Chapter 172

~~Beatrice~~

Holy mother of fuck.

Athalia and Triss stared out from behind a rock, now much closer to the standing stones, close enough to hear what everyone near them said. Triss had her Cloak dialed up as high as she could take it, to the point she was going to be ravenous and depleted soon. Athalia had some tricks of her own, and she managed to help bury them in shadows that blended into the black water nicely. Whether Black Blood was just pretending to not notice them or not, Triss couldn’t tell, but a sneaking suspicion told her he had, him or Jacob. No way they didn’t have precautions set up to let them know when people approached.

But the gang had no choice. So Athalia and Beatrice got closer, staying low and keeping some of the giant boulders between them and the standing stones. Once close enough they could hear and see, they peeked out, listened, and jaw dropped. They looked at each other, eyes wide, before looking back to stare out at the titan, and Jacob, and apparently, Sam.

Jacob, god damn it. How much chaos had he stirred, just so he could have distractions? Hearing that he’d had nothing to do with Azamel’s arrival, or Jeremiah’s, settled a huge pit in her stomach, but still, a lot of shit had gone down that was his fault. Kinda. Sorta. In typical witch fashion, typical Jacob fashion, he’d found a nice moral gray area to ride and fuck people with. Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself, and Jacob was handing out miles of rope for free.

Samantha. Seeing her tearing herself apart as she stood there beside the man, listening to him, her eyes peeking at Jack every few seconds as Jacob explained his master plan like a villain — which he probably loved — was painful. Poor Sam. If anyone on the fucking planet would understand the desire to hit a big reset button on the whole fucking universe, and put everything back together so that even life and death didn’t exist anymore, everyone together forever, it’d be Sam.

Then of course, there was fucking Black Blood. No wonder every time Triss was around him, she felt like she was in the presence of something so much fucking bigger than he let on. But in no fucking universe did she’d think he’d have a lady he was trying to get to.

Things went from bad to worse before she could blink. Mark jumped out of the fucking water like the Bogeyman, and Elaine came up with him. The water around Jack was only a few inches deep, but that didn’t mean shit to Mark. Jack dodged back instantly, reflexes no Ventrue of any age would normally have, leaving Elaine grabbing air. She jumped to the left, and Jack jumped back and to the right.

And then he came to a standstill. He squirmed and wriggled, but something had locked his feet down. Not Black Blood, he hadn’t moved. Eventually the kid looked down with his one eye, and stared.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “I—Elaine!”

Elaine smiled at the kid, before she walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Much as the kid evidently wanted to punch her, fists shaking at his sides, he couldn’t.

The water at his feet spread away, pushed by something, and glowing red lines, like the ones Jacob had carved on the standing stones, lit up the ground around Jack’s feet. He was standing on a ritual circle. Elaine had baited him into it.

“Elaine!?” Samantha ran over to her, and eyes wide. “What’re you doing? Jack, what’s—”

“We knew your son wouldn’t cooperate. He doesn’t trust Black Blood, even though Black Blood is the only way ... the only reasonable way, to remove his curse.” Sighing, Elaine took Samantha by the shoulder, and gently pulled her away from her son. “His heart’s in the right place, but you know your son.”

“I ... I do, but—”

“He will do everything he can to stop Jacob, and Black Blood, even if it means getting himself killed, Samantha. Is that not right, childe oh mine?” Elaine, dressed in a business suit and skirt that looked horribly out of place, guided Samantha back to Jacob’s side. “Black Blood will need tools, once the realms are converged. If he can convert the curse into such a tool, then it will be valuable. If not, then it will be destroyed. Either way, your son will be free of it.”

“Mom! Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Elaine said, snapping her gaze back to Jack. “Save you from yourself and your stubbornness?”

“You can’t trust Black Blood to—”

“Are you so blinded by your distrust that you cannot see what Mictlantecuhtli has done for you? The times he has saved you?”

Mictawhatnow? Triss and Athalia looked at each other, expecting the other to know, shrugged, and looked back to the insanity.

“You’re the one that told me to trust less, Elaine,” Jack said.

“We are not speaking of the Danse Macabre, Jack. Black Blood is beyond ancient, and his goals are amiable.”

“Amiable? He’s going to...” Jack looked up at Black Blood before slowly turning his single eye to Elaine, anger gone. He’d thought of something. “Elaine, who did you kill? Who did you ... you know...”

