Pushing Up Daisies Read online

  Sgt. Cooper gave in. Ten minutes later, they were sitting side by side in the front of the Jeep with Freidrick in the back.

  Chapter 2

  House sat on a large couch in the luxury of the Company’s Greek safe house. Kalarrytes was a small town in the mountains close to the Albanian border. Not much went on there, which was why the Company had located the safe house close by. The local government had been happy to welcome them. Greece was financially screwed. Any investment from a company outside their borders was welcomed.

  Daisy, Gopher and Blackberry were draped over chairs in the small dining area drinking beer. Daisy, half Latino and all woman tonight, wore tight black jeans, high-laced boots and a shimmery, black tube top that barely contained her generous breasts. Blackberry’s muscles bulged under a tight T-shirt. His color choice was also black. He wore a black bandana over his shaved skull. Gopher was always different. His blond hair was buzz cut. He wore blue jeans and flip-flops with a Hawaiian shirt; red flowers and blue macaws on a blue background.

  House left his cozy spot on the couch and took a seat at the table with his team.

  “Arm wrestle Berry for me,” Daisy said. “I like watching you two go at it.”

  “What do I get if I win?” House leered at her. “Can I see the rack?”

  Daisy pulled a butterfly knife out of her tube top and flicked it twice to open it. “Not a chance.”

  “Then why should I entertain you?”

  “Come on, House, fight Berry. Maybe you’ll win this time.”

  House grinned. He had yet to beat Blackberry at something he felt was his particular skill. Rolling his sleeve up to bare a huge bicep, House placed his elbow on the table. Berry put his elbow next to House’s, they locked fists, and it was on. Their muscles bulged and their faces contorted with the effort.

  “Come on, House, you can do it,” Daisy urged.

  “Get him, Berry,” Gopher said from the other side of the table.

  The two men grunted and groaned as they struggled. Sweat beaded House’s forehead. The two men had huge forearms and massive upper arms. They were evenly matched. House had Berry’s arm inches from the table when Berry yelled, grimaced, grunted and slammed House’s arm onto the table.

  “Fuck me!” House snarled. “I’ll get you yet, Berry.”

  “Pussy,” Berry said with a smile. “You ain’t nothing. I’ll still be beatin’ you when I’m eighty.”

  Five Finger Death Punch singing No One Gets Left Behind blared from the pod dock as Daisy poured each of them a shot glass of tequila, her favorite drink. “Let’s celebrate another successful mission.”

  With the heavy-metal music thumping, they picked up their glasses, pounded them on the table three times, shouted, “No one gets left behind!” and then slammed the shots.

  House could feel the need to run coursing through his veins. He rose from the table and stalked to the window. When he flexed, his forearm muscles shimmered with the change. He forced it down. It was too early. Later he would let his inner beast roar.

  “Think we’ll hit the town,” Daisy said. “These two,” Daisy waved her hand to indicate Gopher and Blackberry, “seem to think there are hot chicks they can pick up in town. I could use a hot chick, so I’m going with them.”

  House snorted. “That’s funny. This is the sticks. The town has two bars and three hotels. The bars are usually filled with men, Greek men, fat, hairy Greek men. But go, please, knock yourselves out. If you find some hot chicks, let me know. I’ll want to post their presence on facebook.”

  “Dimitri told me there’s a group of Italian hikers staying in the hostel in town…girl hikers,” Gopher said.

  Dimitri was one of their elderly caretakers. He liked to gossip with them and practice his English. He had big dreams of traveling to America one day to visit relatives.

  House opened his hands. “I told you guys, go. Just remember who you work for and take a minimum number of weapons.” He turned to Daisy, well-known for secreting knives all over her body. “You, too, just one weapon each and keep it well-hidden.”

  Members of the Company tried to abide by the rules of the country they were in but keeping safe was their true priority.

  When they were gone, House went out on the balcony of the three-story farm house and surveyed the countryside. The sun was slowly setting over the mountains to the west. Below him, a winding road cut through the hills. To the east, a thick forest and a large lake beckoned. Kalarrytes was on one side of a deep gorge where the Chroussias River raced out of the mountains. Syrrako was its sister city on the other side of the gorge.

