Path of Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  BOOKS BY R. L. KING

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Path of Stone

  Copyright © 2017 by R.L. King All rights reserved.

  First Edition: September 2017

  Editor: John Helfers

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Want to be notified when the next Alastair Stone Chronicles novel will be released? Please sign up for the mailing list by going to http://www.alastairstonechronicles.com. We’ll never share your email address with anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you seriously gonna eat that? I thought British people were supposed to like bland food.”

  Alastair Stone paused to take a big bite of camarones a la diabla and savor it before replying. “Stereotypes, apprentice. Good Mexican food is one of the best things about this state of yours. The hotter, the better.”

  Verity Thayer tilted her head. “Maybe.” She picked up the water pitcher and waved it at him. “But if flames start shooting out of your mouth, I’m dumping this over your head before the fire sprinklers go off.”

  “Damn. Guess I’ll have to wait for some other time to show you the new spell I’ve been working on.”

  She looked down at her plate, toying with her half-eaten enchiladas. “What do I do, Doc?” she asked in a softer voice.

  Stone considered her words carefully before answering. He sat across from her in a tiny Mexican restaurant near downtown San Jose; it was busy tonight, so they’d had to wait a while before their food arrived. They had spent most of that time in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts as loud, bouncy recorded Mariachi music played over two TV screens showing different soccer games.

  He sighed. “I wish I could assure you everything will be all right,” he said. “But I’d be lying, and I don’t ever want to lie to you.”

  Verity’s gaze came up. Her dark eyes glittered out of shadowed hollows that could only be half-explained by her heavy goth-style makeup. “I can’t stop thinking about what I did. Not so much that I did it—I told you, I’d do it again—but…how I did it. I didn’t even know I had that sort of thing in me, and…it scares me, Doc.”

  “As well it should.” Stone leaned back and regarded her, sitting there in her hooded sweatshirt and black leather biker jacket, looking younger than her twenty-one years—except for her eyes. Those made her look as if she’d aged at least ten years since he’d seen her last, only a few days ago.

  She’d come so far since he and her brother Jason had found her, disoriented and mentally broken from the Evil’s extradimensional influence, in a homeless camp not far from where they now sat. She’d been just shy of eighteen then, confused and uncertain about her place in the world, or even if she had one. He’d been terrified to take her on as an apprentice—his last attempt at that had ended in a tragedy he still considered his fault—but she’d somehow managed to get under his skin and convince him to take a chance on her.

  It had been one of the best decisions he’d made in his life.

  This was her third year as his apprentice, and though she’d spent almost half of that time studying under a woman whose magical philosophy was more in line with what she thought she wanted, she’d recently re-evaluated her life and decided to return to him for her final year. She’d solidified that decision over just the last few days after a trip to Las Vegas to help her brother with a case that led them to unearth a horrific crime, and forced her to use her magic in a way that left her once again reeling with loathing and self-doubt.

  That was why she was here now, and why Stone—despite dealing with his own raw grief over the gruesome loss of a longtime colleague only a few days ago—was sitting across from her eating Mexican food instead of holed up in his study drinking until he couldn’t remember anything.

  He supposed the two of them were good for each other, in a disturbing kind of way.

  “It should,” he said again. “That’s a healthy response. But what you can’t let it do is paralyze you.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking that I might be tempted to do it again.” She dipped a tortilla chip in salsa and munched it thoughtfully, looking at the brightly colored tablecloth. After a moment, her gaze came up again. “Doc, did you ever do anything like that? Something you wish you didn’t have to do, but would again if you had it to do over?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What was it? If you don’t mind telling me,” she added hastily.

  Curiosity was winning out over despair for control of her expression, and he thought that was a healthy thing. “I nearly lost my apprenticeship over it, actually.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. I never told you much about my master. He was…quite formidable, shall we say.”

  “A real hard-ass, in other words.” Her smile was reluctant, but it lit up her face. “Kinda like you.”

  “That…was a good way to describe him, yes. Though I’m a teddy bear compared to William Desmond. Bloody good teacher—one of the best around. Wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. But our first few weeks together were…quite rocky.”

  Verity leaned forward, interested now. “You were only fifteen, weren’t you? Even younger than you were in that picture with my mom.”

  “Fifteen, yes. And like every other fifteen-year-old who ever lived, I was full of myself and thought I had all the answers. Desmond disabused me of that notion rather quickly.”

