by R. L. King
Jason laughed again. It felt so good to be laughing, after the last few days of fear and death and nonstop weirdness. “I’d forgotten what a goofball you used to be.”
“And I’d forgotten what a dork you used to be,” she said, grinning. “I guess some things never change, huh?”
Chapter Forty-One
When Stone returned an hour later, the two of them were sitting on the couch together, cheerfully making fun of an old black and white movie on the television. “Well,” he said, smiling. “Looks like the reunion went well.”
“Did you find anything?” Jason asked, turning down the volume.
“I did. Fortunately for us, I found another colleague who has a furnished rental property that will fit our needs nicely. Once I assured him I would do my very best to ensure that it wouldn’t get blown up by a faulty gas main, he agreed to let me take it on a month-to-month basis. I’m still on the lookout for something more permanent, but this will do nicely for now.”
“Blown up?” Verity asked, alarmed.
“Does it have a basement?” Jason asked at the same time, with a wicked glint in his eyes.
“I also took care of making some arrangements with my insurance company to cover some of the items I lost in the explosion,” Stone continued, ignoring them both, “And located us a rental vehicle until I can replace the Jaguar.”
“What, you don’t like my car?” Jason asked innocently.
“Explosion?” Verity asked again.
“Tell you later,” Jason told her. “His housekeeper tried to murder us a few days ago by blowing up his last house.”
She stared at him, then at Stone, wide-eyed and obviously not sure if they were pulling her leg. “Your—housekeeper—?”
Suddenly, something clicked in Jason’s mind. His joking expression turned dead serious. “Al—Mrs. Olivera—”
Stone nodded, looking equally serious. “I just had the same thought.” He sighed. “Really the only way they could have gotten in without setting off my defenses.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Verity demanded. “This is gonna get old in a hurry if you keep talking like I’m not even here.”
“Sorry,” Jason muttered. “We’re thinking now that one of the Evil must have possessed Mrs. Olivera and made her set that bomb. Remember how Lamar said sometimes they sacrifice the weak ones to do things they need done, or just to cause people to commit suicide so they can feed off the emotion?”
“And then, when it was finished with her,” Stone said sadly, “it simply caused her to have an accident that killed her. Perhaps it was even able to secure another body, if one was close enough.” He sighed, looking down. “What a waste…”
“Just a sec, though,” Jason said. “Didn’t Lamar say the Forgotten don’t think the Evil takes over people completely when it possesses them? Remember, he said it couldn’t, or else they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs?”
“Yes, but he also said that no one knows for sure,” Stone pointed out. “P’raps they’re capable of doing it either way. I really don’t know—it would definitely be something to study at some point. But for now, I think we’ll need to go on the assumption that they can choose to take people—at least some people—over completely if they need to. Possibly only for a limited amount of time, which is why the more powerful Evil use the weakest ones for their suicide missions.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Jason said. “Just makes this whole thing scarier, though.”
“Come on,” Stone said, grabbing his coat. “Get your stuff together and let’s take a look at the new place and pick up the car. I want to be as settled in as we can before heading back to Mountain View.”
The new house was near the border between Mountain View and Palo Alto. It was a nondescript, tan, single-story place in the ubiquitous California ranch style, with a two-car garage and a patch of lawn blanketed in fallen leaves from a mature tree. The neighborhood looked quiet and respectable; several of the nearby houses sported cheerful Halloween decorations in their front yards.
“How…suburban,” Jason said.
“Yes, well, beggars can’t be choosers, and at least it has three bedrooms and a large family room I can use for doing magic,” Stone reminded him. “It will do until I can find something more to my liking, and the two-car garage means we don’t have to keep our cars visible, in case anyone happens by who might recognize them.”
The inside was as nondescript as the outside, furnished in Early Middle-American Boring. “The two bedrooms at the end of the hall are yours,” Stone told them. “You can fight over who gets which one, but make it quick. I want to be out of here in fifteen minutes at most.”
They beat that by nearly ten minutes—they didn’t have much gear to stow. When they came back out front, Stone was installing their meager food stores in the refrigerator and cabinets. “Ready?”
Their next stop was the rental agency, where Stone revealed the “car” to be a beige van with tinted windows in the back. “Seriously, Al?” Jason asked, amused. “This one doesn’t look like your style either.”
“Right now, style isn’t nearly as important as blending in,” Stone reminded him. “These things are all over the place, so it’s likely we won’t be noticed. Plus, it’s got more room if we need to carry any of the Forgotten. I’ll get something more interesting again once we’ve sorted out our little problems.”
Jason, with Verity riding shotgun, followed Stone back to the house in the Ford and stashed it in the garage. Then they all piled into the van. “Where to now?”
“I want to stop at Madame Huan’s, and we should probably go back to her friend’s house and clean up the sand we left in his studio. And it’s early enough we probably have time to stop by the mall again—I’m guessing Verity might like to pick up a few more clothes.”
