EXCERPT: Nicole Kimberling's Dark Waters from Hell Cop 2
An Excerpt from Hell Cop 2
Nicole Kimberling
Genre: LGBT Science Fiction/Fantasy Paranormal Suspense
Length: Anthology
Price: $7.99
http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Hell_Cop_2-966.aspx
Dark Waters, by Nicole Kimberling
After a year of seeing Detective Argent, Michael Gold is uncertain about the future of their relationship. Can a liberal university professor and a Hell Cop find a happily ever after? When Michael invites Argent on an anthropological study, he thinks they're performing an experiment in domesticity. But when a dead body appears, Michael and Argent end up playing detective instead of playing house.
Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, male/male sexual practices, violence.
~ * ~
The township of Iron Springs wasn't much more than a freeway exit, a gas station, and the End of the Line Café, a tiny diner sitting opposite the bus stop, whose lollipop sign marked the terminus of Parmas City Municipal Transit's F Line. Michael negotiated his big, unwieldy vehicle from the ramp onto the two-lane highway, hoping that his elderly rock-star father's estimation of the roadworthiness of his old tour bus was close to accurate. The brakes certainly felt spongy, and turning the steering wheel required nearly all of Michael's demonic strength. But he'd needed to borrow a crappy old bus for his research trip and the Devil Dogs' Amphibious Hell Machine had been available.
Besides, he didn't have much farther to go.
The entrance to Iron Springs Mobile Estates was marked by two signs. The first was a white wooden sign that had once been quaint, but since been heavily defaced. At one point it had read: IT'S A GREAT DAY AT IRON SPRINGS MOBILE ESTATES! WELCOME! Now the peeling red and white paint could barely be seen behind the graffiti and tags. A vicious-looking shark had been spray-painted across the bottom half of the sign over the word "Welcome." A leering, horned face had been painted over the top of the sign.
The second, smaller sign read: FOR SALE BY OWNER.
"It's a fixer-upper, but I think we can make it a go of it." Argent had to speak up to be heard above the epileptic growl of the Hell Machine's engine. He swiveled his red leather bucket seat around to face Michael. "If we can clear out the resident gangs - the Sharks and the Devils, apparently - we can make this trailer park into our own little slice of single-wide paradise. I'll sell my boat to raise the down payment on the property. What do you think?"
Michael rolled his eyes. "As if you'd ever sell Euphemie. Besides, I think the one with horns is a faun, not a devil," Michael said. "The student who invited me here belongs to the faun community."
"The Sharks versus the Fauns?" Argent chuckled. "I know who I'm betting on."
Argent ran his hands over the red leather armrests of his chair. A smug, satisfied smile lit his face as he once again glanced around the interior of the bus, taking in the flame-colored deep shag carpeting, the faux-wood paneling, and extensive ceiling mural depicting ninety-nine naked, flying, bat-winged devil women having sex with a giant purple octopus. The waterbed, complete with octopus-shaped headboard. The wet bar.
"I still can't believe I'm really in the Hell Machine," he said, grinning. Michael couldn't help but smile in return. When Argent smiled like this it was easy to look deep into that slab of sorcerous muscle and see the little boy Argent must have been before he grew up and became a hell cop. He'd seen a photograph once of Argent, aged nine, arms sticking out of an oversized Devil Dogs T-shirt like skinny black inner tubes, red plastic sunglasses covering his pretty hazel eyes. He was smiling in that exact same way now.
Michael guessed that if he were to lay a hand on Argent now and use his telepathy to read Argent's thoughts, he too, would experience the thrill of being a young boy who loved a noisy and flamboyant band.
Or, more likely, he would see their immediate surroundings and feel a bland sort of contentedness that Michael had deemed the telepathic equivalent of elevator music.
Argent's training as an undercover officer made him unreadable to Michael. Sometimes Michael found Argent's impenetrability new and exciting. That edge that uncertainty and fear lent definitely enhanced his sexual excitement. But most other times, he just found Argent nerve-wrackingly opaque. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that (except for a handful of fellow telepaths) all other people in the world relied on things like conversation and visual cues to glean the emotional state of their partner. He told himself not to be such wimp about it. But deep down he wished that Argent would simply let him in and let him feel what he felt without having to always use words.
Feeling suddenly melancholy, Michael turned down the drive to Iron Springs Motor Estates.
Yellow sunlight filtered through the cypress trees thickly hung with pale green moss. Still water reflected the light on either side of the gravel road, which, though currently dry, clearly got routinely covered over with water. Deep, cracked ruts and powdery dust eroded his confidence in the roadway.
Through the trees he could glimpse patches of corrugated siding in colors like lavender, powder blue, and pink. Someone had strung a line of festive, rainbow-colored pennants between the trees.
Argent leaned forward, squinting.
