The silver elevator doors slightly stall for a moment before completely opening, the blurry reflections of three people moved aside as daylight streams in from the windowed foyer.
As they make their way down, the marble stairs sound off a cacophony of muddled footsteps, the rest of the open room completely silent and empty. Footfalls being the only disturbance to the silent room, the roar of the outside world doesn’t even make it through the thick glass walls. Fitting within the silent atmosphere, is Mandy. Asleep at her desk, head resting on her folded arms.
Matthew, having reached the floor second only to Bernadette, who rocketed down them in her red converse, makes his way over to her. He has told her multiple times that she shouldn’t be shouldering Andre’s workload, especially if he’s not going to do the same. At the very least, he thinks as he’s thought before, she needs to start drinking coffee.
Standing at the desk, on the table she is sleeping on, there is; a barely closed bottle of red nail polish to the right and next to dark skin hands with only half the nails finished, a pair of keys, an empty thermos of chicken noodle soup with the cap next to the black screen monitor, and a sparkly yellow notebook to the left of her. Her hair, coily and pulled back into a puffy ponytail, looks more sea green in the ambient daylight than in the previous fluorescent white.
The final step off of the staircase onto the glassy black marble tiling has him looking back over to the two. Ninum, with her Versace cat-eye sunglasses pulling her hair back, has her eyes on Mandy. She’s likely questioning how Mandy is able to sleep like that without the chair slipping out from under her.
About to go over to Matthew and the sleeping woman, Matthew nods towards the door, “Go wait in the car, I’ll be right out.”
With a pause and later a shrug, Ninum follows his orders as she and Bernadette make their way towards the door. Matthew, meanwhile, snags the keys and goes into the breakroom right behind her. The faux antique oak door shuts behind him as he preps the Keurig and coffee right in the middle of the back counter next to about three animal mugs. The room is even more stale and pale white than the upper floors of the building. Everything bathed in white light, no windows, made into a stale white box with smaller black boxes. Almost has an antiseptic smell.
The black box beeps, and putting in one of the round cup things for coffee into the placement, he closes it shut. The Keurig, as always, slams itself shut with a quick bang. Instant coffee is brewed and spat out into the mouth of a multicolored green trout, the tail forming its handle as he picks it up and exits the door, almost bumping into one of the rolling four leg chairs around the white plastic table.
Leaning over her, he places the trout right in front of, beneath the lip of the desk. From this direction, pictures of a Border Collie are strewn around behind prying eyes. Matthew didn’t know she had a dog, but he isn’t exactly that close with her either he realizes. Then again, the complete disregard to have them up without regard and taped to flimsy gray fabric is likely the work of Andre.
He’s spending too much time here, he realizes after a couple moments of snooping. Walking away, his shoe scuffs the ground sending an echoing screech through the foyer. Freezing for a moment, taking in the silence as the faint sounds of traffic disrupt and send the same echoes throughout the space.
Turning around, everything is still in place and no movement from Mandy. With a sigh, Matthew turns back around and makes his way to the doors. Only now noticing, Ninum has been holding the door open this whole time. Leaning on the glass and people watching with her shades down, and Bernadette leaning against the car with crossed legs and hands in hoodie pockets with her red headphones over her ears, also people watching.
Walking past Ninum, she quickly follows when he brushes past, “Yo, she doing alright?”
“She’s fine.”
“Good. So,” She sings and draws out the word, “What’s the plan for today?”
She ducks over to him as she also leans on the car, Bernadette scooting over to make room for her. About to answer while opening the car door, it stalls. The faint classical music, ‘Autumn' by Vivaldi, streaming from the headphones reflecting the hustle and bustle of traffic in front of them on the right, other, side of the car.
Looking confused, eyes darting around the silver lining of the window, “Why didn’t you stay in the car?” He looks up to his right towards her shaded eyes.
Head cocked to the side, a smirk on her lips, “With what keys?”
