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

by R. L. King

  “Okay…” Eddie murmured. “Everything’s going well…it’s just about time to bring Stone in. Everybody stay on track and maintain concentration. This is where things could get tricky, so no woolgatherin’.”

  Stone could almost sense the room’s ambient energy changing, becoming more serious and focused. He glanced up at Verity, but her fuzzed-out expression showed she was fully into the deeper level of magical sight she used when performing her healing works.

  “Okay,” Eddie said again, in the same measured, calm tone. “Ward, let’s do this. Verity, keep an eye on Stone. Ian, keep the power comin’, nice and smooth.”

  Stone took a last look at the doll dress and the box. The energy bubbles swirling around them had grown larger now, and their tendrils whipped back and forth as if trying to find something. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, forcing himself to remain relaxed.

  Any moment now…

  “This is odd…” Eddie muttered.

  “What?” Jason demanded from somewhere in the shadows. “Something wrong?”

  “No…” The mage’s voice sounded strained. “Not wrong…but the dress and the box aren’t doin’ what I expected.”

  “Wards?” Ian asked.

  “Don’t think so…this ritual shouldn’t trip wards. ’Ang on…let me get a handle on this before we go forward…”

  Stone cracked his eyes open again. The tendrils still seemed to be confused, but now they were reaching for each other, stretching across him as if trying to join together.

  That’s strange…almost like they think they’re each other’s targets.

  That was absurd, though. He closed his eyes again and struggled to drop back into the relaxed state. He had to trust his friends to do this right. If he tried to help, he could only make things worse.

  “’Ere goes…” Eddie said. “Verity, keep a close eye on Stone…”

  “On it…” She sounded as strained as he did, but prepared and confident.

  “Okay…Ward, shift focus with me on three. One, two, three.”

  Stone couldn’t describe the feeling that hit him next. The best he could manage was that it was a combination of being hooked up to a strong electrical current and having a family of burning snakes suddenly crawling around inside his body. He tried to remain still, but couldn’t do it completely. He jerked, writhing, no longer feeling the cushion beneath him. He heard voices, but only peripherally.

  “Eddie…?” Ian ventured.

  “Keep goin’,” Eddie said tightly. “Verity?”

  “He’s okay…for now.”

  The pain grew worse. His heart pounded. The burning snakes grew more active, and it felt as if energy from the outside was trying to meet up with whatever was going on inside him. His limbs jerked spasmodically, his shirt soaking with sweat. He kept his eyes and his mouth clamped shut, but he was sure the moans he was hearing were coming from him.

  “Almost there…” Eddie muttered from somewhere far away. “Hold it together, everyone…”

  And then, suddenly, images began flashing across Stone’s mind’s eye. A dark space. Figures. Candles. A massive circle. The pain grew worse, until he felt as if the snakes were consuming him from the inside out, but still the images came.

  Piled boxes.

  A rotting sign.

  Broken mannequins.

  Display stands.

  A woman’s hand reaching out to adjust one of the candles.

  It came to him all at once: he was seeing through someone’s eyes as they moved around the enormous room, preparing a ritual.

  Brathwaite?

  No—the hand was definitely female.

  Padgett?

  It had to be.

  But how could he see hands at all?

  Was he seeing through Miriam Padgett’s eyes?

  That wasn’t what the ritual had been designed to do.

  Another shadowy figure moved into the light and back out, flickering.

  Could that have been Richter?

  Whoever it was, he looked ill. Something about him was…wrong.

  Another figure, near him.

  Tall, broad-shouldered.

  Familiar.

  Lane.

  The snakes were pulling him apart now. He had no idea what was going on with his body anymore. Another moan escaped him. He clawed at his chest, trying to pull the snakes free before they consumed him.

  “Eddie!” Verity’s voice, sharp and bright. “Something’s wrong!”

  “Too…much…energy…” Ward panted. “Ian…slow down…”

  “It’s not me!”

  “We’ve got to stop this!” Verity called.

  The voices all melted together now until, between the pain and the confusion, Stone could no longer tell who was speaking.

  Something blazed inside him, zipping from limb to limb, through his head, through his chest, growing stronger with each time around.

  Ward was right. The power was building too fast. It was as if the three tether objects—the box, the dress, and Stone himself—had formed a circuit and were feeding off each other.

  “Stop it!” someone yelled.

  “We have to shut it down!” someone else called. “It’ll kill him!”

  “We can’t!” Almost certainly Eddie, his voice full of stress. “We can’t just shut it off. It’ll kill all of us and probably blow up the ’ouse!”

  “What do we do, then?”

  “Do something!” Verity this time. “He can’t take much more of this!”

  Stone knew she was right. He could barely hold a coherent thought past the pain, but he did know one thing: he had too much power racing around inside and outside him, and it had to go somewhere.

  It had to go somewhere fast, or Eddie was right: they were all dead.

  “Stop…” he managed to mutter through clenched teeth.

  “Stone?” Eddie sounded shocked that he was even conscious. “’Old on, mate. We’ll get this under control—”

  But they wouldn’t. Stone could hear it in his tone—he was holding the ritual together, but he didn’t know what to do and he couldn’t do what he was doing for much longer.

