Balance of Power: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 25)

by R. L. King

  “It’s dangerous to keep it around, isn’t it? If it messes with your magic…”

  “It is, if I can’t break it apart. It could be that the ritual that fused it made the fusion permanent.”

  “And whoever ends up with it has a lot of potential power.”

  “Yes.” He shot a glance her way, and shifted to magical sight to check her aura. It hadn’t changed, which he hoped was a good sign. She was a mercenary, after all, and if she realized the kind of money she could make if she took the obelisk for herself and sold it to the highest bidder…

  “Don’t worry,” she said, almost as if she’d read his mind. “I’m not going to steal it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m a simple girl. I do jobs, I get paid, I move on. You’re lucky I still had a couple things to do in the area, or I’d have been long gone when you texted me. I don’t have either the desire or the inclination to get involved in all that behind-the-scenes cloak-and-dagger stuff—especially not against your types. I’m not an idiot. You can keep the thing, and you’re welcome to it…if we can get hold of it.”

  It was a big if. As they approached the location her tracker pointed at, Stone’s tension grew. What if Redhead and Dad Bod had discovered Eleanor’s tracker, but had chosen to leave it in place to see who it might lure in?

  Stop it, he told himself. You’re overthinking again.

  But was he?

  “Okay, we’re getting close.” Eleanor’s voice cut into his uneasy thoughts. “The hotel’s just up the street here. What’s the plan?”

  “How precise is your tracker? It will just find their car, right? Not their room?”

  “Yeah. And I’m guessing you don’t have any way to track the item itself?”

  “Not a good one.”

  “I guess we could wait for them to come out and jump them.”

  Stone shook his head as she pulled into the hotel’s parking lot. “Too dangerous. As long as they’ve got that obelisk, my magic is useless.”

  She cruised past the line of cars, switching her gaze between them and her phone screen. Halfway down the row, she pointed. “There it is. The light-blue Ford.”

  “Keep going. Park in the back. They might be watching it.”

  She did as directed, pulling the car to a stop next to a dumpster. “Well, we need something we can do. I doubt they’d leave the thing in their car.”

  “Unlikely.” Stone unbuckled his seatbelt, but didn’t get out yet. He still didn’t feel well enough to waste unnecessary energy. He thought of Gina. “Are you any good with computers? If I could distract the desk clerk, could you get into their system and figure out which room goes with that car?”

  “Sorry. Not really my thing. I’m more a woman of action.” She waggled her eyebrows at him suggestively.

  It was a testament to how tired and focused Stone was that he didn’t respond to her obvious flirtation. “Bugger. I know someone who could, but it would take too long to get her here.”

  “That sucks.” She twisted around to look back toward the hotel. “The place isn’t very big—just three stories. Maybe you could—I don’t know—wander around and see if you pick up any vibes from the thingamabob?”

  Stone almost waved that off as absurd, partly because the last thing he wanted to do when he was feeling this trashed was plod up and down hotel hallways.

  Although…

  If the obelisk was still whole, it had to be putting out some fairly significant power. Otherwise, there was no way it could have blocked all of Stone’s considerable magical strength.

  It might reach to the edge of a small hotel room… “You might be on to something.”

  “Yeah? I was actually kidding.”

  “No, it might work.” Energized, he opened the door. “I think it’s got a chance. Come on. Let’s give it a go.”

  She got out as well. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll catch up with you. And keep your head down, so you don’t show up on any cameras.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Make sure if they sneak out, that car isn’t going anywhere. Be careful. No keeling over—you promised.” Without giving him a chance to reply, she took off toward the building, then moved along the edge of it and around the corner.

  Stone watched her go, then headed for the hotel’s back door. He didn’t feel as bad as he feared—maybe adrenaline was doing its job. He couldn’t count on that forever, though. He’d have to hurry.

  The back door was locked, but only a small bit of magic was necessary to open it. He slipped inside.

