Signs of Portents

by Lou Paduano

  “No,” the priest replied curtly. “Truth be told, she hasn’t said much since it happened. The accident. As if she can’t find the words.”

  The man nodded. “I understand. It takes time.”

  Father Tomlin agreed. An envelope passed between them and the priest quickly tucked it within his jacket pocket. The man beside him shook his hand and the priest left the garden as quickly as he entered. For a long moment, the man stood before her without a word. His gray eyes beamed down on her, his hands tucked deep in his pockets as a chilly wind ripped through the garden. When she peered up and caught his eyes with her own, his face lit up against the light that softly shone into the winter garden. He moved beside her and sat down on the bench. A deep sigh left him, his weight settling onto the seat. He patted his hands against his thighs, her eyes watching his every move. Finally, he turned to her.

  “What do they call you?” he asked.

  She seemed puzzled by the question. “I don’t remember my name. From the accident.”

  “I know,” he replied. “So what do they call you?”

  She held her tongue for a moment, wondering where the question was leading. “Freak. Creepy. Weirdo. Others too. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You are absolutely right. It doesn’t matter.” His smile continued to shine and brought one on her face for the briefest of moments. It slipped away and her head fell low.

  “I am sorry for your loss, little one,” he went on. “I was hoping I could help, if you will let me.”

  “How?” she asked, feeling the warm flames of the accident as if it was occurring all around her.

  “Maybe to understand it more.” His eyes dimmed as they stared across the garden. “What happened to your parents was a great tragedy, but more than that, it was balance. For what, we may never know nor ever feel it to be fair. But knowing this might help you begin to understand it.”

  She didn’t understand. How could she understand? Her parents were gone. Her life was gone. Four years old and nothing to remember from her former life. Were there people who missed her? Grandparents? Aunts and uncles? No answers ever presented themselves to her when the questions started. Nothing but more questions. And never any understanding.

  The man leaned closer to her. “I know what you carry. What you hide from the priests and the other girls. A small stone. Warm to the touch even on the coolest days. It is called the Greystone.”

  How did he know? How could he know? She was so careful with the small stone of grey, always keeping it hidden away wherever she went. There was no one she trusted with it, no one she spoke to about it in confidence. It was another mystery but one that connected her with the life she lost that day on the highway outside Portents. Nevertheless, he knew. Somehow, through all the secrecy, he knew it all.

  Slowly, the girl of four removed her hand from her pocket to reveal the Greystone. Her hands wrapped it tightly before her, brown eyes watching over it the entire time.

  “I keep thinking it can bring them back.”

  “I know,” the man replied, nodding. “But it can’t, little one. It can’t alter the past. What it can do, if you believe, is change the future.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  The man reached into his pocket. When his hand returned, he opened it to reveal another stone exactly like hers, sitting in his palm. Soriya’s eyes widened in surprise. For months, she had been alone, lost in a sea of solitude that was deeper than any ocean. Now, though, there was someone who knew about her. Who understood more about her than even she did. Moreover, he was there for her.

  “I can show you more, little one. Things you could only imagine. If you’ll let me.”

  “But—”

  “Father Tomlin and I have discussed it at length,” he interrupted. “Paperwork has been signed and noted and you are free to come with me. The choice is yours. Every choice is yours.”

  She didn’t know what to say as the man stood up with a small groan. There were so many questions to ask, so much to know. She looked back at the orphanage. Some of the girls were at the windows looking down at her. Always looking down at her. They called her freak because she scared them. She was alone, but did not have to be that way any longer. Slowly, she reached up and took the man’s hand. As the two headed toward the dormitories to gather the girl’s belongings, she remembered the question that needed to be asked. The only question that truly mattered.

  “Are you going to replace them?”

  He stopped, bending down on one knee before her. He was still smiling. “Never. Consider me a mentor.”

