Game of Stone

by R. L. King

  Stone wasn’t offended by the fact that even in a matter as personal as this, Kolinsky was still acting like a trader. Kolinsky was a trader, as unrepentantly so as he was a black mage. Getting offended about it would be like getting offended at a dog for barking.

  “Well…I can’t offer to do your wards anymore, obviously,” he began. “But I’m certain there are some items in Desmond’s collection—my collection, now—that you’d find of interest. We can set up a deal where I can make some of them available to you for your research. Or, depending on how helpful you are with my little problem, I might even consider passing one or two of them on to you permanently.”

  Kolinsky considered. “I think that could be acceptable,” he said. “I will, with your permission, leave the specifics for a later time, based on your satisfaction with my assistance. I trust you to make good on your end of the deal.”

  “You needn’t worry about that.”

  “All right, then.” He got up and walked to his desk, where he began looking through a series of cards. “You once asked me about the specifics of how mages of my—our—persuasion obtained their power, if they didn’t steal it from others. I refused to answer, since you had no need to know at the time.” He selected three of the cards, then returned to his original chair opposite Stone. “There are individuals who specialize in such things.”

  Stone frowned. “Specialize—you mean there are people who specifically provide power to black mages?”

  “Yes, exactly. It can be a lucrative vocation—most of these individuals do not provide these services cheaply. You are paying not only for their power, but for their discretion.”

  “I don’t understand. How would that work? How would they even know to—” He stopped, thinking of Leo Blum. “Wait. They’re mundanes from magical families, aren’t they? People who know about the magical world, but don’t have powers of their own.”

  “Just so.”

  Stone looked at his hands in his lap. “So it’s sort of—magical prostitution.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had no issue with prostitution, magical or otherwise, as long as everyone was consenting and no one was coerced in any way. But to be forced to deal with it himself—that was a different story.

  “If you wish to put it that way. I do not. I look at these people in the same way as I look at any other professional providing a service. But regardless of your opinions on the matter, they do meet the requirements you specified: they are willing, they know what they are doing, and they know the risks involved.” He offered Stone the cards. “These are the names of three such providers. Two of them are in San Jose, and one in Los Altos. I have dealt with all of them at some point, and I can vouch for their discretion.”

  Stone took the cards and looked at them. Each one contained only a name and a phone number: Phoebe S., Timothy B., and Blair D. Nice and anonymous. He wondered if those were even their real first names. “I suppose there’s no need for me to get to know them personally, is there?” he said. He still didn’t like this, but he had to admit it was the best solution he was likely to find if he wanted to keep doing magic. “How often are they available? Do they have—regular clients?”

  “Most of them do. Naturally, they cannot accept too many at once—these three limit themselves to one client per week. I happen to know that all of them currently have…openings. If you’ll permit a recommendation…”

  Stone made a go on gesture.

  “I think you will find Phoebe to your liking. She comes from a powerfully magical family, she is highly intelligent, and she is patient with…inexperienced clients. You may mention my name when you contact any of the three.”

  Stone sighed and slipped the cards into his coat pocket. “Thank you, Stefan. I don’t like this—I don’t like it at all. But that doesn’t matter. And this does seem to be an acceptable solution to a difficult problem.” He stood. “Give me a week or so to finish sorting out the business at Caventhorne, and then we’ll discuss your research.”

  Kolinsky inclined his head in agreement. “There is one other bit of assistance I might offer, if you are open to it.”

  “Oh?”

  “It is always, of course, best to utilize the power you gain with the highest possible efficiency.”

  “Well—yes, of course.” Stone tilted his head. The statement seemed obvious. Why was Stefan even mentioning it?

  “There are ways to maximize that efficiency—to aid in storing power for a longer duration, and obtaining the most possible magical energy from it.”

  “I’m listening…”

  Kolinsky got up, slipped off his immaculate black suit jacket, and carefully hung it over the back of his chair. As he rolled up one of his crisp white shirtsleeves to reveal a series of elaborate tattoos depicting magical symbols, he said, “These are not merely decorative in their purpose. Observe me using magical sight.”

  Curious, Stone shifted. He’d seen the tattoos only once before—when he and Kolinsky had performed a disastrous summoning ritual a few years back. Normally, they were hidden beneath the sleeves of the man’s ever-present formal suits.

  Kolinsky’s familiar aura, a pulsing dark red tinged with a band of purple ringing the outer edge, flared around him. It shimmered with potency—clearly he was making no attempt to disguise it at the moment.

  He raised the arm that he’d exposed and pointed toward his desk. A large book rose and floated over to settle on the display cabinet behind him.

  That wasn’t what Stone watched, though. The lines of Kolinsky’s magical tattoos glowed faintly as the book levitated, then subsided as it reached its destination.

  Kolinsky rolled his sleeve back down and put his jacket back on. “Did you see?”

  “How—did that work?” Stone asked, amazed. He’d never seen anything like that before.

  “The tattoos, obviously, are magical in nature. They are specifically attuned to me, and designed to store power. They do not affect my ability to perform magic, but rather the rate at which the power dissipates when it isn’t being used.”