  The hotel wasn’t large. It was three stories tall, composed of two wings on either side of a central lobby containing the front desk, the elevators, and a small sitting area. This early in the morning, nobody was there except a bored-looking clerk playing with her phone. Stone put up a disregarding spell and walked past her with purpose; she didn’t even look up.

  He didn’t bother keeping the spell going. Nobody here knew him, and if his plan worked, the obelisk’s field would interfere with it anyway. Instead, he summoned a tiny light spell around his hand and walked down the left-side hallway, trailing his fingers along the wall as he went. As Eleanor had directed, he kept his head down and did his best to avoid the security cameras.

  If his luck ran the same way as usual, he expected he wouldn’t find anything until he reached the final wing of the third floor—if then. To his surprise, though, the little spell flickered and died halfway down the right-side, first-floor hall, in front of room 114.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket, with a text from Eleanor: Find it?

  114, he sent.

  That was fast. Be right there.

  Less than thirty seconds later, she appeared at the door at the outside end of the hall. He hurried down and opened it for her.

  “You seriously found it already?” she whispered.

  “This isn’t a thriller movie, where we’ve got to drag out the suspense to the last possible moment,” he muttered back.

  “Touché. So what do we do now?”

  “This is your show, I think. I can’t open the door with magic, and I can’t use any to sneak around inside the room. You said you’re good at this kind of thing—now’s the time to demonstrate that. I’ll keep watch out here. Leave your phone on in your pocket so I’ll hear if there’s any trouble.”

  She frowned. “You want me to sneak in there and jack the thing out from under their sleeping noses?”

  “You don’t think you can do it?”

  The frown changed to a grin. “Just watch me.” She pulled a compact, leather-wrapped kit from one of her jacket pockets, and plugged a tiny device into the keycard lock. “Keep an eye out for anybody coming.”

  It took her less than ten seconds to open the lock. She took a deep breath and flashed another grin. “Here goes nothing. Think happy thoughts.”

  Stone remained in the hallway, his ear glued to the phone and his tension increasing, but there was no sound from inside the room. He didn’t feel as helpless as he had when he was chained in Portas’s cell, but knowing his magic would do him no good here wasn’t helping his stress level.

  A movement at the lobby-side end of the hall caught his attention. A maid was rolling her cart in his direction. So far she seemed not to notice him, but if she kept coming, she couldn’t miss him. Bloody hell, not now…

  He sidled toward the next room, closer to the exterior door. When he felt his magic return, he cast a disregarding spell and remained quiet, hoping Eleanor wouldn’t choose that moment to exit the room.

  Come on…hurry… He dared not say anything and risk someone else inside hearing him. All he could do was wait.

  The maid left her cart in the hallway and turned off into an alcove, probably to gather more supplies.

  Stone switched his gaze between the cart and room 114’s door, tapping his foot with growing impatience.

  Come on…

  114’s door opened silently, and Eleanor slipped out. She carried a black duffel bag.

 
; Stone hurried back to her as she closed the door just as silently. “You got it!” He didn’t need to say it, though—already, he could feel the thing interfering with his magic.

  “Yeah, I checked. It’s in there. Let’s get out of here before they catch on.”

  They turned toward the outside door, but at that moment it opened and two young men in suits entered, carrying overnight bags and briefcases.

  “Bugger!” Stone snapped. “They might be more feds.”

  Eleanor shoved the bag into his hands. “You go the other way. I’ll go out the side and bring the car around to the front.”

  Stone wasn’t crazy about that solution, since having the bag in his possession meant he couldn’t use any magic, but she was already moving down the hall.

  “Morning!” she said cheerfully to the young men as she passed them.

  Stone started down the hall the other direction, but risked a quick glance over his shoulder to see if the men were headed his way.

  They weren’t paying any attention to him. Instead, one of them opened the door to a room near the side exit, and both of them went inside.

