Ghost of a Chance

“Because I ratted out a fellow runewright?” Alex scoffed. “I don’t owe you anything. Now who is we?”

“What?”

“You said we,” Alex explained. “Just who is it that doesn’t have anything to say to me?”

Jimmy clammed up, just staring at Alex.

“These are nifty,” Alex said, paging through the glyphs he’d copied into his notes. “Where’d you learn something like this? I never heard of a Mayan glyph school of runes.”

Jimmy started at that. Alex had struck a nerve. He didn’t expect Alex to have figured out that the glyphs were an unknown form of rune magic.

“The Maya are an old people,” Jimmy said. “Our magic is old too.”

“You still haven’t said who us is?

“The magic of the Maya is in our Talons,” he said. The phrase sounded ritualistic as he said it, like a chant or maxim repeated by students.

“So what were the Talons really looking for in that museum?” Alex asked.

“Gold that belongs to our people,” Jimmy said.

Alex managed to keep from laughing out loud at that. Jimmy was no altruist, that was for sure.

“What’s the entropy stone?”

Jimmy’s eyes went hard and flat and he crossed his arms. He was putting on a brave face, but Alex could tell that he was desperately afraid of something, or maybe someone. Alex tried to get him to say more, but he just sat there, mum.

Eventually Alex called the guard and sent Jimmy back to his cell. Whatever the entropy stone was, Jimmy had been terrified by the idea of Alex knowing about it. He thought about interviewing the other thieves, but Jimmy was probably telling them not to talk to him right that minute.

He was at a dead end.

A moment later the guard returned, this time with Edmond, or rather with Duane King.

“I thought I’d be seeing you again,” he said as he sat down on the opposite side of the table. Alex smiled back at him, not bothering to hide the fact that he was glad to see him.

“They treating you okay?”

King laughed at that.

“I spent twenty years in the joint,” he said. “This is fine.”

“Has Billy come to see you?”

“He just left before you got here,” King said. “I wanted to thank you, Alex, for finding him. I know it probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, after all I did, but I’m grateful. It’s like somehow I’ve got Beatrice back, you know?”

“I’m glad,” Alex said.

“So tell me,” King said with a sly smile. “Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“Whatever you spent all your life energy on.” King reached up and touched his white hair. “Same as me,” he said. “And you’ve got the shakes too. Whatever you spent your life on, was it worth it?”

“Yeah,” Alex said after a moment. “It was.”

“I can feel my body breaking down,” King said. His voice was sad but held no tenor of fear. “My eyesight has started to go, and every day it’s harder to wake up in the morning. I bet I don’t last to the end of my trial. My only regret is Billy. I won’t get much time with him.”

The door to the interrogation room opened, and the guard that had brought King leaned in.

“Five minutes,” he said, then withdrew.

“I guess visiting hours are over,” King said. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

“I need to ask you something first,” Alex said, leaning forward.

“Let me guess,” King said with a wry smile. “You want to know where I got those escape runes?”

Alex nodded.

“He said you’d ask,” King said.

“Someone said I’d ask about the runes?”

“Not you specifically,” King said. “I got these runes from a guy I met in prison by the name of Sam Enderby. I told him my plans while we were inside, and he said he’d help once I got out, so I tracked him down. He was the one who came up with the idea of using the letter. He also tattooed the runes on my arm. Didn’t even ask me for money to do it.”

That didn’t sound right. Escape runes were expensive to produce just in materials, never mind the time it took. No old prison friendship would justify that.

“And he said someone would ask about it,” Alex pressed.

King nodded.

“Sam said if I got caught that whoever figured it out would want to know about those runes and where they came from. I told him I’d keep it a secret, but he said that anyone smart enough to catch me deserved to know.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all,” King said.

“What did this Sam Enderby look like?”

“He was a Brit, about five foot ten with dark hair and a Roman nose.”

The door opened, and the officer came in.

“Anything else?” Alex pressed as the guard waited for King to rise.

“He had a tattoo,” King said. “Not a rune, but some kind of arrowhead on the inside of his wrist.”

King smiled as the guard led him out.

“It really was nice to meet you, Alex. Come see me again before the end.”

“I will,” Alex said, and then he was gone.

Alex didn’t know what to think. The thought that occupied his mind the most was King’s list of symptoms: not being able to wake up and failing eyesight. He already had one of those. How much time did he have left?