by R. L. King
“Hard to say. It’s still pointing northwest.” Stone sat in the passenger seat, still focused on the winged serpent.
“They’re probably heading for the Bridge,” Blum said. “They’ll get out there and turn around about the time the fireworks go off. That should be pretty soon.” He shivered, pulling his coat collar up; the open boat offered little protection from the wind and spray, and even on a warm night it was still cold out here.
“How do you think they’re hiding it?” Verity asked. “Illusion? That’s a big illusion.”
“These things are bloody powerful,” Stone said. “And we still don’t know who the pawn is. If he has a lot of magical potential, it’s possible.” He held up the figurine. “And the black one will fight back—I’m sure of it. So stay sharp. Jason, can you go any faster?”
Jason increased the throttle, and the little boat picked up speed, skimming across the calm surface of the bay. “Warn me if I’m about to run us into the side of something we can’t see, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
All four of them craned the necks and squinted forward, trying to spot anything ahead of them. “A little to the right—starboard—whatever the hell you call it,” Stone said. “I think I see something.”
“I sure hope you’re right about this,” Blum muttered. “If it turns out I commandeered that guy’s boat for nothin’, I’m gonna get busted down to patrolling elementary schools.”
“Should be coming up soon,” Stone said without taking his eyes off the thread and the view ahead. He cast the disregarding spell around their craft. “Slow down, Jason…slow down…”
And suddenly, as if they’d just pierced some kind of veil, there it was. One second the bay ahead of them appeared clear and deserted, and the next, an enormous vessel loomed less than fifty feet ahead of them. Jason yelped and turned the wheel sideways, sending up a rooster-tail wake behind them. “Holy shit!”
“That is some illusion!” Blum agreed, gaping.
The Beau Monde did not appear to be in distress; it loafed along at low speed, and even from where Stone and the others were, they could hear the cheerful sound of dance music coming from somewhere above them. Bright, festive lights in red, white, and blue stretched along the side they could see, and a few groups of well-dressed passengers standing along the three decks. Nobody appeared to have noticed them yet.
“Stone, are you sure about this?” Blum asked, regarding the laughing revelers with doubt. “They look fine. Everything looks—”
“I’m sure,” Stone said grimly. The thread stretching from the figurine was thick and bright now, leaving him no doubt that its mate was somewhere on the cruise ship. “Jason, pull in as close as you can, along the side.”
“Yeah—we gotta stay away from that paddlewheel in the back. It’s just for show, but it could still rip the shit out of us if we hit it.”
Stone left him to it. “Verity, do you see a rope anywhere?”
Verity and Blum went through the compartments in the back and soon came up with a long coil of rope. “Are you gonna tie us up to this thing?” Blum asked. “How are we supposed to get on board?”
Before he could answer, the little boat began to toss as the waves around it grew suddenly choppier. “Great,” Jason said.
Stone stood, fighting to keep his balance as he headed to the back. “Blum, tie our end of the rope to something. Verity, can you tie the other end to the Beau Monde with magic?”
“Yeah, I got this.”
The waves increased, throwing Stone back into the cabin. He gripped the edge, thankful he wasn’t prone to seasickness. “This isn’t just being too close,” he said grimly. “The figurine knows we’re here.”
“You’re saying this thing is making the water rough?” Jason asked.
“Can’t think of another reason why it’s rough here and it was fine before,” Stone said. “This thing is more powerful than I thought, apparently.”
“How the hell are we gonna get on that thing?” Blum demanded again. “The water’s too choppy. We’ll drown if we try it—there’s not even a place to climb on. You want us to shinny up that rope like freakin’ monkeys?”
“No. Verity, are we secure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right—you take Jason, and I’ll take Blum. Keep your disregarding spell up so the people on board don’t see us coming.”
“What are you gonna do?” Blum took a step back, eyeing Stone with trepidation.
“This won’t hurt a bit, Detective—just try not to flail about, all right? Ready?”
