by Lincoln Cole
“Two men,” Niccolo replied. “Both armed.”
Arthur frowned. “Where there are two, there are probably more.”
“What do you mean?”
Arthur walked over to the bedside table and grabbed his tranquilizer gun. “They will be coming from a few different directions and up both stairwells, hoping to corner us.”
“Who?”
“The Ninth Circle, if I’m guessing. Impossible to know for certain. I wonder how they found us.”
Niccolo felt a chill run down his spine. “You don’t think…? You think they are here for us?”
“I know they are. It doesn’t matter. We need to get moving.”
Niccolo stood up from the chair. He jolted in surprise and almost dove to the floor when something hit him and bounced to the floor.
“Heads up,” Arthur said.
Niccolo picked the item up off the floor: it was his duffel bag, and it was empty. He dumped it out on the floor earlier to go through his clothing, an action he regretted now.
“Thirty seconds,” Arthur said. “Grab what you can, because we aren’t coming back.”
Then, Arthur headed over to the door of their hotel room and gently opened it. Niccolo rushed over to his pile of clothes and frantically scooped them into the duffel bag.
He got most of the clothing inside and zipped it when he heard a low whistle. Arthur gestured at him to come.
Arthur held up his tranquilizer gun and made a shushing motion with his finger over his lips. Then, he pointed across the hallway. Another hotel room door stood open across from them, and it was empty inside.
“Go,” Arthur mouthed. Niccolo didn’t hesitate, just went.
Arthur followed Niccolo across the hallway and into the other room, closing both doors behind them. Then, he made his way over to the window overlooking the parking lot outside. This one was at the opposite side of the hotel.
“Two cars,” Arthur whispered, scanning the parking lot. More people were milling around outside. “Maybe a third.”
“Whose room is this?’”
“No one,” Arthur said absently. “I picked the lock.”
“What if it had been occupied?”
“It wasn’t. Besides, we’re only going to be here for a minute or two.”
“That isn’t the point.”
Arthur ignored him. “Two cars on this side and one out back means at least six people, probably eight. They’re going to have a few guarding the exits and the rest tightening a noose around us.”
“What do we do?”
“We need to get out of here,” Arthur said. “We’re parked on the side of the hotel, and there’s no stairwell over there so hopefully there’s no guard either.”
“Alright.”
Arthur held up his tranquilizer gun and frowned at it. He drew the revolver from the small of his back and held it up.
“They might be demons.”
“And they might not be,” Niccolo argued, grabbing his revolver and pushing it down. “We have no way of knowing for sure, but I don’t think we should jump to using a weapon that might kill them on a hunch.”
Arthur opened his mouth to object and then changed his mind. With a sigh, he slid the revolver away and hefted the tranquilizer gun instead.
“Fine. Stay behind me, and move fast. We aren’t going to have a lot of time to get out of here once they spot us, so if I start running you best keep up.”
Niccolo stayed extra close to Arthur as they headed for the exit of this unoccupied hotel room. Arthur motioned for Niccolo to be still and then leaned close to the peephole that peered out into the hallway.
Niccolo heard some people talking on the other side of the door. He craned his neck to listen but heard little.
A second later, and there was a huge crashing sound from across the hallway. He jumped a little bit at the sudden noise, and Arthur grabbed his arm, steadying him. Someone had just busted their door open, and he heard a flurry of footsteps as the cultists stormed into their room.
“They aren’t here,” someone shouted.
“Check the exits.”
“You, stay here.”
The footsteps of several men rushed down the hallway in opposite directions, disappearing back down the stairs. He mouthed the words ‘one more’ to Niccolo and held up his gun.
Niccolo nodded and sucked in a steadying breath. He could do this: he’d been in firefights before. He wished like hell that he’d gone to the restroom earlier and prayed his bladder didn’t get the best of him.
Arthur turned the handle and threw the door open. Niccolo saw a surprised guard in the doorway of their hotel room. He was holding a shotgun in his right hand, but right now it was resting down at his side.
The man spun when he heard the opposing door open, but too slowly. Arthur already had his tranquilizer gun up and he fired off a dart.
It hit the man squarely in the neck, and he reached up for it like grabbing a mosquito. Arthur rushed forward, using his free hand to catch the man’s raggedy t-shirt and lower him to the floor.
He nodded toward the stairwell. “Stay low,” he whispered.
Niccolo nodded. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants and drew his own tranquilizer gun. Slowly, they crept through the hallway to the stairs that led down to the lobby. Niccolo’s heart raced and blood pounded in his ears. He listened for any sounds nearby but there was nothing.
Arthur opened the stairwell door and moved into the enclosed area. There was someone speaking on one of the floors below in a low voice, though with the echo Niccolo couldn’t tell what he was saying. He made out the word ‘priest’, though.
Arthur leaned over the railing with his gun, waited a second, and then fired off two quick darts in rapid succession. Niccolo heard the twang of the compressed air releasing and then something heavy thudded to the floor, a body. A second later, another body thudded onto the hard floor next to it.
