The Seventh Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  Ian didn’t answer right away. Raider wandered back across the table, so he paused to pet the cat, focusing on him rather than on Stone. Finally, he looked up. “This is…a lot to think about. It’s not something I can make a decision about right away. I mean—finding out my mom died kind of dropped a bomb on my life, even though we weren’t close anymore. Then finding out about you, and now this—I’m not sure what to do with it all. I need some time to work through it.”

  “Of course you do. Completely understandable. If you’ve got nowhere you need to be, I’ll be happy to pay for your lodging here until you decide. Even if you don’t want to do it, naturally I hope I can remain a part of your life. But I think you’ll find that magic can open a lot of doors for you. Please give it some serious thought.”

  “Oh, I will, no doubt about that. I’m still thinking this will all end up being some kind of crazy dream, and I’ll wake up any minute realizing I overslept and still have to get to your place for dinner.”

  “I can’t blame you for that. It’s all rather unbelievable. But it’s all true. Perhaps I can introduce you to Verity, my former apprentice. She’s closer to your age and your level of experience, so she might have some insights for you.”

  “Yeah. I’d like that.” Ian stood. “And…yeah. I think I’ll go now, because I really do need some time alone to work through this. Even if I don’t go through with the magic thing, though, I think I might stick around for a while. At least long enough to figure out how much of what Mom told me about you was true, and how much wasn’t. I figure I owe you that at least, before I make a decision.”

  After Ian left, Stone gathered the dinner dishes and carried them to the kitchen the old-fashioned way.

  “Well,” he told Raider as he loaded the dishwasher, “I’m not sure whether that went well or not.”

  Raider was silent. Ever since Thaddeus Benchley had departed the house, the cat had resumed his former reticent ways. Stone missed his old chattiness. Even “meow” was better than the quiet echoing through the house now.

  And speaking of cats, at least the proverbial one was out of the bag now. That was the necessary beginning—and the most difficult part—of anything that might happen from here on.

  Whether anything did happen, though, was entirely up to Ian.

  26

  Blake lounged at the bar on Castro Street in Mountain View. She’d been here before—back in those days it had been called Printer’s Inc., and she’d sat in almost the same place, paging through an old magic book while working her influence over Stone’s old apprentice Ethan Penrose nearly ten years ago.

  How different that insecure little worm had been from the man who now sat across from her. Ian was only a couple of years older than Ethan had been, but the difference was night and day. Sheltered, nerdy Ethan had grown up a mama’s boy, eager to please and even more eager to lose his virginity—especially with someone hot and forbidden like her. Ian, on the other hand, had taken control of his own life, fled his oppressive home situation, and made his own way in the world. Perhaps he hadn’t chosen the best possible way to do that, but it didn’t matter. He’d done it, and she respected that.

  She almost—almost—regretted what she’d have to do when this was all over.

  Another thing she regretted was that Ian was gay. He looked so much like his father—enough that if he’d been straight, she’d have been all over him. She still wished she could come up with a way to fuck Stone’s brains out before she killed him. Maybe she still could, if she played her cards right. It had become a challenge to her now: despite her hatred for him, there was something about him that wouldn’t let go of her. It wasn’t as if she thought about him all the time—far from it, and her usual thoughts were consumed more with what kinds of creative agony she could put him through before she finally ended his life—but those thoughts got frustratingly tangled up with some of the more erotic variety more often than she’d ever admit. She wasn’t ashamed of these thoughts, though. Sex was a powerful weapon—in the right circumstances, it could be as powerful as magic—and her physical attraction to Stone took nothing away from her wish to see him writhing on a torture rack. Quite the contrary, in fact. The two could complement each other nicely.

  “I wish I could have seen his face when he was examining you,” she drawled. “I’ll bet he was practically creaming himself with excitement.”

  “Yeah, he was pretty worked up. He really wants to teach me—that wasn’t hard to see, even if he hadn’t come out and admitted it—but he gave me the choice. Said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to, and if I wanted a different teacher, he could arrange that.”

  “So noble,” she said, bored. “He’s trying to impress you.”

  Ian shrugged. “I didn’t get that impression. He actually seemed sincere.”

  “Don’t let that fool you. I’m telling you—he’s thrilled that you’ve got magic, because that means if he can teach you, he can influence you. He can use you. That’s what he does, and he’s a master at it. You need to stay on your guard.”

  “Don’t worry—I won’t let anything slip.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t notice anything in your aura?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Please. You’re the one who told me I’ve got the best aura control of anybody you’ve ever met. He won’t see a damned thing. He doesn’t want to see anything.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s good too, and he’s had a lot more time than you have to practice—so don’t get cocky. If you fall for his ‘doting Dad’ routine, it could screw up everything.”

  “I’ve got this, Blake. Don’t worry.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried. It’s all going according to plan.”

  She hadn’t been lying to him: his aura control was among the best she’d ever seen. Even after only two years of training, he already had more than most fully trained mages she’d met—and that included herself. Before Razakal, anyway.

  Let him go on thinking it was enough to keep things from her.

