by King, R. L.
The proprietress looked up from the scarf she was knitting. “Ah! Found some things, I see.” She rang up his purchases, pausing over the book. “This is a good one,” she confided, pointing at it. “I think it’s my last copy, too. You’re not from this area, are you?”
“No, this is my first visit here.”
“Well, Ojai has all sorts of interesting history when it comes to the occult,” she said. “Do you have an interest in the subject, or just curious in general?”
“I—dabble,” he admitted. “I’ve heard a bit about Ojai’s legends. I was hoping to find more research material, actually.”
“Oh, I know,” she said sympathetically. “There aren’t that many books around, and I can’t keep them in stock. You might try Bart’s. Never the same thing twice, but sometimes you can dig up some real finds there if you’re willing to get a little dusty.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Bart’s?”
Before she could answer, the door jingled again. “Oh, hi, Suzanne,” the proprietress called over Stone’s shoulder. “Be with you as soon as I’m done here.”
Stone turned. The woman who’d come in was a few years younger than the proprietress, dressed in the style of bohemian elegance that he’d begun to identify as popular among the wealthier of Ojai’s female population. Her chestnut hair (not a sign of gray this time) was swept back in a chic scarf, her makeup understated. “No hurry,” the newcomer said, waving an airy hand. “I’ll just see what you’ve got in this week.”
The proprietress returned her attention to Stone with a conspiratorial nod toward the woman. “Suzanne’s one of my best local customers. Very nice lady. Now—where were we? Oh, yes, Bart’s! I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it: it’s one of the things the town’s famous for. Open-air used bookshop. It’s this huge, rambling place that probably has books nobody’s looked at in twenty years, if you go back far enough into the stacks.” She giggled. “I don’t go often, because every time I do, I end up spending hours.” She wrapped up his purchases and put them in a purple bag with the shop’s golden-eye logo on it. “Check it out, if you have the time. It’s worth a trip, especially if you like old books.”
“She’s right,” Suzanne said, coming up behind them. “I’ve made some real finds there over the years.”
“I’ll be sure and take a look,” Stone assured them. “Thank you both so much.”
Well, that was something, at least, he thought as he headed back to his car with his purchases. He supposed he shouldn’t have hoped he’d find anything genuinely magical at the shop: he wasn’t by any means familiar with every arcane supply store and bookshop in California since he’d only come over from England a few years ago and the magical community wasn’t known for being particularly chummy, but he was aware of a number of them, and hadn’t heard of any in this area. He’d taken a shot and it hadn’t panned out. At least he’d restocked some of his ritual supplies, and he might need those soon.
This Bart’s place, though, sounded like it might have possibility. If it truly was as large and eclectic as the two ladies from the Emporium had implied, then it would be worth a look. One thing he had seen on numerous occasions were “diamonds in the rough” found amid moldering stacks of used books in out-of-the-way shops. Especially when elderly mages living alone passed away, their heirs would sell or donate their collections without having any idea what they had. More than a bit of Stone’s recently replaced library had come from haunting obscure used bookstores in the San Francisco and Berkeley areas.
He glanced at his watch: it was a little after two. He could spare an hour or so to check it out, and then he couldn’t wait anymore: he was going to have to try the ritual to find Jason again.
Bart’s Books was only about five minutes away, on the corner of two residential streets a block off of Ojai Avenue. Stone wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but this wasn’t it: the place didn’t look anything like any bookstore he’d ever visited. Shelves full of mostly well-used paperbacks lined the walls along the outside, and as he approached the entrance proper he spotted a sign instructing visitors to toss the money for anything they purchased from these shelves into the courtyard during non-business hours. He wondered how many people actually did it.
Stepping inside, he immediately understood what the proprietress of the Third Eye had meant when she said she avoided Bart’s when she didn’t have the time to spend hours among the stacks. Shelves full to bursting with books were arranged with haphazard exuberance in every direction he looked—there were little nooks with sitting areas, large wall-sized shelves packed with hardbound tomes, small tables scattered around the courtyard for readers, and passageways leading off into dim areas that promised even more books. A few customers drifted from one shelf to the next, occasionally pulling something out to look at. Across the courtyard was a table surrounded by more books. Seated behind it, a cheerful thirtyish man with long hair and round glasses waved a welcome at Stone as he approached. “Looking for anything in particular, or just browsing?”
As much as he would have liked to spend the rest of the day moving among the stacks searching for treasures, Stone knew he’d have to forego that particular temptation for now. “Do you have an occult section?” he asked.
“Sure. We have two, actually: the more valuable stuff is in there—” he pointed toward the doorway to a room off to his left “—inside, down the hall, and turn right into the first room you find.” Then he pointed to his right. “The other stuff is down that hall all the way to the end—make a right and it’s at the end of the row on the left. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.” Deciding to check the “valuable” books first, he headed into the room and followed the man’s directions until he stood inside another room, this one much smaller, with all four of its walls lined with bookshelves. A couple of the shelf sections were enclosed as locked glass cabinets. The hand-inked OCCULT & MAGICK sign was tacked up the top of the intersection of one open shelf and one locked one. The only light filtered in through a skylight in the middle of the ceiling.
