Page 38 of Starved Until Sunset

CHAPTER EIGHT

The arrival of Sheriff’s Deputy Lucia Durant in one car, and Deputy Gayle Walsh in another introduced even more flashing lights to the scene. The red and blue didn’t play so well with the solid yellow of the DPW trucks, and the headache that had started just behind Cody’s eyes was threatening to engulf his entire skull.

He sat on the front bumper of the truck he and Demmy had been driving, head in his hands and his eyes closed. Demmy’s leg was pressed against his, and he could feel him shiver every so often. The temperature had dropped since the sun had gone down, and neither of them had brought jackets or hoodies.

“You two doing okay?”

Cody squinted as he lifted his head. Deputy Walsh stood before them. She was very fit, with smooth, dark skin, amazing cheekbones, and short hair. The light bars from the sheriff cars painted her back in red and blue, while the lights on top of the DPW truck turned her face and torso gold. She looked concerned, but Cody wondered if it was for him and Demmy or whatever had managed to leave so much blood in Spiffy’s seat. And taken off with his body. Walsh had been on the bank of Parson’s Pond back in August when the nix had revealed itself—as Cody himself, and in a much less flattering manner, or at least Cody thought—so she knew things outside the norm existed.

As if following his train of thought, she squatted down, looked between the two of them and, in a determined and steady voice, said, “Nix.”

Cody managed a smile. “We’re not shapeshifters.”

Her relief was clear. “I had to be sure.”

“I’m glad to see you took all of that seriously,” Demmy said.

“Are you kidding me?” Walsh rose to her full height again and glanced toward the bloody truck. “I’ve been learning a lot from Clarabell.”

“Oh, God.” Cody put his face in his hands. “Please don’t say her name two more times and make her appear.”

“Wait, she didn’t tell you?” Walsh said.

Cody turned his head slightly to find Demmy frowning up at Walsh, looking just as confused as he felt. That helped quell some of the conspiracy feelings he was experiencing.

“Tell us what?” Demmy said.

“She’s rented a place in Parson’s Hollow. She moves here this weekend.”

“And the gates of Hell were opened, and all the demons swarmed the land,” Cody said.

Demmy laughed and bumped his shoulder against Cody’s. “Stop it. At least she’s not going to have to stay with us again.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “And it’s not our honeymoon.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” Cody looked up at Walsh. “Been talking with her a lot?”

“We’ve been emailing and texting a bit. I had a lot of questions after… Well, after what happened out at the pond.” She adjusted her hat and looked off into the woods. In a softer voice, she said, “A lot of questions.”

“Yeah, we’re familiar,” Cody said. “Only we didn’t really have someone to ask.”

A siren in the distance grew louder, the sound drilling into Cody’s temple and making him squint. He saw red flashing lights down the road, and in short order an ambulance pulled up in front of Spiffy and Pete’s truck. The siren went blessedly silent, but the red lights added to the color palette along the trees and road. Cody thought briefly of seizures brought on by so much stimulation, but then lost that train of thought as Lucia came out from the passenger side of the truck and approached the ambulance.

“She been talking with Pete?” Cody asked.

“Yeah, Lucy—” Deputy Walsh stopped herself, glanced down at Cody, then straightened her posture and looked back across the road. “Deputy Durant has been talking with Pete. He won’t come out of the truck, just keeps repeating the Lord’s Prayer. She’s been trying to calm him and get him to explain what happened.”

Cody raised a mental eyebrow at Deputy Walsh’s slip up. As long as he’d known Lucia, Cody had never heard anyone call her Lucy. That kind of name shortening was something people did with very close friends. Or lovers.

Demmy shivered again, so Cody put an arm around him and tucked him in close against his side.

“I’m okay, just got a chill,” Demmy said.

“It’s not for you. I’m freezing.”

Demmy chuckled, making Cody smile. But it felt grim and out of place, and it quickly faded. They sat like that and watched Lucia lead the ambulance guys with the stretcher to the other side of the truck. There was some conversation they could just make out over the rumble of the big engines. It started to get louder, interspersed with inarticulate shouts of anguish, and Deputy Walsh walked to the front of the DPW truck to observe. A short time later, the EMTs rolled the stretcher back toward the ambulance. Pete was strapped onto it under a sheet. He thrashed his limbs beneath the sheet, staring up at the sky, head turning back and forth and eyes wide in the pulsating lights. Even from that distance, Cody could see that his face was spattered with blood and his lips were moving.

“Jesus,” Demmy whispered beside him.

“I don’t think He’s been listening to Pete,” Cody said.