Stonecast by Anton Strout Read Free Book Online

it run through me. Something felt . . . off. I moved around the room, reaching out with my will, seeking out whatever felt different, which led me toward the large glass case of alchemical mixes.
    “What is it?” Rory said, joining me. “Has someone been stealing from the liquor cabinet?”
    “Has,” I said, focusing in on a dead spot on the wall just to the other side of Rory, standing by the glass cabinet. “And
is
.”
    Rory stepped in front of me to look at the spot, then turned back around to me. “Meaning what exactly?”
    “Shh!” I said. “The walls have ears.” I pressed my will toward the stone there, oddly finding no connection with the spot. I focused in, staring hard to find what my will could not. “Ears . . .
and
eyes.”
    “What?” Rory asked, starting to spin back around to it, but I was already reaching out to pull her away from the spot.
    The stone did indeed have eyes then, and they went wide at my mention of them. A section of the wall impossibly peeled itself away from the rest, and although the stones kept their shape, the movements and outline of the figure rushing for the door were distinctly human.
    I reached out to the stone creature with my will but found no connection to it. I pressed my power past the figure, grabbing at one of the stone tables along the wall, sliding it across the floor to block the creature’s exit path. Unprepared, the figure slammed into the moving table, falling forward, then
over
it, landing on its back on the floor. Rory and I closed on it as the creature—burdened by its own weight—struggled like a turtle on its back to right itself.
    “Shit,” a male voice called out from it, and the stone of its skin began to transform. The rock seemed to melt away, fading to expose a twentysomething man with a mess of dirty blond hair and a knee-length brown coat. Now free of his stone form, the man righted himself, scurrying to his feet. He eyed the two of us with darting suspicion, then reached in his jacket and pulled a glass vial free from it, tossing it at our feet.
    It shattered, and Rory danced out of its way, but I wasn’t quite quick enough. The stone beneath my feet softened like clay, and I sunk into it, my boots slowly disappearing out of sight. Try as I might to pull them out, my feet would not come free.
    Rory stood dumbstruck for a moment before shaking herself out of it and turning to our foe, her eyes dark. “Don’t worry,” she said to me out of the corner of her mouth. “I got this.”
    This drew a chuckle out of the stranger. “Do you, now?”
    In response, Rory rushed him, jumping up onto the stone table that separated them and kicking him square in the chest. He fell back, tumbled over, and landed on his hands and knees, letting out a pained laugh.
    “I guess you do at that,” he said, struggling to stand up. “Fast, aren’t ya?”
    “The fastest,” Rory said, jumping down from the table, keeping after him.
    “We shall see about that,” the man said, producing another vial, like a magician drawing his wand. He flicked the top off this one, causing Rory to instinctually jump back from him, but instead of throwing it at either of us, he chugged the dark yellow liquid within it. The man doubled over in pain, giving Rory an opportunity to close with him, but when she did, he was standing up straight again, waiting for her.
    Rory grabbed for him, but the man—now moving with more than human speed—evaded her, circling around behind her.
    “Look out!” I called to her, but by the time Rory spun to face him, the man had raised a closed fist to swing at her. I waited for his flash of a blow to strike her, but it never came.
    He swung, but the man stopped his fist mere inches from her face. “Nighty-night,” he said. He opened the hand, palm facing up, and blew across it. A fine, white powder rose off it, engulfing Rory’s entire head.
    She sneezed from within the cloud, blinking with heavier and heavier lids until they closed,