by R. L. King
Amber took hold of Verity’s shoulder. “He tried to go through, didn’t he?” she said softly.
She nodded, making no effort to shake off either Jason’s or Amber’s hands. “I was catching up with him, so he tried to go through the wall.” Her voice was a monotone, steady but clearly disturbed. “I don’t think he realized it was as thick as it was.”
Only then did Jason get it. “Oh, fuck…” he whispered. He rounded the corner and hurried through an open doorway several feet down, expecting to see the mage’s body hanging half-in, half-out in some kind of grotesque state, but he didn’t. He narrowed his eyes as Amber came around to join him, leading Verity by the hand. “This doesn’t make sense, though—this wall isn’t thick enough for him to be stuck inside.”
“I don’t think he is,” Verity said. She still sounded shaky, but stronger now. “I think he tried to phase through, but either lost his nerve halfway in or he was just too tired to make it. It probably took a lot of energy to do that. I think his body must have just…dissipated.”
Jason gripped her arm. “It wasn’t your fault, V.”
“I know that.” She pulled herself up and let out a long breath. “I know. He did it before I could stop him. But still…”
“Yeah.” Amber regarded the wall for a moment. “That’s a shitty way to die, any way you look at it. And all over a truck full of stuff.” She glanced back toward the warehouse across the street. “Come on. We need to call the cops on those other guys. Maybe if they’re lucky they’ll get the fence too.”
“Don’t think so,” Jason said. He indicated a large panel truck coming down the side street on the warehouse’s other side. It slowed for a moment, then took off at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction.
“Ah, well.” Amber didn’t seem bothered. “I did my job. I got the stuff back, and that guy won’t be messing with anybody again. Sucks that it had to go down that way, but…” She trailed off and shrugged. “Anyway, thanks again—both of you. I couldn’t have done that without your help.”
“Yeah…no problem,” Verity said.
“You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” She gave a faint smile. “You call the cops. I’ll go bring the car around so I can clear out and you two can be alone.”
“V…” Jason glared at her.
“Hey, none of my business. But I do want to get out of here. I still have cleaning to finish up tomorrow.” Without giving either of them a chance to reply, she jogged off toward where she’d parked the SUV.
Jason exchanged glances with Amber, feeling suddenly awkward. “Uh…Yeah. So, we should go call this in. Probably not from our cells, either. I saw a pay phone just up the street. We can call anonymously.”
“Better that way,” she agreed. “And I need to call Darryl and let him know his stuff’s safe. And then head back home and deal with Hank.”
“You…want me to come with you? I still owe you that dinner.”
She leaned in and brushed a quick kiss across his cheek. “I haven’t forgotten—but it’ll have to be another time. I need to leave for home right away so I can grab Hank before he hears anything and takes off.” She flashed a lopsided smile. “Rain check? You ever get back my way?”
“I’ll make a point of it.” A pause, and then, “Sorry about Hank.”
She waved him off. “It happens. Not too happy that I missed that part of him, but maybe I wasn’t looking for it, you know?”
“Yeah. I get that.” He wanted to say something else, but suddenly his tongue felt like it weighed ten pounds and his brain wasn’t helping. Finally, he settled for, “Anyway, that’s a definite on the rain check. I’ll give you a call, okay?”
“I’ll be waiting.” The smile she gave him this time wasn’t lopsided, but it was still amused. “Don’t take too long, though.”
27
By the time Stone stopped by Stefan Kolinsky’s shop the following day, he’d come no closer to unraveling the mystery of the vanishing note.
He’d pulled out his notebook immediately after the text had disappeared, trying to reproduce as much of it as he could remember before the details faded from his memory. He thought he’d done a fairly good job of re-creating the message, though he had less success at capturing any of the nuances of the handwriting. By the time he thought to examine the envelope a few seconds later, the text there had faded as well.
Somebody was definitely trying to send him a message, but they didn’t want to give him any chance of figuring out who it was.
He spent the remainder of Sunday going over all his notes again, beginning with the newspaper clipping about the Devil’s Creek incident and ending with the now-blank notecard. To help him visualize the timeline, he taped them to the whiteboard in his downstairs library, scrawling notes beneath each section. He hadn’t been completely convinced the two events were related before, but now he had more certainty about it. Even though the pair of rifts didn’t have many similarities in appearance, they did share two important traits: both of them were shedding power into this dimension from somewhere else, and both existed on or near ley line confluences.
To his frustration, though, the facts he didn’t know far outnumbered those he did. Had these things appeared naturally, or had someone created or summoned them? Why was the strange figure in Pennsylvania trying to conceal one with an illusion? Who was the figure working for, and why didn’t he want Stone investigating further? What “dire consequences” might occur if he did? What, in this context, was a ‘scion’ and why did the figure call him one? And why had the figure killed Clyde?
A cold thought gripped him: if the thing was killing any mundanes who knew about the rifts, did that mean Mitch and Cathy Kirkson were in danger, or already dead? He made a note on his board to check that out—he didn’t want to contact them directly again, but perhaps he could ask Jason to have Gina search recent obituaries in area papers.
