Abigail arrived at her destination sometime in the afternoon. Not having eaten in almost twenty-four hours, hunger gnawed through her. However, covered in blood, she couldn't risk stopping anywhere for food.
Her side ached and still seeped blood, but she had to admit, it didn't hurt nearly as badly as she had anticipated. She would need to redo the bandages soon, but first, she had to find out the identity of the man who'd answered her call and led her here, and why Arthur had his number.
Before getting out, Abigail sat for three full minutes watching the street. Two blocks in either direction, nothing moved except a stray cat nosing through garbage. She checked the rearview mirror, then scanned the rooftops out of habit. Colton had seen which car she'd taken. If he'd survived the night and called it in to Aram, they could have people at every known associate of Arthur's within hours.
She was running on borrowed time.
Abigail climbed out of the car and went to the little storefront. It looked like a poorly cared for incense and antique shop that didn't get a lot of foot traffic. A tiny bell tinkled overhead when she went inside and, immediately, the aroma of marijuana overwhelmed her, masked only partially by other scents.
The counter stood empty, so she wandered through the store and down the aisles. Statues of dragons decorated most of the shelves, along with the occasional animal statue or trinket. Along one wall hung various tapestries and Kimonos, in no particular organizational structure.
"Hello?" Abigail called toward the backroom.
No response. Unease prickled through her at the quietness of the store. Maybe someone had anticipated her arrival here and waited for her in the back. Colton might have awoken and called someone.
Abigail slid her gun free and moved with caution toward the counter, listening intently.
From the back, music played faintly, something slow and melodic. She pushed aside a curtain blocking the doorway and stepped into a storage room.
In the darkness of the back room, the smell of marijuana only intensified. No other noises reached her as she walked on silent feet across the storage room. It stood in complete disarray, and she had to step past and over various items on the floor.
The music came from a side room on the other end of the storage area. The door hung cracked open. Gently, Abigail pushed it the rest of the way, gun ready, expecting to find a dead body.
Instead, she found a forty-something man lying on a beanbag chair with a water bong on his lap. He just stared up at the ceiling, eyes open but not present. At first, she thought he might be dead, and then—when he blinked at her—it became clear the man was extremely high.
A few seconds later, he screamed a high-pitched shrill and tried to extricate himself from the chair.
Abigail lowered the gun and held up her hand, attempting to calm him. He flopped onto the floor and jumped to his feet, holding the bong like a club. Water splashed out, and droplets hit her skin.
"Hey!" she said.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Abigail," she said. "You told me to come?"
"I did?" he asked, confused.
"Yes," she said. "Last night. I called you, and you told me to come."
He hesitated for a long minute. "Oh God," he said, finally, a look of horror on his face. "That was real? I thought I dreamed that."
"Nope," she said, annoyed. Abigail brushed the water from her arm. "Completely real."
He settled down and lowered the bong. She slid her gun away. "I just …" he said. "I never thought I would actually get to meet you."
"What do you mean?"
"Frieda told me to stay away. I was never supposed to make contact because it could get us all in trouble. And now you're here. You look …"
Abigail fought not to roll her eyes. "Yes? I look?"
"Different than I expected," he said with a shrug. "I guess I just always had this idea of what you would look like in my head, and the reality is nothing like what I imagined. I mean, Arthur told me a lot about you, but it's never quite like the real thing."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Abigail asked. "Who the hell are you? How do you know Arthur?"
"Of course, idiot me," he said. "Sorry. I'm Mitchell. Arthur's brother."
***
Abigail stood speechless. Arthur's brother? He'd never told her he had a brother, much less that he remained alive, lived nearby, and had contact with Arthur.
"Arthur had a brother?"
"Had?" he echoed. "Has. I'm not dead."
"He is, though," Abigail said.
Mitchell tilted his head to the side, frowning. "Oh … oh right, that makes sense then."
"You knew about me?"
"Of course," Mitchell said. "He talked about you constantly."
"He never told me about you."
Mitchell's expression turned to one of worry. "No," he said. "I know. But he couldn't. Frieda wouldn't let him."
"Why not?"
"Because the Council would have been furious and it could have gotten all of us killed. I'm not even supposed to be talking to you right now, and if anyone knows you're here, they'll probably kill me."
