Chapter 19
Dominick sensed that something had gone wrong even before he made it to the hotel room where Haatim’s mother stayed. The lobby stood nearly empty with few guests staying at this time of year. Not down to anything in particular that he saw, but just a feeling he had that something seemed wrong—too quiet—and he’d learned to trust his instincts.
He knocked, but received no response. The door proved locked, and it sounded silent inside the room. Dominick drew his pistol, chambered a round, and then knocked once again. More to justify what he was about to do than anything else.
He stepped back and kicked the door open. It blasted back when the lock splintered, and he walked inside, pistol ready.
The room stood in shambles. Luggage lay scattered everywhere in the suite, and the kitchen had been torn apart. In the center of the room sat Haatim and his mother, tied back-to-back on chairs and gagged.
A large bag of plastic explosives and a timer sat on the floor next to them. Though counting down, it still had ten minutes to go.
Haatim saw him and screamed into the gag, trying to get his attention. Dominick stepped around the bag and removed the gag from Haatim’s mouth, and then he set about untying he and his mother.
“She has my father,” Haatim said.
“Who?” Dominick asked, trying to undo a persistent knot. It had pulled too tight, so he slipped a knife out instead and sawed at it. “What the hell happened?”
“She’s taking him to the Council and planning to use him to break in. We need to get there and stop her.”
“Who?” Dominick asked. A sick feeling settled in his stomach. “Abigail?”
Haatim looked at him like he’d gone crazy. He shook his head. “No, not Abigail. It doesn’t matter. We need to go now before something terrible happens.”
Haatim’s mother seemed groggy and barely conscious. After untying her, Dominick carried her over to one of the beds and laid her down. He checked her pulse. Though she would be all right, it looked like she’d been drugged with some heavy stuff.
“We need to get out of here,” Haatim said. “The bomb will go off. We need to evacuate the building.”
Dominick shrugged. “We have nine minutes left,” he said.
“Do you know how to disarm a bomb? What happens if you cut the wrong wire?”
“Why would I cut any wires?” Dominick raised his brows. “This is a bag of plastic explosive with a timed detonator.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when the clock reaches zero, it triggers the explosive, but there aren’t any failsafe’s or backups. No cell phone trigger. Just a normal timer counting down.”
“So, how do you stop it?”
Dominick reached into the bag, grabbed the clock, and unplugged the wires connecting it to the bricks of C4.
He glanced at Haatim and smiled wryly. “Voila,” he said.
“Fine, but we still need to go.”
“What’s going on?” Dominick gripped Haatim’s knee and held his gaze to secure his attention. “What happened?”
Just then, his phone buzzed. He glanced down at the coded alert. Nausea rolled up his through his chest and into his throat, which both tightened up.
“What?” Haatim asked. “What is it?”
“The Council has been compromised,” Dominick said. “It’s under attack.”
“I told you. We need to go,” Haatim said. “We need to get back there and help.”
“No kidding. Come on. We’ll take the helicopter. Way faster.”
“What about my mother?” Haatim asked.
“Leave her,” Dominick said. “The drugs will wear off in a couple of hours, and she’ll be fine. Probably won’t remember a thing.”
Haatim nodded and headed for the door. Dominick followed, but then hesitated and glanced back. With a shrug, he went back into the room and grabbed the bag of C4 from the floor.
One thing he’d learned was never to turn down high-powered explosives.
Abigail, on the road driving back to the Council building to turn herself in, saw a line of cars speeding in the opposite direction toward town. They came on fast, taking up the entire road and forcing her off to the side.
Her tires skidded across the loosely packed snow before finally coming to a rest, and she watched the line of cars go past.
Seven cars in total, heading toward Lausanne. It didn’t make any sense to Abigail. Why would such a large group of people be leaving the Council building in anticipation of the storm?
The snow came down already, but only a light dusting at this point. Whoever occupied those vehicles would have a hard time getting back down these roads in a couple of hours, so she doubted it was a member of the Council. Who else would warrant such a convoy of vehicles, though?
Something didn’t feel right.
And then she noticed small holes in the last few vehicles in line when they passed by. Bullets. Something had happened. The Council had been attacked.
But by who …?
… and who’d won?
Abigail turned her car around and headed up the road behind the convoy. They snaked through the mountains. Something had gone tremendously wrong.
Her phone rang, and she slipped it out of her pocket. Dominick calling; she answered.
“What’s going on?”
“The Council got attacked,” Dominick said. “Someone breached the defenses and did some serious damage.”
“What?”
“I don’t know any specifics and haven’t been able to reach anyone. I’ve got Haatim, and we’re heading to the airport to get Spinner.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know, but they used Aram to get inside. We need to get to the hotel and stop them.”
“It’s too late for that. Whatever they were after,” she said. “I think they got it.”
“What do you mean?”
“A convoy of cars just drove past me, headed back into Lausanne.”
