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Oh my God, please help me, knee deep in the river tryin' to get clean. |
| [Introduction] † Hell to Pay † Oh my god Please help me, knee deep in the river tryin' to get clean He says wash your hands, get out the stains But you best believe, boy, there's hell to pay Yeah you best believe, boy, there's hell to pay, sayin' come on Oh my god Please help me, waist deep in the river, can you hear my plea? He says, son, you come like a beggar in the streets You might make it, boy, but by the skin of your teeth You might make it, boy, but by the skin of your teeth .The Silent Comedy. “Monsters are real…they live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” –Stephen King Witches can be killed just like anybody else, but if you want them to stay dead, you better throw them in the river with stones around their ankles or burn them down to ash. Don't buy into their pretty smiles, and don't let them get their hands on any piece of you or you'll have a curse hanging over your head that'll follow you until the day you die. Vampires can be killed by taking off their heads, if you can get close enough to manage it. Ash wood through the heart will keep them still and daylight will keep them inside, so that's your best bet. Werewolves can be killed with a lot of silver bullets, and a whole lot of luck. Stay away from them on the full moon and if you can poison them with wolfsbane first, go to it. Demons...well, that depends on the kind. Demon crawls inside a person, you need to call on God to get the Devil out. Demon crawls out of the earth, you better shoot and pray. Just don't expect anyone to answer your prayers. Any other monsters you come across, well, you'll just have to figure that one out on your lonesome. That's the last thing, and the most important. Are you listening? At the end of the day, you are all alone. a supernatural horror western
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ONE : THE WITCH Raymond Kidd got stupid. He was paying for that stupidity with every step he took, walking along Route 60 in New Mexico with the sun bearing down on him. He felt like his skin was boiling, melting right off his bones and hitting the dust below. Every hiss of his sweat hitting the heated ground could have been just another piece of flesh falling away, burning him down to nothing one piece at a time. His shirt was stuck to his back, sweat plastering it there. It ran rivulets down his face, drawing lines in the dust and the dark stubble lining his jaw. Even his eyes stung, thanks to the sweat that kept collecting underneath the brim of his hat. Ray got stupid, he got pissed, but either way he was probably walking all the way to Red Hill. Most of his things were still in the trunk of his car, some fifteen miles west of where he trudged along on the side of a black asphalt river. He had his brown leather jacket slung over his shoulder, a pack of cigarettes shoved in one back pocket and his wallet shoved in the other. Inside were fifty-two dollars in cash and five different driver’s licenses from five different states. Around his neck hung a crucifix, a Star of David, a pentagram, and lastly a simple iron skeleton key that he never took off. A leather holster stretched across his bag, holding the two guns close against his chest. Two guns hung from holsters across his chest and probably half the reason that neither of the two cars he’d seen in the last hour had stopped for him. One had slowed down, but then they’d gotten a good look at him, the guns, the bandages around his arms and the dirt covering him. They’d kept on driving. Everything else he owned was in his car. A leather book full of newspaper clippings, pictures, and quickly scrawled notes. A metal case filled with ammunition, normal bullets, silver bullets, and bullets etched with crosses. A collection of knives and guns. His clothes, bottles of water, canned food, and a few worn and torn porn mags. All of it was in his fucking car. Only he didn’t have his car, because Cale had stolen it. And when he caught up to him he was putting him six feet under ground. A car rumbled up the highway behind him, the sound of the engine echoing off the desert. Sound traveled out here, every footfall reflected back at him, every stone he sent bouncing over the dirt and gravel. His breath, made ragged from half a day walking in the sweltering heat. Crows, cawing over something dead. Everything else was quiet. Not even flies wanted to bother fighting the sun. He didn’t bother turning around anymore. Odds were good he’d just get a mouthful of dirt and grit and his tongue was already dry as a bone. He stuck his thumb out and kept walking, listening to the engine roar closer and closer. It sped up before it got next to him. He watched the truck roar off down the highway, a dust cloud in its wake. It left him with nothing else to do but walk and think. He