Dammit, we don’t have time for this, I thought.
“Hey, James,” I called. “Our plan for the mine?”
“Yeah…?”
I drew my cane into sword and staff. “Be ready.”
It took a couple of seconds for what I was proposing to click. “But … my Jeep,” he said.
“Better your Jeep than our lives.”
I aimed my blade at the closest pair of eyes and shouted a force invocation. The pulse shot through dust and brush and slammed into the wolf.
James opened fire with a lever-action rifle. Off to my right, a wolf bellowed in pain and skittered back. The remaining wolves crashed through the brush, their bulky forms moving with amazing speed. They’d gone full lupine, bloodlust on their faces. I incanted to reinforce the shield. They collided into it, their collective force shuddering through our protection.
I joined James at the back of the Jeep.
“Get them worked up,” I said. “I’m going to do something with the shield. When I give the word, let her rip.”
As the wolves attacked with battering lunges, snarling muzzles, and razor-sharp claws, I drew the shield smaller so that it was no longer around the Jeep—just James and me. With another invocation, I sent a pulse from the shield into the pack, dazzling them with light and knocking them back.
James took aim, his next shot tearing through the chest of the largest wolf. He dropped and went still, steam rising from the silver wound. But that only whipped the rest of the pack into a greater fury.
“Bring it on,” I whispered, sidestepping from the Jeep.
As they charged back in, I flipped the shield from around me and James and enclosed the wolves with the vehicle.
“Now!” I called.
“Liberare!” James shouted.
The back of the Jeep exploded in a geyser that lifted the vehicle vertically and blew the wolves into fiery chunks. I grunted as the shield bowed out—the force like a sledgehammer blow in my head—then pulled the shield back around us before it could fail. The violent release of fire and pressure slammed into us, shooting us off like a pinball. A silver net manifested between a pair of pinyon pines, catching us and lowering us to the desert floor. Thoroughly spent, I dispersed the shield as James called the net invocation back into his wand.
“Holy crap,” he said, blazing pieces of Jeep reflected in his eyes.
“C’mon,” I said, limp-running toward the road. “We’ll take one of their trucks. We have to get to the mine.”
“I’m out of explosives,” he pointed out.
“Then we’ll improvise.”
At the road, we chose one of the four trucks and climbed in. The cab smelled like oil, pot smoke, and wet animal. A skull keychain dangled from the ignition. James threw his rifle into the back seat and was reaching to turn the key when something ripped his door off its hinges. In a flash of hair, James was yanked from the cab and flung against a neighboring truck with a bang.
Crap, there was still a wolf out there, and I had a nasty feeling I knew which one.
I clambered out the passenger side and rounded the back of the truck, my sword sputtering with energy. I hadn’t had enough time to recharge. James was on the ground, his brow bleeding, his right hand drawing his wand. But before he could manifest a protective shield, the werewolf flashed past again. In a burst of sparks, the wand somersaulted from James’s grip.
“That wasn’t my A team, or even my B team,” Santana said.
I rounded toward his voice, but when he spoke again, it was off behind me.
“Just some pinche initiates, but they did their jobs as—how do you call it?—cannon fodder? If I can scrape them together and find someone decent at resurrection, maybe I’ll promote them to full members.” He chuckled savagely. “Give them your heads as trophies.”
“Protezione,” I uttered.
Light swelled from my staff, but when I went to harden it, the protective orb sputtered. Desperate, I called more energy. Creamy waves lapped at the edges of my consciousness, meaning that if I pushed any harder, my incubus, Thelonious, would take over my body. And he was a lover, not a fighter.
I relented with a gasp and watched the light disappear.
“What’s wrong?” Santana asked. “Shoot your load back there?”
James limped over, his Peacemakers drawn, and stood with his back to mine. I slid my staff through my belt and held my sword in both hands. We were both wielding silver. It was just a matter of getting a clean strike.
“I haven’t tasted wizard in a long time,” Santana taunted.
