Circle of Stone: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 19)

by R. L. King

  He walked to the bedroom and sat down on the bed, where Raider instantly joined him once again. The spell didn’t come easily to him—it never did, to his continuing consternation—but in a few moments he’d managed to heal the wound to the point where it was now nothing more than a pink line, barely visible unless you knew what to look for.

  “There,” he said, satisfied. He patted Raider’s head. “Now let’s go see what we have for you in the pantry, since your dry food seems to offend you.”

  As he descended the stairs, he checked to see if he had any new texts or voicemail messages from Verity. When he found none, he wondered again if he should try calling her. Had she and Jason had any success with Daisy, or were they still hunting for the girl?

  “Best if I just leave her alone, I suppose,” he told Raider. “She’ll get back to me when she’s ready. Let’s hope she had better success than I did.”

  Watching the cat eagerly hoover up the plate of fresh cat food on the kitchen floor, he leaned against the counter and thought again about his shoulder wound. He was sure he must have been wrong about what it had looked like before…but then again, there had been the matter of what had happened a few months ago, when Marciela Garra’s men had tried to kill him by putting what amounted to alchemical drain cleaner in his Guinness bottle. He should have died then—the doctor told him so. Some kind of miracle, they’d called it.

  But…what if it hadn’t been?

  He bent and stroked Raider, picking up the empty plate. He didn’t have time to think about that right now. Between Daisy, Ben Halstrom, the rift, and his work at the University, he already had enough entries on his dance card. Mysterious healing, if it existed at all, would have to wait its turn.

  35

  It wasn’t easy for Verity to convince Jason not to accompany her back to her apartment after he picked her up, but she managed.

  She’d told him about what happened on the way back to her building. “Holy shit,” he said, shocked. “So now the Harpies are pissed at you?”

  “Probably.” She didn’t tell him Kyla had tried to call her twice and she’d let it go to voicemail. This wasn’t the kind of thing you worked out over the phone. “But what could I do? Let them fight? They might have hurt Daisy—or she might have hurt them. I still don’t know what her power level is. What if she got spooked and tossed Kyla through the skylight?”

  “So what are you gonna do? I mean, you live next door to Hezzie. If you go home, you know they’ll find you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m counting on. We have to talk this over.”

  She also hadn’t told him about the growing feeling of unease in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t worried that the other Harpies would hurt her—even if all of them showed up to meet her, she was confident she could hold them off long enough to get away—but the thought that she might have lost some of the best friends she’d ever had weighed heavily on her. Hell, she’d just moved up to San Francisco to be closer to Hezzie and Kyla, and now that might have all blown up in her face. Had she done the right thing? Should she have protected Daisy, a girl she didn’t even know, a girl who might have been lying to her—though she didn’t think so—over her longtime, loyal friends?

  It was too late to change what happened now, though. She thought about calling Stone to ask his advice, or maybe even driving down to Encantada to talk to him in person, but part of her knew the longer she put this off, the worse it would be. She’d have to face them while the situation was still fresh—and she’d have to do it alone.

  “Let me go with you,” he insisted. “You should have some backup if things go bad.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? Things are more likely to go bad if you’re there. You know half the Harpies don’t like men, and…no offense, Jason, but it’s true—you lose your cool sometimes. If you do it with the Harpies, it’ll be like tossing a big bucket of oil on a burning stove.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, big bro. I got this.” She wished she believed it, but she did know she was right about Jason. His presence could do nothing but make things worse.

  He didn’t look at all convinced, but there wasn’t much he could do short of forcing himself in on the meet. “I’m not going home, though,” he growled. “That’s too damn far away if something goes wrong. I’ll go find a bar near your place and hang out there. Call me when you know what’s up. If I don’t hear from you in a couple hours, I’m comin’ over. Best you’re gonna get, V. Take it or leave it.”

  She flashed him a grateful smile. She’d never tell him, but sometimes she found his sense of big-brotherly protectiveness comforting. Even these days, when she was more likely to be the one doing the protecting.

