Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) (16 page)

It’s not the building that matters, but rather the faith of the people who built it and of those who gather inside it.  That’s what marks ground as hallowed.  Or not.  From what I’ve seen in the grand old church buildings dotting every city or hamlet of Europe today, the visitors come with cameras.  Some fool in Bad Homburg turned the old church around the corner from Herr Doktor’s place into a concert hall.  Why did anyone need demons when men did the work for them?

Why all the detail on my thought process for deciding on the trip?  To prove I’m not just a pretty face.  And given what went down in Aachen, maybe I’m reaching for self-justification.  A lot buzzed through my brain.  And not just the craziness of the previous night.  I mean, in addition to the knife in the back and the fights with Soyla, the pygmy cannibal, and the demons, I had an appointment with The Seven, Soyla lurking somewhere nearby, Sarah Arias and her demons working against me, I’d been outed as a vampire to my friends, and Karl had delivered a fresh pile on the floor.  The dog never ate.  Incredible. 

We’d go to Aachen.  Broad daylight on the train, daylight in the cathedral.  We could eat supper near the train station before heading home early in the evening.  We’d all agreed on the schedule Sister Christian laid out for us. People around us the whole time.  I could act both cooperative and inclusive and not expose my friends to that avalanche coming down the virtual mountain.

Sparky’s strange reaction to Charlemagne had us on the move to Aachen.  Cows in the chute?  I didn’t think so, but with Sparky you could never be sure.  Should I worry about everything that had Sparky’s scent on it?  I’d be crazy not to.  Did I think Sparky was running a game on me? Definitely. He’d have no qualms about collateral damage—my friends—but I hadn’t seen any reason to believe the bagger gang represented chess pieces on Sparky’s board.

Everyone would hop the train in Bad Homburg. The plywood tunnel would be filled with scurrying Germans who’d trundle over any demon foolish enough to tarry for mischief.  On the way home we’d split up in the large, busy Deutsche Bahn hub in Frankfurt.  S-Bahn to Bad Homburg, S-Bahn to Wiesbaden.  Everyone home.  Everyone safe. Well, maybe not me, but I’d spent centuries living in danger from one thing or another so my life wouldn’t change.

A trip to Aachen would get the gang off my back.  More importantly, it would get them out of my apartment.  And seeing normal life again, like rushing to catch the Deutsche Bahn and having a beer in Aachen, might make them not so much doubt the veracity of what they saw the night before, but cause them to play down the implications. Maybe then they’d forget to drill me with more vampire questions and we could return to our normal lives at the commissary.  All upside, no downside.  So why did I see Helmet standing and shaking his head?

Chapter 23

No idea what was on Helmet’s mind.  The ghost could be vindictive—tampons—and contrary—stepping over steaming Karl sculptures rather than cleaning up after his dog.  And who knows why ghosts exist. Haunting implies misery for the living.  If that’s the job description then no wonder Helmet got himself caught and shot as a spy.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s a real pain in the neck.  But the positives outweigh the negatives so the net is nowhere near misery.  I love it when I talk in financial terms. Of course, maybe he’d just beaten me into submission.

Helmet continued to shake his head.  Contrary Helmet?  Or was he just warning me to not put the smartphone and its treasure trove of Soyla photos in my pocket. 
Probably the second.
  I thought about the embarrassment of another trip to the ladies at German customs and placed the phone on the table.  I didn’t need it anyway because anyone I might call would be going on the jaunt to Aachen.

“You know how to access them,” I said to Helmet.

“Access what?” said Watanabe.

I felt no need to respond.  I’d acquired an aura of vampire spookiness.  I could tell because my friends seemed to be working extra hard to treat me normal.  So if I had to put up with their baloney, no harm in taking advantage of the situation.

Yes, things changed between my fellow baggers and me.  But who could blame them after going a couple of rounds with demons and spending a good portion of the night hearing about my condition.  And about my life. A life so long that none of them—normal people—could understand it vis-à-vis any frame of reference.  Oh I’d still be one of the gang, I’d earned that much over the past couple of years.  At the same time they’d form a subset within the group that didn’t include me.

Sparky surprised me by declining the invitation.  On the other hand, I couldn’t say I wasn’t pleased.  If he came along it would be to shepherd us clear of anything important.  And there’d be his constant yakking.  We’d all end up so sick of his voice that we’d voluntarily give ourselves up to any demons that might cross our path. Anything to avoid Sparky.

Bottom line, if Sparky wanted us to miss something about Aachen then he’d do best to come with us.  He knew it the same as I did. And he decided to remain behind.  Of course it could all be another of his manipulations, though I’ve made the mistake of giving him credit for extraordinary subtlety too many times to count. True enough, but I’d also made the mistake of underestimating his propensity for intrigue.