"Slow down," Abigail said. "Start over. None of this makes sense. You're Arthur's brother?"
He took a deep breath, and then nodded. "I'm Arthur's younger brother. I'm also a fixer for the Council. I help them acquire supplies and equipment; the sort of rare and illegal stuff you don't find at your everyday supermarket, you know?"
"So, Arthur brought you in to the Council?" she asked.
Mitchell shook his head, a sad look on his face. "No," he said. "I brought Arthur in. Worst decision of my life."
"So that's why Arthur had your phone number."
Mitchell nodded. "We weren't supposed to stay in contact, but he would talk to me once in a while, and I got things for him without the Council's knowledge."
Abigail held up the binder. "What's this? I found it locked in a safe in his basement, and I can't read it."
The documents drained the color from Mitchell's face. "I don't know," he said. "I can't read Latin."
"How'd you know it was Latin?" Abigail narrowed her eyes.
Mitchell shrugged. "Catholic school. I recognize the letters even if I never learned to read it."
He grew even paler. "You're bleeding," he said. "Let me … uh … let me take a look at that."
She hesitated. "Fine, but I'm not done asking questions."
Abigail pulled up her shirt, exposing her bandaged side, and gently, he pulled the bandage loose. She turned her head away and winced, expecting it to hurt, but the bandage slipped free without pain.
A long moment passed. Still looking away, Abigail asked, "Is it bad?"
Mitchell didn't answer. She turned her head, looking down at the bullet hole in her side, expecting to see a painful, seeping wound that needed stitches.
Instead, a short and thin scar looked like it had already healed months earlier.
"What the hell?" she muttered, confused and shocked.
Mitchell glanced up at her, a worried frown on his face. "It's started already."
***
"What do you mean?" Abigail asked. "What started?"
"We need to talk to Frieda." Mitchell took the binder of papers from Abigail and flipped through it. He spoke quickly, nearly frantic, "We knew that once Arthur went this would happen, but it wasn't supposed to happen this fast."
"Stop." Abigail held up her hand. "The wound healed overnight. A bullet went clean through me twelve hours ago, and now it looks like an old scar. Last night during the fight, I could sense where people were in the dark—not guess, sense. My reflexes were faster than they should be." She paused, her jaw tightening. The next part was harder to say. "And there was a rage. Something that didn't feel like mine. It wanted me to kill a man I had on the ground, and I almost did—almost slit his throat before I even decided to. I had to physically walk myself away from his body."
The admission hung in the air between them. Abigail's hands trembled, and she crossed her arms to hide it.
"All of that? Already?" Mitchell's eyes widened.
"Already," she confirmed. "What's happening to me?"
Mitchell ignored her question. "We need to get to Frieda. She'll know what to do."
"Tell me what the hell is going on!"
"Where is she? Do you know where Frieda's at? Oh God, I don't know what to do. We need to find her."
Abigail slid the gun out again but held it at her side rather than aiming it at him. He froze, mouth hanging open.
"Are you calm now?"
He stared at the gun, and then gulped. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Tell me what's going on."
"I can't," he said softly. "Frieda forbade me from telling you. We need to get to her so that she can explain it."
"Frieda's not here, and we can't get to her right now. You're going to tell me everything you know. Got it?"
Mitchell stayed quiet for a minute, chewing the idea over in his mind. His eyes looked bloodshot, and he had a hard time focusing.
"Don't make me shoot you."
"All right," he said, finally. "All right … okay. … But would you put the gun down? Please?"
Abigail did, sliding it away once more. Mitchell let out an overly dramatic sigh, and then collapsed back into his beanbag chair. He gestured for Abigail to sit on a sofa opposite him, but she didn't budge. Instead, she stood in the doorway and kept her face impassive.
"Start talking."
He rubbed his face. "Where to begin? When you were about ten, Arthur started to notice it happening and—"
"What happening?"
Mitchell frowned. "You were changing."
A chill ran down Abigail's spine. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you were changing," Mitchell said. "I can't explain it any better."
"I was turning into something else?"
"Not exactly," he said. "But sort of … evolving might be a better word. I don't know much about what happened, just what Arthur told me, but it scared him to death. He said he was terrified of you."