“How many?”
“A lot. Been in a firefight.”
“Can you tail them?”
“Already am,” she said.
“All right. We’ll get airborne, and I’ll call you back on the satellite connection. Don’t lose sight of them.”
“I won’t.” Abigail hung up. Then she turned off her lights and followed the line of cars up the mountain.
While she drove, a myriad of questions ran through her mind. Who would have attacked the Council, and why? What were they after? Did it have something to do with her? She doubted it, but at this point, she had no way of knowing.
The biggest question, though, was how they had managed it at all. The council had turned the hotel into a fortress, which meant that it must have been an inside job. Dominick had said that they used Aram to get inside, but she couldn’t believe he would betray them. As much as she hated him, she couldn’t imagine him as a traitor.
Was Aram still alive?
Once they reached the outskirts of the city, Abigail turned her lights on again. Enough other vehicles used the road to keep her from looking suspicious, and she worried about someone else hitting her.
They drove for another ten minutes, into Lausanne, before she realized their destination: the train station. It sat just outside the city center, and the tracks had been designed to withstand even the most extreme of winter weather.
It made sense; many of the main roads outside the city had closed already in anticipation of the oncoming storm. The train provided one of the few reliable ways into and out of the city at this point.
Another call came in to her phone. Dominick’s number from inside his chopper. This time, Haatim spoke when she answered, and she could hear the distinct sound of the helicopter starting up in the background.
“Abi?”
“I’m here,” she said. “They’re heading for the train station.”
“Why?”
“They want to get out of the city,” she said. “There’s a train waiting. We can’t let them get away.”
“We won’t,” Haatim said. He relayed to Dominick that they were going to the trains, and then he came back to her. “Dominick said to wait somewhere outside the station, and we’ll pick you up.”
Abigail pulled into the parking lot behind the convoy, which parked near the loading ramp. People piled out of the cars and headed up to the platform. She counted fifteen armed soldiers in total.
In the center of the group, soldiers half-dragged and half-carried a figure to the train.
Even beaten and battered, Abigail could recognize her anywhere.
“Frieda,” she breathed.
“What?” Haatim asked.
“They have Frieda,” Abigail said. “She was their target.”
“Ten minutes out,” Haatim said. “Dominick said we’ll be there in ten minutes. Wait for us.”
“No,” she said. “There isn’t time.”
Abigail ended the call and stepped out of her car. The parking lot stood nearly empty and had the lights off. Highly doubtful that this train was scheduled.
As cautiously as possible, she moved forward, making sure to stay out of sight of the group while she made her way up to the loading platform.
Twelve railcars lay in a line, and they all looked like passenger cars. The engine released billowing clouds of smoke into the air at the front, and it looked almost ready to leave. Several additional armed guards stood on the platform, looking around and patrolling the area.
The group she had tailed went to the third railcar from the back and climbed inside, pushing Frieda on in front of them. Abigail got a clear sight of one of them, and then saw that she carried an ornate dagger in her hand.
The dagger. It had to be the one from Raven’s Peak that Belphegor had gone after. Whoever she was, she must have been the one who’d found it in the tunnels and nearly killed her and Haatim.
Abigail needed to get on that train. The guards seemed heaviest at the rear, and so she slipped around the building and to the front of the train. The doors all sat open right now. She waited until one of the guards looked in another direction, and then quick-stepped across the platform and slipped inside. The falling snow dampened the sound as she entered the passenger car.
In the first-class railcar, she looked around for somewhere to hide. It held a fully stocked bar, and she climbed behind it and rested down in the small alcove where a bartender would stand. The lights were on, but it stood empty and silent.
A few minutes slipped past, and then she heard movement. One of the guards came onto her first-class car, and the doors slid closed. A few seconds later, the train moved underneath her. It started out slow, and then gradually picked up speed as it headed away from the station and Lausanne.
The guard paced back and forth in the railcar, carrying his rifle and not paying attention to anything. Clearly, he didn’t think anything would happen on this trip, much less that an enemy combatant occupied the same railcar as he.
Abigail waited until he walked past her, heading toward the front, and then climbed atop the bar quietly. Her foot scuffed on the faux-wood, and he started to turn toward her, but she leaped out at him before he could react. She kicked him in the face and knocked him to the ground.
He hit hard but tried to find his feet immediately. Abigail rushed forward, kneeing him hard in the jaw and grabbing the gun so that he couldn’t get a good hold on it.
He managed to land a solid punch to her stomach, knocking her wind out, but she retaliated by kicking him hard in the testicles. He winced and let out a groan, and then she punched him in the throat.
Abigail followed that by slamming his head into one of the seat backs of an aisle chair, and he fell to the ground, unconscious. Then she picked up his rifle, hoping she wouldn’t need it, and headed toward the rear of the railcar.
