by Mark Ayre
“With ease, Cleo defeated her. She grabbed Amira by the throat and squeezed. As you know, Amira wasn’t one for sentiment. As Cleo’s hand tightened around her throat, she found herself cast back to her childhood. Time spent with her parents. People thought her cold, but she loved her mum and dad with all her heart. I think you knew that.”
Mercury almost nodded, then held her head still. She had known. Amira had spoken of her parents rarely and had never said she loved them. When she did speak of them, it was clear in every word; every syllable. Her mum and dad meant the world to her.
“She loved her job too,” said Aurora. “She thought of that and of her pyjamas. Some people have drugs, gambling, sex. As you know, pyjamas were Amira’s only vice.”
This time Mercury did nod. Aurora was supposed to be making Mercury cry, and it was working, after a fashion. As she thought of the thousands of sets of pyjamas Amira owned, each colourful and patterned, the kind young girls can often be found wearing, there were tears in her eyes. She also smiled.
Aurora wasn’t done.
“Finally, she thought of you. Amira never had friends. Never experienced love beyond the love she held for her parents. But she loved you, Mercury. She loved you with all her heart.”
Aurora met Mercury’s eye, and it was like looking at Amira. It brought floods of tears. Cleo stared at her. She wanted to be satisfied, but these were not the tears she craved. That much was obvious.
“I don’t think it’s working,” she hissed to her second-in-command. Aurora ignored her.
“You gave her strength. When that hand was around Amira’s throat, she waited for the perfect moment. She wouldn’t let Cleo beat her. When the time was right, she pretended to attack. When Cleo retaliated, she put her hand to her mouth.”
Mercury remembered. Suddenly, she didn’t know where this was going. Or maybe she did.
Aurora said, “She swallowed a pill.”
“What?” said Cleo.
“While Cleo called me forth, the pill killed Amira. The possession succeeded, but Cleo didn’t only fail to kill you and Trey that day. She failed to kill Amira too. Because you know how that ritual works. If the vessel dies midway through—“
“The ritual returns them to life.”
“Amira also gave Trey a pill, before they arrived at the final battle. He never took it, but he must have remembered. When he fired his rocket, he missed Cleo.”
“But he didn’t miss his target.” This was Heidi. She lashed out an elbow and Stephanie collapsed in a heap. Cleo span that way, then back to Aurora.
“Trey was aiming for the wall. He was aiming to knock down the balcony.”
“What’s happening?” said Cleo.
“He hit the mark,” said Mercury, as Heidi drew the knife. “And when the balcony fell, Aurora was knocked unconscious.”
Despite her incredible power, Cleo was obviously not the quickest in the brains department. She worked it out a second before Amira spoke again.
“And I woke up. Hello, Mercury.”
Heidi was moving. Cleo turned her way. As she did, Amira swung an elbow, caught Cleo’s jaw, sent her spinning.
As Heidi passed the statue, she chucked the knife over the rider. Mercury took two steps back and caught the hilt.
Cleo sent a foot at Amira’s chest. Amira dodged and, as she did, Heidi arrived. She put a hand on Cleo’s shoulder and sent a knee into her back. As Cleo yelled, Amira punched her in the face, and Heidi threw her into the statue.
The monster hit the ground. Mercury rounded the statue, knife raised.
Cleo was up. Heidi attacked again. Cleo caught her arm. Punched her once, twice, three times in the stomach.
Heidi went down, coughing up blood. Amira punched Cleo in the chest, booted her in the leg. Mercury was close but waited. She needed the right moment.
Cleo caught Amira’s next fist. Punched her so hard in the face that Amira was hurled back into a hedge. Furious, Cleo rushed for Mercury.
Heidi was up. She leapt upon Cleo’s back. Held her.
“Now,” Heidi roared.
