Circle of Stone: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 19)

by R. L. King

  Tani drifted over, still hunched and pale. Her hair, the color of faded straw, stuck up in disarrayed spikes. “It’s not your fault,” she said in her odd, scratchy voice.

  Verity only now remembered the other woman had been there too. “What happened?” she demanded. “I couldn’t see from where I was. Did somebody throw Greta over?”

  “There were two of them.” Tani dropped into a chair, pulled her bony knees up, and wrapped her arms around them. “They were stressed. Panicky, even. I don’t think they expected to be noticed.”

  “They must have been pretty strong to toss Greta,” Kyla said. “She’s not a lightweight.”

  “I…don’t think they did it physically,” Tani said.

  “They used magic to throw her?” Verity gaped at her. Picking up a human and tossing them wasn’t easy, especially with the kind of distractions you’d find at a crowded concert. Beginner or inexperienced mages got tired lifting hardcover books. If one of these could lift a human—not only lift her, but chuck her over a crowd of people—it meant they might have more power than Stone had suspected.

  “Can’t be sure. It was pretty chaotic by then. But I think so. They weren’t close enough to do it physically.”

  “Fuck…” Kyla said.

  Verity’s phone beeped in her pocket, indicating a text. She glanced at the clock on the wall as she pulled it out; it was almost eleven p.m.

  The text, surprisingly, was from Stone. Just got back to the US. Sleep schedule’s buggered to hell. Did you get a chance to look into the Oakland thing?

  She stared at the words.

  He didn’t know. She’d thought he was still dealing with his friend’s problem in Paris. If he’d just arrived from the Paris or UK portal, he probably hadn’t even seen the news yet—not that he’d connect her to what had happened at the Arena even if he had.

  “You okay?” Kyla asked.

  “Uh…yeah. Give me a minute, okay?” She crossed to an empty corner of the room, regarded the text message for a moment longer, then sent a reply:

  Yes. Too long to explain. Call me?

  Seconds later, the phone buzzed again. “Hi.”

  “Good evening. Or morning. I’ve been popping around through so many time zones I’m not even sure anymore.”

  He sounded tired, but not stressed. “Did you deal with your friend’s problem?”

  “I did. I’ll tell you all about it—tricky bit of magic—but not just now. You said you got something about Oakland?”

  “Yeah.”

  Of course he picked up on her tone. “Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. Did you see the news yet?”

  “No… I’m driving back home now from Sunnyvale. Should I have?”

  “You will. We…got a tip that the thieves might be at the Oakland Arena tonight. At a concert. I went there with the Harpies, and there was a problem. We’re at the hospital now.”

  “Hospital?” Now he sounded shocked. “Verity, what’s going on? Who’s hurt? Is Kyla all right?”

  “It’s Greta.” She closed her eyes. “Doc…it’s my fault. I spotted them. They threw her over the railing from the top section. We…don’t know if she’s gonna make it. She’s in surgery now, and we’re waiting for news.”

  “Oh, bloody hell…” he murmured. “Should I come up there? Is there anything I can do to help? I can be there in an hour—”

  She considered, looking at the rest of the Harpies. Kyla and Lara were still pacing, while the others had settled, still tense and watchful, into chairs. Even though she wanted to see Stone right now more than almost anything, his presence was the last thing the others needed. “No…it’s okay. We’re gonna stay here and wait until we have news.”

  “All right…” He sounded dubious, but didn’t argue. “Call me the instant you know something, will you? And I’m serious—let me know if there’s any way I can help. I take it you weren’t able to sneak in any magical healing.”

  “I tried, but they wouldn’t let us anywhere near her. They wouldn’t even let any of us ride in the ambulance. It would have been way too conspicuous if I’d tried anything cute.” As she spoke, she couldn’t miss how much she was babbling, as if trying to justify her decision to Stone.

  “It’s all right,” he said gently. “Perhaps you can do something later—or perhaps it won’t be necessary. Anyway, call me. Please. Don’t worry about waking me. As I said, my sleep schedule’s shot to hell right now.”