It was like someone hit the elder in the gut with a sledgehammer. She looked away and took a step back, before setting a hand against one of the standing stones.

“It does not concern you.”

“If you’re siding with Jacob and willing to break the whole fucking world, I think it kinda does.”

Elaine shook her head desperately, the practiced motions of an elder vampire thrown out the window, hair bouncing against her shoulders.

“This world is a cruel place, little Ventrue. Jacob understands that. Your mother understands that. Mark understands that.” She gestured to the man in the hoodie, standing a ways off, arms folded across his chest and head pointed up at the ghosts circling above. “This broken machine grinds its gears, and we are caught in its eternal cycle of misery. Enough, I say. Enough.”

Well, fucking shit. Stopping Black Blood and Jacob was already going to be insanely tough. But Elaine and Mark, too? Fucked. Triss and the gang were absolutely fucked.

“Now, bear witness,” Black Blood said, “to a miracle.”

Nodding, the god of the dead reached down for the tear, and slipped a claw into it. The ghosts above howled, and the water rippled as everything shook. The standing stones didn’t budge, immune to whatever the fuck Black Blood was doing, but everyone else felt it. Energy. Triss looked Athalia’s way, half expecting her hair to stand up like lightning was about to strike, but it didn’t. The water around her rippled, instead.

Movement above forced them all to look up, and everyone’s jaws dropped. The ghosts overhead swirled over themselves, bodies half merging and overlaying with each other, and came down. Like a funnel or tornado, hundreds of the ghosts, maybe thousands, slowly crept down from on high and reached down for Black Blood. And like he was controlling the fucking weather, Black Blood reached up with his other hand, and a black glow — however the fuck that worked — shot out of his bone palm. The ghosts came down to it as if Black Blood’s palm was the sole point of ground the tornado could land on. The tunnel’s tip twisted on the way down, until it finally reached him.

Black Blood let out a groan, like a fucking dinosaur exerting itself to lift something big. Kinda applicable. He pulled up, and up, and tore the fucking universe apart. Triss’s jaw dropped, again, as the giant skeleton lengthened the tear, pulling it up with him as the skeleton lifted. The ghosts above helped him. Almost like someone holding a rope, the tornado of dead straightened, and Black Blood squeezed on it harder with every foot he managed to tear the portal’s opening. The swarm of ghosts went from howling, to screaming, and Triss covered her ears as the banshee shrieks hit hard enough she felt it in her withered guts.

Again, the god of death groaned, whatever he was doing obviously taking a massive amount of effort, and he squatted down in front of the tear. Higher, and higher, his claw ripped the tear further up, until he was standing again. Then higher, until the tear reached his chest. Higher, until the giant tear reached his head. Only then did the giant god stop ripping a hole through the world, and let go of his tornado of ghosts. Released from whatever Black Blood was doing to them, their shrieks faded into gentler-but-still-horrible howls, and the tornado lifted until it again became the swirling hurricane above.

Colors danced inside the tear. Blues, reds, greens, golds, violets, and strange colors that didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Stop!” Jack pulled and pulled against whatever was holding him, but invisible chains bound his arms and legs. Considering how strong the kid was with the curse to help him, there was no way the ritual binding him was using strength to do it. Magic.

Black Blood let out a sigh, and even with his strange, new alien dialect and anatomy, he sounded exhausted.

“You okay?” Jacob asked.

Black Blood nodded as he stood there, arms hanging at his sides. Not like a skeleton needed to breathe, or a giant death god or whatever, but he looked drained. Ripping tears through the dimensions took a lot out of him. That was good for Jack and the gang then, hopefully.

Jacob nodded, and gestured to Jack, head still pointed up at Black Blood. “Gonna be able to do the ritual for Jack?”

“Yes. In a moment.”

Nodding, Jacob opened his book, and resumed carving symbols.

And then a bunch of people fell out of the bottom of the new-and-improved tear, a few feet over the black water. They landed with quiet splashes, but ended up dogpiling on each other, and they scrambled as they tried to get to their feet. Oh god, Natasha, three werewolves, one fucked up weird looking spiky wolf vampire, and Brianna.

“Welcome,” Black Blood said, looking down at the newcomers, “to the apocalypse.” If a skull could smile, it’d look like that.

