Dead Waters - Anton Strout [90]
A moment of awkward silence passed, before the Inspectre cleared his throat. I snapped out of my fog and held the shoulder bag out to Allorah. “This is for you,” I said.
“Do I not seem busy enough trying to save your girlfriend’s life here? I would think you’d show some appreciation for that.”
The Inspectre stepped forward into the room. “Please, Allorah. As a personal favor to me.”
Something in the seriousness of his tone softened her in an instant. “Of course, Argyle. For you, anything.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I owe you.”
Allorah waved his words away and rose up from her desk. She took the bag from me and brought it over to her workbench, emptying its contents out onto it. “What are we looking at here?”
“We found this,” I said, “in the same lighthouse that Professor Redfield converted into his impromptu workshop. It belonged to one of his students, but he bled him out to barely living and then fed him to. . . something. I’m not sure what. There was a sort of disposal-pit-well thingie underneath a hidden room where he had been keeping all this arcane paraphernalia. It was too dark for me to see when I flashed on it.” I stepped over to the workbench. “Let me get one last read off of it now that I’m not at the bottom of a feed pit.”
I pulled off my gloves and slapped my hands down on the bag, pressing my power into it. I feared seeing any of the gory details of Professor Redfield’s actual carving up of George so instead focused my energy on pulling a location on the rest of the students from it. A dorm room at New York University and a slew of classrooms flew by my mind’s eye as I went back in time. Through all the flashes, one location stood out among the more mundane ones. It was a poorly lit section of the university where George skulked along, hoping that no one was following him as he slipped into a room marked 247. When I pressed my vision for further details it blanked out and I was forced to bring myself back to reality.
Hungry from the rush of low blood sugar, I went for the Life Savers in my jacket pocket.
“Anything, kid?” Connor asked, coming over to no doubt make sure I didn’t pass out on anything expensive near the lab equipment.
I nodded as I stuffed my mouth full of rainbow-colored salvation. “I think I’ve got an address.”
“Excellent,” the Inspectre said. “We should get moving.”
I held up a finger. “In a minute,” I said. I turned to Jane. “You might want to take a look through his computer as well.”
“Me?” she said, surprised. “What for exactly?”
“We found this in the water below the lighthouse,” I said. “That place may be connected to that she-bitch. It might help out with your. . . situation.”
Jane’s face was a little sad, but she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Can I consider that a prezzie from you, then?”
I kissed her on the cheek, then joined the Inspectre and Connor by the door leading out of Allorah’s office.
“Be careful,” Jane called out.
“Why start now?” Connor darkly added.
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” the Inspectre said, twirling his sword cane around in his hand with a bit of a flourish. “Not everyone gets to spend field time with a member of the old guard.”
“No offense, boss,” Connor said, heading out the door, “but I’m going to stick with my pessimism. It’s served me well.”
Connor walked out the door, leaving the two of us standing there. I looked over at the Inspectre and he looked hurt. Even his mustache seemed a little sadder.
“Don’t worry, sir,” I said, gesturing him politely to go next. “Beating up some college students should improve his mood.”
I was weirdly glad to see that my powers were still keeping us on track and that the greater traumas of people dying seemed to suppress any flare-ups of the tattooist’s emotion. It was a shame that it took panicked flashes of someone dying to trump my other issues, but at least my powers were focused on the case at hand now.
I found the old hallways of the unused theater space in one of the New York University buildings along the east side of Washington Square. Room 247 was exactly as I had seen it, with the