by R. L. King
“Er—” For a second, Stone let his focus fragment. Should he remain here with Rivera and try to help him with his minimal healing skills, or should he go after the figure outside? If magic had been involved, he might be able to trace him if he hurried.
No. You started this. You need to fix it, if you can.
Decision made, he turned his concentration fully to Rivera. He tightened his grip and poured healing energy into the man, doing his best to direct it where it was needed even though he wasn’t sure where that was. Rivera continued to jerk and lurch in his chair, and Stone spared a moment to lower him to the floor.
There was a far-off knock on the door, and then a loud male voice from outside: “Dad? You in there?”
Stone, his heart pounding, swept his gaze between Rivera and the doorway. He’d done everything he could—the man would live or die on his own strength now, and there was no other way he could influence that. He leaped up and hurried down the hall, summoning an invisibility spell just in time as he heard a key rattle in the front door.
It swung open, revealing a tall, heavyset man in his early twenties who bore a strong resemblance to Rivera. “Dad, you here?”
Stone, still invisible, slipped out the open door a second before the man closed it. He was certain Rivera’s son could hear him panting, hear his heart pounding, even smell his sweat, but the door didn’t reopen. Stone dashed across the street, still invisible. As he did, he risked a quick glance with magical sight at the place where he’d spotted the figure, and was rewarded by faint magical traces. They were already fading, though—no way he’d be able to follow them at this point.
Frustrated, he used an illusion to get into the BMW without being seen. It was only after he’d driven two blocks away that he allowed both the illusion and the disregarding spell to drop. He pulled into the parking lot at a fast-food restaurant and let his shoulders slump and his heartbeat slow.
What the hell had happened? It couldn’t have been his doing—he hadn’t even begun trying to get past Rivera’s oath yet. Had his questioning—his mere presence?—triggered some unknown condition? Had proximity to magic done it? Had the shadowy figure done something to Rivera, or had he been watching the house all along?
So many questions, and sitting here in this parking lot wouldn’t get him any answers. He gave himself a few more moments until his breathing had returned to normal and his jangling nerves had quieted, then grabbed a cup of strong coffee from the restaurant’s drive-through and drove off, his mind still spinning with confusion.
30
Ian stopped by Blake’s rented loft in Mountain View Friday afternoon to give her his report. “This is going to get old in a hurry,” he grumbled. “Pretending I’m some kind of magical imbecile.”
She flashed him a sharkish grin as she floated a bottle of local microbrew across the room to him. “It won’t be for long. Think of it as acting practice. How did it go, by the way? He’s already trying to teach you things?”
“Yeah—I guess I’m officially his apprentice, at least as far as he’s concerned. I’d barely agreed to it before he sat me down and tried to show me how to use magical sight.”
“So what did you do?”
Ian shrugged. He popped the top off the bottle and took a long pull. “I just pretended like I wasn’t seeing anything—well, I really didn’t see anything, since I didn’t want him to catch on.”
Blake chuckled. “That’s got to be hell for him—here you are, his son with all this potential, and he can’t get the most basic concept through. Did he get pissed at you?”
“No, he was pretty patient. He’s frustrated, though, I can see it, even without magic. He can’t figure out why I’m not getting it.”
“So he didn’t even seem annoyed? It wouldn’t have surprised me. He’s so far up his own ass, I’d expect he’d take it as an insult to his sacred teaching methods that you had the nerve not to get it.”
“We didn’t practice very long. He called it after about half an hour, and told me not to worry about it. He said he’d do some research and see if he could figure out what was up.”
She snorted. “Research. Some things never change—that’s always been his answer to any problem: just throw more books at it. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.” She slouched back on the sofa, lounging back and hooking her leg over. “Well, keep it up. Next time, have some kind of little epiphany where you start to get it, and get all excited about it like some special-ed kid who just learned to write his name with a crayon.”
Ian narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like it, Blake. I don’t see why we can’t just get it over with. Why do we have to do this whole production number first?”
She tensed and sat up a little. “Don’t forget, kid—I’m running the show here, not you. You agreed we’d do it my way, and that’s how we’re going to do it.” Her expression relaxed, and then the grin was back as she resumed her indolent pose. “Indulge me, okay? You haven’t known him as long as I have, and I’ve been planning this revenge for a long time before I ever met you. I know you want to get back at him too, but trust me, you’ve got nothing on me. So just let me have my way here, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while. We’ll both get what we want. But you have to play along a little longer. Can you do that?”
Ian sighed and set the bottle down. In truth, Blake got on his nerves sometimes—she was too impulsive, her temper too quick, and she always seemed like she considered the entire world to be beneath her. But on the other hand, she’d done a lot for him, helped him out of some jams, and introduced him to some truly memorable experiences—both magical and mundane. If nothing else, he owed her something for opening the world of magic to him. And she was right: they were after the same thing.
Even so, though—
“Hey, Blake?”
“Yeah?”
“He did something last night—or I guess he didn’t do something—and I want to know why.”
