The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (7 page)

“Hey, over here!” the man who was kneeling down said as he waved to them. The rain had died down somewhat, but it was still enough to partially obscure everything. The sidewalk where the three men were was strewn with trash. There was a knee-high fence behind them with some open square spaces that used to have some grass growing on it. Now they were used as garbage dumps since the breakdown of waste collection services in the city. The towering apartment blocks of Baruch Houses were spaced about thirty yards apart and loomed over them.

Myron pointed his flashlight at the man’s face while his other hand gripped his Smith and Wesson M5906 that still lay snug on his side holster. “NYPD, can I see your hands, sir.”

“I’m the one who called it in, officers,” the black man said calmly as he raised his hands. He was bald and had a grayish beard. Valerie noticed that he had on a clerical collar.

“I’m Detective Jones and my partner, Detective Mendoza. Reverend Beekman? Is that you?” Myron said as he walked over to them while putting on his blue plastic gloves. While the gloves were normally used for forensics work, they could double as medical gloves too. “What happened?”

Reverend Beekman knelt down beside the two other black men as Valerie put on her own gloves. Both men were barely conscious and breathing heavily. They were cut up bad. Open gashes, cuts, and stab wounds on their arms, legs, and torsos. Myron saw that their hands were torn up the most, probably defensive wounds in an attempt to block the edged weapons their attacker used. Both detectives noticed that there were pieces of green glass strewn about. Valerie ran back to the car and grabbed the first aid kit, as the Reverend and Myron used their handkerchiefs to staunch the deepest wounds on the two wounded men.

“I was at the nearby church and I heard some screams out here so I ran over,” Reverend Beekman said as he pointed to the church no more than thirty paces away. “I didn’t see who it was that attacked them.”

Myron looked at the men while trying to apply pressure on a serrated chest wound. “I know these two, they’re local gang members. Two of the Bloc Boys.”

Reverend Beekman nodded. “Yes, Detective. Believe it or not, these boys have been behaving themselves lately. They even started to attend my church just a few days ago, ever since the worldwide troubles started. I had hoped that the rumors about demons running loose in the world would bring these boys back in the fold of God. But now I see that it’s come to affect us all. When is the ambulance coming?”

“It should be on its way,” Valerie said as she started putting tourniquets on the men’s arms. “You sure you didn’t see or hear anything?”

“I didn’t see anything because I was inside the church, but I did hear screams and some foreign language I didn’t understand,” Reverend Beekman said.

“Reverend, you know Spanish, right? Are you sure it wasn’t that?” Myron said. Hispanics were the largest ethnic group in these tenements.

Reverend Beekman shook his head. “I know the language, and it wasn't Spanish I heard it. The only two words I remember from the shouting sounded like ‘quihahuit’ or ‘quinnaquilook’ or something like that.”

Valerie turned to him with a surprised look on her face. “What? Are you sure those were the words that were shouted during the attack?”

“I think so, I think there were more words spoken, but that’s all I could remember,” Reverend Beekman said.

“You know those words, Val?” Myron said to her as he tried his handheld radio, all he got was static.

“The reverend is right, those words aren’t Spanish. They’re actually Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec,” Valerie said as sounds of thunder roared above them. “Quihahuitl means rain and quinnanquilique means they were answered.”

“For real?” Myron said. “How’d you know how to speak Aztec, Val?”

“My mother taught me,” Valerie said as she subconsciously rubbed at the jade and obsidian necklace underneath her blouse once again. It had been a childhood gift from her mother and she wore it at all times. “She’s Mexican, but she always claimed to be full-blooded Aztec.”

At that moment they heard shouts. All three turned to see a figure that waved at them in front of the fire exit at one of the apartment blocks. It looked like an old Hispanic woman who could barely stand.

“We’ll be right back,” Myron said to the reverend as both he and Valerie ran over to the old lady. As they got to the front of the apartment block, the old woman slumped down at the edge of the red-painted fire door.

“Help me,” Myron said as they both took the woman by her arms and set her down by the base of the stairs. The entrance to the fire exit was pretty much just a small foyer and stairs leading up. The overhead fluorescent light was flickering and it provided only the dimmest illumination. Nobody else seemed to be around.

