Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers (36 page)

“You know Clooney?” Sleeveless said from the front seat, turning his head a little so he could look back at Hollywood.

“Sure, sure,” Hollywood said. It was true, sort of. He’d shaken the man’s hand once or twice at parties. The lesson was from an episode of
Inside the Actor’s Studio
, though. “Anyway, always going back to a character’s motivation.” Hollywood stared straight ahead. It was late afternoon, the sky was still blue, which was disconcerting for their type, though not painful. Like he imagined it was for humans who were awake all night; some were better suited to it than others. “So, I’m looking at these two characters we’re dealing with, and I’m wondering … what’s their motivation?”

Sleeveless didn’t answer at first, obedient, probably making sure he didn’t trip over his boss, pausing before continuing. Good. Very good. Finally, he said, “Well, the cop is just a pain in the ass—”

“The cop,” Hollywood cut Sleeveless off, “may be a pain in the ass, but he’s operating outside the purview of a normal cop. Cops don’t work with demon hunters.” He settled back in his seat and fingered one of the numerous holes in his shirt. He’d shed the coat after it had been ruined. The shirt was in marginally better shape. Still ruined, but probably not noticeably in this shit town. “So you guys go and give away that you’re demons, he runs, and he gets a demon hunter. These are not normal actions for the police, who don’t know the first fucking thing about our world.” He concentrated. “But then, once we get past that hurdle, we arrive at the idea—okay, he knows what a demon is, he knows a demon hunter, he runs and gets said demon hunter after being confronted with demons. That makes logical sense.”

Sleeveless waited through another moment of silence. “So … why would anyone become a demon hunter?”

Hollywood smiled. “That’s a good question, and goes right to the heart of motivation. Because it’s not like it’s lucrative. I mean, even a lesser’s cash tends to get sucked up in the vortex when they get pulled back to the nethers. And they’re almost all bums anyway.” He watched Sleeveless tense up. “You know what I mean. Very little money, working shit jobs, maybe—maybe—slicing off a human for a special treat every now and again, but mostly living under the radar so they can keep their heads down. Even the ones that thrive on hotspots, moving around, preying on humans when the dinner bell rings, they don’t tend to keep much in the way of human money. Bad long-term planners, except for a few.”

“Of course there’s the fundamentalists,” Hollywood went on. “I met a so-called human supremacist one time.” Sleeveless let out a chuckle as Hollywood went on. “Can you believe that shit? Like humans are supreme at anything other than wearing skin better than we do.” He flicked his wrist, waving his hand away. “You get the crusaders every once in a while, though, the ones who do it for religious reasons. ‘Demons bad!’ and all that shit. Which …” he had to concede, “we sort of are, it’s just there’s some of us better at it than others.”

“What about the ones that do it for the rush?” Sleeveless said. “I met one of those a long time ago, outside Detroit.”

“A thrill-killer?” Hollywood said, nodding. “Yeah, I’ve run across a couple. Think they’re hot shit, looking for a way to kill without going to jail.” He smiled. “I guess not leaving a body behind is one way to go about it. But I don’t think that’s this guy. Maybe, but … I dunno, there’s something else there. Doubtful it’s religion, or that he’s a supremacist.” The supremacist hadn’t even talked to him, told him anything, until he’d started peeling the man’s flesh off. Then he’d started spilling his guts. Literally. “Thrill-killers are egomaniacs sometimes. Like to keep trophies if they can, cut off an ear before they finish the job. They know about essence, how it spills out, and lots of times they try to capture it, bottle it for sale.” He thought back to last night. “Those boys were covered in it, like they hadn’t even bothered to catch it.” He thought about it again, saw the look on the smaller one’s face, the white boy, as he was straining against the minion’s arm. “No, I think I’ve got them figured.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sleeveless asked. “How’s that?”

