CHAPTER 50

The ghost let out an eerie laugh, then pulled Beth to the side of the house. Behind them, the wood was already crackling as Oliver ripped it apart. When Jenny tossed herself over the side of the house, Beth followed.

They were falling through the sky, moving toward the crack in it. The buzzing sound was loud enough that she could hear nothing else. While tumbling, she looked back over her shoulder to see that Oliver was now behind them, looking like he lost a fight with a mutant porcupine.

She shouted to Jenny, who was ahead of her, but the ghost didn't look back. Drawing closer to the crack, the world dimmed and then turned black as it had before. Light poured through the opening, and she was almost there when a clawed hand grabbed onto her foot.

"No!" she cried as Oliver pulled her back into the void. A clammy hand clamped onto her wrist, and she looked up to see Jenny grabbing the edge of the crack with one hand while holding Beth with the other.

Stuck in a tug of war between the two, Beth lashed out, kicking at Oliver with her feet. His body was now breaking apart and crumbling into nothingness, his mouth open wide in agony. She missed him the first few times, but her final kick hit him in the jaw, and his face exploded into a cloud of ash. His grip now gone, she rocketed through the gap and into the light. She screamed in rage, pain, and fear. The world tilted again, but this time, a pair of hands caught her.

"Seal it!" Ratu shouted, and there was a loud pop as the device was shut off. Ratu helped Beth into a sitting position, where she held her stomach and sobbed uncontrollably.

Minutes went by, and Ratu stroked Beth's head while she cried.

Through her tears, Beth saw that the top of the device had been blown apart, and Jenny was held in place by a busted wire. The bottom half of the device was cracked in multiple places, and beneath it was the crystalline container Ratu had showed her. Inside the chamber was a black ooze that bubbled like hot mud as it gradually became clearer.

"Is... is he gone?" Beth finally asked.

"Is that what happened in there? Did the demon make an appearance?"

Beth nodded. "He was inside there with me."

"I didn't account for that level of sentience. It may be a result of extinguishing the original host, but no matter. Your soul got caught up in the filter with his, and he wasn't letting go of you. The device kept overheating, and when the top broke off, Jenny rushed in to help you. I've never seen anything quite like it, frankly. Jenny risked her own soul to save yours."

"Is Jenny okay?" Beth wiped the tears from her eyes.

The doll waved to her from the harness, then spun her head around a single time.

Beth laughed, then let out a long sigh. "Is that black stuff him?"

"It was." Yuki said this, and she was examining the substance in the crystal. "Ratu, you should come check this out."

"Excuse me." Ratu moved away from Beth and pulled the container free of the device.

Beth waited for someone to say something, but Yuki and Ratu consulted each other in whispered tones while Sofia pulled Jenny out of her harness.

"Well?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"See for yourself." Ratu came over to her with the container. The black sludge inside was gone, replaced with what looked like a large amount of snot.

"What am I looking at?"

"It's complicated, but I'll tell you what you need to know. The demon you knew as Oliver has been completely wiped from this plane of existence, and can never return. You are finally free of him."

Beth wiped one final tear from her eye, then smiled with satisfaction.

"Good."

Up on the third floor, Mike contemplated the large set of double doors in front of him. The wall where the wardrobe used to be had been replaced with a slightly wider hallway that terminated after a few yards at a large pair of metal doors with a series of gears built into them.

He tested the handle, but the door didn't budge. Symbols were emblazoned across both doors with shapes that seemed astronomical in nature—he recognized the symbol for the moon and the sun, and the planet Mars, but that was it.

"Well?" He looked at Tink. "What's supposed to be behind here?"

"Wrong room." She looked at the gears, then slid her goggles on. "Old room just bedroom with bed that smell like farts. Tink not sure why special door."

"It looks like a combination lock," Dana added, pointing to the five large gears. Each gear had a slightly different hue to it and a central handle. "See how these turn? The symbols change and then line up in the middle of these windows here." She pointed to a column of openings in the middle of the double doors.

"The goggles should be able to figure it out, right?" Mike looked at Tink, who was now scowling at the door. "Tink?"

"Goggles say turn dials, but no tell Tink correct password." She moved closer to the door to inspect it, then put her hands on a piece of metal and gave it a slight pull. "Pull lever when correct, but..."

"But what?"

"Tink don't know. Goggles say pull lever any time." She shrugged. "That how door works."

"Yeah, I'm suspicious." Dana examined the gears of the door with a mixture of curiosity and excitement. "There's a series of tumblers behind the gears. I can see them in a couple of places."