by R. L. King
Harrison shook his head. “Portal,” he whispered. His voice had nearly no volume behind it. “Let me—”
“Let you what?” Stone glanced back over his shoulder at the portal.
He reached feebly for the crystal in Stone’s hands. “Let me—do that.” Struggling for breath, he was seized with a fit of coughing and nearly fell over again. Fresh blood welled up at his lips.
Verity took hold of his other shoulder and tried to lower him to the floor. “Let us heal you some more. We—”
“No—time,” he whispered. “Quickly—” He reached for the crystal again.
“You can’t even stand up,” Stone protested. “How can you—”
In answer, Harrison gathered himself. Stone and Verity, each with a hand on one of his shoulders, felt him stiffen with the effort of will it took him to stagger back to his feet again. He stood there, swaying, and fixed Stone with a fair imitation of his laserlike stare, rendered a bit less effective by the fact that his eyes were glazed and darkened with pain. “Give me the crystal—and tell me what I need to do…”
“No,” Stone said. “I won’t do it. It’s suicide. You don’t know—”
“Already…dying,” he whispered. “Do it now…while I still can. No point…killing yourself.”
Stone looked at Jason. He looked at Verity. “Damn it,” he whispered. “I can’t—”
Harrison reached out and put his pale hand on the crystal. “Stone—”
“I can’t let you do it!” Stone said, his voice shaking.
Jason and Verity stood silently by, horrified, unable or unwilling to contribute to the decision.
“Stone,” Harrison said again. His voice was strengthless, but still commanding. “Tell me. Now. I can’t—” He swayed again, and Jason steadied him.
Stone looked like he would scream, or sob, or simply shut down. He stared down at his own hand and Harrison’s on the crystal for several seconds and then sighed. “All right, damn you. All right. I’ll go in with you. We can—”
“No...” Harrison shook his head. “No point. I can do it…”
Stone let go of the crystal, and Harrison nearly dropped it. He steadied it again, wrapping the other man’s fingers around it. “You—you have to go through. Can you still manage one of those amazing shields of yours?”
Harrison nodded.
“All right, then. You have to go through, and—” He took Harrison’s arm, motioning for Jason to support him on the other side. Together, they began half-leading, half-carrying him toward the portal.
As they went, Stone explained what he had to do, and how he would have to place the crystal. “Once it’s placed, and you see the beam form and shoot back outside the portal—get out if you can. You—” He stopped in mid-sentence, freezing in his tracks as well.
“Al?” Jason stared at him. He’d suddenly gone rigid, his eyes widening so much that Jason could see the whites around them. “Al, what is it?”
“I’m a damned fool!” Stone yelled. He gripped Harrison’s shoulders. “We can do this! We can do it safely! The portal won’t blow!”
“What the hell?” Jason demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Stone didn’t answer right away. He ran over to the pile of leftover magical supplies, snatched another crystal and brought it back over. He took the one Harrison held. “Just—all of you be quiet for a minute.”
Verity, looking confused and frightened, switched her gaze back and forth between them and the portal. “Uh—you’d better hurry, Dr. Stone. That portal’s not looking good.”
She was right. While they’d been talking, the colors had shifted, taking on the more unhealthy hues of its former West Virginia counterpart.
“Hush!” Stone ordered. He appeared to be concentrating hard on the two crystals in his hands, which began to glow with a faint light.
Jason waited, gripping Harrison’s arm to hold him up. He could feel the man shaking; he didn’t think he’d be able to stay upright much longer, even with help.
Stone’s gaze snapped up. He pressed one of the crystals into Harrison’s hand. “We can do this!” he said, triumphant. “I didn’t even consider trying it with two fully trained mages, but if I’m remembering some of the formulae in the notebooks correctly, it should work. If you go in and I stay out, we can create a conduit that will let me pump energy into the portal’s structure in a controlled manner and shut it down safely.”
