Raven's Peak (12 page)

The doctor swung wildly at her, waving his arms like they were batons. Abigail ducked under the first attack, sidestepped the second, and then kicked him in the back of the knee. The joint bent down at an uncomfortable angle, snapping with a sharp crack. Haatim winced as he watched the bone shatter.

He saw a blur of motion as Abigail twirled and ducked, avoiding the other two combatants as they launched attacks at her. She was so fast that he could barely follow her movements. At some point, she drew her revolver, and he heard the bark of a gunshot.

The sound filled his ears, leaving behind a ringing. He saw the dead man stumble back into the wall, yet somehow he managed to stay standing despite being shot in the chest at point blank range.

Abigail used the momentary lull to attack her other opponent, launching a flurry of blows that drove sallow-skin into the corner of the room. She finished with a kick to his chest, knocking him into the corner. He sunk into the drywall, partially restrained by it.

When she turned back, the dead man was charging her, attempting to ram her into the wall next to his friend. Abigail dropped to the floor, twined her legs between his, and tripped him. He fell face forward into the drywall, shattering it and staggering through.

Behind the newly created hole, Haatim could see a cavernous space stretching into the distance. Little dots of light from windows decorated the sides throughout at various heights. It was dark, and it looked like boxes were stacked on pallets inside the cavernous space.

It looked like a warehouse, empty and silent with all of the lights turned off.
What the hell…?

Abigail didn’t hesitate: she jumped to her feet, stepped onto the dead man’s back, and fired a bullet into the back of his head. Then she spun and aimed the revolver at sallow-skin; he had just pulled himself free from the corner.

“These bullets are blessed,” she said. “Go home willingly, or when I pull this trigger you’ll be stuck there for a
very
long time.”

The man hesitated, and then suddenly his body collapsed to the floor. Abigail lowered the gun and turned to Haatim. She slid a new vial out of her pocket and hurried over to him.

“Drink this,” she said.

“Why?”

“It’s the antidote.”

“I should . . . trust you?” he mumbled, gasping in pain.

“Good,” she said. “You’re learning. But you’ll be dead soon, so what further harm could I do?”

Haatim stared at her, then at the room around them. The walls were shattered, three bodies lay on the ground, and most of the medical equipment was broken.

“A lot, apparently,” he offered.

“Just drink it.”

Haatim accepted the vial. He took a sip and nearly spat it back out. It was easily the most disgusting thing he’d ever tasted.

“Is that burned grass and asphalt?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just buy it.”

The burning sensation and agony subsided almost immediately, and Haatim was able to breathe again. He let out a deep sigh, almost crying with relief.

He sat up on the bed. The doctor was still lying on the ground, clutching his knee and moaning. Abigail saw Haatim staring and added:

“He’ll be all right. The demon fled as soon as I shattered the man’s knee. We’ll call an ambulance when we leave and they’ll get him fixed up.”

“You mean, that wasn’t
him
? It wasn’t that man doing those things?”

“That was the demon controlling him,” she explained. “Don’t look so horrified. He isn’t an innocent bystander by any means. He’s a member of the Ninth Circle and gave himself willingly. The demon is only a lesser creature I know of as Christoph. I’ve met up with him and his sister many times in the past.”

“That’s…” Haatim said, then just shook his head.

“Crazy?” she finished. “I know.”

“Why would anyone—”

Abigail made an “shh” sound, silencing Haatim, and glanced around the room. He fell silent, watching her.

“Was anyone else here?”

“A woman,” Haatim said. “The nurse.”

“The nurse?”

Haatim gestured toward the doorway, where he saw the leg of someone hiding around the corner. She was wearing the blue nurse’s scrubs he had seen earlier.

“Her,” Haatim said, gesturing to the door. “The nurse.”

Abigail’s eyes went wide: “Delaphene,” she said.

Suddenly, the leg disappeared. He heard scuffling footsteps outside as the woman ran away. Abigail sprinted after her, disappearing through the doorway and beyond.

