by Ilana Waters
The glass chandelier in the center had only a few lit candles on it, which made it a bit easier to see. Unfortunately, it would also make it easier for Catron and Cutter to see me. The stench of formaldehyde was not so strong now. I tried hard not to look at the dead bodies as I made my way into the cavernous hall.
I assessed things from a military perspective. I’d get to the second-floor balcony; it had the best vantage point. If Catron and Cutter came in on the ground floor, I’d have a better view of them. I picked up my skirts and hurried up the enormous, crumbling staircase. If I could just get underneath the stained glass window, it would be the perfect place to perform Drawing Down the—
“She ain’t in the garden no more, sir!” With supreme dread, I heard a familiar voice. “She’s ’ere!” Cutter cried, running into the main hall. No longer did she have on her nurse’s cap, gloves, or mask. There was nothing to hide her evil grin, her eyes full of dark delight. One hand held a candle, while the index finger of the other pointed at me on the upper level. “We’ve got ’er now, Doctor!”
Catron wasn’t far behind. His lab coat was gone, and he was struggling with a long, heavy object partially blocked by his body.
What’s that under his arm? Wait—is that a rifle?
“Don’t just stand there, Cutter!” Catron was trying to load the rifle with as many bullets as it could hold. “Get her!”
Cutter held up her candle and looked at the numerous steps between her and me. “Ah, right then, sir.” She began huffing and puffing her way up the balcony, careful to avoid any stairs that were broken or missing. I had to admit, for a large woman, she could certainly move fast.
What am I going to do? I supposed I could run around and around the balcony, praying Cutter would pass out before she reached me. But there was still Catron with the rifle. He would probably use it before I outran her. I couldn’t deal with both of them at the same time. I had to find a way to get rid of Cutter first. She was almost at the top of the stairs, just a few yards away.
“Aha!” she cackled as she finished the climb and ran towards me. Beads of perspiration were forming on her forehead, but the hag still had plenty of fight left in her. “Now, Dr. Catron and me is going to make you wish you was never born. C’mere, girlie!”
“Not a chance in hell!” I retorted. Whipping off my shawl, I threw it over Cutter, making sure part of it landed on the candle she held. It set both the shawl and Cutter on fire, as I had hoped it would. At this point, I really didn’t care if she burned to death.
Apparently, Cutter didn’t feel the same way. She let out earsplitting screams as she frantically tried to wrestle the flaming shawl off. I ran a few yards and ducked behind a long table with a trio of marble busts on it.
“What the devil’s going on up there?” Catron was still trying to load the gun. “Curse this old thing; it always jams. Cutter!” He gasped to see the nurse on fire one story above him.
Unfortunately for me, Cutter didn’t remain on fire for long. She managed to fling the shawl off and stamp the flames into submission. Half her hair and the shoulders of her uniform were gone. Her face was a mess of red and black flakes. She looked like the angry surface of an active volcano. Although her candle had been snuffed out, she still had the chandelier in the center of the room by which to see. And she used it to focus all her rage on me.
“You miserable, ’orrid little witch!” she howled. “You’re going to pay for this!”
Heart pounding, I looked to the left and right. I needed something to use as a weapon. I tried picking up one of the busts, but it was too heavy. I felt like choking the neck of the person it resembled. Cutter was running towards me, light falling on her body again and again from the chandelier reflected off the mirrors.
I gasped. The chandelier! The mirrors! Maybe I didn’t have the physical strength to move the busts, but perhaps my animating powers would. I hoped man-made light would work as well as that from the moon. I concentrated hard on one mirror on the ground level, directly across from Cutter. I imagined I saw a beam of gray-blue light shining from the chandelier to the mirror to one of the busts. The stone face opened its sightless eyes and moved its unspeaking mouth from side to side, as if it were waking up. Just as Cutter was about to reach me, the bust flew up and hit her in the chin—hard.
