In Four Days (Saga Two – Day Four)
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DAY FOUR…
“Pretty chicken shit attempt at killing a cop!” I screamed down at the dead silent semis parked beneath the fire escape. “Still sitting on your asses in there after doing a crap job? You guys must be union!”
Nothing. No response.
They were serious enough to try and run me over so if they caught me now, I knew I wouldn’t be leaving the lot alive. I couldn’t see inside the windows, but I felt watched all the same and it was creeping me the hell out. It was crazy and stupid, but I had to taunt them.
Anything to see who was behind this. Anything to get some sort of response.
Finally after an hour or so of waiting and bellowing insults, I gave up versus waiting for the drivers to reveal themselves or to come find me. My leg was swollen twice its normal size, but I had decided to work my way down into the building somehow. Using an broken antenna like a crutch, I dragged and limped my way toward a small stair shack at the center of the roof. It was locked of course.
Hidden behind the shack, however, were two rows of broken skylights inset into the roof.
Below in faint light, I could make out empty storage racks and bins for spare truck parts which took up the majority of the room. I dropped the makeshift antenna crutch inside. Then I hauled myself through the remnants of one skylight and hung down from the frame getting as close to the top of the racks as possible. The jump was going to kill me — my leg was already screaming. But what choice did I have?
A unearthly shriek escaped me when I landed. I curled up into a ball, grinding my teeth trying to ride out the waves of agony.
Several minutes went by where consciousness would fade and then become excruciating crystal clear.
“I am going to break YOUR hands, Khirov, when I find you!”
It was about 9:00 PM when I felt alive enough to search for either Khirov or a way out of the building. My night was going to end with me in the hospital at the very least.
Several similar rooms made up this gutted warehouse, filled with piles of filth, spraypaint mosaics of profanity and gang signs and various emptied offices. It took me forever to limp snail-speed across the vast emptiness of the building.
The largest room appeared to be the dock with four garage sections. Semi tires were stacked everywhere, barrels of unused oil towered in two corners and several empty semi trailers lined the western wall.
Faint light peeked out from under one trailer’s doors. A shadow moved inside and I could make out a male voice humming.
“You son-of-a-bitch.” I muttered to myself.
Khirov had after all found himself a nice little campsite.
Careful to not make any sound, I leaned up against a dirty work bench and retrieved my spare Glock that was tucked in its leg holster. I glanced up in the air and did the invisible sign of the cross across my chest, praying that the weapon was not damaged by the semi when it hit me.
Creeping up onto the trailer, I gripped the handle on one of its doors and leveled the gun. With deliberation, I slowly opened the door.
Khirov was sitting with his back to me, on his knees facing one corner and murmuring a prayer chant of his own — I waited and watched him.
When he finished, he spoke aloud, but didn’t move. “Thank you for not stopping me, Detective.”
“I should shoot you in the back for what your buddies did to my leg!” I snapped.
“What?”
“Just get up against that wall. I am taking you in.”
He shook his head no and pleaded with his eyes.
I motioned with the gun in the direction of the wall.
“I am alone. I didn’t have anybody here to hurt you, I swear! But, the jin–“
“–SHUT UP ABOUT THE STUPID JINN! GET AGAINST THAT WALL RIGHT NOW!” I was done with his nonsense.
His shoulders dropped and he sighed aloud. “You don’t understand. I have to hide. If he find me, it means my soul. I know this. You have to see that I am telling you the truth.”
Anger fueled me and even buried my pain as I crawled up into the trailer. I shuffled over to him and shoved him hard face first into the wood of the trailer. He didn’t put up any real resistance and I clipped my handcuffs on his wrists.
I shouted over his shoulder into his ear, “You have the right to remain silent and for the love of god, shut your face! You have the right to seek…”
In unison, both trailer doors swung together and closed in a deafening bang.
Then tiny black smoky tendrils swirled from under the door and crept closer. It was like the shadows were alive and writhing. We could only watch paralyzed where we stood.
Khirov had placed a tiny electric lantern in the corner near his wornout sleeping bag. Its light swelled and grew intensely bright in spite of the advancing shadows.
POP!! It exploded in tiny sparks.
We were in pitch black. In the dark with the tendrils!
