by Lincoln Cole
However, sympathizing with the man and forgiving him for what he had done presented as two entirely different things, and none of it changed the fact that his father had betrayed them, nor did it make it all right. His father became a traitor to them all and had gotten dozens of people killed.
Aram also released a terrible evil out into the world. Worse still, that evil wore the body of his departed sister like a set of used clothing and seemed to have some horrible plan to bring an even greater ancient evil back into the world.
How could this day get any worse?
Haatim forced himself to eat the granola bar and drink the water. He couldn’t allow for his body or mind to weaken. In all probability, he would have a brutal next couple of days, and he needed to stay at his best.
At some point later in the flight, he must have nodded off because the next thing he knew, Richard stood tapping him on the shoulder to wake him.
The man frowned down at him, a concerned expression on his face. “Are you all right?”
“What?”
“You were mumbling in your sleep.”
Haatim rubbed his face and groaned. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“We will land soon, and I would ask that you, please, fasten your seatbelt during the descent.”
Haatim mumbled a reply, though even he felt unsure what he tried to say, and fastened himself in with haste. Richard disappeared again, and Haatim rested back in the seat with a terrible headache and sinuses feeling dry and uncomfortable. The plane tipped forward at a slight angle, and vertigo settled over him.
He hated flying and the way it seemed to dry him out and make him feel miserable. Unfortunately, he’d done more of it these last few months than in his entire previous life.
Not only the amount of flying he did had changed in his life. Everything had ended up different, down to how he made decisions, his priorities, and the way he operated in his daily life. There had come, he knew, a single pivotal event that rearranged everything about him.
Everything centered on when he’d met Abigail.
Abigail …
***
When he thought of her, his stomach sank. When the train had crashed in the mountains, and she’d disappeared with it into the water, he’d felt a part of himself get ripped out along with her.
The hardest part for Haatim to fathom was exactly why he had such strong feelings for the woman. Never had he considered himself much of a romantic, but just thinking about Abigail and the idea that he would never see her again hit him with a feeling of such loss and longing that he could barely wrap his head around it.
Consciously, he knew that she represented his foundation during a moment of great change in his life. She’d rescued him and opened his eyes to a new world. Unconsciously, though, things grew less clear. Abigail embodied everything that he considered important in a person: brave, selfless, caring, and intelligent.
And, he couldn’t help but add, she had great beauty. Not in a cover-girl way with a perfect body, but in her own way, completely unique to her.
He’d barely known her outside of those days they’d spent together, leading up to Raven’s Peak, and in the months after, as he’d learned more about this world and his new existence, but it felt like he’d known her his entire life.
At least the parts that mattered.
The plane landed a short while later, touching down on a private airfield and taxying over to a large hangar. The flight crew ran a metal staircase up next to the plane for him to disembark, and already, a silver car waited nearby on the tarmac for him.
It felt like something out of a movie, and if things hadn’t seemed so dire, and he didn’t feel so exhausted, he might have thought it an awesome experience. As it was, however, all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and pass out.
The driver didn’t speak to him, but rather opened the door for him and then took him to the hotel. They drove down the road, past ancient buildings full of culture and history. This made for his first time in Italy, and the entire place gave off an air of culture and history like he’d stepped into an older world that had gotten lost to the ages.
The hotel appeared small and quaint, and he barely remembered walking inside. Once he retrieved his key at the front desk, he headed over to the elevators. Dominick had forbidden him from riding in elevators, but he decided that this made an exception.
Haatim dropped his meager luggage to the floor and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off his shoes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so exhausted in his entire life.
He fell asleep in only seconds.
Chapter 4
Desperation and worry settled over Frieda as soon as both Dominick and Haatim got on their flights out of Switzerland. It worried her that they might get stopped and their passports confiscated, but luckily, they had made it through all right.
She had contingency plans and passports for all of them that the Church didn’t know about, but she remained grateful that she didn’t have to go that route yet. With any luck, Paladina would manage to hold up his promise and keep them safe, but she didn’t have any huge expectations.
It felt like a rope hanging around her neck. Helplessness crept into Frieda, and she could see the writing on the wall: they were all in trouble as soon as the Catholic Church decided they’d outlived their usefulness.
Seated in the small chapel in the hospital in Switzerland, she bided her time and tried not to think about Jun Lee and his condition. She hadn’t had time to shower or change clothes and felt grimy and disgusting. Situated in one of the pews, hands folded in front of her, she attempted to think about nothing.
Of course, it didn’t work.
Haatim had gotten on a flight to the Vatican, where he would be safe. Father Paladina had explained that the Church wasn’t looking for him and that they had no reason to. Haatim had no part in this, and no fault lay with him. As long as she distanced herself from him, he would remain safe. However, she couldn’t tell him that. He could behave quite stubbornly.
