“But I’m glad you’ve found someone. Please, bring her by sometime. I’ll have Nikhil whip up something special for the two of you.” She stood. “Anyway, must go—I have some more cleaning I need to do before closing. But if you talk to Jason and Verity, tell them we all miss them here.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As Stone headed back home, he couldn’t get his mind off what he’d said to Marta. It even, for the moment, drove away thoughts of the grimoire’s contents. He drove up 101 almost on autopilot, thinking about his time with Deirdre.

  He’d only known her for a bit more than a month, but already he felt more comfortable with her than any of the other women he’d had relationships with over the years. With one exception, of course, but that ship had sailed long ago and wasn’t coming back in any time soon.

  He wished he could see her tonight. After Marta’s wonderful chicken he was no longer hungry and his headache had disappeared, but he couldn’t shake the bone-deep weariness he always seemed to feel lately when he wasn’t with her. It was as if he saved up all his energy to spend with Deirdre, and when they were apart he was forced to recharge—or, if he couldn’t spare the time for recharging, to function in a less than optimal state. If he were wise, he’d go straight home, go to bed, and get several hours of uninterrupted sleep. His first class tomorrow wasn’t until ten-thirty, so he could potentially sleep for ten or eleven hours.

  He didn’t go straight home, though. Instead, he exited the freeway and drove to Los Altos. She’d said she would be out late, so he had no reasonable expectation of finding her home, but something urged him to stop by and check anyway.

  He pulled the BMW to a stop across the street from her building and looked up. The windows of her loft were dark, the shades drawn. The upscale neighborhood lay still and quiet under a clear, moonlit sky, and no other cars moved past him. After a moment, he got out of the car and crossed to the locked garage gate. She’d given him the code, but he didn’t enter; instead, he just peered inside. Her space was empty, as he expected it to be.

  It occurred to him as he walked back to the car that his actions might look suspicious: if Deirdre had been home, she might have been angry with him, thinking he didn’t trust her. But it wasn’t about trust. The thought that she might be with another man hadn’t even entered his mind when he came over here. He wasn’t sure exactly what the compulsion was to check on her, but it wasn’t that.

  He’d opened the grimoire inside her unprotected loft. Maybe he was just checking to make sure it hadn’t attracted any of the wrong kind of attention. In any case, she wasn’t there and his growing fatigue even blunted his body’s normal responses to thoughts about her.

  Time to go home.

  Stone couldn’t sleep.

  He’d arrived home, checked the wards, checked his phone messages (nothing from Deirdre; Jason had called to see how he was doing, and he made a mental note to call him tomorrow) and then headed immediately upstairs. Too tired to do more than kick off his boots and slip out of his coat and jeans, he threw himself down on the bed, burrowing under the covers. With any luck, he’d pass out and not wake up until tomorrow morning.

  He poked his head out what felt like a couple hours later, but when he looked at the glowing clock on his nightstand, he discovered it had only been twenty minutes. He spent the next half-hour tossing and turning, flinging himself around and trying to quiet his mind sufficiently that he could drop off to sleep, but that release stubbornly eluded him. His fatigued brain swam with disjointed images: Deirdre, Lindsey Cole, Jason, Verity, diagrams and bits of the odd handwritten script from the grimoire, the interior of the Church of the Rising Dawn, and still more images that flashed by too fast to identify. The overall effect was that every time he thought he might finally succumb to sleep, some other stray thought jerked him back to wakefulness.

  Finally, he sat up and ran his hand through his hair in disgust. This was getting him nowhere. At this rate, he’d spend the whole night thrashing around in bed and be more tired in the morning than he was now. He wished he hadn’t taken the grimoire to England; this would have been a good time to get in some more study. As it was, he had a few options: he could try taking a hot shower and see if that calmed him down; he could have a drink or a cup of tea; or he could go downstairs and try to read or put something mindless on the television and hope it bored him to sleep.

