Portrait of Shade

by Benjamin Ford

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Nathan, hastily throwing on some jeans, a shirt and his trainers before following Eudora from the bedroom.

  ‘We’re going to the gallery.’ In an instant Eudora seemed to have forgotten her vision, such was her desire to show Nathan the book on Byzantine history and art that featured information about Dion Taine, who had lived and painted in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople one hundred years after the Turks had toppled the Byzantine rule. Nathan’s name, Eudora had decided, could be derived from Athanasius, the patriarch of Alexandria who took part in the First Council of Nicaea – which was directly connected to the three men featured in Dion Taine’s Trinity.

  Everything came back to Constantinople, but not even Eudora could begin to imagine the magnitude of the mysterious connection between events in the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and the events of the present day.

  * * *

  When Constance Bosporus stopped by to see Eudora, whom she believed to be in the apartment above the gallery, the last thing she expected to see was three heavyset men bolting out of the front entrance to the gallery and diving into a waiting car, before racing off down the street.

  Through the frontage of the gallery, she could see the place had been ransacked, though curiously, none of the paintings seemed to be damaged. Knowing she ought to call the police straight away, anxious curiosity overcame much of the trepidation she might otherwise have felt, and Constance cautiously entered the gallery. Calling Eudora’s name and eliciting no response, she slowly made her way up the spiral stairs. She could see right away that the apartment had been trashed as thoroughly as the gallery. She called out Eudora’s name again, and then Gaia’s, listening for any noise. She expected whichever of them was here to be bound and gagged, possibly unconscious. She did not want to think of the other possibility.

  She found Gaia’s body at the far end of the passage, near the main door that led outside. Multiple stab wounds punctured her chest, and her tongue, having been cut out, lay in a pool of blood beside her.

  Constance staggered away from the scene of carnage, violently vomiting up the remains of her dinner. She stood for several minutes, heaving for breath, trying desperately to stop her vision pirouetting out of control, struggling to slow her frantic heart. Another wave of nausea threatened to erupt within her, and she fought valiantly to halt it. Weeping, she staggered down the spiral stairs and out of the gallery, where she managed to flag down a passing taxicab and raised the alarm.

  * * *

  The first things Eudora and Nathan noticed when they arrived at the gallery were the police cars at odd angles outside, and then the bright yellow tape that cordoned off the gallery’s entrance. Because of the hour, there were only a few curious onlookers.

  Then they saw the familiar figure of Constance Bosporus, sitting on the passenger seat of one of the police cars, her body wrapped in a blanket, tears coursing down her pale cheeks. The young policeman who sat in the driver’s seat was speaking to her and patting her hand reassuringly.

  Constance looked up at sound of running footsteps and threw herself into her son’s arms. ‘Oh, Nathan, it’s awful,’

  ‘Mum? What’s happened?’ Nathan whispered, appalled at how terrified his mother appeared.

  ‘Gaia’s been murdered,’ she whispered through her tears.

  Nathan felt his blood run cold as he recalled Eudora’s visions; it seemed they had come true.

  Eudora came to stand beside the pair, looking past them through the wedged open door of the gallery. She could see a half dozen or so police constables milling around inside. One of them came out, looking even paler than Constance did, and for a moment Eudora thought he was going to throw up over the pavement. She wanted to go inside, to see for herself, but her mind told her it was not a good idea. Sudden flashes of horrific imagery coursed through her mind; images of Gaia, butchered by three very sadistic henchmen who took incredible pleasure from the agony they inflicted upon their victim.

  ‘Oh you poor, poor darling,’ said Constance softly, touching Eudora’s arm, making the younger woman jump. ‘I cannot believe anyone would want to inflict such injuries upon another human being.’

  ‘I know,’ whispered Eudora, closing her eyes, witnessing once more the defilement of her cousin; witnessing for the first time the same defilement of her sister; witnessing another identical defilement of a man she did not recognise, in a place she had never visited, at a time she could not possibly have any memory of. She shook her head to clear her mind of the troubling thoughts. ‘I saw it happen, Mrs Bosporus.’ She looked at Constance’s surprised face. ‘I had a couple of visions of Gaia’s murder, just as Gaia herself witnessed Izzy’s murder.’

