Possession (34 page)

“I can imagine. This guy’s a real wacko,” Dean
answered.

Wendy nodded her head, eyes wide. “Certifiable.”

Mildred was rocking back and forth with her hands
clasped behind her. She had an uneasy look on her face.

“Mildred, what’s wrong?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me. Instead, she cocked her
head, as if listening to something far off in the distance. “I don’t like it in
here,” she muttered under her breath.

I held my breath and listened. There were no
ghostly whispers, no sounds of heartbeats. Whatever was spooking her was
something only she could hear.

Dean spoke up. “Maybe we should arm ourselves. Let’s
look for things to use against
Weatherton
if he shows
up.”

At hearing
Weatherton's
name, anger rose inside me.
I want to beat him to a pulp…blast him with
all the magic I have.
But even as I had the thought, the white-hot pain came
back, throbbing at my temples. I felt weak and bruised. I walked over to a
relatively clean section of wall and slid down it until I was sitting on the
floor.

“Mildred, do you want to come scavenge for weapons
with me?” Dean asked.

“I don’t need a weapon, boy.” She whipped out her
left hand to show the hammer grasped within it. I could see dried, crusted
blood on its head.

“Is that…?” I couldn’t get the words out.

She gave me a wild smile. “I got it from that room
with the pentagram.” She swung the hammer back and forth in the air. “I know it
works. It’s killed once already. That wacko comes anywhere near me, I’ll”—she
turned and brought the hammer down hard against the surface of a table—“bash
his brains in!”

I cringed as the loud
bang
echoed around the room and inside my skull.
I wasn’t sure at that moment who I was more
afraid of—
Weatherton
, or hammer-wielding Mildred.

Dean didn't seem fazed
by Mildred’s outburst. He turned and said calmly to Wendy, “How about
it? I could use your help.”

Wendy’s skin paled at the request. There was
something about Dean that really disturbed Wendy, and she was not doing a very
good job of hiding her discomfort at the idea of being alone with him. She
looked down at her shoes. I thought for sure she was going to refuse him. She
surprised me when she finally said in a trembling voice, “I’ll come.”

Dean walked across the room and stood over me.

I looked up. “Be careful.”

I expected him to give me a nod or a smile and
walk out the door. Instead, he crouched down and grabbed me by the shoulders.
He lifted me up and planted his lips on mine.

I could have told anyone who asked that the kiss had
shocked me and I’d frozen with surprise. I could have explained to them that I
didn’t initiate it, and it wasn’t my fault that it was happening. And all of
that would have been true—if I’d pushed Dean away.

But I didn’t. Instead, I pulled him closer and
kissed him back.

I was no longer thinking, just reacting. Heat rose
inside me, and I forgot the pain and the bruises. Everything faded away. My
world narrowed until it was just the two of us. My breath matched his. I could
feel his heart pounding wildly in his chest under my palm, matching mine beat
for beat. For the briefest moment, we were melting into each other and I was a
part of him. I lost myself within that kiss.

And then he pulled away. The desire to pull him
back, to feel his lips on mine again, was so strong that I almost cried out his
name.

But before I could, another name slid across my
brain—
Luke
. Reality came
crashing back. I fell back against the wall, my mind buzzing with confusion and
guilt. I looked at Dean. Those blue eyes were staring back at me, shining full
of need and want. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. We
stood staring at each other for several heartbeats before I shook my head and
mouthed the words, “
I can’t
.”

I watched those eyes fill with pain. I watched
them look away. And I wondered how just one kiss could turn my world upside
down.

* * *

Time passed after Wendy and Dean left. I must have closed my
eyes and dozed off, but they flew wide open when a loud
boom
sounded close by. Startled, I forced myself to my feet. There
was a moment of confusion as I tried to get my bearings.

Mildred was standing at the door, her body tense
and the hammer raised high.

“What is it?”

She gestured toward the window. “Thunder. The
storm is worse.”

“Have they been gone long?”

“Not too long. But if they don’t come back soon,
we might have to start worrying.”

