Shane held a plate of cookies. “Compliments of Miss A,” he said, and the entire mood of the room shifted. Megan still sat sullen, but Cass was up off the bed and walked toward Shane, playing with a strand of hair while swishing her hips.
His gaze slowly slid over her, taking in the silk pajamas and lifting an appreciative brow.
Cait stiffened, apparently jealous of the attention Shane was giving Cass. I knew Cait really liked Shane. Everyone knew it, but to her credit, she wasn’t too obvious.
Shane’s gaze shifted to Cait a second later. The corners of his mouth curved as he checked out the skull pajama pants and tight camisole, and then their gazes met.
Yep, there were some smoldering stares going on between the two.
I looked at Megan, and if I’d wondered whether Laria was in the room before, I had no question of it now. She didn’t seem at all bothered by the interaction between Cait and Shane, and normally the jealousy would have been written all over her face.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the plate from him.
Cait shifted on her feet. “You want to hang out with us?”
Shane brushed a hand through his already disheveled blond hair. He glanced at me and I shrugged. Honestly, I didn’t care. In fact, given the dark conversation we’d been having, I was only too happy to have him stay.
“Actually, I’m going to get cleaned up first, but maybe I’ll hang with you later.”
“We’re going to watch a movie. Maybe you can watch it with us?” Cass said, her mood becoming more upbeat by the second.
All it took was Shane flashing a smile to ease everyone’s fears. “How can I say no to a room full of beautiful women? Count me in.”
I laughed under my breath, while Cass and Cait beamed.
“What’s wrong, Meg?” Shane asked, and she glanced up, brows lifted high.
Megan shook her head. “Nothing.”
His gaze abruptly shifted to the Ouija board. He looked at me and frowned.
“A stupid game,” Cass said, kicking the board under the bed.
“Get rid of it,” Shane said, his good mood gone.
“I will,” I promised, as I reached for it.
An arm abruptly grabbed me and yanked me under the bed.
My friends’ screams filled the room.
Strong hands, which had to belong to Shane, gripped my ankles and pulled, but the person who had my arms yanked right back with even more force. My shoulders felt like they were being ripped from the sockets.
I was scared to open my eyes, because if Laria was possessing Megan, then who exactly was holding on to me?
More hands joined my brother’s, and as I felt my friends and Shane gain the upper hand, I found the courage to peek at my assailant.
It was Laria and her eyes were full of rage. “Pain and death,” she said, in that unearthly tone I heard in my nightmares. Her nails dug into the skin at my arms, clawing harder as Shane and the girls tugged hard, freeing me from Laria’s grasp.
Before I could blink, Shane’s hands were on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
My heart was pounding so loud I barely heard him. I nodded.
Cass’s mouth was wide open. Cait looked ready to throw up, and Megan still sat in the same spot. She hadn’t bothered to help at all.
“Who are you?” I asked Megan, and everyone looked at her, confusion on their faces.
“What do you mean?” Megan asked, as she slowly came to her feet. “I’m your friend.”
“Riley?—” Shane started.
I shook my head. “There’s a spirit inside Megan, and I’m guessing it wasn’t Laria since she was the one who pulled me underneath the bed.”
“Oh, hell no,” Cass said, taking a step toward the door. “You’re trying to tell me she’s possessed?”
I nodded. Cait stayed rooted to the spot.
Shane stepped between me and Megan. “Who are you?”
A slow, menacing smile crossed Megan’s lips. “I am your worst nightmare.” The voice wasn’t Megan’s. It was deep and masculine…like Randall’s voice, the creepy guy who had introduced Laria to the dark arts.
Cass screamed and Cait took Shane’s hand.
“You have no power here,” I said with a force that surprised me. “This is my home and you are not welcome here. Leave now.”
“Leave now!” Cait said with me, and soon everyone in the room was repeating the words over and over again.