At this moment, he realizes, he fumbled. He completely forgot about handing the keys off. Ninum walks around to the other side of the car as the thought that at least she isn’t going to drive his car makes it through his mind. Bernadette quickly follows behind the demon as he unlocks the car and gets in.
Ninum, pulling her seat forward and folding it down, lets Bernadette in first, “Here you go little lady.”
Once Bernadette makes it into the rumble seat, she slides her headphones down around her neck as Ninum fixes the white-tan bucket seat and jumps in the Pontiac. Ninum flips the visor down, putting her Versace sunglasses back up on her head at the same time Matthew starts to fix the rearview mirror. It had been moved the night before by a certain someone.
“It smells bad in here,” Bernadette says once Matthew finishes putting the keys in the ignition, “Like, ugly bad.”
Matthew, ever the rational one while buckling his seatbelt, and luckily now quick on his feet from the good night's rest, “How bad? Like leftover paint smell?”
With a quick smile and chuckle, “No, more like, um, like a bird?” She’s not sure what the smell is, but it's luckily pretty dull, it hasn’t given her an ache behind her nose yet.
Flipping the visor back up after closing the tiny mirror, “Prob-”
Immediately cutting Ninum off, Matthew responds with an easy lie, “I was buying turkey and forgot it in the car overnight. It’ll go away in a second.”
After a small pointed glance and pulling out away from the curb, he’s bound in the right direction for the Tower, back the way they came last night. Rolling down the windows after a couple seconds, the smell of musty and musk quickly leaves as wind quickly makes its way through the car. The roads, slick with morning water, are slowly drying up, but gives the empty road an almost reflective look. The tall buildings all around with their mirrored windows cause kaleidoscopes of reflections to be present just about everywhere.
Attempting to speak over the wind, “What’s the plan for today?” Ninum says, almost shouting.
Not even attempting to yell, “What?” He also notices her hair is blowing around all over the place but somehow not obscuring her line of vision and face.
Now making it to the fray of traffic, cars bustling left and right. Loud screeches and vague shouts littering the ambience of the glass structures around them. After the left turn back there, it was a straight shot to the pandemonium.
“What’s the-,” To hear her better, he closes the window to avoid blowing in exhaust from other cars, “Thank you. I was asking what the plan is today.” She smooths down her hair, now facing him.
Passing the first green light on the three way intersection, headed straight, “We're going to the Tower.”
“The Tower? And what does that mean?” Ninum questions, elbow on the door, head held up by her palm. Her eyes are trained on the moving traffic, luckily moving fast. As well as catching Bernadette in the back of the car in the side view mirror.
Bernadette, sitting in the middle of the backseat, has yet to put her headphones back on, just watching the back and forth between the two. She begins to lean slightly to the right as Matthew takes a left turn onto the main street. Right down this view stands the left corner of the Tower.
Tall and gray and covered in windows. It fits right in with the rest of the city, harmonizing with the rest of the metallic colored beanstalks of concrete and brick. Except for, obviously, it's undeniable size. Gargantuan in size with no end in sight as it attempts to reach the heavens, overflowing what can be seen from the windshield's limited height view.
“For research. You know, about the guy who fired me and you like to say I want revenge on,” He doesn’t want to say too much in front of the kid, she shouldn’t have to deal with his problems.
A disbelieving smile splits across her face, “Oh, so you really are just a pretty face. Good to know,” Ninum reaches over to the radio, flipping through channels before landing on one playing ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ by Depeche Mode.
After she does so, after she pulls back, he turns the dial for the station to his usual one, playing ‘Money, Money, Money,’ by ABBA, “He’s likely a distributor, since I was fired after looking into his business dealings. I need to use the computer database for research on which types, or specific deals, look shady.”
Switching it back to her song, “Again, that’s stupid. If they have the connections to get you fired, he’s probably smart enough to erase his digital trail.”
