Stone and Claw: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Hello, what’s this?” he murmured, returning to the spot he’d passed and flipping pages more slowly.

  Stuck between the pages was a yellowed newspaper clipping from the Stanford Daily. Dated June 1958, the article included a grainy photo of a smiling, nondescript-looking middle-aged man and the headline, Benchley joins Chemistry faculty.

  The article itself didn’t seem terribly interesting on its own: it merely announced that Professor Thaddeus Benchley, formerly of some university back East Stone had never heard of, had accepted a position in the Chemistry department. He and his family had settled in Palo Alto, and he would begin teaching at the Fall quarter.

  Stone looked at the photo, then back at Raider. The boy at the sandwich shop had said the so-called “ghost” was supposed to be “some professor guy” who’d “dropped dead while he was readin’ a book one night.” Could it be—

  “Professor Benchley?”

  “Meow.” If it was possible for a cat to look pleased, Raider did so.

  Stone dropped the clipping and sagged back in his chair. “Bloody hell…” he whispered. He shifted to magical sight again for another look at Raider. The cat’s aura remained a steady green, with only the hint of blue around his eyes indicating anything different from usual. Stone saw no sign of agitation—if the echo of a long-dead professor was somehow taking his cat for a joyride, it didn’t seem to be causing Raider any discomfort. He knew from past experience that echoes could manipulate inanimate objects—he’d once dealt with one that had taken over the machinery at a meat-packing plant—but he’d never seen one borrow a living being before. Perhaps animals were easier than humans.

  He leaned forward again, swiping a hand through his hair. “Er—all right, then. It’s—er—a pleasure to meet you, Professor. Is there something I can do for you, or are you just popping in to say hello? Sort of a spiritual Welcome Wagon?”

  Raider didn’t answer, except to lick his paw.

  Perhaps that was too complicated a question for the echo to handle in its present state. Was it constrained by having to use Raider’s body—and maybe even his brain?—to communicate? But if Benchley’s echo had been hanging about in the house for many years, there was probably a reason for it. Most people didn’t produce echoes when they died, and usually if they did, it meant they had some unfinished business they needed to attend to before passing on to whatever awaited them on the other side.

  “Do you want me to help you with something?”

  “Meow.”

  Fascinated, Stone picked up the clipping again. “I’ll do what I can. Just make sure you don’t do anything to harm my cat, all right?”

  Raider stalked to the edge of the desk and head-butted him, accompanied by a loud, rumbling purr.

  All right, apparently no harm. “What can I—”

  On the opposite edge of the desk, his mobile phone chirped. Immediately, Raider leaped off the desk and dashed out of the room.

  Damn. “Bloody brilliant timing, whoever you are.” Stone snatched up the phone.

  Jason’s familiar number flashed on the screen. He hit the button. “Yes, hello?” He was aware he sounded impatient, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Al? This a bad time?”

  “Er—no, I suppose not. What is it?”

  “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it. What can I do for you?”

  “Can we get together tomorrow? Maybe for lunch? V and I went out to dinner and had a long talk.”

  That didn’t surprise Stone. Jason could no more have kept his offer a secret from Verity than he could have stayed angry with her for her romantic activities. The two of them were too close for anything else. “Sure. You’ve got an answer for me, then?”

  “Yeah. Let’s talk tomorrow. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

  Not much chance of that at this point, he thought with a glance toward the open doorway. “Yes, fine. Tomorrow, then. I’ll call you.”

  After he hung up, Stone went in search of Raider, hoping they might resume their discussion. He found the cat curled up in the middle of his bed. “So, Professor—about whatever you want me to do for you. Can you help me work out what it is?”

  Raider barely budged, raising his head only enough to aim a sleepy glance at Stone. A quick check with magical sight confirmed that the faint blue glow around the cat’s eyes had departed.

  “Some other time, then,” Stone muttered.

  Raider didn’t reply.

  7

  “So then, what have you decided? I assume you and Verity have discussed the situation at length.”

  Stone sat across from the two of them at a busy little pho house on Castro Street in Mountain View. He was still feeling frustrated—he’d made another attempt to communicate with Professor Benchley earlier that morning, but Raider had remained echo-free. Even so, he’d shut the bewildered tabby out of the bathroom while he took a shower, just to be sure. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d done it nonetheless.

  Jason finished slurping up a long stream of noodles before answering. “Yeah. Honestly, I was kind of leaning toward saying no—like I said, it’s a fantastic offer and I definitely appreciate it, but I felt like I wanted to make a go of this on my own, you know?”

  “But…?”

  “But then he talked to me,” Verity said with a grin. “And I talked some sense into him.”

  “Is that so? Given how eager you were for me to stop paying your rent, I’d have thought you would have advised him against it.”

  “That’s different. I’m not your apprentice anymore, so you shouldn’t be responsible for my housing. But this is an investment. People get investors all the time when they’re starting businesses.”

  “I’m still not comfortable with it,” Jason said. “I still think it’d be better if I got a job somewhere up here, and saved up until I could afford to do it with my own money.”