"Are those the trailers?"
"Looks like it."
"I think the Hell Machine might be too high class for this community."
"Yeah, it's only made up of fifty-eight percent outer-body rust."
"At least it's not made of plastic sheeting." Argent jerked his thumb toward a structure that had been assembled mainly from tarps and discarded shower curtains. Three figures lounged half in half out of the water in front of the structure. Their porpoiselike skin gleamed green-gray. Flat, lidless eyes watched as they drove by.
"Baramans," Michael commented. "Vaughn said there was a big pod of them living out here."
"Illegals?" Argent asked.
"Refugees, I think," Michael said. He felt a twinge of annoyance at Argent for having immediately thought of the legal status of every demon he ever met, but he let it go. "There's the manager's office ahead."
The manager's office occupied one end of a low, concrete building situated on the main berm. The other end of the structure was apparently a laundry room, or at least that's what the sign said. Standing against the cinderblock wall between these two doors were three battered vending machines. The soda machine, particularly, seemed to have seen better days. Several small but deep dents marred the machine's surface at about the level of Michael's knee. He wondered if they'd been stamped there by the hooves of angry fauns trying to retrieve their lost change.
Inside, the office was air-conditioned, but by a machine whose filter had not been changed in a very long time and hence lent the room a smell reminiscent of the inside of an old refrigerator. There was a desk, a television, and a woman named Bert. Bert had short, curly hair that had been recently dyed brown, but not recently enough. She wore a short-sleeved polyester pantsuit and orthopedic lace-ups. Her eyes were watery and brown.
When Michael explained that he'd like to rent a space for a couple of weeks, Bert immediately rebuffed him.
"We don't do short-term leases," she said. "No offense. I'm sure you're a perfectly honorable man, but short-term leases bring in all sorts of transient riff-raff."
"But I'm not a transient. I live in Parmas City. I'm a professor at Parmas City University, and I've been invited here by one of your tenants, Vaughn Songbird."
"Little Vaughn invited you?" Bert perked up at this.
"Yes, he said that I could stay here to document the faun Half Moon Ceremony. He's going to be honored."
"Document it how?" Bert seemed still skeptical, but interested. Michael smiled.
"I'll be taking notes and audio recordings of the ceremony. If the faun elders allow it, I'll take some pictures, but that's contingent on their approval, of course. I wouldn't want to be disrespectful," he said.
"And what about you?" Bert turned her attention to Argent, who had stood silent through this entire interaction.
"He brought me along to wash his laundry." Argent jerked his thumb at Michael. "It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it."
Bert's face stilled, and for a moment, while she processed this new information, Michael thought Argent had made a fatal misstep. In previous situations where people had become offended by their relationship, Michael could never be sure if they objected because he plainly had demonic blood or because of the more banal but still actual prejudice against same-sex lovers.
Not that it had to be one or the other, really.
Bert's long, blank stare ended. She blinked, apparently having come to a decision.
"I suppose I can make an exception, seeing as you're a college professor. I'll meet you down at space fourteen. It's four spaces down from the laundry room. Right next to me." Bert smiled and Michael shook her hand. When he got back in, Argent sat in the driver's seat, again grinning like a little kid.
"Do you want to drive, baby?"
"Only if you're tired." Argent tried to give a noncommittal shrug but was clearly too excited to give even one polite refusal.
"I could let you," Michael said, "but you'll have to let me drive later tonight." He ran a hand down Argent's back. A light touch but definitely a touch descending downward. Argent looked genuinely surprised, then genuinely interested.
"You got a deal."
Michael handed him the keys. "Just don't wreck it. My dad would kill me."
"I would never hurt the Hell Machine." Argent smoothed his hand along the faux-leather dashboard. Argent motored the vehicle slowly down into the shallow canal that had once been the mobile park's main drive. He ignited the outboard and the Hell Machine chugged toward space fourteen. Alongside them, old trailers stood on stilts or floated on pontoons. Squadrons of blue and black dragonflies patrolled the water's surface, snapping up mosquitoes. Structures that had once served as patios now functioned as docks. Three kids, two human and one faun, raced past them in swan-shaped paddleboats, hooting and shooting each other with squirt guns. The backs of the paddleboats read: PROPERTY OF PARMAS CITY RIVER PARK.
Michael glanced sidelong at Argent, who met his gaze with a smirk.
"Come on, Michael. I'm not going to arrest a bunch of kids."
"I never know what you're going to do." Michael's response came out poutier than he had intended and he winced.
"Besides, robbery isn't my division," Argent said. "Not unless they used an illegal spell to do it, but looking at the back of those boats I'd say they were liberated with an average set of bolt cutters."
"So that's how it is? If it's not your department you're not interested."