“Are you okay?” Valerie said as she knelt down beside her. The old woman had a wet knitted shawl over her shoulders. She had swollen bare feet and had a tattered old black dress on. Her white hair was matted down from the rain and drops of water had soaked the wrinkles of her face. “Estas bien?” she repeated in Spanish.

The old woman’s voice was hardly a croak. “Los ninos, que tienen los ninos.”

“What’s she saying?” Myron said.

“She said they took the children,” Valerie said to him before turning back to the old woman. “Que ha llevado a los ninos? Who took them?”

The old woman’s eyes had a white glaze over them. It was clear she had cataracts. The one word she said was tinged with fear. “Tlaloc.”

“Oh my god,” Valerie said to Myron as she pulled out her Glock and started going up the stairs. “We need backup now! Stay here with her, Myron!”

“Val, what in the hell are you doing?” Myron said. “Don’t go up there, we don’t have backup yet!”

But Valerie was already on her way up. She tried the second and third floor fire doors, but they were locked tight. She ran up one more flight as Myron kept shouting at her to go back down. She noticed that the fire door on this floor was propped open and a darkened corridor lay within. Valerie turned on her flashlight with her left hand while keeping the gun close to her body as she went inside.

The corridor felt like a tomb. The lights in the whole block were apparently out due to the incessant storms and the neglect of the city, since the more affluent neighborhoods were clamoring to get their own power restored first. There were pieces of trash all along the corridor while the adjoining doors seemed to be locked up tight. Valerie could hear the crunch of glass on her shoes as she stepped forward. As she tried knocking on a few of the doors with her flashlight there was no answer from any of them. The handheld radio that was attached to her belt continued to squawk intermittent bursts of static.

As she got to the other side to where the main stairwell was, Valerie could see some illumination on the murky glass windows outside, but it wasn’t enough, her only means of visibility was now the flashlight. Putting her gun back in its side holster, Valerie tried once again with her handheld radio, but she got nothing and there were no signal bars on her cell phone either. Whoever attacked the two gangbangers was still on the loose, and might just be in the building with her.

After putting her cell phone back in her coat pocket, Valerie pulled out the Glock once more. If there was one thing cops feared more than a gunfight, it was going up against a blade-wielding assailant, while a wound from a gun was quick, a knife attack was far more terrifying, they said. While a gun was definitely the superior weapon because of its range, a darkened building afforded the perpetrator a number of advantages, namely surprise, and the chance to get in close before the gun wielder knew where to fire at.

While peering at the adjoining corridors and seeing nothing, Valerie once more aimed the flashlight down on the floor and saw the pieces of green glass, this time she knelt down and looked closer. The stuff on the floor wasn’t just ordinary glass; it was green obsidian, a volcanic glass that was used in the manufacture of Aztec weapons like knives and the dreaded macuahuitl, a wooden sword which was studded with sharp obsidian blades on its sides. As she kept looking at the shards on the floor she heard the sound of breaking glass behind her.

Valerie turned as she kept both the flashlight and her pistol level while preparing to open fire.

“Whoa!” Myron said as he held up the side of his gun so it wasn’t pointed at her. “Take it easy.”

Valerie let out a sigh of relief. “Jesus, Myron! I could’ve killed you!”

Myron grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you like that. The paramedics arrived and they’re treating the two men. I brought the old lady over to them and Reverend Beekman is there too. So now I got your back once more.”

As Valerie smiled back at him, she noticed there was a silhouette of something behind Myron. Something oddly shaped and she noticed the flash of green. “Myron, look out!” she said as she tried to aim.

Myron turned as the obsidian knife slashed at his arm. He cried out and fell over sideways as he tried to hold on to his gun. Valerie could now clearly see a man who seemed to be wearing the skin of an animal of some sort, like a tiger costume. He had on a feathered headdress and an obsidian knife in both hands. She instantly fired three times, hitting him twice in the torso. The man went down.