  The mountains and hillsides around the town were wild and filled with game. Tonight, he would change, shift into his wolf body and run. More and more often, he was feeling the need to run in his wolf body. It was time for him to take a mate. Hormones pulsed through him creating a restlessness he found hard to fight.

  He loved the mountains, though these were far different from the ones of his home on the White Mountain Reservation in Arizona. His father still lived there. His mother was long gone. She ran away when House was five, unable to deal with marriage to a shifter. His father had never remarried, staying true to the wolf’s creed of one mate. Wolves mated for life and werewolves were no different.

  When the sun set, he removed his clothes slowly, folded them into a neat pile and walked naked onto the balcony. He stood for a moment in the rising moonlight and flexed his broad shoulders. He ran one hand over his short black hair as he stared into the darkness. His keen eyesight picked up movement on the slope of the nearest hillside. It was a deer. He growled, dropped to his knees and shifted.

  As a wolf, House was covered with thick, black hair, his eyes were silver. His paws were silver, his claws sharp. In one bound he cleared the railing and landed on the banked hill behind the house. Grapes grew in ragged rows on terraces carved out of the hill. He raced down one row as he headed toward the forest and that deer.

  * * * *

  The ride out to Elaayo was short. The ruins were only twenty kilometers from Boosaaso. A hot wind scorched them under the late-afternoon sun as the Jeep bounced over ruts in the dirt road, little more than a track across barren land.

  Freidrick wore a broad-brimmed hat to protect himself from the sun. Sarah had a scarf tightly wound around her hair to keep the long blond lengths from blowing. A stray strand had escaped and whipped around her face. Coop, armed to the teeth, never stopped scanning the road ahead and the surrounding countryside. “We shouldn’t be out here, Sarah. It’s dangerous.”

  She waved one slim hand to indicate the surrounding countryside. “See anyone? Anyone at all?”

  “U.N. people have been killed all over this godforsaken country,” Coop said. “Remember that.”

  Sarah smiled and patted the hand on the steering wheel. “We’ll be fine.”

  When the road began running close to the Gulf, a sea breeze blew inland, cooling them with moister air. The surrounding landscape was white and barren. An occasional ruin sprouted out of the desolation. Sarah was looking for mounds that might indicate tombs. She had studied Christian history in college and knew early Christians were rumored to have crossed Somalia on their way to Ethiopia. It was her dream to find evidence of this.

  They saw no people, just a few goats picking at the sparse grass and shrubs growing along the roadway. When they got to the fishing village of Elaayo, a small jumble of stone and concrete huts, they spotted several children playing in a puddle of dirty water surrounding the town well. A tall Somali woman strode down the white road carrying a clay jar on her head. Several boats were drawn above the tide line with nets draped over their sides to dry.

  The Jeep interrupted a flock of scraggly chickens pecking listlessly in the afternoon heat. The birds squawked and flew everywhere as they bounced through the town toward the outskirts and the ruins.

  The ruined city of Elaayo was close to the Gulf on a mound that overlooked white sandy beach and sparkling blue water. Coop took off h
is helmet and laid it on the seat. His sandy hair blew in the breeze.

  “This is beautiful,” he said. “Hard to believe it’s in Somalia.”

  Freidrick laughed from the back seat. “Yah, dis is the most disgusting country I have ever visited. They fight each other and let all the babies starve.”

  “You forgot attack the aid workers and steal all the food,” Coop added.

  Sarah climbed out of the Jeep and grabbed her digging kit. She kept tools like brushes, trowels and small picks inside a fishing-tackle box. “Yes, Somalia is the worst country I’ve been to and I’ve been to a bunch. But because of it, there are so many lovely unexplored ruins. You guys coming with me or hanging by the beach?”

  Coop and Freidrick stared with longing at the blue water and bright-white strand of sand. “They have such beautiful beaches and no one ever sees them or swims in the water,” Coop said. “It’s such a shame.”

  “I will go with Sarah,” Freidrick announced.

  Coop sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

  Sarah wandered in the small hills overlooking the ruins of Elaayo. She tried to imagine it a thriving city with ships docked in the small bay and diverse people wandering its streets. She imagined temples and homes lining the ancient pavers still visible though cracked and covered with sand as she climbed higher.