  Despite his best attempts to keep a lid on it, with Razakal’s augmentation she could see his hatred burning. It wasn’t obvious and it didn’t blaze out for just anyone to see, but it was there, smoldering beneath his outwardly calm surface. She remembered how pleased she’d been—and how careful she’d had to be not to let him see it—when he’d returned from that dirtball town where his stepfather lived and informed her that not only was Bobby dead, but that he’d revealed before Ian ashed him that he’d caught his mother running around with none other than his long-absent father.

  That had been an extra perk, since Blake had no way to ensure Bobby would pass that tidbit along to Ian. She’d listened to the boy rant, uncharacteristically emotional, as he wondered why his father would turn up after all these years. Blake had been all too happy to stoke his anger, offering speculations about Stone’s motivations for doing such an inexplicable thing. Even though Ian had known Bobby wasn’t lying about what he saw, after his conversation with Blake he placed more blame for the tryst on his unknown father than his mother—which meant Stone was, indirectly at least, the cause of Jessamy’s death.

  Just one more thing to add to his balance sheet.

  Blake loved it when her plans worked out even better than she’d expected.

  After Ian left—he’d said something about hitting up a party in San Francisco—Razakal appeared in the seat he’d vacated. “You look entirely too pleased with yourself,” he commented.

  “Can you blame me? Have you been watching?”

  His expression didn’t change. “Have a care, and don’t lose sight of the goal. The boy is more than he seems, and he thinks he’s keeping things from you.”

  “Oh, I know that. It’s fine—let him think so. As long as he thinks he’s putting one over on me, he’ll stay off his guard. He’ll have plenty to deal with trying to keep Stone in line, anyway.”

  “He can be dangerous. Never forget it.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s got a lot of punch, but so do I,
and I’ve got a lot of years of experience on him. He can’t do anything about that.”

  “As he grows in power, it becomes more difficult for me to…restrain myself.”

  Her eyes glittered. “Keep it in your pants, Raz. We made a deal, and I’m keeping my end of it, right? Another month is nothing to you. Just be patient until your entrée is finished cooking, and believe me, you’ll be glad you did. Besides,” she added slyly, “if you take him now, then you just get him. If you wait, you can have Stone too. When I’m done with him, anyway. Don’t forget about that.”

  “I never forget about anything.” His voice remained calm, but the red pinpricks of his eyes glowed brighter. “That includes every time you show me disrespect.”

  Something inside Blake shuddered. When she spoke again, her tone was contrite. “Sorry. You’re right—that was out of line. But I meant what I said about waiting. Things should start happening fast now. And I promise—if the opportunity presents itself early, we’ll take it.”

  “See that you do.” Razakal faded from the chair.

  Blake stared at the empty space for a long time, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal. She’d dodged a bullet that time, but she’d have to be more careful going forward.

  27

  Stone got two pieces of useful news late the following morning. The first, a call from Eddie Monkton, came as he was leaving to head up to the University for his early-afternoon class.

  “Evenin’, mate. Or morning. Or whatever the ’ell time it is over there.”

  “Eddie. Have you got something for me?”

  “Yeah, think so. Took some diggin’, and callin’ in a couple favors from a colleague in Boston, but I found out somethin’ about that symbol you sent me.”

  “Brilliant. What is it? Some kind of magical sigil?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? In fact, that’s why it took me so long to find it—that’s where I started lookin’. But no—it’s actually got nothin’ to do with magic at all. It’s a symbol in an ancient language used by an obscure offshoot sect of the Catholic Church. Not just obscure, either—the main Church considered ’em ’eretics, and kicked ’em out on their arses sometime back in the sixteen ’undreds. They still pop up occasionally, usually somewhere in Europe, but never for very long.”

  “Interesting. Does this sect have a name?”

  “Funny you should ask that. And I think you already know the answer.”

  Stone gripped the phone tighter. “Portas Justitiæ.”

  “Got it in one.”

  “And the symbol?”

  “It’s one they used fairly often, as it turns out. It means ‘witch,’ and not in any kind of complimentary way. The connotations are more along the lines of ‘unclean’ or ‘abomination’ or ‘thing which can’t be allowed to exist.’ Nice lot, these.”

  “Bloody hell. Do they have any connection with magic?”

  “You mean besides ’atin’ anything to do with it? Seems pretty obvious.”

  “No—I mean using it.” He quickly filled Eddie in on what he’d detected while watching Rivera’s interrogation.

  “Magical oaths? I don’t think so. I couldn’t find a lot of reference material on ’em—as I said, they’re mostly a European thing, and they ’aven’t shown up in like a ’undred years far as I can tell—but I don’t see anything about ’em usin’ magical oaths, or any other kind of magic. Their whole purpose is to eradicate magic. Or at least whatever they consider to be magic, which likely means they carved up a whole lot of ’armless old birds and blokes who got on their bad side. I doubt they had much luck with the real thing, ’istorically speaking.”

