by R. L. King
Verity stood, a lot slower. “I mean, I’m not sure. I think I got something.”
“Is he behind wards?” Stone asked.
“Not sure of that either. But the connection isn’t strong. I’ve never felt anything quite like this before.” She glanced at Stone, obviously hoping for clarification.
“How close?” Amber was pacing around the circle. “Can you find him? We need to go!”
“Not too far. Somewhere on the other side of Chicago. If we go now, I think I can find him. But you’ll have to drive.”
“Let’s go, then.” Stone swept his hand, gathering the spent ritual components into a tiny whirlwind and depositing them in a nearby trash can. “We’ll leave the circle. Can’t be helped, but at least it won’t look unusual in this crowd. Come on.”
It seemed to take forever for the valet to return with Stone’s rental car, even though in reality it was less than five minutes. He practically yanked the confused young man from the driver’s seat, stuffed a twenty-dollar tip into his hand, and closed the door in his face.
They all sat in grim silence as Stone drove, following Verity’s hesitant directions.
She leaned forward in the back seat, her eyes scrunched shut. “I’m having a harder time holding this in mind than usual,” she said as they entered an expressway. “It not as strong as it could be.”
“What’s that mean?” Amber asked. “Could he be hurt? Dying?”
“I…don’t think so. Maybe unconscious. But it keeps fading in and out. Like I said, I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”
“It’s probably whatever the kidnapper’s doing to hide his tracks,” Stone said. “He might not know you’re here, and no one else would be able to reliably use a ritual to find Jason. A normal tether object probably wouldn’t be enough.”
“Yeah…maybe. Get off at this exit…and stay quiet, please. This is getting really hard.”
Stone could practically feel the stress radiating off Amber. She thrummed with unspent energy, and Stone had no doubt that if she caught a whiff of Jason’s or the kidnapper’s scent through the partially open window, she’d leap out of the car and take off running.
“Are we getting close?” he asked Verity, glancing at the rearview mirror to try catching her gaze.
“Maybe. I think so.” She sounded thoroughly distracted. “It’s getting weaker, though.”
“Weaker like how?” Amber’s voice was sharp.
“Shh…turn here. It’s fading. Oh, God, it’s fading…”
Stone whipped the car around the next corner without slowing down. The street here was nearly deserted, lined on both sides with widely spaced office and light-industrial buildings. His heart pounded as he kept up the same speed, and his hands tightened on the wheel. Did “fading” mean Jason was dying? That he was no longer in the same location? He wished he could see inside Verity’s head to get a more definitive read.
“Here!” She stabbed a finger to their right, at a low-slung, boring-looking two-story building set well back from the street. “It’s fading fast now. Hurry, Doc.”
The car’s tires squealed as Stone flung it into the driveway and through the small, deserted parking lot. The building didn’t have a sign, and there were no lights on inside. He swung into a parking space and hit the brakes. “Are you sure?”
Amber was already out of the car before it stopped. She moved away from it, sniffing the air and spinning slowly in place. “He’s here!” she said in triumph, but then frowned. “Or at least he was. The scent’s not strong.”
Stone and Verity got out and joined her. “Can you tell where he is? Is the kidnapper still here too?”
“Let’s get inside. I can probably get a better idea there.”
“Not the front door,” Verity said. “They probably have security cameras.”
They hurried around to the side, all three of them scanning the area for signs of guards or cameras. As they approached another door, Amber pointed. “There it is. See it?”
Stone squinted forward. The door didn’t have a light over it, but he could barely make out a small, boxy shape above it. “How do we avoid that?”
“Do illusions work on cameras?”
“Not reliably.”
“Damn. And there won’t be a roof entrance on a two-story building.”
“Wait. Just a moment.” Stone moved closer to the door, careful to stay well away from the camera, and focused on it. Gently but firmly, he took hold of it with a telekinetic grip and turned it sideways, so it pointed away from the door. “If anybody’s watching at this exact moment they’ll notice it moving, but it’s the best I can do.”
“What about the door?” Verity whispered. “If it’s alarmed, it’ll go off.”
“Let me handle that,” Amber said. She hurried forward and studied the door without using a light, then pulled a small kit from her inner jacket pocket. While Stone and Verity kept watch, she did something to the door and after a few moments it made a soft bzzt sound.
“Nice job,” Stone said.
“Yeah, technically I’m not supposed to know how to do that, but there are advantages to not being officially licensed. Come on, we need to hurry.”
They slipped inside and closed the door behind them. Inside was a long hallway lined with doors.
“Do you smell anything else?” Verity asked. “Is he here?”
“Not sure if he still is, but he definitely was.” Amber’s tone was grim. “So was our guy. And…I’m smelling something else, too.”
“What?” Stone shifted to magical sight, but saw no indication of movement or human habitation.
“Another person.” She paused and sniffed again. “The same kind of medicinal smell I noticed in the house where he was holding the Ellerman kid.”
“Bloody hell. Another victim?”
“Yeah, I think so. Another boy.”
“Alive?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on,” Verity urged. “Let’s hurry. We need to find him, and find out if Jason’s here. Maybe they’re together.”
“I don’t think he’s here,” Amber said, clenching her fists. “I think the bastard took him somewhere else. The scent’s fading. Maybe he figured out we were coming for him.”
“He might have had warning wards,” Stone said. “But let’s see if we can find the boy. If he’s here, there might be other clues about where they went.”
Following Amber’s sensitive nose, they hurried down the hallway and turned left at an intersection.
“This looks like some kind of medical or scientific facility,” Verity said. She pointed through an open door as they passed. “I’m seeing labs and exam rooms.”
“Makes sense,” Stone said. “We may have found one of his main bases, by accident. Which could be good news for us.”
“Why?” Amber paused to sniff the air, then pointed down another hallway.
“Because we’ve got him on the run, which means he might make mistakes. If he took Jason, he’s got a reason for it—an important reason, especially if he left his kidnap target behind. He probably couldn’t manage them both. And if that’s so, then he’ll keep Jason alive.”
“I hope to hell you’re right. Because if he hurts Jason, I won’t stop till I run him down and rip his throat out.” She sounded more bear than human, her tone deep and threatening.
“We’ll find him,” Stone said gently. “We’ve got the resources to do it. We’ve just got to keep our heads.” He hoped he sounded convincing, because at the moment he was having a difficult time doing it.
“Yeah. I know. Hold on—I think we’re close.” She stopped, looking around. “The kid’s scent is strong here.”
“But there aren’t any doors,” Verity said. She indicated the hall’s blank walls. “Maybe around the corner?”
“No, it’s really strong right here,” Amber insisted.
“Might be an illusion hiding the door,” Stone said. “Amber, can you pinpoint where it’s strongest?”
“Yeah, give me a sec.” She paced around the hallway, sniffing repeatedly, and finally stopped in front of a featureless wall halfway down the hallway. “It’s here. This is where it’s concentrated.”
“All right, stand back. Verity, you look too. Hopefully one of us will see it.”
The two of them leaned against the wall opposite the spot Amber indicated. Stone took a few deep breaths and focused on it, using the complicated and difficult process of both allowing his mind to drift and zeroing in on the location where the illusion was supposed to be. He’d gotten a lot better at piercing illusions since his Calanar training, and it helped that he knew what to expect this time. Illusions were much easier to see through when you knew what they were concealing, and if you knew they were there. Breaking them, however, still wasn’t a simple process. It took a combination of power and finesse that most mages couldn’t manage.
There. He had the edges of it now. Tensing, he leaned forward, feeding energy into his working. During his apprenticeship, William Desmond had once described the process to him as the mental equivalent of trying to peel up a stubborn sticker—easy if you went slowly and carefully, applying steady power. But if you tried to go too fast, the whole thing would fragment and you’d be left with useless pieces. As much as he wanted to blast through—as much as he knew if he didn’t hurry, Amber was likely to try tearing down the wall with her bare hands—he had to do this right.
“He’s good,” he murmured. “He’s got wards built into it.”
“Can you get through them?” Amber asked.
“I think so…he’s good, but I’m better. Just give me a moment.”
Stone felt both Amber’s and Verity’s gazes burning into him as he continued to move slowly, peeling up the illusion and picking apart the ward the kidnapper had woven through it. It was a solid job, indicating a technical mastery Stone didn’t often see anymore, and probably would have kept out most other mages. But most other mages hadn’t been trained by William Desmond.
“Almost got it…just another moment…and…there!” He stepped back triumphantly, watching with magical sight as the ward-illusion combination collapsed in on itself and disappeared, revealing a featureless metal door. “Now, we can just—”
Amber was done waiting. With a growl, she grabbed the handle and wrenched it. Her muscles knotted with her effort, and after a moment something cracked. She flung the door open, hurrying inside.
Stone followed quickly, and Verity came in behind him. All of them stopped and stared.
The room was obviously a small lab, lined with benches, equipment neatly stacked on shelves, and reference books along one wall. A cart with a flat-panel TV was pushed against another wall. The sharp tang of antiseptic filled the air, and somewhere, some machine whirred softly in the dim light. In the middle of the room was a standard hospital bed, and on it lay an unconscious boy.
Stone barely paid attention to any of that at first. Without switching on the light, he shifted to magical sight. As he expected, the room lit up with arcane energy. A circle surrounded the bed, invisible to the mundane eye but brightly glowing to him.
“What…the…hell?” Amber breathed. She started to stride forward toward the boy.
Stone grabbed her arm. “No. There’s an active circle there. Don’t break it. You could kill him.”
She stopped, not looking happy about it. “Where’s Jason? Who is this kid?”
“I think we’ve found Caden Boyce. Remember the other boy who’s been missing for a week?”
“Yeah, okay. That’s great. I’m glad we found him. But damn it, where’s Jason?”
“He’s in a safe place,” said a voice.
27
All three of them spun.
The TV had switched on, displaying a man’s face and upper body against a gray background. He was watching them with calm amusement.
Stone recognized him instantly as the man he’d seen in Roy Darner’s mind. “You.”
“Yes, me.” The man nodded in smug satisfaction. “We finally meet—or a reasonable facsimile, anyway. I must say, Dr. Stone, you’re looking well. Better than I expected, certainly.” His voice was pleasant, fatherly—the kind of voice that could comfort small children. His blue eyes showed a sharp intelligence, but he didn’t look cold or angry.
“Whatever flunky you sent to kill me after I spoke to Darner obviously botched the job,” Stone growled. “Too bad he didn’t botch killing Darner, too. Where’s Jason?”
“He’s fine. As I said, he’s in a safe place. It’s unfortunate that I had to leave young Mr. Boyce behind, but I had to leave rather quickly—I didn’t expect you to pick up my trail so fast.” His gaze settled on Verity. “Ah, I see now. His sister is involved too. I should have guessed. That would definitely make things easier.”
“Damn straight,” Verity said, glaring. “And I’ll do it again. You can hide from me.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. The wards where he’s being kept are much more formidable. I doubt even you could find him, Dr. Stone. But that’s immaterial. Because I plan to return him to you…when I’m finished with him.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Amber yelled. She looked like she wanted to rip the monitor the stand and fling it across the room. “What are you doing to him?”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Thayer. I promise, my interest in your husband probably isn’t life-threatening. One can never be certain, of course—I’m charting new territory here, and that’s never without risk—but I can be reasonably sure. As it happens, his arrival at the Symposium came as quite an unexpected and pleasant surprise, especially when I discovered he was Ms. Thayer’s brother.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Verity demanded.
The man chuckled. “All in good time.” He looked at Stone again. “I see you managed to breach my lab, too. You are better than I thought you were. I regret every day that you somehow stumbled upon my work. I’ve been careful for so long, and just when I begin to see some promising results, I’m forced to deal with…inconvenient side issues. I’m not pleased about that.” His voice took on a slightly darker tone, but it sounded more like disappointment than anger.
“We know about what you’ve done,” Stone said. “We know about the fertility clinics, the portals, and what you did to these boys. I assume you were trying to instill magical talent?”
“Exactly.” The man nodded approval.
“By substituting yourself for the children’s fathers and hoping the Talent would take. I take it ethics don’t matter much to you.”
“Ethics.” The man waved off Stone’s words. “I had a higher calling. And you’re wrong about your assumption. That was merely a beginning, not my ultimate purpose.”
“Whatever that is. And it didn’t matter if a few mundanes got hurt, right?”
“Of course it did.” His eyes narrowed. “You think I hate mundanes, Dr. Stone? Consider them…what…subhuman or something? You couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’ve been as careful as possible to ensure that my subjects were treated well and not exposed to unnecessary risks.”
“Why, then? Why would you do this? And I’ve got a hard time believing you when at least one of your victims ended up committing suicide because your little memory concoction buggered up his mind.”
“Yes. I know. I regret that. I assure you, I’ve improved many of my methods since then. It’s why I waited five years between attempts—well, the main reason, anyway. I had more time to perfect both my techniques and my alchemical mixtures. The second group of children should not suffer any ill effects from my activities.”
“Except that they were, you know, kidnapped, and lost two or three days of their lives,” Amber snapped. “But I guess that doesn’t matter to you, does it?”
“A small price to pay, in the greater scheme of things. My work is far too important to let a few minor setbacks deter me.”
“Where’s Jason?” She got right up in front of the screen and glared at his image. “You’d bet
ter hand him over right fucking now, unharmed, or I’m coming after you. And I will find you, if it takes me the rest of my life. I’m very good at finding people.”
“Yes, I can see that.” He seemed unruffled by her words. “What are you, Mrs. Thayer? I don’t think you’re a mage, but you’ve obviously got some sort of supernatural tracking ability.”
“None of your damned business what I am. Where is my husband?”
“Please don’t make me repeat myself. He’s somewhere safe, and somewhere you’ll never find him until I’ve finished with him.”
“You’ve taken him through the portal, then?” Stone asked, clenching his fists in frustration. If he’d managed to get Jason through in the Chicago bar, tracking him would become much more difficult if not impossible.
“Of course. I know how well you can track. As I said, I didn’t think you’d find my lab, or young Mr. Boyce. I took a big chance by leaving him behind, but I was almost finished with him anyway. I’d planned to release him in the next day or two.”
“After you finished finding someone to build you a portal.” Stone glared at him. “I know about that, too. You want your own portal, because it’s getting too dangerous to use the public ones.”
The man tilted his head and smiled in surprise. “You are good, Dr. Stone. I had no idea you knew that. Ah—it must be why you decided to attend the Symposium. I didn’t see your name on the guest list, so I assumed it was safe for me to be there—appropriately disguised, anyway. If I might ask, how did you discover I was in the market for a portal expert?”
“You may not ask. I’m not planning to tell you anything. Unless you release Jason, that is. What are you doing to him? You might have some chance of success instilling magical talent into an unborn child, but certainly not a fully-grown man. And in any case, it sounds like your methods haven’t proven successful yet.”
“That’s not entirely true. You’re correct that my last two groups haven’t shown full success. But I’ve learned a lot from my failures, and the things I’ve learned have led me down some very promising paths. And I now have something I didn’t have before, which might make all the difference. We shall see.”