  Constance’s shock at her revelation was palpable and Nathan hugged her tighter, whilst reaching behind her to grasp Eudora’s trembling hand in his. He was appalled at how cold and clammy her flesh was to his touch.

  ‘I need to see her,’ Eudora muttered absentmindedly, looking across to the entrance of the Donat Gallery where she saw a couple more very pale police constables come out.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you, Dora?’ asked Nathan, squeezing her hand reassuringly.

  Eudora shook her head tremulously, but then changed her mind. She felt her legs give way beneath her as she walked slowly towards the gallery, but Nathan was there at her side, supporting her. ‘Are you sure you want to, Dora?’ he asked in a gentle voice.

  ‘I have to,’ Eudora somehow managed to enunciate through the combination of dry mouth and moist eyes. ‘I don’t want to, but I have to see that it’s Gaia for myself!’

  They entered the gallery together, and a sudden pitiful wail of despair and horror came from within. Moments later, Eudora staggered out into the fresh air, tears streaming down her cheeks, assisted by an equally ashen faced Nathan.

  The young policeman who had comforted Constance felt great pity for Eudora, whom he now knew had lost two close relatives in the space of a week under suspiciously similar circumstances, but any words of condolence – however well meant they might be – were useless at that moment, so he kept them to himself.

  * * *

  Constance knew her son would want to take her home, but she had other things on her mind, so the instant he and Eudora – poor, tragic Eudora who had no idea what was coming next – entered the gallery, She made as hasty a retreat as she could on still wildly trembling legs. She was not really in any fit state to drive, but having climbed behind the wheel of her own car she drove off. Nobody stopped her. Nobody seemed even to notice her departure.

  She did not drive to her own house, but instead drove rather erratically to Dorothea Clayton’s house and banged relentlessly on the door until the old woman responded.

  ‘There’s no need to beat down my door!’ Dorothea snapped as she wrestled with the security chain, having first taken the precaution of checking who was on her doorstep making such a racket. Constance pushed rudely past her. ‘Come in, why don’t you!’ Dorothea added irritably as she closed the door with a bang and followed her visitor into the living room.

  Constance stood in the middle of the floor and whirled around, venting her fury on the frail old woman, releasing all her pent up anguish and pain, relinquishing the suppressed tears. She was ashen faced, and her trembling came as much from the anger she felt as from the horror she had borne witness to at the Donat Gallery.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Gaia was going to be butchered in such a savage manner?’ she demanded heatedly. ‘You could have warned me. You should have warned me!’ She could still see poor Gaia’s terrified eyes, wide and filled with agony, staring out lifelessly, her mouth open in a silent scream, a gaping black hole filled with bloodied stump where once there had been a tongue.

  Constance shuddered as her mind filled once more with the terrible images. She tried to block them, but failed miserably. The images would stay fresh in her tortured mind for as long as she lived.

  As Dorothea sat down heavily on one of the overs
tuffed sofas, Constance did not see the old woman’s own shudder, as though recalling her own vision of some long ago horror. ‘What makes you so certain I knew anything about Gaia’s death in advance?’

  Wiping her eyes, Constance stared hard at Dorothea. She was certain there were a great many things the old woman knew that she had yet to share with anyone, and wondered whether now was to be the time of revelations. ‘You knew about Isadora’s death,’ she said, hoping to catch out the old woman.

  ‘Indeed, and it was you who tipped off the French police! Much good that did, though! They were too late to catch the killers.’

  ‘Dorothea, are you deliberately trying to obstruct justice?’

  The old woman sighed theatrically, and for a moment Constance believed she was about to unburden herself of some great secret. ‘I am trying to maintain a balance.’

  ‘You know who’s responsible, don’t you?’ gasped Constance with a sudden realisation. ‘You’ve always known what was going to happen – to Isadora and to Gaia!’

