Bindings & Spines

By R. M. Ridley

A slave is a slave, whether living or undead, so Jonathan Alvey bristles when an unknown novice necromancer turns up in New Hades. Despite their obvious talent, Alvey is forced to clean up the messes the rogue leaves behind. He must find the culprit and put an end to their attempts, before they succeed and put an end to Jonathan himself.

But Alvey has problems enough of his own. As he battles his addiction to magic, and the withdrawals that may very well kill him, malignant gnomes infest his building and are out for his blood. A simple divorce case turns into a murder investigation. Why would the victim, a meticulous practitioner, create a spell book pocked with inaccuracies? Why would an unknown assailant do anything to get it? Alvey must solve the mystery, and keep himself and his client alive until he can.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xchyler Publishing
• Release date: Dec 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781940810584

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Copyright 2016 by R. M. Ridley

Smashwords Edition. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. For information visit www.xchylerpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in this story are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

Xchyler Publishing, an imprint of Hamilton Springs Press, LLC

Penny Freeman, Editor-in-chief

www.xchylerpublishing.com

1st Edition: December 2016

Cover Illustration Luke Spooner/Carrion House, titles and interior design by pennyfreeman.com and The Electric Scroll

Edited by McKenna Gardner

Published in the United States of America

Xchyler Publishing

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Other White Dragon Black titles by R. M. Ridley

Other Xchyler titles featuring R. M. Ridley

Dedication

To my wife, without whom, I wouldn't be.

Jonathan Alvey woke abruptly, coming out of his dream like a man flying through a windshield. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and panted. His mouth was dry and acrid, his body wet and cold. He was grateful that the nightmare hadn't ridden through his waking, digging its black hooves into his conscious mind.

He swung his feet to the floor and stood on legs of week-old pudding. It wasn't the first morning he'd greeted so. It wouldn't be the last, either, if he kept denying the need he'd lived with for so long that it had come to define him.

He shuffled into the bathroom, and a moment later, under the needling spray of the shower, the sweat and stink from his denied addiction ran down the drain.

Washed and awake, Jonathan tugged on a fresh pair of trousers and padded barefoot to the living room. The sun, a stain of hope, smudged the right side of the sky in the large front window. Jonathan's head throbbed, his stomach rolled, and his eyes rebelled against even those few first rays of light.

Jonathan had been clean for four days and five nights now, and he was paying for it.

I hate you, Mary, he growled to the empty loft. From a crumpled pack on the kitchen island, he dug out a smoke. Those, no one cared about. He could smoke all he wanted.

After two long drags, Jonathan no longer wanted to run his head repeatedly into the wall—not urgently, anyway. He prowled around for a bottle of bourbon that wasn't empty and, finding one in the freezer, poured some into a coffee mug.

To going clean, he scoffed and raised the mug, draining it in one go.

At least he got to start the day with two of his addictions. It wouldn't be enough, not to counter his real need, but it would dull the worst of it.

Jonathan decided he didn't hate Mary.

He found it hard to hate anyone with eyes that bright green. Thinking it might garner a little sympathy from her, he did feel justified in wishing four nights and five days of the worst hangover on her, though.

Actually, if I got her hooked on junk, then took her off, and then she had the hangover . . .

He contemplated this and realized it was too much effort. He didn't even know for sure where to get any heroin, though, as a private investigator in this hellhole of a city, he had strong suspicions.

It would also be a pointless endeavor since everyone knew sobriety wouldn't take. Jonathan could stop using for four hundred days or five thousand nights and he'd still use again the moment he had no other option. It was who he was. More accurately, it was what he was.

The nicotine had helped his brain function get beyond the basic 'pain hurts; life is pain.' The alcohol was re-solidifying his muscles, and with a few more shots, he thought it could make the buzz in his bones retreat from being a sky of locusts to only a small swarm.

