Signs of Portents

by Lou Paduano

  “There’s the fifth victim too, Loren,” Ruiz said, struggling to understand. Old souls. Talking ravens. Ruiz wanted nothing to do with it. “Shouldn’t this be some weird pentagram shit or something?”

  “Like I said, this one was about something else.”

  “The ID badge.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. To where? And what does a box have to do with Evans? With Portents?” Ruiz asked, begging for an answer he could relay to the station. One that didn’t end with laughter on the other end and a trip to a mental ward.

  Loren picked up the map and moved for the street. The two men eagerly followed through the thin clearing Pratchett had left in the garbage heap. They almost collided with the back of Loren when he halted on the sidewalk. His eyes were off to the east of their position, but more importantly, they were looking up. Past the dim light of the waning sun, they all followed his gaze.

  “Because, Ruiz. Because of what lies in the center of the box,” Loren finally answered. “And the family that built it.”

  Standing like a dark beacon was the black tower in the center of the city. It stood taller than all buildings around it, obsidian over shadow in color except for a single word that ran along the side of it in large, embossed red letters. A single name all of them had heard too many times in the last few days to ignore as coincidence or happenstance.

  Evans.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The black tower emblazoned with the name of Evans on its side stood eighty-six stories tall. Most of the floors were controlled by Evans Industries, but a number of smaller concerns had taken up residence in the tower over the last decade, some partners of multi-million dollar enterprises, some separate entities with enough capital to cover the cost of rent at the city center. Most believed it was pride that built the tower, some stubbornness, while others knew that only true will built great things.

  Evans was a name associated with a number of different industries but all came together at the central hub of the obsidian tower. Food production, textiles, banking. From the mundane to the obscure, Evans was part of the city’s life in multiple facets even if the people that passed the stone archway leading to the lobby had no idea. Diversity was the key to survival in the business world. Where some businesses made their name in a single field, they lived or died by that field. Evans was about survival and to survive adaptation was the key. The loss of a limb meant nothing to a hydra with a hundred arms in a hundred pools. That was the business model that kept the lights bright behind the shadowed tower’s tinted glass.

  The lobby consisted of two staircases and a series of elevators beyond a single marble desk where two receptionist stations were manned. A security station was at the top of the staircases as well as a small historical attraction for those interested in learning more about the business or for those with cash burning their pockets hoping to pick up a magnet with the image of the black tower to post on their fridge at home. That was what the tower became on the surface—an attraction. It was one of a kind in the city and even the state. Where engineers came and went, believing the task to be impossible, the Evans family refused to accept defeat. It made the news across the world; it brought more people to Portents than when the first port was commissioned. The black tower was the beacon of the skyline, controlled and operated by the Evans lineage.

  Three elevators took visitors and employees to the floor of their choice, all of them open except for the penthouse level of the tower and the roof above. Evans employees retained ownership of the first twenty floors and the top twenty floors, coordinating with a hundred offices around the world. All of them funneled their way to the top—the penthouse office.

  The penthouse office took up most of the eighty-sixth floor of the building. The executive elevator located beyond the security office on the second floor landing was gold-plated around the frame. Arriving at its destination atop the large obsidian tower, the elevator opened to a small hall that quickly flowed into the greater room of the office. The wall extending to the right of the entrance and down the width of the building was covered by large pictures in heavy, silver frames. They ranged from oldest to newest and each held the image of a member of the Evans line. Father to son and on and on for over 140 years of history in Portents. At the end of the line, with the oldest image next to the door, was a large private washroom. A full bath, shower, and sauna were installed within the wide expanse of the restroom. The tinted windows that lined the entirety of the outside of the building gave an exquisite view from the whirlpool tub.

  Leisure was part of the charm of power, but everything that came to the tower came because of the power of the office on the penthouse level. The office was sparse in decoration aside from the large images of Evans throughout the history of the city. A fully stocked bar took up the back wall and a conference table was positioned in the open floor space in the corner of the room. Aside from that was a large oak executive office desk. It extended eight feet across with a four-foot width. Wide drawers supported the two sides, three on the right and two on the left. Full leather lined the chair positioned behind the desk with enough cushioning to melt into the fabric for comfort. At least, that was how the man behind the chair appeared. His photo was closest to the elevator, a passing reminder of his ascension each time he went home for the night.

  Gabriel Evans.

  “I want to make sure we set something up with Pruett tomorrow, Lori,” he said into his speakerphone, his fingers curling up the corner of the report he had spent the better part of the afternoon reading. The sun was fading quickly, deflected by the ring of windows surrounding the large tower. Up on top of the world during the daylight was a thrill, but he always hated it at night. The entire floor seemed suspended in the sky. The overhead lights assisted but when they clicked off on his way to the elevator, there was always a brief moment of terror that filled him, as if the floor would simply open up and he would fall to the street hundreds of feet below.

  “Pruett? But I thought he was already…” his receptionist started to reply. He could hear the rustling of paper under her long, plastic fingernails. She hated to disappoint him and she rarely did.

