by R. L. King
“Do what? Get inside Maple Ridge?”
“No. Deal with…whatever’s out there. Whatever made all those kids kill those people. You know it’s got to be really strong, if it can influence that many people that far away.”
Stone had been thinking about the same thing, and not just tonight. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t think it’s influencing them from this distance—I think it placed some kind of compulsion in their minds when they were close to it. It’s entirely possible that committing the murders cleared the compulsion, and as long as no one gets near that thing again, nothing else will happen.”
“You don’t believe that, though, do you?”
“I don’t know what I believe. I’m hoping Ms. Lyons can tell us more, or perhaps the information I get back from Eddie, Ward, and Blodgett might help.”
She was silent again, leaning against the door and staring out into the night. The road they were on had only two lanes, with the trees lining both sides making it feel even more claustrophobic.
“Verity?”
“You know more about this organization than you’re telling, don’t you? The one those two guys belong to.”
As usual, her perception surprised him. He wondered if, in addition to her magical talents, she might have picked up some minor psychic abilities from her mother as well. It would certainly help explain both the empathy that made her so good with healing and her deft touch with mind-based magic. In any case, he couldn’t lie to her. “Yes.”
“Do you want to tell me about it? If I’m going to help you with this, I want to know all the facts.”
Now it was his turn to be silent. He fixed his gaze forward, squinting against the dazzling headlights of oncoming cars. There weren’t many tonight, but several of them apparently didn’t think they needed to cut their brights just because they saw another vehicle approaching.
“Doc, come on. Tell me.”
He sighed. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You’re not connected with this organization, are you?”
“I’m not. But my family was.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think I mentioned them before, back when we were dealing with the echoes back at the Surrey house. They’re called Ordo Purpuratus, which is Latin for ‘Order of the Purple.’ As in the color of royalty, privilege, and magic. As I said, I’d thought they died out years ago—the last records I have of them were from my grandfather’s day, and I’m certain—well, fairly certain anyway—that my father wasn’t involved.”
She twisted in her seat to look at him. “And you think they’re back?”
“I found their insignia on a notebook in Kroyer and Lang’s room at the Schooner Inn, when I searched it. I was shocked, as you can imagine. Not only did I think the Ordo was long gone, but I didn’t think it had ever made it over here to the States.”
“So…this is what you meant when you said your ancestors weren’t very nice people.”
“Among other things,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his tone.
“What did these guys do?”
“You mean, aside from being responsible for what was going on in the catacombs under my house?”
He heard her sharp intake of breath. “The…human sacrifices.”
“Yes.”
“Brathwaite? Whoever that was in the sealed chamber?”
Stone hadn’t told Verity what he’d discovered about Aldwyn. He wasn’t sure why, except that he wanted to learn more about his mysterious ancestor before he let anyone else in on the secret. Even Eddie and Ward didn’t know the whole story. “Brathwaite, definitely. The rest…I’ve no idea.”
More silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. You already know most of my family’s dirty little secrets—I figured you didn’t need to know much about this one, since you were never likely to have to face the Ordo. But now…that might not be the case.”
They passed a semi, the Ford shimmying back and forth in its backdraft. Twenty miles out here took a lot longer than twenty miles in the Bay Area, with the narrow, meandering roads and Stone’s unwillingness to maintain his usual breakneck speeds in unfamiliar territory. He focused on driving and hoped Verity would leave it at that.
But of course she wouldn’t. “Doc?”
“Yes?”
“I just had a thought, and I don’t like it.”
“I probably won’t either, but let’s hear it.”
“Well…you said these two guys are probably part of this Ordo thing, right, and if they’re anything like they used to be, they don’t have any problems with doing some pretty horrible things to gain power.”
“That’s true, yes.”
“And they were in town when you got here, right? You think it’s possible there might be more of them around that you don’t know about.”
“They were. And it is possible.”
She swallowed. “What if…is there any chance they might have had something to do with…I don’t know…activating whatever’s out there? You said they might try to harness it. So maybe they didn’t hear about it like you did, in the news. Maybe they already knew it was there, and maybe those kids were an experiment, to see how it would react when mundanes were exposed to it.”
Stone hadn’t considered that, and the thought chilled him. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “Definitely something to consider. But if that were the case, why would they be hanging about in Treadley? Why wouldn’t they be out there closer to it?”
“Are you sure they aren’t? Maybe Kroyer and Lang are stationed in town for whatever reason, and they’ve got more of them out there.”
“That’s a rather terrifying thought, and probably one we should check out. I didn’t see any sign of anyone else when Dez and I went out there, but the weather was fairly dreadful so they might have taken the day off. Perhaps we should go back and have another look. Now that I know approximately where it is, we can put up better mental shields so it can’t get through. If we can find any of those Ordo tossers out there—especially if we can get one alone—we might be able to get some answers from him.”
“Yeah. First things first, though.” Verity glanced down at the open folder in her lap, since neither of them wanted to trust the spotty cell phone reception out here for navigation. “Slow down—I think the turnoff’s coming up soon.”
