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.