by R. L. King
Alastair Stone Chronicles: Book Nine
THE INFERNAL HEART
R.L. King
The Infernal Heart
Copyright © 2017 by R.L. King All rights reserved.
First Smashwords Edition: March 2017
Editor: John Helfers
Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To all the usual suspects
Also to my cat, Evgeni “Nabby” Tabokov, for inspiration and snuggles
Prologue
Dennis Avila hated his job.
To be fair, that wasn’t entirely true. He didn’t hate the job in general—the construction industry had been good to him, he got along okay with the other guys on the crew, and he liked the fact that he could knock off at quitting time and stop for a drink without his boss being on his case to take a big pile of work home. Those computer wonks might make the big bucks, but Dennis made enough to keep him in beer and cable TV, and at least he got some exercise instead of letting his ass spread out till it was shaped like one of those stupid five-hundred-dollar ergonomic chairs.
No, what Dennis hated was the crop of oversized, overpriced monstrosity houses popping up all over Silicon Valley as more and more overpaid nerds moved in with their stock options and their startup companies.
Take this current job, for example. This area used to be an orchard, but it had languished as a weed-strewn vacant lot for years after some faceless holding company bought it, had all the trees razed, and then gone bankrupt. By the time the legal snarls got untangled and some development company picked it up on the cheap, land in Silicon Valley—even out here in East Bumfuck, Milpitas—had taken a jump for the stratosphere and everybody involved wanted to milk every stray plot of dirt for every penny they could get.
So instead of a nice little neighborhood full of small, affordable houses, they repurposed it to a collection of mini-mansions twice the size and three times the price of those originally planned. And every last one of the damn things was already sold, with deposits secured and preliminary papers signed, before the developers even broke ground.
Dennis swiped his dark, tangled hair off his brow, took a long slug from his oversized water bottle, and lowered the boom again, dragging up another bucketful of dry earth. It was four-thirty, almost quitting time—he was already thinking about heading to Santana’s to hoist a few cold ones with the guys and see if the Giants could get their shit together enough to break their current losing streak. Just a few more loads and he could hang it up for the day.
Something in the bucket caught his attention.
Narrowing his eyes, he pulled a lever to stop the bucket in mid-swing, then adjusted his Ray-Bans for a better look. It was probably nothing—a trick of the sun, or the glint of light off an old beer can—but he thought he’d seen a gray object in the middle of the light-brown expanse of his latest load of dirt.
He shifted the backhoe into neutral, engaged the brake, and jumped down, glancing around to make sure Carl, his boss, wasn’t watching. As he hurried toward the end of the boom where the bucket hung like a scraped-up yellow lobster claw, he realized he wasn’t seeing things: there was something there, and it wasn’t a beer can or a dark-colored rock.
In fact, it looked like some kind of gray box, about the size of a child’s shoebox.
He glanced around again—the backhoe was between him and the other guys—and quickly plucked the item from the bucket. It was a lot heavier than he expected. He didn’t take a good look at it until he’d scurried back around and jumped back into the driver’s seat.
It was indeed a box—but not a shoebox. It seemed to be made out of some kind of weathered stone, which must have been why it was so heavy. Dennis turned it over in his gloved hands, examining the carvings on it. Looked like something religious—a big cross in the middle, surrounded by scrollwork and what looked like the images of angels. He tried to pry it open, but it was sealed tight.
For just a moment, a few seconds, he thought about showing it to Carl. It was probably something important—something that belonged in a museum. It was down way too deep for it to be buried by kids, at least not any time recently. In these days of increasingly stringent earthquake codes, they had to dig the foundations deeper than they used to, especially for monster houses like these.
He probably should hand it over to the authorities, so they could figure out what to do with it.
He should, but he didn’t want to.
He studied the box again, his hands tightening on it. He glanced around once more to make sure nobody was looking.
Whatever this thing was, it was interesting, and he wanted it. Or at least wanted to see what was inside it before he gave it up.
Dennis reached down and grabbed his battered, dusty backpack. He unzipped it, and with one final, furtive check, shoved the box inside and zipped it back up.
Maybe he wouldn’t go to Santana’s tonight after all, he decided.
An hour later, he grabbed some Burger King from the drive-thru, then headed straight home. If the guys asked him tomorrow where he’d been, he’d tell them he was beat and decided to catch some extra shuteye.
His apartment was on the second floor of a dusty, thirty-year-old complex off Senter Road in east San Jose. He had the money to move if he wanted to, but it always seemed more trouble than it was worth. This place had everything he needed—it was close to the freeway, the supermarket, and several liquor stores—and the manager was a pretty good guy for a pothead. Dennis even picked up a few extra bucks sometimes doing repairs, because the pothead was too cheap to call a pro and would probably slice his own hand off if he tried to do them himself.
As soon as he rattled his key in the door he heard scratching noises coming from inside, and when he shoved it open, a furry gray-and-black striped missile hurled itself into his legs, tail pointed straight up.
