by R. L. King
Stone opened his eyes. He already looked better, like maybe whatever had been wrong with him had mostly just been the strange exhaustion he got when he overtaxed his magical abilities. “Is Stefan all right?”
“That guy I called is taking care of him,” he said. He raised his voice a little, addressing the man. “You need any help getting him back to the house?”
The man shook his head. “Thank you, no. I can handle things from here.”
Jason nodded and turned back to face Stone. “So—?”
“Can you give me a ride home? I don’t think I can drive right now, and I’d rather not stay here. I’ll take a cab back tomorrow to pick up my car.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine. But don’t think you’re getting away without an explanation, Al. You don’t just drag me out of bed at fucking midnight to rescue your ass from whatever dumbass magical crap you and your buddy got up to, and not even tell me what’s going on.”
Stone didn’t even protest being yelled at, which told Jason a lot about how he felt. “I promise,” he said. “Tomorrow, though. Please.”
“Tomorrow. Right.” He packed up his first-aid gear in his bag, threw it back over his shoulder, and got up. “Can you walk, or am I gonna have to carry you to the car?”
Stone glared at him (which he thought was a good sign: the mage was getting his orneriness back, so he must be feeling better) and, with the help of the wall, managed to struggle to his feet. Jason eyed him critically. “Well, you still look like a mobile murder scene, but as long as the cops don’t stop us, we should be okay. Let’s go.”
Jason drove in silence for most of the way back. Stone sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, leaning against the cool glass of the window. When they’d made it almost to Stone’s townhouse, he roused himself sufficiently to murmur, “Thank you, Jason.”
Jason grunted.
“I know. You’re not terribly pleased with me right now. I understand. But I do appreciate it.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, it’s okay. You’re still not getting out of the explanation, though.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” He waved. “Pull into the garage and let me out. I’ll be fine.”
“You gonna make it up the stairs without breaking your neck?”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “Not a chance. It’s the sofa for me tonight.”
Jason kind of thought the mage deserved that, but he still got out and helped him into the house. He was about to turn away and leave when he remembered something. “Oh, hey, while you’re here, I almost forgot—I was gonna call you tomorrow and tell you something.”
“Mm?” Stone was already half asleep, stretched out on the sofa.
“Remember that guy Adam Darden who disappeared in LA a few weeks ago?”
Stone’s eyes cracked open with obvious reluctance. “Yes…?”
“I heard back from one of my cop friends. They checked his credit card transactions, and he’d bought a ticket for Disneyland on the same day the German guy and his kid vanished from there.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stone would have slept a lot longer if his phone hadn’t rung. He didn’t want to wake up, and in fact struggled mightily against it, to the point that by the time he was aware enough to realize that the phone was ringing, it wasn’t ringing anymore. He heard the low buzz of a male voice leaving a message, but couldn’t make it out enough to recognize it. It did seem to be talking for a long time, though.
He thought he should probably listen to the message in case it was something important.
He’d do that.
Eventually.
He sat up a little, looking down at himself and trying to remember how the hell he’d ended up on his downstairs couch. He still wore his white dress shirt, which was stuck to his chest with a large patch of dried blood. His left hand hurt, and the whole lower part of his face felt oddly tight. What had he been doing?
It came back, albeit more slowly than it should have. He remembered the ritual at Kolinsky’s place, and how it had gone awry; he remembered that he’d done something to get rid of the spirit, but Kolinsky had been injured. He thought he remembered calling Jason, which was probably how he’d gotten home. He hoped so, anyway. The thought that he might have driven himself home wasn’t something he wanted to think too hard about.
He dragged himself off the couch, lurched to his feet, and headed to the downstairs bathroom. “Well,” he said as he got a look at his reflection, “You are a mess, aren’t you?”
He still looked pale, and his eyes were still sunken. His hair looked like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Most of his stubble-spiked lower face was caked with dried blood, the majority of which had obviously originated from his nose. That meant he’d been pushing some heavy-duty magic around. Exceeding-his-abilities-level heavy. His head still pounded like the world’s worst hangover.
He stripped off the bloody shirt and examined himself for other wounds or injuries: aside from a nasty slash on his left palm, he found nothing. That was one bit of good news, anyway. Too bad it was way too late to heal up the slash—normally that kind of healing had to happen within an hour or so after the injury to get the best effect. Instead, he opened the medicine cabinet, found some gauze, and wound it around his palm, securing it with medical tape. Verity had insisted he keep basic first-aid supplies on hand, given how often he injured himself doing magic; he’d have to remember to thank her for being so pushy.
He paused, pummeling his groggy brain into gear. There were things he needed to remember.
Ah, yes. Phone.
He trudged out to the kitchen carrying his shirt (he’d need to burn that—it was never a good idea for mages to leave large quantities of blood lying around) and spotted the red light flashing on his phone. Double flash: two messages. He hit the button and stumped to the refrigerator, trying to decide whether he felt more queasy or more ravenous. Ravenous won: he found some orange juice, checked to make sure it wasn’t expired (he’d have to find a new housekeeper soon), then poured a glass as he listened.
