Chapter Thirty-Seven – Ryder

 

“Ma’am,” one of the black-clad security guards said as he stepped towards Esther, “if you could take a step back, please?” On his chest hung a medallion of some sort, one I recognized as a ward against charms and curses. He didn’t have anything on his hip, like a gun or pepper spray, but I knew the magical trinket made him impervious to whatever Esther was using to part the crowds for us. Behind him, the stairs rose up to the top of the stage, giving us perfect access to the side.

“Do you not recognize me?” she asked.

He blinked hard, squinting his eyes. “Miss Marguerite? But…you’re performing right now. How are you here?”

Esther sighed. “Ryder?” she asked, even as I was already moving up from behind her, a grim look on my face.

“Sir!” the security guard barked, taking a step towards me. His hand came up, reached for me. “Take a step back, and take your lady friend with—”

I gripped his wrist, stepped in close, and flipped it around till he yelled in pain. Following through on the move, I twisted hard and snapped his wrist like a twig, the sound carrying over the crowd like a tree branch cracking.

He dropped to his knees, a bone-rattling sob escaping from his chest.

“Ryder,” Esther projected to me. “More of them behind us.”

Drawing my sidearm, I swung around, making sure they could see my finger on the trigger. I was fully prepared to raise it, too, and begin firing.

“You’ll only cause a stampede,” Esther cautioned. “Let’s wait till we’re at least on stage before we do anything like that. Besides, the way is clear now.” Her soft footfalls sounded as she began to rise up the steps, each one taking her closer and closer to our true goal. To Marguerite.

“Got some crazy people up here,” said one of the security guards into his radio. “One of ’em’s armed, and the other one looks like Marguerite. What do we do?” Without even pausing on the stairs, Esther gave a little flick of her hand. A crackling static seemed to fill the air for a second, and all the radios on the men’s shoulders began to pop and hiss with white noise as tendrils of smoke rose in the air. “What in the fuck? Guys? You there?”

“Come, Ryder,” Esther said as she finished mounting the stairs. “Let’s go.”

I bounded up the stairs behind her, taking the short flight of steps two at a time, sidearm still in hand.

To our right, the crowd swept out in front of us. While it wasn’t as huge as something like Woodstock, it was still impressive in its scope to see that many people all jumping and dancing to the same music. A mass of human flesh, all moving in near synchrony to the sounds blasting from the impossibly loud amps all around us.

I stuck my finger in my ear as we walked in front of one of the speakers, wiggled it around a little. This close, it was almost unbearable.

“Don’t worry,” Esther said into my mind. “We won’t be up here long. Only until Mother’s back home.”

Ahead of us, Maneki Neko continued to rock, with Marguerite up front as she wailed to the crowd, the hands of those in the front row raised like a thicket of adoration. They grasped at her long, flowing black dress, their fingers barely brushing over the bottom hem of her satin gown. Her back was to Esther and me, and her focus was like a laser as she continued to pump out her lyrics.

With Esther in the lead, we walked across the stage, with its cheap, office-style carpeting stapled down. Ten steps in, though, I detected a hint of something in the air. The smell of brandy and a slight pressure on my shoulder.

On reflex alone, I reached up for the unseen, but still felt, wrist and flipped around in a maneuver similar to the one I’d just used on the guard. But, instead of grabbing flesh and bone, I caught nothing but air as I spun around foolishly, my eyes searching for my assailant.

“Ryder,” a woman’s somehow familiar voice called in my ear. “Ryder, you must fight this! Fight her! You mustn’t let her injure my daughter in such a way, and certainly not in my name!”

I stopped, blinked my eyes as I looked around. Had that been a ghost? Winifred’s ghost? The band continued to play behind me, but I could tell their song was already winding down from their repeating the chorus for the second or third time.

“Ryder?” Esther called again, getting my attention. “It’s time.”

I turned back around, practically spinning on my heel. I marched off to join Esther’s side, where she was waiting for her sister to finish.

Maneki Neko wound down their song, the notes fading off into the day. Esther took the opportunity to step forward, beckoning me along with her.

At first, I didn’t move, the ghostly voice of the woman rising up at the back of my mind, shoving its way through whatever Esther was doing, giving me a reprieve. In that brief moment of clarity and insight, I realized what she’d done. Esther had fooled me, had fooled all of us. She’d somehow taken control of me through a charm of some sort. She was using me as an enforcer, as a weapon.

The ghost was right. I needed to fight it, to try and combat whatever she was planning on doing to Marguerite. I needed to get to my radio, to make sure Stephanie was still in one piece. To tell her not to come in here, no matter what. That Esther was our true antagonist, and at the heart of this whole thing.

