by Lincoln Cole
There seemed something visceral about that moment in time that stopped Haatim cold. The smell of gunpowder, and the knowledge that he had pulled the trigger. He could rationalize his sudden action because it wasn’t his sister anymore, and he had to stop her to keep her from hurting his friends or getting away. However, that didn’t change the subconscious feeling he had that he’d shot Nida.
He’d shot his sister.
“Stop,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Don’t make me shoot you again.”
The demon chuckled, but then wound up coughing instead. “You think you’ve won.”
“We stopped your ritual,” he said. “It’s over.”
“You think this was about a ritual?” she asked. “After all this time, you still believe you understand what’s going on.”
“You wanted to bring back Surgat. We know your plan, and it’s over. The ritual didn’t complete. It’s over.”
“The ritual? A mere misdirection,” Nida said, coughing. She rolled over to look up at Haatim. “A charade I used to bring you here because I knew that it would bring her here.”
A sickening feeling filled the pit of his stomach. “What?”
“Don’t you get it, Haatim? The ritual finished years ago. Surgat has come here already. Twenty years ago.”
The words floored Haatim, and the gun slipped out of his hand and fell to the ground. He looked at the ruins of the collapsed church, and his heart skipped a beat. “Abigail.”
Nida groaned and smiled, her mouth full of blood, which dripped down her chin. “Now, you understand. We began the ritual twenty years ago. I just came here to finish it, and Abigail gave me the last piece I needed. All I had to do was wake her with the blood.”
***
Abigail pushed back against the suffocating mental weight holding her down to the floor of the church, but already, she knew the fight as hopeless after only seconds. It felt like when the other demon had possessed her nearly a year ago, only this time so much worse.
There would be no controlling this demon: she wouldn’t manage to fight back against it and try to bring Arthur through. That had proven a lie to bring her out here, a trick, and she had fallen for it completely. The only thing left of the ritual was to bring Surgat to life with the blood of the seven, which Nida had poured over her head.
And Surgat had truly awakened.
It lay inside of her, and she could feel the changes happening to her body while it took control. It evolved her, creating something new. Bit by bit, she became something else.
Where the blood touched her skin, it sizzled and boiled, and she understood that Surgat changed her on a fundamental level. The same as the changes she had experienced up to this point, becoming stronger and faster and less in control, but so much more.
“You need to fight it, Abigail,” Dominick said, holding onto her. “Control it. Whatever’s happening to you, I know you can beat this.”
The words seemed meaningless, and Abigail pushed them out of her mind. Dominick had no idea, and his juvenile belief that things would turn out okay wouldn’t help her at all. Of course, she couldn’t fight Surgat. No way could she overcome something like this in a straight-up brawl.
No, only one way remained to end this.
A moment later, another presence stepped up next to her. Frieda. She glanced up and saw the look of extreme sadness and fear on Frieda’s face.
“What happened?” Frieda asked.
“I don’t know,” Dominick said. “I found her like this.”
“Nida completed the ritual.”
“You mean …?”
Frieda ignored him, focusing all of her attention on Abigail. “Push it back down, Abigail. You can’t let it take over because when it does, you will be lost forever.”
“I can’t,” she muttered, but the words barely sounded human anymore. Already, her throat had changed. Inside there, now, something else grew. A heaviness entered her voice like someone spoke with her.
Her body convulsed and made jarring movements every couple of seconds, though without any pain. Everything felt dull like heavy drugs had numbed her body.
“You have to fight this. Arthur prepared you for this. He worked toward this moment his entire life. He knew you would have the strength to handle this.”
“What are you talking about?” Dominick asked, confusion evident in his voice.
Fried continued to ignore him. “Fight, Abigail. Don’t give up. You can overcome this.”
She could hear Frieda’s words, but they sounded far away like she spoke on the other side of a closed door. Abigail pushed and struggled against the weight of the demon that crushed her existence, and she grew desperate. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold onto her body.
The longer the struggle went on, the more difficult it became for her to maintain the fight. Exhausted, she weakened as they struggled against one another, but her opponent proved unyielding. It didn’t get tired, didn’t wear down, or lose focus. It just … was.
She couldn’t win.
Her body convulsed faster, and she let out gasping sounds, doing her best to hold the demon at bay but giving up centimeter by centimeter. Abigail retreated further into herself against the pain and nothingness of it all. She had no idea how to reverse the tide and fight back.
“Abigail,” Frieda said, though this time it came out in barely a whisper. Despair laced her mentor’s voice. Frieda’s faith in her had diminished. “Please, Abigail. You can do this. Don’t give up.”
They both knew the outcome, however. Abigail only delayed the inevitable.
***
Frieda watched with growing desperation as Abigail’s body twitched and convulsed. It felt like one of the worst moments of her entire life, watching Abigail struggle with a burden that remained hers alone to bear. She wished she could help, that she could take this away from her, but she couldn’t.
