Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) Read online

  That elusive bird who provides situational awareness wasn’t all that departed. Sarah Arias dropped her cigarette, crushed it with her running shoe, held my eyes with her own for a second, and walked off into Sarahland.

  I considered following her. No denying the magnetism. But that may have only been because she was female. Her undecipherable babble and the borderline psycho-prophecy stuff? I’m certain all that was because she was female.

  At least her departure cleared my appointment book of unanticipated meetings and non-scheduled embarrassments. In other words, Sparky time. I took a few steps towards the back of the lot where Sparky sat waiting in his car. I was thinking about Sarah and our strange conversation, and about the electric shock when she touched my lips. That naturally led to thoughts about the beer stock in my fridge because all worthwhile thought either begins or ends with beer.

  I’d need to stop at the drink market. Sparky’s known to open more than a few cold ones when Sparky is not paying. No problem. Shopping at the drink market is the only kind of shopping most guys embrace. Our version in Bad Homburg stocks about 100 different brands of German beer. With Sarah Arias receding behind the beer keg portion of my mind, I began to think it wouldn’t be so bad to catch up with Sparky after all.

  Then things began to stink. Literally. I reacted in a microsecond. Remember how fast I said vampires move? Multiply that by the number of breast implants on an NFL cheerleader squad when we’re under attack.

  Chapter 6

  I moved.

  And, man do I mean I MOVED. Pick your favorite sport car and I’ll outsprint it in the quarter mile. I can run long distances too…only barely above the speed limit after the first hundred miles, though. Something told me this wouldn’t be a long distance fight.

  Keep chuckin’ and jivin’, flashed through my brain in a loop of neon orange. Vibrations in my feet and I propelled myself one way or another like a supercharged water bug evading a fast young trout. At least this time I would start the match without a knife in my back. I didn’t know who entered my territory, though the sudden gust of rancid air pounding in from nowhere meant hostile intent.

  If you plan on stinking up the place, it’s customary to give warning. Kind of like checking nobody’s close before floating a bottom burp in the shopping mall. And there’s no way this intruder chanced into my territory because my own delicate musk would have pushed them away long before we entered the head-in-unflushed-toilet phase of contact.

  But for a couple of good reasons I could have turned this into a long-distance running fight to kill or escape. When you’ve lived as long as I have and fought in as many wars and personal combats, you’ll understand the fight-only-with-clear-advantage policy that’s kept me breathing. Disregard that truism at severe personal risk. My definition of severe personal risk? Death. Despite all that, I didn’t bail.

  Same basic problem as earlier. No alternate ID. The world finally reached the point that made dying under a false name easier than finding a new one to live under. Sometimes you gotta hate technology. And like I already said, two kind-of lives depended on me. And as maddening as those two made my own existence, I wouldn’t abandon them. Of course there was also Sparky.

  Vampire best practices, think of them as the universal laws of self-survival, advised me to let my old buddy fend for himself. He possessed close to the same capabilities as me. I concentrated on my zigs and zags and strained every rod and cone in my eyeballs to acquire the target. Sparky worked best with surprise on his side. Not someone else’s.

  The Seven may be the baddest of all vampires, and yes, they stood light years ahead of me in lethality and talent. There’s always a second pack of runners in any long-distance race…those elite who aren’t good enough to compete with the leaders but better than the majority who end up strung out in ones and twos far behind.

  I run in that second group. Up in the front. The attacker stunk, hence I knew I wasn’t up against a member of The Seven. No, not one of The Seven but definitely someone with capabilities. I hoped Sparky wasn’t already hosed.

  A flash of black satin and I caught a glimpse of the intruder. The next flash I saw originated somewhere inside my lame brain. I’d let her inside lethal range and she’d brained me. And yes, I did say “she.” Remember how I said I wasn’t far behind The Seven in terms of vampire skills? A few others ran near me in the vampire road race. She was one of them.