The door leading out, while latched, wasn’t locked. She slid it open. The wind whistled in around her. The sound of the train intensified.
A small metal platform connected the two railcars. Hitched at the center, it had a pathway no more than half a meter wide. Each car extended a pair of railings, about waist high, that met in the center, making it a little easier to cross from one car to another.
The train hadn’t reached full speed yet, so she had no trouble in stepping across to the next passenger car. The air felt bracingly cold as she went, whipping over her skin and raising gooseflesh on her arms. A latch held the outside of this car as well, and it also proved unlocked.
Seats packed the otherwise empty railcar, two on each side of a central aisle. Abigail headed down the row. The lights flickered overhead occasionally as the third rail disconnected. It felt eerie moving through the quiet railcar with snow falling outside. It had a detached feeling to it.
Without incident, she made it to the far side and looked through the window at the next car in line. This one seemed empty too, and so she made the trek across the snowy divide. Bitterly cold, she wished she’d brought a heavier coat. To be honest, she hadn’t expected to spend any time outdoors.
When she moved into this next car, the opposite door opened a crack. Someone was coming in the opposite way; probably guards doing a sweep to make sure no one like her had come aboard.
Quickly, Abigail slid the door closed behind her and ducked down into the seats. She glanced through an opening in the chair backs and watched two bundled up men enter the railcar and move forward through the aisles. They carried assault rifles and walked toward the front at a brisk pace.
Abigail ducked low, knowing she wouldn’t have anywhere good to hide when they made it up to her seat. She still had the assault rifle but didn’t want to use it. The gunshots would alert everyone in the nearby vicinity to her presence, and that would change things from dangerous to hopeless in but an instant.
Crouched as low as she could, Abigail slid partway under the seat and scrunched into a ball. The footsteps approached, and she grabbed the hilt of her revolver. The rifle wouldn’t do any good in such close quarters and would serve more as a liability than an aid.
She weighed her options: either she had to jump up now and use her momentary surprise to take out the two guards, or she would have to hope for the best—that they might walk by without noticing her.
If she stayed tucked into her little cubby, and they spotted her, it would take several seconds to extricate herself. Too long, and most likely, they would execute her before she could mount a defense.
Still, taking them out now meant alerting the entire train to her presence and giving up her surprise. Having all fifteen guards descend on her at once would be a worst-case scenario.
Better to stay low and pray for the best.
Luck stayed with her. The lights flickered just as the two men reached her section of the train. They went off for a few seconds, and by the time they came back on, the men had passed. The door she’d entered from slid open to allow the men to pass to the railcar she’d just vacated, and then it closed, leaving her alone once more.
It would only take a few minutes for them to find their downed compatriot. Abigail regretted not dragging him behind the bar, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She climbed out of her hiding place and rushed down the aisle and toward the door leading further along the train.
The snow had picked up outside, and she could barely see through the windows anymore. When she opened the door, she saw that the train headed into the mountains, weaving up and down switchback trails and across rocky terrain. No sign of the city remained behind them, or any other sign of life.
Hopefully, Dominick would manage to navigate through the storm, but it seemed doubtful. Though not snowing too heavily yet, the storm had picked up and would make flight dangerous.
Still, if any pilot could handle weather like this and make it through to the other side, Dominick could.
As a little girl, she’d always loved riding trains. Abigail had even—though she would never admit it—wanted a toy train set of her own to snake around her room.
Arthur had taken her across the US from east coast to west, and once, they’d even managed to ride the trains in Siberia, though only for a short leg of the journey while he went on a mission.
Abigail kept moving further back down the train until she stood in the car ahead of the one where they held Frieda. She crouched low and moved slowly, carrying the rifle and trying to decide her best course of action for freeing Frieda.
Though she had a healthy respect for assault rifles, she’d never gotten accustomed to using them. Arthur considered them a crutch because they were too difficult to obtain in most countries.
He had forced her, instead, to train endlessly with holdout pistols and small arms and only shown her rudimentarily how to shoot anything heavier. She’d fired them enough, though, to know she could hit her target.
At sixteen, she got her first gun. Arthur had asked what kind she would prefer, and she’d told him she wanted a revolver just like his. At the time, it proved almost too big for her to carry, and the kick enough to put her on her butt. Now, though, the weight felt comfortable, and she loved the reliability.
Abigail moved to the window and glanced into the next car. Another first-class railcar with a bar and only a handful of seats. In the center of the car, in a ring, stood a group of six. She couldn’t see Frieda, but she did see the young woman standing at the center of the group with the curved dagger in hand.
One guard stood ready with a rifle, and the rest held hands, chanting. The girl stood near them, watching carefully and supervising the group.
The sight brought a flash of images to Abigail’s mind. She remembered being younger and strapped to a table. A group of cloaked people stood in a circle around her, chanting and performing some terrible ritual.
