Signs of Portents by Lou Paduano

Author:Lou Paduano [Paduano, Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944965006
Publisher: Eleven Ten Publishing
Published: 2016-08-21T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Enter and be welcome.” The black raven spoke with a thunderous voice. It continued to nibble on the golden apple fragment offered to him by Soriya Greystone. The rest of the offer remained on the cardboard altar atop an obsolete back alley dumpster. Darkness surrounded them, but the green glowing eyes of the raven shone clearly through the night.

Loren wanted to speak. No, truthfully, he wanted to scream. The raven being the key to solving the case was something not easy to swallow, though Loren believed it could have been much worse. The giant foot that almost crushed him into the bronze pavement of the Courtyard street may have had a magical big toe that spoke, so the raven was by far more appealing than Loren’s imagination. The question remained—how could a raven locked up in an out-of-phase city within Portents have any knowledge of what occurred outside the double bronze doors at the gate? Loren was loath to ask it at the moment. Soriya’s eyes never faltered from the dark raven. He needed to know what to ask, what to say, and what the hell was going on, but knew without her eyes on him that he should remain in silence. For a little longer, anyway.

The raven finished the small piece of apple and crooked its head toward the altar. Soriya nodded and retrieved her knife. The small, silver blade glistened under the red-violet sky. She delicately cut into the apple, creating a number of slivers. After she finished the task, the raven soared down on wide, black wings of fury. It snatched another piece then flew back to its perch. A small nibble was greeted by a moan of satisfaction.

“Smart girl,” the shadowed creature complimented the black-haired woman before him. “Knowing the key to my heart. They do not grow apples like this anywhere else. Ask, child. Ask and be answered.”

“Soriya?” Loren’s voice was a whisper, but it carried through the expanse of the alley. She nodded, unable or unwilling to look back at him but understanding his need.

“He’s Kok’-Kol, Loren,” she started with ease. “One of the First Ones of the Miwok.”

Loren understood English. He was very adept at the language, especially four-letter words. His Spanish was a little rusty and his Kryptonian was a thing of Comic-Con’s past, but despite knowing all that, he still wasn’t quite sure anything said by the young woman made sense.

“That makes it much clearer,” he replied, a little louder. The raven crooked its head to the right, green eyes tearing through his sarcastic shell. Loren saw the smile return to the creature’s beak. A smiling raven was not in the top five of his scariest mental images but it was slowly working its way up the list.

Soriya turned to him, moving by his side. Her words were soft and slow, begging the detective to follow each one without question. “The Miwok tribe believed that there were people before this incarnation of man. Some say the first ones simply died away, while others believe they became something more.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.