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

by R. L. King

  He’d long ago worked out a five-mile, circular route that started at his front gates, took him along Encantada’s western foothills, and brought him back home through the small downtown. If he was trying to go for speed, he could finish it in less than an hour, but usually he ran at a more leisurely pace. Tonight, he chose a speed halfway between the two—fast enough to dislodge the cobwebs from his body and mind, but slow enough so he could focus on his thoughts.

  For the first time he could remember, though, it soon became obvious his plan wasn’t going to work. Every time he tried to settle on something, something else poked its way in. Speculation about why Elias Richter and his group had taken Frank Grider—if indeed they had—gave way to worry about Aubrey, which in turn got muddled with increasingly wild theories explaining how James Brathwaite’s echo could have connected with Miriam Padgett. And where did the Ordo Purpuratus fit into the puzzle? Did it, or was Richter spearheading this project on his own?

  The only reliable conclusion he could reach, he decided at the three-quarter mark of his circle, was that he didn’t have any solid ideas about what was going on. If this was another of Richter’s schemes to try unlocking the secrets of immortality, he was certainly going about it in a circuitous way.

  He had to—

  In his pocket, his phone buzzed.

  He pulled it out and glanced at the screen, expecting the call to be from someone he knew: Verity, Jason, Ian, Eddie, or even Laura Grider.

  Instead, the display read BLOCKED.

  He almost didn’t answer it. Usually blocked calls came from spammers or telemarketers, neither of which he wanted to speak with. Tonight, though, he couldn’t take the chance of missing a call from someone like Tani or Maisie. “Yes, hello?”

  “Good evening, Dr. Stone. I hope you are well.”

  A chill ran up his back.

  He hadn’t heard that voice in three years, but it wasn’t the sort you ever forgot. The German-accented tone sounded calm and coldly amused.

  Stone stopped running, standing on the dirt shoulder of a narrow road lined with looming oaks and tall pines. “Richter.”

  “Ah, so you do remember me. Good. That will make this easier.”

  Stone gripped the phone tighter and started moving again, this time walking rather than running. “What do you want?”

  “Right to the point. Even better. I like that. I’m impressed that you seem to have deduced my involvement in the…current situation.” He paused. “By the way—do not try to trace this call. It won’t work.”

  “We both know you aren’t going to answer any of my questions,” Stone growled. “So suppose you get on with what you called to say and stop wasting both our time.” He picked up his pace, suddenly focused on getting back to his home ground. He knew Richter was right—there was no point in trying to trace the call—but he glanced around with magical sight active, looking for anyone lurking nearby. Memories of the time Lane and Hugo, Richter’s magically-immune henchmen, had attacked him on a previous run made him walk faster. Sure, any such attack would find him a tougher target now than before—especially since Hugo was dead—but he still didn’t fancy getting caught out.

  “What I have to say is very simple,” Richter said, all business now. “You and your meddlesome friends will remove yourselves from involvement in my affairs.”

  Stone snorted. “Well, that’s a pointless ultimatum. Or what?”

  “Well…I don’t know how pointless it might be from Dr. Lu’s standpoint. Or Mr. Grider’s.”

  The chill fluttered again. “You’ve got them.”

  “I did not say that.” Richter chuckled. “You may make whatever assumptions you wish. But whether they are here with me or somewhere else, I can say with certainty that their positions are quite precarious, and they will be even more so if you don’t cease your investigations.”

  “I must be on to something. That’s good to know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have wasted your time contacting me.”

  “There is more going on here than you know, Dr. Stone. This does not concern you. And in any case, you might wish to know that you are the reason your friend Mr. Belmont suffered his…unfortunate fate.”

  “Me? How do you figure? I didn’t cut his head off and leave him as bait.” Stone glanced around again, lowering his voice. Almost unconsciously, he increased his walking pace again until he was moving at barely less than a slow jog.