Everyone gathered what they’d brought to my flat the previous night—that would be themselves—and we headed for the door.  Sparky didn’t get out of bed to see us off.  Probably better.  I’d known the gang for a few years.  Well, not just known them, I’d been a full member of the bagging clique.  No doubt they were having a difficult enough time coming to grips with my condition.  And there was that whole leprous sub world living alongside them each and every day they’d now need to consider.  Having Sparky around—a stranger who looked the part of the cliché vampire—you get the picture. 

We went out the door and into the hallway that smelled more of stale tobacco than the average bowling alley in Raleigh before they passed the ban.  I could hear Herr Doktor working to cough up one of his lungs…or perhaps he was thinking of Sarah Arias and laughing at whatever private joke they shared.

Out the door and up the sidewalk toward Louisenstrasse, and back down the incline toward the train station.  We stopped in the little Deutsche Bahn office and purchased roundtrip tickets.  It was easier than using the machine—somebody’s credit card would end getting declined.  It always happened that way with people earning just enough to scrape by.

Forcing Frau Happy Train Chick to put down her cell phone and sell a ticket always made my day.  Of course it wasn’t her real name, but that was how I chose to read that long German nametag.  She spoke passable English, but I always pretended I didn’t understand.  I think she thought it was cute…the way I’d ask her to repeat everything three or four times.  It always ending with Frau Happy throwing my ticket at me.

Pleasure radiated off her face when she saw me walk through the door with four additional customers.  Frau Happy rummaged around her workspace for a moment as I walked up to the counter.  It was a little bottle of pepper spray that she found in the top drawer and sat beside her keyboard.  The lengths some people go to in order to conceal their joy.

“Five tickets to Aachen,” I said.  “One to return to Bad Homburg, four to Wiesbaden.”

The look on her face made me wonder if I’d asked her to flash her boobies.

“One ticket at a time, please,” Frau Happy said.

So we did the necessary dance and she booked all the seats.  The ticketing process is reminiscent of what the airline agents used to go through to book a flight in the early 1970’s.  A lot of manual interaction.  I waited until she was ready to push the print button and said,

“And we all want reserved seats.”

The look on Frau Happy’s face made the extra fifteen minutes worth the wait.  None of the bagger gang said a word.  They knew modern Germans as well as I did and I’m certain they expected the Deutsche Bahn Gestapo to break down the door at any second. They needn’t have worried because I knew exactly how far I could push Frau Happy.

She handed me the tickets and I pretended not to notice a look in her eye that would have felt at home in Dachau.  As soon as I had what I wanted safely in hand, I engaged Frau Happy in small talk.  Germans don’t do small talk with people they don’t consider friends.  I think they’d be more inclined to go ahead and do the boobie flash. Small talk between Frau Happy and me meant a hundred complex questions from me and a hundred one-word answers from her.  We’re talking real fun here.

Sister Christian stepped forward and grabbed my arm to guide me away from the counter.

“Thanks,” she said to Frau Happy Train Chick.

“Your son should learn to use the machines outside.”  

It didn’t sound much like “You’re welcome,” but at least it was a response.  Frau Happy usually just gave me the two-eyed death dagger.

“Please forgive him,” said Sister Christian, “my husband dropped him when he was young.”

Frau Happy’s nodded.  Made sense to her.  It was the way things were done with simple people.

“Bitch,” Sister Christian said after the door closed behind us.

“Which one of you two are we talking about?” I said.

“Ha,” she said.  “My son?”  And then, “Really,” in that final tone only the female half of our race—and some male Brits—can muster.

That got a snicker from everyone and it felt like the old bagger gang as we joined the Saturday trickle of people working their way through the plywood tunnel.  No demon ushers this time and the Germans had already repaired the hole made by the lone human attacker I threw through the wall.  Did they retrieved Colossus or just brick him in?  Guess it depended on EU labor laws.

We boarded the S5 for Frankfurt on Platform 3 and did the twenty minutes without comment.  The guys bought French Fries and beer at a stand in the Frankfurt main station and we found the track that would take us to Aachen.

A lot of empty seats so we wasted our money on the reservations.  I didn’t mind, though.  Mainly because I wanted to keep an eye on everyone.  And only partly because of safety.  Even demons wouldn’t challenge the way things are done on Deutsche Bahn.  The main reason I wanted us all together?  To make sure the boys didn’t go off into their own cars to talk about things. 

Any eavesdropping German would consider them crazy.  End of story. No harm. It was the possibility of French passengers that worried me.  Those people swallowed just about any cock and bull story.  With them, loose lips could end up causing me trouble.

I slid into the seat next to Sister Christian and her stalwart underwear.  The boys sat two in front, one behind. The train went direct so we’d avoid the hassle of getting off at an interim station and finding our way to the next ride.  Sometimes DB cuts things close—like two minutes between arrival and departure.  I let my seat back and pretended to sleep.  Call me paranoid, but I was interested in what the guys might say.  I tuned in with my Superfly hearing.