“The cop was looking for the farmer,” Hollywood said, pensive, as the car rattled down the road. “He’s a law and order type, trying to figure out how to adapt to the situation at hand. Simple guy. Doing his best, given what he’s got to work with. But the demon hunter, he’s something else. He’s not into any of those things we just went through. He’s doing this for his own reasons.” He’d seen the guy’s face as he’d tipped the hat off and gone for the knife. It wasn’t just scrunched with exertion. “Something personal.” It was laced with anger, and not just a fury at being restrained, either.

“Oh?” Sleeveless asked. “What, did Kellen insult his mother or something?”

Hollywood chuckled. “No, not that. Not him. No, what we’ve got here is a stone demon killer. Cold heart. Black. Not in it for money, ego, or fun, not religion, nor supremacy.” He didn’t let it get to him, but if he was a chickenshit like Sleeveless, he might have felt a little chill thinking about what this guy was, what was behind him. What he might be willing to do, because of his reason for being here. “No … this guy … he’s here for revenge.”

Arch had dropped by Hendricks’s motel room, knocked on the door, and gotten no response. He was tempted to ask the manager of the Sinbad for a key. He’d talked to him earlier, could see the recognition in the man’s eyes. He was clearly a fan of Arch’s from back in the day. Arch still got that and mostly didn’t mind. It tended to produce cooperation of a kind not necessarily enjoyed by other members of the department. In some cases, that counted for more than others. He considered himself lucky when all it did was make them think of him as a man asking for help rather than a cop trying to get them to give something up.

He didn’t push it, though, not yet. Odds were that Hendricks was elsewhere, maybe getting a bite, and he was all set to drive by a couple of the restaurants when his phone went off again. He picked it up, saw it was Alison, and answered. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey,” she came back. “You’re off now, right?”

“Just clocked out a few minutes ago,” he said, answering automatically. “Why?”

“Meet me at the apartment?” Her voice was hopeful, honey laced with extra sugar. Not enough to gag him, just enough to recognize it for what it was. “I got a break, figured instead of getting some supper, we’d just … satisfy some other cravings.”

Arch wasn’t far gone enough on working this demon thing that he was unresponsive, but it did produce a little resistance in him. He shut it up pretty quick by remembering that Hendricks was indisposed in some way right now, anyhow. “Sure. I can drop by home for a little bit. You got a half hour off?”

“Yep,” she said, “and I’m leaving now.”

“Okay,” he said, “you’ll beat me home by about five minutes, probably.”

“Hurry, hurry,” she teased. “See you then.”

Once he’d hung up, he took one last look at the door to Hendricks’s room. The demons could wait a half hour or so. Besides, he needed to eat anyway.

+ + +

“So now we know what our players are up to,” Hollywood said as they rounded the corner of road that was semi-paved. “The next question is, who are they?”

“Krauther’s on the cowboy,” Sleeveless said, pulling off the road onto a gravel driveway. “Seems like he’s new in town. But I know the cop. We’ve had dealings before.”

“I figured that out,” Hollywood said. He was sure Sleeveless missed the irony he had laced the statement with. He wasn’t bright enough to understand concepts like that.

“His name’s Archibald Stan,” Sleeveless went on. “Was a local football hero, graduated and went to UT in Knoxville. Married the head cheerleader—”

“They still married?” Hollywood asked with obvious interest. He felt himself leaning forward in his seat and everything.

“Yeah,” Sleeveless said. “She works down at Rogerson’s, the grocery store in town. Her daddy bought it out from the widow Rogerson after her husband died.”

“Good, good,” Hollywood said, putting all his thoughts into a matrix. “So he’s got vulnerabilities. His little cheerleader wife.” He felt his nose twist. “Not that it really matters. If he’s too problematic of a sacrifice, there are plenty of others. Though I do want to make him hurt for what he did to my suit.”

“Your suit?” There was an air of disbelief from Sleeveless, like something he’d said was unfathomable.

“This suit cost more than your whole town,” Hollywood replied, burying his irritation. He gave the feeling a moment to subside. “So … Krauther is on the cowboy now?”

“Says he’s staying at the motel,” Sleeveless said, “right near where we saw them last night.”

