Unearthed (56 page)

He made it out just as the back of the truck tipped up and the engine went crashing forward. The big semi looked like a sinking ship with its back end lifting out of the water, and Brian stood on the lawn, backing up, as the rest of the house started to collapse in on itself around the truck, the back end sticking out like a tombstone to mark the grave.

As he watched the house fall in on the Rog’tausch, Arch had hopes that that would be the end of it. It would have been the end of most people, after all, having a multi-ton semi run you through a brick wall and then fall on top of you, bringing a house with it.

But this was the apocalyptic monster that made other demons wet their tighty-whities, so it couldn’t be that easy. Could it?

“Brian!” Bill came charging past Arch, grabbing hold of his son in a hug that wouldn’t have looked out of place if they’d both been about twenty years younger. As it was, they were both covered in dust and dirt from the fight, and Bill was clutching a rifle that he wouldn’t let go of, even when he wrapped both arms around his son.

“That it?” Reeve asked. Erin came up at his side, still carrying her pistol at low ready. Her hair bun was coming loose, and her face was drawn and tired.

“Doubtful,” Hendricks said. The cowboy had his sword and pistol out, one to each hand, and there was a visible layer of sweat on his brow.

“I’ve got more holy water,” Lauren Darlington said, brandishing a bottle of water. She looked a little worn, too, like she’d run for a while. Heck, they’d all run for a while tonight, hadn’t they? “But it’s not going to do much if I just spray it on his outside.”

“This bastard is not going to go down that easy.” Duncan limped up, suit torn half to shreds, one whole sleeve looking like he’d just ripped it clean off. A pale arm showed beneath, and the OOC’s baton was covered with white dust.

The semi started to move in the rubble, roof tiles shifting to fall into the wreckage as it started to move. Wooden beams cracked as it started to reverse, looking like it was backing up out of the crash site. Then it stopped, hanging in place for a moment.

Then the truck exploded out like it had been shot from the barrel of a gun.

Arch watched the semi go flying overhead, and it came crashing down into the house next door, leveling the second story and bringing the rest of the structure down with it. “Oh, man. Was Starling still in there?”

“No,” she said, and he whipped his head around to find her next to him, a thin trail of blood snaking its way down her pale upper lip.

The Rog’tausch lifted itself out of the hole it had made with the removal of the truck, not a mark on him save for the holy water burn on its chest. “Fools,” it said.

“Kind of an overused insult, I think,” Hendricks cracked. “Next time, go for ‘simpletons.’”

“You will all be destroyed,” the Rog’tausch said.

“It’s like they have their own script book,” Erin said, “and God help you if you deviate from it.”

“You people got some serious gallows humor problems,” Reeve said. “We just watched this fucker get hit by a truck doing freeway speeds, have a house crash down on him, and he’s fresh as a fucking daisy—and you’re all making jokes.”

“It’s scary,” Hendricks said. “Real shit-your-pants stuff. Certain death impending and all that. Wouldn’t blame you for wanting to take off.”

Reeve hefted the AR-15 up to his shoulder again and took aim. “You don’t see me running, do you?”

Hendricks smiled. “Nop—”

The boom of the .50 from behind them split the night, a shocking sound in the still and quiet. Arch could still smell the upturned earth, the scent of destruction from the demolition of the houses, and smoke wafted around them.

“Pathetic,” the Rog’tausch said, face impassive.

Then it coughed.

Arch’s eyes fell to a shadow on its chest, a dark spot the size of a fist right through the middle of it. “Is that …?”

Hendricks answered first. “I think it is.”

The Rog’tausch staggered. “You can … not …” Its legs buckled. “How …?”

Arch spun around, searching for Alison in the distance. She’d moved up to the road, and she was standing there next to a man in all black, save for a white spot on his collar.

A priest. Father Nguyen, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“A holy bullet?” Arch asked.

“A blessed fifty cal,” Bill said. “We might want to take advantage of this moment,” he hefted his rifle, “because I have a feeling it’s the best opening we’re going to get.”

The Rog’tausch hit its knees, shaking the ground. “You … you …”

“What do we do?” Arch asked, easing forward with the rest of them, feeling like nothing so much as a coyote in the middle of the pack, waiting to see what his fellows did.

