by J. A. Pitts
I rolled my eyes out of reflex and followed behind them. This was going to be a long breakfast.
Once inside, Gunther held out a chair for Anezka, then me. It was gallant and old-fashioned in a way that wasn’t creepy. Under most circumstances I’d have given him crap about it, but Anezka was eating up the attention.
We ordered eggs, ham and bacon, pancakes, and plenty of hot coffee. By the time the food came, Gunther and Anezka were laughing like old friends.
I sipped my ice water and watched them, wondering if I should just find another table.
Once the food arrived, however, it was down to business.
“Sarah says you know your motorcycles,” Anezka said as she poured hot sauce over her eggs.
Gunther shrugged. “Been riding since I was a kid, tinker around with them when I get a chance.”
“He’s being modest,” I said. “He’s good with engines and making things run.”
“I like a man who is good with his hands,” Anezka said, reaching for the salt and pepper.
Gunther winked at me as she dusted her eggs with pepper, and I almost choked. Totally soap-opera time. It was cute, though. Didn’t think I’d need any syrup for my pancakes at this rate.
Not soon enough, our plates were empty and we were settling down to drink our coffee and chat. The earlier hangover seemed to have faded from Anezka and she appeared much more relaxed.
Gunther picked up the check. As he was paying, Anezka leaned over to me. “I should probably ride with him, show him how to get out to my place, don’t you think?”
Oh, dear lord.
I smiled at her and patted her arm. “Good idea. The directions would be pretty iffy … what with that one sudden turn, right off of Highway 2 onto 209.”
She giggled again, slapped at my hand, and stood up. “I’ll go tell him,” she said.
I drank my coffee and watched her walk up to him as he paid. He stood a good foot or more taller than Anezka, so she had to look up at him, but she had her serious flirt on. If he hadn’t been so damn flirty himself, I’d feel sorry for him.
I’d never seen Gunther like this. Only time I really saw him was at Black Briar events, and most of those he was running with Stuart. “The twins,” as we called the two of them, were the backbone of Black Briar. Jimmy led the group, sure, but the Twins were the dynamic force. Maggie and Susan Hirsch had been another pair of players equally as personable and supporting, but they’d been killed by the dragon, horrible deaths that still haunted my dreams.
Gunther and Anezka rolled back laughing, and it seemed disrespectful all of a sudden.
Gunther dropped two fives on the table and waved from me to the door. “Shall we?”
I stood up, drained the last of my coffee, and set the empty cup on the table.
“Good idea,” I said, and headed to the door. There was definitely something dark in today’s mood, despite the way they carried on. I could feel it.
He held the door for her as she climbed into his truck. They both waved at me as they started off, like I couldn’t see them.
I followed them in the Taurus. At least Anezka sat against the door and not right up against Gunther, but she was turned toward him, talking and laughing the whole way. Maybe he’d put the cane in the seat between them, just to be safe. Made me smile.
Bub was going to have kittens.
Thirty-nine
Gunther did have a day gig that he needed to get to, so we really and truly needed to just look at the motorcycle when we got back to Anezka’s place. Keep it simple. No sweat, right?
I pulled up behind them in my traditional parking place across from her spread. Gunther stood beside his truck, leaning on his cane and eyeballing the place like it was haunted, though I don’t think Anezka noticed at first. She was halfway across the road, rattling on about something or other, when she finally realized that Gunther had stopped dead in his tracks. He was sniffing the air when I got out of my car and walked over to him.
“You feel it, too?”
He glanced at me, straightened his jacket, and nodded.
“Starts about where she’s standing,” I said quietly, pointing at Anezka.
She stood there, crossing her arms and watching us. I didn’t know if she felt it or not. I’d never asked her, which in hindsight seemed like a fairly dumbass move on my part.
Gunther walked forward slowly, setting the cane down with deliberate force, like he was afraid the road was slippery. He paused at the barrier and then pushed onward, carefully, like he was walking into the surf. I followed, felt the usual pressure as I crossed over into her domain, and let the uneasy feeling settle over me once again.
“First the bike,” Gunther said, smiling despite his obvious worry. “Then I would like to discuss a couple of other things.”
Anezka looked at him sideways, a petulant tilt to her smile. “Then, maybe we can discuss dinner sometime.”
Gotta hand it to her. She swung for the fence.
Gunther’s rich baritone laughter rolled over us, and the palpable malaise that surrounded the place faded measurably. “Deal,” he said and walked into the carport.
I parked myself on one of the empty oil drums she hadn’t cannibalized yet and watched as she unburied the bike. It looked like I remembered—long and sleek, with unexpected power and raw energy. Kinda like sex, only in red, black, and chrome. I had a serious hankering to open that beast up on the highway—let the wind wash over me at crazy speed— feel her purring between my thighs.
Man, was it just me, or did things get a little fuzzy there for a moment?
I may have moaned. Anezka and Gunther both looked at me, confused.
I cleared my throat. “Don’t mind me.”
The official inspection began with the fanfare one would expect of a Viking jazz mechanic: after much harrumphing and a few ah-has, Gunther slapped his big hands together and shook his head at us with a tsking reproach.
