Possession (29 page)

Thinking back to when we’d done this before, I
remembered the sweet smell of something Luke had burned. “You burned something
when we did this before.”

“Sage, but we don’t need it. We’re bare-
bonesing
this spell.” He gave me a smile. “Only using what
we have.”

“Okay.” I nodded my head and took another deep
breath. I looked down at the candles. “Matches. I forgot matches.”

Wendy spoke up. “I got some. I filched them from
the orderlies’ desk. Larry smokes—he smoked. Figured you’d need them for
lighting the candles.” She handed them over to me. “Oh, and I checked in on
Hector. He’s still alive in the janitor’s closet, still unconscious. I guess
the killer didn’t think he was worth the effort.”

As I lit the candles, I wondered,
What makes someone a desirable murder victim
?

Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out a
metal fork that he’d taken from the killer’s alter. He put the point of the
tongs against his wrist.

“What are you doing?” Wendy asked.

“You need blood to do the spell. Last time we had
a bowl with pig’s blood, but since there’s no butcher around…” Before I could
say anything, he pressed down and raked the fork across his skin. Little beads
of blood popped up. “Smear your fingers with the blood, and then wipe them
across the board.”

Feeling ghoulish, I wet my fingers with his blood
and then wiped them across the board. The blood felt warm and sticky on my
fingertips. Four red streaks now covered the board.

“Good, and now the prayer. I’ll say it, and you
repeat it.” He said each word slowly.

I repeated them:
“Let the flames of the candle protect us. Let the
candle flames bathe us in light and force out negative energy. Let the candle
flames bathe the four corners of this room in light and force out negative
energy. I invite spirits to come through who are helpful. Let those helpful
spirits harm none.”
He pointed to the board. “Now think of Gloria
Kincaid and put your fingers on the planchette.”

I put my fingertips down on the pointer and called
out in my mind to the dead girl. Luke lowered his fingers onto the pointer as
well. As soon as he touched it, it started to move.

A breeze blew across my arms.
We are not alone
. “Spirit, are you there?” I called out.

The pointer slowly slid across the board and
stopped on
yes
.

And then it started to move again, slowly. It moved
in a circle…

And then it formed a figure eight.

I felt
panic
rise in the pit of my stomach. I remembered what happened when it started doing
figure eights the last time. Something evil had come through and thrown books
from the wall, made the table jump… It had taken Luke a great deal of strength
to force it back.

Was that same thing happening now? If something
evil came through, would I be strong enough to force it back? The pointer
started to move faster and faster. I lifted my fingers off
,
but it kept moving.

“That’s bad, right?” I looked over at Luke.

He frowned. “It’s bad.”

The wind picked up and blew through the trees.

The candles went out. Wendy flicked on her
flashlight. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. Mildred was sitting not far from
her,
her head cocked to one side as though she were
listening to something.

The wind picked up force until it started to howl
like a freight train. My hair was whipping across my face.

“This is the part where I tell it to
go
away. I need to send it back.” I said,
holding the medallion out in front of me.

Luke was looking out into the woods.

“I need to send it back, right?” I shouted at
Luke.

Luke didn’t answer.

Wendy yelled at me, but I couldn’t hear her over
the wind.

I have to do
something
. I raised my hand in the air and yelled, “BEGONE!”

As soon as the word left my mouth, Wendy’s
flashlight sputtered and then died, throwing us into darkness.

As the darkness took over, the world faded from my
awareness, and the sound of heartbeats and long, agonizing screams of terror
and pain were my only companions.

I was no longer in the woods—instead I stood before the
now-familiar bottomless dark abyss, a sea of black that reached out endlessly
before me. Within the darkness, nameless, faceless voices and shadows called
out to me, enticing me to come join them. Without warning, the darkness
stretched out and swirled around me. It engulfed me, and I was drowning in its
waves. Then, a loud voice shouted out my name. I turned my head. I could see a
beam of light shining in the distance.

The voice called again. “Colina!”

I recognized it. “Mama,” I cried back. I tried to
pull myself free, but the blackness held me tight. I pulled hard, but the dark
tentacles
surrounding me only stretched and
strained—they would not break.

“Mama!” I screamed. The light came closer. With it
came a feeling of warmth. It glided over me, pushing back the chill of the
darkness. The black engulfing me parted, and suddenly I was free.

My mother’s spirit stood before me.
Mama
. A white light illuminated her. She
looked beautiful. As I watched, the light slowly morphed from white, to blue,
to green. She smiled at me. I was filled with a sense of peace, seeing her this
way. Seeing her no longer in pain and agony.

Slowly, her expression changed. Panic filled her
eyes, and the light surrounding her began to fade. A bullet hole appeared on
her forehead, and drops of blood streamed down her face.

“Mama!” I stretched out my hands, desperate to
reach her. I was reliving the nightmare of her death all over again.

She floated out of my reach, a loud cry breaking from
her mouth. “They took them from me,” my mother sobbed.