  “Indeed?” That was normally one of the downsides of black magic: the stored power, if not used, slowly drained out and was wasted. It was somewhat like a battery discharging, or water evaporating. He indicated Kolinsky’s arm. “Is that something you came up with on your own?”

  “No. I wish I could take credit for it, but I must be satisfied with making use of its benefits. If you like, I can provide you with the contact information for the artist who created them, however. He is in San Francisco.”

  Stone thought about it a moment. He’d never even entertained the idea of getting any sort of tattoo before this—the thought of permanently altering his body with ink, piercings, or similar adornments didn’t appeal to him. But he was a black mage now, and that wasn’t going to change, so anything he could do to help him take longer between having to draw power was definitely something to think about. “Thank you, Stefan. I’m not certain I’ll call him, but I’ll definitely consider it.”

  “You must do as you will,” Kolinsky said, unruffled. He went to the desk again and wrote something on another card. “Once again, please mention my name if you do call. He is not strong in all aspects of magic, but within this single specialty he is one of the best in the world.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. And as always—as part of our arrangement, I’ll count on your discretion to keep our conversation and my new status between the two of us.”

  “Of course.”

  Stone took the card and put it with the others in his pocket, bid Kolinsky goodbye, and left the shop. As he walked back to the car, he fingered the four cards, pondering how much his life had changed in the last few weeks. He remembered something he’d seen a while back, in one of those handouts during a mandatory workshop on dealing with stress. The list of stressors had included things like “death of a close family member,” “injury or illness,” and “jail term.”

  He chuckled wryly, with no amusement, as he wondered what
his own list might include: “change in magical status,” perhaps, or “killing secret family member,” or “discovery that nearly everything you thought you knew about your early years was a lie.” He wondered how many points those would be worth.

  Hell, he’d hit quite a few of the normal list items, not even considering the “extras.”

  No wonder he wasn’t getting any sleep lately.

  7

  His phone buzzed as he was on his way back to Stanford. “Dr. Stone? Leo Blum, from SFPD.”

  “Yes, Detective. What can I do for you?” He mentally shifted gears; all the way back he’d been thinking over what Kolinsky had said, trying to decide when—or whether—he wanted to give one of the people on the cards a call. “Did you find Ralph?”

  “Not yet. That’s part of what I’m callin’ about. I was hopin’ you might be able to help us out with that. I got something of his you can use for a ritual. And I got Timmons to agree to let you have a look at that little chess-piece figure, if you can come up to the station.”

  Stone gripped the steering wheel. He’d hoped they would find Ralph on their own—preferably alive, so he could be questioned about why he’d done what he’d done—because that meant he wouldn’t have to expend the energy necessary to do a tracking ritual. If he did, that would probably use up the most of his remaining power. That, in turn, would make contacting one of Stefan’s “service providers” a more immediate necessity.

  “All right. Are you available this evening? I’ve got a class soon, and a meeting afterward. The earliest I can make it there is around six.”

  “Yeah, if that’s the best you can do.” Blum didn’t sound happy about it. “I’m just gettin’ worried that Ralph might do somethin’ like this again before we find him.”

  Stone sighed as he pulled into a parking space. “I’ll see if I can skip the meeting. That should get me there an hour earlier, traffic willing.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

  MacKenzie Hubbard, Stone’s sole remaining colleague in the Occult Studies department, wasn’t pleased when Stone stopped by his office and asked him to fill in at the department meeting that afternoon.

  “Come on—this is the third time this month. Have you picked up a side job or something?” Hubbard, slouched at his desk behind a stack of papers and books, looked like he wanted a cigarette—and he’d quit smoking years ago. “I don’t like these bureaucratic circle-jerks any more than you do.”

  “I’m sorry, Hubbard. Can’t be helped. I’ve had a call from the San Francisco police department—they want to consult about a crime that’s got a possible occult angle.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Go on, I’ll do it.” He let out a loud, frustrated breath and swiped at his forehead. “We really need to get somebody else in here, and soon.”

  Stone agreed with that. They’d been interviewing candidates since shortly after Edwina Mortenson’s death, but so far the few they’d identified had either been bad fits for the job or uninterested in leaving their current positions to move to such an expensive and populous area. He was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to find someone.

  Traffic, for once, was moving smoothly up 280, so Stone arrived at Blum’s precinct house a little after five. The squat detective hurried out and ushered him into a tiny, cluttered office full of papers, overflowing file folders, and empty soda cans. He closed the door, shutting out the frenetic hubbub of police business outside. “Hey, thanks for coming. Timmons is busy tonight, so I ‘reluctantly agreed to talk to the occult nut’ in his place. He made me promise not to offend you. You want a cup of coffee or somethin’, or should we get right to it?”

  “Right to it, if you please,” Stone said. “I take it Ralph still hasn’t turned up?”

  “Nope. We think he’s either dead or hidin’ somewhere till the heat’s off a little.”

  Stone agreed—with his thoughts tending toward the former. He’d seen the news report while he was getting ready for work that morning: all three of the murder victims had had their throats slashed with a kitchen knife, which was found at the scene. The two children, unhurt but terrified, were in the custody of an aunt.

