Heart of stone, p.34
Heart of Stone, page 34
“Go!” Stone ordered.
They poured through the hole, Verity’s shield moving in front of them.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
The room was huge: an enormous hall nearly fifty feet on a side, dark-walled and granite-floored, with a ceiling so high it disappeared into shadow. Stone got a brief impression of the scene before them—furniture pushed off to the side and far end, windows covered with heavy drapes, lighting provided by candles spread out around the room, and an impressive crystal chandelier hanging on a heavy chain from the ceiling.
But his gaze was drawn to the centerpiece of the tableau: a massive circle, at least twenty feet in diameter, painted with precision on the cleared floor. Surrounding it, spaced along the perimeter at irregular intervals, was a series of odd-looking apparatus on stands, like something out of a mad scientist’s nightmare. He saw glass globes filled with liquids, tubing and what looked like electrical conduits stretching from one stand to the next, metal arms holding green flames, red flames, blue flames. Some of the tubing snaked across the circle and into its center, where it reached—
“Tabitha!” Caldwell yelled.
An elaborate table had been placed in the center of the circle, and upon it lay the naked body of Tabitha Wells. She wasn’t tied—she didn’t have to be, as she appeared to be deeply unconscious. Several of the tubes and conduits had been somehow attached to her body, though it was impossible to tell how in the dim light. Seven tall stands were arrayed around the table, each one topped with a crystal of a different color. From each crystal, a beam of light, bright as a laser, spiked out and converged at a point in the center of Tabitha’s chest.
At that instant, though, Stone’s attention was diverted as several things happened at once.
Shadowy figures rose from behind the furniture’s makeshift cover and opened fire on the new arrivals.
Stone gripped Caldwell’s arm and yanked him back before he could surge forward toward Tabitha, out of the protection of the shield that Verity was still holding with effort.
Two more figures, who’d been hiding on the wrong side of their cover, obviously expecting trouble to come in through one of the two sets of doors on the sides of the chamber, scrambled around in the direction of the other side.
Jason took aim at one of the figures and fired his own gun. The person—a woman—yelped but flung herself around the barrier to safety.
“Careful!” Stone yelled. “Don’t break that circle!”
“Yes!” called a voice from the other side of the circle, mocking and amused. “Don’t break the circle. Who knows what terrible things might happen if you do that?”
Stone saw him then, in the shadows on the other side of the room, just outside the perimeter. The man stood behind a lectern on which a book lay open—Stone recognized it instantly as the grimoire he thought he’d destroyed.
Of medium height, with a slim build and silver-gray hair, Elias Richter wore a fine suit and an expression of smug calm. He glanced down at the grimoire as if checking something, then nodded, satisfied. “I wouldn’t risk disturbing anything at this point,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to blow this entire place to pieces.”
Stone shifted to magical sight, and immediately spotted the shimmering, translucent barrier enclosing the circle. “He’s got it warded,” he said under his breath.
“Very securely, too,” Richter said as if Stone had spoken aloud. “You might have been successful with the simple protections I put up around the house, but this one will prove more formidable, I promise you.” He nodded toward the side of the room nearest where Stone and the others stood.
Stone spared a quick glance in that direction. A pile of old, ragged clothes lay strewn haphazardly around on the floor. He’s killed people to power that barrier. It shouldn’t have surprised him.
“Hey, I’ve seen that guy!” Jason muttered.
That, however, was a surprise. “Where?”
“At the restaurant,” Verity said, her voice tight with effort as she continued holding her shield. “We both did. He came through the portal.”
“Ah, yes. I do remember seeing you two. I’d put your guns down if I were you,” Richter said. He nodded toward the apparatus. “You may be tempted to try to get past my ward, but even if you somehow manage it, this is still a delicate construct. I’m sure you’re well aware of that, Dr. Stone, given that I’m certain you’ve had time to do your translations on the grimoire. If you knock it out of sync, it could be disastrous for the young lady there.”
“You’re going to kill her anyway!” Caldwell yelled.
“Well—yes. But do you want to kill yourselves too?” He glanced at the grimoire once more, consulted a sheaf of papers that lay next to it, and made an adjustment to one of the nearby stands. “If you were wondering, by the way—I’ve got a few moments while this reaction completes, so we have a brief time to chat.”
“Where are your two lackeys?” Stone asked. He scanned the room again, but aside from Richter, all he saw were the flickering edges of the female guards’ auras as they sheltered behind their heavy furniture barriers. “I know they’re here—that’s why your security force is all women. I thought they’d be front and center for this.”
“I’m surprised you’re in such a hurry to see them again, Dr. Stone,” Richter said. “They’ve told me about how ineffectual you were against them last time you encountered them.” He made a tsk sound, shaking his head. “I wish I could have seen it. It must have been humiliating.” His gaze traveled past Stone to Deirdre behind him. “And you, my traitorous little thief. I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Dr. Stone. I assure you, I’ve got plans for you once this is over. I guarantee they won’t be to your liking.”
“Just—let her go!” Deirdre yelled. Her voice shook. “I’ll—I’ll come back with you if you let her go.”
“Deirdre—” Stone began.