The sharp silence that followed was broken by Duncan, who didn’t spare the top range of his voice when he shouted, “Tear it the fuck apart!”

Arch didn’t need to be told twice. He charged in as Starling dived toward the Rog’tausch, hitting it squarely on the jaw and knocking it flat onto it back. Arch assessed the best thing he could be doing at the moment and saw Hendricks mirror his movement on the creature’s left side. They both took their swords, hefted them high, and started hacking away at a shoulder each.

Lauren watched Hendricks and Arch sawing at the Rog’tausch and knew it wasn’t going to stay down for long. It started moving its arms again, and she watched Duncan throw himself on top of one of them, ramming the baton into its wrist, trying to pin it so Arch could work.

There was a smell of something burned around her, and Lauren heard a weak grunt from the creature that started to grow stronger. This wasn’t going to be pretty in about five seconds, and she knew that, unless she did something to weaken it further.

Fortunately, this she could do.

She tossed the cap to the water bottle and stepped around the Rog’tausch’s head, avoiding the hell out of the antlers that crowned it. She stood at the side of its massive, beach ball-sized gourd, and kicked it in the mouth to force it open. “Say, ‘Ahh’!” she shouted and then rammed the bottle of holy water right into its open gullet.

It started smoking immediately, pouring out of the nose and the sides of the mouth, and the body writhed, hard. Starling and Duncan were each anchoring an arm, and it bucked hard enough to nearly throw them off. Nearly.

Arch was sawing through something that wasn’t quite muscle, wasn’t quite fat, and wasn’t quite concrete, but felt a little like each of them in the way. Starling was keeping him alive, pushing the arm down as the Rog’tausch struggled against Dr. Darlington’s prescription of holy water. The cheeks were burning and smoking, skin melting away at the lips.

Arch, for his part, leaned into the work even harder, pretending he was sawing logs at his childhood home, just put his back into it. When the arm popped off, he kicked it aside as fast as he could and watched the body start to shrivel like he’d just let some of the air out of it.

As soon as the first arm came off, the work got much easier for Hendricks. He sawed through the right arm about five seconds after Arch got the left one taken care of, and let Duncan rip it clean, carrying it with him. “Legs!” Hendricks shouted to Arch, but he saw the big man was already on it, tearing into the meat or whatever with his blade, already getting the work down.

Reeve had been in slaughterhouses, had dressed deer, had gutted fish, had been around the preparation of animals his whole life, from childhood on.

None of that prepared him for the amputation of demon limbs.

There wasn’t any blood, just a rush of sulfur like someone had left eggs out on the hot pavement all summer. He didn’t gag, but he wanted to real bad. The guy called Duncan had one of the arms up in the air and brought it down hard on the lawn, driving his baton through it, pinning it to the earth straight through the middle of the paw-like hand. The redhead had the other, holding it aloft over her head where the wriggling of the digits did it no good.

Lauren stood back from the head as the water coursed its way down, burning the skin off as it went. The antlers were shrinking like a salted slug, withdrawing into the head. The mouth grew a rotted Glasgow smile, hissing at her with vocal chords that were burning like she’d turned loose acid instead of H2O.

She looked up to see Erin come up behind the cowboy and lift his hat up. Hendricks didn’t even acknowledge it but to turn around and look right at her before going back to his surgery—no, not surgery. Butchery. In the best sense of the word.

“Sorry,” Erin said, “but I need this.” Lauren caught a flash of steel as the switchblade she’d given back to Hendricks opened in the deputy’s hand. Erin jumped over the torso carefully, landing beside Lauren at the shoulders. “Step aside, doc. I’ll let you know if I need an assist.”

Lauren did as she was told, moving off to the side as she watched the antlers turn into tiny flesh knobs no bigger than a thumb. Erin squatted down and slammed the knife blade into the demon’s throat. “This would have made a lot better mount before its antlers lost their erection.”

“Maybe you could get him some Viagra,” Lauren said, watching slightly stunned, as Deputy Harris started sawing through the demon’s neck vigorously. It wasn’t that it was gruesome, but … dammit, it should have been.

