Signs of Portents

by Lou Paduano

  “Standish deserved worse than he got, and don’t you think for a second I’ve forgotten who helped him out of his jam. Loren is on this case because he’ll solve it. You want to argue about it in there, know that I’ll win. Find another sandbox to piss in, Mathers, and stay the hell out of mine.” His chest heaved from the anger in his words, but Ruiz managed to keep his voice calm. Finished with the game of the day with Mathers, Ruiz looked to the still-closed doors of the conference room and started for the elevator. The secretary at the end of the hall kept her head down but her eyes flitted to the wide strides of Ruiz as he passed. When he caught her gaze, he smiled. “Call me when they’re ready for me. Thanks.”

  Ruiz stepped into the elevator, leaving Mathers and the rest behind. He hoped the toad of a captain could not see his face as the doors slid shut—or the look of worry plastered all over it. Loren was the right choice. Ruiz knew it. He just hoped Loren knew it too.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  This was a move of desperation. That was what Mentor thought as he pierced the veil of the Bypass, his eyes closed to all but the floating green orb in the center of the cavernous chamber. There were dangers involved. He knew them well; every single one rang through his head with each passing moment. Ask the right question. Stay on the path. Focus on the task. They were motivators but also detriments, pulling him to a side of himself he rarely visited. His fears. Walking through the gateways of universal entropy that shifted within the confines of the orb was never something he dreamed of as a child. It was not something he would wish on anyone else either, which was why Soriya had never been involved in any work relating to passing the veil.

  His own attempts were rare. Early in his life, the life he chose so long ago, there were moments of enthusiasm that were best left forgotten. Mistakes that cost him much. He was wiser, he thought, looking back on the mistakes made, the trials he endured. He was wiser, without a single ounce of pride mixed in for good measure. It was simply fact.

  Within the void that sat buried beneath the center of the teeming city, millions of voices could be heard at a whisper. Cities, some long since destroyed and others yet to be imagined, shifted and faded as he journeyed deeper behind the curtain of the multiverse. Only the strongest voices were truly heard, the most adamant screaming out to drag him to them, hoping to pull him in and be lost to the world.

  “We know you,” a voice called out of the wilderness. Behind his eyelids, Mentor saw the city of Portents. The entire city, kept perfectly in view as if it were caught in a snow globe. The voice was distant yet familiar to the old man meditating before the floating orb and he moved in closer to hear more.

  “Knew you,” a second voice chimed in, similar to the first. They were too familiar, almost like they were voices he always heard in the back of his mind when lost in thought.

  “NO!” a third screamed, and the city shattered from sight.

  A woman cried out to Mentor, pleading. He barely saw her through the thick haze of the Bypass but noticed her pale green skin. Fire burned beneath her. Mentor felt the heat of the flames and turned away quickly.

  No longer in view of the woman or the city, Mentor was lost between places until a temple came within view. “The third Pillar of Faith is Zakat, the paying…”

  The voice continued to speak but Mentor traveled further within the veil, unable to stick to one place—or unwilling to be lost asking the wrong question to the wrong person.

  The first voice called him back to the city. “You are a mentor, but you were once student.”

  “Greystone,” the second voice confirmed.

  “Christopher,” said the first. The name hung in the air around Mentor. It was a name he had not heard in over twenty years. He felt his mind retreating from it, but he shook it off and continued. Once more, the city unfolded before him, only differently. It was no longer the city as it stood but as it was long ago.

  “LET ME OUT!” the third voice returned. The cry shattered the city and the woman returned, encased in flames. She pounded against the air, begging for release, but Mentor looked away. He hoped to see the city surrounding him, but time was fluid within the confines of the Bypass and he overshot his mark. As his focus returned, he found himself in the center of a large theater troupe performing.

  “TO LIVE! TO DIE!” the actors called out all at once in merriment.

  Time slipped further and the troupe was gone as quickly as it came. The past was winning out and Mentor did all he could to remember the city to no avail. Deeper and deeper he fell into the Bypass, his thoughts and questions the only reminder that kept his mind from splintering within the green haze of the orb.

  “They know not what they do….” Mentor closed his eyes before the scene finished unfolding, refusing to witness it. His eyes remained closed, his thoughts constant on Portents. On the murders. On Soriya.

  In the darkness, a single voice called out.

  “You cannot hear answers from without unless you face those within.”

  They were words he had not heard in a long time. They came from a man he once called Mentor. He also called him friend until the very end, but the words rang true no matter the speaker behind them. Christopher. That name was holding him back. The voice’s knowledge of the man he once was kept him from finding the answers he sought. Mentor refused to allow that to happen. He refused to live in fear by the past he lost so long ago. Refusal brought with it a moment of clarity. Focus. It centered him from the path he was wandering and brought back the image of the city of Portents. A city on the verge of being born.

  The first voice greeted him upon his arrival. “What do you need from us?”

