by Sarah Dalton
“Mary, I think I can feel the banister,” Jack says. “Hold on to me. We’re at the stairs.”
But as we inch towards the stairs, a voice makes my blood freeze.
“None of you will leave here alive.”
We stop. The house stops. No one moves for at least a second. No one breathes. The atmosphere is one of complete silence. And then a scream pierces through the dark.
I forget all about the stairs, letting instinct take over. But as I grab for the banister, Jack pulls me back, making me lose my balance. I fall against him, and he falls forward, tripping on the top step. The hard wooden staircase bangs into my side. I lose my grip on Jack as I tumble forward. My head hits the wall. I bounce back, tripping forward until my mouth hits a step. I reach out with my hand, trying to grasp anything that could break my fall. But then, someone running up the steps trips over me. They land heavily on top of me, but it slows my fall. I manage to pull myself out of the tangle of limbs and hurry down the last few steps.
But I’m almost immediately knocked over by a pack of panicked people. I try to get the Athamé from my belt but it’s knocked from my hand by someone shoving past me.
“Everyone calm down!” I shout. “Tasha! Where are you, Tasha? You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to hurt these people. They’ve done nothing.”
The scent of sour breath is next to my face. A cold finger caresses my cheek.
“They did nothing. They stood and watched as Judith killed herself. They contributed to my pain by not seeing someone who needed help. We ignore those who need us the most because we don’t want to deal with their problems. No one wants to be dragged down.”
“Well, I’m here and I can help. So are you going to let me in? Or are you going to keep on hurting these people?” My pulse thuds. There’s movement to my right, like a person coming closer to me.
The lights go on.
Her eyes are feral and wolf-like, sparkling with rage. Travis wears her face. The hollow skeleton shines through his skin. Bile rises in my throat at the sight of her, so monstrous, so chilling. And then my eyes trail down to the bloodied knife held by a pale hand. I hardly have time to notice the red grin before the knife arcs towards me.
Chapter Twenty-One
A bundle of blonde hits Travis in the side, knocking the knife off course, so that it only slices my dress and catches a little skin. Lacey grapples with the possessed boy, but Travis is stronger. He’s back on his feet in an instant. The echo of Tasha’s face has gone, but he’s still frightening. His eyes are empty, devoid of life. He lifts the knife again, but this time I start running, bumping into the panicked partygoers. When a hand grasps my dress, pulling me back, I scream, twisting my body, contorting myself, doing anything I can to get away from him.
Flesh meets flesh in a squash of meat. Finally free, I turn to see Travis hitting the floor and Jack shaking his hand. His knuckles are bloody.
He puts his arm around my waist and hurries me away. “We need to find Willa.”
I need to find the Athamé, but it’s going to be almost impossible with all these people running in every direction. I twist my body, searching for Lacey, but she’s gone. The place is a mess. There are people on the floor, unconscious, getting trampled on by a crowd rushing to the door. Someone throws a chair at a window but it bounces off as though hitting an invisible shield.
“How is this possible?” the guy cries. He kicks the chair away in frustration, and it hits a girl crying on her knees. Another guy leaps to his feet and throws himself at chair-boy. A third guy gets involved, trying to prise the other two apart. I watch in horror as the place erupts into chaos.
Jack pulls me back as a tall girl falls against me. We try to weave through the crowd, looking out for a strawberry blonde girl.
“Lacey,” I whisper. “Lacey.”
There’s a crackle in the air and she’s next to me. I pull Jack to a halt.
“Where’s Willa?” I ask her.
“She’s in the kitchen,” Lacey says. “She got cut on the arm and she’s trying to patch it up. Mary, this is going to be a massive catastrophe. You need to get rid of Tasha before she hurts anyone else.”
“Get rid of who?” Tasha’s voice is a snarl.
I turn around to see the dark orbs staring down at me. Long dark curly hair falls forward.
“What’s wrong, daughter?”
