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

by R. L. King

  He stopped, stiffening.

  “What?” Kyla demanded, grabbing his arm. “Did you see something?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Tell me, damn it! What did you see?”

  “It’s not possible…” he whispered. “The sheer power alone would be…”

  She spun him around. “Tell me. Now. What are you seeing? What’s impossible?”

  He didn’t even bother to shake free of her. Now that he’d seen it, he didn’t need to. He knew what he was looking for now, and he could find it again instantly. “It’s not an illusion.” He spoke in a tone of wonder.

  “What is it, then? Do you see the—rift thing? The thing V was looking for?”

  “Sort of.” With effort, he forced himself to turn his attention fully to her. “It’s—I still think the rift is around here somewhere, hidden behind a small illusion. But I think I know now why we haven’t found Cinder.”

  “Why?” She cut a quick glance sideways, toward the area where he’d been looking.

  “Come on—we’ve got to go back to the car. I need to check something.”

  Her grip on his arm tightened, holding him in place, and her eyes blazed. “Dr. Stone—neither one of us is going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  He held her gaze until she left go. “I don’t believe it myself, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. I think the rift has somehow…shifted the entire town of Cinder—somewhere else.”

  33

  Kyla, who wasn’t short, had to jog to keep up with Stone’s long, swift strides as he headed back toward the Jeep.

  “What are you talking about? Shifted somewhere else? What does that even mean? Where are you going?”

  Stone didn’t answer until they were both back in the car and he’d driven off. He wasn’t doing it to be unkind or evasive, but rather because his mind was moving so fast he could barely keep up with his own thoughts. “I hardly believe it myself,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire magical career—”

  He stopped in midsentence, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. “Bloody hell, yes I have.”

  “How the fuck does V put up with you?” Kyla yelled. “Listen—you tell me right fucking now what’s going through your head, and why we’re leaving instead of trying to find V!”

  Stone took several long, deep breaths, forcing his heart rate down and trying to wrangle his madly careening thoughts. Finally, he pulled off the road again and let the Jeep idle. “Okay,” he said, a bit breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing it on purpose. Let me try to explain this to you and then we need to get going.”

  He twisted in his seat, grounding himself by looking at her angry, worried expression. Kyla cared about Verity as much as he did, and Verity was their primary objective. “Okay,” he said again. “I don’t know how much Verity told you about the previous rifts, so if I tell you something you already know, just—keep listening. I’ve seen two of them before—one that caused a number of people to suffer a memory lapse, and one that was hidden by an illusion. I expected this one to be similar, but perhaps with a better illusion since powerful people are trying to dissuade me from hunting them down.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. But what did you mean, ‘shifted’? How do you shift a whole town?”

  “Damned good question. But I’ve seen this sort of thing once before—an entire skyscraper shifted between dimensions.”

  She gaped at him. “You’re…fucking…kidding.”

  “I’m not. I didn’t think I’d ever see something like it again—the factors involved don’t seem to exist here, so I didn’t think there was enough magic to do it. If I’m right, that means this rift is far more powerful than the last two.”

  “Fuck…” she said, letting her breath out in a long blast. “So you’re saying the town’s here, but it’s…not here?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I think the rift either shifted Cinder to whatever dimension its power originates from, or else the town is stuck between that dimension and ours.” He took a few more breaths and, convinced he could manage both his thoughts and his driving, pulled back out onto the deserted road.

  “So…what are we looking for? And where’s V?” She paused. “Are you saying…she might have gotten too close to…whatever this thing was, and now she’s shifted too?”

  “Yes. I’m just speculating, obviously—can’t do any more without more data—but my theory is that she wandered too close to something, investigated it, and ended up getting shifted over. Then you noticed her missing, went to investigate yourself, and for whatever reason got hit with some kind of memory-altering magic.”

  “But why? Why would I get my memory altered but V didn’t?”

  “Probably because she’s a mage and you’re not. She’s got strong mental protections against that sort of thing. But she’s never dealt with anything like this, so once she got shifted, she probably didn’t know how to get back.”

  Kyla gripped his arm. “So you think…she’s in there somewhere? Inside Cinder on…another dimension?” She snorted a bitter laugh. “Listen to me. This is fucking unreal.”

  “Good word for it. And yes, that’s precisely what I think. She may not even realize anything is wrong. Time can run differently between dimensions, so she might think she’s only been gone for a few minutes.”

  “Time runs differently between dimensions. Listen to yourself.”

  He shrugged. “It’s true. I’ve experienced it.”

  “So what the hell are you looking for now? Why are we leaving the area?”

  “We’re not leaving the area. We’re just moving forward a bit, while I look for—that,” he finished in triumph, pointing up ahead at a small sign. He pulled off next to it and stopped.

  It read: Cinder, ¼, and included an arrow pointing to the right. Just beyond it was a narrow road, barely two lanes wide.

  Kyla looked at the sign, then down the road. “Quarter mile. That’s not far—we should see lights or something, right?”

