Sam would have been concerned about her uncle waving around the Colt, but she knew he never loaded it. "Forget the threats. I'm on to Nicolas Strakhov's tricks now, and I've got a plan."
"Yeah, doll?" Myles put the gun back in his jacket pocket. "What's that?"
"I want you to find out when and where Strakhov's next two extraction locations are. I've heard a rumor and if one of his locations is where I think it is, he's gonna be up a creek without a paddle. Nicolas Strakhov isn't the only one that can play dirty pool."
"Does this wise guy cheat at pool?" Myles asked. "I could always challenge him to a game. Loser leaves town."
As tired as she was, Sam laughed. Her overly literal family was her family in spite of being fruitcakes. She loved them dearly—warts, blackbirds, fedora hats and all.
"No, the rotten louse doesn't play pool, Uncle Myles," she told him. "Just get the scoop on their doings as quick as you can. We'll give these brothers grim a surprise or two. You know, the bigger they are, the harder they fall." Her uncle had quoted these words as long as she could remember, and so far they had held true. The last giant she had taken down had knocked over a house.
"Got it, doll. You know, for a real looker, you also got brains. Must run in the family."
She kissed him on the cheek. "Yeah, it does." And with those words she wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
Another day, another dollar. What a way to make a living. She should have been a hairdresser. Or she could have played piano in a bar. Well, if her husky voice didn't scare little children and goblins alike.
Actually, she sometimes played on an old honky-tonk piano to an audience at the Casablanca, the club owned by her Uncle Myles and his longtime friend Rick Bergman. And after a rough night of busting up monsters, when the bar closed at one o'clock, Sam would go over and play and sing to her heart's content.
Yes, her life was at times a lonely one.
Although she had quite a few friends, she did not have too many close ones. It seemed at times that her life was to have and have not, and if at times she found herself in a real lonely place in the desperate hours after midnight, so be it. No, she didn't have much time for herself or a social life, but she would take it on the chin and come back swinging. There was no reason for her to feel like a woman marked by fate, by her family and by her job. This was the nature of the beast, of this Bustin' business. And she loved the thrill. The work had gotten in her blood, infecting her with adrenaline lust just like many other Bustin' junkies around the country.
Her fate had been ordained at nineteen, when her world had come crashing down around her; her parents died and suddenly she was in charge. She had taken on the family business and learned to run it like a pro, juggling work, college and raising her twelve-year-old brother all at one time—always on a deadline. It had left her little time for hairdressing, undressing with a member of the opposite sex or even just letting her hair down, but that was how life went. Her life, at any rate.
Oh well, she thought as she pushed down her lacerated coveralls, her internal conflict was just that—hers alone. If at times her life might seem a Pyrrhic victory, leaving her like a frozen tree in the Petrified Forest with no love on the horizon, that was okay; she was what she was.
Washing her face, Sam glanced in the mirror. Maybe sometimes her life did seem like a dead end, but fortunately she had a good head on her shoulders and knew what was important. She could thank her lucky stars that she had a roof over her head, a family who loved her, a job that never left her bored, two pianos, a cuddly pet goblin and a big, soft bed.
Smiling, Sam climbed in between the soft green flowered print covers and closed her eyes. Tonight, Lauren Bacall or Humphrey Bogart had nothing on her; she was more than ready for the comforting embrace of a big sleep.
Trolls—Cheaper by the Dozen
Nobody ever walked across the Madison County Bridge unscathed, not with the bunch of trolls who lived underneath. Trolls were the biggest scavengers of paranormal pests, and they had very distinctive body odor, like the smell of a pigsty in Fourth of July heat.
Sam might have felt sorry for her unsuspecting quarry, the Strakhov brothers, who were about to take it on the chin and everywhere else, but she didn't. Life was a series of tough choices. She'd learned that in the school of hard knocks—learned mostly from demons, shapeshifters and grinches, the latter who could pack a mean punch when denied their Hoo pudding. She wouldn't take losing her business to Monsters-R-Us lying down, nor would she pretend that them stealing her clients was just water under the bridge. No, what was under the bridge wasn't water.
Discovering that the Strakhovs had somehow gotten tonight's troll-removal job from the three Billys—grandfather, son and grandson—Sam had put her plan in motion. Now she was waiting patiently for the payoff.
The three Billys, though gruff in manner at times, had thrown Sam and her brother a lot of business over the years, so she didn't know how Nicolas Strakhov had talked them into switching sides. She figured it wasn't on the up and up.
The grandfather, Billy Senior, whom Sam had never particularly liked, was retired. He was a randy old goat who was always pinching her rear. The grandson, Billy Double, was generally a whiner and fairly lazy. But the randy old man's son, Billy Junior, was okay by her. Junior was the mayor of Dodge, and he ran a construction company that dealt with all the county's roadwork; bridges, too. Their defection to the competition hurt.
Well, if the competition wanted to play dirty, Sam would oblige them. She would butt heads with Nicolas Strakhov any day of the week; she swore valiantly as she climbed to a bump in the middle of a hillside above the bridge. Bogie trailed a few paces behind, his eyes carefully scanning the darkness.
Kneeling, binoculars in hand, Sam scouted out the entire location, the world progressing in shadowy motion. Tonight the dark was like an old friend; it was good company, and needed. Soft patches of misty fog rose like cold fingers and stretched into the night.
Methodically Sam scouted the old bridge with her infrared binoculars. She and her brother Bogie were about a mile off, hidden in some brush among the gently rolling hills. "Hmm, it appears all is quiet on the Eastern front."
"Nothing good ever happens after midnight," her brother replied, raising his own binoculars to quickly check out the dirt road that trailed down to the bridge. He frowned as the smell of trolls floated up on the breezy night winds. "Phew, they stink!"
"How I love the smell of trolls in the evening," Sam muttered sarcastically, grimacing as the rank odor wafted past them.
Below, she could see the dark outlines of the bridge with her infrared scope and the red forms huddled in slumber underneath.
Trolls. Unlike some supernatural creatures, they slept at night and wrought their havoc during the day. People had to pay a toll if they wanted to cross an infested bridge. Though they truly would have preferred goat meat, bridge trolls were also partial to donuts. Therefore, informed people would buy two dozen donuts and then throw them over the metal handrails of the bridge. After said tribute was. paid, the trolls would then move whatever blockade they had set up and a car would be allowed to pass over. Heaven forbid the car's occupants didn't have any donuts or goat meat; those unlucky few that didn't pay the troll's toll were in for one big stinking surprise. No food meant disaster, for their car and personage would be pelted with large chunks of troll dung. And while trolls were unsightly, short and chunky creatures, they had pitcherlike precision when throwing their waste. They rarely missed. Sam had always thought it a shame that major league baseball discriminated against them.