Mercury launched, but Cleo hurled Heidi over her back. Mercury retreated at the last second, but Cleo smashed Heidi with a foot, sent her along the floor, catching Mercury’s feet and sending her sprawling to the ground. She tried to rise, tried to grab the knife, but Cleo was too quick. She grabbed the back of Mercury’s top and lifted her, so they were face to face.
“Get it through your thick skulls,” roared the beast. “One possessed wasn’t enough. Next time you came at me with two. It still wasn’t enough.”
Cleo threw Mercury into the floor face first, then kicked her onto her back. Above the monster’s head, the ball was now the size of a blimp.
When had that happened?
“If two possessed isn’t enough to stop me,” asked Cleo. “What the hell is?”
“How about one human and a rocket launcher?”
Cleo’s head jerked up as the rocket fired. She opened her mouth as it whistled across the small space. Then it hit her in the stomach, cast her back—
And exploded.
Fifty
Flames leapt at Mercury. Before they could so much as singe her hair, Amira was there, throwing her possessed body in the way, protecting her friend.
"Ow," she moaned.
"We have to move," said Mercury.
"What, no time for pleasantries?"
But she was moving, rolling away. Mercury stood, turned towards her hero.
Sam stood frozen between two hedges, the rocket launcher still on her shoulder, now empty. Her mouth was slightly agape. She was staring at what she'd done, dumbfounded.
"Who's the kid?" asked Amira.
"Her name's Sam. She stole your car."
"The bitch."
Sam dropped to her knees. Not because Mercury had outed her as a car thief but because she was still stunned by what she'd done. The rocket launcher remained on her shoulder.
"You can probably put that down now," said Amira. But Mercury didn't see if the girl responded.
Having reclaimed the knife, she was moving around the statue. On the other side, the hedges were aflame. In a tangle of black branches and crumbling leaves, Cleo lay. Mercury had to step over the unharmed but still unconscious Stephanie to reach her.
"I made up that librarian story," she said when she arrived.
The rocket had ripped Cleo to shreds. Her torso had torn down the middle. It lay in the bush with half her face and one of her legs. The rest of her body was in chunks around Mercury's feet.
Any human would be dead. Any normal possessed would survive but would suffer for weeks as they recovered.
Cleo was neither human nor ordinary possessed. Already, Mercury could see the skin knitting together. The explosion had caved in Cleo's skull, but Mercury could see it popping back out as though it were a balloon and someone was blowing it up. The remains of her face climbed across the mending frame. A popped eye reappeared. Her limbs were beginning to regrow.
A hole in Cleo's chest revealed her shrivelled but beating heart. Maybe Mercury wouldn't have been able to penetrate Cleo with the blade alone. This target was too good to miss. Already the torso was pulling itself together. Soon, the heart would disappear.
And still, Mercury hesitated.
There was Edie, in her mind, holding Xyla and smiling. The sad smile of a girl who has lost her mother and father, but still has hope. A girl who needed Mercury, who needed a mother.
Mercury remembered what Heidi said in the car. There was no infection of evil. Mercury might live hundreds of years, but she could live them all as a good person. She could be a mother, a friend, a lover. It didn't have to be over for her.
Except it did. There was no choice.
Amira arrived to find her best friend crying freely.
"Give me the knife," she said. Mercury shook her head.
"I wouldn't, even if I could. But I can't. It has to be a human. You're still possessed. You kill Cleo, and the world ends
anyway."
"If not me, then the unconscious bitch. We can hold the knife in her hand and make her do it. Let her die."
"Somehow, I don't think that would count."
"Fine, another way," said Amira, and there was a childish tone to her voice. A pleading. "Someone other than you. Anyone other than you. There has to be another way."
"Except there isn't. There isn't another way, and there isn't time to argue."
She stepped forward, her hand gripping tighter to the blade's hilt. Cleo continued to heal. Time was running short. She had perhaps a minute to do this. She didn't want to leave it to the last second, fearing regret might invite paralysis.
"Will died," she said. "Look after Edie and Xyla for me. Please. And look after yourself.”
