The Stone (Lockstone Book 1)

by Seb L. Carter

  Grenier approached. “Thibideau, lower your weapon.”

  Thibideau still seemed hesitant.

  “That’s an order, soldier!” Grenier said.

  Thibideau gave his captain a glance, then he looked back to Katina. After a moment, he slowly lowered his weapon. He was still tense, though, and Zach wasn’t ready to count him back in the column of keeping it together.

  Grenier turned to Katina. “You all have some explaining to do,” he said. “What the hell was that?”

  She gave Grenier a stare. “You’ll apparently have to be more specific. You want to know about what we just killed or would you like me to give you a quick rundown of magic?”

  Grenier stared at her with clear skepticism. “Magic?”

  “You heard it from my mouth to your ears,” she said. “Magic. It’s all over the place. You just haven’t been lucky enough to realize it yet.”

  “I don’t believe in magic,” Grenier said.

  “Well that’s okay. Magic doesn’t really care whether you believe in it or not,” Katina said. She turned from him and walked away.

  “If I hadn’t seen it, I don’t think I’d believe it either.” Glenda stepped up next to Zach, checking her weapon and reloading her clip from the bullet pouch on her belt.

  “We were at least a little ready for something like this.”

  “Yeah, but doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”

  “You and me both,” Zach said. And he really didn’t like it.

  Liam was unable to breathe. He lay on the floor, his hand over his gut, curled into a fetal position. In his field of view, he saw her.

  His aunt. The woman who had become like his mother.

  Her face was different, misshapen by the fae-touched corruption. But he could still see through all that to the woman underneath. She was in there somewhere.

  And now she was dead.

  He wasn’t hurt, not physically. When she hit him, she hadn’t caused him any pain other than to knock the wind out from him when he hit the floor. But his breath still wouldn’t come. His mouth hung open in a silent scream, tears streaming down his face.

  Again, he was made to watch someone he loved die, their life stolen from him as four others had a mere seven years prior.

  This much tragedy visited upon one person was a cruel fate handed down by a cruel god.

  “Liam!”

  A hand turned him onto his back. The first face he saw was Patrick who lifted him from the ground. He reluctantly let himself get brought up into an embrace, and Patrick made him turn his back to the dead body of his aunt.

  “Are you hurt?” Patrick asked him.

  He didn’t know how to answer that. He was hurt, yes. But not in any physical way. He was hurt with a cut down to his soul, one so deep that there was no hope of healing. He’d felt this way before. Improbably, he’d healed to some degree, but a part of the wound still festered.

  And now, it was a wound ripped open again.

  Once again, Liam was all alone in the world.

  Except for Trey.

  Oh God, how was he going to tell Trey? His mother was dead. Liam lost an aunt, but Trey lost his mother. Now Trey was alone in this world too just like him. Was that enough of a reason for Liam to remain strong?

  He wasn’t sure if he could remain strong. He wasn’t the rock in anyone’s relationship. He was the victim. Once again, that was never more apparent than it was now.

  Another hand touched Liam’s shoulder. “We need to get up and move,” Patrick said. He touched Liam’s cheek with the palm of his hand, and the energy moved through them. Liam didn’t flinch away. He no longer cared. “Come on,” Patrick whispered in his ear. “We have more work to do.”

  “No,” Liam said.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Get away,” Liam said.

  “I’m not going to leave you like this.”

  “My aunt is dead.” Liam felt the tears at his eyes. He blinked them out to run down to the floor.

  “I know.” Patrick leaned closer, his body almost covering Liam’s. “I know, hon. I know. But you can’t let that stop you.”

  Liam still didn’t move. He wasn’t ready to move.

  “Nina is counting on you,” Patrick said.

  Liam found himself staring at the floor. He was right. There was another person being held by Cyril, his best friend. “I don’t think I can do it,” Liam said. He buried his face in his hands. The tears came freely now.

  “You can.” Patrick pulled Liam’s hands away from his face. “You need to look at me.”

