A Dubious Curse (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 8) Read online

  The two humans cast long, dark shadows in the thick, ancient woods. The only sound was the rushing waters of the gurgling stream they had just crossed. It was where Maya began counting steps. After 150 steps, she turned left and counted off another 200 steps. They both stopped when Eric put his hand out, touching Maya accidently on her breast.

  “Hey, cut that out,” Maya warned in a feisty voice.

  “Do you see it?” Eric asked quickly, without apologizing. There, right in front of them, stood an old, unkempt cemetery.

  Eric could see that the small plot had not been touched for ages. Many of the headstones had fallen over and weeds choked out all other living plants. They passed through the opening in the rotting wooden fence. An ornate iron gate lay rusting on the ground. The pair began to look at the headstones. They were looking for a headstone that would be flat on the ground and look like a plaque. It took them only fifteen minutes to find the one they were looking for. Maya read the German inscription. It said Edward Bulwer-Lytton, born May 25th, 1803, died January 18th, 1873. Nothing else was written.

  “But didn’t Loni tell us last night Lytton was British and was buried in Westminster Abbey in England?” Eric asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “It was actually against his wishes. He didn’t want to be buried there at all,” Maya replied. “He was a modest man, but the British considered him a national treasure and wanted him buried in the Abbey.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” Eric replied, surprised.

  “His family buried some of his personal effects in a private ceremony later, in another, more private, place” Maya answered.

  “But not here,” Eric emphasized as he pointed to the plaque. “Or does he have three graves? That’s a little creepy, you know.”

  “No, silly, Maria Orsic buried her book under this tombstone. She bought it herself and placed it here when she was leaving Germany. You probably missed that fact while you were busy ogling the naked Lisa last night.”

  Ignoring her dig, Eric commented, “Well, he has plenty of eerie peace here. I wonder if anybody even knows about this cemetery anymore or if anyone would want to visit it.”

  “There was once a trading town nearby. This cemetery has been here for a very long time. My guess is that Maria chose it because she was sure it wouldn’t be disturbed,” Maya reasoned.

  “Yeah…well, I expect a knight on a horse to appear at any minute and attempt to cut off our heads,” Eric said. “This place is positively medieval.”

  “Well, stop fantasizing and help me pull up the plaque,” Maya ordered, as though they were married. She pointed to the square piece of stone. Eric bent to the task and soon, he was able to flip the plaque out of the ground. They both leaned close and stared into the hole. There was nothing there. They looked at each other in confusion.

  “There is nothing here,” Eric uttered in disappointment.

  “It must be buried in the dirt,” Maya responded.

  “Uh-oh, we didn’t bring anything to dig with,” Eric said sheepishly, holding out his empty hands. Maya continued to study the hole.

  After a few seconds, Maya confidently replied. “We don’t need to dig. What looks like dirt under the plaque is really rusting metal.”

  “What kind of metal?”

  “That looks like tin to me,” she told him as she stared into the space.

  Maya squatted down and tapped the rusting metal. It crumbled, revealing a cavity in the ground. She quickly noticed the entire cavity was surrounded by rusting tin. In the middle of the space sat a highly polished wooden box. It was barely bigger than a book and about as thick.

  “Got something,” she cheerfully remarked.

  She reached in and snatched it. As she examined it, she discovered it had no markings of any kind on it, but was hinged with tarnished copper hardware. She opened the box and saw a folder-like book made of some sort of woven fabric. She immediately knew it was the book of the Vril Society and Maria Orsic.

  “I’ve got it, let’s go,” she said excitedly to Eric, but the ex-Navy SEAL used his hands to hush her. He turned his head to listen.

  “Do you hear that?” he whispered, gently pushing her behind a standing tombstone. “There are people coming this way in the woods.” They could clearly hear leaves rustling and twigs snapping in the distance. A shiver went down Maya’s spine. She wondered if it was some enraged ancient knight or someone else.

  “We have no weapons,” she lamented. She was afraid, especially for her baby.

