by R. L. King
“Verity, you can barely levitate a pencil yet. Let’s leave the pyrotechnic displays for next week, shall we?”
It seemed like forever before Sharra announced that she had to be going. Verity seemed quite taken with her and sorry to see her go, but she promised to keep in touch. After goodbyes all around, Verity leaned in toward Stone and Jason. “Okay, so what happened? Did you find out anything useful?”
“Yes,” Stone said. “It was definitely the Evil’s doing. The police think he’s insane, which is probably a good thing for him since it’s unlikely they’ll execute him for it. He’ll doubtless be confined to a mental institution until we can get the whole Evil situation sorted, but that’s better than the needle. It’s probably a good thing they’re keeping him under wraps, given that the Evil that possessed him is probably still in there somewhere—though it seemed oddly inert, all things considered.” He looked troubled. “What concerns me more is his comment about what Kurt said: ‘Now aren’t you sorry you didn’t join us?’”
“He said that?” Verity asked, surprised. They left the restaurant and headed to the car.
Jason nodded. “Do the Evil recruit? I didn’t think they really gave people a choice when they possessed them.”
“I still maintain that they can’t possess mages against their will,” Stone said. “Perhaps one of them tried to possess her, and she was able to block it.”
“But why would they want to possess her?” Verity asked. “What use would they get out of a nice middle-aged lady mage out in the middle of the sticks? I can’t think of anything they’d gain from that. If they wanted a mage, wouldn’t they go for one in a bigger area? And you said she was a real white mage—wouldn’t they want somebody a little more—I dunno—in line with what they’re into?”
“Good questions,” Stone said. “All good questions. I’ll need to give this some more thought.”
“We still don’t even know if the Evil are all over the place,” Jason pointed out. “Lamar and those guys back home said they think they concentrate with one big cheese sort of running the show for an area, but we don’t even know how many of them there are. If there are enough that every little wide-spot burg in East Bumfuck can have its own local fan club, then we’re really screwed. There’s no way we can fight that, even if we could convince other people that it’s happening and manage not to get ourselves locked up in the padded cell next door to Dwight’s.”
They collected their gear at the motel, settled up the bill, and headed out. The trip back to Lowell was uneventful and, after a brief pause to tell the minister at the church about the service, they were back through the portal and stepping out into the basement room of A Passage to India. At least Stone and Jason were. Once again, Stone insisted on putting Verity to sleep before they started. “I told you,” he said when she made noises about wanting to give it another try, “I’ll work on figuring this out when we get back. It might be as simple as putting up another kind of block. But we can’t afford a mishap right now.”
Once Stone got Verity awakened, David let them out the restaurant’s back door so they wouldn’t attract attention during the lunch rush carrying their bags. The car was right where they’d left it; about half an hour later they arrived safely back at Stone’s rented house in Mountain View.
“Now what?” Jason asked after they’d stowed their stuff and met up back around the kitchen table.
“Good question,” Stone said. “I’d best warn the other mages at the funeral to be on watch for things trying to influence them mentally. I still don’t feel comfortable letting the whole Evil secret out yet, but if I don’t warn them to watch out for something that might try to get into their heads, and more of them end up dead—” He shook his head ruefully. “Aside from that—we go on, I guess. Not really a lot else we can do right now with the information we have—we can contact the Forgotten around here and see if they have any ideas, but aside from that I’m fresh out. I can put out a few feelers to see if this is happening anywhere else, but we still don’t know if there’s any bigger plan behind the Evil’s killing Eleanor. It could just be an isolated incident.” He spread his hands. “We go on. Verity continues to study magic, I try to figure out why she’s got such a problem with the Overworld, and—” He trailed off.
“Yeah...” Jason said with a sigh. “And.” He was the only one of the three who didn’t have a clear plan. “I think I need to go down to Ventura for a few days. I gotta pick up my stuff from my old apartment before they sell it—I’m only paid through the middle of the month, and it’s not like I’m going back. And I really need to find a job, too. I don’t like freeloading, and no offense, Al, but I think you and I will kill each other if we have to live together for too much longer.”
“None taken,” Stone said cheerfully. “I’m not exactly the communal sort, and I get the feeling you aren’t either.”
“What about me?” Verity asked, looking back and forth between them. “Where do I go if you move out?”
“With me, if you want,” Jason said, surprised. “What, you think I’d leave you on your own? I just figured we’d get a place together unless you get a job and decide whether you want to get your own apartment once you’re eighteen. I have to admit, I’d feel a lot better if we stuck together for a while.”
Verity looked at Stone questioningly, and the mage nodded. “Makes sense to me. Honestly I don’t plan on keeping this place much longer. It’s a little—suburban for my tastes. I’m already missing my place in Palo Alto. And it would look a bit—erm—dodgy for you to be living with me, especially if Jason moves out. People would talk. But,” he added, “it’d probably be best if we found something relatively close to each other, given that Verity will be spending a lot of time at my place for her studies. If you like, I’ll check the boards up at Stanford—there are always students trying to get out of their leases for whatever reason. Not the fanciest places, but they’re usually not too expensive either.”