  “I will. Thanks, Doc. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I’m glad I’m back too. Sounds like I need to take more interest in this Oakland business.”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m glad you were able to take care of your other stuff.”

  She thought there might have been a pause, but it was probably nothing more than Stone’s fatigue. “Er…yes. I am too. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  16

  Stone didn’t end up getting much sleep. He tried, lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling while a concerned Raider padded circles around and across his body, but his brain refused to cooperate with the effort. He’d thought the aftermath of the Selby situation would be bad enough for keeping his thoughts spinning, but at least that was satisfactorily done and dusted. He couldn’t say the same about his more current and pressing concerns.

  Aldwyn Stone’s portal hijack had barely given him any time to come to terms with the fact that his three-hundred-year-old, supposedly-dead multi-great grandfather had, if his story could be believed, broken out of a sealed, magical stasis chamber beneath his Surrey home. Now, he was not only alive, astonishingly well preserved, and apparently suffering no ill effects from his two-century nap, but he wanted to team up with his distant descendant for—what?

  That should have been a situation requiring a fair degree of thought. But Stone had had only a few minutes to go over it before discovering that the minor errand he’d sent Verity on had erupted into something far more dangerous. Blum’s harmless little magical-crime gang had gone from zero to sixty in a remarkably short time, graduating from petty burglary to attempted murder.

  He should probably call Blum to update him on the latest, but he didn’t want to do that until he’d gotten the whole story from Verity. And that wasn’t going to happen until she and the Harpies knew what was going on with their friend. Much as he wanted to hop in his car right now and drive up there as fast as he could, she’d made it clear that it would be better if he didn’t. He wasn’t most of the Harpies’ favorite person under the best of circumstances, and he was sure they wouldn’t take kindly to his role in what had happened to Greta. Hell, he wasn’t taking kindly to it, which was part of what was currently keeping him awake.

  He lay back with a loud sigh, stroking Raider as the tabby finally settled, curled up in a ball on his chest. Life couldn’t just be easy, could it? Before, at least, he’d only had one potentially dangerous situation at a time to deal with. Now, he had two.

  He managed an hour before conceding that restless tossing wasn’t the same thing as sleep. He dumped Raider off, grabbed a quick shower, and headed off to the University for his meeting. At least the fall quarter hadn’t started yet; trying to juggle work responsibilities along with Blum’s case and the business with Aldwyn would be enough to make him want to plan a vacation to Calanar just so he could shut everybody up for a while.

  Verity hadn’t contacted him by the time the meeting ended. He walked back to his car, fighting the temptation to send her another text asking how things were going. Leave her alone. She’ll tell you when she knows something.

  He still didn’t want to call Blum until he’d had a chance to talk to her. He’d picked up a copy of the Mercury News on the way in and read the front-page article about the accident at the Arena, and of course they’d gotten most of it wrong. According to their report, Greta (her last name was Weinmann, it turned out—Stone had never known that) had tripped while trying to make her way across the front row of the upper section and tumbled down int
o the lower one. That was bullshit, of course: Greta was about five-four, squat and athletic. There was no way she could have “tripped” and gone over the safety railing. Not without help, anyway. The report had no updates on anyone’s condition and didn’t list the names of any of the other victims, most of whom had been injured during the subsequent panic. Stone wondered if Blum had any suspicion of the accident’s true cause, but there probably wasn’t any way he could have. Not everything was caused by magic. Unless he connected Greta with the Harpies and thus Verity—a pretty big stretch for a guy as busy as the detective—he probably had no idea.

  It was just after noon now, and he knew where he needed to go next. He didn’t particularly want to go there, nor did he think he’d have any success doing it, but he supposed it would be something to do until he heard from Verity. And it never hurt to check all the angles.

  Stefan Kolinsky wasn’t at his shop.

