The Other Side: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Alastair! Look out!”

  Footsteps pounded behind him and the screaming, flailing Mott, his entire upper body engulfed in flame, barreled into Stone and Denise, bowling them over. Beyond reason now, he barely seemed to notice them as he staggered past them toward the door. Denise shrieked again as part of her long hair caught fire.

  Stone rolled up, grabbed his coat from her shoulders, and quickly used it to put out the tiny flame before it reached her flesh. Still coughing, he stayed there on his hands and knees, tears streaming down his face from the smoke.

  “Alastair! We have to get out!” Something grabbed his arm hard and tugged. “This way! Hurry!”

  Stone hauled himself back up and pulled Denise along with him, settling the coat back over her shoulders. “Edwina?” He shifted to magical sight; Mortenson’s aura, bright with fear, shone through the rising smoke. He let her drag him, stumbling, out into the hall, still keeping a firm grip on the sobbing Denise.

  Ten feet down the hall, Bill Mott had collapsed into a blazing heap. The carpet around him had already caught, and solid wall of dark smoke wafted up toward the ceiling. All around them the harsh beep beep beeps of smoke alarms went off in an arrhythmic cacophony.

  “Oh, my God,” Mortenson breathed. “It’s blocked! We can’t get out!”

  “Yes, we can!” Stone rasped. “Don’t you dare panic on me, Edwina! Get your room door open!”

  Denise still had him a death grip, clutching him around the middle now. Pain flared as her arms pressed on his bloody slash wounds, but he was too jacked on adrenaline to do more than barely register it. He gestured at Mott’s two-handed axe, which he’d thrown out into the hall earlier, and it flew into his hand. Smoke was billowing out into the hallway through his ruined door. “Edwina?”

  “Got it,” she said between coughs. “Hurry!”

  He hustled the mostly unresponsive Denise around and plunged through the open doorway behind Mortenson, then slammed it shut. Heart pounding hard, he tried to free himself from Denise’s grip. “Help me with her!” he ordered Mortenson.

  Now that they were inside and most of the smoke hadn’t reached them yet, Mortenson was surprisingly calm. She took hold of Denise’s shoulders and pulled her away from Stone. “Come on, dear. You’re all right. We’ll get out of this.” She gasped when Denise’s arm pulled away from him. “Alastair! You’re bleeding!”

  “Aware of that…” he muttered, but didn’t turn back toward her. He’d just spotted Mortenson’s lit candle on her work table. “If you’ve got a flashlight, turn it on now.”

  A second later, a beam bloomed in the darkness. Stone blew out the candle and hefted the axe. “Stand back.” He’d never done anything like this before, and hoped he wasn’t making a big mistake—magic would be easier, but revealing it now would cause more problems. He took aim at the window, and swung the axe around in an arc.

  He needn’t have worried—apparently adrenaline wasn’t just good for dulling pain. It also did a pretty good job of providing strength and accuracy. The axe head smashed through the window, shattering it into pieces. He dropped the axe and used the drapes to cover the edges. “Come on—hurry,” he urged. He strode over and crouched in front of Denise. “Is anyone else in the building?”

  “I—” She was sobbing now, clutching his coat around her.

  “Denise!” he snapped, shaking her. “Is anyone else in the building?”

  “I—I don’t know—” she got out between sobs and bouts of coughing. “I—don’t think so—it’s just the TV people, and they’re all up at the Brunder place.”

  “What about the bartender? The restaurant workers?”

  “Alastair, we need to get out,” Mortenson urged. “The smoke’s coming under the door!” She indicated it with the flashlight beam.

  She was right. He’d have to go around the front to check the rest of the place, and hope it hadn’t been engulfed—or that anyone left inside had heard the smoke alarms—by the time he got there. Why the hell weren’t the sprinklers working? “Right, then. Denise, you first.” He grabbed her arm—she’d finally shoved them into the sleeves of his coat so it didn’t keep falling off her shoulders—and pulled her toward the window. “Careful…mind the glass.”

