Rite of Passage: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 26)

by R. L. King

  Worry about that when the time comes. First, we have to find him.

  He shifted to magical sight and joined Daphne in scanning. “Do you sense him?”

  “Yes.” She sounded distracted. “He’s not far now. I think he’s tired.”

  “Well, he’s had quite an adventure. He—”

  She gripped his arm hard. “There he is!” she whispered, pointing with her other hand.

  “Where?” Stone didn’t see anything.

  “He’s behind that box truck over there.” Her hand tightened on him. “Let me go first. Hang back until I give you the signal. He might be scared if he sees somebody else.”

  Stone hesitated. He wasn’t sure he liked that plan. If Daphne had any tricks up her sleeve, getting them separated would give her the best chance of carrying them out.

  She met his gaze. “I know what you’re thinking. And I promise, I won’t try anything. As long as you promise you won’t hurt Jeremy, I’m on your side. I know we need to deal with this.”

  He considered a moment longer, then reluctantly nodded. “All right. But tell him I’m here right away. I’m not staying back here for long.”

  “I will.” She was practically thrumming with eagerness to get to her son. She squeezed Stone’s hand and walked slowly forward.

  “Jeremy?” she called in a calm, encouraging voice. “It’s Mom. I’m here.” She reached the rear of the box truck and stopped where Stone could still see her. “I’ve brought my friend with me. Remember, you met him back when we first got here? I’m going to bring him over, okay? We need to talk to you. Everything’s going to be fine, baby.”

  Silence stretched for several seconds, with Daphne focused intently on something he couldn’t see. Then she gestured him over. “Come on. Don’t make any quick moves, though. He’s pretty freaked out.”

  Stone approached slowly until he stood behind her. Beyond, the dark-haired boy he remembered from their brief meeting in West Virginia sat with his back against the wall, his legs drawn up, and his arms wrapped around them. His worried gaze shifted back and forth from Daphne to Stone. His pale, drawn face looked unwell.

  “Hello, Jeremy.” Stone spoke softly, smiling. “It’s good to see you again. I’m your mum’s old friend—remember, we met before?”

  Jeremy looked at him, then back at Daphne.

  “He’s scared,” Daphne said. “You were right—he didn’t expect the truck he stowed away in to go so far, and he was scared to try getting out until it stopped.”

  “Why did he run at all? Did he overhear us talking?”

  She paused, gazing at her son again. Stone was sure some sort of communication was passing between them.

  “He did,” she finally said, shoulders slumping. “He’s so sorry. He says he doesn’t want to hurt anybody. He didn’t even realize he was causing any problems. He still doesn’t know why it’s happening.”

  “I know.” Stone maintained the same even, gentle tone. “Jeremy, of course I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’ve known your mum for a long time, and she’s a good person, so I know she’s taught you to be a good person too.”

  He shifted to magical sight, watching Jeremy’s aura. He wasn’t entirely sure how the boy had an aura—did constructed physical bodies have them, or was it something about the consciousness that drove them? Daphne’s was the same color he remembered, after all, but that could be illusion. But whatever it was, his words seemed to be calming it. Some of the jagged red flashes pulsing around its edges began to fade.

  Jeremy looked at his mother again.

  “Did he say something?” Stone asked.

  She nodded, still looking dejected. “He wants to know if you’re going to hurt him. If I’m going to hurt him. To punish him for what he’s done.”

  “Of course not.” Stone crouched, to get closer to Jeremy’s level. “Listen, Jeremy—I promise you, we’re going to do everything we can to get this sorted out. Nobody wants to hurt you. It will be easier if you’ll help us, though. Will you try to do that?”

  Daphne waited a moment, then said, “He wants to help, but he doesn’t know how. He says he doesn’t think there’s anything he can do. He wants to go home.”

  “Home, as in back to where he came from?”

  “Yeah. He says he doesn’t like it here—it’s too confusing and chaotic.” She sighed. “I should have known…I feel like I brought him here more for me than for him.”

