by King, R. L.
There. Just a brief impression, but it was enough to give him a direction. He glanced back to make sure he could still see Lopez, then started off the other way.
The area was wild: he doubted that anyone, aside from the fire department crews that kept the roads passable, had been here in years. He thought about what Lopez had said about freelance pot farms—this would definitely be a good place to put one, if you didn’t want it found. With grim amusement, he wondered what sort of experience one might get from smoking marijuana grown in the shadow of what was looking increasingly more like a corrupted section of a ley line. In his university days he had briefly experimented with hallucinogens (it wasn’t uncommon for young mages to do so, to see what effect an “expanded consciousness” had on their magical abilities) but had long since sworn off them after a particularly vivid bad trip and had no desire to renew the acquaintance.
He kept moving forward. The feeling, whatever it was, was getting stronger. Even with only a fraction of his magical awareness active, he felt like the world was pressing in on him from all sides. He had never been scuba diving, but he imagined the feeling of constant pressure must be similar. It was making his skin crawl. He paused a moment to catch his breath.
Just go... The thought bubbled up in his head. Just get out of here. Now. This is dangerous. Get out while you still can.
An enormous oak tree loomed ten yards or so ahead of him, its trunk as big around as a small car. It was larger than the others around it, as if it had grown strong by sapping the vitality from them. Stone’s unease increased with each step he took closer to it. “Stan!” he called. “I think I’ve found what I’m looking for!”
Run away...get away...it’s coming for you...you’ll die if you stay...
Lopez came hurrying back over, crunching through the carpet of leaves and dry twigs. He stopped next to Stone, who was standing still, staring at the tree. “What?”
“No...” he whispered. His heart was pounding; his voice shook. “No. We’ve got to get out of here—”
Lopez’s eyes widened. “Al? You okay?”
He gripped Lopez’s arm in a tight hold. “Come on. We need to go.”
“Wait—you said you just found what you were looking for. What—”
“Come on.” Somewhere on a deep level, Stone knew something had taken hold of him, but it was right: it wasn’t safe to be here. It wasn’t safe for either of them. Whatever was here needed to stay here, untouched and undiscovered.
He pulled hard on Lopez’s arm, trying to lead him away. If the man refused to go, he’d have to just leave on his own. Lopez didn’t understand, but—
His head rocked back as a sudden, sharp pain struck his face. Indignation rose, but then he realized that the sense of impending dread had ebbed away as if it had never come over him in the first place. He stared at Lopez, who was watching him with a fearful yet determined expression, his hand still raised.
Stone put a hand to his stinging cheek. “You slapped me.”
“Yeah, and I’m gonna do it again if you don’t get it together,” he growled. “Something was eating at you. I could see it in your eyes. I thought you said you were hard to influence mentally.”
Stone took a couple of experimental deep breaths. “Usually I am,” he said slowly. Another breath. “Thank you.”
“Sure, no problem. Now let’s find whatever the hell this is and get out of here, okay?”
Stone nodded. Whatever the strange compulsion had been doing to him, it was no longer working. He still felt queasy and light-headed and too hot, but the sense of panic was gone. After a moment of reinforcing his mental defenses, he pointed. “It’s something about that tree there. See how it’s much bigger than the others?” He moved forward slowly, ready to put up his shield if anything attacked them.
Nothing did. He approached the tree, taking in the enormous, ropy system of crisscrossing roots stretching out in all directions from its massive trunk. There was nothing particularly unusual or unnatural about its appearance, other than its size. It rose almost a hundred feet, easily dwarfing its neighbors, its branches spreading out in a vast, sweeping spread that blocked much of the sun.
“That thing’s old,” Lopez said in a low voice. “Looks like hundreds of years old. There’s a lot of oaks around Ojai—the locals are passionate about them. I joke sometimes about how any year now they’re gonna give ’em the vote. But I haven’t seen too many this old.”
Stone nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. He edged closer to the tree, his magical senses fully active now, and examined it.
Oh, yes. This was the source of the corrupted energy, all right. Tendrils of it reached out from the roots and the earth beneath them, snaking sinuously through the air, around the other trees, and across the ground in every direction. He couldn’t tell if it was the tree itself or something associated with it, but whatever it was, it started here.
Lopez put a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. “Just me,” the cop said quickly. “You just went dead white. I thought you were gonna faint.”
“No—just let me do this,” he rasped.
“What are you trying to do?”
“There’s something here,” he said. He focused his arcane sight, trying to narrow down the source of the corrupt energy. “Look around the roots. See if you see anything.” His voice came out rough through clenched teeth as he struggled against the nausea.
Lopez eyed him worriedly for a moment, but then crouched down and began examining the spaces between the enormous roots.
Stone did the same, moving in the opposite direction. He hoped to find what he was looking for soon—if there was even anything to find—because he knew he couldn’t stay in the area for too much longer. The corruption—the pure unadulterated wrongness in the magical energy here—was reacting with his own magic like an insidious poison. Though he couldn’t feel it doing him any actual harm beyond extreme discomfort, he had no idea if that would continue to be true. He could feel the psychic dread trying to worm its way back into his mind, but now that he knew it was there, it wasn’t hard for him to block it. Small victories, at least.
