Rite of Passage

Rite of Passage

## Blurb

**An Old Friend Brings a Major New Threat**

When Kolinsky asks Alastair Stone to investigate a curious anomaly near a familiar location, Stone is ready to find a connection between the two.

What he's not ready to find is an old friend he thought was dead for eleven years. A friend who's got more than one shocking bombshell to drop on him—including an unexpected companion—before she goes on the run and disappears.

As more widespread and increasingly dangerous anomalies threaten to rip apart the very fabric of reality, Stone is convinced the anomalies and his friend's sudden appearance are related—and that she and her companion have no idea of the horror they’re leaving in their wake.

To stop the threat, he'll have to find them. If he wants to keep them alive, he'll have to find them before the strange beings who are tracking them.

And also before Kolinsky, who’s determined to handle the problem with extreme prejudice.

## Plot

Stefan Kolinsky asks to meet with Alastair Stone to discuss something important. They meet for dinner and Kolinsky tells Stone he monitors the dimensional rifts routinely, and yesterday a rift appeared and disappeared in a matter of minutes – highly unusual. He also sensed high magical energy in the same area. Even more interesting, it happened near where one of the Evil’s original portals was, in rural West Virginia. He asks Stone to investigate. He also delivers Stone’s false identities and documentation.

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

Stone travels to Highland, WV and, from there to Harmony Farm, where the Forgotten used to live. Only their healer, Zachary, remains. He tells Stone he doesn’t have healing power anymore, and that the others all left over time, once their abilities faded. After getting some help with directions, Stone heads to Decker’s Gap, the town partially destroyed when the Evil’s portal went up (The Threshold).

After looking around outside Gorley Cave, which is now blocked by rubble, Stone heads into the derelict town. There, he’s shocked to meet not only a woman, but one he knew and thought dead for over a decade – Daphne Weldon, the mage who, with her team, opened the portals that allowed the Evil into Earth’s plane. Thinking it a trick at first, Stone considers; Daphne’s reappearance and the magical power surge in the area can’t be coincidence. Daphne gives him another shock when she beckons and a boy joins her – her son, Jeremy.

Daphne explains that, back when she and her team tried to activate the temporary portals they’d constructed, something went wrong. Neil and the others were killed, but she managed to jump back out, into Gorley Cave. She decided to go off the radar, living hidden. Then she realized she was pregnant. Since then she’s been living quietly, raising her son. She has a new fake identity and prefers not to go back to her old life. Stone suggests she come back to the world, but she says she knows the kind of attention her sudden reappearance would cause.

Daphne invites Stone to stay at their camp so they can talk, but then notices Jeremy has wandered off. She and Stone split up to look for him. Bit, when Alastair returns to the old church where they’d been talking, Daphne isn’t there. He circles around to find their camp, but can’t locate that, either. Finally, he returns to where he left his Jeep, and it’s gone, too. Daphne left a note, apologizing and asking Stone not to try to follow. He realizes that her invitation to stay was a ruse, that she’d planned to run off.

Left out in the middle of nowhere, Stone walks two miles before he can hitch a ride back to Highland and a ley line. He sends out the energy to travel and…ends up in cold, deep water. After a bit of shock and near-panic, he levitates himself out of the water. It’s pitch dark and he has no idea where he is, except a ley line is still nearby. He tries the spell again and makes it back home. Not sure what happened, he leaves a message with the rental agency that his car was stolen and falls into bed.

Alastair opts not to tell the police about the Jeep or Daphne. He also decides to wait on reporting to Kolinsky. Instead, he calls the Thayers together for lunch at his place. He fills them all in on everything that happened, including his suspicion that Daphne’s reappearance is related to Kolinsky’s power surge. Verity reasons, though, that Daphne could not have known he’d be there, so that at least is coincidence. She offers to go with if Stone goes back. Jason and Amber also have news – they’re pregnant.

Stone reports to Kolinsky, telling a heavily-edited version of his encounter with Daphne. The only thing Kolinsky seems interested in is that Stone missed his jump, coming back. He agrees with Stone, though, that it was probably just a lapse in concentration. Alastair suddenly isn’t so sure.

Daphne calls the next day. This time, she admits lying. This time, she tells him that she’s been on another dimension this whole time. When the portals failed, black things attacked. Two of her team were killed, but found a lot of openings, one of which looked hospitable. She jumped through, pulling Neil with her. He was injured by the things, but there were people in the other dimension and they healed him. They also helped with the baby. Later, Neil died of an illness they couldn’t cure. She’d been trying to find a way back to Earth for years, only succeeding the other day. Stone realizes it *was* her portaling back to Earth that caused the surge Kolinsky noted. She refuses to tell him where she is, though he offers help, money… He’s interrupted by Laura the admin aid, and Daphne hangs up. Stone tells Laura to give her his personal cell if she calls back.