  “That is true, you did not. But your refusal to mind your own affairs necessitated it. It is also unfortunate that you and your apprentice managed to slip my little trap. I was assured our…hungry friend, along with the others, would take care of you. That was my mistake, for underestimating you. It won’t happen again.”

  Stone’s stomach did a little flip-flop. Richter was probably just trying to wind him up…but if the man was telling the truth, his investigations were responsible for Belmont’s death.

  He gripped the phone harder. That only meant there were now two deaths Elias Richter had to answer for. Deirdre Lanier’s face rose in his memory again, stoking his anger. But if he was going to get out of this without any more deaths, he’d have to be smart. There was no way Richter could know everything he’d discovered or suspected—and that might be the key. “So, you’re into raising the dead now, are you? Your last little scheme didn’t work, so you’ve got a new one?”

  Richter chuckled again. “Stay away, Stone. I won’t warn you again. This is not your concern. I promise, if you back away now, no harm will come to your friends. Any of them.”

  “Threats, Richter?”

  “Of course not. All is up to you now. But consider my words with care.”

  The line went dead.

  Stone stopped again, staring at the blank screen, puffing with both exertion from the run and frustrated anger at the conversation.

  Richter knew he was involved. That was a new bit of information he didn’t have before, though he had no idea what he could do with it. Had someone been watching the battle at the graveyard? Tracing his calls or his travel? Observing the ghoul colony?

  He let out a loud breath, shoved his hand through his hair, and set off toward his house. All the way back, he kept careful watch with magical sight, but he didn’t see anyone anywhere nearby.

  He went to bed at midnight, early for him. He hadn’t done much in the meantime—showered, finished his takeout, and tried to put the Richter situation aside as he did a bit more work on preparing for the start of the quarter next week.

  He had trouble concentrating on even those simple tasks. Richter’s call had guaranteed that not only did his run not clear his head, but his thoughts were in even worse turmoil than before. He thought about calling someone to discuss Richter’s threat, but decided not to. What would be the point of worrying Verity, Jason, or Ian with it? Nothing the man had said had given him any further clues about where to find him.

  The most important thing for now, he thought as he got into bed and shut off the light, was to figure out how to find where Richter was operating. He had Miriam Padgett’s doll dress, which might prove to be a sufficiently potent tether to find her, but he’d only have one chance. If Richter was employing her as his pet necromancer, he certainly had her well protected behind strong wards, making it difficult if not impossible to get a tracking spell through to her. He didn’t have any way to find Richter himself; even if he had a tether object for him, he was one of the most powerful mages Stone had ever encountered. He’d be even better protected than Padgett.

  Stone closed his eyes, beginning a meditation technique that would hopefully help him clear his mind enough to get a few hours’ sleep. He wasn’t doing himself or anyone else any good by continuing to chew over these problems if he had no good answer. Perhaps a rested mind would come up with something new.

  Legions of undead swirled in front of him. They marched like horror-movie monsters, moaning, arms outstretched, eyes glowing green. One of them carried the severed head of Chris Belmont; its eyes blazed green too, its mouth
working with no sound coming out. Feral ghouls, skinny and jerky-moving, capered among them. Behind this disgusting horde, three smiling figures floated, their expressions challenging, mocking Stone to try to reach them: Elias Richter, Miriam Padgett, and the semi-transparent form of James Brathwaite. As he continued using waves of magic to hold off the undead, he watched the three of them. They were moving, shifting in the air in a lazy, rotating circle, and their gazes never left him.

  He tried to push forward past the undead, knowing instinctively that he’d have to reach the three “generals” of this army if he was to have any chance of stopping what they had planned. But no matter how many undead and ghouls he shoved aside, no matter how far forward he trudged, he never got any closer to Richter, Padgett, and Brathwaite’s echo. The creatures seemed to be rising up from under the ground in front of them in never-ending lines. They tossed Belmont’s head back and forth like a football, always keeping it at or near the current front line. Its glowing green eyes followed him accusingly. It, too, seemed to mock him—or accuse him.

