“We are so not doing this, Binah,” I said. “You’re a cat. I don’t care if you’re a familiar or not.”
The Siamese yawned, stretched, and hopped over my lap to paw at the door.
“No. I have limits.” I set her back on the seat. “You are staying here.
Binah crouched down, growling with her ears pinned back to her skull, backing away from my hand.
“That’s better.” I went to open the door, and stopped as I saw what she had sensed. Lights, a car turning the corner. My gut twisted as a wave of cold washed over me, and the parasite in my gut stirred. Cutting through the stale air of the docks was the whiff of something unpleasantly familiar: a smell like rotting flesh and burnt sugar. A Violet smell. The smell of DOG.
Chapter 28
Binah growled again. I let go of the door and drew my pistol, submerging in the shadows of the dash as headlights bloomed down along the street and glazed the dusty windows. Seconds later, a car rumbled by, pulling in several spaces behind.
Doors opened, then slammed above the buzz of male voices talking. There was a 'choonk' sound, the sound of a trunk being popped.
The gnawing in my chest built slowly, creeping up a little more with every sound outside. I rubbed my gloved finger against the grip of the Glock in my hand… and tensed as a metal door banged open, only a few cars up from my position.
“Come on, man. What's the deal?" A brusque voice with a pronounced Long Island accent could be heard through the door. “You got it?”
“What does it fuckin’ look like?” Someone snapped back, his English heavily accented. “Stop jacking off and come and help me.”
A high, feral, garbling scream of rage burst out into the air. It was the kind of noise I'd always imagined an angry mongoose makes, and it cut suddenly and with a strange finality with the slam of a head against a hard surface.
“What’s the matter? You want some more dick, is that it?” Long Island raised his voice. I heard scuffles, thumps, and then silence. “Slanty-eyed faggot.”
I startled at the use of the slur. An Asian man? Was that Angkor?
“Get it him in trunk already. The Deacon’s waiting.” The Russian-accented man sounded anxious.
“The Deacon will get his,” the other man grouched. “Like I give fuck.”
“You’ll give fuck if we end up under knife, instead of this spooky little cocksucker.”
There is a saying in Ukrainian: Meni tse treba yak zuby v dupi. Roughly translated, it means: "I need this like I need teeth in my ass."
I risked a periscope peek over the back of the driver’s side chair, forming a rough plan of assault. If I got out there in a duck and roll, I could probably shoot out the tires and then the men inside and pull their victim out. Even as I was thinking it, the front doors slammed and the engine of the getaway car thrummed to life.
“Shit.” Plan B it was, then – and not a bad plan, anyway, because they were about to lead me to deeper waters. Whoever ‘the Deacon’ was, I was pretty sure I needed to meet them.
The car pulled ahead of me, trundling without haste, and rounded the corner. I started up and followed after, just a little faster than I’d seen them leave. The headlights stayed off as I rumbled along behind, watching as they picked up speed down Van Brunt Street and turned down Hamilton Avenue.
“Where are you boys headed…?” I mused aloud as we drove parallel to the expressway, heading towards the entry ramp. “Back to Brighton Beach?”
But they didn’t get onto the highway. Instead, they turned right onto Columbia Street, a long road that led down to the Red Hook waterfront. I tailed them at the furthest distance I could stand, watching as they followed the street around, all the way past the Red Hook park, and then turned a sharp left into a dirt and gravel lot just before the wharf. I knew that road. It led to the Red Hook Grain Terminal.
“Well then.” I accelerated the short way to the gate and came to a sharp stop, wincing as the tires shrieked for a moment on the road. I backed it up and turned so that the car pointed in the direction of escape instead of towards Gowanus Bay, cut the engine, and checked my weapons before getting out, cat in tow.
