Chapter 24
“Are you sure about this?” Nervous, Mitchell paced back and forth across the front room of his shop. “I mean, do you feel sure that we should do it this way? She can get kind of … angry.”
Dominick, seated behind the register, watched Mitchell pace and struggle to hide his annoyance. He had asked the man to sit down and relax at least four times already, but it made no difference. Mitchell remained too nervous and anxious to sit still, and the waiting had gotten to him.
In all honesty, Dominick couldn’t blame him, as the waiting had gotten to him as well. After what had happened at the Reinfer estate and everything else going on, he had a hard time keeping his cool.
Frieda now ran at about a day late in getting to them. Something had happened to Haatim, which had slowed her progress while she tried to get that sorted, but she should arrive at any minute.
Part of him worried that she knew they planned to confront her as soon as she arrived at Mitchell’s shop, but at the same time, that seemed a crazy idea. How could she possibly have them sussed? He hadn’t even known himself until he got back here from the Reinfer place.
Nervous as hell, he felt more than a little apprehensive about what would happen when Frieda arrived. They would ambush her with questions about her past and ask for the truth of recent events. She had lied to him, and he worried that she might have known something about the huge monster that had attacked at the estate.
“I mean, how we will even know if she tells the truth or not? She’s a good liar. An amazing liar, even.”
“Mitchell.”
“Come on; you telling me that it doesn’t have you worried?”
“Of course I’m worried. But, just ask yourself, can you remember the last time that worrying about something helped you fix it? We just need to stay patient. She’ll get here.”
“But what if it all turns out true? What if she is working with the cult?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
Dominick gave him a look, making it clear he wouldn’t discuss that possibility. Mitchell threw up his hands in frustration and resumed pacing.
Dominick still struggled to wrap his mind around what they had discovered and the ramifications of what Mitchell had told him about Frieda and Arthur. Even with what he’d told Mitchell, he remained terrified: if even part of it held any merit …
He couldn’t fathom how Frieda would withhold something like this from him. From everyone. Did anyone else on the Council know about their origins, or had she kept them all in the dark, too? He had believed that events in Switzerland had occurred because of Aram Malhotra, but could it have related back to Frieda and what she and Arthur had gotten involved in?
He didn’t know.
Didn’t know if he wanted to know.
For sure, he hated the idea of confronting Frieda, but it had to be done.
“Are you sure we want to do this?”
“I’m sure,” Dominick said. “We can’t continue to work with Frieda until we know the truth.”
“Yeah, but what if it’s all true? What if she did collude with The Ninth Circle?”
“Collude?”
“Work with, then.” Mitchell waved his hand.
“I know what collude means. Just wondering why you chose that word.”
“If she is an enemy, what do we do?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“But what if we do?”
“Then we’ll deal with it.”
“But it would mean that everything we thought about the Council has turned out a lie. It would mean that we’ve helped the wrong side.”
Dominick sighed. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Frieda deserves the opportunity to explain herself.”
Mitchell frowned, still pacing. “Are you armed?”
Dominick’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You have a gun, right? You know, in case …”
Dominick stared at him, narrowing his eyes. “In case what?”
Mitchell hesitated. “We don’t know how she’ll react when we confront her. I just want to make sure we’ve prepared.”
“So, you think we should just shoot her?”
“No. I mean, what if she—”
“No, we don’t know how she’ll react, do we? Like I said, let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
Even as he spoke the words, however, he couldn’t help but think seriously about what Mitchell had said. He couldn’t suppress a subconscious urge to tap his leg where he’d strapped his pistol, feeling the gun as it rested against his leg. The weight of it comforted.
He had another holdout pistol in a holster wrapped around his calf; his backup piece. He hoped—prayed—he wouldn’t need either, but honestly, had no idea what might happen.
“Should I lock the door?”
“Why?”
“In case people try to come in.”
“We put up the ‘closed’ sign. That should prove enough.”
“But still, what happens if someone just walks in?”
“Who’ll do that?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I have customers. Even a few regulars.”
“I’ve never seen a single customer here.”
“I mean, not a lot of them or anything, but I do have some.”
He trailed off at the sound of a car door closing. It echoed to them from outside. Mitchell stopped, mid-stride, and then rushed over to the front glass window. He peered out, and then backed away slowly. “She’s here.”
“Okay.”
“She’s coming. What do we do?”
“Calm down.” Dominick rose from his seat. “Don’t overreact. Take some deep breaths and relax. Everything will work out fine.”
Did he say that for Mitchell or himself?
A few seconds later, the front door of the shop opened. Frieda strode in, carrying a bag and moving with purpose. She took a few hesitant steps into the room, and then saw Mitchell and Dominick waiting for her. After a glance between the two of them, she frowned. “You already know? Did Haatim call you guys?”
“Know what?”