As usual when Kolinsky hadn’t left a note behind his wards indicating he was away on one of his acquisition trips, the black mage was in his shop. He sat at his usual spot at his roll-top desk, a large, thick tome open in front of him. “Good afternoon, Alastair,” he said without turning.
It struck Stone again, as if often did, to wonder why Kolinsky spent so much time in his shop. In the ten years he’d known the man, he had literally never seen a customer in it; in fact, the only other living soul he’d ever observed there had been Zack Beeler, the night the thief had tried breaking in. Other than that, the place had remained almost unchanged in all that time, with the exception of the ever-revolving collection of new artifacts he often found Kolinsky examining at his desk or his worktable.
“Don’t you ever get bored hanging about in here by yourself, Stefan?” Stone closed the door behind him and glanced around, but didn’t see anything new other than the book. The humanoid figure the black mage had been examining last time Stone had visited was gone now.
“Boredom is the burden of the weak-minded,” Kolinsky said. He swung his chair around and regarded Stone with his usual calm expression.
From anyone else, it would have been an insult—especially anyone who knew how much Stone himself loathed forced mental idleness. From Kolinsky it was…just Kolinsky. “I could argue with you about that, I suppose, but I won’t waste both our time.”
“A wise choice. How can I be of assistance?”
“I’ve discovered some new developments regarding that strange case I was telling you about last time I spoke, and I was hoping you might have some new insights. You haven’t got anything new about what I’ve already told you, do you?”
“I am afraid not.”
Stone didn’t take the offered chair, but instead paced around the shop. “Well, I’ve got some new data for you. It’s happened again, and this time I’m even more concerned about it.”
Still pacing, he told Kolinsky the whole story of the events in Pennsylvania. He left nothing out, but paused before he got to the part about the strange figure in the fo
rest. “Does that sound like anything you might be familiar with?”
Kolinsky thought about it. “It does seem related to the previous event you described. Are you certain the two…rifts, for lack of a better word…were not emitting the same sort of energy?”
“Positive.” Stone pulled out his notebook and rattled off a few figures. “Similar, yes, in that they were definitely both putting out energy of some kind. If I had to guess, I’d say it was coming from two different dimensional spaces. But at least with the second one, when I tried to toss something through it, it passed directly through while remaining in our space. So it wasn’t a gateway. More like a…wound, bleeding energy into our world.”
He sighed, studying the spines on a bookshelf without processing them. “But I haven’t told you the rest yet. Remember the strange figure I mentioned, the one I saw outside the door when the pizza deliveryman arrived?”
“Of course.”
“Well…he—or it, or whatever—showed up again. It gave me a warning.”
“What sort of warning?” Something about Kolinsky’s posture subtly changed as he leaned ever so slightly forward in his chair.
“It told me to leave the matter alone. That I could cause untold harm if I continued on my current path.” He consulted his notebook again, reading the being’s words exactly as he’d written them down.
Kolinsky’s calm gaze went still. “You say it referred to you as ‘scion’?”
“Yes. Do you know what the hell it was talking about? I’m guessing it’s got something to do with my family, but how would this thing know about that?”
The black mage returned to his relaxed, attentive posture. “That is possible,” he said. “Lineage is, of course, quite important in the magical world.”
Stone let out a louder sigh and resumed his pacing. “None of this is making a bloody bit of sense, Stefan. This thing was hiding the rift with an illusion. Not a powerful one, but it didn’t need to be. If I hadn’t known it was there, I’d never have found it. And it killed Clyde. Why would it do that? Was it because he knew the location of the rift? And if so, why not kill me too? Why did it say it couldn’t stop me?”
“Alastair. Please—sit down.”
“I can’t. I’ve got too much energy to sit down. I need to get to the bottom of this, and I haven’t got any idea how, short of traveling around to every ley line confluence in the country and hunting for more of these things. That’s hardly practical, even if I took a year-long sabbatical.” Again, he sighed. “There’s one more part I haven’t told you yet. Maybe the most important part of all.”
“Oh?”
He pulled the blank card in its envelope from his inner coat pocket and tossed them on Kolinsky’s desk. “Yesterday, I got this. It was in my mailbox.”
Brow furrowing slightly, Kolinsky picked up the envelope. He examined it for a moment, then glanced up at Stone. “May I?”
“Of course.”
With care, he plucked the card from the envelope and examined it with the same level of care. “I am not certain I understand, Alastair. Both the card and the envelope are blank.”
Stone wasn’t sure whether he was glad Kolinsky hadn’t found any traces he’d missed, or disappointed. “They weren’t yesterday. Well, they looked blank until I switched to magical sight, but I’m sure you’ve already done that.”
“I have. And still they appear blank.”
“The envelope had my name on it. The message, which revealed itself only to magical sight, remained for only a few seconds—long enough for me to read it—and then faded. I wrote it down as quickly as I could. I’m reasonably confident I got the phrasing right, but I couldn’t reproduce the handwriting. It was in green ink, by the way, if that’s relevant.” He opened his notebook to the page where he’d written the message and passed it to Kolinsky.
This time, the black mage stared at the message for more than five minutes in silence. Stone was tempted several times to say something, to ask him if it meant anything to him, but he didn’t. Instead, he remained still, watching closely with magical sight.