  He got up and considered. His body felt sluggish, unresponsive, and more sitting around hardly seemed to be the answer. Maybe what he needed was a good run. Before Jason and Verity left, he went for long runs several times a week, usually right about this time of night. And he didn’t do it only for exercise: it was the only reliable way he’d found to calm his racing mind.

  He could certainly do with a bit of calming now.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Outside, the February cold sliced into him. Shivering, he locked the door behind him, did a few stretches in an attempt to get warmed up, and set off at a slow but steady pace. He’d have to take it a bit easy—he was out of shape following too many weeks of too much alcohol and not enough exercise, which was probably part of why he felt so wrecked—but just being outside and moving was already reviving him.

  His T-shirt, lightweight jacket, and track pants barely afforded any protection against the chill of the air, but he knew from experience that he’d be fine once he got going.

  One of his favorite places to run this time of night, when he didn’t want to get in the car and drive up to campus, was along the Caltrain tracks that paralleled Alma Avenue. The trains came by less than once an hour this late, and the dirt path next to the tracks made for a more pleasant experience than constantly dodging traffic and waiting for lights. It was easy to get into a nice droning rhythm: just head in a straight line and keep going, letting his mind wander as it chewed over the events of the day. He never ran with headphones—not because he was afraid of anyone jumping him, but because he didn’t like the distraction of music. Other than when he was asleep, the times he went running were some of the few when he could simply switch off and let his brain go wherever it wanted to. More than a few unconventional solutions to sticky problems had come to him in this way.

  He’d been running along the tracks for about ten minutes when he spotted a pair of figures ahead of him.

  He’d just crossed Palo Alto Avenue, where the tracks plunged through a small, wooded park. The figures lounged against a short, steel bridge that spanned a narrow creek—Stone had never looked at its name, but its bed was dry even this time of year. The only illumination came from the slender moon overhead and the lights at each end of the bridge.

  Stone didn’t slow down, though he kept a wary eye on the pair as he approached them. Probably a couple of homeless people getting ready to bunk for the night. There weren’t a lot of them in Palo Alto, as the police tended to chivvy them along when they discovered them, but this area was remote enough that they sometimes took their chances under the bridge. Almost certainly harmless. They might try to stop him and ask him for a dollar or a joint, but most of the homeless he encountered along the tracks would take no for an answer if he had no money on him.

  As he approached, Stone took them both in with a quick glance, and tensed. These two weren’t homeless. He still wasn’t worried—he’d never met a would-be mugger he couldn’t deal with if he saw him coming—but he did step up his awareness, prepared to throw a spell if need be.

  Under the pool of light at the edge of the bridge, the two bore a superficial resemblance to each other: both tall—taller than Stone, who was himself over six feet; both with the muscular, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted builds of serious athletes—football players, perhaps. One had short, neatly-cut hair and wore the pressed jeans, polo shirt, and expensive athletic shoes of one of Stanford’s privileged elite, while the other was nearly shaven-headed, tattooed, in a leather jacket, ripped jeans, and combat boots. It was hard to tell how old they were in the dim light, but both looked about the right age to be students at the university.

  “Hey,” Polo Shirt said. He dangled the stub of a lit cigarette between two fingers; its tip glowed against the darkness.

  “Evening,” Stone said, stopping but continuing to keep a wary eye on them.

  “How’s it goin’?” Leather Jacket had his hands in his pockets and stood in a languid slouch.

  They could be a threat, or they could just be a couple of buzzed frat boys out for a stroll. It was hard to tell, as both remained expressionless. Stone shifted to magical sight and relaxed a bit: their auras—Polo Shirt’s gold and Leather Jacket’s blue-green—were calm, unruffled, though both rippled around the edges with a red tinge that reminded Stone of his nights with Deirdre. Perhaps they were on their way home from visiting girlfriends or hooking up at a party, or perhaps they were a couple themselves. Regardless, he saw no threat. He shrugged. “Just out for a late run.”

  “That’s cool,” Polo Shirt said. “I like this time of night. Nice and quiet.” He dropped his cigarette butt, stubbed it out with his shoe, and pulled a pack from his pocket. He withdrew another cigarette and held it out toward Stone. “You got a light, dude?”

