by Lee Nichols
Then Rachel appeared at the top of the stairs. The ashes! Get the ashes and bring them to Neos.
Simon fought hard, but he couldn’t summon his dispelling power through the shock and pain. I knew, because I was the same. Natalie’s mom plucked the ashes from his coat pocket and rushed the box to Rachel. I started to compel her to stop, but Lukas moved to kick me, his face a sneering stranger’s.
That’s when my anger caught fire. It burned brighter and brighter and finally snapped, going from red-hot to ice-cold.
I compelled with one word: Go.
The explosion of power burst from me with the force of a grenade. As the ghosts ripped from their bodies, Lukas, Natalie, her mother, Max, and the Sterns collapsed—leaving me and Simon in the center of a circle of unconscious bodies. Even Coby had disappeared.
But I couldn’t worry about him, because Rachel still had the ashes. And before I could stop her, she fled down the hall.
I helped Simon to his feet and looked at the limp bodies. “Are they going to be all right?”
“I don’t know,” was his not-very-reassuring response. “Each possession is different. We’ve got to stop Rachel before she brings those ashes to Neos.”
We climbed the stairs, fending off new ghosts and possessed students and parents.
“He’s trying to make you angry,” Simon said.
“It’s working.”
18
“He’s inside,” I told Simon. I could feel Neos’s sick energy throbbing behind the closed doors of the research library that we’d tracked Rachel to.
“You know it’s a trap,” he replied. “He planned this whole thing.”
“Yeah.” I pushed through the doors, wishing I had someone with me other than Simon. He was a smart and fearless leader, but he wasn’t that strong, and right now I needed someone with some kick-butt abilities. And, well, I’ll admit it: part of me expected Bennett to arrive in the nick of time to help me save the day.
What I didn’t expect was to open those doors and find him already locked in deadly combat. He stood on the long mahogany table in the center of the room, a spear of brilliant white light in each hand, power rippling from him in pounding waves. He looked gorgeous and heroic as a sea of wraiths boiled around him, a mass of ripping claws, gaping mouths, and tattered skin.
Bennett seemed to know where they were without looking, one spear slicing through a wraith behind him, then two in front, another spear flashing as he spun and kicked. He fought in silence, without mercy or hesitation, until he saw his chance—he leaped from the table and raced up a spiral staircase that led to a gallery around the room.
I think I shouted Bennett’s name, but I’m not sure. Ghosts came from behind us and surged forward. I dispelled three or four at a time, backing into the library, trying to protect Simon from the onslaught. But I couldn’t defend him and help Bennett at the same time. Simon wasn’t strong enough, and I told him to forgive me as I left him to fend for himself—knowing he’d eventually be possessed.
Instead, I followed Bennett to the gallery, where Rachel knelt, opening the box of ashes at Neos’s feet. Neos stood there watching with a distant superiority. The sight of him filled me with dread: that ancient, repulsive old ghost with his white scraggly hair and black crow-eyes, secure in his victory, more powerful than ever.
Neos twitched his fingers, and a claw of darkness slashed at Bennett, causing his dispelling spears to veer off at crazy angles. Bennett gasped in pain and struck again, but despite all his power, he couldn’t hit Neos, not even a glancing blow. When I finally reached him, I didn’t even know how he was still standing. Bloody and wounded, his blue eyes were fierce, bright and furious.
Until they flickered toward me for the briefest moment, and I saw myself in them. He still loved me. In the middle of all this, he loved me. And I loved him and would protect him, no matter what the cost.
“This time,” I told Neos, “you’re not getting away.”
“This time,” he said, in his hissing voice, “I won’t need to.”
Instead of answering, I threw open the gates of my power.
This man—not “man,” this thing—had haunted me. He’d torn my family apart, he’d ruined minds and lives. He’d killed Coby, Martha, Bennett’s sister, and a dozen other ghostkeepers, and was damn near to killing Bennett, too.
Let’s just say I didn’t need to dig too deep to tap into all that rage.
And I had plenty.
I unleashed it at Neos—all of it.
