Life as a New Hire Ch. 31

I could see the old man's rage and sense of utter hopelessness. One of the older men looked at Pops and chortled.

[Romani] "Good little mouse," he said. The other two chuckled. The punk began working a hand down the top of the girl's shirt and fondled a breast. The girl was crying.

[Romani] "Maybe I'll pop her cherry on this table tonight?" the punk snorted. The girl didn't know the lingo, but she knew his intent. The other laughed. I stood up. Selena grabbed my hand.

"We do not get involved," Selena whispered intensely. "Those are the rules."

"What?" I looked over my shoulder and down at her, smiling.

"I'm only going to ask him how good the soup is," I fibbed. No one at my table believed me. Selena let go, and off I went. The two older men had caught the conversation, yet lacking knowledge of English, didn't get the importance of the exchange. The punk was engrossed in defiling the young lady.

"Hey, I'm new to town," I greeted their table. "How is the soup?"

[Romani] "Is this asshole begging to get robbed, or what?" Older guy A said to the other two. They laughed. I was a joke to them.

"Why thank you," I smiled and nodded. I picked up the punk's soup.

Older guy A tried to stop me. Not only was he not all that fast, I can pulp a grapefruit with my fingers. By squeezing his palm, I had the meat of his thumb pressed tightly against the meat of his pinkie. He yelped, so I let him yank his hand back. I smelled the soup. I tilted the bowl back and had a taste. It was very good - well worth the cost. The two older guys were standing up.

This would have been the point when the punk should have dumped the girl and stood as well.

[Hungarian] "The soup and the girl, or just the soup?" I requested.

[Hungarian] "You have made a very bad mistake," Older guy A glared. [Romani] "We kill this one."

[Romani] "Cool Beans," I laughed. I overturned the bowel onto the punk's head. Not on the crown - planting it halfway toward the forehead meant the still warm soup splashed down into his eyes. In his shock and pain, the punk released the girl. I whipped her up and behind me. The punk and the girl were screaming.

Belatedly, the two older gypsies were reaching for their un-holstered pistols. Jacket pockets and the small of your back are not places you put a pistol if time is of the essence. I threw the bowel into OG B's face, then reached over the still screaming punk to punch OG A in the face. I had to release the girl who staggered back into the table behind us.

Dealing with the punk was the obvious next order of business, so I danced around him instead. Had I stayed in place to deal with the punk, I would have been vulnerable to OG B, who only had to shrug off the light bowl hitting his face. Nope; I grabbed hold of OG A and hurled him over the table into OG B. The cheap-ass table and the chair behind OG B all gave way.

The Punk obliged me by standing up, trying to clean his face with his right hand and going for his gun with the other (he was a lefty). I hooked his belt with my right, his jaw with my left and hefted him up in the air. I kept the maneuver going, lifting him up until his head was down and his thrashing feet were touching the ceiling then sent him crashing down on his two buddies.

I had no trouble drawing my Glock-22, cocking it and crouching down next to the human trash pile.

[Romani] "Do you know who I am?" I asked quietly. Slowly, I gathered their attention.

[Romani] "No, but you are a dead man," the punk seethed.

Nodding, I flipped out my neat little Amazon blade, scooped out his right eye then cut him down his cheek to his chin in one smooth slash. He started to scream. I punched him with my knife hand in the throat to curtail that annoyance.

[Romani] "So I'm asking you again: do you know who I am?"

[Romani] "N...no," Older Guy A muttered.

[Hungarian] "And that is how I like it. I don't know you, you don't know me, and we are going to part ways and never see each other again. If we do meet, I might be in a bad, fucking mood because you have just about dissipated all of my goodwill for the night," I informed him.

[Hungarian] "Agreed," OG A was somewhat confused and the pain was settling in.

[Hungarian] "Take your guns, your friend and leave," I directed. It was encouraging to see OG B sending me a cautious look before picking up his gun. As they were heading out the door,

[Hungarian] "I'm new to town. Can you direct me to any good clubs in the area?" I asked.

Blink. The punk was still gasping and wheezing. The other two were confused.

[Hungarian] "The Halo Bar, or the Liget Bar and Club," he answered.

[Hungarian] "Thank you," I gave him a polite wave, "and goodnight." I didn't further kick their asses and humiliate them because of the restaurant owner's family. I was about to be gone from their lives. They had to live here, so confusing the reason for my intervention had been necessary. Why had I let them leave with their guns? Two reasons - when they related this event to their confederates, the fact I had let them leave with their weapons would come up.

