House of Stone

by T. K. Thorne

  “There aren’t any tracks on his arms,” he says.

  I can’t reveal that the victim injected himself in the abdomen because there is no “normal” way I could know that. Until a few months ago, I would have sworn all this magic stuff was the product of my disturbed mind, but I know better now. It’s real. And protecting the secrets of the Houses is critical, even if one faction, the House of Iron, tried to eradicate mine. If society knew there were certain people with powers beyond theirs, all hell would break out. History is filled with that lesson.

  “Did you touch anything?” Tracey asks.

  I hold up my pen. “Only with this to move aside the papers.”

  He looks down again at the syringe, his face tight. “Guess we better call in the evidence technicians and see if we can find some people to interview.”

  I nod. I know one person I particularly want to interview—the woman who handed this man a syringe.

  Chapter Four

  That evening, when I return to Alice’s, I find to my dismay that Nora Pate and her five-year-old son Daniel have taken the spare bedroom. The house is already crowded with three people and four cats. Nora is an alcoholic. Children make me nervous.

  Moving in with Alice and giving up my own living space was tough, but I didn’t have a choice because it took both Alice and me to handle Becca’s needs when she was, for all intents and purposes, catatonic. She still requires a lot of attention. The upside of the arrangement is having a real dinner every night, and Alice has given me the basement. When I go to my room, I have privacy. Angel is the only cat allowed there.

  I confront Alice in the kitchen where plants sprout on every available space that gets even a modicum of light, as they do in the living room, the side porch, and the bathrooms with windows. I should list them as additional occupants.

  “Why?” I demand when we are alone in the kitchen.

  “Why what, dear?” she replies, her accent going heavily British, as it tends to with any hint of confrontation. It’s the only thing she allows to slip in her disguise while in her own home. Otherwise, she does a good Southern drawl.

  I glare at her.

  She gives me a cheery smile and offers the teapot.

  “You know perfectly well what I’m asking,” I say, ignoring the pot.

  “Would you have me throw them out on the street?”

  “They have a house, Alice, only a block away from here.”

  “Apparently, not anymore. When Nora went to hospital to be with Daniel 24/7, she lost her job and couldn’t make the rent. There is no father present and no family.”

  “Shit.”

  Alice frowns at what she calls my vulgarity, but I ignore her. She has been around a long time, over a century, and I’m sure has seen and heard things that would make me blush, even after the raw months I spent in a patrol car.

  She knows I feel guilty about Daniel’s burns.

  “It is only temporary,” Alice adds. “Go take a gander in the living room.”

  Fuming, I do, expecting to see Nora vegged out on the couch, which is, indeed, the first thing I see. Her thin brown hair is almost plastered to her head, her skin pale from the many days at her son’s bedside. Red-rimmed eyes are fixed on a commercial, but I’m not sure she’s really seeing it. Her hands, resting lightly on her knees, tremble.

  No money for alcohol. I have no sympathy.

  In patrol work, I stepped inside many dysfunctional, sad lives, but at the end of the call, I left. My part was over. I didn’t have to take anyone home with me. This one has followed me home. My gaze slides to the floor where Becca sits cross-legged opposite Daniel. Playing cards are laid out between them.

  “That’s a queen,” Daniel says, pointing to the face card.

  “Queen,” Becca repeats, head bent down to study the card, her face hidden behind the fall of fine white hair.

  I draw a breath, watching without moving as he puts down the next card, a six of diamonds.

  Becca wrinkles her forehead. “Nine?”

  “Nope.” Daniel shakes his head. “Six. Nine is upside down six.”

  She nods solemnly, her attention remaining on him, waiting for the next card. This is something two neurologists, a psychologist, and a counselor have been unable to achieve. I’m trembling as badly as Nora’s hands, and I sit on the other end of the couch, as far away from Nora as possible, unable to look elsewhere than the miracle taking place on the floor.

  When the doorbell rings, I’m loath to pull away from watching Daniel and Becca, but Alice never answers the door. The less contact she has with the world, the better. She doesn’t exist anymore after faking her own death, a feat she carried off thanks to some exotic herbal extracts, a little magic, and an “in” with the medical examiner’s office. Her persona is now a short, hunched woman with flaming red hair. It’s a clever disguise, as her hair draws attention and the hunched position keeps anyone from having a good look at her.

  As always, I check out the window before opening the door, a caution I practice since I learned that someone from the House of Iron wants me dead. I thought I had killed that someone and the problem, until I found a black rose on my doorstep, a message that the hunt is not over, and I’m the prey.

  The man on the porch is the last person I ever thought I would see there—Jason Blackwell, a warlock of House of Iron. There is no good thing that could come from opening the door.

  I open the door.

  Jason is a beautiful man. Thick gold hair and electric blue eyes, but the effect he has on me goes beyond hormonal attraction. It exists on an elemental magical level. I believe it’s a rare phenomenon between Houses. My grandmother experienced it with the former head of House of Iron, a man I know nothing about except that he was named Adam, died before my birth, and was not directly related to Jason. Adam and my grandmother had an affair. My mother was the end product of that disaster, making a quarter of my blood Iron. There is a third House, House of Stone, but I have never met a member of it and know little about it.