Jason nodded. “Lemme know if you see any jobs that might work for me, too. Preferably something where I can pick my own hours. Security work, bouncer, fixing cars or bikes, anything like that. Hell, I’ll take a janitor job if it’ll help me pay the bills.”
“I can get a job too and help out,” Verity offered.
“You’ll be too busy to work,” Stone told her. “Traditionally when a mage takes an apprentice, he’s responsible for her room and board. Since it isn’t practical for you to live with me, I’ll pay your half of whatever apartment you two find, and a stipend to help with food and expenses. Fair enough?”
Jason looked sideways at Stone. “Al, are you sure you’re not loaded and just not telling us?”
Stone chuckled. “No, Jason, I’m not ‘loaded.’ I’m what might euphemistically be called ‘comfortable.’ Let’s just say that I’ve got enough money put away in various investments and whatnot that I don’t really need to work. But don’t set your hearts on any Ferraris or mansions in Atherton or anything. And,” he added, “I wouldn’t turn it down if you continued to cook at my place occasionally, Verity. I haven’t inflicted my attempts at cooking on you yet, but I assure you, they aren’t a pretty sight.”
“Deal,” Verity said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you starve. I need you healthy so you can teach me to blow things up. But Jason—can I come with you when you go to Ventura? I’d like to see home again. It’s been a long time.”
Jason shrugged. “Sure, if Al can spare you from cutting up frogs and stuff. We can take a bus down and rent one of those U-Haul trucks to bring my stuff back up.” He looked at Stone. “You think it’s safe?”
“No way to be sure, but it does seem that the Evil have settled down for the moment, at least in this area. It’s probably safer for you to do it now than later. I’ll make a few calls tomorrow, and we’ll see if we can’t both find places we like better than this monument to mundanity, so you don’t end up storing your worldly goods in my garage.”
The next couple of days passed qui
ckly: Stone took Jason and Verity up to Stanford to check the housing boards, and they jotted down a list of possibilities and headed off to investigate them.
Meanwhile, the mage hit up his network of fellow professors, and before lunchtime had secured a lease on a small but elegant townhouse not too far from his former place in Palo Alto. This one didn’t have a basement, but it had a large, finished attic that would be perfect for magical activities.
Jason and Verity spent the day checking out their housing options, and by late afternoon found a two-bedroom apartment in a small building in Mountain View, a few miles from Stone’s new townhouse. They got lucky: the students who were renting it, a young married couple, were desperate to get out of their lease because the husband’s mother had fallen ill back home in China and they needed to leave immediately. Stone lent Jason and Verity the deposit, and Jason signed the lease before the couple could change their minds.
The next morning Stone dropped them off at the bus station. “We’ll see you in a few days,” Jason told him. “Not quite sure how many, but we’ll probably stay a little while to visit Stan for Thanksgiving and let V get a look around.”
“I’ll call you if we’ll be gone longer than that,” Verity told him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stone said. “Just try to find some time to read those two books I gave you so you’ll have the grounding to get started on the next level of your studies when you get back.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, grinning.
He sighed, shooing her away. “Off you go. And remember,” he added, looking more at Jason than at her, “Be careful. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.”
Stone spent the time while Jason and Verity were away settling in to the new townhouse. Fortunately he didn’t have much to pack, since most of his possessions and all of his furniture had been destroyed when the Evil tried to kill him and Jason by blowing up his old house. Like the house in Mountain View, this new one was furnished (and with significantly more upscale pieces) so he didn’t have to worry about that. He spent most of the time putting his study in order with a desk, bookshelves—mostly empty, but he would soon remedy that—and a large, comfortable leather armchair. Next would be the attic, but there’d be time for that later. He left Jason’s and Verity’s remaining possessions back at the other house, since he didn’t want to invade their privacy, and he had the lease on it until the end of the month.
After his new phone was hooked up, he made a few calls to the mages who’d attended Eleanor Pearsall’s funeral, as well as Reverend Blodgett at the church where the portal was located. He didn’t give them any specifics about the nature of the Evil, but just told them that he’d discovered evidence of a supernatural force that might be trying to invade mages’ minds. He warned them to keep their mental defenses strong, and asked them to call him if they noticed anything suspicious or odd.
More locally, he considered consulting with his old friend Stefan Kolinsky, but when he drove by the black mage’s East Palo Alto shop, he found it closed. A note concealed behind the wards indicated that Kolinsky was out of the country indefinitely. Stone wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved: on the one hand, he’d have liked to compare notes and make use of Kolinsky’s vast information network, but on the other, Kolinsky had a way of prying out secrets, and Stone wasn’t at all sure he wanted to reveal too much to him. Not yet. Especially since, much as the thought troubled him, he couldn’t be certain that Kolinsky was free of the Evil’s influence. A black mage of his caliber would be a powerful and dangerous ally for them, if they could convince him to join up.