  “There are several of them,” Eric noted. “They are moving slowly and hunting something. I think we are in for some trouble.” His military training kicked in, and he began to look around for some sort of a weapon. Maya stood nervously clutching the book to her ample chest.

  It was at that second that her phone began to vibrate. It was an incoming call. Maya glanced at her phone and saw that the call was coming from Colton Banyon. There was new hope in her voice as she answered the phone.

  “Colt, we are in trouble,” she said quickly. She also put on the speaker, so Eric could hear the conversation.

  “There are four men heading your way. They are Effort men and have been sent by Barry Bass. They are local men, but they are armed with shotguns. They are coming for the book. Can you protect yourselves?”

  “We don’t have any weapons, Colt. What should we do?” Maya whined into the cell phone.

  “You’re wrong,” Banyon said confidently into the phone. “You have me. I’m going to get you and Eric out of this mess. Now, I’m going to put Pramilla on the phone while I set up your rescue. But first, give me the cell phone number of the Rangers.” Maya instantly knew Wolf was watching and could help. She reached into her pocket found the small slip of paper and read the numbers off to Banyon.

  “Maya, you need to call the Rangers and tell them you are in trouble,” Pramilla told her sister when she came on the phone. “Tell them Colt will call them right back and vector them to the bad guys. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll use Eric’s phone to call them,” she replied.

  “I am watching an infrared satellite feed,” Banyon lied smoothly to the Ranger who answered the phone. “Maya and Eric are in trouble and need your help. I’m going to direct you to the bad guys. Be careful—they have shot guns. Don’t kill them; just put them down. We don’t want an international incident.”

  “Piece of cake,” the Ranger replied, already getting out of the car.

  “Can you stay on the line, so that I can continue to direct you?” Banyon was worried they could get lost in the thick vegetation.

  “We’ll connect our earplugs and conference you in,” the Ranger replied, nudging his partner.

  Banyon told them to enter the woods, advising them that two of the men were straight ahead about 100 feet away. The Rangers closed the gap quickly, moving silently through the thick woods. They split up as they neared the two bad guys. Suddenly, a cell phone rang in the woods.

  “You need to take him down before he answers the phone,” Banyon whispered to the Ranger. Banyon was sure Harold could see the Rangers creeping up on his men and told Barry to call them to take evasive action.

  The man with the cell phone stopped walking and reached inside his jacket for his phone. Just as he pulled it out of his pocket, something hit him hard on his neck and he went down. The phone was quickly turned off.

  The second man was only a few feet away and slightly further into the woods. He heard the ring and turned to see what was going on. Suddenly, it felt as though a freight train hit him in the chest, and a fist delivered a right uppercut, dimming his lights. He started to silently slide to the ground. The Ranger gently allowed him to drop.

  “Two down,” the Ranger said into his phone. “Where are the other two?”

  It took Banyon a couple of seconds to reply, as he was checking with Wolf. “The third one is left of your position, about forty yards at eleven o’clock.” The Rangers began moving towards him immediately.


  “What about the fourth guy?” he said on the run.

  “He is already very close to Maya and Eric. You won’t get there in time. But Eric is an ex-SEAL. He’ll have to take him.”

  “Roger,” the Ranger confirmed. As soon as Banyon told him Eric had been a SEAL, he knew the man was going down.

  ric is going to have to take care of the last bad guy,” Pramilla nervously said into Maya’s phone. She and Eric were married, so she was concerned.

  Eric heard Pramilla on Maya’s speakerphone. “Give me directions,” he demanded.

  “Loop around to your right,” Pramilla said. He is less than twenty feet from the entrance to the cemetery and is heading for the opening. If you can come up behind him, you can surprise him.”

  “I’m on it,” he assured with determination.

  “Eric, please be careful. He has a shotgun.” Pramilla pleaded. “Make sure Maya is safe, too.”

  “I always protect the Patel women,” he quickly replied.

