Dog Days of Summer (Damned of the 2/19th Book Four) - Finished

Boots and Glass

275 Orange Street

Centralia, Washington

United States of America

9 August, 1986

0045 Hours

        There was a single light on at the back of the Duotree house. I could my sister's touch all over the yard. From the swingset, probably the one from K-Mart, to the lumber stacked against the tree that I knew she planned on building a treehouse for her eventual children. She wanted children, looked forward to it, and I knew that she'd make a good mother.

        "Watch the sprinkler, Ant, don't break your ankle." Westlin warned me in a hoarse whisper. I nodded, skirting the sprinkler that was almost buried in the grass. It had fairies painted on it with acrylic paint and I recognized the art style at Niamh's.

        "Bet you wish you hadn't have given Bomber your Gerber, huh?" Westlin grinned. She scrape on her cheek oozed blood down the side of her face. She frowned. "Your nose is bleeding again."

        "Just a headache." I told her, wiping my nose and glancing. The blood was thick and black in the darkness. No arterial spray, so no reason to really worry. I moved up to the lit window and looked in, moving slowly and carefully.

        My cousin Tadhg was sitting at the kitchen table with Lonnie Doutree. Both men were laughing, cans of Olympia beer in their hands. My cousin Tadhg could be a problem. He'd done four years in the Marines, from what I'd heard, but he had a weak chink in his armor a mile wide that I knew I could exploit if I had to. He was taller than me by about two inches, although most of his muscle had run to fat. His blond hair was still cut short and he had a shitty jailhouse-style anchor and chain tattooed on his right biceps. Lonnie, on the other hand, was my main focus. Plain and simple, he was a monster. Six foot six at the minimum, probably two-sixty, two-seventy-five, with large scarred hands, dark squinty eyes, black hair, and the face of a sheep killing dog.

        I needed info. I needed to put fear into the Matrons and anyone siding with them. The Matrons had allowed the Doutree boys to put my sister in the hospital. She was a girl and girls were supposed to have the protection of the entire family. But the McDaurn family Matrons had stood aside, seemingly more interested in bringing me to kneel in front of them then making sure that the entire world knew that touching a McDaurn girl without her permission resulted in blood and pain.

        And what did Matron Aine have to do with it all?

        I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. None of that mattered. What mattered is the ex-Marine and the thyroid monster sitting at them kitchen table.

        Ghosting around to the back door, which led directly into the kitchen, I decided that maybe it was time to take a play from Nancy Nagle's playbook. Lord knew it worked for her.

        I leaned back and drove the heel of my combat boot into the door, breaking it right down the center and blasting it off it's hinges. "IT'S FUCKING TIME!" I bellowed out, moving into the kitchen. Lonnie and Tadhg were coming to their feet swearing, staring at me in shock as I came into the frontroom.

        "I'm looking for who put my sister in the hospital." I growled, grabbing a chair and flinging it against the wall. "Either of you two scumbag motherfuckers got anything to do with that?"

        Lonnie just laughed at me. Tadhg just shook his head smiling.

...well, shit, that didn't work...

        "If it ain't Little Orphan Annie." Lonnie sneered, cracking his knuckles. "You should have stayed away, pussy."

        "The Matrons got everyone looking for you, Annie boy." Tadhg smiled, shrugging out of jacket and dropping it onto the table. "Guess I found you."