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

by R. L. King

  “Yes, I’m aware.” He flashed a manic grin. “Maybe you’ll get a paper out of it—wherever you come from.”

  “What do I do, Doc?”

  Stone had almost forgotten about Verity. “Er—not much you can do here.” He gripped her shoulder. “You already did your part, and we couldn’t have got here without it. Just…watch. With magical sight, and tell me about it later.”

  He stopped in front of the fissure, halfway between Kolinsky and Daphne. “Right, then. Showtime. If anybody prays, this is a good time to do it. On three. One…two…three!”

  Stone had to give it to them: Daphne and Kolinsky were both solid professionals, and despite their exhaustion and skepticism, they both played their parts masterfully. Watching with magical sight, Stone saw the power growing around them, pulled from some hidden reserve Kolinsky had not yet tapped. A bright-blue conduit formed between Daphne and cloud-Jeremy, and then Daphne began pulling Kolinsky’s power in to bolster the connection.

  Stone stood back, watching the whole scene, preparing to step in.

  Before he could, though, Jeremy did something unexpected. His cloud form reached out and absorbed the power, growing until it was large as the fissure itself. Then he shifted his shape to mirror the expanding horizontal rip, which had begun creeping outward again as soon as Kolinsky and Daphne had taken their focus off it.

  What happened next astonished Stone.

  The fissure changed.

  One moment, the horrific rip looked like a gaping wound in reality. The next, Jeremy’s shifting blue form had softened its edges, and the scene inside went from velvety black with unsettling flashes to a pastoral scene with a pale green sky and swaying, dusty red grass.

  “That’s it!” Daphne breathed, barely audible. “That’s it! Jeremy, go! Go!”

  The blue cloud shifted again, brightened…and disappeared.

  Stone was half-afraid as soon as Jeremy’s control dropped, the fissure would revert to its old target—but it didn’t. Its edges did immediately begin to sharpen, though. He knew it wouldn’t be long.

  “Go, Daphne,” he ordered. “Hurry!”

  Panting, her eyes blazing with intensity, she flung her arms around Stone and squeezed hard. “Thank you, Alastair. And I’m so sorry for…everything.”

  He hugged back, fiercely. Not all of him wanted her to go. Perhaps, if she’d stayed, they could have rekindled their old relationship again. But even as he thought it, he knew he could never compete with her own child—and that he shouldn’t. Some bonds were so strong they even transcended dimensions.

  “Go!” he yelled, shoving her toward the rift. The pastoral scene was still there, but the sky was darkening and the fissure’s edges had already lost their softness.

  With one quick look at Stone, she whirled around and dived headfirst through the fissure. He squinted, but didn’t see her appear on the other side—but then again, he hadn’t seen Jeremy either. Maybe she’d lost her physical body when she went through, and there was too much going on to see it.

  Or maybe neither of them had made it.

  He supposed he’d never know.

  The fissure was changing now. “Hurry!” he snapped, moving in to help. “Let’s get this thing closed while we still can. Verity, you help too!”

  Closing the fissure was almost anticlimactic at that point. Even though it had almost immediately begun to change when Daphne went through, it didn’t seem to be reverting to wherever it had been pointing before. Instead, it almost seemed to be…confused. The view through it was now a swirling gray with a few jagged lightning flashes. Wherever it was pointing, though, it didn’t seem to have the energy to fight them. With Stone, Kolinsky, and Verity working together, it took them only minutes to zip it up. When the last bit joined together, the fissure made a little pop and winked out.

  Stone staggered back, staring at the place where it had been. “Bloody hell…” he said to nobody in particular, swiping his hand through his hair.

  “Is it over?” Verity asked.

  “I…think it might be. Stefan?”

  Kolinsky was still breathing hard. His face was paler than usual, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Still, he stood straight and fixed a thousand-yard stare past the fissure’s location. “I…believe it is.” He shook his head slowly. “I did not think that would work. But it was good that it did. That fissure was far more potent than the one in Wisconsin. I do not believe we had sufficient capability to close it.”

  “Yes. Well. Desperate times, and all.” Stone looked at Verity. “I just realized something. Verity, you’ve never met Stefan.” With a wave, he indicated the dragon, then her. “Verity Thayer, meet Stefan Kolinsky. You’ve both heard a lot about each other, but the stars have never aligned to get you together.”

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Thayer,” Kolinsky said. He even made a slight, formal bow.

  “Er—me too. Yeah, Doc’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Not too much, though,” Stone said lightly. Then he sobered. “I wish it hadn’t had to happen like that. I’m going to miss Daphne. She was quite a woman, in a lot of ways. The world’s a poorer place without her presence—and her portal skills.”

  “Yeah, but it was never a doubt,” Verity said. “That was obvious. Jeremy’s her son. People will do anything for their kids.”

