by R. L. King
“Lovely. More hiking. At least it won’t be snowing this time of year, so I won’t freeze my arse off.” He indicated the second folder, which was thicker. “Is that for me too?”
“Yes.” He handed it over. “This contains preliminary information about the organization we discussed. There is still more to be done—as I told you before, my contact is very busy—but it should be enough to provide you security in the near term.”
Stone opened the folder. Inside were a passport, ATM card, and driver’s license with the name “Michael Townes,” who resided in San Francisco. The credit card was in the name of “Mullins Holdings, LLC.” The accompanying piece of paper included a bank account number and code for the ATM card.
He chuckled. “Nice job. Thanks, Stefan. Between this and the throwaway phones, they should make getting around a bit more pleasant…not to mention anonymous.”
“The other identities should be available soon. My contact has already arranged for there to be a record of Mr. Townes traveling from the San Francisco airport to Dulles tomorrow morning.”
He shot Kolinsky a sly grin. “Ah, so you already knew I’d go along with your request.”
“I had my suspicions.”
There was no point in disagreeing. Instead, he held up the packet. “Brilliant. They think of everything.”
“That is what you are paying them for.”
He had a point. Stone had handed over an impressive chunk of change a few months back to get this whole process started. He wondered what Kolinsky would think if he knew his shell corporation was named after Aubrey’s aged beagle, who had died a few months ago at the advanced age of seventeen, and was now buried in the family cemetery, complete with headstone.
He tucked the two folders into his own jacket pocket. “Right, then. Anything else? If not, I propose we enjoy the rest of this delicious meal in peace.”
2
Stone was still only teaching two courses this quarter, and it was easy to arrange with Brandon Greene to take them for him. Greene had fully recovered from his knock on the head earlier in the year, and agreed readily both to help with the courses and check on Raider.
He didn’t bother telling Jason and Verity he was leaving, since he didn’t expect to be away for more than a day or two. If it turned out to be longer, he could always call or text them, but they were busy with their own lives and couldn’t help with this anyway.
“All right, mate,” he told Raider after plucking the cat out of his overnight bag for the fourth time. “You be good and mind Uncle Brandon, and maybe I’ll bring you something back from my journey.”
There were two ley lines in the general vicinity of where he was headed. He chose the one in Morgantown, remembering from his previous trip to West Virginia with Jason and Verity how small and remote some of the outlying towns were. At least Morgantown had a rental-car place, so he wouldn’t have to depend on taxis and nervous rideshare drivers. Remembering the dodgy roads from last time he’d been in the area, he opted for a four-wheel-drive Jeep instead of his usual sedan.
The anomaly Kolinsky had noticed wasn’t far from Highland, the small town where he, Jason, and Verity had stayed the last time they were here. He found himself speculating about what he might find there, and couldn’t help wondering if it did have something to do with the Evil and their destroyed portal. The rifts all had different properties, but they’d also—at least so far—had things in common. They had all appeared near ley lines, all had remained in place for at least a few days, and so far all those he’d personally investigated had been undetectable by mundanes or even by mages who weren’t specifically looking for them. Some were more powerful than others, and some put out more profound magical effects, but as yet none of them had generated a quick pulse of unusually strong magical energy and then faded in a few minutes.
To be fair, that didn’t sound like the Evil’s MO either. Their portals had been unstable, but they’d behaved in a predictable fashion: accumulate enough energy to reach a threshold, pop out as many baby Evil in their little protective coatings as possible, then settle back down. Lather, rinse, repeat. Stone supposed it was possible that could be happening this time, but it wasn’t likely. He was one hundred percent certain he and his friends had destroyed that portal beyond any possibility of rebuilding.
