The Black Banshee - Part Nine (The Finale!)
Serial Fiction
Welcome to the finale of the Steampunk adventures of Gold Detection. Over nine weeks, we have traveled to the very edge of madness and death with our esteemed heroes!
If you would like to start from the beginning:
Part One - Wherein we meet our heroes and listen to a strange and eerie invitation.
Part Two - Our heroes attend a night out with a veiled lady and watch a concert by the ghost of Chopin.
Part Three - A small interlude as the Golds prepare for the party.
Part Four - Our protagonists meet the Black Banshee and its uncanny creator.
Part Five - A dinner party and preparations for the last ride of the Black Banshee.
Part Six - Blackburn’s evil plan is finally in play!
Part Seven - A confrontation with Blackburn.
Part Eight - They stopped the Madman. Now to stop the Monster!
Part Nine - To stop the Monster and make it out Alive!
It had felt like hours since Maximus had sat in the chair and fallen into the stupor of the Black Banshee’s power. Kate placed her hand on the shriveled-up skin of her husband’s face and prayed for his safe return.
Suddenly, the train began to slow down considerably. Kate smiled, “Whatever you’re doing in there, Darling. It seems to be working.”
Maximus didn’t quite understand what was going on around him, but he knew that he was losing. The black demon-like shape that was the conjurer had been pushed away by his spikes, but it quickly regrouped and surrounded him once more.
Kate heard her husband moan from deep in his throat just as the first of the passengers started to wake up. She kissed his forehead, “Keep fighting, Sweetheart. You’re doing it.”
She left him there to help the others. The needles were retracting, and the black braces moved away to let many of Blackburn’s chosen guests free of their sacrificial chairs.
Kate helped them orient the best that she could. The train was slowing even more, and Kate believed it would be stopping any moment.
The black mass that surrounded his spirit had sprouted teeth. It was devouring his ectoplasm, absorbing the physical manifestation of his spirit.
As Kate felt the train slow almost to a stop, she led the fearful party guests to the door of the car. She opened it, and the cool air of the fall night flowed in. They were west of the city, and she could see the lights off in the distance.
Maximus fought with all his might against the devouring force of the medium’s will. Suddenly, he understood what he had to do. Instead of pushing through the dark mass, he reversed his momentum and pulled Lafayetta with him into the engine of the Black Banshee.
Kate felt a jerk in the locomotive, and the train started to speed up once again.
“The train is moving faster!” she told the gathered guests. “You have to jump!”
One by one, the elite of St. Louis society leaped from the door to the ground below. Dr. Albert was the last of them to step up for his escape. “You must come with us, Katie!” He pleaded.
“Maximus and I will be along!” She told him.
“God bless you!” is all he could give, then he turned and hurled himself from the train.
Maximus was unprepared for the pain that would accompany his movement through the engine of the Black Banshee. He knew that it was not physical pain in any real sense—that his ectoplasm did not contain nerves and that without a body, there should be no feeling. Yet, there was still the sensation of pain, and his feelings screamed around him.
His improvised plan had worked, however, and the black mass of Lafayetta was torn away from him as they were propelled through pipes and over the gears of the engine.
He only needed to keep himself together enough to push back to his body when his ectoplasm fulfilled a full revolution.
He pushed his will forward and saw the pipe he needed ahead of him. Then, he felt the gnashing of teeth at the ends of his spirit and knew that the conjurer had returned.
Kate moved back to where the dried-up husk of her husband sat trapped in the black chair. She kissed his forehead once more and tried to will his spirit back to her.
The locomotive was running at a speed that Kate had never felt before, and she knew that it must be indicative of the battle within the Banshee’s bowels. Fearing the worst, she stood and walked back to the crimson control chair that housed the body of the medium.
“I don’t know if this will cause good or ill,” she shouted at no one, “but it will damn sure make me feel better!” She raised the gun up level with Lafayetta’s head and pulled the trigger.
The Black Banshee bucked, and Kate was thrown to the floor as the speeding train car skipped off the track and started dragging through the earth.
She braced herself as best as she could as the train crashed onto its side and started to slide across the ground. There was a huge snap as the engine and the cars in front of the one that held the black chairs broke away.
Kate could hear the final scream of the Black Banshee as it moved further away from the car where she sat. After she knew the car had stopped sliding, she rose and moved to where her husband was still connected to his chair. His frame now rested on his back as the side his chair was on had become the floor of the car.
Kate knelt down and saw that his body was still a husk. The brace was still in place, and the needle still punctured his navel.
“I’ve killed you, Maximus!” she cried through her tears. She brushed his hair from his forehead and held him as best she could. She looked into his face for a moment more, and then, realizing that he was no longer there, she stood and raised her arms to the heavens. “You promised me,” she screamed, “you would find a way back.” Kate shook her fists at the sky and let the tears fall. “No matter what it takes, Darling! You… come… back… to…”
“Please stop that incessant screaming, Dear”
Kate’s face turned to an instant smile as she turned to find her husband rising from the chair that had been holding him fast.
“Those tears have made a mess of your eyeshadow, Love!” Maximus forced out as he struggled to stay standing.
“You bastard!” Kate screamed back as she flung herself into his arms. They held each other close for a long, passionate moment.
“I thought I was done for,” Maximus told her. “Then, something yanked her away.”
“I had to do something,” Kate returned. “When I thought you were lost to me, all I could think about was your ridiculous promise.”
He kissed her, “And what, My Love, was so wrong with a promise to return to you? I thought it quite romantic.”
“Oh, it was. I just had this vision of going home after your heroic funeral and finding that my husband had transferred his spirit into a killer automaton.”
“Now that,” Maximus laughed, “would be a team of socialite snoops worth the price of a dime novel.”
The End.
Thanks for reading and taking this adventure with me! Let me know what you think below.
The Black Banshee was first published in a slightly different form in the anthology - Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror. Pick up the book for some other great stories.