Core of Stone

by King, R. L.

  Verity looked up from where she’d been lying back on the bed, clicking through the channels on the TV. “Better?”

  “Infinitely,” he said. “Did they come for the coat?”

  “Yeah. I put a rush on it for you. They’ll deliver it to the room in two hours.” She pointed toward the tiny table, which sported a brown bottle and a covered tray that hadn’t been there before. “Got you a burger and a Guinness from room service, too. Figured those protein bars probably wouldn’t do the trick for long.”

  “Verity, if you weren’t gay I’d marry you,” Stone said. Just the thought of real food made his stomach growl in anticipation.

  She grinned. “I’m bi, remember?”

  “Yes, but your brother would kill me.” He sat down, pulled the cover off the plate, and began devouring the burger, washing it down with long pulls from the Guinness bottle.

  “They have more, you know,” she said with a chuckle. “I just figured one twenty-seven-dollar cheeseburger would be enough to keep you going for a while.”

  He polished off the last of the burger. “We’ll see,” he said. “But we should go. Things to do, and time is ticking.”

  In the elevator down, Verity asked, “Is your idea done baking yet?”

  “Not quite yet. I’m trying to figure out a way we can lure the mage and whatever friends he brings along into some kind of trap where the illusion won’t be a factor.”

  “That sounds good. Why won’t it work?” They stepped out of the elevator into the Obsidian’s lobby.

  “Because I haven’t worked out how to do it yet,” he said. “Give me a bit of time.”

  “What if you did something to…I don’t know…make the illusion go away?” she asked. “Sort of like that thing you built to catch the Evil before when they got kicked out of their hosts.”

  He shook his head. “I thought of that. I could build something like that, even without magic, but I couldn’t—” He stopped.

  She continued on a couple steps before she realized he wasn’t following. “What?” she asked, turning back around.

  “I couldn’t power it. Not without my magic…” he said slowly, then fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “But you could.”

  “Me? But I don’t know anything about building something like that.”

  “You don’t have to build it. I might not have the power anymore, but I’ve still got the knowledge. I can work out the calculations and build it, but I’ll need your power to make it go.” He lengthened his stride. “Come on—we need to stop at a few places before we head back to the Forgotten.”

  They beat the two-hour time limit they’d promised, but barely. They got out of the cab and only had to wait a couple minutes before the shadowy figures began to emerge from the culvert tunnel.

  Malcolm stared, wide-eyed at what they held. “Are those pizzas?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yep,” Verity said. She carried five large boxes herself, and Stone had five more along with two oversized bags.

  “You lot can take these,” Stone said, offloading his own boxes and one of the bags to eager hands. He held on to the other bag himself and carefully picked his way down the angled concrete that formed the side of the culvert.

  “You didn’t hafta do that, man,” Malcolm said.

  “Just show me where to find Goat, so I can give him these,” he said, and pulled out a box containing a pair of high-end hiking boots.

  Verity hung back with him as they walked back toward the Forgotten’s area. “Why are you buying boots for a guy named Goat?” she asked. “There’s got to be a story there.”

  “There is. And don’t ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  With a project to finally occupy his mind, Stone hadn’t felt this energized since before the Reno hospital. He didn’t share in the Forgotten’s pizza feast, but instead asked Malcolm to show him to a private place with a table where he could work.

  Malcolm recruited a couple Forgotten to carry an old chair and battered table, and they took him down another small side passageway to a different alcove. This one was similar to the one Stone had awakened in, but larger, with space to set up the table. When somebody switched on the lantern hanging from the ceiling, he saw that it also contained a camp bed covered with an army blanket. Several personal effects suggested it was a man’s living space. Stone froze as he realized what it must be.

  “This is Luke’s place, isn’t it?” he asked softly.

  Malcolm nodded. “He don’t need it no more. Just don’t mess with nothin’ of his, okay?”

  “Of course not.” Stone watched as the other Forgotten set up the table and chair, then headed back the way they’d come. Verity drifted in from where she’d been lurking in the entryway.

  “Listen,” Malcolm said when they were gone. “I didn’t wanta tell you this while the others was here—they’ll find out soon enough. But the monster got somebody else while you two was topside.”

  Stone stared. “Who?”

  “Not one of us,” he said. “One of the other group, the ones who ain’t Forgotten. They heard a scream, but they was too scared to check it out.” He sighed, swiping a hand over his forehead. “You sure you gonna be able to do somethin’? ‘Cuz if you can’t, we gotta think about pullin’ up and movin’. Can’t keep losin’ people to somethin’ we can’t hope to fight.”

  “We’ll do something,” Stone said. With every report of another death, his anger at this unknown punk mage grew. In his mind, and according to everything he’d been trained for, magic was about discipline. It was a tool to use to help you do what you needed to do—and that didn’t include the cold-blooded murder of innocent people for fun. This rogue mage had to be stopped. He met Malcolm’s gaze. “I promise you, we’ll do something.”

