Blood Relation (Arcane Casebook Book 6)

by Dan Willis

  “How did you decode the letters?” Alex asked, both impressed and confused.

  “You said it yourself, Lockerby,” the Detective said. “A sequence of numbers that Alice would remember.”

  If Alex had the use of both his arms, he would have slapped his palm on his forehead.

  “The combination to her safe,” he said. “That’s why she wrote them in her blood. You could have drilled out the safe, but without the numbers you’d never have been able to decode the letters.”

  “And since the safe was hidden, Alice figured Masters wouldn’t find it,” Nicholson finished.

  Something flitted across Alex’s memory and he frowned.

  “But what about the name at the bottom of the letters?” he asked.

  “William Masters goes by Bill,” Nicholson said. “I really appreciate your help on this one, Alex. Detweiler is going to love having this one in the solved column.”

  “I’ll send you a bill,” Alex said with a chuckle.

  After he’d hung up, Alex felt more awake, so he picked up the paperback novel Iggy had left on his reading table. It was one of the pulp crime novels Iggy loved so much. Alex had read some of them before, and had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t getting into enough fistfights or bedding enough dangerous women to make it as a pulp detective.

  “Something to strive for,” he joked as he picked up the book and awkwardly attempted to flip to the first page. Before he could manage, the phone rang again. This time it was Sorsha. She was still busy with the protection detail for Harry Woodring, but she wanted to check up on him and let him know she’d be free for dinner tomorrow. Alex asked about Agents Redhorn and Mendes and both of them had come through the assassination attempt relatively unscathed.

  He drew out his conversation with the sorceress, just talking to hear her voice, until her FBI job interfered and she had to hang up.

  Picking up the book again, he began to read. This time he made it through four pages of the novel before the phone rang. With a sigh, he set the book aside and picked up the phone’s receiver.

  “Grand Central,” he joked.

  “You’re in a good mood, brother,” Diego Ruiz’ voice came through the earpiece. “You must have had an interesting day.”

  Alex sat up straight and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his healing arm.

  “Hello, Diego,” he said, leaning back down to the phone’s mouthpiece. “Or should I call you Rasputin?”

  Diego actually laughed at that.

  “You actually followed my trail all the way back to Russia,” he said. “It’s a good guess, of course. Grigori and I were…fellow travelers, kindred spirits if you will. But, no, I never assumed his identity. Truth be told, I wanted him to be my apprentice.”

  “What happened?” Alex asked, his mind racing. He would have bet a large sum of money that Diego had actually been Rasputin, especially based on some of the rumors about the man. He was very much in line with Maria de Naglowska and her strange obsession with alternative sources for magical power.

  “Grigori and I didn’t see eye to eye on several points,” Diego said. He seemed perfectly willing to talk about the subject, but his voice betrayed a bit of irritation. “I learned a long time ago that it’s difficult to be a leader. Leaders are always the ones out front. They get the glory when things go well, but they also take the blame for any failure.”

  “Rasputin wasn’t a leader,” Alex pointed out.

  “No, but he positioned himself very publicly as the power behind the throne,” Diego said. “It’s one thing to be the one whispering in a leader’s ear, but it’s something else entirely when people see you doing it. So, when rivals had a problem with the Czar, they first removed Grigori.”

  Alex nodded, understanding.

  “You want to be the one with the power,” he said. “But rule from the shadows with the leader as your front man.”

  “You see, Alex,” Diego said with a chuckle. “You and I understand each other. Grigori was an apt student, but he lacked the vision to see the bigger picture, whereas you have grasped it in only a few minutes.”

  “What are you saying, Diego?” Alex asked. “You want us to be friends?”

  “Much more than that, Alex,” Diego said, his voice full of fervor and passion. “I’ve lived a long time and I have never met a mind equal to my own. I admit, you might be stronger at runes than I was when the Immortals cast me out. Together, Alex, you and I could change the world.”

  “You mean rule it,” Alex said.

  “Yes, Alex,” Diego said with no hesitation or shame. “I mean rule it.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” Alex said, feigning boredom. “Why bother?”

  Diego laughed at that.

  “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, boy,” he said, still chuckling. “I’ve read up on you. You view yourself as some kind of knight in shining armor, running around helping people and doing good.”

  “So?” Alex challenged him. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Diego said, almost yelling the word. “Nothing at all. But look at the world, Alex. It’s a mess. Full of fear, want, pain, and death. Now, just imagine what you could do to help, what you could do to overcome these things. With a man like you at the helm, human ignorance could be eradicated. Drifting, rudderless souls could be given purpose, and with the two of us working together, the world would become a paradise.”

  It was tempting. Alex could almost see Diego’s paradise in his mind’s eye.

  “That’s a lovely thought,” he admitted. “All it will cost the human race is their humanity, and their free will.”

  “Is that really such a high price to pay?” Diego said.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “I have enough trouble running my own life, I’m not arrogant enough to believe I can run everyone else’s too.”

  There was silence on the line for a long time, then Diego sighed.

