The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) (39 page)

“So to have power without restraint or control is more dangerous than not having any,” Tara said.

“Yes,” El Brujo said as he pointed upwards. “You have learned quickly. The trickster chose you well. Now, onto your fourth and final challenge.”

Tara looked up into the night sky. A question began to form in her mind. Did she really want to be a hero to save the world? Or was it just to gain respect of others such as her friends in school, the ones who laughed and made fun of her? Did she really plan on forcefully taking Timmy away from her own dad? Was her whole goal just to take advantage of her gifts or to help others find their own way? That was when she began to realize that her motivations were shallow and self-serving, and so she began to weep at her own false sense of pride. The night wind blew some of her tears away as she wiped the rest off using her wrist. It was then that Tara realized that she needed to make this journey not out of pride, but out of a sense of obligation with which to help.

El Brujo smiled. There were large gaps in his old and rotting teeth. “At last you have conquered the four challenges, the last of which is pride. For pride makes one do things for their own benefit rather than for others. A true hero conquers his own pride in order to help others. Now you are ready to begin your journey, for only after you have overcome yourself can you truly be called a being of power.”

It was at that instant that the little Chihuahua appeared beside Tara. The dog was carrying something in its mouth and gently placed it in Tara’s hand. As she looked at the little thing in her palm, she saw it resembled some sort of withered leathery button, glowing with a faint green bioluminescence.

Tara looked at it confusingly. “What is it?”

“It is called peyote,” El Brujo said.

“Peyote which I took from a spirit world,” the dog said. “I had just come from there.”

Tara looked at them both. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Eat it, obviously,” the dog said as it sat on its hind legs and stared at her. “Chew it until the juices flow and then spit it out.”

“Okay then,” Tara said as she placed it in her mouth and began to chew. The taste was extremely bitter and akin to eating dirt. Tara felt like vomiting, but she was able to control her urges and kept chewing to get it over with. Soon her mouth felt extremely dry as if all the remaining saliva in it just evaporated, and her mucous membrane was unable to produce any more. Less than a minute later, all feeling and taste in her mouth and even her chin was gone. She started seeing red and green spots in front of her eyes that blocked most of her field of vision. As she held her hands in front of her face, she could see that they had become transparent. It was as if her palms had become like mist. Tara could see the veins on her wrists. She could see the blood travelling along her body as if it were a luminous dye on an x-ray machine. The flames in the bonfire had changed color from yellow to cyan blue, and the warmth of the fire now felt like a cold blizzard.

All that she could hear was the whispering voice of El Brujo. “Your journey to the spirit world begins,” he said.

“Follow me,” the dog said as it got up and started walking towards the cave.

Tara could barely feel her legs as she got up. It was like she was walking on air. As she looked around she could see the stars whirling around in the night sky. A gigantic thunderbird flew overhead and hovered just beneath her, its flapping wings sounded like claps of thunder as it regarded her with eager curiosity.

As she got to the entrance of the cave, she saw that the inner cavern was glowing. It looked like a passage to another dimension as it showed a forest clearing bathed in a cyan twilight, just like the vision that she had earlier. The dog had already stepped across the portal, so she went ahead and followed it in.

Brooklyn

“Alright, listen up,” Lieutenant Joe Pascorelli said to the assembled police officers and ESU operators in the impromptu meeting room. The ESU was analogous to the SWAT teams that the other police departments used. “I’m giving tactical field command of this task force to Detective Val Mendoza. She’s got the experience and the knowledge as to what we’re facing. I know there’s some of you with a more senior rank than her, but she is one of the few survivors of the recent attacks, and she has a special insight on what we could do to stay alive and fight this thing. So without further delay, the floor is yours, Detective,” Joe said as he gestured for her to step forward.

