by R. L. King
One look at his aura told Stone he had no intention of betraying them or trying to run. “Yes, all right,” he said wearily. “Go. I’ll take care of Melvin.”
After he’d disappeared around the front of the building, Stone looked down at Melvin Whitworth. The man had caused so much trouble for so many people, and up until the last few weeks he’d rationalized that he was doing it for no other reason than to help people—his brother and others. “I’ve got this,” he told Verity. “You rest. I know that feedback hit you hard.”
She didn’t argue, but merely drifted along next to him as he levitated Melvin’s body and placed it in the rubble, pulling a few chunks over him to make it look convincing. When he’d finished and stepped back, she ventured, “Doc?”
“Yes?”
Headlights appeared around the corner—apparently Stone’s assessment of Julius’s lack of flight risk had been correct.
“It wasn’t just me: you…heard somebody yell ‘No!’ right before the screen went dead, right? You saw that flash of light?”
“I did, yes.” Stone watched as a late-model Mercedes sedan pulled up and Julius Whitworth got slowly out to survey the building.
“That was Jason’s voice. I’m sure of it. Do you think he…did something down there? Do you think whatever Melvin did to him…worked, somehow?”
“I don’t know, Verity. I’ve got no idea. I suppose we’ll have to talk to him when he’s awake. Perhaps he can shed some light.” Still, he’d been thinking the same thing—and wondering if the darkening aura was somehow connected with it. “Come on. We need to get out of here. We can talk about it later.”
She watched him for a few more seconds, as if trying to decide whether to say more or perhaps waiting for him to say more. Then she sighed, nodded, and climbed into the passenger seat. “Let’s go. I believe Amber, but I still want to see for myself that he’s okay.”
34
Amber texted twenty minutes later. She’d found a local hospital not far from the Janus Labs building, and sent them the address. She was waiting for them when they arrived, pacing the nearly deserted waiting room.
“How is he?” Verity demanded, hurrying ahead of Stone and Julius.
“He’ll be okay. A few bumps and bruises, but no broken bones and they don’t think he has any internal injuries. They’re still checking, and then they’ll let us in to see him.”
Verity sagged in relief. “Did he wake up at all on the trip in? Did he tell you anything?”
“Not really. He was still pretty incoherent.” She glared at Julius and dropped her volume. “He had him drugged, didn’t he?”
“Probably.” Julius’s voice was soft, and he didn’t look at her. “Even after all this, I’m sure he didn’t want to cause him unnecessary distress.”
“Yeah, you’ll forgive me if I call bullshit on that. His whole life was causing people unnecessary distress.”
Stone didn’t answer. He’d tuned the Mercedes’s radio to a local news station on the way over, and as he’d suspected, Caden Boyce’s discovery was one of the top stories. The report hadn’t said much about anything else they’d discovered in the lab, but he doubted they’d learn much about the truth. The notes he’d found back there were now in the trunk of his rental car, and anything left in the Janus Labs basement was likely destroyed.
He glanced at Julius, not for the first time tonight wondering what they were going to do with him. Julius hadn’t been the driving force between the brothers’ twenty-year experiment, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been a willing participant. He’d been the one responsible for duping innocent families, for substituting Melvin’s genetic material for the babies’ true fathers’ in his fertility clinics. The parents had a right to know about that—but how much did they have a right to know? How much would they want to know? They couldn’t reveal the magical component, but if they didn’t, how would they explain what had happened—or why?
Julius almost seemed to pick up on Stone’s thoughts. He sat heavily next to him. “I know you’ll have to turn me in,” he said softly. “I just wanted you to know I’m at peace with that. I deserve to be punished for my part in what happened. I won’t resist.”
Stone nodded, staring at his clenched fists. “I know. But it’s not that easy. We’ll have to sort out how we’re going to—”
He stopped as a white-coated doctor appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Thayer?”
Amber leaped up. “How is he?”
