Nobody ever walked across the Madison County Bridge unscathed, not with the bunch of trolls who lived underneath. Trolls were the biggest scavengers of paranormal pests, and they had very distinctive body odor, like the smell of a pigsty in Fourth of July heat.
Sam might have felt sorry for her unsuspecting quarry, the Strakhov brothers, who were about to take it on the chin and everywhere else, but she didn't. Life was a series of tough choices. She'd learned that in the school of hard knocks—learned mostly from demons, shapeshifters and grinches, the latter who could pack a mean punch when denied their Hoo pudding. She wouldn't take losing her business to Monsters-R-Us lying down, nor would she pretend that them stealing her clients was just water under the bridge. No, what was under the bridge wasn't water.
Discovering that the Strakhovs had somehow gotten tonight's troll-removal job from the three Billys—grandfather, son and grandson—Sam had put her plan in motion. Now she was waiting patiently for the payoff.
The three Billys, though gruff in manner at times, had thrown Sam and her brother a lot of business over the years, so she didn't know how Nicolas Strakhov had talked them into switching sides. She figured it wasn't on the up and up.
The grandfather, Billy Senior, whom Sam had never particularly liked, was retired. He was a randy old goat who was always pinching her rear. The grandson, Billy Double, was generally a whiner and fairly lazy. But the randy old man's son, Billy Junior, was okay by her. Junior was the mayor of Dodge, and he ran a construction company that dealt with all the county's roadwork; bridges, too. Their defection to the competition hurt.
Well, if the competition wanted to play dirty, Sam would oblige them. She would butt heads with Nicolas Strakhov any day of the week; she swore valiantly as she climbed to a bump in the middle of a hillside above the bridge. Bogie trailed a few paces behind, his eyes carefully scanning the darkness.
Kneeling, binoculars in hand, Sam scouted out the entire location, the world progressing in shadowy motion. Tonight the dark was like an old friend; it was good company, and needed. Soft patches of misty fog rose like cold fingers and stretched into the night.
Methodically Sam scouted the old bridge with her infrared binoculars. She and her brother Bogie were about a mile off, hidden in some brush among the gently rolling hills. "Hmm, it appears all is quiet on the Eastern front."
"Nothing good ever happens after midnight," her brother replied, raising his own binoculars to quickly check out the dirt road that trailed down to the bridge. He frowned as the smell of trolls floated up on the breezy night winds. "Phew, they stink!"
"How I love the smell of trolls in the evening," Sam muttered sarcastically, grimacing as the rank odor wafted past them.
Below, she could see the dark outlines of the bridge with her infrared scope and the red forms huddled in slumber underneath.
Trolls. Unlike some supernatural creatures, they slept at night and wrought their havoc during the day. People had to pay a toll if they wanted to cross an infested bridge. Though they truly would have preferred goat meat, bridge trolls were also partial to donuts. Therefore, informed people would buy two dozen donuts and then throw them over the metal handrails of the bridge. After said tribute was. paid, the trolls would then move whatever blockade they had set up and a car would be allowed to pass over. Heaven forbid the car's occupants didn't have any donuts or goat meat; those unlucky few that didn't pay the troll's toll were in for one big stinking surprise. No food meant disaster, for their car and personage would be pelted with large chunks of troll dung. And while trolls were unsightly, short and chunky creatures, they had pitcherlike precision when throwing their waste. They rarely missed. Sam had always thought it a shame that major league baseball discriminated against them.
Personally, Sam thought some of the trolls were kind of cute, what with their big four-toed feet and long, shining rainbow-colored hair. Sam knew she would give her eyeteeth for a chance to style and cut troll hair, but it was a fool's wish; trolls were feisty, mean-tempered little creatures that died in captivity and disliked human touch. Whenever she and Bogie made a troll haul, they literally moved the beasties in the same night from a well-used bridge to some other place.
Her brother hunched down beside her and shifted uncomfortably. "Anything stirring? I wish those lousy Strakhovs would hurry up and get here. I have a hot date tonight."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Swell. Just when don't you?"
"Well, you have to admit that sitting down to a bite of dessert with Mary Alice Lorz beats the crap outta sitting here in the dark, a bite for mosquitoes, waiting for Nicolas Strakhov to get his just desserts—a crap-filled beating."
