Balance of Power: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 25)

by R. L. King

  “All right, then. Start talking.”

  “You’re right—they will kill me if they find out.”

  “Let’s worry about that later, shall we? We’ll start with what you were hired to do.”

  She wrenched against his telekinetic hold. “You could let me loose, you know.”

  “I could—but I won’t. Not yet. Answer the question.”

  Her eyes flashed again. “It should be obvious. I was supposed to seduce you and convince you to take me back to your place. Which wasn’t hard, by the way.”

  Stone shrugged unapologetically. “You’re attractive, intelligent, we seemed to hit it off—not that surprising, is it?”

  “Men are so easy to manipulate,” she said with a smirk. Her gaze traveled from his eyes downward, then back up again. “So easy.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Once I was inside and past your wards, I was supposed to seduce you, drug you, and search the house while you were out.”

  “Ah, so you know about wards, then.”

  “Yes. Not much, though.”

  “You’re a mundane. From a magical family?”

  “Yes, I’m a mundane. No family, though. Learned about it years ago from a fellow…freelancer.”

  “Mercenary.”

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  Stone nodded. “What was the drug? You kept it in your pendant, didn’t you?” She was still wearing the blue gem pendant, but its sparkle had dulled somewhat.

  She gave him a sly grin. “I couldn’t count on having anything else on at the time. I didn’t figure you’d bother taking my necklace off.”

  “And the drug?”

  “I don’t know. They gave it to me. Said it would knock you out fast and keep you unconscious for at least a couple hours, which should give me plenty of time to search.”

  Stone made a mental note to try salvaging some of the wine so he could give it to Verity and Hezzie for analysis. “What were you looking for?”

  “You already know.”

  “Tell me anyway.” He watched her aura.

  She paused, looking away, but finally sighed. “A small, black pyramid with writing on the sides.”

  “Ah. The one from Hiram Drummond’s collection.”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me anything about where it came from. They just showed me a photo.”

  Stone perched on the edge of the desk. Raider, who’d been watching the proceedings with faint interest, crawled into his lap and settled there. “I thought that was what you were looking for. And as I said before, you’re lucky I caught you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, first of all, as I said before, it’s not here because I haven’t got it. So you wouldn’t have found it.”

  “And second?”

  “When I woke up from your concoction, it would have been inconvenient to have to locate your body and figure out what to do with it.”

  Another aura flare. “You’re bluffing this time.”

  “I’m not. I take the security of my home very seriously, Ms. Newman.” He lied without a second thought, confident she wouldn’t catch him in it. He did have some nasty traps in the magically concealed areas of his home, but none of them were deadly. Not like the ones back home in Surrey. “If you did manage to find it, what were you supposed to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. They said they’d contact me. That’s the truth,” she added with more force.

  “Oh, I believe you.” He leaned in closer, meeting her gaze straight on. “And now comes the important question: who hired you?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t say.”

  He raised his hand again and moved it toward her forehead.

  “I don’t know!” she yelled again. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “What did they look like? How did they contact you?” Stone did believe her, and had already come to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t find out. If it was Portas Justitiae, they could have contacted her through one of their quisling mages under an illusion, used an intermediary, or even reached her remotely.

  “It was a man. That’s all I know. He wore a mask, and the room was mostly dark. I met him in San Francisco.”

  “What did he sound like?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he speak? Did he use any phrases that seemed odd or unusual? Anything religious, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. “Definitely nothing religious. He was…I don’t know…well-spoken, I guess. Kind of condescending, like he didn’t really want to be working with me. Like he thought he was better than I was. But I don’t care—as long as the payments clear, I’ll work for anybody.”

  Condescending. That didn’t bode well. It was only a tenuous clue, but Stone hoped he was wrong about his suspicion. If he was right, it meant another player had possibly entered the game. “Did he pay you anything up front?”

  “Yeah. Through a secure bank transaction.” She glared. “You can’t trace it, so don’t bother trying.”

  “Probably not. And I don’t care. How much did he pay you? And how much were you supposed to get when you delivered the item? Don’t lie to me. I’ll know.”

  Her gaze cut away, and for several moments she didn’t answer. “Ten thousand up front,” she finally mumbled. “I’m supposed to get another twenty-five on delivery.”

  Stone snorted. “That’s not a lot for the risk you were taking.”

  “Not a bad take for a couple hours of work,” she said, eyes flashing again. “We’re not all as rich as you are.”

  “I suppose it isn’t—assuming everything went as you expected. Which it didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I got that.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but she was clearly still wary. “That’s all I know. It’s the truth, whether you want to believe me or not. I didn’t take any oath.”

  “Oh, I know that,” Stone said cheerfully.

  Her gaze sharpened. “What? But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I was lying. The difference is, I can tell when you’re lying.”

  “You’re a bastard, Stone.”

