The Seventh Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Thanks for putting your weekend plans on hold for me. I appreciate that.”

  “It shouldn’t even have been a question. I’ve been telling you you’re my highest priority right now, but I suppose I should get on about showing it.” He sipped his pint and studied Ian. “So, have you given any more thought to your future? What you want to do with yourself?”

  Ian pondered, still looking over the water. “I’m not sure. You mean besides magic?”

  “Well, yes—assuming you decide to continue pursuing magic.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I just want to make sure that’s what you truly want to do. Believe me, I hope you do, regardless of whether you continue studying with me or decide to go with another teacher. But—” He gave an amused half-smile “—I know this is going to sound strange coming from me, but magic isn’t everything.”

  “I guess I haven’t thought too hard about it. My life’s been—pretty chaotic the last few years. Mostly I’ve focused on one day at a time. You know, getting enough money to pay the rent and eat, finding jobs, just getting by.”

  “Well, that all changes now. I couldn’t be there for you when you were growing up. I regret that, but I can’t do anything about that now. But I can make sure you don’t have to worry about those things anymore.”

  Ian snorted. “Yeah, I should probably jump at the chance of becoming some lazy rich kid who spends all his time partying, but that’s not going to happen either.”

  “I thought you spent a lot of time partying anyway.” Stone shifted to magical sight, for no other reason than he liked watching his son’s shining silver-and-purple aura. He carefully made sure his voice held no judgment—however he felt about it, the last thing his son needed was his father making pronouncements about his lifestyle decisions. It was a little late for that, and he felt guilty at the bitterness. Jessamy was dead now, and she’d had her reasons for what she’d done, even if he’d never know what they were.

  “I did—I do. And I don’t plan to give that up. But I’m used to taking care of myself, too.”

  Stone tilted his head. “Do you mind if I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if it’s too personal.”

  “Go for it.”

  “You ran away from home when you were sixteen, and came all the way out to Los Angeles. Why did you go so far? And how did you survive—evade the authorities—so long? Did you have friends out here? Someone giving you shelter and helping you hide?”

  Ian dropped his gaze, looking down into his nearly-empty plate. “I wanted to get as far from Bobby as possible. I guess I figured if I ran far enough, he and Mom wouldn’t bother coming after me. So it was either east or west. I figured I’d have an easier time in L.A.—it doesn’t snow there, so if I had to live on the street, I wouldn’t freeze.”

  “Bloody hell.” Stone clenched his hand around his fork. In a proper world, sixteen-year-old kids should be in school, not worrying about whether they’d freeze while sleeping under a bridge somewhere. Anger at Bobby Tanner rose, and also at Jessamy, for allowing him to drive her son—his son—to such a desperate choice.

  “Yeah…it wasn’t fun for a while. And as for the cops—they weren’t really a problem. It didn’t take me too long to realize Bobby and Mom weren’t coming after me. I looked over my shoulder for months, expecting somebody to turn up and try to drag me back home, but it never happened. There are a lot of runaway kids in L.A. I blended in. It helped that I could pass for eighteen even when I was sixteen.”

  “I’m sorry, Ian.”

  Ian waved him off. “Eh, that’s all in the past. I was doing a lot better, even before I found out about you. I’d have been okay.”

  “I’ve no doubt you would have.” He sighed. “I want to make this all right for you, Ian, and I know I can’t do that. Anyone who knows me—especially Verity—will tell you that’s the way I am. It’s my nature to want to solve problems, to fix things. Even things that can’t be fixed. It’s tearing at me that no matter how much I want to wave my hand and change all those terrible things about your past, I can’t do that. Even magic can’t manage fixing what’s already happened.”

  “Damn. No time travel. And I was looking forward to that.”

  “Ian—” Stone felt suddenly adrift, as if he’d ventured into uncharted waters.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Really. I don’t blame you for anything that happened. I know you would have done something about it if you could have. I think the best thing we can do is just focus on the future, you know? You’re right—you can’t fix what’s already happened, so why worry about it?”

  “Because that’s the way humans work. You can’t get away from your past. It’s pointless to try. The best anyone can do is…make peace with it. That’s a lesson I’m still trying to learn in my own life.”

  Ian smiled. “Sometimes you just have to let go of it. That’s a lesson I’m still trying to learn. Dragging it all around behind you doesn’t help. It just weighs you down.”

  Stone almost said something else, then let his breath out. “Fair enough. I’ll give it my best go, at least, if that’s what you want.”

  “So…what are you planning to teach me this weekend? Have you got it all planned out?”

  “I thought we’d—play it by ear. Instead of focusing on one specific thing, I’m going to expose you to several different magical techniques and skills, and see which ones you seem to have an affinity for. After I know that, we’ll go from there.”

  “What if I don’t have an affinity for any of them?”

  Stone couldn’t miss the slight bitterness in his tone, even though he was obviously trying to hide it. “Ian—I think you will. There’s something going on here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but honestly I don’t think it has anything to do with your magic.”

  “What do you mean? I thought it had everything to do with my magic.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve been giving the matter a lot of thought, and I suspect the issue lies not with your magical abilities, but with something from your past.”

