Chapter Text
“Are you ready for us to be together?” Ritchie asks, holding his hand out to Crystal.
Crystal can’t answer—her mouth has gone bone dry with fear, her heart like a panicked bird trapped inside her chest, fluttering and flailing and beating against the cage of her ribs. She lurches up to her feet, taking a stumbling step backwards, her hands held up in front of her. She swallows painfully, peeling her tongue away from the roof of her mouth. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll—“
Ritchie co*cks his head, ignoring her order and stepping towards her. “You’ll what? f*ck with my spell, make another glamor, send us tripping off on another inane adventure where you’ll plan and plot and waste my precious time? I’ve been very patient with you, Crystal. If I wanted to, I could change this spell in an instant—I told you, I decide reality.”
He takes another step towards her, his form becoming more solid and substantial the closer he gets to her.
“Come on, Crystal,” he presses, the distortion in his voice receding as the black void of his head morphs back into his human face. He smiles at her, his teeth white and wolffish in the dark. “Don’t be stubborn. You’re a very smart girl—you must realize now that it’s over. Every plan you make, I’ll always be one step ahead. Every move—I’ll already be there waiting for you. You’ll always slip up, always make a mistake, because you’re a scared, helpless little girl, and you’re all alone. You’ll always end up alone, because you can’t hide the real you—toxic, angry, hurtful.”
Crystal lets out a shuddering breath, tears running down her cheeks, feeling his words sink into her chest like a pointed barb and hook themselves around her heart, pulling. He’s right, he’s right, he’s—
“Are you really going to let that boy talk to you like that?” a voice asks from behind her.
Crystal takes a sharp inhale, her head whipping to the side to look over her shoulder.
The dark hallway is gone—the bedroom now seamlessly transitions into a dreamy twilight garden enclosed within the pulsing, glowing branches of a towering tree. Her ancestors sit beneath the protective embroidery of its twining limbs, watching her with eyes that glitter like stars.
Crystal sucks in another breath, her head jerking back the other way to look at Ritchie. But he doesn’t seem to see what she’s seeing, his face frozen in its predatory smile.
Crystal turns back towards the garden, feeling a burst of white hot anger that brings more tears to her eyes. “Oh, now you’re going to f*cking show up?” she explodes, her voice breaking as her chest heaves with heartbroken, furious sobs.
One of the women tsks. “Shame on your parents for not teaching you to respect your elders. Haven’t we been over this before? We’re always here. We’ve never left you.”
“Then why didn’t you help me?” Crystal asks in a small, broken voice.
“Why do you need us? You’re doing just fine on your own,” another woman says soothingly.
Crystal lets out an incredulous, humorless bark of laughter. “I’m doing fine? My friend got dragged off to Hell by a f*cking demonic dog in front of me. My other friend is being tortured by this monster,” she snaps at them, waving an arm at Ritchie. “And now he’s going to take my power and kill me. So tell me again how I’m doing just fine?”
“That ghost boy was right, the fussy one with the bow tie—you have real power, handed down to you in an unbroken line as old as time,” a third woman says while the other women nod and murmur in agreement. She looks up at the towering tree, smiling. “Look at how much you’ve grown just since the last time you visited this place—see how you thrive when you’re fed on love. Your roots run deep, your branches are strong,” she continues, pressing a palm to the sturdy trunk of the tree. She jabs a finger at Ritchie. “That one is nothing but a hollow reed, dry and brittle. Bend him, and he’ll snap.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Crystal pleads. “I don’t know how to stop him—he keeps coming back.”
The woman sits back, giving Crystal an encouraging smile. “You already have everything you need. Trust your plan. Have faith in your friends. Look to yourself. Get rid of that one, then make sure you come back here and finish with this one,” she says, tapping her foot against the ground where David is buried amidst the roots of the tree.
Crystal shakes her head, her brows knit together in frustration and confusion. “Trust my plan? Were you even listening? The plan is f*cked. My friends are gone. Can’t you just—“
But the garden is already fading, sinking into the dark until all that’s left is a faint pinkish afterglow, and then that disappears, too, leaving only the dark, cold hallway.
“Crystal, I’m done waiting,” Ritchie says with an edge of steel to his voice, snapping her back to the present moment.
Crystal sucks in another breath, letting it out slowly. She turns back to face him, clenching her jaw.
You already have everything you need.
She can still save Charles. She can still beat Ritchie. She can do it. She has to do it.
“You’re right,” she says quietly, her voice quivering with fear despite her determination. “I can’t run anymore. I can’t hide from you. You win.”
The corner of Ritchie’s lip curls into an ugly, lupine sneer. “You’re really gonna try to pull that trick on me again?”
Crystal clenches her teeth together harder, her heart racing. She lifts her chin. “Look into my head. See if I’m telling the truth.”
Ritchie’s sneer curls higher. He takes another step towards her, looking into her eyes.