Before the werewolves could so much as howl, Jacob tossed his book and knife back onto the nearby table, and launched himself toward the invaders. Holy fuck he was fast. It didn’t even take one second to get up to there face, and drive a fist into the closest werewolf’s snout. They didn’t get a chance to respond. Jacob punched hard, and the werewolf went down. The biggest one managed to come to their senses enough to try and take a swing at him, but Jacob ducked and drove his fist up under their jaw. Like a fucking Hollywood movie, they flew up and back, and landed on their back in the water. And the final werewolf, Jacob got in close and slammed his elbow against their chest. They went down, clutching their broken sternum, gasping. It was like watching an adult martial artist dismantle a bunch of children.

The four-legged little spiky monster, a Gangrel, probably Jessy, got up long enough for Jacob to get a hand on the back of her neck, and he lifted her up. And as deadly as the girl’s weird monster form was, it couldn’t do shit to someone directly behind her. He held her out, and she roared and clawed at the air around her, doing her best to turn around, but unable. And of course, Jacob grinned as he looked at Natasha and Brianna.

“Don’t make me.”

“Okay!” Tash said, and she put up her hands. “Okay, okay. Stop, p-please. We ... we d-didn’t mean to...” Slowly, her eyes turned to the giant skeleton feet beside her, and then up, to Black Blood. “Oh ... god...”

Triss and Athalia shared looks again. If they were ever gonna get a distraction, it didn’t get much better than this. Where the fuck was Sándor?

Movement, a hint of something in the water’s reflection. They looked up.

That, was a flying man. For a moment Triss expected to see him with legs pointed straight behind him, and one hand pointed straight ahead. Superman. But before the memory of the word could rip her guts out, a hard squint managed to bring the man into focus. Sándor wasn’t flying like a superhero. He was flying like a fucking monster, arms at his chest and legs behind him with knees bent. A gargoyle, looking to land on something, or perch, or rip it to shreds.

The silhouette of the gargoyle surrounded him, so thick it almost blocked out any sign of the man. With four ludicrously massive wings outstretched, he was coming in hard and fast, aimed straight for the closest standing stone. No wonder it’d taken him so long to get involved. He’d climbed super high so he could dive bomb like a fucking falcon.

Black Blood looked up toward the oncoming shadow, and raised a hand. His arm was long enough to reach the furthest standing stone on the outside of the circle, the one Sándor was aimed for.

Again, energy permeated the air, and the black water churned as the invisible force worked through everything nearby. Triss and Athalia both froze as they watched, knowing full well Sándor was going to fail, and knowing full well they couldn’t stop him. Black Blood saw him coming, and from how calm and direct the titan’s movements looked, he’d been prepared. And the gargoyle was too high up, and going way too fast, for anything the girls said to matter.

Before Sándor could reach the standing stone, a giant red circle erupted from the black water. It circled the entirety of the standing stones, along with Jack, Mark, and Elaine, close to its edge. The light cut upward, reaching high enough it disappeared from view, higher than the standing stones, the archways, and probably all the way up to the gigantic cave’s roof.

Sándor was going fast enough to punch through a concrete wall, but when he collided with the light, he came to a complete standstill. The barrier erupted with more light, almost blinding red, and a strange red circle drew in the air where Sándor hit it, filled with shit loads of symbols Triss had never seen before. It was like a bird crashing into a window. The silhouette of the gargoyle, and the man, squished against the light like it were some solid barrier, before he plummeted.

“Shit!” Triss jumped up, and ran past Athalia. The woman tried to grab her, but Triss saw it coming and dodged it. Sándor was falling like a fucking stone, and if someone didn’t catch him, the man was going to die. If he wasn’t already dead.

Too far. Too far! She ran fast, knowing full well Jacob and Sam and Natasha and fucking everyone was staring at her. She didn’t care. Athalia wasn’t fast enough, and the werewolves and Damien were way too fucked up to do anything. Someone had to catch him, and she was going to fucking—

Sándor opened his wings. Like a parachute opening, his fall came to a harsh stop, before he resumed falling, much more slowly. Oh thank fucking god. She slowed to a jog as she got closer, staring up at the guy as he came down, and down, circling in spot like a leaf falling from a tree.

