Let it be known that Nathan Freeling is not a prophet, nor does he have a single bit of clairvoyance in his body, because his hope was futile and he’s already starting to regret this.

The very idea of introducing his family to Abaddon opened up a whole can of worms – Abaddon, who is a child, yes, but was also found in a ditch in the middle of the woods and has allegedly seen lifetimes older than any of them combined. Billions of billions of years old, and is still a child who cannot tie his own shoes. Nathan needed to buy him velcro ones.

And he needed to buy him proper clothes, because Nathan can let him run around the hotel dressed like a pilgrim who rolled around in a bucket of twigs willy nilly, but he draws the line at him running around in front of Aunt Rose like that. She would rip the poor kid to shreds, and that’s Nathan’s supposed family legacy right there.

So, they went to a thrift store, which was an ordeal. But they ended up with a load of laundry that Abaddon agreed to try, at the very least; worn T-shirts and pants from the kids section, a few polo shirts the boy seemed keener on, and some new socks and underwear from Walmart. Nathan even took the opportunity to get him some toys that weren’t the old, decrepit and wooden rotting ones left from the days where the hotel used to be an asylum.

An even bigger ordeal was the doctor.

Nathan was ninety-nine percent sure Abaddon was patient zero for rabies and the black plague with how little vaccines the poor guy had. And by little he means none. Nada, zilch. He could be a carrier for diseases Nathan had never even heard about and died off a hundred years ago. The demon was also, unfortunately, a biter and wouldn’t feel an ounce of guilt if he gave someone a zombie virus-tumour, or something. No, that would be on Nathan’s conscious.

The clinic in town was nice enough about it, at least. They caught Abaddon up on all the stuff he should have had with nothing more than a side eye, a frown, and a subtle not-so-subtle threat from the front office lady to call CPS.

Apparently though, as they learned, Abaddon hated needles with all the fibre of his being, which ended up being an excellent cover story! The boy had kicked and screamed so loud it shattered glass, and had to be held with his arms trapped to his sides. After all that, Nathan wanted to die and pass out while Abaddon was happy as sunshine with a candy the nurse gave him and 5 little bandaids on his arm, with an appointment after the holidays for more.

But now, after all that, Nathan can’t just not do this. Before, when Abaddon was a carrier for small-pox and didn’t have a proper pair of shoes, he probably could have cancelled with a well-timed phone call or email or something. But now he can’t, because he had put so much fucking effort into doing this and that was not going to be wasted, god damn it.

Which leads them here, rolling up the long dirt driveway to his parent’s home, five hours away from the hotel. Nathan’s fingers tap rhythmically against the steering wheel as he resists the urge to drive off the side of a cliff.

“How you doing back there, champ?” He asked over his shoulder, steering to dodge a pot hole and wincing when a large rock kicked up from under the tires, hitting the side of the car.

“This is boring me,” Abaddon gave a half-hearted kick to the passenger seat, like he refused to give up the battle of escaping his car seat. “Are we there yet?”

Nathan glanced back through the rear view mirror, looking at the face of a kid possessed, something darker and ancient carved into the shadows of his face, looking at him with the eyes of a child. Truly, something right out of a horror film, but he blinked at it was gone.

That happened, sometimes. He got used to it, and so what if his kid looked like the antichrist personified out of the corner of his eye and crawled on the ceiling? That was fine, it was still his kid.

Nathan put his eyes back on the road. “Almost, bud.”

The Freeling family home was located on a private acre off the highway a few miles from the city.