  Reluctantly, Liam lifted his face to meet Patrick’s eyes.

  “You can help her. If you give up now, she’s as good as dead.” Patrick glanced over in the direction of his aunt in her twisted, dead form. “Or worse.”

  “She’s already gone,” Liam said.

  Patrick’s brows furrowed. He grew cross. “You don’t know that. You can’t give up on her. Don’t you dare give up on her.”

  “How can we stop him? Cyril is on course to take away from me everything that I love.”

  “That’s why we need to stop him. That’s why you need to get up so we can go face him and save Nina.”

  Raised voices caught Liam’s attention. “This means it was a trap.” Brodie was yelling again. “He knew we were coming.”

  Eoin calmed him down. Liam didn’t pay any more attention until Eoin stepped gingerly into view.

  “Liam, there’s something you need to see,” Eoin said.

  Liam looked up at him. He wiped at the tears running down his face. “What?”

  “Come look for yourself.”

  “Just fucking tell me,” Liam said.

  “It’s a file.” Eoin pointed. Liam followed his gaze toward the end of the long table.

  Liam finally stood up and walked over to the table where the file lay open.

  He looked first at Eoin in an attempt to read his face. There was concern there, which was not uncommon in the short time that Liam had come to know Eoin, but this particular note in his eyes almost scared him.

  “What is it?”

  “I think you need to see it for yourself.” Eoin turned the file so that Liam could read it better.

  “It was left for you to find,” Brodie said. He paced.

  “Regardless,” Eoin said, “he should read it.”

  Liam stepped closer to the table. When he saw the picture attached to the folder, he sat down.

  His father. Walter Yates.

  Liam lifted the photograph to see the page of type-written notes beneath. It was a dossier, complete with all his father’s vital statistics. He turned the page to find a picture of his step-mother, Becky, during one of her happier times, a large smile that showed all her teeth in a candid moment that Liam had forgotten about. But he recognized the smile. She showed it often. Her dossier was much the same as his father’s—the vital statistics. His two sisters were pictured too, Tamra with a gap-tooth grin in her third-grade school picture and Holly’s baby picture.

  “Why is this here?” Liam asked no one in particular.

  Brodie turned. “I’m going to inform the others they need to be more on their toes,” he said as he stalked away.

  But Eoin moved closer to Liam. “The last section has some notes,” Eoin said.

  Liam turned through the pages in the folder, past pictures of his siblings, Tamra and Holly. He stopped on the last page, a page of dates and simple notes, almost like the notations of a lab experiment:

  3-09-2010

  Walter Yates acquired. Spell inflicted soon after. Results appear promising as the subject is suggestive and reactive to our instructions.

  3-10-2010

  Final ritual performed. Walter Yates is completely given over to the effects of the spell. When questioned, he responds with talk of betrayal. We expect that the target will be eliminated tonight.

  3-11-2010

  Walter Yates performed as expected. Mission objectives a failure. It must be considered t
hat the spell cast by Elena Coyle had an effect on Walter Yates as well. Cyril has been informed.

  Liam stared at the file. A ritual. His father had been under the effects of a ritual, affected by magic. Liam thought he was going to be sick. He leaned back in the chair.

  “It was an assassination attempt,” Patrick said.

  Liam hadn’t even been aware Patrick was reading. But he was right. It was all there in front of him: A plot set out by Cyril to corrupt the man that Liam had called his father, to make him take up a gun and kill his family. The hope was that his father would turn the gun on Liam, and Liam would be out of the picture and unable to cause Cyril anymore difficulty, anymore worry.

  “He left this here for me,” Liam said. “Cyril wanted me to see this.”

  Eoin agreed. “He’s trying to wear you down, to sap your fight,” Eoin said.

  The defining moment in Liam’s life was a setup, a lie. Cyril killed his family, all in an effort to kill him. He’d been the target all along. Everything that had happened to him in his life could be directly attributed to Cyril and his influence.

