Circle of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Your father? What about him?”

  “He’s…never approved of me. I didn’t turn out the way he thought I should.”

  Ian frowned. “Because you’re gay?” Once again, he remembered Bobby Tanner and shuddered. One of his biggest fears when he’d discovered his real father was that he’d be like Bobby, and his relief when Stone had considered the whole thing a non-issue had gone a long way toward moving their relationship in a positive direction.

  “Oh, I’m not gay.”

  Ian sat up, startled. “You could have fooled me.”

  Gabriel patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m not fooling you. You made an assumption—and I suppose for our purposes it’s a fair one.”

  He thought of Verity and relaxed. “Ah, okay. You’re bi.”

  “I’m—a little bit of everything. I don’t like to limit myself with labels.”

  An unpleasant feeling began to creep up Ian’s neck. “What’s that mean?”

  Again Gabriel laughed. “You are suspicious, aren’t you? Don’t worry—nothing like that. But as long as it’s adult and consenting, I’m willing to give it a try.”

  For a moment, Ian wondered at his use of ‘it,’ and whether there were things in the magical world that were capable of consent without being strictly human. “Okay. I guess it’s none of my business who you sleep with, as long as everybody’s into it.”

  “You should try it sometime. Broaden your horizons. You did say you were looking for experiences.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But let’s get back to magic for a minute.” In truth, it was difficult to keep his mind on magic as once again his body began to respond to Gabriel’s distracting presence. “You want to teach me to get back at your father? Assuming you’ve got enough power and experience to do it, that sounds like it could lead to some problems down the road. What if he finds out?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He won’t do anything about it, except disapprove. And he already does that. You’ll probably never even see him. He’s mostly washed his hands of me these days.” He lounged back. “I’m more concerned about your father.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s been looking for a teacher for you. How will he feel about you taking things into your own hands?”

  That was a good question, and sudden guilt tugged at Ian. On the one hand, he’d never felt comfortable with Stone’s style of magic, but on the other, he owed his father a lot for everything he’d done for him. “I could discuss it with him,” he said with a sidelong glance at Gabriel, wondering how he’d respond to that.

  “You could. Or you could just let me teach you a few things and show him those.”

  “Some of them, anyway.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can teach you some things you wouldn’t want to show him, too.” Gabriel stretched again, his sly smile widening. “For example—have you ever ridden a motorcycle?”

  “You ride motorcycles too? I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I like speed. And I know where there’s a gorgeous place to watch the sunrise, not too far outside town. Are you up for it? I’ve got a couple of bikes here, and teaching riding is a lot easier than teaching magic. We can discuss the magic thing later. You don’t have to give me a decision yet. I have all the time in the world.”

  Ian tilted his head, wondering if he should read anything into that. “So, no magical oaths to obey your every command?”

  He laughed. “Trust me, Ian—if you’re obeying my every command, it will be because you want to, not because I’ve made you take an oath. Speaking of…we don’t have to leave quite yet if you don’t want to…” He rolled over and tweaked the sheet once again downward.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  23

  Jason mostly forgot about his conversation with Blum for the next few days.

  It ended up being easier than he thought not to mention the whole thing to Verity or Stone, since he hadn’t seen either of them since he’d spoken with the detective. He missed Amber, who’d gone to Southern California for the week to handle some business; he almost wished he’d gone with her, but his agency had two simultaneous cases for the first time ever, and he couldn’t spare the time. Neither was particularly difficult on its own—one was insurance fraud, the other tracking down a cheating spouse his client suspected had a cache of funds she was trying to hide prior to the divorce—but both did take up enough of his time that he couldn’t justify running off for several days.

  He dropped by the post office a few days later almost as an afterthought, to check the box he’d set up. He’d just wrapped up the insurance-fraud case (turning over photos and video of the guy, who was allegedly suffering from a bad case of whiplash following a minor fender-bender in downtown San Jose, playing pick-up football at a local park) and was waiting to hear back from some feelers he’d had Gina put out regarding the would-be cheating spouse’s bank records, so he decided it couldn’t hurt to pop in and see if anybody had gotten back to him. He didn’t expect to find anything—even if Blum had contacted anyone directly after their talk, it had still only been a few days.

  Besides, it wasn’t like he thought anybody was going to respond anyway. He certainly wouldn’t have, if he’d gotten such a call.

  Would he?

  When he opened the tiny box and found not one, but four letters inside along with the usual helping of junk mail, he scratched his head. Holy shit. Seriously?

  Guess I’ll have to check this thing more often.

  He tossed the junk mail, took the four letters to a nearby café, which was nearly deserted this time of the afternoon, and opened them one by one with a cup of coffee.

  None included return addresses, which didn’t surprise him, but the postmarks were interesting: two from San Francisco, one from San Jose, and one from Newark in the East Bay. Apparently, Leo Blum’s contacts extended further than Jason had suspected.

  The first one, from San Francisco and hastily scrawled on a piece of loose-leaf paper, had only a brief note: Sounds interesting. Call me. A phone number followed.