  “So I’ve been told, on occasion.” He tipped Raider off his lap and stood. “But that still leaves the matter of what to do with you. I can’t just let you go and send you back to whoever hired you. The easiest thing would be to let you have the pyramid and track you back to your employers—but unfortunately I can’t do that because I don’t have it.” He wished he’d asked Eddie’s friend to make a second fake copy, but it was too late for that now.

  “You could be lying about that, too.”

  “I could be—but I’m not. It’s not here, so I can’t let you take it.”

  “So what do we do, then?”

  Her aura showed her continued wariness. She was tough and smart, that was clear, but Stone wondered if she’d ever gone against a mage of his level before. He studied her for a moment, remembering the last time he’d questioned a thief suspended in midair by magic. He’d been at Kolinsky’s shop then, and Zack Beeler had been a lot more terrified than this woman was.

  Hmm. But perhaps Kolinsky had the right idea.

  He smiled.

  Her eyes narrowed, and her aura blipped. “What are you smiling about?”

  “I just came up with an idea for what to do with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re a mercenary. In your own words, ‘as long as the payments clear, you’ll work for anybody.’ Were you serious about that?”

  “It’s how I make my living.”

  “Well…you’re not going to be collecting that twenty-five thousand for stealing the item from my home, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” she said dryly.

  “I don’t know who you’re working for, but your comments gave me a clue about who it might be. And I promise, if I’m correct, they will not respond well to failure—especially if they found out I caught you.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “You think you know who hired me?�
�

  “As I said, just a guess. But if it’s who I think it is, they don’t hold mundanes in high regard. They’ll use them as tools, but when they’re no longer useful, they’ll discard them without a second thought. And in case you don’t know what I mean by ‘discard,’ remember when I said I could kill you and no one would find the body?”

  She didn’t answer, but she was definitely still listening.

  “Well…they can do that too. And the difference between them and me is that they will actually do it.”

  “Okay,” she snapped. “So, I’ll run. I have plenty of places to hide, to lie low until they give up looking. Friends who will help me stay under the radar.”

  Raider, thinking he’d heard his name, poked his head up and yawned.

  Stone ruffled his fur. “But they’ll never give up looking, Ms. Newman. If you run, they will find you. I guarantee it. I could be wrong about who they are—if it’s the other group it could likely be, they probably won’t kill you. But is it worth it to you to take the chance?”

  She was silent for a long time, obviously mulling over the possibilities. “So, what do you propose?”

  “Simple. I’ll hire you myself.”

  “What?” Her eyes got big, and she snorted. “You’re crazy.”

  “I’ve been called that too, but in this case I’m not. You’re smart, you’re capable, and you’ve got skills I don’t have. They paid you ten thousand to break into my home. I’ll pay you fifteen to contact them and tell them you searched the place from top to bottom and didn’t find what you were looking for.”

  “But you said they wouldn’t respond well to failure.”

  “They won’t respond well if you run. But you can’t find what isn’t there. Tell them you still want to earn that twenty-five thousand dollars. Professional pride and all that. Tell them that after you failed to find the pyramid, you decided to remain with me and see if you could learn anything else. Is there a reasonable chance I wouldn’t have caught on that you’d drugged me if you’d been successful?”

  “Yes, actually. They told me when it wore off, you’d just wake up from what you thought was a deep sleep.”

  “Brilliant. So, tell them that happened, and when we talked the following morning, I invited you to my home in England later this week. Tell them I’m smitten with you. They won’t be able to pass that up—and they won’t have trouble believing it. I wasn’t lying when I told you I haven’t had a date in months, and I do have a bit of a reputation.”

  She gave him a sly, sideways smile. “You’re a sneaky one.”

  “Thank you. Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment. So—what do you think? Are you willing to give it a go? You still get paid, we both get what we want, and I buy some time to get a few steps ahead of your employers.”

  “You’d trust me, after what I did to you? How do you know I won’t just run back to them as soon as you let me leave?”

  “Several reasons. First, I consider myself a good judge of character, and I believe you’re what you say you are: a professional doing a job. Second, it won’t do you any good to go back to them empty-handed. This way, you’ve got another shot, so with luck they’ll leave you alone for a while. Third, even if you do go back to them and tell them, they’ll be no farther along than they were before. Obviously I won’t fall for the same trick again, which means you’ll hurt yourself more than you hurt me. Fourth, you’ve already fulfilled your contract: you got into my house, did your best to drug me, and searched the place.” He stopped in front of her again, clearly pausing before continuing.

  “And fifth?”

  “Fifth. Yes. That’s the sticky one, isn’t it?” He hardened his expression. “You’re not entirely right that I won’t kill you. I won’t do it now. But you’re going to leave a bit of yourself behind with me—one that guarantees if you do betray me, there won’t be anywhere on Earth you can hide from me. I will find you, and I will kill you. Quickly, without a trace, and with no remorse.”

  He paced away, pleased at the new flare in her aura, and returned to his conversational tone. “But I don’t want to do that, and that’s the truth. So it would be better for both of us if you accepted my offer. What do you say, Ms. Newman? It’s a good offer, and I give you my word that if you don’t betray me, you’ll never hear from me again after this is over.”

