Chapter 15 (Adam Novus Chronicles - Book 1)

The morning came soon enough, and with it—the infernal screeching from below.

I quickly put on some clothes and hurried downstairs to save Nina; it sounded as if she was being verbally attacked by some crazed banshee.

The sight before me was a little confusing; there was this middle-aged woman in front of her, dressed very elegantly, and she was waving her hands in the air while screaming at my secretary. Nina was screaming right back at her. I decided to listen for a few moments, just to get the gist of it.

“You cannot live with an unmarried man, what will people say!” The unknown woman shouted.

“I am not a child anymore but a grown woman, and he is not a man, but my boss. I make decisions about my life—not you!” Nina deafeningly replied, and wounded my masculinity at the same time.

“You are the most obstinate of all my children, your sisters are all proper ladies!”

“I am not them, and they are not as prim and proper as you may think!”

“Don’t change the subject; I want you to pack your bags, young lady!”

That was as much as I could stand, my ears were beginning to ring, and it seemed they could continue in the same manner for a long time.

“What the hell is going on here?!” I bellowed in the strongest voice I could. Will wonders never cease? That shut them both up—yay me.

Nina was the first to respond.

“Mr. Novus, may I introduce you to my mother, Katarina Bast. She just came for a short visit; isn't that right, mother?”

The older lady was clearly trying to control her temper and managing it somehow. From that screeching banshee from a few seconds ago, she did a complete 180, in no time.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Novus, how do you do,” she said in a much lower tone of voice, expressing all the composure and poise of the Queen of England. OK, two can play that game.

“Just fine Mrs. Bast, are you staying for breakfast? I was about to go for some pastries. While I'm gone, Nina can show you her apartment.”

She was confused by my politeness; well, I was doing a very good impression of an angry lion a few moments ago.

“Why yes… thank you.”

I nodded to them both and made a run for it; this was far too much noise before my morning coffee. The pastry thing was an excuse for me to get away from those two snarling cats before they turned their unresolved issues in my direction. Never interfere with a family squabble—rule to live by.

My new favorite bakery was a few blocks away, and it was to kill for; seriously, I would put an end to anyone who interfered with my food source, it is one of those primal things.

Mrs. Barkin was a nice old Jewish lady that made magic with the dough—and coffee, she made heavenly coffee. She had lived here for her entire life, and went through a lot, but nothing would make her move from home. I know that because she told me so, even with the rundown state of the neighborhood in recent decades. Anyway, I grabbed my morning fix and two bear claws to eat there, plus I ordered enough mixed pastries to feed the cats.

I noticed a familiar face sitting in a corner and decided to join him.

Hector was a strange man, a gang leader, not someone I would usually associate with, but he was an odd bird. In his fifties, and still a top dog. I suppose he was quite different when he was younger, but now he had kids and that changed his entire outlook on life. Hector’s gang made sure that the neighborhood was safe from the outsiders; most of them were also older guys, still proudly wearing their colors. The rules were strict, no drugs, no rape or crime.

Those who broke them disappeared, no questions asked. In a twisted way, he was doing the job of the police, since they didn’t like coming here. Not that I would ever tell him that—the man had his pride. You understand why I took a shine to him; he was my kind of people.

We met when I came here, shared a friendly beer and he informed me of the rules. Surprisingly (to him)—so did I. Just a regular murder and mayhem story, don’t step on my toes and I won’t step on yours. We sat for a while, measuring each other up, shook hands, and lived with mutual respect from that day. And from time to time, we sat at the same table at Mrs. Barkin’s bakery.

“Hey Hector, how's it hanging?” I asked, taking a seat across from him.

“Hey Adam, loose and to the left,” he answered with a smirk. “What’s with the fancy car in front of your building?”

Yes, Mama Cat had come in a freaking limo.

“My secretary got a surprise visit from her estranged mother; they are currently screaming at each other, I escaped.”

He snorted, “Smart man.”

Another thing about Hector that I liked—he spoke like a normal person, at least with me—quite refreshing.

“Anything new happening on the streets?” I asked while devouring the bear claw. The taste of sweet almond paste and raisins almost making me moan in pleasure.