The pain in my head had eased off a little. I made
my way across the room. Outside, dark clouds filled the sky. The rain was
coming down in sheets. Wind blew the trees back and forth like matchsticks. I
hadn’t seen a storm like this since I was with Luke and we were running for our
lives across open fields. At the thought, a Shakespearean saying I’d learned in
school popped into my head.

By the
pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

The words had barely crossed my mind when Wendy and
Dean raced through the door.

Panic filled Wendy’s face.

“Is it
Weatherton
?” I
demanded.

Dean was breathing hard. “I have no idea what’s
going on.” He gestured at Wendy. “She went into some kind of trance. Did that
funky speaking thing she does. I couldn’t understand anything she said. When
she came out of it, she just took off!”

Dean’s shirt was torn. He had a long, jagged piece
of glass in one hand and the material of his shirt was wrapped at its base,
protecting the flesh of his palm.

Wendy was holding a metal pipe.

“Wendy, what is it?” I begged.

Wendy didn’t say a word; instead she walked to the
closest window. She put her hand on the pane of glass. “Evil. It’s out there.”

“
Weatherton
?”

She looked over at me but didn’t answer.

“Do you hear that?” Dean asked. He went to the
doorway and leaned out into the hall. “Someone’s coming. We have to make a run
for it.”

Dean ran to the windows and tried to open one. It
didn’t budge. He let go of the glass weapon and used both hands, but it still
wouldn’t move an inch. Cursing, he moved on to the next window. He paused for a
second to peer through the glass. “I can see a huge puddle at the base of the
fence—it has to have shorted out by now!”

I took a few steps until I stood next to Wendy.
She was staring out into the rain. I looked out through the dirt-streaked glass
and wondered what she saw.

“Wendy, what’s out there?” I asked again. A chill
ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

She whispered, "
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes
.” She
looked at me with glassy eyes. “You weren’t wrong, Colina. It’s evil. Pure evil
is out there, and it has come for you.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. For
some reason, Wendy’s confirmation of my fears made them grow tenfold. I
struggled to push down the surge of adrenaline that pushed my thoughts toward
panic.

Dean finally wrenched open a window. Rain spilled across
its sill onto the floor.

The sound of a wolf floated across the wind, and
with it came a small measure of hope.

I have spirit
guardians that will protect me and my friends from whatever’s out there.
There
was another howl, this time closer. Over the howl I could hear loud voices and
footsteps in the hallway.

Despite whatever waited for us out there, we had
little choice but to head toward it. If we stayed, we would be caught and
probably imprisoned. There were now three dead bodies. They would blame us.
Dean and I were known death dealers—our kind was both hated and hunted,
now more than ever because of the horror I’d unleashed. People wouldn’t be
rational or reasonable. They wouldn’t care about explanations.

Before I could move, Mildred pushed me aside and
hopped out the window. Thankfully we were on the ground level, which meant the
window wasn’t too high off the ground. Wendy stood frozen next to me. I
couldn’t blame her for being reluctant, but staying and getting caught was not
an option. I shoved her forward. She fell against the sill, then put one leg
over. The other followed. She slowly slid outside.

Dean was behind me. “You’re next.”

“There’s something out there. I can feel it.” I
paused in the window, frozen in fear.

His hands were on my back. “So can I, but we’ll
have to take our chances. Get out the window and just start running. Don’t look
back, don’t wait for anyone, just head straight for the fence. I’ll see if I
can buy you some time.”

I spun around. “I’m not going without you!”

His fingers reached out and grabbed mine. “I promise
I’ll be right behind you. Now get moving!”

He let go of my hand, and I reluctantly went out
the window. I stood on the outside, my feet in the mud. The rain was really
coming down. Lightning lit up the sky, and a few seconds later a crack of
thunder boomed overhead. I turned and headed for the fence at a full sprint. My
hair whipped across my face. Rain soaked my clothes and plastered them against
my body. I could hear howls drifting on the wind. Another bolt of lightning
struck almost simultaneously with an explosion of thunder, this time close by.
I lost track of Wendy and Mildred in the storm. The rain was coming down in
sheets and I could barely see the ground in front of me.

