by R. L. King
He let out his breath in relief.
“Well,” he murmured to Raider. “That was fun.” But at least it seemed like the ley-line travel pathways were functioning properly again—or, more specifically, his mind was. He carried his dripping coat to the downstairs bathroom and hung it in the shower stall.
First things first. As Raider continued to watch him, he dug the rental agreement from the coat, carefully unfolded it and dried it with a spell, and called the agency from his landline. He wanted to be angry at Daphne for causing him all this trouble, but now that he was safely home and dry, he couldn’t manage it. Maybe he was tired—or maybe he figured she must have had a good reason for what she’d done.
He turned over the paper. Please don’t follow us, her note said. The ink had run a little from the dunking, but it was still legible. Though shaky, the writing was unquestionably Daphne’s. He’d spent too much time poring over her portal notebooks not to recognize it. If someone was imitating her, they’d not only done a deep dive into her secret history, but also mastered her handwriting.
He leaned back with a sigh. Now, he had a decision to make. Would he try to follow her? By now, she’d had at least three hours’ head start, which meant if she’d driven straight through, she could already be out of his tracking range even if he returned to the area tonight. And in any case, he didn’t have a tether object. He’d never found their campsite to collect one.
Had there even been any campsite, or had she been lying about that too?
At this point, returning to West Virginia to look for Stefan’s anomaly didn’t seem like the best use of his time. If it wasn’t at Decker’s Gap, Highland, or Harmony Farm, he had no idea where else to look for it.
Suddenly, he was tired, though. Now that he was home, the day’s stresses all came back at once. Perhaps it was his brush with drowning and hypothermia, or perhaps the shock of rediscovering Daphne after all these years of thinking she was dead—but whatever it was, his body felt heavy and the idea of getting up and doing magic didn’t appeal to him as much as simply letting himself drift off to sleep. He picked up Raider and trudged upstairs, where he sank onto his bed without removing his clothes.
He’d just let himself doze off for a few minutes, and then get up and…
He woke to the sun shining in through the window and the buzz of his landline phone trying to vibrate its way off the nightstand as it rang.
He snatched it up, realizing he hadn’t even taken off his boots before crashing. His mouth tasted like he’d eaten a three-day-old roadkill pizza.
“Yes, hello?”
“Mr. Townes?”
It took him a moment to remember that was his fake identity. “Er—yes. Who’s this?”
“This is LaNesha from Star Auto Rentals. You left this number last night when reporting your rental car stolen.”
“Oh. Right.” He sat up, running his hand over his stubbled jawline. He’d left his overnight bag in the Jeep.
“I wanted to let you know it’s been found.”
“Oh. Er—that’s brilliant. Where?”
“In Morgantown, West Virginia. It says here it was dropped off at the agency’s drop-off area last night.” She sounded skeptical. “Are you sure one of your employees didn’t drop it off and forget to tell you?”
Stone frowned. She left it at the agency? Why would she do that? “Is it all right? Any damage?”
“No, sir, no damage. Everything was fine—the keys were even left in the drop box.”
It was impossible to miss the odd tone in her voice now. He wondered if she thought he might have had too much to drink and forgotten he’d returned the car. “Well. That’s odd indeed. I promise, it wasn’t me. The car was stolen.”
“Yes, sir, I understand. Perhaps the thief had a change of heart. It happens occasionally. Anyway, I see here you haven’t filed a police report. You should do that at your earliest convenience. You can recover your personal items from our local agency.” She gave him the address.
“Thank you. That’s good to know, that they didn’t drive it off a pier or something.”
LaNesha chuckled. “Yes, sir. You have a nice day, now.”
Stone hung up and stared at the phone. So Daphne had driven to Morgantown—undoubtedly having no idea that was where he was headed too—and left the car unharmed at the rental agency, probably so she could get something else that couldn’t be traced.
She’d caused him as little inconvenience as possible, in other words.
Except for that whole leaving-me-in-the-middle-of-nowhere thing. But he couldn’t bring himself to blame her for that.
He also had no intention of filing a police report. If the rental people wanted to do that, they could knock themselves out.
9
Stone spent the next hour luxuriating in a hot shower, shaving, and putting on fresh clothes. He made sure Raider had a good breakfast, settling for leftover takeaway for himself.
He wasn’t ready to contact Kolinsky yet, to deliver his disappointing report about the magical phenomenon. If it had been nothing, there was no urgency about it, and if Daphne and her son had somehow been connected to it, he wanted to do a bit more investigation on his own before he brought the dragon into it.
Instead, he sent Verity a text: Are you around? He was glad to have his regular phone back. The burners might be convenient for concealing his travel, but they were bloody primitive compared to his top-of-the-line normal model.
Morning, Doc, came her quick reply. Early for you, isn’t it?
He glanced at his watch. He’d slept for quite some time, but Morgantown was three hours ahead of California. It was only a little after eight a.m. here. Yesterday was an…interesting day.
Want to talk about it?
If you have time. I want Jason there too, though. Let me see if I can reach him.
He probably hasn’t left SC yet.
