Chapter Eleven:
Only Launchpad wasn't focused on the great force before them as it bolstered its power. He abandoned Darkwing and made his way to Beth. From far away it had been hard to see her, as though she were a long distance from him - but up close he found that had been both illusion and reality. Beth was closer than she'd seemed... but no easier to see. "Beth?" he said tentatively. She didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes were tightly shut; if not for the tension in her face, she could have been dead. Trembling, he reached a hand to her arm and tried calling her name again. It came out no louder than a whisper. "...Beth?"
He made no third effort, since his hand passed through her.
Malachai was a vast space of nothing, a blot of emptiness that now opened two enormous black eyes. The eyes fixed on the visitors in its domain, taking them in with an expressionless stare that somehow conveyed greed and malicious glee. Morgana spoke softly. "Do you know what you've done?"
Stella stepped forward with a look of resolve, and met Morgana's eye. "We had to summon Malachai... so that we can banish him once and for all."
"What?!" Richie leapt forward. "Stella, NO! That wasn't the plan -"
Stepping away from him, Stella frowned and shook her head. "It was my plan. If you won't help me I'll do it alone."
"You won't have to," Morgana said quickly. "I'll be your anchor. Give me your hands."
"NO!" Richie bellowed, as Malachai's eyes widened and a deep roar began from the bottoms of the house, working its way up with a violent physical effect on the house. The floor-turned-earth buckled beneath them and began to pull itself apart as Stella spoke the first words of the banishment spell. Richie fell to his knees.
To Darkwing, however, this balancing act was nothing new after the tunnels they'd been sent through. "Morgana! What is this?!"
Her face lined with concentration, Morgana spoke with her eyes shut. Her voice was strangely resonant. "Stella is casting the spell to revoke the spirit's claim to this plane. He will fight us. I am using my own power to strengthen hers."
Malachai roared again. He couldn't be seen to move, yet every tremor seemed to be an echo of a struggle, a push from him against his constraints. Darkwing looked around the room; it was an echo of Malachai's revolt, destroying itself as testament to his fury. Launchpad was across the room, next to a faint shape. With a sudden jolt Darkwing recognized the shape as Beth. As he watched, a blue field surrounded her, dancing about like electricity, and the ground split between her and Launchpad.
"DW!!" Launchpad yelled, turning toward his friends. "Help her! She's fadin' away!"
Darkwing turned back to Morgana, again addressing her. "What's happening to Beth?"
"Malachai will gain strength by draining her soul, as he did to Stella and Richard years ago. He will do this to any living being he can capture."
The way Morgana answered made Darkwing sure that she wasn't consciously giving this information. It was a little like talking to a computer: ask a question, get a factual answer. But you have to ask the right question. "Will he drain us now?"
"Stella and I are protecting everyone. Our souls are safe; Beth is beyond such help. If she is drained before Malachai is defeated, she will cease to exist on our plane."
Darkwing gulped. "Can I help her? Launchpad can't even touch her."
"Keep Malachai distracted. It will slow her rate of spiritual dissipation. We do our part; you must do yours."
It was enough, he supposed. Not a lot to go on, but he could put the rest together; he was Darkwing Duck.
The divide between Launchpad and Beth had widened. Launchpad was trying, but failing, to reach an arm all the way across.
That wasn't the way to save her, Darkwing knew. He steadied himself and made a run straight at Malachai. "Hey, ya big ball of gas!" he yelled. An eye rolled in his direction and centred on him angrily. "What are you, the Patron Ghost of Dustballs? If you're going for 'scary' you need to refine your image, pal!"
The roar that resulted had a definite tone of irritation to it. Darkwing had to duck as a lightning bolt shot over his head, followed by a shower of rocks. "Ha! Hate to tell you, Mally, but your aim stinks!" He tossed a rock back, and it hit the spirit square between the eyes and bounced off. The roar, this time, held muffled fury.
"Hey, whattaya know, he's solid," Darkwing muttered, mildly surprised, before something tackled him to the ground. Another lightning bolt scarred the ground where he'd been.
