by R. L. King
He’d begun the initial customization of the inlaid circle on the slate floor when his phone rang. A jolt of energy ran up his back as he jerked it from his pocket. “Ian?” he demanded without looking at the number.
“Dr. Stone? This is Lieutenant Darga, from the SJPD. Captain Flores asked me to call. Is this a bad time?”
Oh, bloody hell, not another murder. Not now! “It actually is, Lieutenant. I’m in the middle of something rather important. What can I do for you?” He braced for more bad news.
“Sorry to bother you. The cap just wanted me to give you a call and let you know they’ve released the scene of the last murder, so if you want to do your—uh—psychic thing, we can get you access now.” Darga sounded skeptical, which she probably was. She’d likely been given the task of making this call without a whole lot of background information.
Stone clenched his fist. He’d almost forgotten about the status of the recent murder investigation—the whole situation with Ian and Trin had driven it from his mind. “Er—thank you. Please give the Captain my thanks, and let him know I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve sorted out what I’m working on here.”
“Sure, no problem. Have a good day, Dr. Stone.”
Stone put the phone away without another thought and continued working on the circle.
He lost track of time and had no idea how long he’d been working when a light knock on the door interrupted his focused activity. “Yes?”
Verity and Jason entered, shooing Raider out and closing the door behind them. Verity held up a white bag. “You didn’t have anything in your fridge except a half-full bottle of orange juice and some old Chinese food, so we took a quick trip to the sandwich shop downtown. Roast beef okay?”
Food was the last thing on Stone’s mind at the moment. “Yes, fine, whatever,” he said without looking up from his work. “Thank you. Just put it on the table over there, please.”
Jason carried a pitcher of ice water and three glasses. “How’s the circle going?” he asked, setting them down next to the bag as Verity unloaded three sandwiches.
“Slowly. I want to make sure I make it sufficiently potent to get through any protections Trin and her unknown co-conspirator might have in place. Should be ready to go in another half-hour or so.”
Verity walked over and stood near it, studying it. “This is pretty heavy-duty stuff. At least you don’t need a tether object—that’ll make it easier.” She pointed to part on the far side. “Are you sure that’s right, though? The symbol looks upside-down to me.”
Stone flicked his gaze to where she indicated, and froze. One of the symbols was inverted. “Damn, you’re right.” He let his breath out and pushed his hand through his hair. How many other bits of the circle had he drawn incorrectly because he’d been in too much of a hurry, too stressed, too close to the situation?
He hauled himself back to his feet. “Perhaps I should take a short break, if I’m making stupid mistakes like that.”
“I get it, Doc,” she said gently, taking his arm. “Come on. You’ll find him, but you need to take care of yourself too. You can’t fight Trin when you’re not at your best.”
He let her lead him to the table and pour him a glass of water. “Just a few moments, though. If she’s got him—”
“Won’t take long to eat, and you’ll think better if you aren’t starving.” Jason was already halfway through his own sandwich. “Trust me on this one.”
While Stone devoured the large sandwich and tried not to count every second he wasn’t working toward his goal, Verity paced around the outside of the circle, examining it. She corrected the inverted symbol, but returned to the table after a few moments without pointing out anything else. “The rest looks good to me. But I’ve never done one this complex before, so—”
Stone got up, wadded the wrapper, and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “It’s got to be complex. But that means there’s more ways for it to go wrong.”
“Al? Will you listen to me for a minute?” Jason said.
“What? I’ve got to—”
“Yeah. I know you do. But just listen. I see this all the time in my business—people who are looking for someone, whose loved ones are missing. They get crazy, which is completely understandable. Their world’s been turned upside down, and they can’t do a damn thing about it, except trust that somebody else they don’t even know can make it right. It’s really hard to watch. But the point is, they’re not thinking straight, and neither are you. You have got something you can do yourself, but you can only do it if you keep your head on straight.”
Stone almost protested that his head was on straight—but even as he opened his mouth to speak, he knew it was bullshit and both his friends knew it. Of course his thought processes would be affected. This wasn’t some stranger who had passed out of his sphere of control. This was his son, possibly in the hands of a woman who’d made it her life’s vocation to get brutal revenge on him. “You’re right,” he said softly. “But it doesn’t matter—I’ve got to do this. Nobody else can. Not even Verity, this time.”
“I get that.” Jason’s voice was calm, even. “And you will do it. But slow down. Take some breaths. A couple minutes won’t mean anything, except you’ll be in a better frame of mind to do it right the first time.”
“All right.” He lowered himself back into the chair, closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths, trying to summon the meditation technique he used to quiet his mind before difficult rituals. It didn’t come easily—images of a bloody, broken Ian kept trying to poke their way around his peaceful visualizations—but eventually his heart slowed, most of his tension ebbed away, and the growing, achy knot at the base of his skull began to recede. He stood again, glancing at his watch. Three-fifteen. At this rate, it would be almost four before he could even start the ritual, and depending on how long it took him to find Ian—assuming he could find Ian—Trin could have another hour or more to take his son farther away.
