Retirement--Day 4

​

"Morning, neighbor!" Jerry Greenlaw greeted me effusively while his canine abomination gnawed on the limb of one of my stakeholders.
 

"Good day to you," I returned, mustache bristling with affront. Cinnamon continued to nibble on Vladislav's leg while her owner engaged me in idle chitchat.

I took a certain amount of pride in my stakes and the bodies impaled thereupon. This was insult to the craft held closest to my black and desiccated heart. 

​

"How are you enjoying our little slice of heaven?" Jerry Greenlaw asked, attempting to draw me into conversation.

​

"Your hound appears to have violated one of my flamigos," I said instead of answering his question. A little slice of heaven? Hardly. Angels wouldn't be caught dead here in Boca Raton. Neither would any self-respecting demon, myself notwithstanding. This was a little slice of Purgatory. At best. 

​

Cinnamon raced to the end of her leash, leg dangling from her jaws. Jerry Greenlaw only saw a black plastic stick, his human eyes unable to pierce the veil of illusion crafted by Lucifer himself. She worried at it, shaking her fluffy white head back and forth. 

​

"She's a stinker!" Jerry Greenlaw said with a guffaw. "No harm done though." He shifted the leash to his other hand. "Where'd you say you were from again?" His gaze swept over me, taking in my boots, trousers, and Tommy Bahama shirt--in the least objectionable pattern I could find--with a furrowed brow. 

​

I hadn't said I was from anywhere, though I know Anastasia had spoken to a few of the ladies in the area that had dropped by with coffee cakes and invitations to Bunco night. I imagined Bunco was something like embroidery, where numerous women gathered in a salon of some kind and did needlework. Or whatever it was modern women did now. 

​

"Wallachia, originally." 

​

"Where's that?" Suspicion crept into his voice. "One of those Russian territories?"

​

"Eastern Europe." I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. Russia, bah.

​

"Ah," he seemed to relax after that. "I was wondering about your accent."

​

I said nothing to that. I didn't have an accent. These people had accents. His little shit of a dog had dropped Vladislav's leg and was sniffing near another stake-flamingo. I stalked across my lawn and scooped up the limb and interposed myself between the dog and her next target.

​

Cinnamon did not take kindly to being thwarted. She lunged forward, teeth sinking into the leg in my hand. I jerked it out of the way, swinging it wide. Unfortunately Jerry Greenlaw had stepped closer to his ill-bred mutt and directly into the line of my swing. The leg collided with the side of his head, sending him stumbling back. He still gripped the leash, which likewise jerked Cinnamon clean off her paws. 

​

The two went down in a heap. Cinnamon recovered quickly while Jerry Greenlaw climbed to his feet wearing a dazed expression. I gritted my teeth beneath my mustache, lips pressed together in irritation. Stupid dog. 

​

The charitable thing would be to help Jerry Greenlaw up. I was not feeling charitable. 

​

Still, Anastasia would be wroth with me if I did not at least attempt at being a good neighbor. "You took the blow well," I complimented. I'd barely grazed him with the leg. A warrior wouldn't have even flinched. Still, these modern men had different priorities than martial prowess.

​

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled, face turning a remarkable shade of scarlet. "I could have been killed!"

​

"Come now, don't be hyperbolic. If you really think that could have killed you, I can get my blade and show you what it means to be in mortal danger."

​

"Are you threatening me? I'll call the cops on you!"

​

Well, this took a turn.

​​