The Stone (Lockstone Book 1)

by Seb L. Carter

  He turned back to Eoin. “Okay…”

  “You’re part of a magical world, one that has operated and existed beneath the surface of what’s known and has done so for thousands of years,” Eoin said. He pointed toward the direction they’d come from and the dark alleyway. “That thing you saw tonight is a relic from a world that existed many millennia ago. It’s something that shouldn’t exist here.”

  “What are you saying, exactly?” Liam asked.

  “I’m saying that someone, a man named Cyril Holder, has set events in motion, world-altering events that we’re running out of time and ability to stop.”

  Liam was beginning to understand. In fact, this whole thing Eoin told him was really the only thing to make sense to him all day long. “And I’m somehow a part of it all.”

  “Honestly? You’re the key to everything.”

  Eoin’s words hit Liam like a punch to the gut. Liam shook his head. “No.”

  “Liam, if you come with me, we can talk—”

  “No! I’m a college student,” Liam shot back. He’d raised his voice so that a group of people walking on the other side of the street peered over as they passed.

  “Well,” Eoin said, “you’re something else now too. You always have been. You just didn’t know it.”

  Liam started walking again, and this time, he was in the lead. “Well, I don’t want any part of it,” he said.

  Eoin caught up to him. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “The hell I don’t.”

  Eoin put a hand on Liam’s arm and made him stop. Liam turned like he was about to take a swing at Eoin, but he stopped himself. The way Eoin met his gaze, it said to Liam that he was a man who could take a hit on the chin and keep going. “If you walk away from all of this, you’ll only discover that it will keep following you. Cyril will keep following you. He’s already done a lot to find you.” Eoin grabbed Liam’s hand. He pointed to that mark on the back of his hand, the weird mole that Liam noticed a couple days ago that he thought he’d gotten from the hospital. “This is what he’s using to find you.”

  Liam stared down at the mark on the back of his hand. “It’s a mole. Or a pimple.”

  “It’s magic disguised to look like a mole or a pimple. A tracker. For years, no one was able to find you. Now, the first time since you were given to someone to take over your guardianship, you’re on a lot of people’s radar. How do you think I was able to find you? And if I can find you with it, so can Cyril.”

  Liam pulled his hand away. “How did you know about it?”

  “Because, I tuned myself to it. It’s not hard. We’ve used them a lot.” Eoin paused. A shadow of pain crossed Eoin’s face.

  “How do I know you didn’t put it there yourself?”

  Eoin shrugged. “I’ve only just found you.”

  Liam still wasn’t ready to believe him.

  “Look, if you come with me and meet a couple of my associates, we’ll be able to get that removed.”

  “Go where?” Liam said.

  “Back to your room first to get your stuff. But we have a house up in Wilmette. A safe house. If we go there, I’ll be able to show you a lot more. Maybe even teach you a bit how to protect yourself,” Eoin said.

  Liam was almost convinced. But these three showing up like this, unannounced. It all sounded too easy, too good to be true. And, as the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. “I need to wait for Patrick first,” Liam said.

  Eoin squint. “Is he someone you trust?”

  Liam gulped. He nodded. “Implicitly,” he said. “And he has an idea what’s going on. At least with the kidnappers, anyway. He’s the one who came to rescue me from them.”

  Eoin nodded, but there was some hesitation when he did. “Okay,” he said. “But we shouldn’t wait for long. Removing that tracker is going to require some things that we have up there at the safe house.”

  Liam continued toward the motel. He was going to wait for Patrick for as long as it took. The note said sunrise. If they had to wait that long, Liam was going to.

  Back at the motel room, there were two people standing outside, leaning against a big SUV, a man and a woman. The woman pushed off the front of the car and strode toward Eoin and Liam in such a way that Liam worried she was going to swing at one or both of them.

  “We were getting worried,” she said.

  “Something happened, didn’t it,” the man said.

