by R. L. King
Mrs. Olivera was due to come in today and clean the place; he plunged deep into his walk-in closet and found his tuxedo, which he took downstairs and left her a note asking her to take to be dry-cleaned. He hadn’t worn it in at least a year—not since he’d attended another charity shindig for the University in the company of his girlfriend at the time. At least he didn’t have to worry that it wouldn’t fit: he’d always been one of those types that couldn’t gain weight if he tried. Right now he was glad about that, since his usual form of exercise, long-distance running up at the Stanford campus, was pretty much out of the question until his ribs healed fully. With just a hint of vanity, he regretted that he wasn’t planning to invite Megan to accompany him to the ball, for her own safety in case anything went wrong. More than one former girlfriend had told him he looked quite dashing in formal dress. Ah, well—he wasn’t going to be there to enjoy the festivities anyway.
The final went well; all he had to do was sit at the front of the room and read the paper with his feet up on the desk while the students toiled away on his rigorous essay questions. When the last student dropped her paper on his desk and left, he headed back up to his office and found a message: Tommy Langley wanted to see him, if he had time. He’d be in his office until noon.
Sighing, Stone set off toward the other side of campus. The weather was drizzly and overcast, not quite willing to commit to rain in earnest, but not ruling it out either. He pulled up his overcoat collar and made sure his simple shield spell was in place. He doubted anyone would try jumping him in broad daylight, but he wasn’t taking chances.
He saw the light through the open door of Langley’s office before he got there, then paused in the doorway a moment. Unlike Stone’s office, which looked like he bought all his decorations at “Creepy Shit R Us,” Langley’s was full of old Stanford sports memorabilia, piles of history books, and a large neon sign from one of the local craft breweries.
Langley himself was sitting behind his desk, going through a stack of what looked like essays. “Tommy,” Stone said softly in greeting.
Langley looked up, startled. “Hey. Uh—you look a lot better today.”
He nodded. “May I come in?”
“Uh—Yeah, sure. Just toss that stuff on the other chair. It’s not important.” There was an odd edge in Langley’s voice, almost like nervousness. Or fear.
Stone closed the door behind him, then shifted a pile of papers to the second guest chair and sat down. For a moment he watched Langley without speaking.
Langley shifted nervously in his chair. “Alastair, I—” He blew his breath out. “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know what to say to you.”
“You’re afraid I’m going to send you flying across the room again. Or worse.”
“What the hell are you?” Langley blurted, unable to conceal his fear. “I thought you were just a guy who taught a quack subject about spooks and things that go bump in the night. But—”
“But,” Stone said softly without moving, “things really do go bump in the night, sometimes.”
“How did you do that, last night? How did you make me—”
Stone dropped his gaze into his lap. Here goes. “I wasn’t kidding about being the real thing.”
“The real—what, though?”
“Magic is real, Tommy. And I’m a mage.”
Langley stared at him. He didn’t blink. Then he shook his head back and forth, raising his hands in a defiant denial. “No way. I’m sorry, Alastair, but that’s bullshit. There isn’t any such thing as magic, or mages, or witches, or ghosts, or any of that fairy-tale shit. I don’t know what I saw last night, but—”
Stone was watching him closely, though, and he could already see Langley’s resolve was cracking. He was saying the words, but he didn’t believe them. “You saw what you saw, Tommy. Watch.” He raised his hand, and several items from Langley’s desk rose up, flew around the office, and settled back into their places.
Langley didn’t quite scream, but he did shove his chair rapidly away until he smacked it into the rear wall of his small office. “Holy crap! What the fuck?”
“I didn’t want to tell you. It’s not something I spread around. But what’s going on is bigger than what I want now. It’s bigger than what you want. That thing in your aunt’s house is real, and it’s dangerous. It has to be dealt with. I was serious when I said I don’t have the time or the energy to indulge your skepticism now. This is too important. I have to make you see.”
Stone almost felt sorry for Langley: watching him, he saw a man who was being forced to come to terms far too quickly with the idea that several fundamental tenets on which he’d based his life were wrong. That couldn’t be easy for anyone. Under normal circumstances he’d have been more understanding, tried to help Langley accept the truth slowly. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and there was no time for gentleness. “Here’s the bottom line, Tommy: you don’t have to get involved. You don’t have to help. You don’t even have to believe. All you have to do is stay out of my way. I’m sorry I had to break my promise to you not to go to Adelaide’s house again, but she called me.”
Langley nodded, not looking at him. “I know. She told me, after—after you passed out last night. And Iona chewed me out good.” His eyes came up. “Listen, Alastair: I’m sorry that I—”
Stone waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. No apology needed. I just need you to know—and I know you’re not going to like this, but that isn’t relevant at the moment—that you aren’t going to stop me. I’ll do whatever I need to do to get this sorted.”
For a very long time, Langley said nothing. He stared down at the mess on his desk, shuffled a few papers around and squared them up into a stack, and rearranged several pens into a line. Then, without looking up, he said in a barely audible voice, “I want to help.”
Stone wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. “What?”
