Don't Give A Dwarf (Dwarf Bounty Hunter Book 2)

by Martha Carr

  The creature sighed. “Much better.”

  “I bet that comes in handy.”

  “On the rare occasion when I am skewered by a hunter, yes.”

  Johnny snorted. “Well, you put up a hell of a fight. I’ll give you that. Fightin’ for your kid too. Where else did this guy tell you to strike?”

  “I have no details of the others. Not yet. I was told there are four resorts. The one you stopped me from reaching would have been the second. They only give me one location at a time.”

  “And keep stringin’ you along much like I hauled you out here.” The dwarf tossed the harpoon onto the airboat with a clang. “Where do you meet with this shithead?”

  “I can’t return until I do what they expect.” Her voice trembled with something close to terror.

  “Well, you can’t simply swim out of here and go blow up a Naples resort, either.”

  “Johnny—”

  He looked sharply at Lisa. “Come on, darlin’. It might look like it, but this ain’t a black-and-white situation.”

  “I don’t want to,” Una added. “But I can’t return to them tonight with nothing to show for my efforts. Which you so fortunately interrupted because I had no desire to do so, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Tonight, huh? Go meet with ʼem anyway.”

  A shuddering hiss rose from her trembling body and her tentacles whipped with more force against the mud. “They’ll kill my offspring.”

  “No, they won’t. They’ll wanna hear from you why it wasn’t done.” He spread his arms placatingly. “And I’ll be there to tell them. I have a feeling these bastards are the same as those who tried to start trouble for me too today ʼcause they knew I was chasin’ you. You tell me where you’re supposed to meet, and I promise you I’ll get you your kid back. As long as you’re not spinnin’ a yarn and tryin’ to strangle me with it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Lisa nudged him with her elbow. “He means as long as you’re telling us the truth.”

  Una stared unwaveringly at him. “You had me tied and pinned halfway on land, dwarf. Why would I lie to you?”

  Johnny sniffed and scratched under his nose. “Yeah, good point.” The draksa did say these beings were intelligent. “But I can’t help you if I don’t know where to be.”

  “The place is called the Flamingo for Visitors, or something like it.”

  “The Flamingo Visitors Center?” he asked.

  “Yes. Two miles up the western coast from there. Midnight.”

  “Goddamn tourists.” The bounty hunter nodded. “I know it. We won’t leave you hangin’, Una. Or…floatin’, I reckon. But be ready for anything.”

  “That is easily done. You have been the most surprising aspect of this entire ordeal.”

  Lisa snorted a laugh and covered her mouth quickly.

  “Yeah, I hear that often one way or another.” He nodded. “I’m not sure how long that Crystal magic will last. I wish I’d known all this before I shot you up with it.”

  “Ah.” The Logree’s body trembled again and her tentacles curled and uncurled quickly as something like a laugh escaped her. “So that’s what dampens my secretions.”

  “The purple goo? Yeah.”

  “By the time I see you again, dwarf, it will be restored. Logree are resilient.”

  “That might be an understatement,” the agent said.

  All three remained where they were and Una splashed herself with swamp water again. “I would appreciate some assistance off this bank.”

  “Oh. Right.” Johnny waded toward her and scowled at her tentacles, but they moved out of his way as he approached her head. “I don’t wanna poke your eyes out or nothin’.”

  “You can’t.”

  He placed both hands on her glistening body-head, tried to avoid her eyes anyway, and pushed. The Logree’s flesh pressed inward beneath his palms and she snorted.

  “Sorry.”

  “A little more, I think.”

  “Here.” Lisa waded toward them too, ignored her sopping wet pants, and stepped carefully to avoid losing another shoe in the swamp. She bent at the knees and pressed her shoulder against Una’s face.

  “One…two…three.” The dwarf grunted and pushed against the creature with his shoulder this time in an effort to lift her somewhat.