“Nothing unusual, a few kids getting out of line, but they are being talked to. Interestingly enough, there is one drug dealer punk missing; I was about to deal with him, but he is nowhere to be found.” Hector said and his emotions told me he was looking at me with a hint of suspicion, but it dissipated when I didn’t show any reaction to his news.

“One of these days you are going to tell me exactly what you do, still can’t figure you out,” he continued, with a shake of his head.

“One of these days Hector, one of these days,” I replied and took another bite.

I knew he knew that my cover as a regular run-of-the-mill PI was some sort of a front, but could not discover more than that, and I am sure he tried. Hector was a regular human and likely would not believe me if I told him that the monsters from the scary movies were quite real. It was better this way—ignorance can be bliss.

We ate and drank our coffee while talking about the neighborhood. Until I figured enough time had passed to safely return home.

There were no sounds when I came in. I hope they didn’t kill each other.

Nope, they were in Nina’s room, waiting for me in an oppressive silence. God… I always hated family fights.

Small talk with Nina’s mother was strained, to say the least. She was a member of the New York ‘Were-Council’, the body that was responsible for all the Weres in the city, and held a very high position. I acted as if I didn't know anything about it; Esmeralda’s background check on Nina quickly discovered that curious piece of information, and Marcus told me about it.

It is safe to say that she was not thrilled that her daughter was working for someone that was in certain circles already gaining a reputation as a very dangerous individual. She probably thought that I was taking advantage of her little girl, in the biblical sense. However, whatever Nina told her while I was away seemed to calm her down.

“Mr. Novus,” she said after Nina left to answer the phone at the reception desk. “Nina is my youngest and the most stubborn one. She decided to continue working for you and live here, against my advice. If some very respectful people didn’t vouch for your integrity, I would’ve taken steps to make sure that this situation was rectified. Be that as it may, she is now your employee and I will ask you to look after her. She is strongly independent and doesn’t want to receive any help from me. I am set in my ways, so I’ll admit that I contributed greatly to our disagreements, but I am still her mother and I worry about her every day.”

“Mrs. Bast, I will never let anything bad happen to her. You have my word.” I tried to reassure a worried mother, and at the same time sorting in my mind all the various nuances of her little speech. I mean, the lady almost threatened me and asked me to look after her daughter in the same breath.

She left not long after that, taking the eye-catching limo with her; what will the neighbors think?

“I’m sorry Adam,” Nina said demurely. “I had no idea that she would show up out of the blue like that; it’s just… when we are together, sparks fly.”

“Don’t worry about it, no harm done. Don’t forget to call her from time to time, she is worried about you.”

Nina nodded and gave me a piece of paper.

“You had a message from a guy named Julius; he said he had a job for you.”

Ah, music to my ears, things were looking up.

***

I do not think the doorman in front of Julius building was used to seeing cars like mine parked in front of such a distinguished abode; he kept his poise, but I could feel he was hoping that I won't be here for long.

Julius was waiting for me as I came out of the elevator.

“Adam. Just the man I needed to see. I first called Marcus; he told me you would be able to help.” Julius said, talking faster than usual. I sensed that he was quite anxious for some reason.

“Sure, what’s the problem, Julius?”

“Come with me, I’ll show you,” he muttered and turned left from his entrance hall.

Having a house that also acted as a penthouse was nice; amazing views from all sides, and an incredible amount of space for such a high-price location. I didn’t want to guess what the cost of a square foot was. It most likely involved selling your soul to the Devil.

He led me to a blank wall down a few corridors, and then pressed his hand on one of the tiles. A muffled mechanical sound was heard before the entire section of the wall slid to the side. It opened into a circular room filled with antiques, paintings, and artifacts that were more suited to be in a museum.

“Impressive collection,” I exhaled. Even for my untrained eyes, some of these items seemed priceless.

He nodded a few times. “Look up,” he instructed, pointing at the ceiling.

There was a skylight there, one with a perfect hole cut out from its center—the right-sized one for someone to pass through.

“I’ve been robbed, Adam. It happened last night and by someone who could disable magical protections. That skylight is made from reinforced sapphire glass, not a material that one can easily cut through, and there were mundane and magical alarms shielding this space; none of them were tripped.”

