Necessary Sacrifices

Necessary Sacrifices

Original Cover

## Blurb

**SINS OF THE PAST**

Alastair Stone has barely begun to recover from the death of a friend when he’s rocked by yet another—this time someone who was closer to him than his own father. It looks like natural causes...but a grief-stricken Stone isn’t convinced.

As England’s magical community comes together to mourn the shocking loss, Verity meets a group of powerful female practitioners who offer to teach her potent new magical skills—a group whose leader seems strangely familiar. And meanwhile, Stone’s shocks have only begun as new revelations come to light—revelations that point at horrific acts from his past, cast chilling new suspicions upon the accident that killed his father, and prove that everything he thought he knew about his dead mother was wrong.

As Stone uncovers more terrifying secrets from the earliest years of his life, the darkness in his past at last catches up with him. To save those he loves and prevent some old enemies from committing a monstrous act, he’ll have no choice but to make sacrifices of his own.

## Plot

Still depressed by Edwina Mortensen’s death in Brunderville, Alastair Stone is also trying to comfort Verity, who has moved in with him temporarily. She’s having difficulty with the manner in which she killed the child trafficker, Mathias. When the phone rings, he’s unprepared when it turns out to be his former girlfriend, Imogen Desmond. No one has been able to locate her father, Stone’s magic master, William Desmond.

### Pause here a moment WARNING, Possible Spoilers Ahead

Leaving Verity to sit with Raider, Stone portals to his Surrey estate and drives to London, so as not to disturb the most recent settings on Desmond’s private portals. He meets with Imogen at Desmond’s Kensington townhouse, then searches the magically warded parts of it. Finding nothing, he then takes the portal there to Desmond’s country estate, Caventhorne. Neither portal indicates that Desmond went anywhere else.

After searching all the other warded parts of the place, he’s left with only a couple more options. He chooses to search Desmond’s office next, as the closest. There, he finds his mentor dead on the floor, with no sign, physical or magical, of how he died. Devastated, he informs Desmond’s majordomo, Kerrick. After a fortifying drink, they agree that Desmond cannot be ‘found’ in the warded part of the house, nor can he just disappear – they’ll have to move the body.

Stone goes back to London and breaks the news to Imogen. Worse, he has to ask her permission to move her father. He explains the situation, and she agrees, so Alastair heads next to his own townhouse to ask Verity’s assistance, since multiple spells will be needed to both conceal and move Desmond. Shocked, she nevertheless agrees.

After portaling back to Caventhorne, they go back to Desmond’s office, where Verity examines the body with an eye toward not leaving evidence of it having moved. She puts it in a kind of stasis so Stone can levitate it onto a door to carry the man to the attic to be ‘found’. But, she says she found a faint trace of some kind of malignant magic in Desmond’s body, something that had been there for a long time. Alastair back-burners the information, as time is growing short. They transport Desmond to the attic, where Stone also examines him more closely, and sees the green energy Verity spotted.

After checking in with Kerrick and Imogen, and unsuccessfully searching both of Desmond’s houses for any trace of the green energy, the pair head to Stone’s house in Surrey to get some rest, then portal back to Palo Alto to pack so they can fly to London and enter the UK ‘officially’. After spending the night in Surrey, Stone and Verity go to Desmond’s London townhouse to see if Imogen needs anything. There, she introduces Clifford Blakely, a man she’s been seeing for a while.

When Stone and Verity excuse themselves to go shopping for more formal attire for her, she tells Stone he can rely on her, and confide in her, because she notices that meeting Imogen’s boyfriend disturbed him. Stone, as usual, is reticent. They then visit Tolliver’s magical shop, where Verity is awed by all the amazing things to be found there. They also meet Eddie Monkton, who invites the two of them to the pub that night.

At the Dancing Dragon, Eddie and Ward regale Verity with tales of Stone’s youth in college, including a hilarious tale of Stone and an American exchange student who was very into The Rocky Horror Show. When Verity excuses herself to the restroom, Eddie asks Stone if he and Verity are ‘together’. Alastair, borderline offended, counters than he’s nearly old enough to be her father and, in any case, she prefers women. Eddie, though, seems to think she’s interested in Stone as more than a mentor.

