Stone and Claw: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  Verity and Jason got started, the former with magic and the latter with muscle power, and in less than ten minutes they had all the furniture pushed back against one wall, stacked on top of each other to provide maximum floor space.

  “Aren’t you worried about them catching on if you try finding her again?” Verity asked, watching as Stone sketched a circle on the cleared floor. “If they noticed you before, they might be ready for you this time.”

  “It’s a chance I’ll have to take. I’ll build a couple of precautions into the ritual to conceal my presence, but we don’t have any other options.”

  He wished they did, because he’d already thought about Verity’s question and it did concern him. With his greater power level he could probably conceal himself, but since he didn’t know how strong his opposition was, he couldn’t be sure. If they caught him again, would they send someone after him, either in the astral or physical world? That, he could deal with if necessary. But if they decided to cut their losses and kill Garra to prevent him from finding her, he’d never forgive himself.

  If only there were some other way he could track them. Now he wished he’d had the presence of mind to grab something from one of the men he’d knocked out back at the school ambush. There was no guarantee they were here, of course, but if he found one of them nearby, he could make a reasonable assumption he was wherever Garra was being held. Whoever had set up those wards probably didn’t waste time protecting henchmen. If he had a bit of their clothing, or better yet some blood, he could—

  Hang on…

  He leaped up from his crouch. “Yes!”

  Jason and Verity both jumped, startled. “What?”

  “Is something wrong?” Verity hurried to the edge of the circle.

  “No. Something might be right.” He glanced around the room until he spotted his black overcoat, which somebody had tossed over the upended sofa. He used magic to pull it to him, then turned it inside out.

  “What are you doing?” Verity asked.

  He didn’t answer, focused on tightening his magical sight. At first he didn’t see anything, and feared it had been too long. But then, as he scanned the upper part of the inner liner, he spotted it: a faint glow of magical energy near the left shoulder. “There!”

  “What?” Jason demanded.

  “Jason, do you have a pocket knife?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Al—” Jason dug it from his pocket and handed it over. “You want to tell us what the hell you’re doing?”

  Stone spoke as he unfolded the knife and carefully began excising the section of liner from the coat. “On Friday night, when those men attacked us in Oakland, Dr. Garra shifted to her jaguar form and chased them. One of them shot her, but she also got her claws on him before he managed to escape. Some of his blood sprayed her shoulder.”

  “So? Why is it on your coat?”

  “When she shifts back, she’s naked. I let her use my coat to cover up until she could get to her spare clothes.” He finished cutting out the bloody section, set it aside, then focused on the lower part. The magical traces there were stronger, because there was more blood. He cut that section out too. “This is Garra’s blood. If I do the ritual twice and it leads to the same place both times, I think we’ll have our answer.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” Verity asked.

  “We’ll deal with that if it happens.” He tossed the coat aside and carefully levitated the sample with Garra’s blood outside the circle. “You two keep a watch—I don’t want anyone bursting in on us while I do this.”

  Nobody burst in on them. Even with the extra care Stone took to make sure he got a good result, the first ritual only took fifteen minutes. “Give me the map,” he ordered without moving from the circle’s center. When Verity levitated it over, he unfolded it, circled a spot with his pen, and sent it back. “Here’s where he is. Take a look, will you?”

  Jason and Verity spread it out on a nearby table and examined it under a light. “This is about ten miles north of here,” Jason said. “Looks like some kind of animal preserve or something, way up in the sticks.”

  “That makes sense.” Stone, still remaining where he was, used magic to replace the candles and crystals around the outside of the circle. “If they’re doing something with shifters, they wouldn’t want anyone blundering in on them. See if you can find any reference to it while I finish this. And be ready to go. If I find Garra in the same place, we’ll need to move fast.”

  The second ritual took a few minutes longer than the first one, because Stone built in an extra concealment component he hoped would keep anyone from noticing him this time. He didn’t know if it would work, but if he could manage to get a look without being spotted, they’d have a better chance of sneaking in. He lost all track of what was going on around him as he concentrated on following the narrow, twisting tendril to its source, taking care at each stage to keep the concealment spell strong.

  This time when he made contact he was not only sure he’d found Garra, but that she was alive. He leaped up as all around him the candles whooshed out and the crystals cracked. “Got her!”

  “Where?” Verity demanded. “Is she in the same place?”

  Stone summoned the map and examined it for only a second before stabbing a finger down near the place he’d circled before. “She’s there. Jason, did you find anything out about the area?”

  “Yeah. I made a couple calls while you were out. It’s private land—used to be an animal sanctuary, but it’s been closed to the public for years. The guy I talked to thinks some kind of scientific foundation is using it now. He also said he’s pretty sure they’re paying off the local cops to leave it alone, so nobody really knows what’s going on up there.”

  “That sounds like just the sort of place we’re looking for, then.” Stone gestured, gathering the circle components into a small whirlwind and depositing them in a nearby trash can.

  “Did they notice you?” Verity asked. She picked up the can, pulled a heavy trash bag from Stone’s duffel bag, and dumped the spent components into it.

  “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t count on it. We need to hurry.”