The air near the waterfront reeked like shit and dead seagulls, an awful, headache-inducing cocktail of rot and chemicals that made it the ideal location for a NO-inspired cult sacrifice. The Grain Terminal loomed like a concrete sarcophagus in the distance, illuminated by the full moon that was now heading for the horizon. For a moment, I wondered if I had done another stupid thing by not waiting for the Big Cat Crew. The Grain Terminal was enormous, and by the time I got there, Angkor was going to be long gone. If they were executing him, they’d do whatever they were going to do and dump his body in the canal before I even reached the outhouse.
The moon cast crazy shadows over the scrap that had piled up to the left of the cracked road, which was half old concrete, half wet gravel. There were huge piles of rusted metal everywhere: the hulks of buses, small boats, even a horse float. Binah followed me at full lope, a ghost on my heels as I ran. There was no keeping her in the car, especially if she was able to warn me of dangers I couldn’t see.
At the end of the road, I saw the car I’d been following parked near the waterside entrance to the ruined grain terminal. Up close, the enormous structure looked even more like a coffin: a grimy, rectangular hulk sandwiched between the Henry Street Basin on one side, the Gowanus Canal on the other, and the continuation of this shitty strip of gravel to the left. Ahead and to the left was the shell of a smaller building – still two stories high – to my right was nothing but polluted water and a flimsy dock anchoring three or four derelict ships. I didn’t have high hopes for Angkor. Gowanus Canal was a dump site for every Mob in the city. One famous detective had wryly noted that Gowanus was the only body of water in the world that was ninety percent guns. He could be assured that the other ten percent was dead bodies.
Three men – the two from the warehouse and a tall, broad-shouldered, hulking figure I couldn’t make out – were smoking, talking and laughing around what looked like a barrel fire in front of a faded white watchtower. I drew my pistol and dipped down into a cross-step jog, heartbeat tapping against my teeth. Binah and I crossed from the scrap pile to the outhouse, where I slid along the wall and looked around the corner, right at the back of someone’s head. The static guard was sitting on a fold-out plastic chair away from the other men, rubbing his gloved hands and huffing on them.
As I was planning my trajectory, Binah darted out of the shadows, streaking across the yard at a run. I had to bite my tongue to stop from calling her as she pelted between the guard’s boots and bolted at a full gallop for the building.
“Hey, what the fuck?” The guard stood up in alarm, bringing his machinegun to bear. With a finger on the trigger, he stepped back reflexively, scraping his chair a foot and a half or so closer to me and vanishing out of sight of his comrades on the other side of the building. Then, he relaxed a little. “Fuckin’ raccoo-”
I pistol-whipped him as hard as I could across the back of his skull. He crumpled like a heap of stones. I grasped him by the ankles and dragged him back behind the timber, took a minute with the knife to make sure he wasn’t going to get up again, and relieved him of his weapon, a set of keys, and a packet of gum. He was toting a PP-90M1, a cheap Russian military surplus machinegun. It packed a 64-round 9mm magazine, which I unloaded, checked and reloaded. Not a bad start to the night’s scavenging.
Binah was waiting for me in the shadow of the building, smugly washing her face in at the base of an open window. I slung the gun over my shoulder and holstered the pistol, drawing the knife in its place. Smartass cat.
Around the corner, the three guys were still squatting around the fire. Their attention was on the road. I’d taken out the one watching the building, and I’d be ass deep in the building before they realized a thing.
As quickly and quietly as I could, I crossed the open space and pushed myself in through the broken window frame. It let m
e into a single long concrete chamber that had to be nearly five hundred feet long. Twin rows of concrete pylons marched off into utter darkness; the canal gurgled to our left through gaping, broken windows. The entire floor was empty, but the stench was incredible. It was the smell of meat left to rot in the sun, the cheap perfume and vomit reek of un-life.