She surveyed the newcomers, but then turned back to Amber. “He’ll be fine. He’s strong and healthy, and his injuries weren’t severe. I’d like to keep him overnight for observation, but unless anything unexpected happens, we can probably discharge him tomorrow.”
Amber’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s fantastic. Can we see him?”
Once again the doctor looked over the others. “Not all at once. I’ll have to limit him to two visitors at a time, and you can only stay for a few minutes. He needs his rest.”
As much as he wanted to talk to Jason as soon as possible, Stone didn’t force the issue. “You two go,” he told Amber and Verity. “I’ll talk to him later, if he’s still feeling up to it. I’ll stay here with Julius.”
They nodded and headed off with the doctor, disappearing down the hallway.
Stone dropped back into a chair opposite Julius with a sigh. Now that he knew for sure that Jason would be well, he finally allowed himself to let go of the last of the adrenaline-fueled energy he’d been holding in case he needed it. Now, all he felt was tired and sore.
“For what it’s worth,” Julius said softly, “I’m sorry for everything. I never knew it would come to all of this.”
Stone believed him, though he didn’t see how much it mattered. Crimes like his didn’t merely go away because you regretted participating in them. At least if Julius were arrested, the prison system could hold him, though he likely wouldn’t survive the experience for very long. Maybe he’d be sentenced to house arrest, or confined in a low-security facility with other older criminals. Stone didn’t exactly feel sorry for him—he couldn’t manage that after everything he’d done—but most of the growing anger he’d been stoking had ebbed away when Melvin had died.
“We’ll just have to see what happens,” he said.
“I promise, I won’t reveal anything about the magic. I don’t think I’ll need to.”
“It doesn’t matter if you did. No one will believe you.” Well, almost no one. He thought again about Agent Glenn Turman, and wondered how much the man knew.
They both sat back, closing their eyes and trying to rest. In the background, a TV droned recaps of the day’s baseball games. Other people drifted through, but nobody sat near them.
Eventually, Verity and Amber came back out. “Doc?” Verity called softly. “You awake?”
Stone jerked up, leaping to his feet. “Is he all right?”
“Yeah,” Amber said. “Sleepy, but good. He didn’t have a lot to say—says he doesn’t remember much after what happened. The last thing he remembers is being at the party, then waking up in that lab.” She chuckled. “He’s pretty annoyed at himself for getting caught. We can rub it in later, when he’s feeling better.”
“He wants to see you for a couple minutes,” Verity said, nodding back toward the hallway. “The nurse says it’s okay, but keep it short or she’ll come kick you out. He’s in room 107.” She sat in Stone’s vacated chair, and Amber took the one next to it.
Stone noticed they were both directly across from Julius. Even though they trusted him not to run, they weren’t taking chances. “All right. I’ll be back shortly.”
Room 107 was halfway down the hall. The door was open, so he knocked softly on the frame. “Jason?”
“Hey, Al.” The voice was weaker than usual, but unmistakably familiar.
The room was a double, but only the bed closest to the window was occupied. Jason sat up, propped against a pillow. He wore a different hospital gown now, and was hooked up to an IV b
ag and a beeping monitor.
Stone closed the door behind him when he entered. “How are you feeling?” he asked, taking the chair next to the bed. “They tell me I can’t stay long or they’ll turf me out.”
“That’s okay. I’m kinda tired anyway. I think they gave me something to help me sleep. They said I can get out of here tomorrow, right?”
“That’s what they told us.”
He shifted on the bed, adjusting his position. “V and Amber gave me the highlights of what happened. I still feel like an idiot. I can’t believe he got the jump on me. He probably slipped something into my drink when I wasn’t looking.”
“Don’t be ashamed. He had a lot of practice, and he was very good at it. Just rest, and we’ll sort it all out tomorrow.” He gripped Jason’s upper arm. “I should go—I just wanted to see for myself that you were all right.”
