The Madness Below: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 20)

by R. L. King

  “Got it in one,” Stone told him.

  “Noah! Invite them in!” came Dez’s voice from somewhere inside.

  “Oh. Right. C’mon in.”

  Verity flashed Stone an amused smile as they followed the boy back to the kitchen.

  “Hey,” Dez said, looking up from where she was preparing a large bowl of salad. “Glad you could make it.” She aimed a quick, curious glance at Verity.

  “Officer Desiree Griffith, this is Verity Thayer.” He didn’t want to use the word “apprentice” in front of Noah, but he figured he didn’t need to.

  “Good to meet you,” Verity said.

  “Same. If you two want to go sit down in the family room, the pizzas should be here pretty soon.” She grinned. “I don’t ask them to put a rush on it because I’m a cop—I’d never do that—but our local businesspeople appreciate us. Do you two want beers or anything?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” Verity said, and Stone nodded agreement.

  They drifted down toward the family room where Dez had first shown Stone the video on her laptop. It had been tidied a bit since he’d last seen it. Noah sat at the end of one of the sofas, watching a hockey game on the TV. “You guys like the Bruins?” he asked. “We got to see them play. It was wicked awesome, even though we were in the nosebleed seats.”

  “I don’t know much about hockey,” Verity said. “But it sounds fun.”

  Noah immediately launched into a rambling description of the rules of the game, which Verity appeared engrossed in. Stone leaned back, relieved that she was taking the lead. He’d never felt comfortable with these kinds of interactions, and was never any good at relating to children. Unless they were traumatized, anyway. God, or the Universe, or whoever bestowed perverse gifts, had conferred on him the ability to say the right thing to youngsters who’d gone through horrific events. That, and the same kind of magnetism for them that felines had for cat-haters. In this case, he was glad Verity had claimed Noah’s attention, and hoped she’d continue to do it until they finished eating and could go off with Dez to a private space.

  “Jeez, shrimp, quit borin’ the lady with all your hockey talk,” came a drawling voice from the hallway.

  Stone glanced up to see an older boy, perhaps fifteen, with a strong resemblance to both Dez and Noah. This one wore an Emerson High School T-shirt, jeans, and athletic socks. His easy grin took the sting out of his words, but a quick glance at his aura showed he wasn’t feeling as cheerful as he was letting on.

  “You must be Kevin,” Stone said. “Your mother mentioned you yesterday.”

  “Yeah. Mom said she was havin’ some friends over for dinner, but I’ve never seen you guys before.”

  “We’ve…only been in town for a couple of days. We’re helping your mother with some business.”

  “Stuff about the murders?” He plopped down on the opposite end of the sofa from Stone, dropping his voice lower so his brother, still chattering away with Verity, didn’t hear.

  “Yes.”

  He bowed his head. “Man, that was rough. Everybody in town’s a mess about it—everybody knew those kids and their parents. What do you think made ’em do it?”

  “That’s a good question. I’m not sure anyone will ever know.”

  “What kind of doctor are you? Mom said your name’s Dr. Stone, right?”

  “He’s a doctor?” Noah, who apparently had better ears than his brother thought, jerked his gaze away from the hockey game. “I don’t want any shots.”

  “Not that kind of doctor,” Stone assured him. “I’m a university professor.”

  “Oh.” Noah immediately lost interest and returned to explaining the concept of offsides to Verity, but Kevin’s brow wrinkled.

  “What’s a college professor got to do with a bunch of murders around here?”

  “Hey,” an older male voice interrupted. “Come on, you two. Quit monopolizing Mom’s guests.”

  “We’re just talking,” Kevin protested.

  The man came in and took the chair opposite the sofa where Stone sat. He was in his early forties, with sandy hair, a tanned face, and the beginnings of a beer gut. “I’m Walt Griffith. Dez has been telling me about you. Good to finally meet you. Though I can’t say I really understand what you’re doing here in Treadley.”

  Apparently Dez hadn’t told Walt everything about Stone. “I’m… doing a bit of research, and she’s been kind enough to help me. Her mother and I have a mutual friend.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said, though he obviously didn’t. “Well, okay, then. Don’t let me get in your way. You guys go talk after dinner and I’ll keep these two out of your hair.”

  The pizzas arrived shortly after, and discussion mostly remained innocuous as everyone sat around the family room eating. Noah talked nearly nonstop until his father finally told him to quiet down, and when everyone finished eating, Walt was as good as his word.

  “Come on, you two,” he said. “Mom’s got business to handle. Let’s go play some pool in the basement, okay?”

  Neither of the boys looked happy about it—Stone was fairly sure both Noah and Kevin were already developing little crushes on Verity—but they obeyed their father and trudged out of the room. “Good night!” Noah called hopefully over his shoulder at Verity as they left, and she gave him a wave and a smile.

  “You probably made his night,” Stone said with a chuckle.

  “You’re probably right,” Dez said. “He’s just at that age where he’s starting to notice girls but doesn’t want to admit it yet. Sorry they were a little squirrelly. They’re still amped up from the trip, and Noah especially sometimes has trouble controlling his impulses.”

