Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 14

The pressure around my neck lessened and I moved to throw the little jerk off my back.  He reacted with a speed so blinding he made avoiding me look as casual as standing up from an armchair.

Evidently Mr. Cannibal thought Sarah Arias was speaking to him and with enough authority to compel him, a member of The Seven, to obey.  Though maybe the pause in action was no more than an opportunity for The Seven dude to make his muscles look a bit bulkier for a hot chick.  If my life wasn’t hanging in the balance I might have enjoyed seeing what came next. 

“This concerns only us,” Adam Ant said with an English accent that could find friends in the halls of Oxford.

Was that boredom I saw on Sarah Arias’s face as she produced a pack of cigs from somewhere out of jeans that looked as painted onto her body as Soyla’s hot pants were earlier in the evening? Always looking to lend a hand where one is needed, I promised myself to get the contact info for Soyla’s panty-artist and pass it along to Sarah Arias.

Sarah Arias lit the stick.  She inhaled, paused, and then exhaled, the whole time keeping her eyes on my newest and most diminutive of psychotic friends.  It looked as though Sarah Arias was weighing a decision as she stared at the cannibal.  I kind of hoped it involved a panty artist somewhere in her future.

So Sarah Arias puffed while Mr. Can E. Ball stood there with arms folded and watched.  From my floor angle, I couldn’t detect nose holes of sufficient size for a fashionable bone.  I owed Sparky another thump on the back of his head.  He’d said all The Seven where nose bones.

Maybe I should have been surprised that Sarah Arias commanded that sort of respect out of The Seven.  I mean all of them because as one goes, so go the others.  Probably a requirement of the cannibal club.  Otherwise, how could you be sure one of your buddies wasn’t seeing a baked ham when they looked at you?

“Our sides made peace,” said my new little murderous friend. 

Sarah Arias took another toke before she answered.  The girl really needed to get that habit under control.

“We don’t negotiate.  We allow or disallow.”

The pygmy glanced at me for a moment and I shrugged my shoulders.
Women
.  What could I say?  I’d just been through the same Sarah Arias spin-cycle a few minutes earlier and I felt a little sympathy for him.  Emphasis on the “little” because I don’t tend to take sides with folks who want to rip me apart and serve my flesh at office pot-luck lunches.

The pygmy countered, “Free will reigns.”

Great point.
  On the other hand, I had no clue what he meant.

Sarah Arias smiled, and I was happy to see
somebody
in my house was getting enjoyment out of the evening.  I’d hate to think I paid the power bill just to keep lights running over dull times.

Karl picked that moment to trot over to the pygmy.  The stupid dead dog scratched at the man’s waist—Karl could only reach to my knees.  There’s a difference between courage and idiocy.  Courage comes when you overcome reasonable fear to perform a dangerous act.  Idiocy is when you perform the dangerous act while lacking enough sense to be afraid.  What Karl did?  Definitely the second category.

The conversation stopped for a moment as Shorty looked down at the dog. Probably a time-out while he scoured his mind for cold, dead dog recipes.  Hopeful thinking on my part because the dog got rewarded with a smile and a scratch behind the ears.  Great. Let Karl move into Pygmyville and see how long he lasts after they find a couple of his deposits hidden among their iron kettles.

“Free wills collide,” said Sarah Arias.  “And then we allow or we disallow. Chaos never prevails.”

And a partridge in a pear tree
.

Nobody showed the least bit of interest in me so I got to my feet and began the regeneration process.  And thanks to Mr. Bush Boy, there was a lot of new work. 

The pygmy bowed to Sarah Arias and looked back to me.

“Consider this a warning,” he said.

No kidding?
 

Why should I consider someone trying to beat me to death in my own home as some kind of warning?  The arrogant jerk.  Add to that a weird grocery bagger chick who turns out to be some sort of witchy woman with power enough to scold one of The Seven and then chase him out the door.

But Pygmy Man hadn’t left quite yet.  Wild child or not I hoped Sarah Arias hung around until
after
the departure of my umpteenth uninvited house guest.  And while I’m on the topic of arrogant jerks, why did I think the pause in my beating wouldn’t resume once these two creatures from the deep lagoon concluded their transaction?

