“That is just a fairy tale. There is no such thing. The only thing your family can safely boast about is that you are all cursed. I cursed you all, and in her own way so did your saintly Princess Sophie. None of it matters now. I am about to take full control of your body, and put you in the mirrors along with the rest of your filthy family. You have lost—you’ve been defeated!”
*****
Rupert listened to Sophie talking with whatever force had taken control of her body. She was putting up a good fight, and he hoped she could keep it up because if she lost—they were in trouble!
Could he kiss her and help to force the entity out of her body, or would the dark magic give him the shock of his life?
His heart told him to kiss her and use the power of his love to overcome what they faced—and his sensible side—his special agent side told him to proceed with caution because he had to make sure this evil was contained to the Isle. If it hit the mainland, they were all doomed.
He could only pray that his magic would protect him. He had dealt with nefarious spirits before and used the training the MIA had given him to survive.
He knelt on the grass, and leaned over Sophie. She looked so damn beautiful with her raven hair strewn around her and her expressive green eyes open wide and unblinking.
The only thing that worried him was the extreme pallor of her skin. She was pale to start with but she had become as white as a sheet in the time since her possession.
“I hope you have had enough time to get the answers you wanted, sweetheart,” he whispered, leaning forward to lightly brush his lips against hers.
Energy crackled between them. Despite it barraging him, and making him want to break the contact, he soldiered on and he kept the connection. It hadn’t sent him flying halfway across the castle grounds so that was something.
He could hear a shrieking, akin to a banshee’s wail in the distance. Trevelyan and Audrey had begun their assault against the looking glasses.
This was it. He would either free Sophie from the force possessing her—or he would die trying!
His life wasn’t worth living without her. She was the air he breathed. She was the missing part of his soul, and whether she realized it or not, she completed him and made him a man that wasn’t afraid of anything.
If he had his way, the bitch that had control over Sophie would be dragged down to the very bowels of hell, and she would stay there for eternity. Whatever she wanted, he would ensure she couldn’t have it. She wanted to return to her precious homeland. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Not on his watch!
She was a demon spawn, and he would deal with her the way he dealt with other demons that roamed the Earth.
He would vanquish her.
Chapter Sixteen
Their ghostly call to arms wasn’t going quite the way Seraphina expected it to go.
“We do not have time to waste. Please, my niece needs your help!”
“We are dead. How much help can we be?” Lady Colfax asked.
Seraphina sighed. Lady Colfax was the woman who had taken up residence in Redding House, and couldn’t get enough of Redding when he was without his clothing. She couldn’t blame the woman, really. She had been stuck with a rather boring man for her husband, and he had been twice her age.
“She needs our positive spiritual energy to combat the dark entities that are taking over my family Isle,” Seraphina said. “She’s helped a good lot of you. Now is your time to pay back that debt.”
“Indeed,” Lloyd said, in his grumbling sort of way.
She cast an appreciative glance at Lloyd. The other specters from Rayne House were also there with them. Ready to do whatever they had to do to preserve their bloodline. Too bad they were all as quiet in death, as they had been in life.
“I say, I say…we should not allow that little lass to fight that gruesomeness alone. She might not have done what I wanted her to do, seeing as I wanted her to marry my Beau, but she has done all that she could to help my family and I cannot let her stand-alone against the evil that threatens the Rayne Family. I have seen the light for a few days now, and I keep ignoring it, because I want to say my final farewell to my beloved, and my children. I want them to know that I am at peace with all that has transpired, and I want them to know that they have my love.”
“Sophie can help you get that message to them,” Seraphina murmured. “For those of you that can see the light, and don’t want to go for one reason or another, and if she hasn’t yet helped you make your peace, she can help you. I will personally ask her to help each and every one of you to see that you can cross over with nothing weighing heavily on your heart.”
“Well, I guess there is no harm in trying to help then,” Lady Colfax said. “I mean, the evil can’t hurt us anyway, can it? We are already dead, aren’t we?”
“I have yet to find an evil force in this world that can hurt me,” Seraphina stated. “But right now it could destroy my family. They are going against all of the laws that our kind obeys. They will hurt Sophie in ways that most of us can’t imagine.”
“They will break her spirit,” A voice said, that sounded eerily like Sophie’s. “They will use Sylvie to get their own nefarious ways accomplished.”
Seraphina and Lloyd both gasped. A figure stepped out from the group of collected spirits. This figure glowed with a celestial light that both of them had never seen before.
“Grandmother,” Seraphina said, her voice small.
“Greetings, Granddaughter. Is there a reason why you go by the name Seraphina and have forsaken the first name that your parents gave you?”
“I…I never felt like a Sophie. I was a failure, Grandmother.”
“Not the way I see it,” Princess Sophie said. “You are all that I ever wanted for one of my namesakes. You are good, kind, and generous of nature, and when all seems lost, you are trying to rally a force to help Sophie. I say that you are have made the entire family proud, as have you Lloyd Owen Arthur Rayne FitzCharles.”
“Why are you here, Grandmother?” Seraphina asked.