Valerie Mendoza moved ahead from where she had been standing near the side of the room, and faced the team of cops in front of her. She had heard of the snide remarks about her face the moment she came back on duty, but beyond that there was a grudging respect for her since she had somehow survived, while many of the others did not. As she looked around the room at the grim and serious faces, she remembered Myron telling her way back when that she had the makings of a future police chief. She had laughed it off when he said that because she thought he was just making a joke. How she missed his guidance, but she knew she had to keep her composure and not to show signs of weakness or indecision. In these times, a lack of confidence would be fatal for all of them.

“Let’s get this out of the way first. I’ve heard all the nicknames you people gave me since I got over here,” Valerie said to them. “From Scargirl, to Scarface and all that, so if anyone mentions it in passing, it’s no big deal because I’m used to it, okay?”

There were a few faint smiles, but everyone kept the serious look.
So much for making a lousy joke at a time like this
, she thought. A few days ago, she had taken the bandage off of her face to see the long pink scar marring her face. She had gotten some surprised looks, but mostly, the cops in the command post seemed to view it as a badge of honor, a battle scar for a wounded, but still able warrior.

She continued. “As you all know by now, we have had to evacuate Manhattan. We still have some police and National Guard units holding Washington Heights up in the northern part, but most of the island is now off-limits to police and emergency rescue teams. We have barricaded the bridges and subways leading into the island and so far we have been able to check the enemy’s advance, but things are changing rapidly even as we speak. That’s actually the good news. The bad news is we’re also starting to lose control of parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey to unknown forces so we’re actually being hit from all sides. Now you may all wonder as to the reason why we’re are planning to go back into Manhattan Island when it looks like we’re being surrounded, but based on the intelligence we have gathered, we believe that there is something in the island, right at the center of the city, that is the cause of all this. And if we can get to that source and neutralize it, then we could put an end to the troubles.”

A police sergeant in full riot gear raised his hand. “Detective, what exactly are we fighting against?”

“I’ll tell you what I went up against,” Valerie said. “We think it’s some sort of cult worshipping an Aztec god called Xipe Totec. He is known as the Flayed One, and he is a fertility god. The ancient Aztecs believed that in order for crops to grow and for the land to have a good harvest, then ritual human sacrifice must be made in order to appease this god. The sacrificial victims have their skin sliced off of them and the flayed skin is then worn by the priests until they are dried and are peeled off. It symbolizes the shedding off of dried corn husks to reveal the act of renewal and the changing seasons.”

Almost immediately the crowd of police officers began arguing with each other, some of them expressing outright disbelief, while others began to claim that it was the end of the world and they were all dead.

Joe shouted at them to be quiet. “Alright, pipe down and let her finish!”

“There have been other reports about some sort of ghost or monster attacking people on the streets and in Central Park. The government has received some video footage, but they have not commented on it yet,” Valerie said. “We think that these are Aztec demons and monsters that are allied with Xipe Totec. We’ve read the reports that claims gunfire is ineffective against these things, so we have requested that the National Guard supply us with flamethrowers, but that request has yet to be approved. As of right now, since we don’t seem to have any effective ways of dealing with those things, then it’s best we avoid any encounters with them.”

Another cop raised his hand. “What if one of those demons attempts to storm the barricades on one of the bridges, or in the subways? Do we just run?”

“We don’t have any further information on how to deal with those things yet,” Valerie said. “At this point, just do what you can, and try to survive.”

An ESU trooper wearing full battle gear crossed his arms. “Oh great, so if we see one of those things coming at us, then it’s just put our hands up and kiss our own asses goodbye?”

The room erupted into verbal chaos. Joe had to pound on the wall a number of times to bring everything back to order once more.

“We’ve received reports that some of the first incidents happened near the Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side,” Valerie said as she pointed to a map that was taped to the wall behind her. “So we’re planning to send the task force to that area to see if there is any sort of connection. We’ve also tracked down and interviewed a few staff members of the museum to see if there was anything strange had occurred a few days before these incidents started happening, and they can confirm of a remote possibility for a cause to all of this.”

