The Stone (Lockstone Book 1)

by Seb L. Carter

  He decided to jog. The lights going out moved closer and faster. He nearly sprinted to keep out of it like he expected something horrible to be waiting for him once the darkness engulfed him.

  When the lights up ahead of him went out too, Liam stopped.

  He heard sheets flapping in the wind or someone shaking the dust from a rug…at 1:30 at night. A sound from overhead.

  He looked up between the three- and four-story buildings to the strip of night sky and thought he saw a bird overhead, circling.

  As he craned his neck up, a hand from behind covered his mouth, and strong arms gripped around his body and pulled him toward the shadows of a dark alleyway. Liam struggled and kicked. He tried to scream, but the hand held him tight. Whoever had him was stronger. A lot stronger, to the point that no matter how much he moved, he realized there was little chance to break free.

  He was being taken again. Every nerve screamed with that thought. They’d come to finish the job.

  Maybe something more benign like a crazed sicko who wanted to stick a knife in him just to watch him bleed. Whatever it was, he was about to come out on the other side of this hurt or maimed or worse.

  Why the hell had he left the stone behind?

  The person who had him pulled him deeper into the darkness and down behind a dumpster. He was thrown to the ground onto his back where he was still able to see out onto the dark street.

  This was it. This was the time he was going to die. How weird it was to realize the hour of his death had finally come. After everything he survived just that day, and all the shit his family put him through by getting murdered and his father committing suicide, not to mention his own suicide attempts, this was to be his fate: To die in an alleyway at the hands of some creep. Somehow, even in spite of the terror gripping his heart, to die like this seemed so anticlimactic.

  But that didn’t mean Liam didn’t struggle. He tried to crawl away from the man, but the man grabbed a hold of him again and put his whole weight on top of him.

  “Shh!” A man shrouded in shadow leaned in close to his ear. “Stop struggling. I’m trying to help you.”

  Help him? That was the last thing Liam believed was happening. He still fought against his attacker, and now his hand was free enough to try to punch at the guy’s face. But it only took the man a second to grab Liam’s wrist painfully and hold it down again, all while still keeping a firm hand over his mouth.

  The sound of the flapping sheets came closer, and Liam felt the man’s face press close to his. They were both on the ground, Liam forced to breathe through his nose and inhale the rotten scent of spoiled food and trash from the Italian restaurant they were behind.

  In his view underneath the dumpster, there was movement, a glimpse of the street beyond and somebody walking in the alleyway. He tried to make some noise and to move the man off his back, but the man only pressed tighter, almost to the point of choking off his airways.

  A foot. Then another, both wearing odd shoes. Whoever the shadowed feet belonged to stood wide, their feet far apart.

  Liam made more noise. He thought if he could attract the attention of whoever it was, maybe they could rescue him. He kicked his feet and connected with the side of the dumpster to fill the alleyway with the heavy thud each time his kick connected with the rusting metal.

  Another sound filled the alleyway. A groan. No, a growl.

  “God dammit,” the man said in a whisper next to Liam’s ear. Then Liam heard whispering, a language that he’d heard before, and his heart sank. It was the same as he’d heard in the house, the ancient tongue which defied his understanding but, still, deep down, he felt he should know it. Like it existed on an instinctual level.

  The person whose feet Liam saw hurried in their direction. As they got closer, though, Liam saw that they weren’t human feet at all. They were cloven hooves.

  The dumpster they were hiding behind jolted as if it was hit by something large and heavy. Then in one swift move, the dumpster scooted away from them, leaving them exposed among the wet and leaking trash bags leaning against the grimy alley wall.

  Craning his head as much as he could while in the grip of the man on his back, Liam saw the head of…

  He couldn’t explain what he saw.

  It wasn’t a man but the face of a monster. A creature out nightmares. Two horns crowned its head, and its eyes were black and empty. Even in the dark of the alleyway, its eyes were darker still, as if any and all light was lost as it drew in closer to the eyes. Black holes, Liam thought. It was like looking through black holes. The absence of light—that’s what a black hole was, right?

