The poltergeist uncoiled from the wall.
It became a streak of solidified hatred, a black arrow shot from the darkness, silent and impossibly fast. It didn't aim for Cedric's chest, or his arms. It went for the throat—the kill shot of a predator that understood biology, that knew how to end a fight before it could even become one.
Cedric had a half-second. The time between a heartbeat and the next. His training screamed two things: Dodge. Shoot. But they were the same motion. He threw his weight backwards, off his planted foot, his torso twisting. At the same time, he brought the glowing blue muzzle of his revolver up, not to aim, but to intercept. To put steel and enchantment between his flesh and the void-smile rushing at him.
He never got the chance.
BANG!
The shot came from above and behind him. Becca. The second-story window. The blue tracer cut the night a foot in front of Cedric's face. He felt the heat of its passage, smelled the sharp ozone of discharged enchantment.
The bullet didn't hit the lunging poltergeist. It passed through the space where its head had been a microsecond before. The creature didn't dodge. It dissolved. The arrow of darkness became a cloud of swirling, particulate shadow, letting the round pass through its now-intangible center. The bullet buried itself in the gravel with a harmless thwup.
The cloud coalesced instantly, reforming not as an arrow, but as a man-shaped blot two feet in front of Cedric. It was inside his guard. He was still off-balance, falling back.
The thing swung.
It didn't have a fist. Its limb was a tendril of gloom that solidified at the last possible moment into something with the density and heft of a railroad tie. It wasn't a punch. It was a battering ram.
It caught Cedric high on the chest, just below his collarbone.
The impact made no sound. It was a terrible, absorbing thud that drove the air from his lungs in a voiceless gasp. It didn't feel like being hit by something hard. It felt like being hit by a sack of freezing wet cement. The cold was a shock, deeper than the pain. It sank through his jacket, his skin, into the bone beneath. He was airborne. The world tilted. The moon and the house and the storage cabin spun in a nauseating carousel.
He hit the ground on his side. The jolt traveled up his spine. Gravel bit into his cheek. The pain in his chest was a bright, expanding star of agony, but beneath it was that pervasive, soul-deep chill where the thing had touched him. He tried to suck in a breath. It came as a wheezing rattle. His right hand, the one holding the revolver, was pinned under his own weight.
Get up. Get up.
The poltergeist was already turning away from him. It had dismissed him. Its smiling void-face tilted up towards the shattered window. Towards Becca.
BANG! BANG!
Becca fired twice more, rapid, controlled pairs. Her position was terrible—a high angle, shooting downward, braced in a window frame. But her hands were steady. Each shot was a calculated guess, aiming not to kill, but to herd, to distract.
One blue streak passed through the creature's shoulder, making that entire section of shadow ripple and fray like mist. The other sparked off the gravel near its feet. It flinched, its form flickering with annoyance. It took a step towards the house. Then another.
Cedric saw it. The intent was clear. It was going to climb. It was going to go up the siding and through that window.
No.
He shoved against the ground with his free left hand, rolling onto his back. The movement sent a white-hot lance through his chest. He ignored it. He dragged his right hand out from under him. The revolver was still there, his fingers frozen in a death-grip around the grip. He tried to bring it up. His arm trembled, the muscles shocked and cold.
The poltergeist reached the foundation of the house. It didn't pause. It placed a shadow-foot on the brick and stepped up.
"Hey!" Cedric's voice was a ragged, torn thing. He meant it to be a shout. It was a scrape.
The creature ignored him. It took another step up the wall. It was five feet off the ground now, a crawling stain against the white siding.
Cedric planted his heel in the gravel, pushed. He got to one knee. The world swam. He raised the revolver, his left hand coming up to cup the shaking right. The glowing front sight wavered, dancing over the creature's back. He took the slack out of the trigger.
BANG!
The shot was low and left. It tore a chunk of siding off the house just below the poltergeist's foot. Chips of paint and wood exploded.
The creature stopped climbing. It went perfectly still, adhered to the wall. Slowly, it turned its head. The smiling void looked back over its shoulder at him. The message was clear: You are an insect. And you are becoming irritating.
