Chapter 36
“The demon will find you in here,” the echo of Arthur said. He still stood in the doorway, but his expression had gradually shifted to worry, and he looked around. “Already, you can feel it clawing through your mind. It will find us.”
Abigail knew the specter spoke the truth. The walls had thinned and become transparent in the room she had created in her mind. It all felt less real, and she could sense Surgat searching for her. The demon seemed distracted, though, which she hoped meant that her friends remained alive.
Either way, she couldn’t hide forever.
“How long until it finds me?”
“Hard to tell. The demon can sense you, and it scans through your memories, looking for this last piece of you. Once you’ve gone, it will have full access to its abilities.”
“So, when it finds me, it will destroy me?”
“That depends,” Arthur said. “On whether or not you know its true name.”
“I don’t, though.”
“Names hold power. They give identity. This version of you right here makes your identity. It is how you associate your existence. If you remove this piece, then the body will still function, but it won’t be you any longer. Your wants and desires will disappear, leaving only need. For a demon like Surgat, it works much the same. Once you can pin down the demon and see it for what it is, at its most basic, then you will have power over it.”
“It controls me out there, doesn’t it? Surgat’s using me to hurt my friends.”
“Most probably. That’s the only reason it hasn’t found you yet and remains the only thing giving you this chance.”
She had prayed that, maybe, the demon didn’t have full control of her body. She had hoped that, maybe, it wouldn’t manage to control her until she had gone completely, but that hadn’t become the case. It had never seemed a reasonable hope. When she had forfeited control over herself in the church, the demon had taken hold of the reins.
“So, I do have a chance?”
“Yes.”
“How do I stop it, then?”
“You need the name. You have it locked away in that memory.”
“There has to be another way. That isn’t an option. What else can I do?”
There came a sudden rumbling sound, which shook the entire room. It came from the door as if a battering ram had just slammed it. Abigail froze in place. The walls phased in and out, and only blackness lay beyond the façade. Blackness and a form of raw hate that represented the demon.
It had found her.
“You’re out of time, Abi.”
“I don’t know the name!”
“You do.”
“It isn’t here. If the demon told me its name, I forgot it.”
“You didn’t forget; you just have to find it.”
“How?”
“You need to enter the memory.”
Another crash shook the room. The demon tried to break into the memory.
“Focus on that moment,” Arthur’s visage said. “You know the memory you need to go into. The table. The ritual. You have no other way.”
Still, Abigail hesitated. “You said that memory might prove too much for me. What happens if … what happens if I get lost in it?”
“While possible, you don’t have any alternatives.”
The demon crashed into the door once more. Then everything faded out for a second. One moment, she sat in the room, and the next, she floated in a void, just a thought in the nether. The sensation only lasted for a second, and then things went back to normal, but that second nearly crippled her.
That, and worse, waited for her if the demon made it into the memory.
“I know you’re in there!” a guttural voice called from outside. It sounded like her voice, only distorted and nasal and with a lot of extra bass. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
The echo of Arthur turned to her. “No more delays. Now or never.”
Abigail took a steadying breath and nodded. “All right.”
She thought back to that day, strapped down to the table. It had become the worst day of her life, but she would have to confront it if she wanted to defeat Surgat. Though scared, she brought the memory to life, conjuring and turning it into a reality.
With a steadying breath, Abigail stepped into the past.
***
“What was that?” Haatim tilted his head in confusion.
“What was what?” Frieda stood staring at the red glow, trying to figure out what they should do. She waved her hand forward through the eerie light, but it had no effect.
“That crashing noise,” Haatim said. “It sounded like …” He couldn’t explain it, and now, second-guessed whether he’d heard anything or not. Had it happened for real? Or only something in his head?
Frieda looked sideways at him. “What’re you talking about?”
“You didn’t hear it?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He hesitated. It had sounded like something heavy crashing into a wooden wall, but he didn’t know from what direction it had come. It sounded intense and vivid, as though it had happened right next to him, but no buildings stood close enough to justify such a noise.
Perhaps it hadn’t happened here at all. Or, rather, not this version of here.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus his mind.
Frieda remained focused on the energy, not paying attention to him. He opened his mouth to warn her that he meant to try something reckless, maybe stupid, and then he heard that crashing sound again. Only, this time, he could also sense Abigail’s “room” and what the demon wanted.
Abigail.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered.
He reached out with his mind.
The instantaneous effect felt like nothing he’d experienced before when using his newfound abilities. This time, instead of reaching out and touching something, it seemed rather like he’d stepped outside his body and crossed over. All at once, he found himself free from his corporeal body, and the effect disoriented him.
The scenery changed, and the world seemed to slip out from underneath him. One second, he stood on the street next to Frieda in Raven’s Peak, and the next, he went someplace that he didn’t recognize.
He appeared in what looked like a small bedroom, though broken down with age and wear. All the furniture looked brown and rotten, and a disgusting bed lay in the center of the room, covered with hastily discarded blankets. It all had an unreal feel to it. Like looking at an incomplete painting. And, from somewhere, he heard chanting.
“Abigail?” he muttered, though not intentionally. The word just slipped out, but as soon as he said it aloud, he knew he’d done the right thing. This place belonged to Abigail; he just had no idea how. Each and every thing here felt fake, except he knew it as hers.
Hers? Her what? Memory? Dream? He had no idea. And, still, the sentiment felt true. She had been here only moments earlier.
“Where the hell am I?”
He stepped around, trying to find a way out of the room. The place had a door, which he walked toward. He reached out to touch the door handle, and his hand slipped right through it. He couldn’t grasp the metal, and when his hand passed through it, the entire door became less real for a second. Then it solidified once more.