Valerie ran over and knelt down beside Myron, who was clutching his arm with his other hand after dropping his flashlight. It was a vicious gash, but it didn’t look too deep. Myron was lucky when he reacted so the assailant missed with putting a whole lot of force on the blow. As she kept the gun aimed at the perpetrator lying on the ground, she placed the flashlight down so it kept pointing at the outer corridor, and then took out an embroidered handkerchief from her coat pocket and gave it to Myron.

“Goddamn, that hurts!” Myron said through clenched teeth as he applied pressure on the wound with Valerie’s handkerchief. “It cut so quickly. Tore right through my jacket.”

The assailant wasn’t moving as Valerie took up the flashlight once more and walked closer to it. “I think he’s still alive, but he’s bleeding out,” she said as she looked at the bullet wounds. The animal skin the man was wearing looked like the hide of a jaguar. The suspect was clearly South American, with a beaklike nose and deep brown skin. He looked like a young man in his twenties. As Valerie aimed the flashlight at the man’s face, she let out a gasp.

“What is it?” Myron said as he tied down the handkerchief on his arm.

“His head,” Valerie said slowly as she was starting to feel sick. “It’s misshaped, his forehead is flattened and the rear part of his head is elongated. I know the Mayans did things like this to their children, but not the Aztecs.”

Myron stood up and recovered his flashlight. He contemplated shifting his gun to his left hand, but he never practiced shooting that way, so he decided to keep it in his right. Shooting with a wounded arm might be painful, but he would have more accuracy over an arm he didn’t favor. “Oh my god, what in the hell are we dealing with here?”

At that moment, they both heard a scream coming from upstairs. It was clearly a child’s voice. Both of them started running to the main stairway, flashlights and guns at the ready.

As they reached the fifth floor landing, Myron almost slipped as the floor was wet. Valerie was able to grab his elbow and steady him just in time. There was a pungent, metallic stench in the air.

“What in the hell is that smell?” Myron said as he pointed the flashlight down at the wet floor and gasped.

“What is it?” Valerie said as she too looked down. It was then she saw it and then bent forward as she vomited a little bit of her coffee. The floor was wet with blood. Now it was Myron’s turn to steady her. For a minute, they both just stood there as Valerie caught her breath.

Myron looked at her. “What made you go nuts down at the fire door? That old lady said only one word, and you went wild.”

Valerie wiped the last of the vomit from her mouth with her coat sleeve. “She said Tlaloc. That’s the name of an Aztec rain god. When she said they have the children, I knew we had to save them.”

“Save the children? From what?” Myron said as they started checking the corridors.

“I think the children of this housing project are in great danger. The rain god demands sacrifices, like what happened to the Bloc brothers.”

“Sacrifices? Human sacrifices?”

“Child sacrifices,” Valerie said softly.

As they rounded the next corner they saw her. She was a small black girl, probably no more than six years old. And she was just sitting in the middle of the corridor, with bits of obsidian and blood strewn all around her. She wore nothing but a bloody nightgown and she clutched a small teddy bear. She had been whimpering in the dark.

They ran over to her. As Valerie knelt down and examined her, Myron kept shining his flashlight at the end of the corridor and let out a yell. Valerie looked up and almost fell over with fright. The end of the corridor was much shorter than the ones found on the other floors. But that was because there was a newly added barrier right in the middle of this particular passageway.

It was a mound made of dead flesh and dripping blood. There must have been dozens of them stacked up as the heap covered it from floor to ceiling. Bodies of naked men, women, and children, their skins had been torn away to reveal their blood-soaked musculature, organs, bones, and deathly naked eyes. That was where the blood on the floor had come from.

As if on cue, the little child started screaming again. Suddenly, all the doors along the corridor opened and dozens of bloodstained men and women ran out, each one of them howling like wolves and wielding green, crystalline obsidian knives, a hint of death and madness in their eyes.

Both detectives reacted and instantly began firing, but there were too many of them and they were way too close. Valerie felt a crippling pain in her arm as someone sliced it open and she dropped her gun. Almost at the same time, she felt a sharp sting that started from her forehead, then to her nose and finally down to her chin as somebody slashed a crystal dagger at her face.