World on Fire

Abigail arrived at her destination sometime in the afternoon. Not having eaten in almost twenty-four hours, she felt starved. However, covered in blood, she couldn’t risk stopping anywhere for food.

“Do you think Abigail’s all right?” Haatim asked. They sat resting in the lobby of the Council Hotel, out of the cold. Haatim felt exhausted and drained after the last several weeks of training with Dominick and wished he could go back to training with Frieda.

Colton Depardieu woke up groggy. He blinked and tried to remember where he was. It remained dark outside, but the sun had risen just above the horizon in the distance. He was at a farm, he remembered, and they’d been after Abigail.

Abigail’s attempts to stay one step ahead of the Hunters in pursuit of her had left her rundown and exhausted. Almost two weeks had passed since Frieda had rushed her out of imprisonment.

When a knock sounded on the door to her makeshift cell, Frieda looked up from the book she sat reading. In the last few days, she hadn’t had many visitors and enjoyed the chance to relax and not have a million concerns about which to worry.

Abigail waited to hear the decision of the Council, as nervous as she’d ever been in her entire life. She’d tried exercising to take her mind from worrying, but it hadn’t helped, and she found herself pacing in the center of her room once more.

By the time Haatim finished speaking, his throat felt dry and exhaustion drained him. He’d talked for almost four hours, recounting the events that had taken place in Raven’s Peak, leading up to the showdown with Belphegor.

“Did you find her?” Jim Fronson asked when Michael made it back to the Paris safe house. They’d rented a room in a two-story outdoor motel with a clear view of the street.

Frieda sat across the conference room table from the digital representations of Jun Lee and Deborah Cofield. Neither of them occupied the room with her, but rather, their 3D creations came through her glasses in similarly organized spaces around the world.