With a groan, Jonathan made his way over to the living room window and leaned against it. Glowering out over the street towards the old building at 1932 Marlowe Avenue, where his office was, he decided that if he was going to suffer through another day of self-denial, he might as well do it in his dim and dismal office, rather than his apartment. He would be more at home that way, and besides, most of his books were there.

He wondered again why he had let Mary talk him into this mistake and marveled that he'd let it go on this long. Why had he tortured himself for days by not using one flicker of magic? Was it only because there was nothing going on in his life, no clients, cases, or creatures? It was pathetic, he knew, but the truth often was.

He was a practitioner and a private eye, and when it came to his clients, nine times out of ten, they needed the practitioner. It was a calling and an obligation, protecting and helping those who couldn't do for themselves. In the city of New Hades, New York, it was a full-time job.

It came at a cost, though—more for him than the clients. The price he paid worried Mary. That worry had made her once again take up the campaign to get him to stop using magic before the side-effects overwhelmed him.

She had her reasons.

Everyone had reasons.

For Mary, that reason came in the form of a dead aunt—an aunt who had been a practitioner and had gone the way most do: slowly dying as the body lost control of its very cells. Mary had watched over and tended to her aunt during the final stages. It wasn't pretty. Practitioner deaths rarely are.

But then, Jonathan supposed, death usually wasn't—especially for the one experiencing it.

Everyone had reasons and he was no exception. He had been driven to face the darkness hidden in the city by his family and his past—most specifically his father. What he didn't have was a clear understanding of the reason he currently tormented himself.

Guess, in a way, that's on family, too, he grumbled.

Not the family of blood, he didn't have that any more. They lived. It was he who was dead to them. He hadn't spoken to a single one since he had killed his father.

But the family one forms outside of blood can be just as binding—even more so.

In her renewed campaign to get Jonathan to stop using magic, Mary had enlisted this family. She had used his best friend, Ralph, and Jonathan's pseudo-nephew, David, convinced them to help her nag him into this personal persecution. Jonathan should have known better than to trust a woman who reads the cards; her tongue is too tempered.

He knew, left to his own counsel, Ralph didn't worry about him. Mary had a way with words, though, and had gotten Ralph worked up. David had been even easier because she used the hypocrite card.

Jonathan had spent the last ten years of the kid's life making sure he stayed as far away from magic as possible. Jonathan hadn't wanted him to end up an addict like his Uncle J. In fact, he had stolen David away from a nasty cult as a young boy and brought him to live with the boy's grandparents. Jonathan had done this at the request of David's mother—a request he would have been unable to deny her, even if she had lived.

Jonathan retreated to his bedroom to finish dressing while the sun ambered the eastern faces of the buildings. His thoughts trailed after him.

He felt more human this morning, despite the way he had awakened, but his head had been under attack from its own neurons for days now. The pain of his bones, as the residual magic there waned, had already made concentration difficult enough. However, what had really taken him out for the count over the last few nights had been the way his entire system, from bones to balls, had seemed to shrivel to a husk, leaving him one of Elliot's hollow men.

Jonathan knew better than to think he was coming out the other side yet. It took more than a couple days of being death's personal stress ball to be free from an addiction this strong—this much a part of you. Being a practitioner meant having addiction's hooks through every atom in your being and dancing the jitterbug whenever one twitched. Channeling the kind of energy that bent reality itself through your own body was bound to change you. It transformed minuscule parts of your very being into something 'other,' the very thing that eventually would kill you.

The energy use rewired your brain, made your synapses fire differently, and rewrote your thought patterns. It made you a junkie for a drug that came at your beck and call and out-shined any other fix. Users referred to it as 'Riding the White Dragon.'

However, once that ride was over, you fell off the back of the White Dragon into the teeth of the Dragon Black. The need to use more, the crippling pain as tiny parts of you were converted into something inhuman, the demand to get high again—this was the domain of the Dragon Black.

