by Lincoln Cole
His hope where Niccolo was concerned came two-fold: first, he could use Desiree to test Niccolo and find out how sincere he was in trusting Arthur. Niccolo had proclaimed himself willing to do anything to catch Bishop Glasser. And Arthur wanted to see how true that commitment would prove when things got messy.
Secondly, however, he did have a hope that Desiree might know something they could use against Leopold. He hadn’t managed to get much out of her in the last twenty-four hours, but Niccolo was an easy man to trust. Arthur hoped that she might open up to Niccolo about whatever relationship she’d had with the bishop.
Though a long shot, they didn’t have anything to lose. If nothing else, it would keep them occupied while they waited for news.
“I guess Abigail will want to come inside by now,” Frieda said, interrupting him from his thoughts.
“I know,” he said. Then he pulled a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge and poured a cup for Abigail and another for Frieda. He handed them to her. “Give me two minutes to get everything cleaned up and Desiree back into the basement.”
Frieda nodded and headed out the back door of the cabin. He watched her go and then let out a long sigh.
He hadn’t expected those two to show up, but it gladdened him they had. They threw a wrench into his plans, but it still gave a bright spot to his day. He’d stayed here alone with his prisoner for the last twenty-four hours, and it had worn on him.
He poured another glass of apple juice, and then went back into the living room and over to the woman he had tied to the chair. She looked terrified of him, and rightly so, but he had no intention of harming her at all.
In fact, Arthur would have taken her back home when he found out she didn’t have any solid information. She might have managed to identify him, but he doubted she would. The problem now was that he worried about her safety. He wouldn’t have any choice but to keep her here until they had dealt with the bishop.
Gently, he cut the duct tape loose except for the strip covering her mouth. This one, he peeled the edge loose, and then before she could stop him, he ripped it off.
She let out a small squeal when he did it, and he could only shrug in response. “Sorry. It’s worse if I try to do it slowly.”
The woman didn’t respond. He offered her the cup of apple juice, but she didn’t take it. She hadn’t eaten much since he’d first kidnapped her, which didn’t surprise him.
He led her over to the basement door, unlocked it, and then guided her with care down the stairs.
His prison, as Frieda liked to call it, consisted of a few enclosed rooms that he’d custom built using metal bars and cement. Dim, it had only one small window in the corner. Although it had an overhead light, it did little to make the place feel any more welcoming than a dungeon.
Desiree barely struggled, terrified, and he felt more than a little bad for what he’d done to her in all of this. He had believed that she might be an unwilling participant in her and the bishop’s relationship, but after spending the last few days with her, Arthur had become sure that she was the bishop’s victim before as much as Arthur’s now.
Ideally, she would have proven to have involvement in protecting and hiding the bishop. He’d hoped that she was someone he confided in and that she would give up the man’s location, but it proved no use. An innocent bystander, she turned out completely useless to his current mission.
When he guided her over and locked her back into her cell, she sobbed.
“I’m sorry for this,” he said. “Probably, you don’t believe me, but I really am.”
“Please, let me go,” she murmured, lips quivering. The poor woman wouldn’t even look him in the eyes.
“I would, but then you wouldn’t be safe.”
“I’m not safe here.”
She had no idea how wrong she was. Knew nothing of the supernatural world around them and that she had now become connected to it. The problem was, she only thought of the bishop as terrifying to her. He’d victimized and mistreated her for years, but she had no idea how horrible the man could actually be. She lacked the imagination to understand what might happen to her if the bishop thought her a threat to his survival.
“I truly am sorry,” he said. “Maybe one day you will understand and forgive me.”
He closed the cell, locked it, and then walked over to the stairs. He paused, though, before heading up and glanced back at her.
“If not, though, that’s okay too.”
Then he headed back up to the main floor of his cabin.
BY THE TIME HE MADE it up the stairs, Frieda had gone back inside, though she didn’t have Abigail with her. She leaned against the counter and watched through a window that looked behind the cabin. When the basement door opened, she glanced over but soon returned her gaze.
“She didn’t want to come inside,” Frieda said. “She’s too busy chasing butterflies.”
“We have butterflies outside?”
She shrugged. “Who knew?”
Arthur walked over to the window next to her, and she nodded out toward the forested area surrounding them. Abigail played out in the trees, dancing around and laughing.
“What happened to playing soccer?”
“That’s old news,” Frieda said. Her tone sounded playful ... at least, as playful as her tone ever became. She took a sip of her apple juice and then looked at it with distaste. “You find one of the cheapest juices the world has to offer, and then buy the cheapest bottle of it. I’ll never understand you.”
“Maybe you should pay me more.”
“I don’t pay you anything.”
“See? My point exactly.”
“I prefer orange juice.”
“I don’t have ‘orange juice’ money right now.”
“We might be broke, but we can still afford a few luxuries.”
