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

by R. L. King

  He looked around, trying to locate any sign of other living beings—even a stray dog running around in the street—but saw nothing. What did that mean? Were they dead? Had the town shifted but not the people?

  He set off at a slow jog, stashing the rod in his pocket. Kyla had said Cinder had fewer than a hundred people, which meant its core probably didn’t take up much geographical space. Maybe everyone had simply gone to bed early; it didn’t seem like there was much to do out here after dark even under normal circumstances.

  His first stop was the gas station. It was small and dusty, with only two pumps and a building that housed a tiny mini-mart and a closed garage space big enough for one car. The main lights were off, but a couple of beer signs flickered in the front window, giving the place an ominous, horror-movie aspect.

  “Anybody around?” Stone called as he approached. A single car was parked at one of the pumps, but no one was behind the wheel. He edged around it and ducked through the door to the mini-mart.

  The first thing he spotted inside was the figure sitting behind the counter. The bored-looking, gangly teenager in a green John Deere cap and Guns ‘n’ Roses T-shirt was slumped on a stool, an issue of Penthouse in front of him and opened to the centerfold. He neither moved nor acknowledged Stone’s presence, but merely sat with his gaze fixed downward as if the smiling, naked woman in the magazine were the most interesting thing in the world.

  “Hello?” Stone said.

  No answer.

  He shifted to magical sight, but no aura registered. When he added more power to his examination, he caught faint flickers around the boy. Every few seconds he could barely make out intermittent flashes of the row of cigarette cartons on the rear wall as the kid’s form went insubstantial.

  “Hmm.” Stone waved his hand in front of the boy’s face and got no response. Shifted, then, and not transported. That was good—at least it would probably be easier to reverse. Was everyone in town like the boy, held in some kind of suspended animation between the dimensions? Would they remember anything if Stone managed to restore them to their proper place?

  And where was Verity?

  He hurried back outside. “Verity!” he called, as loud as he could. “Where are you?”

  No answer.

  “Bugger…where did you go?” He took off at a faster jog and quickly checked the general store, which was closed. In a couple of small residences just off the main street, he found more of the suspended, unmoving figures—a man seated in front of a dead TV set in one, and a family gathered around a board game in the other. He left them alone and exited back out to the street.

  But where was Verity? Was she in the same suspended state as everyone else? His mental protections were stronger than hers—or perhaps she hadn’t expected this, so she hadn’t bothered reinforcing them until it was too late. But then, why wouldn’t she have stopped moving as soon as she crossed the perimeter into the shifted area?

  Of course. Maybe she did.

  Clearly he needed to get more sleep, because his brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity. Pausing a moment to orient himself, he summoned a light spell around his hand and ran out of town to the south, toward the spot where he and Kyla had first pulled off the road—the location she last remembered seeing Verity.

  It didn’t take him long to reach it; his long strides covered the ground fast, and the light spell prevented him from tripping over rocks or uneven terrain. He slowed as he drew closer to where he suspected the edge of the phenomenon was, not wanting to be caught again in the strange, direction-altering field he experienced before. As he moved, he reinforced his mental shields. If he got trapped in the suspension effect, he doubted anyone else would ever find any of them again.

  He spotted a figure up ahead when he was still fifty yards or so away. He couldn’t make out detail yet, but whoever it was stood unmoving like the rest, as if they had simply wandered out of town for a walk. Heart pounding, he tensed and approached even more slowly? “Verity?”

  No answer.

  Closer, with magical sight up at full strength, he had no doubt the figure was indeed Verity. She wore a black hoodie, leather jacket, jeans, and black boots, and her still, unmoving gaze was fixed somewhere toward Cinder. As Stone came up next to her, he couldn’t miss the same kind of flicker he’d seen around the boy in the gas station and the people in the houses. In her, though, it was stronger; bits of her emerald-green aura shone through along with red flashes arcing around her body.

  She’s fighting it. He watched her for a moment longer, but aside from the flickers and flashes, he saw no movement—not even in her eyes. Clearly, if she was fighting the effect, she wasn’t strong enough to break free.

  That meant wherever this rift was, it had to be a potent one. He’d have to be careful.

  “Verity—can you hear me?”

  Still no sign of movement—but did the flashes around her aura change, just for a moment? He couldn’t be sure.

  He paced around her, magical sight still up. “Verity! If you can hear me at all, give me some kind of sign. I’m going to get you sorted.”

  Nothing happened for several seconds. But then, as he continued to watch, her aura seemed to blaze brighter for a moment, and the some of the red flashes diminished.

  “Good! That’s it! So you’re still in there after all. Just give me a moment…”

  He focused his concentration. This would be a tricky bit of magic, because he’d need to reach her not only on this dimension, but on their home one as well. Like everything else around here except him, she was stuck between the two, and thus unable to act in either. To bring her back, he’d need to get her fully into phase with either this dimension or the other one—and it made more sense to bring her back here, then go in search of the rift and exit through it. It had to exist on both dimensions, or Cinder wouldn’t still be shifted. Once the two of them got back to their home plane, he could close the rift from there. It wouldn’t be easy and he couldn’t be sure it would work, but since dimensional energy tended to want to return to its home location, disrupting the energy from the rift should cause it to snap back.

