by R. L. King
“I’m wondering if whoever has it isn’t a mere collector.”
She glanced up, pausing in mid-line. “You mean you think they’re using it? But how could that be? I thought you said it was for helping shifters reproduce. You didn’t see any shifters, did you? Those guys with the weird auras, maybe?”
“No—the men who came after us did have odd auras, but I never saw any of them shift. And Dr. Garra doesn’t have the same kind of aura.” He continued pacing, pausing to examine Verity’s work so far. “I wonder if shifters might not be involved, though.”
“Some other clan trying to use it for themselves?”
“Possibly. If that were true, they might not have the same resources as a wealthy collector, but they’re bloody good at tracking. It’s possible they decided killing any pursuers might be easier than trying to run from them.”
“What about the alchemist, though? You know they’ve got one—trust me, that stuff you drank had to be highly magical, if they managed to disguise that kind of corrosive substance well enough that you’d drink it. I’m guessing even the poison itself was magical.”
“Possibly the chalice is purpose-built for the jaguar clan, and they need an alchemist to make alterations to the elixir before it will work for a different species. I don’t know.”
Verity sketched for a while before she answered. When she did, she sounded dubious. “I dunno, Doc. That still leaves a lot of loose ends. We don’t even know who all the players are. Did the people who have the chalice now steal it from Dr. Garra’s clan in the first place? Or did somebody else steal it and these guys killed Jimmy Tanuki and took it from him? And who are the guys who came after you and Dr. Garra? You said they were stronger and faster than normal people. Are they mages too? Are they like those guys we fought up in Woodside last year? The magic-immune ones?”
Stone leaned against the wall and shoved his hands in his pockets. “All good questions, and I don’t have answers to most of them. All I’m certain of is that the men who attacked us weren’t like Lane and Hugo. And I’m reasonably sure they weren’t mages. Or shifters, because of the auras.”
“But they’ve got to have magic associated with them, if they’re that strong and fast.”
“Yes, that’s a reasonable assumption.”
“Maybe that’s why the alchemist wanted the chalice,” she said, standing up and stretching as she surveyed her work. “Maybe they’ve figured out a way to use it as a starting point to make other things—like an elixir to enhance people.”
“Hmm…” Stone considered. “That’s not a half bad idea. The only problem is, if the chalice is an artifact-level magic item, it would be extremely difficult to alter its purpose without breaking it. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it would be a big risk. And if it’s true, it means we’re dealing with some impressive power levels.”
“How impressive?”
“To alter the basic purpose of an artifact-class magic item? I’d say Madame Huan’s or Kolinsky’s level, at minimum. Of course, it’s also possible that the chalice isn’t actually as potent as Dr. Garra implied, which would make it easier.” He waved her off. “It’s all just speculation, though, at the moment. Let’s finish the circle so I can see if I can find Dr. Garra. Depending on what the ritual discovers, we can make our plans from there. But first let me call Laura and see if she ever turned up. It would be a bit embarrassing to expend all this effort tracking her to her lecture hall at the University.”
No such luck, however. A quick call to the department office revealed that Garra still hadn’t shown up, nor had she called to reveal her whereabouts.
“I’m getting worried, Dr. Stone,” Laura said. “She’s missed two classes today already. Should we call the police?”
“Might be worth having them do a welfare check on her,” Stone said, already knowing they’d find nothing. “Let me know if she turns up, will you?”
“That’s it,” he told Verity after he hung up. “I hope this ritual works.”
With Stone taking over and Verity assisting, they finished the circle in a few minutes. Stone gathered the materials he’d need, including the amulet, and stepped into the center.
“You sure you’re okay to do this?” Verity asked. She’d been watching him like she expected him to pass out ever since they’d arrived in the attic.
“I’m fine.” Surprisingly, he did feel fine. Even the lightheadedness from before had passed. Perhaps it was the adrenaline from his concern about Garra, or perhaps it was a testament to Verity’s growing healing abilities, but either way he wasn’t arguing. “Just keep an eye on me in case anything goes wrong.”
He sat cross-legged in the circle’s center, twisting to light each of the candles around its perimeter with magic. After taking a few centering breaths to calm his jangling nerves, he dropped into his meditative state, switched on magical sight, and fed power into the circle. The familiar shafts of arcane light shimmered into being, satisfyingly strong and steady, joining the points into a pulsing pattern. Yes, he was definitely getting to like this new power level.
“Here goes…” he murmured, reaching out with his magical senses to focus on the amulet on the floor in front of him. Even though it was broken, its illusion effect no longer functional, it had still been designed and built specifically for Garra. That kind of bond was the best kind for a tracking ritual, even with a mundane object. When added to the sexual connection they’d shared, he was confident he could find her.
If she was alive, of course. If they’d killed her, the strongest ritual in the world wouldn’t have a chance of locating her.
The spell locked on to the amulet, and after a few moments a white, searching tendril extended upward and disappeared up through the basement’s ceiling. Stone closed his eyes and focused his concentration. This would be the crucial part—if Garra was dead, the tendril would collapse on itself in the next few seconds. If she wasn’t, it would continue its search, trying to meet up with the corresponding auric essence in its target.
