Stonecast Read online

  Can I endure? Can I take this pain, unbearable though it is?

  Yes, if it means keeping the Belarus family safe, if it keeps Alexandra safe. Like the initial spike, there was a perverse pleasure in the pain. After centuries of being deprived of any sort of emotion or sensation, part of me welcomed feeling something. And if I was being honest with myself, something felt better than the nothingness I had experienced after ensuring Alexandra’s safety by forcing her to break her bond with me.

  I could only hope she had been using these months wisely. My father could not be held by my bluff or mutual impasse forever.

  And, there was also the fear that, quite possibly, I would eventually break.

  Three

  Alexandra

  It was amazing how a stupid pile of bricks could really bring a woman down.

  Rory and Marshall had gone back to the apartment they shared down in the Village, but thoughts of tonight’s failed experiment and Stanis filled my mind so completely that I was restless. Giving up on the idea of sleep, I instead stopped by the old Belarus Building to grab up Bricksley, stuffing him into my Coach backpack before heading out to Brooklyn. Sadly, it wasn’t to party.

  I let Bricksley loose on the docks along the Hudson, setting his tottering brick body off on wire legs and clay feet to the task of patrolling for any sign of Kejetan’s freighter docked there. I knew it was in vain, but at least it felt like I was getting something accomplished, even if it was simply eliminating locations where it might return.

  As the sun came up and the docks rose to a bustle of activity, I knew that Bricksley would freeze up the same way Stanis would in daylight, and I set off in search of him. Minutes later, I reclaimed the frozen, inert form of Bricksley from a pool of sunlight by the slip where the floating home of Kejetan Ruthenia had once docked. I stood there longer than usual as the world around me moved on, a small part of me expecting the ancient cargo ship to just sail in after its six-month absence, but when that little pipe dream didn’t come to pass, I gave up and headed back into the city.

  A taxi dropped me off on the west side of Gramercy Park in front of the half block where my family’s building stood. I stared up at my by-then-vacant home, admiring the one bit of Gothic-inspired architecture on the whole park. I hadn’t felt too bad about self-condemning the place—both for the safety of my parents as well as getting some more alone time with the arcane library of my great-great-grandfather. If I was lucky, I could manage several hours of research work up in the art studio before the construction crews arrived. Continued reinforcing of the underlying structure of the catacombs was still going on—thanks to the damage Kejetan, his men, and Devon had done—but the art studio at the top should be fine for just little ol’ me.

  Could I have fixed much of the stonework myself? I wondered as I paid the taxi driver. Possibly, but I didn’t want to hang the entire structural integrity of our wholly unique multigenerational building on my still-fledgling arcane skills. No, I told myself, it was best to leave it to professional builders and engineers, and thanks to years in the real-estate business, my family knew the best of those around.

  The cab pulled away as a I caught a sudden, swooping figure out of the corner of my eye. I jumped back on the thankfully quiet sidewalk just as one of those magic-craving creatures from the night before dove through the space I had just occupied. Stone biters, Marshall had called them. Despite the faded and broken protections on the building, it was comforting to know there was still enough magic within it to draw the random passing monster, no matter how tiny and annoying.

  They truly were more nuisance than anything. It swooped through the air around me, correcting its course and heading straight for me. Its tiny claws and sharp teeth looked like they could totally do some damage, so I treated it the way I had been treating a lot of things over the past few months—I was going to kill it.

  Rory would be proud of my self-preservation instinct.

  I didn’t bother going for my backpack. I didn’t need any of my notes or my great-great-grandfather’s spell book to deal with this. I whispered out one of the most basic of phrases I had learned, reaching my will out into Gramercy Park. The sense of stone was everywhere within it, and I latched onto something that would be easy to replace—one of the cobblestones from the winding path within.

  There was no resistance as I pulled it to me in a high arc over the street itself, bringing it straight down toward the creature. The little bastard was fast and dodged my first attempt at him, his tiny wings swirling him up and around the cobblestone. Since the cobblestone was close, and I had a good visual lock on it, the stone itself became easier to handle, bending more easily to my will. A few more practice swipes at the creature, and I had a good idea of its maneuverability. With each pass, I drove it closer and closer to the ground, giving it less room to shift its course, but by the time it realized it was running out of room, it was too late. I pressed pure hate and strength into the stone, feeding the darkest of my will into it, and the cobblestone slammed down on the creature, catching it dead center. The wings stuck out from under the stone, fluttering against the pavement for a moment before all life drained out of the creature, and they stopped.

  Once I was sure the thing was dead, I checked the still-quiet street and lifted the cobblestone, arcing it back into the park, where I expertly fit it back into its spot along the path.

  I looked down at the flattened, broken creature, almost feeling sorry for it despite the fact that it had been moments away from clawing my face off. Still, the sight of its twisted little body sent a shudder down my spine.