"I don't remember …"
The thing was, she did remember some things. Fragments that surfaced like debris from deep water. Abigail remembered the anger with Arthur, and she remembered inflicting pain; on pets, mostly, but occasionally other children as well.
Not just inflicting it. Savoring it. She could still recall the warm rush that spread through her chest when she watched something suffer—the way the world narrowed to that single point of contact between her hand and another creature's pain. She'd pressed her thumb into a bird's broken wing once, just to feel it struggle. The memory should have sickened her. Instead, it sat in her mind with a terrible clarity, like a photograph she couldn't burn.
She'd grown out of it—or thought she had. Now she wasn't so sure. Last night, standing over Colton's body, that same warmth had bloomed behind her ribs. The same narrowing focus. The same quiet pleasure.
"You were quick to anger," Mitchell said, speaking quietly. "He did tell me that."
"Arthur always told me to control my emotions," Abigail said in a voice lost in recall. "He told me that good soldiers never give in to their anger."
"It's true," Mitchell said. "But that wasn't the case for you. No, for you, it was something else. This amazing healing was there, too. You would cut yourself playing, and the wounds would close in front of Arthur's eyes. You took pleasure in it, intentionally hurting yourself just to watch it heal."
"I broke my wrist a long time ago," she said. "When Arthur died. I thought I would have the scars forever, and then, one day, they just went."
Abigail held up her wrist to show him, which bore no sign that there had ever been a wound there at all.
"When was this?"
"A month or two ago," she said. "I don't know. She'd missed the moment it happened. You're saying this happened when I was little?"
"Yes," Mitchell said. "It started around your tenth birthday."
Abigail shook her head. "I don't remember much from those years. What are you saying? What was it that was happening to me?"
"I have no idea," Mitchell said. "And neither did Arthur. I think Frieda knew, but she never told us. She was the one that fixed it."
"What do you mean? She stopped me from … changing?"
"She came to me when you were twelve and gave me a list of ingredients and items to get a hold of. Some of them crazy expensive, and most would have gotten me killed if the Council knew what I'd done."
"You mean Frieda didn't tell the Council about it?"
Mitchell nodded. "What we did goes against, basically, every rule and law they have. Once I gathered the stuff, she and Arthur performed some ritual on you. It's written out in that binder. I wasn't there, but when it was over, Arthur slept for a week straight. He looked like he'd been run over by a truck."
"What was the ritual?"
"A binding," Mitchell said. "I think."
"For what?"
"You," Mitchell said. "And Arthur. Frieda bound your souls together."
"Why?" Abigail was fairly certain that she didn't want to know the answer.
Mitchell sat in silence for a long moment, staring at her. Finally, he spoke, "So that whatever evil had corrupted you went into him instead."
***
The words hit Abigail like a physical blow. Her vision tunneled, and the room tilted sideways. She reached for the doorframe, fingers white against the wood, and held on while the ground shifted beneath her.
Arthur. The man who had raised her, trained her, loved her without condition or reservation. He had taken the darkness out of her and swallowed it himself. Had carried it in his blood for years, letting it eat him alive, and never once told her why.
The truth had always lurked in her bones—she held evil. She'd sensed it in quiet moments, in the satisfaction that flickered through her when she hurt someone, in the dreams where her hands did terrible things and she woke up not with horror but with longing.
Abigail understood that that part existed, and no matter how hard she tried to dismiss it or pretend it didn't exist, it always stood ready to rear its ugly head at her.
Another thought wormed its way into her mind, bringing with it a sickening clarity. The gun shook in wobbly fingers, and Abigail dropped it to the floor. Her knees gave out, and Abigail dropped onto the sofa. The lamp flickered, though no one had touched it.
"You mean—" She rubbed her hands on her jeans. "—that everything Arthur went through—his fall, killing those people, going to jail, and dying—it all happened because of me?"
Mitchell hesitated for a long time, staring at Abigail with a look of such guilt and sadness that he looked ready to cry. When he spoke, the single word filled her entire existence.
"Yes."
***
"Arthur never wanted you to know this," Mitchell said a few minutes later. "He wanted to keep it from you. This burden, he took on willingly and never regretted it."
