The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (38 page)

Captain Teller holstered his pistol after thumbing its manual safety. “He wasn’t going to surrender, so I had to finish him. If given the chance, he would escape and try to report back to his superiors in Washington or wherever the hell they are holing up in now.”

“That’s too bad,” Steve said. Unlike the others who were wearing standard issue military camouflage, he was dressed in his blue and black SWAT gear as he cradled his M4 carbine. “And a pity about those two Strykers, we could have used them too.”

Captain Teller nodded. “Yeah, but I knew my XO would be trouble, that’s why I requested armored support and made him stay in the lead Stryker. He was Army and pretty loyal to that one crew and they to him, because they served in Afghanistan. This way they all died together.”

Steve looked at the heavy transport truck behind them. “So how many warheads do we have in our possession now?”

“There’re at least forty of those thermonuclear warheads in the back of that truck,” Captain Teller said. “Our original mission was to transport them over to Whiteman, but the Rock of God Church can have them now. I assume you got specialists that can work those things.”

“Well, we have people that claim they can work them,” Steve said. “As to whether they really can, remains to be seen. Pastor Erik has started to interview a number of military deserters and I’m sure we can find a nuke technician or two that can work these things sooner or later, since there’s just been so many that have gone over to our side, like yourself. All we need now is to get a couple of those nukes ready to go, and after that there’ll be no way the US government would be able to touch us once we got it, unless they want a thermonuclear exchange to happen.”

“I hope all the lives we’ve sacrificed today was worth it then,” Captain Teller said as he held out his hand.

Steve shook it. “I’m sure it is. I’d like to thank you. The Soldiers of the Lord will need experienced military officers like you, and I’m sure you’ll be given a commission once you meet up with Pastor Erik. We needed these nukes in order to survive. Now we’re truly legit and those commies in the US government will have no choice but to leave us alone from now on. Now we are safe so we can concentrate against fighting the true enemy.”

Captain Teller looked at him quizzically. “What true enemy are you referring to?”

Steve looked out into the night as the floodlights were being deactivated. All the remaining illumination left were the burning Strykers. The fires turned everything into black silhouettes against a flickering orange background. “Why, the armies of Satan of course. As we talk, right here right now, they’re busy marching all across the world and they’ll be here very soon … so we need to be ready for the final battle.”

New Mexico

It had already been a few days, and Tara Weiss was feeling both tired and hungry. She had been sitting silently near the mouth of a shallow cave on top of a small hill, overlooking the desert scrublands below. Sitting opposite her was a wrinkled old Indian that the dog said was either a Yaqui, a Navajo, or something else. It had been a few days and she could barely remember what was said anymore. Tara was drifting in and out of consciousness. The only sustenance the old shaman would allow her to partake of were a few sips of water every few hours. Her stomach had ceased growling, and instead all she felt there was just a gnawing emptiness.

When Tara and the dog first climbed their way up on the solid rock plateau, he was already sitting there as if waiting for them. The trickster dog had told her that the old Indian was in fact a shaman, when Tara asked what that was, the trickster explained that a shaman was a type of man who could speak with spirits. When Tara then asked if he was some sort of magician the dog said yes, because this particular shaman was also a brujo, or sorcerer. As soon as the brujo saw her, he gestured for her to sit down in front of him as the dog ran off somewhere. Tara had sat down and became bored a few hours later. She finally asked the old man if she could stand up and stretch her legs, but the brujo emphatically said no. Hours after that, when she complained that her back was starting to hurt and that she could barely feel her legs, the brujo told her she needed to find the right spot on the slab of stone she was sitting on and the pain and discomfort would go away. For the next hour, Tara had shifted and moved slightly to the left and then to the right without any success until she realized there was a small cleft on the far edge of the boulder. It seemed to have been sat upon by numerous people over the decades. An indentation had formed on the rock which resembled the seat of a chair. As she finally sat down on the cleft, the pain in her lower back subsided and a strange warmth cascaded over her body. That night, she could see the giant thunderbirds drifting over the storm clouds in the far horizon as the mauve and pewter skies slowly turned to a grey dusk.

Just as she closed her eyes for a bit and then opened them once more, she found the old man had built a small bonfire in front of her. As her eyes became mesmerized by the leaping yellow tongues of flame, the brujo sat down on the opposite side of the fire and faced her. Tara could see that his eyes were glowing in the dark, just like the skin walkers that she had encountered just a few nights before.

The old man looked at her closely and then started talking. His voice felt both timeless and hollow. “What is your name?”

“Tara, sir,” she said. Her throat was dry so when her voice came out it was like a croak of a small frog.

“Out here I am called El Brujo,” the old man said. “And I am honored to meet with you for you have been chosen.”

Tara blinked. “Ch-chosen? I-I don’t get what you mean.”

El Brujo looked out into the night. “Many stories have been told of the Fifth World and of the gods and spirits that inhabit it. The First World was called Nihodilhil, it was a world of darkness and that was where the Divine Spirit began its journey towards the Fifth World, the world of the present. The Trickster was there too and he was called Coyote by my people, but I understand he took on many forms, and many names among the other peoples of the world. Now it is the time of the ending of the Fifth World, when all the gods of old have come back and the Sixth World must now be brought forth, but only after the gods have either been satiated or tricked into doing so.”

Tara shook her head. The old man was speaking in riddles. “I-I’m sorry. Did you mean that this world is about to end and that a new world will soon be taking its place?”

The old man nodded. “When the old gods made their presence felt, the barrier between our world and the land of the spirits have been weakened. This means that all sorts of beings can travel between the worlds, just as it was in the past ages. These breaches must be healed once again if we are to usher in the new age.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“One that is pure of heart must travel between the worlds and find a way,” El Brujo said. “That will be your path. It will be a long journey, and you will have many trials until you are able to become a being of power. But do not despair, for you shall have the help of allies in your journey. In fact, you have already one that will take you to the first gate.”

