Circle of Stone

by R. L. King

  Stone, afraid if he continued floating any longer he might let his concentration slip and take a nasty fall, lowered himself to the top of another warehouse across the street from the one he’d followed the ley line to. He gazed at the glowing line for several more moments, and then shifted his sight to filter it out so he could see if anything else about the building was unusual.

  A faint, yellow-green nimbus, almost like an aura, surrounded the warehouse.

  Stone drew a long, slow breath, clenching his fists.

  “What are you?” he murmured.

  By now, his reason for coming to Oakland had fled his mind. Sure, he’d still have to do something about tracking the magical crime wave, but next to whatever this was, such a thing paled in comparison.

  For a moment, he considered calling Verity. He had to investigate this—there was no doubt in his mind. He had no idea what it was, but he needed to find out if it could potentially be dangerous to the mundanes in the area. From the look of things, the vicinity was fairly deserted, full of abandoned or derelict buildings, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way.

  “Call me if you need backup,” she’d said, and he’d promised to do so, but there was no point in tearing her away from her alchemy studies—not yet, anyway. He had no intention of being stupid about the whole thing, blundering into the building without any idea what he was getting into, but surely he could learn more about what he was facing before he called anyone.

  He took a quick look around to make sure no other people were in the area, then raised his most powerful shield and lifted up again, floating across the street and over the razor-wire fence surrounding the warehouse.

  The green-gold nimbus remained as it was, so far showing no reaction to his presence. He crept forward across the wide, empty no-man’s land, acutely aware that something inside the building might be watching him and preparing to attack if he got too close.

  Nothing did, and in less than a minute he was standing outside a pair of wide double doors held closed by a chain with a heavy padlock through it. Closer examination revealed that the padlock wasn’t locked.

  Interesting—was someone using this building, even though it appeared abandoned? Why would they bother putting the lock on the door if they didn’t intend to use it?

  He paused, scanning the area again. Up close, a low, humming thrum passed through his body, making his hands tingle. The green-gold glow was even brighter here; he hadn’t yet stepped into the area it occupied, but if he wanted to enter the building he’d have to.

  Once again he considered calling Verity, and once again he dismissed the idea. The thrumming sensation going through his body felt odd but not unpleasant, and so far he hadn’t encountered anything he didn’t think he could handle.

  “Let’s just have a quick look at you, then,” he said under his breath. He used magic to move the lock off the chain and to pull one of the doors open wide enough for him to slip through. Closing it behind him, he stepped into the warehouse.

  As soon as he focused his gaze on the cavernous space inside, he knew instantly what he was looking at. His stomach clenched, sending a thrill of fear upward to settle in the back of his neck.

  “Oh, bloody hell…” he whispered. “Not another one.”

  The rift was the biggest one he’d seen, far bigger and brighter than even the one in Wyoming. Its yellow-green edges shifted and danced in the darkness, almost as if beckoning him forward. Stone didn’t approach it, but something inside of him wanted to; the thing seemed to exert a pull, trying to draw him closer. Only his shield, which he was now putting all his concentration into maintaining, kept him where he was.

  He shifted his magical sight, making the necessary alterations so he could see ley lines too, already suspecting what he would see.

  Even so, the reality of the sight shocked him. “No… This can’t be…”

  As he’d expected, the bright, jittering shaft of the ley line he’d been following was here too, inside the warehouse. The closer it got to the rift, the more unstable it became—what had been a subtle shifting back at the car had given way to the jerking judder of an old-fashioned film spool badly loaded into a projector. Even through the shield, Stone couldn’t miss the growing, unhealthy power as the rift tried to draw the ley line into it, and the ley line resisted with all the strength of a natural force generated and fed by the Earth itself.

  It appeared the two of them had reached a standoff: the rift had managed to warp the ley line, to pull it off its course and drag it into its orbit, but couldn’t hold it there. The minor ley line couldn’t fight the force completely, but it either had enough power to keep the rift from drawing it into itself, or else the two were ultimately incompatible and it wasn’t possible for the rift to consume the ley line. Either way, the line bent again at the rift, returning to its northerly direction and resolving once more into its clear, non-shifting form.

  Stone took an involuntary step back, once again reinforcing his shield. He’d dropped the disregarding spell—nobody was going to see him in here—but sensed that if he allowed that thing to draw him in, nothing good would come of it. Where the rift and the ley line came together, a sense of profound unease rose and engulfed the area surrounding them, almost like strong static on a radio station.

  Something was definitely wrong here.

  Stone had to get away from this. He had to think.

  He hurried outside, slipping the padlock over the chain but once again not locking it, and hurried across the yard.

  The strange compulsion didn’t extend far; by the time he’d made it halfway across the open space it had faded. If he couldn’t still see the green-gold nimbus around the warehouse, he’d have no indication at all that anything was amiss. That was good, at least—he had no idea if the rift had any effect on mundanes, but even if it did, they’d likely have to enter the building to be drawn in. Even mages would need to be fairly close to notice anything unless they were specifically looking for it. He didn’t know how many mages there were in the Oakland area, but the odds were decent that most of them didn’t go poking around abandoned warehouses.