  “Let me remind you of something, in case you’ve forgotten,” Stone pointed out, feeling a bit like a fisherman reeling in a prize catch—one he already knew he’d landed. “It’s expensive to live up here. You might think you’ll be able to save money like you did when you were living with Stan, but do you really think it will work that way?”

  “That’s one of the things V pointed out,” Jason said. He glared between the two of them in clearly affected annoyance. “Why the hell do you two live someplace so damned expensive, anyway? This would be a hell of a lot easier if you were somewhere cheaper.”

  “Well, I don’t know about Verity,” Stone said dryly, “but I’m offering to invest in your firm—not to relocate. You’re a good friend, but not that good.” He sipped his tea. “So—does that mean you accept my offer?”

  “Yeah. I can’t think of a good reason not to. But not nearly as much as you said. I can get a really good start—get some office space in San Jose, where it’s cheaper than up here, buy a few things I need, and put some away to keep the place going for a few months—on half that. And I do want to do it all nice and legal. I want you to know where your money’s going.”

  “Brilliant,” Stone said. “Wouldn’t have it any other way. Glad to hear your sister’s talked some sense into you.”

  “Yeah, well, she does that sometimes.”

  “Kind of my job,” Verity said with a grin.

  Stone raised his glass. “To new beginnings, and future success, then. I’ll call my solicitor tomorrow and we can have some documents drawn up.”

  Jason lifted his own glass and clinked Stone’s. “Thanks, Al,” he said, and he looked serious now instead of reluctant. “I’m not kidding—this means a lot to me. I won’t let you down.”

  Stone waved him off. “None of that. You’ve got a talent for this, and your work ethic exhausts me sometimes. You’ll do fine.”

  “He will,” Verity agreed. “And I’m going to help him. I should be able to make some of those missing-persons cases a lot easier to solve.”

 
Ah, so Jason had spoken with her about that—or perhaps it had been her own idea. “That should work out well. You two make a good team. I look forward to hearing about your continuing successes.”

  “That’s a good point,” Jason said. “As an investor, you’ll be part of the company, so I can tell you about the cases.”

  “Excellent. Actually, as it happens I’ve got one of my own now.”

  “You do?” Verity leaned forward with interest.

  “Yes—Raider started talking to me last night. That’s what you interrupted, Jason, and why I sounded so cross on the phone.”

  “Wait a second.” Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Did I hear you right? Did you say your cat was talking to you?”

  “Well, sort of.” He quickly told them about what had happened, including the story Aidan at the sandwich shop had related.

  Verity listened with increasing delight. “Oh, wow. Can I come by soon? I want to talk to your cat…or professor…or whatever. What do you think he wants you to do?”

  “No idea. I’m planning to look him up tomorrow—I’m sure there are records in one of the libraries. But if his echo has hung about this long, he’s clearly got some business he needs to sort out before he can move on.”

  Jason shook his head with an amused, rueful sigh. “Okay. This is out of my league. You two can solve the Mystery of the Talking Cat on your own. Me, I need to get back to more boring things, like finding an office I can afford.”

  8

  The next day, Stone arrived on campus an hour early so he could try hunting down information about Professor Thaddeus Benchley. He stopped by his office first, waving a greeting to Laura, the Cultural Anthropology department’s admin aide. “Morning.”

  She glanced at the clock with a smile. “You’re here early. I thought you weren’t even functional before ten a.m.”

  “Had some things to do before my class.” He held up his cup. “And I’ve got some extra-potent coffee this morning.” He started to sweep past her toward his office, then stopped. “Laura…”

  “Yes?”

  “Suppose I wanted to find out some information about a professor who used to teach here. What would be the best way to do that?”

  She put her pen down. “I guess that would depend on who it is and what kind of information you’re looking for.”

  “Chap named Thaddeus Benchley. He started teaching here in the late Fifties, in the Chemistry department.”

  “The Fifties? You mean like last century?”

  Stone chuckled. “Unless the Chemistry department has somehow perfected time travel, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?”

  “What do you want to find out about him? HR would probably have information, but I’m not sure they’re allowed to give it out.”

  “Nothing sensitive like that. Just—who he was, when he died, that sort of thing.”

  She pondered. “You could try the library—maybe back issues of the Daily? Or I could check with the Chemistry department for you if you want.”

  “No, no, that’s fine. I can do it myself. This is sort of a…personal project.”

  “Now you’ve got me intrigued,” she said.

  Laura was known around the department for being a bit of a busybody, but Stone saw no harm in satisfying some of her curiosity. “You know I’ve finally moved into that house in Encantada—well, I found some papers indicating that he might have lived there at some point—and possibly died there. I was curious to find out more about him.”

  She shuddered. “Died there? That’s creepy.”

  “That doesn’t even rate on the scale of creepy I’m used to dealing with,” Stone reminded her.

  “So you don’t find it unsettling that someone might have died in your house?”

  “No. It’s not as if he’s haunting the place or anything.” Possessing my cat doesn’t count as ‘haunting,’ exactly…

  “I suppose not.” She shuddered again, then typed something on her keyboard and glanced at her computer screen. “Anyway—the Chemistry department is probably your best bet. Here’s the number of their department office.”

  “Thanks, Laura.”