  “Sorry,” Stone said. Despite the innocuous appearance of their auras, the little hairs on the back of his neck tingled. Something was odd about these two. He was probably wrong—his brain still hadn’t sorted itself out—but best if he just moved along nonetheless. He nodded to them and started past them.

  Polo Shirt grabbed his arm and pulled him up short. “Where’s the book, Stone?”

  Stone blinked, certain he’d misheard. He tried to wrench his arm free, but Polo Shirt’s grip felt like it was made of steel. “What?”

  “You heard me. Where’s the fuckin’ book?”

  This was bad. How could they know about the grimoire? How did they know who he was? “What book?”

  “One more chance to do this the easy way,” Leather Jacket drawled. “We don’t give a fuck either way—we kinda like the hard way. But you might not.”

  Polo Shirt’s grip tightened again, digging into Stone’s arm. “Where’s the book?”

  “You’re both making a mistake,” Stone said. Without giving them a chance to respond, he pointed his free hand at Polo Shirt and sent a potent concussion beam slamming into his broad chest. It should have tumbled him down over the bridge to land in the dry creek bed a few feet below.

  Polo Shirt didn’t budge.

  His grip didn’t weaken.

  He smiled.

  It looked creepy on his handsome, big-man-on-campus face. Then, with no change of expression, he released Stone’s arm and buried his other fist in the mage’s midsection.

  Pain exploded. Stone staggered backward and would have fallen if Leather Jacket, moving far faster than he should have been able to, hadn’t slipped around behind him, grabbing him around both arms and wrenching them backward.

  “What the hell?” Stone bit out through clenched teeth. His body wanted to double over, but Leather Jacket held him upright. His heart pounded; that concussion beam should have sent Polo Shirt halfway across the parking lot, but he hadn’t even moved.

  “Surprise, motherfucker,” Leather Jacket whispered in his ear. His breath was hot and sour-smelling.

  Stone looked around wildly, hoping to see an approaching car along Palo Alto Avenue or any sign of other people in the area, but it appeared he and these two were alone. Puffing, he tried to pull up a shield around himself. If he could keep them from hitting him again, he could levitate out of their grasp and conceal his escape among the trees. He had none of this power objects with him in his running gear—he could deal easily with normal threats without them. But these weren’t normal threats.

  Polo Shirt hit him again: a one-two punch in the gut and the jaw. Leather Jacket held him still, then let him drop.

  He fell to his hands and knees, the sharp rocks lining the tracks cutting into his palms, slashing through the thin fabric of his pants. Nausea rose and he fought it. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to his knees and pointed one hand at Polo Shirt and one at Leather Jacket. This was going to hurt, but he had to do something to get them out of his face. Snapping out a harsh word, he directed crackling lightning toward the two. It was a showy attack, but sometimes a display of power went further to intimidate threats than a more potent but less visually impressive assault. Without waiting to see if it hit, he flung himself sideways and tried to roll away.

  The bright blue lightning danced around the two attackers like a hungry beast, but didn’t even slow them down. Before Stone could get off another spell they were on him again.

  “Bad idea,” Leather Jacket said, jerking him back to his feet. Polo Shirt slammed another blow into his gut. Leather Jacket shoved him forward and he fell again, retching. One of them—he couldn’t tell who—kicked him twice in the side, dropping him.

  Damn it, focus!

  But he couldn’t focus. His mind on fire with pain, he struggled to form a spell—any spell. Anything to make them stop. Somebody kicked him again and he rolled into a ball, drawing his knees up and fighting get the nausea under control. He tasted blood and chicken tikka masala and Guinness.

  One of them grabbed his hair and yanked his head up. Polo Shirt’s grinning, frat-boy face appeared only inches away from his own. “Don’t you get it yet, Stone? You’re screwed. Tell us where it is or we’ll kill you.”

  Stone glared at him, as well as he could with his vision swimming. He spat blood. Gathering every scrap of willpower he could summon, he pulled in energy. He shifted his gaze past him, fighting to focus on what was beyond. He didn’t have long.

