Stone and a Hard Place (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Stone tried calling Megan early Sunday evening. This time she answered.

“Alastair. I got your message. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you still speaking to me?”

There was a pause. “I don’t know yet.” She sounded more resigned than angry, though.

“Want to go get something to eat? I still owe you a dinner.”

“Sure. Nothing too fancy, though. I think we need to talk about this a little more.”

They didn’t say too much over dinner, which was at a quaint little bistro in downtown Palo Alto. Stone asked neutral questions about Megan’s day, and she answered them just as neutrally. He felt like he was picking his way through a field of eggs filled with poisonous spiders. Finally she looked at him over her wineglass. “What’s going on, Alastair?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

She shook her head. “Something’s going on—it has been for a while now, but I can’t figure out what it is. I’m feeling like there’s part of your life that you’ve walled off from me and won’t let me near.”

Stone sighed. This conversation was inevitable at some point in all of his relationships; it was the reason his last three girlfriends had decided to pursue other interests. It was always cordial and they always remained friends, but the results, up until now, had been predictable. Usually it had happened sooner, though: his previous record since moving to the Bay Area from his home in Surrey had been four months. “Megan—”

She held up a hand. “No, Alastair. Let me say this. I’ve been thinking about it all day.” She paused, taking a sip of wine. “Look—I know what you’re like. I know you’ve got your own things going on, and you’re not the type to be joined at the hip with anybody. I’m that way, too. That’s why we get along so well. But—” Another deep breath. “I hate feeling like you’ve got this—I don’t know, almost like a secret life that I don’t know anything about. If you were anyone else, I’d think you were running around on me.”

“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted,” Stone murmured.

She gave him a look he couldn’t quite pin down, but he shut up nonetheless. “I don’t think that. But what I
do
think is that I’m concerned about some of the things around you. Like the fact that your basement is locked up, and you won’t ever let me see what’s in there.”

He was silent. There wasn’t anything he could say that would make things anything but worse. Instead, he waited, watching her with a neutral expression.

Finally, she said, “I just don’t know what to think about that. I mean, yeah, it’s possible you’re a serial killer or a vampire or something and you’re using the basement to stash bodies, but that’s really kind of crazy. The thing is, I can’t really think of anything it could be that’s not—
wrong.
” She looked at him. “Why else would you keep it such a secret? I don’t want to intrude on your privacy. But I can’t help but think that one day the police are going to show up with a camera crew and they’ll find—something horrible down there.”

“Always the quiet ones,” he agreed. Then, before she could glare at him, he waved it off. “Megan, listen. I know you don’t believe me and there’s no way I can prove it to you, but there’s nothing nefarious going on in my basement. No bodies, no enormous pornography stash, no smuggled illegal contraband or clandestine collections of Barbie dolls and stuffed animals.”

“Can you tell me
anything
about it? Anything at all?”

He thought about it for a moment. “It’s—sort of a workroom. A laboratory.”

“Oh, God...” A little color drained from her face. “Alastair, are you cooking drugs down there?”

“No!” His answer was instant and shocked. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know
what
to think! And then last night, you got that phone call and left in the middle of the night—are you in trouble? Are you mixed up with organized crime or something? Is that why you thought those guys who beat you up were after you specifically?”

He glanced around to see if anyone else was paying attention to them, then reached out and touched her arm. “Megan. This is all fairly absurd, but if it will make you feel any better: I give you my word that I’m not involved in organized crime, I’m not brewing drugs or any other illegal substance—in fact, I give you my word I’m not doing anything illegal down there.” That much was true. How could magic be illegal if nobody in mainstream society even knew enough about it to make laws?

She sighed, looking down at her hands. “Where did you go last night? Can you tell me that?”

“I went to Los Gatos. To Tommy’s aunt’s place.”

Her eyes came up: she was clearly surprised, both that she’d gotten an answer at all and that it wasn’t anything close to what she expected. “The old lady in the mansion?”

He nodded.

“But—why?”

“I’d given her my card—told her to call me if anything strange happened.”

“At one thirty in the morning?”

“Well,” he said, quirking a smile, “I didn’t exactly put a time boundary on it.”

“What—did she want?”

