Chapter 8
Abigail drove out of the city and north on the highway, thoroughly exhausted from the day’s ordeal but not yet able to relax. Haatim sat in the passenger seat, a blank expression on his face as he tried to process everything that was happening to him.
It wasn’t easy, she knew. His eyes had been opened to a world he hadn’t even known existed, and it wasn’t exactly a slow and simple integration. Abigail had the benefit of being introduced to this life at an early age. When Arthur had rescued her she had been a child, and she already knew that there were some things in this world that didn’t make any sense.
And most of them were trying to kill her.
“Where are we going?” Haatim asked.
“Somewhere safe,” she replied. “You should get some sleep. Your body is going to need some time to recover.”
“What happened to your hand?” he asked.
She glanced down at it. It was covered in scars and swelling in the joints, but she hadn’t wrapped it or worn a brace in weeks. It looked hideous and hurt like hell, but she couldn’t really remember a time when it hadn’t during these last few months.
The swelling was new, and she realized she’d probably damaged it in the fight.
“I broke it,” she said. “A few months ago. Still swells up from time to time. I’m not supposed to put any pressure on it.”
“Looks like you broke it pretty bad.”
“I was in a cast for four months.”
“Ouch,” Haatim said. “What happened?”
Abigail was silent for a long minute. “You should get some sleep. We have a long way to go.”
He reclined the passenger seat and let out a sigh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again.”
Naturally, he was out in only a few minutes. Abigail tapped him a couple of times, just to make sure he was totally gone, and then she pulled out her phone. There were three missed calls, all from Frieda, and a series of text messages telling her to respond immediately.
She clicked Frieda’s number and waited for it to connect. Frieda answered on the first click.
“Hello?” Abigail said, yawning and making it sound like she just woke up.
“Abi? Where are you?”
“My hotel room,” she lied.
“Are you still in Arizona?”
“What? No, I left last night. I’m in Arkansas. Almost to Raven’s Peak like you said.”
“I’ve been calling all night.”
“I was sleeping, had my phone turned off.”
“Were you at Rochester and Bixby last night?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason,” Frieda said.
“Did something happen?”
“Don’t play dumb, Abigail.”
“I’m not,” Abigail said. “I left about midnight.”
“What about your tail? You said someone was following you?”
“Yeah, I dealt with it. Deleted the photos and sent him on his way.”
“Did you get his name?”
“I think he said it was Robert. He was nobody.”
Frieda was silent for a long moment, and Abigail wasn’t sure if she bought the lie or not.
“OK,” Frieda said finally. Abigail fought the urge to let out a relieved sigh. That was, at least, until Frieda continued: “Honestly, even if you did have him, I would rather not know just yet.”
“Have who?”
“Haatim. If I knew that he was with you, I would be obligated to report that information to the Council. I don’t want to cross that bridge until I can look into a few things on my end. I would hope you wouldn’t tell me you had him if he was safe. And I definitely would hope you didn’t tell anyone else. Do you know what I mean?”
Abigail was silent for a long minute, cursing Frieda in her mind. The silence grew awkward, and she decided to change the subject:
“OK. Anyway, I should be at Raven’s Peak before too long and I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“OK, sounds good. Thanks, Abigail.”
“No problem,” she said. She hung up the phone and bit her lip. “Sometimes that woman really pisses me off.”
It was annoying that Frieda knew she had Haatim, but she was curious what game Frieda was playing at. She didn’t want the Council to know where Haatim was, which was crazy. Frieda had always been fiercely loyal to the Council. Maybe there was dysfunction in the ranks. Abigail couldn’t decide whether she cared.
Still, she could honor Frieda’s unspoken request and hang on to Haatim for a while. Whatever Frieda was doing, it was probably important, and having Frieda owe her a favor could be a huge benefit in the long run.
