Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) Page 7

  If you factored out the tobacco cloud. Minor distraction compared to the tidal wave of stench Soyla generated back at the commissary. Here’s hoping she never reads that last sentence. And as I said before, Sarah Arias wafts a gentle, sweet smell behind her smoky-curtain-in-a-run-down-motel-room aura. The sweetness followed in her wake as she strode past me at the door.

  Yeah, definitely not a vampire.

  That begged another question in a night of questions. If Sarah Arias was not a vampire, what was she? Supernatural? I doubted it.

  I believe two types of supernatural beings exist. And don’t worry, I’m not about to go all spiritual on you. I used the term believe because I’m limiting the supernatural being count to only what I’ve encountered with my own eyes. Perhaps there’s more.

  The more observant of you already guessed the first category. For all the male readers I’ll spell it out: G-H-O-S-T-S. Combine that last hint with what I’ve already provided about Helmet and Karl and figure it out, gentlemen.

  I don’t know how ghosts become ghosts and I don’t know why they show up in some places and not in others. I don’t even know what compels them to show up at all. I mean, I wouldn’t put forth the effort. But then I consider myself lucky to show up at the commissary on time. I’m not sure what they can and can’t do because I’m reasonably certain Helmet enjoys playing with my mind. Maybe that’s his ghost job. Let’s put ghost-lore behind us for the moment. The second category of supernatural beings?

  I call them demons. Are they the same demons of the various religious texts? Most likely. I don’t encounter demons as much as I used to. I think the demon population remains constant, there’s just orders of magnitude more humans on the earth today. Does overpopulation tend to mask demon capering? I think so. Besides, the horrible acts of our fellow humans might relieve some of the demonic burden from that previously overworked class of being.

  Demons are mysterious creatures. They seem to follow a hierarchy and often work in concert, though it’s obvious they hate each other as much as they hate living things. Your guess is as good as mine as to who controls that horde. I just know whoever it is or whatever it may be, I never care to meet him.

  Sarah Arias did not fit into either class of supernatural being. Too solid and part of this world to be a ghost, too beautiful and, other than her recently-cured aversion to socializing with the bagging crew, insufficient psychotic or malicious tendencies to qualify as a demon. Too much a hot babe, too. Not a supernatural being, not a vampire. What did that make Sarah Arias? My brain said human although the internal dialogue ended the thought with a question mark.

  Each of the gang found a spot in the sitting room. Helmet stuck with the party and stood in the corner opposite Sarah Arias. He kept his eyes on her. Who could blame him? A quick look at Sparky and, although he acted and sounded like Mr. Popularity, he also took furtive glances at Sarah Arias. She sat in the big leather chair set apart from the rest of the furniture. Kind of like she intended to be there but didn’t want to join in. Something else about Sarah Arias nearly made me choke.

  I’d half-noticed as Karl sniffed from guest to guest. No harm. The only part of him any of them seemed to sense were his body wastes smeared across various parts of me. Karl stopped his investigations at Sarah Arias and gave her one of those idiot-faced panting grins of his. Sarah Arias looked down at the dog in a way that eliminated any doubt as to whether or not she saw him. The little traitor basked for a moment under her glow and then jumped on her lap and made himself comfortable.

  I’m not sure if Karl was asleep before or just after his head hit Sarah Arias’s knee. She began rubbing the little ghost dog-ears. To the rest of the people gathered it looked like rubbing a sore knee.

  Holy crap.

  “Ju goin’ like that Homey or maybe you take a shower?” J-Rod, Latino version.

  Everyone looked at me like I was the first cadaver ever rolled into the biology class. And I didn’t hear any of our normal banter. Either they thought they were at a golf tournament or perhaps they felt a bit guilty about coming all the way over to Bad Homburg. Uninvited. But then, of course I didn’t mind them ignoring our typical pubs in favor of the effort it took to ride the train to Bad Homburg to include me in our ritual. Nice, when you think about it that way.

  “I really appreciate you all coming over here tonight,” I said.

