by Dan Willis
Contents
1. Security
2. The Runewright Detective
3. The Doctor is Out
4. Examinations
5. Alchemical Matters
6. Cold Reception
7. Finding Runes
8. The Burglary
9. The Other Monograph
10. The Purity Construct
11. What Isn’t There
12. Browning’s Thunder
13. Growth Medium
14. Side Effects
15. Interrogation
16. Call the Wizard
17. Genesis Water
18. The Bad News
19. Smokescreen
20. Iggy’s Rune
21. The Machine
22. The Girl
23. Johansson
24. Charlie
25. Leon’s Libation
26. Connie
27. Lilith
28. The Cost of Victory
29. The Prodigal
30. The Notebook
31. The Lever
Also by Dan Willis
About the Author
Digital Edition – 2019
This version copyright © 2019 by Dan Willis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
Initial Edits by Barbara Davis
Edited by Stephanie Osborn
Cover by Mihaela Voicu
Published by
Dan Willis
Spanish Fork, Utah.
1
Security
Alex Lockerby got off the crawler rail at Empire Station and crossed the platform to Empire Tower. Not quite a year ago, Sorcerer Andrew Barton had launched his new elevated crawler line and now rails ran all over the city. Wherever they went, however, Empire Tower was where they began, the center of a vast network connecting areas beyond the outer ring directly with the city’s core.
Empire Station took up the third floor of the tower, with the crawlers passing the building on the north and south sides. A glass enclosure had been built along those edges to keep passengers out of the weather as they boarded and disembarked. Inside was a terminal to rival Grand Central Station, with marble floors, a café, a barber shop, a newsstand, and rows and rows of stained oak benches.
On the east wall were the elevators that could take people down to the street below, or up to the public observation deck far above. What most patrons didn’t know, however, was that there was another elevator on the west wall, inside the security station. This was the building’s main elevator that led to the power plant, the living quarters, and the corporate offices of Barton Electric. It was this elevator for which Alex headed as he crossed the immaculately polished floor.
An enormous clock on the far wall showed the time as just after noon. Normally at this time of day, the terminal would be filled with light, but today the city was beset by a persistent haze that had the terminal lights on already.
As he went, Alex pulled his cigarette case from his inside pocket next to his rune book and flicked it open. The case was made of engraved brass and held about half a pack’s worth of smokes. Pulling one from the end, he tucked it into his mouth, then lit it with the spring lighter he kept in his trousers pocket.
The security station on the west wall was a decent-sized room, large enough for a guard room and a lockup in the unlikely event someone needed to be detained. A frosted glass window ran along the front of the space with a pair of double doors in the exact center. A bored-looking man in a blue security uniform sat behind a counter made of cherry wood, stained and polished to a deep maroon color. The counter always reminded Alex of a bar, complete with a brass foot rail running along the bottom edge.
“How are you today, Mr. Lockerby?” the bored guard said as he noticed Alex’s approach. He was a large man, like most in his profession, with broad shoulders, a broad smile, and an accent that was all Brooklyn.
“Hi-ya, Joshua,” Alex said, returning the guard’s smile. “I need to go up; the boss is expecting me.”
Joshua pulled out a clipboard from behind his counter and handed it to Alex.
“You know the drill,” he said, then turned to open the glass door with a key.
Alex wrote his name and time of arrival on the visitor log, then handed it back as Joshua held the door for him. A few moments later, Alex was ascending up almost a hundred stories to the main office level of Barton Electric.
The elevator doors opened on a visitor lounge that was larger than Alex’s whole office. A bank of telephones covered the right-hand wall, with a long mahogany bar opposite. At the far end of the space was an elegant podium where a man in a tuxedo stood. When he saw Alex, he hurried forward.
“Hello, Alex,” the man said in a proper British accent. “Have you made any progress with this case?” His smile was warm and friendly but there was worry in his voice. “Mr. Barton is most put out by this affair.”
“Don’t worry, Bickman,” Alex said, clapping the man on the arm. “I think he’s going to like what I’ve discovered.”
When professional valet Gary Bickman had been set up by his former boss as the scapegoat in an insurance scam, Alex had gotten him hired on with Andrew Barton. Barton was a Sorcerer and one of the famous New York Six.
Actually Sorsha talked Barton into hiring on the suddenly-out-of-work valet, he reminded himself.
Bickman looked relieved that Alex had potentially made a break in the case. Alex had worked for Barton before and found him driven and exacting. He could only guess what working for the Lightning Lord full time would be like.
