“Son of a bitch. What am I going to do?”
Mike gave up trying to control his anger. “If you’re so worried, grab a damn shovel and get digging.”
“Okay. Why don’t you come over here today so we can figure this out?”
“I don’ t have a ride to get there.”
“Alright, I’ll pick you up in about an hour. I’ll text you when I’m leaving my house.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be here.”
“See you then.”
“Bye.”
He hung up the phone and set it on the kitchen table.
“I need to warn you about her, by the way,” Alayna whispered.
Mike sat down at the kitchen table. “Let me guess, she’s no good for me.”
“She’s been afflicted, Mike.”
“Oh yeah? Infected by what?” He grabbed the phone off the table and kicked his feet up.
“No.” Alayna stared at him for a few moments, shaking her head. “That’s not what I said. It doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that you need to be very careful with her.”
Mike didn’t want to hear any of this. He’d finally found a woman worth a damn and wasn’t going to let anyone scare him away. Instead of heeding Alayna’s warning, he walked outside to wait for Emily. The blazing sun in the cloudless sky sizzled down on Mike, and he could see the rippling heat hovering over the concrete road. He couldn’t believe it was morning already.
Earlier, on the way home, he’d made an anonymous call to report Kyle’s death. Now he started having regrets about it. He had known Kyle since they were seven years old and his best friend deserved better.
Mike sat down on the steps outside his apartment. Singing came from inside. He couldn’t make out the words but could tell it was Alayna. Before long, perspiration soaked his blond arm hair and ran down to his wrist. He wiped the salty sweat on his shorts and waited.
A slate Jeep Cherokee came to a stop about six feet in front of Mike. Emily was not smiling as Mike slid onto the passenger seat.
He secured his seatbelt. “Hey.”
“What’s up?” She sounded angry.
Her attitude took Mike by surprise. He waited while she turned the vehicle around, at a loss for what to say.
Emily broke the silence. “Sorry about your friend. That’s pretty crazy what happened out there.”
Mike nodded. “Never seen anything like it. I called the cops on my way home so they’ll find the body, but I know they’re gonna ask me about this.”
“Why are you sure they are going to talk to you? Just because he’s your best friend?”
“That, yeah. And we were just up there the other night. I know the cops are gonna think I was with him again. I know it.”
Emily spoke in a soft tone. “Relax. Calm down. You can say you were with me and I’ll corroborate it. You can just say we were hanging out at my place.”
The SUV pulled into the driveway at Emily’s house and Mike got out. He waited for Emily, and then followed her into the house.
Emily led him down a narrow hallway with a green carpet, and turned right into a room with black couches and a glass coffee table.
“Have a seat. I’ll grab you a beer and we can talk this out.” She went back down the hallway.
Mike sat on the longer couch and tried to kick back, but he couldn’t get comfortable. He straightened out his back and slouched again when he heard Emily’s voice.
“I hope you don’t mind a Yuengling Light. It’s all I got.” Emily handed the can to Mike and set some papers on the table. She pulled a Red Bull out of her pocket and set it next to the papers.
Then she sat down next to Mike, making him nervous. Again, he didn’t know what to say. Emily reached out for the Red Bull and rubbed Mike’s thigh along the way.
She grabbed the drink and sat back. “Sorry.” She gave him a naughty smile.
“It’s more than okay,” Mike replied with a shy smile of his own.
Emily opened the drink. “I’m really sorry about what happened, but I’m not giving up on getting the broken amulet.”
“I don’t know,” Mike objected. “You say that now. Once you get out there, I’m not sure you’ll feel the same.”
She leafed through the small stack of different size notes. Mike stared at her thigh, dirty thoughts creeping into his head. She picked a blue index card sized note with a rough sketch on it.
Emily held it up in front of Mike and dropped it on his lap. In the next moment, she reached down to grab it, but stopped, hand hovering in the air above his crotch. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should get that.” She cocked her head to the side and a sun ray glimmered on her silver eyeshadow.