There was no helping it, though. He couldn’t rush the circle-casting—the ritual could potentially be difficult enough without screwing up the design and having to start over again. He bent to his task without another word.
When he finally looked up and stepped back, the clock on the far wall read 4:10. “There,” he said, stretching his arms above his head accompanied by little pops from his lower back. “Verity, take a look and make sure I haven’t buggered up anything else that you can see.”
Verity and Jason had been sitting silently at the table, watching him work. She got up and paced around the circle again, peering at the intricate design. “Looks fine to me,” she said at last. “I don’t know how much that means, though—this is way beyond the stuff I can do without a lot of reference books.”
“It’s not particularly complex. Just a tracking circle, but I’ve built a lot of redundancy and protections into it, in case Trin does have him hidden behind wards or she’s set up a nasty surprise for anyone who comes looking.” Stone stretched again and regarded the circle. Now came the moment of truth. Would he be able to find his son? Had Trin already killed him? He felt the tension begin to crawl through his core again, and took some more deep breaths. You’re no good to him if you can’t hold it together. Just get on with it.
“Right, then. Let’s get started.” He stepped into the center of the circle and lowered himself to a cross-legged sitting position. “Be ready to go—this part shouldn’t take long, and if I find him, I’ll want to leave immediately.”
“Yeah, of course,” Verity said gently. “Good luck, Doc.”
Once he began the ritual, it was as if nothing around him existed any longer. The room and his friends faded away, replaced by the ordered, brightly glowing lines of magic that made up the circle, his own body, and the other magic items in the area. He’d already discovered during previous rituals that the ley line running through the middle of the property enhanced any magical workings done here; it didn’t make them more powerful, but it made them easier to cast. They took
less effort now than they did at the place in Palo Alto, even putting aside the additional Calanarian energy.
He focused on his son, picturing Ian’s essence in his mind’s eye. He visualized the boy’s potent silver-and-purple aura, his physical appearance, and the traits he’d already come to know: the quick mind, the stubborn streak, the frustration at holding back, the love of sensual pleasures. How much of that was real, and how much had been colored by the influence Trin had been exerting on him without his knowledge? If (when, he quickly amended) he got Ian back, would the boy be a completely different person? Or had Trin’s and the oath’s influences only succeeded in nudging him in certain directions without fundamentally altering his personality?
Find him first. The rest can wait until later.
He gathered the threads and formed them into a single strand of bright energy. Normally, a tracking ritual needed a tether object—something the target had interacted with. The more personal the item, the better the connection was, and the easier for the ritual to locate the person. In this case, though, Stone didn’t need such an object. Because Ian was his son, they shared the strongest of blood connections; in essence, he was the tether object. Normally, it was nearly impossible for close blood relations—parents and children, or full siblings—to hide from each other magically, especially if the seeker was more magically powerful or talented. If it weren’t for Trin and her unknown partner, it should have taken only minutes.
It didn’t take minutes. Unconsciously, Stone tensed as the glowing tendril reached out, trying to locate its target. It poked first one direction, then another, looking like a confused bloodhound trying to lock in a scent coming from multiple sources. Stone poured more power into the ritual, opening the connection to Calanar and calling for the swelling source of energy limited only by his own physical body’s ability to channel it. “Come on…” he muttered.
From far away, he heard a voice, but he ignored it.
“Come on…” he growled again. He closed his eyes and narrowed his focus to nothing but that single tendril, riding it with his consciousness as it continued its search. His head began to hurt, but he ignored that too. He would find Ian, damn it! Trin was not going to win this time. He wasn’t—
“Doc!”
This time, the voice did punch through his focus. It was Verity, and she sounded concerned. What was wrong? Had something breached his sanctum?
As soon as his focus wavered, the ritual collapsed. The tendril dropped like a cut rope and then disappeared, and the ordered lines of the circle faded and died. Stone fell back, panting, and opened his eyes.
Verity and Jason stood over him at the edge of the circle, both of them looking scared. “Doc,” Verity called again. “Are you okay?”
“Why did you stop me?” he demanded. His breath still came fast, his heart hammering, his head throbbing. He reached up a shaking arm and swiped sweat from his forehead. “I almost had it—” He knew even as he said it that it wasn’t true. The tendril hadn’t come anywhere close to finding Ian.
“It’s been nearly an hour, Al,” Jason said. He pointed at the clock. “I didn’t think tracking rituals took that long, do they?”
“What?” He sat up, fighting a wave of lightheadedness. Jason had to be wrong—there was no way could have been at this for that long. But the clock didn’t lie: it was well after five now. “It didn’t seem anywhere near that long.”
“Did you find him? Did you get anything?” Verity levitated a glass of water to him, clearly unwilling to step inside the circle.
“Not a damn thing.” Stone caught the glass, dragged himself up, and floated free of the circle’s boundary. “Well—he’s not dead. I’m reasonably sure of that, which is something. But the ritual kept casting about as if it couldn’t get a fix on him.”
“So he’s behind wards?”
