by Lou Paduano
“No more.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It took over an hour for Ruiz to go through proper channels. Loren waited patiently outside Evans Tower as Ruiz made call after call for the appropriate response team for the situation. Loren saw the necessity in the act but his pacing told a different tune. He wanted to move. He wanted to race into the building and end this just as Ruiz had requested two nights earlier. Backup was needed, however. Even in Loren’s anxious steps, he realized there was no way to tackle Evans without manpower. Ruiz returned with six officers to back them up, which included the ever-present Pratchett. Loren wasn’t confident the number lined up. Thoughts of Vlad’s eviscerated frame or Urg’s skinned body made those doubts very apparent. Still, it would have to be enough.
When the patrol cars approached, Loren made a beeline for the door under the large stone archway. Ruiz tried to stop him, but was forced to wait while the newly recruited officers joined him and Pratchett on the sidewalk for instructions.
Loren heard their footsteps behind him. He kept going, his own steps clacking loudly against the lobby’s tiled floor. Above him the lights flickered and faded, as if recovering from a power outage. The reception desk held two chairs but only one was occupied at the moment. The woman behind the desk tilted her head around her computer screen at the sight of Loren. She saw the sidearm tucked under his jacket, exposed when he reached for the badge in his pocket. Then she noticed the other men and women in uniform making their way toward her.
“I’m sorry, can I…?” the receptionist started. Loren waved the badge in front of her, looking everywhere else in the room. He saw the security station above them and two guards watching him intently. He saw the elevators on the first floor, open and waiting to receive fresh occupants. None of it looked right to him.
“Executive elevator?” Loren asked, still browsing the scenery. The two guards stood a foot taller than him. The guard on the left carried a scar down his chin, while the man on the right covered his with a thick, black beard. Both wore ID badges on their chests. “Or do any of these take us to the top?”
“Mr. Evans’ elevator is only to be used for….” The woman’s voice was mousy over the footsteps of the other officers. Ruiz was by Loren’s side, trying his best to calm the confused receptionist with his patented political smile. Loren was grateful to have him there. Tact was never his strong suit when it came to saving lives or closing cases. Tact was more red tape that Loren never understood. He let Ruiz wine and dine her with his soft stare and disarming grin. He was busy, looking. He stepped back from the desk, the woman continuing to lecture him on the policy of an elevator. From the center of the lobby, he was able to see the entirety of the security office on the second floor landing. In the back, there was another elevator, this one framed in gold. Jackpot.
“I see it. Thanks,” Loren said, not caring if the woman was still in midsentence. Ruiz tried to grab him but the eager detective was already taking stairs two at a time to the landing. “You should look into these lights though.”
The woman called after him. “I have to page him to let him know but I don’t think he’s taking—”
“He won’t care,” Loren bellowed back, stopping in front of the security office. He looked down at her with a smile of his own, one that did not give comfort to the young woman at the receptionist desk. “Thanks!”
“Loren,” Ruiz shouted, trying to slow him down. Ruiz finally caught up with him, after passing along instructions to the officers at the front door as he made his way up the staircase. “Two by the front door. The rest with me.”
They were easy enough to remember and Pratchett was the first to volunteer. Crowd control or last resorts were Pratchett’s bread and butter. They kept him and everyone else safe from any command decision made by him. Patricia Brennan, a relative rookie to the squad who only met Loren in passing before he left three months earlier, followed suit to join the towering officer by the large double doors under the archway.
The two guards that looked like prison wardens blocked Loren’s path to the executive elevator. Loren tried to pass and they shifted in front of him. The one with the scarred chin opened his suit jacket to show off his sidearm.
“Your boss is going to want to see us,” Loren said, plainly. There was a monitor station to the right of him. Twenty monitors shifted from floor to floor, each time using a different camera angle. A single chair was stationed there and the man in control refused to budge to join his compatriots.
“Doubtful,” the bearded guard replied.
Loren didn’t care about approvals or invitations. An hour had been lost so far and he refused to wait any longer. Finally, the monitors shifted and Loren saw the executive penthouse office of Gabriel Evans. A lone figure sat, talking into a phone, though no sound could be heard over the monitor as far as Loren was concerned. In the corner of the monitor, something caught his eye.
“Hold it,” he yelled at the man watching the monitors.
“Sir, you can’t.” An enormous hand grabbed Loren’s arm and held him back.
“Go back to the penthouse feed.”
“We have to ask you to leave, sir.”
“Just go back to the penthouse feed and look at it.”
“Sir, all of our monitors are real time. We don’t need to—”
“Except for that brief outage you had earlier, right?” Loren pointed to the flickering lights. The guard in the monitor room looked queerly to the detective.
“It was only for a minute.”
“Do it and we’ll leave,” Loren insisted.
The guard released him and nodded to his colleague in front of the monitors. The man switched the feed to the penthouse office. Where all the feeds displayed the darkness outside the tower, night settling over the city, the penthouse feed still held the remnants of the fading sun.
“Oh, hell,” the man muttered. “It’s from over an hour ago.”
“He’s already here,” Loren said to Ruiz.