  “Good thing he isn’t haunting your house—a chemistry professor would probably be a pretty boring ghost, all things considered.”

  Stone, picturing Raider’s earnest, intent stare, didn’t reply.

  As he approached his office, Mackenzie Hubbard poked his head out of his own, two doors down.

  “Thought I heard your voice,” the other professor said. “Got a minute?”

  “Er—sure. Come on in.” This was odd—Hubbard usually hated mornings as much as he did, and certainly wasn’t the type to be chatty before noon—or any other time, for that matter. At this rate, Stone would have to postpone his search for information about Thaddeus Benchley until later that day.

  He tossed his briefcase on the desk and settled in behind it. “Something I can do for you?”

  Hubbard didn’t sit. Even more uncharacteristically, the man was smiling. It wasn’t much of a smile, true, but given his usual world-weary, laconic demeanor, this qualified as positively ebullient for him. “No,” he said. “I just got some news this weekend, and I wanted you to be one of the first to know.”

  “News?” Stone shifted to magical sight; Hubbard’s normally dull orange aura glowed brighter than usual, indicating excitement. What was going on? “What sort of news?”

  Hubbard grinned. “Remember I told you I’d sent my latest manuscript out a while back?”

  “Yes…” That was nothing new. Hubbard was always sending manuscripts out—Stone could usually tell when he’d gotten his latest rejection slip by his grumpier-than-usual demeanor.

  “Well—I heard back from a publisher. They’re going to buy it!” He pulled a folded letter from his back pocket and tossed it on the desk. “I got the news on Saturday. They’re going to publish it, Stone.”

  Stone looked at the letter, then back up at Hubbard. “That’s—brilliant, Hubbard. Really.” He stood and offered his hand. “I’m so pleased for you.”

  Hubbard pumped his hand with vigor. The man seemed to be practically thrumming with excitement, which was a combination of charming and disturbing. He nodded toward the letter. “I’m getting an advance and everything. Not much—it’s just a small press, but they’re highly regarded in the literary horror sphere. It was never about the money, anyway.”

  That was probably a good thing. Stone hadn’t read one of Hubbard’s manuscripts for years, but the one he had read, a purple, densely plotted doorstop about a tentacle creature and its minions attempting to subvert the minds of a small town’s population, had served as a pretty good cure for insomnia. Presumably the man had improved since then—either that, or he’d finally found a publisher who shared his affinity for turgid prose and sexual innuendo so deeply buried and symbolic that it wouldn’t titillate even the horniest of horror-loving nymphomaniacs.

  “I’m very happy for you,” he said again. “That’s fantastic news. When will it be published?”

  “Oh, it’ll be a while. Probably not until sometime next year at the earliest. It still needs to go through their editing process, have a cover done, and all that kind of stuff. But that’s okay. I’m already working on the next one. And if this one does well, maybe they’ll take a look at some of my older work.” He picked up the letter and put it back in his pocket. “Anyway—my wife is throwing a little party for me later this week at the house, to celebrate. Nothing fancy, just drinks and that kind of thing with a few friends. Will you come? It’s Thursday night. You can bring a date if you want.”

  Stone had never been certain Hubbard considered him a friend, rather than a mere professional colleague, even though they’d worked together for almost ten years. “Of course I’ll come. I’d be delighted.”

  “Great. Seven on Thursday. I’ll send you the address. Thanks, Stone. I’d better go get ready for my class now.” He hurried out of the office before Stone could reply, with a spring in his step entirely u
nlike his usual shuffling trudge.

  Stone watched him go, trying to decide if he’d have enough time to look for information on Benchley before he had to leave too. He still couldn’t quite believe it—Hubbard had actually sold something to a publisher. It was turning into an interesting quarter.

  The Chemistry department was located near the medical center, in the northwest part of the campus. It was a pleasant day, sunny but not too hot, so Stone decided to stop by before his class. It took him only a few minutes to get there at a brisk walk, and he easily located the department office.

  “I’m looking for information about one of your old faculty members,” he told the older woman who greeted him.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Old faculty members?”

  “Yes—someone who used to teach here. He’s been dead for many years, apparently.” Stone realized his approach might have been a bit abrupt when her suspicious expression increased, so he deployed the charming smile. “Sorry, sorry. Getting ahead of myself.” He flashed his university ID card. “I’m Alastair Stone—Occult Studies department. I’ve reason to believe he might have lived in my house at some point, and I’m just curious about who he was. His name was Dr. Thaddeus Benchley.”

  She didn’t look as if he’d managed to thoroughly placate her, but nonetheless she pulled her keyboard over and tapped in the information. “Ah. Yes. Dr. Benchley was a member of the Organic Chemistry department faculty from 1958 until 1974.”

  Sounds like he had a good run, anyway. “Do you know why he left? Did he retire?”

  She consulted the computer again. “It shows here that he passed away that same year. It doesn’t say whether he retired and then died shortly afterward, or passed away while he was still employed. I don’t have easy access to that kind of information going that far back. A lot of the older records haven’t been transferred to the computer system yet.”

  “That’s fine,” he assured her. “That’s all I really wanted to know. Thank you very much.”