Stone and a Hard Place

Stone and a Hard Place

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Second cover

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## Blurb

**Safe as Houses? Not so much.**

Alastair Stone has it hard enough keeping his two lives—mundane Occult Studies professor and powerful mage—separate, until an old friend asks him to take on a new apprentice.

Especially after a university colleague wants him to investigate a massive old house for things that go bump in the night.

Easy job, right? Just turn up, put on a little show, and announce the house is clean.

Problem: The house *isn’t* clean.

If Stone can’t deal with the malevolent spirit reawakening in the basement, he’ll have a disaster on his hands.

And if that’s not bad enough, a trio of dark mages want to help it break free. They’ll do whatever it takes—including seducing Stone’s young apprentice and using him against his master—to get what they’re after.

With time running out, Stone has to stay alive long enough to uncover the spirit’s secrets. But even if he does, he might not have enough power to send it back.

## **Plot**

Alastair Stone, a British national, is a 31 year-old professor of Occult Studies at Stanford University in northern California, where has taught for two years. He’s also a mage of considerable power.

One night, Stone receives a call from a colleague, Walter Yarborough, practically begging him to take Ethan Penrose of San Jose on as a magical apprentice. Ethan was to have traveled to England to study with Walter, but his mother has fallen gravely ill, and he will not leave her. Stone agrees, aware that he’s long overdue to take an apprentice, and that there are few mages in the area able to do it.

Meanwhile, Adelaide Bonham, a wealthy philanthropist, is becoming convinced that something in her house is malevolent and wants her gone. At 89, though, she’s aware nearly anyone would chalk her fears up to dementia.

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

She confides in her nephew, Tommy Langley, who happens to be a colleague of Stone’s at Stanford. Tommy (unaware of magic and mages) convinces Stone to visit Adelaide as a ‘ghost hunter’ to pronounce the house clear and safe. He, Stone and Ethan do so, but Stone feels the presence in the house and wants to return for further investigation. This angers Tommy, but he relents. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone (even himself), Ethan has a strange encounter with a mirror in the attic.

Around the same time, young black mages known as The Three are lounging at a San Francisco club called Will to Power, siphoning energy from patrons. A woman offends the leader, Trin Blackburn, and The Three conduct a ritual to mess with her plumbing and flood her house. Later, feeling the urge to kill someone, they target another club goer who insulted Miguel Torres, another of The Three. The ritual goes awry, and they accidentally contact a powerful entity. They can tell it’s powerful, something they’d like to control, but communication is difficult, and they don’t know exactly where or what it is.

Alastair and Tommy return to Adelaide’s and, when Stone begins to get a feel for the entity, it blows up a television, scaring and nearly injuring Adelaide and her caregiver, Iona li. Tommy vehemently calls for an end to Stone’s ‘investigation’.

Ethan, meanwhile, ‘coincidentally’ runs into Trin – Trina – who reveals she’s a mage. Ethan tells her he’s an apprentice, working with Dr. Stone. Trin invites him clubbing, because he might be useful to The Three in contacting the entity. She’s wary of Stone’s reputation, though, and arranges for him to be distracted.

That night, Stone is mugged in a Stanford parking lot, and ends up in the hospital, while The Three get Ethan drunk and invite him back to their place. Despite Stone’s instructions not to experiment, Ethan assists them in a (harmless) ritual, while also spilling information about the strange things going on in Adelaide Bonham’s house. He’s becoming enamored with Trin and her ‘if it feels good, do it’ lifestyle, as well as the feel of magic that seems to be so much easier than what Stone is teaching.

Adelaide calls Stone in the middle of the night because the house is banging and crashing. Despite cracked ribs and other injuries, he goes to investigate, and feels power outside the house. The Three, conducting a ritual to contact the entity on the grounds, sense Stone. Miguel attacks him magically in the dark, and leaves him injured or dead – he doesn’t care. Stone barely managed to shield, however, and surprises them, destroying their ritual and badly injuring their third, Oliver Hargrave. They flee, with Oliver ending up in the hospital in a semi-comatose state.

Stone returns to the house and tells Adelaide that someone is trying to provoke the entity, hence all the noise. Adelaide realizes Stone is more than he seems, and is grateful for his help. She confesses, though, that a charity ball is less than a week away, and she really doesn’t want to cancel it. Stone doesn’t like it, but promises to further restrain the entity so it doesn’t break free before the ball,a dn before he can figure out how to banish or destroy it. Stone’s girlfriend and colleague, Megan Whitney, is becoming suspicious of Stone’s nighttime activities, but he reassures her he is doing nothing illegal.

