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Christmas series: Marley's insatiable chains Sunday Dec 24, 2017 at 12:01 AM Editor’s note: This serial, which explores the days leading up to that fateful night in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” continues through Christmas Day. The story thus far: In a battle for the spirit of Christmas, the girl spirit and phantom distract the dark lords to allow Marley the ultimate duel — with Samuel, the old man he forsook so long ago. As the ghostly soldiers chase the phantom and girl spirit, I enter the clearing, standing tall. Samuel, Thomas and another member of The Council have stayed behind, their fallen comrades scattered about like corpses, slipping into the earth’s folds. This window I’ve been allowed is fleeting. Courage, Jacob. “SAMUEL.” My voice bellows louder than I intended. Samuel and Thomas jump at the noise. It takes them a moment. They take me in, assess that what they’re seeing is real. Samuel laughs at first. It starts as a chuckle and builds to a mocking howl. The others follow suit. To think that I am the cavalry, the surprise force to cap this attack. Jacob Marley, the slow, brooding ghost who cries and pines for earlier days, whose sole occupation is a seemingly unhealthy affection toward his friend in life, coming up with ways to offer salvation. My next statement silences their titters. “That coin you gave me meant nothing to me." I hear muffled explosions in the distance and pray my companions have not been harmed. “What did you say?” Samuel says, drifting toward me, torch in hand. My lip quivers at the next words I must say. They dance on my tongue, mocking phrases I do not believe. “Did you ever stop to think about why I was so quick to forget you?” I say. “Why I preferred a life of luxury to you?" My chains start to shudder and glow a cruel blue sheen. It’s working. Heaven preserve us, it’s working. “I never loved you, old man,” I manage, every ounce of my being fighting to form the false words and push them out into the night. “And your cheap token only served as a reminder that you wished to purchase that love. You’d have artificial admiration over anything real.” My chains are dancing now, a writhing mass of cold tentacles. The torch is reacting, too. It screams and trembles in Samuel’s hands. “Jacob…please…” Samuel says. “I HATE YOU,” I scream. God how I wish I could stop this. I hate how familiar it feels. I want to fall to my knees and weep for the hurt I’m causing. But I can’t. This must go on until my chains go wild — completely wild — with hunger and attack. “Everyone in Queen’s Row hated you. The old man, the pompous ass who thought himself wise, who spoke of ideals and hope but was just as much a spiteful prig as the rest of us.” “I…” “The day you died,” I say confidently, “was the grandest day of my life.” I feel actual hurt in my chest at the words. It must affect Samuel, too, because in the next moment, the sensation I felt in the crypt is back. My chains squeeze and strangle while they dance their savage dance. No breath remains within as I rise up, a prisoner of Samuel’s powers. “You ungrateful, spiteful, privileged monster,” Samuel fumes. “I should have left you rotting where I found you.” “Go on then, Samuel,” Thomas says with a laugh. “Finish the blighter off.” “Indeed.” His fist clenches tighter. Invisible razor wire shreds along my wispy insides. The sound of my own scream frightens me. It’s then I realize my hatred of Samuel is, on some level, sincere. I’ve hated him since the day he leapt in front of the pickpocket and died when his head struck the pavement, since he chose the welfare of a stranger over me. Since he left me alone. “To be at the crossroads of Right and Easy and choose Easy is to stray,” he’d said, his last words. “To choose Right is to walk through fire and cold but to come out unscathed in the end. To not have to look back and wonder what the other route looked like.” You were supposed to stay, I want to scream. I saw fit to call you "father." Damn the crossroads of Right and Easy. You didn’t choose me. Why, old man? I loved you more than could be contained in 10 lifetimes. Was it not the same for you? “JACOB!” The girl spirit, screaming. An explosion of purple light cracks Samuel across the back. He shrieks in pain and his hand unclenches, driven to his knees. I fall from my hovering place and see the girl and the phantom soaring toward us. They’ve made it back. The girl is carrying a small bundle in her fists. The torch drops slightly, stays floating in the air. Thomas makes for it while the third council member whirls and fires a torrent of shots from his hands. The girl’s cap devours them, whirls and fires back. Explosions light up the already brilliant nightscape, and the council member is blown into the sky. Thomas tries to form his own retort, but the phantom’s secondary shot takes him by surprise. It hits him in the face, igniting him. He runs screaming into the night as the phantom’s fire devours his spirit from top to bottom. My chains need only a moment to react. They snap to attention and plunge for the torch, wrapping around it in a refrain of delightful squeals. I'm pulled with them as they strain. “NO!” Samuel howls. But it is too late. The chains have found their prey. The torch shudders as they absorb its putrid life force. It surges through them in tides of ugly light. I feel their glee as they feast. One turns on Samuel. It's one of my larger irons, a beast adorned with locks, cash boxes and receipt ledgers. The length strikes hard and fast, lashing itself to Samuel's face and mummifying it in a patchwork of cold links. Samuel's scream erupts, muffled and hurting and horrified. A second link follows. A third. They depart their original feast, one by one, until the torch is left untouched and floating in the air, cleansed and perfect and looking just-wrought. My chains have moved on to sweeter meats. They flail and pulse and snap, all while Samuel cries out in horror and pain. “STOP IT! PLEASE, STOP!” I scream. I do everything in my power to get the chains to pull back. The phantom and the girl rush in, try to fight them off, too. They only crack like whips and guard their territory. Their lust for this corrupt well of power is insatiable. It only takes a matter of seconds to notice their sudden change in weight. They are as heavy as they have ever been, fat with hate and sorrow. I feel myself sinking. Abruptly, I plunge downward, slipping beneath the surface as a stone thrown into a lake. The last thing I see before plunging into darkness is the girl's horrified face, the phantom's clawed fingers as it reaches for me.  I am gravity. I am a star, collapsing. Down, down, down into the dark. Tomorrow: Marley's quest for Ebenezer's redemption has a surprising result.