  “It’s quite all right.” A twinge of guilt went through Stone as he rose from the sofa and followed Dez to her office. The Griffiths were clearly a happy, loving family, and he had no desire to put any of them in danger by involving Dez in this mad plan of his—but if he didn’t make use of her expertise, they would probably fail. And if that happened, a lot more happy, loving families would be at risk.

  She led them into a room at the far end of the first floor, past the living room. Like Neil Warby’s office, this one looked cluttered and lived-in, with books stacked on a shelf along one wall, a desk along another, and a table in the middle. On the table was a folder, stuffed thick with papers.

  “Okay,” she said. “So I was able to get the floorplan for Maple Ridge. That wasn’t too hard, but I had to be a little sneaky to get it.” She opened the folder and began spreading pages out on the table, then glanced at Stone. “Uh, if you don’t mind, could you put that spell up so nobody can eavesdrop? Walt will do his best to keep the boys entertained, but little pitchers have big ears.”

  “Not a problem.” Stone quickly cast the spell and settled it over the room. “There. Anyone listening at the door will hear nothing but mumbling.”

  “Good. Now, the harder part was figuring out where the kids were being held. Obviously, they have a high-security wing, but we need to know who’s where so we know where to find them.” She shuffled through the papers and pushed one in front of Stone and Verity. “Fortunately, Maple Ridge isn’t a large facility. It’s primarily one central building, with a few other ones on the grounds mostly used for administrative purposes. Here’s the youth housing wing. They don’t mix minors with the adult population, who are in two other wings on the other side. The kids are two to a room. The boys and girls are both in the same wing, but they have different bathrooms—boys at this end, and girls at the other. There are cameras here, here, and here.” She pointed out each feature as she described it.

  “Are there cameras in the rooms?” Verity asked. She was looking sober. Stone gripped her hand, wondering if she was remembering her own time in similar facilities when she was younger.

  “No. The kids aren’t under suicide watch—apparently they’re acting subdued, but aren’t showing any signs of remorse or agitation for what they’ve done. They’re checked on once per hour, and they spend most o
f their time during the day in the rec room, when they’re not being questioned or evaluated. The counselors working with them all say the same thing—they’re acting like they don’t think they did anything wrong.”

  “You mean they’re claiming they didn’t do it?” Stone asked.

  “No. When they’re questioned, they don’t admit it or deny it. It’s more like they don’t remember it. They often change the subject, or seem distracted. They almost act like they’re drugged, but aside from any meds they’re given by the doctors, that’s not possible.”

  “What kind of staff do they have?” Verity asked. “Is there a lot of security?”

  “Not a lot, and there’ll be less tomorrow. Maple Ridge isn’t a facility for violent offenders. Despite what those kids did, they’ve showed no signs of violence since they were apprehended. There’s a security room where a pair of guards cycle through video feeds, a couple of others who make rounds in the area once an hour, a pair in the lobby, and one who patrols the grounds. Other than that, the rest of the staff is doctors, nurses, orderlies, and administrative people. The admin people will almost certainly be off tomorrow.”

  She looked through a few more papers, and then back up at Stone and Verity. “The first hard part will be getting in. Visitors can only enter through the lobby, and they have to be checked in and authorized. Normally, the only visitors kids in the security lockup are allowed are adult members of their immediate family, their legal counsel, and any medical or psychiatric personnel working on their case. I don’t think you two will be able to pass yourselves off as any of those.”

  “Not on such short notice,” Stone agreed. “What about at night? You said they were all together during the day—I assume they’re back in their own rooms at night. Are there fewer doctors and whatnot around then?”

  “Yes. There are a couple of overnight on-call doctors, but the security is still at full strength. Everything is locked down at night, including the kids in their rooms.”

  “Got it. Do you know which of them are in which rooms, and how many other patients are in their wing?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” She shuffled through her papers again. “Okay, there are ten rooms on the ward, which means it holds twenty patients total. Currently there are four other boys and two other girls. Joe Buchanan is sharing with Andre Duran, and Clay Horton with Steve Hull. For the girls, Jazmin Wynn and Allie Gaines are sharing. It looks like Brittany Lyons is currently alone in a room, at least until they get another female patient in.”

  Stone and Verity exchanged glances. “She’s the one, I think,” Stone said.

  “The one what?”

  “The one we’re going to try to question,” Verity said. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “Not a lot. I didn’t know her—from what I’ve heard from Kevin she was shy and quiet, the kind of kid nobody notices much. I think she was kind of a goth. What?” she asked when Verity smiled.

  “This is looking better. I can relate to a shy goth, since I was one myself when I was younger.”

  Dez looked troubled. “What exactly are you two proposing to do once you get in there? How do you think you’ll be able to get through to Brittany, or any of the others, when nobody else can?”

  Stone patted Verity’s shoulder. “My apprentice here has a very nice touch with mental magic.”

  “Yeah,” Verity said. “And the Doc can be really persuasive when he wants to be. I think between the two of us we can get somewhere.”