Crystal forces herself to meet his gaze, feeling the pressure of his mind trying to violate hers. She pushes back against it, the pressure building to the point of near unbearability. She ignores the pain, imagining the deep roots of her ancestral tree holding her grounded and steady, its boughs bending against hurricane winds but refusing to break. The storm builds and builds, a black chaos howling at the barriers of her mind…
You have real power…you have to believe it…
…and then Ritchie blinks, the sneer falling away as his expression falters, and Crystal sees it: the tiniest fracture in his mask, revealing the barest sliver of the truth under the glossy facade—a sliver of doubt.
Crystal gives him a cold smile of her own. “Whoops. Guess you’re not up to the job,” she says, throwing his words back at him.
Ritchie’s face contorts briefly into an expression of rage before he brings it under control again. He lets out a chuckle, shaking his head. “You know what Crystal—I’m actually proud of you. Didn’t I keep telling you that you were stronger than all others? I said that. I knew it from the first time we met. But I also knew that you needed to be pushed. Everything you accomplished here tonight—I opened those doors for you. Imagine what you could have achieved if you had just accepted my invitation in the first place.”
“You hurt my friends, you hurt me, and now you want me to thank you for it?” Crystal says flatly. “You’re even more of an entitled, delusional loser than I thought. f*cking. Pathetic.”
Ritchie maintains his icy smile but his eyes blaze with fury. “And you’re even more of an ungrateful bitch than I thought,” he retorts. He takes a deep breath, co*cking his head again. “But it doesn’t matter—I don’t need your gratitude. Just your power. You’re right, Crystal. I win. I always win. And now I’m gonna take my reward.”
He takes another step towards her, his eyes turning black as an ominous droning sound fills the room.
“Wait,” Crystal says breathlessly, clenching her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “If you’re really such a nice guy, if you’re a real man like you keep claiming to be—then you’ll let me say goodbye to my friend first.”
“Sorry, Crystal—I’m over your bullsh*t,” Ritchie replies frostily, still advancing on her. “If you wanted a nice guy, you should have treated me with respect.”
Crystal takes a step backwards, her heart thumping madly against her ribs. But she keeps her face stoic. “You don’t know where Charles is anymore, do you? You lost him in this house.”
Ritchie lets out a huff of air. “Of course I know where he is. I’m not an idiot like you, I don’t flail around in the dark and lose pieces—I have absolute control over everything.”
“Oh, okay, so you’re just afraid to bring him to me,” Crystal says, injecting as much disdain as she can into her voice. “You think we’ll gang up on you? Can’t handle us unless we’re alone?”
“Am I afraid?” Ritchie stops. Another cold smirk turns up his lips. “Alright, Crystal. You’ve convinced me. I will bring dear old Chuck up here—I think I want to run a little victory lap. And I think he deserves to hear what happened to precious Edwin. You can tell him.”
Crystal feels a lance of pain that turns immediately into nausea. She pushes it down—she can’t allow herself to fall victim to any doubts or despair, not now, not when she’s so close to having Charles back in the same room with her.
Ritchie walks to the mirror lying on the floor, picking it up and carrying it back towards her. He props it up against the wall, then flourishes a hand through the air. A length of heavy iron chain with a collar attached to the end instantly appears in his hand with a puff of black smoke.
“Is that really necessary?” Crystal asks flatly, her stomach twisting. “I thought you weren’t scared of us?”
“I’m not—but I’m also not an idiot,” Ritchie says, winding the end of the chain around his hand. “You’re still desperately hoping to escape, but I’m done entertaining your silly little tricks and escapades.”
He gives her another cold smile as he reaches into the mirror with his other hand, dipping it into the reflective surface up to the shoulder with theatrical care. He winks at her, then pulls his arm back with similar dramatic flair, dragging Charles out of the mirror by the scruff of his coat and dumping him in a boneless heap onto the floor.
Crystal’s whole body goes taut as if jolted with an electric shock, hot then cold then hot again, tears springing to her eyes, half-afraid to believe what she’s seeing is real. “Charles…”
“Rise and shine, Chuck,” Ritchie says gleefully as he smashes the mirror with his chain-wrapped fist. “We have a special guest with us.”
Charles turns his head towards Crystal, his eyes swollen and red-rimmed. He blinks at her dubiously, his brow furrowing as he takes a shuddering breath and weakly pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Crystal?” He drags his gaze away from her, glaring at Richie. “What f*cking game is this, then?”
“Oh, it’s no game this time, Chuckie,” Ritchie says with malicious glee, squatting down and snapping the iron collar around Charles’ neck while Charles grimaces in pain, the sizzling sound of the contact between the metal and his skin making Crystal feel nauseated again. “That’s really her, in the flesh. She came all this way to rescue your cheating ass—unfortunately for you, she failed miserably. And now you get to watch me eat her.”
Charles looks back at Crystal, his expression turning to horror. “No…”
“It’s going to be okay,” Crystal promises him, her voice breaking.
“She’s a good little liar, isn’t she?” Ritchie says with dark glee. “If you knew the lengths she had gone through tonight to try to rescue you, it would really break your heart.”
“Don’t you f*cking touch her!” Charles snarls, lunging at him only to fall back with a pained noise as Ritchie yanks the chain.
“Oooh, the lad’s still got some fight in him, yet,” Ritchie chuckles, yanking the chain again and making Charles choke. “Your little BFF in the bow tie didn’t know when to quit, either—he was still kicking all the way back to Hell.”
