The Weapon Bearer's Son Read online

  The Weapon Bearer's Son

  The Cassandra Case Files, Volume 2

  Steven F. Warnock

  Published by Wordsmith Publishing, 2021.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE WEAPON BEARER'S SON

  First edition. July 4, 2021.

  Copyright © 2021 Steven F. Warnock.

  Written by Steven F. Warnock.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Weapon Bearer's Son (The Cassandra Case Files, #2)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

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  Also By Steven F. Warnock

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  The Weapon Bearer’s Son

  Chapter One

  Big Sky, Montana

  Monday, April 1, 2019

  THE TWO-VEHICLE CONVOY had arrived at the Double M Ranch late Sunday evening with The Big Blue Busster in the lead followed closely by Liam’s red Ford F-250 Heavy Duty that hadn’t been given a name yet, although he was partial to “Big Red'' for some reason. Noticeably absent from the procession was Little Boy Blue, the Toyota Tacoma pickup truck that Mack and KC normally towed behind their big skoolie. The victim of a recent misadventure, the truck had been declared totaled by the insurance company, and its full replacement value paid out. KC had made a little extra money on Little Boy Blue by selling it as “scrap” to Silver Dollar City’s resident mechanic, Aaron LaGuardia. Since only the engine was actually damaged beyond repair, Aaron had a plan to completely replace it with a different engine and use it as a work truck.

  The Double M Ranch was a little south of Big Sky proper at the end of Fortress Road. The Double M had started off its life as a cattle raising operation founded by Hieronymus Abimelech “Ham” MacDuff and his long-time best friend and partner, Joab Monroe. Eventually, when the two of them decided to retire, each passed his half of the ranch’s ownership to his oldest son, Hieronymus Cuthbert MacDuff and Boaz Monroe, respectively.

  Cuthbert and Boaz were savvy businessmen who sought to diversify the ranch’s streams of income. One of their ideas was to raise horses as well as cattle. They also began opening the ranch to guests, expanding over time into a popular dude ranch. Neither Cuthbert nor Boaz was an only child. Each had three or four brothers, and each had a single sister, Beulah and Ruth respectively. Boaz eventually married Cuthbert’s sister, Beulah, and Cuthbert married Boaz’s sister, Ruth. These two unions tied the MacDuff and Monroe families closer than ever.

  Cuthbert and Ruth became the parents of Hieronymus Aloysius MacDuff, and Boaz and Beulah likewise produced Silas Monroe. Al and Silas behaved more like brothers than double-first cousins. Some folks thought they were twins since the two of them practically shared a birthday. They were actually born within thirty-six hours of one another, but the family always celebrated the day between as their mutual birthday.

  With the waning popularity of dude ranches, Al and Silas, when they took control of the Double M, sought other ways to keep the ranch going. Silas married a woman named Rosalee who was a professional psychological therapist with a passion for caring for children. So, the Double M Ranch became a group home for special needs foster children as well as an equestrian therapy center for children with physical, emotional, and mental handicaps. Silas still managed to keep the ranch’s livestock business operating at the same time. Al had grown up with a passion for the rodeo, and he felt comfortable turning the Double M over to his cousin and best friend while he worked the rodeo circuit.

  Al met Marian Llewellyn while competing as a bull rider at a rodeo in California. Marian was the nurse on call when Al got tossed by a particularly aggressive bull called “Widowmaker.” Of course, being a werewolf, Al had no particular need of medical attention, but he fell instantly and madly in love with Marian, and she with him. Whenever Al and Marian were in residence at the Double M, Marian worked closely with Rosalee to care for the children who were living there full time.

  Mack’s parents were killed when he was still a young child, and he’d come to live at the Double M full time with his godparents, Silas and Rosalee, and had been integrated into their large family. The Monroes were a collection of biological children, Mitchell, Benjamin, and Presley, and adopted children, Rashmi, Stefano, Anna, Dwayne, and Mack himself.