Horror seeps into my every pore. I blink. The dark hair is gone. Travis stands before me, gurning. He lifts the knife and slashes to his right. I hadn’t even seen Grace standing there. Her arms fly up to protect her face. The knife comes down, cutting her palms, and I rush forward, knocking Grace to the ground. Jack tackles Travis. We fall down together into the middle of a stampede. High heels trample over my hands and legs. Someone kicks me in the stomach. I lift my arms and wrap them around my head, trying to protect myself from the barrage of feet. Grace scuttles away. I get separated from Jack, and find myself pushed and kicked along the floor, every part of me trodden on.
I lift myself onto my elbows and drag myself along the floor like soldiers do in war films, trying to avoid crushing feet. Where did I drop the Athamé? A girl falls to the ground, screaming and holding her face. Blood drips through her fingers.
I need to get up. I have no choice but to grab some girl passing me and use her dress as a way to pull myself up. The sudden movement gives me a head rush. Blood floods into my extremities, leaving me lightheaded and foggy. The room spins. The noise of the screaming becomes a muted background. My body and mind disconnect, leaving me confused. Something in the back of my mind makes me look up at the ceiling.
Twenty dead bodies hang from the rafters. Their spilled blood drops onto my face, and I stifle a scream. I stop myself from vomiting and look down. Ripped-open corpses drag themselves along the carpet, with bony hands reaching up to grab me. One holds my gaze. Its mouth opens and opens until its skin begins to crack. I close my eyes.
I take a deep breath.
And then I open my eyes again. The bodies are gone. I shake my head and search every empty section of floor for the Athamé. What was that? A hallucination? A dream? A premonition? I think of the dark curly hair. For an instant I saw Mum again. I saw her how she was when she was possessed. My mind is broken.
But there it is. The Athamé, kicked under a sofa near the stairs. I’ve never been so relieved to see the familiar glint of metal. By now, it’s kill or be killed. Shove or be shoved. I fight my way through the crowd and drop to the floor to retrieve the knife. Jack and Willa are nowhere to be seen. I can’t even find Lacey. I climb up onto the sofa and crane my neck above the sea of panicked people. There are faces covered in cuts and bruises, people slipping on blood, others sitting and rocking in the corner. Travis’s house is a war zone, and there is only one enemy. Tasha.
“Lacey!” I shout.
My best friend floats up from the crowd. “Over here, Mares. Quick. Tasha is killing Jack!”
I push my way through the crowd, making my way back to the kitchen. A guy knocks me to the ground, screaming and ranting in French. I drag myself out from under his weight, then push myself to my feet and carry on like nothing happened.
When I find Lacey, she’s pulling at Travis, trying to wrench him away from Jack. Willa hits him with a lamp, but Travis still has Jack pinned to the floor. I lean over them both and put the Athamé blade to Travis’s neck.
“Get up,” I hiss.
Travis’s body goes stiff. I feel the rumble of the growl in his throat before I hear it.
“Don’t try that shit with me,” I say. “This Athamé will cut you out of him. Get up. Now.”
As Travis gets to his feet, another throbbing ache grips my stomach. I cry out, but I never let up on the pressure at Travis’s throat.
“The… thing… about… pain,” I say, “is that… you get… used to it.”
I use all my strength to push Travis through the crowd into the kitchen. Willa pulls the kitchen knife from Travis’s fingers. With the att
acker disarmed, a strange quiet spreads through the house. There are some whisperings.
“My phone is back on,” someone says.
“Call the police.”
Travis’s hands clench into fists. I try to ignore the trickle of blood running through his fingers. Then I start to see slender hands and long nails. I blink it away. What’s happening to my mind? I need to focus. Lacey notices something is wrong and appears at my side. Her electricity soothes me. Jack, who’s walking awkwardly and has a swollen face, stays on the other side of Travis as I look for somewhere I can perform the ritual and get Tasha out of him. There’s a door on the other side of the kitchen. I gesture to Willa to open it.
“It’s a downstairs loo,” Willa says.
“Let’s get him in there and lock the door,” I say.
