Mortal Imperative: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 24)

by R. L. King

  “Eddie? Bit late for you, isn’t it?” It was after one a.m. in England.

  Eddie chuckled. “Not the first all-nighter I’ve pulled, mate. You should know that, since you were ’round for a lot of them.”

  That was the truth. Back in their university days, he, Eddie, and Ward had been creatures of the night, studying into the wee hours and surviving their late-afternoon classes aided by copious quantities of strong coffee. “I hope you’ve got something, at least.”

  “Oh, yeah. Somethin’ really interestin’. Can you come by? This is an in-person kind of thing.”

  Stone glanced out into the hallway. Ian was probably already downstairs waiting for him. “Er—I sort of had plans tonight…”

  “’Ot date?” Eddie’s voice was sly. “’Bout time you got back on the ’orse.”

  “No…nothing like that. Ian’s here, and we were going up to have dinner with Verity and that lot.”

  “Well…this can wait, I guess, but you’re gonna want to ’ear it. I promise.”

  “Is it about the whole ghoul situation?”

  “More about the whole necromancy situation.”

  Stone considered, torn. He hated to break a commitment, but if Eddie really did have something useful, he might be better served taking the hit. He knew his friend well enough to know he wasn’t going to reveal the information over the phone. He also knew Verity and the others would forgive him. “Er…all right. I’ll be there shortly. Where are you?”

  “Caventhorne. Ward’s ’ere too.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “This one might be big, Stone. I mean it. Trust me—it’s worth givin’ up a dinner for.”

  Stone headed downstairs where Ian was indeed waiting for him, along with Raider.

  “Ian—listen. Something’s come up, and I’ve got to go.”

  Ian looked surprised. “Go? Where?”

  “Back home. Eddie’s got something for me and he says it’s good.”

  “You want me to come with you?”

  “No, no need. Verity and Jason want to see you. Why don’t you go on, and I’ll come later if I can.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going back to talk to Aubrey, are you?”

  “No, of course not. It’s one in the bloody morning. He’d murder me if I woke him up just to ask him about his health.”

  Ian studied him for a moment, as if trying to decide if he was lying. “Okay,” he finally said. “But call me if you need anything.”

  “I promise. Please give everyone my regrets.”

  Ian chuckled. “They know you, Dad. They’ll get it.”

  “All right,” Stone called. “What have you got for me?”

  Eddie and Arthur Ward were in one of Caventhorne’s main halls, which had been repurposed as a study area and library. They both looked up from the massive wooden table, where they’d spread a series of open books, unrolled scrolls, and untidy stacks of papers. A pair of closed modern laptops were there too, one in front of each of them.

  Eddie tilted his head in surprise. “You get your portal finished?”

  “You know I haven’t—I want you to look over my work before I do the final ritual. Why?”

  He looked at his watch. “We only talked ten minutes ago. You got ’ere pretty fast. Usually takes at least ’alf an hour, even the way you drive.”

  Bugger. Stone was careful to keep his reaction off his face. In his anticipation of whatever information Eddie and Ward had for him, he’d forgotten to allow time to reach the Sunnyvale portal. He was going to have to be careful about that.

  “Eh,” he said, waving it off. “I wasn’t home when you called. Anyway—what have you got that’s so important?”

  Eddie gathered some of the papers to him. “It was Ward who found it, actually. We weren’t really lookin’ for anythin’ like it, but it just seemed too much of a coincidence not to be potentially interestin’. ’Ave a seat.”

  Stone didn’t press him to go faster. Like many mages (and mundanes) who did a lot of research, his friend enjoyed revealing his results in his own time. He took a seat at the end of the table and waited.

  “You wanna do the honors, Ward?” Eddie asked.

  “No, it’s quite all right. Be my guest.”

  Stone chuckled. Eddie and Ward couldn’t be more different—the former extroverted and full of good-natured cheer, the latter quieter but with a wickedly intelligent sense of humor—but they got along like brothers. “One of you tell me.”

