Alex didn’t know, and he said so.
“I wanted to use the overturned chair as a starting point for a finding rune,” he said.
“If you can use a finding rune to track Beaumont’s movements,” Danny said, an incredulous look on his face, “why didn’t you do that yesterday?”
“The success of a finding rune depends on how much information the caster has,” Iggy said in the manner of a university professor lecturing to a class.
“The magic needs something to latch onto,” Alex continued. “I knew where Beaumont lived and what he did for a living, but I didn’t suspect he’d gone anywhere but the mission. A finding rune wouldn’t have shown me anything yesterday.”
“So,” Danny said. “The fact that you believe he went somewhere is going to make the rune work?”
“No,” Alex said, crouching down to stare at the floor. There was a faint outline of chalk where the plague jar’s contents had spilled, but the area of floor inside it was scratched and clouded. “We need something that will physically tie Beaumont to wherever he went.”
“That’s why you needed his shoe,” Danny said, putting it together. “Because wherever he went, his shoe was there too.”
“Very good, detective,” Iggy said. “Now all we have to do is tie that shoe to the place where Beaumont began his journey and the rune should lead us to where he went.”
“Didn’t you say he started this trip right here in this apartment?” Agent Meyers asked.
“Yes,” Alex said, moving a short distance from the chalk outline toward the door. “But the more precisely I can tie the shoe to Beaumont’s flight, the more accurately the finding rune can follow his trail.”
“So, what are you looking for?” Meyers asked, still standing in the doorway. Danny laughed and stepped forward to a spot about two feet from where Alex was scrutinizing the floor.
“This,” he said, pointing to a spot where the finish on the floor was scratched and discolored. “Beaumont stepped in some of the liquid from the jar on his way out the door, remember? It left a footprint here.”
“I remember,” Alex said, squinting at the spot. “How can you tell it’s there?”
“Because it’s been sanded,” Danny said. “Look at the spot where the jar spilled. The FBI didn’t want to risk leaving any residue for future tenants to discover.”
“How did I miss that?” Alex wondered, moving over to the spot. “Thanks.”
“Why not break out your ghostlight and be sure?” Iggy suggested. Alex showed him a sheepish grin.
“I’m out of fuel for the ghostlight burner,” he said. “I used it up on that business with Evelyn Rockwell.”
“You didn’t tell me what happened with that,” Iggy reminded him.
“Later.” Alex didn’t want to revive those events just now, and he pushed the memory of Evelyn’s tortured scream out of his mind.
He took out a piece of chalk and began drawing a complex, geometric figure on the floor. It didn’t have to be made of special inks or even particularly straight as it was just a physical link between the rune he’d drawn in his rune book and the floor.
“I think this is going a bit beyond not touching anything,” Agent Meyers said, concern in his voice.
“Don’t worry,” Iggy said, pulling out his folded handkerchief. “We’ll clean up after ourselves.”
When Alex finished, he dropped the chalk back into his pocket and then tore a finding rune out of his book. Placing the shoe in the exact center of the chalked figure, Alex tucked the rune into the shoe and then lit it. As the paper vanished, the energy of the rune filled his mind.
“Follow the path of Charles Beaumont,” he said, willing the magic into form.
A moment later the shoe began to shake. It spun around in a full circle, then snapped to a position with the toe pointing out the still-open door.
“It’s found it,” Danny said with a grin.
“I’ll be,” Meyers said, eyebrows flying upward.
Alex picked up the shoe while Danny scrubbed the chalk figure off the floor with Iggy’s handkerchief. It tugged in his grip, pulling him inexorably toward the door.
“Thank you, Agent Meyers,” he said, leading everyone back out into the hall. “You’ve been a great help.”
Alex followed the pull of the shoe along the hall to the stairs, then down to the street. The shoe led him around the building and into the outer ring, moving between two slum tenements.
“He turned right.”
“The mission is to the left,” Iggy said. “I guess you were correct.”
“Should I get the car?” Danny asked.
“No,” Alex said, moving off down the dark street. “It can’t have been far or he would never have made it all the way back to the mission.”
The tenements gave way to seedy shops, liquor stores, and the kind of nightclubs that were fronts for illegal gambling and prostitution. Alex didn’t have to worry about anyone bothering them. The organized criminal element kept the muggers and the bums out and away from their profit-making enterprises. Not to mention that on these kind of streets, people made an effort not to notice who their fellow travelers were.
Beyond the businesses, a row of shabby homes and apartments that were little more than flop houses sprang up. The shoe tugged Alex in the direction of a three-story apartment of the rent-by-the-week variety. It had a glass door that was so encrusted with dirt and grime that the lobby beyond was just a blur of faint light. When Alex pulled open the door, he found the dimness of the light had more to do with the single, naked bulb hanging from a wire than the thickness of the grime on the glass.
A shabbily dressed woman, whose stained blouse was opened low enough to give a good view of her bosom, looked up from a gossip magazine. When she saw Alex, she put on a smile that was more of a leer and leaned forward, showing even more of her breasts.
“What can I do for you, honey?” she said in a voice that indicated renting rooms wasn’t the only service she offered.
“You can tell us if anyone’s checked out of this dump in the last five days,” Danny said, flashing his badge. The woman’s face soured and she stood up straight.
“A couple of people,” she said with a shrug.
“Upstairs,” Alex reported, feeling the tug on the shoe. Danny looked at the woman, holding her eyes for a long moment.
“We’re going to go have a look around upstairs,” he said. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Nope.” She shrugged.
“We should look at the registration first,” Iggy said. The woman laughed.
“The kind of folk who come through here are usually named Smith,” she said. “At least the ones that ain’t named Jones.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Danny said. “Let’s check the room first.” He shifted his gaze to the woman, who now wore a look of interest in what they were doing. “You stay here,” he said.
The interest faded from her eyes and she picked up her magazine.
The shoe led them up to the second floor, to a room in the back. When they reached it, the shoe turned to point at it. Alex released the spell and the shoe shuddered, the pull from it disappearing. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and left it there, sticking out. His hand was just about to knock when Iggy grabbed his arm.
“You smell that?” he asked.
Alex had been too excited to pay attention, but he was now. A sickly sweet odor was emanating faintly from the door.
“Ugh,” Alex said, recoiling. “What is that?”
“Putrefaction,” Danny said. “Something or someone is dead in there, and they’ve been dead a while.”
23
The Book
“Could they still be infected?” Alex asked Iggy. Iggy shook his head.
“Not after all this time. Remember the bodies at the Mission.”