  They were there, in her apartment, waiting for her when she returned home. Most of them paced the floor or sat tensely on the sofa—Lara was there, along with Hezzie, Tani, Zel…and of course Kyla, who had a key. As usual, Bea and Max had either elected to sit out the confrontation or hadn’t been consulted, and of course Greta wasn’t present—but Verity could nonetheless feel her there in spirit, hovering over the room with an accusatory glare.

  She scanned their cold, hostile faces and once again her stomach did a flip-flop. Would they attack her? Would they tell her to get the hell out of their lives? Even Kyla looked stony, her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall.

  And then, suddenly, Verity’s anger swelled. Friends or not, how dare they invade her private space, no matter what they might have thought she’d done? “What are you all doing in my apartment?” she demanded. “Ever hear of calling? Or knocking?”

  “We gotta talk, V.” Kyla pushed off the wall and stood facing her.

  “Yeah, I figured we do. But I didn’t expect to face some kind of judgment squad in my own home. I should kick you all out and tell you to come back when you learn some manners.”

  “Manners?” Zel snorted. “You mean like protectin’ the piece of shit who threw Greta off a balcony?”

  “Nobody hurts a Harpy and gets away with it,” Tani added. “You know we’re gonna find her, right? I got the bitch’s scent now, and she can’t hide.”

  “Oh yeah? So why aren’t you out there chasing her down now?” Verity glared at her.

  “No need to. She can’t run away from me. We’ll find her.”

  “And what? You’re gonna do what, Tani? Beat up a teenage girl? You gonna kill her?” Even in the middle of all of this, Verity was glad Jason wasn’t here.

  “She’s not a teenage girl!” Lara snapped. “She’s a mage, and a strong enough one to do what she did. She’s dangerous.”

  “I’m dangerous. You gonna beat me up too? Or are you gonna sit your asses down and listen to reason? As long as you’re here, maybe I can tell you a few things you don’t already know.”

  Kyla sighed. “V, I couldn’t believe what you did back there. Lara only told you where this kid was because she thought you’d help us find her. Not so you’d let her go.” Her features twisted in anger. “Or haven’t you been to see Greta lately? She took three steps today before her leg gave out and she had to quit. Three steps, V. And it’s all that little bitch’s fault.”

  Even without magical sight, Verity felt their psychic energy massing against her. They were all staring at her in a mixture of anger and disbelief, twisting her stomach into knots. These were her friends—or at least they had been up until tonight. She had no idea if it was still true now.

  She looked at Hezzie, whose expression was as closed as the rest but perhaps not quite as angry. “So, what, that’s it? You won’t even listen to me? Why the hell do you think I did what I did, if I didn’t have a good reason? Do you honestly think I protected her just to fuck you guys over?”

  Hezzie and Kyla exchanged glances. “Why did you do it, then?” Kyla asked. “Why did you help her?”

  The tiniest fraction of Verity’s tension drained away. It wasn’t much, but maybe it was a start, a fingerhold, an opening in the impenetrable armor of their anger. “Because it’s not her f
ault.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not her fault?” Zel yelled. “She’s the one who did it. Tani saw her!”

  Verity threw herself into a chair. All at once, she felt more tired than she had all night. “Yeah. She did it. Nobody’s arguing that. She’s not arguing that. But she didn’t mean to do it, and she’s tearing herself up over it.”

  “Oh, boo hoo,” Tani sneered. “She feels just terrible about it. Probably because she knows she’s fucked as soon as we catch her.”

  “No.” Verity glared hard at her. “Back off, Tani. All of you, just back off. I know you’re pissed. I know you want revenge. I get it. I did too, at first. But Daisy’s a kid. And she’s not working alone. There’s a guy pulling the strings, sending these kids out to do these jobs. He’s who we want, not her. And if you kill her or drive her out of town, we’re not gonna catch him. Who knows how many other people are gonna get hurt if we don’t shut him down?”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Zel didn’t look like Verity’s words were swaying her.

  “Don’t you get it? He’s the one we have to find. Not Daisy. Or else none of this ends.”

  “Who’s we?” Lara asked, narrowing her eyes. “Us? You and your brother?”