Cutter fell backwards with a heavy grunt. I looked over my shoulder at Catron. I didn’t know if he’d seen what happened. But he had managed to load the rifle and aim it at me.
Catron let out an angry yell. “The damn column is blocking her!” He moved from place to place on the floor, trying to find a position from which to fire.
“Cutter, I can’t get a clear shot! Bugger all, flush her out!”
Cutter put her hand to her jaw and groaned, but struggled to her feet. Blood trickled out the side of her mouth. My guess was the blow from the bust had knocked out a tooth or two.
For the love of all saints, I thought, can nothing keep this foul woman down? I’d have to try again. I focused on the mirror once more and managed to fling the second bust at Cutter, this time nailing her in the middle of her face. The force of the blow made her cry out again and double over onto the railing, where she stood clutching it and moaning. A quick look over my shoulder revealed that Catron had a better view of me now. He’d definitely seen Cutter get hit with the second bust. I pressed myself against the back of the column. I didn’t know what I’d do if he fired the gun at it.
I expected Catron to at least take a shot at me, but instead, something very surprising happened. I heard him give what sounded like a cry of victory.
“It’s you!” he shrieked. “You, who turns light into motion!” His voice was hysterical, like a madman’s. “We went through all those girls trying to find the truth, but in the end, I knew it was you!”
Light into motion? He must have been referring to my reflecting light to move the bust. But I had no idea what he meant by the rest.
“I searched for decades for your brother and sister without success. But then, I realized it didn’t matter. You, with your power of light in darkness, were the strongest. I knew you’d stop at nothing to complete your mission. All I had to do was get to you, and my future would be assured.”
The air around me seemed to turn wavy, but I didn’t dare put my hands to the sides of the column for balance. It was all starting to come together, like long-mislaid puzzle pieces. The nighttime abilities. Reanimating things with the help of light. The way I automatically point like that woman in the Book. I couldn’t believe it. It sounded impossible, and yet, it had to be true. The answer was staring me in the face all along.
“The goddess is . . . me?” It was almost a whisper, but the echo easily traveled down to Catron.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know! Feigning ignorance won’t save you now. I can see you are still too young to know how to use your powers. Better for me that way, however.” He laughed again, and I heard the chit-chit of the gun.
My head was spinning. I am a goddess. I have a mission. Catron also seemed to have a mission, part of which involved killing me. Is destroying Catron my mission? Why must I have a mission at all? Haven’t I been through enough? You’d think being a goddess meant things would get easier.
I turned my head ever so slightly so I could talk to Catron, but not enough for him to see me. “If I have a mission,” I called out, “then what is it? What’s this ‘future’ of yours? What the devil are you talking about?”
“Don’t act as if you don’t remember!” he sneered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him snaking around the column, trying to get the best possible shot. “I was sure you’d be one of the most troublesome girls in the realm, too. I knew if I set up a clinic especially for those girls, you’d find your way here eventually.”
A wave of cold horror passed over me. All the atrocities at Silver Hill were committed because of me? Because one man was trying to find me? The thought was too hideous to comprehend.
Regardl
ess, I didn’t have much time to contemplate it. Cutter had gotten back on her feet and was looking at me with murder in her eyes. Blood from her nose was pouring down her face and onto what was left of her burned uniform.
Oh, come on, I thought desperately. Can’t anything kill this bitch? My gaze fell on a landscape painting on the wall. I still had one more bust left. I had to make sure Cutter stayed down this time.
“There’s no use tryin’ to run, Seluna,” Cutter snarled. Her voice sounded raspy, almost animal-like. “We’re a force from which you cannot escape. Our darkness will swallow you ’ole. Your life—and the life of everyone you care for—belong to us. You’ll see. We may as well be the monsters that ’aunt your dreams.”
I never heard Cutter speak like this. I had no idea where it was coming from. Still, there was only a moment’s hesitation before I said:
“Trust me, Cutter, if I ever have dreams about you, they’ll end with my kicking your ass!”
