Depths: Southern Watch #2 (22 page)

Erin took a step toward Hendricks, and he still couldn’t really see her. He held out his hand to try and block the flashlight’s beam, but it didn’t work. “Could you put that down?”

“No.” Erin’s voice came back at him, cold. She took another step and was within arm’s reach. He just stood there, wondering if she was about to cuff him or something. Not that she’d have much on him, but he didn’t want to give her a reason; his weapons were still in the trunk of Lerner and Duncan’s car. She took one step closer and Hendricks felt something hit him in the gut, a light slap. It had some weight to it, and he lowered a hand to catch it by instinct.

It was leather, square-like, and took him a minute to realize it was a book. No, two books. He pulled them closer to his face and recognized the spines in the blinding light. “Hey, these are mine.”

“Yeah, I took ’em out of your room earlier,” she said, and there was more than a little growl to what she was saying. “Along with this.” She held something out, something that looked a little like a piece of paper.

Hendricks took hold of it between his thumb and forefinger and blinked the lights out of his eyes as he turned it over.

He knew it by heart. It was a picture, and he was in the tux on the left hand side. He looked younger, a little better kempt. He should have been, he was only nineteen when it was taken. On the right hand side was her. The spots in his vision from the flashlight worked in his favor this time, because he couldn’t see her face clearly.

Without the photo, though, he couldn’t ever see her face clearly anymore.

“You’re married,” Erin said, in a low note of accusation. Hendricks didn’t answer, just felt the sting, felt the blood rush through his head at the thought of her going through his room, searching his things. “Deny it.”

“Why would I?” Hendricks said, and he did not even recognize his voice as he said it. “You’ve got photographic evidence to the contrary.”

He could see the silhouette of Erin nod, felt the fury boiling off of her, but it was nothing—not a drop in the goddamned bucket—compared to his own. “Did you get a divorce?”

“Nope,” he said, with zeal born of rage. He felt it coursing through him, wanted to stick it to her, make her feel the pain. He hoped like hell she was humiliated, at least as much as he was from the thought of her going through his things.

There was a pause. “So you’ve been cheating on her with me.” This came out quiet.

“I’ve been fucking you,” Hendricks said, and he felt the spittle fly from his mouth. “Like you wanted me to.”

He could feel her tense, see it in her silhouette. His eyes drifted down to her other hand, the one not holding the flashlight. It was tough to tell with the maglite still shining in his eyes, but he was pretty sure it was on the butt of her gun.

“Lover’s quarrel,” Lerner’s voice came over at him. “This is so cute.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Erin said, low and slow. He’d wanted to say much the same, but she beat him to it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lerner said and pretended to tip an imaginary hat to her.

“I trusted you,” Erin said after another minute of unfiltered quiet.

“I’m a stranger that blew into town on the wind,” Hendricks said, and he laughed, feeling a little cruelty come spitting out from that rage, from his sense of violation. Now he just wanted to hurt her so she’d get the hell away from him. The sooner, the better. “You were just looking for a good time. Something to cut the boredom, someone new to fuck—”

She stepped toward him like she was going to hit him with the maglite but stopped a foot away. He could smell the coffee on her breath, see her eyes. They weren’t red. They were cold. Damned cold. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

“And you’re a police officer who executed an unwarranted search and seizure of my property,” he said and held up the books. “Which makes you a fascist and a—”

“Let’s keep it polite,” Duncan said, drawing Hendricks’s attention to him for a second and breaking his train of thought off the blinding rage he was feeling.

“Remember,” Lerner said, voice tinged with amusement, “even here at the lovely Sinbad motel, a veritable mecca of refinement, you have an audience.”

Hendricks stared in her eyes, she stared back at him. It was cold fury on both sides, Hendricks realized, and he did not give a fuck. All he wanted was her to get away, now. He took a step back. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

Erin took a step back of her own. “Stay out of trouble, and stay out of my way, you crazy, cheating fucker.”

Hendricks doffed his cowboy hat to her. “Your wish is my command, you possessive, sneaky bar slut—”

“Hey,” Lerner said, and Hendricks saw his lips were pursed like he was shocked. “Why go there? Like it’s some kind of mark against her that she was stooping to sleep with you?”

