by Alex Archer
“What is it, Melanie? Is it the baby? The funeral?”
“Not the funeral. I could not attend in my condition.”
Santos shot Annja a stern look. “You should not have come here when we are burying one of our own.”
“Santos, Marcus is gone!” the woman cried. “The mullo has taken him!”
“You see!” Santos stabbed Annja with a vicious glare. His jaws hardened. “Look what you have started!”
She had started nothing that couldn’t be explained rationally. Or criminally. “Who is Marcus?”
“Her son.” Santos braced the woman and led her in the direction she had come from. Not far off more houses edged the forest. One was draped with a white ribbon across the door. The dead boy’s home, Annja assumed. “You’ve cursed us all, Annja Creed.”
The woman Annja had spoken with last night, Mamma, dashed out of her home and, giving Annja only a cursory glance, she went after Santos and the pregnant woman.
“It’s Marcus!” Santos called to his mother.
“Oh, blessed mercy,” Mamma cried.
Compelled to follow, Annja vacillated. With a funeral going on, she wouldn’t be greeted with open arms by anyone in this tight-knit community. And now this. Another missing child?
There had to be a means to infiltrate the Romani ranks and suss out details. If a child was missing, someone should contact the authorities. Annja knew they wouldn’t.
And in that case, someone had to begin tracking the child immediately. Before the trail wore thin.
* * *
SANTOS, HIS MOTHER and the grieving pregnant woman entered a house ahead of Annja, who hung back near a parked pickup truck. It was early, before noon. Luke had mentioned the funeral was in the morning, but he hadn’t said where it was going to be held. If it hadn’t taken place yet, the family and friends would be fasting and preparing for the ceremony, which involved a possible funeral march to the cemetery. She had no idea where they planned to bury the child. There must be a cemetery in town, because she couldn’t imagine them burying the child out here after the panic regarding the mullo. A dinner would follow the funeral, she knew, along with singing and dancing.
Had Santos cast a glance over his shoulder, spying Annja, before smoothly closing the screened door behind him? He had to have seen her. She wasn’t hiding. Just hanging back, measuring how wise it would be to barge in on the family.
There was something in Annja that could not ignore an endangered child. Most people with a conscience wouldn’t. Yet having been an orphan herself... She had to learn what was going on. If the best she could achieve was to convince someone to call the police, she felt she would be doing what she could.
Marching up to the house, she slid her fingers down the rusted wire screening on the rickety wood door. The inner door was open and she could hear the woman, Melanie, wailing between sniffles and explaining what had happened. She had sent her son Marcus to the store in town to buy sugar and bread, and he hadn’t returned. The father was out cruising the streets of Chrastava right now, searching for the boy.
“It was the mullo!” someone cried. “Taking vengeance on us through our children. What have we done?”
“Santos?” she heard Mamma ask.
Did the elder woman suspect her son had a reason to fear a vengeful undead? Santos didn’t respond. He was involved in this mess beyond merely protecting his people. She felt it to her bones.
But could she connect him to Bracks? Bracks would need a man on the inside if he was using the Roma’s superstitions as he’d alluded to. What a more perfect ally than someone who lived in the community?
Yet why would Santos have reason to scare his clan mates this way? And to endanger children? He was obviously a leader. The woman had come to him after her husband had gone out in search of their child. They trusted him. Was that trust mislaid?
Enough with the speculation. Annja pushed open the screen door and walked inside through the empty kitchen into the living area. There, among the decades-old furniture tufted with loose stuffing and a matted shag carpet, half a dozen people stood, all focused on the wailing mother. They didn’t immediately notice Annja.
She met Santos’s gaze and felt his disdain.
“Do you have a picture of the boy?” she asked, bringing everyone around to gape at the gorja in the room. “You should get a picture to the police quickly, so the search can begin. Along with information about height, clothing, hair and eye color—”
“It’s her!” a man she didn’t recognize cried. “The one who dug up the cause of our grief.”
The evil eye was flung at her from more than a few fists.
“That skull is not the reason behind your missing son,” Annja protested. “Someone kidnapped him.” She wanted to add allegedly, since who could know right now if he had been taken or had merely wandered off and gotten lost? “Real people. Not mullos or vampires, or any kind of vengeful dead thing.”
“Ah!” The pregnant woman sank to her knees, another woman’s arms about her shoulders.
“Santos, get rid of her!” Mamma ordered, then turned to face Annja. “You are no longer welcome here. Can you not see we are in mourning?”
Santos moved toward her, and Annja put up her hands in placation. She stood her own in the doorway. “I apologize that I had to come here today. I think you all need to be smart about this. Why aren’t you being the smart one in the room?” she asked Santos. “They need a leader to guide them, not help them sink deeper into this nonsense about vengeful dead.”
“Get out,” he said, and shoved her shoulder roughly.
Annja stepped through the kitchen, the ranks of Gypsies closing up behind her and Santos to protect the wailing mother. When her back hit the screen door, she paused before pushing it open.
