The Madness Below: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 20)

by R. L. King

  Stone spun around. Verity was rising, pushing the rotten bits of wood and shingles off her. She looked pale, but didn’t appear to be seriously injured.

  Relief so profound it was almost painful rippled through Stone. “Verity…” He struggled up and hurried to help her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah…just a little stunned. Wait—you’re bleeding!”

  “It’s all right. Come on—we’ve got to help Dez.”

  The officer was already pulling herself to a seated position, with her pale, wide-eyed son aiding her. “What…just happened?” she whispered. “Something was up there…and then we fell…”

  “I’m sorry,” Verity moaned. “Something appeared up there—in the rain—I lost my concentration.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Stone said. “I’m just glad you’re all right. I had no idea they could project themselves into the rain, or I’d never have sent you up there. Are any of you badly hurt?”

  “Just banged up,” Dez said. “Verity slowed us at the last second. It was a hard landing but not as hard as it could have been.”

  “Same here,” Verity said, brushing more debris off her jacket. “At least let me wrap that arm up, Doc.”

  “It’s fine—you can deal with it later.”

  “We…were floating,” Noah said, his voice shaking. He seemed somewhat less panicked than before, and still clutched the flare gun in one hand and the baseball bat in the other. “How…”

  The sound of his voice snapped something into place in Stone’s mind, making his heart pound faster. “Noah!” he yelled, hurrying toward the boy.

  Noah shrank back, and Dez moved protectively in front of him, glaring at Stone. “No! You’re not going to—”

  Stone ignored her, dropping to his knees and reaching out to grip the boy’s shoulders. “Noah! You’re a bloody genius! You might have saved us all!”

  “What?” Verity and Dez spoke at the same time, as Noah tried to scoot farther away from this wild-eyed madman who’d suddenly taken an interest in him.

  “The flare gun!” Stone pointed at it in the boy’s hand. “Didn’t you see what happened when he fired it at that thing?”

  “I was just tryin’ to save my mom,” Noah said. “I know I’m not s’posed to touch guns, but—”

  “No—no! You did exactly the right thing!”

  “What are you talking about?” Dez demanded, still glaring.

  “The flare—those things are meant to burn underwater, right?”

  “Well, yeah, of course—they’re boat flares.”

  “They’re meant to burn in water! These things are creatures of water! The thing they’re trying to summon comes from water. That’s why they waited until the storm to do their ritual. That’s why the creatures can manifest from puddles.” Stone was talking so fast now that he could barely keep up with his own careening thoughts, stalking back and forth between Dez, Noah, and Verity. “Don’t you see? Without meaning to, Noah found the one thing that seems capable of hurting them. Which means we’ve got a chance now!”

  “Wait!” Dez struggled to her feet and pulled the flare gun from Noah’s hands. “You’re saying we’re going to take on all those—things—out there with one flare gun?” Her tone suggested she feared he’d already succumbed to the same madness Kroyer had.

  “No, of course not.” He spun on Verity. “Not a flare gun. Fire.”

  “But—it’s raining. There’s no way you’re going to start a fire—”

  But Verity was grinning too, now. “Oh, but there is!”

  Behind her, Stone wriggled his fingers in Dez’s “magic” shorthand. “We’ve got all the fire we need, right here. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but Noah did. Come on, Verity—are you up for this?”

  “Try to stop me.”

  “Wait!” Dez protested. “What about us?”

  Stone hauled his brain down from spinning plans. “I don’t think those things will risk coming after you again. They know we’re on to them now, so they’ll want to get on with it before they lose their chance. You’ll be safe if you stay here, I think—or better yet, move to one of the other buildings that still has a roof. If any of those things comes near you—use that flare gun to take its head off.”

  For a second Dez looked as if she might protest, but then she looked down at Noah. “Okay,” she said heavily. “I don’t like it, but—go. Do what you need to do.”

