Alex felt for them as he passed, ignoring their entreaties for money. He had a roof over his head and enough to stay fed, but he couldn’t even buy his own cigarettes. He chuckled humorlessly at the thought that he was only about a week away from joining these ragged souls.
When Alex reached Hannah’s building, he checked the address written in his notebook. The building wasn’t very far into the outer ring, but no outer ring building would have an elevator, so of course, Hannah’s apartment number was sixty-four.
A few minutes later, Alex reached the sixth-floor landing, sweating in the sweltering August heat. He pushed for a moment to catch his breath, then moved down to door sixty-four and knocked.
No sound came from inside, so he knocked again.
This time, a door across the hall opened and a middle-aged woman with a plump face, black hair, and too much perfume peered out.
“Do you know if Mrs. Cunningham is home?” Alex asked, putting on his friendly smile.
“You get out of here,” the woman hissed, closing her door so that only her eyes were visible. “I’ll call the cops this time.”
Alex held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
“Easy there,” he said. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m a private detective. Mrs. Cunningham hired me to look for her husband.”
“Well she don’t want to talk to anybody,” the woman growled. “Not after last time. You better get lost.”
With that, she slammed the door and Alex could see her setting the bolt on the other side.
He wasn’t sure what had happened, but it wasn’t nothing. Concerned, he pounded on the door again.
“Hannah,” he called. “It’s me, Alex.”
“Go away,” a ragged voice came from inside. Alex barely recognized it as Hannah’s. She was hoarse and clearly scared.
“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me,” Alex said, firmly. “Now open up before I get the superintendent.”
A long pause followed and then he heard the bolt on the door being drawn back and the lock clicked. The door opened and Hannah stood inside, huddled as if she were cold. Alex could see that she had a black eye and a bruise on her cheek.
“Please,” she gasped. “They said they’d kill him if I talked to anyone.”
The apartment beyond the door was disheveled, with a broken chair leaning against the dining table and a trash can overflowing with shards of broken dishware. Alex pushed the door open and Hannah shuffled back.
“Please,” she said, holding out her arm. “They’ll know.”
Alex took her by the wrist and gently turned her arm so he could see the underside. A symbol had been burned there, as if Hannah had been branded with an iron. The symbol was rectangular with a rounded square on top of three curled shapes below. Inside the square was a cartoonish pair of eyes in a rounded head, with what looked like a stone on top. The stone had one large hole in the center and three to each side.
It reminded Alex of a television screen with an octopus staring out of it, its legs dangling down and a clay ocarina on its head.
He didn’t have to break out his ghostlight to tell it was magical; he could feel the power in the symbol when he ran his thumb over it. Hannah winced when he did and Alex noticed that the skin around the mark was still pink. Whoever had done this to her and busted up her place had done it recently.
“Someone told you to stop looking for Leroy?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
“They barged in yesterday,” she said. “They told me they’d killed you. They even showed me your red book.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing the tears out onto he cheeks.
“They said if I talked to anyone else, they’d kill Leroy.”
“They told you if you kept quiet, that they’d let him go?” Alex guessed.
She nodded.
“Then they put this paper on my arm and it burned me,” she wept. “They said if I talked to anyone, they’d know. That this,” she nodded at the symbol. “That they’d use this to kill me.”
Alex looked closely at the octopus symbol. From Hannah’s description, it worked just like a rune. There were three schools of runes: the Geometric school, which Alex used; the Kanji school that used Oriental characters; and the Arabic school which favored artistic, flowing script.
“I’ve never seen this kind of rune,” Alex said. “But I know runes. This isn’t complex enough to kill someone. They did this to keep you quiet.”
It was mostly true. Alex suspected the rune could very easily be a tracking rune, so whoever they had watching Hannah’s place could follow her if she gave them the slip. He leaned back out into the hall and checked up and down the corridor. So far as he could tell, they were alone. Whoever was watching, and he was sure now that someone was, they must be outside.
Alex stepped back into Hannah’s apartment and shut the door behind him, pausing to set the bolt.
“Hannah,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I know you’re scared, but I need you to listen to me, okay?”
She took a deep shuddering breath and nodded.
“Whoever did this is trying to scare you, to keep you quiet while they do whatever it is they took Leroy to do. Whoever they are, they’re not going to just let your husband go once they’re done. He knows who they are by now — he’s been with them almost a week.”
Hannah gasped, and her trembling got worse. It was clear she was moments away from simply breaking down.
“There’s good news, though,” he went on. “Doing this,” he took hold of her wrist and turned her arm to reveal the rune. “This means they’ve got someone watching you, making sure you don’t leave this building.”
“How is that good news?” she wanted to know, her eyes darting to the door to make double sure Alex had bolted it.
“It’s good news because it gives us a way to find Leroy, but you’ll have to be very brave for it to work.”
To her credit, Hannah stopped shaking and stood up straight.
“What do I have to do?” she asked with only a hint of controlled fear in her voice.
“You need to do exactly what they’re afraid you’ll do,” Alex said. “I want you to go down to the station and catch a northbound crawler. Go straight to my office. Stay at the station when you change crawlers and don’t stop along the way, understand?”
She nodded, her eyes a bit wild.
“But how will this help find Leroy?”
“Because,” Alex said with reassuring smile. “When you leave here, whoever is watching is going to follow you. They’re going to want to know where you’re going.”
Hannah shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Don’t worry about that,” Alex said. “He won’t bother you until he knows where you’re going. I’m going to go out the back and get a cab. Once I see that you’re safely on the crawler, I’ll go back to my office. I’ll find a good place to wait and watch for you. When you get there, I’ll be able to see who’s tailing you.”
Hannah thought about this and nodded. It looked like she was trying to convince herself rather than simply agreeing.
Alex dug a folded vault rune and his lump of chalk out of his pocket. He quickly drew a door on the wall of Hannah’s apartment and opened his vault. He still hadn’t made a backup rune book but there wasn’t time for that now. He needed his 1911 and his knuckle duster.
Once he had slipped the brass knuckles into his jacket pocket and put on his shoulder holster, Alex closed the vault. Next he used Hannah’s phone to call Iggy. He explained about the strange rune and asked the doctor to meet Hannah at his office, and to bring his silver pocketwatch. His preparations complete, Alex hung up the phone and turned back to Hannah.