“You saw me follow you here,” she challenged. “You could have stopped me, protected your people from the woman who dug up the mullo. That makes me think you wanted them to see me. For what reason? To further rile them? Are you involved with Bracks, Santos?”
“Who are you?” He swung the door open and shoved her outside. Following her, he gripped her arm to swing her around to face him. “You will leave now, or I will inform the police.”
“You want to call the police on little ole me, but not for an innocent and helpless child, who could very well be in worse danger than I could ever present.”
“You do not understand our ways. We will handle this—”
“Don’t give me that persecuted Gypsy excuse again. I think you’re helping Bracks use those outdated beliefs to hide something from your friends and family. Do you know Weston Bracks?”
“The man is—” Giving a frustrated grunt, Santos swung a fist at Annja.
She dodged and, tilting to the side, swung up a leg and kicked him squarely in the gut, sending him stumbling backward against a rusted pickup truck. The vehicle swayed on its sagging tires with his weight.
“I don’t want this fight,” she said, keeping her fists up defensively before her face as she waited for him to right himself. “Those people inside need someone to take charge and reassure them. And I certainly don’t want to create a stir with a funeral today. But you seem to want me to be here—to need the anger my presence fuels in your people. You know what happened to the boy, don’t you?”
Santos charged, bending low and grabbing her about the hips, plowing her to the ground. She skidded across grass and dirt. A fist missed her jaw and smashed her shoulder. Dirt sifted into her eyes. She managed to knee his solar plexus, and scratch his neck. The man yelped at the pain as she drew blood. Pulling away from the hit, he plunged onto her gut with his entire body weight, bruising a rib.
The man fought dirty. But Annja could give as good as she got. Elbowing him in the jaw loosened his grip on her wrist. She tossed a handful of dirt over her shoulder and he spa
t and stumbled off her.
Ruling out using the sword because he hadn’t drawn his blade, Annja jumped up to a squat and, as she came to a stand, swung up a roundhouse kick, clocking Santos soundly in the head.
The screen door flapped open. Those inside crowded in the doorway. One woman shouted for Santos to do something, which Annja didn’t consider very ladylike.
Annja backed in the direction from which she had come, the forest behind her rustling in the breeze. “Santos, there are things we have to discuss. Things that can wait until after the funeral.”
She turned and marched off along the forest edge toward the first home, which belonged to Santos and Mamma.
Twenty seconds later, Santos grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into a faster pace. “I want to see you leave Chrastava and never turn back.”
“I’m only returning to the hotel. I’m not about to leave town until you tell me what I want to know.”
“Then I will have to change your mind about staying.”
“Is that so?”
They landed in the yard of Santos’s home and he shoved her toward the forest path she’d taken last night. Not caring to be pushed around, Annja jerked her arm away from his grasp.
The man detoured to his vehicle, grabbed something from inside and came at her with the katana sword, making sure she understood his threat.
“I give you an hour to return to your hotel, pack your things and get to the train station. After that, I’m coming.”
He was bleeding above the eye thanks to a well-placed kick, and at the neck from her fingernails. His jeans were dirty and torn. The sword was similar to a katana, yet he wielded it as if it was a broadsword.
Santos didn’t believe in the mullo. Perhaps he believed whatever crime he’d gotten involved in was for the good of his people? He knew Bracks. He’d almost confessed to that during their scuffle. Which meant Santos could very well be behind stirring up the fear in the Romas.
Annja nodded, turned and walked into the forest. He had given her a deadline. She had no doubt he would come after her, especially since everyone watching had heard his threat. Now to determine if the fight was worth the trouble. Every bone in her body screamed for her to return and beat the truth out of Santos.
Swiping at a fog of gnats above her head, Annja picked up into a jog, passing by the site on the path where the wolf still lay. If the animal had been owned and trained by Santos, why wouldn’t he go looking for it? To leave it lying in the forest seemed cruel, yet natural deaths would allow for much the same, she decided, and quickly passed it.
An hour didn’t give her much time. And she had to be prepared for the worst.
Reaching the burned-out dig site and her rental car, she inspected the ashes, but found no sign of bone shards. It had been worth a look. Not even the skeletons in the wall of dirt had survived.
Before driving away she called Luke. “Pack your things, and be ready to vacate in half an hour,” she said to him.
“What’s wrong, Annja?”
“Santos may be involved, and he’s developed an urgent need to make sure I leave the city, dead or alive. And I suspect his hatred for me will extend to you and Doug.”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m putting Doug on a plane back to the States.”
“And you and me?”
“Haven’t figured that one out yet. But be waiting outside the hotel for me, will you?”
“Absolutely.”
She hung up, then took a moment to lament the damaged dig site and the destroyed bones. Thankfully they had the skull, which could tell them a lot about the person it had once been part of. The entire skeleton would have told a much richer story. It was a significant loss to the archaeology community.
If indeed the skeletons had been older than a couple decades, which was now in question.
For some reason, superstition was driving a dark force in this area and perhaps even feeding its power.
A business opportunist would have a field day with a situation like this.
What was it Bracks wanted from the Roma people?
