Chapter 5: A Visitor in the Dark
The knock came again, heavier this time, vibrating through the flimsy hollow-core wood of the apartment door. Miller stood frozen in the dim light of the kitchen, the half-empty bottle of bourbon clutched in his right hand like a club. He wanted to shout, to demand who was there, but his vocal cords refused to cooperate. Fear, cold and paralyzing, had locked his joints.
Rex paced back and forth near the entryway, his tail tucked low, emitting a low, vibrating growl that sounded less like aggression and more like a warning of impending doom.
"Miller," a voice called out from the hallway. It was muffled by the door, yet remarkably clear, carrying that same distinct, weathered Eastern European cadence he had heard on the sidewalk earlier that day. "You left your front door unlocked. A cop should know better than to leave an entrance unguarded in a city like Seattle."
Miller swallowed hard, took a deep, shaky breath, and stepped slowly across the living room rug. He reached out with his left hand, his fingers curling around the cold brass knob. With a sharp twist, he yanked the door open, ready to shove whoever stood on the other side into the drywall.
The hallway was empty.
Miller stepped out onto the worn carpet, looking left and right down the dim, fluorescent-lit corridor of the apartment complex. The stairwell door at the end of the hall was slowly swinging shut on its hydraulic hinge, the metal latch clicking softly into place.
On the welcome mat directly outside his door lay a single object. It was an old, frayed piece of cardboard, roughly the size of a postcard, torn from the edges of a larger sign. Written across it in thick, black marker was a single word, scrawled in handwriting that looked like jagged barbed wire: WATCH.
Miller picked up the cardboard scrap with trembling fingers. The paper was rough, smelling faintly of damp pavement and wood smoke. It was the same material the homeless man had been sitting on earlier that afternoon. A cold sweat broke out across Miller’s forehead. How had someone bypassed the building’s security cameras, slipped past the deadbolt, and left this warning without Rex barking a single alarm?
When Miller turned back toward his apartment, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Standing inside the threshold of his living room, illuminated by the pale glow of the kitchen light, was the homeless man. He moved with a startling, fluid grace that belied his ragged appearance and emaciated frame. He no longer wore the oversized beige shirt; instead, he was dressed in a dark, nondescript wool coat that smelled faintly of old rain and pine needles. His grey beard was neatly trimmed, revealing a sharp, angular jawline and a thin, pale scar that ran from the corner of his left lip down into his collar.
Rex was sitting directly in front of the man, tail wagging slowly, looking up at him with the absolute adoration of a puppy meeting its master for the first time.
"Who the hell are you?" Miller demanded, slamming the apartment door behind him and locking every deadbolt with trembling hands. "How did you get in here?"
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The man turned slowly, his eyes fixing on Miller with a piercing intensity that seemed to strip away every lie Miller had ever told himself.
"Doors are merely suggestions, Thomas," the man said softly, stepping further into the room. "Just like the laws you swore to uphold. My name is Nikolai. And I believe we have an old debt to settle regarding the fires of twenty-twenty."
