Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted (43 page)

This time, Duncan said nothing.

“He just burned right up,” Mick said to the skeptical-looking sheriff. The man had a really severe case of baldness going on, and a cynical look to match. It was just consuming his whole face, that don’t-bullshit-me cop look. Mick tried to decide whether it was from the squinted eyes, those puckered lips, or some other feature. The sheriff had talked to Pat from the diner first, and Mick had listened to the man spin a short story about how the bum had been going on and on about fire and suddenly burst into flame. It had been filled with the requisite amount of “Holy shits!” and exclamations of “Jesus!” It hadn’t given the sheriff much of anything to work with, though, and Mick was all about keeping that the case. “Never seen anything like that before, and I’ve worked the freak show tent for a few years, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, the amazing elephant-pig fetus must pale in comparison to this,” the sheriff said, unimpressed, as he made a notation on the itty bitty notepad he carried with him. “You see anything suspicious before the event?”

“The guy was rambling about fire,” Mick said with a shrug. “Like the diner guy said, he was like a broken record on it. Couldn’t get it out of his head for whatever reason.”

“And then he burst into flames,” the sheriff said, writing something else down. It took Mick only a second to realize he wasn’t asking. “You weren’t anywhere near him when it happened?”

“I never got closer than about ten feet from him,” Mick said. “I was standing by, uh …” He pretended to have to remember the name for a second, “… Pat, yeah, Pat, when he lit off.”

“All right, then,” the sheriff said, and flipped his notebook closed. “Do you have any contact information where I can reach you if we have any other questions?”

Mick stared at him, trying to screw up his face to look uncomfortable at giving a tough answer. “I mean, I go where the carnival goes, so you kinda have to get ahold of them to get me.”

The sheriff lowered his head slightly. “You don’t have a cell phone?”

Mick shrugged. “Never needed one.”

“It’s 2014, son, you might consider looking into gettin’ one,” the sheriff said, turning away from him with a sigh. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” Mick said, turning back to the mouth of the alley and the square beyond. They hadn’t retrieved the bum’s body yet, it just sat under a white sheet that was weighed down on two corners by stones. The wind whipped through every few minutes, disturbing the edges and moving the corners that were not weighed down. It was flapping lightly in the breeze now, like the dead man was trying to surrender by waving the flag.

Too late, you crazy fuck.

Mick looked past the body, burying that sense of self-satisfaction he felt running through him. He caught a glimpse of dark hair and saw Molly in the middle of the square with a woman who looked damned similar, though her hair was maybe a shade or two darker and she was wearing surgical scrubs. Was that normal in this town? Mick guessed it wasn’t. He hesitated at the mouth of the alley and caught Molly looking his way. They were supposed to meet here, but he wondered at the presence of what damned sure looked like her older sister. Then Molly waved at him, and he shrugged it off, heading toward her at a walk. No reason to hurry; tonight was the night, and all he needed to do was play it cool.

Lauren felt a hint of sick as the guy—Mick—crossed the road toward them. Sick at the thought of Mick. Heh. Her scrubs felt dirty on her skin, and not just because of her shift. She felt like some dust or grime or something deeper had settled on them in that mine, had contaminated them, and the fact she hadn’t had time for a long shower and a change of clothes was a source of aggravation. She’d wanted to be here for this, though, and since Molly had been ready to leave the minute she got home, she ditched any thoughts of being clean and not icky and heebie-jeebie free for the time being and walked her to the square. But seeing this Mick hadn’t really helped matters. In fact, it had generated a nasty little sliver of doubt in her stomach.

Yes, he looked nice enough. Though she did have to frown since he was walking away from the mouth of an alley which contained—if she wasn’t much mistaken—another body. Yet another body. Sheriff Reeve, naturally, was in close attendance.

Sweet fancy Christ, what the hell was going on in this town?

“Hey,” Mick said, earning no points for wit. At least he hadn’t said “Yo!”

“Hey,” Molly replied, and Lauren felt like she should slap her daughter in the back of the head.

“Wassssssssuup?” Lauren said, just for variety. It got them both to look at her, her daughter with flushed cheeks from embarrassment and the carnival worker with one of those perplexed expressions that Lauren so often found directed her way. “I’m Lauren,” she added.