“Whose fucking side are you on?” Hendricks found himself asking.

“Not yours,” Lerner said with a shrug.

“Stay out of trouble,” Erin said again, and Hendricks looked back to see her almost to her car. “Stay out of my way.” She opened the door to her cruiser and got in, slamming it behind her. She didn’t click the light off right away, and Hendricks could see her face illuminated by it as she started the car and backed out. There wasn’t an ounce of give in her expression; it was hard as a block of granite. She squealed tires at the edge of the parking lot, taking the cruiser back on the highway.

“Women, huh?” Lerner said. “And men, too.” It took Hendricks a minute to realize he was talking to Duncan.

“Should have just told her the truth,” Duncan said softly, and Hendricks looked over to find the demon staring at him, looking through him again.

“Fuck that,” Hendricks said and thrust the books into the side pocket of his coat. “And fuck her, too.”

* * *

Erin could feel her hands shaking as she drove away. She didn’t cry when she got upset like some did; she just got more furious. The cabin of the cruiser felt hot and stifling, and she rolled the window down a crack to let the cool, humid night air come in. Motherfucker. Hendricks had used her, played her, made her a party to his cheating, and when she confronted him about it, he didn’t even have the decency to lie.

What an asshole.

She pushed down harder on the pedal and the car gave back a satisfying roar as she headed toward the lights of town in the distance. Driving when she was pissed was a favorite activity. Doing it in a squad car was even better.

“Shit.” Her voice sounded low and rough, even to her. She’d slept with a married man once before, and it pissed her the hell off in the light of the next morning when she’d found out. Cheating wasn’t a thing she did. She just didn’t do it.

“That motherfucker.” She saw her knuckles turn white on the wheel, gripping it tight with every finger. She’d gotten played and it burned.

She kept the car going seventy in a fifty-five the whole way back to town. She’d slow down when she hit the city itself.

Maybe.

* * *

“I love you science guys,” Lerner said as they stood in the parking lot of the motel, waiting for Hendricks to unlock his door. “I love your explanations for things. Like, for example—I bet you have a doozy when it comes to explaining what happens to our kind when you stab us with a sword.” He loved the night air. His skin had a natural burn to it, so the cool was just fine by him.

“Yeah,” Hendricks said as the lock clicked. The cowboy adjusted his hat and looked back at Lerner. “It’s like popping a balloon, I guess. Or pulling the plug out of a drain.”

“Oh, is that how you explain it to yourself?” Lerner asked, and he almost felt giddy. “Why does it happen, though?”

“I don’t know,” Hendricks said with a shrug, opening his door and gesturing for them to enter. “Because they don’t belong here.”

“That’s probably true,” Lerner had to concede. Not bad on Hendricks’s part. “Try and figure this out, champ—you poke ’em with a pointy thing that has certain words and rituals performed over it, their shell breaks, and their essence gets a one-way ticket home.” He felt the grin return. “Why is that? Why not with any pointy thing?”

He watched the cowboy’s face as he struggled to find an explanation. Finally the man gave up and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t think it’s because there might be something to this whole religion thing?” Lerner asked. He was loving this, twisting the cowboy’s tail. Putting the spurs to him.

“Nope,” Hendricks said. “It sounds a lot like ‘correlation is causation’ to me. So you perform some ritual on a sword—which I’ve never seen done, by the way—and it somehow makes it a holy instrument of,” he rolled his eyes, “some almighty power. Who’s to say that’s what’s causing it to send demons back?” He frowned. “Why? Are you telling me there is a G—”

“We don’t really say that name,” Duncan said abruptly, ending the fun.

“Awww,” Lerner waved him off. “You could have let me keep going on him.”

Hendricks paused, and Lerner could see him working through it. “So you’re saying there is a—” He halted, and looked at Duncan, who was almost glaring at him. “… that guy?”

“We’re not saying anything.” Lerner grinned. Humans were fun.

* * *

Gideon stared across the table at Spellman. The red walls were making him feel feverish. Or was that just the desire rising? He took a breath of the fragrant air and realized it was more than a little hot in the house. “So … can you do it?”

