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

  Game of Stone

  Alastair Stone Chronicles: Book Thirteen

  R. L. King

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Don’t miss Alastair Stone’s next adventure!

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  Books by R. L. King

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by R. L. King

  Game of Stone: Alastair Stone Chronicles Book Thirteen

  First Edition, March 2018

  Edited by John Helfers

  Cover Art by 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 either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, except by agreement with the vendor of the book. If you would like to share this book with another person, please use the proper avenues. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Prologue

  You sure we can’t check this place out tomorrow?” Ralph Gallegos shifted in his seat, trying to stretch his legs out through all the boxes, papers, and discarded fast-food wrappers in the truck’s packed footwell. “It’s gettin’ late and I wanna get somethin’ to eat.”

  “We’re almost there now. You can wait another half-hour. Not like that gut of yours needs any help anyway.” Ralph’s brother Frank, at thirty-eight the elder of the pair by three years, guided the old pickup up to the storage facility’s closed gate with one hand, fumbling in his pocket for the slip of paper containing the code. “Besides, I got a good feeling about this one.”

  “You got good feelings about all of ’em,” Ralph grumbled. “Like that last one, or don’tcha remember? Nothing but boxes of junk and drifts of rat turds.”

  “This one’s different. The guy that owned it originally was some kinda nutcase. Left it to his kid back east. Kid was a junkie and didn’t pay the bill.”

  “Yeah, nutcase.” Ralph muttered, hunting around in the glove box for something to eat as the gate slowly juddered open. “We’ll probably find a severed head in there or somethin’.”

  “Hey, it’s good publicity if nothing else. Come on, man. Let’s just take a quick look around and then we can go get some beer and wings.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Like I got a choice.”

  Frank parked the truck, and the two of them got out and headed inside. This time of night, the facility was dark and quiet; even though it was ostensibly open twenty-four hours, most people didn’t come by to visit the junk they couldn’t bear to throw away this late. Frank’s and Ralph’s work-booted footsteps echoed around the metal walls and corrugated doors of the lockers they passed.

  Their destination was on the second floor, at the end of one of the facility’s labyrinth of hallways. Frank stopped in front of a six-foot-wide rollup door, searched his pocket for a key to the substantial lock holding it closed, and popped it open.

  Ralph, deciding his best chance of getting out of here anytime soon was to help, bent with a grunt and hefted the door up, then reached around to switch on the interior light.

  The naked bulb flared to life, revealing the locker’s contents.

  “Holy shit,” Ralph breathed.

  Frank only stared.

  The two of them had been doing this job—buying the unseen contents of storage lockers whose owners defaulted on payment—on the side for a couple years now. They’d hit a couple of valuable stashes, several that had netted enough money to make it worth their while, and a bunch full of little more than broken furniture and boxes of old clothes. But never had any of the lockers they’d opened contained anything that looked like this.

  “What the hell is that?” Ralph asked.

  “Damn good question.” Frank took a tentative step in.

  Most lockers they opened were crammed to the ceiling with junk, their owners clearly trying to get the most out of their monthly rental fee. This one wasn’t. In fact, based on the contents, it hardly seemed worthwhile for the unknown owner to have paid for such a large storage space at all.

  The locker included only three items. Two of them were a bookshelf pushed against the left-side wall and stacked haphazardly with books and papers, and a closed wooden cabinet against the right-side wall.

  Neither of these were what had captured Ralph’s and Frank’s attention, though.

  In the center of the space was an old-fashioned chest, covered in scuffed brown leather and locked with a substantial, antique padlock. The chest sat in the middle of an intricately painted circle brimming with strange symbols, drawings, and what looked like words written in an alphabet neither man had ever seen. Around the circle’s perimeter, dried objects and unlit candles on stands had been placed at regular intervals. The space smelled mostly musty, but the faint hint of something sharp and spicy hung in the air.

  “It looks like somethin’ out of a bad horror movie,” Ralph said.

  “Maybe it is. Maybe the old guy was into movie props or some shit.” Frank took a step toward the circle.

  Ralph grabbed his arm. “Wait a sec,” he said, a nervous edge creeping into his voice. “Maybe you shouldn’t cross that thing.”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Frank demanded, wrenching his arm free. He snorted in contempt. “What are you sayin’, that it’s some kinda fuckin’ magic circle or somethin’?”