  She leaned further forward, propping her elbows on the table and cradling her chin in her hands like a little girl waiting for a good story. “Will you tell me about it, Doc? Tell me what you did, and how it worked out?”

  Stone glanced around the restaurant. It was still packed, but the crowd was slowly beginning to thin. “Let’s get another basket of chips, then. T
his will take a while.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  As soon as he got the message that the headmaster wanted to see him, Alastair Stone knew he was in trouble.

  The word came at the end of Calculus, his last class of the day. The instructor, a tall, cadaverous man named Benbow, looked up as Alastair gathered his papers and headed for the door. “Oh, Stone?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Professor Carrowby wants to see you in his office at four o’clock. Best head over there straight away.”

  Alastair froze. “Did he say why?”

  “They don’t tell me these things.” Benbow waved airily toward the door. “Off you go, now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alastair gripped the strap of his bag, the back of his neck growing hot. Professor Carrowby didn’t have to say why. Alastair would have staked quite a lot of money that he already knew.

  And he’d been so careful, too.

  He’d never been to Roger Carrowby’s office in all the years he’d attended Barrow; visits to the headmaster were usually reserved for students who’d gotten in big trouble—most commonly with drugs, alcohol, or indiscretions with local girls (or occasionally local boys). Alastair Stone wasn’t the type of student who got into that kind of trouble. Top of his class, on track to finish secondary school at least a year early, he generally kept to himself and so far had done a good job resisting any temptation to get involved in potentially problematic activities. Not that there was much temptation, though: drugs held no interest for him, his brief experiments with alcohol had been discreet, and since Barrow was an all-boys school, he didn’t get that many opportunities to interact with girls.

  If he were to get himself in trouble, it would be for…other reasons. Apparently, those reasons were about to catch up with him.

  He sat in a worn wooden chair in Carrowby’s outer office, picking at imaginary dust motes on his dark blue uniform jacket and trying to ignore the curious gaze of the secretary. He didn’t know her name, but she was middle-aged and wore glasses with points on the sides and seemed to disapprove of him for some reason. Perhaps she disapproved of any boy who landed here, and he was just the latest in the series.

  Something on her desk buzzed. She spoke for a moment under her breath, then looked back at Alastair. “You can go in now.”

  “Thank you.” He stood and crossed the room, wondering if the odd tone in her voice was only in his imagination.

  Roger Carrowby’s office looked almost exactly as Alastair expected the office of the headmaster of an exclusive old tradition-steeped school to look: all wood and dusty books and antique school memorabilia. Behind his desk, flanked by two tall, packed bookshelves, stood a cabinet containing a series of sports trophies that were probably older than Carrowby himself—and the man was no youngster. Alastair passed their more contemporary counterparts every day on his way to the dining hall, though he’d had no hand in winning any of them. A faint aroma of furniture polish and old books hung in the air.

  He stopped in front of Carrowby’s desk. “You asked to see me, sir?”

  “Yes, Mr. Stone. Please sit down.”

  Alastair did as he was told, taking a seat in one of the ancient, brocaded chairs in front of the massive wooden desk. He’d never been this close to Carrowby before; the man had to be at least seventy, with wispy white hair, a stooped frame that didn’t quite fill out his suit jacket, and shrewd, squinting brown eyes. Rumor was that he used to be a military man in his youth. Alastair waited for him to speak first.

  Carrowby pulled over a thick folder, opened it, and flipped through several sheets of paper. “I’ve never seen you in my office before, Mr. Stone. Exemplary student, from what I see here. Aside from a few minor detentions, no black marks on your record at all. Admirable. Do you know why you’re here now?”

  “No, sir.” On the off chance that his suspicions were wrong, Alastair had no intention of admitting to anything the headmaster didn’t already know about.

  Carrowby closed the file and looked up. He wasn’t squinting now: his eyes were fixed on Alastair, calm and cold and steady. “Mr. Stone—have you been performing Satanic rituals in the attic of your dormitory?”

  Well. That was a new take on things. “Er…no, sir.”

  Carrowby’s gaze sharpened. “Mr. Stone, you’re in serious trouble if these allegations are true. Best if you don’t add lying to them. Remember, we do have an honor code here at Barrow.”

  “I’m not lying, sir.” Alastair sat up a little straighter. He knew this would probably come eventually; he’d given a bit of thought to how he’d handle it when it did, but Carrowby’s accusations had caught him off guard. Of all the things the man could have thought, he went there? “I haven’t been performing Satanic rituals in the attic, or anywhere else.”

