by Dan Willis
“I think it’s gone,” he yelled over his shoulder. When he got no response, he turned to find Zelda standing behind him, trying to see over his shoulder. She gave him a worried look and he shook his head.
“Gone!” he yelled louder.
She seemed to hear him this time and nodded, then pointed at him and yelled. Alex had heard himself yelling, but Zelda’s words were nothing more than faint, incoherent sounds.
“—eeding,” she tried again, pointing to his chest.
Alex looked down to see that his shirt was in tatters and two long gashes ran across the front of his chest. The lower half of his shirt was soaked with blood that was beginning to seep down onto his pants.
He’d forgotten the wound the creature had given him, but now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, the pain started to break through.
“Ow,” he growled as Zelda tried to peel the shirt away to get a better look at his injury.
“This way,” he yelled, and headed off to his new infirmary with Zelda in tow.
“This place is amazing,” Zelda yelled.
She should see Iggy’s vault. Well, actually no, she shouldn’t.
Alex stripped off his torn coat and tattered shirt, dropping them in a hamper he’d put in the corner for just that purpose. Normally the kind of damage his tux had been through would be enough to call it ruined, but Alex had access to restoration runes and even major restoration runes if it came to that.
He also had access to wound salve.
Raising his arm to open the potion cabinet sent pain lancing across his chest, so he just pointed.
“Get the jar on the right with the yellow stuff inside,” he yelled and immediately winced at how loud it seemed. He could still hear the off-the-air radio tone, but it wasn’t as loud as it had been.
Zelda found the jar, a short, round one with a wide opening covered by a screw-on lid, and opened it.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, recoiling at the harsh odor.
Wound salve was an alchemical suspension of several healing liquids. It wasn’t as powerful as the potions Iggy had access to, but drinking the wrong one of those could kill you, so Alex went with something a bit more foolproof.
“There’s a box in the cabinet with folded papers in it,” he said, taking the jar. “Bring me one.”
Zelda complied and, moving carefully, Alex reached in his pants pocket for his lighter. Sticking the folded corner of the flash paper into the yellow gel, Alex quickly lit it. The activating rune glowed yellow for a moment, then the glow faded from the rune and transferred itself to the gel.
“What did you do?” Zelda asked.
“Wound salve has to be magically energized before you use it,” he explained, slowly dipping two fingers into the glowing liquid. “The upside is you can store what you don’t use pretty much forever once the charge wears off.”
Alex tried to smear the glowing goo into his wound, but moving his arms was getting more and more painful.
“Give me that,” Zelda said, takin the jar from him. Without hesitation, she dipped her hand into it and began smearing the contents on the gashes across his chest.
The salve burned as it covered his ragged flesh, and Alex bit his lip to keep from cursing. Zelda noticed and gave him a patronizing smile.
“Be a good boy and I’ll get you an ice cream on the way home,” she said.
“You’re taking almost being killed rather well,” he said.
Her smile slipped at that, and he saw the fear hiding behind her eyes.
“I’m sure I’ll be a wreck later,” she admitted, “but right now you need my help. And it keeps my mind occupied.”
She finished applying the paste, then returned the jar to the medicine cabinet. Alex had her get a roll of gauze next and wrap it around his torso until the wound was covered.
“Is that thing gone?” she asked as Alex led the way back out into the main room, shotgun in hand. As he went across to his library area, Zelda cast a nervous glance at the metal cage door. The lights were back on, but because Alex had opened the door right next to the corner of the room, not much was visible.
“Even if it isn’t, it’s not getting in here,” he said, standing his gun against the little reading table. He went to his liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy; unfortunately he’d given his best bottle of Scotch to Sherry, so this would have to do.
“Have a seat,” he said, as he filled up a tumbler. Since there was only one chair in the area, Zelda sat down, wrapping her arms around herself as if she wanted to keep from shaking. “Drink this while I go change clothes,” he said, handing her the glass.
Alex moved to the hallway on the left side of his vault and went down to the first door on the right, opposite the opening to his little kitchen. Since he’d changed at the hotel, the suit he’d worn earlier was still laid across his bed, so he stripped out of the bloody tuxedo pants, removed his undershorts, and used a towel to wipe off any remaining blood. Once he was satisfied he was as clean as he could get without a shower, he dressed in one of his remaining suits and headed back out to the main part of the vault.
Zelda still sat in his reading chair, but she’d emptied the brandy in her glass. Alex took it and refilled it before squatting down beside the chair.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said in a soothing voice.
Zelda took the glass from him and sipped it.
“I know,” she said. “I heard someone moving around in the museum, but it just sounded like they were walking around.”
“You stay and finish your drink,” Alex said, giving her a reassuring pat on the knee. “I’ll go see who’s at the door.”
Zelda took a deep breath, then nodded.
Alex stood, but he wasn’t quite as confident as he let on. He walked around to the far side of his reading table and picked up the Browning A5 before heading toward the vault opening and its closed cell door. Before he could reach it, a uniformed policeman stepped up to the bars and peered through. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with broad shoulders, a beak-like nose, and thick, dark hair. When he saw Alex approaching with a shotgun, he let out a curse and jumped away from the door.
