Melinda finally broke out of her shocked silence. "Heather, wh-what the fuck are you doing here?"

The image of Heather smirked and stepped between Melinda and the imprisoned Penny. She glanced over her shoulder before turning back to Melinda. "What am I doing here? Bugging you, of course."

"What the hell are you talking about? Can ... wait, did Diane free you already? Is that it? Are you here to help me?"

Heather laughed. "Help you? Why would I do that? You know I've never been helpful."

Melinda stared at her sister. "I don't understand."

"What's there to understand, midget?" Heather said, her smile fading. "God, you're so fucking annoying, you know that? Why don't you just go back to sucking your thumb and complaining to Mom about every little thing you don't like?"

Melinda's hands clenched into fists. Just those few sentences had whipped her memories into a frothy, boiling stew, memories of the old Heather who would tease Melinda relentlessly. "I don't know why you're doing this, but I can't be bothered about it now. I have to rescue Mom."

Heather laughed.

"What the fuck is so funny, bubblehead?!"

Heather grinned, but it was devoid of humor. "You. You're so funny when you get mad."

"Stop it! You know I used to hate that!"

"Oh? And you don't hate it now, is that it?"

Melinda hesitated. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Just what I said, runt. You said you used to hate it when I did that. You don't now?"

"I ... but ... of course I would hate it now, but you don't do that anymore!" Melinda piped. "That's why I don't understand! Why would you start doing this to me now?"

Heather's grin widened. "Yeah, I'll bet there's lots of stuff you still hate, huh? Remember when I used to tell Mom every time I heard you use a curse word?"

Melinda's hands clenched tighter until her arms trembled, but she forced herself not to react further.

"Remember when I told her how you went up to the abandoned railroad tracks when you were six?"

Melinda took a deep breath and let it go as a tense sigh.

"And then I teased you about being chicken because you really had only made it as far as the rickety old bridge before you ran back home with your tail between your legs?"

Melinda's nails bit into the palms of her hands.

"Oo, and remember how I used to call you the little wallflower? Wow, I could always set you off with that."

"Only because you used to be one yourself!" Melinda shrieked.

The image of Heather paused, and Melinda saw herself back at the House, being forced along with the others to decide on whether to take the power Mara had offered each in turn. She remembered hearing for the first time how Heather had once been the shy one to whom no one ever paid any attention.

Heather slowly smiled. "Oh, very good, Melinda. Just like old times. Sure, what else do you have to throw at me?"

Melinda could think of a dozen things she could hurtle in retaliation, and her lower lip trembled as if in eager anticipation of unloading a return volley of insult and accusation. She swallowed and said in a flat voice, "Nothing."

"Oh, what a little liar you are."

"Shut up! I don't have to do this!"

Heather laughed.

"Stop it! What the fuck is all this about?!"

"It's about exactly what you see, baby sis."

Melinda bit back the automatic rejoinder. "I don't have time for this, Heather," she said in a measured, if shaky, voice. "I have to free Mom."

Heather glanced at the prison behind her, then turned towards it. "Oh, yes, I suppose you have even more to say to her."

Melinda frowned. "What?"

"I guess I can't really hold a candle to her. You have so much hate for her."

Melinda shook her head. "No, I don't. I-I gave that up. I know the truth now."

Heather snorted and turned towards her sister. "The truth, huh? The truth shall set you free and all that bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit! Why are you doing this to me?!"

Heather smirked. "Because you're a whiny brat, that's why."

"I'm not--! I mean ... j-just stop it!" Melinda cried, her eyes glistening. "You haven't done this since the summer! You're not like this anymore!"

"Oh, really? Then why am I here? Why am I doing all the things you claim I stopped doing?"

"Because you're not fucking real!" Melinda screamed as tears trickled down her face. "You're some sort of stupid fucking figment of my own mind! You're just a memory, that's all!"

Heather laughed, and it was all Melinda could do not to pummel the vision with her fists. "I'm as real as you want me to be, you stupid brat. So yeah, you go on believing I'm just a figment. Just like you believe you can really free Mom."

"I can free her!" Melinda shrieked.

"And why do you think you can do that?"

"Because I don't hate her anymore! I can forgive her for ... for ..."

Melinda trailed off, and she stared at the vision of her sister as understanding exploded in her head like a bomb.

