But then the ghost stopped floating. It was as if my magick no longer had a hold on her, or my power had been overridden by a stronger power. She craned her neck around with an awful snap, eyes glaring with hate and rage, and that single terrifying movement caused my concentration to shatter into a million pieces.
Chapter Twenty Three
A shrill, terrified scream escaped my lungs.
The ghosts had dropped to the ground and turned on us. In an instant the room erupted in a cacophony of inhuman hisses and howls. Deafening. I had to grab hold of my ears to stop the pitch from piercing my ear drums, but hot blood was already flowing. It spilled out into the palms of my hands and trickled down my wrists, warm and sticky.
I couldn’t hear, but I could run – and hell if I did.
Ghosts in the underworld, it seemed, conformed to the laws of physics. That was comforting. For a moment I imagined them leaping into the air and floating across the room toward us, descending from the skies like crows to peck at our eyes. But they didn’t.
Frank was ahead of me, Madame Aishe behind me, and being that the ghosts were halfway to the front door before my spell broke, we ran toward the back of the room. Frank reached for the nearest door beneath the veranda and yanked it open.
I ran through and emerged on the other side into a carpeted hallway. The lights –they were lights this time, not candles – along the walls were flickering wildly, punctuating our escape in strobes of yellow light. At the end of the short hall I took a hard right into what looked like an external wing. One side, my left, was lined with windows which led to nowhere.
“Run!” I heard Frank say.
Down the hall, running past the featureless windows, their curtains fluttering with the backdraft I caused as I went. I was aware that, behind me, Frank and Madame Aishe were running. I didn’t think to stop and look, but I knew it was them. I didn’t have to look. What I had to do was find a way out.
We had a head start on the ghosts but I was certain they were after us, and as I recalled the way the woman’s neck turned around and the look on her face, I decided I didn’t want them to catch me. I didn’t know what would happen to me if they caught me. Would they pummel me to death? Maybe. Eat me? Did ghosts eat? I supposed that some of them did, or at least they pretended to, remembering in the instant between breaths, what I had seen back at the tavern in Missington; ghosts eating and drinking fire water at the bar. But these ghosts weren’t pretending. They were under the Shadow’s spell. If it wanted them to eat us, they would.
A hard right came up and I took it, and I came face to face with the long hallway leading to the front of the house. The front door was open and the coast was clear, so I bolted as fast as my legs would take me. My heart hammered against my chest, ears burned from the pain of the screams and howls of the dead, but I ran and ran and ran until… I realized that the hall was stretching.
It was stretching!
I was inside a nightmare, running as fast as my body would allow but getting nowhere. Worse, Frank and Madame Aishe were behind me, and they too noticed the stretching.
“What the fuck is going on?” I said, heaving.
“It’s playing a trick on us!” Frank said, “We have to fight it!”
Fight it? With what?
The PA system crackled and moaned and that dreadful voice came through. It was laughing.
“How do you like my little abode, little dears?” it asked. “I trust you have had time to consider my offer?”
Running seemed pointless, now. The hall wasn’t getting any smaller and I had no idea how to fight the shadow’s magick. Was I supposed to fight shadow with shadow or banish the shadow with light?
“How long before you tire?”
“Fuck you!” I said, snarling. “Why don’t you come out and face us?”
“Not until you have given me your answer.”
Acheris. It knew. Somehow, it knew. Maybe it was more a part of Collette than I had thought, like a Siamese twin or a symbiont.
Or a parasite.
“We’re done playing your games,” Frank said, “You don’t have the power to bring the dead back to life any more than you can kill us outright.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said the voice. “I may not have the power to bring the dead back to life or kill you outright yet… but I don’t need to do the latter for myself.”
At that moment, I sensed something. A chill ran down my spine like a hundred tiny spiders. It was as if I had picked up on a burst of emotion so powerful I felt it even without looking for it.
Anxiety?
I turned my head and searched Frank and the gypsy’s faces, but neither of them seemed to be the source. At least not to me. Was it the Shadow, then? Was it anxious? And if so, about what?
“Show yourself,” I said again, “I won’t talk to the air but I’ll talk to you.”
For a moment silence fell, and in the silence I could see Frank’s eyebrows curl inward, questioningly. The gypsy, too, seemed puzzled by my sudden change of heart.
The moment lingered, and in the silence I was able to catch my breath, to touch the Power at the core of my soul and tap it as if to ready it. Then a door opened to the left of me and I damn near jumped out of my skin.
The door was brown and covered in the same wallpaper as the rest of the hall. No wonder I hadn’t seen it. Didn’t seem to have a door-knob, either. I suspected it was one of those doors you had to push into until it clicked before it would open. A secret door. But its mouth was dark and ominous, and I had no idea where it led.
A trap, maybe. Its lair, possibly. I didn’t think the Shadow was stupid enough to not have a contingency in mind, should I decide to attack, though. It knew who I was, after all. Knew I was the red witch. Wherever the dark passageway led was its domain. I would be no better off down there than I was up here. The choice was obvious.
