by R. L. King
The touch of a friend, which was exactly what he needed right now.
She got him down to his shorts and looked him over with a healer’s eye, then shifted to magical sight and scanned him. “Looks like you might be in mild shock. But I don’t see any signs of anything too bad—no internal injuries, and you’re right, nothing broken. Just bruised and banged up quite a bit. You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
“No. I was hanging upside-down from the seat belt when we landed.”
“Okay. Let me see what I can do for you. Hang on and be quiet so I can concentrate.”
He was happy to obey. It felt good to be back in his own home, safe behind his wards with the prize he’d gone out to secure. He could finally let himself relax.
“Doc?”
He blinked as she gently shook his shoulder. “Did I fall asleep?”
She smiled faintly. “Yeah. Not surprised. It took me a while to fix you up, but you should be feeling better now. I think you did some of the work, though—whatever that weird new thing you’ve got now is, I mean.”
She’d covered him with a light blanket, and Raider was now curled on his chest. He did feel better, too—the lightheadedness was gone, and so was most of the pain. He sat up experimentally. According to the mantel clock, he’d been asleep for twenty minutes. “You are good, Verity. You’ve even improved, I think.”
“Maybe. Haven’t had that much chance to practice lately. Most of my other friends don’t make a habit of getting put through manglers as often as you do.”
“Well…I’m glad to be of assistance as your training dummy, then.” He sat up the rest of the way, gently tipping Raider off, and pulled on his jeans and shirt.
“Don’t move around too much yet. You’re still not a hundred percent. You should get some sleep.”
“Yes, I suppose I should.” Was he going to be that lucky? Had she been so focused on his injuries that she’d forgotten about the rest?
“But first we need to talk.” She rose from the sofa edge and dropped into a chair directly across from him. Her expression was sober.
“Talk?”
“Yeah.”
“About what?” That’s it—play dumb. Because that’s always worked so well before…
“About you. And how you got home this fast.”
Damn. He sighed.
“And please, Doc, don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about. Unless you were lying to me, you called me from Nebraska. The closest portal to there is in Chicago. And there’s no way I know that you could have gotten from Nebraska to Chicago in forty-five minutes. Especially not in the shape you were in.”
“Verity—”
“Not to mention it would have taken you at least half an hour to get home from A Passage to India. But yet you managed to get here before I did.”
He stroked Raider in his lap and didn’t answer.
Her eyes narrowed. “So…were you really in Nebraska when you called me?”
“Yes.” He didn’t look at her.
“I want to know about what happened. Did you get what you were looking for? How did you get into an accident? But even more than that, I’d like to know the answer to this question.”
Again, he said nothing.
“Is this something else you can’t tell me? Like why you can’t close the rifts? Is this related to the rifts?”
“No. It’s got nothing to do with…that.” Even now, Kolinsky’s oath wouldn’t let him say the words.
“So, you’re not…I don’t know…finding more of them and somehow using them to travel between?”
He glanced up. “That’s a brilliant thought, actually. But…no.”
“So, you’re saying that as far as you know, this whole business with the thing from the collection and Mr. McGrath and all this isn’t related to the rifts at all?”
“Yes. No. It’s not related at all.”
She let her breath out. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this. I’ve been suspicious for a while that something new is up with you. Can you tell me anything? I know—you don’t have to. I don’t have any right to ask, except I’m still your apprentice, even if it’s not official anymore, and I thought we trusted each other. I hope you’ll tell me something.”
He thought about Eddie. He’d told him—and by extension, Ward—part of his secret. And Verity was every bit as good and loyal a friend as they were. He sighed. He wished he could tell his friends everything. He was tired of keeping secrets from them. But that wasn’t possible. Not yet, anyway.
“All right. Honestly, this is my fault. I haven’t been as careful as I should have been, and my friends are all too bloody bright for their own good.”
She chuckled. “Hey, you did pick us.”
“Yes, that’s my fault too.” He looked her over fondly, still stroking Raider, who was now purring. “The truth is, I’ve got a new magical travel method. It lets me move around more easily than before.”
“What do you mean, more easily?” She leaned forward, looking every bit as interested as Eddie had been.
“I can’t tell you everything. But I can go places without a portal now. Some places. Not everywhere.”
She gasped, her eyes widening. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“How did you learn to do that? Who taught you?” She sharpened her gaze. “Wait. Don’t tell me, let me guess. It was Harrison, wasn’t it?”
Stone didn’t smile, but he wanted to. “I…can’t say.”
She snorted. “I should have known. This is some extradimensional thing, isn’t it? It’s related to wherever that other place is that you went for your training?”
He looked back down at Raider. Sometimes the best way to avoid having to lie to friends is to let them think they’d figured out the answer on their own.
“That’s…amazing.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her tone was tentative. “Do you…think you could teach me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said gently. “There’s…more to it than you know. Things I can’t tell you.”
“I was afraid of that.” She sounded resigned. Then she looked up again. “You said you can go some places. And one of those is Nebraska?”
He shrugged. “I can’t exactly choose the places.”
