Chapter 29
The road appeared completely quiet as they drove toward the old campgrounds an hour outside of Raven’s Peak. It held a strong sense of déjà vu for Abigail and her first trip out here with Haatim.
Except that hadn’t been her first trip. She had come out here before under the control of the demon that took Arthur from her. The Council had lied to her and withheld information, letting her think she’d never visited here before when she’d come with Haatim.
The possession had made for the single worst experience of her life. She had understood what happened to her but had no control over her body. Until that moment, she had never known what it felt like being helpless, and it became the worst thing she could imagine happening.
Now, though, this seemed so much worse.
When the demon had taken possession of her so long ago, something else had taken control and suffocated her. It had prepared to bring Surgat into the world, but Arthur had stopped it. She couldn’t control herself against its outside influence and couldn’t fight it off, but at least something else had done it to her.
This time, the influence didn’t come from outside but from her. She could sense that her identity kept trying to take over and seize power. They’d become one and the same. She didn’t have to fight back against an unknown enemy but to try to crush the tide of her anger and hatred.
She’d never imagined she could lose control of herself, but each day, it grew worse and more chaotic. Harder to control like holding sand in her hands. It proved physically demanding just trying to keep from giving in to her inner nature.
What Haatim had said about her not being inherently evil … she prayed it came true. Part of her—a large part—doubted it, though, and after this ended, things would have to change. So many people had suffered already because of her. Too many.
She would make sure no one else got hurt due to her.
“Why here?” Haatim shook his head. “Why would she come back here for the ritual?”
“Second guessing yourself?”
“No. Trying to understand.”
“Any number of reasons,” Frieda said. “Hubris, maybe. Nida has, essentially, invited us in to witness the rebirth of Surgat, which means she doesn’t think we can stop it from happening. We’ve gotten separated from all our allies, including the Church, our funding, and any resources we might have to stop her. She came here to further rub our noses in our defeat.”
“So, this is a victory lap?”
Frieda didn’t respond immediately, but eventually said, “Yes.”
“What will the Church do after this?”
“If we win?”
“If we don’t.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Our ties have severed, and they blame us for all of this. Honestly, I can’t even blame them. Most likely, they will send in a few of their other assets to deal with this threat if Surgat gets unleashed, but probably not until too late when many people have died already.”
“Then, I guess, we better not lose.”
This time, Frieda didn’t respond. They drove in silence the rest of the way to the old rental cabins. The gravel crunched under their tires when they drove up to the first wooden cabin.
The students had stayed in this one on vacation when Abigail and Haatim had arrived so many months ago. She had only just met Haatim and didn’t yet know if she could trust him. Now, though, she thought of him as one of her closest friends and someone she could trust implicitly.
Maybe she should tell him everything? No. If he knew, he would try to stop her, and that would just make all of this that much more difficult. She knew what she had to do, and the longer he went without knowing, the easier this would become.
She pulled the car to a stop in front of the cabin and glanced into the rearview mirror. “What now?”
“Now, we walk.”
“Do we have a plan to stop her?” Dominick asked. “Or do we just walk blindly into her trap?”
“I don’t have a good plan,” Frieda said. “I wish I did, but I have no idea what will work.”
“So, improvise?” Dominick grinned. “My favorite.”
They all climbed out of the car. Abigail moved to the trunk and popped it open. They had a bag full of weapons tucked inside, including her hand crossbow and darts, Arthur’s sword, and a few miscellaneous pistols and rifles. She picked up the sword, grateful to see it again.
“It suits you,” Frieda said, standing beside her and watching her. “Arthur would have wanted you to have it.”
A twinge hit Abigail in her chest, and then she slung the blade over her shoulder. If everything went according to plan, she could give it back to him.
The boot also held a decanter of holy water and some vials, a pair of curved knives, and her bible that Arthur had gifted to her so long ago. She rubbed her hand across the surface of the book, feeling its texture, but decided to leave it behind. The realization that she would never feel it again pained her, but she hoped that when she saved Arthur, he might find it and keep it to remember her by.
In her pocket, she felt the syringe that Frieda had given to her. Surgat might know that they’d come, but for certain, he wouldn’t have prepared for that. She only had to hold out long enough to inject it.
If Mitchell had it right, then when the ritual got underway, she would have a small window of time to bring forth Arthur—a sort of resurrection into bodily form. If it managed to work, then it would come down to blind luck about whether or not Arthur would even accept the ritual and come back through with the demon.
And, on top of that, it all assumed that Nida would prove successful in summoning Surgat from his resting place in hell to begin with. Not exactly the ideal outcome. If that happened, they would need to stop both her and Surgat to survive.
There seemed a lot of “ifs” in that scenario, and it didn’t look too promising. That made for one of the reasons that she hadn’t told anyone else about the plan. If things went wrong and it didn’t look like she could bring Arthur back, then she would inject the poison and simply end it.