Verity stared at him. “Will he…be able to get out?” she asked, nodding at Harrison. “Before it shuts down, I mean.”
But Harrison had caught on to where Stone was going. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “But—we knew that.” He took a slow, uneven breath and winced, fixing his gaze on Stone. “Are you ready?”
Stone met his eyes. “Ready.” Some unspoken communication passed between them; he gripped Harrison’s shoulder and then stepped back.
For a moment, Jason thought Harrison would either drop the crystal or fall down himself, but he did neither. He turned away, drew himself to his full height, and moved toward the portal. A shield flared up around him just as he contacted it, and then he was through.
Stone vaulted over to the circle, stepping carefully into the center. “Jason, get over here.” He was all business now. “But for God’s sake, don’t smudge anything.”
Jason did so, moving to stand in the open center of the circle next to Stone. “Now what?”
“Just feed me power, and whatever you do, don’t stop. This will take a phenomenal amount of control.” He raised the crystal and waited. “It’s all on you now, Harrison,” he murmured. “I hope you know your own limitations, my friend—”
Suddenly, a white beam spiked out of the portal, just as it had back in West Virginia. It crossed the circle, lighting up all the crystals as it went, finally contacting the crystal Stone held. More beams went out in all directions, joining the elements of the circle.
“There we go...” Stone said, his voice tight and strained. His arms shook as he continued to hold up the crystal. “Hold it there, Harrison...Jason, keep the power coming...”
From off to the side came a new voice: “NO! You can’t do this!” A figure staggered toward Verity, who stood to the side of the circle.
Jason, unable to stop himself, glanced over and saw that Tarkasian had awakened and was moving toward her.
“JASON! Focus, damn you!” Stone barked. Sweat ran down his face in rivulets now, his arms shaking so hard he could barely hold on to the crystal. The beams of light danced around them, growing brighter and more intense until it almost hurt to look at them.
Jason clamped his eyes shut and forced himself to focus on Stone, on giving him power. He hated himself for it, but there had been so many sacrifices already—this was bigger even than Verity. Bigger than the person he loved more than anyone else on Earth. She’d have to take care of herself this time. He hoped to God she could do it.
And then a bright light flared, so bright that he could see it even through his closed eyelids. Someone—he couldn’t tell who—screamed. He forced his eyes open as several things happened simultaneously:
The white beams winked out. Stone collapsed. Tarkasian went down, a gray cloud escaping his body. Verity fell.
But as consciousness left him and he felt himself falling too, the last thing Jason saw with perfect clarity was the empty framework on the stage—the framework that had only a moment ago housed the last doorway through which the Evil could reach Earth.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The next few hours passed in a blur of frenetic activity. Jason thought back over it as he drove Stone’s black BMW across the desert toward California. He was still amazed that they’d managed it as well as they had, all things considered.
When he’d awakened, Stone and Verity had already been up, looking none the worse for wear other than being covered in dried blood, cleaning up the remains of the magic circle and stowing the spent crystals and candles in backpacks, with the help of a quiet and downcast
Nakamura. The children, the chaperones, and Tarkasian remained unconscious; Stone admitted that he’d “helped” them stay that way with a little judicious magic.
They’d found Nakamura where they’d left him, tied up in the hallway. He’d been awake and racked with guilt both about what he’d done and that he’d managed to be possessed in the first place; he said it happened right after Harrison had lain waste to the guards up top, so Stone surmised that one of the escaping Evil had managed to hold on long enough find a new home before it dissipated. They hadn’t let Nakamura have his gun back, but they’d untied him and let him help clean up the scene.
Harrison had not returned; they hadn’t expected him to, of course. The portal was gone, and without it he had no way back. When Nakamura found out what had happened, he had accepted the information stoically, his profound disturbance was clear to all of them. The sight of Harrison’s blood staining their clothes seemed to cause him particular distress, and he tried hard not to look at it.