Mike grabbed the card and handed it to her. She inched closer to Mike and leaned over him with the card. He could feel the heat from her body and smell her flowery perfume.
As she pointed to the card, he stared at her reddish-purple lips. “I have the diagram right here. Maybe you two weren’t in the exact spot.”
The song You Can’t Always Get What You Want rang from Emily’s phone. She set the blue index card on Mike’s chest, grabbed the phone and left the room again. Mike could hear her faintly from down the hall. On a jealous impulse, he jumped up from the couch and walked over to the door to eavesdrop.
“Look, I’m going to get the thing myself but you’ve got to give me a couple of days. These guys fucked it up so now I’ve got to clean up after them. I’ll be by with the amulet in a couple of days so just make sure you still have the cash.”
Mike ran back over to the couch and did his best to wriggle into the exact spot he had been sitting in, on a soft black cushion. Unable to remember which side of the index card had been facing up, he settled on flipping the card around in his hands.
Emily came back into the room and set her phone on the glass coffee table. She sat down next to Mike again, rubbing against his hip. As she went to grab the card, she poked his stomach. “Ticklish?” She moved closer.
Mike looked at her with a goofy smile. “Not really.”
One of her eyebrows rose in disbelief, and she really started tickling Mike. He squirmed away.
“Yeah right, I see where your weak spot is.” She moved closer again, snatched the card out of Mike’s hand, but dropped it on the floor. “That was your fault, you know.” She playfully poked him in the side.
They stared into each other’s eyes until it became awkward, and then they stared some more. Mike could feel the electricity with this woman as the pitter-patter of rain drops hit the roof. He wondered where the storm had come from considering there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky when he had entered her house.
Emily leaned over to pick up the diagram and brushed her breast over the top of Mike’s thigh. She planted her palm near his hip for support getting up, then snuggled up close to Mike and pointed at the index card. “Did you have your back against this rock, on the left side of it?”
Mike said, “Yeah. I mean, I think so. It was dark, and we were being tossed around by that strange force.”
A crack of thunder caused Emily to jerk her head toward the window and nearly brush lips with Mike. She looked up into his razor blue eyes. Mike slowly leaned forward until he met her dark, full lips. He placed a firm hand on the back of her neck and used his thumb to stroke her cheek.
Their tongues intertwined, and Mike’s entire body started to thump with desire. He ran his fingers up Emily’s side, and she arched her back in response. He thumbed Emily’s earlobe and kissed her bottom lip. Her lipstick tasted like black licorice. He had hated black licorice before today.
Mike could feel the radiating heat coming from Emily as he brushed his hand up the inside of her thigh.
She abruptly stopped him. “Wait. We shouldn’t do this. We should concentrate on the amulet and making that money.”
Mike took a deep breath. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, Mike gathered his clothes off Emily’s bedroom floor. A huge smile was past
ed to his face as he stopped and stared at the dark-skinned beauty lying on her stomach. Mike couldn’t believe a woman of her caliber would want anything to do with a broke fool with no prospects.
Emily spoke with her face on a yellow pillow. “We probably shouldn’t have done this. But I’m glad we did. You were great.”
Mike picked up his T-shirt and put it back on. “Me too. We can have fun and make some money, too.”
Emily took Mike back to his house and he wondered if Alayna would be there.
Chapter 13
MIKE BACKED INTO HIS apartment and shut the door quietly. He turned around.
“Get that smile off your face.”
He jumped back. Though not unexpected, Alayna’s voice had startled him.
“How do you know that I’m smiling?” he asked, turning on the light.
She yawned and got down from a chair in the kitchen. “Are you jealous of my night vision? Don’t worry, you can have the same. Speaking of which, it’s time to get some knowledge crammed into that pretty little noggin of yours.”
Mike audibly yawned and shrugged his shoulders. “Okay.”
