Part 4

Three years ago a movie called Mean Street Taggers hit the big screens across the nation. The movie followed the exploits of so called "graffiti gangs" that roamed the back alleys and train yards of New York City. This movie idolized the street art movement and throughout the smaller cities and towns across the middle of America, young boys flocked to hardware stores or art supply shops to pick up their own cans of spray paint. The youth of these smaller towns never wanted to feel like the "country cousins" and worked hard to emulate the images Hollywood portrayed of teenagers living in the big cities.

The protagonists in Mean Street Taggers advised that the more difficult and the more public the area you choose to paint with graffiti the greater your success. The movie spawned a movement of graffiti gang wannabes that caused consternation throughout the small city of Splitbranch.

Risa's uncle Albert, a long standing member of the Splitbranch city council and President of the local chamber of commerce proposed the installation and use of closed circuit cameras in all public city spaces including on the city buses.

Ultimately, as most proposals made in city councils tend to do, budget concerns sliced the original plans and pared down the total amount and quality of the cameras. Albert has wanted camera's throughout the downtown business district and on all of the public transportation vehicles. Splitbranch boasted a large city public transport for a small city of its size. The city council looked at its public transport system with pride and didn't appreciate the recent rash of graffiti incidents.

However, with the budget concerns the city council decided to nix the plans to have cameras patrolling the streets. Some council members pointed to the lack of effectiveness large metropolitan areas, like London, who utilized the most robust use of city wide cameras but lead to very few arrests. Several council members didn't see the benefit of purchasing and maintaining the cameras when they figured this fad of graffiti usage would wane.

When the chief of police even conceded that the camera's would probably act more as deterrent rather than a crime fighting tool the city council began convince that a large invest wouldn't be in the city's best interest. Albert privately scorned this decision. However, his disappointment was probably more due to the fact that he owned a chain of grocery stores and several other local businesses that seemed to be prime targets of these graffiti vandals.

After much debate, little of which actually interested most of the citizens, the city council finally decided to mount cameras in cities metro buses. Again, budgetary concerned dropped the total number of cameras Albert had initially proposed. To save money, the city council decided to only purchase cameras to equip half of its busing fleet. They decided that the police department would rotate the cameras from bus to bus, route to route, so that it would still act as a deterrent while cutting the cost in half.

Albert scoffed at the idea, but the additional cost of the camera may have meant an increase to the business property tax, and this would have hit his wallet the hardest. He relented and the city council passed the resolution 8 to 1. The lone vote of descent came from Belina Tink, a staunch conservative who opposed any measure that she considered an affront to a person's rights and freedoms. She considered these camera's an infringement on a citizen's privacy.

The camera's were installed behind a black glassed dome above the driver. It provided a view running the length of bus. However, the views were relatively obstructed and did little to deter any vandalism. It wasn't until the city council passed a resolution banning the sale of graffiti to minors did the wave of vandalism all but dissipate.

Throughout the months of the metro cameras operation it seemed like a fiscal mistake. While the cameras did provide a sense of security for some of the bus riders, the benefits of the cameras didn't seem to outweigh the costs until that fateful day in January.

The grainy video played over and over in Risa's mind. The date and time stamp flickered foggy white across the bottom of the screen.

January 15th. 3:14 pm.

The weather that week had been unseasonably mild. The temperatures had risen to 52 degrees Fahrenheit, quite balmy for that time of year. The break from the typically nasty winter weather was represented by the lighter coats and jackets seen on the people riding the bus that day.

With the work day still in full swing, the Orange Line was relatively empty. An older woman sat upfront corralling her shopping bag in the next seat. She was engaged in conversation with the bus driver who couldn't be seen on camera. A college student was sitting midway towards the rear of the bus staring out of the window. He was bobbing his head slightly to the unheard beats emanating from his head phones. There was a woman fusing over her toddler seated across from the young man. The toddler was busy eating a sandwich and happily making a mess of it.

At the very rear of the bus, nearly beyond the sight of the camera sat a young boy, not a quite a teenager yet older than a child. He sat on the very last row. The row that was mounted against the back wall of the bus. He sat calmly in the middle seat, legs barely touching the floor. He looked relaxed but he clutched at his backpack as if he was ready to bolt off the seat and sprint down the aisle.

