Unraveling mysteries in strange journals is a tricky affair.

  Sometimes you find yourself engrossed for hours at a time, staring at sigils on pages that change whenever you look away. Sometimes you lose sleep over ciphers written in your missing partner’s hand. Sometimes you lose time itself, wondering where several hours of your life have gone. The journal becomes your first thought in the morning and last at night.

  Devin Striker was becoming familiar with these consequences. He knew more awaited him.

  Zoey’s journal remained a series of mysteries that brought him no closer to finding her. What was written in the cipher remained largely unknown. There wasn’t a single clue as to how it arrived at his apartment, on his desk, or why it seemed to find itself there so frequently, despite his best efforts. He had to take care with the pages containing morphing symbols, as touching them carried its own set of potential consequences. The first, and only, he’d brought himself to touch caused him to black out, while somehow moved everything in his living room— furniture and all— against the walls. What made him truly uncomfortable was Case’s absolute inability to acknowledge the journal’s existence.

  The black mark on the back of his left hand was another source of psychological discomfort. It first appeared as a faint black line, lengthening and curving over time to become a ring on the back of his palm. From its perimeter, the beginnings of yet more dark strokes crept toward the center. While its shape was a curiosity, how it reacted to the journal confused him even more. How, when he pressed his left palm against the sigil that caused him to black out, the mark burned. How he could see through his palm, like the mark was a lens, in his last moments of consciousness.

  He wanted to know when Zoey had taken a permanent marker to the only legend to the ciphers within the journal. He wanted to know how he lost minutes which turned to hours in the blink of an eye, enthralled with sigils he could not explain or understand. For all his attempts to understand the journal, there was no greater knowledge gained, only time lost— or time shifted away from what sustained his living.

  He needed to pay the rent.

  Without Zoey, his savings were hemorrhaging. As a couple, they pooled their money. Selling his art was supplemental. Something he did to put extra money in his account and help cover his share of expenses, when unexpected setbacks happened. Without her, he barely met each month’s rent. He had no financial padding left. He’d have to make sales at the art exhibit that night or his situation would become dire. He had a closet in his hallway, between the living room and bathroom, that housed pieces to be sold. He pulled out those that satisfied him and decided to show the painting he’d finished when he was last in the studio as his main piece: The black figure looming over him.

  He called Case, feeling guilty for ignoring her increasingly in favor of Zoey’s journal since the new year. Case took some convincing— that is, she let Striker grovel just enough before she accepted his invitation. She added the condition that he joined her for a party afterward. She was a half hour from the phone call to his doorstep. Striker tucked the journal into his coat pocket as he left. They made it to the gallery with just enough time for Striker to hang his art— with Case’s help— before the gallery opened to the public.

  The exhibit was a slow one, and Case was not Zoey. Zoey was, for lack of a better term, his manager and the ‘face of the brand’. A maven. Most new buyers assumed she was the artist until she pointed him out and called him over to close the deal. Marketing and sales were among the jobs she excelled at and quit ‘in the real world’, except where Striker’s art was concerned. She engaged the people that gawked at his art. She turned conversations from form and color into dollars. Case had no such proclivity or skill.

  Zoey understood how to cater to the fickle whims of deep-pocketed San Francisco art collectors. Case, instead, spent the exhibit pre-gaming for the party on free wine and beer as she perused the pieces around the gallery, growing bored after her first lap. Striker was left fending for himself, stuck in front of his work as she wandered the exhibit floor. Potential buyers approached, but there was something— some detail about the large piece that seemed to disconcert them. They’d come close enough to get a good look at it before turning up their noses or making some sour expression, before moving along.

  With Zoey usually planted at his section, he’d normally be able to step outside for cigarettes at his leisure. He managed to make it outside for one in the middle of the showing, as Case’s fiending reached its peak. Having an empty pack himself, the two made a brief trip to the store at the end of the block. Striker refilled his flask with bottom shelf bourbon. Case, in her effort not to get too trashed too early, waited until they were back at the exhibit for her next beverage. The second round was more of the same, and the once-busy crowd began to dwindle as the night continued.

  When the exhibit was over and the people had left, Striker hadn’t sold anything. He had, however, noticed his sketchbook, tossed aside, in a corner of the gallery when he locked the doors. He picked it up and ascended the stairs where he found Sheryl on a couch in the loft.

  She looked up over her cat-eye glasses. She only wore those frames for exhibits.

