Stone and a Hard Place (6 page)

“What the hell was all that about?” Langley demanded when they were back in the Jaguar and heading back down the twisting road toward Los Gatos. “You were supposed to tell her everything was
fine
. Why did you—”

“Because it wasn’t,” Stone said flatly.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t?”

“There’s something going on in that house. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know whether it’s supernatural or mundane. But I do know it’s there. And I’d like to figure out what it is.”

Langley let out a loud sigh. “Look,” he said, clearly trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “This isn’t what I brought you up there for. She’s a sweet old lady, and she’s really suggestible about that kind of thing. If I’d thought you were going to fill her head with all this horseshit about evil spirits—”

“I didn’t say a word about ‘evil spirits,’ Tommy, nor will I.” Stone still refused to get defensive. “Look yourself. I know how you feel about her. I understand. I liked her the moment I met her. I think she’s a lot more clever and a lot less dotty than you give her credit for, and I respect her enough to believe her when she claims to have heard something. And now you’ve given me a puzzle, and as long as she’s willing to go on with it, I’m not giving up until I solve it.”

Another loud sigh. “I forgot about that,” Langley said, resigned. “You and your damned puzzles. Are you sure you didn’t have cats in your family tree somewhere? This curiosity thing of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

They continued bickering the rest of the way down the hill. Neither of them paid more than a passing glance toward Ethan, who hadn’t spoken since they’d left Adelaide’s house and who now sat silently in the back seat.

They reached San Jose, and Stone dropped Langley off at his house. “At least promise me this,” Langley said as he got out. “If you want to go up there again, call me first and let me go along. Okay?”

Stone shrugged. “Sure, if that’s what you want. You’ll probably find my next steps pretty boring, though. I intend to get hold of some actual equipment that works and see if I can pick up any readings. That kind of thing can take hours, and usually turns up no usable results.”

“That’s okay. I’ll bring a book. I know you mean well, Alastair, but a lot of the stuff you spend your days with your nose buried in is pretty freaky for your average everyday citizen. I just want to make sure you don’t end up giving her a heart attack with something you think is perfectly normal.”

Back in the car, with Ethan now riding shotgun, Stone glanced over at him. “You’ve been quiet tonight. Anything wrong?”

Ethan shook his head. “No, not really. Like I said, kind of an upset stomach.”

“You’re sure that’s all it is? I still find it hard to believe that you didn’t feel anything in that library. I haven’t felt something that strong in quite some time.”

“What do you think it is?”

Stone took a deep breath and let it out. “I have no idea. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s centered on the library. The feeling was strong, but diffuse. It’s clearly connected with the house somehow, but it seems odd that she’d only start picking up on it now. That either means it’s only recently arrived, it’s been there all along and something or someone’s disturbed it, or something’s changed with Adelaide to make her notice it now when she never did before. Or possibly that it’s been gathering power, and only now has enough to be able to affect things around it.”

“Any guesses about which?”

“Not yet. Like I told Tommy, I want to get in there and get a better look. Which means I’m going to have to come up with some more convincing looking data-gathering gear, so he can amuse himself watching the lights flash and the meters move around while I’m actually getting a look at things magically.” He shrugged. “Anyway, none of this is helping you with your lessons. Let me drop you off at your place so you can get some rest, and we’ll get back to it tomorrow if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Sounds good.”

Stone glanced sideways at him, but didn’t reply.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The walls in the attic of the abandoned house that The Three used as their ritual space were painted black, dotted here and there with magical sigils spray-painted like graffiti. They had long since cleared the uneven wooden floor of debris and moved in the larger gear they needed for their activities. They didn’t worry about anyone getting in and disturbing it. Not only had they gone to the significant extra effort of weaving spells and wards around the place that prevented anyone but the most persistent fellow mage from finding it, but if anyone
had
managed to break in, the enchantments would trap them in place until such time as The Three could make use of them. It was kind of like a bonus.

It was three a.m. on a rainy night. The door flew open and Oliver entered first, dripping, carrying a smaller box stacked on top of a larger one. Miguel came in behind him bearing a pizza box. Trin, of course, carried nothing. She never did.

Oliver set the smaller box down and pulled out various bottles of liquor, a baggie of pot, and some rolling papers, setting them down on a nearby table. The larger box he placed in the middle of the floor. The three of them chattered on about their evening at a particularly good party, performing their jobs without needing to discuss them.

