by R. L. King
They were away for different reasons: Verity had taken a week off from her job at the coffee shop, which she could do now because the money she made helping Scuro heal magical tattoo customers meant she no longer needed to work there. She’d already told Stone she was thinking about quitting soon.
This week, she was up in San Francisco, staying with her girlfriend Kyla while spending some serious time focusing on her alchemy studies. Hezzie, a witch and another member of the all-female association-slash-vigilante group the Harpies, specialized in the discipline, and while her power level was nowhere near Verity’s, she’d spent many years studying with a couple of accomplished practitioners. “I think I’ll get more out of it if I can really immerse myself for a while,” Verity had told Stone before she left. Then she grinned. “You gonna be okay without me?”
“No. I’m going to starve,” he said dryly. “You’ll return and find me on my kitchen floor, wasted away and half-eaten by Raider. I don’t see how you could handle the guilt, honestly.”
“You know, I think I’ll find a way.”
That had been two days ago. Jason had left a day earlier, flying back East to track a lead on a case and attend a seminar on electronic surveillance. His private-investigation firm hadn’t exactly taken off like a rocket in the two months since he’d opened it, but through a combination of hustle and referrals from his old boss Fran Bartek he’d secured several small cases. This was the first one that had required significant travel.
“So,” Stone said. “What shall we do?”
Raider, intent on his meal, made happy snuffling sounds but otherwise didn’t reply.
Stone almost wished Thaddeus Benchley, the old professor whose echo had temporarily taken up residence in the cat, would return. He’d checked a few times over the last couple months, but the telltale blue glow in Raider’s eyes had not returned since Del Wright from the university’s Chemistry department had resigned his position without warning, sold his house, and left the area. Stone wasn’t sure if the echo was still there, or if it had moved on to wherever echoes went when their unfinished business had been attended to. Either way, though, while he was happy to have been of assistance in solving the decades-old murder, he’d still half-hoped Benchley would stick around afterward.
“Fine. Research it is, then.” He finished the last sushi roll, tossed the container, and grabbed the bottle to carry it upstairs. Not the most exciting evening, but it was better—and more productive—than moping around on the sofa.
He’d barely reached the kitchen doorway when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
That’s odd. He pulled it out and glanced at the display, expecting it to be either Verity or Jason, and frowned when he didn’t recognize the number. “Yes, this is Stone.”
“Dr. Stone?” The voice was female and sounded older. “I’m sorry to bother you, especially on a night like this. You don’t know me—my name is Myra Lindstrom.”
“Er—all right. What can I do for you, Ms. Lindstrom?”
“I was hoping you might be able to help me.”
Stone glanced at his watch. It was almost eight, and he could still hear the wind and rain whipping at the house. “Help you with what?”
“My apprentice. She’s missing, and I can’t reach her. I think something might have happened to her.” Her voice shook.
Well. That was odd. “All right, Ms. Lindstrom. Calm down.” He carried the phone into the living room and paced, with Raider following along behind him. “How did you get my number? Where are you?”
“I’m in San Jose. A friend gave me your number…I’d already heard of you, of course. But she’d heard you were good at this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing, exactly?”
She paused. “Dangerous…things.” Her swallow was audible even over the cell-phone connection. “I really hate to ask, Dr. Stone, but—I’m scared. I think something must have happened to Amy, and I’m afraid it might be something…terrible.”
Stone glanced at the window, watching the heavy rain glittering in the front yard’s perimeter lights. “What makes you think so?”
“Well…” Her voice shook even more. “…because I don’t think it’s the first time this has happened.”
Well, bugger. Why didn’t people ever call him on calm, mild nights? While he hadn’t exactly been looking forward to a night of research, curling up in his armchair with a drink, a warm cat, and some good music sounded a lot better than going back out in the storm to reassure some elderly witch that her apprentice had probably just nipped off for a nice shag or something. “And this can’t wait until tomorrow, then?”
