Weird and West: Seven Territories

By Andi Winter

Bring your cowboy boots and magic wand

The Seven Territories: where criminals, misfits, and refugees from the War Between the States band together against the vampire and Menace threat.

And at times, against each other.

In these five historical fantasy stories, meet a motley crew of warlocks, Army veterans, Resistance fighters, and figures from myth.

In "Hexes and Dust," an Army veteran seeks to stop an illegal magic drug auction--a magic drug with shocking side effects.

In "Daggers and Demons," a Resistance fighter searches for an ancient weapon that could turn the tide in the war against the Menace, but could have dire consequences for himself.

In "Tea and Treachery," a bitter warlock tries to get her stolen magic back, and must confront her shameful past.

In "Wilde and Sweet," an Army deserter kisses the mayor's daughter, and finds himself offered a terrifying job he can't refuse.

In "Trains and Menace," a disgraced Texas Ranger takes one last mission that could mean his freedom or the end of the United States.

 

Enjoy this trip into an alternative Wild West, where magic, zombies, and Chinese mythology thrive. Welcome to The Seven Territories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andi Winter
• Release date: Jan 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393921332

Book preview

Weird and West

Weird and West

A Seven Territories Collection

Andi Winter

Rainy Mountain Publishing

Contents

Hexes and Dust

Daggers and Demons

Tea and Treachery

Wilde and Sweet

Trains and Menace

Afterword

Read on for a preview

Other Titles by Andi Winter

About the Author

Hexes and Dust Copyright © 2020 by Andi Winter

Daggers and Demons Copyright © 2020 by Andi Winter

Tea and Treachery Copyright © 2019 by Andi Winter

Wilde and Sweet Copyright © 2020 by Andi Winter

Trains and Menace Copyright © 2020 by Andi Winter

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All rights reserved

Cover art copyright © ibreaker213 / 123RF

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ISBN-13: 9798587807099 (print edition)

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This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and incidents are either products of the imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people or incidents is coincidental. This book, or parts, thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To Katrina and Malia

for reading these crazy stories and saying,

I want more!

Hexes and Dust

A Seven Territories Story

WANTED: Revenge for a stolen life

A Union Army veteran returns home to seek revenge against the evil bastard who destroyed his life, and stop him from auctioning off magic drugs with potentially catastrophic consequences. At the saloon of the sassy woman who captured his heart.

Chapter 1

Iwas sitting at my usual table at Lil’s, watching the blazing summer sun slowly rise over the dusty main street. You know Lil? She’s the hot little redhead who runs the saloon, and the town for that matter.

Nothing happens in Sutter’s Gulch without her knowing about it, or being somehow behind it. She’ll deny it, of course, but there is always that twinkle in her eye that lets you know that maybe there is more to it than she lets on.

Anyway, so it’s about eight a.m. and I’m sitting at my usual table in a place like this—the one in the back corner with a good view of the floor, the bar, the piano, and the front door by the steady row of windows along the street side of the building. It also put me near the back entrance. In my time, I’ve learned that having a solid wall behind you, a view to look out upon, and ready access to an escape route were all Fine Things.

Now, I’ll admit I was nursing my whiskey longer than was necessary, as evidenced by its color having lost its amber hue, turning instead to the lightest shade of yellow. There was only so long a hexed ice cube would last. But I had a good reason for letting time take its slow way.

James Reinhart.

The bastard had stolen my family’s farm, and then proceeded to turn it into a strip mine, although what he thought he could mine from that land, I’ll never know. It wasn’t the greatest farm land, granted—not much was in this Shoshone territory—but it was still a shame, and it pained my heart to see my ancestral land razed and turned to mounds of dust.

That wasn’t what pissed me off, however. The bastard stole my family’s land, and then I was shanghaied into the Union army, taken from my home and family when they needed me most. Taken from all that I loved.

Fate is a cruel bitch. But I was not going to give her the upper hand.

Which was why I had been sitting at my table for the past two hours, watching and waiting as my whiskey slowly turned clear.

My throat tickled and I coughed.

James Reinhart was coming.

