Chapter 37
Dominick kept moving down alleys and side streets, weaving through buildings but making sure not to get too far from his friends. Slowly, he worked his way back toward Frieda and Haatim.
The demon chasing him in Abigail’s body moved at almost a lackadaisical pace. Occasionally, it lashed out at him, throwing a car or building, but the attacks seemed distracted and more to keep him moving than anything else.
It didn’t focus on him, which gave him newfound hope. Probably, the demon had engaged in an internal fight with Abigail to maintain control of the body. Of course, Dominick didn’t know if he led the demon on a wild goose chase, or if it did the same to him.
A few seconds later, he got his answer.
The ground still shook, but suddenly, the tremors intensified, causing Dominick to lose his balance and stagger to the ground. He scuffed his knees and hands on the rough pavement and fought to regain his footing.
A second later, a pulsating wave of energy came from the reddish glow. It felt almost as if a bomb had gone off, and the wave knocked him a meter back and onto his butt.
The wave of energy ended as abruptly as it came, leaving him dazed and disoriented. The ground shook but less so than a moment before. He stood and looked around. New cracks and rifts had opened in the ground everywhere around him.
Dominick walked over to one and peered inside, shocked at just how big and deep it seemed. He couldn’t see a bottom, only an endless pit leading down into the Earth below. Not natural.
Then a creature came bursting out of the darkness of the rift. Dominick stumbled back with a yelp and jerked free his gun. The creature flew past him and up into the air, and Dominick sucked in his breath.
It appeared similar to a golem one might find decorating a gothic church, though considerably more horrible than any he’d ever seen. It had talons and a beak and wings that spanned at least three meters. The entire creature looked like it weighed at least five kilograms, and if he had to guess, it was made of stone or pavement.
The worst part was that it moved so fast. It let out a groaning sound and dove at him, flying in with its talons outstretched. He dove backward, narrowly avoiding the claws, and then rolled to his feet just as the creature came after him again. It looked like it should have moved slowly, considering how bulky and cumbersome it appeared, but that didn’t prove the case.
He raised his gun, dodging another flyby attack, and then shot at the golem. The bullet ripped a chunk out of its midsection, but it seemed more like he’d shot a brick wall than something made of flesh or scales. Suddenly, a hole opened in the center of the golem where the bullet had passed through, and light shined from the other side.
He fired again, and then ducked when the creature swooped in at him once more. This shot hit it squarely in the chest, and another hole appeared, but if the creature even noticed that sections of it had chipped away, it didn’t let on. The golem let out a grinding roar and came at him again.
Dominick ducked, and then dove to the side, having no clue how to take down something like this. No field manuals detailed how to handle a situation like this, and he needed a different plan.
Like shooting a wall, his bullets had no trouble penetrating. Where the bullets entered, holes appeared, and cracks splintered from those holes. Maybe he could do enough structural damage to the creature’s body to break it down.
Worth a shot. He fired again and again until his clip emptied, dancing away from the creature whenever it came close. He filled it with holes, trying to pattern the shots to link the fractures.
It moved slower as he shot more holes into it, and it wobbled as it flew toward him. It didn’t seem to experience pain, but he had weakened it. Holes riddled the creature now, and chunks of its body had gone missing, carved off by the bullets.
Dominick’s final shot went through the midsection, linking up a network of small holes. At first, nothing happened, but then came a loud cracking sound. Its midsection fell away. The lower half of its body tumbled to the ground, crumpling to stone and sending up a cloud of dust.
The creature flew to the side clumsily, having difficulty remaining in flight without the counter-balance. It stumbled into a building and fell to the ground, letting out a rumbling sound when it tried to pick itself up.
Dominick loaded another clip into his gun and walked toward the creature. He stopped about a meter way, and then fired into its head. Each shot carved off a section until the head became little more than a stub on top of the body, which disintegrated, sinking to the ground in a pile.
Dominick took a step back, eyeing the pile of broken fragments. He looked around. The demon possessing Abigail had gone. It must have slipped away during the fight, assuming the golem would take care of him.
It pleased him that the demon had guessed wrong. He smiled, kicking at the pile of dust.
“That didn’t seem so bad.”
From behind, came a roaring blast. Dominick spun, startled. More creatures erupted from the rifts in the earth.
