Blood Relation (Arcane Casebook Book 6)

by Dan Willis

  “You sure about that?” Danny asked, picking up the room telephone.

  Alex nodded as he began to draw a chalk door on the immaculate wallpaper of the room.

  “This is going to be all over the evening papers,” he said. “If you don’t warn the Captain before that happens, he’ll have your head.”

  “True,” Danny said in an unsure voice. “But will he believe any of this?”

  “We’ll have Sorsha explain it to him.”

  “All right,” Danny said, dialing the number of the front desk. “Hurry up and get Iggy, because I want Sorsha fully awake when the Captain gets here.”

  Iggy pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and touched the rune carved into a flat spot on the little tube’s side. Inside, a second rune began to give off a bright light and he pointed it into Sorsha’s left eye.

  Reflexively she turned her head, but he grabbed her by the chin and pulled her head back into place.

  “Now be a good girl and I’ll give you a lollipop when I’m done,” he said in the same voice one might use on an unruly toddler.

  Sorsha ground her teeth loud enough for Alex to hear, and he smirked.

  “You’re not helping,” she growled at him.

  “I don’t see any permanent damage,” Iggy said, releasing the rune on the side of the light causing it to die. “You burst a blood vessel but it’s not serious, just take it easy the next couple of days.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Sorsha said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed.

  “Take it slow,” Iggy said as she leaned forward to stand. “You overexerted yourself, and standing too quickly might make you dizzy."

  Sorsha wobbled as she stood, but quickly gained her equilibrium.

  “I need to call my team,” she said, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I’m not up to teleporting at the moment.” She started across the room toward the desk but stopped to give Alex a penetrating look. “That’s becoming a regular occurrence around you.”

  “I could add a vault door to your office,” Alex said with a smile. “Then I could walk you home whenever you like.”

  “Yes, and have you drop by whenever you need some magical information,” she said. Her tone was chiding but she wore a half smile.

  “Don’t forget those times he needs you to stop something from blowing up,” Danny added.

  Alex tried to elbow his friend, but Danny stepped back too quickly.

  “In either case,” Sorsha said, trying and failing to hide her amusement. “I think things are fine the way they are. It will only take Agent Mendes fifteen minutes to get here. I’ll go wait for her in the lobby.”

  “Before you go,” Alex said, taking her by the arm. “There’s something you all need to hear.” He looked at Danny. “How long until the Captain gets here?”

  Danny looked at his wristwatch and thought for a moment.

  “I’d say ten minutes.”

  Alex took a deep breath and outlined his conversation with Diego Ruiz. When he finished, Iggy shook his head.

  “I’ve never heard that name,” he said. “And as far as I know, the Archimedean Monograph was lost for at least one hundred years before I found it.”

  “And I don’t remember seeing any notes by Ruiz in it,” Alex added.

  “So,” Sorsha said. “His story about being trained by a group of immortal runewrights is probably true. We know that immortality is possible, but the only way Diego would know about it is if he actually knew someone who was able to replenish their life energy.”

  “Do you think he was telling the truth about being thrown out?” Danny asked. “About the damnation rune?”

  Alex hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded.

  “That fits with the story I got from Jimmy Cortez. Diego lost his ability to use runes, so he went looking for different forms of magic.”

  “That makes sense,” Sorsha said, “but if I understand correctly, glyph runes are just a different way of writing constructs. The magic comes from the same place. So how is he powering his runes?”

  “I’m afraid that’s where the blood comes in,” Iggy said. “The ancient Maya and Inca Indians used to practice human sacrifice, sometimes on a massive scale, all to draw power from blood.”

  “Does that work?” Danny asked.

  “Obviously,” Sorsha said. “Otherwise Alex’s new brother wouldn’t be able to use magic at all.”

  “You’re assuming that the damnation rune works as advertised,” Alex offered. “Maybe the blood gives him the power to break through whatever seal the rune put on him.”

  “Occam’s Razor,” Iggy said.

  Alex knew this one, it was a principle of science suggesting that if you had two equal possibilities, the simplest one was most likely right.

  “You think the rune is solid so Diego is using the blood of his victims to power his constructs,” Alex guessed.

  “Just so.”

  “Why is the simplest solution that the Immortal’s rune is infallible?” Sorsha asked.

  “Because Alex met one,” Iggy said. “And his power was undeniable.”

  Alex felt a chill. Iggy had come out and said something he’d been avoiding. He’d thought of it, of course, he just didn’t want to consider it.

  “Moriarty,” he confirmed.

  “He is undoubtedly an Immortal,” Iggy said, “and I doubt there are two such groups in existence.”

  Sorsha nodded at that.

  “They wouldn’t allow it,” she said. “They’d either join together or kill each other.”

  “So what does that do to all the talk of Alex being Moriarty’s lever?” Danny asked. “To say nothing of that whole ‘move the world’ stuff.”

  Alex had gooseflesh on his arms. This was the thought he didn’t want to consider. What if Moriarty hadn’t been helping him when he restored a year of his life? What if he did that to give himself time to manipulate Alex, use him to work some great evil? Diego had certainly believed the Immortals had a plan for him.

