"Street's been a lot quieter lately."
They'd been cruising the East End for almost an hour, and Marco couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Normally by this point in their shift, they'd have rolled past at least one crime scene getting picked clean by scavengers, or stumbled into a turf dispute with bullets flying.
"One month," he said, half to himself. "One month and Gotham's atmosphere improves this much?"
Darnell had his face pressed against the passenger window, watching the street roll by. "Special circumstances, man. Cobblepot consolidated most of Falcone's operation, but he's been catching hell left and right. He can't keep his people in line. Right now the big name on the street is Maroni, but that guy doesn't have half the reach Falcone did."
"Still..." Marco pulled the patrol car over to the curb and stretched in his seat. "Even if it won't last forever, I'll take the peace and quiet while we..."
The radio crackled to life, cutting him off.
"All units, be advised. Explosion reported at St. Anthony's Church, corner of Dixon and Moench. Units in the vicinity, respond immediately for support."
Marco and Darnell exchanged looks.
"A church?" Marco frowned. "Who bombs a church? Even for gang publicity, that's... Is today some kind of church event day?"
Darnell's eyes suddenly lit up. "You think maybe the families finally tracked down those priests? The ones from that farm thing?"
Marco felt a grim smile tug at the corner of his mouth. That would be poetic justice if it were true. "Only one way to find out. Buckle up, if we're late, we'll miss the show."
He hit the lights and sirens and floored it.
---
The patrol car screeched to a stop in front of St. Anthony's, crushing scattered fragments of stained glass that littered the gravel lot. Marco killed the engine and stepped out, hand already on his sidearm, scanning the area.
The first thing that struck him was the silence.
The church's heavy wooden doors stood wide open. Inside was darkness and a few wisps of smoke curling out into the grey morning.
"Where is everyone?" Darnell climbed out of the passenger side, shotgun already in hand, eyes scanning the street. "Dispatch said explosion. Where's the fire? Where's the people?"
The street was completely deserted. Even the usual East End dregs had vanished. That alone set off alarm bells in Marco's head. In this neighborhood, people didn't clear out unless they had a damn good reason.
"Either they got vaporized," Marco said, pulling his AR-15 from the rack, "or they saw something that scared them shitless and ran. Stay sharp. Something's wrong here."
He took a breath through his nose, trying to identify the smell drifting from the church. It wasn't the chemical stink of explosives.
"That doesn't smell like a bomb," Darnell muttered, echoing Marco's thoughts.
"No. It doesn't."
They approached the entrance slowly, clearing angles as they moved.
The interior of the church was dim, the only light coming through shattered stained-glass windows. Pews were overturned, scattered hymnals and Bibles littered the ground. The smell grew stronger the deeper they went.
And then Marco saw the crater.
The altar was gone. In its place was a massive hole, maybe five or six meters across, edges scorched and crumbling. The floor had been blasted down to exposed earth and shattered foundation. Chunks of marble and splintered wood were scattered everywhere.
At the edge of the crater lay a body.
No. Not a body. A girl. She couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen years old. She was wrapped in an oversized black cloak. The hood had fallen back, revealing short black hair and a face so pale it looked bloodless. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow.
And around her were things.
His brain tried to process what he was seeing and came up short. They weren't human. They weren't any animal he'd ever seen. Their skin was the dark, cracked grey of cooled lava, covered in wartlike growths and fissures. Their heads were misshapen, some had curved horns like rams, others had multiple eyes, all of them had mouths full of interlocking fangs.
And they were dissolving.
The corpses, because that's what they had to be, were melting into bubbling black tar that seeped into the cracks in the floor, leaving expanding stains and a smell so foul his eyes watered.
"Holy shit," Darnell breathed. "Are those... what the fuck are those?"
"I don't know." Marco advanced slowly, checking corners. "Some kind of... costumes? Maybe they blew up a gas main and—"
"That's not a fucking costume."
No. It wasn't. Marco knew it wasn't. He kept moving. That's when he saw it.
Above where the altar used to be, the air was twisting, rippling, like heat shimmer off summer asphalt, except this was cold. A dark purple vortex spun slowly in midair, contracting inward, growing smaller. And deep inside that swirling darkness was something.
Whispers came from it.
"What the fuck do we do?"
"Call for backup."
"Roger that." Darnell immediately grabbed the radio and moved to the side, trying to describe to dispatch what they were looking at.