I heard a noise and my head whipped around. I
could make out a dark form behind me. Dean. He made it out. We had to make it
to the fence, had to chance climbing the wet metal during a thunderstorm.

A strong blast of wind threw me forward. I skidded
and lost my balance on the slippery grass, but before I hit the ground, strong
arms reached out and grabbed me from behind.

“Dean, be careful—the grass is slick as ice.”
I turned, expecting to see a pair of deep blue eyes. Instead, my stomach coiled
in horror as I found myself staring into the face of a killer.

Nurse Harrington gave me a wicked smirk as
Weatherton’s
voice growled out, “Miss me?”

Without thinking, I curled my hand into a fist and
slugged
Weatherton
in the face. Whatever he was
expecting, that wasn’t it. His grip loosened and he reeled back. That was all
the encouragement I needed—I scrambled away from him. My punch didn’t
daze
Weatherton
for long, and he followed me before I
could take another breath. I tripped, landing in the mud and losing the slim advantage
I had gained.

I pushed off the ground with both hands and got
back to my feet before he could reach me. As I moved, a blue light rippled
across my arms and down my fingers. It was only there for a second before it
vanished. As it disappeared, a mighty growl ripped through the air behind me. A
large gray shadow flashed out of the trees, heading straight for
Weatherton
.

He saw it coming and reacted faster than I would
have thought possible. He raised his hands, shouting out a string of words in
Latin.
He’s calling on his death dealer
magic. He’s calling out banshees
. Lights formed around his hands and then shot
into the air.

Within the lights, I could make out faces. One,
two, three appeared. More came forth, too many to count. I could see the
outlines of their ghostly faces, their expressions twisting with screams of
anguish. A chorus of bone-chilling screeches filled the air. Screeches and the
sound of hearts beating. His banshees seemed larger—and I guessed they
were more powerful—than any I had seen before.

The gray shadow hit the wall of banshees with an
explosion of blue sparks, followed by a loud cry that sounded like an animal
howling in pain. It formed into the shape of a large wolf, only visible for an
instant before it flashed back into motion. Ghostly hands grabbed at it from
every side, and banshee fingers shaped like blades cut off chunks of shadow. In
seconds there wasn’t enough left of the shadow to form a shape, and it faded
into the rain, unable to hold its form.

No, no, no!
That spirit guardian was the only hope I’d had…

Without warning, a dozen more gray shadows whizzed
by me, speeding toward the banshees. The wall of banshees glided back and forth
in the air, moving in sync like a school of fish. Then they scattered, each one
darting off in a different direction. Where each banshee went, one of my spirit
pack followed.

Growls ripped through the air, mingled with the
sounds of gnashing and tearing. As the pack overtook the banshees, they turned
to fight, ethereal teeth and claws meeting the strangely morphing forms of
Weatherton’s
victims.
Spirit arms
became long, ghostly, stabbing blades
. They fought with desperation,
forced to stand for the man who had tortured them, killed them, and then
tortured them some more. The spirit animals tore into them, shredding with
speed and ferocity, but in doing so they took horrible wounds to their own
shadowy bodies
.

Both sides of this battle were fought by innocent
victims of
Weatherton’s
evil. I hoped that the
destruction of the spirits, animals and banshees alike, was not as final as it
seemed. Hot tears poured down my face, burning my cheeks before mixing with the
rain.

The thin, possessed body of Nurse Harrington sat
in the middle of it all, unfazed by the chaos.
Weatherton’s
twisted smile slashed across her face, and evil joy shone from her eyes.

I can burn
him like I burned
Macaven’s
banshees.
With a deep
breath, I summoned the fire within me. I felt it flash up from my core—orange
and yellow flames twisting up from the very depths of me. The fire rose,
skimming across my flesh, spiraling out along my limbs. I was burning hot,
burning too bright. If I didn’t send the fire out soon, it felt as though it
would consume me. I raised my hands, more than ready to see
Weatherton
die for his sins.