“Easy fix, I’ll figure out how to hack into the system and find what they scrubbed,” again, ABBA starts playing over the radio.
Depeche Mode blaring, “What, you don’t think he could just pay off or bribe the owner of this Tower? That they wouldn’t just be able to figure out you’re hacking, either?”
“Oh ye-”
Reaching past them, long darkened beige fingers reach and turn the dial to begin to play ‘Golden Years’ by David Bowie. Thus, ending their argument there and causing silence to infect the car.
In the furthest far left lane, Matthew takes a right on to the commercial street, as if the rest of the city was’t the exact same, “Fine. So what would you rather do?”
He questions as to why she wants to get in his way. If she wants his soul, shouldn’t she be trying to get him to hurry up with his plans? Why go through all this effort of showing her hand?
With a shrug as she watches as an outdoor food court slowly slips by them, “Explore, mostly. I’ve never been here before and I’d like to see what the city has to offer,” Her flippant response may have just solved his mystery.
She wants him to have a slow death, doesn’t she. That’s her motive. He’s supposed to be finding the motive behind dealings in the underbelly of the city. But, instead, he’s stuck behind not only some slow ass yellow cabbie, but a woman, a demon, who would rather revel in her own desire than actually attempt to kill him.
Matthew attempts to calm himself down by trying to count the number of black checkers on the trunk of the cab in front of him. It doesn’t work. Looking to the side, people walk up and down the streets and wide sidewalks, window shopping in the outdoor mall. At least he knows the parking garage in that area, across from the second food court, would be a worse trip than sitting next to her. Looking towards the sky as they sit in a stand still, birds fly by. Pigeons and crows an-
“Blue…” The little girl's voice, meek and hopeful and unnoticed by Matthew's inner ramblings.
‘Holy fuck,’ Matthew realizes, ‘She shapeshifted last night.’ In the stairwell, when he was tired and worn out, a crow flew in his face and heckled him. Matthew admonishes himself for his own ignorance and stupidity, he hadn’t even thought about what had happened last night since he’s woken up.
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“Blue?”
Was it even a crow? Could it have been a raven she shifted into? Was she even telling the truth last night? The pulsing of the bathroom walls when he summoned her makes him doubt himself about questioning her nature. But, her demonic nature, likely also makes her a liar. How much was the truth? What about the things she isn’t telling him? Is it smart to even have her around Bernadette?
“-ew.”
How much can he believe that comes out of her mouth? Or even remember correctly? The details are all muddled and the recalling of indirect feelings of annoyance consumes his thoughts about last night. At least that last conversation is somewhat ingrained in his mind, with all the questions and running it like an investigation. Well, a half-assed one. The amount of unanswered questions only now running through his mind, the amount he just skipped over without any thought.
“-tthew.”
Wait, can he say curse words without pissing off G-?
“Matthew!” Ninum yells, kicking him in the shin with the bottom edge of Demonia sandals.
Yelping in pain, “Ow! What?”
“Blue.”
Utterly bewildered, “What?” Matthew has no idea what she means by the color blue.
Jabbing behind her with her thumb, she points to the busy food court sector, “Blue,” She says, expecting him to get the memo.
Bernadette, turning away from the window and taking her headphones off, looks at him with stars in her eyes. He doesn’t know what it is she wants, but he doesn’t want to let her down. Looking out the window, no need to worry about the stagnant traffic, he scans the area, trying to find whatever ‘blye’ thing they are seemingly interested in. Able to see past the brick corner of some fancy little restaurant he hasn’t been to, stands a parade of pop up shops selling foods and oddities. Specifically, one with a blue and white striped awning advertising ice-cream.
He goes to say that they shouldn’t, but the look in Bernadettes eyes stops before any more sounds leave his throat. He really doesn’t want to disappoint her, and technically her brother isn’t here to say anything about diets. But he really shouldn’t. Should he?