What if her “Calm yourself” meant nothing more than cessation of focus-dividing menial tasks—like ripping my head off—until the conversation Sarah Arias had on tap concluded? As things turned out, I didn’t need to worry.  Pyg waved a half-salute toward Sarah Arias and walked towards the door.  He stopped in front of me.  I didn’t like the smile I saw on his tiny face.

I felt one little hand grasp me behind the head, at the nape of my neck.  That left the other hand free to grab other things.  Like maybe my belt.  I don’t remember the liftoff but I do remember the flight and landing.  Thank heavens for small miracles because I’d left the floor to ceiling windows open before going to work that morning.  Talk about cost savings from energy-friendly living, that one act saved thousands of euros in repair costs.

I sailed through the third-story windows like an extra point.  Freefall time.  I did. Things could have turned out worse.  Most days I measure the word “worse” in degrees of pain.  A four-point landing—forehead, nose, mouth, cheeks—on concrete offered a rainbow of possibilities when it came to hurt.  I checked off most of those points of contact after my fall got interrupted by the sudden stop. Still, being dead would have felt worse.

I brushed myself off and looked around to see who was watching.  Getting thrown out of your own apartment by a pygmy and doing the subsequent face plant is embarrassing.  A glance to my right.  Nobody.  Good.  I saw an orange flash to my left. 
Crap
.  A witness.  The Doktor did a couple of his wheezing 70-year smoker coughs before turning away and walking back into his first-floor apartment.  I think I saw a smile on his face. “And this is the way things are done in the Born in the USA.”

Call me a poor host but I didn’t scurry back up to my apartment to offer proper courtesies.  Sarah Arias and Mr. Pyg could let themselves out.  I’m sure they’d hardly notice. 
Good riddance.
I walked around the building to the exit I normally freakin’ used.

The bagger gang waited there in low conversation.  Either Herr Doktor or the Frau BundesFanny decided right about then the perfect time for switching off the exterior lights and leaving my friends in darkness.  Danke for that, Herr Doktor Buttwipe. I think David Smith heard me first.  He jumped off the concrete porch and assumed some sort of ninja stance.  Who was he expecting? The Dark Samurai of Bad Homburg?  Geez.

Two quick things about David Smith.  First, PC folks would call him an Asian-American.  His father served in the U.S. Army and met and married David’s mom on a three-year assignment in Korea.  The second bit of knowledge regarding David: he wanted everyone to think he was a Japanese martial arts expert.  That’s where the Watanabe bit comes in.  David only speaks English and, as far as we all know, hasn’t earned so much as a fan belt in any of the martial arts.

J-Rod spoke up.

“You take another way down, Homey?”

“Something like that,” I said.

Even Sister Christian looked a bit confused at my arrival from the street side.  If J-Rod continued to ask stupid questions I promised myself to acquaint him with that same special exit I’d just used.

Bonny Prince McDonald said, “A man could die of thirst waiting on you.”

Was he a one-trick pony with that die of thirst thing?

“Follow me,” I said and I headed back in the direction of my recent touchdown.

I could see Sparky looking me over with a little too much interest.  No surprise there.  Sparky possessed the same extra-sensitive hearing as me.  He’d heard all that upstairs.

I lowered my voice to a level I knew the others wouldn’t detect.  “Thanks for all the help, mate” I said as I walked past him to the street.

“Wait a second,” Sister Christian said.

What now?
 

I got no more than a sip out of either of my beers upstairs and my hops gauge indicated the reserve tank.  I turned to Sister Christian with a look that must have indicated my impatience.

“We’re all not ready, yet,” she explained. 

Which actually explained nothing.  Not until I heard noise around the corner, toward Herr Doktor’s breakfast room.  I tuned into a melodic female voice speaking in a quiet German of sufficient beauty to pull the entire language out of the gutter.  The growling response coughed back was vintage Herr Doktor.  He spoke, she responded.  He spoke a little more and the
she
who responded sounded just like Sarah Arias.

