Unearthed (15 page)

“I need you,” she said, and he turned his head to look at her. She did not look back at him, just stood there, hand on his arm. “Only you.”

He tried to figure out how to answer that one. “It’s nice to be needed,” he said finally, “but it’d be nicer if I knew what you needed me for and why it has to be me.”

She tilted her face to look at him, hair a glowing red in the darkness, “Because I need you,” she said and then dragged him close and kissed him full on the mouth.

Hendricks was too surprised to react at first, being bodily hauled in by a woman for a smooch, and before he could get a grip on what was happening, she was gone, and he was left with a feeling that someone had just thrust a tongue into his mouth, and that he’d kind of enjoyed it even though it had left him off balance.

He stood there for a few minutes in the silence, under the moonlight, waiting to see if she’d come back and not really sure how he felt about it. She did not reappear, though, and after about half an hour of waiting, he finally went back inside. He didn’t sleep, though, but this time it was for different reasons than before. Now, it was not just his mind that was awake with possibilities, but with a silent Duncan in the room he didn’t dare indulge the other part of him that cried out for attention.

Kitty found herself supervising men at dawn. Demon men, true, but they were not that different from the human men she’d dealt with—unreliable, always talking about their dicks and what to do with them, and ready to quit long before she was done with them. She didn’t really enjoy the supervision part of the search, but she didn’t mind the idea of having a whip to lash them across their bare backs when they annoyed her.

And annoy her they did. She watched them digging, a dozen men in a half dozen different holes, shoveling madly as though they could feel the weight of her intention falling on them with each movement of her eyes. It wasn’t that they were going slowly, it was just that she knew they were capable of going faster. Still, for a hundred dollars a day each, she might have been better off hiring humans, as slow as these bastards seemed to move.

“You are dissatisfied, my lady?” Rousseau asked. He knew, of course. It wasn’t that hard to read her face, especially if you’d been doing it for a while like Rousseau had.

She took off the bonnet and felt a strand of her hair unfurl. The bonnet hadn’t exactly been her first choice, but she hadn’t had many options. “You know it takes a lot to satisfy me, Rousseau. And no, I’m not happy with the progress. They could go faster.” The smell of fresh grass was in the air, and each blade was covered in minuscule drops of water that wet her shoes as she walked.

“You’re considering employing the whip, then?”

It would be sweet. And it would yield results, she thought. But this town wasn’t that big, and if other demons started running at the sight of her now, it would be down to whatever dregs Rousseau could scrape to dig the other holes, the ones that would come after this one. “Mmm, no, I don’t think so,” she said. “But maybe we should get some human slaves, just in case. That could be … nice. Take care of a few different things I need done.” A thought occurred to her. “What about those demon hunters we met last night?”

“They have an OOC with them,” Rousseau cautioned. Rousseau was always too cautious.

“I haven’t been caught yet, and I don’t mean to start here,” she said, running a longer finger across her chin. It was warm out, the demons were sweating, the laughter and amusement they’d exhibited when the day had begun had clearly waned. Now there were more frequent breaks, and lots of puffing, as though they actually had need to draw breath, the lazy fucks. “I’ll find a moment to put them in chains, some time when it won’t be traced back to me—one way or another.” It wasn’t like OOCs were invincible, after all. She’d seen them die, bursting into a black light like oil splattered out and then sucked back into nonexistence. She’d stabbed one right as she climaxed once, and it remained one of the most satisfying experiences of her entire time on this earth.

There was an excited yell from one of the holes. The demons had dug down to waist deep in the last few hours, spread out in a roughly x-shaped arrangement from one side of the clearing to the other. The shout came from the one at the far left side, and while Rousseau took off immediately, she paced herself, taking her time to work her way over to the site. She glanced at one of the other demons as she passed the nearest hole and gave him a searing look that sent him from watching back to work.

When she reached the edge of the hole in question, she stared down into it. Rousseau stayed at the edge, betraying little to nothing but a gleam in his eyes. She looked past the demon who was working within and saw the edge of a wooden line jutting up from the earth. It was not completely unearthed, but at least a foot of it was exposed, metal joints keeping it together. It had an old look about it, like a treasure chest buried in the earth by long-ago pirates.

