Chapter 6
Haatim lay on the hospital bed, gasping in agony as heat ripped through his stomach. It seemed like hours had passed since the doctor had injected him, but he rationally knew it had only been minutes. It felt like his insides were being turned into mush.
They hadn’t given him any medication to help dull the pain, only something to keep him docile. He could feel everything; he simply couldn’t react to it.
He wasn’t tied down anymore, but that didn’t matter. The two guards were still in his room, the dead one and the one with sallow skin, but the doctor and nurse were still gone. The two guards stood on opposite sides of his bed, watching him struggle with immutable expressions. He had tried pleading with them to no avail. They were cold, lifeless.
After what felt like an eternity, the doctor came back into the room, carrying his clipboard. He frowned down at Haatim and looked at the two men.
“No improvement?” he asked
“None,” sallow-skin said.
“A pity,” the doctor replied. “All our efforts will be in vain.”
“Should we finish him off?”
“No. Let the medicine run its course. Once he’s dead we can send his head back to his father. Not the ideal situation, but it is what it is.”
“Why…?” Haatim gasped. “Why are you doing this?”
The doctor looked at him. “I’m not doing anything. Your friend poisoned you. I’m simply helping the process along. Unfortunately, it seems that the dose you received will prove fatal.”
“Please…a hospital…”
“This is a hospital,” the doctor said, gesturing his arms at the room around them. “Or, at least as close to a hospital as you will get before you expire.”
Haatim groaned in pain.
“What?” the doctor said. “You feel let down by the situation? I feel worse. All of my work these past months will have been for naught.”
“I know, right?” a voice called from the doorway.
Everyone froze, and slowly they all turned to look at the doorway. Even Haatim managed to cock his head far enough to get a decent view.
Abigail was leaning casually against the door frame, arms folded and a smirk on her face. “You think you found the perfect vessel to bring your dark lord back from hell, but it just never works out, does it?”
“You!” the doctor said, dropping the clipboard.
“Me?” she asked innocently. “Relax Christoph, if you brought your lord back here now I would just have to kill him again.”
The doctor—Christoph—charged forward with a yell. Abigail exploded into motion, dropping into a crouch and quick-stepping forward to confront him. The two bodyguards were right behind Christoph, entering the fray only seconds later.
The doctor swung wildly at her, waving his arms like they were batons. Abigail ducked under the first attack, sidestepped the second, and then kicked him in the back of the knee. The joint bent down at an uncomfortable angle, snapping with a sharp crack. Haatim winced as he watched the bone shatter.
He saw a blur of motion as Abigail twirled and ducked, avoiding the other two combatants as they launched attacks at her. She was so fast that he could barely follow her movements. At some point, she drew her revolver, and he heard the bark of a gunshot.
The sound filled his ears, leaving behind a ringing. He saw the dead man stumble back into the wall, yet somehow he managed to stay standing despite being shot in the chest at point blank range.
Abigail used the momentary lull to attack her other opponent, launching a flurry of blows that drove sallow-skin into the corner of the room. She finished with a kick to his chest, knocking him into the corner. He sunk into the drywall, partially restrained by it.
When she turned back, the dead man was charging her, attempting to ram her into the wall next to his friend. Abigail dropped to the floor, twined her legs between his, and tripped him. He fell face forward into the drywall, shattering it and staggering through.
Behind the newly created hole, Haatim could see a cavernous space stretching into the distance. Little dots of light from windows decorated the sides throughout at various heights. It was dark, and it looked like boxes were stacked on pallets inside the cavernous space.
It looked like a warehouse, empty and silent with all of the lights turned off. What the hell…?
Abigail didn’t hesitate: she jumped to her feet, stepped onto the dead man’s back, and fired a bullet into the back of his head. Then she spun and aimed the revolver at sallow-skin; he had just pulled himself free from the corner.
“These bullets are blessed,” she said. “Go home willingly, or when I pull this trigger you’ll be stuck there for a very long time.”
The man hesitated, and then suddenly his body collapsed to the floor. Abigail lowered the gun and turned to Haatim. She slid a new vial out of her pocket and hurried over to him.
“Drink this,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s the antidote.”
“I should . . . trust you?” he mumbled, gasping in pain.
“Good,” she said. “You’re learning. But you’ll be dead soon, so what further harm could I do?”
Haatim stared at her, then at the room around them. The walls were shattered, three bodies lay on the ground, and most of the medical equipment was broken.
“A lot, apparently,” he offered.
“Just drink it.”
Haatim accepted the vial. He took a sip and nearly spat it back out. It was easily the most disgusting thing he’d ever tasted.
“Is that burned grass and asphalt?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just buy it.”
The burning sensation and agony subsided almost immediately, and Haatim was able to breathe again. He let out a deep sigh, almost crying with relief.
He sat up on the bed. The doctor was still lying on the ground, clutching his knee and moaning. Abigail saw Haatim staring and added:
“He’ll be all right. The demon fled as soon as I shattered the man’s knee. We’ll call an ambulance when we leave and they’ll get him fixed up.”
“You mean, that wasn’t him? It wasn’t that man doing those things?”
“That was the demon controlling him,” she explained. “Don’t look so horrified. He isn’t an innocent bystander by any means. He’s a member of the Ninth Circle and gave himself willingly. The demon is only a lesser creature I know of as Christoph. I’ve met up with him and his sister many times in the past.”
“That’s…” Haatim said, then just shook his head.
“Crazy?” she finished. “I know.”
“Why would anyone—”
Abigail made an “shh” sound, silencing Haatim, and glanced around the room. He fell silent, watching her.
“Was anyone else here?”
“A woman,” Haatim said. “The nurse.”
“The nurse?”
Haatim gestured toward the doorway, where he saw the leg of someone hiding around the corner. She was wearing the blue nurse’s scrubs he had seen earlier.
“Her,” Haatim said, gesturing to the door. “The nurse.”
Abigail’s eyes went wide: “Delaphene,” she said.
Suddenly, the leg disappeared. He heard scuffling footsteps outside as the woman ran away. Abigail sprinted after her, disappearing through the doorway and beyond.
Haatim was left alone. He staggered out of the bed, tripping and stumbling over the bodies, and followed her out the hospital room. By the time he made it into the faux hallway, Abigail was halfway across the warehouse, chasing the nurse toward the exit. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the warehouse, scuffing across the floor.
He looked around and saw that his “hospital room” was actually a small fabricated contraption in the center of the warehouse, surrounded by old and rotting boxes and rundown equipment. They had built up just enough of a façade to make it appear legitimate to someone lying in the hospital bed, but nothing else.
He pushed one of the walls, which was painted to look like a hospital corridor, and it fell over with a resounding crash. The sound echoed, and Haatim let out a shuddering breath.
“This just keeps getting better and better.”
Lincoln Cole