  Stone didn’t let himself relax yet, though. He backed down the hall toward the lobby, keeping a close eye on the door to 114.

  He’d only need to make it a short distance more, and then he could head out the front, get in the car, and he and Eleanor would be home free with the obelisk.

  The door opened.

  Damn! Stone almost panicked. He didn’t know where Redhead and Dad Bod had stored the duffel bag in their room, so he had no way to know if they’d already missed it. If they did miss it, all they’d have to do was look his way and they’d see him standing there holding it. Without magic, there was nowhere for him to hide.

  He darted his desperate gaze back and forth, heart pounding, trying to remain calm.

  The maid’s cart was still there, two steps behind him. A quick glance into the alcove revealed she wasn’t there anymore, but there was a door—perhaps a restroom for the employees? Maybe she’d ducked in there.

  Either way, Stone didn’t have a lot of choice. He jammed the duffel bag into the pile of dirty sheets on the cart, pulled a couple over top of it, and ducked into the alcove. As he reached the back wall, his magic flickered to life. He quickly pulled up an illusion to make himself look like a maid, and waited. He couldn’t see the cart from where he was, so he had to hope Redhead and Dad Bod wouldn’t have any reason to check it.

  The wait seemed to take forever, but in reality it was only a few seconds. Redhead and Dad Bod swept past the opening to the alcove, paying no attention to the “maid” fiddling with a stack of folded sheets. Stone didn’t miss their expressions, though—they looked focused and stressed. They had noticed. That was fast.

  Quickly, he pulled out his phone and tapped out a text: They’re coming to front. Go side door. Then he peered out of the alcove.

  Dad Bod and Redhead were gone. That was good.

  So was the cart. That was bad.

  Damn, damn, damn! Had they taken it? How could they have known? Was one of them a mage?

  But then he spotted the propped-open door to room 101 and let out the breath he was holding.

  With a last look toward the lobby, Stone darted out and headed for 101. Immediately, his illusionary disguise dropped.

  The cart was inside the room, along with the maid. Apparently she hadn’t gone through the door in the alcove, but somewhere else, and now she was back and ready to begin her rounds.

  The room was a suite, with a small kitchenette/sitting area combo in the front and a bedroom in the back. The maid, earbuds in and head bopping to whatever unseen music she was listening to, had her back to Stone, busily stripping the sheets off the bed. The cart was in the kitchenette.

  Stone’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn’t spare the time to look at it now. He’d need to get out of here fast. Heart pounding harder than ever, he hurried forward and plunged his hand into the pile of dirty sheets, all the while keeping his gaze fixed on the maid.

  She never even looked up. He grabbed the duffel bag, took a quick peek outside the door to make sure Dad Bod and Redhead weren’t coming back, then lowered his head like a football running back and dashed toward the side door. As he did, he remembered the joking comment he’d made earlier that they weren’t in a thriller movie. If Eleanor hadn’t gotten his text and was waiting for him at the front instead of the side—

  But no, there was her rental car, idling impatiently just outside the door. Stone shouldered it open and ran out, flinging the passenger door open and throwing the duffel bag into the back seat in one smooth motion. He barely had his own door shut before Eleanor took off, driving quickly but not erratically.

  Stone let out a long breath. “Bloody hell! That was much closer than I hoped!”

  “They’re awake already? They were sleeping like babies when I went in there.”

  “I’ve got no idea, but they’re out now, and they know it’s gone.”

  “I hope you stayed off the cameras.”

  “I did my best.”

  “And you can’t do anything to conceal us?” She exited the parking lot and turned onto the frontage road next to the freeway.

  “Not magically. Not with that in the back seat.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to hope they didn’t notice us, then.”

  Stone didn’t have a lot of faith in that. He spent the rest of the trip back to Encantada swiveling his head around, checking the mirrors, and stressing out every time a car seemed to get too close to them.

