The Forgotten

by R. L. King

  “So if that’s true,” Stone said slowly, his gaze returning to his glass, “then it means my housekeeper—the woman who’s worked for me for the better part of four years—just tried to murder me.” He sighed again. “You’ll pardon me if that’s a little hard to take—whether it’s true or not.”

  Jason didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much he could say at that point. He concentrated on his beer for a while, and the two of them just sat in an uneasy silence. Finally, he looked up. “What are we gonna do now?”

  “I need to give that some thought,” Stone said after a long time. “If it were ever in doubt that some very dangerous and powerful people want you, me, or both of us dead, I think that’s been effectively removed by the latest events. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of running, and of not having a bloody idea what the hell is going on. I’ve always been much more comfortable on the offensive than the defensive.”

  Jason stared at him. “What are you saying—that you want to go after them? We don’t even know who they are. We don’t know what they want, other than to kill us. And we don’t know why they want that. So where can we even start?”

  “Let me work on that,” Stone said. “Right now I’m still shaking, and my concentration is buggered to hell. Our first priority is to find a place to stay temporarily, and set up an answering service so the police can reach me without having to know where I am. After that—” He spread his arms. “ I don’t know yet. I have some ideas, but give me a little time.”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed with a sigh, nodding. “Guess it’s all we can do.” He looked up. “You—didn’t happen to save the teddy bear, did you?”

  Stone shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

  “So, you couldn’t do another ritual to find V even if you found a place where you could do it.”

  “I’m sorry, Jason. I’m afraid not.”

  Jason nodded. He’d suspected as much, but he had to ask anyway.

  “Oh—” Stone said. “That reminds me. Do you still have my notebook?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over. “What’s so important about this thing, anyway? It’s the one that has all those symbols in it, right? But you don’t even know what they mean.”

  “That’s not all it has in it by a long way,” Stone said, stowing it away in an inner pocket. “I take it you didn’t succumb to temptation and have a look?”

  Jason shook his head. “Honestly it didn’t even occur to me. I forgot I even had it. I was—a little freaked out, you know?”

  Stone chuckled, but it was a mirthless sound. “You wouldn’t have understood it anyway. Even if you could manage to decipher my chicken scratches.” He stood, finishing his Guinness. “We should get going, though. I’d like to have a place to stay before it gets dark, and we should pick up a few changes of clothes. Fortunately, unless whatever evil force is stalking us has access to my bank account, cash shouldn’t be a problem for a while. I don’t fancy holing up in a dump.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By six o’clock that evening, things were looking a little more sane. They picked up some spare clothes and other necessities, and Stone called in a favor from a fellow professor to secure them a small, rented house near the University. “Remember, don’t let anybody in,” he told Jason. “That means don’t even call out for pizza delivery. I don’t want to get another place blown up.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jason said. “At this point, I wouldn’t tell my own mother where I’m staying.”

  Stone went to his room to set up his answering service, so Jason switched on the TV to watch the news. The explosion was one of the top stories—the talking-head reporter was saying that authorities suspected a leaky gas line as the culprit, but they were still investigating. “The occupant, a professor at Stanford, got out with only minor injuries because he left the home to report a gas leak,” the reporter said, “but unfortunately we’ve just gotten word that one of the two young children in a neighboring home who were hit by flying glass has died of his injuries. The other child is in serious but stable condition.”

  “Damn,” Jason whispered under his breath. There was another casualty caused by whatever sickos were after them—and another innocent one. So far at least five people had died because of whatever was going on: Charles, the unnamed kid who’d powered the ganger’s spell, Melody Barnes and her friend Willow, and now this innocent kid, whose only crime was that he’d been playing in what should have been his safe living room at the wrong time.

  He switched off the TV and picked up the evening newspaper instead. The explosion story was there too, on the front page along with a story about a hostage situation in a San Jose bank that had ended with four people dead, a small puff piece on Gordon Lucas’s upcoming charity gala, a gloomy article about the rising unemployment rate, and another one detailing the recent uptick in gang activity all over the Bay Area.

  Jason sighed as he leafed halfheartedly through the rest of the front section. They sure don’t report much good news these days. He was about to toss it down in disgust when his gaze fell on a small article on the back page:

  Local woman dies in single vehicle accident

  A San Jose woman died today after the vehicle she was driving veered off the road and struck a light pole. The accident occurred at 1:30 p.m. near the intersection of Middlefield and San Antonio Road in Mountain View. The victim’s identity was withheld pending notification of next of kin, but an unnamed source has tentatively identified her as Isabel Olivera, 54, a housekeeper. Witnesses claim that there appeared to be no cause for the sudden swerve. An autopsy will be conducted to determine if a medical condition was responsible.

  Jason just stared at the paragraph, scanning it over again to make sure he hadn’t read it wrong. When Stone came back out a couple of minutes later, he held up the page. “Look at this.”