  The second one, from San Jose, was from a computer printer. I don’t know if this is legit, but if it is, I’m intrigued. I’d be up for a meet. Once again, a phone number was included.

  The one from Newark was on stationery, written in a careful, probably feminine, hand. If our mutual friend trusts you, then it’s worth at least a call. I would be willing to meet as long as it’s in a public place.

  The fourth, from San Francisco, was the most intriguing of all. Another computer-printed page, it said, I’d be willing to meet. And if this turns out to be worth my while, I can probably bring in several more people. I’ve often thought this might be a good idea myself, so I’m glad somebody else is doing it. Let’s talk.

  Jason spread the pages out on the table in front of him and looked at them, still incredulous that not only one, but four people had trusted Blum enough to take a chance on some random guy he’d pointed them at. The last one especially encouraged him: maybe other in-the-know mundanes were more interested in something like this than he’d thought. Hell, at the very least it might be nice to have a support network. As his experiences with Stone and Verity had proven on many occasions, associating with mages could be trying.

  As he gathered them back up and prepared to stuff them into his bag, he remembered something else: he’d given Blum a throwaway email address as a contact point along with the PO box, and he hadn’t checked that either. He pulled out his phone and checked it now.

  He had eight messages in his inbox. Two were spam, but the other six had subjects like Meeting and Mutual friends.

  He was looking at them, not caring that any passers-by might find his wide-eyed expression of surprise amusing, when the phone buzzed and Verity’s number flashed across the screen, obscuring the mail application.

  “Hey, V.” He hoped he didn’t sound weird.

  “Hey. I just realized I hadn’t checked in with you recently. How’s things?”

  “Uh�
�things just got kind of interesting, to be honest.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  Should he tell her, or wait until he had a chance to see how the first meet went? To distract her, he changed the subject. “How’s Greta doing?”

  Her tone sobered. “Not great. She’s not in danger of losing her leg anymore, but they’re still not sure if she’ll walk again. And of course she’s pissed as hell at having to stay in the hospital.”

  “Shit…that sucks. Anything I can do to help?”

  “Not unless you’ve suddenly become a better magical healer than I am…or an expert at cybernetic limbs.”

  “Afraid not, on both counts. Sorry. And you guys aren’t any closer to finding the people who did it?”

  “Nope. Doc’s back on the case again, but it seems like they’re lying low now. Maybe what happened spooked them.” Her loud sigh came through clearly. “I hate this, Jason. I hate everything about it. It’s bad enough Greta got hurt doing something I asked her to do, but I can’t even do anything to fix it. I couldn’t get near her at first because she was constantly monitored, and the little bit of healing I did later barely made any difference. I even talked to Hezzie about trying to brew up another one of those shifter potions to see if the regeneration would work, but even if we could get hold of one and get them to agree to provide some blood, she says it’s been too long.”

  “Too long? There’s a time limit? I could call Amber and—” He didn’t like the idea of asking his fiancée for such a personal contribution, but he expected she’d understand once he explained the reason.

  “Yeah, I thought of that already. But Hezzie says they work best if taken before the injury, and decently up to a few hours after. But the longer you wait, the less likely it’ll do any good. Especially since Amber isn’t a full shifter. So thanks for the thought, but no dice.”

  It had been a while since Jason had heard his confident sister sound so defeated. “And I guess Al doesn’t have any ideas, either.”

  “Not about Greta—that’s not really his area. Like I said, he’s looking into the other stuff, but even at his power level he needs something to go on. These guys don’t leave too many traces. Ah, well,” she added. “Just gotta deal with it, I guess. So anyway, what’s interesting?”

  Damn. He should have known better than to think she’d forget. “Uh—I’ll tell you in a little while. Once I see if anything comes of it. For now it’s just kind of in the planning stages.”

  “Something to do with the wedding?” Now her tone was sly.

  “No. Trust me, you’ll hear everything about that. Just let me work it out, and I’ll tell you. Maybe it’s even something that might help you with your problem.”

  “Hmm…now you’ve definitely got me intrigued. Don’t keep me in suspense too long, though. You know I hate that.”

  24

  Jason took another look around the room and glanced at his watch again. Six-thirty. The meet was supposed to start at seven, and not for the first time he wondered if anybody would actually show up.

  “Stop pacing,” Verity called from one end of the long table where she sat, feet up on another chair, sipping an iced tea. “You’re making me nervous. You’re gonna make everybody nervous.”

  “I am nervous. I’ve been spending the whole week thinking how many ways this could go wrong.”

  “Yeah, but it could also go really right,” she reminded him. “Having a wider pool of people to keep their eyes open has a lot of possibilities.”

  He’d given up and told her about his plan earlier that week, when he realized that arranging this whole thing on his own would take more time than he could spare from his work. It was either her or Stone, and she had less propensity to complicate things. He’d mentioned the idea in passing, as a purely hypothetical possibility, to Stone a while ago and the mage had allowed that it had promise, but that was as far as it had gone. Jason planned to tell him more after the meeting, regardless of whether it went well or badly, but in this case it seemed like a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” kind of situation.