“Well…” she said again. “I suppose it could, but…”
She trailed off. Stone could almost picture her hunched over her phone, clutching a cup of tea and trying not to offend anyone. He wondered how hard it had been for her to get up the courage to call him in the first place.
“All right. All right,” he said, trying to keep the impatience from his tone. “I’ll come tonight. Just tell me where to find you, and we’ll get this sorted out.”
“Thank you, Dr. Stone. Thank you.” The relief in her voice drove away the shaking, but only for a moment. “I do hope I’m wrong about Amy—but I’m terrified I’m not.”
Myra Lindstrom lived in a small, neatly-kept Victorian house near downtown San Jose. By the time Stone drove down there and pulled his black BMW into her narrow driveway the rain had slowed somewhat, but the wind still blew strong and steady. He didn’t bother with the umbrella, but strode quickly across her trim yard and knocked on a door flanked by a flowered mat that said Welcome, Friends, a white wicker chair, and a pot of surprisingly colorful flowers.
She answered on the first knock, as if she’d been waiting for him. “Oh!” she said as she flung the door open and looked him up and down. Her expression faltered for a moment, brief fear passing over it, but then she hitched up a smile. “Dr. Stone. Thank you so much. I’m so grateful to you for coming. Please, come in. Let me take your coat.”
He wiped his feet on the mat and entered to stand in a narrow hallway, taking in the scene with a quick glance as he gave her his overcoat and she hung it on a wooden hall tree.
Myra Lindstrom and her house certainly went together. In her middle sixties, she was small and plump, wearing a neat, old-fashioned dress with a subtle floral print. Her gray hair was done in what Stone had come to think of as “generic old-lady style,” and her dark, birdlike eyes looked troubled behind round glasses.
“I hope I can help,” Stone said, even though he doubted it. He followed her down the hall, snatching quick glances at the dozens of small framed photographs, prints, and what looked like grandchildren’s art projects lining every inch of the wall space. Despite his usual grace, he felt both too big and too male for this profoundly feminine space.
Myra led him into a living room every bit as elaborately decorated as the hallway. “Please, sit down. Can I offer you something? A cup of tea? I was just going to have one myself. To calm my nerves.”
She certainly did seem nervous—and Stone got the impression his presence was adding to it. “Er—thank you. That would be lovely.”
“I’ll be right back. Do make yourself comfortable.”
When she left, Stone didn’t sit in one of her stiff-looking antique chairs. Instead he paced the room, shifting to magical sight. As he expected, many volumes on her floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelf lit up with arcane energy, as did several of the bric-a-brac objects on both the shelf and the various tiny, doily-topped tables. None of it was potent or at all impressive; it all had a cozy, benevolent feel to it, exactly as he’d thought it would. When he moved closer to examine the titles on some of the books, he found tomes on herbalism, health, potions, cooking, and textile crafts.
“Here we are,” Myra called.
Stone turned back to see her creeping in, carrying a tray with a steaming teapot and two delicate china cups and saucers. Her gaze was fixed on him, and he didn’t miss the flare
s in her aura as she perched on the edge of a settee and put the tray down on an oval coffee table. “Are you all right, Ms. Lindstrom? Am I disturbing you somehow?”
She looked startled, her eyes getting big. “Disturbing? Oh, no, of course not. It’s just—well, I thought you’d be older, I suppose.” Tentatively, almost as if expecting him to make some sudden move if provoked, she looked him up and down.
“Older.” He hadn’t changed clothes before he left; his faded jeans, black Adicts T-shirt, and black leather boots fit into her fussy home about as well as she herself might have fit in at a punk-rock concert.
“Well…yes. I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. Stone. Everybody in the community around here has. I just thought with all your unusual experiences, and your position at the University, you’d be…well…older,” she finished lamely, looking down into her teacup.