As he moved to pull away, Jason grabbed his wrist. “Al?”
“Yes?”
Jason looked troubled, as if trying to decide what he wanted to say. “There’s something else. Something I didn’t tell V and Amber. I told them I didn’t remember much about being in that lab.”
Stone leaned in closer. “What is it?”
“That guy…he was using me for an experiment. You know that, right?”
“Yes. He told us.”
“He said he had a breakthrough. Said…your blood was what did it. He did something to me, Al. Injected me with something.”
Again, Stone nodded. “Yes. I’m not sure what, though. He thought he might see some small bit of progress from it.”
Jason took a long, deep breath. His gaze was fixed on Stone’s. “I don’t think it was small. I woke up just as he did whatever he did to make the building start coming down. All I wanted to do was get out of there. That was the only thing on my mind. I remember yelling something, and then—there was this bright light and suddenly I was out of the bed, moving stuff out of the way like it didn’t weigh anything. I wasn’t even thinking. Something came down and hit him—knocked him out. Or worse, I guess, from what V and Amber told me. I grabbed him and headed for the door, and the next thing I know I’m ripping my way out of that elevator door where you guys were.” His eyes grew wide. “The whole time, my body felt weird. Energized. Like there was something helping me do it. What’s going on, Al? Was it just that I was so motivated to get out? Or…did getting that treatment with your blood do something to me?”
“I don’t know, Jason.” Stone continued to speak softly, partly in deference to the hospital environment and partly because he didn’t dare to consider the implications of what might have occurred tonight. He shifted to magical sight, expecting to see Jason’s aura back to its normal medium blue—but it wasn’t. Most of the red streaks were gone now, but the deep indigo color was still as strong as ever. Off in the distance beyond the closed door some insistent alarm began to beep, and muffled, urgent-sounding voices moved past. Stone mostly ignored them—probably some other patient having an emergency.
“I think something might have happened,” he said at last. “But we can’t do anything about it now. You rest—when we’re back home, I’ll check you over and see if I can work it out.”
Jason looked like he might argue, but then nodded. “Yeah. I am tired. I don’t know what he dosed me with, but it packed a punch.” He looked Stone up and down. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Just a few bumps and bruises, but that’s nothing. I think, all in all, we came out of this about as well as we could have hoped. Even Caden Boyce, the kidnapped boy, is safe and well.”
“That’s a relief. Okay, Al. You take care, and tell V and Amber I’ll see them in the morning.”
“We’ll be here bright and early to pick you up.”
Stone didn’t want to leave the room. He had so many questions he wanted to ask Jason, so many tests he wanted to run, and his curiosity was burning a hole in him. It would have to wait, though. Maybe when they got back to the hotel, he could spend some time with the notes he’d managed to liberate from Melvin’s lab.
As he approached the doorway to the waiting room, he realized the alarms and urgent voices were getting louder. He picked up his pace and hurried out, shocked to find a cluster of medical personnel near where they’d been seated, gathered around something he couldn’t see.
Verity? Amber? But no—they were both there, standing off to the side along with a few other onlookers who’d been sitting on the other side.
Verity caught his eye and motioned him over. As he passed the group, he caught a glimpse through the scrubs-and-white-coat-clad cluster at the figure on the floor. Julius Whitworth lay there, his face ashen gray, his eyes closed. The doctors and nurses were preparing to lift him onto a gurney.
“What happened?” Stone demanded.
Verity shook her head. “We were just sitting there talking when he just…jerked up, grabbed his chest, and then slumped over. Amber barely caught him before he fell.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “I don’t think he’s going to make it, Doc. I think tonight was too much for his heart. They got to him fast, but his aura’s already fading. I don’t think there’s anything they can do.”
Stone watched them. They’d gotten Julius on the gurney and were now wheeling him away, still working with the kind of methodical franticness that characterized emergency medicine everywhere. He continued to follow them with his gaze until they disappeared, then sighed. “I’m not sure he’d want them to.”