  She was silent for almost a full minute, her eyes fixed on his face. “You know,” she said at last, slyly, “there’s one other thing you’re not thinking about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well…” Her smile widened. “If you’re supposed to be ‘smitten’ with me, and if we’re going to fool anyone who might be watching, it might be better if we played our parts.”

  “Played our parts?”

  “How about if you let me down now? I’m not going to run, and even if I did, you could catch me. You’ve proven that.”

  Stone gave her aura one last once-over, then shrugged and released the spell, lowering her to the floor. “What do you mean about our parts?”

  “We should be seen together. I wouldn’t object to that…would you?”

  He tilted his head and frowned.

  She moved closer. A few of the red flashes were back. “I accept your offer, Dr. Stone. And do you know why I won’t betray you?”

  “Because I’m paying you fifteen thousand dollars not to?”

  She chuckled, crossing the room to sit in his chair, where she stroked Raider. “Well, yes. There’s that. But there’s also another reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re right—I’m a professional. I do what I need to do to get the job done. So I was fully expecting tonight that I’d have to sleep with you before I drugged you.”

  Stone drew breath to speak, but she held up her hand. “And that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. You’re hot, you’re smart, you have a sexy accent, and you play a mean guitar. I could do a lot worse, you know—and have, to be honest. But when I said I wanted to stop—even after we were as far along as we were—you did it. You stopped. Just like that. No whining, no protests.”

  “Of course I did. You thought I wouldn’t?”

  “A lot of guys wouldn’t. Especially not that far in. But you did. And that’s a big deal.”

  He said nothing, but thought of the man back at the bar. Sure, he was a plant, but Stone had met plenty of other guys of a similar type.

  “So…” she continued, rising from the chair and approaching him, “what I’m getting at here is…maybe we should finish what we started.”

  He blinked, then shifted to magical sight. The red flashes were back. She wasn’t messing with him. “Don’t you want to complete our…financial transaction first?”

  “That can wait until morning. You’re not paying me for this.” She tilted her head up and kissed him, then pulled back, her eyes glittering with challenge.

  He smiled. “You’ve told me why you won’t betray me. Shall I tell you why I trust you not to?”

  “Yeah. Tell me.” Her voice was low and husky again as she took his arm.

  He nodded toward the desk. “Because Raider likes you. And he’s an excellent judge of character.”

  28

  She was gone when he woke the following morning. Raider was still there, curled in the crook of his arm. On the nightstand was a note, held down with his phone. It included a phone number, a bank account number, and the message: Call me soon. Let’s do this again. E.

  He smiled, shaking his head in amusement. “I hope I haven’t made a big mistake,” he told Raider. But he knew he hadn’t. Even if she were inclined to betray him, there was no way she could get to anything interesting in his house.

  Also, he wasn’t a complete trusting fool: he’d put a discreet, simple ward on the bedroom door when he’d gone to take a quick shower last night. If she’d left the room, he’d have known it—and she hadn’t. Not until this morning, when the tiny, full-body buzz awakened him. As he swung out of bed, he felt another fain
t buzz as the front door opened.

  He took care of the transfer right away—one thing he was well-versed in was moving money around without anyone catching on—and headed back to the bathroom to shower and shave.

  His phone chirped, indicating a text.

  It was from Gina. Hi Dr. Stone. Got something for you, if you want to come by today. G.

  Finally. Be there in an hour, he sent back.

  He hoped she’d found something he could use. The auction was coming up fast, and he hadn’t made nearly as much progress as he’d liked.

  As he stood under the hot water in his shower, he thought about Eleanor Newman—almost certainly not her real name. If she wasn’t working for Portas Justitiae, there was only one other group he knew of who would both be interested in the device and have the kind of money to throw around thirty-five thousand dollars to hire someone to steal it.

  He knew Ordo Purpuratus was active in the United States—he’d run into two of their members in Massachusetts while dealing with the eldritch horror in Lake Nepahauk. Had they made it all the way out to California? Or had they, like Portas, kept someone in their employ to watch for interesting auctions, estate sales, and other potential sources of magical treasures? It made sense.

  Either way, though, he had no idea if they were behind Eleanor’s plan. But given her comments about the man she’d spoken with being condescending and acting like he was better than she was, it made sense.

  Which made it all the more urgent that he find the other half of the device. And the book Kolinsky referred to, if it even existed.

  He arrived at the agency at eleven a.m.

  Gina looked up from her screen with a bright smile. “Hey, Doc.”

  “Where’s Jason?”

  “Out again. He’s got a big case he’s been spending all his time on over the last few days.”

  “You said you’ve got something for me? I hope it’s something good.”

  She grimaced. “Well…not sure how good it is. But you said you wanted anything I could find, so…”

  He strode over and stood behind her. “What have you got?”

  “I think I told you the company that did McGrath’s auction got bought by another company in the Nineties, right?”