A steady roaring accompanied the exodus. More golems flew out of the rift, as well as smaller flying demons that looked like giant, scaly bats.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of them came. Followed by other demons, which crawled out, some looking like giant fiery dogs, and others like horribly demonic spiders. He even saw a few of the demons he’d faced in Pennsylvania and again out at the church.
Smoke poured from the rifts in fetid clouds, rising into the sky, and more demons hovered in those clouds, tiny ones little more than mosquitoes, flying in groups. He counted at least a few dozen golems in those first seconds, and they circled in the air, searching for prey.
It had taken him two clips to drop the first one, and he had one clip left.
“Uh-oh.”
Dominick turned and sprinted down the street, heading back toward the red glow where Frieda and Haatim had hidden out. With just fifteen shots left, he had to make them count.
Two of the little bat-like creatures came swooping in at him. He ducked beneath one and raised his pistol and fired at another. The bullet hit it right in the chest, and it disappeared into a cloud of smoke and ash.
Dominick grimaced in satisfaction. At least those ones wouldn’t give much of a threat. His victory proved short-lived, however, when he looked and saw hundreds more flying out of the rifts.
The other bat-thing kept coming at him, baring its razor teeth and trying to bite. He swatted at it, knocking it away, and ran on. Not wanting to waste the bullets, he refrained from shooting the thing.
At a sprint, he rounded the final corner of a building and dashed to the red portal and Frieda.
They’d gone. Frantic, he searched around for them. Each second that passed, more demons came pouring out of the ground and flew into the sky, and in other places, demons dragged themselves out of the cracks and onto the earth. There had to be hundreds in this area, and they came out all through the town.
Before long, they would get overrun.
“Dominick!” Frieda shouted from a nearby building. It looked like an old antique store with a glass front, though mostly cleared out when the town evacuated.
He rushed over and found her hiding inside, protecting an unconscious Haatim.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, worry evident in her voice. “He seemed fine one moment, and then he just collapsed. I dragged him in here but can’t wake him.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know. Look out!”
More of the demon creatures came swooping down at the front of the shop. Dominick stepped outside, raised his pistol, and fired twice. Two more little creatures exploded into puffs of smoke.
“What the hell are those?” he asked.
“Demons,” Frieda said.
“What kind?”
“No idea.”
“At least they aren’t hard to take down. I thought Surgat planned to bring an army.”
“He does,” Frieda said. “Those are the fodder.”
“Why haven’t they attacked us in force?”
“They will. They’re awaiting his command.”
***
Abigail looked at Haatim, “I’ll start the memory.”
The presence of Surgat surrounded the room they occupied and attempted to break in. Each time it attacked the memory, she grew a bit weaker. They wouldn’t have much time before it made it through her barrier. “Stay with me.”
“I’m right here.”
She squeezed Haatim’s hand, clasping him for relief. “Here goes nothing.”
As soon as she grasped the memory of laying strapped to the table as a little girl, she brought herself back to that time. The fear and weakness returned, just as sharp as ever. Panic flooded through her entire body, and she thrashed about, trying to break free.
Haatim disappeared from view, but she could still feel his hand and his warmth. She clung to it like a beacon, using it to steady herself.
The echo of Arthur remained there next to her table, though he looked less real now. As Surgat tried to break into the dream, the echo of Arthur weakened.
She also weakened and didn’t have much time.
The only other person in the room, the cult leader, looked a bald and disfigured man with scars on his face. Though he seemed out of focus right now, she remembered some of what he used to look like. Ugly and cruel, just seeing him over her brought back all her fear of him.
“Calm,” Arthur said. “You need to stay calm.”
She took deep and steadying breaths, fighting down the panic attack and bottling it away. It felt difficult, but Abigail managed to slow her heart rate and regain control over the situation.
“It all happened here,” Arthur said. “Here, Surgat told you his true name.”
“I don’t remember,” Abigail said once more, but that proved a lie, she realized.
She hadn’t remembered any of this before today because she’d buried it in her subconscious. She had locked it away with that part of her identity that wanted to pretend like none of this had ever happened.
Her life started the day Arthur rescued her. This just made the before of her existence. That had become the lie she told herself to pretend she had more strength than she did. No demonic ritual, no cult, nothing had happened before Arthur pulled her out of that hell where she got tortured and abused.
Except, she knew, it had.
A lot had come before Arthur.