Together, the four of us push Travis into the bathroom and lock the door. Travis looms over me, but I stay strong. I hold up the Athamé. He rolls his eyes. His head lolls from one side to the other. I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen how possession rubs away humanity minute by minute, and I wonder if there’s anything left of Travis now. After Tasha is forced out of him, he’ll have to live knowing that he hurt all those people. Even someone who’s as big a dick as Travis will have a tough time accepting that.
Jack forces Travis to sit on the edge of the bath. I keep the Athamé by him, a threat to the ghost inside. With a deep breath, I draw the first arc.
Travis bursts forward and scratches me with his nails. Warm blood trickles down my face. Lacey bares her teeth and pushes back. The two of them are savage. I push the Athamé closer to Travis and he winces away. I get through another symbol, thinking of Emmaline when she rid Mum of the spirit possessing her.
“I’m going to eat you alive.” Tasha’s voice still has the power to shock me.
My mouth goes dry. My hands are clammy.
Travis moves again, this time grabbing hold of Willa by the hair and pulling her back. I control another arc as his fingernails dig into Willa’s skin. Jack and Lacey fight with Travis, but he has new strength. He pushes them back. Jack hits his head on the sink and collapses to the floor. I have to break; I have to stop the arcs and check on him. He could be dead. I bend over Jack, feeling for a pulse. Travis lets go of Willa and dashes for the door, but Lacey blocks his path. Her eyes focus and she pushes him back, connecting with his chest. But I can see that Lacey’s concentration can’t last much longer. She’s losing her strength, and Travis is pushing through her non-corporeal form.
I find Jack’s pulse. He’s alive. I get back to my feet and hold up the Athamé, but the cello music is back, so loud that I almost drop the knife to cover my ears. The pain that works its way through me is so intense that the room almost fades away. But I steel myself, force myself to go on. I arc the knife. I raise my voice. I scream over the music and I fight my way back. Travis’s mouth opens. He shouts back at me, calling me every disgusting word he can, but I continue with the symbols. There’s a gold explosion in the air that lights up the bathroom. I carve another, and another, my eyes unblinking, relentlessly focussed on Travis, my arms moving quickly, like the wings of a hummingbird. I am, and will be, the light in this darkness. My knife lights up the sky, like a sparkle of hope.
Travis loses his strength. As I complete my last arc, a jet of black particles bursts from his open mouth. He slumps to the floor as the black flecks gather above us. They buzz and fly around me, searching for my weak spot.
“No!” I shout, holding the Athamé aloft. “This ends.”
The particles swell and break, like a flock of swallows. And then they clump together. My skin crawls as Tasha’s ghost reforms before me.
“It’s time for you to go now. You’ve had your revenge. This is enough, Tasha,” I say.
She rushes towards me, but I’m faster. I bring the knife down, slashing across her chest. She bares her teeth and leaps back, and I begin my symbols again. If we can trap Tasha, I can send her back to the spirit realm, but I need to trap her first so she can’t move.
Tasha snarls, inching away from me. I step forward, keeping the knife steady. I need to get to her other side so I can perform the ritual and keep her trapped. But Tasha turns. She drops to the floor and lifts her head to bite Willa. Lacey leaps onto Tasha, as savage as the vengeful ghost. She rips at Tasha’s skin and bites into her flesh. Lacey grasps hold of Tasha’s hair, pulling her back. But Tasha still has some fight in her yet. She turns and swipes at Lacey’s face, drawing blood along her cheek. Then Tasha’s hands grip around Lacey’s neck.
“No!” I scream.
Before I can get to her, there’s a crackle in the air. I try to pull Tasha back, but I can’t touch her body. My fingers disappear through her.
The crackle comes back. The light bulb flickers. Then a girl stands next to Tasha. A girl with mousy hair and a warm smile.
“Tash, what are you doing?” Judith asks.
Willa hurries to my side. The room is split, now. Three ghosts on one side, four humans on the other.
Tasha turns to Judith, but she doesn’t let go of Lacey’s neck. Lacey’s blue eyes bulge. But I see the way Tasha looks at Judith. Her fingers falter when she sees her old friend. She’s loosening her grip.
