Accession of the Stone Born: The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles by Ken Lange

responsible for themselves. Your father kept mine until I was eighteen, and after your father died I was to care for yours until your eighteenth birthday, but you vanished and I’ve been holding it for you ever since. Every gemstone is different; for instance, Martha’s was a sapphire. Mine is a jade and emerald combination. Your father’s was a half ruby, half emerald concoction, and yours is a golf ball sized diamond.”
    I felt weak. I couldn’t stop blinking as my mind tried to process everything I was being told. Something deep inside of me told me his words were true, but how could that be? How could I be stone born? How was any of this possible? “I’m not sure how all of this works...I simply don’t understand what’s happening.”
    Andrew pushed his chair back and stood, waving for me to do the same. “Follow me.”
    He opened a locked door leading to a hallway on the forbidden side of the house. We were about halfway down the hall when he stopped and stuck another key into a door and opened it. Stepping inside the massive room, I saw hundreds of stones lining the walls, shelves, and tables. He guided me through the maze to the exact center of the room and pointed at a display case with a single flawless diamond the size of a golf ball hovering about three inches off the red velvet lining.
    He flipped back the top and waved me over. “This is yours. Normally you would handle this for the first time when you are eighteen, but I’ve heard of people getting theirs later. Not twenty-seven years later, but still. Be warned…this will be painful, but I promise it’ll be worth it.”
    I barely heard the words as I felt a thrumming inside my brain coming from the perfectly cut rounded stone in front of me. It called to me. This was what had been calling me to New Orleans. This was why I had come here. Everything Andrew said was true. For the first time in my life I wasn’t in control of myself as my body acted on its own, betraying me.
    I stepped forward, and holding out my left hand I slowly wrapped my fingers around its smooth polished surface. I felt power surge through my body as heat pulsated through the diamond into my hand. Its smooth surface erupted into thousands of tiny shards, slicing through the palm of my hand and fingers. Larger structures jutted out of its surface, through my palm, and out the back side of my hand. I screamed and the world around me shivered. I hit my knees, gripping my wrist in my right hand.
    I didn’t know how or why, but I felt it was important that my left hand stay over the case as blood ran freely from my hand down onto the red velvet. The stone stopped growing after the shard that penetrated my hand was about four inches long and had turned onyx. When I released the stone, it floated above the blood soaked velvet, now oddly shaped, jagged, and weeping. My head swam, darkness came for me, and I fell back into its warm embrace.
     
    Twenty years earlier
     
    The rough stone floor was cool against my face. An ever-widening pool of red-black fluid spilled out all around me as someone grabbed the back of my neck, yanking me upwards before slamming my face back into the floor. The thud was followed by an immediate sickening crack of one of my bones breaking.
    The man behind me whispered in my ear with a thick Arabic accent. “You will tell me what I want to know!”
    Thing was, I wouldn’t…I couldn’t, because I simply didn’t know and he wouldn’t believe me. “If I knew I’d tell you.” I wheezed, coughing up blood.
    He kicked me hard in the ribs and I felt one snap. “Liar!”
    I didn’t know how long we’d been at this today. It could’ve been minutes, hours, or days for all I knew. I’d long since lost track of time. They’d been interrogating me for what felt like years. A part of me knew that I wouldn’t be able to take much more of this kind of abuse…that I was dying. It wouldn’t be long now. I was drowning on my own blood from internal injuries. If