by King, R. L.
“Yes?”
“I think your killer might have some connection to the occult.”
Casner’s gaze sharpened. “What makes you think so?”
“Your crime scene examiners might notice that the pattern of blood around the body is bounded by a large circular area. It’s hard to spot because it’s quite crude, but if you look carefully, you’ll see it.”
Now the cop was staring at him with frank disbelief. “What the hell—”
Stone shrugged. “I don’t know what it means. I didn’t get a close enough look at it to tell for sure.”
“So you’re saying that—what—Satanists or something did this?”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. As I said, I’d have to examine the scene more closely, and I doubt you’re going to let me do that. But rest assured, my expertise is at your disposal should you need it. May I?” he asked, reaching for Casner’s pen.
When he handed it over, along with a strip torn off the bottom of his sheet of paper, Stone jotted down the address of the house he’d rented. “That’s where I’m staying while I’m in town. I don’t know the phone number—just settled in earlier today, and I haven’t memorized it yet. I’ll get it from my wallet when you give it back to me.”
Casner took the slip of paper and his pen back, looking at Stone like the conversation had gone in a completely different direction than he’d planned. “All right, Dr. Stone,” he said slowly. “Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation.”
Stone stood. “Anything else, Lieutenant?”
“Just one thing. I know you’re trying hard to find your friend and I’m not going to tell you to stop doing that. But please remember: impeding or interfering with police work in any way is a crime, as is trespassing.”
“In other words: stay out of your way, and don’t be found near any more murder victims.”
“Essentially, yes. I don’t want to see you in here again, Dr. Stone, unless you need help with something or—” he nodded at the slip of paper “—the department decides to...er...consult with you about the crime. Though if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that, honestly.”
“Of course not. Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Casner showed him out of the interrogation room and gave him back his overcoat and wallet. “I think somebody brought your car up here. You might have to pay to get it out of impound, but they might not have had a chance to get it in there yet so you might be lucky.”
That would make one thing I’ve been lucky with today, Stone thought sourly. He handed the policeman one of his business cards after he located his phone number and jotted it down on the back, and soon after he was standing outside the police station.
He retrieved his car—which he didn’t, in fact, have to pay for—and drove back to his rented house, finally allowing the last of the day’s adrenaline to drain from him. He’d never been arrested before (all right, technically this didn’t count as arrested, but being handcuffed and having two cops aiming guns at him made it about as close as he ever wanted to get). Add that to the scene in the barn and the battle with the shimmering entities, and all he wanted to do to get home, take a long hot shower, and get several hours of uninterrupted sleep. There was so much he still needed to do: figure out what those things that attacked him were, and what was directing them; determine what the connection was between the murders and Jason; figure out if the murders were the main component of the thing’s plan, or only a side effect.
And, of course, figure out what had become of Jason. He knew he was out there somewhere, but he also knew that he wouldn’t be any help to his friend if he made stupid mistakes due to physical and mental exhaustion. Furthermore, if he was wise he’d still need to put up at least a simple ward around the house before he could let himself rest, and that was about all he’d have the juice to manage tonight.
By the time he checked the place out for lurking magical threats, finished the ward, and trudged inside, it was after eight o’clock. He was asleep before nine.
It wasn’t until the next morning that he remembered he was supposed to meet Lindsey Cole for dinner last night.
Chapter Nine
Stone took a deep breath and opened the door to the tiny real-estate office.
Lindsey Cole looked up from her desk. When she spotted him, her expression grew cool. “Good morning, Dr. Stone.” Her voice was inflectionless, dead steady. “I hope everything is all right with your rental property.”
Across from her, the older woman at the other desk looked between the two of them with quizzical confusion.
Stone stood at the counter. “Can you spare a moment?” he asked. “I haven’t had coffee yet this morning—perhaps you might join me?” He, too, kept his voice neutral.
She considered. “I don’t know—I’ve got things I need to—”
“Please,” he said softly. “Just hear me out. Only a few minutes.”
She glanced over at the other woman, then nodded and picked up her purse. “I’ll be back soon, Florence,” she said.
Florence was eyeing Stone with an appraising—and approving—gleam. “Take all the time you need, honey. I’ll hold the fort.”
“I wanted to apologize for last night,” Stone said as they walked past the art galleries and clothing boutiques toward the coffee shop. “And to explain.”
“You don’t owe me any explanation, Dr. Stone,” she said. She hadn’t looked at him, and her expression still hadn’t thawed.
“Of course I do. I promised to meet you, and I didn’t. That was frightfully rude. I just wanted to tell you why. If you want nothing more to do with me after you’ve heard my explanation, I’ll certainly understand and I won’t bother you again. Fair enough?”
After a moment she nodded. “All right, fair enough.” Then, almost reluctantly: “Was it something about your friend?”