sighed, dug in his pocket for his cigarettes and wondered if he was getting too old for this shit. He’d been hunting since he was a teenage kid, the thieving bastard child of a prostitute and a conman. Fifteen years later and all he had to show for it were a lot of scars that he just kept adding to and a lot of states where he’d be picked up on suspicion of murder. One of these days he was going to be too slow or too stupid and he wasn’t going to walk away with a scar. He wasn’t going to walk away at all. He smoked half a cigarette, wished he hadn’t, crushed the rest of it under his boot and kept walking. He stopped for twenty minutes under a billboard. It used to say, “God is everywhere” and slowly rotted and peeled away until it just said, “God is where.” He didn’t give a shit what it said; it cast a thick shadow that gave him a minute to breathe. He pulled the hat off his head, wiped the sweat off his face with the edge of his tee shirt, and swore that when he caught up to Cale there would be blood. The whole situation struck him as funny, like the god damned story of his life. There he was, sitting on the side of the road alone in the sweltering heat, just watching the cars go by without a glance back. He could see his whole history written there in the dirt. Six years old, sitting in front of a television set, trying not to listen to his mother fuck a John in the next room. Eight years old, watching Clint Eastwood point a gun at a man on the same screen. “You,” he said. “Dig.” Thirteen years old, sitting behind the jungle gym pretending to smoke a cigarette that he stole from the local gas station. Fifteen years old, actually smoking cigarettes and watching the ash collect on the asphalt. That was the year he saw a monster for the first time. It would have killed him too, if a man with a sawed off shotgun hadn’t put buckshot through its chest. He crouched down next to him afterwards, covered in blood and guts and offered him a smile and a flask. “You okay, son?” he said. Ray opened his mouth to tell him “I’m fine” or “there’s blood on my jeans.” It didn’t come out, so he tried again, thinking maybe he’d ask him “am I dead?” or “what the hell was that?” The third time he managed an “I’m not your son,” and that was it. The man laughed, patted him on the back. “Thank God for that,” he told him. “That was a monster,” Ray said, and after he did he wished he could take the words back. Just saying it made it true and suddenly the world he knew was gone, crushed under a new reality where the only person he really knew was a man with a sawed off who was taking his cigarettes and his guns and leaving him sitting in the dirt. He blinked his eyes but even after he opened them again, there was still a body lying on the ground, something out of a nightmare with a white face and razor sharp teeth like a shark. “Yeah,” the man told him. “That was a monster.” Nothing else, just that simple truth that was anything but simple. He didn’t tell him that the world was full of them, but Ray figured that out on his own. He didn’t tell him that half of them just looked like ordinary people, until he looked underneath the skin. He didn’t tell him that once his eyes were open he could never close them again. Ray kicked at the rocks on the ground, scratched at the cuts on his arms, and then swallowed a curse. He pulled the hat down over his dark hair, shielding his eyes at least from the sun that was eating away his small amount of shade. Then he trudged back out into the desert, following the black winding road with no end in sight. The first glimmer of civilization was just a faint shadow on the horizon. It was a squat, low building that was almost obscured by the shimmering rays of heat. The shadow cast by the telephone wires drew him a straight black line towards it, and he followed it with a distinct, single minded determination. At this point he didn’t care what he was walking towards, as long as he could get out of the sun for a few hours and get something to drink. He wanted water more than whiskey and that was saying something. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and walked a little faster. The gas pumps came into view first, columns of rusted metal that stood stark against the sands. A small dirt lot circled around them, the building low and run down. The paint was mostly peeled off, the back half of the place sunken towards the ground. A single pick up truck sat out back, and the owner sat in front, a ragged old mutt sitting next to him on the ground. The man stared at him as he approached, a beer bottle held in one hand as he slumped back in a shitty aluminum lawn chair. The dog next to him didn’t move, the scruffy thing tied to his chair by a chain hooked to its collar. “Where you headed to, boy?” the man called. The shadow of his hat hid the sneer on his face. He’d past the thirty year mark a couple of years ago. At some point didn’t that earn him the right not to be called ‘boy’ or ‘son?’ That was the problem with these backwards towns. A lot of big fish in small ponds. “Red Hill,” he snapped. He passed under the overhang, jerking his head towards the door. “You got water in there?” “I do. Gotta pay for it though.” He turned his head to the side, spat into the dust before taking another swallow of his beer. “What business you got in Red Hill? Ain’t nothin’ much goin’ on there.” “My own business,” he told him. The man snorted, didn’t move from his seat while Ray let himself inside. It was only marginally cooler in the building. There were stacks of old magazines and newspapers that he didn’t think had been updated in a year. A fan hummed in the open window, another in the back door. There were coolers along the wall with water, beer and soda and a case behind the counter with cigarettes in it. Not his brand, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Town’s still about fifteen miles that way.” The old man’s voice carried in through the window. Ray wondered how he was supposed to know which way ‘that way’ was through the wall. “You plan on walking the rest of the way there?” He grabbed three bottles of water from the cooler and a pack of smokes. “If I have to,” he said. “Any taxis around here?” The man laughed. It was loud and mocking. “You kiddin’ me boy? Ain’t nothin’ out here.” He shoved the fresh cigarettes in his pocket next to the crumpled old pack and ripped open the first bottle of water. He poured half of it down his throat, chugging it down his dry throat with needy desperation. He was going to throw it back up if he didn’t slow down but right now it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He stepped back outside before he could drink it all. He dug seven bucks out of his wallet, passing it to the man with two fingers before taking his hat off. He poured the rest of the first bottle over his head, closing his eyes as it washed some of the sweat and dirt out off his face. It soaked through the collar of his shirt, cooled the burns on the back of his neck. “Buses? Rental cars? Anything?” The man laughed again. “Well, don’t bother me none if you want to hang around here and keep your thumb out. But tell you what. I close this place up at nine. You still around I’ll give you a lift into town.” He smirked, nodded his head at Ray. “Long as you keep those hand-cannons holstered and pass me one of them cigarettes.” He took two of them out of the pack, lighting them both before passing them to the man. He didn’t much like it, but it would probably take him longer to walk the fifteen miles to town then it would be to hang around with an old man until nine. He sucked on the cigarette, sitting down next to him with his back against the wall. Next to him the hound finally lifted its head, looking at him with glazed, rheumy eyes. It snuffled at the leather jacket he’d dropped in the dirt, followed by his boots, his jeans, and his chest. Ray snorted, tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “I had a dog once,” he told the old man. “That so?” He heard him shift, spit into the dirt. “What happened to him?” Ray smirked, stuck the filter between his lips. “He stole my car.” |
| Cale was thirteen when he became one of the monsters. It was hard not to think about when he was sitting in a bar, surrounded by the stench of liquor and smoke. Occasionally he would catch the acrid stink of body odor and it was this that roused the thing under his skin. Sweat promised fear and exertion, things his beast craved from its prey. Perspiration betrayed lies too. The men sitting around the table avoided Cale’s eyes, which usually meant there was something dangerous there behind the gray iris. He tried a smile, a nervous quirking of his lips, and Cale could see the relief spreading through them. He downed one of his whiskey shots, the liquid burning a path down his throat and leaving him feeling warm. He wasn’t scary in his own right. Cale wasn’t half as big or broad as a few of the men at his table. He had muscles, sure, but he was a lean creature. Unkempt brown hair completed his look, alongside a flash of pearly whites. And he’d been told that he had soft features reminiscent of a woman’s. He looked, for all the world, almost harmless- not to the right ones though. But sometimes the monster would shine through and people knew they were looking at a predator. “Raise,” he said, sliding a few bills to the pot in the middle of the battered table. “That takes me out.” The man to his left, Leroy, laid his cards down and took a swig of beer. Across the table Jethro, possessed of very little hair and a frightening physique, gave a smug smirk and tossed his crumpled bills into the pot. “Call.” Cale glanced at his cards. Overhead a ceiling fan churned piteously in an effort to cool down the bar, whining alongside some country song Cale didn’t know. A trickle of sweat