  The creature put a clawed hand on top of the dumpster, and it leaned forward like it was searching for something.

  It was searching for them. It was looking directly at them.

  Two black, leathery wings spread out from the creature’s back and flapped in a move that Liam could only interpret as frustration. He made the connection to the sound of sheets flapping in the wind. The wings. He’d heard them before as the street went dark. The monster’s wingspan stretched the width of the alley, heavy spiked claws scraping the sides of the brick buildings.

  In Liam’s ear, the man still whispered, a sibilant hiss that, all things considered, Liam found to be the most comforting thing about this particular moment. The feeling of dread was replaced with something else, a tingle like a light, gentle breeze over his skin, even on the parts of him not exposed to the outside air. It stood out for the simple fact that it was nothing like the impurity, the evil flowing off the monster in terrible waves.

  That light breeze was moving against the dread.

  The creature bent in even closer to the place where the man lay on top of Liam. It had to see them. This close, Liam could smell its breath as it huffed out in frustration and sniffed in like it was trying to track them by scent. When it reached a clawed hand out toward them, tentatively, much more cautious than Liam thought a creature like that was capable of, Liam squeezed his eyes shut. They were finished. He was sure of it.

  Other sounds filtered into the alleyway, the sounds that Liam recognized as absent before. A horn blared in from the direction of the street. Liam turned his head slightly in the direction of the street to see that the lights were struggling back on. The shadow of a car passed by, and voices of people grew louder and carried into the alleyway, even though he could see nobody yet walking on the sidewalk.

  The creature seemed to notice this as all around it, the light loosened up. Even a bulb over a doorway across the alley flickered on again, and this caused the shadow monster to pull away as if struck. With a flap of its big wings that sent the stink of alley air into Liam's nose, the monster shot into the sky, and it was gone.

  After that, the world reasserted itself. It rushed in like a welcome pop, a sucked in breath after a forced pause in breathing.

  For a moment, neither of them moved. Liam still lay with his stomach pressed into the nasty ground with the man’s hand over his mouth. A strong arm was snaked around him, beneath Liam and holding onto his stomach. It can’t have felt good to be shoved into the asphalt as it was, pressed down by both Liam’s weight and the weight of the man the arm belonged to.

  “I’m going to let you go,” the man said. “Don’t run away. We have to talk. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

  Liam nodded, even though he had every intention of bolting the moment he was freed. He planned to dump everything he carried, the plastic bag of snacks and chips and water, all probably flattened and crushed by now—he was surprised he somehow managed to keep hold of the bag—and take off out of there like an Olympic sprinter.

  The man gripped him tighter and said into his ear, “I said don’t run.”

  Liam froze. Did he hear his thoughts? More than likely, he only realized the situation like Liam did, that being held by a strange man was no reason to stay put. And when the man finally lifted his weight from off Liam’s back, and he helped Liam get to his feet again, he quickly caught hol
d of Liam's wrist. Liam rose to stand, and the man stood with him.

  In the new-found light of the alleyway, Liam could finally see the man’s face. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had a healing cut on his chin, shrouded slightly by the growth of day-old stubble. For street attackers, this guy didn’t fit the stereotypes. He was clean-cut, trimmed hair, and he wore what looked like an expensive Armani outerwear jacket.

  “If you run, that creature might come back.” The man looked at him with hard eyes.

  Bullshit, Liam thought. But he turned his face up toward the strip of night sky above as if he wasn’t quite sure.

  “I’m only trying to help you, Liam. You have to believe me.”

  That caused Liam to take a second look at the man’s face, and he squinted a look of mistrust. “How do you know my name?”

  “The same reason that thing was looking for you.”

  “Which is?” Liam took a step back, but the man still held tight to Liam's wrist.