  Together, they unbeached the incendiary sea creature from Oriceran. Una’s tentacles slapped into the water as she reoriented herself. She bobbed away from the bank and pushed herself up at least four feet to expose all twelve eyes. “I hope to see you in three hours, dwarf. And you, Lisa.”

  “We’ll be there.” Agent Breyer raised a hand for a slightly awkward wave, and the Logree swam away again downriver toward the gulf.

  Johnny cleared his throat. “She remembers your name, but I’m simply ‘dwarf,’ huh?”

  She gave him a sidelong glance and shrugged. “You’re the one who shot her with a harpoon. And half a dozen crossbow bolts. And two—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” He gathered the severed pieces of his roped netting and hauled them onto the airboat. “It’s time to head home and swap out supplies. We’re goin’ for the real fuckers behind this mess. On land.”

  Lisa hopped onto the airboat and steadied herself with more poise this time as he untied the craft and shoved it away from the bank. He joined her with a wet thud and started the huge propeller. “I can’t believe no one at the department looked into this closely enough to see what was truly going on,” she muttered

  “You can’t believe a group of suits sittin’ in their workboxes got lazy and dropped this into our lap to let us take care of the problem?”

  “I guess. But a kidnapped Oriceran used as bait to blackmail an even bigger monster? That’s an important angle.”

  “ʼS long as it’s true.” He turned them slowly on the river before he twisted the throttle and they raced through the Everglades toward home.

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “I’m takin’ her word for it, darlin’. Like she said, she’s got no reason to make up somethin’ like that. Makes sense if those chickenshits who ran away screamin’ from Ronnie’s were sent by the same chickenshit holdin’ a magical baby squid hostage.”

  “But you’re not doing this only to get back at them for threatening you.”

  “Naw.” He smirked and hooked his free thumb through his belt loop. “I’ll get a certain satisfaction out of it. But I reckon I also have a soft spot for anyone doin’ what they have to do to keep a kid safe. Even a kid with two dozen tentacles.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  There was no sign of Amanda or the hounds when they returned to the cabin shortly after the last traces of twilight faded from the Everglades. Johnny tapped the note he’d left for the girl on the wall. “I reckon she’d have torn it off and ripped it up if she’d come home already.”

  “Or left it there.”

  He walked through the kitchen to the back of the house and called from the mudroom inside the back door. “The hounds ain’t been fed, either. They wouldn’t have let her get away with not feedin’ ʼem this late.”

  “So they haven’t been back at all.” Lisa opened the girl’s bedroom door to peer inside, but that was empty too.

  “I guess not.” He strode through the kitchen and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t say I’m a fan of knowin’ she’s out after dark. But shifters can see in the—”

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to answer the call. “Ain’t it past your bedtime, Arthur?”

  The man chuckled on the other line. “Most nights, Johnny, yeah. But I got a young woman and two coonhounds here at my place keepin’ me company.”

  “Is everyone okay?”

  Lisa turned to him with a questioning look and he nodded.

  “Oh, sure. We’re all as right as rain. Well, at the very least, she’s safe. And now you know where she is.”

  Johnny sniffed. “She’s still pissed at me, huh?”
r />   “Yeah, that’s one way to put it. You want me to put her on?”

  “Does she wanna be put on?”

  The phone rustled as the man presumably pressed it against his chest, which didn’t do anything to block out the sound of him asking Amanda if she wanted to talk to her guardian. He cleared his throat. “Uh… sorry, Johnny. I don’t think she’s feeling up to it.”

  “Did she say that?”

  The man chuckled. “She said, ‘Hell no,’ to be honest. I thought I’d letcha down easy.”

  “All right. Thanks for keepin’ an eye on her. And for the call.”

  “You bet.”

  The dwarf ran a hand through his hair, stepped into the hall, and peered absently through the door into Amanda’s bedroom. “I got somewhere to be in a few hours, Arthur. Might not be here when she decides to come home. Can you tell her somethin’ for me? I reckon she’ll pull the stuffin’ out of her ears if it’s comin’ from you.”