“Mick,” came the reply. No, “I’m,” to preface it, just the statement of a name. Nope, she didn’t like him.

“Mick, this is my … mom,” Molly finally found voice to say.

“Oh, wow,” Mick said, brows slightly inclined, “I woulda thought sister. Good for you.”

Lauren tried not to dissect that statement for its obvious flaws, instead jumping to a more important question. “So, Mick … is that a body over there?”

“Yeah,” Mick said, apparently not concerned by this admission. “Dude just started screaming and burst into flames.” He frowned, the expression revealing him to be kind of an idiot in Lauren’s estimation. “You got a weird town here. Lot of people dying, it seems like.”

Lauren cocked an eyebrow at him and knew if her father had been alive and standing here, he would have crafted a careful warning about how it could be one more by the end of the evening depending on how things went. “You caught us on a bad week.”

“Bad month,” Molly said, doing that inappropriate teenager laugh. She stopped after about two seconds. “Oh my God, that’s not funny at all.”

“At least you realized it, sweetie,” Lauren said. She looked over at Mick. “So, Mick … you’re only in town for tonight?”

“Yep,” he said.

Monosyllabic was never a great sign, but Lauren withheld her disappointment and moved gamely to the next question. “Have her home by eleven, please.”

She searched his eyes for hints of intelligence, or, barring that, comprehension. “You got it,” Mick said, fulfilling at least part of the requirement. He held out a crooked elbow to Molly, like some sort of gentleman. “Shall we?” His northern accent was plain as day to her, and she found for the first time in her life she didn’t care for it. Usually it was such a breath of fresh air.

“See ya later, Mom,” Molly said, flushed with delight as she hooked her arm in his. Lauren tried to smile, because that—it was innocent, right? Walking arm in arm with a man? Lauren watched them cross the street, and they even looked both ways. Mick said something to Molly that was lost in the wind between them, and Molly laughed, not even a look back over her shoulder at her mother. That knot in her stomach was growing bigger.

“Molly got a date tonight?” Sheriff Reeve’s voice jarred Lauren out of her trance, watching them cross the square, talking, laughing. Doing the normal things couples did. Lauren vaguely remembered that.

“Yeah,” Lauren said, a little more tense now that she didn’t have to hide it in front of her daughter. “He’s not implicated in murder by any chance, is he? Because I wouldn’t mind an excuse to put an end to
that
.” She waved a finger gently in the direction of their laughing conversation as the two of them traced their way around the edge of the square.

“No, just a witness to another weird death,” Reeve said, somehow not relieving her. “Jarrett burst into flames. Spontaneous combustion. Pat saw the whole thing, kid didn’t come anywhere near him before it happened.” Reeve sighed. “I swear, it’s like this town is going to hell.”

Something about that tickled Lauren, bringing her back to what Arch Stan had said.
They were demons.
Like that was a normal, natural thing. Well, maybe for holy, pious Archibald Stan, they were. “Hell, huh?” Lauren just kept watching Mick and Molly. Molly laughed again at something he said, and it sent a jolt through her as she compared the now with a memory of her as a baby, sitting on the floor, laughing. Such a delightful sound, so innocent and sweet and full of promise.

A promise this carnie knew nothing about and was now walking away with. Lauren felt her fist clench.

“You okay?” Reeve asked.

“Just contemplating murder,” Lauren said.

“Sweet fancy Christ,” Reeve said, “Please refrain. I need another body in this town right now like I need a hole in my head.”

Arch’s phone rang as he was pacing around the map again, a pen in hand and a mad gleam in his eye that he could feel. He scrambled to answer quickly and was only mildly surprised when Alison’s name came up on the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Arch,” she said with a sense of relief that was palpable to him even over the open line.

“Alison,” he said, maybe with more than a little relief of his own. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

“Just passing Cleveland,” she said. “We got a big problem, though.”

Arch felt his teeth just about grind on that one. “Of course we do. How big?”

“Bigger than the bikers, that’s for sure.” Her voice was tight. “Arch, it could turn Midian into a wasteland.”

He felt himself fall into the chair heavily. “Sounds about normal. What’s the threat?”