Dennis grinned and leaned down to pet the cat. “Hey, Raider. You have a good day, buddy?”
Raider wound around his legs, following him to the kitchen as he dropped the Burger King bag on the breakfast bar, his backpack on one of the stools, and grabbed a cold Bud out of the fridge. He jumped up and head-butted Dennis as he sat down.
“Hang on, hang on, you’re so impatient!” he growled, but he was grinning. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he looked forward to coming home to Raider. Sure, he was a cat and not a big tough Rottweiler or Pit Bull like some of the guys had for pets, but Dennis spent so much time away from his apartment that keeping a big dog cooped up all day wasn’t fair to the dog or the apartment. Raider was self-cleaning, did his business in a box instead of needing to be walked, and seemed quite content to sleep the day away while Dennis was at work. The cat also—and Dennis would have cheerfully punched out anyone who suggested it might be true—loved to snuggle up next to him at night. Until he managed to find himself a girlfriend, Raider’s was the only warm, affectionate body he was lik
ely to have in his bed.
He pulled out his food—a double Whopper and large fries for him, a plain hamburger for Raider—and spread it on the counter. As he did, his gaze fell once again on his backpack. He unzipped it and took out the mysterious stone box, setting it down to examine it as he ate.
Raider glanced at it, hissed, and immediately leaped off the counter, ignoring his hamburger.
“What’s up, bud?” That was weird. Raider never passed up a burger.
The cat stopped about six feet away, eyeing both Dennis and the box with wary green eyes. His tail was puffed up like a bottlebrush.
Really weird. Last time Dennis had seen him do that, the neighbor’s big goofy Rottie had gotten loose and was peering in the window at him.
Ah, well. Who knew what went on in cats’ minds? He put the burger on a plate and set it on the floor. “Fine. You don’t wanna hang out, you can eat it later.”
He turned his attention back to the box. Under the kitchen light, it looked even older: chipped, dusty, somehow faded. The carvings looked like they’d been elaborate at some point, but being under all that dirt for so long had dulled their edges. He brushed at it with a napkin, knocking some of the dirt off onto an old newspaper, and eventually revealed the thin line of a seam. No sign of a catch or a lock, though.
I really should take this to somebody, he thought again. If not Carl (who, he had to admit, would just as likely try to pawn it for a few bucks as hand it over to the proper authorities) then maybe to Father Rivera, the priest at the Catholic church Dennis attended twice a year (Easter and Christmas) to make his mother happy. After all, it did look religious, and if it was old, it was probably related to the Catholics somehow. Maybe they’d want it back.
That was a good idea. He’d do that, he decided.
Just as soon as he checked out what was inside.
After all, if there were gold coins or something in there, that might change things. The Church was rich enough—if he handed over most of the coins like a good boy but kept a few for himself, who would know? Finder’s fee, right?
He finished the Whopper, then grabbed a steak knife from the rack on the wall. Just to be safe, he donned his heavy work gloves from his backpack, then carefully slipped the blade of the knife into the seam on the box. His heart rate increased—he felt like a kid again, looking for buried treasure.
It took him a while of prying, but eventually the knife slid in far enough that he was able to pop the lid off the small box. “That’s it!” Dennis cheered as it fell onto the newspaper, revealing the interior.
There weren’t any gold coins inside. When Dennis plucked up the dull red cloth covering the contents, all he saw at first was a large wooden cross, simple and unadorned with any fancy scrollwork or metal inlays. Its only decoration, if you could call it that, was a few strange, swirling figures carved crudely into it, as if someone had done it with a pocketknife. It took him a second to realize it was resting on something underneath, but he couldn’t tell what the hidden object was without moving the cross.
Dennis crossed himself (he was still enough of a good Catholic to respect the symbols of the faith) and pulled off his heavy gloves. Gently, afraid it would crumble in his hands, he lifted the wooden cross free of the box and set it on the cloth.
Beneath it was—what? He couldn’t tell. Some sort of shriveled, desiccated object about the size of a child’s fist, blackened and dry.
Some kind of seed pod, maybe?
But it didn’t look like a seed pod. It looked—
Alive.
And then it began to glow, a faint red gleam that throbbed with slow, steady rhythm against the box’s slate-gray sides.
Pulsed.
Like a heartbeat.
Dennis stared at it, transfixed. Barely realizing he was doing it, he reached out and scooped the object from the box. Lying in his palm, it continued to glow and pulse. With each beat, it seemed to grow, to plump up, as if something were rehydrating it.
The more it grew, the more it became clear to Dennis what it was—and by the time it finished and lay there, quivering and glowing in his palm, he knew.
It was a heart. A human heart.
Except instead of red, it was solid black. The only red was the glow around it.
It felt warm in his hand.
It began to speak to him.
And he listened.
