Signs of Portents

by Lou Paduano

  Ruiz lifted a book from his desk. It was thick and a large number of the pages were earmarked for later reference. Loren tried to grab it but Ruiz pulled back, pacing the room. He quietly flipped through it, stopping at the pen marks throughout, marks much like the notebook at his feet. The title read, The Secrets Kept in Dreams. Both knew the author, Mr. Arnold Finney, well.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Loren said, catching Ruiz’s look of disapproval. Ruiz let the book fall in a loud thump against the tile.

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “Title says it all, doesn’t it?” he replied, refusing to give anything more than the prerequisite sarcasm.

  “Finney is in prison for murder and you’re reading his book. He claimed he could commune with spirits through dreams and they made him kill for them.”

  Loren sighed. “I remember. I locked him up.”

  “You are reading his book.”

  Loren gathered the files, the book, and his notes. He placed them all on the desk in a single pile then went back and collected his coat. He needed a shower and a shave. Hell, he needed another twelve hours of shuteye, but that was out of the question as well.

  Ruiz still stared him down. Loren could feel the thin eyes cutting into him. He held out a small hope that Ruiz would simply remove him from the case and send him packing but he knew that was less likely to happen than the twelve hours of beauty rest he dreamed of in his waking life.

  “If I start killing people, we’ll know why then, won’t we?” Loren said. He opened the desk drawer and found a pack of Styrofoam cups. Officers always kept an extra stash of supplies wherever they could, in case they were holed up for a double shift or simply forgot to clean out their mug for the last month and the mold finally won out. Cup in hand, he moved for the door with Ruiz in close pursuit.

  “Very funny.” Ruiz was not laughing, following Loren down the hallway to the break room.

  The station was dizzy with people. A large board hung in the center of the second floor with names written down one column and case numbers along the top row. Red and black were the standard colors throughout the board to signify the status of the case. Everyone hated the sight of red on the board, hence the flutter of movement throughout the halls. The detective bureau held tight to the second floor of the Rath Building; most of the other departments were located on the first and third with administrative, and higher political offices took up the top three floors. Loren was sure everyone that could be in the building at that moment was located on the second floor.

  He scuttled past a series of conversations he wanted nothing to do with, hearing the tonal shift when former colleagues caught a glimpse of him. Boisterous gossiping and timely jokes turned to quiet whispers and murmurs. Loren wasn’t surprised by the glares that served as his welcome back party to those who had been unaware of his arrival in the city. He never claimed to be the friendliest person on the planet, though there was a time when hitting the bar after a long shift to grab a beer after closing a tough case sounded like a great idea. With close colleagues on either side, Loren had plenty of laughs over the years under the dim haze of a local tavern or three. Those days disappeared with everything else in his life. So did the friends.

  “How long did I sleep?” he asked over the drone of a dozen conversations. He grabbed the handle to the break room door and stepped inside.

  “All day,” Ruiz answered, closing the door behind him. Loren heard the click of the lock over the sound of the coffee slipping into his cup. His eyes rolled and he shook his head. “Sun is already fading. Now, let’s finish talking for real.”

  “Dammit, Ruiz,” Loren replied. He remembered waking up earlier in the day, making his notes, but not falling back asleep. To lose the whole day was a mistake, but to make it worse, the sleep failed to make him any more awake than he was before his eyes closed. Ruiz waited for an answer about the Finney book, not caring about any of the thoughts racing through Loren’s mind. The tired detective sighed. “It’s an interesting take on what our subconscious stores that we never consciously remember. Finney was a damn nut but he knew his stuff when it came to dreams. Three doctorates attested to that, at least.”

  “I’m waiting for the why of it.”

  Loren downed the cool coffee and poured another cup. “There are details, little things, I can’t remember about that night. The people in the crowd. In the windows. Shadows. Just a lot of shadows. And something about sunrises. She was trying to tell me something but all I can remember is something about sunrises.”

