Free Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) by S. R. Karfelt Page B

then pointed at her street, “Turn right there. My place is the big house at the end.” It was impossible to keep the pride out of her voice.
    “That’s not your convertible in front is it?”
    “What? Yes it is, why?”
    The Trooper looked over at her, tugging his sunglasses off, sympathetic brown eyes took her in.
    “Looks like this just isn’t your day. Someone put a wheel clamp on it. You parked facing the wrong direction.”
     

     
    BETH TOSSED HER Smartphone onto the bed and dropped to the floor. On her knees she fished beneath the bed and pulled out a shoebox. Despite her Dad’s admonitions never to do it, she always kept a lot of cash on hand. Good thing because there was a big orange hunk of plastic bolted to a wheel of her car, and the release fee to get it off was astronomical. Apparently parking facing in the wrong direction was quite the crime in Willowyth. Trying to look on the bright side, she decided that at least they hadn’t arrested her for it, not yet anyway. According to the ticket on the windshield she had twenty-four hours, the penalty was left to her imagination. Good thing City Hall was only a couple blocks away.
     

     
    FLASHING LIGHTS FLICKERED in the rearview mirror of her boot-free car, and Beth yanked the wheel, her tires rubbed the curb as she pulled over. Slamming into park she grabbed her bag and found her license and registration right on top. Four new tickets, all moving violations, in…she glanced at the clock on the dashboard, thirty-four minutes. That had to be a record. Subtlety definitely wasn’t how these people worked. It was almost funny because subtlety had never been her strong suit either.
    Four minutes later, another ticket in hand, Beth watched the squad car make a U-turn and pull off Pearl Street. Smiling she drove to the end of the street, and then steered her car up and over the curb, parking right in the middle of her front yard. Brenda sat on the front porch waiting for her, her look of incredulity clear in the headlights. Well, Brenda already thought she was nuts. The tickets didn’t bother Beth, however, that wheel clamp thing did. She was going to avoid that. Gathering up her four tickets, she dug out a handful of money and using a fat black magic marker she jotted a note right across the front of a ticket.
    Brenda hissed after her, questioning, but Beth marched across the yard and then jammed the tickets into the screen door of the house next door. There was really no reason for it, common sense told her that the house could very well be owned by a nice elderly couple, as Brenda often speculated. Instinct told her that the Police Chief would know what she’d done by morning. Grinning she headed back to her house, ignoring Brenda’s comments about terrorizing old people. If this was day one in the campaign to rid the village of Beth White, she best be ready for round two.
     

 

     
    AFTER THE WEEKLY celebration, hundreds of members of Cultuelle Khristos stood inside the cave. They blocked paths and prevented thousands from making much headway as they tried to leave through the lone exit. Happy voices sounded through the enormous cavern. Many darted in and out of smaller chambers and children ran screeching, their voices amplified to an almost painful level. Warriors assigned to the mundane duty of traffic cop half-heartedly attempted to direct the exiting masses. Most simply took the time to join in the general mayhem of the typical Sunday afternoon.
    Kahtar skulked around the edges dressed in his traditional leggings and chain mail, with a sword at each hip. Preoccupied, he allowed the melee around him to take its natural shape without his usual interference. Today his mind kept wandering to how to rid the clan of the threat that Beth White posed, while simultaneously trying to block out the memory of the way Sherman Kelts had looked at the Orphan of the Inquisition. Every time the picture intruded into his head, he reached to grasp the hilts of both