Ghost of a Chance

13 The Breakdown

Police sirens were wailing in the distance when Alex knocked on the locked door of his office.

“It’s me,” he said.

A moment later, Iggy opened the door and let him in.

“Are those sirens for you?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” Alex said.

Hannah sat on one of the beat-up couches along the wall with Leslie holding her hand. Both looked up as he came in.

“Did you find him?” Hannah said, her voice urgent.

Alex hated to dash the hope in her eyes. He wanted to say something soothing, but nothing came to mind. In fact, he had a splitting headache and he couldn’t move his left arm without searing pain.

“Yes,” he said.

“We heard gunshots,” Iggy said, looking out into the hall to make sure no one was with Alex. “And what was that flash in the alley?”

Alex moved to Leslie’s desk and put the dead man’s book, gun, keys, and compass on it.

“I got the drop on him real slick,” Alex said. “But he had some kind of force rune on his hand. Knocked me down.”

“He got away?” Hannah squeaked.

Leslie had her arm wrapped tightly around the girl’s shoulders and Alex wondered if that was the only thing keeping her up.

“No,” Alex said, his headache suddenly flaring up to a thumping inside his skull. “He… he rushed me, and I put two bullets in him.”

Leslie gave him the once-over, clearly looking for wounds.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Iggy asked, noticing that Alex was holding his left arm across his body.

“Force rune hit like a truck,” he said.

“What happened to the other fellow?” Iggy said, moving to probe Alex’s side.

“Ow!” Alex winced as Iggy pressed one of his ribs.

“I’ll say it hit hard,” the doctor said. “This rib is broken.” He pulled his chalk from his pocket. “Don’t move while I get a sling and some bone restorative.”

“But, what happened to the man who was following me?” Hannah insisted.

“He’s dead,” Alex replied. “Second shot took him right in the heart.”

“Did you stash the body in your vault?” Iggy asked, drawing a door for his own on the back wall of the office.

Alex shook his head.

“He had some kind of magic on him,” he said, struggling to remember what he felt when it activated. “It burned his body to ash in about a minute.”

Iggy paused at that.

“Was it a rune or a device?”

Alex picked up the black rune book. “He might have had one of these,” he said, tossing it to Iggy. “The symbols in there look like the one he had on his hand and the one on Mrs. Cunningham.”

Hannah touched her wrist unconsciously as Iggy paged through the book.

“Ever see anything like that?” Alex asked.

“No,” Iggy admitted, closing the book and passing it back to Alex.

“What are we going to do then?” Hannah gasped. Her voice was strained, and she looked back and forth from man to man in a near panic.

Alex didn’t know what to tell her. Without the dead man, he was back to square one with finding her husband. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that, but for some reason he couldn’t think of a better lie.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ve got the stuff from his pockets.”

Alex picked up the keys from Leslie’s desk.

“These go to something,” he said. “We can use them to… to track down… your husband.

Alex shook his head. For some reason he couldn’t remember the girl’s husband’s name. He picked up the compass. It was pointing right at Hannah.

“Where’s your pocketwatch?” he asked Iggy. “The silver one. I did ask you to bring that, didn’t I?”

“Of course you did,” Iggy said. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and passed the watch over before entering his now open vault.

Alex turned the watch over and pressed the crown, flipping the silver cover open. Inside, the guts of the watch had been removed and replaced with five stacked disks of glass. Each disk was covered with intricate runes, their geometric shapes filling the center with delicate runic script ringing the edges. As soon as Alex opened the lid, the runes began to glow, and his ears felt pressure, as if he were underwater.

Setting the watch aside, Alex checked the compass. Now that the masking rune in the watch had been activated, the compass needle pointed north. Its connection to Hannah had been broken as the masking field expanded from the watch. Fully extended, the runes in the watch would keep location magic from working in a radius of about twenty feet.

“Alex?” Hannah said.

He looked up to see her staring at her wrist. The burned symbol had faded, leaving only a pink mark where her skin had been singed.

“I’ll get you some ointment for that in a minute,” Iggy said, returning from his vault. “Pull up your shirt,” he said to Alex.

Alex moved to comply, but his side erupted in pain when he tried to raise his arm.

“You’d better do it,” he said with a groan.

“Help me with this,” Iggy said to Leslie.

