Raven's Rise

Life can turn on a dime. One minute, everything seems as normal as can be, and the next, it all changes. Today had begun in a mundane enough way for expat, Matt Walker.

He awoke to banging on his hotel door. Groggy, Haatim sat up and rubbed his eyes. What time was it? It proved impossible to tell because his body felt completely out of sync. Not yet that awake, he staggered across the room to the door and threw it open.

The drive back to the Reinfer estate felt as if it took no time at all. Dominick, absorbed in his thoughts, tried to come to terms with what Mitchell had told him, and so barely even noticed the scenery flitting past.

Haatim had thought the flight to the Vatican long and uncomfortable, but the series of flights to get him from Rome to Phnom Penh in Cambodia proved far worse. He felt like he had passed through the ringer with this trip.

The demon had seemed far less intimidating while chained up and he could take the luxury of just looking at it. Scary, yeah, but not that threatening. Haatim had almost forgotten what they were capable of while it stayed pacified, focusing only on what he could do to it and not the other way around.

“Focus, Haatim.” “I am focusing.” He shook his head in annoyance. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Dominick made it to Mitchell’s shop later that afternoon after a few hours of driving, still unclear exactly why he’d headed out there. He had left the Reinfer estate after giving Trent a vague explanation of where needed to go.

Haatim clicked through the various websites somewhat absently, sleepiness creeping in. He had trawled through the information for days and had a mind-numbing headache from spending so much time in front of a computer.

Dominick told himself that he did this for the sake of what Frieda wanted him to do. After all, he couldn’t do his job if the security team wouldn’t let him.