Unearthed (53 page)

“Hellfire,” Bill said as Brian slid open the rear window so he could hear. It worked; the crackling of the flames half a block off were clearly audible. “Duncan and Dr. Darlington are in the middle of the damned road.”

“That’s a hell of a place to stand right now.” Brian’s eyes were on the burning house. When it had blown up, it had rattled the windows of the pickup. “What do you figure that was, the explosion? Gas main?”

“Possibly,” Bill said. “This thing is causing a lot of damage as it—pillages, I suppose would be the word.”

“Pillaging implies some looting,” Brian said. “I think. I doubt this thing is hitting jewelry boxes and wallets as it passes through.”

“Raping, then,” Bill said.

Brian cringed. “I wouldn’t say it like that if I were you. It’s … an uncomfortable word for some people.”

His father didn’t look up from the scope. “You’ll forgive me for not deigning to pick my words more carefully, but at the moment, I’m looking at a very uncomfortable world, and the last thing I’m worried about is semantics.” His father stroked the trigger, and the barrel of the rifle lit in the night. He fired again, and again.

“Did you get it?” Brian asked, hands over his ears. He hadn’t made it quite in time, and he heard a ringing in the canals.

“Yes,” his father said.

“And?” Brian asked, gauging for a reaction.

“And you might want to get in the driver’s seat,” Bill said, voice surprisingly calm though it rose a little toward the end, “because it’s heading right this way.”

“Well, that was a colossal waste of my fucking time,” Hendricks said, standing on the porch next to a gawking middle-aged local with a paunch who was standing there in his underwear, looking out at this shitter of an evening. The Rog’tausch charged down the street, deviating from its course as it shot past Duncan and Dr. Darlington, running at almost twenty miles an hour as it headed for Bill Longholt’s pickup truck.

Arch fired his pistol into Kitty Elizabeth’s face, ripping off the shots right in Sheriff Reeve’s ear probably, but more concerned with the man’s life than his hearing. He fired at near point-blank range, causing the demoness to recoil either from the flame-tipped barrel or the impact of the bullets; Arch didn’t care which. Reeve spun out of her grasp before she laid much more than a hand on him, the sheriff scrambling to get away. Arch poured on the fire once he was clear, opening up on her with shot after shot, drilling her with every bullet in the magazine until he heard three clicks in a row.

“You … fucking … guy,” Kitty said, unsteady on her feet, looking at him with a fire in her eyes from a slightly bowed head. She was locked on him like a predator on its prey, like she was going to wrap a jaw around him and rip him to shreds. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you? I’m going to fist you. While wearing a gauntlet. A big, metal one from the days of yore with knights and shit. When I’m done with you, your anus is going to look like a blown-out tire and you’ll be begging me to kill you. Which I will gladly do, after you’ve spent your last days with your tongue all up in my snatch, making me moan while I carve into the top of your head with a knife.” She straightened up, but never took her eyes off him. “You’re gonna beg for death. Beg for it.”

“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’” Arch said, “‘I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’” He let the Glock drop and clutched his sword in both hands. “‘Thy rod and thy staff— ’”

“Ughhhhhhhh!” Kitty said, throwing her face skyward. “You’re one of
them
. Oh, yuck, you fucking would be. You … people … you make me want to throw up in my mouth, and since I don’t really digest food, you have no idea how revolting that would be for me.” Her hand went to her side, and she pulled out a dagger. “If you’re going to quote that shit to me, I’m going to just … drag your fucking entrails out and hook them on the bumper of my car and take you for a ride.”

“You talk a lot,” Arch said.

“I
do
a lot, sweetie,” Kitty said. “Talking shit is no big deal if you can back it up. It’s a whole package. I mean, look what I did to your town.” She ran a hand in a half-circle. “Huge improvement, right?”

“You’ll regret that,” Arch said.

“Why?” she asked, full of scorn. “Because you’re going to quote passages from an ancient book at me until I literally die of boredom?”

“Maybe you don’t know this,” Arch said, still holding tight to the sword, “not being from around here, but people get awfully perturbed when you mess with their town.”

Kitty just smiled at him. “Do I look worried?”

“No, you look kind of weathered,” Arch said, taking a step closer to her. “Like you need a vein treatment.”