  “You might be right.”

  “Tell her after tonight, we’re gonna sit down just the two of us and have a real talk ʼbout what’s goin’ on.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Naw, that should do it.”

  “All right. I’ll keep you updated.” Arthur ended the call, and Johnny shoved his phone into his pocket with a scowl.

  “At least she’s safe,” Lisa said.

  “Yep.” With a heavy sigh, the bounty hunter stepped into his workshop and scanned the contents of his shelves. “And outta mind for now. I gotta focus on puttin’ together the right gear. You know, the kind for huntin’ monsters on two legs who use baby creatures as leverage.”

  “It’s not like we haven’t done it before,” Lisa said and joined him at the table.

  “True. I wish we hadn’t.”

  They loaded his weapons and a cache of explosives into the back of the Jeep and headed out through the Everglades at 11:15 pm. Johnny drove like a sane person—despite taking the side roads at a little over seventy miles an hour the whole way—and didn’t have to dim his brights once with no other traffic this late at night. “These Logree-snatchers will be expectin’ somethin’ comin’ in at ʼem from the water. They won’t bother to check what’s headin’ their way from the road.”

  “We’re not simply gonna drive right into their little meetup, are we?”

  He snorted. “Naw. That’d be fun, but I aim to listen in long enough to make sure that tentacled mama is who she says she is. Make sure we ain’t had the wool pulled over our eyes.”

  “And if we did?”

  The dwarf nodded toward the back of the Jeep. “What d’ya think the Crystal-laced shells were for, darlin’?”

  “That’s a last resort, Johnny.”

  “’Course it is. Better’n no resort.”

  Lisa stared at him and they both chuckled. “Pun not intended, right?”

  “Naw, but it fits.”

  Johnny lifted a middle finger at the closed building boasting Everglade airboat tours when they passed, then drove another mile up the road. He pulled Sheila off onto the shoulder in the first place he knew the wet swampland wouldn’t suck her down and carry her away at the height of the tide and they unloaded his gear from the back and began to strap it in place.

  Lisa snorted when he struggled to secure three different firearms over his head and shoulder and the barrels clacked noisily against each other. “Do you need a hand?”

  “No.” He paused, rolled his eyes, and removed one of the rifles. “But if it makes you feel better, you can carry this one.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She gave him an exasperated glance, took the weapon, and turned it in her hands. “I’m not sure I’m familiar with this particular model.”

  “That’s ʼcause it ain’t on the market, darlin’. Public or private.” He pointed out the safety, chamber, and how to release the magazine. “Jam it against anythin’ solid. It pops out and you have an empty magazine waitin’ for a reload.”

  “I thought you made improved weapons.” She smacked the magazine with the side of her fist and caught it as it ejected. “This seems more like a liability. Anyone or anything could hit it and no more ammo.”

  “That’s a long-range weapon. Anyone or anything wouldn’t get close enough to touch it. Only you.”

  “What caliber?”

  The dwarf grinned at her and shut the swinging door of Sheila’s trunk. “Boom 5. Technically 4.5, but I’m roundin’ up.”

  “Right.” Lisa reinserted the magazine carefully and strung the strap over her head and shoulder. “Because then you’d ruin your six-level Boom system.”

  “You’re catchin’ on quick, darlin’. Come on.” He patted Sheila’s side as he passed, turned quickly, and pointed at the agent. “If you have to take a shot with that, make sure you aim real good.”

  She responded with a quiet laugh. “I’m very sure aiming real good was covered in my training. And field experience.”

  “Just sayin’.”

  They moved quickly down the empty road toward Una’s meeting location with sufficient starlight on a clear night in late May to light their path. When they reached a wide right-hand bend, the sound of angry voices carried with perfect clarity across the water. Johnny nudged Lisa’s shoulder, then pointed at the reeds that grew along the winding road and blocked the dock at the end of the road from view.