They had spent several minutes discussing the best way to remove themselves from the situation without arousing suspicion. The kids had not seen any of them, but the teachers and the bus driver had—not only had they seen their faces, but they’d also seen them perform all sorts of magic. And then there was the matter of Tarkasian, whom they couldn’t simply leave behind. Even if he wasn’t possessed anymore, he was still a mage and they didn’t know where his loyalties lay. Especially with Tammy’s dead body cooling on the far side of the hangar.
Finally they’d decided to take Tarkasian with them, along with Tammy’s body. They would drop the latter up top where the police would discover it but perhaps the children wouldn’t have to see it on their way out. The bus was still there, and the bus driver still had its keys, so their transportation out was set. They were concerned that they themselves didn’t have transportation, since Harrison had sent the helicopter away and the plan had been to call it back when they were finished—they didn’t think it would be the best idea for the chopper pilot to see them looking like refugees from an abattoir, especially without Harrison. They couldn’t even use their image generators: something in the blast of magical energy that had emanated from the portal when it died had also burned out all their magical devices, including all of Stone’s various power items and Verity’s bird amulet.
Fortunately, after a bit of searching they’d discovered that the survivalists had two Jeeps parked on the far side of the deserted base. They’d loaded one up and hoped Stone’s disregarding spell would be enough to get them past any suspicious eyes long enough to reach the Obsidian.
It was. Nakamura had directed them down into the private garage where they’d first arrived what seemed like an eternity ago. He put them in an elevator up to their suite, promising to take charge of Tarkasian.
In their suite, they burned their bloody clothes in the fireplace, took quick showers, and had all of their gear gathered up and ready to go in thirty minutes. Nakamura met them down in the garage with the BMW, and saw them off with the news that Tarkasian seemed genuinely contrite about what had happened, sad about the loss of Tammy, but sadder still that he’d allowed himself to be talked into being possessed. Nakamura said he’d arrange to have someone keep an eye on the magician to make sure he didn’t do anything unexpected, and that he’d also arrange to have someone “persuasive” visit the teachers and bus driver and make them a generous offer to keep their mouths shut about what had really happened out there. Jason was dubious, but given the means Harrison had had at his disposal, if Nakamura had a fraction of the same access, things should be fine.
So here they were, three hours later, out in the middle of the open desert driving at a smooth eighty-five miles per hour on a road where they’d only seen one other car in the last half-hour. Jason glanced in the rear view mirror at Verity, who’d fallen asleep in the back, then at Stone, slumped into his seat and staring moodily out the window. The mage hadn’t said more than a few words since they’d left Vegas.
“Al?”
“Mm?” He didn’t change position.
“You okay?”
Stone made a little sarcastic sound that might have been a laugh. “Define ‘okay.’”
Jason shrugged. “Well—we made it. We’re out, we did what we came to do, and you didn’t have to sacrifice yourself or your sanity to the portal gods.”
“Brilliant.”
Silence for a few seconds. “You don’t think he’s gonna get out of that, do you?”
Stone glanced at him, then back at the window. “I told you, Jason—if you’re inside a portal when it dies, you don’t get back out.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah...” He took a deep breath. “So what now?”
“We go on,” Stone said with a shrug. “This doesn’t end it, not yet. There are still Evil out there—including quite a few of the big ones. And remember what Lamar and Marilee said? They think they can reproduce.”
Jason shivered. That was something he didn’t want to contemplate right now, out here under the stars. “What do you want to do, go after them all?”
Stone shook his head. “Right now, all I want to do is get back home to my own bed. Back to my pleasantly ordinary life teaching university students about the occult so they can write dreadful horror novels and seduce women with too many cats.”
Jason grinned. “Yeah, I could do with a little ordinary for a while. You think they’re gonna leave us alone, now that their portals are gone?”
“No way to know. I hope so. I suspect they’ll have more on their plate for a while than worrying about us. We’ve dried up their recruiting pool, which means they’ll have to advance whatever plans they have with whatever they’ve got left. I expect that will mean quite a lot of scaling back of expectations and consolidating power bases. All of which takes time.”