Melinda swallowed, and her eyes misted. Her next breath was released as a small sob. She stared at her sister and tried to quell every last bad feeling which lingered in the recesses of her mind.

"I f-forgive you," Melinda said in a shaky voice.

Heather hesitated, some of her grin fading. "What was that, runt?"

"I said I forgive you!" Melinda shouted, wiping her eyes. "I don't hate you anymore for anything you've done!"

"And ... and you think that's enough?" Heather demanded, though in a less certain voice. "You think you can just shove aside years of hate like that?"

Melinda sniffled and struggled to hold back the tears. The force of the epiphany was like a constant ache in her gut. She had thought her biggest hurdle was her hatred of her mother. She had never stopped to think about the even bigger pile of resentments against her sister she had stockpiled over the years.

Now she saw the other piles which sat beside it. All the past transgressions from Diane, Richie, Jason, and even Cassie, Ned, and Debby. She had squirreled them away like a pack-rat, saving them for when she needed to hurtle something in someone's face.

"I don't know," Melinda said in a choked voice. "But I have to try. I have to try, dammit, so get the fuck out of my way!"

Melinda raised her fists above her head and plunged towards the glass prison. The image of Heather stepped in front of her, but Melinda gritted her teeth and repeated "I forgive you" over and over. She plunged though just as the image vanished.

Melinda pounded her fists against the glass, teeth clenched, her body shaking with both fear and rage. Again and again, striking the glass with such force that had this been her physical body, the skin of her hand would be a bruised mess.

CRACK!

Melinda was so startled by the noise that she staggered back. She had to wipe her eyes again in order to see. A single crack had appeared, spidering out about a foot from where her fists had stuck the glass.

Melinda let out a feral snarl and threw herself against the prison once more, beating her fists with almost inhuman effort. Several more small cracks appeared, but spread no further than the first had.

Her arms grew tired, and she did not understand why. This was not her physical body, so she should have all the energy she needed. That was when she understood. The pool of energy she had gained over the weekend was almost drained.

Melinda screamed her rage and desperation as she threw herself against the prison like a girl possessed.

Richie trembled as he looked up at the looming form of his father. "D-Dad, I ..." he started to say until his throat tightened too much for him to speak.

"Yeah, that figures," the image of his father sneered. "That fucking figures. You'll shoot your goddamn mouth off at me or your mother whenever you're not getting your fucking way, but you can't give me a straight answer about anything else."

"I-I'm going to save Mom, that's where I'm going!" Richie managed to choke out.

"You're just going to make things worse!" Mike roared. "You already fucked things up, you little asshole! You think you can just slap a fucking band-aid on a gaping wound?"

Richie took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. "Dad, I-I'm doing this to make up for all that! Please, let me--"

"Griping and excuses! That's all I ever get from you! You don't know shit about how to take responsibility. Did I really believe your mother would be okay with just you around? What the fuck was I thinking?!"

The instinct to protest had not left Richie. He wanted to defend himself and plead his case as the victim, even as much as he knew it to be false. "I don't understand, Dad," Richie said in a shaky voice. "How are you getting through on the link? How're you getting past what the Dark bitch was--"

Suddenly Richie's head snapped to one side, his cheek burning. He stumbled and fell to the ground. He gave his father a horrified look as he raised a shaking hand to his stinging cheek where faint red traces of his father's fingers lingered.

"Stop changing the fucking subject!" Mike roared. "That's always it with you, isn't it? You never want to fucking see what the hell you're supposed to be doing!"

"I'm s-supposed to be rescuing my mother!" Richie cried.

"What the fuck gives you the right to do anything concerning her, you motherfucker?! Yeah, that's right, you are a motherfucker!" Mike swept his arm towards the struggling Sandra. "Yeah, that's what you really want to do here, isn't it? Fucking her body is not enough for you. You have to fuck her mind, too."

Richie struggled to his feet, his vision blurred by tears he refused to acknowledge. "I know wh-what I've done," Richie said in a choked voice. "I won't make any excuses for it, Dad."

"You're damn fucking straight you won't! You have no excuse, you worthless piece of shit!"

Richie's next breath came out as a sob. "I-I don't want to fuck her anymore, I--"

And again, Richie was on the floor, nursing another slap to his face.

"You fucking little liar!" Mike bellowed. "You want to fuck her. You know you want to!"

"Alright, I do!" Richie screamed. "I enjoyed it whenever I did it, alright?! I've already admitted that. What more do you fucking want from me?!"

