Grimstone: A Croft and Wesson Adventure Read online

  “Besides them being a month apart?” A look of understanding came over his face and he peeked out the blinds. The large moon shone above the near wall of the canyon. “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah, they’re coinciding with the moon cycle. And we’re one night from full.”

  He let the blinds snap closed. “You think Santana is behind it?”

  “Or one of his pack, maybe. But let’s get some rest and see what the witch can tell us in the morning.”

  4

  I woke up to bright sunlight streaming through the mini blinds. After pawing around for my watch, I checked the time.

  Quarter till ten. Crap, I’d overslept!

  I dressed quickly and headed to James’s room to wake him up, but the bed was empty. In the kitchen, a pot of coffee sat in a cheap coffee maker. When I heard a car door slam, I walked out the back door. Annie barked from a chain in the middle of a yard that featured a clothes line, an old septic tank, and a lot of dirt. I watched from the back porch as James loaded the rear of a black Jeep. He was wearing his cowboy hat and a matching pair of steel-toed boots.

  “No horse?” I asked.

  James looked over. “Hey, Prof. Sleep all right?”

  “Too well, apparently.” I descended the steps. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You looked shot last night. Thought an extra hour or two would do you good.”

  As I approached the Jeep, I saw that his cargo was a small arsenal he was loading into a custom compartment. The weapons looked vintage. A Winchester pump-action shotgun was racked vertically beside a pair of lever-action rifles. Cases of ammo lined the other side.

  The Colt .45 Peacemakers he’d wielded last night were at his hips, their grips peeking from the flaps of his vest. By coming out West, James’s fantasy of being a cowboy had turned into a full-time hobby.

  “I didn’t realize we were going to the O.K. Corral,” I said.

  “Joke all you want, but these have gotten me out of some serious pinches.”

  “Do I even want to hear about them?”

  “Probably not.”

  I considered the arsenal. “You do understand this is just an interview, right?”

  “Yeah, with an extremely moody witch.”

  “A matron witch,” I stressed. “And that’s not just an honorific, as Sheriff Jackson seems to think. It means she’s powerful. The only hope we have of getting her help is by ass-kissing, not showing up with a small gunroom and tough talk. Probably why she didn’t cooperate with the sheriff.”

  “Fine, we’ll keep the big guns on standby.”

  I nodded at his holster. “The revolvers too. Your wand will suffice.”

  Annie’s barking continued unabated as James relented and stored the Peacemakers beside the guns and ammo, locked the compartment, and slammed the Jeep’s rear door.

  “Anything else, Prof?”

  “We’ll need to bring Helga a gift.”

  “What kind of gift?” he asked.

  “First, what can you tell me about her?”

  As James drove, he shared what he knew about Helga, shouting to be heard over the roar of gravel and wind. It wasn’t the way I’d envisioned planning our interview with the witch, but I’d overslept and, with only one day until another disappearance, we were short on time.

  “According to the records, Helga emigrated from Russia with her two sisters,” James said. “Showed up in Grimstone County in the mid eighteen hundreds. They opened Grimstone’s first saloon-slash-brothel. There was a gold rush around that time. The town was also on a trade route, so business was good. Competing saloons came and went, but not theirs.”

  “Pays to be a spell-caster,” I said.

  “Well, at least until the Depression hit. Happened about the same time the mines were drying up. The saloon lost clients as people left town. Then, in the late thirties, Helga’s two sisters died under mysterious circumstances.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said. “With money tight, she no doubt offed her business partners. Witches can be ruthless that way.”

  “Helga managed to keep the saloon going until the economy recovered. And when the major highways were built in the fifties, it was boom time again. By then, Helga had turned the saloon into a full-blown hotel. Pretty nice one, too. Grimstone is one of the most prized routes in the long-haul trucking game. Drivers will actually fight one another for a run through this part of the state, all so they can stay at Helga’s hotel or park in one of the lots she services. It’s weird. I mean, her women aren’t exactly top shelf.”