Risa could sense each turn of the bus and each stop it made by the gentle sway each passenger's body would make. During a particularly hard stop the toddler nearly surged forward before his mother grabbed him to hold him back. After securing her child the mother looked up to glare at the driver.

The first downtown stop, Tower Street, came and went without any change in the passengers.

The second downtown stop, 1st Avenue, saw the departure of the mother and child. She scooped him up off of the seat and ushered him down the aisle. The old lady looked back and smiled at the child as his mother held his hands as he eased down the stairs out of the rear exit doors. The pair exited and the rear doors slid shut.

The third downtown stop, Capital Street. Three blocks from where Risa now stood. The young boy stood up. He hesitated and looked around. Still clutching his back pack to his chest he took an uncertain step forward. The boy was wearing dark blue jeans and a light colored winter jacket. Though with the black and white video one couldn't discern the color, Risa's family later assured police that it was a light blue coat.

The boy, still looking uncertain used one hand to adjust his knit winter cap. The knit cap had two flaps that covered his ears. The color of the knit cap was determined to be gray with two thing blue stripes that circumnavigated it's center.

At this point, with the stop lasting longer than normal, the college aged boy turned from his languid viewing of the passing traffic to see what was causing the slight delay. Upon seeing the older boy notice him, the younger passenger seemed to be spurred forward. Quickly looking at his feet the boy moved towards the exit doors. The college aged boy shrugged and looked back out of the window.

The young boy made his way down the stairs, stopping only briefly at the bottom step. He seemed to take a deep breath, stepped forward then disappeared off of the bus. The bus doors unceremoniously slid shut again.

With that, the black and white image of Caleb was gone.

Part 3

As soon as those words left her mouth she felt a cold pang of stupidity. "I need help finding my brother", Risa repeated the words in her head. "This is so stupid! What did I think, that this boy would suddenly have answers for me? What did I think he'd say? 'Oh, I'm so glad you came in Risa, the kidnappers left a forwarding address for you, we should get your brother back before suppertime. It's a good thing you stopped by today." Risa squeezed her fists into tight balls crushing the paper in her hand. She saw the expression on the clerks face soften. She wondered if she looked that visibly upset.

The boy ran his fingers into his dark hair. He didn't pass it all the way through but rather kept his palm flat against his temple and curled his fingers, scratching at his scalp. He had a worried look on his face. Worried? Maybe pity, Risa pondered. Then she was baffled by her next thought: "He doesn't use any hair products. No gel, no hair spray, well, maybe a little mousse". This off line train of thought infuriated Risa further. Here she was, on a grand mission to find her missing brother. To succeed where the police and seasoned investigators had failed, and she was wondering about a boy's hair style choices! After what seemed like an eternity of silence the boy spoke.

"I'd talked with your brother," he began softly "a few times when I was here working. This place was like a second home to him I think." He managed a small smile.

"So you knew exactly who I was talking about." Risa said with unintentional exasperation. She was tired of the pitying looks she'd always get. Everyone would get doe eyed around her. They would either spew forth canned sayings that they may have seen on a Hallmark card, or they would fumble with their words, eventually settling on 'I'm sorry'.

She felt a tinge of regret as she noticed that her quick response had had more bite than she intended. The boy used a nervous smile to deflect her harsh tone.

"It's kind of a small town you know," he tried to coolly shrug of her remark, "and its hard not know since I work here." His hand had finally left his forehead as he gestured around the comic book shop. Risa was worried that her words may still have inadvertent barbs so she chose to keep her jaws clamped shut. Thankfully, the boy seemed to notice her deference and continued on.

"The police investigators did come by a couple times. They spoke with the me, and the owner, and the other employees but there really wasn't anything out of the ordinary that happened when Ca..." his voice faltered, "your brother stopped by the store". Risa had noticed this phenomenon in others. They didn't seem to want to say Caleb's name. They always referred to him as "your brother".

Why did people do that? Did saying his name make him "more gone"? The frustration continued to build inside her and she furrowed her brow. The boy noticed this reaction as well. He moved quickly trying somehow to vent some of the pressure he could sense was growing inside her.

"Unfortunately we didn't have much information for the police. They took all of the security video we had," the boy pointed to a small, reflective black orb attached to the ceiling above the register. Behind the black plexiglass orb sat a small surveillance camera that spied on the store.

"Back then we only kept about a weeks worth of digital video to because of storage issues on the computer. Your brother hadn't been into the store for a week, before..." his voice lost it's power again. Risa looked down to try and save him from feeling ashamed for telling the truth.

