by Lincoln Cole
Over the next few seconds, the world faded in and out of focus, and he tried to sit up. His motorcycle companion lay on the ground next to him, and then managed to stagger to her feet while shaking her head to clear it. She looked dazed and disoriented but otherwise okay.
A car door slammed shut, and shouting came from behind. He rolled over. Feet rushed toward him. Then came gunshots and shouts, but Matt couldn’t wrap his head around events.
Was it the woman from before? He didn’t think so. This seemed someone new.
Matt rolled over onto his back and looked up. Someone stood over him. The man he’d seen earlier in the market—the bald one, who had brushed up against him. He knelt and fired at someone overtop the hood of a silver car.
Matt let out a groaning sound, reaching out and grabbing the man’s leg. “Help!”
Or, at least, he tried to cry for assistance. Neither his arm nor his mouth would answer the call of his brain, and when he looked over to the side, he saw that his right arm had twisted backward at an odd angle, bent and covered in blood. A bone protruded, and it took him a second to realize that the bone belonged to him.
“Uhhg,” he said, shifting again and letting out a sharp whimper of pain.
The man looked down at him, an angry grimace on his face. He looked disgusted, aiming his gun down, directly at his face.
“No,” Matt mumbled.
He didn’t even hear the gunshot.
Chapter 22
As soon as Matt Walker had held up the tracking device for her to see, Abigail knew she was in trouble. She recognized it. The device came from the Church officials that hunted after her.
She had become aware that the Catholic Church had put out a search for her for several days, she just hadn’t imagined that they could catch up to her like this. They’d caught her off-guard completely, as well as unprepared when they rammed her bike, and she felt fairly certain she’d broken an ankle in the subsequent crash.
Matt appeared worse off, but that didn’t last long, as the Church assassin finished him with a bullet to the face. Not kidding around, they seriously wanted her dead. Civilian casualties, clearly, posed no problem.
Abigail forced herself up from the ground; she couldn’t waste even a second. The passenger had already gotten out of the car and attempted to get a bead on her, but his partner hadn’t managed to extricate himself from the seat.
She drew her pistol and staggered toward the driver’s side door. A tall man with a sharp face sat looking at her and trying to get out of the seat. He’d buckled himself in, but it had gotten damaged in the crash and had stuck. It wouldn’t let him loose.
The man reached over and attempted to draw a gun from between the seats.
Abigail didn’t give him the chance, but instead, aimed through the front window and fired into the car, putting a bullet between the man’s eyes.
His partner came around the front of the car with his gun raised and ready to shoot. He fired at Abigail, but she’d dove out of the way already, and the bullet went over her head.
She scrambled along the back of the car, staying low, and then rounded the back to behind the trunk. She could feel as much as hear the assassin pursuing her, firing off rounds, and then one clipped her in the hip.
A flare of pain shot up her side, and she staggered, landing on her knees behind the trunk of the silver car. She forced herself to keep going, picking herself up and testing her balance. It hurt, a lot, but she could still move.
The assassin, right behind her, came in fast. Out of bullets, he had drawn a knife as he rushed around the car at her. She ducked low, dodging his first attack, and then punched him in the chest.
She remained dazed from the crash and disoriented, and her opponent knew it. No way would he let her clear her head. Sure enough, he kept pushing hard, looking for an opening, and forced Abigail to retreat and give ground. She ducked and dodged away, raising her gun to fire at him. He stepped in close to her, shoving her arm wide, as she pulled the trigger, and then grabbed her wrist.
She jerked her arm, trying to extricate herself, but the man proved too strong. He pulled her in close and stabbed with his blade. It sank into her stomach, and the blade plunged deep into her tender flesh.
She sucked in air and winced, but instead of trying to get away, she forced herself in closer to her opponent. The blade went deeper into her stomach, but she couldn’t worry about that right now.
The move caught the assassin off-guard, and he tried to pull back from her to stab her again. She quick-stepped, ducked, and then grabbed his leg. Next, she yanked, tripping him up, and he fell onto his back. He landed with a hard thud on the pavement.
His arm went wide, and she stepped in and kicked the knife out of his hand. It went flying, skidding across the pavement, and landed several feet away.
The blade had severed her intestines and, maybe, punctured multiple organs, but she would have to worry about that later. The assassin rolled to his feet but proved too slow. Abigail raised her gun, hand shaking, and pulled the trigger.
Her first shot missed, and he dove behind the front of the car, out of her line of sight. In pain, she staggered after him, using one hand to hold her torn stomach and her other to aim the gun. Her body trembled, going into shock, but she didn’t have time to take care of it just then.
With gritted teeth, she staggered around the side of the car but didn’t see the assassin. He must have kept moving. She could see Matt, though, and realized he hadn’t died yet. He lay in a pool of blood, twitching slightly and making gasping noises. She rushed over to him, seeing a wound in his head. The assassin had shot him, but it seemed only a grazing hit. Still, without treatment, he wouldn’t last long. She needed to get him to help.
