by King, R. L.
The train slowed, preparing to stop at the South San Francisco station. The large woman stood up and was already waiting by the doors when they opened. She left the train without looking back. The train paused for a few more seconds, then the doors hissed shut and it was in motion again.
The door at the front of the car opened. Stone stiffened as a large man dressed in shabby clothes entered and slid the door shut behind him. The man looked around, leered when he noticed the teenagers, then headed toward the back of the car. “Hey, man,” he called to Stone. “Spare a little change?”
“Er—” Stone looked him up and down. The man didn’t quite look all there; his eyes wandered around without settling on anything, and he smelled like a visible cloud of marijuana smoke should be hanging in the air around him. Again, Stone wondered if he was Forgotten. “Sorry,” he said at last, shaking his head. “Nothing on me.”
“Aww, c’mon, man,” he said. “Just a little. For a friend.” He smiled, revealing stained and crooked teeth with a few holes.
Stone’s gaze sharpened. Was the man Forgotten, and trying to give him a hint, or just attempting to play on his better nature? No easy way to tell. He glanced over at the couple who were still locked in their embrace, then stood. “All right, then,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his overcoat for the change from purchasing his BART ticket. The man watched him with his silent, rolling gaze and waited.
He felt the subtle air movement behind him with only a fraction of a second to spare. Flinging himself to the side, he barely avoided something swishing past his head at neck level. He rolled over the seat, landing awkwardly, but adrenaline helped propel him back up fast. Backing off, he took in the scene in an instant.
The teen couple, their arms no longer around each other, surged forward almost as one. The boy held a folding pocketknife with a short blade; the girl had something that looked like a letter opener. Their eyes were strange; unfocused, coldly malevolent. On Stone’s left, the homeless man took advantage of his momentary lack of attention to lunge at him, and the teens moved in as well.
Stone just got his protective shield up before the homeless man bull-rushed him into the side of the car. The girl tried to plunge the letter opener into his abdomen, but the shield deflected it. Stone kicked her, forcing her backward, and tried to dislodge the homeless man, who was still trying to grab him with dirty hands.
Guess I should be flattered, a perverse little voice in the back of his head said. They sent three of them against me this time. Breathing hard, he summoned up his energy and released it in a repelling charge of force, shoving all three away from him and slamming them into various parts of the car. He took that opportunity to back off again, always keeping the door at the car’s far end in sight. He thought about making a run for it, but unfortunately he’d flung the homeless man in that direction, and he was already recovering and coming at Stone again.
Stone looked around, his gaze darting all over as he considered possibilities. He’d have to end this fast: his shield required concentration to maintain, and it wouldn’t hold up long against all three of them. And the most inconvenient part was that he had to be careful not to kill any of them. Apart from his dislike of murdering random individuals who happened to be possessed by evil entities from another dimension, killing them would almost certainly result in a lot of trouble he couldn’t afford to deal with right now. If he handled this right, he could get out and away before anyone knew anything was up, but if he killed anyone, the police would take a lot more interest in the situation.
They were on two sides of him now, and that was dangerous. With a gesture, he picked up the girl and flung her into the back wall; she slid down, stunned.
While she was distracting him, the homeless man dived at him again, going low this time. Stone didn’t get out of the way in time, and both of them went over. The shield held against the impact of the man landing on him, but Stone felt it fading. Gritting his teeth, he forced outward again and shoved the man away, rolling up. He’d landed badly on his leg, and feared he might have sprained something, but there was no time to worry about that now.
The teen boy was coming in for another go. Rage suffused the kid’s face: apparently things weren’t going as the Evil had hoped, and they were getting desperate. Stone backed away again, moving so he could continue to keep the door in sight. So far, nobody else was coming in.
The boy waved the knife back and forth in a hypnotic pattern, moving in closer while his eyes never left Stone. Stone, puffing, prepared to hit him with a stunning spell when the homeless man came in from the side again, leading with a sloppy right hook to the side of his head. Stone fell sideways and again landed badly between two rows of seats. He felt the shield go—he couldn’t take another hit like that. Woozy, dragging himself back up again, he waited for them to regroup. He’d only get one shot at this.
The girl was up again. With a howl she ran at him with the letter opener raised, trying to stab it into Stone’s arm. She’d have succeeded, except for his heavy overcoat—her strength wasn’t sufficient to punch through the thick fabric, and the knife was deflected. Stone lashed out at her with a stun spell and she screamed, clutching her head and going down.
The homeless man and the boy came at him from the left and the right, the boy waving the knife and the homeless man trying to get his hands around Stone’s neck. Stone blinked sweat out of his eyes and struck out again. The homeless man cried out and staggered back, his hands going to his face like he was being attacked by a swarm of bees. He tripped over a row of seats, fell over backward, and struck his head on the edge of the door. The car was slowing down—they were approaching the next station.
The boy, sensing his chance slipping away, redoubled his efforts and found his mark with the knife, slashing at Stone’s chest, where his coat was open. The knife sliced through the mage’s suit jacket and shirt, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. Stone gasped in pain, but he couldn’t afford to pause, or he’d be dead. Sweat pouring down his face, he gathered one final burst of energy and directed it at the boy.
His timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As he flung the kid across the car, the train came to a stop and the doors slid open. The boy’s unconscious body slid onto the platform and came to rest against a pillar, unmoving.
Stone sagged for a moment against the window, panting for breath. All he wanted to do was let himself fall the rest of the way, but he couldn’t do that. Not yet. He dragged himself up, summoned one last levitation spell, and sent the girl’s and the homeless man’s motionless bodies out through the open doors to join the boy’s, thanking whatever gods looking after the lucky that no passengers were embarking or disembarking at the San Bruno BART station this time of night.
The doors slid shut again. Stone, still breathing hard and feeling like he would pass out any minute, forced himself to remain awake by sheer willpower. He used the energy of one of his magical focus items to put up and maintain the spell that would prevent anyone who wasn’t looking for him from seeing him. He hoped desperately that whatever security cameras were normally trained on the platform in San Bruno were in as bad a condition as the one on the train, but he couldn’t do anything about that now. And in any case, all the camera would have seen was three bodies sailing out of the train and dropping on the platform. Probably not enough for them to pin anything on him.
He remained seated, eyes locked on the door to the next car as the train swayed down the track. The few minutes it took to go from San Bruno to the Millbrae station seemed like an eternity. Blood trickled down his chest—the wound burned, but he didn’t think it was too serious. By the time the doors opened again, he had struggled to his feet, buttoned up his overcoat to hide the injury, and was waiting directly in front of them.
The trip back to the van was slow, painful, and anticlimactic. He maintained the spell the whole way, though he couldn’t see anyone else around the station or the parking lot, with
the exception of the ticket agent in his bulletproof booth. The man didn’t even look up as Stone went by.
Several other cars occupied the parking lot; the van, parked next to Jason’s old Ford, looked untouched. He carefully opened the door and examined the entire interior for hidden intruders before climbing in. The drive home would be painful, but he couldn’t do anything about that. It wasn’t safe to remain here. He had no idea how long it would take for his three attackers to awaken, but if they came after him again, he wouldn’t be able to fight them off a second time. Before he settled in, he found a piece of paper and a pen, dashed off a quick note to Jason (“Careful. Watch for E. Call me when home. AS”) and stuck it under the Ford’s windshield wiper.
Somehow he made it back to Palo Alto without getting pulled over for driving like a drunken old man. He used the last of his flagging energy and willpower to pull the van into the garage, stagger inside, and lock the door behind him. At this point, he was beyond caring if anyone lay in wait for him. The magical protections he’d put up should hold, but if they didn’t—well, he’d done his best.
He managed to call Jason’s phone and leave a message for him to come over as soon as he got home, then tottered over to the couch, threw off his tie and overcoat, and allowed himself to lie down, figuring he’d rest for a few minutes before getting up and tending to the chest wound.
He was out less than two minutes later.
Chapter Nine
Stone’s next coherent realization was of someone shaking him hard and yelling his name. “Al! Al, wake up!”
“Mm…?” He tried to roll over and away from the annoying noise, but a bolt of generalized pain shot through his upper body and jolted him fully awake. He blinked a couple of times and the four figures hovering above him melted together, resolving into Jason and Verity, their wide-eyed faces full of fear.
“Holy shit, you’re covered in blood!” Jason said. “What the hell happened to you?”
He blinked again. “What?” He looked down at himself. “Oh. Right. It’s not as bad as it looks.” He glanced around the room, then tried to sit up. “What time is it?”
Verity dropped to her knees next to the couch. “It’s almost three a.m. We got your message, and you sounded weird, so we came over. What happened?”
Stone closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t feel bad, exactly, aside from the general pain, but he was so tired...”Got jumped on the BART train,” he mumbled.
“What?” Jason shook him again. “Al, if you don’t wake up and tell us what happened, I’m calling an ambulance.”
That got through Stone’s haze sufficiently for him to open his eyes again. “Help me up, then. I’m wiped out. And get me a drink.”
“First let me have a look at what they did to you. Verity, bring me a pot of warm water and some washcloths, okay?”
She hurried off and was back in less than five minutes with the requested items. Jason had Stone’s shirt open and was examining the chest wound with a critical eye. The dried blood made it difficult to tell how serious it was. He dipped a washcloth in the water and dabbed at it.
Stone winced, pulling away. “Stop that.”
“Shut up and quit being a baby,” Jason ordered. “You know this has to be done.”
A few minutes of careful washing with the wet cloth revealed that the wound was nearly horizontal, about five inches long, and not very deep. “Doesn’t look serious,” Jason said, looking relieved. “You’ll have a scar, though, and I’ll have to clean it, which is gonna hurt like hell. What did it?”
Stone, wide awake now and gritting his teeth as Jason poked at him, sighed. “Pocketknife of some sort.”
“This I gotta hear,” Verity said. She sat on the couch next to him, swapping out washcloths when Jason called for them.