“I think you should let go of her,” Judith says. “She’s not the one you’re mad at.”
Tasha releases Lacey, who floats over to us, rubbing her sore neck.
Tasha turns to Travis. “It’s him. I should be killing him.” He lies slumped on the floor, his eyes closed and his chest rising up and down slowly.
“No,” Judith says. “It’s not him, either. Is it? It’s me.”
Tasha’s head snaps up. For a brief moment, I see something akin to a spark of humanity in her eye. Whatever Judith is doing, it’s working.
“What are you talking about?” Tasha says.
“You’re mad at me because I killed myself. You wanted me to live the life you never got to live, but I wasted it all by killing myself.”
Tasha lifts her hand. The grey, dirty skin changes to a milky-peach. The bones begin to disappear. She’s becoming herself again. “You could have changed things. You wasted your talent on those… idiots. You wasted it all.”
“It didn’t seem worth it without you. The world stopped singing to me. I couldn’t play anymore.” Judith’s eyes fill with tears. She opens her arms, and Tasha falls into them. “It’s time to go now, Tash. You can’t stay here anymore.”
“Did I hurt people?” Tasha says. She looks down at her hands, confused by her own state of being.
“It doesn’t matter,” Judith says. “All that matters is finding peace.”
“Are you ready?” I say to Tasha.
The girl is as she once was: a beautiful teenager. She’s wearing jeans and a stripey shirt, with her long hair pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes are filled with tears, and her mouth is sloped up into a sad smile. She’s pale, but in a pretty way. She nods to me.
“You look like your mum,” I say.
I arc the knife and perform the ritual. As I work my way around the ghost, I see Jack awake, transfixed by the gold symbols in the air. Willa wipes tears from her eyes. Lacey rubs her face where the scratch is still bleeding. Judith stands back, her face pale but composed.
At last, I plunge the knife into Tasha’s heart. She gasps, and her eyes open wide. A look of peace spreads across her face, and then she vanishes.
I take a step back, not quite believing that Tasha is finally gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All the strength leaves my body, and I’m aware of how broken, bruised, and sore I am. Someone guides me to sit on the toilet seat. I look up to find Jack watching me with his brow furrowed.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I look down to find that I’m holding his hand. Our eyes meet. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“I can move on now,” Judith says. “Now that I know she’s safe.”
I offer her a sheepish smile. “Thank you fo
r standing up to her. I know that was hard for you. We were in trouble. I wasn’t strong enough…” My voice breaks. Tears burn behind my eyes.
“She burned so bright with anger that I don’t think anything would have stopped her,” Judith says. “I just had to remind her of who she once was.”
“Would you like me to help you pass on?” I ask.
She smiles. “No. I think I know how to do it myself now.”
Lacey steps forward. “Thank you. I think you saved me.”
Judith frowns. “Where do we go if we kill each other?”
Lacey lets out a little gasp. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”
“You saved my life, too,” Willa says. She wipes a sheen of sweat from her forehead. “I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t know what it would be like.” She flashes me a guilty look. “I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t help much.”
I shake my head. “She was one of the strongest spirits I’ve ever dealt with. None of us was prepared for what was to come.”
Judith takes a deep breath, and we all turn back to her. “It’s time for me to go. Thank you for helping me save her… I will…” But her words are swallowed up as she disappears from the room.
*
In the aftermath, we staggered out from that bathroom into the bright lights of the house, almost broken. When Travis was roused from his unconscious state, the police put him in cuffs. His eyes trailed over the bloodstained living room in a daze. I actually felt sorry for him, but then I remembered the way he’d hit me in his bedroom, and the way he’d threatened me, and the feeling subsided. I helped Grace over to the ambulance, where they wrapped a blanket over her shoulders. She whispered a thank you to me, but I walked away without replying. Willa was taken to a hospital in one of the ambulances. Lacey went with her, but it was so packed with injured kids that Jack decided to drive us there, despite being hurt from the fight with Travis.