The Other Side: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “You mean to tell me,” she’d asked, “that I could cast a lightning bolt in the middle of a building, and they’d just—rationalize it as something normal?”

  “Electrical disturbance,” he said immediately. “Faulty wiring.”

  “Levitation?”

  “Freak whirlwind.”

  “Illusion of a big nasty monster about to eat them?”

  “Drugs. Such a shame.”

  After a while, though, as she’d advanced in her studies, she’d realized he wasn’t, as he put it, ‘having her on.’ Mundanes really did resist any awareness of the magical world with the enthusiastic fervor of the most devout religious zealot. In a way, it made things easier: you could get away with casting a few spells in public without much risk of being found out, as long as you were at least somewhat careful about it. But in other ways, it was frustrating as hell. How could they see but not observe?

  That was a very Stone-like thought. Or maybe Sherlock Holmes. They were both arrogant, frequently-obnoxious Brits with enough curiosity to stock a whole boatload of cats, so maybe it didn’t make any difference. And if she was starting to think that way too, maybe Stone had rubbed off on her more than she’d thought.

  She turned her attention back to Jason. “Are you gonna be able to get off tonight? Is she?”

  “Yeah. I was up most of the night, but I got what I needed for the case. Fran gave me the day off, but I’m back on tonight. Kristen’s off till tomorrow. So, early dinner?”

  “Yeah. You’ll have to come get me, though—Edna’s still using the truck.”

  There was a pause. “V, what’s going on?”

  Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “How serious are you with Kristen?”

  “What do you mean?” An edge of suspicion laced his voice.

  “Just what I asked. How serious are you? Is she somebody you think you might want to…I dunno…marry someday?”

  “V, come on. We’ve only been seeing each other for a few months. It’s a little early to be thinking about—”

  “Okay, let me change the question. Do you trust her?”

  “Look,” he said. “I put up with this kind of cryptic bullshit from Al because trying to change him is a waste of time. But I’m not putting up with it from you. Either tell me what’s going on or let me go. I got a lot of stuff to catch up on before—”

  “She saw me do magic last night.”

  The line went quiet.

  “Jason?”

  “Kristen saw you do magic.”

  “Yeah. Sort of. She saw something she can’t explain. It’s not like I levitated the motorcycle or anything. But I did some healing on the guy so he wouldn’t die, and she knows something’s up. So I’ll ask you again—do you trust her?”

  Another long pause, followed by a loud sigh. “Yeah. I trust her. But…”

  “But?”

  “Well, hell, V. I trust her to not to cheat on me. I trust her to keep her promises. I know she’s a good person. But…asking me if I trust her to find out about magic? That’s a different question.”

  “Yeah. You see my problem now.” She stretched out on the couch.

  “Maybe you should talk to Edna about it. Or give Al a call. I’m not exactly the right one to ask.”

  “Edna’s not here. And I’m not calling the Doc.”

  “Why not?”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m almost twenty-one, Jason. I’ve only got another year to go with my apprenticeship—maybe less. I’m gonna have to start dealing with this stuff on my own. I can’t be calling them up every time I have a problem.”

  “But you’re asking me.”

  “Well, yeah. You’re my brother. That’s different. And besides, she’s your girlfriend. You know her better than I do.” She swung around to a sitting position. “I think I’m gonna have to play this by ear. But as far as you know, there’s no definite reason I shouldn’t tell her? She’s not from a family of religious fundamentalists or anything like that? So I don’t need to worry about being burned as a witch?”

  He chuckled. “No. No fundamentalists. And no burning.”

  “And…”

  “And what?”

  “Well…if I tell her and she doesn’t take it so well, I don’t want it messing things up between you two.”

  “Don’t worry about that, V. You do what you need to do. You’re my sister, and the whole magic thing is part of you. If we get really serious, she’ll probably have to find out at some point. Better to get it out of the way early, I guess.”

  She smiled. Jason could be the world’s biggest dork sometimes, along with the world’s most annoying overprotective Boy Scout of a brother. But he had her back, and that was the most important thing. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll see how it goes tonight. If she doesn’t seem receptive, I’ll just tell her I was practicing my meditation or something.”

  “She’s a mundane, V. She’s not an idiot.”

  Clearly, Jason had either forgotten or never heard Stone’s lecture on mundanes and their capacity for rationalization. She didn’t think it was a good time to spring it on him now. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Duncan, true to his word, sent Stone a contract for his appearance on The Other Side. He glanced over it to make sure the producer had included his stipulations—he had, including the part about not getting paid. That was fine with Stone, though. He sent the contract off to a lawyer recommended by one of his Friday-night pub-crawling colleagues for a once-over, and once the woman had pronounced it gotcha-free, signed it and sent it back. That was it: he was now on the hook for this travesty, whether he wanted to be or not. He hoped Mortenson appreciated it.