Thinking about his friends reminded him of Harmony Farms, the Forgotten enclave-slash-hippie-commune that had set up shop a few miles outside Highland. He wondered if they were still there, or if they’d gradually drifted away to pursue their own interests after their Forgotten abilities began to fade. Perhaps he’d drive by there, if he could remember where the place was. If they were still there, he could ask them if they’d seen or heard anything unusual. Even though Joshua, their former leader who’d possessed abnormally high psychic sensitivity to the Evil’s goings-on, was dead, it was worth a shot.
Highland didn’t look much different from the way he remembered it: small, rustic, with meandering roads and towering trees. It was a lot prettier in the late spring than it had been when the whole place had been blanketed in snow.
He cruised down the tiny main street, scanning the businesses as he drove. He didn’t recognize any of them. The only one he remembered, a bicycle shop run by one of the Forgotten, was gone now. With a twinge of regret, he recalled the man was one of those who’d been killed in the explosion when the portal had gone up.
When nothing presented itself as an obvious choice, he pulled into a parking spot in front of a small coffee shop that looked like it catered to the town’s answer to hipsters. He didn’t bother using his illusionary disguise here; nobody would recognize him in this tiny town, and if the various law-enforcement types who seemed to be far too interested in his business had followed him here despite all his precautions, it would be time for them to sit down and have a long and probably unpleasant talk.
“Hi there,” the smiling girl behind the counter called. “What can I getcha?”
Stone ordered a cup of coffee and lingered while she poured. When she returned, he paid her along with a good tip, and said, “I wonder if I might ask you a question.”
Her smile widened, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Questions are free. Go for it.”
“I’m just passing through the area, but I was here once before, a few years ago. I visited some friends, but I can’t remember exactly where they lived. They had a sort of…commune thing outside town, called Harmony Farms. Have you heard of them?”
Her smooth brow wrinkled. “Wow. Yeah. Haven’t heard anything about those guys in a while.”
“Are they still there? Is the farm still in business?”
“No, sorry.” She shook her head ruefully. “They haven’t been there for…oh, I want to say three or four years? Maybe longer. The place is abandoned now, I think. I’m really sorry…”
The shop was empty and she didn’t seem to mind talking, so Stone pressed on. “I’m disappointed to hear that. Did…something happen to them?”
“Don’t think so. They just kinda left, I think.” She didn’t look much older than eighteen at the most, which meant she’d barely have been a teenager when the portal had blown—if she’d been in the area at all. “I heard my parents mention them a couple times—‘those weird hippies outside town’ kind of thing. Oh, sorry.” She looked up quickly, obviously realizing this stranger had claimed ‘those weird hippies’ were his friends.
“Don’t be. I know they were odd. They knew they were odd.”
She looked relieved. “Yeah, they kinda were. Nice, though, from what I remember. They used to come to the farmers’ market with a lot of really good stuff they grew up there.” With a sly smile, she added, “well, some of the stuff they grew, anyway.”
Stone chuckled, remembering what Rainey Sykes, another of the Harmony residents, had told him about their “private” crops, but quickly sobered. “So…you’re saying they all left the farm? Just…left the place abandoned?”
“Yeah, I think so. There might be o
ne or two still in the area, but I’m not sure. They definitely don’t live up there at Harmony anymore, though. Place is falling down.” She looked troubled, as if trying to remember something. “I think maybe something bad happened a few years back.”
“Something bad? At the farm?”
“No. Like, nearby. Up in the mountains. A bunch of people died in a gas explosion or something. A few of those guys did, too. I was pretty young when it happened. Nobody much talks about it anymore, which is kind of weird too.”
Stone nodded. He’d often wondered if the magical energy generated in the massive explosion hadn’t settled over the area, clouding people’s memories of exactly what had happened in the tiny, abandoned town of Decker’s Gap. He sipped his coffee. “Well, anyway, thank you for the information. I’m sorry to hear they’re not around here anymore. I wonder—could you tell me how to get to Harmony Farm? Assuming it’s allowed, I’d like to take a look around, for old time’s sake.”
