Vicious Circle

Vicious Circle

## Blurb

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Still coming to terms with recent events, Alastair Stone is shocked when someone from his past—someone he still feels guilty he couldn’t save—resurfaces in his life with a desperate claim that he’s the only one who can help her.

She may be right.

He’d thought the Evil—extradimensional beings with a taste for human fear, misery, and rage—had settled down. But now it appears they’ve got a new plan—and a new leader.

Stone and Verity go undercover to a tropical holiday paradise designed specifically with the Evil’s sadistic tastes in mind, hoping to discover who this new leader is and what they’re up to.

But when the plan turns out to be far more ambitious—and far deadlier—than either of them had ever suspected, stopping it becomes more crucial than ever.

If they fail, the Evil will gain a deadly new foothold on the world.

However, if they succeed, Stone could gain access to resources he never thought possible.

And he might need those resources, because some of his most powerful allies have stopped taking his calls.

## Plot

At age eight, Madison McClain murdered her sleeping mother with a pencil through her eye. Even Alastair Stone couldn’t determine what had moved her to do it. Now, ten years later, Madison has been released from the psychiatric facility where she’d been held ever since. After a period of prostitution to make ends meet, she wakes in a hospital following a miscarriage and near-death. That’s terrible, of course. But Madison feels hope for the first time since her mother’s death. She can no longer feel the thing in her head that drove her to murder and shameful acts.

But Madison’s hope doesn’t last. She dreams that the thing is coming back, that her near-death weakened it, but it’s growing slowly stronger. No one has ever been able to help her; no one has ever believed her. Except… One man, maybe, who she can’t recall beyond his voice, with its unusual accent. She sets out to find out who he is, and whether he can help.

## Quotes and One-liners

Aldwyn, you scaly old bastard, get your arse over here!Stone never said it, but he thought it.

Several days after the events at Windermere (Blood Ties), Stone and Verity finally come clean to Jason and Amber about what happened there. To do so, they also relate the tale of their prior run-in with Nessa Lennox, when she attempted to force the two of them to breed a child for sacrifice to an extradimensional entity (Necessary Sacrifices). With all the horrors they faced, the upshot was good news and bad news. James Brathwaite is finally dead. Unfortunately, Stone’s ruthless twin sister – Acantha, whom he’d ashed – has been successfully installed in a new body. The pair is relieved to have finally let Jason in on secrets they’d been keeping for so long. But, Stone knows he has to have a different uncomfortable conversation with his son, Ian.

Stone is surprised when a young woman approaches him on campus asking if he remembers her: Madison McClain. Over lunch, Madison tells him that she knows he won’t believe her, but she has something inside her that makes her do things, like her mother’s murder. Alastair assures her that he does believe her, that there are many like her, though he and others were able to kill the strongest of the “Evil” and prevent more from coming to Earth. Stone wonders how she’s even able to talk to him about it, but Madison explains that she nearly died from a miscarriage. At the time, she’d though the thing had died, but she can now feel it trying to regain strength and control. She’s afraid it will make her do something horrific to feed it back to health. Stone promises to try to find a way to rid her of the Evil.

Stone takes Madison to his house and calls Verity in to meet her. Verity absolutely wants to help, but first they need to find a place for Madison – she’s said she’ll suicide before letting the Evil do something terrible. The three head to Jason’s office, where Amber also is, with the kids. Alastair tries to read Madison, to see if he can detect her Evil, but finds nothing. The group brainstorms what to do with Madison while they figure out how to rid her of the Evil. Amber says she’ll have Madison stay with her in Santa Cruz. As a shifter, she can smell deceit, so the girl shouldn’t be able to trick her if the Evil comes to the fore. Jason will take the kids to visit her family in Tahoe.

Needing advice, Stone tries to contact Gabriel, but his message doesn’t go through. He reluctantly texts Ian, even though his son isn’t happy with him for keeping the secret of the dragons from him. Ian says he can’t get Alastair in touch with Gabriel because he doesn’t know where he is; Gabriel told him he can’t be his teacher anymore.

Stone pops to London, where Ian is staying in the townhouse. He finds his son drunk, disheveled, basically a mess. He says Gabriel had told him he had to leave for a while, though he didn’t want to. He returned only briefly to say he couldn’t teach Ian magic anymore. Stone, angry at the dragons for putting him in a position to hurt his son, explains about the dragons more fully. He also goes on to explain about scions, and that they’re directly descended from one of them. Ian guesses, correctly, that their sire was the one who kidnapped him and imprisoned Stone. In the end, Stone advises Ian to go and visit some of his friends to give himself – and Gabriel - time.

