Grimstone: A Croft and Wesson Adventure Read online

  Grimstone

  A Croft & Wesson Adventure

  Brad Magnarella

  Copyright © 2017 and 2021 by Brad Magnarella

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

  bradmagnarella.com

  Table of Content

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Available Now!

  Author’s Note

  Free Books, Anyone?

  Croftverse Catalogue

  Join the Strange Brigade

  The Prof Croft Series

  PREQUELS

  Book of Souls

  Siren Call

  MAIN SERIES

  Demon Moon

  Blood Deal

  Purge City

  Death Mage

  Black Luck

  Power Game

  Druid Bond

  Night Rune

  Shadow Duel

  SPIN OFFS

  Croft & Wesson

  Croft & Tabby

  MORE COMING!

  Description

  Go West, Prof Croft!

  When my magical order assigns me to Grimstone, Colorado on a case, I’m in no hurry to pack my staff and spell books.

  The outlaw county is a far cry from my academic calling in New York City. And I’m being paired with junior wizard James Wesson. A hustler, womanizer, and wannabe cowboy, he’s exactly why I prefer working alone.

  But something sinister is snatching blondes on the full moon. The local werewolf gang? The six-hundred pound witch who runs the brothel? Or does the perp come from the mortal ranks of a population as strange as any supernatural I’ve encountered?

  The only certainty is the lunar cycle, set to wax full in twenty-four hours—meaning we need to get cracking.

  Can the wizard duo of Croft and Wesson blow open the case in time to save the next victim?

  Or will our odd-couple act spell doom for Grimstone?

  1

  A cold wind batted my trench coat and threw dust into the idling cab’s high beams as I approached the double-wide trailer. The cabbie had been nervous about driving out here this late in the day, no doubt for its remoteness—and for whatever came out at night in these parts. Dusk was fast settling over the barren canyon, throwing the rising moon into sharp relief.

  “He better be home,” I muttered.

  The trailer’s porch light was broken, but at the far end past a rail slung with jeans, light glowed behind a window’s miniblinds. I set my suitcase down and rapped on the door with my cane. When no one answered, I rapped again, louder. Good thing I’d asked the cabbie to wait.

  A fit of barking erupted from inside the trailer. Footsteps followed the barking to the door. “Chill out, girl,” I heard James saying.

  I waved to the cabbie. He tooted the horn and wheeled around, the taillights diminishing down the dirt road in a small storm of dust.

  “Prof, you made it!”

  I turned back to the sight of James in the doorway, a silver cross dangling over his chest, his smile a shining crescent in his smooth, mahogany-colored face. He had on the same leather vest and cowboy hat I’d last seen him in a few months earlier when we worked together in New York. For a junior wizard, he was fundamentally sound, I’d give him that. But he was also inexperienced. And cocky. No doubt why our magical order had sent me to help him on what they’d described as a challenging case.

  Everson Croft, wizard babysitter, I thought wryly.

  “Was starting to think you’d decided to stay home,” James joked.

  I forced a chuckle while picturing myself back in my Manhattan loft apartment, feet up, a steaming mug of Colombian coffee in hand, tome of advanced spells open on my lap. Instead, another magic-user was covering my beat, and I was walking into God only knew what.

  “No, no, my plane got delayed in—Jesus!” I cried as a pit bull’s black and white head lunged forward.

  “Oh, don’t worry about Annie,” he said, seizing her studded collar at the same moment her teeth snapped an inch from my crotch. “She’s a big baby. Go to your bed,” he ordered.

  Annie glowered up at me, a growl in her throat, before retreating back into the house. I made sure she wasn’t returning before relaxing my pelvis forward and accepting James’s handshake.

  He yanked me into a hug. “Good to see you, bro.”

  “Yeah, you too,” I managed from inside his embrace. Though we were about the same six-foot height, James had a good twenty pounds of muscle on me. He pounded my back twice and released me.

  “Here, let me get that,” he said, reaching for my suitcase.

  I stared at his other hand. “You’re drinking a beer?”

  James looked from me to the green bottle. “Yeah, want one?”

  I pressed my lips together. “You do realize I’m here at the request of the Order, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And the plan was to get started today, the moment I arrived?”

  He shrugged. “You’re two hours late, man.”

  My neck tensed, but I managed to control my voice. If I lost it now, it was going to be a long week. “Right, because my plane was delayed. Something I had no control over. I called you from the airport when I landed, but you didn’t answer and your voicemail was full.”

  He screwed up his face in confusion, then broke into dawning laughter. “Oh, yeah, I was shredding on the guitar. Had the amps jacked up to eight. Must not have heard the phone.”

  “James, the fact that the Order asked me to come should have told you this case is serious. I asked you to be ready. I asked you to lay out everything you had so we could start planning. But because I was late, you decided to, what, crack a few beers and have a jam session?”

