Mortal Imperative

Mortal Imperative

## Blurb

**Old Friends. Old Enemies. Unspeakable Evil.**

Alastair Stone is surprised when a long-forgotten friend breaks his self-imposed silence to contact him.

It seems that two other allies from his past have disappeared without a trace, and Stone's tracking magic might be the only way to find them.

Should be simple. Right?

But as Stone delves into the deepening mystery, he finds connections to unexpected avenues: old enemies, forbidden magic, and even Verity's group of San Francisco vigilantes.

Could it be possible that two of Stone's most powerful foes are working together—including one who's supposed to be dead? What, aside from their mutual hatred of Stone, could they possibly have in common?

To have any hope of uncovering the diabolical plan and saving the victims from a horrifying fate, Stone will need to rely on his friends for help.

But can all his power keep them safe?

Sometimes dealing with mortality is far harder when it's not your own.

## Plot

Elias Richter thinks one of his staff is moving his things around. But, when he can’t remember equations he just read, he suspects he knows what the real problem is. Faced with a terrifying diagnosis of dementia, he turns to his late necromancer associate, James Brathwaite, for help.

## Quotes and One-liners

“Be honest, Stefan: have you got a hoard somewhere? If I ever made it to your real home, would I find you sitting on top of a big pile of gold?” Kolinsky did not reply, but merely crossed his arms. His expression suggested he was waiting for Stone to get it out of his system.

Verity Thayer goes to Jason and Amber’s new place for lunch, and finally breaks down and tells Jason that their mother had had an affair. More, Verity is the result and Jason’s half-sister, not full sibling. She has two other half siblings, Miles and Elena Kilgallen, born to their father, Sebastian, and his wife, Lydia. Jason, freaked out, nevertheless insists on the whole story when he realizes there’s more. Verity tells him of how she found out, and that Lydia was responsible for their mother’s death (An Unexpected Truth).

While Jason is coming to terms with revelations, Stone receives a call from Madame Huan – the first since he learned about the dragons (Homecoming). She’s finally located the vanazarite he needs to complete his private portal. Before he can even think about when to go pick up the substance, he gets another call from an old acquaintance he never expected to hear from again, Frank Grider. Grider tells him that two of his fellow ‘safe’ ghouls (Flesh and Stone) have disappeared, and he’s hoping Stone can help find them. He tells Grider he’ll travel to his town in rural Tennessee the next day.

That night, he, Verity, Jason and Amber get together for dinner. They discuss Verity’s news, then turn to Stone’s trip, though he doesn’t give them any details. Jason and Amber tell Stone he needs to take better precautions when popping around the country without cars or planes, especially if government types are taking notice. Jason gives him a burner phone, and advises he find someone to create some fake identities for him.

Stone travels to Tennessee and meets with Grider and his wife, Laura. Their concern is that their doctor and main food supplier, Orville Lu, and reporter Chris Belmont, both left without a word to anyone and haven’t returned. Grider, a former cop, is suspicious. Stone and Grider visit Lu’s house, finding he’s left without even packing personal items like toiletries. Even stranger, there is no meat in his fridge or freezer – something no ghoul can be without. The same at Belmont’s place, though they find he’s left his dog with a neighbor, who says he can’t continue to care for it indefinitely. Grider takes the dog and they head back to his house with tether objects foraged from the men’s things.

Stone’s rituals to find the men reveal that Lu appears to be behind wards, while Belmont is out of range. He decides to do some investigating and asks Grider to check on Lu’s hospital employer, and that no one else is missing. He’ll return the next day and travel out along the direction his ritual indicated, to try to get into range to find the men.

He pops to England to visit Eddie and Ward in the hopes they can unearth some helpful information. Eddie tweaks to how quickly Stone arrived, but Alastair deflects. At his Surrey house where he goes to pick up some of his own notes, he finds Aubrey is entertaining a new lady friend, Susan Fletcher.