“Hey!” Lopez called from the other side of the tree. “Al! Come over here! I think I found something.”
Stone leaped up and hurried over to where he was kneeling near a particularly large confluence of roots. The cop had his flashlight out and was shining it into what looked like the space between two roots, each one as big around as a large man’s thigh. Stone came up behind him, looked over his shoulder at what the beam had found, and then sagged, catching himself against Lopez’s broad back.
“Whoa, whoa,” Lopez caught him and lowered him down. “You okay?”
Stone was on his hands and knees, his back heaving as he struggled not to retch.
“Come on, lay down,” Lopez said, trying to get him to roll over. “Just rest for a minute. Have some water.”
Stone shook his head. This was it—what he’d been looking for. If he didn’t examine it now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to later. He shoved himself back up to a kneeling position and leaned toward the opening. “Shine the light,” he panted. “Hold it steady.”
Lopez did as instructed, and Stone leaned in further until he was lying on his stomach, braced against the roots on either side of the hole. Lopez shifted the beam so it shone in over his shoulder.
The light illuminated a crevice carved into the earth, sheltered by the two large roots. It had smooth walls, suggesting that it might not have been created naturally, and measured around three feet from top to bottom and slightly less from side to side. The location of the tree, combined with the orientation of the crevice, the roots, and the upper branches of the tree, suggested it was well protected from weather and rain.
None of this, however, was what had captured Stone’s attention. He held up his hand. “Let me have that flashlight,” he said, distracted. He took
it and shone it at a different angle, trying to get a better look at what he thought he’d seen.
At the back of the crevice was a wide earthen shelf that stretched about a foot out from the wall. Arrayed on it were a series of objects.
“What do you see?” Lopez asked. “I didn’t get a good look.”
Stone didn’t reply. He moved the flashlight’s beam around, sweeping it back and forth across the shelf. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, felt it dripping from his face into the crevice.
On the shelf was a series of what looked like large flat rocks, placed so they leaned against the back wall. There were three of them: two on the right and left, and a larger one in the center. They were all black, and all had some sort of strange writing on them in what looked like white paint. Just looking at the symbols increased Stone’s growing unease.
In between them, like macabre table-setting decorations, were small piles of human bones, each one topped with a leering skull. These were surrounded by desiccated feathers and arrays of what looked like oddly-shaped beads. Taken as a whole, the tableau radiated corrupted magic like a tangible onslaught. Stone’s entire body shook, a chill running through him despite the heat pouring off him.
“Al, what the hell are you seeing down there?” Lopez demanded again, tapping his shoulder. When he still didn’t answer, the cop grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up and back.
Stone didn’t struggle. Lopez dragged him backward and lowered him to the leaf-covered ground. When he got a look at the mage’s face, his own looked fearful. “Holy shit, man. I’m getting you out of here before you stroke out on me.”
Stone shook his head. “No—just—I’ll be all right.” His words came out on a rush of air with no volume behind them.
Lopez pulled out a water bottle and offered it to him. “Here. Drink this. And tell me what you saw down there that freaked you out so bad.”
“Wasn’t—what I saw,” Stone whispered. “Not entirely.”
“What was in there? I saw some kind of shelf with some stuff on it—”
Stone fixed his gaze on Lopez. “You—don’t feel it at all, do you?”
“Feel what?”
Stone closed his eyes, gathering his strength. He didn’t like what he had to say next, but he didn’t have a choice. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Besides get you out of here, you mean?”
“No. I’m fine here. But—I can’t get that close again. Do you have a notebook and a pen?”
“Yeah, but—”
“There are some—tablet sort of things in that space under the roots. Three of them. I want you to carefully—and I do mean carefully—transcribe what you see written on them. Please take as long as you need. It’s vital that you get it right.”
Lopez frowned. “There’s writing in there? You mean like cave paintings or something, but on tablets?”
Stone nodded.
“Why don’t we just get ’em out of there and take ’em with us?”
“No. Best to leave them here. I’m not sure I could be near them long enough to get them back to town. We’ll just—mark where they are so we can find them again.” He closed his eyes, then opened them. Now that he was away from the crevice, even just this short distance, he was feeling somewhat better.
“Why don’t I just take some pictures of them?” He dug in his backpack and came up with a small camera.
Even as rotten as he felt right now, Stone had to grin. “Stan, my friend, remind me never to say another word about your over-preparedness thing.” He considered. “I don’t think I’d want to take these to be processed, though. Might be better to do the transcription.”
“Wow,” Lopez said, returning his grin. “You mages don’t get with the times much, do you?” He held up the camera. “This is digital. It works with a home computer. You just plug it in and you can look at ’em on the screen.”
