Chapter 56
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Oscar emerged into lashing rain, ferocious wind, and a crash of thunder so loud he felt it in his bones. He was hanging onto an iron ladder, connected to a steel deck and gallery, on the highest point in miles…
He could only hope the lightning didn’t kill all of them before the spirits had a chance.
The windows of the lantern room were broken outward, like those in the seance room below. Somehow, the lantern itself remained intact, its carmine radiance bathing the scene before him.
Ullman raged, a black cloud of fury with a twisted face at the center that seemed barely human now. He was feeding on the energy unleashed by the storm, growing stronger by the moment, spreading like a corrosive fog.
Gloria stood between him and the lantern—a small girl in appearance, her golden hair whipping in the wind, her little face turned up in defiance. Even as Oscar watched, Ullman slashed at her with dark claws that seemed to come from nowhere. She staggered—he’d hurt her somehow—but she didn’t fall.
And past both of them, slumped amidst the broken glass scattered across the steel gallery outside, was Ms. Montague.
Her skin had gone deathly white, hair and suit soaked through by the rain, cane gone. If her eyes hadn’t been fixed in terror on Ullman’s dark shape, Oscar would have wondered if she was still alive.
Ullman leered at Gloria. His features were bestial in Oscar’s sight: ears sharp, jaws like a muzzle, nose flared as if to catch the scent of his prey.
“I’m going to eat you, little girl,” he growled, and his mouth grew, grew, grew until it was a great gaping maw lined with a forest of broken teeth.
“I’ll gobble you all up, and when I’m done, the rest will follow. ”
Not if Oscar had anything to say about it.
He lunged up through the trapdoor into the lantern room. Heaving his container of salt back like it was a football pass, he threw it directly into Ullman’s grinning mouth.
Ullman’s scream shook the tower. Something sheered with the screech of metal, and one side of the gallery surrounding the room suddenly tilted down.
The side with Montague on it. Her eyes wide, she grabbed onto the railing before she could slide right off the edge.
Gloria took the opening and rushed Ullman, ripping at the clouds of black fog, which fell apart into nothingness when she touched them. For a moment, Oscar’s heart leapt—
Then the black fog wrapped around her wrists in tendrils. She tried to break free, but it jerked her closer instead. “Yes,” Ullman hissed, “come here, sweet thing. I’ll feast on all the energy I poured into you so long ago, as soon as I’m done with these busybodies.”
Ullman turned his gaze on Oscar. His eyes were black pits, but at the very bottom red flames glowed, as though they were gateways directly into hell itself.
“You interfering coward,” Ullman snarled, and his words boomed directly into Oscar’s ears. “I’ll show you what happens when you cross me.”
Oscar didn’t have time to react before a wall of force hurled him back. He bounced off the metal base supporting the lantern, and one hand hit the red glass. It was shockingly warm under his fingers, and a sense of desperation washed over him, separate from his own frantic thoughts.
“Oscar!” Nigel knelt by him. “Shit, you’re bleeding. Let me—”
They needed help. And he knew only one other person who might be able to provide it. “No—save Montague! I’ve got this.”
Nigel stared down at him, lips parted, fear in his gray eyes. Then his expression firmed, and he nodded. “Okay. I love you.”
Oscar heard Nigel call to the others, but he couldn’t afford the distraction. They’d do their part; it was up to him to do his.
Closing his eyes, he threw everything he had into calling out to Robin.
“We need your help. Please! If you want to make everything right, if you want to repair your past mistake, then aid us now!”
Something touched his face, ephemeral as a spring breeze. For an instant, he smelled flowers instead of ozone and rust, and a soft voice whispered in his ear.
“Break the lantern. And trust.”