I sink to the ground, dizzy as my head pounds with the horror of it. The implication that she died only for being my love. She died afraid, the last thing she saw was the ghastly thing from the other night, all snarled maw and devil eyes, misshapen and ghoulish.
I feel the need to wretch and get on my hands and knees, with Juniper and Kayla falling to the ground beside me, both supporting and whispering words of encouragement.
A burning rage flowers in my belly at this thing in front of me that has taken everything. Juniper’s sight and carefree nature, my parents, Monica and our baby, leaving me a broken shell trapped unhappily in a cursed house. There it sits, now trying to steal the sunrise on the horizon. Trying to take Kat. Suddenly overpowering her and forcing the bloodletting sounds like the best possible option as my muscles jerk to life, revving full of adrenaline with Mary the target.
“No,” Juniper says quickly, telegraphing my plans as she always does. “No. You will only set her free.”
I sit up and try to regulate my breathing as Mary snickers at me knowingly in the cell. Looking at me tauntingly, huddled on the floor and I know Juniper is correct. I know that I am being manipulated. Still the urge to rush her pricks at me, willing me into action.
“Do not,” Juniper says, grabbing my face.
“You have pushed me into this,” Mary warns as she stands up. “I did tell you that you do not have the upper hand. You are all out of your depth and should have listened to me.”
Before we can parse her words, Juniper is thrust upwards and jerked by an unseen force up to the bars where her head hits violently. I turn in confusion to see Mary controlling the movements with her hand.
“I may not be able to remove myself from this cell, but I do have the power to kill her, Erik,” she cautions. “You will unlock this or I will murder her in front of your very eyes.”
I wrap my arms around Juniper’s waist, pulling her up to securely drag her away up the stairs, but feel an incredible force begin to wrench her from me. Despite my bear hug she is ripped from me and brutally thrust back against the bars and I wince at the cracking sound it makes. I rush forward and begin to unlock her cell, my mind quickly assessing if physically overpowering her while she’s distracted would be possible or folly. I see Kayla edge towards the mirror, clearly thinking the same.
“No, you will both come directly into this cell and go to the back wall,” Mary chuckles, watching us both.
Kayla sighs and joins me as I open the cell door, still poised to take my chances as I look at Juniper’s face and see she is unconscious. Once the cell door is open, I feel my body jerk forth and I slam against the back of the cell with Kayla thrown into me. As I gain my composure I see that Mary has already thrown Juniper in and closed the door behind herself, holding the keys triumphantly. She is free and gawking through the bars at us.
“You piece of shit,” I manage, tasting blood in my mouth. The air is even more foul in the cell as I sink down the wall, checking on Juni, who is breathing but still unconscious.
“That’s no way to address the mother of your future child,” she laughs. “This does complicate matters, however.” She grabs the bars and peers in. “I will find a way though, even if it means that you will be held prisoner here for awhile.”
As she taunts me I see Ian appear soundlessly on the stairs and he nimbly descends, palming a small knife. I avert my eyes, to not cast her attention his way and try to keep her engaged.
He slinks behind her, where the mirror resides, up against the back wall and looks into the mirror. “Bloody Mary…” he begins and I see her head shoot up and eyes widen as she whirls around.
“Bloody Mary…” he chants.
My breath intakes when I realize that Mary will be unable to reach him in time before he calls her to the mirror she’s inexorably tethered to.
I see in her rigid posture that Mary realizes it too. Her hand is being critically forced and in response Kat’s mouth opens with a scream and Mary emerges, rushing out like a geyser of dark energy, hurdling straight towards Ian.
Kat rolls to the floor and I watch in unmitigated joy as her body moves on the floor. She is free.
Chapter 23
Kat
The floor is adamantine below me. Freezing and rigid, and my body aches as though I’ve sustained a blow. I only have the luxury of a moment of confusion before my attention is snagged to the scene unfolding before me.
I see Mary, haggard and devilish, whip across the room to strangle the burgeoning words out of Ian’s throat. Her howls are animalistic and otherworldly, like a wendigo as she clutches him by the neck, raising him into the air.
Her eyes are aflame with hot rage, the black around them like pits and her claws dig into him as his eyes shut and he tries to wrest her hands from him. His feet dangle impotently on the ground, desperately trying to find footing.
I yell out, but her focus is singular and having shared a space with her these last many days I know her fury. It is unlike anything, a fire that eats everything in its path, the only goal to gain strength and keep consuming. She doesn’t have the energy to possess me again, I’d already felt it waning. He has thwarted her one great desire through the centuries and I know that she will kill him for it.
I turn and see Erik, Kayla
