by R. L. King
31
Stone got to the bar a little after eight. Gerry Hook wasn’t there yet, but Radha Unger, the lead singer, was already in the back, halfway through setting up Hook’s drum kit. She waved as he approached. “Gerry had to take a call so I’m helping him set up. Want to give me a hand?”
“Sure.” He set his pint glass of Guinness down on the edge of the stage and leaped up. “How have you been, Radha? Haven’t seen you in a while.” He found the bass pedal and crouched to attach it to the drum.
“Not bad. Busy. Prisha is starting her sophomore year, and Ajay just started junior high, so I haven’t had much time to rest lately. What about you?”
Stone smiled ruefully as he thought about the events of the last couple of weeks. “Busy too. Bit of an understatement, actually.”
“Ah, right—you’ve moved into that fancy new house, haven’t you? Well, at least you’ve finally got someone else to help you out in your department. How is she working out?”
His thoughts turned to last night. “Fine. The students quite like her.”
Gerry Hook came out from the back hallway as more customers began trickling in. “You made it, Stone.” He grinned at Radha. “He almost forgot. I had to remind him this morning. He’s turning into a real prima donna, this one is.”
“Set up your own bloody drums,” Stone muttered, amused. He jumped down from the stage, took a drink from his pint, and retrieved the Strat from where he’d left it on the end of the bar. As he removed it from its bag, hooked it up to the bar’s amplifier system, and began tuning it, he caught himself glancing over the small crowd. He didn’t see Verity anywhere among them. Would she show up? She hadn’t missed a performance yet, and every time the two of them had staged a “performance” of their own after the show, either at her place or his.
After last night, it was probably best if she didn’t attend this one, though. He’d already decided today, while working on Garra’s magical amulet, that he would tell Verity about what had happened. She made no secret of her relationship with Kyla, after all—honesty was definitely the best approach on both sides. And besides, he didn’t have a “relationship” with Garra. Nor, he’d realized to some surprise when he’d awakened next to her that morning, did he want one. It had been an enjoyable night for both of them; he didn’t regret it, and he didn’t think she did either, but last night had been more the product of adrenaline, passion, and shared peril than anything deeper.
He finished his Guinness and went to the bar for another. Jake Cohen, the group’s bassist, and Radha waited there, looking over the area.
“You ready?” Cohen asked. “Not a bad crowd tonight. I think word’s getting around that we don’t suck. So let’s not suck, okay?”
“Got it.” He nodded toward the Strat. “Note to self: set the ‘don’t suck’ switch.”
“Better get right on that,” Radha said. “We’re up. Let’s do this.”
Stone took a quick drink from the new pint, then set it on the edge of the stage near the bar and leaped up. He slipped the guitar’s strap over his head and took another glance at the crowd. Still no Verity. No Garra, either, but he had no reason to expect she’d be there. She didn’t even know about The Cardinal Sin, as far as he was aware. He certainly hadn’t told her—and in any case, she had far more important things to do than come watch one of her colleagues play in a bar band. Forget about them, he told himself as Hook banged his sticks together to set the starting tempo, and then they were off into their first number.
As always, Stone forgot about everything else as he played. He still felt a little embarrassed when he thought about it, but jamming with the Sin brought him a rush of excitement that not much else—aside from magic and good sex—could match. Who’d have thought, less than a week shy of his fortieth birthday, that he’d be on a stage playing the hard-driving music he loved for an appreciative crowd? That was the kind of thing you did when you were twenty—that he had done when he was twenty. Every once in a while, he couldn’t help wondering what his father would think of him if he were alive now. He’d probably approve of the magic, he thought with a wry grin as the crowd applauded. But the band? Not so much.
The songs they played weren’t musically rigorous—mostly rock covers from the Sixties through the Nineties—so he let his gaze roam over the crowd as he played. Maybe forty or fifty people, which was good-sized for one of their performances. This one was a public show, not a party for some professor or family member, so most of these people were either here because they wanted to see the band or else they were friends of friends. Stone shifted to magical sight, watching the dancing, rainbow-hued auras blend and crest against each other. Some of the group pressed close to the stage, writhing along with the music, clapping their hands to the beat. A thrill went through him as he played a riff and they responded.
He was about to shift back when he spotted a familiar, emerald-green aura near the back of the room by the door.
Verity was here after all?
He tightened his focus and the aura resolved itself. It was Verity. He recognized the figure standing next to her too, its bright blue aura as sharp as her own. Jason. They’d both come out to see him play.
They pushed their way forward as the band finished its first set and the others adjourned to the bar for a quick refresher. “Doc!” Verity called with a big grin. “You guys sounded great as always.”
Stone headed to the edge of the stage where he’d left his pint, then jumped down. “I thought you’d forgotten about the show.”
“Yeah, right, like I’d forget.” She flashed him a significant look, then cut her gaze toward Jason. “Besides, Jase wanted to see you play.”
Jason clapped him on the arm. “You sounded awesome, man,” he said. “I had no idea you guys were that good.”
“We do all right.” Stone swiped his damp hair off his forehead and took a long pull from the pint. “It’s just a short show tonight—you should come see one of the longer ones.”