  “Her and Stone,” Hezzie said, speaking the name as if it were a bad word. “He wants this guy, and she’s helping him.”

  “Yeah, so what if I am?” Verity couldn’t sit still any longer, so she leaped up and began pacing again. “I know you don’t like him, but I don’t give a damn. You don’t have to like all my friends. But yeah, he’s looking for the guy in charge, and right now Daisy is our only link to him.” She let her shoulders slump. “Look. I don’t expect you to get it. You’re pissed about Greta, and that’s all you’re thinking about. But Daisy could have been any of us. She’s a street kid, a runaway from a foster home where they probably treated her like shit. This guy came to her and showed her a better world—or at least she thought so, until what happened with the Arena. Did you know they haven’t pulled another job since then?” She swept her gaze around, meeting each of the Harpies’ in turn. “You know why? She told me. It’s because they were all so fucked up over what happened to Greta that they told this guy they weren’t doing it anymore. They’re done. They’re scared. Wouldn’t you be, in their position?”

  Kyla’s tense, spring-steel posture relaxed ever so slightly. “So what do we do, V? Do we just let her get away with it? If somebody else hurt somebody like that, we’d round ’em up and hand ’em over to the cops—maybe with a few bruises on ’em first. But we can’t do that with this chick. Not if she’s a mage. The cops can’t hold her. So we’re just supposed to let her get away with what she did?”

  “She’s not getting away with anything, Kyla.” Verity heard the weariness in her voice and didn’t bother trying to do anything about it. “She’s a mess. She’s punished herself way more than you guys could. You can beat her up, but that’ll heal. Unless you kill her—and I can’t believe any of you would do that, even with what happened to Greta—she’s gonna carry this with her for the rest of her life. I think all of them will.”

  The Harpies exchanged glances again, and Verity could see she was getting through to at least some of them. She’d used the right approach, reminding them of Daisy’s roots as a street kid. Many of the Harpies had been street kids too, hiding from predators until they’d found each other and banded together.

  “Look,” she said, facing Kyla, knowing the Harpies’ leader was the one she’d ultimately have to sway. “All I’m asking is for you all to back off and give me and Doc a little time to straighten this out. I know you want revenge, but beating up teenage girls—even mages—isn’t what we’re about. Are you gonna argue with me about that? We help kids like that. Or at least I thought that was what we do. If not, then maybe I need to rethink a few of my associations, you know?”

  Kyla held her gaze, and for a moment they simply stood there staring at each other from across the room, the challenge hanging in the air. Then Kyla let her breath out. “Fine. Whatever. You do what you need to do.”

  “Kyla—” Tani began, fists clenched.

  She held up a hand. “No, Tani. I don’t like it any more than you do, but she’s right.” She focused back on Verity again. “But when you’re done, when you’ve dealt with whatever this problem is, all bets are off. This isn’t over. We’re gonna find this kid. Maybe we’ll just talk—I don’t know. Depends on how she reacts. But she’s got to answer for what she did. Maybe we’ll even have her talk to Greta, and let her decide what to do with her.”

  Verity didn’t like that idea at all, but recognized it was the best she’d get at the moment. Maybe Stone would have some thoughts about how to go forward. “Fine. Yeah. As long as you promise not to hurt her. I know what she did to Greta, but she’s not a criminal. She’s just a scared kid, and she made a big mistake. Yeah, she has to pay for that, but not in blood.”

  The other Harpies grumbled. Apparently that idea didn’t appeal to many of them, but none protested openly.

  “Okay,” she said. “So are we good?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Tani said. She still looked angry, which wasn’t surprising: of all the Harpies, she was closest to Greta. Maybe their grumpy, antisocial personalities spoke to each other—Verity had never been sure. She rose from her crouch and stalked across the room. “I need some time, okay?”

  Zel and Lara nodded agreement. “Maybe we ought to just give each other a little space for a while,” Zel said. “You do your thing, we’ll do ours, and we’ll talk again when we’ve cooled off.”