There was word going around that an auction was to be held that night, a very rare and special auction. The kind of auction spoken of in hushed tones, with an ear on the lookout for eavesdroppers.

Rare and special. Those were the exact words. They could only refer to one of two things:

1. Vampire-repellant cattle

or

2. Angel Dust.

Now, you’re probably thinking I’m yanking your tail, but I wished that I was. I wished that the auction was for hay or chopsticks or even tomatoes, because I would kill for a ripe proper tomato—natural grown and all. Not that mystic stuff they grow in hawk houses.

But no, the auction had to be for Dust, unless the rumor mill was dead wrong and I knew it couldn’t be because I’d overhead Lil herself mention something about ephemeral and incalculable. That’s Lil for you—always using the big copper dollar words when simple ones would work just as well.

The cattle would be interesting to see. So far as I knew, there had been a number of attempts to make a cow unappetizing to the vamps, but they always ended up with the beef being bland to the humans. No amount of salt could make up for the tasteless flavor. So if someone had succeeded, it could bring a mighty high price.

The Angel Dust on the other hand was bad news. Sure, there were those who wanted the power that the Goddess did not grant them, but those fools were idiots. Anyone with a lick of sense knew to stay away from the Dust, not to mention that it was outlawed in the Seven Territories. Not that any of that mattered because the penalty of getting caught with the stuff was pointless. Everyone knew that the Dust would eventually kill you, if it didn’t turn you into a Wendigo first. I heard about it in the army. They said it started with the barking, the headache, and then the blood. Once that happened, time was running out. And once you were a human-eating monster, folks tended to want to kill you, so it was a bad death either way.

A slow trickle of folks dribbled in—moseying, even. They tried to look casual, like they were just dropping by for a drink. At eight in the morning? Unlikely. The only ones drinking at this hour were the scouts who had been out guarding the town all night. Sunrise meant their safety, and the end of their shift.

I recognized a number of the incoming folks and my stomach turned. Matthew Bramwell, Pavel Culpepper, Hayden Chao, Lucius Awolowo.

Bastards, all of them.

I pulled my hat down lower over my eyes and watched the parade under the brim.

Nathaniel Shimozaki, Yanwei Williams, Esther Fernandez. Better than the previous crew, but not by much. It was like saying cow shit was better than horseshit—it didn’t smell as bad, but it was still shit.

More folks ambled in, some looked familiar, but the rest were unknowns. As it was, they nearly doubled the town’s population.

Looked to be a hell of an auction.

The door on the far side of the bar opened and a tall figure appeared, or at least his hat did, above the crowd. Gentlemen!

My teeth ground at the commanding tone of voice, its bass booming through the worn oak floors.

And ladies…

The man’s voice oozed slime enough that I expected to see it slide along the floor.

He was here, and probably had been all along.

James Reinhart.

My body shook with the urge to pound him to a grisly pulp, and it was only with the mightiest of wills that I remained seated, face hidden behind my hat. The only sign of my anger was the tapping of my fingers on my now near-empty glass.

If you’ll follow me. The hat turned to the side as the door remained held open.

The crowd of folks murmured as they made their way towards the door.

I took the opportunity to follow along, just another bull in the herd. I fell in between two sets of groups and tried to blend in as well as I could. It should have been easy—hat, mandarin collar shirt, leather chaps over long pants over boots, my pearl-handled revolver on my right hip and my rosewood handled resuscitator strapped to my left hip. Nothing unusual in these parts.

The herd inched forward, the sound of boots scuffing the worn wood floor carrying over the low rumble of voices.

I was two feet away from stepping into the hall when an arm swung up stopping me. It was covered in ostrich feathers.

My brim still covered my eyes, but I knew that arm. Only one man wore that crazy fēng shirt. I said, Is there a problem?

The herd flowed around me like water around a boulder.

Branson Tang. Reinhart’s voice sounded surprised and delighted.

Rage filled me, shooting an electric spark down my right arm. I squeezed my eyes tight as I held back the urge to strike him. It was a really strong urge. It was my soul demanding justice, only my mind knew now was not the time. My hand unclenched and I blew a slow breath out, coughing at the tail end of it.

