“I might be able to help with that,” Mattie interrupted. She had been quiet for most of the conversation, as was her wont, which gave her words—when she did speak—all the more weight. “I injured the beast during our struggle… a mere scratch across its stomach, hardly a hindrance to so large a creature, but enough to draw blood. I had some on my hands and under my nails until my unfortunately brief stay at the hospital, during which it was all washed away. I am sure, however, that some of its blood was also splashed across the wall of the alleyway. Did either of you happen to see it during your investigations at the scene?”
Youke narrowed his gaze. “You say you slashed the creature with enough force to drive blood under your nails and splash it across the walls? Exactly how potent are your hands, madam?”
“I didn’t see it,” Luthor interjected, “though admittedly, I wasn’t looking to the walls during my time at the murder scene. Did you, per chance, notice the blood, Youke?”
The doctor’s gaze remained on Mattie a moment longer before he shook his head. “Like you, I was occupied with Miss Dawn’s remains and not examining the scene itself.”
“If the constabulary also overlooked the evidence, it might still be there,” Luthor said. “With these rains, our evidence is likely to be washed away if we don’t act soon. Perhaps we should meet in Solomon’s Way within the hour?”
Casan nodded. “If these rains hold, the water level in the sewers will have risen. I agree that we should act very quickly or not at all.”
“Then it’s settled,” Luthor said, glancing toward Mattie. “Within the hour, then? We’ll all meet at the crime scene.”
“I shall see you there,” Casan said as he stood.
Luthor escorted the doctor to the door, handing the man his jacket and offering to call him a taxi. The doctor, however, politely declined.
“I shall manage well enough on my own, but thank you for the offer,” Youke said. “I hope we find the evidence we need.”
“As do I, Youke. We shall see you again within the hour.”
The doctor stepped out of the door and into the driving rain, which had increased in intensity once more. He raised his jacket until it covered his head before rushing down the front steps. Feeling sympathy for the man, Luthor watched until the doctor had turned the corner and was waving excitedly toward a passing taxi.
With the door closed, Luthor also retrieved his jacket and hat, placing it firmly on his head in anticipation for the foul weather. Mattie stepped into the foyer, crossed her arms, and leaned against the doorframe. She stared inquisitively toward the apothecary.
“Will you go to see him again?” she asked.
“It’s my duty,” he replied. “He has a right to remain informed.”
“Even if he has no intention of acting upon that information?”
Luthor glanced at her as he opened the front door. “No, but rather because if the information I provide spurns him from his inaction, then it won’t be wasted time at all.”
He closed the door behind him and hurried down the stairs.
Luthor took a deep breath before knocking on the door. He pulled his doctor’s bag tighter to his side with his free hand as he waited. He could hear the shuffling within but, as with the last time, no one came to let him in. The apothecary knocked again, louder, rattling the door with each strike. Eventually, he heard the footfalls of someone entering the foyer and the locks being thrown. The door opened wide as Simon turned away from the door and strode unsteadily back toward the sitting room.
“How did you know it was me?” Luthor asked.
“Who else would be insufferable enough to bang on my door so incessantly?”
Luthor wiped his feet before entering, lest he track water into the house. After stepping inside, however, he resented cleaning the puddled water from his shoes. A bit of water would have done the house some good.
A pungent aroma hung in the air, a mixture of stale tobacco and food left unattended on the countertops. As Luthor walked toward the sitting room, he could see a nearly full ashtray resting beside a half-finished bottle of liquor. Thin tendrils of smoke still rose from the discarded cigarette balanced precariously on the side of the ashtray.
“For what great honor have you come to visit me a second time?” Simon asked curtly. “Did our last conversation leave you wanting?”
Luthor flushed with both embarrassment and anger. “No, sir, you made yourself transparent during my last visit. I thought you might want to hear about the progress being made in the investigation, since it’s all being done in your name.”
“You thought wrong,” Simon replied, sitting in the chair so that his back was to the apothecary. He lifted his tumbler from the table and took a drink.
