by R. L. King
“Not unless he’s a mage, and a bloody good one.” Stone looked around the room with magical sight, trying to pick up any residual auric energy. “And if he were, I’d have expected to encounter wards. There weren’t any.”
“So we just got unlucky.” Jason slammed his gloved hand into the doorframe. “Can we do another ritual? Maybe this time the one that lets us track him if he moves?”
“We can, certainly, but not here. We’d have to—”
“Wait.” Amber held up a hand. She was sniffing again.
“What is it?” Jason asked.
“I think the kid might have been drugged.” She pointed into the room. “I’m picking up some odd scents—something medicinal. I can’t identify it, though.”
“Makes sense, I suppose,” Stone said. “It’s not easy to keep a conscious thirteen-year-old boy quiet.”
“Can you track anything else?” Jason asked Amber. To Stone, he said, “She can track things for miles if the trail’s fresh enough.”
“I can try. But it’s harder when they’re in a vehicle. If they didn’t go far—”
“Yeah. Fuck.” Jason pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, shining it around the room and even bending to peer under the bed. “Let’s check the house over, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything.”
“Can you get the kidnapper’s scent?” Stone asked. “Anything unusual about that?”
“Yeah, I got it. He was here too, obviously. Definitely a man. Probably middle-aged.”
“Could you identify the scent if you found it again?”
“Yeah, of course. But we have to find the guy first. And if they’ve gone off in a car, we’ll probably need another ritual to get close before I can get anything.”
“Come on,” Jason said. “Let’s check fast and get the hell out of here. Last thing we need is for one of the nosey neighbors to call the cops on us. Al, we don’t have gloves for you, so be careful not to touch anything.”
All three of them headed to different parts of the house. Jason remained in the bedroom where Ty Ellerman had been held, and Amber went back downstairs.
Stone drifted out to check the remaining two bedrooms and the upstairs bath. He used magical sight to look for aura traces, but nothing turned up. Whatever had occurred in this house, the boy and his kidnapper hadn’t been here long, and nothing horrific or overly emotional had occurred. Amber was probably right about Ty being drugged. He examined each room carefully, but nothing stood out.
“Hey,” Amber called from downstairs. “I might have found something.”
Stone hurried down, followed by Jason. “What is it?”
She was in the kitchen, looking under the sink. She pulled out a small plastic trash can with a liner in it. “People are sometimes careless about what they throw away, so I figured I’d give it a try. Nothing in the can, but…” She reached into the space where it had been, and held up a wadded scrap of paper. “This was behind it, like maybe he threw it away but missed.”
Jason took it from her and shined his light. “It’s an address. On Murphy Street in Sunnyvale.”
Stone tensed. “Let me see that.” He plucked it From Jason’s grip. “Bloody hell.”
“What?” Amber rose gracefully to her feet. “You don’t know it, do you?”
“I most certainly do. This is the address of A Passage to India.”
“Holy shit,” Jason breathed.
Amber looked confused. “Why is that important?” The light dawned. “Wait. Isn’t that—”
“The location of the only public portal within several hundred miles,” Stone said grimly. “I think this case just got a lot more interesting.”
5
Jason broke a few speed laws driving back to Sunnyvale, but they still pulled into the parking lot behind A Passage to India at nine-forty, ten minutes after they closed.
“Damn!” Jason smacked the steering wheel. “But you can still get in, right, Al?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I’ll have to. Come on.”
As he suspected, just because the restaurant was closed to the public didn’t mean Marta Bellwood and her staff had left yet. He peered in through the door and then knocked when he spotted Marta at the register.
She glanced up with her “We’re closed!” face, but then looked startled when she spotted Stone. She hurried over to open the door.
“Alastair! What a surprise to see you.” She looked past him. “And Jason and Amber. This is…unexpected. Come on in! We’re closed, but I can fix you some—”
“No, we’re not here for food, Marta. Thanks.” Stone stepped inside.
“Traveling, then?” She eyed Jason and Amber and tilted her head. Stone had taken Jason through the portal a couple of times before, but never Amber.
“No. But it is portal-related.”
“Did anyone come through here to use the portal in the last hour or so?” Jason asked.
“Er—I’m not sure. It was pretty busy tonight. Good crowd. Why do you ask?”
Amber was sniffing the air. “He was here. They both were.”
“Who was here, dear?”
“One moment, Marta, and we’ll tell you.” Stone strode past her and through the doorway leading toward the restrooms. He stopped in front of a blank wall beyond the door, and concentrated. The wall morphed, revealing a hidden door labeled Maintenance.
Jason and Amber followed him downstairs to the portal room. After a moment, Marta slipped through and closed the door behind her.
Amber barely seemed to notice the shimmering, pastel-colored disk floating in the room’s center. Instead she turned around again, her expression growing serious. “Definitely here. It’s a little harder to pick out because that portal thing smells really weird, but they both came into this room. And not too long ago, either.”
“Will you please tell me what this is about?” Marta demanded. “Who came into this room?”