It let go of the wall.
It dropped, not falling, but floating down like a leaf in reverse, silent and graceful. It landed softly between Cedric and the house, cutting off his line of fire to Becca. It took a step towards him.
Cedric scrambled backwards on his hands and heels, gravel skittering. He raised the gun again.
The poltergeist moved. It didn't rush. It flowed. It was in front of him before his brain could register the movement. A shadow-hand, colder than January stone, closed around his wrist.
The cold was absolute. It wasn't the absence of heat; it was the consumption of it. It shot up his arm like a lightning bolt of pure negation. His fingers spasmed. The revolver slipped from his numb, unfeeling grasp. It hit the gravel with a dull, final sound.
The creature didn't let go. It leaned in, its void-face inches from his. The smell of old dust and static filled Cedric's nose, his mouth. The cold from its grip was climbing past his elbow, towards his shoulder. He could feel the life being leeched from his flesh, a creeping numbness that promised to turn his arm to dead, frozen meat.
He did the only thing he could think of. He slammed his forehead forward.
It connected with the vortex where the thing's face should have been. There was no impact. It was like striking thick, freezing smoke. The cold intensified, searing into his skin. But the creature recoiled, a shiver of surprise passing through its form. Its grip loosened for a fraction of a second.
Cedric wrenched his arm back, tearing it free. He fell onto his back, scrambling away like a crab. His right arm hung useless, numb and aching with a deep, marrow-deep pain.
The poltergeist straightened, its amusement gone. It raised both hands, fingers elongating into sharp, spear-like points of condensed shadow. It was done playing.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A rapid, sustained volley from the window. Becca was emptying her magazine. Blue tracers streaked down, stitching a line in the gravel, walking towards the creature. She wasn't trying to hit it directly now. She was laying down suppressive fire. A wall of light and force to keep it off her son.
The poltergeist hissed—a sound like radio static and tearing paper. It flickered, dodging the searing rounds, but it was forced back a step, then two. Its attention snapped back to the window. To the source of the interruption.
It turned its back on Cedric completely.
It launched itself at the wall. Not a climb this time. A vertical sprint. It hit the siding and ran up it, feet finding purchase on nothing, a black smear ascending towards the broken window and the woman inside.
Cedric saw it happen in slow motion. He saw Becca's pistol click empty. He saw her face, calm and resigned, as she reached for a fresh magazine on her lap. He saw the poltergeist reach the windowsill, one shadow-hand gripping the shattered frame, the other drawing back, fingers sharpening into a blade aimed at her chest.
He was on his knees. His gun was gone. His arm was dead weight. He was too far away.
He opened his mouth to scream a warning that would be too late.
A sound cut through the chaos.
It wasn't a gunshot. It wasn't a scream. It was a low, guttural muttering. A stream of words that were not words, syllables that cracked and grated against the air itself. They came from the side yard, from the direction of the gate.
The sound held a tangible weight. It made the hairs on Cedric's arms stand up. It made the poltergeist freeze on the windowsill, its head twisting towards the source.
Axl walked into the wash of moonlight from the side of the house. He wasn't running. He was walking with a terrible, deliberate slowness, each step measured. His hands were at his sides, but they were clenched into fists so tight the tendons stood out like cables on his forearms.
He was speaking. The awful, grating words flowed from him without pause. His eyes were fixed on the poltergeist. They didn't blink.
And around him, clinging to his skin like a second, shimmering shadow, was a faint, pulsing red aura. It was the color of dying embers, of blood under thin skin. It lit the hollows of his cheeks, the set line of his jaw. It wasn't light. It was something being burned off him. The air around him wavered with heat.
The poltergeist recoiled from the window as if scalded. It dropped back to the ground, landing in a crouch. It faced Axl, its form vibrating with a new, wary tension. The playful predator was gone. This was something else. A recognition of a different kind of threat.