I had a full pint of milk and a dozen eggs – the weirdest shit I’d ever taken on a hit, but after the Animal-Heads and DOG wasps, I doubted I’d ever be without eggs again. I pulled one out of my pack and palmed it in my throwing hand as I started out cautiously towards the end of the building nearest the water, following my nose and watching as Binah dashed from shadow to shadow. The guys outside were laughing at something: I heard them as I passed on the way to the stairwell. I was just about to break away from the pillars when a scuffle echoed through the huge room. The sound bounced off the walls like a rifle shot, and I froze mid-breath, scanning the darkness ahead for life – or not.
After a few seconds of waiting, another sentry swaggered out of the entry to the stairs, looming in the stark light. My chest twinged. I recognized him. Ovar was six and a half feet of Georgian muscle, impossible to miss. He was dressed in a puffy jacket and hunter’s cap, cigarette pinched between thumb and forefinger of one hand, the other resting on top of his machine gun. He was smiling as he swept the room and turned away from me, heading back in towards the stairs. It was all I could do to control my gorge. I thought he’d been one of the better men in this place. He was funny, he was friendly, and he’d always been polite and affable to me… and he’d raped a girl on camera, because he was all-in on the Organizatsiya and everything it did.
And then, something pushed through the air around me. Even Ovar stopped, his back to me as he shivered in the wave of sudden cold that rippled through the still air of the grain elevator. Another mage was coasting through the waters like a shark filtering blood through its sinuses, turning this way and that. He had Mass, a real heavy presence… a presence that I instinctively recognized. It was the Spook that Nic had bought to take me down. He was here, upstairs, and Ovar was in the way.
I wanted to kill him, but I’m five foot five in shoes and he was far too big for me to stab. Gunning him down would alert every person inside and outside the building. I clamped my jaws together until my teeth creaked, then turned and threw the egg down the aisle. It sailed out, and broke against something with a wet ‘splotch’.
“Eh?” Ovar turned, eyes scanning the room. “Bors? That you?”
For several long moments, I said nothing. Every sound in here was amplified, and any motion I made would crack out into the air. As Ovar waited, looking for anything out of the ordinary, another push of magic rippled over us. I was running out of time.
“Fuck, this place is creepy.” He muttered, and turned back.
I hissed. And tried to throw my voice. Ovar whipped around again, advancing to the door this time.
“Hey,” he said. His voice echoed, the word ringing out multiple times against the walls. “Cut it the fuck out!”
As quietly as I could, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the first thing I found: a quarter and the dime that Christopher had given me. The coin didn’t mean that much to me, so I flung them both, close to the ground. They rolled and skittered, and Ovar started forward. Sweat was rolling down his face now. He had his finger on the trigger, gun braced against his shoulder as he advanced into the room in the direction of the noise. If he heard or saw me, I was deader than the canal outside.
As he left, I half-scrambled, half-crawled into the stairwell, waiting a moment until Binah caught up. What remaining fur she had was standing on end. The magic was only getting stronger, whipping down the channel of the stairs. I ran up them, trying to be quiet on the rusted steel treads. At the top of the stairwell was a door.
My eyes were still adjusting as I got to the landing. I reached for the handle, and stopped at the last moment as a hot buzz, like static electricity, crawled up my arm from my fingertips. In the gloom, a figure loomed out at me from the wood. It was an eye. The iris was blank, and struck through with a cross.
Swallowing, I lowered my hand and stepped back. I couldn’t break this sigil, not if it was really charged. There was a bated darkness about it, and the eeriness I felt from it – and the room beyond – made me wonder if someone had already spotted me. If it had alerted someone on the other side, I had a machine gun capable of putting a few rounds into their skull… assuming that’s not what they wanted me to do.
From downstairs, I heard Ovar call out to the other guards that he’d heard something in the building, followed by quick, heavy footsteps that grew closer every second. He was heading for his post, and he was going to see and hear me.