“I can do that?” she asked. She looked like she hadn’t thought about it, but now that she had, she was quickly warming to the idea. “I don’t have any money—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Stone said. “We’re not buying you fur coats or ostrich boots or anything. Just a few things to get you by until you can decide what you want to do.”
These stops ended up taking almost two hours between them, but by the time they were finished, Stone had a bag full of items he planned to use to make magical batteries and focusing objects, the ballet studio in Los Gatos was cleaned up and back in the state they’d found it, and Verity had picked out several new pairs of jeans, a few subversive black T-shirts, and a pair of black leather Doc Martens that Stone caught her eyeing longingly, and insisted she have despite her protest over the price. “This feels weird,” she told him as the salesperson rang up the purchases. “It’s like you’re my—sugar daddy or something.”
He chuckled. “It’s not a hardship, believe me. And if you and Jason feel that you must do something, you can always take care of the chores ’round the house. I’m abysmal at housekeeping.”
“See?” Jason said, grinning. “He is gonna make you do his laundry.”
“You can do the laundry,” she protested. “I’ll mow the lawn or cook or something.” They were heading out now, and she looked back at Stone. “Are we going back to the Forgotten now?”
“Right you are. We’ll drop this stuff off at the house and be on our way. We’re not actually far from their new location.”
“Can we get some food first?” Jason asked. Despite the big breakfast they’d had only a few hours ago, his stomach was rumbling again.
“I wish we could take something to them too,” Verity said.
Stone nodded. “Both excellent ideas,” he agreed. “One more stop, then.”
When they arrived at the address Lamar had given them for the Forgotten’s new base, they found it to be an old auto-repair shop in the back of another of the area’s numerous abandoned industrial parks. It was built like a wareho
use, but only about half as large. As they pulled around the back of the building, they immediately spotted the triangle-and-rays “good place” symbol chalked on the asphalt near the door. The door opened, framing Lamar and Marilee in the doorway. They both looked surprised as Stone, Jason, and Verity all got out of the van, each one bearing a large cardboard box. “What—?” he asked.
“Lunch is catered today,” Stone announced, handing his box to Lamar.
The old man looked inside, and his eyes widened. The box was filled with wrapped sandwiches from a local fast-food sub shop, the mingling scents of meats, vegetables, and condiments wafting up enticingly. “I—”
“Coming through,” Jason said. He carried another box full of two-liter bottles of soda along with plastic cups, forks, and napkins. Verity brought up the rear with a second box of sandwiches.
The inside of the building was one large, open space. About fifteen of the Forgotten were sitting around inside, but most got up and began to filter over when they smelled the food. “I don’t know what to say,” Lamar said. “Except—thank you. Your kindness is appreciated.”
“Think nothing of it,” Stone said. “We were going to pick up lunch before we came over here, and Verity quite rightly pointed out that you all might like to join us.”
Jason and Verity started setting out bottles and cups on the makeshift table the Forgotten had fashioned out of a door and two empty cardboard boxes, and soon everyone had grabbed a sandwich and a drink and had found a spot to eat. Stone sat down near the back wall with a small group consisting of Lamar, Marilee, Verity, Jason, and the gruff military man Hector.
Intent on eating, no one spoke for a while. But then Stone addressed Lamar. “Have you given any thought to what we discussed this morning?”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it all day,” he admitted. He looked troubled. “I’ve talked it over with Marilee and a couple of the others, and—we want to help. Some of our group are afraid, though.”
“I’d be surprised if they weren’t,” Stone said. “Whatever we decide to do, I doubt it’s going to be safe. But the risk to you and your group is minimal if we do this correctly. All I really need you to do is to help us figure out where the leading Evil of the area keeps itself. I need you to communicate with other Forgotten groups and try to figure out where its base is. Because if we do strike, it only makes sense to strike there.”
Lamar nodded. “That does make sense,” he agreed. “I warn you, though—such a thing will take time. We don’t encounter other groups that often. Of course, we have a few places where we can meet or leave messages for each other if we need to, but it’s not as simple as calling them on the phone or putting out the call for a group meeting. We’re not that organized, partially by necessity. Our groups are large enough for protection, but not big enough to attract the Evil’s attention.”
“Well,” Stone said, “if you can do the best you can, that’s all we can ask. I have some things I need to do in the meantime, to prepare. But all of this hinges on knowing where to look. We can be ready when we find out, but until we know—”
“I understand,” the old man said.
Stone pulled out a small notebook and jotted down the phone number at the new house. He tore off the page and handed it to Lamar along with some cash. “This is where you’ll find us,” he said. “Since we may not know where you’ve moved on any given day, it’s probably best if you contact us when you find out something—or if you need anything.”
“We can’t accept—” Lamar protested, trying to give back the money.
Stone shook his head. “As I said, what I’m asking you to do could be dangerous. The least I can do is try to help a bit so you don’t have to worry so much about your livelihood for the next few days. Don’t worry,” he added as Lamar still didn’t look convinced. “I’ve got a fair bit of money squirreled away, and it’s nice to have something helpful to spend it on.”