"I also spoke with the private detective" he said hastily, of course trying to change the subject, "he seems like a very driven guy." Risa titled her head up and raised an eye brow.

"A driven guy?" Risa muttered. Edwin Wardell, or Inspector Wardell as he liked to announce, struck Risa as many things, but she hadn't considered him "driven". However, in retrospect that adjective fit Wardell to the T. Even given his lack of finding anything substantial anyone would agree that he did possess a zealous pursuit of Caleb's trail. Risa thought him a strange man who used big words when simpler ones would do. He showed little patience but always treated her mother with a deft and delicate touch. I suppose, Risa thought, that if I were to go missing, I would want someone like Wardell looking for me.

Risa could tell that her words had stung again. This was not going well, she thought. "I'm supposed to be asking this guy for help, and I'm being a sarcastic bitch". She looked up at him. He brandished that nervous smile again like a shield. Risa could sense that it was a practiced smile, one that he had probably used more times than he could count. She felt another surge of guilt for she was the reason he had needed it again.

"I'm sorry," she offered quickly "I don't mean to sound mean or anything. Its just, I just" Risa tried to find the words, "I don't even know what I'm doing down here. The police have already come here. Wardell has been here. I don't know what I'm doing!"

"You're doing what any big sister would," his smile changed. It was no longer a smile of pity nor a defensive barrier against her attacks. To Risa it looked like a smile of pride. "You're doing the best you can". Risa had steeled herself when she came downtown to visit the store for herself, but with two short sentences, this store clerk had dented her walls of isolation.

"Did you know Caleb?"

"I spoke with him a couple times. I remembered him apart from the other kids because of his knowledge of the comics. And it wasn't just the superhero or supergirls in bikinis stuff for him. He had an awesome respect of the history of some of these comics. Its just something you don't see everyday." The boy spoke with great enthusiasm.

"He's always loved them, " Risa acknowledged ruefully.

"He seemed like a really smart kid. He kept us on our toes. He kinda acted older than some of the guys who work here." The boy was trying to keep things light, Risa thought.

"He had to grow up fast when our dad left." This time Risa couldn't hide the sharpness in her voice. She really had to stop that.

"I was always amazed that" pause "Caleb came down here on his own." Risa assumed the boy was now going to try and share with her some of his pleasant memories of "her brother".

"Even at his age," the boy continued "he was riding the metro bus. I'm still scared to ride the metro bus today". Risa knew the boy was trying to make small talk. Trying to cheer her up. Her mother's therapist always implored them to 'share their feelings' and 'talk about the situation'. There had been enough talk. Something needed to be done. However, in this instance, Risa's resolve was shattered.

The metro bus. The metro bus had been the key to the whole police investigation. Risa could replay the grainy black and white surveillance footage from the bus in her mind as if it were a memory that had been charred into her synapses with a branding iron. It was the last documented footage of Caleb.

Part 2...August

DING

Normally, the gentle crispness of the bell that announced entry into the Knights and the Page was a welcome sound. It signaled a break from the usual monotony of the day and typically ushered in people who shared common interests that sparked animated discussions. But today, today of all days, that bell seemed like the headsman's axe falling toward a condemned man's neck.

"Of course, of course someone would come in right now," he thought sardonically, "of all the days I decide to try that triple layered burrito". Looking nervously at the bathroom door as he fumbled to get himself situated and presentable to the customers. He checked his watched as he frantically washed his hands. "1:43? No one ever comes in at 1:43, even in the summer time." He held a personal belief that comic book buyers don't awaken until at least 2:00 in the afternoon. Sure some folks came in during the morning to get a jump on a particular new comic release, while others may stop by during their lunch breaks to pick up that last minute birthday gift. But the early afternoon was normally like kryptonite for the usual nocturnal comic book enthusiast.

He hurried out of the bathroom and made his way through the rear storage room. He deftly wove through the boxes of merchandise and packing materials. He knew this storage room better than his own home. However, this was probably more a function of his mother's continual desire to rearrange the furniture than some innate navigational ability. He nearly crashed through the rear door into the show room in his haste.

With the rear door still ajar he quickly scanned the show room. A figure stood waiting at the cashier's kiosk. Mr. Kavanaugh. Here again.