At lunch with Imogen, Stone learns she’s very happy with Clifford, and wants Stone’s blessing. He gives it, of course, suppressing a twinge of jealousy. He also agrees to help her with decisions about the townhouse and Caventhorne, neither of which she wants, but can’t sell openly because of their magical rooms and portals. That night, he goes to the chapel to pay his respects to Desmond, and meets a woman who seems to have been an acquaintance, named Anna Canby, who says her grandmother had been an associate of Desmond's. Something about her strikes him as familiar, but he can’t identify it.

Desmond’s funeral service is the next day, followed by a reception. Then, later in the evening a gathering of just mages is held in St. Albans at the home of a couple from his father’s generation. Stone is stunned by Verity’s appearance, so mature and confident. Verity meets Stone’s old associate, Walter Yarborough (and his horndog apprentice), and Stone spots a man he knows but can’t place.

It’s Roderick Selby, a retainer of Desmond’s from Stone’s apprentice days. He’d been dismissed for his actions (see Path of Stone), but set up with new employment in France, by Desmond. Stone remembers vividly now, but Selby seems broken, and is afraid Stone, as new master of Caventhorne, will make trouble for him. Stone assures him he holds no grudge and wishes Selby well. He hopes the man can make peace with his past.

He returns to Verity, who is chatting with a group of women who tell him they’re part of a group that approaches magic more organically, focusing on nature and creating positive change in the world. Anna Canby joins them – she’s part of the group. Stone again is taken by her familiarity, and even Verity reacts oddly to her pale skin, dark hair, and vivid blue eyes. Anna invites Stone and Verity to their estate near Lake Windermere for a visit some time. The ladies suggest that Verity might want to study with them for a time, to add to her magical curriculum.

Discussing it later, Verity is very interested in visiting the women’s estate, and Stone is also curious. He tells her she doesn’t have to wait for him, though, if she wants to go ln her own. He just wants to wait until he can check into them. They do both agree that Anna Canby seems oddly familiar to them both.

Before leaving for California, Stone says his goodbyes to Imogen, and wishes her well, and says he expects an invitation to her wedding. Imogen asks about him and Verity, but Stone says they are just master and apprentice. Imogen, though, points out that they seem to have a deep connection, and warns him not to pass on something that will make him happy because society would disapprove.

While Stone returns to his Stanford duties, Verity job-hunts, but unsuccessfully. For his part, Alastair avoids spending too much time with Verity, troubled by Imogen’s observations. He does have Eddie look into Ann Canby’s group. They seem benign, focusing on druidic principles of natural magic, and are led by a woman named Nessa Lennox. They also perform charity work, and contribute to scholarships. Not long after, Canby calls and invites him and Verity to visit for the weekend, and he agrees.

While discussing their upcoming trip, Verity mentions she has only a year left in her apprenticeship (or less, Stone says, reminding her it’s up to him). She wants to continue their association after she’s done, and Stone says of course, though he knows she’s not big on research. Verity, though, means the weird stuff Stone gets into. His life is never boring.

When they arrive at A Passage to India, an agitated Marta stops them. A woman has come through to calibrate the portal and escort them, she says. Stone says it’s understandable that the women wouldn’t want their private portal to become known, but Marta thinks it’s dodgy. In any case, a woman named Lila escorts them through to Windermere.

The place is lodge-like, with lots of wood and pastoral paintings. Anna Canby meets with them in what she calls a kind of visitor’s center, though strong wards and illusions powered by a ley line confluence prevent casual notice, so unexpected visitors are rare. Stone questions the need for such powerful protection, but Anna says it’s simply that, with the power they generate with their magic, even a mundane might notice, so the precautions keep them away.

It's late night in the UK, so Lila takes them to a little house accessed by a path through lovely gardens and woodland. They tour the complex starting early in the morning, visiting ritual spaces and gardens, meditation areas and libraries. Their magic is aimed at advancing magical knowledge, as well as contributing to mundane science, agriculture and education. Verity says she’d very much like to give back to the world, so studying here might be a good choice.

At a formal dinner that night, Stone and Verity discuss the women’s projects more, and Verity’s wish to learn magic helpful for the greater good. Everything is relaxed, and even Verity seems to be a little tipsy. Stone asks Anna why she seems familiar to him. She says she has no idea, she’s never met him before. Then she makes a formal offer for Verity to study with their community for a month. He says he’ll discuss it with her. When they leave for their guest house, Stone spots Nessa Lennox watching from a window, studying him.

