"I ruled Westerburg when I was alive. I deserve it now that I'm dead," Heather announced. The ghost was radiant with triumph, shining red and gold in the air. She looked like she was made from light, riding high on strength and power. Her minions stood by her, ready to obey every command. Heather McNamara, possessed by Ram's ghost, held Veronica imprisoned, twisting Veronica's arms painfully behind her. "It's fitting that you should be the one to deliver it to me."
Veronica had nothing to say. She'd already seen Heather seize control of the other ghosts. Give Heather an army of Westerburg students who died in fire, death and destruction everywhere, and it might as well be the end of the world.
McNamara let go of one of Veronica's arms, only for Duke to take it up instead, gripping her by the upper sleeve and digging her fingernails into flesh. They might look like two friends marching a slacker back to the pep rally. They dragged her toward the doors.
Veronica looked down at the blood on her skirt, felt it still wet on her hands. Heather had not touched her, she thought. She kicked Heather Duke behind the knee, pulled her arm free, and punched Heather McNamara.
She could feel what she had done. Heather stumbled back, losing her grip on Veronica's upper arm, and Veronica could see that she had hurt the ghost inside her as well. Heather came back at her with an underhand blow, and Veronica caught the punch in her bloodied hands. She returned it with a blow to the head.
Only a hunter had the power to slay ghosts. And Veronica had hunter's blood on her hands.
The ghosts used the human bodies as shields, but they could still be injured. J.D.'s blood gave her his power. Veronica pressed her attack on Heather McNamara's body and didn't give up, aiming for the ghost within her. She could see the shimmer of the ghost waver inside Heather, stumble. Heather was on the edge of the staircase now. Veronica shoved Heather McNamara's stomach with both hands. McNamara took a hard fall to the bottom of the staircase, where her body collapsed and lay still. Ram stepped out of McNamara and decided to continue the attack. Kurt tried to use Heather Duke's body to hold Veronica back, but she lunged forward and stepped through Ram. The blood on her clothes stung him, burned him. She punched through what felt like cold air but was much more dangerous. Ram looked startled and incredulous that she could actually hurt him. He held up his arms as if to defend himself. Veronica hit him again, feeling like it was a weaker blow, but it was enough. The ghost dissolved first into colorful fragments in the air, and then to nothing at all. Ram's ghost was laid.
Veronica punched Heather Duke's body next, but that blow barely seemed to come to anything at all.
"Try it again," Heather Chandler boasted, and this time Duke stood still with Kurt's smirk on her face and let Veronica hit her in the chest. She and the ghost inside her looked like they felt no pain. Veronica looked down at the drying blood on her hands. The effect wore off.
It was Bud Dean's turn to move forward. Veronica tried to run, but Bud's hand passed through her shoulder. She felt weak and tired, while he grew stronger. Bud's expression was still utterly blank and devoid of individual personality, all under Heather's control. He drained Veronica until it was easy for Heather Duke to slip beside her and hold her up with one arm under her shoulder, a parody of a supportive friend. Kurt grinned as he drew her close.
"Heather?" Veronica heard another voice. Martha Dunnstock wheeled through the door. She was looking at Heather Duke, her expression timid and scared although she dared to speak up anyway. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry if you didn't want to be bothered. I saw you and Heather just leave the pep rally, and I thought it was strange, as if everyone else was blind to you. I didn't know ... Are you and Veronica okay?"
She saw, Veronica thought. Heather fed the pep rally illusions as if a cheerleader could just disappear from the scene with no one caring, but Martha was different. Martha clearly couldn't see the ghosts, but she'd still noticed what they did under the illusion. Hope soared within Veronica.
Heather never drained Martha, and she urged me to kill her.
"Oh my god, what happened to Heather?" Martha stuttered, as she saw McNamara's unconscious body.
"Martha, help me," Veronica asked. "Heather's possessed by a wraith. And you're a hunter."
It was always more difficult to find hunters than seers. Schools gave kids mandatory removalist tests, but the only way to really test for that ability was in the field.
Veronica knew she was right. Martha came close and reached for Heather Duke's wrist. Duke pulled back from her touch as if it burned her. Veronica grabbed the green handbag as the two of them went down together, fighting on the stairs. Martha tipped out of her wheelchair and fell on top of Duke, then Duke tried to get out from under her. Martha shouted in terrible pain, but she must have known that the thing looking out from Duke's eyes was nothing human. Martha fought it, used her weight and her one good arm to pin Heather Duke down and hit her hard in the collarbone. Then Veronica saw Kurt Kelly's shape rise up and out of Heather's body.
"Above you," she told Martha, and Martha's hand swiped through the air. Martha clung to the stair rail and dragged herself up, screaming in pain as she tried to move her leg. "Fall forward," Veronica asked, knowing it would hurt Martha, begging her to act anyway, and Martha let herself go.
Kurt fell apart while Veronica watched, and Martha lay broken at the bottom of the stairs.
"How rude," Heather Chandler said. She giggled, as if it didn't matter to her at all that she had lost two of her servants. "Way to betray your fat friend again." She was very close to Veronica, turning the air cold all around her. Then Heather touched Veronica's forehead, leaned her face in as if she were about to kiss her, and instead slipped all the way through her.
"I'm going to get help. Just stay where you are," Veronica heard her own voice say. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Heather was inside her, possessing her, owning both her body and her mind.
She understood now what Heather felt. Veronica herself and Duke and McNamara were fresh meat, sizzling with hot delicious blood, food that intoxicated and called predators to take them now. A ghost felt the desperate hunger of a starved corpse, a hollow-stomached emptiness like the pit of a grave that could never be filled. And even though Heather had turned away from the broken girl at the bottom of the steps, the ghost could still feel Martha's presence behind them. Martha was a hunter, a fire. She was feared because she would burn.