Looking over to Ninum, a last resort, for any help to maybe dissuade the child. It does nothing to help as she just stares at him expectantly, nodding over to the kid. He knew he shouldn’t have expected any help from her anyways. How long does he have before she becomes the death of him? The insurmountable pile of bullshit, constant questions racing through his mind, is enough to give him a headache.
Slumping back in his seat, hands sliding over her face. Peeking through his fingers, the cabby is still in its same place. The traffic still at a stand still as the left side of the road has cars indistinguishable from each other rocket past. With a groan, he grabs a hold of the steering wheel.
Pulling to the right and making an illegal U-turn, he goes south a couple paces, just enough to turn left into the small road. The road, in between both food courts and tall shops and some more monolith towers, is littered by cars lucky enough to pull into the curb side parking.
Driving down, multiple cars are vying for spots and circling like hungry animals. Almost like a battlefield, but without blood and wreckage, cars almost pile into each other in an effort to avoid the worst of the worst. The hiked up, almost illegal, price to park your car in the three story parking garage.
Constantly checking his mirrors, nothing seems to be opening up. Regardless of how slow he is moving through the street, people somehow weaving their way past aggressive drivers, the attempt to find a spot is in vain. All for a moment he’s about to give in before, in his left side mirror, a convertible blue beetle can be seen pulling out of the slanted placing.
A Ford F-150, similar to one in a past case, has the gait of a wild animal focused on its prey. The monster moves erratically, unstable and likely thinking it's going to get its way with its size and mass. Always as deft, he makes an immediate U-turn and quickly slides into the newly empty space. More nimble as a rabbit escaping the jaws of a wolf. The large white pick-up truck lays its horn at him, blaring into the metal of the car and making it reverberate from the freight train sound alike.
Quickly stepping out of the car, all three of them are subject to obscenities thrown out the window at them. Ninum, as graceful as she can be, throws a middle finger up at the guy as he bolts away. Rolling his eyes at the gesture, Matthew sits on the hood of the car as Bernadette bounds up in front of him, it's a wonder that her headphones don’t fly off by her speed and bouncing.
“Come on girly, let's go get you an ice cream,” Ninum says, beginning to walk away and pulling her shades down over her eyes.
Running a hand through his hair, and nodding toward the kid, “You two go on without me,” He waves his hand, while fishing his Marlboro’s out of his right pocket.
Ninum, while a bit hedonistic, hasn’t proved herself to be directly wanting to hurt him. He’ll trust her to take care of Bernadette for the moment, besides, he can see them well enough from here. Sandie would seriously kill him if he was here, or at least talk his ear off to the point Matthew might kill himself.
“‘Kay,” Bernadette says, running after Ninum and towards the little pop up ice cream shop.
Walking right beside Ninum, Bernadette looks around the place with wide brown eyes. It’s a shame she’s usually stuck with Sandie in their apartment, constantly dealing with the horrific smell of paint in every corner of the place, Matthew thinks of how long she’s had to deal with that. Santiago only ever even left the apartment if it was the gym, selling a painting, or trying to find a job that would hire him.
Palming a cigarette, he throws it and catches it in between his fingers. He pulls a small little fluorescent green lighter out of his back pocket. Lighting the end, the flame, as familiar as always, consumes the end of the stick. Sucking in the toxic smoke, the welcome burn of nicotine inflaming its way down his throat into his lungs.
Holding it there for a moment, the alveolus’s beating and pulsating against the dark smog for a moment before the air is expelled from his lips, exiting his lungs. Breathed into the air the smoke coagulates before swept away by the breeze, head leaned back as time seemed to slip away for a couple moments. Opening his eyes again, staring straight up into the sky, great and blue, in the bottom edge of his vision stands the eyesore against the puffy white clouds.