  The door of the viewing room closed loudly, causing Soriya to jump slightly from her seat. The day she first met Mentor lingered in her thoughts. The sight of his brown beard and the smile he wore when she took his hand. They were memories she would never forget, unlike those of her former life. Nothing could take Mentor away from her, no matter the secrets or the name he carried before their time together.

  The two women stepped back into the hallway. The older one was wiping tears from her eyes, struggling to walk. Her daughter stopped to talk to Hady, but found the work-obsessed woman already closing her office door. The woman with her father’s eyes found Soriya sitting on the seat near the room. She locked onto Soriya’s pain written across her face. The black-haired ward of the deceased saw the daughter of her mentor head her way. She stood, looking around for an exit, unable to find one.

  “Did you know him?” the woman asked. She kept her eyes low and away from the viewing room where her father was being held.

  “I’m sorry?” Soriya asked in response, unsure what to say or how to say it. They shared the same role, just at different times. She was nothing compared to his flesh and blood.

  “Sorry. My name is Julie Eckhart,” she replied, extending her hand. She didn’t seem to mind the smell wafting from Soriya after being on the run for so long or the dirt that caked to her skin like armor. “Did you know my father?”

  “Your father?” Soriya stumbled. She took a breath. “Yes. Yes, I knew him. He was a friend.”

  Julie turned to her mother who had found a seat down the hall, waiting for her patiently. Then the thin gray eyes Soriya had seen in Mentor for the last eighteen years flitted back to the blinds covering the viewing room window. “All these years he’s been gone. My mother always knew he’d come back but I—”

  “I had no idea,” Soriya said. “He never said. Never mentioned and I never thought to ask. I’m sorry. I should go.”

  Soriya started down the hall, nodding to Julie’s mother when she passed. It was quick but necessary, catching the eyes of the only woman who possibly loved Mentor more than her. This was the woman who would miss him more as well; had missed him more too from the deep lines of concern that branched from the edges of her eyes.

  Soriya needed air. She needed to race along the rooftops and feel the wind in her face. She needed to feel something other than the grief that ruled her every thought, which soaked her entire being like a wet cloth. She felt angry—angry at her failings, at not being strong enough, fast enough. Angry with Mentor for the secrets she always knew he carried. Angry with herself for never questioning, never suspecting, what those secrets could possibly be or how much their discovery could hurt. Just like their first day together, there were so many questions to ask. So many things to learn about the man she had known for eighteen years. However, he was gone. She had been too late and paid the price for her failure.

  Only one question remained, but it wasn’t from her. Julie called her back in the hallway of the morgue. The woman with the thinning brown hair ran her fingers along the glass of the viewing room window. Although there was nothing to see but the dust on the thin blinds, Soriya watched her say goodbye to her father before she asked her question.

  “Can you tell me about him?” she asked, her fingers falling back to her side. “My mother and I can only offer tea and leftovers but… Can you tell me about my father?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two
r />   Ruiz found Loren in the back of the bookstore, slumped over one of the research nooks the store provided for its student clientele. His face was firmly planted inside a large text and a sliver of drool soaked into the pages of the book while he slept. For as long as Ruiz had known Loren, he had seen the dedication to the job and to the city in every action he took. He saw the determination. He saw the drive. With Beth, he saw the joy and the balance of work and life in his day-to-day activities. Since her loss, there was no more balance. Joy was replaced by exhaustion and anger. Balance was replaced with obsession. Work was constant; even grooming fell to the wayside.

  The shirt was different, which was a plus. There was a shower involved in Loren’s activities at one point during the day, for which Ruiz was grateful. His breathing was low but audible in a dull snore. Sharp whiskers grew with each passing minute, covering his chin and cheeks.

  It had never been Ruiz’s intention to bring Loren back to the fold. He understood throughout his entire ordeal with Beth’s passing that a change was needed. When they were working cases after her death, he saw the anger biting through his words, his rage and resentment slipping through his reports and arrests. Theories and conspiracies took root in every case, a bigger picture never quite captured. Loren always pushed too hard, straying closer and closer to the edge. Ruiz let him for the most part. As a friend. As a boss. Anger was a motivator to be sure.