  Despite his words, Stone half expected more of the creatures to come after them, to prevent them from disrupting the ritual, but they didn’t. “Come on,” he said, beckoning Verity after them. “Let’s do this before they kill anyone else.”

  30

  The rain fell even harder now, joining the smaller puddles into one large one between the cabins and the edge of the camp where the creatures had set up their ritual. Stone squinted and kept his head down as driving raindrops pelted him in the face. “Can you see if they’ve killed Allie?” he yelled to Verity over the wind.

  “I can’t tell!” she yelled back. “They’re doing something, though—do you hear that?”

  He did hear it. The chant was so loud now it rose over the wind, and it was faster than before. It almost seemed as if the creatures were working with a new sense of urgency, trying to complete what they’d come here to do before anything could stop them. Beyond them, the massive thing rising from the water was more substantial.

  “I’m not killing kids,” Verity called to him. “I can’t do that, Doc!”

  “You don’t need to. We don’t need to. Aim for the creatures, and don’t hold back.” As they got within spell range, a twinge of doubt ripped through him: what if it wasn’t fire? What if something in the chemical composition of those flares had done what normal flame—or even magical flame—could not?

  We’ll find out soon enough. If I’m wrong, we’re all buggered.

  “Do it now, Verity!” he yelled.

  He pointed his hands at the nearest two creatures, opened the conduit to Calanar as far as he dared, and converted the pure energy into flame. It streaked from his hands as if he held a pair of flamethrowers, hitting his targets with precise aim.

  He rarely used fire as an offensive spell, which was probably why he hadn’t thought of using it today. Flame was nearly impossible to control once it was out there, and caused far more collateral damage than concussion, raw magical energy, or even lightning. There was almost always another, better way to take out a target.

  But not this time. The flames danced around the creatures, outlining their unearthly, inhuman forms against the backdrop of the rain, the trees, and the night. Their voices split off from the deafening chant, rising from deep, precise tones to panicked shrieks as the fire tore its way through their bodies and they vanished.

  “Go, Verity!” Stone screamed, half-mad himself, but in his case it was with triumph. He no longer felt the pain in his arm, the cold, or the raindrops slicing his unprotected face. “It’s working! Get some height, and let them have it! Everything you’ve got! The creatures and the circle!”

  They got off the ground just in time. The shadowy things, knowing now that the interlopers had the power to bring their ritual to a halt, broke from the circle and took off in their weird, stutter-step run toward Stone and Verity, leaving only the ring of writhing black tentacles behind. They leaped into the air, straining their long, snakelike limbs to reach, but their prey was too far up. They dropped back to the ground.

  “Verity!” Stone yelled as the rain continued to pelt them. “Watch out for their raindrop trick! Come over here and make a ring of flame around us!”

  Verity floated to him, waving her arms, shooting fire from her hands and shaping it into a flaming shield. “I can’t hold this long, Doc!”

  Her voice sounded strained, and when Stone glanced over at her, he saw her face was pale. He couldn’t tell sweat from raindrops on it, but he gripped her arm. “I’ve got this. Just hold it a moment longer!”

  All around them, the raindrops fl
ickered and darkened as once again the creatures projected themselves upward. They danced around, shifting from side to side, but dared not approach Verity’s crackling barrier.

  “Do it, Doc!” Verity yelled. Already, the fiery shield was starting to falter.

  Stone didn’t hesitate. He’d only get one shot at this. If the shield fell, the things would be on them before he could get another one up. Directing his hands downward toward the circle, he let loose with twin blasts of flame, this time aimed at two different spots in that writhing black circle surrounding the table.

  The instant the fire hit the circle, screams erupted from all around them: from the creatures, from the students, from the air.

  And worst of all, the deep, guttural, otherworldly bellow from somewhere offshore. That scream wasn’t one of fear or pain, but of rage, of frustration, of madness. It pounded Stone’s head, buffeting his mind until he thought his brain might explode.

