by Dan Willis
Squeezing the lighter, it snapped open and Alex held the flame to his cigarette. Once it was lit, he got his rune book and pulled out one of the loose papers he’d put just inside the front cover. Awkwardly, he licked the rune paper while managing to not lose the cigarette, then he stuck the paper to the brass lock plate on the door.
He took a deep breath and blew out a cloud of smoke. He wasn’t sure just how dead Paschal Randolph’s magic was, but if he retained any of his natural abilities, he’d feel the unlocking rune the second Alex activated it. That meant Alex had to move quickly. Reaching over the sling that bound his left arm, Alex slipped his hand into his jacket, emerging a moment later with the revolver.
Since he couldn’t hold the gun and the cigarette, Alex leaned down and touched the burning tip to the rune paper. He felt the unlocking rune flare to life and the lock clacked noisily as it opened. Without hesitation, Alex looped his little finger around the knob and turned it, hitting the door with his shoulder at the same time. It flew open with a bang and Alex held his gun at the ready.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t as ready as he’d anticipated.
“Hello, Alex,” Randolph said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
The room was small, just a bed, a washbasin, a wardrobe, and a little table with a chair. Right now, the chair was positioned in the center of the room. The prostitute had been tied to it with thin rope that looped over and around her body. A gag of some kind had been forced into her mouth and the rope ran around her head, securing it in her mouth as well. The woman looked younger than Alex expected, probably still in her teens with dark hair and a fair complexion. Her face was beginning to show a large purple bruise, no doubt from when Randolph had subdued her, and she was completely naked.
Behind her stood Paschal Randolph. He was still dressed in his immaculate silk suit and wore a broad smile on his handsome face. With his left hand he held the prostitute by her hair, and with his right, he pressed a wicked-looking knife to her throat. Alex could see the red mark from where the blade touched her delicate flesh.
“Drop it,” Alex said, leveling the revolver directly at Randolph’s chest.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, easily. “If you shoot me, I’ll still have time to cut this lovely young lady’s throat. Even if you were to shoot me through the heart, my body would spasm, and that would be enough to open her carotid artery. She’d be dead in seconds.”
Alex resisted the urge to grind his teeth. Randolph was right. Alex might get him with a lucky shot, but if he didn’t, the girl was dead.
“Drop your gun, Alex,” Randolph said, pressing the blade into the prostitute’s neck firmly enough to draw a bead of blood. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Moving slowly, Alex took his hand off the trigger and leaned down to place the gun on the floor.
“Kick it over here,” Randolph said. “Then close the door.”
Alex did as he was instructed and when he turned back from the door, he found Randolph pointing his revolver back at him.
“There,” he said, stepping out from behind the struggling, crying girl. “That’s much better.” He sighed, putting his free arm behind his back, as he considered Alex.
“So how did you know I was coming?” Alex asked, more to fill the silence than from any desire to know.
“You should really look into how the British are training their policemen to follow a suspect,” he said. “You let your cab driver get too close, I could see he was following and let’s face it, you were the only person who would do that in a cab. Then when I picked up Carmen, here,” he stroked the girl’s cheek and she pulled away as much as she could. “He left his headlights on. You might as well have put a blinking light on top the car.”
Alex considered that. Most people who rode in taxis weren’t paying attention to the road, so it never occurred to him to take precautions. He should have known, though. Randolph had been alive for over one hundred years, and you didn’t live that long without learning to be careful.
“You know,” Randolph went on, “this is the second time I’ve looked over my shoulder and found you there. How did you find me without using that powerful rune of yours?”
“William Randolph,” Alex said with a shrug. “The ancestor you’re so proud of. I figured that instead of taking time to work up a new alias, you’d just fall back on an old one for the moment.”
Randolph looked genuinely surprised at that, then he laughed.
“You are too much, Lockerby,” he said. “I always knew you were a dangerous opponent and still you keep exceeding my expectations. Are you sure you won’t join me? With two minds like ours, there isn’t anything we couldn’t accomplish.”
“Sorry,” Alex said with a shrug.
Randolph looked genuinely sad, but then he smiled and shrugged.
“Oh, well,” he said. “With that twisted sense of morality of yours, I would have had to kill you sooner or later anyway.” He put his free hand around the bound woman’s neck and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at Alex. “I think before I dispatch you, I’d like you to see what you’re giving up.” He let her go and held the gun out toward Alex. “I’ve underestimated you for that last time, however. You’re the kind of clever boy who will have drawn holdout runes on his body, just waiting for me to let my guard down. So let’s take care of that right now.” He cocked the .38. “Please remove your clothing.”
Alex rolled his eyes, but he did as he was told, piling his jacket, trousers, shoes, socks, and eventually his shirt in a pile at his feet.
“All of it,” Randolph said when Alex stopped.
Alex stripped out of his underwear, but had trouble unwinding the bandage around his wounded arm. When he finally got that free, the skin underneath was an angry red color with what looked like green veins running through it.
“Excellent,” Randolph said. “I see you’ve been keeping up with your exercise, that’s good for the health. Now, turn around.”
