Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set: Alastair Stone Chronicles, Books 1 through 4

by R. L. King

  That was going to have to change, and no time like the present for it to start.

  The only thing that East Palo Alto shared with its high-class sister city was part of its name. It was mainly a working-class town, but parts were becoming increasingly rundown, vacant, and in the process of being overrun by the sort of people that the police worked hard to keep out of Palo Alto, and the law-abiding, working-class majority in EPA worked hard to keep out of their neighborhoods. Stone never felt particularly comfortable driving through it, but the place he was headed was smack in the middle of one of the town’s worst business districts. If he wanted the information, he’d have to go where it was.

  Parking the Jaguar, he glanced around to make sure no one was obviously watching, then summoned a small enchantment around the car to make it blend in with its surroundings. The eyes of anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for it would just slide over it like it wasn’t even there, or see it as the sort of car that routinely parked in the neighborhood. He’d have to make this quick: the initial enchantment wouldn’t last long unless he spent some effort shoring it up.

  There were few active businesses or shops on this street; most of them were closed, their doors boarded up, their windows covered with graffiti-strewn sheets of plywood and stout bars. He headed directly for a small, nondescript door between two defunct shops: a liquor store and a purveyor of adult novelties, both of them awash in trash and gang symbols. The door itself was not marked; in fact, Stone knew that it held a more permanent version of the same enchantment that he’d put on his car. He knew this because he’d put it there, several months ago. That was the only reason he could see the door without uttering the passphrase that the establishment’s other customers would need to get past the blending spell. Opening the door, he slipped inside and quickly shut it behind him.

  Inside, things looked significantly more upscale, if still a little threadbare. There was a carpeted stairway leading down and ending in another closed door; this one had a small bell hanging next to it with a dark red silken pull. Stone took the stairs slowly, favoring his ribs even though they didn’t hurt at the moment. When he reached the bottom, he tugged once on the pull, causing the bell to jangle an odd note, and then waited.

  He hadn’t been here for quite some time. In fact, the last time he had been here was to renew the enchantment on the door. It was a favor to the shop’s proprietor, in exchange for some help the man had given him in the past. The place didn’t exactly make him nervous, but it did make him more watchful than usual. No sense taking chances.

  The door swung open on a room that looked like a turn-of-the-century shop, all dark, soft carpet, glass cases, and wooden fixtures and shelves. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were lit with actual candles, adding a flickering eeriness to a place that was already strange enough as it was. Stone strode past the shelves full of old books, bones, desiccated animal parts, and similar objects without really seeing them. They weren’t what he was here for.

  At the back of the store was an old-fashioned roll top desk, and sitting at the desk was a man. He rose and bowed as Stone drew closer. “Well. Alastair Stone. It has been a while. To what do I owe the pleasure? Surely the door—” He got a good look at Stone and his eyebrows rose just a bit, but he did not ask.

  “Hello, Stefan. How are you?”

  Stefan Kolinsky was somewhere indeterminately between fifty and sixty-five. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Stone, but more powerfully built, with dark hair swept up from a high forehead, glittering dark eyes, and a hawk-like profile. He wore a tailored black suit, somewhat old-fashioned of cut, without a wrinkle in it. Kolinsky was one of the few people around who could make Stone feel almost chronically underdressed, even though he’d been told that he actually cleaned up quite nicely on the rare occasions when he had to attend something formal.

  “I am well, thank you.” Kolinsky’s voice was soft, with just a hint of an unidentifiable accent. “But may I ask why you’ve come? I suspect that you aren’t here to peruse my wares.” He looked rueful.

  “Not today, no.” Stone glanced around the shop, making sure they were alone.

  “Pity,” Kolinsky said, shaking his head. “One day I hope that you will see the error of your ways, and realize how much you choose to limit yourself.”

  Stone raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d given up on that by now.” Their words had the feel of familiar banter, like they were getting something out of the way before getting down to business. It wasn’t far from the truth. Stone didn’t exactly like Stefan Kolinsky, but he did respect him. He couldn’t help it, since the man was one of the finest magical minds on this side of the country. It was merely inconvenient that he played for the other team. As long as you kept a close eye on him and were very careful about the favors you asked, he could be a valuable source of information about all sorts of interesting things that most white mages wouldn’t go near.

  Kolinsky chuckled. “Never.” Tilting his head, he looked Stone up and down. “What’s happened to you, old friend? You don’t look—well.”

  “My own fault,” Stone said, shrugging. “Possibly related to why I’m here, but I doubt it. I’ll get right to it, if you don’t mind, so I don’t have to go back out and hide the car again. When are you going to get better premises, by the way?”

  “This place suits me,” he said serenely.

  “If you say so. Anyway—I’m looking for information about an old house. Probably nothing you’d have anything on, but I figured if you can’t put your finger on anything interesting, it probably isn’t there to find.”

  “Indeed.” Kolinsky’s eyebrows rose like the ears of a dog who’s been offered an enticing scent. “Any particular old house?” He gestured, sliding another chair over next to the desk, and motioned for Stone to sit down.