Glancing behind him to make sure no one else was in the room, Stone first examined the titles of the books, starting at the top of the open shelf and working his way to the bottom, then repeating for the locked one. Already he could see that this visit was going to be more profitable than the Third Eye. He hadn’t yet spotted anything that would help him in his search for Jason, but several of the books were titles that interested him, and a couple would serve as replacements for some of his destroyed library. He pulled three off the open shelf and noted the positions of the ones he wanted in the locked cabinet so he could point them out to the man out front when he was ready to leave.
Next, he shifted his magical senses on and studied the books again. This time he didn’t need to scan the shelves: indeed, he couldn’t easily read any of the titles this way. He wasn’t interested in the titles now, though. Immediately, two of the books lit up with glowing auras that marked them as more than mere mundane tomes.
Both of them were on the open shelf, surprisingly. Stone shifted back to mundane sight and realized why: they were both very dull-looking volumes, less than a hundred years old, their bindings unremarkable and unadorned. He slid them off the shelves and examined their front covers. The first one, titled Ancient Occult Symbology, had a faint yellowish aura. The second, The Power and the Will, glowed more brightly in a mottled brick red. Stone’s hand tingled a bit as he held it. Whatever this book’s title suggested, it was not a wholesome tome. Not entirely evil, but definitely deep into the territory trodden by mages at the dark gray end of the spectrum.
Still, it was magical, and Stone was nothing if not curious, so he added both it and the other one to the pile, picked them all up, and headed back out to the front. As he passed by the table where the proprietor sat, he held them up. “I’ll be taking these,” he said. “May I leave them here while I check the other section?”
“Sure, no problem.” The man indicated a cleared space to his left. “I’ll start an invoice for you.”
Past the desk was a series of passageways, each one lined from ceiling to near the ground with packed bookshelves. These were interspersed periodically with inset alcoves like tiny rooms that allowed for even more books. There were sections on everything from sports to history to psychology, each one marked by another hand-inked sign, and a quick look as he moved by showed Stone that the bookstore’s owners were not at all picky about what they sold. He suspected that they got much of their stock from people dropping off boxes of unwanted tomes gleaned from spring cleaning or taken from the homes of deceased relatives, which meant that many of them were probably worthless—unless that one person out there who was seeking that particular book managed to find his or her way here and brave the mazelike layout of the place long enough to find it. Stone found it all fascinating, and far preferable to the sterile modern bookstores that were steadily driving the smaller family-owned shops out of business. He made a mental note to return to Ojai some time and spend some serious hours perusing the place in detail.
For now, though, he moved briskly through the narrow rows in the direction the man had pointed him. He only passed one other customer, a beefy teenage football player type in a blue hoodie with RANGERS across the front, who was surreptitiously examining a book of artistic nudes. He ducked into a nearby nook to make room for Stone to slip past.
The second Occult section was larger than the first, tucked away in yet another niche topped with a sign reading OCCULT, MAGICK, & ESOTERICA. Stone moved inside and once again began a slow examination of the books starting at the left side of the alcove and working his way around it clockwise. It was harder this time because many of the books were piled haphazardly on little bench outcroppings in front of the shelves, and he had to sift through these as he went. When he found a book that interested him, he pulled it out and stacked it to the side. By the time he finished his mundane check he had found three possibilities.
His arcane senses immediately revealed the two of his three choices were indeed interesting in a magical sense. On the shelves three others lit up, all of them in the center portion of the nook. He was pleased: this visit was proving quite fruitful. He looked forward to taking the books back to his house and mining them for anything he could use to help him find Jason.
He never even saw the figure coming up behind him as he leaned in to take a closer look at one of the books. Something slipped around his neck and yanked him back, hard.
Chapter Twelve
Stone reacted instantly, instinctively flinging his body forward as the grip around his neck tightened, but it did no good. Whoever was strangling him was strong—a lot stronger than he was. He flailed, reaching up to try to free his airway, and his hands touched what felt like a leather belt. It was pulled too tight to get his fingers under it. He tried to cry out, but couldn’t get enough breath to do it.
Getting a spell off was out of the question—white lights already danced in front of his vision, and he could barely form a coherent thought through his rising panic. I’m going to get strangled right here in broad daylight! was the only thing that got through. Potentially true, but hardly useful. The brain was perverse like that sometimes.
The pressure tightened, pulling him back into the figure. Stone got a glimpse of blue as he whipped his head to the side, and for the barest second his magical senses caught sight of some sort of strange, greenish aura hovering around the figure before he couldn’t maintain them any longer.
