Game of Stone

by R. L. King

  Well. That was indeed up-front. He had no idea how much these sorts of providers charged, but he supposed allowing some unknown mage to drain part of your life energy didn’t come cheaply. The other part of what she’d said amused him, especially considering his thoughts yesterday about “magical prostitution.”

  “Not…a problem,” he assured her. “On either of those. Let me get back to you after my appointment and we can work out the time.”

  “That’s fine, Mr. Stone. I’ll wait to hear from you. Have a good day.” She hung up.

  Stone stowed the phone and picked up his pace again. That had been…weird. He supposed he’d expected a magical power donor to be a bit more…exotic. This lady sounded like a soccer mom. Ah, well. Power was power, and if she was trustworthy and discreet, he hardly had cause to judge her lifestyle.

  Beatrice Martinez was on the third floor of an administration building closer to the center of campus than Stone’s office—but then again, pretty much everything was closer to the center of campus than Stone’s office. By the time he reached it, once again slowing his pace to a more dignified walk to mount the stairs, it was two minutes after one.

  Brilliant. Now she can add being late to whatever else she wants to reprimand me for.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he told Martinez’s admin aide. “Students had questions in my last class, and I lost track of time.”

  “Go right in, Dr. Stone,” the woman said, nodding toward the door.

  Stone paused a moment, using the act of slipping out of his long black overcoat and draping it over his arm to hide the time he took to prepare himself. He wasn’t worried about what Martinez might say—he certainly hadn’t done anything that would get him sacked, and even if he had, between his own money and what he’d inherited from Desmond, he didn’t need to work another day in his life. But still, that residual sinking feeling when you knew you were about to be dressed down for something you couldn’t help still lingered.

  He pushed open the door and entered the office.

  Beatrice Martinez looked up from where she’d been writing something on her desk calendar. “Dr. Stone. Good to see you. Please have a seat.”

  She was a sturdy woman in her early fifties, with short, graying black hair and a no-nonsense manner. Normally she and Stone got along well, as neither of them had much patience for the touchy-feely, content-free way many of their colleagues communicated in order to avoid offending each other.

  Stone draped his coat over one of the guest chairs and sat down in the other. “Let’s get right to it, shall we? What can I do for you, Dr. Martinez? Is this about my frequent absences lately?”

  Surprise flashed across her face. “What? Oh—no, of course not. I know you’ve been through a lot lately, with everything surrounding the passing of Dr. Mortenson, and your mentor back in England. If you need some time off, of course you should feel free to take it.”

  Stone blinked. He’d been certain that was what she’d called him in about. Even though, as a tenured professor, he couldn’t lose his job over something like this, Martinez could make his professional life quite unpleasant if she chose to. “All right...” he said slowly. “What, then?”

  She pulled a file folder to her, opened it, and consulted the top sheet inside. “Did you know a woman named Adelaide Bonham?”

  That was a name he hadn’t heard in nearly ten years. “A while back, I did. I thought she’d died years ago. She’s got to be—what—in her late nineties by now?”

  “Ninety-seven.” Martinez’s tone softened. “You haven’t heard, then.”

  “Heard what?”

  “She passed away late last month.”

  “Did she?” He wasn’t surprised he hadn’t heard—he hardly made a habit of perusing the obituary column in the local newspaper, and there was no reason anyone should have informed him about it. Still, he felt a twinge of sadness at the thought of her loss. Adelaide Bonham had been a delightful old lady, mentally sharp even in her late eighties when he’d briefly known her while assisting her with a magical issue. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He glanced up. “But what’s that got to do with why I’m here?”

  “Well—Mrs. Bonham was a generous donor to many of the University’s programs throughout the later years of her life. And, it turns out, her generosity continued even after her death. In addition to her other significant bequests, she has left money to endow a professorship in the History department in honor of her late nephew, Dr. Thomas Langley. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

  Stone nodded. He hadn’t thought about Tommy in a long time either, which brought on another brief wave of grief. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Tommy deserves to be remembered.”

  “No doubt he does.” She paused a moment. “She’s also bequeathed another endowment to the Occult Studies department, to create the Adelaide Bonham Professorship. And while the rules for such things don’t allow the donor to influence the selection of the recipient, in this case Mrs. Bonham’s wishes and the University’s are very much in line with each other.”

  Stone gripped the arms of his chair. She couldn’t possibly be saying what he thought he’d heard. “Are you saying that she—that I—”

  Martinez smiled. “Congratulations, Dr. Stone. We’ll be making the formal announcement tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know first. I can assume your acceptance?”

  “Er—yes. Of course. This is—quite an unexpected surprise.” That was an understatement. “Thank you, Dr. Martinez.”

  “Thank Mrs. Bonham. Obviously she thought quite highly of you.” She closed the folder. “It will take a little while to get all the details worked out, but at minimum the position will provide you a dedicated personal assistant, and we’ll have to re-evaluate your course load starting next quarter. Hopefully we’ll have hired another faculty member by then. Part of Mrs. Bonham’s endowment includes funds for increased research—including travel to locations of particular relevance to that research, if you desire it. As I said, we’ll iron all that out in the next few weeks. There’ll be some paperwork you’ll need to read over and sign, but that can wait too.”