  With his help, she clambered on to the chair and jumped out into the rain.

  “Good, good,” Stone said. “Now you, Edwina…”

  Mortenson swallowed hard and coughed. The smoke was already getting thicker, even through the closed door. She gripped Stone’s arm and hefted herself onto the chair, which was a lot harder for her than it had been for the young, agile Denise, then eased herself out through the window. At the last second she slipped, yelping as she lost her balance and crashed to the ground outside.

  “All right, Edwina?” Stone called.

  “Yes. Come on!”

  “There in a moment. Where’s the box?” He wasn’t sure dragging the box of old papers outside into the rain would solve anything—if they got ruined by water they wouldn’t be of any use to any of them—but he couldn’t just leave them there. Not if they might hold the secret to the curse.

  “Leave the box! Get out here, Alastair!” Mortenson’s voice took on a note of panic as she poked her head back in. The entire front of her body was spattered with mud and soggy leaves.

  “I need to find out about the curse!”

  “I know about the curse! I found it! It’s in the little book on the table! Come on!”

  Stone glanced at the table. Concerned with more important things, he’d missed it before, but a small, tattered, leatherbound book lay next to the extinguished candle there.

  By now, a haze had formed around Mortenson’s room. He darted his gaze around until he spotted Mortenson’s purse, used magic to bring it to him, and jammed the little book inside.

  “Alastair!” Mortenson yelled.

  “Coming!” He zipped up the purse, slung it over his shoulder, and dived through the window opening.

  Mortenson grabbed him and dragged him backward, away from the building. Denise already stood there, sobbing, her arms wrapped around herself.

  Stone thrust the purse into Mortenson’s arms. “Hold on to this. I’ll want to take a look at that book. But now, let’s get you two to safety.”

  He looked them over. The three of them were a sorry lot: Mortenson still wore her loose-fitting lounging outfit with thin slippers, mud soaking her from head to toe from her fall; Denise was covered by his coat now but barefoot on the rocky ground; he wore only his jeans, blood still trickling from the slash wounds on his chest and abdomen. The rain came down as hard as ever, already drenching them, and all shivered against the cold, wet wind.

  At least he still had his boots—that was something.

  “Where is there even safety?” Mortenson asked. “This place might not burn down in the rain, but it will be gutted before anyone gets here—if they even get here.”

  Stone thought about it. She was right—they couldn’t stay here. They couldn’t go to the Brunder place, either: if Duncan’s people were still there, it wouldn’t be smart to add more fuel to another sort of fire—one potentially more dangerous to human life than the one raging inside the Shangri-La. His mind flicked through the other available options: the store, maybe, or one of the houses, but none of them were close.

  He looked Denise and Mortenson up and down. Mortenson’s mind-block was still firmly in place, and as far as he knew Denise didn’t have any deep-seated resentments against her.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll go to my car.” He fumbled in his pockets, hoping he hadn’t dropped his key somewhere—but no, there it was in his front right, where he always kept it. He shoved it into Mortenson’s hand. “Edwina—the road out of here is blocked about a mile up, I’m told, but I want you to take my car, take Denise with you, and drive out
of town as far as you can go. When you reach the rockslide, pull off, keep the doors locked, and wait. Can you do that?”

  “What will you do?” Mortenson still looked fearful, but there was a stubborn core of resolve behind the fear.

  “I need to find the source of the curse. I think I know where it is. I need to find it and stop it.”

  “Stop it?” She grabbed his arm. “How are you going to stop it? You don’t know the first thing about—”

  “Yes. I do.” He put his hand over hers and squeezed. “I can’t explain it now, Edwina, but I do. You’ve got to let me get on with it. Come on—let’s get you two where it’s safe.”

  “I’m not going to run away and leave you here,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Edwina, no. You can’t.”

  “I might be able to help. You haven’t got time to read the book I found. It’s old, and fading, and the handwriting is difficult to read. It took me a couple of hours to get through a few pages.”

