In Plain Sight Read online

  In Plain Sight

  Arcane Casebook #1

  Dan Willis

  Contents

  1. The Job

  2. The Stiff

  3. The Missionary

  4. The Mentor

  5. The Incident

  6. The Client

  7. The Brother

  8. The Ultimatum

  9. The Visitors

  10. The Sorceress

  11. The List

  12. The Jeweler

  13. The Doctor

  14. The Restaurateur

  15. The Workshop

  16. The Broker

  17. The Connection

  18. The Apartment

  19. The Meeting

  20. The Conspirator

  21. The Spell

  22. The Walk

  23. The Book

  24. The Fall

  25. The Landing

  26. The Monograph

  Also by Dan Willis

  About the Author

  Praise for Dan Willis

  Digital Edition – 2018

  This version copyright © 2018 by Dan Willis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  Edited by Stephanie Osborn

  Cover by Mihaela Voicu

  Published by

  Dan Willis

  Spanish Fork, Utah.

  1

  The Job

  The sign on the frosted glass panel read Lockerby Investigations in gold painted letters. The image of a hexagon with an inverted triangle inside it and an inkwell inside that occupied the bottom right corner of the glass, indicating that runewright services were also offered within. Alexander Lockerby turned the handle smartly and walked in. His office occupied a two-room space on the fourth floor of a modest building in Manhattan’s mid-ring. Close enough to Empire Tower to have uninterrupted power, but far enough away to keep the rent low. He’d moved into these offices in the spring of 1931 and now, two years later, it felt like home. It wasn’t much, but it was his.

  Beyond the door with its frosted glass panel was his waiting room, with two sofas, a row of filing cabinets, and a second door marked Private. A large window dominated the back wall, illuminating a paper-strewn desk. Atop the desk, long legs crossed and the receiver of a telephone pressed to her ear, was Leslie Tompkins, Alex’s secretary.

  Leslie was in her early forties but you’d never guess it to look at her. She had long, toned legs, a slim waist, generous bust, and strawberry blonde hair that hung about her shoulders in loose rings. She’d moved to New York from Iowa where she’d been a beauty queen, married a successful salesman, then lost him in the Great War. After that, Leslie’s life became a series of jobs that she never held for more than a year. Everywhere she worked, they treated her like an ornament or a wanton. No one could look past her beautiful exterior to see the mind inside.

  No one but Alex.

  She’d come to work for him two years ago and had absolutely revolutionized his business. People just liked her, and that translated into work. Better still, Leslie was sharp. With a little training, she became a better interrogator than Alex, able to worm information out of virtually anyone over a simple cup of coffee.

  “Okay, Dan,” she said into the mouthpiece. “I’ll send him over as soon as he gets in.” She replaced the receiver in the cradle and returned the phone to her desk.

  Alex shut the door and Leslie looked up, flashing a million-dollar smile framed by deep red lipstick. She hopped off the desk and stood as Alex approached. Leslie always stood perfectly straight, a result of the beauty queen training, no doubt. With her shoulders back and a pair of high heels, Leslie turned heads wherever she went, and with the top two buttons of her blouse undone, she could make it hard to keep eye contact...if she wanted.

  “Detective Pak wants you to look at a body,” she said, tearing a paper containing a mid-ring address from a notepad.

  Daniel Pak was a detective with the New York Central office of the city Police. Danny and Alex had been friends ever since Alex helped him crack the case that made him a detective. Now Danny brought Alex in as a consultant whenever he could get away with it.

  “Well,” Alex said, looking at the address. “If Danny wants me to have a look, it must be particularly gruesome. I’ll get my kit.”

  Leslie made a face but didn’t move out of his way. “And how did the other case go?” she asked. Her tone clearly indicated that she expected Alex to have a specific answer and that she wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t.

  “You mean the case of the missing wedding ring?” he asked, a disgusted look crawling across his own face. Leslie’s face grew cross.

  “It’s work,” she said. “And if we don’t get more of it real soon, you’re going to have to limit our eating to once a day.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “That depends,” Leslie said. “Did your Finding Rune work?”

  “Nope,” Alex admitted. He sat on the desk corner where Leslie had been before and dropped his hat onto the desk. Leslie squeezed her eyes shut and put a hand on her forehead.

  “How is that even possible?” she asked, cool anger in her voice. “’Your Finding Rune is better than anyone else’s in the city.” Her hazel eyes flashed as she locked them on his. “There’s nothing lost you can’t find with that rune! Hell, if you put your mind to it, you could probably find my virginity.”

  She took a breath to go on, but Alex put up a hand to silence her.

  “The rune didn’t work because I didn’t have to cast it,” he said. Leslie’s hand went back to her forehead and she grimaced as if in physical pain.

  “What happened?” she said with a sigh.