  And as far as one on one with her, I didn’t know which of us would end up on top. After you ponder the subliminal suggestions of that last sentence, I’ll let you in on another secret. Yeah, I knew this black-haired beauty quite well. Unfortunately, not in the way you’re thinking. Speaking of thinking, I sure wasn’t. Because I’d allowed her to tip my balance. Did I just say I hoped Sparky wasn’t already hosed? Change that. I hoped it was only Sparky who was hosed.

  Orsoyla Bokor. Orsoyla means she-bear in Hungarian. A gross understatement in Soyla’s case. That’s what we call her—not she-bear but Soyla. Pronounce it SOIL-ah. As in, when I eat too much goulash I SOIL-ah my boxers. She once told me Bokor is Hungarian for bush. Imagine the joke and innuendo possibilities. When she isn’t trying to kill me, the faintest whiff of her name makes me trip over my tongue and forget to breathe.

  Soyla’s the great non-love of my life, meaning at one time—centuries ago—I would have gladly drowned in a vat of her psycho-venom just to get within an inch of where it came from. Guys are like that. I could never get past the smell. I mean the vampire repellant thing, not what you’re thinking.

  And speaking of thinking, don’t you think for a second that I didn’t try to wade on in. But I couldn’t, and it nearly drove me as crazy as everyone else knows she is. Another of the many reasons women win the stronger sex contest? They can get past the stink. Otherwise the human race would have died out in Eden.

  The different Centuria stench thing didn’t bother Soyla, at least not where I was concerned. Her ability to overcome the deadly smell? Should have been enough warning for me to steer clear of her. The girl didn’t react in ways a stable person would. Neither did I though, because my left butt cheek got this high-frequency tic whenever I thought about her, and my brain instantly switched to the alternate command post. Whose wouldn’t have? Do you have any idea what Hungarian warrior-women were wearing a thousand years ago?

  Sometimes it’s better to cut your losses and ignore the sexy getups before you’re regretting it for the rest of your life. Hear my testimonial and learn. I’ve paid the price for squeezing my brain into the head that has the least space by spending the last several centuries running from her.

  Oh there’ve been communications. At a distance. A sniper with a 10x scope can’t match a vampire’s vision. During those times with Soyla standing within sight, well her indescribably wicked displays would melt the poles at the raunchiest strip club. And that’s all I’ll say. OK, maybe one more thing: I do have to admit that I fully intended to give in to each of her schemes. Like I said, I just couldn’t get past the smell. She’s recently begun sexting me. Hallelujah.

  Back to me getting my butt kicked by a chick. Soyla had used my momentum against me. She’d smacked me with something just hard enough to rattle my cage and alter my trajectory into a light pole. Alter my trajectory is a code phrase for smashed my face into said light pole. I could see the lights of Wiesbaden in the Rhine Valley below. I didn’t pause to admire.

  My poor, aching face. Ground by Sparky, smashed by Soyla. My good looks were getting a workout. But thank heavens for small miracles. Smashed face? Minor inconvenience. I began cellular repair in the time it took my face to rebound off the pole. Well, my face really didn’t rebound as much as it stopped in the divot it made in the metal. The thing is, it hurt. And hurting makes me mad.

  Soyla whizzed past me again. I feigned injury. Fell to my knees and covered my face. I wasn’t sure she’d recognized me. If she hadn’t, then she’d committed a cardinal sin in the vampire survival guide. First gather the 411. Perhaps Spark
y’s scent masked mine. Call it pride, but I don’t think I stink as bad as he does. If Soyla were after Sparky and hadn’t first gathered the facts? Just plain foolhardy.

  Just like her.

  Unrefined arrogance. And judging by the tsunami of stink pushing my way, Soyla was returning for another chance to plant my face into yet another manmade object.

  How do you cock every muscle in your body while maintaining the universal so-terrified-I-covered-my-eyes pose? Not sure, but I managed to pull it off. OK, I did peek through my fingers and saw Soyla flanking in from my right. She wasn’t taking me completely for granted, but as I widened my ring and birdie fingers to get a better view, I could see Soyla scan to her left and right. Guess she wanted to make sure my old spice wasn’t hiding more of our kind. Smart thinking. Big mistake.

  I sprung as she reached about fifty feet. She sensed the movement and began ducking. She was good alright, but you can’t dodge the bullet when the gun’s held to your head. I’ve tried, BTW. I slammed into her, my head into her chest. Insert smiley face here. I heard the “OOF” of her departing breath and I think I heard a few ribs crack. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I was mad. All of it didn’t have to do with Soyla, but Soyla would pay the entire tab if I had my way.

  With Soyla though, one seldom does. She dropped the club, twisted, and pushed hard on my shoulders. The effect reminded me of those cartoons where a gorilla squeezes a banana out of the peel; and the whole banana goes flying straight up in the air.

  I saw it all in slow motion. Chest—both of them—check. Thin, muscular waist—check. Leather hot pants that looked painted on—check. Bare feet—sexy…I mean—check. I tried restraining her, but the tighter I gripped the faster she shot up. Like an insane rocket clearing a designer launching pad. I watched as she flew out of my clumsy grip. Girl had style.

  Soyla flipped a couple of times in the air—a bit cliché, if you ask me—and landed a hundred feet on the opposite side of the parking lot from where I hoped Sparky still waited. At least I was between Sparky and her, though I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. One hundred feet is almost holding hands for our type. And she smelled like Lake Erie before the cleanup. Her face hinted shock as she recognized me. Acting? But that was gone quicker than Bill Clinton unzips his fly.

  “Gaius,” she said, and turned my two syllables into three and drew them out like an incantation.

  Must have been a magical call for mental Viagra because I could feel the spell working. I looked for the club she’d dropped. I mean, I was seriously considering banging myself in the head to get my senses off Soyla’s body and onto whatever this latest unknown disaster in my life would turn out to be.

  It’s important we take just one more second or two discussing her body while she stood in that supermodel’s pose inside both of our lethal ranges. Because as I looked down to pick up that club she’d jettisoned I noticed my arms were mottled with that same flat black color as those shiny leather hot pants that looked painted on.

  Oh crap, her clothes were painted on. Paint and nothing else. I wondered if she allowed the artist to sign his work. And where. I mean, Soyla definitely had the looks to pull off the underdressed thing. But no matter how good she looked, the conversation or encounter, or whatever was going to happen between us needed to pull out of the station. See, the smell isn’t just a repellant, it’s deadly.

  Think about what sunlight does to us in the movies. The smell doesn’t melt us immediately, but we can expect mental confusion and motor-skill difficulties. Like an ultra-big beer night. That happens within minutes. Keep going and we get to experience that not-so-cliché-when-it-happens-to-you melting thing. We don’t come back from that. Gets the heart and everything.

  The other thing I noticed in the microsecond I let my eyes search for the club was this: it wasn’t a club at all. I was looking at a hand attached to an arm and a bloody stump at the end. And if that four-carat diamond wasn’t lying to me, the arm started life on the end of Sparky’s shoulder. With a bit more focus I could have told you whether it was his left arm or his right one, though I thought the next few seconds would be better spent keeping Soyla at bay and my own arms safely attached.

  If she did end up adding one of my arms to her collection? I promised myself I’d defriend her on Facebook. And it would be final this time. No matter how many pictures she sexted me. Of course, I wouldn’t go so far as to change my phone number.

  She whispered my name again. “Gaius.” This time you’re allowed to believe what you’ve seen in the cheesy vampire movies. Especially the parts with the burlesque Hungarian accents. A dead ringer for Soyla. I could feel the hairs on my arm responding. Worse, every other part of my body also wanted a look at her.

  I checked around to make sure our little battle hadn’t drawn any bystanders. The last thing I needed was for somebody who worked at the Commissary to see the supernatural bump and grind. The double last thing I needed was for somebody I knew to have witnessed a girl smashing my face into a light pole.

  Nobody.

  Fortunate that I’d hung around until everyone left and then had that little psycho-babe chat with Sarah Arias. Lucky for me. Not so lucky for Sparky.

  Her voice sounded much further away than the 100 yards when she said, “Let me have him.”

  For a moment I thought she meant my little soldier, and the traitorous thing assured me he wouldn’t mind following that order. Right. My brain needed clearing. Think. Of course Soyla meant Sparky and not a romp on the Commissary hillside. I wanted to shake some sense into my head, but I couldn’t afford to because the first nanosecond I took my eyes off Soyla I ran the risk of losing said little soldier—Soyla could write the lady’s guidebook on that stuff.

  “Why?”

  That was me with the same question, different chick. I mean, the line seemed to work fine on Sarah Arias. Truth though, it was all I could think to say. OK, so I’m challenged with it comes to communicating with women.

  “Why not?” Soyla said, and for a moment I couldn’t think of a good reason why not.

  But Sparky was Sparky, he couldn’t help himself and his idiotic practical jokes. Was a few knives in my various body organs and other assorted deadly stunts played on me every half century or so reason enough to abandon him to Soyla?

  Well, yes.

  But I don’t roll like that and I made up my mind years ago not to alter my values for mere self-preservation. Besides, she’d spent all her smoke-and-mirrors tricks and I still stood. I thought I could take her down because the next engagement would be on fair terms. Other than the sexy pose…and the painted-on clothes. No way for me to match those two assets. Make that four assets, counting what I saw above the waist.

  Soyla must have understood further conflict wouldn’t go her way because she didn’t attack. Something else worked against her too. Against both of us. Our natural vampire repellant. First it would disorient us. Then it would kill us. If we let it get that far. She spoke.

  “You offer sanctuary?”

  Uh, oh.

  Deer in the headlights. I didn’t see that one coming. Providing Sanctuary means protecting someone engaged in a blood feud. My first and best hint as to why Sparky showed up. Offer of Sanctuary demands both responsibility and exposure.

  If I responded yes, then killing Sparky OR me would satisfy the feud. Satisfy, yes. But experience showed it rarely stopped with the death of the target…or the protector—hypothetically, me. Here’s another tidbit for your notebook: once sanctuary is offered the feud becomes official and can’t end until somebody actually does die. The Seven wrote that law. Probably to get rid of the hotheads by natural selection.

  All I wanted was a beer with the gang. Now this. Almost made me miss the good old days—thirty minutes ago—with Super Rumble.

  So old Sparky showed up for more than a social visit. Given his disembodied arm lying at my feet, it seemed safe to conclude the same about Soyla. What had those two knuckleheads gotten involved in? Did I want to know? Wou
ld I allowed myself to be dragged in as knucklehead number three? More warnings from dear old dad.

  Have I told you Soyla wasn’t wearing pants? Blood feud. The matter at hand. I didn’t appreciate Sparky bringing me into this as-yet anonymous mess and I didn’t appreciate Soyla employing nudity as a strategy to maneuver me into a position I was sure to regret. Let’s not forget that.

  Nudity? More than willing to forgive. Outwit me by using my natural tendencies against me? Never. But the word strategy implied a plan and organized thinking. Not Soyla. Before I stepped into the protector role I wanted at least one piece of information. I asked the only question tradition bound Soyla to answer.

  “Primary or Centurion?”

  Soyla smiled. “Centurion.”

  Crap.

  Soyla as the hired gun. I’d hoped for Primary, meaning the person bringing the feud. The slim possibility of defusing the mess existed with Soyla as Primary. Just throw some cash her way or maybe I could promise her something of a more personal nature to smooth the whole thing over for Sparky. If I haven’t already told you this, it’s important for you to know she wasn’t wearing pants.

  But Soyla as Centurion meant involvement by one or more others. Since those others would show themselves only after Soyla, and/or whoever else they might have hired, swept away the dirty work—me—it was a sure bet that the death train had already left the station. No delaying it. No turning it around and sending it home. Heaven forbid she represented The Seven.

  You might have noticed I didn’t know much about what was going on. I did know one thing, though. This feud would run its course and one vampire, maybe more, would depart life.

  I could make sure I didn’t end up that one dead vampire by not declaring Sanctuary for Sparky. I didn’t know why Soyla attacked Sparky or how many other Centurions or Primaries he faced. No way to gauge my odds for survival if I took the incredibly stupid road. Maybe I should restate that last sentence so you understand my thought process. No way to gauge odds, if any existed, for my living to next Friday.