Page 150 of Specters & Spotlights

He waited.

Trusted.

Elise looked down into the dark.

For years, she had mistaken silence for survival.

No more.

She drew in a breath so deep it hurt.

Then she sang the next line directly into the storm.

The stage cracked open with light.

White flashed across the bridge, blinding and impossible. Thunder followed, enormous and ancient, shaking the theatre from rafters to boards.

Time stretched.

The rain hung silver in the air.

The fog rippled.

Black to gray.

Gray to white.

The pressure vanished.

The cologne was gone.

The voice was gone.

The Specter snapped out of the world, like a thread pulled clean through cloth.

For one impossible second, Elise heard nothing.

No chant.

No orchestra.

No audience.

Only her own breath.

Then the world came rushing back.

The fog below the bridge was ordinary again, soft and harmless around the painted stones. One of the pentacles on Elise’s hand stood out sharp and black against rain-wet skin.

No pain.

No pull.

No one waiting in the dark.

Her thoughts had barely enough space for one flicker of mischief: Please let the audience think this is some Tony-award-winning storm effect.

Then she saw the pentagram.