  Orville Lu and Frank Grider appeared among the group. They were as gray and dead as the rest, their smiles wide, their eyes fixed on Stone. They took their turns tossing and catching Belmont’s head like two happy children playing a game in their backyard. Together, the marching columns of undead and ghouls, with Belmont’s head bouncing back and forth across it, resembled a macabre concert crowd tossing around a beach ball.

  Stone was already getting tired. His strength was ebbing. His magic—or, more specifically, his body’s ability to channel the Calanarian energy—was losing potency.

  They were going to reach him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He staggered back a few steps, but the creatures kept coming.

  Richter, Padgett, and Brathwaite all smiled, drifting in their slow circle.

  No.

  They weren’t just drifting in a circle. They were drifting through each other, as if all three of them were as insubstantial as Brathwaite’s echo.

  He blew back another wave of undead and ghouls, sending them staggering into the row behind them and knocking both groups into a jumble of flailing gray arms and legs. Belmont’s head flew up like a fumbled football, only to be snatched from the air again by one of the next wave.

  At the back, Brathwaite’s smiling echo drifted through the prim-looking Padgett. For a moment he seemed to hover there, the two of them moving in perfect synchronization, and then he continued out the other side.

  Something tickled the back of Stone’s mind, but he couldn’t deal with it now. The first two lines of undead had shambled back to their feet, forming a solid wall of rotting flesh moving inexorably forward.

  He tried to send another wave of magic at them, to knock them backward again, but when he pointed his hands at them and called for the energy, it didn’t come.

  Heart pounding, struggling not to panic, he backtracked. Still they came.

  He called for the magic again.

  His body erupted with pain. A faint shimmer coalesced around his hands, but immediately fizzled and died.

  Still they came.

  They reached him and kept coming, rolling over him with inexorable, unstoppable force. The stench was mind-numbing—nearly visible in the air, it reached not only into his nose but into his soul, submerging his senses and his willpower with equal ease.

  His last sights before the wave overwhelmed him and cold, dead hands began to tear at his flesh were the impossibly wide grin of Chris Belmont’s severed head, held high aloft above the horde like a battle standard, and the even wider grin of James Brathwaite’s echo as it floated toward him and re-entered his body.

  Stone jerked awake, panting, flinging the covers off and sending Raider, yowling protest, rocketing off the bed and streaking away. Around him, the room was dark and silent.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered. He took several deep breaths, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal.

  He hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a long time.

  He glanced at the clock on the nightstand: three-thirty a.m.

  Three and a half hours. Well, that’s good, since it’s not likely I’ll be getting any more sleep tonight.

  He dropped back onto the pillows with a sigh. Already the dream’s more intense imagery was fading, but he still had a clear picture of the undead army, Belmont’s head, Lu, Grider, and the three “generals” floating at the back.

  Guilt clawed at him again: if he had been the cause of Belmont’s fate—or worse, if Richter had killed Lu and Grider, too—how was he going to face the other ghouls? How was he going to look Laura Grider in the eyes, eyes he’d seen haunted by terror and grief ten years ago when the semi-ferals had ripped her first husband to shreds in front of her, and explain to her that his investigations had been the reason for Grider’s death too?

  Don’t be absurd, he told himself firmly. He couldn’t think like that. He wasn’t responsible—not for Belmont’s death, and he didn’t even know whether Lu and Grider were dead. If he could figure out what the hell was going on here, he might be able to change that. But to do that, he’d need to keep his head on straight.

  Don’t let Richter get into your head. That’s what he wants.

  That was easier said than done, though. He still didn’t have the faintest idea how to find any of them. He had no tether for Richter, and even if he used the doll dress to try finding Padgett, the odds were still low he’d be able to do it.

  And if he failed, he wouldn’t have another chance.