“About Abigail. She’s alive. The Church got it wrong, but she’s hurt. Nida found the last bloodline and has everything she needs to complete the ritual.”
Mitchell and Dominick exchanged a glance.
“But that’s not what you have those expressions for, is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
The two men exchanged another glance, and then Dominick cleared his throat. “Frieda. We need to talk.”
***
Calm, Frieda walked to the front of the room and set her bag on the counter next to Dominick. She looked at him, her expression mixed apprehension and worry. Two looks he had rarely seen on her face in the entire time he’d known her.
She argued, trying to misdirect, “We don’t have time for this. Haatim is on his way here with Abigail. Nida has a good lead on us, and we don’t even know where she’s going.”
“Frieda …”
“Whatever you have to say to me, it can wait. It has to wait. They should get here in less than twelve hours, which means we have that much time to figure out what we should do next.”
“I know, but this is important.”
“What could possibly have more importance than dealing with Nida and stopping all of this before anyone else gets hurt? Now, come on; we need to get everything ready and—”
“Did the Council create Surgat?”
“What? Ridiculous. Did Mitchell tell you that nonsense? One of his crazy conspiracy theories?”
Dominick took a deep breath. “Did you perform a ritual on Abigail?”
Frieda froze, body tensing. The expression on her face showed utter shock and disbelief, mixed in with a hint of shame.
Dominick had his answer.
Without thinking, he slid his pistol free of the holster and held it at his side. Though he didn’t aim it at her, the threat came loud and clear. His hand trembled, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
“Do you serve them? Do you work for the Ninth Circle, now?”
“What? No, of course not. You know I don’t.”
“Do I? Do I know anything about you anymore?” He turned toward Mitchell and nodded. “Show her.”
Mitchell pulled out the stack of papers that Abigail had brought to him a few weeks earlier and set them on the counter. Frieda looked at them, and her face fell when she recognized them.
“He kept them,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “I begged Arthur to destroy those.”
“Arthur helped you with the ritual,” Dominick said. “Mitchell told me everything. The leaders of The Ninth Circle formed the Council, and we created Surgat originally. The Council bound one of their own to the demon. One of our own.”
“It isn’t that simple,” Frieda said, speaking slowly. “Please, put down the gun.”
Dominick ignored her. “It’s all right there in the text. The historical account. The real history of the Council and the Order. We’re the cult we fight against.”
“Were,” Frieda said. “Not anymore. Yes, the original Council created Surgat, and yes, we did come from a sect of the Ninth Circle. My forebears helped bring Surgat into existence through a ritual, but they also stopped him and locked him away in his hellish prison. They realized their mistake and the error of their ways.”
“Or they simply got caught and begged forgiveness.”
“We stopped Surgat.”
“Out of necessity.”
“Maybe. I wasn’t there. But I do know that the Church let us live and gave us purpose.”
“The Church forgave you?”
“They didn’t forgive us. They didn’t kill us either. They murdered every cultist they could find that didn’t help them stop Surgat and spared our forebears. The seven that remained formed into the Council. It proved, depending on how you look at it, either a penance or a reward.”
“Why have I never heard any of this before?”
“Almost no one knows of it,” Frieda said. “Dominick, could you please put the gun away?”
He hesitated, and then he slid his weapon back into his holster.
Frieda let out a deep breath when it disappeared and rubbed her face. “Thank you.”
“Where do these papers come from?”
“That copy of the text is one of the final surviving pieces of our legacy that tells the whole story. The Catholic Church considers it too dangerous to let out of the archives, but my family had a copy. My father said it gave a reminder and that we should never forget. We spent centuries trying to escape that legacy, and gradually, the Church trusted us more and more. We found a way we could serve them, and they helped disguise our truth.”
Dominick shook his head. “Insane. Then it’s all true: our legacy comes from the very cult we actively hunt.”
She sighed. “That makes the whole reason the Church kept those original seven alive. They’d worked in The Ninth Circle; they knew how the cult operated, and the Church could use them as a weapon against them. For years, the original Council hunted down their friends and allies, and that’s how the Hunters formed. The Ninth Circle hates us for betraying them as much as we hate them.”
Dominick stayed silent for a long time, digesting all the information. “How could you keep this from us?”
“My father taught the whole history to me, and he told me it made the great shame of my family that we helped bring such evil into this world. Surgat killed hundreds of innocent people before my forebears stopped him. He said that our duty had become to wash the stain clean from our legacy, but that it remained a legacy for me alone.”
“The Council didn’t know?”
“They knew none of this. Even Jill Reinfer had no idea of the legacy of our ancestors. Her father did, but he never passed it on to his daughter. He didn’t trust her with the information.”
“For good reason.”
She nodded. “She would have used it against us.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Nothing has changed,” Frieda said. “We still have to stop Nida. The only difference is that now you know the true stake of this.”