A mage colleague of Stone’s, Stefan Kolinsky, whom he’d contacted for help, reports that the original lady of Bonham’s house, Amelia, had enlisted help to summon her deceased husband. The mage, Selena Darklight, tricked Amelia, summing the entity instead, for its power. She lost control of it and, while able to partially seal it away, she and all others involved except Amelia, disappeared. Amelia went mad. Stone realizes something had to have weakened its prison recently (there had been an earthquake not long before).

Ethan gets deeper in with Trin, who is luring him with sex and easy power, but it conceals it from Stone. Alastair realizes something is up, though, when Ethan helps power a circle he should know nothing about. But the boy is a wreck over his mother being back in the hospital, so Stone doesn’t pry. He instead returns to Adelaide’s house, finds where the entity is imprisoned in the basement, and works to reinforce the prison. The thing shows Stone the night it was summoned, to the extent of including him in the vision so he feels the attacks that killed Amelia’s circle decades before. He blacks out and wakes weak and tired, but unharmed. When he returns to Adelaide, Tommy confronts him angrily and Stone snaps. He shows Tommy and the ladies his magic, scaring hell out of Tommy, but vowing to get rid of the thing in the basement. Tommy is terrified, but Adelaide is accepting and grateful.

Trin draws Ethan in more, showing him how to siphon power from others without killing them and, since no one is ‘harmed’, Ethan rationalizes it as okay. Meanwhile, Megan finds out about Adelaide’s ball and that Stone is going, and effectively invites herself along. Stone is reluctant, but concedes. At night, though, the entity reaches into his dreams, giving him a night terror, and promises to kill him and everyone he cares about.

Ethan accompanies Stoneback to Adelaide’s to search for any documentation on Selena Darklight’s ritual. Ethan finds it and other books, but hides them to give to Trin, allowing Stone to find other, useless books. He returns to the hospital to find his mother has died.

Oliver is released from the hospital and Trin and Miguel fill him in on events. They don’t have the thing’s true name, so they plan to sacrifice Ethan in order to control the entity, and to kill Stone later as well, for his interference. Despite his mother’s passing, Ethan allows Trin to wheedle him into attending the ball as planned, and to allow them in to the basement.

At the ball, Ethan is having doubts, but lets The Three in anyway, and takes them to the basement. They turn on him, and bind him to a table in the center of the ritual circle, ready for sacrifice. Unable to find Ethan, Stone goes to the basement with Tommy in tow. They find the ritual in the basement nearly finished, the entity beginning to come through, and Ethan bound and bleeding in the circle.

Stone warns Tommy not to disrupt the circle while he looks frantically through Trin’s book for a way to stop it (The Three too focused to even notice them). Tommy throws a heavy candlestick, hitting and killing Oliver, who falls and breaks the circle. Trin and Miguel collapse from psychic feedback, but Trin recovers quickly, grabs Tommy, and drains his energy, ashing him. A candle knocked away sets some papers on fire, and the flames quickly spread. Stone fires a blast at Trin, missing, but hitting Miguel a glancing blow. Miguel flees while Stone and Trin battle, but doesn’t get far before knocking into something in the dark and having a heavy weight fall on him, breaking his legs and pinning him.

Megan, looking for Stone, realizes smoke is coming from the basement. She alerts security and they begin evacuating the mansion.

Trin flings a powerful spell at Stone, leaving him bleeding and unconscious. She flees, finding the trapped Miguel along the way, but leaves him to his fate. Ethan wakes, finding Stone on the floor and remembering the diary he never gave Trin. He rouses Stone, gives him the book, and collapses again. Stone finds the thing's name and banishing incantation in the book and begins it. He's slashed and bleeding from the creature’s minions, Ethan is torn to pieces - then Stone realizes it's all a mind trick - the thing isn't through yet. Stone succeeds in banishing the thing but falls, unconscious.

Ethan wakes and tries to drag Stone out, but he's to weak to get far. He spots Miguel, who calls for help. Making a decision, Ethan ashes him for the power and strength to help Stone. He gets Stone up to the kitchen where Megan is looking for them, then dies.

Later, Stone (having been in hospital and having had surgery), is wallowing in guilt an alcohol. Walter manages to entice him back into the land of the living, and urges him to return to England to heal for a time.