I tried desperately to move forward, determined to
help my mother cross over to the other side, but before I could do anything, her
image began to flicker in and out. Her sobs grew softer and softer until she
finally disappeared.

My heart stuttered. “Mama, where are you? Come
back! Stay with me! I can help you find the light,” I cried into the darkness.

I was alone again.

The demon had taken my family from me; under its
orders, they were brutally murdered before my eyes. I knew there was no peace
for them in the afterlife. My father’s and brother’s spirits were lost forever
within the demon. My mother roamed restlessly through the in between. And now I
roamed this world on my own, trying
desperately
to survive. Trying so hard to be strong.

But I’m not alone
,
a small voice in the back of my mind whispered.
Luke is with me.

As I thought of him, I felt a sense of calm come
over me, and the air around me shifted. The darkness began to fade, and I found
myself in a different place. It was night, but a full moon shone brightly
overhead. There was dirt at my
feet
and
large boulders scattered all around. Between the boulders, I could make out the
shapes of cacti.

“Where am I?” I whispered.

“Don’t you know?” a voice answered me.

I recognize
that voice
, I thought. It wasn’t Gloria Kincaid, or any of my friends. It
was the woman who’d died a year ago—the one who had possessed me. I
recognized her voice from the taped recording Dr. Barton had shared with me. I
turned, and there before me was Morgana. She was a small, dark woman. She wore bulky,
shrouding clothing with a hood hiding her face.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

“Watch.” She pointed over my shoulder.

I spun, and for the first time saw that I stood on
the top of a cliff overlooking a barren, dark desert. I looked down onto a
plateau fifty feet below. A hulking mass moved across the desert floor. It
looked like a brown whirlwind, a giant sandstorm.
But that’s not sand,
I realized,
it’s something else…but what
? It moved, it
swirled,
it glided as though propelled by wind, but the air around
me was still.

And then I saw the thing was not alone. There was
another—no, two more. Three of the sand creatures made their way across
the valley floor.

“What are they?” I asked.

When there was no answer, I turned back to
Morgana. Her hood had fallen back, revealing the ghostly form of a bowed and
worn-down woman. Her spirit wasn’t
bright
like my mother’s. It was gray and faded, and where her eyes should have been,
there were two empty black orbs. She was otherwise plain looking, with a wide
face that looked to be approaching middle age.

“The old ones.
Creatures
older than man. They are here with us always, but
few notice
. I did. I’ve always seen them. I’ve always known they
were out there. I’ve been trying to call out to them since I was a child, but
they never heard me. They never acknowledged my existence.”

I watched, mesmerized, as the creatures continued
to dance across the desert.

Morgana whispered, “
I’m
the reason he came to know them. Twenty years ago, Henry
Weatherton
was like you, like Luke. He was a death dealer.
He was someone I foolishly opened my heart to. Someone who I thought returned
my love. But now I know it was never me he wanted, it was the power…” She
trailed off. She seemed to fade even further, and the memory of the old pain
etched deeper lines into her face and aged her twenty years in an instant,
turning her into the broken woman she must have been when she died.

When she spoke
again,
I could hear sadness in her voice. “I was a fool. I opened his eyes to the older
gods. The ones my people worship. I told him about them, and he saw how
magnificent they were.
How they had the true
power.
Weatherton
realized they were the gods
he should be worshipping. It was because of me that he started trying to get
their attention.”

Her voice was now full of pain. “It’s all my fault.
I taught him my people’s ways,
and he was so
excited, so eager to learn… But
I never thought he would go so far.” Her
spirit seemed to grow darker. “I didn’t know he was killing—sacrificing
people in the hope of gaining more power. Power he needed to get their
attention… The elders sent me here as punishment for my crimes against the
clan. Because of all the death and pain I had caused, my mind was broken.
Weatherton
followed me here, hoping to use that weakness to
gain the last of my secrets. He continued to kill and defile the beliefs of my
clan. After he was caught, I tried to reason with him—tried to get him to
stop—but he wouldn’t listen. The more I tried to convince him, the
angrier he got. And then one day he snapped and…killed me. I thought once he
died, it would finally be over,”—her voice broke off into a sob—“but
it will never be over. He wants to live again. He wants to be whole.”

She gestured toward the creatures. “
Weatherton
is determined; not even death could stop his
evil intentions. He possesses a body and is killing again. Everything he does
is to try and gain power from the old gods.
Power
that will help him come back—help him live again. But he’s an
insignificant man. He has always been so. Dying didn’t change that. He may do
the spells and kill in their name, but they are no wiser for it. They don’t
even know he exists.”

Morgana was telling me that
Weatherton
was desperately trying to come back to the living. He was doing these unnatural
acts to bring himself back into the world.

I brought Luke back from the dead. I’ve done
things that go against nature’s laws…

Does that
make me as evil as the killer?

Morgana’s face darkened with remembered pain. “H
e is twisted,
and he likes to cause pain. He’s
enjoyed killing since he was a child. He told me how he used to kill animals when
he was young. How he would take immense pleasure in killing cats and gutting
them while they were still alive. He would cut their hearts out and keep them
as souvenirs.”

