Pacey continued to sprint down the path back towards central Capeside. At the back of his mind the Others were hurrying him along, saying that the possessed Andie was behind him. He eventually got to where Jen lived, he straightened up and knocked on the door.
Grams opened the door, "Hello, Pacey," she said.
"Hi, Grams, is Jen in?"
"She's upstairs."
"Take her, Pacey," whispered the things in the back of his mind.
"Grams, are you joking? She's like a thousand years old."
"Our strength can help her, we can defeat the Demon if we expand, as we said."
Pacey passed Grams, then he grabbed her and put her in a headlock. He flicked the door shut with his foot and clamped his hand around her mouth. "Do it," he said. Gram was struggling, but his machine-strength was impossible to break by such a frail creature.
Invisible strands expanded from Pacey's body, tendrils that snuck around her body, eventually covering her entirely with the invisible bands.
The Others knew that the Demon was the only thing in the void that could ascend to the bridge they made into another mind, with it free, there was no need to be careful, and the flooded into her skull.
Pacey let Grams go, and she fell to the floor. "Sorry, Grams," he said before he bounced up the stairs.
Gram's body was totally different to Pacey's, he was strong, young, vital, she was witthered and faltering. The Others began to add their strength to hers, but Gram's mind receeded, she simply wouldn't accept the new presence, and she Others could do nothing but watch as it slithered into the equivilant of a hole in the ground. They began to fix her up, the hip, the shortness of breathe, the cataracts, all dissapeared as they used their strength to heal her, restore her to pseudovitality.
Grams body got up just in time for the front door to splinter as Andie kicked it open with a powerful kick.
"Another one," Andie said. "He wants to play first." She stood in the doorway, her small body somehow blocked out the light.
Grams stood her ground, her body prepared to ride any storm out. "Your overconfidence will be the end of you, Demon."
Energy began to swirl near the two figures, each possessing a strange and hithero unknown capacity to bend reality to a degree. They were like a pair of gunslingers, waiting for the other to draw first.
Grams was slower, but Andie allowed her to get the first blow in, to see how futile it would be. Instead of striking at the beast, she struck at the ceiling in the hallway. A big band of red fire emerged from her hands, it scythed into the plaster and board in the ceiling and savagely cut a vast hole in it. The Demon inside Andie realised her intent and dodged backwards to avoid the avalanche as it collapsed near her.
Pacey was upstairs, the Others kept him informed of the battle, they knew Grams could never win, and she could only slow her down, hold her off for Pacey to expand. He got into Jen's room, but she wasn't there. The bed was still made, then she dropped in through the window, dressed in the clothes she had on last night when they had all met at the Ice House.
"Pace, what are you doing here?" she asked as she threw her leather jacket down onto a chair.
"No time to explain, Jen."
"What?"
Pacey covered the fifteen feet between them in a second, his hands clamped on her shoulders, she tried to pull back but was stuck fast against a grip like a vice. The tentacles came out, they snaked towards Jen. Jen was trashing about, and purely by luck her left foot found Pacey's genitals, the pain exploded into his mind, and his grip slacked, but just as Jen was pulling back, he caught her on the right wrist.
"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Pacey screamed as he tried to banish the exquisite pain.
"Get off!" shouted Jen. "Somebody help, Pacey's gone mad. Grams!"
It took a few seconds for the Others to pierce the barrier that allowed them into her brain, when they did gain entry, Pacey's grip loosened. The chorus buzzing in her head confounded her. She staggered backwards, and fell out of the window she'd just came in through.
Pacey could barely stand, Jen had a good pair of legs on her. He trotted over to the window to see Jen laying on her back, now still.
"Jen, we need you, we love you," said a single voice in her own head.
"NO!" She screamed in reply. "What's wrong with me, I can't move!"
"Your spine is snapped slightly below the third vertabrae, Jen," came another voice. "You harmed yourself before you learnt the power of our strength and love, we can heal you if you listen."
Pacey heard someone coming up the stairs. He knew Grams was no more, her broken body was contorted and shoved into a cupboard in the kitchen. When Grams died, the Others informed him.
"Oh, Pacey," said Andie softly. "That was fun, make another one and I'll eat them too."
The agony in his groin was now entirely missing, he burst over to the bedroom door and peered through the gap. Andie was slowly climbing the stairs, in no hurry it seemed. Pacey checked the door, he had an idea.
As Andie ascended, she saw Pacey's mind, coupled with the Others own intrinsic existence closing in on her. She prepared to send a few blasts of red fire up at him, but decided to make it more amusing. She saw the door being torn off its hinges, then thrown at her. She raised her arms and it his her hard on the forearms. The Demons superior strength helped her survive any major injuries and the door cannonaded off her and down into the hallway below.
"Leave her," said Pacey as he stood at the top of the stairs.
"I like her body," said the Demon through Andie's voice. "I'll have a long time to defile it after I rip your little friends from this Universe and hurl them back into the void."
"One more chance, demon, leave her body."
"Drop dead, Pacey," Andie replied.
Pacey concentrated the strength through him, he squirted two lightning bolts through his palms aimed at Andie's legs.
Andie's left thigh seemed to explode as the bolt hit it. The Demon strengthened her right leg from similar harm. Her left thigh was basically a bone with a few strands of burnt muscle keeping it on. As she willed, the muscles returned to its red natural colour, and it expanded to fill the rest of the gap. When it was finished, a thin layer of flesh emerged from below and she was perfectly healed.
"Nice try, Pace, but I am beyond your little friends, beyond anything in this Universe, here I am a -"
Jen's arms clasped around her soft white neck, cutting off the rest of the sentence. Her strength was increased amazingly so by the Others. Pacey rushed down the stairs and his fist found Andie's face. Together they manhandled Andie and threw her over the side of the stairs.
"Pacey," said Jen, "it's amazing, they can make us really strong and stuff."
"I know, Jen."
They both leaned over and the potential bubbled in them. Andie was just getting up, the dust simply fading from her body. She looked up in time to see energy coming towards her.
She protected herself by reinforcing her body, it dashed against her, causing cuts and gashes in her flesh. Then she went on the offensive and sent up a streamer of red fire at where they were. She heard Jen scream and the lightning attack ceased. The major wounds were nothing more than fading pink lines on her skin.
"Nice try," she coughed out.
"Pacey, Jen," said the Others, simaltaneously in both of their minds, "we have to leave, we need to expand further, she is still too powerful."
"How can we throw her ass from Andie's body?" Pacey asked the Others.
"We need to enter the mind again, for that we need to restrain her, you two cannot do it alone. We need more."
Pacey looked at Jen, they knew what they had to do. They both sprinted to the top of the stairs, Pacey turned for a moment to fling bolts of red fire down to annihilate the stairs entirely, then he joined Jen as they leapt from her bedroom window and smacked down on the concrete of the patio.
As they regained their composure, they felt Andie approach from the ground floor, they both cut loose and two streamers of red fire squirted from their hands and blew the kitchen away in an inferno of primitive energy. Then, both temporarily sapped, they started to run away.
The house behind them was swiftly burning away, and from the ground floor, through the intense conflagration emerged Andie McPhee, perfectly preserved, despite the great heat. She walked slowly yet purposely.
In the back of his mind, Pacey was wondering why he got up this morning.