That night, neither able to sleep, Stone and Verity discuss her options in more detail. She seems off, somehow, though. At the same time, he can’t stop noticing how attractive she is, how attracted she is to him. When she kisses him, he tries to put the brakes on, but she says she wants him, and her aura tells him it’s true. So…

The next morning, Stone is wracked with guilt. Verity isn’t in the house, so he goes to find her. While Verity doesn’t understand why it happened the way it did, she assures Stone she wanted it, and tells him she loves him. Stone says he loves her too, and has denied it for some time. They agree they need time to sort this out, and Verity shouldn’t live with him while they do. She’ll plan to visit Sharra. And they must never, ever tell Jason. They leave for California quickly.

After an awkward day or two, Verity confirms she’s going to Sharra’s. But she makes it clear she isn’t running away, that she’s still glad it happened. Stone asks her, just please come back. For a few weeks, Stone focuses on work, sleeps a lot, and drinks a lot. He’s finally distracted, though, when Desmond’s attorney, Terrence Atthill, contacts him and asks him to come to London to receive a bequest from his master.

Atthill explains that they’ll deal with the mundane will first, then the magical. Stone is floored. Desmond has left him the Kensington townhouse, along with a trust that will keep the house and staff running indefinitely. He’s also named Stone as the administrator of Caventhorne, intending it be set up as a retreat and resource for all mages – again, with a sustaining trust. Finally, he’s left Stone a life-changing fortune.

The magical will is in a box only Stone can open. When he does, Atthill reads out more detailed instructions for managing Caventhorne. The will also bequeaths Desmond’s entire magical collection to Stone, from libraries to objects and research. The box also contains a thick envelope Stone is to open in private, and a key.

Between his own reading of the rest of the will, and discussion with Imogen that night, Stone is reassured that she, the staff, and even Selby were all set up handsomely. Imogen, and her children in turn, will live in comfortable luxury. He cuts their dinner short, anxious to open Desmond’s last envelope.

In Holmbury, Stone tells Aubrey not to trouble over him, and retreats to his study to open the magically sealed envelope, which contains a journal, and a note from Desmond, expressing guilt, and asking forgiveness. The journal recounts a series of occurrences that happened during Stone’s time at university.

### ***Twenty Years Earlier***

*Desmond receives a message from Orion Stone, urgently requesting a meeting, someplace discreet, and alone. The tone of the note is unlike the cold, controlled Stone. He calls the man, and realizes Orion is under extreme stress, but he won’t say anything beyond not wanting Desmond to say anything to Alastair, just insists on meeting. Desmond agrees, and they meet at Desmond’s home in Godalming, in Surrey.*

*Stone arrives carrying a bag, and looks nothing like Desmond remembers. He’s disheveled, sweating, pale, shaking, and nearly incoherent. He keeps saying things like* he shouldn’t have taken it*. He tells Desmond he’s afraid, of what* it *is doing to him. He keeps begging for William’s promise not to tell Alastair anything. He says the boy is not in any danger, not anymore.*

*Desmond is finally able to get Stone to show him the bag, which contains a weird, unpleasant, but completely mundane sculpture of some – thing. Stone keeps babbling that Alastair was taken, but he got him back. Desmond demands to know if Alastair is in danger, and Stone says no, not now – he’s too old. But he thinks he’s too late to save himself. The thing has been speaking to him.*

*Stone suddenly attacks Desmond, some of his attack getting through Desmond’s shields and flinging him around the room. Desmond has to fight back – Stone is much stronger than he should be. Orion subsides, briefly, the strange green light Desmond had spotted in his eyes just before his attack now gone. Desmond wonders if Orion’s problem is connected somehow to the sculpture.*

*Orion, green-eyed, renews his attack, even stronger, and Desmond has to retaliate with force. Stone collapses, finally and, coughing up blood, demands Desmond make his death look accidental, and never, ever tell Alastair. As soon as Desmond promises, Orion Stone thanks him, and dies.*

*Desmond is distraught, especially since, while he didn’t hit Stone that hard, he might possibly have killed him. He agonizes over what to do, but ultimately follows Orion’s last wishes.*

Alastair is floored, running through a gamut of emotions, including rage that Desmond might have killed his father. More than anything, he’s angry that everyone who should have been honest with him has been lying to him for decades. His father, his mentor… He flings the journal across the room, and another note falls out. Also from Desmond, gives the location of the strange object his father had brought with him. They key Stone had been given will open its location. Beside himself, Stone decides he needs a drink, even if it means running into Aubrey in his current state… *Aubrey* – who had present for all these events.

