In Plain Sight

He slid gingerly down from the table and straightened up. Already the pain in his side was dwindling to a persistent, throbbing ache. Limping to the little table Iggy used to write his correspondence, Alex pulled out a pad of paper and left a note promising to clean up the kitchen as soon as he was done with the Broker. He hoped Iggy wouldn’t ignore it and do it himself. Alex owed him big.

With one last look at the kitchen-turned-operating-theater, Alex made his way slowly upstairs and stripped out of the rest of his ruined clothes. On top of everything, he would need a new suit. He only had two and this one was beyond saving.

Iggy had cut Alex’s shirt away to work on his side, but his left arm was now bound in a sling. He tried moving his left arm but that caused so much pain he almost blacked out. Working carefully with his right hand, he finally got it off so he could shower, holding his left arm rigid against his chest. Alex knew that the hole where the bullet had entered would be closed by now, so he suspected that showering would be okay. The alchemical potions that closed wounds were relatively cheap.

After a frustrating shower where he had to learn to scrub himself in whole new ways, Alex dressed in his remaining suit and fished his vault key out of his ruined slacks.

“All right, Mr. Brewer,” he said, putting on his hat. “It’s time you and I had a chat.”

Since it was after midnight, he had to walk the painful three blocks to Central Park to get a cab. The cabby wasn’t surprised that someone was out at this time of night — it was New York after all — but he did pause for a moment when Alex told him their destination.

“The Brooklyn Bridge?” he said. “You ain’t thinking about jumping or anything like that, are ya?”

Alex assured him that he had no such intentions, and then just sat back and enjoyed the ride. The driver let him off right as they reached the bridge and Alex waited for him to be on his way before pulling out his rune book. Alex had crossed the bridge many times and recently he’d seen work scaffolding on one of the pillars in the middle of the span. He walked out over the bridge, along the side of the road until he reached the area, then stepped past the construction barricade and onto the scaffolding.

His heart tried to crawl up into his throat when he looked down. The platform where he stood was only about two feet wide. The moon was up and Alex could see its light reflecting on the rolling water far below.

The scaffolding ran around the tower of brick, out over the water and around the back side. Wooden ladders connected each layer of scaffolding with one above as it went up to whatever the men were working on. Fortunately, Alex didn’t care about any of those upper levels — which was good, since he could never have climbed the ladders with his left arm in a sling.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Alex made his way along the scaffold and turned the corner to the outside edge of the pylon, onto the part that faced the river. He inched his way to the center of the big tower of brick, then turned to face the wall. Pulling a piece of chalk from his pocket, Alex chalked the outline of his vault door on the weathered brick. He only drew the door down to a space about a foot up from the scaffolding, but he still had to kneel down to reach it. The shock of his knee hitting the scaffold platform shot up into his shoulder and he gasped in pain, dropping his chalk. It fell, a white streak reflecting the light of a nearly full moon, like a shooting star, before disappearing among the winking reflections of the moon on the water far below.

Saying a silent prayer just in case God did watch over idiots and children, Alex fished a second piece of chalk from his coat and finished the door. He had to hold the rune paper in place to keep the wind from blowing it away, but he got it lit. Finally, with a twist of his key, he swung his vault door open and stepped up and inside. He’d never been so glad to be indoors.

“Who’s there?” the belligerent voice of Jeremy Brewer boomed out of the darkness. This far from the core, the magelights in Alex’s vault barely glowed enough to be seen in the dark space, but Alex had prepared for that. After all, his vault could be opened anywhere there was a wall.

“Relax, Mr. Brewer,” Alex said, affecting the British accent again. “I’ll be with you in a trice.”

Alex took out his matchbook and lit the oil lamps that hung from fixtures in the walls. As they began to throw their light into the space, they illuminated the Broker. Alex had left him handcuffed to a metal chair with a bag over his head and his legs tied to the legs of the chair.