Charles goes very still, the color draining from his face. “You’re lying again,” he says, his voice cracking.
Ritchie smiles widely. “Am I?” He squats down again, grabbing Charles’ chin and turning his face towards Crystal. “Then why don’t you ask Crystal for the truth? Go on—ask.”
Charles looks up at her with wide, wet eyes, his lips pressed into a hard, stubborn line.
Ritchie tsks, rolling his eyes. “You’re too much of a coward to face the truth…alright, I’ll ask her. Crystal—where is Edwin?” he asks huskily, his voice hungry and full of cruel delight.
Crystal can’t speak again, another ragged lance of pain striking through her chest as she looks into Charles’ glossy, frightened eyes, her stoic facade immediately crumpling when faced with both his pain and her own.
“Crystal,” Ritchie presses in a sing-song voice. “Tell Chuck where his stuffy little bitch is. He won’t ask but he is dying to know.”
A sob pushes its way up past the tight stricture in Crystal’s throat. “Charles—I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice breaking again. “I couldn’t stop it. I’m sorry.”
She watches in grief and horror as Charles’ eyes go completely empty and hollow as her words sink in. He jerks out of Ritchie’s grasp, shaking his head.
“No. No, no, no—this is another trick,” he mutters thickly. “You’re a liar—you’re making her lie to me, too. You’re f*cking with my head again, trying to make me think he’s gone. I’d know if he was really gone. I’d feel it. You can’t fake it. Not that.”
Ritchie clicks his tongue, pressing a hand to his chest. “Aw, that is just so goddamn romantic. Unfortunately, it’s also complete bullsh*t.”
He swipes a hand through the glowing pool of spectral blood still gleaming on the floorboards, then smears it across Charles’ face and hands. “That’s your bestie’s blood all over your hands, Chuck. The little c*nt brought a hellhound to wreck my party, and it turned around and bit him in the ass, and now he’s back in Hell where he belongs. I assume he’s currently being torn limb-from-f*cking-limb by some bloodthirsty demon down in the pits, the endless agony driving him completely insane.” He clicks his tongue again. “Too bad, but can’t say I’ll miss him. Of the three of you, that little sh*t was by far the most irritating and least rewarding—always ruining the vibes and refusing to be a good sport.”
Charles keeps shaking his head, his face twisted with grief and fury. “I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, you do,” Ritchie says, leaning closer to him and pulling in a deep breath, sucking away little wisps of spectral energy from Charles. Charles wilts, slumping back to the floor. Ritchie smacks his lips, smiling. “I can taste your despair.”
“Leave him alone,” Crystal says, breathing hard and fast, panic and grief tearing at her chest. “It’s me you really want. So let’s f*cking get it over with.”
Ritchie looks up at her, smiling. He stands up and wraps the end of the chain around one of the bed’s posts. “Well, how kind of you to offer yourself to me, Crystal. As delicious as your boyfriend’s despair is, I’m getting pretty sick of eating the same old sh*t.” His smile grows even wider. “I’m ready for a taste of real power.”
He steps towards her, ignoring Charles’ frantic pleading and desperate threats as he futilely tugs at the iron chain.
Crystal stands her ground, feeling her pulse jumping in her throat, a cold sweat slicking her entire body and sticking her dress to her back between her shoulder blades.
Ritchie stops right in front of her. He reaches a hand up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear with a tender, intimate gentleness that makes her skin crawl. He leans towards her, his cheek skimming hers.
“Are you scared, Crystal?” he murmurs. “I promise it will only hurt for a moment, and then we’ll be together forever.”
“I am scared,” Crystal admits, clenching her jaw and balling her hands into fists. “But I’m also really, really pissed. You hurt my friends, asshole.”
She presses her hands against his chest. “You want my power? Then have it—all of it.”
She shoves him again like she did at her grandmother’s house, pushing into his emptiness with everything she has—holding nothing back this time, feeling all her power flow up through the soles of her feet and burn through her veins and come pouring out of her hands and into his core like a raging river.
Ritchie staggers backwards, a look of ecstatic triumph on his false face as he drinks in her power. But it’s flowing out of her faster than he can swallow it, an ocean pouring into a paper cup.
A milky purplish glow starts to form around him as the torrential flood of psychic energy overwhelms his ability to absorb it and begins to collect in the air around them. It rapidly expands, pushing back the dim, damp coldness of the room and lifting the ceiling away to first reveal the dingy rusting warehouse beneath the glamor, and then that, too, peels away, exposing a canopy of foamy, milky starlight splashed above their heads.
Crystal can feel the energy in the air arcing along her skin, infused with that same aura of love and protection that she had felt in her grandmother’s house. She can see it moving over and under Ritchie’s corporeal shell, as well, splitting his skin like he’s outgrown his suit.
Crystal watches with a mix of satisfaction and horror as he crumples under the weight of her power; the look of triumph on his face falters, transforming into shock and panic, and then into fear and agony as the skin on his face splits and melts away, bubbling and dripping like hot wax, revealing the empty black void beneath.