Occasional birds flying by, mostly pigeons flying low and perching on the edges of rooftops. One or two crows fly between the spaces between the towering buildings. At the very top of skyscrapers flies an overly large bird, likely some kind of vulture he remembers seeing out in the suburbs. The one that used to perch on the back fence, he doubts it would look that large at that height, but vultures usually get bigger in size depending on their diet. Probably feeding itself on the dead rats, the occasional body that made one of his colleagues lose their mind trying to prove a cannibal was living in the dumpsters.
A weight makes itself known on his right, the barely noticeable shift of the car causes him to look down. Eating cookie dough flavored ice cream in a cup, Bernadette sits right beside him on the hood of the car. She’s gone back to people watching, kicking her feet in the air with her headphones over her ears.
“So what other sites are there to see? I doubt there’s much to see just sticking around in this plaza,” Ninum says, eating a classic ice cream sandwich, somehow not getting her black nails dirty.
Of course she got something for herself, Matthew’s thoughts have him almost want to start yelling at her before he realized he never gave them money to pay for the treats. Ninum, relaxed and leaning on her back leg in front of him, black hair moving in the faint wind, doesn’t look like she’s carrying a wallet of any kind. Hoping that she didn’t reveal the fact that she’s a demon to Bernadette he looks over to her to ask if she may have paid for it.
Before he does so, a slow black limo is out where the traffic had once been at a stand still, peeking out behind the truck of the sedan next to them. Slowly moving, yet not holding up any traffic, it grudges past the road into the area. The limo, stark against the bright light of the sun, stands like a black caterpillar in a pile of hay, standing out from everything else around it. Limos are more usual on the west side, the only reason one would be over here was if someone was visiting ‘Axis.’
“We need to go,” Matthew bolts for the car door, throwing it open and fumbling with the keys to get them into the ignition.
With a tilt of her head and curious, Ninum walks towards her door, leisurely, letting Bernadette hop in with stomping red converse first before sitting down. Making herself comfortable, she keeps herself quiet as the car starts up and the radio comes on. To her luck, playing over the speakers is ‘Personal Jesus’ by Depeche Mode, again. Bernadette, in the backseat, still has her headphones blaring classical music, ignorant to Matthew erratic reversing.
“Careful, the ice cream’s going to splatter if you keep doing that.”
Ignoring Ninum’s words, he keeps his foot steady on the pedal as the limo has left their sight, hopefully stuck at the light. Getting down to the road’s opening, the long black car has luckily just turned to the left. Quick to get behind them, but not quick enough, he gets stuck at the light. A mumble of curses leaves his mouth as his hand slams the edge of the noir metal steering wheel.
Ninum, tired of trying to see what has him so focused and done with the cold treat, rolls her eyes out towards the window. Stuck at the light, right next to them stands a small little bakery decorated in green and white selling beignets. The gold rimmed windows show off a multitude of different pastries behind the pale white calligraphy advertising their beignets as second best to New Orleans. Bernadette is staring as well at the shop, stars again shining in her eyes in the side mirror as her free hand presses up against the window, leaving the blue spoon in the empty cup. For such a small serving size, it must have been a crime to charge that much, even in faux New York.
The light turns green before anyone can say anything about the place as Matthew skids to the left and quickly makes another right turn. Luckily not cutting anyone off, he makes it down this street before it splits off into another three way intersection with no road across. Pulling up to the corner, the street across and in front of them is littered with even more cars than the small entertainment center. The entire street and all the buildings have advertisements for obscene things, alcohol and the like.
Down on the left, two buildings down, stands a tall almost roman like building with its tan coloring. With a rounded pull in for cars, the limo is pulled to the front in front of the grand glass doors with faint bright colors flashing through. Above the crystallized doors hangs a very large and oversized severed head of an axis deer sits mounted on the roman yellow concrete. Decorated windows, without any lights coming through and likely covered with curtains, stretch tall and high above and side by side with it in multiple forms. Arched and rectangular they span all the way to the triangular roof.