  Magic words, because smiles bloomed on every face. Sister Christian exhaled. Bonny Prince McDonald even looked at the lampshade and winked. Things started picking up and I could feel hesitant angst evaporating all around me. What a great sentence. If I put out two sentences they’d leap for joy.

  “And I’m buying the first beer for whoever got the gang together to surprise me.”

  Freeze frame. Smiles turned to jelly. All eyes back on me. Why was Sarah Arias looking out the window? I mean, it was dark outside, bright inside and she couldn’t see anything. Sparky took the opportunity to maneuver for a better view down her shirt. Did I mishear my own self? I thought I said something about buying someone a beer. The gang acted like I’d just suggested group suicide.

  If I haven’t learned to keep my mouth shut once I get ahead of a touchy situation in the past twenty centuries, the chances I’d internalized that particular life lesson in the last twenty minutes were slim.

  “It were you, homey.”

  Thanks, J-Rod de la Fake Latino.

  You know why I like to bag groceries? I mean, I don’t have to work. You don’t live twenty centuries without stashing something away for a rainy day. More to come on that. Original question. Why do I bag? Because of the simplicity. I get up, I hop the train to Wiesbaden. Sometimes I take the bus from the main train station and sometimes I walk. Depends on my mood. I roll grocery carts for a few hours and spend the greater part of the day worrying about nothing.

  If you’re a chick you’d never consider me marrying material. If you’re a dude? You’d want to be me.

  But simplicity flew out the door the moment Sparky’s knife slid into my back. I’m OK with a few dark clouds every half century or so. One thing for sure; I did not invite anybody to my place. Time to be a man and face things head on.

  “I did?” Maybe I’d start by facing things kind of sideways and work my way to head on from there.

  “You dirty dawg.”

  West Texas J-Rod returned. And Karl decomposed in Sarah Arias’s lap. Good. That would teach him for sticking his wet nose into conversations where it didn’t belong. It also made Sarah Arias raise an eyebrow.

  Try finding an ear to rub, now.

  But J-Rod’s dirty dog thing sounded more like a compliment than a put-down and the smiles returned.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  Since happy faces returned in fashion, I made my own look that way. Everyone laughed at what I said as if my total baloney meant something. All of them except Sarah Arias and Sister Christian. Sparky smiled but looked more confused than I felt. I have this knack for being funny. Especially when I don’t intend it.

  “You messy canine,” added David Smith.

  He wanted us to call him Watanabe but nobody ever did. Another quick David Smith fact: he has recent undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University. Theoretical mathematics and an MBA.

  I faked my laugh but the others sounded genuine enough. Seems everyone but me knew what I did to make me that messy canine. And if I kept running my mouth, I’d never find out.

  Chapter 11

  I won the monumental struggle against myself and managed to shut my lips.

  Dirty dog seemed enough for the moment and I guess they thought I understood the reference. So with explanations sufficient for all present save those indigenous to the apartment, I’m talking about poor, rotting little Karl and me, the conversation turned down a new road.

  “A man could die of thirst in this place.” Bonny Prince McDonald’s way of asking for a beer.

  Good idea. Mine sat as forgotten as Tiger Wood’s last date. And it was warm. S
ince we all know a brewery’s rating depends on the latest sample consumed, I thought it prejudicial to judge the brand based on a hot beer. It would hurt almost as much as a skewered lung or gravel-modified face to send the majority of my open bottle down the drain, but the rules of fair play in beer science left no other choice.

  “Noted,” I said. “Be right back.”

  The Prince said, “Let me help.”

  A quick mental inventory of the path between where we sat and the fridge pointed out four pieces of furniture that could trip up the Prince and three decorative knick-knacks he’d likely send to the floor. Even if he made it to the fridge he’d probably end up sucking down my jar of sweet pickles rather than an authentic cold one.

  Sister Christian put a hand on the Prince’s knee.

  “You look comfortable,” she said. “I’ll help with the refreshments.”