She didn’t remember what they were saying or even how old she had been when this happened. These memories, she’d buried and tried to forget about, and so they remained hazy and unfocused. She pushed them away, shaking her head and focusing on the situation at hand.
Abigail didn’t have a lot of time. Whatever they were trying to do, it involved Frieda, and she needed to get her out of there.
Carefully, she slid the door open just enough to slip through, and then closed it behind her. Stood on the walkway between cars, she checked the clip on the assault rifle and prepared herself.
No going back now.
With a steadying breath, Abigail threw open the door to the first-class car, picked a few targets, and opened fire.
Her first shot hit the guard carrying the rifle in the shoulder, staggering him. He dropped his gun and fell back against the seats, crying out in pain. She held down the trigger and swept across, emptying the clip into the crowd of cultists.
The nose of her gun pulled up, and she ended up losing half of the shots over their heads, but it served its purpose. They ducked into seats and scrambled in confusion and terror, and she knew she’d hit about half of them with at least grazing shots.
The clip emptied a lot sooner than she’d expected, however, and she drew her revolver.
Abigail took aim at the woman with the dagger and pulled the trigger. The woman reacted too fast and managed to duck behind the seats and out of sight.
Abigail continued firing anyway, not sure if she hit her or not. Her bullets would rip right through the soft red cloth of the seats, so she sent bullets in a spread pattern to cover as much area as possible. Abigail aimed for every spot where she thought the woman would hide.
Once she’d emptied her gun, she spun open the cylinder, spilling shells onto the tracks beneath her. Then she reached into her pocket to scoop out another load of shells. Just then, three cultists leaned out of their hiding places to fire back at her. The rest had dropped under her barrage of fire, and two of these three men looked wounded but still able to fire at her.
They forced Abigail to dodge back out of the way of the door. She slid under the side rail and put the metal wall of the railcar between her and the attackers.
Bullets thudded into the metal walls, and occasionally, one ripped through and hit the next car in line behind her. Glass shattered when they blew out the windows around and above her.
A metal ladder, built into the railcar next to her, gave her something to hold to keep her balance while she hung over the tracks. She used her free hand to finish reloading her revolver, snapping the cylinder back in place.
Abigail grabbed hold of the railing and pulled back onto the walkway, waiting for the barrage of suppressing fire to end. As soon as a break came, she leaned in and took aim at one of the targets.
Her first shot hit a cultist in the stomach, who had rushed toward her position. He fell back in surprise, collapsing into one of the seats with a scream of agony. The other two men still stood busy reloading and managed to duck out of sight, but she fired at their hiding places anyway. She felt certain she’d hit at least one of them.
As soon as Abigail had fired her last round, the woman reappeared from her hiding place behind the seats. She bounded overtop and dove into a roll. She landed nimbly in the center aisle and rushed forward.
Abigail tried to reload her spent shells, but wouldn’t have time before the woman fell upon her. Instead, she slid her gun away and pulled out the blade strapped to her lower back. She stepped up into the railcar and stabbed out just as the woman came in.
Up close, the woman looked younger than Abigail had anticipated, maybe early twenties. Dark skinned, she may be of Middle-Eastern descent. Difficult to tell with the flickering lights in the middle of a gunfight.
The woman dodged Abigail’s first attack, and then kicked out at her, forcing her to duck back out of the train. She backpedaled nimbly onto the narrow walkway and slashed back and forth with her knife, forcing the woman to maintain separation between them.
One of her cuts drew blood on the girl’s stomach, but she didn’t seem to notice. She stepped right through the attack and punched Abigail in the side with a fist. Then she followed that with a kick to Abigail’s knee, and then another to her chest, knocking her roughly into the door of the railcar behind.
Then the woman spun and slid the door closed, trapping them both out on the narrow walkway. Abigail caught her balance and darted forward, avoiding another kick and stabbing with the blade again.
The woman countered, slipping under her attack and catching Abigail’s wrist in an iron grip. She yanked Abigail forward and knocked the blade out of her hand. It bounced against the side of the train and disappeared into the snow.
Abigail kicked out, hitting her opponent in the knee, and then punched her twice in the face. The woman seemed to barely notice, maintaining her lock on Abigail’s wrist and keeping her close.
Abigail tried to counter, ducking back and pulling the girl toward her, but her plan backfired. The woman yanked Abigail toward her instead, off-balance, and then threw her over the railing and toward the side of the train.
She went flying into the air and scrabbled at the side for something to grab onto. Just in time, she caught the ladder built into the side of the train and clung to it, clutching the cold and slippery metal.
Slowly, Abigail pulled herself back onto the ladder and climbed the freezing bars, refusing to give up the high ground.
The girl leaped out at her, catching onto the ladder beneath and grabbing hold of her foot. Abigail kicked down, hitting the woman in the jaw, and kept climbing.
When she reached the roof of the railcar, she slid onto it, finding her footing a few meters farther away on the roof of the train. It jostled underneath her, and it felt like standing on a sheet of ice in an earthquake.