The longer you spent with the dragons, the more you needed them. Jonathan had kept their company for a couple decades.

The last time he had seriously tried going clean, he had coughed blood and pissed black liquid by the end of day eight. He had managed to hold out through two more days of self-abuse before summoning the White Dragon and filling his soul with the power of the infinitesimal and his body with the potential of the infinite.

That time around, he had yet to complete one week.

What Jonathan probably liked most about his apartment was its proximity to his office. The two buildings were close; within walking distance of one another no matter how inclement the weather. The fact that they were in separate buildings curtailed any chance of surprise house guests—another good feature.

Jonathan thought the most advantageous thing about the location of his office had to be his ability to scrutinize the view out his apartment window and know if it was a good day to go to work. Most days, the only activity on the street belonged to Bao—his restaurant being just about the only reason people stopped on that stretch of road. Some days, it was all too clear that the people out there had other things on their mind than good food, however.

Where Marlowe Avenue veered east and Baker Road began, his apartment sat at the center of the convergence, making it possible for Jonathan to stare straight down the rest of Marlowe Ave.

The sedan currently parked in front of the office building had the subtlety of a poisonous toadstool. He had noticed it immediately, the first time he glanced out that morning to see if any last-ditch snow had fallen.

Jonathan decided to make a cup of instant coffee and wait for a bit, instead of heading immediately out. He would be the first to admit that while on Day Five of this ludicrous pretense of going straight, he was bound to be paranoid. More paranoid, some might phrase it, but there was truth to the saying, 'It wasn't paranoia if they were really out to get you.'

Jonathan had compiled a long list of people justifying his paranoia, and it ran the gambit from the cult he rescued his pseudo-nephew David from, to a corporation he'd recently pissed off. There were quite a few who held him in certain regard. Namely, they regarded him poking his nose in their affairs as a justifiable reason to cut it off. The front-runner of that list would have to be a certain Welshman by the name of Owen Braith Davies whose hatred for him neared inspiring.

Paranoid or not, the red car set off alarms in his head—a head which already had klaxons bombarding it. After ten minutes of watching the car's exhaust dissipate, Jonathan pulled his binoculars from the bookshelf.

The man behind the wheel was middle aged—possibly pushing fifty—and had a gaunt look to him. Though mostly salt, with only a dash of pepper, the man claimed a full head of hair, whatever his age. His face was clean-shaven, with alert eyes and few noticeable wrinkles. What Jonathan found most annoying: the man simply sat in his car, waiting. If he was a client of Judas Enterprises, he was the first to Jonathan's knowledge and far too late. He doubted that was the case, however. Since no other business had rented space in the building in the prior eight months, Jonathan could only despair about for whom, exactly, the man waited.

He lowered the binoculars and frowned. He told himself it could be someone biding their time until their order at The Lucky Monkey across the street was ready. It made sense, since he could think of no good reason why anyone should be so determined to hire him. This led him to think of other reasons someone would linger about for him, and not one of them was encouraging.

Jonathan puttered around the apartment, pretending he had things to do, but when he started to make his bed, he knew it had gone on long enough. He was in no shape for this pretense, or the activity connected to it. His mental defenses certainly weren't strong enough to deal with a tidy house.

Although Jonathan had gained a certain level of intrigue due to the man's tenacity, he had no desire to meet this man on the street—especially without recourse to magic.

He headed for the door but glanced at the phone with a touch of guilt. Mary wouldn't call with her gloating concern for at least another two hours, and although she knew the office number, for some reason he still felt he was skipping out on a lover before she awoke. Not that Jonathan would know anything about that. The last time he'd had a lover, there had been a Democrat in the Oval Office who liked cigars.

Ignoring his phantom guilt, Jonathan snatched up the pack of cigarettes and the bourbon. One drink wouldn't cover the suffering this day would deliver, with outrageous shipping and handling fees, and he had been away from the office too long to remember just how many bottles were stashed there.