  Not all of the family still lived on the ranch. Silas and Rosalee’s oldest son, Mitchell, still lived on the ranch, working for his parents as the ranch manager over the livestock part of the business. Mitch would one day inherit his father’s half of the ranch, just as Mack had inherited his father’s half long ago. Despite the potential for jealousy, Mack actually got along with his older foster brother. Mitch had been the one to greet them as they’d driven onto the property and shown them where to park so that they could hook up to the ranch’s power and water.

  The Double M had what amounted to a small RV park near what everyone called “the Old Homestead,” which was where Ham MacDuff and Joab Monroe had originally lived together. The old log building was now Mitch’s home as the ranch manager. Behind the Old Homestead was an area that had been leveled and set up with three spots where RVs could be parked and plugged into the electricity, water, and septic systems of the ranch. Back in the day, Mack’s parents had lived out of an Airstream trailer, and that was why Silas had had the tiny RV park built. Eventually, after tiring of the crowded conditions in the Double M Lodge, the main house of the ranch, Mack had moved into the old Airstream and begun renovating it.

  Mack parked The Big Blue Busster in the spot that had formerly been occupied by that Airstream trailer. It was fitting since Mack had sold the Airstream in order to be able to afford to buy and renovate the old school bus that became The Big Blue Busster. Liam parked Big Red in the next space over. The third spot was occupied by a Bruder EXP-6 off-road expedition trailer. The Australian-made camper trailer was a very high-end, high tech item, easily worth high five figures. Either the ranch was turning a better profit than Mack expected, or Mitch would have a very interesting story to tell.

  Monday morning Mack, KC, Liam, and Pilar were up before dawn, and Mitch invited the four of them into the Old Homestead to meet his wife and children. Mitch Monroe was four years older than Mack with similar enough features that the cousins had been mistaken for actual brothers. However, where Mack was a hazel-eyed blond, Mitch was a blue-eyed brunette. The MacDuff-Monroe men had the same build and were of similar heights.

  “Bonnie, you remember my brother, Mack, don’t ya, and his wife, KC?”

  Mitch’s wife, Bonnie, was of a height with KC, but where KC was slender and athletic, Bonnie was plump and curvy with a pleasant round face and a welcoming smile.

  “Of course! Welcome home, you guys!” Bonnie gushed as she embraced Mack and KC both with bear hugs.

  “And this fella is Mack’s Marine buddy, Liam, and the little lady is KC’s friend, Pilar.”

  “I remember you from the wedding!” Bonnie declared as she practically picked Pilar up in an engulfing hug. She then held the smaller woman at arm’s len
gth while she studied Pilar’s face. “Gosh, you’re even prettier than I remember. You really should have been the Maid of Honor, not KC’s grouchy sister, Kendall.”

  Mack suppressed a snicker as KC sighed. “I hope you haven’t told Kendall or my mother that.”

  “Oh, heaven’s no! I like your mom, KC. Your dad, too. They come out here every summer so he and Silas can go fishing together.”

  Mitch nodded. “Yeah, it is kinda weird how well your father-in-law and Dad get along.”

  “It’s because Mack is their favorite son-in-law,” KC explained.

  “Really?” Mack seemed surprised.

  “Of course, babe. They actually like you, and I’m the baby, so I’m automatically the favorite child,” KC nodded smugly.

  “It’s true,” Pilar agreed, also nodding smugly.

  “Y’all must be hungry!” Bonnie exclaimed. “Liam, are you a wolf, too?”

  “Uh, no, ma’am. I’m a Sasal Gunung. It’s kinda like a Korean version of an Olympian.”

  “Well, I’m mundane myself, but I’ve been cooking for wolves long enough to know they’re never not hungry,” Bonnie cackled.

  “As much as I know you love cooking for the family, hon, Mom and Dad don’t know that Mack’s home, so we’re gonna mosey over to the Lodge and surprise ‘em,” Mitch explained.

