Raven's Peak (9 page)

“This is a really nice place,” she said after a few minutes. “You know, that reminds me of something I’ve been wondering: how do you afford a place like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem to have a full-time job, and you just graduated from college with a
very
expensive degree, yet you are living in a ritzy upscale neighborhood on one of its nicer floors. How the hell do you pay for it?”

He shrugged. “My parents help.”

“That’s what I assumed, but when I looked into them there weren’t many details,” she said. “I couldn’t find any information about your father.”

“He doesn’t like the Internet,” Haatim said.

“Still,” she replied, “I assumed there would be
something
listed about him if he could afford a place like this. But, no, there was nothing.”

Haatim was silent, staring at the table.

“What?” Abigail asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re hiding something. Is it about your father?”

He hesitated.

“You hesitated,” she said. “Tell me. I’m not going to ask again.”

“The thing is, my father and I have different last names and—”

He was interrupted by the buzzing of a cellphone on vibrate. Abigail slipped a phone out of her pocket and glanced at it. She read the name on the front and then looked at him.

“I have to take this. Keep deleting.”

“I will,” he said.

“No funny stuff.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied.

She stood and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Haatim waited a few seconds and then tiptoed across the floor. He pressed his ear against the wood and listened.

“No, but it’s almost taken care of,” he heard her say, voice muffled by the thick door. “Just some personal business, and I’ll be on the road in an hour or two at the most. Yeah, Frieda, I got it: Raven’s Peak, I know. No, I won’t. I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

There was a moment of silence. Haatim leaned closer, straining to hear.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Look, Frieda, I have to go. I’m in the middle of something, but I promise I’ll be on the road heading out of town in just a short while.”

Haatim tiptoed back to the counter only seconds before the bathroom door opened. He sat down next to his laptop and typed, pretending to ignore her. Abigail walked back to the other side of the counter, sliding her phone away and frowning.

“Almost done?” she asked.

“Almost,” he said. “Just one last group of photos to delete.”

“All right,” she said, checking her watch. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”

“OK,” he said, scratching at his arm.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the table. He sensed her tensing up and froze, slowly turning to look at her.

“What?” he asked.

“Uh oh,” she said.

“Uh oh?” he echoed.

“Let me see your arm.”

Haatim held it up. She turned it to get a clear view of the cut, shaking her head.

“What is it?” he asked.

“When did you get this?”

“A few days ago,” he said. “I think. Just a scratch, but it just hasn’t closed.”

“It isn’t a normal scrape.”

“Then what is it?”

She hesitated. “Something else.”

“Then what does it mean?” he asked.

“It means,” she explained. “That things just got a lot more complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Haatim asked. The intensity on Abigail’s face had just gone up dramatically. Anything that unsettled her, he realized, was definitely not good for him.

“I need to get you out of here right now,” she said. “I was wrong. They didn’t just want you for the pictures.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ll be back,” she said.

“The people in the alley?”

“Yes,” she said. “Probably with more this time. We need to get moving.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t worth anything to them without the pictures.”

“I didn’t think you were,” she said. “Turns out, you’re worth a whole hell of a lot.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“A lot,” she said. “But right now, I don’t have time to explain. Are you done deleting? We need to go.”

She stood up and slipped a revolver out of her belt. She slipped open the chamber, making sure it was loaded.

“Yeah,” he said. He closed the laptop. “Everything is deleted.”

“Good,” she replied. She flipped his laptop over and slammed the grip of her gun into the battery component, smashing it. The case cracked and he could see the shattered components inside

“Hey!” he said.

She ignored him and kept pounding, destroying everything down to small fragments. She focused on the hard drive, destroying it beyond easy recovery.

“Now your phone,” she said, reaching out to him.

“So you can smash it?”

“Yes,” she said. “We don’t have much time. Give it to me.”

“Not without some answers,” he argued. “What the hell is going on?”

“I already told you,” she replied. “They will be coming for you. They might already be on the way”

“
Who
is after me?” he asked. “And why? What changed?”

“We don’t have time—”

“Who was that guy in the alley?” Haatim interrupted. He didn’t really want to know the answer, but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “The one with the torn throat and missing eye? He looked like he was…he was…?”

“He was what?”

Haatim couldn’t bring himself to say ‘
dead’
. The guy couldn’t have been dead. That was just ridiculous.

“Just a costume. He was wearing it to try and scare you so you would hesitate and he could grab you.”

“I don’t believe you. Tell me what’s really going on.”

“Haatim, we
really
don’t have time for this.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the hell is going on. No more lies.”

She sighed. “No more lies?”

Haatim stared at her.

“Fine,” she said. “You pissed off an organization called the Ninth Circle.”

“The what?”

“The Ninth Circle,” she reiterated. “They have been hunting me for years and generally causing problems in the world. It’s mostly comprised of psychopaths and demon worshippers, but a few members are lesser demons living in human hosts and corpses.”

Haatim coughed. “Corpses?”

She ignored him. “They run an underground black market ring of slaves and guns, and they have been trying to get to
me
because I have been crippling their organization for years. I have sent dozens of them back to hell and George was just my latest target.”

She finished speaking and looked at him, pursing her lips.

Haatim continued staring. “Uh . . . what?”

“See? Doesn’t
“the guy was just wearing a costume”
sound so much better now?”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Haatim said, shaking his head. He forced himself to laugh. “You want me to believe that demons can control dead bodies?”

“I don’t care what you
believe
,” she said. “You just asked me not to lie.”

“Demons aren’t real.”

“For someone who writes about religious unity across the world and the complete love and forgiveness of God, you sure seem close-minded about the supernatural.”

“I don’t believe in God,” he replied. “Not anymore.”