“Oh, insult my looks,” Kitty said, rolling her eyes in the dark, lit by the light of flames in the distance. “So hurtful. My precious feelings, I don’t know if they can take it.” Her expression hardened. “You’re stalling. You’re afraid. And you should be, because I’m going to keep my promise to you, even if I have to beat your skull until you stop quoting verse at me. You’re going to die with—”

The thunderous roar of the Barrett was deafening at point-blank range, and Arch flinched away reflexively. The rifle went off about three feet from the side of Katlin Elizabeth’s head, and when he opened his eyes again, she was lying a good ten feet away, hands jerking spasmodically as they ran over the top of her head.

Arch didn’t wait, he came right at her with sword in hand. He meant to end it, to finish her trash talk while she was down. “‘Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies— ’”

Kitty Elizabeth lurched upward, swiping at him with her knife, and Arch swung hard as she did, a quick diagonal cut that got her right on the arm. She screamed and he watched the limb rip loose at the elbow as she recoiled like she’d been stung. She was on her feet, staggered, a little hint of essence seeping from the hole, but she did not disappear into the black fire. No, not her. She was a greater, all right, the kind it took more to kill than the others. “You haven’t seen the last of this enemy,” she mumbled, sounding a little drunk.

Alison’s rifle roared again, and Kitty flew backward, rolling out of the hit like she’d been struck by an invisible force. She hissed once loudly, and then ran into the night, disappearing behind a house in seconds flat.

“‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,’” Arch said, quietly, into the night.

“And if you’re real lucky,” Alison said from beside him, “your wife and her rifle will do the same, just to be sure goodness and mercy don’t get spoiled by parties unknown.”

Arch didn’t know quite what to say to that, so he just leaned over and kissed her—once he was sure said rifle was pointed in an absolutely safe direction.

“Keep going!” Bill shouted as Brian drove. “A little slower!”

“Not sure how excited I am about slowing down,” Brian said, easing his foot off the pedal a little. This whole thing was nuts, trying to be bait for a monstrous—yeah, he could say it—demon. Maybe it was a demon from hell, maybe it was just a creature from a mythological story written down long ago, but whatever it was, it wasn’t human and it had a bony crown of antlers that would make the horniest goddamn buck hunter in this state go spurting wet at the tip. “Can’t you kill it and put its head on your fucking wall?”

“As much as I’d love to have Casey Meacham commemorate the glory of this particular trophy,” his father shouted through the open window, “I don’t think my rifle is going to get the kill on this beast. Get us out of town, and swiftly, so when we tangle with this bastard, it won’t get anyone else hurt or killed.”

“You told me to slow down!” Brian shouted, putting his foot on the pedal a little harder. If objects in the mirror were closer than they appeared, then this Rog’tausch was a real beast, and he needed to get the fuck away from it. He listened to the engine roar as he came to a T intersection and started to panic.

“Left! Left!” his father shouted at him from the back. Like he was a child all over again, Brian listened, squealing the tires as he turned onto Crosser Street and floored it as soon as the wheels caught.

Lauren Darlington had yet to find a seriously injured patient, and for that she considered herself lucky. She’d found one corpse, and that hadn’t been so lucky, but for the most part this random killing machine of a demon had gone smashing through parts of houses that hadn’t been occupied at the time he’d come through. Of course, she’d only hoofed it through about three blocks and five houses by this point, calling out inside to the owners, but she considered it good news all around so far. Definitely could have been a lot worse. She’d written off the house that had blown up, but other than that, most of the homeowners were just standing inside, staring at the big gaping holes in their property like an airplane had crashed through, perplexed, kind of “Huh?” with slack-jawed looks on their faces.

Then again, she’d never had a demon crash through her living room in the middle of the night, so it was entirely possible she’d have the same look on her face if it happened, clutching her silken robe around her as she stood there in the night air, trying to wrap her mind around what happened.

Lauren came out on the next street to find Arch Stan and his wife in the middle of a makeout session with Sheriff Reeve and Deputy Harris in the background. She could see Belzer with his phone, filming through a car window as she came trotting out toward them, and she shouted, “Isn’t there a law against public displays of affection in this town? Feels like you’re crossing the line into obscenity or something.”

