Flesh and Stone

Flesh and Stone

Original Cover

## Blurb

**DINNER IS SERVED**

When mage Alastair Stone’s fiancée dumps him for loving magic too much and her not enough, he never sees it coming. Craving a change, Stone picks a big one: moving halfway around the world to teach Occult Studies at Stanford. He expects to pick up where he left off, resuming a quiet life of study and putting the past behind him.

But when a gang of cannibalistic serial killers targets the area, he’s certain their origin is supernatural. Drawn into the case after stopping a murder, he soon encounters a bizarre secret society that has its own reasons for wanting the murderers dealt with. But is the solution as bad as the problem?

With the killers hot on his trail, Stone must work with his odd allies to track them down before they strike again, and before he—or someone he loves—becomes their next victim.

## Plot

*Flesh and Stone takes place four years prior to Stone and a Hard place, and so is a true prequel.*

Alastair Stone, jilted by the woman he’d planned to marry and feeling adrift, moves to California and starts at Stanford, taking a rented townhouse in Palo Alto. He begins settling in to classes, engaging his students with his entertaining style. Althea, a student at another college known to some of his students, is attacked and killed, and the press dubs it a 'cannibal' killing, since another had occurred a couple months prior - both victims having been partially eaten. Stone has his 29th birthday, getting a call from his ex, Imogen.

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

We get brief insight to the killers - risk or no, the rush they all experienced every time they hunted made the meat taste even sweeter. Freshly killed prey was the best. They could live on stored flesh and did so for most of the time—even they knew that too many indiscriminate killings could mean discovery.

Stone goes for a run and interrupts four figures - not quite human - attacking a couple in a parking lot. They flee, but the man is mortally injured. Stone tries to heal him, but fails. The woman, Laura Phelps, just gets a scratch. Stone finds, to his dismay, he's a minor celebrity for saving the woman and running off the attackers.

The four cannibals--going by Kano, Rima, Taco and Grease--meanwhile, plan to kidnap a homeless person and kill and dismember him at their place and freeze the parts for later, thus leaving no body to find.

At Douglas's funeral, Laura and the family are kind and grateful, and Stone becomes angry about what had happened and resolves to find out who did it. He consult's Madame Huan, who refers him to Stefan Kolinsky, a stranger at the time. Kolinsky agrees to look into any info on cannibals in retorn for Stone refreshing his shop's wards. Then Stone is interviewed by Chris Belmont, a freelance student reporter, who asks fairly innocuous questions.

Kolinsky gives Stone some minor information on the cannibal case, that DNA was inconclusive, and promises to keep looking. Stone then returns to England via magical portal in A Passage to India (briefly meeting David and Marta for the first time) to do some research during the Thanksgiving break. He has a tense dinner with Desmond and Imogen. He returns home at the end of weekend to find out that the cannibals have struck again, and to an invitation to have coffee with Laura Phelps. She's lost weight and looks off, but says she’s doing as well as can be expected.

Kolinsky comes up with more information about similar killings across the country, as well as that the killers are not just eating, but butchering their victims for later. Stone increases their deal, and plans to refresh Kolinsky's wards the next day.

Stone meets with Lt. Grider and tells him the attackers moved more like animals than humans, and that he has a friend that can get impressions from objects, if Grider can supply evidence connected to the killers. Grider stalks off, mostly thinking Stone is a crackpot.

On a run near downtown, Stone spots Mrs Phelps coming out of an odd little shop. She looks more sickly and her aura confirms it. Grider anonymously sends Stone some evidence - part of a fingernail. Stone uses it to pinpoint the owner in East Palo Alto. He alerts Grider, but the cannibals had fled, torching the apartment in the process. They did leave their meat stash behind, and the FD was able to get the fire out before it was destroyed. Stone and Grider assume the killers are now in the wind. They, meanwhile, are holed up in abandoned warehouse, plotting to kill Stone for setting the police on them.

Stone takes Laura Phelps out for dinner, then heads out to go clubbing for a distraction. When he gets bored and walks back to his car, the ghouls attack. He's almost overcome, but he is rescued by none other than the reporter, Chris Belmont. Belmont knows more about ghouls than Stone apparently, but puts his questions off until dinner tomorrow night.

Stone arrives at the unnamed restaurant in a huge Los Gatos Victorian and is seated with Belmont, an ER doctor, Orville Lu, and to his surprise, Laura Phelps. She says she's only recently joined whatever organization this is. Dinner arrives, and Stone realizes he is only one with chicken, while everyone else is served slices of pale, pork-like meat. That's when he realizes they're all eating human flesh.