Winter had yet to bow out to her simpering sister, spring, so Jonathan grabbed his overcoat from off the kitchen stool and shrugged into it. He exited his apartment through the back of the building and, quickly crossing Marlowe Avenue, slipped into the alley that led behind his office building.

The short walk did as much to clear his head as one could expect while making his way past spilled trash and half-frozen puddles of oily water, but he was glad to tug open the back door and get into the dim interior of the old building in which he had kept an office for too many years to bother remembering.

For one of the few times in his life, Jonathan didn't even consider taking the stairs up to his office. The antique, open elevator hadn't killed anyone—yet. If it decided that he would be its first blood, then it was probably the universe's way of teaching him not to mess with what worked. He just had to try and do it without getting spotted by the red car. He could just see the vehicle by peering down the hall to the lobby.

He wouldn't need long to get into the elevator, and the guy was staring straight ahead, but all it took was one glance this way. Jonathan lowered himself to the floor and scuttled on his hands and knees to his objective. This low, he couldn't see if the guy in the car had looked his way or not, and only hoped that meant he couldn't be seen either.

It was tricky pulling the stubborn gate of the death cage out of the way, but he slipped in, pulled it shut, and slid up the wall, hiding in the front corner. A moment later, the elevator lurched and he was moving. With only one shudder and some cheap fun-house creaks and groans, the elevator delivered him to the third floor.

He slumped his way down the hall and opened the door with 'Alvey Investigation' stenciled on the frosted glass. Jonathan never locked the office door. Realistically, anyone who wanted to get past a locked door could. Pick the lock, counter the binding spell, or break the window—whatever the method—a determined individual would gain entry. Jonathan knew from experience that a window with your name printed on it didn't come cheap.

With a rather heavy hand, he closed the door behind him, only to stop at the empty secretary desk. He picked the receiver of the phone from the desktop and returned it to the cradle. He almost expected it to ring as soon as he let go, but it remained agreeably silent and he continued into his office.

The air smelled stale inside—heavy with the malignant ghosts of too many cigarettes. Burdened under the heavy layers of dust that never quite landed on any surface, Jonathan breathed deep and sighed in contentment.

Yeah, that's better. He couldn't help but taste the nearly dead motes of magic still drifting in the air but tried not to dwell on it.

Taking the bourbon bottle from his coat pocket and placing it on the desk, he sloughed his coat to the floor like a lethargic snake and dropped gratefully into his worn chair. The blinds were drawn, keeping the light out and the office in a world of shadows. Jonathan didn't need light to find his glass or to pour it full of bourbon.

He drank down an unhealthy portion and topped if off again. He knew he was drinking a lot—but he always drank a lot. Numbing the pain the Dragon Black ruthlessly inflicted on him required self-medication. Drowning his need to stop this sham and simply use again required more of the same. Jonathan wondered if he consumed more now than his previous everyday amount to dampen the effect of using. When the rush—a thunderstorm raining energy through his body and lighting up his neurons—began to fade, he had to smother the instinct to create it again; alcohol and nicotine became his friends then.

It was an academic question. It wasn't going to be the drink that killed him. The coffin nails he fired up and breathed in, one after another, didn't have much of a chance either. The magic would get him first. That or the job, but they were too often one and the same.

Jonathan had no idea how long he had sat in the dark drinking, sweating, smoking, twitching, staring. Eventually, the sound of the elevator door stuttering open roused him from his trance.

He realized Mary hadn't called and wondered if she'd made the trip across town to check on him in person. The first heavy footfall alerted him to the error of his egotistical presumption.

Jonathan's first reaction was to bring his two fingers together, ring and middle, anticipating the need to summon a protective spell. Perhaps it was the image of Mary so fresh in his mind that stopped him, but whatever the reason, he allowed his fingers to fall away from each other and slid open the top drawer of his desk instead.