Abigail fell silent. “Then what was all that stuff you wrote on your blog?” she asked finally.

“That was before…” he trailed off.

“All right then. Do you believe in guys carrying guns who want to shoot you?”

“What do they want with me? And why are you helping me?”

“Because the fate they have in mind for you is far worse than just death,” she answered.

“What do you mean?”

“It isn’t important,” she said. “Just know that I won’t let them hurt you if you do exactly what I say.”

“OK,” he said. “OK, fine. I’ll trust you for now.”

“Good. But we need to leave
right
now.”

The lights flickered.

Abigail was up in a flash, looking around. “Damn it all.”

“What was that?”

“It means we’re too late,” she said. “We’ve been here too long. They are here.”

Haatim felt a shiver run down his spine. “They are here?”

She didn’t get the chance to reply. A crash suddenly overwhelmed Haatim’s senses. He tried to react and duck behind the counter, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. The front door blew in, scattering fragments of wood in all directions. Haatim felt a burning sensation on his arm as he crouched.

The first explosion was followed by a series of echoing gunshots. Some came from the hallway, and others barked from only a few meters away. They were loud, a lot louder than he expected having never heard a real gunshot, and he plugged his ears. His right arm felt wet as he closed his eyes.

The gunshots dissipated after a few seconds, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. He screamed in pain.

“Relax. It’s just a scratch.”

“What happened?”

“Shrapnel,” Abigail said. “Wood. Not a bullet. It isn’t bad. Come on.”

She didn’t give him time to respond but began dragging him toward the door. All around him, the furniture in his apartment was torn to shreds from the explosion. The walls were covered in holes and fractured pieces of debris.

He half stumbled and was half dragged to the front. The body of a skinny man lay across the entryway on his stomach, an enormous hole through his back. Blood and gore were all over the walls and carpet, dripping down the paint.

Another man was in the hallway, his left shoulder drenched in blood with more dribbling out each time his heart pumped. There was a hole in the wall a few meters above him with a trail of blood streaming down to where he lay.

This man wasn’t dead.

Abigail dragged Haatim into the hall past the two, looking both directions. The dying man coughed and sputtered, whispering something under his breath in what sounded like Latin.

“Are there stairs nearby?” she asked. From the look on her face, it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken to him.

“Uh…”

Haatim was staring at the man leaning against the wall, watching blood spurt out of his torn shoulder. The man was gasping and sputtering as he chanted, the words too low to make out. It was like a train wreck: Haatim couldn’t look away.

Haatim felt himself being shaken. “Hey! Stay with me. Are there stairs near here?”

“Um…” he said, thinking. He had lived here for four years and knew the building by heart, but right now he simply couldn’t remember anything. “Elevators are to the right.”

“No elevators. We don’t want to get trapped. We need stairs.”

He shook his head, forcing his mind to focus. “Down there, we take a left,” he said, pointing. Abigail didn’t hesitate; she took off down the hall at a quick pace.

She let go of Haatim, holding her revolver at the ready. He stared at the dying man for a few more seconds, nauseous and terrified. He didn’t know what was going on and had no clue what he was supposed to do. Part of him wanted to go back into his bedroom, crawl under the sheets, and hide until all of this went away.

But he knew it wouldn’t work. This wasn’t a dream. This was real, and if he wanted to survive he needed to act. He turned and sprinted down the hall, chasing after Abigail.

This is crazy. This is crazy.

The thoughts bounced around in his mind, and he felt like he was operating on autopilot. They came to the stairwell, and she threw open the door. He heard shouting from behind, back near the elevators, and then they were stepping onto the landing. Gunshots sounded in the distance, and he heard the crack of wood as bullets smashed into the wall behind him.

Abigail ran down the stairs with impressive grace, hitting every few steps lightly and rounding each corner to the next landing. Haatim plodded along behind her, gasping for air and leaning heavily against the railing as he tried to keep up.

“Where are we going?” he asked after they were down a few flights.

“Your car.”

“And then where?”

“A safe place,” she said. “Stop talking and breathe.”

Haatim did just that, frantically trying to maintain pace with her as they passed landing after landing. He lived on the twelfth floor, which meant they had a long way to go to reach the lobby.

His entire body ached from exhaustion, and he quickly lost count of how many floors they had passed. It became claustrophobic and the air in the stairwell tasted stale. He focused on putting one leg in front of the other without tripping. It seemed like an eternity before they reached the ground level.

The front desk was empty as they spilled into the lobby, and the entire room was quiet. His lungs were burning as he sucked in ragged breaths of fresh air.

Two security guards were laid out near the front desk: one had a gash on his forehead and the other’s arm was bent in an odd direction. Abigail stepped over to them and put her fingers on his neck.

“Are they…?” he asked.

“Just unconscious,” she replied.

Haatim saw a desk clerk behind the desk. “Looks like she is, too,” he said.

Abigail crouched and cocked her head to the side.

“Three out front,” she said. “And four more behind us on the stairs.”

“They attacked the door guards,” Haatim said, shaking his head. “That’s insane.”

“They want you,” she said. “They won’t stop until they get you.”

She reached into a pocket and drew out a handful of bullets; she reloaded the spent shells in her revolver, spilling the empties onto the ground. They made a
tink tink
sound as they bounced across the marble flooring.

“Is it because of my arm?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I was planning on taking you outside the city and dumping you a few counties away, but it’s going to be difficult if they want you this badly.”

“What do we do—?”

Bullets ripped through the glass ahead of them.

“Get down!” she shouted, grabbing Haatim and pulling him behind the front desk. He heard shouting coming from the street outside and the staircase behind him. “Damn it!” 

“This is crazy. This is crazy,” he said, panting in terror.