I stuck my finger in his face. “You have no power here. You must leave, Jinkins.”
The cellar door burst open. Axel and Pepper flew down the stairs and skidded to a halt beside Roan and me.
The spirit flared his power. The columns supporting the house shook. “I will take all your souls with me if I leave.”
Fannie launched herself toward him. “Jinkins, you will tell me right now where the treasure is.”
I nearly slapped my forehead. Why? Like why did Fannie have to throw herself into the mix right at that moment? I mean, couldn’t she have waited? Didn’t she see this was a volatile spirit and that it needed to be wrestled and forced to travel into the other world?
Jinkins’s face contorted in anger. The savagery that filled his eyes made me shudder.
“You will never have it,” he screamed at Fannie. “It will never be yours. You will die before I give you all the money.”
His arms exploded out, and Fannie was tossed like a rag doll across the earth.
Axel lifted his hand. “You will return to where you came from.”
The ghost laughed. “Do you think any of you hold power over me?”
Well, I had at least hoped so. The spirit roared, and a gust of wind pierced my skin. It pushed me back. I dug my heels into the earth and leaned into the gale.
Jinkins laughed. His ghostly halo darkened, and a cruel scowl twisted his face. “None of you can command me.”
“I can.”
My gaze cut across the cellar. Roan stood in the very center of the room. The gale hadn’t affected him. He lifted his hands and said, “You need to cross over. This isn’t the place for you. You are no longer allowed to walk the face of this earth.”
My eyebrows shot to peaks. Would it work?
Jinkins fought. He lurched forward and twisted, but whatever power Roan had held him fast.
“What are you doing?” The spirit screamed with fear.
Roan’s thick brow furrowed. “Putting you where you should’ve gone long ago.”
With his jaw clenched and his shoulders tight, Roan then raised his opposite hand. Suddenly the earth beneath the spirit’s form opened. Black roots jutted up from the earth and wrapped themselves around Jinkins.
I don’t know if what I saw was real or simply a hallucination. The roots looked solid in their inky blackness as they twisted around a spirit.
Then they changed, unfurling into small bodies.
I gasped. “They’re other spirits.”
“No, you can’t hold me.” Jinkins fought, pulling and gnashing his teeth at the apparitions as they coiled around him.
He broke free of the darkness that fought to yank him down. Jinkins whirled on us. “See? You can’t keep me!”
His chest bowed. The pressure in the room thickened. Jinkins conjured power. He would use it to destroy us.
“You’re done hurting people!” From the dark cellar, Artie appeared. The spirit launched into Jinkins and stuffed him down toward the hole.
The dark spirits latched on to Jinkins’s legs. Before the spirit had time to realize what had happened, the afterlife had sucked him into the darkness, leaving no trace of him but the fragments of a howling, cursing ghost.
The earth zipped up and Jinkins Hudson was officially gone.
Artie floated down to where Jinkins had last stood—no grits in sight. His eyes lighted on the ceiling. A seam split in the rafters, and a sparkling light created by a thousand pinprick stars appeared.
“Artie,” I whispered, “thank you. You saved us.”
