by Sharp, Tracy
“I don’t know what happens to them. There are rumors. But I do know that he will kill you if you manage to escape and he catches you. You know too much already.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s happened before. Those kids vanish. Just like the girls in your town.”
“Just like I did,” I said.
He shook his head. “No. Worse, Lore. I think it’s much worse.”
“But you don’t really know, do you?”
“I’m sure as hell not going to find out,” Jude said.
“Well, I can’t just hang out here and do Lucian’s slave work, and wait for him to decide he doesn’t need me anymore and then have God knows what done to me. I’d rather take a chance and go where I really am needed.”
His hands tightened on my shoulders. “Please. Don’t.”
I shook him off and went into my room, letting the door close in his face.
***
Someone was opening the door to my room. I sat straight up in bed, peering into the darkness. Without windows down here, there was no light. My breath caught in my throat as a vision of Leo creeping his way into my room filled my mind.
My heart thudded against my chest and instinct took over. I quickly and quietly got out of bed. I moved toward the wall and stayed close to it as I made my way toward the door. I listened for movement, but heard nothing. Goosebumps prickled over my skin as the temperature in the room dropped.
I shivered and passed through the doorway, making my way down the hall. Lights should have been on, but the corridor was thick with darkness. Walking on only the pads of my feet, I moved as quickly as I dared. I didn’t care about anything but getting away from Leo. I kept moving. When I thought I might be getting close to the stairway, I reached out with my hand and felt around on the cool wall for the edge, which would lead me to the stairway.
I strained my ears as I moved, but heard nothing. The smell of black licorice filled my nostrils and frigid air wrapped itself around me. I felt a pressure on my back, like something was pushing me along.
The edge of the door came up fast and my feet knocked up against the first stair, sending me forward, my hands coming down hard on one of the steps. I didn’t bother trying to stand, but instead scrambled up the stairs using my hands and feet. I wasn’t taking a chance that I’d fall down them and break a limb. I’d be seriously screwed if that happened—it would be obvious that I’d been trying to escape.
Then it dawned on me. That’s what I was doing. Escaping. So much for formulating a plan. Sometimes circumstances tossed your plans to the wind anyway. I’d learned that over the past couple of weeks.
So I kept moving.
The cold pressure continued to push me forward, as if it were leading me to where I needed to go. If I weren’t so panicked about getting away from Leo and getting the hell out of this place, I’d be freaked about my unseen ally. But for now, I was taking whatever help I could get.
Finally, after what seemed like an endless flight of stairs, I knocked up against a solid surface. I reached out with my hands and felt around in front of me, and my fingers grappled over a doorknob.
Before I could turn it, it turned in my hand.
I almost screamed, but instead froze. I had nowhere to go now except back down the stairs, and I was pretty certain that Leo was down there.
Watching through the blackness in front of me, holding my breath, I waited as the door opened and light from the night sky spilled forward.
A red-haired girl stood in front of me. She reached out and took my hand, and pulled me through the doorway. “Move it,” she whispered.
I moved it, keeping up with her as she ran along the roof of the building toward the edge. Was this my punishment? Being pushed off a building?
Then I saw it. The top of a narrow, built-in ladder. The kind that some buildings had that only went partway down. I never understood that and still don’t.
“Go,” she said, her voice urgent.
I looked at her profile and knew that I’d seen her before. My mind worked to remember where I knew her face from as I made my way down the ladder.
When I got to the end of it, I looked up at her.
“Jump,” she said, and her red hair blew over her face and around her head.
I recognized her.
The cemetery. She was the red-haired girl who hid behind the gravestone, watching Mick and me.
“How far down is it?”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
No. No, it didn’t. I wasn’t going back up that ladder again, even to save my own life.
I closed my eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and let myself drop.
***
I waited for the impact and the sickening crack of a broken leg, but it didn’t come. Instead, just before I hit the bottom, I went through a thick, freezing cold pocket of air—a cloud of mist—which slowed me enough that when I did hit the ground, the impact was minimal.
“Holy shit,” I murmured, sitting on the ground, looking up at the cloud. It hovered around me for a long moment before moving upward again.
“Move it!” the red-haired girl whispered. “Unless you want me to land on top of you.”
I scrambled back and she turned around, came down the ladder, and hung for a moment before dropping into the swirling cloud. I watched the gray mist as it moved around her, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw the smoky shapes of arms and legs moving around within it.
“Ghosts,” I breathed, stunned.
“Yeah,” the girl said, brushing the hair from her face.
“Who are you?” I asked her.
“My name is Fiona. Look, we only have a few minutes to get the hell out of here, so would you kindly get off your butt and get moving?”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said, scrambling up and following her to the edge of the woods. “Where are we going?”
“Through the woods. There’s a road on the other side of it. If we just take off down the road in front of the house, they’ll catch us for sure.” She looked at me, her eyes shining under the starlight. “We don’t want that. Especially me. I’ve pissed Lucian off slightly by making it out of there.”
“No shit,” I said. “I thought that anyone who escaped vanished.”
