9. Chapter 9
Victor Crane
The singed spirit cowers, but before I can move to take a step, the air grows heavy and thick with a cold and icy fog.
“It’s okay. I can keep going,” she says bravely just as the graveyard atmosphere grows even more ominous.
The lesser ghosts scatter and they all dissolve, fading out of focus as they once again become like shadows and disappear as a bright, sickly green light erupts from the huge mausoleum at the back of the cemetery.
The glowing green fissure stretches open, and a sinister figure rises.
Her spectral form is twisted and hunched, much like she was late in life, with a tattered robe floating around her like a shroud of cobweb.
Her face is a cruel mask of withered skin and sharp angles, but her eyes glow the deep emerald green of her magic, much like the fireballs she’s formed in her waiting palms.
The old crone. The very hag who tore my life from me, cursed my soul to this gourd, and turned my steed to a fire breathing demon horse.
Behind me, Catherine's grip tightens as she seems to unknowingly twists the edge of my shirt in her hands and stares up at the witch. Her frame trembles violently, sending the hard rind of her pumpkin mask thudding against my bicep as she leans toward me to hide herself. The witch’s emerald glare slides away from me and zeroes in on Catherine.
A hollow, raspy cackle peels back from her grotesque lips, the sound echoing through the quiet cemetery, startling a murder of crows into flight from the trees in the distance.
“Well, well, well,” the witch sneers as she points one long and bony finger at me. “Did you find yourself a mate, little pumpkin-sprout boy? Or is that some pathetic creature attempting to hide in my garden like a big rat?”
Gripping Catherine’s hand in mine, I weave our fingers together. She's my anchor and in this rotting keep of the dead, her heartbeat is the only thing keeping me tied in place and able to remain upright.
I glare up at the witch. I’ll not beg her for what belongs to me.
“I'm here for what’s mine, Katarina. Now step aside," I snarl, and slowly unfurl my magic around us.
Without a weapon to draw, I rely on the magic bound to my form and take a step forward. Planting my boots firmly into the frozen ground, I pull Catherine flush against me, using my body as a shield for what I do next.
The fire inside my skull responds to my rage, spewing with a violent, white-hot sheet of flame that surges from my rind and cuts through the green haze of the witch’s magic.
The witch’s emerald eyes narrow and the green flames in her hands morph.
They pulse and widen to the size of large dinner plates as she moves to hover over her crypt.
“A bold declaration for a man with a rotting vegetable for a head. Let’s see how long that flame of yours burns after I rip your little anchor away! ”
The witch lets out an ear piercing shriek, her twisted form blurs and expands. Her greenish presence stretches wide across the cemetery and warps.
“What the heck is that?” Catherine asks.
“She’s not like the ghosts anymore. She’s a poltergeist,” I murmur, disgusted that this foul thing managed to curse my beloved horse and keep me grounded, quite literally, for two centuries now.
The ground beneath us heaves with her anger.
“You chose the wrong sister so long ago, horseman, and if I can't have your heart, I'll crush your bodies and keep them here forever,” she cackles, hoisting her hands high into the air.
The heavy old granite tombstones rip free from the ground, tearing up grass and dirt as they rise into the air.
Iron bars snap from the old cemetery gate like rotted branches from trees and drift above before swirling into a deadly orbit of grave debris that churns around her in a violent maelstrom.
One flick of her wrist sends a massive, jagged headstone hurtling straight for us.
“We’re going to have to run for it. Move!” I roar over the howling, deadly wind.
Thankfully, she moves with me and her pumpkin headed mask ducks low against my chest as we both launch into a sprint. “Which way?” she screams, her muffled voice lined with desperation.
The world turns into chaos as we run for it, beating feet through the witch's gauntlet, ducking and weaving through the rows of tombstones.
Heavy chunks of stone graze my shoulder and send me stumbling before I right myself.
I refuse to slow and keep my left arm locked securely around Catherine's waist, even as my green vines weave around her upper arms, keeping her cradled to me as we run.
I unleash magic of my own and pull it into my palms, elated when fireballs appear.
All those years stuck in the ground, studying how to manipulate the magic around my curse, seem to have come in handy.
The crackling fire makes quick work of the incoming gravestones as it blasts them into harmless showers of sparks before causing us harm. She runs hard beside me, matching my frantic pace, her pumpkin head bobbing so hard I wonder if she knows where she's going at all.
In the distance, at the back end of the cemetery, stands our refuge and target, the grand, decaying structure that houses the old witch’s corpse. If the poltergeist is tied to this plane, her corpse is what we need to destroy to break her hold on it.
As we sprint closer, the coming wave of fire illuminates the stone nameplate above the heavy old iron doors, and etched deeply into the stone in large, Gothic letters is the family name Van Tassel.
Through the thick skin of her disguise, I hear her let out sharp, choked gasp, and she stumbles, her right foot hitting a tree root and nearly throwing off our stride.
“Ouch!” she cries out, her voice full of panic in her gourd.
The poltergeist realizes our intent a moment too late and lets out a screech of pure panic as she hurtles a granite obelisk directly toward the mausoleum doors to block our path.
“Jump!” I command, grabbing at Catherine midair with my vines, lifting her off the ground as we throw ourselves forward and lunge over the stone barrier in a desperate bid to reach the witch's coffin before she stops us altogether.
We crash against the stone doorway, scramble to our feet and shove against the iron doors, finding resistance.
I force a jet of fire once again from my rind and melt the old padlock away, causing my inner flame to sputter and cough, emerging only as a weak, bedraggled spark.
The fire inside my pumpkin skull dims and drops to a quiet ember as the closer we get to my human skull inside, the more the curse’s magic will fail.
“I'm losing my flame,” I tell her, my voice low and cracking as the warm glow fades.
She reaches up and wrenches the carved pumpkin from her shoulders and it falls from her grip with a solid thunk to the stone floor.
“Oh my God, what do we do?” she asks, her gaze wide and full of alarm for me.
Her hands instantly clasp my gloved hands and the moment our fingers intertwine, my cursed flame surges.
I manage to shove the doors open and send us both into the musty darkness before turning to slam them shut behind us.
Outside, the witch's shrieks reach inside as debris rains against the mausoleum wall like a barrage of mortar, but inside the air is deathly still.
A breathless silence descends on the tomb as I stand, my pumpkin flame casts a faint, struggling glow across the narrow chamber. In the center of the small room sits a stone sarcophagus that matches the name outside.
Catherine stares at it, her dark hair a tangled mess over her shoulders, her face completely drained of color. She presses a hand to her chest the other to her mouth, and stares with wide, horrified eyes.
“I’m a Van Tassel. That’s my last name,” she utters, her tone trembling but resolute. “The witch who cursed you is my ancestor?”
I look between the name carved in stone and her, and slowly rubbing the back of my neck, feeling incredibly sheepish under her wide-eyed stare.
“Well,” I say, a smoky sigh coming through my carved nose holes. “Of course. I mean, of course you are.”
The corner of my jagged mouth twitches as her lip curls in confusion.
“I suppose it makes perfect sense. Only a Van Tassel would be able to get through her curse. You are the loophole. Not to mention, only a Van Tassel would run around all night with a rotting vegetable on her head to blend in with the dead.”
“What?” she bites out.
“A bit of madness must run through the family. Not the witchcraft, though. Hopefully.”
Outside the heavy stone walls, the witch’s efforts intensify tenfold, a reminder that Catherine’s ancestor is still very much trying to kill us.