Chapter 3
“Who—or what—is Surgat?” Haatim asked. “And what do you mean by ‘the original seven’?”
Frieda didn’t respond to his question. Instead, she stared out of the window, lost in thought and with a worried look on her face. Haatim watched her for a long second and then faced back to Dominick.
“Any idea?”
He shook his head. “I’ve heard of the original seven. They founded the Council. I think back in the thirteenth century, though I’m not sure. History isn’t really my thing. Surgat, though, I’ve never heard of.”
“A demon?”
Dominick shrugged. “No clue.”
“I’ve heard of Surgat from the Great Grimoire of Honorius. He’s bad business.”
“Like Belphegor?”
“Worse,” Haatim said. “Like, by a lot.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“What did you learn about the original seven?”
“Not much. My uncle didn’t know much, either, and he didn’t think that would help keep me alive, so he kind of breezed over it. All I know is that of those original founding families, Frieda makes for the only one left from their bloodlines who serves on the Council. The rest sort of … fell out over the centuries.”
“I see.”
They flew back toward the city. The storm had died down almost completely overtop the buildings and streets by now, and it proved a quick flight to get to the hospital. Absently, Haatim watched the landscape and lights flit past, wondering what Frieda might have meant. Release Surgat? Release him from what?
He didn’t worry about that for long, though; he had other more immediate concerns. It concerned him much more about what would happen next to all of them. Particularly with his father. What would Frieda do to him, as one of the last members of the Council, to punish him for his crimes?
Dominick radioed ahead to the hospital to alert them to the incoming flight and received clearance to land. He explained that they carried two injured and would need one gurney. The helipad lay up on the roof, and by the time they got there, the hospital had cleaned it off and turned on all the searchlights to make the landing as easy as possible.
A crew of nurses and doctors waited for them on the roof as they touched down. A trauma team, it looked like, ready to go.
“This will be interesting,” Dominick said.
“What do you mean?”
“We have contingencies for a situation like this. I’ve just never seen them enacted on this kind of scale.”
“Contingencies?”
Dominick didn’t answer since they’d reached the roof now. As soon as they touched down, the staff rushed forward and pulled open the helicopter doors. Gently, the team helped Frieda climb out, and then moved Jun onto a stretcher. The old man looked pale and weak, barely able to keep his eyes open, but still alive.
Haatim watched while the staff wheeled him into the hospital. Hopefully, Jun would make it. He sent out a silent prayer for the tough old man.
Another nurse climbed into the helicopter and helped Aram step out of the back and into a wheelchair. Her gentleness with him annoyed Haatim. His father had a difficult time moving around and, clearly, had a lot of pain, but Haatim held no sympathy for him.
The nurse wheeled Aram toward the doorway of the hospital to follow after Jun Lee, though much slower than the last group. Near the entryway, Aram glanced back at the helicopter. Haatim could feel his father’s gaze on him but refused to look in his direction or make eye contact.
Right now, he wanted nothing less in life than to speak with his father.
On the helipad, Frieda glanced back at them. She waved at Dominick and held up two fingers. He nodded back at her, took off his helmet, and then climbed through the seats into the back of the helicopter. Frieda turned and disappeared into the hospital.
“What was that?” Haatim had to shout so that Dominick could hear him.
Dominick grabbed Frieda’s helmet and put it on. “What?”
“I asked what that gesture meant. What did Frieda try to say?”
“She’ll be back in two minutes. Not sign language, exactly. I need to find the paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
Dominick didn’t respond. He tossed his helmet back onto the chair and dug through the supplies. Haatim watched him with curiosity while he tossed things around until he finally found what he wanted. It looked like an organizer for folders, packed full of paper.
Dominick flipped through it, pulled out a manila folder, and handed it to Haatim, and then flipped again until he found a second. They had numbers on them, and it looked like some sort of identification code.
A few minutes later, the door to the hospital opened once more. Frieda came walking out, accompanied by three stern-looking men. One wore a business suit, and the other two had the garb and collars of ordained priests.
They stopped well short of the helicopter, and Frieda came over to Dominick. He handed her the two manila folders. She flipped through them, nodded, and then took them over to the three men. She handed both to the elder of the two priests.
He scanned through them, nodded, and handed them over to the businessman.