“I am here to take care of what I should have finished in life. I brought the evil that terrorizes Sophie. Had I not taken so many of my family, friends and subjects through the veil that carried us to this world, my family would be living in peace. I shut the gateway that I had conjured with my magic down—I alone, must take all the blame.”
“You couldn’t have known that your actions would have brought such misery to our family,” Lloyd said.
“Oh, but that is where you are wrong, my darling grandson. I always knew that the ones I brought through were not quite right in the head, or in the heart. I knew they had a potential for great evil, and I thought that by bringing them through with me I could keep an eye on them—that I could control them. Oh, how I was sorely mistaken.”
“I still fail to see why you are the one that should be blamed,” Seraphina said, while the others in attendance murmured their agreement.
“I should take the mantle of responsibility because their leader—the one who has the power to tear my family apart is my…” she looked pained to continue and the golden glow around her dimmed slightly. “I don’t want to tell you and yet, you need to know. I cannot keep hiding this truth forever. I thought I would take it with me to my grave—yet another thing I was wrong about. She…”
“Yes, Grandmother?” Seraphina urged.
“She is my twin,” Princess Sophie confessed.
Everyone gasped. Seraphina looked over at Lloyd. He looked as shocked as she felt.
“That is not possible. You were an only child. You were your father’s only heir.”
“I lied. I kept the truth from my children. I didn’t want them to know about the despicable woman who shared their blood. I didn’t want them to know that there was someone out there who matched me wit for wit, and power for power. I always thought I was stronger than Selwyn, I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong. The only way we can win—the only thing that will defeat Selwyn and her f
ollowers is if Sophie figures out how to tap into the Dragonwyck Legacy. Without it, Selwyn will win, and Sophie will perish. Come, my children—and those who wish to help Sophie, we must go now—or there will be no one left to save.”
*****
Sophie felt Rupert pulling at her. His kiss was the only thing that hadn’t caused her pain in the last few minutes. She had to figure a way to force the entity from her body—or else, it was all over for both of them.
Was Rupert sharing in the pain that riddled her body now as well?
As if she had ten stone weights on her arms, she pulled both her arms up so that she could touch Rupert.
The entity inside of her screamed.
“You cannot be winning! You are not as strong as me. You are not as talented as I!”
Rupert loved her. He cherished her above his own life. To know that he was sticking it out with her willing to die with her. It gave her the willpower she needed.
Memories assailed her. She saw her sisters, her brothers, her mother and her father, her aunts—and even Simone, and she saw her sweet Sylvie. She heard Seraphina laughing, and remembered how her Uncle Lloyd had taught her words she shouldn’t know and how he had taught her about life—and death.
She heard her family calling her name…Sophie, Sophie, Sophie! And then she felt it. She felt love surrounding her, wrapping her in a warm cocoon, and above it all, she could see Sylvie’s hand reaching out for her.
In her mind’s eye, she took Sylvie’s hand, and their connection earned a soul-shattering scream from the soul that invaded her body.
“You are burning me!” The voice screamed, and suddenly, suddenly she could tell it was female. “I am the mighty Princess Selwyn, you can’t get rid of me!”
“I already have, bitch!” she screamed, as Rupert broke away from her to look at the spirits who now surrounded them.
She let out a triumphant cry, as she sat up and finally pushed Selwyn’s spirit from her body. “I know what the Dragonwyck Legacy is…I have always known, and your failure to realize what it is has damned you, Selwyn!”
“I know what it is,” Selwyn shouted. “It is power!”
“No, Selwyn, it isn’t. It is love. Our love makes our magic strong. It gives us the power to see past everything. To see past the veils of life and death. It should have granted all in Princess Sophie’s bloodline the talents that I possess, and then some. My love for my family will break the curse you have placed upon us. It will grant us all the gifts we always should have possessed.”
Sophie could see it now. It all made sense to her. They had always thought that Princess Sophie had cursed their family, but that wasn’t the case. The truth was clearer to her than it had ever been.
She could see the wealth of power that they had only started to tap into. Princess Sophie had been stronger than she was here on Earth back on Carn Brea, and as her descendants, they had the opportunity to tap back into that special kind of magic.
She only had to break the dark curse Selwyn had placed upon them all so long ago. A thunderous boom rocked the ground, as the curse placed upon Princess Sophie’s descendants was shattered.
Selwyn’s screams of frustration hurt her ears!
She opened her heart and released her magic. Reaching her hand out, she wished for Sylvie. She wished to have her back by her side with all of her heart.
She used her light magic to combat Selwyn’s dark magic, and opened a portal to the dark netherworld where Selwyn had trapped Sylvie.
Standing up, she took Rupert’s hand, and smiled when her aunts and brothers ran out to her. Their servants looked really confused, but they would at least live in their own bodies now.
“They are back to their old selves now, Redding!” Trevelyan yelled, as he trailed behind everyone. “Sophie!” He waved at her and she waved back.
Selwyn still had to be dealt with.
Selwyn stood in her own bodiless form, draped in a black cloak, with a hood covering her head. Calling upon her magic, Sophie conjured silver rope to bind Selwyn with.
She moved forward to reach into the dark portal that led to Sylvie.