  Good thing. The whole crew was in on the Prince’s secret sight challenges, and we covered for him. Occasionally he managed to defeat our best efforts. Once, on the way back from a customer run, I saw the Prince pushing his cart behind the general’s wife. Uh-oh. The brake lights on her Pilates-sculpted bottom must have failed because when she stopped at her new VW Bug the Prince didn’t. The collision splayed the general’s prim wife across the hood. Mistake number one—though the flash of hot-pink thong panties was the talk of the crew for days.

  Mistake numbers two through four came with the Prince stuffing the groceries into the engine compartment and then lecturing the woman on the value of a clean, uncluttered trunk. He did manage to wedge the egg carton between one of those rubber belts and the pulley before smashing down the hood and insisting on placing the remaining bags in the car.

  Did I want the Prince going free-range in my apartment? Heck no. I offered Sister Christian a hand. She took it and pulled herself out of the chair.

  “Thanks,” I said when we were out of earshot of the others.

  “You look confused,” she said.

  “What,” I responded. “You don’t think I know the way to my own fridge?”

  Sister Christian smiled.

  “You didn’t expect us.”

  I knew I could be completely honest with Sister Christian and not worry about offending her.

  “Sure I did,” I said.

  That brought another smile. She put both of her hands over mine as I reached for the fridge and she gave my arm a tug. I forgot about the beer. Temporarily. The implied threat was that we’d go no further until I gave up the truth. I considered making up some more fibs in the off-chance she’d continue holding my hand. I mean, contact with that gorgeous fifty-something year-old Age of Aquarius woman sent tingles all the way up to my shoulders. I think she knew where my mind was heading because she dropped my hand and stared at me.

  “OK, OK,” I said. “This is a big surprise.”

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “Understatement,” I responded. I could do the secret agent movie conversation with the best of them.

  Another smile from Sister Christian.

  I opened the door and stared at the bottles. I looked back to Sister Christian.

  “So whose idea was this?”

  “Sarah Arias,” she said. “Told us all you wanted to shift our Friday thing to Bad Homburg.”

  “Sarah Arias?”

  “Yes.”

  The back of my mind sensed air from the fridge but the front of my mind was flummoxed enough not to care about the many bottles inside losing their cold edge as we spoke.

  “How?”

  I’d seen Sarah Arias leave right after our cryptic conversation. No way she spoke to anyone in the time it took for her to walk out of the commissary, do the mind-game thing with me, and then walk to wherever she went after work.

  “Texted,” said Sister Christian.

  “She has your numbers?”

  “Evidently.”

  Sometimes an adverb stands alone with power. In this context evidently could mean Sister Christian doubted the innocence of Sarah Arias’s source for the numbers. It could also indicate Sister Christian saw something not quite right about not only the texting, but the evening in general. I understood it to mean both.

  “Show me,” I said. Sister Christian dug into her buckskin purse. She fiddled with her smartphone and handed it over.

  I looked at the text message.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “It says the message came from Sarah.”

  Sister Christian nodded.

  “That would mean you already had Sarah Arias’s contact information. Otherwise the text would show up as coming from a number, not a name.”

  Who said I didn’t have technical savvy? I guess it was me. Sister Christian smiled.

  “We already thought of that”—insert sound of deflating ego balloon here—“and we checked. Everyone has Sarah Arias in their contacts. Nobody remembers adding her info.”

  Not knowing what to say, I kept my mouth shut. It’s good practice for the times I don’t know what to say and let my mouth flap in the breeze. I read the text.

  “Meet at Gare’s ASAP for pub crawl. Sarah.”

  I can see where J-Rod would think I scored a kind-of date with Sarah Arias, and that explained the dirty dog compliment. The guys must have thought I circled back and asked Sarah Arias to my place. But that’s all it explained and it was the part of the evening holding the least curiosity for me.

  I’m experienced enough in the ways of things to discard coincidences as valid excuses for what I can’t explain. Intentional acts create consequences. Sarah sent the text to the gang for a reason. No chance she just decided to jettison that aloof thing she did on the very night Sparky shows and Soyla offers up a Blood Feud.