Alayna looked him up and down several times. “Why don’t you get some rest, and we’ll do this later. You need to be more alert, and you haven’t slept much lately.”
Mike stripped down to his boxers, crashed face down into his smelly mattress and quickly fell into a slumber. Alayna walked into his room, gently shoved a pillow under his head and covered him with a light sheet. She went back out to the kitchen and pulled out a small silver square touchscreen that fit in the palm of her hand.
She tapped her finger against the screen a couple of times, and the strumming sounds of an acoustic guitar filled the air. Alayna swayed her head back and forth to the beginning of Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles.
MIKE WOKE UP AND WENT into his kitchen, forgetting about his perennial guest.
Alayna’s cackling laugh provided a quick reminder. “Watch it with that morning wood you’re sporting there. You’re still at full mast, sailor.”
Mike shifted himself around and held his palms to the air. “Better?”
She shook her head, still giggling. “Now the old, purple mushroom mountain top is poking out of your boxers. It’s alright though. I’ve seen plenty of them in my day.”
Mike tried to tuck his manhood into the band of his boxers. He glanced around for his weed.
Alayna stretched her arms out. “Alright. Time to get you smart. Are you ready?”
Mike kept searching. “I’ll be ready just as soon as I find my medicine.”
“That’s taken care of. The stuff you are about to smoke is much stronger than that schwag you keep buying. All you must do is come with me. I’ll wait while you put on some clothes.”
“Speakin’ of clothes, is that the only dress you got?” Mike chuckled.
Alayna smirked. “At least my dress is clean, which is much more than I can say for your ratty wardrobe. Now get dressed so we can do this.”
Mike slouched his shoulders and stomped into his room. He grabbed some dirty clothes off the ground and put them on his dirty body. A dark green pair of shorts and a banana yellow T-shirt made for a decent pairing despite the heavy wrinkling and fungoid stench.
A few minutes later, Mike trailed Alayna through the densely wooded area behind his apartment as she led him toward his favorite fishing hole. They walked about one hundred yards past the slow spot in the river where Mike spent most of his afternoons.
Alayna sidestepped down a steep, grassy incline to get to the dark, muddy riverbank. Mike charged down the hill after her, churning up chunky divots like a terrible golfer as he went.
“You ready to get wet?” Alayna asked, shielding the sun from her eyes as she looked up at Mike.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t smoke PCP. I didn’t know that was part of the deal.”
Alayna squinted her eyes in thought. “What are you talking about? I mean we have to dive into the river to get to this particular place.”
A smile of relief came over Mike’s face. “Round here we call getting wet smoking PCP.”
Alayna said. “All right. Duly noted. I’m going to leave my high heels here, and I suggest you do the same with your footwear.”
Mike never wore socks so he kicked off his falling apart black Nike Air Force shoes. Alayna dropped her purple dress, and Mike caught himself staring at her perfect miniature figure. The homunculus looked thick in her dress but it was all an illusion, as Mike’s eye’s keyed in on the truth.
“Hey.” She clapped her hands. “Eyes up here, buddy.” Alayna pointed at her chin.
Mike shook away the daze and took his shirt off. He threw the stinky piece of cotton onto his shoes and set his phone on top. Alayna waded into the water, and Mike jumped in after her. She swam out about twenty feet and turned to Mike as she continued to paddle with her cupped hands.
Mike had been swimming in this river since he was a kid so he kicked and breast stroked, which he called the Frog Stroke, out to Alayna. He waded in the water as she played with one of her dark braids.
She told him, “Get ready to hold your breath and go to the bottom.”
Alayna sucked in some precious air and plunged under the still water. Mike tilted his torso at a forty-five-degree angle and used his hands to paddle after Alayna. She sped through the water like a shark with prey in its sights. Mike noticed she had a nasty scar on her back.
Alayna hit the muddy bottom and used her right hand to scratch at the dirt. She swept aside some of the thick brown mud and exposed a golden patch that kept getting bigger as she used both hands to clean it. As she worked, a rectangular door with a small inverted handle on one of the long sides appeared out of the mud.
