Trial By Fire: Alastair Stone Chronicles Book Thirty-Seven, page 1
TRIAL BY FIRE
ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES BOOK 37
R. L. KING
CONTENTS
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
Don’t miss Alastair Stone’s next adventure!
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Books by R. L. King
About the Author
Copyright © 2024 by R. L. King
Trial By Fire: Alastair Stone Chronicles Book Thirty-Seven
First Edition, August 2024
Edited by John Helfers
Cover Art and Design by G & S Cover Design
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.
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1
The last two times Alastair Stone had attended funerals, they had been for his old University colleague, Edwina Mortenson, and his magical mentor, William Desmond.
This one was considerably different from either of those.
The grief this time was perhaps not as potent, since he hadn’t shared the same long period of close acquaintance with the deceased. The guilt, on the other hand, burned strong and hot, stoked by thoughts that gave him no rest despite his best efforts to drown them in liquor. If anything, it had grown more intense over the past few days.
At least nobody had asked him to speak at this one.
It wasn’t a funeral, per se, since there was no body. The earthly remains of Derik Christopher Brody, twenty-six, Changeling and former receptionist at Thayer Investigations, had already been claimed by his parents and taken back to southern California. They’d held an actual funeral there yesterday, mostly attended by the parents’ friends, Derik’s old high-school chums, and a couple former girlfriends.
The event in the Bay Area was more of a memorial service, because Derik had a lot of friends there who had wanted to pay their respects, but didn’t want to travel to Los Angeles to do it. Stone, who had made a substantial anonymous contribution to the fund set up to raise money for the affair, hadn’t realized how many. He sat a few rows back in the trendy, modern church—Derik hadn’t attended, but he had believed in God so his friends had picked someplace they thought he’d appreciate—sweeping his gaze over the dozens of mourners. Almost all of them were near Derik’s age, and almost all wore the slightly shell-shocked expressions of young people who had internalized for the first time in their lives that death wasn’t just for old people.
At the church’s front, arrayed in front of a pair of soaring, angular windows flanking a tall, minimalist cross of light wood, a riotously colorful arrangement of flowers threatened to overflow the white table supporting them. A large, color photo of Derik was on an easel at its center. As always, he was smiling, his eyes bright and full of life, his dark hair artfully mussed, his whole bearing suggesting he shared a fun private joke with the Universe.
Stone couldn’t look at it for more than a second or two.
Instead, he watched the massive screen above the cross, which was currently displaying various scenes from Derik’s life—everything from his grade-school birthday parties and school plays to YouTube and TikTok videos where he held court with easy familiarity, sharing stories about his activities with anyone who wanted to listen.
Next to Stone, Verity Thayer squeezed his hand.
“Are you okay?” she whispered. She was dressed in her usual elegant designer style, but not in black. Most of the young people present hadn’t gone for black either; in fact, some were in hoodies and jeans, or bright colors in honor of Derik’s preference for them. There had been nothing drab or dark about Derik’s life, so they apparently felt there likewise shouldn’t be any for his death.
“No,” he said, with no inflection. He didn’t look at her. He knew he stood out in the crowd in his severe and formal black suit, shirt, tie, and overcoat, but he didn’t care. Nobody was supposed to be looking at him, anyway. He wondered what all these subdued kids would think if they knew it was his fault Derik was here in the first place.
Verity squeezed again, but was spared answering when Jason rose from his spot next to Amber in the row in front of them, and began a deliberate walk to the front of the church. He had chosen to dress more formally than most of the rest as well, in a dark sport jacket and slacks, but had skipped a tie. Under his short, neatly trimmed blond beard, his jaw was set tight.
The officiant, a young man in his middle thirties in a gray suit, stepped aside, surrendering his spot behind the pulpit. The soft music—peppy, instrumental dance selections instead of anything churchy or ponderous, faded out.
Jason looked around, taking in the group almost as if he wasn’t entirely sure for a moment where he was, but then firmed his shoulders. He was one of the last to speak, according to the online program, preceded by one of Derik’s childhood friends, his most recent ex-girlfriend, and one of his clubbing buddies.
He cleared his throat. “I really don’t want to be here,” he said. “I doubt any of you do. Derik was way too young for something like this to happen to him, and if I’m being honest, I’m angry about it.”
