by Dan Willis
It was the kind of jar women everywhere used to keep homemade jams and preserves. Alex’s jar, however, was filled with a fine, lime green powder.
The thought of it made his hand twitch with anticipation. He wouldn’t need much. Just a few grains dissolved in two fingers of Scotch would do it. With the Limelight he would understand what the blood rune was and what it did. He was certain of it.
“No” Alex said out loud, breaking the spell. He turned away from the wall that concealed his safe, breathing heavily, and focused his eyes on the blood rune. He didn’t need a magical crutch to figure this out, he just needed to remove the obscuring symbol and he’d be able to see what lay beneath.
But how would he do that?
He laughed as the thought struck him. It was so simple. All he had to do was write a temporal restoration rune, cast it on the blood that made up the obscuring symbol and he could remove it without removing the shape beneath.
Pulling out the second drawer of his rollaway cabinet, Alex pulled out a fresh sheet of flash paper and set it on the desk. The rune would take a couple of hours to finish, but he’d let Sherry know what he was doing through the intercom as soon as she arrived in the office.
Felling re-invigorated, Alex unstoppered a bottle of gold infused ink and set to work.
Alex stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor of the Central Office of Police just after ten and made his way down the side of the large open area to the hallway along the back wall that led to the offices. He’d wanted to talk to Danny first thing that morning, but there wasn’t anything he could do until he finished the temporal restoration rune, so he’d taken the time to create it.
Now that Danny was a Lieutenant, he occupied Callahan’s old office. It was the third one along the row, opposite the secure room where evidence was kept. All of the offices had large windows running along the upper half of the wall, and while most were shuttered, Danny usually kept his open.
“Get in here,” Danny yelled when Alex waved through the glass. He had a look on his face that Alex hadn’t seen since the time he walked in on Alex flirting with Amy right after they first met.
“What’s up?” Alex asked, giving him a questioning look as he entered the office.
Danny picked up a newspaper from off his desk and held it up. The headline across the top read, Voodoo Killer Stalks Harlem. Below the banner was a picture of Katherine Biggs’ room; her body was mercifully gone, but the blood rune was clearly visible.
“Is this your work?” Danny asked, a hard edge in his voice.
Alex refrained from rolling his eyes. He almost laughed. Callahan had grilled him more than once when case information leaked to the press. It was just too easy to believe it was the work of an outsider rather than someone inside the department. In that regard, Alex was a friend, but he wasn’t family.
“You know I only leak police secrets to the Midnight Sun,” Alex said with a grin.
A flash of anger washed over Danny’s face, then he sighed and dropped the paper.
“Sorry,” he said, slumping down into the chair behind his desk.
“You should be,” Alex said, dropping his hat on the desk. “In the first place, I don’t carry a camera in my kit, though it’s probably not a bad idea. Secondly, I can’t believe you thought I’d do that to you.”
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
“I’ve been on the phone all morning with Captain Callahan, Chief Montgomery, and even the mayor. If whoever gave that picture to the Chronicle had given them one with Katherine Biggs’ body in it, the city would already be in panic. As it is, the Chief is telling the press that the picture isn’t real.”
Alex was surprised to hear that. The Chief’s story wasn’t likely to stand up to any level of scrutiny.
“Well, at least I’ve got some good news,” Alex said. “I showed my drawing of the blood rune to Iggy and he suggested that the killer might have pained the big symbol to cover up whatever he was really doing. I can use a temporal restoration rune to remove the top layer so we can see underneath.”
Danny sat back in his chair and sighed.
“That sounds like it might have worked,” he said. “Problem is the house sort of…crumbled sometime last night.”
That didn’t make sense. Kathrine Biggs’ home was little more than a shack, but it hadn’t been in any danger of falling down yesterday.
“Someone destroyed it?”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “I was out there this morning. All that’s left is a pile of sand and dust where the shack stood.”
Alex felt a sudden chill that raised gooseflesh on his arms.
“What kind of dust?” he asked. “White, like fireplace ash, or dark like soot?”
“Soot.”
Alex took out his cigarette case to give himself time to think, and to calm down.
“Remember Jerry Pemberton?”
Danny cocked his head to the side.
“The guy who helped steal that German plague?”
“Remember the rune I used on his body? The one that restored the parts that had been burned?”
Danny pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook it and, tugged one out.
“You said when the rune wore off that his body would crumble to dust. I remember it.” He lit the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “When I went to Katherine Biggs’ shack this morning, it looked just like Pemberton’s body after your rune wore off. You told me there was some reason that happened, something to do with the magic involved.”
“Temporal restoration runes turn back time,” Alex said. “It isn’t much and it doesn’t last for long, but even so, there are some things magic just isn’t supposed to do. When one of us crosses that line, the universe sort of…pushes back. Iggy calls it backlash.”
“So whoever killed Katherine wanted to reverse time?”
“It’s possible,” Alex said. “But it might be anything. I need to get a look at that symbol.”
