Raven's Peak (4 page)

“Impressive,” the demon said. “You aren’t quite human anymore, are you?”

It circled around Arthur, keeping a safe distance. He saw respect, if not fear, on Abigail’s face. He spun slowly, keeping his eyes on the demon and catching his breath.

“Just what are you?” it purred. “You aren’t one of us.”

“I’m what your kind made me,” Arthur said.

The demon glanced at the cuts on its knee and hip. They weren’t deep, but that wasn’t the point.

“Now I see why they call you a legend,” she said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Oh?”

“I have a counter offer,” Arthur said. He turned his body away from the demon, cutting his palm with the blade. He did it smoothly, out of her sight. “If you leave now, I won’t hunt you through hell.”

The demon laughed, but this time, it was less confident. Arthur raised the gun, firing another shot, and the demon charged back in. The stub was empty, so he tossed it aside, ducking an attack and countering.

It only took seconds to realize how outmatched he was in this second engagement. Arthur’s adrenaline was wearing out and the demon was still sizing him up. His tricks weren’t as impressive this time around, and he was half a step slower.

The demon was fast, pushing Abigail’s honed reflexes well beyond human limitations. It didn’t need to rest, didn’t need breaks. It didn’t care what happened to her, whether it shattered her hands or tore her muscles. It was relentless.

Inevitably, a hit landed. It caught Arthur in the ribs, just under the lung. He felt the air rush out and collapsed to one knee. One rib, at least, was cracked.

The demon followed through with a roundhouse kick, catching him on the side of the head. The world went out of focus, and he tried to find his feet.

The demon didn’t let him, kicking him in the ribs again and knocking him back down. If the rib hadn’t pierced his lung, he would be lucky.

He tried to suck in air but got nothing. He crawled away and heard the demon laughing. His shirt was wet, and he felt blood streaming down the side of his face.

“That’s it? Already done?”

Arthur moved toward the dais, leaving bloody handprints behind him. Another kick sent him down, but he kept crawling.

“I expected more!”

His vision closed in, and he could only see through pinholes when he reached the dais.

The demon hit him again and laughed. “Get up! I’m not done with you yet!”

He pulled himself alongside the three girls, gasping.

“You can’t save them,” the demon said, laughing. “You are nothing. Pathetic and weak. Explain to them that you failed. Tell them that they belong to me now.”

He knelt between the girls, muttering. He pressed his palm against their foreheads, smearing his blood from the cut.

“Praying? It’s too late for that now,” the demon said. It knelt next to him. “Are you asking God why she abandoned you?”

Arthur ignored the demon and kept muttering in Latin. It listened for a second, then he felt it tense up beside him.

“That isn’t a prayer,” the demon said.

Arthur stopped, one word short of finishing his litany, and faced the demon. “No,” he said. “It isn’t. 
Hanc.”

The hit landed a split-second later, a punch to the side of his head that rocked his neck and threw him to the ground. He groaned and rolled, leaning against the dais.

Abigail roared in anger, pacing in front of the girls. Abigail’s hand was broken, the bones shattered from hitting Arthur with the full force of her muscles. It hung limp at her side, unnoticed by the demon.

“What have you done?” the demon screamed, gesturing toward the girls.

“The thing about being a legend,” Arthur groaned, “is you learn a few tricks.

Abigail screamed and kicked him again.

“You claimed them!”

“And now you can’t touch them.”

“But you aren’t a demon!”

“No,” he mumbled. “Not quite.”

He rolled and slipped his hand into his pocket. 

This was his last shot, and this time, he did pray. Just a quick request. He’d already done everything he could, protecting the girls, and this would be his Hail Mary. He was dead either way.

He slid to a knee, popped the vial in his hand, and scattered liquid into the air. The demon tried to avoid it, but some landed on its skin. It seared where it touched, sizzling like bacon. Arthur climbed to his feet and began chanting, sanctifying. He begged God to ordain Abigail, to protect her.

