by Dan Willis
“Dr. Bell asked me to come have a look at you. It’s a good thing I did,” she added.
Alex felt somewhat exposed under the doctor’s gaze as she scrutinized him through the little glass. As he observed it, however, Alex noticed that instead of a proper spectacle lens, the monocle had some kind of gemstone in it.
“What’s that?” he croaked.
Dr. Kellin smiled and took the monocle away from her eye.
“You’re just like Ignatius,” she said. “He doesn’t miss a detail either. This is a Lens of Seeing.”
Alex had no idea what that meant.
“It’s actually a salt crystal,” Kellin said, holding it close enough for Alex to see it clearly. “I grew it over the course of six months in a vat filled with the philter of true sight.”
“Very patient of you,” Alex managed.
Dr. Kellin laughed. Her smile was a bit crooked, but it was warm and genuine, and Alex decided he liked her.
“The philter of true sight is one of the most difficult concoctions in alchemy,” she said. “I spent the better part of a decade learning to brew it and the batch I used to make this,” she held up the monocle, “took me two years of work.”
Alex opened his mouth, but she put her finger on his lips to silence him.
“The lens allows me to read your energy,” she explained. “I can see where you are hurt.” She touched his side where his broken rib was, and he felt a twinge even from that gentle contact. “I can also see what you need to get better.”
Alex chuckled at that. He doubted very much that even the formidable doctor could cure him of having spent the majority of his life-force.
Kellin’s face turned sour when Alex laughed.
“Yes,” she said, giving voice to Alex’s thoughts. “I can also see the terrible price you’ve paid for your magic. I hope whatever power you sought was worth it.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Alex croaked. “Can you tell how much—”
“No,” the doctor said, anticipating his question. “I only know what’s left isn’t much.”
Alex felt a cold knot of fear in his guts. He’d successfully suppressed that emotion for months by the simple trick of not thinking about it. He wouldn’t have changed what he did if he could go back, but he didn’t want to die any more than the next guy.
“Thanks anyway,” he said.
“Enough questions,” Kellin said, turning and walking to the bubbling container on Leslie’s desk. She extracted a small brown bottle with a dropper in the lid. As Alex watched, she carefully added one drop of red liquid from the dropper to the muddy sludge. Instantly it began to roil and churn like a living thing until it burst into a pale yellow light that pulsed out like burning phosphorus. A moment later the light subsided, leaving a clear, yellow liquid behind that looked, to Alex, like a beaker full of urine.
Dr. Kellin picked up the alcohol burner from under the beaker and blew out its flame. That done, she produced one of the shot glasses Alex usually kept in his desk and poured two fingers of bourbon from the bottle Leslie kept in her desk, Alex’s bottle being empty. To this, she added an equal part of the yellow liquid and swirled them together in the glass.
“I want you to sit up,” she said, walking back to the couch. “Slowly,” she cautioned.
Alex moved and the pain in his head nearly blinded him. Taking the Doctor’s advice, he slowly levered himself up into a sitting position.
“I want you to sip this,” she said, handing him the shot glass. “It’s hot.”
Alex raised it to his lips and just touched the hot liquid to his tongue. It tasted sweet and the moisture was welcome in his mouth.
“Jessica told me about you,” Kellin said as Alex took another sip. “I must confess, I’m surprised that you didn’t go back to see her yesterday as she instructed. Usually young men find the prospect of her company more than enough inducement for them to visit.”
“Someone shot me yesterday,” Alex said between sips. “It was a busy day.”
Dr. Kellin eyed him as if she wasn’t sure she believed him, then put the monocle back over her eye. She looked him up and down, twisting the monocle as if she were focusing a telescope.
“How did you stop the three that hit you in the back?” she asked.
“Shield runes.”
If Kellin was surprised by this answer she didn’t show it; she just shrugged and put the monocle away.
