5.10
It probably isn’t good to be going around breaking laws while on official business for the Sheriff, but Austin speeds to the hiking trails anyway. He makes the trip in twenty minutes instead of thirty, only slowing down when he’s close, so he doesn’t pass the place, or get lost. He’s been back to these trails plenty of times with Otter, sometimes Landis, but Otter is always the one who drives. And they’ve never gotten near the mine shaft again, not since two years ago, so Austin suspects it might be a bitch to find on his own. But he’ll find it, sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, before the sun goes down.
“Richard,” Austin says over the roar of his bike as he maneuvers it into a parking space. He twists the keys in the ignition, bringing it to a dead, silent, stop. “You still there?”
He takes his flashlight out of the motorcycle’s trunk box and jams it in the waistband of his jeans while he waits for an answer, the weight of it resting in the small of his back. A cold wind flows past him, rustling the dry foliage at the mouth of the trail, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Austin takes it as a “yes”, unless any of the other ghosts from the apartment followed him and decided to mess with his head. But the only one who does that kind of thing is Mal, and he’s pretty sure he saw Mal go out the door after Landis this morning.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Richard’s voice asks from thin air, somewhere over his shoulder, as Austin sets off on the trail.
Austin snorts. “Talk about what?”
“Your fight with Otter. It’s the first time the two of you have fought like this, isn’t it?”
“So?”
“So,” Richard says, “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
“Look, I get that you’re trying to do the whole good dad bit and give me your words of romantic wisdom or whatever, but I don’t really think it’s such a great time for -” Austin abruptly stops in place. “Oh, goddammit. What now?”
There’s a man standing on the trail - tall, dressed in black, with exactly the haircut Landis described. He’s not doing anything but standing there, watching Austin, long-fingered hands dangling down by his sides. Austin approaches him carefully, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. This guy probably isn’t related to the thing in the mine shaft, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t bad news.
“You’re not from the Department,” Austin says casually, more of an observation than an accusation. The man cocks his head to one side curiously.
“Are you Austin Jones?”
“Yeah,” Austin says. “That’s me. Who wants to know?”
“My name is Naberius.” The man bends into a sweeping bow, placing a hand on his chest as he straightens up again. Drawn to his full height, he’s at least two heads taller than Austin, and has to look down the bridge of his nose at him. “I have some questions for you regarding the death of the demon Crocell. So long as you cooperate, I don’t anticipate that it should take very long.”
Austin squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, desperately trying to will away the urge to hike back to his motorcycle and grab the emergency pack of cigarettes he keeps in the trunk box. “Crocell is the demon who was in the lake, yeah?”
“Yes,” Naberius says. “I was told that they possessed you for a period of time, and was wondering if -”
“Can we walk and talk?” Austin asks, cutting him off.
“Of course.”
Naberius lingers for a moment, letting Austin go first on the trail and set the pace before he matches it, taking what seem like deliberately shorter strides for someone with such long legs. Austin tears his eyes away from Naberius to keep looking for the entrance to the mine, but silence stretches out between the two of them, and he eventually gets the sense that Naberius is waiting for him to say something.
“So,” he says, testing the waters, “if you’re not from the Department, where are you from?”
“Hell,” Naberius says matter-of-factly.
Oh, right. Hell. Don’t know why I expected any kind of normal answer. Austin chews on his bottom lip, wondering what else there is to ask. Maybe why he’s turning up now, as opposed to two years ago? Or why there was a demon trapped in the lake in the first place?
“Be careful, Aust,” Richard advises from behind him, and Austin gives a very slight, almost imperceptible nod in response. Naberius chuckles.
“I’m not here to hurt him. Only to ask questions.”
Austin looks over at Naberius sharply. “You can see him?”
“Of course. I’m not a human.” Naberius chuckles again. “Though perhaps you’ve never met a proper demon before.”
“You wouldn’t consider Crocell a proper demon?” Austin raises an eyebrow.
“Not after so many centuries of being bound to the lake,” Naberius says. “Of course, we had no idea that binding them for so long would completely corrupt them like that. We thought it would be tantamount to, ah, solitary confinement.”