  Stone glared at her. Damn stubborn Mortenson anyway! But already he was shivering harder, trying to keep his teeth from chattering as he talked. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the bleeding slashes were starting to make themselves known again. “Come on, then. We’ll talk when we’re out of here. We’ve got to move.”

  Denise, meanwhile, seemed to have awakened from some of her shock. She hurried up to Stone, pressing against him—clearly it wasn’t lustful this time, though, but simply fear and a craving for human closeness. “What—what’s going on?” she whispered. “What’s happening?” She stared at the building in horror, watching smoke pouring upward and mixing with the rain.

  Stone took a quick look with magical sight. The red fog still surrounded her, but clearly survival outweighed sexual desire, at least temporarily. “Come on,” he said, taking her arm and hurrying her toward the corner of the building. “We’re going to safety.”

  She came along willingly enough, wincing when her bare feet hit pointed bits of gravel but not complaining.

  They didn’t move fast, and it seemed as if it took forever to get around the winery building and out to the front. Denise sagged in relief as they reached the concrete walkway. Stone led them to one of the decorative benches under the overhang. “Stay here,” he said. “I want to make sure no one is inside. Won’t be long.”

  “Alastair—” Mortenson began.

  “Stay here,” he ordered, and took off at a run toward the front doors.

  Inside, the smoke had already reached the lobby, but it wasn’t thick yet. The fire in the fireplace still blazed merrily away, heedless of its wild cousin slowly consuming the place from the inside out. Stone paused for a moment, planning his route. He couldn’t stay in here long, so he’d have to be fast and efficient.

  Five minutes later, he was sure nobody else remained in the lobby, the restaurant, the bar, or the other wing of guest rooms. He didn’t enter any of the rooms, but ran down the hallway banging on doors and yelling—though if anyone inside managed to miss the discordant symphony of mismatched smoke alarms going off, they certainly weren’t going to hear his raspy calls. Magical sight didn’t reveal any lingering auras inside any of the common areas.

  He was about to leave when he remembered something. He dashed out through the back door and flung open the double doors to the wine-storage area. Yes—he’d remembered correctly! He snatched the two sets of coveralls and two pairs of rubber boots from the rack just inside the door, then hurried back through to the other side. Already the smoke was thicker.

  Mortenson and Denise were where he’d left them, huddled next to each other for warmth. “What have you got there?” Mortenson asked.

  “Didn’t have time to go into the rooms,” he said, tossing the coveralls next to them and dropping the boots. “Denise, I’m going to need my coat back, I’m afraid. There’s something dry for you. Sorry it’s not terribly stylish, but…”

  He turned his back on them, and stayed that way until Mortenson said, “All right, we’re ready.”

  They looked an odd pair: the coveralls were far too big for Denise and too snug on Mortenson, and their feet were far too small for the rubber boots, but at least they looked dry. Denise held out his coat, almost shyly. “Thanks…”

  “My pleasure.” He took it, wincing.

  “Let me take a look at your side before you put that on,” Mortenson said. “You’re still bleeding.”

  “I don’t think it’s bad,” Stone said. “I just keep opening them back up by moving. No time to worry about it now.”

  “I’m sorry…” Denise said, and moved closer to him, reaching up toward his shoulders. “I hurt you…I’m so sorry…” Clearly now that she was temporarily out of danger, the curse’s influence was starting to reassert itself. “Let me help you…”

  Mortenson cleared her throat loudly.

  Stone coughed. “Er—we don’t really have time for that, Denise.” What was he going to do with her? He was already tired—trying to maintain another mental block would take power away from what he’d probably need to do when they found the source of the curse.

  “Sure we do.” One of her arms snaked around his neck, while she stroked his chest with the other hand. “We’re safe, we’re dry…”

  Mortenson cleared her throat even more loudly.

  Stone glanced at her over Denise’s shoulder and shrugged. He had an idea, but it was going to be bloody awkward. He hoped Mortenson realized what was trying to do. “Denise…” He put his arms around her and pulled her close. “Love…I’m going to need you to do something for me. Can you do that?”