slid down the back of his neck and he took another shot of whiskey. He would have preferred something cold and less alcoholic, but it wasn’t as if he was going to get drunk. He had discovered that it took more than a human to get drunk when he’d had a few with Ray. He hid a grin at the thought of that bastard stranded on the side of the road somewhere. Served him right. Cale’s gaze drifted to his latest accessories- the metal cuffs on his wrists. Unobtrusive and they went with everything. Except for the fact they were locked on his body, there was nothing interesting about them. But they were apparently impenetrable. Cale had spent the better half of the afternoon trying to pick the lock, saw them in half, and when he got desperate he had tried using a gun. Not a scratch or a dent. They just clung to his forearms, reminding him that he was still a prisoner just a different warden. Maybe he should have taken the car further. His attention returned to the game as he let the corners of his cards slide down. Miguel had apparently folded and it was Cale’s turn again. He fingered the few bills he had left. He could feel Jethro’s eyes on him; a glare probably meant to intimidate that might work on the other two men at their table. It was Cale’s call. He could pit his hand against Jethro’s or he could press his luck. There was no backing out. He met Jethro’s stare, and tossed half his remaining money into the pot. “Raise.” He could sense Jethro’s hesitation- the tightening of his jaw, minor knitting of the brow. Cale suspected that if it weren’t for the copious amounts of liquor flowing through the man’s system, he would have had quite a poker face. He watched Jethro check his cards, considering something. When Jethro looked up and caught his eyes again, Cale was sure to smirk, baring just enough canine to look unfriendly. Cale held his gaze, feeling his beast rise to the unspoken challenge. He was far from an alpha, but staring down a werewolf wasn’t the best idea. The expression must have caught the man off guard because he leaned back in his chair, looking a little paler than normal. And he tossed his cards on the table. Two pair, nice hand. Cale almost had his hands on the pot when Jethro slammed his hands down on the pile of money, startling the other two men at the table. They had been comfortably lost in their drunkenness until the disruption, mourning the loss of their money, no doubt. Cale had been expecting the outburst the moment the big guy had folded. He was rather impressed it had taken Jethro that long to snap. “Show me your hand.” There was a threat in there somewhere; Cale could feel a matching snarl echoing in his mind. He flipped over his cards. No matching suits and no order- a crap hand. Jethro was clearly not amused. “You cheated.” Cale could smell the alcohol on Jethro’s breath, the stench burning his nostrils. “I bluffed and you fell for it,” he said. “That’s hardly cheating.” “Yeah, man. Calm down,” Miguel said. There was a nervous energy about the little Hispanic that Cale didn’t have to look to notice. Leroy on the other hand just sat back, nursing his beer. Apparently Jethro was every bit the bully that Cale had pegged him for. Slowly, he rose from his chair, so he was on more equal footing with Jethro. The guy was at least half a foot taller than Cale, but it made him feel better that he wasn’t sitting. It also gave him the ability to dodge the fist aimed at his head. The second one almost caught him on the chin but he jumped back away from the table that he was out of Jethro’s reach. “Come on man, just let it go.” Leroy spoke around his bottle of beer and Cale got the feeling that the man didn’t care if his friend backed off or not. Jethro was moving, sluggish thanks to the liquor but equally uninhibited. “Ain’t no way this kid’s leaving with my money.” There hadn’t been many other patrons in the bar and when Jethro’s temper sparked most of them were gone. Cale felt the wolf’s need to fight, to ravage and destroy rise to the surface. It was instinct now, a part of him that didn’t take well to being threatened. He ducked under Jethro’s punches and backed out of the way, occasionally tripping over a pulled out chair. “There’s no need to fight,” Cale said. “We’ll spilt the money, how’s that?” “It’s all mine.” Jethro growled and flipped a table that Cale had put between them. “Then you might want to tell your buddy that.” Jethro swung around to look back at his friends. Leroy had been grabbing the bills off the abandoned table and froze when he realized he was being watched. He didn’t have a chance to defend himself as Jethro howled and launched himself at his friend. As the two of them wrestled, Leroy protesting meekly, Cale started collecting the abandoned bills. He shot Miguel a silencing look when he heard the man open his mouth. Then Cale heard the gun cock. It was easily missed in the ruckus but he heard it and was on the ground before it fired. The bartender held a revolver pointed towards the ceiling and all eyes were on him. Cale took the opportunity to slink out. |