“Definitely. Wouldn’t miss it.”
From slightly behind him, Verity rolled her eyes at Stone.
He got the message—there would be no post-show festivities tonight—but that was all right. He’d never tell them, but it felt good to have them here, taking time away from their busy lives to come hear him play.
“Listen,” he said, still breathing a bit hard from the exertion. “We should be done a bit after ten—do you two want to have a drink or something after?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Verity said. Her expression clearly suggested she had other things on her mind, but she was being a good sport about it. She hooked ‘devil horns’ with one hand and waggled them. “Go get ’em, Doc. Rock on.”
Jason raised his beer in salute, and the two of them moved off, back into the crowd.
Stone grabbed one more long drink—the Guinness tasted a little flat, he observed idly, making a mental note to pick up a fresh one after the set—and joined the rest of the band on stage. They’d do four or five more numbers, and then he, Verity, and Jason could go someplace where he could catch them up on the latest developments in the Garra situation. Or most of them, anyway.
They launched into the second set with a vigorous version of Highway to Hell. Stone backed up Radha, who belted out the song in her bluesy, throaty voice, her grin matching his. People tended to underestimate her: nobody expected the prim, slender Indian woman to have the growly pipes of a rock star, and Stone knew she enjoyed setting them straight. It was one of the things he liked most about the band: none of them were what they seemed. Okay, so the other three used it as a welcome escape from the staid life of academia and he was a mage who battled horrific extradimensional threats, but hey, who was keeping score?
He wiped his arm across his brow again. Damn, it was getting warm in here—must be all the extra people packing the small space. It was good they only had a few more songs to do, otherwise he’d need to take a break for a cold drink. He eyed his half-full glass on the edge of the
stage; maybe he could grab it between songs. Even flat, it would take the edge off the heat.
A sudden, sharp pain lanced through his midsection, causing him to jerk his hand and miss a chord. Jake Cohen glanced at him in question, but he waved him off. It was probably a muscle pull from last night—sometimes those took a while to show up. Either that, or the turkey sandwich he’d picked up on the way over was disagreeing with him. He focused his attention, getting back into the groove with the rest of the band. Across the crowd, he met Verity’s gaze and shrugged.
This song seemed to be going on forever! Sweat ran down from his forehead, getting in his eyes, and more soaked through his black T-shirt. What was going on? Why didn’t they turn up the bloody AC in here?
When the pain hit again, it nearly doubled him over. It felt as if someone had plunged a spear into his stomach. He clamped his teeth together as his hand slipped and hit all the strings at once, sending a discordant clamor shrieking from the amps.
What was going on?
Terror sluiced through him as yet another jolt of pain ripped across his body, followed by a sudden, shuddering chill. Heart pounding, he heard an uproar around him as if it were coming from somewhere far away. Somehow he was on his knees, but he didn’t remember how he got there. His hands slipped off the guitar, letting it dangle on its strap.
“Somebody get a doctor!” a woman yelled—or at least he thought that was what he’d heard. The words sounded muddy and indistinct: Sumuddy ge’ ’okker! The music behind him hesitated and stopped, and then hands were clutching at him as he pitched forward off the stage.
Never did a stage dive before, he thought, just before Verity’s terrified face appeared in front of him.
He didn’t quite pass out as the hands lowered him gently down and laid him on his back on the floor. His thoughts raced, making only occasional sense of the stimuli around him: someone yelling call 911, the smell of beer, the sea of feet and faces around him, a melting ice cube lying next to him, another searing pain slicing through his gut, his heart hammering hard. He tried to focus, to shift to magical senses, to find a friendly face among the swirl. He tasted blood, bright and coppery in the back of his throat.
“Everybody get back!” a familiar, authoritative voice called, rising above the cacophony. Jason—it had to be. The swirling faces receded.
A cold hand settled over his forehead, and another familiar face swam back into view. “Doc…Alastair…it’s okay…It’s me…” Verity. “You’re gonna be okay.” Her eyes were wide with fear, though. “The ambulance is coming…” She leaned in close and dropped her volume. “I’m gonna see what I can do in the meantime.”
“V…Verity…” he whispered, then winced and clenched his eyes and jaw as yet another pain hit. He clutched feebly at his abdomen, which now felt like it was on fire. What was going on? His thoughts wouldn’t stay on track, but a quick one surfaced before the pain drove it off again: there’s no way a turkey sandwich could have done this. But what could—
And then, a moment of clarity.
The beer.
He clutched at Verity’s arm, his vision blurring so hard he couldn’t get a grip on her. “Verity…” he whispered.
“Shh…Doc…let me concentrate…”
His flailing hand touched her arm and he clamped hard, trying to pull her down before she got away again. All around them, Jason was using his cop’s booming voice to drive the crowd back, to give them space. “Verity…the beer…the…the glass…”
He could tell she’d been ready to shush him again, but then her slim arm went rigid under his grip. “Oh my God…” she whispered. Then, louder: “Jason!”
And then the pain surged anew, and during the instant before he finally passed out, he was sure an unseen blade had sliced him in half.
