Gift of Stone

Chapter 2: Choices

Choices

Pitch black darkness rivaling that of a moonless night. That unusual sense the blood-transfer had granted me identified which Teutonic element intruded upon my solitude, the solidity of my stone readying me for defense in an instant. Leaving the bathroom behind, I scurried toward the hallway on silent feet, preparing to meet the man who approached the front portico.

Although my mastery of my magic was not refined enough to recognize his spirit by his element alone, I knew my guest had to be Lenz. Even after Philipp left this world, the invisible shield of dark energy he had cast over his property long ago held strong, the generator hidden in an old root cellar producing sufficient voltage to power the entire house. The shield repelled anyone who carried sinister intentions. A nearly flawless security system.

As I wound my way through the downstairs passageways to the vestibule, it occurred to me to wonder exactly how long Philipp’s spells would last now that he was dead. The electricity and internet had not yet gone out, but I suspected I would have to learn all about connecting this place to the city’s power grid at some point. And what about the house itself, and all of Philipp’s investments? I had not checked his accounts once this entire week.

I was a failure. Not the shining star my Truhtein envisioned.

When I reached the front door, I paused to draw a deep breath, pulling myself up straight. A Teuton priest of darkness awaited me, the man my Truhtein trusted without reservations. Lenz Schneider, a retired private investigator, had played a pivotal role when we broke up the child p*********y ring in Nürnberg three years ago. He had tracked down other survivors who had already come of age, asking them to testify against the criminals who plastered our tortured bodies all over the dark web. Each one languished in prison now, my anonymity intact.

Philipp and Lenz had protected me from having to face them again in court, from dealing with government officials who would demand I be sent to school, to the care of unknown guardians. Yet here I stood in blue gym shorts and a soiled tank top, my hair uncombed, my feet bare, my heart stuttering painfully, seeking a reason to continue on after its trusted partner departed this world. Lenz deserved better than this. I ought to make coffee.

“I can sense you in there, Zehra.” Lenz’s reedy voice prompted me to jump, my fingers stretching forth to unlatch the deadbolt. “I’ve brought a loaf from the bakery.”

I cracked the door, casting my gaze over Lenz, where he stood several paces back from the threshold. Attired in dark jeans, a black trench coat, and a flat hat, he looked fully prepared to start a new investigation. His irises were as black as coal, and his hands held a papery bag that smelled like heaven. Raising bushy gray eyebrows, he presented the bag to me, a silent message.

“Thought the bakery didn’t open until six,” I said, the earthy scent of warm Vollkornbrot reminding me that I needed to eat. I opened the door wider.

“If you know the owner, you can call in the occasional favor.”

“Come inside.” I nodded in the general direction of the kitchen, stepping aside so Lenz could enter. “I’ll make some coffee.”

I darted further into the house without waiting to see if he would follow, this time flicking a couple light switches along the way. My element had receded from my blood into my spirit as I relaxed in Lenz’s presence, my vision returning to its normal state. Odd that stone would grant me the ability to see in the dark, but maybe all earthen elements were like that. Maybe they prepared a Teuton mage to explore caves and mines.

Lenz rattled off a few comments about the weather and the local soccer team while I busied myself with the coffee pot. The bright kitchen lights made me feel exposed after three and a half days of huddling in my master’s private suite. My hands shook as I retrieved a pair of mugs from one of eighteen overhead cabinets. Philipp’s downstairs kitchen was enormous, containing three convection ovens, two refrigerators, a deep freezer, three dishwashers, an extensive wine rack under the dry bar, and enough dishes and place settings to serve a hundred people. All vestiges of his late father’s extroverted nature. Philipp never staged one party in the five years I had known him.

Of course, that may have been because he wished to keep my presence in his house a secret. He had rescued me from my previous master—the producer of child p**n—right after I turned thirteen. Philipp’s plan was to educate me, help me make my own way in the world once I grew up. And he had done just that. But to those on the outside, he appeared to be an elderly mogul who kept an underage Turkish girl as a servant.

So I had stayed hidden for all this time, a status that suited me. Lenz was the only one of Philipp’s friends who knew I existed and what I meant to Philipp. He retrieved butter from the fridge and honey from a cabinet while he chattered on about a soccer player who recently sprained his knee. Lenz’s insistence upon serving himself irritated me, but I had no authority to demand he settle down. I eyed him from where I stood before the counter, pouring two mugs of piping hot coffee.

