Unearthed (45 page)

“Whoa, cowboy,” Duncan said, and his touch was suddenly lighter, his voice lower but gentler. “It’s gonna be all right.”

“How the fuck would you know that?” Hendricks growled, spittle flecking between his lips. He found himself not caring.

“Just calm down,” Dr. Darlington said. “You need rest.”

Hendricks felt himself go slack, almost involuntarily. Duncan’s hand was strong against his wrist but there was no reassurance to it. He eyed the demon, who withdrew his grip tentatively, like touching Hendricks was burning him somehow but he did not want to let go nonetheless.

“Can I get anything for you?” Darlington asked, her voice quiet in the still room.

Birds were chirping outside. Daylight was shining in, the kind of morning light that was unmistakable in its intensity. Normally he might feel the promise of a new day coming with it, the idea of a fresh start.

But the light hurt his eyes, and the sick feeling rotted inside him. “Just … leave me alone until Arch gets back,” Hendricks said. “I just … I need the stuff. I’ll feel better once I get it.”

“Okay,” Duncan said and hesitated only a moment before withdrawing.

Dr. Darlington stood, unfolding herself slowly after being seated for so long. “Everything you’re feeling right now is normal.”

He didn’t even look at her. “Normal for what? For someone who’s had their foot chopped up by a fucking lunatic cuntzilla?”

Darlington bristled, but she must have suppressed her criticism of his language. “For what you’ve been through. Not just the physical, but the emo—”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Hendricks said, cutting her off. “But I just want to rest now.” He rolled over on his side, giving her a view of his back. His foot was scathing in the review of his action. He wondered if the serum would bring his toes back. Even if they didn’t, just reducing the pain would be a hell of a boon at this point.

“Okay,” she said and withdrew hesitantly behind the curtain. It fluttered behind her, and a few seconds later he heard the front door open and the soft tread of her steps lead her onto the porch.

The sound of the door closing behind her thundered in his head like a storm, even though the sun kept shining through the window on him.

“What have we here?” Kitty asked, stepping into the slug demon’s slug-like living accommodations. The inside of the place was a nightmare, glistening floors slick with slime trails. They weren’t too deep, just a layer that had dried into crust on most of the hard floors, linoleum white with powdered dust that reminded her of cocaine. It was the fondest association she could make with the wormy bastard whose home she was now standing in.

“Madam,” Rousseau said, next to Bardsley, who was looking at the object in the center of the coffee table with furious interest. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

“I believe it is,” Kitty said, afraid to sit on the couch, but ultimately just going with it because stooping to open the damned box would be a pain in the ass. She felt a surprising amount of pleasant cushioning in the couch and then, seconds later, the uncomfortable ooze of something wet through her pants. “Fuck!” She jumped back to her feet and twisted to look at her ass. It was coated in worm jelly. “Ughhh. If that little bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d fucking stab him again.” Her fingers went right to the knife at her side, fingering it instinctively.

“I’d help,” Bardsley offered, the kiss-ass.

She looked at Rousseau, who shrugged. “But not as much as I would, madam.” He delivered the line half-heartedly, fully aware of the compulsory hilarity of it. It made her grin in spite of her soiled pants.

“All right, you lickspittles,” Kitty said, and leaned over this time, placing her fingers on the edges of the box, “let’s get this show on the road.” And she threw the box open. “Knock knock,” she said, looking upon a grey face within.

The head was bald, severed, with indistinct features and hints of small horns no bigger than the tip of her thumb. There were eight of them, and they formed a flesh crown on the top of the head of the Rog’tausch. She’d never even seen a drawing of the face, but here it was, eyes as black as a vaped essence, lines in the forehead and crow’s feet, deep like canyons. She doubted those were from smiling.

“So you have supplanted the slug,” the Rog’tausch said in a squeaky voice. He sounded like Kristin Chenoweth after taking a hit of helium. “Congratulations.”

Kitty blinked at it. Then she blinked again. “Do you … always talk like that?”

It stared her down. “Lift me up, and I shall whisper the answer in your ear.” It bared teeth, large and pointy, stained as though they’d never touched a toothbrush. Which they probably hadn’t.

“I’ll pass,” Kitty said. “Maybe your voice will change if we reattach you to your balls—oh, that’s right, your body doesn’t have them. Never mind.”

