by R. L. King
“Too long, Madame Huan,” Stone said, returning her smile and allowing her to grasp his hand in both of hers.
“What brings you to my store? And who’s your friend? You haven’t taken a new apprentice, have you?”
Stone chuckled. “Hardly. No, he’s a friend I met recently—he’s caught up in some rather interesting business, part of which is that he’s trying to locate his missing sister. I’ve agreed to help him, which means I’ll be needing a few items I don’t normally keep around the house.”
“I see,” she said. “Well, come along then, and we’ll see what we can find.” She glanced at Jason. “I’m afraid your friend will have to wait here, though.”
Stone nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Jason. I’m sorry, but—” He spread his hands in apology. “Store policy.”
“Uh, sure,” Jason said. He was a little disappointed that he wouldn’t get to see “the good stuff,” but a few minutes of aimless wandering (and not encountering bins of Eye of Newt or a cauldron full of Bats—Buy One, Get One Free or something) might be good for him.
Stone nodded, and he and Madame Huan departed through the beaded curtain.
They were back in ten minutes, Stone carrying a large tote bag stuffed full of various lumpy items. “Ready?”
“That was quick.”
“I knew what I was looking for. Come on—let’s get some lunch and then get back. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can find Susanna. At least I hope we can.” He bid Madame Huan farewell and exited the store.
They grabbed a quick bite at the noodle house. Jason didn’t say much until they were back in the car afterward. “So, is she a mage too?”
“Madame Huan?” At Jason’s nod, he nodded back. “She is, but she specializes in more indirect, passive magic like divination and psychometry. And, of course, she both creates and imports magical items. She makes a very good living at that, so much so that she doesn’t really need to do anything else.”
“So, what have you got in the bag?” He pointed to the back seat, where Stone had stashed it.
“Some items to help with the location spell, and also a few other items that I can fashion into magical batteries, in case I need to cast some of the more tiring spells.”
“You mean like spells that hurt people?”
“Yes. It’s not the sort of thing I prefer to do, but it’s obvious something dangerous is going on, and I’d like to be in a bit better position to defend us if we encounter it again.”
“I’d still rather have a gun,” Jason grumbled.
They got back to the house without incident. Mrs. Olivera, who was puttering around in the kitchen, waved a greeting. “You’ve had lunch, I assume?” she called.
“Got it covered,” Stone assured her. “You can go on home if you like—we’re going to be busy with some work for the rest of the afternoon. We’ll call out for pizza if we get hungry later.”
“Unless you get so caught up in what you’re working on that you forget to do it,” she said cheerfully.
Stone didn’t answer except to chuckle—obviously it was an old topic with them. “Stay here,” he told Jason. “I need to grab a few more things from upstairs, and then we’ll get started.”
He was back in less than five minutes, carrying the bag of items he’d bought from Madame Huan, and another bag that looked about half as full. Motioning for Jason to follow him, he moved off down a hallway and unlocked a nondescript door. He opened it to reveal a staircase leading downward into darkness. “Basement?” Jason asked, keeping his voice down so Mrs. Olivera wouldn’t hear. “You do magic in the basement?”
Stone shrugged, flicking a light switch. “Magic takes room, and a lot of setup. It’s easier to keep things cleared out and set up down here. And since Mrs. Olivera doesn’t have the key, she’s not tempted to come down and see what’s going on—or worse yet, tidy up.”
At the foot of the stairs was another door. Stone opened it and waved Jason inside. On the other side was a large, empty space featuring a bare concrete floor scattered with small rugs, simple furniture, and unpainted gray walls.
Jason stared at it. “I—kinda expected something a bit more…magical?” he said, grinning. “This place looks like where you’d stash kidnap victims.”
“Aha, and you’ve walked right into my trap, haven’t you?” Stone returned his grin. “No, seriously, I can’t really make permanent modifications, since I’m renting this place. I’ve got access to a much nicer setup back home in England, but that won’t help us much right now. And in any case, this will do fine. The magic doesn’t give a damn about one’s skill at interior decorating.” He waved at a chair by the wall that was one of the few pieces of furniture here. “Might as well sit down—this is going to take a while, and you can’t really help me with it.”
“Wish you’d told me that before we came down here,” Jason grumbled. “I’d have brought something to read.”
Stone grinned again. “Watch and learn,” he said. “Patience is a virtue. Or something like that.” Putting the two bags down on a small table and draping his overcoat over another chair, he opened the first one and began spreading the items around. Jason watched as he set down a series of candles in different sizes and colors, a small but elaborate incense burner, several sticks of strange-smelling incense, a compact brazier, a handful of multi-hued chalk, and a pocket-sized box of matches. Then he reached for the second and withdrew three large, leather-bound books.
“What are you going to do with all that stuff?” Jason asked, curious in spite of himself. This whole business was so far outside the realm of his experience that he didn’t even have a frame of reference for it. As a child, his reading had tended more toward sports, adventure, and gory true-crime stories than anything about magic or fantasy.
