by H. D. Gordon
From behind her, Theo said, “Good evening, gentlemen,” and Surah thought maybe Charlie’s expression had shifted—only momentarily, his face was back to blank already—because of the Head Hunter.
Charlie. That was his name. She remembered now. Just like that. Charlie. A good, simple name. She rolled it around in her head a little, thinking maybe rolling it off her tongue would be pleasant as well. It was hard to equate him with the boy from her memories. He had grown into such a…man.
Then she slapped those thoughts away. Those thoughts were no good. Those thoughts were futile.
Theo took a seat beside her, and Surah wished very much for no reason at all that the Head Hunter were not here with her, that she could do this on her own, even though she didn’t even entirely know what she was doing. Surah’s job in her father’s kingdom over the past eight hundred years had involved two things, helping the king make diplomatic decisions, and looking pretty and proper for the public. Most people just thought she did the latter, but many of the laws and assistance programs her father had passed over time were of Surah’s creation, and the public was glad for them. They were happy under their king’s rule. She never cared about getting credit for the work. She was just glad to be giving back.
But being a Keeper and being a politician were two different things. Work that involved hands-on action, not just power of the mind.
“What happened here?” Theo said, his words clipped. Surah restrained herself from shifting uneasily.
Jude Flyer answered, “Mr. Redmine was in the process of closing this establishment tonight when Brad Milner—an elderly gentleman who is a regular here—came in. Mr. Redmine poured Milner a drink. Lady Nightborn arrived next. She sat at the bar, ordered a drink, and when Charlie here turned around to retrieve the bottle of liquor, Milner removed his wand and sent a Light Strike at her heart. She died instantly. Then the old man killed himself by crushing his own throat.”
The Head Hunter’s eyes were locked on Charlie, and Surah had to stop herself from shifting uncomfortably again, though she had no idea why. Her mind was racing, going back to that day after the battle, back when she had been a broken little girl. A boy had been kind to her that day, and she had given him a gift she shouldn’t have given him.
“Is that so, Charlie?” Theo asked, making the name sound like a dirty thing.
Charlie nodded, his jade eyes holding the Head Hunter’s steadily, without fear. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It happened fast. I don’t know how he did it, or why he did it. Mr. Milner has never caused any trouble here.”
“And you say he ‘crushed his own throat?’” The incredulity was as thick as molasses in Theo’s tone.
“I say he killed himself,” Charlie said. “Don’t know how he did it. But within a moment of killin the lady he was dead too.”
Surah found herself staring at Charlie’s lips, listening to the way the country land rode his words. It was so unlike the highspeech she was used to, almost exotic. And then she pulled her eyes away and stopped those thoughts again. No good, those were.
“You realize,” Theo said, “that something like that could not be accomplished with a simple wand. Crushing one’s own throat and delivering a Light Strike that could kill is Stone Magic. How do you explain that, Mr. Redmine?”
Charlie shrugged, still holding the Head Hunter’s gaze. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “Thought that was your job. I’m just telling you what happened.”
Surah stiffened. The whole room seemed to stiffen. She couldn’t blame Charlie for saying this. Theo’s very tone was accusatory, but it took balls to talk to the Head Hunter in that way. Really big balls, especially from a common man, and Surah found herself admiring Charlie Redmine’s courage and wishing he would shut up at the same time.
“We intend to explain it,” Theo said, his words clipped. “That’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Surah removed the glove from her right hand, wanting to stop this conversation for reasons she didn’t really understand. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the desk, palm up. Looking straight at Charlie, her heart picked up a little in pace. She cursed it for doing so, and willed it to stop its girlish yammering. “Would you mind repeating the story for me, Mr. Redmine?” she asked, her sweet voice the exact opposite of Theo’s tone.