The valet led Alex into the private elevator behind his podium and up to Barton’s palatial office. It was only half the size of the terminal downstairs, but that still made it enormous, and with a ceiling that went up three stories, it was imposing. A bank of floor-to-ceiling windows lined the back wall, giving a grand view of Central Park, north of the tower, barely visible through the haze. Barton’s desk was four times the size of the one in Alex’s office, with a marble top about a foot thick and a massive steel frame to hold the weight.
Alex moved to the desk and dropped his hat on top of a stack of papers. A dozen contraptions of wood and metal covered the desk, along with reams of paper and rolled-up blueprints. Alex knew from experience that they were models of the Lightning Lord’s various projects . They were all interesting, but Alex turned away from the desk. If Barton got started talking about them, Alex would be here all afternoon.
Along the left-hand wall were row upon row of pictures, certificates, and other awards. As Alex strolled along, looking at them, he found Barton’s Master’s Degree from Yale, a commendation from the New York Department of Power, and a handwritten note from Teddy Roosevelt.
The pictures were mostly of Barton with various famous people: Abbott & Costello, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, and Mary Astor were easily recognizable. Alex finally stopped in front of a picture of the sorcerer with a beautiful blonde woman in a sequined gown on his arm. She had an enormous smile that simply radiated personality. Alex was certain he’d seen her before, but he couldn’t place the face.
“Figures you’d find the prettiest girl in the bunch, Lockerby,” Barton’s voice came from behind him.
Alex turned to find the man himself coming through the door on the far side of the office with Adam Duncan, his head of security, in tow. Barton had turned to Alex when Du
ncan failed to find out who had been scrawling threatening messages on the walls of the residence floors right below where they now stood. The graffiti was directed at Barton’s new accountant, a man named Thomas Whitley. Like all key members of Barton’s staff, Whitley had been given a suite in the building. What made Whitley a target was the fact that he was colored.
It looked like someone didn’t want a colored family moving into their neighborhood. While that wasn’t an uncommon reaction, Barton was having none of it. He’d hired the best accountant he could find and what the man looked like couldn’t have mattered less.
“I hope you’ve got something for me, Lockerby,” Barton went on, crossing the floor to where Alex stood. “Another message was found this very morning and if you and Duncan here,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the security chief, “don’t catch this guy soon, I’m going to fire both of you.”
Alex put on his most reassuring smile as he pulled a sealed envelope from his pocket and held it up.
“Not to worry, Mr. Barton,” he said. “I have the answer to all your questions right here.”
A disbelieving look crossed the sorcerer’s face, but he reached out for the envelope just the same. Before he could grab it, Alex pulled it away and turned back to the picture of the blonde woman.
“So who is this?” he asked as if Barton wasn’t fuming at being denied the envelope. “She looks familiar, like I should know her.”
“That’s Jenny Leavitt,” Barton explained, putting his hands on his hips as he gave Alex a hard look. “She was a big Broadway star back in the day. Everybody wanted her.”
“How’d you let her get away?” Alex asked, suppressing a smirk. He expected Barton to be angry, but instead the Sorcerer’s face turned wistful.
“Not for lack of trying,” he said. “She left the stage and married some stiff. His family came from old money. That was back when I wasn’t as successful as I am now.”
“What happened to her?”
Barton shrugged.
“She did modeling work for years, magazine covers and such, but she doesn’t even do that anymore. Her husband went into politics and spends a lot of time abroad.” He took a deep breath and turned back to Alex, his business demeanor returning. “Now, if you don’t mind.” He reached across Alex’s body and yanked the envelope from his hand. “Let’s see what you have for me.”
He crossed to his titanic desk and extracted a silver letter opener from beneath a stack of correspondence. With a deft motion, he sliced open the envelope and extracted a folded piece of paper from inside.
“If this is supposed to be a joke, I’m not amused,” he said, once he’d opened the entirely blank page. He dropped it on his desk and looked at Alex, awaiting an explanation.
“No joke,” Alex said, crossing to the desk. “This is how your vandal is leaving his messages.” He withdrew his red rune book and flipped to the last page where a mildly complex rune had been drawn. It had five nodes and two rings of symbols, one on the inside and one out. In the center there was a symbol that always reminded Alex of Stonehenge. “This is a curing rune,” Alex said, tearing the page from his book.
“Is the paper sick?” Barton asked, still not amused.
“It’s not that kind of cure,” Alex explained. “This rune speeds up the drying process. Historically it’s been used by painters to dry their paint, or by bookbinders to cure their glue.”
“What has that to do with a blank piece of paper?” Duncan said, speaking for the first time. He was a tall, heavyset man but spoke in a mild voice that belied his appearance.
Alex licked the back of the rune paper and stuck it to the blank sheet.