  He spent some of his free time over the next few days watching DVDs of the show so he wouldn’t be blindsided by what he might be expected to do. He had to admit it wasn’t quite as sensationalistic as he’d expected, though that wasn’t saying much. At least they weren’t chasing down Bat Boy or anything.

  Each episode started with an overview of whatever paranormal phenomenon, haunted site, or psychic occurrence they were examining, followed by commentary from some alleged expert in the field. The “experts” ranged from genuine academics to considerably less credible sources such as working psychics and other ghost-hunters. After that, Riley and his crew took over for the remainder of the show, and things got a lot less academic and a lot more in line with what Stone expected from a television show that catered to the mundane general public’s idea of the occult.

  Riley had two assistants who accompanied him on his investigations. The first was a man named Cody Huff, who was the polar opposite of Riley: short, schlubby, and wisecracking, but reluctant in the face of the unknown. In the episodes Stone watched, he was always the one who didn’t want to venture into the abandoned buildings, the one startled by sudden noises, and the one to, at least once per episode, find himself “alone” (or as alone as it was possible to be with an entire bloody camera crew following him around, Stone thought with disgust) in some dark, dusty place when he wandered off on his own. His primary jobs seemed to be playing straight man for Riley, and carrying the gear.

  The other assistant was a woman named Celina Wanderley, a brisk African-American girl-next-door type who acted as the group’s tech wizard. She was the one who set up the various detection apparatus, and usually the first one to notice the “energy” gathering around one of the sites. Strangely, she was also the group’s “sensitive,” which Stone took as a euphemism for “fake psychic.”

  Riley, unquestionably the star of the show with his cheeky grin and carefully mussed hair, played the handsome, enthusiastic explorer, always ready to charge into the dark with his trusty flashlight and various meters and apparatus. On the show, he projected an easy charisma that made him seem a lot more l
ikeable than the sulking prima donna Stone had met at the Stanford lunch.

  One thing Stone was relieved to see: the “expert” commentary seemed to be confined to the beginning of each episode. In only one of the six examples Stone watched did the expert appear in any other segments, and even then it was only to walk around the outside of a drafty old mansion with Riley while talking about its historical significance. Maybe that meant this wouldn’t be as bad as he’d feared. Mortenson would probably be disappointed that she didn’t get to traipse through some dusty condemned space and natter on about psychic phenomena, but she’d just have to cope.

  “So what do you think, Raider?” he asked gray-and-black-striped tabby settled in his lap. “What’s your opinion of this whole farce?”

  The cat, as usual, said nothing and continued licking his paw. That was fine with Stone, though: ever since he’d acquired Raider under unusual circumstances that summer, he’d been surprised to discover he enjoyed the cat’s presence. The two of them had quickly fallen into a routine and learned when to stay out of each other’s way—a primary asset in a housemate, as far as Stone was concerned.

  The only thing that annoyed him a bit was the fact that Raider stubbornly refused to respond to his attempts to christen him with a new name. He hadn’t felt that “Raider” was an appropriate moniker for a mage’s cat (especially after someone had—probably correctly, given the tabby’s previous owner—suggested his original name referred not to any pirate proclivities, but to the NFL football team), and had tried renaming him “Crowley.”

  That had lasted less than a week. True, cats weren’t known for responding to any name, but at least Raider seemed to recognize the one his original owner had given him, and apparently liked it. Whenever Stone tried to call him something else (after “Crowley” he’d tried “Algernon,” “Hermes,” and even “Merlin”), that cat simply ignored him, refusing even to come and sit with him while he worked or curl up next to him on his bed. At long last he bowed to the inevitable, and “Raider” the cat remained. But if anyone asked, he was named after a pirate, not a mob of oversized brutes in tight silver pants.

  The next day, he was surprised when Mackenzie Hubbard fell into step next to him as he headed across campus to his mid-day class. “So,” Hubbard said, “rumor is you and Mortenson are going to be consulting on some ghost-hunting TV show over the break.”

  Rumor, indeed. Stone wouldn’t have been surprised if Mortenson had taken out an advert in the Daily to announce the news. Of course, if she had, she probably wouldn’t have mentioned Stone’s involvement. “Let me guess: you’re upset because you won’t be involved as well.”

  Hubbard snorted. “Me? Are you kidding? You couldn’t pay me enough to do that kind of crap. I’m actually surprised they managed to rope you into it. Didn’t think that was your kind of thing.”

  So if Mortenson had mentioned it all, she hadn’t shared the details. He shrugged. “It isn’t, really. But they made a good offer. And it could have its moments, I suppose.”

  “Sounds like a lot of horseshit to me. No offense.”

  “None taken. You’re probably right.”

  Stone and Hubbard hadn’t gotten along any better than he and Mortenson had when they’d first met, back when Stone accepted the position in the department. Both the older professors had had their own reasons for disliking Stone’s appearance in the middle of their comfortable little world. Between his charismatic teaching style, boundless enthusiasm for his subject, and international acclaim in his field, he’d not only upset their applecart, but flipped it over and pimped it out with an engine overhaul and a flame job.