By the third day, Stone was bored. As much as he prized his privacy and was altogether content with his own company, he was forced to concede (albeit grudgingly) that he missed Jason’s cocky irreverence and Verity’s cynical enthusiasm. He hoped they were enjoying themselves down in Ventura, but he also hoped they would return soon. He found himself writing down lesson ideas, spells he planned to be teach Verity, supplies he’d need to show her how to cast a rudimentary circle. He even made a trip to Madame Huan’s magical supply store to pick up the items he would need for the next few weeks’ worth of lessons. He wished he had his classes to occupy his time, but the holiday break had begun, and the next quarter didn’t start until January.
Part of what frustrated him was that he was having no luck figuring out why Verity experienced so much trouble with the Overworld. Most mages had initial difficulty with the first two or three trips; it was a frightening place and certainly unlike anything they had ever encountered before. But to have such a violent reaction without even having seen any of the creatures that normally frightened new visitors must mean something in Verity’s mind was reacting badly to the mere existence of the Overworld. Stone remembered how Jason had claimed to hear the creatures speaking to him, luring him off by confusing him—the mage wondered if there might be something hereditary going on, but couldn’t do much to test his hypothesis without them there. Their mother had been a powerful mage; maybe that had something to do with it. Stone jotted a few notes down to remind himself to pursue that further when the two of them got back.
The other thing that continued to prey on his mind was the Evil themselves, and his own inability to do anything about them. He had no idea how widespread they were, or how much of the country they had managed to infect, but the fact remained that people’s lives were being destroyed every day by their interference, and the only people who knew anything about them were either mentally challenged or unable to disseminate the information.
The problem was, they’d only get one shot at this. They could inform the authorities, but they had no way to know which authorities the Evil possessed, or whom they had influence with. If Stone and the others told the wrong person, they’d set themselves up for anything from simple disbelief to incarceration in some asylum to assassination when they least expected it by any random passerby that the Evil’s leaders decided to sacrifice to the cause. Stone wasn’t even sure his other mage friends would believe him, since he technically had no way to prove anything he said. And even mages weren’t infallible—Stone knew quite a few of his colleagues who didn’t have the good sense to maintain discretion about such a secret. He made a few more calls to a few other scientifically-minded mages, giving them the same warning he’d given those at the funeral and the same request to let him know if they discovered anything, but still fell short of describing the Evil in detail. He wasn’t sure it was the best course of action, but at least it might help turn up useful information without causing a panic.
For now, that left him, Jason, and Verity frustrated as they continued to watch the Evil’s machinations play out, without any clear idea of their ultimate plan—or if they even had one. Stone sighed, scribbling random sketches on a piece of paper and struggling to find answers.
The phone rang, and he snatched it up. “Yes, hello?”
“Al? It’s me.”
Stone put the pen down, brightening. “Jason! How are you? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” Jason replied. “Just wanted to let you know we’ve got everything packed up down here and we’ll be heading back tomorrow. Figured it would be good to tell you, so you’d have time to clean up after the magic orgies and frog innards and stuff before we get back.”
“I’ll get right on that,” Stone said dryly. “So no trouble?”
“Not a bit,” he said. “Real uneventful trip. Just packed up my stuff, visited with Stan, ate too much turkey, and let Verity get a look around, since it’d been awhile since she was down here. We’re both ready to come back.”
“You didn’t—let anything slip to Stan, did you?”
“Nah, but it was hard sometimes. He wanted to know what was up with the murder and everything. I think I gave him a pretty believable story that was mostly the truth, and we got out of there before he could ask too many of the wrong questions.”
“Good, good.” Stone nodded. “And Verity’s keeping up with
her studies?”
Jason sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. She’s been levitating every damn thing she can get her hands on. Other day she did it to my double cheeseburger, then got distracted by something shiny and dropped it right in my lap.” In the background, Verity’s laugh could be heard.
Stone chuckled. “Those things will kill you, you know. She probably did you a favor.”
“Yeah, encourage her. That’s just what she needs,” Jason said. “Hey, listen, Al, we gotta get going, but we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, okay? Think you can survive without us until then?”
“I’ll manage,” the mage said. “Hmm...maybe I’ll nip off home for a bit. I’ve been needing to pick up some things from my library over there—this might be as good a time as any to do it.”
“Home? You mean England?” Jason sounded dubious.
“Right. I’ll be back long before you return, don’t worry.”
“Well—be careful.”
“I’m always careful, Jason. And besides, like I told you—if you keep your wits about you, the whole thing’s safe as houses.”
“Hate to remind you, Al, but lately your houses haven’t been all that safe.”
Stone set out for Sunnyvale an hour later. He decided he’d have to see about getting a new car soon. The rented tan minivan had served its purpose, providing them with generic and unremarkable transportation when the DMW had been looking for them, but Stone didn’t care for driving anything so dull. He’d be glad to finally turn it in and get something more interesting. But that was for later.
A Passage to India’s dining room was nearly empty when he got there. Marta, David’s tall, thin partner, came out of the back to meet him. She looked distracted. “Hello, Alastair. Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Are you here for a meal or a trip?”
