JANISSARY PROJECT: Book V
The Hunted
Hewa, Listen to the Wolf of God
Nothing lasts very long, but for earth and sky.
Woman is born to life, every man but to die
Herein is the proper way of Honor through
Death
Benny wiped a trickle of blood from his nose and grinned. The redneck scowled. The big man took a swipe with one bleeding paw. The kid ducked, came up under the trunk of an arm and popped the man hard in the armpit.
The man grunted. Face and voice mild, he almost smiled. "Hell, didn't think a Yankee fairy knew that one." He jabbed his left then swept Benny from the floor. The crowd of bikers cheered and the man twisted one of Benny's arms up behind him and gave him the bum's rush through the cracked, peeling door of the clubhouse.
He followed Benny out, watched the kid sprawl in the muddy gravel and twist around, shaking pieces of door off.
"Beat it," he said. "Come back when you grow hair on it, minnow, if you wanna hang out with the bad boys." A grin cracked the bearded face. "We'll make a man of you." Leaning over, he said in a whisper loud enough for Benny to hear, but not the cheering bikers, "Got some bad seed, here, kid. A feller, now, he got to take a care. Never know when some asshole's gonna john-dean to the Feds."
He straightened and made a pointed glance at the back of a man with long greasy blond hair who was disappearing into the rain-wet brush. The man was tugging on the zipper of his fly, but didn't walk like he needed to urinate.
"Know what I mean, ayotli?"
With a mountainous laugh, he spread his arms and herded the women back towards the door. "Buy me a brew, ladies, an' I'll make you the happiest women since Mama Eve discovered Red-Man."
Having heard this before, the women laughed. They dragged him back into the smoky warmth of the clubhouse.
Code words. Something sparked through Benny's guts. The old fart was fam, man. He shot a look at the bushes. Just for the hell of it, he slipped through the stand of loblolly pines and black gum trees.
"Yeah." Tiny cell phone stuck to one ear, the blond man paused to glance around. "Hell, yes, it's the Greylov kid. You want him? Just you get on down here with my money. Nah, man, we can -"
The man hissed something and backed away from a clump of trees that from the smell, was a popular place with the club.
Grampa Waya muttered, 'Def'netly sounds kosher to me, ayotli.'
"Yeah, yeah. Sure, Grampa."
'So what the hell are you waiting for, asshole? Hey, how about all that kin we got in Wyoming?'
Benny was incredulous. "Pennsylvania?"
A sharp pain, not unlike the couple of times Grampa smacked him on the head before the Janissary Project murdered the old fart, made him wince. "Oh. That Wyoming. Like in State of. Nix der county, ja? The Ganians?"
'Hee-hee. Now you're cookin' with gas, kid.'
Grampa knows best, even if the old buzzard was a decade in the grave. Benny eased away. He kicked down on a battered
Uohali Red Sun and roared away in a cloud of methane fumes and straight pipes. On his way back to the apartment in Jacksonville, he didn't use the road. He didn't dare to.
Grampa bellowed, 'Who the hell you callin' a buzzard, you wet-behind-the-ears
a:gili, why I remember this time when. . . .'
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