Jill Reinfer had worked as a member of the Council about ten years ago, though she had only lasted a few months. Just until her father died, and she had inherited his vast fortune. George Reinfer had been a good man. His daughter, not so much.

Early the next morning, when his flight landed at the John Glenn International Airport, Dominick felt exhausted. Though still dark outside, it promised to become a dreary day. He rented a car and headed away from the airport, struggling to stay awake.

Desperation and worry settled over Frieda as soon as both Dominick and Haatim got on their flights out of Switzerland. It worried her that they might get stopped and their passports confiscated, but luckily, they had made it through all right.

“Who—or what—is Surgat?” Haatim asked. “And what do you mean by ‘the original seven’?”

Haatim walked aimlessly around the outside of the destroyed and broken down hotel toward the lobby. Lost in his thoughts, exhausted and bitter, he ought to hurry back to Frieda and Dominick to let them know that he’d found a survivor, but right now, he didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Haatim clutched the gun in his hands. They shook, and he worried that he might lose his grip and drop it onto the floor. He stood in the loading area of the hotel in Switzerland, where the Council had resided over the last few months, and aimed the pistol at his father.

As soon as Matt Walker stepped inside his quiet little church in the center of Phnom Penh, something felt terribly wrong. The lights remained off, just as he expected, but he could feel the presence of someone else hiding in the room.

Dominick flew the helicopter back to the hotel. Wrecked, it looked like the center of a war zone. Not too far from the truth. Various sections of the building blazed or smoldered, and an entire wing of it had cracked open like a clam shell.

Abigail ran through the train, leaping across the walkways and heading toward the engine. Nida must be somewhere up ahead, but she couldn’t see her yet. The demon proved easy to follow, however, because she’d left all of the doors open along the way.