“Someone with the carnival. Some kind of fire demon, sleeps with a girl there, and he somehow impregnates the whole dang town.”

Arch felt his face twist as he tried to plumb the meaning of the nonsensical statement she’d just made. He didn’t quite get it. “Say what?”

“I know, it doesn’t sound right.”

“Yeah, it sounds wrong,” Arch agreed. “Which is about par for Midian’s course of late. What’s the move?”

“Get to the festival, find the demon, send him packing home with nothing but his black-flame soul.”

“A plan I can endorse,” Arch said. “What do you need from me?”

“It’s spawns fire demons, so …” Her voice trailed off. “I dunno. You think a fire extinguisher would work?”

Arch didn’t really know how to answer that, but it didn’t matter because his mind jumped in a new direction. “Oh, wow. That can’t be coincidence.”

“What?” Her voice picked up. “What is it?”

“Jarrett just burned to death on the town square,” Arch said. “I heard the all-call on the radio just before I got home.”

“Sounds like our boy is already working,” Alison said.

“Hmm,” Arch said. “You sure it’s a boy we’re looking for?”

“Unless you know a lot of girls who can impregnate a whole town with fire demons?”

“Point.” Arch scratched his face, scruff and all. “How do we do this?”

“We’re gonna have to comb the festival looking for something unusual,” Alison said. “The demon is going to try to knock up a girl there.”

“So we’re looking for teens who look like they’re ready to have relations at the Summer Lights fest.” Arch felt some of the thrill of hope, the certainty of direction fade. “Well, that should be …” He didn’t even have the heart to say it.

“Like picking a horny teenage couple out of a pack of horny teenage couples,” Alison said, finishing the thought for him. “Arch, if we don’t, we’re gonna have to kill the girl who gets pregnant. She becomes the queen of the demon horde that follows.” She didn’t sound any more hopeful than he did. Fairly desperate, actually.

“So if we can’t find them, we have to kill a human being?” Arch asked, feeling the weight go out of his legs. Luckily he was already sitting.

“It’s her or the town,” Alison said. She said something else, but there was a burst of static and he couldn’t hear it.

“Alison?” he asked. “Alison?” She was gone, signified by the double beep of his phone to let him know the line was dead.

Arch set the phone slowly down on the map, stared at the black screen, and all the dark X’s marked over the colorful surface lines of the paper. Every one of them felt like a failure, and the black screen of the phone was the worst of all. It stared back at him with a dark reflection of his own face, his features blurred and consumed by the blank screen. It felt to him like he’d been subsumed by the darkness within it, like it had spread all over his features until all was in shadow, and he wondered if it was an omen for the immediate future.

The sunset didn’t stop the heat. Mick was picking his way across the field, Molly hanging on his arm like a lady at a fancy dance, and he could feel her sweating, though from anticipation or the heat, he wasn’t sure. She was wearing a soft cotton dress that fell to mid-thigh, and he caught a look at those knees. What was it about that joint that moved him so? Bone and cartilage and connective tissue, but the way it moved, the way it could right-angle and twist, the pale skin stretched over it all—something it about it got to him.

They made their way through the short grass, heading toward the main gate. Cars were parked all around them, from the newest of the new to the old—Fords, Chevys and Dodges. Mick had seen BMWs before, but he didn’t see many here. He figured this was the working man’s entertainment, the blue-collar place of leisure. The carnival was already lit up, the Ferris wheel shining at him across the field. That’d be the place, he figured. It was a good place for it, even with the new, smaller boxes. He could do it sitting down, Molly astride him. He’d done it that way before, in tight places, though it’d been a few centuries.

That was the one downside to his condition. It sure felt good when it happened, but he would like to have done it more often. That rush of release, that feeling when it surged out of him and filled the girl, filled all the women nearby—that was a damned good feeling. Cathartic in its way. It wasn’t just a little satiation; it was like drinking a river to drown your thirst on a hot day. Once you could handle it, there was nothing so sweet and relieving.

But Mick wasn’t up for a leaving a trail of carnage that would have OOCs after him, looking over his shoulder every day of his life. This he figured he could manage, just this town, and he’d be done for a while.