  “Then her magic must be,” I said.

  “Guess so. There was a story going around soon after I got here. Apparently, a trucker mistreated one of her girls—this big dude everyone called Rip. Helga turned Rip into a slug.”

  “An actual slug?”

  “It happened over a few weeks. First his skin turned gray and wet, and then this putrid smell started coming off him, like rotting meat. His wife was so repulsed, she left him. Took the kids. Not long after, Rip had to be put in a nursing home. Needed total care. When a trucker friend of his went to visit, Rip insisted he keep the light off. All the friend could make out was a shapeless mound that squelched every time it shifted. After a couple of minutes, the smell drove the friend away, but not before Rip managed to tell him Helga had cursed him in a dream. Word spread through the trucking networks. Apparently, Helga makes an example of jerks like Rip every few years, and it works. Helga’s girls are treated like royalty.”

  “Wonder how Dawn got plucked, then.” Helga obviously hadn’t done anything punitive because the perp struck seven more times. Of course, Helga could also have been behind it.

  James shrugged. “Beats me. Hey, uh, that thing with the wolves last night… That doesn’t have to get back to the Order, does it?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how the next few days go. We’re going to be working this case. Not drinking beers, not shooting pool, not chasing skirts. If you can show me that you’re taking this seriously, and if there are no more surprises from your few months in Grimstone, then no. What happened last night doesn’t have to get back to the Order.”

  “You’re a good man,” he said.

  I grunted and took a sip of the coffee he’d poured into a thermos for me. It was cold and watery. I drank it anyway, if only for the caffeine.

  “So, what have you been up to, Prof?” The “Prof” referred to my position at Midtown College in Manhattan, where I was a professor of ancient mythology and lore. By day, anyway.

  I wiped my mouth and put the thermos away. “Same as you, I imagine. Tracking down summoned creatures, banishing them to their realms, sealing the holes behind them.” Lately, the cases had been coming in bunches, and I was chronically exhausted. Little wonder I’d overslept.

  “The Order wasn’t kidding,” James said. “Things have definitely gotten stranger.”

  “No thanks to the Whisperer,” I muttered.

  “So how long is our world going to stay porous?”

  “As long as it takes for the senior members of the Order to stitch up the holes.”

  “And how long’s that going to be?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But with the Order tied up, we’re on our own out here.” I let that hang between us, hoping it would sink in. But James only nodded vaguely and snapped on the car stereo. An electric guitar wailed from the speakers. I snapped it back off.

  “What does Helga look like?” I asked.

  “Big.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s the first thing that comes to mind. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “I think I know what to get her, then. Is there a butcher in town?”

  Helga’s hotel rose like a mirage amid the gritty trucking lots and warehouses. Its pale blue façade with gold-topped columns, tall windows, and ornate balconies gave it the look of a Russian palace.

  “That is nice,” I said as we pulled into the front lot. According to James,
Helga had two stables of women: those who worked in the hotel and those who worked the lots beside the exchange. Dawn Michaels had belonged to the second.

  “And well-guarded,” James remarked.

  “Huh?” I followed his gaze to the front of the hotel but didn’t see anything.

  “The astral plane?” he prompted.

  “Oh, right.” Embarrassment prickled my face as I opened my senses. And here I was supposed to be the more experienced one. It took a moment for the hotel and its surroundings to shift to a plane of humming energies. There was magic at work here. Not evil magic, necessarily, but dark enough. It wrapped the hotel like steam from a cauldron. And then I spotted them: imps.

  I sighed as I watched the creatures flap around the hotel on tattered wings, their bony bodies trailing tendrils of black smoke.

  I hated imps.

  “Should I grab the shotgun?” James asked. “I’ve got a case of rock-salt shells.”

  “No, let’s stick to the plan.” I gripped my cane and the large white box from the butcher’s shop and got out of the Jeep. “Just let me do the talking.”