“She was frightened. She heard odd noises in the house, and she wanted me to check them out.”

“At one thirty. In the morning.” She poured herself another glass of wine. “So—did you find out what was causing them?”

“Sort of. I’ll be needing to go up there again. Possibly several times in the next few days. She’s got some sort of huge charity thing happening soon, and she wants to make sure this is sorted before then. I told her I’d help her.”

She looked at him like she wasn’t sure he wasn’t putting her on. “Alastair...I know she believes in this occult stuff, but—
you
don’t. You’re humoring her, I get it. She sounds like a nice old lady. But to spend this much time—Does Tommy know about this?”

“Not about last night. And I’d prefer it remain that way.”

“You’re not going to tell him?”

“Not yet, no.”

She frowned. “But—is that right? She’s an old lady. He’s her relative. You’re just his friend that he called in to convince her that her house wasn’t haunted.” Tilting her head, she said, “He’s going to be pissed when he finds out, you know.”

“I’ll have to take that chance,” he said. He leaned forward. “Megan, here’s the bottom line: I like what we have. I hope you do, too. I’d be very happy if it continued. But if we’re going to have anything together, you’re going to have to trust me on some things. There are parts of my life I can’t share with you. I promise you, none of them are illegal, or nefarious, or harmful. They shouldn’t affect you at all, beyond the occasional late-night phone call. But they’re things I’ve made commitments to long before I met you. All I can do is ask you to understand that, and outside of it, I’ll do my best to make you happy.”

She looked down into her wineglass, for a long time, then back up. The candlelight flickered in her eyes as she met his. “Nothing illegal. Nothing dangerous?”

He shrugged minimally with a rueful smile. “Nothing illegal. I can’t promise the other bit, though. Not completely. All I can promise is that I’ll be as careful as I can.”

She continued to watch him, unblinking. “I’ve got it. You’re in the CIA. Or—no, wait—you’re
Batman
.”

He chuckled, feeling the ice finally breaking and the spider-filled eggs beginning to recede. “You’ve figured it out, my dear. Always knew you were brilliant. Why do you think I insist on doing my own laundry?”

“Mrs. Olivera does your laundry,” she pointed out. “Hmm...maybe I’ll bribe her to look for gray and black tights.”

“Hey, If that’s what you’re into, I’m willing to give it a go.”

She shook her head, her face getting serious again. “All right, Alastair. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I like what we have too, and I don’t want to be one of those women who drives a man off by being too suspicious. But just be aware that this is bothering me, this not knowing. I’ll deal with it, but I won’t like it.”

“That’s about the best I can hope for,” he said softly. He reached out and took her hand. “You’re really quite amazing, Megan. Did you know that?”

“I did, yeah.” She smiled. “Come on—let’s go back to my place tonight. That way I won’t be tempted to drug you and pick the lock to your secret basement lab while you’re sleeping. Unless you’re worried that the old lady is going to call you back again.”

“Just this once, let’s live dangerously.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Trin was waiting for Ethan when he arrived at Printer’s Inc. She was sitting at a table in the back with a cup of coffee, leafing through a book. She smiled as he approached. “Hey,” she said. “I was afraid you might not come.” She waved him to the chair across from her.

He sat down, smiling back. The book she was reading, he could see now, was called
Magick in Theory and Practice.
She grinned when she caught him looking at it. “Crowley had the right idea,” she said, tossing it aside. “But he didn’t take it far enough. I think he felt inadequate that he didn’t really have the Power. You want something? Cup of coffee?”

He shook his head. “Thanks, I’m fine.”

“’Kay, cool.” She sipped her coffee. “Glad you could join in with us on Saturday. That was pretty awesome, wasn’t it? One of our better ones, actually. I hope you got something out of it.”

“I did,” he said, remembering how it had felt to have the magic coursing through him, even with the small role he’d had in the ritual. It was like being truly alive for the first time in his life. “It was great. I hope I’ll get to do more stuff like that with Dr. Stone.”

“Oh, you will,” she said. “He’ll show you the ritual stuff. That’s pretty standard for most teachers, because you use it so often for so many things. But it’s always better with more people. They feed on each other, pump in more energy—when you get enough people all on the same magical wavelength, it’s like a big old mystical orgy.” She grinned at him, her eyebrows raising suggestively. Her eyes were very green and very beautiful.