  Ian tilted his head. “My past?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if you got a chance to study psychology at all before you left school…”

  “I didn’t study much while I was in L. A. But I’ve had a lot of chance to observe human nature in the real world.”

  “Yes, well, it can be quite astonishing sometimes how seemingly inconsequential things in your past can bugger up your psyche in ways you never even suspect. My guess is that something that happened when you were young has…done something to affect the way you perceive magic. Even if you don’t think it has.”

  “Something when I was young?” He shrugged. “Like I told you, my childhood was okay. We didn’t have much, but Mom took care of me. And the religious stuff didn’t get bad until Bobby turned up.”

  “Yes, but if you somehow internalized that magic was sinful and evil, some part of your mind might be holding you back from exploring your potential. Trust me—there are still people out there, a lot of them, who believe even the concept of magic is evil. There are even some people who would kill a ‘witch,’ if they thought they could get away with it. In their minds, they’re doing the right thing—saving the world from corruption and doing God’s will.”

  “Oh, yeah, I believe that. Bobby wouldn’t even let me read fantasy books because he said they encouraged communion with Satan.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “Hell, he freaked out when he found out I was gay—I think he might have spontaneously combusted if he’d discovered I was gay and a witch.”

  “Quite probably. And made certain to do it while he was near you so he’d take you out as well.” Stone stared out over the water, trying not to dwell on what his son’s childhood must have been like. “At any rate—I suspect something like that is what we’re dealing with, and I’m willing to take as long as necessary to get through those blocks, as long as it’s what you want. I don’t want to push you.”

  “It is what I want.” Ian looked d
own into his plate. “The last thing I want is for that piece of shit Bobby to have any influence at all on my life.”

  “Bit late for that. But we’ll do what we can to circumvent it. If necessary, I’ll find you a therapist who’s aware of our…unique community.”

  “Maybe it won’t take that.” Ian tossed his napkin on the table. “Come on, let’s go—I want to get started. I’m really hoping I can make some good progress. Where exactly are we going, anyway? Is it far from here?”

  Stone removed a card from his wallet and examined the address his friend from the University had given him. “I’ll have to check the map again—it should only be a ten or fifteen minutes away.”

  Ian flicked his gaze toward the card, then stood. “I need to hit the restroom before we go. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Stone paid the check and headed out. He hoped Ian was right—that he would make good progress this weekend, without all the distractions of normal life—but he wasn’t confident it would be true. Something was going on with the boy, and he suspected progress would be slow until he managed to figure out what it was.

  Ian checked to make sure no one else was in the men’s room before he pulled out his phone and hit the familiar number. “We’re here,” he told Blake. “We stopped for dinner, but we’re leaving for the place now. Should be there in less than half an hour.” He gave her the address he’d picked up from glancing at Stone’s card.

  “Good, good,” she purred. “I’m not far from there—maybe fifteen minutes away. I’ve got a little place all set up.” Her voice grew more serious. “Remember—no funny business. Don’t try anything fancy. Just get him nice and complacent, then take him down hard and fast when he doesn’t expect it. Do not kill him, but don’t underestimate him, either. He’s tough. Make damned sure he’s unconscious, and don’t take your eyes off him once he is. When you’ve got him ready to go, call me and I’ll do the rest.”

  “Got it.”

  Her smile came through in her tone. “This is it, Ian—everything we’ve been working for, for two years, is all coming down to tonight. We’re finally going to get back at the bastard.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got this, Blake. Don’t worry. I need to go now, before he comes looking for me. Just wait for my call.”

  “Oh, you can bet I will be.”

  Ian’s hand tightened on his phone as he left the restroom. For just a second, he thought about sneaking out the back door and making a run for it, wondering how far away he could get before his father caught on that he’d gone. Maybe if he got far enough away, he’d have some time to think—to try to figure out a way around the promise he’d made. It would be so easy to do that, just to run…

  The familiar worming pain hit him again, and along with it the image of his father’s mocking, contemptuous face. He’s ashamed of you, came a thought. He thinks you’re pathetic. You’re not good enough for him. He left you and your mother to poverty. To Bobby. Everything bad in your life is his fault. And now here’s your chance to be rid of him. You might not get another one.

  Don’t you want to be rid of him?

  Yeah, he thought, slipping his phone back in his pocket and quickening his stride. Yeah, I do.

  52

  One thing Verity was sure of: alchemy was definitely a lot smellier than regular mage stuff.

  She carefully used long, metal tongs to lift a beaker full of odorous brown liquid into place above a bright blue flame, squinting through her goggles at it with magical sight as she waited for it to change color.

  “That’s it,” came Hezzie’s calm voice from the other end of the table. “You’re doing great. It shouldn’t be long now. When it changes from brown to kind of a bright green, add the powder mixture a little at a time and begin the incantation.”