“Criminal,” he admonished us, “to let a fine piece of machinery like this be so neglected.” He walked across the driveway, turned back, and held one hand up. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. Then he hurried over to his truck and grabbed a box of tools and a charger. Obviously he had some practice, carrying the tools in one hand while he kept his balance with the cane, but I think he was just showing off.
He hooked up a battery charger and began tinkering with some valve or other, checked the oil, even tested the gas in the tank with a dipstick thingy he kept around for such purposes.
Anezka sidled over to me, leaned against my drum, and whispered sotto voce: “He’s dreamy.”
No way he didn’t hear, but we all pretended.
“She’s in pretty good shape,” he announced after a final cursory inventory. “Needs some work, but I think I can get her humming pretty well.”
This time, she waited until he was taking the tools back to his truck before she mentioned how he could make her hum anytime. I mean, seriously.
The charger did its job, and he cranked the bike over. It sputtered and coughed at first, but he revved the engine over and over until the idle smoothed out and the bike didn’t actually rattle apart, despite early indications.
“Injectors are seriously clogged,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag. “New battery, and I’ll have to check out the chain drive, brakes, coolant, the whole nine yards.”
The more he said, the worse I felt. “Bad?” I asked.
He laughed again. “Nothing critical at this point,” he said, smiling at me. “She’s a smoking hot ride.”
I elbowed Anezka before she could say anything, but the way she choked, I could tell she was dying to.
“Anyhoo,” he said, cutting off the engine, “I think I can have her up and running in a few days.”
“So I should buy her?” I asked, glancing between him and Anezka.
“Depends on price,” he said. “But I’d be willing to bet you’d get a good deal.”
“Offer stands,” Anezka said with a nod of her head. �
��Three hundred firm.”
Gunther coughed. “Okay, that’s seriously undervalued. What am I not seeing?”
Anezka shook her head. “Just friend’s discount, that’s all.”
I looked at her—no use lying to Gunther. He knew there was more to the story. “Old lover, bad blood,” I said, shrugging. “Don’t want to inherit any bad karma, but it fits my budget.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Gunther said, looking past us into the smithy. “What’s his take on the whole deal?”
Anezka and I both turned at once. Bub sat on top of the brick forge, preening.
Gunther hadn’t even batted an eye. Was the whole world in on the joke?
I mean, he’d seen the dragon, and the giants, trolls, ogres … hell, he knew about dwarves long before I did, but how could he be so unfazed by all of it?
“Bub lives here,” Anezka said, making it a challenge—territorial all of a sudden.
The thing about protecting a territory is that you lock yourself in, by keeping everyone else out. That likely explained the barrier we felt crossing onto the property. Between her and Bub, they’d built such a wall around them that it had become physical.
“At least this one isn’t a simpering git,” Bub cawed from the other room.
“I assume he means me,” Gunther said, amused.
I looked from one to another. Anezka was about three seconds from fleeing inside the house. Panic covered her face in scarlet blossoms.
Bub was arrogant and demonic, but that was how he always seemed.
“My, my,” Gunther drawled, slipping his thumbs into his belt and stepping between Anezka and Bub. “So this is the beastie that’s been hurting you for so long?”
Anezka opened her mouth but didn’t say anything.
He stepped into the smithy, pressing in on Bub’s domain. “Not quite what I expected under the circumstances, but I guess even the runt of the litter can find a home.”
“Bite me, old man,” Bub said, rising on his toes and snapping his jaws together with a clack. “You’re not the boss of me.”
Gunther flourished his left hand, his fingers crooked in a specific way I couldn’t make out, and called in a booming voice: “Fljúg burt, þú eldskepna!”
There was a sonic implosion, and Bub vanished.
Anezka shrieked and swooned. I slid from the barrel and caught her before she hit the ground. What had happened?
“That won’t keep him away for long,” Gunther said, turning back to us. “But I’d rather not deal with his kind.” He turned to Anezka and shook his head sadly. “How long have you suffered this creature’s presence?”
She struggled upright, shaking. “Suffered?” she squalled. Anger rolled over her like a tidal wave. “What did you do to him? How dare you?”
She pushed away from me and threw a haymaker at Gunther’s head.
He stepped back, deflected the blow, passing it in front of him, and channeled her energy away to the left.
She stumbled with the strength of her swing and nearly fell. He caught her under her arms and hoisted her back to her feet, being careful to step back when she had her feet under her.
And, of course, she spun around and swung at him again. This time she landed an uppercut to his midsection. It was hard enough that Gunther grunted and bent with the force of the blow. Anezka fell to her knees, holding her wrist.
“Oof,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “Need to make a strong fist if you are going to hit someone, though.” He held out a hand to her.
She slapped his hand away from her and stood on her own. For a second I thought she was going to hit him again. Instead, she stormed into the house crying.
He looked at me a moment and quirked his mouth into a grin. “That went well.”
“You made her kobold disappear. How did you expect her to react?”
He shrugged. “He’ll be back. She’s got something here that is tying him to this place.”
That I knew. “Amulet. In the house. Ancient family heirloom.”
“That explains several things, actually,” he said, stepping toward the house and watching the door like she might come out with a gun.