“Stop—that’s enough,” he snaps at her, his words slurring as his lips blister and melt. She can feel him trying to pull away; she grabs onto him tighter, gritting her teeth as she holds the gates of the seemingly endless flood open.
“Enough!” Ritchie shrieks in a distorted voice, letting the remains of his physical form slough away as he scatters into a swarm of insects that flee in all directions, violently severing his and Crystal’s connection.
Crystal pulls back with a choked gasp, stumbling sideways and catching herself on the wall, her chest heaving as the purple glow hovering like a fog within the room slowly recedes, the dark surroundings of the glamor returning.
“Crystal…” Charles says hoarsely after a moment, his eyes wide with awe and worry. “What was that? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, pushing herself away from the wall and staggering over to him, her legs like jelly. She drops to her knees beside him and throws her arms around his shoulders, feeling all at once entirely overwhelmed by a swirling, chaotic mix of relief and joy and terror and guilt, allowing herself a few short, sharp sobs as he tightly hugs her back.
Charles gently pulls away after a moment, cupping her face in his hands, his dark eyes glossy as he looks at her. “Did you really come all this way to find me?”
Crystal gives him a teary smile. “Of course we did—did you think we’d just let that asshole keep you?”
Charles doesn’t return her smile. His lip trembles; he clenches his jaw. “He made me think a lot of things…I don’t know what’s true and what’s not…”
Crystal hugs him again, holding him as tightly as she can. “This is true…this is real…”
Charles hugs her back, taking shuddering gulps of air as he clings to her. “What just happened?” he mumbles against her shoulder, his face buried in her neck. “Is he gone, then?”
“No,” Crystal says, reluctantly pulling back from the embrace and wiping the tears from her face. “I’m sorry. He’ll be back—he always comes back. We need to get out of here fast. Let me try to get this f*cking thing off you.”
She reaches for the collar around his neck, wincing as he grimaces in pain again. She fumbles with the collar’s latch, but it’s locked tight. She lets go of it with a noise of panicky frustration. “sh*t. I’m sorry—we need to leave right now or we’re f*cked. Can you get up?”
Charles nods, his face very pale but his mouth set in firm, determined line.
Crystal grabs him under the arm, hauling him up to his feet. He staggers unsteadily, grimacing again as the iron collar moves around his neck, but he nods to her.
Crystal picks up the chain hanging from the collar so it won’t drag on the floor, carefully holding it away from him as she takes him by the arm. She guides him to the little door to the servants’ corridor behind the wall, urgently pushing him through it and then squeezing through herself.
“What is this place? Where are we?” Charles asks weakly, using the wall to hold himself up as they stumble down the narrow corridor together.
“It’s Edwin’s childhood home,” Crystal explains in a breathless rush, cold sweat dappling her forehead again. “I mean, a glamor I made to look like it. We were trying to trick Ritchie, but we didn’t know he could look through the f*cking mirrors and spy on us.”
Charles stops so suddenly Crystal almost runs into him. He turns to look at her, his eyes shining.
“Crystal…was he telling the truth about Edwin?” he asks quietly. “Is he really…”
Crystal looks away from him, unable to bear the pain in his eyes as she starts to cry again. “We just have to get out of here and I’ll tell you everything, okay?” she begs, her voice quivering. “Please, please—I’m scared, I just want to leave.”
Charles grabs her hand, squeezing it. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promises. “Just tell me which way to go, and I’ll get you out of here.”
Crystal feels another icy shot of fear. “I don’t—“
The whole house seems to suddenly, violently shudder. Crystal and Charles both stumble as the floor buckles under their feet, the floorboards pitching and folding, bashing them up against the walls. And then the floor disappears entirely, like a rug being ripped out from under them.
Crystal screams as she falls, losing her grip on Charles’ hand as she tumbles through air and darkness. She hits the ground hard, the impact knocking the wind out of her. She lies on the floor, struggling to breathe as she looks up through bleary eyes at the dark wood beams that now cross the ceiling overhead.
“You’re trying to run and hide again, Crystal,” a distorted voice says.
Crystal gasps, a surge of adrenaline jerking her out of her stunned stupor. She rolls over, scrambling up onto her feet. She’s in another hallway in some other part of the house, dimly lit by the weak, gray light filtering in through narrow window slats lining one of the walls.
Ritchie stands at the end of the hall. He hasn’t fully recovered from their last encounter—his human face looks half-melted, and his body is mangled and bent, shifting and twisting constantly like he’s struggling to hold its shape. But it’s the ax he’s carrying in his misshapen hands that Crystal’s wide eyes are drawn to.
“I’ll confess, Crystal…I may have bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to you,” he says with bitter amusem*nt. “So I’m not gonna eat you anymore, but you’re still not getting out of here alive.” He hefts the ax, the weak light shining on its sharpened edge. “Do you like horror movies? I do. I have a particular affinity for slasher flicks. Low brow? Yes, but there’s just something about them that I find so satisfying.”
He lurches towards her, his gait heavy and uneven. Crystal stumbles backwards, her breath caught in her lungs and her ears ringing.
“Crystal!”
She looks behind herself, her eyes wide and shining. Charles stands at the other end of the hallway, his hand held out to her.