  Verity glanced at Hezzie, who didn’t look at her. Her stomach dropped again as she sensed them all pulling away from her. She honestly didn’t know how this would play out, or whether she and the Harpies—she and Kyla—would ever be the same again after this. “Yeah. Okay. That’s a good idea.”

  The Harpies didn’t say goodbye as they left, but merely filed out in silence and closed the door behind them. Only Kyla remained, tense and uncomfortable.

  Suddenly, Verity didn’t know what to say. She swallowed, looking everywhere but at her girlfriend. “Do…you want to stay? I need to call Jason and let him know everything’s okay, but…” The rest of the sentence hung in the air, heavy with hope.

  Kyla didn’t answer for a while. “I don’t think so,” she said at last. Her tone was emotionless. “Not tonight. I’ll—call you, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  She watched her girlfriend cross the room to the door, pause there for a moment with her back to her, and then open it.

  “I’ll see you, V. I hope you’re making the right decision. I know you think you are, but I’m not sure I do.”

  And then she was gone. The soft click of the door had a feeling of finality.

  Verity stood there, shoulders slumped, feeling hot tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Angrily she swiped them away. She had things to do. She knew she was doing the right thing, and if the Harpies couldn’t see that, she couldn’t let them slow her down.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and called up the text app. The most recent one was from Jason, from earlier that evening when she was on the roof with Daisy. She quickly dashed off a message to him: Everything’s okay. You can go home now.

  His reply came fast, as if he’d been waiting for it. You all right? Want me to come over?

  I’m fine. How easy it was to lie in the simple typed characters of a text. No nuance, no auras to read, just stark electrons on a screen. Go on home. I just want to be alone tonight.

  There was a long pause. She watched the three little dots indicating he was typing appear and disappear, and pictured him sitting at a booth in some bar, considering and rejecting responses. Finally, he sent, Okay. But call if you need me.

  I will. Thanks.

  As she closed the chat window, she saw she had a voicemail from Stone, from earlier that night. She thumbed the button and listened to the message: “Verity—it’s me. Listen�
��I need your help when you’ve got a bit of time. It’s not urgent. Call me when you get this, and let me know how the party goes.”

  She sighed and looked at the screen. Part of her wanted to let it go—she didn’t want to talk to anybody tonight and thought about texting him that she’d get back to him later. He’d still be awake, she knew. Was he home yet, or still trying to track down Ben Halstrom? Had he had any more success than she had?

  She got as far as re-opening the text app before a sense of despair settled over her, so hard and fast she had to sit down. It had been a long time since she’d felt so profoundly alone, and she and Stone had been so busy with their separate pursuits over the past few weeks that they hadn’t had much time to be together. Would he come now, if he asked her to? Suddenly she wished she’d never moved to San Francisco. If she was still in Mountain View, she could call him and he could be at her place in a few minutes. Would he drive all the way up here if he asked her to? Even this late? Did she even have a right to ask him to? After all, she’d made this problem for herself. It wasn’t Stone’s fault.

  Maybe if she—

  She tightened her hand on the phone and stuck it back in her pocket, her gaze taking in her darkened, now-empty apartment.

  She didn’t need to call Stone tonight. She didn’t need to tell him about the party yet, and whatever he needed her help with sounded like it could wait. She’d give him a call tomorrow.

  36

  Ben woke in a cold sweat.

  For a moment he didn’t know where he was, caught up in the fading vestiges of a nightmare he couldn’t remember. He flailed at his covers before it came back to him: he was in his latest furnished rental room, the one he’d just moved into following the meeting with the kids. Now more than ever he didn’t want anyone to know where to find him.

  He didn’t have a clear idea why it had suddenly become so important that he keep himself hidden, but he’d learned to trust the strange hunches. Just yesterday, one had warned him of the presence of two uniformed policemen patrolling the area where he’d been out walking. He couldn’t explain the feeling, a kind of tingling in the back of his neck, but he didn’t question it. He’d pulled up an illusion—he was even better at them now, after more practice—and slipped into a shadowy alley until they’d gone past. He had no idea if they were looking for him specifically, but he knew he couldn’t afford to take chances.