Stone and a Hard Place (15 page)

Stone stood behind a tree, shield and blending spells still up, watching the magical circle.

There were three of them.

Not just one. Three.

And what the hell were they doing?

They stood in a circle, hands clasped, and with his magical sight Stone could see that they were calling up a significant amount of power—but
why?

He stayed quiet, trying to still his breathing so they wouldn’t hear him, but they seemed completely occupied by what they were doing. He recalled the ruined beacon he’d passed (how had he missed it the first time?) that had probably alerted them to his presence in the first place—whatever they were trying to accomplish here, they didn’t want anyone to see it.

Were they somehow responsible for what was going on in the house?

He studied them. The woman looked vaguely familiar: tall, dark red hair, tattooed forearms. He didn’t think he’d ever met her, but he’d seen her in some context before. He recognized the circle construct, though: the three of them were definitely black mages. This was an odd ritual for their type to be doing—spells like the concussion blast were much more their style. This ritual didn’t even look like it was designed to hurt anyone. Instead, it appeared to be set up to study something. But what—

And then he understood.

They were doing the same thing he was: trying to figure out what was in the house. The tendrils of magic that carefully, subtly (since when were black mages that young subtle? Stone had never met one who was) creeping out and toward the house had been designed and constructed to gather information.

But why? How did they even know about the thing? Had Adelaide Bonham contacted someone else before she’d talked to him? Had Tommy told someone? Had they just somehow picked up on the magical emanations coming from the house and followed them back to their source?

He didn’t have time to worry about it now. The ritual was reaching its climax, and if he didn’t do something soon, they’d get what they wanted. If they then tried to come after him after they finished, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fight them off.

Or worse—if they tried to go after the ladies in the house, so they’d have the place to themselves without interference—

Stone gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let that happen. This wasn’t subtle and it was going to hurt like hell, but it had to be done. Gathering energy around him, pulling in the power from another of his crystals, the ring, and the amulet, he held it in place and waited. He still had two crystals in reserve, but if what he was trying to do failed, he’d need them to defend himself.

The trio of mages in the circle were chanting now, something low and guttural and not in any language Stone was familiar enough with to understand. They raised their hands and turned as one toward the direction of the house, their voices rising to a crescendo. Off in the distance a rumble came from the house.

Stone pulled a deep, shuddering breath, pointed his hands, and let loose with a column of magical energy that slammed down into the middle of the circle like a glowing hammer. The brazier went out, and one by one the candles’ enclosures popped and died. Screams echoed from the three mages as they were assaulted physically and mentally by feedback from the ritual’s abrupt destruction. One, a blond man, clutched his head and dropped like his strings had been cut. The other two staggered, flailing their arms and yelling out curses and cries of pain.

“Fuck!” yelled the dark-haired young man. “It’s Stone! Get him!”

Stone stared.
They know who I am?
This had just gotten even more interesting. But he didn’t have time to think about it now: even with his focus objects helping him, that spell had been a huge expenditure of energy. He could feel grayness closing around his mind and deliberately twisted his body to light up his ribs again. Bright pain lanced through him, but his head cleared instantly.
Can’t let them see weakness.
He steeled himself, trying to draw more power to him from his remaining crystals.

But the woman, it seemed, was wiser than the man. “No. Take Ol and let’s go!” She leaned down and hefted the unconscious (or worse) blond man’s shoulders and glared out into the woods. “This isn’t over, Stone! You’re a dead man!” She flung a random bolt of magical energy in his direction, then said something to her other friend. He picked up the blond man’s feet, and together they moved off into the forest with their burden.

Stone let them go. He didn’t have much more in the tank, and if he went after them and cornered them he might not be able to handle what they threw at him. He waited several minutes, doing his best to get his breath, then moved forward with the blending spell still up to examine the smoking remains of the three mages’ circle.

It was completely destroyed, blasted and dead. He was actually a little amazed by how much power he’d managed to pump into that spell, but it had done its job. It was impossible to even tell what the circle’s purpose had been, and its power had faded to nothing. He reached out and tried to touch the house again; its energies had gone back to what he’d noticed before: still there, but calm and unruffled. Resting, perhaps.

