A wave of weakness surprised me. Perhaps I still suffered the aftereffects of the Judge’s attack. Maybe I’d been permanently damaged, as Dan had warned me could happen. Or maybe simple grief and horror drained me.
No matter the reason, I was running out of time. Dark spread in the cabin like an inkstain, held back only by the dancing flame of the hurricane lamp. Forcing myself to be calm, I drew on the natural magnetic pulse that now found its way into the shack, re-energizing myself. My mind screamed for me to hurry, hurry, but I knew I had to pull as much strength as possible. I needed every bit I could get.
I reached the point of tingling again. I continued to draw, trying not to notice the light slipping through the boards of the shack had faded entirely. At last I made one final pull, feeling a steady thrum buzz through my body.
I hurried to the card table, climbing on top of it to grasp the pointed broken board hanging loosely from the ceiling. I yanked on it with all I had. The plank came easily, so easily that I lost my balance. The board and I tumbled to the floor.
“Way to go, graceful,” I muttered at myself, scooping up the piece of wood after concentrating my power into my hands once more. I straightened and faced the casket. I screamed.
The Judge had sat up.
I almost dropped the stave. It took only a millisecond for me to notice his eyes were blank, his face expressionless. With the setting of the sun the lights had switched on, but no one had come home yet. Nevertheless, that was the world’s longest millisecond ever.
My relief proved short lived. The ghost of the Judge hazed into existence beside his body, and his stare lit on me in an instant. Fury suffused his features even as he began to bleed into the corporeal tomb of flesh that held him during the night hours. He struggled to remain free, knowing I had the drop on him.
I took advantage of his distraction, running up and plunging my hand into his smearing ghost. I yanked energy from him, feeling myself go more solid, heavier, more real. He screamed, his face a brutal rictus of pain just before his body drew him in like a super-suction vacuum cleaner.
As his furious consciousness bloomed to life in his eyes, I plunged the sharp end of the wooden board into his chest with all the strength I’d leeched. I staked him with a savage, animal cry, smashing through skin, muscle and bone, knocking him back into the casket.
He animated quickly. “Meddling whore! Take this out of me!”
“Don’t think so,” I snarled, my smile brutal with triumph.
The victory didn’t last long. I hadn’t staked him to the ground, which would have rendered him helpless. He grasped the stave in his chest and pulled. It began to reluctantly retreat from his body.
I backed off. Darn it, he would get away, and then what? Without Erica, I thought the Judge probably couldn’t touch me until he returned to ghost form, but Tristan remained in immediate danger. And if Tristan went down, there might not be anyone standing in the Judge’s way until he returned to ghostliness himself, at which time he could come after me again.
My mind racing and coming up with nothing good, I continued to back away. As the Judge pulled the board free of his chest, I bumped into the card table. The table shook, and the hurricane lamp’s wobble sent crazed shadows jumping along the wall.
Instinct overwhelmed conscious thought. I grabbed the hurricane lamp and threw it at the Judge as he crawled out of the casket. He dodged the lamp, and it crashed against the ebony surface of his resting place. Glass shattered, sending kerosene splashing on the casket and the vampire.
Fire whooshed, setting my enemy ablaze. The Judge screamed and spun like a top as he went up. Vampires are very flammable even without an accelerant, and the flames consumed my killer in an instant. I remained rooted to the spot, watching him reduced to the spindly skeleton that still fought and jerked until it was blackened as dark as the casket.
The shack was just going up when the struggling framework of my killer collapsed into a pile of ash.
* * * *
The Fulton Falls Ripper had met his deserved end. Unfortunately, I knew his evil lived on. Weakened once more from my exertions, I transported to the library, hoping to find Dan so we could dash to Tristan’s rescue.
The main room we usually frequented was empty except for Miss Gertrude, eternally reading as always. She paid me no mind as I staggered drunkenly, exhausted once more.
No doubt Dan searched for me, but I had no idea where he might be looking. Tristan and Patricia had risen by now and were probably under attack by the Judge’s allies. My first instinct was to go to them and join in the fight. I assumed the attackers were corporeal, probably vampires and shifters. One dim, shaky ghost couldn’t hope to do much. I needed help.