“I’ve employed Doctor Casan to assist in the case,” Luthor continued as though the Inquisitor hadn’t just chastised him. “He’s an exceptionally brilliant man, not too unlike yourself, sir. His medical insight and his years working in close confines with the constabulary have given him a plethora of skills at our disposal.”
“You should avoid alliteration when you speak, Luthor. It’s the sign of an unimaginative mind.”
Luthor frowned. “You may not be interested in actively participating in this investigation—the one in which we seek the killer of your slain fiancée—but the least you can do is speak to me with a modicum of respect, respect that I’ve clearly earned over our years together.”
Simon turned his head so he could see Luthor. Despite his obvious inebriation, Simon still managed a piercing gaze. “Finish what you have to say so you can leave once more.”
Clearing his throat, Luthor continued. “We believe we’ve found the means by which the beastly killer has moved so freely about Solomon’s Way without being seen. I must leave momentarily, regardless, to meet with the doctor and Mattie at the crime scene. Next time we meet, I hope I’ll bear news that this investigation has been brought to a close.” He walked to the head of Simon’s chair, so that the Inquisitor was forced to crane his neck to look at his friend. “We could use your expertise, especially as we travel into the belly of the beast.”
“You have the doctor,” Simon said dismissively. “For what reason could you possibly still need me?”
“Youke has proven himself invaluable, which is a fair bit more than I can say about you thus far.”
Simon arched an eyebrow. “I see that the two of you are now on a first-name basis. Good for you both. If you’ll excuse me, however, I grow weary of hearing of the young doctor.”
Luthor stepped around the chair so that he and Simon were face to face. “He’s a brilliant and engaging man, sir. Under different circumstances, I’m sure you would find him quite endearing.”
Simon stood abruptly and pushed past the apothecary, his tumbler of scotch clenched tightly in his hand. He staggered to the fireplace, where he leaned heavily on the mantle for support. “Yes, yes, Luthor, the doctor is clearly someone we should immolate.”
Luthor moved to speak but paused and nervously furrowed his brow. “Sir, you did say emulate, did you not?”
Simon waved his hand dismissively. “Of course I did. What else would I have said?” The Inquisitor walked immediately back toward the end table on which the bottle of scotch was perched. “I believe we’ve both said all that needs to be said. I’ll bid you a good day, Luthor.”
The Inquisitor lifted the bottle and went to pour himself another drink. The blinding ire that Luthor had felt before returned tenfold. His face went flush and his ears felt hot to the touch. He greatly disliked being so readily dismissed, but it wasn’t Simon’s offhanded dismissal that infuriated him. Simon was one of the finest Inquisitors Luthor had ever met, much less worked with in such intimate settings. To see a brilliant mind being muddied with an excess of alcohol was reproachful; knowing that Simon was doing it intentionally as a means to avoid his responsibilities and confronting his anguish, doubly so.
“Stop, damn you!” Luthor yelled. “Just stop!”
&
nbsp; Simon started, the bottle bouncing in his hand at the sudden noise. He hesitated, the bottle frozen halfway through the pouring process, the brown liquor balanced precariously near its lip.
“You suffered a great loss, sir, but don’t make it worse by robbing the world of your presence as well. If you could put down the bottle and clear your mind even for one second, you’d see the detriment you’ve caused in this investigation. You’d finally realize that the murderer very well might have already been caught if you hadn’t sat here, in the dark, wallowing in your own self-pity.” Luthor walked to Simon’s side, though the Inquisitor never turned toward his friend. “Put down the bottle, sir, and come with me. Join Mattie, Youke, and I at the crime scene and help us bring closure to this horrific crime.”
Simon frowned as he looked at the glass in his hand. He felt the burning embarrassment of his own failure more acutely than Luthor would ever realize. “I couldn’t save the woman I loved, Luthor. I’ve saved countless lives from magical abominations, yet my own fiancée fell victim to one and I was impotent to stop it.”