  “My satellite’s out,” he said. “Nothing to stream.”

  “I think you’re missing the point. If—”

  “Hey, ah, hold that thought, Prof,” James interrupted, showing me a hand.

  Okay, that did it. No more calm, understanding Everson. But James was squinting past me, his blue irises picking up bits of light. Beyond the moaning wind came the sound of rumbling engines. I turned toward the sight of a small convoy of pickup trucks jouncing down the dirt drive. Floodlights shone above their high beams. Something told me this wasn’t a courtesy call.

  “Well, shit,” James said.

  “Care to fill me in?”

  “I might have made a few enemies on the hustling circuit.”

  “Hustling?” I asked, incredulous. “Here?”

  “It gets better, Prof.”

  “I can’t wait to hear how.”

  “They’re sort of werewolves.”

  I looked from the approaching trucks to James, waiting for the punch line. He shrugged and took another swig of beer.

  “I don’t frigging believe this,” I muttered.

  James tossed his bottle aside and reached beneath the flaps of his vest, unhasping a Colt Peacemaker at each hip. The floodlights illuminated his face as the three trucks skidded to a stop in fr
ont of the trailer.

  He nudged my shoulder. “Did I mention it was good to see you?”

  2

  For several moments the black trucks idled in a V formation. I raised a hand to shield my eyes from their floodlights, a sour bite of adrenaline growing in my mouth. Annie went into a barking fit. I was about to suggest we’d be safer inside with her, behind the trailer’s protective wards, when the truck doors opened.

  The nine men who stepped out were stocky, faces and arms tapestries of dark ink. Eight of them spread into a wide semicircle, submachine guns in hand, while a lean man strode forward, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his black jeans. The trucks backlit his slender ponytail as he peered up at us.

  “Señor Wesson,” he called, gold glinting from his teeth. Noting the canines, I gripped my cane more tightly.

  “Hey. Santana,” James said. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, I think you know what’s up.”

  “’Fraid not. You’re going to have to spell it out.”

  Santana chuckled in a way that said he knew James was only trying to buy himself time. Thick scars curled his lingering smile, making it appear more dangerous. Despite being smaller than the others, and unarmed, Santana was clearly the leader of the pack. The Alpha.

  “A couple of weeks ago, you visited one of our establishments,” he said, “played a few games of pool. Did well, I understand.”

  “I did all right,” James hedged.

  “Oh, I’d say you did better than all right. You won close to five grand, correct?”

  I looked back at James.

  “Hey, it was a slow week,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, and that’s when you should be studying and training,” I whispered back. “Not hustling in pool houses.”

  “Prof, I need you not to judge me right now.”

  Santana whistled sharply. “I asked you a question, hijo.”

  “Yeah, give or take five grand,” James allowed.

  I noticed that the other werewolves had spread out such that the front and sides of the trailer were now covered. Two had disappeared from view, gone to cover the back door, no doubt. Eyeing the wolves’ guns, I called power to my mental prism and readied a shield invocation.

  Santana shook his head as he strolled nearer. His white shirt was open at the collar, and the words “LOS LOBOS” had been stenciled across the top of his chest in a way that made it look as if they were dripping blood. So not only were we dealing with werewolves, but one of Latin America’s most lethal gangs.

  Keeps getting better.

  “You know gambling is illegal in Grimstone County?” Santana said. “And when it happens in one of our establishments, we’re liable. Happens enough times and we get shut down, put out of business. But hustlers like you gonna hustle, right? We get it. We take on that risk, for your sake.” He opened his hands in a gesture of generosity before thrusting up a finger with a thick, blade-like nail. “But at a price. Twenty-five percent of winnings.”

  James let out an embarrassed laugh that was totally unconvincing. “Oh, man. Can’t believe I forgot to settle up. It was late, I’d had a few beers. Yeah, man, if you give me a sec, I’ll go get it.”

  “He didn’t come for the twenty-five percent,” I muttered.

  Santana’s preternatural hearing picked up my remark. “Your friend is correct. By ducking out, you forfeited your winnings. All of them. Not only that, but you’re now two weeks late. That means interest, hijo. And the rates in our business are—how should I put it?—aggressive.”

  “How much we talking?” James asked.

  “You now owe us ten thousand.”

  “Ten thou? Look, man, I don’t have that kind of money lying around. How about I get you the five tonight and we call it even. First offense and all of that? No need to be a hard ass.”

  I massaged my temples. James, you ever-loving idiot.

  Santana’s smile vanished. “Hard ass? You think this is me being a hard ass?” Muscles rippled up and down his arms as he stalked forward. Thick black hair sprouted from his cheeks and forearms. My gaze shot to his men, who were also beginning to transform. Yellow eyes blazed from the darkness as their guns rose into firing positions. Behind us, Annie’s barking climbed an octave, her nails scratching up and down the door.