"Hey Mr. Kavanaugh," he said with a smile, "Sorry for the delay, I was uh, stacking some boxes". Kavanaugh gave him a slight nod.

"Hello August. Has it arrived yet? I was in the area and decided to drop by and check."

"I'm sorry sir, still not here" August answered politely. Kavanaugh stopped in nearly everyday. He had placed some special orders in and was awaiting delivery. Occasionally, manufacturers of collectibles or private sales auctions would only send their wares to a business address. Knights and the Page often worked as an intermediary to allow these special transactions to occur.

"OK, I guess I'll try again later in the week," Kavanaugh tapped the cashiers kiosk lightly with his left hand. August had always wondered how Kavanuagh had lost his arm but thought it was much to impolite to ask out right. Though he saw and had spoken with Mr. Kavanaugh numerous times, by no means did he think they were familiar enough to pose such a question. August would often let his imagination come up with different scenarios that would claim Kavanaugh's arm.

August's favorite conjuration molded Mr. Kavanaugh as a dashing super spy cavorting all over the world in search of terrorists. August mused that Kavanaugh had lost his arm during a wild snow mobile chase through the steppes of the lower Caucus mountains. Kavanaugh was working secretly with the British S.A.S. as a military attache from the U.S. Army.

Kavanaugh certainly looked the part of a steely killer, at least according to August's standards. August imagined that super spies were not muscle bound behemoths capable of wielding a Gatling gun and rocket launchers in each arm, rather they were unassuming, regular looking men in nondescript clothing. Average looking men whose clothing hid their war hardened physiques. Kavanaugh certainly fit this mold. August always thought Kavanaugh had a steely look, like there was a rage boiling underneath that calm exterior. August nearly laughed beside himself and thought, "Kavanaugh is probably an IT guy, he probably sits at his desk and stares into a computer monitor all day".

August on the other hand would not have passed any initial physical testing whatsoever. He was still hoping to grow out of his childhood awkwardness. He always hoped for another growth spurt to push him over six feet. His slender five foot ten inch frame was a liability in high school, but now compared to the more heavily muscled men that attended his college, he looked weaker and more boyish than ever before.

Kavanaugh had crossed his left arm across his chest and absently tugged at the empty jacket sleeve. If he still possessed two working arms he probably would have crossed them. August thought he registered a flash of impatience sprint across Mr. Kavanaugh's face, but it was quickly masked by Kavanaugh's bland expression.

"Till next then August," Kavanaugh said mildly. He dropped his arm back to his side releasing the loose sleeve. August watched for a moment transfixed as the sleeve swung back slightly like a pendulum as Kavanuagh wheeled around to exit the store. When August peered up to watch Mr. Kavanaugh leave only then did he notice a girl standing near the door. A rather attractively shaped girl he noted. A very pretty girl he spied. A girl much to pretty to be in a store like this. She seemed to hesitate briefly as Kavanaugh passed her on his way to the door.

August noticed that she had looked away briefly when Kavanaugh strode past her, it was as if she wanted to be sure not to stare at the sleeve where only a ghost of a limb remained. The bell signaling a breach of the door seemed to rouse here from a trance. She looked up at August and then took a step in his direction.

She was much too pretty for a place like this he thought again. She must be wanting to buy a gift for her boyfriend. Or hopefully for a younger brother or cousin, though August held little hope that that was the case. He watched her cross the room with a steady gait. She walked confidently and with an undeniable grace. To him she was like a queen crossing the threshold of the throne room hording he admiration of all of the courtiers.

He could actually picture her in that setting. With a high backed gown adorned with jewels and baubles from the very corners of the world. Her hair tied up resplendently reminiscent of English or French royalty in the days of Elizabeth or Marie Antoinette. She cradled a gilded scepter in the crook of her arm. She waved a gloved hand sewn with a very soft egg shell colored fabric. He nearly laughed out loud in spite of himself. He really had to get his imagination in check.

Time seemed to slow as she made her way towards the register kiosk towards August. There was something familiar about her, yet completely foreign at the same time. Her chestnut colored hair was loosely pulled back into a ponytail corralled by a dark green band. A few strands floated freely across her brow before she instinctively swept them back behind her ear. August's eyes couldn't help trace the path her fingers made as they slid past her neck after she completed the motion of clearing her face of the wandering strands of hair.