Desperately he lifted one foot and tried to mule-kick his assailant, but his coordination was as shot as his mental processes, and the figure easily avoided the weak attack. Stone felt blackness begin to settle over him, and fought to drive it back. He couldn’t pass out or he was dead for sure. He couldn’t—
“Hey!” A garbled voice pierced the muddled soup engulfing his brain. “What the hell are you—”
Stone must have blacked out at that point, because when he opened his eyes he was lying on the ground, staring up at the concerned, half-panicked face of the long-haired bookseller.
“Oh, man,” the guy breathed. “Oh, man—thank God. Just stay still. It’s gonna be okay. The ambulance is coming.”
Stone blinked. “Ambulance?”
“Yeah, man. That guy tried to strangle you! If I hadn’t—”
Stone swallowed, taking stock. His neck hurt, his breath felt ragged in his aching throat, and his head was throbbing. Experimentally, he tried to sit up.
“You sure you want to—” the man started, but when he saw it was doing no good he took careful hold of Stone’s shoulder and helped him to a sitting position.
“It’s—it’s all right,” Stone said faintly, doing his best imitation of a three-pack-a-day smoker. “I—don’t need an ambulance.”
“He tried to strangle you, man! They’re already coming. Cops, too. That was a bad scene.”
Slowly, Stone realized he and the man had an audience. Several other people stood in the narrow walkway, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening and muttering among themselves. Then he realized that something was missing. “Where—who tried to—” He gently probed at his neck again and winced. He was going to have bruises there, he could tell.
“The kid who attacked you? He’s over there.” The guy looked angry and puzzled. “It was weird. As soon as I grabbed him and tried to pull him off you, he just—stopped. Didn’t fight me, or even struggle at all. Just dropped his hands and stood there, like he had no idea where he was. We’re holding him for the cops.”
Stone raised his head a bit more. Just past the small knot of onlookers, he could see the blond brush-cut and blue hoodie of the teenager he’d passed in the aisle on his way to the Occult section. He stared. “Him?”
The guy nodded. “Yeah. Fucking freaky, if you’ll pardon my French. He’s a local kid. Can’t be more than sixteen or so. I’ve seen him in here before, lots of times. It’s like he just—snapped or something.”
“Step back, folks, please.” An authoritative voice cut through the crowd’s muttering. They parted to let two uniformed police officers through. Stone recognized them as Aguirre and Farrell, two of the cops who’d picked him up at the scene of the second murder. They all regarded each other with varying degrees of surprise. Behind them came two uniformed EMTs who pushed past them and hurried over to Stone.
“That’s the guy you want,” the bookseller said to the cops, pointing at the kid. “He’s the one who tried to strangle this guy here. I saw it.”
Aguirre said something Stone couldn’t hear to Farrell, and the younger cop headed off to deal with the young assailant. Aguirre came back over to Stone, who was now trying to wave the EMTs away. “Dr. Stone. You do seem to be in the middle of things around here.” He sounded more concerned than annoyed, though. “Are you all right?”
Stone shrugged. “Aside from some bruises, I think I’ll be fine. Just a bit shaken up.” He sighed and gave up, letting the EMTs check him out. He noticed Farrell had shooed off the rest of the crowd so they had relative privacy.
“Mind telling me what happened?” He pulled out a notebook.
Stone began to describe the attack. The bookseller, who’d gone off with Farrell, came back with a bottle of water; he accepted it gratefully. It did hurt to talk.
“So you’re saying,” Aguirre said after he finished, “that you walked right past the kid, and he seemed fine then?”
“Yes. He was just browsing the books, same as I was. I didn’t get any sense of threat from him at all.”
“He didn’t seem drugged or drunk?”
Stone shook his head. “I doubt I’d even have noticed him if the walkways here weren’t so narrow. He had to duck into an opening to make room for me to get past him.” He glanced over in the direction they’d taken the kid, suddenly remembering something. “Would it be all r
ight if I talked to him for a moment before you take him away?”
“Why would you want to do that?” Aguirre looked suspicious.
“No particular reason. But I’d like to, if I may.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Stone. I can’t let you do that. He’s a minor, and we’re not allowed to question him without his parents present.”
“Fine, then.” He turned to the EMT, who had raised his black T-shirt and was poking at his chest with a stethoscope while the other one checked his blood pressure. “Really—I’m fine. Just shaken up and a little sore, but nothing permanent. I need to be getting on my way.”
“It would be better if you’d let us take you back to the hospital so a doctor can look you over,” said the one with the stethoscope.
“I doubt that,” Stone said. “Please—I appreciate what you’re doing and your quick response, but if you could just finish up and let me know if I’m in danger of imminent death—”
The other EMT pulled off the blood pressure cuff and stowed it in his gear box. “Your BP’s high, but that’s consistent with the scare you took. We can’t make you go back with us, but—”
“Well, good, then,” Stone said, pulling his shirt down and starting to rise. Aguirre offered him a hand, and he took it. Once on his feet, he swayed for a moment, making the two EMTs look at him in concern, but he held up a hand. “I promise, if I feel worse later I’ll come in and get checked out. Fair enough?”