Langley looked up, meeting Stone’s gaze. “I said, I want to help.”
“Tommy—”
“Look,” he said, his voice laced with stubbornness. “She’s my aunt. She’s family. I love her. If she’s in trouble and there’s something that can be done about it, I want to be involved.”
Stone closed his eyes for a moment. “You can’t, Tommy,” he said softly. “There’s nothing you can do. Dealing with this takes abilities you just don’t have.”
“No.” Langley shook his head. “There are things I can do. If nothing else, I can lug jars of Eye of Newt or whatever around for you, so you can make with the hocus-pocus.” He let his breath out. “I don’t want to believe any of this. I really don’t. Magic is—it’s for kids’ stories. It’s not something real. But if Aunt Adelaide and Iona are in trouble, and I have to believe in magic in order to help them deal with it, then make with the fairy dust and let’s get to it.”
Stone stared at him, making no attempt to hide his amazement and respect for Langley. This kind of thing simply didn’t happen, in his experience. Usually, on the rare occasions where a mage had to reveal him- or herself to a mundane in times of emergency, the mundane either shut down completely and refused to acknowledge that anything was happening, or ran out of the room and found excuses to avoid the mage—usually permanently. Stone had seen more than his share of friendships end over most mundanes’ inability to accept what was going on right under their noses. “Tommy—”
“No. No more chit-chat. There’s stuff to be done. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Once we get through this, then maybe we can talk more. Right now, if I keep talking I’m gonna run outta this room and straight to the guys in the white coats.” He squared his shoulders and stood up. “So what’s the plan, Mandrake?”
Stone had to smile at that. “Sit down, Tommy. And if you’ve got a tuxedo, make sure it’s clean and you can still button it over that vast gut of yours. You’re coming to the ball.”
Langley grinned, even though his eyes were still fearful. “Aww, Al. I thought you
’d never ask. But you’d better bring me a nice corsage. Green, to match my eyes. And I’m warning you now—I never put out on the first date.”
Stone was still amazed when he thought about it later that afternoon. He was back at Adelaide’s house, pleased to see that she’d taken his advice and hired some security people. They prowled around the house in official-looking jackets and sunglasses (the rain had finally stopped for now, bringing with it a rare and welcome sunny day) and even stopped him and checked his ID before letting him past.
His plan was to spend the first part of the afternoon in the ritual room in the basement, double-checking his reinforcement of the demon’s prison and adding to it if necessary, and going through the stack of books and papers in the vain hope that somebody might have written down its true name somewhere. Honestly he didn’t expect to find that, but his fingers itched to open the tomes and explore the mysteries inside. He was already formulating a plan to ask Adelaide if he could buy the collection from her once all this unpleasantness had been dealt with. He suspected she’d let him have it cheap, if she charged him at all, but he didn’t care what she asked—he would pay it. As far as he was concerned, these books were priceless.
He was thinking about Tommy when he pushed aside the bookcase and entered the room. The man had frankly astonished him. From hidebound mundane to willing (albeit reluctant) assistant in such a short time—that showed the kind of mental fortitude that Stone didn’t often see. Although, he acknowledged, Adelaide had it, too. Maybe it ran in the family. He just hoped it didn’t end up getting Tommy killed.
The armoire looked as he’d left it; shifting to magical sight, he saw that the additional bonds he’d added were holding. Nothing was showing any signs of fraying. He decided he’d come back every day until Saturday, or at least as often as he could manage it, to ensure that was still true. He knew the hard work wasn’t going to start until after the charity ball, but he could worry about that later. His only concern right now was that the event went off without turning into a massacre.
He sighed, setting up the lamp he’d brought along with his flashlight and switching it on. He knew he shouldn’t be allowing this. He should have told Adelaide to just cancel the ball. Okay, it would mean losing a big pile of money for the orphans and the homeless, but was that worse than a houseful of dead people if that thing got out and ran amok?
He had no illusions about his abilities, nor any false modesty. He was good. Damned good, in fact. One of the best, when he was in top form. But he wasn’t in top form now—nowhere close. Even if he were uninjured, he was out of practice. And even then, his best would be barely more than a fly trying to stop a freight train if that thing got loose. If he had its name, he might—might—have a chance of sending it back. Without it—well, he just had to hope that the plywood he’d put up would be sufficient to hold off the tiger.
He gathered up the books and piled them on the table along with the stacks of papers. He’d just glance through them at first to figure out if any of them jumped out at him, and then—
—The dull pain in his ribs finally made itself sufficiently annoying that Stone looked up from his studies. Startled, he realized that the lamp’s light was dimming as its battery died. Bugger. Lost track of time. He glanced at his watch: it was already eight o’clock. He’d gotten here at three.
Stretching, he heard several things pop, and his ribs twinged again. His shoulders ached from hunching over tomes filled with faded and hard to read text. He’d managed to get through quite a few of the books by skimming their contents, though he wanted nothing more than to dive back in and read them in depth. They covered several esoteric aspects of summoning, including several that were uncomfortably dark in their origins. As far as he could tell, though, there was nothing about this particular demon, and certainly nothing that might be a clue as to its name. The papers, which had been apparently written by Selena Darklight, showed ritual diagrams, incantations, and notes on things she planned to work on in the future, but once again no names. Had she even written it down at all? Perhaps she’d thought it was too dangerous to do more than just hold it in her own head.
