Raven's Peak (14 page)

“How can people make decisions when facts are withheld? How is a kid born into poverty without parents supposed to be able to make the same decisions as a kid born into wealth with a silver spoon in his mouth?”

“So it took your sister’s death to awaken you to the inequalities of the world?”

Haatim hesitated. “I think I always had questions and concerns, but I guess I just ignored them. I thought if I showed people how to be happy with what they had, that things would be OK. But, when my sister died…”

“It was harder to pretend things were fair in the world,” she finished. “I can understand that.”

“How do you know about my father?”

Abigail glanced over at him. “You have no idea, do you?”

“What?”

“At first, I thought it was just an act and that maybe you were toying with me, but now I think you genuinely don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

Abigail hesitated. “Look, if you are who I think you are, then it isn’t my place to say.”

Haatim groaned in exasperation. “Say what?”

Without answering, Abigail reached over and flicked the radio on. She turned up the volume, making it clear that their conversation was over. Haatim stared at her for a long while before looking back out the window, but she refused to make eye contact.

“Do you have any idea how frustrating you are?” he mumbled, resting his chin on his hand.

“Yep.”

Haatim had never seen as much dust in his entire life as when they opened the door to the old cabin. It hung thick in the air and covered all of the furniture in the decrepit building.

It was a massive single story affair made out of logs and beams that looked like it was built in the eighteenth century. It looked sturdy and old, hidden in the mountains of Colorado and far away from civilization in all directions.

The cabin was surrounded by bristlecone pine trees and thick foliage in every direction with no other roads or houses nearby. The perfect little hideaway, Haatim realized.

They had traveled on a dirt road for the last eight miles of the trip, bouncing and jostling across uneven terrain. He wasn’t the sort of person to get car sick, but even he was more than a little happy to finally be out of that car.

Abigail had spoken little after his questioning, and after a while, Haatim had managed to fall into an uncomfortable doze once more. His head still hurt, as well as his stomach, but he was starting to feel better overall. Healthier. They picked up a late lunch at a fast food restaurant, and he felt like he was recovering.

“Dusty,” Haatim said. He immediately sneezed. Then he sneezed again, and a third time for good measure.

“God bless you,” Abigail said. “Hang on, I’ll go open some windows.”

Haatim waited out on the front porch as she stepped into the foyer and then disappeared into the living room. He heard the grinding of warped wood as she slid windows open, and then the sound of a generator kicking on from the opposite side of the house. That was followed by the whirring of a fan somewhere inside the old log cabin.

A moment later, Abigail reappeared. “We don’t have a lot of fuel, but I don’t think we’ll be here very long.”

“Where are we?”

“My cabin,” she explained, going back inside.

“I meant what state?”

“Denial,” she offered.

Haatim hesitated, then frowned. “Ha, ha, very funny. I meant are we still in Arizona?”

“I know what you meant,” she said. “We’re in Colorado. Come on.”

He followed her inside, trying to breathe through his mouth and avoid the dust clouds. It didn’t help, and he sneezed again. “Doesn’t look like you’ve been here for some time.”

“I haven’t,” she said. “Not since…”

She trailed off, and Haatim saw a troubled look cross her face.

“Not in a long time,” she agreed. “Help me clear out the living room before we bring Delaphene in.”

“Delaphene?”

“The nurse,” she said. “It’s her name, or, at least, the one she uses. I don’t know her real one.”

They set to cleaning up the main room. It was an impressive job, given the state of things, which made him glad she didn’t want them to clean the entire house. There were a lot of scattered boxes filled with old papers and trinkets. Little crosses and jewelry, stones and glass sculptures, and millions of other things he barely recognized.

A lot of those trinkets looked like the cheap things Haatim had seen at county fairs when he was younger. The sort of garbage they sold to hapless tourists with too much money and not enough discretion.

