Game of Stone

by R. L. King

  Stone blinked. “Yes?”

  “This might be what you’re looking for.”

  The caretaker stood near the foot of the casket, leaning forward to get a better look inside. He plucked the lantern from the top of the sarcophagus and shined it in closer.

  Stone hurried to join him, and immediately spotted an oilcloth-wrapped bundle stuffed into the space between the casket and the wall. His heartbeat increased, and a tingle passed through his body. He hadn’t been wrong—at least something was here, even if it wasn’t what he’d been seeking. With a shaking hand, he reached inside and withdrew the bundle.

  It measured about eighteen by fifteen by about eight inches deep. It was heavy; the object inside felt like it was made of metal. Holding his breath with anticipation, Stone laid it on top of the sarcophagus and unwrapped the oilcloth.

  Inside, as he suspected, was a metal box. Surprisingly, it didn’t have a lock on it, just a stout clasp holding it shut. He shifted to magical sight but saw no sign of any traps or sigils that might mean trouble for anyone who dared try to open it. The thing seemed completely mundane, in fact.

  “Looks safe enough,” he said. “I guess they figured sealing it in a tomb would keep anyone from hunting for it.” He turned his attention to the marble cover on the floor. “What do we do about this? Just leave it here for now?”

  “Yes, sir. As I said before, I don’t have anything here to seal it with. If you’ll lift it into place tomorrow, I’ll take care of it then.”

  Stone felt odd about leaving his grandfather’s casket uncovered like this—even if the old man had been a reprehensible person, it seemed wrong to go away with him so…exposed. But he supposed there was no helping it—the mausoleum had a lock, and it wasn’t as if grave robbers were a problem these days.

  “Thank you, Aubrey. Really. I really should give you a pay rise.”

  “Another one, sir?” Aubrey asked, chuckling. Stone had already given him a substantial pay increase and a handsome lump-sum bonus once he got the money from Desmond’s bequest.

  “As many as you want. You’re worth them all.” He patted the old man on the back, then began gathering the tools. “You should take a holiday, you know. Go somewhere warm, and lounge on the beach with an Agatha Christie novel and one of those drinks with an umbrella in.”

  “Someday, sir. Perhaps I’ll go to the cinema next week.”

  “That’s it, Aubrey—life of the party, you are.”

  He locked the mausoleum, double-checked it, and followed Aubrey out of the cemetery and back toward the house. They’d left the tools inside, so all Stone carried was the box, which he’d rewrapped in the oilcloth to protect it from the light rain, under his arm. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight, he knew.

  They’d nearly reached the house when his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He stopped, surprised, and waved Aubrey ahead of him as he pulled it out, wondering who could be calling. It was mid-afternoon in California, so it could be any number of people.

  He didn’t recognize the number, though. He took the steps to the front door two at a time and ducked inside. “Yes, hello?”

  “Dr. Stone?” The voice was female and unfamiliar, the connection scratchy.

  “Who’s this?”

  “We…met last week. My name’s Kyla.”

  Kyla? “The Harpy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Er…all right. Did you need something? That rapist didn’t get away, did he?” He hadn’t heard anything from Blum since he’d given his abbreviated statement on Monday night.

  “No. They nailed him. Couple of the other victims came forward and positively identified him.”

  “Well…that’s good, then. But why are you calling me? How did you get my number?”

  “Hezzie knew somebody who had it. Listen…I really don’t want to do this, okay? But I—we—need your help.”

  “My help?” Stone frowned. What could a bunch of female vigilantes from San Francisco need with him? They’d already made it clear they didn’t think much of his gender or his occupation.

  “Yeah. Remember on Monday before we left, you showed me that black figurine thing, and the white one that went with it?”

  “Yes…” Stone tensed, afraid of what was coming next. Aubrey glanced at him questioningly from the other side of the room, but he waved him off.

  “Well…I was talking to one of our other members about it yesterday. One who wasn’t there on Monday. She got really nervous, and told me her cousin’s got one of those things. And now we can’t find her.”

