Gathering Storm: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 17)

by R. L. King

  As soon as he took his position in the center of the circle and began to feed power into it, he knew he was right. He wove a protective shield around himself and tilted his head back, studying the contours of the machinery while reaching out with pure magical energy. “Come out and play…” he whispered. “Let’s have a look at you, shall we?”

  It started slow—there was no jarring jerk, no yanking sensation like the one Mitch had described. Stone felt power growing around him, a low, subsonic hum combined with the sensation of something pressing against his shield. All around him, magical energy arced and danced around the rusting mill machinery, lighting the place up.

  “There we go…” Satisfied, Stone took a moment to augment the shield surrounding the circle. He got no sense of danger or foreboding from the growing energy, but best not to take chances.

  Near the floor in a shadowy area on the far side of the machinery, something flickered. Stone focused on that area, and after a moment, spotted a series of figures fading in and out of sight. He couldn’t get a clear image of them through all the arcing magical light and the glow of the candles, but his brief impressions suggested the same thing Mitch had spoken of: men, women, and children dressed in rough, old-style clothes, clambering around the structure as if performing work.

  Stone wanted to rise from the circle and get a closer look, but he didn’t. Something big was clearly going on here, and leaving the protective confines of the space he’d prepared wasn’t a good idea, especially since he was alone. Instead, he continued watching.

  Off to his left, something caught his notice: a brighter, more solid glow. Tearing his gaze from the echoes, he studied it, tensing.

  “Well…” he murmured. “This is interesting.”

  Interesting, and not good.

  The glow was irregularly shaped and shifting. Roughly six feet in diameter but not even close to circular, it appeared to be some kind of…hole in the air. Around it, he could still see the uneven, rusting forms of the old machines, but where it existed, it showed…something else. Moving, dark-colored shapes surrounded by a yellow glow. In spots, shafts of yellow poked out through the irregular contours, illuminating bits of the mill with light Stone was sure wasn’t physical. He was certain if he shifted to mundane sight now, everything here would fade from view as if it had never been here.

  The feeling of something pressing on the shield increased, and with it, a growing sense of fear. Stone recognized it for what it was—some manifestation of the energy surrounding the strange shape—and once again bolstered his defenses to compensate.

  What was going on?

  He’d never seen anything like this before—not exactly. But as he continued to study the shifting yellow shape hanging there in the air, he realized it did share certain characteristics with something he had seen before.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d say it resembled a portal.

  That was absurd, though. Portals didn’t just pop up in remote locations without provocation. They didn’t just happen. Even the temporary ones had to be constructed. He remembered what Mitch had said, about seeing a similar structure appearing here before.

  Keeping his concentration focused on the shield around the circle, Stone pulled a notebook from his pocket and began dashing off readings, impressions, and questions. Had his presence here caused this manifestation? If he shut down the circle now, could he duplicate it later? Was this something that could be studied?

  And what the hell was that shifting yellow hole in the world?

  He reached out to his connection to Calanar, pulling in more energy. If he was going to make any sense of this, he’d need all the power he could get.

  Suddenly, with no warning, the yellow energy flashed a bright glow, like a thousand flashbulbs going off at once. Stone flinched back, clamping his eyes shut and throwing his arm up to shield them further, dropping magical sight. As he did, he felt the intensity of the light battering the shield, combined with an equally sudden increase in the force pressing against it. He rocked back on his heels, nearly falling over backward as something shrieked in his head.

  His head lit up—not with pain, but with a sensation of clashing, as if two powerful forces had slammed together and repelled each other.

  His mind whirled with images he couldn’t begin to follow.

  Then silence, and nothing.

  9

  Stone awoke in darkness.

  For a moment he had no idea where he was, but then the cues came back: the smell of dust and burned-out candles and motor oil; the shadowy shapes of the mill machinery, the faint shafts of moonlight through the broken skylight high above.

  He lay on his back, splayed out on the grimy floor. Slowly he sat up, putting a hand to his head, testing for damage. Aside from a bit of leftover wooziness and stiff muscles from his awkward position, he felt nothing. No splitting headache, no pain, only the fading vestiges of uneasiness.

  He risked a quick light spell to glance at his watch, and let his breath out in relief: only a few minutes had passed.

  But what had taken him out in the first place?

  Was he still alone?

  He dragged himself up and looked around. “Anyone here?”

  His voice echoed faintly, but he heard no response—no answering voices, no breathing, no shifting around from someone hiding in the shadows. “Hello?”

  Still no reply. He brushed the dust off his coat and switched to magical sight with some reluctance. He still had no idea what had happened—what if it happened again? What if his magic use had caused it to happen?

  Apparently that wasn’t to be the case, though. The place remained as dim and unremarkable to magical sight as it had to mundane vision. The yellow glow was gone. The echoes had disappeared. Nothing remained in the space except trash and debris and the normal, everyday smells of an abandoned building.

  What the hell had just happened?