The girl followed her, stepping lightly onto the roof and rushing forward at Abigail. She launched a flurry of attacks, sliding across the icy surface, yet somehow maintaining her balance.
Abigail dodged and punched, receiving a kick to her right leg but landing a few solid hits herself. They moved back along the train, and Abigail found it difficult to maintain her balance.
She’d reached the back end of her railcar, and the one behind lay about two meters away. The closer she got, the harder it would be to make the jump. Abigail waited until they stood only a few steps away, and then turned and sprinted.
She leaped into the air, clearing the distance and landing roughly on the next roof, where she fell to one knee and slid about another four meters before finding her feet.
The woman pursued her, leaping the distance and landing in a rush. She tried to barrel into Abigail, who dodged her and let her slip past.
The girl came to a stop several meters farther, turned, and then came sprinting back in, launching another series of attacks. Abigail countered, hitting her several times in the kidney with what should have been debilitating blows, but her opponent didn’t even seem to notice.
Abigail connected twice as often as her opponent, but none of her attacks had any effect. They both slipped across the roof, and this was a battle of attrition, Abigail held the disadvantage. Quickly, she needed to find an opening and take out her opponent.
A long and tall bridge drew nearer. It disappeared into the snow in front of the train, and when they passed onto it, Abigail couldn’t see the bottom of the canyon beneath them. It had to be several hundred meters high at least.
With the snow whipping around them and freezing her skin, it gave her an intense feeling of vertigo.
Abigail kept attacking, trying to find some weakness in her opponent. The snow had let up once more, but the roof had grown slippery and difficult to maneuver on as they fought.
In the distance behind the train, a speck of light approached, but she couldn’t identify it from this distance. Hopefully, Dominick and his helicopter, but impossible to tell.
Desperate and wanting to end things, Abigail drew her second blade, the one she kept tucked in her boot, and stabbed forward. She pierced the girl in the shoulder and drew a deep cut, but received a nasty blow in return.
Abigail fell back, landing on the roof and sliding toward the edge. She scrambled, catching her balance, but her opponent refused to let up.
The demon—the woman had to be a demon—kicked her in the side of the head, dazing her and knocking her farther down the train. Abigail stumbled back, reeling, and fended off a quick series of punches and kicks while she backed up and tried to put distance between them.
Abigail tried to regain her composure but realized too late that the attacks were feints, as the woman repositioned to her side. She’d set Abigail’s back to the edge of the train, and they remained overtop the bridge.
Only emptiness lay behind her.
The demon came forward in a rush. Abigail tried to move and reposition herself back to the center of the roof, understanding what her opponent intended to do, but moved too late. She dodged a punch, but the following kick caught her full in the chest.
Her feet left the train.
Her body flew backward into open air. Abigail watched in slow motion while the train ran away from her. The demon girl, still on the train, watched as Abigail flew backward.
“What was that?” Haatim asked, squinting forward through the snow. They flew just behind the train and had caught up quickly. Something, however, had just gone flying off the top of one of the railcars, maybe twenty meters in front of them.
“Hold on,” Dominick shouted.
Haatim glanced over at him, trying to figure out what he meant, and then the seat dropped under his butt. Luckily, he’d strapped in, so it dragged him down with it, but he had an intense moment of vertigo during those first few seconds.
Dominick aimed the helicopter down at a sheer angle, pitching them toward the ground of the canyon. Then he rolled the helicopter sideways so that the blades wouldn’t have any air underneath them, and the helicopter plummeted.
Alarms blared, warning them of the ill-advised maneuver. Haatim couldn’t help but agree. He hadn’t been in many helicopters during his life but felt fairly certain that they weren’t designed to do this.
“Throw out the ladder!” Dominick shouted.
“What?”
“The ladder! Get it to her!”
Haatim, all at once, understood, and his heart skipped a beat. “That was Abigail?”
Dominick didn’t reply but turned his attention back to the dashboard in front of him. Rapidly, he threw switches, tilting the helicopter further and powering off the engine.
Haatim froze in fear when the helicopter fell. He stared out of the window, unable to move, and with only the realization that he was about to die flying through his mind.
“Move!” Dominick screamed at him.
Haatim came back to reality, blinking, and unbuckled himself. He climbed into the back while the helicopter jostled in the wind, and then grabbed the rope ladder and pulled it free from its restraints.
The rotors stalled out above them just as he opened the side door of the helicopter. His body moved mechanically while terror gripped him. The helicopter went into free-fall, nothing more than a huge brick heading for the ground. Haatim clutched the sidebar, and the frigid wind whipped into the area around him.
Dominick punched controls while alarms whistled and whooped.
“Throw it now,” Dominick yelled, flipping a switch repeatedly. “Throw the ladder.”