The first message was Jason, and was timestamped earlier the previous evening, before the summoning. “Al? You there? Call me back when you get a chance—found something out I wanted to tell you.”
Stone wondered what that was, and supposed he should call Jason back. He had a vague memory of his friend telling him something about a credit card as he drifted off, but the rest of it stubbornly refused to step up.
In a moment all of that was forgotten, though: the next voice was a familiar one he hadn’t heard in quite some time. “Dr. Stone? This is Aubrey, back home. I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but—something’s happened, and I thought you should know. Someone’s tried to break into the house. I don’t think they took anything, but the police have been ’round. Please call me when you get a chance, but there’s no need to worry.”
The machine went silent, and Stone stared at it for several seconds, orange juice ignored. “Bloody hell…” he whispered.
Why did everything have to get interesting at once?
He snatched up the phone again, doing the mental time-zone calculation without conscious effort. If it was a little after ten here, it would be after six back home. He punched in the familiar number and waited as it rang.
“Good evening. Stone residence,” came the same voice he’d just heard on the machine a couple of minutes ago.
“Aubrey. It’s me. What’s happened?”
The man sounded relieved. “Oh, sir, I was hoping you’d call. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“What’s happened?” he asked again. “You said there was a break-in—” That was bad. A break-in shouldn’t have been possible at his home in England. The place had major permanent wards around it, the kind that had been carefully planned and cultivated to coexist with the local ley lines for so long that they no longer needed to be refreshed. It would take someone with significant magical punch to get past them.
“Yes, sir. At least—I think there was. You weren’t a
t the house last night, were you?”
“No. Why? What did you see?”
“I thought I saw a light moving around inside the house, but I can’t be sure. It was gone by the time I got there. The police aren’t convinced it was anything to be concerned about.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“As I said, it didn’t appear that anything was disturbed, or missing.”
Stone frowned. “Then what makes you think—”
“Because the police couldn’t look everywhere, sir,” Aubrey said patiently. “Nor can I. But I thought you might want to check for yourself.”
Good old Aubrey. He’d been the caretaker of the house back in England since Stone’s father’s day, and there wasn’t another person on Earth Stone trusted more. If Aubrey said something might be up, then something might be up. “Thank you for calling, Aubrey. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Later today. Don’t wait up for me—it will likely be quite late your time. But if you could air out my room a bit, I’d appreciate it. Might need to stay overnight.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “Are you all right, sir? You sound—if you’ll forgive me—a bit odd.”
“Long night,” Stone said. “I’ll see you soon. And be careful. If you see anything out of the ordinary, stay well away from it. Understood?”
“Of course, sir. As always.”
Stone smiled. Aubrey was a wily old goat, and he knew what he could and couldn’t handle. Including magic.
In that respect, Stone decided, he was a fair bit wiser than his employer.
When he pulled into the parking lot of A Passage to India later that day, he looked considerably more like himself and less like a refugee from a slasher film. A shower and shave had done wonders for his attitude, and what was probably too many Advil had taken care of his headache and most of the pain in his hand.
He’d packed an overnight bag and taken a cab to Kolinsky’s home to pick up his car, then checked his store, but found no one at either. Figuring he’d talk to the black mage when he got back, he set off for Sunnyvale.
With all the details he had on his mind, he’d forgotten an important one: who worked at A Passage to India. “Hey Al,” Jason called, surprised, when the mage came in carrying his bag. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Stone stopped. This was awkward. He hadn’t planned to tell anyone where he was going: it was safer that way. “Jason. How are you?”
The dining room was almost deserted: the lunch rush had passed and a couple of hours remained before the dinner crowd showed up. “I should be asking you that,” Jason said, looking him up and down. “I guess you didn’t manage to fall down the stairs after all.” His gaze dropped to Stone’s hand and he sighed, frustrated. “Al, you’re kind of an idiot sometimes. You know that?”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Come on,” he ordered, making a head gesture toward the back of the restaurant.
“Where?”
“Someplace I can take a look at that hand. What did you do, just wrap something around it and forget about it?”
He frowned. “It’s fine.”
“Al…”
Stone knew better than to argue with that tone, so he followed Jason back into the break room. Jason waved him toward a chair, then disappeared and returned a couple minutes later with a first-aid kit.
“I knew I should’ve cleaned this for you before I left last night,” he grumbled, carefully cutting away the gauze. “Should’ve known you’d just ignore it.” He worked quickly and efficiently, cleaning the wound as he spoke.
“Ouch,” Stone protested, wincing and trying to pull it back. “Jason, stop it. It’s fine.”
Jason kept hold. “Shut up and hold still. What are you doing here, anyway?” He glanced at the bag, which was on the floor next to the mage, and his eyes narrowed. “You going somewhere?”
Stone didn’t see any point in denying it. “Back home for a bit.”
