by Lou Paduano
He knew the answer before he asked. The amount of blood. The blank stare of the man’s eyes toward the ceiling of the apartment’s living room. There was more but he let the observations slide into the background, joining the syncopated rhythm of the broken window frame beating against the side of the building.
“I’ll call it in,” he said. He slid his shoe off to avoid trailing more blood. In his pocket, he removed a large plastic bag he carried from the warehouse crime scene and placed the shoe inside. “We won’t have much time before they arrive, but once we let Ruiz know, he can have units patrolling the area within the hour.”
“They won’t find him,” she said in a raspy voice, faded against the backdrop of the television. Loren found the remote on the couch and muted it, making sure his hand was covered to leave the scene as undisturbed as possible. The room fell into darkness except for a single light that beamed in from the street lamps that lined the side of the apartment complex. An orange hue shone across the ceiling. Soriya knelt close to the victim in the center of the living room, hands covered in his blood.
“Probably not,” he replied. While Soriya blocked most of the light, Loren was able to see the blood dripping from the man’s gray lips. His torso was covered in red, making any distinctive wound indecipherable for the investigator, but enough little gashes and blows indicated it had not gone well for the man. “This was your friend? The one you—”
“Urg,” Soriya interrupted. “His name was Urg. An orc.”
When she lifted her head, Loren saw the dried tears on her cheeks. Another friend lost. As her hands left the body, blood trickled from her fingertips. Loren stood quickly and moved for the kitchen off the side of the room. He found a dishtowel wrapped in front of the stove and snatched it. Returning to the living room, he held it out to her. She slowly reached for it, rubbing her hands deeply along the microfiber cloth, knowing the stain would never truly be removed.
“Your friend, the orc,” Loren finally said. He took the dishtowel and placed it in the bag with his shoe. Her eyes narrowed at him.
“He was one of the good guys, Loren.”
The sadness in her face made his cheeks fall and his eyes lower. “Yeah. I can see that.”
Loren took a step back, looking around the room. Near the front of the living room where the apartment door remained ajar, there were a series of bookshelves. Each was packed with books except for the middle shelf on each unit. Instead of books, there were a series of keepsakes. Loren leaned close for a better look, his eyes narrowing to cut through the darkness of the room. Bowling trophies. Family photos. The large orc, complete with shortened horns and pale green skin, posed in several photos that were made into a collage to celebrate his birthday. The life of an orc that made Loren’s existence seem much emptier. Images of Urg riding on his motorcycle. A baseball signed by the 1961 Yankees. Loren wondered if he was at the game back then or if he spent his evenings cruising around eBay like everyone else.
The computer desk was positioned adjacent to the shelves of books and knickknacks. Tucked beneath the keyboard was a handwritten list of names and positions. Football players for a fantasy football team. Loren chuckled audibly then stopped from any further reaction. Though the notion was ludicrous to the exhausted detective, there was still the little thing of the man, or orc, or whatever lying dead in the center of the room.
Looking back, his grin fading, he saw the scrawl on the far wall. It seemed darker in the orange hue from the streetlights. Loren recognized the same paint strokes from the previous image. Just as before, some of the markings were lighter than the rest. Urg’s blood mixing with the killer’s. Some of the pattern remained. However, the image itself was a mystery to Loren.
“Another sign.” Soriya’s words cut through the silence of Loren’s musings. He stepped into the center of the room for a full look at the symbol.
“It’s different than the other. All unique from the rest.” Loren took out a small notepad and drew the image of the large O with the twin markings at the peak and base of the letter. “Any ideas?”
“Languages,” Soriya replied. She pointed to the large letter. “Dead and forgotten languages. This one is Cyrillic. But what it means beyond the letter it represents in the written language, I have no idea. Mentor would know. He would see it immediately.”
“So we go ask him,” he said. She shook her head against the idea. Whether it was matter of pride or the fear of a disapproving father being right, Loren was unsure. Not that it mattered at the moment. Now the only concern Loren had was catching a killer. Pride be damned. “He didn’t lose someone close to him tonight. Two someones. If he can help, we should—”
“Why Urg?” she asked, cutting him off. Soriya leaned on the couch, staring down at the body. “Why here?”
Loren knew the moment was gone. Each player was set on their own path, just as it always happened when letting Soriya and Mentor choose the game. Loren stopped caring long ago about it. He needed their expertise more than they needed his resources. Or his skills. The whole deal left him cold, knowing he would need all of his energy to figure out the killer’s motivations and pattern on his own. Soriya’s questions were near the top of his list, as was the choice of trophy. Trophies. It brought him back to the body serving as an area rug. What was taken? The light made it difficult to decipher. Nothing seemed to be missing, no appendages lopped off.
Something caught his eye in the periphery. It came from the window, causing a slight break in the rhythmic beating of the frame of the shattered window against the building. Curious, he moved for a closer look, the orange-hued light of the streetlamps shining in his face. Looking out along the side, careful not to lean on the base of the frame where shards of glass remained from the killer’s flight from the apartment, Loren saw something large caught in the frame. It looked like a giant flag waving in the night breeze.
