which one?” Mary called, wobbling her way to Reeve’s passenger side. “My ass or the sloth?”
“Both, I hope,” Guthrie said, then, to Erin, “Human appetites are annoying. I don’t know how you humans put up with all these physical demands—water, food, excretion, sleep, sex. How do you get anything else done?”
“Some of us, that’s all we do,” Erin said as she started the car. She floored it into reverse and her phone dinged with a text alert. She ripped it out of the case and slapped it into the holder on the dashboard, where the screen lit for a moment with the text message. It was from the emergency phone:
DAEMON SITED AT WHISTLING POONS CONSTRUCTION SIGHT. ALL WITCH REPORTAGE.
“I’m no expert on the English language,” Guthrie said, “but I don’t there’s more than a word of that he got right.”
“Text him back that he’s a goddamned idiot,” Erin said, throwing the car into drive and beating Reeve out onto Old Jackson Highway. “And then send the correct address. This ain’t the time for a colossal cock-up.”
“You’re telling me,” Guthrie said, already futzing with the phone. “Fire sloths? They do not fuck around. At all.”
“Great,” Erin said. “And our people are stuck waiting for help because Benny fat-fingered the fuck out of his phone.”
“Hey, what girl doesn’t love a good fat-fingering?” Guthrie smirked.
Erin steamed in silence as she put the pedal to the floor, flipping the switch for the sirens and lights and praying that everybody got the hell out of her way, because in this mood, in this moment, she might just run them off the road if they didn’t.
*
“Haul ass!” Duncan screamed, and the three of them bolted, Arch galloping away from that furry, fiery thing just as it let out another breath of flame so hot it felt like the breath of Satan himself licking at his backside. It warmed up the brisk day, set him to sweating down the back of his neck, maybe from the heat and the fear combined. Arch did not care to have his biscuits burned.
Hendricks had darted back to the car, but Duncan laid a hand on his collar and twisted him, pulling him toward the partially erected house next door. It had TyVek up, the plastic coating covering its wooden bones. The sloth screeched behind them and Arch adjusted his course to follow Duncan and Hendricks.
“Why—” Hendricks started.
“Because while you start up the car to go, you’ll get cooked like a chicken in a smoker,” Duncan said as they all three hot-footed it toward the partially completed house next door. “And it’ll snack the meat right off your bones.”
“What’d happen to you?” Hendricks asked.
“Nothing good. Move it!”
Arch was unclear on the plan, but hoped someone else had one other than, Run! It didn’t loo
k like anyone did, though, because Duncan steered them toward the open door of the incomplete house and in they went, each of them leaping to clear the place where the front porch steps concrete hadn’t been laid yet. Arch dodged inside, first in the line, and looked back in time to see fire burning its way through the TyVek wrap at the corner of the house next door. “This ain’t gonna stop him for long.”
“Thread the needle, man,” Duncan said, taking the lead and running through an unfinished wall toward a staircase covered in plywood that led down to this house’s basement. He jumped down to the landing and Hendricks shrugged, following him. Arch just took the steps fast, falling behind in the scramble once they’d gotten inside the door. The air smelled of sawdust, and as he booked it down the basement stairs, the air got a little cooler.
Duncan’s shoes slapped against the concrete, still hauling butt toward the daylight shining in from the back of the house. The demon jumped out a back window even as the sound of wood splintering came from behind them and upstairs. Arch chanced a look back; he could see the floor buckling under the fire sloth’s weight, and the smell of smoke hung in the air. He was definitely following them. “Heck fire,” Arch muttered.
“Hellfire, goddammit!” Hendricks shot back as he booked it out the back of the house, Arch on his heels. The cowboy veered wide toward the open rear door instead of leaping out the window the way Duncan did. Arch followed the OOC and tried to hurdle out. His scabbard hit the wooden frame of the window space and stopped him. Arch’s pants ripped, two belt loops popping off as he felt like someone seized him by the waist and tried to drag him back in. He landed clumsily. It was clear why Hendricks had gone wide around. “Gotta watch the scabbard, man,” Hendricks said with a grin as Arch lurched back into motion.
“Make for the woods!” Duncan said, already heading for the vegetation behind them. “Post-haste.” And he sped away as the sounds of crashing and thrashing behind them got worse.
Starling (Southern Watch Book 6) Page 35
