54. Flames Cannot Destroy

Agonizing pain!
It felt as if a thousand steel needles pierced his internal organs all at once.
Dean clutched his chest and collapsed to the ground, his eyes rolling back as he slipped into a brief haze.
But Alexander did not immediately pursue him.
Crash!
Glass shattered—the searchlight, which had been pouring a blinding radiance into the hall, was struck by some force and exploded in a burst.
Light vanished.
Shadows reclaimed the surroundings, returning the room to dim obscurity.
Sharp shards of glass scattered like a deadly rain; one piece slashed across Dean’s left cheek, drawing a slender wound the length of a finger near his cheekbone.
The chill of the cut instantly cleared his mind from the torment, and he pressed his chest, rising with his back against the wall.
He glanced at the pitch-black living room.
A thought sparked—
The Shadow of the Past leapt from his body, desperately distancing itself from the spirit board in his hand, fighting against the noise, and pushed the music-playing tape recorder back to Dean’s feet.
Dean hoisted the tape recorder onto his shoulder, letting the surging music drive away the panic within him.
All this happened in the span of a single breath.
The “Shadow” suddenly sensed danger, its form darting straight into the darkness!
It didn’t get far.
Boom!
The air thundered.
It slammed into a wall of hardened air, and its once vague humanoid shape was compressed by the tremendous impact into a dense ball of darkness.
A powerful current swept through the air, ripples spreading outward like waves across a tranquil lake.
Dean raised the spirit board to his face and saw—the “Shadow” was now pressed tightly against the ferocious visage of Alexander, locked in midair, neither yielding.
Bang—
In the next instant, the two specters dashed through the hall at dizzying speed, creating a chaos beyond imagination.
Crash!
The old chandelier hanging from the ceiling was struck by invisible force, fell and shattered, spreading a carpet of sparkling glass shards across the floor.
Crack!
The television screen exploded, the entire set dropped from the cabinet. Two opposing forces treated it as a target, lifting it into the air and smashing it from left and right. In a few breaths, it disintegrated into a heap of parts and wires.
Clang!
Several rusty kitchen knives and forks were hurled aloft, colliding with a storm of metallic clatter, dazzling flashes of cold light weaving and darting midair, sparks flickering like stars in the night.
The living room was swept by gusts of sinister wind, walls bursting open, the air filled with shrill pops, howls, roars, and clattering echoes.
All the furnishings in the hall were ravaged by the battling spirits, as if washed by a flood or battered by a storm.
Their ferocity exceeded the limits of any ordinary mortal.
Dean, watching with the spirit board, could barely follow their speed, only managing to glimpse the entangled shadows.
His other hand, clutching the Colt, could not aim at either target.
He didn’t even have time to command the “Shadow”; all he could do was let it fight on instinct!
The gap was too great—he could not intervene.
Dean gritted his teeth, glanced at the staircase not far off, and dashed forward, bent low.
He wore a deep blue cotton coat, the tape recorder slung on his shoulder, music blaring in his ears. He moved like a soldier charging through thunderous artillery in the trenches, shoulder to shoulder with comrades in a rescue mission—
Alvin had been dragged upstairs by another spirit. Without the “Shadow” to protect him, he was in grave danger and urgently needed help!

