The Other Side: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  With obvious great reluctance, Toro had picked the SMG back up. “You’re gonna kill these kids anyway,” he snapped, clearly trying to stall.

  “I give you my word I will not,” Mathias said. “I know you don’t believe me, but you have little choice, do you?”

  “You’re lying!” Verity said. “How the hell are you powering all this stuff—the wards, the illusions—without killing people? Are you sucking power from the kids? Is that why they’re acting like zombies?”

  He glared at her. “You know so little, apprentice, if you think so. Now, enough talk! Kill him!”

  Think, think, THINK! Verity’s mind felt like it had seized up, her thoughts tumbling and incoherent. She felt like she had once back in school, when she hadn’t studied for a test and all the problems on the page could have been written in Swahili for all the comprehension she had of how to solve them. It was only when she allowed herself to calm down and focus that she’d been able to get through them.

  But I don’t have time to calm down and focus! He’s gonna kill Jason if I don’t do something! But none of Stone’s lessons would work here, and Edna’s were useless—what would she do, heal the guy to death?

  And then, in a sudden moment of frightening clarity, a thought slid into place in her mind.

  A memory of the time a few days ago when she’d helped the kid in the motorcycle accident—how she’d taken control of his energy flow and used her own energy to set it right.

  What if she could use that same energy to set it wrong?

  If she’d had time to think about it, the thought would have been abhorrent to her. That wasn’t the way that kind of magic was meant to be used. That wasn’t what Edna had taught her in her lessons about how to use the power of the natural world to bring things into their proper balance.

  But she didn’t have time to think about it. She only had one chance. Toro, still trying to stall, had swung his gun barrel around to point at Jason, who still lay stunned on the floor. Toro’s gaze met hers, pleading with her to do something—anything—so he didn’t have to kill her brother.

  Mathias was too far away. She’d never done it from this distance before.

  She didn’t have Jason’s power to draw on, and her bracelet was depleted.

  But the principle was the same, and there was no reason she couldn’t do it from a distance, just because she’d never tried.

  Think outside the box—that was the lesson Stone had drummed into her over and over again. Always consider the unexpected.

  “Please!” she cried, dropping to her knees and shifting to magical sight. Mathias wasn’t hiding his aura anymore—it was red, fading to gold on the edges, brilliant and vibrant. Confident. “Please don’t kill Jason! I’ll do whatever you want! Just don’t kill him!” It wasn’t hard to sell it—her heart pounded with fear. No fear. Focus.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Mathias said. And then to Toro: “Do it!”

  Verity reached out and took hold of that red-and-gold aura. She didn’t try for subtlety or care—she knew as soon as he noticed what was happening, she’d be lost. She’d have to do it hard and fast—and she had no idea what was going to happen.

  As soon as her mind locked onto a flow of energy, she paid no attention to where in his system it was. She merely grabbed hold of it and wrenched it sideways until she felt it shatter, like an orderly, marching column of ants that suddenly had a bomb dropped on it.

  Her head exploded with pain, and she heard herself scream.

  She heard Mathias scream.

  She heard several of the children scream.

  She heard something clatter to the floor.

  She heard the deafening staccato of gunfire.

  She heard nothing.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “Why the fuck would they store fucking dynamite in the basement of a fucking house?” Riley demanded, fear pitching his voice higher. “Dude, we gotta get outta here!”

  “Not yet.” Stone had to admit it was a good question, though. “Allied Logging Company. This isn’t from the Gold Rush era—it’s from when this place was a logging town in the Thirties.” Did they use dynamite for logging? He didn’t know, but evidence suggested they did.

  “Does it matter?” Riley grabbed his arm. “Come on. That stuff could go up any minute and blow this whole place to hell.”

  “It’s been here this long—as long as we don’t jostle it or get fire near it, it should be fine for another hour or so.” In truth, Stone wasn’t at all crazy about the idea of staying down here with at least two crates of old, unstable dynamite either—but the curse was even more of a threat at the moment. “Come on—help me and we’ll get out of here faster.”

  Riley shook his head. “No way, man. If you want to do this, knock yourself out. But I’d rather take my chances with the crazies upstairs than get my ass blown to smithereens.” He shoved a rusted spade at Stone and headed for the stairway. “If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you’d come with me.”

  Stone thought for a moment about trying to stop him, but it was pointless—if he used magic to imprison him here, he still wouldn’t be any help with the digging, and having to pay attention to him would only fragment his concentration. “Fine. Go, then. But close the door behind you.”

  Riley didn’t answer. He took a last glance at Stone, then turned and ran up the stairs toward the door.

  He made it three-quarters of the way up before the rotted wood gave way and splintered beneath his weight. His foot plunged through, and something cracked as he was pitched sideways. Screaming and flailing his arms, he lunged for the door at the top of the stairs, but his hands slipped as it swung inward. He lost his balance and tumbled back to the basement floor with a loud crash. A rain of broken wood pattered down on him as the entire top section of the rickety stairway gave way and plummeted after him.

  Bloody hell! Stone tossed the spade aside and hurried over to him. “Riley?”