Waiting.

His right arm clutched around his middle, hunched over like an old man, he staggered back up toward the house. He fell to his knees twice but kept going, driven on by sheer force of will. He couldn’t pass out here on the grounds. Adelaide and Iona were counting on him.

They were waiting for him, huddled on the couch together with big round terrified eyes as he opened the door to Edgar’s study. When they got a look at him they both gasped. “Oh my God,” Iona exclaimed, getting up to hurry to him. “Dr. Stone!”

He let her help him to a chair, dropping into it on the last of his energy. For a moment he just sat there with his eyes closed, struggling to get a deep breath.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Iona stated, moving toward the phone.

Stone shook his head. “No…” he whispered. “I’ll—be all right.”

“But you’re
bleeding!
” Adelaide protested.

That was news. He reached up and touched his face, feeling wetness around his nose and mouth. His fingers came away red. “It’s all right,” he said, trying but not succeeding to make his voice louder. Nosebleeds and such were the unfortunate side effects of channeling too much magical energy at once. Normally he would have been fine with the focus objects doing the heavy lifting, but his body was so exhausted that even they hadn’t been enough. “Just a—tissue or something, if you’d be so kind. I’ll be fine.” He coughed a couple of times, which was a mistake. He hoped none of the blood was coming from that instead of simple magical exhaustion.

Iona looked at him fearfully. “Dr. Stone—is it safe to leave the room?”

“Did you find—” Adelaide began.

“I think so,” he said, nodding. “It’s—still here, but I don’t think it was the problem tonight. Not—directly, anyway.” It was so hard to talk, to form coherent thoughts around the grayness.

Iona disappeared into the little bathroom and returned with two wet washcloths. Refusing to listen to his protests, she used one to wipe the blood from his face, then urged him to lean back in the chair and put the other one on his forehead. “How’s that?” she asked, all nurse now.

“Better. Very nice. Thank you.”

Adelaide scooted over closer to Stone’s chair and put her hand on his arm. “Dr. Stone—what did you mean by ‘not directly’?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, trying to gather his thoughts together sufficiently that he didn’t say anything he’d have to explain—or regret—later. “There—is something in the house,” he murmured. “It’s—potentially powerful, and potentially dangerous. But it’s—still weak now. Dormant. I think it’s—trying to draw power.”

“Power...for what?”

“Don’t know yet. I found some other ma—people—on your grounds. They were—trying to do the same thing I was. Find out about whatever it was and what it could do.”

“Other people?” Iona was confused. “At this time of night?”

“Tell me—” Stone whispered, still looking at Adelaide. “Did the house—shift, or moan, or whatever, about twenty minutes ago? Like it had before?”

The two women both nodded. “It did. But then it just—stopped.”

Stone grunted wearily.

“You know why, don’t you?” Adelaide asked.

He nodded. “These—people—were...well, let’s just say they were disturbing it as they tried to find out about it. Sort of like—poking it with a stick.”

“What—what happened to them?” Adelaide glanced toward the door. “Are they gone?”

“For now, yes. I don’t know if they’ll come back. I don’t know what they wanted from it.” He reached up and rubbed the washcloth around on his forehead, closing his eyes. “It might be best if you hired on a bit more temporary security, though, just to be safe.”

Adelaide was silent. When Stone opened his eyes to see why, he discovered she was staring at him with an odd expression. “Dr. Stone—do you mind if I ask you a question?”

He shrugged, just a little. “Go ahead.”

“What...
are
you, exactly? You’re more than just a professor at Stanford, aren’t you?”

Now they were both staring at him. He took a ragged breath and let it out slowly. “It’s—hard to explain,” he said at last. “But yes. I am.”

“It
is
real, isn’t it? The supernatural? This thing that’s in my house? And you...
deal
with this kind of thing, don’t you?”

He gave her a small, pained smile. “I try to.”