It was true he was a private eye, and that meant people came to him for help, anything from missing persons to cheating spouses. He was also a practitioner, and those who faced arcane problems often found their feet at his door, even if they hadn't believed in the things that went bump in the night the day before.

Being both PI and practitioner meant he had made enemies. Many of them—in many different walks and slithers of life. When someone knocked on his door, Jonathan never knew if it was client or killer that stood on the other side. One might think a killer wouldn't knock, but that's what got people dead.

As the footfalls continued to approach his office, Jonathan calmly slid out the Beretta and rested it on the surface of his desk. He wasn't in the mood for a client, and, just then, he didn't have the fortitude for a killer.

The steps came to his outer office door and a moment later there was a tentative knock.

Jonathan waited. He became aware that his heart pounded behind his ribs.

The sound of the hand on the door came again, the echo of it mocking Jonathan's headache. He closed his eyes against the intrusion and wished whoever was at his door would die.

Silence followed.

Jonathan slumped against his chair, grateful to be alone with his suffering again. He reached out and grasped the glass to quench the fire dancing behind his eyes, when he wondered if there really was a dead man outside his door. Magic didn't work that way, but the gods could be capricious.

He had to hope not. He simply didn't have the energy to deal with a corpse—especially an unanimated one.

Just as he was deciding he'd better lift his decrepit flesh from off the chair, he heard the sound of the elevator door being forced to do its job once more.

With a sigh, Jonathan settled back. He lit a smoke and once more counted the emptiness of the building among the few assets of his existence.

Being in the office relaxed him and allowed him to have coherent thoughts. In fact, Jonathan realized, the abomination in his head had slid its acid-dripping tentacles out of his sinuses. Just being able to sit in the room, surrounded by his grimoires, research tomes, and obscure texts and their residual magic had made the trip worthwhile.

He poured another glass of bourbon to help the monster headache on its way out. Then, having lit a smoke, he opened Galdrabók, an Icelandic-based Book of Magic, and enjoyed the slight reprieve since returning to his office.

By the time he had butted out the smoke, Jonathan had found he was actually hungry, which was the first time he'd been able to say so in at least thirty-eight hours.

Maybe the alcohol really is making a difference, he announced. Accepting the thought as a working theory, he took another swig from his glass.

Being hungry did create a problem, however—a problem that he could see no way around. Getting food delivered would surely tip off the guy downstairs.

There's no way he's still around. I'm not in. He even came up to check. Jonathan reached for the phone but paused. Aw, hell. He pushed his chair back and stood to look out the window at the front of the building. Oh, come on.

Jonathan glared at the red car and its little puff off exhaust. He wondered if the guy had a trunk full of Jerry cans. As he flopped back into his chair, his stomach voiced its displeasure. Jonathan accepted his defeat, heralded by the rumble of his stomach, and picked up the receiver of his old black Bakelite phone and dialed.

Lucky Monkey Restaurant.

Hey, Bao.

Mister Alvey. You want usual?

Yeah.

Fifteen minutes. Quan will bring it over.

Great. Thanks, Bao.

Jonathan stood up, leaned over the short bookshelf and looked down at the little red car.

What do you want, damn it?

He turned away from the window and slumped back into his chair, picking up the book once more. As always, Bao's nephew Quan seemed to appear from nowhere, rapping on the doorframe of Jonathan's personal office.

Without taking his eyes off the page, he told Quan to come in. The young man set the brown bag on the desk, filling the small room with the heavenly scent of its contents. Jonathan finished the bit he was reading and, putting the book down, glanced up to see Quan wasn't smiling.

Sorry to say it, Mr. Alvey, but you look awful. Is this why you haven't ordered?

Yeah, my stomach hasn't been my best friend for a little while.

You look very sick. Quan rubbed his hand across his brow. Have you seen a doctor?

It's a virus; not much they can do.