He landed beside her, and collapsed to his knees. He tried to put his weight on his hands on the cave floor, and fell over with a grunt. He’d aimed his left shoulder for the standing stone, like he’d been trying to break down a door, and hit the barrier instead. No more left shoulder. Somehow, the only noise he made was another quiet grunt as he used his working arm to push himself back up to his knees, and looked at his ruined arm.

“Jesus fucking christ.” Triss got down on a knee in front of him and put a hand on his good shoulder. “You hit that thing hard, man.”

He nodded as he looked down, and regretted it immediately. His collar bone was fucked, the shoulder, the upper arm, everything. The collision had crunched the arm against his own body, and probably snapped a bunch of his ribs, too. And of course, the only noise the gargoyle made, despite the excruciating pain, was a grunt.

“Can you stand?” she asked. It’d probably be better to lie down, but it wasn’t an option.

He didn’t nod this time, but he did try to stand. And of course, failed, and almost fell over again. She grabbed his good arm, and pulled him up with her. Once on his feet, he slouched bit so his busted arm hung in front of him, but otherwise the man didn’t move or go anywhere.

“I think,” he whispered, looking to the red light barrier, and past it to Jacob, “that we’re blocked off.”

She laughed. It wasn’t funny, but she’d entered gallows humor mode.

“Well well well,” Jacob said, yelling a bit so his voice carried. “I knew there’d be more of you. Hi, Triss. How was your trip?”

She rolled her eyes, and walked toward the red light barrier. “Hi, boss. It sucked.”

Jacob gave her a big wave with his free arm, the other still holding Jessy by her neck.

“Aaron alive?”

“Yeah, barely.”

“Good. And hey, you set this up?” he asked, gesturing to Natasha and the others who’d fallen out of the tear.

“Dude, I didn’t even know what the fuck was going on until a few hours ago. Fuck you.”

Laughing, he shrugged and nodded, and threw Jessy with all the grace of a kid throwing a big stick. The girl spun through the air, went through the red light barrier as if it didn’t exist, and crashed into the black water not too far from Triss. Gangrels were usually pretty good about landing on their feet, but Jessy crashed and rolled before sliding to a stop, drenched.

The red light barrier was a one-way barrier.

Jacob marched over to two of the werewolves, and before they could so much as roar or snap a bite at him, he grabbed one by the foot and repeated the process, and then the other, launching them like frisbees. It was almost comical, but the werewolves landed much harder, and Triss winced as she heard a few crunches.

“Stop!” Tash yelled. “Stop! P-Please. We’ll ... we’ll go, okay? Right, Brianna?”

Brianna glared at Jacob, but the girl wasn’t an idiot. One look at the Nosferatu, and then Elaine and Mark, Jack, Samantha, and then up at the giant skeleton, was enough to break her resolve. She slowly nodded, and walked toward Triss and Sándor.

“Come on, Eric,” Brianna said.

The final werewolf got back up, glared down at Jacob, but followed after Brianna and Natasha. His tail hung between his legs slightly.

“Y’all were already pretty beat up, huh?” Jacob asked. He walked after them, dusting his hands off, and ushered the newcomers out like an annoyed mom getting her kids out of the kitchen. One after the other, they walked through the red light barrier, and each of them grimaced as they glanced back. Well, that’d been unexpected, for everyone, including them. If they’d been more aware of what was happening, they might have been able to actually do something, and they knew it.

“What happened?” Triss asked Natasha as she walked past, and checked on her boyfriends. It was her boyfriends, as the two werewolves transformed back into human form once they managed to get to their feet. The last one was Eric. They all looked beat to fuck, like they’d gone ten rounds with hands tied behind their back.

“We were in the spirit w-world,” she said, “when Street-Tail King tried to, um, capture us.”

“It slipped what Black Blood was up to,” Brianna said, gesturing around. “But, I guess everyone already knows. The fuck happened to the tear? It shouldn’t have brought us here.”

“Black Blood has connected them,” Jacob said, walking back to his table and fetching his knife and book again. “They all lead here, now, even the ones he managed to open across the chasm.”

Sándor coughed, eyes widening. “He managed to reach across the abyss?”

Jacob grinned, and resumed drawing his symbols on the standing stones.

“I have,” Black Blood said, filling in. “Tiny tears that will not to rip apart. That is a bridge to build, not a barrier to destroy. But I have peeked into the realm beyond, and touched it. It will be my beacon, for the bridge I will build once the realms are combined.” The massive skeleton gestured to enormous tear beside him. “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

Everyone stared.