With a snarl, Mike rushed forward. Richie cringed and tried to crawl away, but his father grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. "You stand and look me in the fucking eye when you talk to me, you little fuckwit."

Richie wrenched his arm from his father's grip and leapt back, but dared not take his eyes from his father's face, even as twisted with rage as it was.

Mike shook a finger at Richie's face. "You think you can even begin to make up for all the shit you've pulled?! You could spend a lifetime doing good deeds and you won't atone for even a fucking fraction of a fraction of everything you've done!"

Richie could not hold back the tears any longer. He let them flow down his face, perhaps in the hope that his father would take pity on him. Instead, his father's face twisted into a disgusted scowl.

Richie tried to stop the torrent of emotion so he could think. Just what did his father want from him? He had thought his father would lay off when he showed that he really wanted to make up for what he had done.

He risked a glance at his mother. Maybe that was it. His father just wanted him to get on with it. His eyes flicked over the chains. He had to be his mother's Superman. He had to just pull them apart. It had to be that simple.

He looked back to his father and took a deep breath. "Fine. I can't atone for everything. But I can fix this one thing, Dad. I'm gonna save Mom."

Richie turned away from his father. He had taken only two steps towards the bed when his arm was seized. He tried to wrench it out of his father's grip, but his father had already pulled him back and sent him spinning. He tripped over his feet and fell to the floor. "What the fuck, Dad?! I'm trying to--!"

"You're not touching her, you perverted asshole!" Mike screamed, making Richie's ears hurt. "You're not going to make things worse!"

Diane staggered back from the white-clad image of the nurse, too stunned to respond. Nyssa smiled and stepped towards her, heels echoing into the void. Heather remained still, her eyes downcast, as if she had not even noticed Nyssa's presence. "Actually, now that I think about it," said Nyssa in a honey-sweet voice. "We didn't really get much time together when we last met."

Diane swallowed and forced her throat to work, her voice choked and raspy at first. "Y-You can't be here. We ... you left! You left town after--"

Nyssa giggled and stepped forward, forcing Diane to stumble back another half-step. "You silly thing. I was the one who gave my pet Laura her power. In that sense, I never truly left."

Diane's mind raced. If some form of Nyssa really still inhabited Laura's head, what hope did she have of freeing Heather? She had not bargained for this. She was supposed to confront her worst fear, and that was supposed to be Victor.

"Wh-what do you want with me?" Diane demanded in a shaky voice.

"Oh, but you're the one who decided to take a romp in Heather's consciousness, not me. I should be asking the same thing of you."

"I'm trying to free her!"

Nyssa giggled. "Just like you freed everyone from me?"

Diane shuddered as the memory burned in her mind. She had barely walked into the room after Cassie when she had been rendered helpless for the duration of the subsequent battle. When she had awakened, everything had been said and done, and she had realized she had been only so much dead weight, no different than if she had stayed away.

"I-I'm not here to fight you!" Diane cried.

"I might have something to say about that," said Nyssa in a silky voice as she took another step towards Diane.

Diane tried to back away, but her gaze was caught in Nyssa's ice-blue depths. She shuddered as she could not tear her eyes away, her senses already falling into the icy expanse.

The potion no longer mattered. Her will no longer mattered. She was back at school, entering the nurse's office, Nyssa catching her in seconds like a fly on flypaper, Diane helpless to defend herself.

Nyssa took another step. Diane's eyes glazed as the ice-blue pit yawned before her psyche. "I see you are no better than you were back then. I could have had you had I not been distracted. You would have made a wonderful pet."

Diane shivered and managed to pull herself back to the very edge of the chasm. More memories raced through her head. She remembered talking to Cassie after it was over, expressing her lament that she had done little to help. At the time, Diane had dismissed Cassie's response as the usual platitudes designed just to make her feel better.

"Diane, you did help, in a way," Cassie had said. "You gave her another distraction. She was forced to use more power to stop you, so she had less to use against me. I just barely held her off as it was. You might have made the difference between victory and defeat."

Now the words burned bright in her head, and she was not sure why. What would these words mean to her now? The situation was not the same. No one was waiting in the wings to save Heather if she fell. It was all riding on her.

"I don't want to be your pet," Diane said in a choked voice, robbing it of some of its conviction. "I don't want to be anyone's slave!"