  “Well…” Ralph swallowed. “It does kinda look like one, doesn’t it?”

  “Jesus, Ralph—sometimes I wonder how I got such a moron for
a brother. What, you think a spook’s gonna jump out and bite my head off?” When Ralph didn’t answer, Frank snorted. “What do you wanna do, Ralph? Call a fuckin’ priest? C’mon, man—the old guy just did this so it’d freak out anybody who broke in. Looks like it’s workin’. Now, you gonna be a chickenshit or you gonna help me? I wanna see what’s inside that chest.”

  “Well—”

  “Go get the bolt cutter from the truck. Make it quick—I don’t wanna be here all night either.”

  Ralph thought about arguing—it pissed him off when Frank treated him like he was stupid—but if he went to get the cutter he could get away from that unsettling scene for a couple minutes at least. With one last nervous glance over his shoulder at his brother, who was still standing at the edge of the circle facing the chest, he hurried off.

  He didn’t hurry on his way back to the truck. He took his time—so much, in fact, that it was nearly five minutes before he’d retrieved the set of bolt cutters from the toolbox in the truck’s bed and trudged back up the stairs. As he walked, he muttered to himself about how when he got back, he was going to tell Frank he was hungry and tired and just wanted to get the hell out of here.

  At the end of the hall, something flashed.

  “What…?” Ralph stiffened and stopped, gripping the bolt cutters tighter. “Frank?” he called. “You okay, man?”

  No answer.

  “Oh, shit…” Ralph remained where he was, raising the cutters as if expecting something to come around the corner and jump him. When nothing did, he called again, louder: “Frank? This ain’t funny, man.”

  Still no answer.

  “Aww, fuck…” It was just like Frank to pull this kind of crap on him. He was probably in there trying not to laugh his ass off, or hiding somewhere nearby so he could jump out and yell something idiotic to freak out his chickenshit brother.

  But that wasn’t going to happen, because Ralph was ready for him this time. Chuckling silently, he changed direction and headed down another hallway, approaching the open locker from the other side. Frank would expect him to come in from one direction—if he came from the other, he might be able to get the drop on his brother and scare the shit out of him for a change. As he walked, he pictured his brother’s terrified face. Maybe he’d even make old Frank wet his pants. That would teach him to knock off this practical-joking crap!

  He crept closer. The door to the locker was still open, but the faint glow from the naked bulb no longer illuminated part of the hallway. Nothing flashed now.

  He just turned the light off so he could scare you better.

  Inexplicably, a sudden sensation of dread crawled up Ralph’s back and settled at the base of his neck. He tightened his hold on the cutters in one hand and his unlit flashlight in the other. Come on, he told himself, annoyed. You’re acting just like he wants you to. Cut it out.

  He’d almost reached the locker now. He stopped before he reached the door, his finger caressing the button on his MagLite. Then, in the same movement, he leaped forward, switched on the light, and pointed it inside the locker. “Boo, asshole!” he yelled.

  When he got a look at the inside of the nearly empty storage locker, it was Ralph, not Frank, who wet himself.

  Frank, apparently, was well beyond such a capacity.

  Ralph didn’t even notice the warm liquid seeping down the legs of his faded jeans. He skidded to a stop and stood rooted, taking in the scene in front of him, paying no attention to the small puddle forming around his feet.

  Somehow, Frank had managed to pop the chest without the bolt cutters. It hadn’t moved from the center of the weird circle, but now its lid yawned open, revealing the dark depths inside.

  In front of the chest, lying half-in, half-out of the circle, was a sight that nearly caused Ralph Gallegos’s sanity to slip. The cutters dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor; he barely managed to keep hold of the flashlight. Incoherent gibbering noises escaped his lips.

  Frank lay splayed out, arms up as if warding something off.

  At least Ralph thought it was Frank. It wore Frank’s familiar brown Dickies jacket, Levi’s, and work boots, anyway. But the rest—

  Oh, God, the rest…

  Peeking out of the sleeves and neck of the jacket, a desiccated skull and bony skeleton hands lay against the floor’s cracked gray concrete.