  The Other Side star lay there, clutching his leg and making no attempt to get up, his face drawn into a rictus of pain. “Oh, fuck!” he yelled. “I think my fucking leg’s broken!”

  Stone’s sympathy for Riley’s antics had gone the way of his patience. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No, but—”

  “Are any bones poking through anything?”

  “No, but—”

  “Are you in danger of bleeding out?”

  “No! But dude—”

  “You’ll just have to cope, then, won’t you?” Stone turned his back on him and returned to the middle of the room, where he retrieved the spade. Thanks to Riley’s foolishness, he’d have to do all the digging on his own, which would make things go a lot slower. At least the crash hadn’t set off the dynamite.

  “Dude, you gotta help me!”

  “What do you want me to do? You’re not dying. Just stay quiet. I’ll help you when I’m done here.”

  “But the stairway’s fucked! We’re trapped here! How are we supposed to get out?”

  “We aren’t, unless you belt up and let me get on with this!” Stone snapped.

  Riley started to protest, but got a good look at Stone and clearly got the message that he wasn’t kidding. He subsided into glaring silence except for the occasional moan of pain or muttered bit of profanity.

  Stone ignored him and jammed the spade into the ground.

  The photos he’d seen of Jacob Brunder, along with the vision he’d gotten back in the cavern, had all indicated that while Brunder was a big man, he was portly and likely unaccustomed to any kind of physical labor. That, Stone hoped, would work to his advantage—perhaps he’d dug a shallow grave, since he didn’t expect anyone to investigate what he’d done.

  Not that Stone himself was any kind of impressive physical specimen—he wished
ardently that Jason were here right now—but at least he kept himself in shape. And he definitely had motivation to get this done as soon as possible. He glanced nervously over at the two boxes of dynamite, wondering if there were more around here he hadn’t seen yet, and pulled up a shovelful of dirt.

  Fortunately, the ground wasn’t rock-hard—either the rain had softened it, or it was just naturally soft down here. Either way, the shovelfuls of dirt came up without too much difficulty—“not too much” being a relative phrase, given how tired and stiff Stone already was from the night’s activities.

  He soon got into a rhythm, bending to scoop up a shovelful, tossing it aside, and bending to scoop another. The slashes on his chest and the furrow in his shoulder both started bleeding again as his movements opened them up, but he couldn’t do anything about that so he gritted his teeth and tried his best to ignore them.

  Behind him, Riley watched with occasional winces and moans. Stone continued to ignore him.

  After a few minutes, his spade hit something that wasn’t dirt. He stopped, leaning on the shovel and giving himself a few seconds to catch his breath. He might be in shape, but distance running didn’t do a very good job of preparing one for ditch-digging. If this sort of thing was going to become a habit, he’d have to start hitting the university gym when he got home.

  If he got home. That was by no means a foregone conclusion yet.

  “Why are you stopping?” Riley croaked from the other side of the room. “Find something?”

  “I think so.”

  Curious, Riley began dragging himself closer. “Is it the body?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Stone crouched next to the hole, moving the flashlight so it shined into it. The beam illuminated a section of heavy oilcloth wrapped around something he couldn’t identify. “Have you got a knife?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” Now that it appeared Stone had validated his claims that something was indeed buried under the floor, Riley showed more interest in the proceedings. He fumbled in his pocket, wincing as he jostled his broken leg, and tossed Stone a Swiss army knife. “Fuck, this hurts…”

  “Not much longer.” Stone caught the knife, opened the largest blade, and sliced at the oilcloth. It gave way easily, rotted from being buried so long, and he grabbed both sides of the slashed fabric and ripped a large hole.

  “Well…” he murmured. “Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Sarah. You’ve caused a lot of trouble around here.”

  From inside the wrapped oilcloth, a dusty skull grinned up at him, a few hanks of long, dark hair still clinging to it. He’d uncovered her head and the upper part of her torso, which was still encased in a plaid miner’s shirt. She must have worn it as a disguise when trying to escape. The bones of her neck appeared oddly twisted and broken. Stone pictured the looming, livid Jacob Brunder, his big hands wrapped around his screaming daughter’s slender neck, and bowed his head a moment. So many lives lost because of the man’s pigheaded unwillingness to allow his only child to be happy.

  “Whoa…” Riley breathed, lurching closer and gaping down into the open grave. “Is that her?”

  “Mr. Riley, meet Sarah Brunder.” A thought occurred to him then. He carefully cleared away the dirt covering the lower portion of Sarah’s torso, and pulled open her faded shirt. As he suspected, a tiny figure of smaller, more delicate bones lay curled where her abdomen would have been. “And her unborn child.”

  For what might have been the first time in his adult life, Bryce Riley was speechless. After a moment, he said softly, “She was—”

  Stone nodded. He felt as if he should do something to acknowledge Sarah’s horrific fate, but they didn’t have time. He had no idea what was going on upstairs, and he still had no desire to be around the dynamite any longer than he had to. “Back up, please, and hand me that black bag. I want to get this done.”

  Riley did so with obvious reluctance, wincing all the way. “What are you gonna do? And you still haven’t told me how we’re getting out of here.”