  Verity noted her words but didn’t acknowledge them. She sat perched with tense readiness on a metal stool, a heavy, quilted apron protecting her body from neck to knees. The thing was uncomfortable and stained, but Hezzie had insisted she wear it—aside from the quilting, it included enchantments designed to repel errant magic. It was always safety first with Hezzie. An early lesson she’d taught Verity was one of the reasons why witches had a reputation for being ugly and misshapen. If you didn’t observe proper procedure with mundane chemistry you might get a scar, singe your eyebrows off, or even lose an eye. With magical chemistry, carelessness could leave you with a nose twice its normal size, green skin, or warts the size of Chihuahuas. Definitely not something you wanted to mess around with.

  As she continued watching it, the mixture in the beaker began to morph from the dull brown of dirty water to bright acid green. When she judged the change to be complete, she scooped a spoonful of the sparkling blue-white powder they’d mixed previously and dribbled it with slow precision into the beaker. The mixture smoked and bubbled, and its odor, which she’d likened to roadkill mixed with ammonia, changed to something slightly more pleasant, like rotten flowers.

  “There you go…” Hezzie murmured. “Just a little more, and then you can start—”

  On the table next to her, Verity’s phone buzzed.

  “Damn,” she snapped, flicking her gaze quickly sideways to glance at it. She recognized Scuro’s familiar number. “I should probably take this. Can you take over?”

  Hezzie didn’t seem happy about it, but she deftly took the tongs. “Make it quick, okay? I want you to see the end of this reaction.”

  “Yeah, okay.” She drifted off to the other side of the room, hitting the button as she went.

  “Hey, Scuro. You didn’t need me tonight, did you?”

  “No, you’re good. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  “It’s cool. What’s up? Did you and Ian have a nice chat last night?” She changed her tone just enough on chat to tell him she suspected what they might have been up to.

  “Yeah, we did. Talked a while, hit a couple clubs…you know, the usual.” His tone likewise suggested there had been more to the evening than that.

  “Nice. Glad you hit it off. I thought you might. Something up, though? I’m with Hezzie, and she’s giving me the stink-eye to get back to this alchemy thing. Or maybe the stink’s just coming from the stuff we’re working on.”

  “I’m…not sure.”

  Verity frowned. “What’s that mean? Is everything okay?”

  “I think so. This is probably nothing, but I thought you might want to know, just in case it isn’t.”

  She glanced back at Hezzie, who’d finished adding the powder to the mixture. It was bubbling in the beaker now, sending off smoke that smelled faintly of vanilla. “Tell me.”

  “He asked me a weird question last night. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when I woke up this afternoon I got curious, so I did a little research.”

  “What kind of question?”

  “We were talking about magical tattoos. I was telling him a little bit about what they were and how they worked, and he asked me if the ones I did for black mages ever moved.”

  “Moved? That’s weird. They don’t, do they?” Verity couldn’t ever recall the one on Stone’s chest moving, even when he’d actively been using it to help him channel power when he practiced black magic.

  “No. I’ve never seen a tattoo that moved, but Ian said he had a friend he thinks has them. He said he wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw them moving a couple times.”

  “That is weird. So you said you got curious?”

  “Yeah. I thought I knew everything about tattoos, especially their application in magic. If there’s a way to make them move, I figured I should probably find out what it is and maybe try to learn to do it, in case any of my clients start asking for it. I didn’t find anything in any of my books, though.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I called Takumi Miyamoto.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My…rival, I guess you could say. When I mentioned I’m one of the two best in the world at what I do—he’s the other one. And—well, this
isn’t common knowledge, but he’s also my father. He trained me.”

  “Uh—wow. You never told me that. Did he have an answer?”

  “Yeah. He had to do a little research of his own, but when he got back to me, that’s when I figured I should call you.”

  “So what’s it mean, when tattoos move?”

  “It’s an old thing—really old. Ancient. Doesn’t happen much nowadays, but when it does, it means the person is heavily influenced by something very powerful.”

  “Heavily influenced?” Verity tensed. “Like…possessed?”

  “Not exactly. More like—sworn to, I guess it would be, if I’m understanding him right. Oathbound. And not to something human. My father mentioned demons, but he said it could also be some kind of strong extradimensional entity. Not that there’s much difference, really. The tattoos can represent a connection between the two planes.”

  “Shit,” Verity murmured. By now, she’d forgotten about Hezzie’s presence. “And…Ian knows somebody like that?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “You don’t think…he’s got them himself, do you?”

  “I doubt it.” His amused smile came through in his voice. “I saw all his ink last night, and none of it was moving independently.” He sobered. “But if he’s got a friend who’s into that kind of thing and he didn’t mention it, it might be a little red flag to be aware of. Especially if he’s not too strong with magic, like you mentioned. I’d hate to see somebody take advantage of him. He’s a good guy.”

  “Uh…yeah. I think you might be right. Thanks, Scuro. I owe you one.”

  “Nah, I owe you one, for introducing us. We had a great time. See you Monday.”

  “Verity? Are you done yet?” Hezzie sounded annoyed.

  “Yeah…” She closed the phone and put it in her pocket. “I’m sorry, Hez, but I need a minute. I have to call Doc about something. It’s important.”