He’d been cleaning his damned pipe.
“These are all real estate books,” James said, kicking through the thick tomes that had fallen during our battle on his way toward me. He picked up the pipe I’d set on the desk and sniffed the bowl. “Just tobacco ash,” he said in what sounded like disappointment.
If I had failed to appease a homicidal god and would be dead unless I found him a replacement sacrifice, would I be at home in my undershirt, cleaning my pipe? The answer, of course, was no.
“Shit,” I spat. “Taffy’s not our perp.”
Beside me, James was looking at his smartphone. “Shit is right. Marge has called me a ton of times.” His eyes slid over, asking if now was the time to contact her. I was considering how I was ever going to explain this to the sheriff when the door downstairs banged open.
“I thought you sealed it,” I hissed.
“With Taffy here sucking up all my magic, I had to borrow from the locking spell to launch that final attack.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Guess I forgot to put it back.”
I shook my head, but the truth was we were here because of me. Footsteps climbed the stairs. If our arriving company was even half as volatile as Taffy, we were about to have our hands full. With a pair of invocations, I closed and locked the office door, then wheeled in search of an escape.
“No windows or doors,” James said. “I already checked.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.”
I backed from the door toward the desk, sword and staff raised. I didn’t want another fight, but I doubted the dwarves were going to give us a choice. They had every right to defend their turf. We were intruders after all. And hell, we’d just KO’d one of their family members. Something told me they weren’t going to allow us the breath to explain ourselves.
The door shook.
“If they get through,” I said, “well, when they get through, let me do the talking.”
The door shook again. James backed up beside me. I adjusted my slick grip on my sword and staff, waiting for the blade of a battle axe to cleave the wood.
“Croft!” someone shouted. “Wesson!”
James peered over at me, his face the color of ash. It was Marge. And by her tone, I think we would both have preferred the dwarves.
“Crap,” I muttered.
14
I released the locking spell, and the door banged open. Marge stood in the doorway in her sheriff’s tans and a brown coat. A small army of bearded dwarves murmured at her back. Marge limped inside and glared around the trashed office. A slender crack ran the length of the stone floor, courtesy of Taffy’s hammer blow.
I watched Marge’s eyes follow the crack to the dwarf, who remained slumped over, his pants around his hairy shins. Her frown deepened. “What did you two do to him?”
James began to stutter, but I showed him a hand.
“This is all my fault,” I said. “The bracelet led us to an old mine. James wanted to call you when we got there, but I insisted we check it out first, make sure it wasn’t dangerous. We found the victims inside. Their corpses, anyway. And then something attacked us. A zombie god.”
“But you’re no longer at the mine,” Marge said, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“That’s true,” I said. “After we escaped, we received information suggesting the idol was here. Once more James wanted to call you, but I overruled him. With time running short, I felt that finding and destroying the idol was our priority. I broke my promise. I went renegade.”
I’d always wanted to say that last line, but it came out sounding apologetic and weak.
“’Cause you thought the sheriff’s department would just get in the way,” Marge said bitterly. She sucked her teeth, her salty blue eyes squinting at me in a way that could have curdled milk.
Taffy coughed and sat up. Two of the dwarves attended to him while the six or so others straightened up the office. For the first time, it occurred to me that only a few minutes had elapsed between us triggering the lizard alarm and Marge arriving. Way too short a time for her to have responded to a call from the dwarves.
“How did you find us here?” I asked.
“Think I’m stupid? I had Deputy Franks tail you. He was reporting back on your whereabouts. When he saw you staking out the compound, I knew I had to haul ass over here before you two got yourselves into trouble. I underestimated how quickly that would happen.”
Ouch, I thought, but she was right. I had screwed things up royally.
Marge had opened her mouth—to render our punishments, no doubt—when James spoke up.
“Hey, guys?” He’d been standing off to one side, messing with his phone. Now he activated the speaker and held it toward us. “There’s something you should hear.”