"Right now, yeah. That's how it is. Especially when I'm on vacation." Argent shifted gears, preparing to maneuver the boat into space fourteen. "You're really nervous about having me here with you, aren't you?"
"I've never brought a lover with me on a trip before," Michael said. "I'm having performance anxiety."
"I don't think so. I think you're worried that your reputation as a cool professor who sponsors the Demonic Peace and Justice Society is going to be tainted when they all find out you're dating a cop."
Michael studied Argent's face. Impenetrable, as always. But he was right on the money. Just who was supposed to be the psychic in this relationship? Caught out, he could do nothing but come clean.
"There are certain aspects of police culture that seem deeply fascist on the surface level," he commented.
"It's true. But then, there are certain aspects of college culture that seem deeply fruity"-Argent turned and flashed him an annoyingly pleasant smile before finishing-"on the surface level."
Argent apparently thought now was the time for engagement in this battle. But Michael thought it prudent to wait at least until the second day of their trip to get into a fight. He elected to yield.
"Too true," he said. He felt the Hell Machine bumping gently against the patio and stood, holding on to the bucket seat to steady himself. "I'll go moor the bus."
Argent nodded, seeming to think better of the argument as well.
Bert arrived in her tiny aluminum motorboat just as Michael finished tying off the bus. She and Argent hooked up the power and water and then stood puzzling over how to hook up the sewer connection. Bert said she had an adapter over at her place and huffed and puffed her way up the embankment, pausing only briefly to nudge a sunning turtle back into the water.
Alone, Michael found himself keeping his distance from Argent, busying himself with rechecking his knots, worried that any conversation they had now might go wrong. When he looked up again, Argent stood, arms crossed, mirrored sunglasses reflecting the water. He surveyed the flooded mobile home park with the standard, affable expression that he wore when he was interrogating a suspect.
Michael knew this for a fact, having been officially questioned by Argent once before during the murder investigation of his cousin, Cassidy. In the confines of a tiny, white room Michael had found Argent's expression quite friendly. Comforting even. After sleeping with Argent for a year, he recognized this same pleasant smile as merely a part of Argent's uniform, as much as his badge or his gun. The smile didn't reflect Argent's internal sense of calm. If anything, that bland smile indicated a state of high alert. Following Argent's gaze toward the water, Michael could see why.
The murky, rust-colored waters near the front of the Hell Machine rippled. Then the top of a smooth gray head broke the surface of the water. Another followed and then a third. Baraman demons. Sometimes referred to as mermaids, other times, swamp devils.
"Good evening," Argent said.
"Is Bert here?" One creature-Michael couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it seemed to be the leader-spoke.
"She went next door," Michael said. "I'm Michael Gold. I'm a professor of demon studies at Parmas City University and this is Dion Argent. We were invited here to study the equinox ritual."
"The fauns invited you?"
"One of my students-" Michael got no further, since the Baramans instantly vanished into the rust-colored water.
"Looks like some tension exists between the Baramans and the fauns."
"I guess the sign out front did give us some indication of that," Michael said dryly.
Bert returned with the adapter, and she and Argent set themselves to the task of providing the Hell Machine with a flushing toilet. Michael sat down on the patio, close by, jotting down his first notes about Iron Springs Mobile Estates.
The residents seem to have adapted to damage done by successive hurricanes by raising their houses above the water's high-tide level. A rough estimate of the population seems to be a third human with demons making up the rest of the population. Fauns and Baramans make up the majority of these.
"Some folks came by to speak with you while you were next door." Argent's voice broke into his thoughts.
"Was it the mermaids?" she asked. Argent nodded. Bert continued, "They are not happy at all about that equinox celebration the fauns are planning, but what am I supposed to do? The fauns have the right to celebrate their religion just like the rest of us, and if it gets too noisy I'll call the cops on them just like I would anybody else. Not that I generally favor calling the cops, mind you, especially not the hell cops. You know that's who they'd send, even if it's just a bunch of drunken goat-legged midgets, they'd have those big boys come storming in and busting up the whole place and leave me to pay for the damage."
"Nobody wants that." Argent's amicable smile became even more fixed. The turtle that Bert had sent into the water before began slowly crawling back up the embankment.
"Do you know why exactly the Baramans are against the equinox celebration?" Michael decided that fully entering the conversation was better than simply lurking and eavesdropping. The turtle made it up to the road and started snapping its beak at low-flying butterflies.
"They say that the fauns are uneducated barbarians and their religious practices are offensive." Bert waved her hand as though this was an invalid argument she'd heard a hundred times before. "And the fauns say the Baramans are a bunch of hippie freeloaders who got here without papers and mooch off the welfare system. Some sets of people just don't respect each other no matter how long they live next to each other."
"I think an argument could be made that they might fight because they live next to each other," Michael offered airily. "Certain ideologies are just naturally opposed to each other."
