“Mihi,” she said in a voice that wasn’t hers, and one of the robed figures flew up into the air, striking the ceiling of the cave with so much force that pieces of rock fell down with his limp, dead form.
“Stop her!” the ritual master yelled.
“That’s right, fight them!” Shadow yelled, but her voice was weak and heavy with tears.
Chanting filled the room, the chains drew tight, and Wraith screamed as pain tore through her.
The crumpled body on the ground was taken away and the ritual master loomed over Wraith.
“Not again,” Wraith screamed. “Please, no more!” Numbers and symbols flashed in the air around her and she tried hopelessly to bring them into something that could help. But like every time before, the pain fought her. She pushed back with all she had, pulled at her bindings with all the strength she could find.
“She’s fighting it,” a calm voice said.
“Of course she is,” the ritual master said. Then he began whispering something in a language she didn’t know. The chains bit into the already raw flesh of her wrists and drew her thrashing body hard against the stone.
She screamed again. The formulations fell apart, then vanished from view entirely.
Then the circle closed.
The ritual master smiled and touched Wraith’s cheek. “This will go so much easier if you just accept it. You’re destined to be much more than just the child of respectable talent. You will be the dawn of a new age!”
Shadow shrieked in pain.
“No!” Wraith screamed.
Power lashed out from her, shaking the chamber.
“The circle is faltering,” the ritual master said. “She’s breaking through.”
Voices rose and Wraith smelled the ritual master’s rancid breath as he leaned down, one of his hands resting on her stomach.
“We’ve grand designs for you,” he said, his fingertips reaching past flesh into her soul, twisting it, rending it, and feeding dark power into it.
Wraith could only sob. Inside her head, hundreds upon hundreds of lost souls screamed for her.
“Fight them,” Shadow said from somewhere in the distance. Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been screaming for a long time.
Wraith screamed. “Please, I can’t, not you! Make it stop!”
Chanting echoed off the stone walls, sounding like a chorus of hundreds.
Wraith closed her eyes at what she knew was coming. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Fight—” Shadow’s words were lost in a cry that tore at Wraith’s soul. Then SK was screaming, then Fritz, then the others, one by one.
Then her own torment began; dark and twisted magic boring into her, rending her soul. She convulsed at the pain, biting her tongue and tasting blood. The chains held her fast, tearing her raw flesh as she writhed. She tried to scream, wanted to, but there wasn’t enough left of her. Her senses were dull, her hands and feet numb from the prolonged restraint.
She wanted for it all to be over, but she knew it wouldn’t be.
“I won’t help you,” Wraith said. “You can go to hell—”A lance of white hot pain between her eyes stopped her words.
“Now we bring them a light that they cannot turn away!” the ritual master said. “We bring the light of truth! We bring the Taleth-Sidhe, wrapped in shadows!”
The chanting around her grew louder, and she heard the first scream stop. Wraith felt the heat and rush of power fill her as another whimpering, crying soul took up residence inside her.
“I’ll kill you all,” was all Wraith could say between gasps, her body shaking. “I’ll tear you from existence!”
Another scream stopped and she felt the surge of power, and then another, and another, and another, and another. They came so fast, so quickly, she couldn’t even breathe. Inside her, the confused souls of the tormented cried out in desperation.
“I’m sorry,” Wraith whispered to them, and to her friends.
“I love you!” Fritz yelled.
“I love you too!” SK answered.
Both their screams died together, and the wave of power that filled Wraith felt like her soul was being torn to shreds.
“It’s not your fault,” Shadow said, then she screamed and it went on longer than any should’ve been able to. When it finally stopped, the abruptness was more unsettling than the scream itself had been.
Then the room was quiet and still.
Power churned through Wraith. “You killed them!” she roared and the cave shook.
“Yes!” the ritual master said through a smile. “And now their power is yours. Every soul, its power heightened by fear and pain at the moment of death, torn away and bound to you. Feel that dark power, the gift of our Master.”
Wraith’s tears slowed when she felt not darkness but the familiar warmth and comfort of her friends. Then the screams, cries, and pleas inside her went quiet, their pain soothed by three so full of love and kindness.
“It’s time to leave, Stretch,” Shadow said from inside Wraith, her voice calm and reassuring. “We’ll help you, all of us.”
Wraith nodded, drew in a breath, and opened her eyes. She spoke to the power churning around her. The magic answered her summons. Formulations lashed out. The chains holding her shattered, as did the stone table she lay upon. With borrowed strength, Wraith got to her feet.
Robed figures began running.
“There’s no light here,” Wraith said. “If you want darkness, I’ll bring it to you.”
She reached out to one of fleeing figures. She closed her power around his quantum information. Then she tore it away.
He vanished entirely from existence.
She rent another from reality, and another, and another. Then she turned on the ritual master. He wasn’t running. He was standing, smiling at her with pride. She knew her hold on the immense power running through her was slipping. Around her, the cavern was shuddering, reality itself buckling. Wraith looked from the ritual master to the bodies of her friends and knew she couldn’t both get them out and kill him.
