"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Sixty-Five: Phase Four - Flambé And Fry
(The Piggyback, Pt. 5)
***
The attic was as creepy as the one in the real Creel House.
As Rowan creeped into it, she thought that the Upside Down only elevated the eerie creepiness the real attic had. Ash floated in the air, the wooden floor creaked under Rowan's feet, and the shrine was covered in rot and slime. The ceiling disappeared in a yawning void as vines slithered across the floor, and the gloomy half-light of the Upside Down sliced in weak beams through the window. And in the middle, hovering above his shrine...
Hovering above it was Vecna.
He was kept in place by vines attached to his back, and his eyes were closed in the trance—just like Dustin theorised he would be, just like El did when she still had her powers and mind-walked. He looked just as desiccated as the mental version of him had, arms held out slightly, letting Rowan see his grotesquely deformed left hand with its claws. A shiver racked through Rowan at the memory of those claws over her head, before anger burned through her that those claws had been over Chrissy before they descended and killed her, had hovered over Max and Alistair.
This was the monster who tormented and murdered her best friend. This was the real monster who slaughtered her, Fred and Patrick, not Eddie, and who slaughtered Alice and Virginia Creel, not Victor. Who massacred the other children in the lab and nearly murdered El. This was the monster who haunted Max and Alistair, who had cursed them. This was the monster who killed her brother, who could be killing Max.
Rage and vengeance roared through Rowan, burning in her veins alongside her storm, alongside the hurricane she would be bringing down on Vecna.
She could not wait to slay this monster.
As they stood in front of Vecna, Robin and Valerie took off their bags, ready to bring out the Molotov cocktails. As they did, Steve gave a nod to Rowan.
Rowan returned it, a second before she teleported and landed on top of Vecna.
Nothing changed, the monster beneath her giving no sign he noticed she was now on top of him like some twisted form of piggyback, just like when she landed on the Demogorgon and electrocuted it three years ago when it almost killed Nancy. She'd almost killed it then with her lightning, but it hadn't been hot enough, hadn't properly barbecued it until it was a smoking corpse. And maybe that was her holding back, maybe it was her not using her full power even on the monster that killed Barb and kidnapped Will, had hunted him and briefly hunted her and Nancy, and that was why it hadn't died.
Now, though?
Now, Rowan was not holding back.
Electricity sparked to life as her veins and eyes glowed electric blue, crackling above her hands, around her body, burning hotter and hotter, until it was blinding white, searing the cold, toxic air and illuminating it with that crackling white. It snapped and hissed around her body in writhing tendrils, coalescing around her hands as she lifted them above Vecna.
