by R. L. King
“No, but obviously they do know about New Life, since that’s where Amy Detmire’s body was discovered.”
“Yeah, but that place was abandoned by then. They probably just think it was a good spot to commit the murder. I’ll keep my eyes open, but I’m not worried about the police.”
“Right, then. Call me tomorrow as soon as you can. Even if you don’t find out anything—I want to be sure you got out of there safely.”
“You worry too much, Al. But yeah, I’ll call. If V gets back, maybe we can have a late lunch and talk about it.”
“Yes…let’s do that.”
When Stone hung up, his first thought was of Ian. At some point—and not very far in the future—he’d need to introduce his son to Jason and Verity. If the boy was going to stay in the area and study magic, he couldn’t keep him a secret. He didn’t want to keep him a secret. Perhaps if everything went well tomorrow, he could invite Ian along and introduce him then. That meeting promised to be one of the stranger and more interesting ones he’d ever experienced, but what was his life if not strange and interesting?
Realizing he’d nearly left her out of the loop completely regarding his investigations so far, Stone called Myra Lindstrom later that afternoon. “I wanted to see how you were getting on,” he said.
“Oh…all right, I suppose,” she said, though she didn’t sound all right. “I saw that they caught the man who…who killed Amy.”
“Yes, it appears so.”
“Do you think this will…end it?”
“End it?”
“You know…the killing. This organization...the Gates of Righteousness…they sound like they hate us. Want us dead.”
“Yes, well…” Stone weighed his words with care. There was no point in frightening the old lady with tales of more murders or a group of religious zealots united in their hatred of ‘witches.’ “It’s hard to say,” he said at last. “It’s possible Mr. Rivera was acting alone—that he had some kind of grudge against Ms. Detmire personally, or that he found out about her connection with you and decided to act.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe yet, Ms. Lindstrom. I’m still looking into it. I’d say you shouldn’t worry about it too much, but be careful. That’s always good advice. Remain on your guard, and don’t go anywhere alone at night.”
“I never go anywhere at night,” she said, with a little quaver in her voice. “Poor Amy…Are you sure I shouldn’t tell the police about that note?”
“I don’t think it would do any good at this point, and it could cause trouble for both of us if they find out we’ve been withholding evidence. Best to leave it to me. As I said, I’m still looking into it. Just—keep doing what you’re doing, and let me deal with it.”
“All right…” She still didn’t sound convinced. There was a long pause, and then she said softly, “I do know one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I…don’t think I’m going to take another apprentice. That awful note…it called me an ‘abomination.’ It said I shouldn’t…‘indoctrinate any more acolytes into my blasphemous ways.’” Another pause. “I…I’m sorry, Dr. Stone, but I’m afraid. I’ve never been very strong in magic, and it sounds like they won’t bother me if I don’t train anyone else.”
Stone tightened his hand on the phone, filled with sudden anger at this organization of cowardly zealots. This was what they wanted: not only to kill mages, but to prevent more from being trained by frightening timid practitioners into refusing to take on apprentices. That was how magical society perpetuated itself—existing mages joined with apprentices and taught them the Art. If the number of available teachers decreased, that meant fewer mages would be trained. And there were damned few left these days anyway.
“Dr. Stone?”
“Yes—sorry. I was just…thinking.”
“Do you think I’m a foolish, frightened old woman?”
“I…think it might be prudent for you to lie low, Ms. Lindstrom. In any case, you’re still grieving. Give yourself some time to sort yourself out before you make any decisions.”
“Yes…that’s wise. Thank you for everything, Dr. Stone.”
“I wish things could have gone better, but I promise, I’ll keep my eyes open for anything else.” He was about to bid her good day and hang up when he remembered something. “Ms. Lindstrom—there is one thing you can do to help me, if you’re willing.”
“What…is it?” Her tone was tentative.
“When we first spoke, you mentioned someone else whose apprentice was killed, a while back. If there’s any way you can get me more information about that, it might help.”
