I didn’t care how long it rained, nothing was going to wash off the years of filth built up in New Detroit. Every ounce of soot and grime clung to the stone buildings and garbage-packed alleys. The corners either had a group of rats or kids looking for their next meal, scrounging off whatever the city left behind that evening. And no matter where you found yourself in New Detroit, you could always hear someone crying—a newborn that didn’t have enough to eat, a woman’s cry for help, or someone who lost their child somewhere.
If you were careful, if you paid attention, you’d see a shadow that doesn’t belong to anyone walk down the broken sidewalk. On the roof, you might catch a glimpse of a horned woman watching from above. A sewer cover might move or lights flicker in a church basement when every parishioner should be asleep. On nights when the Corrupted came to the surface, like a boil on the skin, I would walk a bit quicker with my eyes up and hand gripping my silver-headed walking stick. Most gave me a pass, and those that didn’t learned quickly about regret and assumptions.
I didn’t have time to look in the dark corners of New Detroit tonight. Samson called me. Most of the time, he calls me during the day, the afternoon when he knows I’m awake. But tonight my phone rang, and he sounded afraid at first. Being a Sergeant here in New Detroit takes a special form of bravery or stupidity. Luckily for all of us, he was the brave sort. He didn’t turn away from the Night-brood, and he didn’t shout about it either. I was usually his consultant, helping him decide which way to take a case: the smooth human road or the bumpy ‘things that go bump in the night’ road. He just gave me an address and told me to come quickly and not to worry about the consultant fee—he’d get it paid, no matter what.
I got to the address he gave me and double-checked it on my notepad. The small house was wedged between two office buildings, like a rotten tooth. An A-frame house with overgrown weeds and a couch that was never meant to be outside on the porch. Samson stood like a behemoth, inhaling a cigarette. So much for how glad he was that he quit—he’d said that for what, ten years? When he looked at me, he looked relieved, like the ambulance had arrived, or the tumor was benign—everything was going to be alright. But I knew better—every closed door of New Detroit held its own horror, and if it gave Samson enough rattle that he dug a busted old cigarette out of his car—I was in for a long night.
“Crowley,” Samson said, like he was addressing a pastor. “It’s a mess in there—real bad.”
I nodded, but I’d seen my fair share in New Detroit. Real horrors—not the stuff you see on the screen or the coloring books that King and Straub make. I took a deep breath, more for Samson’s sake than mine, and ventured in.
“Don’t touch—”
I held up a hand, “Don’t touch anything. I know, Samson, I know.”
I walked into the foyer and immediately felt the blast of the stench of opened flesh, a visceral smell that only came from slaughterhouses and murder scenes.
I followed the stench into the living room. Samson was right to warn me.
A man and a woman, both white, each with a hollowed-out chest. They sat propped on the couch, holding hands with their heads slumped back. Their entrails spilled out in front of them. I looked around the rest of the room—a ramshackle place, where everything was stained and mismatched—furniture that your local thrift store wouldn’t touch.
I noticed the photo tech standing in the corner; he just looked stunned, but when he saw me, he stirred and started taking pictures again. He was the only thing in here that would come back to life.
When the photographer had his back to me, I rubbed my thumb against my palm and whispered a little incantation. I needed to know some things before the rest of Samson’s colleagues made their appearance. I sent out a little pulse, and it told me that these were just plain humans that were in the wrong place and the wrong time. Just what I’d expect from an intimate view of their anatomy, but that would be a rookie move—and you can’t afford many of those in this city.
“Who let you in?” The shout bellowed in the room. The photographer nearly jumped out of his skin and made a quick exit.
I turned to face him, “Sergeant Meadows,” I nodded. Sergeant Meadows was tall and almost lanky—his office filled with pictures of him running and winning marathons and triathlons. About two years ago, he wound up on the night shift and has been a pain ever since.
“Crowley, I need you to get out of here. This isn’t your case. Don’t you start the day shift in like—” He checked a watch that was under his sleeve. “Four hours.”
“I was in the neighborhood—on a walk. And well, here I am.”
“Well, I need you to get gone,” Sergeant Meadows said. He’s what the other people of New Detroit call a Winter Person. He wouldn’t believe in a leprechaun if it shoved a pot of gold up his back.
“I called him,” Samson said.
“You called him because two people got murdered? You couldn’t handle this on your own? Jesus, Samson. Don’t be such a wimp. It’s brutal, but we don’t need Crowley and his nonsense.”
Samson took a breath—for as big as he was—the guy was calm. Maybe it was the cigarettes.
“It’s the basement, Sarge.”
Meadows looked at me as if I knew what Samson was talking about—I just shrugged. I had no idea. Two people were eviscerated on a couch holding hands—I thought that was the show.
Samson turned, and we followed.
“Do I need to call in an additional crew?” Meadows asked. He’d have his full supply working in the living room in five minutes with the leech-like reporters quickly behind.
Samson didn’t say anything, and just led us down into the basement. The ramshackle staircase creaked under our weight with a dim light below. Two lightbulbs on strings hung from the ceiling, and the floor was dirt. I could smell a thick dampness in the air, like opening an old refrigerator. This wasn’t the basement you watched the Super Bowl from—this was the place you prayed you didn’t die in.
We each brought out our flashlights, and Samson pointed to the ground. A hole, about six foot wide, was in the middle of the floor, this dark empty cavity.
“A hole, Samson? Maybe they were digging for gold or something.” But I saw what Samson saw, why he dragged us down here, and my chest went cold.
Meadows continued his tirade, “You dragged me here for this?”
I put my hand on Meadows and said, “I mean this in the nicest way, but shut up for a second.”
I moved closer, but fear kept me from putting my feet near the hole. I pointed the light around its opening. They weren’t handprints, but clear claw marks—something dug its way out of the ground and came out.
“Jesus,” Meadows said.
Samson turned his flashlight to the far wall, which was painted stark white. “Can you read that, Crowley?” Lines of archaic sigils and scrawls in red, neatly drawn, lined the wall.
“I don’t like to do live translation—this could take some time,” I said. When your father was an occultist, probably the biggest one in the world, you grew up watching Sesame Street and learning ancient, long-forgotten tongues. My kindergarten teacher had concerns.
“Do it,” Meadows said.
I hated not controlling my spook-dial. I didn’t like displaying how odd my skill set was in front of people who would just hate me more for it. But Meadows wasn’t going to take no—and he’d put my head in that hole unless I did what he said.
“Fine.” I scanned the sigils and tried to relax and breathe, using my recall methods—twenty-nine languages take up a lot of space.
“‘We beg for the Dweller to come and free us from this cage of flesh. We offer ourselves and we give you leave to fill your hunger, to ingest—’”
I wiped my brow with my handkerchief.
“Keep going,” Meadows growled.
“‘To ingest the world until it is a husk.’ The rest is just the incantation that does it. I’d rather not say it.”
Meadows walked up and touched the writing to make sure it was real and all of this wasn’t a fever dream—something we all wished for.
“So, there’s some kind of monster loose in New Detroit that just eats people. And the people upstairs did this?” Samson said.
“Yeah. Looks like it.”
Meadows looked at me as if I had spoken the incantation that did this.
“Fix it, Crowley. You and Samson are on the case.” Meadows climbed the stairs out of the basement and didn’t look back, while Samson and I shared a condemned look.
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