by R. L. King
It wasn’t long before he’d lost track of the time. The pub’s only windows were high, narrow, and caked with years’ accumulation of dust and grime, so all he could tell when he glanced up was that at some point it had grown dark. He slumped at his small table, feeling more morose than tipsy, and watched the shifting crowd as some left and others took their place. This was most likely a local pub, judging by the occasional sideways glance he still got, but everybody left him alone. That was a good thing. He pulled out his phone again and consulted it; several more voicemail messages popped up, mostly from Eddie and Ian along with one more from Verity.
I should probably call them back.
Instead, he switched if off again, having to try three times before he hit the tiny button with his unsteady thumb. He didn’t need to talk to any of them tonight.
More time passed, though he still didn’t pay any attention to how much. He kept to himself, steadily downing pints while occasionally glancing at one of the TV screens even though he didn’t give a damn what was on it. At least nobody was trying to talk to him. That was good.
“Doc…”
Stone raised his head, surprised. The voice had sounded like Verity, but that was impossible. Verity was in California.
Two figures swirled into view: one small and slim, the other taller and dark-haired. Stone blinked until his vision cleared.
“Hi, Doc,” Verity said softly. “Can we sit down?”
Regardless of whether she was actually there or merely a figment of his intoxicated imagination, he didn’t want to see her, or anyone else. “What do you want?” he muttered. He wondered if it came out as clear as it sounded in his head, and doubted it. He tilted his head back a little more, and the taller figure resolved itself into Ian. “Go away, both of you.”
“We were worried about you. You haven’t been answering your phone.” She grabbed an empty chair from another table and sat down across from him. After a moment, Ian did likewise.
“How did you even find me?” Stone glared down into his half-full drink. Maybe if he stopped looking at them, they’d fade back away into the ether and he could get on about his business.
Her warm hand covered his. “You know you can’t hide from me. Ian called a little while ago. He said you’d disappeared, you weren’t responding to voicemail, and you were pretty upset when you left. He was worried too.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Ian said. “I know you wanted some space, but it’s almost eleven. You’ve been gone most of the day, and I don’t know how to do the tracking ritual yet.”
“What are you doing here?” Verity asked. “This…doesn’t look like your usual place. Isn’t the Dancing Dragon where you go to drink in London?”
“Should have been a clue, shouldn’t it?” Stone heard the growl in his voice and part of him regretted it—you shouldn’t talk that way to Verity—but the rest of him didn’t care. “Ever think I might have wanted to get away from you lot for a while?”
She refused to take the bait. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I thought when Ian called. But if you want to get away from us, maybe you shouldn’t go off the grid for this long—especially when there’s dangerous stuff after you. Would it have killed you to check your voicemail and maybe reply to somebody so we knew you were okay?”
She was right, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Maybe in the old days he could have gotten away with dropping off the face of the earth without informing anyone. Nobody would have cared, except maybe Aubrey. But now…things were different, however good or bad that might be.
“Brilliant,” he said, with a swiping motion across the table that nearly knocked his drink over. “Bravo. You’ve found me. Good for you. Here I am. Now—leave me the hell alone, all right? I’m not fit company right now, and I just want to sit here and drink. Alone.”
“Why?” Ian asked.
“Why? What do you mean, why?”
“Why do you want to drink by yourself until you pass out? Are you trying to forget about what happened today?”
“Ian told me about Brathwaite,” Verity said. “About what you guys found in his stuff.”
“Great. Fantastic.”
“Hey.” Verity gripped his hand again, but not gently this time. “Look at me, Doc. You’re not getting away with this.”
“You don’t think so?” He snatched his hand back. “Listen, Verity—I didn’t ask either of you to come here. I don’t want you here. There’s nothing you can do to help, so why don’t you just go? I know I’ve got to deal with this whole gods-damned situation—but I don’t have to do it tonight. Tonight, I’m trying to forget about it, and neither of you are making that any easier.”
A speech that long might have been a mistake. He took another swallow of his drink and glared at them.
Neither of them moved. “Sorry,” Verity said. “You don’t always get what you want. Why don’t you come back with us to the London place? You can get a good night’s sleep. This is all going to look better in the morning.”
Stone’s bitter, barked laugh was so loud a couple of the guys at a nearby table glanced in their direction before returning to their pints. “You think so? You honestly think this whole flaming debacle is going to look better in the morning?”
When neither she nor Ian answered, he flung himself backward against his seat. “Let’s think, shall we? I’ve got more than three dozen three-hundred-year-old echoes living in my house, dead set against anyone in the family ever stepping foot inside again. They want revenge—and bloody rightly so—for what my ancestors did to them, but I can’t even honor their requests anymore because the remains I was supposed to bury have turned to dust. And who did that? A bloody necromancer, which isn’t even supposed to be possible, who hates my family as much as the echoes do because they betrayed him too. Damn lot of upstanding citizens I come from, isn’t it?”