| When Finley Alexander’s father had died, he’d left her everything. This made her, for lack of a more encompassing term, rich. It also left her alone, her father having taken the last bit of family with him when he finally succumbed to mortality, and forced her assume the heavy burden of his calling. It’s true that McKenzie Alexander had once been a Priest, an Episcopalian to be exact, but he had died under very different auspices. Upon the murder of his family—little Finn and himself being the sole survivors of a werewolf attack and that purely by chance—Father Alexander had laid down the Bible and picked up a gun. Well, he’d downsized the Bible into a more portable version, since everyone knew the Good Word was one of the tried and true methods of putting down a Demon. McKenzie had died a faithless man, believing only in the efficacy of the tools and the skills of the Hunter. He had also died of a Witch’s Curse. Finn had discovered the curse some time after her twenty-fifth birthday, four years ago now, when a cloud had developed around her father in a photograph. It was the surest tell, aside from sticking him in front of the mirror, that the Great Father Alexander had made a damned rookie mistake. It had cost him his life. Before he had died, a sudden brain aneurysm that had left him screaming away the last few minutes of his life, McKenzie had taught his daughter everything. If the tools and the skills of a Hunter were of the utmost importance to survival, then his daughter was going to be the most damned efficient Hunter there was. Finn sometimes wondered how her father had felt, molding his daughter into a killer, stealing away her childhood one lesson at a time. And then she remembered her father hadn’t really had a choice. She knew about the Monsters, she’d known since a werewolf had ripped her mother’s heart out, and the only way to keep her alive was to teach her to kill them. And so her father had taught her. It had taken over two decades, but if there was a way to shoot, stab, punch, kick, or pray a beast into submission, she knew it. Hell, she could even whip up a full Catholic exorcism in ten minutes—fifteen if you wanted it in Ethiopian, and twenty if it covered more than one demon. If there was one thing McKenzie had never really managed to teach her, however, it was his lack of faith. Finn wasn’t sure she believed in God, not really, not after all this time, not when demons crawled the earth and there was no sign, not hide nor hair, of any sort of Divine Intervention. But she was not devoid of hope where that was concerned. Sometimes she wondered if the Hunters themselves were God’s answer to the Monsters, but if that was true, then humanity was screwed. They were too few, too disparate. Finn had only ever met one other, and he’d been her father. But there had to be something. So Finn kept going, because she knew that stopping was as sure a way of dying as was fighting, and she would rather go down cursing if it was all the same to anybody else. The tank on the Shelby was almost empty, but the map said the town was just a few miles on down the road, so Finn didn’t worry overmuch. There was always the fuel reserve in the trunk, and she could drag the car down the road a piece if she had to. She wondered if Red Hill was the place she was heading, or if it was just another podunk little town with a wannabe sorceress. Green eyes flickered upward to the picture of her father—the one with the shadow around his head—and darkened. Rule one of Hunting was never let a witch get a hold of anything and somehow her father had broken that rule. And now she had to avenge him. She had to wring that bitch’s scrawny neck and send her back to whatever depths of Hell awaited the murdering she-devils. She had to visit every ounce of suffering upon that Witch that her father had suffered, every ache, every blinding stab behind the eyes, and the eventual agony that had taken him from her. She was alone now, and that Witch was going to pay for it. And, for that matter, so was every witch she happened to come across until she found the right one. Finn had lost her father, the only piece of her family she had left, the last remaining bastion of comfort and serenity she would ever have, and while nothing would assuage that grief, Finn was sure as shit going to try. The windows were down—Finn liked to keep it low key in these sorts of places—whipping the dark red masses of her hair in every direction, but she didn’t mind the mess overmuch. It gave her an excuse to have a bath later—a long, luxurious bubble bath with a good book and some music in the background, maybe some candles if she was feeling ambitious—and that was oh-so-joyous. Luxury was rare in her profession, and Finn took advantage