“I guess not—because I can’t imagine you’d choose that one.” She got up and paced. “Doc, I have to tell you, it’s hard being your friend sometimes. You know I’m always gonna love you, but…it just seems like you’re keeping so much from me—from all of us—lately. That’s hard to deal with, sometimes.”
“I know it is.” He stood too, and pulled her into a hug. “I know it is. I hope you’ll forgive me for being such a prat.”
She returned the hug, squeezing hard, then backed off. “You know I do. Even with all the secrets, you’re still more interesting than pretty much anybody else I know. But just try to remember it’s tough for us, okay? And maddening. And frustrating.”
“I will.”
She jammed her hands into her pockets. “I should go—I still have that thing with Scuro tonight. I told him I might have to skip it because I didn’t know what you’d need, but if you’re doing okay now I shouldn’t bail on it. The client’s coming all the way from Zimbabwe for her tattoo, and I’m sure she’d prefer it to be as pain-free as possible.”
“Yes, of course you should go. I’ll be fine. Just going to get some sleep, I think.”
“You do that. I healed you, but your body still needs rest.”
“I promise, Doctor.”
“Good.”
“And thank you again for your ministrations. I’m very lucky you’re as good as you are.”
She turned away, then back. “Oh—a couple more quick things you didn’t tell me, before I go.”
He tensed. “What?”
“Did you get what you were looking for? The auction catalog?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good, at least. And how d
id you get into a rollover accident in a cab?”
Stone thought about the illusionary figure in the road and the gunman from the car. “It’s certainly looking like more people are interested in our little puzzle than I’d originally thought. And at least some of them are willing to kill to get what they want.”
23
Stone tried to sleep, and actually managed to do it for almost three hours before the lure of the catalog, combined with a lingering fear that somebody would figure out a way to get past his wards and steal it, dragged him from his bed.
It wasn’t even late. His sense of time had been thoroughly messed up by everything that had happened over the last few hours, but in California it was only nine-thirty. He padded downstairs for a cup of coffee, then shoved the rest of the papers and his laptop from the middle of his desk and unlocked the drawer.
With everything that had occurred, he still half-expected the catalog not to be there. But there it was, right where he’d put it, coffee stain, ragged pages and all. He spread it out, gave Raider a gentle magical nudge to keep him away from it, and began paging through.
To his disappointment, it wasn’t as helpful as he’d hoped. He’d been picturing something similar to the one for the Drummond auction, with photos (albeit grainy, faded black-and-white ones) and detailed descriptions for each item. Some of those did exist—a quick flip-through revealed perhaps a third of the pieces had photos and write-ups—but the other two-thirds had to make do with a heading and a small paragraph of text. There had been a lot of items in the auction.
He wished Jason, Verity, and Amber were here, or Eddie and Ward. Dividing the catalog, with everyone taking a subset of the entries, would make things go faster. Did whoever had stolen the other copy have people to help him? If he was part of Portas Justitiae, odds were good he did, not to mention that he’d had several hours’ head start.
Quit whinging and get on with it, he told himself angrily. If he didn’t get through it all tonight, he could enlist his friends tomorrow.
He didn’t allow himself to think about what might happen if, after all the trouble he’d gone through to get it, he didn’t find what he was looking for in the catalog.
He’d made it a few more pages in, squinting at the tiny, blurred print until his headache threatened to return, when his phone rang.
He picked it up, certain it had to either be Verity or, if she’d told them about this evening, Jason and Amber.
The number showed up as blocked. Neither of them, then.
“Yes, hello?”
“Stone?”
He recognized Leo Blum’s voice—but he sounded odd. “Hello, Blum. Is something wrong?”
“Uh…not sure. I need to talk to you.”
Stone frowned. “Well, here I am. What’s going on?”
“In person.”
Uh oh. “Tonight? I’m sort of in the middle of—”
“Doesn’t have to be tonight if you don’t want. But it should probably be soon.”
This wasn’t looking good. “What’s this about? Can you tell me anything?”
Blum hesitated. “I’d rather not. I don’t think anybody can trace this call, but I don’t want to take a chance.”
Stone looked at the catalog and sighed. He’d waited this long—he could wait until tomorrow. “All right. Tell me where to meet you and give me an hour.”
“There’s a little coffee shop called The Mean Bean on Hyde. I’ll be in the back. Thanks, Stone. Oh—and if you’ve got a way to disguise yourself, might want to use it.”
The line went dead.
“Well…” Stone murmured to Raider. “Life is nothing if not interesting, is it?”
Blum was already at the shop when Stone arrived, disguise amulet once again active, after moving the catalog to Desmond’s vault along with the pyramid.
The detective was sipping a cup of coffee and doing a good job of not looking nervous—at least until Stone got a look at his aura. The place was fairly busy at ten-thirty, mostly full of college students and groups of twentysomethings.
Stone got his own cup and took the seat across from him. “All right—what’s going on?” He used his normal voice so Blum would know it was him.