This was followed by a lot of shouting from below, though it was muffled and coming from out in the lobby of the hotel. Someone screamed and then something heavy crashed to the floor.
“Come on,” Arthur said, rushing forward down the stairs and fishing more darts out of his pocket. He deftly loaded the new ones into the gun and chambered one.
They reached the lobby level of the stairwell and Niccolo ran through. Arthur grabbed his arm and jerked him back out of the way. Not a second too soon, either: the sudden barking of gunshots from outside the stairwell and Niccolo heard it pounding into the wood around him.
“Not that way,” Arthur admonished. “Down.”
“What?”
Arthur pointed further down the stairs leading to the basement and then shoved Niccolo that direction. Niccolo moved quickly, though his legs felt like rubber. He glanced over his shoulder and expecting at any moment for an enemy to appear in the doorway with a rifle and shoot them in the back.
They reached the bottom of the staircase. The basement door was locked, but it was shoddy and weak. Arthur kicked it open on his second try; it made a loud sound as it crashed open. This door led into a dirty and dingy staff laundry room that smelled of must and mildew.
They ran inside just as he heard shouting from the lobby up above. Arthur passed Niccolo and headed deeper into the room, ignoring the motion. A man appeared over the railing, holding a shotgun, but Niccolo and Arthur were out of sight before he fired.
Arthur weaved around the laundry carts and past the running washers and dryers of the basement laundry room, pausing at the windows on their left as he went. Niccolo struggled just to keep up: his knees were stiff; the adrenaline felt like it would make his heart explode in his chest.
Finally, Arthur stopped and pointed at one of the windows. “That one. Open it.”
He didn’t wait for Niccolo to respond, instead walking back past him in the direction they had come. Niccolo heard footsteps scuffing across the pavement floor as Arthur raised his gun.
He fired off two quick shots and Niccolo heard a groan. Art
hur slid more darts out of his pocket and loaded them into the chamber.
The window in question was just above their headline and small. It was a tight fit to squeeze through, and worse it was a permanent fixture and didn’t actually have a hinge to open it. Niccolo felt around the edges and wouldn’t be easy to pry out, either.
“Hurry up,” Arthur said.
“I am!”
More gunshots echoed in the laundry room, causing Niccolo to tense up, and then Arthur fired the dart gun again. It sounded weak compared to the pistols that were being fired at them. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Niccolo panicked and fought the fear back down. He rushed over to a loose brick on the wall, and with a little bit of effort pried it loose.
Busting the window would leave shards, so he hurried over to one of the nearby laundry carts as well. He yanked out a loose sheet and wrapped it around his fist. He heard more gunshots but focused only on his task.
“Alright,” he said to himself, hefting the brick. “Here goes nothing.”
He tossed the brick as hard as he could at the glass. It shattered the window with ease and sailed right through, scattering shards everywhere. He gritted his teeth in satisfaction and rushed over to it.
There were still huge shards attached to the empty sill and he didn’t have anything left to bust them out of the way.
“Oops.”
“Anytime now,” Arthur shouted, ducking behind a machine as one of their pursuers opened fire. He popped over the top, launched another dart. Another man fell to the ground. “Out of darts.”
“Doesn’t matter. Come on,” Niccolo said.
He bunched up the sheet around his knuckles, knocked the remaining glass out of the way with his fist, and then laid the cloth down across the bottom sill to climb over.
He grabbed onto the sides of the window, let out a deep breath, and then wriggled his way through. It was a tight squeeze, but he slipped out after only a few seconds. He was careful not to cut himself on any of the glass shards on the mulch outside, and then once he was clear he brushed himself off and ducked behind some bushes.
Arthur came out a few seconds later, moving with considerably more grace than Niccolo had. He nodded toward the sheet.
“Smart thinking.”
“What now?”
Arthur pointed and Niccolo saw that their car was parked only a few dozen feet away.
“That’s why you picked that window?” Niccolo said.
“Yep. Come on.”
They rushed over and climbed into the car, and a second later they were moving. Niccolo heard more gunshots behind them from the basement window, along with shouted curses.
They were out of range for any of the shots to land. Arthur went over a short curb in front of them. They bounced and jostled across their on their way over.
And then they were on the paved road heading away from the hotel. Niccolo’s blood kept pumping, but the adrenaline was wearing off and he was exhausted. It was a weighty exhaustion that made it hard to keep his eyes open.
“Who were they?”
“Local cultists,” Arthur said. “I’d bet anything on it.”
“How did they know we are here? Where are we going?”
“No clue for your first question. The library for the second. We need to get to Desiree in case they know about her, too.”
A chilling thought. Niccolo sucked in air and willed the black dots in his vision to go away.
They drove back into the city and toward library where she was doing research.
Everything was quiet, but it was ominous in his heightened state of awareness: a car parked just around the corner of the library felt like another threat, and Niccolo found himself completely on edge.