Spellman still had his fingers steepled. His expression was even, and he gave a little shrug. “Easy enough. I can have it assembled by tomorrow before midday.”

“Okay,” Gideon said, running it through his head. It was after midnight. “You mean later today?”

“Eh?” Spellman seemed lost in thought. “Yes, sorry. Time zones are confusing to me. Later today. Midday.”

That would work just fine for Gideon. He’d seen the clouds outside, and the weather reports. It was going to rain even more, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. He nodded absently while he finished his train of thought. “That’ll work.”

“Excellent,” Spellman said with a long, slow inhalation that Gideon could hear from across the table. “May I suggest another item of mine?”

Gideon held up a hand. “I’m not really interested in—”

“Oh, this I think you’ll find of interest,” Spellman said with a grin. He put a hand under the table and came out with a little silk cloth bag, tied at the top. “This contains a rune that, when carried on the person, keeps you from being detected by anything other than the five senses.”

Gideon could feel his face crease into a frown. “Why would I want that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Spellman said with a thin smile. “It could be those two Officers of Occultic Concordance at your hotel room right now. Maybe you’d want to avoid them?”

Gideon felt the world snap into sharp focus around him. “OOCs?”

“At your motel.” Spellman looked pleased about it. Gloating. “Just thought I’d warn you. Find another place to stay.”

“How did you know?” Gideon smacked his lips together. His whole body burned, but not from desire this time.

“I pay to know these things,” Spellman said with a light shrug. “OOCs are bad for my business, it’s why I keep my whole operation under this shroud. Dislocation conjurings, obscurement charms.” He waved a hand through the air to indicate all that was around them. “I’ll have your item ready tomorrow.” He hesitated. “If you’re going to use it to hurt a lot of people at once, I feel I should advise you that it’s not going to be very satisfying for you.” He ran a thin finger along the table. “It’s all one rush, very immediate, not much pain or suffering …”

“That’s not a problem,” Gideon said. “Know where I could stay for the night?”

Spellman gave a slight shrug. “They’ll be watching the motels.” He smiled a little. “There’s a place on Water Street I think you’d like. I’ll get you the address.” Spellman hesitated. “I am strictly confidential with all my clientele, but perhaps I should ask what you plan to do with your item so that I’ll know how best to structure the incantation?” He ended with a pleasant smile and folded his hands together.

Gideon told him.

“Holy shit,” Spellman said, jaw slack, eyes wide. “I’ll need payment in advance.” Spellman’s mouth opened and closed as he looked around the room like he was surveying it. “And some time to close my doors. Midday.”

“Works for me,” Gideon said. “That address?”

“I’ll get it for you,” Spellman said, getting out of the chair. He moved slowly, hesitantly.

“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Gideon asked as Spellman reached the threshold of the dining room.

“No, no,” Spellman said, turning back. All the amusement was gone from him. “Just a little more trouble than I was expecting.” He leaned closer to Gideon, like he was whispering something confidential. “You’re a sight more ambitious than any of the Sygraath I’ve met in the last age.”

Gideon watched his retreating back as Spellman walked toward the stairs and began to climb them. “Just got a taste for it now, that’s all.”

* * *

“You don’t really believe much in having personal possessions, huh?” Lerner hit Hendricks with that as he was slipping the books back in his duffel bag. Everything was neat and mostly consigned to the bag.

Hendricks looked down at the duffel as he tucked the photo into the cover of one of the books, face down. He didn’t want to look at it. “High speed, low drag.”

He could hear the puzzlement in Lerner’s voice. “What?”

“It’s a saying in the Marines.” Hendricks stood, cracking his back as he did so. He was making more popping noises now when he moved than he had before the fight yesterday. Also, his back still ached from where Lerner had given him that cheap shot for his brother demons or whatever. “In the infantry, you move around a lot. You don’t want to carry a lot of shit with you. Makes drag. Slows you down.”

“Huh,” Lerner was nodding like it made some kind of sense to him. Hendricks doubted it. The demon was standing over by the table against the window. Duncan was paused just inside the door, and Lerner looked over at him. “Can we go in there now?”