“Oh! I’ll…I’ll try. It was a few years ago, and my memory’s not as good as it used to be, but I might have something about it in my papers. I’ll check.”
“Thank you, Ms. Lindstrom. And please—don’t hesitate to call if anything else disturbing happens.”
“I sincerely hope it doesn’t, Dr. Stone.”
33
When Stone’s phone rang late the following morning, he thought it had to be Jason reporting on his mission to infiltrate the New Life Church. Instead, Verity’s number flashed on the display. “Good morning.”
“Hey, you’re still alive!” Her voice sounded cheerful and amused. “I guess Raider didn’t eat you after all.”
“He did nibble a bit, but we managed without you. How was your alchemy retreat?”
“Really good. I learned a lot, working with Hezzie. I think we actually taught each other some good stuff, so it was a success. I’m going to have to figure out how to set up an alchemy lab in my apartment.”
“If you need help, let me know. Alchemy isn’t my specialty, obviously, but I’ve got some contacts I can put you in touch with.”
“The tough part will be keeping the weird smells under control. Now I know why Hezzie lives where she does, but it’ll be harder for me in the middle of suburbia.”
“Well, you can always set something up here, if you promise not to blow the place up. I’m growing fond of it.”
“Thanks, Doc. Can’t promise that yet, though, since I’m still learning.”
“Are you back home now?”
“Yeah, just got in. I tried to call Jason, but got voicemail. I guess he’s on a case or something.”
“He’s actually working on something for me. He’s who I thought was calling, in fact. I’m expecting to hear from him soon.”
“Something for you? What kind of something?”
“Why don’t you come over, and I’ll tell you all about it? We can wait for his call, and then have lunch together. I’ve got quite a lot of news—possibly more, depending on what Jason has to report.”
Jason still hadn’t called back by the time Verity arrived at Stone’s place an hour later.
She grinned as she came in, bending to snatch up Raider and cuddle him. “Oh, I missed you so much!”
“I see where I rate,” Stone said sourly.
“Not like I ever hid it.” She set the tabby down and stood on tiptoe to kiss Stone. “Don’t worry, though—you can give me things Raider never can.”
“Yes, like space for your odorous alchemy lab.”
“Exactly! What else did you think I meant?” Laughing, she danced away from his glare of mock annoyance. “So what’s this about some secret project with Jason?” She headed to the living room and dropped onto the sofa, curling her legs up under her.
He gave her the details of the Amy Detmire situation, starting with Myra Lindstrom’s call and ending with the latest news about Joseph Rivera and Jason’s plan to infiltrate the New Life Church. He’d already pulled out the note from Portas Justitiæ prior to her arrival, and showed her that as well.
Her cheerful mood sobered quickly as she listened. “Wow,” she said softly, examining the note. “Poor Amy. I wonder why they targeted her specifically.”
“No idea—other than that she was a relatively low-powered apprentice wi
th a low-powered master, so they didn’t have to worry that either of them would put up much of a fight.”
“So they’re cowards.” Her expression hardened. “Too bad they didn’t go after me—things would have gone a lot differently.”
“Well, don’t get any ideas about putting yourself out as bait. I doubt they’d take it anyway—you’re not an apprentice anymore, and if they know anything about the magical world and don’t want to cause trouble for themselves, I’d be about their worst choice for someone to mess with. The only worse one I can think of around here is Kolinsky, and he doesn’t have an apprentice.”
“So Jason’s going to one of the New Life services, trying to see if he can overhear anything suspicious?”
“Yes. I didn’t like it, but he made a good point: if they have some way to detect magic, it makes more sense for someone without any to do it, at least initially.”
She glanced at her watch. “What time’s the service over?”
“No idea. It started at nine-thirty, so I’d think it would be done by now. Perhaps he found someone to talk to afterward.”
“Yeah…and some of those old-school church services can go on forever.”
