Blood Brothers: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 22)

by R. L. King

  Blood Brothers

  Alastair Stone Chronicles: Book Twenty-Two

  R. L. King

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Don’t miss Alastair Stone’s next adventure!

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  Books by R. L. King

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 by R. L. King

  Blood Brothers: Alastair Stone Chronicles Book Twenty-Two

  First Edition, June 2020

  Edited by John Helfers

  Cover Art by Gene Mollica Studios

  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 either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, except by agreement with the vendor of the book. If you would like to share this book with another person, please use the proper avenues. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  1

  Most mages, even ones with advanced training and experience, don’t know how to build portals. Alastair Stone used to think it was because they lacked the focus—and, when he was being brutally honest, the intellect—to manage the complex calculations needed to get them right.

  Two weeks of serious attempts at finally creating the private portal at his home in Encantada had slightly altered that opinion.

  Oh, it was all still true, he was sure of it. But there was another, possibly even more important reason:

  The bloody things were a serious pain in the arse.

  When he’d decided to take Stanford’s summer quarter off, he hadn’t planned on being neck-deep in brain-bending math, stacks of expensive and volatile components, and a magical circle so intricate it had taken him the entire previous week to create a section of it. Instead, he’d thought he and Verity could finally spend some quality time together. Perhaps they could even take the road trip he’d been considering for a while, visiting some of the magically interesting parts of the country. He still didn’t have a very good idea of U.S. geography once he got out of California, and it would be nice to finally remedy that.

  Life had a habit of getting in the way of plans like those, though.

  He sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair and pausing for a drink from a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold. It was a little after two in the afternoon, and he’d been at this without a break for the last three hours. He often lost track of time when he was working, thinking it was still early only to discover it had grown dark and he’d forgotten to eat.

  He still had at least another month’s worth of work to do before he could risk testing the thing for the first time—and that included a couple of trips to the other side of the world to procure more components. That sort of thing had gotten a lot tougher since Madame Huan had stopped coming to the Bay Area. He’d even checked her London shop last week, but the shop assistant had regretfully informed him he’d just missed her, and he didn’t know when she’d be back.

  She was avoiding him, no doubt about it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that.

  Verity had been gone for nearly a month. He’d only heard from her once since she drove off with her little black SUV packed up, in the form of a letter that arrived a week after she left. He’d been shocked when he saw her handwriting on the envelope in his mailbox, postmarked from some little town in Texas he’d never heard of: she never wrote letters, preferring more modern means of communication like texting.

  It was upstairs in his office now, weighed down on his desk by a magical tome to keep Raider from knocking it on the floor. He didn’t need to read it anymore, because he’d long since memorized it.

  Alastair,

  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last few days (driving gives you time to think) and I realized I haven’t been fair to you. I need to do this, but the last thing I want to do is hurt you. I love you more than ever. That will never change.

  I need to do this for a lot of reasons. Some are about magic. Some are about us. But mostly they’re about me. I hope you’ll understand. What happened to Sharra has affected me more than I can imagine. I think it pushed me over the edge more than I thought it did. I’m still working through that, but I don’t think it will be a fast process.

  I don’t know when I’ll be back. It will depend on a lot of things, including what happens at the Symposium. Until then, I think the best thing is for us just to figure we’re taking a break. Like I said, it’s not fair to expect you to wait for me to figure things out. If something happens and you meet somebody else in the meantime, that’s the chance I’ll have to take. I love you too much for anything else.

  Stay safe.

  Love,

  Verity

  P.S. Say hi to Raider for me, and tell him I miss him too.

  He’d read the letter several times, carefully folded it and put it on his desk, and considered getting very, very drunk at home. Then he’d driven down to Sunnyvale, taken the portal to London, and instead got very, very drunk at the Dancing Dragon with Eddie and Ward.

  He considered it a mark of maturity. At least he wasn’t doing his drinking alone.

  The next day, after sleeping off a truly world-class hangover, he’d returned to California and started work on the portal. As much of a pain as it was, it took his mind off things with something productive. More than once, he wished he hadn’t decided to take the quarter off, but this was a good substitute.

  And as a plus, maybe he’d finally get the damn thing done.

