Ghost of a Chance

8 The Alchemist

It was ten to six when Alex left Empire Tower with the crate of glassware and fifty dollars in his pocket. Barton had paid him for his rune and given him a day’s fee plus cab money. Even if he caught a cab right now, Alex knew he’d never get to the alchemist’s place before six.

Fifty dollars would pay a week of Leslie’s salary and he owed her that.

That and more.

So Alex decided to save the cab fare and catch a crawler. If he was lucky, he’d only be ten minutes late. Maybe Ms. Kellin would still be there.

The crawler dropped him two blocks from the alchemist’s address so by the time he walked there, it was almost six-thirty. The shop of Iggy’s alchemist friend was in an upscale, Inner-Ring house on the north side of Central Park. A sign in the yard bore the alchemy symbol, a stylized bottle with green liquid in it, and the name Andrea Kellin. The house was a neat, two story brick number with a wide porch in front and a dark red front door with matching shingles. A tall painted fence stretched out from each side of the house, closing off the back yard, and a neat walkway ran from the sidewalk to the front door. Below Andrea’s name on the yard sign was the word open done in neon. As Alex walked up, the sign was off.

With the shop in a house, it usually meant that the proprietor lived on the premises. Since he’d come this far, Alex decided to try his luck and mounted the porch to the red door. A heavy brass knocker hung in the center of the door and Alex shifted the crate into his left arm so he could knock.

The sound of the knocker boomed and echoes bounced back from inside the house. Alex waited a minute, then tried again but nothing stirred inside.

With a sigh, Alex turned and descended the stairs back to the little walk. As he reached it, the creak of a hinge came from his left and he turned to find the gate to the back yard ajar. A woman stood there with a cigarette in her hand. She looked to be in her thirties, with a broad face, rounded cheeks and dimples. Her makeup was sparse, but expertly applied, with liner adding an exotic look to her green eyes, and lipstick that matched the deep red of her hair. A long, Chinese robe was draped over her shoulders, white with dragons done in red that ended at her knees revealing bare legs below and house slippers. A green scarf encircled her neck, bound with a silver clasp. Her lips were turned up in a sly smile and one of her eyebrows was raised as she looked at Alex.

“We’re closed,” she said, her voice sultry but not deep. “What’s the matter, mister?” she asked when Alex didn’t reply. “Can’t you read?”

“Andrea Kellin?” Alex asked, making a mental note to chide Iggy for keeping this delicious creature to himself.

The smile widened and became even more mocking.

“That’s Dr. Kellin,” she said. “And no, she’s gone out for the evening. I’m Ms. O’Neil, Dr. Kellin’s apprentice.”

Alex raised his own eyebrow at that.

“Aren’t you a bit old to be an apprentice?” he asked.

If Miss. O’Neil took offense at his jibe, she gave no sign.

“Protégé then,” she said.

“If the shop’s closed, then what are you doing here, Ms. O’Neil?”

“Jessica,” she said. “And why I’m here is none of your business.” She took a drag and blew out a cloud of smoke. “So, what is your business?”

It took Alex a moment to follow what she meant, then he held up the crate.

“I’ve got a delivery from Dr. Ignatius Bell.”

Jessica’s eyebrow shot up again and she considered Alex for a long moment.

“Dr. Bell usually brings his deliveries himself,” she said. “Who are you?”

Alex took off his hat with his free hand.

“Alex Lockerby,” he said. “I’m Dr. Bell’s protégé.”

Jessica’s smile got a bit wider at that.

“You’re a doctor?”

“Runewright,” Alex said. “And a private detective.”

She looked impressed, but Alex wasn’t entirely sure it was genuine. The fact that he couldn’t read this woman intrigued him.

“I didn’t know Dr. Bell was a detective too,” she said.

“He used to consult with Scotland Yard during his navy days.”

She considered that while she puffed on her cigarette, then she smiled with a mischievous look.

“I’m not sure I believe you, Alex.” She took a step back and began to close the gate. “I think you’d better come back when Dr. Kellin is here.”

“I have a message from Dr. Bell,” Alex said, putting his hat back on his head and pulling Iggy’s note from his pocket. “See for yourself.”

Jessica O’Neil paused, then opened the gate wide enough to reach out and take the paper. She read the note at the bottom with its long Latin formula, then scrutinized Alex again. Finally, she pushed open the gate and stepped back.

“Thank you,” Alex said, stepping through into the back yard.

Jessica closed the gate and bolted it before leading Alex along the side of the house. As she walked, her hips swayed, making the dragons on her kimono rise and fall.