Verity started to reply, but he held up a decisive, albeit shaky, hand. “Not done yet. Or have you forgotten that whatever broke out of that sealed room is still out there too, and gods know what the hell it wants.” His voice rose in volume, but he did nothing to quiet it. “For all I know, it might be in this pub with us right now, or it might have nipped off to the south of fucking France to lounge on the beach with Imogen and old Blakely! How the hell am I supposed to do anything when I don’t even know what’s going on?”
Verity and Ian exchanged glances, and she murmured something to him that Stone couldn’t make out. Normally he would have been curious, but tonight he didn’t care. He just wanted them to go and leave him in peace—or whatever approximation of it he could manage.
“Look,” Verity said softly. “I get it. This whole situation sucks. I honestly don’t blame you for wanting to get away from it for a while. But this isn’t the way to do it. Do you even know where you are?”
“No idea. Don’t care. Except I thought I was somewhere I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone I knew. Guess I was wrong about that.” He waved toward the bartender for another drink. Normally he’d have had to go to the bar himself, but the punk-rock barman, perhaps sensing a kindred spirit, had taken pity on him an hour or so ago.
“I don’t think you need anything else to drink, Dad,” Ian said.
Stone snorted. “Here’s you lecturing me on drinking? That’s a laugh. Tell me, Ian: how many clubs would I have to pour you out of if I ever came looking for you—which I wouldn’t do, since I, unlike you two, respect your desire to be left the hell alone?”
Ian didn’t reply, but Verity did. Her eyes flashed as she glared at him. “Doc, enough. None of this is Ian’s fault. Just come back with us, okay? You can sleep it off at the London house and we’ll revisit this whole thing in the morning—or maybe the afternoon, because you’re gonna feel like shit when you wake up tomorrow.”
Stone stared down into his nearly-empty glass again. If he realized the bartender hadn’t brought him another one, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he said suddenly, “Maybe I should just do what they want.”
�
�What?”
“Do what who wants?” Ian asked.
“The echoes.” He swirled the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass, then downed it decisively and smacked it back on the table. “That would solve this whole problem, wouldn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?” Verity demanded.
“Wait,” Ian said, leaning forward across the table. “Dad, do you mean you should—what—sacrifice yourself to get rid of them?”
“Why not? It’s not like they’re being unreasonable. It’s unconscionable, what my family did to them. Unforgivable. Somebody’s got to pay for it, and it can’t be my misbegotten family because they’ve all got the bad grace to be dead. And since I don’t believe in Hell, I figure they must have got away with it.”
Verity sighed. “Doc, you’re being ridiculous. You aren’t killing yourself to get a bunch of ghosts out of your house. It’s just a house. Maybe you can find, I don’t know, an extra-strength exorcist somewhere. Or even if you can’t do that and they won’t leave, what’s the worst that will happen? You sell the place to somebody else who isn’t related to you and stay in the London house when you’re in England. It’s not a great solution, but it’s better than dying.”
“You’re right. It’s not a great solution.” Stone jerked his head up. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the snarl in his voice, but that was what she and Ian got for coming after him when he so clearly hadn’t wanted them to. “That place is mine. Even if my family were a load of vile bastards, it’s still mine. It’ll be Ian’s someday. This is bigger than me, or Ian, or anybody. But someone’s got to pay for what was done to those people. Why not me? I haven’t exactly been a choirboy myself, have I?”
“Doc…Alastair…” Verity scooted her chair around the table until she was sitting next to him. At the next table, a couple of the burly workmen wolf-whistled, but shut up when she shot them a warning look. “This is the drinks talking. You don’t know it now, but you’ll see it tomorrow. I know it’s easy to just sit here and feel sorry for yourself, but—”
He wrenched away from her. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself, Verity,” he snapped. “If that’s what you think this is, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did. None of this is my fault. I know that. Of course I know it. I didn’t kill those people. I didn’t shut them up and wait for them to die so I could steal their power. But don’t you see that doesn’t matter? Whoever did it, it’s done, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. And Brathwaite’s made it so I can’t even do the right thing. I can’t identify them. Their bones are dust, washed away with the rain now. I can’t give them a proper burial. Even with all that hatred they’ve been festering with for hundreds of years, they managed to ask for a reasonable thing and I can’t even do that.”
“So the alternative is to kill yourself? That’s just stupid, and you know it. Or you would, if you weren’t drunk off your ass.” Her voice took on a hard edge.
“Why the hell not?” He slapped his hand on the table and glared at her. “Look at me, Verity. All my life, I’ve enjoyed all the privileges of being a Stone. I grew up in wealth. I went to the best schools. I had respect. I could have had any material thing I wanted. I’ve got magic, and was trained by the finest bloody teacher in all of Britain. I never wanted for anything my entire life—and why? Because my ancestors murdered people for money and power. They didn’t give a damn about who any of them were, what they wanted, who would miss them—all they were was mundanes.” He bit out the word like it was the vilest insult. “Worthless, in other words.” He met her gaze, and this time he wasn’t glaring. “Don’t you see, Verity? This is what I come from. This is what got me where I am today. What gives me the right to just…take it all? Maybe it’s finally time for someone to stand up and say, ‘I’ll take responsibility for this.’ At least I’ll save Ian having to deal with it.”