"I will not," said Richie furiously, "not let this happen!" He pinned Darkwing to the ground, snarling. "I'm not gonna stay like this for eternity! I didn't ask for this and I don't like it! Malachai's gonna get what he wants, I'm gonna get what I want, and you and your friends and even Stella can all get stuck here forever for all I care as long as I get out!!" He thrust Darkwing's head into the dirt to punctuate his sentence.
Darkwing sputtered, and pushed off from the ground into a roll. Richie lost his balance and fell to one side, but jumped back up again a moment later and renewed his attack. The cat didn't have any clear intent other than to fight.
Another tremor hit, and to the side, the ground broke apart further. The more distant side sank into the ground, and Launchpad cried out in frustration. He'd nearly been able to reach her, for a split second... Not that it mattered, not that it made a difference when he couldn't even touch her to save her.
He strained harder. He wouldn't give up, not ever, not even when he could no longer see her, even though he didn't know what to do when he got to her. He didn't know what to do at all, about anything - to get Beth's house back to normal, to get her solid again, to make the evil ghost leave, or to reach her... but he had to do something. At least he could be near Beth, right?
There was another tremor, and her ledge began to crumble. And Launchpad saw the pit that was opening beneath Beth, opening like a mouth underneath her, complete with a red tongue of lava, and lots and lots of teeth.
"DARKWING! I'm LOSIN' HER!"
His sidekick's yell sounded like it was just over his shoulder, and Darkwing was reminded of the actual physical size of the room they were in; despite Malachai's manipulations of the room's dimensions, sound carried the same way it would have in Beth's sewing room, modifications or no.
He slugged Richie and turned from him. Beth wasn't even in sight anymore; Launchpad was hanging halfway over a giant hole in the ground. Darkwing's opponent righted himself amd grabbed at his cape, but Darkwing was through. Turning, he slugged Richie again. "Now listen, pal!" he growled, grabbing Richie by the short lapels of his jacket and shaking him. "I don't know what you've been through. I don't care. She cared, and now she's paying for that kindness."
"I - I don't-"
Darkwing shook him again. "Save it! I'm running out of time because of you." He dropped Richie, who landed roughly. By the time the cat had propped himself up on an elbow, Darkwing was already out of his range and by Launchpad's side.
"Can you reach her?" Launchpad asked hopefully. "I been trying, but it just keeps gettin' lower, and -"
It was an impossible task. Darkwing lied. "I think I can swing over and get her off there." He couldn't move her from anywhere, not if she was intangible. "No problem, LP." The lady or the tiger, it seemed. No time to get her solid before she falls, no way to keep her from falling without touching her. Darkwing swallowed. "I can do this."
Richie watched. He didn't breathe, but something felt caught in his throat. Forty years, it had been... Forty years of lost time, of claustrophobic awareness, of dust and anger and fear.
And, he realized suddenly, there would be more.
He stood up, and cursed. "I'm going to hate myself for this later," he muttered, and strode forward resolutely.
This isn't fair.
He grabbed Darkwing's collar, jerking him backwards.
I never asked for this.
The duck spun around, throwing a punch as he went. Richie sidestepped it, barely, and pulled Darkwing forward, throwing him off-balance for a moment.
Not fair.
The moment was enough for Richie to toss him towards Malachai. The mass of spiritual energy hulked even larger than before, groaning and straining against the circle it was bound in. "You stall 'im!" Richie yelled as Darkwing flailed off in Malachai's general direction. He slapped the other duck on the back, a bit harder than was warranted. "No sweat, chum, the lady's as good as rescued."
He took a flying leap off the ledge, ignoring the teeth jutting in his direction, and drifted downwards to the charred spot of rock Beth Webfoot was lying on. She was motionless. He picked her up gently, and studied her face. "Ya don't fool me, babes. I know you're still in there. You can fight it better than that." He pushed off again as the rock isle crumbled at last, and a loud *snap* shot after him as the evil teeth made a last effort to catch their prey.