Invited to Verity’s for dinner, Stone arrives so quickly she also remarks on how fast he was able to travel. Alastair begins to realize he’s going to have to be a lot more careful to conceal his ley line travel ability. Stone is relating the problems of the ghouls – having to explain ghouls first – when Hezzie and Tani arrive to pick something up. Later, Verity volunteers to act as backup for Stone in helping the ghouls.

When he’s heading back to the nearby ley line from Verity’s apartment, but is intercepted by Tani, who says she needs to talk to him. She scurries up to a rooftop, signaling Stone to levitate up so they can speak privately. Alastair is struck by how odd Tani is – pale, twitchy, and a little feral-seeming. He quickly learns that’s because she’s also a ghoul, who stayed behind when the others left for TN. She’s worried about a friend, Maisie, who is out of contact. She’s worried her friend is also missing along with Lu and Belmont. Tani gives him a little figurine to track her with when Stone agrees to help. She also gives Stone permission to tell Verity about her being a ghoul.

Stone and Verity head to where Alastair lost his trace of his friends the next night, having to go more slowly because Verity can’t travel ley lines. As they drive, they discuss Marta considering closing A Passage to India and moving back to England. Then Stone brings up Tani, telling Verity that her friend is a ghoul, and that Tani’s friend, Maisie, is now also missing. They also kick around ideas for why someone would be kidnapping ghouls. Stone relates that Grider, prior to becoming a ghoul, had been dying of an inoperable brain tumor. Being wounded in a fight with semi-feral ghouls and becoming a ghoul himself had the side effect of curing his tumor. Though, as Grider points out, no one in their right mind would *choose* to become a ghoul. But Alastair reasons that perhaps someone is looking to experiment with the ghouls’ regenerative abilities. It would help explain why more than one ghoul was needed.

Stone and Verity break into a church community room and Alastair performs rituals to track all three missing ghouls. Lu seems to be farther away and separated from the others. Belmont and Maisie are together. Choosing to go for the pair first, they set back out. Their destination turns out to be a rural cemetery.

They’re drawn to a mausoleum by a flicker of blue light, and find it unlocked. Inside, their light spells seem unable to penetrate the dark. They hear someone crying, and descend to find Chris Belmont tied to a chair, probably dead. Someone warns it’s a trap as Belmont’s head falls off his shoulders, and undead begin rising from the floor. These zombies seems to be pieced together from parts, not all of which are human. Magic-resistant like Miriam Cheltham’s creations, the undead begin to converge while Stone and Verity fight back with chunks of gravemarkers. The zombies are trying to get by to cut off their escape. Stone holds them off while Verity goes to a cage in a corner inhabited by a pale, dirty woman.

Once freed, Maisie joins the fight. They make it up to the surface and shit the mausoleum, trapping the last remaining zombies. But Maisie is on the edge of feral, having trouble thinking and controlling herself. While Verity keeps watch, Stone helps Masie dig up a fresh grave. He warns Maisie to take only what she needs, and to be respectful. Maisie manages to control herself, taking only a small bit of the dead woman’s leg, where the missing flesh will be covered by clothing. They rebury the corpse and head for the car.

Despite Maisie’s unpleasant odor, the pair question her. She’d been taken while asleep, with no idea how she ended up in the cage. She heard voices when someone was setting the trap for Stone and killing Belmont, but she was drugged, and they weren’t speaking English. They stop to buy clothes for Maisie, then take her to a motel to clean up.

Stone and Verity ponder questions: Was the trap specifically for them? Who raised the zombies? Was Miriam Cheltham still alive and, if so, what was she doing in Tennessee kidnapping ghouls; for what purpose? Was another necromancer out there? Stone notes he has to talk to Eddie. The librarian had read Brathwaite’s papers and has a near-eidetic memory. He might be able to determine what a necromancer would want with ghouls.

Alastair calls Grider and gives him the news of Belmont’s death, and Maisie calls Tani to tell her she’s alright. Tani urges Maisie to go back to San Francisco, so they split up – Verity to take Maisie through the portal in Atlanta, and Stone to return his rented car.