The blast struck him in the center of his chest, and he stepped backward to keep from falling, the smug expression dropping from his face. I poured more and more power into him, so much that just the reflection of the attack dispelled ghosts on the library floor one story below.
But while the onslaught rocked Neos back a few steps, he didn’t fall—he didn’t even begin to unravel. I couldn’t dispel him. Because something was protecting him, keeping my power from truly touching him.
He raised his left hand to me, and there, embedded in his palm, was my ring. Emma’s ring. Blocking the power I blasted at him.
“Yes,” Neos said, his smug look returning. “That is why I needed her ring. Like a vaccination, it lets me resist your particular brand of power. You’re finished, Emma.”
“She hasn’t even started yet,” Bennett snarled, and the spears of light flickered to life in his hands. “Together now.”
He slashed at Neos while I shot ribbons of power around him. Something jumped me from behind and slammed me to my knees, but I didn’t stop attacking. I heard Bennett gasp and saw his final spears blurring through the air, until I felt him falter a moment later.
That’s when Neos said, “Now, Rachel.”
Still kneeling at the box of ashes, she scattered them at Neos’s feet, and I immediately felt the change. He absorbed them, drawing the ashes—the tiny traces of the living man he’d once been—into his spectral self.
Before our eyes, he morphed into a creature more monstrous than ever.
Flaps of skin peeled from him, his body shedding inky tentacles as he thickened and broadened. The tentacles resolved into smoky ropes, twisting and writhing.
Snakes. Dozens of snakes, made of smoke and ash, each of them wraithlike, slithering from his body to sway and snap in the air.
Like my vision. Like the tapestry at the Knell—showing my ancestor battling a ghostly snake—and my dream, back in San Francisco, of a ghost formed of snakes rising from my father’s urns. Neos was my nightmare come to life. And too powerful, now, even with me and Bennett fighting together.
“Yes,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “Now I only lack one thing. Your body.”
A snake slithered through the air and wound around Rachel’s shoulders—then sunk its fangs into her neck. She cried out, but didn’t make a move to dislodge it. She just swayed there, her ghostly face contorted with pain, giving everything for what she imagined was love.
Until, a moment later, she shriveled like a raisin and crumpled to dust, the essence of her dead self swallowed by the snake to feed Neos.
“Now your turn,” he said to Bennett. “Take Emma’s power. Isn’t that what you want?”
Bennett slashed at him, and was slammed into the wall by one of the ghastly snakes.
“Take her power, boy,” Neos whispered. “Then see if you can beat me.”
There was no other way. We couldn’t beat him alone, and we couldn’t beat him together. It felt like the inevitable conclusion to my vision. “Do it,” I told Bennett.
“Yes,” Neos hissed. “Listen to the girl. A woman in love will give you anything you ask.”
Voices sounded from behind us, and for a moment I felt a desperate flash of hope. Then I saw that while my power had dispelled the possessions, freeing Max, Natalie, Lukas, and the others, they were now corralled in the lower floor of the library, guarded by wraiths. They watched, exhausted and weak, along with Coby, who’d made it back from the Beyond, but was powerless to help. Sara, Harry, and my pare
nts had been discovered and stood there terrified, ringed by slavering wraiths who only awaited their master’s word to feast.
“You’ve trained in the art of Asarum,” Neos sneered at Bennett. “Hasn’t that been your plan? Drain the most powerful ghostkeeper in centuries and then see if you can dispel me?”
“It’s our only chance,” I pleaded with him. “Do it, Bennett. I want you to.”
Bennett wiped blood from his mouth. “He knows I can’t win, Emma. He wants me to weaken you so—”
A snake shot forward and sank its fangs into my shoulder. Poison pumped into my flesh and I screamed. Distantly I heard Neos mocking Bennett, saying something about protecting me, saying that the only way to save me was to drain me dry.
I summoned my power through the red haze of agony, but with the ring protecting him, I couldn’t make Neos stop. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t plan, I couldn’t even see straight. But I did see something. Through tears of pain I saw Bennett’s blue eyes, close to mine, as he took my hand.