“Come on!” he shouts at her.
Crystal turns and runs to him, reaching for his outstretched hand.
Her palm touches his; he seizes her hand in a firm grip, pulling her into another room. He slams the door to the hallway shut, letting her go to wedge a heavy wooden chair under the door’s handle. He turns back towards Crystal, breathing hard.
“Which way is out?” he asks.
“I don’t f*cking know,” Crystal says, clutching at her head and gasping for air. “Edwin and I didn’t really get past the defeat the evil vampire and rescue you part of the f*cking plan.”
She jumps and screams as the head of the ax suddenly chops into the door, sending a splinter of wood flying into the room.
Charles darts forward, grabbing her hand again and hauling her off across the room towards another door. “You said you had a plan—what’s the plan?” he asks in a rush as he hustles her into yet another room.
“What f*cking plan?” Crystal chokes out. “The plan is f*cked, the plan—“
She cuts herself off, her brow furrowing as her mind catches on the word.
Trust the plan. Have faith in your friends…
…look to yourself…
“Oh my god,” Crystal breathes, her heart jumping in her chest. She looks up at Charles, her eyes wide. “I need a mirror. We need to find a mirror.”
Charles nods, assenting to the request without question. “Right. Let’s go, then,” he says, pushing at her as the sound of the ax thudding against splintering wood fills their ears. “Go! I’m right behind you.”
Crystal runs, passing through a maze of hallways and rooms. Some of the rooms look vaguely familiar, but she can’t be sure if she and Edwin had traveled through them earlier or if she’s running in circles. She feels like a mouse trapped in an underground burrow, weaving endless loops around dead ends while a venomous snake patiently creeps ever closer.
The bitter taste of panic is clawing at the back of her throat when she and Charles stumble into what looks like a billiards room. The walls are decorated with more taxidermied animal heads and racks full of cues, but the thing that catches her eye is a full suit of medieval knight’s armor standing in the corner of the room. A large spade-shaped shield is stood up against the armor, its broad surface polished to a highly reflective shine.
Crystal takes a sharp breath, rushing over to it. She touches the gleaming metal, looking at the muddled reflection of her face in its silvery surface.
“Could you mirror jump through this?” she asks Charles, her already rapid pulse quickening further.
Charles comes up beside her, pursing his lips. “Maybe, but it would be proper tricky. Lots of room for mistakes.”
There’s a loud crash in the hallway leading to the billiards room. Crystal’s heart jumps again, fear souring her stomach.
“Well, it’s gonna have to f*cking work,” she mutters. She grabs the shield, grimacing as she hefts its weight into her arms before turning to face the doorway to the hall.
Charles grabs her arm. “Crystal, come on—we need to keep moving.”
Crystal shakes her head, her mouth dry. “No. I have to let him catch me. That’s part of the plan.”
“Who came up with that f*cking plan?” Charles asks sharply, gritting his teeth together as they both listen to the uneven stomp of approaching footsteps.
“Just trust me,” Crystal murmurs, gripping the shield with sweating hands.
Charles shoots her unhappy, anxious look, but he goes to a rack on the wall and pulls down one of the billiard cues hanging on it. He steps back by Crystal’s side, holding the cue tightly as they both watch the door.
“Okay. I’m ready,” Crystal whispers under her breath. “I really f*cking hope you’re ready, too…”
The shuffle and slump of uneven footsteps gets louder. A shadow moves in the hallway, creeping into the room and stretching its black stain across the floor towards her.
Crystal takes a deep breath. The fear doesn’t leave but she doesn’t let it consume her, either. She grips the shield, hoisting it up higher in front of herself.
Ritchie appears in the doorway. He leans his shoulder into its frame, his destroyed face twisting into an ugly, lopsided smile when he sees them.
“Oh, that’s cute,” he chuckles coldly as he limps into the room, dragging his ax behind him, the metal head making an awful scraping sound against the floorboards. “The young lovers have decided to make a final stand together. That’s beautiful, really. Chuck can have a front row seat to watch me paint this room with your blood.”
Charles steps forward, putting himself between Ritchie and Crystal. “Don’t come any closer.”
Ritchie chuckles again, hefting the ax onto his shoulder and ignoring the order as he continues to limp forward. “You ghost brats are very tenacious, I’ll give you that. But you brought a pool cue to an ax fight, champ.”
He lunges forward suddenly, swinging the ax in a vicious arc at Charles. Charles brings up the cue to catch it, but the ax’s blade slices through it like a hot knife through butter, its edge slicing Charles’ chest, too.
Charles stumbles back with a shout of pain, falling to one knee and pressing his hand to the cut.
Ritchie hisses in mock sympathy. “Ouch. That looks like it stings. Did you forget iron makes you solid? I’ve always been a little curious to see what happens if you dismember a ghost. But I’m a gentleman, so—ladies first…”
He turns his mangled face towards Crystal, smiling maliciously as he limps towards her.
“Crystal—run!” Charles pleads, tugging at the collar around his neck.
