Game of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Those are damn useful,” Zack said, impressed. “Too much magic for me, though. You’re sure they work on cameras?”

  “They do, but not for long. We should still avoid them.”

  “Okay, let’s go, then.”

  Zack opened another door and led them down a short hall to a pair of elevators, once again pointing out the cameras so they could skirt them. “Honestly, they probably don’t even watch these,” he said. “But we don’t want ’em seeing us if they go over the tapes later.”

  One of the things Kolinsky had done to assist them had been to procure a keycard that would open the maintenance elevator. Stone had no idea how he’d done it, but then he often didn’t have any idea how Stefan Kolinsky did things. Usually, they fit firmly in the category of “don’t ask, you probably don’t want to know.” But when Zack pulled out the card and waved it in front of the sensor, the doors slid open without problem.

  “Remember—no cameras in the elevator, but watch out when we get out.”

  Stone nodded. They’d be exiting the elevator two stories down from the penthouse and taking the stairs up, but even two floors down included some pretty high-class real estate. The lobbies would be under surveillance, and Stone suspected it would be more closely monitored than the maintenance corridors.

  They watched the floor indicator as the elevator worked its way upward with what felt like agonizing slowness. The building had seventy-five floors, so their target was the seventy-third.

  The elevator stopped on twenty-two.

  Stone looked at Zack.

  Zack shrugged. “Can you make us invisible?”

  “Yes, but not for long. It’s tiring.”

  “Okay, save it, then. Just keep the disregarding spell up. If they see us, act like a janitor.”

  The doors slid open to reveal a woman pushing a cleaning cart. She glanced at the two of them, then pressed the button labeled 34.

  Stone couldn’t miss the tension in her stance, and supposed being alone in an elevator with two men she’d never seen before might be a good reason for it. He remained silent and focused on keeping the spell up until the elevator once again slid to a stop on the thirty-fourth floor.

  The woman quickly pushed the cart out, glanced over her shoulder at Stone and Zack again, then hurried off down the hallway.

  Stone let his breath out.

  “It’s okay. The spell’s holdin’. Just be cool.”

  The doors closed and the elevator resumed its ascent.

  It stopped again with the 40 indicator lit.

  “Again?” Stone whispered.

  “It is the maintenance elevator.”

  This time, a man got in. He wore a workman’s shirt and jeans, along with a leather tool belt. An ID card hung from his belt. He pushed the 53 button, and when the doors closed he glanced curiously at Stone and Zack. “Haven’t seen you guys around before.”

  “We’re new,” Zack said. “Just started a couple days ago.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Sixty-seven. There’s a leak in one of the bathrooms.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Little late to be fixin’ leaks, isn’t it?”

  Stone tensed, but Zack only shrugged. “Hey, man, I don’t ask questions. I just do what they tell me, y’know? Some rich lady’s toilet’s leaking, she wants it fixed now.”

  “Lemme see your ID cards,” he said.

  Zack glared at him. “What are you, my boss? Come on, man—just do your job and we’ll do ours, okay?”

  The man’s expression hardened, but at that moment Stone raised a hand, revealing a card. “It’s all right,” he said in an American accent. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  The workman looked at the card, blinked, and then nodded. “Yeah, okay.” He didn’t ask for Zack’s card. A moment later the door opened and he got out. “Have a good one.”

  “You too,” Stone said.

  When the door shut, Zack slumped back against the wall. “That was close. How did you—”

  “Illusion. And this.”

  Zack peered at what he held up, and he grinned. “You jacked his ID card?”

  “It’s easier to make the illusion believable if I have something to start with. He’ll just think he dropped it somewhere.”

  “Not bad. Not bad at all. We’ll make a burglar out of you yet.”

  Nobody else entered the elevator as it continued its journey upward. A soft bong sounded as the 73 light illuminated, and the doors slid open to reveal a utilitarian maintenance corridor.