He looked at me and said, “Everything I have is yours.”
And he opened the floodgates. The principle of reflexivity meant that the ability to steal power was the same as the ability to give it away, and Bennett poured his power into me like a river pouring over a waterfall.
That had been his plan all along—not to drain my energy to fight Neos himself, but to give me the power to beat him.
I saw everything in that one moment. He’d been afraid that I’d need to drain him dry, and that I would refuse to do it. He’d thought I might need to kill him to save us all—like the Rake had killed the original Emma to save her—and I wouldn’t be able to do it.
So he gave me no choice. He kept his secret, he hoarded his power—and then he gave it all to me, without asking my permission. I was going to have some words with him later.
But right then?
I’d never felt power like that. All my powers—communicating, reading, summoning, dispelling, compelling—merged into a single power. I knew the story of every book and antique in that room; I felt the original Emma standing beside me, and the Emma before her, and the one before her. And I saw that I wasn’t forced to follow my destiny; I was free to lead my destiny wherever I chose.
Lifetimes passed in the blink of two blue eyes, and I raised my head, looked at Neos, and said, “I told you I’d make you pay.”
A bright white light coursed through my shoulder, into the snake’s fangs and down its serpentine body to explode against Neos. He shrieked in pain and surprise, and sent an urgent message to his wraiths: feed.
Hoping to distract me. Hoping to give himself time to run.
I didn’t look away from him as he crawled frantically toward the shadows. The wraiths howled and shuddered, and I turned them to smoke with a thought. Then I sent my power to cleanse the entire room—then the hallway—then the school and grounds.
Neos scuttled back until he hit the wall, then raised a hand in supplication. “I can feel all your power. So brilliant and strong. Let me be your follower. Spare me,” he begged.
“I’ll spare you …”
His eyes widened with hope.
“The lingering, painful death you deserve.”
I raised my hand, and Neos exploded into dust.
19
I woke in the hospital. My shoulder was bandaged under the hospital gown, and ached from the ghostly snakebite. That surge of power had exhausted me after it burned out, leaving me weak and spent, and I’d collapsed to the floor.
I rolled to my side and saw Bennett sitting in the chair beside the bed, his hand inches from mine. I felt myself smile, as my fingers interlaced with his—with his beautiful, unstained hands. The red rings had already faded from his cobalt eyes, the purple blotches gone from his fingers.
I felt like I’d been dragged around behind a car like tin cans to celebrate someone’s wedding—but despite the aches, my smile widened. Tears welled in my eyes. We’d done it. We’d won. Neos was gone, the dead were laid to rest. The nightmare was over, and our future had finally begun.
Bennett kissed my hand, and I touched the stubble on his cheek. He looked better than he had in months: strong, steady, and stable.
“You’re still too skinny,” I told him.
He laughed with easy pleasure, a sound I hadn’t heard in months, and the tears of happiness welled in my eyes again.
“The Asarum is gone?” I asked.
“How much do you remember?” he asked. “I mean, after you dispelled Neos, but before you fainted?”
I furrowed my brow. “I remember I felt them—the other Emmas—and I saw the Beyond all around me. I saw the trapped souls, and the people who’d been possessed, and I—”
“You freed them. You fixed them—you healed the damage of the possessions, too. Everyone’s fine.”
“And you?”
He showed me his unstained fingers. “When you took my power, you took my addiction, too. You burned the Asarum out of me.”
“I didn’t take your power, you gave it. It worked, but … can you still see ghosts?”
He shook his head. “Not since that night. My powers are gone.”
“Oh, Bennett.” I squeezed his hand.
“I’m not sorry,” he said. “I did what I needed to, and I—”
“You didn’t need to die,” I said, knowing now that’s what he’d planned.
“I thought Neos would either kill you and me, and everyone we loved, or … it could just be me.”
“How could you do that? Put me in the position where’d I’d be the one who—” I swallowed back tears.
“You’d have done exactly the same to me.”