She wore a plain black t-shirt, that seemed to fit her quite well by August's estimation. The neckline was elongated and revealed about half of her shoulders, but didn't dip to show any indecency. The t-shirt sported the words "Scooter's Vacation" in vivid neon green near the bottom left side of the garment. August reckoned that "Scooter's Vacation" was a name of a band he wasn't aware of. Not that it wasn't a stretch that he wouldn't have recognized that band's name. August ruefully admitted to himself that the shirt's "trendiness" itself was enough to remind him of his status in the presence of such royalty.

His moment of self pity was rudely interrupted when he suddenly realized that she was standing in front of him. Her mouth opened ever so slightly, as if she was about to speak but then stopped herself.

"You look familiar. Do I know you?" Her voice was firm and self assured, it didn't contain the shrill emptiness that August was half expecting to emerge from her soft lips. August let out a strange gurgle in response. "You idiot!" He thought, make words! Speak! He commanded himself.

"Um, do you go to State? Maybe I've seen you on campus." He hoped he sounded manly. She looked at him and titled her head slightly to the side.

"No," she shook her head, "I just graduated from Northwest High this past May. But I'll probably be going to State this fall. I was hoping to go out west for college, but that didn't quite work out." August noted that her voice trailed off, he could sense a sharp disappointment with the probability of her attendance at State.

"My cousin Charlene went to Northwest, maybe you know her?" August suggested. This girl standing in front of him did look like the type that would run in the same circles as Charlene. They seemed to be dressed the similar and they would have been in the same class. August hoped that Charlene wasn't an antagonist for this girl as that would have probably derailed any future conversation. Girls were quite catty that way he thought. But, a small smile emerged from the girl's face.

"That's it! I went to prom with Charlene. Were you our limo driver?" August subconsciously winced at the comment. His uncle, Charlene's father, ran a successful taxi and limousine service here in town. Initially his uncle had built his empire around a busing service that would shuttle drunken college students from bar to bar. From there his uncle had broadened his service to a small fleet of taxis and airport shuttle services. To earn some extra money to finance his own addiction to comic books and memorabilia, August sometimes worked for his uncle as a driver. While he didn't really like being a chauffeur, he was proud of achieving the additional licensing it took to become a commercial driver, not that it aided him in getting girls to notice him.

Sadly for August, his uncle was an staunch opponent of nepotism and whatever raises or special privileges other nephews may have received by working for their uncles, didn't apply to him. It was obvious to August that Charlene would be taking a limo for her prom. He had specially requested that he not be her driver for the evening even though his uncle has specifically asked if he could do it. His uncle, ever the miser, had even suggested that August take on the duties of the chauffeur for Charlene's party pro-bono, as a prom gift for her. When August didn't respond to this suggestion his uncle laughed heartily and slapped him on the back. "He was just joking," August repeated in his uncle's words in his head. Yeah right.

August had not gone to his prom. Nor any school sanctioned dance or party for that matter. It wasn't that he wasn't bereft of friends, he had a few, he had just made the conscious decision not to put himself further into harms way. While humans had conquered near space, invented an immense communication platform like the Internet and were making impossible advances in nanotechnology, the common high school outsider was still getting ridiculed by those of a higher social caste. They way it has always been and forever will be he though. August could only imagine those lowly Medieval castle scullery boys who longed to become knights getting teased mercilessly by the children of the gentry.

August peeled back the pages of time and in his mind spied on a scrawny boy scrubbing furiously at the mud caked on the floor of the castle's great hall. Fresh from a woodland hunt the young boys of the Baron come striding in. Still amped up from the falconry and boar hunting they proceed to taunt the poor kitchen boy. The oldest of the three kicked the wash bucket across the hall spilling all of the soapy water. The racket caused by the careening bucket draws the head maid into the hall. The young kitchen boy is relieved to have some reinforcements. "She'll set them straight", the kitchen boy thought, beaming at the idea of these three getting an earfull from the head maid. The three children of nobility froze in their actions and looked expectantly at the head maid.

Unfortunately for the young kitchen boy, the head maid didn't berate the young nobles for the additional mess they've made. She nods to them courteously then turns to the kitchen boy full of righteous anger. "I send you in to clean the mud and all you do is create even more mud!" she screams at him. The three young nobles skip away in glee as the young kitchen boy sinks further on his knees.

August shakes his head to clear the thoughts and looked up to see pretty girl looking at him curiously.