  Zack stepped out motioned for Stone to follow. “Hang on to that ID. It’s a keycard. The one Mr. Kolinsky gave us should be our first choice, but never hurts to have two. We’ll keep it in case of emergency. From here, it’s just up two flights to the top floor.”

  Stone was sure it wouldn’t be that easy, but he followed Zack to another door, used magic to open it, and soon they were heading up the stairs, avoiding the cameras Zack pointed out.

  When they reached the floor labeled 75, Zack stopped out of sight of the last security camera. “Okay,” he said. “Put your stuff on.” He slipped off his shoulder bag.

  Stone did the same, pulling out thin gloves and a black stocking cap. The last thing he withdrew was a thin rubber mask. “Are you sure we need to wear these?”

  Zack was already slipping his over his head. It clung to his features, subtly changing his appearance enough that he wouldn’t be recognizable. He topped it with his own stocking cap. “That illusion’s not one hundred percent against cameras, right? This’ll give us an extra layer of protection. Don’t worry—it’s good stuff. Mr. Kolinsky got ’em—not sure where, but I know they cost a bundle. Won’t make you sweat.”

  Reluctantly, Stone pulled on the mask. It felt strange but not uncomfortable after it settled into position. Zack had been thorough, he had to admit.

  “Okay,” Zack said. “One more thing—try not to talk out loud unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t know if there are recording devices, but if there are and anybody hears that accent, it’ll make it a lot easier to identify you. If you gotta say something, use your American accent or whisper.”

  Stone merely nodded and followed Zack down the hallway.

  They’d already been over the plan several times before they arrived, so they didn’t have to confer now. Zack moved with confidence, continuing to keep out of sight of the cameras, until he reached an unmarked door and stood aside. When Stone used magic to open it, he pushed it open and entered.

  Stone remained outside, stationing himself across the hall under the camera. They’d had to be visible for a moment since it was watching the door, but Zack had probably been right—the security guards had a lot of territory to watch, and the odds they’d seen anything in a few seconds were low. Nonetheless he shifted from foot to foot and tried to keep his tension under control. Every few seconds he glanced down the hall toward the elevators, afraid any moment a squadron of guards would pour out, guns drawn. He could handle them if they did, but that would blow the operation.

  What the hell was Zack doing in there? It occurred to Stone—more than once, in fact—that it would be easy for the man to simply do something to bring the guards running and sneak out through the ventilation system or something, to get revenge for what had happened in Kolinsky’s shop. He only had Zack’s word that he’d given Kolinsky a magical oath.

  Still, Kolinsky trusted the man, and Stone trusted Kolinsky. So that—

  The door opened and Zack slipped out, quickly crossing the hallway to stand next to Stone. “Got it.”

  Stone let his breath out in relief. “The mundane security system’s disabled?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I got everything I can get from out here—either shut it off or reprogrammed it so it’ll report everything’s fine. But if this lady is as rich, nasty, and smart as Mr. K said, I’m sure she’s got some self-contained stuff inside as well.”

  “Do you kno
w what it is?”

  “I know what kind of stuff it might be, but no specifics. Mr. K couldn’t get those.” He grinned and patted Stone’s arm. “Take it easy, man. I got this. You just handle the mojo, and I’ll take care of the mundane stuff. Come on—the cameras on the halls are looping now, so we don’t have to worry about hiding while we get through the wards.”

  They hurried down the hallway and stopped next to the elaborately carved doors leading to Thalassa Nera’s suite. Stone looked around, nervous again despite Zack’s assurance that the cameras were all set to loop an empty hallway.

  When they’d been going over the plans earlier that night, he’d asked Zack why they didn’t simply go up to the roof and use a levitation spell to drop down onto the terrace. Surely, he’d figured, the terrace door would be less heavily protected than the front one.

  “That’s true,” Zack had told him. “You’re probably right about that. But the problem is, the wards are gonna extend around the whole place—including the edge of the terrace. It’s gonna be hard enough for me to get both of us through a set of tough wards without having to do it while floating in midair. If something goes wrong, seventy-five stories is a long way down.”