Sister Christian raised the armrest between us and made herself comfortable against me. 
She
really did go to sleep.  If anyone thinks we looked like a couple of lovers sitting there they’d be kind of right.  No matter how sexy I thought Sister Christian looked and how often I obsessed over her foxy body, I cared more about her than that.  Barf.

That’s a fancy way of saying Sister Christian was too smart and experienced for me so it ain’t going to happen.

Bonnie Prince MacDonald snored behind and J-Rod and Watanabe were happy to play games on their phones.  The lull provided my first opportunity for clear thought since the tornado of confusion known as Hurricane Sparky arrived in the commissary parking lot.  No matter how many brain cells I diverted from the mystery of Sister Christian’s private wardrobe, my total knowledge equaled nada. 

The trip to Aachen kicked off more out of blind instinct and a growing desperation to do something than it did anything else. Like maybe planning or a scientific approach to checking through the boxes and arriving at a hypothesis. On the other hand, I work best when I think the least.  React to the punches.  That probably sounds like self-justification for my inherent disorganization.  Probably sounds that way because that’s what it is.

I thought about things.  Sparky’s reaction to Charlemagne got us all moving and I wondered again whether I caught a glimpse of something he didn’t want me see or if I saw something intentional.  I still had that vague notion of a cow herded down the chute to slaughter.  I shook it off.  Sparky’s good, but he’ll never win an Oscar. 

German countryside passed by our window as I tried remembering everything I could about the look on Sparky’s face when he saw the Charlemagne pages up on my monitor.  I also tried to recall all he said afterward.  Nothing.

Could a flame still burn in his heart for King Chucky’s weekend woman?  That’s not Sparky.  He could fill a twenty-seven volume encyclopedia with nothing but love escapades—good and bad—and need to update it with a yearbook every twelve months.

A grudge against Charlemagne for an execution that bordered on psycho-gruesome?  I thought about that possibility as the DB lady punched our tickets with that validation device they all carry around.  Maybe, but probably not.

Many kings invited Sparky into their courts and it almost always ended badly for Sparcius.  Kings took very little crap in those days.  It usually took only one or two of Sparky’s shenanigans to breach threshold.  And there were those times Sparky got himself executed on purpose just so could close the chapter on one portion of his life and reset.

With the Ticket Lady satisfied and Sister Christian’s head resettled on my chest, I took that unscheduled trip down memory lane while DB whisked us to Aachen at more than 100mph.  Sparky’s ability to endure pain in order to make the sting believable.

You know those kings with hundreds of wives and triple the children?  Ever wonder how they could get all of the happy work done and retain enough energy to conquer their neighbors?  I smiled.  Many of them went on the anonymous Sparky-assist program.  The guy had looks and kings picked pretty boys to guard the harems.

Old Sparks would intentionally get himself captured.  If they executed the prisoners he’d try a different tact.  If they kept a few as slaves, Sparky would usually find himself one of the chosen.  It often ended up harem duty for him.  As a eunuch.  That meant he got himself captured just so some guy could cut off his nut sack and put him in charge of making sure no other guy had a go at the wives.  Like setting the cat among the pigeons.  Sparks could regrow marbles faster than Karl can conjure a steaming ghost-dog dooly.   

He’d get caught.  Even Sparky couldn’t keep up with the workload and one of the women would eventually feel neglected.  An every-rose-has-its-thorn situation.  No problem for Sparky.  Another execution and then a whole world of new opportunities out there.  I suspect the harem gig was the only job Sparky ever put his heart into…among other things.  I chuckled.

Sister Christian stirred and then resettled.  I stowed those mental videos of the old days and fell asleep.  One moment I saw Sparky crawling from bed to bed in some long ago desert city and the next I heard the telltale sound of cap removal from beer bottles.  J-Rod, Watanabe, and the Prince had each snagged a beer from the dining cart.  I checked my phone for the time—oops, I checked my pocket for where my phone should be.  Hope Helmet appreciated my sacrifice.

I reached through the seats in front of me and tapped J-Rod.

“How long?” I said.

“About twenty more minutes.”

“And thanks for the beer,” I said.

“Whatcha needing beer for Homey,” J-Rod responded.  “You got Sister Christian, man.”

We arrived on time—it’s the way things are done—and walked to the ancient marketplace.  Centuries separated that day from my last visit to Aachen though, once we hit the large square with the market on one end and the cathedral on the other, it looked familiar to me.  Could have been my imagination.

We decided to stop for a pick-me-up at a small restaurant in the square.  I prefer eating outside but there were no tables available.  The interior was old and heavy, the ceiling within an easy arm’s reach for me.  The walls weren’t original to the building and looked like a post-war addition.