  “Oh, God…Frank…” Ralph whispered. His body trembled, but still he couldn’t move. His gaze fixed on the skull; a few wisps of brown hair still clung to it—the same color brown as Frank’s had been.

  Thoughts flew through Ralph’s terrified brain: What the hell happened? and I was only gone for five minutes! and What’s in that thing? and I gotta call the cops! For just a second, he thought maybe Frank had managed to get him good with a practical joke—but that thought died instantly. What he saw in front of him was far too grotesquely, appallingly real for anything his brother could have gotten his hands on.

  Gradually, feeling returned to Ralph’s frozen limbs, but he didn’t move any closer to the desiccated thing that used to be his older brother. He switched on the overhead light, which made the scene look even more surreal.

  What was he going to do? Would the cops think he’d somehow done this?

  How was he going to explain this to Frank’s wife?

  What would—

  From inside the chest, a faint glow began to rise.

  “Huh—?”

  Terror gripped Ralph, and he took a stumbling step backward. Oh God, it’s happening again—that thing’s gonna—

  He stopped.

  Slowly, hesitantly, he took another step—but forward this time. Toward the chest.

  His heavy work boot came down on his skeletal brother’s back. Tiny cracks sounded as Frank’s spine broke under the weight. He paid no attention.

  He didn’t stop until he stood directly in front of the chest, gazing down into its depths. The glow brightened.

  Only a single item occupied the bottom: a wooden box, about the size of a large cigar box.

  Moving by rote, oblivious to the fact that he was still standing on his dead brother, Ralph leaned down and picked up the box. He contemplated it for a moment, then opened it.

  Inside, a series of odd-looking figures lay nestled, each in its own velvet indentation. Ralph studied them. The nearest comparison he could make, with his limited worldview, was that they vaguely resembled chess pieces—about the same size and general appearance, anyway. The design, however was nothing like a chess set. Constructed of some dark, gold-veined material that might have been stone or even some kind of carved gemstones, the figures each had two jewels set into them where eyes might have been—even those that didn’t have a humanoid shape.

  Unlike a chess set, the box included only black figures, not white ones. Ralph counted the indentations: seven in all, one larger than the others. One of the smaller ones was cracked and nearly broken in half, the jeweled eyes missing, its finish dulled.

  The others, however, were the most beautiful things Ralph had ever seen.

  Especially the one on the far left side. As he stared down at the small figures, he felt his gaze drawn to that one. Still moving as if in a dream, he plucked it from its velvet cradle and slipped it into his pocket.

  Then, slowly and deliberately, he removed the broken piece, tossed it back into the chest, and closed the chest. The glow persisted for a moment longer, its shafts poking out between the narrow seam, then vanished.

  Ralph paused only a moment more. He glanced down at the splayed figure of his brother. Then he stuck his flashlight in his pocket, exited the locker, pulled the door shut, and snapped the lock back on.

  As he left the storage facility, carrying the wooden box and heading back toward the truck, he didn’t even consciously notice that he had his other hand in his pocket, his fingers caressing the small black figure there.

  He also didn’t notice that he was smiling.

  Ralph was still hungry after he left. He could wait till he got
home, but as he eased the truck through the heavy San Francisco traffic on his way out of town, his stomach kept rumbling until finally he pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s. When he got out to go inside, he neglected to lock the truck.

  Forty-five minutes later he returned, comfortably full of pot roast and coffee, and climbed back in. He pulled out into traffic, one hand still caressing the small figure in his pocket. At no point did it ever occur to him that the wooden box he’d left on the passenger seat wasn’t there anymore.

  No, right now he had other things on his mind.

  1

  Alastair Stone had nearly forgotten what sleep was.

  He stumbled as he stepped through the portal into the small storeroom at A Passage to India, barely catching himself before he took an undignified header into a stack of napkin boxes. Right now, if a genie appeared in front of him and asked what he wanted most in the world, his answer, without a thought, would have been “at least a week of uninterrupted rest.”

  Couldn’t be helped, though—he had things he needed to get done, and not a lot of time to do them. Even carefully rationing his power as he’d been doing, it would be gone soon, and if he didn’t get things moving on their own before then, he’d either have to answer some very uncomfortable questions, or do some things he didn’t want to do.