He prayed, for the first time in many long years, that God would listen.

The demon screamed in rage. “I’ll kill her!”

He could feel the change in the air as Abigail’s body began closing to the demon, purifying against his presence, and he knew his prayer had been answered. Abigail’s body was no longer a safe haven for the demon.

“And then you’ll be back in hell,” he said.

“She will come, too!”

“Then a counter offer,” he said. “Take me instead.”

The room fell silent. Arthur could hear sizzling as the holy water burned flesh. He prayed that Abigail would survive.

“You won’t fight me?”

“You don’t have long to decide. Nowhere else is safe.”

The demon calculated, and he knew what it would decide. In him, it would have time; time to find another body.

At least, that’s what it thought.

It happened in an instant. One second he was Arthur, and the next he was something else. He felt overwhelming pressure inside his temple, and it was more than he ever could have imagined.

It was no wonder it had taken Abigail so easily, he doubted any human could be a match for it longer than a few seconds. It was a hot knife slicing through his brain.

His Hail Mary seemed an even longer shot now. He doubted he could hold it back long enough with sheer willpower. If he failed, it would kill Abigail anyway just out of spite.

All he needed was a few seconds.

He took the short dagger into his right hand and began carving into his left arm, just below the wrist. Blood ran from his first cut.

He started the second line in his skin, and the demon understood what he was doing. He felt it roaring in his mind, trying to subsume him. He nearly caved under the pressure, nearly lost it all, but he understood pain. He understood what true devastation was. The demon was fighting with brutality, trying to overwhelm him with sheer force. It didn’t understand that he had passed that threshold long ago.

I killed those people
, he whispered in his mind.

He finished his second cut, shaking from the sheer pressure of the demon’s strength. Every single pain receptor in his body was being triggered, and it felt like he was standing in a fire. He felt it tearing and clawing for control, shredding his very existence.

There is no forgiveness.

The third cut, drawn at an angle to connect the other two. He felt his will wavering and knew he wouldn’t have long. He’d mentally battled demons before, but never like this. It felt like a train crashing into a brick wall.

There is only penance.

He finished the final cut and collapsed, feeling everything drain away. The demon went silent in his mind, and he felt humble respect mixed with unfathomable rage. The sigil in his arm trapped it, and once his body died the demon would have nowhere to go but back to hell.

When it went, he knew, it would take him with it.

But he was ready.

Shaking, he pulled the satellite phone out of his pocket and set it on the ground in front of him. He tapped the only stored number. It rang and was answered almost instantly.

“Arthur?” Frieda said.

“Promise me,” he said, sucking in a shuddering breath. Red agony had closed his vision to narrow slits.

“Arthur? What’s wrong—?”

“Promise me you’ll take care of her,” he interrupted.

The words hung in the air. A long moment passed and he imagined Frieda on the other end of the line, tense and barely containing her emotions.

“I promise,” she said finally.

He looked over at the form of the girl who should have been his daughter. She looked so young lying there on the floor. She seemed dead, but he hoped she was only unconscious.

He prayed she could come back. He thought of the good times he’d spent with her, raising her and teaching her and loving her like a father.

“Tell her I love her,” he said. “I always will.”

“I’ll tell her.”

With a smile, he plunged the dagger into his heart.

Chapter 1

Haatim walked into the Ocotillo Library in Phoenix, Arizona, in the early afternoon and found a table in the back corner. It was the middle of the work week, so it wasn’t very crowded inside. That was fine with him; he wasn’t in the mood to talk to a lot of people.

He slipped his laptop out of his bag and powered it on, then hooked it up to the Wi-Fi and started browsing. To be honest, there wasn’t any particular reason for him to visit the library; he could search the Internet inside his apartment, but he didn’t really want to be alone. He’d been alone in his grief for the last few days, and he needed to get out and see other people.