"I suppose. But to me, even a perverted religion like theirs qualifies as something that happens behind closed doors, and so it's none of my business." Bert glanced at them above her sunglasses. "I'm sure you two boys can appreciate that."
"We sure can, ma'am," Argent said. He worked the pipe wrench one last time, then handed it back to Bert. "Thank you for all your help, ma'am."
Bert took her tool and left, again pausing to shove the turtle back into the water with the toe of her rubber boot.
"What do you suppose she's got against that turtle?" Michael asked.
"Maybe it didn't keep its perverted personal habits enough on the down low," Argent remarked, mouth twisted into a cynical, but genuine smirk. "That or she thinks it's an undercover hell cop waiting to bust the place up and cost her money."
Michael's previous reticence slid away. All he wanted to do now was cheer Argent up.
"You know what I think we should do?"
"Retreat into our protective shells and slide into the stagnant water of the canal?" Argent asked.
"I think we should make sure our shower works."
"Shower? But it's only noon," Argent protested.
"The judgmental speech about being nonjudgmental made me feel dirty."
* * * * *
The shower spray hit Michael directly between the shoulder blades, and Argent was so wide that part of him was always sticking outside the plastic shower stall no matter which direction he turned. But the lukewarm water felt good in the muggy heat.
And besides, Michael just liked to see Argent naked. And if to have that pleasure he had to smash himself into a stall so small that it had been described as an upright coffin, he would do so. His chest scraped against Argent's, and his nipples tightened to dark bronze pebbles.
He settled his arms on Argent's shoulders. He stood a couple of inches taller so that in these close situations he always found himself nuzzling Argent's short, soft hair.
"You hair smells like piña colada," he murmured.
"It's Moran's Tropical Fantasy Two-in-One shampoo and body wash." Argent nipped the side of his throat, and Michael responded by arching against him, pressing his rapidly hardening penis against Argent's heavily ridged abdominal muscles.
"You're showering at Moran's place these days?" Michael asked.
"He's always lugging these gallon jugs of it into the station locker room. Some old lady he used to work for forces it on him every time they meet."
"You expect me to believe a weak story like that? I think you and he have something going on." His tone stayed sultry and teasing. Not even a whisper of jealously moved through him, as it was impossible to imagine Argent and his fellow detective engaging in any sort of sex. Neither would be capable of making the first move. They'd both just stand there stonewalling each other until one got bored and wandered away.
The mental picture made him laugh and this in turn made Argent chuckle. From Argent's mind he caught an image of big, mean Moran leaning close to him and whispering, "You gonna eat the rest of that sandwich?"
On the rare occasions that he did receive an image from Argent, they were usually like this. Weird and hilarious.
Argent ran his hands down Michael's sides, still laughing softly.
"Yeah, baby, me and Moran have something going on. He just needs to suck my dick from time to time, and I humor him because he's so sensitive. But it means nothing to me."
Argent's mouth found his and Michael indulged in a long, slow kiss. More images slipped past Argent's psychic defenses, images of where Argent wanted to be touched. He complied, dropping his fingers to the head of Argent's cock, working the delicate foreskin, looking into his eyes, smiling.
"You really are a beautiful man," Argent said.
"You too," Michael said, then, "I'm sorry for baiting you earlier. I'm just nervous about this project."
"If you really want to apologize I can think of a few ways."
Argent tried to get his arms around Michael and ended up pushing the showerhead askew. Water sprayed out onto the tiny bathroom floor, making Michael laugh again before Argent righted it.
"This space is just too tiny to fuck properly," Argent said. "Come on."
They didn't bother with towels, just stumbled down the narrow hall to the waterbed. Michael flopped down on his stomach, feeling the full-wave mattress sloshing under his weight. He glanced back over his shoulder to wink at Argent, then caught his breath at the sight of him. Water evaporated off his naked skin in thin wisps of steam. He looked.supernatural, which Michael supposed he was.
Argent liked to pretend he wasn't a hotblood, hiding everything about his sorcerous blood in his daily life, but sometimes, like now, he slipped. Argent's body covered his, knee already placed between Michael's legs, nudging them apart.
"I thought you were going to let me drive," Michael said in mock protest.
"But I've almost got my key in the ignition." Argent kissed the back of his neck. Michael arched up to him, and the waterbed sloshed absurdly beneath him. Then Argent drew back, rolled onto the bed beside him, settling on his stomach. "But I suppose you're right. A deal's a deal. Take it away, baby."
For a moment, Michael did not know what to do.
Well, he knew what to do, had even done it before, but he didn't know how to approach this particular mountain of steaming-literally steaming-muscle.
What he didn't want to do was jump on Argent and stick it in like a horny thirteen-year-old who'd just been greenlighted for the first time.
Not even if that was exactly how he felt.