“And these guys you know,” Hollywood said, gesturing to the trailer that was peeking out from between the trees ahead, just a little farther up the gravel path, “they’ll be okay with … getting done what needs to get done?”

“Yeah,” Sleeveless said. “They’re pretty hard. They’ve killed people before, I know it. If they know you’re backing us,” Sleeveless turned a little red, “and paying, then they’ll be willing to get out of line to get the job done.”

Hollywood waited just a second. “And they’re not as stupid as the last two?”

Sleeveless hesitated before answering. “Well, they’re not as smart as me.”

Hollywood sighed. It was so hard to find good help in this shithole town.

+ + +

“So where are you from?” Erin asked with that drawl. He was loving the drawl, the southern accent.

“Amery, Wisconsin,” Hendricks replied, taking a sip of his pop. He called it pop, she’d said Coke, even though the Pepsi signs were clearly posted. He just kind of shook his head at that. “You probably never heard of it. It’s small.”

“Oh?” She looked like she was interested. At least more interested in him than she was in what was left of her meal, which wasn’t much. She’d gone through the big burger in no time, and was picking at the last few fries, which looked like they’d gone cold, all mushy and limp. “Like … smaller than Midian?”

He looked out the window. “Maybe a little. We didn’t have a Wal-Mart, that was for sure, you had to go to St. Croix Falls or New Richmond for one of those.” He paused, realizing those names were meaningless to her. “You had to drive a little ways. Twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Sounds familiar,” she said then explained. “The Wal-Mart’s new. Only opened in my junior year of high school.”

“When was that?” he asked, more than a little curious. She looked young. Younger than him.

“Ummm,” she said, a little grin on her face, shy. “Two years ago, I think.” She met his gaze, fed off it. “I’m nineteen.”

On a purely intellectual level, Hendricks didn’t know what to think about that. He was dimly aware that he wasn’t really going on intellect, not around her. “It’s a good age. I remember being that young, vaguely.”

“How old are you now?” She said it all flirty, like there was a giggle just waiting to escape.

“Twenty-five,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“An older man.” She didn’t make it sound like a bad thing. “So how do you know Arch?”

“Oh, we go way back,” Hendricks said. Lying was no great stretch for him, though he didn’t like it. The alternative was trying to explain how he was a demon hunter that had met the man only last night. It was an answer designed to keep Arch from looking like an idiot and him in the running for that first-date fuck she’d alluded to. If he were honest with himself, though, Arch’s reputation didn’t fit very large into that equation. “How’d you know him?”

“Everybody ’round here knows Arch,” she said, nibbling on a soggy fry. “Hard not to. I didn’t really know him very well until we started working together at the Sheriff’s Department, though, on account of he was three years ahead of me in school. I knew his wife some, though, she was cheerleading captain when I was a freshman.”

“You were a cheerleader?” He watched her blush. “I could see that.”

“Only for a year,” she said, still red in the cheeks. He thought it was damned cute. “It was too much for me.”

“Hey,” he said, a thought occurring to him. “If you’re only nineteen, how were you drinking in the bar last night?”

“Oh, that?” she waved a hand across the table at him, close enough he was tempted to reach out and catch it, hold her hand. “Please. Sheriff’s Department budget is so strained, Reeve doesn’t waste his time with stuff like that. Fast Freddie’s serves minors all the time. But,” she held up a finger to wag at him, “Phil, the barman, won’t let you drive if you’re underage. Makes you give your keys to him before he’ll pour, so you gotta get another ride home if you’re drinking.”

Hendricks smiled at that thought. “So you’re a sheriff’s deputy, blatantly flouting the law, huh?”

“There’s a lot of laws I flout. Did you know under Tennessee law, it’s still technically illegal for me to give you a blow job?” She took a sip of her drink, but kept her eyes on him.

For the second time, Hendricks was flummoxed. This time he just tried not to look dumb while he recovered, trying to keep his mouth shut instead of agape. After a moment, he said, “Well, I’ve always thought if you were gonna break a law, you oughta at least make it one you’ll enjoy breaking.”