  “Right, then,” Eddie said briskly, indicating the papers. “So…we were doin’ some research on necromancy and ghouls, tryin’ to find out if there’s ever been any connection between ’em. It wasn’t easy, because there’s blessed little information to be ’ad about necromancy. The stuff you found before was the best we ’ad, before you destroyed it.” When Stone drew breath to protest, he raised a hand. “No, no, I’m not sayin’ you shouldn’t’ve done it. I know this is gonna sound daft comin’ from me, but some information does not need to be free, if you catch my meanin’.”

  “Glad to see we’re on the same side.” Stone understood Eddie’s position—he himself had felt a twinge of regret when he destroyed James Brathwaite’s research, even considering its diabolical purpose. “So then, what did you find?”

  “Ward got to thinkin’ about this Miriam Cheltham person you mentioned. Even though we don’t know whether it’s ’er who’s involved in this mess, ’e figured she might be a good place to start lookin’.”

  “Good thought,” Stone said. “I haven’t caught you up with the latest yet.” He quickly shared what he and Verity had learned from Maisie, and Ian’s translation of the German words she’d heard while in custody. “Want to double-check that for me?” he added, pulling out the phone and playing the recording for both of them.

  “That’s right,” Eddie said, and Ward nodded. “And it sure sounds like this Cheltham bird could be our ‘creepy woman’.” He indicated the papers in front of him. “Which adds even more potential interest to what we’ve found ’ere.”

  Stone glanced at the papers. They looked old and weathered, but were most likely preserved in the same way mages often used to ensure old documents weren’t destroyed by repeated reading. “Those look like genealogy charts.”

  “Right in one.” Eddie grinned. “See, after we got nowhere tryin’ to find anythin’ else about necromancy and bloody little about ghouls, Ward got the idea of tryin’ to ’unt down any references to the Cheltham woman.”

  “That’s a good thought,” Stone said. “But I’m fairly sure she was using a pseudonym.”

  “Yeah, we thought so too—and she might’ve been. We didn’t find any reference to her in any of the charts.”

  “Okay, but I still don’t see—”

  “Keep yer pants on, mate,” Eddie said with a chuckle. “It took us a while to find it, so can sit on yer ’ands and listen for ten minutes.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, amused. Eddie was Eddie, and there was no changing him after all this time. “Do go on.”

  The librarian gave a mock-smug nod and indicated the papers again. “So…since we didn’t find anythin’ about any Miriam Cheltham—or any other Chelthams, as it ’appens, we decided to go at it from the other end.” He shot a challenging look at Stone, as if daring him to interrupt again.

  Stone knew better. He remained silent and waited.

  “We got to thinkin’—who do we know for a fact was involved in honest-to-goodness necromancy?”

  “Er—James Brathwaite. And most likely Burgess Crowther, though we haven’t got definitive proof he ever got any of it to work.”

  “Exactly.” Eddie looked satisfied, like a teacher proud his prize student was following along. “And since both Brathwaite and Crowther came from wealthy old magical families, we took a look at their family trees to see if any Chelthams turned up in any of them.”

  “And did they?” Stone asked, unable to stop himself.

  “Nope. Not a one.” Eddie’s grin widened. “Now,
this is the point where most normal researchers would’ve given up. Especially since it was almost midnight at the time and we were out of beer. But did we? Not a chance. Because we are not normal researchers.”

  “Eddie—”

  “Now, ’old on.” He waggled a finger. “Keep all arms, legs, and whatnot inside the car until the ride comes to a complete stop.”

  Stone sighed.

  “So,” Eddie continued dramatically, “that’s that, right? No Chelthams to be ’ad in either Brathwaite’s or Crowther’s magical lines. Far as we can determine, the magical part of both lines died out many years ago. Crowther’s people moved to the States, as you know, and Brathwaite’s fell into obscurity, lost their fortune, and ’ad to sell off the ancestral ’ome.”

  “I know that,” Stone said, unable to completely hide his impatience. “I was there, remember?”

  “I do remember. You were at both Brathwaite’s old place, and Crowther’s, though you didn’t turn up anything at Crowther’s.”

