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)
Abaddon wasn’t sure how he knew where to get forged papers, but he wouldn’t dwell on it. Like many of the visions he’d gotten from God, it had appeared in a moment of need.
A damp basement with a man behind a desk stacked with papers, his face clear as day, his name obvious to Abaddon just like the address of the place where he operated. All those had popped into his head, though he’d written them down for Gabriel’s sake.
“I’ll be fast,” Abaddon said and pulled out a few items he’d found on his person when he first awoke to the world. For comfort, he carried them in a small pouch with a unicorn print, which likely used to belong to one of the kids, and he’d made it his private joke that they made lock-picking child’s play.
“Father John usually stays in his apartment after work. We should be okay,” Gabriel whispered, looking toward the end of the dark hallway, in case one of the souls who had access to this wing of the building joined them uninvited.
Abaddon turned his head to smell the boy’s fresh, minty breath and leaned in for a kiss in the dark corridor as the lock popped open, surrendering to his skill.
“Ready,” he told the boy with pride, and pushed the door.
Letting him go in first would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, but when pale moonlight greeted Abaddon with a colorful pattern, he stepped into the office, entranced by the massive round window. It was a masterwork of stained glass, and while most of it remained translucent, the central part depicted a beautiful angel descending from the heavens to greet a small flock of people in medieval garb.
Father John’s idea of Abaddon’s arrival, no doubt. Considering how much he claimed to hate moral rot, maybe he shouldn’t be getting high all the time. But Abaddon would deal with the hypocrite soon enough. For now, they needed to find Gabriel’s paperwork and search for clues on who the seventh cultist was. While Mrs. Knight wasn’t an impossible choice, hiding in plain sight, Abaddon wasn’t convinced it was her, since God would have surely warned him of someone living in such close proximity to Gabriel.
The natural illumination filled a room full of dark shadows in every corner and a soft Persian rug covering the floor, but when Abaddon switched on the flashlight, it revealed the study to be a box of wood. Bookshelves took up most of the wall space, and even the ceiling was a porous landscape of carved panels hanging above their heads like an ingenious trap that could squash them if they stepped on the wrong part of the floor.
Father John’s desk was an antique work of art—heavy and decorated with rows of lion heads opening their jaws in a silent threat, but they couldn’t scare away the Angel of The Deepest Pit.
“Father John doesn’t like inviting people here,” Gabriel whispered, but his voice betrayed his satisfaction at breaking the degenerate priest’s rules.
He walked along the bookshelves with a focused expression, so Abaddon turned to look around for clues himself, and stalled at the sight of a large painting hung above the fireplace. The picture depicted masses of sexless medieval people taken away to Hell by a horde of strange creatures while Christ watched from a floating throne, and while it was a stunning piece of art, Abaddon considered it an odd choice for the office of the director of an orphanage. What was wrong with angels taking care of lost children and other such topics?
He knew exactly what, and it made him scowl. “Not surprised.”
“The style is similar to the paintings from the vault under the pyramid, so maybe it’s by the same artist?” Gabriel approached a tall chest of drawers with golden handles in the corner of the room. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him put some of my paperwork in there.”
Abaddon pressed his lips together as his breathing became more laborious. Something about the dark, enclosed nature of this room gave him the creeps. “Must have been the study of the original owner. All that paneling, all the wood, it looks old,” he said and touched the smooth surface of a vine leaf carved into the side of a bookshelf. Even the scent of this place was like a memory of a bad meal, twisting his stomach into knots.
Gabriel opened drawer after drawer and rummaged through the papers while Abaddon was stuck, frozen by this place that had so much evil energy in the air. Dozens of eyes stared at him from paintings and stained glass in accusatory silence, but Gabriel didn’t hold Abaddon’s stillness against him and continued his search.
He pulled out the middle drawer and placed it on the desktop to make his job easier, but as he browsed through a couple of pages, his movements slowed.