The Seventh Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Can you hide ours so they can’t see them?” He closed his hand around the little bottle in his pocket, wondering if he should drink it now. He didn’t feel vulnerable—not yet, anyway. So far, this situation was no different than several others he’d experienced during cases: tramping around in the dark looking for the people he’d been paid to follow, and those he could handle just fine with his fists and his gun.

  “Sort of—I’m still not as good at it as Doc, but I can make them less obvious. I’m already doing that, so stay close.”

  They walked in silence for a while as they picked their way through the weedy clearing and approached the house. As they got closer, it rose even higher above them, some of its jutting beams stretching up three and four stories high. “This must have been some place before it burned.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. If Doc’s right and it’s as big as Caventhorne, it was huge.”

  “What’s Caventhorne?”

  “Oh, right, I never told you about that.” She peered in through a broken window, but passed it and chose a spot where the wall had crumbled. “Let’s go in here.”

  “Be careful—the floor’s probably rotted. Let me go first.”

  Reluctantly, she stood aside and held the light spell, letting him scramble through the broken spot and test the moldering floor inside. It felt squishy and creaked a little under his boots, but held. “Okay, come on.”

  She joined him, holding up her spell to look around. The room they stood in barely qualified for the name, with nothing more than the rotted floor and four walls in various states of destruction. The ceiling was nearly nonexistent, with only a few sturdy, charred beams crisscrossing the open space above.

  “See anything?” he asked.

  “Not yet. Come on.” She headed for an opening on the other side that had certainly been a door at one point but was now only a crazily tilted frame.

  Outside the door was a hallway stretching in both directions, with several more openings, along with a few doors hanging from single hinges or leaning against the walls. All of them looked burned and battered. “Fire probably warped the frames and blew the doors out,” Jason whispered.

  “We need to find a way down. I bet Doc’s right—if any of the basement’s intact, that’s where they’ll be. It’ll be the most sheltered space.”

  As they continued forward, Jason following close on Verity’s heels and occasionally checking behind them to make sure nothing had poked out from any of the dark doorways, he said, “So, what’s Caventhorne?”

  “Oh—right. It’s a huge old place in England. Used to belong to Doc’s old master, William Desmond, but when he died, he said in his will that it should be turned into kind of a magical library and resource center for all mages to use. Doc’s administering it, so he goes over there every couple weekends to deal with stuff.”

  “Administering it?” Jason glanced quickly sideways when he heard a noise, but just as quickly determined it was nothing more than the skittering of some small animal. “How the hell does he find time to do that?”

  “He’s not really doing it himself. He put a couple of his old friends from college in charge of it, and the guy who was like the head of staff when Mr. Desmond owned it is still running the house. Doc just gets updates and checks in now and then.”

  “Huh.” Sometimes it bothered Jason when it occurred to him how little he knew about large aspects of both his sister’s and his best friend’s lives. He’d always considered himself a fairly uncomplicated guy—he prided himself on doing his job well and protecting those he loved when they needed it, but aside from that he would have been happy with a simple life of workouts, Friday night beers, dates, and hanging out with friends. If anybody had told him ten years ago that most of his non-working time would be spent with a sister who could start fires with her mind and a guy who routinely involved himself with world-threatening magical plots, he’d have accused them of hitting the sauce too hard.

  As it was, he hadn’t yet determined to his satisfaction how he felt about the fact that Stone and Verity sometimes seemed to be moving in a completely different world from him. Sometimes—he had to be honest, it was true—he wished none of it had ever happened, that everything in his life would just be…normal. Normal he could deal with. Normal he felt confident his skills could handle. Between his wits, his speed, his fists, and his gun, there weren’t too many ordinary problems—or even less ordinary, but still mundane, problems—he couldn’t deal with. Every now and then, when he lay in bed staring at the ceiling in his apartment, he felt guilty about wishing that were true.

  Verity used to be his little sister. She’d looked up to him, admired him, counted on him to protect her from bullies. That wasn’t nearly as true anymore. Sure, she was still his little sister—nothing would change that. He could still provide a sympathetic ear if she needed one, and wise brotherly advice when she bothered to listen. But after seeing what she could do—what Stone had taught her to do—he knew his days of rescuing her from harm were mostly over. Hell, half the time she rescued him these days. He knew he shouldn’t resent that: these were modern times, and there was no question he was proud as hell of his sister and what she’d accomplished. But that didn’t mean some lizardy, cave-dwelling corner of his brain didn’t occasionally give him grief about it.

  He gripped the elixir bottle again as he continued creeping down the rotted hallway behind Verity, clutching it like a lifeline. He knew he couldn’t come to depend on it, since only the one bottle remained, and there might not be any more. He still hadn’t decided if he’d contact Tony, the bear shifter they’d met up in Sonoma, and see if he could make a deal with the man for some of his blood so Verity could make more. If he could get a regular supply, not only would it help him contribute more when he went out with Stone and Verity, but it would help him in his PI work too. Maybe after they got back, he’d—

  “Jason!” Verity’s harsh whisper cut through his thoughts.

