Circle of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Sit down. I wanted to talk to you all about something.” She handed around various beverages and didn’t sit, but instead prowled the room waiting for the others to settle.

  “Come on—this is weird,” said Tani, an odd, pale woman. Verity barely knew her, and had always suspected something was strange about her, but she’d never been brave enough to ask anyone. She was a Harpy, which meant she was part of the family.

  “Okay,” Verity said. “I want to ask your help with something. Kind of like what we do here in town, but this time in Oakland.”

  “Oakland? What’s over there?” Kyla tilted her head. “And why should we care about it? We’ve got enough stuff going on already in our own backyard.”

  “Yeah, but this might be bigger.” Why was she so tense? These were her friends. She thought she knew, though. “There’s something going on over there, or at least I think there is. Some kind of…low level magical crime wave.”

  “What the hell?” Greta demanded. “How do you know about this?” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait a sec. This is one of Stone’s things, isn’t it?”

  There it was. Verity let her breath out slowly. Most of the Harpies, for various reasons, weren’t all that fond of Stone. “Yeah. He asked me to look into it.”

  “Why can’t he look into it himself? He too good to get his fancy-ass boots dirty in Oakland?”

  She glared at Greta. “No. That isn’t it. He’s away right now, helping a friend over in Paris. He asked me to take a look until he can get back.”

  “Ooh, Par-ee.” Greta spoke with a bad French accent, rolling her eyes and making an airy gesture. “Well, okay, then.”

  Zel snickered.

  “Knock it off,” Kyla said. “Nothin’ wrong with askin’ for help. That’s what we do. We help each other.”

  “But we don’t help stuck-up bastards like Stone.”

  Verity fought rising frustration. Greta’s heart was in the right place, but she had a chip on her shoulder the size of a VW bus. “Look,” she said, before the other woman could get going, “don’t think of it as helping the Doc. This isn’t his problem—it’s everybody’s problem. What’s more arrogant—somebody wanting to help figure out why mages are taking advantages of mundanes, or the mages doing it in the first place?”

  The grumbling among the others told her she’d scored a point. She pressed it before Greta could log another objection. “It doesn’t matter whether you guys help or not—I hope you will because it will make things easier, but I’m going over there regardless. It really pisses me off to think that mages are using their powers to take advantage of mundanes, so I can’t sit by and watch it happen.”

  “Don’t you people have some kind of—I don’t know—organization to handle that?” Lara asked.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Verity fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice, remembering all the “discussions” she’d had with Stone over this very topic. “But no. Mages deal with their own problems on an individual basis—assuming any of them can get off their butts long enough to do it. That’s what I’m doing here. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. And besides, I’m not asking any of you to deal with the problem. All Doc asked me to do is see if I can turn up anything about who’s doing it.”

  “Oh, so he can swoop in and take care of it when he gets back?” Greta asked, eyes narrowed.

  Again, Verity glared at her. “Greta, no offense, but sometimes you really get on my nerves with your bullshit. Doc’s a good guy. He’s saved my ass more times than I can count—hell, I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him. And he really does want to help. If you don’t, that’s fine, but how about keeping your opinions to yourself, okay?”

  Greta started to say something, then dropped her gaze as if realizing she might have pushed things too far. “Yeah, fine,” she muttered. “Sorry. I’ll help, I guess. Got nothin’ better to do, especially if the rest of you are all gonna do this.”

  “Well, I am,” Kyla said, gripping Verity’s shoulder. “Don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in.”

  Tall, rangy Zel grinned. “Okay, fine. You have my sword.”

  “And my axe, I guess,” Greta grumbled with a hint of a grudging smile.

  Given that she was the group member who most resembled a dwarf, the others all cracked up, and that broke the tension.

  “Okay,” said Tani. “When do we start? I hope you have a plan because I don’t know fuck-all about finding mages in Oakland.”

  “I’ll put some feelers out,” Max said. She was older than the other Harpies and didn’t get together with them in person as often, but her job as a private investigator gave her access to avenues the rest of them didn’t have. She rarely spoke up at meetings unless she had something to say. “I’ll talk to Bea, too.”

  “Thanks, Max.” Verity had only met Bea once—she was even older than Max and mostly provided some financial assistance and advice to the younger women—but Kyla had mentioned she had a few magical talents of her own. “That’ll help a lot. If any of you get anything, give me a call.”

  “I’m almost sorry we don’t get to fight anybody,” Lara said. “Been a while since I’ve cracked any deserving heads.”

  7

  To Stone’s frustration—but not surprise—his final angle of easy investigation proved fruitless.

  He’d waited until after ten o’clock, then adjusted his disguise amulet once again to change his drab business suit to something a bit more upscale, adding touches to suggest his boring businessman persona might be up for some female companionship, then headed to the café where the woman had initially approached Selby. He was careful to disguise his aura as well, and to hide any signs of magic around him. He’d gotten much better at that since Calanar, and had practiced until he could both make his own blazing, tri-colored aura appear as a more standard single purple, and also hide any traces of magic—such as the disguise amulet—around his body. That was normally a problem with using such things: they worked great on mundanes, but mages who were paying attention could easily spot them. Because Stone’s suspicion that at least one of the blackmailers had magical talent had grown since his conversation with Selby, he had to be extra-careful not to get himself noticed.