  It was too bad he didn’t have a tether for Brathwaite. But even if he did, he had no idea if a tracking spell could be used on an echo. As far as he knew, no one had ever tried. It would be worth investigating if he had one, but…

  Wait.

  He sat up straight in bed. Raider, who’d crept cautiously back into the room, darted out again and peered at him from the doorway.

  “I do have a tether for Brathwaite!” he told the cat, who seemed not to care in the slightest.

  He thought back to when he had—with some reluctance, he was ashamed to admit—burned Brathwaite’s journals and reference material that detailed the steps for performing necromantic rituals. He’d held onto them past when he should have, but Verity had finally convinced him to burn them.

  But he hadn’t destroyed the box they were stored in, nor the strange, catlike skeleton they’d found in pieces inside the box. Surely, both of those things had a strong connection to Brathwaite—but even if they could theoretically be used to track an echo, would the connection have survived a hundred and fifty years?

  Energized now, the last unease from his nightmare ebbing away, he snatched up his phone and tapped Eddie’s contact button. It was almost noon in England, so he wouldn’t even be waking his friend up.

  Eddie answered almost immediately. “’Ey, Stone. Are you ’ere, or callin’ at—what—almost four a.m.?”

  “Got a very strange question for you.”

  “Oh, I can ’ardly wait. Anything you consider strange ’as got to be fun.”

  “Do you have any idea if a tracking spell can track an echo?”

  There was a long pause. “An echo? You mean like Brathwaite?”

  “Yes. Exactly like Brathwaite.”

  “What the ’ell, mate? We ’aven’t even got very far tryin’ to find out if it’s even possible for ’im to still be around, and now you want to track ’im?”

  “It’s a long shot, I know. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s the only possibility for how Padgett could have got that good at necromancy in such a short time. The only reasonable answer is that she couldn’t—unless she had some significant help. Given what Brathwaite got up to even in echo form before, it’s possible he could even be doing some of the heavy lifting himself, if he managed to survive getting turfed out of my body. And if he did, it makes sense he’d go into hiding for a while to regain his strength, right?”

  “Maybe…” Eddie still sounded ske
ptical. “I think you’re still graspin’ at straws…but maybe not as much as I did before. We’ve found some possibly useful information at Caventhorne, but it’s gonna take quite some time to work through it.”

  “Do you want some help? I’ve got more motivation than ever to get this solved as fast as possible.” He told Eddie about Richter’s call the previous night.

  “Bloody ’ell.” Eddie whistled. “So Richter’s on to you, and you think he’s got not just your other friend, but this new one, too?”

  “Odds are good. He could be bluffing, but I don’t think Richter bluffs. We may be closer to solving this than I thought, though, if he’s calling me personally. I think he might be worried I might actually find him before he finishes whatever he’s up to.”

  “Which is exactly what you want to do.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I don’t like it, Eddie. I don’t want to be responsible for killing my friends. But if he and Brathwaite’s echo are working together, that’s even worse than we thought.”

  “So you want to try trackin’ ’im.”

  “If it’s even possible, yes. I don’t think Richter knows I even suspect Brathwaite might be involved. He might know I’ve tracked down Padgett, but that’s all. I figure he’s probably got himself and her locked down behind wards, but who knows? Maybe Brathwaite might get careless.”

  “You ’aven’t even got a tether, do you? You destroyed ’is papers.”

  “I did. But I’ve still got the box and that skeleton cat-thing. Remember? And I think a few other bits and bobs we picked up in his grotty little hidey-hole in the Cotswolds.”

  “Oh, right!” Eddie sounded cautiously enthusiastic now. He murmured something Stone couldn’t make out, probably to Ward, and then said, “Sure, come on over. We were about to break for lunch. Shall we pick something up for you?”

  Stone chuckled. “It’s four in the morning here, remember? Don’t think I could face one of your overloaded sandwiches right now. I’ll be over shortly. Thanks, Eddie. I do appreciate all this work you’re doing. Tell Ward, too.”