Marco advanced toward the girl, rifle trained on the vortex above her. He crouched next to the girl and pressed two fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse.
"She's alive," he called back to Darnell.
The smell was worse this close. His exposed skin prickled with goosebumps.
"Backup's on the way," Darnell reported. "ETA ten minutes. You think we should move her and get her to a bus?"
"No. She could have spinal damage. We wait for EMS."
Marco was reaching for his phone to call Edward when the vortex above them convulsed.
The whispers surged into shrieks. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. And a massive clawed hand, covered in dark red scales with green fire burning between its fingers, tore through the shrinking portal and grabbed the edges, forcing it open wider.
"Oh, fuck me—"
A shape pulled itself partway through.
It had horns like a twisted bull and four yellow eyes set into a massive head. Dark red scales covered its enormous body, wreathed in flames that didn't seem to need fuel. Its claws dug into reality itself, tearing at the fabric of the vortex to force the opening wider. And behind it, more of those smaller creatures were crawling through, their eyes all locking onto the unconscious girl.
He didn't think. He just acted.
"CONTACT!" he shouted, and opened fire.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The 5.56mm rounds tore through the first creature to fully emerge, tearing through its skull and spraying dark fluid across the floor. The thing's head exploded, and its body collapsed backward.
"FUCK! FUCK!" Darnell's Remington boomed beside him.
BOOM-BOOM!
The shotgun's buckshot turned two more creatures into pulp, their bodies shredded and flung backward. Black ichor splattered across the overturned pews. But more kept coming. They didn't react to their companions dying. They just kept crawling through.
And the larger one was still pulling itself through, muttering something in an obscure language.
"What the hell is that thing saying?!" Darnell was frantically reloading his shotgun, fingers fumbling with the shells.
"Who gives a shit!" Marco swapped magazines, his hands moving on autopilot. "Just keep shooting!"
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
He put three rounds into another creature's torso, dropping it. Beside him, Darnell's shotgun roared again, blowing apart another one that had gotten too close.
The big one was almost through. Its lower body was still in the vortex, but its massive frame was forcing the opening wider.
They couldn't stop that thing. Not with what they had. They needed heavy weapons. They needed ESU...
The vortex shuddered.
It flickered once. Then it started contracting rapidly. The big creature's eyes went wide and it let out a shriek.
The portal collapsed inward, and the creature was crushed. Its body compressed, folded, then dissolved into black smoke that got sucked back through the closing vortex.
The vortex snapped shut, leaving nothing but a ripple in the air and the overpowering stench of sulfur.
"CLEAR THE FIELD! Remaining hostiles! Engage!"
Marco fired controlled bursts at the creatures that were still alive, dropping them one by one. Beside him, Darnell emptied his shotgun, reloaded, then drew his Glock and started putting rounds into anything that moved.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
Click.
Marco's rifle ran dry. The bolt locked back. He dropped the magazine, slapped in a fresh one, and sent the bolt home. Three more creatures were still twitching. He put two rounds into each.
Then it was over.
The church was a warzone.
Marco stood there, sweat soaking through his uniform. His ears were ringing from the gunfire. Darnell leaned against an overturned pew, checking his ammo count.
"What... the fuck... was that?" He looked at Marco. "Tell me that wasn't real. Tell me we're both having the same psychotic break."
"I don't know what that was." Marco moved through the carnage, putting finishing shots into anything that hadn't started dissolving yet. "But it happened. We both saw it."
"Demons," Darnell said flatly. "We just fought fucking demons."
"Yeah." Marco holstered his sidearm and slung his rifle.
From outside, sirens were approaching. He looked at the unconscious girl, still lying peacefully at the edge of the crater.
"Who the hell is she?" Darnell asked quietly.
"No idea. But she's connected to this somehow."
Marco walked toward the entrance to meet the responding units. Behind him, Darnell let out a shaky laugh. "You know what the really fucked up part is?"
"What?"
"The ambulance is already here." Darnell gestured to the EMS vehicle pulling up. "We called this in, what, five minutes ago? They got here that fast?"
Marco looked at the ambulance, then back at the crater.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "That's definitely the weirdest part of this whole situation."
Darnell stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. It had an edge of hysteria to it, but he couldn't blame him. Hell, he felt like laughing himself.
---
---
60 Advance Chapters!
Visit my profile page for more information.