  Ruiz stepped away from the door, leaving it locked for the time being. He stood before the window, looking out at the city. He nodded, lost to the pink and purple hue of the fading light of day. “Not too many of those anymore. I always make those promises to Angel. We’ll get up early and see it rise. But there are always clouds blocking our view. Or I’m here.”

  Loren joined him by the window. It had been awhile since he heard Ruiz speak about his daughter, his family, or anything normal. It had been awhile since anything in Portents seemed normal. Ruiz was always there to show the city that it could be done. That the mundane, the simple life, was possible.

  “Beth was a health nut,” Loren started. He took a small sip of his second cup. The taste was worse than the first but he let it slide down his throat before taking another. He blinked repeatedly, shaking the dreams away. “She made the run to the creek at Dunbrier from our apartment pretty much year round. Always used to catch the sun over the trees at the park there. She’d tell me about it when she made it back for breakfast but I’d never listen. Not really. I mean I would listen; I would hear the general details, but never really noticed the way she smiled as she said them or the look in her eyes. Now all I hear her say is that there are no more.”

  Ruiz patted his friend’s shoulder then stepped back to the door. The handle turned, clicking the lock once more. The roar of conversation filled the room. Ruiz held the door for Loren. “Get some sleep, Loren. Real sleep. You keep burning like this and there’ll be nothing left of you.”

  “Is that you talking or Mathers?” Loren asked, seeing the concern in his former captain’s face.

  “Right now? Me,” Ruiz said. “Come tomorrow?”

  Loren nodded. Jurisdictional nonsense and a pissing contest from Ruiz’s daytime counterpart meant more about one man’s career than the dead people littering the streets. Mathers. He’d been after Loren’s badge for years. Until Loren finally handed it over. Why bother with the fight now? Let Mathers handle the case. Let him try and figure it out. The crime scenes. The victims. The connections. There had to be some connections there.

  Loren stopped in the doorway. His eyes were low, watching the remaining dregs of coffee slosh around the bottom of his cup. He felt the weight of the file tucked under his arm, the way it permeated through his skin, turning each detail over and over again in his mind. Shaking his head, Loren closed the door to the break room once more. The lock clicked in his hand. Photos and documents spread across the closest table, Loren quickly positioning each one for Ruiz. Outside, Pratchett held up an empty cup with the phrase Fill Me Up or Else on the side. He pointed to the doorknob eagerly and was met with the waving of Ruiz’s hand and the closing of the shades to the break room. The eager look faded to disappointment as the final shade cut the two men off from the dozens of people outside the room.

  “So that would be a no to the going home request?” Ruiz asked.

  “There’s something we’re missing,” replied Loren, ignoring the glare from his concerned friend. “Something he’s put right in front of us and we’re too blinded by everything else to see it. Is it about the signs or the trophies? Is it about the victims or the locations? They’re almost too elaborate.”

  “Greg.” Ruiz nodded, checking his watch for the time. It was more than concern that met Loren’s eyes now, something the two of them hadn’t spoken about since the former Portents detective stepped foot in the building but both knew might become an issue. Loren h
ated the look.

  “Stop it,” said Loren, his fist hitting the table. “Stop with the nonstop concern and worry. You asked for my help.”

  “I know.” Ruiz raised his hands in surrender. “I know I did.”

  “Then stop looking at me like my wife just died and start looking at me like I know what the hell I’m doing!”

  Ruiz leaned in close. He dropped the manila folder he had been carrying since retrieving the sleeping detective. It landed between them, though neither looked at its contents as they flooded out over Loren’s case. “Do you?” the captain asked, quietly.

  Loren felt the shadows of everyone on the floor near the door to the break room. They were all waiting for a word to pass around the water cooler.

  “In the last hour I have had a lot thrown at me to suggest otherwise, Greg,” Ruiz went on. “Finney’s book. These notes.”

  The folder between them contained Loren’s preliminary notes. He peered down, running his tongue along his top lip. His eyes remained on the frantic messages he had put to paper during the early morning hours after the death of Urg. He felt Ruiz’s bearing down on him.

