Uriah screamed in rage.
As Serafina landed on his back, he thrashed and struggled, and then heaved himself backward, slamming her into the stone of the fireplace, but she held on to him for dear life. I am spirit! she thought, pushing through the crushing pain. I am power!
She hung on and she kept hanging on. It was like grabbing a huge, wriggling, biting rat: once you had it, you couldn’t let go. You had to grip it, strangle it, do anything you had to do, but you COULD NOT LET GO!
She pulled and pulled the cloak, Uriah’s head tossing wildly, his arms pushing, his scaly clawed hands clutching blindly around him as he screamed in outrage. He was Uriah, the sorcerer, the master of the forest, the controller of all! He was not going to let this happen!
Suddenly, he began to spin around and around, roaring with a terrible sound as a dirty swirl of darkness poured out of his mouth. He was going to rip himself free. But Serafina pulled in the power of the elements around her, drawing forth a forceful wind from the air, lifting the ashes from the fireplaces up and around them in a great whirling motion.
Their two swirling forces crashed against each other, pushing in opposite directions, each one spinning and twisting against the other until the swirling motion came to a shuddering stop. She held Uriah as still as death with nothing but the force of her will.
Then she heard it.
I’m not going to hurt you, child…the cloak said in its hissing, raspy voice.
The folds of the cloak slithered around Uriah like the tentacles of a hungry serpent. The cloak moved of its own accord, wrapping, twisting, accompanied by a disturbing rattling noise, like the hissing threats of a hundred rattlesnakes. Uriah’s horrified face looked out at her from within the folds of the enveloping cloak. She realized then that everything had come full circle. It was just as she had once seen Clara Brahms vanish into the Black Cloak. But instead of Clara’s innocent bright blue eyes looking desperately out at her for help, Uriah’s eyes were consumed with hatred and streaked with all-consuming fear. Then the folds closed over him, the scream went silent, and the man disappeared, body and soul.
Serafina and the cloak fell to the floor. She quickly scurried away from it so that its greedy black folds couldn’t get her.
For several seconds, the cloak vibrated violently, and a ghoulish aura glowed in a dark, shimmering haze. A horribly foul smell of rotting guts invaded Serafina’s nostrils, forcing her head to jerk back. She wrinkled her nose and tried not to breathe it in.
Suddenly, the cloak clenched into a tight wrenching coil, and an explosion of magical spells burst into the room, sending fireballs and lightning bolts and explosions of ice-cold air in all directions at once. The spears and shields on the walls clattered to the floor. The panther-torn tapestry and its cousins crumpled down. The flags caught fire. The statues tumbled. The entire room filled with a thick, choking smoke.
And then it was finally done.
Serafina jumped up to her feet, still panting, still filled with fear, and she looked around the room. Uriah was gone. She had captured him in the endless void of the Black Cloak. She had finally defeated the man who could not be killed!
She pulled in a long, shaky breath and exhaled, trying not to burst into tears of relief. A pure cool pleasure poured through the cavities of her lungs and the muscles of her legs. She looked around at the devastated, ash-filled, burning room and all she could feel was joy.
“We did it!” Braeden cheered, leaning out the window above her head and pumping his fist triumphantly even as he stamped out one of the burning wall tapestries with a towel.
That was when she came to her senses enough to realize that the room was truly on fire.
She did not run. She did not panic. Her powers had been growing within her, and she felt stronger now than she ever had. She concentrated her mind, raised her hand into a fist above her, then threw her hand down in a sudden opening motion, and shouted, “Enough!”
The entire room burst with cold air. Every speck of ashen dust hit the floor. Every flame blew out. And the room was still.
“That worked a lot better than my towel!” Braeden shouted happily from the window.
Waysa came limping into the room, bleeding, but with a grin on his face. “I told you to run like the wind, Serafina! I thought for sure he was going to get you there at the last second!”
“Not with you on his back, my friend,” Serafina said happily.
Behind Waysa, Rowena was walking into the room as well. Seeing that the sorceress and her other friends were all right, Serafina smiled and then laughed, euphoric with the realization that they had all survived.
But Rowena looked warily at the Black Cloak lying in a heap on the floor of the Banquet Hall right where Serafina had left it.
“It’s done now,” Serafina said, trying to reassure her.
Rowena slowly lifted her eyes and looked at Serafina. When she spoke, there was no sarcasm in her tone, no aloofness or airs, no whispers or seething voice, just a flat, steady seriousness. “Now we must make certain that this cloak never sees the light of day.”
“Or the darkness of night,” Serafina said, nodding. “I swear to you, we will hide the cloak well. We’ll make sure that your father will never threaten you or anyone at Biltmore again.”
Braeden walked into the room through the butler’s door that came from the back stairs.
“I wish we could destroy the terrible thing,” Braeden said.
“Destroying the cloak will free its prisoner,” Serafina said. “We can never destroy it. We must put it somewhere it will never be found, and lock it up forever.”
“I know just the place,” Braeden said.
And Serafina knew exactly where he had in mind.
When she looked back at Rowena, and saw the sorceress still staring at the Black Cloak in stunned disbelief, Serafina thought she must be thinking about her father.
“It is done,” Rowena said, as if trying to convince herself.
“And what will you do now, Rowena?” Serafina asked her gently.
Rowena paused, as if she was thinking about that profound question for the very first time. And then she looked at Serafina and said, “I will live.”
Serafina smiled a little bit at the corner of her mouth. Rowena was just beginning to realize that she had survived. She would go on, free, into a very different world. She would truly live.
“But don’t just live,” Waysa said, looking at Rowena with kind eyes. “Live well. Make all this worth it.”
Rowena nodded, appreciating his words. “And you do the same.”
Serafina gazed around at her friends, all happy and smiling, looking back at her. They had saved Biltmore. And they had saved each other.