“Indirectly, yes.” They reached the coffee shop and he opened the door for her. As he followed behind her, he spotted a few copies of the local paper in a rack. The headline, in large letters, read: Murder victim discovered near Creek Road. He took a deep breath and continued into the shop.
When they were seated at a table near the window with their mugs, he leaned back in his chair and decided to go for the direct approach. “The truth is, I couldn’t meet you because I was being questioned by the police.”
Her head came up, her eyes wide. “What?”
He nodded. “By the time they’d finished with me, I’d frankly forgotten about our date. I do apologize for that. All I can say in my defense is that I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before, and it was a bit—er—unsettling. The whole afternoon was unsettling, honestly.”
She was staring at him. “Questioned about—what?”
“I happened upon something when I was searching for my friend. There was a bit of a misunderstanding.”
“Happened...upon something? I don’t understand.”
He nodded toward the rack of newspapers. “I—found the site of the second murder.”
She gasped, nearly dropping her mug. “You—” Glancing around, she dropped her voice to a murmur. “You found—”
“Down on—I think it was called Creek Road, yes. In a barn.”
“And the police—”
“They showed up shortly after. Apparently someone spotted me wandering about down there and called them. Can’t blame them for that, really—I know people are on edge after the first killing.”
Lindsey swallowed. She set her mug down on the table, looked up at him, then back down into her coffee. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
He gave her a gentle smile. “I completely understand if you want to just get up and go back to your office now. I won’t trouble you anymore. I’m sure this is a shock for you, and my being a stranger, you—”
“No, no.” She looked up again, shaking her head. “No, tha
t isn’t it. It’s just—wow. That must have been horrible for you. And the police—did they arrest you?”
“No. It quickly became apparent that I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time—I have people who can vouch for the fact that I was in Palo Alto up until two days ago, so I couldn’t possibly have committed the murders. But I’m afraid—well, all of that rather drove the idea of a lovely Mexican dinner right out of my mind. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
She paused, smiled faintly. “Well—you did say you might have to cancel at the last minute if something came up with your—wait.” She frowned. “You said you were ‘searching’ for your friend? I thought you said you were meeting him.”
Stone sighed. “I didn’t tell you quite the whole truth there. That’s why I’m down here, actually: my friend’s gone missing, and I’m trying to find him.”
“Missing?”
“He was down here to attend an old friend’s wedding. He called me sometime early Saturday morning, but by the time I was able to return his call, he’d disappeared.”
She took a slow deep breath and another sip of her coffee, and said nothing.
Stone regarded her for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft: “Ms. Cole—truly, I understand. You thought you were going to have a pleasant evening over dinner with a newcomer to town, not get involved with someone who comes complete with a whole bagful of difficult issues.” He started to rise. “I’ll walk you back to your office if you like, or—”
“No,” she said suddenly, as if coming to a decision. “Please, Dr. Stone—Alastair—sit down.” When he hesitated, she added: “I might be able to help you, if you’ll let me.”
He shook his head. “The last thing I want to do is get you involved.” That was true. Getting anyone involved in this was something he wanted to avoid with extreme prejudice. People who got bound up in his particular brand of supernatural adventures tended to have unpleasant things happen to them. Especially when they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
“Why not? Do you think it’s dangerous, somehow?” She smiled. “I didn’t say I’d go tramping around out on Creek Road with you or anything. I did just meet you, after all. I might be an optimist, but I’m not an idiot. I just thought if you had any questions about getting around Ojai or anything else that might help you look for your friend, you could ask me. I’ve lived in town all my life, and anything I can’t answer, I can probably find somebody who can.”
Stone considered. It was an offer he hadn’t expected, but it did make a certain amount of sense. He wasn’t familiar with how to get around in Ojai, relying on maps and guesses. Asking Lindsey a few questions about specific aspects of the town wouldn’t put her in danger, and having a local around could be a big help in his search. “Are you sure you want to?” he asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but—”
“Sure I want to,” she said. “On one condition.”
“Yes?”
“I’d still like to have that dinner with you,” she said, smiling. “It could be lunch, if you want.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “I think it’s best we play things by ear now, since I’ve no idea where my search will take me or what I’ll be needing to follow up on. If we don’t manage to find a time to do it before I find what’s become of my friend, I promise you we’ll absolutely do it before I go back home. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said with a brisk nod. She reached in her purse and handed him a business card. “The first number is my office. The second one is my cellular phone. I always have it with me.”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you’ve got one of those things, do you? A couple of my colleagues have them, but I’m not sure I’d want to be constantly reachable. Seems it could be rather inconvenient.”
“They’re a godsend for my line of work,” she said. “People have to be able to get hold of you if you want to get the sales.”