  “I figured that would be your answer,” he said. “But I hoped you’d surprise me. It’s my own fault for not getting to you sooner. I must admit, I’m rather bad at spotting talent until it’s too late to be shaped and molded.”

  The thought of Diego finding Alex on the street corner selling barrier runes in the rain instead of Iggy made him shiver.

  “I’m sorry we won’t be working together, Alex, I really am,” Diego went on. “But your lack of vision isn’t going to dissuade me from my goal. And to further my goal, I’m going to need the Immortal’s book.”

  Alex had been wondering when Diego would get around to that. The only reason to try blowing the door off the brownstone was to obtain the Archimedean Monograph.

  “No,” Alex said simply.

  This time the pause on the line was longer and the sigh at the end more pronounced.

  “You’re making a mistake, Alex,” he said. “I need the knowledge in their training book to further my goals. It’s been a long time since I learned anything new, and I crave knowledge.”

  “My answer is still no.”

  “I figured it would be,” he said. “But I must have the book nonetheless. Unfortunately your surprisingly effective protection rune foiled my attempt to take it. It also left me in a weakened state, so I’m going to have to consolidate my power before we meet again.”

  “You mean kill more innocent women,” Alex corrected, struggling to control his rising anger.

  “We all do what we must to survive, Alex,” he said. “To make a better world, sacrifices must be made. So, until we meet again, brother, I’ll be watching you.”

  “I’ll keep a lookout for you too,” Alex growled.

  “You do that,” Diego chuckled. “And if you change your mind, put dear Maria’s picture in your window. I’ll call if I see it.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “Goodbye, Alex,” he said, his voice still full of amusement. “It’s been a genuine pleasure meeting you.”

  With that, there was a click in the receiver and the line went de
ad.

  Alex wanted to slam the earpiece back into the phone’s cradle, but with one hand all he’d really do would be to knock the phone on the floor, and he wasn’t feeling up to going after it. Diego had made it plain he would be killing again, soon. And there wasn’t anything Alex could do to prevent it.

  He’d been sure he was onto something with the Rasputin connection, but he could tell Diego wasn’t lying when he’d denied being the mad monk.

  Not wanting to throw the telephone, Alex turned to the reading table on the other side of the chair and snatched up the topmost book in his reading pile. He was about to throw it instead, when he recognized it. The Hanging Mystery by Maria de Naglowska.

  “Dear Maria,” he quoted, remembering what Diego had called her. “She meant something to him,” he realized. “She was special to him.”

  That was why Diego kept an illustration of her in a frame and hung it in his hotel room.

  Alex turned the book over in his hand and opened it to the front. The first section was a revised biography of Maria, added to the book after her death a year ago. It went on for several pages and detailed her life, her philosophy, and her writings. There was even a brief entry about the Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow.

  Flipping to the biography, Alex began to read, not for information on Maria’s life but for any clues to her relationships and the people in her life. She’d been married and had children, but Diego didn’t seem like the type to settle down and raise a family. Besides, he knew enough of Maria and her ideals to know that that she would have rejected monogamy.

  Five minutes later, Alex snapped the book closed and got up, heading toward the brownstone door to find Iggy.

  30

  Hunters

  “P.B. Randolph,” Alex said as he reached the ground floor landing and turned into the library.

  “Who?” Iggy said, looking up from the paperback he was reading.

  “That’s what I need to know,” Alex said. “Diego called me—”

  “What?” Iggy interrupted. “What did he say?”

  “He wanted me to join him and give him the Monograph,” Alex said, waving his hand as if the subject were unimportant. “What matters is that Diego wasn’t Rasputin, but he admitted to being Rasputin’s mentor.”

  “So who is P.B. Randolph?”

  “Diego is,” Alex explained. “Before he hung up, Diego referred to that handbill of Maria de Naglowska. He called her, ‘Dear Maria’.”

  “So she was important to him,” Iggy confirmed.

  “Well, according to the biography of Maria in the front of her book, she was a devotee of P.B. Randolph. He was the source of her weird ideas about sex and magic, and she spent years translating his books into French. She worshiped him.”

  Iggy stroked his chin, considering the chain of events that Alex had laid out.

  “From your description of Diego, he sounds like the kind of man who has a healthy ego.”

  “He sees himself as the man to rule the world because only he can make it a paradise,” Alex confirmed. “I’d say he’s got an ego.”

  “So,” Iggy said, speaking carefully, “it stands to reason that, if a man like that learned of a beautiful woman who was enamored of his ideas, he would attempt to meet her.”

  “And Maria was a young woman in Russia when Rasputin was coming to power. It’s entirely possible Diego knew her back then. I admit it’s just a guess, but the timing lines up.”

  Iggy nodded and set his penny dreadful aside. Rising, he crossed to the bookshelf and ran his finger along the leather backs of the books until he came to a large, heavy volume. Pulling it from the shelf, he opened it just past the middle, then began turning pages.

  “What’s that?” Alex asked.

  “Who’s Who,” Iggy said as he continued to page through the book. “Here he is,” he said at last. “Paschal Beverly Randolph, born here in New York in eighteen twenty-five, reportedly died in July of eighteen seventy-five. According to this, he was an occultist and a medium who traveled extensively in Europe.”