  So instead here they were in front of the main doors. “Okay,” Zack whispered. “Showtime. See if you can get them open, but don’t move forward.”

  Stone put his hands on the door and focused his concentration. If this was a normal door—even one with a formidable lock—he should be able to trip it. Heart pounding, he reached out with his magical senses, looking around for some kind of mechanism.

  It took him several moments to find what he was looking for. The lock was indeed impressive, but it was still mechanical. Thalassa Nera, like most mages, probably counted on her magical defenses to do most of the heavy security lifting. He took hold of the mechanism and flipped it; a soft click rewarded him. “There,” he whispered, finally letting out the breath he’d been holding.

  Zack gave him a thumbs-up and motioned him aside, then made an ‘open it’ gesture. When Stone had used magic to open one side of the double doors, Zack stepped in.

  Stone moved quickly behind him. They hadn’t actually rehearsed the process of getting through the ward, but Zack had explained it thoroughly.

  “Getting two through is really hard for me,” he’d told Stone. “I can do it, but you’re gonna have to stay close. You don’t wanna know what’ll happen if that ward snaps shut while we’re halfway through.”

  Stone gripped Zack’s shoulders and waited, feeling the tension in the other man as he leaned forward and concentrated. This was something completely outside Stone’s area of influence; he could break wards, even powerful ones, given enough time, but Zack’s wild talent gave him the ability to simply push his body through them. Stone was glad the man was working for Kolinsky, now—as dangerous as he had the potential to be, at least he couldn’t go rogue with this frightening ability. Not if he valued his continued existence, anyway. Stefan Kolinsky was not a man to cross.

  “Almost there…” Zack muttered. His voice shook with fatigue. “Hold on tight and stay close. Here we go.”

  Stone felt him shift forward and followed as he took one step, then two.

  The sensation of passing through the ward was one of the strangest things Stone had ever experienced. It was a little like entering a teleportation portal, with the same sort of gently crackling energy, but combined with a weird and unsettling feeling of pushing through definite resistance. Later, Stone would liken it to what one might feel walking through several feet of gelatin, assuming you could still breathe while walking through gelatin.

  Zack grunted, shifting his shoulders as he continued moving forward. Now Stone felt shaking as well as tension. Would they get through, or would they be stuck in the wards like a couple of insects in amber, immobilized until Thalassa Nera returned tomorrow and found them there? The crackling increased, and with it the temperature. Sweat ran down the back of Stone’s neck under the mask, and with it the sudden and overwhelming urge to scratch the back of his head. It took all his willpower not to take his hand off Zack’s shoulder. Instead, he tightened his grip and pushed forward.

  When they finally popped through, they both almost fell as the resistance suddenly vanished. Zack staggered forward and barely caught himself before he pitched headlong into the floor; Stone, stumbling and still gripping the other man’s shoulders, struggled to keep his feet and prevent Zack from going over.

  Regaining his balance, Zack leaned over and put his hands on his knees, his back lurching with his heaving breaths. “Damn,” he half-whispered, half-sputtered. “Those were tough. Just give me a sec, then we can keep going.”

  Stone kept watch while Zack got himself together. No interior lights illuminated the spacious entryway, but the moonlight must have been filtering in from somewhere—probably the glass terrace doors or other large windows—because Stone could make out dim shapes ahead of them. He felt exposed here in the open but didn’t want to move until Zack gave the word.

  Finally, the other man stood up straight. “Okay,” he whispered. “I think I’m okay now.” He pointed forward. “Room we’re looking for is through here, down the hall, and left.” He took a step forward toward the elaborate woven rug covering most of the foyer.

  Stone grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  He’d been slipping. Unnerved as he’d been by the weird trip through the wards, he hadn’t been doing his job. He shifted to magical sight and immediately tensed at what he saw up ahead.

  24

  The trap was simple but deadly. Keeping hold of Zack’s arm with one hand, Stone raised the other and summoned a light spell around it. He swept the light over the rug.