  Mentor stood in the center of the city, what was once known as the Square. Over time, the Square became the Rath Building and the park that stretched out over three city blocks inhabited the space then occupied by tenement housing. Hundreds filled the streets on what appeared to be an average day in the city. There were merchants peddling their wares and newsboys announcing headlines. Mentor circled the people, unseen, like a ghost in the system.

  “Show me,” he commanded.

  The people vanished around him and the dim haze of the city shifted from the green glow of the Bypass to deep red. It filtered through the air; it ran along the buildings and streamed onto the streets of the city. He felt the red through shoes not his own, smelled the red as both luscious as a rose and acrid as blood. A pair of eyes looked over the buildings, and the cityscape, crimson as the blood that washed between his toes. They burned hotter than the flames that gave sound to the third voice. They hovered over the Square, watching over Mentor, who felt small and insignificant, the way the eyes intended for all to feel.

  “Can’t stop him…” the third voice sobbed in the distance but Mentor refused to look away from them.

  “He is among you,” the first voice answered. This Mentor already knew. Three dead bodies that he was aware of confirmed that fact and precipitated the visit beyond the veil. He needed more.

  “He is aware,” the second voice continued.

  The red turned to black and everything was covered in shadow. Slowly, the green haze returned but the red eyes that covered the city with their glare continued to rise over him.

  “HE’LL KILL YOU ALL!” the third voice screamed from within her cage of flames. Mentor did not need to look to see her, but was surprised her voice rang with truth behind every word. She knew the killer. She knew him very well.

  “The valley of shadows has released him,” the first voice said.

  “The price was deep,” the second voice continued.

  “A deal was made.”

  In the darkness, Mentor saw another figure join him in the street. The figure kept to the shadows near an alley off of what would one day be called Evans Avenue leading toward downtown. He recognized the brick of the neighboring buildings and the trash that languished on both sides of the wide alley. The figure carried a sigil on its arm. From a distance, Mentor had trouble seeing the entire image but wa
s able to make out one aspect of it. A small torch with gold flames rising above it. Mentor’s eyes widened.

  “Christopher,” the second voice called him back.

  Distracted for but one second, Mentor turned back to the alley and the shadowy figure was gone. A true retelling or simply the mind’s eye playing a game? It was a question he would have to answer later. There was only one name he needed for now. All others involved would have to wait their turn.

  “You won’t stop him,” the third voice laughed. She was lost in the final throes of death that encompassed her eternity. Still, Mentor refused to look toward her. Validation meant acceptance and he refused to accept that an enemy was incapable of defeat. Not even this far removed from the world, as he knew it, would he dare to contemplate that notion.

  Around him, the city fell away and he was floating over it. Portents burned and shifted as time bent around his floating frame. Out of the chaos of its birth, the city grew beneath him. From the docks of the west to the warehouse and rail yards of the east, it stretched out before him like a puzzle coming together. Through all that time, through all that change and growth as the world turned quickly around him, there was one constant. Though it started small at first, it grew in front of him in the blink of an eye until it rested like a shining example of civil engineering and the modern age. Where it rested was of even greater importance, sitting in the very center of the city. Watching over all.

  A black tower.

  “He knows,” the second voice warned. The tower loomed before Mentor but he refused to look away. There was something on the black spire that he needed. Something emblazoned along the side like a neon sign. The name.

  “HE IS FREE!” the third voice cried, her laughter continuing. The name was there on the side of the building in giant, red letters.

  “He can see you in the darkness,” the second voice went on.

  “LET ME OUT! I WANT TO SEE IT BURN!”

  “His eyes carry him from the beginning.”

  “From our beginning,” the first voice returned and through the dim haze, Mentor realized who was speaking to him. He was hearing his own voice cutting through the wilderness of the Bypass, through time itself.

  The name shattered before him but not before Mentor read it upon the side of the thin, black tower looming over the center of the city. As it crumbled from view, so did the city…and Mentor could hear the dim roar of the trains overhead when he fell back to the world.

  The second voice called after him with a final warning. “He is the end.”

  His own voice responded, but to whom he could no longer tell. “He knows. And now…”

  Mentor’s eyes snapped open.

  “I know.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Soriya’s methods were never straightforward. They were never a clear delineation to an end goal. They were, however, revealing. Revealing of the city in which Loren had spent the majority of a decade before deciding to leave for a new start. They were also revealing of his guide and her age. It had not been long since Soriya started her task as the Greystone, a task Loren remained skeptical about despite her obvious talent and enthusiasm for it. She was only twenty-two, barely starting her adult life, and together the two of them had faced monsters in the dark, both human and otherwise. It was not something he would wish on anyone.

  It was during these jaunts through Portents that he forgot about all of it—the murder, the darkness of the city, the fear he felt creeping on the periphery. There was only the two of them racing through the night, searching for more than a simple answer. They were finding themselves as well.

  He volunteered to drive. She laughed at the notion. It wasn’t her way.