"I said, you were the chauffeur right?" She asked.

"Oh, yes, that was me," August said with a weak smile, "I sometimes work for Charlene's dad. My uncle", he added shrugging.

"But some other driver picked us up, it wasn't you." August assumed she was just trying to be friendly, she was probably trying to butter him up to get some kind of discount or something.

"Yeah, I uh, I had another group to pick up so they got another driver." He didn't want to admit that he had actually faked illness so that he wouldn't have to return and pick up Charlene's group. The last thing he needed to see was how much fun the group had had. A man could only take so much evidence of his own futility.

"What can I do for you?" August tried to regroup, and wondered if he had sounded a little too harsh. Apparently the girl hadn't noticed if his voice had changed at all. She looked down at her hands which contained a crumpled piece of paper. As she bent her head down the loose strands of hair she had swept back escaped and cascaded back down her face. August fought the involuntary urge to fix it for her. He could have sworn that his hand had jerked up on its own accord to smooth back the hair and to gently graze her neck. "What is wrong with you!" He screamed furiously to himself.

"I know this is going to sound strange," she trailed off for a moment, "but I need help finding my brother."

It begins...

What was she doing here? Everything felt dirty and alien. The air around her seemed stale, as if it was frozen with each air molecule stuck in place and she could see the very dust particles hovering around her. She remembered that dust particles primarily consisted of dead human skin that had sloughed off. She blinked her eyes quickly trying to erase that thought. Turning her head to survey to place, she tried to banish the image that she was moving through a soup containing microscopic pieces of floating human flesh. She balled her left hand quickly into a tight fist, "get a grip of yourself Risa" she thought to herself firmly.

Steadying herself Risa took stock of her surroundings. The place wasn't as dingy as she first thought when she entered. Her imagination must have been working in overdrive. The overhead lighting seemed much too dim, which may have lead to her initial misgivings about the place. She felt a chill, but wasn't compelled to zip up the front of her hooded jacket. A small bell had rang when she had opened the door and her low heeled shoes made two distinct "click-clack" sounds as she crossed the threshold and stepped onto the hard tilled floor.

What was she doing here? Risa couldn't help thinking it again. The police had already been here. Detective Wardell reported that he had visited here several times during the course of his investigation and those searches yielded nothing. What could she do that the police hadn't already? What could she find that had eluded a seasoned investigator like Wardell? "I'm being stupid, this is a stupid waste of time", she thought angrily to herself.

"Excuse me".

These words arose from behind her and cut through her thoughts, nearly making her jump. She hadn't realized that she had stopped at the entrance and was blocking the door. Risa meant to say "I'm sorry" but embarrassment had seized her throat and all she was able to push out was a pathetic sounding hiss. She wanted to take a graceful step to the right, giving whoever behind her a clear passage through, but her normal grace was replaced by a jerky half-hop half-tumble into the wall mounted shelf beside her.

"I'm sorry if I startled you", the voice said moving to her side as if wanting to make sure to catch her in case she fell or fainted.

Risa wasn't quite sure why she felt so embarrassed. Why did she care what this person may have thought about her startled near collapse? She was normally quite sure of herself, and much more confident than this. "What is wrong with you?", she berated herself. She looked down at the ground to her left to see the person's feet who had come through the door behind her.

He was wearing an odd looking pair of faded purple loafers. The shoes looked like old Sperry Top-siders that her father used to wear without socks over the summers. As a child Risa always hated when he wore those shoes because he would always complain about how sweaty his feet got, then playfully threaten his children that they would have to give him a foot rub if they didn't finish their chores.

"Are you OK? Again I'm sorry," the man apologized. His voice was calming, not too deep and not too high. Risa thought the voice had a strange melodic quality to it. Oddly, it reminded her of the synthesized back-up voices on her mother's sing-along Karaoke machine. Her mother was a huge fan of Karaoke. Her mother had picked up the addiction after serving in Japan when she was stationed there with the army. There were always Karaoke sing-along machines in the bars near the base and singing helped remind her mother of home. Even after leaving the military and reentering the private sector, her mother retained two qualities that helped her survive her deployment: her adherence to physical exercise and her devotion to singing ballads.