Haatim was left alone. He staggered out of the bed, tripping and stumbling over the bodies, and followed her out the hospital room. By the time he made it into the faux hallway, Abigail was halfway across the warehouse, chasing the nurse toward the exit. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the warehouse, scuffing across the floor.

He looked around and saw that his “hospital room” was actually a small fabricated contraption in the center of the warehouse, surrounded by old and rotting boxes and rundown equipment. They had built up just enough of a façade to make it appear legitimate to someone lying in the hospital bed, but nothing else.

He pushed one of the walls, which was painted to look like a hospital corridor, and it fell over with a resounding crash. The sound echoed, and Haatim let out a shuddering breath.

“This just keeps getting better and better.”

Abigail rushed out after the demon, sprinting with long, even strides. The woman she was chasing was fast, and the demon inside of her was pushing the nurse’s body to peak capacity, which made it difficult to keep up.

The woman climbed atop a stack of wooden pallets and boxes and started running across them. Abigail was a few steps behind as she scrambled to follow, ripping plastic wrapping loose as she went.

The nurse jumped down the far side of the stack, landing with a thud on the concrete below, and ran unencumbered for the exit. Abigail was about forty steps behind and gaining ground. They exploded out the double doors into blazing morning sunlight, and Abigail’s prey turned into a blur for a few seconds.

Abigail’s eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and she kept sprinting. She had her gun still and knew she could make the shot, but she didn’t want to risk killing her target. Not this target, at least.

This was the best chance she had to get some information about Arthur.

“Stop!” she shouted. “I only want to ask a few questions.”

The demon ignored her and kept running. They were on the outskirts of the city in a rundown warehousing district. Across the street were dilapidated rent-controlled apartments that had seen better years.

They ran across the empty street into an alleyway between two apartment buildings. The demon leaped atop a large green dumpster and then sprang up to the fire escape, an inhuman leap Abigail knew she couldn’t make. Then it pulled itself over the railing and started climbing up the stairs to the roof.

Abigail followed, stepping lightly onto the dumpster and kicking off the wall to push herself high enough to catch the railing. She couldn’t jump as high as the demon even with the added step and only caught the bottom of the rail. The extra distance forced her to climb her way up onto the landing.

The demon was already rounding the third staircase by the time Abigail was on the first, and she knew she was losing time. Instead of climbing over the railing and chasing up the stairs, she balanced herself on the rusty handrail and sprung upward from a crouch, catching the metal rail on the second floor of the fire escape.

She rolled over the side onto the staircase and started chasing after the demon. Her wrist hurt, but she ignored the pain. Her feet twanged against the wire-frame flooring, and she felt it wobbling beneath her, but it didn’t give out. After a few moments, she burst onto the roof behind her prey.

The demon sprinted across the cement roof, dodging vents and refuse. A pair of pigeons were scared up as it past, hooting as they took flight and disappeared into the sky. Abigail gained a little ground with long strides, but not enough.

There was a stairwell leading back into the building, but that wasn’t where the demon was heading. It was sprinting for the edge of the roof. Abigail chased, only a few steps behind.

Delaphene kept going and Abigail steeled herself, forcing her tired muscles to push even harder. The demon reached the edge of the roof and leaped out, landing on the next building over. The second roof was about four meters away and three or so meters down. The demon hit the cement in a roll and came to its feet sprinting.

Abigail reached the edge and jumped out into the air, pushing off as hard as she could. There was a moment when she was floating in the air, wondering if this had been a bad decision and she should have just let Delaphene escape. It was a long distance between buildings, and she was six flights in the air.

She crashed against the side of the second building, fingers clinging to the cement siding. She kicked her feet, catching small holes in the bricks, and scrambled up the side.

The demon was almost across the second roof already, heading for the next building over. Abigail found her footing and cursed.

“Damn it,” she growled, brushing loose hairs out of her face. With a growl, she took off after it.