  It started with a cab ride to the east, ending at a tram station off Court. While they journeyed in the slow-moving evening tram, Soriya pointed out a street performer surrounded by the late night denizens of the area. He was a contortionist, bending and twisting his body in all manner of shapes for a crowd. Only the two of them caught sight of his blinking eyes. Horizontal instead of vertical. The thin tongue barely slipping out of his lips, forked and wiry like his body.

  There was more. The city took on a strange dichotomy, blurring in the darkness between reality and fiction for the former detective. It disturbed him, made him nervous that at every turn there would be something else. Something unknown. Something dangerous. To Soriya, it was the opposite. Her smile grew with each step, with each discovery she was able to share.

  This was her world. This was her city.

  The tram took them to Allure and the market within. Street vendors pedaling their wares at all hours. It was deemed a safe zone, outside the rules most of the residents of Portents obeyed, knowingly or subconsciously by vacating the streets with the sun’s departure. Along Allure there was contentment. Fruit carts, jewelry, art, and more. All for sale. All the time.

  Soriya stopped at a fruit cart, peering for something quickly. The crisscrossing journey through the city may have been diverting to the pain of the last few days, but both knew there was still the task ahead. Loren needed answers. He needed them soon. Ruiz was able to bring him back into things easily enough with his experience in the city. Keeping him on the case, one where the body count continued to climb without a solid lead, would not be justifiable. Not with Mathers whispering in the ears of the commissioner and the mayor, his own tongue hissing louder than the street performer.

  Loren stayed back, patiently waiting for Soriya. Her selection came with ease. A golden apple, bright against her dark skin. Loren felt his lips part to ask the only question that sprung to mind but she was on her way to the bus stop at the end of the block before he could get the words out. She left him with the bill too, the vendor’s open hand and furrowed brow waiting for payment.

  At Ness and Lincoln, Soriya’s tour ended. Neither of them said much during the trip. There were subtle attempts at conversation that never went anywhere. Both reached for something to connect them beyond the case, letting the city fill the emptiness. Answers would come when they were absolutely necessary. It was always the same. Everything was about the work and life resumed when the work was done. Loren remembered stakeouts lasting full days where nary a word was spoken. In all honesty, he needed that from Soriya especially after his earlier conversations with Ruiz. It was an unspoken trust. Neither pried further than needed; even the question of the large bruise upon her cheek fell into the chasm between them to keep the focus solely on the task at hand. No small talk needed. Just the facts. Loren chuckled with the thought.

  Loren stopped with Soriya, curious. She moved so briskly through the city streets, it was rare to see her so still. There was anticipation in her stance. Excitement in her eyes. Loren knew the look, but not the reason behind it. Where they stood was a section of the city that few visited. It was known as the Corridor to most of the citizens of Portents, a place where residential and business separated, leaving a great void in the center. The buildings that lined the Corridor were mostly abandoned, having never truly benefited from the divide. The homes that lined the left side were in disarray from those that dwelled within them, which were few and far between. The business side to the right fared no better but the buildings looked nicer. One in particular stood out from the rest. The one Loren found himself standing before, next to the eager Soriya Greystone.

  Large concrete steps, typically found on government buildings in Washington or great libraries in cities far more important than Portents, led to a pair of bronze doors. Stone railings ran along the edges of stairs, where two statues adorned their bases. One was of a tiger. Its paws were seated upon the base, but the eyes of the beast showed a hunger for whatever or whoever walked in its path. The other side was home to a woman carved in stone. Her eyes were covered but her hands extended, welcoming all to her side.

  “Stay close,” Soriya whispered. She positioned herself between the two ends of the concrete steps and the two statues. She looked to each for a long moment, placing her foot directly eq
uidistant from both before stepping upon the first stair. She looked to Loren from the first step and nodded. Loren took the meaning though not the reason behind it and followed her every motion up the large steps to the double doors of bronze at the peak.

  The first steps were slow. Soriya looked back at each step, keeping close watch over Loren. It made him nervous, his eyes shifting around the area. No one was around. The late hour saw to that, as well as the strange location of the building that Soriya deemed so important to their case.

  What he did see was the tiger turned toward him. Subtle but definitely shifted from the base of the statue, the tiger’s eyes were wide and her paws no longer resting on the base but extended, hoping to grasp the detective at the first chance she had. The woman was also turned, her hands cradled before her. Thin lines were apparent on her forehead though Loren no longer remembered them being there previously. She appeared concerned, almost pleading for his safety…or to embrace him fully.

  He took a step toward the stone woman, curious. As his feet wandered from the small path Soriya left behind, the ground shifted. The hands of the statue snatched at his clothes. The thin lines of concern along her face were gone, shifting subtly to anger and anticipation. Her nails grew, scratching at his thin coat, looking for a foothold.

  “Soriya!” Loren cried out, falling back. He hit the steps hard, the statue’s stone hands reaching through the air for him. His sneakers skirted away quickly. But too far. He felt hot breath on his neck. His backpedaling had taken him too far from the center.