  Jason and I stare at one another. I hope he is not aware of the reaction my body has to his presence.

  “Hello, Rose,” he says, shattering the silence between us like a glass dropped onto a stone floor. “May I come in?”

  My warning systems register high alert, but my mouth doesn’t seem able to make a noise. My heart is making plenty of noise. I shake my head.

  He frowns. “I realize this is awkward.”

  “What are you doing here?” The words come out in a rush of breath that leaves me fearful I might have a dizzy spell right here in front of him. He would scoop me up in his arms and carry me inside—Stop! This is not me. It’s the magic.

  His gaze has not wavered from me. “I cannot stop thinking about you.” I’ve always had trouble placing his accent—Italian?

  I snort. “Not a very original line.”

  The smallest quiver of his mouth. “Agreed, but it is the truth.” He spreads his hands, palms up, as if to say he’s helpless to feel otherwise.

  “May I come in?” he asks again.

  I ignore the jagged rhythm of my pulse and glare at him. “If House of Iron wants to hurt me or mine, you will have to kill me first.”

  “I take it that is a ‘no.’”

  “That is a definite ‘no.’” I stand in the doorway, blocking him from entering.

  “If I wanted to hurt you or your friends, I would hardly knock on your door.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Perhaps not.” He did have a point. As a male of House of Iron, Jason Blackwell could temporarily “enslave” anyone not of the Houses to his will with a touch and a suggestion. He could make the postman walk up on the porch and shoot me.

  I reach for the familiar reassurance of the living-green beneath the ground. The warm gold hum of energy fills me. Expecting it to be a comfort and bulwark, I’m stunned to find it heightens
the magnetic pull to Jason. Beads of sweat pop out on my forehead, and I dump the magic as fast as I can.

  Scanning the porch, Jason moves to one of Alice’s wicker rocking chairs and sits.

  “I am prepared to wait to talk with you,” he says. “As long as it takes.”

  This could be more than awkward. He cannot learn that Alice is alive, and I will not expose Becca to anything threatening. She is fragile, and this connection with Daniel . . . maybe— I stomp on the hope. Alice says to focus on and be grateful for each tiny step she can make. She’s right. I can’t expect more or push her.

  With a deep breath, I sit in the other chair facing him, glad for the little wicker table with a blooming orchid on it between us. Alice’s orchids seem to always be in bloom. My back is to the rust-colored stone facade of the Southside house. Over the concrete ledges, crowded with more pots of plants, and between the rock columns of the porch, I can see a gleaming black car parked at the curb and, inside, the vague shape of a waiting driver.

  “Okay,” I say. “Talk.”

  He leans forward, and I press back against the wicker of my chair, trying to keep distance between us, arms crossed over my chest.

  “I am not your enemy,” Jason says. “I did not know my uncle kidnapped you.”

  My heart races, but this time not because of him. Memories from the Ordeal reel out: I strain against the cuffs that fasten me to a chair of iron, deep in the heart of Red Mountain. Beside me, Jason’s uncle, Theophalus Blackwell, lowers an electric prod to my neck. Oblivious of the urine soaking my pants or the pain of my bloody wrists, I am lost in agony.

  “Rose?”

  I realize I have been staring through Jason and, amazingly, momentarily unaware of the pull between us. I focus back on the now and him. He was the one who first told me that genetic mixing between the Houses was forbidden, that the offspring would be an abomination. I have not and do not plan to tell him I am that abomination. I haven’t even told Alice. Having the blood and powers of House of Rose and House of Iron terrifies me. Mixing those magics caused the wildfire that killed Theophalus Blackwell and my partner, Paul, and burned little Daniel.

  I speak slowly, keeping my arms across my chest, clammy hands knotted into fists under my armpits. “Your uncle shot my family and set our house on fire when I was a child. He kidnapped and tortured me. I don’t know why.”

  Strangely, it’s not easy to lie to him. I do know why Theophalus Blackwell tortured me. He wanted the rose-stone—to destroy, I presume—as only House of Rose can use it. But I have no choice. I can’t tell him that. It’s not just my own life that is at stake. I have to protect Alice. I don’t know if Jason is part of the plot to eliminate House of Rose, but I can’t take any chances. No one from House of Iron can know she is alive.

  “I apologize that I did not believe you when you tried to tell me,” he says. “I am also deeply sorry for what you and your friends went through at the hands of my Family, but no one is trying to kill you now. Theophalus is dead.

  “I hope you do not blame me,” he adds after a moment. “I want to see more of you.”

  His gaze is burning into mine, saying a lot more than “see more of you.”

  My mouth is dry as bone. “I . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  A quick, wry smile. “Maybe not, but I am giving you fair warning.” The smile warms into charming territory. “I do not plan to take a ‘no’ forever.”

  Chapter Five

  The petite young woman from my vision at the homicide scene is Laurie Stokes, Dr. Benjamin Crompton’s assistant—straight blond hair, lots of eye makeup. Tanned. I can’t tell if it’s from the sun or a bottle. Tracey is handling the questions in a cramped interview room at Homicide, and I’m taking notes. Only notes, per Tracey’s instructions. I get it. I’m in training. He doesn’t want me to screw things up.