  Malcolm nodded. “I sure hope so. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  When he was gone, Verity came in. “Doc—” she started. “Are you sure—”

  “Let me work, Verity,” he said. “You can’t help me with this part. You must be tired. If you want to stay here, I’m sure Luke wouldn’t mind if you used his bed to get some sleep.” He was already opening the other bag he’d brought, spreading notebooks, papers, and pens on the table.

  “I’m not tired,” she said. “I guess I’ll go hang out with the others for a while.” She patted his shoulder. “You need anything else?”

  “If you can conjure up my magical library, that would be brilliant,” he said. “But given that it’s behind wards neither of us can open at present, I’ll have to work with what I’ve got.”

  She looked like she was going to say something else, but just patted his shoulder a second time and left the alcove.

  Alone in a dead man’s living space—a man whose death he blamed himself for, even though he knew he couldn’t have done anything to save him—Stone felt a powerful motivation to come up with a solution. These people didn’t deserve to suffer because one of his brethren didn’t have the self-control to refrain from murdering them to boost his own power. He knew better than to romanticize the Forgotten: many of them were hardly “innocents” in the strictest sense of the word. But even drug addicts and petty criminals didn’t deserve this.

  The problem was, he hadn’t been kidding with his remark to Verity: doing this without any of his books was like trying to do complex mathematics without references. Essentially, it was doing complex mathematics without references. This kind of work involved a lot of intricate calculations to determine the precise composition and design of a magical construct to neutralize the young mage’s powerful illusions so the others could see him and fight him. He could do it—he was sure of that—but it would take a lot more time and mental effort, and leave his work more open to mistakes.

  After an hour, he leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden chair (one leg was slightly shorter than the other three, not enough to spur him to look for some
thing to prop it up, but enough to create a subliminal feeling of instability) and shoved his hand through his hair. He stared down at his pages of scribbled notes, at the annotated diagrams, at the list he’d made off to the side to keep track of the components he’d need to make this work.

  Or maybe to make it work. He had no way to be sure, and no way to check his calculations. He wished he had someone else here to consult with—Kolinsky, maybe. But aside from the fact that he still didn’t want to reveal his lack of power to the black mage, there was the purely practical matter that Kolinsky didn’t use telephones, and in any case there was no way he could convince the man to come to Las Vegas, let alone down into a stinking tunnel under the city.

  He’d been correct that Verity couldn’t help him with this. She was smart as hell and had a mind as quick as his, but she’d never shown any real interest or aptitude for this kind of magic. She’d slogged gamely through the background exercises he’d given her, but without enthusiasm, always wanting to get back to the more practical aspects of the Art. A while back, they’d finally come to the agreement that she simply wasn’t cut out for complex theoretical magic, the same way he wasn’t cut out for healing. He’d removed that from her curriculum, and both of them had been happier for it.

  No, he was on his own with this. He sighed, dropping the pen on the table, and tilted the chair backward. One question nagged at him: was this even the right thing to be doing? He knew he could sometimes be the living embodiment of the expression “if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” His first impulse, when trying to deal with almost any situation, was to throw magic at it. If magic wasn’t practical, he threw money at it. What he wasn’t in the habit of doing was asking for help, beyond seeking out other mages for consultation. Usually, it literally didn’t occur to him that maybe if he brought other people into the problem, they might make the whole thing a lot easier. Was he building an elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption, full of complex variables and potential failure points, when another, simpler solution would work better?

  This time, he honestly didn’t think so. What could he do, really? He didn’t know any other mages within easy reach who’d be willing to help. Kolinsky and Madame Huan were out of the question, for different reasons. Sharra was back East, and would take too long to get here even if she dropped everything and caught the next plane out. Same with his colleagues in England, since Las Vegas didn’t have an Overworld portal.

  He could try to mobilize the denizens of the Underground, but that would likely end in a bloodbath. The punk mage’s illusions were so good they nearly fooled him, which meant as long as they were running, the others wouldn’t be able to affect the mage. And as long as he could continue killing people to draw more power, he could keep the illusion going perpetually. Even Verity wouldn’t be able to attack him if she couldn’t see past his illusions.

  The only other option was to bring in outside help, but that was out of the question, too. For one thing, the only kind that would be useful would be people like the police, and the Las Vegas police force was rife with Evil. That, and the Forgotten would never consent to bringing strangers down into their haven—they’d choose to move first. The reason they stayed down here in the first place was to avoid the Evil that could hide in anyone topside. Revealing the layout of their sanctuary would cause more problems in the long run than it solved in the short.

  He tilted the chair back down with a loud thud. Suddenly, he was all too aware of Luke—he almost felt the big Forgotten’s spirit watching over his shoulder, spurring him to action. Save my people. Help them. Do something.