Alex sat down on Leslie’s desk as she tugged his shirt-front loose and pulled it up so Iggy could slather something cold on Alex’s chest. He grunted as his muscles contracted involuntarily.

“Easy,” he said.

“Be quiet and drink this,” Iggy said, shoving a shot glass into his hand.

Alex downed the shot and nearly choked. It was alcohol of some kind but mixed with something noxious.

“Steady, lad,” Iggy said. He pressed a sheet of flash paper against the ointment on Alex’s chest, then lit it with his lighter.

Alex’s rib twanged like a guitar string as the magic infused the break.

“Damn it,” Alex grunted, his teeth clamped together. Finally the sensation eased to a dull ache. “Thanks Iggy,” he said.

Leslie rolled her eyes at him. She’d never approved of Alex calling Dr. Bell ‘Iggy.’

“What do we do now?” Hannah asked. She seemed calmer, but her voice was still strained and she sat ramrod straight, every muscle in her body seeming to strain against stillness.

“Now,” Alex said, getting up from Leslie’s desk. “I’ll use a… a rune to find… your husband.”

He pulled out his red book and began paging through it. It didn’t look like the dead man had removed any of the pages, but he couldn’t be sure.

“What am I looking for?” he asked. The book was his, but the runes inside didn’t seem right.

“Sit down,” Iggy said, suddenly appearing beside him.

“I’m all right,” Alex said.

Iggy gave him a shove and Alex fell back onto Leslie’s desk. If the doctor hadn’t reached out and grabbed him, Alex would have gone all the way over.

“Look at me,” Iggy said, his voice seeming to echo. “Focus!”

Alex forced his eyes to obey him and pointed them at Iggy. The old man held up a finger and moved it back and forth in front of him. It seemed to flicker and jump, moving like it wasn’t fully attached to Iggy’s hand.

Iggy turned and said something to Leslie and the other girl, but Alex couldn’t make out the words. Then Iggy sank toward the floor and Alex found himself looking at the ceiling.

Alex startled awake, gasping for air like a drowning man. He tried to sit up, but the second the muscles in his neck contracted, his head exploded with pain. Groaning, he lowered his head back down.

“Yes,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Let’s not do that again.”

Alex opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling of his office. The back of his waiting room couch rose up on his right, so he slowly turned his head left.

The window behind Leslie’s desk showed the pale light of evening beyond, and his secretary was nowhere to be seen. Her desk had been cleared off and a wooden case sat open, pivoting on a hinge down its center so its contents could be easily accessed. An alcohol burner sat in front of the case, under a metal stand that supported a glass beaker with a triangular base and a narrow neck. A viscous, sludgy liquid the color of mud churned and bubbled within the glass.

As he lay, watching the muddy liquid, a woman entered his field of view. She wore a knee-length blue skirt with a white blouse and a jacket that matched the skirt. She looked to be in her late sixties with white hair bound up in a bun behind her head. Her face was lined and a bit severe, but she had blue eyes that sparkled with an element of mischief.

“W-who are you?” Alex asked. His mouth felt dry and his words were a bit slurred.

The woman walked over to him and held a monocle up to her eye.

“So you’re back among the living finally,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s about time.”

“Didn’t answer…” Alex swallowed hard, but his mouth still felt like it was full of cotton. “My question,” he finished.

“My name is Dr. Andrea Kellin,” she said, squinting through the monocle. Alex remembered the name, she was the alchemist he was looking for when he met Jessica.

“Dr. Bell asked me to come have a look at you. It’s a good thing I did,” she added.

Alex felt somewhat exposed under the doctor’s gaze as she scrutinized him through the little glass. As he observed it, however, Alex noticed that instead of a proper spectacle lens, the monocle had some kind of gemstone in it.

“What’s that?” he croaked.

Dr. Kellin smiled and took the monocle away from her eye.

“You’re just like Ignatius,” she said. “He doesn’t miss a detail either. This is a Lens of Seeing.”

Alex had no idea what that meant.

“It’s actually a salt crystal,” Kellin said, holding it close enough for Alex to see it clearly. “I grew it over the course of six months in a vat filled with the philter of true sight.”

“Very patient of you,” Alex managed.

Dr. Kellin laughed. Her smile was a bit crooked, but it was warm and genuine, and Alex decided he liked her.