This time, I didn’t need more than a cursory glance at the mirror. I tore the painting off the wall with my mind and threw it over Cutter. As she cursed and struggled to get her arms out from the canvas, the last bust flew up and knocked her squarely in the forehead.
I half-hoped the blow would kill her before she went over the railing. But in the end, it hardly mattered. Cutter let out an unholy scream as she fell backwards, breaking the balustrade. Her legs flailed wildly, and her body hit the floor with a final, heavy thud. I dashed to the next column before Catron had a chance to react. From there, I could see Cutter still encased in the painting. Her eyes were wide-open; more blood spilled out of her mouth. Her torso was bent at an impossible angle from the lower half of her body.
Nurse Cutter was dead. But there wasn’t a moment to celebrate, or even feel relieved.
“Cutter, you miserable sow!” Catron howled, standing over the body. “I suppose I’ll have to finish this myself. That’s what I get for hiring subpar help.”
Well, that was a quick grieving process, I thought. But it was no concern of mine whether Catron cared about Cutter or not. The only thing that mattered was that he was still out for my blood. There was the earsplitting noise of a gunshot, then the sound of shattering glass.
I cringed so hard my shoulders jerked. I covered my ears and thought about crouching down to make myself a smaller target. However, that also might make it harder to run if Catron shot at me again. But as I peeked past the column, I saw that Catron hadn’t shot at me at all. Instead, he’d destroyed the mirror that helped me animate.
Oh, no. He’d realized that was what I’d been using. He was going to destroy every reflective surface. If that happened, I was doomed.
As fast as I could, I tried to focus on the next mirror and think of something else to animate. But Catron was faster. I almost cried out as the second shot fired, the huge sheet of glass bursting apart. Next came the third mirror, and the one after that. They disintegrated on contact, or crashed to the floor, the sickening sound echoing throughout the hall. I tried to get ahead of Catron by several mirrors, but it was no use. As soon as I got enough focus, he simply fired again without even slowing down. I could see Catron’s reflection in the mirrors’ remnants, ten thousand slivers of homicidal maniac.
Finally, every mirror was gone. I could hear the tinkling of glass as the final shards fell. Darting from column to column, I didn’t stop until I was behind one at the top of the stairs. I was forced to leave the Book behind; I couldn’t run fast enough with it in my hands. Perspiration trickled down the sides of my face as I heard Catron reloading the rifle.
He was actually chuckling. Even though I heard the gun jam a few times, he must have managed to get the next round of bullets in, because I heard the same chit-chit noise as before. From the sound of his voice, I estimated he was standing three-quarters of the way across the room, a few yards behind the chandelier.
“What do you think you’re doing, Se-lu-na?” Again, he said my name in that obnoxious way that made me want to clobber him. “Even if you manage to kill me—which is looking unlikely—you’ll never stop the others. They’re coming for you. And should you kill them, they will be reborn a thousand times, as you and I have been.”
Others? I thought. What others? Maybe Catron’s bluffing. But it didn’t sound like he was bluffing.
I took the quickest of peeks around the column, to see if there was another object in the hall I could use against Catron. Maybe I could get my hands on a piece of broken glass and—
BAM! A shot rang out, and I heard a bullet whiz past my head to lodge in the wall in front of me, right beneath the stained glass window. Gods, that was close! How was I supposed to kill Catron when I couldn’t even turn to look at him?
Just then, a sheet of plaster fell from the ceiling next to the chandelier. I supposed it was the vibration from all the gunfire that did it. It didn’t take much for this place to go to pieces. The chandelier made clinking sounds as the plaster hit the glass.
Wait—that’s it! The chandelier was made of glass, which reflected. All I had to do was use moonlight from the window on it. With any luck, I could make the whole thing fall directly on top of Catron.
I inched my way forward, towards the wall. BAM BAM BAM! Catron fired three more quick shots. I heard the crunch of glass underneath his feet as he circled for a better vantage point. I hated to make myself a moving target, but I had to turn around in order to focus on the chandelier. Every time I saw Catron getting a good view of me, I moved to the other side of the column to block him. Probably, the only reason he didn’t shoot the column was that it would make the building collapse.