Stone picked up a piece of light blue chalk and one of the leather-bound tomes and moved to the center of the room. “Rituals, as I told you before, generally require setup before they can be implemented,” he replied as he opened the book, consulted it, and then crouched and began drawing something on the floor, shoving the rugs out of the way as he went along. “This part is called ‘casting a circle’—you create a space to contain the energy you’re going to summon.”
“And that works?”
“Quite effectively. Though you have to make sure you get it right, which is why I need to be careful. Nasty things can happen if you get them wrong.”
“Nasty things like what? Big, evil, bug-eyed monsters coming through from the great beyond, rampaging through the countryside killing women and ravaging people’s housepets?” Jason couldn’t help it—it all just sounded so crazy.
“Possibly,” Stone said, dead serious. “Well, not the housepets bit, of course. But the whole thing is highly unlikely, especially in our case, since this ritual isn’t designed to summon anything. Summoning rituals are notoriously tricky, and most mages who have any sense don’t even attempt them anymore. That, and they usually require a large number of participants to get them right, and trying to get enough mages to actually agree on summoning something is next to impossible. Actually, getting that many mages to agree on anything is next to impossible. So no, you needn’t worry about rampaging extradimensional beasties.” He turned back to what he was doing, continuing to draw the large circle with the blue chalk.
Jason decided not to push his luck. He sat back to watch, keeping his mouth shut.
It took Stone about an hour to draw the chalk circle, moving with slow precision and pausing to consult the book twice in the process. It wasn’t just a circle—when finished, it was actually one circle within another, with other shapes or cryptic sigils holding the two sections together at several points. He stepped back for a moment to examine his handiwork, then put the book down and carefully stepped out of the circle without touching any of the chalk lines. Still, Jason didn’t say anything.
Next, Stone moved back inside and placed the candles at four points around the circle, though he didn’t light th
em yet. He placed the brazier in the center, where there were no chalk lines or figures. Then he stepped out again, grabbed a different book, and compared a page in the book to what he’d created. “That looks about right,” he said, swiping his hair off his forehead. “Close as I’m going to get, I think.”
Jason examined it with interest. The whole thing was pretty elaborate now that it was done. “I guess mages who can’t draw don’t get very far, huh?”
Stone didn’t favor that with an answer. “Now comes the interesting part,” he said instead. “The actual ritual.” He crossed the room again (it was harder now not to step on the chalk lines, and he almost had to jump to get out of the circle) and pulled out the sheet of paper Frank the Scribbler had given them, looking it over.
Jason looked back and forth between Stone and the circle. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re going to do something with that paper inside that circle and it’s going to help you figure out where Susanna is, and hopefully Verity too?”
“Hopefully,” Stone said. “I won’t get Verity, of course, since I don’t have a tether object for her. You don’t happen to have any personal belongings of hers, do you? I probably should have asked you that before.”
Jason shook his head. “Nope. I haven’t seen her for years, unfortunately.”
“Right, then. We’ll work with what we have.” He stepped back into the circle with the paper and leaned down to place the incense in the brazier. “I have no idea how long this is going to take. It should be fairly quick, but don’t be surprised if it takes longer. I’ve never worked with anything like this drawing before. And whatever you do, whatever you see, don’t enter the circle. And don’t break it. I doubt anything horrible will happen, but if you break it while I’m in the middle of the ritual, the backlash will give me a headache for a week. So don’t do it, all right?”
“Got it. Don’t step on the pretty chalk outline while the mage is casting spells inside it.” Jason sighed. “You know, none of this is easy for me to swallow.”
Stone chuckled. “Hang around me long enough, and you’ll be encountering a lot stranger things than a magical circle. My pub-crawling friends have accused me of being a—what did they call it?—a ‘magnet for weird shit,’ I think it was.”
“Now that I believe,” Jason said with an emphatic nod.
Stone turned away and lit the incense. Soon the room was filled with a strange but not unpleasant mixture of odors Jason had never smelled before. As the wisps of smoke rose and began to dissipate through the room, he was reminded of his teen years, when his stoner buddies would sprawl in their bedrooms passing joints around and listening to progressive rock. The intermingling of the odors and the smoke made him feel oddly detached, like he was watching the proceedings from somewhere above his body. It felt good, though, so he didn’t fight it.
Stone stood inside of the circle, behind the brazier. His lips were moving; he seemed to be reciting something under his breath, but Jason couldn’t make it out. Currently, he faced the candle that he’d placed at the circle’s north side. Jason watched as he continued his soft chant, lulled into a relaxed, soporific state. This was so cool…
He nearly fell out of his chair when the candle’s flame suddenly flared bright blue, the same color as its candle, and grew to about six inches high. It continued burning that way as Stone turned, now facing the south candle. It too flared up after a time, its flame glowing red. Jason, the spacey feeling driven out of his head now, leaned forward and stared.
Stone did this twice more—first east, then west. The east side candle’s flame turned green, and the west side’s flared bright yellow. For several moments he just stood in there, focused on the candles and chanting. Then he took out the paper full of scribblings, spread it out, and laid it inside the brazier. His voice rose a little louder; Jason could now tell for sure that whatever he was saying, it wasn’t in English. Taking the matches from his pocket, Stone lit one and touched it to the paper, the chant rising louder. Flames—normal ones for the moment—flared around the paper. Stone watched them for a couple more moments, then barked out one sharp word that Jason couldn’t understand, but that sounded like it didn’t have any vowels.