  Dorothea nodded. ‘If I had told you, you’d have probably gone to warn Gaia, and you would probably be dead yourself. That’s not what is supposed to happen! If by some miracle you had succeeded in preventing Gaia’s death then history would be irrevocably altered!’

  Constance sat down beside her friend – almost ex-friend – and fixed Dorothea with a confused look of total incomprehension. ‘History is what has happened in the past. You’re foretelling events that are yet to happen. Are you a clairvoyant or something?’

  ‘No, I’m not, my dear … not really. Time is not always linear; it sometimes goes round in circles. It can have a cycle, like life and death. Some of us are condemned by the Fates to live in spirals of living and dying, experiencing the same events over and over; always slightly different, but essentially the same.’

  ‘Like reincarnation, you mean?’ whispered Constance as she struggled to understand what Dorothea was talking about. ‘Are you saying you’re a reincarnation of someone from the past?’

  Dorothea smiled. The conversation was getting out of hand. She could not possibly begin to explain the truth to her friend and expect understanding. Some things were definitely best left unspoken. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all.’ Without breaking eye contact, she fixed her friend with an unblinking stare, forcing Constance to look away for a moment with a disconcerting shiver. ‘And what about you, Constance, don’t you ever get that peculiar sensation of deja-vu? Been there, done that and seen this all before, all now, all over again – a perpetual circle of events, endlessly repeating?’

  ‘Until the end of time,’ Constance murmured almost beneath her breath.

  ‘No… until someone breaks the cycle!’ Dorothea leaned towards Constance, and when she spoke again, her words were even quieter still. ‘Come on, Constance; relinquish your hold over him. Set him free for a short while.’ The room was so silent that, little more than a breath on her ear, Dorothea’s words could have easily been audible from the other side of the room.

  Constance did not move a muscle, remaining bolt upright on the sofa. She was sweating, though it was not hot; she shivered, though she was not cold. She struggled to concentrate, to repress an esoteric fear, fighting to control some inner demon that demanded freedom.

  ‘Do not fight him,’ breathed Dorothea.

  ‘I… I cannot help it,’ whispered Constance fearfully. ‘I am frightened!’

  ‘Stop fighting him!’ Dorothea snapped loudly in a voice that transcended her great age. ‘Allow Constantine to come to me. It’s imperative that I speak with him… now!’

  Constance’s ragged breath suddenly came under control and her demeanour calmed down in an instant. She sat, still and silent, her eyes closed as the shivering and sweating abated. Her face relaxed from its paroxysm of fear, and when her eyes opened once more, they glazed over momentarily before focussing upon Dorothea. Her lips parted, but when she spoke the voice was not Constance’s; it was not even female.

  ‘I am here,’ boomed the deeply resonant voice. ‘What have you to say?’

  ‘Our friend has found his way into this world at last.’

  Constance’s lips twitched into a relieved smile. ‘Excellent! And so the final battle begins!’

  Sadly, Dorothea nodded. ‘Indeed; the fight to the death!’

  ‘And where is your son now? Has he yet returned from France?’

  ‘Yes. He returned on Monday,’ Dorothea said with sadness in her voice. ‘Soon, Diocletian and Spiridon will face each other for the first time in over four centuries, and when they do, one of them must die.’

  ‘And at that moment,’ said the masculine voice through its female receptacle, ‘it will be finally over, and freedom shall be granted to us all!’

  Won’t that be a relief! Dorothea thought with a sad smile, knowing what had to be done.

  Suddenly Constance was back, the spirit banished once more to the recesses of her mind, and since she remembered nothing, Dorothea remained silent.

  ‘What happened?’ gasped Constance, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

  Dorothea acted concerned. ‘I think you blacked out. It must have been the shock of seeing Gaia’s body at the gallery. I’ll fetch you a brandy.’ She disappeared into the dining room where she fixed a couple of drinks.

  She did not reveal to Constance that she too had seen Gaia’s corpse that very evening, though it all seemed like fifty years ago.