  “This is the guy,” the woman said. She looked him up and down. She had long, dark hair pulled back into a pony tail, and she wore dark blue jeans, a tank top, and a wind breaker kind of jacket.

  Liam shifted where he stood. “The one and only,” he said. He wasn’t sure what kind of guy she was looking for, but he was certain he didn’t want what she offered.

  The other one, though, the guy. He was attractive in his own lumbersexual kind of way. Attractive seemed to be a common theme with these people. He had a thick mustache and growth on his face like he had something against a razor, but that he suffered through one every now and again just to keep the scruffy, sexy look going without taking it too far. “I’d like you to meet Brodie,” Eoin pointed to the guy. “He’s a member of the Maystone line, and Katina there is from the Stavros family.” Eoin said that as if the names should mean something to him. Both Katina and Brodie waved a greeting.

  “Let’s talk inside,” Eoin said. He turned to Liam, and it took Liam a second to realize Eoin waited for him to open the door to his room.

  They all went inside. The room seemed suddenly cramped with all of them standing in the tight space. He tossed his key and his wallet on the table. The bag of water, he set down beside it. The chips he bought, he was certain, were probably crumbs after the whole thing in the alleyway. He wasn’t sure he was in the mood to eat them anyway, not after everything he’d been through.

  Once inside, Katina came forward. “Show me the tracker,” she said.

  Liam lifted up his hand and showed her the mark that Eoin had pointed out. She took Liam’s hand in to her own and moved it in such a way that Liam had to take a step or risk having his wrist bent at an odd angle. “That’s still attached,” he reminded her, referring to his hand.

  Katina ignored him and continued examining the spot on his hand. “Pretty standard,” she said. “Makes me wonder how they got it on you.”

  Liam could only shrug with his shoulder not gripped in Katina’s rather strong hold. It’s like all these people were bodybuilders with high metabolisms so that it didn’t quite show in body bulk.

  “I can dampen it for now,” she said. “But we’ll need some tools to take it off. A gem, some bone dust, and a knife.”

  “You keep that stuff lying around?” Liam asked.

  She glanced up at him with her own shrug. “Of course.”

  “Okay, then.”

  She put her hand over the spot on the back of Liam’s hand, and the lines on her face deepened into concentration. Liam felt it gather, the air slightly thicker for a moment, then a sudden shock on his hand.

  Liam jerked his hand from her and stepped back. “Ow! Damnit!”

  “Didn’t say it would be painless,” she said.

  Right then, Liam wasn’t too sure he was Katina’s biggest fan. He shook his hand and looked at the spot. It was still there, but it was darker, a black spot now that looked like somebody had stubbed a cigarette out there on the back of his hand. Before it had the brown color of a mole.

  Brodie had his attention elsewhere. “So, this is it, huh? Do you always just leave it out like this?” He bent down near the chest of drawers in the room. Liam panicked.

  “What are you doing?” He went over to pick up the stone. He decided that, after seeing what he saw in the alleyway, the demonic creature searching for him, he was never leaving the stone behind again. It had saved him before, and maybe it would again. As weird as it sounded in his head, he got the sense that the stone was pleased by this thought.

  “Relax,” Bro
die said. “I’ve just never seen it before. It’s always been locked up.” He paused as he looked at the stone again, even as Liam held it. “It looks so…plain. So much fuss about the big stone, and you’d think it was made out of gold or something.”

  “Whatever,” Katina said. “Gold would be horrible to make a lockstone out of. You know how bad it is at conducting magic, much less carrying it for more than thirty minutes.”

  “Really?” Liam asked. “I would’ve thought gold was, I don’t know, special.”

  “Why do you think nobody ever made gold amulets? They’re always silver, gems, or carved from stone. Even wood is better at holding magic than gold. Gold is just there to look pretty.” She flopped down into one of the plastic chairs.

  “I didn’t even know what this thing is,” Liam said. “Until now, I mean.”

