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

by R. L. King

  “There’s a tent on the other side of the fire. I share it with Susanna and Lissy.”

  Jason remembered the spacey girl from the library, and nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning. And V?”

  “Yeah?”

  Impulsively, he pulled her into a quick, hard hug. “It’s good to have you back.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Yeah. It’s good to be back. Thanks for not giving up on me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Jason didn’t sleep that well; the ground was hard and his mind was too busy to let him get much rest. That, and he still wasn’t convinced that the DMW weren’t going to show up and massacre them all while they slept. That didn’t happen—he wasn’t sure if it was because one or more of the Forgotten were masking them from view or if the gang had simply decided to call it a night and lick their wounds. Either way, by the time the filtered light of the sunrise woke him, he’d only gotten about three hours of sleep.

  When he sat up, he was surprised to discover that some of the Forgotten were already awake, including Marilee. The old lady was cooking something in a pot over the near fire, occasionally seasoning it with various things she pulled from the bags hanging off her shopping cart. “Morning,” Jason said as he came over.

  “Oh, good morning. I didn’t expect you to be awake yet. Would you like something to eat?” She motioned toward the pot. “I’m making some oatmeal.”

  “No, thanks. I’m gonna go check on Al.”

  “I checked on him a little while ago. He’s still asleep, but he looks fine. I’d leave him alone until he wakes up, though: he can use all the rest he can get.”

  “You need help with anything?”

  “Oh, no, I’m fine. But thanks for asking.”

  He wished she did have something for him to do, since he hadn’t brought any of his gear and he didn’t feel comfortable wandering off. He was lucky, though: apparently these people weren’t much for sleeping in. By the time the sun was up so were most of them, gathering their things and rolling up their bedrolls. Some of them filtered off in groups of two or three; Jason didn’t ask where they were going. He figured by that time it was safe to go check on Stone, though, and then he’d go find Verity.

  The mage was awake when Jason poked his head through the tent flap. He did look better—still tired, but not nearly as pale as he’d been last night. The black kitten was still curled up next to him, fast asleep. “I was wondering when you were going to show up,” he said, a little irritably.

  “Sorry. Marilee said you weren’t awake yet, and that I shouldn’t bother you.”

  “Just woke up a bit ago.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Still fairly ghastly. My back hurts from sleeping on the ground, I’m starving, and I’d like very much to get out of this tent, but I’m not sure whether I should chance it yet.”

  “Why don’t I bring you something to eat? Marilee’s making oatmeal. Then we can talk for a bit and figure out what we want to do next.”

  “Excellent idea.”

  Jason got up and went back outside. He’d collected a largish bowl of oatmeal and a plastic spoon from Marilee and was heading back to the tent when Verity intercepted him. “Morning,” she said, falling into step. “Where you going?”

  “Taking this to Al,” he said, indicating the bowl.

  “Ah. Can I come with you? I want to talk to you guys some more.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Soon they were back inside the tent, seated on either side of Stone’s makeshift bed. He accepted the oatmeal gratefully and made a tentative attempt to prop himself up to a mostly sitting position. He evaluated that for a few seconds, then nodded and began eating.

  “So…” Jason said. “Verity wants to know what we’re planning to do. She can’t leave here because she’ll lose it again if she gets away from Susanna, but we can’t stay here forever.”

  “No,” Stone said, “we can’t.” He looked at Verity. “Pleasure to meet you, by the way. Forgive my lack of manners.” He set the bowl and spoon carefully down and offered her his hand. “Alastair Stone. And I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

  Verity shook his hand, looking amused. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you too, last night,” she told him.

  “All of it lies, I’m sure,” Stone said, raising an eyebrow. “So—Jason here tells me that your current lucidity is due to some sort of power one of these people has. Something about blocking out whatever’s causing your mental issues.”

  Verity nodded. “Susanna. She can do that, sometimes. I’m not sure it’s not permanent because I’m afraid to get too far away from her and find out, but she says I’ll probably go back to the way I was if I do.”

  “I see. I wonder if there might be something I can do about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stone shrugged. “I’m not certain unless I examine you, but I have some expertise with this sort of thing. There’s a chance that I might be able to put a more permanent block in place.”

  Her eyes widened, her expression warring between hope and cynicism. “You can do that?” she asked, leaning forward.

  “As I said, I don’t know. And I’m not really in a position to check now. But it’s possible. I’m assuming that you don’t want to remain here.”

  “No. It’s like I was telling Jason last night—I’m really grateful for what these people have done for me. I wouldn’t be alive if they hadn’t taken me in and hidden me from the DMW. But—” She sighed. “—I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a homeless camp because that’s the only way I can avoid going back to the halfway house—or somewhere worse, once I turn eighteen.”

  “Quite understandable,” Stone said, nodding. Then he looked at Jason. “We need to figure out our next move.”