“The philter of true sight is one of the most difficult concoctions in alchemy,” she said. “I spent the better part of a decade learning to brew it and the batch I used to make this,” she held up the monocle, “took me two years of work.”

Alex opened his mouth, but she put her finger on his lips to silence him.

“The lens allows me to read your energy,” she explained. “I can see where you are hurt.” She touched his side where his broken rib was, and he felt a twinge even from that gentle contact. “I can also see what you need to get better.”

Alex chuckled at that. He doubted very much that even the formidable doctor could cure him of having spent the majority of his life-force.

Kellin’s face turned sour when Alex laughed.

“Yes,” she said, giving voice to Alex’s thoughts. “I can also see the terrible price you’ve paid for your magic. I hope whatever power you sought was worth it.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Alex croaked. “Can you tell how much—”

“No,” the doctor said, anticipating his question. “I only know what’s left isn’t much.”

Alex felt a cold knot of fear in his guts. He’d successfully suppressed that emotion for months by the simple trick of not thinking about it. He wouldn’t have changed what he did if he could go back, but he didn’t want to die any more than the next guy.

“Thanks anyway,” he said.

“Enough questions,” Kellin said, turning and walking to the bubbling container on Leslie’s desk. She extracted a small brown bottle with a dropper in the lid. As Alex watched, she carefully added one drop of red liquid from the dropper to the muddy sludge. Instantly it began to roil and churn like a living thing until it burst into a pale yellow light that pulsed out like burning phosphorus. A moment later the light subsided, leaving a clear, yellow liquid behind that looked, to Alex, like a beaker full of urine.

Dr. Kellin picked up the alcohol burner from under the beaker and blew out its flame. That done, she produced one of the shot glasses Alex usually kept in his desk and poured two fingers of bourbon from the bottle Leslie kept in her desk, Alex’s bottle being empty. To this, she added an equal part of the yellow liquid and swirled them together in the glass.

“I want you to sit up,” she said, walking back to the couch. “Slowly,” she cautioned.

Alex moved and the pain in his head nearly blinded him. Taking the Doctor’s advice, he slowly levered himself up into a sitting position.

“I want you to sip this,” she said, handing him the shot glass. “It’s hot.”

Alex raised it to his lips and just touched the hot liquid to his tongue. It tasted sweet and the moisture was welcome in his mouth.

“Jessica told me about you,” Kellin said as Alex took another sip. “I must confess, I’m surprised that you didn’t go back to see her yesterday as she instructed. Usually young men find the prospect of her company more than enough inducement for them to visit.”

“Someone shot me yesterday,” Alex said between sips. “It was a busy day.”

Dr. Kellin eyed him as if she wasn’t sure she believed him, then put the monocle back over her eye. She looked him up and down, twisting the monocle as if she were focusing a telescope.

“How did you stop the three that hit you in the back?” she asked.

“Shield runes.”

If Kellin was surprised by this answer she didn’t show it; she just shrugged and put the monocle away.

“If you had seen Jessica yesterday, she’d have tested your blood and seen that the mixture of the nerve tonic was off.”

“Is that why I fainted?” Alex asked.

“No, you fainted because you have a concussion.”

“What?”

“Dr. Bell said you were hit by a blast of magical force that broke your rib,” she said. “It hit your head just as hard. That gave you a concussion.”

“Is that serious?”

“Very,” Kellin said. “Untreated it can cause brain injury and even death.”

“What do I do for that?”

“Death?” Dr. Kellin smirked. “Nothing. To treat the concussion,” she tapped the shot glass of yellow liquid, “keep drinking your medicine.”

As Alex continued to sip the hot liquid, Dr. Kellin went back to her portable chemistry set on Leslie’s desk. She picked up the silver flask that Jessica had given him and opened the top. Taking several bottles from her case, she added drops and splashes to the flask, then capped it again and shook it vigorously.

“I can’t say it will improve the taste,” she said, picking Alex’s coat up off the foot of the couch and slipping the flask back into the inside pocket. “But this will stop the tonic from keeping you up at night.”

Alex finished the shot glass and Dr. Kellin took it. He put his feet on the floor in preparation to stand up, but the doctor put her hand on his forehead.

“Stay there a while,” she said. “You shouldn’t stand until you’ve had a bit more rest. Give your brain a chance to heal.”

