The Inca Prophecy

2 The Smell

“Sí?” the woman said, frowning. She did not look sleepy or off her guard, as her caller had expected. “What is it?”

“Hola,” Madalina smiled, but when words escaped her for a valid excuse to call on the woman and her son, the teacher simply went primal. She lunged forward suddenly, shoving the woman back into the dark room. The door slammed behind them as Madalina kicked it shut, tumbling onto the floor with the woman.

“What are you doing?” the woman shrieked, but Madalina covered her mouth with an eager hand.

“Shut up! Shut up! Don’t wake the boy,” she whispered.

The child stirred in his bed, but he did not wake fully. “If you make a sound, I will shoot you in the face. Do you understand?” Madalina threatened in a low rasp that sounded authentic even to herself. She employed a few techniques she had seen in action films, but she had no idea how she was going to get out of this situation once the warning was stated. This was real, she realized at once. This was a criminal act she was perpetrating!

It’s too late to abort now. Her mind was stating the obvious, but it brought no solace. She was no criminal, and admittedly did not know what she was doing. “I saw you on the street with your son today,” she sneered in the woman’s ear. “Now, let’s go into the bathroom so that I can look you in the eye while I tell you what your fate is going to be.”

Reluctantly the woman obliged, hoping to keep the child from being traumatized by the intruder. In the bathroom off the bedroom they shared, the woman switched on the light and closed the door. She took off her black overcoat and looked even more wicked up close under the light, her black eyes as cold as the bare floor they stood on.

“Look, who are you and what do you want?” she whispered harshly. Madalina was a bit concerned by the woman’s apparent fearlessness, which would directly present a disadvantage to her efforts. It was time to prove herself the alpha female. From her pocket, she pulled the old pistol.

“I am an avenging angel and I am here to set you straight, sister,” Madalina growled softly, denting the woman’s cheek with the barrel. “I’ve been watching how to treat that boy of yours like an unwanted mutt, and if I see it again,” she huffed, “or if I see him even looking a bit distraught, I will use this bullet on you. Are we clear?”

Looking utterly perplexed, the woman nodded rapidly.

“This bullet is reserved just for you,” Madalina smeared on the malice with drunken shoddy confidence plastered on her face.

Suddenly a knock on the bathroom door interrupted the tense moment between the two women. The boy’s timid little voice muttered something from the outside, but neither woman could hear what he was saying.

“Go back to bed!” the thirty-something-year-old woman bellowed furiously.

“Hey!” Madalina reminded her with a nudge to her cheek. “Don’t speak to him like that, or else.”

The boy persisted in a weak tone, sounding very concerned for the commotion in the bathroom. “Tell him everything is fine,” Madalina commanded.

“You want me to lie?” the woman mocked her.

“Listen, bitch! The alternative is far worse,” she assured the woman with a lot more confidence than before. The teacher found that she had become more comfortable with her new role, but she still had no idea how to get out of the whole thing once she was done.

“Go to bed, Raul! I’m busy!” the woman shouted with the same indifference as before, which profited her a blow across the face with the butt of the pistol. From her nose, a splatter of crimson defiled the wall, secretly scaring her assailant. From the other side of the door the child began to sob — the worst thing for Madalina to hear. Her heart broke for him again.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart!” she called to the boy. “I am not going to hurt your mama. We are just talking about some stuff, alright?”

Without hesitation the boy replied, “She’s not my mother.”

Before Madalina could process what he was actually saying, the woman came at her with a small weapon that resembled a letter opener. Its silver tongue sank into Madalina’s solar plexus, but she hardly felt the deadly cut as the rage engulfed her. With widened eyes, she looked into the bruised face of the woman, who looked deformed by the massive blood spatter decorating her entire left cheek and brow.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you will not have him!” the woman told Madalina as she wrestled the teacher to the floor. “Tell Rudolph and his consorts that I will see them in hell before they get their hands on Raul! He is ours!”

“Ours?” Madalina asked inadvertently.

“Yes, you idiot. The Black Sun claimed him at birth and there is no goddamn way you will take him from us. He is ours!” she hissed, spitting her blood in Madalina’s face.

The teacher could not believe her ears, but she was being punctured for a second and third time while she tried to make sense of the woman’s words. Meanwhile the boy was wailing in terror on the other side of the door. She had to do something, or she was going to greet the morning in a body bag. At a loss for any aid, Madalina tried to scare her attacker off with the gun. She pressed it against the woman’s forehead and pretended to pull the trigger by pressing the shard of steel that used to serve as one.

The woman’s face exploded like a melon, as the deafening clap of the shot affirmed the kill. Stunned in disbelief and horror, Madalina’s eyes remained frozen on the ruptured skull of the corpse that was still straddling her.