  The mage read it over, frowning. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said at last. “I would very much have liked to have a chance to talk to her about her involvement in what happened. And if she wasn’t involved, then I’ve lost a good friend.”

  Jason nodded. “Look at the time, though. If the explosion happened at 1:00, and the accident happened at 1:30 in Mountain View, then she didn’t have much time to get away.” He paused, thinking. “Kinda makes you wonder if she didn’t have help veering off the road, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised at this point,” Stone agreed. “That’s one mystery we’ll likely never solve, though, unless the autopsy results show she had a sudden heart attack or something.”

  “Add it to the list,” Jason said sourly. He leaned back on the sofa with a loud sigh of frustration. “And hope the cops don’t decide to pursue the connection between the explosion and your housekeeper dying in an accident a half-hour later.” He spread his hands. “So what do we do now? You said you might have some ideas. Now’s the time to spill ’em if you do, because I’m fresh out.”

  Stone looked troubled. “I do,” he said. “But give me until morning. I still need to do a bit more thinking about it.”

  “Why?” Jason glared at him. “If you’ve got something that might work, spit it out. You said you wanted to go on the offensive. So let’s do it. I’m as tired as you are of sitting on my ass waiting for somebody to try to kill us again.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Stone didn’t meet his eyes. “The idea I’ve got in mind requires some—rather extreme action. And in all honesty, I’m not sure I’m ready to take it yet.” Jason opened his mouth to speak again, but Stone held up his hand. “I’m sorry, Jason, but this one’s my call. As I said, I’ll give it some thought and let you know in the morning. That’s the best I’ll do.”

  Jason started to protest again, but he got a look at Stone’s eyes and stopped in mid-word. “Okay. I guess I’m stuck with it, since you’re the only game in town at the moment.”<
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  “Thank you,” Stone said softly. He did genuinely look troubled—more so than he had following the explosion. “I promise, whatever I decide you’ll know in the morning.”

  The next morning couldn’t come soon enough for Jason. He had gone to bed early since there wasn’t much else to do; he’d tried to read one of the books left on the shelf but stopped after a few pages—he couldn’t get into the classics when he was a kid in school, and Dracula wasn’t any more interesting now that he had a few more years on him.

  When he got up to use the bathroom around midnight, he saw a light still glowing in the front room. Stone was sitting there in silence, staring into the dancing flames of the fire he’d started in the fireplace. He looked like his mind was a thousand miles away and wrestling with a difficult problem. Jason didn’t disturb him.

  It was nearly ten a.m. when Jason came back out the next morning. Stone was still sitting in the same chair, and the fire had burned itself into ashes. “Did you even sleep at all?”

  “Not much,” the mage admitted. “Had a lot to think about.”

  “And…? Did you come to a decision about this idea of yours, whatever it is?”

  Stone nodded slowly. “I did.”

  “Are you…going to tell me what it is?” Normally this kind of evasiveness would have made Jason frustrated and impatient (two emotions he was never good at hiding), but right now he almost felt sorry for Stone. The mage looked like a man contemplating an impossible decision.

  Again, Stone nodded without meeting Jason’s eyes. “Yes. I don’t see another option.”

  “So—you’ve decided—whatever it is, you’re going to do it?”

  “I am.” He stood, and his expression changed from troubled to determined. “We need to go to England.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Jason stared at Stone, convinced he couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “What did you say? Because I thought I heard you say we had to go to England.”

  Stone nodded. “There’s something there—at my home—that I need in order to do this.”

  “Wait a sec. We don’t have time for this. You know how hard it is to get a flight on short notice these days, and even if we left now and turned around to immediately come back after we get whatever this thing is, it’ll take a minimum of two days. That’s not even counting things like jet lag and delays getting tickets. Verity could be dead by then, if she’s not already. And besides,” he added, “I know this sounds a little crazy, but I don’t like flying under good conditions. With these mystery wackos trying to kill us, I’d rather not be shut up in a metal tube with no exits for ten or eleven hours, thanks.”

  Stone took a deep breath. He appeared for a moment to be sizing Jason up, gauging his potential response to his next words. “We won’t be flying,” he said at last.

  Jason took a moment to let that sink in. “We’re—not flying. Well, we sure as hell can’t drive. We—” He stopped. “Wait a minute. This is some other magic thing you haven’t told me about yet, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What, you just— sprinkle some pixie dust around, click your heels together three times, and say, ‘There’s no place like London’?”

  Stone didn’t smile. “This is serious business, Jason, and it can be very dangerous. That’s part of what I was trying to come to terms with last night. Because I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here while I go, so you’ll have to come with me.”