I’ll contact him and get back to you.
There was a long pause. You okay? she finally sent.
Difficult to answer. Physically fine. Mentally—jury’s still out. Talk soon.
Stone managed to reach Jason before he left his Santa Cruz house for his San Jose office. Amber wanted to come along too, so after Verity was added to the group text they all agreed to meet for lunch at Stone’s place, where they could talk freely without having to worry about anyone overhearing. All three of his friends wanted to know what this was about, but he refused to tell them anything else until they met in person.
They all arrived a little early, obviously curious about whatever he had to share with them. He’d picked up a spread from the downtown Encantada sub shop and had it waiting for them when they showed up.
“Thank you all for coming,” he told them as they sat down and tucked in. “I know you’re all busy.”
“We’re dying of curiosity,” Jason said. “What did you expect?”
“Well…I think this will satisfy it.” His breakfast takeaway hadn’t been impressive, so he paused to take a bite of sandwich before continuing. He’d already pulled the meat out of a small one for Raider, who perched on the end of the table watching them with smug interest.
Mindful of all their gazes on him, Stone put the sandwich aside. “A bit of background. Yesterday, I was doing some investigation for Kolinsky. He’d noticed an…odd energy surge, and asked me to look into it for him.” He shot a significant glance at Verity as he said it.
“What kind of energy surge?” Jason asked.
“Can’t say. Not sure if it’s relevant. I didn’t find any evidence of it, though.”
“Where was this?” Verity swigged from her bottle of gourmet root beer.
“West Virginia. Kolinsky couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the surge, but on a hunch I started my search near Highland—and Decker’s Gap.”
He watched Jason and Verity, amused, as their expressions cycled between confusion, comprehension, and finally arrived at wide-eyed shock in the space of roughly three seconds.
“Deck
er’s Gap?” Jason had been about to take a swallow from his drink, but set it down instead.
“What’s Decker’s Gap?” Amber asked.
“What’s up there?” Verity demanded, ignoring her question. “Oh, God, Doc—the Evil aren’t back, are they?”
“No. I’m certain of that. I checked the cave, and it’s been destroyed—probably during the explosion.”
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Amber asked, louder this time. “You told me about the Evil before, but—”
“Decker’s Gap is one of the two places the portals were,” Verity said. “The ones we destroyed. When that one went up, it caused a huge, weird explosion that ended up hurting some people, including Doc, and killing a few more. Officially they called it a gas explosion, but nobody believes that.”
“But that was six years ago,” Jason said. “What would make you think something’s going on up there?”
“I didn’t, necessarily,” Stone said. “But when Kolinsky asked me to investigate an odd energy surge in that vicinity, naturally that was where my mind went first.”
“But you said you didn’t find anything.” He took another bite of his sandwich, still looking uneasy.
“I said I didn’t find any sign of the anomaly. I poked around Highland, drove up to Decker’s Gap—I even stopped by Harmony Farms.”
“Oh, wow,” Verity said. “Are they still there? How are they doing?”
“They’re…not still there. The place is mostly in ruin. The only one of them I found was Zachary, their healer. He’s living in a trailer on the property now, but his Forgotten powers have faded, same as everyone else’s. He said after their powers began to fade, they just sort of…wandered off to do their own thing. That’s the other reason I don’t think there’s any danger of the portals reappearing.”
“Okay…” Jason said. “So, you didn’t find a portal—which is great—and you didn’t find any of this weird energy Kolinsky detected. What did you find?”
Stone took a deep breath. “You remember the journals I was using to help me work out how to neutralize the portals?”
“Sure,” Verity said. “I spent enough time trying to make sense of them and failing miserably. Your ex-girlfriend wrote them, right? She was some kind of kick-ass portal expert.”
“Yes.”
“Did you find more of them?”
“No.” He looked up and met her gaze. “I…found her. Or at least I think I did.”
Once again, Jason and Verity both gaped at him like he’d just announced he’d decided to give up magic and become a professional cricket player.
“You—” Jason began.
“You…found her?” Verity sputtered. “But you said—”
“I said she disappeared. I thought she had, along with the other three researchers she was working with.”
“Hang on a minute,” Amber spoke up. “Can somebody clue me in on what’s going on here?”
“Sorry.” Verity put her sandwich down. “I keep forgetting you haven’t been here all along.” Quickly, obviously wanting to get back to discussing the new and shocking information Stone had just dropped on them, she gave Amber the bare-bones story of the Evil’s two portals, how they’d come into being when a quartet of portal researchers had tried creating stable temporary portals linking West Virginia and Las Vegas, and her, Stone’s, and Jason’s trip across the country to shut them down before they spit more Evil into the world.
“Holy shit,” Amber muttered. “It sounds like some kind of crazy fantasy story.”
“It kind of was,” Jason said. “Damn, that was a long time ago. We were so young and naïve back then. I think even you were, Al.”
“Bloody right I was. I’m amazed we managed to do what we did, blundering about like that.”
“Anyway,” Verity put in, “now that we’ve caught everybody up on what happened in last week’s episode, can we get to the new stuff?”