  She stood. “I’m pleased for you, Dr. Stone. You bring a lot of prestige to the department. I know it’s a small one, but your name and reputation bring a lot more students to us than you might suspect.” She offered her hand.

  Stone shook it, still feeling a bit sideswiped by the news. “Thank you,” he said again. He chuckled. “I’ll try not to embarrass the department too much.”

  “I have no doubt. They’ll be taking some photos tomorrow, of you, me, and the History recipient and department head, for the Daily.” She quirked an eyebrow at him and her expression grew mock-stern. “Wear a tie.”

  “Now, see? I thought this promotion would mean fewer constraints, not more.” He picked up his overcoat and flashed her a grin. “Don’t worry—I’m told I clean up quite nicely when I make the effort.”

  10

  Stone was still reeling from the unexpected news Martinez had dropped on him when Leo Blum called two hours later. He was just leaving his afternoon class on his way back to his office when the phone buzzed.

  “Doc, I got Timmons to okay you examining the second chess piece,” the detective told him. “You’ll have to come up here, though—they won’t let it out of the station. I can get you photos then, too.”

  “Brilliant. I can’t make it today—will late tomorrow afternoon work?”

  “Yeah, that should be fine. I’ll make sure to be there. Say six?”

  “Fine, traffic willing. Have they discovered anything else about the case? No other pieces have turned up yet, have they? Or odd murders?”

  “No, nothing like that. Why? Are you expecting more?” Blum sounded suspicious.

  “No, no. If I had to take a guess using nothing more than the information we have at present, I’d say the brothers Gallegos blundered into some kind of magical trap when they found those pieces. The items did what they were supposed to do and were destroyed by t
he magical energy they expended. Unless you hear anything about anything else stolen from the locker, the only thing left as far as I’m concerned is to get a look at that second piece and the books and papers.”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, Timmons said you could take a look at those too. He doesn’t think they’re related to the case.”

  Stone wondered what Timmons did think. It was odd working with a detective with actual familiarity with the magical world—it made things a lot easier—but he’d have to be careful around the others. It would be easy, especially as tired as he’d been lately, to slip and say things around Timmons or Vasquez that could get his status switched from “respected professional” to “tinfoil-hat loony.” That wouldn’t help answer any of the questions surrounding this strange case. “How is he explaining the skeletonized corpse in the storage locker?”

  Blum’s sigh came through even over the crackling cell-phone line. “He’s stumped. We had a meeting today, him and me and Vasquez, and we’re all stumped, frankly. Even though I know magic’s involved, it still doesn’t give me much. I’m hoping those papers will shed some light.”

  “Have you talked to the son at all?”

  “Yeah, we got hold of him. He’s in New York City, and he’s worse than useless. He’s a pothead, living in some rathole with five roommates. No wonder he didn’t pay the bill. He says he hasn’t seen his dad in years. I dropped a couple of leading questions about magic, but he didn’t bite. I think he’s a dead end.” He paused, and Stone heard the sound of papers shuffling. “Any new ideas about how those guys were able to get through to the chest, if the circle was meant to keep people away?”

  “Not yet. Nothing more than a bit of wild speculation.”

  “Since I got fuck-all right now, pardon my French, I’ll take wild speculation.”

  “Well…” Stone reached his building but didn’t enter it yet. Instead, he paced out front as he talked. “It’s possible those pieces had some kind of minimal…I don’t want to say ‘consciousness,’ exactly, but I suppose ‘volition’ might be a good word. Perhaps they wanted out, and exerted influence on the first people to enter the locker in a long time.”

  “You’re saying those things had brains?”

  “Not exactly brains. But I’ve heard of items designed to influence people’s thoughts, and there are those that contain entities, either as a prison or a simple repository. I encountered one last summer, in fact. Remember the serial murders down here?”

  “Oh, yeah. So those were magic too?”

  “Yes. That kind of magic is old, and quite powerful. That’s why I was concerned there might be more of those things out there.”

  “No evidence so far. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. But unless you can find anything in those books and papers or looking at the second piece, this might be a dead end.”

  Stone reluctantly had to admit Blum was right. The highest likelihood was that this was an isolated incident, and the two magical items that had caused it were unlikely to cause any other trouble. “You might try to contact any friends of the man who originally had the locker. If you can work out whether they’re mages, tell them to call me. I’ve got some questions for them.”

  Verity was already at his place when he arrived home. As soon as he opened the door from the garage, the tangy aroma of baked salmon and herbs wafted out.

  “I let myself in so I could get started,” she called. “Hope that’s cool.”

  He dropped his coat on one of the breakfast-bar stools. “Fine, fine.” She stood in front of the stove, stirring a wine sauce in a large pan. Raider perched on the counter near her, his green-eyed gaze flicking briefly to Stone and then back to tracking the movements of Verity’s spoon with predatory interest. “Sorry about missing our session last night.”

  “Not a problem. So, the police, huh? They’re calling you more often these days, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, though most of the time it turns out to be nothing but a false alarm.”