Kolinsky’s aura didn’t budge. The only indication of his focus was a slight tightening of his hand on the notebook, and an even slighter tensing of his posture. Finally, he closed the notebook and handed it back.
“Well?” Stone demanded. “You looked at it long enough. Have you got anything for me? I’m not kidding, Stefan—I’m stumped this time. This person claims to be ‘a concerned party,’ but what are they concerned about? It sounds like they’re afraid I’ll cause some sort of calamity if I continue my investigation, but I don’t believe that for a second. I think they’re trying to protect their own hide, and whatever vile little experiments they’re up to.”
Still, Kolinsky didn’t reply. He was gazing into the middle distance now, almost as if he were seeing something that wasn’t there. Either that, or he was deep in thought.
“Stefan?”
Kolinsky let out a long, slow breath. “Alastair…this matter is not something with which I can assist you.”
Stone narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about? Do you know something?”
He didn’t answer.
“You do know something, don’t you?” He rubbed his forehead, shoving his hair up into spikes. “Right. Sorry. Got a bit caught up in things and forgot about the protocols. What do you want in exchange for the information? You’ve got me where you want me, Stefan, and I don’t mind letting you know it. So name your price.”
Kolinsky’s expression was oddly expressionless. “There is no price, Alastair. I cannot help you with this matter.”
“What do you mean, you can’t help me? Are you saying you don’t know the answer, or you do know it and won’t give it to me?” He whirled and his pacing turned to stalking around like a cat in a cage. “I don’t think you get it: I don’t make offers like this very often. I want the answer to this, and I’m willing to meet your price to get it. I know you were interested in that old multi-volume set Desmond had on ancient black magic techniques. You tell me what’s going on with these things and it’s yours. Not just access—I’ll pop over there and bring it back to you tomorrow.”
Kolinsky bowed his head.
“Come on, Stefan! What’s wrong with you? I’ve never seen you turn down an offer like that before. But—all right, then, if you don’t like that one, name your own.” Somewhere deep inside Stone’s mind, a part of him realized the danger of what he was saying. He was acting like a rube who’d set his sights on some shiny bauble, and was ready to give up far more than it was worth to get it. That was not a tactic you ever wanted to take with Stefan Kolinsky—the man ate desperation for lunch. But as he stood there, his gaze fixed on his friend, something likewise told him Kolinsky had the answers he sought—if only he could find the key to unlock them.
“I am sorry, Alastair.”
To his credit, Kolinsky almost—almost—looked like he was sorry. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and his long, elegant fingers tightened around the fine fountain pen he held. But other than that, he didn’t move.
“Bloody hell.” Stone felt sudden anger rising, and fought to contain it. “How long have we been associates? How many things have we helped each other with over the years? This isn’t the time to start hoarding information like some kind of gods-damned dragon on a pile of gold. This thing is killing people, and these rifts are leaking magical energy into our world. Altering mundanes. Even possibly mucking with the way the portals work. None of that can be good. Somebody’s got to get to the bottom of it and stop it. If you’ve got information that can help with that and you’re keeping it to yourself—why would you do that?”
Still, Kolinsky said nothing.
Stone glared at him. This was it, then. This was real. Kolinsky wasn’t going to help him. For any price, it appeared. Why, after all these years of being a dispassionate information broker, would he suddenly refuse to part with a bit of data?
A chilling thought gripped him, bringing with it sudden
dread.
He stopped his pacing, slowly turning to face Kolinsky as the black mage remained seated at his desk. “Stefan…are you involved with this situation somehow? Is that why you won’t tell me anything?”
Silence.
The chill running down his back intensified. “Dear gods, you are. You’re…are you causing these odd rifts somehow? Or someone you’re connected with?”
He didn’t expect an answer, so he was surprised when Kolinsky said softly, “No.”
“What?”
“I am not responsible, nor is anyone I am associated with.”
“Well, what then?” The question came out as an explosive demand. Stone’s voice shook with anger, but did nothing to stop it. “What the hell is going on with you, Stefan?”
Slowly, very slowly, Kolinsky turned his chair around. His face was as impassive as ever, but his obsidian-chip eyes held uncharacteristic tension. “Alastair…as you have pointed out, we have been associates for many years. I value our relationship, and my word is of paramount importance to me. All I can say is to repeat: I cannot help you with this matter. What I can do, however, is offer you a bit of advice.”
“Advice?” Stone’s anger simmered, threatening to bubble up again. “What kind of advice?”
He met Stone’s gaze, and his face could have been carved from granite for all the expression it showed. “I know you are a curious man—in fact, I am well aware that curiosity is both your defining trait and potentially your undoing. But in this case—you would do well to walk away.”
Stone could not believe what he was hearing. “Walk away? You’re honestly suggesting I—what—just forget about the whole thing? Stop investigating why someone is hiding dangerous dimensional rifts? Why they’re killing people or mucking with their minds to prevent them from revealing their locations? You want me to put it out of my mind like yesterday’s news and go back to teaching mundanes about the Salem Witch Trials?” His voice rose at the end until he was nearly shouting.