***
“What do we do when we get there?” Haatim asked as they walked through the woods toward the old town hidden away there. The foliage proved minimal at this time of year, but with it so dark, it made navigating the path rather difficult.
“Scout the area,” Dominick said. “We should do at least a cursory perimeter search. Make sure we don’t have any surprises waiting for us when we go into the town.”
“I mean once we get there,” Haatim said. “How will we do this?”
“If we find her in the middle of the ritual, we should manage to slip in undetected,” Frieda said. “It will keep her distracted, and all her focus will stay on that.”
“What if we come upon her at a different stage?”
“We’ll need a little bit of luck.”
“What if that doesn’t work?”
“I don’t know, Haatim. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Yeah, I do. We need a distraction.”
“No.”
“Let me talk to her. It will give you time to get close.”
“That will just give us away.”
“She knows we’re coming already. With luck, I can distract her long enough for you to get in and stop the ritual.”
“The ceiling of the church got broken at the back,” Abigail said. She remembered the layout from when she’d first come. “We could slip in through there.”
“I’ll stay with Haatim,” Frieda said after a moment. “If you can stop the ritual, then all well and good, but if you can destroy the blood she acquired, then she won’t even have the ability to restart without collecting it all once more.”
“What happens if she has those … things there?” Dominick asked. A look of genuine fear settled on his face. “The demons. The one that nearly killed me at the Reinfer estate.”
“We deal with it.”
“There is no ‘dealing’ with that thing. Single-handed, it took out a group of heavily armed soldiers and didn’t even have any wounds afterward.”
“Those soldiers hadn’t prepared to face something like that.”
“Didn’t stop them from unloading full clips into it,” Dominick said. “Yeah, I’m sure some panicked, but all? Do you think our weapons will do any better?”
Frieda stayed silent for a long moment. Abigail could tell that she didn’t have a good argument. “One problem at a time.”
They made it to the edge of the town and gazed down at it. It looked almost peaceful—like a little hamlet in the forest out away from the rest of civilization. Just looking at it made her feel like she’d walked a hundred years into the past.
The feelings of weakness and shame remained raw for Abigail. Here, the demon had possessed her. And, here, Arthur had plunged the dagger into his heart to save her. Had he known even then the demon’s end game? That it wanted to resurrect Surgat? So many memories and unanswered questions remained tied to this place.
Most probably, the demon inside Nida had brought them out here for that reason. It would use her emotions and fear to weaken and manipulate her.
However, she didn’t plan on letting it succeed and had an ace in the hole that gave her strength. As she had lost Arthur here, it seemed only fitting that here would also make the place she brought him back.
“Do a sweep,” Frieda said softly, looking at Dominick. “When we approach, we need to make sure we have left any surprises behind us.”
Dominick nodded and slipped off through the trees to the west. He moved gracefully and with little noise, and after only a few seconds, had disappeared into the dark forest and out of her sightline.
Frieda turned to Haatim. “You sure about this? Talking to her could prove dangerous.”
“I’m sure.”
“Don’t trust her,” Frieda said. “The demon will lie and manipulate you, but you cannot let it get inside your head.”
“I know.” He hadn’t told Frieda about what had happened in Cambodia, which surprised Abigail. Already, he’d confronted the demon and lost, but if he didn’t want to tell Frieda, then Abigail wouldn’t spill his secret. “I’ll just distract her and get her out of the building, and you guys can take care of the rest.”
Clearly, Frieda didn’t like the plan, but she did nod her assent. “I’ll stay nearby just in case. If you need help, shout.”
“How about I scream instead? I’m better at that.”
Frieda ignored him. Instead, she turned to Abigail. “Are you okay?”
Abigail took a deep breath, and then nodded. “Fine.”
“Are you ready?” Frieda arched an eyebrow. “What we talked about in the shop?”
Abigail understood what she meant and tapped the syringe at her side. The weight of the situation still pressed down on her, and the idea that these would make her last moments on Earth terrified her. However, she felt at peace with her choices and accepted her fate. “Ready.”
Frieda had the other syringe, just in case. If the ritual got enacted, and she couldn’t inject herself, then Frieda would use it on her to stop her from getting overcome by Surgat.
That, in Frieda’s mind, Abigail knew, would be a last resort. Abigail hadn’t told her about her plan to bring back Arthur, or the inevitability that she would end up forced to inject the poison, and she didn’t intend to.
Dominick returned a moment later, a concerned expression on his face.
“What is it?” Abigail asked. “Did you find something?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all. The town seems completely and eerily silent.”
“Do you think we came to the wrong place?”
He shook his head. “I can feel it here. The wrongness of it. Something horrible is happening, and definitely, we reached the right place.”
Abigail sighed. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