  “But this one isn’t?”

  “No, it doesn’t appear so. I don’t think we’re going to get very far with it, though. A couple of storage-locker speculators blundered into an active magical circle.”

  “That could be messy.” She retrieved the spoon, took a small taste of the sauce, then checked something else in another pot.

  “It was. I’m going back up there tomorrow to look at some of the other things they found in the locker. As I said, though, I don’t think anything will come of it.”

  She nodded, put a lid on the saucepan, and crouched to check the oven. “How are Eddie and Arthur doing over at Caventhorne?”

  “Fine. They don’t really need me anymore. I’ll probably pop back over this weekend.”

  He’d reached Eddie earlier that day, and the librarian had assured him they had things well in hand. “Get some sleep, mate,” he’d said. “You’ve been looking like death warmed over lately.”

  “That’s good. Maybe I can take a look when they get it done.” She turned around to face him, tilting her head. “Why don’t you go sit down? Raider and I have got this. I’ll bring everything out in a few minutes.” She grinned. “You look beat, and I want you at your best for our lesson.”

  He thought about protesting, but he was still tired. He grabbed plates and silver, then came back for a bottle of wine and glasses, all the old-fashioned way. Guilty as he still felt about it, he was looking forward to his appointment with Phoebe tomorrow. His magical energy had ebbed nearly low enough that all he could reliably do was use magical sight, and that made him uncomfortable. After the table was set, he dropped into his chair with a sigh and waited for Verity to bring out the rest.

  “You look distracted,” she said. “Is that just because you’re tired, or are you still thinking about your big case?”

  “Thinking about a lot of things,” he admitted, popping the cork on the wine bottle.

  “At least work’s fairly calm, right?”

  “Odd you should say that. I got called into Dr. Martinez’s office today.”

  She frowned. “That sounds ominous.”

  “An old friend I haven’t seen for many years passed away—and in her will, she’s arranged for two endowed professorships. One of them is in Occult Studies, and they’ve offered it to me.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You’d better tell me what an ‘endowed professorship’ is, before my inner twelve-year-old gets me in trouble.”

  He gave her an exasperated Really? look and sighed, amused. “It’s quite an honor, for one thing. It means I’ll have more flexibility—won’t have to teach as many courses if I don’t want to, and can spend more time on things like research.”

  “I thought you liked teaching courses.”

  “I do. Mostly, I don’t expect a lot to change except that it will look good on my CV and add a bit of prestige to the department. I was just a bit taken aback, considering I expected old Martinez to scold me for my frequent absences lately, and instead she drops this on me. Had to do a bit of gear-shifting.”

  “Well, congratulations. Too bad you didn’t tell me before—I could have brought a cake and sung you a song or something.” She tilted her head in an exaggerated thinking pose, then waggled her eyebrows. “What rhymes with ‘endowed professor’?”

  “Eat,” he ordered, pointing. “And stop being impertinent, apprentice. We’ve got a lot to cover tonight.”

  “Are you this grumpy with your real students?” she asked, but couldn’t hide her grin.

  11

  Stone glanced at his watch—not for the first time—and then at the photographer. How many photos did the man need? It wasn’t a bloody wedding, just a few shots for the Daily following the brief announcement ceremony.

  Apparently, the photographer had other ideas, though. “All right—let’s have Dr. Stone and Dr. Martinez together over there, under the tree.”

  Stone sighed and dutifully followed Beatrice Martinez to the indicated spot. “We’re wrapping this up soon, right?” he mutte
red under his breath to her.

  He wore a tailored charcoal-gray suit and dark blue tie, and had made a minimal and largely unsuccessful token effort to wrestle the spiky front section of his hair into submission, all of which had put him a bit out of sorts ever since he’d arrived this morning.

  Despite his joking words to Martinez yesterday, he knew he did in fact clean up quite nicely—most men who didn’t habitually wear suits tended to look a bit frumpy or uncomfortable in them, partly because they rarely got them tailored properly and partly because they couldn’t wait to get out of them. Stone showed no outward sign of his discomfort, though inwardly he wished he could just pose for the photos in his usual clothes.

  Regardless, though, if the man didn’t hurry the hell up, he was going to have to call Phoebe back and postpone his appointment. And he did not want to do that.

  “Have you got somewhere you need to be?” Martinez muttered back, after the two of them had smiled and held poses until the photographer lowered his camera.

  “Actually, yes. I’ve got an appointment I’d rather not miss—and if I don’t leave soon I’ll be late getting back for my three o’clock class.”

  “Okay, Dr. Martinez, Dr. Stone,” the photographer broke in, “let me get a couple of separate shots of each of you, and then I think that’s it for you two.”

  “About bloody time,” Stone whispered, again too quietly for anyone but Martinez to hear. “I know it’s an honor and I’m quite pleased about it, but—”

  “You can go first,” Martinez said with an arch smile. “We need to keep our new star happy, after all.”

  He shot her a look that was half-sour, half-amused. “Thanks. I’ll have a list of appropriately prima-donna demands on your desk tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”