There was a feral growl from the head, and she realized it sounded just a little like a purse dog. “That’s so cute,” she said. “All right, let’s go.”

“Wait,” the head said. “What has happened to my last master, the great and mighty—”

“Oh, shut up,” Kitty said, lifting up the entirety of the box. “The meth'a'guros was not your master, and he’s dead in any case. I’m taking you back to the rest of your body.”

The head studied her with the black eyes. “Save for my last leg.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Save for that leg, yes. But we’ll have it soon enough.” She opened her mouth and breathed the words to bring him under her control.

The Rog’tausch’s eyes wavered and went unfocused before snapping onto her. “You are my master now,” the voice said, still squeaky. She felt one eye twitch in reaction to it.

“And don’t you forget it,” she said and started to snap the box closed.

“Wait,” the Rog’tausch said. “I can lead you to my other leg.”

She paused. “Good. That’s helpful.” Then she closed the box and heard a grunt of annoyance muffled within.

Bardsley stared at her, eyes wide. “Are you sure it’s wise to … piss it off?”

“If you think I’m taking so much as an ounce of crap from Jambi the Genie,” she said, lifting the box and thrusting it into Rousseau’s waiting arms, “you’re sadly mistaken about who you’re dealing with.” She started for the door, no longer caring about the wet seat of her pants or the furious roll on the porch she’d taken earlier. None of it mattered now. None of it.

“One to go,” she said to herself, stepping out into the sunshine. What a beautiful day.

Arch steered the car along just under the speed limit, the road taking them along a winding curve. “Much farther?” he asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had held save for occasionally muttered directions.

“Not far,” Alison said. She was partially reclined, neck relaxed at an odd angle. “A couple miles.”

Arch nodded, steering into another curve. “You haven’t said anything about the wisdom of this course.”

Alison didn’t turn to look at him, just kept looking straight ahead, but he saw a little tension creep into her body. “That’s because there’s no wisdom in doing this.”

Arch took a tense breath, let it out. “You think I shouldn’t?”

“No,” Alison said, shaking her head just a little, “I think you should. But it’s still not wise.” She caught his eye and turned her head to face him. “It has to be done, at least according to Starling. Hendricks has a part to play in what’s coming, and he can’t do that flat on his back, I presume. So it comes down to whether you trust Starling or not.”

“I do,” Arch said. “With a few reservations.”

“She’s a soul riddled with question marks, isn’t she?” Alison shifted in her seat. “Hooker by day, revelatory angel or something by night. Kind of an interesting contradiction.”

“I’ve heard of worse,” Arch said. “Moses was a murderer, you know.”

“I know,” Alison said. “But like I said … she’s full of question marks. If you believe her—and I guess I do, since she’s saved us enough times—then this is the path, and we best get to walking it.”

“So it is,” Arch said, slowing for a curve that led into a straightaway. “The question is … what’s coming? And why isn’t she a little more free with her information?”

“Questions of faith,” Alison said. “Of trust. Lot of those going around right now.”

“You’re thinking about how Hendricks was ready to cast Duncan aside,” Arch said.

“He did cast Duncan aside,” she said. “And me, in a cold half-second. He laid into Duncan for not being part of the team, for having his own agenda, and then he went whole-hog after the duchess without a thought for those of us with him.” She rubbed her head gingerly, but grimaced. “I’m trying to forgive, but maybe the concussion is making it easy for me to forget just how to do it.”

“Hard feelings won’t do us an ounce of good right now,” Arch said, then felt the blossoming aggravation, a desire to give the cowboy a special brand of heck for what he’d done, how he’d exposed Alison to danger. “But … yeah. Later, I wouldn’t mind tearing a New York Strip off his hind end.”

“Just say ‘ass,’ Arch,” she said, shaking her head. “That one’s even in the Bible.”

“To refer to donkeys!”

“Which he was,” Alison said. “Definitely a donkey when he took off after her.” She settled into a quiet for a space, then readjusted herself in the seat for comfort again. “Here it is.”

Arch pulled into the drive indicated by his wife, and the car bumped along a pitted path. Grass grew in the middle of two tire treads. He felt a quiver in his stomach as they approached a weathered farmhouse. “What do you think is about to happen here?” he asked.