Chapter 15

It went on for a few minutes and I wondered what common interest kept the two engaged. Maybe they were talking about the best mints for combatting tobacco breath or how to snip off those troublesome filters in a smoking emergency.   

A coughing fit from around the corner and I hoped it was Sarah Arias choking the old codger.  For the first time that crazy night an honest grin broke out on my battered face.  Short-lived joy though, because I could have sworn I heard laughing interspersed with the wheezing.  Good thinking.  Laugh Herr Doktor to death and you leave the local Gestapo zero for a case.  Whisper sweet reminders of how far the troops got in ’42 and then talk about how poorly the American soldiers dressed in comparison.  That would push him over the cliff.

But some wishes are destined for the hard rocks of unrequited hope.  In other words, Sarah Arias came strolling around the corner with her arm around Doktor Cheap. He looked twenty years younger…not a day over ninety-five.

The Doktor walked Sarah Arias over to where we stood.  He bowed to kiss her hand.  I could still hear him coughing chuckles as he walked away.

“Hey Sarah.  You wanna go back up and wash before you hand rot off?”

Did I say something about throwing J-Rod out the window?  I owed him free beers for a month for that comment.  Sarah Arias smiled and Sister Christian began the procession toward the gate. Given my luck up to that point, I thought it a perfect time for Soyla to show back up with her random psychoses and painted-on pants.  Come to think of it,
any
time would be perfect for those painted on pants.

But like my hopes for a garroted landlord lying cold and blue in his favorite green felt hat, Soyla did not show up again that evening.  The Blood Feud.  I was pretty certain I’d seen the person who held Soyla’s leash.  Two choices existed and both seemed a perfect fit.

The Pygmy.  From what I knew about The Seven they usually handled their own work.  But outsourcing was all the rage in every other business, so why not also in ripping apart those who give sanctuary to vampires idiot enough—Sparky—to piss off The Seven?  And who else but the Cannibal Club could keep Soyla herded in a single direction.  The Pygmy fit.

Sarah Arias.  Miss Goody Goody meets poker table ashtray.  Other than the obvious—perfect shape, nice lungs, and a butt that put the letter “t” into tush…  What was I talking about?  Oh, yes, Sarah Arias.  Other than many superfluous justifications to depart controlled flight and run away with her forever, I couldn’t think of a reason to trust her.  That made Sarah Arias fit.

And if the wheel were spinning and I had seconds to lay a bet?  I’d put my money on Sarah Arias.  I decided to keep a close eye on her.  Who said dangerous work couldn’t also be fun?  If The Seven were after me then you could call me Hors of the family d’Oeuvres.  Dead meat.  But I got away from the little guy.  Strange.  I had to admit Sarah Arias played a crucial role in my escape, but as I thought about it, I couldn’t be certain the toy poodle of serial killers would have snuffed me.  He had plenty of opportunity before Sarah Arias arrived.  Maybe he just wanted to talk.

So why my face off the mirror and roundtrip to the ceiling?  To get my attention?

I thought all this while we followed the sidewalk around the corner and up the slight incline toward the shopping area.  It’s a neat thing about German towns.  Sometime in the last fifty years or so each of the larger towns blocked off two ends of a thoroughfare and turned the street into a pedestrian-only shopping area.  Sister Christian put an arm through mine as we made our way up the sidewalk. 

Sparky stayed with us but was careful to keep his distance from Sarah Arias.  That made me lean a micron or two further in her direction as the Primary for the Blood Feud.  If she could maintain this front of civility among both the protector and the intended victim, then I needed to check her veins because whatever ran in them couldn’t be blood. 

It wouldn’t be hard for me to verify that much—blood or not in her veins.  To do that though, I’d need to call on a sense of smell enhanced hundreds of times more capable than a normal dude’s.  It would be like sending out a drone…a sniffing drone.  Doing that would come with risks, not the least of which would be the chance of putting myself into a blood lust.  I’ll go deeper into what that means later.  Suffice it to say vampires in the grip of blood lusts aren’t the best company to keep.