“This,” he said, sticking the lit end of his cigarette to it. The rune paper vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving the rune behind, hovering in the air. It pulsed with an azure light, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until finally it popped like an overpressure balloon and vanished.
All eyes turned to the paper where, very slowly, two words were starting to appear.
Security Ink.
“What the devil is security ink?” Barton demanded. He looked at Duncan, but his security chief just shrugged.
“It comes in several flavors,” Alex explained. “The most common is disappearing ink. You write a message and over time it fades and disappears. It’s the kind of thing governments or high security places use so their messages don’t get out.”
“Is there a kind that goes on invisible and then appears later?” Duncan asked.
Alex tapped the side of his nose.
“Got it in one.”
“So whoever’s been doing this has been writing his messages hours before anyone can find them,” Barton said, crumpling the paper in his hand.
“I’d guess as much as twelve hours before,” Alex said. “That’s why no one is ever seen writing the messages.”
“Not bad,” Barton said, though he still looked cross. “So, have you figured out which of my employees is actually doing this?”
Alex pulled a second envelope from his pocket and handed it to Barton.
“If this one is blank, Lockerby, you’d better be able to outrun lightning,” he said, slicing it open with the silver opener. “Who is Fredrick Patterson?” he asked after reading the page within.
“No one by that name works here,” Duncan supplied, helpfully.
“Funny story about that,” Alex said to Barton. “I talked with all the people on Thomas Whitley’s floor, and while some of them aren’t excited about him living there, no one was angry enough to threaten him. I started to wonder if maybe the messages were being left by someone else.”
“Fredrick Patterson?” Duncan said.
“His name appears in the visitor logs the day before each of the threats was found,” Alex said.
“That could be a coincidence,” Barton said.
“That’s what I thought,” Alex said, his smile getting wider. “But since he was the only consistent visitor, I figured I’d better check him out.”
Alex paused for effect.
“And what did you find?” Barton growled at him finally.
“Turns out, Mr. Patterson used to be the head of security for Abernathy Machine Works, until they went bankrupt three months ago.” He turned to Duncan. “Ask me how he got that job?”
“All right,” Duncan said, playing along. “How?”
“The previous head of security was fired after he couldn’t stop a series of thefts on the property,” Alex said. “By a strange coincidence, Fredrick Patterson’s brother worked there at the time and recommended Fredrick for the position.”
“So you think it was an inside job,” Barton guessed.
“Patterson was a good fit for that job,” Alex went on, ignoring the Sorcerer’s comment. “Turns out he ran the MP’s office at Fort Benning when he was in the Army. He got that job when the former sergeant failed to find out who kept writing rude messages on the commandant’s office door.”
“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Barton said, glancing at his head of security.
Duncan nodded.
“Looks like this Patterson fellow wants my job.”
“And he’d have got it, too,” Alex said, indicating Barton. “Your boss threatened to fire you ten minutes ago. As long as Patterson kept up with the messages, sooner or later you’d be out.”
“So how did he expect to get this job?” Barton asked. “Has he got a brother working here as well?”
Alex shook his head.
“Better,” he said. “He’s dating a woman who lives in the building, Amy Carter.”
Barton looked confused, but Duncan groaned and put his hand to his forehead.
“Who is she?” Barton asked.
“My secretary.”
Alex pointed at Duncan.
“So, Patterson gets you out of the way,” he said, then turned to Barton. “Then Miss Carter tells you all about a candidate who’d be perfect for the job.”
“Was Miss Carter in on
it?” Barton asked.
Alex shrugged.
“No idea,” he said. “But I’m sure Duncan here can get to the bottom of that.”
“But what about Whitley?” Barton said. “Are you saying none of this was about him?”
“No,” Alex said. “He was just a convenient target for Patterson’s plan. When Miss Carter told him about Whitley, Patterson saw his chance.”
Barton stood looking at Alex for a long minute, then he smiled and nodded.
“Good work,” he said. “You’re more annoying than I like, Lockerby, but you get results.” He turned to Duncan. “Go find out what your secretary knows about this and put that Patterson fellow’s name on the security watch list. I don’t want him in this building again.”
Duncan promised to handle it and, shooting Alex a grateful look, he withdrew.
“What do I owe you?” Barton asked, fishing his wallet out of his jacket pocket. It was made of alligator leather and bulged with cash.
“Six days’ work at twenty-five dollars a day,” Alex said.
“You said that some of my people weren’t thrilled to have Whitley living in the building,” Barton said as he fished three fifty-dollar bills from his wallet. “Who are they?”
Alex reached for the cash, but Barton pulled it away, just as Alex had done with the envelope earlier.
“I can’t recall,” Alex lied, not wanting to get involved. “But if you really want your new accountant to fit in around here, have him throw a party.”