“If you had seen Jessica yesterday, she’d have tested your blood and seen that the mixture of the nerve tonic was off.”
“Is that why I fainted?” Alex asked.
“No, you fainted because you have a concussion.”
“What?”
“Dr. Bell said you were hit by a blast of magical force that broke your rib,” she said. “It hit your head just as hard. That gave you a concussion.”
“Is that serious?”
“Very,” Kellin said. “Untreated it can cause brain injury and even death.”
“What do I do for that?”
“Death?” Dr. Kellin smirked. “Nothing. To treat the concussion,” she tapped the shot glass of yellow liquid, “keep drinking your medicine.”
As Alex continued to sip the hot liquid, Dr. Kellin went back to her portable chemistry set on Leslie’s desk. She picked up the silver flask that Jessica had given him and opened the top. Taking several bottles from her case, she added drops and splashes to the flask, then capped it again and shook it vigorously.
“I can’t say it will improve the taste,” she said, picking Alex’s coat up off the foot of the couch and slipping the flask back into the inside pocket. “But this will stop the tonic from keeping you up at night.”
Alex finished the shot glass and Dr. Kellin took it. He put his feet on the floor in preparation to stand up, but the doctor put her hand on his forehead.
“Stay there a while,” she said. “You shouldn’t stand until you’ve had a bit more rest. Give your brain a chance to heal.”
Alex nodded and leaned against the back of the couch.
“Where is everyone?” he asked. The last thing he remembered, Iggy, Leslie, and Hannah had still been there.
“Dr. Bell thought that Mrs. Cunningham would be safer at your secretary’s apartment, so he escorted them over there. I expect him back at any moment.”
Alex closed his eyes and laid his head back on the back of the couch. He could hear Dr. Kellin packing up her alchemy equipment and it briefly occurred to him to help, but he didn’t feel like he could lift his head again, much less stand.
A few minutes later a key scraped in the lock and the door opened. Alex looked up to see Iggy enter.
“Excellent,” he said, seeing Alex. “I see Andrea’s got you patched up.”
“Mmm,” Alex mumbled noncommittally.
“He’ll be all right in a few more minutes,” Dr. Kellin said. “Will you see me out?”
“Of course, my dear,” Iggy said.
Alex opened his eyes again and watched Iggy pick up the doctor’s heavy case and offer her his arm.
“Make sure you go see Jessica tomorrow,” she admonished Alex as they passed. “I want her to check you over.”
“Didn’t you just fix the tonic?”
She grinned and winked at him.
“I want her to have the experience,” she said. “It will be good for her. Now don’t forget.”
“No, ma’am,” Alex promised.
Iggy led her out into the hall and Alex could hear the sounds of their shoes on the stairs fade away. A few minutes later, Iggy returned, shutting and locking the door behind him.
“You had me worried, lad,” he said, offering Alex a hand up off the couch. “You’ve gotten into a bad habit of doing that.”
Alex eased himself up off the couch with Iggy’s help and took a deep breath. His rib hurt when he did that, but not as much as before.
“Are you sure Leslie and Hannah are going to be okay?” he asked.
“Of course,” Iggy said.
“I gave them my silver pocketwatch so no one can trace Hannah there, and I gave Leslie that .38 you took off the dead man.” He put a reassuring hand on Alex’s shoulder. “They’ll be fine.”
Alex wasn’t sure about Hannah, but he could well believe that Leslie would be fine now that she had a gun.
“We need to trace those keys,” Alex said, remembering what he was doing before he fainted.
Iggy nodded and produced one of Alex’s New York Maps from the first of the three file cabinets on the wall. Alex picked up his coat and found his rune book back in the inside pocket, opposite the flask. He quickly navigated to one of the new finding runes he’d written and tore it out.
“In my office,” he said as Iggy began laying the map out on Leslie’s desk. Alex still wasn’t sure about the finding rune and he wanted to take advantage of the stabilizing rune under his office carpet.