Haatim pushed the ladder out of the helicopter, but no way could Abigail reach it. He could see her falling just below them, maybe ten meters and off to the side. No way that the rope ladder would be long enough to get to her.
The engine restarted, and the blades spun to life once more. In only a few seconds, it would—hopefully—pull them back up, but Abigail would continue to fall, out of their reach.
With a steadying breath that sounded a lot like a gasp, Haatim pushed the ladder back into the helicopter behind him and grabbed the safety line sticking out of the side of the craft. Body shaking, he wrapped the cord around his wrist a few times, clutched the rope as tightly as he could, and dove out of the helicopter.
The spinning rotor blades stopped the descent of the behemoth machine. The line pulled out. Haatim had about twenty meters of slack before it caught him up.
He angled his body and aimed for Abigail. She tried to slow her descent as well, moving toward him to close the gap. He tried not to think about what he was doing, or how they might both fall and die, or how he might not have enough slack, and she would fall and die anyway.
Instead, Haatim focused on reaching her. He extended his free arm, reaching out to grab Abigail, and their fingers touched. He only needed a little more slack …
They came together just as the line ran out and tightened. Abigail caught his wrist and pulled the two of them together. Haatim hugged her to his chest, and she wrapped her arms around his body, clutching him, and her warm breath gasped against his neck.
They swung on the taut line. Haatim clutched the rope and Abigail as firmly as he could. After a few seconds, the line retracted while Dominick manipulated the controls from the front, drawing them back up to the chopper.
Abigail climbed inside first, then helped pull Haatim in, and closed the door behind them. The alarms had stopped. The cab seemed silent now, with the helicopter simply hovering.
Haatim untangled himself from the rope and tried to get his teeth to stop chattering. He had severe burns on his wrist from the rope and couldn’t stop his body from shaking.
“Thank you,” Abigail said, staring at him and still holding his hand. Her eyes had turned red, the same as in the holding cell before she’d escaped.
He must have reacted in surprise because he saw a hurt expression settle on her face.
“Your eyes …” he said.
She didn’t respond, except to look away.
“Come back up here,” Dominick hollered, flipping more switches and getting them in motion once again.
Haatim looked one last time at Abigail, and then climbed up next to Dominick, who said, “Nice catch.”
“What now?” Haatim asked.
Abigail leaned into the cockpit. “Get me back on that train.”
“I radioed in for backup,” Dominick said. “Response teams are less than ten minutes out and—”
“Get me back up there,” Abigail said. “Before they kill Frieda.”
Dominick didn’t reply, but instead, flew after the train. Haatim buckled himself into the copilot’s seat, still shaking head-to-toe but starting to relax. Each second that passed made his wrist throb more, but he barely felt it.
He heard noise in the back of the helicopter and shifted in his seat. Abigail rifled through bags and scattered tools. First, she grabbed a long and slightly curved sword, which she slung over her shoulder, and then she picked up the bag of C4 that Dominick had taken from his mother’s apartment.
“What do you need that for?” Haatim asked.
When she looked at him, her eyes glowed faintly. Her expression looked like a mask of calm, but it was her red eyes that sent a shiver down his spine.
“To end this,” she said.
Haatim gulped and nodded.
“We have a problem,” Dominick said.
They both looked forward. A mountain loomed in front of them. Huge, it grew larger by the second while they approached. The helicopter, though going as fast as it could and gaining on the train, still left them a ways behind.
The train headed for a tunnel in the side of the mountain, not that far away. In only a few seconds, it would disappear completely.
“How long is the tunnel?” Haatim asked.
“A few kilometers, at least,” Dominick said. “Maybe eight minutes for the train.”
“Too long,” Abigail said. “Get me on there.”
“I can’t fit in that tunnel,” Dominick said. “And even if I could—”
“Fly faster,” she said.
Dominick exchanged a worried glance with Haatim, and he could sympathize: right now didn’t seem like a good time to argue with her.
Dominick groaned but did pick up speed.
“Never thought I would be playing chicken with a mountain,” he muttered.
Abigail moved to the side door and slid it open once more. She climbed out onto the railing on the side of the helicopter, and then crawled to the back, getting into position as if about to pounce.
“Can we make it?” Haatim asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What happens if we don’t?”
Dominick sat in silence for a few seconds. “Let’s not find out.”
The train remained ahead of them as they zoomed toward it, and Haatim reckoned it would be close. They flew so fast that he couldn’t even feel sure that they would be able to stop now if they wanted to.
The mountain grew, and a jagged cliff wall filled the entire windshield. Dominick made gasping noises, and Haatim tried to look away, terrified and helpless. He couldn’t get his eyes to follow his mental commands, however, and just watched the cliff face approach.
“We’re not going to make it!” Haatim screamed.
He couldn’t even see the train anymore, or anything except the mountain in front of them. If the caboose hadn’t entered the mountain tunnel, it was about to.