Stone manages not to panic, and even to avoid hurling while the others eat. Laura explains she was infected by the ghouls who'd killed Douglas - a scratch - and Belmont and Lu explain she'd have gone completely feral if they hadn't helped her. They are non-feral ghouls. The ones doing the killing are rare, perhaps the only ones - semi-feral. Able to function on the fringe of humanity, but amoral killers.

This group all have jobs, most where they can access flesh without killing - “EMTs, workers in hospitals and funeral homes, abortion clinic workers…” Stone is repulsed, but they ask him what else they should do--they didn't ask for this, and deserve to live. Laura admits attempting suicide when she found out, but she healed too quickly.

Stone reluctantly agrees that they need to work together to stop the killers, but says he has to leave, can't watch them eat. Before he leaves, he asks why the fine dining charade for their cannible-fest. Dr. Lu says to remind themselves they are not animals, were once human.

Stone decides to go home and get drunk. He's jumping at shadows and can't sleep. He's also realized, given Belmont's timely arrival when the feral ghouls attacked, that the group was looking out for him. He's about to head to his study when he notices the answering machine is blinking--Imogen is in town and wants to see him. She tells him her boyfriend, Robert's, been unfaithful and she flew to Cali on a whim. She begins seducing him. Stone weighs his anger against his love, and they end up in bed.

In the morning he brings Imogen to his place, and tells her about the ghouls. He has to go meet with Belmont's group, and warns her stay inside, behind the wards. At Lu's house, Belmont says they need Stone to find the killers. He says he needs something of theirs to track, so they're out of luck - until he remembers Belmont rammed them with his car. He finds a small piece of denim stained with black ghoul blood. Stone agrees to meet back at his place where he'll do the ritual, while the others collect armor for him. Only Belmont is allowed to come over and must wait in his car for Stone to arrive from buying ritual materials. Stone calls and tells Imogen Belmont will be out there, and what he looks like, so not to be afraid.

When Stone arrives, Belmont is waiting. They go in the house to find Imogen gone and the front door unlatched. Based on Belmont's arrival, she'd been gone over a half hour. He finds a rock with a note saying to meet the ghouls in Santa Cruz or they'll eat Imogen. Stone panics, but Belmont brings him down. He's about to do the tracking ritual when Grider shows up. He realizes something's up so Stone shows him the note, then tells him police can't be involved. Grider insists he'll go too, and if not, he'll bring in the department. Stone tells Grider he could stop him. Grider says you're not like that. He knows he could be killed, but he's dying of cancer anyway. So, Stone agrees. He goes to do the ritual--to find Imogen rather than a ghoul because his intimacy with her will improve the spell.

The ghouls had tricked her into thinking they were Stone's friends and when she came out of the house, kidnapped and bound her. They took her to a house in the Santa Cruz mountains they'd moved into after killing the owners. Nearly ready to call Stone, they leave Imogen in a closet with the door braced shut.

Stone goes to Kolinsky, who gives him a dagger that interferes with regeneration, then meets Grider, Belmont and the others. On the way to Santa Cruz, Stone fills Grider in on the ghouls, though not himself or the safe ghouls. They find the house, gear up, and go to rescue Imogen.

Meanwhile, the ghouls go into town to call the number they gave Stone to be at. When he doesn't answer, the head back to the house to kill Imogen, and vow to hunt Stone later and eat him alive.

Stone and crew enter the house to find the owners dead, and that Imogen has escaped. The ghouls arrive and the fight begins. Imogen gets lost, but finds the ghouls’ van. Hearing Stone's voice, she drives it down to the house, crashing into the garage and pinning one of the ghouls. Stone tries to help her flee, but the leader, Kano, is about to catch her. Stone uses Kolinsky's dagger, and all his remaining power to kill him. A fire has broken out, the ghouls are all killed --along with two of Belmont's people--and the rest flee with an unconscious Stone.

He wakes in the house of a friend of Belmont's crew, weak but OK. Imogen is also safe and relatively unharmed. Grider, however, has become a ghoul. But he's going to learn to cope, because Lu says it will cure his cancer.

Stone spends Christmas at the Surrey house with Aubrey and Imogen. He and Imogen reach an understanding that they aren't going to work together as a couple. Six months later, a letter from Laura Phelps informs Stone that the safe ghouls have relocated (but not where), and that she and Frank Grider are growing close.