  “Hmm. And now it looks like they’re back, or at least someone using their name. I suppose it’s possible they didn’t realize Amy Detmire was the real thing—she wasn’t much of a mage from what I understand, and they might have caught her by surprise—but that still doesn’t explain how they managed to put a magical oath on the murderer if they hate magic.”

  “Yeah…” Eddie sounded contemplative. “A right conundrum that is, innit? I can look into it more for ya, but I doubt I’ll find anything else useful. I think you might be right, that somebody’s using an old name for their revived organization. I can give ya the name of my colleague in Boston—’e might be more ’elpful with the Yank end.”

  “Thanks, Eddie. I’d appreciate it. And I appreciate your help, as always.”

  “No problem, mate. I still owe you a lot for givin’ me access to all that stuff at Caventhorne. That place is a bleedin’ treasure trove, and Arthur and I’ve still got a long way to go before we’ve put eyes on it all.”

  Stone was still thinking about Eddie’s words as he drove toward the University, trying to decide if he wanted to call his friend’s Boston colleague today or wait until after he’d convinced Myra Lindstrom to hire Jason so he could see about talking to Rivera, when his phone chirped again.

  “Hey, Al.”

  “Speak of the devil. I was just thinking about you.”

  “Well, I’ve got some bad news and some good news for you.”

  “Brilliant. Since you’ve put it that way, suppose you give me the bad news first.”

  “We aren’t gonna get in to talk to your murder suspect. The more I thought about it, the more I realized we didn’t have a good chance, and after I checked with somebody at the department, I’m sure of it now. Even if the lawyer’s shit, she’ll never let us near her client once she finds out I’m workin’ for the other side.”

  “I’d wondered about that,” Stone admitted. “It’s frustrating nonetheless, though. And the good news?”

  “We won’t have to. Rivera’s made bail, and he’ll be out tomorrow. All we have to do is track down where he lives—which shouldn’t be hard—and we can talk to him there.”

  “Bail?” Stone asked, surprised. “They allow bail for accused murderers?”

  “Usually not, but it can vary depending on the circumstances. Rivera had no priors, and I guess they didn’t consider him a flight risk. He’ll have to wear an ankle monitor, but yeah. Weird part is, the bail was pretty high, and I couldn’t find out who put it up for him. No way he could have afforded it himself.”

  “So he’s got friends in high places. That…could fit.” He quickly filled Jason in on what Eddie had told him. “Jason, I think it’s in our best interest to chat with Mr. Rivera as soon as possible.”

  “I agree. I’ll find out when he’s getting released, and try to track down his home address. I’ll call you in a couple hours.”

  Stone didn’t think he’d be able to concentrate on his class that afternoon, but to his surprise he got so caught up in his lecture and the students’ questions afterward that he barely thought about Ian, Joseph Rivera, or Portas Justitiæ until he checked his phone and discovered a pair of voicemail messages.

  The first was from Ian. “Hi, Dad, it’s Ian. I thought a lot about what we talked about last night, and I’d like to hear more. Can we talk some more tonight? Let me know.”

  A bit of Stone’s tension drained away. The boy sounded relaxed, and even a bit eager. Had he decided he wanted to begin magical training after all? Stone quickly returned the call, got voicemail, and invited Ian to come by at seven, then moved to the next message.

  This one was Jason. “Rivera’s getting released tomorrow afternoon. He’s under curfew and he’s only allowed to be away from home for work, so he won’t be hard to find. Let me know what you want to do.”

  Stone waited until he reached his office to call back, and this time Jason answered. “Thank you for finding out about Rivera. Do you think we could visit him at his home?”

  “It’s a little iffy, legality-wise, but I think it’ll be okay as long as you don’t intend to do anything to him.”

  “I only want to talk to him, and see if I can get past his magical oath. Perhaps it might be best if I did that on my own. This isn’t your problem, and I don’t want any chance of you getting in trouble over it.”

&
nbsp; “What about you getting in trouble? If Flores finds out you’re doing unauthorized interrogations—”

  Stone’s sly smile carried over to his tone. “Ah, but Jason—who says I’m going to be doing the interrogation? At least not looking like myself, anyway.”

  Jason sighed. “Fucking magic. Yeah, okay. I don’t like it, but you make sense. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I will. I don’t expect this will be terribly complicated. Magical oaths aren’t easy to get past, but they’re not impossible. And I’ve got some experience in this area.”

  28

  This time, Ian was not only on time, but showed up a few minutes early.

  Stone was waiting for him. “I was glad to hear from you today. Sorry I didn’t answer your call, but you caught me in the middle of a class.”

  “No problem.” Today, Ian wore a stylish, snug-fitting sweater over a white T-shirt, designer jeans, and his dark-brown leather jacket. He looked like a young fashion model. “Like I said, I was doing a lot of thinking last night after I left here. Are you really serious that you can teach me that stuff you showed me?”

  “That, and a lot more. Come on in. Let’s talk for a bit.”

  They settled themselves in the living room, and Raider showed up immediately. He studied Ian long enough to determine he was the same person he’d met the previous night, then leaped up on the sofa and curled up next to him.