Chapter Forty – Stephanie

 

“Let us at her,” Mom whispered in my ear as I ran right at the terrifying witch looming on the stage in front of me.

Hands balled into fists at my sides, I let out my best imitation of a war cry.

“Let us do what we need to do!” she whispered again, her voice insistent in my ear.

Eyes rolled back in her head, Esther continued to chant, her mouth writhing as the words twisted in her mouth. Here she was, an embodiment of pure evil, the world crackling around her like a spring lightning show.

I raced forward, closing the gap between us with every stride, Ryder in my mind’s eye as I focused on the ticket she held over her head. A mental picture of him as both panther and man, my man. She was using that ticket for whatever she had planned, and I knew it couldn’t be good. After all, back in the hotel bar, she’d talked about how it could be used as conduit, as a way to affect others.

Her eyes didn’t flicker as I ran at her, didn’t even budge, or flinch.

I bent my head, ran straight at her. Maybe, if I could knock her free of the circle, that would be enough.

The ring, though, was like a brick wall made of static electricity. The air popped around me as I collided with it and went rebounding to the side.

My breath caught in my chest as I sprawled forward on my face, the cheap carpet burning a rash down my cheek and chin.

“Stephanie!” Mom shouted in my ear, now. “Hurry! Get up!”

I struggled to my feet, but only managed to get to my hands and knees, pain erupting in my side. I glanced back for a second at where Ryder was still tangled with the mess of cat-things. One look, and I knew he was failing fast, his strength fading away. I gritted my teeth, pushed through the sharp pressure in my ribs, and clambered to my feet.

“Rings protect,” I whispered to myself, remembering what Ryder had told me. That was it!

Esther continued to ignore me, continued to cast her ritual, as I rushed forward. I dropped to my knees and slid forward, even as her voice rose in a crescendo, the volume growing and growing till it seemed her words alone would suck the air from my lungs.

I leaned forward, hesitated for a moment as I swallowed my fear and worry about what would happen next, and brushed my hand through the ring on the auditorium floor.

“No!” Esther screamed, lashing out at my face with her boot.

I saw it coming, but couldn’t move fast enough. The toe caught me right across the chin, and I tumbled backwards in a sprawl. I looked up as she advanced, tried to crab walk back from her as a howl rose from the space between, and all around, us.

It was a wretched, wild howl. The kind you’d expect to hear in a graveyard at midnight, as the cold western wind blew in on a January night. Lonesome, pained, full of agony. Esther looked around for a moment, her eyes back to their normal hazel as she pulled back her lips in a terrifying grimace.

“You little bitch!” she growled as she focused back on me, her hands rising from her sides. “You’ve ruined my chance! I was so close!”

Her power descended on me like a ton of bricks, pressing down on my chest, slamming me backwards onto the floor. My ribs cracked, my spine cracked, and the surface below me began to splinter and break apart.

The howl, though, intensified, rising. Esther stumbled back suddenly, doubling over as if an unseen punch had just been delivered to her gut. Taking a second look, I realized it was a ghostly form. An arm. No, a hundred arms! The pressure released from my chest.

I gasped in a breath of fresh air and sat up. Mouth open, I watched as the ghosts came for Esther.

They flooded in, flying through the air, all the ghosts her sister had been trying to put to rest. All the ghosts Esther had stirred up. They poured on top of her in a dog pile, dozens and hundreds of vague and indistinct forms from across the centuries tearing off bits of her, which would fade into the void as soon as they were removed.

She stumbled back, screaming in her own terror, now. In her own pain. She tripped and fell on her back, kicking and flailing, trying to shake them off with increasingly insubstantial hands. “Marguerite! Mother! Help!”

“I’m sorry, dear daughter,” rasped a voice that could only have belonged to Winifred O’Bannon over the roar, “but you’ve done enough harm for one lifetime. Help will not find you today.”

Esther screamed one last time, her quickly disappearing body contorting in agony, her eyes wide as they stared into the infinite.

And then she was gone.

I gazed unblinkingly at the empty space where Esther had just stood, the only trace of her having ever been there, a small, burnt ticket to her sister’s concert.

Slowly, I rose to my shaky feet, the air still crackling around me. “Holy…”

“Stephanie?” Ryder called as he came running to me, as naked as the day he was born. “Stephanie, are you okay?”

It didn’t matter that he was nude, that he was covered in blood, or that I was aching from head to toe. I threw myself at him.

Ryder caught me in his strong arms, wrapping them around my body like a warm electric blanket. He pulled me close as I pressed myself into his chest. His callused hand stroked my hair. “It’s okay,” he said. “I got you.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, pulling back from him a little so I could look up into those bedroom eyes of his. “You’ve got me? Me?” I grinned. “I was the one who broke the circle and saved the day!”

“Yes,” he said as he leaned down, pressing his lips to mine. “You certainly did. And I love you for it.”