The businessman shook Frieda’s hand, and then tucked the folders under his arm and walked off toward the hospital. The priests spoke to Frieda, looking annoyed and distressed, and then rushed off after the man.
Frieda watched them go, and then hurried to the helicopter. She climbed in, closed the door, and beckoned for Dominick to get back to his seat up front.
Dominick climbed through, put on his helmet, and cycled the controls to prepare for takeoff.
“Time to go,” Dominick said, once the sound came on again.
“Already? We won’t stay with Jun to make sure he’s all right?”
“We have more pressing issues.”
“What happens if he doesn’t make it?” Haatim asked.
Frieda answered, “We’ll give him a glorious funeral. But, until then, we have work to do.”
They lifted off the helipad and headed east, in the direction of the airport. Haatim’s adrenaline wore thin, and his entire body ached with soreness and exhaustion.
“What was that?” Haatim asked as they flew. “The thing Frieda gave to them?”
“Full medical history,” Dominick said. “That man you saw owns the hospital.”
“And the priests?”
“They’re keeping us out of jail. It could get back to the Catholic Church if we got arrested, so they pulled some strings. From the looks on their faces, though, they didn’t feel too happy about it.” This statement, he directed at Frieda, but she didn’t respond.
“They let us go, just like that?” Haatim asked.
“Contingencies,” Dominick said. “The Church pays handsomely and doesn’t ask any questions.”
“Does this happen often?”
“It depends. We have plans for all of our agents, as well as full authorization for medical procedures and payment systems in place to handle issues like this, just not on this scale. They have a lot of bodies to clean up, and the Church will stay busy for a long while keeping what happened at the Hotel out of the press. That’s why we need to keep moving.”
“You have files like that on everyone in the Council?”
“And the Order of Hunters,” Dominick said. “We have one for you, too.”
Haatim hesitated. “You do?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t you need my consent for something like that?”
Dominick laughed. “With what we deal with, consent for medical treatments is the least of your concerns.”
“We need to get to the airport,” Frieda said. “I’ll call ahead and prepare our flights.”
“Flights?” Haatim shook his head. The whole thing overwhelmed him. He had barely caught up with the events at the Council building, and everything seemed to be happening so fast. “What do you mean?”
Luckily, Frieda and Dominick didn’t feel as overwhelmed as he did. “Dominick is going stateside to find and secure an asset. Haatim, you’ll go to the Vatican.”
“The Vatican?” That caught him off-guard. “Why would I go there?”
“You are studied up on Catholicism, right? It formed part of your education?”
“Yes, but—”
“I need you to retrieve something and find information. A book. It might prove difficult to get hold of, but I have an old friend that should be able to help you out. Father Paladina.”
“Paladina’s still alive?” Dominick’s eyes widened.
Frieda ignored him. “I shall have him meet you, and he will help you retrieve the relevant information from the Vatican Libraries.”
“What book?”
“One of our histories. The original copy is stored at the Vatican. They only allow us to have an abridged version. You will only need that one, not the original.”
“Abridged?” Haatim asked, confused. “Why? It’s the history of the Council, right? Why not get the full version?”
Frieda hesitated. “It doesn’t matter. This is the same text that Nida stole when she broke through our defenses. Mostly, it’s just a historical accounting of our origins, but it also contains a list of very important family names.”
“Names of who?”
“My distant relative, for one. The family bloodlines of the original council members. I know of most of the family names on the list, but not where they reside today. Now, Nida knows all of them, and so she has a head start on us.”
“The original council?” Dominick asked from beside Haatim, glancing back at Frieda. “What could she want with them?”
Frieda stayed silent for a moment, as though weighing her response. “When the Council got founded, it came in the aftermath of a terrible event.”
“What event?”
“An awakening. A terrible evil came into the world several hundred years ago.”
“A demon?” Haatim asked.
She nodded. “A demon, but so much more. They called it Surgat, but that’s just a name humans gave to it. A group of seven managed to stop it and lock the demon away in one of the coldest and darkest corners of hell, but doing so had consequences. Forever bound to the creature, their blood, and the bloodline of their lineage, would become the key to setting it free once more.”
“Your blood.”
“Yes. Mine, and many others. Nida only needs to locate one person from each line to set Surgat free. We need to keep that from happening.”
“And how, exactly, will we do that?”