“How much gold is in here?” the demon with the shovel asked, a pointed-tooth grin on his face. Overtaken by avarice, he was showing more of his true self than he ought to have. His jeans were caked with dirt, and his lack of a shirt revealed patchy black hair on his chest and back.

“No gold,” she said. “Something worth more to me than gold.”

“Do we get a piece of it?” he asked, halting his digging and prompting her fingers to fall to the knife she now had hanging on her belt. Rousseau had brought it down with him when he drove.

“Are you sure you want a piece of it?” she asked coolly. She certainly wasn’t averse to letting him open the box so that he could have a chance at what he felt was his due. The idiot nodded enthusiastically, once again illustrating perfectly for Kitty that there was simply not that much difference between demon men and human ones—they were both helpless idiots, prone to always taking the shoddy end of a deal with whatever devil was at hand. “Then you may feel free to open the box as soon as you dig it out, but not until you’ve hauled it out of the hole.”

Rousseau’s lips puckered in suppressed amusement. “You are so very generous, madam.” His Chicago accent rolled off his tongue.

The demon dug and dug, scratching a rough square and then proceeding to excavate around the box. When he was finished, he’d revealed a wooden chest three feet long but only a half a foot deep and wide. “Kind of a funny treasure chest,” he said, tugging it out and setting it on the grass while Kitty watched. “Probably could buy a few beers with what’s in it, though.” He grinned up at her, then found the lines that indicated where it opened by locating the hinges, and started to tug at it while Kitty took a step back.

“Wait ’til you see what’s inside,” she said, “it’ll make your eyes bulge out.”

The hairy demon opened the box. There was a rustling sound as exactly what she’d suspected was within sprang out and grabbed hold of him. She watched it affix to his throat in almost the same way she’d grabbed that deputy. The demon’s eyes bulged wide, and he spun on her. He looked like he was wearing a necktie, a severed hand attached to a long arm hanging from his throat. Its flesh was darker than the suntanned demon’s, and it swung from his neck all the way past his waist. If it had been his organ, it might have been worth a look, but as it was, Kitty shrugged and began watching the workers in the other holes. They had all stopped work, were all watching, reactions ranging from disbelief to horror and even to one fellow who didn’t seem to care at all.

A grunting drew Kitty’s attention back to the spectacle at hand. The demon didn’t need air, but Kitty suspected being grasped in such a manner was … disconcerting. The hand and fingers were massive, mighty, each digit the size of a summer sausage in width. The demon’s neck started to elongate from the pressure, and she smiled as she watched, knowing what was coming, oh, so soon—

With a pop it ended, and the demon man, that worthless hunk of shell and essence, slipped out of his earthly existence to his much-deserved reward. The arm fell to the earth, flopping once it hit, the fingers digging into the earth and springing forward toward Rousseau.

“
Et-esh-komn-bah
,” Kitty said, a language she’d almost forgotten, “
et-anyana-seer-la-oranlee
.” The detached hand stopped, as though it had ears to hear her. It dragged itself toward her as her workers watched.

When it reached her, it grabbed her leg and began to climb. She ignored the disturbing feel of a hand touching her in such a familiar way as part of the price of greatness. It tugged at her pants, and when it reached her belt it switched to climbing up her back. It made it to her shoulder within seconds and wrapped itself around her at the elbow joint, the hand hanging loose on one side and the muscular shoulder on the other side. It was damned heavy, but again—price of greatness, yadda yadda.

She ran a hand along the lightly pebbled flesh. It almost felt like scales. The arm flexed slightly and the fingers writhed but thankfully kept from grasping at her in any inappropriate ways.

“What the fuck is that?” one of the demons asked.

“Oh, this old thing?” she asked, running her fingers along the tricep. “I could toss it over to you if you want to take a look for yourself—”

“No, no, no,” the man said, shaking his head, “that is unnecessary, Duchess.”

