by Lincoln Cole
“So you could find the next target of the demon.”
“No, the real reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sidelined me. I should be out there, helping Dominick keep Ms. Reinfer safe, but instead, she’s got me here with you. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You don’t have to tell me, but at least stop lying to me. You’ve watched out for me since I arrived and made sure I don’t try to leave.”
The old priest studied Haatim for a while before standing, “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
Father Paladina didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and headed toward the exit of the library. Haatim slid his laptop away into his bag and then followed, rushing after the old priest. He followed him out into the afternoon sun, blinking as his eyes adjusted from the dim library.
They went across the street to where the car sat parked and climbed in. The driver looked at them in the rearview mirror.
“Take a break, Mason,” Father Paladina said.
The driver nodded, opened the door, and slipped out of the car. Haatim, through the front windshield, watched him walk down the street and disappear around a corner.
“What are we doing?”
“Some things are best discussed in private.”
“What things?”
Father Paladina glanced over him, “Frieda did ask me to keep you here. She asked me to keep you safe.”
“From who?”
“The Church.”
***
“What?”
“Frieda doesn’t want me to tell you this, but you have a right to know. Assassins are, after all, surviving members of the Order and Council, including Frieda and Dominick. You are not a member of either organization, and thus not a likely target, but Frieda felt afraid that you might get targeted by association if you stayed out there with them.”
“Wait. Back up. What do you mean that they’re after Frieda and Dominick? Church assassins?”
“Yes.”
Haatim gasped. “Why?”
“I don’t know the full details. After the Council got attacked, an order went out. I stalled it for a few days to give Frieda time. That’s what I’ve been doing these last few days. Now, I’ve reached the end of what I can help with. She’s on her own.”
Haatim shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would the Church want to kill the Council? We were the ones that got attacked.”
“They, not you,” Father Paladina said. “I wish I knew. Frieda knows, I believe, but she refused to elaborate when I asked her.”
“So, she sent me here?”
“And I’m not supposed to let you leave until this finishes,” Father Paladina said.
“So, basically, you can’t tell me anything else?”
“No. I’m sorry. That’s the extent of what I know.”
Haatim let out a sigh. “Then, what can you tell me?”
“What can you tell me?” Father Paladina asked. “I know little about what happened out in Switzerland.”
“I wasn’t there, but when the demon controlling my sister came through, she spared no one. They killed everyone except for Jun Lee.”
“Did you confront the demon?”
“No,” Haatim said. “Will I be able to?”
“Maybe, eventually, but not yet.”
Haatim sat in thought. “But, you mean I will be able to banish the demon. I could send it back to hell, and then my sister …”
He didn’t finish the thought, seeing the frown on the old priest’s face. “No, Haatim. I’m sorry. Your sister is gone.”
Haatim felt a surge of hope at the prospect, and he didn’t quite believe the priest. The thing was, from everything he’d read in the accounts, if he banished the demon, the host would manage to recover and go back to normal. It had even been reported to happen with people thought to be dead.
Maybe, he could rescue Nida.
“Haatim, if the demon completes the unbinding and lets loose Surgat, things will go very badly very fast.”
“Why isn’t the Church trying to stop all of this? Shouldn’t they help Frieda stop this instead of hunting her and Dominick?”
“We are trying to stop it, but through different avenues.”
“What do you mean?”
Father Paladina rubbed his eyes. “The odds of Frieda and Dominick succeeding at keeping Jill Reinfer safe from the demon look slim at best. We have agents trying to locate the demon instead and stop it from doing this. Some of our best operatives are dealing with this threat directly.”
“By hunting down the demon?”
Father Paladina nodded. “I apologize if that offends. I know it has possession of your sister.”
Haatim lied, “It doesn’t offend me. I came to terms with that a while ago. Now, I just want to put her to rest again. Do you know her location?”
Father Paladina hesitated and didn’t reply. From the look on his face, Haatim could tell that he hid something.
“What? You know?”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t want to tell me?”
“Frieda asked me not to. In any case, we’re not certain that the demon is there.”
“I’m getting sick of Frieda deciding what I should and shouldn’t know. Tell me, please.”
Father Paladina nodded. “I understand. We aren’t sure, exactly, where Nida is, but the feeling of the Church is that it will be where we find the person hunting her, and our last report places that person on a flight into Cambodia at the Capital, Phnom Penh.”
“Cambodia?” he asked, shaking his head. “Why? What’s in Cambodia?”
Father Paladina shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Haatim froze. “Wait, you said the person hunting her is the one you’re after. Who’s that?”
“That’s what Frieda asked me not to tell you. She doesn’t want you to know our other target.”
“What do you mean? Who is it? Who is your target?”
“Abigail Dressler.”
***
At that moment, a gentle breeze could have knocked over Haatim. His jaw dropped open, and he almost fell out of his seat.
