Chapter 15: Enter Asatro

Sunday, June 23rd, 2002

80 Centre Street Courthouse

12:17 AM

A paddy wagon was leaving the courthouse; emblazoned with decals and labels stating it was in ownership of the New York County Sheriff. Inside was 3 New York County Sheriff's deputies and a man in an orange jumpsuit. Prisoner 8311 - Joseph "Joey Sack-Of-Nickles" Saculopholus.

Joey had just been found guilty of murdering a cellmate back in Sing Sing penitentiary. Being a "former," hitman for the mob, some things annoyed the old mafioso such as the fact his cellmate had a terrible snore. Sleep apnea, or something. Joey saw fit to fluff the man's pillow - Right on the man's face. Cured the problem quick.

After a while, Joey, looking forward to getting a silent nights sleep at the prison, started boasting the fact despite getting an increased sentence to his already existent sentence, "Maaaaan, it'll feel good to be home! Be nice not to hear that fucker with the diesel-engine snore anymore; not that I did anything. You agree, champ?" He nudged the deputy beside him. Despite being shackled, the hitman made use of his limited mobility. The deputy beside him started to get annoyed, "For a guy who's death sentence just got moved up, you're awfully happy about sleep."

"It's the little things, right?" The hitman looked to the deputy across from him who looked rather nervous. He looked to have just been added to the department and he didn't like being in the back of the wagon with this man. The criminal took advantage of the situation, "What about you, kiddo? Wouldn't you agree takin' a nap before a dirt nap would feel good?" The way the man said, "Dirt nap" brought a look of terror to the young man's face.

The deputy beside the criminal pulled on his shackles and pulled him down, "Look here you piece-of…"

"Hey, knock it off back there!" the driver bellowed, "We'll be there soon enough. Save your energy!"

"Whaddya, know?" the hitman said aloud, "The second smartest man in the van speaks!" The other deputy released the man's shackles from his grip as he looked at the crook; growling, "You're gonna die soon, Sackjob. And I can't wait."

Joey chuckled in a sick way, "Well, I ain't gonna go too soon, Junior; it's still gonna be a least another 2 years on death row before my number is up!" He broke out into a laughter like he just saw a Dan Aykroyd movie; it was beyond disturbing. The two deputies in the back with the man looked to each other. They nodded. The deputy beside Joey then looked to the cab of the truck and looked into the rear view mirror and saw the driver's eyes. The driver looked and saw the deputy looking at him. The Deputy nodded to him, the driver returning it in kind.

A silent agreement had been made.

The wagon came to a stop. There was the sound of a metal door opening as the truck lurched forward again. Something seemed wrong to Joey, "Hey, wait a minute! We can't be back at Sing Sing already; It's only been a half-an-hour!" The truck pulled into the door as the darkness within enveloped the vehicle. Joey watched a dark smile start to come over the face of the deputy next to him. Once all light was blotted out, Joey began screaming in terror.

Somewhere in Staten Island

1:52 AM

It was dark. The moonlight in the sky was close to full as it shines through the windows of a large warehouse in the southwest end of Staten Island. A man came to knock on an office door. A voice called out from behind it; it was female, "What? I'm busy!"

The man recoiled from the sudden harsh response he received. He was dressed in all black none to dissimilar from a priest. He had slicked back gray hair, but looked rather young. He spoke in a hushed, but strong voice, "Madame Holly, the time is upon us; it is time for the offering." The man heard a silence. He could hear glass clanking around in the room as he stood. He spoke up, "Madame Holly?"

He heard a loud sigh from behind the door; the voice spoke more softly this time as as he heard the sound of a cork being removed from a near-empty bottle, "I'll be there. Just get the circle ready."

On the other side of the door, it's occupant heard the man speak in Swedish, "För gudarna." Inside the room, an empty shot glass was placed onto a desk covered with news articles, tabloid papers, and old dusty scrolls. The desk was lit with 5 or 6 lit candles. A near-empty bottle of whiskey poured what dregs of alcohol it contained into the shot glass filling it perfectly. As the glass is lifted from the desk, there was a copy of the National Enquirer under it, it's headline reading, Ghostbuster Unconscious! Fight With Demon Almost Kills Local Hero! The sound of the liquid being swallowed is heard as the shot glass is discarded onto the desk. A dark cloak was then lifted off the edge of the desk as its owner proceeded to put it on and walk out of the door.

Outside, several people walked around a circle in the parking lot of the warehouse. They were all wearing black - normal, but black - clothing as they stood around a large fire that burned on the pavement of the parking lot. The fire was fed with stacks of pallets from the surrounding warehouses. Young, old, black, white… people of all walks joined as they stood around the fire. In the background of the circle was a large boom crane that was turned off at the current moment. The warehouse was in fact two buildings joined together with two separate spaces, and in the middle of the buildings' roofs was a flat walkway going to a platform. The man in the black suit spoke up to everyone as he walked to the podium, "Congregation of Asatro, hear me!" Everyone stopped milling around as they turned to the man on the roof of both buildings, "Please gather around the ceremonial ring!"

Everyone closed their eyes and held hands in a circle as the man made his introduction, "Congregation, your Gydje - Madame Holly." One of the warehouse building's garage doors opened as a cloaked figure stepped forward. She walked to the head of the circle and began chanting in various languages as the sky began to cloud in the summer sky. The sky darkened the light of the moon as the woman raised her hands. At the peak of her chanting, she stopped and started speaking English, "To the faithful of the Gods, I call forth the sacrifice of the Summer Solstice! May our Earthmother, Hel, hear us and take this sacrifice as our offering in exchange for the power to resurrect Baldr in her stead!"

She lowered her hand toward the warehouse door as the two New York Sheriff's deputies halled out Joey. He was still in his prison jumpsuit but was now wearing a military style load bearing vest and a gag in his mouth. He also had a trail of blood running from his head. Joey tried to fight the two deputies trying to holler through his gag. Every time Joey became rowdy, one of the deputies gave him a short hit to the head. She looked to the sacrifice from the darkness of her cloak's hood, "The portal to the Gods has been established! Bring him into the ring!"

The deputies threw Joey down onto the ground. Still wearing his prison shackles, he barely stopped his face from slamming into the pavement of the parking lot. One of the deputies got Joey to his knees as the other walked off to the other end of the ring. The people making up the ring stood and watched as the deputy untied the gag; Joey spitting the rag out of his mouth to assist. He gasped for air as he looked to the cloaked figure approaching him. The woman knelt down to be level with the man. In the moonlight he managed to see the lower half of her face. She wore bright red lipstick; her skin fair.

He looked to her confused. He commented, "What the fuck is this? A witches coven or something? Hey, lady, Halloween isn't for another four months, you might waAAAUGH!" She put one of her black-gloved hands onto his throat and squeezed his Adam's apple. She spoke; the smell of whiskey on her breath, "Look, you drip of sweat off a Dego's ballsack, you have only one chance to redeem yourself for what you've done to this world. This is it." She turned and looked at the boom crane and pointed at it with her free hand. It's diesel engine came to life and its lights turned on as the young deputy moved the vehicle's cable down.

At the end of the counterweight of the cable was another smaller cable. The first deputy took the looped end of the cable and passed it through the hoops on the back of the vest. The hoop was then secured with a pin with a rope attached to it. Shortly after, a noose was attached to the crane's counterweight. The woman let go of the hitman and allowed him to be fitted with the noose around his neck. He coughed as he tried to clear the sensation of his throat collapsing to speak, "Hey, lady," he said in a raspy voice, "We've gotta have a way of working this out!"

"Working this out? Working this out?!" She had a level tone of voice, but the intensity was there as she grabbed the noose's knot and tightened it, "You've killed 103 people during your, 'career'!" The voice was smooth and seductive, but the words were beyond terrifying to the hitman, "You have added to the suffering this world had been enthralled in for so long, and for what? Money? Power? The thrill of having another human's life removed from this world by your hand? You will serve in the afterlife of Helheim in one of Her glorious palaces; to atone for your trespasses on the fruitless lifetaking you are famous for." She looked to the crane and pointed up.

The cable pulled taut as Joey was being lifted into the air. Joey was panicking as he was lifted into the sky by the crane, the pavement becoming further and further away. He tried to kick his feet in the air, but his legs only went so far due to the shackles. The people gathering around the fire in the circle once again joined hands as they began chanting. Joey was beginning to cry out as he was raised higher, "Wait a minute! Wait! I'm in the with Bishop family! I can get you whatever you want! I can find better sacrifices than myself!" He continued like this as he ascended.

He was high enough. The woman gave a cutting motion to the crane driver. The crane's engine stopped as Joey was jerked around by the sudden stopped motion of his raising. He looked around him and saw the city in the distance. He looked down and saw the fire burning below him. He started praying.

The woman grabbed the rope coil from the deputy and raised it up in her hand, "May the one who has been trespassed by our lamb step forward and receive his justice!" The deputy running the crane climbed down and walked into the circle. The woman and his fellow deputy stepped back as the young man with the New York County Sheriff's uniform looked at the rope, then looked to the man crying for help in the air. The fear began to leave the young man's eyes as he looked up. He knew exactly what he was doing, "I wouldn't know; you tell me what it feels like to take a dirt nap… at all!"

