Devil's Saints - Darkness

Joy has gone AWOL. We think she’s going after Evie. – Isiah

Zydeco, the enforcer for the Baton Rouge Cajuns, got the message when they stopped for gas in the early afternoon. He called Gator, his club president, who had received the same message. Walking away from his men, he listened to the few details that the other man had.

He, like most of the other men with him, wore his hair pulled back in a ponytail. While he was on the phone, his fingers ran through it in frustration. After hanging up and shoving his phone back into his pocket, he turned to the four other men with him. Pulling his hair back into a ponytail, he looked over at his friends and brothers.

They all wore jeans and thick soled motorcycle boots. Most of them wore dark t-shirts under their leather cuts. Santa wore his typical bright red shirt. On the back of the club cut was a golden outline of the state of Louisiana filled with the state flag. The blue background with a pelican, her wings partially spread, as she looks down at her three hatchlings.

“Cajuns, piss if you need to. Call your ladies. We’re going up north to Evie.” Zydeco said as he punched in the address that Gator texted to him separately. He didn’t need to give any more details, they all received the same mass text from the club president. “I’ve got lead, we leave in five.”

Evie was the widow of Zydeco’s nephew, Cade. Their other partner, and her legal husband, Daniel, and Cade had both been killed while in the line of duty just under four years ago.

Daniel’s mother, Joy, held Evie responsible for her son’s death. While still grieving her loss, and fighting deep depression, Evie had to get a restraining order against her former mother-in-law. Last year, Evie moved away from the town that held so many memories of her husbands to Massachusetts to start over.

Halfway across the country did not seem far enough if Joy had broken her house arrest for violating the restraining order earlier in the year when Evie’s new men brought her home for a weekend. Now it appeared that Joy had disappeared to drive from Austin, Texas all the way up to Ridgeview, Massachusetts.

Almost exactly five minutes later, they pulled out onto interstate 20 in Tallulah, Louisianna. From the northeastern corner of their state, they headed back out, going eastward this time. GPS estimated the travel time at nearly twenty-two hours. They stopped again just after midnight, about halfway to their destination.

“Do we need to take a break? Everyone good to go through the night?” Zydeco asked.

“That’s our girl.” Darkness said. “We’re good.”

The other men agreed, and they continued through the night. Around five they stopped at an all-night McDonald’s. The meal was quick and the coffee plenty.

Near midday, about an hour outside of Ridgeview, they stopped for gas and more caffeine. Zydeco called his brother-in-law. He was angry when he ended the call.

“Cajuns!” he called as he mounted his bike. “Our girl’s been shot. Let’s go.”

Making good time it was less than an hour later when they parked with a large group of bikes and walked towards the emergency room doors.

“Priest, got your dog collar?” Zydeco asked.

“I got my creds.” He confirmed just before they entered the hospital. With the door closing behind them, Priest pulled out his wallet and found the card showing that he was a chaplain with a well-known veteran’s organization.

The two men walked up to the window for the clerk. As they worked on getting Priest in the back with Evie, the other three sat down. Darkness sat next to the heavily tattooed man who looked completely lost.

Darkness was a tall man at a little over six feet. He had broad shoulders and corded muscles covering his body. Like his father before him, he had been scouted by the NFL. Unlike his father, he did not pursue it.

Swampthang, a young brunette, leaned into Santa and quietly asked “You think she remembers how to have sex with just one man?”

He spoke quietly and in creole. But Darkness heard the man sitting across from him and gave them both a warning glare.

“If you want to die, go ask one of her men.” Stroking his long white beard, Santa replied with a small laugh and Darkness nodded.

“They’re letting Priest back. That dog collar of his comes in handy sometimes.” Zydeco said in English as he sat down across from Darkness. “Anybody know where The Thief is?”

Darkness shook his head as he grinned at his adopted father. It was an old argument that all the Cajuns knew.

Zydeco's sister left Louisianna when she married Roscoe a little over three decades ago. During that time, he had worked his way through the ranks and was now the president of the Austin chapter of the Texas Renegades. Ever since, he had called Roscoe The Thief. He even had a nameplate with it. He swore that one day he would get it on Roscoe’s cut, even though the Texas charter did not use road names. They all simply answered to the name Renegade.

The others continued to talk for a while, Darkness ignored them. He was watching the doors wanting to see the Renegades come through the glass doors. Or Priest come in from the back.

He was not many years older than Evie and saw her as the little sister that he needed to protect. Even more so after the incident that suddenly took her men from her. But from what little Eves and her brother had said, she was now in a much better place.

And she had two new men. Presumably, the two men next to him that looked like they were losing their world.

Soon enough the Renegades walked in. Dixie went straight to the two men sitting in the cramped chairs next to Darkness. They wrapped her up between them and held on to their woman’s mother.

She was a tiny woman, especially compared to her own three men. And even more so compared to her daughter’s two men. The five feet three woman disappeared between the two muscled men. One was built like a tank and the other covered in tattoos.

Isiah, one of Dixie's three husbands, went to talk to the clerk and she buzzed him back. A moment later, Priest came back and said that she was on some good meds.

“Kept asking the cop if she could use his handcuffs.” Priest grinned. “She’s definitely your child, Dixie.”

Laughing, Dixie declared that at least one of her daughters took after her. After her daughter’s men released her, the tiny woman moved to the large dark man. He stood and lifted her up in a strong hug.

“She'll be okay.” Dixie whispered as he held her close.

Four years ago, when he was overseas with the Navy, he filed for emergency leave and flew home for his adopted sister. He didn’t care that they had to lie to the government and the Navy. His Little Eves needed him, and he would be there.

A few years later, her brother, Law, had been stationed in Maine. Darkness had only been a few hours away. When Isiah brought a very depressed Evie to stay with her brother, he called their old friend. They took turns staying with her and keeping her safe until she was through the darkness that the two men knew well.

The two presidents spoke and then Roscoe and his wife sent most of the Renegades to the local clubhouse. Zydeco ordered all his men to go also, they had all been up for over twenty-four hours.

Pulling into the large compound for a converted hotel with tan colored bricks and black trim around the windows and doors, Darkness was surprised by the size and, for the lack of other words, amenities. There was a sign pointing to the pool, a multi-story parking garage and what looked like a gun range at the back of the property.

But the real surprise for him would come once he was inside.

Sensing the protective spirits, Darkness closed his eyes and listened.

“You good?” Zydeco asked and his adoptive son nodded.

“The spirits are worried.” Darkness said looking at the man who raised him.

“Good spirits? Or…”

“Do you know Coon? Or Sinner?”

Zydeco shook his head. “No, but they call this Sinner’s Shack.”

Nodding, Darkness grinned. “Yeah, says it’s his.”