  There—he spotted it: a fist-size rock. If he couldn’t hit them directly, maybe he could hit them indirectly. It was his only chance. Without thinking, without pausing, he snatched up the rock and flung it telekinetically toward the back of Polo Shirt’s head.

  Two things happened: The rock did what he intended and smacked into Polo Shirt, who yelped in pain and lurched forward. Leather Jacket yanked Stone’s head back and threw him hard to the ground. “Bad move.”

  In spite of everything, Stone grinned. “I’d say…” he got out between breaths, “it was…a good move…actually.”

  Polo Shirt, clearly not seriously injured by the rock, grabbed Stone by the front of his jacket and pulled him back up. “You’re gonna pay for that, motherfucker.”

  After that, Stone couldn’t construct a coherent narrative out of what happened next. It was just pain, and blood, and more retching as the two of them rained blows on him. After a time—it could have been a few minutes or a few hours, he wasn’t sure—Polo Shirt pulled him up again by the ripped and ruined front of his T-shirt. “You’re so pathetic, Stone. Your magic’s useless on us, and that’s all you got. You can’t even fight like a real man, can you?” He let go and took a step back. “Go on. Try it. Hit me.”

  Stone swayed and would have fallen except for Leather Jacket behind him, who caught him.

  “Go on!” Polo Shirt urged. “Hit me, you pussy! I won’t even fight back.” He pointed mockingly at his own chin. “Right here.”

  “Bugger off…” Stone whispered. He spat out more blood.

  “Pathetic,” Polo Shirt said again, his face twisting in disgust. “Where’s the book? We can do this all night. Nobody’s gonna come help you, and you’re too useless to help yourself. Tell us where it is and maybe we’ll let you live.”

  Stone glared.

  Polo Shirt hit him again. “Where is it?” he screamed.

  Leather Jacket grabbed his arm behind him and twisted it up, nearly wrenching it from its socket. “You’re gonna give it up, man…do it before we fuck you up so bad nobody can help you.”

  Stone cried out at the pain. He hadn’t wanted to give them the satisfaction, but he couldn’t help it anymore. “I don’t have it!” he moaned.

  Polo Shirt was in his face again. “What do you mean, you don’t have it?”

  “I don’t…” His voice shook. He hated himself for it, but he just wanted the pain to stop. Anything to make the pain stop.

  Polo Shirt took a step back and visibly worked to get himself under control, then faced Stone again. “You still don’t get it, do you, Stone? We own you. Nobody’s comin’ to help. We can do whatever we want with you, and there isn’t a fuckin’ thing you can do to stop us. Why don’t you just tell us where it is and make it easy on yourself?”

  “I…don’t…have it,” Stone whispered again.

  Leather Jacket yanked his head up again, and wrenched his arm harder. “It’s okay. We got time,” he said.

  Stone shrieked as his arm slipped out of its socket. He would have sagged if Leather Jacket didn’t still have him.

  “You’re our bitch, Stone. What good’s all that power now?” Polo Shirt grinned his unwholesome grin. He leaned in, his hot breath wafting over Stone’s face. “We can have our way with you, man. How’s that feel? We know all about you. We know what you can do. You’re all about being in control, aren’t you? You got all the answers. How’s it feel now, knowin’ you got nothin’?”

  Stone tried to wrench himself free of Leather Jacket’s grip, but even as he did it, he knew it was futile. He moaned again as his arm shot waves of agony through his body. Leather Jacket threw him down again, and he didn’t get up.

  “Just give us the fuckin’ book. Tell us where it is. We’ll even go get it.” Polo Shirt crouched down next to him, hands resting casually on his knees, his bright white athletic shoes inches from Stone’s head.

  “…can’t…” Stone said. His voice had nearly no volume now. He coughed; sharp rocks cut into his cheek, but the tiny pains barely registered next to all the rest. Hot tears of pain and shame pricked at his eyes.

  “Why not?”

 

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