The young deputy pulled on the rope with vigor. The pin was pulled free from the steel cable holding the man up in the air; the cable slipping through the hoops in the vest. Joey Saculopholus careened to the ground from over 50 feet in the air. The people looking on kept chanting. He screamed in terror as the slack in the noose's rope started to run short…

SNAP! The rope pulled taut.

BOOM! Lightning flashed into the ground within the circle.

Joey's feet dangled lifeless above the fire; one of his prison issue footwear falling off and falling below. The shoe hit the ground next to a golden recorder with a dragon-like head on the end that had appeared augered into the asphalt, smoke coming off of it. The chanting continued as the woman approached the flute and pulled it from the ground. Her gloved hands fondled the musical artifact as a sound of surprise came from her red lips, "They have heard us!" She held the flute into the air for all to see. The chanting slowly stopped as everyone's eyes looked upon the golden device in their leader's hand.

4:02 AM

The door to the warehouse office opened as the cloaked woman walked in with the man in black following behind. The man closed the door as he spoke, his gray slicked back hair staying as steady as his voice, "I'm glad that worked; we should have done that on the actual solstace 2 nights ago."

"Did you have doubts, Matthew?" The woman asked as she removed the hood. Revealing herself she was very beautiful with dark brunette hair kept at shoulder length and gray eyes so light they were almost white. She looked at the recorder in her hands as her compatriot walked up behind her, also eyeing up the device in her hand, "I had a few. After all, the Gods are specific; we are at their behest, after all."

"Not always. After all, Gozer, Ares, and Cathulu were stopped." The man placed his hands onto her shoulders as she began to massage her slightly, "Ah, yes; Sumarian trash. People keep believing that Greek Gods and Roman Gods are the same thing. Just because the Ghostbusters stop one they think they have stopped all of them. The Daughter of Loki will be heir to this realm; not some poor sap like Ivo Shandor or that Vigo character."

"Remember, Matthew," she spoke looking over her shoulder, "They've stopped Ragnarok before; Jeremy Whittington envolked a power he was too weak to carry out alone. Among all of us, they can't talk all of us down," she looked back to the flute and her face turned to one of annoyance, "We just don't have one thing; the notes to the Symphony of Destruction. The exact incantation was lost when Wittington and his ugly friend destroyed the scroll."

"Among other unfortunate things."

The woman threw the man's hands off her shoulders and turned to face him, "The only other ones to even know would be Spengler and Stantz, and Stantz is selling used cars in Idaho. Pathetic end to the man, but at least he's less likely to oppose us."

"Spengler revitalized their operation," the man turned and walked the office as the woman removed her cloak revealing a white blouse and a skirt, "Even though Spengler may have the vital information we may need, he is also our greatest hurdle; him and his students. The artifact at the museum may be our best alternative."

The woman had put down the recorder, removed her gloves, and grabbed her shot glass. She opened a new bottle of whiskey, pouring another shot, "Don't forget that Shannon that he hired," she lifted the shot glass and gulped the drink down. She slipped the glass from the tips of her fingers to her palm. She seductively rolled the glass in her hand looking at the National Enquirer tabloid on her desk. She picked it up and looked at the photo on the front cover. It was a picture of all 5 field Ghostbusters with a red circle around Dan's face indicating which Ghostbuster the story was about, "I am curious how such a man stopped a Draugr by himself," She laughed a bit to herself, slight inebriation causing an almost loose sense of stature as she looked at the tabloid.

The man had come up to her, knocked the shot glass from her one hand, and grabbed the tabloid from the other, "If we're to succeed, you need to get sober; we can't even allow one slip," he held up the tabloid to her face, "These five may mean our death if we're not careful."

"What's wrong Matthew?" the woman asked in an inebriated tone, "Afraid it's the end of the world?" She turned to pick up her shot glass when the man spoke, him putting the tabloid down, "Worse yet, it may no longer be five field agents." She stopped short and stood looking at the man, "What?"

"There's another. I was going to save this until you had all of your faculties, but I guess I have to force sobriety on you!" the man proceeded to reach into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a small set of Polaroids. It was of a taller Japanese woman wearing a green flight suit with magenta trim in front of the Pottery Barn on 5th Ave. She had brown hair in a ponytail and green eyes, "We don't know much. She came to their headquarters last Tuesday," he handed the photos to her as he continued, "These were taken on Friday. She looks to be training as a trap operator with that Griffin girl. What's more, just a few hours ago, Shannon, Rivera, and this girl were in their company vehicle after Jackson, Miller, and Griffin came back with it. They may have started a night shift."

"Excellent work, Matthew!" the woman said as she eyed the young woman in the pictures, "She looks formidable; this may be fun," she looked back to the man in the office, "Scrub the site."

The man bowed slightly as he again spoke in Swedish, "För gudarna."