Lineage(127)

“Kill him now, son,” Erwin said. The Nazi’s naked pale flesh jiggled in impatience as he pointed toward the knives hanging from the chair’s arm. “Avenge our deaths.”

Lance watched as Anthony reached toward the handles and then hesitate. Something wavered within the ghost’s eyes. The knives, Lance realized. The memories they carried were painful, even for the departed soul before him. The agony experienced by the man Anthony had once been held power even after death. Erwin looked from the handles to his son’s back, and almost lunged for them when Lance spoke.

“You’re still afraid of them, aren’t you?” His voice drew Anthony’s eyes from the wooden handles, and Lance stared into the black orbs. “Those things were the source of all your fears growing up. And not only when he strapped you in this chair and cut you to ribbons. But before that, when you had to listen to the screams of men being tortured here in this room. When you watched your own mother kill a man right in front of you.” Lanced didn’t drop his gaze when the ghost’s hands began to clench in anger. “When she let you be led in here instead of her.”

Lance saw Anthony’s left hand twitch and move toward the knives. He’d done it. He’d angered him and threw him off. It was now or never.

“I’ll hand it to you,” Lance said in a cold voice. “You know a lot about me, but you don’t know everything. Even if you kill me here in this chair, you won’t win, because I’m not like you. I don’t have hatred running through my veins. Your lives were wasted on a weakness that you couldn’t control, while I created things that people will enjoy for years to come.” He paused and stared at the bloodstained floor. “I found someone I want to love.”

Lance saw Mary smiling at him from across the table in the restaurant and felt the smooth skin of her hand in his own, and he savored the memory for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the two things were staring at him, waiting for his submission. Waiting for him to bow his head and expose his neck, and so he did just that. He waited two beats of his heart, clearing his mind of all thought, and then spoke, perhaps the last words of his life.

“But what you don’t know is that I unscrewed these shackles earlier.”

Lance jerked both hands up and listened to the mooring bolts sliding free of the chair. A surprised look flew across Anthony’s face as Lance’s hand closed on the handle of the closest knife in the belt and jerked it free. Lance swung the knife in a tight arc that his own eyes barely registered, and felt the blade bog down in the solidity of Anthony’s stomach.

He hadn’t known if it would work until that moment. The idea had formed after Anthony had grabbed hold of his arm in the room several nights before, leaving the bruised finger marks. Lance had reasoned that if the ghost had enough form to grasp a living person, then it, in turn, could be touched. The knives held a tangible fear and seemed only right for the weapon he could use, a talisman of sorts that could cut the flesh of the living and dead alike.

Lance pushed as hard as he could and felt the knife tear free. The ghost’s face hovered less than a foot from his own, and a surprised expression remained plastered there. Lance looked down and saw a long gash had opened just above Anthony’s navel area. He could see darkness between the parted white flesh, and for a moment it held like some sort of membrane.

Doubt flooded Lance’s mind. It hadn’t worked. The blade had passed harmlessly through this thing that had masqueraded as his father, and now, he would die and Mary would die just like John and Ellen had, along with his mother so many years ago. Then darkness rushed out of the wound in a gush of inky fluid that seemed to have both liquid and gas properties. It splashed to the floor, a darker ichor upon Ellen’s drying blood. The outer portions of the fluid hovered around the flow and crept outward, slower than its liquid counterpart.

“Ahhhhh,” Anthony began, his mouth hanging open like a broken casket, the smell of death leaking from within. The ghost’s hands reached to stanch the flow of the black tide that dropped between its fingers and continued to pour onto the floorboards.

Lance felt his own jaw clench and his fist tighten its grip on the knife. There was movement from Anthony’s other side as Erwin reached for his belt, but Lance was already swinging the knife again. He drove it backward in a stabbing motion, his thumb wrapped over the end of the grip. He watched as the point buried itself in the soft spot just behind Anthony’s temple. The blade barely slowed as it cut through whatever resided within the ghost’s skull and emerged from the other side. Lance gave the handle one last shove for good measure, and watched Anthony’s head rock toward his shoulder from the pressure. He released his grip on the knife, and the ghost’s body spasmed and the muscles beneath the clothing flexed. The same fluid ran out freely on the knife’s handle and tip protruding from the other side.