The next day, after emailing Eddie, Stone consults with Kolinsky at his shop. He has to bring him up to speed on his prior contact with the ghouls, plus Cheltham and her creations, first. He ends by saying his only thought is that someone wants to create regenerating undead. Kolinsky agrees to research the problem.

Verity makes a vegetarian dinner at Stone’s, with Jason and Amber joining. Alastair has to fill them in that cannibalistic ghouls exist, living among regular people. Jason doesn’t take it very well. Worse, he goes on to explain about the zombies that attacked, and that a necromancer is still out there, and wants the ghouls for something. Stone calls Ian to come home, since he was involved with Brathwaite’s attack at the Surrey house, to help brainstorm. He also calls Grider to get permission to give Jason Lu’s and Belmont’s names so he can investigate.

Next, Alastair meets with Tani and Maisie at Verity’s, and convinces her to let Verity contact her mind to see if she can find any other memories that might help, such as the conversation she overheard while caged. Stone records it when Verity speaks the German conversation Maisie overheard. Later, Stone manages to figure out a few words – enough to make him wonder if Elias Richter is involved because the name ‘Lane’ was used.

When Ian arrives the next morning, he translates the conversation. It confirms that Richter’s old henchman, Lane, is involved, as well as a woman. It seems Richter is back to trying to become immortal, with ghouls his latest experiment. But it doesn’t explain the necromancer’s – ostensibly Cheltham’s – involvement.

When he consults with Kolinsky, Stefan informs him that Richter is responsible for the Ordo Purpuratus resurfacing. He adds that the Ordo recently acquired a mage who can spot latent talents. Alastair figures that it must be Ben Halstrom, the wild talent Fagin who’d been broken out of jail a while back (Circle of Stone). He asks for Kolinsky’s help with stopping Richter, but the dragon refuses, saying he can’t interfere. Alastair realizes Richter must be a scion. Kolinsky can, however, try to find the henchman, Lane.

Ian and Stone are chatting about the case and other things, and Ian brings up that he accidentally caught Aubrey at a bad moment, when his hands were shaking. Aubrey brushed it off as fatigue, but Ian could tell he was lying.

Stone has to beg off dinner with the gang when Eddie calls with big news that won’t wait. He heads to the library, forgetting again that he shouldn’t have gone so quickly. He manages to brush Eddie’s questions aside by focusing on his news. Eddie’s and Ward’s research turned up a lone descendant of James Brathwaite’s – Miriam Padgett. The name coincidence is striking, but still doesn’t answer how, if she actually is Cheltham, she learned necromancy so quickly. Eddie has a photo, and it does resemble Cheltham, but Stone isn’t sure.

A trip to Padgett’s dress shop employer reveals that she disappeared over a year prior, with no word to anyone, even her mother. The elderly woman is Stone’s next stop. He chats with the old woman as an ‘old friend’ of Miriam’s, hoping she might have some idea where Miriam could be. She doesn’t but, in going through mementos, she tells Stone about a little doll dress she held on to, the first thing Miriam ever sewed. She lets Stone have it; he wants it to do a tracking ritual, though if she is Cheltham, Miriam is likely warded.

Alastair chats with Aubrey at the Surrey house, ostensibly about planning a big holiday feast at the end of the year. Then he brings up what Ian told him. Aubrey finally admits he has Parkinson’s. He says he’s on medication and doing well, and Stone has nothing to worry about for a good long time. When Stone starts guilt-tripping and insisting they get Aubrey help for heavier chores, Aubrey says he’s already been doing that for years, hiring men from the village. He’s stubborn, not stupid.