Alex reminded himself that he was a trained detective, which was why he noticed that.

The path from the gate was paved with flat stones and sloped downward so that by the time they reached the rear of the house, the basement was level with the ground. In the back yard, the peaked roof of a shed looked like it had been just laid on the ground. Alex managed to tear his gaze away from Jessica’s hypnotic hips long enough to notice a ramp cut out of the ground that led down to the underground building.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Fermentation shed,” Jessica replied. “Lots of elixirs and brews have to age before they reach full potency.”

They rounded the corner of the house and she led him to a simple door in the back wall of the basement. At this level, the door led straight into the lower floor. A long bank of windows ran along the entire back and Alex could see an alchemist’s laboratory beyond.

“This way,” Jessica said, opening the back door and passing inside.

When Alex followed her, he found himself in a small mud room with doors leading off into the main lab, which had some kind of isolated workstation. Wooden tables stood everywhere, lined with stoppered vials, glassware, rubber tubing, and gas burners. Many of the setups were working, with jars of colored liquids steeping over a low flame and others boiling off into distillation apparatus. Every table had a clipboard full of writing hanging from it and the air was full of steam and the acrid smell of chemicals.

“Put that down on the workbench,” Jessica said, indicating a mostly empty table. As Alex moved to comply, she crossed the room and opened a door on the far wall. Alex could see a bed, nightstand, and an oriental screen through the opening. This seemed to be where Jessica lived.

“I’ll have to mix up that elixir Dr. Bell wants,” she said. “Excuse me for a moment. I can’t go around mixing potions like this. It’s not decent.”

She stepped behind the screen and a moment later the kimono was tossed over the top. A few minutes later, Jessica emerged from the screen wearing a simple green blouse, a black skirt with a wide leather belt and dark flats.

“That’s better,” she said, returning to the lab and shutting the door to her room.

Alex waited for her, leaning against the workbench.

“Weren’t you worried I might come in there?” he asked with a grin. “I mean, you don’t even know me.”

Jessica chuckled at that, deliberately slinking over to where he stood.

“You like my nail polish?” she wondered, showing him her fingers. Each nail had a dark red coat on it that reminded Alex of the color of the shop door. He hadn’t noticed before, but it wasn’t the same shade as her lipstick.

“It’s different,” he said.

“That’s because it’s made up of a contact poison,” she said, touching the front of his shirt and dragging the nails down and over his waistcoat. “One scratch and you’ll be paralyzed in two seconds. You suffocate after that.”

“You’d better be careful with that,” Alex said, smiling down at her upturned face. “If you get an itch, you’re likely to kill yourself.”

Jessica smiled back at him and shook her head, dragging her fingers back up to his shoulder. Despite her warning about the danger her nails posed, Alex didn’t want her to stop.

“Working with alchemical solutions is a dangerous business,” she said. “I drink a general antigen every day when I wake up, so I can scratch all I want.”

“Convenient,” Alex admitted. He looked around at the lab with its tables and glass. “What is all this?”

Jessica stepped back from him and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. She sighed as she looked around the room.

“Alchemy is a harsh mistress, Alex,” she said. “Basic potions and elixirs can be brewed up in a few hours, but the powerful stuff takes longer.”

“How long?”

She walked over to one corner where a long table full of bottles, vats, tubes, condensers, and burners held liquid that was bubbling happily. At one end, clear liquid went in, was boiled off, then the steam was condensed into a different colored liquid. By the time it reached the end, a tiny drop of glowing teal potion fell out into a small bottle.

“This one takes a year and a day to brew,” Jessica said. “Every eight hours it has to be checked and specific numbers of drops of specific agents have to be added along the way from those bottles.” She pointed to a row of brown bottles in a small box.

“You mean you have to watch this stuff every day?” Alex was dedicated to his work, but this seemed a bit excessive.

She chuckled and nodded.

“Alchemy isn’t like writing runes,” she said. “You can’t just do it whenever you have some spare time, it’s a round-the-clock job.”

“Which is why you’re here now?” Alex said. “Dr. Kellin has the day shift, and you get swing.”

“Yes,” she said. “Each of us tends the lab for ten hours every day.”

“When do you have time for your lessons?”

“In the morning,” Jessica said. “Now, let me see your hands.”

Alex held out his right hand and Jessica took it. Her hands were smooth and warm as she expertly turned his hands this way and that. The movements reminded him of Iggy’s examination.

“Are you a doctor too?” he asked.

“No,” Jessica said. “But Andrea teaches me what I need to know.”