For a while they just talked, eating pizza, passing a joint around, and downing shots of the liquor. Finally at about three-thirty, Trin pulled something from her pocket. “Okay. Ready to send that bitch a little fun?” She waved the lipsticked napkin that Angelique had given Oliver back at Will to Power.

Miguel grinned. “What do you have planned?”

“We could make all her hair fall out,” Oliver suggested.

Trin glared at him. “The problem with you, Oliver, is that you don’t think big enough.”

He frowned. “You’re not gonna kill her just for being a skank, are you?” He appeared mostly unfazed by the idea, as if he were merely bringing up another suggestion.

“Oh, no. I thought maybe we could set her house on fire or something. Or blow up her car, if she’s got one.”

“Nice,” Miguel said, nodding. “Or maybe give her an uncontrollable case of the shits. Less conspicuous, but a lot more embarrassing.”

“Hmm...” Trin considered that. “Not a bad idea, but a little juvenile. And the fire’s going to be tough in this rain. I’ve got it: let’s flood her out. She’d better hope she can use those implants as flotation devices.”

The other two recognized the finality in her tone, and didn’t bother suggesting anything else. Oliver picked up the large box and began passing out various pieces of ritual material, and The Three set to work customizing the magic circle they’d painted on the floor. As before, they moved as a single entity and without words, each one knowing his or her role in the ritual so well that they didn’t need to consult.

When the circle was complete, the candles were lit, and the foul-smelling incense was burning in the brazier in the center, Trin flipped on a small radio in the corner. An eerie instrumental metal tune wafted over the attic, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to disturb them. She nodded to the others, and each stepped to their appointed place inside the circle.

Oliver pulled a small knife from his pocket and waved it over the brazier, then used it to make small nicks in both of his palms. He handed it to Miguel, who did the same thing and gave it to Trin. Nicking her own palms, she set it aside and the three of them clasped hands around the circle. They could each feel the magic already forming, a low current of energy passing between and around them. They had hunted well tonight at the party, drawing energy from many of its guests—including one man Miguel had left stuporous and barely breathing in a back bedroom. They felt flush with power, eager to release it now.

They had done variations on the same ritual many times—it didn’t pay to piss off The Three, because they truly enjoyed the process of revenge. They hadn’t killed anyone—yet—but they had discussed the possibility, and considered that it might be something they wanted to try if the perceived slight was sufficient.

Trin, as always, took the lead, beginning a low chant that the other two took up. Their eyes were closed, their nerves singing with the power they were building between them. They writhed and swayed, punctuating the chant with moans of ecstasy as the power rose higher, joining their individual auras together into a coherent and more potent whole. If anyone had been watching them from the outside, their first thought would not have been of a magical ritual, but of an orgy. The energy around them was becoming visible now, tracings of magical power around their bodies, their hands, the circle.

Trin shifted her focus for a moment, the napkin rising up from her pocket and moving into the center of the circle. It hovered over the brazier and then settled into it, the flames licking and dancing as they ignited and began to devour the tiny bit of paper. Preparing to send the spell on its way, she gathered the energies from her two companions, wove them into the pattern of the spell, and then joined it with the bit of Angelique from the napkin.

Together, the fragments of energy formed a reddish cord that snaked up through the house’s roof. The Three followed it, their own consciousnesses riding along to its termination point.

It didn’t take long—after all, it wasn’t like Angelique the bar skank had any magical protections. In less than a minute, the cord dropped down into a small, unremarkable apartment on the second floor of a three-story building. Most of it was nearly indistinguishable, lifeless to magical sight, but a glowing form was curled up in what looked like a bed in one of the small rooms.

“Bonus,” Miguel murmured. “Maybe her neighbors will blame her for flooding them out.”

“Shh,” Trin said, concentrating. “Help me with this.”

Neither one of the guys had to ask for details. They focused together, feeding power into the reddish cord, directing it, shaping it to their will. It didn’t take much effort at all to find the water pipe leading to the bathroom and warp it until it snapped. They felt rather than saw the liquid spewing out inside the wall; though they couldn’t see each other’s grins, they all felt the squeezes of their hands.

“One more, to be sure,” Trin said. She moved her focus, and the other two followed.

In the kitchen, they opted to plug the sink and turn the tap on full blast. They remained there until the sink filled and began to overflow, then went back to check their handiwork upstairs. It would take a while before the water seeped out through the walls, but it would be at least a few hours before anyone in the building awakened. By then, the water would have done its job. It was more subtle than The Three’s usual plans, but subtlety was good sometimes.

