As Heath was being helped to his feet, I was slammed hard from behind and sent tumbling headfirst into the banister, cracking my head hard on the wood. For a few seconds I lost my wits, and just as I was attempting to stand, I felt another blow from behind, which once again sent me headfirst into the banister.
Stars danced behind my lids and I rolled to the ground and tried to cover my head. “You bitch!” I shouted when I managed to open one eye and saw the Widow there flashing me her sick smile.
Behind her I could see the inspector, John, and Heath all struggling to fend off the demon, who kept going for Michel—himself dazed and moaning on the floor. Heath managed to get between the demon and Michel and every time Heath would strike at the big black blob with the racket, the demon would spin and whirl away, but come charging right back again.
Behind Heath, Lumley and John used their hands to prop Heath up so that the blows wouldn’t knock him off his feet again, but I was separated from them with no chance of giving or getting help.
The Widow glanced over her shoulder at the scene, and turned back to me to laugh wickedly. In a flash, however, her laugh vanished and she hissed in my direction. I got to my feet and reached down to my tool belt for a spike in one of the canisters I was carrying, but my fingers were too slow and the Widow came at me again.
She slammed into me hard, but this time my back took the blow from the banister and I managed to keep on my feet. Realizing that she had the advantage, I allowed my eyes to rove over to the door—the same one I’d run out of when last she had me cornered here. The door was slightly ajar and I pretended to start for it. The Widow moved quickly to intercept me and that’s when I cut back and dashed up the stairs, turning just in time to find her hurtling toward me. She hissed again and came at me with hands outstretched for my throat. I got a spike up in the nick of time and she screamed from the impact.
I darted up a few more steps as she spun away. I needed the advantage of high ground. What I forgot was that the Widow could levitate. When she recovered, she rose up a few feet, nearly level with me and tried to strike at me again. I slashed out at her with my spike and she pulled back.
I made it up another stair and again fended off her advances. The third time she came at me, however, she feinted to the right before striking me from the left. I fell against the stairs, barely holding on to my spike.
I kept my entire focus on the Widow, but I could hear shouting all around me. I heard it from the boys down the stairs, and from Gilley in my ear. It was hard to ignore, but I was determined to keep my wits and when the Widow came at me a fourth, fifth, and sixth time, I managed to get in a few good jabs with my spike.
By now she was tiring, and she was holding her hands out to the sides, as if they physically hurt her, and I had no doubt they did. She kept striking at my torso, which was covered in magnets from the vest, and it had to be wearing on her.
Her attacks then came a little further apart, and she no longer levitated. Instead, she stalked me on the stairs, darting up two or three steps at a time, then tumbling down again as I fought her off.
It was obvious she was losing energy, and when she appeared to have weakened enough, it was I who went on the attack. I chased her down three steps and struck with my spike. She shrieked and darted to the side of the wide stairs, and somehow she managed to get up the steps above me.
Two minutes earlier this would have greatly concerned me, but I knew that I had her on the ropes now, and I went after her with a vengeance.
I darted up the stairs, my spike straight out in front of me, and hit at her again and again. In my ear I heard Gil cry, “It’s weakening!” and knew that Heath and the others must be winning the battle against the demon.
I also knew that by draining the Widow, I would be draining the demon too, so I increased the speed and ferocity of my attacks on her, driving her up the stairs. At last, as she reached the landing, she hissed one final time and whirled around to run down the hallway. I gave chase, but as I crested the landing, the Widow suddenly vanished.
I was panting hard by now, and it took me a few seconds to catch my breath. Before I was really ready, I forced myself to move forward at a trot. I figured she’d go for her portal, which I hoped I could find in the maze of hallways and corridors. Behind me I heard Heath yell at me to wait, but I wanted to close in on the Widow and drive her into her portal in as weak a condition as possible. “What’s happening?” I heard Gilley shout. “M. J.? Are you there?”
“I’m. . . here. . . Gil,” I panted. “Closing in. . . on. . . the Widow.”
“Wait for Heath!” Gilley yelled.
“No,” I said. I wasn’t waiting for anyone. If I lost the Widow in one of these rooms or hallways, then we’d never free her prisoners, because I certainly wasn’t coming back for round two of this.
I saw movement at the end of the hallway, and I had a feeling it was the Widow. Pouring on the speed, I dashed down the hallway and turned left, only to come to a stop when I saw a woman huddled in the middle of the hallway, weeping uncontrollably. I realized that she was the same woman I’d seen the first night we’d stayed at the castle, and I also realized that she was once again directly opposite my old room.
I began to run again, but I was very quiet in my approach and she didn’t even realize I was there until I stood right behind her. “Catherine,” I said, and she started and looked up at me with a mixture of bewilderment and fear. “It’s time for you to go home.” I then lifted my chin and yelled out, “Sam Whitefeather! I need help! Show Lady Catherine Mortimer the light! Help her!”
I looked down again at the poor battered sister of the Widow, and she was staring at me with a mixture of fear, horror, and bewilderment. And then all that changed and she gasped, eyeing something I couldn’t see right above her.
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s your ticket home, sweetie.”