“Hi, it’s Myrtle again,” the recorded voice said. “Listen, I had a total brain fart earlier. Everson asked about Sten’s personal effects too, and those wouldn’t have been auctioned but held at the jail. I searched the old jail records and found an entry about six months after his death. Apparently, his ex-wife returned to Grimstone with her children and new husband. She signed for the articles that were in Sten’s possession when he was arrested. Her re-married name was Clara Fratelli. Anyway, I hope that helps.”
I repeated the name as James put the phone away. “Fratelli. Isn’t that Elmer’s last name? The guy who does odd jobs at the lot?”
“It is,” Marge said, “and that jibes with something I found. While you two were out playing Dukes of Hazard, I went back over the surveillance footage at Lot C. About two days before Dawn’s disappearance, Elmer entered their break building and came back out ninety-one seconds later. It wouldn’t have looked suspicious except that Allison told you her bracelet had been wrapped in brown paper. Well, guess what Elmer had in the pocket of his coveralls?”
“A small brown package?” I asked.
“What looked like the edge of one,” Marge said. “And it was gone when he came out. The girls keep lockers in that building. I can’t think of a better place to leave Dawn something where only she would find it.”
“‘We begin by coveting what we see every day,’” I quoted, thinking about the injury to Elmer’s right eye. “Is he under arrest?” I asked Marge quickly. “We need to destroy the idol.”
“I’m going to make the arrest now,” she said. “But you’re both coming with me.”
“We are?” James and I asked almost simultaneously.
Behind us, Taffy released a roar. He had recovered and, judging by the murder in his eyes, had a sharp short-term memory. A pair of dwarves seized him by the arms while a third grabbed him around the waist.
“I’m gonna destroy you!” he grunted up at us. “I’m gonna tear your limbs off, then use them to beat your bodies bloody! I’m gonna stomp your skulls in!”
He struggled against the restraining dwarves, managing to shuffle his feet forward a few inches before more dwarves joined in. Together they spun Taffy onto the backs of his heels and dragged him from the room, additional promises of violence trailing behind him.
“You’re the experts in magic,” Marge explained when the commotion died down. “And you’re right. That’s part of the reason I consulted you, to help with situations like this. You’ve got tools and know-how we don’t.” She raised a threatening finger. “But that doesn’t mean your assess aren’t getting skinned for tonight. You’re gonna learn one way or another.”
Her prosthetic leg gave a harsh squeak as she pivoted on it and paced from the room.
James and I followed, issuing sheepish apologies to the dwarves we passed.
Marge’s squad car led us across town and into a nice development of Spanish Mission style homes. She stopped at a side street and pulled over where a deputy’s car was waiting. James parked the Jeep behind them, and we all got out.
“It’s that one,” Marge said, nodding at the one-story house at the very end of the street. “Deputy Franks is back at the station, watching over Allison, so it’s just us four.
Croft and Wesson, you’re coming with me to the front. Rollie, I want you covering the back in case he tries to slip out.”
Deputy Rollie, a portly man with a lampshade mustache, nodded and trotted off while James and I followed the sheriff across the neat lawn.
“Hang back a little,” she said as she stepped onto a front porch arranged with potted plants. She unholstered her revolver and banged loudly on the door. “Elmer? Vicki? It’s Sheriff Jackson!”
The wind picked up, jingling a set of chimes. I nodded for James to be ready with an invocation. If Elmer was inside, we would need to drop him quickly, then find and destroy the idol before Gorr decided to pay him a visit. James nodded back, fist tight around his wand.
Marge banged on the door again. “It’s Sheriff Jackson! I need you to open up!” She waited, then spoke into her shoulder radio. “Anything back there?”
“A few lights are on, but all the curtains are drawn,” Rollie answered.
“Okay, keep watch. We’re going in.”