But, first things first: she glanced in the rearview mirror at the unconscious shape in the backseat of the car. Delaphene, a lesser demon notorious for being an information broker. Abigail hadn’t even known Delaphene was in the city or a part of that cell and could hardly believe her good fortune at finding her.
This demon might know something about where Arthur was, and how she could bring him back. Fate, it seemed, had dropped a new avenue of pursuit into her lap.
Haatim woke up to a tapping on his arm. He yawned and glanced around. The clock on the dashboard said it was early in the afternoon, and he was still thoroughly exhausted.
“Are we there?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Just a gas and restroom break. We have a long way to go before we stop again, so if you need to stretch your legs you better do it now.”
Haatim nodded and climbed out of the car. He yawned again and stretched his arms. “Do you need anything?”
“Get me a coke,” she said, climbing out and opening the gas hatch on the side. “And some beef jerky.”
He nodded and headed into the gas station. His first stop was to the restroom to relieve his bladder, and then he headed out and purchased drinks and snacks. When he got back to the car Abigail was closing up the gas tank.
“My turn,” she said, disappearing into the store. Haatim climbed into the passenger seat and leaned back, hoping to fall asleep again.
He heard a muffled buzzing sound as his pocket started to vibrate. He slid his phone out and looked at it curiously. He’d forgotten he still had it with everything that was going on.
Abigail had wanted to take it from him and destroy it, but she’d never gotten the chance. He looked curiously at the number and let out a groan. He clicked accept:
“Crap, Mom, I know I promised to call you back I’ve just been—”
“Haatim! Thank God!” she interrupted. Her voice sounded thick, like she’d been crying. “Thank God you’re all right.”
“Yeah,” he said awkwardly. “I’m fine.”
“Your father and I were so worried when we heard about the attack at your apartment.”
Haatim sighed. If there was anything his mom was really good at, it was worrying.
“No, Mom, I’m fine,” he said. “I wasn’t even home when it happened.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m fine. The police got me a hotel room and everything is OK,” he lied. He didn’t want his mom to be concerned about him, especially since he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on or what he was going to do next.
“Do you need us to send you anything? Where is the hotel at?”
“No, Mom. I’m good for now.”
“Give me the address and I will—”
“I’m fine, Mom,” he said, cutting her off. “I am safe and healthy, and you don’t need to worry about me. I promise.”
“All right, Haatim,” she said. He could tell she wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t push the issue.
“I need to go, but I promise I’ll call you back soon.”
“OK. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom,” Haatim said. He hung up the phone and turned it off. The battery was nearly empty, and he didn’t know when he would be able to charge it. He slipped it into his pocket and leaned back in his seat.
A few minutes later Abigail returned to the car, slipping into the driver’s seat. He glanced over at her and yawned. “How much farther?”
“Not too far,” she replied. “A few more hours, maybe less.”
She started the engine and pulled out of the gas station. She merged back onto the highway and Haatim stared out the window, watching the countryside roll past.
“Why did you agree to take me with you?” he asked finally.
“Like you said: you have nowhere else to go,” she replied.
“You only agreed after I told you my father’s name,” he argued. “Do you know him?”
She was silent for a long moment. “Why did you stop believing in God?”
“I asked you first.”
“I know of your father,” Abigail said. “Never met him, I just know the name. Your turn.”
Haatim had to think about how to answer her question. He’d never really given himself time to think about it himself: “My father is an Acharya,” he explained. “A spiritual leader. He was someone looked up to in his community. Growing up, I thought I was going to follow in his footsteps. I studied Theology and learned about world religions.”
“And then you stopped believing in God?” Abigail said.
“I never stopped believing God existed,” Haatim said. “I stopped believing God was good.”
“What happened?”
“My sister died,” Haatim explained. “She wasn’t even seventeen when cancer took her. It was horrible during the last few months, watching her suffer and being unable to help.”
“So you lost your faith?”
“How can I have faith in something like that? It’s almost worse if God does exist because then it means everything wrong about our world is intentional.”