“I won’t let you win,” she said.
He looked around and smiled more. “You already have.”
“Desaparecer,” she said, waving a hand at him, sending a trickle of her power. He was sent flying across the room. His leg caught one of the stone tables and sent him flailing amid the sound of breaking bones.
Wraith moved to the bodies of her friends, her strength fading. The terrible wounds that had tortured them before death were almost too much to look at. Each fought to keep the memories of receiving them hidden from her. Through tears, Wraith reached out around her with her magic, finding the other ten who’d been tortured, killed, and then had their souls bound to her. She wrapped her power around them, holding them gently as if in loving arms. Then she stepped through time and space, taking their broken bodies from this terrible place.
Sometime later, Wraith woke. She tried opening her eyes but found them crusted over. Her head was swimming as she wiped at her eyes until her vision cleared. Birds were singing and a cool breeze brought fresh air tinged with the smell of damp earth and moss.
She sat up, and regretted it. The world spun around her and she put her hands to her head. Closing her eyes again, she focused on the ground beneath her, how it was solid and still. After a few slow breaths the spinning stopped. She licked her dry lips and swallowed. When she opened her eyes, she shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold. The remnants of the chains were still around her wrists, the metal stained with blood where it had cut her flesh. She tore at the chains with shaking hands. When she finally got them undone, she winced as the links caught and pulled the raw flesh. She hurled the chains away and noticed her surroundings.
Redwoods and sequoia trees stretched in every direction, until the haze in the distance swallowed them. Slowly, Wraith got to h
er feet and looked up, almost tripping over a large chunk of the stone table she’d been chained too.
The canopy was hundreds of feet above her. Through the reaching branches, she could see bright blue sky and puffy white clouds. Over everything were long, intricate calculations, the numbers and symbols weaving through every tree, branch, and leaf. Even the clouds and the sky were filled with formulations. When she looked down, the ferns and the ground itself were living equations, and she could read them all. She knew the tree in front of her was exactly 241 feet, 8 3/4 inches tall. It had been alive for 674,616 days, 7 hours, and 16 minutes. In those churning numbers and symbols, she could read the history of the tree, the centuries it had seen pass. Her head started to hurt from the sheer amount of information. She looked away and saw the ferns and other ground growth. Still the endless stream of information flowed into her.
She closed her eyes, truly understanding the phrase “Drinking from a fire hose.” It took several minutes before she was able push the influx of data aside, let it pass through her without noting every piece of it. Soon it felt more like paddling along the river instead of being washed away by it. Then came the memories. She doubled over, gripping her stomach where hundreds of knives had cut and killed all those now inside her.
She opened her eyes, pushing away the torrent of recollections, and looked to her left. Toto lay nearby. His very presence, and the subtle rise and fall of his chest, brought her an overwhelming sense of relief. She’d nearly forgotten the big dog when she’d taken them all from that terrible place. Her magic must’ve found him and brought him, or maybe Shadow—what was left of her—wouldn’t leave him behind. Shadow had always had a strong bond with Toto, but Wraith never knew why or how. Maybe that connection was what had done it. She knelt down and scratched behind his ear as he slept and his back leg jerked. She saw the fur of his right front leg was matted with blood.
She stood, numb to her very soul, staring at the bodies of her friends and the ten strangers she’d taken from that nightmarish place. They lay on the forest floor, and Wraith’s heart broke again as she looked at their faces, still twisted in pain, their tattered clothes stained with blood. She forced herself to look at them, each of them, and memorize their faces. She made herself listen to the cries of the voices that recognized their own corpse. It tore her up inside, but she didn’t turn away.
“They can’t hurt you anymore,” she said to them. Tears flowed freely when Wraith saw the formulae that ran through the twisted, broken bodies. The coursing power spoke only of the physical bodies, nothing of the people they had been. Everything that had made them who they were was gone and—
“No, not forgotten,” she said.
Wraith knew she couldn’t leave them like this. She had to bury them somehow.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the ground lifted from twelve different spots and settled back down next to the open graves. Wraith reached out, adjusting flow of gravity. The bodies, one by one, lifted from the ground and were set, gently and reverently, to rest. She placed her friends last, SK and Fritz sharing a grave so they could be together in death as they always were in life. Then Wraith moved the earth back to cover them all. When it was done, only small mounds of raised earth, still covered in ferns, marked the place for what it was: a graveyard of the lost and forgotten.
“The world might forget,” Wraith whispered, “but I’ll remember.” She knelt down between her friends’ two graves and wept without shame. “I’m sorry,” she said through sobs. “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to save you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Shadow said from behind her.
Wraith spun and stared with wide, wet eyes. She grasped for words, but none came.
Shadow smiled, as did Fritz and SK, who were standing behind her, hand in hand as ever. Gone were the sunken eyes and thin bodies eaten away by starvation. They were healthy, smiling, and very alive.