“You’re heading into the desert for forty days,” Alison said. “It sounds like you’ve got some temptation coming your way.”

Arch let his head slump, felt the pressure in his neck along his spine. “I don’t care for the sound of it.”

“What are you prepared to do in order to save Hendricks?”

“I don’t know,” Arch said. “What I can, I suppose.”

Her hand found his as he brought the already creeping car to a stop in the driveway and put it in park. Their hands rested together on the PRNDL switch. “It’s been a while since we’ve been totally alone,” Alison said as her eyes met his.

“We’re alone every night,” Arch said.

“You know what I mean,” Alison said. “Without Hendricks and Duncan upstairs in their room.”

“I know what you mean,” Arch agreed. “This whole war … I’ve been all right with it so far because it … it …” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“It felt right to you,” she said. “A cause you could get behind. Something you could believe in. It’s all very black and white in its way; good and evil. And I think you were bored writing tickets and a little too restless to think about a family just yet.”

“You seemed to think I was ready.”

“I thought maybe you’d get ready if we had one,” Alison said, bowing her head. “I think you’d be a great father, but … I can’t imagine trying to bring a kid into the world.”

“At all?” Arch asked. “Or just now?”

“I don’t know,” Alison said. “When I went to Hobbs Green as a kid and saw what those demons did to that town, it changed my world. Fifteen years gone from that, I’m seeing the world change again, except this time it’s close to home. It’s right outside our doorstep. Arch, our apartment got destroyed, and then we had to abandon our second one. We’re living in a dilapidated house that doesn’t even have indoor plumbing anymore. Maybe it’s just the situation that has me thinking this way. Maybe if we can win this war against the darkness, drive them out of our town, it’ll feel like home again.” She tilted her head against the headrest. “But maybe not. Maybe the worst destruction they brought to this town was to take our home—the place we were raised, where our roots are—and just rip them right out of the ground, salting the earth behind them. I don’t know if I can imagine sleeping sound in my bed again ten years from now, twenty. I imagine hearing a kid cry out in the night and worrying that it’s not just a bad dream—that it’s one of these bad dreams come to life that we’ve seen with our waking eyes.”

“I don’t disagree about what we’ve seen,” Arch said. “But I don’t know if it’s right to give up all hope of a future. These things have been here for however many thousand years—maybe longer than men, who knows? Life has gone on. But for now? I agree with you. I’m not ready, not at the moment.” He stared at the door to the farmhouse, saw the faint lines in the paint. “I’m not ready for this, either.”

“I’ll be with you the whole time,” Alison said, patting his hand. “It’ll be okay.”

“Best to get on with it, then,” Arch said, and pushed open his door. He stepped out into the dusty driveway, kicking up gravel as he lifted himself out of the small car. He saw Alison stand, a little slower, at the opposite door, then shut it a little wearily behind her. “You’ve met this Spellman before, right?”

“Just the once,” she said, leaning against the car. “He provoked Hendricks constantly during their back and forth. I don’t know how he’ll react to you, but I’d imagine it won’t be any easier.”

“I can handle him picking at me for a piece.” Arch stared at the door, adjusted his sword as he slid it onto his back. “Just doubting it’s going to come openhanded and straight at me.”

“Fair to assume your blind spots will be getting some traffic,” Alison agreed, slowly making her way up the porch steps.

“Wait … where are my blind spots?” Arch asked.

Alison froze with her hand inches from the door. “Uhm … you know what? It’d take too long to explain. I’ll just let you know when he gets close, okay?” She turned the handle and opened the door, offering for him to go first.

Arch frowned at her, at the thought of his wife holding the door for him, but it wasn’t the moment for argument, so he walked through and heard a bell ring somewhere in the distance. The darkness of the entry seemed to peel back as he stepped inside, lighting a lushly appointed hallway in front of him, replete with thick, velvety carpeting and touched with beautiful carpentry, smooth woods that created an air of luxury he didn’t quite expect from a farmhouse out in the county.

He took a breath and smelled something—incense, maybe. He looked around until his eyes fell on a guy standing in the hall. Balding, middle-aged, with slight wrinkles around his eyes. “Archibald Stan,” the man said. “I’m Wren Spellman. Welcome to my humble shop.”