“You don’t believe in free will and that people can make their own decisions? If we mess up, it’s our own fault.”
“How can people make decisions when facts are withheld? How is a kid born into poverty without parents supposed to be able to make the same decisions as a kid born into wealth with a silver spoon in his mouth?”
“So it took your sister’s death to awaken you to the inequalities of the world?”
Haatim hesitated. “I think I always had questions and concerns, but I guess I just ignored them. I thought if I showed people how to be happy with what they had, that things would be OK. But, when my sister died…”
“It was harder to pretend things were fair in the world,” she finished. “I can understand that.”
“How do you know about my father?”
Abigail glanced over at him. “You have no idea, do you?”
“What?”
“At first, I thought it was just an act and that maybe you were toying with me, but now I think you genuinely don’t know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Abigail hesitated. “Look, if you are who I think you are, then it isn’t my place to say.”
Haatim groaned in exasperation. “Say what?”
Without answering, Abigail reached over and flicked the radio on. She turned up the volume, making it clear that their conversation was over. Haatim stared at her for a long while before looking back out the window, but she refused to make eye contact.
“Do you have any idea how frustrating you are?” he mumbled, resting his chin on his hand.
“Yep.”
Haatim had never seen as much dust in his entire life as when they opened the door to the old cabin. It hung thick in the air and covered all of the furniture in the decrepit building.
It was a massive single story affair made out of logs and beams that looked like it was built in the eighteenth century. It looked sturdy and old, hidden in the mountains of Colorado and far away from civilization in all directions.
The cabin was surrounded by bristlecone pine trees and thick foliage in every direction with no other roads or houses nearby. The perfect little hideaway, Haatim realized.
They had traveled on a dirt road for the last eight miles of the trip, bouncing and jostling across uneven terrain. He wasn’t the sort of person to get car sick, but even he was more than a little happy to finally be out of that car.
Abigail had spoken little after his questioning, and after a while, Haatim had managed to fall into an uncomfortable doze once more. His head still hurt, as well as his stomach, but he was starting to feel better overall. Healthier. They picked up a late lunch at a fast food restaurant, and he felt like he was recovering.
“Dusty,” Haatim said. He immediately sneezed. Then he sneezed again, and a third time for good measure.
“God bless you,” Abigail said. “Hang on, I’ll go open some windows.”
Haatim waited out on the front porch as she stepped into the foyer and then disappeared into the living room. He heard the grinding of warped wood as she slid windows open, and then the sound of a generator kicking on from the opposite side of the house. That was followed by the whirring of a fan somewhere inside the old log cabin.
A moment later, Abigail reappeared. “We don’t have a lot of fuel, but I don’t think we’ll be here very long.”
“Where are we?”
“My cabin,” she explained, going back inside.
“I meant what state?”
“Denial,” she offered.
Haatim hesitated, then frowned. “Ha, ha, very funny. I meant are we still in Arizona?”
“I know what you meant,” she said. “We’re in Colorado. Come on.”
He followed her inside, trying to breathe through his mouth and avoid the dust clouds. It didn’t help, and he sneezed again. “Doesn’t look like you’ve been here for some time.”
“I haven’t,” she said. “Not since…”
She trailed off, and Haatim saw a troubled look cross her face.
“Not in a long time,” she agreed. “Help me clear out the living room before we bring Delaphene in.”
“Delaphene?”
“The nurse,” she said. “It’s her name, or, at least, the one she uses. I don’t know her real one.”
They set to cleaning up the main room. It was an impressive job, given the state of things, which made him glad she didn’t want them to clean the entire house. There were a lot of scattered boxes filled with old papers and trinkets. Little crosses and jewelry, stones and glass sculptures, and millions of other things he barely recognized.
A lot of those trinkets looked like the cheap things Haatim had seen at county fairs when he was younger. The sort of garbage they sold to hapless tourists with too much money and not enough discretion.
