Chapter #7: Baron Harwood
The soft green light of the Infinite Realms pulses around him. He can feel it – her misery. He takes a deep breath, trying to pull in as much as possible. It's an endless pool, leaving him limited only by his own appetite.
There is nothing sweeter that a woman's misery. Nothing as fulfilling; most importantly, nothing is so boundless.
Just as he revels in the taste, it vanishes.
"How–?!" he flicks his red eyes open, glaring from the mirror into the room. The miasma is gone from his sight. Completely vanished. But how?
The answer appears a few seconds later in the form of a bouncing green puppy, which dances around her feet.
"Do you want to stay in here with me tonight, Cujo?" she smiles – he didn't know she could do that – and proceeds to cover the mirror, facing it to the wall. He greedily snatches the small trace of unease she emits as she does so.
She can't see him anymore. It was easier to frighten her when she could see him.
Curse him.
Curse that wretched Phantom!
-BREAK-
She sleeps peacefully in her bed, the first night for a while. He touches the glass with his fingertips, willing himself through.
"You'll stay over there if you know what's good for you," Someone hisses. He phases through the walls, his green eyes glowing in the darkness.
"She's guilty!" he shouts back, "I can torment her as I wish!"
"I disagree," he replies frostily – ice creeps onto the mirror, causing Baron Harwood to recoil. The Phantom phases in through, creating a path of ice at his feet.
The other ghosts had warned him about 'the halfa.' Even now, he's not sure what that means. Regardless, he knows that the noble, white-haired being before him is acknowledged and revered – a lord among ghosts, perhaps even a king.
The ice creeps up his legs, trapping him in place. Phantom steps closer, his eyes glowing frosty blue, "She is under my protection, Baron Harwood."
"She's my wife! You have no right to interfere!" He shouts, panicking at the ice climbing up his chest, his voice pitched an octave higher than normal.
"Please," Phantom snorts, "I refuse to acknowledge that. She was not your wife, she was your victim. They are never to be one and the same."
"Who are you to decide whether my death was rightful or not?!"
His hands become encased in ectoplasm as the ice claws up Harwood's throat, "I'm stronger than you," he hisses, standing nearly nose-to-nose with the nobleman, "And on this side, that's all that matters."
Baron Harwood loses all conscious after that, slowly collecting the pieces of his ravaged soul.
-BREAK-
He turns away from the covered mirror with a hiss of displeasure. It'd taken a lot of work to reassemble himself. A week, at least. What's his reward? A puppy is eating his miasma.
"It's not fair," he grumbles, storming to the little shadow in the distance. It's a small town on one of the many rocky outcroppings of the Infinite Realms, with simple homes and minor ghosts.
He strides through the bustling – yet still oddly quiet – market. A hunter – Skulker, he recalls – sells pelts from a stall. His wife, a singer called Ember – rumor has it she was burned for being a witch, enchanting men with a siren's song – is drawing a small crowd.
"Hey, Baron Harwood!" Desiree purrs from the opening of her tent, "I hear you ended up on the wrong side of Phantom," she smiles seductively, her eyes lidded, "I'm amazed you're back together so quickly. He must have just been giving you a warning."
He wrinkles his nose at the thought. He'd been frozen solid and summarily blasted into tiny shards of frozen ectoplasm. A warning?
"Phantom's such a bad boy," she chuckles, brushing back a strand of black hair, "Too bad he's a prude. I think I'd wish for that. So much power for someone so young…" she shakes her head and vanishes into the quilted depths of her tent.
"You're lucky," Skulker adds quietly.
"What makes you say that?" Harwood hisses, his red eyes flashing angrily.
"Because Phantom could kill you," someone else hisses from the crowd, which has fallen completely silent, "For good."
"You can't kill what's already dead!" he retorts.
"…he has before."