“Which is now a pile of dust,” Danny observed. “Is there anything you can do?”
Alex thought a minute, then he grinned and picked up his hat.
“Do you have another picture of the murder scene?”
Danny gave him a suspicious look.
“Why?”
“I’m on my way to talk to Billy at the Midnight Sun and it never hurts to bribe him.”
“Get out of here,” Danny scoffed.
Alex might have been joking about wanting a photograph, but he’d been honest about his next destination. A crime as outlandish as this one was red meat for the tabloid industry. If anyone knew of a crime like it, it would be his friend Billy Tasker…or one of Billy’s associates.
Twenty minutes later, a cab deposited Alex in front of the worn brick building that housed the offices and presses of the Midnight Sun. Laura, the receptionist, gave him her usual sneer, but she did call Billy right away rather than making Alex wait while she finished filing her nails. She was pretty enough, with bleached blonde hair that looked slightly unnatural, a voluptuous figure, and dark eyes. Alex met her when he had been dating Jessica, and Laura hadn’t gotten over the fact that he didn’t respond to her flirting. In hindsight, he probably should have encouraged her just a bit, enough to keep on her good side, but that ship had sailed.
“Alex,” Billy Tasker called, emerging from a door that led to the tabloid’s offices. He wore a better-quality suit than Alex had seen him in before and it made his boyish face look almost grown up. “What brings you to me?”
Alex didn’t want to discuss the blood rune in the lobby, so he nodded in the direction of Billy’s office.
“Not here,” he said.
Billy looked intrigued and a predatory smile spread across his face as he motioned for Alex to follow him. After the Anderson story, Billy had moved into the corner office at the end of the hall. Alex wasn’t sure how many papers that story had sold, but someone definitely appreciated it.
The office was jus
t as cramped as Alex remembered it, overstuffed with papers, files, and books. This one had a bank of windows that let in much more light, which gave the room an open feeling despite the clutter.
“Pardon the mess,” he said. “We’re scrambling to catch up at the moment. Can you believe we actually got scooped by that rag, the Daily Chronicle?”
“The voodoo killer story?” Alex asked.
Something in Alex’s question made Billy look up quickly from clearing a space on his desk.
“You don’t know anything about that?” he asked. “Do you?”
There was a note of tantalized interest and hope in the question. Alex decided to milk that. He put on a disinterested expression and shrugged.
“Now what would a humble private dick like me know about such outlandish crimes?” he said, adopting a speech mannerism closer to Iggy’s than his own.
Billy’s grin got so wide Alex worried it would wrap around to the sides of his head.
“You do know something,” he declared, leaning across the table in eager anticipation.
Alex sat down in the comfortable armchair opposite the desk, crossed his legs, and dropped his hat on his knee.
“I might have been in that house before those pictures were taken,” he said. “I might even be looking for the killer.”
“That’s quite the hypothetical,” Billy said, sitting down and folding his arms on the desk. “What would I have to come up with to get more…concrete information?”
“I need to know if anyone’s ever heard of a crime scene like that one,” Alex said.
Billy looked confused for a minute, then reached into the pile of papers on his desk and pulled out a copy of the Chronicle. Smoothing it out on his desk, he stared at the picture, then shook his head.
“Am I missing something?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “What I do know is that tabloids write about this kind of sensationalized crime all the time. Any of those stories have crime scenes like this one?”
Billy’s eyes widened and he looked down at the picture, then back up at Alex.
“You think this isn’t the first victim,” he gasped. “You think there’s a maniac on the loose.”
“Don’t sound so excited,” Alex chided. “But yes, I think this isn’t our killer’s first time out. In order to prove that, however, I need to find evidence of a previous murder.”
Billy sat looking at the picture on the Chronicle’s front page, then shook his head.
“I can’t think of anything,” he said, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “But I know someone who might.”
“I’ll cut you in on the story,” Alex offered.
Billy seemed to be thinking that over, but before he could counter, Alex went on.
“Nice office,” he said. “Get that after the Anderson story?”
“All right, all right,” Billy said, chuckling. “You win. I owe you big for that one.”
“How many papers did that story sell?”
Billy’s look shifted from amused to smug in an instant.
“Over a quarter million,” he said. “It was a sensation.”
Alex didn’t tell him, but he had a framed copy of the front-page story hanging on the wall in his vault.
“So who do I need to talk to?” he prodded.
Billy opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a worn leather book. Opening it, he ran his thumb along the edge and opened it near the front.
“His name is Theodore Bell,” Billy said, jotting an address on a scrap of paper. “He’s an expert in the occult, you know, spiritualism, voodoo, that sort of thing. He’s one of my consultants for just this kind of story.”
Alex accepted the paper, tucked it into his pocket and rose.
“Just make sure I’m there when you take this bastard down,” Billy said.
Alex promised that he would be, then he put on his hat and walked out.