  Next to him, Verity added her scream to the cacophony. The shield dropped, and then Verity was falling too, plummeting back toward the ground. The creatures, already fragmenting but fighting hard to hold themselves together, rocketed after her, their dark forms moving through the rain as if projected on a vast movie screen.

  “No!” Stone yelled. His head was splitting, he could barely hold a coherent thought, but in the middle of all that rose a bright lance of clarity: You can’t let them have Verity!

  He dropped down, spinning as he did, shooting wild jets of flame from his hands in all directions. It plumed around him in a spiral, reaching out into the night and the rain, and everywhere it touched those fragmented black forms set up another shriek to join the chorus of madness. Out beyond the island, whatever had been forming continued to voice its displeasure, reaching out not only on the normal spectrum of sound but also as a subsonic rumble that threatened to shake Stone’s bones into powder. The ground beneath them shook like an earthquake was rocking the tiny island. Off the shore, waves taller than a man’s height rose and broke with thundering crashes over the rocky beach.

  Stone dropped next to Verity, gripping her close and flinging up another shield—a normal one this time—reinforcing it in the hope of blocking out that horrific rumble before it destroyed them. Whatever that thing out there was, it did not want to go.

  But it did go. Gradually, as the two of them huddled there, unable to do anything else, the rumbles began to quiet. The ground stopped shaking, and the wild waves settled down to normal. Even the storm itself seemed to break, the pouring rainfall slowing to barely more than a drizzle.

  Hesitantly, Stone raised his head and looked around. No sign of the black, tentacled creatures remained. The writhing circle around the table was gone. The sickly green column of magical energy was gone. The only signs left of the unholy ritual were rapidly dissipating bits of magical energy, the wooden table, and the remaining students, who stood in their shivering line still staring at nothing—or something no one else could see.

  “Verity…” Stone rasped, shaking her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Slowly, she rose to a half-seated position. “D-did we do it?”

  “I think we did.” He pulled her into a tight hug, burying his face in her hair. His head was still splitting, his arm still throbbing, but he barely noticed. “I think we did…”

  “Dr. Stone!” Dez came running over, splashing through the puddles, gripping Noah’s hand. She fell to her knees next to them. “What happened? We heard—”

  “Everything went crazy,” Noah said. “The building shook. The ceiling fell down. Are—are the monsters gone?”

  Stone rose to shaky legs, taking a look at the wider scene. Except for the nearly-catatonic students, everything looked exactly as he might have expected an abandoned campsite on a remote island to look. “The monsters are gone, Noah,” he said raggedly. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  The sound of a sob startled him. He jerked his gaze toward the line of students. “Bloody hell…” he murmured.

  Brittany Lyons had dropped to her knees, shivering in her sweats and T-shirt, her sobs shaking her shoulders. Next to her, the others didn’t seem to notice the difference.

  Verity struggled up and half-ran, half-staggered to her. “Brittany!”

  Brittany, her head bowed and buried in her hands, didn’t respond.

  Dez came over, still holding Noah so tightly he was beginning to struggle. “What’s…going on?”

  Verity knelt next to Brittany and put a gentle arm around her shoulders. “Brittany…it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over now.”

  “I’m sorry…” she sobbed. “I’m sorry…I couldn’t stop them…they made me do it…”

  “I know…I know they did. It’ll be okay.”

  “What’s wrong with the rest of them?” Dez asked. She eyed the other students with suspicion, shifting Noah so she was between her son and the strange line of staring, zombielike teenagers.

  “I don’t know,” Stone said softly. “I’m not sure anything can be done for them at this point—they may be too far gone. Verity, do you feel up to—”

  “Yeah. Let’s get them inside one of the cabins, and I’ll give it a shot.”

  “What’s she going to do?” Dez scanned the sea, which had calmed to nearly normal levels, obviously looking for more threats.

  “See if she can reach them,” Stone said.

  “We need to get out of here. Back to civilization. The police are looking for these kids. We’ve got to get them back to where they belong.”