  Carrowby sighed and shook his head, clearly disappointed. He withdrew a few photographs and laid them on the desk facing Alastair. They were the instant type, the kind you could develop without having to take them in for processing. “Do you deny that you’re responsible for this?”

  Alastair glanced at the photos. He didn’t have to look closely at them: what they depicted was as familiar to him as his own dorm room. “No, sir.”

  “But yet you’ve already denied it.” Carrowby plucked a fountain pen from a marble holder and used it as a pointer, indicating the elaborate ritual circle drawn with numerous colors of chalk, the candles placed at strategic points around it, and the chalice situated at its center.

  Alastair shook his head. “No, sir. I denied that I was performing Satanic rituals, because I wasn’t. How could I be, when I don’t even believe in Satan?” In for a penny, in for a pound, he figured. If he were to be expelled for what he’d done, at least he’d make sure not to hold anything back.

  Carrowby’s wild gray eyebrows crept up, and a brief expression of shock appeared on his lined face. “Indeed?” He paused, replacing the pen in its holder. “Well, that’s a matter for another discussion. But tell me, Mr. Stone—if this isn’t a Satanic ritual you’ve got set up here, then what is this?” He opened one of his drawers and removed something, which he placed on the desk.

  Alastair realized only then what had been missing from the photos.

  The book was old, bound in cracked red-brown leather. A depiction of an elaborate hermetic circle, debossed into the leather and emphasized with darker ink, dominated the cover. Two leather straps that normally held the book closed were open now. Carrowby opened the book to a page he’d marked. “I’ve no familiarity with such abominations, but whatever this is, it’s an affront to God, no question about it.”

  Alastair pondered his response. He supposed this wasn’t the time to admit to the assistant headmaster that he didn’t believe in God, either. He recognized the spread the book was open to immediately: it was the one he’d been working with for the past few weeks, trying to get a simple ritual for locating a lost object to work. He’d finally succeeded just the previous night; he’d also nearly gotten caught out after curfew as he sneaked across campus to the boathouse at 3 a.m. to retrieve the old wallet he’d paid a younger boy to hide when he’d begun the whole process.

  “Well?” Carrowby asked when Alastair didn’t answer. “Would you like to tell me what this is?”

  “It’s…a magic book, sir.”

  “A magic book.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So you mean to tell me that you were performing magic in the attic?”

  “Trying to, sir.”

  Carrowby examined the diagrams printed on the open pages. “And what sort of magic is this, then?” His thin lips curled around the word, coating it with contempt.

  Alastair shrugged. “It’s a tracking ritual. Designed to locate a missing object.” There was no reason not to tell the truth—or at least part of it. As it happened, he did respect the school’s honor code, so
as much as he could, he intended not to lie as to the nature of his activities. Of course, knowing full well that Carrowby and anyone else he might pull in to this little investigation wouldn’t believe a word he said figured prominently into that decision.

  “What sort of missing object?”

  “Nothing important. I asked someone to hide something of mine so I could try to find it. He had no idea what I was doing,” he added.

  Carrowby sighed again, and flipped through more pages in the book. “Where did you get this book, Mr. Stone?”

  “I found it in a shop.” Now the lies began. He’d hoped it would take a bit longer, but he couldn’t reveal where he’d really obtained the tome. As long as it only affected him, he’d tell the truth, but implicating anyone else wasn’t something he was willing to do.

  “A shop. I didn’t know there were magic book shops.”

  “Are you going to expel me, sir?” Best to get it out on the table sooner rather than later, since they both knew it was coming.

  Carrowby’s gaze snapped back up. “That’s not something we’re ready to decide yet, Mr. Stone. I’ve rung your father, though. He’ll be here tomorrow to discuss our next steps.”

  Alastair stiffened. That wasn’t good. He hadn’t expected them to go to the nuclear option this early in the process. He’d thought perhaps he might have a chance of talking Carrowby into a couple of weeks of detention and perhaps a stint picking up rubbish around the campus first, but apparently the man had other ideas.

  “Is magic against school rules, then?” He knew it wasn’t—each student was expected to memorize the various rules they were to follow by the end of his first couple of months at Barrow. The list was more focused on things like keeping one’s room clean, one’s uniform properly laundered, one’s academic experience honorable, and one’s sexual experimentations nonexistent than in anything more esoteric.