Black In White

by J. C. Andrijeski

  “Okay,” I said. “I got it.”

  I was staring out the window though, thinking, and Black must have seen it on my face. For some reason, he didn’t ignore it that time.

  “What?” he said.

  “That spiral pattern,” I said, looking away from the window. “You know what it is?”

  He made a vague gesture with one hand. “I might.”

  “What is it?”

  “I said ‘might,’” he said, sharper, his sculpted lips turning in a faint frown. “That wasn’t a figure of speech, doc.” His expression still hard, he made a more conciliatory wave with the same hand, lowering his voice. “I’ve seen it before. Not only in this world. I haven’t had time to research it fully, and I wasn’t familiar with the group back in our home dimension... but the symbol’s not dissimilar to something I remember there.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “I just told you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean what was the context? Secular? Religious? Political? Where did you see it? In that... other place?”

  “I saw it written on walls. And on flags belonging to a sect operating there. A religion, I guess you could say.”

  I frowned. “Was it a religion?”

  “It would probably be most accurate to call it a radical sect of a religion,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “One with... political aspirations. The religion itself was more mainstream.” Hesitating, he met my gaze. “It was race-related. The three spirals, they represented the three main races. That was a big part of their ideology.”

  “There were three races there? Three humanoid races?”

  “Yes.” Chewing on a piece of steak and swallowing, he shrugged. “Well... one was extinct. Or a myth. Depends on who you asked. Only two existed when I was there.”

  I nodded, deciding to shelve that for now, too.

  Then, thinking about his words, I shook my head, putting down my fork.

  “What exactly do you plan to do?” I said, wiping my hands on the napkin in my lap. “Shoot the guy? Talk to him?”

  “Both, perhaps,” he said, giving me a cryptic smile. His eyes grew more serious when he added, “I want to know what he is first, Miriam. And if he’s working alone. If I didn’t need to know those things, I’d just call the police. Let your friend Tanaka handle it.”

  I let out a disbelieving laugh. “Right.”

  “I would,” he said, sounding a little offended. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  I had no idea how to answer that. So I didn’t.

  I had to hope he had some plan, though.

  Something beyond “talk to the guy.”

  Glancing at my watch, I hoped like hell Ian was dead asleep by now, too.

  As I thought it, Black peered his head out of the doorway between the restaurant’s main dining room and the hallway leading into the downstairs exhibit halls. I knew the staircase to the upper floors lived near the restaurant’s entrance as well. After Black checked to make sure the coast was clear, he turned to me. He showed me a screen with dark blue letters on a pitch black background, presumably to minimize brightness.

  Virus has been activated, the letters read. Security will be busy. 10 mins.

  He typed again, his fingers moving with a mechanical precision.

  They’ll check down here last, the letters read. We need to hide before they do. My people will keep motion sensors off if they can. Can’t count on it.

  I gestured my confusion.

  He typed again. Under the pyramid. Angel.

  That time I just nodded, tightening my hands on the gun.

  I should have known.

  Those spirals couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  Swallowing my misgivings, I followed Black, my gun pointed down but still in front of me. I kept my eyes on his back as he moved silently across the tile floor. I also kept my ears and eyes open, glancing up as we passed beneath the staircase, listening with my ears that time, even as I scanned the dimly lit passage with my eyes.

  I remembered his warning about not trying to use my mind in here.

  Suddenly, that felt like a pretty big handicap.

  I looked down even as Black aimed us down a smaller corridor.

  I remembered the passageway. Now that I knew where we were going, I tried to remember the exact layout of this lower floor. The near-perfect darkness didn’t help, partly because everything looked so different than it had that afternoon, but also because it was easy to get turned around, forget what direction we were traveling. I had the blueprints memorized according to their relation to the directions of the compass, so losing that disoriented me.

  Alcove lighting under a few works of art hanging in the hallway helped me to find my way back to the map, as well as dim, floor-level illumination around two doors we passed. I also saw one flickering, cracked Exit sign, and a few times, smaller panel lights, probably from security cameras that Black seemed to think were all switched off.

  None of those lights traveled far.

  Truthfully, they disoriented me as much as they helped in terms of seeing what was around us, breaking up my night vision if I looked at them too long. But they got me oriented more or less to the blueprints again.

  Most of the floor was completely dark; I wasn’t sure if that was Black’s doing too, meaning something related to whatever his people had done to turn off security. Even the bathrooms we passed were dark, but maybe the security guards used a different set upstairs.

  I still hadn’t heard anyone.

  We walked through another archway and into an exhibit room that was nearly pitch black. My heart pounding harder, I raised the gun, my fingers resting on the barrel just above the trigger. Indistinct shapes made me startle a few times, seeing what might have been people.

  In all three cases, they turned out to be sculptures.

  We left through another arched doorway on the other side and entered a room that appeared to be mostly furniture. If I was remembering accurately, this room was a historical re-creation of a European King’s parlor room, someone from Bourbon France, I think. I remembered marveling over the details they’d included that afternoon: old musical instruments and sheet music and a writing desk along with gorgeous bookshelves filled with rare books, many of which appeared to be real, on loan from some collector or another.