“I did. But not because of him. He hasn’t been able to find me.”
“Why not? How do you hide so well?”
“Look around us.”
I looked. The smoky mist was wrapped around us like a protective blanket. “What is that, exactly?”
“My friends,” she said. “If it weren’t for them, I’d have turned out just like them. Dead.”
***
We made it to the other side of the woods, which edged the side of the main road. The mist moved around us, keeping us enveloped constantly. Our heads came up just above it so we could see where we were going.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re rescuing me?” I asked her.
“I sent my friends in to break you out of there because you’re needed in your town.” She looked at me, her face serious. “More and more girls are going to disappear until whoever is taking them is caught.”
“Can’t your friends help you out there? Don’t they know who is taking them?”
“They might, but it’s not what they do. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. She stood a few inches shorter than me, and she had an hourglass shape that I’d just about kill for. Her boot cut jeans hugged her curves in a way that mine didn’t.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why they hang around or do what they do. They just do.”
“Are they always around?” I tripped over something, lurching forward, and I felt Fiona’s ghosts push me back into place. Pretty cool.
“Sometimes more than others.” She nodded at something ahead. “There he is.”
I followed her gaze. My heart did a flip-flop and a big grin crossed my face. The Camaro sat on the side of the ro
ad, lights off. “Mick.”
“Yup. He missed you. You’re all he talks about.”
My grin turned into a huge smile. “Really?”
She nodded. “Really.”
“You know Mick? How?”
“We introduced ourselves to him,” she said, and I wasn’t sure at first who she meant by “we,” but then I realized it could only be the ghosts who followed her.
“Did he flip out?”
“At first he did. We followed him through the cemetery and he spotted us. I think he wondered whether I was actually in the land of the living or the dead.”
I giggled, imagining the look on his face, realizing that a woman surrounded by mist was following him.
The driver’s door of the Camaro opened and Mick stepped out, smiling as he came toward us. “Lorelei. Thank God.”
I stepped into his arms and nuzzled his neck with my face. I breathed him in, the smell of cinnamon gum and guy soap. “I missed you.”
“I missed you. I was so scared. Thought I’d never see you again.”
“What happened to Delia?” I asked him, fingers of dread clenching my heart.
“I don’t know. I lost her, Lore. I tried to keep up with her but she took some fancy turns and when I found the car again she was gone. The police have questioned her but they’re being really tight-lipped. She isn’t answering her door.”
“She chloroformed me,” I said, horror mounting in my chest, and beneath that, a dull ache for the aunt that I knew I’d lost. “It wasn’t her.”
“Shadow spooks,” Fiona said. “They took her over.”
I nodded. “Lucian had Strummer send them.”
“Lucian’s men probably had a car waiting in an alley somewhere,” Fiona said.
“Jesus,” Mick said. “That’s why she’s been so creepy. She’s been possessed?”
Fiona nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good word for it.”
“Maybe we can get a priest to help her,” Mick said.
“Maybe,” Fiona said, but the tone of her voice made it pretty clear that she didn’t believe that a priest could help.
Mick caught on and changed the subject. “So you’re officially among the missing, as of a few of hours ago.”
“Yeah. I know.” I looked straight ahead, sadness and hopelessness coming over me and making me want to cry. I bit my lower lip.
Mick reached out and pulled me toward him, his eyes tender as he spoke. “I thought I’d lost you.”
I managed a grin. “I’m not so easy to lose. You’re stuck with me, pal.”
His face brightened with a lopsided smile. “Awesome.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you two lovebirds get into the freakin’ car please, before some really nasty shit comes after us and drags us back to Lucian?”
I’d forgotten. “Strummer.”
“Who is this Strummer you keep talking about?” Mick asked, opening the car doors for me and Fiona.
“He’s one of Lucian’s,” Fiona said. “He can conjure up some very bad entities to come after us, and I’m sure he will, once Lucian discovers that Lorelei has escaped.”
“So they can come after any one of us,” Mick said, starting the Camaro and directing it onto the road. A heavy fog moved in from the surrounding woods and cornfields flanking the road. “Awesome.”
“Exactly,” Fiona said from the back seat. “Now move it, Mick. I don’t know what’s in that fog.”
I turned to Fiona. “Not friends of yours?”
She gave a quick shake of her head. “I wish.”
***
Mick stayed just ahead of the fog. It might’ve been natural, good old-fashioned mist, but we didn’t know for sure. If there was something in it, it was choosing to just follow for now. My nerves were jumping, because if there was something in the fog and whatever it was decided to do more, it could very easily overtake the car, seep into every crack and crevice, and do what it wanted to.
For now, it hovered behind.
“So Delia won’t come out of her house?” I asked Mick.
He was fooling with the radio, punching buttons. Only static came through on every channel. “Whatever it is that’s taken her over is in the house.” He looked over at me. “I sat in your driveway a couple of times. Something smells bad and it’s coming from inside that house. You can’t go back in there, Lorelei.”
