Chapter 25
Haatim.
The word hit him like a tornado, popping up in the middle of nowhere. It ripped through his mind, and an intense feeling of confusion hit him when he tried to understand.
One second he lay unconscious, and the next he had become fully aware but unable to comprehend events. The last thing he remembered, he’d stepped onto the plane in England with Abigail to start the last leg of his journey to the United States, but no more than that.
He didn’t feel like he rode on a plane right now, though, or anywhere else for that matter. Just a floating emptiness, like a dream but unlike any dream he had ever experienced before. It felt too real, too precise.
Haatim.
His arms pinned in place, an unconscionable weight rested across his body and kept him still. Paralyzed, it felt like he floated on a bed of salt water, resting atop it yet unable to sink inside.
Haatim.
His sister’s voice: not the one controlled by the demon but rather the one he’d known and loved growing up. The sweet little girl who had always teased and made fun of him. At first, he thought it a memory, something from their past, but then he realized it came from the here and now.
Rather, the words came from right next to him. As though she whispered into his ear, but he couldn’t turn his head to see her in the emptiness.
Her voice sounded like the little girl he’d looked after before she had gotten sick. Always giggling, happy, and full of life. She remained out there somewhere, calling to him, far out in the darkness of the ether, and he could hear the fear in her voice.
The sensation seemed less like she said words, though, and more as if they passed through him like a feeling. Haatim couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened and only knew that it continued to happen. His sister had called out to him, and she’d tried to reach him.
Come find me.
Her voice sounded weak, barely audible. He didn’t know her location, or even his right now. Did he remain on the plane, or somewhere else? He didn’t know. It all blended, and reality no longer made any sense. Haatim couldn’t focus on anything except that his sister was in trouble, and he had to save her.
Save her?
The thought felt muddied and heavy. Wrong, somehow. He didn’t need to try to save her; he needed to try to stop her, right? She’d become the enemy, the evil demon trying to wreak havoc on the world. She had murdered the entire Council and countless other innocent people.
His sister had gone, died, and whatever inhabited her body had turned her into something else entirely, right?
Right?
Please, come.
What if she hadn’t gone, after all? What if he had gotten it right all along, and his sister did need help? Unfortunately, he couldn’t help her. He had tried and failed.
But, what if the real Nida remained inside there, trapped and suffocating under the weight of the demon? Haatim felt paralyzed, unable to move, but perhaps that gave a reflection of what Nida felt somewhere out in the world as she passed emotions to him.
If that proved the case, then he had to try and rescue her. Damn the risk. Damn his weakness. He wouldn’t give up until she became free or he died. Haatim couldn’t leave his sister under the control of the demon.
He couldn’t just abandon her. But, even if that proved the case, how could he possibly save her? She could remain anywhere out in the world by now.
No, not anywhere.
Raven’s Peak.
The demon had gone back. He knew that with one hundred percent certainty, even though he had no idea how he knew it. The feeling came clear and blinding in the dark ether, and he knew it as right.
Haatim, I don’t have much time.
He tried calling back, I’m coming. But something else intruded. Not only his sister had a presence now.
He could feel the demon, and it loomed in all its fury.
Haatim tried to push back, to break free of whatever held him in place, but it proved of no use. He felt helpless and weak, pathetic and broken. His sister felt this way too, trapped inside her body with the demon.
And now it had come for him.
He struggled, crying out and feeling as if in the midst of drowning. He suffocated. He couldn’t breathe.
And the demon got closer.
It reached out to him.
***
A tap on his shoulder jerked him awake. The sudden glaring light in his face made him blink and cover his face, and it took him a second to realize he could move.
He could move.
The relief of that knowledge overwhelmed him, and he let out a somewhat delirious chuckle while his body relaxed. It took a moment to orient himself, and he saw that he remained on the flight to John Glenn International Airport. He had simply fallen asleep and dreamed.
Several of the nearby passengers sat staring at him, confused expressions on their faces. A sheen of sweat covered him, and all his muscles felt sore and tight like they had all clenched simultaneously. He relaxed and leaned back in his seat, still breathing hard but bringing himself under control.
“You okay?”
The voice caught him off guard. Abigail occupied the window seat next to him. She had a concerned look on her face as she studied him. At least she looked healthy now, completely awake and healed after her recent injuries.
It brought relief to see her doing so well but also a shock. She barely seemed like she’d gotten hurt less than two days ago to the point of nearly dying. If he hadn’t watched her experience that injury in Cambodia personally, he wouldn’t have believed it had ever happened.
She had slept for the last several days, waking up only long enough to eat before passing out once more. This made for the first time he had seen her wide awake and coherent since the injury.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay, but I should ask you that question. How do you feel?”
“Better.” She shook her head and tapped her side. “It hardly hurts anymore.”
“How’s that possible? You almost died.”