She squeezed his hand again. “I won’t ask you to tell me your secrets. I’m grateful to have you on our side, whatever you are.” Pause, and then her voice took on a tentative, frightened edge. “Do you—do you think this thing will stay dormant? If these people are gone, I mean? Before tonight, I was the only one who noticed it—well, except for you, of course. Do you think that will stay true?”

Stone frowned. “What are you getting at, Mrs. Bonham?” He could tell from her tone that there was something she wasn’t saying.

She and Iona exchanged glances. “Well...” she said, “It’s just that—I’ve got a very important event that’s supposed to be happening here next week. And it’s too late to cancel it.”

Stone closed his eyes. “Event? What kind of event?”

When she spoke after a moment’s pause, she sounded like a schoolgirl preparing to deliver a bad report card to a stern father. “It’s…a charity function. A ball. I donate a great deal of money to charity every year, and we have the ball here each year around this time. It’s got a Christmas theme.” When Stone didn’t say anything she pressed on: “We raise money for homeless and abused children, Dr. Stone. The ball and the silent auction generate considerable amounts of money for the charities. It would be a terrible blow if we had to cancel this late.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Stone asked without opening his eyes. He realized that the question sounded abrupt and somewhat harsh, but he felt terrible and his sense of tact, even in the face of kindly old ladies, was getting a bit frayed around the edges.

“Well...it didn’t really seem relevant at the time,” she said. She scooted a little farther away from him on the couch as if afraid he might snap at her. “I mean—everyone was telling me that all of this was in my head, and no one believed me. I thought—well, maybe there was a chance that they were right.”

He sighed. “And you can’t reschedule it? Change the venue? Anything?”

She shook her head. “Not this late, I’m afraid. The invitations are all sent out, and this time of year everything’s all booked up. We’ve already taken in thousands in pledges.”

Stone didn’t answer.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ll cancel it if you tell me it’s not safe, but the children—”

He sighed again, scrubbing at his hair. Nothing was ever easy. “How late can you cancel it, if you have to?”

“Uh—I suppose up until the day before, though that would obviously not be desirable since people travel to attend.”

“And it’s in a week?”

“A week from last night, yes.” She watched him, her expression intent, hopeful, and frightened.

At last he nodded. “All right, then. I’ve got about five days to figure out what the hell this thing is and deal with it.” He started to get up, but his ribs were having none of it. He fell back in the chair with grumble of frustration. “I’ll start tomorrow.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Fuck, fuck,
fuck!
” Miguel was practically yelling out the open window as he drove the black SUV at breakneck speed up 280 toward San Francisco.

Trin, in the back seat with Oliver’s head in her lap, glared at him. “Shut up, Mig. We’ll get through this. And Stone’s going to pay.” She looked down. Oliver was still unconscious, his complexion gray and clammy. He rolled his head back and forth in her lap, muttering something she couldn’t understand.

“Damn fucking straight he’ll pay,” Miguel agreed. “Soon as we get Oliver someplace where he can get some help, I’m going back down there and—”

“No, you’re not.” Trin’s eyes were hard. “We’re sticking with the plan. We didn’t get everything we could from the ritual, but we got enough to start with, and we’re not going to lose our one chance because you want revenge. What you’re going to do is what you’re good at—research. You know where the house is now, and you know what we got from tonight. Take that and see what you can come up with.”

“But Stone—”

“Don’t worry. We’ll deal with him once we’ve got that thing under control. And besides, I don’t think he got a good look at us. We can use that. I think I’m going to give little Ethan another call soon, and see what we can do for each other.”

When Stone arrived home at a little after eleven on Sunday morning, Megan was gone. She’d left him a note asking him to give her a call when he got in; the wording was more abrupt and chilly than her usual chatty style.

All he wanted to do right now was go upstairs, crawl into bed, and sleep for another seven or eight hours, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t have time.