“Put down that gun and come out with your hands up,” he called. Alex could just see the side of the man’s nose as he hid beside the vault opening. It wasn’t a particularly good place to seek shelter. In a normal building, Alex could have simply shot him though the wall if he’d wished the man ill. This being his vault, the inside and the outside weren’t even connected, so it wouldn’t work here, but there was no way for the policeman to know that.
“Identify yourself,” Alex called. He was pretty sure the man was legitimately a cop, but after the night he’d had, he wasn’t taking chances.
“I’m Officer Henderson of the D.C. Police Department. Now put down that gun and come out.”
“You have a lieutenant in your precinct named MacReady?” Alex asked.
“We do,” Henderson said. “He’s taking statements right now.”
“Go get him, and tell him Alex Lockerby is back here with Miss Zelda Pritchard. Got it?”
Henderson didn’t answer right away, no doubt weighing his options. Finally he agreed, and Alex could hear him moving away across the gravel-strewn floor. Alex waited until he was sure the man was gone, then headed back to Zelda.
“The police are here,” he said. “I asked them to go get Lieutenant MacReady. Do you think you’re up to making a statement?”
“I’m all right, Alex,” she said, smiling up at him. “I’m shaken, but I’ll get over it.”
Alex had to admit, she was tougher than he had given her credit for.
“All right,” he said, taking the empty glass from her and setting it on the side table. He offered her his arm, and she took it before standing. Alex flicked the safety switch on his shotgun and left it standing against the chair.
“Lockerby,” MacReady’s voice came through the bars a moment before the man himself appeared. “Where are�
��” The Lieutenant peered through the bars and whistled. “What’s all this?”
“My vault,” Alex explained, as he released the heavy bar holding the cell door in place.
“It must be nice to be the Duke of Ellington,” MacReady said. “Officer Henderson said you had a shotgun.”
Alex pulled the heavy cell door open and locked it in place against the inside wall, then he pointed to where his gun stood by the chair. MacReady leaned in, still looking around, then nodded.
“You want to step out and explain what, exactly, happened here?” he said, moving back from the door. “I’ve got another dead museum guard out by the front door, looks like a dog attack like before, only this time there’s two swells with him.”
“Some of the patrons are dead?” Zelda gasped. “Who?”
“I don’t know yet,” the Lieutenant admitted. “People were just starting to give statements when Henderson showed up and called me away.”
Alex let Zelda go out before him, then he followed. He wanted to close his vault before anyone got too nosy about it, but as he reached for the door, Zelda gasped, and a soft cry of dismay escaped her lips.
“What it is?” both he and MacReady said at the same time.
She rushed to the pedestal where the antique vase had stood. The explosion that destroyed the cement chair had shattered it. All that remained was the round base still sitting atop its perch.
Zelda leaned down and picked up several pieces, setting them gingerly next to the forlorn base. Alex saw a tear run down her cheek, and it felt like a knife twisting in his guts. He’d thought Zelda might have been involved with the robberies, but the woman before him had far too much respect for museums to ever rob one. The way she handled the fragments of porcelain reminded Alex of the way Father Harry handled the communion wafers. To her, they were sacred.
“What happened in here, Lockerby?” MacReady said, taking in the destruction. “Do you have dynamite in your vault?”
He shook his head, still watching Zelda pick up the pieces of the vase.
“Back in March a couple of brothers started knocking over banks in Manhattan by blowing holes in their walls,” he explained.
MacReady nodded.
“The Brothers Boom,” he said. “I heard about that case.”
“Well one of the brothers, Arlo Harper, was a runewright, and he figured out how to make a blasting rune. The police called on me to consult, and I may have happened upon one of Arlo’s unexploded runes.”
The lieutenant gave him an alarmed look.
“And you’ve just been carrying it around? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“No,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “Runes aren’t like sweaty dynamite, they only work when I tell them to.”
To illustrate his point, Alex pulled out his rune book and paged to the back, just past where he’d recreated Arlo Harper’s blasting rune. Finding what he sought, he tore out a page with an intricate rune on it, done in five separate inks. He quickly folded it and stepped over to where Zelda was crouched, looking for more fragments of the ruined vase.
“Let me show you something,” he said, offering her his hand. She took it and stood, leaning against him for support. Alex set the folded paper on top of the pile of broken porcelain, then lit it. The paper vanished in a puff of fire, leaving behind a rune that always reminded Alex of a stained glass window. It pulsed with colors, and Alex could feel the magic rolling off it in waves.
Putting his arm around Zelda, he leaned close and whispered.
“Watch.”
The rune pulsed, faster and faster, until finally it gave off a burst of light and broke apart into glittering crimson sparks that settled down among the fragments. Zelda gasped as first one, then another of the fragments jumped up and attached itself to the base. One by one more of them appeared, some leaping up from the floor to snap back into place. The entire process only took half a minute, but by the end, the vase stood fully restored, just as it had been when Alex first saw it. Major restoration runes were costly to make, but they certainly were impressive to watch.