But Dean had barely set foot on the stairs.
A gust struck from behind his head.
He instinctively ducked.
Bang!
The house shuddered violently.
A massive darkness swept across his neck—the black sofa from the living room, hurled by unseen force, smashed into the wooden stairs, breaking a swath of planks and blocking Dean’s path upward.
Dean, shaken, turned to his left; his pupils shrank—
The “Shadow” abruptly ended its combat, fleeing back to his side.
But its once solid form was now ethereal and translucent, radiating a sense of extreme weakness.
The normal summoning lasts six and a half minutes, yet after only half a minute of fierce battle, the “Shadow” was nearly spent.
“Damn!”
Dean could no longer afford to hold back.
He summoned the Shadow to break apart the barricading sofa.
Drawing his pistol, he gritted his teeth and fired a tracer round into the corner of the living room.
Boom!
The tracer ignited the gasoline.
Flames leaped up, setting the wooden floor at the edge of the hall ablaze.
Firelight tore through the darkness, racing around the living room in a swift circuit.
The crackle of burning wood formed a crimson wall of fire, trapping Alexander Raphael’s ghost within.
...
“You’ve turned the entire house into a trap?”
“You want to die with me?”
A voice, tinged with terror and anger, echoed from behind the scorching flames, its resonance so penetrating it suppressed even the tape recorder’s noise.
Dean raised the spirit board for a look.
Alexander Raphael had curled his broad, black-robed body into a ball, desperately avoiding the flames licking up all around him.
Good.
The fire was effective; his preparations were not in vain!
But before Dean could act further,
Alexander suddenly opened his mouth and unleashed a gale, pressing down on the flames before Dean.
The fiery wall bent low beneath the wind, hugging the floor, dimming and flickering as if about to die out.
But the gale faded as quickly as it had come—vanishing in an instant.
The surviving flames surged back, fueled by Dean’s abundant gasoline, rising even more fiercely, rolling upwards like boiling steam in an iron pot, licking the ceiling!
The air thickened with acrid gasoline and the scorched tang of wood and wallpaper.
Dean pressed a hand to his nose.
From across the room, a roar of frustration rang out—
“All right, you sly brat.”
“I won’t kill you for now, but you must answer me one question!”
“You, in a mere mortal body, with minor psychic talent but lacking awakened spirit sight—”
“How can you command a ghost? Even the great Alexander Raphael does not possess such divine power.”
“What gives you the right? What is your secret?”
“You want to know? Then let’s make a deal.”

Dean kept retreating, aiming the Colt at the gasoline can beside the left-hand coffee table in the hall—the “Shadow,” via telepathic transmission, had indicated Alexander lingered nearby.
Having become a ghost, this medium possessed all sorts of uncanny abilities, but his intellect seemed diminished.
He failed to notice the danger at his side—or perhaps he was simply too arrogant.
“Speak,” a hoarse voice came from the air.
“First, return Alvin and Panon’s souls to me safe and sound,” said Dean, “and I’ll tell you the secret.”
“Heh heh! Kid, why don’t you toss me the spirit board first, then reveal how you command ghosts, and I’ll release them.”
The voice brimmed with craving and a hint of dread.
Dean tightened his grip on the teardrop-shaped board.
Alexander wanted the board first—clearly, it was more valuable than the secret of commanding ghosts.
It must be of immense use!
He must not agree!
“Honorable Master Medium, we summoned you into the real world with utmost respect, offering candles and incense, yet you launched an attack without warning,” Dean began stalling for time. “Shouldn’t you show a gesture of goodwill first?”
“Heh heh.”
An errant wind swept through the hall.
“In life, you were revered as a master medium—so in death, you should be equally wise, generous, and magnanimous.”
“Don’t flatter me, boy!”
“I speak sincerely. There’s no blood feud between us, no irreparable harm done yet. Why not sit down and negotiate peace?”
The fire spread faster than Dean had expected; unknowingly, he was drenched in sweat, his skin reddened and stinging from the heat.
Worst of all, the dense smoke from burning boards began to blur his vision and choke his breath—more perilous than the flames themselves.
Only now did he realize a grave oversight—he had forgotten to buy a fire mask.
Still, his delay tactics paid off; the “Shadow” used its last bit of strength to smash the barricading sofa in two, then faded into black smoke and returned to his body.
The corridor window opened, letting in fresh air.
The way upstairs was clear once more!
“Enough nonsense!”
From within the ring of fire, Alexander’s impatient, near-explosive voice rang out.
“I decide—I’ll free you from the shackles of flesh, grant you immortality, and you’ll hand over both your secret and the spirit board!”
“In your dreams! Die, you old cur!”
Dean kicked off, folding his body like a collapsible bed and diving backward, slipping his hips between the two halves of the sofa. At the same time, he squeezed the trigger, firing at the gasoline can!
Bang!
Bang!
Tracer rounds punched into the can.
Boom!
The explosion reverberated through the first-floor hall; the wooden walls tilted, the floor burst apart.
Wild flames surged like waves, instantly engulfing Alexander nearby.
Wreathed in fire, the battered old ghost shrieked sharply, shattering the remaining window glass around the hall.
Dean, sprinting upstairs, paused and clamped his hands to his ears, which felt pierced by the shrill agony.
The tape recorder tumbled from his arms, rolling down the stairs into the flames behind him—the music stopped abruptly.
At the same time, several blazing floorboards in the hall were pried up by invisible force, flipped over and hurled at the stairwell, smothering the wall of fire!
Alexander Raphael, roaring, shot out of the inferno, wreathed in a ring of whirling, gleaming blades, charging like lightning at Dean fleeing to the second floor!