  “Do we even have a next move? I mean—we’ve found V. That’s what we were trying to do. If you can do something that will block the crazy rays so she won’t go right back to the way she was before, then—that’s it, isn’t it? She can come home with me, or—” he shrugged “—I don’t really have much dragging me back down to Ventura. If she’d rather stay up here, I can find odd jobs here as easily as I could there.”

  “Well,” Stone mused, “It can be it, if you want it to be. It’s up to you.”

  Jason cocked his head like a confused dog. “I don’t get it. What else would there be?”

  “We could go after it at its source.”

  “What?” He stared. “Al, are you getting hit by the crazy rays? We don’t even know what the source is. Even if we wanted to, how would we find it?”

  “I think he’s right,” Verity said suddenly.

  Jason swung around to face her. “What? Why? Haven’t you had your fill of whatever these things are by now?”

  She spread her hands in an encompassing gesture. “Look around you. All these people are always scared, always hiding, because whatever this thing is, it’s looking for them. It wants to kill them. They don’t really have any way to stop it.”

  “And you think we do?”

  She looked at Stone. “I don’t know. Do we?”

  “No idea,” the mage said, but the wheels in his mind were obviously turning. “It would take a fair bit of research. Not only to figure out where the one in charge is—assuming that Lamar and the others are correct and there even is one in charge—but in order to go on the offensive against such a thing, we’d need to prepare.”

  Jason sighed. Clearly his friend and his sister hadn’t realized that it was safe to step out of the Twilight Zone now and come back to the real world. “Can we talk about this later? I think right now our priority is getting V straightened out so she can leave, then getting back to civilization. And a shower,” he added, sniffing his leather jacket and wrinkling his nose.

  Verity glared at him. “Don’t you get it, Jason? You’re part of the problem. You use words like ‘civilization’—the Forgotten are plenty civilized. Just because some of them are a little strange and they ha
ve to live like this doesn’t make them any less human.”

  “You’re quite right,” Stone said softly. “This past night has been quite an eye-opener for me. It fascinates me that this whole subculture—this whole society—has existed right under our noses, and I never noticed it. I don’t think anybody has.”

  “And you,” she said, turning her glare on Stone, “You sound like you just want to study them. They’re not some kind of—science experiment. They’re people. Believe me, I spent enough time like them to know. Do you know how much it sucks to have people ignore you, or be scared of you, because you don’t act ‘normal’? What the hell is normal, anyway?”

  Stone raised his hands to ward off her words. “Calm down,” he said. “I make no secret of the fact that, yes, I’d like to know more about this society—and especially about these unusual powers many of them possess. As a mage, that interests me professionally. But in case you’ve forgotten, they’ve also saved my life. I owe them something for that. If there’s anything I can do to help rid them—and the rest of us, as it happens—of this threat, I’m willing to do what I can.”

  Verity turned back to Jason. “Jason? What about you?”

  He shrugged, looking resigned. “Looks like I’m outvoted, so I guess I’m in. But I still don’t think this is a great idea.” He paused a moment, and then: “So what now?”

  “Now,” Stone said, “You hand me my shirt and help me up. I think I’m feeling brave enough to venture out, and we need to discuss some things with the Forgotten.”

  Jason did as requested, helping the mage shrug into his shirt and overcoat. The kitten, unceremoniously evicted from her warm sleeping spot, mewed a protest and began looking for new one. Verity scooped her up. “I’ll take her back to Marilee,” she said. “You guys come out when you’re ready.”

  Stone, once Jason hauled him up to his feet, was alarmingly unsteady at first. His face paled again, and he looked like he was going to keel over any second, but things seemed to improve the longer he remained upright.

  “You gonna make it?” Jason asked, hovering nearby, ready to grab him.

  “I think so,” he said. “As I said before—nothing hurts except my stiff back, which is hardly short of amazing. Just feeling a bit dizzy.”

  Jason nodded. “We need to get you more to eat than a bowl of oatmeal.” His stomach rumbled in sympathy at the thought. “And me too, it sounds like.”

  The camp was fully awake now, split between people sitting around eating and those who were cleaning up the area: striking tents, putting out fires, gathering trash.

  They found Lamar sitting under his favorite tree with Verity and a couple of other Forgotten they didn’t recognize. “You guys look like you’re getting ready to leave,” Jason said, helping Stone sit down, and then doing so himself.

  Lamar nodded. “We are. We can’t afford to stay in the same place for too long. Our concealment abilities aren’t foolproof, so we like to move around every few days at least.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “One of our scouts found an abandoned building in Mountain View. We’ll probably head there. We prefer buildings to outside camps—they’re more defensible, and obviously warmer this time of year.”

  “How do you guys—operate?” Jason asked. “How do you get food, move around—it seems like you’re pretty mobile.”