  “Yes, well…” Stone took a deep breath. “Come on, Dez. Bring Noah and let’s see if either their boat or Kroyer’s survived all of that madness, or we might not be going anywhere for a while. And when we get back, I need to talk to you about a few things, depending on what Verity discovers.”

  “What things?” She flicked a suspicious glance at him.

  He shot a significant look toward Noah and shook his head. “Later. Right now, let’s see to our way home, shall we? I’m sure this young man here wants to get back to his hockey games and Thanksgiving leftovers—isn’t that right, Noah?”

  “I…guess so,” he said.

  Stone wasn’t sure what would happen next for Noah, but he thought a lot of it might hinge on how the adults around him reacted to the madness of this night. Small boys were resilient—their minds as well as their bodies—and Stone hoped that, coupled with the obvious love of his mother and perhaps a little magical help from him and Verity, might make all the difference.

  31

  One Week Later

  “I’m sorry I missed all that,” Ian said.

  “No, you’re not.” Verity helped herself to mashed potatoes and used magic to pass him a bottle of wine from across the table. “We could have used you, though.”

  Stone leaned back in his chair, content. “I do apologize for having to do this whole Thanksgiving spread a week late, Aubrey,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “It’s quite all right, sir. I’m happy to do it. I’m just glad you were able to come at all, even late.”

  “Saving the world from ancient extradimensional horrors kinda takes precedence,” Verity said.

  “Yes, well…” Stone shrugged and sipped his wine, thinking over the events of the previous week. “At least we were able to mop things up—mostly, anyway. As well as we could reasonably have hoped, I suppose.”

  They’d been lucky: when they’d gone off to search, they’d found the boat the students had used to cross to the island, still tied to a sturdy dock on the east side of the island. It had been a bit of a tight fit with all of them, but with help from Stone’s and Verity’s magic, they’d managed to get themselves and the students across the now-smooth lake and back to the campground without any mishaps. Except for Brittany, who had retreated into a more natural kind of silence, the other students had remained in their near-catatonic stupors. They moved when someone urged them, sat when pushed down, and otherwise didn’t seem to be aware of their surrou
ndings. Despite Verity’s efforts inside the cabin to get through to them, she hadn’t been able to do it.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Stone, looking increasingly stricken and exhausted following attempts on each of them. “They’re…not the same as Brittany. I can’t explain it. I think something about that ritual they did changed something in their minds. Maybe somebody better at this than I am can reach them, but…” she sighed. “I wonder if there’s anything left to reach anymore.”

  They couldn’t fit all of their enlarged group in Dez’s Jeep, so Stone and Verity had remained at the campsite with the students, taking shelter inside one of the cabins, while Dez and Noah drove down to the convenience store where they could get cell phone coverage. When they’d returned less than an hour later, followed by a series of police cruisers, they’d found Stone waiting inside the cabin with Joe, Allie, Andre, and Steve, who all lay with docile indifference on cots. He corroborated Dez’s story that they both had a suspicion that the kids might return to the campground, and that they’d called immediately when they’d discovered them like this. When asked where the remaining teenagers were, Stone, and Dez both said they had no idea, with Dez suggesting grimly that they might have ended up in the lake. Stone worried that Noah might contradict their story, but the boy remained silent and subdued the whole time.

  “So, is Brittany okay?” Ian asked, loading his plate with more turkey. “Did she get away?”

  “Yeah,” Verity said. “The illusion worked like a charm. Once we got out of Treadley, we drove her to Lowell without anybody bothering us. Reverend Blodgett arranged for her to live with a family in Oklahoma. They have a little magic, so they kind of understand what she went through so they can help her. It sucks that she’ll have to start a new life there, but she doesn’t have anybody in Massachusetts anymore, and there’s too much chance somebody might recognize her despite the dyed hair, and the hints Dez and Doc dropped that she’d drowned.”

  “It is a shame,” Stone agreed. “But it’s preferable to spending the rest of her life in a mental institution, or worse.”