Once again irate that all his father figures have kept secrets and lied, Stone storms to Aubrey’s apartment. He stomps in yelling, demanding to know what happened, grabbing Aubrey and asking him why he lied: what happened when Stone was a baby. Aubrey nearly collapses in relief, saying he can finally tell him. Aubrey has been under magical oath not to reveal what he knew, *unless Alastair himself asked*.

Orion had come home out of the blue saying he’d met someone and was going to marry. He married Peregrine Godfrey and she was pregnant soon after. Orion continued to travel, and Peregrine was also often away. He paid little attention to her pregnancy beyond pride she was carrying a boy, and she seemed not to care. Late in her pregnancy, Aubrey, overheard Peregrine and her attendant planning to leave and recalibrate the portal so Orion couldn’t follow. Aubrey tried to stop them, but the attendant attacked him with magic.

Aubrey awakened and sent word to Orion, who told Aubrey that magic had been meant to kill him. Orion attempted to track his wife, but was only successful when he tried to track Alastair – his blood. When he returned, he was exhausted, bleeding, but had infant Alastair with him. He told Aubrey that Peregrine and her attendant were dead, and would never be found.

Aubrey has one last revelation. When Orion returned, he was different. He eventually confided to Aubrey that he’d ashed his wife and the other woman, turning himself black. Aubrey had been supplying him with power for the rest of Orion’s life.

Stone is again beside himself, devastated that his father had gone black because of him. He suddenly remembers the strange object, and decides he has to go to Caventhorne and find it, to see if it could possibly have had anything to do with all that had happened.

When he retrieves the sculpture from Desmond’s hidden vault, he can’t find anything remotely magical about it. However, he decides to take it back to Surrey for more study. There, while he’s searching for a magnifying glass, the thing suddenly begins to glow faintly green. He hurriedly stashes it in a heavily warded cabinet, using magic so he doesn’t have to touch it. Whatever it was, it had taken years to affect his father and Desmond. Why had his father even taken it? Why, for that matter, had his mother fled to birth him elsewhere? And where had he seen that green glow before? He passes out in exhaustion and has horrific nightmares. When he awakes, he remembers where he’d seen glow – faintly, on Desmond’s body.

At breakfast, Stone ponders how the sculpture does what it does, and why it killed Desmond, but drove his father mad, first. And why taking so much time. Aubrey interrupts his musing with something he’d forgotten. When Orion had returned with infant Alastair and called a healer to attend them both, he had the healer check Alastair for magical damage, because when he found his wife, she was attempting to sacrifice him in a ritual.

Stone suddenly asks Aubrey if there are any old photos or anything left from his parents’ wedding. They retrieve a box from the attic, and Stone goes through a small stack of photos. One shows his mother with a group of women, one of whom is older. She’s listed as the bride’s mother, Vanessa Godfrey, but Stone recognizes her as Nessa Lennox, the head of the druidic witches of Windermere. His grandmother. And she’d possibly ordered his sacrifice. And… she wanted Verity.

A frantic call to Sharra informs him that Verity left her a couple of days prior. Jason tells him that Verity went to England to study with the women there. Stone forces himself to calm down and call Anna Canby – she has no idea what he’s found out so, even if she’s involved, she won’t be suspicious. She confirms Verity is there, and invites him up for a visit, even giving him the portal coordinates. He plans to get Verity alone and fill her in, then find out what Nessa Lennox is up to.

When he arrives at the compound, Stone is told Verity is attending a demonstration and will be back shortly. He’s invited to tea with Anna, and they make small talk until Stone begins to feel strange and passes out. The last thing he sees is Canby picking up a bag from beside him, which he didn’t recall bringing with him.

He wakes chained to a bed in nothing but thin pajama pants. A woman approaches and he demands answers, but she refuses to engage. He finds he can’t access his magic and, despite trying to physically repel her, she injects him with something and he is out again.

After drifting for a time - days – Stone wakes to find Anna Canby in the room. She confirms he’s been given a magic dampening elixir, and kept semi-conscious. She also confirms that Verity has no idea he’s there. He begins firing questions at her, and she decides to bring in Nessa Lennox to explain. He decides to keep quiet about knowing their relation to each other.