This library had been his second home while he was studying for his graduate degree. It was small and quaint with a lot of old editions of books he liked to leaf through. Just being here was enough to help him relax and clear his mind. All he was trying to do was keep from thinking about his family, especially his—

“Haatim?” someone asked, interrupting his thoughts and pulling him back to his surroundings. He glanced up and saw Kelly Smith standing over his table. She was holding a stack of books and smiling quizzically at him.

Crap.
He definitely didn’t intend to run into any of the other students he’d gone to school with. Kelly had been in many of the same Theology classes as him, and they’d been pretty good friends through their time in graduate school. Now, both had their Theology degrees, which were about as useless as Humanities degrees in the outside world.

That was before he went back home to India and they lost touch. He hadn’t known what had happened to her, and he definitely wasn’t expecting her to still be living here.

The look on her face spoke volumes as she sized him up. He knew how must look, disheveled and pathetic with several weeks’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. He was also wearing sweatpants and probably looked more ready to take a midday nap than do research in a library.

“Hey, Kelly,” he offered.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you back in town,” she said. “I thought you’d move back home.”

“I did,” he replied awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” she answered. “Temporarily, until I can find a teaching job.”

What are the odds,
he thought with an internal sigh.

“That’s awesome,” he said instead. “I hope you find something soon.”

“Me, too. So how long are you going to be in the country?”

“A few months,” he said. “Just back for a while.”

She nodded conspiratorially, and he knew what she was about to say. She was going to bring up his sister, which was something he didn’t want to talk about it with her. “I heard about your—”

“Where are you planning to teach?” he interrupted.

She frowned. “I put some applications in the area, and I’m hoping to stay local. Mostly just community colleges, just until I can get established. Brad proposed last month.”

She held up her hand so he could see the ring. It was big but incredibly plain. “It’s nice,” Haatim offered. He didn’t know anything about wedding rings but felt like it was the right thing to say.

“We don’t want to move just yet, so here’s hoping I can find something good soon. What about you? Are you planning to teach, too?”

“No,” he replied. “I thought about it, but it just doesn’t really feel like something I want to do.”

“What about your blog? Are you still writing?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Still writing.”

His blog was called the Hidden Lens, and he wrote about various religions of the world and how they interacted with each other in positive ways. It had consumed him when he first started it, and he’d hoped he could use it as a positive contribution to the world.

But now it just felt…empty.

“Sort of. That’s actually why I’m here. I’m trying to find inspiration for something to write about.”

“I remember your post about how all religions stemmed from the same prism and how if people could understand that it would fix so many things.”

He shrugged. “Farfetched, I know.”

“I thought it was great.”

“Thanks,” he said. “But I just don’t feel like writing anything religious right now.”

“Oh,” she said. “I understand. I heard about what happened on Facebook—”

He interrupted again. He hadn’t come to the library for sympathy, but rather to escape his emotions. “I was thinking about taking my blog in a new direction,” he said. “I think I’m going to turn it into a crime blog.”

“Ah,” she said. “So like: writing about famous crimes?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “I’m not totally sure yet. Right now, I just need a job.”

They stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds. Finally, she gestured with her stack of books. “Well, I guess I had better get back to work.”

“OK,” he said. “I should probably start trying to do something productive anyway.”

“It was nice seeing you, Haatim,” Kelly said.

“You, too.”

She disappeared into the aisles and shelves, leaving Haatim alone. He actually felt even worse now after talking to her, which he hadn’t thought was possible. It was one thing to know random strangers were looking at him like he was a disheveled bum, but to have someone he’d thought of as a friend for so many years see him like…this…

It was terrible.

He let out a long sigh, realizing that now even the library was a compromised location. He didn’t want to talk to Kelly about school or life, and he definitely didn’t want to talk to her about his grief. He didn’t want her judgment, nor her sympathy.

And he didn’t really want to write a crime blog. He just…didn’t know what he wanted. Nothing really made sense anymore, and if he was being completely honest, he was just looking for a reason to do nothing with his life.