The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (30 page)

The rabbi had closed the door behind them and had walked over with Ariel standing beside him. “This was the demonstration I made with select members of the Knesset and AMAN. I was disgraced by the Rabbinical councils years ago, but I have proven that my readings of the Kabbalah and my teachings are the truth. I shall be the one to save Israel and the Jewish people.”

David shook his head. A part of him still couldn’t accept it. “How? How were you able to create such a thing?”

“Ten years ago, I had found a clue as to where to find the original copy of the Sefer Yetzirah,” Rabbi Ba’al said. “My followers searched for a long time to pinpoint its location until we finally stumbled upon it by mere chance. It was in the possession of an old Arab antiquarian in Egypt and he did not want to part with it, saying that it was part of his family’s legacy to safeguard its contents. So myself and two of my most trusted assistants broke into his house one night to try and get it. He caught us in the act and I had to kill him.”

David grimaced. “So you admit to murder then? And the other name for the Sefer Yetzirah is the Book of Creation, a very common book on Jewish mysticism that can be found in many libraries. You killed someone just to steal a stupid book that’s already widely published.”

Rabbi Ba’al bellowed in anger. “Wrong! My copy of the Book of Creation is the original one. It contains many chapters on magic that was removed by succeeding generations of foolish scholars in an attempt to suppress its true power! But that wisdom is not lost anymore for I now have the knowledge to create golems to protect the Holy Land from the pagan gods who seek to destroy it and its people.”

“How were you able to animate the homunculus?” David said.

Rabbi Ba’al walked over to the edge of the fire pit. The homunculus became agitated and was trying to get out of the glass container, but it couldn’t. “I used bits of dead flesh and molded it before infusing it with the soul of a criminal. The government allowed me the use of Palestinian prisoners as experimental subjects, so I was able to get plenty of practice.”

David turned to look at his uncle. “This is madness, surely you can see that? This man will bring ruin to Israel.”

Ariel stared back at him. “The Defense Committee along with the prime minister has approved his project. The forces against our country are so powerful that we now realize that the IDF has no chance against it. We either go with Rabbi Ba’al’s plan or we face a second genocide of the Jewish people. This must be done.”

David turned away. “I-I cannot in good conscience be a part of this. This is black magic. It’s evil and goes against the teachings of God and Judaism.”

“Again you are wrong,” Rabbi Ba’al said to him. “What I am doing was suppressed by our ancestors, but I am bringing the full power of our faith to safeguard us. We are God’s chosen people and he gave us the means to defend ourselves through this.”

Ariel walked over to the younger man and placed a hand on his shoulder. “David, we need you. Your country needs you. The prime minister and I agreed that you are the one qualified operative that can lead a mission for the sake of the survival of our country. If you’re not going to do it for yourself, then at least think of Tzipi, do you want her to die when the pagan gods invade Israel?”

David looked down on the floor. It was all too much. But he loved his wife as well and he couldn’t bear the thought of failing to protect her. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to find a man for me,” Rabbi Ba’al said. “I had doubts he ever existed, but with the events that have been happening, there is a fair chance now that he does because the Book of Creation told me so.”

“AMAN and Mossad have been working round the clock to pinpoint his location,” Ariel said. “He may either be in the Sinai or the Saudi Arabian desert. If he is in the former, then it should be very easy to find him. If he is in the latter, we will provide you with a full team of operatives to support you, David.”

David looked up and sighed. “Who is this man?”

“Legend calls him the eternal man, the man who never dies,” Rabbi Ba’al said. “He has the knowledge of creation because he was there when the old gods were still young. My studies of the book reveal he is a needed component in the creation of the golems. Without him, we will not have a chance. You must find him and bring him to Israel at all costs.”

Ariel said nothing as he glanced at his distant nephew. He was hoping that the younger man would make the right decision.

“I will do it. But not for you. I am going on this mission only because my wife and my country are in mortal danger. Otherwise, I would make sure you go to prison for murder,” David said as he stared at the rabbi. “I have read stories of the golem and you seem to have overlooked one very important thing.”

Rabbi Ba’al sneered at him. “And what pray tell, would that be?”