There was a sudden shriek at the end of the hallway and I looked up to see the Widow reaching out with one hand toward her sister, who graced her with a sad look before winking out of ghostly existence as the light took her and carried her home.
In that instant both the Widow and I understood that the sisters would never see each other again, because over the centuries of haunting the castle, the Widow’s soul had turned as black as coal, and the doors of heaven are closed against such vileness, especially when that vileness courts the likes of a demon in exchange for power.
As if to prove me right, the Widow smiled wickedly and next to her a chain appeared. She gave a tug on it and poor Merrick Brown appeared. He was shaking in fear and when he saw me, he cried out pitifully, “Help me!”
The Widow yanked hard on the chain and Merrick was pulled roughly to the side.
“Merrick!” I shouted, but the Widow was once again in motion, and she was pulling the young man with her.
I raced down the hallway after them, but they were several yards in front of me. Just as I was closing in on the Widow, Merrick, and the secret passageway, I was struck from behind again, but this time the blow wasn’t nearly as bad as anything I’d sustained earlier. When I looked around, I could see small bits of black shadow—maybe a dozen or so—moving along the walls and the floor, dispersing toward the hidden passageway. A moment later they’d faded into the wall next to the sconce along with all signs of the Widow and Merrick.
I stopped at the sconce, panting hard and attempting to catch my breath. At the end of the hallway while I was taking in lungfuls of air, Heath and Lumley appeared.
“Em!” Heath shouted.
“I’m fine!” I called back.
The two raced to me and Heath wrapped me in his arms. “Don’t you ever take off on me again like that!”
I pushed at him a little. “No time for that right now, sweetie. We’ve got the Widow to deal with.” And then I looked around for Michel
and John. “Where are the other two?”
“John’s helping Michel back to the safe zone,” Heath replied.
“And I’ve got this gadget,” Lumley said, holding up the Super Spooker.
“I think the Widow and her demon are in the portal,” I said. “It’s now or never, guys.”
Heath handed me his spikes and took up Gilley’s gadget. He aimed the speaker right at the place on the wall that I pointed to and I moved to the sconce. Before I pulled it, I handed Lumley the list of the eleven victims drowned in the moat, including his brother, Merrick, and Lefebvre, and said, “The minute I open this door, Inspector, we’re going to move down a set of stairs while you call out to every name on that list. Command them to come to you. Tell them they must come if they want to be free.”
“Understood,” he said.
I then opened up my messenger bag and pulled out two dozen spikes, and laid them on the floor well to the side of the passageway door. I then got back into position and gripped the sconce. “On the count of three,” I whispered, looking at Heath to make sure he was ready. Once he nodded, I said, “One. . . two. . . three!”
I pulled hard on the sconce and the passageway door opened. Lumley’s flashlight flicked on and we headed into the stairwell, which was dank and smelling horribly of sulfur and mold. I went first and Heath came up right behind me with Lumley at the rear. “Now, Inspector!” I shouted.
He began calling out the names on the list, demanding that they all come to him, and as we made our way down the stairs, I could hear Heath fiddling with Gilley’s gadget. The atmosphere of the stairwell altered, and I could feel the electromagnetic energy ratchet up several notches. The first to appear was a balding man in a long overcoat, looking terribly confused and scared. There was a collar around his neck and a length of chain, but the Widow wasn’t with him and he seemed to be moving of his own free will. “Get out of the stairwell!” I shouted at him. The minute I yelled at him, he took off running up the steps. Then, another man appeared, and another and another, and at each of them I shouted instructions to go up into the hallway above.
They all complied. I counted the number of prisoners, eight so far, and no sign of Oliver Lumley, Merrick, or André Lefebvre, even though Lumley had called out their names. The minute we turned a corner on our way down, I came up short. A skeleton in amazingly good shape lay on the stairs, a silver knife still clutched in the hand. We all paused to look at it and immediately I felt the presence of the duke enter my mind. For a moment he took over all my thoughts and showed me the image of himself in his final moments, brokenhearted at the loss of his son, stumbling onto the secret passageway, intending to kill his wife. But here he’d paused to consider that every ill thing that had befallen him had been the result not of her, but of his own evil deeds. Had he not beaten his first wife and killed her, none of the rest of the terrible events that had happened to his friends and loved ones would have come about, and knowing that all of it was a result of his own actions was his undoing. Depressed and forlorn, he’d pulled out his dagger and slit his wrists, and he’d died here by his own hand, as much to send a message to his wife that she’d finally beaten him as to also show her he took responsibility for his own role in the death of her sister.
I felt a hand on my shoulder then and Heath said, “Em?”
I shook my head to clear it. “Let’s keep going,” I said, stepping carefully around the duke. In my mind I called out to him to come help us, but I didn’t feel him move with us. His spirit seemed to hang back, still angry. Still heartbroken. Still lost.
When at last we got to the bottom of the stairwell, I knew why we’d seen no sign of Merrick, André, or Oliver Lumley.
