by R. L. King
Get. OUT!
He heard his voice, a crazed scream in his mind, as he clawed at the bright core. It came apart in his hands, flying to pieces, darting around with mad confusion. It tried to flow around him, its desperation growing, but he gathered his energy and forced outward. It felt like trying to fight a swarm of bees.
Stone knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. Even rage fades to exhaustion eventually, and if he let his die, Brathwaite’s spirit would kick him back out and he’d be lost. He gathered his energy and his rage and his frustration into one last blast, and lashed out with it, detonating it like a bomb. At that point, he didn’t care if it destroyed his own body along with Brathwaite’s essence. If he couldn’t have his body back, Brathwaite wasn’t going to have it either—one way or another.
Brathwaite’s scream rose. He tried to resist, but even his powerful spirit couldn’t fight back against Stone’s determination.
But then the scream turned to a high, mad, triumphant laugh. Brathwaite raised his arms and shrieked something to the skies—
—and then he was gone.
Stone’s spirit slammed into place, his head and body suddenly lighting up with a pain and exhaustion he hadn’t felt when Brathwaite’s spirit was in charge.
He staggered backward as all around him sounds battered him. He struggled to make sense of them: screams, yells…
Rumbling?
A last surge of adrenaline lit him up as finally the crazy sensory inputs came together and made sense.
A head-sized chunk of the ceiling tore loose and crashed to the floor, barely three feet away from him. The rumbling from above grew louder. It sounded like he stood at ground zero in a tunnel with an onrushing train bearing down on him.
Across the room, Ian was shouting, running toward the fallen Verity.
More pieces of ceiling fell, and one of the stone support columns began to crack.
Oh, bloody hell, he’s brought the whole place down!
44
Despite his exhaustion, pain, and disorientation, Stone acted instantly.
“It’s coming down!” he screamed. “Get out, all of you! Now!”
He was closer to Verity, so he reached her before Ian did. He bent and snatched her up, his pounding adrenaline running so strong he barely noticed her weight. Then he spun, taking in the rest of the room.
Eddie and Ward stood on the far side, across from the door, looking stunned. Ian was nearer the exit. Between them, another support column began to tremble. More chunks fell from the ceiling, clattering and crashing, breaking the stone floor into a mosaic of cracks.
“Go!” Stone yelled again, and this time he was joined by Ian. He exchanged a quick, desperate glance with his son, and an unspoken communication passed between them. As one, they reached out with magical power.
Stone grabbed Eddie, who was closer to him, and Ian grabbed Ward. Together, they yanked the two men across the room just as another section of the ceiling came down and obliterated the space where they had stood. Ian flung the door open.
More chunks landed behind them. The ceiling was buckling now, its center section dropping noticeably.
“Go! Go! Go!” Ian shoved Ward out through the door into the hallway, and Stone did the same with Eddie. He tightened his grip on Verity and followed them, slamming the door shut behind them. It was an absurd gesture, he knew, but he did it anyway. Behind the door, more crashes—louder now. The whole place was rumbling.
Dear gods—has he brought down the whole house?
By the time they reached the other end of the tunnel and burst through the opening into the initial antechamber, Eddie and Ward had recovered their wits enough to move under their own power.
“Stone?” Eddie panted. He was breathing hard, with streaks of drying blood running down his forehead and streaking his jacket. “Is that you, mate?”
“It’s me. I’m back. We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
Another rumble, followed by a massive crash and an earthquake tremor, punctuated his words.
“Bloody hell!” Ward yelled. “What did he do?”
Stone didn’t answer.
Already, Ian had levitated up through the floor. “Send Verity up,” he called.
Stone did, as the thundering roar around them grew even louder. Ian grabbed her and pulled her backward. As soon as she was clear, he shoved Eddie and Ward. “Get up there! Now!”
They didn’t waste time. Both of them shot upward through the floor, disappearing over the edge out of the range of Stone’s light spell.
“Dad!” Ian’s face appeared at the edge. “Come on!”
A chunk of rock the size of a refrigerator landed behind Stone, nearly knocking him off his feet. As he staggered, he felt a strong telekinetic grip grab him, and then he was lifting off.
As soon as his feet hit the floor outside the hole, he cast a quick glance around the room. So far it seemed to be standing, but the rumbling was almost as strong here. The floor rattled beneath him. “Come on—we’ve got to get outside.”
He bent to pick up Verity, but she was already stirring. “What—?” she said, confused, blinking and raising a hand to rub her forehead.
“Got to go.” Stone hauled her up and dragged her toward the room’s exit. “Brathwaite’s brought the place down around our ears.”
“What?” She didn’t protest further, but allowed herself to be shepherded along with Stone on one side and Ian on the other. Ahead of them, Eddie and Ward left the room and headed down the hall.
Once again, Stone slammed the door shut behind them, and once again, more rumbles sounded. Not the whole house, he begged. Not after all this…
A few moments later they reached the nearest exit door. They poured outside and dashed out onto the grounds, not slowing until they’d put fifty feet between themselves and the building.
Stone skidded to a stop first, whirling to look back.
Even from here, in the dark and the light rain, he could see the far end of the east wing still shaking and rumbling, as if a tiny earthquake had gripped it. As he and the others continued to watch, panting and aghast, the structure began to sink. Pieces fell off, crashing all around. Windows shattered with loud pops. A section of the roof caved in and smashed down into the house.
Stone didn’t even blink. He stood, still and shocked, watching part of his ancestral home crumble and collapse. He barely felt Verity’s warm hand slip into his and grip tight.
“Bloody ’ell,” Eddie breathed when it seemed to be over.
Stone could only nod. He didn’t trust himself to speak yet.
It hadn’t taken the whole house, at least—not even close. He supposed that was something to be grateful about. They were alive. Aubrey was safe, and the garage with his flat was untouched. Most of the house—even most of the east wing—still stood.
Not the best possible outcome, but certainly not the worst.
“Well…” he said, contemplatively, ignoring the rain pattering down and soaking his hair as he continued to survey the ruin. “I’ve been saying for years that I wanted to have the east wing renovated. I suppose I haven’t got a choice now, do I?”
Verity’s arm snaked around him, and she rested her head against his shoulder. “Way to look on the bright side, Doc. I’m proud of you.”
45
One Week Later
The crowd at the Dancing Dragon was brisk, but Stone’s group had no trouble commandeering a large table in the back room. All it had taken was a quick call to Gus, the proprietor, to secure a Reserved sign waiting for them when they arrived. Stone supposed there were some advantages to three of their number having been loyal customers for over twenty years.
They hadn’t all seen each other since the night of “the recent unpleasantness,” as Stone referred to it. After they’d all gotten their fill of staring at the house and its crumbling east wing, they’d filed around to the front long enough to verify that Stone and Ian could once again enter the place without objection from the flock of ve
ngeful echoes. Nobody had asked him questions—they could all see he was in no mood to answer them, and the answers could wait.
When they took stock, they discovered that despite being tossed around by Brathwaite’s powerful magic, none of them had sustained serious injuries. Verity healed what she could, but it was obvious she was tired too. Then, after they all shared a drink in the great room, they trooped off to the portal to the London house, where they went their separate ways—Eddie and Ward to their homes, and Verity and Ian up to their rooms—after promising to meet up again when everyone was feeling better.
Stone studied them as they came in tonight. Ian was already there, relaxed after a couple of pints. Eddie and Ward arrived soon after, Ward in his usual professorial tweeds and Eddie in a West Ham home shirt. They had Poppy Willoughby with them, lighting the place up with her electric-blue moto jacket and matching Mohawk. All three of them looked relaxed and completely over their recent ordeals.
“Hey, Stone,” Eddie called. “You’re lookin’ a bit less like death warmed over. You manage to get some kip, or did the ghosts turn up again?” He pulled out Poppy’s chair for her and then settled in across the table. Ward took the spot on Poppy’s other side.
“No ghosts. It’s been quiet.”
“Aubrey come home?”
“I rang him a few days ago and he turned up right away. I think he was waiting to hear from me.”
“And—?”
“He was…a bit taken aback,” Stone admitted.
“Bloody gobsmacked, in other words,” Eddie said in a chuckling aside to Ward, who gave a sage nod.
“Well, yes, that too.” Stone glanced past them to spot Verity and Jason coming in. She’d gone back to California a couple hours ago to collect her brother and bring him through the portal so he could join the celebration.
Eddie waited until Verity and Jason were seated and had drinks and appetizers before speaking again. “So—” he said, more seriously, “any sign of you-know-who?”
Stone chuckled. “He’s not bloody Voldemort, Eddie. You can say his name.”
“You’ve got no sense of whimsy, mate. But it’s a real question. Any sign of ’im?”
“No.” He stared down into his drink, remembering how close Brathwaite had come to killing Verity—and him. “I don’t remember the events clearly, there at the end, but I do remember I was seriously furious when I went after him. I think I might have ripped him to shreds.”
“Well, good riddance if you did.” Eddie raised his glass. Everyone else did likewise, clinking them together. “So what’re you gonna do now?”
Stone shrugged. “Get my house back in order, I suppose. There’s still a lot of cleanup to be done, not even taking the east wing project into account. Aubrey’s already on that part—he’s rung a few contractors for quotes. I trust him to handle that end of it. I’ll just write the checks.”
“Those will likely be some big checks,” Ward said. “I’m glad I’m not in your shoes, Stone.”
“Ain’t all beer an’ skittles, bein’ lord o’ the manor, is it?” Eddie said haughtily, but he couldn’t hold the expression and his face split in a cheeky grin.
Verity looked troubled. “Are you sure you’re not going to run into problems with that, Doc?”
“What kind of problems?” Stone asked.
“Well…the whole underground catacomb complex got buried when that part of the house came down, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s a good thing most of the complex extended out past the walls, or we’d be looking at a lot worse damage.”
“But…what if they find something while they’re digging?”
“Find what?” Stone caught a passing server’s attention and motioned for another round of appetizers.
“She’s right,” Jason said. “What if they find part of the circle, or those alcoves, or the secret room?”