The wolf appeared in front of me, his tongue running over his gold-plated fangs. I thrust my sword, already knowing I was too slow. A hand crushed my right wrist and jerked me forward. The center of my face exploded in pain as a rock-solid fist met my nose.
James wheeled and fired a shot, but Santana had already darted out of range, his laughter cutting the air around us.
“You all right, man?” James asked above the ringing in my right ear.
“Only if I ignore the blood and pain,” I replied stuffily. The first was spilling from my nose like a dribbling hose, and the second had become a savage throb that drove deep into my sinuses. I tested my nose cartilage with a finger and thumb. It felt loose.
“Dammit,” James whispered, “I just need one decent—”
His guns exploded as Santana flashed past again. By the time I wheeled around, James was doubled over, and both his hands were empty. “Fucker gut-punched me and took my weapons.”
“Not looking so good for you, is it?” Santana teased.
“Enough with the stick-and-move shit,” James called. “Why don’t you fight me like a man?”
Santana laughed. “I could’ve ripped your head off, then done the same to your friend before your body even hit the pavement. Is that what you want, hijo?”
I flinched as a large moth batted past on its way to the floodlights.
“You’re not hearing me,” James said. “You could do those things as a wolf, sure. I’m telling you to man up. Literally. Stop hiding behind the fur and fangs. Let’s see what you’ve really got.”
Santana would still have a huge advantage in strength and speed, but James was determined. My partner removed his vest and tossed it aside, shoved the sleeves of his gray tee up over his muscular shoulders, and pushed out his chest—all physical displays of challenge.
In the end, the Alpha couldn’t resist.
Santana stepped from the shadows, his wolf form narrowing to the lean, tattooed physique of a notorious gang leader. His slender ponytail whipped as he cracked his neck viciously from side to side and flashed a gold smile. “A little space?” he said, signaling me back.
James nodded at me. I took several steps back but kept my sword raised.
“Ready to rumble, hijo?” Santana said, crouching slightly.
“Bring it, bitch.”
Santana’s smile hardened. He lunged forward, landing a vicious right to James’s jaw. James staggered and swung a looping left. Santana ducked easily and landed a pair of blows to James’s ribs. I grimaced at the sounds of bones cracking. Santana leaned away from a pair of reaching punches and then flashed back in with a straight left that knocked James against a truck.
“I thought you said we were gonna fight,” Santana taunted.
“Dude.” James paused to hawk a rag of blood. “Women have slapped me harder than that.”
The insult crossed a final line. I could see in Santana’s blazing eyes that he’d had enough, that he intended to finish James. I ran forward with the sword. Santana veered from his attack and blocked my strike, nearly breaking my forearm. The sword clattered to the asphalt. A kick to the stomach blew out my remaining air and splayed me onto my back.
Santana spun toward James—and then screamed in surprise.
James had pulled a dagger from his boot and driven it up beneath Santana’s ribs. Judging from the burst of smoke, the blade held silver.
“How ya like me now?�
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“Hijo de puta!” Santana hissed in his face.
“Never said I’d fight fair,” James grunted, twisting the blade deeper.
Santana’s scream was part human, part animal. He smashed his forehead into James’s, knocking him to the ground. But Santana was in survival mode now. Blood gushed over his hands as he wrenched the dagger free and let it fall to the road. He staggered back, listing from side to side, and crashed through the bushes beside the road.
I retrieved my sword and stumbled after him, but James caught my arm.
“He’s still dangerous,” he said. “And we’ve gotta get our butts to the mine.”
He was right. James recovered his wand, and we climbed back into the truck. The engine started with a roar. Cold wind blasted through the cab as James accelerated away.
I brought a sleeve to my raw, busted nose, then peered over at my partner. We looked like we’d been run over. I tuned into my mental prism. My magic was in the beginning stages of recharging, but it would be far short of maximum power by the time we reached the mine.
“Hope to hell Marge found the idol,” James said, echoing my own thoughts.