  Big surprise, but Stone knew it shouldn’t have been. He hadn’t seen the black mage since the Caventhorne gala and the tense confrontation with Aldwyn, and wondered on occasion if that was because Kolinsky was busy with other projects or he simply didn’t want to talk about what had occurred that night. He suspected the latter—it was a bit conceited on his part to think Kolinsky’s comings and goings had that much to do with him, but given past experience he knew it was possible. It wasn’t as if Kolinsky would be missing any business if he didn’t tend to his shop, after all.

  He checked the door, which was locked behind the usual wards. This time, Kolinsky hadn’t even left a sign stating when he’d be back. That was unlike him, but not entirely unexpected. Stefan Kolinsky was an exercise in contradictions: a man of clockwork personal habits who nonetheless could rarely be counted upon to do what was expected of him. It occurred to Stone that the man might have simply left the area permanently. Extreme, true, especially given how long Kolinsky had maintained the shop in East Palo Alto, but not entirely out of the question. Once again, he cursed his friend for refusing to use the telephone like any other reasonable person.

  He was heading back to his car when his phone buzzed. Thinking it was Verity, he wrenched it from his pocket and answered without looking at the number. “Yes, hello?”

  “Al? It’s me. Sounds like you were expecting somebody else.”

  Stone let his breath out and the tension drain from his shoulders. “Oh, hello, Jason. How are you?”

  “Good. I’m back in town.”

  “I didn’t know you were out of town, actually.”

  “Oh, right. Just off visiting my girlfriend in Truckee. But anyway—speaking of V, do you know where she is? She’s not answering my calls or texts.”

  “Er.”

  “I know that tone, Al. What’s going on?”

  “There was…an incident last night. In Oakland. She’s tending to it. Probably too busy or preoccupied to check her messages.” Or else she just doesn’t want to go into the whole thing again right now.

  “Incident?” Jason’s voice rose. “What kind of incident? Is she okay?”

  Stone reached his car and got in, but didn’t start it. “She’s fine, but the situation is still a bit…up in the air.” Quickly he explained the basic details of what had occurred.

  “Holy shit, that was them? I saw something on the front page of the paper about that concert. And you’re saying V and the Harpies were in the middle of it?”

  “Yes. If you manage to get hold of Verity, please ask her to contact me. I know she’s worried about her friend—of course she is. But we’ve got to get moving on this before it happens again.”

  “Yeah. I’ll do that. Listen—I assume you’re planning to go after these guys, right?”

  “Yes. Now that I’m home again, it’s my first priority.” Well, one of my first priorities. He supposed as long as Aldwyn respected his wishes and left him the hell alone, he could put that little problem aside for at least a short time.

  “I want in. Let me know how I can help.”

  Stone was about to tell him there wasn’t any way he could help, but then paused. “Well…I don’t want to take you away from your cases, but if you want to set Gina and her computer skills on trying to identify any unusual crimes or similar activity in the Oakland area, I wouldn’t object.”

  “On it. I’ll get her started as soon as I try to call V again. You sure you’re not leaving anything out?”

  “Nothing important. I don’t even have all the details yet. That’s why I want to talk to Verity.”

  “Okay. Get back to you soon. And call me if you find out anything else.”

  Verity didn’t call Stone back until much later that afternoon, and when she did, fatigue suffused her voice.

  “Where are you?” he asked immediately. “How is Greta?”

  “She’s out of surgery. It took hours—I’m home now to get a shower, but we spent the whole day hanging out in the waiting room. They didn’t tell us anything until a couple hours ago.”

  “What’s the prognosis? Have they let you see her yet?”

  “She’s…not out of danger yet. The fall broke several bones. She’s got a cracked one in her neck, and her right leg is messed up big time.” Her voice shook. “They don’t think they’ll have to amputate, but they’re not sure yet whether she’ll walk again.”

  “Bloody hell…”

  “I’m heading back over there soon—she’s still in ICU, but I’m hoping maybe if we can convince them to let me and Hezzie in to see her, we might be able to make things a little better.”