Alex complied, showing that he had no runes drawn anywhere on his body. Randolph even made him show off the bottoms of his feet to be sure.
“I don’t know whether to be disappointed or not,” he said at last. “I really suspected you’d have a trick or two up your sleeve.”
“Give me a pen,” Alex said.
“I think not,” Randolph said. He jerked the revolver in the direction of the lone window. A large radiator with peeling paint stood beneath it. “Get over by the radiator,” he said, pulling a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of his suit. “I want you to have a good view.”
Alex felt a bit sick that Randolph wanted him to witness the violation and brutal murder of the terrified girl in the chair. Any misgivings he had about Randolph disappeared entirely. He was a cruel and violent narcissist and he needed to be stopped.
“Sorry,” Alex said, cocking his head to one side. “I’m afraid there won’t be time for that.”
“Don’t be coy, Alex,” Randolph said. “I can just as easily shoot you in the legs to make you stay put.”
“You misunderstand,” Alex said, moving over to the radiator. When he got there, he grabbed the window and pulled it up. The warped frame would only let it rise an inch, but that was enough. As soon as it opened, the faint sound of approaching police sirens became much louder. “I’m saying that you don’t have much time until the policemen I called before I came up here arrive.”
An expression of shock crossed Randolph’s face, followed by rage, and then acceptance in quick succession.
“It seems I’ve underestimated you again,” he said. “But all is not lost. There’s still plenty of time for me to kill you and escape.”
“No,” Alex said, cradling his left arm to his chest and positioning his right hand over the left forearm. “I’d wanted to bring you in myself, or failing that, let the police take you, but I can’t let you hurt anyone else, and I’m not keen on dying. So, if someone has to die, I vote for you.”
“I have the gun, boy,” Randolph almost sh
outed at him. “You have no weapons, no tools, and no runes. How do you propose to stop me?”
Alex stood facing him for a long moment before he let a wide grin spread slowly across his face.
“Just because you can’t see something,” he said, “doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
With that, Alex touched the spot on his arm where he’d cast the invisible linking rune. Immediately he could feel the other end of that rune, the second link that he’d attached to a rune that hung on the wall of his vault.
His escape rune.
The instant the connection was made, Randolph felt it. Alex triggered the rune just as the other man raised the pistol and fired. Alex couldn’t tell if the magic went first or if the bullet simply missed him, but suddenly the dilapidated room vanished. Alex’s body was stretched and pulled until he felt like he could fit under a door, then everything twisted, and he rushed forward through a dark hallway. The experience was nausea-inducing, but before it could become overwhelming, the real world reasserted itself.
Which an audible pop, Alex found himself falling in a dark sky. From off to his left the poor confused prostitute was screaming through her gag. In front of him, Alex could see Randolph reflected in the light of a gibbous moon. He was staring down at the black expanse of ocean that was rushing up quickly to meet them.
Alex knew he only had a few moments before the second part of his rune engaged. He turned his body so the rushing wind pushed him into the woman. His escape rune had been specially tailored not to attach to furniture, so she was flailing as she fell, free of the chair but still wrapped in the rope that had been used to secure her. Alex grabbed her with his good arm, wrapping it tightly around her waist.
The impact spun him around and he caught sight of Randolph. The man glared at Alex with a look of pure hatred, raising the pistol for a killing shot.
And then everything vanished.
Alex popped back into existence in the library of the brownstone. He landed on the rug in the middle of the room, but unlike last time, he’d appeared mere inches above the floor, so it didn’t knock the wind out of him. Since he had a hold on the prostitute, she had come with him and was now lying on the floor next to him, flailing hysterically.
“Hold still,” Alex growled as she hit his injured arm.
He struggled to his feet and then pulled the naked woman up after him.
“Alex?” Iggy’s voice came from behind him.
Turning, Alex found his mentor sitting in his reading chair, cigar and book in hand. He raised an eyebrow and Alex remembered that, like the bound woman, he was completely naked.
“Am I to assume you’ve decided to adopt Dr. Randolph’s philosophies regarding magic?” The question was serious, but the tone of the old man’s voice told Alex it was all Iggy could do to keep from laughing.
“Very funny,” he growled. “Why don’t you see if you can find our guest something to wear while I untie her?”
31
What Isn’t There
It took Alex almost forty minutes to dress himself once he got upstairs. In the old days Alex only owned two suits, so with one covered in blood and needing repairs and the other still at the rooming house by the south docks, he would have been reduced to wearing a pair of dungarees and an undershirt. These days, however, Alex owned several suits, and he only had to enter his vault where he kept them.
Unfortunately, the pocketwatch that would open the seal on the vault cover door was also still at the ramshackle rooming house.
Cursing his security measures, he dug out a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote a vault rune for himself. His vault key was with his pocketwatch, but he had a spare in the center drawer of his dresser.
When he finally made it back downstairs, he found Iggy in the kitchen working his magic at the range. The prostitute was sitting at the massive table wearing a modest dress and devouring some kind of thin pancake that was rolled up with jam inside. Alex was about to ask where Iggy got the dress when Sherry came through the open door to the greenhouse.