  Stone smiled. This was the reason he kept coming back to old Stefan. Not because his magic was as black as his suit. Not because he ran the only place south of San Francisco and north of Los Angeles where you could buy some of the more exotic of the items on his shelves (including the ones in the back that only the most select of customers ever got to see). No, it was because in addition to being a purveyor of things dark and arcane, he was also a formidable magical historian with a particular interest in the Bay Area. If it had to do with magic and had happened around here in the last two hundred years, odds were that Stefan Kolinsky could lay hands on some documentation about it. Or at minimum, he could come up with some pretty reliable rumors.

  “It’s in Los Gatos, up in the hills,” he began. He told Kolinsky about the house, about Aunt Adelaide’s strange feelings, and about his own first impressions and subsequent suspicion that whatever was there, it was trying to hide from him. “I’m thinking that p’raps it’s been there a while,” he finished, “and possibly either gaining enough power to be troublesome, or else it’s coming into a potent period after a long dormancy. Either way, I need to know anything I can about what it might be, and whether it’s been seen before.”

  Kolinsky thought about that, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Why not simply go there again and find out for yourself?” he asked at last. “I am certain that you have the means to perform a ritual that would locate it and more precisely identify its nature.”

  Stone blew air through his teeth. “Well, there’s the rub,” he said. He told him about Tommy and his determination that Aunt Adelaide wasn’t to be frightened by what he called ‘that fake occult bullshit.’

  “Then it will be on him if something should happen to his aunt,” Kolinsky said, his tone revealing no emotion. “Why does this become your problem?”

  “Because I don’t want to see a charming old lady hurt because her nephew’s mind is hopelessly stuck in the mundane,” Stone said. “That, and—”

  Kolinsky smiled a snakelike smile. “That, and your curiosity is eating you alive. You want desperately to know what this thing is, what it can do, and how to get rid of it.”

  St
one had long ago accepted that putting one over on Stefan Kolinsky was only somewhat easier than pushing liquid uphill. “Well—yes, if you want the truth of it. I like Adelaide, and I don’t want to see anything happen to her. But this is big, Stefan. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and it’s growing. And I want to find it.”

  He nodded as if that had been obvious. “I will see what I can do, then. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to give you the results of my research until at least Monday. I was preparing to close the shop when you came in—I have out of town business that will take me away from the area for most of the weekend.”

  Stone studied him silently. “Stefan—”

  “No, no, Alastair. It’s true. You don’t fully trust me, and I understand. But you should know me well enough to know that I have no interest in searching out your little problem ahead of you, fascinating though it might be. I am content to discover the information in my own ways, and share what I find with you. For the standard arrangement, of course.” He cocked an eyebrow at Stone.

  Stone nodded. There was no way around it, and he knew Kolinsky was right. That was a good portion of the reason why he valued his relationship with the black mage as much as he did: Kolinsky was like a spider, sitting back and watching what went on at all the far-flung reaches of his web. But Stone had never known him to do anything with the knowledge, unless it affected him directly. He seemed, as far as Stone could tell, content to merely collect information and hoard it like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. And he could be persuaded to part with bits of it for a price. “Standard arrangement, then.”

  Kolinsky’s smile widened. “Excellent. Contact me on Monday and I’ll tell you what I’ve found out. This one will be intriguing, I think—it will require me to dig up some reference material that I haven’t looked at in a very long time.” He stood, politely indicating that the meeting was over. “It’s good to see you, Alastair. I hope you’re feeling better soon, and I hope I’ll be able to find something to interest you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ethan jerked awake to the sound of someone rapping on his car window. He jumped, nearly hitting his head on the roof, and his eyes widened when he saw the helmeted, sunglassed head of a motorcycle cop peering in at him. He rolled the window down, hoping he didn’t look as bleary as he felt. “Uh—good morning, officer.”

  The officer nodded, his expression stern. Ethan could see his own haggard face reflected in his mirrorshades. “What are you doing here, kid?”

  “I—uh—” For a moment he didn’t remember. He’d been in San Francisco with Trina and the others. How had he gotten back here? But then a vague memory resurfaced of jostling along in the back seat of their black SUV. They must have brought him back to his car. “I—was at the club last night, and I stayed pretty late. Realized I was too tired to drive home, so I figured I’d sleep it off to be safe.”

  “Are you drunk, son?”

  “No, sir.” He hoped he wasn’t, anyway. The clock on the dashboard said 8:07—that should have been enough time for it to get out of his system. He hoped.

  The cop made him get out of the car, dig out his ID and registration, and take a breathalyzer test. “Okay,” he said at last, grudgingly after he’d taken down all the information. “You can go. I don’t believe you that you weren’t drinking, but I can’t prove it, so you’re on your way. Just don’t let me catch you again, got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ethan got out of there fast (well, as fast as he dared) as soon as the cop rode off. He pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food joint and checked to make sure he still had his cash, then went inside for a big cup of coffee and an unhealthy breakfast.

  As the coffee seeped into him and brought him back to some semblance of coherence, he looked out the window and let his mind drift over the events of the previous night. His emotions were in turmoil: he was still terrified that Stone would somehow find out what he’d been up to and kick him out on the street, but he also felt energized at the taste of what it felt like to do real magic. He wasn’t sure why Trina and the others had been interested in the old house in Los Gatos, but it didn’t matter to him if they knew. That was Stone’s thing, not his.

