The Stone (Lockstone Book 1)

by Seb L. Carter

  Liam turned to Patrick. Patrick’s expression said he didn’t feel secure about this either. “You have your gun?”

  But Patrick only lifted the arm he’d had low at his side. In his hand, he held the gun.

  Liam moved forward. He had his own version of a gun. The stone. He held it out like it was his weapon. And, in a way, it was. It had killed ten people now. If he had to, he’d use it. Now he was a little better equipped to use it too. In his other hand, he called up the blue lightning spell he’d learned only an hour ago.

  They moved forward to the door at the end of the hall. It was through a small arch that had chairs standing off to one side, almost like a waiting room. There was a table against the other wall in the space with a large mirror and a flower arrangement. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to Liam considering everything he’d seen already in the house, but it spoke to the excessive nature of people like this. Who puts chairs in a place where nobody’s going to sit?

  Patrick pulled open the door first—it opened outward into the small seating space—his weapon pointed and ready. He aimed it first in one direction then covered the other. Liam didn’t go in. Even though he had the sparky fingers, he wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to use it in the heat of the moment.

  “Looks clear,” Patrick said. He kept the gun aimed.

  Liam followed him in.

  The interior of the room was dark, almost pitch black, only the light from the hallway spilling inside to give him any sort of ability to see what was there, which seemed odd considering it was daylight. Directly facing the door was another sideboard table with a large flower arrangement on it. The scent of them filled the space, and he touched the petals. Real.

  Liam reached over to the wall next to the door where he found a bank of light switches, and he turned them all on. Lights lit up on both sides of the entry area to reveal a bathroom on one side and a bedroom on the other. This was the master suite.

  The bedroom was, as expected, huge beyond all comprehension. It was the size of the house he grew up in in Texas, complete with a seating area, French doors to a balcony that he was sure had a wonderful view of Lake Michigan and the gardens at the back of the house—the window blinds were pulled, though, the type of blinds that completely blacked out the light. There was even a small refrigerator and bar in one corner. If he lived in this house, this would be the room he would never leave.

  He turned to the bathroom, and he was equally impressed by the marble flooring, the dual shower with a spout that fell like rainfall, and the double vanities that wrapped around and took up multiple walls. A soaker tub stood as the centerpiece. This was the room that would allow him to live happily in the other room. Definitely a symbiotic relationship between the two spaces.

  The space between the en suite and the bedroom had two doorways that had to be closets.

  Both he and Patrick remained still in the foyer of the bedroom and listened. The pounding they’d heard before didn’t come again.

  Patrick started for the bathroom and the closets. The bedroom, though large, was pretty much visible from where they stood. The only other logical place where pounding might occur was in the closets. Liam followed. He held his magic at the ready and hoped that, if he had to use it, he wouldn’t somehow shock and kill Patrick in the process.

  At the doorway to the closets, Liam reached in and turned on the light. This was the “Hers” closet.

  “I thought it was just servants that lived here,” Patrick said. It was clear that he was as stunned at the sight of the closet as Liam was.

  The depth of the closet was easily thirty feet, and there were stairs in the center leading up to a mezzanine level. Dresses of every color hung from the racks on both levels. Shoes stood at the ready in lit-up, glass-fronted cabinetry. And in the center of the room, behind the wide stairwell, there was an island covered with different types of jewelry. Liam was certain that many of the pieces—if not all of them—were made from real gemstones.

  “I’d be just fine working as a servant for these people,” Liam said.

  “Well, most of them are dead now, in case you forgot.”

  Liam considered. “True.”

  He moved deeper into the closet, and Liam stopped.

  “Uh, Patrick?” Liam said.

  Patrick came to stand by him.

  On the floor, there was blood. A lot of blood.

  And it was still wet.

  Liam backed up into Patrick. “Where’d it come from?” Liam asked. “More importantly, who did it come from?” He scanned the upper mezzanine of the closet. He paused to stare at a dress that swayed on the rack.

  More movement. Liam turned to stare at a cabinet door that was partially open that he was sure was closed before. That was when he saw that the Mezzanine level went further back and bridged the closets, likely to the other His closet.

  “Let’s get out of here, go find the others,” Liam said.

  “Yeah. Good idea,” Patrick said.

  They both turned and made their way out of the closet.

  As they turned the corner, the bedroom was dark again. They’d turned the lights on before. He was certain of it. In fact, he remembered explicitly turning on the lights.

  Along the walls, the faint outline of sunlight marked where the windows were in the bedroom. As he stared at the small slivers of light, the light was broken by movement.

  “Go!” Liam shouted. He shoved Patrick aside and extended a hand with the stone in it, and he tried to will a bolt of power into existence.

  But nothing happened. Instead, Patrick aimed his weapon and fired. In the muzzle flash, Patrick saw the brief outline of a pale creature. He was able to catch a chilling glimpse of the thing’s eyes. Black.

  A deafening screech filled the space behind them, the sound bouncing off the hard marble of the floors and on the walls in the bathroom, only amplifying the ear-splitting sound.

