Cáel Leads the Amazon Empire, Book 2: Part 10

A day in the life of rural Hungary.

By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.

‘Here be Dragons’ wasn’t always a tourist gimmick.

(Vizsla and links to the past)

The driver stopped at a rustic roadside inn. It had been an uncomfortable three hour drive to the East-Southeast of Budapest and even Pamela seemed to have lost her bearings. Our luggage had been placed in the bonnet (trunk), but we kept our duffels, with our weaponry, on our laps the entire trip. Selena, Pamela and I were squeezed into the back seat, while Alkonyka sat up front with our amiable driver. He was full of interesting tips, jokes and local legends. If he wanted us to forget he was part of a company of killers, he failed.

Selena ignored me. Instead, she tried to engage Pamela in conversation three times over the course of the trip. Each time, Pamela responded with chilly disdain. That left Selena a tad bit grumpy by the time we stopped.

“Leave your weapons,” Selena demanded. This clearly wasn’t the Kazakhstan consulate. This was the ass-end of nowhere with Black Hand all around. Pamela and I left our duffels outside the vacated car, stretched out some kinks and began handing our personal weapons over to the driver and Selena.

“Is that everything?” our driver smiled. Alkonyka was coming around to our side. She gave up my spare Glock-22 that I had given her and her father’s Special Forces knife.

“No,” I answered. “We have a ceremonial dagger. To take that is a terrible insult.” He motioned us to give them over and I did. Pamela’s followed mine two second later.

“Only him,” Selena directed me to the front door of the inn. I looked to Pamela. We both shrugged.

“Alkonyka, relax,” I smiled at my latest female of interest. “I’ll either be back soon or the snipers hiding about the place will kill you so fast, you won’t notice.” Blink. I wasn’t joking.

As my eyes were adjusting from the bright day outside to the inn’s dark interior, two men patted me down. I obviously hadn’t been lying about disarming, but they did have me remove my light ballistic vest, it was way too hot for my duster. I suspected that they wanted me to get redressed, so I put my shirt back on, unbuttoned, and then added my jacket, I took my time since they were both being dicks.

Finally, they allowed me to walk into the bar proper. Sure enough, a mid-to-late 50ish woman was sitting at a round table in the back. Halfway to her table, I deviated, jumped over the bar, and poured myself a nice German lager. Stein in hand, I walked her way.

“I didn’t say you could have a drink,” the Vizsla commented.

“Oh, my apologies,” I shrugged. I put the stein on a nearby table and waited.

“Have a seat,” she directed. I came up to her table and examined the three empty chairs. I held back until she pointed to the chair opposite her. I sat down, but didn’t make eye contact. Instead, I examined the various paintings and photographs on the walls. It was an old place.

“You killed Matthias, even though you knew he worked for me,” she uttered.

“I can confirm that information to be correct,” I looked her way. That, wasn’t what she expected.

“Why?”

“Why what?” I countered. There was a method to my madness; this was going to be a lesson in competence, and what happens when you don’t respect it.

“Why did you kill Matthias?”

“I needed a reason?” I tried to look pensive. “Maybe I didn’t like the cut of his facial hair?”

“Do you think this is a joke?” she replied dryly. “The Black Hand always avenge our own.”

“Damn,” I looked perplexed. “No one told me that when I arrived. Can we call Matthias’s extermination a 50/50 bad call, both ways?”

“Matthias was my cousin,” the Vizsla continued.

“My condolences,” I sighed. “The next Black Hand douche-bag the Amazons waste, I’ll have them ask if he’s related to you first. How’s that?”

“You are so not likely to have that opportunity,” she pointed out.

“Oh,” I laughed, “you are so wrong about that.”

“You are far stupider than I had been informed,” the Vizsla’s eyes narrowed.

“Nope. You and your cast of ’Dumb and Dumber’ have been treating us like idiots since we touched down at Ferenc Liszt International, so I’m pretending to be that simpleton sock-puppet just for you, Vizsla. You’ve added to that by heaping disrespect and derision on my people,” I grinned.

“You tried to have me and my entourage murdered and Matthias paid the price for that. Ever...