“And all of which means they probably won’t have time to mess with us—especially since they know we’re dangerous. Especially V. Maybe they figure if they don’t mess with us, we won’t go looking for them.”
“Wishful thinking, indeed,” Stone said, sighing. “But I do hope you’re right. I’ll keep the wards up on our places and we’ll have to stay vigilant, but I think we can rest for a while.”
Jason glanced back again. “I’m amazed she can sleep. My mind’s running so fast I feel like I won’t sleep for a week.”
“We’ll see about that,” Stone said, chuckling. “Personally, I think I’ll sleep better than I have in months.”
“Until they decide to come after us again,” Jason muttered.
Stone raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Jason: ever the optimist.”
EPILOGUE ONE
Two Months Later
Despite their concern that their exploits in Las Vegas would come back to haunt them, Stone, Jason, and Verity discovered, to their pleasant surprise, that life returned to normal with astonishing speed.
They arrived back in the Bay Area to find their homes as they had left them, Madame Huan alive and un-possessed, their Forgotten friends doing as well as could be expected, and their various jobs and activities waiting for their return. Jason watched the Las Vegas paper for the next few days to see how the story ended: all that made print was a splashy front-page article about the children being kidnapped by a band of renegade survivalists bent on collecting a ransom from their parents, only to be thwarted by the brave actions of the bus driver and three teacher-chaperones who were being honored as heroes (one posthumously). The story was quite light on details as to how this had been accomplished, but nobody was asking too many questions.
Tarkasian and Tammy were not even mentioned, nor was anyone else present.
One pleasant evening in early May, while Jason and Verity visited Stone for dinner, there was a knock on the door.
“Get that, Jason, will you?” Stone called from the kitchen. Jason put down the silverware he was placing and headed to the door, figuring it was a neighbor who’d come by for some reason.
&nbs
p; It wasn’t a neighbor, though. It was a deliveryman. Consulting a clipboard, he eyed Jason. “Are you Alastair Stone?”
“Uh, no. Hang on a sec.” Jason frowned. Deliverymen didn’t usually come this late. “Al?” he called over his shoulder. “Somebody here for you!” Then, back to the guy: “Little late for deliveries, isn’t it?”
The man pointed at the logo on his shirt. “Private courier. Instructions are to deliver this to nobody but Alastair Stone.”
Stone came up behind Jason, drying his hands on a dish towel. “I’m Stone. What have you got there?”
The man reached into a bag slung over his shoulder; Stone and Jason both stiffened, but he only withdrew a slim, rectangular package. “Sign here, please,” he said, offering the clipboard and pointing to a spot on his form. “And I’ll need to see some ID.”
Stone, eyebrow raised, showed the man his driver’s license and scrawled his signature on the indicated line.
“Who’s that from?” Verity asked as Stone and Jason came back into the kitchen.
Stone shrugged. “No idea.” He looked the package over with a critical eye. “No return address, postmark, or anything.” Setting it down on a nearby table, he slit it open with care, his curiosity piqued now. Eyebrow raised, he withdrew a fine notebook bound in featureless black leather.
“A notebook?” Jason asked, confused. “That’s it?”
Stone didn’t reply. He flipped it open; the pages were filled with handwritten notes and what appeared to be mathematical formulas, scrawled in black ink in a bold hand that looked like its author was making a valiant effort to be legible, but not succeeding very well. On the top of the first page, and obviously in the same hand, was a date: two days ago.
“Wow,” Verity said, looking over Stone’s shoulder. “Whoever wrote this, they make Daphne’s notebooks look like they were typed.”
Stone still didn’t answer. He flipped through a few more pages. Not many had writing on them: perhaps twenty or so. He stared at them in silence for a long time, flipping back and forth between them in seemingly random order. Then, suddenly, he sagged in his chair, his face going pale. The notebook slipped from his hands and hit the table, rattling the wineglasses.