“Oh, you’ll come back with me in any case,” Richter said. He made another minute adjustment to another stand. “There was never any question about that. But it’s far too late to stop the ritual now, even if I wanted to.”
“You’re a monster!” she yelled. She moved up next to Stone, still behind Verity’s barrier, which was beginning to waver. “How can you—”
Something dropped down next to her, on her other side, silent and quick as a cat. Stone spun in time to see a tall, muscular figure, dressed all in black. He grabbed hold of Deirdre and flung her backward. Her head hit the wall with a sickening thud and she slid to the ground.
“Deirdre!” By the time Stone, or any of them, could react the figure had vaulted away, moving low and fast, wreathed in shadows. He briefly recognized the grinning face of Polo Shirt—Lane—before he was gone, ducking back behind more of the heavy furniture stacked along the walls. A quick glance up confirmed that the room’s ceiling, high above them, was latticed with heavy beams wide enough to provide a superhighway for men as strong and agile as Richter’s two henchmen. Where was Hugo? Was he still up there somewhere?
“Dr. Stone!” Verity’s voice, full of strain, rose. “The shield—”
“Down!” Jason ordered, grabbing Verity’s arm once again and pulling her to the floor. He took a wild shot toward where the dark figure had disappeared.
The shield shimmered and dropped.
Two of the female guards popped up and began firing at the group.
Stone and Caldwell hit the ground as well, rolling toward the other side of the room. Two more guards rose and also began shooting.
The one saving grace, apparently, was that while the women were attired as guards, they didn’t appear to be as proficient with their guns as real security guards should be. That wasn’t surprising: Stone doubted Richter couldn’t have found and hired that many female security guards on such short notice. He’d probably hired what guards he could, and supplemented the force with other women under Lane’s and Hugo’s thrall.
But even so, that many guns firing in such a small space were plenty dangerous even if they didn’t always hit what they were aiming at.
Time to get rid of some of them.
“Caldwell—get the near one,” he ordered. “I’ll get the far one. And don’t kill her.” Without waiting to see if the black mage complied, he raised his shield, ducked low, and took off toward where the rearmost of the two guards sheltered.
Apparently, neither Richter nor his flunkies had informed them what they were up against—not that it would matter if they were deeply under the control of Lane or Hugo. The woman got two shots off at Stone before he reached her: the first one hit his shield and ricocheted harmlessly away, while the second went wide and took a chunk out of the wall. Someone isn’t getting his security deposit back, Stone thought as he aimed a concussion beam at the woman. She cried out and fell in a heap, and he snatched up her gun and stuck it in his coat pocket.
He was about to spin around to check whether Caldwell had dealt with his guard when another dark figure landed next to him.
Hugo—still dressed in his biker jacket over black body armor, grinned. “Well, look who it is. Back for more?”
Stone backpedaled, heart pounding, scrabbling in his pocket for the gun. He still had the shield up—it should hold, if he could just—
Hugo lashed out with a savage, steel-toed kick. His foot hit the shield, which flared from invisible to translucent to pink to red in the space of less than a second, and then dropped. His grin widened. “We practiced with the boss,” he said. “Seems we can take down magic shields if we hit ’em hard enough.”
Stone, reeling from the psychic feedback from the shield’s destruction, got the gun out, but fumbled it in his hand. He wasn’t used to firing guns, and certainly wasn’t used to bringing them to bear this fast when his head felt like somebody was tap-dancing on the inside of his skull.
Hugo moved like a snake, faster than any normal human should be able to. His foot flew out again, this time hitting Stone’s wrist.
Pain exploded. Stone yelped as the gun flew from his fingers and hit the floor somewhere in the back of the room. He staggered backward again, but this time there was nowhere to go. His back hit a heavy wooden armoire, and he couldn’t go back any farther.
Hugo was in his face instantly. The big man grabbed a handful of his shirt and reeled him in. “No fun this time,” he said. His hot breath smelled like garlic. “Too bad. Maybe later, after.”
Stone forced himself to concentrate. He couldn’t hit Hugo directly with magic, but his last two fights had proven that, while the henchman was supernaturally tough, he was nonetheless still vulnerable to physical damage.
He couldn’t see anything to hit him with, though—Hugo’s bulk was in his face, blocking his view of the various pieces of furniture strewn around. He struggled to move, but Hugo just laughed and pulled back his fist.
And then Stone spotted it. Not past Hugo, but above him. He gathered power and unleashed it in two spells: the first grabbed hold of Hugo’s jacket and yanked him backward, away from Stone. Before the man could regain his feet, the second spell went off, taking a firm telekinetic grip on the chandelier high above, wrenching it free and sending it with all the strength he could muster at Hugo.
But Hugo was faster than Stone expected. At the last second before the enormous hurtling projectile crashed to the ground, trailing its long chain behind it and flinging shimmering crystal droplets in every direction, Hugo threw himself to one side, rolling twice and leaping back to a crouch in one swift and graceful motion. Before Stone could move, he leapt at the mage and took him down hard, his face wreathed in fury.
“Nice try,” he said through clenched teeth.