She tells him that the object holds the earthly portion of an entity from another plane, one they’ve been in contact with for hundreds of years. It has promised them help in making Earth a better place, but they’ve had trouble in finding the right ritual to bring it over. Unfortunately, it does have an adverse effect on people, and she regrets it affected Desmond. She says it will also kill Stone, much more quickly. But, if he cooperates with them, she will see to it that those effects are reversed. She leaves the conversation there, but Stone asks if she plans to sacrifice more babies and calls her *grandmother*.

Nessa relents, though as they talk, Stone is relentlessly snarky and sarcastic. The entity has promised great power, but its plane is only close to Earth’s every twenty years. Some sixty years past, it managed to send enough of itself over to create the object. Still, they failed to bring it over the next cycle.

Twenty years later, they sent Nessa’s daughter, Acantha, under an assumed name to seduce the most potent mage of her generation, Orion Stone. She was given potions to ensure conception, and that the child would be male. Additional potions and rituals guaranteed the boy would be much more powerful than his father, therefore making his sacrifice more potent to bring the entity over. But Orion ruined it all.

Stone demands to know what’s next, do they plan to sacrifice him? Nessa tells him no, he’s too old and far from innocent. And they have no intention of killing him. His and Verity’s parts will be revealed when it’s time. Anna calls a halt to the conversation, and escorts Nessa out, commenting to Stone that it’s a pleasure to finally meet him; she’d been curious since she found out about him.

Stone is left alone to digest what he’s been told. Anna’s comment bothers him, until he puts it together with her appearance and realizes – she’s his sister. Though, how another child of Orion Stone ended up here is beyond him. When he’s taken to bathe and dress is a robe, he cooperates, because they have Verity for leverage. But, when they take him outside to walk him to another part of the compound, he blasts his manacles with Harrison’s power, and takes down the three women escorting him. He makes his way to the house he and Verity had stayed in before but, while her things are there, she is not. He’s about to leave her a note and flee when Canby and others drop their invisibility and restrain him again. Using Harrison’s magic has burned out his own, and he is powerless.

Taken, blindfold, to a subterranean room, Nessa and Anna are revealed to be waiting for him. Nessa again assures him that he and Verity will not be harmed. Stone asks Anna, what about her? Who is her mother? Anna corrects him; she’s not his half-sister, but his twin. They’d hidden her aura from Orion and, when the twins were born, Acantha – her real name, after her mother – was taken to be raised among the group. Orion had never known she existed.

They then take Stone into a huge cavern with a beautiful, elaborate ritual circle. Inside it is a platform, and at its head rests the entity’s object on a pedestal. Several women ring the circle, and others are in attendance. Nessa addresses them all, saying that this ritual will ensure their future sacrifice – because it’s not yet time – will be successful. Alastair, magically enhanced and sixth in an unbroken line of mages will ensure the most potent of children.

Stone balks, and Acantha threatens force. Nessa forestalls her, saying the most potent sacrifice will be produced by willing partners who care about each other. More women bring a dazed Verity in and place her on the platform. Stone rages, but Acantha points out that they’ve already been intimate. He accuses them of drugging him and Verity to force them together, but Nessa assures him, no, the feelings and the desire they have for each other is real; the potion in the wine simply tested compatibility.

Verity is beginning to become aware, and quickly realizes what’s happening. The women are chanting and the object is glowing green. Stone says he can’t do it, but Verity urges him to just cooperate. She loves him, and they’ll sort out next steps later. Stone asks to be unbound, and his manacles are removed. He moves to the platform. Acantha tells him to get it over with or she’ll inject him with a potion that will force the issue. Verity again pleads with him to just do it, but his body isn’t responding – he can’t.

Acantha pulls Stone to her with magic and goes to plunge the hypo into his arm, but Stone grans her and *pulls*. Acantha dies, screaming, and falls to ash. He then destroys the object and, brimming with power, turns on the women, looking for Nessa. Verity screams his name and begs him not to become like them. All his rage flees and his other emotions take over, and he collapses into her arms, sobbing. Nessa has disappeared, and the other women are all but fled, so Verity just holds him and lets him release the pain. When he pulls himself together, she asks about Anna/Acantha. Stone affirms yes, he killed her with his magic. He’s a black mage now.

A couple of days later, the pair have been skirting each other, trying to function without really interacting. Stone had spent a good deal of the time drinking. Finally, Verity insists he get cleaned up and go out to dinner. When Alastair returns from his shower, Verity is there. She tells him she wanted him before, and she doesn’t want her memories to be dominated by what happened in the circle. She wants him now. On their terms.