“Abigail?”
“Yes.”
“She’s alive?”
“Yes. Frieda didn’t want you to know for the same reason she wants to keep you here.”
“Because you’re hunting her.”
Paladina nodded. “Yes. We have operatives on their way there to deal with her now.”
“What?” Haatim pushed back his chair. “Why would you kill her?”
Father Paladina shook his head and looked at the floor. “I’m sorry. You knew her?”
“She was—is—my friend, and she’s saved my life countless times. I … I thought she’d died.”
“So did the Church. Until recently. After the attack on the Council, we took Frieda at her word that Abigail had perished in the train wreck, but recently, we stumbled upon evidence to the contrary. Abigail remains alive, and what’s more, we believe that she’s hunting Nida.”
“Did Frieda know?”
“I don’t believe so. I told her a few moments ago, and she seemed genuinely surprised by the information. She forbade me to tell you.”
“Yet, you told me.”
“You have a right to know,” he said.
Haatim took a moment to digest the information. Abigail alive? He’d felt certain that she’d died in the crash. How could she have survived?
And, if she did survive, why didn’t she come back to them and let them know she was okay? Why didn’t she call or contact them in some way?
Was she safe? Was something wrong?
The questions flooded through Haatim’s mind, but he already knew the answer: she didn’t want them to know she lived.
She didn’t want him to know she lived.
“Why did you tell me?” Haatim asked. “You have to have some other motive to break your promise to Frieda.”
&n
bsp; “First off, I never promised,” the priest said. “But, you are correct, I do have an ulterior motive.”
“Which is?”
“I’m not one of the people who agree with the Church’s decision to exterminate the Council. We have operatives in place to deal with Abigail, but I believe there exists a better way of handling all of this.”
“What way?”
“You could bring her back here.”
“What? If I bring her here, they’ll kill her.”
“I believe that if she turns herself in, I can keep the Church from executing her. At least, not without a formal trial. But, if they catch her outside the Vatican, they won’t hesitate.”
“Her last trial didn’t end well.”
The priest ignored him. “Will she trust you?”
Haatim hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s hope she does because you offer the only chance she has of staying alive.”
Chapter 12
Dominick made it to Mitchell’s shop later that afternoon after a few hours of driving, still unclear exactly why he’d headed out there. He had left the Reinfer estate after giving Trent a vague explanation of where needed to go.
Trent seemed surprised at his leaving but didn’t object; he promised to notify Dominick if anything changed at the manor.
Neither of them expected an attack now, not after the security had increased. Trent had enacted almost all of the changes that Dominick had asked for, as well as a few of his own to ramp up their defenses. Moreover, all of his guards carried rifles now and wore Kevlar vests. Nida would have to be a complete psycho to attack the estate at this point.
Of course, Dominick fully understood the danger of underestimating Nida, so he stayed ready to head back at a moment’s notice, and at least before Frieda got there. After the vague call from Mitchell, he’d considered not going because Mitchell wasn’t exactly known as a level-headed individual.
He should have demanded more information about what Mitchell wanted to tell him, especially as he risked pissing off Frieda and putting Jill Reinfer at risk to go check on a nut-job.
Probably, this would prove just another of his wild conspiracies. Mitchell, a conspiracy theorist, liked to talk about wild and crazy events that had, supposedly, happened in the world. Although, he did have the benefit that many of the conspiracies he blabbed about had occurred, in actual fact. That didn’t change the fact that he remained prone to overreaction and exaggeration.
The shop stood closed up and dark when he pulled into the empty lot. This time, the door sign hung flipped to “closed.” Did Mitchell ever have any customers at all? Dominick couldn’t remember ever seeing one.
The door stood locked. He knocked on the glass window, and Mitchell answered almost immediately.
“You came alone?” He peered around the corner, and then looked out past Dominick, scanning the area behind him. A look of genuine fear clouded his features.
“Yeah,” Dominick said. “I’m alone.”
“You sure?”
“That’s what you asked for on the phone,” Dominick said, a little annoyed. “Just me.”
“Come in.” Mitchell beckoned him through the doorway but only opened it a small bit. He locked it behind them, double bolted it, and then led Dominick through the shop toward the back.
With the lights off, the place looked gloomy and in just as much disarray as it had the last time Dominick stopped by.
“I thought I told you to clean this place,” Dominick said with a grin.
The look on Mitchell’s face made it clear that the mirth came unappreciated.
Dominick sobered up slightly, wondering what had spooked the man so much.
“I didn’t know who to call when I translated the information in the text because I wasn’t sure who I could trust with what was going on. Still, after everything that happened, I thought it important that I talk to someone and—”
“Mitchell,” Dominick said in a soothing tone. “You’re rambling.”
Mitchell frowned, and then took a deep and steadying breath. “You’ve been marked.”
“What?” Dominick asked. “What do you mean?”