“You sure?” she asked lightly, acting as if she were about to take it from her shoulder. “Your friend was interested in it—”

“I am … very definitely fine without—” He shook his head again. “Thank you for the offer.”

“Mmm,” she said. “Would anyone else like a share of the ‘treasure’?” She looked around. “No? Oh, all right then, spoilsports. You can all leave, then.” She smiled at them. “Don’t forget to collect your pay from Rousseau, though, and make sure he has your number. There’s more work to be done in the next few days, for those who have the sense to take the money and keep your mouths shut.” She gave them all a vague wave goodbye and began her walk back to the car.

The wind swept around her, and the arm remained loose around her neck, her prize, and the first of several. The next time Rousseau called for workers, she’d have trouble getting many to come back. But hopefully the ones that did would work all the harder for knowing what could happen to them if they raised her ire. This was what a duchess was, anyway, an object of fear for the masses, and she hadn’t gotten this far by hesitating to watch demons combust into blackness if needed. She certainly didn’t do it herself, though, not in public. The arm was good for that. She gave her new little pet a reassuring pat and got into the car, ready to go on to the next thing.

Nicholas Reeve pulled into the sheriff’s office parking lot after a long damned night with little sleep to find that someone was already waiting for him. It was too damned early in the morning for anyone to be as chipper as this guy was, some guy in his twenties with glasses and a smile that he probably thought was infectious in a good way. It wasn’t; more like the flu. Reeve watched him as he approached like any cop would: warily. The guy just kept smiling, and Reeve shifted his coffee to his left hand to make sure his right was free for a draw if need be. With one of his deputies on the ground already, there was no reason to be lax now.

“Sheriff Reeve?” the guy called, leaning against the brick wall just outside the front door as Reeve drew closer. “My name is Dave Belzer. I’m a reporter for Frostwich.com.”

“Great, a reporter,” Reeve said. He needed an interview request like he needed to dump this coffee over his head and soak up the caffeine through osmosis. “I don’t even need to guess what you want, and the answer is no.”

“I was dropping in because I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve had a rise in crime lately,” Belzer said, still smiling. “Was hoping I could take a few minutes and ask you some questions.”

“I don’t really have much to say.” Reeve reached for his keys. Now that he was closer, he realized this Belzer was kind of a scrawny guy, not exactly the neck-crushing type. His fingers were narrow and ink-stained. How did that even happen in the modern world? Cheap pen leak, Reeve concluded.

“You’ve had how many murders in the last two months?” Belzer asked, coming off the wall and hovering as Reeve stuck the key in the lock.

“A lot,” Reeve said, trying to turn the deadbolt faster. “Check the local paper if you want an exact number.”

“That’s not exactly a media-friendly attitude you’ve got going here.”

Reeve turned to look at him, letting the keys dangle in the lock. “Who did you say you work for again?”

“Frostwich.com,” Belzer said, turning his head sideways. “You realize that not a single major media publication has even deigned to notice that a small town in Tennessee now has a murder rate that outpaces most cities with millions of people?”

“And don’t think I’m not grateful for that,” Reeve said, staring him down.

“Grateful?” Belzer looked like he was going to choke on something. The truth, probably. “Don’t you think that there might be a story here? Something people would be interested in knowing about?”

“‘If it bleeds, it leads’?” Reeve asked. He couldn’t help but feel jaded about this particular earthworm, but the point wasn’t lost on him. “The press don’t care about rural America. What do they call it? Flyover country? So no, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re the first to come asking questions.” He turned back to working the key. The deadbolt was stiff, needed oil. “I do hope you’re the last, though. I got enough filling my days without dealing with people asking me questions that don’t have any obvious answers.”

“So you’re saying you don’t have a clue what’s going on here?” Belzer asked. “Good God, man, you don’t deal with the press very often, do you?”

Reeve paused, felt a twinge and grimaced. “I probably should have just said ‘no comment,’ shouldn’t I?”

“Probably,” Belzer said and took a step closer. “I realize this is a very overwhelming time for you, but, uh … it’s not gonna get easier anytime soon.”

“Know that for certain, do you?” Reeve said, back to the suspicious. “Where’d you come here from?”