"Give the boss a run for his money, at least," he whispered into her ear, and patted her cheek. Then he set her down next to the male duck, who was staring. "Take care'a her."
"I - can't touch her."
Richie shrugged. "Talk to her, then."
"Will it help?"
"What do I look like, a medium?" Richie asked with a snort. "Look, I gotta go, figure it out for yourself."
The point, Darkwing knew, was to distract Malachai so that Morgana and Stella could wear him down. This, unfortunately, was easier said than done. As of now he was stuck clinging to the side of a spirit that was throwing a devil of a temper tantrum, and below him was a pit that was very likely bottomless.
So, without any other ideas, he just continued clinging and hoped it was distraction enough. It really wasn't one of his better moments in his crime-fighting career, but it wasn't as if his crime-fighting career had given him a lot of practice for ghost-busting.
"Ride 'em, cowboooooy!" came a loud call, and Malachai's bulk gave a sudden jolt backwards. A moment later, Richie scrambled into view. "How's the view up here, anything special?"
"What do you want?" Darkwing asked, trying to look menacing even though he knew it was obvious he was holding on for dear life.
"I already said, I just wanted to check out the view!" The cat's face was unreadable, especially behind the sunglasses he was still wearing. "'Course, if there was anything I could give ya a hand with, you'd let me know, right?"
There was something almost embarrassed about Richie's manner that gave Darkwing a sense of sincerity from the cat. He took a risk - this once, he could use the help. "Well, if a guy were to, say, want to distract an evil spirit from taking over the world, is there anything you'd recommend he do?"
Richie thought for a moment. "Well, it'd probably hate this," he said, and stuck his foot into one of the spirit's huge eyes. There was a corresponding roar from Malachai, and their perch rocked so violently that Richie nearly went flying off across the room. He yelled out, jubilantly, as he was bucked about.
Darkwing found, oddly, that he was almost enjoying himself as well. Richie - far more nimble while crawling around Malachai's form than Darkwing was - took hold of the spirit's other side and began to swing. Darkwing caught the cue and swung in opposition, and Malachai's roughly spherical form began to rock back and forth like a tethered stone.
Stella, halfway through her spell below, felt it begin to take. Strength seemed to redouble within her, and she smiled as she continued to chant.
Launchpad almost had a hold on Beth's hand. As it was, he wasn't exactly touching it, but she wasn't passing through him anymore either. He ignored the action behind him - the eyes on that ghost gave him the willies. "C'mon, Beth, we're waitin' for ya. Wake up. C'mon, you can do it!"
She stirred, just barely, and her eyelids fluttered. "Beth! You can hear me, can't you? Fight! You gotta!"
He still couldn't feel her hand, but her almost-invisible fingers closed around his own. And - they weren't almost-invisible anymore. They were paler than usual, almost smoky, but... He looked into her face. He could see her better than before.
He reminded himself to breathe and to keep talking. "That's right, you're doin' great. Just keep goin', Beth, don't give up..."
The black mass beneath Darkwing roared in anger, and Darkwing slowly sank into it.
Alarmed, he looked to Richie. "What the heck -?!"
Behind his glasses, the cat's eyes were wide as well. "Uh, this looks bad, pal," he said, his voice deceptively light. "Maybe we should-"
He couldn't finish the sentence before Malachai's bulk turned ephemeral, and they shot through him like bowling balls through smoke.
Darkwing didn't need to think to act - which was lucky, because as he passed through the spirit he was wiped clean of all thought. The cold cut through his jacket, through his feathers, straight to his bones; and beyond that, cutting into his heart, was a deep hatred. Somehow it made him want to throw up.
His hands worked independently of his mind, however, and before he was all the way through Malachai he had his gas gun in hand and was shoving a grappling hook into it. A second later, he'd fired, and the hook swept up past the edge of the pit and lodged itself firmly in the ceiling, with more force than he'd have thought possible.
The gun's line put an abrupt end to his fall, and Malachai kept screaming above him, and he'd lost track of Richie. There was no time to figure out what had happened to the cat. He struck the retractor switch and the gun wound the line back in, vaulting him up out of the pit and towards the ceiling.