  He stood a moment, letting his thoughts whirl, trying to decide what to do with this thing.

  He was sure it was the same kind of rift he’d already seen in Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming. The same kind he’d seen on William Desmond’s magical globe back in London, and the same kind he’d closed.

  But this one hadn’t been on Desmond’s globe.

  He was certain of that, too.

  When he’d discovered the globe, with its collection of tiny, colorful dots on every continent, he’d been shocked and confused to find a pair that coordinated with the two rifts he’d already closed in Iowa and Pennsylvania. He’d found others in Michigan and Oregon, and he and Verity had chosen to track one in Wyoming, resulting in her nearly being stranded in a tiny town that the rift had shifted to another dimension. He’d closed that one too, wondering how he would manage to close them all before they began causing more trouble.

  That had lasted until Stefan Kolinsky had come to call, finally deigning to give him at least part of the answer he sought: the rifts were cyclical, appearing at unexpected intervals, and served as pressure releases when two dimensional spaces drifted too close together. As much as Stone wanted to close them because they could be dangerous all on their own, Kolinsky had convinced him it would be even more dangerous to do that than to leave them as they were and allow them to do their job.

  In order to give Stone even that much information, he’d required a magical oath: Stone had agreed not to reveal the existence of the rifts or their purpose to any other person without Kolinsky’s agreement. As far as he knew, aside from himself, Kolinsky, and a few of Kolinsky’s strange contemporaries, only Verity knew of the rifts’ existence, and she had no idea of their purpose. She’d agreed to let him take point on dealing with the situation, and hadn’t asked any more about it since they’d returned from Wyoming.

  Still, none of th
is had sat well with Stone—least of all that he might have caused more trouble than he’d solved by sealing the three rifts he’d done before finding out the truth. Kolinsky had heavily implied that if he didn’t allow the pressure valves to function as they needed to, the energy of the two dimensions coming into contact with each other could rip the dimensional fabric and create other, more explosive openings in unexpected locations. Kolinsky didn’t say what problems these new rifts could cause, other than to assure Stone that they would almost certainly be far worse than anything that occurred organically. It was all a natural process, apparently, and one that had occurred before.

  That didn’t mean Stone had to like it.

  “Bloody hell…” he whispered, continuing to watch the warehouse from the edge of the fence. “Is this…my fault?”

  Another chill ran up his back, and he tensed. This rift wasn’t on Desmond’s globe. He knew that because before, when he’d been searching for rifts to investigate, he certainly would have chosen one this close to home rather than going to Wyoming or the other locations.

  Did that mean it was a new one—a new release of pressure brought on by stopping up the ones that had meant to let off steam in the other areas?

  If it was, what could he do about it? He couldn’t close it—he wasn’t even sure he had the ability to do it, but even if he did, doing so would certainly double down on making things even worse. Would closing one of these secondary rifts result in even more of them popping up in gods only knew what locations? Hell, having one in the middle of Oakland was bad enough, even if it was in an abandoned warehouse in a nearly deserted area—what if the next one showed up in downtown San Francisco?

  He stared at the closed door again. By now, the whole situation with the magical crime wave had completely left his mind. A few kids lifting wallets and magically cleaning out cash registers had nothing on the potential harm this rift could do. Even what had happened to Greta, as unfortunate as it was, was an isolated incident and possibly even an accident. Verity could handle it for now—if she, Jason, or Blum came up with any other information he’d pursue it, but for now…

  His phone buzzed in his pocket.

  He started, spinning around as if expecting someone to be sneaking up on him, then relaxed, embarrassed by his reaction. He yanked it out without looking at the display. “Yes?”

  “Doc? You okay?” Verity’s voice sounded concerned.

  “Uh—yes. I’m fine.” He looked at the nimbus around the warehouse again. He couldn’t feel it beckoning him from here, but he was sure if he moved closer the sensation would come back. Just brilliant. Right as rain. “Is something going on?”

  “No—I just got done with Hezzie and wanted to see if you needed any help. Did you find anything?”

  Slowly, Stone began walking back toward the warehouse. “No—no, it was a false alarm.”

  “Doc…”

  “It was. I thought I spotted something, but it turned out to be nothing.”

  “So…there’s nothing wrong with the ley line?” She sounded dubious, as if she didn’t believe him.

  He almost lied to her. He was good at it, and it would be easier if he did—she might suspect he wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but she’d believe him.

  Except that she’d believe him because he didn’t lie to her.

  She trusted him, and he’d never broken that trust.

  He closed his eyes a moment, then focused on the padlock, using magic to click it shut.

  “Doc?”

  He took a deep breath. “Verity…yes. There is something wrong with the ley line. But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

  “Trust you? With what? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I told you that, and it’s the truth. I found something…odd. I need to investigate it further, but I need to do it on my own. That’s what I need you to trust me about.”

  There was a long pause. “Why do you need to do it alone? I thought we were past that. We’re a team—you and me and Jason. We don’t keep secrets.”