Both of them shot him questioning looks as the rest of the group drifted away, back toward their original seats now that the excitement was over. But then Verity nodded soberly. “Yeah. I guess he wouldn’t think there’s much left for him to live for at this point, is there?”
Stone didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said instead. “Let’s get back to the hotel. Jason’s safe and well, no one’s threatening any of us anymore, and I think we all could use a good night’s sleep.”
35
“That was quite a ride,” Jason said.
He sat in the back seat of Stone’s rental car next to Amber, after they’d picked him up at the hospital the following morning. He looked much better today, dressed in his usual polo shirt and jeans and showing no obvious signs of his ordeal.
“Yeah,” Amber said. “No argument here. But much as I like excitement, I’m glad it’s over.” She chuckled. “Never thought asking Alastair for help with a simple tracking ritual would lead to something like this.”
“You should have,” Verity said dryly from the passenger seat. “Doc never gets involved in anything that doesn’t turn out to be bigger than it’s supposed to be. I think it’s his superpower.”
Stone didn’t answer. He glanced at the rearview mirror, and for just a second caught Jason’s eye, but then looked away.
“Right now,” Jason said, “I want to stop somewhere and get two or three cheeseburgers, a giant milkshake, and a big thing of fries. To hell with my girlish figure.”
“He must be feeling better,” Amber said. She, too, looked like several weeks’ worth of stress had dropped away from her. “But then again, he’s always hungry, so who knows?”
They pulled off at a fast-food restaurant to load Jason up. Amber and Verity ordered big meals too, but Stone settled for a burger. He hadn’t felt much like eating since the previous night. He also hadn’t had a chance to look at the Whitworths’ papers—he thought he would, but when he returned to his room, sudden exhaustion overcame him and he decided it was wise to give in to it. He’d have all the time in the world to examine those notes, now that nobody was looking for them any longer.
“You still planning to go to your meeting tonight, V?” Jason asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know how many people will show up, but I think it’s more important than ever that I try to make them see.” She glanced at Stone. “You want to come, Doc?”
“I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near it.”
“Well…like I said before, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.
If my ideas aren’t strong enough to stand up to opposition, then maybe they’re not worth trying to convince people of. You might not agree with me, but at least you won’t try to shred me. Others might, so I’d better be ready for it.”
“That’s a good point. But no, I don’t think I will. I’m itching to get a look at Whitworth’s notes, and I expect that will take me quite some time.”
Verity nodded, her gaze lingering on him, obviously trying to decide if he was telling the truth or giving her a graceful out. “Okay. I respect that. Jason, are you and Amber coming?”
“Nah,” Jason said. “This is your show, V. Besides, there’s no point in us going to a big debate about magic.” He grinned at Amber. “I was thinking the two of us might check out a couple of the interesting panels and then go out to a nice dinner, since everything’s finally wrapped up.”
“If that’s an invitation,” Amber said, “I accept. I’d love a good steak and a presentation on why my dog used to be Queen Cleopatra in a former life.”
“Wow, some things never change,” Verity said.
“It’s decided, then.” Stone pulled the car up to the valet stand at the Symposium’s hotel. “We’ve all got our things to do. I expect I’ll want to be heading back tomorrow, unless you two have any burning need to stay. Verity, I assume you’re planning on continuing your road trip?”
She took several seconds before answering, looking contemplative. “Yeah, I think so. I think I’ll take the suggestion to go to New York and talk to Bron’s great-grandmother. And I’ll think about what you said too, Doc. Maybe something can come of all this, even if it’s not everything I hoped for.”
“That pretty much describes life,” Amber said. “I’m just glad we’re all still here for it.”
Jason indicated for Stone to hang back as the valet drove off in the car. “Hey,” he said, watching Verity and Amber enter the hotel lobby ahead of them. “You gonna have some time to check me over today?”