The flashlight surrounded Gabriel with a soft glow and created warped shadows on both walls as they continued down the passage meant for someone shorter than Abaddon.
The way to the doctor’s office had been uncomfortable yet bearable, since he didn’t mind bowing his head for a short time, but the weight of the corpse made him work up a sweat.
When Gabriel looked back, presenting his elfin profile, Abaddon cleared his throat and used the need to answer as an excuse to get a bit of rest. “The person who built this had a need to move around unseen. There’s plenty of those all around the building.”
“Jesus…” Gabriel let the light roam around the walls and ceiling. “So the Bensons? The house had been in their family for over a century. Yesterday, I would have said ‘but Mrs. Benson is so nice, she finances the orphanage and an animal shelter. I should be ashamed over projecting my terrible delusions on her’. Now, I’m thinking that it all checks out, since she’s in a demon-worshipping cult. No offense. About the demon thing. I know it’s a complicated distinction.” He spoke quietly, as told, but this wouldn’t be the first time that he got into a tangent, letting words flow as if he’d been trapped on a deserted island and suddenly got the opportunity to talk after twenty years of solitude.
“I am who I am,” Abaddon said and adjusted the dead weight on his shoulder, which was growing painful. “I suppose it says something about me that a group of people believes they can call on me by sacrificing children.”
Gabriel stroked his straining bicep. “No. Don’t say that. That’s their messed up idea. You are here to put an end to the Keys.” He spoke with such conviction Abaddon found his words easy to believe.
Once again, the touch invited him to lean closer. To lock his lips on the tempting, heart-shaped mouth. But he was no longer a demon, at least didn’t want to be, so he kept his impulses in check and nodded. “Thank you. I’m... a bit lost.”
Gabriel seemed hesitant to take his hand away. “We’re in this together. Let me know if you need help carrying him. Or we could swap.”
A silly idea considering Gabriel might easily carry a cat but not a person. Abaddon shook his head and smiled. “That’s okay. You just lead the way. We will soon get up a couple of stairs. Go right at the top,” he said and looked up at the dusty beams forming a ladder where the low, vaulted ceiling was replaced by emptiness a bit farther on.
“Where are we taking him?” Gabriel asked, trotting up the stairs as if the devil was after him. Abaddon couldn’t help but glance up the long legs, because while Gabriel’s sweater was a baggy sack, his jeans were anything but. His ass had a nice curve to it, attracting Abaddon’s gaze as they walked on.
There were small openings in the walls every now and then, most of which remained covered with wooden lids, but as they approached one of the bare ones, bright light snuck into the corridor ahead from thin slits meant for a peeping Tom’s eyes. Gabriel froze when loud pop music erupted beyond the wall, but he switched off the flashlight and shuffled closer to the peepholes, frowning when he peeked in.
Abaddon hurried to join him, and while the corpse kept getting heavier, he was too intrigued to just walk on.
The tiny holes opened into a room with two small bay windows. Abaddon couldn’t see anything of note at first, but then a voluptuous form in black danced into his line of sight. After initial confusion, he realized that what he’d initially taken for thick black hair was a veil, and as the nun dipped a pickle into a jar of Nutella while prancing to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’, Abaddon frowned at Gabriel before making a cuckoo gesture.
Gabriel was so stunned that Abaddon had to nudge him away. They walked in silence until Gabriel whispered, “that was Sister Beatrice. It was her you talked with through the door. She hates me. I don’t even know why. Maybe because she didn’t get to kill me all those years ago. Not that I care, I hate her right back. She doesn’t hold that much power over me anymore, but she used to give me all the shittiest jobs when I was a teenager and calls me a ‘mouse’ because I’m quiet. But I’m not quiet. It’s just hard to be chatty when you’re cut off from everyone.”
Abaddon froze, and his stomach went cold. “That’s her?” he asked, squeezing Rogers more tightly, eager to kill the bastard all over again. The woman in his visions had been much younger and had worn colorful makeup. She also used to have bright hair cut so short she’d resembled a match, and had been just as fiery. The small opening hadn’t offered him the greatest view on that monster of a woman, but he would have never recognized her in the somber uniform of a nun, if it hadn’t been for Gabriel’s comment. But he knew what her role in the ceremonies had been. “She would have slit your throat on the last day.”