Chapter 7
Abigail rushed out after the demon, sprinting with long, even strides. The woman she was chasing was fast, and the demon inside of her was pushing the nurse’s body to peak capacity, which made it difficult to keep up.
The woman climbed atop a stack of wooden pallets and boxes and started running across them. Abigail was a few steps behind as she scrambled to follow, ripping plastic wrapping loose as she went.
The nurse jumped down the far side of the stack, landing with a thud on the concrete below, and ran unencumbered for the exit. Abigail was about forty steps behind and gaining ground. They exploded out the double doors into blazing morning sunlight, and Abigail’s prey turned into a blur for a few seconds.
Abigail’s eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and she kept sprinting. She had her gun still and knew she could make the shot, but she didn’t want to risk killing her target. Not this target, at least.
This was the best chance she had to get some information about Arthur.
“Stop!” she shouted. “I only want to ask a few questions.”
The demon ignored her and kept running. They were on the outskirts of the city in a rundown warehousing district. Across the street were dilapidated rent-controlled apartments that had seen better years.
They ran across the empty street into an alleyway between two apartment buildings. The demon leaped atop a large green dumpster and then sprang up to the fire escape, an inhuman leap Abigail knew she couldn’t make. Then it pulled itself over the railing and started climbing up the stairs to the roof.
Abigail followed, stepping lightly onto the dumpster and kicking off the wall to push herself high enough to catch the railing. She couldn’t jump as high as the demon even with the added step and only caught the bottom of the rail. The extra distance forced her to climb her way up onto the landing.
The demon was already rounding the third staircase by the time Abigail was on the first, and she knew she was losing time. Instead of climbing over the railing and chasing up the stairs, she balanced herself on the rusty handrail and sprung upward from a crouch, catching the metal rail on the second floor of the fire escape.
She rolled over the side onto the staircase and started chasing after the demon. Her wrist hurt, but she ignored the pain. Her feet twanged against the wire-frame flooring, and she felt it wobbling beneath her, but it didn’t give out. After a few moments, she burst onto the roof behind her prey.
The demon sprinted across the cement roof, dodging vents and refuse. A pair of pigeons were scared up as it past, hooting as they took flight and disappeared into the sky. Abigail gained a little ground with long strides, but not enough.
There was a stairwell leading back into the building, but that wasn’t where the demon was heading. It was sprinting for the edge of the roof. Abigail chased, only a few steps behind.
Delaphene kept going and Abigail steeled herself, forcing her tired muscles to push even harder. The demon reached the edge of the roof and leaped out, landing on the next building over. The second roof was about four meters away and three or so meters down. The demon hit the cement in a roll and came to its feet sprinting.
Abigail reached the edge and jumped out into the air, pushing off as hard as she could. There was a moment when she was floating in the air, wondering if this had been a bad decision and she should have just let Delaphene escape. It was a long distance between buildings, and she was six flights in the air.
She crashed against the side of the second building, fingers clinging to the cement siding. She kicked her feet, catching small holes in the bricks, and scrambled up the side.
The demon was almost across the second roof already, heading for the next building over. Abigail found her footing and cursed.
“Damn it,” she growled, brushing loose hairs out of her face. With a growl, she took off after it.
Haatim half walked and half ran out of the warehouse, uncomfortable in the heavy silence now that the two women were gone. He didn’t like staying in the vast emptiness with the echoing moans of the doctor, especially without Abigail nearby.
The entire cavernous chamber felt empty and abandoned, entirely uninviting. He came to the stack of boxes where Abigail and the nurse had climbed over and decided that finding a way around was a better plan. He had to walk his way over six aisles to find an opening. The place felt like a maze, and it stank of rotten things and death.
He felt like he needed to get some fresh air.
He reached the exit and stumbled into the sunlight beyond. He basked in it, closing his eyes and just breathing. His head hurt, his body was sore, and he was still terrified and confused, but at least he could breathe easily again.
He finally relaxed and glanced around for Abigail, wondering where she had disappeared to. She was nowhere in sight, but he couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. Maybe that was the last time he would ever see her.
The only problem was that he didn’t know where he was. Or how to get home. Or what he would find when he got home. Or if it was even safe to go home. Or…
He trailed off, hearing someone shouting from up above. It sounded like a woman on the roof, but he couldn’t tell if it was Abigail, the nurse, or someone else. He walked down the street in that direction, looking up at the rooftops and squinting. Several other people were coming outside their own buildings and looking around in confusion.
“What’s going on?” a man asked Haatim, cupping his hands over his eyes and looking at the roof. He was only wearing a pair of white briefs; his big belly hung over the top of them.
“No clue,” Haatim replied, moving farther down the street and away from the man. He could understand people being curious, but this guy took it too far in his tightey-whiteys.
He passed an open alleyway and kept moving down the street, still staring up. There was another shout, farther ahead, and he hurried forward. He paused at the entrance to another alley.
There was a fire escape on the right brick wall that climbed all the way to the roof. There was also a large amount of discarded garbage and broken boxes littering the ground. It reminded him of the alley where he’d lost his pants. He had a momentary flashback to the previous night’s events and was thankful that at least the sun was out this time.
He waited, straining to hear or see anything, and suddenly a person sprang from the building on his left and landed on the fire escape to the right. It looked like the nurse, though it was hard to tell from her height above him. She landed nimbly on the fire-escape landing and started circling the stairs, running down.