At the base of the stairs was an enclave carved into the stone wall, and it was oozing with ectoplasm. It was near the steel door on the other side of which was the hidden cavern where we’d found Clarence Lumley’s remains. Within this enclave was a pulsing orb of energy, which was blacker than the surrounding stone, and from the depths of it I could hear cries for help. I knew that the Widow would hold tight to the people most important to us, and she wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
“There’s her portal!” I shouted, reaching inside my bag for another spike and a hammer.
Heath pointed the Super Spooker directly at the pulsing black orb and I held up my spike and the hammer, getting ready to pound a spike into the wall. Turning to Lumley, I yelled, “Call your brother!”
The inspector did over and over, but he didn’t appear. I knew we were close to the point of giving the Widow enough energy to reappear and attack us again, and was just about to give up and drive the spike home when Ollie’s face appeared directly within the portal window. “Help me!” he begged.
“Come out!” Heath and I shouted together.
“Ollie!” the inspector cried. “Ollie! Come out of there! Just climb through!”
Ollie attempted to climb out of the portal, but the chain around his neck was taut, and he couldn’t seem to move forward.
I had no idea what to do and looked around for something, anything, to use to help him break free. If I stuck a magnet in the hole, he’d be stuck there forever, and if I moved forward without my vest on and tried to pull him out, I risked getting my ass kicked by the Widow.
Just as I was looking around wondering what I could use, a shape appeared from the steel door. A very handsome man who very much resembled the inspector and Ollie came forward and held his hand out to his deceased son. “Come on, lad,” he said. “Daddy will help you.”
Ollie took his father’s hand and together the two managed to get Ollie out of the portal, although the chain around Ollie’s neck never relaxed. And then Merrick appeared and André right behind too. Clarence helped them out of the hole as well, but try as they all might, they couldn’t break free of the chain about their necks. It kept yanking them backward and to our horror, one by one they were pulled back into the portal.
“No!” I cried. “Ollie! André! Merrick! You only believe you’re chained! You’re not! I promise you! You can break free!”
But it was no use, and Clarence refused to let go of his son’s hand and was in danger of being pulled into the portal too. I looked desperately at Heath, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing; if we jammed our spikes into the portal, we’d lock all three of them in, and possibly cause terrible injury to the spirit of Clarence.
“Help them!” the inspector cried, beside himself with grief.
And just when I thought all hope was lost, I felt myself roughly pushed to the side and in front of me stepped the duke!
He looked exactly the same as he had when I’d seen him outside on the thin strip of land, but there was even more anger and determination to the set of his jaw. Without pause he shoved Clarence aside, breaking the hold he’d had with his son, and climbed into the portal. For a moment all we could do was stare, but then quite suddenly out of the hole flew Merrick, then André, and at last Oliver. All three were free of their chains and they all scrambled quickly away from the portal. In another instant the Widow appeared and I’d never seen such vile anger in a face! She spat and she swore and she attempted to lunge at us, but a firm hand grabbed her by the back of the neck, placed a collar and chain on her exactly like she’d placed on her prisoners and yanked her firmly backward. The duke then appeared to us again and nodded to the spikes in my hand, his face clearly pleading with me to use them.
I hesitated; I didn’t want to lock him in with the Widow, but then a large, black, clawlike hand latched onto his shoulder, and as he struggled against the demon’s grip he barked angrily at me and again motioned to the spikes. I took a step back, shocked and terribly afraid for him. Heath was in motion before I could fully collect myself. Grabbing hold of my spike and hammer, he lunged forward and drove the spike into the center of the alcove, pounding on the spike so hard th
at he cracked the stone. I pulled out several more spikes and handed them to him one by one and he continued to pound away long after the portal had vanished.
Meanwhile I happened to glance behind me to see the inspector standing in awe as his father and his brother both embraced, then turned to wave sweetly at him before looking up at something that couldn’t be seen with the eyes of the living. A moment later Merrick and André were also off on their journey home. The scene was so amazing that it made me cry.
“I forgot to turn the gadget off,” Heath said, panting as he came up next to me. I looked to where he was pointing at the Super Spooker on the ground. It was keeping the electromagnetic energy of the area strong enough for Lumley to witness his brother and father crossing over.
“Everyone down here got across,” I said.
Heath’s eyes drifted to the alcove. “Except for the duke.”
I felt a pang for the man who’d sacrificed his own soul for the sake of others. And I hoped that somehow, someway, even though he was now locked in a lower realm, there’d be a path for him to the other side too.
“Come on,” I said to Heath. “Let’s make sure the others find their way to the light too.”
* * *
About an hour later we all gathered once again in the dining hall. Meg and Kim fussed over us like two triage nurses, finding blankets to wrap us in, tea to warm our bones, and some day-old scones to munch on. While Gilley alternated between setting up the film we’d shot for Gopher and making sure Michel was okay after his clash with the demon, Inspector Lumley gave us a little more insight into what his investigation had uncovered.
“You were right, you know,” he told me. “A few of the widows of the men found drowned in the lake are stepping forward one by one to confess their sins. Lady Lydia has been blackmailing them for years. We estimate she’s extorted several million pounds, in fact.”
Heath reached under the table and squeezed my hand. When I looked at him he was eyeing me with pride. I smiled and blushed. Much of my hypothesis about the murders had been just that—a theory—but it sure felt good to be proven right.