of any opportunity to indulge in it. The car—a ’67 Mustang Shelby her father had purchased for dirt cheap some years back—didn’t look like much as it drove down the road, but it had a completely new engine, and had been especially outfitted with bulletproof everything. McKenzie had even had wolfsbane and holy water mixed into the paint and the windshield fluid. The car was blessed, and the lights were enough to give a vampire a tan. Best of all, if there was a place to hide a weapon, one could just about guarantee a weapon. It was an arsenal on wheels, disguised as an ill-used antique, and Finn loved it. It really lent itself to her image, which was, truth be told, a little bit damsel in distress and a little bit femme fatale, depending upon the moment. She was just pretty enough, just soft and round enough, that with a sweet smile and careful swing of her hips, she could convince anyone of her innocence. Of course, with a hard enough stare and the right amount of cleavage and leg, she could just as easily convince anyone of the converse. It was up to her which one she wanted to go with. The power lines clued her in to the fact that the town was close, and the gas station on the left to what kind of town it was. Finn had figured Red Hill wouldn’t be huge, but it didn’t augur well for her search. What kind of witch holed up in a backward little town that could fit into a High School in a major city? These creatures thrived on chaos, on control and domination, why would one choose to limit their potential victim pool? Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Just because it was small didn’t mean this town deserved to be at the mercy of a Monster. The gas light flickered on just as Finn approached the station. “Damn it,” she muttered, eyeing the dilapidated building with enough skepticism to wink a demon out of existence, before pulling off the road and next to a pump. “Hey,” she called to the old man sitting out front who was clearly the owner, “is this the only gas station, or is there another one in Red Hill?” “Well, this one’s the only one for some thirty odd miles in any direction, so I’d say this here’s the only one.” “Wonderful,” Finn replied, shutting the Shelby off and getting out of the car. It was then that she noticed the other man, lying against the side of the building. He was young, not much older than her, and handsome in a scruffy, unkempt sort of way. And it was clear, given the two rather obvious guns strapped to his chest, that he did not come with the building, which was odd. Why would anyone choose to sit outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere? The younger man looked up then, eyes roaming up and down a couple of times as he assessed Finn. Not a stupid man, then, as she could see his eyes stop and evaluate each of the weapons she kept on her person. There weren’t many, just a couple of guns on her hips and a knife on her right calf, revealed only because she was wearing shorts. It was too damned hot for the usual attire, or else she would have had more. “You’re going to Red Hill?” he asked eventually, cigarette smoke puffing out with every word. “Yeah. If I can get some damn gas into my car,” Finn replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder and turning around to lean into the vehicle. She’d left her cash in the center console, and this was clearly the kind of place that didn’t accept credit cards. It also gave her an opportunity to tuck a small switchblade between her breasts, just so she had some sort of surprise. She wasn’t sure she liked the look in the younger man’s eye. “I got gas here,” the old man replied. “Might not look it, but this here’s a functional gas station. Can’t guarantee is the best gas, but it’ll be enough to get you the thirty odd miles you need to go before you get to the next one.” Finn shrugged. “Fine. Give me twenty dollars worth. Got any water in there? It’s hot as Hades out here…” “Yeah. Gotta pay for it, though.” “I figured. Here’s twenty-two. That should cover everything. Sugar,” she turned to the younger man, “would I be correct in assuming you need a ride to town?” The young man nodded, but otherwise made no reply. Finn smiled, the slow smile that had a tendency to send shivers down a man’s spine, and gestured into the store. “If you’ll run in there and get me a bottle of water while I pump this here gas, I would be more than happy to take you into town. It’s been a long time since I had me a man in my car, I wonder if she’s forgotten the feel of it.” He stared for a moment, face neutral, before shrugging and pulling himself off the wall. The old man, meanwhile, walked inside and switched on the pump, giving Finn the thumbs up when she was good to go. The pump screeched like all the nine hells. In fact, it sounded almost precisely like the banshee Finn and her father had put down a few months before he’d died. “Oh dear God,” Finn said, half to