  I couldn’t just leave the thing there. It was daylight, and it had been risky enough using my powers as it was. I could hear the sound of people scattered elsewhere around Gramercy, and it was just a matter of time before any one of them came this way. Using the toe of my boot, I nudged the broken body into the gutter of the street and reached for my backpack. I dug down deep into it, past my notebooks to the bottom, where my growing collection of tiny metal vials lay bunched together. Cool to the touch, I pulled a fistful of them free to examine my handwritten labels before finally selecting one.

  Kimiya—one of the more all-purpose concoctions from my great-great-grandfather’s mixes. Part of an ever-dwindling collection thanks to all the experiments I had been running.

  Pouring it over the lifeless creature, I spoke my words of power, transforming the stonelike skin of the tiny monster. It cracked and flaked into a pile of pebbles as I pressed my will over it until the figure could no longer hold its form. When there was nothing more than a pile of dusty rock shards left, I scattered it with my foot, most of the remains going into the nearby sewer grate. Other than a small dark stain on the sidewalk, it was like the creature had never been there.

  Turning, I headed into our building’s foyer, startling as the doors before me flew open. No one was supposed to be in there yet today. I jumped back, calling out to the stone around me, readying my will to defend myself . . . until I saw my foe, that is.

  “Alexandra!” Desmond Locke exclaimed, raising his bushy black eyebrows in surprise. With thinning gray hair pulled back into a ponytail and a goatee, my father’s spiritual adviser reminded me of Sean Connery from that movie Marshall had insisted we watch where all these immortals cut each other’s heads off. Hadn’t really been my thing, but Mr. Locke looked like a business-suited version of the actor nonetheless. Seeing him caused me to stand down from high alert despite the fact that he still creeped me out. I fought the niggling urge to drop the keystone of the vaulted arch of the foyer onto him, anyway.

  Going with my better judgment, I let go of my will over the stone and quickly slipped the empty vial I was still holding in my hand into the pocket of my coat. Locke’s eyes darted down, but I was pretty sure I had been fast enough.

  “Mr. Locke,” I said. “Nice to see you, but umm . . . what are you doing here? Everyone’s been moved downtown
to the new place on Saint Mark’s while we’re . . . renovating.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, looking a bit out of sorts. “I must say, I find it more than passing strange that you have to vacate the entire premises simply for the sake of renovation.”

  Renovation had sounded a lot better than trying to explain to one of the “normals” that stone-men golems and a gargoyle had been the cause of all the damage.

  “Just dealing with some structural things on the lower floors,” I said. “You know old buildings. My great-great-grandfather was a fantastic architect and stonemason, but nothing lasts forever, right?”

  “How right you are,” he said, then crossed himself. “Except, of course, the Eternal.”

  “Right,” I said after an all-too-long pause.

  I didn’t know what I believed in, more so after being exposed to the world of Spellmasonry, but I never liked broaching into theology with the man who had been guiding my father along what I considered a pretty weak divine path all these years. His oddness always left me feeling uneasy.

  “Well . . .” I said. “I really should get inside. Just need to grab a couple of things.”

  I tried to step around Mr. Locke, but he stayed where he was, eyes lowered and raising a hand as if to grab my shoulder but stopping inches away from it.

  “May I speak with you a moment about something personal?” he asked, keeping his hand hovering there.

  I tried to think fast, but having just dispatched that creature and being stuck in this small space with him had me unnerved, and I came up short on excuses.

  “Sure . . .” I said, shouldering my bag. “What’s up?”

  “Long have I cared for your father’s spiritual well-being, and I would like to think that it extends to the rest of the Belarus kin as well. For instance, I would like to think your brother’s soul was prepared for the afterlife at the time of his . . . accident.”

  I fought back a pained laugh, recalling the events earlier this year. Devon had been far from spiritual, and his death had been no accident. Hell, it hadn’t even been his death. Kejetan’s search for the Belarus family and the arcane secrets of our great-great-grandfather led the mad lord first to Devon. Devon—ever the pitchman and promising the secrets he eventually couldn’t deliver—bargained his human life for that of an eternal stone one. The building collapse on Saint Mark’s had merely proven the cover for ending his human life.

  Still, I didn’t think it was the time to broach that conversational hurdle.

  “No offense to you and your beliefs, Mr. Locke, but I don’t really think that was Devon’s bag . . . or really my bag, either.”

  He gave a pressed-lip smile indicating the kind of patience one might have when dealing with a child. “Fair enough,” he said. “Fair enough. That is perhaps a discussion for another day . . .”

  Not if I can help it, I thought, literally biting my tongue to the point it hurt.

  “But I wonder if I could discuss your father with you for a moment,” he continued.

  “Okay,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me.

  He paused, taking his time as if carefully trying to choose his words. “Have you noticed anything strange in his behavior lately?”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific,” I said. “My dad is strange in a lot of ways.”

  “Spoken like a true daughter,” he said with that smile again.

  I once more resisted the urge to crush him with the keystone above us. “Have you noticed something strange?” I asked him back.

  “I have simply noticed a change in our weekly discussions.”

  “What sort of change?”

  “You know of his belief in angels, yes?”