  The road they were looking for wasn’t on the map. They took two wrong turns, wasting nearly fifteen minutes, before Verity spotted the unmarked turnoff, badly paved and barely a lane and a half wide, between two clumps of overgrown trees.

  “They really don’t want anybody finding this place,” Jason muttered as Stone carefully turned onto the narrow road.

  “Would you, if you were breeding shapeshifters so you could sell their kids into slavery?” Verity leaned forward, peering between the two front seats to keep an eye on the terrain ahead.

  “I just hope we can get up there,” Stone said. The BMW bounced over the uneven, rutted surface; every few feet a reaching tree branch scraped the side. He wanted to go faster—who knew what they were doing with Garra while her rescuers poked along a torn-up, potholed road, barely faster than they could walk?—but he forced himself to maintain a slow, even speed. It would take them even longer to get to her if they broke an axle on some unseen hazard.

  They’d barely made it half a mile when Verity’s soft, strained voice spoke from the back seat. “Doc?”

  “Yes?” Stone didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead as he shifted between normal and magical sight.

  “Somebody’s behind us.”

  Stone jerked his gaze up to the rearview mirror as red and blue lights switched on and a siren blipped.

  38

  “Damn. Police. What the hell do they want?”

  “No way we can outrun them,” Jason said, sounding tense.

  “Let’s see what they want. Be ready, though. Verity, use your disregarding spell.”

  “Right.”

  Stone pulled over as much as he could and brought the car to a stop. The police car stopped behind them, blocking the road. After a moment, two figures emerged. It was hard to see t
hem since they hadn’t shut off the headlights or the whirling red-and-blues. One approached, while the other remained a few steps back. The close one motioned for Stone to roll down his window.

  “What’s the problem, Officer?”

  The cop wore a tan uniform and cap, but wasn’t Highway Patrol. He looked to be in his middle thirties, with a blunt, fleshy face and a hint of a paunch lapping over his leather belt. Typical small-town policeman, from the look of him.

  “What are you doing up here, sir?” he asked. His gaze took in Stone, then looked past him into the car where it settled on Jason. He didn’t appear to notice Verity.

  “We got lost. Took a wrong turn. I was looking for a place to turn around.”

  “License and registration, please.”

  Stone pulled out his wallet and leaned across to retrieve the registration from the glove compartment. “I don’t like this,” he muttered to Jason. “Be ready.”

  “Already am,” Jason muttered back.

  Stone handed the documents out to the cop, weaving a quick illusion so he wouldn’t see the correct information. “What’s the problem? This isn’t a private road, is it?”

  “No, sir. But we’ve had some problems with drug operations up in the hills here. So when we spot a car like this heading up there—” He paused to study Stone’s documents, shining his flashlight over them. “Please step out of the car.”

  “Why?”

  The flashlight swiveled up, the beam hitting Stone in the face. “Step out of the car, sir,” the cop repeated, more forcefully this time.

  Stone blinked, flinching away from the light. “What do you want? I haven’t done anything wrong.” He pushed open the door—in truth, he wanted to be away from the car, which would give him more room to maneuver—and got out, keeping his hands in sight.

  The beam lowered, leaving him momentarily blinded—at least with normal sight. When he switched to magical sight, however, he immediately noticed the odd green edging around both cops’ auras, and tensed. Though these weren’t the same men who’d attacked him and Garra back at the school, theirs auras had the same unusual quality.

  When the other cop moved, heading back toward his car, Stone made a fast decision. With a quick flick of his power, he grabbed hold of the man’s foot and yanked it out from under him. The cop flailed and went down, yelping.

  Unfortunately, the first must have picked up on his tension, because he acted nearly simultaneously. Moving faster than an out-of-shape small-town cop should be able to, he backed up and whipped out his pistol, leveling it at Stone. “Down on the ground!” he barked.

  Before Stone could react, the guy’s gun flew out of his hand and sailed into the forest. Good job, Verity. He took hold with a telekinetic grip and shoved the man away. Neither of the cops appeared to be wearing mics—Stone couldn’t let them get back to their car and their radio.

  The cop recovered fast, though—too fast. With a roar, he leaped forward and grabbed Stone, slamming him into the side of the car.

  Stone got his shield up in time to blunt most of the damage. “Don’t let them get to their car!” he yelled, hearing both passenger-side doors open as Jason and Verity emerged from the BMW.

  The second cop, shorter and broader than his partner, made a run for the cruiser, but skidded to a stop as the open door slammed shut.

  “Don’t try it,” Verity warned.

  Stone leaped to his feet and drove the first cop into a nearby tree with a concussion spell. It was so easy now!

  The power didn’t make him any faster, though, and these two small-town cops were every bit as fast and tough as the men at Jimmy Tanuki’s place. The guy rolled up and launched himself back at Stone, his angry roar almost feral.

  Stone barely got out of the way in time, throwing himself sideways along the BMW’s flank. He expected to hear a crash as the cop slammed into the car, but the man surprised him again, springing suddenly upward to land on the opposite side. Spinning, he yelled, “Jason! Watch out!”