  He set the coffee cup down, pushed off the wall, and regarded the room. When it was finished, the circle would take up nearly a quarter of the basement space, full of tiny, intricate symbols and writing. It was painstaking work, crouching to inscribe the symbols and then checking them against his notes and reference materials to make sure he hadn’t messed anything up. Messing up portal calculations could be extremely dangerous, which was part of the reason so few people attempted them anymore. He alread
y planned, before he performed the initial test, to ask Stefan Kolinsky to check over his work. He’d never asked the black mage if he could construct a portal, but he’d bet a lot of money he could.

  He wondered if Gabriel—Kolinsky’s son, and Ian’s current magic teacher and casual boyfriend—had any portal experience. Perhaps he should invite the two of them over too—though not at the same time as Kolinsky—if for no other reason than to begin acquainting Ian with portal science. The boy was smart and had a strong mathematical mind, so perhaps he might take to it.

  He was about to go back to his work when his phone rang. He wasn’t surprised to see Jason’s number on the display—the two had gotten together for beers a couple times in the last month. He hadn’t told Jason about the letter, though. He didn’t feel like talking about it—and especially not with Verity’s brother.

  “Hello, Jason.”

  “Hey, Al. How’s it going?” He always asked that, in a careful tone that suggested he wasn’t expecting good news.

  “Oh, as well as can be expected given that I’m up to my eyeballs in portal calculations.”

  “Oh. Uh, that’s good, I guess.”

  “Calling about drinks?” Jason and Amber had invited him to their apartment for dinner a couple times too, so it might be that.

  “No, actually. It’s kind of a…professional thing.”

  “Oh?” That was a surprise. “What kind of professional thing?”

  “I need your help, if you’re willing.”

  “Er—sure, if I can. I could use a break from this thing. I swear, I’m starting to dream in magical sigils. What’s up?”

  “Want to come over for dinner tonight? It’ll be easier to explain in person.”

  “I owe you two a dinner, actually—assuming Amber’s involved in this too.”

  “Tangentially. But it’s fine—we always like having you over.”

  “All right, then. I accept. Thanks.” Amber was a good cook, and she’d taught Jason quite a bit since they’d been married. Stone missed home-cooked meals since Verity left, so he’d never turn one down. “But you’ve got to let me treat both of you next time. Brazilian barbecue, perhaps, to soothe Amber’s carnivorous heart?”

  “We’ll take you up on that. Come by at seven, okay? Thanks, Al.”

  Stone wondered what sort of “professional” help he could give a detective and a bounty hunter, but he was still a part-owner of Jason’s agency, and happy to offer what he could.

  He looked down at his chalk-smeared hands, and stroked his stubbled chin. If nothing else, the invitation would force him to shave and put on some decent clothes for the first time in three days.

  2

  After they got married, Jason and Amber had moved from Jason’s small, cramped apartment in Mountain View to a larger, two-bedroom townhouse closer to Jason’s agency in San Jose. Jason greeted Stone at the door at seven. “Come on in. Dinner’s ready soon.” He wore a blue polo shirt with the agency’s logo stitched over the pocket, jeans, and athletic socks.

  Stone sniffed appreciatively. He couldn’t tell quite what it was, but it smelled spicy and meaty and delicious. He held up a bottle of wine. “Didn’t know what you’d be serving, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a nice Pinot Noir.”

  Amber poked her head out of the kitchen and grinned. “See, that’s why we like having you over for dinner. You always bring wine we can’t afford.”

  “It’s the least I can do in exchange for a night without takeaway. Anything I can do to help?”

  “No, it’s just about ready. Have a seat.”

  Stone took his usual spot at the small dining table. Amber and Jason brought out enchiladas, and he opened the wine while they got everything situated.

  “So,” Amber said when the three of them were seated and they’d started eating, “how’s the portal coming? Jason said you were working on it today.”

  “Slowly.” Stone figured they’d get to the “professional” part when they were ready, and he was content to wait. “If I’m lucky and I can find one more component, I should be able to make a go at powering it in a month or so.”

  Jason frowned. “How dangerous is that? If you do it wrong, how much could you blow up?”

  Stone chuckled. “Well, I certainly don’t plan to do it wrong. I’ll be double- and triple-checking everything, and will probably have at least Stefan and Eddie come ’round if they’re willing to play magical proofreaders.” He shrugged. “Even if it goes wrong, though, it’s unlikely to blow anything major up. I’m not an amateur at this. If things go pear-shaped, the worst that’s likely to happen is that the whole thing will fizzle and I’ll have to start over again.”