Arthur laughed. “It’s been hell for you, hasn’t it? No more private jets and expensive hotel rooms.”
“I’ll make do.”
“I’m sure you will.”
He looked back out the window. Just watching Abigail play in the trees filled him with a peace and tranquility he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He could hardly believe she could have become so happy and free, considering everything that had happened to her. She had changed so much since living under the control of the cult.
When he had found her out in the manor in West Virginia, strapped down to the table, she had looked terrified and fragile. It felt nice to see her like this: a bright spot in his normally dark life, like a ray of sunshine piercing through a cloudy sky.
“You should let her go.”
It took Arthur a moment to realize that Abigail meant the woman in the basement and not Abigail. Even then, the words unsettled him. He had tried to adopt Abigail for months, and even though a large part of him worried that they would say no, another small part had grown terrified that they would say yes.
“I would let Desiree go if I could,” he said.
“People will look for her.”
“She lives alone,” Arthur said. “No family. No friends to speak of. We crossed four state lines, and no one’s reported her missing yet.”
“Still. You made a rash decision.”
“I know,” Arthur said. “But I can’t unmake it.”
“You will tip off the bishop that you’ve gone after him.”
“That’s the point. He knows we’re after him already. With luck, this will cause him to start panicking and make a mistake.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then, we’ll still find him,” Arthur said, unconvincingly.
Frieda changed the topic, “Niccolo sounds like he could prove useful. You said Niccolo exorcised a demon in Everett?”
Arthur nodded. “His first. The first he’d ever faced, actually, alone or otherwise.”
“No small feat.”
“He can be useful.” Arthur nodded. “But if he’ll get in my way or cause problems, then I need to know that sooner rather than l
ater.”
“It’s good to see you working with someone else, but we need to stay open and honest with the Church about all of this. I don’t like misleading them.”
“We will,” Arthur said. “We shall tell them everything as soon as we capture Glasser and can turn him over to them.”
“You think he has someone working for him inside the Church?”
“He has to. Probably a few people. No way has he gotten where he has by doing this alone. I promise, Frieda, that we will report everything to the Vatican as soon as we have something concrete to report.”
Frieda hesitated. “So, here we are: untrusted by the Church, broken and without funding, and now we plan to withhold information from them about a bishop that has treated with demons. Do I have it about right?”
Arthur smiled over at her. “What could possibly go wrong?”
She didn’t answer, but he could feel the worry emanating from her. Any other Hunter in her organization, he knew, and she would have flatly refused all of his demands. He didn’t like disabusing her trust, but he also didn’t plan to fail in capturing the bishop. All he needed was a little bit of time.
“The Council plans to vote real soon,” Frieda said, suddenly. She didn’t explain what she meant, but she didn’t have to either.
The vote that she spoke of would decide whether or not Arthur would be allowed to adopt Abigail as his lawful daughter.
The issue about whether or not they would have her executed had closed weeks earlier, thank God, but this issue hadn’t turned out any easier for them to resolve.
Abigail not having any paperwork caused a problem. It meant that they couldn’t find out who she was before the cult had kidnapped her. All they knew was the little girl they rescued from the cult, and she didn’t remember anything.
They worked to track down her past, but the Ninth Circle had done a meticulous job of scrubbing her identity from the world. They didn’t yet know where Abigail came from, how long the cult had held her prisoner, or who her family was or if she should be returned to them.
The first and preferable option would be to return her to her rightful family, and that felt perfectly all right with Arthur. But, after over ten months of searching, they still didn’t even know where to begin looking.
As such, Arthur had offered to take her in and raise her. The problem of his adopting her stemmed from the fact that few members of the Council trusted him.
After the stunt he had pulled in West Virginia and all the people he’d killed, he doubted they ever would again. He had become dangerous, a loose cannon, and he could appreciate their concern.
To be honest, he wouldn’t have trusted himself either. Not after what he had done, and no matter how many times he told the Council that he had changed and had become a new man, they didn’t believe it.
He couldn’t feel sure if he did, either.
Hopefully, their decision would give an affirmative, and he would become the little girl’s rightful guardian, but it wasn’t his choice to make. Up to this point, Abigail had lived with Frieda in Germany.
Arthur hoped he could take her with him in the near future and look after her. He had spent a lot of time visiting with her these last few months and found her to be a sweet and brilliant young girl.
As for the actual vote ...
Frieda wouldn’t admit it to him, but she had put off calling for a vote from the Council because of worried motivations. If she put the question of Abigail’s guardianship before the Council turned down the idea of Arthur adopting her, then the odds of being able to bring it up again would significantly reduce. Frieda wanted to make sure that when she presented the idea of Arthur adopting Abigail, it would pass for definite.
It encouraged Arthur to think that she might have enough votes to make it a reality.