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Dez asked. “I’m not sure how I’ll be able to help, but—”

  “No.” Stone pointed to the maps and other papers. “This is invaluable help, right here. You’re right—going in blind could end in disaster, but at least know we have some idea what we’re getting into. You stay here with your family, and we’ll contact you after we’re finished.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. It will be easier for us to do this if we’re alone, since we’ll likely have to use a fair bit of magic.”

  She tried to hide her relief, but her aura couldn’t lie. “All right. But if you need anything, you’ll call, right? Promise me that.”

  “I promise.”

  She frowned. “You’re not going to take any of those kids out of there, are you? Because whatever they did, they still need help.”

  “We shouldn’t need to take them anywhere,” Verity assured her. “If we can get in without anyone seeing us, we should be able to do it right there in her room. We’ll be in and out and no one will realize we were there unless she tells them—and even if she does, they’ll probably think she’s having delusions.”

  Dez’s expression didn’t change. She still looked as if she had something serious on her mind. “I’m just wondering…” she said slowly.

  “Yes?” Stone asked.

  “Well…if there really was something supernatural compelling the kids to commit those murders…then they wouldn’t have done it on their own, right?”

  “You know them better than we do. Would they have done?”

  “Not a chance,” she said firmly. “Like I said, I didn’t know them all well, but I’d bet a year’s paycheck that the ones I do know wouldn’t have hurt a fly under normal circumstances. They’re good kids. And…that’s what’s bothering me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sighed. “They wouldn’t have killed those people if this…whatever it was hadn’t done something to their minds. So…are they responsible for it? Is it fair for them to stand trial, spend the rest of their lives in prison or a mental institution, for something they didn’t even do?”

  Stone bowed his head. It was one of those things one had to accept as a mage, and one of the hardest to explain to mundanes because it wasn’t fair. He remembered all the people whose bodies had been taken over by the Evil, who had compelled them to do everything from shoving an innocent person in front of a train to murdering their mother by jamming a sharpened pencil into her eye while she slept. He hadn’t thought about little Madison McClain for years—she’d be thirteen or fourteen years old by now. Was she still wasting her young life in a mental-health hospital, or even a juvenile detention facility, because of something she had no control over? How many other people were locked up because they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and fallen prey to the Evil’s insatiable hunger? How many people’s lives were destroyed because something out there decided to hop into their bodies and take them for a spin? The mundane world wasn’t ready to accept “possession” as a valid reason someone wasn’t responsible for their crimes, especially when those crimes were particularly horrible. People wanted justice—it was human nature. But when they didn’t have all the facts, the whole thing could and often did end in a double tragedy, both for the victims and the people who’d been compelled to commit the crime.

  “Dr. Stone?” Dez was looking at him now, her gaze troubled and searching.

  Stone sighed. “I wish I could give you the answer you want to hear, Dez. But I can’t. As far as the mundane authorities are concerned, those students committed the murders. The fact that they weren’t in control of themselves when they did it will, at best, result in their ending up someplace like Maple Ridge for the long term, rather than being put in prison. Do you honestly think anyone, no matter how persuasive they might be, will convince a judge that they were victims of supernatural manipulation?”

  Dez clenched her fists. “It’s not fair. So many lives ruined…”

  “No,” Stone said softly. “It’s not fair. The best we can do at this point, unfortunately, is figure out what affected them and deal with it, so there won’t be any chance it will happen again.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was rough and she didn’t meet his gaze. When she spoke again, it was with brisk confidence. “Okay, then, let’s do this. Do you think you have enough here to get on with, or do you need more?”

  “I think this will have to do. There’s always a certain amount of playing things by e
ar once we see the place in person.” He paused, thinking, and then stood. “I think I’ve changed my mind about one thing, though: I want to go tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Dez asked, surprised. “I thought you were going tomorrow.”

  “After considering your description of the facility and the security, I think it’s best to go after dark. If we’re doing that, there’s no point in waiting until tomorrow night. I don’t like what those two mages are up to. I hope all they’re doing is the same thing we are: trying to learn about whatever’s out there. But knowing their organization as I do, there’s also a chance they might have darker motives.”

  “What kind of darker motives?” Verity asked.

  Stone didn’t even want to put it into words—something deep inside him thought doing so would be tempting fate, giving the Universe ideas it might not have suggested to Kroyer and Lang before. But that was superstitious nonsense, and that kind of thinking was dangerous. “They might not just want to study it—they might want to try harnessing it in some way. Using it for their own purposes.”

  Dez’s eyes widened. “They could do that?”

  “I don’t want to find out.” Stone stood. “Come on, Verity. It’s already dark, and Maple Ridge is a twenty-mile drive. We’d best get on with this.”

  “Be careful, you two,” Dez said. She gathered the papers into the folder and offered it to Stone. “Here, take these with you in case you need them. The place isn’t big, but the layout can get a little confusing.”

  Verity offered her an encouraging smile. “We’ll be fine. Tell Noah thanks for the hockey lesson.”

  “You tell him yourself. I expect to see you two back here for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Consider that an invitation.”

  17

  Verity didn’t speak until she and Stone had been on the road for several minutes, heading toward Shawdale. When she finally did, her voice was soft in the darkness. “Do you think we’ll be able to do this?”