Stone glared at Jason. “You’re not touching me with anything that will hurt worse than I already do until you get me a drink. Bugger that—just bring me the whole bottle.”
Jason glared right back. “You didn’t get hit in the head or anything, did you?”
“No. Just knocked around a bit. Thought I might have sprained my ankle, but I don’t think so.” He indicated the wound. “This is the worst of it.”
Jason nodded, then went to the liquor cabinet, poured a glass of Scotch, and brought it back. “Just have that for now. Do you have a first aid kit?”
“No, I don’t have a bloody first aid kit.” Stone took the glass and downed half the liquor in two quick swallows.
“For a guy who’s as good at taking care of himself as you normally are, Al, you’re kind of hopeless about some basic things, you know that?” Jason sounded exasperated. “V, keep an eye on him. I’ll be back soon.” Without a word, he turned and left the house.
He was back a few minutes later carrying a bag from the nearby 24-hour convenience store. Stone had cajoled Verity into getting him another drink in the meantime. Jason tossed the bag on the couch. “Lie back. Like I said, this is gonna hurt, so let’s get it over with.”
Stone, resigned, did as he was told. Verity moved to one of the chairs to give him room. “Now,” Jason said as he began to clean the wound, “Suppose you tell us what happened. It’ll take your mind off the pain.”
Haltingly, with much protesting, swearing, and gritting of teeth, Stone told them what had occurred on the train. Jason paused in the act of making a gauze bandage and stared at him. “They sent three Evil to kill you?”
“Apparently,” Stone said. “I felt rather flattered at first—before I had to concentrate on fighting for my life.”
“They’re gonna be pissed when they wake up,” Verity said. She glanced around the room, nervous. “You locked the door, right, Jason?”
He didn’t favor that with an answer.
“Did you two have any trouble?” Stone asked.
Verity shook her head. “The concert was great. We even got to meet the band afterward. And the trip home—” She shrugged. “Nothing happened. Nobody even looked at us funny.”
Stone nodded. “Good. At least that means for the moment they’re after me instead of you.”
“But why are they after you?” Jason asked. He finished the bandage and began putting the rest of the supplies back in the bag. “I mean, aside from the obvious, of course. Do you think this is because you know about them, or is it connected with the other murders?”
“No way to know,” Stone said, shrugging. “They didn’t say anything, aside from asking me for a handout to get the whole thing started. No ‘aren’t you sorry you didn’t join us?’ or anything like that.”
Verity frowned. “They wanted Eleanor to join them...” she mused. “I still wonder why. I wonder if they wanted David and that guy in New Mexico to join them too.”
“Again, no way to know,” Stone said. “And as for why—I don’t know. If my hypothesis is correct, they do need consent to possess mages. But I’ve no idea why they’d want to possess Eleanor. She was a good person and a talented mage, but as I said, she was about as white as they come. She wouldn’t have voluntarily hurt anyone or anything. She once told me about how she put spiders outside when she found them in her house.”
“What about David?” Jason asked. “Where was he on the—um—magical moral spectrum? And this other guy?”
“I barely knew Russell McKee,” Stone said. “I only met him once, when I had to use the portal there. And David—I’d say he was about like me. Mostly white with a few streaks of gray here and there. About the same as most white mages, really.”
“So assuming that this Russell guy was, then all four including you were basically white mages?” Jason leaned forward. “As far as you know they haven’t gone after any of the dark ones yet?”
“I wouldn’t know, would I?” Stone set his empty glass on the table and slowly sat back up, careful not to disturb the bandage on his chest. “Black and white mages don’t get tog
ether and socialize that much, usually. Philosophical differences and all that. It would be rather like inviting Aunt Agnes the Christian fundamentalist to a party with Uncle Bertram the gay-rights activist. Entertaining to watch, but ultimately not much fun for anyone trying to enjoy the party.”
Verity looked troubled. “What if they aren’t killing the black mages? Could that mean they don’t care about them? Or that they’re having an easier time convincing them to be possessed?”
Stone pondered that. “Damn good question. But I’ll tell you this—the few black mages I know are a stubborn lot. I doubt they’d be any more interested in having something riding around in their brains than we would, even if they didn’t have to give up control.” He sighed. “In any case—it’s late and there’s really not much point in staying up all night rehashing this. You two go on home. I’ll be fine. Come over tomorrow, and we’ll see if we’ve had any further insights. Oh,” he added, “And thank you for coming over. I’m sure I’d have been fine by morning even if you hadn’t, but I do appreciate your painful and sadistic efforts.”
Jason grinned. “Anytime, Al. Anytime.”
Jason and Verity didn’t arrive back at Stone’s place until after eleven the next day. They found him in his study, Queen playing on the stereo and several books open around his desk.
Verity grinned. “I told you to do your homework early, or it would stack up on you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You probably don’t want to remind me about the essay I told you to write on the various properties of magical talismans, do you?”
“So, what are you doing there?” she asked quickly, pointing at the books.
“Still trying to sort out why you’re having such trouble with the Overworld,” he said. “I’m not having much luck with the whole Evil thing, so I figured I’d work on something else for a while and see if I had better success.”