“The Catholic Church has marked you for death. Frieda too.”
Dominick shook his head. “What do you mean? Why?”
“I have no idea,” Mitchell said. “At least, nothing I can verify. I found out from one of my contacts, but you and Frieda have become the Church’s secondary targets.”
“Who do they have as the primary?”
“Abigail.”
“She’s alive?”
“I guess so. At least, the Church thinks so, and they’ve gone after her.”
“Why?”
Mitchell scratched his chin and frowned. “That’s the scary thing and the reason I called you. I might know the answer to that question.”
***
Dominick studied Mitchell. “What are you talking about?”
Mitchell met his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Keep in mind that if Frieda knew what I’m about to tell you, she would get so mad, to say the least.”
“Just tell me.”
“Okay. Here goes. Many years ago, I helped Arthur and Frieda perform a ritual. Like, one of the bad ones that the Council forbids.”
Shock hit Dominick. “You what? A ritual?”
“Yes. It was supposed to help Abigail control whatever dark thing the cult had done to her as a little girl. Over time, something happened to her, and she changed, and Arthur wanted to stop it from happening and protect her from it.”
“So, Frieda did a ritual?”
Mitchell nodded. “Yes. We performed it here.”
Dominick shook his head, a slow back and forth, trying to come to terms with that idea. The Council had firm policies against performing any sort of rituals, or spells, which meant that what Mitchell had admitted to proved tantamount to treason against the Council.
Worse, he’d also stated that Frieda formed a part of it, as well as Arthur. They, more than anyone, should have understood the risks of such an action, as well as what the punishment would be if they got caught. Arthur had, personally, executed many people for that precise crime.
“Why have you told me this?” he asked, suspicious. “Guilt? Are you just trying to get it off your chest and confide in someone?”
It made sense. After all, with the Council and Order essentially destroyed, the possibility of repercussions against Mitchell remained minute.
“I wish, but that’s not all,” Mitchell said. “The ritual made a binding. We linked Abigail’s soul to Arthur’s so that at least some of the corruption that affected her would affect him instead. We meant it to protect her and let her grow up with a normal life, but instead, it corrupted and destroyed Arthur, gradually.”
A pit of worry formed in Dominick’s stomach when realization crept in. “That’s why he …”
Dominick couldn’t finish the thought.
Mitchell nodded. “Yes. That’s why Arthur killed those families. By the end when he got locked up, Arthur couldn’t even tell the difference between right and wrong.”
It explained Arthur’s slow fall from grace into the pariah he had become. Right then, everything clicked into place for Dominick, and not in a good way. It also explained what had happened to Abigail once Arthur had gone.
“Then, that’s why things went bad for Abigail so fast after Arthur went. Arthur was no longer there to absorb whatever evil thing lay inside of her.”
“Yes.”
“You said Frieda had a part in this?”
Frieda loved Arthur, though she’d never admitted her feelings to him, but it remained hard to believe that she could go against the Council like that. Always fiercely loyal to the Council and the world she’d sworn to protect, the idea that she could become a part of something like this seemed unthinkable.
“Frieda performed the ritual. We helped and made sure everything worked as expected.”
“Holy crap.”
“I know,” Mitchell said.
“And you think that’s why the Church now hunts us? How would they know?”
“No,” Mitchell said. “At least, not entirely. I’m sure they have ways of knowing, but that’s not why. When Frieda and Arthur came here all those years ago, she brought some texts with her; photocopies out of some old book. A history of the Council.”
“The Council has a copy,” Dominick said, nodding. “Or had. But not a complete version, and the Church archived most of it. We only had certain sections that they copied.”
“Well, this copy was complete.”
“What?”
Mitchell ignored the question. “I felt that the text seemed odd when she first brought it here, but I never thought about why. After all, the ritual worked, and Abigail went back to normal, and then Arthur kept and stored the book at his home, locked in his safe.”
“So, Frieda performed a ritual against the wishes of the Council?”
“Yeah, but that’s not why I called you. Keep up.”
“It gets worse?”
“A lot. You might want to sit down.”
***
“Abigail came to see me a few weeks ago. Before she went to turn herself in at the Council. She brought the text with her from Arthur’s home.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me to look into it and find out anything I could about the ritual Frieda performed. She wanted to see if something else might prove useful; some way to stall, or perhaps control, what was happening to her and keep her from losing control.”
“Did you?”
He shook his head. “No. But I found something way worse. While going through the papers, I found a lot more rituals mentioned there than just what I’d seen originally. And, these aren’t normal rituals, but demon summoning and binding ones. The kind that are seriously off limits.”
“You mean like the Ninth Circle type of rituals?” Dominick asked.
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would those be in a book about the history of the Council?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think it is just a history of the Council. I think it is a history of The Ninth Circle, too.”
“What do you mean? You think Frieda brought the wrong book?”