“What didn’t he do?” Once again she rose, swinging her legs around so she faced him directly.
Ian had been thinking about this since yesterday, once he’d gotten past his frustration at having to feign magical stupidity, and it had been troubling him. “When I agreed to become his apprentice, there…wasn’t anything to it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He began to pace the room, pulling aside the curtains to gaze out over the street below. The loft was located near the downtown area, in an older but high-end building that catered to artists and other free spirits—as long as they had hefty bank balances, anyway. “I remember when I agreed to study with you—we did that ritual, remember? The whole thing with the circle, and the chanting, and the blood.”
“Yeah, of course.”
He turned back, leaning against the wall and keeping his voice deceptively calm and unruffled. “He didn’t ask for anything like that. No circle, no blood, no ritual. I didn’t have to agree to anything, except that I’d follow his rules about magic and not look for outside training.”
Blake didn’t appear perturbed by his words. She gave a nasty chuckle. “Already breaking that one, aren’t you? But yeah, he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t expect him to.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, he’s a white mage and I’m a black one. We do a lot of things differently. But more importantly he’s your father, and it sounds like he’s already fairly besotted with the idea of being a daddy. He wants to stay on your good side so he can get you under his control, so of course he’ll make it seem like he trusts you completely. When we first started out, I didn’t trust you. I needed a little more concrete assurance.”
She had a point. “He did say I was his son, so my word would be good enough.”
“Yeah. He can be a real bastard when dealing with anybody else, but since you’re probably the only family he’s got, he’ll go a little easy on you. At first, anyway. But like I said, keep your guard up. Don’t let him get under your skin and make you think he’s the loving da
ddy with only your best interests in mind. That’s a fast track to some bad outcomes.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s hard sometimes, though—I can’t look at his aura yet without giving myself away, but I was always good at reading people even before I knew what auras were. I don’t get any feeling he’s trying to screw me over.”
Blake nodded knowingly. “That’s why I waited so long before I got you two together. He’s a master at hiding his real motives. Even now I’m not completely certain you’re ready to tangle with him, but I don’t want to wait any longer. That’s not fair to either of us. If we stick to the plan, we’ve got this, Ian. I promise. In less than a month, we’ll spring our trap and you can get him back for fucking up your life. Won’t that be worth it?”
“Yeah.” Ian pictured what it must have looked like when Bobby discovered his mother and Stone at the Buccaneer’s Cove. He didn’t give a damn about Bobby and didn’t regret killing him, but Stone would have to answer for turning up out of the blue and touching off the events that led to his mother’s death. “Yeah, it will.” His own nasty chuckle mirrored Blake’s. “He has a cat—did you know that?”
Her eyebrows rose. “No shit?”
“Yeah. He’s pretty cool—the cat, I mean. Name’s Raider. He likes me, too. Maybe after we take Dad out, I can sneak him out of there and take him back with me.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say you wanted anything to do with a pussy,” Blake said with a grin. “But hey, whatever gets you through the night. We’ll be going our own ways once this is over, so if you want to take the cat as a consolation prize, knock yourself out.”
Ian finished his beer and departed shortly after that. As he walked down the stairs toward the parking garage, though, his thoughts continued to trouble him.
All his life, he’d prided himself on his ability to read people. It was probably the main reason why he’d survived his life with Bobby, and managed to avoid the worst of the bullies who messed with him when he was growing up. His gut had never steered him wrong before, and his gut was telling him something was off about this whole situation.
The trouble was, he couldn’t see—yet, anyway—what it was. He knew Blake was keeping secrets from him, but she’d always done that. So far, they hadn’t affected his day-to-day life. She could be lying to him about Stone.
But then again, Stone could be lying to him as well. He’d known Blake for close to two years, and interacted with her nearly every day during his magical studies. Stone might be his father, but he’d still only known the man for less than a week. If he truly was as good as Blake claimed at hiding his motives and being a manipulative bastard, of course Ian wouldn’t see it right away.
He’d have to keep his eyes open—that was all there was to it. Only after he’d had a chance to get to know his father better could he make any kind of educated guesses about what he wanted, and only then could he decide what he wanted to do.
It might not end up being what Blake wanted, but right now, with the information he had, the plan hadn’t changed.
31
Stone met Jason back at the agency late Friday afternoon. “Sorry about the wait,” Jason said as he got out of the boring gray Ford he used when his red Mustang would be too conspicuous. “I was tailing a guy on an insurance-fraud case. How’d it go?”
Stone waited until they were inside before speaking. He dropped into a chair with a frustrated sigh. “Not well. I think I might indirectly have led to Mr. Rivera’s harm. Possibly even his death.”
Jason paused in the act of leafing through some papers in a folder. “What?”
Stone told him what had happened during his visit with Joseph Rivera, ending with the shadowy figure he’d spotted leaving the scene.
“Wow.” Jason scribbled something on one of the folder’s pages, tossed it to the side, and fired up his computer, but his attention was clearly focused on Stone. “You have no idea who the guy was?”