  “Even go back to dimensions where they’re nothing but disembodied thoughts.” Stone wondered if he’d do something like that to save Ian—and decided he probably would. No, he definitely would. Before he’d known about his son, he’d never believed how strong the parent-child bond could be.

  “Hey!” Verity pointed to their right. “The guy’s gone.”

  The figure Jeremy had taken down was indeed gone, with no trace remaining to either mundane or magical sight. “Interesting,” Stone said. “He deteriorated at a much faster rate than the other one did.”

  “Undoubtedly due to the absence of the fissure,” Kolinsky said. “Without its energy to sustain the form, it could not remain.” He straightened his jacket. “At any rate, I must go.”

  Stone wasn’t surprised. The dragon wasn’t much for field work unless there was no other choice. “Thank you, Stefan. Not only for helping us with the fissure, but for listening to us and not obliterating poor Jeremy. None of this was his fault, so he didn’t deserve that.”

  Kolinsky nodded once, a little stiffly. Stone knew him well enough by now to interpret the gesture: the dragon didn’t agree, and the situation wouldn’t have grown as bad as it had if it had been dealt with sooner. But now that it was over, he was gracious enough not to say so.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Kolinsky,” Verity said.

  Kolinsky nodded to each of them, then strode briskly away.

  Stone watched him until he faded from view. “So,” he said to Verity, “that’s that sorted. Shall we go home? Do you think you can convince your friends here in Minneapolis to let us use their private portal again?”

  “Probably. I’ll give them a call.”

  They started back toward the car. Stone, walking with his hands in his pocket, slowed as the enormity of the situation began to settle around him. “I still can’t believe that worked. I had no idea how I managed to sync up those portals. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

  “Yeah…about that,” Verity said slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “Well…you asked me to watch what was happening with magical sight, which I did. And…it wasn’t you.”

  “What do you mean, it wasn’t me?”

  “It wasn’t you who synced up the portals. It was Jeremy. It was pretty fascinating to watch, actually. You saw his cloud body expand, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, what he did next was…I’m not even sure I can explain it. It’s like he deliberately meshed with the portal, and then kind of…eased it sideways. I got the impression wherever that original portal was pointing, it wasn’t too far from the place he and his mom came
from. You know, if ‘far’ is even a concept that makes sense in dimensional stuff.”

  “Oh, it does, in a way.” Stone thought about the rifts, and how proximity between one plane and another was what caused them. He considered her words. “Fascinating. Part of me wishes they’d have hung about for a while. I’d love to have had the chance to study Jeremy, if he’d let me. I think there was a lot more to that boy than any of us knew.”

  “Maybe so.” Verity didn’t sound convinced. “But me, I think I just want to go home.”

  “Yes, me too.”

  They walked in silence for a while longer.

  “Are you going to tell her mom?” Verity asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Daphne’s mom. Are you going to tell her anything about this?”

  Stone pondered. “I don’t think so. What would be the point? It’s not as if she’ll ever see her daughter again. Giving her false hope would be cruel.”

  “Maybe…but she might want to know she’s alive…sort of, anyway…somewhere.”

  “I’ll…think about it. For now, why don’t you give those friends a call? Now that this is safely sorted, I think I could sleep for three days.”

  32

  “Glad to hear it’s over,” Jason said. “I almost wish I could have been there to see it, though.”

  He, Verity, Amber, and Stone were all gathered in his and Amber’s living room, which they’d nearly finished restoring and remodeling. They’d already polished off a home-cooked meal and now sat around sipping after-dinner drinks.

  “Yeah,” Verity said. “I’m glad I got a chance to help.”

  “You were a big help.” Stone leaned back and crossed his ankle over his knee. He’d been feeling inordinately relaxed over the last few days since they’re returned from Minneapolis. He knew it wouldn’t last, but as long as it was here, he was determined to enjoy it. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “We make a good team. All of us do.” She grinned. “And I’m glad I finally got to meet Kolinsky. I was beginning to think he was your imaginary friend or something.”

  “Nah, he’s real,” Jason said. “Real weird, too. Not my favorite guy, if I’m being completely honest.”

  “He’s all right,” Stone said. “Definitely an odd duck, but helpful when you need information—or some serious power on your side.” He glanced up, noticing Amber hadn’t said much. “Everything all right over there?”

  She smiled, almost unconsciously running her hand over her belly. At this point, it was still almost as trim as ever, with only the tiniest hint of a bulge. “Just thinking, I guess.”

  “About what?”

  She leaned to the side, resting her head on Jason’s shoulder. “About Daphne and Jeremy—about everything she went through to keep him safe. I hope we’ll be able to do the same thing when our little cub shows up.”

  Stone looked fondly at his two friends. “I’ve no doubt of it. I was serious when I said I wouldn’t ever want to stand between you two and anybody who threatens your offspring.”