Older…and less unsettling, he added to himself. “Well,” he said briskly, “now that I’m here, shall we see if I can help you anyway?” He sipped his tea after giving it a brief examination with magical sight. To his relief, no sign of energy hovered around it. He’d been fooled by two powerful alchemical concoctions over the last year, and it had made him overly cautious around strange beverages. A little guilt rose, as Myra Lindstrom was clearly about as malevolent as a baby bunny, but no taking chances.
“Oh, yes.” She set down her teacup and pushed her glasses up to rub her eyes. “Amy Detmire has been my apprentice for a couple of years now. She’s twenty-four.”
“Bit older than the standard, then.”
Myra nodded. “She discovered her magic late. I met her at a shop a friend of mine owns. She’s a sweet little thing. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt her.”
Stone’s pacing was clearly upsetting Myra, so he reluctantly took a seat on a faded red brocade chair across from her. “Let’s rewind a bit, if we may. Why do you think anyone would want to hurt her? Do you have any reason to think so?”
“Let me show you something.” She got up and went to a tiny, cluttered desk on the other side of the room, opened a drawer, and withdrew something Stone couldn’t see. “She got this the other day. Someone pushed it through the mail slot on her door.”
It was a small envelope, made of standard white paper, with no writing on the front. “Hmm. No name, no address, not even a stamp. May I?”
“Of course.”
Before taking it from her, he switched to magical sight and examined it. There was no sign of power around it; all he saw was the glow of Myra’s own aura, its cheerful yellowish-orange dappled by the darker flashes of her unease. He glanced up at her, and when she nodded, he opened it and withdrew the contents.
Only a single, small piece of paper was inside—heavy parchment, about the size of a sheet torn from a pocket notebook. A single symbol dominated most of one side, written in bold black ink. A crude red X crossed out the symbol.
Stone focused more closely on it, trying to find any trace of magic. He saw none. “You say somebody pushed this through your apprentice’s mail slot?”
“Yes. She wasn’t there when it happened. She found it on the floor when she got home.”
“And you’ve no idea who might have done it?”
“I have no idea, and neither did she.” She pointed at it, her nervousness returning. “Do you…know what it means, Dr. Stone? I’ve never seen that symbol before.”
“Nor have I. It looks vaguely like a magical sigil, but I’m not picking up any energy around it. Did you, when she first showed it to you?”
“No.” She looked apologetic. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at that kind of magic. I’m barely more than a minor talent, to be honest.”
“It’s all right. How long has Amy been missing?”
“Two days now. She’s a student at San Jose State, and they’re on holiday break right now so no one’s missed her. Except me, of course. She’s missed two of our sessions, and she never does that.”
“And how long after she got that thing did she disappear?”
“Three days. She brought it over to show me when she found it. She couldn’t find any magic on it either, but she said it disturbed her anyway.”
“I take it you didn’t do any sort of tracking ritual to locate her?”
“I tried.” She bowed her head. “I took something of hers and tried to use it to find her, but I didn’t get anything.” Her voice shook again. “I’m not sure it’s because I’m not good enough to do it, or because she’s…she’s…”
“None of that,” Stone said, though he privately wondered the same thing. It could go either way with practitioners like Myra Lindstrom. Without a more thorough examination he couldn’t tell whether her power level was insufficient to perform the ritual, but as mousy and withdrawn as she seemed to be, he wouldn’t be surprised. Natural talent counted for a lot, sure, but to be truly good at magic you needed a certain amount of force of personality. It was one of the reasons why most powerful mages tended to be an egotistical lot.
“Suppose I take a look,” he said. “Have you got anything of hers I can use? I assume you’ve got someplace to cast a circle…?”
She looked startled. “Tonight, you mean?”
“Why not? I’m here now. Might as well get to it, if it’s all right with you.”
“Oh! Of—of course.” She finished her tea and got up. “Please follow me.”