Angelique needed to learn some subtlety anyway.

They returned at the same time, breaking contact and stepping out of the circle. None of them looked tired or spent from the ritual. That was what the power they’d stolen earlier tonight was for: so they didn’t have to be. Tiring oneself out doing magic was for weaklings who didn’t have the will to claim the power all around them, ripe for the plucking.

Trin began rolling a joint. “That
was
fun,” she said. “But we need to start thinking bigger. Maybe we’ll kill the next one. You guys up for it?”

Miguel shrugged. “Sure.” His satisfied smile was chilling. “After all, it’s not like anyone’s ever gonna catch us at it.”

CHAPTER NINE

Stone wondered if Ethan wasn’t going to show up for his next lesson. It was already quarter after three, and there was no sign of the boy. Maybe he really
had
had an upset stomach last night, but it wasn’t like him not to call. Stone thought he’d done a pretty good job of impressing on Ethan the importance of being reliable.

Last night had been odd on many levels. Aside from whatever was going on inside Aunt Adelaide’s mansion—which was quite enough oddness for anyone—Ethan’s behavior had set off warning bells somewhere deep in Stone’s mind. Not serious ones, just the kind that made him notice the fact that the boy had been acting strangely ever since he’d returned from the bathroom. Ethan had never exactly been a chatterbox, but to remain almost completely silent for the better part of two hours wasn’t like him either.

Okay, so if he really
had
had a stomach bug, he might have been embarrassed about stinking up a rich old lady’s bathroom full of potpourri and little cat figurines. Teenagers were like that, getting inappropriately embarrassed over the most trivial things. But something told Stone that this wasn’t the case this time. He wondered if Ethan
had
felt something in the house, and either didn’t want to admit it for whatever reason, or else didn’t even realize that his strange behavior had been brought on by forces he didn’t quite grasp. That had happened to Stone himself when he was an apprentice, similar to the story he’d told Langley about the child and the electrical transformer—except that in his case it had been the floating miasma of negative magical energy hovering around an old, abandoned graveyard back in England. It had turned out that a particularly nasty spirit had taken up residence in a crumbling mausoleum, and the mages he’d been with had quite a time dealing with it. He himself had been mostly useless, watching wide-eyed as they’d done battle with it, and eventually sent it back where it had come from.

That was one thing Stone had learned in his over fifteen years of practicing the Art—no two people responded to it the same way. Sure, there were the basics and the commonalities, but every individual approached it from their own perspective, bringing with them all the baggage and detritus that their psyches had accumulated throughout their lives. That was why there were no magic schools, and why those like Stone who possessed both magical talent and the knack for teaching were in such demand: magic was very much a one-on-one kind of process, and the master-apprentice system, as archaic as it was nowadays, remained the best way to impart knowledge from one generation to the next.

He pushed aside the drapes to look out the front window of his townhouse. Past the small, well-kept yard, the tree-lined street was quiet and empty. Maybe Ethan had car trouble on the way over, or—

He was about to let the drapes fall back and make a phone call to Ethan’s mother when he spotted the familiar blue four-door flying around the corner at significantly over the speed limit. It pulled into his driveway and Ethan tumbled out, snatching his backpack and running to the house.

Stone waited for him in the open front doorway. “I’m sorry,” Ethan puffed. “I know I’m late, but Mom had another attack, and I had to help Mrs. Hooper get her to bed. Thought I could still make it in time, but—”

Ah. Of course. He stepped aside and motioned the boy in. “How is she doing?”

Ethan sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Not so good,” he said in a dead tone. “She’s getting worse. She might have to go to the hospital.”

“Sit down.” Stone waved him toward one of the stools at the breakfast bar and began putting together a glass of iced tea. He set it in front of Ethan and leaned on the counter. “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you sure you should be here? If you—”

“No, it’s okay for now.” Ethan shook his head. “She’s sleeping, and Mrs. Hooper said she probably would be for a few hours. She’s better off with her than me anyway, since she at least knows what she’s doing.” His tone sounded bitter.

Stone watched him for a few moments while he drank his tea. He almost said something else about Ethan’s home situation, but decided there really wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t sound like a platitude. Instead, he ventured, “Ethan—if you’re sure you’re all right being here today, I wanted to discuss something with you before we start.”

“Uh—sure. What is it?” His gaze came up from where he’d been staring into his glass.

“It’s about what happened last night.”

“What about it?”