Matthew, turning down the radio to focus better, watches as the limo’s door opens. Out from the car first steps a dark skinned woman with a relaxed blonde afro, curly and almost coily, reaches beneath her shoulder and shields her face from Matthew. She walks halfway to the entrance, before stopping on the red carpet, turning just slightly to chat to the bodyguard at the door. Or at least he thinks, the two large columns on either side before the door cover whoever she is talking to. She’s wearing a white or maybe light tan-
“Was that a 1999 Versace!?” Ninum, jumping forward and leaning on the dash and breaking his concentration, comments about the ruched backless dress with a leg slit, somehow recognizing the dress, as well as the shoes, “And Louis!?”
Again, ignoring her and her fascination with the woman's fashion, his eyes focus back on the limo where another person steps out. Tall and dressed in a nice tailored suit is an Native American man. Long silky black hair that reaches the middle of his back, and black out shield sunglasses hiding his eyes, sitting against olive toned skin. Maybe about 6’2, he pulls out a long black duffle bag almost as tall as him and slings it across his back.
Taking off his tie from his white dress shirt, he throws it back in the car as another hand exits the car. Light blue painted fingernails contrasting against the hand's dark color, from what is likely a man from the definition, makes a finger gun at the man, likely saying some sort of joke. As a response, the tall man with a sarcastic smile, likely a bodyguard of sorts, leans down and shoots the sitting man in the car the finger before turning around as the limo door shuts behind him as he walks away. His hand comes up to his throat, likely unbuttoning the top buttons.
The two then walk through the crystalized doors after a quick word, bright strobing colored neon lights seeping past the sunlight and coloring the air for the few moments the doors are open. Even from there in the car, the roar of screams and music can be heard before the doors shut. A wonder that reinforced glass can hold the decibels back. Just after, the limo then drives away, down the street to the left and luckily not towards them.
Matthew, taking in what he saw, assesses that some kind of business must be going down. The woman is likely going to talk with Axis for some kind of deal. If anything, probably about the rumored distribution, while the man is her bodyguard. The banter between the two men must mean that either he is on good terms with his employer, or he was lucky enough to work with one of his friends maybe.
“But it’s Axis…” Matthew ponders, the head of the nightclub, almost everything on this strip as well, doesn’t do major business deals with just anyone.
He should recognize the woman, and if he doesn’t, then she’s likely an escort of sorts. Which would mean that the bodyguard is actually the buyer or business partner. Which is unlikely, unless he’s really that ballsy to bring in, what is likely, a rifle.
Without much thought, he acts on instinct, “We need to go in there,” the idea he could be missing vital information, the specific of what he needs, and losing a lead on the man that fired him isn’t something he wants to risk.
Just about to exit park, he gets slapped upside the head by Ninum, “The fuck are you thinking?”
Silver eyes blown wide at the action, “The hell? We need to go in there, we can follow them and I can get a lead on Axis. I could find out what it was that got me fired,” he attempts to explain that he needs this, to be able to piece it together, trace it back to where it started.
“In the middle of the day? At a nightclub? With a guy who's probably got a rifle on his back in broad daylight? Not to mention the fucking kid?” What she needs, is to get it through his head that rushing in head first will get him killed.
About to start shouting back, he refrains and slumps back in his seat. Looking out the window at the packed streets, fist held to his mouth. Unfortunately, he has to concede to her. He can’t leave Bernadette here alone, especially on this street, and definitely not alone with Bernadette. The smell of burnt food but a reminder to how the shapeshifter doesn’t quite care for anything but her own enjoyment.
“Fine. But we’re doing what I want now.”
Turning around, looking in the backseat, Bernadette is sitting with her empty ice cream cup bowl. She’s pouting with a blank face, ‘Messiah’ by Handel doing nothing to cheer her up. Outside of the window, she’s watching two pigeons hop around on the sidewalk. Hopping over a crack made in the concrete, thin lined and oddly stepped on before the two hop away from it only to go back. Sometimes pecking at it, but only bounding away after directly touching it with the bottom of red skinned bird feet.