  “When I got there, Mrs. Lola Davis showed me a picture of the missing ring,” Alex explained. “Just as I was getting ready to make with the magic, her husband Burt shows up, and he’s not happy to see me.”

  Leslie shook her head.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “He lost it in a poker game.”

  That was why Alex worked so well with Leslie; nothing got by her. If she had any magical talent, Alex figured he’d be working for her, sooner or later. Deep down, he wondered if he wasn’t already.

  “Close,” he said. “When I shook his hand he winced, so I slapped him on the back. You know, friendly like.”

  “And?” Leslie said, clearly impatient for this story to be over.

  “And he damn near passed out. Somebody worked him over good. A pro who knew not to leave bruises on his face or arms.”

  “What did his wife think happened?”

  “He told her he fell down the stairs,” Alex said, shrugging. “She bought it, too.”

  “It was awful nice of those stairs not to mess up his face,” Leslie pointed out.

  “Give the girl a break,” Alex said, offering Leslie a cigarette. “Anyway, I had the story out of Burt in two seconds. He’d been running a tab with his bookie.”

  “Slow ponies?” Leslie said, taking the cigarette between her ruby lips and lighting it with the touch-tip on the desk.

  “Worse. He’s a Washington Senators fan.”

  Leslie dropped the metal match back in the lighter and smirked.

  “Ouch,” she said. She’d put the match away before Alex could light his own cigarette, so he leaned close and pressed the tip of his cigarette to Lesli
e’s. Her perfume washed over him, lavender and amber oil. He was suddenly very aware of her, and he pulled away. It would have been easy to fall for her, despite her being almost ten years his senior, and that would be bad for business.

  “Anyway, Burt hocked the ring to pay off the bookie,” Alex finished the story.

  “How did the wife take it?” Leslie asked. “More importantly, did you get paid?”

  “Wife took it bad,” Alex said. “It was her grandmother’s ring.”

  “That bastard.” Leslie looked shocked.

  “Anyway, he’d cleaned them out, even the cash she had stashed away.”

  Leslie groaned and put her head in her hand again.

  “So no money?” She looked up sharply when Alex crinkled two crisp bills, a twenty and a five, under her nose. “How?” she gasped, snatching the money and holding it up to the light.

  “Lola didn’t want to stay with her husband anymore, so I took her over to her mother’s place. She lives in the inner-ring, right up against the core.”

  “Ooh,” Leslie purred. “Fancy.”

  “Apparently mother dear had been trying to convince Lola that Burt was a bum for years. She was overjoyed to have her back. Paid my fee and the cab fare.”

  Leslie smiled and nodded at Alex.

  “You did good, kid,” she said. “I’m so happy that I’m not even going to ask you where you got the cigarettes.”

  “Oh, those were Burt’s,” Alex said with a grin. She took a puff, then held out the cigarette at arm’s length.

  “Thanks, Burt,” she said with mock sincerity. “Now, let’s take care of this.” Circling the desk, she opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a heavy steel box, dropping it on the table with a clank. The top of the box was plain, with the exception of an engraving depicting an elaborate geometric shape.

  “It’s me,” she said, leaning close to the lid. “Open up.”

  The rune on the lid glowed with a purple light and an audible click sounded from inside. Alex watched as the rune’s light faded. The edges of the engraving were already getting fuzzy and indistinct. Runes were a temporary form of magic, after all. Most disappeared immediately after being used. A talented runewright could make them last longer by using more expensive materials when making the rune, and even engraving it into something. Eventually, though, the rune would lose its magic and disappear, needing to be rewritten by the runewright.

  This was what made runewrights the poor cousins of magic. Sorcerers could cast real spells, laying powerful and near-permanent enchantments on whatever they chose. They were rare, of course. Only big cities would have a sorcerer, and most were required by law to serve their governments. America, however, gave sorcerers the same rights as anyone else, so there were more sorcerers in the US than anywhere else. New York had six, each soaring high above the city in their flying castles. If Alex had been born a sorcerer instead of a runewright, he’d never have wanted for cash.

  The other branch of magic was alchemy. Alchemists brewed their magic slowly into potions and elixirs. Sorcerers and runewrights mostly dealt with enchantments, making objects magical. Alchemists dealt with people, with their bodies and health. A good alchemist always had work, customers with ready money who needed remedies for everything from gout to baldness. Like runewrights, alchemists kept their recipes secret, passing them from master to apprentice. That meant that some alchemists were quacks and frauds, possessing only a few weak recipes, while others could brew miracle cures in a bottle.

  This was the same reason Alex’s Finding Rune was so much better than anyone else’s. His book of runes had come to him from his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. When his father died, Alex’s training had been picked up by a British Doctor, Ignatius Bell. Between his family book and the doctor’s training, Alex knew some very good runes.