  “Sounds like a fit for Diego,” Alex said.

  “According to this, Paschal was a mulatto,” Iggy continued reading. “He was an educated man, and a medical doctor.”

  “Maybe that’s where he got his theories about blood magic,” Alex suggested. “Does it say anything else about him?”

  “He wrote extensively, founded several occult societies, and was a descendant of William Randolph. Apparently he was very proud of his famous ancestor.”

  Alex paced to the grandfather clock in the hall, then back several times, going over the details about Randolph in his mind. Given what he’d said on the phone, Randolph would probably be out hunting for his next victim as soon as the sun went down. Alex could call Danny, but even the entire police force couldn’t locate and protect every prostitute in the city. And, even if they did, Diego — or Randolph, rather — could easily find his prey in a bar or nightclub. Prostitutes were easier because he didn’t have to woo them, but Diego was certainly handsome and well-spoken enough to seek prey the hard way.

  “What are you thinking?” Iggy asked, watching Alex pace with his probing gaze.

  “Diego was staying at the Astor Hotel,” Alex said. “He’s an educated man and a world traveler, so it stands to reason he likes high living.”

  “A reasonable assumption.”

  “He was using the Diego Ruiz alias, but that’s not good anymore. He needs something he can fall back on until he can establish a new one.”

  “You’re thinking he’ll go back to something familiar.”

  Alex nodded.

  “Do me a favor,” he said. “Call every fancy hotel in the city until you find one with a guest named William Randolph.”

  “Or Will or Bill,” Iggy said with an approving nod. “What are you going to do while I’m tilting at your windmill? From what we know of Randolph, he’s powerful and dangerous. Do you have a plan to deal with him?”

  Nodding, Alex headed for the stairs.

  “I’ve got to write a couple of runes,” he said. “Then, once we know where Randolph is hiding, I’ll go pay him a visit.”

  An hour later, Alex got out of a cab across from the Biltmore Hotel. The sun had gone down, and darkness was starting to swallow the streets of the city.

  The Biltmore was one of the city’s most opulent residences. Iggy had started his search for Paschal Randolph by calling the most expensive hotels in the city first. As a result, it had only taken him twenty minutes to suss out Randolph’s location. As Alex had guessed, he’d checked in under the name Bill Randolph. Iggy even described him to the desk clerk just to be sure.

  It was him.

  As Alex hurried across the busy street, he patted the shoulder holster under his bound left arm. His 1911 was still in the possession of the police, so he’d been reduced to bringing his back-up gun, a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver. It was a dependable weapon, but the boxy shape of the 1911 made it easy for Alex to put runes on the gun that helped with accuracy and recoil. The .38 didn’t have a flat surface anywhere on the weapon. Even the sides and bottom of the grip were rounded.

  In addition to the gun, Alex also had a few useful runes folded up under the front cover of his rune book. Having only one usable arm would make it difficult to tear runes out of his book, so he’d just folded them and stuck them inside.

  Satisfied that he was as prepared as he could be, Alex turned toward the Biltmore’s main door in the center of the block. The hotel was enormous, with two independent towers reaching up into the sky that held hundreds of rooms.

  As he approached, the main door opened, and Paschal Randolph stepped out onto the sidewalk. Alex quickly turned away before he could be spotted, peering into a ground floor window and using the reflection from the brightly lit street to watch his prey. For his part, Randolph lit a cigarette and then approached the hotel doorman about summoning a cab.

  Alex had a brief thought of approaching Randolph from behind and sticking the .38
in his back. It had worked with Harcourt, but this time Alex would have to do it under the nose of the doorman, and he was sure to be spotted. Even if Alex managed it, there was no way to know if Randolph was telling the truth about being out of magic. If he had one of his explosive snow globes, he could kill several dozen people on the street in an attempt to escape.

  So Alex watched as the doorman hailed a cab, then he stepped up to the curb and whistled for one of his own.

  “You see that cab right there?” Alex told the cabbie when he slid into the back of the taxi.

  “I got eyes,” the cabbie sneered back.

  “Well keep ‘em fixed on that cab and don’t lose it,” Alex said.

  The cabbie looked like he wanted to ask questions, but Randolph’s cab was pulling away from the curb, so he just put his foot on the gas and they pulled out into the evening traffic.

  Almost an hour later, Alex climbed up the rickety stairs to the third floor of a disreputable rooming house. He’d watched Randolph pick up a prostitute from a street corner by the docks and then come straight here. The landlady downstairs had been only too happy to point out what room he was in, once Alex flashed a five spot at her.

  Moving as quietly as he could, Alex went to the second door on the left, and gently gave the handle a push. He wasn’t surprised to find it locked, given the fate Randolph had planned for his unfortunate partner. Alex, however, had come prepared.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out his cigarette case and managed to open it one-handed. Holding it up to his mouth, he grabbed a cigarette with his lips and slid it free, snapping the case shut and returning it to his jacket. He transferred his hand to his trouser pocket and grabbed his lighter. Working with only one hand was a bother, but at least he hadn’t been shot in his right arm.