  He started, his hand going for his gun as he darted his gaze around looking for threats. “Sorry—what?”

  She cast him a sharp look, then pointed up ahead. “Intersection. We have to pick a direction.”

  He examined the options. The hallway they’d been traversing continued forward, but on their left a wide space opened on another, equally large hall stretching off into the darkness of the house’s interior. “I’d say we should go further in. If Al’s right and they’re in the basement, they probably aren’t near the outer edge of the house.”

  “I agree.” She sounded relieved. “Let’s go. We—” She stopped, stiffening.

  “What?”

  “I think I saw something.” She ducked sideways, around the corner, and peered down the side hallway, motioning for him to do the same.

  “What did you see?” Jason himself saw nothing; only darkness yawned ahead.

  “Might have been an aura. I saw a red glow up ahead, just for a second, and then it disappeared.”

  “Where was it?” Jason dropped his voice to an even softer whisper.

  She pointed. “Down low, on the left up there about twenty feet ahead.”

  He pulled out his phone. “Should we let Al know?”

  “Not yet. Let’s investigate a little closer, so we don’t pull him away if it’s nothing. I’m not even certain I saw it for sure. Come on—I’ve still got my disregarding spell up.”

  Without waiting for his reply, she crept forward, placing her steps carefully and staying close to the uneven wall.

  Jason followed quickly, tracing her path. “Are you sure—”

  “Let’s just check on—wait! There it is again!” She picked up her pace, closing the distance down the hall at a faster walk. “This might be what we’re looking—”

  Her words tailed off into a shriek of terror. Just before her light spell went out, Jason saw her teetering on the edge of a wide, black hole that hadn’t been there before. Her arms pumped and flailed as she tried to regain her balance.

  He lunged forwa
rd, trying to grab her before she fell, but he was too late. She disappeared over the edge, and a second later a loud rumble sounded as bits of the ceiling cascaded down on top of her.

  72

  Stone had to use all his willpower to keep from focusing on what might be happening with Jason and Verity as he hurried toward the other side of the massive house. They’re smart and careful, he told himself firmly. They can take care of themselves—and Verity’s right: Trin wants you, not them. You’d best watch yourself and stop worrying about what you can’t affect.

  Trin was here somewhere, and so was Ian. Likely she had no idea that Stone had found her location—she’d seen a taste of his power last night in Big Sur, as he had hers, but she had no idea how much more of it he could bring to bear.

  Especially with proper motivation.

  How had she captured Ian? Despite Verity’s assurances, had she somehow caught on to the fact that her oath was no longer in effect? Or, perhaps, had the unknown thing she was working with figured it out? Stone glanced all around him as he stepped in through another window, trying to spot any sign of auras, illusions, or even mundane traps. He didn’t stop long, though—he didn’t have time to. Every minute he spent in here bumbling around in his search was another minute they could discover his presence. His shield should be able to handle anything she might throw at him, but the element of surprise was better. If he could catch them in the act, he could hit her hard and take her down before she even realized he was there. That was the best way—after she was down and Ian was safe, he could deal with her “associate.”

  Down. That’ s a nice, neat synonym for ‘dead,’ isn’t it? his little interior voice asked.

  Bloody right it is. Because that’s exactly what I mean.

  Dead.

  Messing with him was bad enough. Messing with Ian meant she was out of chances.

  He paused, looking around the room he was standing in. He didn’t recognize it, but that didn’t surprise him: it had been nearly ten years since he’d been here last, and even when the place was intact and well-lit, he’d never ventured into large sections of it. He remembered that the vast basement had been reachable through a door in the kitchen—that should be one of the easier rooms to locate, with its industrial-steel appliances and spacious tiled floor. Even if the place where Trin had conducted the original ritual was destroyed—and it almost certainly was, since it had been ground zero for the fire—the space beneath the kitchen, with its heavy, reinforced floor, might still be structurally sound enough to provide shelter.

  He needed a better vantage point. Going up was a little dangerous, but if he kept the shield up along with a temporary invisibility spell, he should be safe long enough to find what he was looking for. Quickly, he climbed back outside the window, double-checked the three spells (easy now, with the Calanarian power singing through him), and lifted off the ground.

  He rose higher and higher, until he hovered twenty feet or so above what he figured the house’s highest point had been. He still couldn’t see well in the scant light, but his eyes had adjusted sufficiently that he could make out the building’s perimeter. As he’d suspected, almost all of the upper stories’ structure had been destroyed, either by the fire or collapse due to rot and weather over the last ten years. Large sections of the lower floors were gone too; since the fire had originated in the basement, it had ranged upward and taken out much of the middle section. Stone switched to magical sight, starting at the center and ranging out, looking for any sign of auras or magic.

  He saw none.

  How could that be? Had he been wrong? Had his search given him incorrect information? Had they left already?