“No!”
“Verity—middle deck, in the back. See the spot?”
“Got it!”
“Go.”
Stone stuffed the figurine in his pocket, buttoned up his overcoat, and cast his levitation spell on himself and Blum.
The detective yelped as their feet lifted off the deck. “Stone, damn it—”
“Hush!” Next to them, Verity and Jason had also begun to ascend. He followed them, and a moment later the four of them stood, damp and shivering, on the windswept middle deck.
“Holy shit…” Blum muttered, buttoning his own coat. “The elementary schools are starting to look better and better…”
Stone pulled the serpent figurine from his pocket and focused on it. After a moment of panic when he couldn’t see the thread, it appeared again—but instead of pointing solidly in a direction, it thrashed around like a whip cracked by an unseen hand. It spun and crackled in and out of sight, its glow as bright as ever but its direction maddeningly uncertain. “Bugger!”
“What?” Blum was scanning the area farther up the deck; by now, the people they’d spotted had gone back inside as the sea grew choppier.
“This thing is glitching—I can’t get a good read on where we’re going.”
“What do you mean, it’s glitching?” Jason demanded.
“It’s jumping around,” Verity said, looking at it as well. “It’s not pointing anywhere in particular, and it keeps fading in and out.”
“How the hell are we gonna find him, then?” Blum swiped spray off his face. “We don’t know what he looks like, what he’s planning—”
“Or she,” Verity said. “Might be a woman.”
“Whoever it is, we’ve got to find them fast—and we’ve got to prepare for what might happen if we don’t.” Stone paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. This wasn’t the kind of situation he normally dealt with. “Blum—you and Verity go to the upper deck. Look around for anyone suspicious-looking. Verity, watch auras too. If you don’t find anyone, find a ship’s officer and tell them—discreetly—that we’re looking for a possible terrorist. I’m sure they’ve got protocols for getting people off the boat.”
“You know there’s no time for that, right?” Jason asked, looking grim. “Getting this many people evacuated, in this kind of rough sea—if he figures out something’s up, he’ll act.”
“At least we’ll know who he is,” Stone said. “Go. Call me if you find him.”
“No way,” Blum said. “I’m goin’ with you, Stone. You’ve got the magic doohickey, so you’ve got the best chance of finding this guy. I’m sticking to you like glue.”
One good look at him told Stone there was no point in arguing. “Fine, then. Jason, you go with Verity. And be careful.”
“You too, Doc. Don’t get yourself killed, okay?” Verity said. Then she and Jason took off up the deck toward the door.
The deck lurched again. Blum swayed and caught himself against the side of the cabin. “We should go below. If he goes after the engines or blows a hole in the bottom, he could sink this thing fast.”
“Agreed.” Keeping a tight hold on the figurine, Stone hurried in the same direction Jason and Verity had already disappeared.
Inside, loud, pounding music boomed, and wild, multicolored lights moved over a large crowd of dancers. The choppy sea didn’t seem to be disturbing them—the band played on as if nothing was wrong, and the dancers formed a
writhing, impenetrable barrier with only a narrow walkway around the outside. More people clogged this walkway, standing in groups and talking with drinks in hand as they looked out the windows. Unlike the dancers, some of these people looked nervous.
Blum moved in front of Stone, turning sideways to sidle past the groups toward the rear part of the ship. “Come on,” he called. “I want to try calling in for some backup. I think the stairs down are in the back.”
Stone paused to pull the figurine back out of his pocket to consult it as he went, but the dancers’ riot of colorful auras blended together to make a wall almost as impassable as their physical bodies. He pocketed it and hurried after Blum.
It took them several moments to push their way through the crowd and reach the back of the boat. As they went, Stone paused to scan the auras, trying to locate anything out of the ordinary, but nothing stood out. Many of the auras flashed with red patches, but judging from the way their owners were looking at each other, sexual excitement was a much more likely culprit than agitation. A few people looked nervous, but the way the ship was pitching and rolling in the choppy bay, that didn’t seem suspicious either.