  Liam squinted at him, but Eoin interrupted. “We all are aware of what the Lockstone is. Those stones are the reason why the Council was formed. To guard the lockstones and ensure the Veil was kept in place.”

  “Fucked that one up, I guess,” Liam said.

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Brodie said. His voice carried through the room.

  Liam backed up a step. “Relax,” Liam said. “I didn’t mean anything bad.” He paused. “I mean…it’s just, you know, since they were destroyed and all.”

  Brodie and Katina both straightened and stared at Eoin, their mouths agape.

  “Would you like to fill them in, Liam?” Eoin asked him.

  Liam glanced between them. “I saw nine stones get destroyed,” Liam said. “When I was kidnapped. People stood in a circle around me, and this stone shot out some kind of power—” He glanced to Eoin. “Magic, I guess, that took their heads off.”

  “So, that’s it,” Brodie said. He threw his hands up and moved around the room like a caged wolf.

  Katina stood up again. “No. No, it’s not it,” Katina said. “There’s still that one.” She referred to the stone in Liam’s hand.

  “And what if that one is broken too? What then? Cyril’s as good as won.” Brodie ran a hand through his hair.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Eoin said. “Liam is the one who can keep the stone safe. He’s the only one who can use the power in it.”

  Liam scoffed. He sat down on the bed, still holding the stone. “Not exactly my first choice of jobs,” he said. “You guys still got a lot of explaining to do about that.”

  “You won’t be alone,” Eoin said. “As far as I know, we’re the only ones left who were part of the Council. But we’re going to do what we can to keep you and the stone safe.”

  “How about you start by telling me who wants me dead?” Liam looked to Brodie. He’s the one who said the name. A name he’d only heard for the first time that night. “I’ve never even heard of this guy. Who is Cyril?

  “Cyril Holder,” Eoin said. “He used to be Anax of his family, like the spokesperson for the Holder family line. It was a seat on the Council he held for years.”

  “Until he quit to go do his own thing,” Katina said.

  “Why me?” Liam asked. That was the million-dollar question.

  “Because only a Coyle descendant can unlock the tenth lockstone, and—”

  “I’m the last one.” Liam’s shoulders slumped. He studied the stone in his hand. It really did seem like such a small thing to raise such a big fuss, even if this small thing did have some kind of pull over him. It was a lot to take in. But at least knowing all this cleared up one thing: He wasn’t going crazy. It wasn’t all in his head, unless this whole thing was nothing more than a psychotic break and he was actually still back in the class building where scar face attacked him. In that case, then it all really was in his head. “And let me guess. The only thing that can unlock the tenth lockstone is my blood,” Liam said.

  Eoin, Katina, and Brodie all shared glances, but nobody said anything.

  “What?” Liam asked them finally.

  Katina was the one who spoke. “Honestly? Nobody knows for sure. It’s only legend and conjecture. There were no explicit instructions for how to break the lockstones”

  Liam stood up. “Are you being serious?” he asked her.

  “The stones were never meant to be broken. The Veil was always going to remain intact.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that everything that’s happening is really nothing more than a theory.”

  “I don’t think it’s a theory,” Eoin said. “Cyril’s found something. We all worked to make sense of his mission. It seemed innocuous, even heroic at first. He started a group that appeared dedicated to restoring the earth, and even I applauded his efforts. It seemed like he was planning on using our skills and knowledge to help the rest of humanity. But then he went dark. We thought he was nothing more than a nuisance. Clearly nobody really understood what he was up to.”

  “Until he killed everyone on the Council,” Katina said.

  “Everyone else on this Council is dead?” Liam asked.

  “We think so,” Eoin said. He looked to the other two who made meaningful eye contact and became almost pensive for a short moment. Eoin wiped his mouth with his hand and settled in on the unmade bed. “I was the only one actually there. I barely escaped myself.”

  “Was it like that thing we saw tonight?”

  Katina and Brodie both perked up. “What thing?” Katina asked.

  “A formality,” Liam said. He shook his head. “Or something.”