Lenz had divested himself of his trench coat and hat, both of which lay upon the bar, his plaid flannel shirt typical attire for him. Tousled gray hair that matched his eyebrows ringed his bald crown, his fingers extracting the loaf of Vollkornbrot from its bag to set it atop a serving plate. I had not seen him retrieve the plate from a cabinet, my usually keen senses dimmed by my grief. I really needed to get it together. Turning back to the counter, I breathed out a quiet sigh, then lifted both mugs to carry them to the bar. Lenz had already laid out the cream and sugar.

After handing Lenz his mug, I plunked myself onto the bar stool beside the one he occupied, turning my attention to the slices of bread he had cut from the seeded loaf. I shut my eyes for a second to inhale its warm fragrance, then laid two pieces upon the plate before me. Coffee could wait; my stomach wanted food. Impatient, it growled as I took up the small container of herbed butter.

“You’re not doing well, are you?”

Lenz’s query cut me to the core. He had ceased his casual chatter when I handed him his mug, and now his hazel eyes pierced me from where he sat blowing on his coffee. Concern evident upon his features, he took a single sip, holding my gaze as I spread too much butter over the slices on my plate.

I felt as though a vise squeezed my heart. Keep it together. No crying, I told myself. Taking a single bite of buttered bread, I forced myself to chew slowly, not wanting to overdo it after four days of intermittent fasting. Then I admitted the truth, dropping my gaze from Lenz’s to the brown slice in my hand. “I’ve been drinking.”

Lenz exhaled heavily, setting his mug onto the bar. “He was my friend, too, Zehra. More than a friend. I’m not sure it’s fully hit me yet, even though I’ve spent the past three days getting his affairs in order.”

“What?” The word fell from my lips before I could squelch it. While I had floundered in misery and alcohol, Lenz had conducted business like a mature adult. A quality I had yet to attain, apparently. I hunched my shoulders, embarrassed.

“He made me the executor of his will years ago,” Lenz went on, fingering a half-eaten slice of bread on his plate. “You’re lucky he was an only child with no children or ex-wives of his own, or gold diggers would have invaded this property already. He left you all of his assets, aside from what he donated to charity and the investments we maintained together. Everything, including this property, granted to Frau Zehra Saliha Liebig. His will records your chosen surname.”

The implications of what Lenz declared prompted me to gasp. “He planned this,” I realized, tugging my full mug of coffee toward me, its warmth not touching the chill in my soul. “My Truhtein planned to die giving me Teuton blood.”

“I’m not sure if ‘planned’ is the right word,” Lenz said, his tone sympathetic. I poured a bit of creamer into my coffee, glancing at him while I waited for him to explain. The older man took a bite of honeyed bread, his thick eyebrows coming together.

“Philipp’s COPD started progressing late last autumn. He told me in March that his doctor gave him six months to a year, at most.”

“I didn’t know that.” I thought about how strained my master’s breathing had grown during the winter. He coughed and wheezed for a good twenty minutes each morning before making his way to the shower. Neither of us had spoken of his worsening health, denial my trustworthy raft.

“He preferred to bear that burden alone. I doubt he would have told me if he didn’t need me to set his affairs in order afterward. But the last time we spoke, before I conducted the ritual for you, he told me, ‘Wuotan will require one of our lives, since Zehra and I are opposite genders. I don’t want you offering that demon some ransom in an attempt to save us both.’ He made me promise not to deviate from the light, but I’ll admit I was tempted. I didn’t want to lose my dearest friend, or the lovely young lady who challenged him to become the best version of himself.”

Lenz cleared his throat and focused on his slice of bread, while I sat reeling from the sacrifice my Truhtein had made for me. I had read in multiple tomes that blood-transfers tended to be deadlier if the recipients were not of the same gender. But I had convinced myself that it would be different for us. That my master and I were strong enough to live, despite Wuotan’s foul schemes.

“Then . . . my Truhtein chose to die . . . to spare me.” Tears welled in my eyes but I blinked them away, trying to concentrate on the magic within my spirit, to center myself. Philipp had died to give me this gift of stone. It was time for me to stop mourning him and put his gift to good use.

“Philipp believed in you,” Lenz noted as I drank from my mug, the gears in my brain starting to turn with possibility, perked by the caffeine. “He believed that you would bring light to this world, use the privileges of Teuton blood to help those shackled by evil and greed. I haven’t archived the record of your blood status yet, but once I do, the local witches will certainly want to connect with you.”

The idea of meeting other Teuton females sent my magic running for cover. The solidness of earth had started to weave through my blood and augment my senses, but now it contracted back into my spirit. “I haven’t really . . . practiced all that much yet,” I confessed, embarrassed again. “Am I going to turn into a gargoyle whenever I separate my spirit from my body?”