  I bet if I checked my own phone I wouldn’t find the same text waiting for me. Seems she wanted us all together but didn’t want me to know she’d hacked phones and texted the team to make it happen.

  It all appeared clumsy and so obvious that perhaps Sarah Arias really did just want to go drinking with the gang. I considered that possibility for a moment and decided it seemed about as likely as Karl getting interested in peeing outside. And despite all the possible permutations my mind put me through as I stood beside the open fridge door, my brain kept returning to the same glaring issue: the beer was getting warm.

  I handed Sister Christian a few bottles and grabbed enough to make sure everyone got served. I swung the door shut and stood there for a moment. It didn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to see the Blood Feud at the center of this. But was that explanation too easy? With a Blood Feud in play, lazy thinking could get me killed.

  Better to assume the Blood Feud might be at the center of this extraordinary night. As strange as it sounded, I began to hope a Blood Feud was all that I faced. I couldn’t even begin to catalogue the possible combinations of trouble Sparky could stir up for himself. For me. And that thought scared me. A lot.

  “It should scare you,” she said. By “she” I mean Sarah Arias, not Sister Christian.

  Chapter 12

  The study of physiology never interested me, but I’m certain the hinge things that hold your jaw in place kept mine from shattering on the floor. And it only took a few seconds for my vampire-fight instinct to reach critical mass. If somebody snuck up behind me with a BOO joke they’d have found their head rolling across the floor. Difficult to explain to the Polizei, but then there’d be more beer for the rest of us.

  Sister Christian took the beers from my hand and set them on the counter. She stood on her toes and put a soft kiss on my cheek. Her smile didn’t come across as Mona Lisa mysterious any more than one of those unrestrained kind that pop up when you watch someone unwrap the perfect Christmas gift. Her friendly kiss calmed my racing fight-engine, though the touch of her lips on my face stirred up something else. Sexy chicks in later life are still sexy chicks.

  If I wrote a fictional account of the evening I’d title it, “Night of the Unexpected.” What Sister Christian did next made the title a sure bet
. She turned to Sarah Arias and gave her a hug. Wow. Hot babes embrace. Where’s my camera? No, not that kind of a hug, though my mind worked to fill in those kinds of details. More a hug of approval. And encouragement. Encouragement for what? Didn’t know, but I’d be the first in line to pick up the Chick Language to English dictionary if it ever comes out.

  I think only Pops knows anything substantive about Sister Christian. And the most detail-laden conversation I’ve had with Pops? “Where’s my damn bagger!” I’m not in synch with my inner self. But hey, now I’m bragging. Anyway, even without the assistance of inner mumbo jumbo I’ve sensed one thing for certain about Sister Christian.

  She’s a decent person.

  Here’s more. I trust Sister Christian. Odd thing to say given how little I know her. I mean, how much can you ever know a sweet but melancholy woman who has nothing but positive things to say about everyone? Yeah, I know. She’s hiding something, right?

  It was time to separate the personal from the professional because good person or not, I thought Sister Christian missed the mark with Sarah Arias. Whatever Sparky started was well beyond sweet Sister Christian’s frame of reference. And when innocents get dragged into these things it seldom ends well for them. I’ve seen more than one die for no other reason than proximity and convenience.

  I made a promise to myself in less time than it took Sister Christian to do the catch and release thing on Sarah Arias. As I watched my friend retrieve both piles of beer from the counter and walk away, I offered myself a rare indulgence. I would not see any of my bagger gang misfits die. They would either live through whatever storm bore down on me or I would go out protecting them. Either way, I refused to witness any more slaughter of friends.

  Closely coupled with the first self-promise was this. I Gaius of Teutoberg, noble of the tribe, officer of the Praetorian and bodyguard of Sejanus, swore on the name of my father that whoever involved themselves in this intrigue targeting me and threatening those I held dear would cease to breathe. I saw a picture in my mind. Me feeding on as-yet faceless people. My own blood lust satisfied by the convulsing bodies of my enemies. Strange how quickly you can get comfortable with the notion that somebody must die. Even if that somebody is you.