herself and half to the Shelby. “I’m sorry, hon. I’ll get you something better when we next reach something resembling civilization.” “Here’s your water.” Finn looked up at the young man and smiled, this one sweeter. “Great, thanks. You can wait in the car. Do be careful, though, she’s a feisty old bird. A lot of surprises for nosy people.” He didn’t answer, just stared back, his eyes tired and cynical. “Fine then. You’re no fun. Just get in the car and wait for me to finish. I’m Finn, just in case you were wondering.” The pump, rather blessedly, had reached twenty dollars and Finn could stop, silencing the screaming harpy. “But you probably weren’t” “Ray,” the man replied, as if remembering that he should be polite. “And thank you for the ride. I was going to have to wait until nine for the old man to take me.” “No problem, Ray. Nice to meet you.” Finn finished at the pump as Ray climbed into the passenger side of the Shelby. With a wave at the old man, she climbed into the vehicle and buckled up. “I had seat belts installed, so if you could please wear…” Ray was staring at the photo of her father. Worse, he was staring at the cloud around his head. “That’s my dad,” Finn whispered. “He was killed, not that long ago. Actually, you probably won’t believe me and you’ll end up thinking I’m crazy, so I don’t rightly know why I’m telling you this except maybe to scare the crap out of you, but he was killed by a Witch’s Curse.” There were a number of replies Finn expected to that statement. She’d said it to other people just for the fun of seeing them laugh or stare or awkwardly try to run away from the crazy woman, but she had never thought that she would hear the words that came out of Ray’s mouth. Not in a million years. And, when she did, the world dropped out from beneath her. “I know.” |
| Delaney Monroe was good at reading situations. As soon as he opened the door to the bar, he began his habitual assessment of everything and everyone in the room. There were eight people involved, himself not included. The bartender, three locals he knew from previous encounters of similar natures, the Rodriguez couple - newlyweds - in the back, Arnold the owner of the hardware store down the street, and a waitress named Helen who liked to make Delaney Shirley Temples whenever he came in. He could immediately dismiss Helen and the Rodriguez couple due to their proximity and huddled nature on the opposite side of the room. It was safe to assume Arnold had no involvement other than to add drool to the bar top as he snored away, propped up on his stool, despite everything. That left the locals and the bartender, whose name was George. George posed the most immediate threat, his hand wrapped around the handle of a revolver as he held it out towards the largest of the locals, a man named Jethro Thomas - Catholic, high school dropout, three citations for parking, multiple drunken and disorderly charges and a pending assault conviction once the judge got back from his three month sabbatical in Prague. When he was sober, he was harmless. The other two had similar records, and these were all based on what Delaney knew first hand. He'd been the one to give them all the charges. "Deputy," George said, glancing his way and then shaking his revolver at the men. "Would you tell these gol' darn fools to get out of my bar. I'm tired of them causing a ruckus whenever hoss here thinks someone's cheating him. Ain't no one cheating you but God for giving you that damned dense head of yours." "He was cheating me!" Jethro yelled, pointing a finger back at George. If he was scared of the gun, Delaney couldn't read it on his face. "And then Leroy tries to swindle me behind my back!" Leroy shook his head. "Was not! I was gathering your winnings for you." Delaney cleared his throat and let one hand fall to the unbuttoned holster of the gun at his side. With the other hand, he gestured towards George in a placating manner. "May I see your gun?" he asked, still seeing George as the most immediate threat, the only one with a weapon. In situations like these, experience had told him that the correct answer was to get rid of the most immediate threat and the others would follow. Diffuse the situation, was what the clinical term for it was. The bartender glanced down at his gun and Delaney didn't understand the look on his face. It was either sadness or disappointment. Either way, he thought maybe the reason for the look was because he didn't want to give up his gun. But George was a good man and he slid the gun across the bar towards Delaney, who picked it up, emptied the barrel and slid it back to the man, unloaded. "I received a report of gunshots," Delaney told him. George sighed and waved his hands at Jethro and his buddies. "It was the only way I had to stop these fools from tearing up my bar, Deputy. I wasn't going to shoot no one, I aimed it at the sky, see?" He asked, pointing