Sarah Arias already displayed a casual disregard for The Seven.  And she lived to move on to Friday beers. How? I didn’t know.  Not then, anyway.  One bit of logic hovered within my grasp: If The Seven backed down from Sarah Arias, then every creature in the universe should approach her with extreme caution.  Because no matter what else Sarah Arias turned out to be, she was still a woman.

But what
was
Sarah Arias?  I mean, in addition to being a woman. No smell, so I knew she wasn’t a vampire.  If she possessed superhuman strength or capabilities not seen in the general population, she hadn’t displayed them.  I know she saw Helmet.  And the Karl thing—him jumping in her lap—was a first for someone whose senses might not contain the sort of special kick gained by sampling a vampire heart.  And she seemed able to read my thoughts, but then, what woman doesn’t know what every man is thinking? 

I glanced back and saw the Prince trying to engage Sarah Arias in small talk.  To her credit she was taking care to guide him safely past parking meters.  Hardly the actions of an arch-villain.  To be fair to those who’ve encountered Sparky over the centuries, you didn’t need to know him long before dreams of your hands around his neck became a recurring fantasy. I’d long since stopped counting the number of Sparky’s executions and shootings by jealous husbands or jilted women.

But a vampire can rise from a mere hanging or beheading.  Blood Feuds?  Not so much.  Was Sarah Arias planning something permanent for Sparky?  Maybe.  I nearly hit a parking meter myself as I kept my eye on Sarah Arias and the Prince.  She was busy pulling him clear of
every
parking meter.  The Prince might be mostly blind, but he’s not
entirely
blind.  The scammer.

I don’t know who started the Bonny Prince McDonald thing but I think the name came in stages.  First he was Vince McDonald.  Prince substituted for Vince quite well. Whoever added the “Bonny” part put the icing to the cake.  What a cool nickname.  He does the blindness thing all on his own.

So Sarah Arias saved me from The Seven and the Prince from parking meters.  It might all be clever misdirection, you know, a welcoming spider and deadly web kind of thing.  The obvious question running through my crowded thoughts went something like this.  A member of The Seven deferred to her.  She worked with me for several months and picked the night of a Blood Feud to reveal herself. And to top it off, Sarah Arias chooses the same night to hang with the gang.  There’s the thought process, here’s the question:  If I thought the hot babe walking in front of me was planning my death by some necessarily brutal means, why on earth was I out with her on a Friday night of bagger gang fellowship?

It didn’t take much thought to see the answer nested within the question itself.  Hot babe.

That sort of deep thought carried me the three minutes it took to reach the first of my favorite watering spots.  Trust me, a lot of places in Germany serve good beer on draft so just about any door downtown can lead to a new favorite place.

A cool Friday night and the café tables covered the wide walkway every few dozen paces.  The waiter at Café Aus Zeit pulled several tables together as we walked up.  Aus Zeit literally means since time and the motif suggests an ambiance of yesteryear.  But that was inside and we were sitting outside.  Metal table, metal chairs. I preferred sitting outside when possible because I’m a people-watcher and enjoy seeing the Germans scurry back and forth with kids and dogs in tow.

The saying here is that Germans love dogs and have children.  The face of Germany has steadily morphed over the past few years into less the Teutonic and more the international.  Where I used to hear only the bold certainty of uniformly loud German voices, the cafés are now salted with the quiet lyrical tones of Turkey and the Middle East, and the seductive resonances of Eastern Europe.

I don’t know the waiter’s name at AusZeit but we know each other well enough that I never have to place an order.  I went ahead and spoke for everyone except Sarah Arias.  We’d done this thing enough times for me to know who preferred what.  I glanced to Sarah Arias as she lit up yet another. 

“Whatever he’s having,” she said. 

That kind of order tends to make a guy feel ownership.  Taking things a step further, that kind of order from a woman on the first night out signals a desire to become more familiar with the guy.  Perhaps I was wrong. If so, keep in mind that most guys are only one level or two abstracted from sniffing butts as a form of greeting. 

So yes, I sautéed myself in pride when Sarah Arias said, “I’ll take what he’s having.”  Right up to the moment I realized the “he” in her statement referred to Bonny Prince McDonald.  Not me.  How did he rate?  The snake.  I half snickered as I watched him struggle to pull out a potted plant for her to sit on.

