Part V
The trip back to reality was difficult. The first part of it was sheer pain, agonizing and overwhelming and enough to make it clear to him that he wasn’t dead yet. Or, at least, if he was that he was in hell. Breathing was nearly impossible, and he couldn’t open his eyes more than a few millimeters because of the pain.
“You’re all right,” Frieda said, and he felt her slender hand on his shoulder, holding him down against the bed. “Relax, Arthur, you’re OK. Don’t try to sit up.”
He did relax, lying back on the bed. The memories flooded back to him all at once, along with the realization that he wasn’t in the same place where he’d fallen unconscious. Somehow, he’d survived the trip out of the manor to a hospital. He remembered his wounds and the sheer amount of blood he had lost — he could feel those wounds — and they should have been enough to end him.
And yet, here he was.
He couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing, considering what he had just done. He had gone directly against both the Church and the Council he was sworn to serve. He had also sacrificed every belief he had in himself and the kind of person he was and murdered a lot of people. They might not have been innocent, but that didn’t mean they deserved to die.
Slowly, he forced his eyes open and saw that he was in a hospital room. Frieda sat on an uncomfortable looking chair next to him, exhausted and with bags under her eyes.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Mount Calden Hospital,” she said. “A private room that the Church organized for us. What the hell were you thinking?”
Arthur ignored her question. He looked over and saw a number of priests standing in the room around him. Some looked bewildered, others angry, and all were staring at him.
Some, he realized, looked afraid.
“How long was I out?”
“A week,” she said. “On and off. We patched up all of your wounds and they think you’ll make a full recovery. Those first hours were really touch and go, though. The doctors didn’t think you would make it, but I had faith.”
Arthur laughed. “Faith? If God was real, She would have just allowed me to die.”
“Maybe you’re still alive for a purpose. Did you ever think of that?”
He nodded. “Punishment.”
“Arthur…Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Did any get away?” he asked, changing the subject.
“A handful,” she said. “But no one important. You killed all of the demons except two, and we caught one of them and turned him over to the Church.”
“The Church…?”
“Is furious,” Frieda finished, “and haven’t said much. Right now they are in cleanup mode and are dealing with the bodies. Some of them want to turn you over to the authorities, but it doesn’t look like it’s going that way.”
“Then, what way is it going?”
Frieda was silent for a long moment. “You single handedly took out an entire cultist cell. They don’t know whether to punish you or applaud you.”
“Do you know?”
She shrugged. “I’m just happy you are alive. The Council is convening soon to discuss next steps, but I think I can swing this into a victory. If the Church forgives you, so will the Council. It might just take some time.”
“What about the girl?”
Frieda didn’t respond right away, and her hesitation caught him off-guard. Arthur turned to face her.
“The girl,” Arthur reiterated. “The one on the table. The one I saved. Is she alright?”
“She is,” Frieda said. “For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have her in observation until the Council makes a decision.”
“A decision about what?”
Frieda hesitated. “Whether or not to kill her,” she relented finally.
Arthur leaned forward, his entire body aching. “What?”
“She is a risk,” Frieda said. “No one knows what they were doing to her. We found documents, but we can’t make sense of them. All we know is, it was bad and she could be dangerous.”
“She’s a little girl.”
“And she could be dangerous,” Frieda reiterated. “The Council will make a decision about whether we are going to kill her or turn her over to the Church in the next few days.”
Arthur swung his legs over the bed, agony pouring through his entire body. He half-climbed and half-fell off the bed, and only Frieda catching him kept him from landing face first on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Frieda asked in surprise. Machines started beeping angrily, but Arthur ignored them.
“Where is she?”
“Arthur, get back in bed.”
“Where is she?” he repeated, staring at Frieda. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“The room next door,” she admitted finally. “To the left.”
The door to his room burst open and a doctor and several hospital personnel came rushing in. “Sir, I’m going to need you to get back into bed—”
“Move,” Arthur said, shambling toward the door and pushing past them. A couple of priests moved to stop him as well, but he shoved them out of the way. A cord in his arm stopped him, and he yanked out the IV and dropped it onto the floor before continuing.
