In Plain Sight

“Well,” Alex said, igniting the burner with the touch tip lighter on his desk. “These are just photographs of runes,” he said, indicating the six pictures. “I can’t really judge how the magic was laid down without seeing the originals.” He pulled a set of mustard-yellow spectacles from a case in the file cabinet and clipped them onto his nose. “This light will let me see if the camera picked up anything.” Davis and Warner exchanged nervous glances at that, but Alex continued as if he didn’t notice. “It’s a long shot, I know, but I wouldn’t want you boys to think I didn’t do a good job.”

Alex sat back down and held each picture in the light, scrutinizing it as carefully as he dared. The lines that made up the runes had been written in magical ink, so they glowed brightly, but they were the same lines visible under normal light. He hadn’t been lying about this being a long shot; magic auras like the ones these runes possessed required special cameras and special film to capture. Still, it made him look thorough.

As he paged through them, he noticed a small line of script on the bottom right of the pages the runes had been drawn on. Pulling out a magnifier from his desk, he scrutinized each one. All of them seemed to be written in some foreign language until he recognized a number at the end of one line. It was the number seven, but written backwards. The text wasn’t foreign, it had been written on the back side of each page. Whoever drew the runes had made the notes with the same pen and magical ink.

Wasteful.

Reading minuscule text backwards was hard, but after a few minutes of paging back and forth, he got it. Each note said the same thing followed by a page number.

Curiosity piqued, Alex decided to see if he could sneak some more information out of Davis and Warner. He laid the pictures out on his desk, then folded his hands in front of him.

“Agent Davis,” he asked. “What is the Archimedean Monograph?”

Davis about fell out of the chair and Warner looked like he wanted to go for his gun.

“Where did you hear that name?” Davis demanded, his calm, genial voice gone. Alex took off the spectacles and handed them to the FBI man.

“Right here,” he said, pointing to the photograph. He couldn’t see the writing without the spectacles, but Davis could, and he swore.

“How did you know to look for that?” Davis demanded.

“You asked me to,” Alex said, which was absolutely true.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, scribbler,” Warner began, reaching into his coat. Alex tensed but didn’t drop his smile. He didn’t think Warner would shoot him right here in his own office, but the young man looked angry enough not to be rational.

“Warner!” a woman’s voice came from beyond the office door. It was cold and harsh and Warner froze with a guilty look on his face. “That will be quite enough,” the voice said, and the door opened. Agent Davis had regained his composure and he stood, making the chair available.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said.

Alex didn’t know what to expect. From his position behind the desk, he couldn’t see the person standing just beyond the door. Then his breath froze in his chest as the most dangerous woman in New York walked into his office.

10 The Sorceress

Women tended not to be sorcerers. For whatever cosmic twist of fate, only one in every twenty or so who had the power was female. Suffragettes complained about it endlessly for a while, but since there just wasn’t anything anyone could do about it, they eventually gave up. Of the six sorcerers in New York, only one was a woman. Nicknamed the Ice Queen, she made her fortune enchanting metal rods so they would remain bitter cold for over a year. Once these were cut into thin disks and put into iceboxes and room coolers, the Ice Queen made millions.

The Ice Queen’s real name was Sorsha Kincaid and, if rumor was to be believed, her personality matched her nickname. Nothing in the Ice Queen’s appearance dispelled that rumor when she entered Alex’s office. She looked to be in her late twenties, but magic tended to retard aging, and Sorsha had come into her power quite young. Alex had heard that she was closer to forty. She was dressed in a white, button-up blouse with an azure blue vest and dark slacks. Her only concessions to her femininity were her high heels and the design of her vest, which cut under her small breasts, emphasizing them.

If the purpose of Sorsha’s clothing was to minimize her sex, it was sorely inadequate. Her face was stunningly beautiful, skin like marble, with high cheekbones, full lips, and eyes of pale blue. They reminded Alex of the way the sun looked, shining through an icicle. Her hair was the palest platinum blonde he’d ever seen, almost white, and it fell down on either side of her face in a short bob. She used makeup to darken her eyebrows, giving her a stern look, and Alex knew it had been done for just such an effect.