Haatim found a broom and rag in the kitchen and set to clearing out the dust. Abigail stacked the boxes, occasionally leafing through the papers inside them. “What are we doing way out here?”

“Just a quick stop before we head on to Raven’s Peak,” she said. “For some answers.”

“We couldn’t ask her in Arizona?”

“Not in the way I intend on asking her.”

“Are you trying to find out why they are trying to kill me?”

“They aren’t anymore,” she said. “Or, at least, her cell of the Ninth Circle isn’t. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”

“Then what are you planning to ask her about?”

“Something important to me,” she said. Her tone signaled to him that was the end of that particular line of conversation.

“I’ve never been to Colorado before,” he said after a while. “Is this where you live?”

“No,” she said.

“Is this where you grew up?” he asked.

“No.”

Haatim waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. They kept working in silence, getting the room fairly well-cleaned-up. Haatim swept all of the dust and crud out the front door and Abigail took the sheets of plastic off the furniture.

“All right,” she said. “That’s good. Now, help me bring her in.”

Haatim hesitated, and then shook his head.

“What is it?” Abigail asked.

“I want to know why?” Haatim replied. “Why did you bring her all the way out here? So you could torture her?”

“No,” Abigail said.

“You’re lying.”

“So what if I am?”

“I’m not going to help you hurt someone.”

“I don’t need your help,” Abigail said, “and I sure as hell don’t need your approval.”

“I won’t let you do this.”

“Then try and stop me,” she said. “But keep in mind that we’re not dealing with a human, but a demon. And one that was going to use you to summon her master back into the world. She would cut you up into little pieces without a second’s hesitation.”

“What about the person the demon is living inside?”

“What about her?”

“She’s innocent. You said yourself that she’s being possessed.”

“Willingly,” Abigail said. “I know this particular demon, and I know the vessel she resides in. They get along quite well.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Haatim said. “If we torture
her
, we are no better than the demon.”

“There is no ‘we,’” Abigail said. “
I’m
doing this with or without you.”

“Then it makes
you
as bad as them,” he argued.

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “And maybe not. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to torture the human. I have a few implements and poultices that only cause the demon to feel pain.”

Haatim thought about it. “I’m not sure that makes it any better.”

“It’s the best you’re going to get,” she replied. “And, at the end of this, I’m sending the demon back to hell. Then
you
can decide if the vessel is worth saving. Deal?”

“Fine,” Haatim said.

“Now help me carry her in.”

He headed outside with Abigail, and together they brought the unconscious nurse into the living room. They tied her to a chair, wrapping duct tape around her wrists and ankles to hold her down.

“Now what?” he asked. “Should we wake her up?”

“Now we wait,” she said. “Do you want a drink? I think there’s some water in the kitchen.”

“I’m OK,” he replied.

“Suit yourself,” she said, sitting on the couch. She laid back, setting her head on the armrest and closing her eyes.

“What are we waiting for?”

“For her to wake up,” Abigail said. “I’m going to take a nap. You keep an eye on her. Just wake me up when she starts moving.”

The nurse woke up about an hour after they tied her to the chair, stirring slowly and moaning before anything else. The noise caught Haatim off-guard, drawing him out of a doze.

He was lost in his thoughts, piecing through the events of the last day or so; he was trying to figure out what he was going to do now that everything in his life had fallen apart: how was he supposed to move on?

He was relaxing in an old leather armchair and nearly fell out of it when the nurse’s head jerked up. She let out a gasping cough and looked around, wild-eyed and delirious. Her matted hair clung to her face, and she was clearly dazed.

“Where…?” she started to say.

Haatim stood up to wake Abigail, but quickly realized he didn’t have to. Abigail was already up, watching the nurse with a calm expression on her face. She sat up on the couch and rubbed her fingers through her hair, letting out a yawn.

She looked exhausted, and for the first time, Haatim could see how young she was. She couldn’t be over twenty-three or four years old, and at the very least she was several years younger than himself.

“She’s awake,” Haatim said awkwardly.