A few moments later, Alex struck the metal match from his desk lighter and ignited the finding rune. It flashed, throwing the key ring off and leaving the orange, glowing rune in its place.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alex watched the rune and the compass needle spin in lazy circles without managing to latch onto the location of the lock that went with the keys.
“Maybe there are too many keys,” Iggy suggested.
Alex picked up the ring and took off all but one.
“I hope this is the right one,” he said, tearing out another rune and resetting the key ring on top of it.
This time when he lit the flash paper, the ring flew further as a result of having less weight, but that was the only substantive difference. The rune and the compass behaved exactly as before.
“Wherever this goes to must be shielded,” Iggy said.
Alex looked at him with disbelieving eyes.
“Everything seems to be shielded these days,” he said. “Or maybe they’re underground, or under water.”
“I doubt very much that the lock that these keys open is underwater,” Iggy said, rolling his eyes. “But you’re right about something blocking the rune.”
“What am I going to tell Hannah?”
“Tell her you’re still working on it,” Iggy said.
“What if I don’t find him in time?” Alex didn’t want to admit it, but this fear had been growing in him every day since he promised Hannah that he’d find Leroy. Her husband couldn’t last forever; sooner or later whoever took him would be done with whatever they were doing, and when that happened, Leroy Cunningham was a dead man.
Iggy took the black book with the strange runes out of his jacket pocket.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “You need some sleep and I need time to study this. With any luck, things will be clearer in the morning.”
Alex sighed. So far the only luck he’d had on this case was bad luck and it didn’t look like that was going to change. The thought of sleep, however, made him instantly tired. And, if he was honest with himself, he really had no idea what to do next.
14
The List
It was almost nine when Alex managed to drag himself out of bed the next morning. He usually had trouble waking up, but today it felt like his eyelids had been glued shut and he had that same cotton feeling in his mouth as last night. A suspicious man would have suspected that the good Doctor had put something other than medicine in that urine-colored cocktail.
Alex was a very suspicious man.
He hoped Iggy had the coffee pot still on the stove but was disappointed when he finally managed to get dressed and down to the kitchen. The only thing waiting for him was a handwritten note from his mentor saying that he was going out to the museum to get a line on the strange pictogram runes.
The Lunch Box didn’t open till noon, so Alex rode the crawler all the way to his office before stopping by the lunch counter of the five and dime across the street. Four cups of black coffee later, he climbed the stairs up to his office.
“There you are,” Leslie said, looking exasperated. “I’ve been calling your place for half an hour.”
Alex looked her up and down for any sign of something amiss, but found none.
“Having a lodger seems to disagree with you,” he observed.
“Hannah was a delight,” Leslie said, giving him a stern look. “This, however,” she said, picking up her copy of the morning paper and dropping it on her desk so Alex could see the front page. “This is a problem.”
So Called Ghost Killer Claims Another Victim, the headline screamed. Alex perused the article but there were precious few details, other than the victim’s name, Paul Lundstrom.
“I take it Mr. Lundstrom is on your list?” Alex asked, putting the paper back on the desk.
Leslie nodded and handed Alex a folded piece of paper. He opened it and found a neatly-written list of about thirty names. Four had been crossed off — the names of the ghost’s previous victims. As Alex read down the list, he found the name Paul Lundstrom.
“This is it,” he said, slapping the paper with the back of his hand. “This is the connection the Police have been looking for.”
Leslie grinned at him.
“And we found it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex said. “Or at least it won’t matter to the cops. I’ll be lucky if they don’t throw me in the cooler, but he’s got to see this.”
Leslie looked shocked.
“They wouldn’t arrest you after we did all the work for them?”
“Oh, wouldn’t they,” Alex laughed. “I bet Detweiler would arrest me if I brought in the ghost himself, wearing handcuffs with a signed confession.”
“I’m thinking you should give this to Callahan,” Leslie said. “Oh, and if you’re going to get thrown in the slammer, I’m going to need bail money.”