Crystal doesn’t move even though every fiber of her being is screaming at her to flee. She stays rooted in place, her boots planted on the floor and the shield clutched tightly in her hands, its gleaming surface pointed towards Ritchie as he staggers closer.
He chuckles again. “Sorry, Charles. Looks like Crystal has finally accepted that she can’t run from me anymore. I’d tell you that I’ll make her death quick and painless, but that would be a lie.”
He hefts the ax back above his shoulder, his eyes black and his cracked lips pulled back in a feral grin.
Crystal doesn’t move, her breath frozen in her lungs and her heart beat pounding in her ears. Her arms tremble under the weight of the shield, but she doesn’t lower it.
Trust the plan. Have faith in your friends.
“Crystal!” Charles shouts, his voice breaking as he staggers to his feet, the chain attached to the collar around his neck dragging on the ground behind him as he tries to reach her.
He won’t be fast enough—Ritchie starts to swing the ax, the light glinting off its razor sharp edge.
And then he freezes, the manic grin faltering and slipping from his face, replaced by an expression of shocked disbelief.
There’s a low, rumbling growl echoing from the hallway behind him. Crystal looks past his shoulder, her eyes widening as she watches the hellhound step into the doorframe, its tall, lanky body a deeper black against the shadows.
It growls again as it steps out of the hall and into the weak light of the room, its long narrow muzzle wet with blood and crimson foam dripping from its too many teeth as its black lips pull back in a snarl, eyes blazing like burning embers.
Ritchie turns towards it, holding the ax out in front of himself protectively, his shoulders heaving. “What the f*ck—I didn’t—you can’t—this isn’t—“
He whips around towards Crystal, his shattered face grotesquely contorted into an expression of pure wrath. He howls. “You!”
Crystal gives him a cold smile, then gasps as he howls again and swings the ax towards her face. She yanks the shield up instinctively, nearly losing her grip on it as it suddenly jumps and shudders in her hands, and Edwin comes bursting out of its silvery surface.
He throws himself at Ritchie, grabbing the handle of the ax and wrestling it out of his hands while Ritchie stumbles backwards in shock. The ax falls to the ground with a noisy clatter, and Ritchie spins away, trying to run.
Edwin dives after him, leaping up onto his back and looping a silver chain around his neck. He throws up his blackened hand, pursing his lips and letting out a piercing whistle.
In the doorway, the hellhound snarls and flattens its ragged ears to its bony skull, its red eyes blazing like infernal fire as its lean muscles bunch under its scaly black skin. Then it leaps, clearing the entire room in a single powerful bound.
Ritchie lets out a scream of furious horror as the hound slams into him and Edwin, a scream that abruptly cuts off as the snarling hound snaps its crocodilian jaws shut around his mutilated face with an awful, crackling crunch, and all three of them go falling back through the surface of the shield together.
The force of their combined impact knocks Crystal clean off her feet. She falls to the floor with the shield on top of her, struggling to keep her grip on it as it violently jerks and quakes in her hands, until suddenly the metal becomes unbearably hot to the touch.
She heaves the shield off herself, letting it fall with a heavy clank to the floor where it continues to vibrate and rattle, glowing white hot.
Crystal pushes herself up onto her hands and knees, watching with her mouth agape as the surface of the shield turns black and liquid, bubbling and spitting like boiling hot tar.
“Crystal!” Charles shouts at her, breaking her out of her shock. He’s pulling at the collar around his neck again, heedless of the burns it’s inflicting, his expression frantic and terrified. “Crystal—help me get this off. Please! Please—I can get him—I can still get him!”
Crystal sucks in a breath, scrambling over to him. She fumbles with the lock on the collar again, tears of panic springing to her eyes. “It’s locked! It’s locked, it’s locked…”
“Hairpin—do you have a hairpin?” Charles asks urgently, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and the boiling black shield, his face twisted with fear.
Crystal’s hands fly to her hair, her fingers clumsily digging through the half-undone bun still limply topping her head. She finds a pin, yanking it out and pressing it into his waiting hands, choking on her own rushed pulse.
He works the pin into the lock on the collar, his hands shaking badly. “Come on, come the f*ck on, god please, please, please!” he begs brokenly, twisting and digging with the pin.
Crystal doesn’t breathe until she hears the lock click. Charles yanks the iron collar off, throwing it to the floor as he leaps to his feet. He kicks off his loafers and strips out of his coat, and then leaps headfirst without hesitation into the bubbling black surface of the shield.
Crystal holds her breath again as she stares at the shield, a tinny ringing noise returning to her ears. The violent roiling boil tumbling the shield’s black surface slows to a kind of thick, rippling simmer, rotund bubbles occasionally swelling up from the depths to pop with a wet belch at the surface.
Crystal loses track of time in her panic—it could be a minute or an hour before she sees something else moving under the churning, oily black surface. The shield’s black face bows out, and then Charles’ head bursts through the thick surface tension, coated in a clinging black liquid that reeks of sulfur.
He sucks in a breath, lifting a dripping hand to wipe away the black muck in his eyes. He blinks at Crystal, spitting out more black ooze.
“Crystal—I’ve got him, help me,” he chokes out, sinking a little as he dips his hand back under the surface.