  “It means nothing,” Iggy said as the silence between them stretched out. “So far all Moriarty has done is to show us a few tricks. He hasn’t asked Alex to actually do anything.”

  “What if he does?” Danny said.

  “If that happens, we tread carefully,” Iggy said. “We keep everyone informed, trust each other, and trust our instincts.”

  “Agreed,” Sorsha said. “I doubt these Immortals could pull the wool over all of our eyes.”

  “All right,” Danny said, nodding. “It sounds like we have a plan, such as it is.”

  “Now we need to catch the Immortal’s apprentice,” Iggy said. “He used a great deal of magic tonight, so I imagine he’ll be in need of more power very soon.”

  “Any ideas where to start on that?” Danny asked. “He knew we were coming so we won’t be able to use a finding rune to locate him.”

  “I think we should start over there,” Alex said. He pointed to the desk where the elaborate hotel telephone stood next to a box of hotel stationary. Above the desk, hanging on the wall was what appeared to be a framed handbill or maybe a magazine illustration. Alex had noticed it earlier, but as he stood talking to his friends and fellow conspirators, his eyes kept being drawn to it.

  “Trust you to notice that,” Sorsha said in a sardonic voice.

  Her irritation was deserved. The illustration was a detailed drawing of a nude young woman. She was slender and athletic, with toned arms, small breasts, and a trim waist. A cloth of some blue fabric was draped over her shoulder and wrapped around her hips, giving her the illusion of clothing but covering nothing. Her hair was in a short bob, like Sorsha’s, but it was jet black and it framed her pretty face perfectly. Her left hand was brought forward at her waist level and held an apple with a bite missing from it. Her right arm was raised over her head, and she held a gold arrow that pointed in the direction she was facing.

  “That doesn’t look like it belongs here,” Alex said, taking the picture off the wall.

>   “No,” Iggy agreed. “I suspect your brother apprentice brought it with him.”

  “His name is Diego,” Alex said, irritably. He was really disliking the comparison of Diego to himself.

  “Whoever he is, why would he hang this on the wall?” Danny asked.

  “Look closer,” Iggy said. “Note how the woman’s body isn’t idealized.”

  Alex hadn’t noticed but now that he looked, he realized that the woman had a large nose and that her hips looked a bit too big for perfect proportions.

  “It’s like this was drawn from life,” Sorsha said.

  “Or a photograph,” Danny agreed.

  “Look here,” Alex said, turning the frame on its side. There were bushes at the woman’s feet and Greek columns behind her. Alex tapped one of the bushes where a word had been written in ink. The bushes were a light green and the ink was black, making the word hard to see.

  “Maria,” Danny read. “The girl who posed for this, maybe?”

  “Almost certainly,” Iggy agreed. “And look on top of that column.”

  “Confrerie de la Flèche d’Or,” Alex managed. “That’s not English.”

  “It’s French,” Sorsha said. “The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow, but I don’t know what that is.”

  From down the hall, the elevator chime announced the arrival of the car, and most likely Captain Callahan.

  “You’d better make yourself scarce,” Alex said to Iggy. They didn’t want to have to explain how he’d arrived before the Captain.

  “What about Maria and the Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow?” he asked, picking up his medical bag.

  “I don’t know what they are,” Alex admitted with a grin. “But I’m pretty sure I know someone who does.”

  22

  Books & Bullets

  The door chimed as Alex stepped into the musty interior of Bell’s Book and Candle. Unlike the previous times he’d been there, five customers were in various stages of browsing the stock of books and oddities. They were a strange lot, three middle-aged women with the look of bored housewives and two men, one short and portly with a dark, scraggly beard, and a tall, athletic man in a wool suit. All of them gave Alex suspicious looks before turning back to their own business.

  “Alex!” Theo said with a large grin. “What brings you by?”

  Alex shot a quick glance around the room and found all the other patrons watching him surreptitiously. Instead of answering Theo, Alex put his arm around the little man’s shoulders and led him over to an empty corner.

  “I need to know if you’ve ever heard of something called the Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow?” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Theo chewed his lip for a moment, then shook his head.

  “Doesn’t sound familiar,” he said. “Where did you hear it?”

  “Read it on a handbill,” Alex said. “Over a picture of a naked woman. She might be named Maria.”

  Theo shook his head again.

  “No,” he said. “It sounds like something I’d know, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of your Brotherhood.”

  Alex sighed. Billy Tasker had said that when it came to the magical or the occult, Theo’s knowledge was unmatched. If he didn’t know the Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow, it might actually be some kind of secret society.

  But then why did the drawing of the naked woman look like a handbill? That’s not a very good way to keep a secret society secret.

  “Was there anything else on the picture of the naked woman?” Theo asked, a bit too loudly. Several of the other patrons cast reproving looks his way and the athletic man in the wool suit turned and left the store.

  Alex looked back to Theo and shook his head.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just the words Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow written in French.”

  “French?” Theo said, his eyebrows crawling together like fuzzy caterpillars. “That would be…Confrerie…de la Flèche…d’Or,” he said.