  “This is how he works,” Eoin said. “Cyril is insidious.”

  “He’s taken everything away from me,” Liam said.

  Eoin didn’t say anything.

  But Patrick was there too. He moved in next to Liam, and he reached to the desk to close the folder. “He hasn’t taken everything,” Patrick said.

  Liam turned to look at Patrick. He studied Patrick’s face. It was in that moment that Liam realized Patrick wasn’t out to hurt him. If Cyril was capable of affecting Liam’s life the way he had all along, somewhere in the shadows, it made perfect sense that Patrick, too, had gotten caught up in this. Patrick was as much a victim as Liam was. Cyril had taken from him too, his team in Afghanistan. Not a family, but a loss all the same.

  Something broke inside him, and he leaned forward to bury his face in his hands. Liam was usually someone who retreated inward when hurt. That’s what his father taught him the day he killed his whole family and left Liam alive. He believed it was his fault. He tried to shoulder all that burden, to figure it out himself until the weight threatened to crush him. Rarely did he let himself express that pain—that anger.

  Not this time.

  He wasn’t crying. He buried his face to hide his anger.

  They were all victims in this room. Eoin, Katina, and Brodie had lost their family due to Cyril’s involvement. Patrick had lost those he’d seen as family. And Liam. He’d lost everything because of Cyril.

  But Patrick was right. Cyril hadn’t taken everything, and Liam wasn’t about to let him take what little he had left, his best friend.

  He stood up from the chair and moved around the desk. He walked quickly past Patrick toward the stairwell. He grabbed the backpack that had the lockstone in it.

  “We’re moving out!” Liam yelled over his shoulder. This was going to end, and it was going to end right now. Cyril wasn’t going to win. He wasn’t going to take Nina.

  And Liam wasn’t about to let him take the stone or himself either.

  Thirty-Five

  Chicago, IL - Tellus, Inc. Headquarters

  The tactical team was already prepared. Brodie had seen to that with the help of the two agents, Shepard and Alvarez.

  They all took one stairwell this time. With the firepower it took to take out his aunt as a Fae-touched, they decided to consolidate.

  They emerged onto the rooftop through a door that faced out into the city only a few feet from the edge. Liam moved to the side as others came up behind him, and he put his back against the bulkhead of roof access. He had the sensation of falling. Only a two-foot wall stood between him and the open air and the twinkling lights of the city far below. He could see a train on the El tracks moving into a stop. The wind whipped at Liam’s hair, and he could hear rustling as in a breeze through tall reeds.

  He moved around the housing for the roof exit, and all he saw was tall grass, a meadow gone wild.

  The entire rooftop was covered, grass as tall as any of them. Six, seven feet or more. It seemed impossible on the roof of a high rise in the middle of downtown Chicago. The gap between possible and impossible, however, was one that had quickly become obsolete. From the grass came a murmur. Not insects, but something else.

  A small rise sloped up where, beyond, he could see a large dome.

  “What the hell is this place?” Grenier asked beside him. He stood as stunned as Liam was—as they all were.

  “A green roof,” Liam said.

  “A bit much, don’t you think?” Grenier said.

  Katina was next to Liam. “Save the planet,” she said.

  “I guess we follow the path,” Shepard said. There was a path worn in the grass, the blades of grass pushed aside and trampled as if hundreds of feet had come this way. The path wound in both directions around the building that housed the top of the stairs, and Liam walked the length of the wall and peered toward the center of the rooftop.

  He could just see the top of the dome made of gleaming white granite, near as he could tell. On all sides, there were doors. And through the trod path, the heads of people.

  A lot of people. Even in the small view afforded by the trampled grass, he could see at least a hundred heads, maybe more.

  “Stay here,” Grenier said in a whisper, mainly to those without the assault rifles. Team A left, Team B right, he said over the comms.

  Immediately the teams split up as instructed and fanned out. Each team disappeared into the tall grass. At least this afforded them some element of surprise. Maybe they could use this grass to their advantage somehow, even if it was quite clear from the file below that Cyril knew they were coming.

