In Plain Sight

“Now,” Iggy said, moving around the table to examine Alex’s left side. “Let’s have a look at your wound.” He touched the jagged hole and Alex flinched. “Easy now,” he said. He probed the wound with his fingers and Alex sucked air in a long hiss.

“I’ll give you something for the pain,” Iggy said.

“No,” Alex gasped. “I’ve got an appointment with the Broker. I can’t afford to sleep.”

“And I know that,” Iggy said, handing him a vial with a liquid somewhere between red and pink. “Bottoms up, lad.”

Alex drank that one and immediately felt his hands go numb. The sensation seemed to crawl up his extremities, starting at his fingers and toes and moving inward. In a moment he couldn’t feel or move. His brain seemed to go fuzzy as well. He knew that should bother him, that he needed to be alert, but he just didn’t seem to care.

Iggy moved in and out of his vision, as he lay looking up at the light fixture on the ceiling. It was old and fancy, like most of the house, made of iron with a complex pattern of vines and ivy clinging to a lattice. The magelights inside were made of some kind of quartz with a yellow tint that always made the kitchen seem sunny, even in the middle of the night.

He saw a flash of light as Iggy used a rune, and then another flash sometime later. Then he felt nothing.

“Rink iss,” a voice that sounded remarkably like Iggy’s came from somewhere very far away. Suddenly his perspective changed as he was pulled up into a sitting position.

“Drink this,” he heard more clearly as the end of a glass vial was shoved into his mouth. Reflexively, Alex gulped down the liquid and the world suddenly came crashing down on him. He doubled over, swearing, as the left side of his body felt like someone was twisting it in a vice.

“Getting shot hurt less than this,” he croaked.

Iggy put his hand on Alex’s right shoulder and helped to ease him back up.

“Just breathe,” he said. “The reason it hurts so much is because the bullet bounced off a rib and hit another. You’re very lucky.”

“Funny,” Alex said, his breathing so shallow that it sounded like a panting dog. “I don’t feel lucky.”

Iggy laughed. “Give it a few minutes,” he said. “And you’re lucky because that bullet nicked your spleen. Once I moved it, you started bleeding for real. It was touch and go there for a few minutes.”

The pain started to dull and Alex found he could take regular breaths again.

“I guess I am lucky then,” he said. “Lucky I know you. Thanks, old man.”

Iggy chuckled. “You won’t be good as new for a week or two,” he said. “But as long as you weren’t planning to beat the truth out of the Broker, you should be able to question him just fine.” He pressed a rune paper into Alex’s hands. “It’s the last disguise rune I gave you,” he said. “I modified it so you’ll look like you did before. Should help with your interrogation. I assume you’ve got something interesting planned?”

Alex chuckled and instantly regretted it. “You know that pulp book of yours that’s just a rip off of The Pit and the Pendulum?” he asked Iggy.

“I rather like that book,” Iggy said with an indignant look.

“Well it gave me an idea for getting the truth out of the Broker without laying a finger on him.”

Iggy’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know you read my books,” he said with a thinly veiled look of amusement.

“You said I’d be good as new in a week or two?” Alex said, changing the subject. “Why can’t American doctors heal people that fast?”

“Oh, they can,” Iggy said with a smile. “If you have the money. I used two major restoration runes on you along with tincture of purity, oil of regrowth, and a tonic of binding. You’d pay two thousand dollars for a doctor to give you that kind of treatment in an American hospital.”

“Two…” Alex couldn’t even finish naming the amount. “How am I going to pay you back for that?”

“There’s no need, lad,” he said. Iggy patted him on his good shoulder. “I’ve had most of that stuff since my navy days. I’m just glad it was still good all these years later.” Iggy walked away chuckling.

“You’re kidding about that stuff being expired, right?” Alex called after him, but Iggy just kept on going, right up the stairs to his room. Alex thought about going after him and getting a better answer, but one look around the room stopped him. Bloody medical instruments littered the counter by the stove where the still-steaming pot of water sat, cooling. Equally bloody towels littered the tile floor and the canvas on the table was wet with alchemical serums and blood. It had been close to nine when he’d arrived at the brownstone and the clock on the wall now showed just before eleven.

Alex had been on the table for almost two hours. As bad as that was for him, Iggy was in his seventies. The physical and mental strain of saving Alex’s life couldn’t have been easy to bear.