Diane thought she had understood her greatest fear, but Nyssa had appeared in Victor's stead. She was not sure why, since Nyssa had never truly enslaved her.

Diane shuddered when Nyssa stepped forward, her bosom brushing Diane's chest. Diane's skin flushed hot, the sensation flowing over her like warm honey, thick and cloying. Her hands had been clenched into fists at her sides, but now they trembled and relaxed as they slipped from her control.

Nyssa's lips curled into a wicked smile. "So is it still that easy, Diane?"

She touched her fingers to Diane's cheek and trailed them slowly down Diane's neck. Pleasure spread in pulsed waves through Diane's body, throbbing faintly in her pussy with her pounding heart. She struggled in vain to ignore the sensations, but as Nyssa slid her fingers down Diane's arm, they multiplied and flooded her mind, drowning out all other thoughts save for the memory to which she clung like a drowning person clutching a random piece of flotsam.

"So simple," Nyssa said as she cupped one of Diane's breasts.

Diane whimpered as Nyssa squeezed the soft flesh, her pussy wet and aching, her body suffused with desperate lust. The memory played out in her head in time to the present, and she saw no way out, no way to break herself of Nyssa's control.

"So weak. And now ..." Nyssa whispered as she touched the crotch of Diane's jeans.

Diane's hips rocked to the sudden, intense orgasm, the throbbing reaching up through her body and into her mind, forcing it to its simple, slavish cadence. She felt herself slipping away, her thoughts emptying from her mind, save for the memory to which she still clung, yet even it was being tugged from her grasp.

In that last protected bastion of her mind, she pleaded for the answer. Somehow she had attacked the problem from the wrong angle. She had come into this fight with the wrong ammunition.

"... so helpless," said Nyssa.

And in a lighting flash of inspiration, Diane had the answer.

She had been wrong all along. Slavery was not her worst fear. It went far deeper than that. What she truly feared above all else was feeling helpless.

She was not helpless! She had the potion! She had stopped Heather from taking Melinda! She had overcome her fear of Victor in the visions with Richie! She had discovered the secret to Penny Sovert's past! She had managed to tap the line energy!

And with that last thought, blue-white brilliance blasted into her mind and flashed the flood of lust to steam. It roared through her consciousness and into the vision of Nyssa that Diane now realized was coming from her own head. Nyssa staggered back and screamed, a terrible cry like a banshee which echoed for another few seconds even after she had vanished.

Diane let out a shaky sigh. She felt giddy and terrified at the same time. She had defeated her fear, but how much energy had she used? She could not tap the energy flow forever. It had to close down eventually, like a battery in need of recharging.

Diane rushed over to Heather. She grabbed the chain, braced a foot against the pole, and pulled with all her remaining strength.

Cassie had tried to prepare herself as best as she could for confronting her worst fear or her worst character flaw. Her mother was the embodiment of both.

She looked at the vision of her mother, rendered in perfect detail, likely taken from her own mind. She was on a battlefield where she did not dictate the rules, she could only follow them.

"That is not what I am about, mother," Cassie said in as firm a voice as she could muster.

The image of Dorothy folded her arms and gave Cassie an imperious look. "Nonsense. Look where you are. You are among others who have power. Power attracts power!"

"That is not why I joined them, and if you are from my own mind, you damn well know it."

"Whatever your motivations were are irrelevant. My statement still stands. Power attracts you like moths to the flame. Now, are you strong enough not to get burned?"

Her mother's words were pounding into her brain, as if each had the force of a sledgehammer. So easy was it to deny in words, but she had to believe it with her entire being. "I am not like you," Cassie said in a steady, measured voice.

Dorothy took a step forward. "Are you so sure of that?"

"I am not like you!" Cassie shouted, though increased volume did not equal increased confidence.

Dorothy laughed with a cadence that chilled Cassie to the bone. "You say those words as if they matter. As if becoming like me was a universal anathema. You have so much to learn."

"What is there to learn? I do not like to wield any of my powers. I use them only ... stop laughing!"

"Then stop amusing me so much, oh naive little Cassandra!" Dorothy declared. She swaggered around Cassie, then turned towards Jason and gestured. "This is power, Cassie. This is what you wield. This is what you want."

Cassie abandoned her initial response. All the protests in the world would have little effect.

Dorothy turned to her. "Power is what matters. Power is what makes the world go around. Why do you think I married your father? What a powerful man he is! His power augments my own!"