“Jesus Christ!” she shrieked hysterically, yet keeping her voice low enough exude only guttural consonants of the exclamation. “Jesus, no! No! Oh my God, no!” Madalina’s face was covered in fragments of bone, her skin already sticky from the woman’s blood and brain matter. She was horrified beyond comprehension, but during what seemed to be an eternity of confusion, panic, and disbelief, Madalina knew that she had to start moving before anyone arrived at the door. The shot fired had been loud and unmistakable.

With great effort, she shoved the dead woman off of her, struggling to free herself from the dead weight. The floor was slick, making it almost impossible not to slip, but she knew she would be discovered if she did not get going within the next few seconds. Already she could hear the sounds of muffled voices approaching as people in the rooms nearby emerged into the hallways to determine where the shot had come from. The child on the other side of the bathroom door was wailing in fear, another threat to Madalina’s momentary asylum.

Electing to keep the pistol with her in molten thoughts of hysteria and movie quotes like ‘no weapon, no proof,’ the teacher shoved the old firearm into her bra and staggered toward the basin to rinse off most of the mess. Before she exited, she put on the woman’s black overcoat to conceal her bloody clothing and slipped her wet arm around the door to switch off the light.

“Raul?” she whispered in the darkness, following the boy’s whimpers. “Raul, I am not here to hurt you.” She had to think quickly. This was not the time to be held up by having to sweet-talk a child, but he was, after all, the reason for her visit. In her mind, she made herself into a little girl to find a way to persuade him. “Raul, I was sent to save you. I’m here to help you, so you have to come with me, alright? Let’s just leave quickly, before they catch us and keep us here. What do you say, hey?”

“Who sent you to save me?” he asked through his sobbing. She was elated that she had gotten his attention, at least. The teacher slowly approached him by sound and sat down on the carpet so as not to alarm him.

“Your angel sent me, of course,” she said softly, sniffling quietly. Madalina was in shock, weeping in panic, but aware that now was the pivotal time that would determine the success of her escape. She had to play it very calm and keep the boy’s sensibilities about the incident tranquil.

“I have no angels,” he said casually.

“Of course you do,” she replied. “Could I ask you to turn on the light, dear?”

“Why?” he asked, his voice still riddled with fear and uncertainty.

“So that we can see where your shoes are. You know, we don’t have much time before those angry men outside burst in here. We have to go, sweetheart,” she said with as much composure as she could manage.

“I don’t even know your name,” he reasoned, and switched on the light. The sudden brightness prompted her to pinch her eyes shut. “Are you blind?” he asked innocently. Madalina couldn’t help it; she laughed. She opened her eyes, still bloodshot from crying.

“No, sweetheart, I’m not blind,” she smiled. “Now, put on your shoes.”

“Then what’s wrong with your eyes?” he asked, retrieving his loafers from under his bed.

“Just sore,” she explained, evoking his pity.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “My mother’s eyes looked like that too.”

For some reason the statement frightened Madalina. It brought up a myriad of questions about the woman in the bathroom that the boy had revealed was not his mother. She dared not change their fickle understanding at this point, so she had to keep the questions for later.

“Shoes on?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay, let’s go get some hot chocolate, right?”

The boy smiled, his face beaming. That alone made it all worthwhile to her.

It worked! Now make sure you don’t fuck up before you’re in the clear, her inner voice warned. Madalina stood up and dusted off the coat, cringing at the secret it held underneath, away from the child’s eyes. She held out her hand, and little Raul took it with trust.

Casually she opened the door, acting concerned enough to play into the befuddlement of the other guests of the motel. Her heart raced uncontrollably, rendering her stone cold sober, and she reckoned that hurrying from the motel would only stir up suspicion. For now, the teacher and the small boy walked in the direction of the stairs that would lead down to the main hallway. It would lead them to the street, and hopefully to flight.

Nobody seemed to have noticed them in the commotion of the frantic searching and speculation between staff and guests, for which Madalina was endlessly grateful. However, her reluctant gratitude was challenged when they exited the motel. A crowd had already gathered outside, many having heard the gun shot from the establishment they all knew to be quite a peaceful place, normally without much incident.

“Did you see what happened?” a police officer arriving on the scene asked Madalina.

“No, my son and I were just going in to look for a room when we heard the shot, so we came right back out,” she acted superbly. “I don’t want to stay over in a place where people shoot guns, my God!”

“Yes, get your son out of harm’s way,” the officer told her, turning towards the other people. “Come on! Get away from here. You want to get shot too?” he shouted at the onlookers swarming around the motel corner doors. “Go on! Get away!” His voice gradually faded in the din of the night traffic of the city as Madalina and her new charge careened through the park and people.

“When are we getting hot chocolate?” Raul asked.

“Soon, sweetheart, soon. We are going to the best hot chocolate place, I promise,” she panted, occasionally checking her trail.

Raul pinched his nose. “Good, because that blood on you is making me feel sick.”