Blood of the Masked God (Book 1): Red Wrath

by Gehrke, Gerhard

  I pulled myself up and went head and shoulders first into the darkness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I had no way of seeing what was in front of my face. The only illumination came from a skylight high above. The air was musty, and my hands were planted on a dingy carpet. Ahead of me was the faintest outline of someone standing by a wall. In the shadows I could see they were wearing some sort of lace dress.

  “Hello?” I whispered.

  They didn’t answer and didn’t move. I took out my phone. Hitting the side button illuminated my lock screen, which gave me enough light to see a dress dummy wrapped in an old gown that looked like something from the nineteenth century. The pale fabric was thin and tattered but looked like a wedding dress. I stood up, shielding the phone’s light. There were closed doors along the hallway. I walked carefully, mindful of the creaking floor. It felt solid enough, though. I had been worried the place would be thoroughly rotten and a deathtrap.

  The walls were covered with paintings in elaborate frames. Landscapes, horses, portraits, ships, and still lifes hung on every open wall space along the hall and down the stairs. The only thing they had in common was they all looked old. I touched one and felt the raised texture of dried oil paint on canvas.

  The house wasn’t completely silent. I heard a soft shifting noise in the heart of the massive home, like a breeze was blowing against the outer walls. The faint creaking would be easy to miss. My own breathing almost drowned it out, and for a moment I thought I was imagining it.

  I expected the sour smell of an old person to permeate the air, or the rankness of urine or other signs someone as decrepit as the place itself lived here. But besides the rotting carpet by the window and a general dank aroma, I detected no odors.

  The stairs had a slight give to them, but they were carpeted and didn’t make a sound as I went down to the ground floor. If this place were in the city, someone would have found it and turned it into a nest of squatters and meth heads. If it were repaired, cleaned, and anywhere but Dogwood, the house would be worth a lot of money. But as it was, it just felt sad.

  In the foyer was an oriental rug that had nearly disintegrated. There was little furniture. In the kitchen, I was surprised to find a working fridge that held a few items, and there were canned goods in one cabinet, all fruit and corn and red kidney beans. A basket sitting on the counter held apples and fresh vegetables that could have come from the garden of the woman we had met. The sink contained a few dishes with dried-on food.

  I continued along the circuit of downstairs rooms through a dining room with a long table and six chairs all covered with bedsheets. The other rooms had several larger chairs, low tables, and a few bookcases.

  Everything was covered in a layer of dust, including every seat cushion. Whoever used the kitchen didn’t use the furniture. As I came all the way around and back into the foyer, I caught a whiff of fresh air. Above me rose the stairway and above it I could see a skylight propped wide open. A fresh breeze was blowing.

  Seeing it made my breath catch. But no, I decided. Plenty of houses had skylights. Just because all the doors were boarded up didn’t mean someone came and left through the open window in the roof. I needed to search the place and find some real evidence of the home’s occupant and not settle for wild speculation.

  I heard voices.

  Two men were speaking in short, clipped sentences, the hushed words impossible to hear clearly. They grew louder until they were just outside the front door. I turned off my phone light and waited. After a moment, the voices moved away.

  The more I thought about it, the stranger it all felt. Were they still looking for someone because a dog had started barking? Maybe I was misreading it all and there was another explanation.

  Then I saw the faintest glow of red shining through a panel of wall under the stairs.

  I pushed at it. One section gave a little and it clicked open on a magnetic spring latch. The hidden door swung out with no problem and revealed a narrow staircase that led down to the basement.

  I felt it in my temples first. The headache came throbbing back in full force, almost making me gasp. I took a moment to catch my breath. The creaking sound around me grew louder, as if a giant hand were pushing against all sides of the house. As I stepped onto the first stair, the noise suddenly stopped. It was like my head was underwater. I worked my jaw, as if I were on a plane rapidly climbing in altitude.