  “Now, let’s not focus on that. It’s not—” His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hang on a moment. This is probably Verity checking in.”

  It was. I’m on level 1. Should I come up?

  Yes, but don’t drive. And focus on being nonthreatening.

  Roger that. See you in a few.

  Stone put the phone back in his pocket. “Jeremy,” he said. “Another friend is coming. She’s a good friend of mine, and a very nice person. Is it all right if she joins us?”

  The boy’s expression turned wary.

  “It’s all right, honey,” Daphne said, probably speaking aloud for Stone’s benefit. “She isn’t going to hurt you either.” She shot Stone a look as if to say, she’d better not.

  Jeremy didn’t reply, but his aura didn’t grow any more agitated. Stone took that as a good sign.

  A few moments later, another figure approached. Even from this distance, Stone could tell it was Verity without checking her aura. “Here she is, Jeremy,” he said. “She just wants to talk with us.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he did glance toward her.

  A few more tense seconds passed. Stone had to force himself not to prepare to take action if Jeremy struck out at Verity—if that was even something he was capable of doing—because the boy would certainly pick that up. He had to trust Daphne, and he didn’t altogether like that.

  Nothing happened, though. Verity walked slowly up, radiating calm and friendly curiosity. She stopped next to Stone and squeezed his hand. “Good to see you,” she whispered.

  “Likewise.” Stone turned back to the others. “Well, then, it looks like the gang’s all here. Daphne Weldon, meet Verity Thayer. She’s my former apprentice.”

  Daphne and Verity sized each other up. “It’s good to meet you,” Daphne finally said.

  “Same. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Suspicion flickered across Daphne’s face for a moment, but she chose not to take the words as a jab.

  Before she could say anything, Verity turned to Jeremy. “You must be Jeremy,” she said with a smile. “I’ve heard about you, too. I’m really glad to finally get to meet you.”

  Jeremy studied her with caution. His aura didn’t flare.

  “Okay,” Stone said. “I’d love to draw out this little reunion, but I’m afraid we’re on the clock. Now that we’re all here, we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “What can we do?” Verity lowered her voice and returned her attention to Daphne. “Do you have any ideas? Doc says you’re a genius with portals.”

  Daphne narrowed her eyes, clearly wondering again how much Verity knew.

  Stone caught on fast. “Listen,” he said. “We haven’t got time for anything but working out this problem. Daphne, Verity knows all about…what happened before. She helped deal with it.”

  “Yeah.” Verity chuckled. “I spent a lot of time looking through your notebooks back then, without any clue about what I was looking at. Whatever you did, it was pretty impressive, at least as far as I could tell.”

  “It was pretty impressive,” Stone said. “And we’re going to need something else similarly impressive to get through this.” He looked at Jeremy and switched to a gentler tone. “Jeremy, you want to go home, right? Back where you were with your mum and your friends?”

  The boy looked at his mother, then gave a slow, sad nod.

  “That’s what he wants more than anything,” Daphne confirmed. She still looked miserable.

  “If you can go…” Verity said carefully, “…are you planning to go with him?�
�

  She swallowed. “Of course I am. I’m his mother.”

  Stone didn’t miss the discomfort in her aura, and thought he knew the reason for it. Even though she hadn’t admitted it in so many words, he was fairly sure showing Jeremy where his parents were born hadn’t been her only reason for bringing the two of them back here to her home dimension. He didn’t mention it, though. If Jeremy had to go and she wouldn’t let him go without her, there was nothing to be gained by making this situation more painful for her.

  “Okay,” he said instead. “So let’s brainstorm a bit. Daphne, you’ve got no idea how to get back to this other dimension?”

  She shook her head. “Not quickly. As I mentioned before, since Jeremy is a native, I can probably study him and eventually track his energy back to its source. But it won’t be fast. Those portals we built…before…were a result of years’ worth of research. And that’s only trying to go from two points in the same dimension.”