Stone watched him carefully as he spoke. “Are you quite sure that you didn’t feel anything last night? Nothing at all?”

“I already told you I didn’t.” He looked a little defensive. “You don’t think I’m lying to you, do you?”

“No...” He kept his tone even and non-confrontational. “But I wonder if perhaps you might have felt something and not even realized it.”

“How could that be?”

“Well, you said you had an upset stomach. That’s one of the ways magic can affect someone who’s sensitive to it and doesn’t know what he’s experiencing. Similar to Mrs. Bonham’s chills.”

Ethan thought about that. “Well, then, I dunno. Maybe I
did
feel something. But I sure didn’t notice it.”

“I take it your stomach problems are sorted?”

“Yeah, I felt better in the morning.” A pause, and then: “Are we going back up there?”

“To Mrs. Bonham’s?”

He nodded.

“Why, do you want to?”

“I dunno,” Ethan said with a shrug. “I just thought maybe if you went, I could go along—you know, to see if I feel something this time. Now you’ve got me curious. I don’t like thinking that something’s affecting me and I don’t even realize it.”

Stone pushed himself off the counter. “I’ll think about it. But for now, come with me. We’re already half an hour late starting your lesson, and I want to try you on something new today.”

Instead of heading for the stairway leading up toward the study, Stone moved toward the back of the house and opened a door on another stairway downward. Ethan looked confused. “Where are we going? Aren’t we—”

“Today I thought we’d get in a little lab work,” Stone said, motioning him ahead. “Which means I really don’t want Mrs. Olivera discovering us in the middle of casting a spell.” Mrs. Olivera was Stone’s part-time cook/housekeeper; Ethan had met her briefly last week, when Stone had introduced him as a distant cousin.

Ethan’s eyes widened. “We’re actually going to do real magic?”

“Maybe. That all depends on you.” He switched on the light, illuminating a large open basement with concrete walls and a few scattered rugs on the floor. Pushed back against the walls were various work tables and bookcases, a ratty old couch, and two large chalkboards, one of which Ethan recognized from upstairs. In the center of the room was a small table with two chairs facing each other and a thick candle in a holder in the middle.

“Sit down,” Stone said, indicating the table. He headed to one of the worktables and puttered around for a moment. After a couple of minutes he returned with something in a small silk bag, which he tossed on the table. It clinked as if it contained pieces of metal. With two quick gestures, he lit the candle and turned off the overhead light, leaving the candle as the room’s only illumination, and sat down opposite Ethan. The candlelight flickered in his glittering, unblinking eyes. “All right, then,” he said softly. “Let’s see how you do with this.”

Picking up the silk bag, he withdrew a small coin, which he tossed on the table between them. “Levitate that,” he ordered.

Ethan’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“But—how—”

“You’ve been reading the books I told you to read, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s all there, if you were able to put it together. Go ahead—try it. I want to see what happens.” He made a languid gesture and the coin slid across the table and came to rest on Ethan’s side.

Ethan looked at him for a moment, then dropped his gaze down to the coin. Stone doubted it was a type the boy had ever seen before—it was neither American nor British, and had an odd portrait on it, of something that didn’t quite look human. Ethan stared at it, clearly willing it to rise up off the table. After several seconds, however, it remained resolutely immobile.

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and squinted at the coin. When it still didn’t move after nearly a minute, he raised his hands and put his fingers to his temples.

Stone rolled his eyes. “You look like a telepath in a bad movie,” he teased.

“Well, how am I supposed to do it, then?” Ethan grumbled, glaring. “You’re supposed to be teaching me how, not just giving me books and saying ‘go!’”

“I wanted to see how much you got out of the books,” Stone said, unperturbed. “It’s all right, though—honestly, I would have been surprised if you’d been able to do it this soon and with no guidance.” He fixed his eyes on the coin, and it rose smoothly off the table and returned to his hand. “Magic,” he said, in the tone of a lecture, switching his focus to Ethan, “or at least the variety I practice and you’ll be practicing soon enough, is all about the will.”

“The will?”

Stone nodded. “What our abilities allow us to do—what the average mundane person wouldn’t be able to do even with all the magical knowledge in existence at his command—is to impose our will upon the world, and make it do our bidding. Now, that sounds pretty grandiose, and in some ways it is. But in the main, all it means is that we can make things happen with our minds. The stronger the mind, and the will behind it, the stronger the magic. That’s the other reason why I’m so concerned about your distractions. I know that some of them aren’t your fault, but it’s hard enough to teach willpower to someone your age without having the extra difficulty that comes from your mind being fragmented over other things.”

