Portal

Kathleen stretched her arm inside her purse and dragged her phone up to the table to where Christian's name flashed, but she didn't dare to answer his call. It took her a fair amount of time to sink the encounter she had with Mrs. Lada

"Aren't you gonna answer the call? That person might have something very important to say."

She turned right to see Christian beaming. He had his phone pressed against his right ear, waiting for her to answer his call.

"I'm sorry, I was just about to," she smiled, forcing herself not to sound sullen.

Christian's expression softens as he walked towards her, slipping his phone inside his pocket.

"And you might not," he sat in front of the table Kathleen occupied, eyes roaming. "I was hoping I'd catch Samantha's friends here; I think I came too late."

"They didn't come. What brings you here?"

Christian's brows cocked. "Uhm, to chill? Home's a bit suffocating, don't you think? Besides, I'll be checking the stocks..."

Kathleen cut him off. "No, I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I—," all of the sudden, she stopped when she felt a very familiar sensation—no. "Déjà vu," she whispered, staring into space while listening to the silence, breaking through from the customers inside their shop. Oddly, all the tables are occupied, but none of them are making any noise. Even the coffee machine that has been operating a few seconds ago fell into complete silence that Kathleen had to stretch her neck to check the staffs working and all of them are there. She shifted towards Christian's chair. She pulled her hands from her lap and folded her arms across her chest cautiously.

I am just being paranoid, that's it. She thought. Christian on the other side had a different notion running inside his mind.

"You need to go home," the ghost of the woman, who kept on tailing him from the very beginning, whispered on his ears. "You need to know what she knows before she could put everyone's lives in danger."

Christian's muscles tensed. He doesn't know exactly how to approach Kathleen. Nothing comes into his mind, the entire damned thing that he wants to do is for him and his girlfriend to stay away from the things that are starting to break them apart.

"I-It's getting late, should we go home?" He muttered, brushing the dust off the floor with the sole of his shoe.

"It's still quarter to seven, but I also want to go home," Kathleen said, fixing her purse to leave. Just when she's about to stand up, a ringtone startled her. Tomoya's number came up on the caller ID. "Rascal," she instinctively muttered to herself and cancelled the call, but then another call from Takumi followed.

She had only rolled her eyes. She knows very well she cannot cancel it this time. The man doesn't deserve disrespect, thus, she answered. "Don't talk, just listen," he said right away on the other end of the line. His voice was husky and surprisingly tensed. "I am watching you from outside your shop. Stay right there. Don't go out and above all, don't say anything to your boyfriend."

Kathleen could feel the seriousness in Takumi's voice, her jaws clenched in apprehension. "What the hell is it now?!" She mentally hissed, eyes shifting to Christian who's looking all worried.

"Who's that?" He mouthed. Kathleen stared at him, confused of what to do. She opened her mouth to speak but the words kept disappearing before she could say them. The command came from Takumi, there's no reason not to follow him, right?

"Stay in line with me," Takumi added. A moment later, Tomoya suddenly entered the shop. He looks awfully stiff, eyes stapled on Christian who's now standing to welcome a customer, but a ghostly whisper left him staring at Tomoya after retreating backs.

"What do you want?" Christian asked.

***

"Fascinating," Takumi held his temples with both hands. He inclined his head before fully resting it on the back pillow.

"Are you sure you are not misinterpreting what's written in there?" Theresa wiped the sweat of her face. "I mean you can use Goo-gle if you want to, but I doubt you'd find the exact translations there. You should know better," Tomoya scratched his head and carefully closed the book. It was so old; it could fall into pieces once mishandled.

"Then how come you understood those?"

"I have my ways you don't have to know, mademoiselle," his tone sounded so proud, but the idea of him reading a dead language, which has been used in demonic purposes, sent horror running through his spines, nailing him cold on his seat. He turned beside him to where Takumi is resting. To alter the visions Theresa have seen, they decided to stay in Tomoya's place to find clues with the grimoire's help.

"I was right; the other one's been playing with us," Takumi muttered and the two looked at him. "Cave a malo clamirvoyant. Mors multorum faciet. Exitium quaerit. Vitam petit iam mortuam," he repeated what Tomoya read in the grimoire while ago. "Beware of the evil clairvoyant. It will cause the death of the many. It seeks destruction. It seeks life," the translations came in handy when Takumi blurted it out.

They are aware it wasn't the exact translations. Latin language is one of the dead languages, it can be mistranslated even with the people who studies it just like Tomoya. He can be wrong, but who would they trust if they'd trust no one with it?

"And like what I said, that's not me," Theresa said in defense.

"I didn't say that," Takumi side eyed Tomoya before leaning forward. "Now that we're certain about this person's existence, what's left to know is its identity. Is there more to that?"

"I am not so fluent in reading Latin, nii-san, I still have to consult this over to one of my colleagues to get an accurate understanding."