  “What?” Katina looked confused.

  “Formoire,” Eoin corrected. Both Katina and Brodie reacted so quickly with sounds like gasps and audible question marks that it caused Liam to sit up and take notice. Eoin quieted them down. “And I don’t know that’s what it was. It’s just an educated guess.”

  Brodie ran a hand through his hair and paced. He looked to Liam like a model for some woodsy men’s cologne when he did that. “If that’s what it was, then we’re in a much worse place than we thought.”

  Katina made a sound of agreement.

  Eoin held up his hands. “We’ll do some research when we get up to the safe house.”

  The door to the motel room burst open.

  And it all went crazy.

  Patrick heard voices in the motel room where he’d left Liam. He pulled his gun out and stood at the door. With his key, he unlocked the door and burst into the room. He was trained well enough that he was capable of sorting friend from foe quickly, and if he had to, he’d have taken out all three of the people sitting in that room and left Liam alive.

  But then Patrick found himself pressed with his back against the wall, a forearm shoved into his throat. The gun was pulled from his grip. Not because he dropped it but because it was pulled forcefully from his hand by a man with a mustache. A quick man with a mustache.

  He winced at the pain of being slammed so hard that the wind was knocked out of him. He gasped for breath.

  “Patrick!” Liam said.

  Patrick tried to speak, but he still concentrated on the simple task of sucking in air back into his lungs, made more difficult by the arm still pressing his trachea.

  “Stop!” Liam said.

  The guy that held him against the wall made strong eye contact, the message clear: One wrong move, and this would escalate. Patrick gave his own hard stare back, but it was less effective when he was struggling for breath and the one shoved against the wall.

  “Brodie, please!” Liam shouted. Liam stood next to Brodie and pulled at his shoulder.

  Mustache—Brodie, he guessed—didn’t budge. “You know this guy?” he said.

  “Yes!” Liam shouted.

  Still, Brodie didn’t move.

  “I said STOP!” Liam turned on the mustache.

  The room filled with an ear-popping sensation, and the mustached guy was flung against an opposite wall and shattered the round table. The woman with the blue flames took off in another direction and hit her own wall. The only one left unharmed was the guy in the black jacket.


  “Everybody calm down,” black jacket said.

  Patrick dropped, and he immediately fell to his knees. “Who are your friends?” Patrick said, wheezing.

  Liam came to Patrick’s side.

  “Holy shit,” the woman said. She coughed and sputtered. “I thought you said he wasn’t trained.”

  “He’s got some power,” the man in the black jacket said. He was grinning, though, unlike the other two who were struggling to right themselves.

  “No kidding, the woman responded.

  The guy with the mustache, Brodie, struggled amidst broken particle board and hard-plastic chairs thrown into odd angles as he worked to get to his feet again, and Patrick rode a feeling of vindication at watching Brodie struggle to right himself again.

  Patrick took another breath. He was recovering. He looked at Liam. “I thought you were in trouble.”

  Liam had his hand on Patrick’s cheek. “They’re okay,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the three of them. “I think, anyway.”

  Patrick had to take another second. He managed to get to his knees. “You don’t know?”

  “It’s been a really crazy night since you left,” Liam said.

  Patrick turned to him. He was suddenly worried again. “Why? What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it.” He helped Patrick up and over to the bed to sit down. Then he introduced the three people in the room, Eoin, the guy in the black jacket, Brodie, who Patrick had already been introduced to, and the woman, Katina.

  Everybody dusted themselves off. Katina took a place sitting on the dresser in the room, and Brodie paced with the occasional glare back in Patrick’s direction, as if Patrick was the one who did something wrong. Patrick rubbed his throat and gave his own glares back. Asshole.

  “It’s good to meet you, Patrick,” Eoin said. He tilted his head to the side like he was studying Patrick. “I’m sorry for how it went.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Patrick said. Even though he still smarted from being slammed against the wall…again.