“Not before you tell me what the hell that was all about last night.” Jason finished cleaning the wound and began rewrapping it with fresh gauze. “So if you’ve got a bus to catch or something, you better start talking fast.”
Stone rose. “Jason. I promise: I’ll tell you. But I don’t have time for it right now. I need to get home and see to some things.”
“What things?” Jason’s stare was hard. “Yeah, I know it’s none of my business. I don’t give a damn. Either you tell me what’s so important, or you sit your ass down there and tell me about last night. You owe me one or the other. Actually, both. But right now I’ll settle for either one.”
He sank back down, deflating. “Fine. I have to go home because Aubrey called me. I think someone’s broken into my house—into a part of it that they shouldn’t even be able to find, let alone get into. And if that’s true, I need to know if they’ve taken anything.”
“Your house? The big one in England?”
Stone nodded.
Jason blew air through his teeth. “Any idea why?”
“No, and that’s what disturbs me. It’s almost certainly one or more magically talented thieves. I can’t take a guess as to why they did it without knowing what, if anything, they took.”
Jason thought about that. “Okay. How about I come with you? I’m guessing you’re not up to 100% yet after whatever the hell that was last night. If anything’s up, you might need backup.”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “I thought you hated the portals.”
“I do. But maybe being an idiot’s contagious.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Passage to India, aside from being a moderately popular Indian restaurant that mostly catered to the midday crowd from the various office parks around the Sunnyvale area, was also home to the only permanent magical teleportation portal in northern California. The restaurant’s current owner, a tall and rather horsey woman named Marta, was the partner and longtime girlfriend of the late former owner, a mage acquaintance of Stone’s. Marta was not a mage herself, but she was familiar with their society and had agreed to continue running the restaurant despite the loss of her partner. The fact that she made a success of it was simply a happy afterthought: the other mages who made regular use of the portal in the basement contributed enough to the restaurant’s upkeep that it could have closed its doors permanently and still broken even.
Marta had arranged for Jason to work for her last year: he needed a job that could adapt to his odd hours and frequent unexpected absences, and the fact that she understood mages and the way they operated made it an ideal situation for him. In the past few months he’d worked his way up from busboy and waiter to assistant manager; Marta didn’t technically need an assistant manager, but having him there allowed her to take time off to pursue her own interests. It worked well for both of them.
Stone waited downstairs as Jason arranged with Marta to take off the afternoon and possibly the next day as well. He leaned against the wall, staring into the shifting, pastel-rainbow patterns of the freestanding portal. He’d already finished calibrating it so it would point at the proper location—the only thing left to do now was to step inside. As he waited, he allowed himself to relax for a few moments, searching his brain for anyone who might want to break into his home. He got no answer.
Maybe Aubrey was wrong after all. It didn’t happen often, but it was possible. Maybe the old man had just seen something odd and misinterpreted it. He hoped so, because the idea that someone could have gotten through his wards, found his hidden sanctum, and gotten out nearly undetected disturbed him more than he cared to admit.
“Ready,” Jason said, coming in. “Let’s get this over with, yeah?”
“Are you sure about this? You remember what happened last time.”
“Yeah. I won’t freak out this time. Besides, you said the Evil aren’t hanging around up there much anymore.”
That was true. Mages used an odd extradimensional space they called “the Overworld” to travel from place to place via specially prepared magi
cal portals. The Evil, up until recently, used a pair of unstable portals of their own that connected with their home plane to bring more of their kind into the material world. When those two portals had been destroyed (thanks largely to the efforts of Stone and his associates), the Evil no longer had much reason to hang around in the Overworld and ambush any unwitting mages who couldn’t keep their emotions under control while making the trip. Most of them had fled back through the dying portals and returned to their own home dimension, and those that remained existed in a sort of limbo state. They still attacked travelers, but there were so many routes in the Overworld between the various gateways and so relatively few mages using the pathways at any given time that the odds of them scoring a snack were not good. It wasn’t like the old days, when entering the Overworld with anything less than a completely serene and untroubled mind was likely to get you swarmed by a herd of hungry, disembodied Evil. The Overworld still had other dangers, and it was still a bad idea to enter it in an agitated state, but the Evil no longer represented the threat they used to be.
“All right, then,” Stone said. “Let’s do it.”
Together, they stepped through the portal.
Stone looked around for anything out of the ordinary, but saw nothing. The Overworld looked like it always did: gray, foggy, indistinct, like a long tunnel through a series of clouds. The only difference was the lack of the flitting, darker gray shapes that used to cruise the area like sharks looking for fresh meat. Right now, nothing moved but Stone and Jason.
That didn’t change. The trip took perhaps five minutes of walking steadily through the weird cloudy landscape, their footfalls muffled and dead. It was a distinctly unsettling place; Stone felt Jason’s hand tighten on his shoulder as they moved forward, but neither of them spoke. After a time another opening appeared in front of them. They approached it and stepped through.