Iona had insisted on letting her check him over after he’d nearly passed out in the chair. She’d found the cracked ribs—he’d been right, he now had another one in the back to add to the two in the front he’d started with—but he’d convinced her that the injuries had all come from the incident at Stanford. That had been the first either she or Adelaide had heard about that, and he managed to deflect them from too much further inquiry by giving them the short version of what had happened. Then he’d feigned exhaustion (it hadn’t taken much feigning) and Iona had hustled him off to a spare bedroom to sleep for a few hours before she let him go. He slipped himself a pain pill when she wasn’t looking and managed to sleep from around four until eight.

Before he’d left he’d had the presence of mind to ask Adelaide if she had any books, diaries, newspaper clippings, or anything similar about the history of the house; she’d said she thought there might be some old things in the attic but obviously she couldn’t look for them herself and she wouldn’t ask Iona to go up there, but he was welcome to do so himself as long as he wasn’t afraid of spiders. He thanked her and told her he’d be back to do just that. He also asked her to try to remember anything she could about the house: anything her late husband had told her, family anecdotes, anything at all. She promised she would.

Finally, he’d asked her not to mention the events of the previous night to anyone, including Tommy and the rest of her staff, and to make sure she hired her supplemental security people from a reputable agency. “Do you think those horrible people will come back?” she’d asked, fearful.

“I don’t know. I hope not. But let’s be safe, shall we?”

Home now, Stone showered, changed clothes, and contemplated his next move. He could go back to Adelaide’s and hunt through her attic, but he decided to leave that for tomorrow after he saw what Stefan Kolinsky managed to come up with. He had another question for Stefan tomorrow as well: whether he might have some idea who the three young black mages were. There weren’t that many mages of any moral persuasion in the Bay Area—possibly a couple dozen if you stretched the definition hard—and old Stefan had his finger on the pulse of the black-magic scene far more than Stone himself did. But he couldn’t do that until tomorrow.

He called Megan; she wasn’t home, so he left a message that he was fine, apologized for disappearing on her, and told her he’d try calling back later. He also said that he quite understood if she didn’t want to see him today. He hung up the phone, stared at it for a moment, then picked it up and punched in Ethan’s number.

He expected the machine to pick it up and was surprised when it was answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Ethan. It’s Alastair Stone. How are you?”

There was a long pause. “Uh, hi, Dr. Stone. I’m fine. How are you?”

It wasn’t at all hard to tell from the boy’s tone that Stone’s had not been the call he’d been expecting. “Much better, thank you. How’s your mum doing?”

“Still not so good. She’s still in the hospital, and they don’t know when she’ll be able to come home.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. If there’s anything I can do—”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. But I’m fine. Really. Getting along okay.” Pause, and then: “Did you need something, Dr. Stone?”

“No—Just checking in to see if you might want to be getting back to your lessons tomorrow. No rush—if we wait too long we might need to go back over a few things, but that’s easily done. Have you been practicing your levitation spell?”

“Yeah. I’m getting pretty good at it.” He sounded proud of himself. “Uh—sure, we can start up again tomorrow. Mom’s bad, but they tell me she’s pretty stable right now. I can work lessons around visiting hours, if that’s okay.”

“Of course. Just let me know when you can be here, and I’ll arrange it.”

“I will. I’ll call you tomorrow. Uh—I have to go now, though. I’m making lunch and I think something’s starting to boil over.”

“By all means, then. Take care, Ethan. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

Ethan sighed and hung up the phone. He wouldn’t have answered it if he’d known it was Stone—for whatever reason that he still couldn’t quite articulate, he still didn’t want to talk to the mage. He felt stupid, though:
Yeah, sure. She’s gonna call you. Dream on, geek-boy. You probably made a fool of yourself Saturday night and you’re lucky they even bothered dragging your sorry ass back to your car. You’ll probably never hear from her again. I bet they’re all laughing at you.

Even with all of that, he was reluctant to leave the house to go visit his mother, which made him feel even more guilty. She was asleep when he arrived and he didn’t wake her—she was asleep a lot lately. Part of him wanted desperately for her to wake up, to be her old self again, so he could confide all this to her. A near lifetime of being all each other had made her unusually adept at sorting out Ethan’s snarled emotions, his moods, his confusion about wanting to do the right thing but always managing to screw it up somehow.