  Eric kissed Maya on the head as she crouched behind the headstone. “Stay here,” he ordered as he slipped away.

  Eric bolted over the wooden fence to his right and disappeared into the woods, silently moving from tree to tree searching for Barry’s man. He spotted the man at the entrance to the cemetery and moved behind him. He assessed the huge, hulking man, and he knew it would not be an easy fight.

  Eric was closing in for the takedown when, suddenly, the man’s cellphone rang. He quickly turned and spotted Eric. He fired a shot as Eric dove behind a tree to answer the phone.

  “Ja,” Eric heard him say. Seconds after he had answered the phone, the man moved with unexpected quickness, right to the tombstone where Maya was hiding. He leveled the gun at the frightened woman and shook it to make her stand up. He turned his head towards Eric, who now stood helplessly at the entrance to the cemetery, and jeered, exposing yellow teeth. He said some words in German.

  “He says you need to stay where you are, or he will shoot me,” Maya translated for Eric.

  The man waved for Maya to come closer and hand him the wooden box. She realized she had no choice, but complied with a smile on her face. It unnerved the man. When she was two feet away from him, she tossed the box in the air. The man raised his eyes to watch it, and that’s when Maya struck.

  She batted the rifle away with her right hand and kicked out with her left leg, catching him squarely in his crotch. She followed the blow with an immediate kick to the left shin, crumbling his leg, and she finished with a twirling right leg to his jaw. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell like a mighty oak tree. Eric was immediately on him, but he realized the man was out cold. Instead, he turned and retrieved the wooden box and brought it to Maya, just as the two Rangers sprinted into the cemetery.

  “We got the third guy, too,” one said breathing heavily. “Nice work, Eric,” he added.

  “It wasn’t me,” Eric admitted. “Maya put him down.”

  “I would have dropped him a lot faster if I wasn’t pregnant,” she bragged to the stunned Rangers.

  “Who are you people?” the other Ranger asked.

  “I’m an archeologist,” she sweetly replied. “Eric is my brother-in-law. He is married to one of my sisters.”

  “We need to get out of here before more bad guys show up,” the first Ranger said as he scanned the surrounding woods.

  “Wait,” Maya pleaded. She still had the open cell phone in her hand. “I need to check in,” she explained.

  “Make it fast,” Eric warned.

  “Pramilla, are you still there?” Maya asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. Do you have the book? Is it the real book?” Pramilla rattled off several questions.

  “It is the real book, just as Lisa described it. It has been kept in a wooden box, and it appears to be in pristine shape,” Maya said.

  “Good work, sister,” Pramilla replied happily.

  “I told you I could still do it, even though I’m pregnant.”

  “Now, you need to get back to Las Vegas as quickly as possible,” she ordered. “Don’t go to Colt’s condominium.”

  “Has something changed?” Maya inquired.

  “There is too much to talk about now, but Colt wants us to go to Plan G-String. You know what that is, right?”

  “My favorite plan,” Maya replied, smiling.

  t was late at night in Las Vegas. Barry Bass was listening to his father rant. Barry had asked for an update on the recovery of the Vril book.

  “Those sons of bitches. I’ll get them,” Harold raged into Barry’s head. Harold went on for some time, screaming, cursing, and vowing revenge. He was on a tirade. When Harold was alive, he was known for his short temper. Barry’s only thought was, who are you going to beat up this time, Father?

  Barry had done everything the old man had told him to do, but the Indian girl and the surfer guy now had the Vril book and Barry’s contacts didn’t. The German contacts had been ambushed in the woods.

  “How did that happen?” Barry asked.

  “The assholes up here have misled me,” Harold replied angrily. “Someone up here was helping them. I thought they were my new friends, but now, I realize they don’t want me to succeed.”

  Barry had heard his father blame everyone but himself for anything that went wrong many times. It usually caused him to erupt and take it out on someone, often Barry’s mother or Barry. After Barry’s mother died and Barry was too big for Harold to cuff around, Harold would go out and find someone to abuse. Sometimes it was bums in the street. Sometimes, it was prostitutes. And, sometimes, it was anyone he decided needed a beating. Most of the time, Harold had lived in a world in which violence was always the answer.