Stone couldn’t blame her for being impatient. Lunch forgotten, he told them about his drive up to Decker’s Gap and Daphne’s sudden appearance.
“Wait.” Verity narrowed her eyes. “So, you’re saying on the very day you go up there to look for this weird energy, your ex-girlfriend who’s been missing and thought dead for eleven years turns up instead? And she says she’s only gotten there that same day?”
“Yes. It does look suspicious, doesn’t it? But I haven’t told you the whole story yet. She wasn’t alone.”
“Not alone?” Jason asked. “Who was with her? More of those portal researchers?”
“No. Her son.”
Verity and Jason gaped. Amber didn’t—probably because she didn’t realize how much of a bombshell he’d just dropped.
“Her son,” Verity said, with no inflection.
“Yes. His name is Jeremy. He’s about ten years old.”
“So that means he’d have to have been born—”
“—not long after Daphne escaped the portal. Yes.”
Jason and Amber exchanged glances. “How can that be?” Jason asked. He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no way he could be…you know…yours, is there?”
“Of course not. Daphne and I hadn’t been together for quite some time at that point. She was with Neil Hanley—one of the other researchers. She says Jeremy is his—that she realized she was pregnant shortly after she escaped the portal.”
“I take it he didn’t?” Verity asked soberly. “Escape, I mean.”
“She says none of the others did. Something went wrong during the process—that she tried to pull Neil out since they’d gone in together from the West Virginia side, but he was ripped away from her. She panicked and dived out at the last moment. She claims she blacked out for several hours, and when she came to, she was in the cave and there was no sign of the portal.”
“I guess that tracks,” Jason said. “The portals winked in and out after that. They probably had to recharge for a while and she didn’t realize it.”
“I’m sure she didn’t.”
“So what did she do?” Amber asked. “Where has she been all these years?”
“Living with Jeremy under assumed names, in Kentucky. She said the whole thing buggered her up mentally for a long time, and she was mostly done with magic. She claims she just wanted to live a normal life.”
“Then why did she come back to Decker’s Gap?” Verity tilted her head, frowning. “If she didn’t want anything to do with magic, why would she go there, of all places? Never mind the question about why she did it on the same day you went there, and the day after whatever weird thing Kolinsky noticed.”
“Believe me, I’m asking all the same questions.” Stone leaned back in his chair and sighed. “It’s a strange situation all around.”
“I’d say my biggest question right now,” Amber said, “is where is she now? Did you leave her there? If you two were that close and she popped up after you thought she was dead for more than ten years, why aren’t you still back there with her, trying to solve these mysteries?”
Verity looked up. “She’s not here, is she? They aren’t upstairs in your guest room?”
“No.” Stone contemplated his sandwich, but suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore. “She’s…gone. She took off on me, and I think her son was in on it too.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason demanded.
“The boy is…he’s got some kind of condition where he doesn’t speak—or at least that’s what Daphne claimed. She sent him out to play nearby while we were talking inside the church, which is one of the only two buildings in town that’s still mostly standing. When she called for him, he didn’t show up. We separated to hunt for him, but when I showed up at the church to check in, they were both gone.”
“How do you know they didn’t run into something bad?” Amber asked. “You said there was weird energy there. Maybe one or both of them found it.”
“That was my first thought. Except they stole my rental Jeep.”
“What?” Jason stared at him. “
How do you know it was them?”
“Because my keys were gone from my pocket—and she left this behind.” He pulled out the rental agreement and tossed it, note side up, on the table.
Verity picked it up, squinting at it. “‘Sorry. I had to. Please don’t follow us.’ And it’s signed ‘D.’” She frowned at Stone. “Why is the writing all runny, like it got wet?”
“That would be because I had a little travel mishap, trying to get home. Ended up in a lake somewhere. Must have let my mind wander.”
Verity seemed to accept that explanation, but Jason didn’t. “How can that happen? I thought the portals just went through that creepy tunnel, from one end to the other.”
Damn. Stone had told Verity, in general terms at least, about his new travel method—but he hadn’t told Jason or Amber. And of course Jason would pick up on that. “Er—long story. Not relevant right now.”
Jason shot him a suspicious look, but didn’t push it. “Fine. More secrets.” He nodded at the note. “So, she took your Jeep, but left you a note.”
“Yes, and she didn’t take it far. They found it in Morgantown—in the drop-off area of the rental agency, of all places. No damage, and keys left in the drop box. Obviously she wanted to get away from me, but didn’t want to cause me more trouble than necessary.”
“And you don’t know where she is now?” Amber asked. “Could you do a tracking ritual to find her?”
“Unlikely. First of all, though she claimed to have a campsite near Decker’s Gap, I couldn’t find it. I think she was lying about that. So even if she doesn’t use magic to prevent a tracking spell from finding her, I don’t have a tether object.”
“And second?” Verity asked.
He sighed and spread his hands. “Have I even got a right to look for her? She asked me not to. I did sort of stumble in on them up there. If she doesn’t want me in her life, wouldn’t I be a bit of a prat if I insisted on tracking her down?”