  “I think it is worth looking—”

  “Property records and archive reports on buildings dating back to the founding of Portents?” Ruiz interrupted, pointing to requisition paperwork never signed or authorized by him yet somehow carried his signature. “That’s your only lead? And sending Pratchett without my authorization was a nice touch too.”

  “Did he?”

  “Do you even listen to yourself?”

  “I saved time, skipped a step. We’ve done it a hundred times before. Especially working the cases we work, Ruiz. You know—”

  “Dammit, Loren.” With his hands firmly entrenched against his hips to keep them from slamming against something or someone, the choice becoming less and less clear, Ruiz paced the length of the room. “Just shut the hell up for one second and listen to yourself. Yes, they are in the damn file. Yes, you saved time. No, it’s not like it used to be and you know it. You’re reaching for some great mystery that isn’t there. Same as always. Same as Beth.”

  The words held there for a long moment. Loren huffed audibly through his nose, his eyes wide from hearing how things truly were between them. He understood the rest of the department. He knew the mistakes made. The lessons learned. It was the reason he left. The reason he wanted to stay gone. He came back for Ruiz against his better judgment. He came back for a friend. A friend who had lost faith in him as much as everyone else had.

  Gathering up the papers before him, Loren tucked the file under his arm again. With his coffee cup in hand, he made for the door. “Nice, Ruiz. Real nice.”

  Ruiz followed the angry detective into the hall. Gawkers shifted to the side, pretending to be in any number of situations that didn’t amount to simply wasting time. Loren refused to slow down, long strides carrying him toward the elevator and the rear stairwell. He needed air. He needed to think. The coffee was hitting him already. The thick black liquid did little but give him the adrenaline surge he needed in the morning. He hated the taste, the smell, the texture. He hated everything about it—except for the surge. As his hand reached for the door to the parking garage, Ruiz cut him off.

  “Come on, Greg.”

  “I think we’ve said enough today, don’t you?”

  Ruiz nodded in agreement. His words were little more than a whisper. “Go home, Greg. I’ll have a car take you. Sleep in a bed with a pillow instead of a damn spiral notebook for comfort.”

  “Sold the bed. Tossed the pillow,” Loren replied. He stopped, leaning against the wall near the back stairwell leading to the parking garage. He finished off the coffee and tossed the cup in a nearby receptacle. “Nothing left there, Ruiz. Nothing left at all.”

  “I’ll make arrangements then.”

  Loren rubbed his eyes and beat his head softly against the wall. “If it’s not the locations, then what? The signs? The trophies? The victims? There is something between all of them, and the locations…”

  “Are a distraction. Not the way in.” Ruiz shook his head. His hand fell on Loren’s shoulder. “You’ll get there. We will get there. But right now? I don’t see it.”

  “This isn’t me reaching, Ruiz. Four victims now,” Loren continued. Ruiz shook his head once more at the mention of the number, pointing to the notes Loren had gathered from the break room. Something else had changed, though Loren refused to let it derail his train of thought. He needed the pieces to fit. Needed to make someone else see them fall into place. “No seeming connection between them except for their bizarre—”

  Ruiz interrupted with a scoff. “Bizarre barely scratches the surface with them. A wolf boy? Or how about the little old lady with the magic eyeballs? An orc with a better bowling average than me? Yeah, after all the fun we’ve already had today, we don’t need to mention your little tip about the apartment murder last night and why I wasn’t your first call to handle the scene. All of this running around this city. Bizarre doesn’t touch it. Hell on Earth is more apropos.”

  “Is that what you really think, Ruiz?”

  Both men were startled, turning quickly. Soriya Greystone stood in the stairwell, smiling.

  “Or is that your pet name for things you don’t fully understand?”

  Chapter Twenty

  In the cavernous chamber hidden beneath the city, a lone figure knelt before a great, glowing orb. With his eyes closed, yet open to the mysteries before him, he sought the answer to a single question. The identity of a killer loose on the streets of Portents. He was not the only one seeking something.