“Got mine!” Arch called, ripping the left leg free and hauling it across the lawn, away from the torso. Once he’d gotten to about twenty feet away, he slammed his sword through the thigh, pinning it to the ground.

“Is that how it is?” Hendricks asked as he tore his away. Lauren could hear what sounded like guttural screams somewhere in the throat of the Rog’tausch. The cowboy pulled his in the opposite direction, finding a big stretch of empty space, and drove his sword through it. “I guess it’ll work for now.”

“That’s how it is,” Erin said, and she ripped the decapitated head off the demon, lifting it up, struggling under its weight. Its jaw bone was visible, oily black in composition, clacking fleshlessly as she brought it aloft and cradled it under her arm. “This is how it is when you fuck with
my
town.” And then she ran her blade back along the jawline and the bone fell away, landing on the lawn and lying there like a shining piece of ebony, glinting in the streetlight.

“What the hell do we do with it now?” Lauren asked, finding her voice. “Six pieces, not counting the head … and the arms will crawl away, the legs will buck like crazy … and … will this thing heal if we let it get close to the other parts again?”

“Yes,” Starling said. “The flesh is an organic compound and will grow back together in seconds if provided an opportunity.”

“Organic?” Sheriff Reeve asked. “Like … like skin, basically?”

Starling turned to look at him, still holding the arm of the demon aloft as it flexed its hand and bowed at the elbow, trying in vain to escape her. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Reeve said. “If we got rid of the skin … got it all down to the bone, like that jaw piece there … will it be able to move?”

“No,” Starling said. “But if so much as a speck of flesh remains, it will grow back to its former state.”

“Well, all right, then,” Reeve said. “I might have a way to dispose of it.” He looked around, and now Lauren could see people on the fringes, looking out windows. “And then, God willing … maybe we can put this whole mess behind us.”

Lauren looked at Deputy Harris, who was still standing there with the head in her arms, and she caught the knowing look before Erin looked away. It left her wondering if she’d harbored that same feeling once upon a time, after the Summer Lights Festival, that maybe all it would take was one good fight won to put things right in her world. If that had been the case … that hope had died a good long while ago.

Kitty watched them tear the Rog’tausch apart, the work of lifetimes ripped asunder. She watched … and she felt the taint of fear curl up inside her and quiver through her essence. The warm night air left her shirt sticking to her shell, and she ran through everything in her mind again even as she held the stump of her arm tight to her body. She could still kill them, the humans and the OOC, at least, and then—

Her eyes surveyed the group in front of her. No. This was too much. And she didn’t have her knife.

And then there was the other thing.

The other
one
.

Defeat was a nasty pill, tasting like bleach and garbage mixed together, but she wasn’t stupid. “Live to fight another day,” she whispered and gave them one last look before making her retreat, into the night, out of this forsaken fucking town—and back to where she belonged.

“You should have told me,” Reeve said to Arch, his voice clear in the near dark of the room they were in. Faint lights glowed from the terrariums that held the dermestid beetles, which streamed over their newfound meals. They were in the back of Casey Meacham’s taxidermy shop, with its smell of curious chemicals and hum of equipment. Reeve had asked for everyone else to clear the room once they’d gotten things set up, gotten the parts of the Rog’tausch spread out in the different terrariums.

Arch felt a small surge of guilt. “I should have,” he said. “I should have come to you after I first found out, that night I met Hendricks on the square and ended up shooting at my first demon. But every thought I had kept coming back to the craziness of what I was seeing and imagining the uphill battle I’d have to fight to even try to convince you.”

“That don’t explain it nearly well enough, Arch,” Reeve said. He leaned close to one of the smaller tanks, where Hendricks had carved up the individual segments of the Rog’tausch’s finger bones. Arch watched the black beetles swarming over ebony bone. He knew they weren’t really bones, but they damned sure looked like them.

“I don’t know what else to say.” Arch put his fingers on one of the tanks, a longer one, that contained a femur that stretched from one corner of the terrarium to the other. “It’s not a good excuse, but … I know how you all think of me already, believing how I believe.”