I slowly lifted my head and looked the bastard in the metal eye. One eye was a normal blue eye, if a rather stormy blue, while the other was a metal replacement after the incident with a Wendigo, or so the story goes. I like to think he looked himself in the mirror one morning and his conscience got to him and he tried to gouge his own eyes out.

A man can dream.

A grin spread across Reinhart’s face as his eyebrows drew together. I didn’t peg you for the gambling sort.

Oh, I love a good game, I said. And it looks like you have quite the one about to start.

Reinhart brushed his nose with a finger wrapped in rings. Well, this is one that you aren’t playing. He pushed me away with what felt like a metal arm, then followed the last of the crowd into the hall and closed the door. A burst of red sparks shot out of the door handle. I guess he wanted to make sure no one else entered with that hexed lock.

Not getting very far there, are you, sugar?

I turned and saw Lil. She was standing behind the bar in a red-checkered cheongsam, her jade green eyes staring right at me as her hands continued drying a glass calmly. The room had emptied out so the steady squeak of the cotton cloth against the glass echoed around us.

I knocked my hat back to see her better. She was quite the sight for these tired eyes. The number of times I had pictured her face and figure while I was on patrol… I had to shake myself from that. No, ma’am. Not far at all.

Well, maybe you should try more expedient means.

That’s Lil for you. Using those copper dollar words.

And what do you suggest? I asked.

She set the glass on the shelf behind the bar, neatly placing it evenly spaced from the other glasses. Well, now. That would seem to depend on a few factors.

Factors? Like what?

Like what precisely you are intending by antagonizing James Reinhart. Like what you are doing here at this ridiculous hour of the morning, when you of all people should be recuperating. Like what a handsome man like yourself is even doing here at all in Sutter’s Gulch.

Those were a lot of questions, and I was not fond of letting people too far under my skin. Letting anyone get close to me always ended up causing more problems, both for me and them.

But this was Lil. There was just something about her that I couldn’t put my finger on, but that crossed over my lines, and had me wanting to spill it all.

Reinhart is a bastard of the first order, I said, and I’ve got a feeling that he’s up to something, which means he has got to be stopped. So that’s what I’m doing here: I’m trying to find out what he’s planning and how to stop him. The words came out in a rush, but I had no control over them. They just tumbled out like fairies from an iron cup. In fact, I think that was the longest I had ever spoken in one breath. I doubted I would ever repeat it.

Lil just nodded and chewed on her lip, smudging the cherry red lipstick. Interesting.

I shook my head, nearly losing my hat. Interesting? That bastard is up to something nasty, and you call it ‘interesting’?

She set her hands on her hips and glared at me. "I’m calling you interesting."

Me?

You, she said, pointing a finger at me, are willing to sacrifice your life on intuition?

I’m in to what?

Her boots stomped on the ramp down from behind the bar as she waltzed up to me. You. She poked a sharp fingernail in my chest, which was at her eye level, and it hurt. "Based on your gut— She poked me in my belly. You come down here to start a fight with the most powerful man in Shoshone country. The curls in her upswept red hair bounced with her headshake. I thought you were a smart man, Branson." She frowned, but for some reason her lipstick was perfect once again. Must have been one of those hexed beauty products.

You’re right, I said, and she visibly relaxed. If I were a smart man, I would ask the one person who knows everything happening in this town what the Diyu is going on here.

A slow smile curved her lips. Now there’s the smart man I thought I remembered. With a twinkle in her eye, she turned her back on me and sashayed to the storeroom. The swish of her cheongsam and the click of her boots echoed in my ears.

She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyebrows high. Well, are you coming or not?

Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that I might have had some thoughts about Lil while bathing in the public bathhouse, and maybe those thoughts hadn’t been the most innocent. And I will admit that the idea of following Lil into that storeroom, just the two of us, was mighty interesting, but now was not the time. Not with James Reinhart scheming something terrible just on the other side of the saloon wall.

Ma’am. I wouldn’t feel rightly—

Lil gave a