He clenched his fists, heart pounding as he waited to see which it would be. “Come on, Viajera…” he murmured. “Where are you…?”
The tendril didn’t collapse. Instead, it continued ranging out, poking this way and that like a curious snake, trying to get a fix. She’s not dead. She’s out there somewhere…
But where? The tendril seemed to be having trouble committing to a direction. That could mean one of two things: she was alive, but behind wards or some other kind of magical protection, or she was outside the spell’s relatively short range. Possibly both.
“You’re not getting away from me,” he growled, feeding more power into the spell. With his new connection to Calanar, the power came strong and steady to his call. He’d have to be a bit careful, since after his recent ordeal his body wasn’t back to its full strength yet, but even now he had more to draw than he had before. “Come on…let’s see you…”
The little tendril seemed to settle on a direction. It searched around for a few more seconds, then darted off to the north. A thrill shot up Stone’s spine: she was alive. It wouldn’t be that decisive if she was dead. Focus—don’t let it get away from you.
It was trying to. The tendril writhed and shifted as if it were uncomfortable. It continued its northward progress, but already Stone could sense it beginning to lose potency. “No, damn you…” He fed more power in, trying to keep the thing together by sheer willpower alone. “Show me where she is!”
The tendril strained, already nearing the end of its ability to remain coherent. “Come on…” Stone urged, sensing it was getting close. “Just a bit further…”
The tendril shuddered and dissolved into a shimmer of light, drifting off into astral space as the connection broke. But in the instant before it disappeared, Stone sensed something else that made him stiffen.
Something had reached out to him.
For less than a second, before the tendril could no longer hold its connection to the circle, something from the
other end had made contact with it.
“Bloody hell…” he whispered, dropping the power keeping the circle running and slumping backward.
“Are you okay?” Verity’s worried voice called.
He swallowed and sat back up. In front of him, Garra’s onyx pendant lay in a broken heap, the stone cracked and the gold setting melted around it. “That was close.”
“Did you find her?” She hurried into the circle and grabbed his arm to help him up.
He let her pull him to his feet. Already his heartbeat was returning to normal—it hadn’t been fatigue that caused it this time, but fear. “I think she’s alive. Fairly certain of it. She’s somewhere north of here.” He grabbed the map he’d laid out near the circle and consulted it. “Very close to the edge of the spell’s range.”
“How far is that? I know yours is wider than mine—probably even more now.”
He continued studying the map. “Yes, but I think they might have her behind wards, which decreases its power significantly. There,” he added, pointing with his pen at a spot north of San Francisco. “Somewhere up there. Not sure how far, though.”
“That’s a lot of territory,” she said dubiously.
“Yes, but we have a direction now. We can go up there and do the ritual again.”
“Can you? The amulet’s slagged.”
He let his breath out. “Yes. I might be able to do it without a tether object now, though. Especially since—”
“Since you slept with her,” she said matter-of-factly. “Yeah, that’ll help.” She glanced at the ruined circle. “What was the ‘bloody hell’ for, though? You looked scared there at the end.”
“Yes. We need to hurry. Just as I got to the end of the spell’s effective range, I felt something…touching me. Trying to track the spell back to its source.”
“Shit. Did they do it? Do they know where we are?”
“No. It collapsed before they got a chance. But it means they know someone is looking for them, and I suspect they’re bright enough to figure out who. Come on.”
She followed him toward the stairs. “Doc?”
“Yes?”
“You said ‘fairly certain’. What’s that mean? I thought the tracking spell knew for sure whether someone was alive or not.”
“Normally it does. But we’re dealing with some powerful individuals here. It could be a trap. We’ll need to be careful. Let me call your brother and we’ll go from there.” He pulled out his phone as he reached the bottom of the stairs and hit the button for Jason’s office.
Jason answered on the first ring. “Thayer Investigations.”
“Jason. Did you find anything?”
“Hey, Al. No, not really. No suspicious deaths around the area. Still got some checks out to the hospitals, to see if anybody matching Garra’s description turned up.”
“Don’t focus on this area. Can you do a quick check to see if anything’s shown up in the area north of San Francisco? Up in the Sonoma area?”
“I’ll see what I can do. What am I looking for?”
“I don’t even know. I found something with the ritual, but it’s inconclusive.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Drive up there and try the ritual again.”
“I want to come along. Come pick me up—I’ll see what I can find before that.”
Stone didn’t want to take the time to drive to San Jose, but Jason’s help would be valuable. “All right—we’re coming now. But we can’t wait long, so be ready.”
35
They found Jason at his desk, focused on his computer screen. “Did you find anything?” Stone demanded as soon as he shoved open the door, Verity trailing behind him.
“Maybe. I dunno if it’s related, but it’s in the area and it seemed weird, so I noted it. I was just checking for anything else.”
“What is it?” Stone hurried over.
“A woman’s body found up in Sonoma a couple days ago.”
Stone froze. “Do they know who she is?”
“No. They haven’t been able to identify her, and there aren’t any missing persons reports or next of kin turning up. Her face was mangled, and her hands were messed up so they couldn’t get fingerprints. They’ll need to use dental records.”