  James shrugged and joined me at the front of the Jeep. We were halfway across the lot when the imps began turning their stick-like noses toward us. A screech of warning went up. They sensed our magic. Two flew into the hotel, likely to warn Helga, while the rest raced toward us. When James reached into a vest pocket for his wand, I shook my head.

  “Keep cool,” I whispered.

  James’s jaw tensed as he lowered his arm. Within moments we were surrounded, the pigeon-sized imps flapping around us, poking and prodding our pockets, all while beclouding the air with their sulfurous stink.

  One snatched James’s metal wand from inside his vest. The imp shook it a few times and chattered at the others in a strange tongue. Another imp wrenched my cane from my grip. I had to restrain myself from reaching for it. Two more imps plucked strands of hair off my head while a third squeezed my nose until my eyes began to water.

  I noticed James, who was receiving similar treatment, balling up his fists. I got his attention and patted my free hand toward the ground. If either of us retaliated, the devilish creatures would deny our passage.

  At last, the imps released us and backed away. I blinked my eyes clear and saw that they had emptied my pockets of spell items and, in James’s case, a nickel-plated Derringer. My coin pendant and James’s crucifix had been removed from around our necks as well. The imp holding James’s wand hovered in front of us. His contemptuous face looked from James to me.

  “What’s your business, wizards?”

  “We’ve come to talk to Helga,” I answered.

  “About what?”

  “To introduce ourselves, mainly,” I lied. “We’ve heard stories of Helga’s power, and as fellow practitioners of the magical arts, it would be an honor to have an audience with her, however brief.”

  The way to a matron’s shriveled heart was generally through shameless prostration.

  “Fellow practitioners,” the imp sneered. “As if you’re anywhere close to Madam Helga’s equal.”

  “No, no,” I said quickly to cover up James’s derisive snort. “I didn’t mean it in that way, I assure you. We are but simple magic-users. James here can hardly heat a pot of water. ”

  The imps elbowed one another and snickered. But the lead imp continued to regard us with suspicion. “If you two are so pathetic, why should you be granted an audience with Madam Helga?” he asked.

  I held up the butcher box, which was now dripping blood. “We bring a gift.”

  Several of the imps had poked the box, but sensing no magic or danger, they’d left it alone. Now the lead imp peeked inside. He eyed us with even more suspicion, then said something to an imp beside him. In a streak of smoke, the imp zipped toward the hotel.

  The lead imp remained in front of us, bony arms crossed. Behind him, another imp was pretending to sword-fight with my cane. I watched nervously. The blade and staff were my most powerful items. At last, the imp who had gone into the hotel returned and whispered into the imp leader’s pointed ear. The leader grunted in response, looking disappointed. A promising sign.

  “Helga will see you now,” he muttered.

  “My wand?” James said, ignoring my instructions about letting me do the talking.

  The imp jerked the wand out of James’s reach and slapped his hand down. “After the meeting,” he said sharply. “Same goes for your cane,” he told me, snatching it from the sword-fighting imp.

  I was debating whether or not to back out of the meeting—we were all but defenseless—when I spotted my mother’s emo ball. A pair of imps were tossing the tennis-ball-sized orb back and forth. I cringed as one nearly fumbled it.

  When the lead imp turned to order the creatures back to their patrols, I directed my wizard’s voice at one of the imps playing catch.

  “Hey, toss it here,” I whispered.

  The vocal power compelled the simple creature. Without hesitating, he underhanded the emo ball to me. I caught it and slipped it into a coat pocket right before the lead imp turned back toward us.

  He grunted and waved for James and me to follow him to the front doors of the hotel.

  The marble lobby featured a bar at one end, where young women in short leather skirts and crop tops lounged on couches, waiting for clients. Seductive enchantments swirled around them. I caught James staring at their offerings. My own gaze went to their wrists, remembering what Sheriff Jackson had said about some of the disappeared women receiving gifts of bracelets. The girls glanced up at us blandly before returning their faces to their smartphones.