“They’d have to be damned powerful wards. Between my power level and the fact that Ian’s my blood relative, normal wards couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Is there anything else that could be going on?” Jason took Stone’s arm and steered him to a chair. “Any other way they could have blocked you?”
“Well…I don’t know anything about whatever thing Trin’s taken up with. It could be strong enough to block me, especially if it’s specifically trying to. I’m inclined to believe that’s what’s going on, rather than the wards.”
“Why is that?” Verity asked.
“Because the other impression I got was that he’s not too far from here. I don’t think she’s taken him to Los Angeles or somewhere even farther away. And if that’s true, she’s away from her home ground. I don’t know of too many places around here with wards strong enough to resist me, and since she’s a black mage, she couldn’t have built them herself.”
“What about Ian?” Jason dropped into the opposite chair. “He’s a white mage, and he said he was holding back on you. Could he have done it?”
“Almost certainly not,” Stone said, as a sudden, grim realization came to him.
“Why not?”
“Because I doubt very much that he is a white mage. If Trin trained him, she’d have taught him her style of magic.”
Verity’s eyes narrowed. “And if he was hiding his power from you, he could easily have hidden that from you too.”
“Exactly. It’s not at all obvious what sort of style a mage follows unless you catch them draining someone or they try to do something their style isn’t good at.” He drew a deep breath. “Bloody hell, that’s probably why he was pretending to be so rubbish at picking up what I was teaching him. Trin doesn’t know I’ve gone black, so she probably told him to fail so I wouldn’t notice discrepancies in his talent.”
“Damn…” Verity murmured. “Do you think you’ll be able to…fix him? Get him back to white?”
“That depends on how far he’s gone.” Stone slammed his empty water glass down on the table. “But none of that matters now. I’ve got to find him first, and I don’t have a bloody idea how to do that. The rest can come later.” He glanced at the window. “It will be dark soon, and that will make things more difficult.”
Verity paced the room. “Looks like the circle’s still intact, at least.”
Stone nodded, distracted. That was something, but not much. Since the ritual hadn’t completed, the components weren’t consumed. But that still didn’t put him any closer to finding Ian.
“What will you do now? Would it do any good to try it again?”
“The same ritual? Not likely.” His head still throbbed, though the pain was already lessening.
“Should we go back to his place and get a tether object? I know you don’t usually need one, but maybe—”
“I don’t know. It might help, but I doubt it. I had the connection. I know he’s out there somewhere, but something’s preventing me from reaching him.”
“It couldn’t hurt, though, right?”
Stone sighed. “I suppose not. Could you two go over to his place and find something? I’ve got to make a few changes to this circle, and it will take less time if we work in parallel. Be careful, though. I doubt Trin is watching the place, but don’t assume she isn’t.”
“We got this, Doc.” Verity gave him a quick hug. “Promise you won’t do anything till we get back, even if he calls or something.”
“You know I can’t promise that, but I doubt he will. And if he does, I’ll call you so you’ll know where I’ve gone.”
“We’ll hurry,” Jason said, and they both departed.
Stone remained standing in the middle of the sanctum, staring down at the complex, intricate lines of the circle for several minutes. He clenched his fists, trying to quell his frustration. The ritual should have worked, damn it! Trin should not have been able to block him, which meant that whatever she was working with had to be potent indeed. Did it have some reason to hate him too, or was it simply pursuing its own agenda, which happened to be on a parallel course with hers at the moment? She’d said she promised Ian to it,
so perhaps it was going along with her long enough to get what it wanted.
Or perhaps they were truly working together, and if he found Trin he’d have to face both of them.
That was fine. After all this, it would be a relief to finally confront the thing at the root of this malignant little plan. Especially if it meant finally dealing with Trin.
He left the sanctum, closing the door behind him, and started down the stairs. Raider, who’d been waiting patiently at the top, followed him down. It would take Jason and Verity at least forty-five minutes to get to Ian’s place and back, even with light Saturday-evening traffic. That seemed like an eternity, but what else could he do? He had no other way to find Ian. He’d been so confident in his ability to do it—hell, he could find Verity nearly unerringly, and she wasn’t even related to him. A parent-child bond was the strongest one existent, magically speaking. They shared a blood connection, which should have made the tracking process nearly impossible to block. What was he missing?
“What am I missing, Raider?” he asked. He didn’t expect the cat to answer—that ship had sailed a couple of months ago after Thaddeus Benchley’s echo had departed—and wasn’t surprised when he did not. “He’s my son. There isn’t anyone else on earth with a closer blood bond to me at this point. Why can’t I—”
He stopped.
No closer blood bond.
Blood.
Yes—that’s it!
He snatched his phone from his pocket and called Verity.
She answered quickly. “Doc? Something up?”
“Yes. I’ve got the answer. I know how to do the ritual!”
“You do? How?”
“Blood.”
“Blood? What are you talking about? Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Ian and I share a blood bond. It should be impossible for anything to block me, and yet something is. But if I use my own blood as part of the ritual, I don’t think there’s any way it can prevent me from finding him. Not if I put all my power into it.”
