Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
“I… I got restless and couldn’t sleep,” Gabriel mumbled, backing out inch by inch, like a startled cat in front of a snake, but Father John wouldn't let him leave and grabbed the boy’s sweater, shining the flashlight in his face. “Look at you, all wet. Have they gotten to you?”
They?
Father John gasped, pointing the bright ray toward Abaddon’s hideout. With heart in his throat, Abaddon ducked, staring at the dark shadows latticed by white light. He was ready to strike, if it was unavoidable, but the priest didn’t move.
“There, have you seen it?”
“Excuse me, Father?” Gabriel whispered as the glow disappeared, no doubt spotlighting something else.
“The little woman. She crept into the shadow.”
The frown on Abaddon’s face deepened, but he soundlessly returned to a kneeling position and once again peeked at the two figures.
Father John’s unshaven, pallid face tensed, and he grabbed Gabriel’s shoulder. “You were out to see them. Why else would you be here?”
It took all of Abaddon’s will not to reveal himself to this pathetic worm of a man and make sure that whatever trip he was on would spin into the stuff of nightmares. Still, the man who spoke about invisible people evidently saw Gabriel as someone lesser than him—a person he could order around and disregard.
Abaddon bared his teeth from the aggravation. Despite committing to caution earlier, he was on the verge of lashing out. It was night after all. The children and their guardians didn’t have access to this part of the building, and the few people who were around would have long settled in their apartments. He could swoop in and slice the priest’s throat open as if he were God’s dagger. Or should he first cut off the hands that poked and prodded at Gabriel, or cut out the snake tongue that inspired so much death and torture?
Father John shook his head and pulled his finger through a hole in Gabriel’s sweater. “And this? What will she think of me, your guardian, if she sees you in rags, huh?”
“I… I think Sister Beatrice is the only woman who could see me here, Father. It’s the middle of the night…” Gabriel mumbled, lowering his head like a scolded puppy.
“That’s how it starts, Gabriel. A slippery slope. Think about that. And if you’re healthy enough to walk about at night, I expect to see you in the kitchen tomorrow morning.” Father John said, but at least let go of Gabriel before uttering a strange, throaty sound.
Still, the memory of what this dirty liar had done to further his unattainable goals sickened Abaddon to the core. It was at this bastard’s call that the remaining five members of the Keys joined ranks in their efforts to call Abaddon to Earth. Judging by the strange nature of this encounter, the priest likely was on a regular diet of psychedelic substances yet remained outwardly pious, like a real wolf in sheep’s clothing.
If Abaddon took this liar’s life tonight, wouldn’t it have attracted the attention of his remaining brethren and brought them all straight under Abaddon’s blade? Or would they scatter, becoming harder to track down?
Bloodlust was hot in his veins, but before he could have made up his mind, Father John walked up the stairs, toward his apartment, while Gabriel scurried.
Abaddon considered following Father John, to show him the wrath of the very being he’d intended to summon through the ungodly ritual, but he needed to stay on course. Make sure none of the roaches escaped before Abaddon could get to them.
Gabriel would soon be waiting for him by the fresco, surely shaken by this meeting.
There was no point in wasting time tonight.
Exhaling a few times to rein in his emotions, Abaddon left his hideout as soon as the light switched off. He needed to pass another corridor to access the nearest entrance to his hideout, but once he opened the invisible door to uncover the staircase spiraling steeply above and made his way up its narrow gullet, the earlier anger subsided somewhat, leaving him in a contemplative mood. Which turned into annoyance as soon as he switched on the flashlight and revealed the state of the attic.
A mess of boxes and old furniture draped with cobwebs, it must have been left to rot for the past ten years. The exactness of the time frame passing through his head struck him as odd, but he dismissed it, shedding light on the labyrinth of clutter. There was something familiar about the shape of the ceiling, with its many beams, but as he took a turn behind an ancient wardrobe and came face-to-face with a circular window blocked by a set of planks nailed to its frame, a vision flashed his mind, searing it like a sharp blade.
In the same spot sits a little boy, but the window, while dirty, is left uncovered. The afternoon light glints off the fat tears streaming down the child’s flushed cheeks, but once the hot droplets fall, they land on the limp body of a small cat resting in the boy’s lap.