16
James gunned the truck up the dirt road into Rattlesnake Hills until we were pulling onto the stone shelf. As the powerful lights swept over the parked vehicles beneath the overhang, the white sports car Vicki had been driving earlier flashed into view.
“She’s here,” I said, already throwing my door open.
James grabbed the rifle from the back seat and jumped out his side. We ran up the steps to the mine, James sending an illumination orb ahead. At the entrance, I took quick stock of the sand. Over our earlier footprints were two messy lines, as though Vicki had scuffed her way inside.
The thought of returning underground made my chest squeeze around my racing heart, but my phobia would have to wait. We found the shaft and descended the ladder quickly, our panting breaths echoing off the rock walls. I noticed a rope running among the cables that ran beside the ladder but couldn’t remember whether it had been there the last time.
When we arrived at the side tunnel, I dug into my coat pockets until I felt the bracelet. I withdrew it carefully, amazed it hadn’t fallen out during our various conflicts. It pulsed darkly, communicating with its twin: the bracelet perched on the pagan cross in the killing chamber.
“Think Vicki made it past the section we blew?” James asked.
“More likely the bracelet led her down an alternate route.”
We followed the ore-cart tracks. Sure enough, before we reached the collapse, the bracelet pulled toward a tunnel on our right. I stopped to listen. Hearing nothing, I looked back at James. His face was bloody, his right cheek shiny with swelling. I’d considered administering some healing magic to us on the ride here, but I needed to conserve my still-depleted power.
“This is where we’re gonna split,” I decided.
“Screw that, man,” James whispered. “We’re sticking together.”
“No, listen to me. If Gorr is down there, we don’t have anything in our arsenal right now that can slow or hurt him. I need you to search the other tunnels, see if you can find any more old dynamite. Then get back here, mine this tunnel, and wait for me. We’ll do what we did the last time.” Only this time, I hoped I’d have one of the victims with me, alive.
“All right, Prof. But be careful.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Before I could turn away, James gripped my hand and pulled me into a one-armed hug. He didn’t say anything and didn’t have to. We’d grown a lot closer in the last few hours. He clapped my back, then released me. As he and his illumination orb returned the way we’d come, I called the barest light to my staff and headed down the new tunnel.
The curving passage was narrower than the one I’d left. Small cave-ins littered the floor, and in several of them I could see the scuff lines I’d observed at the mine’s entrance. That gave me hope that Vicki had arrived here slowly. That there was still time.
Without warning, the passage turned sharply, and a smell of decomposition hit me in the face. I stifled a gag and killed my light. I was staring into the killing chamber. By the faint moonlight, I could make out a body in front of the altar. The woman appeared to be on her knees, torso thrown forward in a child’s pose. Blond hair spilled over her extended arms.
It was Vicki, but I couldn’t tell whether she was alive.
I scanned the chamber. It was darker than when we’d been here earlier, harder to see into the various recesses. I opened my senses now. Black, tarry energy coursed throughout the room, but I couldn’t feel it concentrating anywhere. As far as I could tell, Gorr wasn’t here.
Destroyed?
Setting the bracelet on the tunnel floor, I reached into a coat pocket for my spare salt bag, which had torn open at some point. Digging out part of the spill from my pocket, I sprinkled a protective circle around the bracelet to blunt its signal to Gorr.
“Vicki,” I whispered, looking around as I paced toward her.
The altar I’d crash-landed on earlier had been restored, I saw. The urns righted, their macabre contents cleaned up. The cross had been straightened, too, the twin bracelet hanging on the crux.
“Vicki,” I whispered a little more loudly.
This time she shifted. I considered using a force invocation to pull her toward me, but I didn’t know what kind of an enchantment might be holding her there. I hustled the remaining distance and placed a hand on her back. She was warm beneath her thin leather jacket. Hot, even. Meaning she was still with us. From beneath her hair, I could hear her murmuring in a whisper, probably in the thrall of another bracelet. But when I felt both of her wrists, they were bare.