By the time Stone made it to the rear, Blum had pushed open the door labeled STAIRS and stepped through. The detective waited with obvious impatience and closed it as soon as Stone came in. In here the metal walls muted the music, though the strong beat still came through.
“Hang on a sec,” Blum said, pulling out his phone. He punched in a number and waited several seconds, then lowered it in disgust and stared at it. “Fuck!”
“No connection?”
“No. Call won’t go through.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I think the magic is interfering. Come on—we need to keep going.” He wished now that he’d paused to top up his power from Jason before they separated, but it was too late for that now. Even if he could reach Jason on his phone, it would take too much time to meet up again. He had to count on the fact that his figurine’s power would help him subdue the black piece’s pawn before he finished whatever he was trying to do.
Blum reached the bottom of the stairs and flung open the door. “Come on!”
Stone noticed there wasn’t another door here leading down below decks to the engine room. It made sense—even if it was kept locked, they probably had it somewhere the passengers didn’t have access. He hurried the rest of the way down and stepped aside to let a laughing couple in a suit and a cocktail dress pass him on the way up.
This level held a large bar at the far end and an even larger buffet spread on the right side. More people mingled in standing groups and sat at tiny tables spread around the wide-open area in between. On both sides of the bar, swinging doors led into and out of what must be the galley. The doors to the outer decks wrapping around this level were closed, though as Stone pulled up next to Blum, he saw two young men push one open and head outside.
“I don’t see a damn thing,” Blum said. “Do you? Try that thing again, will you?”
Stone did, but once again the signal was strong but inconclusive. “He’s here. I’m sure of that. But that’s all I’m sure of.” The ship creaked and pitched to the side, sending several of the tipsy revelers staggering. A nervous murmur rose from many of them; even the white-jacketed foodservice personnel and the tuxedo-clad bartenders looked uncomfortable.
“We don’t even know what the hell he’s gonna do.”
“He couldn’t have had a lot of time to prepare,” Stone said. “So whatever it is, it can’t be elaborate. Let’s think a moment—how could a single person disrupt a cruise like this?”
“Well, these waves are a start,” Blum said sourly, watching a dignified-looking woman in a sequined cocktail dress suddenly go green and make a mad dash for the door. “But the way you described this thing, I don’t think it’s gonna settle for a mass puke, do you?”
“No, but you’ve given me another idea. Come on.” Stone headed for the other side, toward the bar and the galley.
Blum caught up with him. “What?”
“I think it might be hard to get explosives on something like this—but this is a dinner cruise. Large-scale food poisoning would be just as effective and a lot easier to manage, wouldn’t it?”
The detective looked at him as if trying to decide whether they were on the same side. “Shit, you could be right.”
Stone pushed through the swinging door, stepping quickly out of the flow of traffic as a fast-moving waiter bearing a tray swept past him and Blum. He scanned the room, looking for abnormalities.
The galley was large but laid out with maximum efficiency in mind, with every square inch of space devoted to getting large numbers of meals out as fast as possible. Bright overhead fluorescents illuminated long, gleaming stainless-steel counters interspersed with grills, stovetops, and racks of pans and plates. Everywhere Stone looked, white-coated chefs moved around each other; their shouts and the clanks of plates and cookware echoing around the walls. The ship bucked again and a stack of plates slid off a counter with a deafening crash, sending several of the chefs and their assistants scrambling toward it.
One chef, a beefy man with his sleeves rolled up, approached Stone and Blum. “You guys aren’t supposed to be in here,” he said. “It’s not safe for passengers.”
As another waitress shoved past them, Blum produced his badge. “SFPD.”
The man’s demeanor instantly changed from impatient to nervous. “What’s the problem?”
Stone was scanning auras. All of them that he could see looked similar: stressed, excited, a little nervous as the waves tossed the ship again, but nothing he hadn’t expected. “Is everyone here who’s supposed to be here?” he asked.