Wraith stood, looking from the graves to her friends. She opened her mouth, but stopped when saw the pulsing equations coursing through her friends, holding them together. Her breath came up short. It was her. She was, well, she didn’t know what. Conjuring bodies for their souls? Was that even possible?
“You’re not real,” Wraith said.
“Ouch,” SK said. “That’s just mean.”
Wraith blinked.
“We’re real, Stretch,” Shadow said, smiling. “We’re just not alive.” She shook her head. “I have no idea how you did it, but you created these forms for us.”
“You don’t know?” Wraith asked.
“We kind of got gypped on the whole universal-wisdom-when-you-die thing,” SK said. After a moment he looked at Fritz and Shadow. “Or is it just me?”
“Whatever comes next,” Shadow said to Wraith, “you’re not going to be alone.”
“You made sure we were together,” Fritz said and pressed herself against SK. “We’re not leaving you alone.”
“Yeah, what she said.” SK smiled as he squeezed Fritz.
Wraith threw her arms around Shadow and was beyond relieved when she felt her friend hug back. Wraith held as tight as she dared, then she beckoned SK and Fritz to join. There was a whimper and they all turned to see Toto limp over and press himself into the group hug. It was a balm to her tattered heart.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Wraith was on her hands and knees, back in the church of her mind. Power, pure and intense, coursed through her like a raging river. With it came more threads of memories, snippets and pieces.
She remembered leaving the forest. In a matter of weeks, she’d mastered striding, moving effortlessly from one door-door to another, then surpassing the need for physical doors at all. That’s how they had found their sanctuary—the safe house with the workbench—a place with no way in but striding. From there, the four of them had begun hunting the hunters, saving as many kids as they could and killing every member of the Theurgic Order they found. But for every kid they saved, dozens, maybe hundreds more were taken. And it was happening all over the world. They saved some, but mostly just found stories of missing kids. The real snatchers, the Order, were like shadows. They left no trace, just emptiness in the lives of those closest to the taken. Through it all, Wraith’s power grew, becoming more unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Then came the explosion.
Why it happened, she couldn’t remember, but the entire front of the supermarket had been blown out, and the roof had collapsed. She didn’t know how many people, innocent people, had died, but it was too many.
They’d gone looking for help, for anyone who could help bring Wraith’s increasing power under control, or even take it away. No one would, or could. So Wraith figured out how to do it herself. But there would be a cost. Her power and her sense of self were so closely tied that one couldn’t be locked away without the other; if her magic went, most of her memories would go too. That was how Nightstick was born. A sentient hallucination to help her, and keep the power locked away. Shadow, SK, and Fritz had all helped, and then begged her to create a back door, a key to undo it. She’d agreed reluctantly.
But her plan hadn’t worked. The darkness the Order had put in her had been too much for Nightstick. Power had begun to escape, and pieces of memories with it, though twisted and inaccurate. There had never been an exorcism at Richard and Mary’s house. Though considering all those two had done—funneling children to the Order—they could justifiably be called devils. No, the exorcism had been her escape from the Order. Her brain had taken remnant pieces of her foster parents, and the rituals, then filled in the gaps. Thankfully, Richard and Mary weren’t her parents; and Josie and Michael weren’t her siblings—she was sad about that. All those early memories had just been her brain trying to make sense of the holes.
Wraith struggled for a long while before getting the upper hand on the flow of power. But she knew it was going to keep grow
ing, and before long, it would be too much again.
“You okay?” Shadow asked.
Wraith rested her head on a broken pew. There were a lot of memories missing, and a lot of them always would be, but she had so much more than before. True, she might not know a lot about who she’d been, but she knew who she was now.
She lifted her head and looked at her friends. “I remember,” she said in a whisper. “Not everything, but enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Shadow said, placing a hand on Wraith’s shoulder.
Wraith wept. “I made a terrible mistake.”
“Nein,” Fritz said. “You couldn’t keep living the way you were.”
Wraith shook her head. “I know why I did it, and I shouldn’t have unlocked it. It’s too much power. I won’t be able to control it for long. I can barely hold it now, and it’s growing with every breath.”
Shadow swallowed. “You could, um, lock it away again.”
Wraith looked at her.
“You could do it,” Shadow said.
Wraith shook her head. “Keep hiding? Pretending that there aren’t kids being tortured and killed? That the Order isn’t doing to others what they did to me?”
“You wouldn’t remember that,” SK said.
Wraith finally understood the sadness in her friends’ eyes and that it came from the heavy burden she’d placed on them. “No, but you would.”
None of them said anything, Fritz was the only one who moved, and she just pressed herself against SK.
“But if this power consumes me,” Wraith said. “It won’t just be me who’s lost.”
SK chortled. “We died once already. After the first time, it’s really not a big deal.”
Shadow wiped the tears from Wraith’s eyes. “Whatever you do, we’ll be with you.” She placed her hand over Wraith’s heart. “No one but you can remove us from there.”
Wraith wiped her tears away, took a deep breath, and stood up straight. “No more hiding,” she said to her friends. “No more running scared. No more standing aside and letting things happen.”
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