“I tried to save two lives from your infernal government camps,” David said tersely. “You are in league with Satan. Our country has fallen so far that it’s only a matter of time before God forsakes us utterly.”
“Oh, stop deluding yourself, David,” Ariel said. “You saw firsthand what the Golem Brigade was capable of doing. They enabled mankind to win its first ever battle against these demonic creatures. Not even the Americans were able to do that.”
“We used demons to fight other demons,” David said. “There is nothing noble about that. We sacrificed countless innocent lives in order to do that. Let me ask you, once we run out of Muslims and Arabs and Palestinians to sacrifice, who will be next? Will you be using Christians, then after that the Ethiopian Jews or the gays, anyone that doesn’t explicitly follow Rabbi Ba’al’s orders?”
Ariel frowned. “Now you are just being unreasonable. Rabbi Ba’al has assured us that we can stem the tide once the Golem Brigade is up to full strength.”
“He’s lying! I was at Qasr al Hallabat and I saw with my own eyes how much lives it took just to hold off a single attack from those things! What he is doing is not the answer!”
Ariel looked at him with tired eyes. “Then what is the answer, David? What else could we do?”
David pounded his fist on the table. “We had Noah! We could have asked him how to deal with these gods but what did we do instead? We held him prisoner and tried to drain his blood and take his soul! All that damned rabbi wanted to do was to make another golem with him!”
Tzipi looked at her uncle. “Is this true, Uncle Ariel? Did you really have Noah and you tried to sacrifice him to that rabbi as well?”
Ariel held both his hands up to try to calm them down. “Look, we’ve made mistakes but we’re learning. The victory in Qasr al Hallabat was but the first step. We are making headway with this god problem, we just have to trust in Rabbi Ba’al and give him more time.”
“You mean you want to give him more souls!” David hissed. “We are all damned if we keep following this rabbi!”
“David, you need to get a hold of yourself,” Ariel said softly. “You are still held in high regard by the Institute after your recent missions but I can’t keep covering for you. If it wasn’t for my influence and your successes, you would already be in prison. You disobeyed a direct order during wartime. You know what the consequences are for that.”
David didn’t reply as he just looked away.
Tzipi walked over until she stood beside her uncle and placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “I would like to thank you for everything you’ve done for him, Uncle Ariel.”
Ariel placed his hand on top of hers. “You’re welcome. Your husband has been through a lot in the past forty-eight hours and needs some rest. I will take you both back to your apartment in Beersheba on the condition that you won’t try a stunt like this again,” he said, looking at David.
Tzipi smiled. “I can go back to Beersheba with him, but what about my unit? We’ve been tasked to reinforce the Golan Heights.”
David knew better than to keep arguing so he continued to keep quiet.
“You’ve both been granted leave,” Ariel said as he slowly got up. “Take care of your husband and see that he doesn’t get into any more trouble. The situation is as serious enough as it is. You both get some rest because I have a feeling we will need you again very soon.”
“I accept,” David said. “But on one condition.”
Ariel looked at him. “So I use up all my favors to get you out of trouble and you still demand a condition? What is it now?”
“Leyla’s baby girl. She comes with us.”
Ariel rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on! I pulled a lot of strings to keep you out of a prison cell, David! This is how you repay me? By making more demands?”
“Uncle Ariel, you know that David and I have been trying for a baby but because of our careers and that miscarriage, well it hasn’t been a good year for us,” Tzipi said. “Besides, you’ve always said you wanted to see us have children.”
Ariel glared at them before making his way to the door. “I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.”
After their uncle left and the door had closed behind him, both David and Tzipi looked at each other and smiled.
18. The Recommencement
Brooklyn
After nearly dropping the casserole as he ascended up the stairs of the apartment, Dr. Paul Dane finally made it to the door and knocked twice. Within minutes, the door opened and Detective Valerie Mendoza smiled as she bade him to enter.