  Something had to happen.

  And then, suddenly, Stone knew what he had do to.

  Struggling against the growing, writhing agony inside him, he lurched to a seated position. “Let me…”

  “Let you what?” Ian demanded. “Dad, this is—”

  “Give me…the power…”

  “What?” Eddie’s shaking voice held a faint edge of panic now. “Stone, what are you—”

  Stone’s brain felt foggy. He had to work ten times harder to get all the proper words to line up, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d managed it. “Channel…power…to me,” he rasped. “All of it. Hurry. Do it now.”

  “Doc—”

  Stone could feel the snakes starting to break through. He chanced opening his eyes and wished he hadn’t, as whirling energy surrounded his body and threatened to take him apart from the outside and the inside. “No…time. Now. Do it now!”

  Eddie growled, but he was a professional. He knew Stone was right. “Everybody! Do what ’e says!”

  “But—”

  “Now! Do it!” Eddie’s commanding bark sounded strangled, as if the words were being wrenched from him. “I hope you know what you’re doin’, Stone—”

  Stone was shaking so hard now he could barely focus on his surroundings, but he managed to stay seated. Ian was at the south side of the circle, directly in front of him, opposite Eddie. “Ian—” he rasped through clenched teeth. “When I say go, get out of the way!”

  “Dad—”

  Stone couldn’t argue with him. He had to trust that his son would follow his order. The power was welling higher now, burning him, threatening to submerge him until he couldn’t see anymore. He had to do it now.

  “Okay,” he boomed. “Now, Ian!”

  To his credit, Ian did follow his order. He dived to the side, abandoning his spot in the ci
rcle.

  Somebody screamed.

  Stone knew he only had a few seconds. With the circle broken, the whole thing was coming apart, and if he did this wrong, Eddie was correct: it would destroy not only his friends and his son, but probably blow a crater where the house had stood.

  He pointed both hands, breath coming hard and fast, the pain nearly overwhelming him—and he directed it at the far side of the basement.

  At the nascent portal which he’d only barely begun to open to the Overworld.

  The power thundered out of him, purple and orange and pink and gold, thick ropy tendrils of pure arcane energy speeding into the space he could only see with magical sight. It kept coming and coming until he didn’t think he could handle it anymore, burning through him, lighting up every nerve in his body. He probably screamed, but he couldn’t be sure. It kept coming until he was certain he would lose control over it and all of this would be for nothing.

  And then the pain began to abate. The flames cooled, and the snakes finally left his body. The energy swirling around him streaked forward and disappeared into the space, until nothing was left but the dead circle and the panting forms of his friends and the strong smell of ozone and something burning.

  Stone sagged backward, breathing so hard he thought his chest might explode. He turned his head and locked his gaze on Ward. “Did you…get a location…?” he breathed.

  Ward’s dark face was ashen gray, his eyes wide, his mouth open in shock. But he managed a faint nod. “We got it…” he murmured.

  “Good,” Stone replied. “Because I’d hate…to feel this ghastly…for nothing.”

  And then he fainted.

  32

  He awoke in a dark room.

  At first, he had no idea why he was there, but his mind spun with horrific images. Had he just experienced a terrifyingly realistic nightmare?

  The memories came flooding back. His heartbeat quickened.

  What had they done?

  Where were the others?

  Were they dead?

  He struggled to sit up. Every bone, every muscle, every nerve in his body hurt, but not nearly as much as before. Now, the pain was more like a dull, all-over ache. Next to him, a warm, furry form stirred. Raider made a soft, inquisitive mrrow? and then settled back against his side.

  “Doc!” A small light switched on, revealing Verity’s worried face as she rose from the chair where she’d been dozing. “Oh, God, it’s good to see you awake. How do you feel?”

  That was a good question, wasn’t it? And not the important one, either. “Where…is everyone else?” he rasped. “Was anyone injured?”

  She took his hand and squeezed. “That’s our Doc.” Now her voice was full of relief. “Everybody’s fine. They’re all downstairs. We’ve been taking turns sitting with you.” She chuckled. “Jason wanted to take you to the hospital, but we talked him out of it.”

  “Thanks for that.” He sat up a little more and looked around. He was lying on his own bed, still in the jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing during the ritual. Someone had removed his boots.

  “I wouldn’t get up quite yet,” she warned. “You’ve been out for a while now.”

  “How long?” That wasn’t good. If they’d got a location for Brathwaite’s echo only to lose it because they took too long to get moving—

  “Don’t worry. Only a few hours. It’s a little after midnight now.” Her brow furrowed. “I was worried about you. I’m still not quite sure what went wrong, but you had so much energy inside you. I thought it was going to burn you out from the inside.”

  “So did I.” At the words ‘burn you out,’ a cold shiver raced down Stone’s spine. He glanced at the nightstand, where Verity had left a glass of water, and raised a shaking hand.

  The glass lifted neatly from the table and floated there.

  Stone let his breath out in a whoosh of relief.

  Verity got it instantly. “Checking to make sure your magic’s still okay?”

