Something Gray chapter 13/26

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Chapter 13
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Coach was angrier than any of the boys had ever seen him. He didn’t like being awakened at this hour, especially with news like his star players were sharing with him.

“What do you mean you left the body in the alley? You thought no one would notice the whole pack of you going out that back door after this guy. I don’t know how I’m going to keep this one quiet. Who was this girl that was involved? We’ll have to make sure she doesn’t remember any connection between any of you and this pool shark,” he nearly shouted. The coach’s face was beet red and he just knew his blood pressure medication was being given a workout.

‘God, why can’t we get kids with half a brain that can play football? Or at least some who don’t drink and break every law known to man on a regular basis,’ he thought with rancor. Coaching used to be much easier when he worked at the middle school.

“Let me call a friend or two, see if the body’s been discovered or if this guy is in the hospital and not dead. I’ll have to be careful how I ask; don’t want to draw any suspicion. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the guy will have crawled out into the street, got hit by a car or something and this will all just go away.” Life was rarely that simple, however.

“Meanwhile, try, try, try to be discreet and find out the name of that girl,” he ordered. “And, for God’s sake, let me handle her! Just give me her name and dorm room and I’ll handle it,” he said forcefully. “You said she was real shy. That could be good. The last mess you got me into was saved by the girl being reluctant to have her name in the papers.” The coach cringed inwardly at the memory of his veiled threats to have that girl’s less than pure past spread all over the news. “Honestly, Steve, you really need to keep that zipper of yours up or just stay faithful to Vanessa for the season! I can’t keep pulling a rabbit out of the hat whenever your hormones get the better of you,” he reprimanded the worst offender, who also happened to be his best player.

“That goes for all of you,” he finished, glaring at the room filled with Sunnydale University’s finest. “Stay away from the women and gambling, and all of our lives will get a lot easier.”

‘Maybe I can bribe a demon to mess up the corpse and make it look like another of the “unexplained deaths” we always have here in Sunnydale’, he thought. The coach had lived on the Hellmouth a long time and was far from stupid. He knew the secret world of his little town. Knew some names too, not that he wanted to be in their debt again. First he’d need to be sure there was a corpse to cover up.

‘If the guy is alive and wants to cause trouble, I may just bribe one of those demons anyway. It worked well in dealing with those twins last year. God, I need a higher class of athlete for my team. I can’t keep this up forever. Damned alumni, all they want is a winning season, no matter what kind of thug it takes to carry the ball to victory.’

He started making the necessary calls, being as careful as possible to give nothing away. After about an hour and a half he was left scratching his head in confusion.

If the story his unrepentant boys had told him was true, the English pool shark should have needed a hospital at the very least, and more than likely the morgue. No one with injuries matching their description, however, had come in and no dead bodies were found. Well, at least not in the alley behind the Bronze, and no male bodies–not tonight anyway.

After all, this was Sunnydale; there was always at least one dead body every night. This night, it was a pair of girls in the park with neck wounds, but no beaten men in alleys. Maybe Coach’s luck was finally changing and some random demon had made a meal of the unfortunate hustler. Things were looking up. Now the only possible fly in the ointment was the girl.

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/198590.html