Another ESU trooper raised his hand. “We’re in Brooklyn. How do we get there?”

“Washington Heights is heavily contested right now, so we’re going by convoy and cross into Manhattan using the Queensboro Bridge across the East River, then make a beeline to the museum,” Valerie said. “The National Guard will be lending us a couple of armored personnel carriers, so we ought to be okay. Our main goal will be to enter the museum and deploy the forensics teams to search for anything that could pinpoint the cause of this. ESU teams will be deployed to protect forensics while they go about their job.”

“What makes you so sure that the answer to our problems lies in the museum?” an NYPD detective in plainclothes said.

“We’ve had one of the museum staff members here yesterday, he’s an archaeologist and he insists that strange things began to happen when they brought in part of a petrified tree trunk from North Carolina, or something like that,” Valerie said. “It’s the only one lead that we think that has a connection to what’s happening right now. Any other questions?”

No one said anything. A few looked at each other, but everyone realized that the hard and grim task of investigating any lead in order to stem the flow of chaos needed to be done. They all were volunteers and each knew what the risks were.

“Okay, dismissed,” Valerie said. “We’ll reconvene in a few hours once the APCs have arrived.”

As the meeting broke up, Joe went over to her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You did good, kid. Was this your first ever briefing?”

Valerie smiled faintly as she turned around. “Myron did let me do a morning briefing about six months ago, but I think that was more for fun than anything else. Now I feel I might be seeing the last of some of these guys when I saw their faces in the room.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Joe said. “We’re all professionals and we know what the stakes are. If we don’t do this and put a stop to whatever’s going on right now, then nobody else will. Let’s go get some coffee.”

As they walked out of the tent, they quickly heard a rumbling noise from where the staging area was and both started running towards it. Police and National Guardsmen quickly readied their weapons. Everyone was expecting an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge for days now and this could be it, they thought. Valerie and Joe both drew their pistols as they got to the edge of the compound. There was a hastily-erected chain linked fence around a series of tents and mobile office trailers that was essentially the makeshift police headquarters for the area, so a breach meant that they were all vulnerable.

The moment they got to the gate, they stopped in surprise as they saw what it was. A small convoy of a half dozen Stryker M1126 Infantry Carrier Vehicles came into the staging area, along with a number of Humvees. Heavily-armed soldiers in body armor and night vision goggles soon exited the vehicles as the cops and National Guardsmen stared back in amazement.

“Jesus,” Joe said, “It’s the government.”

The rear door of one of the Strykers opened, and out came a grey-haired man with a beard and eyeglasses. Unlike the soldiers in combat fatigues that flanked him, he was wearing an old sport coat and trousers while accompanied by Delta and SEAL operators with thick beards wearing baseball caps. Valerie noticed a female soldier walking alongside of him as he spoke with one of the cops on guard duty who soon pointed towards her. Valerie holstered her pistol as the older man approached him.

“Hi, I’m Paul Dane,” the man said as he smiled and held out his hand. “Are you Detective Valerie Mendoza?”

Valerie shook his hand. “Looks like you found me. This is my superior, Lieutenant Joseph Pascorelli.”

Paul shook Joe’s hand as well. “Detective, I need to talk to you as quickly as possible.”

“Hold on a minute,” Joe said. “If I recall, you’re supposed to be a world famous author or something like that, what’s with all these Fed types guarding you?”

“Professor Dane is part of the US Government’s new task force on dealing with this crisis,” the female soldier standing beside Paul said. “He’s with the Department of Defense and we will be assuming command over this entire area as of now.”

“Under whose authority?” Joe demanded. “And who are you?”

“I’m Captain Laura Niven,” the woman said as she took out a piece of paper and handed it to him. “We’re acting under the authority of the President of the United States via executive order.”

“Look, there’s no need for hostility here,” Paul said sheepishly. “We’re here to work with you to try to deal with this emergency. Is there someplace private we could talk?”