  This had to be one of the rooms with motion sensors, I thought.

  Some of the items in here had to be priceless.

  The realization didn’t do much for my nerves.

  It was too quiet. I found myself wondering exactly what Black’s people had done to keep the security guards so occupied upstairs.

  When we reached the next archway, I knew something was wrong.

  Light came from that entrance.

  I’d expected some light under the pyramid itself, of course. Even with the partially cloudy sky, the moon was nearly full, so I’d expected there to be a blueish glow in the room housing the statue of the angel.

  But the light I could see in the room ahead wasn’t blue. It flickered and glowed a darker yellow, nearly orange where it leaked into the adjacent exhibit hall.

  Like fire.

  My heart hammered louder under my ribs, feeling like it might crack a bone. I was having trouble breathing, although I couldn’t yet attach anything concrete to the feeling.

  Still, some part of me knew... felt it...

  Black came to a dead stop when he saw the same light.

  Then he walked carefully around it, avoiding the illuminated swath of floor as he headed for the arched entryway connecting the two rooms. When he reached the shadowed segment of wall to the right, he went completely motionless, staring inside the room at an angle without letting any part of himself touch the light.

  Then he turned, and his gold eyes strangely visible in the dark.

  He motioned with a hand, again using military signals to tell me to walk to his left, to go around the light to the other side of the open archway, opposite him.

  Lowering the gun,
I did as he asked.

  I stepped carefully, following the shadow all the way back to get to the other side of the arch without being seen by anyone in the lit room.

  I reached the opposite side of the door seconds later. Remaining in shadow, I stared into the lit side of the room I could see without putting my face into the opening and therefore the light.

  From here, that flicker of orange and yellow definitely looked like candlelight.

  Fire, anyway.

  I also saw a snippet of what looked like writing on the far wall. I didn’t recognize any of the characters, but that wasn’t what drew my attention at first. The symbols had been done in ragged, uneven brush strokes, using a dark red liquid. I really, really hoped that dark red “paint” wasn’t what my mind immediately wanted to tell me it was.

  I could smell it though, even from here.

  That dense, coppery scent wafted in the air, seemingly made worse by the flickers of candlelight. I caught the faintest whiff of smoke too, but somehow it was that coppery smell my brain fixated on the most intently.

  Maybe it was some animal instinct still hard-wired in my DNA.

  I glanced at Black, and saw him lurking in the shadow as well, his gold eyes scanning the opposite segment of the exhibit hall. It occurred to me that from where he stood, Black had a much wider view of the overall room. I couldn’t see the angel statue from where I was, just the edge of that writing on the wall covering part of one painting, along with the archway leading out what must be the southwest end of the central exhibit chamber.

  From his angle, Black must be able to see the actual statue.

  Even as I thought it, he frowned.

  Then he let out an audible sigh––audible enough that I jumped, realizing only then how quiet both of us had been.

  He looked at me, meeting my gaze with his lion-like eyes.

  “We’re too late, doc,” he said.

  He spoke softly, but not in a whisper.

  Before I could react, he re-holstered his gun. I stared at him, uncomprehending as he entered the exhibit hall without hesitation, his mouth set in a grim line as he walked out into the light and crossed the threshold. I stood there, still gripping my own gun in both hands, breathing harder as some part of my brain continued to grapple with his words.

  Unlike him, I kept my gun out as I followed him. I held it in both hands, if aimed at the floor. In fact, I only reinforced my grip on the handle as I walked out into the light.

  As soon as I turned the corner, I let out an involuntary gasp.

  I saw her first... before I saw the rest, I mean.

  I stared at her for a few full seconds before I made sense of any other part of the scene... or what her awkward pose meant.

  Her arms were spread up and out in that same curved loop over her head. Her head itself tilted backwards, a dark red slash showing where her throat had been cut.

  She wore a wedding dress.

  Her dress flowed out longer in back than the ones in pictures of the other murders I’d seen, with a built-in train. Instead of lying flat in the simulated pose mirrored by the other two, she’d been stretched into that pose with the help of the angel and horse statue, as well as what must be wire or thread. Whatever it was, it didn’t show up immediately in the flickering candlelight.

  Someone had lit upwards of thirty or so white candles, using them to surround the angel statue, and to illuminate the killer’s display.

  One of each of her forearms had been tied to one each of the angel’s wings. Her hands had been positioned carefully, in a way that again suggested wire or string holding them in that perfect, delicate-fingered position like a ballerina’s pose.

  Her legs had been posed into the exact same position as the other victims’ as well, with the difference being that this one was more or less vertical versus being displayed on her back. The left leg stretched straight, the toe pointed and most of the leg visible below the dress, which had been bunched up in front nearly to her waist. The right leg had been bent at the knee, the toe also pointed and apparently tied up with the same mechanism that kept the hands in place.

