‘Do not resist,’ hissed Brigitte, shaking Darke’s head as she tightened her grip on his hair. ‘I’ll be happy to submit to your authority once you host the Eldest, though.’ She giggled, almost girlishly. ‘I’ve always rather liked your body …’
She tailed off, and with a flourish she reached over and drew the Knife. The coil of white light was extended now to a thin and despairing tendril curling around the Pendant, and it was beginning to pull Sir Alric’s body with it. His throat stretched, his back arched, and Brigitte grinned, raising the blade high to sever his spirit from his body.
‘Ranjit, we have to DO SOMETHING!’ Cassie cried, half-stumbling as she tried to get to Sir Alric herself.
Ranjit sprang to his feet again, his face etched with fury and a killing determination. He flew past Cassie, launching himself at Katerina, slamming her aside so that she crashed into her mother. Flung off balance, Brigitte dropped the Knife. It skidded towards Isabella, who held the unconscious Jake in her arms. But Isabella didn’t need her hands. With savage accuracy, she kicked the Knife across the smooth stone floor back to Ranjit.
Ranjit snatched it up and in one fluid movement struck out at the chains on Sir Alric’s wrists, shattering the links with a single blow. The man collapsed to the ground, and Ranjit caught him, but to do so he had to let go of the Knife, and Cassie watched in anguish as it spun across the floor again.
Brigitte, shrieking, flung herself on to the floor and snatched up the ethereal blade. Cassie had no hope of stopping her; she could only crawl to meet Ranjit, seizing Sir Alric’s body from him, helping to drag him further away.
Brigitte rose to her feet, and with a hideous grin ran at them once more. Cassie tried desperately to move her body to protect Sir Alric, but Ranjit was just in time to spin, lashing out with a blow that caught Brigitte’s snarling face with an audible crack. Still clutching the Knife, the blonde woman was flung backwards through the air and slammed hard against the alcove that held the Urn. It wobbled under her impact, swung wildly, and then crashed to the ground.
The light within the jade Urn flickered; in harmony with it, the light of the Eldest vibrated and throbbed above them. Squealing, Brigitte reached protectively for the fallen Urn, but as she scrabbled on to all fours, she dropped it again.
But then she was no longer looking at the Urn. She was staring down at her own chest. For a moment everything seemed to go quiet.
‘Mother?’ howled Katerina, her voice echoing in the fallen silence.
Brigitte turned slowly, staggering, her face distorted with terror.
Rubbing sweat and blood from her eyes, Cassie saw something sticking out from the woman’s breast. A broad twist of carved figures that now leaped to life, writhing and squirming against her body.
The hilt of the Knife.
Life was draining from Brigitte’s pale face even as they watched. Her skin dried and shrank, tightening over her bones like a mummy’s. It darkened and shrivelled until her eyes and screaming mouth were only hollows in a skull-mask. Cassie stared in horror as the white light of Brigitte’s spirit curled out of her mouth and up, up towards the ceiling.
It hesitated, twisting and writhing as if in pain, or denial, but it was drifting now, sucked faster and faster towards the hovering spirit of the Eldest.
‘M-Mother? Wait!’ shrieked Katerina. ‘Eldest, please!’
Marat had stepped forward and was gazing up at the colliding spirits with awe and not a little admiration. And then the small white breath of Brigitte’s was abruptly engulfed in the Eldest. The glowing green light exploded with energy, and throbbed once more into new life.
As Brigitte’s body crumbled to dust, shattering on to the ground, the Knife clattered to the rocky floor.
The greenish light coalesced again. It floated, every second seeming to grow denser. And then, with a howl like the sound of a thousand demons, it whipped free of the fallen Urn altogether, and the light in its jade walls went out.
The Eldest was a compact comet of light, now, thrashing wildly above them, darting, seeking, desperate for a host.
‘Katerina!’ shouted Cassie. ‘Drop the Pendant!’
Katerina’s hands were over her mouth as she stared disbelievingly at the dust that was once her mother, and she made a horrible, high-pitched sound. Then, abruptly, she fell silent, and looked up at the Eldest above her, balling into a tight small sun of energy.
There was icy determination in her face as she ignored Cassie and raised the Pendant above her head. ‘Eldest! Take me! Take me!’
Ranjit lunged, but before he could reach the Swedish girl, her mouth opened wide. The white light of her spirit shot out towards the Pendant, rapid and willing, making its jade glow brilliantly.
The dazzling ball of energy that was the Eldest had come to a dead stop above her, and now it expanded, sucking her spirit greedily into its growing luminous heart. The dreadful howling sound intensified too, and there was a brutal gargling sensation as Katerina’s spirit was wrenched from her body, with no Knife poised to sever it cleanly. Then, in an instant, the coil of Katerina’s spirit snapped and vanished.
She stood rigid, staring, her mouth still open in that silent scream. Above her the Eldest twisted and dived. And then, still howling that dreadful demonic note, it vanished down into Katerina’s gaping mouth.
The Svensson girl went entirely still, arms hanging loose. They all did, in the sudden, appalling silence. The Pendant fell from her lifeless fingers, clattering to the stone floor, its light extinguished like the Urn’s.