The spirit in Megan began to laugh, a deep-throated horrific chuckle that sent shivers along my spine. I was proud of Cait, Cass, and Shane. They kept repeating the words along with me, and soon Megan was backing up against the wall.
Her gaze abruptly shifted to the right, where beside the window I saw a bright figure. I couldn’t make out who it was, but I felt the energy move through me like a wave. A positive wave that grew stronger by the second.
I received an image of Anne Marie in my vision, along with one of my mom. She was still with me. What a relief it was to see and feel her, and know she had my back.
“What’s going on?” Megan looked at us, her brow furrowed as her gaze shifted over each of us. “You’re freaking me out. Say something.”
She was acting like Megan, and I noticed her eyes didn’t look so dark.
Cass went to her bag, took three gulps off the fifth. “Oh my God, I’m never going to sleep again.”
“It’s okay,” I said as I gave Megan a hug, relieved to have my friend back.
She hugged me, and then looked at my arms. “What happened?”
There were long scratch marks down the length of both arms, and a couple of them were bleeding.
“That Laria bitch yanked her under the bed, and when she came out, she had those scratches,” Cass said, glancing at Shane. “Do you have a joint? I need to get blazed.”
“You think getting high is a good idea, and who the hell is Laria?” Megan asked.
Yep, our Megan was back.
“Um, it’s definitely a good idea,” Cait replied. “I’m right there with you.”
“Crack the window,” I said, then thought better of it. I didn’t know what Laria would do, especially after the threat that each of us would die. An open window was just giving her an invitation.
That, or I could imagine her hanging upside down in my window, like she had done to me weeks before. My friends would lose their minds.
Shane crossed the room, cracked the window slightly, and removed the wallet from his back pocket. He pulled out a joint and lit it. He inhaled deeply, held the hit in for a good fifteen seconds, before he exhaled the smoke out into the pitch-black night.
Cass approached him, and took the joint right out of his fingers. He sat down in the chair and glanced at me. We were in deep shit and he knew it. I was grateful he was here, helping calm down my friends, but then what? How were we going to move forward? What could we do to get rid of Laria, Randall, and the others?
Cait must have E.S.P., because she said, “Couldn’t we do like an exorcism or something?”
Anne Marie would have been helpful when it came to exorcising negative spirits. Now I was clueless as to who to ask, and I didn’t feel comfortable walking into a church and asking the clergy for help. The last thing I needed was a priest talking to my dad right now.
I was on shaky ground with Dad as it was. Talk of ghosts, even with Shane backing me up, would have me thrown into a mental ward.
“Shane, will you do us a favor and look under the bed?” Cait asked after they’d finished smoking. Even Megan had given in and taken one hit.
None of them looked any more relaxed. In fact, I think the weed might have had a less than calming effect on Cass, who was chewing her fingernails off.
“Sure,” Shane said, going down on his knees. He reached underneath the bed, and pulled out the Ouija board. “First things first, though. We’re getting rid of this.”
Chapter 3
My friends finished off the entire plate of cookies, then rummaged through the kitchen cabine
ts and refrigerator looking for munchies. The best way to counteract the nightmare of Laria yanking me beneath the bed and possessing Megan was a solid dose of comic relief, compliments of Scottish cable. We sat huddled on the couch together, with Shane sprawled in the chair beside us.
Dad came in about eleven thirty. Everyone had put eye drops in their bloodshot eyes, but they remained quiet while Dad asked a few questions. Thankfully, he gave up and headed to his room.
At three in the morning, I was having a tough time keeping my eyes open. Plus, I’d had all the comedy I could handle and excused myself, saying I needed to sleep. Megan followed me, and Cass and Cait said they’d be right behind us.
I brushed my teeth, and fell into bed beside an already snoring Megan. I kept the bathroom light on and left the door open…just in case. I lay awake for thirty minutes, staring at the ceiling, exhausted mind racing. I heard Cass tell Shane and Cait goodnight. I closed my eyes as she snuggled beside me. Sandwiched between my friends, I slowly drifted off to sleep.