“Your orchids are beautiful, Iggy,” she said with a wide smile. “Hi’ya boss,” she added when she saw Alex.
When Alex looked back at Iggy, his mentor just shrugged.
“I don’t own any dresses,” he said. “What took you so long?”
“My spare suits were in my vault.”
Iggy’s brows furrowed, then he nodded with understanding.
“That could be a problem,” he admitted. “We’ll have to give that some thought later. For now, I want to hear your side of what happened tonight. Carmen here,” he nodded at the prostitute, “has already told us hers.”
“Hi, Carmen,” Alex said, moving around the table to sit opposite her. “I’m Alex.”
She looked up from her plate as if she were unsure what to do. Alex tried to make eye contact with her, but she wouldn’t.
“Carmen is a bit nervous around you, boss,” Sherry said, sitting down next to the skittish girl. “Between you and the man who wants to kill her, she’s a bit of a nervous wreck.”
“It’s all right, Carmen,” Alex said in his soothing voice. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
This seemed to calm her, but she still wouldn’t look up.
“Danny called while you were upstairs,” Iggy said, putting a plate with a jam smeared pancake in front of Alex. “He should be here in a few minutes and he’s bringing your things.”
That was a relief. Alex felt naked without his rune book.
Figuratively.
“Let’s wait until Danny gets here,” he said. “I don’t want to have to tell the story more than once.” He looked at the pale pancake and his stomach rumbled as he remembered that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. “What is this thing?” Alex asked.
“It’s a crêpe,” he explained. “You roll it up and eat it.”
Alex shrugged and did what he was told. As he ate, Sherry gave him a meaningful look, then nodded slightly in Carmen’s direction. Alex really hadn’t been paying much attention to her, probably leftover discomfort from having seen her naked. He pushed that aside and looked carefully at her. Since she refused to look at him, he didn’t have to hide his appraising gaze.
His initial thought that she was young seemed to be correct. He couldn’t be sure, but she looked about eighteen. Based on the way she was wolfing down the crêpes, and her almost bony physique, it was clear she didn’t eat regularly.
A knock at the door interrupted Alex’s musings. He got up from the table and made his way to the front door, which had been replaced sometime in the previous day. When he pulled it open, Danny gave him a probing look followed by an amused smile.
“You want to tell me why I found a pile of your clothes at that room you sent me to?” he asked, handing over a folded stack of Alex’s things.
“That’s a bit of a story,” Alex admitted, stepping back so Danny could enter.
As they went into the kitchen, Alex dropped the bundle of clothes on his reading chair in the library, stopping to extract his rune book, pocketwatch, lighter, and cigarettes. Just having them made him feel whole again.
By the time he got back to the kitchen, Danny was sitting in his place, eating his last crêpe.
“All right,” Alex said, sitting down next to Danny. He launched into a recitation of the night’s events leading up to his encounter with Paschal Randolph and its conclusion with the man plummeting into the North Atlantic.
“You sure he’s dead?” Danny asked.
Alex shrugged but he nodded at the same time.
“Water hits pretty hard when you fall from two-hundred feet,” he said. “Plus at this time of year, the North Atlantic is very cold. A person can last about five minutes before their body starts shutting down.”
“Could he have had an escape rune of his own?” Iggy asked.
Alex had thought of that, but he didn’t want to give it serious consideration. The idea that Randolph might still be out there gave him chills.
“It�
��s possible,” he admitted. “But if Randolph survived, he’s going to need to replenish his magic quickly. Wherever he ends up, there will be more killings and more blood runes.”
“I’m not sure how to put that on a bolo sheet,” Danny said, pushing his chair back. “But I’ll think of something.”
“I want to know how you managed to use your escape rune,” Iggy said. “The last I heard it was hanging on the wall in your vault. It would have taken several weeks to have the tattooing done.”
Alex explained about the barrier rune in the Brooklyn Relay Tower and how the linking runes had allowed it to connect to Andrew Barton’s energy spell.
“I realized that the barrier rune was sharing the same linking runes that transfer electricity to the tower,” he explained. “I could feel Barton’s spell through the connection. Well, if that was possible, I ought to be able to connect to any rune through a linking rune.”
“So you put one on your escape rune and linked it to your body,” Iggy said, grinning with approval. “It was as if the rune were tattooed on you. Very clever.”
Alex could tell from the look on his mentor’s face that he was thinking of new and interesting ways that bit of information could be used.
“All right,” Danny said, pushing the empty plate away and rising. “I’d love to stay, but I’ve got to go try to explain all this to Captain Callahan. Miss Knox, do you need a ride?”
“Why, detective,” Sherry said with a bright smile. “That would be lovely, provided you have room for two.”
Carmen looked up sharply at that. Her face flushed and she was squeezing her hands together to keep them from shaking.
She’s afraid one of us will put the kibosh on whatever Sherry’s got in mind.
“Carmen will be staying with me for a few days,” Sherry went on easily.
Alex raised an eyebrow, and Sherry met his gaze.
“I have a feeling she has certain skills that might be useful to Charles Grier or maybe Linda Kellin,” Sherry finished.