  “Yes…”

  “We focused first on Crowther’s line, since that’s where you found Cheltham. And since it appears the magic was long gone from the family, we dug into the mundane genealogical records.” He indicated the laptop. “I’ll tell you, those Mormon blokes are a bit of an odd lot, but they’re a godsend when you’re tryin’ to track down this kind of data.”

  “So what did you find?” Stone leaned forward, trying to read what was on the notepad in front of Ward. “Did any Chelthams turn up among Crowther’s mundane descendants somewhere?”

  “Nope. I don’t think Crowther’s got anything to do with this. But—” He produced a paper with a flourish. “Here’s where things get really interestin’—maybe. I fully admit we might be off in the weeds with this, but see what you think.”

  Stone waited, heart beating faster. One thing he knew about Eddie: he a lot was like Kolinsky in this way. Neither of them would drag out a story if they didn’t think the payoff was worth the wait. He glanced at Ward, who was leaning back in his chair looking mildly pleased with himself.

  “’Ere we go.” Eddie pointed at a line on the page. “We took a look at Brathwaite’s line. It was a bit harder to track down because there weren’t as many branches—Crowther’s lot were a lot more fertile than Brathwaite’s, and Brathwaite’s sank into a lot more obscurity after they lost their fortune. Took us a while to locate this. But take a look.” He slid the paper across the table toward Stone.

  It was a scrawled section of a genealogical chart, jotted in haste in Eddie’s frantic handwriting. The librarian was capable of producing beautiful written text when the situation called for it, but apparently this hadn’t been one of those situations. “Okay…what am I looking at here? I can barely make out your chicken scratches, Eddie.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You’re complainin’ about my bad ’andwritin’? Just direct yer peepers to the bottom part of that page, and squint.”

  Stone examined it. The chart went back three generations, beginning with a man named Ezra Tinley. His entry showed three children: two sons who had both died without issue, and a daughter named Winifred, who was currently in her late seventies. She had married a man named George Padgett, who had died ten years previously.

  Stone followed the line down to their single child, and he froze. “Miriam Padgett.”

  Eddie nodded. “I know—it does seem pretty farfetched, I readily admit that. But Miriam’s not that common a name, and she is a descendent of Brathwaite’s.”

  Stone shook his head, somewhat disappointed. He’d been hoping for a much more definitive answer than a tenuous connection with nothing but a single name to hold it together. “Come on, Eddie—she’s a mundane! Or at best she’s a latent talent. Are you trying to tell me this woman somehow managed to not only discover she had magical ability, but also learn to use it sufficiently to practice necromancy at a level that hasn’t been seen for almost two hundred years? That’s absurd!”

  Ward looked serious. “You’re probably right. But stranger things have happened in the magical world. It’s possible she might have discovered another cache of Brathwaite’s notes.”

  “I don’t see how. Even if she did have some latent magical talent, how would she have—”

  Eddie and Ward looked up as he suddenly stopped.

  “Y’all right, mate?” Eddie asked, frowning.

  Stone didn’t answer right away, because he was still mentally watching puzzle pieces rearranging themselves and dropping into place. “Have you by any chance got a photo of this woman?” he finally asked.

  “You sound like someone just punched you,” Ward said.

  “And your aura’s a mess,” Eddie added. “Which says a lot, given ’ow good you are at ’idin’ it. Come on—tell us what’s on your mind. You’ve obviously made a connection.”

  “I…think I have.” Stone let his breath out, getting both his aura and his heart rate under control before speaking again. “Do you have a photo?” he asked again.

  “Uh…dunno. Didn’t look. Didn’t think we were that far along yet. ’Ang on a tick…” He opened his laptop and tapped something in, then scrolled. He peered at the screen, tapped something else, then scrolled again. “Not much to go on. Looks like there’s two in the States—one who’s way too young and another who’s way too old, and possibly dead.” He scrolled a third time. “I don’t think…’old on…” He tapped the screen and squinted at it. “Here’s one more—a bird who’s about the right age, in Basingstoke. The photo’s not great—it’s from a website for a dress shop where she works.” He spun the laptop so Stone could see the screen, and chuckled. “She doesn’t look much like a magical powerhouse, does she? Looks like she’d be too scared to get out of ’er own way.”