  “We should, yes. But if I’m correct and the town is shifted, we’ll get to where it’s supposed to be and find nothing but bare land.”

  “Shit…” she gripped the dashboard. “Well, let’s go, then. If that’s where V is, we have to find her. We have to get her out of there.”

  “Yes. And figure out how to get Cinder back where it belongs as well.” He turned onto the narrow road, then stopped again. “But first, I need to make sure you’re not going to get hit with the same memory-lapse magic as before.”

  “How are you gonna do that?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

  “By putting some protection around your mind, with your permission.”

  She glared. “Protection?”

  “Sort of a block. It won’t be perfect, but it should keep the influence out long enough for us to figure out what’s going on here. The alternative is that you wait here and let me investigate—but I doubt you’ll go for that, will you?”

  “Hell, no.” But she still looked nervous. “How are you gonna do this protection thing? Can you mess with my mind? V’s never talked about anything like that.”

  “She’s probably never had to, but I assure you, she’s capable of it. Don’t think of it as ‘messing’ with your mind, though. Think of it more as putting up a shield.” He chuckled. “A magical tinfoil hat, as it were.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “No, it’s not. But that’s how I deal with situations like this—I try to keep my sense of humor. Are you willing to let me put up a block? If you’re not, it’s probably best if you stay here. If the memory lapse hits you again, you won’t be any help to me or Verity.”

  She regarded him with suspicion. “You can’t read my mind, can you?”

  “No. Mages can’t read minds. I promise, all it will require is a momentary contact. You won’t feel anything.”

  He could tell she didn’t want to do it. Despite their mutual connection with Verity,
it couldn’t be any clearer that she didn’t entirely trust him. She looked at him, then at the road ahead where the faint lights of Cinder should have been shining, and finally let out a loud sigh.

  “Okay. Do it. But make it quick.”

  “Yes. Just hold still a moment.”

  He reached out, moving slowly so he didn’t startle her, and put three fingers on her forehead. Between the physical contact and magical sight, he sensed her disturbed aura more than ever. She was doing a very good job of hiding the fact that this whole situation was freaking her out.

  The process took only a few seconds, and then he pulled back. “There.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I did say you wouldn’t feel anything. I could do a better one if I had more time, but that should at least protect you from wandering off and forgetting why you came here in the first place.”

  He put the Jeep back in gear and drove slowly up the road toward where Cinder should be, watching the odometer carefully and stopping short of the quarter-mile mark. He pulled off the road and got out, and Kyla followed.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “I don’t see a damned thing. No lights, no buildings, no nothing.”

  Out here, the darkness was nearly overwhelming. When Stone switched off the headlights, the enter area was bathed in an inky black that seemed almost palpable.

  “I need to look around. This is where the town should be, but obviously it’s not here. That supports my theory. Will you stay here while I check something?”

  “Check what? I’ll come with you.”

  “I’m just going to levitate up and see if I can see anything from above. I doubt I will, but I want to know before I start bringing out the big guns. It will only take less than a minute.”

  “Fine. But hurry up.”

  He couldn’t see her face in the darkness, but he could hear the growing tension in her voice. “I’ll hurry.”

  He lifted off the ground and, keeping magical sight up, rose to a height of about fifty feet, then drifted over into the area where Cinder should be. As he suspected, he still saw nothing below him, beyond the pale green auras of vegetation. There was no sign of any human or animal auras in the vicinity. He floated back down and landed next to Kyla, who’d opened the Jeep’s door to provide some light.

  She nearly pounced on him. “Anything?”

  “No. If there was a town here, it’s gone now.”

  “Are you saying it’s literally gone? You said something about it being shifted. What’s the difference?”

  Stone pulled his bag from the back seat and removed a smaller bag from it. He hadn’t brought much in the way of ritual materials with him this time. “The difference is the magnitude of the magic we’re dealing with. Either way, it’s got to be immense—you can’t simply shift an entire town—even a tiny one like Cinder—to another dimension without putting out some massive amounts of energy. But the question is, is it simply shifted out of phase, which would take less power and be easier to reverse, or did something literally move it—buildings, people, livestock, and all—to another plane of existence? If that happened, I’m not sure I know a way to reverse it.”

  She grabbed his arm. “You mean you can’t get V back?”

  “Hold on. As I said, I’m not sure yet what’s happened. And even if the town has shifted over bodily, that doesn’t mean I can’t get her, and the other residents, back. It will be harder, but it’s possible. I’m saying I doubt I can get the town back. Buildings can’t walk through portals.”

  “I thought you said you were looking for a rift. Something you can close.” She released his arm and paced around, fists clenched.

  “I was. I am looking for a rift, but until I know more about what’s going on, I can’t just close it. That could seal all those people on the other side, and if I close it without a clear idea of what location it’s pointing at, then the odds of finding them again get a lot lower.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He turned to face her. “Kyla, listen to me. I know you’re worried about Verity. I am too. But if I’m going to do this, you’ve got to let me think. You can’t help me with this part, but you can hinder it. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ll do the most good at this point by going back to the car and letting me work this out. The longer we wait, the more likely something might happen—like the rift closing spontaneously on its own, or someone turning up to investigate.”