  Whoever had cut her throat sawed into the flesh and muscle so deep they’d nearly severed her head from her body. Her head hung at that grotesque angle as a result, the yawning cut facing the skylight, the surrounding skin of her neck bone-white in contrast.

  Someone had carved the three spiral symbol at the base of her throat. From the amount of blood soaking her chest, I suspected they’d carved it there, as well. The symbol at her throat covered most of her collarbone area, appearing almost black in the candlelight.

  I stared at her, knowing she was dead.

  Moreover, she’d been dead for some time.

  No blood covered the floor beneath her. None ran from that slash on her neck.

  A metal pail stood on the stone tile floor in front of her, weirdly innocuous-looking. It had been placed with obvious deliberation however, since it stood in perfect symmetry with the displayed body and the statue, forming a triangular point between the angel’s wings.

  I winced when I realized a lot of the coppery smell came from that pail.

  Covering my mouth and nose with one hand, I looked away from her, fighting nausea, even as I kept the gun pointed roughly in her direction.

  My eyes shifted to the wall.

  I could see two lines of symbols now, covering the length of the room on that side.

  I had no idea what they meant.

  “It’s writing,” Black breathed.

  I glanced at him, realizing only then that I’d forgotten he was there.

  “What language?” I said, my voice less than a whisper.

  He gave me a grim look, not answering. Then he spoke a language I’d never heard before. His words rang out with an alien melodiousness, mixed with rougher, more guttural sounds that were somehow even more foreign.

  A ringing silence fell after he finished.

  Then he spoke again, in the same clear voice. It wasn’t until he got a few words in that I realized he was translating the words that time, speaking English.

  “And a great wail rose when the gods spoke,” Black said. “...For the door to that other place must need be lost, and those on the other side forgotten...”

  When he finished speaking, the silence deepened once more.

  In it, all I heard was the faint hiss of guttering candle flames.

  “What does it mean?” I finally whispered.

  Black looked at me. Something in his eyes made him appear lost deep in thought, his mind a million miles away. I watched that more distant look fade, right before his expression hardened, making him look dangerous.

  “It means he knows about me,” he said.

  He closed the distance between us is two long strides. I didn’t flinch but felt myself tense, gripping the gun I held more tightly, still aiming it towards the floor and roughly in the direction of the dead girl. If Black noticed, it didn’t slow him down. He walked right up to me, his gold eyes even more animal in the candles’ flames.

  “...He knows what I am. We need to get out of here. Now, Miriam.”

  He caught hold of my arm.

  As he did, an explosion ripped through the skylight overhead, knocking both of us down.

  Ten

  BECOMING THE HUNTED

  MY EARS RANG. I couldn’t hear anything else.

  I found myself rolling on my back on a tile floor with chunks ripped out of it. Dazed, smoke and dust in my eyes, I fought to see past the falling debris as pain screamed in my leg. I struggled to get to my side, to get up. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to articulate in my mind what I intended next, but my body moved anyway, just like it had in combat.

  I looked for Black and found him lying on his back near a few chunks of stone tile, his eyes closed. I didn’t see anything but small cuts on him from the glass, what might have been burns on his arms and face... but he looked unconscious. My eyes darted to the fire burning in the middle of the room. The woman in
the wedding dress looked like some kind of demon as she burned, her up-stretched arms blackening as the fire ate through the fabric of her dress. The gauzy fabric flamed higher as I watched, even as the fire leapt to her long hair.

  I could smell her flesh burning even through the floating dust.

  I was glad I couldn’t see her face.

  I started to move, to crawl towards Black, gasping in pain from whatever happened to my leg...

  Someone had ahold of my arm then, and was dragging me backwards.

  I fought to breathe, then to extricate myself from whoever it was. My struggle didn’t last long; the pain in my leg ripped through me as soon as I kicked out, making me scream until I ran out of air.

  I nearly blacked out the first time.

  Whoever dragged me only tightened their grip. When my mind righted itself, I let out a cry, coughing in dust particles as I stared up at the hole in the ceiling where the skylight had been. Blackened at the edges, it belched smoke upwards in a high column through the opening.

  But my view of the exhibit hall was disappearing. I grunted, crying out again as I got pulled over chunks of glass and ripped up stone tile, what felt like pieces of metal.

  Coughing harder, I fought to free my arm of those steel-like fingers a second time and the person holding me squeezed the muscle and bone hard... so hard my mind blanked. When I opened my eyes next, they’d already dragged me into the darkness of a second exhibit room.

  It wasn’t Black...

  I twisted my head and neck around to look at who pulled me along the slick floor, trying to see their outline in the dark. I couldn’t see his face, or even get a clear idea of his size now that we were in full shadow. Gloved fingers gripped my arm. I saw a glint of a watch, silver like Black’s military watch, but that glimpse definitely wasn’t of the arm I remembered.

  My mind woke up more, penetrating the shock and pain.

  Black had been on the floor. Unconscious.

  Whoever dragged me now, it couldn’t be him.

  “Let go,” I managed, my voice hoarse and muffled in my own ears. “Stop. Please... I can walk... I can walk on my own now...”