“What was stolen?” I asked, looking around the room.

“That’s just it, a regular thief would concentrate on paintings, they have the greatest monetary value, but the thief has only taken some personal and much more dangerous things.” He took a deep breath. “When I came to earth I brought a book with me, a family heirloom. It was a Grimoire, a collection of rituals and spells that in the wrong hands can do a lot of damage. Even in Hell, most of those weren’t practiced—forbidden because they were deemed too dangerous.” Julius whispered with a shudder.

“Did anyone knew you had it?”

He closed his eyes before answering, “I thought about that before I called you. The only thing I can remember was that fifty years ago I had a fling with a very nice-looking witch, and in a moment of stupidity showed her the Grimoire. She became obsessed with it; for a magic user like her, it was irresistible. Eventually, I had enough and broke it off, but she would not let it go, so I packed my bags and moved to New York. It was a long time ago and she probably passed away by now, but I only ever revealed it to her, so… I don’t know.

“Was anything else taken?”

“Some diamonds I kept in the safe and a few small gold figurines that have sentimental value. In comparison, they are inconsequential, the Grimoire is the most important thing. I can’t go to the police about something like this. So… can you help?”

“I’ll give it my best shot,” I replied. “Do you have any pictures of all that was stolen?”

“Yes, there are so many items here I had to make a digital archive, simply to keep track of it all.”

The extent of anxious feelings he had about that book was received loud and clear. Seriously, the man was radiating anxiety like a lighthouse. Witches were the rarest of creatures of this world, and one of the most feared in the supernatural circles. The reason being that they were still using magic, even if the thing was hard to come by. You can do a lot with very little if you use it in an intelligent way, and witches had dedicated centuries at doing just that. Showing a demon’s Grimoire to a witch was the idiocy of the highest order, like showing a kilo of heroin to a junkie that had the shakes, and expecting he won’t go after it. I guess at the time he was not thinking with the big head.

After obtaining the images, I returned to the office. There was a vintage Rolodex on my desk; Marcus gave it to me as a present. What’s more important were the names in it… a lot of names. It was who is who in the supernatural world, names, addresses, and numbers. Also, little notes were written on the back by Marcus about what each individual did, and I remember seeing a card with a very specialized pawn dealer that worked with magical objects and hot jewelry.

I hopped into my car and entered the address into the map gizmo that Nina ordered for me online. She said that I somehow managed to pick a wrong turn every time I drove her to do some errands. In my defense, I got my NYC driving sense from cab drivers that took me from place to place in the beginning. It is not my fault that their way from point A to point B was always a bit wiggly.

In any case, the little map thingy sat on the dashboard and displayed exactly where to go; the damn thing also talked to me in a nice female voice. Technology today was amazing; a big help for NY traffic.

It took me a while to arrive at the right address, even with digital help. It was this little shop on Staten Island, the old fashion doorbell announced my arrival. A balding man in his 60’s with an impressive beer belly was behind a cash register, polishing some silver cups.

“Welcome to ‘Stari’s antiques’, how may I help you?” he said with a practiced smile and giving off strong emotions of unadulterated greed.

“Nice little shop you have here, a friend of mine recommended you, said you also… buy stuff?” I replied and felt how my words had piqued his interest. In his head, he was undoubtedly already rubbing his hands.

“Of course, sir, nobody could offer you a better price. If I may ask, what are you selling?”

“Here, let me show you.” I placed the printed photographs of the Grimoire and the gold figurines.

The fear and panic came in a great wave from the proprietor’s direction, and I noticed his forehead getting shinier as he was pretending to study the photos. This was great; I found a lead on my first try—in-your-face Sherlock Holmes.

One of his hands inconspicuously lowered behind the counter, I knew he was pressing the button there, or grabbing for a weapon—I was OK with either.

“I’m not interested in buying these items, this is not that kind of a shop. You will have to go elsewhere,” he said, pushing the photographs in my direction.

“Really? But the word on the street is that you already acquired these items, strange you forgot them so quickly.” There was no humor in my smile, but there was plenty of menace.

A big man parted the curtain at the end of the shop and bowed his head to walk underneath the door frame. I mean super big. At least 7 feet tall and supremely muscular, built like a cement truck.