A consultation with Hezzie doesn’t reveal a potion to eject a soul-hitchhiker, but she reminds them of the one Stone used to fake his death, once before (House of Stone). Hezzie says she’ll consult with her teacher to see if it will work on mundanes, as well. Later, as he and Verity discuss the plan, Stone says he’ll have to accompany Madison’s echo to the spirit realm in order to guide her back to her body. He won’t take the potion, but travel astrally on his own.

When they present the plan to Madison, Stone assures her that, once the Evil is out of her, it can’t repossess her. Not can it last long outside her body; low-level Evil die in seconds, and there’s no way a higher-level Evil would have been put into a child. Madison is wary, and suggests doing it with a doctor instead, so she can be revived by medical means. Stone points out they’d be unlikely to find a doctor willing to do such a thing, at least, not one anyone should trust.

Jason and Amber reluctantly to the plan. Eddie and Ward are a bit harder to convince. Everyone remembers the near-disaster the last time Stone left his body. But, in the end, they agree. Later, Amber contacts Stone to tell him she thinks the Evil is getting the upper hand with Madison. The girl says she think the Evil is gone, and there’s no need for anymore intervention. Amber could smell the lie, and she tells Stone he’d better hurry with what he wants to do before the Evil gets any stronger.

Unable to sleep that night, Stone is reviewing his texts and is reminded that Gabriel never answered him. He texts again, demanding they talk. Surprisingly, Gabriel agrees and pops to the house. He tells Alastair that Aldwyn has forbidden him from teaching Ian any longer. Moreover, he’s forbidden all the dragons from aiding him or Ian in any way. Stone decides it’s time he set Aldwyn straight, though Gabriel warns him against it.

Deciding to wait until his anger is under control, Stone waits to confront Aldwyn. Hezzie tells him and Verity that her teacher, Marie-Thérèse, is afraid her potion could end up destroying Madison’s echo by mistake, given she has two entities inside her. With some of Madison’s blood, she can fine-tune it by the next day. He goes to Amber and Jason’s house to talk to Madison and ask for blood, but she tells him the Evil is dead, so there is no reason. Meanwhile, her right hand writes ‘help me' on a piece of paper. She excuses herself to the bathroom, and escapes out a window. Amber tracks her quickly and Stone stuns her with a spell.

Madison’s heart rate begins to climb – the Evil is messing with her, threatening to kill her. Stone calls Verity to come ASAP with both a syringe to take the girl’s blood, and something to keep her unconscious. They get Madison sedated and transfer her to Stone’s house, where they’ll do the ritual to expel her Evil. Verity keeps watch while Stone refines his circle, but she calls him up to Madison’s room to show him that the girl is writhing and struggling. The Evil is fighting her potion. It speaks to them as if it’s a demon possessing Madison, not realizing they know exactly what it is. Verity administers another sedative, and Stone decides to sit with her for the remainder of the night.

They conduct the ritual the next day, with Eddie and Ward in attendance. Stone leaves his well-shielded body first, then Verity gives Madison the elixir. When the Evil is expelled, it first tries to inhabit Stone, then to leave the circle. Foiled, it attacks Madison’s echo, as if it’s decided if it can’t have her, it will kill her. Verity supports Madison’s body while Stone battles the Evil in astral form. He pries it away from Madison’s echo and blasts it with Calanarian energy, finally killing it. The next day, Madison is ecstatic, free at last and ready to make a new life. When Stone and Verity take her back to her apartment, though, Stone resolves to set her up with a trust to better her living conditions, at least, and give her a leg up on life.

Madison’s problem sorted, Stone calls out for Aldwyn and finds himself back in the doorless meeting room. He lights into Aldwyn for punishing him and Ian for letting the dragons’ secrets out of the bag. But Aldwyn makes him see, he’s punishing the other dragons, not him. He’s making a show of his power. Stone warns him to leave him and especially Ian, out of his power plays. Aldwyn retaliates that he only forbade the dragons from helping Alastair, not from associating with him. If they’ve abandoned him, it was on their own.

A couple of months later, Stone sits Ian down for a father-son talk. He explains Aldwyn’s stricture against the dragons aiding them, and why, as their sire, he can get away with it. But, he says, Adlwyn can’t dictate their personal interactions. He gives Ian some advice that, he hopes, might bring Ian and his lover back together, without the additional student-master complication.