  “What are you looking for?” Freidrick called after her.

  “Tombs,” Sarah answered. “I read there are several in these hills, most unopened.”

  “Really,” Freidrick said. “So exciting to think of being first one in after so many centuries.”

  They tramped up into the hillside overlooking the ruined town following goat paths worn into the packed earth. Sarah saw a cave and peered inside. It was shallow and empty. They walked on, zigzagging further up the hillside on the goat paths. Sarah found several more caves in the sandy cliffs, but they were either empty or too shallow to contain anything.

  Freidrick was getting tired of the hike and the heat. He stopped and took off his wide-brimmed hat to wipe sweat off his forehead and smooth his blond hair. “How far will we go, Sarah? It’s growing late.”

  “Just a while longer.” A sandy cliff hung over the goat trail. Sarah climbed up the side of the cliff and stood looking down at Freidrick. The ground beneath her feet was covered with a thin layer of sand, flaky and brittle. She stomped her stout sandal and thought it sounded hollow under her. She stomped again and the whole cliff collapsed under her dropping her into a dark cave.

  The first thing she heard as she crouched in the dark was an ominous sizzling sound. Freidrick stuck his head into the hole in the roof of the cavern. “Sounds like a carpet viper, Sarah. Don’t move.”

  Coop leaned over the edge. “You okay?”

  “Freidrick said something about a viper.”

  The sizzling sound was coming from her left. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark but she still couldn’t see the snake. Coop leaned down and handed her a heavy black flashlight. She reached up to get it and the sizzling sound escalated. “Drop it. I’m afraid to move.”

  “I’m coming down,” Coop said.

  “No, you might be bitten.”

  “I have boots on. You’re wearing a dress and sandals.” He dropped beside her and began shining the flashlight around the cave. He had his pistol in the other hand. The sizzling noise never stopped. “Saw-scaled vipers,” Coop began. “They make that sound by rubbing their scales together. Aha! There you are.”

  Illuminated by the flashlight, a dark-brown snake with a cream belly and a diamond pattern lay coiled under a rock ledge. When the light hit it, it struck, but was too short to reach Coop.

  “I’m going to have to kill it,” Coop said. “This is a very poisonous snake.”

  “I’m fine with that,” Sarah said. “This looks like a tomb.”

  Coop fired three shots into the snake. When it was dead, he used the flashlight to lift it and toss it out of the cave. Freidrick stuck his head into the opening. “It is dead? I do not like snakes.”

  “It’s gone, Freidrick. I think this is a tomb. Throw me my kit.”

  He tossed the kit down to her. “I will come down as long as there are no more snakes.”

  “I don’t hear any more,” Coop said.

  Sarah opened her kit and took out her own flashlight. Walking carefully, she scanned the interior with the light. It was a tomb. Shelves were carved into the walls of the cave. Desiccated bodies wrapped in shredded shrouds lay on the shelves.

  Freidrick dropped into the cave. He carried a big halogen light with a battery pack. When he switched it on, the interior of the cave was lit with bright-white light. Sarah stood in the middle and stared in awe. No one had been in here since this cave was closed and the people laid to rest. Spider webs filled every corner and a thick layer of dust covered everything.

  “I’m gonna figure out how to get out of here,” Coop said.

  Sarah scanned the cave’s interior. “The door is over there,” she pointed to an opening in the side of the cave wall that looked blocked. “It might have been closed by the ones who buried these people or it might be caved in.”

  Coop went to see if the door could be reopened while Sarah took a big brush out of her kit. She brushed dust off one of the bodies. It appeared to be a woman with a child beside her. Freidrick hovered over her shoulder. “This is an incredible find,” he said.

  “I think this tomb is from the first century,” Sarah said. “These shrouds look like they are made of wool. That was the most common woven fabric back then. And the style is from that time period.”

  Sarah peeled back one layer of the shroud and saw bones. This was so real. Her heart raced. The dead woman held a small object in her hand. Gold glinted between the bones of her fingers. With shaky hands, Sarah pried the fingers open.