  Stone nodded. None of that surprised him. “I can probably do the same thing. I’ve picked up some experience with interdimensional travel since we last talked all those years ago. I could design the ritual and create the circle, once I know where to point it. It will be easier since we don’t have to worry about sending physical bodies over. But it’s still not fast. Even working together, I doubt we could manage it in less than a month.”

  “Then isn’t that what we should do?” A flash of hope crossed Daphne’s face. “You said we could come back with you—stay at your place, so we could stay hidden. A month isn’t that long—”

  Stone sighed. “It’s not, and it wouldn’t be, except for the man I told you about.”

  “The one who wants to—” She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t have to. The one who wants to hurt Jeremy.

  “Yes. He’s not going to give us that kind of time.”

  “Can’t we…discourage him?” Her expression hardened. “Between the three of us, couldn’t we—”

  “No. We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s bloody powerful, probably more than the three of us combined. And…well, because he’s got a point.”

  “What are you talking about?” Now her eyes flashed. “What do you mean, he has a point?”

  “You didn’t see those fissures, Daphne. I showed you the news story on my phone, but I was there. They didn’t do it justice, because they couldn’t see everything that was going on. We can’t afford to have any more of those popping up. As I said, my friend’s insanely powerful, and closing the last one was almost more than he could manage.” He lowered his voice, with a quick glance at Jeremy. “We don’t even know what’s triggering him to spawn them. It might be when he’s upset—that fits with the evidence we’ve got so far, but you said you can’t remember when he was upset. They also seem to be getting worse, with each subsequent iteration. Who knows if the next one will be even bigger than the one in Wisconsin?”

  “Alastair—”

  “Listen to me, Daphne.” Stone hated to do this to her, but he had to make her see. “As long as we’ve got no idea what the trigger is, waiting another month, or longer, to deal with this isn’t a viable option.”

  “So what are you saying?” Her aura flared now. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  He sighed loudly, pacing away. “I don’t know. I haven’t got a bloody clue.”

  “What if we brought more people in?” Verity asked. “Eddie and Ward…?”

  “Won’t work. They haven’t got the background, so it would take longer to get them up to speed than it would to just do it ourselves.”

  “Do you know anybody else who’s good at this kind of thing?”

  “Not…really. You know as well as I do that portal experts aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days.”

  Daphne was switching her gaze back and forth between the two of them. She’d moved closer to Jeremy, putting herself between them and her son.

  Stone wondered if she was doing it on purpose, or unconsciously, but didn’t comment on it.

  “What about Kolinsky?” Verity said suddenly.

  “What about him? Verity, he’s the one who—”

  “I know. He’s the one who wants to…take care of this quickly. But you said he’s rational. What if you could convince him to help you? He knows about dimensional travel, doesn’t he?”

  It was a good thought, given how much—or how little—Verity knew about Kolinsky. “I don’t think it would be possible to convince him,” he said ruefully. “He’s fairly set in his ways, and…there are considerations you don’t know about, and that I can’t tell you.” Yes, like how he’s going to call in the dragon cavalry and at that point there won’t be anything any of us can do.

  “Harrison?”

  “Out of communication. I literally couldn’t contact him if I wanted to. And besides, I doubt he’d consider this worthy of his attention, except maybe as a puzzle to solve.”

  “Are you two going to keep talking like Jeremy and I aren’t here?” Daphne stalked back over, still keeping herself between them and her son. “We’d better figure something out, because if we don’t, I’m going to take him away from here, somewhere far away from anybody, while I do my best to deal with things on my own.” Her eyes narrowed. “There is no way I’m going to let you hurt Jeremy. So if that’s one of your options, take it right off the table.”

  Stone sympathized with her, but he knew her words were empty—and he knew she probably knew it too. He’d always been a stronger mage than she was, even back in the old days. She was smart as hell in her areas of study, but he wasn’t even sure she knew any combat magic. She might try to stand up to him and Verity, but she’d never manage it. And she’d barely present a second’s roadblock to Kolinsky if he decided to take matters into his own hands.