“Wait here,” Arthur said, parking just in front of the library. “I’ll be right back. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Niccolo nodded, too tired to object. Arthur disappeared into the library and he sunk lower into his seat, hiding his face. Niccolo scanned the area surrounding the car. He kept looking for any signs of a nearby threat, half expecting a car to roll up next to them at any moment.
Arthur reappeared only a few seconds later, Desiree in tow. They moved quickly across the parking lot, her with a stack of printouts in hand. She was confused and a little scared as she climbed into the backseat.
“What’s going on? What happened?”
“We were attacked,” Niccolo answered. “Someone came to the hotel and tried to kill us.”
They headed back out onto the road.
“Holy crap. So we can’t go back?”
“No,” Arthur said. “Now we have to keep moving. Find somewhere else to lay low until I can figure out how they knew we were there.”
“And then what?” Desiree asked. “What do we do next?”
“No clue,” Arthur replied. “I’ll call Frieda and get us a safe house to stay at. I didn’t know there was a cult cell in the city, so I’ll see if there were any records of them.”
“A cell?”
“A group of cultists. The Ninth Circle operates in independent cells, each unaware of and separated from the others. Makes it impossible to strike at more than one cell at a time.”
“No central leadership,” she said. “Smart.”
“Yeah, but in general we know where they are operating, even if we don’t know the cell itself. I didn’t know there was one in Ohio. It must be new. I counted six at the hotel, probably more, so they could be a fairly sizable group, too.”
“Six?” she asked. “How did you guys escape?”
“A lot of luck. They were heavily armed, but Niccolo saw them coming. We were able to get out of there before they could trap us in our room. I doubt we’ll get so lucky a second time, though.”
“Do you think they are working with Jeremy?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur replied. “But my guess is that they are.”
“Maybe the girl,” Niccolo said, turning to face forward again.
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t know what she’s capable of. Maybe she told them where to look.’
Arthur shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You would think it would get easier,” Niccolo muttered, shaking his head.
“What would get easier?”
“Getting shot at. You would think I would start to get used to it. How many times have I been shot at now? Four?”
Arthur laughed. “You never get used to it. Getting shot at will never stop being a terrible experience.”
“I think I know where we need to go,” Desiree interrupted suddenly, unfolding her stack of papers. “It’s a longshot, but Leopold served as a chaplain at a nearby hospital and his service there was why he eventually got removed from his post at the Church of Saint Thomas and kicked out of Athens. That’s what I was researching before you guys showed up.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hospital reported his treatment of women and children to the authorities. People were angry and it turned public support against him.”
“Makes sense,” Niccolo said. “Whatever he did at a church could be overlooked or hidden by the Vatican, but a hospital services multiple communities. It would be much more difficult to keep the truth away from public attention there. It would explain why they finally relocated him.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“First we need to learn more about the cult,” Arthur said. “I need to find out why they were after us to begin with.”
“You said yourself that they were working with Jeremy.”
“Yeah, but how did Jeremy know where to send them?” Arthur asked. He shook his head. “I don’t like this. Something is wrong.”
“Maybe,” Desiree said, “But we don’t have a lot of time or other options. I think we should get to the Hospital, because my guess is that’s where Jeremy is planning to go next.”
“I agree with Desiree,” Niccolo said. “It’s the best lead we’ve got.”
“Alrig
ht,” Arthur replied with a shrug. “Then let’s go check it out.”
Chapter 11
Megyn’s mood annoyed Jeremy. Ever since they had first gone to Saint Thomas Church she started to withdraw, and each hour that passed it only got worse. Now, after their trip to the junkyard, she would barely talk to him. She would barely even look at him, in fact.
Worse, they still hadn’t found a safe place to hide out after the priest and his pet hunter had invaded their sanctuary. Jeremy had considered asking the cultists for sanctuary, but when he had seen their disgusting living conditions and the way in which they looked at him and Megyn he had elected not to. Instead, they were still living in their car and being driven around by his demonic chauffeur.
Nothing was going quite as planned. It was taking a lot longer to put things into motion and turning out to be much more difficult than Jeremy had originally anticipated. If only their Father could have lived, they would be able to get through this without any problem and finish enacting their agenda against these people.
“How much longer until the ingredients are prepared?” he asked.
He saw the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “An hour. Maybe less. Once the organs have dried out they will be ready for the ritual.”
Jeremy nodded. He had helped Leopold with the summoning ritual multiple times back in Everett, but he didn’t know every step in the preparation of the other ingredients.
Leopold had dried out the organs and then burned them to ash before using them in the ritual. He didn’t have any good way to dry them, so he just set them outside on the road.
They weren’t drying as much as he hoped, though. It was too cold outside, but he had to consider himself lucky they weren’t freezing solid either.
The demon knew enough about the ritual to fill in the missing steps, but he told Jeremy this was an important one. Important or not, Jeremy was just about done with it. He would start burning them to ashes soon one way or another.
Then, they would be underway in summoning their army, and with it they would be able to wreak havoc on the town. He had chosen their initial target already as well, a viable and barely protected target with a lot of potential vessels in it.