“You mean that being worried about Mom is making it harder for me to learn?”

“Quite probably, and I’m not at all surprised. It’s always harder to learn anything when your mind isn’t fully engaged. But as I said before—I knew that was a factor when I took you on, and I’m prepared to work around it. All it means is that our progress might be a bit slower than it otherwise would have been. But you’ll get there, I promise.” He quirked a tiny grin. “I’ve never lost a student yet.” Tossing the coin back on the table, he magically nudged it back over in front of Ethan, then got up and went to the chalkboard. He drew a complicated pattern and then stepped back, illuminating a glow around his hand to make reading it easier. “Do you remember this?”

Ethan studied it a moment, then nodded. “It was in the workbook.”

“Right. And do you see how it relates to what you’re trying to do there?”

Again he studied it, eyes narrowing. “I—think so. I’m—changing the properties of the air. Or gravity. Or something like that.”

“Good. What you want to do is impose this pattern over the small space where the coin is, then use your will to grab hold of the coin and raise it up in the air.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Ethan said with a sigh.

“It
is
easy—once you know how to do it. It’s like riding a bicycle, or learning to see those 3D pictures that always give me a frightful headache. Takes a while to get your mind around it, but at some point it just snaps into place, and you wonder how you ever managed not to see what was staring you right in the face.” He came back over and sat down opposite Ethan. “The thing you need to always remember, though, is that your brain isn’t like everyone else’s. The thing that makes you a mage is what makes it possible for you to do this. The first time is always the hardest, because you have to
believe.
Our kind of magic isn’t about faith—it’s about knowledge and study and discipline. But even here, you have to take that first leap of faith and
believe
that you’re capable of doing this. I’m telling you that you are, and I know what I’m talking about. So if you can’t believe in yourself yet, believe in me. All right? Now—try it again. Picture the pattern, make it real in your mind, and then impose it on the coin.”

Ethan took a deep breath and leaned over the table again. Glancing at the chalkboard, he stared back at the coin. His breath came faster, he gritted his teeth, and small droplets of sweat popped out on his forehead. For a moment Stone thought that nothing was going to happen, but then after several moments the coin rattled against the table and moved an inch to the right.

Ethan was so surprised he let his concentration slip and the coin stopped. “Did I do that?” he demanded. “Was that me?”

“All you,” Stone assured him, amused.

“No, seriously. You’re not messing with me, are you? Because that would be—”

“Ethan. That was you. All you. Now that you’ve got the trick—do it again.” Stone tilted his chair back, arms crossed over his chest, watching the boy with the same pride he always experienced upon seeing a new mage actually harness the Talent for the first time. He remembered his own first time, many years ago: the sense of accomplishment that was so strong it was almost tangible. It had been one of the best feelings he’d ever experienced in his life. It was better than sex, though he’d never tell Megan that. It was why he loved teaching so much.

“Go on.” He nodded at the coin. “You’ve got the pattern now. Let me see you lift it right up off the table.”

Once again, Ethan hunched over the table, grabbing hold of it with both hands. He took a couple of deep breaths as if preparing to heft a heavy weight, then leaned in and glared at the coin.

It moved sooner this time, shifting over to the left about two inches.

“Now lift it up,” Stone murmured. “It’s the same pattern—just go up instead of over. The air can hold it up as easily as the table can, if you force it to.”

The coin rattled. It shifted crazily back and forth. And then, after several more seconds, it rose two inches off the table and hovered there.

“Hold it there...” Stone ordered, still keeping his voice low and even. “Long as you can, now...”

For a second it seemed as if Ethan had startled himself sufficiently that he would lose his concentration again; the coin pitched and yawed, spinning a couple of times in the air before he got hold of it again. He was already sweating, his hands shaking as they gripped the edge of the table. Stone watched impassively, offering no further comment.

After nearly two minutes, Ethan let out his breath in an explosive blast and slumped; the coin clattered back to the table.

“Well done,” Stone said, smiling. “Very well done for a first time.”

Ethan was puffing like he’d just sprinted two or three laps around the block, but his face split in a big grin. “I—did it!”

“You did indeed.”

He leaned back, still puffing and sweating. “But—is it supposed to be that
hard
?” Picking up the coin, he turned it over. “This thing—it weighs nothing, but I feel like I’m gonna puke.”