Raising the knife over her head, she said, "I love you, Amira."
Taking a final step forward, she prepared to bring the knife into the beast's head.
For a second, she hesitated.
And someone grabbed her wrist.
"Amira, you have to let me."
"I haven't stopped you."
Mercury spun to the side. At first, she gasped at the sight of Trey’s ghost beside her. But this was no ghost. He had lost several pints of blood, hence the white of his skin. His clothes were drenched in blood from two bullet wounds. His eyes kept drifting, he was only just keeping himself conscious.
"I didn't freeze to death," he muttered.
"What?"
"Sam found me, took the rocket launcher. I thought I could close my eyes, but no, I remembered you. Knew you still needed me."
Taking his hand from her wrist, he took hold of the knife’s hilt. Mercury wouldn't let go. Trey had no strength.
“Let go,” he said.
"No. This is my job."
"Look at me, Mercury. You won't get me to a hospital in time. I'm dying either way so if you don't give up that knife, it's suicide rather than heroism. So give it up."
Still, she couldn't. Still, she held on. Even as Cleo pulled herself together, even as the window of opportunity came closer to slamming shut, she couldn't let go.
"You can look after Edie and Xyla now," he said. "Come on, you know it's the right thing to do."
"I—" she was going to tell him she didn't care. There was a chance he could live. It had to be her. Before she could say another word, a hand fell on her shoulder. When she turned, she saw Amira's tear-filled eyes.
"Come on, Merc," she said. "Don't be an idiot."
When she had turned, her grip on the knife had loosened. By the time she looked back at Trey, he had the blade. He smiled.
"Good call."
"I forgive you," she said. "For killing me that time."
"Cool," he replied.
He put a hand on her arm and nudged her aside. He staggered forward, almost collapsed into the bush, then fell to his knees. Cleo's heart was still visible, but it would be gone in seconds. Her face had reformed. She was beginning to lift her regrown arms.
"You're finished," she said.
And Trey brought down the knife, sliding it through the chest cavity even as flesh and bone and muscle formed around it.
With the last of his strength, he shoved the blade further, all the way to the hilt.
With everything he had left, he slayed the beast.
Fifty-One
At once, the life left Cleo’s eyes.
A split second later, what remained of her body dissolved into black ash and golden essence. The wind took the ash. An invisible force directed the essence towards Trey. As he slipped to the ground, it collided with him and was absorbed by his body.
At once, his skin regained its colour and then began to glow. Opening his eyes, he stood as the blood faded from his clothes and the wounds in his abdomen and midriff healed.
Standing before them, he was perfection.
Without a word, he turned from Amira and Mercury towards the statue. The ball of darkness which rose from the lance was now the size of a building, and growing with every second.
It would grow no further.
Reaching the statue, Trey rested his hands on the horse’s flank. By instinct, he must have known what to do. Looking at the ball above his head, he said, “Enough.”
And it was enough.
Beneath his hands, the stone cracked. Above their heads, the ball began to shrink. Trey took his hands away as the ball shrank to the size of a blimp, then a volleyball, then a tennis ball, then to no more than a spot at the end of the lance.
The crack which had appeared beneath Trey’s hand shot along the horse, onto the man, and up the lance. From the main crack, hundreds more spread across the statue, until the entire work of art seemed to be covered by a net.
“Stand back,” said Trey. And stand back they did. They moved to the edge of the hedge perimeter and watched as the stone horseman shattered, as his steed exploded, and as his lance vaporised.
Rubble rained upon the ground, into the fountain. Dust bloomed in the air. Amira and Mercury turned to avoid choking.
When they looked back, the spot that had been at the end of the lance could be seen within the broken stone. As they watched, it winked, blinked, and fell out of existence.
It was over.
Together, they turned to Trey, who stood away from them, still glowing, looking at the sky. Sensing their eyes upon him, he smiled.