  “Anything…” Her hand crept downward toward his belt.

  He gently captured it and steered it back up to his chest. “Listen…I want to be with you…we can be together later, I promise. But I have to do something first, and I need your help. Will you help me?”

  She tilted her head up, her lips parting for a kiss. “Anything…”

  With another glance toward Mortenson—hoping even more that she’d caught on—he bent his neck and returned Denise’s passionate kiss. Her arms slipped around him, her hands rubbing up and down his back with sensuous urgency, and she pressed closer against him.

  She’s not in her right mind, he kept repeating to himself. She’s under a curse. She doesn’t really want you… He let her keep it up for a while, until she started grinding into him and her hand began to wander southward again. Then he gripped her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “All right…all right, love…I’ll be back soon, I promise. But until then I need you to wait somewhere safe, all right? Can you do that for me?”

  Disappointment flashed across her face. “But I want to be with you. Can’t I come along?”

  “It’s not safe where I’m going, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to stay safe for me. All right?” He glanced past her toward Mortenson, who was regarding him with skepticism.

  Denise threw her arms around him again. “All right. I can do that. But you’re coming back soon? You promise?”

  “I promise. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Do you want to wait in my car where it’s warm?”

  “No…” Reluctantly she released her hold on him. “I’ll go to my house. It’s safe there.”

  “We’ll take you, then. Is it far?”

  “Not far…” She looked suspiciously at Mortenson. “What about her?”

  “What about her?”

  “Is she going with you?” Even more suspicion showed in her eyes. “You’re not going off to be with her, are you?”

  Despite everything, Stone almost laughed at the absurdity of that. But one glance at the two of them and the laugh died before it began. He took Denise’s hand. “No, love. No. I’m not going to be with her. She’s going to help me with something, so I can get back to you sooner. R
ight, Edwina?”

  Mortenson pursed her lips in displeasure and shot Stone a you’re going to owe me big look. “Right.” She patted Denise’s shoulder. “It’s okay, dear. I’m going to help Alastair so he can get back to you faster. You two make a lovely couple.”

  Denise looked skeptical for a moment, but finally nodded. “Okay. But come back soon. We’re gonna have so much fun…”

  “I’m sure we will.” Stone slipped his coat on and buttoned it up, hoping he’d stop shivering soon. Soaking wet and muddy from being dragged on the ground behind the shorter Denise, it wasn’t much of an improvement over nothing, but at least it kept the wind out. He winced as it brushed against his wounds. “Now show us where your house is.”

  He kept an eye out with magical sight to make sure nobody was approaching—the last thing he needed to deal with was more enraged townspeople taking offense at something—but apparently most people had decided to stay inside. That might be what saves them, he thought. If they didn’t interact, maybe the curse wouldn’t be strong enough to throw them into each other’s paths without provocation.

  They moved slowly. All three of them were cold and soaked, Mortenson’s and Denise’s rubber boots were so big they couldn’t do more than shuffle along in them, and Denise insisted on keeping a tight hold on Stone’s arm, pressing herself close against him as they walked. Still, it was only a few minutes before they reached a tiny, neat house on one of the nearby side streets. “This is it,” she said, then looked distressed. “But I don’t have my key!”

  “Don’t worry,” Stone said. He shrugged free of her, walked up to the door, and, screening his actions with his body, popped the lock. “There we are. Wasn’t locked after all, was it?”

  “But…” Denise started to say, then apparently decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. She walked in past Stone, who stood aside to let her precede him.

  The house was small—from where he stood just inside the door, Stone could see the tiny living room, part of the kitchen, and a short hallway that certainly led to a single bedroom and bath. It was decorated in the typical style of a young woman who wasn’t long out of college, with an eclectic mixture of movie posters and art prints, and smelled of fresh wood, potpourri, and a faint hint of pot smoke. “Will you be all right here?” he asked.