With a regretful sigh, Simon tilted the bottle and let the scotch pour over the ice cubes in his glass. Luthor shook his head, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.
“You and I, sir, we’ve had many an adventure together,” Luthor said, his voice unsteady. “Yet I tell you now, with all earnestness, that if you do not put down your bottle and help solve this murder, our partnership and very likely our friendship will come to an end.”
Simon’s shoulders sagged, though he still only offered Luthor his back. The Inquisitor slowly raised his head and stared at the askew paintings hanging on the wall. With a shaking hand, Simon raised the glass to his lips and took a drink.
Luthor nodded, feeling defeated. “Then I say good day to you, sir.”
With his head hanging low, Luthor walked out of the sitting room, not bothering with a backward glance at the defeated man he had once admired.
The rain had lessened to a mere drizzle by the time Luthor arrived with Mattie. Luthor carried his doctor’s bag, as was his wont, while Mattie’s arms were laden with supplies, including a pair of torches. Doctor Casan was standing under an overhang, his suit jacket pulled tightly around him to ward off the damp chill. Seeing the others arrive, the doctor stepped back into the rain and approached the alleyway.
“We’re in luck,” the doctor remarked, gesturing toward the walls of the alley.
The rain had been falling at an angle, which was mostly blocked by the high walls that formed the alleyway. Water ran in rivulets down between the bricks, following the natural channels of the mortar, yet left most of the wall dry and untouched.
“About how far in would you say you were standing when you struck the monster?” Luthor asked, turning toward her.
Mattie narrowed her eyes as she concentrated on the events of that night. It was a haze, for the most part. She remembered walking back from the Ace of Spades with Veronica, them talking rather jovially, considering the loss Miss Dawn had recently suffered. Then the towering giant had been in the alleyway, blocking its entrance.
Mattie walked forward, retracing her steps as she stripped from her eveningwear, transformed into the werewolf, and leapt toward it. In the present, she reached out her arm in a slow swipe from left to right. Her gaze followed the arc of her swing.
“Here,” she said. “I was here when I struck it.”
Luthor and Youke hurried to her side and examined the walls but could see nothing remarkable. The apothecary was crestfallen. He had hoped that a sample of the creature’s blood would reveal more about their adversary. “Nothing,” Luthor remarked.
Mattie shook her head. “No, not there. I had leapt in an attempt to reach the giant’s throat. You wouldn’t find any blood at eye level.”
Luthor craned his neck as the faint mist of rain settled over his glasses. He smiled broadly as he saw a smear of yellowish ooze affixed to the wall slightly overhead. Setting down his doctor’s bag, Luthor opened it and pulled from it an empty vial with a stopper. Pulling the cork free, he retrieved a small, metal file with which he could scrape the brickwork. Reaching high, suddenly reminded of his diminutive stature, he scraped some of the ooze into the glass jar.
“Excellent work, Miss Hawke,” Youke said, though Luthor could sense the man’s hesitation at the reminder that so seemingly delicate a woman had struck such a powerful blow.
The apothecary brought the jar to his nose and breathed deeply. He could catch whiffs of something organic, with faint undertones of something that left a metallic taste in the back of his throat.
“Is it blood?” the doctor asked.
“If so, it’s entirely unlike any blood I’ve seen before,” Luthor replied, placing the cork in the end of the vial. “We’ll have to examine it further under more proper settings.”
Luthor gestured toward the end of the alleyway, which seemed far closer and not nearly as intimidating in the daylight. “Come on, what we’re after is down here.”
The trio moved to the end of the alley. The passage widened as they moved, as the buildings forming their route were set further apart. They were shorter as well, offering less protection from the elements. Luthor paused before the manhole cover and frowned. A pool of water swirled over the top of the circular cover as water poured through the small intake holes on its surface. The water had spread, backed up like a reservoir, filling most of the end of the alley. It wasn’t the water that upset Luthor; it was that the moving liquid had obfuscated the muddy footprint that had existed the night of the murder. Now there was nothing, save the faintest traces of brown-black mud clinging for dear life to the cobblestones at their feet, nearly an inch beneath the surface of the water.