  Something in the back of his mind, maybe his conscience, was appalled at the way his attitude was developing. Stone had never been anything but fair to him. Sure, he was a taskmaster and a little hard to get close to, but that wasn’t anything personal. As far as Ethan was concerned Stone was doing a great (if somewhat slow) job of teaching him magic, and he had no doubt that if he kept up his own end of the bargain, he’d come out of this as a damned good mage.

  But Trina and her friends—they were different. Walter Yarborough had told him that Alastair Stone was one of the most powerful mages he knew, but Ethan had a hard time believing it. Thus far, he hadn’t shown Ethan that he was capable of much more than levitating a few small things around the room, going invisible, and turning lights on and off. And he was so—what was the word—blasé about it! He just acted like a normal kind of guy his age who was a little eccentric. Trina, Oliver, and Miguel, on the other hand, practically exuded power. He hadn’t missed how they strode around the club like they considered everyone else in it their inferiors, or their subjects. People respected them, looked up to them, cared about their opinions. They didn’t spend their time hanging out in an old house with dusty books and a musty old basement—they got out there in the world and made things happen.

  That, and he couldn’t get it out of his head the way Trina had looked at him several times last night. He didn’t think she’d seen him looking, but she was watching him like—well, like she wanted him.

  Geeky, skinny him.

  He slugged down some more coffee, ashamed of himself. This was crazy, and he knew it. He’d agreed to be Stone’s apprentice, to follow his rules about magic. And he’d already broken his promise because he’d been dazzled by three flashy young mages who seemed to want him to be part of their group. The best thing he could do right now was to drive up to Stone’s place, admit to what he’d done, and ask forgiveness.

  Naturally, he had no intention of doing that. Mr. Yarborough had said that Stone didn’t have any patience for that kind of thing. What if he admitted what he did and Stone still told him to get lost?

  No, he’d just have to be good from now on, that was all. He’d call Stone back on Monday, tell him he was ready to get back to his lessons, and put this behind him. No more magic with Trina and the others.

  But, he thought as he finished the coffee and prepared to leave, there was no harm in just seeing them, right? Maybe just talking with Trina, if she wanted to get together again?

  He hoped she wanted to get together again. Even though he was sure he was wrong about how she’d looked at him—it was always possible he’d been right, and more than talking would be involved.

  The Three met at their San Francisco ritual space on Saturday evening around five o’clock. From the look of them, they hadn’t dragged themselves out of bed much earlier than that. “So, what’s the plan?” Oliver asked, lounging in an old chair and popping a beer. “I take it you got enough from the twerp to tell you where we need to go?”

  “Fuck, that kid’s annoying,” Miguel complained. Affecting a childish voice, he singsonged, “Oh, should I take a chance? Should I be doing this? What will Stone think? I need a new diaper!” He dropped a leg over the arm of another chair and slouched into it sideways. “We better get this done quick—I don’t think I can stand being around him much longer without smacking him in the head.”

  Trin chuckled appreciatively. “Come on, he’s not that bad. We need to take this slow. I think we got him drunk enough that he won’t remember exactly what he told us, which is good. But if we’re going to do what we need to do, we might need to go down there a couple of times. I want to know more about what we’re up against before we do it for real. We’ll only get one chance.”

  “What about Stone?” Oliver asked. “He gonna be a problem?”


  She shook her head. “Shouldn’t be. I heard back from my guys, and they worked him over pretty good Thursday night—put him in the hospital, they said. Remember how the kid said he sounded sick on the phone? Even if he’s home, with any luck he’ll be curled up with his blanket and slippers and out of our hair for the weekend.”

  “Okay, so where are we going? And when?” Miguel asked.

  “Tonight. The house is in Los Gatos, up in the hills. The kid said there’s just a couple of old ladies who live there, and some gardeners and stuff that might be around.”

  “We gonna have to go in?” Oliver took another swig of his beer.

  “Not yet. Tonight’s just recon. We can set up a circle outside on the grounds and try to get in touch with it from there.” She smiled an unwholesome smile. “You guys were there when it contacted us. It wants to use us. But we’ve got other plans.”

  Miguel matched her smile. “I don’t much like being used. Unless he’s gorgeous and has a big—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Oliver interrupted. “We’re not gonna fuck the thing, Mig. I don’t care how hot it is.”

  “Well, maybe we are, metaphorically,” Trin said, her eyes sparkling in the same way that was so successful at curdling Ethan’s hormones. “That’s why we need to be careful. It’s powerful, but I think if we do it right, the relationship’s going to end up a little different than it expects.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Stone had finally gotten comfortable. It was late—had to be well after midnight—and the combination of a recent pain pill, a soft, comfortable bed, and Megan’s warm presence lying next to him were coming together quite nicely to drive off all his stray thoughts about pain and Ethan and Stefan Kolinsky and why anyone would want to attack him in a parking lot. He lay on his back, Megan’s arm draped over his chest and her head snuggled into the crook of his arm, dozing. Things were good.