“He’s joking,” Jacob said, laughing with a hearty, full laugh, while somehow continuing his work. “The Ozymandias quote, I mean. Ugh, I told you, Mict. No one gets your sense of humor without the Southern accent.”

Black Blood shrugged, and squatted down over Jacob while looking out to the rest of the crowd now standing around the red barrier. Sándor and Triss, Tash and her boys, Brianna, Jessy, and Eric. On the other side of the barrier, Jack in a binding ritual, Elaine, Mark, Jacob, Black Blood, and poor Sam, who struggled to look anyone in the eye. She hadn’t expected any of this, and every moment, it was obvious she was drowning. She’d jumped in the deep end and didn’t know how to swim. The rest of them weren’t much better off.

“Who else hides in the shadows?” Black Blood asked.

“I—”

Black Blood snapped his glare at Jack, and the poor kid shut up instantly.

“It does not matter. Watch from the dark, or from the sidelines. You cannot cross the barrier.”

He wasn’t lying. They all felt it, some sort of rippling energy that told the air to bow down and listen, the same way a fortress wall would if you put your ear up to it. A fortress wall bigger than the fucking Great Wall of China.

Athalia stayed hidden. Maybe she’d get to do something, use shadows, or maybe tunnel in, so that made sense. The rest of them though, Avery and Clara and what was left of their pack, they dragged themselves over to Brianna and the wolves. Everyone back in human form, they all took a moment to check in with each other. Even Damien joined them. With all the Cloaking he’d done, and the punch to the face, dude was running on empty.

“Where’s Monica?” Matthew asked, clutching his side. “Where’s Carter? And Caleb?”

Avery glared past them at Jacob, but before they could all give him the same glare, Clara came in closer. She whispered something, and Brianna, Matt, and Art all froze, before peeking over their shoulders at the kid in the ritual.

Jack looked away.

“Street-Tail King had specific instructions,” Jacob said, “as did Red Tide. As did Sabrina and the other ghosts. If you’d listened, no one would have been harmed.”

“Fuck you,” Art said.

“He’s not lying!” Samantha came up to the barrier, eyes pleading. “Jacob told me about the stuff he did. If people had just listened, no one would have been hurt. If people weren’t so ready to kill each other, no one would have been fighting!”

“He’s going to get everyone killed,” Avery said, and she marched up to the barrier as if she didn’t basically have to drag herself to do it. “Your boyfriend is going to get everyone fucking killed.”

“That’s not what’s going to happen!”

“Says you. Uratha have been guarding the barrier between the Hisil and Gurihal for thousands of years.”

“And I,” Black Blood said, still squatting down, skull face pointed at Avery, “have witnessed it for thousands more. Do not confuse what you recognize as normal, as the same as correct in the large scheme of things, wolf. You do not get to decree this broken world as the way things should be done.”

“And who gives you the right to change it for everyone?”

Black Blood gestured to Jacob and Samantha with a hand. “Those of us who have enough awareness to recognize a broken system.”

“Sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”

Jacob sighed and shook his head. “Don’t bother, Black Blood. She’s a stubborn breed. Part husky, probably.”

Triss fought to keep the grin off her face. Even now, the mother fucker could not help but make jokes, and god damn it sometimes they were funny.

Triss gave Sándor a small pat on his good shoulder, and walked up close enough to the red barrier she almost touched it. From this close, it was easy to look everyone in the eyes, if they had them. Jack looked miserable. Samantha looked like she was about to tear in half. Mark and Elaine watched, expressions neutral, except Elaine looked a bit ... wounded.

She’d done something, something really nasty, something Jack didn’t even want to say. Jack said she’d killed someone, but that didn’t really seem enough to warrant all this madness. Despite her efforts to hide it, she looked wounded, and guilty. Not guilt about causing Armageddon, ‘cause that probably seemed perfectly reasonable to an elder. Guilt about something else.

“You really couldn’t have told me about any of this?” Triss asked, gesturing.

Jacob looked her way, and paused etching his symbols long enough for his eyeless gaze to sink in, before he sighed and got back to it.

“I was tempted, I was. But in the end, I couldn’t risk it. Sorry.”