Wrapping a hand around her side, I whispered, “Vicki. We need to get out of here.”
She jerked and turned her head. Through her hair, I could see the shine of her right eye.
Behind me, something scuffed over the stone floor. I twisted my torso around, heart in my throat. But the cavern was empty. A metallic clink accompanied the next scuff. I trained my gaze lower.
Shit.
The bracelet had broken through my protective circle and was inching its way toward the altar. On the cross, the other bracelet began to rattle. A jarring resonance took up between the twin bracelets, ringing deep in my ears and causing the energy in the room to swirl.
“The bracelet is a more effective signal than prayer.”
When I turned back, Vicki had risen to her feet, her blond hair fluttering in the gathering storm of energy. Above her smiling lips, her dark eyes glinted fiercely. “Thank you for delivering it to us.”
Wait, what?
My eyes fell down her neck to where an old wooden idol dangled.
A violent charge went off in my chest. Vicki wasn’t a victim but the perpetrator. That’s what Elmer had wanted to tell us back at the house, but he’d been too upset to get the words out.
Absent the bracelet, Vicki had been attempting to summon Gorr through prayer just now. But to claim whom? My eyes cut toward a figure in the shadows behind the altar. I pushed more light from my staff until blond hair and a pink sweater emerged from the darkness.
Allison?
“Gorr had his appetite set on her,” Vicki said. “Fortunately, Deputy Franks isn’t much of a watchdog. I found him sacked out, as Gorr said I would.”
I remembered the home remedy the deputy had told Marge he was taking for his sore throat. The alcohol must have put him to sleep.
“The hard part was getting the unconscious tribute down here,” she said.
Of course. The dragging tracks in the sand, the rope hanging down the incline shaft…
“Vigore!” I shouted, aiming my blade at the idol and jerking it back. The invocation tunneled weakly through the thickening energy in the cavern, tugging the idol, but failing to snap the cord that secured it around Vicki’s neck. Vicki staggered forward but regained her footing. Placing a hand over the idol, she pressed it protective
ly to her chest and stared past me.
“He means to destroy you,” she called. “Kill him.”
I wheeled around to find Gorr growing from the dark energy. The zombie god with his tangled hair, staring, caul-covered eyes, and tattered robes, hardened into form.
I threw up a protective shield an instant before he swiped an arm toward me. His fist exploded through the manifestation, knocking me from the shrine and onto my back. When I squinted up, he was staring down at me from across the chamber, Vicki safely behind him.
“Your brother,” I grunted, gaining my feet. “How could you bind him, of all people, to this monstrosity? He’s at home right now, bleeding and screaming in pain. Did you know that?”
“This is for him as much as anyone,” she said.
“No one calls Gorr out of altruism. It takes a special kind of greed. Judging from your car and clothes, not to mention your obvious surgical enhancements, you blow through a lot of money. What happened? Did the credit card companies threaten to cut off your lines? Were the loan sharks circling?”
I sidestepped at a cautious distance as I spoke, waiting for Gorr to make a move so I could get another play at the idol. But he remained close to Vicki, shielding her with his massive form.
Vicki’s voice became defensive. “What my parents left me when they died wasn’t enough to take care of Elmer.”
“So you put him to work in the lots, probably the only place that would employ him, figuring he could help pay for his own care. Meanwhile, you spent the inheritance on yourself.” I could hear her breathing speed up. “Somewhere in there, you found the idol among your father’s possessions. Maybe in a trunk with some old photos and letters, relics from his side of the family. The bracelets too. You learned what they were and how to activate them. After binding your brother to Gorr, you targeted his first victim, who happened to work at the lot: Dawn Michaels. A young woman you didn’t think anyone would miss. You led her here—to Sten’s old mine—for Gorr to consume. And for what? Some gold?”
Grimstone: A Croft and Wesson Adventure Page 12