Stone returns home to a message from Laura Grider – Frank has gone missing. At dinner, he tells Ian, Verity, Jason and Amber about the new disappearance, and what he learned in England. He shows Verity Padgett’s photo, and she’s quite sure it’s Cheltham. She says she wants a piece of her when Alastair goes after her. Jason and Amber exchange confused looks – no one has ever told them about Sharra (Death’s Door). They wrangle again with the question of how Cheltham could have learned necromancy so quickly. Verity has a sudden thought and checks her phone for the dates of photos she took when Brathwaite attacked at the Surrey house. The expulsion of his echo lines up with Miriam Padgett’s disappearance. Is it possible he possessed someone or something else, and he taught Miriam?

With little to do but wait on more information, Stone tells Ian to go ahead and return to his friends, but stay reachable. He also reassures Ian about Aubrey’s health. On a run to clear his head, he gets a call from Richter, warning him to stop prying into his business. He says all Stone’s friends will remain alive as long as he backs off. He also blames Belmont’s death directly on Stone’s meddling. That night he has a nightmare involving Richter and Cheltham, with Brathwaite’s echo drifting in and out of the woman, grinning, then shooting forward to re-possess Stone.

Back in London, Stone, Eddie and Ward try to work out how they can do a dual tracking ritual, with Miriam’s doll dress and the box Brathwaite’s journals had been in. Eddie is sure, though, that the box just won’t have enough connection to the man after a couple hundred years, even if it were possible to track a ghost. Stone suddenly remembers his dream. *He* has a connection to Brathwaite, because the echo possessed him for a brief time (House of Stone). Eddie tells him he’s mad when he proposes using himself as a tether to Brathwaite – the power of the ritual *destroys* the object used in most cases. Stone insists Eddie and Ward find a way to do it, promising to bring Verity and Ian into the ritual to give it more power and control.

Verity and Ian are equally adamant when Stone proposes his plan. But he tells them he’s going to do it, regardless. It will work better and make him safer if they help. They reluctantly agree. Eddie and Ward do find a way to structure the ritual with Stone as a tether, but they only agree to participate when he assures them he’s much harder – perhaps impossible – to kill, now. Eddie tells him he’d better come clean with how that happened, as well as how he travels so fast, when all this is over.

When everyone gathers in Stone’s ritual workspace and begin the ritual, things start oddly. The seeking magical tendrils from Miriam’s dress and Brathwaite’s box seem confused about their target. Alastair gets a sudden vision, as if he’s seeing through another’s eyes – a woman’s eyes, because she reaches out a hand. He sees Richter, who looks very ill, and Lane, who doesn’t. The power in the circle suddenly begins building too quickly. Stone, erupting in agony from the power surging through his body, orders Ian to duck. When he does, Stone flings the power away, right at the nascent portal he’d been working on and out into the Overworld.

When he comes to a few hours later, Verity tells him his portal was destroyed by the power he flung at it. Eddie tells him Miriam’s tracking thread dissipated, so she may be dead, or out of range. The rest worked, though, and they tracked Brathwaite to an abandoned shopping mall in Tennessee. Stone says he’s almost sure Miriam is alive, and tells him what he saw through her eyes. Eddie and Ward head home; they aren’t really battle mages. Jason and Amber, Ian and, of course, Verity want to help take Brathwaite and Richter out, and Cheltham if she’s there. Tani and Maisie, as well.

The entire group makes the trip to Tennessee and set up in a hotel near the mall to plan. Gina had come through with plans for the building, and they all agree the underground areas of the larger stores are the most likely places for Richter’s ritual.  They discuss strategy, trying to account for Lane’s magic resistance and seduction ability, as well as possible additional Ordo mages being present. And, of course, the magic-resistant zombies. They all gear up with light body armor, weapons, and radios and head for the mall.

They arrive inside the center of the mall to find the place reeks of recent death, messing up Amber and the ghouls’ scenting ability. They split so a mage and a ghoul is in each group. Stone, Ian and Tani go one way, the rest go the other. Stone’s group are inspecting a grotesque-looking body when Jason’s voice comes over the radio saying there’s trouble. Maisie says ‘ambush’, but is cut off with a scream. Tani races away.