Charlie’s eyes met hers, and Surah felt something warm spiral in her stomach. She bit her tongue to try and force it away. His eyes seemed to really look at her, to almost burn through her, and she wondered if all women found his gaze so penetrating or if her hormones were just getting the best of her. This made her think of Lady Nightborn, and suddenly Surah thought she might have an explanation for what Merin had been doing here. She always had been a bit of a trollop, flocking around the boys at school like a bitch in heat. This made a terrible feeling of dread spiral in Surah’s stomach.
Charlie’s large hand came up and rested in hers, his palm rough and warm, his fingers engulfing her small hand. Her heart jumped again, and she told it sternly that that was quite enough out of it. She needed to concentrate. “Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Redmine” she said, and swallowed when Charlie just sat staring at her.
She could feel rather than see Theo smirking beside her. She didn’t like it.
“It’s just like Mr. Flyer said,” Charlie began, “Mr. Milner came in and ordered a drink. Lady Nightborn came in and ordered a drink. I turned around in time to see Milner aim his wand at the lady and shoot one helluva Light Strike at her heart. It struck her and she slumped to the floor. Milner smiled and squeezed his hand into a fist. Then he slumped over and fell to the floor, too.” He paused. “There was somethin' dark behind his eyes. I guess I should tell ya that. Something…black. Scared the Magic outta me.”
Surah said nothing. Her tripping heart seemed to have stopped dead in her chest. That feeling of dread was back, and it was not just a spiral, it was a full-on hurricane raging inside her stomach. She seemed suspended for a moment, unable to decide what to do. It should have been a simple answer. Should have been, but wasn’t.
Charlie was lying about something. And for some reason she knew that the piece of stone she had given him all those years ago, the stone that he had no business having, was involved.
Now, to lie for him or not to lie for him, that was the question.
It really should have been simple. And it wasn’t. It just somehow wasn’t.
CHAPTER 7
Her touch was just as he’d always imagined it’d be. Warm, soft and surprisingly strong. He cursed his heart for what was probably the millionth time in his life as it hammered in his chest. On many a night he had forced thoughts of the princess away from him, knowing they would never do anything for him but cause pain and longing. He had even convinced himself that he had built her up in his mind, that she could not still be as beautiful as he remembered her from that day, when she had been crying by the lake after the battle that had taken her mother and sister. It was an imagined love that could never be requited. He was a common man, born and bred of a common family. She was a princess; the next in line now that her siblings were gone should her father pass on. It was an impossibility. Stars that crisscrossed like figure eights.
And now here she was, sitting right in front of him. Looking at him. Speaking to him. Touching him. And all the feelings he had cooked up over the years and flushed away came flooding back. They were so intense that sometimes he swore he hated her for making him feel this way. At the same time, looking at her now told him he could never hate her, not for anything. She was the girl who walked his dreams, who had walked them since he had just been a boy.
And now he had to lie to her. To protect both of them. He had to lie to her.
He told his story, wishing he had his stone with him so he might be able to stop her from detecting his lie, hoping she wouldn’t slap cuffs on his wrists as soon as he was done speaking. Now his heart was practically vibrating in his chest, but years of practice had taught him how to keep his inner-goings invisible to the outside world
.
His told his half-false story and waited.
The princess hesitated, then released his hand and sat back in her chair. Charlie watched her closely with bated breath. The Head Hunter watched her, too, along with the Defender. Charlie felt bad for putting her in this position, even though none of it had really been his fault.
Surah pulled her glove back on her hand, her brows furrowing slightly in a way that made something warm circle in Charlie’s stomach. She twisted her wrist sharply and the door to the office swung open. A second later, Chief Hunter Sand entered the room.
He bowed again to the princess. “You summoned, my lady?”
Surah turned her head and addressed the Hunter. “Yes. Would you please search the old man, Sir Sand?”
The Hunter nodded once and left the room. The four of them sat silently and waited. Thirty seconds later, Sand returned. His face had gone sheet white and something dangled from his hand, which he held out in front of him as though it were poisonous. His voice was tight, and yes, a little afraid. “He had this in his pocket, my lady,” he said, holding his hand out to Surah.