  I watched James take stock of the situation. “Fuck this,” he decided. “Liberare!”

  The air pressure dropped as James channeled a current through himself, down the frame of the front porch, and into the ground. I blurted out my own invocation. White light burst from the opal in my cane and slid into a powerful shield around us, intercepting the incoming gunfire. Explosions began pluming from the front yard, engulfing the wolves.

  “Claymores,” James shouted proudly as debris from the explosions stormed around us. “I added a little incendiary, a little magic, and buried them around the yard as an outer ring of security.”

  “Great, but a little warning next time?” I shouted back.

  “And you’ll be happy to know the mines are packing silver.”

  A strong wind carried the dust away, revealing the carnage. Shrapnel-torn werewolves writhed on the ground, thick curls of smoke rising from their bodies. The trucks were pitted and their windows smashed. A wolf appeared to have run into one, knocking the truck onto its side.

  I dropped my gaze to where Santana had been thrown. The back of his shirt was blown open, and his hairy back was matted with blood. His transformation complete, he struggled up to his legs and raised his face. Bloodied lips peeled back from a protruding jaw to reveal two impressive rows of gold-plated fangs. The amber eyes that met James’s burned with murder.

  “You’re dead, hijo,” he snarled.

  I seized my cane handle and pulled, releasing a beveled sword with runes down one side. Cutting in front of James, I held out the glowing blade with one hand and what had become a staff with the other. Santana reared back, growling as he eyed the blade’s silver edge.

  Behind me, James cocked his Peacemakers.

  “Pinche wizards,” Santana seethed, trembling from the pain of the shrapnel.

  “That’s right,” James said. “Two of them.”

  “Always happy to get involved,” I muttered. I looked over at where my suitcase had been blown from the porch, its contents strewn across the yard. My favorite shirt was on fire.

  But I remained alert for the two who had disappeared behind the trailer. In a sudden motion, gunfire flashed to either side of us. As lines of sparks stitched my shield, I thrust my sword and staff out.

  “Vigore!” I shouted.

  Bright pulses shot from each, smashing the weapons from the werewolves’ grips. James followed up, firing with both guns. The wolves recoiled, hairy chunks of tissue blowing from their bodies.

  “Yee-haw!” he cried, working the hammers with his thumbs. Considering the circumstances, he was enjoying himself way too much.

  The distraction gave Santana an opening. With a roar, he sprang up the porch steps. The energy it had taken me to cast dual invocations had weakened my shield, and the werewolf’s impact finished it.

  The shield failed in a bright curtain of sparks, throwing me backwards. I landed against the trailer door, which James’s pit bull was still trying to claw her way through. Heart slamming, I thrust my sword up into a blocking position, but James came to my defense first, standing nose to snout with Santana, the barrels of his Peacemakers pressed to the Alpha’s chest.

  “So much as twitch and I’ll empty them into your heart,” James said.

  “Better make sure you kill me, hijo,” Santana growled, still trembling from the shrapnel inside him.

  “With .45 silver composites? Not a problem.”

  “No one’s killing anyone!”

  I turned toward the harsh voice. A short, gray-haired woman was limping around the toppled truck and past the downed wolves, a bolt-action rifle aimed at the porch. By the mechanical way in which her left leg swung, I guessed she was wearing a prosthesis beneath her sl
acks.

  “What now?” I groaned.

  “You see what this punk did to my men?” Santana demanded, eyes still locked on James’s.

  “I’m not blind,” the woman answered. “Looks an awful lot like self-defense.”

  “Thank you,” James said, his revolvers still pressing into Santana.

  “And stupidity,” she added, directing that comment at James. “On the count of three, you’re going to back away from each other, or I’ll take you both down.” The woman arrived to one side of the porch steps, the rifle steady at her shoulder. “One … two …”

  With a hard sigh, James eased back. When Santana didn’t come after him, he lowered the Peacemakers.

  “You,” the woman said to Santana. “Off the porch.”

  She gestured with her weapon, but Santana remained glaring at James, nostrils flaring, foam frothing around his gold fangs with each harsh breath.

  “Now!” the woman shouted.

  “This ain’t over, hijo,” Santana whispered to James.

  Melding back into his human form, he sauntered down the steps. The silver in the shrapnel had stunted his regenerative abilities, but he was healing, his body pushing the shards from his back. They dropped to the ground behind him. The other wolves struggled to their feet and reclaimed their weapons. Two of them staggered to the toppled truck and hefted it upright.

  The woman tracked them with her rifle as they climbed inside their vehicles. Engines roared. As Santana’s truck passed us, he aimed his first two fingers from the broken passenger window and mimed shooting James, then me. His gold fangs flashed in a final grin, and the trucks swung away.