Stone settled back on the other end of the sofa. “Suppose you tell me about your week while we wait. What did you learn?”
She scooted down next to him and put her head on his shoulder. “Not a lot of specific potions yet—mostly this was about learning herbs, reagents, that kind of thing. What they do, how they combine, how magic interacts with them.” She wrinkled her nose. “It was a lot like a week-long chemistry class, to be honest, only with worse smells. You’ll be grateful I took a shower and changed clothes before I came over here.”
“No doubt,” he said dryly.
“Hezzie’s knowledge is amazing, but she gets so frustrated because she doesn’t have the magical power to back up the stuff she wants to do. That’s why she likes teaching me: I don’t have the knowledge yet, but I’ve got punch she can’t match. Between us, we might actually be on to something. Did you know she runs a shop?”
“I did not. What kind of shop?”
“One of those new-age things down in the Haight. Tiny little place, hard to find if you don’t know it’s there. It’s kind of a hippie shop on the surface—crystals, books about Eastern mysticism, tarot decks, that kind of thing. But she also sells reagents and supplies out of the back room to magical practitioners.”
“Indeed. Perhaps I’ll have to check it out sometime, if she’ll let me in.”
She blew air through her teeth. “Yeah—that’s the thing. She doesn’t like you very much. Don’t take it personally, though. She doesn’t like any men very much. Not straight ones, at least. Her shop caters almost exclusively to women. She doesn’t kick men out, but she makes it pretty clear she’d rather they take their business somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry. It sounds like she’s been through quite a lot. I won’t cause her any distress by showing up.”
“Yeah…probably a good idea.”
“In any case, I’m glad to see you branching out, finding your own specialties. Did you get a chance to do anything with the shifter blood?”
“Actually, yeah. Well, maybe.” She retrieved her bag from the table and pulled out a small, brown vial with a cork stopper.
“What’s that?”
“If we did it right, it’s a variation on the potion those guys up at the animal preserve were taking.”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “The enhancement elixir? Verity, I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be yet—we haven’t tested it. It’s not as good as theirs, because we didn’t want to make something that would burn out the user’s body. And…this one’s specialized.”
“Specialized?”
“Yeah. I—well, after we got back, Jason asked me if I could try to come up with something he could use. He was really jazzed to have the extra strength, speed, and regenerative abilities he got from that stuff he drank. Said it made him feel more useful when you and I are throwing magic around.”
“I remember that.”
“So…he gave me some of his blood, to experiment with. Hezzie and I had a theory that if you used a specific person’s blood, you could customize something that would work for them, but only for them.” She looked away. “You know…kind of like what happened with you back in England. When Nessa’s people used your blood to create a mixture to interfere with your magic.”
Stone tensed. That was a period in his life he preferred not to recall. “So…you succeeded? You created something that will work for Jason?”
“Yeah, I think so. Can’t be sure until he tries it. But...”
“But…?”
She sighed again and put the vial back in her bag. “I just don’t know if I should give it to him.”
“Why not?”
“I—I feel bad about it, because I know how he feels. I know he wants more than anything to be more useful, to be able to contribute more when we go after magical threats.” She leaned back against him. “I get that, and I want to help him. But I don’t want him to get dependent on some…magical super-soldier serum. Especially because we can’t be absolutely sure how it’ll affect his physiology. And that’s not even the most important reason.”
“What is?”
She pointed at her bag. “That little vial there took about a third of the shifter blood we had to make. We wasted a third on experiments. That means we’ve got that one, and one more. That’s it. Unless we want to call up Viajera in Peru and ask her for more blood—or find some other shifter who’s willing to donate to the cause.”
“Hmm…that’s a good point. Suppose we find out whether it works and performs as expected before we go any further along those lines.”
“Yeah. I’ll give it some thought. I just don’t want to get his hopes up, you know? It could do nothing at all, or it could mess him up.”