He thought about Stone as he sat there next to her, listening to the beeping of the machines and the low distant murmur of nurses’ and doctors’ and visitors’ conversations. Maybe he
could
talk to Stone about all of this. The mage had been a teenage boy once—maybe he’d understand, if Ethan just gave him a chance. After all, that was part of taking an apprentice: you took responsibility for more than just their magical development. A lot of apprentices, even nowadays, went as far as to move in with their masters to make the teaching relationship more convenient, especially if the apprentice didn’t have a job or another place to live. That implied a certain amount of pseudo-parental guidance. Hell, the man was a professor
in his other life—he must have at least some
experience dealing with young people.

Just tell him everything
, said a voice in the back of his head that sounded uncomfortably like his mother’s
. Just tell him about Trina and going to San Francisco and watching the magical ritual. Tell him you got caught up in the moment and you won’t do it again. That’s all it’ll take. He might yell at you a little, but then he’ll forgive you and forget about it and you can move on.

That was, he realized abruptly there in the hospital, why he was so reluctant to go back and resume his magical training.

I don’t deserve it. I lied to him, I didn’t follow his rules—and he’s going to know right away as soon as he sees me. And all because I couldn’t stop thinking about Trina and the way she looked at me. Some things are just more important than that. I mean, seriously, you’re gonna give up the chance at learning magic because you can’t stop thinking with your dick?

He sat up straighter, gently taking his mother’s hand. “I’ve gotta tell him, Mom,” he whispered. Standing, he leaned over and kissed her warm forehead, pushing her hair off her face. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I love you.”

He felt like a load had been lifted from his mind as he drove home. He still didn’t know if it was the best decision he could make, but he knew it was the right one. He’d call Stone as soon as he got in—maybe even meet with him tonight, if he was willing.

He shoved his way into the apartment, tossed his backpack on the sofa, and headed straight for the phone. He wanted to do this before he lost his nerve.

The red light on the answering machine was blinking.

He almost—almost—didn’t listen to it.
Don’t do it. Call Dr. Stone first. Set up the meeting, so you can’t get out of it. That way, even if she—

He punched the button.

“Ethan? It’s me. You there? Pick up if you are, okay? No? Okay, well, I just wanted to say I had a great time on Friday night—I hope you did, too. I’d like to see you again, if you want. Tonight, maybe? Don’t worry—nothing you’re uncomfortable with. I just thought we could talk a little. If you want to, meet me at Printer’s Inc. on Castro in Mountain View tonight at eight. I’ve got an errand I need to run down that way anyway. I’ll wait till nine. Hope you get this and I see you there. Bye!”

Ethan swallowed. She sounded so
animated, so happy. Like she was actually looking
forward
to meeting him. Maybe he’d completely misjudged what had happened Friday night.

I should call Dr. Stone.

He sat there, staring at the phone for a long time and not moving, his mind in turmoil.
I should call him, and I should just not show up tonight.

But she was going to come all the way down from San Francisco just to see him. How rude would it be for him not to even show up?

Damn damn damn!
Why did this all have to be so
complicated?

You could call him and tell him, but say that you’re just going to meet her to be polite. That you’re going to tell her you can’t see her anymore.

He
was
going to do that, wasn’t he?

“Arrgh!” he growled aloud, flinging his backpack across the room where it slammed into a wall.

Look
, said the voice, reasonably.
You’re going to see Dr. Stone tomorrow. You’re planning to tell him everything, right? So why not just wait until then? Go meet with Trina tonight, see what she wants, and then you can tell her that Stone doesn’t want you hanging out with her anymore. He doesn’t have to know you were going to tell him today. He won’t know unless you tell him. Remember, Miguel said mages can’t read minds?

He fell back against the couch. He had to admit that did
sound like a reasonable course of action, and it still meant that he would tell Stone.

Just tomorrow instead of today.