“None. I detected a trace of magic as I got the hell out of there, but not enough to track even if I’d pursued him right away.” He sighed again. “But the part that’s bothering me is that I’m not sure he was responsible for what happened. What if I was?”
“How could you be? You said you didn’t do anything to him.”
“I didn’t—but magical oaths are odd things, and if you know what you’re doing, you can set them up with all sorts of trigger mechanisms. I know someone who had one where the trigger was that he couldn’t say anything about a particular subject unless a specific person asked him about it directly. What if this one was set up to trigger with proximity to magic, or if anyone with magical ability attempted to question him?”
“It still doesn’t matter. That’s not your fault, any more than it would be your fault if he had a weak heart and you accidentally startled him into a heart attack. You didn’t mean to do anything to him, did you?”
“Other than question him, and possibly try to get through his oath? No. I made the decision not to try breaking the oath because I wasn’t sure I could do it without harming him. I was thinking about asking Verity to help me, since she’s better at that sort of thing.”
“Yeah…” He thought a moment. “Did you get anything at all out of him?”
“I did. I’m certain he’s the murderer—though I’m not certain he didn’t have inducement to do it. And he definitely knows about magic. He didn’t seem at all surprised when I revealed it to him. In fact, he called me a ‘witch’ and an ‘abomination’.” He got up and began pacing, unable to banish the view of Rivera’s patchy, pleading face from his mind. “I wish I could find out how he’s doing, but it’s probably not wise to call and ask since I’ve no reason to know anything is wrong.”
“Just wait—I’m sure it’ll be in the paper tomorrow morning. They won’t give out all the details, but you should be able to at least find out if he’s still alive.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Stone studied one of the office’s new framed prints, an edgy abstract piece composed of blocks of bold color. “I think the next step is that I’ve got to get inside that church somehow, and see if I can find out anything about their leadership.”
Jason swung his chair around. “You mean infiltrate them?”
“Exactly. First, I need to find out where they’re meeting these days, but that shouldn’t be too hard. With a good illusion, I should be able to get in without arousing any suspicions. I could pose as a potential new member who’d heard about the place from a friend or something.”
When Jason didn’t answer, Stone glanced up at him. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind. What is it?”
“Well…I’m just wondering if that’s the best idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You just told me you think Rivera’s oath might have triggered because you had magic around you. And an illusion is magic, right?”
“Bloody hell…” Stone resumed his chair. “That’s a damned good point. I did use a bit of active magic on Rivera to keep him from leaving the room, but yes, it’s possible to detect illusionary disguises. Although, not to sound conceited, I’m probably good enough to hide my work from them.”
“Probably. But not definitely. And if you end up in the middle of a nest of those fanatics, things could go south in a hurry. Even if you could protect yourself, you’d still have to reveal your magic, and maybe hurt people to get away. Plus, if they know you’re on to them, they might pack up and go somewhere else safer.”
Stone knew Jason well enough to know he didn’t poke holes in ideas without having a potential replacement. “So what do you suggest I do?”
“Nothing.”
“What? Jason, I can’t—”
Jason pointed at himself. “I suggest I do something.”
“What?”
“Think about it, Al—it makes sense. I’m the perfect one to do it. I’ve got experience with this kind of thing. I know about magic, but I don’t have any around me personally. They don’t know wha
t I look like, or that you and I are friends.”
“Wouldn’t be hard to find out, though, would it?”
“Do they even know you’re involved? Just because Rivera’s oath might be able to detect magic around you, that doesn’t mean it knows who you are, right?”
“True,” Stone admitted reluctantly. “I don’t think they’ve ever had the chance to see me without an illusionary disguise active. But if they work out who you are, it wouldn’t be hard for them to trace you to Verity, if not me. And if they know she’s a mage—”
Jason grinned. “Come on, dude. I know you’re a magic snob, but you forget we mundanes have our own pretty good ways of dealing with problems when we don’t have you big mighty mages around to hold our hands.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m a P.I., Al. I’ve been training for this kind of thing for years. I know how to disguise myself, create cover stories, the whole bit. We’re not dealing with the CIA here. I doubt most of these people even have any magic themselves.”
Stone had to allow that Jason had a point. Since he had no idea who’d designed the magical oath on Rivera, he likewise had no way to know if the other members of the New Life Church had similar oaths, or whether whatever mage (or mages—there could be more than one) was working with the church had enough mojo to see through his arcane subterfuge.
“I still don’t like it,” he said. “If they did catch on, you could be in a lot of danger.”
“I’ll be careful. I’ll just go to one of their meetings, keep my ears open, and if any opportunities present themselves, I’ll play it by ear. They probably won’t let anything slip in front of the new guy on purpose, but I might overhear something that’ll at least suggest a next step.”
“We don’t even know when or where their meetings are,” Stone pointed out, but even he had to admit it was a token protest. Much as he didn’t like the idea of sending Jason into the midst of a magical lions’ den, in this case his friend probably had a better chance of getting somewhere than he did.