“Son of a bitch,” the bearded guard muttered. Both men stepped aside, drawing their weapons. Loren led them, Ruiz, and the rest of the officers to the elevator doors. One released the clasp holding his ID badge in place and swiped it in the keypad next to the elevator doors. A loud click greeted them and the twin doors slid open. All of them stepped inside, the doors closed, and they headed up to the eighty-sixth floor of the black tower.
There was silence for a long moment. Loren took a deep breath, tucking his badge away. They were climbing and he was in a tiny little box heading to the tallest point of the city. Deep breaths were only going to go so far, but Evans was up there. It was time to close the case. That’s what the job was and that was what he needed to focus on.
The numbers continued to ascend. He released the clip to his holster, letting his sidearm slip into his palm. He focused on the cool metal in his grip over the weightless shifting of the boxcar under his feet. He focused on the five victims and bringing their killer to justice over the image of his dead wife stepping off the ledge of their apartment building. No more sunrises, Greg.
“Just him up there?” Loren asked the two security guards.
“Pruett,” the scarred one replied. Loren threw Ruiz a thin glare at the name. They knew it very well from the autopsy report.
“Mr. Evans’ accountant. He didn’t look good but he has access.”
“Right.” Loren nodded. He knew Mr. Pruett’s fate and who had taken his place.
“Tell us again,” said Ruiz, retrieving his pistol and nodding for the others to do the same.
Loren was thankful for the distraction. He looked over each and every face in the elevator, trying to relay the importance of what they were about to do. His eyes made it clear that the time for questions was at an end. This was it.
“Nathaniel Evans helped found this city. His business brought people in by the droves and created one of the fastest growing settlements west of the Mississippi during the Reconstruction era. He was a hero to the people unt
il they found out what he did when the sun went down. Murders, sacrifices, rituals. It forced the people of Portents to turn on him. They killed him for it. Beat him to death with the brick and mortar he made available to them and then burned his body to ash. The town was so mortified, the stigma of his heinous acts so great, that they hid their history with him, razing the city to the ground. Then they started over. That’s where we get stories of William Rath founding the city, but that was all they were. Stories. Twenty years Evans controlled the city and the people within it and they buried it so that future generations didn’t have to carry the burden of remembering it.”
No one replied. Confused looks followed Loren’s gaze. He wondered if they heard more than a simple ghost story, if some actually believed what he said. If it was even possible to believe such a thing could happen. Ruiz made it simple enough for everyone.
“Lone man up there. He’s armed and dangerous. Do not get close to him. Shoot to wound if necessary. We want him alive.” To Ruiz, it was always about keeping it simple. He looked back to Loren as the others in the elevator nodded in agreement. “Why here, Loren?”
“This was where he stood when he was at his height. When he owned the city and the people around him. He wants that back.”
The guards behind Loren were nervous, small beads of sweat on their brow.
“Gentlemen.” Ruiz addressed them, his voice slow and calm. The elevator reached floor 80 and continued to climb. “We’ll take it from here. Go back to the lobby and shut down the elevator to keep anyone from leaving this floor. We will call with the all clear when it’s done.”
A sigh of relief exhaled from both of them. The elevator chimed. All eight passengers turned to the doors when they slowly slid open. Loren and Ruiz led the way. Silence fell over them. Ruiz positioned Merrill and Daniels at the elevator and the small stairwell beside it. The elevator closed with the relieved guards. Loren wondered how much they would regret not having that as an exit strategy, the answer painfully clear in his mind.
Jankowitz and Naeger followed Loren into the wide room, each step mere inches in front of the last to maintain the quiet of their approach. Above them, the lights flickered worse than those in the lobby. Most were out completely, though the cause was more than the simple outage explained to them below. The bulbs to the overhead lights were shattered, resting on the panels that enclosed them in the ceiling. Another popped and darkened in the far corner. Jankowitz spun on her heels, gun at the ready. Loren rested his hand on her forearms, slowly bringing her weapon down. She nodded nervously, which Loren understood completely.
To Loren’s right, he saw the line of photos. The Evans line stretched back through time. The recent photo of Gabriel Evans was that of a twenty-eight year old man-child on top of the world. His smile swallowed up countries as easily as the amount of money at his disposal, and he was well aware of it. He sported auburn hair slightly darker than the red tint to his eyes, lighting up his facial features. A strong face but a young one. Too young for the job on his shoulders, though Loren was sure he didn’t mind pretending to fill the big shoes of a multi-million dollar mogul.
All around them, the city stretched out in every direction. Glass covered the walls from floor to ceiling, tinted to keep anyone from looking in and to keep the full light of day out. It was awkward to say the least. Loren refused to look at the walls, keeping his gaze on his feet or the ceiling above. He sent Jankowitz and Naeger in opposite directions to scan the perimeter of the room. The center was his. He may have made the journey up, focused on the task at hand, but no matter what else he knew, heights were not his friend. Had he truly forgotten that during the elevator’s climb? Had his drive curbed all rational thought? He hoped it would again. For a little while at least. Just enough so he could breathe again.