What had gone wrong? The cultists all lay dead around her, and their blood drenched the floor of the church. The ritual should have ended, and yet here Abigail knelt, struggling against Surgat’s onslaught. How had this happened?
She must have missed something.
Realization crept in that she’d run out of options. Frieda had prayed that this encounter could turn out differently, but Nida and the cult would never stop hunting after Abigail if they didn’t confront them now. Part of her had feared that things might end like this.
Perhaps, she should have simply killed Abigail back in the shop instead of putting her through this pain.
The devastation of what she had to do wracked her entire body, and she could hardly imagine going through with it. Abigail seemed like a daughter to her, and killing her would feel akin to killing a part of herself.
However, she could see no other way. A tear streamed down her cheek, and angry, she brushed it away. Arthur had dreaded this ever happening and had given everything to keep Abigail safe. They had both hoped this moment would never come to pass. Every choice and mistake she’d made revolved around this.
Yet, she had failed.
A sheen of sweat covered Abigail’s skin, and her eyes fell in and out of focus. Frieda felt an emotional helplessness, a deep well of sorrow within her soul that threatened to swallow and drown her.
Abigail would lose the fight.
All of a sudden, Abigail’s eyes came into sharp focus, and she looked up at Frieda, a terrified expression on her young face. She reached into one of her pockets and eased out the syringe of poison with a shaking hand.
Abigail had almost merged completely with the demon and battled for her very life. This poison would end her suffering.
***
Abigail’s grip on reality weakened as the demonic side of her fought for control. It tried to take over and knew that Frieda and Dominick stood there. It wanted to kill them and taste their flesh.
No, she realized in horror: she wanted to kill them. The demon shredded her very existence, destroying her identity and removing her from reality. I
t wanted to claim this shared body as its own and had prepared for this fight for a long time.
Part of her—a growing part—simply wanted to give up and allow herself to die. It would feel easier, less painful, and had become inevitable. She might as well give up now instead of delaying the thing bound to happen
Those thoughts hadn’t come from herself. They’d arisen from the other presence, the one trying to seize control of her body. It wanted to convince her that it had already and that she should give up. It wanted to trick her into surrendering.
Which meant …
She still might have a chance.
She thought back to their encounter in the park when she’d first faced-off against Surgat. He had feared something, as though she might remember something or knew something about him that would prove bad for it. That meant she had a weapon she could use against it. The only problem was that she didn’t know what that weapon might be.
Without it, she didn’t stand a chance. Abigail pushed back with all her might, taking a different tactic to try and buy some time. She envisioned them as separate entities, each trying to take control, and rather than just trying to retain control over her body, she pushed against the demonic presence too. Though a part of her, it didn’t seem a part to which she had to relinquish control.
Her body moved against her commands, but that didn’t bother her as much this time. Now, she had a plan, a goal, and something on which to focus. The demon felt afraid because it knew that, at the end of this struggle, only one of them would continue to exist. And the thought that she might win terrified it.
That gave her confidence and renewed hope.
The struggle remained far from over, however, and it would take a long and arduous battle for her to survive. She only prayed that the demon wouldn’t manage to outlast her.
It went on for what felt like forever, and Abigail still had no idea what weapon she might use against the demon. She had it but couldn’t imagine what it might be, and her panic made her desperate.
And, now, the demon had control of her body. Each second that slipped past, the closer it came to having complete control and doing whatever it wanted. She felt exhausted and weak and had no more options.
It had finished.
***
Frieda couldn’t allow Surgat back into the world, but the thought of using the poison on Abigail ripped her heart to shreds. Arthur had given his life to protect her, and she couldn’t imagine allowing all of his work to get lost in these final moments.
She took the syringe.
“Do it,” Abigail said, convulsing. “Please.”
“Do what?” Dominick asked, glancing back and forth between the two women. Realization dawned on him, and he grabbed Frieda’s arm. “No, no, no. Frieda, you can’t!”
Tears streamed freely down Frieda’s face now. She reached down and rubbed Abigail’s cheek.
“Do it,” Abigail said again, shaking in pain. “End it.”
“I’m sorry,” Frieda said.
She stuck in the needle, pushed down the plunger, and pushed the poison into Abigail’s neck.
***
Abigail had imagined that the poison might feel painful. After all, it was designed not only to kill her but to do enough damage that she could never recover. However, she had never envisaged the sheer level of pain it could inflict upon her when Frieda pushed it into her system.
It seemed like knives of ice pumping through her veins, and all her muscles clenched painfully at the exact same time. She could feel the pain now, no longer numb to what went on, and every synapse fired in alarm as agony coursed through her body.
Her only consolation came from the fact that the poison hurt the demon just as much as it did her. The evil within strained, and the pressure on her lessened, as the poison did its deadly work.
Time passed, what felt like a lifetime but, doubtless, only seconds, and then everything slipped away. The world made less sense, and nothing seemed to matter. The pain never let up; Abigail could simply feel everything in her body shutting down as the poison washed over and through her. She felt as if she floated on water, drifting away from reality, and everything turned to black.