If I wasn't afraid of letting them leave with their weapons, what did that say about my combat lethality? They were going to come seeking vengeance. Nothing short of killing them and dumping their bodies in the Danube would have curtailed that, the moment I decided to get involved. I paid our bill in silence. None of them thanked me. They were scared.

I couldn't blame them. As Chaz had said, they lived in this low-intensity war zone every day.

"That was an interesting exhibition of futile compassion," Selena mocked me.

"Thank you," I responded chipperly "I'm glad to see my actions were not misconstrued."

"I agree with the mutt," Saku nodded. To clarify, she pointed at Selena, "Her."

"That goes double for you, Baby-cakes," I teased Saku then fled. Saku had been about to punch me so was somewhat unbalanced when she missed and her two contrabassoon gig-bags swung around on her back. You didn't think she was walking around without her bow and sword, did ya? Sakuniyas broke into a dead run, trying to catch me.

Selena, Delilah and Pamela had to race to keep up. After three blocks, I was proving my Olympian status by not being bitch-slap bait for my pursuers. I turned another corner and Fate proved she was all the bitch I needed. I ran into the girl, she began to administer a hip toss, I latched onto her arm only to realize it was a girl so I took the fall with her landing on top of me.

[Hungarian] "Fuck!" she snarled. She pulled away and I let her.

[Hungarian] "I apologize, I wasn't..." I got out before Saku ran up and kicked at me. I blocked the first blow with my thigh and the second with a left armed sweep.

[Hungarian] "Why are you attacking this man?" the new girl grumbled to Saku. "What has he done?" She was pissed with me, though questioning Saku.

[Hungarian] "She doesn't speak Hungarian," I clarified. [English] "Saku, she wants to know why you ae kicking me."

"Tell her because you so richly deserve it," Sakuniyas seethed.

Pamela and Selena came up. Both appeared amused by my predicament.

"If she doesn't speak Hungarian, what is she doing in this part of the district after dark?" the stranger regarded Saku suspiciously. I scrambled to my feet. The stranger spoke heavily-accented English

"I apologize for running into you," I told her.

I noticed she had a handful of flyers she had been in the process of handing out when I collided with her. I helped her gather them up and took one for myself. On the paper were four pictures of young ladies. In Hungarian, Serbian, and Romanian it gave their names and a contact number for anyone who saw them.

We were in the midst of 'Sex Central' and our altercation had garnered some unwanted attention. Several prostitutes were fidgeting over the encounter - I was hot and clearly had money - so a pimp migrated our way.

[Romanian] "Alkonyka, you were told to stay away and not to harass our customers," the moving wall of meat chided my new found 'not' friend.

[Romanian] "It really wasn't a problem," I intervened.

[Romanian] "Shut up," he barked at me.

[Romanian] "And I told you and your buddies - give me back my sister and I'll leave you alone," Alkonyka (aka Dusk in English) responded to the guy.

He was big ~ 1.9 meters and 130 kg, plus he knew a little Tae Kwon Do. She was no featherweight ~ 1.83 meters and 62 kg and was far better at Sambo than I was at boxing. What followed was a vicious little beat down where the Big Man ended up sobbing in the fetal position while she berated him.

She ended up rifling his pockets, taking out his phone and scrolling through it. She didn't find what she was looking for, cursed the pimp and attempted to put his phone into orbit. After that, Alkonyka picked up her flyers and stormed up the street. In the eternal sewage flow of the streets, three whores rushed over to help the guy once Alkonyka had left.

My unerring 'party girl' sense had delivered us close to the Liget. I wanted to go in, and since no one grabbed me in time, in we went. The two bouncers really didn't want to let me and my armory inside. I showed them my Irish diplomatic ID and let them in on a secret. The club's owner was seeking to open a 'sister' club in Dublin and I was here to check it out.

Me, my two bodyguards and my personal marching band (Saku and her cases) were let in. We had a wonderful fifteen minute tenure. Delilah and Pamela sat back and pointed out the various mobsters and gang cliques. Fate conjoined with my lie. One of the bar security types finally got around to telling the bar owner that his 'Irish partners' were at the bar.

Even from our distant spot, I could tell he was not a happy camper. Delilah, Pamela and I were debating our possible reactions to their upcoming request from the Boss to come over and talk with him. Saku was completely in favor of 'squashing the vermin'. It turned out, half way between the goons and us was Alkonyka doing her 'Missing Girl' thing.

