Atmosphere

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
 
This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
 
If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
 
If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy.
 
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

NOVELS:

The Demonologist

Deep in the Darkness

Sleepwalker

COLLECTIONS:

Demons, Freaks, and Other Abnormalities

Try any title from CROSSROAD PRESS – use the Coupon Code FIRSTBOOK for a one-time 20% savings!
 
We have a wide variety of eBook and Audiobook titles available.

Find us at:
 
http://store.crossroadpress.com

S
hielding himself from the early morning rain, Detective Frank Ballaro of the New York City Police Department bent down, squinted, and checked to see if it really was blood he had stepped in.

The showers, which had begun around six AM the previous morning, started out as just a sprinkle but strengthened as the morning gave way to afternoon. Throughout the day it paused at times—only to gather more strength before continuing to pour, leaving everything saturated in its wake.

He should have known that at least two inches of water would be awaiting his loafers when he stepped from the car; New York City's streets promised that. In the past he would have cursed out loud a few times, letting everyone within his proximity know exactly what it was he had done to himself. But this morning extreme exhaustion impeded his desire to concern himself with any form of discomfort, and he accepted the slight mishap as simply another in a string of irks riddling his pressure-filled life.

Summer 1998 had been hot and dry all the way into October, the drought making it seem as if there would never be any rain to cool New York City's streets and buildings. When the weekends arrived, thousands would flock to the beaches on Long Island in an effort to escape the stifling heat. Some would seek relief tinkering with the fire hydrants in prayer that they would release their short supply. It was almost as if the city were a great sand castle built a bit too far away from shore, just out of reach of the ocean's foamy crescents.

But then summer segued into fall, and like magic the tide rushed in, transforming October into a cooling off period: nearly twenty days of rain that pounded the skyscrapers and saturated the concrete sidewalks, flooding the labyrinth of subway tunnels after all the water tables had drunk their fill, causing streams of water to race along the curbs and rush around the corners in a seemingly endless circular flow.

The curb Frank stepped in was no exception.

He hunkered down and rubbed a finger across the toes of his black loafers. Holding it beneath the dull incandescent glow of the streetlamp next to him, he dabbed it with his thumb. Deep red. Thick like syrup. Indeed, Frank had stepped in blood.

He wiped his fingers on the rainy-wet lamppost, rinsing them of the red smear. He cautiously gazed about 4th Street, his mental wheels spinning in search of a clue to the cause of the blood, purposely averting his gaze from his apartment building directly across the street in an effort to avoid the temptation of being lured there. The world played dead: empty sidewalks, not a vehicle riding the street. Shops closed and shuttered. Everything nearly steeped in darkness aside from the streetlamps and the scattered glowings from within some apartment windows. Not even a distant siren called out. The disorderly pace that usually thrived in this neighborhood had ceased to exist, making Frank feel like the last human on a world that had suddenly stopped turning.
  

He peeked at his watch, a simple act he had not once performed during the past twelve hours. Four-sixteen AM. Again he resisted the urge to peek across towards his apartment.
 
A very hard earned three-day weekend awaited his company. All he had to do was carry himself across the street, lock the door behind and close out the rest of the world until Monday.

And to imagine: a very rare occurrence started it all off. Lucking into a good parking spot. Hell, why not? He deserved at least that much. He had spent the last twelve hours wrapping up the final paperwork on the Carrie Lindsay murder that he and his ever-annoying partner Neil Connor had slaved on over the past two months. What a relief, to finally have the poor girl's older brother right where he belonged—behind bars, all the evidence needed to prove the case on paper, clasped in a manila folder and locked in his desk drawer. The judicial icing on the cake, as he liked to say.

He sucked in a breath, tried to rub the looming headache from his eyes. For two weeks he had wanted nothing more than a good night's sleep. He always slept pretty well between jobs where he didn't have to obsess about who, what, and why, and with the closure on the Carey Lindsay case clearing a lot of space in his head, that's exactly where he was: in between assignments.

But of all things, thirty-one year veteran Frank Ballaro hadn't anticipated stepping in blood.

His detective mind set itself in investigation mode. He
had to know
.

Imagining his first glimpse unreliable due to utter exhaustion, he bent down to look at it again.