  The stairs led to a large room with a low ceiling where a small open bulb fixture shone reddish brown. As the normally blue light of my phone played around the room it too appeared red, as if the air itself carried a trace of smoke. A few cushioned chairs, a small round table, and an armoire were clustered on one side of the room. Next to it all was a rack of clothing, like out of a department store, with winter coats and suits all looking like they were taken from the pages of a fall catalogue from a half century before.

  I felt the need to sneeze. A warm, stuffy, dusty smell tickled my nose.

  One door led to a bathroom with a small sink and toilet.

  A second door left slightly open revealed a cluttered space with a recliner in the center of the room. The chair was nested with bed pillows and facing a small television on a rolling stand. Stacks of magazines and newspapers covered a low coffee table, along with vinyl records out of their sleeves and a few hardcover books.

  I found a string dangling from a fixture on the ceiling and gave it a tug. A light came on.

  An old square hi-fi stereo in a dark wood cabinet held a radio and a record turntable with an LP still on it. The artist’s name was Connee Boswell. I had never heard of her. I leafed through the stacks and found a large glass bottle with a wide cork and no label that was full of white pills. A cottony stench hung thick in the room. The air was old and I saw no windows or vents. But there was little dust on the recliner.

  I scratched at the wall to see if the red illumination was a trick of the paint. Nothing unusual there. I leafed through a few magazines and newspapers. The weird red cast to the light made it hard to read the print on the newspapers, but several of the dates were from the 1940s. The issues of the Boston Herald and New York Times had no unifying theme. Some had headlines of superhero news, but not all. The Life magazines had a wide variety of covers. I saw Elvis, John F. Kennedy, and a black-and-white picture of Chronos giving a dolly to a little girl.

  I had forgotten how long he had been around.

  My stomach started tingling as if I had eaten something funny. Being down in a weird basement in a claustrophobic room didn’t help. If this was Chronos’s lounge, then I had to reassess everything I believed about him. Why live in such squalor?

  I backed out of the room.

  Whoever lived here had to have some personal effects. Right now it felt like this was a nest for some squatter. If I could climb in here, so could anyone else. Maybe the house was a refuge for one of the local husbands who needed a place to hide where he could get his drink on. That was the obvious answer and it felt annoyingly satisfying. Except there weren’t any bottles or glasses or signs of drug paraphernalia.

  Regardless, a superhero didn’t live here.

  I began to head up the stairs. I would drop down from the window I had climbed through and sneak my way back to the car. Surely the locals would have gone back to bed, and getting real sleep sounded good to me too.

  I closed the panel to the basement and carefully climbed the stairs.

  Something dropped past me, fast and large, and thudded onto the floor of the foyer at the base of the stairway. I ducked down against the wall and froze. Listened.

  Footsteps creaked as someone walked into the kitchen. A light came on. I heard the clink of dishes. Whoever had arrived was putting together some food. And whoever it was had either fallen from the skylight…or flown down.

  My heart was racing. A feeling of unreality rolled over me.

  Chronos was here and I had no idea what to do next.

  Chapter Sixteen

  How do y
ou hide from someone who may be able to hear your heartbeat?

  The more I thought about it the more ragged my breathing became. Six more steps and I could make it to the next floor and go back out the window. But if he didn’t already know I was there, he would once he heard the creaking staircase.

  So I remained frozen in place. I heard crunching, like someone eating a carrot with their mouth open. A drawer opened and closed. The faucet ran. Another clink, maybe a glass. Footsteps. Suddenly I couldn’t remember if I had shut the door to the basement. A shadow moved below me, and then the passage under the stairs was opened. Chronos was going downstairs.

  I didn’t dare relax and found I was holding my breath. Music started to play from below. It was muffled, but I could hear a woman singing in a wavering style with a jazz orchestra accompanying her.

  I carefully rose on my hands and feet and crawled upward. I didn’t even have my revolver and there was nothing I could do to him if I went to confront him. Mercifully, the stairs and floor didn’t make a sound under me. I had made it to the window when I stopped.