  “Were you watching the floor tonight?” he asked.

  “Nu-uh,” she said, shaking her head, “Been running the books for the month.”

  “How many cameras are in here?”

  “Security cameras?”

  “Yeah.”

  She scratched her chin. “I wanna say four or five? Something wrong?”

  “My sketchbook showed up,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I didn’t notice until I locked the door. I think it got left here when I went to the store to grab some stuff.”

  “Whiskey?”

  After a brief pause, he uttered a sheepish, “Yeah. And cigarettes.”

  She frowned, “Did you get anything sold?”

  He shook his head. “I was wondering if maybe one of the cameras caught who brought it back? If it’s those girls I mentioned… they got into a fight with my friend on New Year’s eve.”

  “Oh,” said Sheryl, shutting her laptop as she stood up. “I have one on the door and a couple in the gallery proper. I think there’s one in the studio, but I’m pretty sure it’s been unplugged— the lens is cracked. We can take a look, though. How long ago do you think it was?”

  He followed her down the spiral staircase. “I’m honestly not sure. In the last hour or two maybe? I never saw who dropped it off, but my guess is one of the girls who took it.”

  Sheryl stopped, “Wait, took it? They stole your sketchbook?”

  Striker shrugged. “Yeah, on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police? Or tell me? I would have done that. And I would have kept a hawk’s eye out for them.”

  “I,” Striker paused. “I don’t know how much use the cops would be right now. I’ve been talking to them a lot more than I want to, anyways.”

  “Well, everything from tonight should be on one of those videos.”

  “Striker!” yelled Case from across the gallery, on a couch. She whistled and giggled as her voice echoed in the empty space.

  “How drunk are you?” he asked.

  Sheryl opened her office door. Behind it was a box full of different bottles— beverages for exhibits. She pulled a clear one from it.

  “She seems like one of those carbonated water kinda gals,” she whispered. “I’ll look at these videos,” she said in regular volume, “You go on with your friend and make sure she takes care of herself.”

  “She’ll be fine,” said Striker, taking the bottle.

  Case nursed her water on the bus toward SoMa. They got off near Bryant street and she led the way through alleys and tiny streets, to the door of a warehouse, not far from the Hall of Justice. There were four people in line and Striker decided to peel off to relieve himself from the exhibit libations. He chose a spot in an alcove with a door. Midway through, his left hand began to itch furiously. The mark on the back of it glowed, just enough for him to perceive. He put his business away and half-stepped out of the alcove. Down the sidewalk, he could make out a figure in the darkness between streetlights. A luminescent ring hung in the air in front of them. It appeared two-dimensional, like light sliced from a plane unseen. It spun and flashed. It was gone.

  Then, the person down the street stepped sideways, disappearing into the wall next to them.

  Striker zipped up his pants and looked again— there was no one on the sidewalk anymore, except for him. Aside from the alcove he’d stepped from, there were no other doors or windows into the warehouse from the sidewalk. Only rusted, corrugated metal, through which vibrated the bass of the party inside, and a discarded cigarette on the ground with lipstick on the filter.

  He returned to the line, where Case was in front, busy with her phone. They got their pat-downs. She was waved through. Striker got some heat for a craft knife in his coat that he’d forgotten about. He was waved through after leaving it with security.

  Case was nowhere in sight when he stepped in, but a man with a clipboard and a star painted on his cheek let him pass, saying “Your friend paid for you, Neo,” as several more people filled in the space behind him. He grimaced and made his way into the party. It was dark inside. The light setup was laser-heavy. The only faces he clearly saw were those that security’s flashlights swept over as they walked their rounds. It was difficult to see where he was going, let alone ascertain someone’s features.

  He turned at a tap on his shoulder, to see Case’s unmistakable silhouette bouncing with the music. “What took you?”

  “I got held up in the line for my x-acto,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the crowd, trying to recall the outfit of the person he saw down the sidewalk. What he remembered was basic— jeans and a tee-shirt. Hard to find in a crowd of people wearing basically the same thing, in the dark, with some shiny lasers to illuminate them.

  The two waded through the crowd to a makeshift bar. It was a folding table in front of a simple metal industrial shelf piled with bottles, and a bartender tightly packed between them. Case got a gin & tonic. Striker stuck to straight whiskey. As per usual, she made her way to the dance floor as soon as she paid for her drink. Striker stood on the outskirts of the dance floor and slammed his double-shot. Nature called again.