Which reminded me … “She has a shotgun.”
“She’s not gonna shoot me,” he said, smiling. “I’d love to see that amulet sometime.” He glanced over at me and sighed. “And we were getting along so well.”
“Gee, ya think? Any more and I was gonna ask you two to get a room.”
He laughed at that. “I’m sure she has a room here,” he said, grinning. “But I don’t know her that well yet. And,” he waved his hand to take in the smithy, “there is the issue of the demon.”
“Kobold,” I corrected him. “Nothing particularly Christian about him.”
“Interesting choice of words,” he said. “Christians weren’t the first to encounter such creatures. They’ve been around a lot longer than Jesus Christ and his ilk.”
His ilk? Now, I didn’t know a lot about Gunther’s background. I knew he’d grown up in a Jesuit orphanage until middle school. Not much beyond that. “What did you say to him?”
“Just commanded him to leave. He’s a minor beastie, after all. I couldn’t ask one of his bigger cousins to just vanish without something to back it up.”
“Pretty impressive,” I said, leaning against my barrel and looking up into his wide face. “How come you’re not bothered by this?”
“Bothered? Who said I’m not bothered? Holy lug nuts, this is freak city.”
I looked around the place, trying to see what he saw. “Okay, besides Bub there, and the energy barrier which surrounds this place, what else?”
“See those beams?” He pointed up to the rough-hewn logs that made up the roof support of the carport. “They connect the smithy to the house.”
I looked up. Hadn’t really noticed them before. There were images carved there, runes and dancing figures. Demons, women, fire, mayhem.
“She goes to Burning Man a lot,” I offered, as if that mattered.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, walking back a few steps to look at the other side of one of the huge beams. “These are not too out of place with a fire wielder.” He looked directly at me, a wicked gleam in his eye. “One who commands the flame to work the earth.”
“Smithing, you mean?”
“Aye, and more. You are kindred spirits, I think.”
I could see how we both had anger issues alike. We were both passionate about life, and other things. I thought back to the spring, when I’d gotten totally hammered and did that bit of dirty dancing with a couple of cowboys. Anezka wasn’t the only one who let herself get out of control.
“Point taken.”
“Some nice carving there,” he said, pointing to an elaborate bacchanal depiction of drinking and debauchery. Caligula and orgies came to mind.
“So, yeah. That and…” He studied me a moment, then shrugged. “She’s pretty damaged.”
“Well, you were sure flirting hot and heavy there.”
“She’s striking. And totally reciprocating, if I’m not mistaken. Besides, I said she was damaged, not broken.”
That pretty much described me, I thought. “So, she thinks, or thought—before you iced her buddy—that you two were gonna hook up.”
He smiled, sheepishly. “She’s a fascinating woman, that’s for sure.” He stared off into space for a moment, contemplating something, and I left him to his reverie. I couldn’t tell what he was calculating, or what music was in his head, but after a few seconds he smiled at me, then turned around a full circle—taking in the smithy, the house, the detritus, and sculptures. “There is much here to understand.”
“So, you taking her on as a project?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about all this. My head was beginning to hurt, and the secrets were thick. “I have to work with her.”
“Have to? Don’t you have a choice in the matter? You are not without skills and means.”
I narrowed my eyes, letting the heat flush my
cheeks. “I’m just an apprentice. I can’t work without a master. I have to do things right.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“There are rules, you know? Obligations to fulfill.”
“I see.” He tapped the cane on the ground three times, and then hobbled over to the back edge of the carport, looking out over the dragon statue. “We use the word obligation to define our debts to another.”
The sun was high over the mountains by now, moving toward midday.
“These are scores kept in our hearts, and are of no consequence to anyone but ourselves.”
Uh-oh. Now we were treading into different territory. I didn’t want a lecture on Black Briar, or Julie, dragons, fear, fire … damn it. The list was long.
“Jimmy doesn’t blame you,” he said, his voice gentle and quiet. “He’s hurting and scared. Hell, we all are. Sarah, you do not understand the magnitude of what you’ve done.”
“So it’s my fault!” And I was crying again. When the hell had this started? I think it was this place; the energy here sucked.
He turned from the view of the mountains and opened his arms to me.
I stepped forward and let him engulf me in a hug once again. It felt good to put my head on his shoulder. Made me miss my Da all of a sudden.
“No, you misunderstand,” he said, making shushing sounds.
After a second, I pushed away from him, wiping my face. “I’m not sorry I killed Jean-Paul.”
“No, and nor should you be. But you have opened yourself and others to a world that has been hidden from most of us for eons.”
“I killed Bub once already, did you know that?” I asked, feeling hysteria huddling along the edges of my brain. “Bashed his head in with a fire extinguisher, and he came back to discuss it.”
“You did what I did, really. Only with a little more force. He’s not really here, not truly. If you saw his true form, it would likely drive you mad.”
Here we were, discussing demons and dragons in Anezka’s carport like we were still discussing the motorcycle. I couldn’t take it.
“Gunther. You know I think the world of you, and Stuart … and…” I took a deep breath, keeping it together. “And Jimmy.”