Dominick, on the other hand …
Frieda hated to lie to him. A good man, he didn’t deserve it, but some roads she felt unwilling to go down. Not yet. Instead, she would keep him occupied and out of the way. Right now, he made his way to protect a woman that she loathed.
Everything had crumbled around her, and she’d never felt so alone. She was truly on her own, and had been ever since Arthur had fallen and gotten shoved into that prison.
How had things gone so wrong so quickly? Utterly overcome with fear and worry, Frieda dreaded the future in ways she had never even imagined.
She missed Arthur. Desperately. He always stayed so calm and collected in the face of danger and strife. He would know how to handle this situation. At the very least, he would tell her not to worry and that things would work out all right in the way that only he could.
It would have been a lie, though. For certain, everything most certainly would not work out all right. But, right now, she could use a little baseless encouragement.
***
Things had turned desperate so fast, and Frieda had gotten completely blindsided by all of it. She had expected something to happen—had for years—but not on this scale. The Council had weakened, and carefully-wrought bonds had frayed at the edges. What caught her most off-guard, though, was just how deep the betrayal went.
She had known Aram as her personal enemy but had never imagined him capable of something as horrendous as this. She’d assumed he would continue to work against her and try to have her ousted from the Council. Instead, he had sold out the Council to their mortal enemy and single-handedly brought the multi-generational Organization to its knees.
So many dead. Jun remained alive, but only just, and the next few days would prove critical. Not a young man anymore, the doctors had promised he would need multiple surgeries to survive this. To lose him would feel akin to losing her real father, and she dreaded the moment a doctor told her that Jun had passed on.
Despite ever
ything that had happened, and the helplessness she felt, she couldn’t afford to stop and grieve. Nor could she take the time to catch her breath and absorb her new reality. At such a critical moment, she couldn’t rest. Things had become as desperate as they had ever been, and she didn’t know what might happen next.
What she did know was that if they wanted to stop Nida and keep her from releasing Surgat out into the world, they would need to act fast and get everything locked down.
Frieda had called in the favor that Father Niccolo Paladina owed her. Or, more specifically, the favor he owed Arthur. She felt certain it would prove the last time they would speak in a long time and doubted he would manage to buy her much time, even after she held up her end of the bargain and turned Aram over to the Church.
Father Paladina remained one of the last friends she had that she could call upon for help, and even then, he had limitations in what he could offer. He had promised, however, to keep Haatim out of it, and that felt good enough for her.
***
Her sending Dominick to Pennsylvania would be a shot in the dark. On the off-chance that Nida went after Jill Reinfer, they might head her off and stop her completely.
That, of course, assumed that Jill had become the next target. For all Frieda knew, Nida might have gotten to the woman already. Or, maybe Nida knew about another living relative that would serve as a replacement for Jill; in which case, she’d wasted one of her most valuable assets protecting a woman who didn’t want her help.
It also assumed, of course, that if Nida did go after Jill in her Pennsylvania home, that Dominick would manage to stop her. Frieda had a lot of faith in Dominick, and he made for one of her most loyal allies and Hunters, but she had seen Nida up close and at her best. In total honesty with herself …
Dominick didn’t stand a chance.
At times like this, she would turn to her assistant Megan to bounce ideas from. Megan had remained a loyal friend and ally, helping her plan and think through all of the problems that she faced on a daily basis. At the thought that her assistant probably hadn’t survived the attack, an aching pain settled in her heart.
Frieda hadn’t found Megan’s body at the Council building, but she hadn’t had time to do a more thorough search. When things quieted down enough to begin recovering the bodies, she would make sure that Megan received the special burial she deserved.
Right now, though, she simply had no time.
Yet another person for whom she didn’t have the opportunity to cry. Once all of this had finished, she would need to honor and pray for all of the friends that she’d lost. She would need to grieve and bury the dead.
That, of course, depended on her not becoming one of them.
***
Frieda waited in the chapel as long as she could before returning to the room where Jun lay recovering. They didn’t allow her in right away, though. Instead, they directed her to the lobby and told her they would contact her momentarily.
Doctors flitted in and out of Jun’s room but wouldn’t let her inside. The lobby stood mostly empty: a pair of nurses sat at a desk, an old television played soap operas that she didn’t recognize, and a coffee machine with burnt coffee rested in the corner.
Apart from her, a garbed priest who watched her with careful eyes made for the only other person in the lobby. He wore loose-fitting robes and seemed calm but dangerous. He waited just like she did. Father Paladina had assured her that they wouldn’t come here for her … not if she gave him what he needed.
Aram, the traitor.
She paced back and forth, waiting for news of Jun’s condition. Frieda prayed for the best and feared the worst. No one came out to talk to her, and she didn’t know if that meant a good thing or bad.
Frieda wanted to speak with the doctors to find out what they expected in Jun’s recovery and how optimistic they felt about his chances. She wanted to find out because she hated not knowing and didn’t have a lot of time before she had to get on a flight to meet Dominick out in Pennsylvania.