Another month later, Madison contacts Stone again. Her life is wonderful, but she’s gotten a strange letter, inviting her to a weekend retreat for ‘her tribe’ with ‘entertainments’ to ‘feed’ her needs. Concerned one of the mid-level Evil has decided to assume leadership and bring them all together, Stone says he’ll investigate, but keep Madison out of it. He contacts Jason and consults with Gina to trace the QR code given on the invitation.

Gina reports that whoever is behind the invitation is rich and tech-savvy. She recommends that, if they want to infiltrate, they have Madison respond from an IP address the Evils’ tech people can verify as being from her. Alastair enlists Verity, who has since learned more about the death/expulsion potion from Marie-Thérèse. Madison resists helping, at first, but decides the Evil robbed her of so much of her life, she owes them.

The gang gets together at Jason’s agency to brainstorm plans. Verity can easily impersonate Madison, but getting Stone on board what turns out to be a small private jet is more problematic. Jason provides a solution.

At the airport, Stone remains hidden as an ordinary traveler while Verity enters as Madison. She surreptitiously doses one of the Evil-possessed who goes to the bathroom. Stone intercepts, assumes his looks, and helps get him out of the lounge to Jason, who takes the man home to sleep it off. The flight turns out to be two legs, with refueling in Miami, but no chance to exit the plane. And the Evil have blocked all cell communication. Stone and Verity are forced to watch – and pretend to enjoy – a man in an acrylic cage be terrified by spiders.

When they arrive at their tropical destination, Stone feels a strong magical pull – magic is very potent, here. Given rooms across from each other, the pair quickly establish an apparent romantic connection so they can visit each other’s rooms. They discuss the pull they felt, as well as how to endure the promised entertainments without either giving themselves away, or feeling compelled to rescue the victims.

At the welcome party, their host explains there are paths through the jungle with various entertainments along the way, and they can indulge and get their fill. Meanwhile Stone realizes where they are – at a ten-ley line convergence in the Bermuda Triangle. He’d known about it but never seen an island there, but the feeling is unmistakable.

Leaving Verity to pretend they’re having a tryst, Stone pops along the ley lines back to Encantada, where he looks up the area on a map app. After he finds it, he texts Jason, Gina and Eddie. It’s the wee hours for Eddie, but Jason and Gina are at the office and Stone pops over there. He sets Gina to finding out who owns the island; it has to be someone rich and high-tech.

The next day, Stone and Verity have to play along and visit the ‘entertainments’ scattered along a path through the jungle, pretending to be excited and ‘fed’ by them. They use illusions to look happy, despite wishing they could free the victims immediately. They do note that, though terrorized, the victims aren’t seriously harmed, physically; it would end the entertainment too soon. At the end of the day, Alastair rushes back to California, leaving Verity to cover.

Gina tracks the island to a reclusive tech billionaire named Bret Fontaine, and Stone assumes a mid-level Evil is possessing him and using his influence, but why? Just to entertain other Evil? He also revisits the satellite images and finds a second, smaller island next to the first. But both are barren. Gina points out that the online satellite images are six months old – anything could be there now. This fits with the hasty workmanship Stone has noted about the resort buildings.

Once Stone fills Verity in and they fulfill their obligation to be seen, the pair stroll the coast looking for the other island. They find nothing but a dock, until they manage to pierce the illusion hiding the other island, just minutes away. Mages are involved. They levitate over and find a small clearing with a ritual circle, benches, and a small shed with ritual supplies. The circle isn’t yet complete. The benches are runed for amplification, which might make the Evil participating very happy but again – why?

Verity points out that, given the benches, they only have enough elixir to expel half the Evil here. When Stone pops back to California, Gina informs him that none of the jets supposedly ready to take all the Evil back to their starting points will be coming. No one but Bret and a few others will ever leave the island. For whatever reason, the other Evil will be killed or stranded, along with Verity, who he can’t evacuate via the ley lines.

Needing more elixir, Stone meets with Hezzie, who tells him he has to deal with her teacher directly, since she has no more. But Marie-Thérèse always keeps a sample of her students’ efforts. Stone goes to New Orleans to treat with the teacher both Verity and Hezzie described as ‘strange’, and finds her very attractive. She agrees to give him the potion for three things in return: a rare orchid, the story of why he needs the potion, and a date. Before Stone can conclude their business, Marie-Thérèse goes into trance and utters a prophecy.