“Hold on …”
“Stop!” Haatim shouted. “Stop now! We can’t make it.”
The mountain loomed only a handful of meters away, and still they flew full speed at it.
“Now!” Dominick roared at Abigail.
He spun the helicopter back in the other direction just as Abigail leaped from the side railing and for the train below. The momentum propelled her forward, and she disappeared from their sight into the dark tunnel.
The helicopter continued gliding toward the mountain, fighting against momentum. The blades chipped against the side of the cliff face, and pieces of metal flew loose and crashed into the sides and windshield. A huge crack appeared in front of him, but whatever had hit the glass didn’t make it through.
Somehow, amazingly, they came to a stop. When he looked through his window, it felt like he could reach out and touch the cliff face if he wanted.
Haatim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held and tried to calm his frantic heart.
“Did she make it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Dominick said.
“What now?”
“Now,” he said. “We fly around.”
Abigail caught the back rail of the caboose with only one hand, swinging down hard against the metal and hanging off the back of the train. Pain made her grunt, but she managed to keep a hold on it and pull herself up and onto the walkway.
Her entire body hurt, and she felt exhausted, but also angrier than she ever had. Frustrated with everything that had happened, starting with the trial and culminating with this, left her boiling. Arthur had always taught her never to give in to her anger, but she’d gone past that point now. Enraged, she embraced it wholeheartedly.
Abigail had done with fighting back against her nature. Done trying to be what Arthur had wanted her to be.
Now, she would be what she wanted: what she was always meant to be. She returned to the little girl Arthur had stolen from The Ninth Circle. The girl who had wanted to hurt things.
Abigail strapped Arthur’s sword around her waist and dropped the bag of C4 onto the walkway. Quietly, she moved forward to the doorway leading into the caboose.
In the pitch-black tunnel, the only light came from the train. Inside the caboose, a pair of guards milled around. Both of them carried rifles and looked rather bored.
They wouldn’t stay bored for long.
Abigail drew and reloaded her revolver, and then opened the door to the car. The guards looked up in surprise, but too late. She raised her pistol and fired off two rounds. Both guards collapsed, one with a bullet in his head and the other in the neck.
Abigail didn’t hesitate but sprinted forward through the railcar. The doors stood open between this car and the next, and she leaped clear through the opening and into the adjacent railcar.
Two guards occupied this passenger car as well. They’d heard the gunshots and had come to investigate, but pulled up short when she approached.
Abigail raised her pistol and fired two more shots, dropping the closest man, who had prepared to fire. Then she slipped Arthur’s sword free and charged the other man.
He got his gun up, but she swatted the barrel aside with her sword and impaled him in the stomach. Further down, another man stood on the walkway between this railcar and the next.
Abigail fired her last two shots at him, hitting him in the arm and chest. He fell to the side, over the railing, and disappeared into the dark tunnel behind the train.
Then she jerked her sword free, letting the dying man fall to the ground, limp. With no more shells for her revolver, she tucked it away and picked up a rifle from a downed guard. Then she ran toward the far door, which led into the next railcar, the one where they had Frieda.
Through the window, she saw that the remainder of the guards had gathered. Maybe eight of them, but they had taken up positions behind furniture and out of sight, so she found it impossible to tell. They didn’t come toward her, and had, apparently, decided to hole up and make her come to them.
Fine with her.
The girl hid with the guards, on the far side of the first-class car. She had picked up Frieda and used her as a body shield. Frieda looked only barely conscious, being mostly supported by the girl.
“You’re too late,” the demon shouted. “The ritual is complete. I have what I came for.”
Then she threw Frieda forward onto the ground and turned to the guards.
“Kill them both,” she said, heading out toward the front of the train.
Abigail dropped to a knee and took aim, but not at any of the guards. She aimed, instead, at the lights over their heads.
She fired. Glass exploded, casting their railcar into darkness. Startled, they fired at her, forcing her to duck out of the way. She dodged behind the seats, out of their line of sight, and then shot out the lights in her car as well, casting it into darkness too.
Abigail ducked down and shifted her position to further back in the train. She waited until the shots had died down, watching for muzzle flashes. Once they stopped firing, she lined up a shot and pulled the trigger.
As soon as she fired, she dove to the other side of the train. They set off another barrage of shots at her. Bullets thudded into the area she’d just vacated. Windows exploded. A cacophony accompanied the railcar getting torn apart all around her.
Even when the firing died down again, she waited.
“Do you see her?” one of the guards shouted.
“I think she’s down.”
“Check it out.”
“You check it out.”
Movement came from up ahead when one of the men climbed across the walkway to come check on her. Abigail waited until he reached the walkway, and then rushed forward. She stayed low, using his body to block line of sight between her and his friends.
When he noticed her, he raised his gun and let out a shout, but too late. She kicked the gun away, grabbed him, and then threw him sideways into the wall of the tunnel. He disappeared with a thud and scream, fading into the darkness behind them.
