Redemption Song--A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Short Story by John G. Hartness

Author:John G. Hartness [Hartness, John G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books

“You okay, Harker?” The words jolted me the rest of the way back to my time, my reality, and my crappy little kitchen. The taste of the desert was still in my mouth, and the Charlotte humidity made it suddenly hard to breathe.

I jerked my hands off the table, and stared at the woman across from me. She was pretty, but not my type. I prefer them a little more broken, and with less baggage than me. Cassidy Kincaide missed on both fronts. Besides, she hung out with some unsavory characters. But she was cute, though…

Perv, came the accusatory thought from somewhere outside my head. I rolled my eyes and told Detective Rebecca Gail Flynn, member of Charlotte’s police department and sometimes hitchhiker in my head, so screw off. I blinked a couple times to get the last of the Old West out of my eyes, or my Sight at least, and pointed toward the fridge. Cassidy, a brilliant and talented woman, or at least a woman who’d spent more than five minutes with me, understood my universal signal for “beer” and grabbed a couple of Sam Adams seasonal out of the door. She popped the top on the edge of my counter, guaranteeing me another lecture from Ren when he came over to make sure I had food and toilet paper later, then she handed one beer to me and sat down across the table.

“How did it go?” She asked.

“I managed it. It wasn’t easy, but I got it done. They’re clean.” I waved my hand at my scarred Formica kitchen table, where an antique Colt Peacemaker and a wedding band rested on a velvet cloth. “How did you know they were haunted?”

“I don’t know that they were, until recently.” Cassidy replied. I cocked an eyebrow at her and she laughed and went on. “I’ve had that wedding band for years, and it never showed any signs of any possession or even a particularly interesting history. Until recently.”

“When the gun came in,” I supplied.

“Exactly. Once the two pieces came in proximity to each other, strange things started happening.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “The woman tied to that ring had a serious hate on for the man who carried that gun. He murdered her husband and basically made her his slave until she caught him with his guard down one night and killed him in his bed.”

“That sounds pretty justified to me,” Cassidy said.

“Me too, but her ghost didn’t see it that way. She felt like she’d betrayed her husband somehow, and only he could forgive her.”

“So how did you get her to move on?”

“I forgave her.”

“But you weren’t her husband. Or were you?” Cassidy asked.

“I’m not that old, Kincaide. So no, I was never her husband. But she didn’t know that.” I drained half my beer in one long swallow, trying to get my voice back to normal.

“So you lied to her.” I didn’t have to look at her face to see the disapproval I knew was there. I just stayed focused on my beer.

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