It has been dormant for over 2000 years. Why has it emerged now? And why is Tink still present at all? If the martial Innana has returned why is Tink still Tink, rather than being consumed by the greater archetype? Innana Militant has returned for a reason, and that reason is something to do with Tink.
And I remember the scarlet of the tall Latino priest standing on the steps to my house, the authority and strength required by an exorcist that clearly resided in him. And the reason for my arrest is suddenly so clear to me that I rise out of the deep-dark-night-still silence to the clattering crying world with a coldness in my chest. The Church is deadly serious in its intent and the NYPD are the tool they are using. They are going to exorcise Tink, as they did Inanna. With me trapped here they are going to cast Tink into the eternal void. And by leaving her alone in my house I damn well helped them do it.
The blizzard has buried most of the cars in Gove Street so the NYPD Emergency Vehicle pulls up as close to the Emergency Services Unit as it can.
The radio crackles. 'Be advised. DI-1 on site.'… as Bill Malfiosi fights the SUV's heavy door open and steps into the bitter wind. The Emergency Services Unit and three other squad cars on Hudson and Gove are making Mardi-Gras with lights strobing the local buildings blue and red. They are joined by the camera lights and flashing orange emergency lights of the news services. NY1 monitored NYPD comms so they were no surprise, but CBS NewYork and Fox5 New York were also present. No doubt more were on the way to increase the light show. But the dark is winning as the snow sticks to the squad car light bars and TV spots and the storm lowers the sky.
Bill makes his way to the blue and white cordon tape and shows his badge to the policewoman on point. She lifts the tape for him and Bill ducks under. The tape is snatched out of her hands and whips across Hudson.
Bill leaves the officer to retrieve the tape and stumbles through the knee deep snow on Gove Street to the back of the Containment ESU and bangs on the door. It opens onto a mobile operating theatre where the large central gurney has stainless steel restraints set to hold ankles, chest and arms. The containment system has never been used, no Elemental wanting to play ball to date. Bill thinks it's a waste of money but the vehicle is warm and bright and there are two officers in the back that he knows and trusts. Veterans with both combat experience and medical training.
One of the men helps Bill haul the door shut on the chaos in the street.
'Mayor's called an emergency, Bill. Talking to the governor now about FEMA help.'
'You know that how?'
'Dispatch.'
'I didn't hear that.'
Both officers looked at one another. The taller one said,
'What do you need, Bill? We were thinking pull up as close as we can get and join you in the insertion?'
Bill sits heavily on one of the side benches catching his breath.
'I go in alone. I will call when I have the situation stabilized.'
The taller officer twists his face.
'We got orders to breach, Bill. From the top. Came through twenty minutes ago but we have been stalling till you got here.'
Bill looks at the taller man and then his fellow officer. They are embarrassed but serious. The smaller man shrugs and nods.
'Like Joe said, from the top, Bill. You didn't hear? You out of the loop, Bill?'
Bill leads a four man stack following single file through the blizzard. The snow is deep and banked high by parked cars so the line stumbles forward in a drunken walk. The street is dark. There are no lights at any of the windows. People at work. Children at school. Or something less human?
Bill reaches the bottom of the steps to Barty's house and looks up at the building. Through the heavy snow he can see pool black windows staring at the turbulent snow. The building is old. It has seen many generations come and go. There is a gravitas about the structure, a heaviness, the burden of too many lives come and gone.
Bill holds up a hand and the line shuffles to find cover, as if it were just criminals or terrorists inside. The lights from the ESU are growing brighter as it inches down the street. Bill hears the chatter of the radio updating from the nearest officer crouching low to his right, his weapon trained on the front door. Bill keeps to one side of the steps, feeling his way with his feet. The ice beneath the snow treacherous.
Bill takes another step. Keeps his eyes on the dark empty windows and can't shake the idea that something is watching back. Something thousands of years old. Something that had never really lived. Bill genuflects quickly, needing something to hold onto. Something pure. He has a flash of memory. The scent of incense. The holy stone space. The face of the priest smiling at him. The first time he made the sign of the cross. Bill takes another treacherous step.
As he reaches the front door the team begins to move, crowding the steps behind him. It's protocol and it's wrong. Bill knows standard procedure will not work. It concentrates souls in the same space, increases the density of their fear and that tension activates human instincts, instincts that share archetypes. This is all wrong. Damn the protocol, Bill thinks, I am doing this my way.