  He was also not the only one in the large chamber.

  Tucked behind the domicile erected in the corner of the expansive room, a shadow stayed low and unseen. The man in the large trench coat with the mismatched eyes watched with great interest at the actions of the figure in the center of the chamber. When he arrived, darkness and emptiness surrounded him. The dim, green glow of the large floating orb in the center of the room was muted against his presence but came to life with the arrival of the white-haired individual with the thin beard. With the darkness as his guide, he peered around the room, taking in the languages marking the four tall columns with a wry smile on his face. At the approaching footsteps, he found the deep recesses of the cavern, allowing him to view all in the room without the threat of discovery.

  The end was close now. He saw it in the glow of the orb and upon the face of the tired, old man reflected along its surface. The time was approaching when he would finally take back what was his all along. The city of Portents. Every street. Every building. Every sign was his. All his. The final piece lay before him to accomplish the long-time goal. It was something he had only seen once long ago but had never forgotten, not through the fires he endured or his return.

  Rumors of the glowing orb of green light dated back longer than even his days in the city. Talk of a light that saw backward and forward in time. A light that granted its user the ability to know anything and everything with only a simple question. The shadow who had once been a man scoffed at the notion. He believed in the real world, in the power a man wielded only with his hands and his mind. The idea of a single item capable of unlocking the mysteries of the universe was absurd and he laughed in the face of every man, woman, and child that relayed its tale. Over time, the stories faded from the memories of him and the populace surrounding him. Hard times came in the first days of his city. Long winters and bitter crops. Still, he persevered. He rose beyond the qualms of his fellow man, finding his own truths in the universe through less accepted methods.

  Until the Square.

  It was a feast, a celebration of survival and the true founding of the city that rose around them. There were dances in the streets, ravenous and craven with lust for power. The people were enthralled. He sat above them on the third floor balcony, watching with the wry smile on his lips. For hours the cheers rang through the streets; from the textile mills on the east to the d
ocks on the west, Portents was a city of unity the night of its true birth. Simple-minded pleasure turned to darker pursuits that matched the waning evening light, the liquor flooding the gullets of men and women alike beginning to run dry. There was something among them. A new focus for the joyous people of the city. The shadow that was once a man watched the events unfold, a silent observer to the controlled chaos he created for his citizens.

  It started slowly. A cry in the darkness. Then the roars of men and the beating of drums. Then it turned ugly. A young woman was brought into the center of the Square. Only the dim light of the streetlamps guided her through the street like a runway. It was a mistake calling her a woman. Calling her young was the second mistake. As she neared the center of the Square, it became clearer. Her clothes were torn from the beating the men gave her in the darkness. Her skin was not the pale pink, white, or black of the people of Portents. It was green. Her eyes were black as the night, not even surrounded by white. Her body was bony and weak, a starving old crone looking for scraps left by the revelers during their festivities. Only she was caught in the taking.

  The shadow that lorded over his people continued to revel, allowing the events to proceed. The woman screamed for mercy, pulling and scratching at the men who held tight to her. The cries of drunken fools filled the air. Cries of a witch among them. Cries of the obscene horrors hidden in the darkness of the city they had built. They would not stand for it. They would not allow the darkness to overtake their purity. The word made the shadow laugh and with him, the roar of laughter infected them all.

  The woman was strapped to a large wooden stake and positioned in the center of the street. More people gathered for the viewing. Smiles clung to the faces of even the youngest of children, aroused from their sleep in the tenement housing that lined the Square by the screams of their parents. Large hay bales were brought from the east end of the city for kindling. The street lamps were dimmed further where preparations were made to bring a greater light to the city. Fervor swept through them all, their eyes bloodshot from the hours of drinking and celebration. Low murmurs turned to chants turned to screams. Women cackled, men beat their chests, but all demanded the same thing: a fire to purify their streets of the evil among them.