I could barely make out the fire from where I stood in the forest, hidden behind a thick outcropping of trees. The place was unfamiliar to me: dense, cold, and dark.
Roughly thirty feet away a group of at least twenty people, all wearing long black robes, stood before a raging fire. In the center I could see an altar, a velvet drape slung over the rock slab, and a goblet in the center.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t been followed. I was scared to death at what I was witnessing firsthand.
A low chanting began with the males in the group, and soon the women joined in. I was in way over my head. I felt it, and yet I knew if I moved I risked the chance of someone discovering me. I crouched down lower, crawled slowly behind a fallen tree, and settled in amongst the ferns on the forest floor.
The chanting ended abruptly, and for a second I thought maybe I’d been discovered. I heard the rustle of brush off to my right. Two men approached and between them there was a slim, blindfolded woman with long, golden blonde hair.
The closer they came to the crowd, the more panicked the woman became, fighting against her captors. Her efforts were useless. The two men laughed and tightened their hold.
I barely breathed, too afraid they would see me as they came closer to my hiding spot, not even five feet away from where they passed by.
I tucked my hair inside my hood. That slight movement made a twig beneath me crunch and the men stopped. The blood roared in my ears. I closed my eyes, praying they would continue walking by.
“Come quickly,” a sharp voice said from the circle of onlookers. Everyone looked in my direction. The men pulled the woman along down the pathway, toward the certain doom that awaited her. I felt her anxiety, her confusion, and I wanted to step out, to save her…but I was helpless. Instead, I cowered in my hiding spot, watching.
A tall man stepped forward out of the group and the crowd made a circle around him. “Welcome, friends.”
For the next twenty minutes I didn’t move an inch while I listened to a sick ritual, spoken in a language I didn’t recognize. The group recited certain words the leader said. The blindfolded woman was pushed to her knees, her arms tied securely behind her.
The blindfold was removed and the woman’s wild gaze took everything in with a glance. Even from where I was, I could see the fear and terror in her eyes as she realized she was surrounded.
The tall man motioned one of the captors forward. The man produced a knife from within his robes. The girl put her hands up at the same time the man thrust. His blade made contact with her wrist, cutting deeply.
She cried out in pain. The crowd began to chant once again, this time in a more frenzied way. The girl was lifted up onto the altar, and I could see her trembling, no doubt in shock.
The tall man stepped forward and, taking the blade from the other man, sliced the victim’s other wrist in a slashing, brutal fashion. With a triumphant smile, he lifted her arm up and with great ceremony let the blood gush into the goblet. He brought the goblet to his lips and drank deeply, while the onlookers stood in god-like worship.
When he was finished, he handed the goblet to the person to his right. On and on the ritual went, until every last person drank. The leader motioned for someone to step forward from the crowd. I made out Laria, and the man at the center, the leader, was Randall Cummins. I felt like someone had hit me square in the gut. The leader of the coven was a servant in the MacKinnon household.
Laria seemed hesitant to drink, but with Randall’s nod, she did. When they were finished, his hand found hers, holding her tight.
I saw something pass between them. She looked at him with adulation, as did many of the followers. Randall was at least a decade older than she was, but what passed between them was a smoldering expression that couldn’t be misinterpreted.
Unable to stand the sight, my gaze shifted to the victim on the altar who seemed to have accepted her fate. She didn’t move at all. In fact, I wondered if she was already dead. Just then she shifted slightly. What must be going through her mind as her life slipped away? I wondered. From a distance she looked no older than me. No older than Laria. Her honey-colored hair was in disarray around her shoulders, arms flung out to her sides, blood dripping onto the ground.
Another thirty minutes ticked by, and finally, with the dying light of the fire and a few carefully chosen words by Randall, the group started to disperse and headed out of the woods. The two men who had dragged the victim here wrapped the girl up in the drape, and the stockier man flung her over his shoulder.
