Stone and Claw: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  He studied it. The print quality wasn’t the highest, but he could see it depicted a woman in her forties with a sharp, piercing stare, heavy brows, and dark hair pulled back from her face in a severe bun. “Who’s this?”

  “That’s Marciella Garra.”

  “What?” Stone stared at it in shock, then back up at Jason. “What are you talking about?”

  Verity drifted over, but said nothing.

  “It’s true,” Jason said. “The reason I had so much trouble with all this was that not only were almost all the resources I needed in Spanish, but this lady does not want to be found. She’s very reclusive. That photo was taken several years ago.”

  Stone studied the photo again. He didn’t recognize the woman—she didn’t even bear a family resemblance to the woman he knew as Garra. “I don’t understand, Jason. Explain.”

  “Okay. Let me start at the beginning.” He pulled out a few more printed sheets and spread them on the desk. “I started with those papers you gave me—the ones your professor’s supposed to have written.”

  “She didn’t write them?”

  “Well, yeah—she did. The real Marciella Garra did. She really is an expert on anthropology and folklore, but she hasn’t been active for several years.”

  “So Garra—or whatever her name is—has—what—stolen her identity?” Stone pushed himself off the desk. “But that doesn’t make sense, Jason. I’ve spoken with her about her areas of study. She clearly knows what she’s talking about. No one’s complained about any of her lectures, and there’s no way she could have made it through the interview process without—”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have that info yet. So far all I’ve been able to figure out is who your Garra isn’t. I can’t find a damn thing about who she is. But the real Professor Garra is lives—or at least used to live—somewhere in the sticks in Peru, where she’s doing a damn good job of keeping her head down. I couldn’t find a current location for her, but there’s no way your Garra is the same person. This lady would be in her fifties by now.”

  Stone paced, pondering. “None of this makes sense. The University wouldn’t hire someone without a thorough background check.”

  “You did say they were kind of in a hurry about this. Maybe they cut a few corners—although all the official stuff I was able to get access to looks pretty convincing.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well…” Jason riffled through the papers in his folder. “What it means to me anyway is that somebody did a really good job of faking this information. Way better than your average layman should be able to do.”

  “So…” Verity said, pointing at the papers, “you’re saying you think this fake Garra could be working with somebody else?”

  “Maybe—she might have paid somebody to set up this fake identity for her, knowing the chances of somebody tracking back to the real Garra were pretty slim, given how hard she is to find. Or she might have done it herself.”

  “Which means if she did, she’s not ‘your average layman,’” Stone said. This situation was getting stranger by the moment. “But why? Why would she fake being an Occult Studies lecturer? It’s not exactly the highest-prestige position at the University. What would she stand to gain by it?”

  “I have a thought…” Verity put in. “It’s a long shot, but—”

  “Let’s hear it,” Stone said. “I’ve got bugger-all right now, so I’m open to anything.”

  “Well,” she said, “you did say you caught her with ads and phone numbers for antique shops, including Madame Huan’s place, right?”

  “Yes…”

  “Maybe she’s looking for something—something magical. If she knows stuff about Occult Studies—and you said she’s keeping up with the job just fine, so she must—maybe she heard about the opening in the department, and decided to use it as a cover while she looks for whatever she’s trying to find.”

  “Yes, but—if she’s looking for something in this area, why would she need to pretend to be a professor? Couldn’t she just come here and ask? It’s not as if poking around junk shops is illegal or anything.”

  “True…but if she’s looking for something that’s really magical, especially if she isn’t a mage herself, having a job like that might give her extra credibility when she goes looking around. Or maybe she doesn’t want people to know she’s looking for something, so she needs a cover for being here long enough to find it. You did say she knew her stuff—maybe she borrowed the real Dr. Garra’s identity because she has the knowledge, but knew she couldn’t get hired at the University without the academic cred.”

  Stone sighed. “Sounds like a lot of work to me.”

  “Yeah,” Jason added. “I’d almost say she was trying to get close to you—like maybe if she knew you were a mage—except you said she’s been avoiding you.”

  “More than ever, lately. I think I might have spooked her when I found her in the park after whatever happened the other night. For whatever reason, she doesn’t want me to know what actually did happen.”

  “Do you think it has anything to do with the magic necklace she was wearing?” Verity asked. “Maybe somebody tried to steal it from her.”

  “Possibly…” Stone said, half to himself. He wasn’t convinced, though. He’d bet good money she wasn’t a mage—the fact that he’d seen no magical traces on her when he found her in the park meant she hadn’t used any magic to protect herself. That wasn’t definitive proof—she might be the kind of mage whose spells didn’t lend themselves to combat situations—but he still doubted it. There was definitely something unusual about her, but he didn’t think it was that.

  “Are you going to turn her in?” Verity asked.

  He snapped back to the conversation. “What?”

  “You know—to the University. Are you going to tell them she’s a fake?”