She tried the knob, then cocked her head for one of us to do the battering honors. I aimed my cane at the lock and spoke a force invocation. The bolt area coughed wood and the door slapped inward.
Marge swept the entrance with her firearm before nodding that it was clear. James and I followed her inside. Loud, clownish music was playing somewhere.
Marge quickly cleared the main rooms. A large flatscreen tuned to the Cartoon Network was on in the living room. When Marge turned it off, the house fell silent—except for sobbing from a room down the hallway.
James and I looked at one another, then followed Marge along a corridor lined with photos of Elmer and Vicki and what must have been their parents. The sobbing was coming from behind a closed door at the hallway’s end. After clearing the other rooms, Marge signaled for us to stay back. She threw the door open and aimed the revolver inside with both hands.
“Don’t move!” she ordered. “Hands behind your back!”
Someone shouted and then began to scream and struggle.
By the time I reached the room, Marge was already straddling Elmer, who was shirtless and face-down on a bed, fingers squirming at his low back. I drew my sword, but there was nothing to do. Marge snapped on the cuffs, then patted him down.
Not bad for a one-legged woman.
“Secure the rest of the house, then join us inside,” Marge radioed Rollie. When she pushed herself off him, Elmer jerked and kicked, his screams falling to deep sobs.
“He’s bleeding,” James observed.
Marge rolled him onto his back. Elmer’s face, already a wreck from crying, was pocked with bloody craters. Marge pulled away the bedsheet stuck to his chest. His torso was also bleeding.
Elmer flinched when James stepped forward. “Almost looks like gunshot wounds.”
Marge wiped an especially messy crater in his right chest with a handkerchief and examined the wound. “Too superficial.”
“That’s because he didn’t take the shots directly,” I said. “Gorr did. Back in the cave.”
James and Marge turned toward me, their faces competing for the more perplexed look.
“Elmer is bound to him,” I explained. “He summoned Gorr with the idol, but Gorr must have needed a living connection to our plane. Whatever injuries Gorr suffers—eye gouges, rock-salt blasts, a tunnel collapsing over him—Elmer absorbs too, but with less intensity. Hence the weeping eye and superficial lesions.”
He has to be in plenty of pain, though, I thought as he continued to sob, snot streaming from his nose. I wondered how he’d learned to use the idol, or if he’d any idea what he’d done.
“Elmer, where’s the idol?” I asked firmly. “The little wooden man. Where is it?”
Elmer shook his head back and forth and began to babble. I looked around the room. Deputy Rollie appeared, and Marge ordered him to begin searching the house for the idol.
She then made a call on her phone. “Not answering,” she muttered. “Elmer, where’s your sister? Where’s Vicki?”
That seemed to make Elmer sob harder.
“Oh, crap,” I said, remembering the blond woman who had picked him up for lunch. “Gorr didn’t get his sacrifice tonight. He may have demanded Vicki in Allison’s stead.”
“Vi-Vi-Vicki,” Elmer babbled.
“No wonder he’s so freaked out,” James said.
“Here.” I dug into a coat pocket and handed Marge a salt bag. “If you find the idol, throw it in the fireplace in the living room, pour this over it, and then light that sucker up. Its destruction will end this.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The mine. We need to reach Vicki before Gorr does.”
“I can get us there in under ten,” James said.
“Keep your phone on this time,” Marge ordered. “And don’t get your asses killed.”
As Marge began searching the room, James and I left the house at a run. Even when we’d hit the street, I could still hear Elmer sobbing inside, babbling his sister’s name over and over.
15
“So, what’s our plan?” James asked above the roar of his engine.
“First, we find Vicki. The good news is that we know where she’ll be. Which is also the bad news.”
“You think Elmer slapped a bracelet on her?”
“Or she was compelled some other way,” I said. “She’s a little older than the other victims, but she looked like a natural blonde. Not the ideal tribute to Gorr, maybe, but close enough to appease him until the next full moon, I’m guessing. If we find her alive, we get her out.”