  They’d shown a photo of Ralph on the news broadcast—a pot-bellied, balding guy in his middle forties. Stone privately speculated about how someone like that had managed to kill three people, including a nineteen-year-old man, before any of them could either overpower him or get away. It was possible, certainly—but it could also point to supernatural involvement. “Did you get any other information from the children?”

  “Not a lot. They were in bed when he got home. They said they opened the door to their room when they heard something weird, and saw their dad coming out of their brother’s room with a bloody knife, heading toward theirs. They freaked and got out through their bedroom window.”

  “Anything about how he looked? Odd glowing eyes, anything like that?”

  “They didn’t say anything about that. Daisy, the older girl, said his expression looked weird—mean, she said. Not like her dad at all. They’re both pretty messed up. That’s a hell of a thing for kids to have to deal with.”

  “You said you’ve got something of Ralph’s for the ritual? And do you have the item?”

  Blum opened his desk drawer and took out a baggie containing the familiar black figure. “You can touch it now—the evidence guys have already been over it.”

  Stone opened the bag and removed the figure. It looked exactly like it had last night: black with gold veins running through it, indentations for eyes, and a crack horizontally down the middle. It looked like the stylized representation of an animal or even a humanoid, but it was too crude and blasted to identify for sure. He examined it with care using magical sight, but nothing new appeared. Whatever power the item had possessed—if it had ever had any—had long since dissipated. He handed it back. “Did they work out what it’s made of?”

  “That’s the weird part. They didn’t. According to the lab techs it’s some kind of mineral similar to obsidian, but it’s not obsidian. They think it might be volcanic, or formed some other way using a lot of heat. But they’ve never seen anything like it.” He indicated a chip in the bottom. “We sent a sample out to a geologist, but we won’t get the results back for a while.” Blum slipped the figure back into the baggie, returned it to his drawer, and withdrew another, larger plastic bag. “Here’s the item for the ritual. I got it by claiming we needed something for the dogs.”

  Stone raised an eyebrow. The new bag appeared to contain a folded green T-shirt. “You have dogs?”

  “Nah. Well, drug-sniffer dogs, but that’s different. Anyway, they got this out of his laundry basket. Sorry I couldn’t get anything with more significance, but this right here was pushin’ it.”

  “It should be all right. Do you have a private place where I can do the ritual?”

  “Yeah, there’s a warehouse not far from here we can use. You got what you need?”

  “In the car.” Stone had finally gotten around to replacing the black leather duffel bag he’d lost in Brunderville, and restocking it with ritual supplies.

  “Let’s go, then—I want to get out of here before Timmons gets back, so he doesn’t ask any uncomfortable questions. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind if I do my skeptic act if anybody talks to us.”

  “Not a problem. Feel free to insult me in any way you like.”

  The warehouse was a few minutes’ drive from the precinct building. Blum pulled his red Honda around behind it and waited while Stone retrieved his bag from the back seat.

  “Nobody’ll notice us here,” he said. “We use this place to store some long-term impounds and vehicle evidence, but nobody should be comin’ in this late. There’s enough empty floor space inside for you to do your thing.” He unlocked the door and switched on the lights.

  Stone took a look around as he entered. The space was large and shadowy, with a few battered, grimy cars parked along the back wall next to a pile of wooden crates on pallets. It smelled
of dust and old motor oil, like an abandoned mechanic’s shop. As Blum had promised, the large open space in the middle was easily big enough to perform the tracking ritual.

  “How long you think it’s gonna take?” Blum asked, glancing at his watch. “I figure I got about an hour before anybody misses me.”

  “Shouldn’t take that long.” Stone had already dropped his bag on a nearby crate and was pulling out the various items he’d need. “Just let me get this circle done. Fortunately, I can use a simple one.”

  “Sure, I’ll shut up and let you work. I’ve never seen one of these rituals before, so I’m kinda interested.” Blum perched on top of another crate where he could watch.

  It took less than twenty minutes for Stone to construct the circle. As he’d said, it was a simple design, drawn in chalk on the floor, with candles to anchor its outer points. “You’ll have to work out how to clean this up after,” he called to Blum.

  “Easy. I can just hose the place down. The floor’s got drains. You ready to go?”

  “Just about, yes. Give me the shirt and stay back. You do know about not breaking circles, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Don’t worry—I ain’t comin’ anywhere near that thing while you’re makin’ with the mojo.” He produced the green T-shirt and tossed it to Stone.

  The ritual itself took less time than the circle construction. Stone stood in the center of the circle (normally he’d sit, but not on this oily, grime-covered floor) and spread the T-shirt in front of him. He cast the tracking spell, watching with magical sight as the familiar tendril emerged from the shirt and streaked upward out of the warehouse. Carefully, he sent his perceptions out to follow it.

  It was strong—that was good. It meant Ralph was alive and still relatively close by. The farther away the subject of a tracking ritual was, the harder it was to find them. If they were too distant, all the caster could get was a sense of their direction and a rough idea of how far away they were. To find them, a series of rituals would be required, following the line each preceding one’s results indicated. And that assumed the subject didn’t move in the meantime. Practically speaking, long-distance tracking rituals were a pain in the ass.