Chapter 12
Dominick made it to Mitchell’s shop later that afternoon after a few hours of driving, still unclear exactly why he’d headed out there. He had left the Reinfer estate after giving Trent a vague explanation of where needed to go.
Trent seemed surprised at his leaving but didn’t object; he promised to notify Dominick if anything changed at the manor.
Neither of them expected an attack now, not after the security had increased. Trent had enacted almost all of the changes that Dominick had asked for, as well as a few of his own to ramp up their defenses. Moreover, all of his guards carried rifles now and wore Kevlar vests. Nida would have to be a complete psycho to attack the estate at this point.
Of course, Dominick fully understood the danger of underestimating Nida, so he stayed ready to head back at a moment’s notice, and at least before Frieda got there. After the vague call from Mitchell, he’d considered not going because Mitchell wasn’t exactly known as a level-headed individual.
He should have demanded more information about what Mitchell wanted to tell him, especially as he risked pissing off Frieda and putting Jill Reinfer at risk to go check on a nut-job.
Probably, this would prove just another of his wild conspiracies. Mitchell, a conspiracy theorist, liked to talk about wild and crazy events that had, supposedly, happened in the world. Although, he did have the benefit that many of the conspiracies he blabbed about had occurred, in actual fact. That didn’t change the fact that he remained prone to overreaction and exaggeration.
The shop stood closed up and dark when he pulled into the empty lot. This time, the door sign hung flipped to “closed.” Did Mitchell ever have any customers at all? Dominick couldn’t remember ever seeing one.
The door stood locked. He knocked on the glass window, and Mitchell answered almost immediately.
“You came alone?” He peered around the corner, and then looked out past Dominick, scanning the area behind him. A look of genuine fear clouded his features.
“Yeah,” Dominick said. “I’m alone.”
“You sure?”
“That’s what you asked for on the phone,” Dominick said, a little annoyed. “Just me.”
“Come in.” Mitchell beckoned him through the doorway but only opened it a small bit. He locked it behind them, double bolted it, and then led Dominick through the shop toward the back.
With the lights off, the place looked gloomy and in just as much disarray as it had the last time Dominick stopped by.
“I thought I told you to clean this place,” Dominick said with a grin.
The look on Mitchell’s face made it clear that the mirth came unappreciated.
Dominick sobered up slightly, wondering what had spooked the man so much.
“I didn’t know who to call when I translated the information in the text because I wasn’t sure who I could trust with what was going on. Still, after everything that happened, I thought it important that I talk to someone and—”
“Mitchell,” Dominick said in a soothing tone. “You’re rambling.”
Mitchell frowned, and then took a deep and steadying breath. “You’ve been marked.”
“What?” Dominick asked. “What do you mean?”
“The Catholic Church has marked you for death. Frieda too.”
Dominick shook his head. “What do you mean? Why?”
“I have no idea,” Mitchell said. “At least, nothing I can verify. I found out from one of my contacts, but you and Frieda have become the Church’s secondary targets.”
“Who do they have as the primary?”
“Abigail.”
“She’s alive?”
“I guess so. At least, the Church thinks so, and they’ve gone after her.”
“Why?”
Mitchell scratched his chin and frowned. “That’s the scary thing and the reason I called you. I might know the answer to that question.”
***
Dominick studied Mitchell. “What are you talking about?”
Mitchell met his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Keep in mind that if Frieda knew what I’m about to tell you, she would get so mad, to say the least.”
“Just tell me.”
“Okay. Here goes. Many years ago, I helped Arthur and Frieda perform a ritual. Like, one of the bad ones that the Council forbids.”
Shock hit Dominick. “You what? A ritual?”
“Yes. It was supposed to help Abigail control whatever dark thing the cult had done to her as a little girl. Over time, something happened to her, and she changed, and Arthur wanted to stop it from happening and protect her from it.”
“So, Frieda did a ritual?”
Mitchell nodded. “Yes. We performed it here.”
Dominick shook his head, a slow back and forth, trying to come to terms with that idea. The Council had firm policies against performing any sort of rituals, or spells, which meant that what Mitchell had admitted to proved tantamount to treason against the Council.
Worse, he’d also stated that Frieda formed a part of it, as well as Arthur. They, more than anyone, should have understood the risks of such an action, as well as what the punishment would be if they got caught. Arthur had, personally, executed many people for that precise crime.
“Why have you told me this?” he asked, suspicious. “Guilt? Are you just trying to get it off your chest and confide in someone?”
It made sense. After all, with the Council and Order essentially destroyed, the possibility of repercussions against Mitchell remained minute.
“I wish, but that’s not all,” Mitchell said. “The ritual made a binding. We linked Abigail’s soul to Arthur’s so that at least some of the corruption that affected her would affect him instead. We meant it to protect her and let her grow up with a normal life, but instead, it corrupted and destroyed Arthur, gradually.”
A pit of worry formed in Dominick’s stomach when realization crept in. “That’s why he …”
Dominick couldn’t finish the thought.
