by Kady Cross
“We’re all doing this,” Gage proclaimed, his dark gaze traveling from one of his friends to the next. “That’s all there is to it.”
Sarah glared at him. “You guys want to punish me because you blame me.”
What was her...? Oh. Oh, I understood. “Lark, make her put on one of the rings.”
Lark glanced at me, but didn’t hesitate. She picked up one of the rings and handed it to Sarah. “Put this on.”
The other girl shook her head. “I have a metal allergy.”
My sister smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Put it on.”
“No.”
By now the whole table was watching—a couple of customers from other tables were, too.
“Lark, what the hell?” Mace asked.
Gaze narrow, Lark kept her attention on Sarah. “She’s being influenced by the ghost.”
The others all turned their heads to stare at the blonde girl. “That’s stupid,” Sarah protested.
Lark glanced at Mace. “Noticed any strange behavior lately?”
Of course he had—like not even twenty minutes ago. He took his girlfriend by the hand, and then held that hand out. “Put the ring on, Sar.”
She jerked back, hands clenching into fists. “Make me, Daddy’s boy.” Uh-oh. Sarah’s voice had changed. “Lark...”
My sister held up her hand. “I hear it. Sarah, you need to put this ring on for your own protection.”
The other girl turned her head to look at my sister, and when she did I could see hatred burning in her eyes. “You. They should have kept you at Bell Hill. Should have fried that weak little mind of yours.”
“Shut up, Sarah,” Mace warned.
“That’s not Sarah,” Lark informed him, her gaze unwavering. “Who are you?”
Sarah grinned and leaned toward her. Everyone was frozen still now. “I’m the one who’s going to devour your little friends.”
“No, you’re not,” Lark replied. “I’m not going to let you.”
“You can’t stop me, youngling.” Sarah’s voice was low and rough—mannish. “I’ll suck the souls right out of them and lick my fingers when I’m done. Maybe if your sister’s a good girl I’ll let her have the eyeballs.” She looked right at me then and winked.
I froze. How did she...?
Lark leaned closer. “You stay away from my sister, you sorry sack of shit, or I swear to God, I’ll burn your bones one at a freaking time.”
Suddenly Sarah’s hand whipped out and wrapped around Lark’s throat. Roxi cried out. People at the other tables gasped. One even stood up. This was going to get out of control very quickly.
I lunged forward, into my sister. The iron ring in her hand hurt me—like something being shoved under my skin, jagged and sharp, ripping back and forth. I didn’t leave her, though. I put all of my strength into that hand and lifted it to the one around Lark’s neck. My sister struggled for breath and I forced her throat open as I pried at the fingers trying to crush it. Sarah might be a conduit, but she wasn’t a match for the real thing. She shouldn’t be a match for Lark, either, but then this was probably exactly what my sister had had in mind, because normally she would have already punched Sarah in the face. I pried one of the supernaturally strong fingers up, and Lark shoved the iron onto it.
Sarah hissed, and then her shoulders slumped, as though something had let go of them. Let go of her. Her hand fell away from Lark’s neck and my sister gasped for breath.
The strangeness I saw in the other girl’s aura earlier was gone. “She’s good,” I said.
Lark nodded. She saw it, too—only not the same way I did. “Feeling better, Sarah?”
The blonde girl nodded. “I am. What happened?”
“The ghost was influencing you. It was doing a good job, too.”
“This is a powerful ghost,” I said. Lark merely glanced at me. I didn’t need to tell her that. She was worried, I could see it.
“Anyone else feeling weird?” she asked.
Everyone took one of the rings and put it on without hesitation. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Gage perked up a little.
One of the counter staff approached our table. She wasn’t much older than Kevin and had an apologetic look on her round face. “Guys, you’re disturbing some of the other customers.”
“Drama club,” Gage quipped. “We’re practicing. Sorry.”
“Yeah,” Lark said drily. “Drama. Sorry, we’ll leave.” My sister stood. The others gathered up their belongings and followed her out. Everyone in the shop watched them go, whispering. Lark did not need this kind of attention.
It wasn’t until we were outside that I realized I hadn’t needed to worry about the book at all—no one had tried to touch it, not even Sarah. No, the only thing I needed to worry about was a violent ghost who had killed before and was looking to kill again.
A ghost who knew my secret.
LARK
“You still want to go through with the séance?” Kevin looked at me like I was nuts. No big surprise there.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I think we have to after what happened to Sarah.” The ghost was powerful if it could do a grab and go from a distance like that. “It could influence any of them.” I didn’t tell him what else I feared—that the ghost had no intention of letting them go. It was going to play with them and drain them, because this ghost had plans.
How did I know that? It was just a hunch, but a strong one. The recent construction at Haven Crest had stirred something up, and now it was threatened by the changes in its habitat. Ghosts weren’t big on change, and they responded to threats the same way people did—fight or flight.