  “That sounds like a nice idea!” Bonnie replied. “I’ll get the kids up, and we’ll be along to join y’all directly. Mama Rosalee will need somebody to take over cooking for her while she gushes over Mack and KC.”

  “See, little brother? I married the better girl,” Mitch teased.

  “Mine is a genius who can bench press a small car,” Mack countered. “No offense, Bonnie.”

  “None taken!” Bonnie cackled as she grabbed KC in another bear hug. “I am just so happy to have you guys home!”

  “SHE SEEMS... NICE,” Pilar observed as she and Liam followed behind Mitch, Mack, and KC.

  “She is enthusiasm run amok,” Mitch stated bluntly with a hint of his adoration for his wife.

  “Kind of a good trait for a mother of potential werewolves,” Mack observed.

  “No mere mortal could keep up with her,” Mitch agreed sagely.

  “So, what’s up with her asking if I was a wolf, too?” Liam asked.

  “The MacDuff-Monroe family is probably the largest single pack of werewolves in Montana, which is saying something since Montana has the largest population of werewolves in the US,” Mitch said.

  “The original MacDuff and Monroe, our great-grandfathers, were both werewolves who had werewolf mates, and their children were all werewolves, but out of that generation only our grandparents married other werewolves. The rest of our great-aunts and -uncles married outside our, uh, ‘race’ I guess you’d say,” Mack added.

  “And that’s because Cuthbert MacDuff married Ruth Monroe, and Boaz Monroe married Beulah MacDuff, which made our fathers double-first cousins, which makes us double-second cousins, technically,” Mitch expanded.

  “Legal brothers, though, since your parents adopted me,” Mack pointed out. “Anyway, I’m not the first or only orphan werewolf Silas and Rosalee Monroe adopted, and several of their foster kids over the years have been paranormals. It’s kind of the unadvertised specialty of the Double M Ranch group home, but Rosalee, God bless her, won’t turn away any special needs kid except if there isn’t enough room, and that almost never happens.”

  “Which is saying something,” Mitch chuckled as he waved to the Double M Lodge.

  The building in question was another example of log construction, a huge two and a half story, rambling edifice that looked perfectly natural with the mountains in the background. The Lodge was fronted by a massive porch that wrapped around on two sides. Originally built to be the centerpiece of the Double M’s guest ranch business, the former small hotel had been repurposed into a very large house for the group home.

  The first floor was still set up much like the original hotel. The front doors opened into a spacious lobby area that currently served as a family room. Beyond the lobby was the cafeteria-like old dining room and industrial kitchen. Food was still served at long tables with benches. Flanking the lobby were the twin staircases that led up to the second-floor bedrooms. The Lodge didn’t have a lot of guest rooms, even back in the day. Most guests had stayed in the number of cabins spread out up the hill behind the Lodge. However, the Lodge did have enough rooms that all eight of the MacDuff-Monroe children could have had their own rooms, but that wasn’t the way things had worked out. Silas and Rosalee’s children had, out of necessity, been forced to share their rooms with the rotating roster of foster children who’d come to stay at the Double M for various lengths of time. Mack had moved out of his room part-time at fourteen while renovating his parents’ old Airstream, and by sixteen was living full time in the trailer to free up room for another foster kid.

  The top floor of the Lodge, a fully furnished attic divided into four bedrooms, was where Silas and Rosalee had always lived. Their master suite was at the top of one staircase. The master suite on the opposite end of the floor was supposed to be where Mack’s parents would have lived, but instead his older adopted sister, Rashmi lived there with her husband. The other two rooms were occupied by Rashmi’s four kids, two of whom were adopted.