Paul stepped inside. “Sorry it took awhile, but I needed a bath since all that gardening really made me sweat.”
Valerie kissed him on the cheek before taking the casserole from his hands. “Is this for me?”
“Of course,” Paul said. “I figured that if you’re going to invite me for dinner, it’s only fair that I bring my share of the meal.”
Valerie closed the door behind them and then took off the top of the deep serving dish. “Mmm, this looks good. Pasta?”
“With fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden, I made a big batch so I figured I’d bring some of it over,” Paul said as he walked over to the small living room and sat down on the sofa. He winced a little as he inadvertently put too much pressure on his left arm.
Valerie moved over to the dining table and placed the casserole beside a plate of empanadas. “The wounds on your shoulder still hurt?”
“Yeah, it’s still sore and with the planting and all that gardening, my entire body is aching. My palms have got blisters too.”
Valerie laughed as she walked over to the stovetop at the other side of the room. “Serves you right, Professor. You haven’t put in an honest day’s work until a few days ago. Now you know how farmers feel at the end of the day. Get yourself seated down at the table, dinner’s ready.”
Paul groaned as he got up from the comfortable sofa and made his way to the dining table. It had been a few days since he drove the kids down to Brooklyn after his own home in Boston had caught fire while fighting the Wendigo that was once his neighbor’s wife. His wounds were not serious and since there were plenty of empty apartments around, Paul and the two children had decided to stay. Kim’s younger brother Troy would talk endlessly about the Wendigo while his sister became more withdrawn. With Valerie’s help, Paul was able to acquire a nearby apartment its owners had abandoned to share with the two kids.
Valerie placed her own casserole beside the pasta dish on the table before she sat down. “Okay, dig in. Is my mama getting along with Kim and Troy?”
“Oh yeah, She’s wonderful. Your mother has a way with kids. Troy couldn’t even speak the first time I met him up in Boston, but now he’s a motor mouth. It’s Kim I’m worried about now, though.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“First time I met them, she was the talkative one, but ever since she found out what happened to her parents, she started to distance herself, withdraw from the world. I’ve been trying my best to engage her but she just seems to have a lack of motivation for anything.”
Valerie took an empanada and placed it on her plate. “Just give her some time, Professor. People deal differently with loss. Her little brother may have moved on, but it must have impacted her a lot more. Plus she’s the older one, so she’s probably trying to find her place in the world.”
Paul nodded. “That’s true. Val, you know you don’t have to keep calling me professor. Just Paul would be fine.”
“I guess I’m just not used to being around people with doctorate degrees. I come from a middle class Puerto Rican Mexican family, and I’m one of only two children in the clan that even finished high school.”
“Well, people with advanced degrees aren’t much different from other folks,” Paul said as he spooned some of the food from the steaming deep dish onto his plate. “What’s this? I thought it was lasagna.”
“It’s called pastelon. It’s a Puerto Rican version of lasagna
except that it’s made with plantains instead of pasta sheets. There’s not much meat in it though, for obvious reasons, so there’s more veggies and béchamel sauce.”
“Delicious,” Paul said as he ate some of it. New York City was now one of the safer areas of the country after that incident in the Museum of Natural History. A certain calmness had descended over the city as if it was blessed by some unknown, benevolent demigod. Demon attacks had largely died down although nobody dared venture down into the subways and most people stayed in at night. The city officials along with the police had begun to parcel out unused apartments to refugees from other parts of the country that were steadily streaming in. People started to work hand in hand as they used every available green space to grow vegetables to supplement the meager food convoys still coming in. There seemed to be a sense of hope blossoming in this place.
As the sun started to set, Valerie took out her lighter from her pants pocket and began to light the candles that were strewn all over the apartment. Of all the things that were now in short supply, a small set of wax candles were getting to be more expensive than fresh meat. “You ought to try the empanadas too,” she said. “My mama made them.”
“Well if she made them then how could I say no to that?”