Alex pulled the money Barton had given him out of his pocket and handed it over. He was tempted to keep back the twenty that Anne Watson had paid him, but with a sigh he passed that over as well. He had no idea how much the train had cost Leslie to the Hamptons, though he was relatively sure he didn’t need to reimburse her for dinner.
“Wow,” Leslie said as he piled bills in her hand. “I need to go out of town more often. That’s quite a haul.”
Alex explained about the Lightning Lord’s missing motor and Anne Watson’s insisting that he find her husband’s killer. Leslie listened as she logged the cash into the strongbox, then reimbursed herself for the trip. Before she finished, Alex took two bucks and the loose change out of the box.
“I’ve got a lot of running around to do today,” he explained, tucking the money into his pocket.
“That’s enough to get my landlord off my back,” Leslie said, locking the box and putting it back into the desk’s bottom drawer. She smiled wistfully. “Just not enough for cigarettes.”
Alex sighed and took the pack he’d bought yesterday out of his pocket. He dumped about half of them out onto his hand and passed them over.
“Thanks, kid,” Leslie said, dropping the cigarettes and the cash into her purse. “You’re a doll.”
“Remember that if you have to bail me out later,” he said. He tucked the list Leslie had given him in his shirt pocket, brushing against the flask. Remembering that he hadn’t yet had any this morning, he checked his hands. They weren’t trembling badly, but they were trembling.
He swore under his breath and took a swig from the flask. Grimacing, he agreed with Dr. Kellin’s assessment from the night before — she hadn’t improved the taste.
Replacing the flask, he checked his hands, but nothing seemed to have changed. He knew that alchemical concoctions took time to work, but it was human nature to look anyway.
Pushing his shaking hands from his mind, he checked his rune book. It looked like all of his runes were there, as well as the note Anne Watson had written him, giving him permission to go through her husband’s records.
Alex felt guilty for not remembering his promise to Anne, but Leroy and the people on the ghost’s hit list were literally on borro
wed time.
“All right,” he said, putting on his hat. “I’m off to get arrested. Hold down the fort till I get back.”
“I hate to bring this up,” Leslie said in a voice that clearly indicated that she didn’t mind bringing it up at all. “But what are you going to do to find Hannah’s husband?”
Alex paused, then shook his head.
“I’m up against a wall with that,” he admitted. “I still don’t know what the people who took Leroy want with him. If I can figure that out, I can find him, but right now I’ve got nothing.”
“Well, think about it while you’re on your way to the police station,” she said, giving him a supportive smile. “And try not to get shot today,” Leslie called as he stepped out into the hall.
Good advice.
A gaggle of reporters, all clamoring for information on the ghost, clogged the cavernous lobby of the Central Office of Police. Alex used the commotion to get to the elevators without anyone paying particular attention to him.
Lieutenant Callahan’s office was to the right off the elevator and then down a hall that ran along set of offices. Alex had never been to Detweiler’s office, and he hoped he wouldn’t pass it on his way.
Callahan’s office was a glassed-in room with file cabinets along one side, a couch at the back, and two chairs sitting in front of a squat, plain desk. Piles of folders and loose papers covered the desk along with a new model telephone with both the speaker and the receiver in one handset. A stained coffee cup sat atop a stack of papers and brown rings revealed that this was the cup’s usual spot. The only thing missing from a quintessential policeman’s office was the man himself.
Alex considered venturing out into the bullpen to look for Danny, but he didn’t want to run the risk of encountering any of Detweiler’s people before he had a chance to talk to Callahan.
The couch in Callahan’s office was up against the hall-side window, so Alex laid down on it to wait. This made it impossible for anyone to see him from the hall.
“What are you doing in my office, Lockerby?” Callahan’s voice startled him. “You know that if the Captain sees you in here, he’ll have me lock you up on an obstruction charge.”
