In Plain Sight

This time he felt nothing.

That could only mean one thing. It meant that Thomas was dead.

Alex kept his hand on the rune and reached out with his senses nonetheless. He’d never received a response that took longer than a few seconds, but it didn’t hurt to try. After a full minute, he gave up.

“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” he said out loud.

Casting a finding rune used a tremendous amount of energy and Alex felt weariness pushing down on him. He dragged himself up into a chair and sat staring at Thomas’ little blue book. It had the runewright emblem stamped into the cover and it was stained dark from repeated handling.

Has to be his Lore book, he thought.

If Evelyn was right, something in Thomas’ book might have gotten him killed. Alex hadn’t been paid to find a killer, but turning the book over to the police would be a waste of time. Only a fellow runewright would know what to look for in a book full of runes.

Alex picked it up and opened it. He smiled as he saw the first, most basic runes in the front. Each page was covered with annotations and drawings. It reminded him very much of his father’s lore book that he’d inherited. Flipping through the pages revealed Thomas’ training. As the pages progressed, his notes became more specific and more detailed as he learned to draw more utility from a single rune. All of it was familiar to Alex — he had these runes and many more in his own lore book.

When he reached the end, however, everything changed. The last dozen pages were filled with six of the most complex runes Alex had ever seen. One looked very much like his own finding rune, but heavily modified. Another resembled a life rune, magic that would allow a runewright to power his constructs with his own life force. Another looked familiar, but Alex couldn’t place it. The other three were alien to him. He’d have to study them intensely to figure out what they were for.

He whistled as he paged back and forth, looking at these last pages. They were orders of magnitude more complex than anything else in Thomas’ book. They were certainly something that might have cost him his life. New runes were a rare thing and, depending on what these particular runes did, they could be worth a fortune.

“Well, somebody wanted something here,” Alex said, looking down at the mess. It was likely that whoever tossed Thomas’ place didn’t find what they were looking for. Only a desperate searcher cuts open the couch.

Alex suddenly felt very self-conscious with the book. He’d been in Thomas’ apartment for hours. What if a neighbor had been paid to watch it? He could very well find himself running into a welcoming committee out in the hall.

He quickly put away his gear, except for his chalk, and then drew a door on one of the walls. Activating a rune from his book, Alex opened his vault. He placed the book inside along with his kit, then slipped a rune-covered pair of brass knuckles into the outside pocket of his jacket.

It never hurt to be prepared.

Satisfied, Alex closed the door, and scrubbed the chalk outline from the wall with his handkerchief.

He needn’t have bothered. No one lurked in the hall or the stairwell waiting to pounce. There wasn’t anyone strange at the crawler station either, let alone as a crawler passenger, while Alex rode back to the brownstone.

* * *

It was well after six when Alex got home, and he wanted nothing more than to tramp upstairs to his bed.

“In here,” Iggy’s voice came from the kitchen.

Alex sighed and turned away from the stairs and his inviting bedroom. He expected to find Iggy working his culinary magic over a hot stove, but was surprised to see the balding man sitting at the table with nothing but a cup of tea and a lit pipe. He looked old. Alex knew that Iggy was in his seventies, but he’d never seen the man look old. Iggy was usually bursting with energy and enthusiasm for life. Now he appeared drained, hollow even.

“What is it?” Alex asked. “This is about Father Harry, I can see it in your face. What’s happened?”

Iggy’s brown eyes moved up to meet Alex’s.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked. “I don’t recommend it.”

Alex sat down across the table, all traces of his weariness evaporating.

“Tell me.” he insisted.

“Doctor Halverson is the man at the University who studies diseases,” Iggy began. “I’ve been up with him since last night at his laboratory. Thanks to those blood samples I collected, Halverson was able to grow samples of the virus and stain them.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Alex asked. “I thought the whole point of staining was that you could see whatever made people sick and then stop it.”

“Yes and no, in this case.” Iggy nodded. He puffed on his pipe as if searching for the right words to continue. “We got a good look at the little devils, clear as spring well water.”

“And?”

“And there’s nothing natural about that damn disease,” Iggy said, shivering as if taken by a chill. “It’s too perfect. It was designed. Engineered by someone.”