“Are you saying that you’d rather eat her food than mine, Paul?”
Paul laughed as he shook his head. “No, not at all. I like both your cooking and I’ll eat whatever you place on the table.”
“That’s better. Have you thought about the future at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it seems you’ve completely gotten away from your academic background and became a farmer,” Valerie said. “Is that what you’re planning to do from now on?”
Paul looked out into the distance. “To be honest, I don’t know yet. I guess I’m just taking it one day at time for now. Those two kids are all I could think about right now, I’ve never been a parent before but it feels like I’m obligated to take care of them. I don’t think they will like it very much if I put them up for adoption or something like that. Why do you ask?”
Valerie looked at the food on her plate. “Well it’s just that we received a communication about you from the Feds.”
Paul was surprised. “You did? When?”
“About a week ago while you were still up in Boston. I thought about maybe driving up there to give you the message, but then I figured that if the government wanted to talk to you badly enough, they would come to your doorstep.”
“What did the message say?”
“Not much, they just wanted to get in touch with you. That’s all they would say to me. I told them you went back to your place in Boston. They never tried to contact you there?”
“Nope. But then again all the phone lines were out, including the cell signal, so I couldn’t have been able to call you either even though I really could have used your help against that Wendigo.”
“My god, that must have been a terrifying experience. What made you think that fire would kill it?”
“I’ve always figured that the Wendigo was sort to like an animal spirit. And animals are always afraid of fire, it’s a part of their basic instincts,” Paul said. “Then again, I don’t even know if it did die. It could still be wandering around Boston right now as far as I know. I just got the kids to the car and drove out of there as soon as soon as we had a clear path to the driveway.”
“You were lucky, by the time you got to the police station. Your car was just about to give out. Do you really think that Wendigo is out there right now?”
“I’ve always thought of that monster as a manifestation of mankind’s fear of cannibalism, just a symbol of an old taboo that the original native peoples of this land had. Perhaps I may have destroyed its physical aspect, but I have no doubt that it could return in some shape or form again.”
“That’s a very scary thought, Paul. You don’t think it would follow you down here, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. My neighbor apparently enabled it since he was killing people and feeding them to his wife. Perhaps it was that act that made its physical form even stronger. Whatever the case, we have to make sure that no one resorts to cannibalism, lest that creature manifests itself again.”
Valerie frowned as she placed her fork down on the plate. “I shouldn’t even have brought it up, now I’ve lost my appetite even though we got lots of food here.”
“I’m sorry, Val. Let’s change the subject then.”
“Let’s do that,” Valerie said as she opened a paper bag that was sitting on the table and took out a bottle of wine. “Cabernet sauvignon. I’ve been saving this last bottle since this whole Glooming started. I figured we might as well open it.”
Paul noticed the wine opener lying on the coffee table nearby. “Allow me.”
An hour had passed and the wine bottle was practically empty. Valerie couldn’t stand the dirty plates on the table, so she took them over to the kitchen sink while Paul relaxed on the sofa. The aches in his shoulder had turned to an itch where the stitches had begun to get annoying. With the dishes now immersed in lukewarm water, Valerie went over to the couch and sat down beside him.
Paul heard a slight beep from his phone so he took it out, read the text message on it before he put it back into his shirt pocket with a smile. Unlike up in Boston, New York had been able to reactivate a few cell sites so there was limited mobile phone coverage. The mayor even claimed that they might have the electrical grid back soon, but Paul doubted it. “Your mother said she was able to put the kids to sleep and will stay with them for the night. I didn’t think she'd be able to win Kim over, but she sure proved me wrong.”
Valerie laughed as she finished off the last of the wine in her glass. “Didn’t you know? There were eleven of us and my mother raised the whole family mostly by herself. Trust me, Kim and her pouting would be small potatoes to her.”
“That’s good. I’m wondering if I’d be staying here with the kids though.”