She took the thing from him and heard Jude Flyer give a sharp gasp. “Is that…?” Flyer began, and didn’t finish.
Surah nodded. “Yes, Mr. Flyer,” she said, not at all feeling the calm she exhibited in her voice. “It’s a piece of the Black Stone.”
“How can that be?” Flyer asked.
Theo’s face had gone hard and tight. He stared at the tiny piece of stone in Surah’s hand, and then his cold eyes flipped to Charlie. “That’s precisely what I’d like to know. Have any thoughts on the matter, Mr. Redmine?” Now the Head Hunter’s gaze went to Surah, and he asked the question with his eyes that she had yet to answer.
Without allowing herself to think, but instead just making the decision before she could stop herself, Surah nodded. The Head Hunter’s eyes seemed to flash with something Surah didn’t like, didn’t like at all. Her nod confirmed Charlie’s story, and Theodine Gray, for whatever reason, did not want Charlie’s story to be confirmed. Surah got a flash of a feeling that told her she had just opened a door which would lead to a world of trouble, a whole universe of it.
Her mind was flying, jetting, really. She needed to be out of this room, out of the lies that were floating thick in the air. She needed to see someone she could trust.
She sat back and in her calm, sweet voice said, “I’ve heard all I need to hear.” She looked at Theo. “I’ll report back.”
With a snap of her fingers she was gone, flying instantly over space and time and landing in the hallway in her father’s castle that led to her bedroom. Two Hunters stood guard outside her door and bowed to her when she burst onto the scene. These two were her personal protection, had been since she was just a little girl, so they could tell something was wrong with their princess as soon as they set eyes on her. She gave them a nod and a smile, and flicked her wrist so the arched doors to her room swung open. A moment later they slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER 8
Like that, she was gone. She disappeared from the room, taking with her the presence that had just filled it up, as though she had been exiting places in this fashion for hundreds of years. Charlie didn’t gawk at the display of power, he wasn’t a gawking sort of man, but he envied her freedom to just use the Magic without repercussions.
He also found himself missing her already.
That’s how it was with her in his mind. She had just popped into his life the first time and changed it forever, then popped right back out again. Now, hundreds of years later, she’d done it again. The worst part was, she probably didn’t even know who he was, probably hadn’t spared him a thought over the years.
But she lied for you. She lied for you.
True, she had. There was no way the princess was fooled by the falsity of his story. Power flowed as strongly from her as it had from the last Keeper, her brother. Charlie had only met Syris Stormsong once, and his presence and Magic had filled the room same as hers. No, she hadn’t been fooled, so why had she lied?
Charlie refused to allow himself to probe the matter with his mind. At least not yet.
Theodine Gray stood from his position, a terribly cold look behind his gray eyes. Like thunder clouds rolling in.
There’s a storm comin. I can feel it.
“I’ll be leaving two Hunters here to watch you,” the Head Hunter said. “I would advise you to stay in close touch.”
And of course, as if to prove a point, the Head Hunter disappeared in the same way Surah had, and Jude and Charlie were alone in the office.
Jude looked over at his client and offered a weary smile, his pudgy face greasy with the hours spent locked in the room. Charlie didn’t like the smile. It was edged with just a little too much lawyer-sympathy.
“If there’s something you’re keeping from me, Chuck, I suggest you spill it right now,” Jude said, “before this thing gets on any further.”
Charlie shook his head and shrugged. He may have lied, but he wasn’t guilty of anything. He hadn’t killed Lady Nightborn, and he’d killed Milner out of self-defense. He wasn’t the bad guy here. So why did he feel like one?
Because he shouldn’t be in possession of the stone that was hidden in the floorboard right under his seat. He should have never taken the gift from the beautiful princess so long ago. It was a royal stone, having belonged to Surah’s older sister, Syra. A common man like him had absolutely no business having it.