Swirling in the running water, the blood kept coming, carried by the ebbing current. It flowed with a smooth sensuality, spiraling down the curb into a wicked design before reaching a bump in the blacktop, where it gelled into a ball behind a twig like an oil slick on a slab of flotsam.

Frank felt his three distinct personalities begin to do battle. The meek, weary, yet rational man in him tried desperately to ignore the blood and force himself to retire for the night, go shrug out of his stale wet clothing and into a warm bathrobe, have a bowl of hot chicken soup and sleep for sixteen hours. But that part—secondary and rarely listened to—succumbed to Frank's strongest personality: the brave truth-seeking NYC detective that had been commended with various honors over the years, the detective that was to retire in two years but still couldn't turn down a piece of challenging work when it presented itself, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what time it was.

The part that always piled on the grind, but somehow, always eased him out of it.

Blood on his shoes? It was coming from somewhere.
Someone
. He
had
to
 
investigate.

The early morning moon tore through a dispersing tapestry of blue-black rain clouds, adding a faint touch of light to the dull glow of the fading streetlamps. Thin wisps of fog sluggishly advanced in from around the buildings at the corner of 4th and Mason like skeletal fingers, adding a cold sheet of humidity to the diminishing precipitation. The moon's radiance gleamed palely from it, eerily illuminating the scene with reflections of Autumn beams. A wind picked up and hurled a few wet leaves across the sidewalk.

Slowly and methodically, Frank paced along the edge of the curb, opposite the bloody flow, keeping his eyes glued to the hairline streaks of crimson wavering atop the stream of lapping rain water. He passed dark apartment buildings and storefronts on his left, cars parked alongside meters to his right.

A taxi turned the corner ahead and roared by, ripping through the silence, speeding past Frank down the block over Scudder Place.

From the gloom its former passenger appeared, footsteps approaching, tapping on the sidewalk. A girl.

Frank glanced in her direction. She sported green hair and a nose-ring, carried a straight-forward expression as heavy as an iron weight. Her jade eyes were catatonic, seemingly angry at the world. Frank thought of Jaimie, only nineteen years old, perhaps the same age as this confused girl. Dear God, how horrible would his life turn if his baby came home one day adorned with electric hair and a pierced face? Or worse yet: a guy with the same embellishments? It was hard enough getting her to turn the volume down on that damn music she listened to. He couldn't imagine engaging in some futile lifestyle conflict with her.

He tore his eyes from the girl as she passed, returning his gaze to the curb and the blood. He continued his pursuit of the wispy flow to the north-west corner of 4th and Mason.

All of a sudden he heard a squeak and looked down to investigate. In the gutter a rat groveled on all fours, its pink tongue lapping urgently at a patch of blood congealing in the litter-clogged grill. Its oil-drop eyes were aimed at Frank, beady, paranoid, seemingly saying
come near my warm meal and I'll bite your little human finger off
.

Frank's weak and weary identity again begged him to turn around and head home, begged him to fight the sudden frivolous urge to pull out his .45 and pulverize the rat. Damn his
third
personality, that irrational part inside that always misguided his thoughts, tempting him to act foolishly and recklessly. The personality that would clearly get him into big trouble if he listened to it. Thank God this personality had never bared the strength to coerce his body into action all the time.

Take out the gun, pull the trigger, then slide away into your apartment and start your three-day weekend.

The lunacy of these ill-advised thoughts sent his body to shudders. Chills swam through his body like a school of fish. Clearly the fatigue was tearing his mind to shreds. But still, the rat's beady eyes, they just
stared
at him. And the whiskers, dappled with ruby droplets, tongue sliding in and out, in and out, lap, lap, lap.

He placed a hand on his gun.
C'mon, Frank, only one shot, that's all. Just one...

Without a forewarning, a fierce scream ripped through the deadened silence of the night. Frank startled. His skin crawled, and he pulled his gun. The rat freaked also, squealing maniacally, darting into the sewer, leaving its tasty meal behind in a diluted puddle.

Frank jogged into the street. He saw a taxi racing up Mason, its headlights floating like two beacons in the ocean. He glanced quickly to the south and then back up the street, saw only the approaching cab.

The scream sounded again, louder this time, more intense. Frank stepped forward, his eyes searching the street. Nothing, at first.

Then, its source finally appeared.

A filthy man, completely naked, darting into the street a half block up, like a bat escaping the throes of hell.

Right in front of the cab.