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.