Ruiz stepped ahead of them during their sweep, inching toward the desk in the center of the room. A small pool of blood extended from behind the desk. The large, leather chair that rested in the center of the expansive executive desk was turned away from them but Ruiz saw a silhouette on the armrest. He looked to Loren, pointing out the shadow ahead of them. Loren nodded and followed, their weapons raised.
Loren stopped on the far side of the desk, covering the chair with his weapon. Ruiz continued forward, each step carefully taken in silence around the desk.
The soft popping of light bulbs continued in the distance. Ruiz ignored them, inching for the chair and the waiting shadow in its grasp. He took the left-hand side of the desk to avoid the pool of blood on the other. His right hand left the safety of his sidearm and extended out for the chair.
Ever so gently, Ruiz felt the soft leather of the top cushion. He gripped tighter and felt the weight in the chair shift. He spun the chair around to greet the shadow.
Ruiz’s face dropped at the sight. Loren saw it happen so fast. The chair turned and his friend’s face went white.
Ruiz did not fall back. He did not wretch at the sight of the shadow in the chair. However, Loren knew he wanted to because it was either that or shriek in terror.
A body greeted them in the large leather executive chair. Loren knew it was Gabriel Evans’ body from the start, but the tattered clothing that attempted to cover the decaying frame confirmed it with G.E. embroidered on a single cufflink. Another victim of Nathaniel Evans.
This one was worse, though. Gabriel was skinned, just as the last two victims had been, but the trophies taken did not end there. Sockets where crimson eyes had been were empty. His hands were gone as well. Ribs were cracked open and what organs not harvested lay at his feet in the growing pool of blood on the floor. Gabriel was picked clean for parts.
“Dear God,” Ruiz muttered under his breath. Loren stepped over to his friend and pulled him away from the corpse of the most powerful businessman in Portents.
“Not here, Ruiz,” Loren replied.
A toilet flushed from the far side of the room. All of them turned, listening to water run in the washroom located at the far end of the long line of photos and painted profiles. The sound was replaced by approaching footsteps. They clicked with the sound of expensive shoes, the kind that demanded their presence be known well before their wearer was in the room. The door opened with a slight click and a man stepped into the room.
He wore a three-piece suit, black as the windows that surrounded him. His hair, auburn and thick, flowed to the right side of his head. Red eyes greeted them, his youthful smile belonging to the scavenged corpse behind the desk.
Nathaniel Evans dried his hands on a washroom towel when he stepped into the room. He wore the skin of his descendant proudly, revealing a wide, toothy grin he had been saving for over a century.
“Welcome, Officers,” he greeted them, his voice booming in the large penthouse office at the height of the black tower. “Welcome to the end.”
Chapter Forty
It started small. The thump of a heartbeat amid the cascading sounds of the world above. So small, it was hardly noticeable to the languishing woman kneeling before the floating orb of the Bypass. Her failure overshadowed the small crackling in the distance, her grief overpowering the spasms running along the sides and up the ceiling of the chamber.
Until it was too much to ignore.
The quakes began soon after. Tremors that shook the ground under her. In the center of the room, the shimmer of green and shadow droned louder but inconsistent. The floor screamed in agony, causing Soriya to jump to her feet. Her eyes widened when the room shook with the intensity of a large-scale earthquake, yet remained confined to the chamber of the Bypass. The world did not break through the widening cracks in the ceiling. Trains did not crash down the large stairwell. Everything centered on the chamber itself.
Finding her footing, Soriya instinctively grabbed the Greystone she had so callously tossed away in a fit of anger. The petulant child was gone. With her, the anger and grief over the events of the last three days faded behind the wave of tremors that cracked the earth around her feet. The columns remaine
d intact, for the moment, keeping the ceiling from falling, but fissures were visible along the corners of the room.
The stone was warm in her hand. Through her fingers, which gripped the stone so tightly they paled in color, Soriya saw the bright light of the rune on its surface.
Without a thought, without an inclination, the stone was in use and not by its bearer. Had she caused the tremors? Subconsciously, had she willed her entire world to collapse even more than it already had?
This was something else, she knew. The rune was not constant. It shifted between five different configurations, glowing brighter with each one. She did not recognize their meanings in the quick changes passing before her eyes. The only thing she did know in that moment was that this was not her doing.
“It’s starting.”
This was his doing. The man who killed Mentor. The old soul’s final reckoning had come to pass on the city of Portents. The moment was finally here and she was bearing witness to it.
Tremors forced her further back. In the void of the Bypass, screams were heard even without attempting to pierce the veil between worlds. Screams of delight. Screams of pain. Screams of terror. The orb was shifting, darkening in color, growing in size. That was not the only thing it was doing, Soriya realized. The Bypass was rising. Small shards of color flitted off the floating orb. The embers of the once perfect sphere rose, slipping through the mounting fissures in the ceiling. Through the darkness of the cracks surrounding her, Soriya saw lights rising out into the city above. The Bypass was not only rising. It was escaping.
Light beamed from the four columns surrounding the floating mass of energy. On each one, a single symbol glowed brightly. They matched the signs written on the face of the stone that continued to shift, faster and faster, with each passing moment. They also matched something else, Soriya realized—pieces locked into place.