“I need all you fellas who had lunch in the last hour to leave the room,” he said, then turned to Danny. “Be sure to take good notes — this will only last about ten minutes. When you monkey with time there are…repercussions. As soon as the spell breaks, the body will rapidly decompose.”
“Why do I have to leave?” one of the uniforms grumbled.
“Because I don’t want to have to clean your puke off my jacket,” Alex said.
“Is it that bad?” Danny asked.
Alex nodded, then licked the back of the page and stuck it to the dead man’s chest — what was left of it. Taking a match from his pocket, he lit it and touched the paper. The rune exploded with light, burning red and gold and white. It pulsed once, then twice, then faster and faster before it detonated into a shower of sparks like a skyrocket. When the embers touched the body, it began to roil and churn.
Alex was tempted to look away at this point — he could take blood and death, but the sight of a dead man’s guts wiggling like they were live snakes turned his stomach. He kept his eyes fixed on the corpse, however, knowing that Callahan would never let him live it down if he didn’t.
Tissue foamed up and the blackness seemed to contract, leaving pink skin behind. In the head, white blobs became eyes in the skull and teeth leapt up from the ruin of the chair and popped themselves back into the jaw. Muscle and then skin crawled across the face, running like wax until at last the body was whole again.
If whole was the right word.
“Good God,” Danny said as the remains of Jerry Pemberton were finally revealed. Deep purple bruises covered most of his body and his eyes were both swollen shut. Whoever had worked him over had given him one hell of a beating.
“Get pictures,” Callahan said, breaking the spell that held everyone enthralled. He looked pale; most of them did, but he kept his focus. All business.
Officers moved in with cameras and began snapping away while Danny scribbled as fast as he could on his pad.
While they worked, Alex went over to a little writing table in the back of the room. There were lots of fingerprints on it when he scanned it earlier with the oculus. Without any suspects, fingerprints weren’t very useful to the police, but that wasn’t what interested him. Inside the desk’s single drawer was a blank pad of paper. He hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but something about it bothered him. He wanted a closer look.
Taking the pad across to the coffee table, Alex removed a vial of black powder from his kit. He tore a very simple rune out of his book and stuck it to the pad, then carefully poured a few grains of the black powder onto the rune. Striking a match from the book in his pocket, he lit the rune paper and it vanished in a puff that catapulted the black powder up into the air. After a long moment, it began to settle on the notepad, first in random, haphazard dots, but gradually forming lines. In a few seconds the lines revealed the impressions left on the paper from whatever had been written on the missing sheet above. It was a crudely done drawing of a building, showing the points of entry and what looked like locked doors. The words Secure Area had been written in a shaky hand on one side.
“Danny,” he said, motioning for the detective to join him. “I think I know what this is all about,” he said in a low voice. He showed the pad to Danny, and, after a moment, the detective began to nod.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “I think Alex has got something here.”
Callahan made a noise in his throat that clearly indicated that he doubted that, but crossed to where they stood.
“It looks like someone wanted to rob the customs warehouse,” Danny said pointing to the drawing.
“Where’d you get this?” the Lieutenant asked Alex.
“I used a rune to reveal what Pemberton wrote on the page just above this one before it was torn off.”
“What makes you think this is the warehouse where he works?” Callahan said. “It could be a map of his mom’s kitchen and this is where she hides the brownies.”
“Lieutenant!” Danny protested, but Callahan waived him silent.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I want to be sure you’re right before we go off half-cocked. How do we know Pemberton drew this for the people that killed him?”
“Look at his fingernails,” Alex said, walking back over to the body. Three of the nails on his right hand had been torn off. Danny looked confused but Callahan sighed and nodded his head.
“They stopped when he gave them what they wanted,” he said. “Otherwise they would have torn off all his fingernails.”
“Whoever killed Jerry Pemberton wanted to know how to get into the customs warehouse at the aerodrome,” Alex said. “If Pemberton was killed last night, there’s a good chance your killers will show up there tonight.”
“Unless they’ve already been and gone,” Callahan said.
“No,” Danny said, shaking his head. “If they went straight to the warehouse, there wouldn’t be any reason to cover up Pemberton’s murder. By the time we got here and figured it out, they’d already be gone.”
“He’s right, Lieutenant,” Alex said. “All you have to do is lie in wait and Pemberton’s murderers will come straight to you.”
“Pretty neat,” he said. “All right, finish up here, detective. I’ll go over to the precinct and put together a squad to stake out the warehouse.” He put on his overcoat and hat and headed for the door. “Nice job, scribbler,” he said to Alex. “Maybe you aren’t useless after all.”
Danny grinned at Alex as the lieutenant left. “I think he’s beginning to like you,” he said with a smirk.
“As long as he pays me,” Alex said with a shrug. He was used to not being liked by cops as well as his fellow runewrights for being a private detective.
“I’ll make sure they cut you a check,” Danny said. “It’ll probably take a couple days though.”
“No problem,” Alex said. “I know you’re good for it.”
He felt a magical tremor hit him, just a tiny brush against his senses, but he felt it.
“Are your boys about done with that corpse?” he asked. “Cause your ten minutes are almost up.”
“What happens then?”
“It crumbles into dust,” Alex said.
Danny made sure the photographers had taken all the pictures they wanted, then had everyone step back. Alex felt the pulses of the decaying magic coming faster and faster until, at last, the earthly remains of Jerry Pemberton disintegrated into a pile of fine, white ash.
“You need me for anything else?” Alex asked, packing away his oculus and the multi-lamp. Danny looked around and shook his head.
“Thanks,” he said. “You really helped us out.”
“Just keep your head down when they bring these bastards in.” Alex patted him on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t put it past them to be packing.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
Alex put on his hat and picked up his bag. The pad with the drawing of the warehouse was on the coffee table so he picked it up too.
“Say hi to Amy for me,” he said, passing the notepad to detective Pak. Danny’s face grew stern but he wore a smile with it.
“You stay away from my sister,” he said as Alex stepped out into the hall.
Alex was in such a good mood that he took the stairs rather than taking the self-service elevator. Working with the police could be tense and uncomfortable, but it paid well. Leslie would be thrilled. For the first time in half a year they’d be ahead on the bills instead of desperately behind, racing to catch up. It felt good.
Something bothered him though — a thought in the back of his mind. Something to do with the notepad he handed to Danny. He thought about it for a moment, but it continued to elude him. Shrugging, he decided not to let doubts ruin his good mood, so he pushed the thought from his mind and whistled as he made his way back out onto the rain-swept street.