The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ expression which gave that impression. Hazel eyes, bright and inviting. A Cupid’s-bow mouth curved into a familiar grin. Leticia’s grin. Yet Leticia had never gotten to him like that. Never left him feeling so unsteady.

      He smothered a derisive laugh. She hadn’t even known he’d been on the line.

      Or had she? Had she been playing some sort of game, trying to…to what?

      Footsteps sounded downstairs—people spreading out to investigate the call’s abrupt end, if not the noise of the receiver hitting the cradle. He needed to leave. Immediately.

      He’d ruined his chance to explore the rest of the house tonight, but thanks to the charmed glass ball he’d stashed in the attic, he could return whenever he wished. After he dealt with the woman.

      The woman who said not enough and far too much.

      The Brigantium might already know her identity, might be able to trace her location through phone records. He needed to get to her first.

      Thia.

      Wood creaked at the end of the hall. Photo tucked in his jacket pocket, he sent himself from the house.

      

      Granite Springs, Oregon

      Thia blinked, looked at the phone in her hand as if it held the answer to what had just happened. Beneath skin gone strangely hot, her pulse raced.

      If someone had been on the line—and who would it have been if not Lettie—then he or she would have said something.

      No one had been listening, no one had hung up on her. When her message had gone on for too long, the machine had cut off, that’s all. She sat back in the chair, took a deep breath.

      And just because Lettie didn’t answer, there was no reason to jump to conclusions. Lettie was fine. She was just out, that’s all.

      Thia checked the time, did a quick calculation. It would be after midnight in London, but she had no idea what sort of hours her great-aunt kept there. Lettie could be out with friends—or on the road, visiting local markets. Despite what the note said, there was nothing to worry about.

      She managed to believe that for all of six rings, after which it became clear Lettie wasn’t going to pick up a call to her cell phone, either.

      

      Bloomsbury, London

      Seated in a crowded Starbucks, a gargantuan cup of tea balanced precariously on the worn chair’s upholstered arm, Cormac blinked eyes bleary from lack of sleep and tried to focus on his smartphone’s miniaturized search page. With a few more errors than usual, thanks to tiredness and haste, he typed: “Eclectica,” “fine gifts,” and—recalling the name of the city Leticia had set up in—“Granite Springs.”

      In a matter of seconds, Google offered up a link to the store’s website. That was new. He clicked the link and found himself at a simplistic but elegant page showing a more recent view of the store whose photo he’d...borrowed. The exact address was given, along with driving instructions and a link to several small maps of the local area. Most of the former referenced the location of the town’s Shakespeare festival.

      “Another damned tourist trap in your honor, Will,” he muttered and took a drink of bitter tea, overpriced and inferior stuff no amount of honey and milk could improve.

      The website’s administrator was identified as one Thia McDaniel. He felt a moment of triumph, hid it behind his tea as he took a long drink.

      He went on to browse the online catalogue, not sure what to make of it. Even with Leticia at the helm, he’d expected the usual sort of decorative nonsense: pretty yet powerless crystals to dangle in one’s window or from a car’s rear-view mirror; candles of all sizes and shapes and scents; sachets of herbs and what-not that made ridiculous promises for things like lottery winnings and true love. He found all that and more of their ilk...along with a surprising—and troubling—amount of the real deal.

      Exactly how involved was the lovely Thia? Was she aware of every aspect of Leticia’s business—in the broader sense of the word—or was she simply an employee? And even if she were “simply” the latter, the store’s catalog suggested its customers held more than a passing familiarity with the magical arts. He had to figure at least some of its employees did as well. Was she one of them?

      His relief at finding he was indeed on the right track faded in the midst of so many unanswerable questions. So many unknowns, with the most potentially dangerous being Thia McDaniel herself. He hadn’t sensed much power during the phone call, but those who possessed the most were often the best at masking it. There was no telling how formidable a foe she might be.

      It was a risk he had to take, however. He clicked on the map provided and swore—softly but viciously enough to earn a wary look from the Goth-garbed youth slouched in the next armchair. Cormac had looked up Granite Springs when he’d first learned Leticia had opened a shop there. Since it was nothing to him, he’d then promptly forgotten exactly how far away it was.

      Airline travel would allow him time to rest, albeit fitfully. Stuck in what amounted to a aluminum can, far from the familiar energies of the earth and closer to the energies of the moon and sun. Surrounded by nervous people and breathing in recirculated air. Consuming bizarre concoctions purported to be food, or at least edible, which clearly were neither. He muttered another curse, swallowed more tea. Why couldn’t Leticia have set her store somewhere closer—like, say, Hampstead Heath? Dammit, even New York would’ve been a good sight better than this Oregon.

      In the end, after exploring his options on a travel-booking site, he was forced to rule airplanes out altogether. With the multiple connections and layovers required, it would take almost two days to get to the out-of-the-way town. He didn’t have that kind of time.

      His heavy sigh caught the attention of both the Goth and the purple-mouthed girl now seated on his lap, but whatever they read in his expression caused them to look quickly away. He was aware of their leaving as he opened the app for Holpnick’s Charts. If there was a worse way to travel than by plane, this was it.

      Ley line.

      His gut turned leaden as he plotted his route. But, sickening as the prospect of going such a long distance was, he had to admit it was amusing to think modern technology was helping him do it. Technology and the obsession of one pseudo-scholar named Cyrus Pickersgill Holpnick.

      Not that the poor fool had any idea what he’d really done. In a misguided attempt to prove how places of mysterious ship and airplane disappearances were portals to alien galaxies, Holpnick had managed to compile the most detailed and accurate map of global ley lines—and made it accessible to everyone first via the world wide web, and more recently through a somewhat clunky iPhone app. It was amazing, really, that he hadn’t been shut down by one of the Otherworldly consortia that worked the lines. Then again, with so much shipping and travel business being lost to real-world methods, maybe such publicity was welcomed these days as free advertising.

      It wasn’t as if the average person could use СКАЧАТЬ