"That remains to be seen. Nicolas Strakhov and his brothers are at the top of my shit list. What could be better than seeing them get pelted with troll turds?" Tonight's revenge would be a feast for the senses, like sipping champagne and eating strawberries or trying out a new hair color—though on the grosser end of the spectrum. "I can't wait to see the trolls' welcome wagon for those rotten Russians. Every time I think about them, I see red," she added heatedly. "I can't believe those sneaky Slavs are giving discounts on creature capture." Earlier, her crafty uncle had handed her a flyer snatched from the Strakhov warehouse. Monsters-R-Us was now giving a discount on captures of supernatural creatures in groups of a dozen or more. In big print, their sleazy advertisement read: TROLLS, GREMLINS, GARGOYLES AND GHOSTS—ALL CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN! The price-cutting creeps.
Frustrated, she mumbled, "What this country needs is a good ten-cent cigar, another Roosevelt in the White House and Nicolas Strakhov expelled. I bet he doesn't even know who Kermit the Frog is. And I bet he hates apple pie."
"What do apple pie and Kermit have to do with anything?"
"Oh come on, Bogie. What's more American than apple pie or Kermit the Frog?"
Her baby brother thought a moment. "I think you're wrong. Not about the pie, but about Kermit. Frogs are French. Baseball. Baseball is the big American thing. And football. And don't forget Star Wars and Lord of the Rings." Losing interest in the conversation, he began to scope out the trail below again. "Maybe they're going to be a no-show. It's been dark for over two hours, and they still aren't here."
Sam shook her head. Her brother could be a lot of fun sometimes, but patience wasn't one of his virtues. "You really should learn to be more patient."
"Ha! This from the woman who throws a temper tantrum if I'm ten minutes late to go on a job."
"Time is dough."
Bogie shrugged, then stiffened as he glanced back down the hill. "Sam, look!"
She nodded. "They're here at last. Dumb, dumber and dumberest." Her whole attention was captured by what was going on down the hill and under the bridge. Her night vision binoculars allowed her to see three men slowly and cautiously heading forward—toward the big fat booby trap she and Bogie had engineered.
All three men were tall, well over six feet. They moved with catlike grace and assurance, despite wearing heavy coveralls designed with steel mesh to protect them from troll bites. Those bites could make a human go crazy for a couple of days, since troll saliva had compounds that resembled really bad LSD.
With a thumbs-up at her brother, Sam pushed down on a remote control switch connected to a set of speakers and a CD recording of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," which was located close to the bridge in some underbrush. She grinned, her white teeth shining in the dark. She knew only too well that there were three things trolls hated absolutely.
Captivity.
People ignoring their tolls.
And classical music.
"Ode to Joy" was an inspired choice, Sam felt.
"Tonight's the night. This time the Strakhov brothers won't come out smelling like a rose," Sam remarked slyly as the sounds of Beethoven saturated the night, clashing cymbals and pounding piano.
Between chuckles, Sam saw that the three men were frozen in their tracks. As the music burst forth, within seconds the trolls had woken from their sleep, shrieked and loped over to gather up their bodily wastes from the spot beneath the bridge where they stockpiled it in case of emergencies. And with remarkable aplomb they began lobbing their missiles at the interlopers, who busily began trying to cast their troll netting.
It was a scene straight from a farce. Sam covered her mouth to dampen her laughter. She could feel her brother beside her shaking with mirth. "To Russia with love, courtesy of the Hammetts," she muttered.
Bogart nudged her. "They don't look like happy campers, these Krapov brothers. Or maybe we should call them the Krap-on brothers."
"What can I say? Shit happens."
Her words cracked both of them up.
Still chuckling, her brother said, "You know, Sam, sometimes you are just plain evil."
Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, she sighed. "Time to go. I would give a week's pay to see them up close, but I think discretion is the better part of valor tonight. They may suspect that we did this. This way, they won't know for sure."
Bogie nodded, and they crept away in the opposite direction.
Before they completely crested the hill, Sam took a quick glance back. Her infrared binoculars showed two of the men holding up their arms as they were being hit by flying objects, while another was being pelted from behind. Oh yes, the shit had surely hit the fan. Or in this case, the fam. The Strakhov family.