A few seconds later he saw another woman—this one looked like Abigail—leap from the left roof as well. She didn’t aim for the top landing but instead caught the rail and swung her body down like a gymnast to the level below, catching the nurse by surprise and kicking her in the chest. The nurse blasted into the glass window, shattering it and flying into the room beyond.
Glass rained down in the alley in front of Haatim, forcing him to step back and cover his face with his arms.
He looked back just in time to see Abigail land nimbly on the landing and jump through the shattered window, disappearing into the apartment building behind the nurse.
Haatim just stared, jaw hanging open. “Holy crap.”
Abigail wove nimbly around the furniture in the apartment, chasing her prey farther into the room. These were shoddy accommodations with poor construction, and mostly unoccupied. The room they had landed in was only half finished and abandoned by the contractors, filled with rat droppings and dusty furniture and poorly installed insulation.
The nurse was cut now and bleeding in multiple places from smashing through the window. The demon could push her body to the brink of pain and exhaustion, but once it started shutting down there was nothing to be done. It was only a few steps ahead of Abigail now, stumbling along.
Abigail followed it out of the apartment into the hallway. She heard a scream behind her, along with the barking of a dog, but she had the demon in her sights now. She sprinted after it, closing the distance.
The demon ran to the closed door of another apartment, throwing its shoulder against it. The door didn’t budge, so the demon tried again. It fell open on the second hit, and the demon stumbled inside. Abigail followed, barely steps behind. On the couch sat an elderly couple watching Gilligan’s Island. They looked up in shock as the two burst inside.
The demon ran past their couch, stumbling and heading for the hallway leading into the kitchen. Abigail ran up the side of the couch, quick-stepping past the old woman, and dove off. She hit the demon in the back, tackling it to the ground and pinning it.
The demon thrashed and screamed, but Abigail rolled behind it and put it in a headlock. She clamped down on the neck, cutting off the demon’s air supply. They struggled for a few more seconds before the demon finally fell limp.
Abigail laid back, panting and trying to catch her breath. She heard rushing footsteps in the hall and drew her gun, aiming at the door.
A second later Haatim rounded the corner, wild-eyed. She relaxed, lowering the gun, and let out a chuckle.
“Glad you could make it.”
“What the hell is going on?” the old man asked, standing up slowly from the couch. His back creaked, and he looked more confused than angry.
“We’re police,” Abigail explained, climbing to her feet. She presented a badge from her pocket, flashing it to the man and his wife. “We were in the process of apprehending this woman when she tried to flee. Sorry for the disturbance.”
The man turned and eyed Haatim for a long minute before nodding. “OK,” he said.
“More officers will be here in a few minutes, and the state will assess the damage to your apartment for the cost of repairs.”
This perked the man up, and he nodded again.
“Here,” Abigail said, gesturing to Haatim and sliding the ID away. “Come help me get her out of here. We’ll take her back to the precinct.”
Haatim hesitated for a second and then went over. They picked the nurse up and started carrying her back out of the apartment. A lot of people were in the hallway now, leaning out of doorways to watch. Down the hall, the dog was still barking.
They carried the limp woman over to the elevator and inside. Once the door had slid shut he heard Abigail let out a sigh of relief. She pushed the lobby button and leaned against the wall.
“Police badge?” he asked.
“It’s fake,” she said. “And a bad one at that. We need to hurry. The real police will be here soon.”
“What are we doing with her?”
“I’m going to take her somewhere safe,” Abigail said, giving him a look.
“Then what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to go home.”
“What?” he asked, feeling a sudden tightness in his chest. “Home? What if they are still searching for me?”
“They aren’t,” Abigail said.
“How do you know?”
“Because we eliminated this cell. No one is left in the city to come after you.”
“Cell?”
“This local group,” she explained. “The organization is decentralized. No head of the snake to cut off, or I would have finished it years ago.”
“You hunt them?”
“Yep,” she said.
“Why?”
She looked at him but didn’t answer. The elevator reached the ground floor and opened. Together they grabbed the woman and carried her out the front of the apartment building.
“I don’t want to go home,” Haatim said.
“You have to.”
“After what happened? I just…”
Abigail looked at him, frowning. “One problem at a time. Stay with her,” Abigail said, gesturing at the nurse.
She ran back down the street toward the warehouse and disappeared around the corner. Haatim let the body slump to the ground and drew in a few calming breaths. His hands were still shaking but he was starting to feel like his old self again.
A minute later a car pulled up next to Haatim.
His car.
“That’s mine,” he said as Abigail climbed out of the passenger seat.
“I’m borrowing it,” she replied.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Like hell you are,” she said. She circled around the vehicle and opened the backseat, then they carried the nurse over. “You aren’t coming with me.”
“I’m not going home,” he said. Then, quieter, he added: “I can’t.”
“Then where do you want me to drop you off? Do you have any family in the area?”
He shook his head.
“Any close friends you can stay with?”
“No,” he said.
“No family or friends,” she said with a sigh.
“None,” he replied. “My parents don’t even live in the US.”
She hesitated, and he saw a curious expression on her face. She opened her mouth, but it was a long minute before she said anything. “You were going to tell me earlier what your father’s name was,” she said. “Back in your apartment.”
“Aram Malhotra.”
He saw her tense up and frown. She said, “OK.”
“What? Why does his name matter?”
“It doesn’t,” she lied. “Get in.”
Haatim thought to ask her why her demeanor had changed when he told her his father’s name but decided against it. Right now he just didn’t want to be alone.
“All right,” he said, climbing into the passenger seat.
“You can come with me,” she said, turning the car on. “But you do exactly what I say when I say it. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Lincoln Cole