Abigail didn’t hesitate, just dove into the darkened train car and drew the sword once more. Though pitch black inside, somehow she knew the exact location of the guards.
On instinct alone, she stepped in and stabbed to the side with her blade. It sliced into flesh, and a man let out a scream of surprise and pain.
Several gunshots fired into the area, but Abigail had already moved on. Each muzzle flare came like a flash of lightning. The train car became a series of random images, highlighting everything for a split second and then gone once more.
Abigail ignored it all, focusing inward instead. She kept moving, diving and weaving over and around the seats to close the distance between each guard. She ran across the tops of the seats, stabbing one man, and then bounding off to land on another, driving her blade into his chest and riding him to the ground.
Abigail hit the floor in a roll, coming up slashing to cut the arm off another opponent, and then the head off yet another. She never stopped, taking erratic turns so that they couldn’t anticipate a pattern in her movements.
With the sword an extension of herself, Abigail cut and stabbed and dropped each of them while she moved through the railcar.
All of a sudden, the train filled with light when they exited the tunnel. Though cloudy outside, and the sun setting, she’d spent so much time in the darkness that it felt blindingly bright.
One man remained standing, but looked the other direction, evidently thinking her still behind him and toward the rear of the train.
He turned, searching for her, and raised his rifle when he spotted her. He stood a good eight meters away; too much distance to close. Abigail rotated and threw the blade end over end, embedding it deep into his chest. It sunk in almost to the hilt.
He collapsed onto his side with a grunt. The train fell completely silent, the only sound the chug of its wheels rolling over the tracks.
Abigail looked around. Realized what she’d just done. Body parts lay strewn all around her. Now, she stood near Frieda.
She’d killed all those men over the span of a few seconds. Blood covered her hands and clothes, and she grew lightheaded. She’d always thought she hated killing people because Arthur had raised her to think such.
Never should taking life be done lightly, and yet, she’d just murdered fifteen people. And the only thing that concerned her was how little she cared.
Evil lived in her. Pure and complete. She’d become the very thing that Arthur had taught her to hunt for so many years.
And the scariest thing was that a part of her felt thrilled that she’d accepted her place in life at last.
The demon-girl she’d chased had gone. Must have gotten away during the firefight. Frieda lay on the floor, eyes open but unfocused. She breathed shallow breaths and looked to be severely hurt.
Abigail rushed over to her. A cut stood out on her right wrist, and a lot of blood had drained out. She seemed barely conscious.
Quickly, Abigail wrapped up her wrist, staunching the flow of blood, and then tapped her on the cheek to wake her. It took a few tries before Frieda’s eyes opened. She let out a groan, tried to roll over, and her eyes had difficulty focusing.
“Stay with me,” Abigail said. “Hey! Focus, Frieda.”
She groaned and shook her head, blinking. “What the hell happened?”
“A lot,” Abigail said. “What do you remember?”
“She took my blood.”
“Who?”
Frieda hesitated. “Haatim’s sister.”
Abigail looked at her in confusion. “She’s dead, right? She died months ago.”
The look on Frieda’s face said that she didn’t have an answer to that question.
“She was … trying to summon something, I think. I only heard bits and pieces of what they chanted.”
“Summon?”
Frieda nodded. “She wanted to bring something into this world.”
“And she needed your blood?”
Frieda looked at her helplessly. “I have no idea. Apparently. They drained a lot, and then started chanting, and at some point, I passed out.”
“I need to get you out of here,” Abigail said. Then she retrieved her phone with the intention of calling Dominick, who’d called multiple times from the looks of the missed calls list. She punched in the number to call him back.
He answered on the first ring, “Abigail, you okay? We’re three minutes out.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve got Frieda.”
“Where is she?”
“Third car from the back. This isn’t over. I’ll detach the back cars, and you can grab Frieda.”
“What? What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Get Frieda to safety.”
Abigail hung up the call before Dominick could respond. She found her bag of C4 back in the caboose and carried it to the next walkway. The bag held several pounds of plastic explosive, along with a number of timed detonators.
It wouldn’t take much to detach the three cars. Abigail placed a small chunk of it around the hitch, which connected the two railcars together, and then attached a timer. She set it for thirty seconds.
When she looked back into the car, she saw Frieda sitting in one of the chairs and holding her wrist. She looked exhausted and beaten up, but Abigail felt sure she would be all right.
“Once you’re loose, Dominick will come get you and take you to safety,” Abigail said. “Stay here and keep pressure on the wound.”
“What are you going to do?”
Abigail grimaced and slung the bag with the rest of the C4—at least ten more pounds—over her shoulder.
“Stop this train.”
“Be careful,” Frieda said.
“We’re a long way past careful,” Abigail said.
Then she turned and headed into the next railcar, intending to go after Nida.