  I nodded, tensing a little. Everyone who had ever met my father knew about his belief in angels. Before he learned of Stanis only a few months back, he had met him as his “angel” decades ago when being pulled from the freezing water of the reservoir in Central Park. It had been the singular event that had turned him into a Holy Roller, and even after having met Stanis, knowing him for the grotesque he was, it somehow only further affirmed his belief in angels. The logic was rather circular, but there was no talking him out of it.

  “As of late,” Desmond Locke continued, “he seems more and more insistent on their existence.”

  “Don’t you believe in angels?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t that in your job description? Isn’t it your thing?”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “Did you know that in Fatima, Portugal, up to one hundred thousand people witnessed unusual solar activity that took the shapes of Jesus, Mary, and several saints? Thirteen years later, the Roman Catholic Church accepted it as a genuine miracle from those reports. Then you have the people who claim to see statues of Jesus on the Cross weeping or see angels visit them in times of need. Do I believe those people? Well, I do believe their faith colors their world and that the human mind is a wonderful and powerful tool, but do I believe your father has empirical proof of angels, as he’s been claiming lately? No, I am surprised to say, I do not. I do not believe He means for people to see actual proof of His divinity. Proof, after all, takes away faith, if you ask my opinion of it.”

  “What has my father said?” I asked, my stomach tightening. If the Church found out about our family legacy, I could only imagine some papal SWAT team taking over our home.

  Mr. Locke shrugged, but his eyes stayed locked on me. “He hasn’t said anything exact. He just seems more and more convinced of their physical manifestation. That isn’t the focus of his belief. Faith does not require hard evidence; faith is believing for the sake of belief.”

  I was ready to start arguing what a load of crap that was, that belief in anything should come from proof, but what good would that do? Politics, religion, and the series finale of Lost were just a few of the things it did no good talking about with someone who opposed the views you had.

  The mischievous part of me wanted to take my great-great-grandfather’s master tome out of my backpack and transform it from its stone form just to give Mr. Locke something that would shake his very foundation, but I thought better of it.

  Again, what would the Church do with that kind of information? I imagined some kind of hotline phone in Mr. Locke’s home that dialed straight to the Vatican. The Pope would answer it, and suddenly I’d be dragged in and kept on display in some vast underground papal prison. Or maybe burned as a witch, which I guess, technically, I was.

  I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “I really should get moving,” I said, stepping past him. “But I’ll keep an eye on my father. In fact, I’ll even keep two eyes on him.”

  He smiled, folding his hands together. “Very cute,” he said. “I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” I said, and keyed into the first-floor business-office lobby of our building. I headed for the elevators up to our empty living quarters, which included my great-great-grandfather’s library and art studio at the very top.

  “And Alexandra,” Mr. Locke said from behind me, my name echoing in the empty hallway. I turned to see him holding the door open with one hand. “We really should have that talk one of these days.”

  I paused for a moment, then gave him a thumbs-up before turning and heading toward the elevators once more. The gesture was all I allowed myself—I was afraid of whatever words I might have let loose on the creep otherwise.

  Four

  Alexandra

  I felt bad about how I had left things the other night with Rory and Marshall, so when I got back downtown, I texted them about swinging by the new place for dinner. When the buzzer rang, I ran down several flights of stairs to greet them at the door instead of just buzzing them in.

  “Welcome to Belarus Building South!” I said, throwing my arms around the both of them. Rory had been here plenty of times already, but Marshall had been so busy l
ately, he hadn’t had time. Rory fell instantly into the hug, but Marshall hesitated before joining it. After a moment he stepped back, looking up and down Saint Mark’s Place.

  “This looks a lot different than it did the last time I was here,” he said.

  “Yes,” Rory said to him. “Much less collapsed building-y.”

  “At least it’s probably not haunted,” he said.

  I cocked my head at him, screwing up my face. “That’s an odd sort of compliment,” I said.

  “I mean, this is where your brother died,” he said, emphasizing the last word with air quotes. “But since technically he’s a villainous rock man instead, his spirit wouldn’t be haunting the space. So see? Probably not haunted!”

  Rory pushed him past me into the building. “In you go,” she said, forcing him up the stairs. “Before we get uninvited.”

  “Is it livable now?” he asked, calling back down the stairs.

  “It better be,” I said, following them up. “I just moved my parents in the other day. Actually, just on the lower floors for now. I’m still deciding how to set up the top. I’d kind of like an art studio and library of my own.”

  “How are Doug and Julie handling the new digs?” Rory asked.

  “They’re adjusting,” I said, pointing ahead to turn left at the next landing up, “but if I don’t get them back into the Belarus Building soon, I might lose my mind. I’ve even set up their real-estate company on the first two floors here—high-speed Internet, the latest technology for their meetings and dealings, but they’re used to doing things the way they do them on Gramercy. They miss their rut. In the meantime, I just need to not kill them.”

  “No one wants to have their parents as roommates,” Marshall said, entering the kitchen, slowing as he took in the clean, modern style I had gone for. “And this is coming from a guy who spent maybe one or three too many years set up at home. But that was mostly so I didn’t have to move my gaming stuff out of the basement.”