Darkwing shut his eyes and tensed. This was going to hurt.
Stella's face was pinched as she repeated the last lines of the spell over and over and over.
Launchpad almost shouted as Beth's fingers clenched around his hand, and he could feel her squeezing him.
Morgana's fingers dug into Stella's wrists as she poured all her energy into backing the spell.
Malachai howled, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of death itself, and his mouth opened, wider, wider, swallowing his face.
Beth opened her eyes and gasped.
Malachai disappeared, but his final scream went on and on. It ripped through everything, deeply, painfully; the walls began to crumble, and every living person in the room felt as though their bodies were pulling themselves apart as the scream pulsed through them.
And then it stopped.
Darkwing fell roughly to the ground, yelling reflexively, and opened his eyes to find that it was dark. "Morgana!" he cried - or attempted to cry, since actually it came out as more of a groan as he painfully got to his feet.
In answer, the overhead light snapped on.
The room was rather small, somewhat cozy, with very blue curtains on the windows. There were a few swatches of brightly coloured fabric strewn about haphazardly, and a dress dummy lay prone in the corner. Morgana let go of the light switch and looked around, her expression showing satisfaction despite her obvious exhaustion. He followed her gaze across the room to see Launchpad holding Beth tightly, where she still lay on the ground. Darkwing's momentary worry was relieved when he saw that she was holding him back, and he relaxed.
"This was a very productive Halloween," Morgana sighed.
Darkwing smiled at her and took her hand. "You did good, Morg," he said softly.
"I know," she said slyly, and returned his smile. "So did Stella." She looked into the distance wistfully.
Darkwing looked around the room as it dawned on him that the two ghosts were gone. "Are they... okay?"
"Better than okay," said Morgana. "They're free."
Darkwing nodded in agreement. Suddenly he felt very tired as well. Stil holding her hand, he pulled her towards the door. "I say you and I've earned some down-time, Morg... How about we- GAH!"
Stella and Richie stood just outside the sewing room, the former looking sheepish, the latter violently annoyed.
"Ah... Hello," said Stella. "We thought we'd give you a few moments to recover. Everyone alright?"
Darkwing looked accusingly at Morgana. "I thought they were gone!"
Morgana frowned. "I never said they were gone. You didn't even ask if they were still here."
"It was sort of implied in what I --"
"Maybe we should give you a few more minutes," Stella interrupted, and sank through the floor. Darkwing swallowed. After everything they'd been through, that still made him a little nervous.
Richie remained, and glared at them both. "I want you to know that I'm not happy," he said, and pointed an indignant finger at Darkwing. "I still can't touch anything!" Stella popped back up through the floor, grabbed him by the foot, and pulled him down with her.
Epilogue:
Stella smiled, looking serene. Sun filtered down through the kitchen window and shone through her hair. "November 1st," she said happily. "I never thought I'd see another November 1st."
"Forty years of Halloween. Lemme tell you something, babes, it loses its charm." Richie, sitting across the table from her, pointed a finger emphatically as if he were making an important point.
"Lesson learned, then, eh Richie?" Stella smiled teasingly. "No more 2am Halloween seances?"
Richie snorted. "Oh yeah, 'cause I was really plannin' on havin' another one, seein' as how I'm dead and all."
"Sour grapes," was Stella's only reply. She beamed up at Beth as the living woman set a teacup down in front of her. "Thank you. I missed tea. Wonderful weather for it, too."
Beth, looking only slightly unnerved by the very well-felt presence of two ghosts in her kitchen, seated herself at the table as well. "But you can't drink it, can you? You can't touch anything anymore."
Stella shook her head. "No. But I remember it, and that's enough." She passed her hand through the teacup briefly, as easily as if she were passing it through the steam rising from the tea.
Richie grumbled. "And now we're stuck like this. No bodies, no lives, nothin' - ghosts, forever. I can't believe I saved you." He glared at Beth, who smiled back nervously.