  The lid of the strongbox popped open and Leslie inserted the bills in a small stack of cash, in proper numerical order of course. She counted them twice, then made a note of the amount on a pad in the bottom of the box.

  “That’s rent and my salary for this month,” she said with a satisfied grin.

  “Wait. What about me?” Alex protested with only the trace of a grin. Leslie picked up the paper that Alex had set aside on her desk and handed it back to him.

  “You have a date with the Police and a dead guy. Do a good job and maybe you can buy your own cigarettes.”

  Alex took the paper and sighed. The police didn’t like consultants, and they especially didn’t like paying them. They almost never allowed him to cast an expensive rune and he had to give them a hefty discount on his hourly rate if he wanted to work with them at all. Leslie scowled at him when he looked up from the paper, daring him to complain, so he put on a smile.

  “It’s better than looking for lost wedding rings, I suppose,” he said. He turned toward his office, but Leslie put her hand on his shoulder in a firm grip.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” she said, her hard shell melting away into one of her rare, genuine smiles. “We’ll catch a break one of these days.”

  “I know,” Alex said, and sighed. “One big case would do it. Get my name in the papers and then real clients would start piling up.”

  “So many that we’ll have to start turning them away,” Leslie agreed, her smile somehow managing to show more teeth. Then her face became serious. “It’ll happen,” she said. “I believe in you.”

  “Thanks, doll.” Alex smiled back at her. “And thanks for keeping this place in the black. Even if it is with lost dog jobs.”

  Her face slid back into the sardonic smile he knew so well. The mask that hid the real her from the world. “Work is work,” she said.

  “Work is work,” he agreed.

  Alex made his way to his office while Leslie returned the strong box to its drawer.

  * * *

  The inner office was just a smaller version of the outer. Alex’s desk sat across from the door, facing it, with a large window behind. A row of filing cabinets stood against the right wall, leaving the opposite wall bare, and two overstuffed chairs sat facing the desk. The chalk outline of a door, complete with a keyhole, adorned the blank wall, exactly in the center.

  Alex pulled a pasteboard notebook with a red cover from his jacket pocket and began flipping through the pages. The paper was thin and fine, like tissue paper, so he had to be careful. Each page had a rune carefully inscribed on it. Some were simple, only a few lines drawn in pencil. Other were intricate, delicate even, their lines glistening in inks infused with gold, silver, or powdered gemstones. Some had taken Alex a few minutes, while others took days of careful work. All had been infused with magic, waiting patiently for him to release it.

  He found the rune he wanted, a triangle with a circle on each point, drawn in silver ink, and tore it from the book. Alex unceremoniously licked the back of the paper and stuck it on the wall in the middle of the chalk door. He touched the paper with the glowing tip of his cigarette and it erupted in flame, vanishing almost instantly. The rune hung in the air, gleaming silver now that the paper was gone, then vanished as well, melting into the wall. As soon as it was gone, a door of polished metal appeared where the chalk outline had been. No hinges were visible, just a brass plate with a keyhole in its exact center.

  Alex produced an ornate steel skeleton key from a ring that also held his apartment key and the one to his office. Sliding it in the keyhole, he turned it smartly and pushed the door open. There wasn’t anything particularly special beyond Alex’s wall, just the neighboring office. But beyond the door was a good-sized room with workbenches, cabinets, shelves, and all manner of glassware and equipment. This was Alex’s vault, an extra-dimensional workspace he could summon whenever and wherever he needed it. The rune to make a vault wasn’t that complex but a runewright could only have one vault at a time. If he made a new one, the old one and all its contents would vanish. Such was the nature of magic.

  Alex flipped a switch on the wall and magelights throughout
the space warmed up to a bright light.

  Leaving the door open, Alex crossed to a large secretary cabinet. He could shut and bar the vault door if he wanted, but if it were locked from the outside, he’d be trapped in the vault forever. Only the runewright who created a vault could open it from the outside.

  He pulled the secretary cabinet’s foldaway table down, then opened the upper doors. Inside were a row of three leather bags resembling a doctor’s valise, and rows and rows of stoppered bottles above them, containing every imaginable substance. Below the bags were pigeonholes filled with stacks of varying papers, and drawers that held pens and pencils. These were the tools of his trade.

  Without a pause, Alex pulled down a battered, brown valise. The top opened down the middle and had a hinge so it would fold out ninety degrees. Under one side, his oculus and breathing mask were held in place by elastic straps. The other side held smaller versions of the stoppered bottles, just not so many. In the bottom of the case were his multi-lamp, pencil box, a tube with a selection of papers, a few other odds and ends, and a Colt 1911 semi-automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. He stripped off his jacket and slung the holster in place, settling the weight of the gun just under his left arm, and checked the magazine.

  Full.

  He put on his jacket again, making sure it hung so that the bulge underneath his left arm could not be seen, then picked up the bag and exited the vault.