  41

  A cold shiver gripped Stone. “Wait—you’re saying your friend’s cousin has one of the same kind of figurines the rapist had? You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I described it to my friend—she says it was just like that. Black with jewel eyes and gold veins through the body. It wasn’t a goat thing, though—she said it looked like some kind of cat. She only saw it once.”

  “And the cousin’s disappeared, not the friend?”

  “Yeah.” Kyla sounded impatient. “After my friend told me about this, we went to find her cousin, but she wasn’t home. Her roommate said she’d been gone a couple days. Said she had some stuff she needed to do.”

  “Do you know where she got this thing?”

  “The figurine? She said she bought it off some guy selling crap down at the Wharf a while back.”

  Damn. That certainly did sound like it came from the same set. Stone wondered if his wards had somehow triggered and he hadn’t noticed—or if something had gone wrong and they hadn’t triggered at all. “Uh—okay. I can try to help, but I’m not sure what you want me to do. As far as I know, no more of the white pieces have activated.”

  “Can you come up here? You mages have ways to find people, right?”

  “Yes, of course. But can’t Hezzie do that?”

  “Hezzie isn’t a full witch. She mostly does healing, stuff like that, and sometimes potions. She can’t find people. We have others who can, but they use other ways. They’ve been trying, but no dice yet.”

  Stone glanced at his watch. “All right—I’ll be there as soon as I can. It will take me a bit, though—I’m not home at present. Where shall I meet you?”

  She gave him an address in San Francisco. After a pause, she said, “Do you think that thing’s going to make her do something?”

  “Quite likely it will try. But I don’t think it’s activated yet—if it has, I’d have felt it.”

  “Felt it?” She sounded suspicious. “How?”

  “Hard to explain. Let me get off the phone so I can get to you. Do you mind if I bring my apprentice along?”

  “What’s he gonna do?”

  “She. And I’m sure she can help. You’ll like her, I think.”

  “Oh! Uh—yeah, sure, bring her along. And—thanks.”

  Stone hung up and went hunting for Aubrey, finding him just where he expected him to be—in the kitchen, putting water on for tea. “I’m afraid I might be a bit late tomorrow,” he told the caretaker. “Something’s come up, and I’ve got to go back to California for a while.”

  “Now, sir? Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “I hope not too. But it’s got to be done. I’ll come back as soon as I can to help you with the crypt.”

  “Of course, sir. I’m sure it will be fine until then.”

  Stone glanced down at the box he still held. His desire to open it and spend the next several hours examining the contents ached like a physical compulsion, but it couldn’t be helped. If Kyla was right that her friend’s cousin had the figurine and the thing hadn’t activated yet, he might be able to find her before it got its hooks into her. Given that only two more pieces remained and Kolinsky had suggested the crimes’ severity would escalate, he couldn’t afford to wait.

  He hurried downstairs to his basement library, stashed the box in his warded vault, and left the house.

  He called Verity as soon as he got through the portal, waving to Marta and heading to his car.
At least his apprentice had done as he’d suggested and gotten her own mobile, so he should be able to reach her.

  “Hi, Doc,” she answered almost immediately. “What’s up?” From the background noise, it sounded like she was in a crowded area.

  “Are you working?”

  “Nope—just out for a late lunch with a couple friends. Did you need something?”

  “I’ve got to go up to San Francisco about that case I’ve been working on—the one with the figurines. Your help would be appreciated, if you can get away.”

  “Sure. I can cut this short—”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve been over in England, so I’m coming from the portal, and I’ve got to stop off at home to check something before we go. Meet me there in half an hour.”

  “What are we doing?” Verity asked, when they were on their way up 280 toward San Francisco. “Did another one of those things go off?”