At that moment, the room is devoured with silence and the door, which leads to Tomoya's room, suddenly shudders on its hinges, but no one seem to notice the light movement and the creature which was timidly peering in the dark corner. Forthwith, the creature moved and seems to turn into a shadow with no definite shape. It slowly crept on the wall; pass by the furniture placed on the mantel piece of the unused fireplace, and to the ceiling to where the three were talking.

Unnoticed, the shadow dropped like a leak from where it came from just behind the couch to where Theresa sat. It became more visible now and resolves itself into a figure of a man.

"Holy fuck!" Tomoya screamed, cringing back in fear when he saw him and as soon as Theresa looked behind her, she flinched causing her to fall down the floor.

"W-Who are you?! How did you get in?" Tomoya recoiled; he had leaped behind the couch to hide. His eyes shifted to Takumi, noticing that he didn't even react a bit. "Nii-san!" He called to the conspicuously strained Takumi.

He's been brushing a hand across his face. Sighing, he stood up, facing the man. "I thought we agreed not to see each other again?"

The pale, eccentrically sweet-looking man smiled, showing the sharp fangs hidden behind his black, well-shaped lips. "I thought so, too," he giggled and slowly walked in front of the couch, caressing one finger on top of it to where threads have stitched the expensive fabrics together.

"But here we are again," Takumi uttered. "It's been a while, Rener."

The man whom Takumi addressed as Rener stopped to face his old friend. "Hello, cursed one."

Takumi tried to muster the fear of facing the man once again, but he was to him a great, complex timepiece, whose every tick, every tock could be read right on his face. Tomoya and Theresa who hid themselves behind the couch are now on one's feet, gawking at the two. Tomoya knew who Rener was; he heard about him, read about him, but never actually seen him—he was the personification of Takumi's curse—an arch demon from the realms of the other world to where Samantha was taken.

Is his presence be of help to them or would only bring more confusion—more trouble? Who would know? The two settled on the couch to where Takumi sat a while ago, conscious enough not to catch the arch demon's attention.

"I won't be long my friend," Rener spoke. "It only came into my attention about what happened to your cursed friend and your plan to bring her back rursus."

Takumi takes a breath, lets it out slowly and evenly in precisely the same way he normally does, because somewhere in Rener's tone of voice lifted a weight off his shoulders.

"I believe the cursed one only got what she deserves and I no longer want to meddle with the other dark forces most especially with Mo—," Rener stopped, remembering the name's taboo which Takumi understood fully. "It's the darkest—most evil entity there is on the other realm. It holds souls of both living and dead," Rener's red, scalding eyes shifted to Tomoya and Theresa.

Idiosyncratically, they were no longer frightened. In fact, their attention has been fully drawn to him. "Humans—curses no longer concerns me, however, I detest someone who abuses one's powers over someone too frail to grapple."

Takumi screwed up his eyes, trying to see through Rener's expression, examining if there is something hidden between his words. What eventually caught his attention were the tiniest details, so minute that not even Rener, an evil entity, had made aware of—the rapid eye shifting and the pale mouth twitching.

"Conceivably, the second soothsayer is no human, aye?" He had to ask right away. The time's running short. They only have at least half an hour before the sun sets—before the light fades away—before Kathleen's death.

A thin line curved on Rener's lips. "Perhaps, a human seer who had proffered its life to a certain personification," he paused to breathe. "That human is Lada Proebrazhensky and she will show herself to a friend to carry out its death."

"She's still alive?" Tomoya gasped. "But I thought she died a long time ago?"

"Bad weeds don't die easily, I suppose?"

"Will she tell her about the portal?!" Theresa snapped as though she's about to stand to face Rener, but chose to sat still. The arch demon's silent stares indicated a positive response. Theresa swallowed, nails digging through the couch's fine fabric. "Is there any other way to stop her?!" Her voice is bloodcurdlingly attenuated, fissured from obsolescence.

"There is and in order to do so, you must stop meddling with the other realm," Rener's intonation expressed strong influence.

"I-I don't understand," finally, Tomoya spoke. "If this Lada tells Kathleen—the friend—," he stressed. "If she tells her about the portal, doesn't that mean that she only wanted to help us in Shane's case? How would that lead to Kathleen's death?"

Rener turned towards the open window. Seeing that the sun has started to set, he spoke. "Apparently, devils get something in return of something. Lada knows your friend's obsession towards the cursed, thus, she will reveal to her the idea on how to get her back and that's through a portal." He turned back to look at Takumi. "And your friend's life is the price of that information. If she meets with Lada today, she's done for."

***

"What do you want?" Christian asked.

Tomoya's eyes wobbled and glanced at the cuckoo clock on his right. "We didn't make it," he whispered coarsely. Just then, two men entered and a loud gunshot echoed through the empty space of the shop.