  He nodded and lowered the glass, then squeezed Verity’s hand and sat up further, swinging his legs around. “Come on. You said everyone else is downstairs?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing. I’m not going to let this go to waste.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “Doc…stay there for a second, okay? There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  The cold shiver, which had abated as soon as he verified his magic still worked, returned. He locked his gaze on her. “What? You said no one was hurt—”

  “Nobody was. Everybody’s fine. They were a little tired for a while, but they’re all fine.”

  “Well…what, then?”

  Her eyes shifted away. “It’s…about your portal.”

  More memories returned. He’d had to redirect all that energy somewhere, or it would have killed them all. He hadn’t been thinking straight near the end; the memories swirled madly around. Something about the portal—

  “What about it?”

  “It’s…”

  “Tell me, Verity.”

  “It’s…uh…gone.”

  “Gone?” He jerked his head up, staring hard at her. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean, gone.” She sounded miserable. “The whole thing. When you told Ian to get out of the way, and Eddie directed all that energy to you like you said, you sat up and sent it all straight at the portal. It went through some kind of hole and just…disappeared. But afterward, the hole disappeared too, and your circle’s trashed.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Doc. I know how long you worked on that thing…”

  A cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach, but it didn’t remain long. He waved her off. “It’s all right.”

  “But you’re gonna have to start all over…”

  “It’s all right,” he said again. He slowly rose to his feet, testing his balance. “It was either that or kill us all and probably blow up the house. I made the right choice.” He chuckled faintly, reaching around to ruffle his sleeping cat’s fur. “Besides, it would have killed Raider. And he never asked for any of this rubbish.”

  “That’s the important part, I guess.” She tried to mirror his chuckle, but it came out shaky.

  “Come on. Let’s go downstairs. We’re not even close to done with this yet. I hope you lot have got something to eat, because right now, I’m starting to sympathize with the ghouls.”

  “Yeah. Jason and Amber brought in a bunch of stuff. Pizza, sandwiches, all kinds of things.”

  “Brilliant.” He sighed, following Verity out of the room. He felt shaky, but not nearly as much as he expected. He wasn’t sure whether that was because whatever weirdness was going on with his body had already healed some of the damage, Verity had done it, or if he’d managed to vent all the energy before it did any permanent damage. Either way, he didn’t have time to worry about it. They had to find Brathwaite before he moved again.

  As they headed down the stairs, something else occurred to him. “I suppose I’ll need to call Madame Huan back and tell her to hold off on the vanazarite. I won’t be needing it for quite some time.”

  Eddie, Ward, Ian, Jason, and Amber were all seated around the dining-room table when Verity and Stone arrived. Open pizza boxes and takeout containers were spread around the table’s edge, but right now everyone appeared to be focused on a map in the middle of the table, a laptop, and some open notebooks.

  Amber noticed the newcomers first. She grinned when she spotted Stone. “So, you finally decided to join us.”

  Everyone else looked up in relief. “Damn, I’m glad to see you, mate,” Eddie said, and didn’t even bother trying to sound flippant. “We thought you were a goner for sure there for a bit.”

  “Told you I’m harder to kill than I look.” Stone eyed a nearby pizza box. “Anything left there? I was just telling Verity, I could eat the lot of you and still have room for dessert right about now.”

  Jason shoved the box over. “Still a lot left in that one. We’ve already polished o
ff two more. There are a few sandwiches in the fridge, too.”

  “Let me get that for you, Doc,” Verity said. “Sit down. There’s a lot of stuff to catch you up on.”

  “And hopefully some for you to catch us up on,” Ian added.

  Since the only thing Stone wanted more than food was answers, he took a seat at the table and examined the map. “Eddie, I seem to recall Ward saying something about getting a location. Please tell me I didn’t cook that up in my fevered imagination.”

  Eddie shook his head. “Nope, you ’eard right. But let’s start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning?” Stone tried to remember what else might be important, and it came to him quickly. “You said something was odd.”

  “Yeah. That’s why things didn’t go as expected.”

  “But you said you found him.”

  “We did,” Ward said. “But there were…complications. Anomalies.”

  “What kind of anomalies?”

  “For one thing,” Eddie said, “Padgett’s tendril winked out almost right away. It seemed like it was on track to find somethin’, but then it fizzled.”

  Stone frowned. “So…she’s dead?” Something scratched at his memory—something he’d seen during the ritual—but it wasn’t coming back yet. “How can that be?”

  “Dunno.” Eddie shrugged. “Maybe the dress wasn’t strong enough to reach ’er over all that distance. Or maybe she is dead. Maybe Brathwaite doesn’t need ’er anymore.”

  “But why would that disrupt the ritual?” Stone tilted his head. He knew he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should be at the moment, but that didn’t make sense. They had two other tether objects, so even if Padgett was dead or the dress wasn’t a sufficient tether, that shouldn’t have affected the other parts.

  “We don’t know that,” Ward said. “We were going along nicely, balancing the energy and following the path, when the whole thing sort of…went sideways. Eddie did a masterful job of keeping it stable as long as possible, which is probably what saved us.”