Haatim found a broom and rag in the kitchen and set to clearing out the dust. Abigail stacked the boxes, occasionally leafing through the papers inside them. “What are we doing way out here?”
“Just a quick stop before we head on to Raven’s Peak,” she said. “For some answers.”
“We couldn’t ask her in Arizona?”
“Not in the way I intend on asking her.”
“Are you trying to find out why they are trying to kill me?”
“They aren’t anymore,” she said. “Or, at least, her cell of the Ninth Circle isn’t. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“Then what are you planning to ask her about?”
“Something important to me,” she said. Her tone signaled to him that was the end of that particular line of conversation.
“I’ve never been to Colorado before,” he said after a while. “Is this where you live?”
“No,” she said.
“Is this where you grew up?” he asked.
“No.”
Haatim waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. They kept working in silence, getting the room fairly well-cleaned-up. Haatim swept all of the dust and crud out the front door and Abigail took the sheets of plastic off the furniture.
“All right,” she said. “That’s good. Now, help me bring her in.”
Haatim hesitated, and then shook his head.
“What is it?” Abigail asked.
“I want to know why?” Haatim replied. “Why did you bring her all the way out here? So you could torture her?”
“No,” Abigail said.
“You’re lying.”
“So what if I am?”
“I’m not going to help you hurt someone.”
“I don’t need your help,” Abigail said, “and I sure as hell don’t need your approval.”
“I won’t let you do this.”
“Then try and stop me,” she said. “But keep in mind that we’re not dealing with a human, but a demon. And one that was going to use you to summon her master back into the world. She would cut you up into little pieces without a second’s hesitation.”
“What about the person the demon is living inside?”
“What about her?”
“She’s innocent. You said yourself that she’s being possessed.”
“Willingly,” Abigail said. “I know this particular demon, and I know the vessel she resides in. They get along quite well.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Haatim said. “If we torture her, we are no better than the demon.”
“There is no ‘we,’” Abigail said. “I’m doing this with or without you.”
“Then it makes you as bad as them,” he argued.
She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “And maybe not. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to torture the human. I have a few implements and poultices that only cause the demon to feel pain.”
Haatim thought about it. “I’m not sure that makes it any better.”
“It’s the best you’re going to get,” she replied. “And, at the end of this, I’m sending the demon back to hell. Then you can decide if the vessel is worth saving. Deal?”
“Fine,” Haatim said.
“Now help me carry her in.”
He headed outside with Abigail, and together they brought the unconscious nurse into the living room. They tied her to a chair, wrapping duct tape around her wrists and ankles to hold her down.
“Now what?” he asked. “Should we wake her up?”
“Now we wait,” she said. “Do you want a drink? I think there’s some water in the kitchen.”
“I’m OK,” he replied.
“Suit yourself,” she said, sitting on the couch. She laid back, setting her head on the armrest and closing her eyes.
“What are we waiting for?”
“For her to wake up,” Abigail said. “I’m going to take a nap. You keep an eye on her. Just wake me up when she starts moving.”
The nurse woke up about an hour after they tied her to the chair, stirring slowly and moaning before anything else. The noise caught Haatim off-guard, drawing him out of a doze.
He was lost in his thoughts, piecing through the events of the last day or so; he was trying to figure out what he was going to do now that everything in his life had fallen apart: how was he supposed to move on?
He was relaxing in an old leather armchair and nearly fell out of it when the nurse’s head jerked up. She let out a gasping cough and looked around, wild-eyed and delirious. Her matted hair clung to her face, and she was clearly dazed.
“Where…?” she started to say.
Haatim stood up to wake Abigail, but quickly realized he didn’t have to. Abigail was already up, watching the nurse with a calm expression on her face. She sat up on the couch and rubbed her fingers through her hair, letting out a yawn.
She looked exhausted, and for the first time, Haatim could see how young she was. She couldn’t be over twenty-three or four years old, and at the very least she was several years younger than himself.