  Sharing his intentions with Verity had been a good idea. She’d taken over some of the logistics, arranging a private back room at a Denny’s in Mountain View for the following Thursday evening. When he’d questioned her choice of venue, she’d pointed out that it was the best she could do on short notice, and keeping the price down and providing a variety of food choices was probably a good idea given that they had no idea who they’d get.

  “Besides,” she’d added, “They don’t ask questions.” For all the management at Denny’s knew, they were a group of magic enthusiasts (the rabbit-and-hat kind) getting together to set up a new club.

  Jason had responded to the messages, using the phone numbers and email addresses provided. He didn’t try coordinating schedules, but merely told everyone the meet was Thursday night at seven. If any of them couldn’t make it, he figured he could chat with them later. Surprisingly, everybody replied and said they’d do their best to show up. He noticed almost all the email addresses were from throwaway accounts.

  “Well,” he said, pacing the room. “I just hope somebody—”

  “Hello?” A tentative voice spoke from the other side of the room. “Is this where the meeting is?”

  There were two of them, an elderly couple who looked to be at least seventy. The man, dark-skinned and stoop-shouldered, wore an oversized cardigan and wire-rimmed glasses. The woman was pale, slim, and tiny, clad in a shapeless coat over a housedress, and clutched a massive leather purse. Her white hair floated around her head like cotton candy. Both lingered in the doorway, looking hesitant.

  “Come on in,” Verity called with enthusiasm, yanking her feet off the chair and standing. “Welcome.”

  Jason flashed them a smile. “Yeah, this is the place. Please sit anywhere. You’re a little early—the others should be here soon.” I hope, or this is gonna be a weird meeting.

  The old man returned the smile. It lit up his wrinkled face. “Thank you, young man.” He took the woman by the arm and gently settled her into a chair, then took the one next to her. “I’m Curtis Sherman, and this is my wife, Barbara. We were so surprised to hear from Detective Blum. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken to him.”

  “Well, we’re glad you came. Just make yourselves comfortable until everybody else shows up, and we’ll get started around seven.”

  It wasn’t long before Jason lost his fear that nobody would show up. Between six-thirty and seven several more people trickled in, mostly one at a time. He greeted each as they arrived and studied them surreptitiously as they chose seats. For the most part, they didn’t sit together, deliberately spreading themselves around the room as if reluctant to interact with each other.

  The next to arrive after the Shermans were two other older women. One was Asian and stylishly dressed; the other tanned and white-haired, with a wide, friendly face. After them came an elegant, middle-aged Indian man in a conservative suit, a young African-American woman in a Berkeley sweatshirt and jeans, and a fortyish man with a brown brush cut, broad shoulders, and the beginnings of a potbelly. All of them nodded briefly to each other and to Jason’s greeting, then took seats.

  Jason consulted his list. If everybody he’d contacted was going to show, they were still missing three others. It was now five to seven. “Should I go ahead and start?” he whispered to Verity. A server was circulating around, taking people’s drink orders. “Or wait a few more minutes?”

  “Let everybody get their orders in, so we don’t get interrupted.” She nodded toward the group. “Their auras all look good—you’ve got their interest, if nothing else.”

  “Let’s hope I can keep it,” he muttered. Then, louder: “Thanks again for coming, everybody. We’re expecting a couple more, so I’m going to wait a little longer and see if they show up.”

  Nobody seemed bothered by that. The Shermans were chatting softly to each other, and had drawn the friendly-faced older woman into their conversati
on. So far, the rest of them seemed content to keep to themselves.

  At five after seven, the door opened again to admit a tall man in his middle twenties with disheveled dark hair, dressed in Dockers and a polo shirt. He swept his gaze around the room and shot Jason a confident grin. “This the meeting? You know, the…?” His accent was mostly California tech bro, with a faint trace of something that might have been Russian.

  “Yep. Have a seat. We’ll be starting in a couple minutes.”

  The man strode across the room like he owned it, scanned the group again, and headed for the table where the woman in the Berkeley sweatshirt sat.

  Jason exchanged glances with Verity. That left two more. Maybe they should just start, and hope for the best. If they—

  Once more the door opened, this time slowly. A tousled head poked in and peered around. “Uh…hi.”

  “Hey,” Verity called. “You here for the meeting?”

  “Yeah…”

  “It’s okay. Come on in.”

  For a moment, it seemed as if the newcomer would bolt away. But instead the door pushed open further and not one, but two figures entered.

  Neither was what Jason had expected. The first, the one who’d spoken, looked to be around sixteen. Short dark hair, an oversized T-shirt under a leather jacket covered in patches and artwork, and a thin, angular face made it impossible to determine gender.

  The second was a girl of perhaps twelve. She wore colorful leggings under a pale-blue hoodie, and red, high-top Chuck Taylors. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail that revealed a freckled face and big glasses. A green backpack with a unicorn on it hung over one shoulder.

  “Uh…welcome,” Verity said. “Have a seat. I think the server will be back soon to take the last of the orders.”

  Once again, Jason shot a glance at her. He was fairly sure Blum wouldn’t have sent them a kid—especially not one on her own, since it quickly became obvious that the girl and the teenager didn’t know each other.