"Stop it!" Cassie cried in a shrill voice. "Now I know you're just plucking these things out of my own head. Yes, I was worried once that you and father married for convenience instead of love, but I know better than that now."

Dorothy sighed and shook her head, clicking her tongue. "You were always like that, Cassandra. Things get uncomfortable for you, and you change the subject."

Cassie swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to slow her racing thoughts. She was missing something important. All the clues were right there, but something did not fit.

"Power makes everything so much easier," Dorothy said in a softer voice. "With your abilities, you can wield power such that no one could stand in your way."

"I do not want that sort of power, mother, I never did."

"Like that matters."

Cassie frowned. "Of course it matters! I spend so much of my time trying to find ways to avoid using too much of my power. It can't bring anyone any good if I make it the means to every end!"

Dorothy swept her arm towards Jason. "And yet here stands your friend, who will surely remain bound to his fate if you refuse to use your power."

"I will use it!" Cassie cried. "I will not leave my friend here!"

Dorothy paused, and her lips curled into a wicked smile as she stepped forward. Cassie's eyes widened, and she trembled as she stumbled back a step. "And will you stop using it?" asked Dorothy.

"What? Of course I will! I don't want to control him."

"That is a lie."

"That is not ... it doesn't ... I don't have to give into my baser instincts! Don't you see what I'm talking about now? Don't you see why I have to be so careful? I can't risk that I might--"

"Like it?"

Cassie was stunned into silence.

"You cannot tell me, Cassandra, that there isn't a certain attraction to being in control. After all, everyone wants to be in control of their life."

"That's ... that's not the same thing."

She knew it was not, but her words were lacking. Nothing was halting her descent into further confusion and self-doubt. What was she missing?

"Control over your life is so much easier when you can control others!" Dorothy declared in a triumphant voice. "Look at how many people I have at my beck and call. I have control over them, and as a result, I have control over my life. Would you not like something like that?"

Of course Cassie would! That was the trap. Jason likely saw the trap as well, and yet it served as a vehicle for making him into the Darkness' minion.

Dorothy stepped back. "You have the ability to change everything this very minute! Take control of him. Do what he intended to do with his power and take over the rest of the Harbingers."

Cassie shook her head. "No, I don't want--"

"Stop bleating about not wanting power, because everyone does! You can see as much as he did that it would solve so many problems, how it would make your life so much easier."

Cassie's head swam. The words were like a thickening pall, seeping into the darkest recesses of her mind. They tickled every thought she had ever had about wishing how some of her fellow Harbingers were different than they were.

"You could mold each member to be a perfect cog in a grand machine," said Dorothy. "You would never have to deal with all the troublesome little quirks of your friends. You could unify everyone under your grand, powerful leadership!"

"That's just it, I never wanted to be leader of the Harbingers!" Cassie exploded. "I never wanted the job when Jason stuck me with it! I resented him giving me that position in the first place! He knows I don't like to be in charge!"

"Only because you chose not to wield the power you have a right to--"

"I DON'T WANT THAT KIND OF RESPONSIBILITY!"

Cassie staggered, the epiphany hitting her like a thunderbolt.

The force of understanding ground her other thoughts to a halt. She looked up at her mother, who tilted her head as if in confusion.

"I-I had it all wrong," Cassie said. "I thought ... I thought it was becoming like you that I was afraid of. That's not it. I ... " She swallowed, still shaking from the revelation. "Mrs. Radson was right. I'm afraid of responsibility. It has nothing to do with any power I have!"

Dorothy looked as if she wanted to retort, but no words made it to her lips.

"Yes, that is it!" Cassie cried. She took a step forward, and the vision of her mother staggered back. "And you're not my mother! You're just something conjured from my mind to stop me from finding the truth!"

Dorothy hesitated, then drew her mouth into a frown and gave Cassie another imperious look. "So what of your supposed revelation? Do you think it's going to help you now? Do you still believe you can wield the power you fought so hard to deny?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter," Cassie said, trembling. "I'll just have to take responsibility for whatever I do. Now get out of my way!"

Cassie surged forward and shoved her mother hard to the side. Her mother uttered a surprised yelp and a cry as she stumbled back into the void and vanished.

Cassie wanted to shout in triumph. She had overcome a hurdle she doubted she could have done herself were it not for Debby's insight, but that had been only half the battle. She looked towards Jason.