  The café wasn’t crowded this time of night; Stone suspected it might be later on, but right now, only about half the tables outside were occupied. The clientele consisted mostly of couples, with a few small, laughing groups clustered around small tables. Stone was the only lone man. That could work out well if the blackmailers were on the lookout for prey, but the sparseness of customers might also mean they wouldn’t bother tonight.

  He took a seat in a secluded area near the building, away from the small groups, ordered a pint of the local ale, and sat back to watch people stroll by. There were several bars and cafés on the street; he could hear the faint strains of music coming from a couple of the others nearby. Most of the people he spotted looked like tourists. He tried his best to look like a bored businessman killing time while he put off having to return to his dull hotel room and work on tomorrow’s sales presentation.

  After an hour, he reluctantly had to acknowledge that his plan likely wasn’t working. Nobody approached him except the server, who checked on him periodically in the hopes that he might order something more expensive than a second pint of ale. Gradually the other customers finished their food and drinks and drifted off; when one of the small groups passed Stone on the way out, he heard them loudly chattering about a nearby bar they planned to visit. The café closed at midnight, and by eleven-thirty he and two other couples were the only ones remaining in the sidewalk area. The air was growing chilly.

  Well, this was a bust, he thought with annoyance. It had been a long shot, sure—if the blackmailers did this kind of thing often, it made sense they wouldn’t focus on the same location, especially with this many to choose from in such close proximity. Again, he could talk to the café’s staff, but if he was wrong and the pair was simply taking the night off, he coul
dn’t afford to arouse anyone’s suspicions.

  The stress of all this was beginning to take a toll on Stone. He rubbed the back of his neck, where a dull ache had been forming all evening. Normally he found dealing with puzzles like this stimulating, but he had never been forced to be this careful before. If even one wrong person got wind of his investigation, Selby’s reputation—even his life—could be in jeopardy. He’d known the man since he was a fifteen-year-old apprentice back at Caventhorne; Selby had always been morose and moody, but he valued his honor and his reputation above all else. Stone had no doubt he’d make good on his plan to kill himself if the blackmailers made the video public or shared it with the Bertrands.

  Time was ticking; Selby had told him the blackmailers had only given him three days to secure the tome and bring it to them; more than half of that had already passed. If the pair had other accomplices and they were watching Selby, they could be wondering why he had not yet contacted them. If he’d already returned to the chateau, it made sense that he would—with such a frightening potential consequence hanging over his head, he’d want to get the situation taken care of as quickly as possible.

  Stone tossed some cash on the table and left the café, pulling out his phone as he headed back up the street.

  Once again, Selby answered on the first ring. “Yes, hello?”

  Stone pictured him sitting in a chair in his room, staring at his phone on the table and willing it to ring. “Selby? Stone.”

  “Oh, thank God. I was just about to call you.”

  That wasn’t good. “Why?”

  “They’ve called again. Just a few moments ago. They—they’ve decided three days is too long. They want me to deliver the book tonight.”

  8

  The hardest part of Verity’s plan was the waiting. As much as she wanted to go to Oakland and start poking around on her own, she knew it was pointless. She’d only been there once, to buy some supplies at a shop Hezzie recommended, and knew nothing about the town and its magical culture—assuming it even had one. That meant her best plan was to remain reachable and let her more knowledgeable friends take point on this one—at least for the recon phase. She remained at her apartment for the next few hours, trying to concentrate on the alchemical project she and Hezzie were working on. It wasn’t going very well.

  “Come on, V. You’re not going to get anywhere with this if you don’t pay attention.” Hezzie shot a glare across the table when she’d picked up the wrong bottle and was about to pour it into the beaker of green liquid bubbling over the flame. “You dump that in there and the whole place will be full of smoke in thirty seconds.”

  Verity jerked her hand away. “Damn. Sorry.” She retrieved the correct bottle, double-checked the label, and tipped a drop into the beaker. The mixture changed instantly from green to a pleasant blue. “There. Better?”

  “Yeah. Better. But your mind’s not on this. That’s obvious.”

  She sighed and slumped back onto the stool, glancing at her watch. It was already nearly six, and so far the only reports that had come back had been negative. None of the Harpies’ contacts had heard of any magical crime going on in the Oakland area. “I’m sorry. I guess it was stupid of me to expect to come up with anything this fast. If there is some kind of magical crime spree going on over there, they’re probably gonna be pretty quiet about it.”

  “You need more patience,” Hezzie said. She examined several bottles one after the other, then slid one across the table. “Here. This one goes next.”

  As she watched her student carefully add the new substance to the mixture, she added, “If you ask me, you need to break away from Stone more. He’s not your master anymore—you shouldn’t be dropping your own life to do things for him. Let him do it himself.”