Finally, I could see the chandelier clearly in the moonlight. Catron was nearly underneath it now. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to focus on making it sway so that when it fell, it would hit him.
But when it came to bringing down the chandelier, Catron beat me to it. He looked at me, looked above him, then shot the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling.
The noise from the crash was deafening, even more so than the shattering mirrors had been. It rang in my ears for several long moments, and every candle on the chandelier was instantly snuffed out. A piece of the glass flew up and sliced open my palm. The pain was so unexpected, I cried out.
Dammit! Why did Catron have to be such a good shot? That didn’t bode well for me. And the only light now came from the moon shining through the stained glass window.
“You stupid girl,” I heard him jeer. “A valiant effort, I’ll give you that. But try to kill me now, when you can’t even see me.”
You’re the stupid one, I thought. Catron might have known about some of my powers, but not all of them. For example, he had no idea how well I could see him. How was he going to defeat me, since he could barely see now? Clearly, Catron was not a man who thought things through.
Then I raised my head. Damn it all! I was just beneath the window. The moonlight was shining right on me. Catron had a perfect view.
I tried to think rationally, but my heart was already skipping beats. Can I really be killed by a rifle blast? It was true I had magical abilities, and that in spirit, I was a goddess. But this body was mortal. It could succumb to hunger, fatigue, and pain, as I’d seen during my stay at Silver Hill. I’d just had my hand sliced open by a relatively small piece of glass. I had no doubt that a bullet could kill me.
That meant I had to draw down the moon now.
I never got the chance to review the spell like I wanted. The Book was at least thirty yards away, and it wasn’t as if Catron was going to let me have a quick read. I’d have to remember it as best I could. It had only been a few weeks since Rose, Laura, and I talked about the spell in the cafeteria, anyway. Was it really such a short time ago? That meant that this moon was the full moon, the most potent. If there was ever a moon for defeating enemies, surely this was the one.
Chakras, chakras . . . the spell said something about opening chakras. I vaguely remembered that chakras were powe
r centers scattered throughout the body. I prayed mine were already open. I didn’t have a wand, but maybe if I was a goddess, it wouldn’t be necessary.
But I still needed a circle. Oh, hell. A circle of what? I didn’t know if it was supposed to be something specific, like the chalk or ash so often used in witch spells. Regardless, my options were limited. I couldn’t even get down to where Catron was to make a circle. Unless . . . my eyes fell on the bodies of the dead girls.
I can’t make a circle unless I have some help.
“Okay, ladies,” I whispered. “I’m sorry to do this, but I really, really need you right now.” I could see Catron on the ground floor. He was squinting and repositioning the gun, no doubt trying to use the moonlight to see well enough to shoot. But I was the one who used the moonlight first.
I came out from behind the column, praying I had enough time before Catron pulled the trigger. I held both hands above my head, and the same gray-blue light pulsed down, this time from the window. I lowered my hands and spread my fingers out towards the girls.
One by one, they rose to their feet and surrounded Catron, eyes open but unseeing. The moonlight only served to highlight the dull, ashen color of their skin. They moved around and around him, holding hands in a macabre dance. It was grotesque, but it had the desired effect. Catron’s jaw dropped as he saw the corpses of his victims closing in on him.
“You . . . you can’t be. It’s impossible . . .” His voice trailed off. His complexion was whiter than the moon itself as he looked from girl to girl, frantically trying to get away. But they were too close together for him to get out of the circle. He jerked the rifle back, pointing it at one, then another as the circle drew tighter. Catron quickly realized he couldn’t kill his intended victims.
“You’re dead. You’re all dead!” Repulsed and terrified, he was unable to shove them aside even with his weapon. He looked up and pointed the rifle at me again, this time with shaking hands. “You mad demoness! I’ll see you finished yet!”