to the ceiling. Delaney followed his eyes and saw the new hole in the boards above his head. "You discharged your firearm inside of a public place," Delaney said dryly. "That's illegal." George's face fell and Delaney glanced at the others. "However, as proprietor of the public place, you have a right to protect your property." A sudden thought occurred to him. "Would you like them to pay for the damage to your ceiling?" "What?" Jethro snapped from behind him. He turned to look at the burly man, eyeing him up and down. Jethro growled but then backed down when Delaney's hand tightened around the gun at his hip. George blundered for a moment and then nodded. "Deputy, I think that would make this whole thing fair and square if they paid to patch up the hole there." "But he's the one who made the hole!" Leroy protested. "We didn't do nothing but spill beer. If anything, that other guy should pay. He's the one who started this whole mess." Delaney glanced at the bartender. "Other guy?" he asked. George nodded. "There was some other fella in here playing cards with the boys. Outsider. Didn't quite fit in here in Red Hill, you know?" Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the small notebook and pen he carried around. "Can you give a description?" George jerked his head towards Helen, who had escorted the Rodriguez couple out and was trying to wake up Arnold, who still slept through the whole ordeal. "You know Helen's the best with that sort of thing. She got a good look at the fella, been waiting on him all night. Why don't you ask her." Delaney nodded and started towards Helen, but paused to look at Jethro and the others. "You three can go. Expect citations for the property damage in the mail." He ignored their scoffs and slid in between the barstools next to Helen, who glanced up at him with a wide smile, the usual she had when she saw him. He returned the smile, because it was the polite thing to do. "Hey there, Delaney," Helen said. "Thanks for coming out, you know the boys get rough whenever a new face comes to town." He nodded. "Can you describe the new face?" Helen paused. "Before we get into that, can I ask you something?" "Yes." A small laugh escaped Helen's mouth and Delaney wasn't sure if he'd said or did something wrong, but she was moving on before he had a chance to ask. "You hear what happened to Milton Klein?" "He had a heart attack yesterday evening," Delaney answered. "I was the first on scene." Helen nodded. "You don't think its...a little weird that Milton had a heart attack? I mean, he was the healthiest guy in Red Hill. Well, that's not saying much, I mean, look at our population." She waved her hand at the others in the bar. Delaney glanced over his shoulder and he wasn't sure he got her meaning. She gave another small laugh and nudged his arm. "You don't think...I don't know, his wife poisoned him or something?" "There was no sign of foul play," Delaney told her. "Well, wouldn't there not be a sign if he was poisoned?" Delaney frowned at her and she shook her head, leaning in closer. "Look, you didn't hear this from me, but the word around town is that Milton was a little...easy." Delaney's frown deepened and she shook her head. "He slept around, Delaney." Standing up a little straighter, Delaney twitched his mouth side to side in thought. "He was cheating on his wife." "With multiple women," Helen amended. "Maybe little Sadie found out. What do you think? Could it be a possibility?" "It could," he relented. "But it's unlikely." Helen scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Oh please, don't tell me she fooled you with those tears of hers. She's a terrible actress, you could have seen right through them." Delaney puckered his lips. "I wouldn't have been able to," he told her, his voice cold and stoney. Helen's eyes widened and he thought he read shock on her face. She reached forward and put a hand on his arm. "Oh god, I didn't mean it like that. I forgot about your little..." she trailed off, waving her hand around her head. "I mean your...your thing. Oh, Jesus," she shook her head. "Of course you wouldn't be able to tell. I didn't mean it like that. Just maybe look into it? Milton was a health nut and he dies of a heart attack? I mean come on." Delaney nodded. "I'll look into it." "Thanks," Helen smiled and then shook her head again, eyes watching him and Delaney couldn't tell what she was thinking. It was his head thing apparently. "You're really sweet, you know that?" "I don't try to be sweet," Delaney said, confused as to where this was going. Helen laughed again, shaking her head. "That's what makes it so special." Not knowing what else to say and feeling he was losing his grasp on the situation now that there wasn't any danger and he was just dealing with the people aspect of it, Delaney held up the notebook. "About that description?" |
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