“No, Sophie! You must not reach out without being grounded by those who are still living. If you do, you will be lost as well,” Princess Sophie called out, as she arrived with Seraphina, Lloyd and what looked to be a whole army of ghosts.
Rupert grasped her hand. “I will keep her grounded.”
“No, it must be those who are related to her by blood!” Princess Sophie said.
“I guess we fill that requirement,” Arthur said.
Trevelyan smiled. “You had better step aside, Redding, and let us help Sophie save our sister.”
Rupert did as he was asked, and Sophie smiled as Trevelyan’s large hand wrapped around hers. “Make a chain, my children, make a chain with Kinsley being the anchor.”
They all followed Princess Sophie’s instructions. “Good luck, Sophie. Don’t trust anything by sight when you are in the dark netherworld, only follow your heart!”
“Yes, Grandmother.” She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and stepped just inside of the dark portal, so that only her hand existed outside of the portal.
Everything looked as it had looked when she had seen images of Carn Brea. Except there were shadows everywhere. Wraithlike beings that pulled at her nightgown and made her scream.
*****
“Pull her out, damn it!” Rupert shouted.
Wind howled through and buffeted against the chain that kept Sophie rooted to their world. He looked over to where the spirit of Selwyn stood. She was conjuring this monstrous weather, and if she had her way, she would make sure that Sophie was doomed.
He lunged at Selwyn and saw too late that she held a blade of supernatural origin. The blade struck him deep in his gut. He heard everyone screaming behind him, as he slumped to the ground. Seraphina knelt by his side, anguish tore at her features. She looked over at Selwyn.
“You are beyond redemption! You need to go to the hell that your followers were sent to when my nephew and niece broke the mirrors. Make sure I am remembered, son,” Seraphina murmured, just before she pitched herself at Selwyn and muttered the words needed to summon the Death Coach from Hell.
“No!” Redding watched as the Coach materialized, and reached out to claim not only Selwyn but Seraphina as well. “Do something,” he rasped, summoning Princess Sophie and Lloyd to his side.
The other spirits held back, evidently still afraid that they would be pulled to the Dark Underworld.
“We shan’t do anything. Seraphina has finally embraced her destiny. It is not the last you shall see of her,” Princess Sophie said.
“Aye, I know. That’s because I’m dying,” he coughed, and felt his lungs burning as blood trickled out of his mouth.
“Yes, you are,” Princess Sophie said, “but you must not lose faith, Rupert. You have Sophie’s love, and with that love—anything is possible.”
“I guess I shall be able to see Sophie in death—and haunt her to make certain she never loves another.”
Princess Sophie laughed.
Lloyd knelt beside him. “I do not see the humour in this situation, Grandmother. What sense is there in his death? Haven’t we all died before our time? Why should another promising life be wasted? Why should Sophie have to have her heart broken like we have had ours shattered? And why did I have to lose the only woman who has always been there for me? I don’t understand the reasoning behind it all!”
“Oh, Lloyd. You have suffered too much heartbreak. You have lost your ability to see what is meant to be.”
“I fail to see the good behind this young man’s death!”
Rupert didn’t fear death. He feared passing without being able to say goodbye to Sophie. What if something pulled him away from this plane of existence before she could see his spirit and say her farewell?
He determined that he would fight in death the way he had always fought in life. He would make sure he stayed with Sophie no matter what trie
d to snatch him away.
“Sophie,” he whispered, as death claimed him, and his heart stopped.
Chapter Seventeen
Sophie’s heart froze in her chest. A cry welled in her throat, and she stifled it. Rupert was dead. She knew it with a certainty like no other. The only man she had ever loved—could ever love, was gone.
She had been robbed of her happily ever after like so many in her ancestral line before her. She had broken Selwyn’s curse, but not the blood curse that Princess Sophie had placed on them.
“Sylvie,” she called out, batting at the wraith-like creatures that tore at her night dress.
“Here I am,” Sylvie said, walking out of the darkness into her line of sight.
She studied Sylvie. The woman standing before her looked like her twin and yet—something told her that she wasn’t staring at her Sylvie.
“You lie. You are not my twin sister.” The creature laughed hysterically, and then her shape changed so that she had the face of a serpent.
Blasts of white light blinded Sophie for a moment, and when her vision cleared, she was wraith free, and the imposter before her had fallen to the ground.
“Sophie,” Sylvie said happily. She brandished a wand that she held unwaveringly in front of her.
“Is it really you?” Sophie asked, not sure whether or not she should offer her hand to the woman standing in front of her or if she should leave this dark realm without Sylvie.
“Are you still afraid of a mermaid stealing you away whenever you swim in the sea?” Sylvie asked.
Sophie smiled, and opened her palm for Sylvie to take her hand. “Come, we don’t have a lot of time. I don’t think I can keep this gateway opened for long.”
Sylvie walked toward her and took Sophie’s hand. Energy shot through them both, as their magical twin bond was renewed.
“Pull us back through, Arthur,” she screamed, hoping that they would hear her back on Earth. When it felt as if he was going to pull her arm out of its socket, she knew that her brother had indeed heard her.
The Haunting of Lady Sophie Page 20