I was going on the assumption that our ghost meant to fight.
“I’ve never done this before,” he admitted.
I could have made a crude joke about taking his séance virginity but Wren was there and she wouldn’t have liked that. “Wren will help you. I need you to help anchor her, too.”
“I’ll be fine,” my sister insisted, but she was just going to have to deal with my paranoia. I’d seen ghosts try to influence her before. I knew she was stronger now, but I wasn’t going to gamble on that.
“Can I help you with that?” He nodded at the cans of salt and baking supplies I had strewn on the top of his kitchen counter.
“Sure.” I handed him a can of salt. “Dump this into the food processor. So, what do you want to know about the séance?” It wasn’t like I was an expert. I’d done two in the course of my life, and one had been by accident.
Kevin opened the can of salt. “What do you need me to do?”
Wren came forward to join us. “You summon the spirit. You order it to come to us.”
He glanced in her direction, and I knew that he could hear her as well as I could. “Won’t that piss it off?”
“Mediums are like catnip for ghosts,” I explained. “They are attracted to you because you’re a way for them to make contact and show off. I don’t think our guy will be able to resist. And we’ll have protection around you so he behaves.”
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Wren promised. I felt awkward overhearing her make such a promise. She really cared about him, and that wasn’t good. They could never be together.
Kevin smiled at her. “So, I call it and then we trap it?”
“Pretty much,” I replied. “We won’t be able to hold it for long, but hopefully long enough to find out who it is and how to stop it.”
He dumped the salt into the food processor. “How do you stop ghosts?”
I shrugged. “There are a few ways, but the only way to really get rid of one is to salt and burn the remains.”
“What if there are no remains?”
“Then you burn whatever it is they’re attached to,” I said, handing him another can. “Put t
his one in, too.”
“Do you really think we can do this?”
I measured out some cloves so each batch of salt would have an equal amount. “Yes. We can do it, I just don’t know if time is on our side. If there are remains, great. If not, then we have to find what is left behind, and that’s the bitch of it.”
“Then let’s hope there’re bones.”
I gave him a slight smile. Finally, it felt as though he and I were on the same side.
We worked quickly and pretty efficiently, if I say so myself. I ground up all the cloves and the fennel and dumped each into the food processor one batch at a time. Kevin ran the processor, and then we both scooped the mixture back into the salt cans.
“Weird to think this works against ghosts,” he remarked.
A few feet away my sister wrinkled her nose. “I hate it.”
“Then stop hovering,” I told her. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, but drifted from the room when Kevin told her he didn’t want anything to happen to her.
Barf.
Once all the cans were filled, Kevin and I took them to the dining room where everyone else was.
Sarah sat at the table, scratching at her cheek. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, except she was digging at the wound left by the ghost. It weeped black, the skin around it raw and red.
“Stop!” I ordered. Shit, it had really done a number on her when it had used her as its puppet.
She jumped and glared at me. “What the hell?”
“You’re going to make it worse.”
“It itches!” As if to prove her point, she clawed at it some more. I winced.
I grabbed her hand and pulled it away. Could she feel that ghostly wet on her fingers? Could she smell it? Because it smelled pretty damn foul.
She pressed my fingers to the mess that was her cheek. Oh, gross. It was hot and slick, like sticking my fingers in bacon grease congealing in a pan. I pulled back, but she held firm. She was a strong girl.
“Ahh,” she sighed. “That’s better.”
I watched—and I promise I’m not making this shit up—as the wound lost some of its angriness. It was as though it sucked that awful black back into itself, tucked the raw edges of torn flesh back together a little. WTF? Could I heal wraith marks, or was I only making it stronger? And how was I doing it?
When she finally let me go I ran to the kitchen and scoured my hand with a metal-mesh scrubber—the kind Nan used on pots. I used it until my skin stung and then threw the scrubber in the garbage. I dried my hands and returned to the dining room.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked. He was frowning—like he was really worried about me. Sweet, but I wasn’t the one any of them should be worried about.
“Yeah, thanks.” I glanced at Sarah. She had this goofy look on her face—like she was a little stoned. “Are you?”
“I feel good. You must be magic or something.”
Not magic, but definitely something.
I just wish I knew whether it was good or bad.
“Okay, everyone sit down,” I instructed. As they did I handed each of them a can of the salt mixture. “Pour this in a circle around your chairs. Make sure the line isn’t broken at any point.” Then I jerked my head toward the door so my sister would follow me, and not have to be present while the salt was out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as we stood just outside the door.
“I want you to promise you won’t try to be the hero tonight.”
Wren looked affronted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
I sighed and folded my arms over my chest. “If things get bad, you jump into me, okay?”
“You mean if I feel like I’m going to lose control.”
Touchy much? That meant she was worried about it, too, but the last thing I wanted to do was get her agitated. “I mean if things start to go south for either of us. We’re stronger together, and we don’t know what we’re up against.” But we both knew it was nasty.