  She made a noise that was halfway between a snort and a snarl. “Damn, but you’re an arrogant bastard, Stone.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “But that doesn’t change the facts. If you don’t let me get on with it before something happens, Verity could be lost forever. And I don’t fancy letting that happen. Do you?”

  She held his gaze for several seconds with a smoldering one of her own. Finally, she let her breath out and unclenched her fists. “Fine. On one condition, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you find anything, you’ll tell me. You won’t just—cross over or whatever without me. We go together.”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. Do it, then. Find her.” She stalked back to the Jeep, threw herself into the passenger seat, and sat there with the door open, still glaring at him.

  Stone didn’t waste time. He hadn’t been kidding about his fear that the rift, wherever it was, would close spontaneously. He didn’t have enough data about the rifts yet that he could reliably predict their behavior. Muttering to himself, he began pulling items from his small bag. He felt as if he was blundering around in the dark, and that wasn’t good—before, the whole thing had been little more than an interesting magical problem, but now, with Verity likely in the same place Cinder was, the stakes had become a lot higher. If he couldn’t figure something out soon, he might never get her back.

  Finally, he settled on a wooden rod with a red crystal attached to the end of it. He smiled a little as he remembered using it once before, way back when he’d first met Jason and Verity, to help focus his thoughts during a magical procedure. They’d teased him about his “magic wand,” and he supposed to a layman that was exactly what it looked like.

  But focus was what he needed now, more than anything. If he had any chance of figuring out what had happened to Cinder—whether it was shifted or literally transported—he’d need to figure out exactly where the other dimension in question was. Was it the same as one of the others, in Devil’s Creek or Pennsylvania, or a third and completely different one? Had Verity been present in the town when it had happened, or had she inadvertently walked through some sort of gateway?

  Hell, was she even here at all? He realized he had no way to know her disappearance was even connected with Cinder.

  Stop it. Where else would she be? He had to continue with that assumption for now, because if he didn’t, he had no other reasonable hypothesis to pursue.

  He glanced back over his shoulder toward Kyla. She sat in the passenger seat, one leg dangling out, her gaze fixed on him. Her posture and her aura jangled with impatience, fear, and anger. He sympathized—he would be the same way if their positions were reversed—but he couldn’t concern himself with her right now. She couldn’t help him.

  Turning back, he raised the rod, feeding magic into it until the red crystal glowed. Then, still holding it up, he began pacing around the area, looking for either a way around whatever illusion that was concealing the rift, or any sign of Cinder. As he paced, he increased the power, opening the connection to Calanar wider until his body thrummed with energy. Whoever had done this was good—damn good. It wouldn’t be easy to—

  Wait.

  He stopped as something shimmered in front of him.

  Had he truly seen it, or were his eyes playing tricks on him? He held the rod higher and added more power. Now, not only was his body thrumming, but the rod was too. The little crystal seemed to resonate with it. Something was out there. If he could get the two of them in sync, then he could—

 
; There.

  This time there was no mistaking it: faint images appeared a short distance away. They were so indistinct he couldn’t make out any details, but he didn’t need to. He recognized a building when he saw one, even though it was nearly transparent.

  The little crystal began to hum, and the rod shook in his hand. The wooden part remained cool, but he could feel the heat coming off the crystal.

  “Hold on…” he muttered, still concentrating. If Cinder had been shifted rather than transported, its energy was foreign to whatever dimension it was trapped in. It was one of the fundamental principles of portal science: any entity’s energy—living or not—had an affinity for the dimension where it originated. It wanted to exist on its own dimension, and sending it somewhere else, or holding it halfway between two somewheres, required delicate balance and a lot of power. To do it to a whole town would take even more, so if he could somehow disrupt that balance…

  Just a little more, and I’ll have it—

  The red crystal exploded with a pop, sending shards flying in all directions. Stone flinched, barely bringing his arm up before he got a faceful of tiny missiles. He took a step back, but before he could lower his arm a strange feeling—half heat, half swelling power—hit him and blew him over backward.

  Off in the distance, he thought he heard Kyla yell something, but the wind carried the sound away before he could be sure.

  34

  Stone scrambled back to his feet, and stopped. His breath caught in his throat.

  His view had changed from only seconds ago. Now, instead of nothing but desolate, scrubby plain, the dark hulks of buildings rose in front of him. He stood on a narrow paved road; on his left he spotted a gas station, a tiny general store, and a few unlit structures beyond them, and on his right was a fenced corral with a few head of sleepy sheep milling around. Farther up the road he made out the faint glows of streetlights and a few more buildings.

  “Cinder, I presume,” he muttered.

  He turned and looked behind him. As he suspected, there was no sign of the Jeep or Kyla. When he walked back in that direction, he made it about ten steps before something in his brain shifted and suddenly he was walking back toward the town again. He wondered if the only reason he even noticed was because of his mental protections—would the residents of Cinder even realize they were trapped here?