  Even this early in the morning, the dining room was crowded with people ranging from little kids up to some of the adults who worked for Rosalee caring for the children. Mitch and Rashmi weren’t the only ones of Silas and Rosalee’s brood who still worked on the ranch. Mack spotted two of his other brothers, Ben and Steve, drinking coffee at a side table. Ben was Mitch’s younger blood-related brother. Mack and Ben were the same age for most of the year, and growing up together had been very close, sharing a room, and getting one another into all kinds of trouble. Steve Monroe had been born Stefano Rojas. He’d been taken from his parents as a baby and placed with the Monroes. His father had later been killed in prison, and his mother died of a drug overdose. Steve didn’t know which of his parents was the werewolf who’d passed the traits along to him, but he was grateful to have grown up with Silas and Rosalee as his parents.

  Ben Monroe was hewn from the same solid material as his older brother with the same coloration. Unlike Mitch’s clean-cut looks, Ben sported long hair and a thick beard with waxed mustachios that curled up at either end. Steve took his sartorial cues from Mitch being clean shaven and short haired. He was even as tall and well-built as his adopted brothers. Where he differed was in his coloration with smoldering Latin good looks, hair as black as a raven’s wing, and twinkling brown eyes. The two of them stood and dashed over to grab Mack in back-slapping hugs.

  “Mom! Dad!” Mitch shouted. “Look what the wind blew in last night!”

  “This had best not be some stupid April Fool’s prank,” Silas Monroe grumbled. “I’m too old to fall for it, and you’re too old to be pulling it off!”

  Silas’s mood changed instantly when his other two older sons parted to reveal Mack.

  “Hi, Uncle Silas,” Mack said with a grin as he stepped forward to greet his adopted father.

  “Mack!” Silas caught Mack in a back slapping bear hug. The elder of the MacDuff-Monroe clan was a grizzled man who didn’t look quite old enough to have grown sons, even though he was in his early 60s, one of the benefits of werewolf aging.

  “These people sure do love hugging, don’t they?” Liam observed.

  Pilar shrugged. “Werewolves tend to be very demonstrative within their family units, a trait shared by humans and wolves alike, but, yeah, these people are huggers, so prepare yourself.”

  “Mack!” Rosalee exclaimed as she came out of the kitchen. Rosalee Monroe was one of those women who would always look younger than she really was, werewolf or not, so no one outside of people in the know really believed that she was close to sixty herself. She was still tall and slender, even after all these years and having given birth to three children herself.

  “Au
nt Rosalee,” Mack swept her into a big hug, spinning her around a couple of times before setting her down.

  “Where’s KC?” Rosalee demanded immediately.

  “You can’t see me for all the tall Monroes standing in the way,” KC called out as she muscled her way between Ben and Steve.

  “There’s my girl!” Rosalee laughed as she hugged KC. “Oh, it is so good to see my Special Daughter-in-law Number Four.”

  “You say that to all your daughters-in-law,” KC laughed as she warmly hugged her mother-in-law back.

  “Well, you’re all Special to me,” Rosalee assured her. “More so than the sons-in-law, but they’re tolerable. Mostly.”

  “Who’re you?” demanded a boy in a wheelchair, tugging on Mack’s pants leg.

  Mack knelt down to where he could look the child in the eye. “I’m Hieronymus MacDuff, little partner, but you can call me ‘Mack’. I grew up here. Uncle Silas and Aunt Rosalee are my adopted parents. Now that you know who I am, who’re you?”

  “Billy,” the boy replied with a borderline sneer.

  Mack nodded his head toward Ben and Steve. “Do those two idiots call you ‘Billy the Kid’?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? It’s a really good cowboy nickname.”

  “I’m not a cowboy.”

  “You’re not? Why not?”

  Billy slapped a hand on his left thigh. The leg ended above the knee. The right leg was little better ending below the knee. “I ain’t got no legs no more!”

  “Little partner, you don’t need legs to be a cowboy. All’s you need is a good horse, and we got plenty of those here at the Double M.” Mack paused and glanced up at Rosalee who gave him a slight nod. “Tell you what, Billy the Kid, I got a little business to discuss with Silas, but later, how ‘bout you and me go get us a couple of horses and go for a ride?” He looked back toward KC and Pilar. “And if we ask nice maybe those pretty girls will come riding with us.”