And that’s when he realized she did know who he was. She knew who he was and that he had the stone and that’s why she had lied. She could have told the truth and had him locked up, denied any allegations if Charlie tried to say she had given it to him. Not that Charlie would ever do that to her, he wouldn’t. Instead she had lied because she wouldn’t let him take the fall for the secret gift she had given him, or to save her own ass, he supposed.
Charlie had trouble wrapping his mind around this. He didn’t like the pinpoint of hope that seemed to be blooming in his chest. Just owning that stone under the floorboards was a major crime. It was a quarter-sized piece of the White Stone that only princesses and princes received, but that’s not why he had kept it over the years. In fact, he had never even once used it. Until this morning, that was.
He’d kept it because she had given it to him. He kept it because having it reminded him of her, and there had been plenty of times when he’d come close to tossing it into the jungles on the east side of the land, where it would eventually sink into the earth beneath the feet of the Beasts. He sort of wished he would have done that now, but of course if he had, he’d be dead.
Jude stood and stretched his legs, and outside of the bar the two men heard dozens of motorcycles thunder to life and go speeding down the road. After a few moments, the noise droned out. Most of the Hunters—all but two—were gone.
“Alright, Chuck, I need to be getting to the office,” Jude said, clapping a meaty hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “I’m going to put everything aside to work on this for you, because I have a feeling you’re going to need me. You do need to stay close though, okay?”
Charlie nodded, the movement strangely robotic. “I ‘preciate that, Jude. I have money. I can pay you.”
Jude waved a hand. “We’ll discuss that later, Chuck. I’m going to try and help you, because you’ve always been good to me. There’s lots of folks out here who don’t like me, who snicker behind my back and call me names, then come running with shit-eating grins on their faces when they get in trouble. Not you. You’re fair. You’re a good man.” He clapped Charlie’s shoulder again. “And unfortunately, it’s always the good men who need the most help.”
Charlie nodded again slowly, shook Jude Flyer’s hand, and thought, Well…shit.
CHAPTER 9
Surah paced back and forth across the ancient Arkian rug that covered her bedroom floor. Samson watched her from his perch by the window, his enormous head resting between his paws, his ears perked and long tail t
ucked around him. He had been chuffing and sniffing around her since she entered, but now he just watched her, his golden tiger-eyes following her back and forth.
“Dear Gods, Samson,” she said, going over to him and running her hand through the soft fur on his neck. “What did I just do?”
Samson was a Great Tiger, about four times the size of those in the human world, his stripes black and blue rather than orange and black. Surah had saved him from a Great Serpent when he had been just a cub, and the Beast was loyal to her beyond all else. Her father’s eyes had bugged out of his head when Surah had walked home with Samson one evening when she was just a girl, some eight-hundred years ago, and she had cried and cried until he finally agreed to let the tiger stay. It was impossible not to see how the tiger loved her, and eventually Syrian decided the Beast would be good protection for his daughter. He had already lost one child and his wife.
“I need to think,” Surah whispered, wrapping her arms around Samson’s neck and nuzzling her face against his warm, coarse fur. Samson let out a deep growl of a purr and licked his mistress’s face with his rough tongue. He spoke in her head, an ability Surah had given him using Magic long ago. She was the only one who communicated with him this way, because he simply didn’t care to communicate with anyone else.
His voice was deep and rumbling. Is he the boy you gave Syra’s stone to?
“Yes,” she silently responded. “And something tells me it plays a part here. Could be why he was lying.”
Well, that’s no good, Samson said.
“Yes, thank you. I got that.”
Samson licked her hand to comfort her, and she rubbed his huge head as she thought. The tiger’s eyes closed and he leaned into her hand. She was going to have to solve this problem, and the faster the better. She was a pragmatic person by nature, and made more so by time. She needed two things; to find the Black Stone, and to find the truth about Merin Nightborn’s death. She was locked now into the position of Keeper for the time being, and she needed to do her job well.