I opened my mouth to object—but didn’t say anything. He was right. If I’d needed to surrender everything for him and my friends, I’d have done it. “Maybe,” I finally said. “But at least I’d have the grace to feel guilty about it!”
“I don’t regret anything. It’s over, Em.” His eyes burned into mine with their intense blueness. “I’ve got everything I want right here.”
I still worried about him missing his ghostkeeping powers, but was more concerned with touching him, smelling him, now that he didn’t reek of Asarum. I hitched myself higher in bed to kiss him, then winced at a sudden pang in my shoulder. “Ouch.”
Bennett helped me lie back down. “You healed everyone except yourself. I’ve got something for you, but it can wait. Go back to sleep, and—”
And my family bustled into the room. “Oh, thank God!” my mom said, looking at me.
“Told you she’d be all right,” Dad said. “She’s a Vaile, isn’t she?”
“Well, something’s wrong,” Max said, his brow knit with concern. “After twenty minutes alone with Bennett, she’s still wearing her shirt.”
“Jerk,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help smiling. Especially after Max and Bennett headed off together, giving my parents some time alone with me. I didn’t want alone time with my parents so much, but was glad Max and Bennett seemed on the way to rebuilding their friendship.
My dad fluttered around, making sure I was comfortable, while my mother peppered me with questions and news.
The Knell had their contacts in the police cover up the possessions at Thatcher by saying there was a gas leak that caused mass fainting, headaches, and temporary amnesia. And my mysterious wound? Well, I’d been treated for snakebite, and a ghostkeeper at Boston animal control claimed to have confiscated someone’s missing pet python.
As my mom helped me dress to leave the hospital, I said, “So how bad’s my shoulder?”
“Pretty bad,” my dad said. “They said to expect a few months of bandages, physical therapy, and some scarring.”
“How bad a scar?”
My mother burst into tears. “It’s all my fault. Neos went insane because of me, and look what happened to poor Rachel. And now you’re disfigured.”
“Disfigured? Not helping, Mom.” But I soothed her until she calmed down, telling her that none
of this was her fault. “Neos was sick from the start. He didn’t go insane because of you.”
She sniffled. “Really?” She sat on the bed and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her thick black wool sweater. “We still haven’t been the best parents. We never should’ve kept your abilities from you.”
Dad plopped down beside her. “We made a huge mistake there.”
I nodded. “You did. But as much as I’d like to blame you for everything that’s wrong in my life … I think I’m okay. I mean, I want everyone back. All those pointless deaths. I really miss Martha. And Coby …” Well, that was still unfinished business. “But I know who I am now. Who I want to be. I guess that makes you not the worst parents to ever walk the earth.”
Dad smiled. “We’ll take it.”
My mom laid a hand on his knee. “There’s something else we need to discuss, Emma. We’re selling the house and business in San Francisco and going to work for the Knell full-time.”
“We want you to come with us,” Dad said.
My stomach dropped. How could I be so far away from Bennett? He’d be going back to Harvard. And what about my friends?
Mom saw my face and sighed. “The Sterns want you to stay with them, and finish the year at Thatcher.”
Hope bloomed in my chest. “And after that?”
“We’d like you to spend some of the summer with us,” Dad said, “but you can do your senior year at Thatcher.”
“Thank you!” I beamed.
“You don’t have to look so happy about it,” my mother said.
I hugged her. “I love you guys.”
And my mother started crying again. But this time she said they were good tears.
When I got home, everyone was waiting in the kitchen. Lukas was helping Harry flirt with a blushing Celeste, who he couldn’t even see, as Coby and Sara watched in amusement. And Natalie and her mother were at the counter, stirring bowls of what looked like chocolate batter, under the watchful gaze of Anatole.
Simon and the Sterns saw me first, and stood to greet me. Everyone hugged me, then I sat in the nook next to Bennett. He seemed a little quiet; I worried it was because he couldn’t see Anatole and Celeste. But he also seemed more like himself than he had for months. I cuddled against him, enjoying his warmth, as my friends teased me.