  “I’ll bet you’ll be glad to have your own portal,” Amber said. “Makes it a lot easier to go back and forth between here and England.”

  “Indeed I will, and indeed it does.” Much as Stone enjoyed his periodic chats with Marta Bellwood when he used the public portal at A Passage to India in Sunnyvale, he preferred the convenience of traveling without having to drive twenty-five miles. If he had to go anywhere during rush hour, the drive could add more than an hour to his travel time.

  “How many portals are there, anyway?” Jason asked. “Public ones, I mean.”

  “In the United States, or all over the world?”

  “Both. Is there a directory or something? How do you keep all the coordinates straight?”

  Stone paused to take a bite of his enchilada. “This is delicious, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Amber said. “It’s one of Jonah’s recipes. He’s a really good cook, and he insisted all us siblings learn too.”

  “Anyway,” Stone continued, “there aren’t that many public portals in the U.S. Perhaps a dozen…definitely fewer than twenty.”

  “I know there’s one in Massachusetts, and obviously the one in Sunnyvale. Where are the others you know of?”

  “Hmm.” Stone pondered. “There’s one in Chicago, one in New York City, and one in New Mexico, for gods know what reason. I believe there’s one in Atlanta, one in Seattle, and one in Dallas. In some of those cases it’s not actually in the specific city—for example, the one in Seattle is in a small town a few miles away. I’d have to check on the others. Mostly I use the ones in Lowell and New York City.”

  “Nothing in L.A., though,” Amber mused. “That seems weird, given how big that area is.”

  “It would seem so, but there’s actually a reason for it. The Los Angeles magical scene is somewhat unusual—it’s controlled by a series of powerful organizations, and none of them trust each other. So if there are any portals down there, they’re private and aren’t generally known.”

  “Organizations?” Jason asked.

  “Syndicates. Criminal enterprises catering to the magical world.”

  “You’re kidding. There’s a magical Mafia?”

  Stone chuckled. “Not exactly. I don’t know that much about it, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Wait a sec…” Jason narrowed his eyes.

  “What?”

  He looked away. “Never mind.”

  “What, Jason?” Stone leaned forward. He thought he might know what was on his friend’s mind.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m sorry to bring it up, but wasn’t that where V was headed? To look for support for her law-enforcement thing?”

  Stone tensed at her name, but it was exactly what he’d been expecting. “She’s fine, Jason. She did plan to start out in Los Angeles, but she’s not there anymore.”

  Both Jason and Amber looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?” Jason asked.

  “I…don’t want to discuss it. Suffice it to say I’ve heard from her once, and she’s fine. She was in Texas, at least a couple of days ago.”

  Amber let it go right away. Jason lingered longer, studying Stone’s face for any sign of further reaction. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, I guess. As long as she’s okay.”

  Stone forced a chuckle. “She’
ll be fine. She’s bright, and quite capable of taking care of herself.”

  “I know. But I’m still her big brother, which means I’m still gonna worry about her. It’s part of the job description. Nothing will change that.”

  “Nor should it, I suppose.” He worried about her too, but no more than she would about him if the situation were reversed. He knew what she was capable of even better than Jason did. “Anyway, perhaps we might change the subject. What’s this ‘professional’ help you need?”

  “Oh. Right.” Jason seemed reluctant to move on, but he took a drink of wine and sighed. “Okay, so, this actually still does have a little bit to do with V, but not the way you might expect.”

  “Oh?” Stone kept his voice carefully neutral. He didn’t want to spend any more time talking about Verity tonight if he could help it.

  “I don’t know if you remember, but sometimes I ask V to help me out when I get a missing-person case. Especially when it’s a kid.”

  “Yes, of course.” Verity hadn’t told Stone about any of the specific cases lately, but he remembered the trip she and Jason had taken to Las Vegas a couple of years ago following one of her rituals.

  “Yeah, and our agency’s getting a bit of a rep for being good at hunting down missing people. We’re getting a lot more cases like that these days.”

  “Ah.” Stone nodded, getting it. “And the reason for that is because Verity was doing tracking rituals to locate your targets.”