After a few moments, he picked up the steak knife in his other hand. He gripped it tightly. If his hand shook a little, it didn’t stop him from doing what he needed to do.
Calmly, deliberately, without taking his eyes from the thing in his other hand, he brought the knife up and sliced it decisively across his own throat.
As the knife dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor, he neither moved nor screamed. Instead, he leaned forward, holding himself up with one shaking arm.
The last thing he saw before he died was the bright red blood gushing from his slashed throat, spraying and splattering over the box, the cross, and the thing in his other hand, bathing them in hot fluid. The thing was shriveled and desiccated again, but as his vision began to fade and his arm gave way, he saw it had begun to grow once more.
From across the room, hidden beneath a chair, Raider the cat watched his human die. He knew he was dead—he could smell it from here. He could also smell something else, something infinitely wrong in a way his simple feline brain could never articulate. The feeling was a deep-down instinct: this is bad. Stay away from it.
Raider didn’t run. Something told him not to. He merely crouched beneath the chair and watched as—something—began to form around whatever the badthing in the human’s hand was. It continued to rise until it too was shaped like a human.
But it wasn’t a human. It didn’t smell like a human. It was a thing made of darkness and wrongness and fear.
As Raider watched, it seemed to get its bearings for a moment. It stood still, regarding the box and the crucifix on the counter. Without touching either, it turned and crossed to the door. Even its movements were wrong: old and jerky and careful. It didn’t even glance at Raider as it passed, just opened the door with a bony hand and left the apartment.
It was many hours before Raider was brave enough to venture out from beneath the chair. When he did, creeping carefully over toward the huddled lump of dead flesh that used to be his human, he noticed that whatever the badthing had been in the human’s paw, it wasn’t there anymore. The black figure hadn’t taken it—Raider had watched the whole process—but it was gone now nonetheless.
The cat pondered the scene for a moment, taking it all in, evaluating one last time to make sure the threats were gone. Then he licked himself, rubbed one last time against the dead human’s dangling leg, and went over to finish his hamburger.
Chapter One
When someone knocked on the door to Alastair Stone’s Stanford office late one dozy July afternoon, he expected it to be a student dropping off a paper, or perhaps Laura the admin aide with something for him to sign.
“Yes, come in,” he called without looking up from the book he was reading.
He glanced up when the visitor didn’t speak, and was surprised to see, not one of his grad students or Laura’s familiar sturdy form, but a neatly dressed, fortyish Asian man wearing a brown leather jacket over a shirt and tie. He carried a hard-sided leather briefcase.
Stone leaned back in his chair and put the book down. “May I help you?”
“Dr. Alastair Stone?” The man spoke without a trace of an Asian accent—his American one sounded like he’d grown up in California.
“That’s what it says on the tin,” he said, nodding toward the hallway where his name plaque hung next to his door. “What can I do for you, Mr.—?”
“Cheng.” The man pulled a leather bifold wallet from inside his jacket and flipped it open to reveal a badge and San Jose Police Depar
tment ID card. “Detective Johnny Cheng, SJPD.”
Well. This was unexpected. And it could mean any number of things, including a few that weren’t good. “Please—sit down, Detective. How can I help you?”
While Cheng did so, after closing the door and setting his briefcase on the other guest chair, Stone took that opportunity to shift briefly to magical sight and examine his aura. It was green-gold, and didn’t appear particularly tense or agitated. Certainly not the aura of a man who was looking to apprehend a potential criminal in the next few minutes.
Stone relaxed a little, keeping his expression neutral. It had only been a handful of months since the situation at the mansion up in Woodside, and he’d only recently stopped looking over his shoulder expecting some overzealous cop to follow something back to him.
At least he and his friends hadn’t burned the place down that time—or blown it up—so that did make things easier.
Cheng rubbed the back of his neck. He looked tired, and though he was trying to hide it, frazzled, as if he had too much weighing on his mind. “I was wondering if I might have a few minutes of your time to answer some questions about—the occult. Let me be up front with you, Dr. Stone—you were recommended to me as an expert, but I’m just covering all the bases here. I’m hoping you might have some insight that opens up a lead or two, but I’m not looking for spooks. Okay?”
Stone relaxed a little more. Ah, so this was what it was about. This happened occasionally—usually it was some harried police officer trying to track down a bogus fortune-telling ring or some nutter who liked to dress up in spangly robes and pretend to commune with Satan. He shrugged one shoulder. “Smart man. It’s rarely wise to go looking for spooks.”
Cheng’s gaze came up fast and he focused on Stone for a moment, as if trying to figure out if he was being sarcastic or serious. Finally, he pressed on: “We’ve got a crime that looks like it’s got some occult involvement.” He paused, glancing at his briefcase. “Before I tell you anything else, though, I want to stress the importance of keeping what I tell you under your hat. If the public gets wind about some of the kooks running around out there, it could start a panic. Got it?”