Axl stopped walking. He was twenty feet from the creature. He raised his hands, palms out. The red aura flared, concentrating around his arms, hissing like steam on a griddle. The muttering rose in pitch, becoming a sharp, commanding chant.
He brought his hands together in a sudden, violent clap.
There was no sound of impact. Instead, the air between him and the poltergeist ripped.
A invisible, concussive wave, tinged with that same bloody red light, shot forward. It didn't travel. It simply was. It hit the poltergeist like a freight train made of pure, sanctified force.
The creature didn't have time to dissolve. The wave struck it, wrapped it, and squeezed.
A sound erupted from it—a high, piercing shriek of rending energy, the sound of a glacier cracking. Its form compacted, darkness crushed inwards. For a split second, it was a struggling black orb trapped in a cage of furious red light.
Then Axl thrust his palms downward.
The orb, and the poltergeist within it, was slammed into the earth.
The impact wasn't physical. It didn't crater the ground. It was a spiritual detonation. A shockwave of nullification pulsed outwards, silent and cold. The gravel where the creature lay didn't move, but every shadow for ten feet around bleached out, as if scoured by a sudden, sourceless flash.
The poltergeist lay on the ground. It wasn't moving. Its form was faint, translucent, like a stain of ink in water slowly dispersing. The wicked smile was gone. Its edges bled into the night air, dissipating.
Axl dropped his hands. The red aura vanished, snuffed out instantly. He didn't stagger. He stood perfectly straight for one second, two. Then his knees buckled. He caught himself on one hand, his head hanging low, shoulders heaving with ragged, shallow breaths. In the moonlight, his face was the color of ash.
The crunch of heavy boots on gravel broke the ringing silence.
Garath came through the gate at a run, his shotgun—a brutal, short-barreled pump-action—already at his shoulder, sweeping the yard. His eyes were flat, assessing, missing nothing: Chloe still on the ground by the cabin, clutching her throat. Cedric on his knees, cradling a dead-looking arm. Axl on one hand, breathing like a dying man. The faint, dissolving residue of the poltergeist.
He went to Cedric first. He didn't ask if he was okay. He grabbed Cedric's good arm and hauled him to his feet with a single, powerful pull. "Can you stand? Breathe?"
Cedric nodded, a stiff, painful motion. "Chloe," he croaked.
Garath was already moving. He crossed to his sister in four long strides. He didn't try to move her. He crouched, one hand going to her shoulder, the other keeping the shotgun trained on the fading poltergeist stain. His touch was surprisingly gentle. "Look at me." Chloe's wide, terrified eyes focused on him. "You're breathing. Good. Don't talk. Nod if your neck hurts."
She nodded, tears cutting clean lines through the dust on her cheeks.
Garath's gaze flicked to the second-story window. "Aunt Becca?"
"I'm clear," Becca's voice came down, tight but controlled. "Empty. Reloading. Status?"
"Contained," Garath said. He finally looked at Axl. "Axl?"
Axl lifted his head. His breathing was still a struggle. "It's… fading. Not gone. Needs binding. Or dispersing. I can't…" He gestured weakly, the meaning clear. I have nothing left.
Garath nodded once. He stood up, keeping his body between Chloe and the faint shadow on the ground. He pumped the shotgun. The sound was heavy, metallic, and full of finality. He raised it, not with the practiced aim of a target shooter, but with the steady certainty of a man who needed to erase something from the world.
He aimed at the center of the fading stain. He didn't say a word.
He pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening in the aftermath. A different kind of thunder. No blue glow this time—just simple, brutal lead shot and fire. The pellets tore through the insubstantial remnant. Where they passed, the last clinging threads of darkness snagged, shredded, and evaporated into nothing.
The silence that followed was absolute. The cold, leeching presence was gone. The air just felt like night air again, chilly and ordinary.
Garath lowered the shotgun. He scanned the yard once more, then finally let the weapon point at the ground. He looked at Cedric, at Chloe, at the dark shape of Axl still kneeling in the gravel.
"Inside," he said. The word wasn't a suggestion. It was the only order that mattered now. "Now."