That particular Teutonic talent was one I longed to hone. Philipp had used it often to gain intel on traffickers and their clients. His dark energy always buzzed around him in solid waves of electricity whenever his spirit went on the hunt. But my element was stone, gray the only color it had manifested thus far.

“A gargoyle. Really.” Lenz raised his eyebrows at me and burst out laughing.

His amusement awakened my own, a grin breaking across my face for the first time since Monday. “I’m stone. That means gargoyle. How exactly is my body supposed to breathe like that?” I needed to set my mind at ease about this before I set out on my first spiritual journey—to infiltrate the place where my father ran his trafficking business. Where my mother remained bound in servitude.

“Your body doesn’t need to breathe when your element preserves it. Life flows in a Teuton’s blood and element, along with their spirit. And the lungs of your spirit can breathe anywhere, even up in space. Spirits don’t need oxygen to sustain them. Since you’re stone, you’ll be able to travel through castle walls and Alpine crevices without trouble. Useful talent.”

Lenz mirrored my grin and took up another slice of bread, topping it with a spoonful of honey. I blinked at him in a daze as I thought about what he had said. “So when I’m in spirit form, I’ll be able to walk through walls?”

“Not just through them. In them. You’ll probably be able to sink down into the earth itself, should you wish to do so. It’ll come naturally to you, because your element stems from the earth. And one thing to remember—” Lenz took a bite of bread and chewed it thoroughly, studying my expression before finishing “—is that most Teutons, aside from wary priests, don’t think to look for spirits within walls.”

Resolution reared up inside of me, my brain compiling countless ways my stone could assist me in freeing my mother and bringing my father to justice. While I could not disrupt camera feeds or electrical barriers like Philipp could, my stone would allow me to undo physical locks, shift the bars in windows, and conjure weapons from the magic of my blood and spirit. All things I had not yet attempted. Once Lenz left, I would go to my bedroom for the first time since Monday morning, sit down at my desk, and make a list of the spells I needed to practice. I would have to dig out some of Philipp’s ancient tomes to guide me along the way.

“I can see the wheels turning in your brain.” Lenz’s voice extracted me from my reverie. I shook myself and reached for my coffee, realizing I had been staring off into space for more than a minute. When I met my companion’s gaze, he asked, “What have you got for me?”

That phrase initiated the mindset shift I needed dearly. I could still mourn Philipp while pressing forward with our investigation into my father’s business. He worked with a band of human traffickers who called their operation “Befreiung,” which meant “liberation” in German. They offered their services to refugees from the east—usually vulnerable women and children—shackling their clients into forced labor and p**********n. Philipp and I had not yet shared our findings with Lenz, for we had yet to uncover sufficient evidence to press charges.

But Lenz knew we had something cooking. And I would need his help if I wanted to do more than simply steal my mother away.

“You know how the child p**n ring we broke up had no connection with my father at all?” I shifted to face Lenz directly, setting my coffee mug down and taking up a fresh slice of bread. He nodded once, and I buttered my bread without really looking at it. “Well, my Truhtein found something a couple months ago. Something that might explain what my father actually does for a living. Even though he wasn’t in deep with the p**n, some of his associates have their hands coated in filth.”

I told Lenz the basics of what Philipp and I had found thus far. Most of it hinged upon transactions on the dark web. My master had been a whiz with code and computers, his element granting him insight most mortals never attained. One of many reasons I had wished to claim some type of energy myself. Luckily, Philipp had schooled me extensively throughout the past five years, though I found it much easier to study financial trends than to stay ahead of online criminals.

I was still unsure whether I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, or call it quits once my father’s business collapsed. There had to be other, more satisfying ways to help those in need.

“So your first plan is to break your mother out of Befreiung’s compound,” Lenz said after I finished my report. I bowed my head in acknowledgement and took a sip from my mug. Lenz’s next statement almost made me spit out my coffee. “How do you know your mother isn’t involved? That she even wants to be free?”

“My mother cares about protecting her children,” I responded, leveling a glare at him from over the rim of my mug. “My father had to hold her back when he sold me to that r****t. She was crying, fighting. I saw him hit her.”

Lenz’s lips parted, his distrust shifting into something else. “Are you sure she’s still alive?” he asked in an undertone.

I drained my coffee and smacked the mug onto the bar. Raising my chin, I looked Lenz square in the eyes and answered, “She is. My Truhtein scouted out my father’s compound in spirit form just last week. Now it’s my turn to do it.”

Chapter Three: