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

by R. L. King

  “Yeah.” Jason had already thought of that. From the sound of things, the rickety chain and inadequate deadbolt on the door wouldn’t hold these guys back. Hell, they wouldn’t hold him back, if he were determined to break into this room. “What about the shifters? Do you know any of them? Could they help?”

  “They don’t get involved. They’re very reclusive, and they rarely leave their home territory. But one of them heard some of the townspeople talking about the break-in, and he convinced them to hire me to grab him.” She sighed. “At first, I thought the guy was a shifter. Not a bear, but some kind of sneaky one.”

  “But now you’re sure he isn’t?”

  “Yeah. As soon as he got wind I was on his tail, he took off. I tracked him to this area, but there’s something more to him, and I can’t put my finger on what it is. It’s almost like he’s taunting me—letting me get a whiff of him and then disappearing again. And then when I didn’t even expect it, he attacked me. I’d be an idiot to go after him and his guys alone, especially before this heals up, but I can’t let him get away.”

  “What makes you think he hasn’t already left the area?”

  “A hunch. Guys like that enjoy playing the game. I’m sure he likes evading me because it feeds his ego. And it hurts my ego to admit he got the better of me—I’ve never failed to bring in a target before, but this time I’ve got nothing. So when I remembered what you said, I figured it was worth giving you a call and seeing if you were serious about these friends of yours.”

  “Well…I’m definitely serious about them. They’re both pretty busy, though. My sister’s in the middle of a move up to San Francisco, and my friend…Yeah, I’d rather not get him involved unless it’s necessary. He’s damn good, but he also has a tendency to…complicate things. I’d rather keep this simple, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “I like simple.” She finished her beer and swung her legs off the bed. “So, will you call your sister and ask her, at least? I can offer her a cut of my fee if she can help me find this guy and get the stuff back. Plus she’ll be helping out a lot of nice folks who don’t deserve this kind of crap. If the shop owner can’t get his stuff back, he’s in trouble. His insurance won’t cover all of it. He might have to close the place, and he’s got a wife and four kids.”

  Jason studied her again. He barely knew this woman, and had no idea how much of what she was telling him was true. His gut told him she wasn’t lying to him—but he had to make sure it really was his gut he was listening to, and not something further south.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “I’ll call her. But I think you should get out of here. This place isn’t safe. What if you come to my place and we call her from there?”

  She gave him an appraising look, as if trying to determine his motives.

  “Look,” he said. “You don’t know the area like I do. If he decides to come after you again, this isn’t the place you want to be, undercover cops or no undercover cops. I promise, I’m not trying to hit on you. I just want to go someplace safer while we figure this out. Okay?”

  She studied him for a few more moments, then sighed, stuffed her feet into her boots, and stood. Already, she moved with a little more limber grace than before. “Yeah. I don’t like it, but I guess you make sense.” She grabbed her jacket off the chair. “Thanks, Jason. You didn’t have to do this. I mean, so far I’ve totaled your car and told you to get lost, and you’re still willing to help me out. You’re okay.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they tell me. And just to be clear: I am gonna help you out. I want to be in on this. I’m not just gonna put you in touch with my sister and step out. We’re a package deal.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Also…” Jason added, wondering if he shouldn’t just leave well enough alone.

  “Yes—?”

  He leaned forward. “I know I said I wasn’t trying to hit on you, and I’m not. But if we get this guy…will you at least let me buy you dinner sometime? Assuming you meant it about you and Hank not being serious.”

  Her expression remained impassive for several seconds, long enough to make him think he’d blown it, but then she smiled. “Yeah, sure, why not? And yeah, I did mean it. Hank’s a good guy, but I can’t deal with that possessive shit. And anyway, what’s one dinner? You’ve got yourself a deal.” Her eyes twinkled. “But I’m warning you now—I know you Bay Area types love your vegetarian restaurants, but this girl’s pure carnivore.”

  25

  Even though it was after eleven by the time Jason called Verity, she answered promptly. “Jason?” Her voice sounded concerned. “Everything okay? You don’t usually call this late.”

  “I’m fine. But I’ve got a little…situation you might be able to help me with. Are you in San Francisco?”

  “Nah, sleeping over here tonight—was doing a bunch of cleaning today. What’s up?”

  He glanced at Amber, who was sitting on his couch drinking a beer. “I’ve got a…friend here who could use a little help. Your kind of help. You up for hearing her out?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He didn’t miss how much her voice perked up, and then it took on a sly edge. “Her?”

  He sighed. Little sisters could be a pain sometimes, even when they could blow things up with their minds. “Yeah. Her. You coming or not? We’re at my place.”

  “Be there in twenty minutes.”

  She showed up in fifteen, dressed in leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots. “Okay. What’s this problem—and who’s your friend?”

  He gave her a dirty look he knew wouldn’t do any good, then waved her inside.

  Amber leaped from the couch—she seemed to be completely healed now—and the two women eyed each other appraisingly.

  Jason stepped in. “Amber, this is my sister Verity. V, this is Amber Harte. I met her a few weeks ago—she’s the one who totaled my car.”