Stone hesitated. She wasn’t prone to gossip, but if she told anyone about this, it could cause a lot of trouble. “Tyler Ellerman,” he said at last. “The young boy who was kidnapped recently. I’m not sure if you heard about it.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear. Yes, of course I did. And you think—” Her gaze cut to the side, toward the portal.
“It’s starting to look like that, yes.”
“Can you track them through the portal?” Jason asked. He looked like he wanted to dive through the thing himself, a big change from his terror the first time Stone had taken him through. “Can you tell where they went?”
“Unfortunately not.” Most public portals were set up that way on purpose, to clear any calibration once a traveler had gone through, preventing anyone else from following to the same destination. Also, every portal traveler was taught to clear it manually to be safe. He shifted to magical sight and checked anyway, but he knew it was pointless. “Sorry, but that’s not the way they work. Once he went through, there’s no knowing where he might have gone.”
“Damn.” He paced around, frustrated. “So they could be anywhere in the world now, right?”
“Anywhere there’s a portal, yes.”
“Well, fuck. Sorry, Marta,” he added quickly.
“Quite all right.” She looked at Stone. “Why are you looking for missing children?”
“Jason’s got a private investigator case. We thought he was just that—missing. Possibly run away, hiding from his mother. But it looks like things have got a lot more sinister now.”
“Yeah,” Amber added. “Not only was he kidnapped, but by somebody with magic.”
“Why the hell would somebody magical want a thirteen-year-old boy?” Jason asked. “Far as I can figure, he’s just a regular, upper-middle-class suburban kid. His parents don’t have the kind of money that would interest a kidnapper, and anyway there haven’t been any ransom demands.” He focused on Stone. “So, why?”
“No idea.” Stone was wondering the same thing. “Marta, are you sure you didn’t see anyone using the
portal tonight? Think carefully. Or perhaps anyone who came in with a child?”
She thought a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry, but no. Come back upstairs—you can ask Ravi and Isabella. I think they’re still here.”
Jason seemed reluctant to leave the portal room. He glanced back over his shoulder at it, as if expecting it to light up and Ty Ellerman to come leaping through.
Stone gripped his shoulder. “We’ll find him,” he said softly.
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Ravi and Isabella, the two servers, were in the dining room cleaning tables. Both of them shook their heads when asked if they’d spotted anyone with a young teenage boy.
“Sorry,” Ravi said. “The only kids who were here tonight were two little girls with their parents, a couple hours ago. It was mostly couples tonight.”
Stone knew only Marta herself was aware of the existence of the portal in the basement. “Anyone acting odd at all? Perhaps coming in and heading straight to the back instead of sitting down?”
The two exchanged glances, then Isabella’s eyes widened. “Oh—yeah! A guy came in about a half-hour ago, right before we closed. I remember because I didn’t want to have to stay late tonight.”
“But he didn’t sit down?” Jason asked eagerly.
“Nope. I forgot about him, to be honest. I figured maybe he realized we were closing and went out the back door. What’s this about?”
“Just some business. Can’t talk about it. But you say it was just one guy? Not two people?”
“Definitely just one guy.”
“Can you describe him?”
She shrugged. “Generic white guy, average height, wearing a blue jacket. I didn’t get a good look at him. He slipped through pretty fast, and it was busy.”
“And you guys don’t have any security cameras here, right?” Amber asked Marta.
“Oh, my, no. Why would I need security cameras? We’re not exactly in a high-crime area.”
“Okay, thanks, Marta.” Jason looked even more discouraged. “Thanks, you guys.”
He motioned for Stone and Amber to follow him to the other side of the dining room, where they could talk in private. “Well, that sucks. That guy probably wasn’t even the one we’re looking for, if he was alone.”
“You’re not thinking like a mage, Jason,” Stone said. “Amber’s already verified that Ty was here. And mages can use illusions or invisibility spells, remember? Just because I’m rubbish with invisibility doesn’t mean this bloke was.”
“Fine. Okay. But how does that help us? Even if it was the guy, we haven’t got a clue where he went. He could be in Borneo by now.”
“I don’t think there’s a portal in Borneo.”
“Not funny, Al.”
“Sorry. But I’m not giving up yet. There’s got to be a way to find him. Let me have a think tonight, and—”
“Wait!” Amber said, holding up a hand.
“What?” Jason spun on her hopefully.
“I just realized something. We can’t track him through the portal, but he had to get here somehow. And if he did it this fast, it had to be in a car.”
“Right!” Stone grinned. “And if he used the portal, he might have left it parked here. You’re brilliant, Amber. Do you think you can track the scent to it if it’s around here somewhere?”
“Yeah, I’m sure of it. Come on, let’s go.”
They bid a curious Marta goodnight and headed out the back door to the parking lot serving A Passage to India and other nearby businesses. Amber paused as soon as the door closed, tilting her head back and sniffing the air.
“I didn’t realize it until Amber told me,” Jason murmured to Stone, “but bears have amazing senses of smell. Better than dogs. And she says she got the whole thing, even though she can’t shift.”
“Convenient. Although I suppose it means you’ve got to be diligent about taking showers.”
Jason gave a sly smile, but didn’t reply further.
“Got it!” Amber announced, and took off at a jog.