Verity stared at him in shock.
Beyond her, Ian began a slow, mocking clap. “Nice one, Dad.”
Stone blinked. “What?”
“Very…I don’t even know what to call it. You’re planning to sacrifice yourself to make things better for me? You want to die to absolve the sins of your ancestors? Very Christ-like, but I didn’t think you were into that kind of thing.”
Stone, stunned into silence, could do nothing but sit there, gripping his glass. “Ian…you don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get? Trust me, I’ve seen plenty of guys falling-down drunk, and I’ve heard them say some pretty damned stupid things. But this one’s the best. I never thought I’d be saying that about you.”
When Stone still didn’t reply, he continued: “What about me? I’m a Stone. Maybe I should do it.”
“No!” His answer came quick and sharp. Then, quieter: “No. That’s not an option.”
“Why not? Because you’re you and I’m me?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense. You’ve barely benefited from any of what happened.”
“So?” Ian leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “They want a male Stone. That’s all they specified. I’d work as well as you would.”
“Uh—” Verity began.
“No, Verity, it makes sense.”
“It does not make sense!” Stone yelled, slamming his fist down on the table so hard his glass jumped. Once again, several of the other customers glanced over at them. “Damn it, Ian, stop it. This is absurd.”
“Yeah. It is. Finally got one right. This whole thing is absurd. Listen—I understand what you’re feeling like right now. I’ve been there.”
Stone snorted.
“You don’t think so? Maybe I haven’t had a bunch of ghosts living in my house, but that’s not the only bad thing that can happen to somebody. Trust me, I could tell you stories you probably wouldn’t even believe. There’s been more than one time I’ve wanted to kill myself. Trust me—I thought it would solve everything. It would make the pain go away, and nobody would miss me. And you know what? I was an idiot. Just like you’re being now.”
Verity touched Stone’s arm. “He’s right,” she said softly. “You think this looks like a real solution, but it’s not. And you’ll see that when you’re not drunk.” She put her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder. “Come on, Doc. Come back home with us. If you still feel this way in the morning after you’ve sobered up, we’ll talk about it. But not now.”
Stone didn’t want to let go of his plan, even though he knew it wasn’t a viable one. Even through the foggy haze of far too many drinks, he knew that—but some stubborn thing down deep in his core refused to admit it.
Finally, he sighed and shook his head, fingers still curled in a death grip around his empty glass. “Let’s go home,” he said. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But…I don’t know what to do, Verity. I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how much more I can cope with. I’m starting to think it’s never going to end.”
He dragged himself to his feet, swaying, barely noticing both of them taking positions on either side of him and gripping his arms. Whatever pleasant buzz he’d gotten from the first few drinks had long since departed, leaving behind a heavy, morose depression that settled over him like a weighted blanket.
“It’s too bad you can’t fool them somehow,” Ian said.
“What?” Stone looked up from where he’d been staring at the grimy rug. He wasn’t yet sure he wouldn’t make the ugly pattern worse by throwing up on it.
“I said, it’s too bad you can’t fool them. You know—the echoes. Make them think one of us has done the sacrifice, long enough to get them to cross over.”
Stone trudged along with them toward the door. His brain was having trouble putting together complex thoughts, so it took him a few seconds to make sense of Ian’s words. “Even if we could, that wouldn’t be right.”
They got outside, and the cool bite of the evening air cleared his head, if only a bit. “Wouldn’t be right…” he mumbled again.
“Why not?” Ian, with Verit
y’s help, led him to a nearby bench, then pulled out his phone. “Look—whatever these echoes went through, it’s not your fault. It’s not fair of them to expect you to atone for something you never would have even considered doing. But we need to get rid of them, or you’ll have to abandon the house. Is that what you want?”
“Of course I don’t.” Stone shook his head and swallowed hard. He hoped he wouldn’t cap off the night by getting sick in a cab. “But it doesn’t matter. We can’t do that. Echoes are creatures of the astral. They can see life. We can’t fool them into believing a living being is dead.”
Verity had been silent up until that point, pressed against Stone on the bench to help keep him upright. Now, though, she tensed. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” Stone and Ian both asked.
“Maybe we can…” she murmured. She wasn’t looking at them, but watching the traffic go by in the street.
“What are you talking about, Verity?” Stone asked. Once again, he felt as if he might have lost track of the conversation.
She waved him off. “Just—don’t worry about it for now. I need to check something, but first we have to get you back home where you can sleep this off.”
“Verity—”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “First things first, Doc. Trust me. And anyway, there’s no point talking now. You probably won’t even remember this conversation in the morning.”
31
Stone didn’t turn up downstairs at the London house until early the following evening. When he entered the sitting room he found Ian there, sprawled on the sofa in his stocking feet, a book open in front of him.
“Nice to see you alive,” Ian said, swinging his legs around and closing the book. “I was starting to wonder.”