by Lincoln Cole
When that happened, anyone around her would end up at risk, and the thought of hurting anyone close terrified her. So, instead, she’d picked up Nida’s trail and pursued her all the way to Cambodia.
Abigail wrapped the clean bandage tight around her midsection. Should she even bother bandaging it at all anymore? It had healed at a prodigious rate and would barely leave a scar within just hours.
Only yesterday it had made for a long and bloody gash with torn internal organs, and yet today had become nothing more than a minor scar that seeped small amounts of blood.
She could hardly believe it: her wounds should have killed her, and yet she had a modest amount of pain and almost full mobility once again.
She might have considered it a gift had she not known from whence the healing came. This proved a side effect of the horrible ritual that they had performed over her as a little girl. It made something that she had wanted to escape, but now, never would.
“How is it?” Mitchell paused in the doorway and stared at her, awaiting her permission to enter the room. “How does the pain feel?”
“Fine.” Abigail nodded toward the beanbag chair opposite. She didn’t particularly want to talk to him, but any distraction felt nice just now. The idea of taking her life filled her with terror, and even though she knew she had to do it, she still found it difficult. “Almost completely healed. It probably won’t even leave a scar.”
“Hard to believe,” he said, taking the offered seat. “Truly a miracle.”
“Not the word I would use to describe it.”
“Dominick told me you’d died.”
“I might as well have done.”
“You know I’ll always be here for you, should you ever need anything.”
She sighed, pulling her shirt down again. “Do we need to talk about this? I get it; everyone feels upset with me, but I had my reasons for keeping it a secret.”
“We all just care about you.”
“I know. Is that what you came to say?”
He frowned. “No. I mean, yes, but that isn’t all: you asked me to look into those texts before you left.”
“Dominick told me what you found,” she said. “About the Council and the cult. Frieda filled me in on the rest. I know, now, that we got founded out of The Ninth Circle and that the Church wants us hunted down because they think we betrayed them.”
“A sordid history, to be sure. But that’s not what I meant.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Huh?”
“You asked me to look for ways to help you,” he said. “To deal with your situation … condition. Whatever.”
That wouldn’t do her any good now. Her “condition” had become much worse than Mitchell could ever imagine, and she had no way of fixing it aside from injecting the poison into her veins.
“Did you find anything to help?” she asked, regardless.
“No.”
She sighed. “I didn’t expect you would. It’s all right, though, because I’ve come to terms with—”
“But I found something else,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t find anything that can reverse or fix your situation, but I found something even more important.”
“What?”
“I think I found a way to save Arthur.”
Chapter 27
The air sucked out of Abigail’s lungs, and the world spun. “What?”
“I think I know what Nida plans to do for this ritual. The blood could create a portal and open up a passage to the other side. Once Surgat comes through, he can maintain the portal on his own and bring his demon army through.”
“And?”
“Probably, they hold Arthur in the same place the demonic army will come through.”
“What?”
“When Nida summons Surgat and the rest of his demon horde, Arthur could—theoretically—come back here with them.”
“He could come back?”
“In a sense. He would, essentially, get remade by the same ritual that creates bodies for the demonic army. Reformed. I don’t know how to describe it, but it forms a part of what the ritual does. The main problem arises in making sure that Arthur knows how to make the trip.”
Excitement coursed through Abigail. All thoughts of taking her life vanished. This changed everything.
After everything that had happened and how helpless she had felt these last few weeks, the idea of getting Arthur back struck her as incredible.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt a glimmer of hope.
She glanced up. A concerned expression had settled on Mitchell’s face. “What? What’s wrong?”
“The thing is,” he said, speaking slowly. “For this to work, we have to let Nida complete the ritual. She has to make the portal and unleash Surgat for this to happen at all.”
Um. Right. That put a damper on things. Abigail provided the vessel that Surgat needed, which meant she would need to allow him to take her over for Arthur to come back. That put her back to square one because she couldn’t let him come through.
Unless …
Frieda had said the poison would kill both her and Surgat. If she could, somehow, bring Arthur through and then use the poison on herself, then she would manage to save his life and still keep Surgat from hurting anyone else.
Not a perfect plan, but just maybe it could work.
“If we open this portal, it means letting all of the demons that Surgat plans to bring with him come too. Hell on Earth.”
Mitchell nodded. “And even if it proves successful, there’s no saying that Arthur could make the trip. I mean, it’s just a theory. An idea I had. Arthur might have become too broken in his private hell even to make the trip through the portal.”
“Arthur has strength enough.”
“Even if so, it won’t prove easy.”
“Nothing ever does.”
“Maybe it would be better if we didn’t do this,” Mitchell said, deflating and talking himself out of it. “If we just let bygones be bygones and don’t try to bring Arthur through. I mean, the idea of letting Surgat back into the world seems a little insane the more I think about it.”