  Stone paced, cursing his inability to do something, anything, to help. Despite his significantly higher power level, his healing skills weren’t anywhere near Verity’s. “Do you want me to come up there?”

  “I don’t think so. Not tonight. I’m pretty stressed out as it is, and I’ve got a lot of running around to do.” Now she sounded resigned. “Kyla’s coming over tonight. We’re all taking shifts at the hospital waiting for news. We want somebody to be there when Greta wakes up, so she’s not alone, you know?”

  “Yes, of course. Listen—Verity—I hate to intrude, and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now, but can you tell me anything about the people who did this? Now that I’m back, I’ve got more reason than ever to devote my effort to finding them.”

  There was a long pause. “I wish I could, Doc. We got a tip that they might be at the concert, so we took a chance. I never got a look at them—just the magical traces I spotted. Tani was closer, over near Greta when it happened. I think she and Greta cornered one of them, and Tani said they panicked. That might be why they…did what they did. Anyway, they got away after everything went to hell, and I didn’t give a damn about chasing them at the time.”

  “Of course not,” Stone murmured. He glanced at Raider, who was watching him from the coffee table. “All right—I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. Call me if I can help, and don’t forget to get some rest.”

  “You’re telling me that?” Even as stressed as she sounded, her amusement came through in her tone.

  “Yes, well, I’ve heard it’s good advice. Did your brother get hold of you?”

  “Yeah, he left about a million texts and voicemails, but I just didn’t want to deal with anybody else until we knew Greta was gonna pull through. I called him a little while ago.”

  “Good, good. I suppose I’ll call Blum and update him on the situation, if you’ve no objection.”

  “No, go ahead. Just—tell him not to contact any of the Harpies right now, okay? The last thing they want to deal with is a cop asking a bunch of questions.”

  “Not a problem. Take care, Verity. I’ll see you soon, I hope.”

  “Yeah, I hope so too.” It sounded as if she was about to hang up, and then her voice came through stronger. “Oh! I did remember one thing we found out. If you’re gonna look into this, it might help you.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Harpies put out some feelers yesterday—that’s how we found out about the Arena. O
ne of them had a friend who knew a street kid that goes by Daisy. She thinks Daisy might have been one of the group.”

  Stone tensed. “That’s brilliant. Can you give me the friend’s contact information?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you. But it might be a place to start. I’ll help you as soon as I can.”

  “You focus on Greta and the others. I’ll take over this investigation now that I’m back. And please, Verity, don’t hesitate to ask if you or any of the Harpies need anything. I feel like this whole thing was partially my fault, since I asked you to look into it.”

  “Don’t go there, Doc. I’ll talk to you later.”

  17

  Not much changed over the next few days, increasing Stone’s frustration and sense of futility.

  He’d passed along what information he knew to Blum in the interests of keeping him in the loop, but the detective couldn’t do much more to help than keep an eye on the list of crimes in the area and pass along anything that looked fishy. Because he had no way to prove that the incident at the Arena was a crime—the press was still treating it as an unfortunate accident brought on by overhyped, drunken fans crowding too close to the rail—he couldn’t justify getting involved. That was especially true since he was based in San Francisco, and the incident was in Oakland.

  “Sorry,” he told Stone when the mage checked in with him. “Best I can do is give you any info that comes my way.”

  Unfortunately, that didn’t amount to much. The elusive Daisy and her friends had dropped off the face of the earth, either leaving the area or more likely declaring a temporary hold on their criminal activity until the heat from the Arena debacle had blown over. Because “Daisy” wasn’t her real name, they couldn’t even track her to the foster home where she supposedly lived. Both Blum and Jason tried, and neither had any success.

  “Only thing I can tell you for sure,” Blum said, “is that the evidence does support something happening at the Arena that night. There were several reports of missing wallets, jewelry, that kind of thing, spread out all over the sections. Somebody was there, but unfortunately nobody saw anything. They either knew where the security cameras were, or they didn’t show up on them.”