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

by R. L. King

  “Wow,” Jason said. “That was easier than I expected.”

  Stone summoned a light spell. They stood in a small room with no windows, a wooden table, a couple of chairs, and a bookcase. Stone led Jason up and out through the large mausoleum concealing the portal’s entrance, and up through the graveyard toward the house. “I’m hoping we won’t have to stay long,” Stone said. “If everything’s all right and nothing’s missing, we can head back in an hour or so.”

  “So is this someplace inside your house?” Jason asked. “Like a hidden vault or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  They reached the house. Aubrey came out of the kitchen and greeted them: “Good to see you, sir. May I get you gentlemen something to eat?”

  “No, thank you, Aubrey. We’re in a bit of a hurry. Anything new since we spoke?” Stone asked.

  “No, sir. The police were ’round yesterday as I said, but they didn’t find any sign of a break-in.”

  “Good. We shouldn’t be here long, then.” Stone thanked Aubrey, and then led Jason down a long hallway into a disused corridor. A stairway led to a large finished basement full of covered furniture and other items that looked like they might date back at least a couple of centuries.

  Jason looked around, pushing cobwebs out of his face. “Don’t you guys ever clean down here?”

  “It’s supposed to be hidden,” Stone said, shoving past a pile of old chairs. “Difficult to do if it looks like it gets a regular tidying-up.” He moved to the end of a row and gestured at an enormous, dusty hanging tapestry. It shifted aside to reveal a blank expanse of wall. Stone paused a moment, examining it, and then gestured again.

  The entire wall faded from view, revealing a heavy trap door set into the floor. One more gesture and a few muttered words from Stone, and it swung open. Beneath was a stone staircase leading down.

  Jason rolled his eyes. “I should have known. It’s a basement in a basement. The ultimate spellcasting space.”

  “This is just the library,” Stone said. “The ritual room is elsewhere.” He set off down the stairs. Jason, realizing that he had the only light source, quickly followed him.

  At the foot of the stairs was a normal doorway, and beyond that a single large room. Bookshelves stretching up at least fifteen feet lined the walls, all stuffed with books. A wheeled ladder rested against one of the shelves. In the middle of the room stood a carved table of dark wood, also piled high with books and papers.

  Stone switched on a lamp on the desk and began moving among the shelves, examining the books. Then he paused, closed his eyes, and began slowly turning in place. This went on for almost a full minute.

  “Uh—what are you doing?” Jason asked when he finally stopped.

  “Checking.” Stone went to one of the shelves, glanced up, and then levitated himself until his head brushed the high ceiling. He reached out and shoved a group of books aside. “Aha,” he said.

  “Aha what?”

  “That’s where they’ve done it,” he said, floating over to examine a different area. He did this three more times, moving up and down as if standing on an invisible platform. “They tried to make it look like nothing was missing, but I know too well where things are in here.”

  “So they did take something?”

  “Several somethings, in fact.” He moved over to the table, picked up a pen, and began jotting notes on a normal, non-magical legal pad that looked out of place here.

  “Anything interesting?” Jason craned his neck around to look at the rest of the shelves, trying to spot any other places where it looked like something might have been removed. He couldn’t see any.

  “Everything in here is interesting,” Stone said with a raised eyebrow. “It wouldn’t be here if it weren’t. But,” he added as Jason started to protest, “I’d describe what’s missing as ‘eclectic.’”

  “How so?”

  Stone shrugged. “They’ve taken volumes on circle-casting, the history of magic in the seventeenth century, wards, faith-based magic, summoning, and methods for producing magical weapons. And that’s only one of the baffling factors here.”

  “What are the others?”

  Stone tossed the pen down and moved over to one of the shelves on the left side of the room. He levitated up about halfway, removed a large book with a red leather binding, and floated back down. “This, for instance.”

  Jason frowned at it. It didn’t look too different from any of the other large, leatherbound books on various shelves. “Why that?”

  “Because it’s worth a fortune,” he said, putting it carefully down on the table. “And anyone who’s sufficiently skilled to get in and out of here without leaving a trace should know it.”

  He lifted off again and returned with another book, this one smaller and ancient-looking. “And this one: it’s one of the prizes of my collection. I fully expected it to be gone when I heard someone had gotten in. It’s over six hundred years old, and it’s the only known copy in existence.”

  “And you just keep it out in the air on a musty old shelf? Don’t old books need some kind of special handling to keep them from falling apart?”

  “In the mundane world, yes,” Stone said, nodding in approval. “But mages have our own ways to preserve books, as we need them to remain useful as well as decorative. Some of the most potent magic found in books is in the old ones. What good is having them if you can’t study them?”

  Jason nodded. “Okay. So what you’re saying is that somebody did get in here, even though they shouldn’t have been able to. They tried to make it look like they didn’t. They took stuff that doesn’t make sense, and left things that thieves should have been wetting themselves over. And you have no idea why.”

  “That’s about it,” Stone admitted. He picked up the two books he’d brought down and returned them to their spots. “Guess I’d best see to augmenting the wards around this room, in case they decide to come back. If they do, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise.”