He paused a moment, gripping the edges of the pulpit. “A lot of you probably don’t know me. I’m Jason Thayer, and I’ve been Derik’s boss for the last couple years. He was a good employee, and a good man. He always had a joke or a cheerful comment, and nothing ever seemed to get him down. It was a pretty welcome thing around our office, where we often deal with people on some of the worst days of their lives. Derik was a master at calming people down, putting them at ease. He had a gift for that kind of thing.” He swallowed, but his voice didn’t waver. “I don’t really have a lot else to say, except that I’ll miss Derik. And I’ll always be grateful I had a chance to know him.”
He jerked away from the pulpit and returned, shoulders stiff and eyes straight ahead, to his seat next to Amber. She gripped his shoulder.
Behind him, Stone said nothing.
The last to speak, before the officiant brought the service to a close, was Gina Rodriguez. Surprisingly, despite her introverted nature and dislike of crowds, she didn’t hesitate as she headed to the front. She wore black slacks and a sweater of jewel-like blue; it seemed an odd choice, except to those who had truly known Derik—it was the primary color of his breathtakingly beautiful peacock Changeling plumage, along with iridescent green and purple.
She took her place behind the pulpit, and like Jason, seemed to gather herself for a moment. Then she swept her gaze across the assembled group, pausing briefly on a few of them before speaking.
Stone was probably one of the only ones who knew why: he’d scanned the crowd earlier, picking out the Changelings among them. There were more than he’d expected. Some of them sat together, deriving comfort from each other; others were scattered throughout the pews, little islands of color or fur or feathers among the dull uniformity of the human mourners.
Gina drew a deep breath. “Derik was my friend,” she said, with only a hint of a shake in her voice. “Some of you might think that’s a little weird, since we didn’t have much in common. He was handsome and witty and loved people—his favorite things to do involved being out among crowds and lights and music, while I’m basically a boring little hobbit who spends her free time holed up with video games and computers and nerdy TV shows.” She smiled to take the sting off the words.
Her gaze fell once again on the Changelings in the group, and settled on Stone and his friends. “But we did have something in common—something some of you know about, and something that drew us together more than just being co-workers could possibly do. We bugged each other sometimes, got on each other’s nerves because our personalities were so different, but—” Her voice caught a little. “I loved the guy, what can I say? He was one of the kindest, sweetest, and bravest people I’ll ever know. And it sucks that he had to die so young. I know, the Universe isn’t always fair, but it still sucks.”
She paused again, swiping a hand a
She swallowed, once again appeared to realize she was standing in front of nearly a hundred people, and cleared her throat. “Thanks,” she said, and quickly vacated the stage.
Stone didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the service. It took all his effort to remain where he was, sitting stiff and silent until the pastor completed his benediction and invited everyone to adjourn to the meeting hall, where there would be refreshments along with a memory book for mourners to sign. As soon as people began to file out, he stood and left the church. He didn’t follow the rest of the group to the meeting hall, but rather headed straight for the exit door.
Verity trailed him, catching up as he reached his black BMW in the parking lot. “Not staying?”
“No.”
She nodded. “I get it. You don’t want to stand around getting stared at by a bunch of kids who have no idea who you are.” Glancing back toward the church, she added, “Jason felt like he should at least make an appearance, since he was Derik’s boss. And Gina wanted to talk to the other Changelings.”
Stone opened the door and lingered a moment before getting in. “Did you need something?”
“No, not really. But… Alastair, you shouldn’t be alone right now. You know that, right?”
He shrugged. He hadn’t bothered using an illusion to hide his tired appearance. He hadn’t slept well since the night of Derik’s murder, having a hard time getting to sleep in the first place and jolting awake every hour or two when nightmare variations of the scene played over and over in his head like a cruelly looping film.
She nodded toward the car. “Are you drunk?”
“No.” He snorted. “Another thing I’m rubbish at anymore. Takes a lot of effort to get drunk, and as soon as I stop trying, it doesn’t stick around long.”
She regarded him with an expression equal parts stern and sympathetic. Then she stepped forward and pulled him into a hard hug. “Don’t push us away,” she whispered. “We get it. We understand, better than anyone else. And we’re all hurting. It’ll be easier to get through it if we help each other.”
He didn’t pull away from the hug, but he didn’t return it. “What makes you think I want to make it easier, Verity?” he asked, soft and even. “I don’t deserve for it to be easy. And no, that’s not me being maudlin. It’s the truth. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be here today. None of this would have happened.”
She pulled back and looked at him. Started to say something, paused, then sighed. “I know I’m not going to change your mind. None of us are. But I really do think you’re selling Derik short. He knew what he was getting into. He knew it was possible it could end badly. But he wanted to help anyway. Pretending that wasn’t true takes away from his sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice.” He looked away. “It was murder, pure and simple. There was nothing any of us could have done about it. I should have seen the signs.”