  It took searching, but he found the bathroom door in a hallway just off the dance floor. The hall was illuminated by a single blacklight bulb, with an open door at the end of it. He was staggering drunk by the time he emerged from the bathroom, proud his dinner hadn’t wound up in a toilet. He’d brag to Case when he found her. He swayed in front of the door for a moment, and decided to explore the room at the end of the hall.

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  It wasn’t much brighter than the hall itself. It, too, was lit by blacklight that caught wisps of smoke as they ascended from a slab on a table. Three people and an empty chair sat on one side. A young woman with a large butane torch sat on the other. She had curly hair that fell below her shoulders.

  “Dab?” she asked, as she sparked the torch. Striker looked over his shoulder at the dance floor past the hall and shrugged. It was more Case’s interest than his— he preferred his cannabis by simpler means— but he sat down in the empty chair. She prepared a hit for him. Striker inhaled sharply, sending himself into a coughing fit. He felt a wave of lethargy as he hacked. The man next to him handed him a bottle, yelling, “Water,” into his ear. Striker slugged it down, wheezing.

  “What’s your name?” asked the woman, as his fit began to subside.

  “Striker.”

  “Molly.”

  She held out her left hand, Striker instinctively held out his right. They shook hands, awkwardly. Her name was familiar, but he couldn’t recall why it stood out in his mind. He sat, unsure of how to broach the subject with three other people engaging her. He figured she might be a friend of Zoey’s, but Zoey has many friends, and that conversation would be best had when they could talk alone.

  Either way, she wasn’t the person he saw outside. He wanted to find them.

  Striker nearly fell over the table as he stood. He thanked the woman and bid the other people a drunken farewell. He clipped his shoulder on the door frame on his way out. His head was spinning by the time he was in the throng of dancing people. As the back of his left hand began to itch, he recalled the ring of light he’d seen, just before the person disappeared into the wall. He hoped he might see that ring again. Instead he was met by a series of flashes from the lights above.

  As his eyes adjusted, a security guard walk past a woman in a familiar floral dress. Striker couldn’t see her face, but Elsie was his first guess— the inscrutable happy woman from New Year’s Eve. He texted Case before shoving his phone back into his pocket. He could barely make out the features of those around him, having to close one eye to keep the room from spinning. He couldn’t spot Case or Elsie. As for the mystery person, he had little idea how he could possibly figure out who they were.

  He had to push his way through people as the center of the dance floor was a tight throng of bodies. He saw a woman in a rainbow shirt that Case had been dancing with before he went to the bathroom. He tapped her shoulder. She shot him a glare, as did her new dance partner. She yelled something at him that he couldn’t hear over the music.

  “Where did my friend go?” he tried to yell, but his voice was still hoarse from the dab room and he was slurring heavily. “The girl you were dancing with?”

  She leaned in closer and her partner stood at her side. “Fuck off. We’re not interested.” Striker backed off and waded toward the bar. A hand grasped his wrist and he spun around, spitting out a slurred, “Sorry, I was looking for my friend.”

  He remembered the Latina woman who now grasped his wrist from the New Year’s Eve party at the GetUp. She was the lone dancer the pair of bachelors gawked at as they drank their cheap swill. She scrutinized him, before locking her gaze with his. There was an unmistakable fire behind her eyes, even in the dim light by which he saw her face.

  His stomach fluttered and he turned from her. He knew he’d far overdone it when his legs weakened. He waded off of the dance floor toward the bathroom with her in tow. His throat trembled and he tasted bile, staving off retching onto the floor with deliberate breaths. She didn’t release him until they were outside of the throng and she could keep him in sight. She followed behind him as he staggered into the hallway.

  Striker stumbled into an open stall in the bathroom. He dropped to his knees and retched before it all came out. Unlike New Year’s Eve, there was no ascension to an altered state, just the realization that he’d drunk far too much. As he shook while he evacuated the contents of his stomach, he felt his left hand itching. The mark on it was again faintly luminescent. He heard the door to the bathroom open and close.

  When he looked behind him, the woman stood leaning against the sink. She wore pleather pants and a simple white tee shirt tucked in at the waist. Her hair was tied at the back of her head with a long tuft framing the right side of her face. Her hands were gloved with fingerless black knits.

  “Can I get some water?” asked Striker, cradling the toilet.

  “There’s a bottle sticking out of your pocket,” she said. “How fucked up are you?”