I clenched my fist at my side, gripping my sidearm more tightly. I tried to raise it, to level it at Esther’s back, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my arm to move.

“Marguerite!” Esther yelled, her voice amplified by what could only have been her magic, her words ringing out loud and clear over the crowd’s roaring.

Marguerite spun in a swirl of satin and lace, her heavily made-up eyes wide in surprise. She was beautiful, almost a perfect match to Esther. All except for her short black hair and dark lipstick.

“Esther?” she called, taking a step back, her feet crossing over the boundaries of the magic circle I was only just now noticing. A hush seemed to fall over the crowd like a funeral shroud, silencing their calls till only murmurs existed. “What are you doing?”

“Completing three decades of work, sister!”

“Esther, why? I’m here to put this all to rest, to keep her spirit from you, from anyone else. Leave Mother alone! Leave her be!”

The crowd, clearly thinking this was all part of the show, erupted in cheers. They hadn’t thought there was going to be a play, but it seemed they were all for it.

Both sisters, as if on cue, seemed to lock magical energies. Force pressed from both of them, sending a gust of wind out over the crowd and back over me. Their hair flew out behind them, and their clothing seemed to whip backwards. Above them, the lights swayed, as sparks began to fly.

“Damn you!” Marguerite growled, her eyes flashing as she took a step forward through the force her sister was projecting.

“Damn you right back,” Esther said, taking her own step forward.

The magic pulsed off of them, as Marguerite’s band mates and their instruments went flying across the stage. Feedback kicked up from the amps, and the air throbbed with frenetic energies.

I struggled against my arm, trying to raise it, to force myself to end this. But it was no use. I couldn’t drag it into position even with my free hand.

“Ryder,” whispered Winifred’s ghost, “please. Save my Marguerite. Save her, and let me rest!”

The block that had somehow been over my arm, maybe some aspect of the spell Esther had been using to control me, seemed to evaporate like a puddle of rain on a sunny day. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I jerked my sidearm up, training it on Esther’s back with both hands.

“I implore you! Please, end this!”

There she was, her back to me. Her hair down, her jaw set as she stared down her twin sister, the woman she was prepared to outright murder for her own plans.

And there I was, my finger on the trigger, a silver bullet chambered in the receiver.

Was I prepared to shoot someone in the back like that? Without giving them even a fair chance to surrender?

No. I couldn’t do it. If I did, I’d truly be the monster Stephanie had called me. A murderer. Groaning in despair, I took my finger from the trigger and laid it alongside the guard.

“How many more must die because of her?” Winifred whispered in my ear, her ghostly voice practically tickling the hair of my inner ear. “How many will be saved? She’ll rip every soul from this crowd, use them to fuel my resurrection. Can your conscience rest knowing hundreds will have died because of your inaction, shifter? Are you truly a guardian of the innocent?”

I gritted my teeth. Well, when she put it that way. I raised my pistol again, my finger back on the trigger.

Before I could fire, off in the distance a booming crash sounded, like thunder, or an explosion. Or…a dump truck plowing through the fence?

I faltered for a moment, glancing that direction.

The truck I’d previously seen in front of the Camelot High Street Hotel, now with its horn blaring, came racing through the crowd, which seemed to part of its own accord at least fifty feet ahead of the oncoming diesel. In its wake followed a small pack of Esther’s cat-people, bounding along all four legs as they raced along the grass.

The horn honked again, and I saw Jeff behind the steering wheel, gripping it for dear life as he screamed in what seemed to be a weird mixture of exultation and terror. Beside him, in the passenger seat, rode Stephanie. Her eyes were equally wide as she, despite having braced herself against the dash, bounced in the cab like she was riding a bucking bronco.

At the sight of her, my jaw nearly dropped to the stage. My heart felt like it sped up by a factor of ten, and I shouted her name. “Stephanie!” I called, despite knowing she wouldn’t be able to hear me. Lowering my sidearm, I took off, nearly at a run, my boots pounding on the stage as I ran for the crowd.

“Ryder!” Esther barked behind me, freezing me in my tracks, practically sealing my feet to the floor. “Kill her! Kill Marguerite!”

Just like that, my urge to get to Stephanie was gone.

I spun around, sidearm raised, and drew a bead on Esther’s twin sister.

After all, I was here to kill witches. And killing witches was what I was going to do.

I pulled the trigger, even as Winifred’s ghost screamed in my ear to continue the fight.