“Get me out of this maze. I don’t want to die like Jack Torrence.”
Then he grabbed his heart, cried out in pain, and collapsed to the ground.
Fifty-Two
After storming into the hurricane of darkness created during Heidi’s first attempt to raise Cleo, Trey had become lost after their victory. As the storm raged, he feared he would die in the darkness.
Amira and Mercury had found him. Taking an arm each, they directed him into the light. They saved his life.
Following Cleo’s demise, the sky was overcast, but the day held enough light. Still, as Mercury and Amira propped up Trey and helped him from the maze, it felt once again as though they were escorting him from the darkness. Unfortunately, this time they weren’t saving his life.
Sam came too. When the foursome reached the edge of the maze, she split to visit Pluto’s body. She claimed she wanted to say a final goodbye. Trey knew she was giving the trio some space.
“You have to look after her,” he said of Sam as Mercury and Amira led him towards the patio. “Her parents are gone. She’s lived under her brother’s thumb for years. He’s abusive. I think she’ll be stronger now, for this, but she’ll still need your support.”
“She’s a car thief,” said Amira.
“She’ll have it,” said Mercury.
The bodies of the infected had melted most of the rubble that had comprised the balcony. The ground had sunk where they had died. On the other side of the French doors from this mayhem was a glass table around which were situated four chairs. Mercury and Amira helped Trey sit before taking a chair on either side of him.
High above, the clouds were beginning to part. As though nervous to look upon the world, afraid of what it might see, the sun peeked from behind the receding clouds. Seeing all was well, it began to pull into clear sky.
“I grew up here,” said Trey. “So many miserable years, now here I sit, dying, and it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.”
Another spasm of pain caused him to grab his heart. When the gold had first entered his body, it had been bliss; all that power. But it was too much. Far more than his body could take. He was holding on, but not for much longer.
“Heidi did a runner,” Trey continued. “That means, as far as the world is concerned, there will still be a living Michaels.”
“We’ll get her,” said Amira.
“Good,” he said. “My father’s money and assets all went to my mother. I’m the sole beneficiary of her will. I’ll already be dead, but I’ve made sure everything goes to good causes. Everything from the secret bank accounts to this haunted house. All of it. Well. Almost.”
“Nothing for us?” said Amira.
Trey smiled. “In the last couple of months my siblings, my parents and me will all have died in suspicious circumstances, and you want me to ensure the family fortune goes to you and Mercury, two people who have no reason to know me? That wouldn’t be an inheritance but a prison sentence.”
“Well aren’t you a smart arse?”
Trey smiled. “2471.”
“What’s that?”
“The safe in my mother’s room. There’s your inheritance. Now shut up a minute. I want to enjoy my last moments.”
Amira gave a mock huff. Mercury laughed. They fell into silence, and Trey stared at the sky. Though it was still a little overcast, and though the sun was not as bright as it could have been, it was still beautiful. He loved that sky.
Another spasm of pain coursed through his body. When it was over, his vision began to blur. His hands were trembling.
“Not long now,” he said. There was a sniff, a tear. He assumed it was Mercury, but when he turned, he saw Amira rubbing her eye.
“Piss off,” she said.
Mercury reached out and took one of Trey’s hands. Amira took the other, then both women leaned in and kissed him on a cheek. By this point, there were tears in all their eyes, but all were smiling.
“You did it, Trey,” said Mercury. “You proved yourself a hero.”
“A legend,” Amira agreed.
Trey’s smile widened. He leaned back and stared at the sky, holding onto the women’s hands.
There was no more pain. No more spasms. No unpleasantness. Sitting at the table outside the house where he had endured so many hard years, Trey held the hands of the two wonderful women who had changed his life. He smiled at them, and he looked at the sky. He felt the power consume him. Felt it touch his heart.
And finally, with a smile on his face, and the knowledge that he done right in the end, that he hadn’t been a coward, he faded away.
Epilogue
One Week Later