  “I know.” His stomach clenched again. He wanted to tell her. She was right—he was better with her, and her insights and different experiences often provided him with ideas he didn’t see on his own. But this time…he couldn’t. The oath he’d sworn to Kolinsky was magical in nature, which meant he was physically incapable of revealing the information it covered in any method: spoken, written, or otherwise recorded. “But…I can’t. I can’t explain it to you, but I promise you, I have a very good reason. Will you trust me, at least for a while?” Maybe if he could find Kolinsky—which he would certainly need to do now, as the black mage would want to know about the new rift—he could convince the man to alter the oath to allow Verity into the circle. Especially since she already knew about the rifts.

  Another pause. “You know I could go over there and look around myself, right? I have a basic idea of where this ley line is.”

  The clenching in Stone’s stomach intensified. The thought of her poking around the unknown rift terrified him. She was strong, powerful, and well trained—and definitely more prudent than he was when it came to studying magical phenomena—but this rift was on another level. “Verity…I know you could. But I’m asking you not to. You’ve got enough on your plate right now, and as I said, I’ve got a very good reason why I’m handling things the way I am.”

  She sighed. “You know you can be really frustrating sometimes, right?”

  “I thought that was part of my charm.”

  “Not…really.”

  He didn’t miss the slight chill in her tone. “Look—I know you’re going to be cross at me about this. That should tell you something, because I hate it when you’re cross with me. But this time I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is ask you to let me deal with it.”

  “Does it have anything to do with what happened to Greta? With Daisy and the rest of those kids and their magical crime stuff?”

  “I…sincerely doubt it.” He’d been walking back toward the fence, but now he stopped and turned back around, studying it for a final time. “I can’t be certain, of course, but I’d be very surprised if they were related. I think I just stumbled on to something I didn’t expect to find.”

  “Okay…fine. I’ll leave it alone for now, then. But you’ve got to promise me if you find out they are related, you have to tell me, okay? Those kids made this personal when they hurt Greta. If you won’t agree to that, then I will go check it out myself.”

  “Yes, yes, all right. I agree. If I find any connection between this and the crime wave, I’ll bring you in.” He hoped he was right that they weren’t related, because otherwise he had no idea how he would get around the oath.

  “Okay. Fair enough. I’ll leave it alone…for now, anyway.” Her tone changed, becoming more inviting. “Hey, if you’re already in Oakland, why don’t you come over here? You haven’t spent much time in my new place yet…”

  He wanted to, more than anything. “I’m sorry, Verity…I can’t. I’ve got…something I still have to do tonight. Can I have a rain check?”

  “Sure. Of course.” She sounded disappointed, but recovered quickly. “Anyway, be careful. And call me if you get anything about the kids.”

  “I promise. And you do the same.”

  He stuck the phone back in his pocket and levitated over the razor-wire fence with one last look back over his shoulder. He didn’t want to leave the rift unattended, sitting there in the middle of a populated area like some kind of magical nuclear reactor. He had no idea how deserted the area was during the day, how many people came through it, or even how far out the rift’s influence reached on unprotected mundanes.

  If he thought there was anything he could do to mitigate any of that, he’d have stayed and tried to do it. But for now, he knew what his best course of action had to be—and this time, he wasn’t planning to take no for an answer.

  21

  It was nearly eleven p.m. when Stone got back to Palo Alto. He
exited 101 and cruised down the familiar street in East Palo Alto, observing that only two of the businesses—a dive bar at the far end and a combination gas station/convenience store nearer his destination—were still open.

  Kolinsky’s shop was, of course, still closed up tight, its windows dark. There wasn’t much traffic this time of night, so Stone parked the BMW directly in front of the shop and cast the disregarding spell over it with barely a thought.

  “Stefan, where the hell are you?” he muttered, approaching the door. The wards were up just as they’d been last time he’d stopped by, hiding the true entrance from mundane eyes. “You’ve got to come back some time…”

  But he had no idea if that was true. Stone had no illusions that this broken-down little place constituted Kolinsky’s only professional premises. He’d long suspected that Madame Huan, the only other person he was sure knew more than she was telling about the rifts, maintained private portals that allowed her to travel instantly between her three shops in London, Palo Alto, and somewhere in China, but he’d never asked her about it and she’d never volunteered the information. If she could do it, maybe Kolinsky could too. It would explain a lot about why Kolinsky spent so much time in a shop that offered very little public access.

  Stone pushed through the ward—he could do that because he’d designed it himself, as part of one of the innumerable favors the two of them traded back and forth—and tried the door. Of course it was locked. Even if Kolinsky was still in the area, why would he be in his shop this late?

  He could go to Kolinsky’s home—the only one he knew about, anyway—in Los Altos Hills, but he suspected the black mage wouldn’t be there either. Damn you…first you make me swear I won’t tell anyone else about the rifts, and then you disappear so I can’t even discuss them with you.

  He looked at the shabby wooden door. Kolinsky hadn’t even left his customary note revealing when he’d be back. It was definitely beginning to look like he was avoiding Stone on purpose.