“Well, ultimately it will be up to him to decide.” He glanced at his watch again. “It’s after noon. I’d have expected to hear from him now, but I don’t want to call him and risk interfering with something he might be doing.”
“Go ahead and call. When he’s on a case, he switches it to voicemail. I’m sure that’s what he’d do for this.”
Stone pulled out his phone and hit Jason’s number. As he expected, he got the voicemail message. “Jason? It’s me. It’s just after noon, and I’m getting a bit concerned that I haven’t heard from you yet. Verity’s here too. If you’ve popped off for lunch or something, give us a call and let us know if you got anything.”
He tossed the phone on the table and leaned back with a sigh. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Yeah. He can take care of himself. I think both of us need to stop thinking that mundanes can’t get anything done without us. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years, and Jason’s good at this stuff. We just need to trust him.”
But when another hour passed without any contact, even Verity began to get nervous. She sat stiffly on the sofa, watching some mindless TV program she’d turned on and stroking Raider, while Stone paced.
“It’s after one,” she said at last. “Even super-long old-fashioned church services don’t last for more than three hours. You said he knew we were supposed to get together for lunch?”
“That was the plan. And I can’t imagine he wouldn’t find time to at least send a quick text message if he was on to something.”
“You’re worried, aren’t you?”
“Getting there,” Stone admitted. Why had he agreed to let Jason go off into what might be a den of mages? They’d already killed one person—what would stop them from doing it again? Sure, Jason wasn’t an apprentice, and was a lot tougher and more prepared than Amy Detmire had been. They shouldn’t be able to detect any magic on him, but who knew whether they limited their activities to mages? If they’d somehow figured out Jason was the brother of one mage and the friend of another, they might decide to get him out of the way to discourage further i
nvestigation.
The two of them exchanged glances, and after a moment, Verity reluctantly gave voice to what they were both thinking. “Do you…think it’s worthwhile to do a ritual to try to find him? It seems like overkill, but—”
Stone retrieved his phone. This time, he tried Jason’s mobile, his office, and his apartment phone. In all three cases, he got voicemail and left messages. “It does seem like overkill,” he agreed grimly. “But better overkill than doing nothing.”
Verity seemed relieved. She shooed Raider off and unfolded herself from the sofa. “Let me do it—I don’t need a tether object for him.”
With the circle already mostly set up in the attic, it took only a few minutes for them to customize it for the tracking ritual. Stone continued to pace as Verity took her place in the center and lit the candles around the perimeter.
We’re both overreacting. Any moment now he’ll return the calls, wondering what all the fuss was about. Not for the first time, he pulled out his phone again and checked to make sure no one had left him voicemail, even though the ringer would be unmistakable in the silent workroom. Then he forced himself to sit, watching the ritual with magical sight as Verity fed power into it.
As it always did when he watched her work, Stone’s pride in her swelled. She had become a fine mage under a combination of his tutelage and Edna Soren’s, but the circle work had been all him. He remembered with amusement the way she used to grumble when his lessons grew too technical—she’d always been more comfortable with organic magic than his more mathematical style—but she’d nonetheless learned those lessons well.
He thought about Ian. Would his son learn them well too? His early days with Verity had been a joy; she’d been like an eager sponge, ready and willing to soak up whatever knowledge and techniques he’d taught her. She’d learned fast, taking to almost everything he showed her with a quick mind and a keen talent. Ian, on the other hand, seemed to struggle at every step.
Stone felt sudden shame. He shouldn’t be comparing them. That was a bad road for a teacher to go down. Every student was different—they all had different styles of learning, different paces, different needs. He’d learned that as much, if not more, from his mundane profession as his magical one. The challenge of being a good teacher was to evaluate each student as an individual, determine how he or she responded to various methods, and pick the one that best suited the situation. Ian had the talent—Stone was sure of it. If his son wasn’t learning as fast as he’d hoped, perhaps that was more his failing than the boy’s. He simply hadn’t figured out the key to that particular lock.