“Sounds like they were trying to make sure nobody could identify her,” Verity said.
“How long has she been there?” Stone forced himself to remain calm. Odds were good this wasn’t even related to Garra’s case, but that didn’t help.
“That’s the thing—a guy called it in. He said he was out hiking Saturday night and saw somebody dump something. By the time he got close they were gone. It’s a pretty remote area, though.”
Stone and Verity both leaned in, trying to peer over Jason’s shoulder. “Do they have a description?”
“Yeah. Not a good one, though—looks like she was pretty messed up.”
“Could it be Garra? Late twenties, tall, black hair?”
Jason sighed. “Yeah. That fits.”
Stone clenched his fists. “Damn.”
“Wait,” Verity said. “How can she be dead? You found her with the ritual. You said even though you couldn’t find exactly where she was, you were pretty sure she was alive.”
“Pretty sure,” he repeated. “Normally I’d say certain, but considering the power levels we’re clearly dealing with here, it’s possible they could have set a trap for me.” He stepped back. “Come on—we need to get up there. Jason, can you use your private-investigator credentials to convince them to let us take a look at the body? I won’t know for sure until I see her in person.”
“Probably. Especially if I tell them I’m working on a case with a missing woman.”
“That’s not even a lie. Let’s go—I’ve already got my magical paraphernalia in the car.”
“Wait,” Verity said suddenly.
“What?”
“Can we drive up through San Francisco on the way? I really want to drop that poisoned beer sample off with Hezzie so she can examine it. I wanted to help her, but she can do it without me. It might give us some useful information about who’s behind this.”
Stone didn’t want to waste a moment, but Verity had a point. “Fine. But we can’t stay.”
“I’ll give her a call so she’s expecting us. Let’s go.”
By the time Stone found a parking space two blocks from Hezzie’s apartment building an hour later, he could barely contain his impatience. “Let’s make this quick,” he told Verity, glancing at his watch. It was after five, and already dark.
Hezzie, a member of the Harpies, the all-female vigilante gang Stone and Verity had encountered a few months back while tracking an ancient, malevolent set of game pieces, lived in a rundown apartment building in the Mission District.
“She can afford a nicer place,” Verity commented when Jason looked around the area with distaste, “but she has more room here, and fewer nosy neighbors. Everybody minds their own business.”
The witch’s place was at the end of a long hallway with only three other doors along it. The faint strains of a rap song filtered out through one of them, and a baby’s cry from the opposite one. The air smelled like strongly-spiced Mexican food locked in an olfactory battle with a squadron of smelly gym socks.
Stone switched to magical sight as Verity knocked, and immediately spotted the ward protecting the door. It was a simple but effective working, designed to subtly discourage anyone who might be tempted to break in.
Before he could study it in more detail, the door opened to reveal Hezzie. “Hey, V. Wondering when you’d get here. C’mon in.” A pale, plain-faced woman in her middle twenties with short hair and big, dark eyes, she wore torn, faded jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt featuring a cartoon witch and Resting Witch Face. Her glance flicked to Stone and then to Jason, her smile fleeing.
“Hey,” Verity said. “You remember Dr. Stone. And this is my brother Jason. Jason, this is Hezzie.”
“Good to see you agai
n,” Stone said. “Unfortunately we can’t stay long.”
Inside, Hezzie’s apartment looked a lot nicer than might be expected from its exterior. The shades were drawn, but the soft glow of a stand lamp with a red shade illuminated a cozy sitting area with overstuffed sofa and chair, old-fashioned wooden coffee table, and a small TV atop another table covered in black velvet. Two cats, one gray and one calico, crouched on top of the sofa watching the visitors with wary, suspicious gazes. Stone got a brief impression of several pagan-themed prints on the walls, and the kitchen was just visible through an open doorway on the far side. Unlike the feuding aromas in the hallway, the apartment smelled of spices, a hint of something more pungent but not unpleasant, and tomato sauce.
Hezzie eyed Stone. “You look good for a guy who drank Drano three days ago.”
“It’s all thanks to Verity and her stellar healing abilities.”
Verity pulled the little bottle with the sample from her bag. “Can you take a look at this, Hez, and let me know what you find? I know it’s magic, but I’ve only got this little bit and I don’t trust my alchemy skills enough yet. I don’t want to screw up the analysis.”
“You wouldn’t.” Hezzie’s fond smile returned as she once again focused on Verity. “I can already tell you’ve got a real knack for it.”
“Well, I hope that’s true.” She handed over the vial. “I already gave you the details. Do you know how long it’ll take to analyze it? It’s not something we can wait for, is it?”
Hezzie flicked her gaze at Stone. “Not something he can wait for, judging by how impatient he looks. I can see you guys are trying to get out of here. I’ll take a look at it tonight and give you a call with what I find out.”
“Any chance you’ll be able to trace it to its maker?” Stone asked. “That would be the most useful at this point.”
“Probably not. Not if they’re any good, anyway. But I should be able to tell you what’s in it, and that might give you a clue. Alchemists are like chefs—they all have their own touches, and their own individual recipes. I’ve never heard of a poison like you describe, so maybe I can get something. We’ll see.”