“She’s awake,” Haatim said awkwardly.
“I can see that.”
“What now?”
Abigail looked at him. “Maybe you should wait outside,” she said. “While I talk to her.”
He hesitated. “You aren’t going to…?”
“No,” Abigail said. “Not unless she forces me to.”
The nurse rocked in her chair and threw a look of pure hatred at Abigail.
“I’m going to rip your eyeballs out, then jam them so far up your ass you’ll see your intestines,” the nurse said.
Silence hung in the air, and Haatim felt his mouth hanging open. He finally glanced over and saw Abigail staring at him, a bemused expression on her face. He quickly closed his mouth.
“Do you need any help?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But it might be best if you took a walk in the woods while you were out there.”
Once Haatim had left and Abigail was certain he was out of earshot, she turned to the demon. “Hello, Delaphene.”
The demon stared at her for a long moment, frowning. “Hello, Abi. It’s been a long time.”
“I think you scared my friend.”
“I’m surprised he’s still with you,” she said. “I thought by now the Council would have dragged him home to his father.”
Abigail was silent.
Delaphene raised an eyebrow. “They don’t know you have him? Oh, that is quite delicious.”
“Why were you after him? It’s very brazen of you to go after a family member of someone sitting on the Council.”
“His father had a deal with our Lord that the Council didn’t know about. He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, so we were going to show him just how costly it was to betray us. Then we found out you were in town. Two birds, so to speak.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“No member of the Council would make a deal with Abaddon.”
Delaphene pursed her lips. “Oh, my sweet innocent Abi. And here you thought we were the bad ones. What are you planning to do with Haatim?”
Abigail didn’t know. She’d never known Aram Malhotra to have children, and she’d certainly never expected him to go to such great lengths to keep them from understanding this side of their lives. She’d always assumed children were indoctrinated into the life, carrying on the legacy of their parents. But, Haatim was clueless and detached from it all.
Maybe that was for the best, and Abigail envied him a little for his naiveté. She’d often wondered how her life might have been if she wasn’t kidnapped by the cult and rescued by Arthur. What might have happened if she was allowed to live a normal life?
Still, for the most part, she enjoyed her life and was proud of the work she did on behalf of the Council. They were saving lives…yet, if what Delaphene was saying was true and Aram was compromised…
“You could just give Haatim back to me,” Delaphene offered. “I can find some use for him.”
“You? I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re a cold and heartless monster,” Abigail said. “He’ll never know that underneath the evil and ugly exterior you’re really just a fluffy puppy.”
“Say that again and I really will kill you.”
“And how are you planning on doing that?”
“This won’t be our last encounter,” the demon said. “And I have a very long memory.”
“Good,” Abigail said. “Then you should remember this.”
She held up a dried plant with purple flowers, twirling it in her fingers.
“Verbena,” Delaphene breathed, narrowing her eyes.
“Excellent. You do remember. I haven’t used Isis’s Tears in a long time, so this should be a lot of fun.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“That depends on how forthcoming you are with information,” Abigail said.
Delaphene hesitated. “If the Council knew—”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Abigail said. “And if a word of this finds its way back to the Council, I will dedicate my life to making your time in hell as miserable as possible. My memory is long, too.”
Another moment of silence as the demon considered its options. “One condition.”
“You aren’t exactly in a bargaining position—”
“Don’t send me back,” Delaphene said. “Not yet. I’m not ready to go.”
Abigail paused as if considering the proposition.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Abigail said. “For now, it’s time to be helpful.
“Fine, ask your questions.”
“Why were you trying to bring Abaddon back?”
“He ordered us to.”
“I just sent him home,” Abigail said. “Is he a glutton for punishment?”
“Very funny,” Delaphene said. “Because gluttony…never mind. He has business to attend to, and he thought it would be amusing to confront the Council in Haatim’s body.”