Sándor joined Triss’s side. “And you, Mark?”

Mark folded his arms across his chest, and stared at Sándor from under the shadow of his hoodie’s hood.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost people.”

“Azamel?”

Mark shrugged and spit to the side. Gross. Everything about the man radiated gross. It made sense, considering what Triss had seen of him so long ago, when she and Jacob took a trip to visit Azamel. Dude’s Horror was a pile of maggots, insects, bones, rotting flesh, and slime.

It was hard to imagine someone doing something as insane as all this, so they could see someone like Azamel again. But the fuck she did she know? Somehow, the old bitch had Athalia’s complete trust and devotion, and Mark’s, and Fiona’s. Hell, she’d convinced Sándor to take her place.

She almost asked Jacob if he didn’t think she’d want this, too. She’d lost someone, and all of this was a way for her to see him again. But she already knew what his answer would be. She wouldn’t be willing to remake the whole fucking universe to do it. He was right, not telling her. Maybe right after Julias died, maybe she would have, maybe, but now? Fuck her, changing everything for everyone like this was just way too much.

She couldn’t get any closer than this, and they didn’t have any more available distractions. Now or never.

“Now, Mary.”

Jacob lowered his knife and looked her away, eyebrow raised. For the first time in Triss’s second life, the man’s expression switched to full on shock, as Mary’s ghost shot out of the bracelet. The ghost wasted no time, and bolted forward toward the closest standing stone, near Jack. The wall of red light didn’t stop her in the slightest, like wind pushing through a screen door, and she threw herself at the standing stone, claws out, and enough wind followed behind her Triss fell forward and hit her head on the barrier, and fell back on her ass. Again.

“Mary!?” Sam said. “What—”

Black Blood snapped his hand out, and the whole Great Below noticed, an explosion of movement that was beyond fast. Nothing that big could move that fast. The arm snap cut through the air, and made a weird boom sound before a ripple pulsed outward. The pulse picked up the water and turned into a tsunami that smashed into everyone, throwing them all to the ground. Triss was already on her ass, and the wave slapped her to the ground hard. The stones of the whole fucking cave groaned, the ground vibrated underneath her hard enough it inched her across the stone, and her teeth rattled in her head.

She sat up, wiped the black water from her face, and stared up at Black Blood. His hand was still out to the side, in Mary’s path, and Mary was in his grip. Literally. He held her in his palm, and let out a booming growl as he brought her in closer to his skull face.

“Do not. Touch that.”

Mary shrieked and screamed, twisted and squirmed, but Black Blood held her as easily as a kid would a worm they dug out of the mud. Well, shit. Whatever limitations bound Black Blood, they didn’t apply to ghosts.

“Black Blood, don’t hurt her!” Sam yelled, looking up at the giant and waving her arms.

“I will not hurt her.” He brought in his other hand, and held it over Mary’s ghost, palm facing down at her. “I will bind her.”

Before Sam could ask, a sparkling chain fell out of Black Blood’s grip, slithered down out of his palm, and slipped around Mary’s shoulders. Around and around, until it’d snaked her four times, and Black Blood set the bound ghost on the ground beside her mother.

It was weird, seeing a ghost that could go in and out of a bracelet, and otherwise be made of mist whenever she wanted, be bound by chains. Flashbacks to The Muppet Christmas Carol movie with the two old farts as ghosts in chains hit Triss. Creepy scene in the movie, creepy scene here. Mary still didn’t have legs, but otherwise she was stuck to the ground and shallow black water, like any person would be if their arms were bound at their sides and they were put on their ass. Worse, she tried to get up, and she couldn’t. She tried to scream and shriek, and she couldn’t.

“Baby?” Sam said.

“Mom!” Mary frowned up at her, gave Black Blood a death glare, and frowned up at her mom some more. “What are you doing! Stop them! Stop them! Stop them!” No crazy banshee shrieks, but she could still talk.

Samantha stared down at her daughter’s ghost before kneeling down beside her.

“Mary, what ... what happened to you?”

Mary shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Stop them! You can’t—”

“Stop them? They’re going to fix it all, baby. We can be together! You and me, and the other Mary. Jack, and your dad, too! You don’t miss your dad?”

Dad. The word hit the poor ghost harder than anything any of them could have said. Mary’s evil black eyes softened, and her psycho monster mouth softened, too.