  At least he hoped that was how it would work. It wasn’t as if he dealt with this kind of interdimensional magic every day.

  But first he had to get Verity back.

  From his shoulder bag containing his ritual components, he pulled out a small sack of sand and used it to trace a crude circle to enclose her. Fortunately, this shouldn’t take an elaborate working—it would have been much worse if she’d been fully transported here. Using magic, he placed four small candles around the circle at north, south, east, and west (assuming those values even had any meaning here) and then stepped back and lit them. Theoretically, all he’d have to do to get Verity back was to grab hold of the energies from the two separate dimensions and bring them into sync with each other long enough for Verity to return. After that, he could reinforce her mental shields, or she could do it herself now that she knew what she was up against.

  “Hang on just a moment longer…” he murmured, moving next to the circle without crossing it. He took a couple of deep breaths to center himself, then reached out with his power, opening the conduit to Calanar. As he did, it occurred to him with some shock that it was even more fortunate than he’d thought that the rift had only shifted Cinder rather than transporting it—since his Calanarian magic worked based on the relative connection between Earth and Calanar, in order for it to function on a foreign dimension he’d need to have the data on where it was located. He could get it, but it would take time—and time was something he didn’t have in abundance right now. Even now, he wasn’t getting access to the level of Calanarian energy he’d be getting if he were fully on Earth.

  He focused on Verity, reaching out to touch her essence. Now that he knew what he was doing, he acted with confidence and care. A short time into the process, he began to sense her presence growing more substantial, and realized she was doing her best to help him from her end. “Good,
good…” he said. “Keep it up, Verity. We’re almost done…”

  With a sudden wrenching sensation, Verity’s body snapped fully into being. Her aura blazed bright, solid green, and she gasped and took a staggering step forward.

  Stone caught her, holding her shoulders until she steadied herself. “Verity!”

  “Doc!” She threw herself into his arms, engulfing him in a tight hug and letting out a long, relieved breath. “Am I glad to see you!”

  “Bloody hell, Verity, you scared the hell out of me!” When she let loose, he stepped back and drank in the sight of her.

  “Yeah, you and me both. I didn’t think anybody was coming.” Her gaze sharpened. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Kyla called me. Apparently you’d walked off to investigate something on your own, and the next thing she knew she was back in Mason and couldn’t remember how she got there. Fortunately she remembered you, or we might have been in trouble.”

  “Oh, my God.” She spun, looking around in all directions. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine—probably angry with me at this point, because I promised not to go anywhere without her.”

  “Is she here?”

  He looked around. “Do you know what’s happened here?”

  “Not exactly. I remember looking for a rift near the ley line, but didn’t see one. What’s going on? Where are we?”

  “We’re in a little town called Cinder, which has been dimensionally shifted. That’s what happened to you—you were stuck between our dimension and this one, just like all the other people of Cinder. Go ahead and reinforce your mental shields now, so it doesn’t happen again.”

  “Already did. I’m good. Where’s Kyla, then?”

  “Hopefully waiting for us outside, back on our own dimension. Either that, or she’s come looking for us and is probably wandering about somewhere since she doesn’t have the key to my rental Jeep.”

  Verity snorted. “She’s probably hot-wired it and driven it back to Mason if that happened.” She studied the dark, scrubby landscape. “So what’s the plan now? We have to get back, and get all these other people back, right?”

  “Exactly. We’ve got to find the rift. My theory is that we can go through it, which will get us back to our own dimension.”

  “But what about the town?”

  He took a breath. “I’m not absolutely certain about this, but I think if we close the rift once we’re out, since the town is only shifted and not fully moved to the other dimension, that will be enough to disrupt the energies and shift it back home.”

  “Ah, right—because dimensional energy has an affinity for its home plane.”

  “Well done, apprentice,” he said, grinning. “I thought you slept through my lessons on dimensional science.”

  “I think I did—maybe I picked it up by osmosis through my head on the desk. Anyway, let’s go. I don’t like the idea of Kyla wandering around in the wilderness. She’s not exactly a country girl. Also, she’s gonna be pissed at both of us.”

  “I’m sure she’ll forgive you—and I’ll survive if she doesn’t forgive me, assuming we’re able to set everything right. Come on.”

  Cinder, it turned out, was a very small town. Past the gas station and the general store, they found only a few more small businesses along with a collection of residences a short distance out. Stone suspected there might be a few more residences—outlying farms and ranches—outside the boundary of the dimensional shift, but didn’t concern himself with those. The rift had to be in here somewhere, but since he couldn’t see the ley lines as clearly here, finding it might prove more difficult than he’d thought.

  “What’s it even look like?” Verity asked after they’d trudged along for about ten minutes and had nearly reached the other side of town.