“When?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “Schedules conflict, and we rarely meet in person or over the phone. Jun still feels pissed with you, too, and I’ve had to do a lot of smoothing over.”
“I won’t apologize for what I did.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to. Nor would Jun. But, there was probably a better way to handle it.”
Arthur hesitated, and then conceded, “Maybe.”
“In any case, it will happen soon. It could take two weeks or two months.”
“Okay. That’ll give me enough time to track down the bishop and get my affairs in order,” he said. “She’s traveled with you?”
“Yes. It’s seemed rather hectic. I’ve moved around to do some damage control. With our funding cut, I’ve spent a lot of time re-evaluating our investments and consolidating our assets.”
“Has she behaved herself?”
“She’s made an excellent travel companion. Though, I’m not sure she would say the same about me.”
“Just your music.”
Frieda scoffed, “Whatever she might say, she loves Tchaikovsky. You do, too, if I recall?”
“Only when I travel with you.”
Frieda laughed. “I’ll feel sorry to see her go.”
Arthur nodded, but Frieda was simply being polite for Arthur’s sake. A loner, she kept to herself mostly, and taking care of a young and rambunctious child brought more than a mild annoyance for her.
She would never admit as much aloud, but Arthur knew she only tolerated Abigail because of him.
Like most such things, he wasn’t quite certain how that made him feel.
“Will you take her home?” Frieda asked.
The question caught Arthur off-guard. He knew exactly which home she meant, and it wasn’t this one. Just thinking about it sent waves of hurt and sorrow through his body. He ached with loss.
“No,” he said, finally. “I won’t return there. That isn’t my home any longer.”
He hadn’t gone to his farmhouse in Ohio since the cult had murdered his family. He wouldn’t even set foot there and didn’t know if he ever wanted to return. Arthur had tried on multiple occasions, but each time, he found himself unable to finish the drive up the dirt road to his old house.
To be honest, he barely even thought about the place anymore. Now, it had become a distant memory full of heartache and loss.
Another life.
“Here, then? Will you guys live here?”
“Maybe.”
“You need to go back there,” Frieda said. “If only to find closure and move on.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I should just sell the place as is.”
“No,” she said, forcefully. Her sharp tone surprised him. “Not until you go back at least once.”
Arthur hesitated. In all honesty, he had no intention of ever selling the old farmhouse. It had remained in his family for many generations, and the thought of parting with it seemed unfathomable. However, he also had no intention of going back in the near future. He just wanted to forget about it.
“Fine,” he said, if only to get her to drop the subject. “I won’t sell the place, but I also won’t go back. Not yet, at least.”
“Good,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “We need to get going. We have a long drive ahead of us, and this took us quite far out of our way. Abigail just missed you and wanted to see you.”
Arthur nodded. He would have asked for them to stay, at least for a day or two, but he expected Father Paladina to arrive at any moment and needed to get back to work.
“Let me say my goodbyes.”
“Of course. It will give me a chance to finish drinking my terrible juice.”
He chuckled and headed outside. He found Abigail dancing in the trees about two-hundred feet away from the cabin. She had a bright smile on her face and barely noticed him striding toward her.
She had painful memories from her time with the cult, though they became less and less powerful as time passed. The more separation she had from her tribulations with the cult, the better things got for her, but he doubted the memories would ever go away completely. The trauma she had faced ...
.
.. he could hardly believe she could still get out of bed in the mornings.
A tough little lass, for sure.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, stopping a few feet from her. She glanced up at him. “It’s time for you and Frieda to get back on the road.”
Abigail frowned. “Already? Can’t we stay a bit longer? We can leave tomorrow.”
“Sorry, but no can do,” he said. “Don’t worry, though; we’ll get to spend a lot of time together in the near future.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound like she believed him fully, but she didn’t argue any further either. Without a word, she walked over, took his hand, and they walked back toward the cabin.
“Have you been going to school?”
She shook her head. “Frieda has taught me stuff. She says we move around too much to enroll me anywhere.”
“Oh? What have you learned?”
“Things.”
“What kinds of things?”
She shrugged. “Math, reading, a little bit of history. That kind of stuff.”
“That’s good,” he said.
It surprised Arthur to learn that Frieda had homeschooled her, but it made sense, as putting her in a normal school wouldn’t be good for anyone, and with Frieda needing to stay on the move constantly, it became important that Abigail stayed ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Plus, Frieda was an incredibly intelligent and well-educated woman, and he had no doubt that Abigail received a high-quality education.
They made it back to the cabin. Frieda stood waiting out front, resting against her car and just watching them. She had a pair of sunglasses on now, even though it stayed relatively shady in the forest.
“Ready to go, Abi?” she called as they walked up. “We still have a long way to go to get to our hotel for the night.”
“Why can’t we just stay here?”
“You can later,” Arthur said. “Right now, it’s too busy, though.”