  “You’re gonna kill somebody over books?” Jason gave him a hard look.

  Stone’s expression was equally hard as he hovered in the air. “No. I’m going to kill them because they shouldn’t be in my home without my permission. And this is hardly the sort of place even your typical mundane burglar would ever be able to find. If someone tries breaking into the main house to nick the silver, they’ll be fine.” He gave a cold little smile. “Well, Aubrey might shoot them, of course. But they’ll have nothing to worry about from my wards.”

  Jason just couldn’t let that go. Not with his background as a cop’s son. “But—”

  “But nothing, Jason.” Stone dropped down next to the table and gestured around at the shelves. “Some of this stuff is dangerous. I’m talking the magical equivalent of instructions for how to build a backyard nuclear weapon. Very little of it, true, and the thieves didn’t take any of that variety. But if I’m going to have this stuff, I have an obligation to keep it out of the wrong hands. Anyone who can get in here knows what they’re doing, and knows what they’re risking.”

  He beckoned Jason toward the door. “Come on. I have one more place to check, and then I’ll show you where you’re sleeping. I still have work to do tonight.”

  “So we’re staying the night, then?” Jason asked.

  “Yes. I want to have a chat with a couple of friends, and it’s too late to bother them now.”

  The next morning Stone knocked on Jason’s door early. “Coming?” he asked. “We’ve a lot to do today.” He looked wide awake and energized; whatever he’d been doing the previous night must have been good for him.

  “Great,” Jason muttered. He’d slept badly, and not only because his internal clock had been eight hours behind England’s time zone.

  They had a quick breakfast, since Aubrey wasn’t up yet, and headed out in a little black roadster Stone kept in the large, detached garage. “Where are we going?” Jason asked. “Where are we, exactly, by the way? I don’t think you ever t
old me where you come from.” He turned around in his seat to get a glimpse of the house in the light; he’d only ever seen it in the middle of the night. It was every bit as huge, fortress-like, and badly in need of repair as Stone had said it was.

  “Where we’re going is the train station, where we’ll catch a train into London. Where we are is a little village called Holmbury St. Mary—or rather, just outside it. It’s about an hour out of London.” He paused a moment. “Jason—I have a vague memory of you saying something to me the night before last when you took me home. Something about a credit card. Was I dreaming?”

  Jason turned to face front as the car exited the gates and started down a narrow, tree-lined lane. “No, I did say that. I found out the guy who disappeared from L.A., Adam Darden, bought a ticket to Disneyland for the same day the German guy and his kid disappeared.”

  Stone glanced over, eyes wide, expression serious. “Did he?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what it means. Might not mean anything. But it does seem weird. You think the two were connected?”

  “No idea. But it does seem like quite a coincidence, doesn’t it? Did you find out anything else about Mr. Darden that might make him interesting?”

  “Not really. He’s a college student and works part time at a retail store. Lived at home.”

  “Well,” Stone said after a pause, “I’ll file it away, but for now I can’t see anything to pursue. When we get back I’ll see about looking into it.”

  “Yeah—like I said, it’s probably a dead end. I’ll check more when I get back, though, too, just to be sure.”

  They caught the train into London. It was late enough in the morning that they’d missed most of the commuter crowd, so they had their end of a car to themselves. “Ever been to London, Jason?” Stone asked.

  “I’ve never been out of the U.S., except for one trip to Tijuana a couple years back.”

  He nodded. “Just don’t draw any attention to yourself. Remember, you don’t have a passport nor any documentation about how you got here. Best if no one notices you.”

  Jason hadn’t thought about that. “Way to make me paranoid, Al,” he said, glancing around as the train left the station.

  They disembarked at Easton Station and Stone flagged down a cab. Jason remained quiet as the cabbie negotiated the snarled traffic. Eventually the car veered off onto a narrow, cobblestoned side street and stopped in front of an unassuming, upscale row house halfway up the block.

  He waited until they got out before asking, “Where is this?”

  “Sort of a library,” Stone said. He went up to the door but didn’t knock; instead, he merely stood there and stared at it until it opened to reveal a short, thin man in a brown sweater.

  The man’s ratty face lit up when he saw Stone. “Alastair! You old bastard!” he exclaimed in a thick Cockney accent. “Haven’t seen you in ages! How are you, mate?” He clapped Stone on the shoulder, then his gaze fell Jason. “And who’s this, then?”

  “Hello, Eddie,” Stone said. “This is Jason Thayer. He’s a friend and associate. His sister’s my apprentice.”

  “Well, come on in, you two!” He motioned them in, then closed the door behind him. “The others are in the sitting room.”

  Jason followed the two of them down a narrow hall carpeted in a threadbare floral pattern and back into a bright room full of all sorts of bric-a-brac. It looked like someone’s old maiden aunt’s parlor that hadn’t been updated since shortly after World War II.

  Three other people were in the room, seated on fussy sofas around an antique coffee table. Jason got surreptitious looks at them all as he stood behind Stone: a slim black man a little older than Stone; a ruddy woman of about sixty, with her long dark hair done up in a bun; and a rotund gray-haired man with a walrus mustache and a tweed suit that was at least thirty years out of style.