Arch broke it off, snapping his head around to look at her as she emerged from the shadowed yard. “What are you doing here?”

“Triage,” she answered, joining them in the middle of the road. “One death so far.” She looked at Reeve. “Sheriff, you all right?” The man looked a little shaken.

“Nothing a good stiff shot of whiskey or twelve won’t fix,” Reeve said, snapping out of his momentary catatonia. “Erin, make sure we have paramedics on the way.”

“Yeah,” she said, suddenly deflating as she stalked back toward the police car, “I’ll take care of it.” She leaned in and Lauren watched her pick up the radio, talking on it in low tones.

“Bill got the thing’s attention,” Lauren said, looking straight at Arch. “Took some shots at it with a rifle, got it chasing him.”

“Think he can outrun it?” Arch asked, looking around. His eyes settled on a discarded pistol and he went to retrieve it, ejecting the magazine and replacing it with a fresh one before racking a round into the chamber.

“Over flat ground, maybe,” Lauren said, shaking her head. “With no curves. Duncan’s going after them, Hendricks probably on his tail. I think Longholt means to try and take the thing out of town.”

“Maybe it’ll chase him around the world,” Arch said.

“Daddy,” Alison said, hushed.

“Last I saw them, they were headed east,” Lauren said. “I need to keep crawling through wreckage, I guess.”

“Watch yourself,” Arch said, making his way over to a man who was felled in the headlights of an SUV. He stabbed the man right through the heart with his sword, and the man jerked before black fire caused him to writhe, eating him whole.

Lauren just stared then turned to see Reeve with his mouth agape. “How’d you know that guy was a demon?” she asked.

“You could see his essence,” Arch said, whipping the sword back around, “swirling in his amputated leg. He wasn’t bleeding.” Arch nodded to Alison, who was looking mighty burdened by the weight of her rifle. “We should get going, head after your father. They made for the SUV with one headlight, Arch climbing in the driver’s side while Alison struggled with the rifle as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Oh, you ain’t leaving without me,” Reeve called, scrambling back to his Explorer. Erin was already climbing in, dodging the center console as she crawled over it with the radio mic still in hand. Lauren watched the whole awkward dance, breathing heavily into the night as both vehicles started up and squealed into motion at what seemed like both comically fast and yet tragically slow paces. It was a night of contradictions, and Lauren could feel the fatigue wearing on her. Belzer’s car roared off after both of them, missing her by only a few feet as he honked his horn, still vying for attention no one wanted to give him.

Then Lauren’s eyes fell back on the trail of destruction the creature had left, and she started running again, fighting past the tiredness to do her damned job—because nobody else would.

Hendricks rattled along in the car, this time in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t quite beaten Duncan to it, but he’d browbeaten the hell out of the demon until Duncan had just given up, sliding into the passenger side. Now Hendricks had the car floored, revving the thing up to redline as he came around a T intersection corner. The lights hit the green street sign, lighting up the word CROSSER ST. in white letters.

“That sounds familiar,” Hendricks mused aloud. “But I guess it’s a pretty small town.”

“There was a massacre here,” Duncan replied, holding onto the bar over the door, barely moved by the skidding corner Hendricks had just taken. “A bunch of Tul’rore came through and ate three houses' worth of people back when Lerner and I first got to town.”

“Huh,” Hendricks said as the lights of the car fell on the sight of a house being busted all to shit, giant hole in the middle of it. A sink came flying out, followed by a refrigerator, tossed like playthings. “I hope that was one of the houses where it happened, because otherwise some poor bastard is probably getting fucked the hell up right now.”

Brian circled the block nervously, like he could see the damage being done on Crosser Street. His father had bailed right out of the back of the pickup, telling him to circle back and pick him up, and rather than be fucking sensible, Brian had listened.

Why the fuck had he picked now to listen?

He should have demanded his dad get back in the damned truck, screamed at him to do so, refused to move until he climbed in, and then they both could have headed for the frigging hills, lost this thing out on some back country road. Brian would have driven to Mexico, been happy to wake up on the west coast looking at the sea, never to catch so much as a glimpse of this thing in his rearview again.