“What if they do? It’s one thing that worked in our favor, I suppose—the fact that the skeletons left the catacombs and took most of their manacles with them, I mean. The worst the workmen might find are a few bits of wall or floor with some sigils carved on them. But remember, they’re on private property, and I’m under no obligation to share anything with the world. And besides, with what I expect to be paying them, they’d damned well better keep their curiosity to themselves and their noses out of my affairs.”
He’d gone back earlier in the week with Ian to look the place over in daylight, and it hadn’t been quite as bad as he’d feared. The collapse of the underground chamber had left a sunken area in the cleared land east of the house, but only the end section of the house itself had crumbled, leaving a gaping open hole. Stone had put up some supplemental emergency wards to ensure nobody could gain entry without permission, but aside from that it would be a simple—well, relatively simple, anyway—matter of reconstructing that end of the house. It would take time, sure, but it wasn’t insurmountable. Between himself, Ian, and Aubrey, they’d already made decent inroads into clearing out the scattered glass and other damage inside the main house. It had taken Stone quite some time before he stopped looking over his shoulder, expecting to get beaned by a falling timber or run through with an antique sword.
He looked at his drink again, then at Ward and Eddie. “Any progress on tracking down the people in the journal?”
“Not yet, mate.” Eddie looked apologetic. “We’ve been workin’ on it in our spare time, but with the Caventhorne opening in less than a month we’ve been ’avin’ to make up a lot o’ lost time.”
“Don’t worry,” Ward added. “I’m confident we can track at least some information about most of the entries.”
Stone nodded without looking up. He still didn’t know how he’d keep the promise he’d made to the echoes, but he’d figure something out. It had been less than a week—even a bunch of vengeful echoes couldn’t expect him to work miracles in that short a period. If nothing else, he supposed he could always sell the coins, jewelry, and artifacts they’d found in the strongbox and create a fund, supplemented by a significant amount of money from his personal accounts, to aid any descendants of the sacrifice victims he could track down. He felt a bit guilty about it—the items truly belonged in a museum—but trying to explain where they’d come from and what they were doing in his possession would be more problematic than he cared to take on. At least this way the families would be taken care of. Once he had as many names as Ward and Eddie could get him, then he’d work on the “remember us” part.
“Anyway,” he said, raising his head to study his group of friends around the table, “I want you all to know how much I appreciate your help. I couldn’t have done it without you—without all of you. I know I’m rubbish at asking for help—”
“No, really?” Eddie drawled. “Never knew that.”
“Sod off. I am, and it’s one of those things I suppose I should work on. This has gone a long way to convincing me of that. I just…want to thank you all.”
He raised his glass, and once again they all clinked.
“Hey,” Ian said, “I just found out my dad is some kind of British bigwig who lives in a house the size of a museum. No way I’m letting anything get in the way of that.”
Verity laughed. “You’ll realize pretty soon that it’s not as fun as it sounds. Especially when he won’t run the heat in the middle of winter.”
“Et tu, apprentice?” Stone drained his pint and stood. “Speaking of heat, I’ll be back—it’s bloody stuffy in here. Just need a bit of air.”
He left the group chattering away happily, nodding to Gus on his way out, and moved a bit down the street to put some distance between himself and the crowd of smokers loitering just outside the door. The cool bite of the evening air was a welcome change from the Dragon’s close, beer-scented ambiance.
“You okay?”
He turned to see Verity drifting up to him, her hands jammed in the pockets of her leather jacket. “Ah. Yes. That wasn’t code for anything—I literally did need some air.
” He didn’t mind that she’d followed him, though. He never minded.
She chuckled. “Want some company? Eddie’s already started telling football stories, and I’m afraid he might be turning Jason into a fan.”
“I’m surprised he waited this long. And of course. I always enjoy your company.”
She stood next to him, pressing her shoulder into his, and stared out over the traffic and pedestrians meandering by. Together, they remained silent for several minutes, each content to merely be where they were.
“Do you think he’s really gone?” she asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Brathwaite. Do you think he’s really gone?”
He thought about it. He hadn’t been lying before: he truly didn’t remember much detail from the end of his struggle to boot Brathwaite out of his body, but he did remember feeling the kind of fury that led to madness if allowed to rage unchecked. He certainly could have ripped the other mage’s spirit to shreds without a second thought, and not regretted it in the slightest.
“I…don’t know,” he said at last. “I think so. I’m fairly sure I took care of him—either destroyed him or sent him on.”
“But you don’t know for sure?”
Again, he pondered. “I suppose I don’t. But if he is still knocking about in the astral realm, I hope he knows having another go at me or my friends won’t be a wise choice. If he’s got any sense, he’ll go about his business far away from us.”
“Yeah…I hope so.” She put her arm around him, sticking her hand in his coat pocket. “We should go back, though, if for no other reason than to rescue Jason from Eddie’s stories. And then later tonight, I’ll take Jason back home, check on Raider, and...come back, if you want me to.”
He pulled her close, still watching the traffic, thinking about all the things he could have lost if he hadn’t managed to get rid of Brathwaite. What she was promising was definitely at the top of the list. “I absolutely want you to. I was hoping you’d suggest that. Come on. You’re right—inflicting Eddie’s football stories on Jason has got to constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”