David couldn’t even hate him anymore. All he saw now was a misguided, delusional man. “Every golem story ends the same way: the creature always turns against its master.”

Upper Manhattan

Just as Elliot Ledwidge began to stir the cream of mushroom soup in the little red pot on the stove with a rubber spatula, the lights in the kitchen began to flicker and dim for a few seconds before returning back to normal. For a moment, Elliot did nothing as his momentary fright froze him in place, until he realized that the soup was starting to burn, so he quickly turned off the gas and breathed a sigh of relief.

After carefully placing the steaming pot on the marble countertop, Elliot quickly dashed over to the electrical panel beside the barricaded front door. He took a look at the readings of the standby generator that was located on the roof. As he looked the fuel indicators, he made a few quick calculations. He estimated that the generator was now running on the second and final liquid propane tank that had been installed a few years back. The gas cylinder had been recently serviced only a few months ago. That meant that there was about seventy-two hours of electrical power left, maybe more if he kept up the rationing like he did when this whole incident started. Putting the bad thoughts back from the present, Elliot returned to the kitchen and poured the mushroom soup into a ceramic bowl, then placed it on a tray. Opening a cupboard, he took out an airtight plastic container and removed the top from it, then took out some soda crackers from their wrappings and placed them on a little plate beside the bowl of soup. Elliot took out a chilled plastic bottle from the refrigerator and poured some filtered water into a fist-sized glass and placed it on the tray as well. After putting the water back in the refrigerator, he opened the taps on the sink. Still no running water and it had been like that for three days now. It looked like the dirty dishes would have to wait a little bit more. Based on what he heard on the battery-powered radio, he was surprised the tap had run out just recently. Both Elliot and his master had been trapped in this penthouse for over a week already. When would the promised emergency services teams finally come by and rescue them? Oh well, either way he would be with his master until the end.

Elliot was intensely loyal to him. That was why the master had chosen him over all the other aspiring candidates. Unlike the others, Elliot wasn’t married, and that probably played a factor in the master’s decision to make him and only him as his personal manservant. He wasn’t married because Elliot just didn’t like women. In fact, he really didn’t like men either. What he really liked were little girls because they were so angelic, so pure. And his liking of them had put him in prison where he served out his sentence in silent anonymity for more than eleven years. A year after his release, Elliot had been drifting in and out of menial jobs with no future and no friends. That was until he met the master. He had tried to join the Freemason Guild in New York City, but was rejected because of his criminal background. So he drifted on and away, going from one town to the next, living day to day with no purpose, until an old friend from one of the mystical groups he used to frequent introduced him to the master. Since the master was currently looking for a new manservant to replace his elderly valet who had recently passed away, Elliot begged and cajoled his way to an interview. The master would require someone who would be devoted to his needs for twenty-four hours, seven days a week. There would be no holidays and no rewards, only a silent acknowledgement for the honor of having served him. Of course, if he was chosen, then Elliot would be given perks: free room and board, free food, and a nice salary that was deposited into a trust fund and would only be available to him if he was too weak or infirm to serve any longer. Since he had nowhere to go, and with no ties to anyone because his mother had passed away when he was still in prison, Elliot was chosen and he wholeheartedly accepted. Now, twenty years later, he was still around, dutifully serving the master.

As he placed a hand-knit cloth napkin on the tray, Elliot shuddered as he heard a sudden blast of thunder outside. Days before, he had boarded up the windows of the apartment after seeing ghostly figures in the park below.
Better to close oneself off than to have to face reality such as that
, he thought. He was not much of a spiritual man, the reason he was drawn towards the occult had more to do with the rituals, the fascinating symbols, and the people he met more than anything else. But the events that had happened in the past two weeks disturbed him. The master, however, seemed supremely confident that everything was happening according to plan, what that plan was Elliot had no idea, but he had faith in his superior. Just days before the rains started, the master had ordered Elliot to make sure that the backup power generator was sufficiently fueled and serviced by a technician. He also told Elliot to purchase enough food and bottled water for the both of them to last for a month. The delivery guy who came upstairs to bring in the goods wondered if they were preppers or something.
But if that person was still alive today he would no doubt be envying the master’s meticulous plans for survival
, he thought.