He ran a hand through his hair and stood up. He’d planned on heading up to the attic tonight, but he was tired and sore and very hungry. A quick glance at the demon’s prison revealed that nothing had changed. I’ll just come back tomorrow, he decided. Do the attic then. Maybe I can even bring Ethan up here to help me search, if he’s free.
That decided, he packed up his gear and left. Behind him, the eerie light behind the armoire’s skewed doors shifted a bit, following his progress until the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Stone more than half-expected Ethan to come up with an excuse for not showing up for his lesson Wednesday afternoon, and was surprised when the blue car pulled into his driveway promptly at three o’clock. “I take it your mum’s doing all right,” he said when the boy came in.
“She’s stable,” Ethan said. “Still bad, but at least she’s not getting any worse for the moment.”
Stone nodded. “Any luck with the circle yet?”
“I didn’t get a chance to try it yet. Yesterday I spent most of the day at the hospital. I was planning on working on it this weekend, if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine. Actually—come up to my study. I want to talk to you about something.”
Ethan looked nervous, but followed. He sat down on the couch and tossed his backpack down next to him. “About what?”
“I’d like your help, if you have the time.”
“My help? With what?”
“You remember old Adelaide Bonham and her house in Los Gatos, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, I’m still dealing with some trouble down there, and I’m running out of time. She’s having a big charity ball this Saturday night and I’d like to get some things done before then. Unfortunately what I want to do involves poking around in an enormous dusty attic looking for some bits of information. It’ll go a lot faster if I can get your help. If your mum can spare you, of course.”
“Uh—yeah, sure, I can do that. When, though?”
“How about tomorrow afternoon? We’ll head up there around this time and with any luck we can find something useful. I’d also like you to attend the ball itself if you can. Having an assistant with magical ability will be invaluable, even if all you do is keep watch with your magical senses. Do you think you might be able to do that?”
Ethan nodded. “Sure. Would I need a suit or something?”
“Rent a tuxedo, and send me the bill.”
“Okay.” Ethan paused. “Dr. Stone—what’s going on down there? Did you ever find out?”
“Yes. There’s some sort of nasty spirit, or demon, or whatever you want to call it, imprisoned in the house’s basement. How it got there is a long story—I’ll tell you tomorrow, when I show you where it is. It’ll be easier to understand with context.”
“And the stuff you’re looking for is related to dealing with it? How does that work?”
“Quite likely it doesn’t. I found some books and papers in the basement, but they don’t seem to be related to what’s imprisoned there. I’m hoping we might find more in the attic, p’raps packed away in a trunk or an old bookcase or something. What I really want to find is the spirit’s true name, but I doubt anyone wrote that down.”
“Its true name?”
Stone nodded. “That’s the best way to deal with spirits—sometimes the only way. If you know a spirit’s true name, you have a lot of power over it. You can imprison it, enslave it, or send it back to where it came from. You hope, anyway. There’s still the matter of pitting your power and will against its—they don’t exactly want to go along with what you have planned, and they’ll fight you every step of the way. In this case, all I’m hoping to do is send the bit of it that’s in our dimension back home with the rest of it, and close the opening between the two.” He raised an eyebrow. “That’s all. I mak
e it sound like that will be easy. It won’t. But at least we won’t have to deal with the whole thing.”
“So—only part of it is here?”
“Yes, or we wouldn’t have a prayer of doing this. The people who imprisoned it did a good job, but their efforts are slipping after all these years. The prison is failing, and some of it is bleeding through.”
Ethan nodded, taking it all in. “I’ll do what I can to help,” he said. “I—”
Downstairs, the doorbell rang. “Excuse me a moment,” Stone said, and headed out of the room.
It was Megan. “Hey,” she said. “I was in the area, so I thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to do something tonight.” She glanced past him. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had company.”
Stone turned around. Ethan had drifted out of the room and stood at the top of the stairs, watching them. “It’s just Ethan.” To the boy, he said, “I really don’t have that much more prepared for you today, Ethan, if you want to take off early. Come back tomorrow and we’ll go down to Adelaide’s. And don’t forget to see to that tuxedo.”
Ethan nodded, coming down the stairs. “What time do you want me there on Saturday? What time does the ball start?”
“I think it starts at seven; be there at six so we can decide on our plans.”
“You got it.” He nodded goodbye to Megan, waved at Stone, and headed out the door.
She closed it behind her. “Ball? What ball?”
“Just a little thing Adelaide’s having down at her house on Saturday night,” Stone said, trying to sound like it was the most uninteresting thing in the world.
“Are you going to a party? And you didn’t ask me to go with you?” Megan didn’t look angry, but she did look a little hurt.
“I’m not going to have fun, Megan. I’m going to work. This is part of what I’m doing to help Adelaide with her house problem. Ethan’s going to be assisting me.”