  “Calm down,” Eleanor said, patting his knee in amusement. “I do this all the time. Even if they’re on to us, it doesn’t happen instantly. By the time they catch on, I’ll have ditched the rental car, which was rented under a fake ID, and be long gone, and you’ll have that thing stashed where they’ll never have a chance of finding it.”

  Stone nodded, but he didn’t believe it. Maybe it was his leftover fatigue from the injury talking, but he wouldn’t be truly relaxed until the obelisk was safely under lock and key. And that, he realized, was going to be a lot harder than he thought, depending on whether he could successfully separate the two pieces. If he couldn’t, that meant all his normal avenues of concealment wouldn’t be available to him.

  He couldn’t take it through the portal—that would be too risky. What if it did something to interfere with the conduit, stranding him halfway between two points—or worse? Likewise, he couldn’t use ley-line travel, which he understood even less well. He couldn’t store the thing behind an illusion, or in his warded safe. Hell, what if it messed with the wards on his house?

  He twisted around, grabbing the duffel bag and dragging it to his lap.

  “What are you doing?” Eleanor demanded.

  “I’ve got to see something.”

  “Can’t it wait until we’re inside?”

  “No.” He unzipped the bag. They were almost to the house now.

  “What do you want me to do? I can’t get past your gates.”

  He was barely paying her any attention now. “Just—pull over for a moment, and keep an eye out for anyone watching us.”

  She sighed loudly and kept driving past the house. “I’m not stopping here. We’re too exposed, especially if they know you’re involved. What are you trying to do?”

  He pulled the obelisk out of the bag. He felt strange and uncomfortable even touching it—it made his fingers tingle, and his whole body squirmed uneasily—but he tried his best to ignore it. Instead, he took hold of the top part with one hand and the bottom with the other, and tried to pull the two pieces apart.

  They didn’t budge. In fact, when he looked closer, he saw that there was no line, not even the thinnest of cracks, indicating where the pyramid ended and the base began. The whole thing was a single, unified whole now.

  Stone sighed. He’d been afraid of that.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t break it.”

  “What do you m
ean, you can’t break it? I thought it was two pieces.”

  “It was. But now it’s not. Those Portas tossers did something to fuse it.”

  “Maybe there’s something in the book?”

  Stone jerked his head up. “What book?”

  “Look in the bottom of the bag. I noticed it was in there when I checked, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. All I wanted to do was make sure the thingamabob was there.”

  Stone’s heart pounded harder. Could it be possible? He stuffed the obelisk back in the bag and fished around in the bottom, coming up with a small, leatherbound book tied with a leather cord.

  With shaking hands, he untied the cord and opened the book, then carefully paged through it.

  It wasn’t written in English. In fact, it wasn’t in any language Stone had ever seen, and definitely not the same as the symbols on the sides of the obelisk. But his grip tightened as he turned another page and saw the series of carefully rendered drawings of the device. They included several each of both the pyramid and the base, a cross-section showing the inside of both and revealing small, hollow chambers inside, and more of all sides of the finished obelisk. Below it were more paragraphs of the strange language, interspersed with blocks of familiar symbols.

  Stone grinned. “Eleanor, I could kiss you! You’re brilliant!”

  “Hey, I’m not going to argue, though this probably isn’t a good time. What is that thing? Is it important?”

  “Bloody right it is! Maybe even more important than the obelisk itself. And I doubt those two Feds even knew what they had.”

  “That’s great. Really. But what the hell are we doing? We can’t just drive around here forever. I need to ditch this car and get out of here.”

  Stone fought to focus. He didn’t have a lot of options. The obelisk was here, and it wasn’t coming apart anytime soon. Even if the little book did contain instructions for how to separate the pieces, he couldn’t read it. Maybe Eddie and Ward could, but he couldn’t take the obelisk to them. It was dangerous to hold on to it this long when he couldn’t protect it.

  Who could he trust, who’d be strong enough to keep it safe and wouldn’t be tempted to use it against him?