He could have told Quan the truth. The kid knew what Jonathan was. Too many years of being their customer had taken care of that mystery. He just didn't want to get into it. If he said what he was doing, he'd have to explain why, and honestly, Jonathan didn't have an answer.

You should take better care of yourself. You should be in bed.

Yeah, I might head back there soon enough, he lied.

He had never been one who could just lie in bed, even if he was reading. And he certainly didn't want to try sleeping again. That seemed to lead down a bad path.

Quan nodded. You need anything, Mr. Alvey—soup, tea, someone to drive you to a doctor—you just call. I'll come anytime.

Thanks, Quan. I appreciate it, but I think I'll be okay.

Quan nodded, but his brows were pulled down and his lips were drawn tight. He lingered for a moment and Jonathan realized he hadn't paid for the food.

He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, but Quan shook his head and held up a hand.

No, Mr. Alvey. This one's on me. You just get better.

You spoil me, Quan. You and your uncle.

Maybe, but I like you, Mr. Alvey, and I'd like to make sure you stay around for a long time, yet.

Jonathan grinned. I'm not going anywhere.

Quan got a serious look and leaned over the desk. You have a visitor. Quan nodded toward the front office.

Jonathan leaned to the side of his chair. He was not in the least surprised to find the man from the red car now standing in his outer office.

Yeah, Jonathan sighed, settling back into the chair. I figured that would happen.

If you want, I can remove him, Quan offered seriously.

Jonathan was tempted to let the wiry young man attempt to do just that, but the number of dollar bills in his wallet equated to a specific number of meals left in his future. The number was not reassuring, even with his appetite acting a yo-yo.

If he didn't have a paying client soon, Jonathan knew he'd be smoking butts picked up off the street and drinking the three-year-old bottle of mouthwash in the bathroom.

Naw, should be okay. But thanks, Quan.

Quan nodded and departed with one last look of worry over his shoulder.

When Quan starts telling me I should be in bed, things really have gone downhill, Jonathan muttered to himself.

No sooner had Quan walked out the door, than the tenacious man from the red car was filling the open space of his doorway.

Mr. Alvey? he asked politely, though there was an edge to his voice.

Jonathan couldn't hold back the sigh. Just once he'd like a potential client not to ask that inane question. You know a Welshman?

A what?

Never mind. You a lawyer, officer of the court, or represent a law office?

No.

Then, yes, I'm Alvey.

The man took Jonathan's admission as an invitation to enter the room. Jonathan took that as an invitation to set aside other social conventions, and so he took out his food. He removed the lid from the silver pie plate and, retrieving his fork from the center drawer, lifted a mouthful of the spicy Singapore noodles to his mouth.

Jonathan had already decided he didn't much like the man in front of him, but he worked for money, not love. As he chewed, he motioned for the man to talk.

With a brief pursing of his lips, the man said, Mr. Alvey, I'm afraid that my wife is cheating on me.

Jonathan closed his eyes and tried not to groan. He berated himself for coming into the office.

Only a jilted spouse would be that stubborn. You should have known. And you were a fool not to check for a ring.

He looked at the man's hand and, sure enough, there was a very shiny gold band on the left hand. Jonathan cut himself some slack, remembering that he was lucky he wasn't puking non-stop, or rigid on sweat-soaked sheets.

And you need proof for the divorce, Jonathan said, having swallowed. Let me guess, a prenup?

The man nodded. I've arranged it so that Deborah believes I'm on a business trip for the week. Will that be enough time?

Well, that will depend, Mister . . .?

Jean. Arnold—Jean.

Depends, Mr. Jean, on—well, on whether or not she uses the time to her advantage.

Oh, I think I can guarantee that she will.

My price is twenty an hour, plus expenses.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but Jonathan overrode him. Jobs like this can get steep. Twenty an hour, for sitting on my ass 'til it goes numb, adds up fast. Are you still interested?

He didn't hesitate. Yes.

Two hundred up front, and I'll start tonight.