  Striker wiped his face with this sleeve and downed the rest of the water. She looked down at him, holding out her hand. “Give me that,” she said, taking the bottle and passing it back full. He chugged it and cast the bottle aside.

  “That was a bad idea. You need more water. Clean your face,” she said, handing him some paper towels.

  Striker groaned as he did. Rising to his feet was a challenge he was unable to manage. “You’re the person I was looking for,” he said.

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I watched you walk through a fucking wall.”

  She raised a brow, but changed the subject. “Is that a tattoo on your hand?”

  His jaw fell agape. He was lost for words.

  “Who are you?” she asked, “No bullshit, okay?”

  Striker shook his head as his shoulders rose toward his ears. He stuttered over his words. “I’m just an artist. No bullshit.”

  A silence settled between them, broken by the rattling of the bathroom door’s handle.

  “Hold on,” she yelled. She continued, hushed, “I remember you from New Year’s Eve. Do you know those girls from that party?”

  Striker shook his head. “No really, no.”

  “They’re here. And they’re looking for somebody. And a lot of people are pointing at you. Do you know why?” Someone outside pounded their fist on the door. “Hold on!” she shouted. She glared back at Striker. “Anything?”

  He swayed, clutching the toilet before a second round of vomiting. She watched him for a moment, and scoffed, letting herself out. Several people came in as she left, filling the stalls around Striker as he staggered to his feet. When he managed to right himself, he bumbled to a sink that he clutched for dear life.

  Several sets of occupants later, he managed to stagger out of the bathroom and pull his phone from his pocket.

  Case had responded with three question marks. It was only then that he realized he’d texted her drunken nonsense. He closed an eye and tried again, telling her to meet him by the bathroom. When he looked up, Elsie stood in front of him. Unlike New Year’s Eve, he could look her directly in the eye. There was a distance in her gaze, while her lips curled into a smile. The change in her expression was slow, as though she labored to move each muscle in her face into the correct position. Her gaze shifted from Striker to behind him.

  He turned around. Ada stood barely a foot away. Her expression was blank as it always had been, devoid of emotive hint.

  “Would you like to talk about Zoey?” she asked. She dipped her head to the side, just slightly when the question left her mouth. “Or would you prefer not to know why she left you?” Her tone and meter was even throughout.

  They were still wearing the accessories Zoey loved most, Ada the geared necklace, Elsie the hair clip.

  He looked behind him. Elsie was closer now, nearly brushing against him.

  “We really, really, just want to talk, Striker,” said Ada.

  “I want answers,” he slurred, beginning to realize his intoxication might hinder his ability to handle such a conversation.

  “I’m trying to offer that. But it’s too loud here. Let’s go somewhere quieter.”

  “The bathroom?”

  Ada shook her head. “I have a better place. We’ll talk there. Follow Elsie.”

  He shrugged, too intoxicated to protest, fight, or flee. Or, see straight without closing and squinting an eye.

  Ada marched Striker along the edge of the crowd to a door on the other side of the dance floor. It opened into an unlit hallway. Out of the other end, they marched onto the sidewalk through the alcove where he’d earlier relieved himself. They continued past the warehouse to a brick building next door. Its front, windows and all, were plastered with graffiti.

  Ada approached the padlocked front door. She ripped the lock off, barehanded, and tossed it aside, before pushing the door open. She was the first in. A push from behind by Elsie sent him stumbling into the darkness. It was dusty and the streetlights lit the open room in shafts. Impressions on the floor hinted at walls that had since been torn down.

  “Why are you wearing Zoey’s stuff?” he asked.

  “It’s gaudy and we like it,” replied Ada. Her accent shifted as she continued, from strained valley girl to Cockney. “Why d’you think she left you?”

  “Fuck you, you know why.”

  “Oh!” shouted Ada, “Look who’s got a set of fucking balls, finally. Let’s say we did dissect that fucking tart for wasting our time. What are you gonna do sunshine?”

  He tried at several starts, but found himself lost for words. The pair of women looked at one another for a moment before turning their attention back to him. Elsie’s expression hadn’t changed at all since becoming locked in that uncanny smile. Ada remained a blank slate.

  “Look, this is about a book you don’t need. I have a very strong feeling you’re carrying it right now,” she began. “What’s say we just... Have it and you go on and forget us.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing we won’t do to you. I think I’m being very charitable. I promise we’ll walk away and you’ll never see us again.”

  “What about Zoey?”