Anxiously, I reached out towards the handle. As I did, a creeping, prickling chill passed through the leather of my gloves, through my fingertips. I jerked my hand back, frowning. Lips pursed, I slung my bag around and pulled the carton of milk. It was a long shot, but I had gotten the milk on a hunch. Close to fifteen years of sorcerous wet work had taught me that the symbolic properties of things were as important as the materials. Eggs were symbols of fertility, birth, nourishment, perhaps femininity – and the effect on DOGs probably also extended to other egg-like materials. Seeds were at the top of my list, though the only seeds at the bodega had been toasted sunflower seeds and I doubted they would have any effect. Milk was something I decided to try on a whim: the full-cream, unhomogenized stuff that was as close to the substance used to feed calves as was possible.
Feeling somewhat awkward, I opened the carton and splashed it over the door. The sigil sizzled. Sizzled. I watched a complex tracery of violet light rush through the crude black paint and then fade. When I doused it the second time, there was no response, though the ‘paint’ was sloughing off in a very un-paintlike fashion. I depressed the handle and waited for a few breathless seconds before entering, carton in one hand, my other hand bracing the machine gun against my less-injured ribs. As quietly as I could, I slunk out into the top floor: another huge single room with bottomless, circular black holes spaced across the floor. At the other end of the room, at the far western corner of the building, a human sacrifice was in full swing.
Chapter 29
The assembled TVS members were clustered around a makeshift altar that had been mounted in front of the gaping remains of the corner window. The priest’s back was to me. The others in the room – six or seven people – were standing in a rough circle, staring up towards a ring of black lights hung from the old trolley rails on the ceiling. Those were running off a small kerosene generator which made enough noise that my footfall was unlikely to be heard.
I left the door ajar, searching for cover in the semi-darkness. There were old machines left here, and short stairwells that led up to the next floor of the grain elevator, but nothing that was going to offer real protection. I took what I could on my way across until I was crouched behind a narrow steel pillar and able to see and hear what was going on.
The black lights distorted all color that might have been present, but I recognized at least two faces. Vanya was staring up at the light overhead, his jowly face smeared with black from eyes to sagging jawline in a parody of tears – or blood. At the far end of the altar was Mason.
Jenner’s partner stood with his back to the shattered window. He was not robed like the others. He was stripped down to a bloodied wifebeater and jeans, his clothes torn, his skin striped with gore. If not for that, he looked like he’d been in a bar room brawl and come out barely on his feet. There was a huge, spreading dark stain across his shirt, radiating from his heart on the left. Mason was the only one looking down at something. He was staring at the featureless, motionless black bodybag that was lain on the table, feet pointing at the setting moon.
“-to celebrate a new brother entering the fold,” the priest intoned, mid-sentence. The speaker was masked and hooded, and I couldn’t make out any details from my position. “The price of you
r admission to the Anointed is to cleanse the world of an affront to the Father, Ivan Kazopov. Will you purify this abomination with your body and strength, and swear your fealty to the Eternal Light?”
“I will,” Vanya replied.
I frowned, utterly at a loss. There was something not right about Mason. He swayed in place, and as far as I could tell, he wasn’t blinking.
“The windows of Heaven are opening for you, Vanya.” The priest turned to face me, hands lifted. The mask was white, flat and featureless, save for three thin, grim slashes where the eyes and mouth should have been. Despite that, I know that it was the Spook, the one I had glimpsed on Ribbon Street through the distortion of his weird magic. His power was over the cold, inexorable twin pressures of time and gravity. “Praise the Father, blessed be his many names…”
As the praying and affirmations continued, echoed by the others in the room, I shifted the PP-90 around to hold it at the ready and tried to cobble together a plan of action. There was no obvious warding around the circle, but I couldn’t discount it. The magic on the door had been very real, and the effect of the milk very noticeable. If I was lucky, the gun would be safe to use on the humans. If I wasn’t, I was probably going to get gunned down while I tried to stop something infernal from eating me and my cat.
“Are you ready to be baptized in blood, to become a true follower of the All Father, to speak with fire and serve Him for all your days?”
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