Michael Curry-Lasher (rivalry)

Michael Curry’s enmity with Lasher culminates in Michael killing him after Lasher possesses the body of Michael’s child and Rowan takes the creature away. The conflict turns on a terrible division: Rowan tries to preserve the life of the being she has carried away, while Michael acts against the danger Lasher represents.

Origins of the Conflict

Lasher’s possession of the child makes the conflict intimate as well as supernatural. Rowan later explains that the child’s true soul had gone to Heaven and that Lasher occupied the child’s body. She believed Michael would not stop until he had killed Lasher, so she fled with the creature, an act she calls a dreadful error.

That account places Michael’s hostility within the aftermath of the possession: he is fighting the creature while Rowan is moving toward escape. The evidence does not present their struggle as a detached contest between opponents; it is bound to the loss of Michael’s child and to Rowan’s decision to protect Lasher from those who would destroy him.

Confrontation and Death

During the confrontation, Lasher fights Michael and proves difficult to overcome. The creature is described as slippery, crafty, flexible, and seemingly invulnerable to Michael’s blows. It mocks Michael, knocks him into an ice-cold swimming pool, and leaves him sinking to the bottom. Sirens and trucks arrive as Rowan and Lasher run toward a car.

Lasher later slips into the house dressed as a priest and appeals to the Talamasca and Michael to let him live, presenting himself as a priceless specimen. He recounts his former life, but the account of his past does not erase the harm attributed to him. Michael fights Lasher and kills him.

Consequences and Significance

Lasher’s death ends his long rule over the Mayfair family. Michael’s relationship with him is therefore defined not only by direct physical conflict but also by the consequences of Lasher’s possession and the threat Michael believes he poses. The ending resolves that conflict through Lasher’s death, while Rowan’s retrospective account preserves its painful human cost: she recognizes that fleeing with Lasher separated her from Michael and calls her choice a dreadful error.