Abigail let out a sigh. “I know. I think it comes down to whatever the cult did to me. I’ve healed super quickly, and I feel … different. Are you sure you feel all right? You talked in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“It sounded like gibberish, but you called for your sister. You seemed terrified. Did you have a nightmare?”
He hesitated, and then said, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“It felt so real. I’ve had nightmares before, but this seemed something different. More vivid. And I felt fully present in it. It had me paralyzed but awake and somewhere else.”
“Your mind will paralyze you while you sleep,” Abigail said. “It happens to me, too.”
He shook his head. “Not like this. This … I sensed something else out there, too. Like I wasn’t alone in my head.”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“I felt the demon. The one controlling Nida. And, I felt Nida, too.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. Or, at least, part of her.”
Abigail frowned. “You could feel the demon?”
“I …” Haatim felt unsure how to explain. “I think I bridged a connection between the demon and myself back in Cambodia. A telepathic bond, and I guess it remains open. The demon seemed surprised to find it active.”
“How did you do that?”
“In Raven’s Peak, when I walked across the floor of the factory and nothing could hit me, it felt like that, only I can control it a little bit better. Father Paladina helped me.”
Abigail sat in silence, and then said, “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
“You knew him?”
“An old friend of Arthur’s.”
“That echoes what Frieda told me. He seems like a good guy.”
Abigail chewed her bottom lip. “Sometimes.”
Haatim waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“Ohio. Dominick and Frieda are already out there waiting for us.”
“Us? They know about me?”
“I told them. You didn’t want me to?”
She didn’t respond immediately. “I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you lived after the train? Why didn’t … why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated? How? We thought you’d died. You let me think you’d died.”
“Abigail did die,” she said. “Whatever happened to me, I’m not the same person.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not, Haatim. Whatever happened to me, it changed me in ways you can’t even imagine, and I can’t control it. I … didn’t want to hurt any of you, so I kept going after Nida.”
He frowned. “I get it, but, you still should have told me.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“You went to Cambodia following Nida?”
Abigail nodded. “Yes. I chased her out there but didn’t know what she planned, and then I realized she’d gone after Matt Walker.”
“You don’t know why?”
She shook her head. “I thought that maybe if I got hold of him first, I could use him as leverage to stop her plan. But then I worked out that the Church had come after me, which made things considerably more difficult. She forced my hand, though, when she went after him.”
“She needed his blood,” Haatim said.
“Why?”
“A ritual to summon a demon here. The one that keeps Arthur in hell.”
Abigail scrunched up her face into a frown.
“What?” he asked. “You know something?”
“No,” she said. “I just … never mind.”
“Anyway, she plans to collect blood from the seven bloodlines that locked away Surgat.”
“Surgat the demon?”
“Long story,” Haatim said. “Basically, he’s the evil entity that Nida wants to let loose with a ritual, and she needs the blood of the original Council members for it.”
“But, you said to summon him here?”
“Yes.”
She had that same look on her face like she knew more than she let on. Haatim thought to push the issue but changed his mind. He remained grateful just to have Abigail back, alive and in one piece, and didn’t want to jeopardize that by pushing her for information. If it proved something important, she would tell him.
“So that explains why she tried to get Matt,” Abigail said. “I saw what she wanted and thought I could keep him safe. Did you see what happened to him?”
Haatim sighed. “Dead.”
Abigail echoed his sigh. “Damn it.”
“He made for the last of the bloodlines Nida needs. Now she has all seven and can release Surgat.”
“Then, how do we stop her?”
“I have no idea,” Haatim said. “But, I do know where she went.”
“Where?”
“Raven’s Peak,” he said.
The dream/nightmare had faded in his memory, but that detail remained as vivid as when he’d first felt it. Without a doubt, he knew that the demon controlling his sister had gone to somewhere in Raven’s Peak.
“Why there?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “And I don’t know how I know that she went out there, but she did.”
Abigail nodded, and he could see a look of concern hidden just under the surface.
“You think you reached out for the demon mentally?” she asked.
“Or my sister. Or, maybe, she reached out to me. I don’t know, exactly.”
“Let’s say you did create a connection. Do you think that the demon reached out to you and not the other way around?”
Haatim sat in silent contemplation for a moment. “You mean trying to manipulate me?”
“It knew you would want to hear from your sister, so maybe, it just gave you what you wanted.”
“You reckon that, maybe, Nida did call me at all?”
“I’m just saying that, perhaps, it knew that you wanted to get that message.”
“Maybe,” he said, despite believing that his sister remained alive. The demon could manipulate quite a few things, but when it came to that, he felt certain that Nida still lived in there. “We know where the demon plans to perform the ritual, so whether we trap it or not, we still need to go.”
“I know.” Abigail leaned back in her chair and looked out through the window. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get your hopes up.”
Haatim nodded. “I can see no other way.”
