In Plain Sight

He lived in a four-story brownstone just six blocks from Central Park. The house belonged to his mentor, a retired British doctor, one Ignatius Bell, late of His Majesty’s Navy. Bell had retired to New York to live with his son, Kingsley, who already lived there, but before Ignatius’ boat arrived, Kingsley succumbed to pneumonia and died. Bell arrived to nothing more than a grave marker, the brownstone, and enough money to live comfortably for the remaining years of his life.

The British navy used runewrights as their doctors. As Bell put it, Any fool can shove a healing draught down someone’s throat, but only a runewright can cast a Mending Rune and properly fix a broken leg.

Doctor Bell was full of sayings like that.

After living in New York in his son’s home for a few months, Bell decided he needed to pass his Lore on. Kingsley had been a banker and Bell had no other children, so he’d searched for a suitable apprentice. Eventually he found Alex hawking what simple runes he knew on a street corner. Now Alex lived with Bell and learned from him. It was Bell who convinced Alex to become a detective. Your skills are too great to peddle Restoration Runes in a shop or Barrier Runes on the street corner when it rains, he had said. You’ve a keen mind, use it.

Learning the Lore that Bell had collected over the years was hard. Some of his Runes were more complex than anything Alex had ever seen, certainly more than anything in his father’s meager Lore Book. As hard as they were, however, Bell’s lessons on how to be a detective were worse. He’d started Alex on the stories of Sherlock Holmes, showing him how the skills of observation and deduction could be employed to determine things like motive, and to reconstruct the events of a crime from the evidence left behind.

From fictional crimes, they graduated to real ones. As a Doctor with Rune Lore, Bell had offered his skill to the city medical examiner. Most Doctors these days weren’t runewrights, at least in America, so the M.E. was grateful for the help. With access to real cases and real case files, Bell taught Alex how to look for evidence, how to spot errors in witness testimony, and how to use his Lore to find things no cop ever could.

After two grueling years of that, Bell had pronounced Alex ready, and Lockerby Investigations had been born. At first, Bell went with him on every case, watching and correcting when necessary. After a year of that, Bell stopped going along, and only heard a report from Alex each night over dinner. These days Bell hardly asked at all. Instead Alex found himself eager to share the particulars of his cases with the old doctor. Lockerby Investigations had been open five years now, and the nightly report had become a fixed routine.

Alex checked his watch as he mounted the stairs to the door. Bell liked to retire early and it was almost nine. It was possible he’d already gone to bed. Checking his watch served a dual purpose. Powerful runes covered the door to the brownstone. Invisible to the naked eye, Alex could still feel them as he drew closer. Inside his watch, runes etched around the inside of the cover and behind the crystal began to glow. As he touched the door, he felt the magical protections that kept it shut roll away from the presence of the watch. He reached out and opened the door, stepping quickly through, then shut it gently behind him.

He didn’t know what runes guarded the door, nor which ones shielded the house itself. Bell cast those and maintained them. They were a part of his Lore Book that he had yet to share with Alex. All Alex really knew about those runes was that the beams in the attic were covered with them, and that without his watch to serve as a key, the wooden front door with its stained glass window would withstand the force of a battering ram.

It gave Alex a chill just thinking about it.

Someday Bell would teach him those runes. That would be an interesting day.

The front door led to an entryway with pegs for hats and coats, an umbrella stand, and a bench with storage for boots and galoshes. An inner glass door separated the entry from the tiny foyer and Alex tried to be quiet as he opened it and stepped inside. The interior of the brownstone had been done over in an art deco style with wainscoting and molding bearing polygonal shapes and angular designs. For a runewright of the geometric style, it was entirely appropriate.