“How?” She dropped her voice to a near-whisper. “How were you supposed to know it was a… dragon, behind it?” She shook her head. “I’m still having a hard time getting my mind around the fact that dragons exist in the world. But from what you’ve told us, you had no way to know. You thought we were dealing with human mages.” She took his arm. “I get it. It’s going to take time. But don’t push us away.”
Stone glanced past her. Jason, Amber, and Gina were all emerging from the church in a group. They paused a moment to speak with a young couple near the door, then resumed their trek across the parking lot.
“I’ve got to go, Verity,” he said, aware of how bleak he sounded. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’ve got some things I need to take care of.” It wasn’t entirely true—the “things” were to go home and resume his attempts to get very drunk so he could forget for a while, and the only company he wanted for that was Raider. As long as he stayed away from the array of word buttons in the dining room, the cat’s communications were limited to purrs and meows.
She held his gaze for a few beats, then sighed. “Yeah. Okay. But at least promise me you’ll call if you need anything.” As if sensing the others approaching, she leaned in. “Have you had any luck finding out who did it?”
“Not yet. It’s being worked on.” He thought about his conversation with Kolinsky, regretting it now. One month was a long time to wait for answers. Even though he wasn’t sure it would be enough time to blunt his grief and his rage and his guilt, he still wished he’d pushed back. But it was too late to do anything about it now. He doubted any attempt to contact the dragon would be successful before that, so his only choices were to wait, or to try other avenues.
At least he knew the Changeling-trafficking organization had been smashed, and the dragon behind it wouldn’t be starting up anything else like it. Kolinsky and some of the other dragons had seen to that. He recalled Kolinsky’s little shiver when he’d alluded to Madame Huan’s wrath when she’d found out. Normally the most calm and kindly of the dragons, she clearly had facets Stone had known nothing about.
Of course she did. She was a dragon, and they’d all lived for thousands of years. Nobody that old could be one-dimensional.
“Okay,” Verity said. “I’ll let you go. Please take care of yourself, Alastair. We’re here for you.”
“Thank you. I know you are, and I appreciate it.” He quickly climbed into the car, closed the door, and drove off before Jason, Amber, and Gina could catch up and try rekindling the conversation.
On the way home, he drove with more care than usual. He hadn’t been lying to Verity—he wasn’t drunk. But he was exhausted, which could be almost as bad. As he drove, he thought about the last couple of days.
Gabriel had apparently told Ian at least some of what had happened, because his son had texted him last night: I’m so sorry, Dad. I feel terrible that I wasn’t around. Do you want me to come over?
Thank you, he’d sent back. And no. I’m all right. Just want to be alone for a while. Don’t cut your trip short.
You sure? It will take me a couple days, but I can do it.
Stone had smiled, just a little. He knew Ian wasn’t just saying it—if he asked, his son would drop everything and come running. I’m sure. We’ll talk when you’re available.
He made it from San Jose to the Encantada house without incident, though by the time he drove through the gates and pulled the car into the garage, he was wishing he’d just used ley-line travel instead of trying to drive. The church was a mile from the nearest ley line, but the walk probably would have helped clear his head.
Raider was waiting for him when he opened the door. The cat had been clingier than usual over the last few days; reluctant to leave him alone for even a moment, Raider had even taken to perching on the bathroom counter to watch him take a shower. Whenever Stone passed near the talk buttons in the dining room, Raider had stalked over to them and pressed Stone and sad, then looked up at him with questioning green eyes. He did that now, as Stone headed out to the kitchen to get some coffee.
Stone paused, crouching to pet his soft, furry head. “Yes, Raider,” he said. “I’m sad. It’s all right—nothing to do with you.” He wondered how much the cat actually understood. Ever since he’d turned Changeling, he’d seemed to develop significantly more intelligence than the average cat, but Stone had no idea how much.
His words to Raider brought back another memory that dug into his soul like a hot knife every time it resurfaced. He couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it would have been to set Raider up as the bait for their sting instead of Derik—the dragon’s people had already tried and failed to kidnap the cat, whose Changeling form was larger and very beautiful, with luminous purple eyes. If he’d done that, Derik might not be dead now.
But Raider might. And as much as the thought of losing a human instead of a cat racked him with guilt, Stone loved Raider. He couldn’t bring himself to send his old friend, who trusted him completely, into such danger.