  Stone quickly gathered the remains of the circle, tossing the spent candles into his bag and using a little magic to obscure the chalk lines until they blended with the darker dust. He walked over to where he’d seen the yellow glow and examined the area more closely, but even when he stood on top of the spot he found nothing. Whatever he’d coaxed out with his little ritual had apparently tired of him and departed as if it had never been there.

  Or else something he’d done had driven it off.

  He paced, mind whirling, trying to remember exactly what had happened there at the end. He’d been using magical sight to examine the echoes, the yellow glow, and the feeling of pressure against his shield. He remembered the notebook—he’d been writing notes when the surging energy had hit. Quickly, he hurried back to the spot where he’d come to and cast his light spell around until he found the little book lying open on the ground a couple feet away.

  The notes didn’t help much. His fast scrawls showed only what he already remembered. Until the last page, when one of the words—he couldn’t make it out—tailed off into an unintelligible scribble and disappeared off the bottom of the page. That must have been when he passed out. But what had he been doing then?

  The memory returned as he levitated back to the overhead window. He gripped the frame, tensing.

  Just before the flare, he’d opened a larger conduit to the Calanarian energy he used to power his magic.

  He’d been using it all along, of course—ever since he’d gone black, he couldn’t use normal magic without taking power from other people, and he hadn’t done that in months. He hadn’t needed to—Trevor Harrison’s magic-rich dimension provided all the punch he’d ever want, and then some. But in his curiosity to make sense of the strange portal-like glow, he’d opened that conduit wider, pulling in a larger quantity of the energy to help him sharpen his reading.

  That was when the glow had lit up like the sun, and that was when the strange clashing sensation had hit him and knocked him out.

  It had been almost as if two opposing forces had come into contact with each other—like what hap
pened when you touched a pair of magnets with two opposite poles together.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  The scientist in Stone wanted to remain behind, to study the phenomena in more detail, make more notes, but he’d used up the ritual materials he’d brought with him. That, and he wasn’t entirely sure there would be anything left behind to study. His examination after he’d awakened had revealed nothing—not even any vestiges of leftover magical energy. It was entirely possible that the bright flash of light that had knocked him out had obliterated whatever had been there. That was bad for his scientific curiosity, but good for the population of Devil’s Creek. Eventually, any remaining reluctance to visit the place would fade, and a bunch of mundanes wandering regularly into an unpredictable magically-active zone was unlikely to produce positive results.

  He dropped back to the ground, quickly crossed the open yard, and levitated over the fence to his car. He didn’t have to be back in the Bay Area until Monday; if he wanted to, he could gather some more ritual materials and come back here tomorrow for another look. Perhaps he could verify his theory that whatever magic had suffused the place was gone. For now, though, best to get back to town before somebody spotted him out here.

  As he got in the car, he remembered his promise to tell Mitch Kirkson what he’d found. He hesitated, wondering if he should “forget” about the promise, but figured it couldn’t hurt to give the young man a little peace of mind.

  “Yeah, hello?” Mitch answered quickly, and sounded breathless.

  Damn. It’s after nine—bit late to call. “Er—Mitch? This is Alastair Stone. We spoke today, remember? I’m sorry to disturb you so late. I’d forgotten everyone doesn’t consider this too late to ring.”

  “Oh—no problem, Dr. Stone. My dad’s asleep in front of the TV, so I wanted to grab it before it woke him up.” There was a pause, and when he spoke again his voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Did you…go out to the mill?”

  “I did.”

  A longer pause. “And…did you find anything weird?”

  “I…don’t think you were hallucinating, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did you see it?” The voice struggled to remain soft, but the urgency came through. “Did you see those weird people?”

  “No,” Stone lied. He hated to do it, but there was no helping it. “I…did get some odd feelings inside, but I didn’t see anything. Honestly, if it were me I’d avoid the place for a while, but I don’t think there’s any danger.”

  The silence stretched out to nearly a full thirty seconds.

  “Mitch? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I—”

  Stone could almost see the struggle on the other side of the line. “Mitch, what’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Dr. Stone…I…I want to show you something.”

  “Show me what? Something at the mill?”

  “No. Are you…gonna be in town tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I’d planned to return home on Monday. Why?”

  “Can you come by my place tomorrow morning? I can pick you up from where you’re staying and bring you here if you want.”

  It was impossible to miss the tension in Mitch’s voice now. “What is it? What do you want me to see?”

  “I…” A muffled sound, followed by mumbled words in a deep voice. “I can’t talk now. Please—will you come? Tomorrow morning?”

  “Er—yes. Of course I will.”

  “Thank you.” Relief tinged the uneasiness. “I’ll come get you at nine. Thanks, Dr. Stone. Gotta go.”

  Before Stone could say anything else, Mitch hastily hung up.

  10

  When Mitch’s battered pickup pulled up in front of the Lamplight Inn promptly at nine a.m. the following morning Stone was waiting for him, sipping a cup of strong, black coffee in the inn’s tiny sitting room.