  “Lori,” he said softly, comforting her. She knew better on the other end, the rustling continuing for the schedule of their project managers. “This launch has to go right and I want the projections to be spot on. If I look like a jackass again for the media, someone is going to take a hard fall.”

  Laughter echoed in the dark of the room. Soft, rhythmic guffaws from the far side of the large office. It cut through Gabriel like a chill breeze, his eyes attempting to peer through the thick black that seemed to spread from the doorway.

  “Is someone there?” he called, nervously. There were no meetings on the docket and no advance warning of visitors. Stockholders be damned for their random visits to placate their unease at some of the more recent failings from the company’s initiatives. Gabriel turned back to the phone. The red light was dimming. “Lori?”

  “Mr. Evans?” Lori called, distantly. “Is every—”

  The light faded completely from the phone, leaving only a dial tone then nothing at all. Gabriel lifted the receiver. “Lori? Lori! Are you kidding me here?”

  More laughter boomed, closer now. Gabriel slammed the receiver down. He saw the thin figure of a shadow in the distance.

  “All right, enough,” Gabriel shouted. “Who’s there?”

  A figure drenched in black stepped out of the shadows. He staggered forward, hunched. When the man grinned, all Gabriel saw were teeth. His lips and cheeks sagged too low, out of place, as if belonging to someone else. Small scraps of flesh fell in his wake.

  “Pruett?” Gabriel asked. The shadowy figure looked like the senior level accountant. The same look. The same hair. But the figure was taller, skinnier than Jackson Pruett.

  “Mr. Pruett had another appointment,” the voice boomed in the wide office.

  “Then who—”

  “Call me the Ghost of Christm
as Past.”

  The sight of the intruder sickened Gabriel. He wanted to wretch from the torn flesh that peeled when he smiled and from the wide patches missing from his open abdomen. Reaching for the phone, Gabriel kept his eyes fixed on the approaching man…if he could refer to him as that.

  “I don’t know what kind of sick joke this is but I’m calling security. They—”

  “Will not come.” The sagging lips of the man before him finished the sentence without hesitation. Gabriel heard nothing on the line as before. It was dead. He glanced at the security cameras throughout the office. No lights were recording. Everything was dead. “No one can hear us. No one will see us as long as I wish it. I want my time with you to be free from any and all interruptions.”

  Gabriel watched the shadow step toward the windows. He wore a torn overcoat to conceal the patchwork of skin that sagged and broke loose from his body. Reflected in the dark glass, Gabriel saw a pair of lights cutting through him. One eye of sky blue and another he recognized from his own reflection. Crimson. A genetic anomaly his family had been gifted with every few generations. Quickly, Gabriel looked to the exit but the shadow blocked the path. Could he reach it faster than him? If not, could he fight? Too many variables. Too much fear was more the case. He stood silent, watching the man at the windows, sweat beginning to rise under his hair.

  “You set yourself above it all,” the shadow continued, staring out over the city. His city. “Watching the fleas below. Judging them. As it should have always been. I did the same. At this very spot. Only not so high up.”

  He smiled, turning back to Gabriel. His chin sagged down to his chest but the smile remained in place, lipless and bloody. As the shadow started back to the desk in the center of the room, his eyes caught sight of something else and his direction shifted once more, this time for the long line of photos.

  “You don’t look well, sir,” Gabriel called out. Slowly, while the shadow stepped away from him, the twenty-eight year old chief executive officer inched his way to the corner of the desk. Once free from the confines of the desk there was nothing to block his path for the elevator. He needed only five seconds to reach it at a full run. He could do it. He had to do it. “Why don’t we talk about whatever it is you want? Just talk.”

  The mismatched eyes of his late-night visitor greeted Gabriel at the end of his desk. Even at their distance, he felt them reach into him and take away all confidence in his plan of escape. The moment was gone. “Sit down, Gabriel.”

  Down the line of photos the shadow of a man walked. At each one, he stopped for a moment, eyes shifting up and down, from Gabriel’s own image to his father’s to his grandfather’s, on and on down the decades of history.

  “You sit up here over them, the eternal victor,” the voice thundered. Each word a cannon, full of fury. “But you should have taken it to the next step. The degenerates. The freaks. Every day some new catastrophe on two legs, pretending to be a man. Infecting this city with their presence. Dragging it down from the heavens. Bringing all of us down with them. I tried. Lord knows, I tried to end them at the beginning. They saw it as murder. Those peasants. They saw it as a crime against humanity, when they weren’t even human. You should have continued. Gotten rid of them all. Been stronger than I ever was. All towers fall. They came for me in mine. Those people, walking around like ants under our feet…they showed me that all towers fall when you let them.

  “But you? You wasted your power, your prestige, on drugs, sex, and money.”

  The shadow stopped at the final image. The image of the first Evans in Portents. Gabriel had heard stories of the man, tales told on his father’s lap when visiting the office as a kid. They always said he shared his ancestor’s eyes.

  Everyone tried to forget the face of the man in the image; for a time they even removed the portrait and locked it into storage. Gabriel’s father retrieved it and placed it back on the wall with the rest. The past was meant to be known, to be honed and fine-tuned for the future. That was his message.