She let go of his hand and opened a nearby cabinet, taking out a small, wooden stick with red paint on the end.

“More poison?” he asked, and she laughed.

“Open your mouth.”

He hesitated, and she grinned at him.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked, barely able to keep from laughing.

Alex opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out at her. She used the opportunity to jam the stick in his mouth and maneuver it under his tongue before pulling it back out again.

“What was that for?” he demanded as she compared the paint on the end to a chart on the wall. Alex could easily see that the color on the stick had changed.

“Dr. Bell’s formula isn’t quite right,” Jessica said, adding a drop of something from a sealed bottle to the stick and checking it again.

“Uh,” Alex said, not sure what to make of that. He would trust Iggy’s skill with his life, and had. “Are you sure Andrea shouldn’t look at that?”

Jessica raised an eyebrow at that, giving Alex a scathing look.

“If you had to make some basic runes, would you wait for Dr. Bell to do it for you?”

“No,” Alex admitted. “Sorry.”

“You should be,” Jessica said. “I know what I’m doing.”

She put on a white apron, then removed a glass bottle with a rubber stopper from a shelf. Taking it to a large tank with a spigot at its bottom, she filled it a little over halfway.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Alchemical base,” Jessica said. “All elixirs use it as a foundation; now quit asking questions or I’ll never get done.”

She went to a shelf with large jars of various liquids and began adding carefully measured amounts to the base until the bottle glowed a faint yellow color.

“This will do the trick,” she said, setting it on the workbench beside Alex. “You need to take a swig of this when you get up in the morning, one at noon, and one around five. Don’t take any after that or it will keep you up all night.”

Alex picked up the bottle and looked at it.

“I’m supposed to carry this thing around with me?”

Jessica rolled her eyes.

“Men,” she said, going to a closet and rummaging around for a moment. When she emerged, she held a metal hip flask. “What would any of you do if you didn’t have a woman around to fix your problems?”

She took a small metal funnel from a rack of tools on the wall and filled the flask.

“There you go, cowboy,” she said, tucking the flask into the inside pocket of his coat. “Just like the old west.”

She looked up at him and winked, and Alex felt a sudden urge to simply lean down and kiss her.

Must be the fumes in here, he lied to himself.

“Thanks, doll,” he said, putting his hat back on as Jessica moved to one of the brewing tables. “I appreciate you’re doing this.”

“I’m sure you can show yourself out,” Jessica said, leaning against the table with her sardonic smile in place. “You need to come back tomorrow, though so I can check on you.”

Alex raised an eyebrow and Jessica smirked.

“To make sure the mix is right,” she explained with exaggerated patience.

“Sure,” Alex said, picking up the bottle with the rest of the yellow elixir. “I’ll probably be able to come by around noon.”

Jessica shook her head.

“You need to come after seven, so I can see you,” she said.

“Can’t wait to get me back?” Alex said.

She chuckled at that and shook her head.

“It needs to be at least twelve hours after you take the first dose tomorrow morning,” she said, picking up the clipboard for the elixir brewing on the table. “You can count to twelve,” she looked back over her shoulder at him. “Right?”

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow then.”

It was dark by the time Alex got home. Iggy chided him for missing the appointed, seven o’clock dinner hour, but had set aside a plate of poached salmon for him, under a cover to keep it warm. As he ate, Alex told Iggy about his meeting with Andrew Barton, his missing electric traction motor, and the third failure of a finding rune.

“Are you sure my magic isn’t getting weaker?” Alex asked over a mouthful of fish. He tried to sound nonchalant, but the thought still scared him. “Maybe whatever is happening is affecting my mind and that’s why the rune can’t make the link.”

He thought Iggy would rush to tell him he was off base, but his mentor just sat sipping his tea and thinking.

“No,” he said at last. “You haven’t been having any more problems you aren’t telling me about, though? Forgetting things or getting confused?”

“Not any more than usual,” Alex said.

“You sleeping all right?”

Alex picked up his dishes and moved to the sink.

“It’s been harder lately,” he admitted.

“Maybe you’re tired,” Iggy said.

“You ever have to work tired in the navy?”

Iggy chuckled at that.

“All the time,” he said. “Still, maybe you should turn in early tonight. A good night’s sleep wouldn’t go amiss in any case.”

Alex didn’t want to admit Iggy was right, but the moment the old man suggested bed, he felt bone weary. It was if the very idea made him tired.

“All right.” he agreed, filling the sink with soapy water. “I’ll go as soon as I’m done here.”