  The cop came down next to Jason, bulling him off toward the trees, but despite his supernatural strength and speed, he clearly hadn’t reckoned with Jason’s fighting skill. Jason dropped and flung the man over his shoulder into another tree, where he rolled up almost immediately.

  Before he could go after Jason again, though, he lifted off the ground and, arms flailing, smashed into another tree before dropping back down, stunned.

  The second cop, meanwhile, had disappeared around the back of the cruiser. Stone swept his gaze around, looking for the man’s aura, but didn’t see it. Where had he gone? Whatever they were using didn’t turn them invisible, did it? If he could—

  A dark figure dropped silently down from a branch above, driving Stone to the ground. His grasping hands went for Stone’s throat, his eyes blazing with wild rage.

  Somewhere in the distance, Stone heard a shriek from the other cop, but he had other things to worry about at the moment. He gathered power to rip the man’s hands from him and throw him free.

  Suddenly, though, the cop’s grip slipped on its own. His eyes lost their animalistic glare and went wide and fearful, and something gurgled in the back of his throat. Jerking and clutching his chest, he toppled backward.

  What—?

  “Look out!” Verity yelled.

  Stone spun around, still crouched.

  The first cop had gotten away from Jason. He leaped to the top of the BMW and came down toward Stone.

  No more time to play around. Stone summoned more power, lifted the man in mid-leap, and flung him with all his considerable strength into the thick trunk of a tree just off the road. He thought he heard something crack, but whether it was the tree or the man, he wasn’t sure and didn’t care. The cop slid to the ground, then staggered up and took off into the forest. In seconds, he was gone.

  Jason and Verity darted around the BMW as Stone crouched back down to examine the remaining cop. “What the hell—?” he muttered.

  What he was seeing didn’t make any sense. The guy writhed on the ground, his breath coming in hitching gasps, his hands clawing at his chest. The harsh illumination from the cruiser’s headlights showed a pale, ashen face bathed in sweat.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Stone demanded. He hadn’t hit the man that hard. He’d barely hit him at all.

  Verity dropped to her knees next to him, her expression growing fuzzy as she picked up his wrist to check his pulse, then shifted to magical sight. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

  Stone glanced in the direction the other cop had headed, also switching to magical sight. No sign of the man’s aura appeared among the faint green ones of the trees. “We’ve got to go before he brings more of them.”

  “We can’t just leave this guy here to die,” Verity said. “Give me just a few minutes. I can help him.”

  Stone didn’t like it—these cops were obviously in league with whoever had stolen the chalice, if their green-tinged auras were any indication—but he knew from experience Verity wouldn’t be swayed. “All right. A few minutes. Just get him stabilized, and we’ll leave him in his car and go on. Jason and I will keep watch.”

  As Jason hurried over to the cruiser to retrieve the shotgun inside, Stone continued scanning in all directions, including a few glances upward to make sure no one was stalking them from high branches. As his gaze skated over the sweating cop, he stopped. “Bloody hell…”

  “What?” Verity asked, distracted. She sat near the man’s side, moving her hands over his chest.

  “The green tinges around the edge of his aura are fading.”

  “Is that important?” Jason asked. He held the shotgun and stood near the BMW’s back end, sweeping the barrel around.

  “I don’t know yet. But probably.” He continued to keep watch, his impatience growing as Verity ministered to the fallen man. Even so, he couldn’t help feeling pride as he watched her work. He hadn’t been the one to teach his former apprentice her impressive healing skills—that had been all Edna So
ren from Ojai—but nonetheless he loved seeing her excel.

  The next few minutes passed in silent tension, broken only by the stricken cop’s heavy breathing. As more time passed and no one else approached, Stone grew more concerned that a whole squad of enhanced small-town policemen would burst through the trees and attack them, probably accompanied by the even more dangerous men who’d attacked them back in Oakland. But as Verity finished her work and rocked back on her heels with a tired sigh, the forest remained quiet and undisturbed.

  “Did it work?” Jason asked, still scanning the trees and the road. “Is he gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed. “It was minor, and I caught it quick. He’s—”

  The cop’s eyes flew open. His body jerked and fear settled over his face as he stared up at Stone and the others. For a moment, Stone thought he’d try to scrabble away, but instead he let his breath out and slumped back. For the first time, Stone took note of his name badge, which identified him as FOLEY.

  “Holy shit…” Foley whispered. “What—what happened?”

  “Stay put,” Jason ordered. “You’re gonna be okay, but if you try to attack us again, that might not stay true.” He’d already relieved the cop of his pistol, which was currently in the back seat of the BMW, but he held the shotgun in a ready position pointed near, but not at, the cop.

  Stone looked at Foley with magical sight, but he didn’t need to—as he’d suspected, his aura’s green edge had vanished, leaving behind a pale orange glow. “Where’s your friend gone?”

  “What?” Foley swiped a hand over his forehead, then put it to his chest. “My chest—couldn’t breathe—did I have a heart attack?”

  “A mild one,” Verity said. “You’re okay now. Answer the Doc’s question.”

  “I’m—okay? But—how?”

  “Don’t play stupid with us,” Stone snapped. “You’re certainly familiar with the concept of magic, given whatever was done to enhance you. Where did your friend go? He took off into the forest and left you here.”