Stone was fairly sure he knew the reason for her nervousness, and it wasn’t anything suspicious. He’d met witches of Myra Lindstrom’s type before—minor talents, content to use their powers for simple tasks and rituals designed to make their day-to-day lives easier and more pleasant. Their “apprentices” barely qualified for the name by Stone’s standards; they’d never be fully trained mages even after completing their course of study. They represented the vast majority of the magical community: an unassuming, inoffensive bunch, tending to be more tight-knit and cooperative than their more powerful counterparts. Myra had probably called Stone out of desperation, and now things were moving too fast for her. He was sure his brisk, decisive manner was putting her off, but tonight he was in no mood to hand-hold a dithering old witch any more than absolutely necessary.
She led him down a hallway smelling of powder and dried flowers, past more family photos and lovingly framed amateur oil paintings, and opened a door at the end of the hall. “This is where I do my rituals. You’re welcome to use whatever you like. I’ll get you something of Amy’s.” She hurried away, almost as if she was afraid to leave Stone alone too long.
He stepped into the room and nodded approval. This was more like it. He could work with this.
The tiny bedroom had been cleared of furniture. A bookshelf lined one wall, and a narrow, old-fashioned desk was against another. Heavy curtains covered the window. A standard, painted circle, the kind you could customize for the needs of specific rituals, took up most of the space on the hardwood floor. A nice setup, small but serviceable for the kind of low-level magic Myra would certainly be performing.
“Here we are,” she said from behind him. When he turned, she offered him a blue San Jose State sweatshirt. “She left this here. You can use it, right?”
“Yes, of course.” He took the sweatshirt, noticing she didn’t touch him as she handed it over. “I see you’ve got all the necessary components. Just give me a few minutes to set this up, and I’ll see what I can find.”
“Please, take your time.” She took a seat in the room’s only chair in the far corner.
The ritual didn’t take long. Stone set it up quickly, still convinced Amy Detmire had simply had her fill of the fussy old lady and needed to get away for a while. When he finished customizing the circle, he stepped into the center and lowered himself to sit cross-legged with the sweatshirt in front of him. “Right, then. Let’s find out where she’s gone.”
The tracking portion of the ritual was disturbingly quick. He’d barely begun it, barely started to follow the familiar tendril as it lifted free of the sweatshirt an
d stretched toward the ceiling, before it twisted and winked out. He pumped more power into it, trying to re-establish whatever faint connection might exist, but there was no connection.
To Stone’s experience, that could only mean one thing.
He stood heavily as around the circle, the candles snuffed out and the crystals went dead.
“Dr. Stone?” Myra’s voice sounded far away, shaking and soft.
He let his breath out, wishing he didn’t have to give her the news. “I’m…sorry, Ms. Lindstrom.”
“Sorry?” She took a tentative step forward, pausing at the circle’s edge. “You mean…Amy is…”
“She’s gone,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth, and made a hitching sound. “Gone? You mean…d-dead? Are you…are you sure?”
“I wish I weren’t. But…yes.”
“Oh…my God.” She sagged, going pale.
Stone hurried to her, helping her back to her chair. In truth, he was shocked himself. That hadn’t been the result he’d expected to get. “May I get you something? A drink?”
“I…I don’t drink. Oh, my God…” She looked up at him, tears glimmering in her eyes and lips trembling. “Dr. Stone…She…Do you…know where she is? Can you find her?”
“No.” He kept his voice gentle. “A ritual can’t find someone who’s dead, Ms. Lindstrom. I’m sure you know that. I…suggest you call the police and report her missing, if you haven’t already. Does she have anyone else in the area? Parents? Friends?”
She seemed almost not to be listening to him, staring at her shaking hands in her lap. “Her parents are down in southern California. I don’t know any of her friends…”
He patted her shoulder. “All right. I know this is horrible for you, but I promise, the best thing to do now is call the police and make a report. It’s possible they might already have…”
“Found her?” Once again, her voice hitched in a sob, and her watery gaze came up. “Why would anyone want to kill her, Dr. Stone? She was the sweetest girl—kind, gentle. I can’t imagine she’d even have any enemies, let alone anyone who’d want to…” She dissolved into tears again.