  Stone stared at the page. It was a “Meet the Employees” page from a shop called “Franny’s Finery” in Basingstoke—a typical badly-designed thing that looked like it had been put together in ten minutes by the owner’s teenage nephew who fancied himself a web designer. The date of last update was more than two years ago. Six photos were arranged in two rows of three along the top; each one looked like it had been snapped by a photographer with about the same level of skill as the web designer, and each had a short block of text below it.

  Miriam Padgett’s photo was the last of the six. It showed a sturdy, mousy-looking woman with the characteristic uncomfortable expression of someone who didn’t like having her picture taken. Beneath the photo, her text block read: Miriam Padgett, alterations. Miriam spends most of her time in the back so you won’t often see her, but you’ll marvel at her skill at making your new clothes fit like bespoke!

  “Is that ’er?” Eddie asked. “The one you saw?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Cheltham was thinner, and she didn’t look like she was about to run away and hide. Same sort of frumpy clothes, though. Got a magnifying glass?”

  Eddie passed one over, and Stone peered more closely at the photo. He hadn’t spent a lot of time looking closely at Cheltham, but there was something about her eyes…

  “I think this might be her,” he finally said. “Could be wishful thinking, but I don’t think so. There are definite similarities.” He tossed the magnifier onto a pile of papers.

  “What were you talking about before, when you said you might have put something together?” Ward turned the laptop so he could study the photo.

  “It’s probably nothing.” Stone got up and paced the area. The drapes were open, the floor-to-ceiling windows revealing a view of the manicured grounds area behind the house. No wild, unkempt gardens for Caventhorne. “But there are some parts of this I haven’t told you yet.” He quickly caught his friends up with the new information he’d found out from Kolinsky, regarding Elias Richter and the Ordo.

  “Wait a sec,” Eddie said, startled. “We already knew the Ordo were turnin’ up again, from that business last year in Massachusetts. But it sounds like they’re doin’ it in a much bigger way than we originally thought. An
d you think this Richter bloke is the reason for it?”

  “One of them. And I also think he’s somehow got his hands on either knowledge about necromancy or somebody who has it.”

  “Somebody like Cheltham,” Ward said.

  “Yes. I mean, I suppose it could be someone else, but the combination of the workers talking about the ‘creepy woman’ and the fact that Cheltham seems to be the only person currently alive who’s managed to raise the dead rather points to her, doesn’t it? Especially if Richter’s influence is as wide as I think it is. If he got wind of her existence and her abilities, he’d waste no time in tracking her down.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Eddie said, nodding at the laptop. “But that still doesn’t address the connection between that Padgett bird and Cheltham. You say you think they might be the same person, but you’re right—if she was workin’ in a shop doin’ alterations on dresses for dowdy old women two years ago, there’s no chance she could’ve learned that kind of magic in that short a time. Even if she was a powerhouse talent, that would be tough. And ’ow did she find out, anyway? It’s nearly impossible to make it to your forties without that level of talent doing something to manifest.”

  Stone clenched his fists. “You’re right—it doesn’t make sense. I thought I had an idea, but the timelines are all wrong.”

  “What’s your idea?” Ward closed the laptop and leaned back to watch him. “Let’s talk it over. Perhaps you’re missing something.”

  “I’ve got good reason to believe Richter’s got himself a very useful helper—a man named Ben Halstrom. He’s a wild talent with the ability to identify latent magical power before it manifests.”

  Eddie whistled. “Bloody hell. That’s ’uge.”

  “Yes—especially in the wrong hands. I dealt with Mr. Halstrom, and the last I’d heard of him he was in prison dealing with a bad case of guilt for some of the things he did. But someone—someone highly magical—engineered his escape. I had no idea where he was until Kolinsky told me he’d signed on with Richter.”