  Stone picked up his pen, leaned forward over the table, and began writing again with renewed purpose.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning, Stone went in search of Verity. Most of the Forgotten were in the main area, either asleep or tending to daily tasks, but she wasn’t among them. Eventually he found her curled up in the alcove where he’d originally awakened, turned toward the wall. “Morning,” he said, poking her gently in the back. “Come on—we’ve work to do.”

  She rolled over, stretching and mumbling something unintelligible. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly ten. I thought you said you weren’t tired.”

  “Not much do around here but sleep,” she said. “Have you been up all night?”

  He nodded. “I wanted to get this done.”

  She sat up, more alert now. “So, how’s it coming?”

  He held up a sheaf of papers, covered with his untidy scrawl and various hasty sketches that looked vaguely like complex electrical schematics combined with ritual diagrams. “I’ve got something, I think. Not certain it will work, but once I remembered I’ve got a source of magic power now, things got a lot easier. That leads us to our next problem, though.”

  She took the papers and glanced over them, clearly just to be polite. “Where’s the chicken?” she asked.

  He frowned. “What chicken?”

  “The one you dropped in the ink to make all these weird scratches,” she said, holding up the papers. “Dunno how you got it to draw pictures, though. That’s pretty impressive.”

  “Hush, you,” he said, grabbing the papers back.

  “Anyway,” she said, “what’s our other problem?” She shrugged into her leather jacket.

  “We need supplies,” he said. “More than just your standard candles and chalk. And I’ve no idea if there even are any magical supply shops in town, let alone where they might be.”

  “Can’t you get Madame Huan to send you stuff?”

  “Yes, but that will take time. I was hoping to get this put together today, so we can try luring the mage in tonight.”

  “So you want to go try to find a magic shop.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to come along, or stay and do something here?”

  Damn, but he hoped this got easier as time went by. “I—need you to come along,” he said. “Without my magic, I’ll need you to help me verify some of the components, and possibly even to get inside.”

  She gripped his arm. “Okay. You tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”

  They found Malcolm, and Stone told him they were heading out again. “Lemme get a group together to show you out,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” Stone said. “I know the way now, and I think Verity and I can handle anything that might come up.”

  “Naw, man, we ain’t takin’ chances,” Malcolm said firmly. “You wait and I’ll get some folks together. If that thing gets you two, we’re really fucked.”

  Once they were topside, Verity looked around. “How are we even gonna find a magic shop?” she asked. “They don’t exactly advertise, do they? I mean, the ones that don’t sell bunnies and top hats.”

  “That, we will call Madame Huan about,” Stone said. “Come on—let’s go back to the Obsidian.”

  “Can we stop someplace where I can get some more clothes?” she asked. “I only brought enough for a couple days—didn’t think I’d be here long.”

  They got back to the Obsidian an hour later, following a stop at a big mall on the Strip. When they got to the room, Stone noted with satisfaction that his coat hung, cleaned and neatly covered, in the open closet.

  “Dibs on the shower,” Verity said.

  While she was in the bathroom, Stone sat down at the small table and called Madame Huan’s shop.

  “Good to hear from you,” she said, and he didn’t miss her relief at hearing his voice. “Are you back from Las Vegas? Was your search successful?”

  He sighed. “No, and no, unfortunately.”

  “So you’re still without your magic.”

  “Yes. No sign of it returning yet. But that isn’t why I called. I’ve got this—little project I’m working on, to help some friends, and I need to find a magical supply shop here in town. Do you happen to know of one?
”

  “What sort of project, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Something nasty is disturbing some people who can’t deal with it. So I’m helping them.”

  There was a long pause. “Alastair…it’s good that you have a project to work on, but how are you…?” She trailed off, but her meaning was obvious.

  “Verity’s here, too,” he said. “I’m providing the brains, and she’d providing the magical muscle to make my design work. But I need some unusual items to finish building it.”

  Another long pause.

  “Madame Huan?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m still here. Are you sure I couldn’t send you what you need?”

  “No time,” he said. “If it’s the only alternative, I’ll have to do it that way, but if it’s not—”

  “It isn’t,” she said. “There is a shop in Las Vegas. I’m just not sure whether I’d suggest that you and Verity go there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Las Vegas is a city of contrasts: multimillion-dollar hotel-casino complexes coexist with generic suburban neighborhoods and with rundown areas that wise tourists won’t go anywhere near. A lot of normal, law-abiding citizens call the town home, but so do gangs large and small, criminals petty and fabulously wealthy, and countless prostitutes, hustlers, homeless people, and junkies all looking for their next big score.

  It was safe enough as long as you remained in the clean, well-lighted places designated for the tourists—even though the Mob’s hold on Vegas was nowhere near what it used to be in the heyday of Bugsy Siegel and the Rat Pack, the powers behind the scenes still considered it good business not to spook the endless supply of sheep whose gambling losses and hedonistic excesses provided a big chunk of the town’s lifeblood. But still, the message was clear to anyone who cared to listen: stay where you belong and you’ll probably be all right. Step out of the light, and all bets are off.