“I think…” he started, leaning out of the window into the cool, night air. Carefully, he pulled the window frame closer and grabbed hold of it in his hand. “I think I might have an answer…but it only brings me more questions.”
“What is it?” Soriya asked.
Loren pulled loose the giant banner-like cloth and immediately realized what he was holding. It felt thin and hard with a layer of film lathered along its surface. It was a green he had seen before—in the photos that adorned the entire apartment. The small hairs that covered the item in Loren’s hand brought it the rest of the way and the mortified man dropped it on the living room floor. It spread wide between the two of them like a blanket. It was not a flag blowing in the wind.
It was skin.
Urg’s skin.
“I think our killer was looking for a new suit.”
Chapter Seventeen
Deep in the heart of the city, under the shine of skyscraper and monument, there was a wellspring of light. Below the streets and the morning roar of humanity there was a place where humanity sang. It was a secret place, those held most treasured by the city of Portents, but unlike most that took shelter in the open spaces, tucked outside of view by being on full display for the public, this place remained hidden from all.
Taking the C line at Evans Station in the heart of downtown, there was a junction, unused since the earliest days of the city. Few knew, even fewer cared, as most passengers of the subway waited for the train in silence, their eyes locked on the music players and the mobile devices they toyed with endlessly. It was a junction off the far line, one rarely used, as it led to the warehouse district that was for the most part vacant. The junction remained bolted up and forgotten over the decades.
Forgotten by most, that is to say.
The access door was large and red, though the lack of light beyond the emergency bulbs that ran the length of the track every fifty feet made it easy to miss when viewing the metal-plated entrance to the junction. It was heavy as well, its handle rusted from age, its track worn down over time. No spider webs lined the door, though, as evidenced on many of the forgotten
junctions throughout the city. This junction saw use, greater than anyone could possibly imagine.
Beyond the door to the abandoned junction was a large stairwell. Wrapped in darkness, the stairs journeyed deep beneath the sound of footsteps and the screams of humanity. No tracks of light lit the path along the thin, creaking steps, but at the very bottom of the stairwell, a soft, green glow greeted visitors to the room.
The base of the stairwell opened to a large cavern, its ceiling over forty feet high. Four large marble columns supported the structure. Adorning each of the pillars was a unique language carved in the stone, all sharing the same quality as the room itself. They were forgotten languages of the world. The carved letters strung together, from floor to ceiling, around each pillar.
To the right of the entrance was a series of smaller rooms. None of them sported the same gravitas as the large cavern, though each maintained a ten-foot high ceiling. Two bedrooms, one restroom, and one common room made up the small domicile in the corner of the larger structure.
All of these details, every nuance from the marble of the pillars to the languages upon them, paled in comparison to what lay directly in the center of the four columns. It floated a few feet off the ground, guarded on each side by the columns. To the layman, it was a glowing orb of green light. To the man who stood before it, it was the gateway to knowledge. The man known only as Mentor knew it as the Bypass.
Skating along its surface were small slivers of darkness, mixing and flowing with the green light that filled the room. Looking deeply within the floating orb, one could see cityscapes in the distance, coliseums and capitols. Places not seen for centuries. Within the Bypass, they all existed as one. It stood as a crossroads to every place and every time. All heavens and all hells. It was the final destination of all.
Mentor knew all of this, standing before the glowing green light. For hours he waited, preparing to face the orb. Hours spent deep in thought, swearing off all food and water for the journey ahead. He knew what secrets the Bypass held, what answers could be told and what questions must be asked. Knowledge was power—and within the Bypass, the knowledge of eternity itself. Any question could be answered. All mysteries solved. If he chose to ask the question, the answer would present itself, though not simply in most cases. He could ask anything. He could know everything. Knowledge, while powerful, was as corruptible a force as greed and lust if asked for the wrong reasons. It was the choice, the responsibility Mentor carried for decades, an honor he had attempted to pass to Soriya over the years though there were times it seemed to be the impossible task.
That morning, as the sun rose over the city, Mentor stood before the light of the Bypass with a single question. A single task. Three people were dead and a killer was loose in his city. He had done all he could on his own, pouring over the extensive collection of books and notes he had accumulated over the years. Loren’s work had helped as well in this regard, though Mentor would never verbalize that amount of praise on the officer of the law. He even had an inkling about the information the grizzled detective failed to share. Information that seemed to be central to the case. There were ideas brimming to the surface, thoughts and notions about the who and what of it that needed confirmation. Mentor stood before the growing green light of all knowledge looking for a very simple answer.
A single name.
Mentor knelt before the floating orb. He took a long, deep, cleansing breath with his eyes closed. Exhaling, he felt the world around him fall silent until there was only him and the whole of eternity locked away within the Bypass. He opened his eyes, truly seeing the worlds held below the surface of the green light. His words were whispers carried on the wind throughout the room.
“Let’s begin.”
Chapter Eighteen
Everything was black.