Stone nearly missed it, spotting the tiny sign only after he’d almost passed it and having to slam on the brakes and make a quick, tire-screeching turn. With Verity using the map to guide them, they crawled up another five miles until another small sign announced MAPLE RIDGE HOSPITAL, ½ MI.
“Should we park and walk?” Verity asked. “We don’t want anybody to see us coming.”
“We’ll get a little closer—if we need to make a quick exit, I don’t want the car to be half a mile away.”
The little road wound around too much for them to see any lights up ahead, but after a quarter mile they spotted a set of gates, flanked on both sides by a six-foot wall. The overall effect wasn’t forbidding or prison-like, but rather like the entrance to a gated housing community. Stone stopped the car and, with a bit of maneuvering, turned it around and drove a short distance back down the road, where he pulled off at a turnout.
Both of them wore dark clothes, including sturdy boots and dark knit caps pulled low to obscure as much of their faces as possible. “I’m glad I remembered to ask you to bring the disguise amulets,” Stone said as he took a pair of flashlights from the trunk and handed one to Verity. He removed his amulet from his pocket and slipped it over his head. He’d calibrated both his and Verity’s before they left, taking Dez’s advice to make them look like unassuming young orderlies in scrubs. Between that and the disregarding spell, they likely wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention. “We’ll switch over once we’re inside. Let’s have one last look at that map before we head inside.”
F
or all Stone’s concern about getting past the gate and into the building, the process proved to be anticlimactic. Ever since he’d moved away from a primary focus on research and begun taking a more active interest in supernatural phenomena, he often marveled at how easy magic made it to deceive mundanes, sneak around their facilities, or otherwise do things without catching their attention. For all their technology, without knowledge of the magical world they couldn’t protect themselves against illusion, invisibility, levitation spells that made walls pointless, or magic that could defeat all but the strongest locks with barely any effort. Sure, most mages didn’t have Stone’s—or even Verity’s—level of power and experience, but even minor ones were difficult to discourage if they wanted something bad enough. Occasionally, he felt a little guilty about it—but not tonight. If Verity had any objections, she didn’t mention them.
A quick levitation spell got them over the wall, and they kept invisibility up until they’d crossed the wide lawn dotted with walking paths and sitting areas. The road through the gate straightened out and opened into a receiving area at the front, and off to the right side down another short road was a parking lot. This time of night, it was less than half full as Dez had predicted. Stone noted the other buildings they’d seen on the map before they both dropped lower and landed on the roof of the rambling, single-story central facility.
He let his breath out in a whoosh, panting. “Bloody hell, but I wish there was a way I could train that spell better,” he said between breaths.
Verity, who wasn’t puffing because she’d used a power crystal to maintain the spell, chuckled. “We’re all bad at something, Doc. Subconsciously you just don’t like to hide, I guess.”
He grumbled an unintelligible reply and pulled the map from his pocket. “Right, then—looks like we need to go in here.” He pointed at a door they’d marked, around the back near the south side. “The most dangerous part will be getting into the secure section, and avoiding any guards or other personnel once we’re in there. Let me get my breath back for a couple of minutes and we’ll go.”
Fortunately, they’d learned from Dez that aside from the locked wing where they housed crime suspects and other particularly unstable individuals, the rest of the Maple Ridge facility didn’t have a lot of security. Even in the rest of the hospital, some of the patients were locked in their rooms and wards at night for their own safety, but aside from that the oversight was fairly light.
“It’s a state facility,” Dez had told them. “Not one of those high-class private places. They’re perpetually short on funds, so they have to cut corners just like we all do. They don’t house violent patients, which means they don’t need to run as much security. That should work to your advantage.”
Stone nodded to Verity, and together the two of them floated down until they stood next to the door. He touched his amulet, morphing his dark clothes into scrubs and his distinctive appearance into the guise of a bland-looking man in his middle twenties. Next to him, Verity shimmered and reappeared as a chubby, equally bland young woman in a blue scrub top.
The door had a window set into it, so Stone first peered through to make sure nobody was in the area, then used magic to try the door in case it wasn’t locked. When he discovered it was, it took him less than five seconds to slip the lock and swing the door open. The two of them hurried inside and let it swing closed behind them.
They stood in an empty, disused hallway painted institutional pale green. A gurney was pushed against the wall on their left, with several closed doors lining both sides. The light came from flickering fluorescent fixtures. A few abstract prints had been hung on the walls in an attempt to add a bit of cheer, but the effort hadn’t worked very well.
“This way,” Stone whispered, pointing up ahead.
They walked toward the end of the hallway, maintaining a brisk, steady pace. The best way to look as if you belonged somewhere was to behave as if you did, and this place was no exception.