  “I told you—he’s not here. He’s off dealing with some other problem over in Paris. And besides,” she added, “I don’t ‘drop my own life’ for him. I know it’s hard for some of you guys to believe, but he’s part of my life. Just because I’m not his apprentice anymore doesn’t mean we don’t still work together.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Well, yeah, that too. But I don’t mind helping him out when he asks. He’s helped me out enough times. Why should it be any different than what you and I and the rest of the Harpies do for each other?”

  Hezzie waved her off. “Never mind. I can see I’m not going to get anywhere with you about this, so there’s no point trying.”

  Verity sighed and concentrated on measuring out the correct amount of the new substance. “I kind of wish I could get Jason involved in this. Maybe he and Max could compare notes.”

  “What good’s he gonna do? He doesn’t know anything about the magical community, does he?”

  “I guess not—not in Oakland, at least. But it doesn’t matter anyway—he’s out of town for a couple of days, visiting his girlfriend in Truckee.”

  “Did you check with Scuro?”

  “Yeah, he was the first one I called. He knows a lot of magical people, but he said not to count on any info from him. Most of his clients are rich—the kind of rich that wouldn’t need to commit magic street crime—and all of them are discreet. He said he’d do what he could, but it wasn’t likely to do any good.”

  Verity put the stopper back in the bottle and turned up the heat under the mixture. It began emitting faint wisps of purple smoke that smelled like cloves. “You know, I really wish the magical community had more communication. It just seems stupid to me that there are all these people scattered around out there who have the talent, but most of them don’t even know each other exist.”

  “Yeah…it’s better that way, though,” Hezzie said. “At least I think so. We have ways of finding each other when we need to, and aside from our group I’m not really the ‘go to meetings’ type.”

  “I guess…” Verity continued watching the mixture, which would have to bubble for ten more minutes before the next stage. This one wasn’t any kind of big-deal potion, but only a concoction that, when sprinkled on food, would preserve it for significantly longer than its natural shelf life. Hezzie, who’d known Verity’s mind wasn’t fully on her work, had told her student she’d chosen it for today’s lesson because it was difficult to brew properly but didn’t take long to make—and most of all, nothing catastrophic would happen if she got it wrong. “Still, it would be nice to have somebody official to contact about stuff like this, instead of—”

  Her phone buzzed on the table near her hand. She recognized Lara’s number.

  She glanced at Hezzie, who waved her toward it, and snatched it up. “Hey, Lara. You got anything?”

  “Maybe.” The other woman’s voice sounded like she was someplace crowded. “It’s probably nothing, but you said to let you know if we got anything, so—”

  “What is it?”

  “I put out a call to a couple of friends—the ones I know in the area who know anything about magic. One of them just got back to me. She said she knows this kid—maybe fifteen or so—who’s a minor talent. She’s a street kid—supposedly in the foster care system, but doesn’t spend much time wherever’s supposed to be home.”

  “Yeah?” Verity leaned forward, her bubbling potion forgotten.

  “My friend doesn’t know her real name—she goes by Daisy—or where she lives. But they happened to be hanging out earlier today with some other people and she said the kid mentioned going to the Falconstrike concert tonight, at the Arena.”

  “Okay…what’s weird about that?”

  “Come on, V—I just said she was an Oakland street kid who lives in a foster home. Tickets for that concert aren’t cheap. Where would she get the money for one?”

  Verity frowned. “I dunno. She could have saved it up, or maybe a friend gave it to her. Sounds a little thin, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said too, but my friend told me something else. Daisy’s hardcore into metal. It’s all she ever listens to. Doesn’t it seem weird that a kid like that wou
ld want to go anywhere near an expensive old-fogey arena rock concert?”

  “Hmm…yeah, I guess that does sound kind of weird, but not completely out of the question. Like I said, maybe she’s going with a friend. When I was that age, if I got invited to a concert I’d probably have gone, even if I didn’t like the music much.”

  “Maybe,” Lara said. “But my friend said the kid seemed kind of amped up about the whole thing—but not like she was excited about seeing the band. More like nervous. And she’s got a couple new friends. Kids about her age. My friend didn’t think anything of it at the time, but who knows? It could be relevant.”

  Verity glanced at the bubbling beaker, then at the timer. Three more minutes before she’d have to take it off the heat. “It’s a long shot,” she said to Lara. “But I guess it’s possible. Doc did say they were into small-time stuff. A big crowded arena like that would be an easy place to pull off some crime—stealing wallets, that kind of thing. If they have magic, they could be in and out before anybody catches on. What time’s the concert?”

  “I looked it up—it starts at eight.”

  Damn. That wouldn’t give them much time—not to mention it would take a lot of effort and coordination for what amounted to a big long shot.

  But so far none of the other Harpies had come through with anything else…

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m gonna give it a try. Can you do me a favor? Call everybody else and tell them about this, then figure out a place not too far from the Arena for anybody who wants to help to meet up. I’ll be there in an hour and we’ll head over.”

  “V, are you sure—”

  “I’m sure I’m gonna check it out. Thanks, Lara. I’m not asking anybody else to go along unless they want to, but it would be a big help to have more eyes. Especially eyes who can see magic.” She cast a significant glance at Hezzie, who had just turned off the flame under the beaker. “Call me with the location, okay? Gotta go.”