  Jason stayed out of the way while the mages had their Old Home Week, greeting each other and catching up on small talk. He felt completely out of place and wondered what he was even doing here.

  “Jason!” Stone called. “Come and meet everyone.” He indicated the black man. “This is Arthur Ward. We studied together for a while in our misspent youth. This,” he continued, nodding toward the woman, “is Lavinia Bromley, who I know mostly by reputation, and Walter Yarborough, a longtime friend. And Eddie Monkton here, who looks after one of the larger collections of magical books and scholarly papers in the Western world.”

  “So, now we’re all here, Alastair, mind letting us in on how you knew we were all missing stuff?” Eddie asked.

  “You are, then?” Stone asked, looking at each of them.

  They all nodded. “I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t said something,” Lavinia Bromley said. “I checked last night after you called. There were several books missing from my library, but nothing that I look at regularly. And nothing that made any sense together.”

  “Same here,” Arthur Ward said. “I don’t have a large collection, but I also found several missing.”

  “And I,” Walter Yarborough said. “I also checked after you phoned. Do you have any idea what this is about, Alastair?”

  “Not yet,” Stone said. “I’m just gathering data at the moment. I contacted you all because you have the largest magical libraries I know of in Britain. When mine was broken into, I thought perhaps yours might have been as well.”

  “I’m still trying to figure out what all they took here,” Eddie said, gesturing around. “All I know is that things are definitely missing.”

  “Always eclectic choices?” Stone asked. “No rhyme or reason to them?”

  “Not for me,” Lavinia said. “It didn’t make any sense. They took a book on magical botany, one on spirit summoning, one on the use of animal parts in magical rituals, and one on the magical properties of music. None of them was particularly old or valuable, but they were all quite rare. Someone looking wouldn’t have been able to find them at a shop without spending a lot of time and effort searching.”

  “Hmm,” Stone said as he jotted those down in a notebook. “Walter, what about you?”

  Walter pulled out a piece of paper from inside his jacket, settled a pair of fussy reading glasses on his large nose, and perused it. “Six books missing that I can identify: magical architecture, hermetic theory, multi-participant spirit summoning, history of alchemy, magic in the culinary arts, and the use of higher mathematics in spell design.”

  Jason’s gaze sharpened. “Al—”

  “I see it, Jason,” he murmured, holding up a hand. “One moment, though. Arthur? What about you?”

  “Only three for me,” he said. “Magical teaching methods, a survey of mystically active plants in southern China, and…” he paused, getting it. “Techniques for constructing summoning circles.”

  “Summoning,” Walter said. “That’s what they’ve all got in common. Alastair, you too?”

  Stone nodded as he finished his list.

  “And here,” Eddie said. “Like I said, I haven’t tracked down all that’s missing yet, but a rare tome on building nonstandard and large-scale circles was among them.”

  Stone and Jason exchanged glances. “I would have expected portals,” Stone said, almost to himself. Then, more loudly: “Anyone missing anything on portals? Theory, construction, materials, anything?”

  They all shook their heads. “No, nothing like that,” Lavinia said. Her gaze sharpened. “Why? Are you?”

  “No. I thought perhaps I might suspect who’s behind the thefts, but their interest in the past has been in portals, not summoning.”

  “Maybe they’re branching out,” Jason muttered.

  “What are you talking about?” Walter demanded. “Alastair, if you know something, best if you tell us.”

  Jason watched Stone: he could tell that the mage was weighing carefully the implications of revealing the Evil’s existence, especially if the odd break-ins didn’t have anything to do with them. “I’ll give you the high-level version,” he said at la
st. “I don’t have time for more. I need to be getting back. Now I’m wondering if someone didn’t hit my library back in the States as well.” He paused. “But for now, I need to ask you to keep this between us, if you would.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Walter said.

  Stone nodded and, speaking softly and dispassionately, gave them a brief overview of the Evil: what they were and what they’d been up to over the last year or so.

  They stared at him, eyes wide. Walter was the first to speak: “My God, Alastair. You’re serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious, Walter.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?” Lavinia asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Because we didn’t know who we could trust,” he said. “Because they’ve proven that they’re willing to possess mages in the past, though as far as we know they require consent. And because there didn’t seem to be a lot of activity over here. Most of the worst bits were overseas, probably because that’s where the portals were.”

  “But—you’re saying they’re gone now?” Arthur leaned forward in his chair.

  “Not gone. But severely depleted. We closed off their way to our world, so they can’t bring over any more of their kind. They’ve been very quiet over the last few months. Our working theory was that they’ve gone to ground and settled in to make the best of things here, since they’re stuck. But now I’m beginning to wonder if they’re up to something after all.”

  “Stealing books?” Eddie asked. “You think they’re studying up on something new?”

  Stone spread his hands. “I’ve no idea. Remember those papers from that German researcher you sent me, Eddie? I’m in the process of having them translated, but she’s some kind of expert in portal science. The Evil are very interested in that. They’ve never shown any interest in summoning before—I didn’t even know they had any mages working with them anymore. I thought they were all dead.”