He looked down where Zelda was still leaning against him. The pressure of her cheek on his chest made his wound ache, but he’d endured worse than that. He thought she’d smile or clap, but instead an unbroken stream of tears rolled down her face.
“That was beautiful,” she managed after a moment. “Thank you, Alex.”
She sagged against him, the emotion of her ordeal finally overtaking her.
“Take Miss Pritchard out front and find her somewhere comfortable to sit,” MacReady said to Officer Henderson.
“This way, Ma’am,” Henderson said, taking her hand.
“Go with him,” Alex said when she hesitated. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
Lieutenant MacReady waited until Zelda and the officer were gone before turning to Alex.
“Okay,” he said. “I know what the people up front said about what happened. Now I want to hear your version.”
“Did they say that a wolf man jumped through a window and attacked a bunch of people until an explosion drove it off?”
“You can’t be serious,” MacReady said with an unamused expression.
“Look,” Alex said. “You know and I know there’s no such thing as a wolf man, but whoever this freak was, he had claws, fangs, and a muzzle.”
“If I hadn’t just seen you turn a pile of junk into a priceless vase, I’d haul you in for impeding an official investigation,” MacReady said. “You think a sorcerer did something to him? Twisted him up like that?”
Alex could only shrug.
“It’s possible,” he admitted, “but why? I mean, if a sorcerer wanted the cards from the display all he’d have to do is ask. I’m sure the museum would bend over backwards to help.”
“So is this another runewright who’s figured something out?” the lieutenant pressed. “Like that Andrew Potter?”
“Arlo Harper,” Alex corrected, “and no, I’ve never heard of any rune magic with enough power to change a man into a half-wolf.”
That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Alex thought that Moriarty or one of his Immortals might be able to do something like that, but they were powerful enough to steal the cards themselves and leave no trace. There was no way they’d need help.
“So where does that leave us?” MacReady asked, irritation creeping into his voice.
“I’ve got one more card to play,” Alex said. “And with luck, this time when our wolf-boy shows up, we’ll be ready for him.”
25
Bearer Facts
After waiting for Zelda to give her statement to Lieutenant MacReady, Alex took her to the hospital where their top doctor checked her over. Alex had managed to keep her out of the path of the man-wolf, but she still had a dozen or so small abrasions from sharp bits of concrete from the exploded chair. By the time he returned her to her apartment, it was well after ten o’clock.
Her valet, Hector, was livid.
He yelled at Alex for putting Zelda in danger for a solid ten minutes while her maid whisked Zelda away to her room. By the time Alex extracted himself from the situation, the little man’s red face matched his hair. Alex was surprised that he got away without Hector taking a poke at him. Whatever Zelda’s father was paying the man to keep an eye on his daughter, he was getting his money’s worth.
All of this ran through Alex’s mind as he trudged, wearily, off the elevator at the Hay-Adams hotel and made his way along the opulent hall to his room. The adrenaline from the fight and the subsequent pain-killing effect of the wound salve had worn off, and his chest throbbed with every step. His knuckles were bruised from where he’d punched his attacker, and his ears were still ringing a bit from the explosion.
“Just another day at the office,” he mumbled as he fished the hotel key out of his trouser pocket.
When he pushed the door open, he found the light in the suite’s main room on, and his nose was assaulted by the smell of expensive tobacco.
; “Sorceress?” he said, looking around.
“Well here you are,” Sorsha said, standing up from the couch that looked out the long bank of windows. She wore dark, loose-fitting pants with a light blue shirt and a mock suit vest cut that accentuated her slim figure. It was the kind of thing she wore for her work with the FBI, professional but still feminine, much like the woman herself.
“You waited up for me,” Alex teased. “I’m touched.”
Sorsha gave him a hard look as her brows dropped low over her eyes.
“You’re home awfully late for an event that ended almost two hours ago,” she said. Before he could respond, she seemed to notice something, and she rolled her eyes. “Is that what you wore?” she demanded. “To a gallery opening in the Nation’s Capital?”
“Of course not,” Alex protested without thinking. “I wore my tuxedo.”
Sorsha’s lowered brows twisted into a scowl before Alex even realized what he’d said, and the temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees.
“Easy,” he said, holding up his hands. “What’s left of it is in my vault covered in blood.”
Sorsha had taken a deep breath, presumably to yell at him, but she stopped with her expression wavering between concern and disbelief.
“Show me,” she growled at last.
Alex took out his rune book and proceeded to open his vault. Without any ceremony, he led Sorsha to his infirmary where his shredded shirt and tuxedo jacket were still in the hamper. Alex wasn’t surprised when the sorceress simply reached in and pulled out the bloody garments, laying them on his examination table. After tracing her finger along the gashes, she looked up at him, and her expression softened somewhat.
“You go to the most interesting parties,” she said with the hint of a smile caressing the corner of her mouth. The smile was instantly replaced by the scowl as she added, “Without me.”