However, she didn’t get the chance. The assassin rushed at her from behind while she knelt in front of Matt. She heard him coming and turned, raising her gun. Though she fired, he’d come too close already. He punched her in the wrist, knocking the gun away, and then kicked her hard, aiming his foot for where the knife had cut her.
The hit landed, and her body exploded in pain. She let out a gasp and tried to back away from him. He kept coming, though. Abigail couldn’t win.
They’d come close to the water’s edge on the bridge, and it looked about a twelve-meter drop down to the river below.
Abigail tried to defend herself, but the assassin moved too fast, and the wound on her side and the gunshot to her hip both slowed her down. She blocked one attack and punched the assassin in the kidney, but he landed a solid hit to her jaw that completely disoriented her.
She fell to the side, landing hard on her torn stomach, and then looked up at the man. He grimaced at her, cracking his knuckles, and then kicked her in the chest, knocking the air out of her lungs.
Then, he turned and walked toward her discarded gun. Barely clinging to consciousness, she could see no salvaging of this fight. She had lost. And, though she didn’t know if she could survive the water, let alone the fall, she’d run out of options.
With a groan, she shifted and rolled, pushing herself backward into the open air under the bridge railing and toward the water below.
***
Matt faded in and out of consciousness, staring up at the sky and gasping for breath. He could only see out of one eye, and the sky looked red. There one second, he’d gone the next.
At some point, a face appeared above him, looking down. It belonged to the bald man, the same one that had shot him … he felt almost sure. Details came fuzzy, and his mind had trouble focusing on anything in particular. The man knelt in front of him, frowning.
“Still alive?”
The words sounded distant like they came from a long way off. Or, maybe, from down a long tunnel. Hard to tell. He faded out again, and more time passed, and when he opened his eyes, the man still stood over him, talking.
“… liability. I don’t want to do this but—”
All of a sudden, the man’s head exploded. It just disappeared, and only sk
y remained in the space it had occupied. Matt felt something hot and wet splash him in the face and on the exposed skin of his hands and arms.
The bald man’s body hovered there for a long moment, and then it tipped forward. Matt felt afraid it would land on him, but then a hand grabbed it on the shoulder and pushed it to the side instead.
Another face appeared overtop him: the torn face of the Indian woman. She looked down at him, horrifying and disfigured, and grinned a terrible grin. Her eyes glowed red.
“Hello again,” she said.
***
Haatim felt his world collapsing. Pain and suffering became all he knew, and he grew certain that he would drown in a sea of it. His sister gone, his father dead, and he didn’t know if Abigail lived or died now either. With nothing left, he had no reason to go on living.
He fought back against the nauseating waves of depression and weaknesses, the hopelessness that Nida had forced upon him when she’d attacked his psyche. These thoughts of weakness didn’t belong to him, or at the very least, weren’t right. He couldn’t give up. Even if things had gotten so desperate, he couldn’t let the demon win.
Determined, he pushed his fears and worries down, trying to get rid of them and reclaim his mind and emotions. He needed to regain control and get back to his body, or he would lose everything.
Never had he experienced anything like this, and he didn’t know how to control it. The out-of-body experience only intensified as the seconds ticked past. Every single thing felt foreign while simultaneously his own. It seemed as if Nida had hijacked his identity and left him stranded with his worries and fears used against him.
However, he could overcome. He had to. Again, he pushed back against the nether, visualizing the approach back into his body and telling himself he could do it. It felt like he had to crawl out of a hole of quicksand, but he refused to give up.
Finally, he got back in his body. Exhausted, he just lay there in the alley, panting and staring up at the sky. His heart thumped violently in his chest, and he’d never felt so grateful for life.
It felt like forever before he reclaimed his thoughts and put the fears out of his mind, but probably, it took only a couple of minutes. Haatim took a series of steadying breaths, tested his muscles, and then rolled over.
He picked himself up from the hot pavement, shaking his head and forcing away the last of the lethargic feelings.
The worst part? Not only did he lose the fight but he’d also lost his confidence. He hadn’t survived his encounter with Nida: she had let him live.
She seemed long gone, and the back door to the church hung open. It looked like a fight had taken place inside, and sirens blared in the distance, headed his way.
Had Abigail come here? He didn’t know. Nida had said she had business, so the man running the church must have been the last of the seven bloodlines she needed. Had Nida proven successful in getting the blood? From the look of the church, he’d guess that she had.
He staggered over to the street, and the after-effects of whatever Nida had done to him wore off.
Savin came down the road to him in his beat-up old BMW and pulled up to the curb next to him. Then he rolled down his window. A concerned expression settled on his face. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Haatim said. “Did you see anything?”
“No. They had a shooting in the market. Police closed off the entire area. Are you all right?”
“I think so. You said in the market? Did you find Matt?”
“Yes, in the market. I didn’t find the priest, but I heard gunshots.”
“Where?”
Savin pointed. “Over that way.”
Haatim rushed around the car and climbed in. “Let’s go. We need to see if we can find him.”
