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The women pressed their faces into each other’s shoulders.
Vaughn was breathing hard. Fury engulfed him for a long, difficult moment as he stared at the headless body, enraged by all that Loghry had done through the years.
It took him a few minutes to recover himself. He labored through a series of deep breaths, easing his anger down. Loghry was dead and Emma and Beth were safe.
Together, all three of them had done a lot of good. They’d not only saved the girls in the cage tonight, but all the ones Loghry would have gone after in the future. If the wizard had survived, there would have been hundreds more.
When he’d grown calmer, he moved back to Emma and Beth. “You two okay?”
They both nodded, but each face was pale.
“Sorry this was so messy.”
Emma rose to her feet. “It was the right thing to do. Maybe even the only thing you could do.”
Beth stood up as well. “Thank God, it’s over. There’s no way he can come back to life now.”
Emma placed her hand on Vaughn’s arm. “I just spoke with Becca. He really is dead now.”
Vaughn turned to Emma and slid his arm around her shoulders. He drew her close. “We did it, Em.”
Tears filled her eyes as she nodded. “With Beth’s help, yes we did.”
Vaughn opened his free arm to Beth. She arranged herself next to him, leaning against his shoulder. He held her tight as well.
They’d done it. The wizard was dead.
~ ~ ~
Emma savored the close connection to Vaughn as she watched the triplets. All three girls remained hovering near Loghry. They seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps for his spirit to leave his body.
Vaughn leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “What’s going on with them?”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe they want to face the man who took their lives.”
“Can he hurt the girls at this point?”
“I don’t think so. I think this is something else.”
To Emma’s surprise, more ghosts began to arrive in the small space. Each was a teenage girl, no doubt victims like Becca and her sisters.
And they kept coming, on and on, silent and grim, their mist-like bodies overlapping one another.
“Vaughn, can you see the other ghosts? There are hundreds of them.”
“They have to be the girls Loghry killed over the years.”
Movement from the wizard’s body drew Emma’s attention. She watched as a confused spirit emerged, hunched and grotesque-looking. He glanced at all the faces and snarled, but none of the teens moved.
Near his body, a fiery red archway appeared. Loghry turned toward it and his snarls ceased. His spirit grew agitated and as the archway began to draw him in, he started to scream. Though he attempted to fight back, the power that had hold of him sucked him through the arch. He disappeared into a black abyss, the last of his screams echoing through the labyrinth.
Once he was gone, the arch vanished as well.
Silence followed.
Then, after a full minute, everything changed.
Emma found it difficult to explain the sensation that flooded the space, as though the labyrinth had been weighed down with a physical oppression, which no longer existed. Her heart felt light, and she was completely at peace.