9
Formulae
The address Billy gave Alex led him to a small mid-ring bookstore on the East Side along Second Avenue. It was sandwiched in between a dry goods store and a cobbler’s shop, with a wooden sign hanging from an iron support. The name, Bell’s Book & Candle, had been painted across a maroon field in large white letters, but it had been some time since the sign had been touched up. Now it was so gray and faded that Alex had to get close before he could read it.
The windows of the shop were dirty, but Alex could see several stacks of books in the display boxes inside. From the amount of dust on them, it was clear they hadn’t been attended to recently, either.
He pushed the door open, and the bell hanging above it jingled, announcing his presence.
At least something in here is in working condition.
The inside of the shop was basically an open room with shelves lining the side walls and the back. Several tables filled the space in the center, some piled with books while others held an odd assortment of unusual objects like Ouija boards and candles. A podium-like high table stood in the back of the room, near a curtained door, with a cash register sitting on top and a punk of incense burning in a brass holder. The whole place was filled with the musty smell of old books, cheap candle wax, and burnt pine needles.
“Hello there,” a pudgy man in a maroon vest said as he emerged from the back room. He had a round face with rosy cheeks and an affable expression. The hair on his head was thin, barely more than clinging wisps, but he’d compensated with a prodigious pair of graying mutton chops. A pair of spectacles was perched on the tip of his pointed nose, and his mouth was drawn up in a smile.
“And how can I help you today?” he said, approaching Alex with his hand out to shake.
Alex accepted the hand and gripped it firmly.
“Are you Theodore Bell?” Alex wondered.
“I am,” the man said, his smile widening. “I am, indeed.”
“My name’s Alex Lockerby,” Alex said once he’d extracted his hand. “Billy Tasker over at The Midnight Sun gave me your name.”
Bell looked confused for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, I’ve advised him on several stories in the past,” Bell said. “What is it you are looking for?”
Alex had bought a copy of the Chronicle on his way over and torn out the story about the voodoo killer. He pulled the clipping from his jacket pocket and unfolded it.
“I’m a private detective,” he said handing over the paper. “I’m also a runewright, so the police asked me if I could tell them anything about that.”
Bell glanced at the photo, then sighed.
“Terrible business,” he said. “I saw the story this morning.”
“Can you tell me anything about it?” Alex said. “I don’t recognize that symbol on the floor. I don’t think it’s rune magic, so I wondered if maybe it was something occult.”
Bell looked at the picture again, this time focusing intently.
“Given the shape, I had assumed it was a rune of some kind,” he said.
“Do you know a lot about rune magic?”
“Certainly not as much as you do,” he said with a chuckle. “But I do carry books on all kinds of magic, so I’m familiar with the basics.”
“Well I’m pretty sure that’s not a rune.”
Bell didn’t seem to hear Alex. He turned and walked toward the back corner of the store, muttering to himself. He stopped when he reached the farthest bookshelf, then ran his finger across one row of books, moving to the next and the next until he found what he wanted.
“Here we go,” he said, pulling a thick, leather-backed volume down. Carrying it over to one of the many book tables, he set it atop a stack of paperbacks and began flipping pages. “Whoever wrote the newspaper story thought the symbol on the floor was from voodoo,” he said as he searched the book. “But I don’t think that’s right. It has some of the form of a voodoo ritual, especially with the objects laid around the symbol, but…” His voice trailed off as he began reading.
“Find something?�
�� Alex asked when Bell didn’t speak for several minutes.
Bell shook his head and headed back to the shelf without explanation. He returned the book to the space from whence he’d pulled it, then headed back across the store to another shelf and pulled down two more.
“I was right,” Bell said as he set the books down and began flipping through the top one. “This symbol,” he tapped the newspaper in Alex’s hand, “is similar to voodoo, I think because they have a common origin.”
He found the page he was looking for and Alex saw the strange, flower-like spiral he’d noticed inside the geometric shape.
“That looks about right,” he said.
“Yes. This is a symbol of protection used by native shamen in the Congo region of Africa,” Bell said.
“So whoever made this was trying to do what?” Alex chuckled. “Invoke the spirits to protect him?”
“Don’t scoff, young man,” Bell chided. “Just because we don’t know how something works, that doesn’t mean it’s nonsense.” He stuck his stubby finger in Alex’s face. “It wasn’t all that long ago, after all, that a man with your particular skill set would have been burned at the stake.”
That was, in fact, several centuries ago, but Alex took the man’s point.
“As for what he was trying to do,” Bell said, then he shrugged. “I can’t tell from just this picture. You said you’re working with the police, can you get me in to see this symbol in person?”
Alex explained about the rune being destroyed, though he left out the crumbling to dust part, implying instead that it had been the result of fire.
Bell sighed and closed the book from which he’d been reading.
“Well, without more information, I don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you,” he said.
“You seem very well informed about the occult world,” Alex said. “Can you think of any case like this one happening before?” He tapped the article for emphasis.