As she said it, she looked over at Mitchell. He stood as still as a statue, bug-eyed with a concerned look on his face, and shocked by all of this.
Dominick felt conflicted. Though Frieda had lied and kept things from him, he’d known her most of his life, and she’d never lied without good reason, and everything she said sounded reasonable. It still hurt that she’d withheld it, but he understood her reasons.
Even regarding Abigail, he couldn’t blame Frieda for wanting to save her life. After all of this, he didn’t know whether he would have done the same thing or not.
Part of him remained unsure if he could trust her, but he couldn’t stay in two minds about this. Either he would have to trust that they worked on the same side, or he would need to turn his back on her completely.
In the end, it came down to knowing Frieda as a person. She might not have told him everything, but he knew her heart, and Frieda had the heart of a good woman.
He would have to trust her.
“Both of you know the full truth, now,” Frieda said.
“This … this …” Mitchell shook his head. “Holy hell.”
“You said Haatim located Abigail?” Dominick asked.
“Yes. He’s bringing her here.”
“How did she get hurt?”
“The Church found her. They tried to murder her, and they believe themselves successful.”
“Why does the Church want her dead?”
“Not just her,” Frieda said. “Father Paladina warned me that they won’t come after just Abigail now.”
“They want us too.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Mitchell told me. Is it true? How could it be true?”
She turned to Mitchell. “How did you know?”
“I have contacts,” he said, stiff with defense. “Friends you don’t even know about.”
She looked at him, skeptical, but didn’t refute his claim. “All of us. They have ordered for all of us to be killed.”
***
A moment of silence slipped past.
“What do you mean, ‘all of us’?” Mitchell asked into the deathly quiet. “Does that … does that include me, now, too?”
“Anyone who has an affiliation with the Council will get hunted down and killed by the Catholic Church,” Frieda said.
Mitchell hesitated. “So … is that a yes? I’m on the list?”
“Yes.”
“Crap.”
“Why?” Dominick asked. “Why would they do this?”
“I suppose they’ve decided we’ve outlived our usefulness. You know our history. Maybe they think we’ve returned to our old ways. Or maybe it’s just punishment for what Aram did. He didn’t only betray us but the Church as well. I don’t know, but they intend to wipe the entire Council from existence and finish what Nida started.”
Another moment passed. “Crap,” Mitchell said again, and then rushed to the back of the store. “I need to pack.”
Dominick and Frieda both ignored him. Dominick asked, “How do we get them to stop?”
“They won’t.”
“Even if we stop Nida?”
“In their eyes, Nida is a symptom of the disease. They intend to make deep cuts with their scalpel to protect themselves.”
“Then, shouldn’t we run?” Mitchell popped his head back out of the rear room of the shop. “Get the hell out of dodge and find somewhere to hide until all of this blows over?”
“The Catholic Church has existed for thousands of years,” Frieda said. “And they have a long memory. This won’t just ‘blow over.’”
“All the more reason to find a great hiding place.”
Dominick stared at Frieda. After a moment, he nodded. “Hiding isn’t what we stand for,” he said. “Aram created this mess for us, but we have just as much accountability as him for letting things go this far.”
“True.” Frieda nodded. “It doesn’t end with Aram. We all hold responsibility for the decisions we’ve made. I, myself, have made more mistakes than I can count. I will not stop until either the demon inside Nida goes back to hell, or I do. The two of you, however, can choose for yourself. The Council has disbanded, as well as the Order of Hunters. You no longer have to accept my commands, Dominick.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“You can return to your husband and find somewhere safe to live if you want. I have some funds I can acquire for you to help you start over, and with new identities, you could disappear and begin a new life. The Church doesn’t see you as a priority for elimination, so they might forget about you after a few years and just let you go.”
“A tempting offer,” Dominick said. “But I’ll have to decline, with all due respect. Nida remains too dangerous, and from everything I’ve heard, Surgat is much worse. If the Church has too much arrogance to bother chasing down the real threat, then someone has to stop her before innocent people die.”
“I hoped you might say that.”
“I wish you would have told me the truth … about all of this. But, I understand your reasons. I’ll stay in this until the end.”
Frieda turned and glanced over at Mitchell.
“How much money are we talking about?” Mitchell rubbed his chin. “Do you have enough for me to retire and live comfortably, or …?”
Frieda frowned. “Mitchell.”
“Just kidding,” he said. “I promised Arthur I would look after Abigail after he’d gone, and what kind of brother would I make if I let down my deceased sibling? I’m not sure how much help I can offer, but I’ll stick with you guys until the end.”
Frieda nodded, and a relieved expression washed over her face. “Good. I’m glad that we’ve got that settled.”
“So, this is happening for real?” Dominick asked. “We’ll try and stop Nida?”
“Yes. As soon as we find out where she went to, we’ll need to move. Now, we don’t have a lot of time before Haatim and Abigail get here, so let’s get to work.”