“Seems risky,” Abigail said. “Going after the son of a Council member.”
“We have been watching him and several others for months now. The last time he lived in Arizona, he had two Council guards watching over him to keep him safe. This time, he didn’t.”
It made sense because aside from Delaphene’s cell she hadn’t noticed anyone keeping tabs on Haatim. There hadn’t been anyone from the Council in the city aside from herself, as far as she knew.
“The only thing we didn’t account for was you,” Delaphene added. “Abaddon knew you were about to execute him, so he didn’t want to risk taking Haatim as a vessel right away. He thought he could keep Haatim close and use him to get you off the streets.”
“All Haatim had to do was take the bait.”
“And he did,” Delaphene said. “Yet he hesitated when he was supposed to turn the evidence over. I suppose his conscience got the better of him.”
“Lucky for him,” Abigail said. “I might have killed him myself if he went through with your plan.”
Delaphene shrugged. “Little loss there. We underestimated just how resourceful you could be. Arthur trained you well, it seems.”
Abigail frowned.
“Oh, a sensitive subject? And why wouldn’t it be, with Arthur languishing in hell—”
“What business is Abaddon on?”
Delaphene stared at her. “I can’t say.”
“Who sent him on it?”
“You know I can’t say, Abi. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“Don’t say it’s because they’ll do worse to you than I will,” Abigail said softly.
Delaphene laughed. “Not worse, just for a hell of a lot longer. Is that all of your questions?”
Abigail hesitated. “Where is Arthur?”
“Ah,” Delaphene whispered, smiling. “I wondered how long it would take to get to that.”
“I know you don’t like him—”
“Like him?” Delaphene interrupted. “He destroyed everything I built. He brought my entire organization crashing down. And, worst of all, he stole you from me.”
“I was never yours.”
“You will always be mine,” Delaphene replied, and the conviction in her voice sent a shiver down Abigail’s spine. “It will just take some time for you to realize it.”
Abigail remembered being a little girl who was terrified of Delaphene and the others. She remembered the horrors and devastation that had been her life: they kept her locked in the closet when they weren’t abusing her…
When they weren’t corrupting her.
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She’d been freed and shown a better way, and now her life was dedicated to sparing other people from that same fate. She’d come to terms with her past, and she was not going to be ruled by fear.
Abigail stood calmly and slid a knife free from her belt. She walked to Delaphene’s chair and knelt in front of it. The nurse had a concerned expression on her face now. She rocked the chair, trying to move it away, but it didn’t budge.
Abigail slid the knife forward and drew a small cut on the demon’s arm, a little over two inches long. Then she snapped off a few of the dry flower petals from the dried Verbena and began grinding them between her fingers. She chanted softly, closing her eyes.
“No,” Delaphene muttered, trying to rock the chair again. “No, don’t, please. It was just a joke. Please.”
Abigail reached forward, scattering the crumbled flower into the wound. The effect was instantaneous, a sizzling bubbling from the cut as though she’d hit the skin with a blow torch.
Delaphene screamed in pain, thrashing so hard veins popped out on her neck. She rocked in the chair, trying to rip her arm loose.
Abigail waited about ten seconds before walking to the table, grabbing a towel, and wiping the petals off the demon’s arm. It took a few seconds before the sizzling sound subsided and the demon stopped screaming. The nurse sat in the chair panting, head hung low and hair matted against her face.
“It doesn’t hurt the human,” Abigail said, holding up the remainder of the plant. “But I can’t say the same for the parasite inside.”
“They said you had changed,” Delaphene mumbled. Her eyes were bloodshot from popped blood vessels.
“They were right. Tell me where Arthur is.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the last person who asked me that,” Delaphene mumbled. “I don’t know.”
Abigail froze, the knife shaking in her hand. The demon looked up at her slowly, realizing its mistake.
Abigail mumbled: “The last one?”
“Who was it?” Abigail asked, stepping forward. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I don’t know,” Delaphene replied.