  “Which hopefully won’t be extradimensional horrors and supernatural monsters,” Verity said with a grin. “Probably just, you know, the flu, and that annoying bully kid who keeps kicking down the poor kid’s sand castle.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be that kid,” Stone said.

  Jason grinned. “Come on—we’re not that bad.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Amber patted her belly again. “But let’s get the kid here before we start worrying too much about that. When it’s in here, it’s as safe as it can be.”

  “Damn straight it is,” Jason agreed. He slipped an arm around her and looked up at Stone. “So, Al, you’re not planning to try to figure out where Daphne went, are you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I thought about it—purely as an academic exercise, you understand—but I don’t think this risk is worth it. We dodged a bit of a bullet with those fissures. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of introducing any others. I’m hoping I can stick to relatively safe magical study, for at least a while.”

  “Yeah, me too, to be honest. I’m ready to put the whole magic thing away, at least until the kid’s born and we’ve figured out how to be parents. That’s gonna be great, but it’s also way more terrifying to me than any extradimensional horrors.”

  Epilogue

  The tiny, shifting fissure didn’t grow.

  It had sprung into being as a small, amorphous opening, and it remained so. The energy that seeped from it didn’t possess much power or potency, but it did do a good job of spreading through the air, invisible and undetectable. If someone had been looking with magical sight in the immediate area, they might have spotted it—but they might not have.

  It was very good at hiding.

  The other reason it was unlikely anyone would spot it was that it had appeared in the back corner of a dark storeroom, a place where old, dusty boxes, ladders, and outdated decorations were stored in case anybody might need them someday. Nobody had entered the storeroom for more than three months, and only then to retrieve something near the door.

  The room was in the basement of a place called the Halcyon Hotel, in Rochester, Minnesota. It was small compared to the big chains, but it had carved out a successful niche catering to two primary clienteles: people looking for a place to have quirky wedding receptions, and the organizers of small, niche-based conventions of the type that appealed to fans of nerdy pastimes.

  On the night the fissure had burst into being, the hotel was hosting a convention called “Biffcon,” named after one of the original organizers’ dog. It catered to gamers of all types—board, roleplaying, war, card. It even hosted a small contingent of live-action roleplayers, who enjoyed dressing up as elves and dwarves and spending the weekend prowling around the hotel and its grounds engaging in combat with foam weapons and looking for “treasure” the game’s organizers had hidden.

  One of these adventuring parties, consisting of four college students in robes and colorful hats, had misinterpreted one of their clues, which had led them to the forgotten storage room. They’d found the door unlocked, so they headed inside and spent the next twenty minutes thoroughly exploring the area. When one of them, a young man nicknamed “Spunk” for reasons best left unexamined, thought he felt a faint tingle when he reached the rear of the room, he didn’t say anything about it. He barely noticed it, in fact, so intent was he on looking for hidden messages. It was probably just the thrill of the hunt. The group hadn’t opened any of the boxes—that would have been against the rules.

  When they found nothing of interest, they exited the room and congregated in the hall outside, re-examining their clue. It was only then that they discovered their mistake, at which point they hurried away, headed toward the other side of the hotel. They had to cross both the dealer’s hall and the hotel lobby to get there. A lot more people hung around both areas, making last-minute purchases, chatting, and spreading out various games on the floor. If a few of those people noticed a faint tingling, they didn’t say anything either. There were a lot of reasons for tingles, and none of them were anything to be concerned with. Especially when they faded as quickly as they did.

  Biffcon ended up as a rousing success. Everybody had a great time, and as the weekend drew to a close, they all made plans to return next year to reconnect with each other. Some of them were local to Rochester, others from nearby areas like Minneapolis and St. Paul, and some had come from points far enough away to require plane flights.

  In the back of the storeroom, the small, unassuming fissure continued to pulse, patiently seeping its energy into the air.

  And two blocks away, the abandoned bed-and-breakfast where a desperate woman and her not-quite-human son had recently hidden remained deserted, except for a homeless couple named Dave and Bella who’d found the door open a few nights ago and claimed it as their new squat until someone found them and kicked them out.

  It was, they both agreed, the best place they’d found in mo
nths.

  Alastair Stone will return in

  WINDS OF CHANGE

  Book 27 of the Alastair Stone Chronicles

  Look for it in Fall 2021!

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  Books by R. L. King

  ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES SERIES

  Stone and a Hard Place (Book 1)

  The Forgotten (Book 2)

  The Threshold (Book 3)

  The Source (Book 4)

  Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set (includes books 1-4)

  Core of Stone (Book 5)

  Blood and Stone (Book 6)

  Heart of Stone (Book 7)

  Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set 2 (includes book 5-7)

  Flesh and Stone (Book 8)

  The Infernal Heart (Book 9)

  The Other Side (Book 10)

  Path of Stone (Book 11)

  Necessary Sacrifices (Book 12)

  Game of Stone (Book 13)

  Steel and Stone (Book 14)