Stone nodded. “Excellent. Take a few shots, but just to be safe, do the transcription, too. I’ve seen too many bits of electronic gear fail at inopportune times, and I don’t fancy coming back here again right away without some preparation.”
“Fine, fine. You just stay there and rest, and I’ll—”
Suddenly, instantly, Stone sensed a flare of magical energy blooming behind Lopez. “Down!” he barked.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lopez might no longer have been at the peak physical condition of his early days on the force, but his reflexes were still sharp as ever. He didn’t question, just dropped to the ground, rolling onto his back in a single smooth motion. He was just in time to see something sail over him, though not to see what it was.
Stone, however, did see. A rock the size of a softball flew through the space occupied by Lopez’s head a second earlier, slamming into a nearby tree trunk with enough force to carve a chunk out of its bark.
“What the hell—” Lopez shouted.
“Stay down!” Stone ordered. He had risen to a crouch next to Lopez and had already put up his shield around both of them, grateful that he’d remembered to charge up his focus rings last night. The odd thing about the corrupted energy emanating from the items under the big oak: they didn’t seem to have caused any lessening of his power. He just had to use a lot more willpower to get to it. It was like trying to go to work when you had a raging case of the flu: it was doable, but it wasn’t any fun.
Not that fun was any sort of consideration right now. Stone looked all around for more potential attacks. At the moment, no more rocks were forthcoming, but he didn’t think that was going to last.
“What the hell is going on?” Lopez demanded again. He had obeyed Stone and stayed down, but had turned himself so he could look back toward where the rock had originated. “Is there somebody over there?”
“Technically, yes,” Stone said grimly. “Hush! Let me concentrate.”
Another rock flew from an unseen origin, this time off to his left, and slammed into the shield. Lopez’s eyes widened. “How—” He had his hand on his gun, but hadn’t drawn it yet.
“I’m shielding us,” Stone said. “I can’t do it for too long, though, so we’re going to need to get out of here.”
“Let’s go, then!”
“Not yet. We need those photos. No time for the transcription. I’ll keep you shielded—take the pictures. Quickly, but carefully. Make sure the writing is in focus.”
Lopez sighed, but began crawling toward the roots, dragging his backpack with him. Stone followed him, rising to his feet as he moved. At least that way he’d make a better target, and as long as the shield was up they’d be safe. “Hurry,” he urged as another rock struck the shield. It flared pink, then faded back to its normal nearly invisible contours.
Stone couldn’t risk looking back at Lopez to follow his progress. He stood behind him, gaze scanning back and forth, magical senses at full awareness, trying to spot where the rocks were coming from. He couldn’t. Either the invisible things at the barn had relocated here (which made sense—once the body was gone, any reason they would have to guard the place would be gone along with it), or something new was in play. Neither of these ideas filled him with confidence.
Something large and heavy crashed down on top of them with a loud cracking THUD. “What was that?” Lopez yelled, his head down in the crevice.
“Keep going!” Stone yelled back, staring at a branch the diameter of a child’s torso that had smashed into the top of the shield. His hard, fast breathing wasn’t coming entirely from the exertion of holding the shield: if it hadn’t been protecting them, that branch likely would have crushed them both. These things, whatever they were, were getting serious.
As if the four murders so far weren’t serious enough.
“Are you finished?” His voice shook a little. The power from one of the rings he was pumping into the shield to keep it up wouldn’t last long; once it faded, he�
��d be forced to use his backup ring (which he didn’t want to do) or his own power (which he really didn’t want to do).
“Almost!”
Something rose up in Stone’s peripheral vision, and he turned to face it. A section of the forest floor was moving. As he watched, a clump of dead leaves and twigs about three feet in diameter began whirling, rising up out of the ground to form a vaguely humanoid shape, a tiny tornado of viciously whipping leaves. It moved toward them, picking up more leaves as it went. It didn’t get any larger, but with every foot closer it got thicker, denser. The wind rose to a shrill howl, the swirl of leaves crackling as it approached.
Stone shifted his concentration, struggling to form a spell past the distraction of the area’s corruption. Behind him, he could sense Lopez backing slowly out of the crevice. Yelling something incomprehensible, like a martial artist about to break a stack of cinderblocks, he flung the spell at the leafy figure.
The magical energy tore the thing apart, scattering bits of leaves and twigs and pebbles in all directions. It screamed in indignation as what remained of its cohesion departed and the leaves fluttered back to the ground.
Stone roared in triumph—and realized a split second too late that the leaf-thing had been a diversion.
Another massive limb, this one even larger than the one that had slammed into the top of the shield, came barreling in from their right side. Stone flung out an arm and focused his power into shoring up that side of the shield to divert it, but even so it couldn’t hold fully against a direct hit from something that heavy. It flared pink, then red, then disappeared. The branch, nearly all of its momentum expended in getting through the shield, crashed to the ground next to them with a force they could feel like a tiny earthquake.
“Holy fuck!” Lopez yelled.
Stone snatched up his pack. “Come on!” he ordered through his teeth. “We have to get out of here. Keep that camera safe and hold on tight!”