Alayna gestured with her hand for Mike to come closer. He swam down farther, about to run out of breath. She opened the golden door and pointed for Mike to go through it. He did as he was told and dove into the open door.
He expected all the water to rush in and suffocate him but he fell into darkness. He wheezed to catch his breath and made it to his knees. When he held his arm out, he didn’t feel anything. He stood up and spun around in a complete circle twice before getting dizzy, but still didn’t feel anything.
Mike went to take an unsure step forward when he heard Alayna’s voice. “Mike, where are you?”
He stopped. “Here.”
Faint firelight crept around a corner, and the small woman emerged with her finger aflame. The bright fire purred as Mike took in his surroundings and wondered where Alayna got the purple dress she was wearing.
He noticed an entanglement of tree roots surrounding him and stood on a dirt path that seemed to run through this track of arborous veins. In the distance, Mike could hear a waterfall, but couldn’t detect which direction it was coming from.
Alayna moved around Mike and led him down the narrow path that kept getting narrower. A rounded room with white brick walls, black curtains and two leather recliners sat at the end of the path. Alayna invited Mike to sit down, and he sank into the ultra-comfortable chair.
The ceiling was missing, and the tree roots were exposed. Alayna hopped up onto the other chair and riffled through the cushions. She pulled out an orange pack of rolling papers and kept digging.
“Ah-ha. There you are.” In her hand, she clutched a small plastic baggie with a sparkling object about the size of a normal man’s thumb. She awkwardly tried to hold the bag steady with her flaming hand, and used her other hand to pinch the mesmerizing object with her thumb and forefinger. She held it up for Mike to see.
“What in the sweet world is that?”
She giggled. “This is the bud from the Plant of Knowledge. Pretty, huh?”
Pretty was the understatement of the year. Mike had seen weed that had been smothered in crystals but nothing compared to this. Shades of emerald, ruby, sapphire and amethyst emitted a radiant glow from the bud, and Mike caught himself almost drooling.
Alayna brushed off her the
purple material covering her right thigh, set the conical bud down on her leg and started to break it up into smaller pieces. When she’d pulverized about half of the bud, she pulled out a paper from the orange pack. She used her hand like a crane to scoop up the sparkling pile and place it into the long paper.
Alayna used her tiny fingers to roll a perfect joint while still having one of her fingers on fire. Impressive, Mike thought. She put one end of the joint in her mouth, held her flaming finger up to the other end and inhaled. Rainbow-colored smoked shot out of her nose as an enormous smile appeared over her face.
“Oh yeah. That’s the stuff right there.”
She threw the joint onto Mike’s lap and laughed as he squirmed to get it before it burnt him. He secured the joint between his thumb and the middle finger of his right hand. The aromatic hints of cherry blossoms, orange and vanilla filled the domed underground room.
Mike put the joint up to his lips and took two big puffs. The smooth smoke traveled down to his lungs and danced around, waiting for him to release it. He exhaled, and a huge prism-colored cloud shot out of his mouth. Mike took a few breaths and hit the joint again.
“Alright. Let’s see where you are at right now. We won’t even start with real knowledge. How about obvious pop culture? Best band from England—Beatles or Stones?” Alayna asked, tapping the heel of her right foot into the chair.
Mike thought for a moment, and licked his dry lips. “Trick question. Everyone knows the best band from England is Oasis.” He shook his head slowly. “Thought you could get me, huh?”
She laughed. “We’re not quite there yet. Not even close, actually. There’s a certain level we must attain and not go past. Keep puffing, buddy.”
Mike hit the joint about ten more times, and a sudden pain slammed into his cranium like a sledgehammer. It started with his ringing eardrums. They felt like open doors. And somebody kept continuously stuffing rectangular objects into his head. The pain crippled him as he could feel a book pressing against his brain, the written words probing for a soft spot, before finally penetrating.
Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 47