Haatim half walked and half ran out of the warehouse, uncomfortable in the heavy silence now that the two women were gone. He didn’t like staying in the vast emptiness with the echoing moans of the doctor, especially without Abigail nearby.

The entire cavernous chamber felt empty and abandoned, entirely uninviting. He came to the stack of boxes where Abigail and the nurse had climbed over and decided that finding a way around was a better plan. He had to walk his way over six aisles to find an opening. The place felt like a maze, and it stank of rotten things and death.

He felt like he needed to get some fresh air.

He reached the exit and stumbled into the sunlight beyond. He basked in it, closing his eyes and just breathing. His head hurt, his body was sore, and he was still terrified and confused, but at least he could breathe easily again.

He finally relaxed and glanced around for Abigail, wondering where she had disappeared to. She was nowhere in sight, but he couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. Maybe that was the last time he would ever see her.

The only problem was that he didn’t know where he was. Or how to get home. Or what he would find when he got home. Or if it was even safe to go home. Or…

He trailed off, hearing someone shouting from up above. It sounded like a woman on the roof, but he couldn’t tell if it was Abigail, the nurse, or someone else. He walked down the street in that direction, looking up at the rooftops and squinting. Several other people were coming outside their own buildings and looking around in confusion.

“What’s going on?” a man asked Haatim, cupping his hands over his eyes and looking at the roof. He was only wearing a pair of white briefs; his big belly hung over the top of them.

“No clue,” Haatim replied, moving farther down the street and away from the man. He could understand people being curious, but this guy took it too far in his tightey-whiteys.

He passed an open alleyway and kept moving down the street, still staring up. There was another shout, farther ahead, and he hurried forward. He paused at the entrance to another alley.

There was a fire escape on the right brick wall that climbed all the way to the roof. There was also a large amount of discarded garbage and broken boxes littering the ground. It reminded him of the alley where he’d lost his pants. He had a momentary flashback to the previous night’s events and was thankful that at least the sun was out this time.

He waited, straining to hear or see anything, and suddenly a person sprang from the building on his left and landed on the fire escape to the right. It looked like the nurse, though it was hard to tell from her height above him. She landed nimbly on the fire-escape landing and started circling the stairs, running down.

A few seconds later he saw another woman—this one looked like Abigail—leap from the left roof as well. She didn’t aim for the top landing but instead caught the rail and swung her body down like a gymnast to the level below, catching the nurse by surprise and kicking her in the chest. The nurse blasted into the glass window, shattering it and flying into the room beyond.

Glass rained down in the alley in front of Haatim, forcing him to step back and cover his face with his arms.

He looked back just in time to see Abigail land nimbly on the landing and jump through the shattered window, disappearing into the apartment building behind the nurse.

Haatim just stared, jaw hanging open. “Holy crap.”

Abigail wove nimbly around the furniture in the apartment, chasing her prey farther into the room. These were shoddy accommodations with poor construction, and mostly unoccupied. The room they had landed in was only half finished and abandoned by the contractors, filled with rat droppings and dusty furniture and poorly installed insulation.

The nurse was cut now and bleeding in multiple places from smashing through the window. The demon could push her body to the brink of pain and exhaustion, but once it started shutting down there was nothing to be done. It was only a few steps ahead of Abigail now, stumbling along.

Abigail followed it out of the apartment into the hallway. She heard a scream behind her, along with the barking of a dog, but she had the demon in her sights now. She sprinted after it, closing the distance.

The demon ran to the closed door of another apartment, throwing its shoulder against it. The door didn’t budge, so the demon tried again. It fell open on the second hit, and the demon stumbled inside. Abigail followed, barely steps behind. On the couch sat an elderly couple watching
Gilligan’s Island
. They looked up in shock as the two burst inside.

The demon ran past their couch, stumbling and heading for the hallway leading into the kitchen. Abigail ran up the side of the couch, quick-stepping past the old woman, and dove off. She hit the demon in the back, tackling it to the ground and pinning it.