“We’ll find out where she’s headed and stop her before she manages to acquire all the blood. I don’t think she knew any of the names on the list beyond mine, which was why she sought to retrieve the book from the Council; so, at least, we know we will have time while she tries to track down living descendants. Luckily, I know of one of them in Pennsylvania without any living relatives.”
“So, if we keep that person safe, we know Nida won’t manage to complete her ritual.”
“Exactly. If we keep Jill Reinfer safe, then Nida won’t have enough to finish it.”
“What happens if we can’t keep her safe?” Dominick asked. “Do we have a backup plan?”
“Yes,” Frieda said. “We kill her.”
***
“Please, tell me you’re joking,” Dominick said.
“I wish I was,” Frieda replied. “If we can’t stop Nida from collecting the bloodline, then we need to make it impossible for her to complete this task. That remains of the utmost importance. We must find every living member before Nida can get to them.”
“Frieda, that’s insane.”
She sighed. “I know. But, we don’t have any alternatives right now. Things are desperate, but they’re about to get a lot worse. We have weeks, maybe only days, to stop this from happening. If Nida succeeds, then everything we’ve ever worked and stood for all these years will come to an end.”
***
Once they made it to the airport, Frieda slipped away from Dominick and Haatim to make a phone call. Hopefully, the man still held some sway with the Church.
Niccolo answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said.
The priest remained silent for a minute. “Frieda, what have you done?”
“We don’t have a lot of time, Niccolo. What does the Church have planned?”
“I can’t discuss—”
“Please. This is important.”
A pause. “They don’t know much.”
“Will the order go through?”
“It looks like it will.”
“Can you stall them?”
“Frieda—”
“Only for a few days. I just need some time to get things sorted out.”
“We need answers.”
“What if I give you Aram?”
“You would turn him over?”
“If that buys us time.”
Father Paladina let out a sigh. He sounded quite old at the moment that he spoke, “Yes. They’re still debating, and I believe I can stall the decisions. But I hold little influence, and they will overrule me.”
“I know,” Frieda said. “I just need some time.”
“We need to talk,” the priest said. “You owe me that.”
“We will,” Frieda said. “After all of this is over.”
Father Paladina didn’t like that answer, but she hoped he trusted her enough to accept it. She’d put him in a terrible position, asking for favors this large. It could jeopardize his career and maybe even his life.
“Fine,” he said.
“One more favor,” she said. “Haatim isn’t one of mine. He’s a bystander.”
“He knows a lot.”
“Do they have him on the list?”
“No,” Paladina said. “But if he’s hard to find, they might reconsider.”
“He’ll be easy to find,” she said. “I’m sending him to you.”
“What?”
“Keep him out of this, and keep him safe.”
“All right,” he said. “The further he is from you, the safer he will be.”
“I know. I need to go. Take care of yourself, Niccolo.”
“You too, Frieda. Until we meet again.”
She hung up, wondering if she would ever see Father Niccolo Paladina again.
***
Only a few hours later, Haatim found himself on a private jet headed for Italy. Despite his overwhelming exhaustion, he found it utterly impossible to fall asleep. His mind refused to settle down and kept running at a million miles an hour, trying to piece his new reality together.
The plan ordained that he would land in Rome and then get dropped off at a hotel just outside Vatican City. He would arrive late at night, and so would have time to settle in and fight off his jet lag before entering the Holy City and meeting Father Paladina in the morning.
Frieda had made some phone calls at the airport when they’d landed. After that, it had only taken a few hours to get him onto this private jet—something he’d never before experienced.
Even when he’d traveled with Frieda all around the world during his initiation, they’d flown on commercial flights, albeit first class. Haatim had grown used to cushioned seats and little beverages and peanuts for in-flight refreshments.
This jet, however, had only enough seats for four passengers and a full-service bar and flight attendant. The attendant, a man named Richard, proved entirely too cheerful for Haatim’s liking.
Richard offered to prepare for his sole passenger any variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and bragged that he could cook any of twenty five-star menu options for the in-flight meal.
However, Haatim didn’t feel hungry. Though his body needed nourishment, he found the simple idea of eating food entirely unappealing. He didn’t even answer Richard during his initial introductions, and after a few prompts, the flight attendant realized that Haatim didn’t want to talk and disappeared into the kitchen at the back and closed the door.
At some point, he must have returned because Haatim found a granola bar and bottle of water lying on the seat next to him, but he didn’t remember seeing the attendant come forward.