Alex nodded and leaned against the back of the couch.

“Where is everyone?” he asked. The last thing he remembered, Iggy, Leslie, and Hannah had still been there.

“Dr. Bell thought that Mrs. Cunningham would be safer at your secretary’s apartment, so he escorted them over there. I expect him back at any moment.”

Alex closed his eyes and laid his head back on the back of the couch. He could hear Dr. Kellin packing up her alchemy equipment and it briefly occurred to him to help, but he didn’t feel like he could lift his head again, much less stand.

A few minutes later a key scraped in the lock and the door opened. Alex looked up to see Iggy enter.

“Excellent,” he said, seeing Alex. “I see Andrea’s got you patched up.”

“Mmm,” Alex mumbled noncommittally.

“He’ll be all right in a few more minutes,” Dr. Kellin said. “Will you see me out?”

“Of course, my dear,” Iggy said.

Alex opened his eyes again and watched Iggy pick up the doctor’s heavy case and offer her his arm.

“Make sure you go see Jessica tomorrow,” she admonished Alex as they passed. “I want her to check you over.”

“Didn’t you just fix the tonic?”

She grinned and winked at him.

“I want her to have the experience,” she said. “It will be good for her. Now don’t forget.”

“No, ma’am,” Alex promised.

Iggy led her out into the hall and Alex could hear the sounds of their shoes on the stairs fade away. A few minutes later, Iggy returned, shutting and locking the door behind him.

“You had me worried, lad,” he said, offering Alex a hand up off the couch. “You’ve gotten into a bad habit of doing that.”

Alex eased himself up off the couch with Iggy’s help and took a deep breath. His rib hurt when he did that, but not as much as before.

“Are you sure Leslie and Hannah are going to be okay?” he asked.

“Of course,” Iggy said. “I gave them my silver pocketwatch so no one can trace Hannah there, and I gave Leslie that .38 you took off the dead man.” He put a reassuring hand on Alex’s shoulder. “They’ll be fine.”

Alex wasn’t sure about Hannah, but he could well believe that Leslie would be fine now that she had a gun.

“We need to trace those keys,” Alex said, remembering what he was doing before he fainted.

Iggy nodded and produced one of Alex’s New York Maps from the first of the three file cabinets on the wall. Alex picked up his coat and found his rune book back in the inside pocket, opposite the flask. He quickly navigated to one of the new finding runes he’d written and tore it out.

“In my office,” he said as Iggy began laying the map out on Leslie’s desk. Alex still wasn’t sure about the finding rune and he wanted to take advantage of the stabilizing rune under his office carpet.

A few moments later, Alex struck the metal match from his desk lighter and ignited the finding rune. It flashed, throwing the key ring off and leaving the orange, glowing rune in its place.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alex watched the rune and the compass needle spin in lazy circles without managing to latch onto the location of the lock that went with the keys.

“Maybe there are too many keys,” Iggy suggested.

Alex picked up the ring and took off all but one.

“I hope this is the right one,” he said, tearing out another rune and resetting the key ring on top of it.

This time when he lit the flash paper, the ring flew further as a result of having less weight, but that was the only substantive difference. The rune and the compass behaved exactly as before.

“Wherever this goes to must be shielded,” Iggy said.

Alex looked at him with disbelieving eyes.

“Everything seems to be shielded these days,” he said. “Or maybe they’re underground, or under water.”

“I doubt very much that the lock that these keys open is underwater,” Iggy said, rolling his eyes. “But you’re right about something blocking the rune.”

“What am I going to tell Hannah?”

“Tell her you’re still working on it,” Iggy said.

“What if I don’t find him in time?” Alex didn’t want to admit it, but this fear had been growing in him every day since he promised Hannah that he’d find Leroy. Her husband couldn’t last forever; sooner or later whoever took him would be done with whatever they were doing, and when that happened, Leroy Cunningham was a dead man.

Iggy took the black book with the strange runes out of his jacket pocket.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “You need some sleep and I need time to study this. With any luck, things will be clearer in the morning.”

Alex sighed. So far the only luck he’d had on this case was bad luck and it didn’t look like that was going to change. The thought of sleep, however, made him instantly tired. And, if he was honest with himself, he really had no idea what to do next.