  Verity grinned. “Well, hey, that’s not the way I’d pick to meet somebody, but I guess you take what you can get. Hi.”

  Amber’s tense posture relaxed a little. “Hey. Good to meet you.”

  Jason noticed Verity looking Amber over with the fuzzed-out glance indicating magical sight. “So, uh…”

  “You said something about my kind of help,” Verity said. “I think I know what that means, but suppose we get it out in the open so there aren’t any misunderstandings.”

  Amber nodded approval. “Good. Straightforward. I can work with that.”

  “Amber’s part shifter,” Jason said.

  “Part shifter?” Verity tilted her head. “So—what—you grow a tail and pointy ears or something?”

  “You didn’t tell me your sister was a comedian, Jason.” Amber sat back down on the couch, looking amused.

  “Yeah, there’s a reason for that.”

  She laughed. “No. It means I got some of the perks—strength, speed, tracking, healing—but nowhere near as fast as a real shifter. And that’s all I got.”

  “So you can’t change into a—what?”

  “Bear.” Amber appeared to be relaxing more as Verity continued to take her words in stride. “And Jason tells me you might know something about magic.”

  Verity shot Jason a questioning glance.

  He shook his head. “Didn’t tell her much. Just said you might know some stuff that could help her.”

  “Help you with what?” She turned her attention back to Amber. “What’s the problem?”

  With a little help from Jason, Amber explained the situation.

  Verity listened in silence, perched on the edge of a chair across from her. “So…” she said at last, “You think this guy who broke in to the shop is some kind of mage?”

  “That’s my theory, yeah. I don’t have a lot of experience with mages, but I do know shifters. And they can’t break into buildings without a trace.” She finished her beer. “Can mages do that?”

  “Oh, yeah. I can think of several ways they could do it.” She got up and began pacing. “You said you think this guy is wor
king with at least one other person?”

  “I think he stole the stuff from the jewelry store and transported it here—maybe he has a buddy here he can fence it to. I’m not sure. But he’s definitely in the area, or was a couple hours ago, and there’s definitely more than one of them. At least two, maybe three.”

  Jason watched Verity pace, amused at how much some of her unconscious habits were growing to resemble Stone’s. “What do you think, V? Could you find the guy?”

  “Maybe. Depends.” She addressed Amber again. “In order to find him, I’d need something of his to use as a tether object. Did he leave anything behind at the scene?”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything that belonged to him—the more important it was to him, the better. It’ll be harder to find him if he really is a mage—if he’s got any kind of power, he can protect himself against tracking.”

  “But that takes effort, doesn’t it?” Jason asked. “Would he even bother, if he doesn’t know a mage is looking for him?”

  “Let’s hope not. Doesn’t matter, though, if I don’t have a tether object.”

  “Damn,” Amber said. “I didn’t stay long at the scene back home—just long enough to get the story and pick up the guy’s scent.” She bowed her head with a dejected sigh. “Well, it was a good try, anyway. Thanks for coming over here.”

  “Let’s not give up yet,” Verity said. “You said you fought these guys, right? Did you get any good hits in?”

  “Why?”

  “If you did, maybe you got some blood on your clothes or something. Blood’s one of the best tether objects around.”

  Amber jerked her head up and grinned. “Hang on a second.” She hurried over to a duffel bag she’d tossed next to the sofa, rummaged in it, and came up with a brown leather glove. She tossed it to Verity. “This work? I got one good shot in on the guy before his friend took me down and they got away.”

  Verity examined the glove, fuzzing out again. “Yeah, this is great. If this really is his blood and he hasn’t put up shielding, I can use this.” She glanced at Jason. “And if I can’t…I know somebody who can.”

  “Yeah…” Jason shook his head. “I really don’t want to get him involved, though. You’re good, V—you got this. Let’s keep this one to ourselves, okay? He’s got enough on his plate.”

  She grinned. “You’re not fooling anybody, big bro.”

  “What?”

  Amber was shifting her gaze between the two of them as if watching a tennis match, but said nothing.

  Verity’s grin widened. “You want to keep the weirdness magnet as far away from this one as possible.”

  “Well…yeah. I mean, I know it’s rubbed off on you too, but you haven’t had as long for it to sink in. This one should be pretty straightforward, right? You find the guy, we go there, take ’em out, get the stuff back, call the cops, and call it a day.”

  He narrowed his eyes and turned to Amber. “You’re not planning on killing anybody, are you? Because I’m not down for that.”

  “No killing. I hope I can take the guy back, but the people who hired me really only want their stuff back.” Her expression took on a predatory aspect. “I do want to show him it’s not a good idea to try this again, though.”

  “That I can get behind. C’mon—the sooner Verity does the ritual, the sooner we can get this taken care of.”

  They went back to Verity’s apartment to perform the ritual. That was where her materials were, and now that she was all packed up, she had floor space.

  Jason prowled the room, casting occasional glances out the window as his sister worked. He couldn’t help her with this, and neither could Amber, so they stayed out of the way as best they could.