Haatim traveled in silence, completely numb to the expensive furnishings and decorations surrounding him. The cabin had wooden décor with earthy colors. Oblivious, he got lost in his thoughts, worries, and apprehensions, and struggled to understand how his father could have betrayed him so completely and utterly.
Just when he’d thought that he could trust his father again, the man had ripped out his very soul. Gradually, they had come to terms with their new reality, and nothing could have clued him into this as their possible future. Finally, things had started to look up.
The worst part was that, at the core of it, a part of him truly sympathized with what his father had done. He missed his sister dearly, and the thought of having Nida back—the real Nida, not the demon controlling her—seemed incredibly pleasant. Had he been in his father’s position, might he have made the same choice?
However, sympathizing with the man and forgiving him for what he had done presented as two entirely different things, and none of it changed the fact that his father had betrayed them, nor did it make it all right. His father became a traitor to them all and had gotten dozens of people killed.
Aram also released a terrible evil out into the world. Worse still, that evil wore the body of his departed sister like a set of used clothing and seemed to have some horrible plan to bring an even greater ancient evil back into the world.
How could this day get any worse?
Haatim forced himself to eat the granola bar and drink the water. He couldn’t allow for his body or mind to weaken. In all probability, he would have a brutal next couple of days, and he needed to stay at his best.
At some point later in the flight, he must have nodded off because the next thing he knew, Richard stood tapping him on the shoulder to wake him.
The man frowned down at him, a concerned expression on his face. “Are you all right?”
“What?”
“You were mumbling in your sleep.”
Haatim rubbed his face and groaned. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“We will land soon, and I would ask that you, please, fasten your seatbelt during the descent.”
Haatim mumbled a reply, though even he felt unsure what he tried to say, and fastened himself in with haste. Richard disappeared again, and Haatim rested back in the seat with a terrible headache and sinuses feeling dry and uncomfortable. The plane tipped forward at a slight angle, and vertigo settled over him.
He hated flying and the way it seemed to dry him out and make him feel miserable. Unfortunately, he’d done more of it these last few months than in his entire previous life.
Not only the amount of flying he did had changed in his life. Everything had ended up different, down to how he made decisions, his priorities, and the way he operated in his daily life. There had come, he knew, a single pivotal event that rearranged everything about him.
Everything centered on when he’d met Abigail.
Abigail …
***
When he thought of her, his stomach sank. When the train had crashed in the mountains, and she’d disappeared with it into the water, he’d felt a part of himself get ripped out along with her.
The hardest part for Haatim to fathom was exactly why he had such strong feelings for the woman. Never had he considered himself much of a romantic, but just thinking about Abigail and the idea that he would never see her again hit him with a feeling of such loss and longing that he could barely wrap his head around it.
Consciously, he knew that she represented his foundation during a moment of great change in his life. She’d rescued him and opened his eyes to a new world. Unconsciously, though, things grew less clear. Abigail embodied everything that he considered important in a person: brave, selfless, caring, and intelligent.
And, he couldn’t help but add, she had great beauty. Not in a cover-girl way with a perfect body, but in her own way, completely unique to her.
He’d barely known her outside of those days they’d spent together, leading up to Raven’s Peak, and in the months after, as he’d learned more about this world and his new existence, but it felt like he’d known her his entire life.
At least the parts that mattered.
The plane landed a short while later, touching down on a private airfield and taxying over to a large hangar. The flight crew ran a metal staircase up next to the plane for him to disembark, and already, a silver car waited nearby on the tarmac for him.
It felt like something out of a movie, and if things hadn’t seemed so dire, and he didn’t feel so exhausted, he might have thought it an awesome experience. As it was, however, all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and pass out.
The driver didn’t speak to him, but rather opened the door for him and then took him to the hotel. They drove down the road, past ancient buildings full of culture and history. This made for his first time in Italy, and the entire place gave off an air of culture and history like he’d stepped into an older world that had gotten lost to the ages.
The hotel appeared small and quaint, and he barely remembered walking inside. Once he retrieved his key at the front desk, he headed over to the elevators. Dominick had forbidden him from riding in elevators, but he decided that this made an exception.
Haatim dropped his meager luggage to the floor and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off his shoes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so exhausted in his entire life.
He fell asleep in only seconds.