Lamar nodded. “All right, then. Thank you. We do appreciate everything that all of you have done for us.”
“That’s mutual, I assure you,” Stone said, patting his formerly wounded side for emphasis. “And if all goes according to plan, I’m hoping you’ll all be in better circumstances soon.”
Lamar looked philosophical. “I’m not going to think that far ahead, Dr. Stone. Around here, we pretty much take things one day at a time.” He stowed the phone number and the bills away in his coat. “But I promise you—as soon as we know anything, we’ll find a way to contact you.”
For the next several days they heard nothing from the Forgotten, and Jason and Verity were both starting to get restless. Jason had a serious problem with being confined anywhere for any length of time, and was going stir-crazy inside the house despite their daily trips out for food and general shopping, while Verity mentioned she was worried that something had happened to her friends. They kept busy by watching television and doing the chores around the house—Verity, it turned out, was a talented cook and enjoyed experimenting with different recipes, while Jason put his mechanical aptitude to work on various small projects both inside and outside, and spent every spare moment doing what he could to make the old Ford run better.
Meanwhile, Stone spent most of his time either holed up in his room doing research, or puttering around in the large family room which he had commandeered and was in the process of turning into a place to perform magical rituals. A couple times he called Verity in to help him with some mundane task, but mostly he kept to himself. “It’s a good thing I’ve a lot of practice doing this sort of thing,” he said at one point, annoyed. “Losing the better part of my research collection in the explosion is making things more difficult than they have to be.”
When he wasn’t doing research or filling the house with the smell of incense and burning candles while building the various magical devices to help him combat the Evil, Stone did take a bit of time out to begin explaining the way magic worked to Verity. It was the same lecture he’d given Jason, about the difference between black and white magic and how they operated. “You’ll need to know this stuff no matter who you decide to apprentice with,” he told her, “so I might as well give you a head start and not have you get it secondhand from your brother.”
Verity proved to be a quick study and very interested in the topic, asking many of the same questions Jason had asked. Toward the end of the week, when she wasn’t attempting to whip up some new exotic dish, she found excuses to spend more and more time in the family room, watching Stone do his thing and asking more questions.
One evening, as they sat around the dining table eating Verity’s latest experiment (lasagna—like most of them, it had turned out to be quite tasty, though a few of her failures had required herculean feats of diplomacy on Stone’s and Jason’s parts so as not to hurt her feelings), Stone said, “So, I think I’ve got all my items sorted, so now it’s time to move to Phase 2 of our mad little plan.”
“And that is—?” Jason asked. “I thought we had to wait for Lamar and his people to get back to us before we can go further.”
“Not necessarily—there is something else we can do. Though we will likely have to hunt down the Forgotten to help us with this part, so I hope they’ve left us some way to contact them.”
“What do we need to do?” Verity asked.
“Find one of the Evil, so we can have you practice and see if you can control your power to drive it out of people without harming them.”
“You want to find somebody who’s possessed and experiment on them?” Jason looked dubious. “I still say that doesn’t sound safe. What if they can communicate to each other somehow, telepathically or something? That could bring them all down on us at once.”
“Well, I wasn’t proposing to do it here,” Stone said with a raised eyebrow. “And in any case, I don’t think that’s how they operate. Again, it’s a theory, so I could be wrong, but we’ve seen no indication yet tha
t they’re in any sort of constant communication with each other—at least not when they’re possessing a body. I don’t think we’re dealing with a hive mind here.”
Jason was still looking apprehensive. “So you want to find somebody who’s possessed, lock him up somewhere, and let Verity play with him until she figures out how to kick the hitchhiker out of his body—and then what?”
“And then we need to figure out how to capture it,” Stone said, “and confine it.”
“Al, if you want a pet, why don’t you just ask Marilee if you can borrow her kitten?” Jason’s tone was light, but his nervousness was evident. “Seriously, you mentioned this before, but you didn’t seem like you had any ideas how to do it. Do you have any now?”
Stone shook his head. “Not really. Hence the experiment. Not only do we need to determine whether Verity can drive it out at will, but I also need to study it so I can construct some sort of magical prison capable of holding it long enough that it will either die or dissipate before it can locate a new host.”
“How do you think you’re gonna do that, though?” Jason asked.
“That’s where the study comes in. My working theory is that if I can do something similar to what I did to block Verity’s mind against the influence of whatever’s causing her mental issues—find the ‘magical frequency’ these things operate on when they’re noncorporeal—then I can create a magical containment field that will cancel out that frequency, and prevent it from seeking out another body to possess.”
“Theory,” Jason said. “That seems like a big stretch to me. If V can get the thing out of the guy we grab and you can’t hang on to it, what’s to stop it from flying off and phoning home?”
“Because the one we grab to experiment on will be one of the weak ones,” Stone reminded him. “And we’ll make sure to do it where there aren’t any other humans in the vicinity, so when it vacates the premises, as it were, it won’t have anywhere to go and will simply be destroyed.”