Ian and Stone find her back where the other group had been going, crouched over a bleeding Maisie, who been nearly decapitated. Stone tries to heal her but, between his minimal healing ability and the grave injury, he can’t save Maisie. Lane’s voice comes over the radio. He gives the radio to Jason who says they’ve been captured, and Lane has gotten to both Amber and Verity with his power. Lane instructs Stone to come to the center anchor store and surrender, or he’ll have Amber and Verity tear Jason and each other apart.

Lane meets them with six zombies, takes their radios and Tani’s pistol, then usher them down an elevator to a long hall. With many taunts and threats, he puts each of them in a separate office-like room, stationing a zombie on a sigil on the floor, facing each door. He instructs the zombies to step off the sigils if anyone comes out of the doors, setting off a magical alarm. If an alarm goes off, their other friends die.

Once Lane leaves, Stone calls out to Ian, telling him to sit tight until something happens, and to tell Tani. He then sets an illusion of himself and pops out of the room into an adjacent hall using his ley line method. He finds the doors to where Richter is working his ritual, then goes back to the hall and the door-guarding zombies. The creatures ignore him because their orders are so narrowly defined. Stone tells Ian to give him exactly two minutes, then break out of the room. He’ll have a distraction for Richter by then. Ian and Tani will have to handle their guard zombies.

Thirty seconds before time is up, Stone blasts open the doors on Richter’s ritual. Richter himself is inside a huge circle, hooked up to various bubbling alchemical mixtures. Cheltham and two other mages are conducting the ritual. Cheltham screams at the mages to stop Stone, while Lane yells out an order to ‘kill them all’. Jason attacks Lane, while four zombies, Verity and Amber head for Stone. Tani barrels in and jumps on Lane’s back, biting and scratching. Lanes can’t dislodge her and fend Jason off at the same time.

Ian arrives and he and Stone shield, trying to keep Amber and Verity at bay without hurting them. Stone is trying to spot who/where Brathwaite is, as well as trying to get through to Amber to disrupt Lane’s control. Cheltham screams that Stone should have died with his ‘accursed line’, and Alastair realizes she is Brathwaite. He asks if Ian can handle the zombies; he needs to stop the ritual. Ian says go, and gets back to work.

Amber is trying to get to Stone when Lane suddenly flings Jason away into a wall. Seeing him brings her back to herself, and she takes off to defend her husband. Verity, meanwhile, is flinging magic at Stone, trying to break his shield. A zombie knocks Ian out of the air where he’d been levitating, fighting from above, but Stone catches him. Then Brathwaite sends her two mages to engage Stone and overwhelm the group.

Stone instructs Ian to get everyone out, to leave him to stop the ritual. Fortunately, Lane is killed by Tani and Verity regains her senses. The group races for the outer doors while Stone gathers power to blast the shield protecting the ritual. But suddenly the ritual goes wrong. Richter begins screaming, and Brathwaite cursing. He flings a bolt of power, not at Stone, but at the concrete above the doors the group is fighting to reach. Alastair diverts is power to hold up the ceiling over the door and screams to the others to run. Brathwaite flees with an unconscious or dead Richter in tow.

When things stop falling, Stones sees the zombies and the two mages were crushed, but can’t tell if Ian and his friends made it out. He gathers one more bit of energy and manages to pop himself out of the mall to the parking lot, where he collapses.

He comes to and learns that, after they were safely away, the group went back in to find and release Lu and Grider, and retrieve Maisie’s body. Grider is reunited with Laura. Lu tells Stone about overhearing some of Richter’s conversations, and that he believes the man was trying to stave off dementia. Ian asks how his father got out of the room he was held in. Stone tells him he can’t tell him about it. Ian says he’ll ask Gabriel and Stone says he hopes Gabriel will answer. Finally, Stone pops home to Surrey a few days later and tells Aubrey he plans to visit more often, that he no longer needs a portal to travel, so he can come when he likes, and probably drive Aubrey crazy in the process.