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)
The boy gave him a nod, but his face was determination carved in flesh. If he needed to confront Father John for closure, then no one had the right to stand in his way.
Adam exhaled, pulling out Mother’s gun, and sneaked in first, ready to act if Father John spotted them after all, but the corridor in his small apartment was dark and the only light came from farther inside. It felt as if they were two foxes about to storm the chicken coop that smelled of stale food.
An old-timey musical number resonated from down the hallway, inviting them into a room illuminated by the shifting glow of a television screen. Adam didn’t want to think about this horrific man as his father, but there was no way around it. Yet another sin added to Father John’s tally. How a man like that could consider himself pious was beyond Adam’s comprehension.
A large armchair stood in the middle of the dark interior, between the door and the TV, and Adam shivered when he spotted Father John’s wispy hair shooting from beyond the backrest like silvery bristles. The bastard was watching a black-and white movie, as if he had the right to entertainment and peace.
On the screen, Frank Sinatra broke into song the moment Adam breathed in the stale air infused with the bready scent of the pizza resting on a plate close to the muffins Sister Beatrice had stolen earlier. Only one had been consumed.
The room was a mess of books, soda cans, and snack wrappers scattered both on the floor and the antique furniture equipping most of the interiors in the wing where the children weren’t allowed. The trash had likely accumulated since the cleaning last week, which suggested the old man didn’t bother to tidy up after himself at all and lived like a cockroach unless someone took care of his personal space for him.
Adam scowled, and his shoulders dropped in shame. Those people were his parents? A wealthy bitch and a drugged-up hoarder in a cassock? He doubted either of them ever cared for him in any capacity beyond his use to their cult and thinking about the things they’d put him through made Mother’s gun feel lighter in his hand.
He cocked it to make this process easier and pointed it at Father John just as the man turned his head to check out the noise.
“Jesus Christ Almighty!” Father John yelped, jumping up from the seat and staring at Adam as if he’d seen a ghost. “You can’t be real!”
Adam’s gaze was drawn to a little mug standing on the coffee table, already empty of the tea he’d watched Father John drink each night. Adam had been given it in the past, and while he couldn’t recollect the specifics of the visions that plagued him each time, he knew they’d left him scared and disoriented.
Out of touch with reality.
“Oh, I am definitely real,” he uttered, shivering when his voice came out dull like an echo.
But instead of backing away or begging for forgiveness, Father John grabbed his head, and the sharp glow of the television transformed him into a character from an old expressionist movie. “No, it’s impossible. I checked for a pulse, you were dead! Have you come back to haunt me from beyond the grave? I only did what I had to!” The maniac dropped to his knees, knocking over the table while Sinatra danced around with a pretty blonde lady only a couple of steps behind him. The remote was catapulted through the air before hitting the wall.
The singing stopped.
Adam’s mouth dried, because this solved the mystery of Abaddon’s birth. Much stronger than Father John could possibly be, he must have been tricked into a situation that gave this worm of a man the advantage he needed.
And if this bastard hadn’t been too scared or high to realize he’d made a mistake, Adam would’ve been rotting in a shallow grave while the Keys prepared to commit a further six murders needed to fulfill their delusional plans.
“Abaddon can’t die,” Adam uttered in a cold voice, meeting the eyes of the man who’d made him who he was.
Father John’s eyes went wide, and as the bright light of the TV reflected off them, his massive pupils turned into dark holes that led straight to Hell. Emotion twisted his features, and he was too focused on whatever he was seeing to notice Gabriel in the dark corridor behind Adam.
“B-but it’s too soon! My son tried to end our righteous quest, and he ran like a coward, preventing us from completing the ritual on the previous conjunction. Did you use his body despite him being so unworthy? How?”
Adam’s temples pulsed as he stared at the pathetic vermin at his feet. It nauseated him that he shared blood with this monster, who based his entire life off something he’d dreamed up while on drugs and whose madness had taken so many lives. But it was what it was, and while he hadn’t meant to imply Father John’s wet dream of a demon was present in the flesh, stepping into the imagined monster’s shoes came to him as if he’d spent the past decade as an actor. If Gabriel wanted Father John to know his plans came to nothing, then Adam could deliver just that.