“Was it Frieda?”
“No.”
“Greathouse?”
“No,” Delaphene said. “It wasn’t someone I know, which means you sure as hell don’t know who it is.”
“What did the person look like?”
“I never saw clearly,” the demon said.
“But they were asking about Arthur?”
“Yes,” Delaphene said in exasperation. “She wanted to know where Arthur had been taken. I told her that I don’t know because it’s somewhere we don’t go. It’s somewhere…outside. Beneath. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. The things down there are our demons.”
“Does Abaddon know who it was?”
“No,” Delaphene said. “But it is something which concerns him. The things down there…they don’t wake up very often, and they certainly don’t come up for air. Whatever is going on…it’s big, and it’s only going to get worse.”
“If you’re lying to me…”
“I’m not,” Delaphene replied quickly. “Look, for what it’s worth, I don’t think this other woman is trying to find Arthur to rescue him. I’m pretty sure she has something else in mind.”
“Like what?”
“Like finding out what took him to make a deal with them.”
Abigail was silent for a long minute, thinking about the possibilities of that statement. She remembered the creature that had been inside her all those months ago, the way it had utterly dominated her. The sort of power it could grant to a human being was…
Unthinkable.
“Does the Council know?”
“I don’t speak to the Council,” Delaphene said. “Maybe you should ask them.”
“I can’t,” Abigail said.
“Of course, you can’t,” the demon said. “Because nothing you’re doing right now is sanctioned, is it? They don’t know you’re looking into this, and they definitely don’t know you’re talking to me, right? They think you’re a good little soldier, behaving orders like you are supposed to. They don’t understand you, Abi.”
“Oh, and you do?”
“Most assuredly, I do,” Delaphene said. “I chose you for a reason. I saw your potential when you were a little girl. I knew what you could become. I had great plans for you, Abi, before Arthur stole you from me.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
“You’re exactly like me,” Delaphene countered. “Look around us. Look where we are. This is Arthur’s home. His sanctuary. And you are using it to treat with a demon. The foremost tenet of your Order is that you will not deal with demons, and yet here we are.”
“Be quiet.”
“You dishonor him—”
“Shut up,” Abigail said angrily, but Delaphene was ignoring her.
“You are betraying everything Arthur stood for in your pursuit to rescue him—”
“I said shut up!” Abigail said, stepping forward and backhanding Delaphene across the face.
She’d known it was a bad idea to bring Delaphene out here. She had too much history with this demon; never mind how connected Delaphene was to the underworld and what kind of information she had access to, she was dangerous. The problem was: Delaphene knew just how to push her buttons.
The demon stared at her, a red handprint on her left cheek.
“That anger,” Delaphene said, smiling knowingly. “That’s the part I miss the most.”
“Answer my questions, and nothing else,” Abigail said, forcing herself to calm down and take deep breaths.
“I did,” Delaphene said. “I told you everything that I know.”
“You are withholding something,” Abigail said. “You think you know me? Well, I definitely know you, too. I know when you’re holding out.”
“I’m not.”
Abigail held up the leaf. “The last time I left it only for a few seconds. This time, I’ll leave it for an hour.”
Delaphene hesitated. “That would kill me.”
“Little loss there.”
“Bravo,” Delaphene muttered finally. “I suppose there is one other thing you could try. It’s a trick I heard about long ago, and I’ve been wondering if it might help track Arthur down: intersect the link.”
“The link?”
“The one Arthur created with the girls. Their scars never faded, did they?”
Abigail shook her head. “No, they didn’t.”
Normally, the scars of a claiming wouldn’t last more than a day. Two at the most. But the scars on the three little girls had lasted through all of the months since Arthur first claimed them in the Church. Various doctors had tried to heal the sores, but they stayed open, uninfected but ugly marks on their foreheads.
“The link is still open,” Delaphene said.
“What good does that do me?”