“We?”
“The Council.” Naberius gives Austin a curious look, cocking his head to the other side now. “We sentenced them to imprisonment in the lake, for attempted regicide and the murder of an archangel. I expected you would know that, having shared a body with them.”
Austin shakes his head. “I didn’t get a lot of their thoughts or memories when they took over my body. It was like…it was all jumbled. Like a bunch of pieces of different puzzles that someone tried to force together into one picture. I dunno.”
“Fascinating,” Naberius says under his breath.
“So, you’re a demon?” Austin asks, figuring that if Naberius is going to let him control the conversation, he may as well change the subject to something more in his own interest. He’s never met a demon in the flesh before - well, not one in its own flesh, anyway. Only ones that were inhabiting people, and very few of those, at that. “Do you, like, possess people and make contracts and stuff?”
“Possession? Oh, no.” A smile tugs at the corners of Naberius’s thin lips. “I don’t deal with humans often. But many other demons of my rank have - and still do - make contracts with them, and sometimes act as their patrons. They can be…assets to us, in certain situations. Humans, I mean.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Not to imply that your kind is beneath us. Some demons regard you as tools, of course, but some have, ah, more intimate relationships with humans than simply holding up two ends of a deal.”
Well, that’s interesting. Austin turns the information over in his head as they walk - it’s not very relevant to the situation at hand, but he could always stand to learn more about demons, given how often they seem to be cropping up in Antlers. The thought of a human having an affair with a demon, too, is interesting. He’d always assumed that demons’ relationships with humans was purely predatory, but it does sort of make sense that some infernal contracts would be mutually beneficial.
“So why now?” he asks. Naberius looks confused, and he clarifies, “why come around asking about the whole lake situation two years after it wrapped up? You’re kind of late, aren’t you?”
Naberius grimaces. “To be entirely truthful, we forgot to check on Crocell, or renew their binding, for a number of decades. The humans watching over the lake seemed to be doing such an exemplary job of keeping them in check that we thought -”
“You could pass the responsibility onto them.”
“Precisely,” Naberius says, his voice strained. “And so by the time someone thought to check on them again…”
“They were already gone,” Austin finishes, still casting his eyes over the nearby hills in search of the mine entrance. “Kind of irresponsible of you.”
“I am aware.”
They walk side-by-side in silence for some time. Austin sneaks a glance over at Naberius - he looks almost embarrassed, like he wasn’t expected to be scolded by a human. Good. He should be. Getting lazy like that and passing the responsibility over to people who didn’t even know what they were doing, or why…even demons should know better than that.
“May I ask you something?” Naberius speaks up again, finally.
Austin sighs. “Sure.”
“Why are you here?”
“That’s a little more philosophical than I was hoping.”
“Well - not here on Earth, but here, exploring this place.” Naberius sounds flustered. “What are you hoping to find here? Or are you just wandering aimlessly?”
“I’m -” Austin starts, but a familiar, wooden structure in the distance catches his eye. He points at it, letting Naberius squint in the direction of his finger for a moment before veering off the trail in the direction he indicated. Naberius follows at his heels, and Austin glances back over his shoulder to confirm that Richard is similarly not far behind.
“Looking for this,” he finishes, stopping just outside of the mine’s entrance. It looks virtually unchanged, even after two years of wind, rain, and God knows what else.
Naberius runs a hand over the wooden beams carefully, craning his neck upwards and looking at the tunnel ceiling. “Fascinating. Are you going to go inside?”
“I pretty much have to, at this point,” Austin says dryly. He yanks his flashlight out and switches it on, shining it down into the mine shaft. It reveals nothing, an endless stretch of rock and dirt, and Austin starts to walk.
“May I come with you?” Naberius calls after him.
“Sure,” Austin says. “I don’t see how you could really make anything worse.”
Maybe with someone like Naberius on my side, he thinks, I could actually stand more of a chance against whatever is in the mine - this thing that murdered seven kids. But that’s assuming that Naberius is on his side. Or that Naberius has chosen a side at all.