  But while Mortenson had continued to quietly seethe, convinced she was being overlooked and overshadowed in favor of this flashy newcomer, Hubbard had quickly realized Stone’s ardor and sheer love of the job meant that he could go back to what he truly desired: doing as little work as possible to keep drawing a paycheck while spending every spare minute adding to his growing collection of unsold horror novels. While the two had by no means become close friends, they’d bonded enough in their mutual cynicism and annoyance with Mortenson’s stuffy, bureaucratic ways that they no longer got on each other’s nerves.

  “Anyway,” Hubbard said, “let me know how it goes. My current book is about a monster terrorizing a little town out in the sticks. So if you get any good material, pass it on. Maybe I can use it. I’ll put you in the acknowledgements.”

  Stone chuckled. “I doubt there’ll be any monsters this time. I’m fully expecting to let them wheel me out like a good little talking monkey for a bit of commentary, and then spend the rest of the trip finishing the edits on the paper I’m trying to submit by the end of the year.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it’s a little cold for sunbathing. Well, have fun with the Dragon Lady. I hope they don’t make you share a room with her or anything.”

  Stone got a sudden alarming image: Mortenson sitting up in bed with cucumber slices on her eyes and her face slathered in pasty white beauty mask, surrounded by three suspicious-looking cats. Would Larry Duncan be vindictive enough to try to get petty revenge for being outmaneuvered? “Gods, let’s hope not.”

  Strange bedfellows, indeed.

  Just not, he hoped, literally.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Verity suggested another pizza place in Ventura for dinner. It wasn’t because she had a particular craving for pizza, but it was loud and crowded and had private booths tucked away all around its perimeter. Unless they used bullhorns to shout across the table at each other, nobody would hear them even if the conversation got…heated.

  “This is a bad idea,” she said, staring down at her hands.

  They’d just pulled into the parking lot and found a space. She sat in the passenger seat of Jason’s five-year-old Mustang, which he’d finally bought a couple months ago to replace the ancient tan four-door (Verity had called it “the Ford Travesty”) he’d had since their early days in the Bay Area.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Jason said, reaching over to touch her arm. “We gotta tell her something. Like I said, she’s not stupid.”

  “I’ve never told anybody before.” She watched the lights on the restaurant’s animated neon sign chase each other back and forth. “What if I screw it up?”

  “You won’t. You got this, V.”

  Of course he’d say that. He was her brother, and it was his job to shore up her confidence, regardless of his real opinion of the situation. “There are just so many different ways this could go wrong.”

  “How so? Either she’ll believe you or she won’t. And if she doesn’t, you can just tell her the whole thing was a joke, and you really have no idea how the guy managed to survive. He did live, right?” he added quickly.

  “Dunno. I tried calling, but they wouldn’t tell me. Maybe Kristen will know. But…what if she does believe me? What if she thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world that I can heal people?”

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  “Lots.” She’d had several late-night discussions with Edna about it—the old woman had told her that if she was smart, she’d keep her healing abilities under her hat, because if anyone found out she could do it, they wouldn’t leave her alone. Her life would never be the same again, and there was no turning back from where it would inevitably lead. “Healing’s great. It feels great when I can help somebody. But it’s not even close to everything I can—or want to—do. I don’t want to be anybody’s trained monkey. What if I tell her, and she tells other people?”

  Jason pondered that. “I don’t think she will. She’s not like that.”

  “But can you be sure?”

  Another long pause. “No. I can’t. But even if she does tell people, it’s not like they’re gonna believe it. She only sort of saw what you did. Anybody she tells wouldn’t even have that. They’d think she was crazy.”
/>   “Is that what you want? For people to think your girlfriend’s crazy?”

  He turned to face her, and she could see his eyes glittering in the headlight beam of a passing car. His expression was serious. “V, if you tell her about what you can do and she goes off and blabs it to other people without your permission, she won’t be my girlfriend anymore. So don’t even worry about that.” He took her hand. “Family first, kid. Even weird family who shoot lightning bolts out of their eyes and levitate cheeseburgers.”

  She laughed. He’d always been able to get a laugh out of her, ever since they were kids. “Okay, fine. So if she blabs, I’ve got your permission to make her look like she’s could really use some professional help?”

  “Permission granted. I’ll even help you. But seriously, I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem. Kristen’s okay. Even more mundane than me—which is saying something—but she’s good people.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t gonna say it.” She punched his arm lightly. “Fine. Let’s go do this. It should be interesting, if nothing else. Then I can call Dr. Stone and he can tell me all the ways I could have done it better.”

  “From what Stan tells me, when Al spilled the beans to him, he did it by levitating pizza around his living room. Maybe you could try the same thing.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll go over great in a restaurant, you dork.”