Stone wasn’t looking at him, though. Stunned, head pounding, he was nonetheless almost hyper-aware as adrenaline coursed through his body. The chandelier’s chain, thick and several feet long, lay trailed out on the floor behind the ruined fixture. Stone focused his will again, snatched it up, and wrapped it around Hugo’s neck.
For a moment, Hugo didn’t appear to realize just what was happening. Then his eyes widened and his hands flew up to the chain, trying to wrench it free.
But Stone’s magical power was every bit a match for Hugo’s physical strength. He kept his focus, ignoring everything but the chain, squeezing it tighter and tighter until the henchman’s face reddened and his eyes began to bulge.
Hugo, apparently, was not stupid, though. When it became clear his strength wouldn’t be sufficient to rip the chain from his neck, he changed tactics, going instead for the source. Face darkening, he lunged toward Stone, hands out, going for the mage’s throat.
Stone reacted on instinct—he yanked the chain tighter, and then used it to fling Hugo away from him, using every shred of his power backed up by all of his rage and frustration at his previous encounters with this man.
What he didn’t take into account was what was behind Hugo.
He had only a second to react before the henchman hit the barrier, and this time he wasn’t fast enough. Hugo flew backward, screaming obscenities as he went. The chain hit the shimmering dome first and he followed immediately after.
At first, Stone thought he’d merely bounce off. He kept hold of the chain in case he had to tighten it back around Hugo’s neck again, but—no.
Gods, no…
The shield, as strong as it was, was nonetheless a delicately balanced magical construct. It had to be—to create something that large and that powerful so quickly required a level of magical knowledge and ability beyond even Stone’s. He didn’t doubt it could have held off physical onslaughts from his friends, and it was probably designed to bleed off any magical energy that came into contact with it, so hitting it with magic would have been useless.
But Hugo was immune to magic.
Whatever he was, he wasn’t quite human. Something about his body simply didn’t react to magic at all. Stone’s shield had stopped him—temporarily—because it was a smaller, cruder version of this big one that Richter had erected.
But when you brought that kind of anti-magical force into contact with a precisely tuned magical construct like Richter’s ward…
The chain hit as expected, simply bouncing off.
Hugo did not.
Stone had just enough time to shift to magical sight so he could see exactly what occurred.
Where Hugo’s body slammed into the barrier, its shimmering surface lit up brighter and brighter, until it outlined him with otherworldly light so brilliant it almost hurt to look at it. His clothes protected him for a moment, but when they burned off and the rest of his skin hit it, the light’s intensity grew even more incandescent.
Hugo screamed, a bellowing, agonized screech that rose up until it echoed from the massive room’s rafters. His body jerked and stiffened, very much like what it might have done if it had hit a strong electrical field—and for much the same reason.
Stone wasn’t sure whether Hugo was dead before the barrier flashed even brighter and his body simply vaporized, but he did catch a last glimpse of the man’s wide, terrified eyes before they exploded from the heat of whatever strange reaction Stone had caused by putting him and the barrier into violent contact.
And then the flash died and Hugo was no more.
One second his body was there, and the next it was gone, vaporized by whatever bizarre reaction had been set into motion by his sudden impact with something he never should have touched.
Stone heard yells and thought they might be Lane, Verity, Caldwell—but he couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away from what was happening in front of him.
The barrier was flickering now, shifting and strobing like an old-style television signal struggling to lock in. The candles guttered madly, as if a powerful wind had blown through the chamber.
Stone stared at it, and had no idea what to do about it. What had he done? If that barrier went down and the feedback upset the even more delicate balance of the ritual inside, he could kill not only Tabitha, but every one of them.
The next seconds were agonizing. Across the flickering barrier, he could still hear the sounds of battle. Caldwell pelted up alongside him and gripped his shoulders, hard. “What did you do?” he screamed.
Stone shook him off, but otherwise ignored him. There was nothing to be done now but wait. He couldn’t stop it. Whatever happened would happen soon—if the worst occurred, they wouldn’t have time to escape. He was certain a ritual this size could take out this entire house and part of the grounds if it went up.
But it didn’t go up. Inside the circle, Richter must have discovered a last-minute sense of self-preservation, because he switched his attention from the grimoire to the apparatus in front of him. He had raised his hands and was yelling something in a language Stone didn’t know—something authoritative and, though his voice didn’t hold quite the mocking confidence it had before, it still came out strong and clear.
The barrier flickered and shifted and winked out.
The stands and globes and tubes inside the circle teetered alarmingly, rattling on the granite floor, and then steadied. The tubes and conduits swayed as if in a gentle breeze, but their ends remained connected to Tabitha’s unconscious body on the table in the center. The colorful, laser-point lights remained focused on the center of her chest. She slept on, oblivious to the chaos around her.
“What did you do?” Caldwell yelled again. “Tabitha!” He started to move forward, but Stone grabbed his arm and yanked him back.
“No! It’s more dangerous now than ever, Caldwell! You know better than this! Damn it, stop!”
Something in his voice must have gotten through to the other mage, because he did stop. He stared out with terror and hopelessness at Tabitha’s body on the table. “What do we do?”