  “I think I can break through this seal,” Coop said.

  The sudden tramp of feet overhead caused Sarah to glance at Coop. He stood frozen in place with one finger in front of his lips. Sarah nodded. Loud male voices speaking Somali drifted down to them.

  Freidrick, Coop and Sarah slowly eased into the shadows cast by the halogen light. Sarah whispered into Coop’s ear. “Pirates. They found the Jeep and heard the shots. Turn off the light.”

  Sweat beaded on Coop’s forehead and upper lip as he switched it off. Freidrick was shaking with fear. There was only one way Sarah could save them. It was her fault they were here. She walked to the dead woman, snagged the golden object without examining it and put it in the pocket of her dress. She indicated Coop and Freidrick should move deeper into the cave.

  “Help,” she called in Somali.

  A dark face appeared above her and fired off a long string of Somali. Sarah understood about half of it. She smiled and waved. “I’m an archeologist,” she called back. “I fell into this cave.”

  The Somali stuck one long black arm into the hole. “Grab my hand,” he said in Oxford-accented English.

  Chapter 3

  Daisy led the Italian woman through the dark farmhouse and into her bedroom. She pushed the door closed behind her and switched on the light.

  The young woman was one of the Italian hikers. Daisy and the guys had discovered the Italians in the second bar they tried. Ten young women were in Kalarrytes to hike the nearby mountain of Lakmos. They all attended the Sapienza University of Rome and were hiking in Greece during a school holiday.

  Filomena giggled and slid her white blouse off her shoulder revealing the top of one creamy breast. Daisy was on fire. She grabbed Filomena’s hand and led her to the bed. The climate around Kalarrytes was Alpine so there was a down comforter on the bed. She drew it off and pushed Filomena onto the sheets.

  They fell onto the softness together. Daisy was slightly shorter than Filomena who was tall with strong, slender legs. Daisy wound her fingers in Filomena’s long, dark hair and pulled her face close for their first kiss. Her lips tasted like licorice, she’d been drinking Sambuca, and they were soft. Daisy sucked on he
r pillowy lower lip while she pushed Filomena’s blouse off.

  Filomena’s small breasts were firm under her hands, the nipples long and rock-hard. Daisy sucked in her breath as she pulled each one. Filomena giggled and pushed Daisy’s tube top down. Her breasts flowed out and into Filomena’s waiting hands.

  Apparently Filomena had been with women before. Her caresses were practiced. She knew just how to touch Daisy’s sensitive breasts, stroking them, pinching and pulling on the nipples until Daisy was crazy with desire.

  Daisy pushed Filomena’s skirt up and ran her hands up smooth thighs until she felt the edge of Filomena’s underwear, little more than a scrap of lace. She slid her hand under the edge and found Filomena wet with desire. “I’m gonna get out of my clothes,” she said in a deep throaty whisper. “Why don’t you do the same?”

  They undressed quickly and returned to the sheets. Naked, they embraced, rubbing their bodies together. Daisy had lotion. She grabbed the bottle off the bedside table, squeezed a dollop into her hand and began slathering it all over Filomena. She rubbed the lotion smelling of wildflowers into Filomena’s breasts and stomach as she knelt over her. From there, she worked her way down, rubbing her legs and thighs. Then she rolled Filomena onto her stomach, squeezed more into her hands and attacked Filomena’s round ass. She rubbed lotion into the globes, spread them and ran her hands between the woman’s legs. Filomena groaned in ecstasy beneath her as she massaged her butt and back.

  “Yes,” she breathed in Italian which Daisy barely understood because she spoke Spanish. The languages had some similarities but a lot of differences.

  “Oh, that feels wonderful,” Filomena said in broken English.

  Finished with her massage, Daisy pushed Filomena’s buttocks open and buried her face in the fragrant flesh. Filomena lifted so Daisy could access her sex. Daisy used her tongue and her fingers to invade the opening aggressively. She was too hot to be gentle, but Filomena didn’t seem to mind being manhandled. Daisy was strong. She lifted Filomena, flipped her over again and spread her legs wide. Filomena moaned with anticipation as Daisy concentrated her gaze on the pink flesh exposed to her hot eyes.