I stayed in my crouched position, too afraid to do anything except breathe short, shallow breaths. There were too many of them, and I couldn’t afford to be sighted, so I lowered my head, hoping I had managed to disappear completely into the landscape. The steps of the group grew heavier, close to me, and I was scared that someone would be able to hear my racing heart or discover me.
I didn’t move for a while after hearing the last person pass by. When I lifted my head, I sighed with relief. Everyone was gone, and the fire was extinguished. All that was left was the scent of smoke from the fire, and the stone where the makeshift altar had been placed.
“Who are you?”
I jumped, horrified I’d been discovered.
I lifted my head, and staring back at me was the girl who had been on the altar. I glanced at her wrists. There were no wounds.
I frowned. “I saw you being cut.”
“They killed me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m dead…”
You didn’t stop them. She didn’t say it, but I felt the accusation anyway. Felt guilt consume me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, terrified that someone would hear us, despite the fact that the forest had grown quiet.
“I have something to show you,” she said, pointing toward the clearing, toward the moon just beyond in the sky. “Come.” She tugged on my sleeve, pulled me further into the woods. We walked in the opposite direction of the others, and at a slight incline.
When she abruptly stopped and turned, we were at the very top of the hillside, looking down over the valley, toward the castle. From this vantage point you could see everything. The small clearing where the ritual had taken place, and then beyond toward the river and the castle, directly southwest.
We were far enough away from the castle that no one would hear the group as they chanted and sacrificed people.
“The witch is buried there,” she said, pointing just over the hill, in the direction of thick brush overgrown with berry bushes, and the rugged stone that was the size of a basketball.
Someone had made sure to mark the grave.
“The witch? Who is the witch?”
“The one who haunts you.”
I swallowed hard. But I had just seen Laria…and she’d been alive.
“How do you know it’s her? She’s alive. I just saw her.”
“You’re dreaming, Riley,” she said with a sof
t smile. “Find her…and you find them all.”
I glanced down at her hand, which gripped my wrist tighter. I tried to pull away, but as I watched, the skin pulled away from her hand, leaving nothing but bone. Her face hollowed out before my eyes, her flesh turned to dust.
I blinked and she was gone.
***
I woke in the early morning with Cass spooning me on one side, and Megan facing me, her arm around my waist. I lifted my head slightly, looking for Cait. My heart skittered when I didn’t see her in the chair or on the floor.
It was safe to assume she was with Shane, especially since they’d been checking each other out all night. I needed to be sure, though…
I slid out from underneath Megan’s arm. Cass moaned and rolled over, where Megan didn’t move at all. I’d noticed last night after the Laria episode that Megan had been quiet, saying very little as she listened intently to Cass’s play-by-play. I could tell she wanted to ask me questions, but I think a part of her was terrified to find out the truth. I couldn’t blame her. Actually, I couldn’t blame any of them if they wanted to run for the hills.
I went straight to Shane’s room. I lifted my hand, ready to knock on the door, but I didn’t want to wake up Miss A or, God forbid, Dad. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pushed the door open, took two steps in, and quickly shut it behind me.
Shane was shirtless, his arm wrapped around Cait who, from what I could tell, had her jammies on. Relieved that at least I’d located her, I took a step toward the door.
“What’s up, Ri?” Shane asked, glancing at the clock on his nightstand with squinty eyes.
“Just looking for Cait.”
He looked completely innocent, but I knew guys, and my little brother loved women. “She said your bed looked a little full.”
True, my bed had been full with three of us squeezed onto a queen-size mattress. Given what had happened last night with Laria yanking me under the bed, I’m sure she wasn’t up to sleeping on the floor. I wouldn’t have been either, and what better excuse to cozy up with a guy you liked. If we’d been at Cait’s house, I guarantee I would have found a way to spend the night with Kade.
The Departed - J A Templeton Page 2