  He hadn’t slept much the previous night, spending most of it either writing more notes of what he’d encountered at the mill while his memory was fresh or tossing and turning in bed, plagued by strange dreams of shapeless things pouring through bright yellow portals. Part of him wondered if he too would experience the strange memory fade that had claimed everyone except Mitch, but when he finally tired of bad sleep and got up to take a shower, the events at the mill last night remained in his mind as clear as ever.

  His first impression when he saw Mitch was that the young man had slept even less than he had. Despite being neatly dressed and clean-shaven, he had a haunted, peaked look that was impossible to miss. His blue aura, shot through with the red flashes of deep unease, added to Stone’s suspicions.

  “Morning, Dr. Stone. Thanks for doing this.”

  “Not a problem.” Stone swung into the pickup and closed the door. “But I’ll admit I’m a bit confused about what you’ve got to show me at your house, and why it had to be now.”

  “It’s…hard to explain. Better to just show you. And the reason it’s got to be now is because Dad’s at church.”

  “So…you don’t want him to see whatever this is.” Stone’s curiosity increased. Was Mitch hiding something at his home? Something he’d picked up at the mill, perhaps?

  “No…not exactly. It’ll just be…easier that way.” He glanced sideways. “Please—can I just show you? It’ll make more sense when you see it.”

  “Whatever you like. Let’s go.”

  Stone kept a close eye on both Mitch’s aura and their route during the drive. He didn’t think the stressed-out young man was driving him out of town to murder him or anything, but it was always good to keep a healthy suspicion when you were dealing with the unknown, either supernatural or mundane.

  But no, Mitch drove the truck a couple miles up another of the Devil’s Creek’s arrow-straight, fence-lined roads, and turned into a long dirt drive leading up to a neat, two-story white house with a wraparound porch, a massive oak tree with a swing in the front yard, and a large barn off to the side. A small flock of sheep grazed in a fenced field on one side of the road, and a few goats occupied the other.

  “Are your family farmers?” Stone asked.

  Mitch chuckled, his unease breaking for the first time since he’d picked Stone up. “Nah. Grandpa was, but he’s been gone for years. Dad works as a machinist, and I’m a mechanic. These guys are just kind of a hobby thing these days, for a little extra money.”

  He pulled the truck in front of the house and stopped, but didn’t get out. “So…” he said. “I have to tell you, this isn’t easy. Trusting you, I mean. I’m not even sure I should be doing it, to be honest. I hardly know you.”

  “What are you so bothered about?” Stone scanned the house with magical sight, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary. “Are you going to show me something you took from the mill?”

  “No. Not the way you think. Come on.” He shoved open the truck’s door, got out, and slammed it shut. Everything about him, from his tone to his posture to his aura, suggested his resolve to do this was fading.

  Curious, Stone followed him into the house. Despite no mention of a motherly presence, the place was neat and tidy, and smelled of home cooking and wood polish. Stone got the impression of an old, well-loved space, which usually indicated a happy, relatively conflict-free family. He wondered if Mitch and his father did the housework, or if the sister—the one who’d ended up at the mental-health facility—had handled it.

  “It’s upstairs,” Mitch said.

  When they arrived at the top of the stairs, he walked to the end of the hall and stopped in front of a door, then turned back to Stone and swallowed hard. “Remember yesterday when we were talkin’, I told you my sister had to go to Morris Park ’cause she freaked out at what happened?”

  Stone glanced at him, startled. Odd that Mitch would mention the sister just as he was thinking about her. “Yes, of course.”

  “Well…” He didn’t meet Stone’s gaze. “That was a lie. That’s what most folks think. But the t
ruth is, she’s right here.”

  “Here? In this room?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But—why? Is there something wrong with her? Is she ill?”

  “She won’t come out. She’s been in here since we left the mill two weeks ago. Nobody knows it but us and Reverend Oakley. Dad doesn’t know what to do—he doesn’t want to take her to some facility for real, but…”

  Stone glanced at the door. It had a poster of a band he’d never heard of taped to it, as well as a little plaque that read “Cathy’s Room.” The plaque looked so old it might well have been there since the room’s occupant was a much younger child. “Something happened to her at the mill.”

  Mitch nodded miserably. “Not then—just after. On the way home.” He regarded the door, then turned back to Stone. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Like I said, I shouldn’t have brought you here at all. This is our family’s problem, and it’s…pretty unsettling. But…”

  “It’s all right. I don’t know if I can help, but I promise, I won’t reveal your secret to anyone.”

  He considered. “Okay,” he said at last, and knocked tentatively on the door. “Cath? It’s me. I brought somebody to see if he can help. Can we come in?”

  “Go away,” came a muffled voice from inside. “Nobody can help. I don’t want anybody to see me like this.”

  “Cathy…come on. You can’t stay in there forever. You know Dad’s gonna have to do something eventually.”

  “Go away,” she called again. “You shouldn’t even be here. You should be at church with Dad.”

  Stone narrowed his eyes. Magical sight didn’t help him with the door closed, but he thought he’d heard an odd, strained overtone in the young woman’s voice. “Can you get in there?” he murmured.