I could only hear his breathing and mine, both were shallow and fast. I yanked his arms higher up on his back, pressing him harder into the wall. Despite what I saw, I didn’t want to believe my eyes.
“Don’t even think this little magic trick of yours is going to work!”
He began an annoying whine, trying to convince me he was scared.
Before I could shout another word, I was hauled off my feet and thrust into the air. I crashed into the roof and felt its cold metal dig into my back. The breath was stolen from my lungs.
I hung in the air completely helpless, pressed to the ceiling.
Then… something, no, someone sniffed right in front of my face. Sniffed the air a couple times.
Not enough sin. Not yet.
The words rang out in my head. They weren’t spoken aloud.
Khirov screamed in terror. I can hear him scuffle and wrestle with something below me. His efforts finally stop.
Someone laughed and said, “Your last days are ending fast.”
Then he whispered,”Waqalat ‘annaha sawf yakun lakum fi waqt qarib.”
Khirov whimpered.
My watch’s alarm suddenly came alive marking the 12:00 AM hour. I fell back to the floor hard.
In spite of my pain and fear, I focused enough to search my jacket pocket for a pen flashlight. It seemed to take eternity to locate it. I kept expecting to hear Khirov run down the length of the trailer and escape or worse have him and his buddy run over to me and attack me while I am vulnerable on my back.
The light clicked on only to reveal Khirov shuddering and curled up in the corner. I twisted to look back at the trailer doors. There was no snaking shadows coming from the crack of the doors and no one standing there laughing or sniffing. The only thing in the trailer is green-grey muck. A trail splattered all the way to where we had stood. The trail smells like old rot.
“What did he say to you, Khirov?”
“He… He-he said, ‘She will own you soon.'”
“That was the shaytan jinn wasn’t it?”
He only shook his head yes.
“I am going to take you now.”
“You still are?” He screeched at me.
“I am. I will take you where there are hundreds of men with you at all times. A place where other men will be armed and who will keep a constant watch on you. Do you understand?”
“Oh oh yes! Please!”
It took us two more hours to get me to a station that opened early for work commuters and to call the police and an ambulance.
To this day, I will never forget the icy touch of those tendrils or the smell of the mud that was splattered inside that trailer.
That evening around 9:30 PM or so, two uniformed men came in followed by a suit. Surprise, surprise — it turned out to be our good friend, Agent Jonathan Driggs with a set of folders in his hands.
“Hello again, Detective.” He smiled smugly, but his eyes flashed with irritation.
“Well, I found our lost buddy, but I am not sure all this was worth it.”
The agent parked himself in a chair next to my hospital bed. “Where is he?” He barked at me. All humor set aside.
“The patrol took him to booking first and then I imagine by now to SCI Chester.”
Driggs leaned over and clapped his fingers around my leg cast. He glanced at me with raised questioning eyebrows.
“What?” I asked. I couldn’t believe he was actually threatening me.
He stared into my eyes for a few seconds and then sat back into his chair. He had held out a folder for me.
“Khirov Boulos was taken to SCI Chester as you stated at 8 PM this evening. At 8:45 PM, Warren Blaylock, Boulos’ cell mate suffered a seizure and taken to the infirmary–“
“–OH SHIT! KHIROV WAS ALONE?”
“Detective Ellis, what do you know? Where is he?”
“I… I don’t know anything. I just…” I opened the file. Inside were pictures of a jail cell. Or at least it could have been. Or it could have been the floor boards of a killing floor in a meat packing factory. The pictures were of splattered blood from floor to ceiling.
“A guard had checked on Boulos at 10:10 PM and saw him kneeling and praying by his bedside. At 11:20 PM, inmates started shouting for guards when the cells below him were being flooded with blood. There was no body, no video of anyone entering or leaving the cell, no tracks. Nothing, but just a stupid chain wrapped around the bars of the door.”
“Chain?”
“Yeah, a silver neck chain with an engraved hand or something on it.”
“The Hand of Fatima.”
“What?”
“It’s the Hand of Fatima. She’s the daughter of the Prophet Moh–“
“–Damn it, Ellis! What do you know? Where is he?”
I had no answers. I still don’t.
‘She will own you soon.’
And, I am positive I do not ever want to find out what that meant.