  Stone opened the leather bag and began creating a quick circle around the grave. With magical sight, he could see the red energy brighter than ever, pouring out of the grave with even more intensity than before. Don’t fight me, Sarah…you want this as much as I do. “I’m going to help Sarah move on, so all this madness will stop.”

  “Huh?” He hooked a thumb at the grave. “You mean she’s the reason for the curse?”

  “Right in one. Be quiet for a moment, please…” Stone finished with the circle and began setting up the other components. Good thing he’d brought a large selection this time—it had been a while since he’d had to do two rituals this close together without any time to restock.

  “What’s that stuff? What are you doing?”

  “Quiet,” Stone said again, more sharply. When he finished setting up the circle, he stood back and examined it. He’d done it quickly, but he couldn’t afford any mistakes. Sarah Brunder clearly wasn’t ready to release her hold on the town on her own.

  He turned to Riley, who was watching from a few feet away, clutching his broken leg. “Mr. Riley. We’re almost done here, but this is the critical part of what I’m doing. If things go well, it will only take a few minutes. But in that few minutes, I need you to be absolutely quiet, and remain where you are. Don’t come near the circle, and don’t distract me. Understood?”

  “What the hell are you gonna do?” Riley demanded, eyeing the circle. “That looks like some kinda magic circle. Celina uses ’em on the show sometimes, but it’s all bogus.”

  “This one isn’t bogus. Will you do that for me?”

  “What are you gonna do? Talk to her ghost or something?”

  “Something like that.” Stone sighed loudly. “Riley. No more talk. Please. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Riley looked like he’d object, but finally lay back against one of the boxes they’d piled up. “Okay. Knock yourself out, man. But hurry.”

  “Fast as I can, but these things can’t be rushed.” He took a few deep breaths to calm his mind, then stepped into the circle and shifted to magical sight.

  The red fog swirled around him, licking at him like waves in an unquiet sea. Stone ignored it, concentrating on Sarah. Sarah…can you hear me? I spoke with you before, remember? Back where you performed your ritual.

  For a while, nothing happened. The foggy tendrils continued pawing at him with increasing intensity, and he had to pause to reinforce his mental shields against them as he felt the anger beginning to rise. He’d been right that this was the epicenter; this was powerful, primal magic that had grown and fed on Sarah’s desire for vengeance and the ley line’s potency for well over a hundred years. Like a river eroding a slow, inexorable path through a valley, the initial curse had dug in deep, and damming it—or even forcing it to change direction—wouldn’t be easy. “Sarah, are you there?”

  And then, suddenly, he felt another presence in the room. It rose up out of the grave and hovered there, shifting and silvery and indistinct, in front of him.

  Stone faced it. Sarah, we have to end this. You’ve had your vengeance. It’s served its purpose. You don’t have to lie in a forgotten grave any longer. I will make sure you’re remembered properly—you and your child. But you’ve got to stop this and move on.

  A flash of anger in his mind. For a second, the swirling figure took on a human face: a pretty young woman, her face darkened with rage.

  Sarah. I promise. I promise you’ll be remembered properly. You and your child, and Zeke. I promise history will record what your father did to you.

  More anger, and denial.

  At the edges of his awareness, Stone heard Riley say something. Damn you, Riley, I told you to keep quiet! He couldn’t deal with the man now. He refocused his attention on Sarah, beginning to subtly weave magic around the swirling figure. If
she wouldn’t go on her own, he’d have to force her to go. It wasn’t the method he’d prefer, but time was short. If he could cut her off from the red energy sustaining the curse before she caught on to what he was doing, she’d no longer be able to maintain her hold on this plane. She’d have to pass on, and without the vestiges of her will to sustain it, the curse would collapse on itself.

  “Stone!”

  This time, Riley’s voice, bright with terror, cut through his concentration. Glaring, he turned his head a little, trying to split his focus between Sarah and Riley.

  As soon as he did, he heard more voices. Yelling voices, above them. And—was that smoke?

  Gods no…not again…

  “There he is!” one of the voices screamed. Two figures loomed in the open doorway at the top of the ruined stairs.

  “Kill him!” cried another.

  “Burn him out!”

  Something flared and streaked down into the basement toward Riley. With a yelp he jerked himself away, and the burning torch landed on top of the pile of boxes he and Stone had moved off the grave. Instantly, the dry wood ignited.

  “Stone!” Riley yelled again, scrabbling toward the circle. Panic filled his voice.

  Stone, his heart pounding and his breath coming fast, spun back around to the floating form above the grave. Sarah, he pleaded. You’ve got to end this. You’ve got to pass on, or a lot of innocent people will die. We mean you no harm. We never harmed you. Do you want us to die too?

  Denial. Anger. Rage.

  “Stone!” Riley had lurched only feet away from the circle now.

  Stone fought down panic of his own. If the fire—or even the heat from it—reached those crates of dynamite, the whole place could go up. He turned back to Sarah again, and a desperate thought seized him. If he couldn’t plead with her, perhaps he could shock her. Sarah! This is your doing, you know! Your own curse killed your child!