And there was another. Veronica and Heather felt him before they could see him, walking slowly, coming out of the school from the boiler room to find them. If Martha was fire, then J.D. was an inferno. He was dripping with blood, fresh blood pouring from the gunshots Veronica put in him. He radiated power and death with every step. He walked through the halls, barely holding himself together, drawn to seek her out.
Veronica also understood why most people possessed by wraiths never came out of it. Heather was inside her brain, squeezing it tightly with a chilling, murderous frost, warping it into agonizing shapes it was never meant to be. Heather calmly looked at J.D. with Veronica's eyes.
"Hello, lover," Heather said, imitating Veronica. "Was it good for you too?" She tried to bypass him, stay on the other side and simply walk back to the pep rally.
He lurched over to them, and Heather couldn't stop him. J.D. wrapped his arms tightly around them in a bear hug. His blood burned Heather, but Veronica's body was a shield for her. He looked down into Veronica's eyes, blood running down his face.
He spoke slowly and deliberately. "You were a bitch when you were alive, Chandler, but at least give credit where it's due. You know the whole thing was my idea, right?"
He knew her. Veronica saw J.D.'s face through Heather controlling her eyes. He was bloodied and desperate and determined. He took one look at her and recognized Heather inside her body, knew her through some subtlety of expression or movement or tone that Veronica hadn't expected would be perceptible. Through everything they'd been through and all that they had done, he understood her. This time, they were fighting on the same side.
Veronica could feel Heather's incandescent rage at J.D.'s boast, rage that made her sloppy. Heather tried to struggle free, tried to bring her knee sharply upwards. But he'd prepared for that this time and held her still. Heather elbowed J.D. in the chest, directly in one of the gunshot wounds, but although he groaned he didn't let go. Fresh blood ran more freely from the wound and that gave Heather more pain. J.D. whispered something, incoherent wishes and hopeless hopes. He held on to Veronica through the storm, no matter how terribly the ghost fought against his presence.
Suddenly, the crushing icy pressure in Veronica's brain was gone. Heather, overcome by the pain, flew out of her. Veronica was herself again, blood-soaked, looking into J.D.'s eyes. He seemed to know it was her, and something like relief washed over his face. "I don't normally do that ..." he muttered. "You - should have known you would be different. You really fucked me up, Veronica ... color me impressed."
He kissed her, blood from his chin coating her mouth, salt and copper on her tongue. New blood spilt over her hands and her clothes. For a moment she gave in, felt the rattling heartbeat in his warm body, kissed like it was the end of the world.
Then she remembered what they had done and what he had tried to do, and she bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. J.D. lifted his head, more blood on his mouth, and looked resigned and tired, as if he'd expected nothing less.
"If you can, tell my father I solved his dynamite riddle," J.D. said. He broke off from Veronica entirely and started to walk down the stairs. Then Veronica saw the green handbag on his shoulder instead of her own. Damn him for distracting her. J.D.'s good hand reached inside to check what he must have already known was in there. "Martha! Get out of here!" he yelled.
Martha stirred on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, trying to get up. Veronica knew Martha didn't fully understand what was happening, but she grasped enough to know that she was in danger where she was. She seemed to interpret J.D.'s order as 'get Heather and Heather away', struggling with Heather Duke's body even though her own was broken. Veronica could sense J.D.'s annoyance as he walked on, but he should have known that was the kind of person Martha was. He'd just have to live with it. Or not.
Heather Chandler, floating before them, actually began to look nervous. "Guess this is my cue to retreat and fight another day," she said. "It's been a real slice of drama, best friend." She and Bud tried to leave.
Veronica drew on her abilities. "I'm not letting you enjoy an all-you-can-eat human buffet, Heather," she said.
And Veronica was at the height of her seer's power, her senses full of the ghosts she'd fed. She was steeped in hunter's blood, untouchable for the moment and strong in willpower. She and Heather shared a bond that she could use to bring her ghosts to heel and finally lay them to rest. Veronica held onto the banister and stood straight. Heather swore at her and she and Bud tried to resist, but Veronica positioned them carefully, holding them at Westerburg High whether they liked it or not.
Veronica and J.D. understood each other, intimately knew the steps of the dance they arranged with the ghosts. They both shared the underlying cold decision to do what must be done. They could have worked well together, in another life. The debt was paid and the slate was clean.
Veronica knew she couldn't hold the ghosts in place forever. She waited a little longer for Martha to scramble upwards, trying to take Duke and McNamara with her. Veronica set Heather and Bud as far as possible away from the school. She barely needed to direct J.D. where to go; he tracked her small gestures and followed where she glanced.
Then J.D. was in position, Heather and Bud gathered just beyond him. Veronica felt the fringes of her control over the ghosts weakening. It was now or never. She gave him the signal.
J.D. reached inside the green handbag. He started to say something, a last request or statement or question, but Veronica couldn't hear him. The bomb exploded.
He died alone.
Veronica kept her eyes open throughout the ending. She saw a fountain of blood, surging out and into the ghosts. She saw Heather Chandler and Bud Dean finally shatter under the torrent of hunter's blood, break into ten thousand fragments, and disintegrate into absolute nothingness. She saw and smelt black smoke from the explosion, and tasted something like ash and droplets of blood in her mouth.
(I shot you three times, I'm not that sorry you're dead ...)
Martha lay over Heather Duke, covering her with her own body, stirring slightly. Heather McNamara was near them, the only sign of life a slight rise and fall of her chest, her face bloodied and filthy. Inside, Veronica could hear that the pep rally had come to a sudden end. People were calling anxiously to each other, rushing out to see what was going on.
Veronica stayed standing and reached inside her pocket for a cigarette. She might need a lot of things, but right now she'd settle for a smoke.