"Don't mind Richie," said Stella. "He knows perfectly well that there was no way for us to get our bodies back - Morgana explained it, after all, that our bodies ceased to exist when Malachai first trapped us."
Richie grunted.
"I think he likes you," Stella said.
Beth cleared her throat, obviously to change the subject. "So... are you really stuck here? I mean, is it really forever? I, not that I'm, you know, trying to get you to leave or anything, just..."
"We don't really know." Stella stared down at her teacup.
"Feels like forever," Richie muttered, and tried to lean on the tabletop. This only resulted in his elbow passing through the wood, and he fell through to the floor. Rising back up, he growled, "I hate that!!"
Continuing as if Richie hadn't spoken, Stella said, "Morgana said we should be able to move on soon, now that the spell has been broken and we're not bound here. But I don't know when, or to where."
Richie was levitating on his own now, cross-legged, a few feet from the kitchen table. "Just so long as it's not to another house, I'll be -" He stopped. A light grew about him, surrounding him with softness until he was bathed in it. His first reaction was to look fearfully to Stella. "Babes?! What's..."
"Richie?" she whispered.
Beth, puzzled, looked between the two of them. She saw nothing.
The light poured down, and Richie looked up into its source. He took his glasses off.
"Richie?? Does it hurt?"
He didn't answer for a moment; then, in a quiet voice, he said, "Stel... I wish you could see this... It's beautiful." The light became pure, too intense to see through - then, it faded. And Richie was gone.
Neither Beth nor Stella spoke for a moment. Stella looked at once shaken and expectant.
Beth broke the silence. "Where... did he go?"
"I'll find out, I suppose."
More silence. Stella watched the teacup again, as Beth wondered if she should say anything at all. Finally, to fill the emptiness, Beth asked, "Why did you ever take up with Richie in the first place?"
Stella smiled fondly. "Oh, he's not so bad. I mean, once you get used to him."
Nervously, Beth backtracked. "Oh, I - I didn't mean to say that he was, I just - "
Laughing, Stella said, "That's okay. Until you get used to him, he is that bad." Her voice dropped, and more softly, she said, "I met him through a want-ad... he wanted to start a chain of psychic counselors through a partnership with a medium. Neither one of us was as experienced in the actual contacting of spirits as we made ourselves sound. When I first met him, I couldn't stand him... but after that night, he was all I had.
"The first few years, when we realized we could see and talk to one another again for one night, we'd spend the time planning how to get out. That was when we came up with the plan to pass our curse onto someone else - we figured only another couple of years down the road someone would wander in, someone we could use in our own place. That was when I first cast the spell that caught you: that any living being in the house on October 31st would be an offering to Malachai.
"But the years went by and no one came. We stopped planning then; we became friends." Stella smiled, with tears in her eyes. "He told some wonderful stories, though I doubt they were true. But they were entertaining, and that was enough." She shook her head suddenly, pulling herself out of her memories, and turned to her host. "I thank you, Beth. You did for us, willingly, what no one ever did before. And looking back, after all is said and done... I have no regrets."
Beth smiled in return. "Well, I just did what anyone would do. Or should, in any case. You know. It was..." She stopped. "You're welcome."
Stella nodded and glanced upward. Her eyes filled with wonder. "It is beautiful," she whispered. She shut her eyes.
And then, she was gone.
Beth's smile fell, and a chill ran down her spine. She sat, suddenly alone, in the silence.
The cup of tea still sat, untouched, and the steam rose toward the heavens.
End.
See my profile page for links to chapter notes and references for this fic. ^_^
Story and situation 2000-2005 by R. L. Kelly. All characters the Walt Disney Co. except Beth Webfoot, Stella D'Oro, and Richie Kaspar, all of whom are the creation of the author. This story is the property of R. L. Kelly, and may not be copied, distributed, archived, or altered from its original form without express permission of the author (and that's me!). A thousand thank-yous to Amanda Rohrsson and Jess Guy for their attention to detail and help in polishing this story! When I run out of clever things to say in my disclaimers, the heavens themselves do weep. Alas!