Savin drove over to where a crowd had gathered outside one of the shopping centers. They circled what looked like a destroyed motorbike, riddled with bullet holes.
Haatim didn’t see anyone else, though, and it looked like more people had gathered up ahead.
“Keep going,” he said.
Savin drove on down the road, and they came to a river running through town. Unlike the previous sewage one, this looked a large and powerful river.
“What’s that?”
“The Mekong River,” Savin said. “It rained recently, so the water level is high.”
Haatim glanced around. Another crowd had gathered off to the left, near a bridge that spanned the river. A car had parked against the railing, and a smashed bike lay on the road next to it.
“Over there.” He pointed. “Get us as close to it as you can.”
They drove over but only managed to go a short distance before police waved for them to stop.
“I’ll be right back,” Haatim said.
He got out of the car and hurried over to the sidewalk. There, he pushed through the crowd. In front of the packed spectators lay three dead bodies. One remained in the car, and he recognized it as one of the Church assassins he’d seen hunting for Abigail earlier.
Another looked like it might have been his partner, but his entire head had gotten blown away by a high caliber round. Maybe from a shotgun.
The third body, he didn’t recognize, and it looked like he had also gotten shot in the face. No signs remained of Abigail or Nida in the area. However, whatever had happened … if either of them had an involvement in this, then they wouldn’t have gotten far.
He went back to the car and climbed in. Savin looked at him in question.
“Circle the area,” Haatim said.
“We should leave here before they close it off.”
“One quick circle,” he said. “Then we will.”
Savin put the car into gear and drove back to the main road. A lot of blocked traffic and honking ensued when service vehicles arrived and police got busy asking questions. To his credit, Savin didn’t drive fast or recklessly.
They went around the area, and Haatim kept his eyes peeled but didn’t see Abigail or Nida. Already, it grew darker out, and if the women had gotten away, they would hide out and prove nearly impossible to find.
“You saw the shooting?” Savin asked. “At Matt’s church?”
“No.”
“You were there.”
“I know, but I didn’t see anything.”
“Why not?”
“It …” He shook his head. “It’s tough to explain.”
Savin nodded. “What now?”
Haatim shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess they got away.”
He felt frustrated while Savin drove him back to the hotel. Once there, he thanked the man and went up to his room, where he flipped on the air conditioning.
Not until now had he felt so down on himself. It frustrated him that he had come so close to finding Abigail, but then she had slipped right through his fingers.
Worse, he had also run into Nida and realized himself wholly unprepared to face her. He had discovered that he had drastically underestimated her capabilities, and had barely lived to tell the story. The fact that she had let him go and could have destroyed him so easily ate away at him.
His phone rang, startling him. Father Paladina calling. Haatim groaned. He had missed his flight. It had slipped his mind completely.
He considered not answering, and then changed his mind. He clicked on the phone.
“Hello?” the priest said.
“They’re gone,” Haatim said. “Both of them.”
“What happened? I received word that you didn’t make your flight.”
Haatim had no answer.
The priest sighed, and then said, “Damn it.”
“I know. I messed up.”
“Did you find Abigail?”
“No, but Nida found me.”
“What happened?”
“She could have killed me.” The words caught in his throat. “But she didn’t.”
Father Paladina sighed. “I’m sorry.”
He sat silently for a moment, holding the pho
ne to his ear. “The Church assassins are dead.”
“I know,” Father Paladina said. “So is Abigail.”
“What?”
“One of our agents called and said she drowned in the river, and moments later, Nida killed him. When I found out you hadn’t gotten on the flight, I feared the worst.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Frieda would have killed me. But, at least you remain safe. I will call you tomorrow with details for your flight home. This time, please make sure you get on it.”
“Okay.”
“Get some sleep.”
Haatim hung up and lay on the bed. Though physically and mentally drained, he couldn’t stop his mind from worrying. Abigail had died?
No, he refused to believe that. They’d gotten it wrong before, and they could have it wrong now.
Chapter 23
Haatim got up early the next morning, several hours before his scheduled flight. Savin should come by later in the day to drive him to the airport.
He couldn’t miss this flight because if he did, he’d find himself on his own. Already, he had caused the old priest innumerable problems, and now he had to attempt to make amends.
Haatim would leave Cambodia in complete disgrace, having failed utterly to locate Abigail or free his sister from the demon possessing her. She remained in there, he felt convinced, trapped by the demon, but he hadn’t managed to rescue or help her at all.
It had turned into a wasted trip, and Nida had what she’d gone searching for. Matt’s blood gave the last key, and now she had all seven. He had no idea what would happen now, but they had failed as much as they could have in trying to stop her.
Upset and frustrated, he couldn’t just wait in his hotel room for Savin to come by, and he had several hours to kill. To that end, he decided to go for a walk to clear his head. Absently, he walked down the street and toward the market, not sure why, but he just needed to go somewhere.
Haatim put one leg in front of the other, not noticing pedestrians or cars, and focused only internally. He felt deeply troubled by everything that had happened and unable to understand where he had gone so wrong.