“Y-you mean Bibsy? The dog? The one they call the trickster?”

“Yes, Coyote will be one of your friends for he has taken a liking to you, but beware his excesses for he can turn his tricks on you as well.”

“So you’re telling me not to trust him?”

“The trickster god has many guises, many forms, many shapes, and with so many appearances, he also has many personalities, some will be good and others malevolent, such is the way with tricksters. Some of his forms will be very helpful to you, yet others may have the opposite effect. You must be able to determine his capabilities and make a wise decision in order to use his gifts properly.”

Tara nodded. “I see. So how do I make these judgments? How will I know if I made the right call?”

“You will learn in due course as you journey onwards through the portals of time,” El Brujo said. “But in order to learn the ways of true magic, you must overcome the four challenges that you will encounter tonight.”

Tara’s eyes widened as she looked around nervously. “Four challenges? What are they? How do I fight them? Are you going to give me a weapon or something?”

El Brujo shook his head in disappointment. “You must overcome these challenges not with battle, but with your mind and spirit.”

Tara started to calm down. “I’m sorry, I-I thought I had to fight or something like that.”

El Brujo gestured with his hands. “The first of your four challenges has arrived. It is called fear.”

“Fear?” Tara said as she suddenly felt an evil presence all around her. As she once again looked around, she could see a thousand yellowish eyes staring back at her through the darkness. Tara shrieked and felt the urge to get up and flee towards the shallow cave, but a part of her urged herself to calm down once more, as she fought her own instincts that were telling her to run away. That was when she remembered watching a movie on TV about anger management and one of the techniques that was taught was to control your breathing, and she began to take deep breaths as she slowly began to regain her composure. Within a few minutes, her heart rate had returned to normal and the adrenaline that was building up in her body began to subside. Her fear had metamorphosed into a sense of tranquility as she calmly stared back at the thousand eyes of the night. Almost immediately the yellowish mass of eyes blinked away and vanished into the darkness.

For the first time in two days El Brujo smiled at her. “Good, you have overcome the first challenge. To deal with fear you must face it calmly and without emotion, for when dealing with it when using other feelings such as anger or sadness, then that would only lead to more suffering. Now you must stare into the fire and face your second challenge, for now that you have conquered fear then you are ready for your next trial.”

Tara did as she was told and stared at the flames. For a moment, all she could see was the flickering firelight, but as she concentrated she began to see other visions, other meanings that she had previously been unaware of. That was when it all began to make sense to her. Tara had realized that the journey that had brought her to this mountaintop had been through her own choices all along, as if she subconsciously willed it to happen. It was she who had decided to travel with Larry out of Arizona. It was her choice to run away from home, and it was her choice that made her encounter the skin walkers a few days back. Tara finally understood that the paths in life were not predestined, but were deliberately chosen paths for the individual, that in turn led to other paths down their separate journeys. A million myriad paths lay before her, and a million more new ones would open up as soon as she ventured down one of them.

El Brujo sensed the change within her. “Ah, so you have at last overcome the second challenge. That of vision,” he said. “Your mind is now aware of the many paths that lie before you, and where these paths will take you, but you now understood that every path is a choice, and every choice you make creates new choices. Only by taking a step back and understanding your fate and that of the world as a whole can you now truly understand what it means to master the art of vision.”

“It’s all starting to make sense now,” Tara said. “I can’t believe I’ve acted so stupidly so many times because I failed to see the consequences of my actions, or how it would affect others! I-I think I might have caused the death of two people.”

“No,” El Brujo said. “You must also be aware that other individuals choose their own paths in life. They died making their own choices, and met their fate because of those choices. Think about it, would they have altered their choices had you not been traveling with them?”

Tara stared back into the flames once more. “No, I guess not.”

“Good, then you have learned that not everything can be changed, but the awareness that fate can be altered will become another choice,” El Brujo said. “Now, face your third challenge.”

Tara closed her eyes and within seconds began to see visions in her mind. She could see that she was walking along a strange, glowing forest and her companion was a tow-headed boy. The second vision that came to her showed her standing over her dad and he was begging for his life as she pointed a gun at him. The end of the second vision came with her pulling the trigger, but Tara was instantly taken aback, as she willed herself in that vision to take her finger off the trigger and to not kill her father, even though her younger brother Timmy was cheering her on in the background. The third vision came when she and the blond boy from her first vision encountered a very ugly man with antlers on his head, who stood in front of a glowing portal to another world. As she opened her palm and looked at it, there was a large maggot that was the size of her fist, wriggling and squirming on it. Sensing that the worm was evil, she closed her fist and crushed the life out of the maggot as it spewed out green and grey juices, its blubbery skin split open in several places, and it died. But then a part of her realized that she once again went too far, and she replayed the vision once more, this time instead of crushing the large maggot to death, she instead placed it on the stem of a small plant, where it spun a pupae. Within seconds, out came a golden butterfly that flew off into the stars. A sense of tranquility washed over her as the visions faded out and Tara opened her eyes once more.

El Brujo once again noticed the change in her. “Very good, you have overcome the third challenge, which is called control. There are many people who have power over others and these people tend to use their power much too often, and without restraint and that leads to destruction and despair. A true being of knowledge does not seek power in order to destroy or to dominate others. They use restraint as a means to guide these lesser ones into becoming greater beings. The knowledge in using one’s power properly, and in small amounts without destroying to achieve small things, is far more important than using one’s power for conquest and dominance. This has been the fault of many gods since they have used their own powers for malevolence instead of learning to control their inner urges before using such things.”