Chapter 15
“I got a translation for the words I found on the paper in the brick,” Luke said as he loaded his supplies into the back of Annja’s rental Jeep. Doug had been granted the honor of holding the carefully packed and wrapped skull, and he had already seated himself in the back. “It’s a blessing!”
Annja wedged her backpack among the men’s things, and swung around to climb behind the wheel. “Hop in. We’ve got to move. It’s been over an hour, and I’m not so sure Santos can tell time.”
“So we’re running with our tails between our legs?” Doug asked from the back.
“Last time I checked I didn’t have a tail,” Annja said. “I don’t know about your physical problems, Doug, but maybe you should keep them to yourself.”
He laughed.
“Sometimes it’s better to retreat,” she added. “There’s already been a fire. And the funeral is taking place as we speak. I won’t be going far. Just to Liberec.” She glanced at Luke. “A blessing, eh? You sure about that?” She pulled out of the hotel parking lot, navigating the quiet streets out of town and through a barren stretch of land sandwiched between hills and flood-eroded silt mounds. The rearview mirror showed a clear road behind them.
“Chester Rumshaven is the foremost expert of Romani dialects, so yes, I’m sure. And it was probably placed in the brick by whoever buried the guy,” Luke said. “I’m calling him a him until we learn more. He—the skull, not the person who buried it—had big mandibles, so it’s a guess. Anyway, the one who buried the body must have thought a few kind words might keep him down. As opposed to a curse.”
“Apparently it worked, until a natural disaster unearthed the bones,” Annja said.
“Yes, either that, or as Doug posited, the blessing was meant to lure the deceased into the daylight where presumably it would be burned because of the undead’s fear of the sun. However that works.”
“Too bad we can’t convince the Romas of the efficacy of the blessing,” Annja said. “They might start looking for other reasons why their children are being kidnapped. Another boy was taken early this morning.”
“No, really? That’s definitely not the work of a mythical creature. What did you learn?”
“A woman who lives in the house behind Santos’s home reported her son Marcus was gone. She’s pregnant, too. Very sad. I suspect Santos is in on this. He’s acting suspicious.”
“Is that the same suspicion that left a cut on your neck?” Doug asked from the backseat.
“Yes. And reason enough to want to leave town to give me a chance to think this through.”
Annja hadn’t noticed she’d been injured. She glanced in the rearview mirror and touched her neck where she’d sustained a nasty scrape during her scuffle with Santos—and spied the billowing cloud of dust fast approaching behind them on the road.
“Hang on, boys, company has arrived.”
She pressed her foot down on the accelerator. Their pursuers probably couldn’t win a race out here on this rutted, gravel road in an old Jeep. The vehicle behind them looked like one of the wrecks from Santos’s yard.
Somehow, though, the Jeep was gaining on them fast. When the first bullet hit their rear taillight, Annja took evasive action, swerving back and forth.
“Get down, Doug!”
“I’m down!”
“Luke!”
“You think it’s Santos?”
“I know it is.” Annja couldn’t handle this situation from behind the wheel. “You’re going to have to drive, Luke. I have a gun in the glove compartment. Slide over here.”
They made the switch, him sliding across to the driver’s seat while Annja held herself up by the steering wheel and used the windsh
ield frame to keep a grasp on the moving vehicle. Another bullet tore out the right side mirror. She couldn’t determine if they were a bad aim, or if the shots were intended to warn them.
The wolf had hurt Doug; she’d bet the pursuer was a bad aim.
She choked on dust as she dove to the passenger seat and went for the pistol. “Keep this speed,” she directed Luke, “but swerve. Don’t make us an easy target. Looks like only two in the Jeep behind,” she said, facing backward and gripping the roll bar with her left hand.
Right arm straight out, she aimed for the rusted front grille and pulled the trigger. The truck behind them swerved sharply, brewing up dust clouds. But they were still in pursuit.
“Incoming!” Luke yelled. “A truck ahead.”
“Just don’t crash into them,” Annja warned.
Aiming, she fired again, and the Jeep’s windshield cracked down the center. While she didn’t want to kill anyone, and knew her bouncing aim could never land exactly where she wanted it to, she had to take the chance in order to protect Luke and Doug.
The oncoming vehicle was a tractor pulling a wagon loaded with stacked tractor tires. As Luke navigated around them, and swerved off the road, the tires struggled to grip the loose gravel and the back of the Jeep pulled to the side. Annja could feel the vehicle’s left side tires want to take off from the ground, and only sheer willpower kept all four tires on the road.
Another bullet hit the dashboard above the radio. Luke shouted a curse. He sounded impressive, having abandoned his usual gentle Welsh tone. The wheels spun as he fought to maintain control and get back on track but he gunned the engine and that dug in the back tires in the soft earth that edged the gravel road. This time the right tires did momentarily leave the ground before dropping the vehicle in a dead stop and a billow of dust.
Annja leaped out of the Jeep and waited until Santos’s vehicle had cleared the slow-moving tractor. “Stay in the car, both of you!”