  Liam turned behind them and tried again with the stone. Nothing still. It was like the stone refused to respond to him as it had before.

  So instead, he lifted his other hand and tried to force the blue lighting out of it. A sizzle shot from his hand. It slammed into—something. A thin, wiry creature that was thrown back into a herd of others hidden in the bedroom. So, that worked. But it wasn’t enough. The room undulated in the dark, pale figures that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once, the quick movements of monsters. He had no idea what he was shooting at, but whatever it was, he was sure it wasn’t on their side. And if it was, well, he could be sorry about it later.

  Both he and Patrick made for the door to the bedroom. Somehow, they made it just as the movement on both sides of the double doors came at them, pale bodies reflecting the light coming in from the hallway.

  As they made it through, Patrick slammed the doors behind them. Patrick shoved his weight against the door as the door lurched from being hit from the other side.

  Liam took a step back. “Come on!”

  “I can’t!” Patrick shouted.

  The chairs. Liam grabbed one and ran over to Patrick, and he shoved the chair just under the doorknob. It fit perfectly and created a jam. He did the same with the second chair on the other door, just to be safe. Patrick backed away from the door. It continued to jump from being hit, but at least it was holding. For now.

  “What are those things?” Liam asked. What seemed like the appropriate term. Nothing human could have made that screeching sound.

  “We have to find the others,” Patrick said. He turned and hooked his hand onto Liam’s arm. Liam was jolted back from the closed bedroom door, and he almost lost hold of the stone. He caught it again as they ran back toward the stairs.

  In the entry hall downstairs again, they ran into the living room to find it empty then into the kitchen where Katina still sat with her book.

  “What’s happening?” She was up before they even stopped running. She appeared to take notice of the gun still in Patrick’s hand. The pounding was just barel
y audible where they were standing in the kitchen.

  “Something’s upstairs,” Liam said, out of breath. He wasn’t much of a runner. “A lot of somethings.”

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  “Pale bodies. It was dark. We heard thumping coming from the master bedroom, and we went to go investigate. Whatever it was, was hiding in there.”

  “Or locked in there,” Patrick added. “The doors were closed.” Just then, a crash came from upstairs. That was clearly audible.

  As was the screech of a chorus of horrific voices.

  Katina paled at the sound, a horrific recognition apparent in her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said. She started out of the kitchen, but she paused to return to the table to grab the book she was reading.

  Liam knew where they were headed. They ran toward the hidden entryway that he and Eoin had gone through earlier.

  Patrick paused only long enough to seemingly take in the fact that there was a hidden door jutting out from the wall, but then Liam guessed, being in the CIA, maybe hidden doors were a thing he was used to.

  They hurried inside, and Katina closed the door.

  “What about the others?” Liam asked when the three of them were safely inside the stairwell.

  “They’re already down here,” she said. “Eoin and Brodie were coordinating what to do next in one of the conference rooms.” She ran down the stairs.

  When the three of them reached the bottom of the stairwell, the pounding resumed at the top of the stairs. Whatever it was chasing them apparently knew there was a door there, and that didn’t bode well for their chances.

  “I sure hope there’s a back way out of this place,” Liam said as they hurried through the sitting room and down the long hallway.

  Katina didn’t say anything, and Liam didn’t think that was a very good sign.

  “We got problems,” Katina said when she found Eoin and Brodie sitting in front of a computer system and a large screen active on one wall. It was a kind of command center that Liam had somehow missed before when he was down here earlier. Then again, he hadn’t done much exploring in the time he was there.

  “What’s going on?” Eoin asked. He and Brodie both sprang to their feet.

  There didn’t need to be an answer. The sound of the doorway at the top of the stairs splintering was enough of an explanation, followed by the scream and a small explosion. Liam guessed Eoin wasn’t lying. It was probably too much to hope that those wards would kill all of whatever was chasing them. The continued screeches above confirmed his fears.

  “The library,” Eoin said.

  In a rush, they all went deeper down the hallway and into the library. It was the same as before, dim except for the dancing blue light in from the waters of Lake Michigan.

  “This is different,” Patrick said. Liam looked over his shoulder at Patrick. He didn’t seem as worried as the rest of them, instead taking a moment to peer around the place. But then, Liam guessed, he was probably someone used to high pressure situations.

  Eoin slammed the doors to the library, and he lifted his hand to mutter something, a sensation washing over Liam that signaled the use of magic. The space around the doors glowed like a light shining in from the opposite side of the door.

  As soon as Eoin finished his spell, the doors to the library bounced as something heavy slammed into them. Or a body of something was more likely the case. The sound caused them all to move deeper into the library, toward the center where the circles were and the windows that looked out into the underwater scene of Lake Michigan.

  “Is that door going to hold?” Liam asked.

  “It should. For now,” Eoin said.

  “‘For now’ isn’t all that reassuring,” Liam said.

  Twenty-Eight

  Chicago, IL - Tellus, Inc.

  Sir, there’s been a development.”

