Page 38 of Phoenix Chosen 2

“A bad omen,” Kalistratos mutters.

“Or… maybe just bad air,” I say. I’m trying to reassure myself. “You know, Kalistratos… I’ve been thinking about this little wild goose chase we’re on. What if the First, or whoever they are, is the one responsible for all of this? What if they’re leading us to a trap?”

“Sometimes, to reach our goal, we must walk through the lion’s den. And right now, we have no other options.”

“Yeah, but when the lion is some mysterious being who can summon soul reavers and shadow monsters and transport me to a different realm, it makes things a little more difficult.”

“I have to trust the Great Phoenix is looking out for us.”

“I want to, I just wish I had some sign that he was. Because he’s been real absent, don’t you think? He could at least appear in a vision, or something and be like, ‘Hey, guys, everything is gonna be just fine.’ Right?”

“You’re getting cold feet.”

“Mildly scared shitless,” I say, staring up at the darkening sky. “How long have you been searching for his temple now?”

“Years,” he says.

“And all of that time, the Great Phoenix has never given you so much as a hello?”

“If he was so easy to speak to, I wouldn’t be searching so hard for his temple. Every clan has a temple that houses the spirit of their patron god. The Great Wolf, the Great Cat, and so on. Without a temple, a god has no voice. So Phoenikos have had to rely on signs. That's all we have.”

“The Phoenikos were the most powerful clan, right? So how did the Great Phoenix’s temple get lost? That’s what I don’t understand.”

He thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t know the whole story. Just fragments I’ve pieced together. It’s like the Jedi. Luke Skywalker was of their clan but didn’t know it until he was told by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Their kind was lost, destroyed long before his time. Some Phoenikos may not even know they are Phoenikos. Most know nothing about our clan’s time in the light. Including myself.”

Rain patters across the car’s windshield. I flip on the wipers, but they’re old and barely do more than leave the glass a streaky mess.

“Damn,” I say. “Good thing it’s just drizzling.”

Famous last words.

As we enter downtown and are swallowed by a crooked-toothed sprawl of high-rise buildings on either side of the freeway, sheets of heavy raindrops slam the car like bullets. I can barely see through the windshield. The red glow of the brake lights ahead of me is my only guide to the road.

I roll down the window and stick my head out into the rain. It’s stupid, but it’s the only way I can see where I’m going.

“Fuck this,” I say, and pull off the freeway.

The rain has come so quickly and so dramatically that some people on the sidewalks have retreated beneath awnings to wait it out, while others run, using whatever they have on them as makeshift umbrellas. I’m completely soaked.

I drive us along the surface streets as far as possible. There’s an accident up ahead—two cars smashed in an intersection. I take a left, nearly hitting a man sprinting across the road with a jacket held over his head, and then run into gridlock traffic. After a while, some of the cars ahead of us begin to flip U-turns to try and get out, but the opposite side of the road quickly gets blocked up too. Just a few cars ahead of us is a parking structure for a loft apartment building, and I make a snap decision.

“We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. It’s just a few blocks from here.”

I pull around the cars in front and drive up onto the curb to get into the lot, grinding the undercarriage in the process.

“Sorry, Jeff,” I say.

I find a space on the top floor and dig out a compact umbrella from the plastic storage crate Jeff keeps in the trunk. In the building across the street, I see office workers staring perplexedly out the window at the abrupt and unseasonable change in weather. The afternoon sky has now become as dark as evening, and as we reach the stairs, thunder vibrates in the distance.

We wind our way down the staircase. Water drips from the ceiling and splashes off the railing, and one of the lights buzzes and flickers out, leaving a whole section of stairs dark except for the green glow of an exit sign. Discarded mini liquor bottles and a torn condom wrapper grace the floor next to the sixth-floor door. I jog down the stairs faster. I want to be out on the street. I have a strange feeling that we’re not alone here. Same damn feeling I used to get when I worked the night shift at a warehouse built right next to an old cemetery. I quit that jobrealfast.

It’s the damn rain. It’s not right, just like the swirl of clouds that had suddenly appeared over the mall.

Something is watching us.

The lights flicker again as we pass the fourth floor, andallof them go out, leaving nothing but the exit lights. I freeze and Kalistratos collides with my back. I nearly tumble down the stairs, but he grabs me around the waist and pulls me against his chest.

“Sorry,” I say.

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