  After a time, though, it wasn’t enough for Loren. Or too much, as it were. Ruiz had to step in the way. He was grateful his friend listened and listened well. Loren, for all his shortcomings, for all his drive to accomplish the job at hand, was much better than Ruiz had seen him months earlier. There was a bounce in his step. Even through their battles over the direction of the case, Loren remained committed to closing it. Still, the exhaustion was setting in quickly and Ruiz worried another slip was forthcoming.

  Stepping quietly through the room, Ruiz looked over the photos and books strewn around the table. Maps of the city. Historical accounts. The property records Pratchett had dug up for Loren. All mixed together with the photos of five victims that had placed the city on high alert, whether the commissioner or the mayor wanted it to be or not. Even Mathers was hard-pressed to ignore what was occurring around him, which said something about the obtuse captain that stood as Ruiz’s counterpart for the day shift. Slowly, Ruiz slipped his hands around the largest text on the table. It was a geographic guide and historical account of the Portents settlement from the 1800s to present. There were markers throughout the open pages, lists of prominent locations and the ever-expanding borders of the city to include the suburbs that had cropped up over the last century. He closed the book lightly, raising it over his head. His fingers retracted, letting the book fall. It crashed loudly in the vacant room.

  “What the…?” Greg Loren started to say, eyes blinking rapidly to shake out the dreams. Cloudy visions of the room soon broke to crystal clear images. Ruiz’s face greeted him. He wished he were still asleep. “Ruiz.”

  “Detective,” the captain replied. He bent low to retrieve Loren’s wake-up call.

  “How did you find me?” Loren asked, checking the clock mounted on the far wall. It was late afternoon already, the hours slipping by without a single thought. Loren reached for his jacket and the pack of triple berry gum.

  “Call came in about a belligerent man badgering a local bookstore owner. Kept swearing he was a cop but seemed to leave his badge at the office for some reason.” Ruiz reached into his pocket and pulled out Loren’s temporary badge. “Something about needing the place emptied and a large cup of coffee.”

  “Never did get that coffee,” Loren replied, rubbing his left eye.

  “You should apologize,” Ruiz said, fatherly.

  “You already did,” said Loren, knowing the Hispanic’s penchant for smoothing things over with the fine people of Portents.

  “True. But you should.”

  “I will,” Loren answered. His eyes were back on the books, scanning through texts as quickly as possible.

  “You can’t keep pushing yourself this way.” Ruiz took a seat across from him at the table. The overhead light was bright, shining directly between them. For a moment, Loren thought he was back at the precinct being grilled in the interrogation room.

  “I know,” Loren said, leaning back in the chair. “My ass is asleep and my back is killing me.”

  Ruiz let a smirk slip as he reached for the case files scattered through the piles of books and records on the table. “You should go back to Chicago. Forget this mess.”

  “I look that bad, huh?” Loren knew it as well. After leaving Soriya to finish her plans with Mentor, he barely let himself enjoy his shower before heading to the bookstore. Atlas Books. Whenever anyone was looking for a hard-to-find book, Atlas Books was the place. No library in the city kept the stock they did and the owner, a frump of a man named Allen Mason, knew every single manuscript down to the page.

  “Bad is putting it mildly,” Ruiz finally said, finding it difficult to be tactful.

  “I changed my shirt, at least,” Loren smirked, pointing to the large ‘S’ symbol on his chest. He felt his back crack and snap when he stood. It felt unbelievably good after four hours curled up on the hard wooden chair. Relieved, he leaned on the table before him, eyes low. “He beat us, Ruiz. This thing beat us. He doesn’t get to walk away from this.”