During dinner at Verity’s, Stone gives the gang Daphne’s updated account of her time on another dimension. He’s sure that her son must be overwhelmed, having been raised on another dimension, especially if he is autistic as she said. The next day he gives Kolinsky the updated story, and says he thinks that wraps his mystery – Daphne portaling in caused the surge he’d noted.

Gina gives Stone the items from the crank file she keeps for him, one of which is interesting. People in a small town in North Carolina reported red skies, moving trees and rippling roads. Then it all stopped. Police concluded some kind of mass hallucination. Thinking it sounded like a rift had opened, Alastair checks Desmond’s globe, but there’s no new rift in that area. He travels there to check it out. But, all he finds is a bunch of stories, and a few stoners and true believers waiting for the phenomenon to happen again.

When Daphne next calls she asks about something Alastair had wanted to tell her before they were interrupted. He explains that her portals let the black beings from the Overworld into Earth’s dimension, then they possessed people and fed on negative emotion, resulting in thousands of deaths. It upsets Daphne, but she had to know. In turn, she says Jeremy isn’t doing well, unable to adjust to the change in food. Suddenly she says Jeremy is upset about something and hangs up.

Kolinsky summons Stone to his shop and tells him another non-standard rift has opened in Louisiana that he would like him to investigate. It’s not behaving as expected. When Stone travels to the site, his ley line travel messes up a second time, nearly dropping him on his head. He’s almost immediately attacked by a shadowy creature that puts heavy pressure on his shield. He fries it, then levitates to look around. He spots the rift, but it’s definitely all wrong, black and roiling, and visible to normal sight. And it's got tendrils that reach out, break off, and turn into skittering black spiders the size of dogs.

Worse, while a tendril squeezes his shield, a spider gets through and stabs him, triggering a flood of nightmarish memories, then adding its own alien thoughts, threatening to drive him mad. Once he manages to blast them away, he finds he’s covered in wounds and blood, and more tendrils are reaching out of the rift. Under constant attack, Stone painstakingly closes the rift, taking both psychic and physical blows. The final backlash knocks him out temporarily. When he comes to, he manages to transport himself to Kolinsky’s door, then collapses.

Kolinsky takes Stone to Mme. Huan, who heals him. She tells him how badly he was wounded, and he suspects she’s the best healer he’s ever met. When he reports to Kolinsky what happened, Stefan is definitely troubled. Not only is this new, but he suspects someone is doing it, and doing it inadvertently. Stone says he won’t be investigating any more of these alone; it’s too dangerous. Kolinsky says he may have to investigate himself – or even bring in other dragons.

Daphne has left a message for Stone. Jeremy is sick and she needs help. They’re in a cabin outside a little Texas town. Alastair can’t call back because she was on a pay phone, so he travels to the nearest ley line point, rents a car, and drives out. But Daphne and Jeremy aren’t there. Looking around, he finds odd energy lingering. He circles the cabin and finds a dead man haphazardly covered in leaves and debris. But he quickly realizes it isn’t a man, but a man-like being. Even as he watches, the figure disintegrates, fading away. He quickly uses his knife to carve out a sample of the flesh, hoping it won’t fade until he can get it to Kolinsky. It does, but enough energy is left for Kolinsky to tell it’s not from Earth. Stone tells Stefan more about Daphne, the truth so far as he knows it.

Later, Jason calls and tells Stone to turn on the news. A town in Wisconsin has gone crazy. He does, and realizes another rift has opened. Before he can do anything, Kolinsky shows up. He’s going to Wisconsin to find and close the rift. When they arrive, they find the town in chaos, and a pervasive feeling of pressure – the rift is the source, but the energy has seeped out, causing people’s bizarre behavior. They’re running around burning things, shooting or beating each other…The rift is in an intersection near a toy store, gas station and other jobs, some of which are already damaged. Kolinsky tasks Stone with defending him while he closes the rift, and warns him to keep his mind shielded from the energy.

Stone battles crazed humans, a hulking figure that had once been human but could now toss cars around, and out-of-control vehicles. A truck careens into the gas station, demolishing the pumps and starting a fire. Kolinsky is almost done, but seems to be flagging. But Stone has to act. He dives at Kolinsky to shield him as an explosion erupts, but Kolinsky has finished, grabs onto Stone, and pops them out of there. Though Stefan’s grip nearly crushed his ribs, Stone thanks him for the exit. Kolinsky is pale and tired, and admits he probably could not have done that alone. Alastair goes home to watch the news – as soon as the rift closed, folks came to their senses, though casualties still had to be assessed.

Daphne calls again, this time from Minnesota, and Alastair is angry. He peppers her with questions. She says Jeremy killed the man at the cabin, but she doesn’t know how. When they left the other plane, someone followed them, probably to take them back. They’d left without explaining; Daphne couldn’t explain other dimensions to them, and she figured they could just disappear.

