Ghost of a Chance

This one had a rubber stopper and no lead seal. It also tasted better, like licorice. Alex hated licorice, but it was still better than the first elixir.

“You have got to teach me this,” Alex said, looking up at the domed ceiling.

“Later,” Iggy said, checking Alex’s hands again.

“Hey,” Alex said as Iggy felt each of his fingers in turn. “How come you used our kitchen table as an operating theater when you have this place in here?”

Iggy chuckled as he put down Alex’s right hand and picked up his left.

“I added this room last year after you kept getting shot and bringing other wounded people here to the house.” He let go of Alex’s hands and picked up the last bottle. “Blood is the very devil to clean off the kitchen floor.”

He walked back the open cupboard and put the last vial back on its shelf.

“We won’t be needing that one, I think.”

Alex held up his hand and examined it closely as Iggy disappeared into his runewright lab. It looked steady, with almost no sign of trembling at all.

“What did you do?” he asked.

Iggy came back a moment later carrying a wooden crate lined with hay.

“I gave you a nerve tonic,” he said, putting the crate down on the table beside Alex. It was full of glass jars and beakers like the kind the university had in their lab.

“So I’m cured?” Alex asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately no,” Iggy said. “The tonic will suppress the symptoms for a little while. You’re going to need something specially formulated and you’re going to have to take it on a regular basis.”

“Is it expensive?”

“Very,” Iggy said.

Alex looked at his temporarily-steady hand and sighed.

“In that case, I might need you to write some finding runes for me in the foreseeable future.”

Iggy opened his green rune book and tore out three pages.

“Here,” he said, setting them on the table. “On the house. And don’t get discouraged about the tonic,” he patted the crate full of glassware. “That’s where this comes in.”

In answer to Alex’s questioning look, he reached in and pulled out a round-bottomed beaker with markings along its neck indicating measurements. He rotated it so that Alex could see the back where several runes had been etched into the glass.

“I have an arrangement with an alchemist here in town,” he explained. “I put runes on her equipment that help with more efficient and faster brewing. She trades me for the medical elixirs I keep on hand.”

Alex had wondered how Iggy always seemed to have the alchemical supplies a British navy doctor would need. Iggy pulled a folded slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Alex.

“Her name is Andrea Kellin,” he said. “Her address is on the paper. Deliver this crate to her and tell her I need a batch of the tonic listed there.” He pointed to the bottom of the paper where a long, Latin formula had been written out.

“Thanks, Iggy,” Alex said. He felt more relieved than he had in days.

“Nothing to it, lad,” Iggy said, tamping out the stub of his cigar. “Now you’d better get going, Andrea closes promptly at six.”

Alex got up from the table and picked up the crate, being careful not to jostle the glass. He followed Iggy out of the magnificent vault and back into the brownstone’s kitchen.

“Now don’t dawdle on your way home,” Iggy said, shutting his vault doo. “I want to hear if you’ve dug up anything new in the ghost case.”

“All I did on that today was get yelled at by the Lieutenant in charge,” he said with a chuckle. “Guy named Detweiler. You should read the story they wrote in that tabloid though. It’ll give you a laugh.”

“If you didn’t work the ghost case, why do you need finding runes?” Iggy asked.

Alex nearly dropped the crate. He swore.

“Language, lad. You’re a professional.”

Alex quickly explained about Hannah Cunningham and her missing husband as he put down the crate on the kitchen table. He used Iggy’s painted door frame to open his own vault and retrieved one of his maps of Manhattan.

He unrolled it and laid out his compass, the silver ring, and one of Iggy’s finding runes. His hand trembled as he lit it, but he supposed that was from nervousness.

The rune popped, but the ring didn’t go rolling across the table this time, It spun on its edge like a coin and as it spun it moved in a wide circle around the map.

“I don’t get it,” Alex said. “You sure that was a finding rune?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Iggy said. “I’m not senile.”

Alex looked up and found his mentor studying the spinning ring carefully.

“Iggy,” he said, drawing the doctor’s attention up to him. “This is the second time a rune I cast hasn’t locked on, but didn’t just fail. Is it possible…” He took a breath and tried again. “Is it possible that I’m losing my magic?”

Iggy thought about that for a long minute, his mustache twitching the whole time.

“No,” he finally said. “There’s no precedent for a runewright losing their abilities. I’m seventy-five and my magic is just as strong as it’s ever been. Stronger in some ways. This,” he indicated the spinning ring that hadn’t seemed to have lost any momentum yet. “This must mean something else.”