  “Not yet. But I expect it will soon.” He pulled the white figurine from his pocket and passed it to her. When he’d checked the remaining pair in the vault, he’d known immediately which one Kyla had been referring to: it was the smaller of the two, shaped like some kind of wild cat—a panther, perhaps. It had green jewel eyes, and one of its paws was raised as if to take a swipe at something. The other remaining piece, the larger one, resembled a coiled, winged snake, its top half extended like a cobra ready to strike.

  She examined it, turning it over in her hands. “So if it hasn’t gone off yet, why do you expect it to?”

  Quickly, he gave her the highlights of what had happened with the Harpies on Monday night, and what Kyla had told him on the phone earlier.

  “An all-female vigilante street gang?” She grinned. “Sounds like something out of a comic book. And they’ve got mages?”

  “Well, one, at least. Don’t call her that, though—she considers it an insult. She prefers ‘witch’.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Not really—but some practitioners who focus more on nature or druidic-style magic call themselves witches instead of mages. Technically, my grandmother and her lot were witches. In the end, though, it’s all magic.”

  “Hmm…so I guess I’m kind of a witch too, aren’t I? Half mage, half witch, anyway.”

  “I suppose you are.”

  She chuckled. “So does that make me a wage, or a mitch?”

  He winced, but didn’t reply except to shoot her a withering look.

  They reached San Francisco, and Stone gave Verity the directions he’d written down for how to get to Kyla’s location so she could navigate. It turned out to be an apartment building in an old but respectable-looking end of Noe Valley. They had to park nearly three blocks away; Stone put a disregarding spell on the BMW before they left so it blended with the other cars in the area and grabbed his black leather bag from the trunk.

  The apartment was on the third floor. Kyla answered their knock almost immediately, suggesting she must have been waiting for them. She looked stressed. “What took you so long?”

  “Sorry,” Stone said sourly. “This town is a bloody nightmare for finding parking.”

  Kyla let her breath out and visibly tried to relax. “Sorry. A little touchy. C’mon in. The others are here too.” She eyed Verity with interest. “This is your apprentice?”

  “Name’s Verity, since the Doc’s forgotten his manners,” Verity said with a grin.

  Kyla led them into a large living room. The other four Harpies, and two more women Stone didn’t recognize, sat on sofas and perched on chairs. All of them looked up as the three newcomers came in, regarding Stone with the sharp focus of a group of vultures circling a carcass.

  Stone returned their scrutiny, sweeping his gaze over them. Blonde, broad-shouldered Greta sat next to smaller, dark-eyed Hezzie on one sofa, with tall, rangy Zel on the other next to an empty spot clearly vacated by Kyla. The skinny, odd-looking woman Stone hadn’t seen clearly was on one of the chairs, pale and twitchy. That left the two he hadn’t encountered before: a hard-eyed, steel-jawed woman with graying hair, and a short-haired Asian woman with an athletic build similar to Zel’s. None of them were wearing their black jackets now, but although they looked less menacing in the light of day, they all still had a certain spring-like tension to their postures, as if prepared to leap into action if he made the wrong move.

  “Suppose you tell us what’s going on,” Stone said, not missing the fact that Greta and the twitchy woman both looked like they’d rather toss him out the window than talk to him. He shifted briefly to magical sight and confirmed what he suspected: all their auras crackled with tension. “And how you want us to help you.”

  “Already told you,” Kyla said. She pointed to the Asian woman, the one Stone didn’t know. “This is Lara. She wasn’t with us the other night, so she didn’t hear the story about the magic figurine. But when we were talking about what happened that night, she—well, you tell him, Lara.”

  Of all the women’s auras, Lara’s looked most worried to go with her tense resolve. She glanced at Verity, then fixed her gaze on Stone. “When Kyla described the figurine that guy had—and the one you showed her that went with it—I remembered my cousin Iris showed me one like it.”

  “How long ago was that?” Stone asked. The women hadn’t offered him or Verity a seat yet, so he remained standing.

  Lara shrugged. “Couple months ago. I didn’t pay much attention, except she was really into the thing. Said it kinda ‘called to her,’ so she had to buy it.”

  “And she bought it from someone at the Wharf?”