“Sir!”
Arthur ignored the doctor and went into the hall. He stumbled down to the next room. A guard stood out front, another of Frieda’s hunters that Arthur had known for a long time: Charles Greathouse. Charles moved to block the way, but a look from Arthur stopped him cold.
“Let me in,” he said.
Charles hesitated and then nodded. He opened the door and let Arthur through into the adjoining hospital room. Behind him in his room he heard Frieda speaking with the doctor, but Arthur couldn’t tell what was being said.
He didn’t much care either. He walked slowly into the room, limping and weary. The girl was tiny in the enormous hospital bed, fast asleep. She was clean now, just a beautiful little girl with no trace of what had happened to her etched on her face.
He had done a terrible thing when he invaded that manor, but something good had come out of it. If he hadn’t gone in when he did, then the ritual would have been completed and she would be dead.
No way in hell was he going to let the one good thing to come out of this get murdered. Not if he could stop it.
It was hard to believe what she must have gone through in that manor, surrounded on all sides by evil. The fact that she lived through it at all was incredible. Arthur walked over to the bed and stood beside it. Charles slid a padded chair over to him and helped him sit down on it.
He heard Frieda walk into the room, her heels clipping on the hard floor. “If anyone wants to touch a single hair on this girl’s head,” he said, “then they will have to go through me.”
“Arthur…”
“I won’t let the Council harm her,” he said. “Nor the Church. The Vatican can talk to me if they disagree. Relay that message to everyone, and if they have any questions they can bring them to me directly.”
“This isn’t a good time to put your foot down about anything.”
“I said my piece, Frieda. Please leave me be.”
“You can’t—”
“You said I was still here for a purpose,” he interrupted, his voice steady. “Right now, my purpose is to kill anyone who tries to harm this girl. Got it?”
Frieda was silent for a long moment. “Very well.”
He heard her shoes clipping as she left the room. A few minutes later, his hospital bed was wheeled in and placed alongside the girl’s. Arthur was helped back in and the IV reattached.
Charles Greathouse took the chair Arthur had been sitting in and wheeled it next to his bed. They sat in silence, listening to the machines beep and enjoying the company.
One of the nurses brought in a syringe and went to his IV. Arthur grabbed the IV line and looked suspiciously at the woman.
“What is that?”
“Pain medicine,” the woman said. “Mixed with Phenergan.”
“No,” he said, looking at the girl. “No pain medicine. Nothing to make me sleepy.”
“It’s all right,” Charles said, gently extricating the line from Arthur’s weak grip. “No one will touch the girl while you rest. I swear to it on my life.”
Arthur hesitated for a second longer and then nodded. He’d known Charles for a long time, and he was as honorable as they came.
Besides, even alert and ready Arthur wouldn’t be able to put up much resistance. Right now, more than anything, he needed to recover.
“I wonder what her name is,” he said, releasing the woman and lying back in his bed.
“We don’t know her surname,” Charles said, “but she woke up for a while and we spoke. Her name is Abigail.”
The drugs were cold as they entered his system, and he instantly felt his body relax. The nurse pushed the dose, told him to call if he needed anything, and then left.
Arthur lay in the bed, swimming in the sensations and trying to come to terms with everything that had happened to him.
“Abigail,” Arthur echoed.
“Did you really go in alone?” Charles asked. “When we got there the place was cleared out and Frieda said it was just you.”
“Yeah,” Arthur said. “My bad.”
“Bodies were everywhere,” Charles said, shaking his head. “Jesus man. When we got there we thought an army had attacked the place. I didn’t think anyone could do something like that. Not alone. Why even risk it?”
“It wasn’t really a risk since I didn’t plan to make it,” Arthur said. The words just slipped out. “I didn’t have anything left to live for.”
A moment passed in awkward silence. “I’m sorry about your family,” Charles said. “I can’t imagine losing my wife or children. I suppose that without them it would feel like there’s no reason to go on.”
Arthur glanced over at the girl lying in the bed next to him. The drugs were taking hold, and he knew it would only be seconds before he was completely unconscious.
“There is now.”
