Yes, you did. But he didn’t respond, knowing that despite his distaste, he needed the repugnant man. He reached inside his posh coat. Pulling out a silver-threaded pouch, he unwound the drawstrings and dipped fingers into the hideously expensive rare metallic dust mixture. With practiced ease he rewound the cords one handed and slipped the pouch away. He then stretched out his hand and waggled his fingers over the body with ludicrously over-the-top showmanship that almost brought pink to his ears despite the years (why, for the love of all that is holy, why?!) until he caught Martinez ’ eye. Then he flicked the sparkling dust into the air; he ignored the gleeful, anticipatory look that swept the other man’s face.
Adrian cleared his voice to cement his hold on his audience of one; he struggled to concentrate. Such moments always invoked childhood memories like incantations to raise the unwanted corpses of the long dead. Of make-believe games with his little sister when they wished to keep their parents ignorant of their talks even when in their presence and the made-up language that became so much more; of hide-and-seek in the back woods when he lost his mind for some time, his spark of talent found and the spirit world revealed; endless time spent honing his craft by trial and error, and all the lonely, desperate years to find someone, anyone, like him. He fought to keep a darkly sarcastic laugh from tearing free at the ludicrousness of it all. He pulled his thoughts back to the moment, all too aware of the dangers of letting his concentration slip. He spoke forcefully, the alien tongue rolling easily off his, a guttural snarl that clawed at the walls and dimmed the harsh electronic lighting. The glittering dust pulsed as though in sympathetic vibration to a monstrous, unheard heartbeat that filled the universe. Susurrations of unfelt wind wafting down the long subway corridor, twisting the dust into a vortex of microstars squeezed into a miniature black hole. He clenched his fist and barked out the final words, the vocal sounds like claws tearing up out of his throat into existence. Abruptly the dust strobed in a pyrotechnic flash of unearthly fury that threatened to etch their shadows into the tiled walls like Nagasaki victims from that long ago nuclear blast: hell’s own flashbulb.
In that instant time ground to a stop as the footprint from the astral plane lay revealed to his trained senses. The last several days lay juxtaposed in a mind-numbing snarl, like thousands of photos developed onto the same film stock. As each living entity moved through the mundane world, they left a trail, a smear of their own life essence. An indelible mark on the underpinnings of existence and the realm of spirits and so much more: the astral plane. While it faded with time, he’d taught himself to read such signatures, more pure and sure than any biometrics of fingerprints, eye-scans and DNA samples. He concentrated, quickly stripping away layer after layer of the mundane masses moving about their inconsequential lives, completely unaware of the world beyond their own. The sheer volume took some time, but he knew it was all subjective; hours might pass in the astral plane, and yet it was all just an eyeblink.
He abruptly found the layers for when the man appeared. Late last night, not a soul in the tunnel- strange, for a Saturday-hands deep in coat pockets against the cold as he climbed down from the Red line stop and began to make his way toward the Blue line. Features tired but resolute, marching toward a destination only he could know. If the man still lived, Adrian might expend more energy-even if only Martinez were present, the energy drain was not significant-and follow the trail to his living essence, perhaps tweezing out additional details of feelings and thoughts. But the trail ended messily in a hazy, indistinct glob, like a badly fuzzed image on those late-night cop shows Martinez loved to watch, where the producers only haphazardly paid lip service to a citizen’s right to privacy.
A frown pulled at his features. Deaths-even non-mundane deaths-always left a clean break as the life energy evaporated back into the astral plane, like a rope smoothly cut. And in such deaths a multitude of details could be found. Almost too easy for Adrian and his skills. But this? This was altogether different. No details at all, just an… opacity… almost as though… no, that could not be possible.
His mind traveled down multiple paths simultaneously as he struggled with the problem. All the while something bothered him, as though he should recognize the strange astral print, but nothing came to mind. Though he eventually came up with nothing, he knew one thing for certain. This was new. And Adrian hated new.
He sucked on his teeth momentarily, then braced for the pain and relaxed his fist; he unleashed his iron-clenched will and slid from astral space, the frozen flash gone in an instant. The pain enveloped him as the clockwork mechanism of the mundane world hammered back into motion and the astral inertia it imparted slammed into the one responsible for its arrest. Despite the years of practice, he staggered under the molten spike stabbing downward through his chakra points across head, spine and finally into the belly, where his intestine stretched under the final throes of the energy until only clenched teeth kept the scream at bay.
“What did you see, boss man?”
Adrian breathed in deeply, nostrils flaring as he sought to extricate his mind from the pain’s tentacles. For once Martinez’ unwashed pungency remained mostly buried under the harsh chemicals used to keep the subways clean, with a hint of sulfur quality behind it all; the victim and whatever had happened.
“Nothing,” he finally rasped out. “I saw nothing.”
“Right,” Martinez responded, voice childlike in its sullenness. “What ever you say, boss man.”
Adrian took another deep breath to finally start the pain onto the path of distant memory, nerves more jangled than ever. But I did not see anything. Anything at all.
God, Adrian hated riding the subway.
Despite such a short distance as two stops, he hated stepping foot on the crowded meat carriers. Hated the occupants and their vacant stares as they tried to pretend they were anywhere but wedged into cars like cattle to the slaughter. Hated their hostile and fearful, surreptitious glances. Most of all, hated that he needed them. Needed every one of them.
They pulled into the Harrison stop, and a new gaggle of warm bodies squeezed in. The bitter December cold-much more acute above ground, the lake-effect snow and wind swirling with gusto across the concrete platform-pushed in as well. Others shivered uncontrollably at the gusts, but with so many about, he remained blank-faced, coat undone, unfeeling of the cold.
The greatest show on Earth… his sardonic inner voice never strayed far.
Despite the press of bodies, Adrian ’s cool gaze and body stance-the absolute knowledge in those bicolor eyes that the cold really didn’t affect him-kept an invisible shield all around him. A modicum of breathing room, more effective than a real force screen. Despite his obvious wealth-the subtle hint of silver threads woven with intricate runes along the coat sleeves and down the front and back almost gluttonous in this impoverished part of the city-no pick-pocket dared approach. No ganger moved to bully with a raised gun. It’d happened in the past. Still did happen now and then when someone new came along. But these? They were regular commuters. Knew him. He’d made sure of that. Had to make sure of that all the time. Why he chose the stinking cattle car when he traveled throughout Chicago.
God, he hated them.
Despite his best efforts to avoid focusing on any of them, he abruptly noticed a face in the crowd. A female face. One he recognized with a jolt of echoing pain. Regardless of resolve, he swept into motion, the crowd parting like the Red Sea before a mad Moses. He stopped mere feet from the terrified woman, mind finally registering the only passing resemblance to her.