If bouncing back from rejection comes with practice, then consider me a black belt.  We took up positions around the table.  Sarah Arias sat beside that snake Vince—I refused to call him the Prince for the rest of the evening.  Sparky wedged in between Sister Christian and me.  I’d be rubbing shins with J-Rod on one side and Sparky on the other.  That would cut down on the casual flirting but at least I could keep my mind on Sarah Arias’s sweater—I mean, the conversation.

For the record, Vince—nee the Prince—always ordered a beer so Sarah Arias ended up having the same as me. 
Ha
. I waded through the kiddie pool that was my rejection and emerged on dry enough ground to catch the waiter’s eye and hold up two fingers and a thumb.  He nodded…three plates of the tomato and mozzarella salads.

The drinks and salads came and the gang settled into conversation.  Even Sparky.  Everyone, except Sarah Arias.  I watched her for signs of…I didn’t know what.  I like it when my brain gives me specifics.  I watched her all right.  And afterward I could report the number of knots in her sweater’s knitting pattern.  Well, only in the chest area, but I made the scientific assumption that the rest of the thing was made the same way.  That sort of concentration didn’t get me any closer to discovering what role Sarah Arias played in the Blood Feud, but I thought the old fabric strength versus bulk enigma a healthy way to keep my mind alert and engaged.

At some point during the few hours we all sat together at that table outside Café Aus Zeit, Sparky produced a fully-formed hand poking out of the sleeve he’d tucked into his pants.  I had to look twice myself, so I’ll repeat.  Sparky had regrown his right hand in just a few hours. Remarkable.

In a day of amazement that one ranked up there somewhere.  To be fair to Sparky, growing a major body part so quickly would have taken first place on most days.  But that particular day provided so much more to think about.  Like Sarah Arias’s sweater, for instance.  And other things, too.  I’m not just a shallow pig.  And it only took three hours for me to rule out the front of Sarah Arias’s sweater as the place I’d find answers.  I can be flexible when I need to be.

Anxious to blend an arm and hand into a situation where most of the gang likely thought him an amputee, Sparky used his new hand to reach into the complimentary bowl of peanuts the waiter placed on the table.  Nobody said anything, so maybe Sparky pulled it off, though I didn’t see J-Rod eat another peanut for the rest of the evening. 

We sat there and talked about nothing for what seemed like forever.  I paid for the first four rounds, Sister Christian covered the last two.  My friends probably thought I was being pleasantly foolish with my bagging tips.  Perfect.  I can pull off foolish with the best of them.  I didn’t protest when Sister Christian offered to cover her two rounds.  Too pleasantly foolish and they’d wonder even more than I thought they already did about the source of my funds.

Earlier I promised you more detail on my bank account.  I’ve decided that detail’s not coming.  At least not yet.  But here’s what I will say.  I don’t think I’m one of the fifty richest people in the world.  Catch what I’m saying?

One and a half liters of German beer—three glasses filled to the 500ml line—will soften a big man’s brain. You’ve got to watch yourself or you’ll start admitting to all the stuff you’ve ever done.  Add a fourth beer and you start admitting to stuff you never did. The guys each consumed at least four.  The girls—Sister Christian and Sarah Arias—had one each. 

And in case anyone’s wondering, it was an honest single glass for Sarah Arias.  I monitored her progress all the way to the bottom. After that, I just attempted to monitor
her
bottom but I think she noticed and pulled her chair closer to the table.  And closer, BTW to Vince who kept reaching for the glass they put the cut flowers in.  Vince drinking the table decoration while snuggled next to Sarah Arias. Where was my camera?

Getting back to Sarah Arias and her beer, I almost hoped she wouldn’t touch her glass.  It would have confirmed what I suspected about her playing the gang for stupid and me for a fool. How would it confirm those things?  Didn’t know, just a feeling.  Confirming the Blood Feud roster would have been nice.  Well, not nice, nice, but nice as in “Aha.  So now I know who I’m facing.”