Also, she wanted to speak with Aram because this would, likely, offer the last chance she ever had. Or, rather, she felt that she needed to speak with him to try and come to terms with what had happened over the last few months before handing him over to the Catholic Church for questioning.
It would have satisfied her to go through her entire life without seeing the man again, but if there remained even a slight chance that he might have information that could prove beneficial to her, then she had to at least check. Right now, she felt willing to grasp any straw that might keep them alive.
The priest waited calmly in the corner, watching her in an unsettling way that made her skin crawl. After another hour, she decided she had waited long enough and needed answers. Needed them now. Determined, she went down the hall to Jun’s room.
She found the door closed, though could see Jun through the window. He lay alone in the room, sleeping and hooked up to a plethora of medical monitoring equipment. He seemed small and frail in the bed and gown—a weak old man wholly unlike the powerful figure she’d come to know and respect through the years.
She prayed he would make it.
For a moment, she considered just barging in. No one stood watching the door, and the hallways lay empty. This late at night, nearly midnight, most of the other rooms in this wing remained vacant. She decided not to, however, as it worried her that it would draw undue attention or possibly harm his chances of survival. Instead, she went looking for someone who could offer her information.
It took a little searching before she found a nurses’ station. A tired-looking young woman sat there, typing slowly into a computer and reading from a clipboard. She used two fingers, which irked Frieda.
“Excuse me?” Frieda cleared her throat to get the woman’s attention.
The woman looked up at her and offered a weary smile. Her eyes, though, made it clear that she didn’t appreciate the interruption. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“I hoped to ask about the patient in room three-oh-four. Jun Lee. Has there been any status change since his arrival this morning?”
The woman hesitated. “I’m sorry, are you family?”
“No,” Frieda said. “But if you look up his account, you’ll find me on his listed exceptions list.”
The woman typed into the computer, and Frieda passed her an identity card. It didn’t use her real name, or any actual information about her, but it did give her full access to Jun Lee and all the other Council members, as well as her Hunters, in case of emergencies like this. It was government issued.
The woman checked over the information on the file and then the card. Finally, she nodded before handing back the ID.
“He remains in stable condition. He had surgery this morning, but the doctor said he couldn’t remove all the damaged tissue. Mr. Lee is scheduled to go back into surgery in a few hours for another minor fix. They found a lot of internal damage and bleeding, but the doctor seems optimistic that he’ll make an almost full recovery.”
Frieda nodded, breathing an internal sigh of relief. Thank God something had, finally, gone right on this terrible day. Though she had no way of telling how Jun’s body would react to the surgery, at least he’d cleared the first major hurdle. Frieda could breathe again, and it felt like a humungous weight had lifted off her chest.
“Do you have any idea when he might be well enough to have visitors?”
“Definitely not today.”
“I didn’t expect to see him so soon. I just wondered when I should come back. Maybe by tomorrow?”
She didn’t like the idea of postponing her flight out of the country, but the encouragement that Jun might survive made her want to see him alive and well that much more. Dominick would need her help, but she might manage to spare an extra day or two to make sure her old friend recovered well.
“Most likely the day after that, provided everything goes well with this next surgery. It will be worth calling ahead, though, so you don’t end up wasting a tr
ip down here for nothing.”
Frieda nodded. “Thank you.”
“Will that be all?”
Frieda hesitated, glancing over at the corner of the room where the robed priest sat. He watched her, a blank expression on his face, and Frieda knew what he wanted. It made her feel sick to her stomach, but it was best not to delay.
“Actually,” Frieda said. “I’d hoped to check on the status of another patient. They brought him in with a broken leg. Last name is Malhotra. First name, Aram.”
The woman typed into the computer, scanning through the records. She pressed her finger to the screen, trailing it across the list of names.
“I don’t have anyone here by that name.”
The paperwork shouldn’t have included an alias for him. It would have been preferred, but they hadn’t had time to put something like that together.
She frowned. “Can you check again?”
The woman gave her a sour look but did return to the keyboard and type some more. After a moment, the nurse glanced up at her. “He came in here earlier but checked out a while ago.”
“What?” Frieda asked, surprised. “He wasn’t supposed to be allowed to check himself out.”
The woman typed some more, frowning. “Ah. I see that note in his file, but it looks like his nurse didn’t notice and discharged him.”
“How the hell does that happen?” A burst of anger and panic hit Frieda. “Do you even bother to check the records when you discharge people?”
The woman frowned deeper. “Ma’am, I am sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. I know it’s frustrating, but I didn’t check him out. We are quite busy.”
Frieda looked around at the empty lobby and thought about the fact that she hadn’t seen more than a few patients all day. However, the prudent thing to do would be not to bring that up.
“So, he’s gone?”