  He didn’t think so, though. They had to be enclosed somewhere—perhaps Trin had even put up a simple ward to block magical sight. Normally, he’d see the ward itself, but not if they were inside a room that wasn’t visible from above. “Where are you…?” he growled, dropping lower. He couldn’t keep the invisibility spell up much longer, even with the Calanarian energy, so he’d have to make the limited time count. He was fairly sure he knew where the kitchen had been, if he could just get close enough to verify it.

  He was about to give it up and return to the ground when something caught his eye. He snapped his gaze around, trying to pinpoint it before it disappeared again, and was rewarded by a faint reddish light—no more than a pale nimbus of illumination—bleeding out from the space below.

  Careful…

  He put more power into keeping the invisibility spell up longer, even though it was beginning to tax his concentration, and dropped lower. He couldn’t tell what the light was: it might be an aura, or it might be the glow of a small fire or even a battery-powered lamp. He didn’t want to drop magical sight, though, in case it was an aura, afraid if he lost track of it he might not be able to find it again. Instead, he descended still lower and moved to the side a bit until he was about three stories up and hovering behind a beam to the side of the glow.

  It was still there, and might even be a little brighter as he drew closer. Had he found them—or was it nothing more than a squatter trying to keep warm in the chill rain? He wouldn’t know unless he went down there to check. Once he reached the ground, he could safely switch off magical sight because he’d know where the light had been coming from. If it was, he could send Verity and Jason a text.

  Not that he would wait for them, though, if that truly was Ian and Trin in there. He’d have to hit hard and fast, and couldn’t risk either himself or his friends tipping her off to their presence.

  There you go again, doing things on your own, said the little voice in his head.

  Give me an alternative that doesn’t put Ian at risk.

  The little voice was silent.

  I thought so.

  He reached the ground, his boots touching down on the stained, cracked tile of the kitchen. The red glow persisted, growing brighter still. Whatever it was, it definitely originated below him. He paused, listening, but heard nothing. No incantations, no screams or moans, not even the sound of small animals.

  Holding his breath, he switched off magical sight.

  The glow faded away.

  That’s it, then.

  The kitchen, as he’d suspected, was largely structurally intact. Most of the appliances were either absent or destroyed, but sections of the scratched and dented stainless-steel counters remained. The place looked like a shadowy mouth, its counters ruined gums around the sockets of the missing range, refrigerator, and dishwasher.

  If he was going down below, he wouldn’t need to find the door: as he’d suspected, large sections of the floor were missing, blasted by the extreme heat that had come up from the basement. He picked his way across the floor until he found a hole large enough to descend through, then used his levitation spell to lower himself.

  It was pitch dark down here. Even with magical sight, the red glow—still there when he checked—didn’t provide any illumination to navigate by. He stopped again, standing still and craning his ears for any sound indicating Trin and Ian were nearby, but still heard nothing. He didn’t dare call out—not yet anyway. Instead, he risked a faint light spell, reinforced his shield, crept forward.

  He stopped again when he remembered he hadn’t contacted Jason and Verity. They’d never find him down here with nothing to go on. He didn’t want to take the time, not when he was this close, but at least this way he could warn them so they didn’t accidentally blunder into Trin’s location without preparation. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to them both: Basement below kitchen. Be careful. Then he stuck it back in his pocket and continued forward.

  Nothing looked familiar down here anymore. The basement had been a cavernous space full of passageways, old furniture, and other cast-off items even back in Adelaide Bonham’s day, and after ten years the fire, weather, and age had turned it into a massive jumble of rotted timbers, twisted hulks of old metal appliances and implements, and piles of sodden detritus. Stone could see what looked like in
tact walls, but he had no way to know how structurally sound they were. He had to be careful: he could easily pull the ceiling down on himself if he made a wrong move.

  Instead of walking, he used his levitation spell to skim the ground and float over the uneven floor. He kept his magical senses up constantly now, keeping the red glow in sight. It didn’t seem to be getting any brighter, but it didn’t dim, either. The smell of damp rot with faint overtones of charred wood dominated the air. Stone pulled up the collar of his coat, gathering power to him. If he spotted Trin, he was ready to act fast.

  Up ahead was another wall, stretched perpendicular to the path he was taking and blocking his view of the space in front of him. He stopped, increasing his light spell just enough so he could examine it. The intact part was about fifteen feet wide, with what looked like broken doorways at each end. The ceiling here was intact as well, though it sagged overhead and didn’t appear completely sound. The red glow shone faintly around both ends of the wall.

  He tensed, floating forward with no sound, reinforcing the shield and recasting the invisibility spell. If he’d found them, he wanted to get a look at them before letting Trin know he was here.

  He drew up next to the right end of the wall, paused, and then peered around the edge.

  The lights went out, plunging the entire space into pitch blackness.

  73

  “V!” Jason skidded to a stop at the edge of the hole where Verity had fallen, flinging himself forward onto his stomach and shining his flashlight down.

  At first he couldn’t see her through the cloud of dust her landing and the falling ceiling had raised, but then a chill ran through his whole body as he spotted her prone form under a pile of plaster and broken wood. “V!” he called again, casting around for a spot where he could get down without bringing more of the house on top of her.