  Loren gathered up the books that lined the floor around him. Nothing was found in them that gave any clue about the whereabouts of their killer. He moved them over to the return rack. The manager of the store was not one to let his clientele place books back on the shelves. It also gave the wary clerk a chance to inspect the damage wrought by his visitors, to which Loren knew the man would not be pleased by the drool staining the pages of Founders of the City. Loren had been sure that book would have held something more, hearing Kok’-Kol’s words on the beginning. It had to be more than the beginning of the murders, but the beginning of what? The city? The country? The world? Still, he tried the book and found it lined up with almost every other account of the city’s beginning. William Rath, with a couple hundred settlers, founded Portents in the early 1890s. The same details, the same half dozen prominent residents of Portents were mentioned in every single one. There was something missing, though. Loren knew it from the book he had been carrying since the Bypass chamber. He knew it the second he saw the blood smear on the construction date of the warehouse where Vladimir Luchik was found.

  History was wrong.

  You have the signs needed to complete the story.

  “Have you talked to her? I mean, actually talked to her, not the snark that I get.”

  “I’ll let her know you’re concerned,” he said, not really thinking about Ruiz’s words. They both knew Soriya was not one to talk no matter the pain. Loren was more focused on the book in his hands, which he slipped back on a nearby shelf out of order and upside down. He smiled, relishing the thank you he was giving Mason for his hospitality.

  “Point made,” Ruiz replied.

  Loren grinned, returning to the table. He held out his hand and Ruiz returned the files. He opened them up, ensuring everything was still in place, his obsessive nature showing through. Satisfied, he dropped the file on the table and looked back at his friend.

  “No,” he said softly, thinking about Soriya’s grief. Three losses in less than three days. Some were less significant to be sure, but all mattered. Especially Mentor. “No, I haven’t talked to her since we moved the body.”

  “Christopher Eckhart,” Ruiz said wistfully, still fighting to believe it was possible. “Missing persons case was opened decades ago. I was working the beat then. My first or second year. He’s been here the whole time. Had a wife and daughter too.”

  “A whole life,” Loren chimed in, remembering the small domicile in the Bypass chamber.

  “She never knew? Never said anything?” Ruiz asked.

  “Never said,” Loren answered. “Probably never
thought to ask. Why would she?”

  Ruiz looked to his watch and then pointed for the door. “Come on. Dinner. My treat.”

  Loren shook his head, pulling back the chair. “I need to keep working. I need to finish going through these photos on the fifth scene. See what the connection could be and why there was no sign left. Just doesn’t add up.”

  “Then why here?”

  “Something someone said and then what I found at Ment—Eckhart’s.” Loren was trying to piece it together. He knew leaving the raven out of the mix was the best option when it came to Ruiz, who already looked him over suspiciously. The captain walked around the table and pushed the chair back under. He grabbed Loren’s coat and held it out for him, pointing for the door.

  “Greg.”

  “Wait.” Loren looked back to the clock and then to his friend. “Shift doesn’t start for another four hours. How did you get the call about me?”

  Ruiz checked the door to make sure Mason hadn’t let anyone else into the back room. “Called in for a meeting.”

  “Dammit,” muttered Loren.

  “Yeah.”

  “Mathers?”

  Ruiz nodded. “He’ll be taking point first thing tomorrow if we haven’t closed it.”

  “He has no clue what the hell—”

  “We know that, but who else does?”

  “Please tell me that prick at least had the decency to pin it on my idiocy and not lay this at your doorstep?” Loren asked, concerned.

  Ruiz’s face was shadowed from the overhead lights, his eyes dark. “He did,” he answered. “Doesn’t matter either way. I handed you the case so it falls on me. Don’t think for a second Mathers won’t use it against me first chance he gets.”

  “He won’t, because he has no chance of solving it.”

  “True.”

  “I screwed it up for you.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Dammit.” Loren ran his fingers against the scruff collecting on his chin. Of course he screwed it up for Ruiz. He should never have been on the case in the first place. He should have stayed in Chicago or brought all of his things months ago when he first moved. But now? After three days of running through the streets looking for an old soul, talking to ravens, and almost being trampled by a giant with a chicken wing fetish? He had the answers. The damn raven knew it and so did he, at least on some level, and to see it slipping away because of Mathers? “So we have a day.”