  She nodded and followed him quietly through the reeds. They moved slowly and their cautious footsteps through the two inches of water left at low tide made barely any noise above the drone of crickets and cicadas and the occasional splash of nocturnal wildlife around them. Stealth was aided by the fact that the men meeting Una at the dock were way too loud to hear anything coming toward them.

  Stupid motherfuckers.

  Johnny paused at the edge of the reeds and peered out at the dock. The kidnappers and their boss had brought bright floodlights connected to a humming generator in the back of one of their trucks. The lights were aimed at the water off the dock and illuminated Una’s waving tentacles and her glistening purple-black flesh. Four unsubmerged eyes blinked heavily against the harsh light, but she’d kept her end of the bargain at least. She was there.

  “See, I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re here and that resort in Naples is still standing out there.” A man’s nasally voice carried from the dock above the sounds of his hired guns readjusting their stances and tightening their grasps on their weapons. The bounty hunter counted five of them.

  I’m good with those odds.

  Una snorted an agitated breath and a small puff of purple mist. “I already told you. I was intercepted.”

  “Well, who the fuck by?”

  “I don’t know. But I was shot and had to rest in order to heal.”

  Intelligent and crafty. None of that was a lie. She’s forgotten my name by now and doesn’t know who I am other than “dwarf.”

  The man shouting on the dock stepped forward through the floodlights and his shadow shortened in front of him and in crossed doubles on either side. “You expect me to believe some random boater gearing up for summer vacation shot you enough to stop you? Where’s the wound? Where’s the moaning and groaning about how much it hurts?”

  The Logree slapped a tentacle on the water, although not hard enough that the splash reached the man interrogating her. “You have seen what I can do.”

  “Sure. Those disgusting noodly arms of yours are strong enough to remove a projectile. Maybe even a harpoon. And then you simply healed yourself without so much as a scar, is that it?”

  Una’s eyes blinked wearily against the floodlights. “You know exactly how it works. You have seen it many times.”

  The man reached behind him toward one of his thugs, who stepped forward and handed him a long metal rod. “I do. And I’m gonna see it again and again until you decide to tell me the goddamn truth.”

  “Please don’t.” She stared at the sparking tip of the electric rod in the man’s hand. “That’s completely unnecessary.”


  “For you, maybe.” He stepped toward the edge of the dock, joined by two of his hired men wielding some kind of enhanced whips that threw crackling orange sparks.

  Those two are magicals, even if he’s not. Why the hell won’t she fight back?

  “Give me another day,” she begged and her tentacles roiled out of the water like so many writhing snakes. “I will have it done. I promise.”

  “Oh, I know. But see, you didn’t go back to Naples where you were supposed to be to finish the job. That should’ve happened tonight before you slithered back here to give me a bullshit report I don’t like the sound of.”

  The sparking tip of the electric rod lit a circle of Una’s flesh as it drew closer to her head. Her eyes widened. “Please.”

  “You know exactly what happens to that little grub of yours if you so much as raise a gooey appendage at me, don’t you? Don’t you?”

  “Yes!” Una snorted in fear and anger and released a spray of water all around her.

  “Good.” The man shoved the prod tip against the Logree’s flesh and her entire body flared with crackling white-blue lines as she flailed and splashed in the water.

  Her scream sent a ripple of gooseflesh down Lisa’s arms and back. “Johnny—”

  “I know. Only one more minute.”

  The magicals with the orange-flashing whips attacked the thrashing creature and added more color to her illuminated body. But she still didn’t try to escape.

  “Stop! Stop it, please!” Una shrieked. “You’re hurting her!”

  “Johnny, her offspring,” Lisa whispered in horror.

  “He’s torturin’ both of ʼem.” Damn creature could’ve said they feel each other too.

  The bounty hunter lurched forward through the reeds and slogged out of the low-tide muck onto the side of the road closest to the dock. He fired a shot at the closest floodlight, which shattered and winked out. The man and his two thugs with the whips ducked and whirled to face the dwarf’s dark shadow moving toward them from the road.