She shrugged. “Can’t figure why it wouldn’t be. Not much to see anymore.” She grabbed a paper menu, flipped it over, and scribbled a crude map on the back. “Here’s where you are now. Just take this road up about five miles, take the Duck Creek turnoff, and follow it up. I think the sign’s still there if you look for it.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a big help.”
“Always nice to talk to new people. We don’t get a lot of tourists around here.”
Stone wasn’t sure he was making the right decision to check out what was left of Harmony Farms. If Kolinsky’s reported magical surge had come and gone as fast as he’d claimed, there probably wasn’t much left of it to detect at this point. But then again, the dragon hadn’t been precise with his location, so it was possible Harmony was where the anomaly had appeared.
Yes, go on believing that.
He was glad the coffee-shop girl had given him a map. After several years away, the town still looked somewhat familiar to him, but the surrounding area was pretty much “a lot of trees and twisty roads that all look alike.” His burner phone didn’t have a map app, so he was forced to go old-school.
He spotted the sign right away. It was overgrown and weathered, and someone had spray-painted “TAKE A BATH HIPPYS” across it long ago, but the familiar triangle-and-rays symbol that indicated “this is a good place” in the Forgotten’s code was still there. Next to it, the single-lane road was likewise overgrown, choked with weeds and underbrush. Stone wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t known what he was looking for.
After a moment’s consideration, he decided not to risk taking the rental car up there. He pulled off the main road, put a disregarding spell on it, and set off on foot.
He hoped his memory of the commune’s main area not being far up the road was accurate. He moved at a quick pace, enjoying the brisk bite of the spring air. The place looked a lot different now than the last time he’d been here, when everything had been covered with snow.
As soon as he rounded the sweeping bend a quarter mile up, Stone saw exactly what the coffee-shop girl had meant. He stopped, taking in the area with a twinge of sadness.
The series of small but cozy cabins clustered around a central area were now clearly abandoned. Most of them had already fallen down, either on their own or helped by bored locals. All were weathered, their roofs collapsing and their formerly neat yards taken over by weeds. Stone couldn’t see their fields from where he stood, but he assumed the weeds had reclaimed those too. He wondered if the Forgotten group’s last harvest had been the spring following the Decker’s Gap disaster, or if they’d even stuck it out that long with so many of their number dead.
Idly, he switched to magical sight and took a look around. He didn’t know what he expected to see, but nothing appeared interesting or unusual. Certainly no sign of a rift. The trees’ faint green auras might obscure something small or weak, but a dimensional rift would stand out clearly against them.
He resumed walking forward again, returning to mundane sight so he didn’t trip over a rock or fallen tree, and entered the central part of the commune. Without much thought about what he was doing, he drifted into the largest building in the center, which had been the Harmony group’s community gathering spot.
More twinges of regret and sadness rose as he stepped over debris, broken furniture, and trash. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the Christmas Eve celebration he’d attended here with Jason and Verity, when they’d all stuffed themselves full of excellent food and shared cheerful conversation and good music. This had been the place where, encouraged by his friends and the Harmony group, he’d been coaxed into picking up an electric guitar for the first time in over a decade and playing a few tunes with their band. If it hadn’t been for these people, he probably wouldn’t have joined The Cardinal Sin back home.
That had been the last evening of normality before everything had gone to hell. That night had been when the Evil’s portal had reappeared. The night the resulting psychic feedback had killed Joshua, and sent many of the rest of them up to Decker’s Gap in a desperate attempt to stop the portal before it was fully formed. The night the group had lost several of their members in the fight, including Zoe from the band, goofy Spike from the bike shop, and several others Stone hadn’t had a chance to get to know.
Stone turned in place, visualizing that night. The stage had been along the back wall, the longer rectangular tables laden with food on the other side, and round ones spread out in the space between them. A couple tables and a few chairs were still here, all broken, but most of them were long gone. He sighed. No signs of magic here, but a lot of memories.
“Hey, friend.”