“What do you mean? Are you afraid that the owners of the apartment where you’re at will come back? I’m sure we can find another place for all three of you here, the whole city has been so depopulated, there’s a lot of room to spare.”
“It’s not that.”
“The food situation then? I heard that it’s not much better in the other cities either. Las Vegas is now uninhabited since there’s no water over there. At least over here, we’re close to the government food banks in Virginia and everybody is helping out by growing their own food.”
“It’s not really that either.”
“What then?”
“It’s the people around here. I can sense a change.”
Valerie seemed confused. “What sort of change, Paul?”
He hesitated before answering. “Well, it’s just that I’ve heard talk that quite a few people around here have begun to worship all sorts of gods. I mean the old pagan gods. When one of the guys invited me for a drink of water in his apartment yesterday, his whole place was filled with small wooden idols that he carved by himself. When I asked him about it, he said that he was now worshiping Ahone, a god that was once worshiped by the Algonquin natives in this area hundreds of years ago. But he also had idols of other gods and he sort of gave prayers to each one of them. The whole thing made me feel uneasy because it seems we are sliding backwards as a civilization.”
“Reverend Beekman said the same thing to me,” Valerie said. “He used to have a small church in Baruch Houses over at the Lower East Side. Since he moved to Brooklyn and tried to revitalize his church, he told me that very few people profess to be any sort of Christian now. They are mostly turning into pagan worshipers of different gods. It’s a growing trend among people here. My mama is putting up all sorts of Aztec god stuff in her apartment.”
“Doesn’t it worry you, Val? I mean you are Christian, aren’t you?”
Valerie took out an Aztec amulet that was hidden beneath her shirt and disp
layed it prominently below her neck. “This was given to me by Mama and I've worn it since I was a child. I thought it was just nothing but now I think it’s what saved me when I was attacked and half my face was cut. We had crucifixes and all that, but she never really took me or my brothers and sisters to church on a regular basis, so I just didn’t find the time to wonder what my faith ever was. Now that this whole thing started, I don’t know what to believe in. What about you?”
“Well, my mother was Catholic and my father was Protestant but not totally religious in a going to church, every Sunday sort of way. I was exposed to a lot of New Age and Eastern religions during my college days but I can’t say I ever got serious about any of it. That was when I fell in with Joseph Campbell’s philosophy of the monomyth. It’s been a big part of my life and that was why I ultimately started writing books on it. Elizabeth and I were big believers in it.”
“Monomyth? What’s that?”
“Mono is Latin for single or one, and it basically means that I believe all the myths of the world are just variations of one great story. It’s about a journey of a person- it can be Jesus, Buddha, Moses, or any of the other mythic heroes like Hercules, for example. It’s a template that’s found in every part of the world. It’s a journey of finding oneself. I also believe in a universality of myths; that there are similarities of gods and stories from all over the world because there are so many similar tales of gods and monsters, that it can’t be just mere coincidence.”
“You mean that these mythical beings that have now come to life in every part of the world have some sort of commonality?”
“Yes! If you look at the different gods of the world’s major regions, you’ll note that even though one set of mythology is in another part of the world, there are universal similarities,” Paul said as he began gesturing. He was fully animated now that he was in his element. “Take the concept of the trickster god for example. One Native American tribe believes he takes the form of a rabbit, while another tribe believed he was a coyote, and yet other peoples in places like Siberia for example, thought of him as looking like a raven. But in every culture there is a trickster god with very slight variations. The Norse believed Loki was a trickster god before he turned completely evil and got them all killed at Ragnarok. The Native Americans on the other hand, believe the trickster to be responsible for the creation of the world. But if you look at it, Loki did bring about the world of ordinary men by destroying the Norse gods, so in a sense, he was responsible for the creation of the world as well. You see, it’s all variations of the same story despite the fact that the names and the physical aspect of the god is different, the stories in the end are so similar that there is a connection between each of them.”
Canticum Tenebris (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2) Page 23