He pulls Edwin up above the surface, coated in the same black filth. Crystal grabs at him, gritting her teeth as she struggles to haul him out of the thick, clinging muck that sucks at him like quicksand. She pulls him backwards into her lap, cradling him close, her breath coming in heaving sobs.
Charles drags himself out after him, pulling his feet free right before the shield stops bubbling and hardens into a glossy black slab like a massive chunk of obsidian glass.
At the same moment, the spell maintaining the glamor starts to fail. Crystal hunches over Edwin as the house shudders around them again, the floorboards peeling and curling up before crumbling into a fine, powdery dust that swiftly dissipates into the air. The walls and ceiling follow, pulling up and away, until once again they’re surrounded by the rusting interior of the abandoned warehouse, and all that remains of the dark manor house is the blackened shield and Ritchie’s dropped ax.
Charles staggers to his feet, snatching the ax up and swinging it at the shield. The blade strikes the surface and cleaves a deep gash into it, with more spider-web cracks splintering off of it in jagged fragments.
Charles drops the ax to the floor with a clatter and a cloud of dust, stumbling back to fall to his knees beside Crystal where she sits and hovers over Edwin’s limp figure, crying.
“Edwin,” Charles says breathlessly, wiping at the black ooze coating Edwin’s face, clearing his eyes and mouth. “Edwin—open your eyes, mate. It’s done. It’s over, Ritchie’s gone for good, you guys did it, you were both brills. Come on—open your eyes and look at me, and everything will be alright.”
Edwin grimaces, coughing up a bubble of black slime. He gags on it and spits, then slowly opens his eyes just a fraction, squinting up at them.
“Charles…” he mumbles, blinking slowly, his lashes clumped together with clinging muck. “Is it really you this time?”
Charles lets out a little sob, pulling him up and wrapping him in a crushing embrace.
“Don’t you ever, ever, ever run away from me again, do you hear?” Charles says fiercely, his voice breaking on another furious sob. “If I’m acting like a twat and treating you badly, then you just pop off and punch me in the gob like you done that Hugh prat, and we’ll call it a f*cking night. But don’t you dare run away from me.”
“Oh, it is you,” Edwin sighs with bone-deep relief, closing his eyes again and sinking limply into the embrace. “I’m afraid I lost your bag. Sorry.”
“I really don’t f*cking care, mate,” Charles says tearfully, pressing his cheek into the top of Edwin’s head. “It doesn’t f*cking matter.”
Edwin pulls away a little, lifting his head and frowning at Charles as he searches his filthy face. “Charles…you look a terrible mess…are you alright?”
Charles grabs Edwin’s face in his hands, his expression contorted with a mixture of relief and anger and agonized grief. “Am I alright? That vampire twat told me you’d been dragged back to Hell by a f*cking hellhound…your blood was all over the floor…you were almost dragged to Hell…”
“Yes, that was all part of our plan,” Edwin says, his brows knit together. “Didn’t Crystal tell you?”
“Yeah, uh—things got a little intense while we were separated,” Crystal interjects tersely. “I didn’t really have time to fill Charles in on the minutiae. And I honestly wasn’t sure if the plan was still in play until literally the second you jumped out of that shield—you made the whole pretend to be dragged to Hell so Ritchie would think I was alone thing a little too convincing. How the f*ck did you get away from that demon dog, anyway?”
Edwin weakly raises an arm, showing them the silver chain still clutched in his hand. “Enchanted silver. Works to deter hellhounds, too. I really ought to write to that silversmith in Cordoba and commend them on their quality product.”
“Was that really the f*cking plan, mate?” Charles says brokenly. “Are you completely f*cking mental?”
Edwin gives him a tremulous smile, his eyes shining. “The poets say that love is a form of madness. If that’s true, then yes, I suppose I am quite mad,” he says thickly, his voice quivering. “You came all the way through Hell for me—do you think I wouldn’t gladly do the same for you?”
Charles’ face fractures again. He pulls Edwin closer, pressing their foreheads together.
“Ritchie…he told me all kinds of horrible things…he showed them to me…he told me…he told me I hurt you…” he chokes out, tears running down his cheeks. “I did hurt you…”
Edwin pulls back and grabs Charles’ hands, shaking his head. “You didn’t. You didn’t. You never could. Ritchie’s a liar and a manipulator—everything he told you was a lie, nothing he showed you was real. He was just trying to hurt you. I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. I’m sorry…he did those things to you,” he says, his voice breaking. His lip quivers, tears leaving tracks in the black filth coating his face. “Charles…I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run from you.”
Charles takes a shuddering breath, blinking away his own tears. He gives Edwin a weak smile, pulling a hand free to swipe at the dirty tears on Edwin’s cheeks. “Hey, none of that. I won’t be having it. None of it’s your fault, mate. None of it. That…thing that happened…I f*cked up. I didn’t mean…” he stops, pressing his lips together and ducking his head. He clears his throat, looking up once more. “It was a rough night for all of us, but it’s over, yeah? Our perp’s getting his just desserts. Our clients’ unfinished business is finished. Case closed.”