  He stalked away, fists clenched, trying to pummel his brain into coming up with a solution that would work for all of them. He didn’t want to hurt Jeremy any more than Daphne wanted him to, but they couldn’t allow the boy to create any other fissures. Whatever they did, they’d need to do it soon. They—

  “Get away from him!” Daphne screamed.

  28

  Stone spun back around, and his breath caught in his throat. Oh, bloody hell…

  Jeremy wasn’t seated anymore. He’d leaped to his feet and was glaring at something further up the ramp. His expression had gone from calm and dejected to angry and terrified.

  Daphne, still standing between Stone and her son, had turned to look too. “Get away from him!” she yelled again. Magical energy flowered around her hands.

  “Daphne, wait!” Stone called. He gripped Verity’s arm to keep her from taking action.

  The figure Jeremy was staring at was humanoid, dressed in simple black clothes. Stone couldn’t see its features clearly from where he stood, but he didn’t need to. He knew exactly what it was: another of the same type of being Jeremy had dispatched at the cabin in Texas.

  It didn’t seem to be paying any attention to any of them except Jeremy. It moved slowly but inexorably toward him, its strange gaze fixed on his face. It seemed to be engaged in a furious staring contest with Jeremy. Stone wondered if the two of them were communicating.

  “What is that thing?” Verity whispered from behind him.

  “Shh…” he murmured. “Things just got a lot more dangerous.”

  “You stay back,” Daphne ordered. “Stay away from my son.”

  The creature ignored her. It was ten feet away now, and as far as it was acting, she might as well not even have been there.

  “Doc, look at Jeremy…” Verity spoke from behind Stone. “Look at his aura.”

  Stone shifted to magical sight. The boy’s aura, mostly calm before, had erupted into a blaze of gold, with jagged red spikes poking up all around it.

  “Jeremy…” he called, trying to keep his voice calm. “Please, calm down. We’ll deal with this. We won’t let him hurt you.”

  The creature was st
ill approaching. It had its arms extended now, as if it planned to either grab Jeremy or project some sort of energy at him. It had an aura too, but it didn’t look like anything Stone had ever seen before. The colors were clashing, discordant, and constantly shifting.

  “Stay back!” Daphne ordered again. The nimbus of arcane power around her hands was growing brighter. “Get away from him or I’ll attack you. I mean it.” Her voice shook with conviction and fear.

  A sudden thought struck Stone. “Wait!” he called. “Daphne, don’t. Maybe he can help us. If he’s from where you came from, maybe we can—”

  A sudden, high-pitched roar startled him. It took him a second to realize where it had come from, since up until now he’d never heard Jeremy make a sound. All the fear had left the boy’s face now, replaced by rage.

  Two things happened at once, both of them too fast for any of the rest of them to do anything about.

  The black clothed figure stopped short, as if a giant had placed a hand against its chest. Its limbs went stiff, then it keeled over backward, making no sound as it hit the ground. It twitched and lay still.

  At the same time, the air seemed to take on an electric charge. A low sound, almost like a deep subsonic hum, rolled through the garage, followed by an unearthly crack, a ripping sound, and a loud whoosh as if a large quantity of air had suddenly been sucked out of the area.

  Jeremy sagged back against the wall, white-faced and exhausted. All the rage had drained out of him now. He was staring at something past Stone, Verity, and his mother, and abject terror wreathed his face.

  Stone turned around, afraid he already knew what Jeremy was looking at. “No, no, no…” he murmured. “Jeremy, no…”

  “Doc? What—” Verity began, but then she saw it too. “Oh, God….”

  The fissure that had appeared on the other side of the garage wasn’t large. Only a few feet across, it looked like someone had taken a knife and sliced a horizontal rip into a reality that was desperately trying to bulge outward. As they watched in horror, the edges of the rip parted a little further, and each end tore a little wider. Beyond it was a roiling mass of black, sparking purple, and some other color that defied description because it didn’t exist in the world as they knew it.