She turned her head and peered into the dining room. I followed her gaze. Kevin.
“So, you and Kevin can communicate pretty well, huh? I mean, he can see you now.”
“I guess.”
She didn’t want to talk about it, and I realized something at that moment. I realized that it wasn’t my business. If she wanted to tell me, she’d tell me. Maybe she thought I’d be angry, or maybe she simply didn’t feel the need to share this one thing with me. She was entitled to one thing of her own, wasn’t she? Yes, she could get hurt. In fact, I was entirely certain she was going to get hurt big-time, but she deserved her privacy—just like everyone else.
“Look after him,” I said. “He volunteered for this, and he has no idea what he’s getting into. He might need your help.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. I’m telling you to protect him before me.”
She turned back to me, a frown on her face. It was funny that I found her face pretty, but mine not so much. “No one comes before you.”
“Tonight they all do.”
Her hand settled on my shoulder—I hadn’t even seen her move. “Helping them is one thing, Lark, but putting yourself at risk is another. They’re not your responsibility.”
“No? Then whose are they?”
“Their own.”
That was easy for the dead girl to say. The one who had been so hot to help them in the first place. I didn’t say that out loud, of course—it was mean. And she was only saying these things because she remembered things from Bell Hill. When people asked how I knew things about ghosts, I let them think I was just brilliant or whatever, but the truth was that everything I knew, I’d learned the hard way.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. Right, because I’d never said that before. But I was fairly confident I would be all right. I’d put salt around my chair, too, and I’d wear the iron ring in my pocket if I had to. “Just promise me you’ll watch out for the others.”
She nodded. “I will.”
We returned to the dining room where the group was gathered around the table. There was a chair left for me at the head of it—opposite Kevin and between Ben and Mace.
I sat down in the chair—someone had already poured salt around it for me.
“Should we turn off the lights?” Gage asked.
“Not if you want to see,” I replied.
He looked disappointed. “Do we hold hands?”
“Place them on the top of the table so that your pinkies touch the person’s next to you.” Guys sometimes got weird about having to hold another guy’s hand, but not just that, I wanted the iron of their rings to be visible and easily accessible if needed.
“Ready?” I asked.
Murmurs of “yes” sounded around the table as they placed their hands pinkie to pinkie. They looked terrified, and I didn’t blame them. I was a little nervous myself. I’d be an idiot not to be.
“I need you all to think about that night at Haven Crest when you were attacked,” I told them. “Think about how it felt, the energy you encountered. Sarah, it’s already tried to manipulate you, so I want you to think about how that presence felt in your head, okay?”
She nodded, face white. There were dark half circles beneath her eyes, and the scratch on her cheek looked like makeup, it was so bright against her pale skin. “Okay.”
“Go ahead,” I said to Kevin. He was the one with the ability to summon ghosts. I attracted them, but I couldn’t single out a particular one unless I knew exactly who I was looking for, and even then, I couldn’t focus like he could. He could channel the energy of the people around him into finding their spirit and call it to them. That was how mediums managed to contact people’s dead loved ones.
He closed his eyes. He wa
sn’t wearing his glasses. Wren stood behind him—outside the salt line. He wasn’t wearing the iron ring because it might interfere with his abilities, so she was there to give him a little extra protection just in case our ghost decided to break with tradition and tried to hurt him.
“I know you’re out there,” Kevin said. “I know you’re watching or hovering, whatever you do. We got the message you sent through Sarah earlier, and now we invite you to show yourself. If you want to be the big bad, show your face. Unless you’re a coward.”
Okay, so, not the way I would have done it. Although, antagonizing the ghost was probably the fastest way to call it forth.
Nothing happened. Everyone—except Kevin—glanced around the table at one another. I tried to keep my attention on Wren. She flickered for a second like bad TV reception, then was whole again.
“It’s coming,” she said.
“Kevin,” I commanded. “Keep going.”
And he did. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come scare us. Show yourself. You know you want to.”
The lights turned off and on. The table shook. Ben’s little finger slid over mine like a hug.
“You can do better than that,” Kevin goaded.
It was like all the air was sucked out of the room by a giant vacuum. Everything went quiet and perfectly still, like we were all frozen where we sat. And then a man appeared behind Sarah.
Gage jumped and swore.
“Nobody move,” I cautioned, keeping my gaze focused on the ghost. “Gage, is your salt circle intact?”
“Yes, boy,” the ghost mocked in a raspy voice. “Check your circle.”
Gage’s normally tanned face was chalky, eyes wide like inkwells as he peered down at the floor.
“It’s good,” he croaked.
That was a relief. Poor Sarah looked as though she might pass out. She clung to Mace and Kevin like they were the only things holding her in her chair. Kevin actually seemed surprised that the ghost had come.