“Not to crap on your parade, Prof, but we barely made it out ourselves the last time.”
“How much explosive did you pack before we headed to the dwarves’?” I asked.
“Twenty pounds of magically-enhanced TNT.”
“Enough to bring down another tunnel?”
“Enough to bring down half the mine.”
“Good. While I go in for Vicki, can you booby-trap the escape route? Using a force invocation, I should be able to extract her from a distance. Gorr will never know we’re there until I’ve got her.”
“And when he gives chase…” James slapped the dashboard. “Boom. I like it.”
“With any luck, Marge will find and destroy the idol before then. Gorr could be history before we even get there. In which case, it’ll just be a matter of bringing Vicki back out and—”
Something slammed into the back right corner of the Jeep, sending it into a squalling fishtail. James swore and fought for control of the vehicle while I braced an arm against the dash. I thought about the TNT clunking around in the gun case and aimed my cane out the window.
As the Jeep tipped onto two wheels, I shouted, “Vigore!”
I didn’t know how stable James’s explosives were, and I didn’t want to find out only after we’d been scattered halfway across the county. The force from my cane hit asphalt, knocking us back onto all four wheels and into a skidding series of spins. Smoke and dust billowed up around us as the Jeep jounced off the road and down into a basin of desert scrub.
A large rock slammed the undercarriage, and the Jeep came to a jarring halt.
“Dude,” James said, giving his head a shake. “What the hell hit us?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
I peered out the windshield, past the Jeep’s dim, dust-filled beams. As the world steadied, I saw our answer. Above the brush lining the roadside, rows of roof-mounted floodlights came into view: Santana’s pack.
“Oh, not now,” James moaned.
He cranked the ignition. The dead engine chugged but wouldn’t turn over. He swore and pumped the gas pedal.
“Call Marge,” I said. “Now.”
James reached into his pocket and pulled out a shattered phone. “Crap. Must have smashed against the door when we went off road.”
“Get to your weapons cache.”
“They’ve only got lead in them.”
“Then swap th
em out for silver. I’ll hold off the wolves.”
We both got out. As James hustled around to the back of the Jeep, I remained beside my closed door, squinting into the lights, watching the bushes for movement. The timing was shit, but we couldn’t change that. We would have to deal with them as efficiently as possible.
“Oh, Jay-ames,” Santana sang from off to the right.
I counted at least eight responding chuckles. The wolves were spread along the line of bushes, hard to pinpoint. I didn’t like not being able to see them. With a whispered invocation, I grew out the light from my cane. When the orb enveloped me, the Jeep, and James, I hardened it into a protective shield.
“Sorry about that little collision back there,” Santana said. “We sometimes forget to turn our lights on at night. Dampens our wolf vision, you know. And my driver is still learning. Has a habit of going through things instead of around them.” The laughter from the other wolves was closer now.
“What’s your excuse for my trailer?” James asked.
“No excuse,” Santana replied. “That was just for shits and giggles, you know?”
“My dog was inside.”
“Oh, dear, was she?” he asked in fake concern.
“Look … I’m sorry about last night,” James said. “I didn’t mean to challenge you. My fear took over, and things got out of hand. Give me a week and I’ll have your money. You’ll never have to see my face again.” Ammo clattered off the rear fender, and James swore under his breath.
Santana gave an exaggerated sniff. “Is that silver I smell?”
“Uh, no.”
“If you’re going to lie about that, hijo, how can I trust you to pay up?”
I could hear the growing edge in Santana’s voice. He had no intention of letting James off the hook. Last night’s insult had cut too deep. His only recourse was to end James as violently as possible, then eat his heart in front of his pack. I might be spared the “as violently as possible” part, but I was on the menu, too, just by dint of being in James’s company. Sets of hungry eyes flashed on the verges of the Jeep’s headlights. The pack was circling closer.
Grimstone: A Croft and Wesson Adventure Page 11