Stone and Jason followed her to the back corner of the lot, closest to the street. There were still quite a few cars parked nearby since Murphy Street and the nearby area also had several bars, but she headed unerringly toward a late-model Chevrolet and stopped a few feet away. “This is the one. I’m getting both their scents—and also that medicinal thing I was telling you about before.”
“Still drugged,” Stone muttered. “Should we look inside?”
“No,” Jason said immediately.
“No?” He’d been moving closer to it, but stopped. “Why not?”
“Because we don’t have the tools to examine it properly. Especially if we can’t track him through the portal, we need to let the cops know. Maybe they can trace the registration, or find fingerprints or trace evidence in the car. We don’t want to mess that up.”
“It looks like a rental,” Amber said.
“Then there’ll be a paper trail.” Jason pulled out his phone. “I have a friend on the SJPD. I’ll give her a call.”
“How are you going to explain how we got here?” Stone asked. Now that they were on the trail again, he wanted to do as much investigation as possible. “The kid could be in the trunk for all we know. Amber could have picked up his scent on the kidnapper’s clothes as he made his escape.”
“He’s not in the trunk,” Amber said. “The scent’s not strong enough for that. In fact, I’m pretty sure he never was.”
“So the guy just—what—drove down the road with the kid in the front seat?” Jason asked. “That’s pretty ballsy.”
“Not if he had an illusion generator, or some other way to hide him,” Stone said. “Seriously, Jason, if you’re going to be taking on magical cases, you’ll need to learn to think like one.”
Jason shot him a sour look, then backed off to make his phone call.
Amber remained behind with Stone, standing near the car but not too close. “Jason had a good question before,” she mused. “Why would a mage want a thirteen-year-old boy? What is it that would make that particular kid interesting?”
“That is a good question,” Stone agreed. “Probably the good question. I think the odds of finding the kidnapper decrease considerably if we can’t figure it out.”
She didn’t answer, looking at him like she expected him to say more.
He shrugged. “There’s a chance the boy’s magical, I suppose. The Talent does pop up to nonmagical parents more often than you might expect—although it’s difficult to identify it. I only know of one person who can do it, and he’s a wild talent himself. Jason might have mentioned him to you—we tangled with him recently, with that mess up in Oakland.”
“Yeah, I remember. Do you think that guy could be the kidnapper?”
“Not really his M.O…although someone did break him out of jail, and they might be interested.” He sighed. “My gut tells me no, though. I’ll look into it, but I don’t think our answer’s going to be there.”
“Where, then?” She glanced over at Jason, who must have reached his cop friend because he was now talking to someone on the phone.
“Let’s see if we can get some more information before we go any farther with that.” Stone debated: on the one hand, he didn’t want to be caught up in this situation officially, but on the other, he’d worked with the SJPD before and already had a reputation as an occasional “psychic” who’d turned up useful information. They also knew he and Jason were longtime friends, so having him along wouldn’t be out of the question. He supposed sticking around wouldn’t cause him a lot of problems—at least not unless the media showed up too.
Jason put his phone away and returned. “I got hold of Jean. She’s coming out with a couple of CSIs who will go over the car.”
“Did you tell him about the place in South San Jose?” Stone asked.
“Yeah. They’re sending people over there too. She was a little pissed at me for going inside, but I told her we weren’t sure it was the
right place, and besides, the door was unlocked.”
Jason’s friend on the SJPD, a no-nonsense detective named Jean Tokuda, hadn’t been happy about his snooping around the house. “You should’ve called us as soon as you found that place,” she told him, as the several crime-scene technicians surrounded the car.
“Didn’t want to waste your time,” he said, shrugging. “We didn’t have any definitive evidence. I know how much you guys love psychics.”
She glared at Stone. “I’ve heard of you. You’ve been involved with a few other cases. I still think the whole thing’s a crock of horseshit, honestly, but I guess you’ve got a track record.” She rounded back on Jason. “Even so, that was a dumbass move, Thayer. You should have called us. What if the guy had been armed, or got away because you took things into your own hands? Or killed the kid?”
“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. Got a little overzealous. Missing kids do that to me. I’ll be more careful next time.” He pointed at the car. “But I think we did find you some solid evidence, and we called now. So that’s something.”
He’d told her about the man’s trip through A Passage to India. Stone wasn’t in favor of it—no mage wanted the location of the area’s only public portal to receive any kind of mundane scrutiny. But they’d already talked to several people there, so if the cops asked around they’d find out anyway, and they’d never find the portal entrance behind the powerful illusion. If they wanted to think the guy had ducked through on his way out the other side, that was fine, he supposed.
Jason had also explained how the crumpled note at the house had led them here. They’d left the note back on the kitchen counter, and Tokuda had already sent more crime-scene techs to go over the place.
“Not much else you can do tonight,” she told him. “Go home, Thayer, and take your little crew with you.” To Stone, she added, “If you get any more psychic brainwaves from the Twilight Zone, tell Thayer and have him call us.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.” There was no point in getting annoyed at that kind of reception, since it was the rule rather than the exception. He was used to it by now.