32
The first thing Stone saw when he awoke was Verity, seated in a chair next to him. He blinked until his vision cleared, raising a hand to his head. An IV tube snaked from the back of his hand.
Verity started from her light doze, the open book in her lap tumbling to the floor. “Doc?”
He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them. He lay in a hospital bed, clad in a blue-dotted gown and covered with a light blanket. Next to him, several beeping machines went about their business in the background. He settled his gaze on her. “Verity…” His voice barely had any volume behind it.
She clutched his hand with a gentle grip, avoiding the IV. “Oh, God, I’m so glad to see you awake. How do you feel?”
He pondered that, trying to remember how he’d gotten here. All he could recall were swirling faces, a knifing pain in his gut, and chaos. His other hand scrabbled at his midsection as a sudden terror rose: had something sliced him in two? But no, his lower half was still where it belonged beneath the blanket, and his stomach didn’t hurt anymore. “Tired…” he rasped. He looked around him again; clearly he was in a hospital, but it didn’t look like a standard patient room. “How…long?”
Her grasp on his hand tightened. “Two days. It’s Monday now, about seven at night.”
“Two…days?” He thought he’d misheard her. That couldn’t be right. “Verity—what—”
“Shh…” She put a cold cloth on his head. “Just be calm. You’re going to be okay. Jason’s coming in a little while. We’ve been taking turns sitting with you, and I’ve been going by your place to feed Raider.”
Something in her tone troubled him—something she wasn’t saying. He turned his hand over and closed his fingers around her wrist, amazed at how weak his grip was. “Tell me…what happened,” he ordered.
She glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting a doctor or nurse to be coming in, then turned back to meet his gaze. “You almost died,” she said softly, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes.
“What?” He tensed. “How could—”
“I don’t know. We haven’t been able to figure it out yet.” She leaned in even closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do you remember the beer glass?”
He searched his memory, trying to sort out the discordant images and sensations from the bar. “I remember it…tasted odd. Not bad. Just…flat.”
“I’m really glad you said something before you passed out. Jason was able to get it in the chaos. I poured the rest of it in a bottle I had in my bag, and we took the glass and the bottle away.” Her expression sobered even more. “Doc—I looked at it with magical sight. There was magic around that beer.”
Stone couldn’t hold a thought. They darted around inside his brain like pinballs, making it difficult to pin them down. “Magic—in the beer?”
“I haven’t had a chance to analyze it yet. I’m gonna take it to Hezzie—she’s better at it than I am. But I’m guessing somebody put something alchemical in your Guinness when you weren’t watching it.”
He struggled to remember—everything after he started feeling strange was a blur, but he did remember leaving his glass on the corner of the stage and not paying much attention to it during the set. Quite a few people had pressed up close, and the lights had been dim; any of them could have slipped something into it. But why would anyone have done that? As far as he knew, nobody wanted him dead. At least not immediately.
Unless…
He gripped her arm again, frustrated at his lack of strength. “Verity…where’s my mobile?”
“Uh…in your jeans pocket, I think. They took all your stuff and locked it up for you.”
“I need it.”
“What’s wrong? You can use mine if—” She reached for her bag.
“No…no…I don’t have the number memorized.” He struggled to sit up.
“Doc, please. Lie down. I’ll find somebody and get your phone back, but it’s probably not charged up after all this time. Who do you want to call?”
“Dr. Garra.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“She might be in danger. Verity—please.”
“Okay. Okay.” She got up. “But Doc, you gotta stay down. I�
�m not kidding—you nearly died. If I hadn’t gotten to you when I did—” She patted his shoulder. “Hang on. I’ll be back.”
Stone lay back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. Two days he’d been out. If he could believe Verity—and she wasn’t prone to exaggeration about such things—he’d come closer to dying than he had since…well, since he’d been impaled on a crystal spike on another dimension two months ago. But this time it hadn’t been anything so fantastical, but merely some arcane poison someone had slipped into his pint at an overpriced hipster bar in Mountain View.
He looked around, noticing his surroundings for the first time. He wasn’t in a normal room: this place had walls on either side and the back, but no windows, and only a closed curtain blocked the front. Beyond it, he could hear the sounds of doctors and nurses moving around, calling to each other. Was he in intensive care? “Bloody hell…” he whispered.
The curtain moved, and a tall nurse clad in blue scrubs slipped in. “Ah, you’re awake,” he said, smiling. “I’m just here to draw some blood. I’m really glad to see you looking better tonight.” He moved next to Stone and began wrapping a rubber cord around his upper arm.
“Wait—wait a moment, please.”
“Just let me finish this. The doctor will be in soon. Hold still, and it’ll only take a second.”
Stone winced as the nurse tightened the cord around his arm and pressed the needle in. “Nurse—please. Can you tell me what’s happened to me?”
“You’ll need to talk to the doctor,” he said. “We called her as soon as you showed signs of waking up.” He fluffed the pillow. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Just…information.” Even the brief conversation tired him.
“You’ll get that soon enough, Dr. Stone, I promise. Now, don’t hesitate to press the call button if you need anything.” He finished his blood draw and departed with the vial as the curtain parted again to admit Verity.