  “Is that different, somehow?”

  “No,” Theo said, “but that does ring a bell.”

  He moved over to one of his shelves and began running his finger along the spines of the books, eventually pulling one down. Opening it, he flipped through the pages, pausing occasionally to read before shaking his head and moving on.

  “Ah,” he said at last, a wide smile lighting up his face. “Here it is, Confrerie de la Flèche d’Or. It was an occult society started in Paris back in ‘thirty-two. According to this, it was led by Maria de Naglowska.”

  “Most likely the Maria from the handbill,” Alex said. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “Oh, yes,” Theo said. “Maria was quite well known in occult circles.”

  “Was?” Alex said, picking up on the past tense verb.

  “Yes. She passed away just last year. Before that though, she was active in the occult community. She was a mystic and wrote extensively on channeling magic through the body.”

  “Was she a runewright then?” Alex asked.

  Theo looked around, as if taking care not to be overheard, then leaned in close to Alex.

  “She was a proponent of magical intimacy.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow at that. He’d heard romantic encounters described as ‘magical,’ but never literally.

  “Is there such a thing?” he asked.

  “If you mean, does it exist?” Theo shrugged. “I couldn’t say. It has been a field of study for occultists for some time, however. The first known proponent of such theories was P.B. Randolph. Maria was a devotee of his, and translated many of his writings into French.”

  “Is this Randolph guy still alive?”

  “No,” Theo said. “He died shortly after the Civil War, if I remember correctly.”

  Alex chewed his lip. This seemed like a solid lead, but he couldn’t connect Maria or Randolph or any of it to Diego Ruiz, beyond the strange framed handbill he’d hung up in his hotel room.

  Maybe he just likes pictures of naked girls.

  “All right, Theo,” Alex sighed. “I guess I wasted your time.”

  Theo frowned a little, and his eyebrows drooped.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” he said, closing the book he’d been consulting. “I’m not really well versed in Russian occultists.”

  Alex had started to turn, but he stopped.

  “Maria was Russian?” he said. “I thought she was French.”

  Theo shook his head.

  “She was born in St. Petersburg, but she moved around quite a bit. Spent her last years in Paris though. That’s where she did most of her writing.”

  “Are there any writings on her life? You know, where she grew up and where she lived.”

  Theo drew in a deep breath and considered the question for a long moment.

  “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “There are articles and papers on her, of course, but most of those deal with her philosophy and teachings. I suppose you could look at one of her books though. As I recall, most include a short biography of the author in the front.”

  “Do you have one of Maria’s books?”

  “I think I still have a copy of her most recent work,” he said, replacing the reference book on the shelf before heading across the store to a shelf on the far side. Alex watched as he abandoned that shelf and crossed to another. As he went, he passed behind one of the women in the store, a plump woman with a pleasant face, dark eyes, and jet-black hair. When Alex noticed her, she gave him a sultry smile and winked. Apparently she’d heard the subject of his conversation with Theo.

  Clearing his throat nervously, Alex looked away to where Theo was perusing another shelf. As he did, the woman smirked.

  “Here we are,” Theo said, returning to hand Alex a slim leather-bound volume. The title was The Hanging Mystery and it had Maria’s name on the bottom.

  Alex took the book and opened to the front. There was a fairly detailed biography of Maria de Naglowska in the front, so Alex closed the book and took out his wallet.
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  Five minutes later, Alex stepped outside into the afternoon sun with Maria’s book sticking up from the outside pocket of his suit coat. It was almost three, so he turned left and headed for the grubby five and dime where he knew there was a public phone.

  Time to check in with Sherry.

  The little shop was just as he remembered it, with the same disinterested man in the dirty apron behind the lunch counter. The only difference this time was the customer sitting at the end of the counter having a sandwich and a cigarette.

  As before, Alex ignored the cook and headed to the booth.

  “Did you get the voodoo killer?” Sherry asked when the line connected.

  “Yes and no,” Alex said. He explained what had happened with Diego and his subsequent trip to Bell’s Book and Candle.

  “Is there anything I need to know about?” he asked when he finished. “I want to run everything by Dr. Bell, see if there’s anything I missed.”

  “I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait, boss,” Sherry said. “Mr. Barton wants you out at the new tower. He said you need to renew your rune on the transfer plate case.”

  Alex closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

  “I need to put a vault door in that tower,” he grumbled.

  “What’s that, boss?”

  “Sorry,” Alex said. “It’s nothing. I’ll grab a cab south until I can pick up the skycrawler, so if Andrew calls, tell him I should be there by four.”

  “Will do,” Sherry said. Alex was about to hang up when she went on. “I also have that warehouse information you wanted.”

  Alex sighed and set the phone’s earpiece down on the shelf in the booth.

  “Hold on,” he told Sherry as he dug out his notebook. “Okay,” he said once he’d picked up the earpiece again. “What was in the crates that were broken open?”

  “I could tell you that,” Sherry said. “Or I could just tell you what they were looking for.”

  “If you can do that, I’ll buy you a nice lunch on Monday.”