Blum’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Nice disguise. Wish I could do that—it would help out a lot in my job. Anyway, thanks for coming, and sorry to drag you out so late. I guess this could have waited, but…”
“I’m here now, so tell me what’s on your mind.”
The detective cocked his head. “You sound a little off, but I can’t put my finger on why.”
“Long night.”
“Yeah, okay. None of my business. That’s fine.” He sipped his coffee, leaned back, and met Stone’s gaze. “I got a visit tonight.”
“A visit? From whom?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know exactly. They didn’t introduce themselves.” He leaned closer. “And I gotta tell you before we go on—they told me not to tell you we talked.”
Stone tensed. “Is that right?” He shifted to magical sight and glanced around the room, pausing at each of the groups. Nobody’s aura looked agitated, and no one appeared to be paying any attention to them. Almost without thinking, he cast the “cone of silence” spell around their table.
“Yeah. They were waitin’ for me when I got back to my place. Wanted to go for a drive.”
“And you let that happen?”
Blum let out a slow breath. “I’m pretty sure they were some kind of law enforcement. They didn’t give me names, but I know the type.”
“So you went with them.”
“Yeah. Didn’t have a lot of choice.” He looked up. “They asked me about you.”
“About me?” This wasn’t good. Stone thought back to Glenn Turman, who’d come to his house, and Matthew Fischer, who’d wanted to know what he was up to regarding the “space alien” he and Harrison had busted out of the government facility. Were they connected to these people tonight? “What did they want to know?”
“I’m not sure how they figured it out, but they knew you were interested in the stuff from Hiram Drummond’s collection.”
“It wasn’t exactly a secret. It would be odd if I weren’t interested in it, given my line of work.”
“Yeah, but I got the impression they were aware you were more interested than you should be.”
“I…see.” Stone sipped his coffee and tried to think. “What did you tell them?”
“I said I didn’t know anything about that. Not my jurisdiction.”
“Did they believe you?”
“I don’t think so, but they didn’t push it.”
“What did they look like?”
Blum shrugged. “Pretty generic. A guy and a woman, both in their thirties, clean-cut, nicely dressed. If I had to guess, I’d say they might be feds.”
This was getting better and better. Stone had managed to fly under law enforcement’s radar for years—why all of a sudden did everybody seem to be interested in him? “Did they say anything else? Did you get any impression that they thought the collection—or I—had any connection to the magical world?”
“You know…” Blum sipped again, obviously choosing his words carefully. “They didn’t, per se. But I’ve been a detective for a long time, and you learn to pick stuff up. I honestly can’t imagine they don’t know something. Why else would they be taking this kind of interest in some mostly worthless auction of a bunch of old spooky junk?”
“And in my interest in it…” Stone mused. Sometimes he wished he’d remained in “hobbit mode,” focusing on teaching, magical studies, and keeping his head down. Eddie and Ward didn’t have to deal with this kind of nonsense. But that particular cat had not only emerged from the bag, but fathered a few generations of kittens by now.
“All right,” he said. “Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate it, even though they asked you not to.”
“Yeah, I figured I owed you that, at least. You getting anywhere with your problem?”
> “I hope so. I’ve got a new lead I was in the process of investigating when you called, which I hope will point me to the other piece that goes with the pyramid. The only problem is, someone else has the same lead, so now it’s a race. Possibly a three-way race now, or even four-way, with these people you spoke with. Did you hear anything else about the dead thief?”
“Nope. He’s still a John Doe, and nobody’s turned up to claim his body. They were hoping that weird tattoo might give them a lead, but no luck so far.”
Stone considered whether to tell him, and decided it was only fair. “They probably won’t. It’s the symbol of an organization called Portas Justitiae. I don’t know how big they are or how long they’ve been around, but they hate mages. The letters around the cross are an abbreviation for the Latin words maleficos non patieris vivere, which means ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”
Blum whistled. “Shit.”
“Don’t tell anyone you got that from me, though.”
“So they…what…kill mages?”
“Yes. They’re very religious, but they don’t consider killing mages to be murder.”
“But wait—wasn’t this guy who died a mage? The thief?”
“He was.”
“So they have mages in an organization that hates mages?”
“Apparently, those who hate their own magic. They rationalize it by making themselves believe they’re using their evil gifts to help the cause of righteousness.” Stone shrugged. “I don’t know—the whole thing doesn’t make a bloody bit of sense to me. Anyway, I doubt anyone will claim him. He’s served his purpose, so Portas will have washed their hands of him.”
Blum finished his coffee and slapped the cup down. “You think these Portas guys are after the whosit? The one you have?”
“Without a doubt. And it’s possible they’re not the only ones. That’s why it’s so important I find out if there truly is another piece to this thing. As you might guess, having possession of an item that can block or negate magic is a bit of a big deal—especially for an organization that wants to eradicate mages.”
“No shit.”
“Anyway, thank you for letting me know about your little visit. Not that I can likely do anything about it, except be more vigilant than I already am, I suppose. This new lead I’ve got might get me somewhere, but I’ve got to get back to it. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”