  “I—” Once again, he considered. On the one hand, the fact that she’d faked her credentials to get hired—and done a damned good job of it, because the University did do thorough background checks on all its hires—disturbed him. If she truly wasn’t what she claimed to be, and especially if she was connected somehow with the supernatural world, she could be putting the students and his colleagues at risk.

  But on the other hand, his curiosity wouldn’t let this rest. If he shared his knowledge with Beatrice Martinez, Garra—or whoever she really was—would be terminated immediately. She could even be subject to prosecution for identity theft. And even if the University didn’t pursue that angle, he was certain she wouldn’t stick around long enough for him to get to the bottom of her subterfuge.

  “Not yet,” he said at last. “I think I’ll keep a closer eye on her for a little while, and see if I can turn up anything else.”

  “You could confront her,” Verity pointed out. “You know—tell her what you know. Maybe if she’s worried you’ll rat her out, she might tell you what’s going on.”

  “It might come to that. But not yet. I’m curious about what she’s doing at these antique stores, though. Perhaps it’s nothing, but my hunch tells me it’s connected with why she’s here. Do you two concur?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “I think you’re right that she might be looking for something—or someone.”

  “Maybe you can use a little magic to sneak into her office and snoop around in her desk drawers,” Verity said. Then she grinned at Jason. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

  “Say what?” Jason pointedly fixed his gaze out the front window. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea, Stone decided. True, it could get him in a lot of trouble if he got caught—but he didn’t intend to get caught. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thanks for the help, Jason—how much do I owe you?”

  Jason rolled his eyes and snorted. “You’re kidding, right? You bankroll my whole operation, and you think I’m gonna charge you for a little poking around? I’m just glad I could help.”

  16


  Every scrap of Stone’s good sense told him this was a bad idea. Even with magic, there were too many ways it could go wrong—some of them possibly even putting his career at risk. Tenure didn’t protect you if you were caught breaking into a fellow professor’s office and rifling through her locked desk. Especially when half the department was sure he was romantically interested in her. That was the kind of thing that got you restraining orders, if not outright sacked.

  None of that meant he didn’t plan to do it, though. Especially with his recently augmented magical abilities, the risk was minimal. He’d just have to be careful.

  Laura stopped by his office that evening before she left at six, giving him a sideways glance. “I didn’t think I saw you leave. Is everything okay? You’re usually long gone by now.”

  He looked up from the book in front of him. “Ah—lost track of time, I guess. I’m working on a bit of research and I don’t want to take a break until I’ve finished.” He indicated the several other open tomes arrayed around him in a semi-circle, and the large cup of coffee he’d picked up on his way back from his last class.

  She paused in the doorway. “Well—all right, then. Don’t work too hard. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “No, thank you, Laura. I’m fine. I’ll be leaving soon. Have a good evening.”

  “You too.” She lingered a moment longer, then he heard her footsteps recede down the hallway.

  He couldn’t blame her for being confused: he almost never stayed this late unless he had a seminar or a specially-arranged office hour, preferring to do most of his research at home where he wasn’t likely to be disturbed by unexpected students. In retrospect, it probably would have been better for his cover story if he’d left with her and then sneaked back, but it was too late now.

  You’re overthinking this, he told himself firmly. It wasn’t as if the far-flung Department of Occult Studies offices were Fort Knox or the Louvre, and his plan was to steal the Mona Lisa under the noses of a cadre of watchful guards and extensive electronic surveillance. Hell, half the time the professors didn’t even lock their offices. Why would they? It wasn’t as if a rash of office-supply thefts was a problem.

  As he put away his books, an amusing memory struck him, of the time he and the wild-talent cat burglar Zack Beeler had recently broken into the New York City penthouse of the enigmatic and powerful mage Thalassa Nera. Between that job’s formidable wards and deadly traps, not to mention being tossed out a seventy-story window, this one hardly seemed cause for undue concern by comparison.

  Perhaps you should have talked to Kolinsky about hiring Zack to do the job. That wasn’t a bad idea, except for one thing: he’d stopped by Kolinsky’s shop yesterday after he’d spoken with Jason, intending to see if his black-mage associate might know anything about the woman posing as Marciella Garra. He found the place closed and locked, with a familiar notice behind the wards indicating Kolinsky was away indefinitely. He could always call Zack directly, of course, but he hadn’t reached that stage yet. Especially since he hadn’t seen Kolinsky since his trip to Calanar, and didn’t want even the hint of owing his friend a favor right now.

  No, better to handle this on his own, at least for the moment.

  He waited a few more minutes to make sure Laura hadn’t forgotten anything, then got up and drifted out to the front office. The door there was locked; the admin’s desk was clear and her computer switched off. He took a quick check around to make sure no other professors had remained behind, then pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and donned them. He planned to do everything he could using magic, but better safe than sorry. All he’d have to do was get in and out before the cleaning staff arrived to vacuum and empty the trash.

  Garra had locked her office door, but that proved no deterrent for Stone’s magic. He had it open in seconds and slipped inside, leaving it partially ajar so he’d have a chance of hearing anyone who might come in. He didn’t expect anyone, but the definition of ‘surprise’ was pretty much exactly ‘things you don’t expect.’ Once again, caution was prudent.