“All right, then.” He stowed the card in his coat and gave her one of his with the number at the house written on the back. “I’d best be getting on with my search, but—” He tilted his head. “What?”
She was staring at his card. “Department of Occult Studies?” Looking him up and down, she said, “That’s—unexpected.” She smiled, adding, “You don’t bite heads off chickens or sacrifice goats or anything, do you?”
“Certainly not,” he assured her, indignant. “Chickens taste dreadful raw. The only thing I bite the head off is the occasional chocolate rabbit.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s good to know. You’ve come to the right place, anyway. Ojai’s full of all kinds of things like that.”
“Indeed? You’ll have to tell me about it over that dinner.” He’d heard occasional things about Ojai—it was home to a few minor talents, along with a whole lot of people who liked to think they had connections to the supernatural, but who really just liked to dress up in flowy caftans and play eerie music for the tourists.
“That’s a promise,” she said, also standing. “I hope you find your friend soon, Alastair. And not just because I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”
Chapter Ten
Stone didn’t want to go back to the house after Lindsey left, so he got another cup of coffee to go and set off to walk for a while.
He was glad he’d been able to straighten things out with Lindsey: he had no illusions that his acquaintance with her would grow beyond maybe a nice evening or two before he headed back to the Bay Area, but he didn’t like being rude to anyone who didn’t deserve it. And, in a purely Machiavellian sense, having a knowledgeable local contact who was favorably disposed toward him wasn’t something he was going to turn down. It wasn’t his fault that so many women seemed to go for black overcoats and British accents—he had accepted many years ago that despite the fact that he thought of himself as more than a bit skinny and geeky-looking, he seemed to have something that appealed to many women. When the women were smart and attractive and had a sense of humor—well, he went with it. If they wanted to be deluded, who was he to complain about it? It wouldn’t be gentlemanly.
What troubled him far more was that he was no closer to finding Jason. In fact, he might be farther away now than he’d been before. He had been so tired last night that he hadn’t even had time to go over what had occurred that day, and this morning he’d been focused on meeting Lindsey.
He sat down on a picnic table to idly watch a mother and her two children toss a ball between them across a wide expanse of grass and let his mind wander.
So now there were two murders, and the tendrils of residual arcane energy that connected them indicated strongly that they’d been committed by the same person. Or thing. Or astral entity.
Or combination of the three. There was a thought to keep him up at night.
He wished he had his magical library here with him. He’d managed to replace much of what had been lost when his old house had been destroyed in an explosion a couple of years ago, but none of that would do him any good down here. He could go home, of course, but even if he drove like a maniac and took minimal rest breaks, that would still take up the better part of a day. Even longer, since he’d be forced to rest once he got back to Ojai. So realistically he was limited by his own knowledge and anything he could gather down here. He didn’t think he’d have any luck finding magical tomes at the local library.
He also wished his apprentice were here. Verity Thayer, Jason’s younger sister, had been studying with him for almost as long as he’d known her and Jason, and had proven to be both a quick study and a talented mage in the making. If nothing else, since she grew up in the area, he could send her out searching for research materials while he went on the offensive looking for the things from the abandoned barn and their boss.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. Verity was currently in Vermont, attending some sort of retreat with her friend and fellow mage Sharra and a group of
other women out in the middle of nowhere. When she’d presented the idea to Stone and asked if he minded if she took some time off from her studies to go, she’d told him it was being held at a remote camping area at least a day’s drive from civilization, and it would last the better part of a week. She hadn’t been crazy about the “camping” part, but she and Sharra had settled into being good friends after a brief relationship a year ago, and she was happy for the chance to spend some time with her.
Stone had sent her off through the portal in Sunnyvale (which she was pleased she could use now, as the Evil were no longer plaguing the Overworld) the same day Jason had left for Ojai. He couldn’t even contact her—which he felt he should do, magic notwithstanding, because it was her brother who was missing—because he had no idea exactly where she’d gone.
So, I’m on my own. Stone got up from the table and continuing his wandering path through the park. He smiled a bitter little smile: up until he’d met Jason and Verity, he was usually on his own, and he’d preferred it that way. Aside from his periodic temporary relationships, which always ended when the women got the eventual and inevitable taste of the weirdness that suffused his life, he had a reputation for not being the easiest man in the world to get along with. It wasn’t that he was unpleasant in some way, or undesirable company—it was simply that he could only take being around people for so long before his natural dry sarcasm and tendency toward moodiness took over and started him looking for the nearest exit before he ended up saying something he would later regret. Verity was, oddly, the only person he’d met in a long time that he enjoyed being around for more than a few hours before he had to recharge. He chuckled at that: it was probably a good thing that Verity mostly preferred women, and had shown no romantic interest in him (nor he in her), since otherwise Jason’s protective brotherly instincts would have long ago taken over and caused problems with their working relationship.