  “This way,” the imp snapped.

  He was hovering inside one of the elevators, and James and I got in beside him. As the door closed and the elevator lifted off, I noticed the imp eyeing the bloody butcher’s box hungrily. A narrow tongue darted over his gray lips, but the gift was for his master. I just hoped she would be as eager for it as he was.

  The elevator door opened onto a large penthouse, and we stepped into another century. Thick red drapes swooped down from the room’s tall windows. Paintings of Russian royalty hung above antique chairs and couches. A giant chandelier made of gold and crystal seemed to spread from the ceiling. But despite the expensive décor, the room smelled swampy.

  “Take off your shoes,” someone said in a thick Russian accent.

  Beneath the far window, a woman reclined on a divan. I recognized Helga by James’s one-word description: big. The gold-embroidered gown she wore barely contained her bean-bag sized breasts while the bones in her bodice appeared ready to crack. We were talking six, seven hundred pounds, easy. As she waved a hand toward our feet, the flesh beneath her arm jiggled.

  “Your shoes,” she repeated.

  As James and I stooped down to pull our shoes off, I whispered, “There are protocols for addressing a matron witch. Let me handle the formalities. Not a word out of you.”

  “Got it, chief,” he whispered back.

  We straightened at the same time. Helga regarded us coldly, her gray eyes at odds with the colorful feathers in her piles of thick black hair. From a powder-covered face, her eyes narrowed.

  “Matron Helga,” I began. “It is an exquisite honor to—”

  “What is in the box?” she interrupted.

  “Oh, it is a gift for you, most powerful one.”

  “Bring it here,” she snapped at the imp.

  He took the box from my hands and flew it over to Helga.

  “Open it,” she ordered.

  The imp peeled back the lid to reveal a box stuffed with raw sheep hearts, intestines, and other innards. Bowing his head, the imp held the offering toward his master. Her hairy nostrils trembled over the box. Grunting, she lifted out a dripping length of intestine and held it above her open mouth. Her multiple chins convulsed as she gobbled it down like a bird consuming a giant worm.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. “It is disgusting,” she declared.
r />   It took me a moment to realize that was a compliment. “I’m honored our humble gift satisfies you, Matron.”

  The imp continued to flap in place, holding the open box. Helga grunted as she plucked out a stomach sac and bit it in half. The smell was almost worse than the sight of it bursting open. James groaned. I elbowed him in the side and remained facing Helga, a smile fixed on my face.

  When Helga had had enough, she waved for the imp to take the box away.

  “Now,” she said, licking her fingers. “What brings you to me?”

  “First, allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Everson Croft, and this is James Wesson.” James took the cue, and we both bowed low. “We are humble wizards who have heard of your enormous, um, powers. It is an honor to stand in your presence, though we are admittedly frightened.”

  A small smile turned up the corners of Helga’s wet lips.

  So far, so good, I thought. But this is where it gets tricky.

  “You asked why we have come,” I went on. “We hope this does not sound presumptuous, but we seek your wisdom.”

  “In what matter?” Helga snapped, her smile disappearing.

  “In the matter of the young women who have disappeared in the past year.” I said carefully, hoping the gift and decorum had done their jobs. If not, James and I were about to witness a very angry witch.

  “The young women who have disappeared,” she repeated coldly.

  “Um, yes, Matron.” Beneath my shirt, sweat rolled down the slats of my ribs.

  Helga stared at us, her eyes impossible to read. There was nothing to do but await her decision: assist us or cast us out. When a minute passed, James shifted impatiently. Standing around wasn’t his thing.

  At last he sighed. “The first girl was one of yours.”

  I looked over at him incredulously. “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered.

  “We just want to know what you know,” he went on. “We’re here to help.”

  I palmed my face. James’s forwardness notwithstanding, you never offered to help a matron witch. It was an insult. The worst kind. It was worse than if he’d walked up to her, called her “Fatty,” and then spit in her face for good measure. I peeked out between my fingers.