They didn’t encounter anyone until they reached the closed door at the other end. This would be one of the trickiest parts: getting past the main nurses’ station located beyond it. Fortune appeared to be with them, however, because as they were preparing to push open the door, a pair of figures approached from the other side. One wore a white coat, the other scrubs similar to Stone’s and Verity’s, and they appeared deep in conversation.
Stone nodded to Verity and they both re-cast their invisibility spells. When the door opened, they waited for the two women to come through, then slipped in before it closed and hurried past the nurse’s station toward the exit on the other side. A quick illusion to hide their opening of the door got them through without notice, and they ducked into an unused office to once again catch their breath.
“If this wasn’t so serious, I’d say it’s kind of exciting,” Verity said. “I can see why you like this kind of thing. Sort of like Mission: Impossible with magic.” She consulted the map again. “Looks like we need to go down this hallway and make a left. The secure wing is down there.” Above them, the intercom bonged and a soft, brisk voice called for an orderly to report to Ward Three for cleanup duty.
After checking for anyone in the hall outside, Stone and Verity hurried out of the office and strode down toward where the path split in at an intersection. Up ahead to the left, they could barely see the hall widen out into another station, but this one looked more like a security checkpoint than a nurse’s station. Behind the desk, a burly young man in a guard’s uniform sat back in his chair, watching something on a monitor.
“Go see what he’s doing,” Stone whispered. It would be easier for Verity to maintain invisibility with her crystals. He wished he could still use them—it was one of the few inconveniences he’d regretted since he’d gone black, and even Calanarian magic couldn’t fix the fact that he couldn’t power and employ them any longer.
She nodded and slipped off, returning a few moments later with a grin. “He’s got security monitors that show views of several of the hallways, but he’s not watching them. He’s watching cat videos on his phone.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not kidding. He looks really bored.”
“Did you see the control that opened the door?”
“Yeah.”
He quickly outlined his plan. It would involve some tricky magic on both their parts, but if it worked, the guard wouldn’t notice they’d passed through the door he was supposed to be monitoring.
She nodded. “Come on—let’s go before he decides to do his job.”
Stone, his disregarding spell up, followed a few steps behind the invisible Verity, watching her aura to track her progress. She sidled behind the guard’s station again, then flashed a thumbs-up to show him she was ready.
Stone focused on the heavy security door, which included a thick window and a sign reading ALL VISITORS MUST SIGN IN – NO EXCEPTIONS. He waited tensely until it began to slide open, then cast an illusion to make it appear closed to anyone who might be watching.
The guard looked startled for just a second at the sound of the door opening, but then shrugged when he swiveled around saw it was still closed. He returned his attention to his screen.
Stone shimmered into invisibility and followed Verity through the now-open door. He maintained the illusion until it slid shut again, hoping the guard would continue to focus on his video until it was fully closed.
They had to move fast now, but the layout of this hallway was the one they’d made a special effort to memorize. Even though they couldn’t see each other, they both hurried down the hall to a room at the far end, next to another one with an open door.
Another advantage of the hospital’s perpetual lack of funds was that it didn’t have all the electronic bells and whistles a more upscale facility might feature. One of these, Dez had told them, was that the patient doors didn’t have alarms that would sound if they were opened. They also didn’t have electronic locks requiring a keycard to open—Stone could still manag
e those, but they were much more difficult and they left a record in some log somewhere. The stout lock on this door would be hard for standard lockpicks to deal with, but it would barely prove a deterrent to magical intervention.
A hand-lettered 3x5 index card slid into the slot next to the door announced what they’d expected: this room’s resident was B. Lyons, under the care of Dr. P. Munoz. The second slot below it was empty. Dez had been right: Brittany was alone in there. Stone took a quick peek through the door’s tiny window to make sure; in the dim light inside he barely made out a huddled form on one of the beds, while the other was neatly made and empty.
“Bingo,” he whispered to Verity. Already the spell was starting to tire him again, so he quickly popped the lock and swung the door open. When he felt the faint rush of air indicating Verity had moved past him, he slipped inside and closed it behind him. The lock clicked shut.
Brittany Lyons must have been either tired or medicated, because she didn’t stir when they entered.
Verity shimmered back to visibility, already moving into place to the side of the door, weaving an illusion. She gave Stone a thumbs-up when she finished.
Stone nodded and silently crossed to sit on the bed across from Brittany’s. Verity’s illusion would show anyone looking through the window a view of a serene room, empty except for the sleeping girl, which would give them time to talk to her unless someone decided to enter the room. Since they had no idea when or if that might occur, they needed to make this relatively quick.
Verity approached the bed. They’d agreed she would make the initial contact, because another woman waking her in the middle of the night would be less likely to startle her. She glanced at Stone, and when he nodded, reached out and gently shook Brittany’s shoulder.
Brittany jerked, her eyes flying open and glittering in the dim light. She made a soft little exclamation of surprise.
“Shh, Brittany,” Verity said in a soothing tone. “You’re not in danger. We just want to talk to you for a few minutes. I’m sorry we had to wake you up, but this is the only time we could get in to see you.”