  Cyril glanced only briefly over his shoulder to see the woman standing behind him. Nona Burwell, actually a descendant of the Auttenburg family, one of the original ten families. “What is it, Nona?” Cyril said, still facing his computer screen.

  “We’ve been monitoring the situation in Wilmette,” she said. She paused until Cyril lifted his head at her hesitancy.

  This was supposed to be easy from here on out. He believed he had the chance to prepare for the events to come later in the evening. Some down time before the ceremony.

  “The vectors have been activated in Wilmette,” Nona said.

  Now Cyril did turn around. He studied her oval face, her cobalt-blue eyes without saying anything. Her auburn hair was pulled back tight. She stood with her chin level, her hands behind her back. But he knew what had happened.

  “That is good news,” he said with a slight smile on his face. “Am I to believe, then, that the boy is on his way here?”

  Nona remained as she was, standing with her hands clasped behind her back. “No, sir,” she said, simply.

  After a moment, Cyril squinted. “And why not?”

  “They’ve entered the subterranean chambers, and it seems that’s where the vectors have them now.”

  “A Corbett house,” Cyril said. Cyril leaned back in his chair and thought, tapping his chin with his forefinger while Nona stood as if frozen on the opposite side of his desk. “So, Eoin Corbett,” Cyril said. He was one of the few of the Council leadership unaccounted for. The others had been either turned or killed. “At least now we know who’s been helping the boy,” he said. He was the only one who could have accessed the lower levels. The wards there were different, and, as Cyril understood it, the space was only used as a storehouse. No action was taken to open the subterranean levels as had been done at the Chapter houses. Now Cyril was cursing that decision.

  They’d secured most of the Council properties, an effort to minimize any surprises from hidden Council affiliates. His operatives worked much as Stephen Penrose had, by calling the Fae power taught to him by Thaddeus that would freeze an area in time, creating a pocket out of step with reality. And those operatives then turned the occupants of each house into Fae-touched that would stand at the ready to act when the time came.

  But this also changed some things. It moved up the timeline.

  Cyril stood up from his desk and walked toward the hallway. Nona fell into step behind him. He walked the length of the hallway and turned down a small hall and into a room at the back, a control room.

  “I want to see the Wilmette location,” Cyril said.

  Without a word, a technician at a computer typed in the commands, and the internal video feeds of the Corbett house in Wilmette filled the screen at the front of the room. The feed cycled through each of the cameras until they were shown a view of one of the many seating rooms, except this one had the blackened body of one of the Fae-touched on the floor. Its body twitched. It was removed from service only recently.

  “And we’re sure they are all trapped below?” Cyril asked.

  Nona answered. “We can’t be entirely certain. There are no cameras below—”

  “I’m well aware,” Cyril said with a hint of frustration. “I want certainty.”

  “All of the remaining vectors are below, sir.” She moved to another computer and punched in the code for another image, this one an overhead view of the house and small chevrons to indicate the Fae-touched under their control. She hit another button, and the screen shifted to show a side view of the house as if viewed from the lake. All of the icons on the screen were gathered in the same spot. “Our only logical conclusion is that they’ve chased the boy and his companions to a lower chamber.”

  Cyril sighed. “I want a team dispatched immediately,” he said. “I want them to bring me the boy. We’re running out of time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nona said. “And the vectors?”

  “Kill them if you have to.” As much power as Cyril had come into since all of this started, his power growing exponentially since the chapter houses had fallen and the Veil weakened, he still was unable to fully control the Fae-touch
ed. That was one skill fully in the purview of the Fae. He was able to subdue them until they were needed, but controlling them wasn’t possible—yet. Once they were activated, they were beyond his ability to control or subdue. “The main goal is the boy.”

  “Of course,” Nona said.

  He turned to her. “And it’s time,” he said.

  Nona stared at him. A small smile spread on her face.

  “I want all the vectors activated by midnight.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” Nona said.

  Aelhollow

  The streets were empty. The air smelled of an old structure fire long ago burned out. The town, he understood now, was once the bustling capital of a great Council, whose leadership had gone uncontested since the great age ended and the time of darkness began. Now this Council was dead.

  In its place, in the land that it once occupied, the only ruler here was the Queen and her agents.

  Some animals remained. A deer strolled up main street. A dog rooted through trash in a causeway between small shops.

  The house on the hill remained dark, silent. From a distance, it was easy to pretend that someone might still be up there. But upon closer inspection, even at this distance, it was possible to see that the windows had been broken. A car lay overturned in the fountain that stood at the front of the house, the house’s main water feature, a fountain that rivaled those found in Rome.

  He did not have a name, not one he cared to remember. He surveyed this place, the quiet streets, the now-empty homes that stretched for several miles in all directions. He stood above it, atop the tallest building in Aelhollow, a cathedral with two tall spires. This was his duty, to stand sentry, to wait, to listen to the voice carried on the wind. He would wait until time claimed him if that was her wish. He lived at the pleasure of the one, the Queen.