That sort of intentional evil could not be allowed
to continue. I couldn’t leave this place until we found him and stopped him.

She nodded her head as if reading my thoughts. “He
left the heart in your room to scare you. But he also did it because he thought
it was fun. I swear to you, Colina, I didn’t realize the evil he held in his
heart. I never saw who he truly was and once I did, I couldn’t stop him. I’m
powerless over him now, but there is hope.
You
have come.”

She moved closer to me, close enough that I could
see the dark shadows moving in what had once been her eyes. “Call to it.” She
pointed to the creature nearest to us. “
Weatherton
might
try
to gain their attention,
but you don’t have to try—you can.”

“What do you mean?” I stood before her, watching
the dancing sand swirl across the desert floor, trying to understand everything
she was telling me.

“You have no clue what you can do, do you? You
have no idea of the power inside you.” Her face showed her frustration at my
lack of understanding, but then gave me a kind smile. “Call out to it.”

She wanted me to call out to the creatures? I moved
back from the edge, alarmed by the thought that the creatures below, in all
their massive and ancient power, would come closer. Like a spider fears the boot,
I quaked at the thought that something so much greater than myself would notice
me, for good or for ill.

“You just have to reach for the knowledge. It’s
there just below the surface, waiting to bubble over.” Morgana grabbed my hand,
and a warm tingling filled my body. Silver light came up from the ground and
poured through me, lighting me from within. Sparks of light shone from my arms
and my fingers. I stared in wonder, overwhelmed by the light warming my limbs,
shining off my skin. The darkness inside me, which had been present since the
first ritual, was pushed back for the moment. There was only light.

Morgana pointed to the sky.

I looked up—the light streamed from my body
and spiraled upward. It beamed up through the dark like a spotlight.

One of the giants stopped, ever so slowly. And
then, sluggishly, it twirled and started heading my way.

My heart almost stopped beating…
Is the light a beacon? Is it calling
out to the creature?

Morgana’s voice was a whisper. “My whole life, I
tried to get their attention, but I never could. And here you are. You have the
power to make them see you. Don't be afraid.”

But I am.
I could feel the terror building inside me. The thing was coming closer, and I
could see the clouds of energy moving inside it. It was like a hurricane—a
twirling mass of golden energy. And it was heading straight for me.

“What’s going to happen?” I whispered, taking a hasty
step back and yanking my arm out of Morgana’s hand.

“What it’s supposed to. What
is preordained
. It is your fate.”

The demon told me our fates are intertwined, and I
refused to believe that. “No. I don’t believe in fate. I believe in free will.”

Morgana smiled, but it was a sad smile. “So did I,
when I was alive, but now I know better. It’s amazing—now that I’m dead,
I understand so many things that I never did before.” Morgana’s spirit turned
and began to move away from me.

Where is she
going?
I thought, panicked. “Wait—Morgana! You’re dead, which means
Weatherton
has no power over you, right? You can go to the
light… I can help you!”

She spoke without turning back to face me. “I
can’t. He
does
have power—over
all of us. He binds us to him, like banshees. We aren’t free. He uses us, he
feeds on our spirits. We give him strength.”

But banshees bound to dark mages are set free when
the dark mage dies. It was how I had tried to free my brother…but killing the
dark mage hadn’t worked. The demon sucked up my brother’s soul and merged it
with his evil energy right before my eyes. “If I kill him, will it set you
free?”

That question made her turn around to face me. “How
can you kill him?
He’s already dead
.
Colina, you are hunting a dead man. You are trying to capture a wisp of
spirit.”

A dead man who’s possessing a living, breathing
body. “Morgana, who was it that hurt you? He’s possessing someone. Tell me who
it is!”

“I’m bound. I have been forbidden to speak that
name. Though I can say…it is someone close to you
—
someone
who’s watching and waiting to strike. You must be on guard at all times. But he
didn’t anticipate
this
—that you
could succeed where he failed.
He didn’t
forbid me to show you my gods.
”
She turned
her head and looked into the darkness of the far horizon. “He’s calling us. I
wish I could stay. I wish I could help you, but I must go.”

“Who is he possessing? Who is he inside?” I
demanded frantically, glancing back at the gradually approaching god.

There was no answer, just silence. I looked back to
the spot where Morgana’s spirit had just been. It was empty.

I was alone, except for the old god bearing down
on me. The powerful thing Morgana had forced me to call was now only a few feet
away.
How did it get up here so fast?
I was up on a cliff. The cliff rose fifty feet from the desert floor, yet this
thing had stretched and grown until it soared high above me. It towered over
where I stood.
What will I do when it gets
to me?

Its massive presence overwhelmed me. I felt tiny
and insignificant. I was but a shred of life that it could blow away or be absorbed
into its whirlwind without notice. But it
does
notice me. An ancient, vast power has turned its horrible focus on me. I
wondered,
Can it burn me to cinders if I
just look too hard?