  To the uninitiated, the design woven into the rug would look like nothing more than an elaborate and beautiful pattern. Which, to be fair, it was. What it also was, though, was an intricate set of magical sigils. Stone raised the light to examine the chandelier hanging above the rug. The fixture, composed of thousands of tiny, glittering shards of crystal, was every bit as beautiful as the rug—and every bit as magical. To magical sight, he could see that the two were linked; though he couldn’t be sure without a lot more study than they had time for, his best guess was that stepping on the rug would trigger the chandelier to launch its crystal shards downward, probably at high velocity.

  In spite of the renewed pounding of his heart, Stone was impressed. A neat, elegant, and highly lethal trap. Thalassa Nera was living up to her reputation.

  He tightened his grip on Zack’s arm. “Go around the rug,” he whispered next to the other man’s ear, barely audible. “Don’t touch it.”

  Zack glanced at the rug, then up at the chandelier, and paled. Then he nodded nervously and skirted the edge of the carpet as he crossed the room. Stone followed, once again holding his breath until he’d made it all the way across.

  The two of them paused to get their bearings a moment before continuing. “Anything up ahead?” Zack whispered.

  Stone examined the hallway, dropping the light spell and focusing his magical sight.

  This time, they were harder to see. He had to concentrate hard to spot them: two magical “tripwires” stretched across the hallway. The first was at approximately chest height and about ten feet down; the second was at knee height another ten feet after that. As carefully as he tried, though, he couldn’t identify what they would do if tripped.

  Best not to trip them, then. “Two magic beams across the hall. Follow me and do what I do.”

  He started to move, but this time it was Zack who gripped his arm. “Hang on a sec,” he cautioned. “This lady is smart. Let’s see how smart.”

  From his bag, he pulled out a spray can. He pointed it down the hall and let loose a sweeping spray, which billowed out and filled the area for a short distance.

  Within it, a green beam lit up about halfway between the floor and the ceiling, a few feet short of the first one Stone had spotted. “Is t
hat the one you saw?” Zack asked.

  Stone shook his head. Nera was smart—expect both magical and mundane invasion, and prepare for both. A mundane would never see the magical tripwires, and most mages didn’t think to look for mundane traps when going against a practitioner of Thalassa Nera’s power level. His body went cold again. How many more of these traps would they have to circumvent before they reached their quarry?

  “Go on,” Zack whispered. “I’ll follow you. But stop just after the first magical one and I’ll use the spray again.”

  It took them nearly ten minutes to work their way down a fifteen-foot hallway. In addition to the magical tripwires, Zack’s spray revealed two more mundane ones, spaced at uneven intervals along the way. When they finally reached the other end using a combination of crawling under the higher ones and carefully stepping over the lower, Stone’s heart pounded so hard he was sure any sound detectors could pick it up.

  At the end of the hall, more wide hallways extended to both the left and the right. Zack pointed left, and Stone held up his flashlight to survey the area.

  Like the other hallway, this one was about fifteen feet long. On the left side were two closed doors; the right side opened onto a large room, though they couldn’t see its contents from where they stood. At the end of the hallway was an open doorway flanked by two massive stone statues. Both represented Egyptian gods: they had muscular human male bodies, with bird-headed Thoth on the right and jackal-headed Anubis on the left.

  “Any more tripwires?” Zack whispered.

  Stone shifted to magical sight again and looked carefully, but didn’t see any. He also examined the carpet—solid red this time, with no glowing sigils in either magical or mundane sight—the mirror, the painting, and the statues. Nothing lit up. Had Nera been satisfied with the deadly traps in the entrance hallway? “I don’t like the look of those statues…or that mirror,” he murmured.

  “Magic?”

  “Not that I can see. And that makes me nervous. I don’t see anything, though. Do you?”

  “Probably no traps here since that right-side hallway is open, but let’s check anyway.” Zack used his spray can again, and let out a low whistle when the fog filled the near end of the hallway. “This lady really doesn’t want anybody in her place.”