  But then, sometimes time is not strictly linear, so perhaps it was fifty years ago.

  * * *

  When she left Dorothea Clayton’s house, Constance had no clear idea of what they had talked about, though she had some vague impression that it was something of great importance. She could barely recall her journey from the gallery to her old friend’s house, but she had a vivid recollection of what she had seen at the gallery: those images would never be far from her conscious mind.

  Poor Gaia; it certainly was not a pleasant way to go, and poor Eudora, losing a sister and a cousin in the same way.

  The same way she too had lost her own sister last year.

  Justine’s killer had never been caught.

  Constance believed it was the same person, who had now struck twice more.

  Constance arrived home to find that Michael was not there. She reasoned he was probably down the local bar with his brother, Darius, who had recently returned to England for the first time in five months, having spent those months filming two relatively minor roles in a couple of big budget movies in Hollywood. The two brothers had so much to catch up on that Constance could forgive her husband for not being there when she most needed to talk to someone.

  Michael Bosporus was well known amongst his family and friends for possessing a truly sympathetic ear, but since the death of her sister, Constance had started talking nonsense. She spoke about the most curious subjects, held conversations with herself of which she later claimed to have no recollection, and as such, Michael had effectively stopped listening to his wife.

  At eighteen, their daughter, Cassie, was concerned only with herself and her girlfriends, who were to be constantly found engaging in typical teenage conversations about boys and sex and shopping and music and boys and sex and fanciable pop stars and movie stars and the latest fashions and sex and boys. They always spoke in conspiratorial whispers, lest an errant parent or sibling be eavesdropping, but no matter how low the whisperings and however covert the meeting, a parent always knows what their child is talking about: children often forgot that their parents had once been young themselves.

  Constance could not talk to Cassie about anything at the moment; mother and daughter had fallen out several weeks earlier after Constance had stumbled across Cassie giving her boyfriend of the time what Nathan had helpfully described as a blowjob.

  She thought it unfair to burden her son with her problems when he had his own grief stricken life to deal with, however, Constance had a desperate desire to talk to someone about what was happening to her. Dorothea
aside, Nathan was the only person she felt she could talk to – and she was not altogether certain she could confide in Dorothea any more. Something had happened to her at Dorothea’s house tonight, and though she had no idea what it was, Constance was adamant in her mind that Dorothea knew what it was but, for whatever reason, was saying nothing.

  Music blaring down from Cassie’s bedroom greeted her as she let herself into the house, and she slammed the door hard, rattling the frame. Instantly the music ceased.

  Seating herself in her favourite chair in the darkened corner of the tranquil living room, Constance closed her eyes. Her head was pounding, as though someone was driving a red-hot poker through her eyes into her brain. Reaching up she rubbed her forehead.

  Constance!

  The voice resounded in her mind, as though shouted with a curious silence within a cloister. It was not a solid voice, more an ethereal echo, ghostlike and unreal. Constance wanted to respond, but was afraid to do so.

  Constance, do not be afraid. Open your eyes.

  She found that she could not help but comply, and upon opening her eyes, she found she was no longer in her living room. She was in another place. A strange place, a place she had never been to, yet one that was oddly recognisable. She did not belong in that place.

  And he was there, along with Justine.

  Constance smiles, as though this is the most natural scenario imaginable. The headache has gone, but Constance does not notice. ‘Hello, Justine,’ she says. ‘Am I dead? Is this heaven?’

  Justine shakes her head and moves through the ethereal cobwebs of empyreal white mist towards her sister. ‘No,’ she responds, ‘to both questions.’

  ‘Where am I then? And how are you talking to me when you’re dead?’

  ‘I am dead, it’s true, but my soul cannot rest. I have come to explain things to you. This place is your mind.’

  ‘So I’m still alive?’

  Justine, her long auburn hair intact and blue eyes sparkling with mischief, looking very much as she did before her brutal murder, smiles and nods her head. ‘Yes, oh yes. You are very much alive still, Constance.’