  “This magic stuff always freaks me out,” Amber said under her breath, watching Verity as she carefully placed candles around the outer edge of the boundary she’d drawn with chalk on the floor.

  “Have you seen a lot of it?” Jason, as he often did when hanging out with either Stone or Verity, wondered how many people were in the know about the magical world and didn’t say anything about it for fear of being thought crazy.

  “Not really. Mostly heard about it. A couple guys at the colony know people who can do it, and I’m pretty sure one of the guys who runs the shop where this stuff was stolen from is peddling a little magical gear out of the back room. That may be why this guy I’m chasing went after it.”

  “How well do you know the colony in Tahoe?”

  She shrugged. “Casually at best. Like I told you, my grandma was a shifter. My dad kept contact with them until he married Mom, and then they moved away. Dad made sure we knew about our heritage, though. When I got old enough I went back and re-introduced myself, but…”

  “But what? Oh, wait—is it like the other part-shifter we know? She never really felt like she was part of her clan since her parents took her away when she was a little girl.”

  “Nah. Like I said, I know them. We hang out occasionally. One of my brothers still lives closer to them, but mostly the true shifters live in their animal forms. One of them’s got money and owns a huge section of land out in the middle of nowhere in the forest, and they’re based there. Not a lot to do for those of us who are stuck on two legs.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Stuck? You mean you’d rather be a bear?”

  “Sometimes. Life’s a lot less complicated for them, you know? But not always. Some of them are pretty strange…really a lot more bear than human.”

  “Yeah…” Jason fell silent, looking out the window again.

  “You look like you have something on your mind.”

  He jerked, startled. Oh, right—even part-shifters could apparently pick up faint changes in scent that indicated unease or agitation. “Yeah…I guess I do have a lot on my mind right now.”

  “Jason…” She took his arm and gently turned him around, though he could feel the strength in her grip. “Come on. What is it?”

  Her eyes were beautiful, medium brown with golden flecks. “Remember before I told you one of the shifters we helped rescue from that compound was a bear?”

  “Yeah.”

  “His name was Tony. I kind of lost track of him after we split up. Do you know him?”

  “I don’t think so. They keep to themselves a lot, and I never met all the younger ones. Why?”

  “No reason, really. I just wanted to maybe see him again—see how he’s doing, you know?” He wondered if he sounded as lame to her as he did to himself.

  She gave him an odd look, but before she could answer, Verity spoke up.

  “Okay, we’re ready to go here. Give me a few more minutes and hopefully we should have something.”

  Jason and Amber returned to the circle, taking seats on the couch nearby to watch as Verity lit the candles and sat down in the center with the bloody glove. Jason pulled out the map of the San Jose area he’d brought with him and unfolded it, ready to hand it over.

  The ritual didn’t take long; barely ten minutes had passed before the candle flames shot up and died, and Verity’s shoulders slumped.

  Jason leaped up. “Did you find them?”

  “Yeah. Give me the map.”

  She spread it out in front of her, studied it a few moments, and then stabbed her finger down on a location. “There.”

  Jason and Amber knelt next to her. Amber pulled out a flashlight. “Do you know where that is?” she asked Jason.

  “Yeah. It’s kind of a sketchy area—lots of warehouses and industrial parks.”

  “Makes sense—they might be holed up there waiting for whoever they’re fencing the stuff to. If they’re still there, that might mean they still have it.” She jumped to her feet in a single strong, graceful motion. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait—I’m coming with you,” Jason insisted. He couldn’t quite duplicate her leap, but came close.

  “We’re coming with you,” Verity added.

  “Hang on.” Amber held up her hands. “I really appreciate your help, but I can�
��t ask you to—”

  “You’re not asking,” Verity said. “We’re volunteering. At least I am. If this guy’s a mage, you might need magical backup anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, pulling on his leather jacket. “Come on, Amber—I know you’re tough, but this guy took you out before. Let us help you.”

  She flicked her gaze between the two of them, then sighed. “Fine. Can’t say I mind having some backup, magical or otherwise. Let’s do this.”

  They piled into Verity’s SUV (“In case they recognize your Jeep,” Jason told Amber). With Verity driving and Jason navigating with the map, they arrived in the general area of San Jose in twenty minutes.

  “Why would they go here?” Verity asked, looking around at the run-down industrial parks, many of which had For Lease signs on them, and old warehouses.

  “Guy probably has a local buddy who knows the area,” Amber said. “They grabbed quite a bit of stuff, so they need a place to hide a truck and take care of the handoff to the fence without any cops or lookie-loos around.”

  “There it is,” Jason said, pointing forward. “Pull off here, V. Can you do that disregarding thing?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, don’t worry. I got this.”

  He didn’t say it, but once again he found himself apprehensive of just how much his sister seemed to be enjoying adventures like this. He supposed it wasn’t anything more unusual than what she did with the Harpies in San Francisco, or some of the stuff she got up to with Stone, but he tried not to think too hard about either of those two things.

  “Okay,” Amber said. “Let’s do a little recon. I want to be sure they’re really in there before we do anything. I’ll go around the back. Jason, you take the side. Verity—”