  “What do we do now?” Barry asked from his lounge chair as he sipped a beer.

  After a few seconds, Harold replied vengefully, “We are going to take the book from them, even if we have to level Las Vegas. I’ll track them back to Las Vegas and to Lisa. That’s when we will strike.”

  “Can you do that?” Barry asked, sitting up in his chair. The name ‘Lisa’ caught his attention.

  “I’ve learned I can go back in history. Those bastards up here didn’t tell me I could track the history of anybody I choose. They told me I could only do it for myself. Now that I know, I can find out where they are meeting, and you can go there and kill them. Then the book will be mine,” Harold said in a sinister voice.

  “What do you want me to do?” Barry asked.

  “Go and collect as many men as you can. Make sure they are armed. I’m guessing the Indian bitch will be back in Vegas by lunchtime, so be ready.”

  “But it’s late—I need some rest,” Barry moaned. “Aren’t you going to rest, too?” he added when he realized he hadn’t asked a question.

  “I never need rest,” Harold replied. “I’m going to backtrack and find out where Lisa has gone and find out who else we have to deal with. I’m going to find the person who has a contact up here. When I do, you are going to kill them. Kill them all, you hear me?”

  ry him again,” Loni yelled in desperation at the frightened Previne. Loni concentrated on driving down the deserted, flat, empty, road. Though she struggled to control the jeep on the tarmac, she wanted to go faster. She wore dark aviator sunglasses, which covered much of her face. A grimace was on her pretty lips.

  “Still no answer,” Previne yelled back as she held onto the door handle with a death grip. She had to scream over the sound of wind rushing over and battering the large vehicle. “This is like riding a rollercoaster, only there are no rails to hold us onto the road,” Previne added to warn her friend.

  “Wouldn’t you know it, when I need him, he is off with some floozy,” Loni yelled back in frustration, banging the steering wheel. “Why the hell did he have to go up Mt. Charleston this morning?”

  “You’re going too fast,” Previne warned her for the fourth time, as she rocked back and forth in her seat.

  Loni was hunched over the steering wheel, her hand
s in a vice grip, her eyes scouring the highway. Any bump or debris on the road would mean a certain accident, and Loni wasn’t a good driver in the first place.

  “Try Pramilla’s phone, too,” Loni demanded.

  “Loni, why are you in such a hurry?” Previne chided her. “I’d like to get there in one piece, please.”

  “We’ll be at the place of the last sighting in ten minutes. I need to know where to go after that. Colt needs to ask Wolf where she has gone. We need to find her before anybody else does,” Loni barked.

  “Then you need to slow down. I want to live through this adventure,” Previne retorted sarcastically.

  The adventure had started around nine o’clock in the morning, back at Banyon and Loni’s house. The two women had turned on the flat-screen television while cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Banyon, Pramilla, and Lisa had already left for Mt. Charleston, and the two women were left alone. Their only responsibility was to clean up and greet the bodyguards from Chicago. They were due to arrive around noon. The nine o’clock news came on, and it started off with a video.

  “We have this breaking story,” the semi-attractive female announcer said into the camera. “One of our viewers has sent in a video. He said he took it this morning in the town of Rachel, Nevada.” The announcer paused to let that sink in. “That’s right folks; there has been another alien sighting near Area 51. Only this time, the video is very clear and shows an unidentified creature sneaking around town.”

  Both women jerked up their heads. They ran to the TV area and stood in front of the big screen. In an instant, they had both relived the night before when Lisa had written ‘someone will come’ on the tablecloth.

  “Do you think…,” Loni started to say.

  “Quiet, let’s see the video,” Previne hushed her.

  The announcer continued, “Now we had to black out some parts of the alien creature, as they look very much like breasts, but you can be the judge. Fortunately, the creature wore a loincloth.”