  “Tell me,” the man said, “do you have the stone?”

  Liam tried his best to maintain an even expression, one that didn’t betray the true rush of fear that flooded through him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The Lockstone. Did you know that’s what it’s called?”

  Liam didn’t say anything.

  “It’s an important relic that powers a barrier between two worlds. If the stone is lost or broken, the barrier will come down.” The man glanced up toward the sky. “And that thing you just saw will become a normal, everyday occurrence.”

  All Liam could do was stand there. He gulped. None of this made sense. How could it make any sense? Really, it was just the icing on top of a cake full of not making sense. “It’s a rock,” Liam said. He thought back earlier to his conversation with Nina when she wanted to see the stone. It seemed so long ago, a time that he sorely missed. An easier time before all this started.

  “You know it’s more than that. And you know that the stone was meant for you.”

  And he was right. Liam couldn’t deny that. The rock both scared the shit out of him but also intrigued him because it was so much more than it appeared.

  “It came to you, didn’t it?”

  Liam still didn’t say anything.

  “Of course it did, because somehow the stone knows. You’re the last and only hope to keep the Veil in place.”

  Liam gave a good jerk of his wrist. “Let me go.” This guy had a grip like a vise.

  “I can’t. Not until I know you’ll hear me out.”

  “Fine! Just… You’re hurting my wrist.”

  The man met Liam’s gaze, and Liam found the man had eyes that, at once, appeared shrewd and calculating but also carried a sense of power and majesty. In another situation, Liam might actually see this guy as someone he’d want to listen to.

  “I knew your mother,” the man said.

  That did make Liam want to stay and listen. It was completely unexpected, so much so, that it caused Liam to straighten as he stared at the man. “My mother is dead,” Liam said.

  He nodded. “You’re right. She is dead. She died when you were still a baby. My name is Eoin Corbett, and I was a very fond friend of your mother’s.”

  Liam gulped. “Did you know my father too?”

  Eoin nodded. “Briefly. I only met him once on the night you were taken from Elena.”

  Liam’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

  “Elena. Elena Coyle. That’s your mother’s name.” Then the man’s face softened, and he met Liam’s gaze with suddenly compassionate eyes. “You probably never knew that, did you?”

  Liam only shook his head. He grew angry. “I know who my parents were,” he said.

  “Liam, you’re a Coyle descendant. The last Coyle descendant, to be exact. And that means you’re a threat to some very powerful people.”

  “My last name is Yates.” He raised his voice.

  “That’s the surname of the man who became your guardian. It’s not the name of your true lineage,” Eoin, said.

  In the moment, Liam’s anger only grew more intense. He barely noticed the rumble and the way the street lamps trembled. He walked on for a few steps, then he stopped. “Guardian?”

  “Your father—your real father—found someone to watch over you to keep you away from those who didn’t appreciate you coming into the world.”

  A lot to unpack from that sentence, but Liam latched onto only one part of it. “My real father.” He said it with anger.

  Eoin opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t.

  Liam did. “So, you’re here to tell me that every shitty thing that I’ve experienced, every shitty thing I had to go through just today, was because of a person I never even knew?”

  Eoin looked at a loss. “I suppose I am.”

  “Why should I believe you? Why should I believe any of this?”

  “Because of what you just saw.”

  Liam glanced skyward again before turning a harsh stare back at Eoin. “I don’t know what the hell I just saw. Do you?”

  Eoin only held his hands up. “I can’t say that I do. Nearest I can guess is it’s a fomoire.”

  “And what is that supposed to be?”

  “A fae demon, so to speak. But I can’t say for sure. No one has ever seen a thing like that. At least no one of this world. And no one still alive in this world.”

  Liam turned toward the street and started walking. “See, now you’re really not making any sense. Some demon monster just tried to kill me. Us.”

  Eoin fell into step beside him. “We’ll probably know more when we can get to a place with access to our library. But that’s not important right now,” Eoin said.