***
Abigail remembered the cult leader, distinctly, as a man who took great pleasure from hurting others. As she thought of him, his features came into sharp focus. He smelt terrible like rotten meat. Whenever they met, he barely spoke and always treated her with rough cruelty.
He acted as the petty tyrant of the cult, demanding obedience and hurting his followers whenever they stepped out of line. Even then, he would make up reasons to punish them for his pleasure. Their obedience to him became complete.
This man had brought her into this room and tied her to the table. He had whispered things to her, telling her it would be all right and that this would make her better. She had felt too terrified to say anything and simply gone along with it.
He’d carried a knife, she recalled, but never touched her with it. She had thought, originally, that he would use it to murder her in some ritualistic fashion, but that proved wrong. It remained symbolic and meaningful but never got used to harm her in any way. The cult leader had held onto it lovingly.
Then a startling realization hit her. Nida had used that same knife since she’d acquired it from the caves below Raven’s Peak. How had it gotten there? Had they planned for her to go to Raven’s Peak even so many years ago?
The memory continued forward: the rest of the cultists had come filing in only after she got tied down. They hadn’t spoken, but rather, came into the room like ghosts.
They surrounded her table, blocking out the rest of the area and practically suffocating her when they stood so close. The shadows of their hoods hid their faces, but she could remember their eyes: some filled with hate, others with lust, as they surveyed the little black girl strapped to the table before them. She had felt so scared in this moment that she had nearly blacked out.
The memory struggled to consume her and bring her back to those feelings. But, now an adult, she no longer remained the helpless child strapped to this table. She had trained to fight. Had learned how to hunt down and kill demons.
Instead of struggling against the memory, she let it wash over her. The thudding sound as the demon tried to break in continued, but sounded distant now, less clear. The echo of Arthur had gone, too, but she didn’t care: she no longer needed him because she had found the willingness to accept that this only made a part of her, and didn’t represent the whole.
Arthur—the real Arthur—wouldn’t show up in the memory for a long time, and not until the worst parts had come to pass.
The ritual began slowly. By the time the cultists stood chanting, the candles had burned down to almost nothing. Hours had passed with Abigail unable to move or get up from the table.
She remembered almost humorously how badly she’d needed to pee, and how she’d focused on that pain to distract her from what happened around her. No breaks had occurred, and she’d felt afraid she would wet herself while strapped down.
It left her exhausted, she recalled, feeling terrified for so long but with nothing happening. Her muscles tensed, and sweat coated her, yet everything remained still. She’d wondered if, maybe, this just gave another way to torture her.
When they’d started chanting, however, everything had changed.
***
The memory grew in intensity and power when the cultists chanted. This came close to that moment, that horrible moment that she dreaded more than anything else in the world.
She squeezed Haatim’s hand for strength. They had called forth the demon, summoned it to this world with only one purpose in mind. She went back there now, fully immersed in that moment, and the experience felt the same as she’d had as a little girl.
It built to a slow pressure inside her forehead, an aching headache that pulsed and throbbed and made her cry out in pain and disorientation. She broke out into a cold sweat as soon as the chanting started, and it made her sick to her stomach.
She’d never remembered this happening, and she understood that this made the pivotal moment that she had blocked out. When she’d told Frieda and the Council about her time spent with The Ninth Circle, this had never come up. The headache had a strong sense to it of something else. Not human and like nothing she’d ever experienced.
She could feel him inside the swell of pain. Surgat. The demonic presence wormed its way into her existence, filling her but waiting patiently for his moment. He didn’t possess her, not like she’d experienced in Raven’s Peak when the demon took complete control of her body and dominated her. No, this seemed more of a bonding, a gentle caress while he filtered in, meshing their identities. She had thought it would feel a struggle like she faced today as the demon tried to dominate and destroy her.
Instead, the demon almost attempted to seduce her, like a predator might a young child. Only a little girl, she’d stood no chance at repelling him. The memory disgusted her, and her mind rebelled.
“Focus,” the echo of Arthur said. “Focus your mind.”
She did. Abigail didn’t want to remember this, didn’t want to believe that this had ever happened to her, but knew that it had. If she didn’t get what she came for out of this memory, then it would happen again, only this time she would find no way to survive it.
The demon had slipped inside her, promising to protect and take care of her for her entire life. It promised that they would stay together forever, and that it could save her from the wretched life she’d had before. And she only had to say yes to their joining.
It had asked for her to invite it in.