Elliot walked slowly towards the inner chambers as he carried along the tray. How he had wished to be able to go out and buy some fresh vegetables. All they had left in the penthouse was either canned or frozen peas, carrots, and fruit cocktail, but he dared not venture out of their sanctum. Only a few nights ago, he had heard screaming coming from the front door which led to the outside corridor and the loud banging on it, which he ignored until it went silent once more. The master’s directives had ordered him to move the wooden six-foot tall dresser from his room and be pushed up as a barricade against the front door. He did just that, so he figured that no one would bother them while they go about their business now. In order to preserve fuel for the generator, he dragged the mattress from his bedroom out into the corridor and slept there; the only places he had kept the lights on were in the kitchen, the corridor, and of course, the master’s chambers.

Just as he was about to knock on the inner door, he had suddenly remembered that he needed to be quiet and so he tried the door knob. It opened with a slight squeak so he pushed the door forward a little, just so that he could see a bit of the inside of the anteroom in case the master was there.

He wasn’t. The anteroom was a sort of smaller waiting room that had another door at the opposite side which led to the master’s main chamber. There was an oval table in the middle, with a couple of matching chairs. All around the walls were bookshelves lined with ancient, arcane tomes. Carefully placing the tray onto the black wood table, he noticed that the day’s previous plate of food that he left behind hadn’t been touched. He had thought that he might go and open the inner door and take a peek to see if the master was well, but he had thought better of it and decided not to. His strict orders were never to disturb him if the inner door was ever closed. The only time Elliot had done so was eight years ago, when he had heard a loud thud as he was cleaning the anteroom and he had thought that the master had fallen and needed help. When he burst in, he ended up interrupting one of the master’s rituals involving the sacrifice of a small dog and he had to apologize profusely. For the next several days after that, the master had stopped speaking to him and Elliot cried himself to sleep for the next few months, thinking that he would soon be dismissed from his duties and shamed forever. But in the end, the master forgave him but had warned him never to do it again. There was utter silence in the room now and Elliot had thought the master was asleep, so he carefully placed the previous day’s plate of food back onto the tray and silently walked out, carefully closing the door behind him.

The main chamber was a high-ceilinged bedroom that had been converted into both a private study and an occult workshop. Like the anteroom, most of the walls were lined with bookshelves, overflowing with all sorts of rare and forgotten manuscripts as well as a few ancient scrolls. The windows of the room once held an excellent view of Central Park down below but due to recent events, it had been haphazardly boarded up with panels of plywood. Beside the window was a narrow wooden pallet with a thin mattress on it which served as a bed. The whole place smelled of dusty old paper combined with the pungent sweat of old men and incense.

He sat cross legged and was facing a small alcove, to the right of the door. The niche along the wall once held a small statue of Pan, the Greek god of the wild, but it had been removed and placed in storage years ago. Now the alcove was empty, save for a three-foot-wide pentagram engraved with gold and lead on its floor. An incense burner was suspended by a chain link embedded in the ceiling hung just above the recess as the smoke wafted down, which gave the five-pointed star engraving on the floor a hazy outline. The master had been meditating for days on end now, only getting up to eat a small meal and having a drink of water at the adjoining room before returning to his ritual once more.

Although Elliot called him the master, to everyone else he was Seth Solomon. He had been born to a wealthy family of bankers during the time of the Great Depression, and he was now the last of his line. As an only son, he was given everything he wanted. His father had spent the dwindling family fortunes to make sure his heir received the proper education befitting a man of his class. But it all changed when his father was diagnosed with cancer and he had summoned his son to his deathbed. As Solomon looked on in sadness and horror, his father’s bony hand clutched at his arm and told him how scared he was of dying. His father was once a giant of a man and now, lying in the bed was a shrunken, skeletal derelict that had begun to breathe his last. Solomon then heard a loud clap in the room when his father finally died despite the fact that it was only the two of them there. That experience opened his senses to the supernatural. It was then that he made a promise to himself, that he would do everything he could to stave off death.