  But Liam had no intention of waiting. Carefully and quietly, he moved up the flattened grass path, crouching down as he drew closer to the peak of the small hill.

  The dome was raised, set up on steps, the walls circular except for the tall arches of doors open to all directions, almost like a large gazebo lit by intense firelight inside.

  The people were on all sides of the dome, flattening the grass around the dome for nearly thirty feet around. They sat on their knees, bowing in a chant. It reminded him of a Muslim prayer, except their point of focus was on the dome.

  At first, he thought the worshipers wore caps like Muslim men too, but as he moved closer, he realized the truth: They were bald. Or balding. Hair was falling off their heads, even as he watched. They weren’t just men but women too, only determined by how they were dressed. Smart office attire, fashionable business wear. These were people in the process of transformation. Their skin whitened, their bodies took on a thin, wiry shape. Their bowing wasn’t from reverence and prayer, but their bodies undergoing a severe change.

  These were once people. They were becoming Fae-touched.

  And they all faced the man standing in the center of the dome. Cyril Holder.

  Liam wanted him dead. He dug in his backpack and produced the stone. Holding the stone in front of him, he stood up and commanded the magic to him.

  “Liam Coyle.” The voice boomed over the swell and fall of the changing people.

  Cyril moved to the edge of the dome, standing center in one of the doorways. His figure was blotted out by the bright light behind him that ebbed then brightened. The source of light wasn’t a fire or an electric lamp of any kind. It floated in the center, a bright glowing orb growing and shrinking as if trying to find a stable center.

  Liam expected the heads of everyone gathered to turn around and face him, but none of them did. They were chanting, their words carried on the wind in the Fae tongue.

  “What are you doing?” Katina whispered from behind him.

  Patrick came up by him, put his arms around him, but Liam shrugged him off and stepped away. “Come back,” Patrick said.

  Liam shook his head. He held out his hand. “Give me power,” he said.

  “No,” Patrick said. “Come back.”

  “Fuck you, then,
” Liam said. Hatred filled Liam’s heart as he stared at Cyril. He wanted to kill him, to call every ounce of power in the stone he held to destroy the man who had tried for so long to destroy him.

  The rooftop started to shake. The entire building rumbled. He’d bring this whole thing down if he had to.

  “She’s there,” Patrick said beside him. He pointed.

  Who? Liam searched the interior of the dome. There, off to the side, he saw her. She was tied to a post. Nina. From what he could see, she was still herself. She struggled against the bonds that kept her tied up.

  “You do this, you kill her too,” Patrick said.

  Immediately, Liam let go of the power. The rumbling stopped.

  “We’re just getting started,” Cyril shouted. His voice carried strong, echoing over the rush of wind at this height. He sounded loud as if he was on a large speaker. “Come join me,” Cyril said.

  “I’m good right here, thanks,” Liam yelled back.

  “It’s not a request,” Cyril said, and he lifted a hand.

  Liam cried out as his body lifted from the grass. He floated. Hands grabbed at him. Katina, Brodie, and Patrick, holding onto his legs to keep him from lifting higher. Liam worried that he was about to be flung from the rooftop. It would be appropriate, wouldn’t it? All this just to die from a fall off the side of a building.

  Chatter came over the headset. Shouting, questions about what was happening.

  “Don’t hit the girl!” Patrick shouted over the comms.

  Patrick opened fire first. He raised his handgun and aimed, letting loose a shot that should have been true, Liam was certain. But it sparked in front of Cyril as if there was some sort of force field around him.

  The officers opened fire too, their bullets having the same effect.

  With one hand raised, Cyril lifted the other above his head. The spoken words of the crowd around the cathedral grew. When Cyril lowered his hand, everyone with a gun flew backwards. One man, one of the tactical officers, was even thrown from the building, his screams echoing in the caverns of the Chicago Loop down below.