As Daphne gives more details of their travels – from West Virginia to the Carolinas, to Louisiana and Texas, Alastair becomes suspicious and prods for details. Daphne says they stopped in Wisconsin and Stone says he needs to see her, immediately, but the line goes dead. He goes to Kolinsky, concerned that whoever is following Daphne is responsible for the rifts. Kolinsky, though, is almost sure it’s Jeremy, and says he must be destroyed immediately. Stone, understandably, reacts badly to that, but Kolinsky explains. Each new rift has been larger and more damaging than the last, and he almost couldn’t close the last one. He needs to alert the dragons and stop the boy.

Stone asks for, and gets, time to get to Daphne and hopefully stop what’s happening. Given eight hours, he calls Verity and asks her to travel to Rochester, Minnesota as quickly as she can, telling her about Kolinsky’s plan to kill Jeremy if they can’t stop him forming the rifts. Stone, meanwhile pops to a nearby area along a ley line, does a tracking ritual to find Daphne, then steals a car to get there.

He finds Daphne looking tired and ill. Jeremy is sleeping. Alastair tells her she’s got to stop lying and give him the whole story about her and Jeremy. He shows her news about the rifts, and tells her someone is coming to destroy Jeremy if they can’t figure something out. He suggests sedating the boy, but Daphne says it won’t work.

Daphne finally explains. When the portals failed, all four of the team were attacked by the Evil. Three, including Neil, died. Daphne was near death, and the ephemeral beings on the new plane she’d escaped to had no bodies, so couldn’t save hers. But they saved her consciousness - and Jeremy’s, though she hadn’t even known yet she was pregnant. When his mind was developed enough, they separated him from her as a distinct entity. She never felt she belonged and worked to find a way back to Earth. The entities had a way to create bodies for themselves at need, so she had them teach her and she taught Jeremy. She realizes that the ‘man’ who followed them was probably just trying to warn them of Jeremy’s incompatibility with Earth.

Stone convinces Daphne to come home with him so she can work out how to get back to the other plane; he’ll talk to Kolinsky and convince him to wait. But when they go to fetch Jeremy, he’s gone. Stone isn’t sure that Daphne didn’t tell Jeremy to run, somehow, but Verity calls and interrupts – she’s managed to arrive in Rochester quickly with help from friends with a private portal. Stone tells her where he is, and to start down to meet him. Meanwhile, Daphne can sense Jeremy and he’s moving fast, in a vehicle, headed north.

Using their phones to track each other and with Daphne tracking Jeremy, Stone and Verity converge at a store parking garage off the highway. Jeremy is huddled behind a truck; he tells Daphne he’s sorry, he was scared. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but doesn’t want anyone to hurt him, either. He doesn’t like Earth and wants to go home. As the adults debate next steps, one of the golem-like entities from the other dimension arrives. Jeremy panics and strikes it down, opening a new rift in the process.

Moments later, Kolinsky arrives. He’s come to end Jeremy because circumstances have changed and he can’t honor the eight-hour period. Alastair convinces him to deal with the new rift first, since it’s growing by the moment. Kolinsky reluctantly agrees, and Stone turns back to Daphne, telling her she’s got to think, they need a way back to the other dimension before Kolinsky or his associates can kill him. He makes it clear, he wouldn’t stop them; Jeremy is a clear danger to Earth and the billions living on it.

Verity intercedes, saying she might be able to get into Jeremy’s mind and, with Daphne’s help, trace his energy back to its origin. But Kolinsky is having trouble with the rift, and Stone says he’s still to spent from the last one to help. Daphne distrusts him, but agrees to help with the rift. Meanwhile, Stone follows Verity into Jeremy’s mind.

They find themselves in an alien place, but soon are led by an ephemeral Jeremy to an off-kilter version of the toy store in Wisconsin. Equally skewed toys are everywhere. They’re menacing, protecting Jeremy, who is now a small boy huddled in a corner. They work to convince the boy they want to help him go home, but only he knows where that is. Then Stone has a brainstorm: They don’t need a new portal; Jeremy can steer the rift to his home plane. The boy understands and agrees.

When they all exit Jeremey’s mind, Kolinsky and Daphne are struggling. Stone quickly explains what he wants Jeremy to do. Daphne agrees, and Kolinsky acknowledges he doesn’t have a choice. Jeremy, an indistinct cloud, now, latches on to the rift and moves it until it shows his dimension while his mother and Kolinsky fight to keep it under control.  Jeremy goes through, then Daphne, after apologies for all the trouble she caused. Once they’re through, the rift collapses and dissipates.

Alastair thanks Kolinsky for not killing the boy. Stefan is disgruntled, but accepts the thanks. He greets Verity, since they’d never met, and leaves.