“I’m going to send you to Hell,” she promised him.

The light was blinding, and heat and cold burst in the air like shrapnel. She went on pure instinct, leaping away, countering, attacking.

She felt pain—bright and stunning—and used it as she would a weapon.

“You and yours will suffer,” he told her. “There will be agony, then there will be nothing, which is worse than agony. What you love will cease to be.”

“You can’t touch what I love. Until you get through me.”

“No?”

She could hear his breathing, ragged, strained. He was tiring, she thought darkly. She would win. And even as she gathered herself to end it, he clasped his hands, raised them. Black lightning spewed out of the churning sky, pierced his joined hands and formed a glinting sword. He sliced it once through the air, then twice. His face was triumphant as he came toward her. She called to the Earth, felt it tremble lightly. As it began to quake, Lucy leaped to defend her. Even as Ripley screamed, the sword bit.

“Everything you love,” he said as the dog lay still on the ground. “Everything dies tonight.”

“For that alone—” She threw her hand skyward, and her power with it. “I’ll kill you.”

She felt the hasp of the sword in her hand. The fit true as a glove, the weight familiar. She swept it down, and the clash of blade to blade rang like doom.

Now it was she who called the storm, a hundred bolts that lanced the sand and water until they circled like fiery bars and caged them. Its rage and violence fueled her, became her. Her hate grew with an appetite so greedy it swallowed all else. “You killed the innocents.”

He was grinning, lips peeled back. “Every one.”

“You destroyed my sisters.”

“They died weeping.”

“You murdered the man I loved.”

“Then, and now.”

The thirst for his blood burned in her throat, seemed to feed her with impossible strength. She beat him back, back toward those flaming bars.

Dimly she heard someone calling her—in her mind, in her ears. She blocked it out as she continued to hack and thrust, as she felt his sword tremble and give a bit more each time. She wanted nothing—nothing—so much as the glory of running her blade through his heart. And feeling the power sing through her at that murderous stroke.

It coursed through her, a little deeper, a little truer every moment. Closer, she thought, so much closer. She could taste the promise of it—dark, bitter, seductive.

When his sword spun out of his hand, and he fell at her feet, she felt the thrill of it, like sex. With the hilt of her sword gripped in both hands, she raised it high over her head.

“Ripley.”

Mac’s voice was so quiet through the roaring in her head that she barely heard it. But her hands trembled.

“It’s what he wants. Don’t give him what he wants.”

“I want justice,” she shouted as her hair flew around her head in coils and snaps.

“You’re too weak to kill me.” The man at her feet lay back, deliberately exposing his throat. “You haven’t the courage.”

“Stay with me, Ripley. Look at me.”

With the sword gripped in her hands, she stared through the bars. She saw Mac only inches away. Where did he come from? she thought dully. How did he get here? Beside him stood her brother, and on either side Mia and Nell.

She heard the wheeze and panting of her own breath, felt the cold sweat sliding over her skin. And the pulse of that greed swimming in her veins.

“I love you. Stay with me,” Mac said again. “Remember.”

“Lower the barrier.” Mia’s voice was brisk. “And cast the circle. We’re stronger.”

“They’ll die.” The thing with Harding’s face taunted her. “I’ll kill them slowly, painfully, so you hear them screaming. My death or theirs. Choose.”

She turned away from those she loved and met her match. “Oh, yours.”

The night exploded with sound as she brought the sword down. A thousand images echoed through her mind. Through them she saw the triumph in his eyes, the sheer glee in them. An instant later, they were baffled and lost. And Harding’s.

She stopped the blade an inch from his throat.

“Help me.” He whispered it, and she saw his skin ripple.

“I will. The root of magic is in the heart,” she began, repeating the words Mac had put in her subconscious. “From this the gift of power must start. With its light we burn off the dark, with its joy we leave our mark. To protect and defend, to live and to see. As I will, so mote it be.”

Beneath her ready blade, Harding began to laugh. “Do you think such weak women’s spells will hold me?”

Ripley tilted her head, almost in sympathy. “Yes. As will this.” Her mind was clear as glass as she closed her hand over the edge of the blade. It sliced into her palm, already stained with Mac’s blood. Against her heart, the amulet Mac had given her glowed warm and bright.

“His blood,” she said. “And my blood. Mixed now and true.” She squeezed until drops fell on his skin. And he began to yell. In rage, she thought as she continued. Wonderful rage. “Poured from the heart, they conquer you. This is the power that I set free. As I will, so mote it be.”

“Bitch! Whore!” He bellowed as she stepped back, strained to snatch at her, to rise. Snarled when he could do neither.

Her vision was suddenly so incredibly clear. Hope, she realized, was blinding bright. She vanished the bars of light, turned. “We can’t leave Harding like this.” Pity for him swarmed into her. “Poor bastard.”

“We cast it out,” Mia said.

They laid out a circle of salt and silver. Inside it Harding spat and howled like an animal, and his curses grew more foul, his threats more hideous.

Faces shivered across his face, as if the bones knit and re-knit themselves. Thunder rolled across the sky in waves as wild as the surf. The wind cried piercingly. Harding’s pupils rolled as they ringed him and clasped hands.

“We cast you out, dark into dark, from here till ever, you bear our mark.” Mia focused. A small white pentagram scored Harding’s cheek.

He howled like a wolf.

“Into the void and into the night,” Nell continued. “Out of this soul and beyond the light.”