He lifts his head, looking over at Crystal with another tight smile. “And you two managed to work together without me playing mediator, and you didn’t kill each other. Well done. Aces job all around.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t always easy,” Crystal says, not quite mustering up the strength to manage a full smile herself. Her relief in being reunited with both her friends and finished with Ritchie feels undercut by an exhaustion that she can feel all the way down in her marrow—maybe in her very soul. She drags her hands down her face, her cheeks wet with her own tears. “Can we go home now and deal with all this tomorrow? I am f*cking done.”
Charles blows out a breath. “Now that’s a mint idea,” he agrees heavily. “I think we’re all done for a bit, right, Edwin?”
Edwin nods silently, his eyes distant and his mouth pressed into a thin, pained line.
Charles stands up, collecting his shoes and coat. He stuffs his soaking feet into the loafers and drapes the coat over Edwin’s shoulders before pulling him up to stand. He reaches to help Crystal to her feet, as well, frowning at her. “Now…how exactly do we get home?”
Crystal feels her stomach sink. “Uh…that’s a good question…”
The Night Nurse had given them three hours before she would close the tunnel back to the London office. Crystal has no idea how much time they’ve spent in Miami, but she’s fairly sure they’ve blown past that deadline, given the pinkish light that’s starting to filter through the thick dust coating the warehouse’s windows.
“Come on,” she says, looping her arms through theirs. “Let’s get out of here first, and then we can figure that out.”
They stagger off together in search of an exit, all helping to hold each other up, Crystal’s steps echoing in the cavernous space and kicking up clouds of dust. She’s started to feel a little anxious again —she can’t hear any of the typical noises of civilization outside the rusting walls of the warehouse, no traffic or voices. She wonders how far outside the city center she’s stranded.
“Do you see that?” Charles says suddenly, squinting into the dusty gloom. He points. “There’s a light over there, like someone’s shining a torch.”
Crystal sees it, too, now—a bright light cutting through the dimness like a beacon. They limp cautiously towards it, the glow getting brighter the closer they come to it.
Soon they see that it’s shining from a door seemingly cut randomly into the wall, and standing in the doorway, a lantern held up in her hand—
“Is that the bloody Night Nurse?” Charles mutters, frowning in disbelief.
“It is,” Crystal says, feeling a rush of relief flow warm and soft through her aching, exhausted body.
The Nurse’s face lights up as bright as her lantern when she spies them approaching. She lifts her free hand, waving it. “Here, children! Quickly, now! Trot along!”
They stagger up to her. She beams at them. “Ah! You made it.” She sets the lantern aside and opens her arms like she’s intending to embrace them before seeing how sodden and filthy Charles and Edwin are and thinking better of it. She clasps her hands in front of herself and smiles at them instead.
“Charles. I am glad to see you returned in one piece,” she says with a stiff formality. “I was…worried about you.”
Charles blinks at her. “About me? You were?”
“Of course. All three of you—you are my responsibility, after all,” the Nurse says, her brows knit together as she studies their tired, dirty faces. She takes a breath. “Well, you’re back now, anyway. Did you close the case?”
“We found our clients’ murderer, and he has been detained in Hell,” Edwin replies. “The nightclub serial killings will cease henceforth.”
“Case closed, in other words,” Charles adds.
“Yes, case closed,” Edwin agrees, his expression unreadable beneath the layer of black grime coating his face.
The Night Nurse smiles again. “Excellent. Well done, boys.” She turns to Crystal, her smile thinning just a little. “And girl.”
“I thought you were going to close this tunnel after three hours,” Crystal says, tilting her head. “Won’t your superiors get mad?”
The Night Nurse draws herself up, her lips pursed. “Perhaps. But as your chaperone and—“ she pauses, taking another pained breath before forging ahead— “an employee of this esteemed detective agency, it is my duty to ensure that you all return home safely.”
She picks up her lantern, stepping briskly into the tunnel. “So come along, then. Back to London with you all. Let’s get you clean and rested, and then we shall see about closing out our casefile. The paperwork shall be tremendous, and don’t think because you handled the rough and tumble of the situation you are excused from clerical work. I expect all of you to assist me in completing it.”
They stumble after her, following the warm glow of her lantern.
Charles leans down as they limp along, his wary eyes locked on the Nurse’s back. “Crystal, are you sure we’re not still trapped in some kind of mindf*ck?” he mutters. “Why’s she acting…like that?”
“Edwin dragged her ass to hell and back while you were gone,” Crystal says with a satisfied smile, the memory like a shot of sunshine and espresso to her exhausted body. “Completely, brutally reamed her out for being a witch and a bully. Utterly bulldozed her. I think her entire existence flashed before her eyes. It was incredible.”
Charles straightens up and looks over her head at Edwin, his eyebrows raised. “You did? God, I would have done anything to have seen that.”
Edwin gives him a small, tired smile. “I did,” he says, turning the smile on Crystal, his face softening. “But I couldn’t have done it without Crystal. It’s funny how the things that frighten us appear so much smaller with a brave, kind friend by your side.”
Crystal smiles back at him, ducking her head.
“Yeah,” she agrees, looping her arms through theirs again and pulling them both closer as they follow the warm glow of the lantern home.