“There is a way to bridge the connection. I can show you how to do it. You might be able to see where his soul has gone, and, who knows, you might even be able to bring him back.”
Abigail thought about it for a second. “Show me.”
“Only if you agree to tell me where he is if you find him.”
“Not a chance,” Abigail said. “But, I will let you keep this body for a while longer if you help me.”
“Deal,” Delaphene said. She rocked a little in the chair. “Do you want to remove these bindings so we can shake on it?”
By the time Haatim returned to the cabin Abigail was on the porch waiting for him. He had turned his phone on, but there was no signal out here, so he’d just turned it back off and slipped it into his pocket. They were in the middle of nowhere, so he hadn’t been expecting much.
Abigail looked unhappy and exhausted, leaning against the railing of the porch and staring out into the wilderness. She didn’t react to his approach.
“Is it…?” he started to say. “Should I walk some more?”
“No,” she said, “it’s taken care of.”
“Did you…?”
Abigail looked at him. “No, I didn’t kill her. Like you said, the human is innocent,” she said. Then she shrugged. “Mostly, and with a loose definition of innocent.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I found out some interesting things, and we have one more stop to make before we leave Colorado.”
“To do what?”
She walked over to the car and gestured for him to get in. He followed her over and then glanced back at the cabin.
“What about the…?”
“The demon?” she finished.
“Yeah.”
“I promised her I would let her stay in that body for a while longer. I never said I would let her leave the cabin. I locked her in one of the cages, and I’ll let her go when we get back.”
“Cages?”
“Prison cells,” she explained. “There are three down in the basement. Don’t worry, she has plenty of food and water.”
Haatim climbed into the passenger seat. Abigail turned it on and started rolling back down the dirt road. “Why are prison cells in your cabin?”
“For situations like this.”
“Does this happen often?”
“More often than you’d expect,” she replied. She started the car and drove out onto the dirt road. It was slow going with all of the potholes and uneven sections.
Haatim glanced over at Abigail.
“What?” Abigail asked.
Haatim hesitated. “Is she really a demon?”
“You saw what she is,” she replied. “Your own senses are your best judge, not me.”
“I don’t know what I saw,” Haatim argued, shaking his head. “But, I mean, seeing something strange that I can’t explain and seeing a demon are entirely different things.”
“True.”
“So why do you call it a demon?”
Abigail shrugged. “Habit,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“What people call it depends on how they grew up. Different religions call them different things. Some people just consider them evil creatures and refuse to associate them with any religion. Some even worship them. I personally just think of them as demons.”
“Like hellspawn?”
“You could call them that,” she agreed. “Except not hell in any religious sense. Hell is an idea. The reality is ambiguous.”
“So, you call them demons because you are Catholic?”
“Not me,” she said. “My mentor was. The man who taught me about all of this stuff. He considered them demons, and it stuck with me.”
“So it’s the lens through which you view the world,” Haatim mused.
Abigail shrugged. “Sure.”
“How are things like that real?”
“No one thinks they are until they know better,” she said. “People are naturally ingrained to disbelieve in things like that.”
“Are vampires real?”
“In a sense,” Abigail said. “But we haven’t seen one in a long time. Same thing with werewolves and other creatures. Most of them have some basis in reality, but their stories have been blown out of proportion.”
“With social media things like this should be impossible keep hidden.”
“It’s actually easier,” Abigail said. “Doctored footage and trending topics mean people will believe anything they are told. It’s never been easier to spread propaganda.”
Haatim fell silent, wondering about that. On the one hand, it was hard to believe that demons and supernatural creatures could remain hidden, but, on the other hand, it did sound plausible. Just looking at world politics made it easy to believe that people could be tricked.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“You’ll see when we get there,” she replied. “It isn’t too far away and should only take a couple of minutes.”
“To do what?”
“Nothing too major,” Abigail said, glancing over at him. “On a side note: how do you feel about kidnapping?”
Lincoln Cole