Instantly, nimbuses of golden light formed around the four candles, shooting beams across the circle to meet in the center—North to South, East to West—making a glowing golden cross through the circle converging on the brazier. Stone had already stepped aside, as if he’d expected it to be there. There was a soft whump! as the paper was consumed by the flames, and then a shaft of bright white light spiked up from the brazier, up through the basement’s low ceiling. Stone reached out, no longer chanting, and cupped his hands around the light shaft without touching it. As Jason watched, forgetting to blink, forgetting to breathe, it looked to him like the mage was struggling—like he was trying to grasp something in the light, but it kept eluding him. His eyes closed, his face taking on a tight look of concentration as he fought to do—what? Jason didn’t know.
And then, like someone flicked off a light switch, it was over. The candle flames went out, the little fire in the brazier went out, and the golden and white light beams extinguished. For a moment Jason just sat there, aware that his mouth was hanging open but not caring.
“Holy…shit,” he whispered at last.
Stone didn’t answer—or even appear to notice he was there—for several seconds. He was breathing hard as if he’d just run a couple of blocks at top speed, but it wasn’t anywhere near the level of exhaustion Jason had seen in the car the previous night. “You okay?” Jason asked, getting up.
“Fine,” Stone said. His breathing was already returning to normal. He stepped out of the circle, not worrying now that he was smudging anything. It was clear even to a complete magical imbecile like Jason that the circle at this point was dead and inert.
“So—did you find her? Do you know where she is?”
Stone sighed, looking defeated. “No.”
“No?” Jason demanded. “But wasn’t that the whole point of—”
Stone cut him off with a raised hand. “I touched her mind. I know she’s out there somewhere, and I think she’s still in the area. But she—fought me. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It was as if—every time I got a bead on her, she slipped away into a fog.” He looked utterly perplexed, and ran a hand through his hair again before gathering up the spent candles. “This is getting more and more interesting by the minute.”
“I’d say it’s getting more frustrating by the minute,” Jason grumbled. “How can she hide from you? Can people do that? I thought only other mages—”
“I thought so too,” Stone said. “That’s why it’s so fascinating. Our elusive Susanna is either a mage—which I highly doubt—or else she’s got some sort of magic-like abilities similar to those of our vagrant friends back at the library. And if you’ll forgive me a little professional curiosity, encountering at least four homeless people with pseudo-magical abilities in less than a day is interesting enough that I’d like to get to the bottom of it.”
Jason sighed. “That’s all great, but it still doesn’t get me any closer to finding Verity.” He felt the old familiar impatience rising in him again: he wanted to run outside and go do something. Anything. Just so he didn’t have to feel like he was sitting here on his ass while his little sister was out there on the streets dealing with God knew what. “I wish I could call Arrelli,” he said.
“Who?”
“The detective assigned to Verity’s case. Maybe he’s found out something. But I’d be an idiot to call the police department if they’re just gonna pick me up if they get wind of me. Those two cops at the library—” He stopped as something clicked in his head. “Wait a minute… Wait…a…minute…”
“You’re on to something, aren’t you?” Stone asked, his gaze sharpening.
“Maybe. I want to test it out, but it could be dangerous. Is there a pay phone around here? I need to make a call, and I don’t want to do it fro
m here in case they trace it.”
“There might be one a couple of blocks away at the park. I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed.”
“Come on—let’s go find it. I think I’m right, and if I am then things are about to get even more interesting.”
Stone was right—there were two pay phones near the edge of a small, grassy park a few blocks from his house. “Wish me luck,” Jason said as he jumped out of the car and fumbled in his pocket for change. “And get ready to get us out of here fast if I come running.”
When he returned to the car a few minutes later following a brief conversation, he climbed in with a sigh, shaking his head. “Nothing. I’m not wanted for a damn thing. Arrelli talked to me like nothing was up.”
“All right, out with it,” Stone ordered, starting the engine. “You obviously figured something out and took a chance on it—what was it?”
“Those cops at the library,” Jason told him. “I’ve had it in the back of my mind ever since we saw them that there was something wrong about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It finally came to me—they weren’t wearing name badges.”
Stone looked confused. “What?”
“Name badges. You know, the little gold pins cops wear on the front of their uniforms, with their last name on it? They had their police badges, but no name badges.”
“Couldn’t they have just—forgotten to put them on?”
Jason shook his head. “No way. Cops have inspection every morning. Their commanding officer would have noticed it instantly. Citizens don’t like it when they can’t see the name of the cop that’s hassling them. They want to be able to report ’em, write letters to the editor, all that good stuff.”
“So the fact that they didn’t have them means—?”
“I’d bet a lot of money it means they weren’t real cops.” Jason blew air through his teeth. “It also explains why they were so nasty.”
“I still don’t get it,” Stone said. “Why would they impersonate policemen in order to turf a group of vagrants out of a library?”