  “Devin,” she said, then repeated his name, half chuckling, her face remaining emotionless, “Devin,” She took a step toward him.

  He turned to walk for the door, but she snatched him by the back of his collar and pinned him against the wall. “Devin, you can’t run. Zoey ran. We found Zoey. Again. And again. And again. And we caught up to her. Now, we’ve found you. You’re literally up against a wall, and you are not running anywhere.”

  Ada held him in place with one hand, immobilizing him despite his struggle. Elsie fished his pants pockets and tossed the contents— his phone, wallet, keys, and cigarettes— aside. She pulled the journal from his coat. He flinched and turned his head when blood sprayed against his face, as Ada’s outstretched hand burst into gore, from which emerged a gnarled claw. “Elsie,” she said, his eyes focused on her hand. Her thick fingernails curved into sharp points. “Let’s see if—”

  His left hand itched. Ada stopped abruptly and looked toward the front of the building. Elsie glanced in the same direction before flying backward, crashing into Ada, launched by a force unseen. Striker was pulled along with them as Ada’s grip remained firm. He saw a brief flash of light near the front of the room, in the darkness beneath a window. Elsie leapt upright and ran toward the source as Ada dragged him to his feet.

  She lifted him off of the floor and started to say something before Elsie was hurled toward them from the darkness, sliding along the floor until she stopped at the back wall. Ada dropped him and turned. She sprinted toward their mystery assailant. Her left leg flew up, as though thrown from behind. She hit her back and rolled to her stomach, scrambling— or almost slithering— into the darkness ahead faster than Striker could run.

  His phone rang, and he saw light up, ahead of him. He ran for it and snatched it from the ground, as the woman in pleather pants tumbled into him, sending both of them and his phone to the floor. He couldn’t see it, but it continued to ring. Ada came out of the darkness, into the shaft of light in a blur, and the girl in pleather flicked her hand upward. Ada’s trajectory abruptly shifted upward, and she ground against the ceiling as though she were sliding on the floor, before falling down. The woman helped him to his feet.

  The first to step into the light was Elsie, with a pocket knife embedded in her skull. Then, Ada, whose face was rent, with bone exposed. The woman staggered backward with a hand over her mouth. Her body spasmed, like she was about to puke, but she stomped and raised her hands. She began gesturing, drawing something in the air. Her fingertips left a hanging trail of light before she snapped her fingers. It disappeared in a flash.

  He saw Elsie when his eyes adjusted. She was in midair, lunging toward them outstretched, like a large cat pouncing on prey.

  The woman grabbed his hand and made a quick upward gesture with her free one. Striker felt a charge rip through him, and his connected hand felt almost like it was vibrating. He could see a sigil in his vision, as though it were right in front of him, vibrating with such ferocity that he couldn’t determine what its actual form was. The streetlights died, plunging the room into pitch black, punctuated by a wet thud. She let go. Striker stepped carefully backward, still unsteady from inebriation as he heard a scuffle in front of him. His phone rang again, and he stumbled, falling to his knees toward the sound of his ringtone.

  It stopped ringing.

  In the darkness, he heard a yell, then a loud squelch, followed by another. He wheeled around as the street lights illuminated the room in shafts again, dim at first. There were two figures on the floor, motionless in a growing pool of blood. The third woman, his savior, emerged into the light.

  “We need to leave right now,” she said, folding the pocket knife retrieved from Elsie’s head. She immediately walked past him outside, burying her face in her hands, swearing in Spanish. Striker followed behind, shakily taking the hair clip and necklace from the bodies. He had to pry the journal from Elsie’s hands. He also snatched his cigarettes, just visible at the edge of a shaft of light, on the way out. He fished for his lighter when he stepped onto the sidewalk. He continued to search himself for a flask or anything else.

  He had nothing.

  Striker had to jog to catch up with the woman, who didn’t respond when he called after her. He circled in front. She sidestepped him.

  “What the fuck just happened?” he asked.

  She took a few more steps forward and pivoted. Her face was covered in blood. Her bloodsoaked hands were raised, grasping at nothing, and her gaze dropped off. The ferocity was gone. “I thought I could figure that out from you.”

  “I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”

  The woman glared back at him, shaking her head. She turned and began to jog before side-stepping into the wall of a building ahead. She disappeared like she had into the warehouse, and likely the brick building she just saved him in.

  That was becoming a theme: Someone pulling his ass out of the fire.