“You better leave now, while you still can,” he growled in a deep threatening voice.

“But I made a long trip for this information; if I returned with empty hands, I would have wasted all that gas. Do you know how wasteful that would be? No, I must insist that you speak to me.” I answered in the most innocent voice I could, my body position non-threatening, dumb expression on my face. Come closer, you idiot.

And he did. It is amazing how much body language can confuse your enemies; make them surer of themselves. He was approaching me and spreading his hands to grab me, stupid. One well-placed hit in the solar plexus was all it took to make him bend, breathless. Followed by a fist in the kidney area — a very painful place to be hit at. To finish him off—a kick behind the ear, after he was down. My grandpa did say, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” case and point.

I looked at the panic-struck proprietor of this establishment and said, “Now, Mr. Stari… let’s talk about those pictures.”

He didn’t hold anything back, quite an agreeable fellow, under the circumstances. I hoped for at least some residual resistance, but no such luck.

He had the gold figurines and the diamonds and was complaining about how much money he would lose if I just took them. The items were hot, so the old crook got them for pennies on the dollar, but it was still a sizable amount. As the old saying goes, if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Once I informed him that he could lodge all his complaints either to Julius or to Marcus, he went pale and became much more agreeable of me taking the items off his hands. For a moment, I thought he was going to croak on me; with so much extra weight his heart must have been struggling as it is. Additional stress didn’t do him any good.

What proceeded next was five minutes of him apologizing for any fault on his part, and that I should assure the aforementioned demon and the vampire how none of this was his fault. Unfortunately, he did not know anything about the Grimoire but was very helpful at providing me with the address of the person who sold him the items. The thief in question was his regular customer.

I got out of the shop, stepping over the muscle that was still visiting dreamland. Followed by Mr. Stari’s voice and continued apologies. One would think that Marcus and Julius were very scary people, at least by Stari’s reaction… ridiculous.

It took me almost an hour to get to that address; New York City traffic can be a nightmare. Plenty of insane taxi drivers in their yellow cars, playing the game of chicken with the world.

Despite what law enforcement agencies want you to think—crime does pay. The thief’s house was a nice one, surrounded by a big hedge fence. I parked my car on the street and went to have a little conversation with him.

When you approach a house, or an apartment, and see that the front doors are not closed—be concerned. I can’t remember one instance where something benign was the cause of it. People lock their front doors in this city, it is an unwritten rule. I entered anyway, and the first glance inside revealed that something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

Either he was the messiest being on the planet, or someone did a really good job at turning this place inside out. An angry police search could do it, but this didn’t look like their handiwork.

The thief was in a bedroom, at least his dead body was, and his passing was not a pleasant one. Spread-eagled and tied to the bedposts (not in a fun way). Someone took a knife to him, peeled large sections of his skin, and ripped his fingernails out. As for the finishing touch— he (or they), opened up his chest and took the heart out… shit.

The average adult has approximately 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood circulating inside their body, which can make one hell of a mess when outside the skin boundary. The freaky part of this scene was the lack of copious amounts of blood that should have leaked on the bed. And there were no tell-tale marks to indicate that a vampire was having a Happy meal. Instead, there were these puncture marks above the veins, one would find after a blood transfusion. Someone had taken the time to drain all his blood… super freaky.

I like following leads, it is a game in a way, going from point A to point B and on to the end. When that line is so abruptly severed, as in this case—it can be very annoying. In my previous occupation, a few missions required months of waiting until some additional leads surfaced. I hated those missions.

Still, I needed to check the place out; maybe his misfortune was unrelated to the Grimoire. Yeah, and if I truly believed that, I may as well start looking through the ads and see if the Brooklyn Bridge is on sale again.

Two hours later, I was sitting in a chair, totally stumped; if that book was ever here, it sure wasn’t any longer. I also found the place where he had hidden his hard-earned money, a well-disguised safe in the basement wall—filled with cash. It was currently resting beside my feet in a large backpack. It could technically be called robbing the dead, but it did not bother me that much. I sure wasn’t leaving it here—that would be wasteful, and he couldn’t take it with him to the hereafter.

I picked up my phone and called Marcus, I had an idea. Not a great idea but an idea, nevertheless.

