Helpless (Steel Demons MC #5) - Crystal Ash Page 0,3

crackle sounds of welding.

“How’d you know how I swing it, old man?” I yelled through the door.

“I have cameras, dipshit. What’d you bring me this time, your whole damn armory?”

“Nah.” I leaned against the counter, eyeing all the new clutter accumulating in his shop. Guns and unique weapons were his favorite, which was why we got along so well, but he also had a bunch of taxidermy animals piled into one corner. Ornate glass bongs littered another shelf and decorative cigar boxes piled up in another.

“Whatcha got, then?”

“A few things,” I called back dismissively. “Also a special request, of sorts.”

The flash of sparks stopped, and I listened to his groans of exertion through the door as he got off his work stool. When the back door opened, a short, rotund man with frizzy gray hair circling the bald crown on his head peered up at me.

“Special request, eh? What’re you damn Demons up to this time?” He shuffled over to his stool behind the counter, climbing up to meet at my eye level.

I pulled open the lid of my case. “Moving, for one. What’ll it take for you to liquidate these for me?”

“Aww, Jesus, Gunner.” Arty reached in and pulled out one of my vintage revolvers, the beautiful thing polished to a high shine and still in its hand-sewn leather holster. “Don’t tell me you’re getting rid of these? You’re breaking my damn heart.”

I raised both shoulders in a shrug. “Can’t take it all with me. Keeping my favorites, though.”

“Where y’all headed?” Arty began laying my once-glorious weapons collection out on the counter.

“Dunno yet.” I scratched my forehead. “Wherever the hell we can go without starting a fucking turf war.”

“I take it you’ll need fuel, then? And ammo? Standard rounds?”

“That’ll work.”

He nodded, then peered up at me expectantly. “What was this about a special request?”

I pulled a knife from the hidden pocket in my cut and laid it on the counter, removing the sheath to show the carvings on the blade.

“You ever make jewelry, Art?”

“Jewelry?”

“Yeah, like for a woman.” I ran an index finger along the flat side of the blade. “How hard would it be to make this into a pair of earrings and leave the carvings intact?”

Arty patted at his chest until he found his glasses in his shirt pocket. He put them low on the bridge of his nose, then picked up the weapon to inspect it carefully.

“Well, the blade is real silver. That’ll make it easy to cut and shape.”

“Cool, let’s do that.”

He looked at me shrewdly over the top of his glasses, mouth tightening into a frown. “Gunner, this knife is somewhere around five hundred years old. You could buy all your wildest fantasies with this thing, and you want it cut into earrings for one woman?”

“My wildest fantasies have all come true already,” I grinned at him. “So you gonna do it or not?”

“You youngins,” he groaned, pinching his shiny forehead. “Always thinkin’ with your dicks.”

“Honestly, it was never my favorite knife.” I shrugged. “I would’ve thrown it in the box with the other stuff, but my girl likes it. Figured I’d make it into a little keepsake for her.”

Arty just snorted, turning the blade over in his hands like it was a precious relic.

“So you gonna do it or not?” I asked him with a harder edge to my voice.

“Yeah, Gun. I got you,” he sighed longingly.

“You’ve got plenty of weapons here to fawn over.” I leaned both forearms down on the counter and snatched one of his pens and notepads. “Now here’s what I’m thinking for the earring design.”

With the load on my bike now twice as light, I made the ride home in half the time. I felt a lightness in my chest too, picturing Mari's face when I gave the earrings.

Knowingly or not, Reaper and Jandro set a precedent with their gifts to her. She only took off her necklace and ring in the bath or for work, and I wasn't about to be the odd man out that didn't have something for her to wear. I just hope that she liked what I came up with.

As the Steel Demon flag waved at me on the horizon, I sat upright, relaxed on my ride, taking one hand off the handlebars to rest at my hip. Only a few more runs to liquidate assets, and then I wouldn't have this homecoming view again.

For nearly four years, we had called this place home. I never expected it to be ours forever, but