Alex smiled and nodded. For a moment, he was back in the mission school with the other neighborhood kids.
“First Timothy,” Alex said. “Chapter five, verse … twenty?”
“Eighteen,” Father Harry corrected. His craggy face wore a look of pride but there was sadness in his eyes.
“I’ll come by on Saturday,” Alex said. “Around noon.” His business would suffer for it, but he didn’t care. If the Father needed him, he would be there. It was as simple as that.
“Thank you, Alex,” he said. “Now get going. I’ve got work to do.”
Alex cast another Minor Barrier Rune and walked out into the rain, past the line of poor bedraggled men and women waiting for a simple meal. He made a mental note to tell Leslie about his Saturday appointment first thing tomorrow morning. She wouldn’t like it, but Alex didn’t care. If it hadn’t been for Father Harry, he might be standing in that line, soaked to the bone and waiting for the one decent meal he’d have all day.
It was late and Alex felt the strain of the last hours he spent scribing and casting runes. Magic taxed the body and mind as much as any physical work. He lit another of Burt’s cigarettes, then turned up his collar and headed for home in the flickering glow of the streetlights.
4
The Mentor
Alex caught a westbound crawler, getting off a few blocks short of the park, then took another southbound one until he saw The Lunch Box. He thought about stopping in to tell Max, the owner, about Mary, but decided against it. She’d do all right without his help and Max could go on for hours about any subject. All Alex wanted right now was a cold beer and a warm fire.
He lived in a four-story brownstone just six blocks from Central Park. The house belonged to his mentor, a retired British doctor, one Ignatius Bell, late of His Majesty’s Navy. Bell had retired to New York to live with his son, Kingsley, who already lived there, but before Ignatius’ boat arrived, Kingsley succumbed to pneumonia and died. Bell arrived to nothing more than a grave marker, the brownstone, and enough money to live comfortably for the remaining years of his life.
The British navy used runewrights as their doctors. As Bell put it, Any fool can shove a healing draught down someone’s throat, but only a runewright can cast a Mending Rune and properly fix a broken leg.
Doctor Bell was full of sayings like that.
After living in New York in his son’s home for a few months, Bell decided he needed to pass his Lore on. Kingsley had been a banker and Bell had no other children, so he’d searched for a suitable apprentice. Eventually he found Alex hawking what simple runes he knew on a street corner. Now Alex lived with Bell and learned from him. It was Bell who convinced Alex to become a detective. Your skills are too great to peddle Restoration Runes in a shop or Barrier Runes on the street corner when it rains, he had said. You’ve a keen mind, use it.
Learning the Lore that Bell had collected over the years was hard. Some of his Runes were more complex than anything Alex had ever seen, certainly more than anything in his father’s meager Lore Book. As hard as they were, however, Bell’s lessons on how to be a detective were worse. He’d started Alex on the stories of Sherlock Holmes, showing him how the skills of observation and deduction could be employed to determine things like motive, and to reconstruct the events of a crime from the evidence left behind.
From fictional crimes, they graduated to real ones. As a Doctor with Rune Lore, Bell had offered his skill to the city medical examiner. Most Doctors these days weren’t runewrights, at least in America, so the M.E. was grateful for the help. With access to real cases and real case files, Bell taught Alex how to look for evidence, how to spot errors in witness testimony, and how to use his Lore to find things no cop ever could.
After two grueling years of that, Bell had pronounced Alex ready, and Lockerby Investigations had been born. At first, Bell went with him on every case, watching and correcting when necessary. After a year of that, Bell stopped going along, and only heard a report from Alex each night over dinner. These days Bell hardly asked at all. Instead Alex found himself eager to share the particulars of his cases with the old doctor. Lockerby Investigations had been open five years now, and the nightly report had become a fixed routine.
Alex checked his watch as he mounted the stairs to the door. Bell liked to retire early and it was almost nine. It was possible he’d already gone to bed. Checking his watch served a dual purpose. Powerful runes covered the door to the brownstone. Invisible to the naked eye, Alex could still feel them as he drew closer. Inside his watch, runes etched around the inside of the cover and behind the crystal began to glow. As he touched the door, he felt the magical protections that kept it shut roll away from the presence of the watch. He reached out and opened the door, stepping quickly through, then shut it gently behind him.
He didn’t know what runes guarded the door, nor which ones shielded the house itself. Bell cast those and maintained them. They were a part of his Lore Book that he had yet to share with Alex. All Alex really knew about those runes was that the beams in the attic were covered with them, and that without his watch to serve as a key, the wooden front door with its stained glass window would withstand the force of a battering ram.
It gave Alex a chill just thinking about it.
Someday Bell would teach him those runes. That would be an interesting day.
The front door led to an entryway with pegs for hats and coats, an umbrella stand, and a bench with storage for boots and galoshes. An inner glass door separated the entry from the tiny foyer and Alex tried to be quiet as he opened it and stepped inside. The interior of the brownstone had been done over in an art deco style with wainscoting and molding bearing polygonal shapes and angular designs. For a runewright of the geometric style, it was entirely appropriate.
Alex turned right, into the library. An enormous hearth occupied the far wall, with marble columns and a massive cherry-wood mantle. To either side, bookshelves reached up to the fifteen-foot ceiling. The bookcases had been ordered by Kingsley, before his death, and they matched the molding and trim. Now the cases were stuffed with books of all shapes and descriptions. Most were works on medicine and rune lore, but Bell had an entire section dedicated to classical literature, and even a chest where he kept select pulp fiction books that tickled his fancy. The only furniture in the room were two overstuffed arm chairs that faced the fire, each with an ottoman in front of it. A small, round occasional table stood between them, supporting a mahogany cigar box, two ash trays, and a stained glass lamp to provide light for reading after dark.
A modest coal fire had been laid in the iron grate of the hearth, filling the room with invigorating warmth, and pungent cigar smoke swirled around the furthest chair.
“Here you are at last, dear boy,” Doctor Ignatius Bell said, shutting the flimsy paperback book he’d been reading. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send out a search party.”
Alex laughed and sat down in the chair next to Bell, setting his hat on the ottoman.
“Not to worry, Iggy,” Alex said with a grin. “I had to make a stop at the Mission.” Alex had dubbed Bell “Iggy” during their first year together and the name just stuck. Bell didn’t particularly like it, but he seemed to take it as a sign of affection from Alex, so he tolerated it.
“Yes, your secretary informed me thus when I called.”
There was a note of irritation in Iggy’s voice and Alex flinched.
“I should have called,” he admitted, taking out another of Burt’s cigarettes and lighting it. “Did I ruin dinner?”