  “Yeah, down in the tourist area. She said there were only a couple left, but that was the one she wanted. She likes cats.”

  Stone pulled the white figurine from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Did it look like this one, only black?”

  She studied it for only a second or two before tossing it back. “Yeah,” she said, surprised. “Exactly like that. Same green eyes and everything.”

  “And now she’s disappeared?” Verity asked. “When did that happen?”

  “A couple days ago.” Lara seemed more comfortable talking to Verity than to Stone. “We don’t see each other all the time, but after Kyla told me about what happened with the rapist and it sounded like the same kind of figurine he had, I got nervous. I tried to call but there was no answer, so Greta and I went over there. Her roommate said she bugged out suddenly, saying she had something she needed to do.”

  “Hmm…” Stone pondered, trying to ignore all the hard gazes fixed on him. “Did she take anything with her when she went? Pack a bag?”

  “Yeah, her roommate checked, and she did. And—”

  “And—?”

  Lara broke the gaze, looking down at her hands in her lap. “She also took her guns with her.”

  “Guns?” Verity asked. “Is she a cop or something?”

  “Ex-military. She’s not supposed to have them, but she keeps them for protection, since she lives in a bad neighborhood.”

  Stone frowned. This wasn’t good, for several reasons. First, if she’d taken guns with her, that probably meant she intended to kill somebody—or several somebodies. Second, the white figurine hadn’t activated yet. A quick glance with magical sight confirmed it—the thing lay in Stone’s hand, smooth, unmarred, and completely inert. Did that mean the figurine could exert influence even before it activated? Perhaps to facilitate some sort of preparation for whatever act it would eventually incite?

  Kolinsky had mentioned that the last pieces, the most powerful ones, might have other abilities the weaker ones didn’t—and judging by the fact that the rapist had committed other assaults prior to his figurine’s activation, they seemed to be looking for like-minded individuals.

  So what kind of criminal act would it want a female ex-soldier for?

  “What kind of guns?” he asked quickly. “What was her speciality in the military?”

  “She was a sniper,” Lara said. “She took a couple of pistols and a rifle.”
r />   Verity let her breath out. “So maybe she’s planning to shoot somebody from a distance?”

  “Could be,” Stone said. He paced a moment, thinking, then turned on Lara. “Are you—do you have any sort of abilities?”

  “Huh?”

  Kyla raised a hand to forestall Lara’s angry response. “I think he means magical abilities.”

  “Right. Anything?”

  “I…dunno,” Lara said. “I’m good in a fight—fast—why?”

  “Something I forgot to mention the other night—the pieces apparently seek out latent talents.”

  “Latent talents?” Greta asked. “What’s that mean?”

  “People with magic who don’t know they have magic,” Hezzie said. Then, to Stone: “So you’re saying that rapist had potential magic talent? And Lara’s cousin?”

  “Likely.” Stone continued pacing. “The pieces bring out the latent talent, using magical energy to make their agents harder to track, harder to stop. And I suspect that will get nothing but worse in this case, since this piece is the second most powerful in the set.”

  “So you’re sayin’ you can’t find her?” Kyla demanded. “Then why did you even come up here if—”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t find her,” Stone interrupted. “I said I might not be able to. It’s worth a try, though. Since the piece hasn’t activated yet, it might not be affording the same levels of protection, and might not have done anything but influence her behavior yet. If we can find her before it goes off, we might be able to stop this before anything happens at all.”

  “Please try,” Lara said. Her eyes in her hard, angular face looked pleading. “She’s had enough bad shit in her life already—I don’t want her to end up in jail…or worse.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” He dropped the black bag on the floor. “I’ll need someplace to work—a clear floor with a bit of room.”

  “You can do it here,” Kyla said. “Just push the furniture against the wall.”

  “Good. Thank you. And in the meantime, let’s not assume she’s up to no good yet. She might have a perfectly legitimate reason for disappearing that has nothing to do with the figurine. You said you lot were good at finding people, right?”