"All right," Cassie said as she stepped forward. "We've got to get you out of here."

Audrey lay beneath her husband, sharing the marital bed in a way they had not done for over a decade. One moment she would moan in mindless sexual abandon, the next she fought to extricate herself from this unwanted union.

Henry kept her wrists pinned hard to the mattress above her head, his hips rocking in a steady, strong rhythm. His eyes shimmered as he looked down at his beloved, wishing for all the world that this was just another loving romp with his wife.

That was not to be yet. He was barely maintaining his foothold in her mind. The Entity was fighting him with ferocious intent. Now that they were engaged in the act, he could harness her own rising sexual pleasure to his advantage. Even that was a tooth and nail fight, as the Entity wished to possess that precious commodity for itself.

For a moment, Henry felt sick that he would think of anything about his wife as a "commodity," but that was the world in which he lived at the moment.

Henry controlled his own rise to climax, which sapped some of the energy which could have otherwise gone to fighting the Entity's control. He wished he had first reviewed a recent report on estimates of the Entity's intelligence. When would it realize that Henry could not possibly be fighting it this hard with just the energy that had been stolen? When would it figure out that the Haven Project had succeeded in manufacturing more of the same energy?

He had not thought through all the risks. By all rights he should stop now. Yet the longer he remained in sexual union with Audrey, the more the pleasant memories of a simpler past haunted him. He could no more stop fighting to save Audrey than he could will himself to stop breathing.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this, Audrey, Henry thought. Please, come back to me, and I promise this won't happen again.

Could he make such a promise? Ted had told him from the start that he was putting his family at potential risk by working on the Project. Henry had been the one to make the decision to move his family to Haven rather than concocting some story about why he needed to make the long commute from the city every day. Ted had never warned against it, as if he had hoped for those extra data points were Henry's family pulled in against their will.

Henry changed the angle of his thrusts slightly, bringing his shaft into closer contact with her clit. She used to love it when he did that, like advancing to the next stage of intimacy. At first he was rewarded with a shudder and a deep, husky sigh that tugged at his heartstrings. Her half-lidded eyes gazed at him, and for a moment he thought he saw the old Audrey.

The moment was fleeting. She closed her eyes and struggled again.

Henry took that as a good sign, but he would not get any further unless Cassie and her cohorts made headway in their efforts.

Something was wrong.

It had been so enchanted watching Jason take Cassie that it had not noticed at first. It was like sitting in a quiet house, intent on watching a movie, only to finally hear the tiny scrapes of someone trying to break in.

It felt a foreign presence in both Sandra and Penny's minds. Someone was trying to push back against its control. It had to be Richie and Melinda. No one else was available, as much as Jason had managed to disrupt them.

It laughed. This was a pitiful attempt to divert its attention. It barely had to exercise any real effort to keep them at bay. They were both weak-willed to begin with, and now they expected to have the fortitude to triumph over their own flaws? The only one who had managed such a feat was dead, and she had to use a potion to help her. Not that it really did in the end.

The Darkness felt a sense of relief. It had shared Jason's concerns that the Harbingers were planning to deliver a blow against it. Now that it had begun, and it saw the limited extent of the threat, it could relax. This was truly going to be the Harbingers' last stand.

Now it sensed a push against Jason's mind. This was unexpected, as it had appeared that Cassie's mind was already slaved to Jason's. Yet it could not profess a complete understanding of Cassie's powers. It could be the equivalent of a reflex reaction. It was making no headway that it could see.

It was not worried. Jason could handle it. Jason was the perfect minion, with a mind so twisted that he believed he was doing the right thing. It wished it had thought of such a technique sooner.

It would not be complacent, however. That had done it in before. It focused its energies on its minions, ensuring that they would hold up against whatever assault the Harbingers had managed to scrape together. It could be no more than a brute-force attack, the very type that it could defend against easily.

It took form within the deep. A shapely body of pale white skin glowed from under its cloak of inky black. It took energy to maintain, but it felt the need to properly present itself, much like dressing up for a special event. Perhaps it would use the last of its husbanded energies to cast one final spell from the Book, and project its visage to each of the Harbingers -- Cassie, Richie, and Melinda -- as they fell, so they would know who their true Mistress would be from now on.

The energy expenditure was not a worry. It would soon have all the energy it needed once the Harbingers could be put to work as its minions.

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