Abigail let out a small sigh. She stood and went to the door. Dominick, Frieda, and Haatim shouldn’t get back for a couple of hours, but she still wanted to make sure that they didn’t overhear her.
She closed the door gently, and then went back to the couch.
Mitchell sat watching her, a confused expression on his face. “What? What is it?”
“You got it wrong. Nida doesn’t want to bring Surgat back into the world.”
“She doesn’t?”
“No,” Abigail said. “I’m already here.”
***
Mitchell almost fell out of his beanbag chair when he tried to stand up so quickly. It would have seemed comical if the situation hadn’t become so dire. He had a look of utter terror on his face while he backed toward the wall and away from her.
“You …?”
“Yeah,” she said, still sitting and relaxing. “But, not how you think. Or, at least, not yet. I’m the vessel for his passage to Earth.”
Mitchell glanced between her and the door, as though sizing up whether or not he should make a run for it.
“I won’t murder you, Mitchell.”
He had that guilty look on his face like a dog caught peeing on the carpet. “I know.”
“I realized it when Haatim saved me, and it makes sense. The Ninth Circle performed the ritual on me when I was a little girl but didn’t complete it. Arthur stopped them before they could finish unleashing Surgat, and so only part of him has reached here. The rest remains back in hell, waiting for the opportunity to cross over.”
“So, that’s what has corrupted you all this time?”
Abigail nodded. “But, I’m still the same person as a few minutes ago. At least, for now.”
He blew out a breath and sat once more. “What a relief. What do you mean, ‘for now’?”
“Nida doesn’t want t
o summon Surgat alone. She plans to unleash him inside me. I confronted him once before, and I know how much power he has.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the park when I stayed with Sara before the Council locked me up, I think I opened up a bridge connecting his two selves, and he nearly crushed me. He knew me, and something about the way that connection got set up scared him. Like we stood on equal playing fields, or that I knew something about him that he didn’t want me to find out. I can’t be sure. When Nida summons him with the blood, though, it will prove different, and I won’t stand a chance.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” she said. “That’s why the Church wants to kill me, too. I make a key, and they know it. With me dead, then Nida has no chance of fulfilling the ritual because she won’t have Surgat’s vessel.”
“Holy hell.” Mitchell shook his head. “Does Frieda know?”
“Yes,” Abigail said. “But no one else does.”
“We need to tell them.”
“No,” she said firmly. “We can’t tell anyone, especially not Haatim.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because he would never understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why I have to kill myself.”
***
“What?”
Abigail held up the needle full of poison. “That’s why I stayed in here. This poison can overcome my regenerative abilities and end my life, and once I inject it, all of this will end. Once I die, no ritual will remain for Nida to finish.”
“Can’t you just kill the demon and get it out of you?”
She shook her head. “That’s the thing, we both occupy the same body. We can’t kill one without the other. I can’t control the thing inside me. It’s changed me, and still tries to become me, and Nida will give it the power to finish the job and scrub me out of existence.”
“But, still, can’t we separate the two of you and get it out?”
“There is no ‘getting it out,’” Abigail said. “It is me. We remain bound together the same way in which the demon got bound to the original cultist at the birth of the Council. There is no removing or controlling it. We can’t just exorcise this out of me. This is me, and the only way to finish it is to kill me.”
Mitchell stayed silent for a long time. “There has to be something else we can do.”
“No. I had intended to use the poison on myself, but now, I know that I need to complete one more task before I can take it.”
“What?”
“Save Arthur.”
***
Abigail made Mitchell swear that he wouldn’t inform the others about anything she had told him. Reluctantly, he agreed, and when they arrived back at the shop, he kept his word. Maybe, she had gone too far by telling him, but it had eaten her up not having anyone in which to confide.
She still had the poison ready but felt willing to wait until after she saved Arthur before using it. The thought that she might manage to rescue him made it easier to imagine taking her life, which felt a little ironic.
It would make for her one last act of penance for everything else that she had done and the way she had ruined his life. She could, at least, give it back. Abigail should take the poison now but couldn’t bring herself to do it. If there remained even a slight chance of bringing Arthur back, then she had to take it.
If Haatim had it right about the demon going to Raven’s Peak, then everything would come full circle. It felt almost poetic. The demon knew that, too, and toyed with them. It recognized that she lay on the verge of losing control over herself and giving in to the demonic essence inside her, and with a little nudge, it would push her over the edge.
The only way this could end came from killing herself. However, she felt afraid to die. Consciously, she could understand that it made the only way to stop this demon from consuming her very existence, but that didn’t lessen the sense of dread it instilled.