Iggy slapped him on the shoulder.

“Good lad.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by the door bell. Iggy went to answer the door, but he was back in a moment.

“Lieutenant Callahan is back,” he said. “I left him in the library.”

Alex dried his hands and found the big lieutenant standing in front of the bookcase to the left of the fireplace. He was scanning titles on the books and Alex watched as his eyes slid over a green leather-bound book and the thin red volume next to it. Both books had powerful runes on them that caused people to overlook them. The green book possessed them because Alex had hollowed it out to keep his emergency stash of money, and the red book because it was the most powerful and dangerous rune book ever written — the Archimedean Monograph.

“Is this a social call, Lieutenant?” Alex asked as he entered the room, “or has our ghost struck again?”

Callahan turned from the shelf and he didn’t look happy.

“That was some stunt you pulled at Central Office,” he said.

Alex smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

“I figure it was that or let Detweiler throw me in the cooler,” he said.

“I don’t give a damn if you spend the night in the tank,” Callahan growled. “Don’t you ever use my name to get yourself out of a jam, you hear me? I have to work with Detweiler and now his beef with you is splashin’ on me.”

Alex held up his hand in a gesture of peace. He knew when he pitted Detweiler against Callahan’s reputation earlier that the Lieutenant wouldn’t be happy about it. Still, from his perspective it was better than testing the limits of how long Detweiler could hold him without charging him with a crime.

“I read you, Lieutenant,” Alex said.

Callahan considered that for a moment, then nodded his acceptance.

“Is that why you came by?” Alex asked.

“No,” Callahan growled. “Thanks to your little stunt, Detweiler’s been beefing to Captain Rooney. Now you’re officially persona-non-grata at the Central Office. Rooney ordered me to come down here and tell you to stay the hell away from this case.”

Alex shrugged at that.

“That’s okay, Callahan,” he said. “Detweiler may not be quick on the uptake but he’s just got to find out how your victims are connected. I’d just be in the way.”

Callahan gave Alex a long hard look but didn’t say anything.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I thought you were smarter than that, Lockerby,” Callahan said. “Sure, Detweiler’s going to get off the widow as a suspect soon, but how many more people are going to die before he gets on the right track? I didn’t become a cop for the glamour, scribbler, I did it to protect people.”

Alex hadn’t considered that. It wasn’t his job to keep maniacs from running amok in the streets, after all. People hired him, and he did what they paid him for. If he did his job right, no one usually got killed.

“Talk to the Captain if you feel that way about it,” Alex said. “Fifth Division is the best he’s got and he knows it. Have him give the ghost case to you.”

“I can’t,” Callahan growled. “Detweiler’s wife is Rooney’s favorite niece. The Captain gives him all the breaks.”

Alex nodded, starting to see Callahan’s problem.

“And while Detweiler is stumbling around in the dark, the ghost is free to go on killing.”

Callahan nodded.

“So, what can I do about it?” Alex asked. “According to the Captain, I’m off the case.”

“The Captain can’t stop you from helping David Watson’s widow.”

“She won’t be a suspect much longer,” Alex said. “She probably won’t want to pay me once the police are officially looking for her husband’s killer.”

“Persuade her,” Callahan said.

Alex sighed. This ghost killer business had already ruined his link to the police and made him look ridiculous in the tabloids. If he pursued it and didn’t catch the ghost, he’d have egg on his face in front of the whole city. The tabloids would make him a laughing stock.

On the other hand, if he got the guy, he’d be a hero. The tabloids would print his name in big letters and make him out to be the best detective since Sherlock Holmes. That would bring in business.

“All right, Lieutenant,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll go see Anne Watson tomorrow and get going, assuming I can find her.”

“She’s staying at the Waldorf,” Callahan said.

That explained why Leslie hadn’t been able to find Anne; the Waldorf was in the Core, and very expensive. Alex told Leslie to look at Inner-Ring hotels, figuring Anne wouldn’t want to spend the money on one in the Core. Apparently he was wrong.

“Well, at least she can afford my fee,” Alex said without humor. “She can get me access to her place, but what about the other crime scenes? Can you get me any of the files?”

Callahan scoffed at that.

“I’m risking my job the longer I stand here,” he growled, putting his hat back on. “You’re supposed to be some hot-shot detective — so detect.”

He moved to the vestibule and opened the door, looking back at Alex.

“It goes without saying that if you find anything, I’m your first phone call.”

“Scout’s honor, Lieutenant,” Alex said. He didn’t bother to mention that he’d never been a scout.