He arrived in about an hour, and let himself in the house.

“A friend of yours?” he asked, seeing the dead body.

“That’s the guy that robbed Julius, little under the weather right now.”

He pointed at the backpack brimming with cash and raised an eyebrow.

“Finders keepers, it's not as he needs it anymore,” I replied to his silent question.

“How can I help?”

“Well… I was wondering if you can walk around and pick up any residual scents,” I replied, as innocently as I could.

He looked at me for a second confused and then squinted his eyes, “You called me to act as a bloodhound?!”

“Hey, I have the highest respect for your heightened sense of smell, and it is for a worthy cause. Don’t you want to help Julius?”

Marcus rolled his eyes like a disgruntled teenager and started mumbling in Spanish. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it was not something flattering to my existence.

It would be so bad to make some jokes about the way he was acting, but he sure did a good impersonation of a bloodhound. Sniffing the air and following the scent trails.

“There were three people here recently, besides you and the sticky-hands there,” he pointed at the corpse on the bed. “There is also a faint Julius’s scent on his hands, so I assume he handled the book. His three guests were human; all I could pick up was a scent of gun oil, old rancid sweat, and talcum powder. It is usually used in surgical gloves, so I don’t think they left any fingerprints behind. They drove away in the car that was parked in front of the house. Oh, and they took all of his blood, along with the heart, but I guess that was self-evident.” he summarized his findings.

Not that I was expecting a miracle, but all that wasn’t telling me much. It was a long shot anyway.

“Damn, that gets me nowhere; Julius is going to be disappointed for sure.”

We erased any trace of our visit and got out of the house. I carried the heavy bag into my car, and then called the Cleaners. With the stipulation that the murder should be reported to the police, but they should make sure that we didn’t leave any incriminating traces behind.

I followed Marcus’s car to Julius’s place. He was driving a nice little vintage Porsche he used to move quickly around the city. Way out of my price range.

Julius was at his usual place, sitting in his library, writing on a piece of paper with an old fashion fountain pen. Why he didn’t embrace the digital age is beyond me.

“Marcus, Adam, that was quick. I hope you have some good news?” He said expectantly, the moment we walked inside.

“A little bit of good, and a lot of bad,” I replied and gave him a bag with the diamonds and gold figurines. His face went downcast when I told him that the thief was dead and his Grimoire was still missing. With zero leads to follow, the probability of finding that book was extremely low. That I managed to find anything within a day was a stroke of luck; by tomorrow those diamonds and gold would be who knows where.

He dejectedly nodded with a deep sigh. Then took a small diamond pouch from the bag and returned it to me.

“Here, this is for you.”

“Julius… that is way too much.” There must have been at least a hundred grand worth of diamonds in there.

“Rubbish, the figurines are worth more than that, I had them for centuries. Consider the jewels as a retainer; if any clue of that book shows up—I need you to retrieve it. “

I did offer that one courteous refusal; I was raised to have manners after all. Though, refusing twice would be bad-mannered.

We stayed for a drink and left after a while. In the elevator, I looked inside the pouch and saw a dozen sparkly diamonds inside, but one caught my eye. A blue-green jewel I could not identify, but which somehow spoke to me. For some reason, I pulled it out and stuffed it in my pocket.

Marcus was about to enter his car when I called his name and tossed him the pouch.

“Tell Esmeralda that it is an early birthday gift,” I said with a smile.

“Adam, you know this is unnecessary, as we said before—there is no debt between us,” he replied.

“Just the same, give it to her; I heard chicks dig diamonds.”

He shook his head, said goodbye, and drove off in his fancy car. Was it hard to let go of all that wealth? You bet your ass it was. As someone whose finances go up and down, it would be nice to have it as a reserve.

That pouch was not nearly enough to set the records straight, but it will do for now. In a short time, they had become closer to me than anyone else ever was, but as I said, Grandpa taught me that all debts needed to be settled.

Besides, I still had that bag of cash I collected from the thief’s house. A bit less than a hundred grand, so I was not headed for skid row.

I headed back to the Bronx, barely avoiding another murder attempt by the city's insane cabbies, with the lingering feeling of an unfinished job like an itch I could not scratch.