  When would I ever have such an opportunity as this to learn about the man I was going to kill?

  I took out my phone. Carter had texted me half a dozen times asking for an update.

  I’m okay, I replied. Some locals were looking for me. Checking something out. Keep your shirt on.

  The moving ellipsis on the screen told me he was in the process of answering, but I put my phone away. The light had spoiled my night vision and I waited a second for it to return. Then I descended the staircase back to the ground floor.

  On the kitchen counter were empty cans of corn and kidney beans. Earth’s greatest hero was a vegan. Great.

  The music from below was quite loud now. The little stereo must have been turned up all the way and it put out some serious sound. From the top of the stairs leading down into the basement, I could see the lights below were all on. I needed confirmation it was really him. Maybe if he was tired he wouldn’t hear me. Step by step I went down.

  My headache reaffirmed its presence. It must have faded or else I had been ignoring it, but now the throbbing resumed in earnest. Just what kind of fumes were permeating the basement?

  In the cluttered room I saw a large man lying on the recliner. A bowl of food sat on top of a stack of books next to him. He had his feet splayed and his hands were gripping the armrests. I could see his head of short, dark hair and the wide shoulders.

  It was indeed Chronos.

  All my confidence fled me. I wanted to run. Even if I had a bazooka I somehow knew it would do nothing. But what if it could? Perhaps as he relaxed, his invulnerability and quick dodging skills both waned. Maybe this was my one shot. Even without my revolver, didn’t I owe it to my parents to try something?

  The rational part of my brain reminded me I’d never thought I’d find him. Leave. Run. Talk to Carter. I had already completed my mission, succeeding beyond my dreams. All these thoughts made sense and were what I should have done.

  The heaviest thing in sight was an old brass fire extinguisher. The superhero in the chair in front of me had been hit by light poles and cars and the fists of men and women who could shatter stone. I picked up the extinguisher and took a few soft steps forward.

  Chronos moaned. His entire body twitched and he jerked from one side to the other. Was he actually asleep? How was that possible so quickly, and with the loud music blasting right next to him? I got closer, the extinguisher still in one hand. I could see his perfect chiseled face. His eyelids fluttered, and his eyes were rolled up in his head.

  The record ended. The needle stayed on the inside of the groove and scratched while the speaker hissed.

  From upstairs, I heard a creak. Footsteps followed. Someone above was walking from the front door across the foyer. How had they gotten the boards off without me hearing? I returned to the first room and ducked behind the rack of coats. There I crouched with the fire extinguisher set before me. I found myself holding my breath. I must have caught a whiff of dust, because once again I needed to sneeze. I squeezed my nose until it hurt and the sensation passed.

  One step at a time, the new arrival slowly descended into the basement. Whether the poor lighting would be enough to prevent them from seeing me among the hanging clothes was anyone’s guess. I held my breath. All thoughts of clobbering Chronos fled. Now I just wanted to get out of there alive.

  “Oh, Diligence,” I heard a woman say. I saw feet shuffle past. The woman wore soft leather moccasins. The needle was lifted off the record and the stereo was clicked off. I heard her speaking softly as if trying to wake him.

  Chronos was muttering something but the words were unclear. He sounded tongue-tied.

  “Shhh,” the woman said in a soothing tone. “Dear boy, you’re okay. Let me comfort you. You have your supper. You should eat it all.”

  I heard the clink of a utensil against a dish.

  “Sweet boy,” she said. “Eat up.” And he murmured back with the voice of a sleepy child responding to his mother.

  As slowly as possible I began to emerge from behind the hanging clothing. Something caught in my hair. I froze, beginning to panic. As slowly as possible I reached up and tugged whatever it was free. In my hand I held a dangling silver necklace with a locket that must have fallen from somewhere. It was still wrapped on the sleeve button of one of the coats. I unhooked it and put it into my pocket.