I didn’t want to think about what was causing the bad smell. “I know. God knows what’ll happen to me if I do.”
“You need to stay hidden. Stay with me.”
I gave a short laugh. I was starting to feel hysterical. Get a grip. “Right. So we’d better figure out a plan, if we ever want things to get back to the way they used to be.”
Mick squeezed my hand. “Things will never be the same, Lorelei.”
“Maybe things will go back to some semblance of normalcy,” I said, not believing my own words.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. So much bad shit is going down in Saints Hallow. To tell you the truth, I just want to get the hell out of there.”
I nodded. A heavy sadness settled over me, on top of the fear. I preferred the fear. Fear could be managed. Sadness was so hard to bear. Saints Hallow had been my safe haven for years. “After we find out what happened to Eliza, Kerry, and Brianna.” I paused, startled that I was saying the words, when just a few short days ago I couldn’t even imagine leaving this town. “We’ll leave. But not before we find out who took them.”
Mick nodded. “Whatever it takes. Whoever it is needs to go down.”
“You can do it, Lorelei. Use your talent,” Fiona said.
“There’s only one problem,” I murmured. “How am I going to probe people’s minds to find out who it is if I can’t go out? I’ll be seen.”
Chapter Fourteen
The prayer vigil at six o’clock that night was for Brianna. The girls in my town were vanishing so fast now it was making my head spin—one every couple of days. What was he doing with them, this phantom who could abduct young girls unseen? If he wasn’t caught, he’d run out of teenage girls to take. Then what? Move on to the next town? Maybe Saints Hallow wasn’t the only town he’d done this to. God knew how many there had been before us. Maybe he just hadn’t been so active before.
Was he one of us? Delia thought he had to be. He had to know these girls. Which meant he knew me. This could be someone I saw every day. Somebody I was familiar with. Someone these girls trusted. Someone I trust.
I pushed out a long breath and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. How could this be happening?
The vigil was being held in the same spot it had been for Kerry and Eliza. Just one more photo added. A steady stream of people came to the edge of the woods, dropping flowers and lowering their heads to pray. I stood farther off in the trees, Fiona’s special mist moving protectively all around me. Once in a while I felt the caress of a hand somewhere on my skin, or the cool breath of a ghost lifting my hair. The movements were distracting, but I had to focus on what I had to do.
I heard a low hum and the wind moving through what was left of the leaves on jutting branches. I remained as motionless as I could, closed my eyes, and listened. Faint whispering reached my ears, and I strained to hear the words.
Please find me. I’ve been here so long.
“Who are you?” I whispered back.
I’m Emma. I was taken on my way home from school. I was tricked, and buried here. It’s been so long. Please find me so I can leave. My mother is waiting for me. She stands over me, waiting.
“I will find you. I promise. There are others I need to find, too. Right now I need silence, okay?”
I felt the mental nod of the ghost.
“Thank you. I promise I will come back and find you, Emma. You can go with your mommy tonight.”
Another mental nod, and the sense of gratitude and relief.
I peered through the fog, into the crowd, and saw all the same people who had been at the last vigil. I didn’t see that anyone was missin
g, though there could have been. I hoped not.
Mick stood at a spot closest to the very edge of the woods and looked toward me every so often. Mr. Tanner came up next to him and patted him on the back. He said something low but I couldn’t hear what it was.
I closed my eyes and sent mental fingers reaching out to Mr. Tanner. His obsession with Eliza was inappropriate at best, and I wondered what else he was hiding. Gently, I felt around inside his mind.
What I found stunned me. My chin trembled and my eyes welled. It was torture for Edward Tanner to be here, so close to the woods. Teaching at Saints Hallow High School was a form of self-punishment. He believed he deserved to be punished each and every second of every day.
I felt my breath catch as I saw what he was hiding.
Eddie, a five year old boy sitting in the car with his father. A big car, and Eddie’s legs dangling over the big seat. It was a different time: no child seats for kids then. Kids could sit in the front seat. Looking out the window, he saw Emma Perry walking along the sidewalk in a summer skirt, socks, and sneakers, her long, red hair tied in a ponytail that swung with each step.
His father’s huge arm reached across his seat and opened the passenger door next to Eddie. “Go, Eddie.”
Eddie looked at his dad, slightly confused and a little scared and shy.
“She’s right there, Eddie. Go on. Before someone else comes and takes her away from us before we can play with her.”
Eddie didn’t want that to happen. He loved Emma. She was so pretty with her bright red hair, so shiny under the sun. His mommy saw it when they saw Emma and her daddy in the convenience store. She’d called it puppy love, when she’d told Daddy that night at dinner. His daddy had grinned and winked at him. “That’s my boy,” he’d said.
Just like he was saying now, as Eddie slid off the seat and onto the pavement in the parking lot of the school. He stood for a moment, watching Emma walk down the street. She was alone, making the usual trek back from Mac’s convenience store by herself. She didn’t live far at all. Just down the street. Usually Emma’s older sister Kelly walked with her, but not today.