  “No way to know. The two I saw didn’t look the same. I think they vary by location and power level. Just keep magical sight up and tell me if you see anything odd.”

  She walked in silence for another minute or two. “Doc?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you going to do? Are you planning to figure out where all those spots on your globe are, then go to them and try to close all the rifts?”

  “I…don’t know,” he said slowly. That was what he wanted to do without a doubt—these rifts were clearly dangerous, and who knew what would happen if more of them started to pop up? Certainly, this one was causing trouble for the residents of Cinder, and if others were located in more populated areas they could cause even greater disruption.

  “But…” She sounded troubled. “It’s not your responsibility to go running around dealing with them. Can’t you tell other mages about it? Maybe if you do, they can help.”

  “Yes, that’s definitely an option, but it assumes a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well…it’s going to take fairly powerful magic to seal the rifts, which means sending minor talents won’t do. I already told you what happened with Stefan and Madame Huan. I wonder how many other powerful mages are in on this little secret. And even if they’re not, trying to convince them to do anything might not be easy.”

  “But surely they wouldn’t want dangerous magical stuff happening, would they? Wouldn’t they at least be curious about it?”

  “Some of them would.” He chuckled. “I think I need to introduce you to more mages. Most of them aren’t like us. In fact, the vast majority of mages I know personally are more like Eddie, Arthur, and Walter Yarborough—in other words, content to stay in their libraries, do their research, and avoid adventure like the proverbial plague.”

  She thought about that. “But that’s just the older ones, right? The younger ones might be curious. What about Ian?”

  “Ian’s not ready to deal with this. He’s got the power, but his training has been…spotty at best. And you’d be surprised at how many younger mages these days can’t handle the training to become fully qualified. Too many distractions in the mundane world, and too many ways technology can do things it used to take magic for, a lot easier.”

  “Wow. I can’t even imagine knowing magic and not wanting to train it to its full potential.” She looked around again. “See, now this is a time when it might be worthwhile to have some kind of mage organization. You could call a meeting and give everybody the details all at once. There’ve got to be at least some mages you could interest in this. And maybe the group could…I don’t know…have words with Stefan and Madame Huan for keeping this secret.”

  Stone snorted. “Oh, yes, that would go over well. I definitely wouldn’t volunteer to be anywhere near that committee. I—” He stopped, narrowing his eyes.

  “Do you see something?” Verity stopped too, tensing.

  “I think so. Come on.”

  He set off at a fast walk toward an old barn. Just for a second, he thought he’d seen an eerie green glow from behind it, but then it faded again before he could get a fix on it.

  Verity caught up with him, having to run to match his stride, and the two of them rounded the corner at the same time.

  Both stopped.

  “Shit…” Verity murmured. “That’s got to be it.”

  The thing was huge—at least twice the size of the one in Iowa, rising around ten feet up and stretching out between fifteen and twenty feet horizontally. What Stone had seen pulsing had been the edge of it, which had briefly extended past the edge of the barn before receding again. The whole thing glowed a bright, acid green, darker in the center and brighter around its ragged edges. As they drew closer, Stone felt a bone-deep thrumming that seemed to extend not just into his body, but his soul as well.

  “Do you…feel that?” Verity whispered. Her voice shook.

  “Yes.”

  “That thing is…I don’t even know how to describe it. So that’s what shifted the whole town over?”

  “Almost certainly, yes. This one is a lot more potent than the other two I saw.”

  “So…what do we do? Do y
ou want to walk through it?” She studied it dubiously, and her tone suggested she wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

  “I think we have to. I can’t shift us back from inside, since I’ve been using Calanarian energy and I can’t get to all of it from here without a lot more study.” He too examined the rift, focusing his magical sight on the middle. He thought he could make out forms on the other side, but he couldn’t be certain. The green was so intense, it was nearly impossible to see anything clearly past it. “I could go first if you like.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “We’ll go together. If something goes wrong, I don’t want to be stuck here.” She took his hand. “I’ll feel a lot safer if we’re together. If we end up somewhere weird, at least we’ll have a shot of figuring out how to get back.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Right, then. We’ll just step through, and if my hypothesis is correct, we’ll end up somewhere not too far from where I left the Jeep and Kyla. Then we’ll see about getting the rest of Cinder back where it belongs. Ready?”

  “Ready.” This time, her voice didn’t shake.

  Together, still holding hands, they walked forward and stepped through the rift.

  The feeling was like nothing Stone had ever experienced before. His body felt as if something was pulling it apart—and worse, his brain felt the same way. It wasn’t pain, exactly—that made it even stranger, because it made sense that having your limbs pulled slowly from your body should hurt. Inside his brain, his thoughts careened around, bumping into each other and melding together like some kind of extradimensional drug trip. When he could manage to nail one of them down for longer than a second or two, he felt as if he should be analyzing the feeling, so he could make notes about it when they came through on the other side. Had anyone else ever experienced this?