I moved toward the door.
“You’re not thinking about going down there, right?” Frank asked.
“I have to,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “Collette is dying. For all I know she’s already dead.”
“She isn’t,” the gypsy said, “Have faith, and we will make it through this.”
I nodded. As long as I had friends beside me I knew I would be ok. Damien and Frank had followed me all the way into the underworld, despite their stunted ability to do magick. For a witch, that was like stepping out into a cold winter street without clothes.
And still, here they were. Here Frank was. Tall and lanky and, for lack of a better word – impotent – but here all the same. And then there was the gypsy, who could have easily stayed in Missington and forgotten this whole thing, but she risked her life, her second chance at existence, for me and for Collette.
I turned toward the open black maw and stepped inside.
The darkness was total. I had to feel with my hands for the walls to keep me steady as I descended down a flight of stairs to which I couldn’t see an end. I turned my neck up and saw the gypsy’s shadow breaking the light coming from the hall. She took a few steps down too. But before Frank’s comforting silhouette could break the light pouring through the opening the door slammed shut and we were plunged into an even thicker, more complete darkness.
It wasn’t just the absence of light. It was the absence of sound, air, and feeling. It was the absence of life.
“Frank!” I said, but he couldn’t hear me. “Madame, are you there?”
Maybe I hadn’t spoken at all, only thought that I had. What if the door I had stepped through wasn’t a door into a basement at all, but rather into some under layer of the underworld? A dark space within the darkest of places.
But I had spoken, because the gypsy had heard me, and replied. “I am here,” she said.
“Thank the Gods,” I said, “Can you get the door open?”
“No,” she said.
“We have to get out of here. Now. We can’t just leave Frank out there on his own. He’s defenseless!”
“A
nd in here,” the gypsy said, “So are you.”
In one fluid movement the gypsy pressed the heel of her shoe into my chest and pushed hard. I could feel myself tipping over, my arms pin wheeling back in a desperate attempt to balance my imminent fall, but I couldn’t stop what was about to happen. I never got the chance to see the steps rise up to greet my face, shoulder and back as I collapsed down them like a rag doll, but I felt the pain of every last knock. Hot and sharp, stiff. I saw stars. And when I hit the ground I blacked out.
Or at least I thought I did.
In the darkness of the cellar I had fallen into it would have been impossible to tell whether your eyes were open or closed. But as the moments passed I became aware that the world around me was spinning. The shadows around me began to shift and move just as the real world would after taking such a tumble.
I tried to sit up but my body was wracked with pain. Every joint, every muscle in my body felt like it had been softened with a mallet as a butcher might tenderize a cut of beef.
Then a light clicked on above my head. It buzzed and glowed dim and orange. And in the light I saw the gypsy, staring at me from the top of the stairs. Only she wasn’t glassy eyed like the rest of the ghosts in the mansion. Her movements were lucid, intelligent, and she looked every bit the same person she had been the whole time we had known her. She had chosen to do this to me.
I thought back to that night when the mad Sheriff had tied me up and thrown me in the back of his car. I didn’t suspect him of being capable of doing what he did and never really learned the reasons why he did it, but I saw much of him in her eyes. That same desperate look shone through her face like a beacon.
A figure broke my line of sight and my eyes were pulled to it. To her. Her.
It was Collette.
Chapter Twenty Four
No, it wasn’t Collette. It couldn’t be.
The French Necromancer was with Damien, away from the house and outside of the Shadow’s influence. At least, this was my hope. I could have laughed at how my mind prioritized the wellbeing of my coven over my own. Here I was, in a dark, dank cellar, hurt, betrayed, and face to face with a powerful entity—which looked remarkably like Collette—and all I could think about was Damien, Frank, and, of course, Collette.
“Bonjour,” she said, “That was quite a tumble.”
Struggling against the pain, I put all of my effort and magick into an upward thrust that sent me hurtling to the other side of the room and on my feet. I turned, opened my palm, and raised it toward the Shadow, alternating between aiming my imaginary weapon at the ghost and the shadow.
“Such power,” said the Shadow, “You truly are an impressive specimen, red witch. Even here, in the depths of the underworld, your power flourishes; unaffected by death’s draining energies.”
She wasn’t entirely right. I felt like I could collapse at any moment. My body ached, my mind felt like wet cake and I just wanted to go home and sleep, but I couldn’t. I had to stand and fight. Show no weakness.
“Was this your plan?” I asked, “To trick me into separating from my friends?”
She shook her head. “Your friends were of no consequence,” she said, “But I wanted to make sure you and I could have a conversation without distractions.”
“And your lackey? She’s a distraction.”
“Again, she is of no consequence. A pawn in this game.”
“So why don’t we skip to the end part and we finish this game so that I can help my friend?”
“Collette?” she asked, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. “She is no friend of yours, red witch. She is a Necromancer. A black witch. She’s using you for your power.”
“Is she? So why is she the one that’s dying out there?”
“Indeed… is she?”
