“I will,” Alex said, without bothering to wonder if he even had the time. For a woman like Jessica, he’d make the time.
“Now give me a minute,” she said. “And then I’ll check your nerve tonic.”
She turned to the experiment and began taking measurements and adjusting mixtures. At every step, she noted down what she had done in the book from the shelf, then checked off some things on the clipboard.
“So,” she said, pulling the door shut once she was done and re-locking it. “You shook off four bullets the other day?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be poisoned?” Alex asked, pointing at the doorknob.
“If you turn it, a needle will pop out and stick your palm,” Jessica said, her voice easy as if what she’d said were the most normal thing in the world. “I’m careful, but I forget every now and again. It stings like the dickens, but, as you might remember, since I told you last time you were here, I’m immune.”
Alex had forgotten about Jessica and the poison paint job on her nails. He glanced down and found them the same off-red color they had been before. Maybe the color was a result of the toxin.
“Now,” Jessica said, leading him over to the workbench by the windows at the front of the room. “Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve. I need some blood.”
Alex’s face soured at that and she laughed at him.
“What’s the matter, tough guy,” she said, actually leaning against his chest. “You aren’t afraid of a little needle, are you?”
Alex had to take a breath before answering. Her presence that close was about as intoxicating as David Watson’s single-malt.
“In my experience, it’s never a little needle,” he said, only half-joking.
She smiled and patted his face.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her lips drawn up in an adorable pout. “If you’re a good boy, I’ll get you a lollipop.”
Alex took off his jacket and laid it on the table before rolling up his shirt sleeve. Jessica motioned him onto a wooden stool, then put down a syringe with a needle that looked about the diameter of a swizzle stick. He knew his mind must be exaggerating it, but he decided he didn’t want to find out. As she tied a rubber hose around his arm, he resolved to look the other way until she was done.
“Okay,” she said, a few pain-filled moments later. “All done. Hold this on your arm.”
She gave him a cotton ball and he pressed it over the puncture wound in the crook of his arm. Jessica moved to the next workbench down and squirted some blood from the syringe into a glass dish. She added some chemicals from various bottles, then heated the dish over a burner for a few seconds.
“I think I like Dr. Kellin’s method better,” Alex said, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped.
“She cheats,” Jessica said. “This would be a lot easier with a Lens of Seeing, though.”
“Can’t you just make your own?”
Jessica snorted at that.
“Dr. Kellin says I’m not ready yet.” She swirled a toothpick into the blood mixture in the dish. “So, I do things the old-fashioned way.”
Jessica pulled the toothpick out and Alex noticed that the end had turned a lime green color. She held it up to a chart with various colors on it and nodded.
“I see the problem,” she said at last. “You’ve got the wrong kind of blood.”
Alex had no idea what to make of that.
“Well, it’s the blood I came with,” he said, a little defensively.
Jessica flashed him her sardonic grin.
“I mean the wrong kind for the tonic,” she explained. “You have O-negative blood. That’s fairly rare.”
“Is that bad?”
Jessica shook her head, sending her red hair flying.
“Usually it’s a very good thing. Your blood can be used on someone with any blood type. It means you’re a universal donor. The problem is that while this tonic is fine for most people, it has a strange reaction with you O-negative types.”
Alex reached inside his folded jacket and pulled out the little flask Jessica had given him days earlier.
“So is this going to work now that Dr. Kellin adjusted it?”
“Yes,” Jessica said, moving back to him and examining the needle mark on his arm. The bleeding had indeed stopped so she pulled a Band Aid from the pocket of her apron and stuck it over the wound. When she was done, she leaned down and kissed it.
Alex could feel the silky touch of her lips even after she’d raised her head back up.
“There you go,” she said, looking into his eyes. “All better.”
That urge to kiss her was back and Alex wondered if he should bother to fight it. It turned out not to matter since his second of hesitation was enough for Jessica to step back and move away toward another workbench.
Alex rolled his sleeve back down and buttoned it, then slipped on his jacket. He had just resolved to go kiss her anyway, despite the moment having passed, when one of the alarm clocks on a workbench in the back began ringing. The sound echoed off the stone floor, filing the space with its cacophony.
He looked at Jessica and for the briefest moment; she looked annoyed. Her sardonic mask came back a moment later and she turned to him.
“You’d better go,” she said. “This will take a while.”
Alex really hated that alarm clock.
“Saturday then?” he verified.
“Seven sharp,” she said, sauntering toward the back of the lab, her hips swaying. “Don’t be late.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alex said, picking up his hat.
18
The Rune Book
Alex opened his battered pocketwatch and the runes inside flared to life. He couldn’t see the magic, of course, but he felt the faint tingling sensation of their power as they activated. It was comforting. He’d spent most of the week wondering if his magic was waning, if the sacrifice he’d made to save the city was stealing his very identity.
He knew what Iggy would say, what he had said, that magic was a part of him, that it didn’t fade with age. Still, people went deaf and blind with age, wasn’t magic just another sense?
He was a good detective, of course, but the world already had good detectives. It was his magic, the things he could do and see that others couldn’t, that set him apart. He’d never have found Danny’s missing trucks without it. Would anyone need another detective if he lost what made him unique?
The feel of the runes in his watch was like a musical chord, ringing in his mind. He smiled as he detected a slight sourness to the sound, as if one of the notes was not quite on pitch. Experience told him that one of the runes etched into the watch’s back cover was beginning to fade. He’d have to redo it soon if he wanted to continue being able to open his front door.
Taking hold of the handle, he turned it, smiling at the memory of Jessica’s poison-snared door handle. Iggy’s runes on the front door and entryway were a far better and less deadly deterrent. No one without the proper rune combination could enter, and only a runewright could activate the runes in Alex’s watch. Only once the runes were active would the constructs on the brownstone release the door.
Alex turned the handle and pushed. Then the smile ran away from his face.
The door didn’t move.
He checked the runes, certain that they were working, and tried again with the same result.
He felt his heartbeat spike. Normally he’d have been sure that the slight sour note of the weakening rune wouldn’t affect the properties of the pocketwatch, but what if he was fooling himself?