  “Okay,” Jason said, glaring at him. “Why don’t we start at the beginning? I know how much you like your cryptic little reveals, but right now I think we’re pretty much past that. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “It’s very simple, really.” Stone still wasn’t rising to the bait. His voice was even, making him sound like he was lecturing to one of his classes on some mundane—as mundane as things can get when you teach Occult Studies—topic. “It’s possible—though potentially quite dangerous—to travel great distances in a short time. It requires a fair degree of magical skill and a specially prepared portal or gateway at both ends. Not all mages can do it by any means—a lot of them never bother to learn how to work the gateways.”

  “But you did.” Jason took a deep breath, feeling like he was once again taking one of his frequent detours into the Twilight Zone.

  “Yes. As it happens, I’ve one of my own back at home. It’s one of the few active ones in England, and only a few people there know of its existence.”

  “You—built this thing?”

  “No. It’s been around since many years before I was born. I come from a long line of mages.”

  “O…kay,” Jason said. “So you’ve got one of these gateway things in England. And you know where one is around here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where is that? Up at Stanford? At some—I dunno—super secret mage clubhouse somewhere?”

  “No. Actually, it’s in the basement of a local restaurant.”

  Why do I even bother asking? “A restaurant.”

  “Yes. But listen—that’s not the important part.” Stone moved closer, his own bright blue gaze boring into Jason’s eyes as if attempting to read his mind.

  Jason shifted uncomfortably, by no means sure that wasn’t exactly what he was trying to do. “Okay, what is, then?”

  “The method by which we’ll be traveling.” Stone said. He began pacing around the room restlessly as he continued. “You see, the gateways connect to their destinations by means of an extradimensional space we call the Overworld.”

  “Extra…dimensional space?” Jason’s eyebrows both went up. Holy crap, it is the Twilight Zone!

  “It’s hard to explain without a lot of theory that will no doubt bore you senseless, even if I had the time to explain it to you. Here’s what you need to know if you’re going to come with me: the reason it’s dangerous to travel this way, especially with those who aren’t familiar with it, is that the Overworld has its own—population.”

  “Population of—what?” Jason was almost afraid to ask.

  Stone shrugged. “Nobody’s hung about up there long enough to study them. But here’s the thing—they’re drawn to any kind of strong emotion, especially negative emotion. When traveling in the Overworld, it’s absolutely imperative that a person keep himself completely under control. No fear, no anger, no disagreements with one’s companions—even excessive happiness or curiosity can draw them out to investigate.”

  “And—what happens if you draw them out?”

  “They attack you. And more often than not, they kill you. Or if you’re lucky, they just drive you mad.”

  Jason stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I told you it was dangerous. You can see why I’m reluctant to do it. Especially with someone with your—shall we say—previously demonstrated self-control issues.”

  Jason stood there for a long time, contemplating this. Finally, he ventured, “So you want me to travel through this—Tunnel of Freak-Outs—with you, keep myself from getting scared or angry, and eventually we’ll pop out on the other side in England. And then once you get whatever it is you’re after, we have to do it again.”

  “That’s about it,” Stone said, nodding. “Believe me, if there were any other choice, I’d take it. I’d leave you here if I thought you’d be here when I got back.”

  “What makes you think I won’t be?” he demanded, even though he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to take this particular trip. He wasn’t by nature a fearful guy, but this was just off the rails when it came to weird shit.

  “Because I know you,” Stone said. “Tell me—if I left you here, would you sit quietly in the house and wait for me to come back? Or would you be bored or frustrated or guilty enough in a few hours that you’d set out in search of your sister on your own, just so you could tell yourself you were doing something?”

 
Jason sighed. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. His silence was all the answer either of them needed. Changing the subject, he asked, “So what is this thing that’s so important that you have to get it in England? Can’t you just have somebody get it and ship it to you, whatever it is?”

  “No, that’s not possible. It’s a book, which is all I’ll tell you at the moment. But I wouldn’t trust anyone to ship it, even if anyone could get at it. Even my caretaker back home doesn’t know about it. It’s carefully hidden under magical lock and key in an area of the house he doesn’t even know exists.”

  “Of course it is.” Jason tried not to sound sarcastic, but his capacity for accepting weirdness had been just about exhausted recently. This concerned him, because he expected things were about to get a hell of a lot stranger before tomorrow. He sighed. He knew how much was at stake here, and every day they hadn’t located Verity was another day when the DMW or whoever was directing them or some other random danger could find her. But he had to be honest, too. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  Surprisingly, Stone nodded. He even looked sympathetic. “I know. It’s not easy, even if you know what to expect. My first time through when I was an apprentice—on a lot shorter trip than the one we’ll be taking—I was so frightened that the two other mages I was traveling with had to knock me out to keep us from being attacked. Even then they had to run like hell because I attracted unwelcome attention.”

  “Then how do you expect me to be able to do this? I’m pretty sure I can keep from getting angry, but I can’t stop myself from being scared, can I?”