“*You balance on a tightrope stretched between two massive rocks. You think the two rocks to be separate, but they are more entwined than you ever suspected. Have a care, lest you be crushed between them—or cast down into the raging river far below. The day will come soon when you must choose a side. If you choose wrong, you are lost.”*

When Stone returns to the island, Verity is nowhere to be found. He eventually finds a note in his room, addressing him by his real name. It says he’s to wait in his room to be contacted if he ever wants to see “Madison” again. When the call comes, it directs him to a conference room behind the reception area.

There, he meets Bret Fontaine – via CCTV. Fontaine says of course he knows who Stone is, even though he’s disguised. Stone addresses the Evil directly, asking how it’s managed to possess a tech billionaire and set all this up. It says it’s aware Stone was behind the mass extinction of Evil at Burning Man, but it hadn’t been there. Trin Blackburn had murdered its body and it fled. Since then it’d been possessing and discarding bodies until it reach its best option, a billionaire with unmatched influence.

Fontaine says he simply wants Stone to stay out of the way, in his room and under surveillance until morning. He claims Madison will be unharmed as long as Stone plays along. Knowing how much the Evil’s word is worth, Stone does return to his room, but pretends to shower, instead popping to the second island. He waits, disguised as a shrubbery, until he can call out to Verity. He tells her to keep up the ruse. He’ll return to the hotel and retrieve her elixir and rejoin her later.

That night, as the Evil are preparing to head to the other island, Stone jumps at an opportunity to stun a man who separated briefly to use the bathroom, and then eject his Evil. Disguised as ‘Paolo’, he joins the group boarding boats for the brief trip. Once he arrives at the circle, he uses a distraction to conjure a star over his head, visible only to Verity, so she can spot him. She moves next to him and tells him to look up. Some kind of energy collectors have been placed above the circle, but their purpose is a mystery. Verity holds the Paolo illusion so Stone can use invisibility to get a closer look.

Stone learns that the collectors are meant to consume the energy from the victims now herded into the circle. Their death energy would be immense. Worse, it appeared Fontaine planned to kill the Evil, as well, providing a pattern for the energy to open a portal to the Evil’s home dimension. Just then great cats are released into the circle to terrify and kill the victims. Stone and Verity stun them, and Fontaine yells for his mages to find Stone.

While Stone reveals himself, Verity slips away to inject the mages with elixir. Stone tells the Evil present that Fontaine intends to kill them all, while Fontaine exclaims that Stone is a liar, and the man responsible for Burning Man. A melee ensues, with two of Fontaines mages aiming magic at Stone, while Verity manages to expel the Evil from the third, and then another. But Fontaine and the third mage flee. Verity Stays to help the injured while stone chases after Fontaine.

He and the last mage are on the beach trying to get into a boat to escape to the other island. As soon as he spots Stone, Fontaine grabs a knife and holds it to his own throat. He warns Stone off, saying he’s powerful enough now to easily make it to the US east coast and inhabit anyone at all, even the President. Stone may have ruined his portal, but he’ll just try again.

Stone uses the ley lines to pop inside the mage’s shield and immobilize Fontaine. He grabs the knife, tips it with elixir, and flings it at the mage’s hand. The man’s Evil is evicted and dissipates. Still keeping Fontaine immobile, he returns to the circle. A few victims are dead, but the rest and the big cats are all still in the circle. Some of the Evil have run off, while others are still getting high on the pain and fear. Verity said she couldn’t stop the others but, it is an island, so they should be able to round them up.

They evict all the Evil they can and set the mages and the now-freed spectators to watch the others, the wounded, and the cats. Stone then sets about reconfiguring the circle. With the new setup, both Fontaine and his Evil will be trapped inside. When they evict his Evil, the energy collectors will grab it and basically shred it to little bits. It worked perfectly.

In the end, all the Evil were expelled, Fontaine got them all safely home, and made some hefty payments to the victims and the possessed to keep them quiet. Through Caventhorne and a series of shell corporations, Stone becomes the proud owner of one of the most magically-potent places on Earth. Fontaine understandably wanted nothing more to do with it. He also gets a call from Ian and pops to London to visit. He and Gabriel are back together, though their magic lessons are over. Stone asks if Ian might like to help him with a new portal, in a very unusual place.