Stone spun at the sound of a voice on the other side of the room. A chubby, bearded man in cargo shorts and a T-shirt stood there in the doorway. He carried a plastic tackle box in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.
“Er…sorry. I’m not trespassing, am I? They told me the place was abandoned.”
“It is, mostly. What are you doin’ here?” The man picked carefully over the debris and approached. “Nothin’ worth stealin’ here anymore, but if you want to come back to my place I’ll give you a sandwich and a beer.”
“That’s a kind offer, but I’ve got to be going. I was in the area, so I thought I’d stop by. Some friends of mine used to live here.”
The man came closer, studying Stone more carefully. “Wait a minute…I’ve seen you before. And heard that accent.”
Now that he was only a few feet away, Stone could see the logo on his faded T-shirt: a stylized figure of a platypus playing a guitar, with the words Electric Platypi, Love the World Tour 1995 surrounding it. He stared. “Wait…I think I know you too. You’re…” He struggled for the name, but it didn’t come. Something else did, though. “You’re the Harmony group’s healer.”
The man’s face broke into a wide smile under his shaggy mustache and frazzled beard, both of which were streaked with more gray than when Stone had last seen him. “Oh, man, yeah. That’s it. I knew I seen you before. You’re that English magic dude who came here to fuck up the Darkness. I’m Zachary.”
The name brought back another flood of memories. “Zachary. It’s good to see you. Alastair Stone.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” He frowned. “But what are you doin’ here?” Fear crossed his face. “They aren’t back, are they? The Darkness?”
“I don’t think so. No reason to believe they are.”
“So that’s not why you’re here in the ass end of West Virginia?”
“No. I’m looking for…something else. Probably unrelated.” He hoped he was right about that. He tilted his head at Zachary. “But what are you doing here? This place does look fairly abandoned.”
“Yeah…nobody around anymore ’cept me. My cabin’s trashed, but I got my trailer parked up the road a piece, where nobody thinks to look for it. I like it that way.”
Stone pointed at his T-shirt. “I thought you spent most of your time traveling around chasing your favorite band.”
“Yeah, used to. Not for years, though.” He looked at his feet. “Didn’t seem as fun anymore, after…”
“I understand.” Stone studied him again. “Where did everybody else go?”
“Who knows? Some of ’em stuck around for a while, but after a year or so they were all gone. Rainey went off and tried to get right with his family, I think. Prudence moved to Atlanta. Gary got a job out in California. Dunno about the rest. I guess when things started to go, there wasn’t much holdin’ us together anymore.”
“Things started to…Ah.” Stone sighed. “You mean your Forgotten abilities. They faded after the portal was closed, didn’t they?”
“Yep. Some took longer’n others, but eventually they were all gone. I couldn’t do the healing thing anymore. That sucks, but if it means gettin’ rid of the Darkness, I guess it’s a fair tradeoff. I think everybody thought that.”
“Yes, I suppose they did.” He’d seen the same thing back home, where most of the local Forgotten had also drifted away and left the Bay Area. Verity’s rare and powerful ability, which had allowed her to evict the Evil from their host bodies, had been one of the last to go.
He looked at Zachary, realizing with sudden guilt that he didn’t have much to say to the man. Everything they’d had in common was long gone. “Well. I—er…”
“You said you were lookin’ for something. Mind tellin’ me what it is? Maybe I can help you look for it.”
“I doubt it. It’s…a magic thing. A friend reported detecting it around here, but didn’t know anything else about it. You haven’t seen anyone acting odd in town, have you? Or felt anything…unusual?”
Zachary smiled. “Not gonna lie, dude, I spend most of my time up here high as a kite, listenin’ to the Plats and workin’ on some paintings I sell on the internet. Only reason I noticed you was ’cuz I was on my way to the lake to catch some fish, and saw you walkin’ around. Even the kids mostly don’t come up here anymore, so new people catch my eye.”