“I can see that.”

“What now?”

Abigail looked at him. “Maybe you should wait outside,” she said. “While I talk to her.”

He hesitated. “You aren’t going to…?”

“No,” Abigail said. “Not unless she forces me to.”

The nurse rocked in her chair and threw a look of pure hatred at Abigail.

“I’m going to rip your eyeballs out, then jam them so far up your ass you’ll see your intestines,” the nurse said.

Silence hung in the air, and Haatim felt his mouth hanging open. He finally glanced over and saw Abigail staring at him, a bemused expression on her face. He quickly closed his mouth.

“Do you need any help?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “But it might be best if you took a walk in the woods while you were out there.”

Once Haatim had left and Abigail was certain he was out of earshot, she turned to the demon. “Hello, Delaphene.”

The demon stared at her for a long moment, frowning. “Hello, Abi. It’s been a long time.”

“I think you scared my friend.”

“I’m surprised he’s still with you,” she said. “I thought by now the Council would have dragged him home to his father.”

Abigail was silent.

Delaphene raised an eyebrow. “They don’t know you have him? Oh, that is quite delicious.”

“Why were you after him? It’s very brazen of you to go after a family member of someone sitting on the Council.”

“His father had a deal with our Lord that the Council didn’t know about. He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, so we were going to show him just how costly it was to betray us. Then we found out you were in town. Two birds, so to speak.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“No member of the Council would make a deal with Abaddon.”

Delaphene pursed her lips. “Oh, my sweet innocent Abi. And here you thought
we
were the bad ones. What are you planning to do with Haatim?”

Abigail didn’t know. She’d never known Aram Malhotra to have children, and she’d certainly never expected him to go to such great lengths to keep them from understanding this side of their lives. She’d always assumed children were indoctrinated into the life, carrying on the legacy of their parents. But, Haatim was clueless and detached from it all.

Maybe that was for the best, and Abigail envied him a little for his naiveté. She’d often wondered how her life might have been if she wasn’t kidnapped by the cult and rescued by Arthur. What might have happened if she was allowed to live a normal life?

Still, for the most part, she enjoyed her life and was proud of the work she did on behalf of the Council. They were saving lives…yet, if what Delaphene was saying was true and Aram was compromised…

“You could just give Haatim back to me,” Delaphene offered. “I can find some use for him.”

“You? I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re a cold and heartless monster,” Abigail said. “He’ll never know that underneath the evil and ugly exterior you’re really just a fluffy puppy.”

“Say that again and I
really
will kill you.”

“And how are you planning on doing that?”

“This won’t be our last encounter,” the demon said. “And I have a
very
long memory.”

“Good,” Abigail said. “Then you should remember this.”

She held up a dried plant with purple flowers, twirling it in her fingers.

“
Verbena
,” Delaphene breathed, narrowing her eyes.

“Excellent. You
do
remember. I haven’t used Isis’s Tears in a long time, so this should be a lot of fun.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“That depends on how forthcoming you are with information,” Abigail said.

Delaphene hesitated. “If the Council knew—”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Abigail said. “And if a word of this finds its way back to the Council, I will dedicate my life to making your time in hell as miserable as possible. My memory is long, too.”

Another moment of silence as the demon considered its options. “One condition.”

“You aren’t exactly in a bargaining position—”

“Don’t send me back,” Delaphene said. “Not yet. I’m not ready to go.”

Abigail paused as if considering the proposition.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Abigail said. “For now, it’s time to be helpful.

“Fine, ask your questions.”

“Why were you trying to bring Abaddon back?”

“He ordered us to.”

“I just sent him home,” Abigail said. “Is he a
glutton
for punishment?”

“Very funny,” Delaphene said. “Because gluttony…never mind. He has business to attend to, and he thought it would be amusing to confront the Council in Haatim’s body.”

“Seems risky,” Abigail said. “Going after the son of a Council member.”