  In the next room, the woman was now cooing to Chronos and he was no longer making any sounds. As I crept forward to the center of the room, I saw her back was to me. She was kneeling beside the chair and stroking his head.

  None of it made sense.

  But my head was still throbbing, and I couldn’t think clearly. This was my chance to get out and I took it. I snuck up the stairs, wincing as I anticipated each groan of the tired wood. But it made little sound as I ascended. Fresh air greeted me at the top. The front door was closed. I went to it and pulled. It required a bit of strength to move but it budged haltingly. The boards attached to the outside were still there, but they did nothing to prevent the door from being opened. They were just for show. The entire house, and maybe the whole town of Dogwood, was a put-on. It was all for Chronos.

  Lights were still on in the neighbors’ homes, enough to illuminate my way. I let me eyes adjust before setting off, favoring speed over stealth. I wanted to get out of there. I needed time to absorb what I had just seen. Because now I knew where Chronos lived, and I could return whenever I wanted to finally have my justice.

  I kept to the deepest pools of shadow and moved quickly. Except for the faint hum of insects I heard nothing. Once on the rutted street, each step sounded loud as my feet crunched on gravel. I chanced a look behind me at the red house, now cloaked in the shadow of night.

  Someone was standing out front by the gate. I could make out the outline. It was the man with the ball cap and hedge clippers and he was staring straight at me.

  I ran.

  Navigating the black street wasn’t easy. There were no streetlights and no cars. The village was inside an abyss. I imagined the man following behind me but didn’t dare turn. I focused only on not tripping over my feet or stumbling on a pothole.

  Finally I saw the main road ahead and Carter standing outside the Prius, his face illuminated in blue as he stared into his phone.

  “Get in!” I called.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. Now let’s get out of here!”

  We both climbed into the car. I studied the road behind us for anyone coming as he got the car moving.

  Abruptly he yelled and swerved. The man with the hedge clippers was standing in the middle of the road. Carter missed him by inches. The man didn’t flinch. How had he gotten in front of us?

  Carter started to brake when I screamed, “Go! Go! Don’t stop!”

  He hesitated for a long second then accelerated. The man was reaching for the car when it sped forward, throwing up a cloud of dust. We left him and th
e town of Dogwood behind us. I kept watching back out the rear hatch window until we were on the highway.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carter had so many questions, but my brain was throbbing and I couldn’t seem to answer him quickly enough.

  “You have any Tylenol?” I asked.

  He reached behind him as he drove and pulled out a small shoulder bag. I hadn’t noticed it before, but Carter had a man purse. I let out a laugh but then winced in pain.

  “Back compartment,” he said, handing me the bag.

  I found a small bottle of generic acetaminophen and swallowed three pills down with some water. The lights of the oncoming cars were blinding and I clamped my eyes shut. Even though the Prius ran quiet and rolled smoothly, it all sounded so loud. The echoes of the jazz singer’s voice kept looping in my head, a nonsense repetition accompanied by the orchestra playing the same five notes.

  My teeth clenched and my jaw hurt.

  The smell of the basement continued to sting my nose. Even the thought of the weird red light was turning my stomach.

  “Pull over,” I gasped.

  “There’s no exit for another couple of miles.” But Carter did as he was told. We were still rolling to a stop when I opened the door, leaned out, and vomited. When I was done, I nodded for him to keep driving.

  “Jade, you have to tell me what happened back there. I nearly ran over someone.”

  I rinsed my mouth with water and spat it out the window.

  “We found him,” I said.

  “Chronos? You mean you saw him?”

  “Didn’t just see him. I was in his house. The big boarded-up place. It’s where he lives. There were some locals looking for me—I don’t think they like people sneaking around their village. I needed a place to hide so I climbed up to an open window. Then he came flying in through a skylight.”

  “Did he see you?”

  I shook my head. But before I could continue, I weathered a wave of nausea. All my nerves were jangled. The sounds of the car and the motion felt overwhelming. Carter was asking me another question, but his voice was so loud.