“Huh? Listen—we’ve got a lot to do here. Tell me what you need so I can help you.” He motioned for them to step even further out of the way so they didn’t impede the traffic flow.
“Can’t explain in detail,” Blum said. “Just tell us if anybody in your crew’s been actin’ weird tonight. You know, nervous, unexplained absence from their post, that kind of thing.”
The chef thought about it, glancing over his shoulder at the controlled chaos behind him. “Not that I know of. The big dinner rush has already gone out—mostly we’re topping off the buffet and workin’ on the dessert service now.”
“No reports of anybody getting sick?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “What are you sayin’, officer? You think somethin’s wrong with the food? That one of my guys would—”
“We’re just exploring options,” Stone said, still scanning with magical sight. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything.” He took out the figurine again, but it still wasn’t giving him any useful information.
“Sorry,” the chef said. “Only people I heard about gettin’ sick are the usual drunks, and some people gettin’ seasick from these waves. It’s crazy—who knew the bay’d be this rough? It’s never this rough this time of year. You know what the hell’s going on?”
“It is crazy,” Blum agreed. “Thanks, man. You mind if we take a quick look around?”
“Knock yourself out—you won’t find anything. I run a tight kitchen. But stay out of the way, okay? And don’t slip in anything. We got enough mess in here with stuff gettin’ knocked off counters. This boat wasn’t meant to be out in waves like this.”
As if to punctuate his words, the ship lurched to the right again, throwing Stone into the wall and Blum into him. The detective scrambled off and tried to regain his balance as a large unattended pot slid off a stove and crashed to the deck. A young chef yelped and jumped back as boiling soup splashed her.
“The waves are getting worse,” Blum muttered to Stone. “We gotta find this guy. Maybe he’s just plannin’ to capsize the boat.”
“Look around,” Stone said, focusing on the figurine again. “I’m going to see if I can get this thing to—”
The galley door near them opened to admit another waiter carrying an empty tray.
As it swung c
losed, a scream from the dining area, high-pitched and unmistakable, rose above the kitchen clamor.
50
Stone moved before Blum did, darting out in the direction of the scream.
For a moment, he couldn’t see what the problem was. He’d switched back to mundane vision as he moved, and on first glance the crowd didn’t look any different. But a second look revealed that everyone was now facing toward one side of the boat. Another scream sounded from that direction as the deck under Stone’s feet hitched and lurched again.
Blum caught up with him. “What the hell—”
“Come on.” Stone, along with most of the crowd, took off in the direction of the scream. Unlike the others, though, he headed for the door instead of the windows.
More screams and shouts of terror joined the first. Stone skidded to a stop and for a moment could only gape at what he saw.
Outside, the waves rocking the Beau Monde rose high enough now that they crested the railing above the lowest deck. They sloshed onto the deck and splashed against the cabin, sending cold water in through the open door around Stone’s feet. None of that was what captured his attention, though. He gripped the edges of the doorframe as Blum came up behind him.
“Holy fuck, what is that?” the detective got out.
All around them, things were rising up out of the water—immense, scaly, sinuous things that writhed and danced in the waves. They were the same color as the water; in fact, they seemed to be made of the water, the shifting blues, greens, and grays of the bay reflected in their shiny, scaled surfaces.
As Stone and Blum watched in horror, one of the snakelike things lashed out, plucking the two young men from the deck and flinging them, screaming, through the air toward the waves.
Stone didn’t pause to think. He reached out with his magic and grabbed hold of both men in a telekinetic hold, yanking them back toward the deck. They slammed into the side of the cabin and fell in a heap of tangled arms and legs.
“Get inside!” Stone and Blum yelled at the same time. Stone darted out, struggling to keep his balance on the wet deck, and grabbed one of the men’s arms. “Come on, get up!” Beyond them, a few more terrified passengers tried to scramble back toward the door as the boat continued pitching and yawing alarmingly in the waves.