“We won’t be finding any more samples,” Luthor dryly said.
“We have one already,” Casan offered. “I took the liberty of giving it a cursory glance while I waited for you both to arrive. It’s clearly mud, but it’s mixed with blood. Although to find out what kind, I would need more time.”
“There’s no way to find out who the blood once belonged to, I presume?” Mattie asked.
The doctor shook his head. “If only our scientific capabilities allowed such identification. Sadly, though, they don’t. The best I can offer is a family or potentially a genus of the creature from which the blood came.”
“We thank you for your assistance all the same,” Luthor said. He extended his hand. “Mattie, if you will.”
She set the lanterns on a crate near the wall and pulled a long crowbar from beneath her arm, handing it to Luthor. The apothecary set it into a small fissure along the edge of the manhole cover and leaned against the metal pole with all his weight. The heavy cover shifted slightly, but not enough to be fully moved aside. With a sigh, Luthor leaned back.
“Though it pains me to ask, would you two be so kind?”
Doctor Casan stood opposite Luthor and, together, they pushed their weight against the crowbar once more. The manhole cover shifted again, this time with a sucking noise as the seal was broken around its edge. The water pooled nearby rushed into the void as they pushed the metal disk aside. Far below, beyond the range of the filtering sunlight, they could hear the water splashing into the sewers.
A metal ladder, rusted from age and exposure, was bolted against one wall. The cascading water formed a waterfall around the perimeter of the tunnel, running the length of the four-foot-wide shaft. The faint rain did little to suppress the foul odor emanating from the sewer below. The wafting scent of offal turned Luthor’s stomach, and he was forced to step aside to regain his constitution. He stole a glance toward Mattie and saw her blanched, her senses far more astute than his own. The smell must have been nearly overpowering, and she wrinkled her nose accordingly.
“Shall we?” Youke asked from his place beside the open sewer entrance.
Luthor nodded begrudgingly and walked to the lanterns, still resting on the crate. Lifting their glass bulbs one at a time, he covered the expos
ed wick with his hands as he lit the lanterns from a lighter he produced from his pocket. When the oil-soaked wicks had caught fire, he lowered the bulbs back into place, protecting the flickering lights.
“I’ll go in first,” Luthor offered. “Have one of the lanterns prepared to lower to me once I’m fully inside.”
He walked to the edge of the opening, feeling the water sloshing into his shoes and absorbing into his socks. Frowning, he placed a foot on the topmost rung and, grasping the edge of the manhole for balance, began lowering himself into the tightly fitting shaft. Though small in stature, Luthor still felt the claustrophobia of being within such a confined space. He had plenty of room on either side but immediately wondered if they had made the correct assumption about the giant’s movements. Luthor would be confined within the tunnel, and he was far smaller than the nine-foot beast. Nearly halfway down the passage, with the light still illuminating the shaft around him, Luthor knew that they had made the correct choice. A rusted nail protruded from the side of the tunnel, having worked its way free from its mooring. Slathered upon the head of the nail was the same ochre ooze they found upon the wall, from where the giant had been injured. The monster had come this way, amazingly, squeezing its bulky frame into so narrow a passage.
At the end of the shaft, Luthor’s feet sank into shin-deep water. It was bitterly cold and soaked him to his bones at once. He shivered momentarily, even as the warding runes along his spine artificially inflated his temperature to combat the cold. The tunnel was an inky black in all directions, his only connection to the world of vision coming from the narrow pinprick of light high overhead.
The current was strong and tugged at his feet. He dared not step in any direction until a light was delivered, for fear that he was standing only on a narrow precipice near the wall. A step forward very well might dump him over his head in cold water and human waste. The very thought turned his stomach.
He craned his neck toward the light high above. “It’s all right for you both to come down.”
The Golem of Solomon's Way Page 21