Ethan swallowed.
Tell her now. Tell her you can’t see her anymore.
“So, uh—what brings you all the way down here? Seems like a long drive just to have coffee.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to see you. You kind of remind me of myself when I was an apprentice. You know—impatient. Always wanting more.”

“I shouldn’t be that way,” he said.

“Why not? Mages should always seek knowledge and new techniques and new ways to use their powers. That’s what we’re all about.” She leaned back and crossed one leg over her knee. She was wearing very tight, very ripped jeans. “But that’s okay if you don’t want to talk about magic. Like I said before, I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

Tell her,
said the voice in his head.
Tell her that you’ve got to go. She just gave you an out—use it.

He snorted. “Don’t worry about it. I
do
want to know more. That was incredible on Saturday night. It’ll be hard to go back to levitating coins and stuff after that.”

“Well,” she said, rubbing the back of her head with her hand as if thinking something over, “You know, there’s really no reason why you can’t. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but if you really want to range out a little bit, expand your horizons—we might be able to help you out with that. Dr. Stone wouldn’t even have to know about it. But only if you want it,” she added hastily. “There’s no way I’m going to get between a master and his apprentice unless he asks for it.”

“We?” he asked. “You and Miguel and Oliver?”

“Yeah. We’ve been working together for a long time now. But I’ll be honest with you—we might have room for one more in our circle, once you’re up to speed. You did a really good job helping us channel the power the other night—I can already tell you’ve got the talent for it. You just need the training.”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down.
Stop it, you idiot. Stop looking at her. Just tell her and get out of here before you end up in big trouble
. “You guys seem to have a pretty good group going. You and Oliver—”

She laughed. “Oliver and me? Seriously, you thought that? Oliver’s a good fuck, that’s all. Pure animal attraction. And Miguel—well, if you didn’t already figure out that he’s into outies, not innies, then you weren’t paying attention.”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “Hard to miss.”

“Besides,” she said, reaching out to run a black-polished nail down his forearm, “You’re not one of those jealous types, are you, Ethan?”

“Nah,” he said, too quickly. Somewhere down below the level of the table, his body was making itself very distracting.
Did she really say that? I didn’t just hear what I wanted to hear?

“Hey,” she said, “You know—you could really help us out, if you wanted to.”

“Me? How?” Despite his hormonal flip-flops, his suspicion ramped up a bit.

“Well, we’ve been working on a new ritual for a while now, but Oliver got sick yesterday and he can’t do much until he’s better. Don’t know if Dr. Stone told you this yet, but it gets a lot harder to channel magic when you’re sick or hurt. Something about the body pathways or some shit like that. I don’t care about the details—if I wanted to study anatomy I’d be a doctor instead of a mage. All I know is that it doesn’t work right.”

“Sick? What’s wrong with him?”

She shrugged. “Bad cold or something. He’ll be fine, but he’s too sick to sling the spells. We could use somebody to stand in for him for a couple of days if you’re interested. Otherwise we’ll have to wait till he’s back. And before you say anything about not knowing enough,” she added, holding up a hand to forestall him, “It’s okay. You don’t have to know a lot. Miguel and I can handle the detailed stuff. We just need you to help channel the power, like you did the other night. Think you can do that?”

Damn it, you idiot, tell her you can’t. You’re gonna go talk to Dr. Stone tomorrow. Don’t make this worse!
“Uh—sure. Depending on when, though.”

“Tomorrow night? You can take BART up—we’re not far from the station.” She smiled encouragingly. “Up to you, Ethan. I’m not going to force you. But I think you’ll really like it. And really get something out of it.”

He almost said no. He almost got up and walked out. But then he got another look at her—her eyes, her smile, her body—“Sure. Sounds like fun.”

Her smile turned to a grin. “Excellent.” She stroked his arm again, her fingers lingering. “I knew I could count on you, Ethan.” She stood up, and he thought she was going to leave. Instead, she said with a look of mischief and something more, “C’mon. I know a much better place to hang out than here.” Pause: “If you want to.”

“Yeah,” he said, getting up. “I want to.”