  Gabriel never gave it a second thought—until now. The shadow was transfixed by the image, his hand reaching up to comb back thin patches of brown hair that had yet to fall from his scalp.

  “This was our city, Gabriel. My city.” The shadow turned back to Gabriel, who fell back into the desk chair. “You wasted the future.”

  “Who are you?” Gabriel asked, desperately. He needed an answer. He needed to know.

  The shadow smiled next to the final image of the Evans line. The first Evans of Portents, the one Gabriel heard about in whispers and ghost stories but never pushed for more for fear of the answers that would come. The image of the man he knew to have truly been the inspiration of the city around them. The image of the man that almost destroyed the city in its infancy. Nathaniel Evans. The shadow’s hand lifted his chin back into place. “Can’t you see the resemblance?”

  “What are you…?” Gabriel tried to understand. He tried to make sense of the shadow, the man, the creature in front of him, but nothing came.

  “I’m family, Gabriel,” Nathaniel Evans said. His hands extended closer and closer to his descendant. A speck of blue and another of blood red cut through the darkness of the room when the light went out above them. Gabriel felt his heart leap in his chest. His body was weightless and he knew it was finally happening. The floor was gone from under him. He was falling.

  All towers fall.

  The shadow had known all along somehow. This was the price he paid for the life he led. The floor was gone and the fall remained. Instead of the street below, though, there was nothing but two flitting lights in the shadows of the office moving closer and closer. They called to him one last time and then all was darkness.

  “Now how about a hug, Gabe?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  So much had changed. Three days earlier, there was joy in Soriya’s world and now, standing before the Bypass, there was nothing but darkness. Mentor was gone. Urg and Vlad had joined him beyond the veil, to whatever time and place chosen by the great floating orb in the center of the chamber. Whether it be paradise or damnation, it was not for her to know, but knowing was the one thing she needed at that moment.

  Soriya knelt, her head low. She gripped tightly to the Greystone, the one piece of light that remained in her world. The Greystone is pure. They were Mentor’s words. They were uttered to tell of a balance between bearer and stone where both parts made the whole greater, yet remained altogether pure. She knew that. She knew what she was supposed to be, how she was supposed to be, and how she failed to meet that standard time and time again. She knew all that, but still she tried to pierce the veil the way Mentor had so many times before.

  Even with her eyes closed, she could feel the heat from the stone, light pouring out of it. Nothing flashed before her. There was nothing but shadow and darkness. Show me. Show them to me. She begged the Bypass for entrance. She had the question in her mind. Where are they? She held it out for the glowing orb to snatch from her mind but it hung between them. Her eyes opened then closed tighter. SHOW ME. Still, nothing entered her mind. No images of great cities long gone. No fields of flowers where Mentor skipped along waiting for his real family to join him. There was nothing because of the real question she wanted to ask.

  When can they come back?

  Asking questions was always dangerous with the Bypass. She realized that from the stories Mentor relayed to her at a young age, tales about the man who once trained Mentor and how their time together ended due to the ominous orb in the center of the chamber. Nightmares barely covered it for Soriya after learning the man’s fate, promising her teacher it would not be repeated. The Bypass kept her promise for her this time by locking her out. There were no answers to seek. She knew them already. They were gone. She had failed and now she was alone with the job laid before her. A job she was not ready for in the slightest.

  Three days. That was all it took to change her world. There was a time when she understood the world she inhabited. T
he city of Portents. The people of the Courtyard. She understood it all. She knew her role. She loved her role. Three days was all it took to take that away…to take everything away. She failed.

  “No more.”

  It started with a whisper, slipping from her tongue. Her head remained low, her eyes closed and she squeezed the stone within her grasp. The Greystone is pure. She wanted it to remain that way. She wanted to feel that way. About herself. About her role. The broken man above in the tunnels disagreed with that assessment. So did the young woman she saved from his hands. Her fear stung Soriya deeper than any failure she had endured over the last three days. It was the one circumstance Soriya had full control over, though control was the one thing she forgot to bring to the party.

  “No more.”

  It was louder this time. She felt it echo off the four large columns supporting the chamber. With her eyes closed, she imagined it was written on all four, each with their own language but all saying the two-word phrase over and over again. Tears stung her eyes, her heart threatening to leap from her chest.

  “NO MORE!” Soriya screamed. Her eyes snapped open. The Greystone left her hand in a rage, soaring through the air until it slammed against the nearest pillar. It fell to the floor, skipping along the cool concrete until it finally stopped a few feet away from her. Through the tears that flooded her eyes, she could see it, the flat surface looking through her. She heard Mentor’s voice.

  “It is a great responsibility. What we give up pales compared to what we gain. A gift to change things for the better.” His voice was soft, calling to her to pick it back up, to carry on. “It is your responsibility now, little one.”

  Soriya tried to stand. She tried to fight through the grief and the rage and the failures. They weighed her down; they prevented her from finding her balance. There was nothing she could do. She was not enough for the job at hand. She would never be enough. The Bypass floated before her, glowing in judgment of her, the deep shadows taking over the green glow. She turned away from the glow and the Greystone before it. More tears fell, and she closed her eyes so the world went dark around her.