  As one final bit of prudence, he stopped in the doorway and examined the interior of the office with magical sight. Just because he was convinced the imposter wasn’t a mage didn’t mean he’d risk going in without checking for traps. Odds were low—he didn’t even keep any magical protections on his own office—but it only took a moment to check. It didn’t surprise him at all when he found nothing.

  Because Garra’s office used to be his and she hadn’t changed any of the furniture, Stone had no trouble navigating it. He ignored the bookshelves and credenza, heading straight for the single lockable drawer in the desk. Using magic, he tried to open it—perhaps luck would be with him and she hadn’t locked it.

  Nope. The drawer rattled, but didn’t open. Stone glanced toward the open door, then up at the tiny, high window. At least nobody would be able to peer in at him through it unless they got someone to give them a boost. Another application of magical power flipped the lock with a tiny click.

  Last chance to give up this mad idea. For a moment, Stone hesitated. This wasn’t like stealing the artifact from Thalassa Nera—that had been for a higher purpose, to save a lot of people from potential injury or death. This was breaking into the private space of a professional colleague. Despite what he’d found out about Marciella Garra’s falsified identity, as far as he knew she’d done nothing to invite this kind of treatment. She showed up at work every day, did her job (a good job, too, from what he’d heard from his students) and didn’t cause any trouble. Whatever reason she had for pretending to be someone she wasn’t, that didn’t give him the right to do what he was about to do.

  He thought again about the way she’d looked when he’d found her huddled behind the bin near Hubbard’s place. Something or someone had attacked her—probably something big and nasty, based on the slashes he’d seen on the tree. She may be a model professor at work, but she was up to something. He needed to find out what it was. If it all ended up being a misunderstanding, he’d admit what he’d done later. Right now, he needed to know.

  After another quick look at the door, he slid the drawer open, still using magic so he didn’t have to touch anything.

  He didn’t see much inside: an expensive fountain pen, a small quantity of change, a couple sheaves of paper, and a bound calendar planner. When a scan with magical sight revealed nothing of interest, he levitated the papers and the planner out and put them on the desk.

  The papers didn’t look like what he was looking for. He riffled through them, but found only pages from the university’s employee handbook, information about health insurance, and other administrative documents. Feeling guilty, he did memorize her home address—an apartment in Menlo Park—but then he returned the documents to the drawer as he’d found them.

  That left only the planner. If he didn’t find anything in there either, he’d have to decide whether he wanted to risk staying long enough to examine the other drawers and the credenza. He glanced at his watch: six forty-five. He probably had another half-hour or so before he had to worry about the janitors showing up, but that didn’t mean he wanted to cut things that short.

  He gestured, opening the planner and flipping through the pages until he reached the early part of September, just before she’d started at the University. Each double-paged spread covered a single week; he flicked his gaze over the first one, but found only notes about meetings with Beatrice Martinez and Laura, others about the locations of her classes, and the names and addresses of several nearby local restaurants. Normal stuff, in other words.

  You’ve let your imagination get away with you, Stone told himself in disgust. Get the hell out of here before someone catches you.

  He didn’t, though. Instead, still using magic, he flipped the page to the following week. This one had a bit more interesting data: in addition to the address and time of Hubbard’s party and more notes about class schedules, she’d also scrawled the names of several of the antique an
d junk shops Stone had seen references to on her desk before. Each one had a time next to it, and all of them were crossed out. Had she visited each of them and failed to find whatever she was looking for? The only one that didn’t have a time next to it was Huan’s Antiquities, but it was also crossed out. Next to it was the notation, Cerrado. Closed.

  He turned the page again, to the current week. There was another notation for yesterday, also crossed out, and no more until Friday night. On that date, she had written: 10 p.m. – info on item?, followed by an address in San Jose.

  Stone frowned at the entry. Ten o’clock? That was late to meet someone at one of the shops she’d tracked down. If it weren’t for the info on item? part, he might have simply thought she had a date. He wished he was more familiar with San Jose—he didn’t know the area and had no idea where the address was located in the sprawling city.

  He pulled a notebook from his pocket and quickly jotted down the address and the rest of the notation, then used magic to flip to the next couple weeks in the planner. Other than entries about work meetings and a hair appointment the following Monday, he found nothing else.

  He was debating whether to check the credenza when he heard something.

  He stiffened, checking his watch again. Seven p.m. Had the janitor showed up early? Had one of the other department professors returned for some reason?

  As he remained still behind Garra’s desk and craned his ears for a better indication of what was going on, he caught snatches of conversation. A woman and what sounded like a young girl, both speaking Spanish.

  Damn. It was the janitor. Stone usually didn’t stay late enough to see her, but he’d encountered her a few times after evening meetings, going through the offices emptying trash cans and sweeping the hallways. The girl was probably her daughter, and she’d brought her along so they could finish in time to start their early-evening plans.