She turned and headed toward us, until she saw us. Her eyes flashed to the door, back to the kitchen and finally to the women's rest room (she'd dropped in from the window that was three meters up, we were to learn later).

[Hungarian] "We are not with them!" I shouted over the noise.

The wisdom of that declaration was dubious. Not only was the local establishment out to get us, multiple other criminals seemed to have a special hate on for Alkonyka. She was also the person with the best lay of the land. When she raced for the kitchen, we followed. That required us to cross to separate dance floors. The Bitch Fate hit me on floor two.

I bounced off a dancing couple, flicked them a quick look and an apology.

[Hungarian] "Sorry about..." our eyes locked, then I was propelled away. She knew me and not in a good way. Not even in a bad way. It was in a horrible, horrible way. Did I exaggerate?

[Old Kingdom Hittite] "Come back here!" she yelled after me. "Come back, whoever you are!"

As bad as she was, her boyfriend was much worse. If I ran into him next, I was going to really regret not kissing my lovely Aya good-bye. After the dance floor, came the kitchen nightmare. It was Midnight Munchies time and the cook staff was working overtime. Then came the utter lack of a fire code: the rear door was chained shut.

The only remaining exit was down a narrow hallway to the loading dock. There was no way...we couldn't all fit down there fast enough.

"Pamela - Go!" I yelled. The absurdity of me sending my bodyguards to safety while I held off the villains wasn't lost on any of us.

"That's fucking hilarious, Dumbass," Delilah hissed. Her gun roared twice and the fuse box (in plain view) exploded in a shower of sparks. The lights flickered then failed. Consternation and confusion were all around. Someone grabbed my shoulder and off we ran. By the time the emergency lights kicked I heard the rolling doors heading up - the loading dock.

Our group was diving through the narrow, yet growing, opening since waiting was a luxury we didn't possess. Was it a good choice or a bad one that led us to run northeast instead of southwest in that alleyway? Only time would tell. As it was, we plowed into a group of revelers at the mouth of the alley.

Ten of the fifteen were gang members, who weren't much in the mood for talking when they caught site of Alkonyka. It turned out they were compatriots of the big tub of lard she'd busted up earlier and had been sort of looking for her. A major melee ensued. By unspoken consensus, we went to fisticuffs first.

My side was beating them like little bitches when gangsters pouring out of the front of the club and the ones coming from the back of the club converged on us. The impetus of the combined rush thrust the whole fight out into the street. Fortunately, auto traffic is uncommon in Budapest due to an exceptional public transportation system. That wasn't of much help to us.

I tried to keep close to Delilah, who I had been following. That turned out to be impossible due to a variety of factors. Notably, several of the gangs weren't fans of some other gang and there were like ~ eighty-plus people fighting. No one knew who the fuck we were, but it turned out that Alkonyka had a price on her head. Thankfully, her nemesis wanted her delivered alive.

I could hardly say this chaotic affair was enjoyable, yet some jack-shit moron just had to make it worse. First someone drew a knife and then things escalated rapidly. Two shots rang out. I didn't hear anyone screaming in agony, so the shots must gone up, or down. I saw Delilah go down in a tangle of three opponents. I had my Glock out to pistol-whip a few assholes.

A body slammed against my back, staggering me. I managed to keep my feet and twisted only to find the body was in various states of discombobulation and That Chic was flashing me a dangerous look. I raised my pistol and shot the guy about to shoot her in the back - cause I'm an idiot. She tracked my shot, gave me a quick nod and then proceeded to whoop ass on some other poor soul.

Three more bullets went flying around before the poorly armed mob broke and ran. The mobsters (those left standing) backed up from whence we came and unloaded on us with two of Hungary's own KGP-9's ~ Woot! (It's a sub-machinegun). They seemed to have had some military training, yet they had fuck all for cover. What's with these people?

Once we all dodged to street-side walls, Delilah, Pamela and I 'pumped up the volume'. That meant we murdered the two most dangerous gangsters and let the others run for their lives. My quick head/body count revealed that only eight people were actually dead. Some poor smuck had his throat slit, five had been chopped up with a sword and the two guys we'd shot and killed.

Pamela's little expeditionary force had added four intrepid recruits: Alkonyka and three people who wanted to kill most of us, though they probably didn't truly understand that when we all fled the scene before the criminal element came back in greater force. Shelter took the shape of an abandoned house...if you didn't count the homeless in residence.