I… paused. Gods, I paused. A tiny fissure manifested in the concrete wall of my composure and I paused. “What?” I asked.
The Shadow grinned a wicked smile. “Tell me. How certain are you that, right now, your friend Damien isn’t dead?”
“I’m totally certain,” I said, perhaps a little quickly.
“Are you? The bead of sweat travelling down your face says otherwise.”
“You’re lying.”
“Maybe. But what about Frank? He’s still up there, somewhere. Fending for himself against a horde of hungry ghosts. How long do you think he can run before exhaustion catches up with him?”
“Are you going to tell me what you want or aren’t you?”
A drip-drop stole my attention for the barest of instants. Water? Dripping down here? I knew this house was a facsimile of Collette’s school, a very convincing one too, but did it really have running water? The pipes, crisscrossing the ceiling above my head would have had me believe that it did.
“What I want, my dear, is simple,” she said, then paused. “I want to exist.”
“But you do exist. Here.”
“Ah but it isn’t much of an existence, is it?”
“I don’t know. The underworld isn’t so bad.”
“Perhaps, but the world of the living is full of delicious souls, ripe souls, people whose inner light could help me achieve levels of power no other witch has ever reached before.”
“They aren’t yours for the taking,” I said, scoffing.
“I don’t expect you to understand. You are the red witch, but you are young. Your vision is narrow, yet. You fail to comprehend how utterly insignificant the world truly is when compared to the magnitude of the universes.”
“I don’t need to care about those things. They may as well be fiction to me. This planet is my home—”
“And if you wish to defend it, you had best beware of the things that lurk in the space between stars.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, red witch, is that I will give you your little planet and spare your precious humans if you would only allow me… to devour the spirit of Collette.”
“I don’t—”
“I understand, it sounds incredulous that I would ask of such a thing, but you will not be without reward.”
The thing that looked remarkably like Collette approached. She licked her lips and smiled. For a moment I found myself paralyzed. The gypsy was still on the stairs, I was vaguely aware of that, and in my mind I was still trying to figure out how I could use the running water in the pipes above my head to my advantage. But when the Shadow started to advance, I lost myself.
She was close enough to kiss, now. The slightest of movements could have closed the distance between our faces and I found my body flushed at the thought. The Shadow tilted her eyes toward the floor. It was the talisman around my neck which drew her eyes. Of course, the talisman! I was supposed to use it and the urn to trap the Shadow and deliver it to Collette.
In one swift movement the Shadow clutched the necklace and yanked it off my neck. She tossed it across the room and it flew like a bullet toward the wall on the other side before shattering into a million pieces. The smell of rosemary filled the air but was snuffed out by another, more noxious smell. It was strong and pungent, like a bag of potatoes that had been left in the cupboard for too long and had rotted away to a mushy, fly ridden goop and the smell - Gods, the smell - seemed to come to me, encircle me, and meld into me.
“I will prepare you for the challenges you will face,” she said, “I will even give you Acheris; the dead thing that would wish to consume your lifesblood. All I ask for in return is that you give me Collette, and that you stand back and watch me devour this woman here.”
She turned her head toward the gypsy. My eyes widened. I could feel my heart beating hard against the pressure points in my neck and ears. I wanted to scream! Get out! But the words didn’t come. My fire didn’t come. I was paralyzed, stricken with a deathly cold that wasn’t so much cold as it was… a kind of enervating air.
“What?” the gypsy asked.
“Yes,” the Shadow said, advancing on her, now. “You have served me well, but your time
is up.”
“No!” she said, “You promised me life! You were to give me a body. I was to go back home and see my brother safely across in his final hours!”
“That’ll teach you to trust a Necromancer, won’t it?”
The gypsy turned and made a run for the door at the top of the stairs, but shadowy tendrils leapt out of the darkness and yanked at her hair and arms, pulling her to the ground with a loud thud. She was sobbing now. Weeping, even.
“What do you say?” The Shadow cocked her head toward me and grinned. “Two lives in exchange for the lives you will save when you come into your power.”
Come into my power? I thought I had already come into my power. I wanted to speak, to ask, but the terrible smell surrounding me made it difficult to concentrate all of a sudden. My body was starting to go cold. I could feel the fumes seeping into my pores, getting under my skin and swimming alongside the red blood cells in my veins. It made my skin break out into goose flesh, but I fought the urge to scratch, to do anything besides remain in the moment. In the room.
“Two lives?” I asked.
The Shadow smiled. “Two lives.”
The gypsy’s eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights.
“And you will not harm another living being?”
She bowed.
I turned my gaze to the gypsy who sat on the ground, shadowy tendrils as thick as power cables wrapped around her wrists and snaked into her hair, eyes pregnant with fear, and considered. I didn’t think I would ever find myself truly considering something like this. I mean, what do you do when the devil hands you a delicious red apple? You understand that taking it is wrong so you hesitate, you hold on to your sense of duty or honor or morals.
But if he tells you to take it or he’ll kill your family, morals quickly become irrelevant.
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