Risa shook her head. Her mind would often take her down strange paths of thought. Her father liked to brag that her imagination was his gift to her. Where her mother's mind worked like the rugged structure of an M1A1 Abrams battle tank, always moving in straight lines and perfect angles to attack a problem, her father's thoughts seemed more like the large fluid loops of written calligraphy. He had been a writer. That's how her parents, the oddest of couples, had met.

"You alright?", again the man's voice broke Risa out of her slight trance. She finally looked up. He was an older man, well, maybe not older, but definitely middle aged. Probably in his early fourties, Risa thought to herself. He wasn't very tall, Risa could almost meet his eyes in her low heeled shoes. She stood five feet seven inches tall, with a lean muscular build. She was a runner. She had run cross country throughout high school and was quite proud that it helped maintain her metabolism allowing her to eat whatever junk food she liked.

"Yes, thank you. I'm sorry I was in the way", Risa said finally. She realized that he had been waiting for her to respond so he could move on. He had some sandy colored stubble growing across his chin. His skin looked weather-worn, like he spent most of his time in the sun. "Maybe he works on a boat? That could explain his shoes", Risa caught herself thinking again.

He had short cropped brown hair, that was tinged with blonde, or was it gray? He had a thin, distinguished nose that pointed straight like an arrow. The man had a square brow from which his two brown eyes hung like small pendulums. The eyes and the nose lay in near perfect symmetry forming a neat letter T on the man's face.

Risa's aunt Laurie always mentioned that she found noses the most important feature on a man's face. "The nose is the rudder that determines the course of a man's face!", Aunt Laurie would often say. "Never trust a man with a crooked nose!", was also one of Aunt Laurie's tenets of dating, however Risa figured this only became a rule after Aunt Laurie's fiance ended up leaving her for an emergency room nurse who had help treat his broken nose after a particularly exciting beer league softball game. Maybe Aunt Laurie's rule should be: Never get engaged to a man who gets so drunk at a softball game that he breaks his own nose while up to bat. Aunt Laurie would probably like this man's nose Risa thought.

The man nodded and turned to walk away. Only then did Risa notice that the man's right coat sleeve hung loosely at his side. The stranger wore a crisp black blazer which seemed a size too large. The right sleeve dangled to the elbow then bent back up and was pinned to the shoulder. "Good thing Katie isn't here", Risa thought. Her best friend Katie had an odd phobia of amputees. Katie could never pin point the origin of this strange fear, she just felt uncomfortable around anyone with missing limbs.

Risa watched the man for a moment then looked around again. It wasn't a very large place. A long shelf dominated the wall she had nearly stumbled into. The shelf ran the length of the room. A couple of long tables guarded the center of the room effectively dividing the area into two spaces. Risa looked across the room to the far wall. Three large glass encased shelves stood in a line like a fragile procession. Each shelving unit had its own lighting system to accentuate the items inside. Risa couldn't quite make out the contents but she was certain of what was inside. Behind the glass cases the walls had been painted to resemble a stone barricade. Thick black lines were laid over a matte of gray paint to simulate the creases between stone and mortar like on some old castle tower. Looks pretty amateur, Risa mused.

Towards the rear of the room was an elevated service counter. It currently stood unoccupied like a sentry tower without it's guard. This is why Risa had stopped short when she had entered. The place had been empty and she was reluctant to go further in. The stranger that she had blocked earlier was now standing patiently at the service counter.

Risa looked away from the rear of the room and back around to the front where she had come in. The door was directly behind her, the old brass knob looked cold and heavy. Risa noticed several dead bolts and door chains, "who would want to break into here?", she thought sheepishly. To the right of the door was the large bay window facing out to the street. Much of the window was painted over with an opaque paint, which was probably the culprit producing that dimmed lighting. The only portion of the window that wasn't painted was covered in red lettering. Obviously from the inside the words didn't make sense, since you were looking at them backwards, but Risa knew exactly what the letters spelled.

Risa reached into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. She carefully unfolded the paper in her hand. She took a deep breathe as the significance finally hit her. She felt a wave a sadness that threatened to knife her to the ground. Her mouth suddenly felt bone dry and she had to force herself to try and swallow. She had written on the paper seven words that she hoped would give her a clue. She needed hope. She needed help. These words she had taken from her younger brother's diary.

Caleb. She knew Caleb would not have run away. Caleb was different sure, but he wasn't a runaway. The seven words she had taken from his diary were the same ones that adorned the window, painted stark red.

Knights and the Page. Comics and Collectibles.