It was no surprise that Team Pamela was okay, except for the prerequisite bruising and shallow cuts. We'd been wearing both our ballistic vests and armored dusters. Saku had been wearing her armor (sans helm) instead of ballistic cloth - so she looked like a deranged, post-apocalyptical outrider compared to our 'Dirty Harry/Pale Rider' knock-offs. Alkonyka was much the worse for wear.

Her backpack and flyers were history. She still had her blade, but her clothes were a mess. The exposed flesh on her back gifted me with a little hint from Dot Ishara of why this had happened to me. You can't take the good without the bad, or so it seemed.

[Hungarian] "Don't stare at me," Alkonyka snapped.

That made everyone else stare at her, which made the girl even less comfortable.

"Holy Mother Fucking Shit," Delilah exclaimed. "Is that what I think it is?" Confusion time.

[Old Kingdom Hittite] "Why do I know you?" the princess asked me as she tugged on my sleeve.

"Oh damn it," Pamela mumbled.

Saku merely looked her way while she cleaned off her blade and her front using a jacket she'd swiped form a drunk homeless woman. The lady's two buddies were downright laconic.

"Is she an Amazon too?" Delilah questioned.

"Two in one night," Selena nodded. "Now, we can we please leave the city before everyone in this district wants us dead?"

"Too late," I sighed.

[Hungarian] "Who are you people?" Alkonyka inquired heatedly.

[OKH] "One moment, please," I addressed the Princess.

[Hungarian] "How to put this...we are honor-bound to help you liberate your sister. For now, would you please accept that it is because we are from the same hometown and leave it at that?"

[Hungarian] "What town are you from? You sound like an American," she quizzed me.

[Hungarian] "My name is Cáel Nyilas and my family came from Szászrégen, before World War II," I informed her.

That was Reghin in current day Romania.

[Hungarian] "Oh..." she was a tiny bit less hostile.

[Hungarian] "Hang in there. I have to deal with this," I cut her off. I looked to the Princess.

"I am Cáel Ishara, Head of House Ishara and Chief Diplomat for the Host," I identified myself.

"You know me because I witnessed your passage from the Land of the Endless Black Sands to the Sunlit Realm. It was part of a vision an augur shared with me," I explained. She and her buddies were far less welcoming of the news. I was speaking English on purpose.

"Ladies, this is Kwenhamai, better known as Molpadia, daughter of Penthesilea," I gulped.

"What House is she with?" Selena inquired.

"She doesn't have one. See, she was a princess of the Royal House. Then her mother, Queen Penthesilea, fought Ajax and Achilles. Despite her battle prowess, Ajax mocked her then Achilles knocked her to the ground. The Queen begged for her life, yet Achilles showed no mercy.

Dying in such a shameful manner meant our new friend here was passed over for Queenship. The crown and girdle went to her aunt, Antiope, who Molpadia later killed to save that queen from being defiled by Theseus, Tyrant of Athens. She was then killed by the Greeks and thus ended the Royal House of the Amazons."

"But she's back?" Delilah wondered.

"This would be the part that has Cáel unhappy," Pamela muttered.

"Yeah, ya see..." I turned to the Princess again. "You are part of the Unconquered's group, right?" I groaned.

"Yes, me - we are with Ajax," the Princess revealed to the rest what I knew in my heart to be true.

"Thank you for your honesty, Death Song, and thank you for saving my life. Go in peace," I extended my hand. She stepped up, we clasped arms in the Amazon style and she smiled warmly.

"Your life wasn't really in danger," she smirked. She was referring to the guy who bounced off my back. "You put a bullet in the man trying to kill me...even though you knew who I was and who I was with...why?" Molpadia wanted to know.

"Because he's going to fuck you silly, you clueless bitch," Pamela got all snarky. Of course I was angling for a way to have sex with Molpadia, so I wished Pamela hadn't been so blatant.

"What's her excuse?" Molpadia looked past me at Pamela.

"She's my Evil Psychic Twin Grandmother," I sagely related. Blink. "I'm letting you walk away because you are not the one I need to kill. I have to kill Ajax and kick his 'boys look better bent over' ass back to the Netherworld.

Oh, and I think you are sexy and don't fall under the forty-four...whoops, forty-three day ban on me having sex with Amazons," I grinned. We were still clasping forearms.

"Thank you and good luck with that," she nodded.

"The 'kill Ajax' part, or the 'bed you' part?" I asked. She smiled, winked and sauntered away with her buddies.