A crashing sounded, and the entire room shook, which startled him. The walls faded in and out of focus for a few seconds, and when Haatim looked down at himself, he could see that his incorporeal body did the same thing.
A moment passed, and things returned to normal.
“This isn’t real,” he said aloud, more to steady himself than anything else.
He looked around the room once more, but it held nothing else. Haatim had come to the wrong place. Abigail had moved on.
With his eyes closed, he focused on Abigail. He could sense the area around him, which extended beyond the room. Tense, he reached out, trying to get his bearings in the void.
Just outside the walls of this faux room, a presence filled with power and hatred dwarfed the creature that had, until recently, occupied his sister. It came from Surgat. Haatim could sense the demon through the barrier of the wall, but felt certain that Surgat didn’t know of his presence.
Also, he could feel Abigail, though he had no idea where she’d gone. Outside this room, it felt like a swirling nightmare of confused energy and chaos, and impossible to pierce or understand.
She remained out there somewhere, he knew. He just had no idea of where.
***
Abigail focused on the memories of the day that Arthur had found and rescued her from the cult. Mistakenly, she’d believed them lost, but they had only hidden. These memories, she had buried deep within her mind, locked away and forgotten.
As soon as she conjured them in her mind, a wave of nausea and confusion washed over her. The emotion of those memories made the first thing she experienced, and she realized she would need to push through that to find the memory itself. Determined, she gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and stepped through.
Suddenly, everything shifted. She stood in another room now, lying on a hard wooden table. This one felt dank and smelled musty and damp, like rotten wood and decay. Lit candles surrounded her on the table in a circular pattern, filling the room with a faint glow, but she could see no other lights.
Abigail tried to sit up, but something bound her wrists and ankles. Though all just a memory, the bindings felt sturdy and rigid and real. They gave her almost no room to move and chafed her skin.
Pain and worry flooded into her, but she bit back the fears. They had brought her here to perform the ritual. She remembered it all, could see and feel the room, and it felt like she’d become a scared little girl all over again.
“I can’t do this.” Abigail pulled at the bindings. “I need to get out of here.”
“You have to confront this.” The echo of Arthur stood near the table, frowning down at her. It gave her relief when she saw him, but only a small amount. The image of him looked less real here, distorted and hollow.
“It happened here,” he said.
“I know.” She struggled to control her breathing. Then, with her eyes closed, she said, “I remember this place.”
“The place is inconsequential. You need to remember the demon’s name.”
“I know.”
People chanted in the background. She didn’t recognize the words, but the voices formed into a steady hum that seemed to ripple through her body. Abigail trembled. The ropes tightened. The walls came closer too, collapsing in on her.
“Abigail, relax. You need to relax.”
“I can’t do this,” she cried out, shaking and jerking her arms. The ropes remained unyielding, and she let out a little gasp. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“No, I need to get out of here.” She strained against the ropes and cried. The emotions came like a tidal wave, and she felt on the verge of a panic attack. Not since being a little girl had she experienced panic like this, right after she’d escaped from the cult. This, though, seemed so much worse.
“It isn’t real.”
“It is,” she gasped. “It is real.”
“No, Abigail. Only memories.”
Each passing second, the dial of her fears turned up another ten notches.
The dagger. She could see the dagger hovering in the air over her body, ready to strike. It hung there, poised above her, and then it entered her flesh. It cut, tore, and pierced. Abigail writhed on the table, trying to get free, but the ropes only grew tighter and tighter, cutting off her circulation.
“Get me out of here!” she shouted, straining against the ropes, but it made no difference. The air thinned, the walls closed in, and she couldn’t think straight. She needed to escape, but the ropes grew ever tighter.
“You need to relax,” the echo of Arthur said.
“No! No, get me out of here.”
“Abigail.”
The voice caught her off-guard, stopping her cold, and she opened her eyes.
Haatim stood at the side of the table, looking down at her with a scared expression, next to the echo of Arthur, but neither of them seemed to know of the other’s presence.
The sight of him flooded her with relief, but concern riddled the feeling.
“Haatim! Are you real?”
“What?”
“No, you must be just another creation of my mind.”
“A what of your mind? I’m real. It’s me.”
Abigail frowned. Was this a trick? “How did you get here?”
“I have no idea. I just … I heard you screaming and sort of … latched on, I suppose. I tried to come to you and, suddenly, I ended up here.”
“I mean, how did you get here in my memories at all?”
He stared at her helplessly and shrugged. “No idea. Are you okay?”
“No. Please, untie me.”
“No!” the echo of Arthur shouted. “The memory must stay clean. No interruptions, or you won’t experience it properly.”
Abigail hesitated, as Haatim reached over to unfasten the bindings on her wrists.
“No, wait,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t untie me. Not yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t … you can’t see the fake Arthur?”
He looked around, frowning. “No. It’s just us in here.”
Which meant he couldn’t see the cultists either. “I need to see this memory through to the end,” she said. “You can’t let me up yet.”
He frowned. “All right. What can I do?”
“Please, just stay with me.”
He grabbed her hand, and where he touched her skin, it tingled with energy, which spread throughout her body, giving her strength and courage.
“Always.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“I will never leave you,” Haatim said.
Another crash shook the room. Surgat had found her in this new location and still tried to force his way into her mind. She’d run out of time and would need to return to the memory as soon as possible to find Surgat’s real name.
“It’s over,” the demon shouted from behind the door. “You’ve lost.”
A wave of energy washed over her, pressing her back to the table. It felt like a wall of wind, and everything shook for a full five seconds.
When it had passed, they could hear the demon laughing from outside the memory. A horrible grating sound.
Haatim looked over at the door, wearing a terrified expression. “What was that?”
“You felt it, too?”
“Yeah.” He nodded and gulped. “I think … I think the portal just opened. We should hurry.”