The demon clung on, trying to retain control of her body, but now, both of them had lost. Her body died faster than it could heal and became hostile to Surgat as well as Abigail, and the poison inside her brought the demon nearer death. It had nowhere safe to retreat.
She crawled inward, fleeing from the pain and the agony of it all, and locked herself away. Until they both died, she would just have to wait it out. It would only take a matter of time. Her body twitched, though not as much now that she’d gone into shutdown. Everything drew toward the end, and soon, it would all be over.
***
Haatim looked at his dying sister, who lay on the dirt and grass outside the partially demolished church. The demon still tried to crawl away, but Nida’s body had weakened and wouldn’t last much longer.
Every possible emotion flooded through him, from heartache to despair to unimaginable levels of loss. He had watched his sister die once already, and even though nothing remained but the demon, it hurt nearly as badly.
He knelt next to her and reached out. “I’m sorry, Nida,” he said.
“Nida isn’t here.”
“I know she is. I’m sorry it had to end like this. You deserved so much more. You deserved a full life, to grow old and be happy. I’m sorry that we failed you; that I failed you. Please, forgive me.”
“You are weak, Haatim. Weak and pathetic. Your sister knows it. You know it. I know it.” The demon gasped as it dragged itself across the ground. “When I return to hell, I’ll take your sister with me.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Oh, I can and will. Your father put her here with me, and I sure as hell will not let her go. Your only prize here today comes from knowing that your sister will spend eternity with me because of you.”
“You will not take her.”
“We are both dying, and I am taking her.”
“No.” He reached out and placed his hand on Nida’s forehead. “You shall go to hell, but not her.”
“You can’t stop me. I defeated you once; I’ll do it again.”
“Maybe.” Haatim closed his eyes. “Perhaps, you will, but you sure as hell won’t take my sister.”
With a deep and steadying breath, he bridged the connection between himself and the demon.
The effect proved instantaneous, and the demon lashed out at him as soon as the connection formed. Ready to fight, it knew this made the only chance it would have to survive. It attempted to force its way inside Haatim’s body to dominate him, fleeing from his sister’s broken sack of flesh to take over his. He could feel the demon’s glee when it thought it had tricked him.
However, the evil creature had done just what Haatim had expected it to do. The sheer brutal weight of the demon pressed down on him, trying to suffocate him, but instead of attempting to crush the beast like last time, he focused on misdirecting its energy.
The demonic presence washed over him, but he refused to allow it to enter his body. He held his eyes closed, keeping up a steady barrier of essence and energy against which the demon crashed. It reared back and crashed again, trying to burst through and seize control, but Haatim held it at bay.
His theory worked along the lines that the demon could exist outside of a host body, but not for long. It needed a safe harbor to protect itself lest it get dragged back to hell by its nature. If he had it right, then he had an edge: he didn’t need to crush or banish it but simply to wear it down.
A few seconds passed with the demon trying to break down his barrier, and sweat beaded on Haatim’s face while his concentration waned. How long could he hold up the barrier? The fear that his theory would prove wrong crept over him.
However, it turned out that he didn’t have to hold on for long for it to get proven correct. The hits became weaker and weaker as the demon wore down, and he could s
ense the realization setting in for the beast that it couldn’t defeat Haatim like this. It could beat Haatim in a straight-up fight, but he didn’t plan to give it one.
Then the demon gave up and prepared to return to Nida’s body to regroup. It sought the safety the body allowed, even as it died. If it made it back, then it would fulfill its promise and drag Nida to hell.
Haatim focused all of his energy into one final push and reached out mentally toward his sister, forming a similar barrier around her body to block the demon from reentering.
The effect brought disorientation and confusion, as though he’d somehow fractured his mind into a million little pieces. The demon crashed against the two barriers and mentally cried out in rage and frustration, but Haatim could no longer sense the demon itself. Only its rage and fear as he blocked it from the two bodies.
The hits came rapidly, and each time, his concentration wavered while the disorientation intensified. He started to lose focus of where he was or what was happening, and only clung to the fragile reality by telling himself he couldn’t abandon his sister.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. No more hits, no anger, nothing.
A trick? Did the demon want to get him to lower his guard? Whatever, he couldn’t hold up the barriers for much longer. Sweat poured down his face, and he trembled from weakness as his mind fell apart and fragmented. Trick or not, he was done.
With a pained sigh, he dropped the barriers. It seemed as if his mind snapped back into place with a rubber band, and the weakness and nausea washed over him in heavy waves. He leaned to the side and vomited, and his eyes became blurry and unfocused.
The disorienting effect lasted a full minute before, finally, he regained control over himself. Then he looked down and saw his sister lying on the ground in front of him. She remained alive, but barely, and occupied her body alone.
The demonic presence had vanished. It left behind barely any trace. It had gotten dragged back to hell, he realized with relief. It had gone.
Nida breathed softly and watched him, holding a hand over her chest. Her expression one of calm even as she lay dying.