Mitchell nodded. “Yes. That’s why Arthur killed those families. By the end when he got locked up, Arthur couldn’t even tell the difference between right and wrong.”
It explained Arthur’s slow fall from grace into the pariah he had become. Right then, everything clicked into place for Dominick, and not in a good way. It also explained what had happened to Abigail once Arthur had gone.
“Then, that’s why things went bad for Abigail so fast after Arthur went. Arthur was no longer there to absorb whatever evil thing lay inside of her.”
“Yes.”
“You said Frieda had a part in this?”
Frieda loved Arthur, though she’d never admitted her feelings to him, but it remained hard to believe that she could go against the Council like that. Always fiercely loyal to the Council and the world she’d sworn to protect, the idea that she could become a part of something like this seemed unthinkable.
“Frieda performed the ritual. We helped and made sure everything worked as expected.”
“Holy crap.”
“I know,” Mitchell said.
“And you think that’s why the Church now hunts us? How would they know?”
“No,” Mitchell said. “At least, not entirely. I’m sure they have ways of knowing, but that’s not why. When Frieda and Arthur came here all those years ago, she brought some texts with her; photocopies out of some old book. A history of the Council.”
“The Council has a copy,” Dominick said, nodding. “Or had. But not a complete version, and the Church archived most of it. We only had certain sections that they copied.”
“Well, this copy was complete.”
“What?”
Mitchell ignored the question. “I felt that the text seemed odd when she first brought it here, but I never thought about why. After all, the ritual worked, and Abigail went back to normal, and then Arthur kept and stored the book at his home, locked in his safe.”
“So, Frieda performed a ritual against the wishes of the Council?”
“Yeah, but that’s not why I called you. Keep up.”
“It gets worse?”
“A lot. You might want to sit down.”
***
“Abigail came to see me a few weeks ago. Before she went to turn herself in at the Council. She brought the text with her from Arthur’s home.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me to look into it and find out anything I could about the ritual Frieda performed. She wanted to see if something else might prove useful; some way to stall, or perhaps control, what was happening to her and keep her from losing control.”
“Did you?”
He shook his head. “No. But I found something way worse. While going through the papers, I found a lot more rituals mentioned there than just what I’d seen originally. And, these aren’t normal rituals, but demon summoning and binding ones. The kind that are seriously off limits.”
“You mean like the Ninth Circle type of rituals?” Dominick asked.
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would those be in a book about the history of the Council?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think it is just a history of the Council. I think it is a history of The Ninth Circle, too.”
“What do you mean? You think Frieda brought the wrong book?”
He shook his head. “No. I think them one and the same.”
***
Dominick coughed. “What?”
“From everything I can gather from this book: the original Seven that formed the Council had operated as leaders from The Ninth Circle first. When the Cult performed a ritual to summon and integrate Surgat with one of their own, the Seven realized they had gone too far. They turned against the cult and helped the Church stop Surgat.”
Dominick just stood in stunned silence, trying to wrap his head around Mitchell’s words.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Completely. For that sole reason, the Catholic Church keeps the document locked in their vaults. I don’t believe that Frieda ever thought I would translate this.”
“Frieda knew?”
“She had to have.”
“Did Arthur?”
“I don’t reckon so. But, maybe. He had a limited understanding of Latin and trusted Frieda implicitly, and so I doubt he would have looked into this. Honestly, though, I don’t know.”
“This … this …”
“I know,” Mitchell said. “I think that’s why the Church has set about hunting all of you down. Us down. One of the conditions of the Church allowing the original seven to continue living depended upon nothing like this ever happening again. The Church wants to tie up loose ends.”
“You said us. You think they’ll come after you, too?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I called you. I have no idea what to do now.”
“And why you didn’t call Frieda?”
Mitchell nodded. “Because she knew. She had to. The book belonged to her, and she could read the Latin. If she could keep something like this from us, what else might she hide?”
A scary thought. He’d never imagined Frieda keeping secrets from him, but this proved something else entirely.
The idea that their legacy came from a cult, and that the Church only allowed them to live because they had turned against their own …
The idea that their war against The Ninth Circle for all these centuries came down, essentially, to nothing more than a long-running civil war …
His phone beeped and startled him. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and glanced at it. A message had come from Trent: When will you get back? Something happened. Need to talk.
He texted back that he was on his way, and then glanced up at Mitchell. “I don’t think they’ll come after you. You aren’t one of us.”
“I hope not.”
“But, look, we can’t just avoid Frieda. You’re right; she has a lot to explain from this, but we have bigger fish to fry right now. She’ll get here in about twelve hours and plans to meet up here.”
“Here?” A flash of fear lit Mitchell’s face.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come back before she arrives. We can confront her together; but, I’m telling you, she has a good explanation for all of this. You’ll see. I’ll head back to the Reinfer estate but will return soon.”
“Okay. Well, hurry.”
“I will,” Dominick said. “Don’t worry; everything will work out fine.”
Mitchell frowned. “I hope so.”
Dominick headed for the door, unbolted it, and headed outside to his car. Once he got out of earshot and stood alone, he let out a deep sigh.
Things just kept getting worse.