  “Oh really? When demonic monsters want to kill me, I consider that high on the list of pretty important things.”

  “Well how about this?” Eoin’s footsteps caught up to Liam’s. “I can tell you that there is a group of people who want to see you injured or dead.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “I got that today when nine of them lost their heads around me.”

  Eoin grabbed Liam’s arm again. Not as tight or as violent as before, but it was enough to cause Liam to stop and face him. “What happened to you today?”

  Liam stared at Eoin. He crossed his arms and glanced out toward the street—where, he took notice, there were a lot of people walking unlike before when he’d seen that thing. “I was kidnapped. Some cult, I guess. I don’t know what else you’d call it, except, obviously, they didn’t do a very good job of keeping me locked up.”

  “And what happened when you were kidnapped?”

  “I don’t know!” Liam grew more frustrated. But, he had to admit, there was something a little cathartic in being able to talk to a complete stranger about it. Patrick knew what was going on with him, but this guy, Eoin, seemed to take a keen interest in it. Liam sighed. “I was taken to some house, and they locked me in a big room.”

  “With a circle,” Eoin said.

  Liam squinted at him. “Yeah,” he said, cautiously. “Then they destroyed nine stones and all died.”

  “The lockstones.” Eoin appeared worried. “Did you have your stone?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  Eoin’s expression turned to one of fear. For a guy who seemed like someone in control, the flash of fear was almost disconcerting. “Then it’s worse.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re a lot closer to our world breaking apart than I thought.”

  Nineteen

  Chicago, IL - Near West Side

  Liam was still reluctant to follow Eoin. He checked his phone and found the screen busted. It must have broken when he was shoved to the ground. It wouldn’t turn on, and Liam cussed and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  Eoin was apparently in a hurry. He wanted to get off the street. But Liam wasn’t known for being the most trusting of strangers—except he’d sure threw that one out with Patrick. But Patrick was different. Wasn’t he?
/>   Still, Eoin was somebody who grabbed him and held him down in a dark alley. Sure, it was to keep a demonic shadow monster from getting to him, but that only made the decision to take Eoin back with him to the motel seem all the more ludicrous.

  “Can we slow down?” Liam asked him, finally.

  “It’s not a good idea,” Eoin said.

  “I still don’t understand what’s going on,” Liam said to him as they walked. “How do I know you’re not just like those people who kidnaped me earlier?”

  “That’s the thing,” Eoin said. “I’m almost exactly like the people who kidnapped you.”

  Liam stopped. The fear gripped his chest. They were in a pool of light from a street lamp.

  Eoin stopped too when he realized Liam was no longer following beside him. “But it’s not what you think,” he said.

  “Well, an explanation would be a fantastic place to start.”

  Eoin sighed as he stepped back toward Liam. Liam took a step backward. He wasn’t to the point of running off yet, but he was close. “The people who took you and myself are closely interconnected. You are too, as a matter of fact. More than you know. We’re all part of the same group, a group made up of the members of ten specific families who have worked together since before recorded history.”

  Liam listened. He’d pretty much given up on letting his gut dictate what to believe. It was all crazy, but what Eoin said to him was actually one of the lesser crazy things he’d been confronted with since all this started. “Go on,” he said.

  “Watch,” Eoin said. He pointed to the streetlight. A rush of something moved over Liam’s skin, a sensation he was becoming all too familiar with. The street light turned blue.

  Liam squint. “What did you do?”

  “I changed the color.”

  “Okay.” Liam was still skeptical. It was weird.

  Eoin waved his hand at the passing cars on the street. All their lights turned blue too. “And those,” he said.

  Liam watched as all the cars on the street—even their tail lights—were blue. People slammed on their brakes. Some even got out of their cars once they stopped. One guy went to the front of his car and knocked on the headlights. Eoin moved his hand again in a quick motion and all the lights returned to their normal colors.