Arthur’s religion claimed that suicide would damn her soul to hell, but believed that she’d gotten on that track already. After everything she’d done, she doubted an alternative ending to all of this existed for her.
And, to be perfectly honest, she felt unsure that she believed in hell anyway. She believed in evil and supernatural creatures but not in one particular religion’s hell. If killing herself proved the only way to stop Surgat, then she would do it.
But, she would do it after freeing Arthur from the demon’s clutches.
They finished packing everything and getting ready for the trip. The mood of the group grew somber, and everyone seemed on edge. Abigail didn’t make for the only one dealing with a heavy burden. It pained her to know that all of this had happened because of her, even if not all her fault.
“You ready?” Dominick asked, loading the last of the supplies into the car.
“Yep.”
“Me, too,” Mitchell said.
Dominick shook his head. “You should stay here. In case something happens to us. You’ll need to get ready to warn the Church if we fail.”
Mitchell frowned, but he didn’t object. “All right.”
Abigail felt glad Mitchell wouldn’t go with them. He had never made much of a fighter, and they had no idea what they would walk into. If things went sideways, it made it better knowing that at least one of them would survive to walk away from all of this. She gave him a hug, said her goodbyes, and then climbed into the car.
They got on the road a few minutes later, driving south from Mitchell’s shop. They would head into the mountains and to the small town of Raven’s Peak. Everyone sat silent and distracted, feeling the burdensome weight of what would happen imminently.
They had a couple of shotguns, a rifle, and holy water, which might help them in dealing with Nida, but they all felt that it wouldn’t give them enough.
None of them, she realized, thought that they would live through this.
Chapter 28
Haatim leaned against the window as they drove down the freeway. Frieda and Dominick sat in the backseat, so quiet that he glanced over to check on them and make sure they hadn’t fallen asleep. He couldn’t even imagine sleeping right now, and it had felt like a weight hung over his head ever since they’d started the trip.
Abigail drove and hadn’t said anything since they had left Mitchell’s shop a few hours earlier. She remained even quieter than usual and stared forward, eyes on the road and thoughts a million kilometers away.
What did she think about? He would have given anything to get a glimpse into her mind to see what worried her so much. She seemed even more somber than when they had flown back to Ohio from Cambodia. What had happened at the shop to make her so distant and withdrawn?
“You okay?”
She blinked. “Yeah.”
“Just worn down?” he said.
Abigail nodded. “Yeah. Rough couple of days.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. “When this is all over, I think everyone will need a good and long vacation.”
She sat silent for a moment. “Yeah,” she said, finally.
He could tell that she felt unconvinced, but she didn’t offer anything further.
“Looks like it’s going to rain,” he said, after a while.
“Yep.”
He took that as the end of the conversation and leaned back in the passenger seat. Apprehensive about everything happening, he had no idea what they would find in Raven’s Peak. Though still the middle of the day, it had grown dark enough with thick cloud cover outside that it could have been the middle of the night. The clouds hadn’t opened up, yet, but when they did, it would bring a storm to remember.
Never in his life had the weather so perfectly matched his mood as right now. He had tried reaching out mentally for his sister again, but it didn’t prove of any use. Whatever had happened to connect them, it had either gone or only made for something he could do subconsciously.
Still, it showed that she remained out there, fighting for
her life against the demon that had overtaken her. He felt ready to do everything in his power to save his sister.
“You know that she’s gone, right?” Abigail broke the silence. It seemed as though she had read his mind. She glanced over at him with a concerned look on her face. “You won’t bring her back.”
He could see the concern there, and the worry, and it gnawed at him. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she said. “I got possessed, and it gave me a horrible experience, but I stayed alive. When they took over your sister’s body, she’d gone already.”
“Maybe they brought her back to life when the demon came.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know how it all works,” he said more harshly than intended. “No one does. What we try to do, the world we live in … we don’t have hard and fast rules for any of this.”
Abigail glanced at him. “Yes, we do,” she said. “The rule is: if you live this life long enough, this world will destroy you.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m telling you, Nida is still in there. I’ll save her. I failed once. I won’t fail again.”
“We need to stop her, Haatim,” Abigail said. “I won’t allow you to jeopardize what we need to do.”
“I won’t,” he said. “But, I won’t abandon Nida either.”
“She’s gone. The demon just wants to manipulate you.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then trust me when I tell you she’s out there.”
“Even if so, what’s to say you can save her? You told me before that you confronted the demon in Cambodia and didn’t stand a chance.”
“That happened before I knew she lived. I can reach Nida and bring her back; I just need another chance.”
Abigail glanced at him again. “All right,” she said.
He could tell that she remained unconvinced but figured that offered the best he would get out of her. He worried that she, Dominick, or Frieda might try to kill Nida without giving him the chance to save her.