  Lamar shrugged. “We do what we can do. Sometimes we take the bus, though for obvious reasons we can’t do that as a large group so it can be dangerous. Some of us do odd jobs to earn money, some beg, and some know the places to go where they can find things that others have discarded. There are people who help us—sympathetic restaurant owners and such. Sometimes we’ll deal with charities that we know to be safe—there are a few around here, like the Salvation Army, and Gordon Lucas’s events when they come around—they’re two of the few outfits where we’ve never sensed any Evil involvement. Forgotten groups don’t really have any formal organization, but generally each small group takes care of its own—pooling resources, using our talents to help how we can.”

  “How many groups are there around here?”

  “No way to know, really. We cross paths occasionally and compare notes. Aside from our symbols—I believe Verity told you about them—that’s the only way we have to communicate with each other. Sometimes we leave notes in specific places in public buildings—libraries are popular, naturally.”

  “And you pretty much stay in this general area?”

  “As much as we can. Sometimes a group is forced to move completely out of its area, but that’s a drastic choice, and not made lightly. Our group moves around from a little north of Palo Alto to the south part of San Jose. It’s safer when we know the area, the safe places, the places to avoid.”

  Stone, who’d been silent thus far, nodded and then said, “May I ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course. You’re looking much better this morning, by the way. I’m glad.”

  “Thank you—and thanks again to you,” the mage said. “You said before that you believe that there are ‘levels’ of Evil. That there are more powerful ones directing the activities of lower-level ones.”

  Lamar nodded. “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea how this hierarchy works? Is it a formal structure? Do they literally report up a chain of command? Or is it a more informal thing, where the powerful entities have an agenda, and they communicate it to their minions and leave it up to the minions to implement it?”

  “I don’t know that, Dr. Stone,” Lamar said. “I don’t think any of us have any desire to get close enough to the more powerful Evil to be able to figure that out. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say that the powerful ones confine their influence to more high-level issues—trying to infiltrate government, business, law enforcement—while the lower ones are more concerned with simple mayhem to feed their need for emotion.”

  “So—” Stone appeared to be working things out as he went along “—the more powerful entities can gain their sustenance by more abstract methods?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “I mean, if what you say is true, then whatever they seek or need can be supplied in different ways. The weaker ones cause mayhem and misery to individuals or small groups and then drink it up, while the more powerful ones incite their mayhem on a more subtle but larger scale. Perhaps it’s an issue of concentration—if you’re causing pain in one person, you need to cause a great deal of it to get the same effect as you would from causing a large number of people a smaller amount of pain.” He shrugged. “I’m just tossing out ideas now—I’m likely completely off track.”

  “It’s as good a theory as any,” Lamar admitted. “As I said, we don’t really have any way to check, even if that were something that we wanted to do. Generally, any of us who come into contact with the Evil’s higher echelons don’t come back to tell the tale.”

  “Let’s leave that for a moment, then,” Stone said. “Do these—Evil—have any powers? Do they have abilities like the Forgotten’s, or like a mage’s? Or is their power simply derived from the person they choose to possess? For example, if they possess a gang member then they would acquire his strength, his knowledge of the streets, and so forth, while if one possessed a police chief, its power would be largely in the chief’s influence and his ability to direct the actions of numerous other people.”

  Lamar thought about that for a couple of minutes, staring off into nothingness in a way that reminded Jason of Stone in one of his contemplative moods. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them exhibiting any abilities beyond what they get from possessing someone,” he said at last.

  “Unless they possess a mage,” Jason reminded them. “And we know they can do that.”

  “We know they’ve done that once,” Stone corrected. “As I told you before, I doubt there are many mages who would allow it.”

  “And like I said, maybe they don’t have a choice,” Jason said. “And anyway, it’
s not once—it’s at least three times. That we know of.”

  Stone raised an eyebrow. “Three?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you remember the DMW ganger who torched that kid to kill Charles? And the one who said he talked to your spirit thing? You said that there were a few minor talents in DMW.”

  “I did, but there’s no proof that the ganger was possessed—or even that the majority of DMW are possessed.” He gave Lamar a questioning look.

  “We don’t think they are,” Lamar confirmed. “I wasn’t aware that there were mages in the gang—if there are, there aren’t many. But if there were enough Evil around to possess every member of the DMW along with all the others we’ve encountered—” he shuddered. “I doubt any of the Forgotten would still be alive.”

  Marilee came over with Lissy, who was humming to herself. “Mind if we join you?” the old lady asked. When Lamar waved her to a seat, both of them settled down next to the tree.

  Stone nodded politely to them, but kept going. “Which brings up another question—do they reproduce?”

  Marilee’s eyes widened. “The Evil?”

  “Dr. Stone has many questions about the Evil,” Lamar told her. “I’m trying to answer them as best I can.” To Stone he said, “That’s another question we don’t know anything about. Given that they essentially showed up a few years back, we have no idea where they came from, or whether more are able to come from that place. Nor do we have any idea if they’re reproducing.”

  Stone nodded. “It rather makes sense that they do—as sinister as they are, from what I understand they operate like any other living entity: they seek out sustenance and they seek to further their own agenda. It only makes sense that they have some way to reproduce, even if it’s simply to split themselves in two.”