"Even when I killed him," Abigail said with bitterness.
"You didn't have control."
"Apparently, I never had control." She stared at the ground.
Abigail had known that Arthur gave up a lot to protect her, but never something like this. No, this was too much, an unfathomable burden that she had placed on the man who had rescued her and given her a chance at life.
"Why?" she asked. "Why would he do this?"
"He loved you," Mitchell said. "And, it wasn't your fault. Whatever the cult did to you manifested, and Arthur wanted to spare you from it. He thought he could control it, and he did for many years. He only wanted you to have a normal life."
"A normal life?" she asked.
"If he hadn't done what he did, they would have executed you a lot sooner."
"All the good that did," Abigail said. "They're still going to kill me, and the only difference is that I killed Arthur too."
"Arthur's death isn't on your hands."
"It is," Abigail said. "It would have been better if he'd just let me die."
"Self-pity won't help anything."
"You think this is self-pity?" she asked, angry. "It's pragmatism. You said yourself, it's starting again. Whatever evil lives inside me, it's still here, and it's coming back. Arthur knew he wouldn't live forever, so why the hell would he do this?"
"He wanted to give you a chance at a life."
"He only staved off the inevitable, and it cost him his life. Now, I have to carry that burden."
"He loved you."
"Then, why didn't he tell me about this?" she asked. "Why am I only finding out about it now?"
Mitchell stared at her helplessly, not having an answer.
"Arthur has gone, and now I'm turning evil, what I was always meant to be, apparently."
"You can learn to control it," Mitchell said. "It doesn't have to control you."
"Arthur couldn't control it," Abigail said. "What chance do I possibly have?"
"I'm sorry," Mitchell said. "I wish I had a better answer for you."
"Me too."
He held up the binder. "I have no clue what any of this means, but Frieda left it with Arthur. It could be important, and it might have clues as to something we can do to stop this change from happening."
"I don't know Latin," Abigail said. "But I need you to translate what you can. The healing, the senses, the rage—I need to understand the mechanism. Is it something in my blood? Something the Ninth Circle put there?"
"That's what I don't know," Mitchell said. "Arthur thought Frieda understood the specifics, but she never shared them with us. What I do know is that the binding was supposed to contain it. Now that Arthur's gone ..." He gestured helplessly at her healed side.
"Then the binder is our best lead," Abigail said. "Start translating. I need to know what I'm dealing with before it gets worse."
A car door slammed outside. Abigail's hand flew to her waistband, and she pressed herself flat against the wall beside the doorway. Mitchell froze, the binder clutched to his chest.
Silence. Then footsteps on pavement—shuffling, unhurried. Through the gap in the curtain, she could make out an old woman crossing the street with grocery bags.
Abigail's grip loosened, but her pulse kept hammering. Every minute she spent in this shop was a minute for Aram's network to narrow the search. The stolen car parked out front might as well have been a beacon.
"We don't have much time," she said, turning back to Mitchell. "They tracked me to Ohio. It won't take them long to check Arthur's known contacts."
"I only know a bit of Latin," Mitchell said. "Look, Abigail, I know you're confused and upset, but Arthur loved you. He was willing to give up anything to protect you."
"He lost his life because of me."
"A sacrifice he was willing to make."
Abigail didn't know what to say. She'd cost Arthur so much.
"I'll need time alone with this," Mitchell said. "If you want, you can stay in here, and I'll go out to the lobby."
"No," she said. "I'm off for a walk. I need to clear my head."
She stopped in the doorway. "Mitchell—how long before someone comes looking for me here?"
He pulled at his lip. "A day, maybe two. The Council knows I exist, but I've always been low priority to them. Just the black sheep brother who gets them their supplies." He paused. "But if they're serious about finding you ..."
"Then we have a day," Abigail said. "Whatever's in that binder, I need to understand it before we have to move again."
Mitchell nodded, already opening the binder on the counter. Abigail stepped outside into the afternoon light, the bell tinkling behind her. She walked to the end of the block and stood there, scanning the road in both directions. Nothing. No headlights, no unmarked sedans, no figures watching from parked cars.
But the absence of threat didn't comfort her. It just meant they hadn't arrived yet.
---
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