"Hold here. No ingress until I say."
The weight of the tension and, let's be honest, outright terror in the men means no one argues.
Bill tries the front door handle. The door opens inward into the long dark hallway. Some light reflects from the glass of pictures on the hallway wall. Sepia photographs of dead Baal-Bardos. Distantly a drift of light creeps up from the stairs leading to the kitchen in the cellar. Bill steps into the hallway and creeps towards the door to the front room. The room is as dark as the hallway. The only light embers from the wood fire Tink loved. And in that light he can see the shape of Campbell's partner Torres crouching in the corner of the room hunched like a child. Torres starts at Bill's arrival, then gathers himself to point to the ceiling.
The stairs are wood with no carpeting. Every step Bill makes echoes in the silent hallway despite his care. He wants to use his torch but the sudden light might alert the Elemental to his incursion and he wants to delay that moment as long as possible.
His heart is drumming a tattoo in his chest. His breath tremors in and out despite his years on the streets. Elementals are always different. Bill has inherited something, Barty would say, everyone has. An understanding the world is more than just the day to day. It's buried deep in all of us and activates at times like this. Barty's old Swiss shrink understood all this. Stella would say that was nuts, but here it is beating at his ribs and shuddering his breath, a sense of dread deeper than a fear for his life.
Bill reaches the hallway and edges closer to the bedroom door. He can hear sounds now. Whispers and a dove-like cooing sound, barely real. Then. Suddenly. A deep guttural moan. Fear? Pain?
Bill throws open the door.
"Aww Bill's shocked, shocked I tell ya." Tink cackles from the bed.
Maybe it's the way DI Specialist Bill Malfosi has stalled in the doorway to Professor Baal-Bardo's bedroom. Maybe it's the way his mouth has dropped open like a carp sucking plankton. Maybe it's the whites of his eyes or the flushing of his cheeks, blood pumping into tissue like an altar boy caught fondling a cheerleader's pom-poms. There was plenty of evidence that Tink's tease was riotously on target.
The Professor's bed is family sized, able to take everyone on a cold winter's night. Its headboard is made from solid mahogany carved with swirls and flourishes, preserved by generations of caring hands oiling and waxing the Caribbean timber. The bedclothes have been disturbed by a tempest of unrest, and in the middle of the storm a naked Tink straddles an addled Officer Campbell. There is an empty bottle on the floor, hard up against the pile of old books beside the bed, and two drinking glasses on the bedside table. The bedroom smells of aniseed, alcohol, and unnatural lust.
"C'mon Bill. It's just my way of saying sorry. I was a very naughty girl, wasn't I, sweetie?"
Officer Campbell's reply is incoherent.
The Assistant US Attorney is a tall thin man with dyed hair oiled and combed back close to the skull. In his sixties, no doubt a Harvard man, he moves briskly into the room where Barty is sitting and makes a play of placing a large file in front of him. He has an assistant, a young blonde woman equally severe in attitude and dress. AUSA Tomlin's eyes interrogate Barty while his assistant mechanically arranges pens, a legal pad and a recorder.
'Welcome to Pearl Street Professor Baal-Bardo, or should I call you Magi?'
'My friends call me Barty.'
Tomlin smiles the way an alligator smiles, teeth and aggression all gleaming.
'Let's start by updating you on your position shall we? As of 2:45 this afternoon a state of emergency was declared for the city of New York and Federal agencies have been asked to assist. That means that Federal law is now in place which, for most of the citizens of this fair city, is a technicality they needn't worry about. You, however, Professor Baal-Bardo, are a special case. On review of the evidence your initial charges have been dropped. Instead, you are being charged with one count of Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction (18 USC § 2332a) for conspiring to use supernatural forces to create a weaponised weather event causing mass disruption to NYC infrastructure, transportation, and public safety, one count of Domestic Terrorism (18 USC § 2331) whereby your acts were calculated to influence government policy through intimidation and coercion of civilian population via supernatural weather manipulation and one count of Conspiracy to Commit Acts of Terrorism (18 USC § 2339A) by providing material support including expert knowledge of ancient entities and ritual practices. The state wants to throw the book at you as well.'
Wooo so much going on , and honestly I’m shocked by Officer Campbell and Tink 🫣😂😂
Love this: "His heart is drumming a tattoo in his chest." But what about Stella? Last time we saw her, she was in a bit of a pickle, to say the least.