  “And you prepared his insulin shot as you normally do?” Tracey asks her.

  “Yes, the same,” Stokes says, her hands flittering on the table, but her brimming eyes meeting ours. A tear breaks loose and rolls down her cheek.

  “You used a vial from the refrigerator?” I ask. So much for just being a note taker.

  She nods.

  “Say it aloud, please,” Tracey says, indicating the running tape recorder. I can’t tell if he is annoyed or amused at my interruption.

  “Yes, I always use the vial from the refrigerator. He takes 50 units of Lantus.”

  Lie. You took the vial from your pocket. Because I saw this in the vision, I can’t say it. The only reason I can think of is that the vial in her pocket contained something else besides insulin, something deadly. I start to push her, but it hits me that I don’t actually know what it is I see in the black and gray world. On more than one occasion, my action has changed the future, which means it’s not set. Suppose what I saw in Crompton’s office was just a possibility or something that actually happened on another timeline? Alice is the one with the quantum physics theories. I only have a BS in psychology and a minor in art. I realize I’m chewing on my pen.

  “That’s interesting that he lets you prepare his medicine,” Tracey says. “Are you a medical student or a nurse?”

  She flushes. “I work with him as his assistant. I’m a first-year med student.”

  “He must trust you a lot.”

  She studies her fingernails, which are polished green.

  “Were you . . . close?” he asks.

  A sniff. Her teeth find her upper lip, and she doesn’t respond for a moment. Then finally, she puts her hand over her mouth, and her shoulders shake. The tears flow freely. I hand her a tissue from the side table, unwilling to feel sorry for the woman who murdered a man so coldly, but in admiration of her acting ability. Despite my questions about the nature of my visions, until I learn they are not real, that is what I’m going with.

  “Yes, we were close.” She glares defiantly at Tracey. Her nose, as petite as she, is red. “Closer than he was to his batty wife.”

  “I’m not trying to bring trouble to you or to his family.” Tracey’s voice is gentle, his gray eyes kind and concerned.

  Frustrated, I ask, “What kind of project were you assisting Dr. Crompton with?” I remember the papers scattered on the floor were some kind of lab reports.

  Tracey frowns at me. This time I’ve changed the subject. I imagine he’s not amused anymore.

  Stokes brightens, wiping her tears. “He’s . . . he was reviewing the study status on a new drug. Well, it’s not a new drug, zahablan—it’s been around for a long time for blood pressure, but it’s new as a diabetes treatment, and it’s very promising.”

  “What stage is it?” Tracey asks, to my surprise not trying to get back on his previous track of their relationship, but following my train, despite any annoyance at my failure to follow instructions.

  “Human testing. We’re almost finished with a triple-blind study. We won’t be able to say for sure until the data is all in, but it looked really good on the cell and animal studies, and the cases we tried it on, and it’s UAB’s project. It would be a breakthrough if this works.”

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what happens to the research now that he’s dead?”

  She shrugs. “I’m sure they’ll give what he was doing to someone else. There are lots of people involved.”

  “Would that delay things moving forward?” I ask.

  She stares at me.

  “Are you suggesting he—that someone killed him?”

  He is dead, honey. I bite my tongue to keep from saying it aloud.

  “We’re just looking at all the angles,” Tracey says. “But please answer, if you can.”

  She considers, blotting the bottom of her eyes to keep eyeliner from running, a lost cause. “No, I don’t think it will delay any of the rese
arch or the trials.”

  “What happened after you gave him the insulin?” Tracey asks.

  She spreads her hands. “I left. I had classes.”

  “Did you go to them?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “There will be teachers and other students who saw you during that time.” He says it more as a statement than a question.

  “Of course.”

  “Has he ever had any kind of reaction to the insulin before?”

  “No, not that I know of. I mean I’ve only been . . . with him for six months. He never mentioned any problems, and he only started asking me to prepare his shots in the last few weeks when he got really busy.”

  “How long have you had an affair?” I ask, leaning forward.

  She bites her lower lip again. “Just the last two months. He was lonely. His wife is nuts.”

  “Have you met her?” Tracey asks.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know she’s mentally unstable?”

  “Benjamin told me. He says she is agoraphobic and thinks he’s been taken over by aliens.”

  Chapter Six

  “Ithink she’s lying,” I say, sipping my cup of hot tea and downing a ham-and-egg biscuit at my desk.

  “The pre-med student, Stokes?” Tracey leans back in his chair, which squeaks in protest. He’s a big guy, but not like Fish. There’s no fat on Tracey Lohan that I can see.

  The office is quiet, most of the detectives having received their cases and hightailed it out. Lieutenant Faraday is on the phone in her cubicle, a slightly larger space than the one Fish is allotted, though he has more detectives than Homicide has—another reason the higher-ups probably acquiesced to Faraday’s squawk about needing manpower.

  Tracey and I have interviewed several people, including two other women in the administration section of Crompton’s office, but I note that Tracey immediately assumed I meant Stokes was the one lying. Was that because he has suspicions too?

  “Yes, Laurie Stokes.” I watch his face carefully.