Jonathan might have hesitated asking for so much right off with many of his clients, but Jean hadn't blinked at the possible cost he would incur. To Jonathan, that meant he either had the money and didn't mind shearing off a bit to get what was his from the prenuptial, or he had nothing and was faking.

If it was the first scenario, Jonathan figured he might as well make good on a bad situation—and his current situation was pretty gruesome. However, he expected the latter to be the case, because something wasn't sitting right in his gut about this Jean fellow. But then, Jonathan had already acknowledged that he was lucky his guts weren't heaving hard enough to spew out his spleen.

Jonathan expected Jean to balk, now that a dollar amount had been demanded. Instead, the intruder dropped the other shoe—and it stank like it belonged on a dead jogger.

One other thing, Mr. Alvey. Things have gone missing from the house. I'm afraid she's selling items to pawnshops, online, that sort of thing.

You think she's planning on leaving you for the other guy?

Jean nodded.

"Most of it was just stuff—you know, items of value but still just stuff. She went too far, though. The final straw, the thing that forced my hand into coming here, was an old book. More than a book—a family heirloom.

It's the diary of my ancestors and it's gone missing. It dates back to the 1800s, and thus I assume probably quite valuable to certain people. To my family, it's priceless—irreplaceable.

Jean did an odd thing then with his lips that made Jonathan think of a kid chewing toffee, and ran his hand through his hair. Then, abruptly, he leaned forward.

Don't let her sell that book, Mr. Alvey! And if it's too late for that, and you find—for whatever reasons—you can't recover it yourself, find out who the buyer is. Whatever cost or means, I won't lose that book and have it vanish into some private collection, or displayed in a museum. His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed.

Jonathan thought he knew what smelled funny now. This guy didn't give a damn about his wife's infidelity. This was about a list of other things, but none of them involved a husband distraught over a failing marriage. Jonathan decided he was right to dislike Jean.

Arnold took a money clip from his pants pocket that, while not bulging, was filled with enough bills to comfort Jonathan some. It was nice to think Jean wasn't completely full of it.

That's a tall order, Mr. Jean, but I'll do my best—just as soon as you can give me the two hundred.

The two hundred would go a long way to keeping his symptoms of withdrawal away. And as far as cases went, Jonathan couldn't think of anything he disliked doing more than a domestic, but money was money and this sort of racket was good for piling up the hours.

Along with the deposit, Jonathan got Jean's contact information, as well as the essentials on his wife, including what so many clients of this type forgot: a recent photo.

Jonathan sighed when he saw the red car accelerate away from the curb in a puff of exhaust. He hated the divorce stuff. His consolation, and remorse, was that the job wouldn't involve him using any magic.

He let the thin veneer of competence slide away and dropped into the mire of mildew of his actual condition. He thought it unlikely that Jean was working for the Welshman. There was something odd about the fellow, but Jonathan doubted it was that.

Whatever the case, he was safer if it didn't get around what rough shape he was currently in—too many people would find it too good an opportunity to let pass. But now that he was alone, Jonathan hoped a large glass of bourbon would help keep his meal where it belonged.

He thought about calling Mary to let her know he had landed an honest-to-goodness, boring-as-hell case. He sat down again and, pulling the bottle towards him, glanced at the phone. That was when he saw dull red flick past his doorway towards the secretary desk, to be once more out of sight in the front office.

Oh, come on! Still? he yelled.

Jonathan swore and pushed his seat away from the desk.

Almost two weeks ago, a tribe of Redcaps had mistaken the building for abandoned and moved in to claim it as their own. It wasn't that Jonathan couldn't understand the mistake; of the entire five stories, only two offices had been rented at that time. The other business, a real estate start-up called Judas Enterprises, was a new arrival to the building. With that name, it hadn't surprised anyone that it hadn't exactly been generating a lot of traffic flow off the streets.

But these Redcaps were nasty little bastards. Their name alone said