“Greg…”
A voice called out of the darkness but Loren was unable to see the face behind the sound. The name was breathless, lost in the abyss that surrounded him. Loren blinked hard several times to clear the image. His eyes refused to adjust. His mouth moved to respond to the voice in the thick black but no sound escaped. Mute, lost, and increasingly terrified, the detective realized his hands were unable to move to shovel away some of the darkness or to act as a guide through the black pool. His legs followed suit. He was immobile.
“Greg…”
The smell of lilac infected the air around him, filling his senses. The black that surrounded his eyes started to fade to dim gray, yet everything remained obscure. There was nothing to indicate time and place. How he arrived was also a question he failed to ask until that moment. The lilacs overpowered his senses. It had been a long time since he had smelled such a potent variety. It had been the last spring before Beth’s passing. She planted them in the window box off the front of the living room that looked over the sidewalk where she met her end. It wasn’t until the pungent odor of lavender lotion entered the equation that Loren realized what surrounded him.
“Greg.”
His eyes opened to the rooftop of the apartment building. He had only been up there half a dozen times in the two years he shared the apartment with Beth after their wedding, but he recognized it immediately. The sun was coming up over the rise and Loren shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness. Squinting through his fingers, he realized the brightness was not due to the sun’s intensity but to the sheer size of the orb rising before him. It was three times its normal size, filling the sky in front of him. The enlarged globe burned in a deep orange red instead of the normal early morning yellow. Loren’s eyes screamed from the glare, but he fought to see the small shadow near the edge of the rooftop. Everything spun until he found one item to focus on.
Beth.
She wore a red sundress with yellow lilies along the trim. Hair flowed down on her shoulders, not a single strand out of place. Her blue eyes were wells of sadness that stared through him. A small tear dripped down her pale cheek. She stepped back to the ledge, her bare feet running along the edge of the building.
“No more sunrises, Greg.”
She fell, tumbling over the edge while her words hung in the air. Loren screamed her name but the sound failed to escape once again. His body, no longer immobile and confined to the darkness, raced for the edge of the building. Greg looked down to the street to see Beth’s body continue its plummet. Rather than waiting to embrace her, the street, completely in shadow, reached out to her. Shadows encased her pale skin, blue eyes begging for help, for mercy, for some kind of action on Loren’s part. All he could do was watch the darkness swallow her whole.
“Beth,” he screamed, jolting awake. The office was empty but Loren heard the footsteps of officers in the hallway. The precinct was in full swing, but for Loren the day was in its infancy. Crime scene photographs surrounded his makeshift bed on the floor. His coat served as an adequate pillow but he could feel the tightness in his back from the tile mattress. The case files pertaining to the three murders sat beside the photos, but none of that interested Loren. He scrambled for a spiral notebook that sat on the corner of the desk in the center of the room. As he pulled it down, it crashed to the floor and the pen that sat within shot out, rolling across the tile until his hand snatched it up. Loren opened up the notebook to a half empty sheet. His lips were muttering the same phrase repeatedly as he wrote.
“No more sunrises. No more sunrises.”
He felt sweat on his brow from the dream and the accelerated heartbeat in his chest. As soon as the note was in place, he let the pen fall back to the floor. He stared at the three words he had scrawled on the page. They were accompanied by a myriad of half sentences, half thoughts, and musings. Sights. Smells. People. Faces. Impressions in the dark. Every detail was important. Every remembrance a key to that night.
“No more sunrises.”
He heard the words once more, reading each one on the page. What did it mean? Was it what she said in that last moment? Why would she? Why would she smile when she said that of all things? Too many
questions plagued the exhausted detective. Too much guesswork and zero police work, but that was all he was left with in the end—guesses.
He tossed the notebook aside and turned to the window. Gray clouds hung over the city, leaving the morning light dimmed and the skyline in a thick haze that would last throughout the day. His dreams were right. They always were. No matter what else could be said about the message his deceased wife brought him while he slept, one thing was true: There would be no more sunrises for him. Not without Beth.
And not in Portents.
Chapter Nineteen
“Greg.”
When Loren finally woke up to face the day, Ruiz stood in the doorway to the office. He stirred at the sound of the name, waiting for Beth to visit him once more with another message. Anything to help make sense of the last four years and the four minutes he spent with her at the end. Instead, the thin gray eyes of Ruiz met him when he stirred. Sweat dripped down Loren’s hair from the interrupted sleep. He watched the captain’s eyes scan the room systematically, looking over the open case files strewn about the tile floor to the spiral notebook and the pen marks throughout the open pages. Loren supported his weight with his hands, shifting his body back so that he leaned against the wall of the office. He was still exhausted. He knew it. So did Ruiz.
“Go home, Greg,” Ruiz said, taking a slow sip of coffee, forcing it down. It was office coffee and most assuredly cold.
Loren rubbed his eyes deeply. He used his sleeve to mop up the small beads of sweat. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah. You’re the picture of mental health.”
“And you’re Dr. Oz,” Loren snapped. “Is he still a thing? It’s too early for snappy pop culture references.” He shuffled the paperwork back into their respective case files and piled them next to him. “I was just resting my eyes.”